TELL YOU WHAT I’M GONNA DO…

In chatting with a friend over in Seattle, she said that heavy metal (to her) is all about freedom and getting all these emotions out. I agree with her but I had to add this…

Most heavy metal musicians are conservative and bound to rules.

Am sure I will get grief for that but it is true. You can’t deny that. Granted, outside of classical and jazz, you won’t find virtuoso playing anywhere else but heavy metal music. Perhaps that’s a far stretch but while there are amazing country guitarists that can give rock guys a run for their money…my friend was correct in saying that metal players definitely convey a lot of emotion.

So what’s the point of this blog? And why the title?

I’ve always run into resistance even when playing in other bands way before I had this so-called instrumental career back in 2003. I would play something quirky and hear “Can you not do that?” and I would think “But it works!” Most musicians think either diatonically, pentatonic, or…gasp…very commercially. Even when they want to write heavy “brootal” music, there’s still something sing-songy about it. Nothing wrong with that but why are they allowed to take chances, albeit minimal, but me?

One drummer I worked with years ago insisted that I write more djent-type music. Would say “People want to hear Animals As Leaders” and proceed to send me YouTube clips of other djent bands. Yes it’s a stupid genre name but you can’t deny the musicianship is amazing. But…where are the songs?! If this was 1973, it would be akin to what jazz/fusion bands coughed up but like anything else, it came and went. Some people only chase trends and fads. I chase tones and sounds. I write music that works for me.

Then I get those who scratch their head like “I don’t get it, man. Can you be more like Van Halen?” So people want me to be either modern or retro. Tell you what I’m gonna do…I’M GONNA BE BOTH! HA! I am a throwback to the 80s, no question, but I don’t live there. I dig modern metal but to be my age and write music like what’s on Liquid Metal…I would look really silly. I think it was the guitarist in Job For A Cowboy who said you won’t see 40-year-olds playing mathcore metal.

Are they in their 40s now? Get back to me on that.

So while my friend said heavy metal is about freedom, there are a LOT of rules and parameters. It’s like classical music, where it’s unflagging and very stoic. Jazz on the other hand is more free-form, which explains why some people can’t dig it. The djent bands were experimenting with jazz-like phrasing and chord work; you would never hear that on a Slayer or Judas Priest record (maybe bands like Watchtower, Cynic or Atheist). Yet I had no desire to be djent. I wanted to be heavy metal but even when I write something that sounds traditional, there’s still an element of weirdness to it.

I can’t win for losing!

So whatever I do, it will sound like me. It’s my fingerprints all over the place. You and I can play the same C and G chords but it’s our approaches that differ. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Yet I was made to feel like I was doing things wrong for years. No more! Perhaps nobody will ever truly get what I do. I’ll give it another 10 years and then light bulbs will click.

By then I will be doing something even weirder 😉