Written and Performed by Jeremy Bain
Recorded by Jeremy Bain, Mike Crouch, and the Kelly Bros. in 2008. Mixed and MFI 2016.
Fred Kelly:
I don’t even remember exactly how we came to record “I Need A Shelter” but I’m glad we did. We had been friends with Jeremy for a long time, and had taken a look at some tapes that his band Slick has recorded elsewhere (and which had some restoration needed), and we’d also worked with Holly Briggs, who was in a band with Jeremy called May Gray.
Anyway, Jeremy is musically omnivorous, and seems to have no problems with any style or genre whatsoever along a wide musical spectrum. I really like and respect that about him. For “Shelter” he was in a fairly Fleetwood Mac kind of place, and we were only too happy to try to provide that atmosphere for him. Jonathan played drums, then Jeremy layered his vocal, bass, and guitar onto it, and we all added percussion and backing vocals.
Jeremy’s friend Mike Crouch (also of May Gray, and both a great guy and a great guitarist) came in and put the electric guitar lead lines in the choruses and acoustic lines in the verses (the latter of which was run through EchoBoy to give it a wide, ethereal nature). I love this song, and I’m happy to present it to listeners in a finished form.
Jonathan Kelly:
This song was recorded in our second bedroom (thank you Val!), before we had a dedicated location for the studio. It's one of those deceptively simple recording. We were going for something very, very precise, and there's just not a lot of room for error when you do that.
I've always loved the feel of this song. It was surprisingly challenging to mix, but even after all these years I still enjoy listening to it. Smoooooooth.