Writing and composition
Matthew and Gunnar Nelson decided to approach Geffen Records for a record deal. They began talks with A&R executive John Kalodner. According to Gunnar, they met with Kalodner "every month for a year", during which he filtered the songs they brought him until they had enough for an album. [4] Most of the songs of the album were co-written with Marc Tanner, who was introduced to the band by Tom Vickers. Gunnar Nelson described the collaborating process in an interview as "magical" and praised Tanner for being "very supportive of our own instincts and our melodic sense". [5] Tanner also produced the album. [6]
After a year of meeting with Kalodner without being signed, Matthew and Gunnar met with him alone, against the wishes of their managers, and played an acoustic version of "(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection". Kalodner was so impressed that the band was signed the next day. [4] As they prepared to record, Matthew and Gunnar started assembling a band. They settled on drummer Bobby Rock, Joey Cathcart, Brett Garsed, and Paul Mirkovich. [4] [7] Mirkovich also contributed an "Interlude" to the album. [6]
In the making of the album, there were several issues in creating the album. [8] One was that Gunnar could not play guitar. [8] Gunnar stated "But what if I took a year off and all I did for that year was play guitar for 10 hours a day, every day? [8] " Gunnar ended up studying and learning how to play. Another issue was their songwriting. [8] Then another issue was the producers for the album: they had to fight the label [8] to get Tanner behind production, and they were initially supposed to work with Duane Baron and John Purdell, which both never worked out. Eventually, they worked with Tanner and co-producer David Thoener, who helped shape Nelson's influences into a modern, radio-friendly sound. [8]
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