Atlanta native Clay Cook has made his living through many avenues in the music industry over the past decade. An accomplished mulit-instrumentalist, he has recorded and toured with John Mayer, Sugarland, The Marshall Tucker Band, & Shawn Mullins. Along with his own solo efforts, Cook has written songs with Mayer & The Marshall Tucker Band. 2009 found Clay as a newly added member of the Zac Brown Band.
I started recording in Atlanta three years ago. A lot of time passed between sessions due to my rigorous performing schedule with Zac Brown Band. There were times where I wondered if the album would EVER be completed.
As I kept writing songs during those three years, we’d add them to the collection. Matt Mangano (co-producer, bassist, mixing engineer) and Brandon Bell (engineer) made the entire journey with me, and Mark Cobb recorded drums on the majority of the album. Around the time of my move to Nashville, though, we couldn’t get Mark on drums for some last minute sessions. So, Jano Rix and Travis McNabb lent their talents to this record on two separate occasions. Speaking of interesting session stories, there was one night when I had Clare Bowen, Megan Linsey and Oliver Wood all come over at different times to record their background vocals. There wasn’t much planning put into that… just a few phone calls.
In the past year, I started finishing songs. One at a time. It was around then that I started bugging Zac Brown, the album’s executive producer, to help Matt Mangano and I sift through this collection of songs and get the ball rolling toward completion.
After we decided on a good starting point, we sent Mike Fraser five songs to mix. His mixes further motivated us to complete the record, and Matt Mangano set out to mix the rest. And mix he did. Once all of the official candidates for the record were mixed, we revisited the track listing, finally landing on these eleven songs. We then sent the mixes off to Gavin Lurssen to master. And master he did.
It’s been a long road to make this record. There are a few pretty telling snapshots into my personal life — but that’s who I am and how I write. I’m very proud of the record that we all made.
