KIM MITCHELL - Max'ed Out On Amazement Page 3
by Martin Popoff

Ah yes, Joe Hardy - producer. Of the album. Down in Nashville. Combine him with local studio wiz drum monster Greg Morrow, and you get this ridiculously shiny, bright sound - which you also get on the godly modern era ZZ Top albums, again, some of the great unheard records of our time. Joe played the bass as well, and we'll talk about that later, but man, as a producer, he's sorta 'Ain't Life Amazing' in sound picture terms.

"Yes, Joe likes a bit of a racket; Joe has a lot of racket going on in his head. But I like that. It sure beats making them, for me, anyway - and lots of people like this stuff - but it sure beats making a Michael Buble album - pristine, beautiful, clean, audiophile. I like a bit of rawness to it. I like a bit of fur around it. So that was intentional."

In keeping with the irrepressible sizzle, Kim turns in a guitar sound which is astringent yet clean, combative yet not sorta expected distortion pedal heavy metal.

"Nope. Man, it's just a straight Fender Stratocaster, which I haven't played much of, through a Marshall amp - pretty straight up. And one little pedal for solos, and that was it. And in 'Got A Line', I actually sing into the guitar a little bit at the end - I'm yelling and stuff. Yeah, I'm pleased with the guitar sound. It was inspiring. At the beginning of the sessions I was digging around with other stuff, and then all of a sudden I did this one day, I thought hey, this is inspiring to me. This sound is getting me off. So I decided to stick with it, pretty well the whole record."

And man, weird, weird story around the lyrics on this one. They're by Craig Baxter, who writes as substantively as the great Pye Dubois, but with a little more street toughness, less fragility... let's call it efficiency, but fully as colourful and as mature and intelligent as Dubois.

KIM MITCHELL - Max'ed Out On Amazement Page 4