SPWC

I was bored the other day and decided to flip randomly through the album booklet on Tri-Polar.

I noticed that Tom Pierce is credited with guitar work on the recording and someone named Dorian (Can't remember the last name) is credited with recording the drums. (Which I'm guessing means he played them but not 100% sure due to the wording.)
I was curious if anyone around here nows how much and what these guys played on for the album. I was quite surprised to find out the band didn't entierly record their own parts for the album.

Maybe it means they get credited for actually working the recording equipment and doing effects and editing for those parts?

Well the Tom Peirce person is a studio guitarist whos been around for 20 years, and if i remeber correctley is credited specifically for playing guitar. But as for the drum part you may be right.

Most studios keep "session musicians" on call, for a variety of reasons. Commonly bands will record, and during production/engineering/mixdown process they will need to re-track something. In many cases, bands fit recording into tight touring schedules and aren't available, so session guys (or gals) sit in.

This isn't uncommon at all - in fact, I would imagine virtually any album recorded in the last ten years or so (if not longer) has some of this going on. I've done a bit of session work myself in the Hampton Roads area, but not for anyone famous (yet).

Another common reason for having others credited on the album is because they had some sort of creative input during the production process and/or were used to "fill out" the track when the artist is (again) not available. Most music, especially rock/metal, has many more tracks (layers, if you'd rather) per song than musicians - it's overdubbed, punched in and out, etc - and it's sometimes more cost and time-effective for the bands to record the majority of a tune, and let session cats "fill out" the song during the production/mixdown process.

:shrug:

I also looked in the Dressed Up As Life album and that drummer engineer Dorian Crozier has also contributed drums for that album. I guess they give credit to those people cause they either contributed a drum beat or an idea.