High School Rock is our benchmark, our "Appetite For Destruction", the album that made people stand up and take us seriously (for however long they decided to do so). It contains many of our best moments, featuring quite a few songs which we would and could never stop playing live. High School Rock is also our biggest selling studio album, but there are some things about the record that we, as musicians, just can't stand.
Where are the vocals? Why does is sound so digital and compressed when it's a 2-inch tape analog recording? Why is everything in the mix fighting so hard to be heard?
Every year I would ask
Tooth & Nail if we could do a remix and every year I was turned down. "It's fine," they said. (Truthfully, it cost too much money to record and mix the first time around, let alone ponying up more dough for a complete remix.)
Five years ago I took my personal interest in the art of mastering records and turned it into an official business (
Steinhaus Mastering). I've mastered an awful lot of records since then, getting better and better at it along the way. Every once in a while I would attempt to remaster High School Rock, never achieving the kind of results I wanted (which furthered my belief that only a remix would "set things right"). Several months ago I stumpled upon a mastering technique which made me decide to give High School Rock yet another try.
This time, my efforts weren't in vain.
There were the vocals and there were all those little nuances that were purposefully mixed low, but should have still been heard (subtle use of keyboards, passing clean guitars, tambourine, etc). The guitars sounded the way we remembered them sounding in the studio when we were recording. The bass was totally audible and punchy, the drum tones were way better.
I sent it to the guys in the band and they were more than pleasantly surprised. I sent it to Jim Worthen at Tooth & Nail and he liked it so much that he offered to hit up the main man in charge (Brandon Ebel) to see if he would agree to give it a digital re-release. A week later the answer came back in the affirmative.
Most "remasters" are nothing more than overly compressed, super loud messes released as a last chance cash grab. This is not the case here.
"High School Rock (Remastered)" hits all digital outlets via Tooth & Nail Records on Tuesday (August 11th). It originally came out 11 years ago. We hope you'll be willing to give it a another shot.
Oh, I almost forgot...HSR (Remastered) includes "I Just Want To Have Something To Do", previously available only as a bonus track on the long out of print vinyl version of the record.
later...Cliffy Huntington