by Oscar Flood
At long last Hepcat Dilemma will return to the studio at the end of the month to start the sessions for the much anticipated follow up to “Art Imitates Life”. Sessions will commence at The Vault, one of the regions premiere studios, with producer Bob McCutcheon manning the board. The band is thrilled to get back to recording after numerous delays and making the difficult decision to start over after tracking about ten songs with long time producer Matt Vaughan.
Hepcat Dilemma originally started to record new tracks at Hollywood Studios shortly after the release of “Art Imitates Life” and had about two thirds of the new album recorded. But when Matt decided to close Hollywood Studios, Hepcat had to find a new place to record and since some of the songs had taken on new arrangements, they thought it would be best to start over and re-record most of the songs they had already tracked along with the newer pieces.
The band had worked with Matt since reforming in 2012 and had recorded “Art Imitates Life” with him. “We loved working with Matt,” said guitarist Bob Loiselle. “Hopefully we’ll work with him again but when he closed the studio down, we had to re-think everything. We looked at a couple of studios but when we went to The Vault and met Bob, it seemed pretty obvious that we had found the right place. At that point we figured it would be best to just start over.”
Rehearsals at The Farm have been very focused over the last couple of months as the band has been honing the material into shape with an emphasis on the newer songs like “Lansberry’s Mail” and “Three Card Monty” that have been introduced in the few months. The final full band rehearsal was on Saturday and found the group to be in fine form.
The Vault is a state-of-the-art facility located on Neville Island and has been in operation nearly 10 years. It features a stunning Neve 8058 board which had a remarkable history (it was once co-owned by George Harrison) before being restored in 2017. Sessions for the new album will begin at the end of the month and will continue into July. The band hopes to have the new album completed before the end of the year.