Months later I’d think, “Why was I so particular about the chorus? Why did I demand it be played exactly in that way?” Over time I’d start to see that if I was willing to adapt a little, then the song would live, instead of going off to doggy heaven, never to be heard from again.

Often, I’m very passionate about a song when I first write it. But within a week or a month, the initial high of passion and creation will wear off, and I can sense weaknesses in the songs. I get bored by them. I’ll play them on my acoustic guitar for a friend, and I’ll find myself making excuses like, “Probably the drums will make this more interesting.” Or I’ll play half the song and say, “Yeah, you get the idea.”

As you might expect, some songs make the journey from inception to production very much the way we imagined them, while others change tremendously. The two basic ways our songs end up different than when we first imagined them are changes in the “songwriting” itself, as well as changes to our vision for the “production” of the song. And often the two are closely intertwined.

Realizing that Ryan and I have been flying under the radar as of late, we thought it was high time we let you know how our recording is going, what the songs are sounding like, and what we think of it. So without further ado: - We began recording in late summer, and we worked on and off up through Christmas. We're roughly 70% of the way finished. (Slow and steady wins the race, right Mr. Tortoise?) - We have completed bass and drums and main guitars for 11 of the 12 songs we're planning to include. - We've sung what are called "scratch" vocals for all of them, in order to find out which harmonies work, where different melodies are needed, etc. - We're currently back home in Tucson rehearsing our acoustic butts off, making sure that we know exactly what we want to sing when we get back to LA to begin...

...having to seal my finger-tips up with super-glue, that is! My normal, guitar-player calluses (which come and go) have definitely gone on my left hand, as the result of performing Stopless for 5 hours in the studio yesterday. The ..B.. and ..G.. strings were digging a hole in my left middle finger, so I pulled out the old super-glue, and gave myself a protective plastic coating. It makes me feel very tough, and industrial, and ingenious. Uggggggggggggggg.... Apparently Ryan and I suck at the guitar pretty bad. I didn't used to think that was the case, but apparently it is. We're taking a million years to make this record. And let me tell you something: we're not getting any younger. Soon, it'll be curtains for us, I say, curtains. The studio is a hard situation. Not only is it like a microscope or a super high-resolution lens, but it's also like trying to draw...

The Greene Room Recording Studio, 11:30 PM. Ryan's playing the chords for 'Back Into Blue' in the main studio, while I sit in the control room next to Ross, typing. A friend just asked me yesterday, 'You're here. Can you believe it?!' At times I pinch myself (mentally, of course. Why would I really pinch myself? Have you ever pinched yourself? . . . and not like a love-pinch, but like a real 'wake-me-up-when-the-biscuits-are-done' pinch? Hurts.) Anyway, at times I pinch myself and think about how were living out what we dreamed of in high school . . . how we're professionally recording songs we wrote at the edge of our beds and on our friends' couches . . . how even though we've made records before, we've never done ANYTHING like this. But as a balance to that, I also think that this is just the next logical step. I know all...

I can hardly believe that I've spent six 13 hour days in the studio so far this week. Probably because all I can remember doing is sitting in my cozy little isolation booth, singing and playing into two expensive microphones, staring through the thick glass at Bob Glaub and Joey Waronker in the big room, and Ross Hogarth overseeing it all from the control room. Cameron is in a booth next to me, but we can't see each other. We all wear headphones and communicate very effectively through them. In fact it's a feeling much more intimate than a stage. It feels sort of like being in a cockpit, with your squadron around you. I guess that makes me Goose. Cameron's gotta be Maverick. Or maybe he'd be Kenny Loggins. I will say it feels like the 'big time' being here. We are working with SERIOUS record makers. Guys who...