Members of Soundgarden - minus Chris Cornell - reunited for a short surprise set during Tom Morello's Justice Tour gig at Seattle on March 24. Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd took stage, with Tad Doyle on vocals, to perform "Nothing to Say," "Spoonman" and "Hunted Down."
Metallica's ex-bassist will play with the band, when they are inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, next month, according to this report on NME. Guitarist Kirk Hammett reportedly said, "Jason Newsted will be there, and he will be playing with us at one point."
Chris Cornell: The Rolling Stone Interview Grunge icon and incorrigible experimentator on his latest collaboration By Bobin James
Chris Cornell and his band Soundgarden, alongside Pearl Jam and Nirvana, pioneered the Seattle grunge movement in the mid-Eighties. He later went on to front Audioslave, a supergroup of sorts that emerged from the ashes of Rage Against the Machine. Timbaland has - since he began in the mid-Nineties - become one of the most wanted (and consequently, one of the highest paid) producers in rap/hip-hop/R&B, having produced for everyone from Nelly Furtado to Madonna to Justin Timberlake. (His collaborations with the latter won Grammys for Best Dance Recordings in 2007 and 2008.)
So, many an eyebrow was raised, and many snooks cocked last year, when the Rock Singer announced his intention of collaborating with the Super Producer on his next solo album, Scream (releasing March 9). The idea of these two dissimilar – in terms of their respective genres – musicians coming together struck many as indigestible and incomprehensible. “Sellout!” cried many. But then, Cornell’s been no stranger to that cry. 1989: Soundgarden sign on to a major label. Sellout! 1999: Cornell releases first solo album, Euphoria Morning, with a stripped-down sound. Sellout! 2001: He joins hands with the remaining members of Rage Against the Machine and forms Audioslave. You guessed it, sellout!
But what these critics failed to see was that Cornell was simply doing exactly what he wanted. He - being not one to hang on to his past legacy - made music that represented where he was at that point in time. (Now, if he were to continue in the Soundgarden vein, only to appease his legion of fans, that would have been a sellout.) And that’s what came across on that (very) early morning phone-call from Los Angeles: Chris Cornell had his boots firmly dug into the present and he was thoroughly enjoying the creative freedom that Scream offered him.
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Chris, just how did this collaboration with Timbaland come about? It seems very unlikely, with you coming from the space that you do. It was just an idea that started off with the thought of having a remix done for a song and then talking about doing a couple of original songs. Instead, then that grew into an entire album of those songs, which really, I thought, would be something that would be kind of a challenging and interesting thing to do.
Were you familiar with Timbaland’s music before this entire project started? Yes, I had caught a bit from different artists over a period of different years. Some things that I didn’t know he did necessarily when I first heard them, but I was somewhat aware.
When I first heard the first track off the new album – ‘Part of Me’ – I will admit, I was shocked. I wasn’t quite expecting that kind of sound. But after a few listens, it’s grown on me and it now happens to be one of my favourite tracks on the album. When getting into this collaboration, did you walk in with the understanding that yes, there might be a lot of fans who would be put off by the fact that I am collaborating with Timbaland? Oh yeah, I mean, that is kind of obvious, isn’t it. From the conception of even doing this - we’d only done one song - it was obvious that people would go on and make a decision about it. Even if they heard it, they wouldn’t necessarily be into some of the sounds on the album: The way the album is made, that’s kinda pretty obvious.
You have said in another earlier interview that you were very jealous when you heard a Missy Elliott track produced by Timbaland. You said, “Hip-hop is so trippy; why can’t rock be so trippy?” Oh yeah. I was referring to an element of freedom in terms of what was inside the track - what was allowed to be part of the song. In a band environment, there’s really only that much you can do. You end up being confined to the basic instruments that everybody in the band plays and work with that. And you can kind of step outside of that, but depending on the band you’re in, it’s not always that easy to do. In the world of hip-hop, it’s emotion that matters first. While the worse that it could get would be kind of taking the hook from a song that was already a pop hit and rapping over that: To me that’s not freedom, that’s taking someone else’s song and giving it new life I suppose, but it’s not being creative. But there is an aspect of hip hop that is very creative, like making something new out of any sound or any loop or anything. And making songs out of anything that could generate a tone.
Yeah, and there’s a whole lot of that on this album. Chris, in your opinion, what makes for a good song? What makes for good music? What makes any music good, you mean?
Yes, for you personally as a listener, or as a musician who’s making his music, what is it that you look for? I don’t know if it’s something that can be described as necessarily tangible. I think… it’s something that hits me in the gut or makes me feel a particular way or something… I am not sure you can put words to that. That’s sort of, I suppose, the way one might describe genres. You know, like I like music that’s aggressive, or I like music that isn’t, or is melodic. With me, personally, I like all sorts of music. So I don’t know… it just has to somehow appeal to me, I think, on some gut level.
What was the process of songwriting for this album? Did you come in with lyrics, did Timbaland come in with sounds in mind? How did it work? We really kind of just wrote it one song at a time. We wrote everything from scratch after the album started. So we didn’t really come in with [anything]. Tim didn’t come in with a bunch of beats and I didn’t come in with a lot of lyrics or riffs or anything like that. We just started from the first song which was basically a beat and then sort of created a song out of it. Then we would continue on and we ended up doing that over the course of the album – this sort of taking one song at a time, there [being] no conception from the beginning about what we would do, about making the album sound a particular way.
Would this be one of your fastest albums ever? Maybe, in some ways. There were parts that we put together very quickly. But in terms of turning it into what it became - which is an hour of continuous music and the mixing and all that - that actually took quite a while. I think the writing of the basic songs was fairly quick, but overall it wasn’t one of my fastest albums.
You guys came out with some 20 songs or so in 4 or 5 weeks… Yeah, I think in about 5 weeks, 6 weeks I think, we had about 20 songs.
Coming to the songs, ‘Ground Zero’ seems to be one of my favourites so far, especially the segue from ‘Get Up.’ You also seem to be having a blast on ‘Ground Zero.’ Would that be right? Yeah, that song actually was… the lyrics were written and all of the vocals recorded to pretty much to nothing but a drum beat. There was nothing else there yet. So it ended up being a song that kind of took shape long after it was designed. But that was one of my early favourites: The tempo of that, the feeling of that which is very reminiscent to me of kind of R&B from the mid-Seventies, which was the music that I was really into.
Another couple of favourites for me would be ‘Long Gone’ and ‘Climbing Up the Walls’ – I really love the chorus in the latter. How did you come up with ‘Climbing Up the Walls?’ Well, it was a really pretty simple beat, and I just was kind of coming up with an idea of what the music may be if I were to go with some sort of lyrics. Which is pretty much how I came up with ideas for everything on this album. And usually if I don’t come up with an idea lyric, where I am looking for music for something, well, the feeling of the music will inspire the lyric idea. So this was something that had to be really fast, I started writing down ideas and it became the song as you hear it pretty quickly.
On ‘Watch Out,’ you’ve got this great guitar riff going, which could have been from an Audioslave song. I hear the guitar prominently in a couple of other tracks. So was that a conscious effort on your part to say, ‘Let me put in the guitar to acknowledge my rock history’? No, I didn’t think about that on any of the songs. You know, each song was created as an individual song that should really sound good with whatever should sound good or whatever would be the best thing for the song, and I didn’t think about instrumentation too much. Obviously, we weren’t trying to do anything more than what the song seemed to require, what the song wanted. There were songs where [afterwards] I actually added instruments to or took away. There were a lot of instruments that I took away in mixing - I made choices. The song sounded better sometimes, more lush sometimes. Sometimes it sounded better with less - bare minimal - depending on the song…
You seemed to have worked with a lot of writers on this record, including Justine Timberlake and John Mayer. How different was it from your earlier experiences of one, with bands, and two, when you were doing solo albums like Carry On and Euphoria Morning? Oh, I mean, it was different. It was more similar to working with someone in a band. But there really aren’t that many comparisons that I think I can make, because the recording of the album was so different. The recording happened simultaneously as the writing of the album, so there’s nothing I can compare it to. Usually, whether I was making a solo album, or it’s a band, I would be writing songs and demo-ing them first and then rehearsing them with a band… and then recording them after the fact that it’s been rehearsed and performed and I suppose arranged to refinement. In this particular way of recording albums, a lot of lyrics were written and the vocals were recorded before the song was even arranged. So it was very different that way. A lot of parts were added afterwards. The challenge of that I suppose is that it’s like a painting: When you are finished, somebody has to make decisions as to when the song is finished and what should be included on it and… On most of the songs, the arrangements are pretty obvious. But some of them – like the song ‘Long Gone’ – they weren’t defined until it got to mixing. When I realised that nobody had really thought it through the way that I thought it should go… and there was a lot of arranging happening at the last minute. And obviously you don’t do that in a band, where the arrangement happens even before you start recording…
Do you think you can pick three favourite songs of yours from this album? I really wouldn’t… One – and I suppose I might be partial to this because it’s not one that people bring up - I really like ‘Time’ a lot. And ‘Never Far Away’ - I also think it’s very special. I think the moment of going into ‘Never Far Away’ is probably one of my favourite moments on the album. When I say that, I am speaking of it in terms of that the mood is going from one song to the next. And that which takes you out of ‘Ground Zero’ and into ‘Never Far Away’ is really a magical moment for me on the album. But also the album as a whole is something you should give yourself up to from beginning to end. Whether I am performing it or listening to it, it’s something that needs to be heard from beginning to end.
Chris, anybody else you would love to work with? Do you have a wish list of people you would like to work with in the future? Where do we see Chris Cornell going from here? I mean, I don’t know… I’m sort of still in the middle of working on this project. And now I want to go out on tour and perform it. I have other things building up in my head, a lot of ideas about what I could do next, but I haven’t really thought about it so seriously.
AR Rahman The soft-spoken composer of Slumdog Millionaire’s soundtrack on the movie, the Golden Globes and the Oscars By Bobin James
Congratulations! First the Golden Globe win, and now the Oscar nominations. When you first did the music, did you think it would be appreciated so much? When I did the movie, I wasn’t even thinking about it. I was just concentrating on the work at hand.
Had you heard of Danny Boyle, seen his work, at that time? I had heard the name, yes. I knew about Trainspotting, but hadn’t actually watched it. But when I met him, he came across as a really nice person, who respected the place, Mumbai. And who respected my music.
You’ve got two out of the three nominations in the Best Original Song category at the Oscars. Are you expecting to win? I don’t know… [laughs] What prompted you to take this project up, when it came to you? I was very excited. I was excited by the story… and the collaborators like Gulzar and MIA… I read somewhere that you finished the score in under four weeks. Would that make it one of your fastest projects ever? I would say, the fastest. I did it in 2-3 weeks. It helped that Danny gave me very specific cues [individual pieces of music on the soundtrack] to score. So unlike working on say a hundred cues, I could work on those specific ones… I could focus. Do you think these wins and all the attention will help other Indian artists break into the Western markets? Big time! All of us have always felt that we make good music but there’s nobody out there who wants to listen to it. With this, I think I have broken those clichés… And there is also a certain respectability that’s been achieved… What, about the movie and the music, do you think has suddenly captured the imagination of people across the world? The important thing is that the intention is right - the intention of the movie, the intention of the music. The movie talks about optimism, the fact that life is worth living. All of us go through these phases of negativity, but what this tells us is to be optimistic. It’s about the victory of truth. It’s like our national motto, “Satyamev Jayate.” And we built in this subtle reference to that too, by making ‘Jai Ho.’ What’s your take on Slumdog Millionaire, the movie, purely as a viewer? If you were to disconnect yourself from being part of it. I always see myself as a viewer… I only take up projects that appeal to me [at that level]. And I think that’s how I have established myself as a brand over the last 18 years. I would not take up anything that I am not convinced with. What’s next on the anvil? Any more international projects? As of right now, it’s only travelling and promotions [for Slumdog Millionaire]. Once things settle down, I will get back to work.
Little Drummer Boy Pink Floyd drummer speaks about everything from his Ferrari GTO, to the lasting relevance of The Dark Side of the Moon to the possibility of a Floyd reunion, in this exclusive Rolling Stone India interview By Bobin James
The first weekend of November saw Nick Mason, of Pink Floyd, pay a visit to Mumbai. The drummer, who is also an avowed car enthusiast was here as one of the judges at Cartier’s International Concours d’Elegance, an exhibition of magnificent vintage automobiles. Mason took time off from his judging duties to sit down with Rolling Stone for a freewheeling chat on cars, superstars and music, of course.
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Mr Mason, is this your first trip to India? No, I was here last year, for a wedding...
And what brings you here, this time around? This time, it’s an invitation from Cartier for the Concours d’Elegance. My great passion in life besides music is cars. So when they called, I readily agreed.
How did your love affair with cars begin? My father was a film director. He made films about motor racing, about cars, motorsports, and he used to race a very old, vintage Bentley. So from when I was a kid, I was taken for motor racing.
And when did you first start to drive? When I was seventeen. But I started to drive with an Austin 7 1927, so I was totally brought up with old cars.
You collect cars… How many cars do you have at last count? About thirty-five [laughs]…
Any favourites? Well, it’s always the GTO. The ultimate car is always the Ferrari GTO, mainly because you can do so many different things with it. You can race it, you can rally it, you can take the kids to school. It’s such a great allrounder, and it looks wonderful. And everyone thinks I’m incredibly clever because I bought one thirty years ago [laughs].
What are your preferred set of wheels now? An Audi RS4.
That’s for your regular city driving? Yeah, I mean, actually I ride a bike most of the times. I love bikes…
What bike do you have? I’ve got a BMW 800… but, the great thing with the Audi RS4 is that you get sports car performance, yet you can put a drumkit in it.
Which brings me to the music part… are you still playing? Am I still playing? Yeah, we are not touring… very bad. But I am still working. I play with Roger [Waters] occasionally. I play with David [Gilmour] occasionally.
Can we expect to hear something from you sometime soon? Not until David and Roger want to work together, and I don’t think… I mean, I know Roger’s coming here in December for a Live Earth concert. But I don’t think I will play with him on that occasion.
But nothing outside of Pink Floyd? You never really felt the need to go out and do a solo project? No, no. I mean, I like working with other people, and I’ve doing it with the Hollywood Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp, and I do production with other people. But I don’t particularly want to do a solo… I mean, I am not a solo performer.
When you all started Pink Floyd so many years back, what was it that you set out to do? I mean, did you actually tell yourselves that we are gonna be the biggest rock & roll band in the world? Absolutely not. When we started, the Beatles were fairly recent as well. No one had any sort of concept of rock & roll being grown up. It was only by the time that we were doing our first album that the Beatles were doing Sgt Pepper’s. You know, Sgt Pepper’s was the first album where the album outsold the single. That was the beginning of the transformation and rock & roll being more grown up and…
There being superstars? Not really so much the superstars, as having a longevity and being taken more seriously. I mean, Elvis was a superstar in 1950-whatever, and he continued to be so for a long time. It was more to do with the music being taken more seriously.
What was it like being in a band like Pink Floyd at the height of it all? I think the trouble with being in a band is you take a lot of it for granted. You don’t think, “This is fantastic.” I mean, you tend to remember the shows that you were pleased with... the Dark Side shows in ’73… the Wall shows in ’79-’80… The thing is that people say “What was it like having a record like Dark Side.” Well, Dark Side [of the Moon] was a hit record long after we’d made it. So actually, the reality of it all was so spread across, it didn’t really… register.
Did you realise when you came out with Dark Side that it’s going to be a huge hit and it’s going to be on the charts for so many years? No, because that was unheard of at that time. So it’s one of those rather odd things where… nothing like that had ever happened.
Looking back on it, how do you feel about it now? When you see that Dark Side is still bought by kids who were not even born when it first came out? I think it’s interesting and obviously it’s something I am very pleased with. But I think the thing I realise about Dark Side now [is that] it’s actually less to do with 19-year-olds than it’s to do with the fact that the lyric content of the piece is as relevant to a 50-year-old as it’s to a 20-year-old. You know, when we made that record, we were in our early 20s… But actually a song like… well, a number of songs [on it] were related to growing old and money problems which is as relevant to a 50-year-old as it is to a 23-year-old. And I think that’s why it’s had a long run, because it has relevance to a number of different age groups.
Mr Mason, if we can go back all the way to the beginning. How did music first happen to you? Was yours particularly a musical family? My mother was quite musical… but it was not a very important part. I think I was just turned on to rock & roll when I was a kid, as was most of the rest of the band.
Do you remember what you were listening to? ‘Rockin’ to Dreamland’ which was the one programme - once a week - on Radio Luxembourg. I’m hearing Elvis Presley for the first time… and Chuck Berry, Fats Domino. This black rock & roll, as well as Elvis Presley, and Bill Haley stuff… It was something we’d never heard before… it struck some chord…
And how did that interest graduate to a level where you actually said that I want to start playing? I think at the time it didn’t happen. It sort of just got me interested in playing… and then…
So you started off on the drums? Well, I actually began the guitar, but drums was where I suddenly got excited… but then I dropped it for three years. Then I was a student and I was earning when I was a student. And then I met Roger and Richard [Wright]… all of us were going to study architecture. And it was there that someone said, “Oh, I need a band to do something.” And I went, “Oh well, I just play the drums.” Roger said, “Oh well, I play the bass guitar…” And so that was the sort of start. But I don’t think any of us at that point were thinking it’s a career… you know, it was sort of quiet, gradual…
Mr Mason, who were you earliest idols? Anyone you looked up to? Well, initially, lots of bebop drummers: Art Blakey, Kenny Clarke, people like that… But then when rock & roll really happened for us, it was Ginger Baker with Cream, Mitch Mitchell with Hendrix, people like Spencer Davis and ELP and Keith Moon… these were the people who were making a career when we were just students watching…
Why do you think Pink Floyd became such a huge phenomenon worldwide? What do you think it is that really made it so endearing? The answer is I don’t really know but I suspect the answer is that it’s not just one thing. It’s a mixture of things that make up the brood. I think Roger’s lyrics, a lot of people relate to them… I think there is an element of romanticism to the music that triggers the imagination. There’s quite a lot of music that doesn’t even have lyrics, so people can actually allow their minds to wander, and they paint the pictures that are entirely different for everyone. But I think that’s what it is… inevitably, in our case, we perhaps have a bigger fanbase that’s male than female. And I think a lot of males who listen to music would like to do the same, would like to emulate, would like to play. And I think we are sort of an influence on some people who want to play music. They don’t necessarily want to play exactly like us, but I think what they like is the idea that there is an audience out there who don’t demand sex idols and who don’t demand just pounding rhythms. So the music can be a little bit more sophisticated…
Mr Mason, were you in touch with Richard Wright? Yeah, yeah… he was ill for about 9 months, something like that… and he just didn’t want people to know about it…
So would it be safe to say that we won’t really be seeing a Pink Floyd reunion now? Who knows… I mean, I think, because David and Rick have been working together, now David thinks without Rick, he really can’t see himself and Roger working together. But having said that, I have no idea. I would have thought that if there were the right occasion, a bit like Live 8, everyone would say, “Well, this is good reason to, even without Rick, to do something together…” But I can’t judge whether that will happen.
The Metal God Speaketh Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford speaks about incessant touring, the secret to his voice and his inspirations By Bobin James
Think heavy metal and one of the first names that comes slamming into your head is that of Judas Priest. This is one band that has, for close to four decades, kept the studded flag of heavy metal fluttering high, earning themselves the crown of ‘Metal Gods.’ Rob Halford, the lead singer of Judas Priest (yes, him of the three-and-a-half octave range) spoke to Rolling Stone India long distance from Osaka, Japan, where the band was on the Nostradamus tour.
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Hello Rob! You are in Osaka today? Yes, we started our Japanese tour a couple of days ago… in Nagoya. We are in Osaka right now, and then we go on to Yokohama and Tokyo. After Japan, we move on to South America. Then we take a small break before we go back around the world. Typically a Judas Priest tour takes two to two-and-a-half years to really go around the world.
I was going through your tour calendar. In August, you have played some 21 dates! How do you manage that? We never think about it. We just get on the bus, on the plane, on the train – as we are doing in Japan – and go out there. We never think about the journeys and the thousands of miles. It’s only later when we see the number of dates that we have performed that it seems unbelievable…
But it’s fantastic. It’s a solid signal that heavy metal and Judas Priest have a great following across the world.
Nostradamus – it’s a monster of an album… How did it come about? You might already know the story of how our manager Bill Curbishley suggested the idea first. We had just finished the Angel of Retribution tour, and Bill knew that we always had the desire to make a concept album. But we never did have the time. For something like Nostradamus, we needed time and energy.
It was a great concept and I saw parallels with heavy metal music.
My favourites from Nostradamus are ‘Prophecy’ and ‘Revelations.’ Do you have any favourite tracks? I listen to it every other day, and now I am able to let go and listen to it without analysing it as a musician. My personal favourites would be ‘Pestilence and Plague’ where I sing in a bit of Italian… Then there is ‘Banished in Exile’ which has beautiful feel and emotion…
There are very few bands - Judas Priest, Iron Maiden - which manage to transcend generations and countries. What do you think makes a great band? Separates it from any other band? I really don’t know the answer to that question… I wish I did. We played a show in Seoul recently, and the crowd was mainly teenagers. And they knew all the lyrics to all the songs, including the older ones. So I am constantly amazed. Why this is, I don’t know… but we are thrilled and delighted that our music is able to reach all these people. And I think, all the good stuff in music eventually floats to the top where everyone finds them… through the internet, through friends.
About Judas Priest, we have been there from the very beginning. So I think there is that interest, kind of like you are going to see the inventors… like seeing Picasso or Michelangelo paint. Except in our case, you are seeing us live…
You’ve been singing for over 35 years now! How have you managed to keep your voice as soaring as ever? I am just blessed, I guess. All singers have their own individual styles and techniques. My good mate Ronnie Dio is a good example… or Robert Plant - a good friend…
With a guitar, you can change strings. With your voice, though, you just have to get plenty of rest and relaxation. And I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs… I guess that helps. I turned 57 in August, so I can’t do all that I did earlier, but I can still deliver passion and power…
Going back, what is the kind of music that you listened to growing up? I have great memories of the Midlands, Birmingham where I grew up… You don’t really think of music as a kid. It’s only when you are 12-13 that you start to think about it… when you really start to deal with emotions, that’s when music becomes your friend…
In the Sixties, the Beatles were an important group. There were the American groups coming from across the Atlantic – the Doors, Jimi Hendrix… and then a mixture of Brit bands… early Led Zep, the Who…
And then when you started singing, who were your inspirations? Bessie Smith, Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters… these musicians sang from the soul. Janis Joplin… they all had a great impact on me as singers.
When can we see Judas Priest here in India? We have been speaking to friends in India for the last couple of years now. We do know there is a massive following there for heavy metal and for Judas Priest. So we are keeping our fingers crossed and hoping something works out… I urge all promoters to get in touch with our manager. Next year, when we continue the Nostradamus tour, we intend to go to a lot of places we haven’t to before and India is at the top of that list.
Coming to your other band, Halford. I believe you are working on the fourth album now? Is that right? Right now Judas Priest is my number one priority, so Halford is in the background. But yes, at some point, I am looking forward to the next Halford album.
Extreme Attack Virtuoso guitarist Nuno Bettencourt speaks about new album and gigging in India By Bobin James
Extreme revolutionised rock in the late-Eighties and early-Nineties with their unique brand of funk metal. Last month, they released their fifth studio album, 13 years after 1995’s Waiting for the Punchline. The new record, Saudades de Rock (pronounced “sow-dodge”) stands testament to their status of one of the most innovative bands around, built on the strengths of vocalist Gary Cherone, guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, bassist Pat Badger and new drummer Kevin Figueiredo. Bettencourt speaks about the new record (“I really think this is the best record we’ve ever done”) and the lack of good rock & roll (“While there are great bands out there, from Muse to the Raconteurs, we felt there was a void as far as straight-up rock & roll goes.”)
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What happened 13 years ago? Why did Extreme break up? And what brought you guys back together now? Basically, breaking up wasn’t much of a surprise. We were together for 11 years, we were touring constantly. We hadn’t taken a break. If we had taken a break in between touring and recordings, then perhaps we would not have taken a 13 year break. As for getting back together, we didn’t want to do it for the wrong reasons… for money or for nostalgic reasons. The couple of times that we performed recently, there was a sort of a depression, since there was no new music that we were playing. So we figured we would just sit down and write new songs…
You have said that there is a “massive shortage of rock & roll on this planet.” Yes, there are big changes in the music business. As far as the basic guitar-driven rock goes, there is a void… Look at any top ten list - if you are not working with Timbaland or Timberlake, you are not even there. So when Gary and I got back together, we knew we had something relevant to offer.
So what’s the concept behind Saudades de Rock? There are no concepts. It’s many different stories - some are fun, some are lighthearted, some are based on relationships.
How do you usually approach the composing process, Nuno? We never ever sit down to write a song; it’s usually very spontaneous. Most of the time though, it’s usually the music or the melody that comes in first.
But this time around, was it scary? The fact that there were going to be all these expectations after 13 years? Not really. When you are gone that long, then there really are no expectations from you. And we have always been selfish in creating records in our own world… not worrying about what people think.
Any chances of Extreme visiting India on this tour? I hope so… I always wanted to. We are trying to reach a lot of places that we haven’t gone to earlier, including some places in Asia. We were, in fact, supposed to come along to India years ago, along with Bryan Adams. But then for some reason, it go shelved… But yes, we are hoping something works out.
First of all, what brings you to India right now… We are in town for the Columbia party… Columbia India… And CAB has just released a new record called Theatre de Marrionettes.
Is it already out? It’s just about to be released. It’s coming out. It’s coming out on Columbia.
Is this your second trip to India? It’s my first.
Because the December 2007 trip got scrapped.They came here without me… I was on a tour with Steve Vai… Virgil and Bunny and Frank Gambale came here.
You’ve worked with a whole lot of different musicians – like you just mentioned Steve Vai. You’ve done a whole lot of different projects. How different is it – if it is different at all – playing with each of these different acts? Do your sensibilities change the moment you step into, say, a Planet X role, as opposed to solo… No, not to me… I just have my own sound and I just bring whatever I’m bringing.. Like an actor speaking his lines, you know… I’ve gone away from just starting to have a certain sound for each certain thing that I do… A lot of really depends on the mood and the chemistry and how much you’re playing.. with some bands that make you inherently have a certain sound… CAB, we haven’t played together in a long time… so you know, it’s a little just like meeting up with the guys on stage and get together and play something… Obviously there is different styles of different genres that you can adhere to, when you…
Is there any you particularly enjoy? Yeah, making music. All styles.. there’s never been, for me, one over the other, y’know… I enjoy everything.. I enjoy the whole process of making music, being involved, in that aspect of it…
Speaking about CAB, you said you’ve not been playing together for a while now.. So would that mean a lot of stuff that happened on stage that night were improvised? Well, the solos are all improvised, yeah… They always are.. But we know the songs. We recorded the songs in the studio but we recorded them in our separate studios.. and yeah, it’s the first time we played together in a while..
So how’ve you been busy? You’ve been busy with solo tours… Yeah, Virgil and I, and Billy Sheehan.. We’re in another band called Devil’s Slingshot and we just came back from a long European tour. So I was involved in that.. and the physical making of the actual record – the Theatre de Marionettes record – is something we’ve been involved with for quite some time.
How do you describe this record? Oh this record is just like doing a picture. It’s got some wonderful compositions that everybody’s gonna love.. It has a great composition by Sandeep Chowta - Sultan of Brunel. It’s really a departure from some of the more formulated typical CAB styles that you heard on the first couple of records. It’s truly an interesting record. It’s got Chick Corea playing keyboards on it. [There is] Patrice Rushen. And there is a guitar player by the name of Freddie Fox. Another guitar player Bernard Torelli. So you got some interesting things on it.
Going way back, Tony, when did you actually realise that hey man, I want to be a musician? How did it all begin for you? Well, I was five years old when I first started playing music and I knew that’s what I wanted to do. My parents got me started on piano lessons at that age. And you know, I was always involved with the piano and the guitar at the same time and so I knew it was gonna be one or the other. And sometimes it’s both, like the other night at the keyboard like that. So ya, I knew at a pretty early age that that’s what I wanted to do. Motorcycles, girls and music [laughs].
What kind of bikes are you into? I’ve got a really cherished 1999 classic Suzuki GSXR Hayabusa. That’s my main ride of choice now.
So you’re into sports bikes? Not cruisers. I got some cruisers but living in LA but driving a lot between Las Vegas and LA, you kinda need something that can get you there really fast
I’m sure it’s a clichéd question.. but what would your advice be for guitarists? Ya, it is… I can never fancy myself being a teacher.. I am really not, at all.. I always avoid that whole arena.. I mean, I was afforded the best teachers when I was growing up… And it truly is an art to get inside somebody’s mind to be able to teach and that’s really something. I just had my own inner weirdness and determination to do what I needed to do, in the music business. I am just not a teacher.
But for the most part and in a roundabout answer to your question would be this: Music is your calling… You just have to have a true desire and be willing to ride the wave… ‘Cause it’s always a wave… It’s a wave of ups and downs and you just have to be willing to stay with that… And if you can stay with it for like two or three waves, and you can that they always come back up, then I think you should stick it out if it’s your true love… Those that get out of it at the first downfall just maybe are not meant for it… It’s a tough life. It can be rewarding, monetarily, things could be fine, but it’s a very tough life being away from your family and being a professional musician, travelling… In respect to that the most important thing would be just having the belief as a young musician that this is what you want to do. But you know, if you look at the genre, these things change so much. The musicians and the style of music is so varied. It’s so much different from when I first got into it. I like working with lots of many young players and young musicians myself. And it’s fun. It’s fun in that respect, yeah, to pass things on to them. But I really don’t give them any grandfatherly advice.
So nothing formal? Naah, I’m not a mentor [laughs].
Growing up, who were your major influences? Not just guitarists, but musicians in general. Well, obviously the classics. I started with the piano, played that for eighteen years. Lizst, Mozart, Beethoven… that was my first exposure to appreciate music. But then my styles broadened at the same time because I was listening to jazz. And my dad would listen to a lot of Sinatra… It was a pretty musical house.. everybody played an instrument as a kid… it was never really a As I got more into the guitar later in my teen years, I could listen to Van Halen.. it didn’t really matter.. Each song had something of substance to me. And I don’t really listen to primarily the guitar player or any one thing… It’s more like a whole musical spectrum… But I would probably say that for the most part I listened to George Benson… I typically like Raymond Gomez, a player that I don’t think a lot of people really know these days… Jeff Beck.. So there are a lot of different players I like…
How was it touring with Steve Vai? How was it, both as a guitarist and a music fan? It was a lot of fun, because we’ve been friends for so long…And the collection of people in the band, I’ve played with them in different bands.. There’s Billy Sheehan, and Virgil and Dave Weiner… It wasn’t really a foreign atmosphere.. Everybody really knew each other… We all got together for the cause of Steve’s music.. And the guys that got together are very good at being able to be soldiers to the cause… So ya, it’s a lot of fun… We had a great four years together.. And now it’s time to get back to the grindstone, get back to your own cause…
So what’s your own cause right now? What’s up next? Well, we just finished the Devil’s Slingshot record that just went out and we toured that… With Billy Sheehan and Virgil…
Any chance of that coming here, to India? You never know, you never know. I hate to say, yeah, and then you never know… And then I’m finishing my instrumental record.. I haven’t done an instrumental record in close to ten years… And then this new record with CAB – Theatre of the Marionettes. So that’s about it.
That’s a whole lot of things… Well, yes, a lot less than what I keep doing but just wanted to concentrate and spend more time on each of these things…
Are you a workaholic? A workaholic? Noooo… My girlfriend is a workaholic [laughs], I am not a workaholic… I work when I feel like I am really creative… Am at a point in my life when I have to do it that way. I can’t just really sit down and do a million different things. After so many records, to be able to really come up with things you feel are exponents of your heart and what you really feel, it’s more testing. It becomes more of a test.. Because you’ve done it, you’ve done a lot of… I’ve done fifteen, sixteen, seventeen records…
How does it feel looking back? It’s been what, twenty five years now? Noooo.. It’s more like just five years [laughs]… It’s a long time, it’s been ages. Time flies like that you know. It’s been a pretty remarkable journey. I remember being in a car with my then girlfriend in Massachusetts driving to California. And that was like yesterday. And here we are.. It’s been an incredible journey.
The future of prog-metal Pain of Salvation frontman speaks about his discomfort with tags and his comfort with different roles By Bobin James
Beginning life as Reality, in 1984, Swedish progressive metal band Pain of Salvation got their current name in 1991 and has since gone on achieve a cult admiration worldwide, even sharing stage with top prog-metallers, Dream Theater. While Pain of Salvation CDs are not yet officially available in India, they have still managed to whip together a dedicated underground following across the country. Prodigious founder-member Daniel Gildenlöw speaks to Rolling Stone India from Eskilstuna, Sweden in this exclusive interview.
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Dan, you don’t seem very comfortable with Pain of Salvation’s music being tagged as “progressive metal.” I would have been more comfortable if “progressive” meant something more than what it is right now. Yes, I would like music to be progressive… explore new places. But right now, when you say “progressive,” there is a specific pattern, a specific formula – high-pitched vibrato vocals…. I just can’t stand it… I want music to express something. It should be a tool for reaching emotions in you, be it the listener or the musician. It’s a way of connecting…
So how then would you tag your music? I would put something stupid just to be provocative… like “Kitchen Utensils” or something… [laughs]
In an earlier interview, you have said that when you are writing, you “always revolve around humanistic values and the way every action will make a difference on a surprisingly large scale.” Does music have the power to change? Every art form has the power to change. Actually every human being has the power to change - if I were to walk into a supermarket and take one brand of milk over another, I might be part of a big collective change… For me, music should relate to emotions and be intellectual enough to deal with issues.
At what point in time did you realise that you were going to be a musician? I know I was eight years old when I was focussing a lot on the music scene, and on drawing and writing. So from as far as I can remember, I knew I was going to be in the creative parts of life…
You are a singer, a songwriter, a guitarist, Dan. Which of these roles are you most comfortable in? It would not be right if I say I was most comfortable in it – because I am comfortable in all of these roles – but I really love the composing part of music. I think I combine my advantages to the best when I am composing.
Are there any specific methods you employ while practising parts which have you playing the guitar and singing? There are no specific methods - it’s just parallel processing, multitasking… pretty much like juggling.
It’s best not to think too much about it. Yes, think it through before you actually start playing, but when you are playing, don’t think about it. I guess for me it comes from a long life of practising.
What are your inspirations when you sit down to write? You don’t need much more inspiration than regular life. What is important, first and foremost is letting life get to you and then using those emotions…
What about inspirations in terms of artists? There’s the latter day Beatles, Electric Light Orchestra. As a kid, when I was allowed to use the vinyl player - or actually before I was allowed - I would find my favourite songs and play them over and over again. Like there was an LP of Radio Hits from the Sixties – I would I would play it over and over again…
One of my favourite songs was Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Boxer.’ I remember when I was in kindergarten… as a six year old… when we would be going to kindergarten in my dad’s car, he had this cassette tape, a transparent cassette – that was so cool – which had ‘The Boxer’ on it. I would rewind or forward the tape till I found ‘The Boxer.’ And if the song had not come on by the time we reached the school, I would sit outside and listen to it first, before going in.
You have spoken elsewhere about how you go for songs rather than albums or artists. Yes, some of my favourite songs are from artists and albums that are not on my top list… For instance, ‘Life on Mars’ by David Bowie. I just have a Greatest Hits compilation of his.
So isn’t it ironic that Pain of Salvation makes concept albums? I am annoyed by albums that have one or two good tracks and the rest is crap. If I can see that a particular album is put together with care, then I can easier forgive some weak songs… as long they’re still speaking the same language…
Any concept albums you really loved? The first one I remember is Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds… My aunt, who was 12 years younger than my mother - which was very cool in my world - she had found a vinyl version of War of the Worlds somewhere in England… and I thought it was so cool. I brought it to kindergarten when I was seven or eight… I would play it to my friends and explain the concept as best as I could. Then we would build these tripods with Lego, the building blocks… Then there is Jesus Christ Superstar, Operation Mindcrime…
What currently playing on your iPod? I was on a year-long trip of the Beatles, so it still has a large mix of that and a whole lot of other names from the Sixties.
What are you working on now? Is there a new album in the works? Yes, I have tonnes of material. Now, I am in the process of narrowing it down, trying to distinguish what can be the new album. We are going to get into making rough demos now. The idea is to record it in the rehearsal room… more live. It’s also more challenging technically… I am addicted to truth and honesty in the music…
What do you prefer – recording or playing live? I find parts of both processes a bit tedious. Like nowadays, I feel bored playing old material on stage, when I have all this new material in my head. In recording, you miss the direct feedback of playing live - you end up spending hours and hours in front of the computer, and then you think, I wanted to play music, not tweak computers. I wish both processes could be more direct and you get instant feedback.. instant gratification.
Any plans of coming to India? I would love that, but we don’t have any offers yet. Sometimes fans might think we are not coming to their city because we don’t want to play there, but it’s only because we don’t have any offers…
Take No Prisoners Why Dave Mustaine thinks Chris Broderick is the proverbial golden goose, and Radiohead is dumb By Bobin James
As thousands of sweaty black t-shirted people trooped out of Bengaluru’s Palace Grounds on the night of March 14, most of them would not have noticed this one guy handing out pamphlets at the gate. They had other things to tend to – like aching feet and sore neck muscles from standing and headbanging for close to eight hours. The pamphlets – reportedly given out at the end of most rock and metal concerts there – sought to warn the young impressionable minds about the ill-effects ‘such kind of music’ (read: dark, evil, Satanic blah blah) can have on one’s soul. Pity this concerned individual wasn’t present backstage a few hours earlier, where Rolling Stone India was chatting with Dave Mustaine of Megadeth, the headlining act of Rock in India.
Mustaine is known to not take too kindly to discussions about religion. Usually. In this candid freewheeling interview, however, he brings it up on his own accord. “People associate Megadeth with being Satanic. But when I became a Christian, I made it pretty clear that I have nothing to do with Satanism,” Mustaine says. For the record, in 2005, he had offered to pull out from a tour in Greece because he didn’t want Megadeth to share the bill with Satanic metal band Rotting Christ. “That’s had backlashes because people think that I judge other people. I don’t. If you want to be a Satanist, that’s fine,” Mustaine continues in his typical nasal twang. “That’s like jerking off to rape or something…” This pretty much sets the tone for the interview – blunt, no holds barred.
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Dave, it’s been 25 years since you set up Megadeth. How has the trip been for you? It’s funny, because you know they say most people crash within a mile of their own home, when they are driving home, right? And I’m at that place right now where I feel like I made it home safely. I crashed but I crawled with my broken bloody body back and I’m sitting at home where I want to be. It’s a great feeling when I look around on stage. I mean, we all have our ups and downs and personal stuff that affects us, and affects us on stage. The emotions of being away from our loved ones… crew guys that are temporary come in and screw the moment… we had a sound man that we had to let go of and another sound man quit because we let him go and a temporary guy came in and left one of the drums off. So Shawn [Drover, Megadeth drummer] wanted to kill him. And I figured that rather than us playing in prison like the other M band [laughs], we would well get Shawn out of a potential murder case. So we got rid of the sound man and another guy came in. And it’s like at some point you look at all this stuff and it’s like, it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter because it’s us and you – the fans. And it’s like tonight, someone said something earlier, what do you expect from the audience? I don’t expect nothing from the audience. I expect me and the boys to deliver to you. You are here to be entertained. If we need you to make us play better, we shouldn’t be here. If we’re expecting for the audience to entertain us, we are on the wrong side of the stage.
Have you been listening to the bands that have been playing so far – the Indian bands? Yeah, some of them are good, some of them suck. I mean, that’s how life is. I heard one instrument a half hour, maybe an hour ago, that sounded like the flute. So it’s an indigenous instrument to Asian culture and stuff. You know like the AC/DC song ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll’ - they had a bagpipe in there. Now, who would have a bagpipe in metal? Well, we did. We did it on the last record [2004’s The System Has Failed]. Because I loved how it sounded so much, I put it in a song called ‘Shadow of Deth.’
I don’t know if [the others in Megadeth] have heard anything themselves but I know that with Chris [Broderick]’s guitar playing stuff – he’s got all kinds of degrees and stuff like that – so he’s probably heard stuff these guys have done. He can tell you what instrument, what mode, which guy was doing the wrong note on stage. And we’re gonna go on to the studios as soon as we get finished with this tour and take some time off and start writing. And get ready for the next record which is exciting for us. And Chris being such a learned guitar player, for us it is exciting. Instead of going into the studio and saying why don’t we come up with something, there’s a wealth of knowledge there that we haven’t tapped yet.
How did Chris come along? Was he the absolute first choice? You know what - he was hired within 24 hours of us finding out that Glen [Drover] had put in his resignation. We had heard that, Glen told our management what was going on and we accepted that. And Shawn had recommended Chris in an e-mail to me. And he says, “All Chris does is he plays guitar and works out all day along. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t get loaded.” And I thought, jeez, that’s like having somebody drop a goose that lays golden eggs right into your lap. You know what I mean. We always know what he’s at, he’s not a troublemaker. He has a lot to learn still, obviously, because he’s only been in the band two months. But he is a very smart guy and I know that he knows that Megadeth is major league and that everything he’s done before that, that’s been in the minors.
I read somewhere about you mentioning that his sound is pretty similar to Marty Friedman’s. Well, no. He says that. I believe that, but I didn’t say that. All I’m saying is what he’s saying; I’m repeating it. His influences are Marty Friedman. And what I said was, “I bet you never thought all those hours of masturbating to Marty Friedman solos would’ve paid off.” [Laughs] And you know, he sounds more like Marty than Glen did. Because Glen was influenced by Chris Poland. Now, since we play more music from the era that Marty was in the band, that’s the reason he would sound better – he is influenced by the guy we play more music by.
It’s been a fantastic year for India as far as metal is concerned. Iron Maiden’s been here twice in less than twelve months. Now you guys are here, Machine Head is here. Well, we wanted to come here for a while but it’s just so far away from anything that we were doing. I mean, in order to come here from the West, we would have had to play Israel and then connected. And in order to come from the East, we would have had to be playing Australia, Japan or Korea. This last tour, we were able to break down a lot of borders, and get into places that were still pending. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia…
What did you have in mind when coming here to India? No, I didn’t have any ideas about what to expect here other than what you see in these Bollywood commercials. And then of course you see stuff on the Simpsons which is terribly degrading, I think, for Indian nationals.
We’re staying at the Taj and it was amazing. There are 110 or so rooms there, and 600 people on the staff. We walked in there and there are girls everywhere waiting with flowers and they put the stuff on our foreheads, gave us some juice and there’s this dude saluting us – all this kind of shit and we are like, “Hey, this is okay.” Of course, we know this is not reality in this country. That the normal salt of the earth, the Indian people here don’t live like that. All that does for me is continue to reaffirm for me how important it is for Megadeth to come here and bring our music, to bring freedom and our message of freedom, whether it’s personal or political, to the metal audience. Whether it’s metal or even rock & roll because we appeal to rock people. We even appeal to some pop fans – they know that we are not a real ugly looking band. So there are a lot of people who tend to say, “I can’t believe these guys don’t all look like Lemmy!”
Countdown to Extinction that you wrote all those years back is probably still relevant… Ya, it is… Totally is…
What’s your take on that? Peace Sells But Who’s Buying is still relevant…
So did you set out to make music that’s timeless? I’ve always just followed this itchy feeling inside of me that I get sometimes that I’ve got to say something. A lot of times people won’t say stuff because they are afraid to say it. I think political correctness is for pussies. Or maybe I should say political correctness is for vaginas.
You had a pretty bad nerve injury, and you temporarily disbanded the band. Did you ever think you would be coming back and delivering all these kickass records after that? Deep down inside, I know that I am not a quitter. It’s like we had somebody leave and he sent us an email and he said – and he wasn’t a musician, he was a staff guy – he said, ‘I hope you understand why I quit’ and I don’t understand why he quit. He was a quitter. I don’t have a quitter bone in my body. So why would I understand what a fucking pathetic quitter is? You know, I can’t even quit drugs.
Going forward, you look at this stretch of success we had, coming here and how long it’s been. There’s not a lot of bands that could withstand the pressures of the music business. A lot of them break up over money, a lot of them break up over women, they break up over drugs. Or they break up because the record companies have destroyed bands.
Lately, bands are being picked off left and right because their revenue streams have been narrowed due to downloading of files. I’m not a guy that would go up to Capitol Hill and demand e-mail addresses myself. But I do think that there’s a difference between downloading some samples or downloading some songs or downloading some pictures or even downloading a small movie from our fan club versus purposely downloading the entire fucking record for free. You can’t tell me that the kids are that stupid that they download an entire record for free – they think that’s how the world is right now. No, they are not stupid. Kids nowadays are brilliant. That’s why they understand computers. But they realise that there’s nothing anybody can do about it.
So until they have some kind of way of regulating that, it depends on the hearts of the fans. If they really love Megadeth [enough] to look within themselves and say, “Just look at everything we do for you guys, look at everything we celebrate with you.” If you wanna download from our website, it’s totally there for you - we’re going way out of our way. But think about some of the other bands that can’t afford to have you download their whole record. Now think about all the other bands that would never be able to come to India because they can’t afford it.
A lot of artists are shifting from a record label format to, say, a Wal-Mart or a Starbucks. What do you think about that? The Wal-Mart idea was great. The Starbucks idea was I think poor. I don’t necessarily think that Starbucks distributing music is a bad idea because they are everywhere. But I think it was a poor choice by Starbucks because Sir Paul’s record was a dud. The Eagles record going into Wal-Mart, you know the Eagles are a guarantee, you can’t lose. Now what we intend on doing when our contract’s up, we’re going to be looking at our options like that because we are with the same management as the Eagles. And [we will] consider placing records in a situation like that or making them available through digital download, something like an iTunes.
Like Radiohead’s In Rainbows? No, that was dumb. And you know it backfired on them. I’m not gonna purposely… intentionally put my record up someplace for someone to download for free. What I said was to sell the record through downloads. That’s what a lot of people are doing right now. They’re leaving the record labels because the record labels are imploding. Their greed and the corporate insanity has destroyed the music industry. You know, we talk about this all the time – music business is two words right now. When we started it was one word, it was ‘music business.’ Now it’s two words – we are the music and they are the business. They don’t give a fuck about us. They don’t care about us at all. All they care about is moving units, and shifting sales and when they get to their break-even point, then they start to turn the thumb screws and reduce the marketing money and expect more out of the bands. I don’t like that. I don’t like being treated like luggage. This is a legendary band, I’m a legend. And you know what, I’ve been in this business longer than half the people I’ve met in some of the record labels we’ve been with.
Gigantour – any chance of it coming to these regions? Gigantour is basically a festival that is meant to be more than one show. Coming here, I think, it would hurt our promoter unless we did it as a team. And out of respect for him and the Indian metal audience, we want to be supportive here, not divisive. And I think that if I brought Gigantour here, I would want to do it with the promoter’s blessings and also take into consideration what the fans really wanna hear. That’s how basically we pick the bands. Listening to what the fans suggest and I’ll see names and stuff and I’ll listen to somebody and see if I like them. Some of the bands that aren’t there, I like them. Some of them, they aren’t… they’re good… I respect them but it’s not necessarily something that I would listen to while having sex.
Is there a dream band for you at Gigantour? No. It’s very fair. It’s very democratic. Megadeth and Gigantour are not connected. It’s not Davefest. The beautiful thing about this is that we can step off Gigantour and it can go on, we can rest and be with our loved ones. Because we are going home for a month and we are going back after two months. James has a daughter, I have children. He’s got a wife, I’m divorced. We’ve got family at home. Shawn is married with two children and Chris has a girlfriend and you know, there’s loved ones at home… we can’t be away forever. I think the guys that tour and don’t go home are hiding something or they’re hiding from somebody.
Something a lot of Indian fans would want to know. When are you guys coming back? Well, honestly, when we go home tomorrow, there’s this month off… we end this tour… June 11 is the last date.. we’re gonna go down to South America on the 11th of June, and 12th we’ll be going home. They’ll be going to their houses and I’ll be going to the hospital… [laughs] and we’re gonna be going into the studio to wrap up some projects that we have. Little things that need to be fixed like bonus material for the last record, some stuff for the Gigantour DVD from last year, stuff that’ll kinda keep us busy and occupied while the ideas start rolling. We got a recording studio that travels with us, basically a porta-studio - that’s what you call it - and once we got Chris up to speed on everything, we started on putting stuff into the porta-studio.
This is new material? Yes. Right now, the stuff that we have – that James [Lomenzo, Megadeth bassist] and I have been working on – is transferring the stuff that we have at my house in all of the drives into one particular place where we can see what the next record is gonna consist of. With my stuff and as that gets laid out, James is gonna get a chance to listen to it and see if he has anything compatible with it or how we do the old stone suit where everyone joins in and adds something. Same thing for Chris. As we work together - since Chris is right down a freeway from us… actually north a couple of hours - he’s gonna be at an advantage to be able to hear those pieces. Because Shawn’s already heard them all - we listened to them last time while we started the last record. And we got to the studio and they said we want you to do two more records. Two more songs is what a record is called you know… basically in a contract. I said no, the contract is for eleven and they ended up getting us to agree to twelve and they ask for two more and it’s like their guts… It’s not cool… So we had to go back in and add two more records and during that process we learnt a lot about ourselves.
