MetalSucks

Stage Presence and Kicking Ass

What is up my friends? Once again we’re here talking about the music business and hopefully you’ve been able to get a good idea of how crazy things get on the road and the type of mind it takes to endure this type of lifestyle. As we say on the road, ‘this shit ain’t for everybody!’ The good thing is it takes everyone to make a concert work. We need people to come to shows and rock out while we’re on stage rocking out for them. We are entertainers. We get to play shows every day but most people who come out make it their thing for the month or even the year. We’re privileged and we never, EVER forget it.

That brings me to what I’m going to talk about this week. This won’t be controversial so I’ll add something here:

George Bush is a Nigger. Barack Obama has black lips. Hillary Clinton looks like an unfuckable pug. I apologize to all the pugs I offended.

Ok, now that we have that out of the way let’s get into rocking out on stage so you can become a better showman after you have some kick ass songs.

We’ve toured for a long, long time. When we first started we were statues on stage because we were worried about making a mistake on stage. We had to be the tightest band ever. As we toured we realized that people came to shows to have fun. They didn’t give a shit about a mistake here or there. In all reality, most people can’t wait for a band to make a mistake. Our records are so tight it’s cool to see us flub here or there. Shit, we’ve even had to stop songs on several occasions because of us just fucking up. Fuck it! It’s fucking live! The live show is always a gamble depending on your situation. The one thing you can control all the time is your stage presence and your effort to connect with people. Fuck feedback. Fuck bad monitors. Fuck train wrecks on stage. Just get out there and give people their money’s worth! You don’t pay to be there but most likely they do, so let’s get amped!

The first step in getting your stage presence up is knowing where you can really show off and the places where you really have to play. Let’s take our song “The Lonely Dead” for example. My part when the song starts off is a pick slide into an open chord. We tune to dropped C on that song so the tuning would be CGCFAD.

(I’m not too good at tab so I’ll try my best). It looks like this after the pick slide:

Riff 1: (click here for tablature)

If you notice, I’m only doing that one chord and it’s all open. I get to do what I want when I get the crowd pumped until I bar the sixth fret. Usually people start clapping during the build up double bass part so sometimes I clap with them because that shit is awesome. Other times I might just duck my head and nod knowingly that I’m kicking ass! Confidence is a huge part of stage presence and putting on a good show. Everyone needs to know you’re in control of your sound and the stage so it feels like a concert. We’re not walking through a museum. How many amazing live bands spend most of their time looking at their fret boards? Slipknot doesn’t. Slayer doesn’t. You get my drift.

After we do that big opening, we do another pick slide and it goes into some serious fucking head banging. Byron is windmilling, I’m head banging so hard you’d think I’d have a mouth on the back of my neck eating Double Quarter Pounders. My brother is head banging with his back. (I have no clue how he does it) All in all we’re all head banging hard as fuck and as a unit we all feel good doing it because it adds to the intensity of the show and adds to the shred factor of the riff. Shit, if you add strobe lights to that part it’d almost be too good.

After the second pick slide, make sure you palm mute all the low Cs:

Riff 2: (click here for tablature)

That riff is a straight up metal riff. It was made for head banging. When we’re in practice jamming out some of that stuff, these types of riffs and arrangements get you excited and you start to naturally feel those things. Head banging, metal horns, cauldron palm, chest banging… They all have a place in your live show or even in your live concert attendance. I want to see who can have the hardest head bang up front when we’re playing. I want to see cauldron palms. I want to see all of that shit because metal is the shit and every thing else is the toilet paper!

We just launched a tour blog for the In Thrash We Trust tour with Death Angel, Soilent Green and Light This City. Go to www.netvibes.com/godforbid to check out some of the stuff going on for the tour! It’s been going amazing. So if I see you at the show, head bang while holding up your cauldron palm or fire chalice. Whatever you call it is fine with me!

Rock On!

HORNS!