Former lead vocalist of the legendary female rock group Vixen, Janet Gardner and guitar virtuoso Justin James have released their new album “Synergy” via Pavement Entertainment. The eleven track album showcases Gardner’s soaring vocals and the guitar wizardry of James. As the listener goes deep in to the album the duo’s songwriting prowess is apparent. In short, this album has everything any rock music fan should be craving: Well structured songs with superb execution that made me wish there were more, when the closing track, ‘Talk To Myself’ ended.
I mentioned well structured songs. Another thing I love about the way they put songs together is their use of every second of every song. What I mean is, everything feels intentional. Every pre-chorus. Every bridge. So, friends, you will not find eleven tracks of just verse, chorus, verse on this album. It goes much deeper than that. I encourage you to give the entire album a listen, however, if you are short on time let me give you a couple to cue up right away. The opening track “Wounded” will give you a taste of what your in for. It’s the perfect album opener. “Rise Up” has those drums. Those larger than life drums and Justin lays down some of the most bitchin’ sounding guitars on this one. You all know how much I love harmonies. Well, go give “I Promise” a listen and you will feel them especially in the pre-chorus.
I was able to catch up with the duo and talk about the record. What I learned was pretty shocking (and awesome). Not only did they write and perform the songs, they also were responsible for the production side as well. This includes the actual mixing and mastering of the album.
I was so blown away, it was one of the first things I asked about. Justin tells me, “You just put a smile on my face from ear to ear when you just said that. We actually do it all ourselves. All three of our albums we’ve put out, we’ve mixed, mastered, produced, recorded everything at our house. We have the home studio. It’s another passion of mine to do the mixing and mastering. I love the other end of, beside writing and playing the music, doing that and always trying to outdo ourselves on each album.”
Janet continues, “It’s handy too because it’s right here. If you’re doing something around the house and something comes to you, you just run right downstairs and lay it down. You can perfect it later but that way you don’t lose your inspiration. It’s a luxury!” Clearly this working environment works for these two. In fact, sonically it’s as big sounding as any release I’ve been sent this year.
After learning about their process I wondered how long they spent tracking these songs and what that process looks like. Janet says, “We kind of do it one song at a time. That’s how we work the best. We don’t do the, “we get ten songs and then go record them all.” We go one song at a time and we usually start with guitars and scratch drums or something just to get an idea of where we’re at with the song. And then we just go for it. We start replacing the drums and replacing the bass and getting everything more refined until it’s done and then we move onto another song. So it depends on the song. Some of them come together really fast. Like in a couple of days. Then some others take a little more time because they’re a little more complex.”
To be honest with you, I could’ve sat and talked production for hours with these two. A little thing like talking about using a little mastering during the recording process with Justin is something I could base an entire episode on. They both have a great mind for this process.
We went pretty deep into the album and discussed several of the tracks from the album. It was a very interesting conversation. You can listen to the interview by clicking on the link to your favorite place to listen to podcasts.
-Tommy Marz
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