Tag Archives: Glam Rock

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

The Lost Art of Melody: Paul Stanley’s Underrated KISS Gems From 1987–1992

Somewhere between 1987 and 1992, Paul Stanley quietly became one of the best melodic hard rock songwriters in the business. Maybe he already was the best.

While thrash bands were chasing aggression and hair bands were drowning in excess, Paul Stanley was still obsessed with choruses. Diehards accused him of selling out, but to the Star Child, how can you sell out when you are doing the same thing you’ve always been doing.

Writing great Choruses.

If you don’t believe me, go back and listen again.

“My Way.”
“King Of Hearts.”
“Heart Of Chrome.”

They’re hidden gems from a period people spent decades dismissing because KISS dared to sound polished during the peak of pop metal.

And that’s always been the crime in rock history… accessibility.

But writing massive melodic hooks is harder than writing heaviness. Everybody can down-tune guitars and write about darkness or about the things that should not be.

Paul Stanley walked a tightrope constantly, trying to write something memorable, without it collapsing into cheese.

“King of Hearts” wasn’t just Paul Stanley writing another song, it was Paul teaming up with Vini Poncia, the architect behind some of KISS’s most polished late-70s and early-80s material. Full disclosure, the 1978 to 1980 era from KISS is huge in Australia. In other words, I’m a fan of this songwriting team.

“She was just 19, but in her eyes she was old enough to know.”

Everyone remembers being young and thinking they had to grow up too fast.

Nineteen is an age of contradiction. You’re legally an adult, emotionally still assembling yourself, and already discovering that life doesn’t care how prepared you are. The lyric is telling us about experience. Some people accumulate years. Others accumulate scars.

“In her eyes” suggests wisdom earned through disappointment, responsibility, and surviving things a person shouldn’t have had to survive.

That’s one of life’s uncomfortable truths: innocence doesn’t disappear because time passes. It disappears because reality arrives early.

“We were caught between two city streets, like a bad dream.”

Cities promise opportunity, but they can also make you anonymous.

This line is describing limbo. Existing in the space between where you are and where you wish you were. You have movement all around you but no direction of your own.

We’ve all lived there at some point, psychologically. Between careers. Between relationships. Between the life we imagined and the one we’re actually living.

The bad dream is the feeling there’s no obvious way out.

“I’m the King of Hearts, livin’ in a fantasy.”

On the surface, it’s a classic arena-rock chorus. But underneath, there’s something more fragile.

The kingdom isn’t power, money, or status. It’s a relationship. His entire identity exists inside an emotional space created by two people.

And then comes the twist:

“Livin’ in a fantasy.”

He knows it isn’t permanent.

Love often feels like borrowing time from reality. For a few hours, or a few years, the chaos outside fades into the background, and the ordinary rules stop applying.

The fantasy is believing you’ve found somewhere the rest of the world can’t reach you.

It’s saying that sometimes love gives you just enough shelter to walk back into the world and face it again.

Give it a spin.

“My Way” paired Paul with Desmond Child and keyboardist Bruce Turgon, and that tells you everything about the song before you even hear it. Child was the master of arena-sized hooks, while Turgon was steeped in the melodic AOR rock world through his work with Lou Gramm, then Shadow King, and eventually Foreigner.

It is a song about defiance, self-determination, and refusing to surrender your identity to outside forces.

It is the anthem of someone who has reached the point where approval is no longer the currency they live by.

“Oh the heat is on / And my back’s against the wall”

Everyone understands this feeling.

Life eventually puts everyone in the same position: the deadline is impossible, the relationship is breaking, the dream feels too far away, the world doesn’t care about your excuses.

“I’m never gonna stop / I’m never gonna give up in the fight”

Every great transformation story has this moment:

The hero gets knocked down.

The world says: “Stay down. Accept your limitations.”

And the hero answers: “No.”

But persistence is misunderstood.

The successful person is rarely the person who feels inspired every day.

They are the person who decided: The fight is against the part of yourself that wants the easy exit.

“I’m gonna talk like I talk, walk like I walk my way”

The real battle is authenticity.

Every day people edit themselves: They soften their opinions. They hide their passions. They become smaller to fit into rooms. They trade truth for acceptance.

And eventually they wake up surrounded by relationships, careers, and identities built around a fake version of themselves.

The problem with trying to make everyone like you is that eventually you become someone you don’t even like.

The cost of authenticity is rejection.

But the cost of pretending is losing yourself.

“I’m never gonna run / I’m never gonna tell myself a lie”

Running away is obvious. But lying to yourself is the more dangerous enemy.

People don’t usually destroy their lives through one massive mistake. They do it through thousands of tiny compromises:

“It’s only temporary.”

“I’ll fix it later.”

“This isn’t really who I am.”

“Everyone else does it.”

Self-deception is the invisible cage.

The hardest person to be honest with is yourself because you already know all your own excuses.

“I’ve got the right to decide”

You cannot control, what people think, whether people approve, whether life is fair, whether you succeed immediately

But you can control your response.

Doing it “my way” is not freedom from consequences. It is accepting ownership of consequences.

That is why these kinds of songs endure. They are not really about winning. They are about refusing to disappear.

And people mocked albums like “Crazy Nights” and “Hot In The Shade” for years because KISS were “trying to sound contemporary.”

Of course they were. That’s what great bands do.

The irony is the same people who trashed those records now worship melodic Scandinavian hard rock bands who built entire careers recycling the exact songwriting formula from these albums.

The DNA is obvious.

And then came “Heart Of Chrome” on “Revenge”, the “serious” KISS album. The heavier record. The darker reinvention. Bob Ezrin back in the fold. Grunge looming over the horizon. Less lipstick. More muscle. More Demon. And Vinnie Vincent.

“Heart of Chrome” brought together Paul Stanley, Vinnie Vincent and Bob Ezrin. It’s a reminder that KISS at their best was never just one personality, it was controlled chaos with a chorus attached.

Yet it still carries Paul Stanley’s melodic fingerprints all over it.

The Chrome shines. It reflects. It looks beautiful. But it’s cold, hard, and incapable of feeling. That’s the accusation running through the entire song.

“Yeah, ‘til the day we met, I was cruisin’, I was doin’ fine.”

Every serious heartbreak costs you something beyond the relationship itself. It changes the way you evaluate people. It teaches you to hesitate where you once trusted. That’s why people don’t simply “get over it.” They become a slightly different version of themselves.

The hardest part isn’t losing someone. It’s losing the person you were before they arrived.

“Everybody knew you used me, but I was just too blind to see.”

Nothing hurts quite like discovering everyone else saw the truth before you did.

More often, betrayal is self-deception. We ignore warning signs because they conflict with the future we’ve already imagined. We defend someone long after the evidence says we shouldn’t.

Embarrassment lingers because it’s public. Heartbreak is private until you realise everyone else watched it unfold in real time.

“You told me lies about all that you feel. I realize now that nothing was real.”

When trust collapses, you don’t just question one conversation. You question every conversation.

Every compliment.

Every promise.

Every memory.

The mind becomes an archaeologist, digging through the ruins looking for evidence of what was genuine and what was performance.

That’s why betrayal has such a long half-life. You’re auditing your own reality.

The relationship ends once. The replay lasts until you’ve built a version of the story that finally makes sense.

“You took everything you could beg, borrow, steal.”

Most people think betrayal is about what someone takes from you.

Money.

Time.

Love.

The deeper theft is confidence.

You begin to question your own judgment. You wonder whether you’ll recognise the next warning sign. You become cautious, not because you’re weak, but because your internal compass has been shaken.

The irony is that the people who betray us rarely carry the consequences as long as the people they betrayed.

“Heart of Chrome” sounds like a revenge song, but beneath it is something far more familiar: the struggle to make sense of betrayal without letting it define you.

The real victory is reaching the point where they no longer occupy your thoughts.

Because that’s the final irony of a “heart of chrome.” Metal can’t feel. But the person carrying the anger still can.

Melody survives generations.

That’s why these deeper cuts still resonate decades later. And honestly, this era deserves reevaluation.

They weren’t just party anthems.
They were songs about ambition, loneliness, survival, aging, heartbreak and identity disguised inside arena-rock choruses.

And maybe that’s the real story of late-80s KISS. Paul Stanley kept writing gigantic melodic songs during a period where rock music slowly forgot how important melody actually was.

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

The Week In Destroyer Of Harmony History – May 9 to May 15

2018 (4 Years Ago)

This week in 2018, the Tygers Of Pan Tang were getting a listen. And the cut “Mirror” written by John Sykes got a post.

Mirror – Tygers of Pan Tang

It’s a forgotten Sykes cut, released in 1981 on the “Spellbound” album.

2014 (8 Years Ago)

This week in 2014 was all about advice.

What Happens After The Pinnacle?

So the first piece of advice is; “Each style of music regardless of the genre will reach its pinnacle within 3 to 8 years and then a freeze would come across it.”

The 80’s hard rock scene began in 1981 and the freeze happened in 1992. Some bands found success again many years later and some acts never recovered.

Crossfade is a band I like but singer/guitarist Ed Sloan is a slow worker when it comes to new music. The review of their album “We All Bleed” is here.

Crossfade – We All Bleed

It came out in 2011, five years from the last album. Five years is a long time to be gone from the music industry these days. A lot of living takes place. Fans grow older. Tastes change. At the moment they are 11 years gone with no new product. But Ed Sloan did release a few solo singles around 2017.

Glen Hughes is a survivor, a lifer who has survived a lot.

Glenn Hughes

I’m a big fan of the melodic AOR rock style of Glenn Hughes so I wrote a “Primer” post on his melodic rock career with the disclaimer, “by no means is the list complete”.

Check it out. It covers a lot of ground and different artists like Deep Purple, John Norum, Don Dokken, Hughes Thrall, and Glenn Hughes.

Credibility = Musical Differences

Music used to be about finding some Avant garde musical and lyrical edge and pushing yourself and that edge to the limits.

Want to be as big as Metallica. Forget about the Napster court case and remember that Metallica was a band that had an edge. They were an outlier versus the LA Glam Rock movement.

And credibility is everything.

That is why Rock/Metal bands didn’t really last forever. Most acts had a shelf life of less than 10 years.

Credibility equals musical differences.

How long were The Beatles together? Eight or nine years.

What about the original line up of Kiss? Eight or nine years.

Twisted Sister (the version of Dee Snider, Jay Jay French, Eddie Ojeda, Mark Mendoza and AJ Pero) had a run of 7 years before AJ Pero was booted and another year after that the band itself was goneski for a long period of time.

Motley Crue had a run of 11 years before Vince Neil was outed.

Dokken had a run of 7 years before they went down in flames because George Lynch couldn’t get over the fact that the band he was in was called after the lead singer.

Niches and the Issue with too much music

Niches. There are lots of them.

There’s always an audience that sees their scene as a sense of belonging and a badge of honor. In some cases, that sense of belonging is more important than the quality of the music.

If you really want to have success, you need to know as much information on music publishing. Because the longer you control your own publishing, the more power you will hold in negotiations if you have a hit song.

If you really want to have success, don’t hand over your copyright unless you are aware of the consequences of doing so.

Because there is so much music available we gravitate to what is great. And that could happen the instant you put out a new song or it could happen years after. Sometimes decades.

Which means there will be fewer acts that will reach critical mass. And for the ones that miss the old days guess what, they are never coming back. A career in the music business was always about that one song.

So Do You Want To Know What Being In A Band Is Really Like?

It was a lifestyle of round ’em up from whatever place or establishment they were in, go on the road, and see what happens.

In between trips they will write songs, try em out live, and then go and record the tracks that worked the best in a live setting. Some people got rich in the process and others got rich from the lifestyle.

Towards the end of the seventies, artists ceased doing it this way.

Because of the “Blockbuster” record label business model.

In the music business, the Blockbuster Business Model refers to a method of spending large amounts of money on recording and marketing, with the hope that the music will become a blockbuster, generating high returns. If a band had some traction, then they were perfect candidates for the “Blockbuster Record”. Plus it also helped that before the Soundscan era, the record labels found a loophole in the certification process that was based on distribution numbers instead of sales numbers.

Artists started to spend 12 months in a studio and albums started to cost millions.

The record labels knew what they were doing. Spend millions recording it, then print up a million copies of it and you have a platinum record to give to the band.

So do you want to know what being in a band is really like now?

It is a lifestyle of writing and releasing songs, connecting with fans and being as human as possible. Some people will make money in the process, some people will walk away and complain that piracy is killing everything and then others will still get rich from the lifestyle. When the song turns into a great song, the band will hit the road.

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

The Record Vault: Def Leppard – Euphoria

I was interested to hear what Def Leppard would do next after “Slang”.

And the answer was “Euphoria”. Released in 1999, the title alone was an indication to me that they were back to the “Pyromania” and “Hysteria” vibe.

The album is produced by Pete Woodroofe.

Demolition Man

Written by Phil Collen, Vivian Campbell and Joe Elliot, it’s an energetic rocker to kick off the album, reminding me of their supercharged cover of “Action” from Sweet in the early 90’s.

Promises

Written by Phil Collen and Mutt Lange, this is a great track in the vein of songs like “Photograph” and “Animal”.

And press play to hear the guitar solo.

Back In Your Face

Written by Joe Elliot and Phil Collen, it has a 70’s style vibe, processed drums, a bass guitar riff that has the vibe of “Under Pressure” from Queen and a rap like vocal line reminiscent to “Pour Some Sugar On Me”.

With the title, it definitely announces the bands intention.

The band was back in my face like jumping jack flash and the Union Jack.

Goodbye

Written by Rick Savage, the song is interchangeable with “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad?” and “When Love And Hate Collide”.

All Night

A funky Prince like tune done the Def Leppard way and written by Phil Collen and Mutt Lange.

It wouldn’t take up a place in a set list, but it’s cool to hear the band experiment and have fun with tunes like this.

Paper Sun

Written by Phil Collen, Rick Savage, Joe Elliot, Vivian Campbell and Pete Woodroffe.

My favourite song on the album and one of the best songs to appear on a Def Lep album in the 90’s.

The intro riff, with it’s Middle Eastern feel already hooks me in, bringing back memories of songs like “Desert Song” and “Fractured Love”. The song could have easily appeared on the first two albums as well.

This is the Def Leppard I like.

It’s Only Love

Yeah, it’s a slow rocker written by Joe Elliot, Mutt Lange, Rick Savage and Vivian Campbell, which didn’t captivate me.

So it’s a skip.

21st Century Sha La La La Girl

Written by Phil Collen, Joe Elliot and Rick Savage.

This is Def Leppard with a vocal line which borders on rap-rock.

What can go wrong?

Nothing when it comes to Def Leppard.

They do these things cool but sometimes they overuse this method.

To Be Alive

This is a great ballad written by Vivian Campbell and a P.J Smith.

The song was first recorded by Vivian Campbell’s side band “Clock”, which was active between 1996 and 1998 and released one album in 1998.

Disintegrate

An instrumental written by Phil Collen, which feels like it’s part 2 of “Switch 462”. And I like it.

Guilty

Written by Phil Collen, Rick Savage, Joe Elliot, Vivian Campbell and Pete Woodroffe.

It starts off like “Hysteria” and that familiarity immediately gets me interested.

Day After Day

Written by Phil Collen, Joe Elliot and Vivian Campbell. It’s “Deliver Me” from “Slang”, updated to rock hard.

A favourite just behind “Paper Sun”.

Kings Of Oblivion

Written by Phil Collen, Joe Elliot and Rick Savage. They bring their love of 70’s Rock and Metal into this. It could easily appear on the first three albums.

We laugh at the wardrobe choices of the 80s but goddamn the 90s didn’t really endear itself to people either.

The CD that I have is known as the “Australia Bonus Tracks Edition”. So I have two bonus tracks in “Worlds Collide” and another fun energetic cover in “Under My Wheels” from Alice Cooper.

Worlds Collide

It made an appearance on the “Slang” reissue from 2014 so it was written for that album.

It’s heavy and I like it. Press play to hear the main riff. It’s head banging Metal the way I like it.

Sales of the album didn’t match the earlier stuff, but that doesn’t mean it’s a dud. Check it out.

P.S

While it was refreshing to hear “Slang” and it grew on me to be a good album, I was more than happy to have Def Leppard return to their sound.

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Metal Evolution – Glam Metal Episode

I watched the Metal Evolution Glam Rock, Thrash and Grunge documentaries a few nights ago. When you play “The Trooper” as your intro riff to the series, how am I not going to like the documentaries. That alone classifies it as a winner to me. The documentaries are great viewing and I recommend them to all fans of the rock and metal genres and also to any other fan who is interested in a good narrative.

YouTube Link

I think the Glam Rock/Metal movement doesn’t get the respect it deserves. If it wasn’t for “Sonic Temple” from The Cult and “Dr Feelgood” from Motley Crue there would be no such thing as the “Black” sound and the millions of metal bands that the Metallica album spawned. Yet this is not mentioned, even though Lars and James have gone on the record to state that the sound of “Dr Feelgood” is what they wanted for the “Black” album and that is why they went with Bob Rock.

However, in the Thrash documentary, Sam Dunn tells Lars he felt betrayed when the Black album was released and Lars responds by saying that it would have been a betrayal if Metallica did Justice Part 2. Brilliant interviewing. Since Sam Dunn is a fan, it was a fan question that a lot of Metallica fans from the first four albums wanted to ask. And Lars actually gave a great response back.

But back to the Glam Metal episode first.

I couldn’t stop laughing at Sam Dunn’s assessment of “Glam Metal”. To him he felt “they were boy bands put together by record label execs”.

There is a good history on the L.A Hard Rock scene and how it goes back to the original pioneers “Van Halen”. It set the style that bands needed to have a real showman for a lead vocalist, a real hot-shot guitarist and a rhythm section tighter than a G-string.

Franki Banali the drummer from Quiet Riot cracked me up with his assessment of Edward Van Halen “the name sounds like a painter”.

It’s good to see Spencer Proffer get recognition for his idea of trying to find a band to record “Cum On Feel The Noize” from Slade. It was a game changer for Quiet Riot even though they resisted it.

Then you have the big heavy metal day on the 1983 U.S festival. It was a game changer for the LA scene and for metal in general.

Randy Rhoads was always a big influence on the LA Glam strip with his guitar playing in Quiet Riot before he joined Ozzy.

MTV also had a perfect vehicle in Glam Metal as all the bands where all about the image and the performance. And MTV was the catalyst for getting bands that would normally sell a hundred thousand albums into the multi-million ranges. The seventies bands that became part of the movement re-invigorated their career and also replenished their fan bases.

John Kalonder was fucking hilarious. When he spoke, I couldn’t stop laughing. He sounded like that baddy voice over dub in the movie “Kung Pow”.

And it was a time of excess. If Tawny Kitaen is to be believed, then the 1987 Whitesnake album cost over $2 million dollars to record and produce.

One thing that is very rarely mentioned in the press is all the gear enhancements that took place during the Eighties era. Rock guitar players were customizing amps and guitars and they were always seeking new sounds.

As a musician it would be great to see how producers and technology shaped each genre. We all love a narrative and we all like to see unsung heroes get their time in the sun. The rise of Mesa Boogie and their Rectifier amps. Tom Werman, Bob Rock, Keith Olsen, Andy Johns, Bruce Fairbairn, Mike Clink and so on, also deserved to be recognised. The polished sounds from the Eighties records played a huge rule in the evolution in the metal and rock genres. The whole Grunge movement used producers that cut their teeth engineering on metal and glam rock albums from the 80’s.

Look at some of the stuff “The Edge” did with Digital Delays and Phasers. Eddie Van Halen is a classic that comes to mind with his innovative “Brown” sound. Warren DeMartini from Ratt had a hot rodded amp that everyone wanted to use.

As a fan of the genre, there needs to be another documentary that brings to light some of the unsung heroes of metals evolution, those guys that altered and enhanced the sounds.

Because in the first episode that covered the origins of metal Dunn touched on the sound aspects and about how a speaker was cut with a razor blade to get a distorted sound and how the invention of the first Marshall amp paved the way for a new style of sound.

Dunn’s reporting of the “Guns N Roses Effect” on glam rock spot on. That is the argument I have had with many people. I always said that Glam Rock died because it got over saturated with inferior bands, along with Gunners showing up the movement with their nod to Seventies classic rock. So when Grunge came along, it offered an alternative to the clichéd glam rock styles and lyrics.

To me the documentaries are also trying to change the culture of the metal fan, you know, get all the elitist judges to be more relaxed and appreciate the different aspects rather than seeing themselves as part of a niche. Get them to appreciate and open their mind and feel united as one big diverse family, to inspire evolution, a Metal Evolution

“Bang you Head…”

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The Music Careers of the “Young Guns” from Guitar World September 1991

So I am flicking through an old issue of Guitar World that goes back to September 1991 and there is a D’Addario ad with the title “Young Guns II”. Pictured on the ad are the following guitar players;

Gary Hoey
John Axtel and Atom Ellis from Psychefunkapus
Tommy Bolan from Freight Train Jane
Gerard Zappa and Adam Holland from Valentine
Black Eyed Susan guitarists
Tristan
Matt Prudoehl

So what happened to these “Young Guns.”

Gary Hoey auditioned for Ozzy Osbourne in 1988, during the search for Jake E.Lee’s replacement. We all know that Zakk Wylde got that gig. He also auditioned for Def Leppard, which ended up going to Vivian Campbell. Then he teamed up with a few LA vets in “Heavy Bones” who released one album in 1992 and when it did nothing, they broke up shortly.

Good musicians never quit. He went solo and had a hit with “Hocus Pocus” a cover of the Focus hit. This led to some chart success, some soundtrack work and a monthly column in Guitar World called “Hocus Pocus” which I found informative and helpful to my guitar playing.

Although Extreme became famous for the funk rock in the early nineties, Hoey broke it down to a teachable lesson called “Get The Funk Out” from Guitar World June 1994 issue. But the best lesson for me was “Arpeggio Acrobats” that appeared in the November 1994 which involved playing string skipping arpeggios. Since then he has more or less released an album each year.

A true warrior of the music industry and a diversified artist. He doesn’t have the world-wide recognition but he has what a lot of musicians that had world recognition wish they had. A career in the music industry.

John Axtel (guitarist) and Atom Ellis (bass) from Psychefunkapus got together in 1986 and by 1992 it was all over. Two albums came out on Atlantic. 1990’s self titled debut and “Skin” in 1991. Then it was all over.

John Axtel has been around the scene with various projects and the same for Atom Ellis.  They also have shown their diversity and that is why they have been around in various bands and different genre’s.

Tommy Bolan was part of “Warlock” and then joined the solo band of “Black N Blue” vocalist Jamie St. James, which in the end became “Freight Train Jane”. “Mitch Perry” was the first choice however he was unavailable. Then Tommy Bolan auditioned and St.James had his “guitar guy”.

The band got together around 1991 as the ad for the “D’Addario” strings shows. The album “Hallucination” didn’t come out until 1994 and it did nothing.

Everyone is quick to blame “Grunge” however the decline of glam rock and hard rock bands has a lot to do with the songs and their messages just didn’t connect with the new generation of kids. For example, “You” from the album is great song musically but lame vocally. And when you compare it to another song called “You” from Candlebox, you would understand why connected and one didn’t. Tommy Bolan for all of his talent has been hit and miss. His most recent execursion was an instructional video/book out called “Metal Primer”.

This is one person that should have achieved more however for some reason didn’t.

Valentine started with Adam Holland (guitarist), Craig Pullman (keyboardist) and Gerard Zappa (bassist) in 1986. Once all the other band members joined they moved to LA and did some demos. Columbia Records came knocking only to see a record label re-shuffle put the band in a tough position which then turned out okay as their original A&R rep took the band with him to Giant Records who then released Valentine’s debut CD in 1990.

They they became Open Skyz, a new label deal with RCA eventuated and another self-titled album came out in 1993. Another label re-organisation meant no label and compounded with fatigue after almost a decade of music industry ups and downs, they called it a day.

However they have all remained in the music business and to this day continue to have a career in the music business. A new album called “Soul Salvation” came out in 2008 after a positive response to their Firefest appearance. Adam Holland is also the guitarist in the Steve Augeri Band (former Journey lead vocalist).

Blackeyed Susan had Dizzy Dean Davidson on vocals/guitar, Rick Criniti on guitar and Tony Santoro (RIP) also on guitar. Critini and Santoro both did time together in the band “Rage” while Dizzy Dean Davidson was fresh from his “Britny Fox” stint. Criniti also worked as a live keyboardist for Cinderella.   This band was talented and they had pedigree, however it wasn’t to be. The band split after their label Mercury pulled the plug and stopped the touring support dollars from filtering down in late 1991. However all three have had a career in the music business that lasted decades, even Santoro until his untimely death at 40 due to a heart attack.

Tristan and Matt Prudoehl I haven’t even heard off. Not back then and not now. Probably a reason why they failed to have a music career.

 

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Music

Cry For Freedom

White Lion had the balls to tackle the subject of apartheid when all the other bands in 1989 didn’t. That was a long time ago. 1989. The Hard Rock, Glam Rock, Blues Rock, Heavy Metal and Thrash Metal movements where all riding high, at the peak of their mainstream successes.

It is unfortunate that the Eighties degenerated into a state of generic and clichéd derivative lyrical themes and subjects involving sex, partying and drugs.

When bands branched away from that, it was very hit and miss.

White Lion fell into that crowd of misses as the label “Atlantic” would still push the pop metal or pop rock edge of the band. The tours and marketing had White Lion sandwiched amongst bands like Motley Crue, Skid Row, Kiss, Whitesnake, Alice Cooper, Blue Murder and Badlands.

Of course, Motley Crue, Skid Row, Kiss, Alice Copper all had big wins in 1989. Whitesnake released a great album however it didn’t get traction. Call it karma for David Coverdale killing off the promotion on the John Sykes, Blue Murder album.

Actually, Blue Murder and Badlands released timeless and serious albums that in 2013 are seen as cult albums.

Music culture was built by artists taking a stand on a subject. The history of rock and metal is littered with bands that made big statements.

It’s the guitar sound. The way it swells and hallucinates with each shifting chord change. You cant help but be drawn in.

“The fire is burning
We lay our weapons down to rest
This war ain’t over
‘Till all the people will be free”

Growing up in democracy it was hard to fathom how people could be suppressed and denied rights for such a long time. South Africa was never in the news in Australia. It was like a decision was made from the powers that be that South Africa will not be reported at all costs.

Despite the song having a thread of hope, there is still desperation and the idea that freedom was still far away.

“So stand up and cry for freedom
And keep the dream alive”

“Cry For Freedom” is the kind of track that can be played when any uprising to oppression happens. It could have been played during the Arab Spring, the fall of the Berlin Wall or the Syrian Civil War. It never loses its power.

“Our brothers in prison
But no crime was ever done
I call it racism
Ashamed i face my fellow man”

“The children are taken away
And families destroyed
And millions have died from starvation
We can’t go on this way”

And the way it ends, it just makes you want to play it all over again.

Credit Michael Wagener, who produced it and still captured a sound that was rock enough to satisfy the rock community. In the end it makes the track connected to the rest of the album.

The “Cry For Freedom” video has 730,603 views on the 80s Classic Metal channel.

White Lion really tried hard to depart from the rock clichés however the public at that time didn’t want to be reminded about the world. All we wanted back then was to let our hair down and escape from the working week.

Vito Bratta mentioned in his 2007 Eddie Trunk interview that the songs from “Big Game” didn’t really work in a live setting, especially in a rowdy hard rock setting.

It was a concert at the Wembley Arena on Wednesday 01 November 1989 that decided the fate of the album and the rest of the tour.

Mötley Crüe where the headliners with White Lion and Skid Row supporting.

Sandwiched between a wild and energetic Skid Row and a newly sober but still dangerous Motley Crüe, White Lion didn’t have a chance.

Skid Row sang about belonging (“Youth Gone Wild”), sex (“Big Guns”, “Sweet Little Sister”, “Rattlesnake Shake”), street violence (“Piece Of Me”, “18 & Life”) and relationships (“Can’t Stand The Heartache”, “I Remember You”).

White Lion sang about Greenpeace (“Little Fighter”), broken homes (“Broken Home”), organized religion (“If My Mind Is Evil”) apartheid (“Cry For Freedom”), broken romances (“Wait”), sex (“Dirty Woman”, “Hungry”), life on the road (“Radar Love”, “Goin Home Tonight”), a mystic healer (“Lady Of The Valley) and the state of the world (“When The Children Cry”).

All important subjects however the majority of the rock crowd didn’t want to hear heavy themes in 1989 from a rock band. Those kind of heavy themes were coming from thrash metal bands. With the death of Nelson Mandela, this song is back in my life.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music, My Stories

Bullet For My Valentine

I have been cranking Bullet For My Valentine lately. I started off with the new “Temper Temper” album released this year. “The Poison” album was next. I then went back to the “Hand of Blood” EP. Then “Scream Aim Fire” and “Fever”. On top of all that I have also seen the band perform live.

The music that BFMV creates is very reminiscent to the hard rock / heavy metal music created between 1981 and 1986, before Bon Jovi released Slippery When Wet and then the majority of bands started chasing the pop metal / pop rock “pot of gold”. It is the same music that I grew up on.

Metallica – CHECK
Iron Maiden – CHECK
AC/DC – CHECK
Slayer – CHECK
Megadeth – CHECK
Judas Priest – CHECK

Modern influences like Machine Head, Pantera and Metallica “Black” album period are also found in the songs. That is why I probably connected with the band.

As I have mentioned previously, all artists are a sum of their influences. No one creates art in a vacuum, waiting for that spark of super originality to come. Sometimes, a band takes all of these influences and creates something original, however in most cases, bands fall into an evolutionary category.

Bullet For My Valentine as a band have an unbelievable chemistry. The drumming is sensational. Just listen to how the drums build the intro in “Waking The Demon”. The guitar leads are very Randy Rhoads like, the riffs are melodic and the bass playing is solid.

“The Last Fight” is a classic example of the band nailing it. Listen to the rock version and then listen to the acoustic version, with the piano and violin. Dealing with addictions is difficult and this song captures it. The lead break in the rock version is classical heaven to start off with and then harmonised in the vein of Iron Maiden.

“Breaking Point” from the new album is a dead set classic opener. I don’t know why they went with “Riot” and “Temper, Temper” as the lead off tracks to promote the album. It should have been “Breaking Point” all the way.

Who can forget the punch and groove of “Your Betrayal”? Another perfect song to get the body moving into high gear.

Then you have the speed metal style of Slayer and Machine Head in “Scream, Aim, Fire” and “Waking The Demon”?

The Iron Maiden influence is heard in “Alone” while the Judas Priest influence is heard in “Eye Of The Storm”.

Add to that the slower songs like “Hearts Burst Into Fire” and you have a band that is varied and influenced by a lot of great styles.

This band still hasn’t written their “Blackening” or “Dr Feelgood” or “Back In Black” or “Black” album. They are working towards it. Great albums come from experience. Great songs come from having lived. The band (provided that they stay together) is on its way to achieving this.

They have hooked in Terry Date for the upcoming album, so it is a step in the right direction for album number 5. Matt Tuck even mentioned that the music is no holds barred metal, unlike the previous two releases.

I didn’t think I liked BFMV to start off with. Then I heard their cover of “Sanitarium” from a Kerrang tribute album to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of “Master of Puppets” from Metallica. That tribute album was also my first introduction to Trivium and their unbelievable cover of “Master Of Puppets”.

The modern paradigm of success is to create great music and reap the benefits later. “The Poison” came out in 2005 and by 2009, it had a GOLD certification in the U.S. market.

So I purchased “Scream, Aim, Fire” when it came out without hearing a song and I suddenly realised that I liked the band.

Just like Pantera had to emerge from the shadows of the inferior hard rock / power metal scene in the late Eighties, Bullet For My Valentine had to do the same. The metalcore movement has committed the same sin as hard rock and glam rock committed. Too many derivative bands are doing the rounds and there is no substance. With the release of “Scream, Aim, Fire”, BFMV showed that they are a metal band in the true sense. With “Fever” and “Temper, Temper”, they have showed that they can rock with the best of them.

The Bullet For My Valentine VEVO account shows that “Tears Don’t Fall” has been viewed 55,738,093 times.

“Your Betrayal” has been viewed 17,391,181 times.

“Waking The Demon” has been viewed 23,947,044 times.

“Hearts Burst Into Fire” has been viewed 13,500,316 times.

“The Last Fight” has been viewed 3,232,789 times.

“Temper Temper” has been viewed 2,254,641 times.

“Breaking Point” has just been released and it has been viewed 686,885 times.

“Hand Of Blood” has been viewed 12,069,227 times.

The above figures are from the official BFMV account. Those same songs have been circulated on other user accounts with high view counts as well.

Spotify has the following top 10 songs for BFMV. For some insane reason, the “Scream Aim Fire” album is not on Spotify.

“Tears Don’t Fall” is at 18,297,766 streams.

“All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me)” is at 9,878,085 streams.

“Your Betrayal” is at 8,335,370 streams.

“The Last Fight” is at 5,337,727 streams.

“Fever” is at 3,696,842 streams.

“Bittersweet Memories” is at 2,673,920 streams.

“Temper, Temper” is at 1,187,795 streams.

“Tears Don’t Fall (Part 2)” is at 1,030,904 streams.

“Breaking Point” is at 884,423 streams.

“P.O.W.” is at 670,708 streams.

I am sure that if the songs from “Scream Aim Fire” could be streamed, the above list would be a touch different.

So what is this saying about the band.

They have a reach that a lot of other bands do not have in metal. Kirk Hammett said that there isn’t any new bands coming out on the scene because of the internet and social media. Tell that to BFMV and their fans. Michael Poulsen said that bands can’t live off record sales alone. He is right, they can’t, however a band can live off record sales, iTunes downloads, streaming fees, YouTube views, licensing, merchandise and live revenue. You just got to be prepared to put in the hard work.

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

The Song Needs To Be A Song First – Words of Wisdom from Zoltan Bathory

“Every one of us can play. We are technical players. When it comes to songs, there’s a difference between just shredding and showing of or writing songs. That’s a different talent. First and foremost, the song has to be a song then you start to think about yeah, let’s add a guitar solo.”

(Zoltan Bathory from Five Finger Death Punch in a recent interview with Loudwire.)

I remember towards the end of the Eighties, hard rock and glam rock bands are getting signed up left, right and centre by all the record labels. The greedy labels over saturated the market with diluted quality. They got talented musicians and sold them the dream of fame and fortune. Once they had their signature on paper, they told them to go and write songs like Cherry Pie.

Have you read or heard what Jani Lane (RIP) said about Cherry Pie. He wishes he never wrote the song. The album was done, it was going to be called Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The label wanted a hit song or they wouldn’t release the album. Jani had two options, tell the label to go F themselves and by doing that he knew that his songs will never be heard or he could comply with their request, write them a sugar pop song and get the album out.  We all know how the story goes?

Writing songs and playing technical are two different things and it’s good to see Zoltan make that distinction.

Would people still be interested in Dream Theater if they just played technical passages, without having a real song as the springboard. Pull Me Under is the song that you can say broke Dream Theater to the masses. It is the most simplest Dream Theater song to learn and play, however it was written by musicians who have great technical ability. The second track, Another Day is another Dream Theater  song that is simple to play and again it is from the same well. Of course Images and Words has Learning To Live, Metropolis, Take The Time and Under A Glass Moon and the reason why those songs have become cult songs in the progressive genre, is because they are songs first and technical masterpieces second.  The bottom line is, you need a great foundation.

When Ozzy relaunched his career with the Blizzard Of Ozz band (that then became the Ozzy band when the record was released), it was on the back of great songs and great technical guitar playing from Randy Rhoads. A simple catchy AC/DC style song like Flying High Again, had a dazzling tapped lead break. The Crazy Train solo is one of those songs within a song guitar leads, however who would have cared if it was there, if the song it was on is terrible.

The bottom line for both Dream Theater and Ozzy Osbourne is; if you take away the progressive instrumental breaks and guitar leads from the songs that we love, you still have a great song and that is the essence to everything.

When the Whitesnake album exploded in 1987, it was on the back of great songs and great guitar playing from John Sykes. Listen to his lead break on Crying In The Rain. John Kalodner, the A&R rep that signed Whitesnake to Geffen, knew that was a great song. It just need to be re-done in a way that it could get massive exposure. The song was a song already as it already did the rounds on the Saints and Sinners album from 1982 and by adding the one minute plus tour de force lead break by Sykes to it, it made the song even more dazzling and a product of the times. However, as I mentioned above, if you take away the lead break, you still have a great song.

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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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