Drew Thompson

Producer/Engineer

Circa 1994

Tongue 'n' Groove

Rob Malone

"Riders on the Storm"

Tongue 'n' Groove had been together just a few weeks when we produced a 3-song demo which included "Riders on the Storm" at Mike Fairbanks' little studio off Bob Wallace and The Parkway in Huntsville, Alabama. Guy Rockhill played drums, Gary Craig was on the keyboards, a guy named Steve played the bass, and my all-time guitar-god-hero, Rob Malone, played guitar.

As luck would have it, a steady rain poured pretty much all night, and we used our famous "three-mic" recording technique while crowded together in a 14' x 20' totally carpeted room. A fourth mic was placed outside the door under the eave and we rolled the tape just once. Well twice if you count the vocal overdub Steve later laid down. But that vocal isn't even included in this version because Ben Poole prefered a music-only cut to use as the open for our WebTVPro web-site. (Sorry, Steve.) Gary said the thunder was a sampled "clap" transposed down as many octaves as he could with a nice Leo Fender Spring Reverb thrown in for good measure.

Don't know if you'll detect the musical genius captured in this cut. I doubt The Doors ever sounded this good on such short notice with as few drugs...