Producing an Album For the First Time: Part III–Style’s Substance

We live in a world that’s largely driven by the notion of style over substance and, to me, that’s pretty sad.  That said, that’s not really what this is about.  This is about what substance your style brings to the table, especially when you’re working with something that isn’t necessarily your style.
A little more opaque, this morning, with this entry, it would seem, allow me to clarify.  The artist in question can be described as an acoustic, Irish, rebel rock musician.  I can be described as a heavy metal, sometimes acoustic musician.  While an unlikely pairing, there are more similarities than I really thought, at first.  His musicianship and delivery bridge the gap, quite nicely, and I can appreciate the “slower stuff,” too.  It’s what we bring to the table and it’s what colors our views.  Learning to understand when it was just my “metal sensibilities” taking over and when it was something that would benefit the song was an slow process, mainly because there had to be an understanding that it was happening.  You also learn how much you appreciate listening to other styles of music when you can switch gears between them.
The most prominent example of this comes from a song that might get put into a “building a monster” entry, sometime later.  It’s been the most technically challenging track to nail down of any that I’ve dealt with.  Now, as a rookie, that doesn’t leave many – just all the other tracks on the album and then all the previous ones that I’ve practiced on in the past.  So, with that, the song grew from a jangly attitude song to a freaking beast over the course of recording.  Naturally, the metalhead in me screamed for a serious thickening underneath it all with double bass drums, pounding bass, vocal doubling ( or more!) and some effects on the violin to make it scream.  This, my friends, would make an even more gigantic mess than what have 26 tracks already makes, especially when 3 instruments are all fighting for the same frequencies – bagpipes, guitar and violin.
So, I had to step back and listen to some songs that brought those instruments together and get more in that mindset.  What it helped with, more than anything, was placement.  More on that in a later entry, but needless to say, when it comes to “wall of sound,” metal has a pretty good bead on it – though, not a corner on the market, as this song proves.  Still, letting the song be an Irish Rebel Rock song and not a slightly acoustic metal song was a challenge for me because of my “style,” but I couldn’t let my “style” run over the obvious, power substance of this track. 
We all bring our own style to everything we do.  I’ve learned that the wisdom is when to let the style take a backseat to the substance at hand and let it have the spotlight.