![]() ![]() Please reach out to the front desk if you are interested in joining. With that said, the Acoustic Ensemble is looking to add a new bass player and possibly another instrument. It was a bittersweet occasion, though, as the show was a farewell to our bass player, Laura, who is moving to California. The group played on the back patio of Red’s Beer Garden in Grant Park. The lineup of the Acoustic Ensemble two guitars, bass, and banjo and all four members sing! Each member was featured throughout the performance and they were well-received by the crowd. After a long hiatus, we started rehearsing again when Guitar Shed re-opened this May, and began working up a set of seven songs ranging from Dolly Parton to Fleetwood Mac. I used one a lot on As Above So Below and went and bought my own straight after recording that album.Last Wednesday, our Acoustic Ensemble played their first show ever and did an incredible job! We formed the ensemble in January of 2020, and had only a few weeks of practice before we transferred to a virtual operation in March. I used to use my amp as the main overdrive but I’ve been using a Big Muff for quite a while now. My pedals are the main thing that has changed. Has your setup changed much over the years?  Let’s move on to gear for a bit.We had amazing bands play with us each week so it was cool discovering so much new music. It was quite a different experience being in the one spot for so long as we’re generally in a different city every night, but it was a lot of fun. How long were you there for, and what was it like? Last April you guys were in Los Angeles for what you called a “residency”. For Bent, I went in knowing what works and how we wanted the album to represent our live sound, so I didn’t spend too much time messing around. ![]() Nope! Generally when recording an album, whoever we’re working with tends to get deep into experimenting with different amps and sounds, but a lot of the time we end up going with something very similar to my live setup. In terms of guitar tone, did you know what you wanted for this album? All the songs still felt fresh and exciting to play which made it a very enjoyable process. ![]() It helped us to achieve a much more “live-sounding” album that wasn’t over-produced or overly thought about. How did that affect the process and the atmosphere of the sessions? We read that the album was recorded in between tours over five days. It was refreshing working with people who had faith in what we do and enabled us to achieve exactly what we wanted to without second-guessing ourselves. They stood back completely and let us make the decisions without influencing us too much. Recording with Stu and Joe was a completely different experience to anything we’d done before. What was it like for you to work with two guitarists on the album?  Bent was recorded by Joey Walker and Stu Mackenzie of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.Once we’ve written and ditched a few songs, we all eventually get an idea of the album we want to create and it becomes a lot easier from there. We generally jam on a little riff or idea that someone has and the song is created from there. We have a habit of writing a whole heap of songs and ditching them before getting to a point where we’re happy to put them on an album. What’s the songwriting process like for Stonefield? You seem to put out albums at a fast pace – As Above, So Below in 2017 and Far From Earth in 2018. ![]()
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