Godsmack released Awake on October 31, 2000, following their breakthrough debut with a second album that included “Awake,” “Greed” and “Bad Magick.” Sully Erna wanted to preserve the aggression that had helped establish the band, and his choice of recording location reflected that intention: River’s Edge Productions, a warehouse studio above a boxing gym in Haverhill, Massachusetts.
The band could afford a more comfortable setting. Some members had hoped to return to Longview Farms, where they had worked on music for the Any Given Sunday soundtrack. Erna worried that comfort would dull his focus. “I didn’t want to be surrounded by luxury,” he told Gary Graff in a 2000 interview published by ABC News. Success had already introduced an unfamiliar problem: second guessing whether the new material would satisfy the audience they had built. Keeping the sessions close to home was part of his response.
The boxing gym was familiar territory for Erna, who had trained there. It also imposed practical limits on the recording. Noise from downstairs sometimes made it impossible to capture quiet percussion parts. The surroundings he wanted came with interruptions the band had to work around.
Writing the album had required its own adjustment. Bassist Robbie Merrill explained in a 2018 Cryptic Rock interview that the debut benefited from material accumulated before Godsmack were signed. For Awake, they had to develop songs while touring. That changed the circumstances around songwriting: the band were assembling a follow up while still doing the work of establishing themselves onstage. Merrill remembered learning how to write on the road and pull that material together as a distinct challenge of the second record.
They retained a familiar production partnership. Andrew “Mudrock” Murdock returned to co produce with Erna, working with guitarist Tony Rombola, Merrill and drummer Tommy Stewart. In a January 2001 Mix interview, Murdock described a band whose touring had sharpened its playing. Recording methods varied with the song. Some basic tracks came from the musicians playing together; others were assembled through separate performances. Pro Tools allowed detailed editing, but Murdock insisted that each vocal chorus and doubled vocal was recorded individually. Repetition within a song still meant another performance.
The sessions also left room for accidents worth keeping. Rombola recalled Erna experimenting with a guitar figure that became the opening of “Spiral.” Working locally gave the guitarist a routine he liked: arrive around noon, work until evening and sleep at home. The larger budget supplied better equipment while the band kept control of the sessions.
Across the finished album, that emphasis on forceful playing supported more than one kind of song. The title track reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart, while “Greed” and “Bad Magick” extended the album’s run at radio. Further into the record, “Vampires” used spoken dialogue within an instrumental arrangement, and “Spiral” closed the original eleven song sequence. Those tracks gave the album space beyond its singles.
“Vampires” also produced a career first. At the 2002 Grammy Awards, it earned Godsmack their first nomination, for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. The category placed them alongside Jeff Beck, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and the Allman Brothers Band.
