The Rosewood Thieves began recording Rise and Shine at a studio in Brooklyn, NY called The Bunker, recommended by a friend that used to live in it. The once basement apartment was a great home for The Rosewood Thieves; they recorded half of the songs for their new album in just four days. When they took a break for the weekend, however, they returned to find the tape machine at the studio broke down and so they quickly relocated to a studio in SoHo for the rest of the album.
In all, the record took only 12 days to record and with the music finished, the band made plans to return to California to mix with Thom Monahan. Their last trip there to mix Lonesome had proved successful for their music, however, not for singer/songwriter Erick Jordan, who began having intense panic attacks and couldn't get on the plane home to New York, which inspired the song off of Rise and Shine, "When My Plane Lands." Instead of flying to the west coast, the band packed their van up and headed across the country to Sacramento.
On their way they hit many problems. When their van broke down in Effingham, IL for four days, they still managed to make the best of it, taking up bowling and visiting Lincoln's Log Cabin, petting llamas and even learning how to shoot bow and arrows with the help of a local hunting store. Back on the road they struggled with insomnia and snowstorms, even sliding off of Route 80 in Wyoming, narrowly avoiding a collision with a dump truck, but finally made it to California safe. They mixed their record, played a few shows in Los Angeles, and headed all the way back to New York for mastering. Though, one stop in Nashville, Tennessee proved to be important.
Rummaging around a used bookstore, Erick found a copy of Psychedelic Art by Robert E.L. Masters and Jean Houston and bought it especially because of the cover. On it was the painting All Things Are One Thing, 1967 by Isaac Abrams and he decided that it had to be the cover for their album. "I researched him and found out that he was a part of the New York City acid tests in the 60's and now lived in Woodstock," says Erick. They called him up and found him to be very kind, and when they sent him mixes of the record, he agreed to let them use his painting on the cover.
"It fit well with the title of the album," says Erick, "Most of the songs came from dreams and nightmares, so we wanted the title to be about waking up. When I was young my mom would wake me up for school by saying 'rise and shine!'
- David Watson, March 10, 2008
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