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Production Notes

When Violent Femmes went into Castle Studios in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in July 1982, by all accounts it wasn't quite the state-of-the-art recording environment they had hoped to find for their debut album. Producer Mark Van Hecke later described the facility as being in a state of collapse. 'You'd go into the studio and there would be this equipment, and the next day you'd go in and there'd be a piece missing because it had been repossessed'.

Gordon Gano concurred in an interview with Lifeoftherecord.com. 'Glen Lorbiecki, our engineer, who was really the janitor, told us, "I just wanna be honest with you guys, but the studio is going into receivership". So that's why we'd show up and bits of equipment would have been sold off, just to try and keep the studio open for another few weeks.'

Van Hecke wanted to give Violent Femmes the kind of raw, exhilarating sounds of Elvis's Sun Sessions. This entailed numerous takes as the band naturally moved around a lot during performances, affecting the recording. The production was also challenging due to the band's unconventional instrumentation, such as Brian Ritchie's acoustic bass. 'When Brian started playing that, I don't think he or I knew anybody that was doing it', said Gano. 'Then later, people started doing it but still nobody would sound like him.'

Victor DeLorenzo, meanwhile, created his recognisable sound while busking, using just a snare drum, steel brushes and a 'tranceaphone', which consisted of a metal basket inverted over a tom. Victor played 'without a kick drum, I think, the whole album', Gano remembered. 'He would play standing up and have just this original set-up.'