Degradation Trip - Recording and Production

Recording and Production

Cantrell was unable to find a replacement and decided to self-produce Degradation Trip with his friend Jeff Tomei. They waited another three months for Bordin and Trujillo to become available again, but Cantrell found himself losing Columbia Records' approval of the project. As soon as recording began, his contract with Sony, parent to Columbia, had ended, leaving him with staggering studio bills. He continued financing it on his own, even mortgaging his house to do so, and developed the album to its completion without label interference. Cantrell reflected in early 2002 on his time making a record without a label:

"It was very strange for me, because my experience in this business has been with one band and one label. The last couple years I was not only on my own making a record of the magnitude that I committed myself to, but I was having to deal with being like a brand new artist going around to all these different labels and meeting with them and hearing the same things over and over: 'Yeah, we love it. We love you,' and then have nothing happen. It was a little disheartening after a while."

Trujillo noted the difficulty in re-recording Cantrell's "little hoodrat demos." He was asked to replicate the demo arrangements which were on cassette and, according to Trujillo, had nearly indistinguishable bass. It resulted that Trujillo, inspired by Pino Palladino, developed his own code for writing down bass compositions which he would continue using in the future. However, he remarked positively on his recording experience with Cantrell: "I was primarily just there to enhance the bass, but he taught me a lot about simplicity and using space and notes that really mean something to a song."

Finally, he was picked up by Roadrunner who insisted Cantrell narrow his solo work to 14 songs. He was told, however, that the remaining tracks would later be released in some form. Indeed, on November 26, 2002, a second version of the album – considered to be the "definitive" and originally intended version – was released. This limited edition double album includes 11 additional recordings that Roadrunner forced Cantrell to cut, in fear that a double album would have low commercial viability. As such, Cantrell has called the single-disc release the "Reader's Digest version" of Degradation Trip.