Closed Campus Album Info.

Self - titled Closed Campus album. 2012. Available on online music stores.

By Angel Mora

I really wanted this album to sound like actual humans playing music. We didn't try to  be too perfect. Humans aren't perfect. We're not perfect. The main goal was to capture the songs and the band so that people could get to know us a little better. Every song has some kind of meaning and story behind it. The recording process wasn't  done in a fancy studio with lots of equipment to work with. We decided to record all of the drum parts inside Jesus's garage because there was just something about the way they sounded in there. You can hear Jesus himself in his own environment. It sounds real and pure. The rest of the instruments and vocals were done inside my bedroom. The advantage of deciding to do this album on our own is that we were not on any kind of tight schedule or deadline to work with. We got together when we could and did the best we could. The album must have been recorded three to two times for us to say, "You know, I think we can do this better now that we have figured this out." The reason behind this is because although we did not try to make the album sound too perfect, we wanted it to sound just right and not let any technical stuff get in the way. I remember there was one recording session for drums when we forgot to turn on the mic for the kick drum. It was too bad because we were happy the way Jesus played on those recordings. We finally were able to get good recordings through much trial and error.

We didn't use much equipment to record this album. A couple mics and a small one input interface. A mixer wasn't used for drums but a a small PA amp that happened to have an equalizer on it. All the vocal mics we used for the drums were plugged into that then sent to our small interface and into a laptop. This only gave us a single drum track to work with for each songs. I did the mixing and editing with the advice of some good people. I don't consider myself a music producer/sound engineer. I just used all of my knowledge on recording and did the best I could to help the album sound the way we wanted it to.

 When starting the band, I really wanted to be known as a band that just played music. We could sound like Goo Goo Dolls are our biggest influence on one song, and like Foo Fighters are on another. I wanted a variety of sounds throughout the album. I try not to label music with genres too much but rather take a song for the song it is. I do not think it is fair to the musician or song to label it with a genre name because a song or band can have many types of sounds to them. However, I do label Closed Campus as a rock band. A rock band that can have an alternative,grunge, indie, acoustic, punk, and classic rock sound to it. So I try to keep it as general as possible with all minds open when people ask what type of band we are. You can hear that on the album.