It’s one of the era-defining hit songs of the early ’90s, and it kicks off with a killer drum intro — but the drummer in question says he can’t really remember how that intro came to be.
Two Princes is the song that gave the Spin Doctors their biggest hit in 1992, reaching the top 10 in the US, the UK and several other territories, and going all the way to No.1 in Sweden and Iceland.
The success of Two Princes and another hit single, Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong, propelled the New York band’s debut album Pocket Full Of Kryptonite to sales in excess of five million in the US alone.
And when drummer Aaron Comess tells MusicRadar about the making of Two Princes, he describes it as very much a group effort.
The writing credit for the song was shared by the four members of the band — singer Chris Barron, Comess, guitarist Eric Schenkman and bassist Mark White.
But as Comess explains: “That’s a song that Chris Barron had written a few years before the band formed, although we did not play it until the band had been together for over a year.”
He adds. “It was also the first song the band recorded for Epic Records. Frank Aversa produced it, and we spent some time in pre-production working out the arrangement.
“Some important changes were made to it for recording that made all the difference.
“We brought the tempo back a bit from how we played it [originally]. It let the song breathe better — and it was more danceable.
“Eric [Schenkman] added that B minor chord that added colour to the progression and that great guitar hook. That added a lot to what was already a great song.”
But it was Comess himself who provided the signature intro for Two Princes.
“I honestly can’t remember how my drum fill intro came to be,” he says. “It just sort of developed and stuck.
“The stars aligned in the recording of that song. We recorded in the Power Station’s A Room in NYC — the best drum room in the world.”
As for how he got such a huge drum sound, Comess says: “I played a Brady drum set and a Brady piccolo snare drum. We compressed it a lot, going to tape, and had the room mics rocking in the mix.
“Peter Denenberg, who co-produced the bulk of the Pocket Full Of Kryptonite record, mixed the song and the album. I’m forever grateful to Peter and Frank for that drum sound.”
Interestingly, another early-’90s hitmaker was involved in Two Princes.
Says Comess: “Our good friend John Popper from Blues Traveler was hanging around one night and sang some background vocals on the end of the song.”
Popper was a high school friend of Chris Barron, and had played alongside Barron in a previous short-lived group named Trucking Company.
All these years later, Aaron Comess remains thankful for how Two Princes turned out.
“Having a great song is the most important thing,” he says. “As someone who has recorded many great songs with many different artists, I can tell you that often, the little subtle things make a song really stand out.
“It’s almost an unexplainable magic that has to happen,” he admits. “Who would have thought it would have turned into such a big song that is still around today? We are very grateful.”
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