With their debut, Red Right Return, Janus has released a melodic, heavy hitting, effectual modern rock record, though chances are you haven’t heard it.
Hell, chances are you haven’t heard of this band.
Well, if that’s the case, it surely needs to change. Janus has the chops of a band well beyond their years, and Red Right Return is the perfect showcase of that very fact.
Confused? Need a comparison? OK, OK. Think Breaking Benjamin, the Veer Union, Three Days Grace, and so on and so forth.
Red Right Return is a stunning array of what a rock band that has a superior knack for perfect hooks and laden melody can do. It is easily one of rock music’s best records of this year, although it may go a little less heralded than it should, which is a damn crying shame.
In my attempt to change all that, I sat down with Janus vocalist, David Scotney, in order to spread the gospel of the sheer immensity of Red Right Return, and also to find out just how making and writing the album went for the band.
Innocent Words: Walk me through the recording process of Red Right Return.
David Scotney: Red Right Return was probably the most work any of us has ever done as far as the songwriting process and the recording process. The record took about a total of a year, and the whole process was very different from a lot of other bands. We approached the record very democratically – every one of us took part in every aspect, all of the lyrics and vocal melodies. We took everything and put it all on the table and collectively voted. If any one person wasn’t 100 percent positive about any part being voted on, it was back to the drawing board for that person. As a singer, since I write all of the vocal melodies and all of the lyrics, it was the first time I had ever written five, 10 or 15 different choruses to try and come out with the absolutely best one I could write. It may have taken things a little longer to get done, but we all agree that every time one of us went back to the drawing board, it made the song stronger.
It was an intense process, and the same goes for the recording process. We did two days at a studio here in Chicago, and then did most everything else at my studio, and mixed and mastered it ourselves. We set the bar kind of incredibly high and must have burned through about 100 different mixes until we nailed every single beat that we wanted to nail.
IW: So, if every piece from every member of the band is up on the chopping block, does that make for the recording process to be more complicated?
Scotney: I wouldn’t say so much complicated as time intensive. We do our best to try and nail exactly what everyone is going to do before we started the process, but even during the recording process, we kind of had a mix-everything-in-the-kitchen-sink approach. We were so focused on making the record better, and if at any point during the process if the songs needed something extra or anything additional, we didn’t hesitate to put the extra effort in and push it to that next level.
IW: When you went into writing the record, did you want to write a record with so much melody?
Scotney: I can’t say that we had that narrow of a focus, but what we really wanted to do was hold true to a concept and an approach. Red Right Return is a metaphor for an old nautical thing a ship captain would use to find their way back to port by keeping the red buoy on the right side of the ship. It was just the perfect metaphor for us because before we put this record out, we had recorded some demos and were scrambling around trying to get a record deal, and we rushed through the recording process and rushed through the songwriting process, and it just didn’t quite feel right. With this record, we wanted to take our time and make the absolute best piece of art that we could and just return to the core of why we make music in the first place.
IW: Now that Red Right Return has been out awhile, how do you guys as a band feel the record turned out?
Scotney: We are really happy with it. We put a lot of work into it, and I think we are happier with it than anything we have ever done. The more work you put into making a piece of art the best it can possibly be, the better it stands the test of time as opposed to just rushing through it. We pop the record in every now and again and just feel so proud of all of the work that went into it. We do feel like it is the best piece of art we could possibly make.