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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14 years ago I have started to play the guitar (acoustic guitar,I mean), looking up to all those cool bands that I liked at that time. I remember that the dream I had it was to start a band that would play the same way my idols did. Of course I was fascinated by electric guitars and stuff…Of course, my idols of that time was Manowar, I was a fan of this band, which, by the way, I still am! Manowar rules or as they say, other bands play, Manowar kills…whatever…

Charmed by electric guitars

I remember it was this band in my city, a band that was already 8 years old at that time, I think, that played kind of a progressive, fusion metal, they said, hard rock in my opinion. So, it was this band, Kapela, which had a really good visibility in my city, 8 years of activity and really good musicians. I remember that when they were 8 years old, they had a concert in a local club where you had to pay to enter. I wanted that much to be there and I did my best to be there but I didn’t succeed. I remember I was fascinated by this band at that time, I was fascinated by the image of the solo guitar player, with his hard rock image, with long hair, boots, chains, leather jacket and a lovely Yamaha electric guitar that it was kind of an icon among us, local rock fans.

I didn’t know the guys back then; I was only going to their concerts (I told you about the one I couldn’t get to). I remember that at that time they just returned from a professional recording studio here in Romania with 2 songs they recorded and I managed to get the recordings, I don’t know how I did, but I got them. I was playing these 2 songs on and on on my cassette player, they sound so damn good, with heavy electric guitars, loud drums, bass guitar, etc. It was cool!

Then, something happened; the solo guitar player had a misunderstanding of some sort with the rhythm guitar player, the rhythm guitar player also started a media career, didn’t have time for the band anymore and they split (today he is one of the famous journalists and TV icon in my country).

Also, before this, the bass player immigrated to Canada to also start a career in media, he used to work in television while in the band, he also filmed and produced the first clip ever in my city, with real rock look and feel, he was good at this. The bass player was also the lead singer so the band was in need of a lead singer. They found one and he also took the job as bass player, they went back in a 3 people formula. This guy had a really beautiful voice, fan of David Coverdale but also Take That…I know, I know, something sounds wrong, but that was the truth! He didn’t quite match a Megadeth-like band, which Kapela was before he joined the band, but he didn’t have a band and they didn’t have a lead singer, so…And you know what? When I have first seen them at a concert in this new formula it sounds really good in my opinion, I said yes, they are there!

Italian rock evenings (or meeting the public)

So, there were those concerts in my city, in an Italian pub, where once a week the owner used to organize rock evenings where the ones who dare could play. The guitar player of this rock band I was telling you about was a usual guest at this rock evenings, I was also going there each time, to look and after a few session, to play the guitar with a few friends of mine.
And you know what? Today, out of those people coming to play there, 3 are professional musicians with great success here nationwide, so I can really say that it was a prolific bunch of musicians. See the keyboard player of this band here, Voltaj is the name, and a successful composer, producer and sound engineer, the guitar player of Parlament, and the guitar player of Spin. This is the guitar player I was telling you about a bit earlier.

Joining the band

Soon a common friend introduced me to this guy, the guitar player I was speaking about,Bogdan. We went along fine, he invited me to the rehearsal room, we started to jam together, and without knowing he asked me if I would like to join the band as a rhythm guitar player. Well, what do you think I did? I joined the band!!! Doh! It was one of those great moments in my life, a moment that I will always remember since it was a dream come true at that moment. So now the band had again 2 electric guitars, bass and drums, we were a classic rock band, don’t you think?

To that time I was already wearing long hair, boots and leather jackets with chains and spikes. Of course, every rocker who respects himself should wear this, right?
By the way, if you put electric guitars over spiked leather jackets which one do you think will suffer? Trust me, the electric guitars lose the fight all the time, spikes don’t come easy on guitar’s wood. Take this as a tip!

So, after a few weeks of rehearsals, 2 I think, we had a concert, the first one, open air, with a few thousand people, man, I was nervous.But, everything went fine, my friends told me that I fit in there just fine, it all sounded great so…rock on, man!

I played in that band a little over a year, a year when I learned a lot about electric guitars, about acoustic guitars, about playing together as a band, about rehearsals, about recording, by the way, we recorder 3 tracks together, we were planning an album, the second, they had a first one released a few years ago, we were on TV on a national channel, etc. But the story went wrong, issues between me and the lead guitar player started to appear, mostly during long nights, after the shows, he likes to party, drink, meet girls, I have never been quite the drugs, sex and rock and roll type, to be honest.

However after one year I decided to leave the band and follow my initial dream, with some old friends of mine. I was already playing in a parallel band, an other style, a more commercial one. So I decided to leave the band and go on with this other band I joined.

Soon, the lead singer of Kapela joined me, happy with the fact that he will not play the bass anymore and focus on his voice. Also, shortly after leaving the first band, the drummer also joined us since we were short of a drummer, and left Kapela, even if he was the founder of it.

What can I say, it was a beautiful period, I will speak in an other post about it, about how we evolved, how we grew together, how we learned together to form a band and act as one.

But more about it, next time, until then, long live rock and electric guitars!!

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