04. ROOTS

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This was the last song added to Sever Your Roots, and at the very last second. I had initially written the guitar line to be part of "An Instrument", but it never really fit into the flow of the song (although you can actually hear it being played in that song's noisy feedback laden outro). It ultimately became one of our favorite tracks on the album and really rounded everything out.

"Roots" was recorded almost entirely in my home office in GarageBand using my MacBook Pro's onboard condenser mic. The high pitched hiss that carries throughout the background of the track is actually the computer's fan being picked up through the condenser mic multiplied throughout the track's many vocal overlays. The guitar I used was an unamplified 1969 Gretch Tennessean. I loved the sound it had without being plugged in and and I wanted to use it somewhere on the album. The low end rumble at the end is actually cello (provided by our friend Kimberly Sutton) and was the only thing recorded in the studio on this track.

The song was never intended to go on the album, but one day during some down time in one of the final mix sessions, Joel was showing me some of the newer stuff that he had done in GarageBand, and I likewise showed him some stuff. One of the songs was "Roots", and Jeffro and Joel both immediately said "that should probably make the album". We exported it off my laptop right then, EQ'd it and that was that. The cello at the end was added a couple weeks later.