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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s the story.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe David Coverdale was to blame.

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

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

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

It’s all about people.

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

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

“It was built by flesh and blood”

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

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

CrueVice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The radio franchise gets half of the generated ad revenue.

And guess what Sixx AM are doing next?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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