Making Red Tornado
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We began recording Red Tornado in August of 2006 at the Magic Closet Studio in Portland, OR. Drums, piano, and some accordion were recorded there. We then moved the project to my home studio, Fishboy, to track everything else. The original idea was to get it done over about four months... but life is full of surprises. See the excerpt from the Willamette Week below for more on the crazy events that ensued. Eventually, I finished tracking, mixed the album over the spring and summer of 2007 with Jeff Saltzman, and released Red Tornado in October of 2007. —Leigh Marble
excerpt from a profile piece in the Willamette Week entitled
Here Comes the Night: Leigh Marble opens up, gets dark:
Though Marble—along with bandmates Ben Macy (keys, accordion) and Jason Russell (drums)—had hoped to finish the record by the end of 2006, a couple roadblocks ("one minor, one major") made for a very different end result.
First, Marble's comedic hip-hop side-project the Buttery Lords reissued their somewhat ridiculous debut, Buttered for Her Pleasure, a task that proved more labor-intensive than expected. Then, in February of '07, Marble's longtime girlfriend was diagnosed with breast cancer. "At first the songs just [didn't] feel relevant [anymore]," says Marble. "I thought I should write a new album, 'cause I got totally knocked over."
But, after what he calls "a little breathing time," the songs took on a new life. "There's a certain darkness and a violence that [came] of what I was feeling," he says. "If I'm going to be doing these songs," Marble adds, "they're going to have a rougher edge." On "The Big Words," for instance, Marble sings in an earnest, slightly gravelly tone, "I think so much of you/ About a mouthful a day/ But it's better to put off till tomorrow/ The unspeakable/ Of today."
One needn't know Marble's story to feel the softly crippling weight of his words—a gravity that's laced throughout the album.