Morelock: “Travel became more of a group thing where we recorded all of our parts playing together, but I recorded drums by myself for the first album. We had no preconceived idea of how it was going to sound. I just played what I thought would be a three-minute song. I did that with 10 or 12 songs. I embraced it so it was fun recording that stuff.”
Callahan: “Some drummers have their own sound, but Kelly can play 400 different styles. As a guy constantly changing styles, it’s awesome to have somebody so diverse. When I recorded my parts, I just played off of Kelly.”
Morelock: “A few months later, I’d get the recordings back with Darren’s music on them. I’d go, ‘Wow, that’s awesome. That’s crazy.’ It’s never what I expect.”
Callahan: “I literally just wrote to match what he played and we did the same thing on this record. Kelly gets co-songwriting credits on all the songs he played on because I wouldn’t have even thought to write those without him. His drum tracks were an essential element.”
Morelock: “I was very surprised when Darren said, ‘I have to fess up to something. I have a new record coming out and it’s stuff you recorded decades ago.’ I’m like, ‘Awesome, I can’t wait to hear it.’ I don’t even remember him coming over to my basement and recording this stuff.”
Callahan: “In 2005, Kelly was like, ‘We should do another Travel record like we did the first one.’ I had a free weekend so I went over and recorded all of his drums.”
Morelock: “We never used those for a Travel record.”
Callahan: “I actually started this record with a drum machine but it didn’t sound good on that material. I remembered I had those unused drum tracks and I knew Kelly would freak out if I surprised him with a complete album from something we did 15 years ago. It was basically a lark to make Kelly laugh and it turned into a pretty good record.”
Artist info: darrencallahan.com.
Contact this contributing writer at 937-287-6139 or e-mail at donthrasher100@gmail.com.
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