N: It’s awesome to hear, I gotta say big congrats to you dads, you got signed to Prosthetic with a fantastic album.
C: Hey Nikita, can I jump in on something?
N: Shoot.
C: I think we need to talk about the Kaminsky Effect because I think he was a big part of the album.
N: yeah, let’s go into the recording process. How was that because I know you guys working with Dave [Kaminsky, of Studio Wormwood] with Archaic, how was it for Fires?
KQ: Awesome.
Y: We did, what, 4 albums with Dave? I remember meeting up with him and showing him some raw tracks and we were both on the same page in that we both wanted this album to sound atmospherically massive. Dave’s interesting because he really knows where you’re coming from and definitely has a lot of different musical tastes from myself, but he also has a lot of similar ones so he’s really easy to communicate with. He picks up a lot on what you’re trying to convey so for him it wasn’t really difficult to grasp the vision that I had and build off that. We used like 4 separate amps for the recording, we used a mic in the back of the room to capture the echoes, we did a lot to capture the massive atmosphere of this album so he’s definitely a huge benefactor. We’ve been working with him for so long that we don’t really have to explain anything,
KG: Yeah I did one vocal track for The Catherine Wheel and I knew Dave from shows and then we were talking about Morbid Angel and stuff and when I did the guitars and vocals, we ended up using my Mesa and a Soldano and blended the two. The Mesa is just dark and the Soldano brightened the mids a bit and that sounded really cool. I actually had pneumonia really bad, when we did the first guitar day, I still had a fever and was on medication and even when we did vocals, I was still feeling it. I felt like shit on that first day, I was drinking Throat Cote all day. The first song I did was “The Lock and the Key,” and my voice was gone after that. Dave brought it out of me though, he managed to get me to where it needed to be.
Y: That’s what I appreciate about Dave as a producer, he will never let you keep a bad take whereas some other people we’ve worked with before would just leave it up to you like, “How did you feel about that one?” Well I don’t know, play it back for me. He’ll sit there and go “That wasn’t good” and you keep going.
C: You get ear fatigue when you’re recording.
Y: I feel he would have really good direction for bass as far as what would feel good where.
C: Yeah that was the most unique recording experience and to echo what Yegor was saying, no pun intended, he’ll never let you have a bad part and that’s what I love about Dave. He was talking to me like, some people just want to play their parts, they don’t want any feedback, so I wrote two or three parts for each thing and I told him, “I don’t know what I want to record for this” and where recording is usually a marathon, it was the most creative session I had. Dave was almost the interested and disinterested party and here he is having me pick what part helps bring out the guitars or link up with the drums and it was just awesome man, I loved every second of it. The day flew by because of how much fun we were having. We really couldn’t have done this without him, he understood our vision, he knew how it was supposed to sound and he just took the time to understand where we were coming from. He deserves just as much credit as anybody does.
N: Yeah man, Dave’s a beast, he’s far beyond just the guy who presses the red button.
C: Kyle, there anything you wanna share from your drum experience?
KQ: It’s the best my drums ever sounded in my whole career, hands down. I’ve never had a drummer recording like that, he just nailed it. That snare, ooh, that snare.
N: Awesome dudes, I have to say again congrats on the album, congrats on the signing, and everything that came before, between, and after. Best of luck to you dudes in these trying times.
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