The Making of Two Fingers of Whiskey
Shoebox Letters was not in the same room or even the same state when we recorded the Two Fingers of Whiskey album. For those of you who are unfamiliar with us, the main components of Shoebox Letters are bass player Dave Stricker, who resides in Arizona, vocalist Stephanie Cox, who lives in Texas, guitarist - vocalist, and recording engineer Greg Paul, who lives in Oregon, and me, vocalist - guitarist Dennis Winslow, I reside in the state of Washington. Greg and I are in close enough proximity to record vocals, guitars, etc. in the same room. The tracks then had to be sent to Arizona and Texas for bass and Steph’s vocals respectively. In fact, Steph’s vocals were recorded on an iphone and then emailed back to us!
Shoebox Letters was founded in 2009 by Dave Stricker and I in Portland, Oregon. Since then, we have released over 20 albums independently and placed numerous songs in television. Although we have all worked on different projects we always look forward to coming back to the creative experience of Shoebox Letters.
Many of our recent albums were recorded with Brian David Willis in Nashville. Unfortunately, Brian was unavailable for this album but still provided helpful guidance on most of the songs.
The first song written and recorded for the album was “Hang.” I wrote “Hang” with Orange County songwriter and longtime friend and co-writer David Allen Baker. “Hang” was recorded by Ron Spencer (McKirchy Winslow Band) in Washington and then additional recording and mixing was done by Ronn Chick in Washington.
Two songs, the title track and “Wicked the Ways” were co-written with former Shoebox Letters guitarist/vocalist David Wall. Those tracks were recorded in Oregon by Bob Stark. David contributed harmony vocals and guitars.
The rest of the tracks were recorded with Greg in Oregon with side tracks to Arizona and Texas for Dave’s bass and Steph’s vocals.
Nick Page mastered the recordings. It was our first time working with Nick on a Shoebox Letters project and we were all impressed with the mastering.
Despite the album being recorded in fits and starts, we are happy with the finished product and we hope you, the listener, are too. Please looks for Two Fingers of Whiskey on your local streaming services. Cheers!