Lily Slay is highly amused. Sitting in the main recording studio at Truphonic Recording Studio in West Ashley, the buxom, tattooed singer and guitarist has been hearing the voice of one of her bandmates coming through faintly, but is trying to figure out how she is hearing it. The adjacent studio's microphone is turned off. Then she realizes that fellow singer and guitarist Mackie Boles is speaking into his guitar pickups, which explains why his voice sounds robotic and otherworldly. It's just one of the many ways that the Royal Tinfoil band members—which also include bassist Brad Edwardson, drummer Marshall Hudson, and keyboardist Whitt Algar—blow off steam as they record their new album.
Things have been good lately for The Royal Tinfoil. They were recently named Best Local Band by the Charleston City Paper in their annual "Best of Charleston" issue (the same one, incidentally, that named Charleston Grit Best One-Stop Blog). The band's unique mix of musical styles, which Slay describes as "garage-country-swamp-pop-gypsy," has obviously caught on, although the band was unprepared for the accolades from the City Paper ("Yeah, we don't know either," says Slay).
They were nice enough to let me sit in on an evening of its recording process recently. Recording at Truphonic is a huge step up for the band. "Our last album was recorded in three days in a basement in Kansas," says Slay.
Back then, Slay and Boles basically were The Royal Tinfoil, hiring additional musicians when a gig called for it. This time out, the band is taking more time and recording more professionally. Truphonic chief engineer MJ Fick sits behind the massive sound board in the studio's main control room, which features a huge video display above the window that allows folks in the control room to see what is going on in the main studio. Fick helped oversee the construction of the state-of-the-art studio, and shows me some tricks he uses, like draping a wool blanket over the bass drum of Hudson's kit, creating a sort of tent or tunnel that enhances the sound of the instrument.
Meanwhile, Hudson and Slay are still in the main studio, recording various takes of one of the 16 songs the band plans to record while at Truphonic. During a break, the band gathers in the control room, which has a couch and table-like console that is littered with pizza boxes, laptops, and liquor bottles. Truphonic shares a wall with a liquor store next door, and the band has been taking advantage of the convenience, purchasing bottles of Evan Williams, Fireball, and Patron. Slay punches up a song by Tickleswitch, a side project of The Royal Tinfoil, while she checks Facebook and looks at YouTube videos.
They are about halfway done with the recording process. They plan on releasing the album, which currently has a working title of "Feed These Demons," in September.
According to Slay (who sports a red beehive wig that would make Kate Pierson of the B-52s green with envy), the new Royal Tinfoil album will be much different from the band's previous release. "The first album was tongue in cheek," says Slay, "but this is more macabre and dark, sinister, sleazy. We're taking everyone's individual styles and using them. I feel like this time out I'm writing as a member of a group instead of as a solo artist." In between stories from the road about tearing each others' shirts off onstage and Boles accidentally breaking Slay's foot at one show, Slay plays a demo of a song called "Roselina," which features Boles singing the semi-improvised lyrics "Gimmie twenty dollars with the hoots and hollers!" If the finished album is anything like that demo, then fans of The Royal Tinfoil have a lot to look forward to this fall.
