“I really loved what they were doing. They had a bit of the Mahavishnu Orchestra in them, they had country, and there was some funk, too, with songs like Ice Cakes. They were fascinating.

“Steve Morse is the greatest guitarist I have ever worked with. He has the chops of a John McLaughlin, and he can play just as many notes, but he knows when to do it and when to pull back. If a solo would work with one note, that’s what Steve would do.

“Rod [Morgenstein] is an amazing drummer, but he’s grunter – meaning he grunts when he plays. While we were recording, we heard these strange sounds on his takes. We went through mic after mic trying to find the problem, and finally we realized that the sounds were from Rod grunting when he played. We asked him to stop, but he couldn’t.

“For a lot of the tracks, we ended up putting gaffer’s tape over his mouth to quiet him down. But for Ice Cakes, we really liked what he was doing, so we gave him his own vocal mic.”