So I am doing my best to dive headfirst into the songwriting aspect of the music. What is bouncing around in my head right now is thus:
Songwriting is hard. For me, anyway. I write short stories for fun every once in a while and I used to referee various pen and paper games back in high school, which was a great creative outlet. Basically you wrote a script, story and characters you were proud of for your friends to trample haphazardly over and do exactly what you didn't expect them to, forcing you to think fast to keep the story on track and keep them entertained. But usually I only wrote when an idea really stuck in my head begging to be let out on paper. As the working world and my love of stiff drink grinds my consciousness away a little bit at a time, those ideas get rarer and rarer. Maybe things will change now that I'm in school again for a subject that genuinely interests and challenges me...Time will tell I suppose. But for now at least, I have to chip away at a song, a little bit at a time.
I tried my hand at songwriting a long time ago, back in high school, and hated everything I managed to come up with and scrapped it almost as soon as I had it on paper. I think my block was that I was trying to write down an avenue that my brain just couldn't wrap around, the way that bands like Tool, Pantera, and Slayer wrote. More recently I've been into bands like Isis, Baroness, Mastodon, and High on Fire, which largely have a very abstract way of writing lyrics compared to what I was usually listening to in the 90s. Some of it is almost stream-of-consciousness ramblings. Now that I've seen that you can actually make good songs out of that type of narrative, it's coming a little easier to me now. The structures of a few are coming together, so far what I do is pick a topic that seems like it has potential in the form of aggressive music, jot down a few concepts and try to reword them into verse. I'm trying to keep my mind on track with these three, tentatively named:
Mill of Ares
The novel Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield is what really inspired me on this one. If you've never read Gates of Fire, it's the book that Frank Miller read, then when he put it down he was like "HEY I THINK I'LL WRITE ANOTHER GRAPHIC NOVEL" and 300 was born. Then turned into a movie. Seriously, he basically just took out the 'boring' stuff and drew pictures over the story. The concept I'm focusing on with the song is the Spartan's outlook on warfare and the philosophy they had that, when paired with their incredible conditioning, made them the undisputed masters of the battlefield in their time. They treated war as a job, a task to be toiled at and accomplished with hard work rather than any great amount of skill at arms. They of course did value courage, valor, and martial skill, these came with the territory of a warrior society, but warcraft was an inevitable chore to them rather than something to be dreaded. Of course a song about Spartans gives a great opportunity to come up with stuff to yell on stage, too.
Cryptid Coil
This song is the one that's coming easiest to me, I'm basically writing about my own weird obsession with cryptozoological creatures. Bigfoot, the Mongolian Death Worm, El Chupacabra, stuff like that...The idea of insanely deadly creatures defying the efforts of the modern world to find them by lurking in the shadowy remote places of the earth is supremely entertaining to me, even if I don't necessarily believe it.
Ragged Tooth
This one is about sharks.
Anyway, this is all me groping in the dark, I have no real impression of music to write over so using anything I came up with right now would just be trying to cram words into the structure of the song. Our next practice session is going to be focused pretty much exclusively on new material, so while I probably won't have much to do it will go a long way in giving me something in my mind to build lyrics around rather than cramming them into something after the fact.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Portents and Divinations
With the massive lineup overhaul and completely different direction the sound of our new material in development is going, no one really feels the band can still be called Nephilim. We're working on a new name, I'd list the pool of ideas we've been dredging through but I feel like we should keep that between us, or at least off the public record, for the time being.
Near as I can tell, it's getting darker, crunchier, and a bit more complex, but this is all in the larval stage. I've always been a fan of music documentaries and video footage of bands in the studio, developing their material, and it is beyond cool to actually have a part in that process and be at ground zero as something is created. These guys are all talented, life-long musicians with a real passion for what they do, and I still feel like I'm just an auxiliary, like there's no way I can live up to how much of themselves they invest in their music. Hopefully this turns into a good mindset and contributes to a healthy work ethic concerning my efforts to the band.
Near as I can tell, it's getting darker, crunchier, and a bit more complex, but this is all in the larval stage. I've always been a fan of music documentaries and video footage of bands in the studio, developing their material, and it is beyond cool to actually have a part in that process and be at ground zero as something is created. These guys are all talented, life-long musicians with a real passion for what they do, and I still feel like I'm just an auxiliary, like there's no way I can live up to how much of themselves they invest in their music. Hopefully this turns into a good mindset and contributes to a healthy work ethic concerning my efforts to the band.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
O Father, save us from the Norsemen
Being a chronicle of my experience as a member of a soon-to-be-gigging-again Orange County-based metal band.
First, some ancient history. I moved to Orange County at the end of summer 2008, picked up the first seasonal job I could get that didn't require a haircut and started feeding my addiction to live music...And in that capacity, southern California is the promised land. If you have the cash to burn there are shows every night, a big change from most of the places in Washington I'd been living. Most nights I had several shows to choose from, and I would just pick the one that had a name or two that jumped out at me having no idea what the bands actually sounded like. And if they suck, then hey, just drink til they sound better. One particular night a friend and I went to a place called The Blue Cafe for a lineup of 5 or 6 random metal bands, and I had actually stopped paying attention to the procession of uninspired and out of practice bands making the rounds on stage. One band's guitar player snapped two strings and had no replacements, another thought that their singer screaming "OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER" was somehow a good idea for one of their songs. So by the time Nephilim took the stage without fanfare or telling us about their Myspace page before they had even started, my mind was on other things. In fact the only thing the singer said was the name of the song - All Your Metal Are Belong 2 Us - which had me chuckling. But when they started playing, my head snapped up to the stage and my surroundings disappeared from conscious thought - they were GOOD. Like, WAY too good for these dumpy bar shows I'd been going to. There was a cerebral, intelligent approach to their musical craftsmanship but with the thrashy knife-edge chops that were prevalent in music when I was a kid...In short I was instantly a fan, although what really cemented them in place in my mind was when, between songs, the singer asked the guitar player, "Hey Andy, what's this next song about?" To which he replied, "Fuckin' vikings." I saw them every chance I got after that and one night offered to help haul their gear offstage, and met the band members that night: Andy on lead guitar, Max on drums, James on bass guitar and Mike, the voice of Nephilim. We wound up drinking together til like 4am and after that I became something of a mascot I think...I came out to every show and thrashed my 2-foot locks around uncaring if I was the only one on the floor, and shortly after people lurking around the fringes of the venue would come up and join me, and Nephilim would have a crowd. But I wasn't plugging the band or just coming out because I knew the guys; they moved me, I loved their music. Especially Jotunheim, holy shit that song is awesome.
Fast forward like 8 months, give or take. Nephilim hadn't really done anything over the summer and neither had I...I had a disappointing and difficult break-up with a girl and was too broke to go see any of the killer shows going through SoCal, so my summer was an epic failure. Andy got married to his lovely lady friend Chandra, and the rest of the band was basically just doin their thing. When Andy wanted to start booking gigs again, the drama llama followed him home one night, harsh words were spoken and Nephilim found itself short two band members: Mike and Max had sailed in search of other lands to conquer. His fire for making music undiminished, Andy started putting out feelers to get a good lineup going again. James moved to lead guitar and brought his friend Samson in on bass, and the boys uncovered an unexpected gem in Rich, a talented and intuitive drummer that responded to a Craigslist ad. They were still short a vocalist though...
Fast forward a liiiiittle bit more...New Year's Eve, Andy is filling me in on the details of the new band lineup he's cooking up and makes an offhand comment about me auditioning for vocals. I blow it off at the time but later when I get home I put some serious thought into it. Now, my brother actually roars for a Seattle band called Sanctum that hit it strong and fast while they lasted, and we of course have very similar, masculine voices(although his has a lot more gravel to it, he's a smoker which might explain it). I never even considered myself doing vocals of any kind, I am normally very soft-spoken and sometimes people have to ask me to speak up. Plus, while the growly, screamy stuff can be fun(Mastodon IS my favorite band...), the kind of vocals I like are generally from people that can actually sing, like Danzig, Maynard James Keenan, Phil Anselmo, Jerry Cantrell, Henry Rollins, Neil Fallon, etc...People with distinctive voices. I don't really feel that I have that. What I do have though is a thunderous, overpowering tower of wrath and righteous anger. I thought back to the times I got in altercations or tense situations, when I was raising my voice and the kind of power it had with that buildup of raw emotion behind it, and I figured if I can harness that and project it from behind a mic I might be on to something. Of course if I was going to actually be a part of a musical process I figured there'd be more to it than that and I would need some conditioning, so I started practicing, figuring out a roaring, hate-driven vocal groove and driving my neighbors insane. I wouldn't really say I'm happy with it but given the right music behind it, it could work. I tell Andy I want to formally audition.
Fast forward to...Yesterday. I meet up with Andy and we drive to our first destination, Hollywood, where his guitar craft class is at. I kill time by wandering around, and it's Hollyweird so of course I meet some interesting characters. I help an older woman with less-than-perfect vision cross Sunset, guide a pair of out-of-towners to a theater using my phone's GPS navigation program, power open a rusted gate for some guy, then blow an hour or two drooling over Amoeba's music selection. Andy's class concludes and we begin our trek to the inland empire, and the demesne of James, which will serve as our practice space.
We arrive bearing Heineken, holiest of Slayer brews. Several genuinely talented vocalists have warned me to stay hydrated and keep away from coffee and alcohol when exercising my voice. I put away six beers. The boys tune up and the moment of truth arrives. Andy decides to work on Raven Song and All Your Metal today...I feel a little rocky at first, and I still don't have a lot of this stuff memorized but I get behind the mic and a monster is awakened...I picture the force of my roar starting at my feet and working up through me until it explodes from my throat, and the blood vessels around the sides of my skull feel like they're about to split. I want to fucking yell so hard James' windows blow out in a rush of flame and fury. The PA isn't up very loud so I think the only person that can really hear me over the din is James though, since he's next to the speaker, but he likes it. The real gem of the night comes when Andy and James break off from Raven song and just start jamming on whatever shared wavelength they have, and Samson and Rich tune right in and I'm reminded of watching a really good bartender in Seattle pouring four bottles together at once, giving it a little shake and sliding his masterpiece down the bar to a satisfied customer.
The potential in the room is thicker and heavier than a tar pit full of dead tyrannosaurs. I have some big black motherfucking boots to fill.
First, some ancient history. I moved to Orange County at the end of summer 2008, picked up the first seasonal job I could get that didn't require a haircut and started feeding my addiction to live music...And in that capacity, southern California is the promised land. If you have the cash to burn there are shows every night, a big change from most of the places in Washington I'd been living. Most nights I had several shows to choose from, and I would just pick the one that had a name or two that jumped out at me having no idea what the bands actually sounded like. And if they suck, then hey, just drink til they sound better. One particular night a friend and I went to a place called The Blue Cafe for a lineup of 5 or 6 random metal bands, and I had actually stopped paying attention to the procession of uninspired and out of practice bands making the rounds on stage. One band's guitar player snapped two strings and had no replacements, another thought that their singer screaming "OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER" was somehow a good idea for one of their songs. So by the time Nephilim took the stage without fanfare or telling us about their Myspace page before they had even started, my mind was on other things. In fact the only thing the singer said was the name of the song - All Your Metal Are Belong 2 Us - which had me chuckling. But when they started playing, my head snapped up to the stage and my surroundings disappeared from conscious thought - they were GOOD. Like, WAY too good for these dumpy bar shows I'd been going to. There was a cerebral, intelligent approach to their musical craftsmanship but with the thrashy knife-edge chops that were prevalent in music when I was a kid...In short I was instantly a fan, although what really cemented them in place in my mind was when, between songs, the singer asked the guitar player, "Hey Andy, what's this next song about?" To which he replied, "Fuckin' vikings." I saw them every chance I got after that and one night offered to help haul their gear offstage, and met the band members that night: Andy on lead guitar, Max on drums, James on bass guitar and Mike, the voice of Nephilim. We wound up drinking together til like 4am and after that I became something of a mascot I think...I came out to every show and thrashed my 2-foot locks around uncaring if I was the only one on the floor, and shortly after people lurking around the fringes of the venue would come up and join me, and Nephilim would have a crowd. But I wasn't plugging the band or just coming out because I knew the guys; they moved me, I loved their music. Especially Jotunheim, holy shit that song is awesome.
Fast forward like 8 months, give or take. Nephilim hadn't really done anything over the summer and neither had I...I had a disappointing and difficult break-up with a girl and was too broke to go see any of the killer shows going through SoCal, so my summer was an epic failure. Andy got married to his lovely lady friend Chandra, and the rest of the band was basically just doin their thing. When Andy wanted to start booking gigs again, the drama llama followed him home one night, harsh words were spoken and Nephilim found itself short two band members: Mike and Max had sailed in search of other lands to conquer. His fire for making music undiminished, Andy started putting out feelers to get a good lineup going again. James moved to lead guitar and brought his friend Samson in on bass, and the boys uncovered an unexpected gem in Rich, a talented and intuitive drummer that responded to a Craigslist ad. They were still short a vocalist though...
Fast forward a liiiiittle bit more...New Year's Eve, Andy is filling me in on the details of the new band lineup he's cooking up and makes an offhand comment about me auditioning for vocals. I blow it off at the time but later when I get home I put some serious thought into it. Now, my brother actually roars for a Seattle band called Sanctum that hit it strong and fast while they lasted, and we of course have very similar, masculine voices(although his has a lot more gravel to it, he's a smoker which might explain it). I never even considered myself doing vocals of any kind, I am normally very soft-spoken and sometimes people have to ask me to speak up. Plus, while the growly, screamy stuff can be fun(Mastodon IS my favorite band...), the kind of vocals I like are generally from people that can actually sing, like Danzig, Maynard James Keenan, Phil Anselmo, Jerry Cantrell, Henry Rollins, Neil Fallon, etc...People with distinctive voices. I don't really feel that I have that. What I do have though is a thunderous, overpowering tower of wrath and righteous anger. I thought back to the times I got in altercations or tense situations, when I was raising my voice and the kind of power it had with that buildup of raw emotion behind it, and I figured if I can harness that and project it from behind a mic I might be on to something. Of course if I was going to actually be a part of a musical process I figured there'd be more to it than that and I would need some conditioning, so I started practicing, figuring out a roaring, hate-driven vocal groove and driving my neighbors insane. I wouldn't really say I'm happy with it but given the right music behind it, it could work. I tell Andy I want to formally audition.
Fast forward to...Yesterday. I meet up with Andy and we drive to our first destination, Hollywood, where his guitar craft class is at. I kill time by wandering around, and it's Hollyweird so of course I meet some interesting characters. I help an older woman with less-than-perfect vision cross Sunset, guide a pair of out-of-towners to a theater using my phone's GPS navigation program, power open a rusted gate for some guy, then blow an hour or two drooling over Amoeba's music selection. Andy's class concludes and we begin our trek to the inland empire, and the demesne of James, which will serve as our practice space.
We arrive bearing Heineken, holiest of Slayer brews. Several genuinely talented vocalists have warned me to stay hydrated and keep away from coffee and alcohol when exercising my voice. I put away six beers. The boys tune up and the moment of truth arrives. Andy decides to work on Raven Song and All Your Metal today...I feel a little rocky at first, and I still don't have a lot of this stuff memorized but I get behind the mic and a monster is awakened...I picture the force of my roar starting at my feet and working up through me until it explodes from my throat, and the blood vessels around the sides of my skull feel like they're about to split. I want to fucking yell so hard James' windows blow out in a rush of flame and fury. The PA isn't up very loud so I think the only person that can really hear me over the din is James though, since he's next to the speaker, but he likes it. The real gem of the night comes when Andy and James break off from Raven song and just start jamming on whatever shared wavelength they have, and Samson and Rich tune right in and I'm reminded of watching a really good bartender in Seattle pouring four bottles together at once, giving it a little shake and sliding his masterpiece down the bar to a satisfied customer.
The potential in the room is thicker and heavier than a tar pit full of dead tyrannosaurs. I have some big black motherfucking boots to fill.
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