Tag Archives: Black Sabbath

A to Z of Making It, Music

Social Media is Not Just About The Broadcast – What Dream Theater can be doing better compared to other bands?

Dream Theater is all about the advertisement/broadcast. Look at their Facebook account and it is all about the sell. This is expected as they have a new product and they are trying to push it. However, have they spent any time reading, listening or understanding what their fans are saying? The fans are the best advocates and for some reason bands are not realising it.

Compare what Dream Theater is doing to what Robb Flynn is doing for Machine Head with The General Journals: Diary Of A Frontman… And Other Ramblings. He is engaging with his fan base through personal stories. Of course they still have the sell aspect going on for their Mayhem shows and no one is expecting the artist to stop the sell. The difference is those personal touches and stories.

Compare what Dream Theater is doing to what Randy Blythe from Lamb Of God is doing on Instagram. He takes unbelievable photos and the stories he shares with those photos via Instagram is all about engagement with people. There is no sell here. It is authentic and heartfelt. This is pure gold.

Compare to what Dream Theater is doing to what Trivium is doing on Facebook. Both bands have the same label and both have albums coming out within a month apart. Trivium had the official download of the song Brave This Storm (it was just one post and the post was called Transmission #2) and then it has all been fan and band pictures posted from various shows. Dream Theater have plugged the new song post after post after post. We get it, you have a new song.

Also when Dream Theater had the corporate deal with USA Today to stream the song, a lot of their fans from other parts of the world couldn’t listen to it. Of course that problem was fixed within a couple of days and then Dream Theater started re-posting links for the song.

I recently posted that the years of when artists took a year to make an album and went on a two to three year victory lap are over. The artists that still take a year to make an album in this current climate are doing themselves a great disservice as they will have an album that is basically dead on arrival. The faithful will buy the album and then the victory lap is over.

It looks like the bigger the network around a band, the less they focus on fan engagement. Bands or artists cannot expect to use their social media accounts only when it suits them, just because they have a product to push or a song to push and expect that the fans will remain engaged.

A perfect example is Metallica, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden or Bon Jovi. Dream Theater is trying to play in this field, however they don’t have the runs on the board to play against Metallica or Bon Jovi.

Bands with better runs on the board than Dream Theater like Five Finger Death Punch, Shinedown, Halestorm, Lamb Of God, Sixx A.M, Kid Rock and Stone Sour are still looking at ways to engage with their audience on different levels. Don’t focus on how many followers or likes you have. It’s all about connections and trying to make those connections bring value to the relationship.

Bands like Metallica and Bon Jovi use PR agencies to run their social media accounts. Of course the whole business model of the PR company is the less is more model and to have total control over the message. This is in contrast with the social principles of giving out as much information and seeing what connects and what misses.

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A to Z of Making It, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories

The Modern Music Paradigm is the 1982 Paradigm (Comparing the output of Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Ronnie James Dio with Dream Theater, Trivium and Machine Head)

So you want to make it in the music business as an artist? You want to set the world on fire. Since I have been doing some reading on a New Wave of British Heavy Metal band called Bleak House, I wanted to share their story.

Let’s go back in time.

It’s 1982. Bleak House have two highly-regarded releases out in the market and a loyal fan base. One of those releases was a single called Rainbow Warrior, that had a movable power chord verse riff that went from B to C to D over an E pedal tone. Sound familiar. It should. It is Metallica’s Welcome Home (Sanitarium).

The below quotes are all from an interview that Graham Killin did with the website http://www.hrrecords.de back in November 2012. So what went wrong.

“Looking back now I think we got a bit complacent. We weren’t trying to push enough, the new material wasn’t coming through so easily, and when we were going out playing we were just rehashing what we’d done before. We should have knuckled down and put some new material together, and done more gigs. We should have stuck at it. You look back and you think ‘if we’d stuck at it and done a few more gigs, put some more new music together, who knows what might have happened.”

The modern paradigm is as follows;

1. Stick around and outlast the competition
2. Keep on writing and putting new music together
3. Keep on networking and building relationships – artist to fan. Not artist to record label.
4. Keep on writing and putting new music together

Remember back in 1982, it was very rare to get a two year gap between albums. In 99% of cases, most artists that released an album in 1982, had another album out in 1983 and then another one in 1984. If Bleak House wanted to be a force reckoned with, they had to compete with the competition.

Look at Judas Priest. In 1980 they released British Steel, in 1981 they released Point of Entry and then in 1982 they released the big one, Screaming For Vengeance. Then they went on a two year gap between long players.

Let’s look at Iron Maiden. In 1980 they released Iron Maiden. In 1981 they released Killers. In 1982 they released The Number Of The Beast. In 1983 they released Piece of Mind. In 1984 they released Powerslave. In 1985 they released Live After Death. In 1986 they released Somewhere In Time. Then they started to go on a two year gap between long players. Iron Maiden worked hard for their success. That is why they are on top right now.

Another hard worker I want to mention is Ronnie James Dio. Let’s look at his output.

In 1975, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow was released. In 1976, Rising came out. In 1977, On Stage came out. In 1978, Long Live Rock N Roll came out.

With Black Sabbath, he was involved with the Heaven and Hell release in 1980. In 1981, Mob Rules came out. In 1982 Live At Last came out.

In 1983, Dio released Holy Diver under his own name. In 1984, The Last In Line came out and in 1985 Sacred Heart was released. 1986, the Live EP Intermission and then in 1987 Dream Evil came out with Craig Goldy on guitar.

That is 12 releases in a 12 year period. Remember that all of these releases took place at a time when it was expensive to create and release music. During a period when the artist was king and in control of what they created, before the dark times of when the Record Labels controlled what style of music would be recorded and what songs would be released. As an audience we felt that those records deserved our attention. Today, anyone can record and release material. However, the fan now needs a reason to pay attention.

So for any artist starting off. This is the standard again. You need to be creating and releasing. You need to be giving us a reason to pay attention. Forget about the 2 to 3 year gap between albums. That is the Record Label standard. It was never the artist standard.

Compare the above paradigm to the music released in the last 10 years.

Trivium kicked things off in 2003 with Ember To Inferno. In 2005 they released Ascendancy. In 2006 they released The Crusade. In 2008 they released Shogun. In 2011 they released In Waves. In October 2013 they are going to release Vengeance Falls an album that was finished in March 2013. Five albums in ten years.

Machine Head released Supercharger in 2001. In 2003 they released Hellalive and Through The Ashes of Empires. In 2007 they released The Blackening. In 2011 they released Unto The Locust. In 2012 they released Machine F***ing Head. It looks like a new album will see the light of day 2014. Five proper albums in 12 years and seven all up (including the live albums).

Dream Theater is an interest subject on this. Let’s look at the 2000’s era with Mike Portnoy in the band.
2001 – Metropolis 2000: Scenes From New York
2002 – Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
2003 – Train Of Thought
2003 – Official Bootlegs – The Majesty Demos 1985-1986
2003 – Official Bootlegs – Los Angeles, California 5/18/98
2003 – The Making Of Scenes From A Memory
2004 – Images and Words: Live In Tokyo/5 Years In A Livetime DVD (re-release of their 1990’s VHS releases)
2004 – Live At Budokan
2004 – Official Bootlegs – When Dream and Day Unite Demos 1987 – 1989
2004 – Official Bootlegs – Tokyo, Japan 10/28/1995
2004 – Official Bootlegs – Master Of Puppets
2005 – Octavarium
2005 – Official Bootlegs – Images and Words Demos 1989 – 1991
2005 – Official Bootlegs – The Number Of The Beast
2005 – Official Bootlegs – When Dream and Day Reunite CD and DVD
2006 – Score
2006 – Official Bootlegs – Awake Demos 1994
2006 – Official Bootlegs – Old Bridge, New Jersey 12/14/96
2006 – Official Bootlegs – The Dark Side of The Moon CD and DVD
2007 – Systematic Chaos
2007 – Official Bootlegs – New York City 3/4/93
2007 – Official Bootlegs – Falling into Infinity Demos
2007 – Official Bootlegs – Made in Japan – Deep Purple
2007 – Official Bootlegs – Bucharest, Romania 7/4/02 DVD
2008 – Chaos In Motion: 2007-2008
2008 – Greatest Hit (…and 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs)
2009 – Black Clouds And Silver Linings
2009 – Official Bootlegs – The Making of Falling Into Infinity
2009 – Official Bootlegs – Train of Thought Instrumental Demos 2003
2009 – Official Bootlegs – Uncovered 2003-2005
2009 – Official Bootlegs – Santiago, Chile 12/6/05 DVD

And this is the Dream Theater era without Mike Portnoy
2011 – A Dramatic Turn Of Events
2013 – Dream Theater
2013 – Live at Luna Park

“Gez wanted to earn some money from it and we weren’t doing enough gigs for that and besides, whatever we used to earn we’d plough straight back into the band for merchandise and to cover recording costs and have more singles pressed, stuff like that. But he wanted to actually earn something, make some money out of it; and yes, he did join a country & western outfit, as the urban myth goes, and yes, he has made money out of it; he joined a band that was actually making money. And he ended up marrying the singer!

As for Roy, it was inevitable that he might get an offer from somebody else. At one stage I think he had the opportunity to audition when AC/DC were looking for a drummer. But he didn’t go! He bloody well should have done; I’m sure he would have got in because he was such a great drummer. After Gez and Roy left I don’t think the magic was there any more. Bleak House got put on the shelf, and there it stayed. I think that was around September 1983, and we never played live again after that.”

It’s time to add a fifth point to the modern paradigm.

5. Don’t focus on the money side of the art. If you want a weekly wage, it is time to get a job that pays weekly.

Great art and everlasting music comes from inspiration. It doesn’t come from a thought process that involves money. As soon as a band member or an artist is thinking about the pay day, they are not in it for the right reasons.

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A to Z of Making It, Alternate Reality, Music, My Stories

Revisionist History when it comes to Metallica

Kill Em All, Metallica’s first album is celebrating 30 years this month. It was released in July 25, 1983. At the time of its release it didn’t really set the world on fire, however if you look at the reviews and praises the album is getting now, it is like the album came out and created a movement called thrash metal right off the bat.

Let’s put into context the lifespan of Kill Em All. It came out on July 25, 1983. By February 1984, seven months since Kill Em All was released, Metallica was in the studio, writing and recording the Ride The Lightning album. The victory lap of Kill Em All was seven months. That’s it. If the band wanted to have a career, they needed to get back into the studio and record a new album.

Of course when the 1991 Black album exploded, new fans started to dig deep and purchase the bands older material. It is for this reason that the bands older catalogue from Kill Em All to Justice started to get RIAA certifications.

Kill Em All finally reached U.S sales of 3 million units in 1999. That pales in comparison to the Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets albums which have moved over 6 million units in the U.S alone by 2012. The ..And Justice for All album has moved over 8 million copies in the U.S and the Metallica black album is pushing close to 17 million units sold in the U.S alone by the close of 2012.

As a Metallica fan, the Kill Em All album is not a bad album. It is a product of its time and its era. However in 1983, heavy metal and hard rock music was becoming a force to be reckoned with. So by 1983 standards, Kill Em All was up against some hard competition.

Motley Crue, Twisted Sister and Def Leppard had break through albums with Shout At The Devil, You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll and Pyromania.

Ozzy Osbourne, Kiss and Dio had new bands and you can call their 1983 releases as comeback albums. Bark At The Moon showcases Jake E.Lee, Lick It Up showcased Vinnie Vincent and Holy Diver showcases Vivian Campbell. In relation to Dio he was continuing his upward trajectory that started with Rainbow, then continued with Black Sabbath and now with his solo band.

ZZ Top hit the mainstream with Eliminator.

Iron Maiden followed up the breakthrough success of their 1982 album, The Number of The Beast with Piece of Mind.

Quiet Riot had a number one album on the back of the Randy Rhoads back story and connection with the band, a cover of Slade’s – Cum on Feel The Noize and a catchy original called Bang Your Head, which was perfect for the time.

Judas Priest was also riding high on the charts and selling well from a 1982 release called Screaming For Vengeance.

Going back to Metallica, the RNR history is written by the winners. Since Metallica is now inducted into the Hall of Fame, everyone that can put fingers to letters on a keyboard is rewriting their back story. Bands like Quiet Riot will be written out. Artists like Vinnie Vincent and Jake E.Lee will be forgotten by the clueless revisionists. The impact of other bands will be diminished because Metallica won.

Is anyone talking about Judas Priest and their impact to the American metal scene? Quiet Riot’s Metal Health was the first American heavy metal debut album to ever reach No. 1 in the United States on the Billboard album charts.

History is written by the winners.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Record Label Innovation – Kill Music Service to Protect Old Business Models

What are the Record Labels worth without the talent? ZERO!

So what do the Record Labels do to their talent?

They treat them to a world of creative accounting.

They treat them to a world where they spend monies on DMCA takedowns and litigation to protect the old income streams, instead of nurturing new income streams for their talent. Throughout life, people are always looking for something new, however the recording industry believe in selling the same old thing in music. When something different comes out like Mumford & Sons, Adele, PSY and Imagine Dragons it triumphs in unforseen ways.

The whole approach of the Record Labels and the RIAA has been if they can’t control a business, their next best option is to kill the business off. Napster showed the music business what the fans wanted, however they killed it off and to this day, not one legal service has risen to offer what Napster offered, which was Community and Convenience.

There is a song called Red City on the new Stone Sour release, House Of Gold and Bones II. In the story line, our hero is in the clutches of the bad guys and the song Red City marks the beginning of the end for the main character. If the Entertainment Industries and their stooges get their way, it is the beginning of the end for the Internet and the opportunities it gives to creators.

Sort of like the lyrics in the new Black Sabbath song, End of The Beginning that states “rewind the future to the past”. That is what the Entertainment industries want. The past to return. That is the future they want.

Look at the recent behaviour of the one they call Prince. Even the Electronic Frontiers Foundation has inducted Prince into its “Takedown Hall of Shame”. To sum up, Prince has issued DMCA takedowns on six second clips of a Prince concert, on fan recorded concert videos of him covering Creep from Radiohead (which by the way he doesn’t even own the rights to the song), threatening to sue people for thinking of doing a tribute album to him and a takedown of YouTube video of a toddler dancing to a Prince song (which is in the Courts at the moment).

The reason why I am mentioning Prince is to show people what a misguided artist he has become. The labels send millions of DMCA takedowns each day and in a lot of cases they censor free speech under a copyright claim. They have even taken down their own websites. Universal Music Group even took down Black Sabbath’s God Is Dead YouTube stream from the Black Sabbath YouTube page.

When is the Recording industry and people like Prince going to stop complaining? When are they going to stop lamenting the passage of the good old days? When are they going to stop blaming the technologists and the fans for ruining their business models. There is a reason why Indie labels have claimed a large slice of music sales this year than the three majors. It’s because they are working on the outside, digging deep and finding those real stars, the real golden nuggets.

Music used to be cutting edge and it used to drive the conversation and the culture. These days music is just another consumable, ready to be consumed like milk. Musicians like Prince, Jon Bon Jovi, Jay Z and so forth are trying to get in bed with the Fortune 500. Where is it written that musicians must be rich? You create quality that resonates and connects, then you will be a star.

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

It’s Time That Artists Leave The Old Way Behind and Be Leader’s Once Again

I still don’t agree with the old business model of putting together twelve tracks just to sell them for ten dollars as a package. I would like to see established bands like Machine Head, Dream Theater, Five Finger Death Punch, Shinedown and Trivium lead the way with a new paradigm. Leave the old way behind.

I know that Five Finger Death Punch are about to release a double album and Trivium have a new one coming along as does Dream Theater and Machine Head is not that far away either. All of these new releases are based on the old way. The album still has a place if done right and what that means is that all the tracks have to be of high quality. No one has time for filler these days.

Five Finger Death Punch started the writing process for their new album/s on the Trespass Festival Tour at the start of 2012. They brought out a mobile recording studio with them, to hash out riffs and put bits and pieces together, so when they got into the studio in September 2012, they already had the songs.  This is where they should have been releasing some songs. At the end they had 25 songs written that they are releasing on two CD’s.

Five Finger Death Punch are signed to a label, so of course they will need to release an album, as that is what the labels demand. So keeping that in mind, FFDP should have picked the best 10 songs for a CD release and from September 2012 to July 2013 they should have been releasing a song a month from the other 15 songs they had left. It is a different take on the old way. It is keeping the labels happy as they are still stuck in the past and it is keeping the fans happy as they are living in the future and just want content.

One thing that artists need to be clear on; streaming has won the war. YouTube is the original and unofficial streaming king. That is where the kids go to watch and listen. If artists pull their albums from legal services like Spotify, those same albums will still be available on YouTube to be streamed unlicensed. The fans have spoken. The fans killed off the CD, by embracing new technology. It is time the artists take note.

One more thing that artists need to understand: Spotify gives them 70% of the revenues. The exact same amount as iTunes. The difference is that Spotify pays you over time instead of right now and that is the problem that a lot of artists with the pressure of the label and the manager do not understand. The reason why they don’t understand it, is because the label and the manager all want to be paid RIGHT now.

Go on to Black Sabbath’s Spotify account and check to see which songs are the most streamed from them. It is all the songs written 40 years ago and nothing from the new album. Streaming services do pay.  If the artists have a problem with not getting “paid” by streaming services, they should be checking with the company they sold their rights to. Black Sabbath might scream piracy, however who is collecting the monies from Spotify streams for their back catalogue. The answer: the company that holds the rights is collecting.

I remember a time when musicians used to lead. Now technologists lead, while the artists entourage of money leaches are screaming they are not making any money, while the association who represents the Record Labels (and who claims incorrectly that they represent the artists as well) the RIAA plays Whac-A-Mole with technology. They killed Napster only to get Kazaa and Limewire. They killed Kazaa and Limewire, only to get BitTorrent and The Pirate Bay. They kill one cyber locker like Megaupload and another ten more appear. They send DMCA takedowns to Google and then another 100 new links spring up. Seriously does Google need to be doing all this work, just for providing a service like a search engine.

What artists and the labels do not realise is that Spotify and YouTube has made a dent in people’s downloading habits. Progress doesn’t happen overnight or right now. It takes years and sometimes decades. Invest now for rewards later, however the record labels do not believe in this, the managers do not believe in this and they convince the artists that they sign to not believe in this. So what do they believe in; short term profits.

The answer to success is right there in front of the artist. If an artist wants to make plenty of money in music, they need to be a superstar as no one has time for anything less. Just like there is one Facebook, one Google and one Amazon, the same filtering will happen in music and their respective niches.

Five Finger Death Punch is knocking on that Superstar door for the metal genre. They have competition from Stone Sour, Bullet For My Valentine and Disturbed, however if fan engagement is an indication then Five Finger Death Punch are the new superstars.

Shinedown is already the new superstar for the hard rock genre. Bands like Hinder, Adelitas Way, Alter Bridge, Seether, Halestorm, Three Days Grace, Black Stone Cherry, Saving Abel, Pop Evil, Rev Theory, Breaking Benjamin are the challengers.

Dream Theater is already the superstar for the progressive genre. They are unrivalled and really unchallenged at the moment.

Periphery are the Djent superstars.

TesserAct are the new Pink Floyd superstars.

Machine Head are the new superstars of the thrash genre.

Metallica have surpassed superstar status and have moved into the Legends space.

If you want to survive in the future, you need to live in it. Metallica now understands this, however AC/DC still doesn’t understand it. For some insane reason, AC/DC is holding their music back from Spotify (which is licensed and pays) while it is on Grooveshark and YouTube (which are unlicensed and do not pay).

Spotify might not even win the streaming war. Maybe Google will come up with something better, maybe iTunes Radio will win, or some other new player will come on the scene and blow everyone away. One thing is clear, there will be only one streaming champion. Diehard fans will still pay up front for songs they have never heard, however with so much music coming out at the moment and our time so limited, this is not the business model that artists should base their future on.

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Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Is Having Mike Portnoy in your band a good thing or a bad thing these days?

There’s never been any doubt about Mike Portnoy’s work ethic. The man is a machine. He doesn’t just play in bands, he spawns them, shepherds them, fuels them, and somehow finds time to tour, record, rehearse, and still show up like it’s day one and he’s got something to prove.

But here’s the inconvenient question no one wants to ask out loud:

At what point does doing everything start to feel like doing nothing?

Not because the passion isn’t real.

Not because the talent isn’t there.

But because even the hungriest creators face the same truth: quality doesn’t scale.

And that’s where things get uncomfortable. Because quality, real, signature, unmistakable quality, comes from the furnace, not the assembly line. It comes from the chemistry of the right creative partners. Not fame, not legacy, not sheer hours logged.

Look at the pattern.

Dream Theater

Portnoy wasn’t just a drummer in Dream Theater. He was plugged into a once-in-a-generation creative engine, John Petrucci, the guitarist every metal kid secretly wished they could be. That partnership was lightning in a bottle, and lightning doesn’t strike twice on command. Leaving that team wasn’t sabotage, it was a gamble. A hard reset. A leap into the unknown with no guarantee the muse would follow.

Adrenaline Mob

Here, the spark came from sheer brute force.

Mike Orlando, raw, volatile, borderline unhinged in the best way, felt like the spiritual cousin of the great riff architects. You could hear the Iommi DNA in the walls. You could picture a classic record forming if the universe cooperated. There was potential. Serious potential.

Transatlantic

A different beast entirely. Roine Stolt and Neal Morse aren’t minor-league players, they’re specialists. They live in a very specific musical ecosystem: grandiose, sprawling, prog epics for people who want forty-minute tracks. That’s a lane, not a flaw. But it’s also a place where “quality control” can blur into “more is more,” where ambition outraces cohesion. It’s a world with its own rules, and its own ceilings.

Flying Colors

Steve Morse is a legend. Full stop. But legends age, and even titans spread thin eventually feel the pull. Deep Purple, Dixie Dregs, solo work… it’s not burnout, it’s bandwidth. Greatness doesn’t vanish, it just becomes … diffuse.

The Winery Dogs

And here we hit the pressure point.

If a project wants to stand out in a landscape already saturated with Portnoy’s fingerprints, it has to bring something unmistakably new.

Something with teeth.

Richie Kotzen is skilled, no debate. But that’s not the question. The question is: does he bring a signature?

A sonic identity that doesn’t feel like déjà vu from the Shrapnel era?

Because being good isn’t enough for a trio built on presence and personality. When the guitarist is the vocalist and the main songwriter, the entire organism lives or dies on distinctiveness.

And Kotzen, for all his technical fluency and vocal punch, often feels like a man shaped by the ghosts of his influences. The shred era’s fingerprints are all over him. The blues-rock revival too. Even his vocals echo Cornell’s silhouette. None of this makes him bad. but it makes him familiar. And when you’re leading a three-piece with two virtuosos behind you, familiar might not be enough.

This is where the truth gets even sharper.

Portnoy and Sheehan are phenomenal at what they do, but neither has ever been the primary architect of timeless songs on their own. That’s not an insult. It’s an observation about creative ecosystems. They thrive when partnered with a defining voice, a guitarist or songwriter who stamps the work with something unmistakably singular.

Look at Sheehan: a monster on his instrument, a pioneer even. But the biggest hits of his career came when he was orbiting giants, Vai, Gilbert, Roth. Leaders need other leaders.

Portnoy’s no different. He’s an amplifier. A catalyst. A force multiplier. He enhances the right team. That’s his genius.

But genius still requires the right partner.

James Hetfield once said that side projects dilute the core product. He understood something most musicians don’t want to face:

Attention is finite.

Energy is finite.

The muse plays favorites.

When the creative radar is pointed everywhere, it points nowhere with the same intensity.

Portnoy’s output is enormous. Admirable. Occasionally brilliant. But the law of diminishing returns doesn’t care about effort. It only cares about focus.

So maybe the point isn’t whether Kotzen is special enough. Or whether Sheehan should shoulder more. Or whether prog epics should be shorter or longer.

Maybe the real question is this:

Has Portnoy been chasing the feeling he once had with Petrucci and does he know it?

Because that’s the paradox:

A great creative partnership isn’t something you replace.

It’s something you spend the rest of your life trying to rediscover.

And maybe that’s not a flaw.

Maybe that’s the whole point.

Because the audience doesn’t want “more.”

They want magic.

And magic only happens when the right people collide at the right moment with the right hunger.

Everything else?

Noise.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

The old rock star is dead. Its time to create a new rock star that is a product of the times

Influences/Inspiration

Nobody exists in a vacuum. Inspiration comes from what you read, watch and experience.  Inspiration is the merging of these experiences and influences into something new. When Metallica came on the scene they were inspired and influenced by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. They were influenced by Punk. They were inspired and influenced by Classic Rock. They were excited and this made them nervous. Nerves made them play faster.

When Black Sabbath came on the scene they were originally influenced by the Blues. Just another blues band among the many blues bands doing the rounds at that time. Then they applied their gloomy industrial upbringing and the rest is history.

Experience

Inspiration doesn’t take place in a vacuum. All day long you are experiencing.

Could Nikki Sixx have written Kick Start My Heart if he didn’t experience death and life? Could James Hetfield have written The Unforgiven if he was brought up in a wealthy household that didn’t have Christian Science beliefs? Could Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi have written Wanted Dead Or Alive if they never toured? Could Dee Snider have written We’re Not Gonna Take It, if he was rich?

If you think you can write a hit song with no prior experience, you’re dreaming.  Our whole life is information. Be ready to reference it.  Trust your first initial feeling.

Sign Of The Times

Don’t get caught up in doing things in the old way. Today’s medium is the Internet. No one wants to hear new music from their favourite artist every two years. We surf the net each day, looking for new music and information.  If there is a demand for your music, you should create and distribute constantly.

The days when we used to have very little music are over. The days of saving up to buy an album and the playing the same album over and over again are also gone.  Now, we’ve got the history of recorded music at our fingertips. YouTube has everything that you want, Spotify has almost everything that you could want and if all of that fails cyber lockers and The Pirate Bay fill the void.

Product Of The Times

The old rock star is dead. Its time to create a new rock star that is a product of the times. Keep innovating.  Embrace the new reality that is being born. Stop playing by the rules of the Classic Rock artists.

Look at the band Heartist. When they formed, they decided that they would not play by the old rules of playing as many gigs as possible just to get noticed.  They decided to not play by the old rules of guaranteeing promoters 50 presales for each gig (which more or less meant, the band either had to beg people to come to their show that didn’t want to be there or they basically paid to play).  They decided to write songs.  They decided to keep on writing. They started posting demos on YouTube. They started building a buzz. The songs had quality. People started to spread them, share them, talk about them. They played ONE gig and got signed by Roadrunner and management.

What Does Music and Success Mean These Days?

Music is for the fans. Music is for the people. Music is not for a record executive to make billions so that they can compete with the Forbes 100 Rich List.  If you want to be in the music business, you need to focus on what music means. Be inspired! Create!  You have to practice, be original and wait for your moment, when you have to deliver.

Def Leppard’s Hysteria was out for over a year before it exploded on the back of the Love Bites single. A sleeper hit that no one saw coming. If the song is really damn good it will get people’s attention.

If you want success, you need to get people’s attention. If you want success you need to work hard and don’t plan for it. If you want success, practice and be ready to turn that inspiration into a product.  If you want success, you need to know that you have no control over what spreads and what doesn’t. Don’t judge the success of your project straight away. Success is always ten steps behind. It takes a while for it to happen.  Don’t just the success of your project in dollar terms. Success is about laying a solid foundation and building on it.

Your music has to be accessible. It needs to make an instant impact. Fans do not have the time to spend on letting an album sink into our brain like the old ways. These days there are so many options and people don’t endure that which is not pleasing to them, They move on. Repetition is not an artist’s friend in the current times. The life span of a song is different these days.

Most of the time you get one shot for each new fan. It is that one time when people will hear what you have created. One time where you need to satisfy them, so that they can respond and share.

Today, you need to have that one unbelievable cut, that makes the people need to hear it over and over again. That one cut that makes the people want to go and find out more about you.

Whether it be Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, Dio’s “Holy Diver”, Ozzy Osbourne “Crazy Train”, Kiss “Lick It Up”, Shinedown’s “Second Chance” or Metallica’s’ “One”. It works in every genre of music.

Connections

Artists can go straight to their audience, there are no restrictions. Artists by now should know that their career depends on building a loyal relationship with as many fans as possible. In order to build relationships, you need to get people’s attention. You need to find a way to be heard over all the noise.

Standing Out – Visuals and Music

You want to be remembered. You want to be talked about. How can you achieve that? Society is a visual culture. That is why we watch TV shows, movies, take pictures and film ourselves.

Why do you think, when you see a preview for a new movie coming out, the studio marketeers have music with it? Why do you think TV shows and movies have soundtracks? They are re-enforcing the visuals with music, as people take more notice when that happens. If people notice they will talk about.

Putting your music with visuals is a big step forward to getting people’s attention. How many times have you walked out of a movie, thinking, what a tough score. I just watched World War Z and I loved the track that Muse did for it.  Man Of Steel had an unbelievable score by Hans Zimmer, that captured the emotion in each scene. It was also inspiring and uplifting. I still remember the preview to the Captain America movie, where they had the music (46&2) from Tool playing and that was almost three years ago.

Standing Out – Opinions

No artist can please everyone. So don’t try. All artists stand for something. If you write a song that is anti-(insert topic here), you will alienate some, and connect more with others. When people get fired up (via positive or negative feelings) they pay attention.

Standing Out – Different = Success

If you look at all of your heroes, they are there for a reason. They are different. When they came on the scene, they were different. Twisted Sister was different to all the other bands in the Eighties in how they dressed and looked. Their style was a combination of AC/DC style rock, mixed with Judas Priest metal, with a dose of punk chucked in. Metallica was different to all the metal and rock bands when they came onto the scene. Motley Crue was different to all the new wave music that was popular at the time. Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden were all different to the Eighties Glam Rock movement. Black Sabbath was different to all the hippie folk music at the time.

Different also includes doing cover versions of popular songs. Take jazz songs and turn them into rock songs. Take pop songs and make them into rock songs.  The original artist’s fans will be curious to hear these versions.  Led Zeppelin did a lot of covers, Metallica the same. Van Halen had cover songs on their first five albums. Motley Crue did Smokin In The Boys Room and Helter Skelter.

What Does It Mean to be an Artist Today?

You don’t want to be an artist that becomes who others want them to be. You don’t want to be an artist that whores themselves out to make money. You don’t want to be an artist that does what they have to do to keep the status quo.

It’s okay to not be liked by everybody.

Real artists don’t believe in conforming. Real artists stay true to who they are. Real artists play to their fans and allow the fans to talk about them. Do not change for all the new people that could tag along to your success train, that’s death. You need to keep playing to the hard core fan base. A great artist is someone who leads us into the unknown who we can’t help but follow.

Dream Theater is one artist that comes to mind, that did it their way or the hard way. Signed as a progressive band, they released When Dream and Day Unite, which the label ignored and then went on a long search for a vocalist. When Pull Me Under got traction on MTV and Radio, the band was then a commercial prospect for the label. So the label now wants more crossover songs, and this lead to the issues with the label around the Falling Into Infinity project. After that the band stayed true to who they are and they have grown with each album and are more successful now than ever.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Derivative Works, Music, My Stories, Piracy

Metal Music and Piracy

Dave Mustaine from Megadeth was asked the question “What do you think about the state of the music industry right now with all of the changes that have been made?” when he appeared on That Metal Show (S12:Ep5)

“This generation has grown up to believe that music should be free. We focus on the live shows now. People are very song-focused now.”

While I disagree with David’s assessment that this generation has grown up to believe that music should be free, I do agree with his other comment that people are song focused and that the bands focus should always be on the live show.

This generation is a product of their times. The medium of the times is the Internet. This generation has grown up with the internet. This generation has grown up on quality. Dave Mustaine in the same interview was asked to rate his top 5 Megadeth albums. Guess which albums made his top 5.

1. Countdown To Extinction
2. Rust In Peace
3. Peace Sells
4. Killing Is My Business
5. So Far, So Good, So What

This is Dave Mustaine saying that his best work is in the first five Megadeth albums.

Scott Rockenfield (from Queensryche) was also asked the same question.

“Records are different these days, they are good calling cards for us to continue our legacy. Bands can’t earn a lot of money in record sales anymore. We started out as a live band. A lot of new bands don’t have that.”

No one wants to wait two years for a 14 song record with three or four good songs. We want more songs on a regular basis and we want quality.
The internet allows the bands to do this as the distribution costs are zero.

Record song, upload and share.

If the song is great, the fans will market it for free. That is the way the game is played today. Instead you still have artists thinking that they should record many songs, hype up their release, spend money on a scorched earth marketing policy and then release the product so that people can buy it. It’s all wrong.

As an artist you want your creations to live forever. For that to happen, people need to share the songs, talk about them, do derivative versions and make a connection.

This brings me to artists who just have it all wrong, when it comes to their views on the current state of the music business.

Scott Ian said that people should lose their connection because they share his recorded music. I listened to Worship Music on YouTube. I didn’t download it and I didn’t pay a cent for it. You can say that I unofficially streamed it, since YouTube is the first streaming platform that the entertainment business tried to shut down unsuccessfully.

As far as I’m concerned I went onto a legal site and listened to the music. So based on Ian’s interpretation of the law, the internet connection of the people that went on to YouTube to listen to the album has to be suspended (as we stole it) along with the Anthrax fan who put it up.

The Recording Business is just an arm of the Music Business, that is trying in vain to hold on to its old business models. No one wakes up in the morning, thinking they need to buy a CD. We wake up in the morning, thinking we need to hear this song.

Doc Coyle from God Forbid summed it up in a post on the Metal Sucks website;

“We seem to think people want CDs or books or DVDs as individual items to own and keep, but the truth is, what we really want is the content contained on these capsules of information. The CD, DVD and book are just messengers for the experience contained therein.”

I am going through an issue of Hot Metal from May 1993. As soon as I open the magazine, there is a two page advertisement for the release of Anthrax – Sound of White Noise. One page has the album cover art and the second page has the heading, RESERVE YOUR COPY OF ANTHRAX’S NEW ALBUM “SOUND OF WHITE NOISE” AT THE FOLLOWING IDN STORES.

Back then we needed to buy CD’s so that we could hear the music. If they said we needed to buy a stereo that plays unlimited music, we would have.

Speaking of buying:
Black Sabbath had week three sales of 25,300 and week four sales of 16,942. (U.S. sales)

It is doing the same decline as other rock/metal artists like Skillet.

Metal bands need to take a leaf from the Imagine Dragons playbook. This band has entered the Top 10 again with sales of 33,223 for its Night Visions album.

Think about that. Imagine Dragons has been selling for 44 weeks. It has sold more in its 44th week than a Black Sabbath album in its 4th week. The last couple of weeks has seen a resurgence for the band. Why? The band is touring.

People are talking about the shows and they are buying the music. Some people might see it as strange that people went to a rock show without owning a physical copy of the music.

These are the times we live in. These are the times that artists need to live in.

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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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What Does A Number 1 album mean these days?

So Black Sabbath had a Number 1 record with sales of 155,000. A friend of mine was quick to tell me that. Week 2 then saw a big 70% drop with only 45,000 sold.

Bon Jovi had a number one album with Because We Can and in nine weeks it disappeared completely. Why? Because the fans are not spreading it, they are not talking about it and they are not listening to it. Will the Black Sabbath album suffer the same fate? Time will tell.

What does a sale mean these days? Do sales even matter?

What does matter is whether people LISTENED to the music!

Spotify now has play count metrics and who can forget the worlds original unofficial streaming service, YouTube.

In this day and age new music from Black Sabbath with Ozzy singing is long overdue. However, in the end I am not hooked on it enough to spread it and from looking at the data, the fans have the same view.

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