Are the many guest musicians on Source Tags And Codes friends or hired studio musicians?
JR: Some are hired, some are friends. We definitely had the budget to hire professional string players and a string arranger. We had the opportunity to do as much as we wanted, whereas in the past, the past two records, we were limited on resources. R: And is that opportunity a result of moving from independent labels to a major label? JR: Yeah, mainly because of that. The other two records were done by stealing studio time and working with friends that would take time off of work or whatever. It was real fly-by-night, real haphazard and chaotic, whereas the new recording was done in a more focused and easier environment. We went up to a chicken ranch fifty miles up from San Francisco and isolated ourselves from all human contact and really went to work. We spent a month there. We started to feel like we were in The Shining. R: Is it true that some record bigwig signed you on the spot after seeing you perform at South By Southwest? JR: No, that is not true. We were doing well in Europe
