Tag Archives: podcast

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

Jay Jay French Podcast

The French Connection is a newer podcast from Twisted Sister founder and guitarist Jay Jay French.

In this episode he interviews Dee Snider.

Dee talks briefly about his litigation with Clive Palmer, the Australian businessman and wannabe politician who used the vocal melody of “We’re Not Gonna Take It” with some word changes for his political slogan “Australia’s Not Gonna Cop It”.

Years before, Dee had already sold his catalogue to Universal Publishing, so he wasn’t missing out on any unpaid royalty fee but felt compelled to stand for the message of the song and for any unlawful use of the song.

Anyway, the case is over and the Australian judge will take about 6 to 18 months to come up with a decision and then if the decision goes against Palmer, he will appeal it and the case restarts again.

Jay Jay talks about being business partners with Dee as well as being band members for 45 years.

They talk about touring and playing shows during the “Son of Sam” murders, even taunting the “Son of Sam” killer from the stage, by saying “if you come here motherfucker, well kick your arse”.

They talk about politics and the artist role within that environment especially these days.

Artists are faced with a decision to either avoid talking about it in case they alienate a percentage of their fanbase (which is at about 40%) or to take a stand.

The general rule is if you keep quiet, the unacceptable becomes the acceptable.

Snider believes that a large majority of Trump supporters are metal fans because of their blue collar background. He doesn’t have the statistics to back it up, but it’s a general viewpoint he has.

Regardless Twisted Sister and Dee Snider’s success is more international than North American.

These two dudes can talk and it’s a blast to listen to.

Check it out.

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

Resilience

Robb Flynn from Machine Head was interviewing Matt Heafy from Trivium, on his podcast “No F Regrets”.

Heafy comes across super on a podcast; well-spoken and very articulate. He spoke about his love of black metal, his military father who was the bands manager at the start, and the crap that Trivium copped from the metal press and the metal bands they supported because of the way Heafy sang, especially after “The Crusade” album, when Heafy sounded better than Hetfield ever did.

Bullying was used a lot by Heafy and a mention was made, how at one of the Ozzfests they were the outcasts (and eventually Maiden would be as well, because they played better than the headline act), hated by all the bands on the bills.

And it didn’t help Trivium when people involved with their show, said negative crap to the other artists, which more or less stained the band without them knowing why.

It was the same Ozzfest when Maiden played before Ozzy and the fans gravitated towards the Maiden show a lot more than the Ozzy show, so it was no surprise that Maiden suddenly had sound problems during their sets, then they had the sound completely cut, until it got a stage that Maiden had to leave the Ozzfest tour because of this.

And they would take Trivium out on tour with them after this.

The bullying in metal circles really goes against the metal ethos of the early 80’s, when the metalheads stood together against this kind of behaviour.

Some artists might crumble, argue and give up. But not Trivium. They showed resilience.

Resilience comes from experience. Mental toughness comes from experience.

You can read all the books you want and have a toolbox of routines in place, but to become resilient and to become mentally tough, you need to live it, breathe it and experience it.

Only then, you can apply any of the mental tough routines from your toolbox like box to box breathing and flipping the negatives to understand the why.

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