Spend It All

After recording Maintenance for Mood Swings I figured I needed to do a record that was more concise or at least with one drummer. I recall telling Dave Rizzuti, “Man, I need someone who sounds like Levon Helm. You know, simple, with a lot of character”. Then Dave says, “Why don’t you just get the man himself?” Yeah right, real funny, Rizzuti. But it turns out Dave had recently done a session with him. Call it fate or divine intervention, Levon Helm became the drummer for “Spend It All”.

Mr. Helm drove down in a sketchy ice storm from Woodstock, NY to Boston (his usual driver, Bruce was involved in a little accident and couldn’t make the gig). As I peered out a window from Mad Oak Studios I noticed what I thought was a little old man pulling a kick drum out of the back seat of a Saab; sometimes giants are deceiving.

That afternoon with Levon Helm was the only thing that went smoothly during the making of this record. He played his ass off, and mostly just one take was it. I was like, Hey Levon, you get that demo I sent ya? Nope. Well, umm... here's how it starts, here's the chorus, end it any way you like and bang! that was it. Here is a guy who's lucky to be alive (he survived cancer and a hell of a lot more), in his sixties, and nailing first takes on songs he didn't even know.

That ice storm was only the first of many fouls that plagued this production. The reel-to-reel tape was late in being delivered to the studio and was the wrong kind when it got there, leaving us to scramble and borrow dough and get it somewhere else for twice as much in some weird part of town. Longtime collaborator and fellow Bender bassist Nolan McKelvey resigned his duties.

Somehow when things got transferred to ProTools everything got lost, or someone dropped the hard drive or something (back your shit up, kids). So I was back to square one. We retained the original basic tracks thanks to some computer guru in California. Other tracks mysteriously disappeared during other sessions. Things were getting expensive, and the record label who was gonna put it all out went bankrupt. I finally borrowed cash from my credit card at an embarrassingly high percentage and finished the project.

Levon revealed in one of his many humorous stories how Richard Manuel would always say spend it all when things got dicey. And since I did—and am still—paying for it, the title was established.