Category Archives: Music

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

Persistence, Timing, Diversification and playing to your core audience

I am reading the recent issue of Guitar World and I come across a question where Mick Jones from Foreigner is asked how it was to work with Mutt Lange? For those that don’t know Mutt Lange produced the Foreigner 4 album in 1981.

Mutt had really wanted to do our second album [1978’s Double Vision], I believe. But he didn’t seem quite ready at the time. So we did the next one [1979’s Head Games] with Roy Thomas Baker.

So Lange goes away and he proves himself to Foreigner. He takes on AC/DC and produces Highway to Hell in 1979 (their American breakthrough album) and Back in Black in 1980 (their first with Brian Johnson and their biggest album in regards to sales to date). He also produced For Those About To Rock We Salute You in 1981.

He didn’t just give up. In between the period between 1977 and 1981, apart from AC/DC, he also produced albums for artists like City Boy, Clover, Supercharge, The Boomtown Rats, The Rumour, Savoy Brown, Michael Stanley Band, Outlaws, Deaf School, The Records and Broken Home. He is paying his dues, getting the stats on his side, just so that he can work with a band that he wants to work with.

… then Mutt was kind of knocking on the door again. I must say, he was quite enthusiastic.

Then he gets the gig to do Foreigner – 4 which came out in 1981. Persistence. Paying your dues. Credentials. Hard work. Timing. They all play important parts in the recipe for success.

Mutt’s persistence to hard work, made him turn over a lot of records as a producer. A lot of those records made a large impression with the public.
Mutt’s timing was off when he first approached Foreigner in 1978. It wasn’t off in 1981. This time around he also had the credentials to back himself. For a producer, your credentials are the works that you produced, for an artist, your credentials is the music that you make.

He was the first producer I worked with who really challenged me. He was not only very insightful with the songs and in helping to bring them to fruition but he was also really great at achieving sounds.

The real rock stars hated to get challenged. The “songs are their children” is a common cliché that so many of them would say. Mutt Lange didn’t give a shit about that. He wanted perfection. He wanted greatness. He wanted to be involved in something that would last forever.

He was just unbelievably dedicated to the process…to the point where I think we kept Def Leppard waiting six or nine months because Mutt was still working with us on 4.

Def Leppard waited for him. Why? They knew. They knew that this guy was special. They knew he was the person that would be able to capture their pop leanings and merge them with their rock and blues influences. All of that pales, compared to what they really needed. Def Leppard needed a song writing partner. Look at the history that they created.

Def Leppard – High ‘N’ Dry, 1981
Def Leppard – Pyromania, 1983
Def Leppard – Hysteria, 1987
Def Leppard – Adrenalize, 1992

Mutt really set a standard with Def Leppard. I called it the layers standard. Others call it the over dubs or over producing standard. Others call it multi-tracking. The fans loved it. They wanted the big vocals, the arena rock chorus’s layered in harmonies. Once Hysteria exploded every other band released albums in the same layered style. Suddenly every hard rock band was doing the Bon Jovi and Def Leppard thing. Kiss went all pop metal with Crazy Nights and Hot In The Shade. Whitesnake did it with Slip Of The Tongue. However, there was one band that was doing things their own way. That one band is called Guns N Roses. I digress.

Once you become successful, it doesnt mean you stop. Mutt Lange didn’t. He kept on going.

Song writing for other artists became a new income stream for him from the eighties onwards. As an artist, if all you do is just write music and perform it live, you are limiting yourself to that income stream. However, if you write songs for other artist, you have an additional income stream. If you produce for up and coming bands, sharing your expertise and knowledge, then you have another income stream. If you are a guitar player, become a guitar teacher on time off from recording and touring. That is another income stream. Suddenly, you have a years’ worth of work. Yes it is hard work. It was never meant to be easy.

Look at the following list of people that keep on working hard;

Jordan Rudess from Dream Theater. He plays keyboards in Dream Theater, he is a solo musician, he is an instructor and he is an app developer.

Claudio Sanchez from Coheed and Cambria. He is the founder, singer, guitarist and main songwriter for Coheed and Cambria. He also has a side project called Prize Fighter Inferno. He has written novels and comics. He appears at Comic Conventions. He has just signed a production agreement for The Amory Wars story to be turned into a movie or movies. He is also an app game developer.

Corey Taylor is another. The recent House of Gold and Bones releases by Stone Sour have seen that concept story turned into a graphic novel and comic book, as well as a production deal to turn it into a movie. Apart from Stone Sour, Corey still tours with Slipknot. He is also a novelist.

Nikki Sixx is the leader of Motley Crue. He does Sixx A.M as another band. He does photography and his work is being exhibited on line. He has penned two autobiographies (The Dirt and The Heroin Diaries), as well as a picture book/biography for This is Gonna Hurt. He uses social media to build connections with fans. Finally, he is overseeing the long overdue Motley Crue movie. There is also the SixxSense “radio” gig and a range of other outlets like clothing and accessories.

Phil X is currently fill in guitarist for Bon Jovi. He is a session musician. He is a fill in guitarist .He is a solo artist. He is a band member. He is a guitar teacher. Five different income streams. He endorses different product lines of gear.

Kevin Churko is a producer, sound engineer, masterer, mixer and a songwriter. While his production credits involve the hard rock and metal genre, I bet a lot of people didn’t know that he was involved with Britney Spears when he started off. Yep that is right. In 2000 he was the Digital Editing and Programming guru on Britney’s Oops!… I Did It Again album. He had that same job title for The Corrs, Shania Twain and Celine Dion albums that followed between 2000 and 2003.

From 2003 onwards, he then started getting appointments as an Engineer and a mixer. He had those titles for Shania Twain and Ozzy Osbourne albums.

Then from 2006 and onwards he started getting producing appointments.

Churko built up a credentialed name for himself between 1999 and 2006. Since then he has done I Don’t Wanna Stop, Black Rain and Scream by Ozzy Osbourne. Apart from being the Producer, he was also the Engineer, the Mixer and Composer.

He has filled the same role for In This Moment, Hinder, Beggars and Thieves, Emerson Drive, Five Finger Death Punch, Otherwise, Kobra and The Lotus and Rob Zombie.

The point in all of this. Success in music is not just about writing a song and watching it sell. You need to earn your success. You need to pay your dues. You need to live and experience life. You need to be patient. You need to persevere. The bottom line; don’t quit.

And remember: still play to your core audience. That is what all of the above artists are doing. They are keeping their core audience satisfied.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

Blueprints

Rule 1:
Create something great and watch your core audience spread it to the masses.

Rule 2:
Don’t spread your wings too far. Focus on your core audience. That is your foundation.

Rule 3:
Their is no such thing as “job security” in the music business.

Rule 4:
Reminder: Don’t spread your wings too far. Focus on your core audience. That is your foundation.

Rule 5:
The music business is a game. Artists are competing each day with other artists for attention.

Rule 6:
Another reminder: Don’t spread your wings too far. Focus on your core audience. That is your foundation.

Rule 7:
Traditional education is becoming less relevant to career success. If you still want to be in banking and the legal system, go to College/University. If you want to change the world, education is not the place for you.

Rule 8:
Reminder Number Three: Don’t spread your wings too far. Focus on your core audience. That is your foundation.

Rule 9:
The concert experience is not about the songs sounding exactly as they do on the radio or the CD. This type of show will keep the swinging musical fan satisfied but not the core audience. These are the people that artists should be focusing on. Extend the ending of the song into a lead break jam.

Rule 10:
Just because the charts don’t have a Guitar Hero at number 1, it shouldn’t mean that you should stop being one. You have practiced your art, now play it.

Rule 11:
Don’t be interested in the clicks. It’s just a number, another statistic that means nothing. What is the point of having 1,000 views a day if no one is connecting and interacting? What is the point of having of 1,000 views a day if no one is talking about you?

Rule 12:
If you are in music to be rich, walk away now. Get into banking or the legal system.

Rule 13:
One last time – Don’t spread your wings too far. Focus on your core audience. That is your foundation.

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Music, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Record Label Innovation – Bring Back The CD in Blu-Ray?

For years the compact disc was the preferred audio format for music fans. In addition those years were the most profitable in the recording industry’s history.

Fans/collectors of vinyl and cassettes started to re-purchase albums they already owned for the sake of convenience. That is what the CD offered. Convenience.

It saddens me to keep on hearing that the recording industry still prefers a return to that era instead of innovating.

The most recent “innovation” comes from Universal Music Group.

UMG is launching a new audio format called High Fidelity Pure Audio. Basically it is a Blu-ray disc that delivers high definition audio recordings. This is yet another attempt to reinstate a long-gone profit margin that has all been done before.

There is nothing innovative about re-factoring the compact disc.

Remember convenience. Fans didn’t choose to replace the CD format with MP3’s simply because MP3s sounded better. It was about convenience. Convenience is key here. For personal use, portability and speed is worth more. That is what UMG fails to understand.

UMG is banking on a demand for high-fidelity re-releases of their back catalogs.

The label business models are built upon lack of competition in their market. Once upon a time the only music available came from the established recording industry. They told us what we were going to listen to and in what format.

I liked CDs, I really did, but after a while I ran out of space. I still buy physical CDs from time to time however I never buy CDs for the music itself.

The last physical discs I bought were for the special edition of Coheed and Cambria’s Afterman: Ascension / Descension double album. This package was was sold when Ascension released in September 2012 and Descension was months away (February 2013).

So when the package arrived The Descension disc in the box is completely blank. The purpose of this is that I am meant to burn the 320 high-quality Descension track downloads to it. I still haven’t bothered to do it, however the art book that came with it is priceless.

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A to Z of Making It, Music

Record Labels – Who Needs Them In The Era Of The Independent Artist?

It’s the era of the independent artist and in my opinion nobody really needs a record label. The days when only a record label could introduce and expose an artist to the public are gone. 

The record labels have never been in the business to sell talented musicians. They never really did and they never will. The record labels are in the business to sell entertainment. What the record labels have created is a great divide between the highest paid entertainment and the talented musicians. If people think winning The Voice guarantees them a career, they are mistaken. The Voice is purely entertainment. It’s all about ratings. The creators of The Voice don’t care about next year or the year after.

The majors still pay to manufacture an artist because they have a certain look, and a certain sound. This is purely done to cash in on a current trend.

The barriers to distribute music do not exist anymore. If anything it is easier to distribute your music. All bands need to do, is to offer the path of least resistance.

Basically it’s a case of survival of the fittest. There are no guarantees in the music business and musicians need to keep fighting each day to first make a name for themselves and then to keep that name viable.

The World does not owe musicians a living.

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Copyright, Music, My Stories

Words of Wisdom from Chris DeGarmo

Chris DeGarmo always interviewed well. At times he was cautious with his words and no matter how hard the interviewer tried to get him to slip up, he always put up a front of unity within the band.

DeGarmo (in 1994 doing interviews for the Promised Land record)

“I like to think of our song writing as people that soak in life and turn around and express it through our music. You have to take time to absorb life to be able to let it breath through your work. You can just hammer out music like you do boxes of soap but I can’t do it that way.”

(The Crossroad’s Edge… Chris Degarmo AOL Interview, http://personalpages.tds.net/~dreemland/tce/chrisint.html)

Chris is talking about his song writing, however he frames the answer in the context of the band, so that if the band members read it, they will be pleased. It is our song writing and our music and then right at the end he contradicts himself, by saying I.

Artists that create songs from their experiences end up having a career. These artists are the anomalies, the paradigm shifters. Look at artists like Dee Snider, Nikki Sixx, James Hetfield, Brent Smith, etc.. They all write about their experiences. What they have experienced, someone else has experienced. Straight away a connection is made. That is why We’re Not Gonna Take It connected and Hot Love didn’t. Both are great songs, however We’re Not Gonna Take It is about as real as you can get, where as Hot Love is about a fantasy relationship.

Queensryche connected with people on Mindcrime, because they had a good story accompanied by great music and melody. People always love a good story. That is why we read books and watch TV shows and movies.

Copycat artists fail. When Guns N Roses came out in 1987, a million other artists came out with a similar look and sound. Even bands that where around changed their styles to suit the GNR sound.

Does anyone remember bands like Skin N Bones, Junkyard, Love/Hate, Shotgun Messiah, Spread Eagle, LA Guns, Danger Danger, Tangier, Faster Pussycat and Saigon Kick? I do and that is because I have all of their albums.

Artists that sing songs written by committees, will have instant fame. There is no doubt about that. This is the corporatisation part of the music industry. The labels that control the charts want that to happen. The label business is all about making money today. The labels are not interested in building a career for their artist. The mainstream press will see these artists as champions. However it doesn’t last. People these days can see that there is no substance and integrity to what they are doing. Everyone that hangs around to be with the star of the moment will abandon them.

Artists that write songs with the thought of being paid straight away will never achieve anything. Creating music is never a dollar driven game. The below quote from DeGarmo sums it up.

DeGarmo (in 1990 on life after Mindcrime and before Empire came out);

“It starts dawning on you that this can actually be lucrative, which is something that has escaped us for so long”.

(Guitar World – Nov 1990)

This is around the time that Empire came out. They have been at it for nine years. Creating albums and touring. The fantasy put out there by the press, is that these artists are loaded. However that is so far from the truth. The record labels are loaded. They make all the money from the sales of recorded music. That is why the RIAA is shaking down sharers and trying to get legislation passed to bring back the glory days. Real artists, that are in the game to create music, remain silent. They just go about their life, creating and building connections and trying to force another paradigm shift.

DeGarmo (in 1997 – doing press for Hear In The Now Frontier and asked about the writing process)

As a songwriter, I think you have to be true to yourself first, and I think we’ve done that, and by doing that, we’ve been able to find other people who are interested in what it is we do, as opposed to at some point changing the strategy all of a sudden and creating albums based on what we think other people think we should do. That gets you into this terrible house of mirrors, and you can’t find your way back.

(Scream.org – Dan Birchall)

DeGarmo sums up my point of view. The reason why the fans came to Queensryche is because they remained true to themselves as artists. By doing that, they found other people (fans) that connected with them. We love a good old story. These days even reality TV shows have scriptwriters. So when a song tells a story, it is magic. When an album tells a story, it is priceless. Operation Mindcrime (the album) told a story. Empire had songs that told stories. Promised Land had songs that told stories and it had a theme of disconnection running through it.

No one should create an album just to please the label bosses. It always ends bad.

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Music

Why Chris DeGarmo walked away from it all?

Chris DeGarmo didn’t just leave Queensryche, he left the whole music business back in 1997. Just like another favourite of mine, Vito Bratta, they spent their whole lives making it only to walk away from it all.

Recently, Geoff Tate stated the following on jammagazineonline.com;

“It never was a brotherhood. It was a bunch of kids that got together and achieved success at an early age. We got used to that success and continued doing the things we did to get that success. We found comfort in our way of working. It’s just that simple. We were never close. We never hung out doing stuff and sharing life. It was always just, “Hey, we have another record to make. Anyone have any ideas? Let’s try to make a record. Here we go.”

Between the years of 1981 and 1992, Queensryche had been on a cycle of album and tour. After the Empire tour ended, Chris DeGarmo just unplugged himself from the music industry. He stated the same in a Guitar World interview from January 1995. When you detach yourself like this, it puts a lot of other events into perspectives.

Geoff Tate commented in a Kerrang magazine interview on the break after the Empire tour;

“It wasn’t planned, it just kind of happened. After the ‘Empire’ tour we all went our separate ways for a while. Before we knew it eight months had gone by. ‘Empire’ bought us a lot of time, really. Before that album it had been just a hectic schedule of recording and touring. ‘Empire’s success allowed us to have a nice break, something we hadn’t known until then. It was strange taking time off. I think it was at that point it dawned on us that we’d achieved all the goals we’d set. It was actually kind of difficult to know which move to make next.”

The achievement of their goals is an important point to make. When you feel like you have done all you set out to do, the hunger and the desire starts to die down. It becomes harder to focus again. It becomes harder to detach yourself from your family. So coming into the Promised Land album writing process, it was more or less done from their homes. It took about 8 months to get the material together, and then it was off to a secluded log cabin for another six months to piece together and record the album.

In the same Kerrang interview, Michael Wilton didn’t share the same enthusiasm for the finished product, however he did admit that the album is special in its own way.

“The way we set it all up was real innovative and allowed us to be more inspired, but a lot of the songs I came up with didn’t get finished because the album kind of went in a different direction. It was actually a bit more left-field to the way I think.”

This is another important point to make. Guitarists play a musical instrument, so it is normal that a guitarist will write music. So when a guitarist writes music and it is rejected for whatever reason, it is not a good feeling. I have been in situations just like this. I was coming up with metal riffs, and the band was moving into a Nu Metal phase, that just didn’t suit what I was writing. I had two options, leave the band and start a new one, or just put up with it. In this case, Wilton put up with it and in the end only had two song writing credits for the Promised Land album. He even had less of an input into the Hear Of The Now Frontier album. He only had one song writing credit on the Frontier album. I am pretty sure, he would have been the first person to let Chris DeGarmo now that it was his fault when the album didn’t set the sales charts on fire.

Furthermore, when the band was asked the question, if success has changed them, DeGarmo answered in the following way;

“I’ve probably become a hermit! I don’t really socialise that much. I don’t think I ever really did anyway. I somehow thought that it might change me as a person. I don’t think of myself as an unhappy person, but you think that money might limit the struggle. The thing is, I was so passionate about what we were doing that I never noticed we were struggling anyway! If anything. I think I’m more appreciative of the personal time I get to spend with my wife and daughter.”

So the Promised Land album comes out and the real fans flock to it. The tour is a success and the band members go their separate ways again. Then the bands label EMI America goes bankrupt. The rest of the band members don’t appear to be interested or concerned by this, and it was left to Chris DeGarmo to negotiate a new deal, not just for himself but for the others as well. During this time, the band had the songs written for the album, however they had to wait for Peter Collins schedule to free up, so they can record it. Again, more time away from each other as they wait for a producer.

Hear In The Now Frontier comes out and it doesn’t do well in a commercial sense. By 1997, recorded sales is the definition of success. DeGarmo is blamed for the commercial failure by the other band members, as he was the main songwriter/leader on the album.

Let’s look at how the song writing dynamic changed from Operation Mindcrime to Hear In The Now Frontier.

Operation Mindcrime had 15 songs on it. DeGarmo wrote/co-wrote 9 songs. Tate wrote/co-wrote 12 song. Wilton wrote/co-wrote 7 songs. Rockenfield wrote/co-wrote 1 song and Jackson didn’t write anything.

Empire had 11 songs on it. DeGarmo wrote/co-wrote 9 songs. Tate wrote/co-wrote 8 songs. Wilton wrote/co-wrote 5 songs. Rockenfield and Jackson both wrote/co-wrote 1 song.

Promised Land had 11 songs on it. DeGarmo wrote/co-wrote 9. Tate wrote/co-wrote 7. Wilton wrote/co-wrote 2. Rockenfield wrote/co-wrote 3 and Jackson wrote/co-wrote 1.

Hear In The Now Frontier had 14 songs on it. DeGarmo wrote/co-wrote 13 songs. Tate wrote/co-wrote 7. Wilton wrote/co-wrote 1 song. Rockenfield wrote/co-wrote 2 songs and Jackson didn’t write anything.

The main thing to take out of the above stats is the increasing song writing role of Chris DeGarmo and the diminishing role of Michael Wilton. Tate was always consistent, however his piece d resistance was Mindcrime, whereas Empire was DeGarmo’s piece d resistance.

So when you feel like you have put your heart and soul into managing the affairs of a band and then still get blamed when events don’t pan out well, you ask yourself, what is the point in doing this. Just as so many of us walk away from a job that started off great, Chris DeGarmo did the same with Queensryche.

If the Hear In The Now Frontier album outsold Empire, it would be a different Queensryche world.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, Piracy, Stupidity

James Hetfield – Semi Obscure Metallica Songs – What Do You Mean I Don’t Write Good Lyrics

Metallica have done a lot of work to try and restore their battered image since the Metallica vs. Napster debacle circa 1999/2000. While people see this court case as Metallica taking up arms against their fans and innovation, I saw it as a case where Metallica tried unsuccessfully to get back control as to how their music is distributed and consumed. In the end, the whole debacle was handled poorly by Lars Ulrich.

So in 2003, they started Metallicavault.com, an online site, controlled by the band. It could be accessed by purchasing the terrible St Anger CD. Each CD came with a unique code. The band had live mp3’s and videos available for fans to download. It was nothing spectacular and the promise that more content would be uploaded weekly never came to be.

In 2006, Metallica joined iTunes and finally made their music available digitally in a legal sense. Prior to that, to get Metallica mp3’s you had to either rip your own CD or download illegally. This was done on their own terms and on a separate payment arrangement than other artists. At first it was just in the US and Canada as their overseas label wanted a bigger slice of the pie than they deserved. They basically controlled the negotiations as iTunes wanted them.

Then in 2008 they launched Mission : Metallica. The band advertised that any users that signed up to the Platinum package, will be allowed to download live shows, the new album (plus a physical copy of it), along with the normal membership of watching (heavily edited) footage of the band in the studio. Again this was all controlled by the band.

In 2012, they finally joined Spotify and the streaming revolution, again under their own terms and rules.

Anyway, the reason for this post is to highlight some Metallica tracks that could be classed as obscure.

Leper Messiah

It’s written by James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. It’s worth noting that Dave Mustaine claimed he wrote the song’s main riff and was not given credit by Metallica.

For all of those haters that said Metallica had sold out with the black album obviously didn’t know that Metallica had similar style songs on their earlier albums. Leper Messiah from the Master of Puppets album is one of those songs.

The best part comes in around the 30 second mark. Cliff’s trademark bass lines just rumble along while James lays down staccato power chords.

The messiah refers the ministers or evangelists and the lepers refers to the lowly people who give their money believing whatever they are told.

Send me money, send me green
Heaven you will meet
Make a contribution
And you’ll get a better seat
Bow to leper messiah

Phantom Lord

It’s written by Dave Mustaine, James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich and it was released on Kill Em All. Mustaine even used the Phantom Lord progression from about 2.30 to 3.10 in the Megadeth song, This Is My Life from the Countdown To Extinction album.

Overall the song is very influenced by Ace of Spades from Motörhead.

Hear the cry of war
Louder than before
With his sword in hand
To control the land

When metal music came out screaming in the Eighties, every band had a song about the movement. Twisted Sister called it Rock N Roll whereas Metallica called it Metal. The sword in hand is the instrument of choice.

Escape

Kirk Hammet gets a credit on this song on top of the usual Hetfield / Ulrich combination.

That intro. It’s brilliant. The song is more rock than metal. Like Leper Messiah, this song would not be out of place on the Black Album and it was released on Ride The Lightning. Lars wanted a more commercial sounding song.

The song is about escaping from the prison that is someone else’s reality for you. You can call it another anthem for living the way you want to. It’s the first of a string of songs that references James childhood. The prison mentioned is his home.

Rape my mind and destroy my feelings
Don’t tell me what to do

Take note of a theme in this song that will appear again on later Metallica albums.

Feed my brain with your so called standards
Who says that I ain’t right

This theme of control and manipulation will come up again in Dyers Eve and The Unforgiven.

Dyers Eve

It’s written by Hetfield, Ulrich and Hammett and it closes the ..And Justice For All album.

The song lyrics are one of struggle. In this case, James is struggling against the efforts of the ones who want to control him. The theme was used again for The Unforgiven.

“Pushed onto Me What’s Wrong or Right” can be replaced by “They dedicate their lives to running all of his.”
“Hidden from this Thing That They Call Life” can be replaced by “With time the child draws in, this whipping boy done wrong.”
“Always Censoring My Every Move” can be replaced by “Deprived of all his thoughts.”
“Cannot Face the Fact I Think for Me” can be replaced by “What I’ve felt, what I’ve known, never shined through in what I’ve shown.”
“Clipped My Wings Before I Learnt to Fly” can be replaced by “New blood joins this earth and quickly he’s subdued.”

The Unforgiven III

The Unforgiven from the Black album set a new standard for the modern power ballad. It has been imitated by a thousand bands. Even Metallica referenced themselves with The Unforgiven II, however The Unforgiven III was unique and powerful enough to grab my attention. From all the other songs on Death Magnetic, you can say that The Unforgiven III has slipped into obscurity.

The piano intro that references Ennio Morricone sets the sadness and it is a different take to the acoustic intro of The Unforgiven (which borrowed from Ennio Morricone as well).

These days drift on inside a fog
Its thick and suffocating
This seeking life outside is hell
Inside intoxicating

James is documenting his battles with alcohol.

How can I blame you when it’s me I can’t forgive?

Reflection and hindsight. How can a person learn forgiveness if they cannot forgive themselves?

Holier Than Thou

It’s a Hetfield, Ulrich composition. It was supposed to be the leadoff single to the Black album, however Lars had different ideas.

It’s not who you are it’s who you know
Others lives are the basis of your own
Burn your bridges build them back with wealth
Judge not lest ye be judged yourself

The theme continues on from the corrupted justice themes of money buys immunity from persecution. Just like Leper Messiah and Escape would not be out of place on the Black album, Holier Than Thou would not be out of place on any of the earlier Metallica albums.

The God That Failed

The most saddest song on the Black Album is also the most grooviest. The God That Failed deals with Hetfield’s mother’s death from cancer and her Christian Science beliefs which kept her from seeking medical treatment. It’s another Hetfield/Ulrich composition, however I am sure this one is all Hetfield.

I see faith in your eyes
Never you hear the discouraging lies
I hear faith in your cries
Broken is the promise betrayal
The healing hand held back by the deepened nail
Follow the god that failed

Prince Charming

Prince Charming is written by Heltfield and Ulrich and it appeared on the Reload album. It is on this list for a few reasons. The most important one for me, is that James Hetfield breaks out his Ride The Lightning era voice in the verses. That melodic Ride The Lightning bark comes in at 1.13 to 1.23 (lyrics below). It continues during the Chorus and then appears again at 2.13 to 2.23 (lyrics below).

I’m the suit and tie that bleeds the street and still wants more
I’m the 45 that’s in your mouth in a dirty Texan whore

I’m a nothing face that plants the bomb and strolls away
I’m the one who doesn’t look quite right as children play

The song structure of Prince Charming is no different to the Kill Em All song structures. It’s based on the NWOBM style. The only difference is that the tempo is slower and the drumming is more rock driven then metal driven. Otherwise, you add those two elements to Prince Charming and you have a song that would not be out of place on Kill Em All.

The Outlaw Torn

Its written by Hetfield and Ulrich.

This song is heavy as hell. The F to E intro groove is super heavy (pay special attention to when Newsted does it during the solo breaks – it’s the swampy delta blues clashing with a heavy groove) and when the Sabbath Bloody Sabbath riff kicks in at the 30 second mark, it makes me feel like I want to break stuff.

Hear me
And if I close my mind in fear
Please pry it open
See me
And if my face becomes sincere
Beware
Hold me
And when I start to come undone
Stitch me together
Save me
And when you see me strut
Remind me of what left this outlaw torn

Don’t Tread On Me

With all the other classic songs on the Black album, this is just another song that was easily overlooked. This is classic Metallica, in the vein of For Whom The Bells Toll and The Thing That Should Not Be.

Liberty or death, what we so proudly hail
Once you provoke her, rattling of her tail
Never begins it, never, but once engaged..
Never surrenders, showing the fangs of rage

I like the lyrics, democracy never begins war, but once you engage it, prepare for its wrath. James said that after putting down the U.S for so long, he wanted to write a positive song for America, sort of a “no place like home.”

To secure peace is to prepare for war

It’s doublethink like the classic 1984 novel.

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

Final Dee Snider – You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll – What Do You Mean I Don’t Write Good Lyrics

Did you know that Dee wrote the Stay Hungry album during the You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll recording sessions?

Did you also know that Dee had the chorus of We’re Not Gonna Take it written as far back as 1980? The song was finally finished, when the band went in to record the You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll album.

Let’s put into context this period of time.

The band had lost their record deal, they had lost their touring spot with Diamond Head and they were broke.

Dee was at a desperate point in his life as well, married, with kids and living in a studio apartment. He was broke, he was desperate and in these times of self-doubt, he had the life experiences to create great material. He had the fire and the angst.

The Kids Are Back kicks off the You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll album, released in 1983. My cousin Mega is a hard core Twisted Sister fan. He is the one that got me into the band. He even has the TS logo tattooed on his shoulder. This was my first exposure to the band. The sound of the marching feet. It was perfect for the time.

We walk the streets
In tattered armies
We got the lion in our heart
We’re not lookin’ for trouble
Just for some fun
But we’re all ready if you wanna’ start

How can I put in words the trueness of this verse? We just wanted to have fun, but man, if someone wanted to roll with us, we didn’t take a backward step. You can hear the anger build in Dee’s vocal delivery. It’s raw and it is honest. It is not auto tuned like all the other crap released today. It has a certain life to it.

I Am (I’m Me) is a song that needed to be written, so that Dee could go on and write, S.M.F, I Wanna Rock and We’re Not Gonna Take It. To me, it is like a back story to the main movies. It’s message is one of standing up for yourself.

Who are you to look down
At what I believe?

I was always asked the question; what am I going to do with my life. My answer was always the same. “I don’t know”. The eighties was a time when the youth didn’t want to follow in the footsteps of what their fathers did. I didn’t want to work in the steel mills. I wanted something different, but I didn’t know what. For too long I had been conditioned to want something else so when I was asked what I wanted, I didn’t have an answer.

We’re Gonna Make It is another song that needed to be written so that Dee could go on to write the classics.

The power of the people
Ain’t been showin’
It’s never what you know
It’s who you’re knowin’

It was the A to Z in making it in the Eighties gatekeeper world. You had to rely on gatekeepers in order to get your music recorded and released.

You Can’t Stop Rock ‘N’ Roll

it’s an angry steed,
on a never ending course
with grace and speed
it’s an unrelenting force
his head thrown back, defiantly proud
under constant attack,
it’s blasting, fast and loud

I love how Rock N Roll is referred to a person. I lift up my hands in praise. Amen.

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

Success Is A Combination Of Different Metrics

I’m surfing the net and reading. I come across a few reviews of music. Black Sabbath are getting favorable write ups from the mainstream however music fans are split.

I think we need a shut down and a restart in music as everybody is so busy scrambling for cash. Great music is coming a very distant last.

Ozzy these days is all about the money.

In my opinion it doesn’t matter whether anybody buys the new Black Sabbath album. Thinking of sales as the only validation point is old school economics.

These days it’s all about whether people LISTEN to it. I love Black Sabbath but I’m not listening to 13 nor have I a desire to hear it again.

Music was always a service. People heard music by going to a live performance of it. Then music evolved into a product. I grew up in an era were I wanted to own the music I liked. I wanted to collect as much music as possible. I was buying a product.

Now I don’t need to own music. I can just get the music I like whenever I want to hear it. Streaming is changing the way I consume music.

Instead of purchasing a CD once and playing that album 10,000 times, I can now stream a song 10,000 times. It’s a relationship between the artist and fan that never ends.

The music business is built on smoke and mirrors. That gig that sold out, by bands purchasing their own tickets for reselling in reality didn’t sell out. That album that sold millions, by the labels pressing millions in reality didn’t sell millions.

If people want to know if an album or a song is a hit they need to look at more metrics.

How many YouTube views?
How many Spotify streams?
How many streams from other providers?
How many torrent downloads. Free music can be good for you. I remember watching the Iron Maiden 666 movie and Nicko McBrian was saying that they haven’t sold a single record in Costa Rica, however they have 40,000 kids coming to the show.
How many digital sales in the major markets?
How many physical sales in the major markets?
Are people talking about the album?

The main point is it’s a combination of everything, sales numbers are not everything, you’ve got to look at the total picture.

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Music, My Stories

Will Dream Theater please it’s 500,000 strong cyber army with the new album?

I was going through my stats and the Why The Silence on the Live At Luna Park DVD article is my best post of all time. Why you ask?

It’s because people shared it on Facebook, Twitter and on various Dream Theater forums. The other key indicator is that people were searching for information on Google about the DVD release/status.

I am a massive Dream Theater fan.

The post was put up because I wanted an answer. Lo and behold, the band issued a statement on the status of the DVD project a few days later.

Did my post trigger that statement?Maybe. Maybe not. In the end I got an answer and so did the fans.

I got called a shitload of names on the forums because of the post and I even got called a Mike Portnoy fan boy.

For the record I am a guitarist. If anything I am a Petrucci fan boy.

I remember watching the G3 Tour of Australia. This is the one that had John Petrucci, Steve Vai and Satriani. I was there purely for Petrucci. I loved Suspended Animation.

Portnoy was on drums and David LaRue from Satriani’s band was on bass. It was a wicked set and too short for my liking.

Anyway, the set finishes, they take a bow and then Portnoy grabs the microphone and starts talking about Dream Theater and himself.

I was standing about 5 meters from the stage and I glanced over at Petrucci and he had those smiles going but his eyes told a different story. It’s that “I can’t believe this guy” look.

This night was about John Petrucci. It was not about Mike Portnoy or Dream Theater. The night was about a great solo album called Suspended Animation.

There is a time and place for everything. Portnoy had a habit of making it about himself.

So going back to the point of the post, what do the stats tell me?

Dream Theater fans are fanatical. We love the band and we will spread the word.

What does this tell Dream Theater?

The band has a 500,000 plus cyber army.

No pressure but they need to deliver a kick ass album (with a better mix than A Dramatic Turn Of Events).

The fans will do the rest. We will spread it. We will sell out your shows.

And get your arses to Australia this time around.

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