Road Stories, Recording Secrets, and the Perfect Pop Song – with Rand Lempert from The Broken Rings

This week on Gig Gab, Dave Hamilton sits down with guest co-host Rand Lempert of the Broken Rings, a two-piece recording project built on 15 years of musical kinship between Rand and guitarist Gio da Silva. You’ll hear how these two have crafted an intentional, travel-fueled recording process across cities, cutting live instruments and vocals together, passing files between New Orleans, Tampa, and now Denver, and why that friction and urgency is exactly the point. Rand makes a compelling case for keeping things analog as long as possible: real amps, minimal pedals, old-school mic placements like a modified Glyn Johns setup, and the conviction that nothing replaces the feeling of having a human being in the room when the tape (or hard drive) is rolling.

The conversation ranges wide, from Rand’s vivid 9/11 tour story, stranded in St. John’s Newfoundland on one of the last planes to land before U.S. airspace shut down, to a deep dive into the art of the perfect pop song, with nominations for Tempted by Squeeze, Big Star’s Thirteen, Bryan Adams’ Cuts Like a Knife, and Fastball’s Out of My Head. Whether you’re a working drummer obsessing over beat placement, a songwriter who only writes when the muse actually shows up, or a road veteran who knows that idle days on tour are far worse than grueling ones, this episode has your number. Get out there, stay curious, and Always Be Performing.

• 00:00:00 Gig Gab 537 – Monday, June 8th, 2026
  • June 8th: Name Your Poison Day
  • Guest co-host: Rand Lempert
• 00:01:38 The Broken Rings are a 2-man band
  • Drums, guitar, vocals all handled by Rand Lempert and Gio da Silva, his bandmate
  • They consider themselves musical kin: They agree on 95% of all music
  • Met in Houston, played in bands, then moved to different corners of the USA
• 00:04:48 Songwriting duo starts with a long distance relationship
  • Lutefish Stream
• 00:07:03 Recording remotely doesn’t have the muse of travel
  • So many different avenues to approach recording
  • Finding a way to record with technology in a less sterile way
• 00:15:08 Preserving analog recording to digital “tape”
• 00:17:07 The process of recording drums
  • Don’t mess up the end of the track!
• 00:21:14 Country music
• 00:23:25 Drummer kinship: Tris Imboden saves the day!
  • Learning by visual
• 00:31:41 SPONSOR: Claude.ai – Ready to tackle bigger problems? Sign up for Claude today, which includes access to Claude Cowork, too, when you visit https://Claude.ai/giggab
• 00:33:37 Surviving the road
• 00:34:45 Road story: hanging out in St. John’s Newfoundland for 5 days
  • Sonny James and the Centers in Europe in 2001
  • “There’s nothing wrong with this airplane, but this plane is being diverted because of terrorist attacks in the United States.”
  • Canadian authorities: “What do we do with these people? Bring them to a hockey arena!”
  • Memorial University of Newfoundland
• 00:44:35 Opening up for Bo Diddley in 2004
  • In Beaumont, Texas
  • Touring is a lot of driving, and you’re doing the driving
  • It’s a lot of lugging equipment, and you’re doing the lugging
  • You get a hotel room…for the entire band!
• 00:48:55 When touring, days off are worse than the grueling days on
• 00:51:02 It’s important to travel
  • Touring is the way to do that for a lot of us musicians
• 00:51:25 Making touring maps as a kid is a good sign Rand needed to do this as a career
• 00:52:50 First concerts, sound nerding, and getting lost in the music for the first time
  • Rand got lost at four years old!
  • Nerd out about sound and recording
  • First concerts!
    • Weather Report for Dave
    • Air Supply for Rand
• 00:58:05 The Best pop songs
  • Gravitating towards the hook!
  • Cuts Like a Knife – Bryan Adams
  • Tempted – Squeeze
  • Thirteen – Big Star
  • Out of My Head – Fastball
  • One Headlight – Wallflowers
  • No Matter What – Badfinger
• 01:12:22 Gig Gab 537 Outtro
  • Follow Rand Lempert
    • The Broken Rings
    • Sick in the city – The Broken Rings
  • Contact Gig Gab!
    • @GigGabPodcast on Instagram
    • feedback@giggabpodcast.com
    • Sign Up for the Gig Gab Mailing List

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