Randonesia

I hate this part of my job (see previous blog for photo reference).

So after months of writing, demoing, rewriting, re-demoing, preproduction (a fancy term we musicians like to throw around for, yes, that’s right, writing & demoing- makes us feel professional), then finally actually RECORDING these fucking things that seep into our brains, interrupt our sleep, screw up our home life, cause us to have emotional breakdowns & start arguments with anyone who wants to disagree with us at that moment, these FUCKING THINGS CALLED SONGS- it’s time to put them in an order and turn them into an “album”. And if you’re in a band like mine, that means arguing over which extra songs will go to exclusive releases with Best Buy, iTunes, & the ever popular Japanese bonus track (apparently most Japanese labels want an extra track or they won’t put out a gaijin record), and which songs will go into the circular file, perhaps to be drug out of the digital dustbin later, touched up, and given to someone who wants yet another “exclusive” track for their iPhone app or deodorant commercial or whatever.

This process is known as “sequencing” the record- i.e. deciding what order the songs go in. I suppose it must be akin to a writer doing his final reread, revision & fat trimming right before he turns his manuscript into his publisher. It’s not a lot of fun, but some stuff has got to go.

William Faulkner is attributed with saying in regard to writing “You must kill your darlings”- meaning you cannot become so attached to a character that you cannot see it’s flaws, need for correction, and possible deletion from your story line. You cannot love it so much that you can’t view the character objectively. Perhaps YOU may think a heroine based on your beloved Grandma Jenkins and her oh-so-adorable habit of feeding every stray cat in the neighborhood off the fine china is absolutely GRIPPING, but the rest of the world could give a shit less. They want to hear about her grouchy Croatian neighbor Gustav with the locked purple shed out back reeking of something that could be fertilizer OR it could, indeed, be where that Janston girl disappeared to last week.

Everyone SHOULD love your Grandma Jenkins like you do, everyone SHOULD want to spend time with her feeding the cats and chatting about dead Uncle Bernie, but what we REALLY want to do is creep over and find out for ourselves if there are a bunch of stiffs or not in ol’ Gus’s shed.

“Shhh Granny, I’m trying to see what Gus is up to. Stop bothering me, maybe we’ll talk later. Shhhh! STOP IT WOU- oops. Sorry about the axe to the forehead, Gran, but you HAD to go. And a few of those cats too- they were making too much damn noise. Now let’s get back to business…”

(FOR THE RECORD- I love my Grandma to pieces and would NEVER think of axing her in the dome)

It’s hard for writers to kill their darlings. I know- I write a bit of fiction here and there, and I’ve reluctantly murdered a few of my own after they just didn’t cut the mustard. But in the end, it’s just you, your characters, and the sharpie or delete button.

Sequencing a record is much, MUCH worse.

Sequencing a record involves (at least in the case of my band, lamb of god) getting five very different, cantankerous, and aging dudes to kill their darlings for the better of the whole- THE ALBUM. We kill our darlings throughout the writing & recording process- a riff here, a lyric there, a drum fill here- in order to serve the song better. Sometimes it gets heated. Harsh words are said. Egos are bruised. Guitars are slammed around, beers are pounded, cigarettes are furiously smoked, yachts are sunk (ok, so we don’t have yachts, but you get the point). Sometimes it’s rough. Sometimes everyone magically agrees. Either way, at the end of many days we wind up with a bunch of tunes we are all proud of.

The songs have been scrutinized, revised, criticized, victimized, pulverized- hell, a few have capsized, but they are still afloat in the sea of the writing process, and now they are in a race for shore, where they will set up camp, grill hotdogs, drink prodigious amounts of beer and finally chill out forever in their new home- the album. Each band member is rooting for his particular favorite songs to make the cut, and is campaigning and blowing wind into the sails of his preferred tunes.

But not every song can live in our heavy metal island paradise, and that’s when we as a band must become like very opinionated crew members of a submarine out to sink just the right amount of ships from it’s own fleet to ensure the health of the new colony. The beautiful yet annoying girl with the high pitched voice that just can’t quite ever talk slow enough to be understood? She’s gotta go. The really cool fat guy who eats everyone’s food and takes up way too much room? He’s gotta go, too. The nerdy guy who has amazing math abilities but can’t swing a hammer? Gone. So load the torpedo tubes and let’s make sure this new island has exactly the right people on it. Time to snip the weakest links. Darwinism at it’s best. Sound vaguely facist? That’s because it IS. It HAS to be. Great records aren’t composed of everyone’s “favorite” tunes. Great records are composed of everyone’s BEST tunes.

It’s just a real bitch to get get everyone to agree on what constitutes “best”. In my band we send about 8 trillion emails back and forth before we can come to a somewhat-satisfactory-to-all conclusion. It’s always worked out ok before in the end (albeit with some slight misgivings about song deletions being carried around like a bad grudge- “I TOLD THEM WE SHOULDA PUT THAT SONG ON THE RECORD!”) (I was right, by the way). It will work out. Has to be done. It’s a necessary part of making a good record. I just HATE the process.

Fuck, the sequence is due tomorrow. Time to kill my darlings. I hope my bandmates do the same.

Quckly.

Here kitty, kitty…….

Hails-
D. Randall Blythe