"We tried to keep it stripped down as much as humanly possible," he explains.
"We didn't stack the harmony vocals, we didn't overlayer," says Dean. "If it sounded good and big and real with what we had, we didn't add other stuff just because we could."
The song "I'll Die Trying" is a good example, says Nieback. "When Michael goes into his guitar solo, there's no rhythm guitar," he says. "It's totally like a live record. On a 'normal' record, people put tons and tons of more instruments on there and try to make it bigger and bigger. We tried to keep it as real as possible, but still have that impact."
Another difference in the studio this time around -- Niebank relied on fewer session "hired guns," session pros that are typically imported for any major recording session to supplement and sweeten the tracks with laser-focused precision. Instead, he urged the Lonestar members to contribute more themselves, even when it came to instruments that they'd never played before. On the song "Wild," keyboardist Dean made his debut on the Hammond B-3 organ, a complex, motorized wizard's box of an instrument with a double-tiered keyboard and two full octaves of foot pedals.
"I'd never played B-3 on a record before," says Dean. "We'd always brought somebody else in to play it. Justin goes, 'I want you to do it.' I said, 'Umm, I really don't play B-3.' But he was so insistent. I went out there and did it and I had a blast."
On the album's first single, "You're Like Coming Home," you can hear the notes of something not typically found on a country record -- a bouzouki, a stringed instrument of Greek origin. It's played not by a "bouzouki pro" session musician, but by Michael.
Justin "just brought that confidence to everybody," says Dean, "to make everybody's playing that much better."
"Richie has always been a phenomenal singer," continues Dean, "but something that Justin and Richie did, it stepped even Richie up a few notches."
A real benchmark on the album, says Niebank, is the song "I'm a Man," in which Richie gives one of his most impassioned vocal performances ever. "I don't think he sat down and pondered it," says the producer. "He really went for it, from the heart. That was a great moment in the studio where everything just came together. And we didn't do a zillion takes on it."
Other standout tunes on the new album include the funky "Noise"; the jaunty "What's Wrong With That"; the spring-break sand, sunburn and young love tale of "Two Bottles"; the humorous, hoedown-y "When I Go Home Again"; and a gorgeous power ballad, "I Never Needed You," featuring an intense, soaring guest performance by Sara Evans--who was actually somewhat under the weather when she came in for the recording session. "But you know what?" says Richie. "You couldn't tell it. She was incredible."
Sara's performance was so compelling, in fact, that it elevated her role to full duet status. "She nailed it," says producer Niebank. "We had originally thought about just having it be a straight background vocal. But she added just a little more personality and put a stamp on it that I really loved. It was perfect."
The band's members were responsible for co-writing eight of the album's new songs. Richie penned six, and Michael and Dean contributed one each.
All the band members agree that Coming Home marks a proud step up in their musical progression.
-By Neil Pond
