Pre-Production

Ride originated as a shuffle beat country song – a completely valid interpretation of the song.  We recorded this song in our early tracking sessions to about 80% completion so we could evaluate it.  As a twangy country shuffle song, Ride evoked a different kind of Mustang: horse, not hot rod.  It was less about angst and more about the spacious vistas of west Texas, where you ride, ride, ride.  It was a perfectly reasonable, comfortable take on the song. 

Too comfortable.

Too safe.

Sometimes, a band that’s been playing together for a long time will unintentionally fall into a familiar groove when working up a new song.  Maybe 98% of the time the band’s gut instincts are dead-on.  But sometimes, the familiar groove needs to get shaken up.

The Old 97's at Pleasantry Lane.  L-R: Murry Hammond (bass, vocals), Rhett Miller (vocals, guitar),
Philip Peeples (drums), Salim Nourallah (producer), Ken Bethea (guitar)

Salim and I thought that Ride just wasn’t hitting on all 8.  What if, instead of being a country shuffle, we rethought the song as a more tough-sounding rock song, with a heavy beat and big, muscular guitars?

To me, it’s easiest to rethink a song if you can get the drummer to start playing a completely different beat, and then force the rest of the band to follow the drummer.  What if we transplanted a 4-on-the-floor rock beat into this song?  I referenced AC/DC’s Girls Got Rhythm, and drummer Philip Peeples laid down his best Phillip Rudd.

The effect was immediate.  Coupled with Rhett’s rhythm guitar and lyric, the song stopped shuffling and immediately started barreling.  The band jammed on this new version and quickly captured drum and rhythm guitar tracks.  We noodled with bassist Murry Hammond for just a few more minutes, trying to find the bass part that was the right kind of Old 97s mix of country and rock, and within an hour Murry had found the perfect part and laid it down.

It was slightly unfamiliar territory for the Old 97s – no strangers to rock, but a band that tends to keep its rock influences more in the realm of British Invasion than early metal.  Of course, nobody would ever wonder if any Old 97s song was the long-lost track from the Highway to Hell sessions, and Ride emerged from the cauldron as a fully-formed Old 97s tune with a little more modern rock edge and weight - a novel form of the music that typifies this band’s uncanny genius for fusing old-school country with rock and roll.

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