I think the demos accomplished two things–1. it showed what the three of them would sound like, because I don’t think they knew, and they did it 2. without sounding like Spacehog Jr. There’s a certain aesthetic to those demos that has more of T-Rex or Spiders from Mars vibe than anything else. Maybe it’s the dry drum and guitar sounds (not a lot of reverb), or maybe because I was erring on the side of simplification, or maybe it was that we were feeling each other out on tape, but the demos (like many demos) have a certain charm to them. I love the recording they did Jonny, but by that time they were adding in the reverbs and delays, and, more importantly, the brother dynamic had changed. The more they recorded, the more it seemed like Christian’s band. Though very very few people will ever hear the songs we recorded, I feel like you can hear the original idea of Arckid in those demos.

It was always unclear just how many songs we were going to try. They sent me 9 the day before I flew out, and we ended up tracking 12. 3 days of tracking is long, but not THAT long. So we were pretty efficient with our time. I’m not saying all 12 songs we did were magic, but I think they ended up finishing 7 of those, which is pretty good for a band that is both learning the songs while simultaneously feeling each other out.

Arckid initially posted four songs to their website (Narrow Streets, Heart’s Not In It, Remains and White Knuckle Ride) and then posted ‘Conversation’ to their MySpace page. That leaves two songs unreleased and 5 songs unfinished. Can you comment on any of the unreleased/unfinished songs?

The other two that were finished were called “Girls Like You (Like Me)” and “Only Dreaming.” The former is primarily, if not totally, a Christian-penned song, and it rocks. I think he posted a more slow-jam, dance club version on his myspace page or something–this was way uptempo from that. This was from Day 2, and the first song that I tracked with Christian. It gave our group morale a decidedly more happy-go-lucky kick, and we ended up tracking 5 songs that day. Only Dreaming is a Royston song. It’s a fantastic song–truly–and Roy saved it for last. That was a magic moment in the studio. My drums were set up in the vocal booth, and Roy was right outside the door, playing piano and singing brilliantly. Not many people have heard it, but it’s a great recording of a great song, and the brunt of it is from the 1st rehearsal take–I had never heard the song before we were recording! I hope it makes an appearance on the new Spacehog record.

As for the others, there was a song called “Guilty” which eventually was given to Unisex Salon, but the name had changed to “Baby I’m Yours.” We did a version of Germany–it was maybe a little slower than the version they did later. I don’t think we got “the magic take,” so I’m glad they did a proper version with Jonny. There was an Ant song called Strange Lands, which they did some work on, but it didn’t make it to the vocal overdub stage. It was a straight-ahead rocker, like Germany, but it was more uptempo. The last two were both mostly Christian songs–My World and Living in Sin. What I remember about My World was that it was only mostly done, and that, after doing like 7 takes, they decided to make it just slightly faster, like 3 beats per minute. It’s very difficult to get something to swing just slightly faster immediately after a slower take, and we stopped working on it, although technically there was a complete take in the can. Living in Sin was basically there, arrangement-wise. They ultimately chose not to work on it, but I’ve got a pretty interesting basic track rough mix.

How would you describe the three-Langdon dynamic? Being that all three are talented songwriters and multi-instrumentalists, how were the sessions structured? Did they come into the studio with defined roles, or did they switch it up from song to song?

Now, this is coming on 4 years ago, but I remember them mostly just acting like brothers. They really wanted to see if the 3 of them could work. Roy and Ant had obviously recorded a LOT together, and that showed, and Roy and Christian fleshed out most of Christians songs together. But all 3? That was the real question–more of an unknown than the unknown drummer, I would think. But there was a lot of beaming with pride that week. You know, regular brother stuff.

The standard configuration, in terms of instrumentation, was Roy on bass, Ant playing rhythm gtr, and Christian on lead. There were only two variations; White Knuckle Ride, where Christian played acoustic, Roy played the synth (and clapped!), and Ant sang. That one is pretty much live. I can hear one vocal punch-in, and there’s electric gtr (and 4 cymbal hits) during the bridge. VERY minimal overdubs on that one. That was a nice “three-Langdon” moment, just watching them lay down the basics for that one. The other variation was Only Dreaming, where Roy played piano and Christian played bass.

Have you been involved in any music projects since the Arckid adventure? Have you stayed in touch with the Langdons?