Gully Boys almost didn't make it to Pachyderm Studio. Drummer Nadirah McGill was sick with a nasty fever, and her bandmates Kathy Callahan and Natalie Klemond weren't sure about putting in the 45-minute drive from Minneapolis to Cannon Falls, Minn. But once the trio realized that the studio was the the Pachyderm Studio — the same studio that recorded artists from Babes in Toyland to Nirvana — they realized that they couldn't pass up the opportunity to check out the space (after they committed to recording there, McGill missed her high school reunion to record at Pachyderm).

In just three days, Gully Boys recorded their debut album, Not So Brave, at Pachyderm with engineer Nick Tveitbakk. While there, they sat on the same fireplace where Nirvana once posed for a photo and walked the same Cannon Falls streets as PJ Harvey. The Current Rewind producer Cecilia Johnson sat down with Gully Boys to talk about their experience at Pachyderm. We couldn't fit all of the interview into the episode, but you can hear their full conversation using the audio player above.

Cecilia Johnson: When did you guys get to Pachyderm?

Nadirah McGill: We got there Friday night and immediately started recording until 2 [a.m.], and then went to the house, which is wild. We went swimming in that house. It's so big.

Kathy Callahan: Yeah, there was a sauna too. We were in the sauna and a pool in the basement. There's very cool '70s carpet all over the house.

Nadirah McGill: It got renovated, but it got renovated to look like it did when it was built, so it looks still pretty '70s.

Kathy Callahan: We sat on the same spot as Kurt Cobain. There was this famous picture of the band. Where is it?

Nadirah McGill: It's in front of the fireplace.

Kathy Callahan: Yeah, it's in front of the fireplace and we were really excited to be there.

Did you have a lot of reverence for Nirvana and the other bands that had played there? Is that part of why you picked Pachyderm?

Kathy Callahan: We were introduced to Nick [Tveitbakk], and he's a really nice guy, and he set us up.

Natalie Klemond: It kind of just fell into our laps. We didn't really pick it.

Kathy Callahan: Right. We needed to record, and we already set up the release show, which was a mistake.

Nadirah McGill: We didn't have the release show yet.

Natalie Klemond: I think we did.

Nadirah McGill: No, we had the tour. We didn't have the release.

Kathy Callahan: It was the tour. We really needed to do it before the tour.

Nadirah McGill: It was really nice, because we had looked at a few places. The first time we recorded was at McNally [Smith College of Music], so not the complete opposite of Pachyderm, but Pachyderm is the place to go, and to start out at a college it was really intense. But Nick was super chill and made us feel like not the amateur babies we were when we went in there. And they went to go tour it — I didn't even get to tour it. I knew of it because the job I was working for, the person I was working for was a huge music head and I told him we were touring Pachyderm and he had like a heart attack. He was like, "Are you kidding me? That's amazing that you're even touring that place." So I did a whole bunch of research and realized it was the Pachyderm.

Kathy Callahan: We didn't think it was the Pachyderm, we were like, "No way."

Natalie Klemond: We're like, "Oh, it's all the way in Cannon Falls. We're really tired, we don't want to go."

Nadirah McGill: I had a fever of 108 and we're like, "Should we just cancel it?" I was like, "No, you all need to go and see it anyway."

Kathy Callahan: And we fell in love. That is for sure. We sent Nadirah some funny videos I'm pretty sure, where I was singing High School Musical in the background. The studio itself is crazy. They have the craziest drum set-up, too.

Nadirah McGill: Nick had this Frankenstein kit where he just had listened to — he had come to a few of our basement practice sessions and listened to our stuff, and then cocktailed this perfect drum kit from all the beautiful drums that they have at Pachyderm.

Kathy Callahan: You can hear it, too.

Nadirah McGill: It sounds amazing. I'd never heard —

Natalie Klemond: It definitely made a difference.

Nadirah McGill: I've never heard drums that well-recorded.

Kathy Callahan: I'm pretty like just hearing the drums at first we were teary-eyed. It was so incredible to hear out stuff like that.

Natalie Klemond: And we heard it on those amazing speakers.

Nadirah McGill: Yeah, the room where we listened to playbacks of we just recorded — I remember when we listened to "Dizzy Romantics," where we have that little cut and come back in, all of us were like — right in the feels.

Natalie Klemond: I was falling on the ground. Because it doesn't sound like anything when you're actually recording it. You have to listen to a click track.

Nadirah McGill: You have these little headphones on.

Natalie Klemond: And Kathy's in a separate room and it doesn't sound like anything, and then you go sit back there and it's like, "Oh, we're a band."

Nadirah McGill: And then he would give feedback in the best way. Like, "Do this like this, and you don't have to do it — I'm not telling you how to make your music, but if you change this it's going to sound like this."

Kathy Callahan: The opposite of mansplaining I would say.

Nadirah McGill: Man-suggesting. He's so intentional and takes the time to do the research about the people who are coming into the studio. And so even though we had only three songs online, he came in and talked to us and figured what we wanted. And we didn't really know, which was really fun that he was so patient working with us, because we had only recorded one time before. And so he allowed us to do live band recording, which, when you go to Pachyderm it's not necessarily common. But we had three days, so we had to work quick.

Kathy Callahan: We did one song in one take because we weren't really planning on recording it.

Nadirah McGill: It's like a heat of the moment of how well recording and how fun —

Kathy Callahan: And it was at the end too. We were like there's no time left, and was like, "Alright, you can do it in one take? Let's do it." And we did it. It sounded pretty good.

What song?

Nadirah McGill: "Sugar Scrub." That one almost didn't make the cut.

Kathy Callahan: Almost didn't make it in there.

Natalie Klemond: You can tell the vocals sound a little bit different because I think he just did them like —

Nadirah McGill: Yeah, we just stood in the open room.

Kathy Callahan: Yeah, it was really cool actually. We were each, based on how loud we sing and stuff, we were like far away from the mic. We just kind of like sang at it together and it was a really beautiful experience, actually.

Nadirah McGill: He knows that room so well, especially with vocals. We would go into the isolation room when you wanted isolated vocals and you had no reverb or anything, and then you would go into the main room and record, and you could hear the spaciness and how full it was, and he would line you perfectly where you needed to stand in the room so it would bounce off the walls perfectly.

Kathy Callahan: Yeah, how did he know?

Nadirah McGill: It's a science that I envy.

Kathy Callahan: He's also very patient with everything. I easily get frustrated with guitar stuff or like vocals. I'm just like a hothead or something, and he would just kind of calm me down by suggesting some different thing instead of acknowledging that I needed a break. He was like, "Why don't you just push through and do it one more time, and it'd be the better take."

That's hardcore.

Kathy Callahan: Yeah, it really is.

What did you think about Cannon Falls, the town itself? Did you even get to —

Nadirah McGill: A little bit. We went and got pizza out in — it wasn't even pizza. We got ice cream and went to that restaurant, and for some reason it was a really bustling day and everywhere had a super long wait, and there was a wedding going on.

Natalie Klemond: We just wanted like a sandwich or something.

Nadirah McGill: It was hard to find.

Natalie Klemond: Something very basic. It was like, "Oh no, we got to go."

Nadirah McGill: But it was really fun, because I was thinking about it. Minneapolis, you expect to see musicians everywhere, whereas in Cannon Falls it has that small town vibe, and it was funny for me to think like PJ Harvey walking around Cannon Falls.

Kathy Callahan: That was funny. Like a sore thumb.

Nadirah McGill: Yeah exactly, just the context. And I already felt like I stood out walking around there. I was like, "This is small town for sure."

Kathy Callahan: We look like artists.

Like if you have any hair dye going on, or leather jackets.

Nadirah McGill: Or like a piercing — you're standing out. Love Cannon Falls, though. Whoever listens to this from Cannon Falls: great place.

Kathy Callahan: Very pretty.

Natalie Klemond: Yeah, it was really pretty.

Nadirah McGill: It's gorgeous. It's like in the woods. In the recording — there's like that huge window. Did it rain?

Natalie Klemond: I think it rained one of the days, but there was one point when we took a break and we went and got to walk outside, and there was a creek way far back.

Kathy Callahan: He told us that people would get married back there. It was really beautiful.

Nadirah McGill: And the house itself has this huge deck that you can just go sit out and be calm. It's a beautiful house. It's a place where you write a cabin album for sure. I think it also just helps — a change of scene.

Natalie Klemond: There's not very much cell service either.

Nadirah McGill: It's like, you're going to do this and you're going to not do anything else. It was really funny though because it was like 11 different rooms and we all slept in the same room.

Kathy Callahan: It was really cute. We had a little sleepover. Also it was funny, I took one of the crickets home that was in the basement on accident.

How did you take it home?

Kathy Callahan: I don't know. I opened my bag and there he was. I should've named him.

Nadirah McGill: You should've brought him to the city — made him a city grasshopper. City cricket.

Kathy Callahan: City boy.

The Cricket in Times Square is a book for real. That was one of my favorite books when I was a kid.

Nadirah McGill: You did it.

Kathy Callahan: That's a really cute idea. Yeah, I wrote that book, actually. Based on a true story.

How come you all slept in the same room? Just to hang out?

Natalie Klemond: I think we were just hanging out, and fell asleep.

Kathy Callahan: Separation anxiety.

Natalie Klemond: I think we went down a YouTube rabbit hole for like three hours.

Nadirah McGill: We laid on one beanbag together. It's funny — when we first got there we were like, "I'm sleeping in this room," and then when it was time for bed we were like, "Alright, we're all going to sleep in this room. Kathy and I are going to share a bed, even though there are like eight beds."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems like the vibe in normal life too. When you're just hanging out together you're just like close.

Natalie Klemond: We spend most of our practices just talking.

Nadirah McGill: Just talking — that's what we were practicing.

Kathy Callahan: We just have to catch up, "Hey, I haven't seen you since yesterday. Read this text I got. Oh my god." We have a lot to say.

Natalie Klemond: We text all day long, too.

Nadirah McGill: All day long. I was thinking about that. We're good buds.

Kathy Callahan: That's cute. Love you.

Would you go back to Pachyderm?

Nadirah McGill: Oh yeah.

Kathy Callahan: We were just talking about how much we love each other again.

Nadirah McGill: Pachyderm — we want to go back there. It's just like we want to make sure we can afford it because it's worth the money.

Natalie Klemond: It kind of sucked to rush it. It would've been nice to have a whole week.

Kathy Callahan: Oh my gosh, I would do anything for that.

Nadirah McGill: We really set the bar high for ourselves in terms of quality recording for our first album.

Seriously, it's like right out of the gate we went to Pachyderm. I remember reading about Not So Brave when it was coming out, and I was like, "Yeah!"

Kathy Callahan: We were afraid too. We were like, "Do we live up to Pachyderm?"

Nadirah McGill: We put our name next to that? I don't know.

I'd say yes, for sure.

Kathy Callahan: I think Nick acts like he was pretty proud about it.

Can you tell me about the pool?

Nadirah McGill: The pool is so fun. It doesn't make any sense.

Kathy Callahan: We were having existential crises in the pool because we're like, "Wait, we just did that. We just recorded where Nirvana and P.J. — they were there. We were there. Whoa."

Nadirah McGill: We were just floating there and like, "Can you believe we just started as a band and now we're at Pachyderm and now I'm going to cry and all this overwhelming feeling?"

Natalie Klemond: And you're in a pool. The womb of Pachyderm.

Nadirah McGill: It was fun. It was weird to be able to go swimming inside. Was it August?

Natalie Klemond: It was cold. It was late June.

Nadirah McGill: That's right, because I missed my high school reunion to go to Pachyderm. That's the best decision of my life.

You should've like Skyped in and been like, "Well —"

Nadirah McGill: Sorry, I'm at Pachyderm, I can't come. I'm busy.

If you could steal any room from that place — studio or house — what would it be?

Kathy Callahan: The sound booth was so cool.

Nadirah McGill: There's big couches you could just lay —

Kathy Callahan: Big like vintage gold velvet couches and all the colors in there.

Nadirah McGill: And the carpet. You can't wear shoes in there.

Kathy Callahan: What's the name of the guy who was the original —

John Kuker?

Kathy Callahan: Yeah. Nick talked about how he picked out all the colors specifically, and the light bulbs have little strips of color around them that are really like — each one's a different color, and I guess he picked out all of those. It's like a really pleasing color palette.

He talked about his experiences there with him and it just sounds very heartfelt. It sounds like he always keeps him in mind when he's recording, like he's like, "I'm going to make him proud with this." He definitely does that.

Natalie Klemond: I think he mentioned that John would've really like us, which was like, "Oof. Ouch."

Nadirah McGill: That hurted.

Kathy Callahan: Yeah, that hurted a lot.

Nadirah McGill: It was very cute.

Kathy Callahan: Also he would randomly tell us stories as we were using equipment or whatever. He was like, "You know that piano right next to you? "Closing Time.""

Nadirah McGill: Every time Kathy needed to tune we'd be like [sings] tuning time. And then he'd be like, "Fun fact; turn around. That piano, that's where that song was played and recorded."

Natalie Klemond: He did that like multiple times with different things. We were like, "Are you lying? You're just making this up. You're lying. Are you a pathological liar?"

Sounds like a great career to be in if you just do want to a lie about famous people all day.

Nadirah McGill: That's true. Just say anything — like we're at Pachyderm, so okay.

Kathy Callahan: He said something about Johnny Marr smoking weed or something like that. I don't know. I don't remember. But I was like, "What? You hung out with Johnny Marr? Of course you did."

This interview is a bonus feature of The Current Rewind, a brand-new podcast putting music's unsung stories on the map.