Guys welcome to another episode of Metal Mastermind.
I do believe this is episode #56.
Here I am your Coast and Co founder, Metal mastermind Jason
Stallworth and also the Co founder and Co host the great.
Yanka Dallas What's up man? I love last week when we said
the great Glenn Frickers. Like what?
What makes you guys so great? Yeah, Glenn is a cool guy, man.
Much thanks to Glenn Fricker for coming on the show last week.
That was a blast. We had a lot of fun and we're
not going to talk about this. We got a completely different
topic, but I just thought about that when I said the great Ken,
Ken Candelas, It was so hilarious.
She was like, so wait a minute, what?
What makes you guys so great? What is it you know?
This. Comes right out.
What a, what a show that was. But Ken, this is this is one of
those heartfelt conversations, man.
And it's for musicians, yes, but I know a lot of you listening,
or some of you listening. You may not play music for a
living. You may not even play music for
money. It might just be a really cool
hobby, this conversation we're getting into.
Like like most of everything we talked about the the concepts
are carried over into pretty much every aspect of life and
we're really talking about balancing life and mainly the
highs and the lows of a musicians life.
You know and Ken, I'll have you talk about some of your some of
your recent highs that you have and then what kind of happens
after that. So I like there's this UPS and
the downs maybe not it's maybe it's not like down right.
It's not like something bad happens, but you've got this
high of of finishing a project like Ken, you're just finishing
up, right? Or or being at a big show,
playing a big show or something like that.
And then or maybe you have several shows in a row, then all
of a sudden it's like, OK, that's kind of done what what am
I doing now? So Ken, talk about something
recent that you've gone through, man, because I know you've been
working on this huge project, dude.
Well, Homeric, yeah, I mean, sure.
Homeric's been kind of in the works for about 10 years now and
the album's done. So yeah, that's a that's a huge
milestone for me. It feels more like a a life
stoned than than other things for me in this regard, mainly
because of so many things that happened during that time of
making this album. But yeah, I mean after after
having finished the album. Actually, funny enough, my quote
UN quote high was totally ruined.
Oh dude. Because once I once I actually
finished the album, I was told that one of my songs was
actually going to get banned. Oh.
That's right. I was like, oh, yeah, because,
you know, just to be very transparent, you know, like my
music is about World War 2, and it has, as a protagonist,
actually a Nazi soldier. So I actually had some audio
that came from Nazi Germany and that was very, very
controversial. So to put it bluntly, yeah, I
had to axe it because otherwise I would have been banned in like
50 plus countries. Not only that, but the
distributors who have put my music out would have been banned
there too. So I had to be very, very, you
know, diligent and say to myself, you know, can I tell the
same story without necessarily going to the lengths of
offending people so much, 'cause obviously, you know,
historically, you know, Adolf Hitler was a, was a notorious,
you know, madman, horrible human being.
So having anything related to him in any kind of art can be
very, very tricky to to navigate.
And I also didn't know that his stuff was also copyrighted.
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So doing a little bit of background research, I actually
had to discover that too. So I was I was really in the red
on doing anything regarding that song.
So I had to actually redo certain parts of that after
everything was mastered, by the way.
So I had to go back to the drawing board on certain parts
and redo some of that content. And it came out actually in my
opinion, different, better in some ways.
But this song, it's called Sacred Order.
So whenever, when you, when you listen to it, when Homeric comes
out, you'll you'll know. But that it's kind of now become
like a yin Yang type of song for me where you have instead of you
know what's on the other side of the pond, you have what's here
at home, which is Franklin D Roosevelt, which was actually
public domain stuff to use. So I use a presidential speech
in order to convey hopefully the same message that I was trying
to Bay, which is the horrors of this war.
So yeah, that was that was a very, very interesting moment.
What's a good example of high and low?
Man, you're you're done, right? So you've got this natural high.
It's like, OK, that part is done, but then you're hit with
this thing. It's like crap and and you've
done so much work and we all know how tedious having to go
back and redo something like that as and go back to the
entire process and make sure you don't miss anything along the
way as well. Sometimes when you when I used
to work in my corporate job, there would be like a change in
a system and I'm like, OK, if you guys make that one change,
we've got to test everything else because that one change
could have impacted something else and we would never know.
Probably not as much as the case here.
But again, you're going back to the process.
So I mean I can see where that can be like, oh crap, OK, I
really don't want to do this. If you're like me, once I finish
a project, once I get to a certain point, I don't want to
look at it again. I don't want to look back.
Yeah, You know, that's very true.
And I felt I had a lot of resistance to this, but I had
to, I had to kind of cave in because was it worth, you know,
like my pride to have my original intention for this
piece, you know, prevail or, you know, did?
Was it, was it worth killing the project, you know, over it?
And I I said to myself, no. Sometimes art can be dangerous,
and you have to be. You have to be willing to
understand that although you may view something a certain way,
you know there are tons of people who won't view it the
same way at all. And that's why it's actually
really important to have people that you trust critique
yourself. Because if you don't, you could
be doing something that completely backfires on you for
a completely different reason that you didn't anticipate
because you weren't thinking about that you.
Were trying to think about, you know, rightfully so, the art,
right? You know, I I could think of so
many different consequences, you know, after the fact.
But you know, doing that was very, very revealing to me that
it also showed how adaptable I could be too, because.
It. Starts to bring out the
creativities from your limitations, right?
You know, you can only go so far with, you know, that kind of
content. So you have to be very, very
creative as to how you use it and making the message clear
about what it is you're trying to say.
So just be careful when you do any sort of historical stuff.
I'm, I'm an avid fan of history and that's why I was using it,
you know. But yeah, I'm not, I'm not a
Steelberg in the sense where I have his same clout.
You know, I can't make like a Schindler's List, you know, kind
of movie and get away with using that kind of stuff because I
don't have that kind of that cloud.
So you have to be very careful. And and that's not to say that,
you know, we're not doing something that's not important.
It's just means that, you know, we're at a different position
with where we are in regards to being realistic.
You know, let's just play to the reality of the situation.
And you know, if that's something that you're really
adamant about, then you know, know what the consequences are
and weigh your options. And you know, my my desire is
really to create this cinematic opera.
That is, you know, based around metal.
So that's more important to me to tell that story of an
adaptation of The Inferno rather than, you know, getting this one
speech that was very controversial.
So I'm not going to, I'm not going to shoot myself in the
foot over because of that, even if it wasn't what I originally
intended. So that's a hard truth.
And some musicians and artists and and composers, you know,
we're we're very tied to our work.
You know, we can be very, very, you know, guarded about it.
But you know, the truth is you have to think about if you're
going to put your music to the world.
I mean it what? It's one thing to just keep it
in your home studio and never release it, you know, but which
we don't advocate for. We want you to put your stuff
out to the world. The world should hear your
music, right? You should add value to the
world. But if you're going to add value
to the world, you know, it's kind of like thinking about
actually, I was watching Oppenheimer last night and, you
know, you got this nuclear physicist who's figured out how
to split the atom and he makes a bomb, you know, the atomic bomb.
So that is, you know, the two sides of the coin, right.
Where where's an advancement in science is also, you know, to
the detriment of humanity. Right.
So very interesting. No.
And I like the way you handled that, man.
I mean, and you could have handled it a different way too.
You know, there there might even be some people that might just
throw in the towel on the entire thing, right.
That's true. Which that I don't ever want to
see any of you allow the lower points to take control like
that. So you hit kind of a low here
because we're talking about highs and lows.
You know you had this height you if you completed this big thing,
it's like a big load off your shoulders.
But now you hit the slow point, this challenge, it's like OK,
well, I think I think it's all about how we react to situations
we are in. So I'll say this, we're not in
control of a lot of things yet at the same time we are in
control of everything. That makes no sense.
But what I mean is there are some things in life that you
can't help that are happening to you and around you and that are
going to impact you. But we always have full and
complete control over how we react to things and how we, like
you said, you were challenged in the sense that you grew because
you found out how much you can adapt creatively.
And that's a beautiful thing. And that's a really cool skill
to have because I believe at that point, if you can, if you
can adapt to situations and still maintain your creativity
and like, you know, I'm not going to be upset about it.
I'm just going to find a different way.
I'm going to create a different way.
Like we say, create your own sound.
I think that's one of the most important skills you have.
And I I think you become unstoppable at that point
because now you've experienced this.
And you know, we've all experienced things in life where
where sometimes we fell down and we stayed down.
I've been there before, you know, more than once.
But other times we've learned to just, you know, I'll just do
this instead. I'll find, you know, find a way
either around it over or sometimes through it right, or
just make up a completely different way altogether.
So I think that's a really important skill to to develop.
I think, you know, yeah, you're totally right, man.
And the idea of not being able to be adaptable to a situation
is very difficult as a musician to like, be successful in.
I would say that as we create, it's easier to actually
disassociate your personal self from your music.
Because when you sever that tie of like, oh, this is me, this is
my music and this is who I am now, you've now what you've
attached to your music is the IT, the ego, you know?
So that ego, if there's a critique on your music, it's a
critique on your ego too. And that becomes very difficult
for a lot of people to, you know, take that criticism, you
know, it's like, oh, you know, you're attacking me.
This is, you know, it's not, it's not that it's it's it's
looking at something objectively because you know, you've been
very close to this project, but you're, you know, your audience
has never seen this before. You know, you don't know the
first impression unless you hear it from somebody.
And that first impression is very important.
The last thing you need is for somebody to get the wrong
impression and then completely just you know what could have
been a potential fan is now completely removed from from
that potential because you were too stubborn, right?
And what is that? You know, like what 7 sins is?
One of them is pride, right? So pride can get in your way.
It can. Homeric, you know, I've been
blessed to be able to, you know, create something that I feel is
like my greatest work. But in the, in the, in the grand
scheme of things, all of my experience with Homeric has
always been it's it's not my project in my in my mind,
because it's my project, you know, it's it's in my copyright,
it's all that. But in my mind, it's always
been, you know, for lack of a better term, it belongs to God.
It it belongs to the the ether, the the universe.
I'm just, it's a messenger. Kind of.
I like that man. You and I, you and I started
middle Mastermind because we, you know, yeah you could have
kept doing home. Eric and I could have kept just
doing Jason Stallworth things and and we could have did
whatever. I don't, who knows, I don't know
what we would have done. But we we came together and
created this course platform because we both said we, you
know we wanted to create something that was bigger than
just us. For sure I can, I can do some
cool stuff. You can do some cool stuff.
And it's not to say that you can't do things on your own.
We all can. But I don't want to do
everything on my own. And metal mastermind was
something that we came together. It's like we both like, hey,
let's let's put our heads together and put our passions
together on this and create something that's not only
greater than us as an individual, but but even greater
than that. You know, with both of us
together and now everybody listening to our podcast and you
guys who who leave us the comments and and you know and
who we connect with and everything, we appreciate you.
So in that sense we've created something much greater.
So I I like the way you, I like the way you portrayed this
because Homeric is not just, it's not just a band, you know?
No. Yes, it's a living entity.
Right. It's a living entity and you
have to nurture it. You have to take care of it and
you look after it because that's probably, you know, your art is
the most purest thing in the world.
It's so innocent in its own right, right?
It's only here for one purpose, and one purpose only is it's to
serve humans. And how do you serve humans?
The best way, like we tap into something that's very different
from, you know, like the service industry when it comes to art,
right? We we tap into the the nurturing
of the soul. And you know, all the great
artists of the world, a lot of them weren't appreciated until,
you know, long after they were dead because people had to, you
know, in the in the times that they were in, they were thinking
far beyond what everybody else was thinking about.
Everybody was thinking about what's currently happening now.
And you know, you have guys like, you know, Dante or even Da
Vinci or Homer and all these people.
I mean, take for example, Homer. Homer is a really interesting
cat. He's.
If you didn't know, I mean, just some basic stuff here is that,
you know, Homer, this is a Greek poet.
He wrote the Odyssey, the Iliad, all that kind of stuff.
And Homer, you know, is notoriously known for being
blind. Now, we actually don't know
whether or not for sure that was actually true.
We have some. Metaphor or something, right?
We have some hints that he was, but yes, it could have been a
metaphor. It could have been a bunch of
stuff. But one thing that's very true
about Homer, that people didn't really know about it is that
Homer didn't necessarily write down his poems.
He actually sang his poems. He sang his poems.
And the great philosopher Plato was the one who wrote them down
South. And if you know Plato, right,
Plato's, you know, one of the the biggest philosophers.
You know, he's during all the time of like Socrates, he was
his pupil and all that kind of stuff.
But Homer, he would actually sing all of his poems.
That was somewhat something known as a a rhapsode.
So if you ever hear like, you know, Bohemian Rhapsody, right.
It's kind of like a poem, but it's a sung poem and it tells a
story. And you know, that's how, in my
eyes, I know if you've ever listened to a lot of any of,
like, these progressive rock epics that are like super long,
right? But if you, if you like, for
example, yeah, Injustice for all or something ever, even.
Like, even bigger than that. You know, I'm talking like 6° of
Inner Turbulence by Dream Theater, which is like 45
minutes, right? It's like an album long,
basically. So you listen to something like
that. And I've been listening to 6° of
Inner Turbulence since I was like a teenager.
So I love that. I know if I'm like the back of
my hand, but why do I know about by the back of my hand?
It's because I attach certain elements and lyrics to melodic
structures that happen within that album and that piece.
And so part of what I think Homer's secret was was that he
associated music to his poems. And so he was able to remember
these super long poems by attributing another factor that
helped him to remember key elements of the story, which I
think we're musical. Cues the melodies and musical,
you know. Right.
So I always thought that was fascinating and that's that's
one of the reasons why I use the term Homeric, which is to be,
you know, super epic, super grand, like in the style of
Homer. But we have music, modern music
to be able to do a modern Homer piece now.
And that's, you know, I'm using not one of Homer's stories, but
Dante Eligieri's story, who's another poet, right, Someone
during the medieval ages, not during ancient Greece.
And with Dante Eligieri, you know, Dante was he, he he
struggled a lot in his life and he used the Inferno as an outlet
against the people he he hated. You know, and that poetry was,
was beautiful. Everything is in like threes and
all this kind of stuff. There's like sort of hidden
messages and allegories, right? Like allegory, right, allegory,
you know, which are just messages that represent a hidden
meaning, right? You know, like, for example, the
winds of lust, right? Lust blows around like a
hurricane because you have a lack of control in your life.
To be able to do a windows picture one.
To commit to to one person. So that yeah, that's a that's an
example of an allegory. So yeah, I I found it
fascinating. All these historical figures and
and how they they really relate to this.
But All in all they they serve something that lasted longer
than they did. Right.
Which is a legacy, a story told that is immortalized.
And I actually made a YouTube video about this one time.
So how to become immortalized? And you have a Channel 4 home,
Eric, by the way. Dude, I do everybody.
Listening. I talk about all this kind of
stuff. Yeah, all this I I kind of like
to call it dark mythology because it's pretty.
Much what it is, yeah. It's yeah, it's the dark side of
any of this myth for for most of the stuff I talk about,
demonology and all that kind of stuff too, and I find it very
fascinating. It's a lot of my inspiration for
this kind of stuff, especially because I'm doing the Inferno.
Yeah I've always liked to say I'm I'm I'm fascinated overly
fascinated probably by the supernatural.
The things you can't see and the things that go bump in the
night. You know, like one of my
favorite movies is yes, I love the tune as well great maiden
tune and you know when it and I know Homerica's not you know
related or not anything related to this particular series or or
movie in in the case that I'm talking about it in.
But I love. I love what is it now I just
lost my train of thought completely It's Hellboy.
Hellboy is what I'm thinking of. Oh yeah.
I'm thinking of Hellboy with Ron Perlman.
The Hellboy one and two. I thought they're going to make
a three for some reason. I am like deeply fascinated by
those movies. I love them to death man.
So of course that's during the the same era and such that
you're talking about with Omeric.
So anyway, I'm just throwing it out there.
But are you talking about making something that's that has the
longevity which not a lot of things I think today have that
and that's that's a conversation for another day.
But I'm. I'm going back to like the movie
Back to the Future when Marty's on stage playing guitar with the
band, you know, and then all of a sudden he breaks out with a
Van Halen style solo on guitar. And then everybody's like and
he's like, oh, I guess you guys weren't ready for that yet.
Put a great correlation to what you're talking about, these
these famous poets. They didn't.
Their work wasn't wasn't recognized until until way
later. And I I believe and I know you
believe this too, Ken, or you wouldn't be making what you're
making, what you've made. But I believe if we go into
things creating, just creating what's what's coming from us and
not really trying to satisfy anywhere else.
Sometimes you do have to pivot, like in your case you had to
make a pivot which you were able to be even more creative on top
of that, right. So you're able to discern what
you can change and the really intent behind the change because
you want people to get the big picture of this and having that
in there wasn't worth destroying the big picture, right, Because
you would lessen the amount of people that were going to get
this big picture and get the full impact of of your of your
storyline here. So I I think we should we should
focus on those things though instead of worrying about well I
need to write a hit song. I need to write something that's
you know that's going to satisfy the now I think just dig deeper
inside of yourself, you know and it might be crazy like even this
home air project there's probably some things that sound
like crazy in this whole storyline in the way you the way
you've done it right. But this is what you were drawn
to do. So I want to encourage everybody
listening to man go, you know, go with your gut if you've got,
I believe, if you've got pure intentions, I believe that's
pretty much going to tell you. It's pretty much going to lead
you into the right territory most of the time anyway.
Yeah, I I really think people should make the craziest thing
that they could ever think of. And then you can do a reduction
of that later. Sure.
But start, but start from like your your initial intention.
Because obviously, like if I didn't make sacred order the way
I initially did it in the beginning, it would have been a
totally different song. Yeah.
You know the timings and and all these different punctuations
that happen in the song that they would have been completely
different, you know, had I not had done my first version.
So go and do that because it's actually really important
because when you do that, you might hit the mark on what it is
that you're actually trying to emotionally say with your piece.
That could then be the the guiding force how you you know
either. If you want to call it, censor
it, but you know if you want to make a reduction of what it was
originally. You can still use that emotional
trail to to guide you into making something that.
Works it It really is a matter of how much you know.
Do you care about saying what it is that's there like could you
say it a different way and still get the same effect right that
that that's a that's a lyrical thing too.
Sometimes we we we really like bash ourselves on you know
trying to make these lyrics unique and stuff like that.
But your lyrics, they need to be relatable and if you're if
you're going to be using let's say like too much wording that
is maybe that goes over people's heads, you know or whatever.
And it's not like necessarily your audience, but you're trying
to do it because you want to use different words.
You want to use a thesaurus and so which is great, I I, I use a
thesaurus too. But does it does it serve the
the song right. Because if you're going to be
using big words and all of a sudden you have to like now
rework like rhythms and all this kind of stuff to make it fit
that word just because you want to use that word, you know, you
might not even be using that word, correct?
I'll focus out there too, Ken. I mean, I think the intent, you
always talk about intent, right? And I think the intent behind
you have to ask skills. When you ask why do I want to
use these larger words, more complex words?
Is it truly serving the song or am I just kind of feeding my ego
here because I want people to think that right at this high
level? Yeah, you got to check yourself.
You do. You do have to check yourself.
And I I'm OK. I I've seen people talk about
lyrics. Well, don't use the word fire or
desire because they're overused. Well, So what?
It doesn't mean the song is going to sound the same if you
use those words in your song, right.
Because you have your own melody, you have your own, you
know your melodic nature, your rhythms, and you have your own
message. And like you said, Ken, if these
words, they may be simple, but if if they truly serve the song,
then go with it. Don't let someone tell you.
Well, that's that doesn't sound unique.
So what? It's going to be yours, right?
It's going to be your song at the end of the day.
Absolutely. And I encourage you to think
about some other historical people, like for example, Martin
Luther, OK, He started the what are the what are the Pentecostal
church or Right, what's it called?
It's not the Catholic Church, it's I think it's the
Pentecostal Church or? Something yeah, I I honestly
don't know to be honest with you, but I I know he has had
some time. For I'm totally blanking on
exactly what it is, but I'm But I know people who are telling me
they're yelling me right now and they're telling me the right
answer, but they know what I'm talking about.
It wasn't the Church of Satan. We know that, right?
No, it definitely wasn't. But it was it.
It was essentially the Church of the Lutherian Church where
people they they were not using Catholicism and you know,
necessarily saying that the Pope is the the most important
person, etcetera. Right.
But one of the things that's really important about it, I'm
bringing this up is because Martin Luther took Latin, which
was written in all the Bibles and he made it in the common
language so people could understand it.
By doing that, he unlocked people to be able to think
critically for themselves, right, And decide what their
version of worshipping God look like.
And that's super important, because I, you know, when you're
writing, listen from some, like, lyrics, right?
You don't have to, let's say, write in this Latin that is so
hard for people to decipher, right?
You know, you don't need to write something too cryptic.
You can write something that's plain that is very relatable but
and it hits home. It could be the same, you know
message but written differently. And if you hone in on that and
if it makes the impact like listen to how the words impact,
that's it's really, that's where it shines.
It's that emotional impact of saying certain words.
And so if it's fire and desire, right, fire and desire, OK, sure
is maybe a, a, a, an overused like, you know, lyric or poem,
you know, phrase. But if it were to say it in a in
a certain way that evoked the words out of, you know, the
emotions out of those words, then I mean, you know, then it
was effective. So try to try to.
Not let too much of the stigma. Even like if it's like just your
early work, like you know you're just jotting down lyrics can you
just need to find something to to put in there now and you can
replace it later, you should just write the cheesy stuff,
write it down and then go and revise or reduce, right.
Like I was saying before, write what you think you should be
writing. Like eliminate the roadblocks
right there and then that you can't do certain something
because somebody else did this or somebody else did that, and
then you're not going to be looking original.
Just write it anyway. Write it anyway.
And. Yes, we do.
We talk about that, it's a whiteboard session and and we
tell you guys to just even write down words that don't make
sense, just have a placeholder there because what it is that
triggers your brain to start acting.
There's a there's a lot to be said for execution.
And I don't mean like executing people and stuff, but like
executing the, you know, the task, the process rather than
just sitting around not doing anything and over thinking it's
like, well, I just can't do anything.
Put the pen to the paper or the fingers to the keyboard and just
write something. And as you as you get into
motion and and start taking that action, I believe things will
will develop and come to you a lot faster.
Yeah, for sure. I get a lot of my lyrical
inspiration from rhythm. So just even saying certain
words a certain way in time, Yeah yeah, starts to trigger
some other options for that. I'm also a big fan and actually
I say this in metal songwriters forge.
If you are a part of that, you'll have heard this which is
that try writing in a sometimes in a different language see what
it sounds like and it might open more avenues on how you you,
you, you approach you know your your, your lyric writing.
One of the greatest things that was really helpful for me in the
first Homeric album, the debut album, self-titled by the way,
it was that I wrote the music and the lyrics from the origin
of let's say the either the country or the region that I
wanted to emphasize. So, you know, for example, if I
was writing, you know, I wrote a flamenco piece and I I use
Spanish, you know, as as a big part of that, I had a a real
flamenco guitarist come and play vocalist, real flamenco
vocalist. And they, they did all the
things like the palomas, which is, you know, the claps and all
that kind of stuff. They did everything.
And I wrote the metal to that, right.
It was a way for me to experiment for a different
sound. But you know, I had the metal in
mind, but I wrote the metal with the ethnicity.
It was very cool experiment. And, you know, I just encourage
people to try that. Because if you're stuck with
like doing the same thing kind of over and over, you're like,
oh man, same chugs here, you know, like, OK, then, you know,
try, try a different ethnicity of music and or listen, you
don't even have to like, write that kind of music.
You can just like immerse yourself in listening to that
kind of music. Or playing a different key we
have we have plenty of videos on that we we talk about that in
songwriters forged or songwriting course.
Yeah, I mean just that's that's great too, right.
You could, you could play a different mode, you know, and
try a different key structure so that it's not just, you know,
minor or harmonic minor like there's other flavors.
There's like Byzantine and like, you know, like all this kind of
other dark stuff, the Japanese scale, like I love those.
Those kinds of things help to unlock different styles within,
you know, you're playing that you already might have.
You might already know how to do certain types of styles of music
just by instinct, because you might have heard it in many
different capacities. Like maybe it was a video game
that you you love. Maybe it was like you played a,
I don't know, like Assassin's Creed, which is like this game
where you're, you're an assassin and you, you travel through time
to, to, to different parts of this like entire legacy of what
it means to be a, you know, a human and all this kind of
stuff. But you go through the medieval
ages, the Egyptian age, the Viking age, all these kinds of
stuff. And, you know, in those games,
right, you can hear like the sounds and the music that comes
from those regions, right. So as you're playing, you know,
as a as just as a gamer, I'm sure you're hearing this kind of
stuff and you're getting familiar like, oh, OK, this kind
of sound associates to this time period or this culture.
And those kinds of things are what I'm talking about that, you
know, you can tap into. Film scoring is such a great
thing that I was learning to do during my collegial years
because film scoring allowed me to really dive deep into all
these different kinds of styles. Because you have to, right?
If you're hired to do a mystery movie, you know, you got to
learn a little bit about Blues and jazz, You know James Bond,
that kind of stuff. But then you want you're going
to do. You know, I don't know, Tarzan.
Now you got to know how to do Congolese drums and, you know,
big boomy bass with all these kinds of percussion and chakras,
which are like this African shaking sort of type of
instrument. It's all these different types
of things kind of come into the foray of what are your tools and
you learn more about how to do this kind of stuff.
I tell people all the time that the way I started to learn how
to do this kind of stuff mostly was because of The Legend of
Zelda. I was a teenager learning to
transcribe Zelda music. I I had a finale 2006 at the
time, very old, and I was just, you know, plugging away at
learning notes, and I was hearing pitch, and I would try
to match pitch and time with the music, right?
I was transcribing it and I would train my ear to hear
different types of instruments and then to write those
instruments accordingly. That was very, very tough,
especially with like lower quality sample music like N64 or
even before then Super Nintendo and it was like 6, it was like 8
bit 16 bit type. Regular Nintendo before that, by
the way. Yes and all.
I mean, that's even worse because it's just literally like
a synthesizer at that point. But it was very difficult to
kind of like, you know, hear the different types of of
instruments. So you know, you'd have to
really use your ear and your best judgement as to what was
the sound that was used in order to write that part.
That was really helpful for me as a as a composer.
It it unlocked a part of myself that I didn't I wouldn't have
had otherwise into doing what I'm doing.
It's the reason why I sort of got into music you know So I
mean like transcribing and learning music theory and all
that kind of stuff is really important.
I I, I did a blog post about music theory and its
complexities, and you should read it if you guys haven't.
But it's it really addresses why, in my opinion, music theory
is one of the most powerful tools that you can have when
you're actively writing music. You're not necessarily using
theory to write music, it just allows you to understand exactly
what you're doing and then you might have a strategy on what to
do next. It gives you a way to overcome
things like writer's block and stop doing the same usual things
that you are comfortable doing. Because we have those, right?
You don't need music theory to write music, but you might be
writing some of the same stuff a little bit too often.
Especially the metal guitars. So the metal guitars in general
tend to go for the lowest note possible and that's all they.
You can probably name several albums and even great albums at
that, that every song starts with the same note, the same
power cord. It's in the exact same key.
They don't deviate. And I'm not saying you should or
shouldn't do that. Look, I'm not, you know, But it
it might serve you to just explore outside of that.
That's why I'm I'm, I'm always telling you one way, you know,
all of you guys telling you one way to to get out of that is to
play the same thing. Start playing that in a
different place in the front board.
Play in the key that maybe is not a guitar friendly key.
You know, I grew up playing guitar in church.
I'm playing Guns and Roses and Metallica and Hair Bands on on
you know the other times and I had to go play gospel hymns
where I'm following the piano and I'm playing along with my
mentor who he's he passed many years ago Ronnie Goodman, he was
an amazing like Blues, jazz, guitars neither are which are my
preferences of music along with the hymns.
But I wanted to play music so I did and he taught me to play in
different keys. So you know I was like well just
play bar chords and the E flat and the B flat.
Again not guitar friendly keys to playing.
So I just learned to make up lead patterns to those keys.
I had something in my head and I'm like, OK, well I think it
goes here. So I played it sounded good.
If it didn't sound good, well. Well, don't play that.
Play something else. That's kind of was kind of my
simplistic approach to that. But just stretching yourself a
little bit, you know, not going for that low note every single
time you pick up the guitar. Just play somewhere else.
Doesn't matter where it is, just pick another part of the fret
board. Yeah, and you got you got tons
of inspiration all around the world to to be able to to write
something new and different. You know, I've seen some really
cool metal artists who derives most of the inspiration from
Indian music. I love the rhythms of Indian
music. They've got some cool stuff,
man, Yeah. Yeah, I mean like who, who would
have thought and you know, like just just take that kind of
stuff, that kind of rhythmic structure and and adapt it into
metal. It makes perfect sense.
You know, anything that's very rhythmic makes perfect sense in
metal, to be honest. And like we say, there are no
rules in music guys. They're like, there's there's no
rule saying you have to write a metal song just like this or you
have to sing it like this or you have to have this vocal style.
I would say for all that out the window, what is, what is in your
heart? What is it that you want to get
out that's going to be the best and most original version of
yourself? And if it ends up sounding like
something else, but that wasn't your intent, OK, So what?
So be it. That's just who you are right
now as a musician. But I I kind of, I kind of go
against trying to sound like this or trying to fit your music
in a certain category. I love what Clint Fricker said
about death metal vocals. He's he's like, yeah, OK, we, we
know you like Cannibal Corpse and and I love death metal too.
I love a lot of death metal bands.
But he's like people, you know, people are attracted to a
melody. So that's why in some of my
music I'll mix both. I'll I'll I do mostly clean
vocals, but I'll throw some death metal stuff in there from
time to time, you know. Yeah.
So just a little bit, right. Yeah.
Variety's good man.
It too much of the same stuff can get stale.
I'm very much more on the side of you know use melodies.
I've had I had a good friend of mine who is who's interested in
in in in my music and said you know you should have versions of
your stuff that is instrumental as well you know.
But at the core everything really comes together with
vocals like that's what people pay attention to right.
I mean coming back to Homer right.
It's like it was the Odyssey that they paid attention to.
He he may have sang the The Odyssey, but he it was the
Odyssey that had people really gripping their seats for the
next chapter, you know? It's a message too, man.
It's a message behind it. It's just that that feel that
you're, you know, you're relating with someone with that
powerful message too, man. Yeah, lyrics are super
important. Vocal is the most important
part. I mean in any any like
production, like you talk to any mix engineer and they say what's
the most important part of the of of the mix and it's the
vocals. You know it's going to be the
thing that that stays in the front.
Why? Because that's what we relate to
because we we hear stories come out of that all the other stuff
which is beautiful, you know you know like think about anything
that's here's a here's another thought we remember you know and
this made this I'm. I'm just speaking as because I
grew up as a Catholic. I remember a lot of the songs.
I remember a lot of the songs in church.
Right. I don't necessarily remember a
lot of the instrumentals that happened during that time
though. You know, like how many times
were were the organist playing during mass and then you know,
you, you, you, you know, associate all that music
towards, you know whatever was happening, they would
choreograph when to do certain pieces so that you know it
reflected what's happening at the altar etcetera.
You don't remember that stuff. You remember the the, the vibe,
the essence of what it meant to be in a church.
But what do you remember is when they tell you, hey, pick up the
book in front of you and sing along with us, right?
And you remember and you actually recite the words,
right? There's something about words,
right? This engraved thing.
When you read words or when you recite or when you you write
them down. Even better when you write them
down it does something in your brain which which triggers
memory you know and that kind of you know impact that words have
on us. It it's why we have to
prioritize lyrics in such a way to make them well thought, you
know I like I like lyrics that are that are deeper than than
surface level stuff. I, I, I, I can't get really into
a lot of surface level music, but that kind of stuff, I mean,
it could be fun, but it's not, it's not going to be anything of
substance. But when you, when you record
and you you sing lyrics that have a lot of deep meaning and
you listen to that stuff on the other side, as a consumer, I
mean you can tell, you can tell the emotion of what somebody had
when they were saying those words.
They might be trembling or they might be, you know, full of joy.
Those kinds of emotions that come through.
It's words that that that give that to us.
They trigger memories too. You.
Know they trigger memories. And you know, you know, yeah,
words don't hurt. You know, sticking stones may
break my bones. Words will never hurt me.
You know, like it's the biggest lie I've ever heard.
Because it's like words are the thing.
They do hurt. Yeah, they.
Can't that, that, that actually, you know, hit the soul in in a
different way, you know, So I, I, I look at all this and I and
I say what's what, what serves the music, the song, what, what
is going to be the most effective way for me to deliver
my message and why is it so important?
Like why does anybody care? Why should I share this?
You have to, you have to be able to answer those kinds of
questions and answer them truthfully with yourself because
I I believe in, in in making something that should be your
greatest work. You should always strive to make
your greatest work. You know, a scientist like
Einstein doesn't go in you know, looking for Cheetos.
You know, he's looking to, he's looking to to to create what's
the the equation for general relativity.
You know, like that's his greatest work.
You know, and I'm not saying we have to be Einstein, but it's
like there's a Eureka moment for for these types of folks and you
know, where where is your Eureka moment at night?
Strive for that. Dig deeper because we need we
need that. For the humanities, for Pete's
sake, we need that. Yeah, and we do need something
different, man. Probably has something that's
worth telling. And don't sell yourself short
because you're not right now in a position like other artists
are. You have your own value to add,
so make it the best that you can possibly do so that you can tell
the story that's worth telling. You know everybody has their own
take on life. What's yours?
Good stuff, dude. Well guys, we're we're kind of
getting towards the end here wrapping things up.
So once they thank you so much, We do have a metal song for you.
So we're we're doing that like right now.
But at first I want to say thank you for listening.
We appreciate you guys appreciate all the support.
Don't forget to head over to metalmastermind.com.
Check out the courses that we have for you get guitar courses,
we talked about theory. We've got music production,
songwriting, all that good stuff.
Ken Dude, Metal Song of the Week.
I'm going to shoot it off with a song by a band called Serenity.
The song is called Age of Glory. It's off the War of Ages album
that was released in 2013. They're sort of, they sort of
remind me a mix of Nightwish and Camelot and it's it's definitely
kind of a of kind of a symphonic power metal style theme there,
but really cool tune. There's some orchestration in
the beginning of it. They've got, you know, the clean
male vocals, but there's a female vocalist that comes in in
the bridge. So it's just one of those songs,
you know, we just got finished talking about having key
changes, having different things happening.
This song has a lot of elements, so it's a great song to display
for for this kind of conversation.
Awesome. I I'm going.
I'm going with Belfagore today. Belfagore.
Love Belfagore? Their album Conjuring the Dead
is a classic. In particular, I like the song
In Death, which actually comes after the song called Conjuring
the Dead, which is a fantastic tune.
But in Death is, I don't know, it's got this rhythmic structure
to it and the guitar tone is just it's so gnarly in this
album that the drums sound just gigantic.
But yeah, it it's very, very cool.
I I strongly recommend if you haven't heard of Belfagorde,
definitely go check them out, and if you do, if you haven't
heard in depth, check that out. Two cool tunes for you guys to
go listen to guys. Thank you once again for
listening, for being a part of Metal Mastermind.
You guys are Metal Mastermind, You're part of this community
and we appreciate you. Until next time, as always,
create your own sound.