You're listening to Song Exploder,
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
I'm Rishikesh Hirway.
The band Converge formed in 1990 when its members were teenagers.
They've been making music that lives somewhere in the intersection of punk,
hardcore, and metal for almost 25 years.
Guitarist Kurt Ballew spoke to me from his studio,
God City, which is where Converge writes and records.
I also spoke over the phone with singer Jake Bannon.
Coming up, they'll talk about how the physical space of God City influenced their songwriting,
how the Boston hardcore scene gave them a home,
and how to get the classic Swedish death metal guitar tone.
Hi, this is Kurt Ballou from the band Converge.
I play guitar in the band, and I'm also a recording engineer,
and I recorded the majority of our most recent material.
The other members of Converge are Jake Bannon on vocals,
Nate Newton on bass, and Ben Kohler on drums.
Today we're going to talk about the song Dark Horse,
which is the first song on our 2009 album, Axe to Fall.
The guitar tracks on this song, I fall into this trap whenever I'm recording,