Digging Deep #5: The Painters

you wanna dance, don't you...

cover art for The Painters, courtesy of Kate Stephenson

We may be painting every day (woohoohoo), but today, “The Painters” is finally out in the world. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time – in fact, “The Painters” was written well over a year ago, on May 3rd, 2023. The process for a song like this (a very special song, a song that I hope will truly launch my career) is arduous, to say the least. And it is my self-proclaimed job to explain that process to you, here on my Substack, so buckle up, tie your shoes, and wipe your nose, because baby, that starts right now.

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Writing the Song

In my previous deep dives, I’ve discussed my songwriting process in great depth, but I’ve realized that all of those songs were written alone. There’s a whole other side of my process that happens when I write with other people, or as we like to call it in the industry, cowriting. If writing alone is a leisurely canoe ride, floating down the river and admiring the way the trees shift in the wind, then cowriting is a two person jet ski, full throttling through the rapids. I enjoy cowriting. Sure, I can write a hell of a fingerpicking folk song on my own, but when I’ve gotta write a banger, there’s no better way than to bring in another set of ears. 

On May 3rd, 2023, I headed out to Pasadena (I think Pasadena, maybe somewhere around there) for a session with Josh Zegan, who I had never written with before. It’s always interesting to write with someone for the first time – you don’t really know their style or process, and figuring that out can take up a nice chunk of time. Josh has a sweet little studio room in his house, and we were quickly on the same page as to what kind of song we wanted to write. I came in with brilliant ideas like, “I want to write a banger,” and “I want to write a good song.” This is not enough information. Going through influences, we decided to try something that had the feel of a great classic rock song (Jackson Browne, The Eagles) but with a distinctively modern feel.

I had a guitar riff that I had been noodling around on for a few days, so we started with that, adding in the “woohoohoo” that you, my lovely people, love to sing with me. We cut the riff, but the “woohoohoos” remained. 

5/3/2023 riff + woohoohoo

We started with the chorus. After a few attempts, we found a melody that was energetic, repetitive, and just felt good. We worked through it – the nice thing about cowriting is that you can really push through to find something great. Some of these voice memos have the exact moments where we figured out something that actually went into the final song.

5/3/2023 beginning chorus

5/3/2023 figuring out chorus

5/3/2023 working chorus

Okay, verse time. A lot of the songwriting process for this song was mumbles – without a super clear idea of what we were actually writing about, it was easier to just let the ol’ throat fly free and see what popped out. I do that often when I write. Sometimes words just come outta nowhere! Of course, I had been listening to a lot of The 1975, so my instinct was a rhythmic melody with a bunch of words jumbled in. It took a few passes, but eventually we nailed it.

5/3/2023 verse melody idea

5/3/2023 verse metropolitan

5/3/2023 working verse

The prechorus of the song is arguably one of the most important parts. It builds, it drives, it brings you to that sweet release of the chorus. Starting it off on the major 2 chord (whoa, crazy for Theo to use a major 2!), it took a bit of work to bring it around. But it was worth it! Listen below to hear it all come together.

5/3/2023 figuring out prechorus

5/3/2023 verse, pre, chorus

5/3/2023 day of work tape

Making the Demo

As long as I’m showing you the writing process of the song, I might as well show you the nitty gritty of the recording process as well. It always starts with a demo, and I made this demo in my bedroom a few days after writing the song. It starts with the driving beat that we wrote the song to:

demo drums

I remember sitting in my room and thinking, Man, the woohoohoos are good, but what if there was a killer guitar riff as well? So that’s just what I did. Granted, the wah effect I used in the demo was weird as fuck, but it got the idea across:

demo riff

From there, I whipped up a sweet little bass line, added some Nashville guitars, harmonies, etc., and I had myself a demo. Here it is, in its entirety:

5/16/2023 demo

Playing it Live

There were about six months between making the demo and actually recording the song in the studio. During those six months, I played “The Painters” with my band a lot, and that completely changed the recording process (which I only learned later on). It’s usually the other way around – the song gets written, the song gets recorded, the song gets played – but this time, we had half a year of live experience under our belts. We knew how the song ebbed and flowed, and for once, I didn’t have to come up with all the electric guitar parts myself. I left that to Andre Vasconcelos, my guitar player, who is quite literally the best guitarist I’ve ever played with. Joe Ulmer, my drummer, came up with drum parts that I could never imagine. And we had a great time doing it!

August 2023, live at Levitt Pavillion

Recording the Song

It’s hard to talk about the recording process for this song without talking about the entire album recording process (yes, there’s an album coming in September), but for the sake of this post, I’ll do my best. Jack Kleinick (my producer) and I knew we’d have a tight window of recording – four days in New York in November 2023 – so we had to make sure the preproduction process was as thorough as possible. That meant doing the final demo so well that once we were in the studio, the pieces fell into place like a puzzle. 

We started our recording journey with a day at Grand Street Recording, a wonderful studio in Brooklyn, aided by the fastest recording engineer I’ve ever seen. His name is Jake Lummus (like hummus, but with an L). Over the next four days, we split time between Grand Street and the former location of the historic Hit Factory (where countless artists made some of the best records of all time). Long story, but basically my buddy Michael Andrew has the hookup there, and he engineered, played bass, and tossed some keys + synth on a few of the songs we recorded. 

I won’t bore you with the actual recording process (although what the heck else am I doing here?), but I’ll give you an overview of the instruments recorded and who played them.

Acoustic Guitar: doubled/quadrupled in some places, recorded by ME

Electric Guitar: recorded by Andre Vasconcelos, slay

Drums: recorded by Joe Ulmer

Bass: recorded by Michael Andrew

Background Vocals (harmonies, yeah yeah yeahs): William McNamara, Daniel Williamson, Dillon Davey, Gavin Becker, Austin Lyons, Grace Runnels, Greta Kandel

Engineered by Jake Lummus, Michael Andrew, and Jack Kleinick

Produced & Mixed by Jack Kleinick

Mastered by Adam Grover

Finally, here’s a lovely little video I cut together of the recording process. 

Reading Comprehension Questions

1. What, in your opinion, is the best lyric in “The Painters”?

2. How does T. Kandel describe the difference between writing solo and cowriting?

3. What kind of foods and beverages do you expect to see on T. Kandel’s upcoming album Eating & Drinking & Being in Love?