From left: Frank Rogers, Brad Paisley and Chris DuBois
Brad Paisley’s ninth studio album, This Is Country Music, is an homage to the genre he’s loved since he started performing when he was 13. Taking samples from classic country hits, Paisley also brought together a fine set of musicians—such as reuniting Alabama’s Randy Owen, Jeff Cook and Teddy Gentry, and singing alongside Marty Stuart, Carrie Underwood and Blake Shelton. Making the album a cohesive whole is Paisley’s longtime producer, Frank Rogers.
“This album really evolved from the purchase of a pre-war Martin guitar,” Rogers says. “Brad fell in love with it and started writing on it, and a lot of the album really revolved around the sound of that guitar.”
They recorded to Pro Tools at The Castle (Franklin, Tenn.), with overdubs happening at Paisley and Rogers’ home studios. The majority of the guest artists were recorded as overdubs. “We normally have Brad sing a scratch vocal and play a scratch guitar part when we cut a track,” Rogers says. ‘Then as soon as we have the track recorded, he replays the acoustic part right then and we come back and do vocals later. We had a great guitar sound on the acoustic while we were cutting the first track, but as soon as we went to re-cut his part, we noticed that the sound was good, but not as special as it was. We realized part of the ‘sauce’ was to have the vocal mic on, so all of the acoustic guitars were recorded with stereo close mics on the acoustic, and a Neumann 67 over it, pointed at Brad’s mouth! As far as electric tones, we found out that the bathroom at Brad’s house makes some really nice room sounds when we put his amp in the room next to it and left the door open.”
