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Interview with Bill MacKechnie of Anubis Spire. Part Two
* This is part two of the Bill MacKechnie interview. For part one, go here.
E.B: Before we get to guitar specifics, I want to ask about your influences and thoughts on the future of guitar music in general.
Bill: Influences are a hard thing to talk about for me because the majority of the people who influenced my music weren't even guitarists! I think that's why a lot of guitar oriented musicians can't get a grip on what I'm trying to do. If you listen to most guitarists you'll be able to hear where their sound came from and draw a straight line back through a whole bunch of other guitarists. With me, you'd have to draw a spiderweb through all sorts of different music, literature, film and philosophy. I've never been a worshipper of the guitar as an instrument. I love it and I can't live without it, but I'm way more interested in the music I can make with it than becoming the next Segovia. As far as the future of guitar in general, I don't think it'll ever go away. Right now, it's just shifted away from being a single note lead instrument to more of a rhythm instrument...at least in modern rock music.
E.B: So what were those non-guitar influences?
Bill: I always wanted to be able to play like (jazz saxophonist) John Coltrane. A lot of the linear chromatics I use are my attempt to approximate his sax trills. I think that's where many listeners get lost, they think I'm trying to be flashy or shred, and because it doesn't sound like other styles they think I'm just fumbling around. Actually, if I throw in those flurries, I do it for a specific reason. It has to do with changing the overall mood of the piece or to add tension and release. I don't do it just to show I can. Most of my other influences were sax players too, like Roland Kirk, Charlie parker
,Eric Dolphy and especially Ornette Coleman. I really got into his "harmolodics" and alot of what I do, even now, owes a big debt to him. I really liked how James "blood" Ulmer translated harmolodics for guitar too. A lot of my other influences were world music players like sitarist Ravi Shankar, Scottish pipers and a lot of Egyptian Oud players.
E.B: In other interviews you've mentioned more traditional guitarists like Hendrix and McLaughlin when you've talked about influences.
Bill: Well, the major guitar based influence was Hendrix. He the one guy who actually made me want to play the guitar, but there are plenty of other guitarists that really affected me. I love Django Rhinehardt and I always liked blues players like Albert and Freddy King. Early blues-oriented rockers like Leslie West and Peter Green were big influences too. Funk guitarist Eddie Hazel was and still is one of my heroes. Robin Trower, David Gilmore, Terje Rypdal, Sonny Sharrock and all of the early British invasion guitarists of course. I really liked Larry Coryell's early stuff and I was stunned by McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra when they first came out. I had been playing around with Indian and eastern scales and dabbling in jazz, trying to be John Coltrane and here comes this band where every embryonic idea I'd had was already fully realized. It made me retreat into blues for quite a few years! (laughs) The list of guitarists I like is huge and the list of those I respect is damn near infinite because it really takes guts to put your heart and soul on the line the way musicians do. It's a really personally vulnerable thing, music.
E.B: It's funny that you never seem to mention Jimmy Page and yet A.S. has been accused of swiping a lot of Led Zeppelin's big guitar sound.
Bill: I've never really understood the comparison...not that I'm complaining. I think that's quite a compliment, but the truth is that when I was younger I was never a big Zeppelin fan. I've only recently gotten to the point where I can appreciate their more introspective stuff and Page's mix of traditional anglo and celtic folk and arabic music with rock and blues. Those are the types of tunes I really like, not so much their electric blues-rock or arena-riffrock stuff. But then, that's just me, I love Hendrix, but I like "Driftin'" or "Waterfall" a lot more than "Purple Haze" or "Foxey Lady". I think we get compared to them because of the middle eastern sounds more than anything else. They had explored that sound with "Kashmir" and I think people thought we had tried to steal a little of that song's vibe in "It Has Been a Long Time, Hasn't it...". I missed out on Zep's glory days because at the time they were rock gods I was listening to more traditional blues artists and I never really got into Page's blues-rock excursions. I'm flattered by the comparisons but I did kind of poke fun at that idea with certain things I included in our band picture.
E.B: Like the Aleister picture for instance?
Bill: Well, there's actually a picture of Jimmy Page with his doubleneck right over (A.S. bassist) Tim Costley's head (he's the one wearing the fez).
E.B: That's kind of hard to see but now that you've told me I can make it out. Who's faces are at the far left by (drummer) Mick Loher?
Bill: That's one of the spooky things about the picture...we had put two very old woven baskets on that shelf and in all the other pictures you can tell that they're just baskets, but in this particular shot, what looks amazingly like two human faces showed up. It really is strange that they look so much like faces. There were other strange things that happened during that shoot. It's almost like that particular photo was the one that WANTED to be used. I noticed a little while ago when I put the engraving of the CD cover on our MP3.com page [ http://mp3.com/AnubisSpire ] right next to our band picture that the overall symmetry of objects is weirdly the same in both pictures. If you draw a line just above the heads of each of us and compare it to the objects in the engraving, you'll see what I mean. We've had lots of synchronistic things like that happen...
E.B: I've heard some people believe that you are personally into the occult. Any truth to that?
Bill: I think that's just the Zeppelin thing again... Depends on what you consider "occult" I suppose. I read alot, so I've read about and studied most of the occult systems that exist or have existed. But I've also read extensively about comparative religion, philosophy, mythology, martial arts, ufos, ancient history, aviation, drag racing, hypnosis, psychology, spin art and poultry ballistics, and I don't think that makes me "into" any of them. Do I believe in things we could describe as miraculous or mystical? Yes. I'm not a materialist but I am skeptical about 99% of the paranormal. But I have had things happen in my life that I can't explain so I'm open to the possibility of anything. I just think that for us to honestly believe that we are the end-all and be-all of existence is absurd.
E.B:(laughing) Poultry ballistics?
Bill: It's amazing how far chickens can fly with a little help from NASA! It's finding space helmets small enough that's the problem...I was just seeing if you were still listening.
E.B: Would you say you're religious then?
Bill: No. Spiritual, yes, but not what I'd call religious. I have the same problems with organized religions that I have with most other entrenched institutions. I think they all take a grain of truth and cover it in tons of man made political and legalistic dogma to get people to do things that benefit the people who pull the strings. And by the way, I feel that way about most of the "occult" too. I think it's the same thing with the major record companies. They take raw musical honesty and cover everything in hype and image and try to turn everything into an exclusive club that if you want to be considered cool, you'll have to buy all the fashion accessories to join. That's why I spent so much time listening and playing the blues. There was a real honesty and purity to the early blues scene that just doesn't exist too many places anymore.
E.B: Some of your early blues stuff can be found on blues sites and blues radio even now. I mentioned your name to a friend who knew you only as a blues guitarist because he'd heard "Unrequited Blues" on a few blues shows. You've done straight rock, prog, fusion and blues. What style do you prefer? What's closest to your heart?
Bill: I've done punk, funk, R&B, folk and country too! (laughs)
E.B: What, no goth?
Bill: I like Goth, I think it's a fun style! (laughs) I don't dislike any of those styles. This will sound like I'm avoiding the question but I don't really make a distinction between any of them. If I was a trained guitarist who'd studied all the "rules" of each of the styles and was trained to stick within those genre guidelines, I guess that would be different, but I just play whatever I feel at the moment. The mood of the piece and how it affects me at that moment dictates what I'll play, nothing else.
E.B: Well, your blues aren't exactly traditional but IMO they still have what I'd call genuine blues feeling and I'd even go so far as to say that most your A.S. output has a very heavy bluesy feeling to it.
Bill: Hmm....could be. I think of blues as a state of soul rather than a style of music. Lots of musicians have it. You can hear it in jazz, rock, heavy metal, funk, hiphop, bagpipe music, hell...probably every music if you listen beyond the bull and bluster and between the notes. The common denominator is the heart of the musician. Some people have it from birth...some will never have it. It's not a racial thing, an economic or class thing, it's a basic human condition. A lot of people hear a 12 bar three chord vamp with pentatonic scales over it and say "That's BLUES!", I don't think so. It's not about the superficials, it's about where the music is coming from.
E.B: You've been critical of a lot of technical guitar. What do you have against the modern shredders?
Bill: I don't have anything against them personally. Technically, a lot of them are really astounding, but as Frank Zappa once said: "It doesn't really matter how fast you can talk or how large your vocabulary is if you've got nothing to say". I think with a lot of guitar music, players and fans alike have lost sight of the basic principle of music, which is primarily communication through emotion and mood. A lot of stuff I hear seems to have only one message to convey--"AINT I GREAT?!" I mean...that's impressive for the first 20 seconds or so. Guitar fans would laugh at the idea of buying a whole album of stock genre cliche songs that were only there to allow the drummer to solo over and show off his technique. They'd think that was the most boring thing they'd ever heard, but they don't see it the same way if it's a guitarist. Don't get me wrong, there are many virtuoso guitarists who are also great writers, who write complete musical pieces where the guitar is the lead voice and not just a technique exercise disguised as music, but there are a lot of them that are just that. A lot of guitarists are so into technique first and foremost that they'll happily buy tons of those types of cds just to try to figure out what the guitarist is doing. In that respect, I see their appeal, but should we use them as a rule to judge all guitar based music? I don't think so. I guess the bottom line for me are the ideas behind the piece of music, and when the only idea seems to be to impress other guitarists, I get turned off pretty quickly. But, each to their own...
E.B: But OLD LIONS has a lot of guitarwork that you've really got to be into guitar to get into....
Bill: Yeah, I agree to a point. A lot of it was just jamming and pure improv and should be understood on those terms. As I've said before, if I had it to do over I would have done things differently for a debut cd. I do think that live material is different as far as soloing is concerned. I like hearing how musicians interact and feed off each other in a totally improvisational situation. The whole piece mutates and evolves and new unique music is being born second to second. There's a big difference between that and a studio piece specifically written to showcase someone's technical facility. I think the ability to understand and appreciate improvisation in music is dying. We're so innundated with such sterile, meticulously manufactured and sonically polished "product" that we've raised a whole generation that has lost sight of music as a living breathing spontaneously creative artform. Live music to them is just a by the numbers regurgitation of the studio track. In a way, bands have become parrot cover bands of their own material.
E.B: It's been said that most modern rock and metal bands don't include solos because they consider it over-indulgent and obsolete. What are your thoughts on that?
Bill: Well, obviously I'm not convinced! (laughs) It seems that some modern styles that are in vogue now tend toward one dimensionality. Not only are the drums now confined only to time keeping-- even if it's super busy double bass thumping, it's still just keeping the beat--but the guitars and bass often seem to be more like tuned drums than stringed instruments and everything is knocked down to simply another beat. Even a lot of the rock vocals I hear now are devoid of melody and are screamed in a guttural monotone that becomes just another beat. I think it's probably the influence of rap, where nothing really matters beyond the beat and rhythm of the rhymes. It's a strange de-evolution of music, Devo was right! (laughs) In that type of musical environment, anything where you attempt to provide counter-point melody or melodic interplay between instruments and players is going to be totally alien to someone who has only heard one dimensional rhythm heavy music. That said, I don't think that instrumental music, single note soloing or creative self-expression through your instrument will ever be obsolete. I've heard people say "all that guitar noodling is boring" and then they turn on a song that repeats a simple drum loop and four bass notes over five minutes and tell me that it's exciting. Like I said, I think they've lost the ability to hear it, but I don't think for a moment that that's because the music is obsolete.
E.B: Your style of playing seems to be rooted more in the styles of the past than what's currently hot in guitar. Would you say that's a fair statement?
Bill: Yeah...I agree with that I guess. But I think it has to be qualified a bit by saying that I don't reject modern styles as much as try to blend aspects of them that I find musically useful with the other things I've integrated over the years. The thing that really drew me toward the instrument was the guitar's ability to be almost vocal in it's sonics through bending, slurs and other techniques. Unfortunately, modern styles have placed far less emphasis on that. One of the things that a lot of people find so impressive about shredding is the incredible lock-step blizzard of notes. While I certainly admire the dedication it takes to attain that level of technique, the overall impression I get isn't really guitar-like at all. It sounds to me more like a keyboard sequencer spitting out notes in a guitar-like voice. Once again, it sounds very robotically beat oriented. There doesn't seem to be any really elasticity of timing and it's that elasticity that I was initially drawn to when I listened to guitar music. Hendrix had it big time. Listen to some of his live stuff and there will be points where the timing gets drawn out and for a moment you're sure that the whole thing is going to fall apart. The whole band teeters on the very edge of the cliff and then, BAM, they snap right back into the groove. That's tension and release. I don't hear that anymore. Everything is too lock-step and robotic now. That's the type of sound that's popular. So it's not that I'm stuck in the past, it's just that a lot of techniques that happen to be popular aren't really applicable to what I want to say, and saying something is what MUSIC is all about. It's not a competitive sport. If speed, technique and sheer physical dexterity is where your priorities lie, why aren't you doing olympic gymnastics or some sport where that's all that matters? To make music you've got to care about what the notes are saying, not just how many you can cram into a measure and how perfectly you can play them. Miles Davis said the it's not what notes you play but what notes you DON'T play that really matters. I agree.
E.B: It's obvious from A.S. tunes like "So Be It" that you certainly have the ability to play as fast as anyone out there if you wanted to focus on it.
Bill: That's the easy part. I studied NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) a while back and one of their beliefs is that if someone somewhere has done something, anyone else can do it too, by studying exactly how they did it and modeling those specific actions. I think that's why I'm not that impressed overall, even with the incredible level of physical playing out there. With all the books, cd's, video tapes, tabs, etc., etc. it's damn near impossible to NOT be a good technical guitarist, if that's what you want. We can all learn the mechanics, but music comes from somewhere else. You have to have some technique to translate it into a language others can relate to but it doesn't come from technique. I can always tell music that's written as a simple mathematical or formulaic exercise. It's dead. Not to get mystical, but there is a definite difference in music that comes through someone rather than from someone.
E.B: So you hate modern music....
Bill: (laughing) Did I say that! No, I realize that I sound like I think that everything after 1940 is crap but that's not true at all. The late Steve Allen once said that 90% of modern music was crap, but then he went on to point out that 90% of EVERY eras music was crap and it's only the good 10% that we remember and become classics. If you don't believe that, buy one of those "Top 10 Hits of 19-whatever" books and see what songs were on the top of the charts that year and I guarantee you you'll remember no more than 10% of the songs or the artists who did them. I think I'm more interested in where the music comes from than what era it fits. I DO like a lot of current stuff. If I don't go completely nuts over a lot of it it's because to me it's not all that new and exciting. I've got a much larger frame of reference, time-wise, than your average teenager and I can see where a lot of the things people think are "new" really came from, that's all. It certainly doesn't mean that the bands aren't writing some really good stuff.
E.B: So, lets talk about some stuff the gearheads can get into. What's your equipment lineup for "Children of a Foreign Faith" ?
Bill: Guitar-wise I'm still using my green Raven RM350 most of the time. I have finally modified it a bit. I put a Duncan '59 zebra humbucker in the neck position and a very old Bill Lawrence blade humbucker in the lead. I can't remember the model number but it's from the very first bunch he made and sold many, many years ago. It was sitting around my workbench for all those years and when I started looking for pickups to swap out the Raven originals, it just sort of fell into my hands, kinda spooky like! (laughs) So I thought I'd better use it and I'm really glad I did, it's an incredible pickup! As a matter of fact, I'm going to be replacing the neck one with a B.L. soon. The Raven pickups were really good. I recorded a lot of stuff for the new album, like "Drama, Trauma and Awkward Grace" with them, and as a matter of fact I put them in one of my doublenecks to replace a Duncan JB and a Carvin, so I didn't change them because they weren't cool pickups, I just like experimenting and making great guitars even better. I also put a L.R. Baggs piezo bridge in and wired the guitar in stereo so I can have the electric and acoustic sounds going to separate amps or tracks. I'm also still using my old Fender amps, but I have been recording with some of the new amp simulators. I'm using the same basic effects I used for "Old Lions" and I've added some strange new ones that Tim built for me, but so far, I seem to be using effects a lot more sparingly then I did on the first CD.
E.B: In all the photos of you I've seen, you're using Fender Strats, Gibson Les Pauls and Firebirds, or one of your doublenecks. It seems strange that you'd be using a little known Korean made guitar when you have a whole bunch of American made vintage axes to choose from. What makes the Raven so special?
Bill: It's a great guitar! I found them one day while checking out guitars on Ebay and they looked really well made and extremely affordable, so I took a chance on their RM2000, a sort of double cut L.P. type and when it arrived I was floored. It was amazing that they could produce a guitar that good for that little money. I was really surprised how quickly I became comfortable with it. Especially considering that I've never really been comfortable with the 24 3/4" scale. I always used strats because the longer scale length fit my hands better and for the blues oriented stuff I was into for most of those years, the single coil pickups gave me the right sound. I really haven't been that much of a fan of humbuckers. I always found them too smooth and bassy, but for the Anubis Spire stuff, they worked a lot better than the single coils. It's really weird the way the Raven fits my hand while most of the Gibsons I own start to cramp my style pretty quickly. That's no slam against Gibson, it's probably just the Gibsons I own now aren't the ones I need. I've always liked Gibson's commitment to detail and quality and they're really great guitars but I guess I haven't found the right one yet...hint, hint! (laughs)
E.B: How do you think the Raven stacks up to most American made guitars?
Bill: Construction-wise, quality of woods and finishing, they really are amazing, especially for the money. They compare very favorably to the much more expensive guitars I've owned and in a lot of cases they're actually better. The quality of fret finishing, electronics and hardware vary quite a bit among the different Korean guitar builders but that's nothing new. The Ravens are pretty good in all those areas though. Back in the 70's when I first saw the Ibanez copy guitars, I was amazed by how well they were made. My friends thought I was nuts because it was a Japanese guitar and nobody thought they could ever be as good as an American made instrument. There was a LOT of prejudice and there still is. I think it's funny that the same people who reveled in the snob appeal of their Fenders and Gibsons back then, now don't see anything wrong with Ibanez guitars. I think that might have a bit to do with Steve Vai's use of them. Maybe if some young hotshot guitar phenom started using a Korean made guitar it would make people start judging guitars on their merits as guitars rather than as status symbols. But that's probably wishful thinking, human nature seems to love creating elitism. As long as there are people who cave to peer-pressure, think that a five figure price tag will make them play better, believe hype and advertising more than their own senses, you'll always have people willing to pay stupid money just for the right name on a headstock. And just in case you think I'm somehow un-american for buying a foreign instrument, I should point out that probably 90% of my guitars are American made. I do think that the foreign makers are doing cash strapped guitarists a real service though, the quality of instrument you can get for a few hundred dollars has never been better and that's a good thing I think. A good instrument is a good instrument, no matter who makes them.
E.B: So are you using your 70's strat "Izzy" anymore?
Bill: I've neglected her lately. She sits in the rack waiting patiently with the other guitars but I've got some stuff planned for her soon. We've been together so long, she understands.
E.B: Is it true that she actually has a piece of the great pyramid inside her?
Bill: (Laughing) How'd you know about that?
E.B: A little bird told me...
Bill: An Egyptian friend of my son, whose father traveled back to Egypt a lot, gave me a small piece of the stone from the pyramid and an ancient scarab for my birthday many years ago and something told me I should put it inside Izzy....which sounds pornographic, doesn't it? (Laughs) Both Izzy and I are so ancient that we feel right at home around those old talismans.
E.B: You've mentioned in other interviews that you believe that guitars have the ability to soak up the soul-vibes of their owners. Considering you've owned Izzy for so many years she must be pretty soulful!
Bill: She definitely is!
E.B: Are you using your 12 strings and doublenecks on the new cd as much as you did on "Old Lions"?
Bill: I love the sound of 12 strings so this cd will probably have as much or more than the last one. Most of the 12 string parts are played on the doublenecks. It's a lot easier to use a doubleneck in the studio than onstage. In the studio I can sit down. It's easier on the back!
E.B: What about your Anubitar (sitar guitar)?
Bill: Yep. It'll be there too! I love playing that thing.
E.B: Will Angus MacDrone, your piper be back?
Bill: Angus is currently on retreat somewhere but I certainly plan on letting him have a shot at some of the new material.
E.B: I promise we'll come back to the gear stuff but I want to digress for a minute. Earlier you quoted Frank Zappa and you even have a quote of his on your website. It seems to me that you both share the same cynical outlook on popular music, religion, human nature and a lot of other stuff. Any comment?
Bill: Gee, didn't I also quote Steve Allen? Why no questions about my vintage Tonight Show fetish? Just kidding... I think the only similarity I might have with Frank Zappa is that you could make a case that we both suffered from O.D.D.
E.B: O.D.D.?
Bill: Oppositional Defiance Disorder. If you say black, I'll say white! (laughs)
E.B: You're kidding me, right? There's isn't really anything called O.D.D.....is there?
Bill: Believe it or not, there is! It's a disorder that manifests itself with defiance of all authority and I HAVE been accused of having it, but I really don't fit the symptom profile very well. I think what Zappa and I might actually have in common is the unfortunately rare habit of questioning WHY people believe certain things and act in automatic ways, and especially why they never seem to realize that they're being led around by their noses and fed crap. It's weird that so few of us can see that the emperor has no clothes, and just accept things because society, fashion, our peer group or Madison avenue has said it's what we should accept. I always admired Frank for that, he didn't suffer fools lightly.
E.B: I don't know if it's O.D.D., but the thing I have noticed about you, and please don't take this the wrong way, is not only that you don't think like every other independent musician I've ever known but that you're rightiously opinionated most of the time and disagree with just about every dearly held belief of independent bands everywhere on how to succeed in the music business.
Bill: And your point is? (laughs)
E.B: Well, for instance when you first showed me your tour offers I was amazed at the number and caliber of acts that have contacted you to tour with them. But you turned them down. Any other indie band would have KILLED to be offered just one of those.
Bill: I turned them down because they weren't realistic. I'm sure they thought we'd jump at the chance to have our name associated with theirs but I've been around long enough to know that being an opening act is really only one step up from playing the local VFW. Show me a good contract with MONEY, beyond just expenses, and we'll have something to talk about.
E.B: But don't you think it offers A.S. a lot of exposure that you'd never get otherwise? Being on the same bill with some of those bands might boost the public's perception of you.
Bill: No, not really. See, that's one of what I call "the urban legends of independent rock". The "you gotta get out there and PLAY!" myth. This myth was started primarily by club owners, small time managers, booking agents and former-big time touring bands who LOVE having these ready-made, pay-em-nothing (or-very little) bands who have stars in their eyes and will do anything to have the "we played with..." bragging rights. I could show you bands in my area that have a "we opened for.." list that looks like a who's who of classic rock. They've had music used for background on cable TV shows, sold a seemingly respectable number of cds for a local act etc., etc.. And every morning you can wave to those guys as they head off to their day jobs, just like everybody else around this economically depressed area. It's a myth that that crap works and it's fed to hopeful bands as reality just to make sure that there's an exploitable pool of bands willing to knife each other in the back to "service" those club owners, sleaze-ball small time agents and big name touring bands, who, by the way, get to keep ALL their money by paying nothing to use a new over-eager pick-up band in each new city they play. After all, everybody reasons; think of how high our little indy bands stock will rise once they've shared a stage with STARS!!!
E.B: So you think playing out or touring is exploitive, obsolete and a waste of time for independent bands?
Bill: No, playing live in bars and clubs, if it's done right, can not only make a band some money to buy beer and band t-shirts but can build a bands ego, sense of accomplishment and purpose, and maybe pick up a few dozen new fans per venue if your really lucky and put on a great show. I only said that the IDEA that has been foisted on independent bands is that the road to the big time is to play every bar and grill from here to Mars. And that if they do, a Brian Epstein-type with gobs of money and a key to the hearts of every major executive at the remaining major record companies will one day walk through the door of Bubba-Jim's Catfish Emporium and pool hall, where their band is playing the forth hour of cover tunes to Bubba-Jim, the bartender and six of the local regulars, and whisk them off to fame and fortune! I'm being sarcastic of course but I actually know people who believe that fairy tale and always have a convenient success story they read in some magazine way back when, to back it up. I'm sorry. It's not 1972 anymore and your chances of being hit by a falling comet are greater than your being "discovered" that way. It's a outmoded model of the music business that is continually being embraced and perpetuated by a whole bunch of self proclaimed experts who make THEIR money selling books with even MORE absurd ideas and "insider tips" on how to "make it in the music biz!" and it galls me that despite an overwhelming amount of evidence that it doesn't work, independent musicians just keep on following that stupid outdated play book.
E.B: But there ARE more modern examples of hard touring bands who owe at least part of their success to playing live.
Bill: Of course, but let's define success... name ONE band that ever reached beyond that "Wow these guys are worthy of some ink in our magazine or a feature on MTV because they're ROCK ROAD WARRIORS!" stage. I'm not saying you can't get to certain level above the fray by doing that...I'm only saying that the myth is that's how superstars are made. If that's the case, NAME one. Superstars are made because someone with MONEY decided they should BE superstars, NOT because they played 364 and a half dates last year. There are plenty of hard working bands that are already successful and signed by a major label and they tour like crazy. That's a different story. If playing out made bands into superstars, every indie label would have at least one superstar band right up there with the major label artists, because indie labels really push their bands to hit the club circuit. That's all I'm saying. If I wanted to do the live show thing, I'm sure we'd generate those road warrior types of stories and we would probably become more visible on the radar screens of the media. The question is "Is it worth the price we'd pay?" I've got nothing against playing rockstar in front of lots of people and entertaining rather than creating, i'm only saying that for me, there isn't much point in it without some sort of tangible return.
E.B: OK, but aren't you talking apples and oranges here? The offers you've had are for touring as a permanent part of the roster on tours of not only the US but Europe and South America. That's a far cry from Bubba's pool hall.
Bill: True. And I would have loved to have done those tours but where's the incentive? Every time I started to get around to money they didn't want to talk to me, and the amount they initially offered was just silly. Why should I give up six months of my life being dragged around Europe with an expense budget so low we'll all be sleeping in the van, eating once a day from vending machines and If anything goes wrong I can't even afford to buy guitar picks.Why would I do that, just so I could impress the locals with tales of our 2003 tour of upper Monrovia? I mean, I'm not demanding limos and Lear jets here, but I'd like to have something to show for six months away from my studio work besides a few photographs and a bank account that's in the negative. I'm sure that there are lots of bands out there who're more than happy to fill those tour spots. My thought is; if we were good enough to be considered, why aren't we good enough to get paid? Touring is an extremely costly proposition, even for a major signed act. To expect me to pick up all the expenses to equip and outfit the band to do that without even a chance of breaking even is stupid and I'm sorry, but I won't become a corporate shill, selling booze and cigarettes to baby sheep.
E.B: So, in your opinion, independent bands should avoid touring until they're signed?
Bill: No, not necessarily, they should just be more discriminating and do it for the right reasons. There are opportunities out there to avoid the bar-band trap. For instance, if your music appeals to college age kids, hit the college circuit. That's a really lucrative and rewarding market. If you're a new age artist, check into new age festivals and even places like bookstores. If you're a rock musician, check out the festival circuit, if you can't find one in your area, START one! Come on, get pro-active for god's sake, stop hoping that the music industry will do everything for you! All they'll do is exploit you and throw you away.The bottom line is independent bands should stop acting like they're not worth as much as the signed. That attitude has lead to the whole pay to play thing and hurts us all. I continue to get offers but I have no problem being a studio-slash-internet band. Right now, I'm working on video ideas and I think independent bands should consider cyber concerts as well. It's a BIG world out there and you can reach more fans in one day on the web than playing dives all year long.
E.B: Yeah but bands sell a lot of CDs through gigs, don't they?
Bill: Well, yes and no... that's number two on my "Urban myths of independent Rock" list. A lot of people say you should do gigs so you can sell lots of CD's to temporarily chemically altered people who are less inhibited and will make impulse buys. That works and if all you're looking for is money you should definitely do it, but I really think that the myth that some bands are buying is that the higher their CD sales numbers, the more attractive they'll be to the major labels. I think there's a real flaw in that way of thinking. First off..I think this assumes that the major's are idiots who won't know that selling 20 cds to drunks and maybe some well meaning people who buy one just to support the band and thank them for playing their favorite song so they could slow dance with their date, is the same as having 20 people who heard about your music, checked out your samples, did the searching to find where they could buy it and then actually BOUGHT it. All on their own, without the mob mentality psychosis, peer pressure or liquor! If numbers sold was all that mattered, I'd buy 100,000 and sell them for scrap to a plastic recycler and then proudly put "We SOLD 100,000 CDs in ONE HOUR!!!!!!" on all our promo stuff. Do I think the major's would rush to sign me? What do you think?
E.B: Are you SURE you don't have O.D.D.?
Bill: (Laughing) I guess I SHOULD get checked, huh? All I'm trying to say is that if I was a major label A&R guy, I'd be more impressed with a band who sells a slow steady stream of CDs through retail outlets to complete strangers who made their decision to buy completely on their own than a band who shows me their gig sales figures. I really think the gig figures don't show me they'll be able to sell without the live show and alcohol. On the other hand, if you show me a band that sells without that, how much more can they sell with it?
E.B: So how many more of these "myths" are out there?
Bill: Oh, don't get me started...
--End of Part Two--
~~ In the next installment Bill talks about more myths, the future of A.S., band tensions and his own coming solo projects.~~