Category Archives: A to Z of Making It

A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Change Is Slow But Evolving

In Australia, an unsigned band, charted very high, purely on digital sales and streams.

There was no marketing budget and they trumped artists on major deals.

And yes, they did move physical product, however the game is rigged by the big legacy players who set rules in place a long time ago to control the game. In turn, those rules meant that the online store of the unsigned band (which is Polaris by the way) that was selling the CD with no bar code meant that the physical sales couldn’t be tracked and therefore didn’t count towards their chart position. Talk about a technicality.

So what does this tell us?

  • There is so much more power in the hands of the fans than ever before.
  • If fans listen to their favourite artist via a streaming service, it all adds up.
  • If fans purchase their mp3’s via a digital service, it all adds up.
  • The media can publish reports about artists slamming streaming services. Meanwhile the fans move on to what is convenient. Some will purchase, some will download illegally, some will stream for free and some will stream on a premium subscription. The bottom line is fragmentation.
  • There is no difference between an EP and a full album anymore. As an artist you don’t want to be out of the market for too long, crafting this magnum opus, only to see it drop out of the conversation, weeks after its release. 10 songs every two years, doesn’t cut it anymore. Four songs every 3 months should be the new norm. All of the Classic Rock bands from Seventies, released an album each year and in some cases two albums.
  • There is a connection with their fans. The band distributed the album out of their bedrooms and sent out each pre-order with hand written messages to the fans.
  • If Polaris, keep this momentum going and if they keep on replenishing their fan base, the possibilities are endless.
  • There is no sure thing in music. Just because you have a label deal, it doesn’t mean you will make it. Just because you are an independent artist and unsigned it doesn’t mean you will get a deal or even get noticed.
  • Everyone involved in the recording industry are still clueless. The labels still have no idea what constitutes a hit or what they should sign and promote. No one saw Adele coming six years ago, or Five Finger Death Punch almost ten years ago. No one expected Mumford and Sons to move millions upon millions of product or Shinedown and Thirty Seconds To Mars to be consistent sellers.

See how the media is trumpeting Adele again and how she has sold 8 million albums in the U.S. Every news outlet is reporting.

Big deal.

Whitesnake sold 7 million plus on the U.S on their 1987 self-titled album. It doesn’t mean those same 7 million people are now listening to the album over and over and over again. Poison sold millions upon millions of albums between 1987 and 1994. It doesn’t mean they have millions upon millions of real fans. If they did, they would be playing arena’s and creating new music. Instead Poison is resigned to an opening act that plays the jukebox hits.

Some might say that the success of “Polaris” is a one-off. Back in August, another metalcore band from Australia called, “Northlane” actually topped the ARIA Album charts, beating out Lamb Of God among others. This band was signed to an independent label from Melbourne and Rise Records in the US.

But in saying that, how relevant are the charts these days.

In most cases, bands that chart in the Australia Top 10 have moved less than 10,000 in product.  It’s because the old guard still focuses on sales as the main metric of success and bands still like to report their chart position like it means something. Once upon a time it did, but not in 2016.

So again, it comes back to the same old question.

Are people listening to the music?

That is the metric that matters. Listens, not sales. I listened to Polaris on Spotify and I don’t mind them. For a metalcore band there is a lot of competition for people’s attention. In the same way the early Nineties had way too many hard/melodic rock bands, the two thousands and ten period is littered with a lot of metalcore bands. Eventually only a handful will survive the cull when it happens. It’s the way of the business.

Bon Jovi’s “What About Now” charted at Number 1.

Black Sabbath’s “13” also charted at Number 1.

And if I ask fans of the band to name me all of the songs on each album without referring to the album in the exact chronological order, they would struggle.

Hell, none of the songs are even in the Top 5 Popular List on their streaming accounts. Which is very different to Five Finger Death Punch’s account, which has three songs from their most recent album in the Top 5 Popular List.

And that is why Five Finger Death Punch still move product. They are constant on Active Rock Radio, their music is being listened too and as a by-product they keep on selling.

Change is slow but evolving.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

What Does A Million In Sales Mean?

It may be a long way to the top, but it’s even harder staying there. A lot of artists talk about the glory days, of selling a million plus albums and “having success”. They are loved and they are all over the press and magazines. Then their “fanbase” based on sale metrics move on and suddenly, the record label is not returning their calls.

Dokken, Ratt, Warrant, Poison, Love/Hate, Slaughter, White Lion, Anthrax, WASP, MSG, Stryper and Yngwie Malmsteen come to mind.

It doesn’t matter what artists did in the past. If their new album isn’t getting played on radio, (not Pandora Radio, actual DJ programmed Radio) then it’s the hard sell of the road for them. And if they don’t have the means and the smarts to hit the road, then it’s even a harder sell.

Y&T is still cleaning up on the road, despite never being on the covers of the magazines, or darlings of MTV or even having a number one mainstream hit. It’s because they are a band made outside the record label system. It was all about touring and gaining fans, city by city, state by state, country by country. Add to that list Tesla.

You notice that the acts that continue to sell and have high streams are constant on radio.

Shinedown, Five Finger Death Punch, Pop Evil, Disturbed and Seether have the top 5 songs on Active Rock Radio right now in the U.S. As a by-product of the radio play, the bands are moving product. Volbeat is another that continues to sell.

This is what Nikki Sixx meant. He saw no point in Motley Crue spending time writing and releasing an album, when Active Rock Radio would just ignore it and the Classic Rock stations would just play the old Crue songs.

Radio was never the be all and end all. The best bands developed slowly. No classic rock band was an overnight sensation. The MTV era, killed off a lot of bands by setting the expectation that all of the artists it played had millions upon millions of fans. MTV video clips sold advertisements. As a byproduct records got sold as well. That led to recorded music revenue.

Recorded music revenue, never got to the bands. Sure the bands got advances to record their albums and they probably felt like rock and roll stars during it, but the truth is the $500K advance or even the $1MIL advance, (that had to be paid back anyway) pales to the revenue the record label got in return. If an album sold a million copies at say $10 gross; that is $10 million in gross sales. Of course some of it would be kept by the record store, some of it by the manufacturers of the LP and all the rest would go to the label and somehow the band would still be in debt.

When Bon Jovi started writing the songs for “Slippery When Wet”, Jon and Richie were still living with their parents and had a million dollar debt to the label, even though they had two albums certified “Gold”. Pretty glamorous right.

In 1987, White Lion released their second album and their first on a major label, “Pride”. It had the single “Wait”, which on release did nothing. It was followed by “Tell Me” which also did nothing. However, the band was still on tour, opening up for Frehley’s Comet, Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne, Kiss, AC/DC and Stryper. It was during this touring cycle that “Wait” started to get some serious MTV rotation, seven months after it was released. Hot on the heels of “Wait” climbing the charts, the label released “When The Children Cry” which ended up pushing the “Pride” album into the two million mark. “All You Need Is Rock ‘N’ Roll” followed and the White Lion tour in support of the album, ended in August 1988. High fives all around. Vito was in every guitar magazine and Mike Tramp was posing in every other magazine. Pretty glamorous right.

By August the following year, “Big Game” was released. The album went Gold right off the bat, based from the goodwill that “Pride” created. The band went from 2 million U.S sales to 500K US Sales. “Little Fighter” didn’t catch on, nor there cover of “Radar Love”. “Cry for Freedom” is one of their best songs, however it looks like their serious subject matter about Apartheid just didn’t resonate with the hard rock community. “Goin’ Home Tonight” also came out as a single and disappeared quickly. The band toured, however as Vito Bratta stated in his Eddie Trunk interview, the songs just didn’t resonate with the audiences. The Monsters of Rock bill that had “White Lion” sandwiched between other bands sealed the deal in Vito’s mind that they needed to go back and write some real rock songs. The downward spiral was starting. Vito still had the Guitar covers but he was questioning how to write a “hit” as the label asked them to do. Pretty glamorous right.

So White Lion took a million bucks and went away to write and record their fourth album, “Mane Attraction”. It came out in 1991 and six months later it was all over. It received no radio play. The real fans of the band loved it. But the band wanted the 2 million fans from “Pride”. The label wanted 4 million fans. As I’ve mentioned before, a lot of the casual listeners like songs more than they like the artist, especially songs that crossover. “Wait” and “When The Children Cry” crossed over and fans of other genres picked up the album. It didn’t mean that White Lion had 2 million loyal listeners. So fast forward to 1991 and White Lion can’t even move, 500K units on their new album. Actually they get nowhere near that figure. They are seen as a failure.

“Love Don’t Come Easy” didn’t sell the message of the new listening public. “Lights and Thunder” came out and no one knew what the hell Mike Tramp meant when he sang, “There’ll be lights and thunder”. The re-recorded version of the band’s debut single “Broken Heart”, also didn’t resonate with the listeners at large. Atlantic Records dropped them not long after.

Once you’re in the spiral vortex, it is not easy to get out off it. And the audience, like it or not, always gravitates to what is successful. Tastes change and moods change. Life becomes complicated. The thing is when an album doesn’t outdo it’s predecessor, it’s labelled a flop. And no one, even the record label can understand why. Once upon a time, the label would probably go for another album to see what happens. Today, as soon as it starts going wrong, no one from the label hangs around. They move on.

So what does the artist do?

They doubt their creative process, quit the business or soldier on for a few more years. But the lifers go on forever.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Second Comings

Music history is littered with artists having second or even third careers after their original claim to fame band splintered.

In some cases, artists re-invent themselves and the music they write. In other cases, artists just continue to write what they normally write, in the same genre and experience a second coming.

Like David Grohl and his little pet project called “The Foo Fighters” which today is one of the biggest rock bands around. Like, Ozzy Osbourne who went from Black Sabbath to a solo career and surrounded himself with excellent songwriters in Randy Rhoads, Bob Daisley, Jake E. Lee, Zakk Wylde and the mighty Lemmy Kilmister. Like Rob Trujilo who went from Suicidal Tendancies to Ozzy Osbourne to Metallica. Like Nikki Sixx who did Motley Crue and Sixx A.M at the same time and now is exclusively focusing on Sixx AM.

Dave Mustaine from Metallica to Megadeth
Mustaine is one of the many unsung heroes who pushed thrash metal guitar playing to new levels. His influence on Metallica cannot be underestimated. The songs “Call Of Ktulu”, “Ride The Lightning”, “Phantom Lord” and “Metal Militia” all brought in a certain technicality to the thrash world that was different from just playing metal at break neck speeds. The foundations that these songs set up would reach its zenith with the “…And Justice For All” album for Metallica and with Megadeth, he would reach that lofty height with the classic “Rust In Peace”. The first true Metallica album for me without any strands of influence from Mustaine is their biggest one to date, “1991’s self-titled “Black” album.

If Metallica are recognised as Hall of Famers, then Dave Mustaine is a must to be included on his own merits and technical song writing contribution to the world of thrash metal.

Marc Tremonti from Creed to Alter Bridge to Tremonti
Tremonti is a guitar hero, as good as any of the Eighties shredders. He had multi-platinum success with Creed, an act that was devoid of guitar solos and lumped in with the Nu-Metal, Alternative Rock scene. It brought out the haters, jealous that a person who could shred, didn’t shred. In the end, people live and breathe on the songs they write, not on the guitar solos they write and Tremonti has built a consistent legacy. The pinnacle of his career in my eyes would be when his second act, Alter Bridge played the Wembley Arena.

Here is a band that doesn’t have any platinum awards. In the past only platinum acts would be booked to play the Wembley Arena. It goes to show if people have access to your music, they will pay eventually. Spotify and streaming in general is very popular in the UK, so is it any surprise that Alter Bridge sold out the Wembley Arena.

Amir Derakh from Rough Cutt to Orgy to various soundtracks to guitar designer and Producer
This re-invention or second coming is one of the more special ones. In the majority of cases, artists go from one band to another and play the same style of music within the same era. In this case, Amir went from a hard rock band into an alternative industrial metal band.

“Rough Cutt” was a hard rock pet project by Wendy Dio. Even Ronnie appeared as a co-writer on a few songs. They had Tom Allom and Jack Douglas produce album number 1 and number 2 respectively, but they never caught on. Shortino would leave to join Quiet Riot and that would be the end of the band.

Many years later the industrial rock band Orgy would break through.

Apart from Orgy and Rough Cutt, he was involved in releases by Coal Chamber, Spineshank, Danzig, Julien-K and Dead By Sunrise. From a soundtrack point of view, Amir has been involved with Strangeland, Bridge Of Chucky, Scream 3, Zoolander, Freaky Friday, Sonic Heroes, Transformers, Underworld and many others. Like Marc Ferrari, he never was on the cover of magazines, but it doesn’t mean he wasn’t successful in what he did. He’s had a longer career in the music business than a lot of the platinum stars of the Eighties.

Jack Blades from Rubicon to Night Ranger to Damn Yankees to Shaw/Blades to a solo career, back to Night Ranger and Revolution Saints
Tommy Shaw from Styx to a solo career to Damn Yankees to Shaw/Blades to a solo career and back to Styx
Ted Nugent from The Amboy Dukes to a solo career to Damn Yankees and back to a solo career

Damn Yankees were huge. As a super group, they really lived up to the hype and the name. It was no frills classic rock, with a modern pop twist. It was removed from the hair and glam metal at the time. It was a project that was able to stand on its own two feet and build on the foundations of the three creative forces in the group.

There is no escaping Jack Blades commitment to having a career in the music business. He tasted limited success with Rubicon in the 70’s, hit MTV stardom with Night Ranger in the early 80’s and by the late 80’s and early 90’s, he furthered his career with Damn Yankees. Add to that, the song writing partnership he struck up with Tommy Shaw. Their songs would grace albums from Aerosmith, Vince Neil, Ozzy Osbourne and Cher.

The mighty Nuge is a constant on the live circuit. That is how he made his money in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties and that is how he is still making his money. You don’t see the Nuge worry about piracy. As far as he is concerned, the more people who hear his music equals a bigger pool of people who could come to his shows.

Joe Leste from Bang Tango to Beautiful Creatures
DJ Ashba from Bullet Boys to Beautiful Creatures to Sixx A.M. and Guns N Roses live guitarist

Joe Leste had minor success with “Someone Like You” from Bang Tango’s debut album “Psycho Café”. “Dancin’ On Coals” was a much better album, but it just didn’t sell. By 1995, the band split up. By 1999, Joe Leste formed Beautiful Creatures with DJ Ashba and had the same level of success as he did with Bang Tango. From 2003, Bang Tango is still going with a revolving door of musicians. There is actually a Bang Tango movie coming out or it’s already out.

Beautiful Creatures claim to fame is the licensing of their songs to various movies and television shows, like Smallville and Sons Of Anarchy. They had a major label deal with Warner Bros. Then the merger happened between Time Warner and AOL and Beautiful Creatures suddenly had no record deal.

DJ Ashba on the other hand has gone on to bigger and better things. He was a solo artist to begin with, then he joined Bullet Boys in the late nineties, when no one even cared if the band existed. Then he was in Beautiful Creatures for two years, went solo and hooked up with Nikki Sixx. Along with James Michael, they have become a force to be reckoned with in the song writing world. They have written songs for Marion Raven, Drowning Pool, the whole “Saints Of Los Angeles” album, James Durbin, The Last Vegas plus their own project Sixx A.M. Add to the list a lucrative spot in Guns N Roses as one of their live guitarists and you can see why life is good for DJ Ashba.

There are many more who have changed and moved on to greater things or long careers. Some others that come to mind quickly are;

John Sykes went from Tygers Of Pan Tang to Thin Lizzy to Whitesnake to Blue Murder to Sykes to a Thin Lizzy tribute band and back to a solo career.

Ronnie James Dio went from Elf to Rainbow to Black Sabbath to a solo career and back to Black Sabbath, which would morph into Heaven And Hell.

Vivian Campbell went from Savage to Dio to Whitesnake to Def Leppard.

Gary Moore went from Thin Lizzy to a solo career.

Slash went from Guns N Roses to Slash’s Snakepit to Slash with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators and now back to Guns N Roses.

George Lynch went from Dokken to Lynch Mob to George Lynch to Lynch/Pilson to Sweet and Lynch to Shadowtrain to Souls Of We and always stepping back into the Lynch Mob scene.

There are many more.

This could come as a shock to all of the kids forming bands and recording songs in their own studios. There is a pretty good chance that the people you are making music with right now, will not be the same people you will make music with, years later. That’s just how it the music business rolls.

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Vito Bratta – Lady Of The Valley

By mid-eighties, hard rock was king. White Lion, who were on Atlantic, was huge, and then they disappeared.

You see after “Pride” broke through, Bratta and Tramp tried to duplicate it’s success. And it didn’t happen.

Somewhere the formula and mindsets that wrote “Pride” was lost. As a fan, I have a lot of respect for “Big Game” and “Mane Attraction”. In my mind they are better albums than “Pride”, however “Pride” had the songs that crossed over in “Wait” and “When The Children Cry”. It’s a debate that can be had over and over again. Which album is better?

In ’87 and ’88 you could not escape the band’s music. It started with “Wait”, which dominated rock radio and MTV for a while and then came “When The Children Cry”. It all seemed so DERIVATIVE! But I was interested in the band because of what Bratta did musically with those two songs.

And I was surprised at how much head banging music was on “Pride” after I purchased it. Like “Lady In The Valley”. At 6 minutes and 36 seconds. The B-side to the hit single, “When The Children Cry”.

Vito Bratta is more famous for “Wait,” but this song is as great. It’s a great live song. Musically, it is one of my favourite cuts from Vito Bratta. It is a metal tour de force. Once again, it’s about the feel, completely different from the work of the Eighties glam acts and if you don’t know this song, stay the full 5 minutes and enjoy.

Intro:
0.00 to 0.13
The pedal point D note over a D5 power chord and embellished with a legato hammer on and pull off lick, is brilliant. As a guitarist, there is always so much to learn from studying the way Vito applied his abilities to the song. Each riff of his was unique due to decorating each passage with palm muted arpeggios, legato pull offs and hammer on or just plain old alternate picking/tapping.

0.13 to 0.46
The intro transitions into a power chord groove with a simple and sing along lead break.

He basically took the live playing from Randy Rhoads on the “Tribute” album and blended it in with all of his other influences to come up with something unique. I never saw Vito as a Van Halen clone. I saw Vito as Vito, taking the best of his influences and making something unique out of it. Sort of like how Steve Jobs did with his Apple products.

Verse/Pre Chorus:
0.46 to 2.08
Dm, C, F, Gm
The acoustic guitar is so simple, anybody could write it and play it. The way Bratta plays it and phrases the arpeggio, it’s so HYPNOTIC!. That’s the difference between good and great.

Lyrically, only Tramp knows of the mystical message he is trying to convey. Is he talking about “Lady Mary” or the lady of the lake from the King Arthur stories, or just a lady of the valley that he knew.

There is a distorted like Pre-Chorus that comes in and then it’s back to the verse again.

Chorus:
2.09 to 2.33
Dm – C – B flat – F – C

And then comes the change back to the Intro that nobody does anymore. Then it goes into a lead break.

At 3.44 the song transitions into the ballad feel of the verses. But this time, when Vito kicks in with the lead break at the 4.40 mark, you need more. And more comes in. It gets louder, there’s another guitar and the song builds up.

Then it drops again at 5.12. Vito plays the Chorus riff, this time with an acoustic guitar.

At 5.26, there is silence for a second and the whole band comes in, distortion kicks in and the chorus is played with a new intensity.

“In the night I cry to the lady of the valley”

The repetition of the vocal line with the backing vocals, you cannot help but sing along.

The way “Lady In The Valley” moves from section to section, makes you sit up and give it your complete attention. It’s not something that plays in the background and can be ignored.

After hearing this song, i was asking the question, how can I get my hands on a song transcription to learn his leads. This was an era where we had to buy to learn, where knowledge was locked behind payment mechanisms.

“Lady In The Valley” sounds so different from what people play today.

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

1982 – Part 2 – The Day Of The Rock-Rock-Rock-Rocker

Twisted Sister – Under The Blade
In April 1982, Twisted Sister landed a contract with UK punk-rock label Secret Records.

In June 1982, the group released its first EP, “Ruff Cuts”, with Toni Petri on drums. A.J Pero joined soon after. This was followed in September with “Under the Blade”, produced by Pete Way of UFO and featuring a guest appearance of “Fast” Eddie Clarke on the very sounding Motorhead song “Tear It Loose”.

I will go out on a limb here and say that “Under The Blade” was an inspiring metal album for a legion of death and black metallers.

With all things musical, Secret Records then goes into bankruptcy. However it gave the TS machine enough momentum to appear on “The Tube” (they paid $22K for the appearance) which in turn led to Atlantic Records Europe approaching the band and signing them. Plus who can forget the support of the mighty Lemmy (RIP), who introduced the band at certain gigs in the UK.

I purchased the remixed re-release by Atlantic Records many years later, after I purchased “Come Out And Play”. “Under The Blade” is a classic album from a well- seasoned live unit. All of the songs are designed and meant for the stage.

The opening track “What You Don’t Know (Sure Can Hurt You)” is a perfect example of a song designed for the live arena. Make sure you listen to the 5.32 version from the original. It’s better and it’s raw and gritty, just like Rock and Roll should be.

It’s that screechy, whiny, thin guitar intro that sets the tone and the way Dee Snider sings “Good Evening” with all the bravado of a circus MC, sounds like something dangerous is about to happen.

Good evening! Ha ha ha, welcome to our show

The welcoming line into the Twisted Sister world. I was intrigued.

Hit it! We’re no overnight sensation, no Cinderella fantasy
Please no plaudits or ovations, I’ve heard it all before you see

Bon Scott sang “It’s A Long Way To The Top, If You Want To Rock And Roll” and Twisted Sister is living proof of that journey. Indie bands are a common term for cool these days and there is no one more cooler than the TS Machine. For an indie band, they were way ahead of their time. Bands these days, with the world at their fingertips are unable to connect with people like the TS machine of old.

In the longer cut, the solo is extended at the 3.34 mark. It’s more melodic and it definitely grabs me.

How do you like it so far, say ain’t we quite a show?
There’s no one else quite like us, the others all get up and go

An intermission in a song is a brilliant piece of song writing.

“Bad Boys Of Rock N Roll” is the glam rock of Slade and Sweet cranked to eleven.

So we look kind of weird to you, well, how do you look to me?

You can just imagine how the TS look went over as the musical climate shifted from glam rock in the early Seventies to Punk and Disco in the late Seventies to New Wave in the Early Eighties.

Bad boys of rock ‘n’ roll
How bad can a bad boy be if he sets you free?

It’s about people who judge and condemn you while also enjoying what you have to offer.

So you say we’re offending you, what’s wrong, is it something we said?

Dee Snider doesn’t get enough respect. He was a spokesperson for a generation. Twisted Sister’s music was sold by the message in the songs. How different from today where everybody just oversells.

How heavy and doomy is “Run For Your Life”?

My favourite cut from the album! It’s all about the groove. The verse riff has the feel and power of AC/DC’s “Let There Be Rock”.

Through abused intentions
You misused my trust
Now’s the time for redemption
You’d better run for your life

It’s the embryo of “Burn In Hell” that came after.

“Sin After Sin” is a metal classic in the same vein as Judas Priest.

I had to hear this to remember it.

Funny how something so dated sounds so modern, especially around the lyrical message.

The lie you’ve been leading
Has you up to here in sin
You never like to think about it
Now you just can’t win

In today’s “Facebook” culture, everyone is putting their lives out there, for the whole world to stalk. But just how perfect and true are those photographs and those stories that people put up. Hell, when the GFC happened, all the banks lies got exposed, Ponzi schemes from Madoff got exposed and every single financial lie that was told was exposed.

You’re committing
Sin after sin

When you start with one lie, you are bound to tell another lie and then another, until you are so far removed from the truth, you don’t even know what the truth is anymore.

“Shoot Em Down” is classic AC/DC style of rock. Dee Snider showed respect to his influences, taking the attitude and intensity of glam rock and heavy metal and making it his own. Soon all of us would have the same attitude.

How heavy is “Destroyer”?

This one is the style of Judas Priest.

Anthrax with Jon Bush on vocals covered it for the Twisted Forever disc in the mid-nineties and down tuned it even more. It sounded Pantera like. Brutal.

He spent his life
A silent sentinel
For all to fear
He walks, he talks, he thinks, he feels,
But no one dare go near

Destroyer, Destroyer, Destroyer
He’s in town

When I was young, I thought it was impossible to get old. And now that i am older, my viewpoints mean nothing to the young ones, with their youth and know it all attitude. Exactly the same way I was when I was their age.

Although Dee is singing about some being like the maker/undertaker who is coming to collect, the lyrics to me have a meaning about getting old and how when you get old, no one gives a crap about you and about what you have to say.

“Under The Blade” has this haunting/metallised “Friday on Your Mind” vibe in the intro. That’s the power of music, it sets a mood instantly, and then it goes into overdrive.

You can’t escape from the bed you’ve made

Many years later, Dee Snider said the song is about him going “Under the Blade” for a surgery, however the lyrics definitely paint a picture of a person cornered in the alley way and then stabbed in their side. It’s pretty graphic and the scene setting lyrics are brilliant. But that lyric, “You Can’t Escape From The Bed You Made” is it. You drive drunk, there is no escape from the bed that you made. You scheme and steal, there is no escape from the bed you made.

“Tear It Loose” is a more commercial sounding “Overkill’ from Motorhead merged with a rockabilly drumming feel in the verses. The funny thing is, I never dug “Tear It Loose” back then but it resonates with me now more than the other songs. It’s all about the message in the lyrics, the double bass drumming, the riffs and I’m banging my head to it.

There ain’t no way I’m gonna wait for Saturday Night
I worked all day, I slaved away, I gotta set it right

That is what music gave me. A release; a place away from the normal grind. While Loverboy was singing “Working For The Weekend”, the TS beast was working for the night. Every minute is precious, so enjoy it.

Gonna tear it, gonna tear it loose
Gonna shout it from the roof
Blast my way into the night
I’m gonna live my dream, shout and scream!

Tear it loose doesn’t mean to destroy things as some people believe. It means to break away from someone or something. It could be anything, a job, a relationship, an ideal in your mind, a bad situation, and so forth. Or in some cases, it just means to break shit.

I’ve been brutalized, computerized, punched in and punched out
Here comes the night and it just ain’t right to be shut in or shut out
So I’m breaking down the barricades, gonna slow the hands of time
Cause to waste away the rest of the day is such a f***ing crime!

Kids from the Nineties don’t understand the clock cards. It’s a different world and in my view a better one. Time is short, don’t waste it. You are a short time alive and a long time dead. As Bon Jovi said, he’ll sleep when he is dead.

“Day Of The Rocker” is a foot stomper. The main riff is a cross between AC/DC and “The Strippers Anthem” while the verses have a bass feel from “Heaven And Hell”. But the vocal delivery is a tribute to Bon Scott from AC/DC.

Our numbers growin’
Soon we’ll be showin’
We’ve got the right to rule
We won’t be denied
So raise your hands in the air
And I want you to tell the world all about

A call to arms for all rockers to unite. A rock and roll and heavy metal invasion, stomping their way to wipe the slate completely clean.

The day of the rock-rock-rock-rocker

Simple and effective chorus lyric.

It’s like Twisted Sister is figuring out where they stand as they go along. They were following Judas Priest, Motorhead, Slade, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Free and writing their own songs. And because of these foundations, everyone at home was forming bands, the same way everyone at home today follows technology.

Night Ranger – Dawn Patrol
It was a super group. Jack Blades, Brad Gillis and Kelly Keagy all did time with Rubicon, who had chart success and were a constant on the touring circuit. Brad Gillis also had the high-profile replacement job for Randy Rhoads after his tragic death. Alan Fitzgerald did time with Montrose and Sammy Hagar. Jeff Watson had local radio air play and record label interest.

“Don’t Tell Me You Love Me”
It’s classic Jack Blades. The lead break was a wow moment for me, especially when the eight finger tapping comes in from Jeff Watson.

It’s taken miles and lines to learn the right from the wrong

From living and experiences we learn. It takes years. Relationships and love is one of those beasts that takes a lot of time to get right, and even then it is not perfect.

“Call My Name”
Another Jack Blades composition.

Your silhouette always appears in my window
I close my eyes and hear
The applause of at least a thousand different strangers
And everyone seems sincere

The adulation of being in a band, having people worship you. How do you come down from that high?

For Nikki Sixx, he started to take drugs.

“Eddie’s Coming Out Tonight”
Another Jack Blades composition. Stupid title but a fantastic song. It has enough guitars to make it heavy and the keyboards just add to the melody. Plus Eddie likes to rock and roll all night long and in the Eighties that is what we all wanted to do.

How cool is that outro solo section, a four bar climbing click repeating over a climbing ascending riff.

He lives beyond his means
He wear Italian shoes

Ain’t that the truth! Eddie is well-known to all of us. I know I live beyond my means. Each pay check goes out to the banks for the home loans and credit cards.

“Can’t Find Me A Thrill”
It’s a sleeper hit. The lead breaks alone are worth the investment. Steely Dan and Toto influences are all over this one.

Chasing the spotlight
It’s all part of the game
I’ve been to so many places
And they all look the same
I rock for my money
Some say it’s a suicide game

The lyrics are brilliant. You see, even back in the Eighties when the record labels had power and money and bigger budgets to sign acts and develop acts, it was still a lifer game. You had to check out of society and reality to become a rocker. The only way bands made money is from the stage.

I love the music and the vocal melodies to “Young Girl In Love”, “Play Rough”, “Penny” and “Night Ranger” but really, really, really hate the lyrics. All four songs could have been crossover hits if the lyrical message was better, not derivative and maybe a bit more socially aware.

UFO – Mechanix
I am a Michael Schenker fan, so the UFO records I purchased in the Nineties via the second-hand record shop and various music fairs were the albums that Schenker played on.

However, for $1, I purchased “Mechanix”.

Released in 1982, it was studio album number 10. Pete Way would leave UFO and form Fastway with “Fast” Eddie Clarke who also left Motorhead.

I love the classic UFO releases with Schenker, so of course I was disappointed with this album. Back when I purchased it, I never gave it a chance. Paul Chapman never had a chance following in the footsteps of Schenker. Even Vinnie Moore these days, is ridiculed for being in UFO, however Steve Morse is all cool for taking Blackmore’s place in Deep Purple. Go figure.

But Paul Chapman is a star on “We Belong To The Night”. It is the stand out track by far and it deserves a place in UFO history as a guitar foot stomper. It’s like Night Ranger took this song, sound and feel and built a career on it with the “Midnight Madness” album that came in 1983.

But the lyrics make me cringe. And many years later I realised that was the problem with UFO after Schenker left. It wasn’t Paul Chapman, he was excellent. Musically the band was excellent. It was the lyrics of Phil Mogg. They just didn’t grow up with him. He didn’t become a voice for a new generation.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

John Sykes – A Lesson In How Quickly The Recording Business Can Ignore You

“There’s been a riot down on Main Street tonight, they just went crazy, they set this whole town alight”.

I reckon it will be a riot when John Sykes does release some new music.

It’s been years since John Sykes started working on a new album. At this point it might never come out. I thought when Mike Portnoy was attached, and knowing how hyperactive Portnoy is, we could get an album to come out, however it never eventuated. Counterparts from his era, like George Lynch, release music on a consistent basis and go on the road, playing clubs. Jake E.Lee has started to do the same thing.

“Blue Murder” was the album that was supposed to break John Sykes as a standalone artist. It didn’t.

Here’s the story.

John Sykes was placed on a Geffen deal as soon as he was fired from Whitesnake. Geffen by the start of 1987 was not a power player in hard rock circles. However, during 1987, three significant releases changed that. The self-titled Whitesnake 1987 album, “Permanent Vacation” from Aerosmith and “Appetite For Destruction” from Guns N Roses. Suddenly the label was the one that mattered. It was the label to be on.

Blue Murder started off with John Sykes. It was his record deal. Ray Gillen came in on vocals early on and Cozy Powell was on drums. Ray Gillen left or according to Kalodner was told to go, and Tony Martin was brought in. Ray Gillen would of course go on to join Badlands, while Tony Martin would hedge his bets with both Black Sabbath and John Sykes. As ever, it would come down to money and a new record deal for Iommi and Black Sabbath would ensure that Martin remained there. “Valley Of The Kings” would be the only remnant of the Martin collaboration. Powell departed to join Black Sabbath as well, and Carmine Appice and Tony Franklin came in. More hired guns that John Sykes had to pay from his monies.

After three years in development hell and production delays, by 1989, Blue Murder releases their debut album. But Geffen Records was a different beast in 1989 than it was in 1986. It was the label to be on if you had the commercial runs on the board. They had more successful acts to support and market than before.

The following albums also came out in 1989 via Geffen Records. Blue Murder and John Sykes needed to compete with these artists for marketing dollars.

  • “Slip Of The Tongue” (RIAA: 1 million plus sales) also came out and the album was originally withheld by Coverdale, while Geffen supported and marketed the Blue Murder album.
  • “Pump” (RIAA: 7 million plus sales) from Aerosmith also came out.
  • “The Great Radio Controversy” (RIAA: 2 million plus sales) from Tesla was also released.
  • “The End Of Innocence” (RIAA: 6 million plus sales) from Don Henley also came out.
  • “Heart Of Stone” with the big hit “If I Can Turn Back Time” (RIAA: 3 million plus sales) from Cher also came out.

In addition, Blue Murder and John Sykes, needed to compete with albums released on other labels, plus massive albums from 1986, 1987 and 1988 that still sold a monza. Hard Rock became a commercial product and image was important.

Then there was the stupid image of Blue Murder. Seriously, what weed was John Kalodner and Geffen Records smoking when they decided that the pirate/buccaneer look was the right look for a band called Blue Murder. In an era of MTV, it was a ridiculous move.

Maybe it was the historical and mythical lyrics from “Valley Of The Kings” and “Ptolemy” that just didn’t resonate with a wider audience. To me, John Sykes is one of my favourite guitarists, and his work on those two songs can only be described as monstrous.

Regardless, the late Eighties was the era of the hot-shot guitarist and John Sykes was a hot-shot guitarist. But the album didn’t keep the sales numbers clicking over and after six months it was all over.

Maybe David Coverdale was to blame.

Maybe Geffen didn’t give the record the correct marketing budget compared to other acts.

In the end, it was an expensive exercise for Geffen Records, who kept John Sykes and the project in development and production for three years.

By 1993, (yep, 4 years later) when “Nothin’ But Trouble” came out on Geffen, it was already over. The vocalist hired at the time was Kelly Keeling, however apart from “I’m On Fire”, all of the other songs got redone with Sykes doing lead vocals again. Their final album on Geffen, was a live recording called “Screaming Blue Murder” and it was only released in Japan. Of course, once iTunes came out many years later, it was made available worldwide.

It’s all about people.

One of the reasons why new Sykes music has been delayed is the team to push the new album has to be invested in the project. By 1989, Geffen was a money-making machine. That is all that mattered, making money. Relationships between label and artists, didn’t happen, unless you happened to be Aerosmith or Guns N’Roses or you had a management team that shook the foundations.

Because how many times have you heard; to be successful, it starts with great music. In Blue Murder, we have great music, but even back in 1989, there was so much noise, it was hard to break through the clutter. And an artist succeeds on momentum. One success leads to another. When an artist has been out of the public conversation for so long, is the fan base of John Sykes still interested to invest in purchasing his new music, when it comes out?

“It was built by flesh and blood”

To close off with a lyric from “Valley of The Kings”. While the lyric talks about the building of the pyramids, you can use it right now about life. All of our careers are built on flesh and blood. And the value that we attach to our careers is not the same value that someone else attaches. And that in essence is the music business. The same value a musician attaches to their music is not the same as another persons value.

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A to Z of Making It, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Chris Adler

I got a lot of time for Chris Adler. I am not the biggest fan of Lamb of God, however with each album, there are songs on it with a killer groove or a killer section that just blows me away. Then from out of nowhere, Adler appeared on Protest The Hero’s fan funded “Volition” album and that was another “wow” moment for me. So I am heaps keen to hear how he goes with Megadeth on the “Dystopia” album.

There is an interview with Chris over at Music Radar where he talks about the albums that influenced his drumming style. Link is here.

At number one, he has the Wrathchild America, “3D” album. The drummer on that is Shannon Larkin, who is now the drummer with Godsmack. After recording 2 albums for Atlantic Records, the band was dropped because of a lacklustre of sales, however they were around enough to give Chris Adler an influential drummer.

Funny thing about Wrathchild America, is their music faded away instantly after they got dropped. Their sense of technical thrash grooves just didn’t suit the ones in charge. But it’s on Spotify and Chris Adler has brought them back into the conversation. All because of his love for the band and how Shannon Larkin inspired him to sell all his bass and guitar gear for a drum kit.

So I am streaming the “3D” album as i type this.

At number 2 and number 3, he has Aerosmith’s 1973 self-titled debut (Joey Kramer is the drummer) and “Reggatta de Blanc” from The Police (Steward Copeland is the drummer), released in 1979.

For Joey Kramer;
“Obviously not a very complex record, although the guy has a lot of feel and everything, but that was how I learned the basics – when to go to the ride cymbal, just learning the coordination of hands and feet.”

For Stewart Copeland;
“Even at this point in my career after playing now for 21 years, it’s still probably one of the most difficult songs out there, other than maybe Rosanna, from Toto, which I was listening to today.”

At number 4 and 5, he has Strapping Young Lad’s 1997 “City” album (Gene Hoglan is the drummer) and Mahavishnu Orchestra’s 1971 album, Inner Mounting Flame album (Bill Cobham is the drummer).

For Gene Hoglan;
“Gene was bringing funk and gospel beats into metal and speeding everything up and he sounded like no other metal drummer out there. I think that really helped the band stand out, so modelling myself after that, I love metal more than anything, but I wanted to be able to offer my metal band a unique take on what a metal drummer could or should be able to do.”

For Bill Cobham;
“I’ve watched a couple of clinics online and even a show I saw at one point where he came in and sat down at the kit and just decided that night he was going to take one of the toms off, so he’ll just mix things up and go from there.”

The attention to detail and trying to bring something new and unique to metal drumming is what separates the great from the good. When all you listen too is metal bands, then your style is a carbon copy of those bands. But when you listen far and wide, your style starts to incorporate feels, patterns and phrases from those different genres.

At number 6, he has the mighty “Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying” album from Megadeth, released in 1986. The drummer on that album is Gar Samuelson.

“Megadeth has always been about the guitars and that’s why I love the band but Gar did have that jazzy feel, especially on the first record, Killing Is My Business, where everything felt like it was just a hair away from running off the tracks. It was just chaos and he had that jazzy style and sped those things way, way up.”

The beauty of the first two Megadeth albums is that Chris Poland and Gar Samuelson both came from jazz fusion backgrounds. Combine their chaotic free jamming experimentations with Dave Mustaine’s angry chip on the shoulder chainsaw riffage/lyrical writing and you have a potent combination of styles that prove a solid foundation to build upon.

“Peace Sells changed the whole game as far as hard rock and metal music goes. To this day I would still consider it to be Bible of all heavy metal. Gar was the guy that really made me think a little bit outside of the box because he was not a typical metal player at the time. There was obviously Lars [Ulrich] and Louie [Clemente] from Testament, great double bass chops, Dave Lombardo, really fast double bass stuff, but Gar was the guy shifting it up a little bit. I just really liked the idea that even though he was taking a backseat to the guitar players, you couldn’t replace him. He had a very unique sound within the band and so that’s what I’ve always tried to go for myself.”

I have always argued with others that Dave Mustaine’s influence on thrash metal and Metallica in general is unrecognised. He brought a technicality to Metallica that wasn’t there before. He explored that technicality to great success with Megadeth, which culminated in the “Rust In Peace” masterpiece. Metallica on the other hand, pushed those technical boundaries to the extremes on the Justice album. And since Metallica are the “winners” at this point in time, history will show a version of truth written by the winners.

At number 7, Adler has Metallica’s 1988 “And Justice For All” album. His views about the drum production are spot on.

“This changed a lot of things for a lot of people. The drum production was unlike anything that had been heard up until that point and the clarity was unrivalled. There were people certainly playing faster and more intricately but most of the time you couldn’t actually hear what the heck they were doing; this was the first time where everything was crystal clear. I wanted to mimic that, I would tune my drum heads down as low as they would go, I started taping quarters and fifty cent coins onto bass drums and using plastic beaters to try to get that sound. His playing on that album was fantastic.”

I really liked the Justice album. As a guitarist, it was progressive and technical. The album was definitely pushing the limits of the Metallica guys abilities in relation to technicality, much like how “2112” was pushing the abilities of the Rush guys. Production wise, yeah, the bass guitar is low and the guitars sound like they have scooped the mids and treble, however the drumming is made to sound awesome. The snap of the snare, the clarity of the double kick and the rumble of the toms made Lars Ulrich sound like the best drummer in town. Plus there was the definitive “One” on it.

At number 8, Adler has “South Of Heaven” from Slayer, released in 1988.

“We spoke about Gar earlier with Megadeth, but Dave was much faster than Gar was. Gar was more purposeful, Dave was more of an animal, incredibly fast double bass.”

I watched Slayer with Lombardo on drums. Live the songs were sped up. After the gig finished, I said to my mate Jimbo that I kneel at the altar of Lombardo. He was brilliant and precise.

At number 9, is “Too Fast For Love” from Motley Crue, released in 1981.

“Too Fast For Love, their first record, was this sleazy, early punk/metal record that obviously set them apart from a lot of the hair metal stuff that was going on in LA. They had the make-up and all that stuff but they were also flirting with these occult references, everything that you want to put out there as far as an image goes to sell to teenage boys. With Lamb Of God and Megadeth, you realise that’s who is coming to see us”

I grew up with the Crue and Tommy Lee is one of the best rock drummers out there.

Finally at Number 10, there is “Far Beyond Driven” by Pantera released in 1994. The drummer of course is Vinnie Paul Abbott.

“Cowboys From Hell was their weird experiment between this redneck metal and hair metal but it was still really heavy. Vulgar Display was just absolutely devastating, you could tell they were pushing to just be the heaviest thing they could, and then Far Beyond Driven was somewhere in the middle. They took a step back, took a deep breath and said, ‘Out of the first two records, let’s pick out the things we did best and let’s do ten of those on this record.”

The trilogy was complete.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Unsung Heroes

CrueVice

“I don’t tell artists what they want to hear, I tell them what I know to be true.”
Allen Kovac – Manager 

By the end of the Eighties and the early Nineties, Motley Crue was an arena band. By the beginning of the two thousands, the arena crowds of the Eighties and early Nineties had withered down to the loyalist crowds of a club/theatre act. The change of musical climate didn’t help matters. The change of lead singers during this period also didn’t help matters. The polarizing “Generation Swine” album and the B grade “New Tattoo” didn’t help matters. Cancelled tours and shows also didn’t help matters. As a fan, you had a sense that the glory days of the past were over.

But little did the fans know that in 1994, Nikki Sixx cleaned out the old management team and in comes Allen Kovac.

“At the time, they were very dysfunctional. I said (to them) I wasn’t going to take them on unless they had an operating agreement that allowed us to make decisions in a more businesslike way, with shareholders meetings and board of directors meetings. There’s still plenty of chaos in this band, but because of the operating structure, they succeed.”
Allen Kovac

Nikki Sixx was given a tie-breaking vote. From then on, Motley Crue was reborn and the decisions made during those years came to fruition in 2003, when a newly reformed Motley Crue started to play sold out shows around the world. It’s important to note that two very important events also happened during this 9 year period.

  • In 1998, Motley Crue got control of their recorded masters and publishing. This was unprecedented in the recording business as all the income the record labels derive is from exploiting the recorded masters, however Motley Crue pulled it off and a few years ago so did Metallica.
  • In 2001, “The Dirt” brought a worded element to the visual and audio shenanigans that is Motley Crue.

“Without owning their own masters and publishing, I don’t know if there would have been a Mötley Crüe in the lean years. It’s part of having multiple sources of income for your business, not just one.”
Allen Kovac

“That book became a tent post. We marketed it like a record and we dropped a greatest hits album with it. Some people said, ‘This book could be career suicide for you,’ but it has connected with so many people.”
Allen Kovac

In 2005, after 25 years of Motley Crue, Nikki Sixx wanted to do other things.

“We had to face reality. I told Nikki the truth: out of all of Motley, you’re the least known. The guitar player [Mick Mars] was in all the guitar magazines, the drummer [Tommy Lee] had been a celebrity for decades and the singer [Vince Neil] is the front man. We had to think creatively to get over that barrier.”
Allen Kovac

To get over the barrier, Kovac encouraged the book and music release of a journal that Sixx kept from 1987. “The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star” was released in 2007. The rise of Nikki was beginning. Kovacs then pitched the idea of a radio station on iHeart Radio. Sixx Sense arrived in 2010.

“Nikki now makes more money from his radio show than he does in Motley Crue.”
Allen Kovac

The radio franchise gets half of the generated ad revenue.

And guess what Sixx AM are doing next?

Yep, that’s right, they are releasing a double album in 2016, months apart.

Allen Kovac tested the waters of a double release with Five Finger Death Punch a few years back to great success. In 2013, Kovac pushed to the band to record 2 albums worth of material and release them only months apart. Then he put them on the road supporting Avenged Sevenfold, which saw less money in appearance fees but more money in from merch sales. In 2015, “Got Your Six” was one of the biggest selling metal/rock albums for the year.

“I met with Jeff [Kwatinetz, FFDP’s label boss and former manager] and said, look, I can make Five Finger a global arena band, but there’s no way to do it if the label deal keeps taking merch and touring income so aggressively. Eventually, he agreed; it became a true partnership.”
Allen Kovac 

People can jump up and down about streaming payouts or piracy.

Others just move on to other revenue streams. They adapt.

In music it’s always been about the art (song writing/music) first and money and commerce is a by-product of the song writing.

When the music business was controlled by the record labels, it was booming because of the income derived from CD sales and block buster albums. So the advances/budgets were huge and people were conditioned to believe that it was all golden brick roads forever.

The truth is, music is still booming. There is more money in music right now than there has ever been. However the labels don’t control the distribution. There are other key players. Instead of the brick and mortar record shops, we have online music shops. Instead of ownership we have access.

Tell me how many anti-piracy laws have been passed over the last 50 years and then tell me how many of those laws have had an effect on piracy. Think back all the way back to when cassettes came out.

In my view, the legacy players have no desire to stop piracy. It is an excuse they use to take back control of the distribution of music. The record labels want it be like the old way, where the only way to create quality music required expensive studios and the only way to be heard was to sign a recording contract stacked in the record labels favour. So what is an artist to do where exploitation is the name of the game when it comes to music?

Arm yourselves with information. Don’t buy in to every headline that reads “Piracy decimated the music business”, “Spotify decimated the music business” and so on. Read more and read far and wide. Google is at your fingertips.

If you start to make money, surround yourself with people who challenge you and tell you the truth. And be prepared to adjust your vision time and time again and be prepared to fail as well because if failure is not an option, then neither is success. I think Seth Godin said that once. Because in the band that created “Dr Feelgood” also created “Generation Swine”.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Fame Game

“You let them know you are large and in charge. It’s the way you stand, the way you carry yourself. Being a front man is less about your voice than your ability to connect with a crowd. A front man is a salesman. Steve Jobs was a front man. Wozniak was the great songwriter, but he couldn’t sell the thing he created. He needed the cock rocker Jobs to say, “Pay attention to this!” I wasn’t always confident, but confidence is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It starts as false bravado—you’re acting like you’re cool and confident even when you’re not—but if you’re convincing enough, people start to believe it. Then you start to believe it and then it’s the reality.”
Dee Snider on his philosophy on how to connect with an audience

You see, fame ain’t what it used to be. In the past, very few people made it and when they did, we all knew their name, regardless of their style of music. Now, no one even knows who the “stars” are. The odds of breaking through your inner circle are tiny, but people keep trying.

So where does that leave the artists who are trying to sustain a career in an ever-changing marketplace because fame is a game. It’s not always about the music, but more about communication and participation.

Sully Erna is a salesman. He goes on a radio show and Nikki Sixx becomes the topic of his conversation. He generates a ton of interest, a lot of discussion and he played the fame game. But that was weeks ago. The feud is old news again. Forgotten for the time being. The audience moved on to another topic, to another artist.

Remember when music records and singles used to be number one for ages. Well, that doesn’t happen anymore in music and it definitely doesn’t happen when it comes to information. News is an on demand item. The only question is where are we going to get it from. The usual suspects are far from impartial. Look at the Top 20 lists at Loudwire and Noisecreep and Ultimate Classic Rock and you will see that the lists are made up of the bands that had big PR campaigns with the website; not because the albums are worthy of being in the top 20.

Music is not the leader anymore. Information is. And with a million ways to occupy ourselves, artists need to find a different way to make us pay attention. So with everything available, we are drawn to very few.

Like James Hetfield.

The “SoWhat” fan club magazine interviews offer up personal viewpoints and feelings that people can connect with. He doesn’t do side projects because it needs to add to what he is about and not detract from Metallica. However he is now okay with his band mates side projects. He told us that Metallica lost millions doing the Orion Music + More festivals and he offers his insights as to why that might be the case. He gives us his feelings on “Lulu”. Then there is the movie “Through The Never” that cost the band millions. Again more insights or “excuses” as some metal websites called them.

So even though Metallica hasn’t released new music in seven years, Hetfield is constantly out there playing the fame game.

Whether you agree with the viewpoints or not, it’s actually good to listen to artists having a say instead of not saying anything. Even artists like Scott Ian, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley who fail to understand or realise that the record company model is based on stealing everything from the artist, are good at playing the fame game, especially when they have nothing new to offer musically.

Because it is virtually impossible to get mindshare in todays cluttered and chaotic world. We had MTV, Hit Parader, Circus, Rip and Metal Edge magazines and they reached everybody. Today, we get the popular squeezing out the less popular and what we have are people complaining there is no money in music.

And who cares what sales record is broken. Adele is all over the news about her sales figures. Star Wars the same. Michael Jackson and Thriller just passed 30 million.

Does anyone know who many records Black Sabbaths “Paranoid” sold, or Motley Crue’s “Shout At The Devil” or Dream Theater’s “Images and Words” or Bon Jovi’s “Slippery When Wet” or Twisted Sister’s “Stay Hungry” or Journey’s “Escape”.

Hell, even the bands won’t know how many albums they would have sold, as the accounting of it all was dodgy and secretive. But the music has maintained. Dream Theater is still doing victory laps from the success of “Images and Words”. I just forked out $170 for “The Astonishing” pre order of the deluxe edition.

In the end, everything is a game, with winners and losers.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

Branding

“Initially when we put the band together in ’89, like all bands, I guess, our intentions were to put it together to keep it together. Man, we’ve had such a revolving door… I think this is really the final version of the band that has the same elements that it initially was conceived to have in 1989; it just works, the chemistry works. I haven’t had that in a long, long, long time.”
George Lynch on a revolving door of members

“If people are still in the band it either means they wanted to stay or I wanted them around. If they’re not, it means they didn’t want to stay or I didn’t want them around. It doesn’t mean they’re not good players or that they’re not nice people. Sometimes things run their course — sometimes things are meant to be, and sometimes they’re not.”
Dave Mustaine on departing members

As much as we want our bands to tough it out and stay together, the reality is very different. On some occasions, a record deal and immediate success would make some tough it out, but it would also make people argue over money splits and what not.

So was Dokken really a band?

It’s been a debate I have been having with people for a while now.

Think about it for a second.

The “band” was made up of veterans from different scenes. When Dokken started to get mindshare in 1983 and 84, and mainstream success by 1985, the band members had been trying to “make it” for over a decade in separate bands. In the end, it took Don Dokken (who was tapped to replace Klaus Meine in the Scorpions once upon a time) to get a European recording contract by using songs that George Lynch and Mick Brown had written in Xciter. So the marriage of convenience was already seethed in resentment, which would lead to their break up in 1989 at the peak of their commercial powers.

“Of course, everything we (Lynch Mob) release is always compared to the benchmark “Wicked Sensation” – and that’s a pretty high mark. That record took probably at least a year or more to make, and about a half a million dollars or more.”
George Lynch

George Lynch via Lynch Mob went first with “Wicked Sensation”. Meanwhile, Don Dokken was holed up in a studio with a supergroup of musicians recording “Up From The Ashes”. But he had the backing of Geffen Records and the large advance.

But Lynch was marketable. He was in Guitar Magazines and normal music magazines. Oni and Mick were also in the mags.

Meanwhile, Don Dokken had a supergroup of musicians, however, the magazines didn’t want to interview them. John Norum is a fantastic guitarist, but in the U.S he was virtually an unknown. Most of the public at that time believed Kee Marcello played on “The Final Countdown”, much in the same way, the majority of the new Whitesnake fans had no idea who John Sykes was.

Don Dokken is a great singer, but he wasn’t a marketable singer in 1990. At the time, the magazines glorified, Sebastian Bach, Jani Lane and so forth. He couldn’t use the Dokken name for the new band, because Lynch and Co.. wouldn’t let him and even took him to court.

In the end, a combination of riffs and melodies would sell the “Wicked Sensation” album. The guitar magazines dissected the songs, devoting pages to the makeup of the riffs and the leads. These articles alone sold the album to the legion of guitarists. None of that PR happened with Don Dokken and his supergroup.

That’s not to say that the Don Dokken album is terrible. It is good, but it was no different to the thousands of other melodic rock releases that came out in 1990. In the end, the brand of the “band” Dokken, wasn’t tied to Don Dokken. It was more tied to George Lynch than anyone else. He was the one selling the brand Dokken because everyone wanted to interview him.

When it comes to Megadeth, did anyone know that ex-members of Megadeth formed a band called “Act Of Defiance” and released an album. As a fan of Megadeth, and based on the two songs I have heard so far, I am officially back on the band wagon. Chris Adler on drums is a machine. The songs are proggy which is so early Megadeth and exactly what a Megadeth song should be.

Did it matter that Mustaine had an ever revolving door of musicians?

Of course it doesn’t matter, because the brand of Megadeth is Mustaine.

And if you are an artist, the brand is where it’s at.

“So much of branding is repetition: Repeat, repeat, repeat. I understood why they (other Twisted Sister band mates) wanted to change it up, but they didn’t understand why I didn’t. My face became the face. I carry the legend of Twisted Sister. Nobody knows who the other guys are.”
Dee Snider

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