Pete Yorn Punks It Up in the Studio With Frank Black

Pete Yorn was having lunch with an old friend from Columbia's A&R department, who told him he should record with Charles Thompson. Yorn was puzzled. He remembers asking, "Who's Charles Thompson?"

Thompson, of course, is better known to the world as Frank Black. Yorn was excited by the idea, but he didn't think it was a possibility. "I didn't think anything of it," Yorn told Spinner, "and then a couple of days later, he e-mailed me and he was like, 'Hey, man, let's make some music.' And I was like, "What?""

Yorn knew he was about to leave for Omaha to record with Mike Mogus; those sessions produced his 'Back and Fourth' album, which is out in June. Still, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to work with Black. "I had this idea in my mind that maybe we could do a quick, punk-rock-style [record]. Just go bash out some tunes, really raw."

Yorn and Black wound up in a studio in Salem, Ore., doing just that -- hashing out songs with an acoustic guitar in a hotel room. Black found a bunch of musicians and taught them the arrangements. The first day of recording, Yorn got the flu.

"I went in, and I was so sick, but I was like, I can't blow this opportunity, I just have to power through," Yorn says. "I only wanted to get five songs. We ended up recording, like, 10 songs in four days, just live. I was singing and standing right in front of the drum set. And he had players that learned the songs really quick, and he distilled the arrangements down. He's great at that."

Yorn is thrilled with the way the recordings came out, but with 'Back and Fourth' on its way, he's not sure when he'll be able to put it out. "I want to release it as soon as possible," says Yorn. "But I don't want to just throw it out there. I think it really deserves a good shot. I just need to wait for the window for that."