September 2014 | view this story as a .pdf

Live from Pine Cone! Touching down in the Old Port for drinks and inspiration, Enter the Haggis still finds time to record an exciting new album.

By Trevor Lewington

The Toronto-based Celtic-roots rock band, Enter The Haggis, recorded its eighth album in the Portland area in recent weeks. ETH’s sound is rocking, mystical, sweet, electric, and thumpingly fun. They stayed at a nearby lakeside cottage and recorded in a barn studio with local producer Jonathan Wyman. The band’s guitarist/vocalist/songwriter, Trevor Lewington, shares the experience with us here. Look for the album’s release this fall and catch the band live November 1 at Port City Music Hall.

Wham! Our van tires hit the first pothole as we negotiate our way down snaking, gravelly Huston Road shortly after 10 p.m. Craig, Bruce, and I had left Toronto with our van and trailer mid-morning and are relieved to be almost at our destination. We roll the windows down and are greeted with an instant organic waft–pine, cedar, moss, and dirt. We’d rented the cottage called Pine Cone on Highland Lake just outside Portland for the month to record a new album at a nearby studio with local producer Jonathan Wyman. Our preceding albums had been recorded in Lexington; Ottawa; Toronto; and Kingston, New York; so this was another new approach to the old challenge of capturing a snapshot of our sound.

We hunt for the key under the cottage welcome mat with the use of an iPhone and upon entry go directly to the fridge for a cold beer. Our bass player, Mark, who now lives in Freeport, had come by the cottage earlier to bestow upon us some local libations–Gritty’s and Shipyard. Later this month we will pay visits to Allagash and Bissell Brothers breweries to sample their wares.

The three of us stay up for a couple of hours to unwind, sharing our thoughts on how we’d like to approach the recording process, then get some rest after a brief-but- comical interlude where we lock ourselves out on the second floor balcony.

With a pair of well-traveled running shoes in my hand, I step out onto the east-facing deck of the cottage. Highland Lake had been lost in the darkness of our arrival last night, so it’s my first chance to appreciate the beauty of our accommodations. I am determined to run every day I’ll be in Maine, so I lace up my sneakers and start down Huston Road to explore the area by foot. It’s the perfect morning for a run–cool but with breaths of warm air off the lake, rustling the freshly sprung leaves. Over the course of the month I will find myself running to the tops of hills with stunning views, ducking branches through the woods and cooling down afterward with a swim off the dock.

The only disappointment about living at Pine Cone is that I’m not able to bring along my wife and two young boys. My kids were born ready to tromp through the woods, turning over rocks and poking things with sticks. When I’m out on my morning runs I see plenty of things that would pique their interest. One morning there are two deer that I somehow manage to get within 20 feet of without spooking. Their sweaty skin twitches to deter insects as they tear fiddleheads and lush grasses. Time seems to stand still. I forget about my run and absorb the moment until they eventually move deeper into the woods.

Another morning I stand by Pine Cone’s lake-facing windows, eating a bowl of cereal. Looking down, I’m surprised to see several large brown trout swimming just offshore in Highland Lake’s crystal-clear water. We’re recording tomorrow morning. Will our new album capture us in the moment?

We arrive for the first time at our studio at about 10 a.m. Without precise directions, we’d have missed it as it’s built into a century-old barn with no sign to advertise its presence. Before meeting Jonathan Wyman, we are greeted by his sidekick, a sweet brown dog named Roxy (after the Police song “Roxanne,” of course). Roxy doesn’t get too involved in the recording process, but if she feels strongly enough about a musical idea she either wags her tail or leaves the room. We shake hands with Jonathan, whose arm is wrapped in plastic after some fresh ink, exchange pleasantries, and get down to business. Today day we write and record a song totally from scratch before the arrival of our last bandmate, Brian, who flies in tomorrow. The project begins with the authoritative crack of a starting pistol. Roxy’s tail twitches.

We’ve raised all of the funds to record this album through a crowd funding campaign, whereby people purchase anything from a signed copy of the forthcoming release to the opportunity to come to the studio to sing on the record. Our next day in the studio is the day we’ve scheduled to have these fans come and join us. We pull into the parking lot and greet 5 fans from Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Illinois, Maryland, Vermont, and even as far away as New Mexico. Our multi-talented Jonathan has told us he also does catering and offers to fire up his BBQ for a feast of ribs and various salads around supper time, which we graciously accept. The modest-sized studio space is snug with the extra bodies, but we are fortunate to have great weather and spend time socializing with fans in the parking lot, getting high off of the pillow of sweet rib smoke dancing around our heads. Inside the studio we give folks a taste of the music we’ve been working on, which is mildly stressful as we’ve poured our hearts into it for three weeks. To our relief, there are bobbing heads, tapping feet, and smiles as we gather around the monitor speakers in the control room.

We then position with our fans around a Telefunken U-48 microphone and shout and clap our hands. The effect of a crowd singing together in a room lends raw energy and character to some of the songs.

Staying at Pine Cone is a great way to step away from the studio every night and to come back with fresh ears in the morning. On the few days off that we take, we either fly home or take a trip into Portland. One night, at a friend’s recommendation, we go to Zapoteca for dinner. To say that Zapoteca is a Mexican restaurant is like saying we’re a Celtic band. It’s as though someone is running with a tray of Mexican food, trips over a lobster trap, and is hit by a tuk-tuk…Gastronomically speaking, there’s a lot going on. We’re with a party of 15 or so, so there is enough of the menu sampled to see all they have to offer. The service and presentation are spot-on.

Most of the songs we wrote for the album were pretty fleshed out before traveling to Portland to record, but there’s always a swell of eleventh-hour creativity. We are lucky to have an upright piano at Pine Cone and spend more than a few hours around it with guitars and manuscript paper, working out parts. One morning, Brian leaps out of the shower, making a beeline for the keys to work out a verse melody that’s come to him for a song called “Traveler.”

Heather Robb, a friend of ours from a band called Spring Standards, comes up from Brooklyn to sing on the record and treats Brian and Craig to an hour-long piano and vocal performance of all of the new material she’s been writing.

Although my morning runs are supposed to be a way to clear my head of the recording process, more often than not I ended up going over parts in my head. One morning I write all of the lyrics for a song called “Astray,” booting it back to the cottage to scribble out the words.

We describe our sound as Eclectic Indie Rock. About 15 years ago, when most of us were teenagers, we played pretty straight-up Celtic party rock, with bagpipes, fiddle, bass, drums, and electric guitar. Most of our recent catalogue still has a similar energy and danceability, but the songwriting is more diverse, and Craig now plays a good bit of trumpet and harmonica in addition to bagpipes. On the album we record in Portland we experiment with synths, run vocals through effects pedals, and play the fiddle through a Leslie rotary speaker. We want to take advantage of the unusual things that you can do in the studio setting instead of simply capturing our live sound with great microphones and pre-amps. Songwriting is my personal focus, and this album is especially challenging as we are basing every song off of letters that have been mailed to us by our fans. I remember reading a quote from Gordon Lightfoot saying that he felt that his strongest songs came only after he started writing from other people’s perspectives. Personally, I feel like we’ve just recorded some of the best songs I’ve ever written, and I think that’s thanks to the diversity and emotion of the letters we received.

I write songs, sing, and play guitar. With my wife and two boys, I live four hours north of Toronto, where I run, swim, and make robot costumes out of liquor boxes.

Brian Buchanan writes songs, sings, plays fiddle, keys, and electric guitar. He lives in Guelph, Ontario, where he plays video games and reads Leonard Cohen poetry.

Mark Abraham plays bass and lives in Freeport, Maine, with his family. In his spare time he fishes, makes pasta, and drinks zinfandel.

Bruce McCarthy plays drums and lives in Toronto. When he’s not touring or recording with ETH, he can be found making kale smoothies, running marathons, and smoking Cubans.

Craig Downie writes songs and plays pipes, trumpet, whistle, harmonica, keys, and guitar. He posts juvenile things on Facebook and practices a Russian martial art called Sistema.

It’s noon, and our van and trailer are heading west at top speed (65 mph) to Fayetteville, Indiana. We’re late for tonight’s show after a series of delays. This is our first time on tour since recording the new album in Portland. After being so focused on writing and arranging new music, we’ll no doubt paint the stage red as we knock the rust off the old songs.

Since our departure from Portland, we’ve been listening to mixes of the new songs arriving into our email boxes daily from Jonathan, who’s [shape-shifted] from producer to mixing engineer. I’ve got my headphones on as we bounce along I-90 through Erie, Pennsylvania. Listening to all of the songs together, I find myself wondering how the experience of recording in Portland shaped the sound and vibe of the record. It’s hard to quantify the impact of things like sitting on the dock late at night, drinking a Bissell Brothers Substance Ale, or enjoying a Habanero Watermelon Margarita at Zapoteca downtown, or stirring local honey into a mid-afternoon tea, but it’s all in there. Somewhere between the sounds of Emerson-esque synthesizers, rootsy horn arrangements reminiscent of “The Last Waltz,” and the whirl of a fiddle played through a Leslie speaker, there’s the sticky smell of sea air, broken cobblestone, and an authentic grittiness that Williamsburg, New York, pines for…

Often after running I go out to the dock to stretch, usually as the sun is just cresting the roof of the cottage. On the last day of my stay I am greeted by a bald eagle floating majestically above the lake. It is a beautiful parting image.

Thanks, Portland.