During struggling period with the band, we’ve had our share of “unique points of view” from one producer or an other.

I remember one time (we used to play pop rock at that moment) we went to a record company in Bucharest, introduced by somebody, to speak about our “future” in music.

So, here we are in this guy’s office, 4 people on one side of the table, namely THE BAND and one person on the other side
, THE PRODUCER-MANAGER.

I will call him producer for the sake of this post.

The guy listened to what we used to play back then, he had the tape there, knew what was our musical direction, pop-rock as I have already said.

Producer(to the drummer): So, how old are you?

Drummer: 34

Producer: You’re 26. I see you wear long hair. You’ll cut your hair and die it.

Drummer: —silence—

Producer(to the lead singer) : What’s your age?

Lead singer: 31.

Producer: You’re 25. How do you wear your hair? (the lead singer had kind of a baseball hat)

Lead singer,taking off his hat: I shave my head.

Producer(to me): How old are you?

Me: 26

Producer: You’re OK. The hair is OK (I had short hair at that moment) we need to work a bit on shirts/outfit but it will work out. (I was wearing my hippest t-shirt, totally out of rock but totally into new trends, IMO, so my self pride was hurt a bit cause I did my best at that moment to look hip and trendy, you know, to have that “artist” look, sun glasses in my hair, damn, I looked good!!!)

I don’t remember what the guy told to the bass player but he was OK too, except the hair that he needed to arrange a bit. If I well remember that started a bit of a resistance from his side cause he had enough hair, as we used to laugh, for a shower and a strong wind, after wearing it long for years (Steve Harris fan for good!!! Iron Maiden rules!)

Producer: Well, now about music. You need hits, you need something to work in dance clubs, to make people dance.

We were already disoriented so anything he would have said would have been taken for granted, we were kind of groggy already. Shortly speaking, he pointed us to a famous local band, Voltaj , playing kind of a dance music with rock instruments, after 20 years of struggling in heavy metal world. You need this kind of music to make it!
See the video below for an idea.

So we left his office arguing if we’ll do it or not. Some of us wanted, some of us didn’t want or at least not feeling OK about it. Anyway, the whole thing failed at one point, frankly I have no idea why, maybe axlfuckingrose remembers.By the way, he’s the lead singer I am speaking about, my mate in this band since 1998 and since 1997 in an other band, Kapela, I will present him to you at some moment as a guest blogger here. In the meantime here’s his site (in Romanian, poetry and pictures)

Well, so that was some story we’ve lived to tell. There were more during years, I will tell them here also but the whole point is how much are you willing to change to make it big with your music? Will you change the look? The music? The band??!

How much are you willing to take and what will make you snap and say no? What’s your boiling point?

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Since a few days my car CD player is locked (since I removed the battery for a quick fix on my car) and because I am moving into a new apartment, I can not find car’s support leaflet with the unlock code. That’s why I use a portable mp3 player. This gives me an other point of view on the music I listen.

For example, this morning, I realized that there are particular bass guitar sound for specific bands, a bass guitar sound that defines the band’s sound in general. Some I could easily spot were Iron Maiden and Manowar. If you take Steve Harris’ bass sound and style of playing, I think you can not miss it. If you listen carefully, his way of playing, with his fingers gives a smooth, “puffy” sound for the bass (yes, this is my perception of it, despite the musical style,Harris would probably kill me for this), while it also sounds like the strings are loose, like he is somehow tuned 2-3 tones below. Also consider that “riding” style of playing and you have Steve Harris’ unmistakable bass sound!

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