Ruben Romano - The Imaginary Soundtrack To The Imaginary Western Twenty Graves Per Mile (2024) [Hi-Res]

Within the popular heavy rock genre known as “Stoner Rock", RUBEN ROMANO is a first round pioneer. He is the original drummer for bothstoner rock legends “FU MANCHU'' and “Nebula” while now fronting his own band appropriately named “The Freeks”.

Ruben is also a multi-instrumentalist,composer, and lyricist. He is a recording artist as well as a recording engineer. All this knowledge and a winter hiatus led to solo musical experimentations that became, in his imagination, an accompaniment to the crossing of the wide open plains to the west.

Ruben explains his writing and recording process for 'Twenty Graves Per Mile':
"I actually never set out to do this project, by that I mean, it was not preconceived, not yet anyway. What happened first was that I came to realize that I had acquired enough musical gear to satisfy all points needed to complete an ensemble. The urge is great, I know, but why did I need to buy another guitar or amplifier when I have several of every variety already. So I switched my collecting tendencies towards recording gear. I’m a...“Let’s see what happens..” kind of person.

I enjoy sitting on my porch with an acoustic guitar, noodling, jumping from this major chord to that minor chord, adding a 7th and a 9th, or maybe sus it. I have always enjoyed playing with sounds, if something makes a sound I’m in, I’ll tinker until I figure something out. This leaves me wide open to whatever. I may be lumped into a certain genre that creates expectations but I can’t really be so loyal to just one type of music when it's just too vast to not enjoy everything that’s out there. So, it’s figure out some sounds, put some chords together and let’s see what happens.... I love doing things like this and it's the same approach I used for “Twenty Graves Per Mile” as I do for my main rock band The Freeks. All of this leads me to enjoy late nights in the garage, now with the ability to record the idea, and further expand it. I sacrifice sleep as I can’t really stop once I get started, and I’m ok with that. A lot, if not all, of these songs were constructed this way but really it’s thanks to Les Paul for inventing multi track recording.

I live in a Condominium with my wife and daughter and also two cats. I’m smack dab in the middle of the building with neighbors on both sides and also above, so volume is an issue. Acoustic guitar and a really sensitive condenser mic are my main tools. I also did a lot of direct line-in recording when it came to adding electric instruments here at my home. I’m ok with this because at the same time I’m still learning my recording process, instrument modeling is a part of that. When I have something going and it’s ready for even more, I also have a full mobile recording unit that The Freeks use at our rehearsal room. So I am able to record acoustic drums as well as loud guitar amplifiers, my latest gem is a new Fender Vibro Champ Reverb amp. Reverb and Vibrato have always been my favorite tones, Chorus is my least favorite. So I do bounce from one studio to the other, transferring and importing tracks as I go along. I have already been tracking these songs with no intentions for them, just doing what I like to do, it’s a hobby.

When Covid hit me, an opportunity kind of fell into place. As I quarantined at home, I fell into a TV binge, watching different series about our Great Frontiers Men, Westward Expansion and The Oregon Trail. It all just blended in my head. They expanded west, I expanded my ideas and I got reverb to prove it. I just kept recording little tunes more andmore, and my computer filled up very quickly. I began transferring them to external drives to create space for even more to come. So I started to sift through them and I started finding songs that I totally forgot about.

Late nights in that garage produced some fun and even silly things as well as some rather deep things. For example, the song “The Trail Is Long” must have happened really late with a fine smoke, some good bourbon and a sad memory. I totally forgot about it and now it’s probably my favorite song on the record. However, all the songs have a place in my heart, of course, there is a joy in taking a little acoustic guitar lick conceived on the porch that eventually becomes a completed song like “Sweet Dreams Cowboy”. There is a great sense of pride in that.

-R.R