From Caterpillar To Moth : The making of Together We Become Forever with John LaMacchia

The Song
 Together We Become Forever was written and performed, in its entirety by Greg Puciato. When I initially heard the piece I instantly fell in love with it. It was really interesting to me that the piece never returned to the opening sequence. Instead it undergoes this metamorphosis like a caterpillar to a moth.

Greg Puciato in The Gauntlet 2008 

“I sat down at around noon one day, and then didn't get up except to eat and piss until about noon the next day, and this is what came from that block of time. The writing of this song to me is a perfect example of a state of being that I love, when you are so into what you are writing, so devoid of conscious thought, that there ends up being a complete dissolution between mind and music, time flies by, and you just get sucked in to wherever the inspiration is coming from. The piano melody initially started off from me playing the piano music to "Alfie" by Burt Bacharach, and then it just took off into something else. The slowed down string/feedback swells underneath the piano throughout the whole song to me represent something trying to break free, kind of struggling and twisting around under the surface, building tension, and then at the end of the piano finally breaks through with the loud string swells at the end of the song. This song was loosely inspired by the movie "The Fountain", with the first part's bittersweet piano melody but with tension underneath representing the struggle the characters were going through throughout the movie, and the musical resolve at the end reflecting his finally reaching enlightenment and freeing himself and reconnecting with his wife by letting go. 

The name of the song is even an homage to that soundtrack by Clint Mansell, who I have since reached out to and thanked for the inspiration. John actually also remixed this song and we were gonna put that on this EP too, but didn't due to time constraints, but we'll definitely put it out, it's really good.” - Greg

The Mix
 My role with Together We Become Forever was to mix it. It would be the only piece of music I would mix for the EP with the exception of Drop which was not included with the initial 2008 US release. So with that in mind, I wanted to make sure my mix matched the sonic integrity of the rest of the music on the EP as best as I could. In my mind this would not be an easy task because all of the rest of the music was recorded with microphones in a sound studio. The song was written and performed in a midi based music program. None-the-less, in the end, I felt I was able to come close enough so that it could be mastered to match the rest of the songs. I honestly didn't stray very far from what Greg laid down. I wanted to stay as true as I possibly could to the rough mix he had sent me. The only difference being a few EQ and volume adjustments.
 I was really inspired by this piece of music. So much so that as Greg mentioned, I did work on a remix of it. He titled it, Together We Become Voltron, which I felt was appropriate. Maybe one day we will get around to putting it out into the world for you all to hear. For now the original piece will have to do.”

YOU CAN PICK UP THE SPYLACOPA S/T REDUX VINYL REISSUE HERE! 

The Making of Bloodletting

The Song
“Bloodletting was a game changer for Spylacopa. Before the song was written the project was based more on electronic and experimental music. When Greg Puciato sent me the demo he had put together and suggested it be considered for Spylacopa it completely changed my perspective on the project’s trajectory. The song was also a real game changer for us because it would be the first song to feature vocalist, Julie Christmas.” 

Greg Puciato In The Gauntlet
Spylacopa Bandmate, Greg Puciato, had this to say about Bloodletting in an article for The Gauntlet in 2008. “A while into our writing process, when we were finding our way, we had been basically writing primarily with midi instruments, programming, making electronic music. At some point I was playing guitar, for fun, not thinking of Spylacopa really, and just came up with a chord progression and vocal melody simultaneously, that really seemed to go well together. I recorded the guitar part, and then days later, even after NOT recording the vocal, I would listen to the guitar part and would still hear the same exact vocal melody over top of it, another sign that something is working, that I should probably pay attention. So I recorded the vocals over it, did some really crazy screaming underneath it, and sent it to John, even though it was way different at the time than what we were writing. I think that was the real spark that set us off, where we realized we wanted to write guitar/vocal based songs together too, and that totally changed the vibe of this band from that point on and really opened the floodgates for us creatively, because for some reason we had been resisting doing what came naturally to us up to that point. John said that Julie heard the song and really wanted to do the verses, leaving me with the chorus and a bridge, which was fine with me. She did a great job and I think her voice and phrasing adds a great contrast to mine, and since the song essentially is a long continuous repeating of one motif musically, her added dynamic keeps it interesting.”

The Process
“Recording the song was an interesting process because we wanted to use some of what Greg had written and recorded on his own. So we had to work backwards from there and build the song around his original concept while incorporating the new bridge section of the song. After we had the song mapped out and the basic structure in place, we began laying down all of the elements of the song. Jeff Caxide's Bass tracks, which also included this cool delay overdub, Troy’s drum tracks which stayed pretty true to Greg's original idea, my rhythm, and overdub guitar tracks and finally Greg and Julie's vocals.” 

Photo by A.F. CORTES

The Voice

“Greg’s vocals happened pretty fast, it was a matter of him laying down the chorus, which he already had in the bag, and his vocal idea for the bridge section, which turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the song. The scream overdubs were already in place from the recording Greg had done on his own. It was a really great experience watching Julie track vocals for this song. I have never seen her record before, and although her process isn’t extremely complicated or unorthodox, there is a raw immediacy to her vocal performances that makes her a unique recording artist. There is a confidence and trust in her own ability that enables her to deliver something moving and impassioned when she performs and records. Her gasps, whispers and nuances are a thing of raw beauty in Bloodletting.”

The Mix
“Michael Barile mixed the song fairly quickly with just a few edits and remixes. One with and one without the screams in the chorus. We wound up going with the original concept and although I played a very small part in the creative process and the writing of this song, I am extremely proud of what we accomplished together with it. Bloodletting is a pivotal song that set Spylacopa off on a broader path than we had previously anticipated and I am really glad it did.” 

PICK UP A COPY OF SPYLACOPA REDUX ON DELUXE COLORED VINYL HERE

The Making of “Haunting A Ghost”

The Song

“I had several guitar ideas and a very rough sketch of an arrangement for what eventually became Haunting A Ghost, the first song off of the Spylacopa Debut EP / Spylacopa Redux. My plan was to work those ideas out in a rehearsal space with my friend and drummer, the late, Troy Young. At the time, Candiria was renting a space from a long time friend, Joshua Lozano, of the band Fashion Week, in South Williamsburg. It seemed at the time to be the most logical place for us to work. So we scheduled some dates and started working out each section of the song. Troy was a great drummer. His level of energy behind the kit gave the song a major jolt of intensity and after a few sessions we had something really solid to send to Greg and Jeff. I don't remember hearing any demos from either of them for this song come to think of it. From what I remember, we just booked dates that worked for each of their individual schedules and just went for it, starting with the bass.”

 The Bass

“Jeff Caxide is a very unique player. From a rhythmic perspective he is a solid-as-a-rock player but there is another aspect of his bass playing where he takes a more melodic approach and that is in my opinion, where he really shines.
A great example of this is in the ending section of the song. From a musical perspective, for me, the melody he came up with makes that whole section of the song. I couldn't imagine the song without it and yet in hindsight I never imagined anything like it being in the song before he played it for me for the first time in the recording studio.”

The Vocals
“Greg’s vocals were the last thing to be recorded for Haunting A Ghost. I was really excited to hear what he had planned for it and Greg really delivered. He is a great writer and a monster singer. I was really impressed with the verse idea he had but what he wrote for the chorus completely blew me away. Lyrically and melodically, he just knocked it out of the park. The vocals in the end of the song are really powerful. It sounds like Greg is purging or exorcising some unwelcome demon. It's heavy and really emotionally charged and it is one of my favorite moments on the album.” 

The Mix
“A mix can make or break a song and it was an imperative step of the process to get this mix right because it would set the tone for the rest of the recordings we had lined up. Having recorded and mixed many a session with Michael Barile, I knew he would come up big for these recordings and mixes.

When Mike finished the first pass of the mix, the level of the vocals was right where they needed to be. The overdubbed keys and additional guitar feedback tracks were sitting in a really nice place. The bass was filling out the bottom end nicely. The only thing that I felt was lacking a bit of aggression and edge was the drums. It's interesting how huge drums sound when you first begin the recording process. You think you will barely need to work on them at all in post-production, but once all of the guitar tracks are laid down, the bass has been recorded and you begin the mixing process, the drums start to sound really small. Mike added more compression, limiting, fine-tuned the guitars and bass, EQ'd the drums more and made the song rip! Besides some minor adjustments here and there, once we locked the drums in place it was pretty much done. We all put our stamp of approval on it and we were on to the next song.”

Pick up a copy of Spylacopa Redux HERE