You can't really road test material in this day and age
Mike Portnoy of The Winery Dogs
Cris Cohen: Have you guys ever wished that you could really road test these songs before you record them? Or do you like the fact that you just kind of come up with them and then immediately lay them down?
Mike Portnoy of The Winery Dogs: I personally like being in the moment when we're inspired and we're putting it together and we're really feeling the energy. I like hitting the red button and we're getting my tracks right there. I don't like overthinking my parts and having days or weeks or months to sit on it. Also, there's been times, like with the second Winery Dogs album, we wrote all the songs, got all the blueprints together, then went home for a while, while Richie demoed all the lyrics and everything. And then we went into the studio and tracked all 14 songs. And there's something to be said for having that time to let it simmer. But there's also something to be said… I'm not necessarily crazy about that process, because then you have to go into the studio and concentrate on like 14 songs at once. Whereas the way we did this album, you could concentrate on one at a time, as they're being written.
And the other thing, you can't really road test material in this day and age, in 2023. Because any show you play is going to be on YouTube by the time you get back to the bus. So, anybody that's premiering new material or unrecorded material live, it gets ruined by everybody filming everything and uploading it onto YouTube immediately. So, it is kind of dangerous these days to premiere new material live on stage. It's harder and harder to achieve that without it being ruined by a horrible recording. And that's the official premiere of a brand-new song, you know?
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