Many studios today are housed in historic buildings that have stood for many decades, some of which are completely repurposed from their original use. The Gradwell House is a 6000 square foot multi-level studio located in a converted Masonic Lodge on Station Ave in downtown Haddon Heights, New Jersey. It’s a small town across the river from Philadelphia.
Owned by Steve Poponi and Dave Downham, the studio originally opened in 1998 on Gradwell Ave in Maple Shade, NJ and also functioned as a live music venue. But a leaky roof among other issues forced the studio to move to the new location in 2016.
It’s where Trenton, New Jersey-based roots rock band The Successful Failures chose to record their latest album Wrong Together, and where they returned to film a session for Scummy Water Tower.
Singer-songwriter Mick Chorba says that he first heard of the studio through other musicians in the area. It’s a popular spot for local acts to record, and the studio has an abundance of interesting vintage gear, such as a Hammond B3 with a rotating speaker. Pretty much anything you can imagine, Chorba says.
Meeting engineer Matt Weber in 2018 gave them the final nudge to record there. Weber was doing sound for the band’s performance at Philadelphia club Boot & Saddle and suggested the studio. In early 2020, just before the pandemic, the band entered the studio to start recording.
“We wanted a bigger room to record some acoustic based numbers,” says singer/songwriter Mick Chorba. “My home studio is pretty good but a little small to separate out sounds. We really liked the convenience of Matt’s expertise…and all the vintage microphones at Gradwell.”
“So, when we wanted to record this one, we thought it would be best for us all to stand in the big room and capture as much of the live take as we could.”
Drummer Rob Martin used one of the house drum kits, while Chorba used a Vox CC30 and bassist Ron Bechamps used a bass amp.
“The big room is the best. I love being able to spread out and be in the same room with the other guys…a lot of studios I’ve recorded in are kind of cramped…not Gradwell House. And no one complained when [guitarist] Pete [Smith] brought all 9 of his modded Pignose amps. So, they just make it a really easy experience so the musicians can just concentrate on making music.”
Successful Sessions
Finding success during the album sessions, the band knew Weber would be a great fit to handle the audio mixing for a video performance session. They booked an evening at the studio to record a handful of songs, several of which are included for the Water Tower Session.
“We had a lot of fun and tried to give a sense of place, with video of the outside of the studio as well as shots of the crew including interns and soundman as well as the two people doing video and our friend who did lights, says Chorba.
The band hired recent college grad Joey Scelza, who is getting into the filmmaking business, to film the session. Despite his young age the band feels he’s “such a pro player.”
“I emailed him a month or two in advance and he responded, ‘I’m always ready to shoot for you guys! I’ll be there!’ Gotta love it,” says Chorba.
Scelza also recruited his sister Cat, who is majoring in video production, to film with a second camera.
The filming production also features a new friend of the band, Edgar Anderson. Anderson had recently worked sound and lights for the band at Mt Holly, New Jersey venue Spellbound Brewery, and they thought having him do lights would “add some attitude and texture to the video.”
Adding to that atmosphere and adding some added local flavor to the session is that the band used guitars from Lawrence, New Jersey-based guitar repair shop Guitar Rescue.
“Owner Mike Virok asked us to use some of his guitars in the videos to promote his store,” says Chorba. “So, I’m playing some cool instruments…an early 40s Gibson acoustic as well as a newer SG.”
For our Water Tower Sessions, the band performed three songs from the album – “Millions of People,” “Blue October,” and “King from Italy.”
After some discussion, the band chose to include “Millions of People” as they felt it was “the first single that seems to be doing pretty well by our standards.” Chorba was inspired by the simile “millions of people in love rising like particles of dust.”
“I loved the imagery of that and then the 2nd verse has the people falling like little drops of rain,” he says. “I noticed that I inadvertently sang ‘two of us’ in the first verse and “rain” in the 2nd verse. These were both unintentional allusions to Beatles’ songs.”
“So, for the rest of the writing, I tried to fit in sly references to other Beatles songs and I even borrowed the key change for the bridge from the song ‘Two of Us.’ As far as the melody it was just something that I came up with like all my songs…. Me sitting around repetitively playing an idea trying to connect words and melodies and rhythms.”
Meanwhile, “Blue October” is Chorba and Martin’s favorite on the album. Chorba says “Blue October” existed for over a year with an open D riff that begins the track. He wrote the first verse and the chorus and put it aside for a while. He revisited it a year later and decided to record a bridge to help make the song complete.
“I struggled with the part about ‘Your heart is on the pavement like a busted balloon…”. When I got to the part “I know heaven, heaven seems so high…’ I felt like I had something really good and that’s when I introduced it to the band,” he says.
Finally, Chorba feels “Kings From Italy” showcases a “more rootsy side of the band with Pete on slide guitar and all, so I wanted to play that one to just show our diversity.”
Back in Business
Since forming in 2005, The Successful Failures has thrived on having a diverse approach to recording music. In 2020, they recorded roots album Pack Up Your Shadows and the following year recorded concept album James Cotton Mather. While both projects were fun and kept them busy during the pandemic, Chorba says their tenth album Wrong Together is “more traditional SF rock-type stuff.”
Bringing on an outside producer in Travis Harrison, who has worked on recent Guided by Voices albums, allowed them to achieve that sound.
“We decided early on we wanted to work with an outside producer so when Travis Harrison agreed to mix the record, we were very excited,” says Chorba. “Travis has mixed all the recent Guided By Voices albums and we are big fans of that band, and the sound Travis helps create on GBV records.”
Scummy Water Tower recently caught up with Chorba to talk about the album.
Wrong Together is the band’s 10th album. What does it mean to reach that milestone? What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned through this band?
I’ve learned that relationships are important. And they need to be tended to. Do your homework. Be prepared for practice. Be understanding. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Have fun. Spend a few extra dollars to drink good beer. Drink whiskey but not too much. Play loud when the song demands it and be quiet sometimes too. Listen. The idea of the album title was something Pete Smith said as we were rehearsing these songs. He said: “As long as we play it ‘Wrong Together’ it will be right. So, there is a continued sense of camaraderie.
As far as the significance of this being 10, it doesn’t really mean that much to me as a specific number. I hope to be able to continue to make new music as long as possible and so this is just the current, soon to be in the past, project. Like everything in life.
How would you describe the band’s sound? What makes it stand out from other bands?
The band’s sound at the core is the melodic and rhythmic amalgamation of Rob on drums, Ron on bass, and me singing and playing guitar. From the start we noticed a chemistry. Then we added in Pete Smith on guitar, and it became something even bigger and varied in style and sound. The band was originally intended to be an alt-country type side project for me, but our tendency to play loud and big won out and so we moved in that direction.
The three of us shared a love for 90s era indie-rock…bands like Guided By Voices, Sugar, Superchunk, Nada Surf, Spoon, and Superdrag. We also all love bands like Social Distortion and The Replacements. We are all crazy about The Beatles. We loved Uncle Tupelo and Wilco and then from there we developed an appreciation for American roots music…Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and old blues and songster stuff like Mississippi John Hurt.
Then we took a collective dive into Irish traditional music and that is another part of our live show that further confuses people. But to answer your question about our sound and how we stand out I think it’s best to say that we have varied influences, but it all gets thrown into the cauldron and comes out sounding like a Successful Failures song, despite the genre bending and jumping.
What was one of your favorite moments recording the album?
My favorite moment recording was doing the only acoustic-based song on the album: “Learning What It Is To Be Free.” Everybody had heard the demo and I know Ron and I played it a few times acoustically with Ron on mandolin in a very informal way. Pete likes to be rehearsed so he probably wasn’t too happy when I told him last minute to grab a guitar to record this one. Only instruction was to try to make it sound like a pedal steel guitar.
We felt like we couldn’t leave Rob out, so we had him play drums but restricted him to the hi-hat! We did it live, and I whistled the solo. Ron then went back and overdubbed the bass line immediately after. He didn’t have a part in mind, so we all coached him from the control room which was probably pretty annoying. It’s fun though to have something all come together organically like that.
What are you most looking forward to in the future? What’s next?
One thing we often hear from people, especially reviewers, is that our sound is so varied that it is hard for music fans to categorize us…we confuse people. Sometimes it feels like this is a criticism and maybe it has hurt us in building a larger audience. I don’t know. I can’t think about it too much.
But I am considering our next project to be 15 songs divided into 3 EPs or 3 sections. One will exclusively be our rock stuff: loud electric guitars. The second collection will be our roots-oriented songs, alt-country type songs…Steve Earle influenced kinda stuff. And the last part will be folk…songs with Ron on mandolin and me on acoustic guitar.
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
