Acid Tongue - Influences and Recording

Influences and Recording

Lewis first began work on Acid Tongue after writing the title track on her Rabbit Fur Coat tour. She attempted to work out an arrangement for Rilo Kiley's Under the Blacklight. It didn't work, so Lewis recorded it for a second solo album.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Lewis was inspired by house parties at Jonathan Wilson's Laurel Canyon home. "We'd go to these jams in the canyon. They're fantastic. Jonathan invites older session musicians from the real Laurel Canyon era, and younger people who are just starting their bands who happen to live in the canyon, and we all get together and sing Grateful Dead covers and J. J. Cale songs." Lewis herself has said that it "rocks a little harder," in contrast to Rabbit Fur Coat's folk rock influences. Lewis also used Rilo Kiley's Under the Blacklight, which was notably polished compared to the band's earlier work, "as a reference point to go in the complete opposite direction". She explained that every song she writes is "a response to the thing that I've written before". "It's even as simple as, 'OK, I've written a ballad, now I want to push myself to write something that's up tempo.' If I'm writing about myself, well, that subject can be tiresome, so then I focus on character-driven songs. So I'm always doing this back-and-forth just to keep myself interested."

The album was recorded in just three weeks at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California. The album was co-produced by Lewis's boyfriend Johnathan Rice, former Beachwood Sparks and All Night Radio member Dave Scher, and Under the Blacklight producer Jason Lader. Lewis attempted to record as many of the songs live as possible. "We did it in the studio for my 32nd birthday," according to Lewis, "and we had a great time, collaborating with a bunch of friends. It was definitely a lot less focused than Rabbit Fur Coat. With that record I had a very specific vision, but with this record it was really more about the vibe, the songs and the collaborations". A source quoted by Entertainment Weekly said that the album "all sounds super natural, nice, and simple. Like it doesn't belong in any decade. It's just timeless." The album was inspired by a variety of musical styles, including alternative country, Americana, indie rock, and soul.

Talking to Nashville Scene, Lewis said that the songs "weren't written off-the-cuff, but they were definitely recorded, not carelessly, but with a real effort to capture a live feeling, particularly with the vocals". Lewis continued, "To me, it's a big step in a different direction...and to be able to sink into the vocal take while the band was playing was a very liberating experience for me." Lewis told The A.V. Club, "We played them on the road 100 times, so we knew that we could walk into the studio and record them the same way. It wasn't really a studio record, but more of a live record in some ways. It was about getting the band together and creating an atmosphere that lent itself to good chemistry between the band members and trying to capture as much of the record live as we could." As "a child of digital generation", Lewis had generally worked with Pro Tools, but wanted to capture the "not-perfect sound" of some of her favorite records.

The musicians were split into two separate bands. The Band A setup (Jason Boesel, Davey Faragher, Johnathan Rice, and Blake Mills) would generally play the more rock and roll songs, while Band B would play the ballads.