Welcome, folks, to the precipice. My toes peek over the edge of the cliff as I prepare to dive into the next era of my music. That is, of course, album number two.
“Right This Time,” the first single off of this second album (title to be disclosed at a further date) is out now. It is different; it is familiar. And quite frankly, it was not a labor of love, but was conceived and executed (mostly) in one day. This is much like the birth of Athena, in which she springs, fully formed and fully armed, from the head of Zeus. That’s a pretty good analogy, considering I am fully armed and armored in the music video for the song (watch below).
Writing Right This Time
I wrote “Right This Time” with Mickey Brandolino on May 2nd, 2024. We’d met in person the week before (after an extended friendship on social media, of course), and he was renting a studio in East Hollywood. It was a few months after Mk.gee released Two Star & the Dream Police, and like all musicians at the time, we were obsessed with figuring out his guitar tone. Mickey had a tape machine at the studio, and we decided to mic an acoustic guitar and simultaneously run it through the tape machine into the computer. The tone we ended up with was something akin to Fleetwood Mac’s “Never Going Back Again” – a slight chorus with subtle saturation. We tuned the guitar a full step down and then drop D (essentially drop C in a D-standard tuning), and we were cooking. The riff just flowed out of me. Mickey was noodling around as well and came up with the sweet descending post-chorus riff.
*note: when I refer to chords from here on out, I’ll be pretending like we are in standard drop D tuning, so don’t get all confused when I refer to a C as a D*
The verses felt like they fell into our laps, chock full of colloquialisms and snippets of conversation. Struggling with how to be better in a relationship than the last one, trying to cherish the present (yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift, that’s why it is called the present, thank you Master Oogway).
When it came time to write the bridge (we had skipped over the chorus because of our ~flow state~), we wanted a vibe shift, both musically and lyrically. When writing in drop D, it is easy to get lost in the 1 chord (D, D, D, D), hammering it in because it rings so well. By reworking the post-chorus riff, we were able to transition to the flat 7, major 7 chord (Cmaj7, but of course with the guitar tuned down it’s actually Bbmaj7). You guys know I love Simon & Garfunkel, and if you are a particularly meticulous reader of this Substack you will perhaps remember how the song “America” influenced the bridge of “Flight to JFK.” S&G influence again in “Right This Time!” In “Homeward Bound,” Paul sings, “I’m sitting in a railway station/ Got a ticket for my destination.” In “America,” he sings, “‘Kathy,’ I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh/ ‘Michigan seems like a dream to me now.’” So simple, so easy. You’re sitting right there with him. In “Right This Time,” I sing, “At the subway station/ For the northbound train/ I turn and say ‘Oh Grace, I think I feel insane.’” That’s nice stuff, I think.
*day of creation bridge voice memo*
The chorus was tough. It needed to be epic. It needed to be concise. It needed to be memorable. We tried for a while to get the melody. We eventually got it. I got a voice memo from the 5 minutes where we workshopped it back and forth. We get SO close in this recording, but clearly still had a bit to go.
*getting SO close to the chorus*
After actually finishing the first chorus, we decided it would be cool to extend the chorus each time it happens, adding to the overall build of the instrumentation. And boom! The song was done.
Recording Right This Time
The great part about working with a writer/producer like Mickey is that by the end of that session, we had basically finished the production of the song. The chorus-y acoustic, the nylon layering (done by Mickey), the bass, and a few more layers of acoustic were all done that day. A couple weeks later, I laid down the string parts (yes, violin was my first instrument), and we kinda put the project on hold for a few months.
It took me two separate days to nail the vocals for this song in the studio. Did we make it extremely difficult to sing by putting the song in C and writing the melody that we did? Yes. Do I regret it? Uh, yeah, kinda. But ya know what? It’s too god damn late for that. And I like how it sounds. Unfortunately I will likely never be able to sing it in its original key live. Whatever.
I had the idea to put some drums in as we were finishing up – found a nice Splice sample and sent it to Mickey. He recreated the sample with real drums, and now we’ve got a groovy song.
Joe Ulmer, who plays drums when I play with a band, mixed the song (and the whole album!).
Reading Comprehension Questions
This particular deep dive is pretty short compared to the other ones. Do you think T. Kandel grows weary of digging deep?
Hmm, the verse melody does sound a lot like Mk.gee’s “Are You Looking Up” (actually accidental). Do you think anyone will actually notice? Do you think T. Kandel will get sued? Do you think anyone cares enough to give him grief about it?
What direction do you think T. Kandel is going with this new album???