Tag Archives: commercial success

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

The Goal Is To Get People To Believe What You Believe

Ask any artist why they didn’t get more recognised, or signed and the answers are variations of the same three things;

– Lack of support
– Didn’t have the right people involved
– Wrong place, wrong time

Ask any record label A&R rep why the act they signed didn’t achieve worldwide domination and you will hear the same three things. If the three excuses for not making it sound familiar, then they should as they are derivative versions of Simon Sinek’s failure reasons from his TED talk. The music world is littered with these kinds of examples. Let’s go back to the Eighties.

Steve Howe left ASIA at the peak of their commercial success to form GTR in 1984. It was a big budget band that Clive Davis from ARISTA touted as the next big thing. It had all the right people in place. The band was well-connected and they had access to funds and support. Apart from Steve Howe on guitar, the band also had Jonathan Mover on drums, Steve Hackett on guitars, Phil Spalding on bass and Max Bacon on vocals. The market conditions were favourable and the timing was perfect. After spending millions on the over produced debut album, it was a commercial disappointment when compared to ASIA’s multi-platinum success.

Nobody knows, anymore, that a band called GTR even existed.

What about Steve Stevens Atomic Playboys?

He had the big backers in Warner Bros Records. He had a talented front man in Perry McCarty. All the right people were in place. Ted Templeman and Beau Hill assisted with the production. Thommy Price and Anton Fig drummed on the album. The market conditions in 1989 suited hard rock music to a tee. The album comes out and disappears as quickly as it was released. Steve Stevens later would refer to this band as an expensive project. Personally I think the album is very good, however the general public at large just didn’t connect with it. Another commercial failure.

What about the band Tangier?

So the story goes something like this. Jon Bon Jovi after his multi-platinum success convinces Polygram to sign Cinderella. Cinderella also strike it big and Tom Keifer then convinces Derek Schulman from ATCO to sign Tangier. Super producer Andy Johns (RIP) was on hand to produce. They had a good band and in Doug Gordon a very compenent and underrated guitarist. They delivered a classic rock AOR album in “Four Winds”. I loved it. The market conditions suited. The funding was there. And it failed commercially.

What about Lynch Mob?

Like Steve Stevens before him, George Lynch left the band that brought his name to the masses. In this case it was Dokken. Elektra bidded to retain his services and proceeded to pay over a million dollars to first get the band members in place and then to get “Wicked Sensation” written, recorded and distributed. So the band had the right support and the funding. George Lynch said in the October 1989 issue of Guitar World that the toughest thing about forming Lynch Mob was finding a great lead singer because that either makes or breaks a band. So it is safe to say that all of the right people were in place within the band. They had a super experienced producer in Max Norman. The songs were perfect. A bit more blues based than the Dokken output but still of high quality. I loved the album. The market conditions suited them. Hell, it was 1989, the era of Hard Rock. And the band still failed commercially.

What about the band Nitro?

Michael Angelo Batio had the endorsements, the quad guitars, instructional videos, a plethora of support  and a banshee vocalist in Jim Gillette. Check out the Guitar World review from October 1989 by Joseph Bosso.

“This album is a wonder – a wonder that anybody thought these guys could play or sing, that they looked good, that they deserved a gig, studio time or worse yet a record deal (with Rampage/Rhino). Utter trash. The worst.”

And of course that band also failed. And yes, I agree totally with the review. That album was pure garbage.

The thing is this. The people who believed in the artists above did it just for the pay check. And it failed to pay off.

While in Seattle, a movement was growing who didn’t have any of the ingredients for success. They had a small local independent record label that supported them and that was it. But those artists were not driven by the RICHES. And we found out years later about the Seattle scene when everyone jumped on its bandwagon.

And to show that so many artists/record label execs of the Eighties were not in the music business for the right thing, the day that Grunge broke out to the masses so many rockers got dropped or just quit. Music is more than just the song. It is about the lifestyle as well. The heavy metal movement morphed into the hard rock movement and its roots/fan base came from the industrial heartlands of the developed economies. At one stage it was a lifestyle to be a metal head. The record labels took that lifestyle away with their overproduced pop metal bullshit and of course we watched it die a horrible death from over saturation.

Be in the game to create masterpieces. That is how you build a body of work. One song at a time. Don’t over analyse what you do as there is no formula for what connects and what doesn’t. You just need to have to right reasons to be in place for why you want to be a musician.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories

Lynch Mob

The follow-up self-titled Lynch Mob album had Keith Olsen producing. And it comes from the legend known as George Lynch and his continuing saga of the lead singer revolving door. It’s 1992. One of my favourite bands in Dokken was close to four years dead. In between that time George Lynch and Mick Brown shacked up together with Lynch Mob and remained with Elektra Records. Jeff Pilson went to War and Peace and lead singer Don Dokken got wined and dined by Geffen Records and jumped ship.

The first post Dokken battle between Lynch and Dokken was won by Lynch who released the excellent “Wicked Sensation” first and scored a big win from the Dokken faithful. However, Don Dokken and John Kalodner assembled an all-star cast for “Up From The Ashes” and even though the album was an exemplary piece of melodic hard rock, it failed commercially.

However the great momentum built up by the Mark 1 version of Lynch Mob was taken back a few steps with the ousting of vocalist Oni Logan. The story goes that Lynch had a problem with the way Logan sounded live. So after letting Logan go, the band had Glenn Hughes come in. He would sing the songs and then new singer Robert Mason would also go in and he’d sing the songs.

Then Hughes and Mason would pick apart both performances and come up with one final definitive vocal take that Mason would go back in and sing again.

“Jungle Of Love”

It’s a crime that it sounded too much like everything else. Suddenly, towards the end of the Eighties and early Nineties, all of the hard rock bands started bringing back the Seventies blues influences/boogies, however it was Jake E.Lee and Badlands that did it best.

“Tangled In The Web”

It’s the horns that make this track and along with the hallucinogenic guitar sound they blend in nicely, making the track swing. Billboard Magazine in their 13 June 1992 issue said that it the song “May prove to be a hard sell, but well worth a spin nevertheless.” By 18th July, 1992 the song was a fast mover on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks, sitting at 16.

It’s a classic. And classics never go stale. It is unique enough to sound fresh as every year goes on. Listening to it today, i can honestly say it feels fresh and not dated. In other words, it is not rooted into that hard rock sound of the Eighties.

The song writing credits read that all the music came from George Lynch. Lyrics on the other hand came from Mick Brown, Anthony Esposito, Robert Mason and Keith Olsen.

“Hypnotizing
My temperature’s rising
As the sweat rolls
From my head to your lips”

It’s a bastardized riff taken from “The Hunter”. Is there a genre called Hard Rock Swing.

One thing that was prominent on this album was the “cleaning up” of Lynch’s distorted tones. Which is a good thing. As a guitarist, I am all too aware how a lot of gain can mask a lot of imperfections. So to play with a cleaner distortion, you need to be on your game. The riffs are more defined and “Tangled In The Web” is a fine example.

In the lead break, Lynch was asked to be like Eric Clapton and he winged it. The producer loved it, Lynch hated it. The producer won out in the end.

“No Good”

“I’m the evil in the bible,
Go to church but never pray
I’m a sister with a habit,
a preacher never saved”

Music was written by George Lynch. Lyrics came from Mick Brown, Anthony Esposito, Robert Mason and Keith Olsen.

AC/DC eat your heart out. Actually, if people remember the excellent Australian band, “Baby Animals” led by Suze DeMarchi then you can say that this song is taken from their debut album.

“Dream Until Tomorrow”

Music was written by George Lynch. Lyrics came from Mick Brown, Anthony Esposito, Robert Mason and Keith Olsen.

“Trust in my love
You know only time can separate us”

Love the clean tone that kicks it off. I remember reading in an interview that three different guitars got used, with different amp settings in order to achieve that clean tone.

Again the cleaner tones came as a breath of fresh air for the year that was 1992. The song was a precursor to the “Sacred Groove” album in the same way that “Mr Scary” was.

And just when you think the song is over, it restarts and builds for the last-minute and a half.

“Cold Is The Heart”

Music was written by George Lynch. Lyrics again came from Mick Brown, Anthony Esposito, Robert Mason and Keith Olsen.

“Icy hand behind a velvet glove
As she sits on the face of the world”

Again the cleanliness of the distorted tones really stand out. The song could be on any Dokken album and not be out-of-place. That was always the Achilles heel of George Lynch. He hated the fact that he was always referred to Dokken’s guitarist.

“Tie Your Mother Down”

Yep, it is a cover. Brian May wrote it. Lynch Mob recorded it as a tribute to Freddie Mercury. God damn that lead section is pure bliss with that basic diminished shape shifted up the neck

The jam like attitude grabs me from the get go.

“Heaven Is Waiting”

It’s a pop song and its a very underrated song that doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

Music was written by George Lynch. Lyrics came from Mick Brown, Anthony Esposito, Robert Mason and George Lynch.

“I ain’t nothing but the devil’s fool”

“I Want It”

Van Halen and AC/DC merged with “Empire” era Queensryche comes to mind. Another classic hard rocker, that got lost in all of the other generic crap from 1992. It’s also hidden deep in the album, so you had to be a fan to get this deep into the album. As usual the music came from Lynch and the lyrics came from Brown, Mason and Esposito.

“When Darkness Calls”

“You can’t resist it
It’s black or white”

Music was written by George Lynch. Lyrics came from Mick Brown, Anthony Esposito and Robert Mason.

I am hooked from the get go. That phased out/flanged out guitar arpeggios with the backward echoed sounding lead lines and all merged with a killer vocal melody. It’s a classic metal song and along with “Tangled In The Web” they are the stand outs of this album by far. Songs to build careers on.

“The Secret”

Music was written by George Lynch. Lyrics came from Mick Brown, Anthony Esposito, Robert Mason and Keith Olsen.

“Eyes once open never closed
That’s the gateway to the soul”

Great riffs and great melodies but it is more of the same of what came before.

In the end, the album while great failed to match the sales of “Wicked Sensation”. When that happened in 1992, it was more or less the beginning of the end. As a guitarist George Lynch was in my Top 5 of influences, however it was clear that he had a lead singer firing complexion.

Lynch Mob was on tour and Lynch was “not feeling it” with Mason and he wanted to get another singer. That singer was Ray Gillen, who at the time wasn’t interested because he had just completed “Voodoo Highway” with Badlands and was keen to push and promote that album.

If only Gillen knew the fall out that would happen between him and Jake a few months later. Glenn Hughes was considered, however due to his age, that was discarded.

The image of Lynch Mob being a band was non-existent and the legend of George Lynch being a control freak just kept on growing. The band never took off as it should have based on the quality of the musicians and the song writing. But in the end, like every George Lynch project, it self-imploded before it even had a chance to take off, because George Lynch is George Lynch.

And then George Lynch returned to the Dokken fold for the already written “Dysfunctional” album and even though as a hard core fan, I thoroughly enjoyed it, the truth of the matter is the band was spent. And we can speculate or argue why or just revel in the greatness of what came before.

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

Headed For A Heartbreak

Blame Beavis and Butthead. Blame Grunge. The truth is a bit more complex.

Winger was good. Real good, however the band suffered the same unjust fate as all the other Eighties bands. Billy Squire made one ridiculous video with a pink top. A pink top that was recommended by a plethora of enablers, including record label execs. And just like that an amazing voice, with a catalog of songs was gone.

Winger had Kip Winger. A Playgirl pictorial was too outlandish and as glam music was committing suicide by cloning itself over and over again and despite Kip being a great musician, Beavis and Butthead came along and trashed the band. Metallica threw darts at Kip Winger while they recorded the “Black” album.

“Headed For A Heartbreak” is a hell of a good song. On the “Official Winger” YouTube channel the song has 1,506,304 views. On the “80’s Metal Videos” channel it has 347,590 views. On another channel, a live version that appeared on MTV has 245,624 views. On Spotify the song has 173,229 streams.

The song is written by Kip Winger, however it is the performances from the band that captured the imagination and connected on all levels. “Madalaine” was the first single and it failed to get traction. The the track “Seventeen” came out and interest in the band started to grow and while it softened all the hard heads to Winger, it was “Headed For A Heartbreak” that sealed the deal commercially. This business model worked well during this time. Who knew that in 5 years time the band would be headed for a heartbreak.

MTV was king of the airwaves and most people owned little music. The CD’s remained expensive so people only purchased with they really loved or saw as great. Then we would go to the show to hear the songs. Now we only have time for the best. When an album is released we can cherry pick what we like and in a lot of cases it isn’t the single that the record label decided to go with.

People are quick to blame piracy for all the issues currently happening in the music business however the truth is that the audience has outgrown the album format. Why should that outdated format work for us, especially when we can go on YouTube or Spotify to get the hit song we desire.

The audience is king today. Not the artist, not the songwriter, not the record label or the producer. That is why the cycle is so fast. Albums come and by three to four weeks they are gone. Except the real good ones. In the eighties, the big effort was marketing and getting people to buy the record. Today it is all about getting people to listen to the music over and over again.

Winger’s debut didn’t come from out of nowhere. Kip Winger did his time as a songwriter and studio session musician working very closely with Beau Hill who would of course go on to produce the first two Winger albums that went platinum. It is during those studio sessions that he came across Reb Beach. It was still going to be another 4 years before the self titled Winger album was released.

So Winger did time with Alice Cooper’s band, recording and writing two albums. Then in 1987, he left to form Sahara which would go on to become Winger after Alice Copper suggested it.

Guitarist Reb Beach is a graduate from the esteemed Berklee College of Music. He also did his time in backing bands and studio work, until he met up with Kip Winger and started writing demos.

Drummer Rod Morgenstein was the most experienced. Active since joining jazz fusion legends “The Dixie Dregs” in 1974, he was a very accomplished drummer to bring into the fold.

Keyboard player and back up guitarist Paul Taylor was the x factor. He was the touring keyboardist for Aldo Nova during his “Fantasy” success. He did his time with Alice Cooper’s backing band at the same time with Kip Winger and played on the “Constrictor” and “Raise Your Fist and Yell” albums.

Winger like Night Ranger was a pseudo super group of musicians that connected on all levels and it’s important to mention this point to all the wannabe musicians out there.

Another important point to mention is that the songs that made up the debut album were written during a 3 year period by musicians that had experience and that had lived. I rate Winger the same as White Lion, however Winger did have a better all star team, whereas White Lion had Vito Bratta and to some extent Mike Tramp.

Winger is a band that has the songs that you can play forever. In a world that is suffering from information overload, Winger produced a body of work that we can all continue to listen to. Go on Spotify and check them out. Go on YouTube and check them out. Focus on the music and not on the pretty boy images put out there in the video clips.

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