This story should come with a little introduction: Richard Swift, my dear friend and musical cohort, connected Leon Michels and me back in 2016 when I was asked to sub for Leon in The Arcs (Dan Auerbach’s new band). After that tour I told Richard that "Leon and I were working together on a new record." Richard clapped his hands! Nodded his head back and then said “YES! I’m so glad you guys are making a record, I knew it’d happen… AND I want to mix it when you are done.” Tragically, we lost him, our friend, a huge musical force, in July 2018. Richard passed away and was never able to get his hands on the record. Throughout the whole process of recording we had Richard in our minds, and without him Leon and I would have never met… so, very special thanks and love to Richard Swift.
In early August 2017 I made a playlist of my new demos for Leon Michels in preparation for our upcoming session at Diamond Mine. "Send It On A Rocket" (demo here) was one of our favorites. It was originally recorded with an old Casiotone 8000 that had a very cool retro drum machine sound. However, I remember Leon wanting to get away from that Casio sound to get more of a human, organic feel, yet we still wanted to convey a drum machine tone. Nick Movshon (drummer and bass player on the record) does that. He absolutely nails that tone and feel, completely transforming the demo version into a soulful, mesmerizing end of summer anthem. When this song is played live you can really feel the crowd latching on to every move we make.
