We were all in the control room listening to the track “Last All Night” when I realized the guys had FINALLY played a certain breakdown perfectly, BUT they had only done it once instead of the three times I wanted it. I looked up and said, “You fuckers finally got this right,” however, it was only on the last part; they’d still missed it the first two times. I asked Scavone “How do we get that last part in the first two places it needs to go? Do we need to go punch in?” (meaning to record the two parts over in only those spots). He looked at me, smiled, and said, “Nah, ‘copy and paste,’ man.” It’s been a while since I’d recorded, but I still had an idea of what he was going to do. He sat down at the controls, grabbed the part I liked, copied it, then pasted it into the two other places it needed to go. This shit happened in maybe 30 seconds, and everyone in the band was like “WHOA! How fucking cool was that?” As a joke, I said we need to name the album “Copy And Paste,” and we all had a good laugh about it. But there was much more to naming the album than that.
Before I began recording, I told Julie I wanted to blog about the whole process and kind of document my journey through this new musical environment. Years ago, we used to have to record analog. We used to have to advertise our shows by stapling fliers all over the damn place. We used to have to print CDs and sell them. We used to have to send off CDs and promotional kits in the mail to clubs to try to get gigs booked. We used to have to wait until Sundays at 10 when certain radio stations would play local music. I once had to spend some weekends in jail for a DWI (something I am certainly not proud of), and I got my girlfriend at the time to call the local station and request one of my songs so we could all hear it. Then I sang along to it so everyone else there would believe me. As I stated earlier, I wasn’t proud of having to spend time behind bars, but I was able to get a little street cred for actually having an album, LMAO. Now, ALL of this has changed. We record digitally, we advertise on social media, we put our music on streaming apps, our promotional kits are our website, and we don’t have to be played on the radio to get our music to the masses.
Julie and I thought about every kind of damn name you can think of, including but not limited to things like “Analog to Digital,” “Old to New,” “Past to Present,” etc., etc. Nothing really clicked, so we kept searching our brains. When I came home and told her about the whole copy and paste incident with Scavone and mentioned naming the record that, she said, “You know, you are pretty much copying a bunch of old ’90s and early 2000s rockers (meaning us) and pasting them into 2023.” It didn’t take me long at all to realize she was absolutely correct, and it was actually the PERFECT name for our first album.
So there you have it, folks. I hope you all enjoyed reading this blog as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you’re reading this post, the album is already out and I hope you enjoy it even more. This is special to all of us because it really brought us together as a unit. We also got to meet a wonderful musician and singer in Jackie Fallar and are looking forward to all the shows we have booked with her. She became an integral part of the band and fits in with all of our old asses perfectly. I want to thank everyone who had a part in creating this album. I have nothing but gratitude for our producers, as they were unreal with their craft. Please make sure you reach out and let us know what you think about the album. I will be back soon with some more blog posts, but for now it’s time to focus on what’s really important: THE MUSIC.
Signing off for now,
Rusty Stevens
Singer/guitarist/writer
The Deep Shallow Band