Swedish rockers Backyard Babies with Cubase for latest album
Backyard Babies have been rocking stages throughout Europe and the US since the late 80s. Swept upwards into the industry limelight by their intense live performances, Backyard Babies soon found themselves touring as support for Velvet Revolver, AC/DC and Social Distortion. Long-time Cubase user and ‘BYB’ founder member Peder Carlsson talked to Steinberg about the making of their new album, “People Like People Like People Like Us.”
Having used Cubase extensively for many years, Steinberg’s music production system played a vital role in the band’s creative writing process for the current album. “The computer works as the brain in our rehearsal room,” explains Carlsson, BYB’s drummer. “We often put microphones on each instrument and record the whole band, and we used Cubase SX3.1 to route all the channels via the amps out to the monitor speakers, a fairly complex routing. In Cubase 4 you have the new “Control Room” mixer, which makes that so much easier.”
The latest album, “People Like People Like People Like Us” is a rip-roaring tribute to rock, epitomizing the four-piece’s full-throttle mix of punk with straight-up rock and roll. Produced by Hellacopter’s Nicke Andersson, the album triumphs through its incisive yet catchy riffs, raw-power vocals and healthily large dose of sheer rock and roll swagger.
Presaging both the current hard rock revival and the Swedish Rock Invasion that stormed through Europe in the early ‘00s, Backyard Babies formed way back in 1989. Based to no small extent on their legendary live shows, their early success resulted in numerous EPs and singles, building up to the release of their debut full-length album, 1994’s Diesel & Power.
While the band were celebrating their ongoing successes, technology wasn’t always helping the band’s compositional work in the rehearsal room. Carlsson recounts frustration with other recording technologies the band tried earlier in their career. “After using a 2-track at first, and then a 4-track, we invested in an 8-track portable studio. The idea was that everybody should learn how to use it and be able to walk down to the rehearsal room and start recording. The thing was that the other blokes never learned. I was so bored and frustrated to always be patching cables, doing ping pong recordings and it took too much time to just get the idea down to tape.”
Carlsson then hit on the idea of putting together a computer to handle this vital stage of the band’s creative process. “I though it might be much easier to work with a computer, especially when you’re able to do more or less whatever you want with the recorded files. I built my first computer 1996 specifically with music in mind. At the time everything was very expensive, including all the hard drives, memory, motherboard etc. After trying out a couple of different music software packages, I found out that Cubase was the program that fitted me best. It’s easy to work with and for me everything is logical.”
Carlsson also uses Cubase as a creative sketchpad for ideas on tour. During the often extensive touring phases, Carlsson works on a mobile setup centered on a dedicated music laptop customized for that purpose. Virtual Guitarist has been valuable tool for the Backyard Babies’ drummer on the road. “I really like the Virtual Guitarist plug-in, as it’s a great tool when you need a good guitar player who you can always count on. Of course I prefer one of the guys in the band but it’s not always the best idea 04:30 in the morning,” he chuckles.
More information on Backyard Babies, including upcoming European tour dates:
www.backyardbabies.com www.myspace.com/backyardbabies