THE HARD R: DALLAS COYLE ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS
Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 5:00pm by Dallas Coyle
I hope you guys enjoyed the 21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century… So Far. I thought it was awesome that it got so much feedback, and shows that the site is really picking up steam. I was drawn to this site because of the humor and I think it’s coming into it’s own. I called to ask them for the blog and they were gracious enough to say, ‘yes.’ Now that I’m not in God Forbid, they may feel gyped!
With that said, a lot of my blogs have been controversial, and with me leaving God Forbid, everyone is wondering why I still have a blog here. I’ve wondered the same thing. I want to help people out in the biz the best way I can. So for a while I’m going to make this blog a question and answer sort of thing. You can ask any question but if it’s stupid, I won’t answer. If it asks about my decision to leave GF, I won’t answer. Those questions don’t help anyone. Post your questions in the comments section and I’ll try and answer as many relevant ones as possible. I will keep it up weekly if the questions keep coming.
On a side note, I am working on new music that is turning out to be pretty bad ass. Axl and Vince have heard some of the stuff, although rough, and it’s pretty heavy. The vocals are all singing. Think Gojira mixed with Alice In Chains. I’m diggin’ it, bigtime!
OK, on to some questions.
@ ‘Me’ in the comments section on the last blog:
“How involved are your producers in terms of song arrangement and the actual creation of GF’s music? I know it might vary from producer to producer, but there’s a difference in getting the best tones and deconstructing your music with a fine-toothed comb (metaphorically speaking..).”
On all of the God Forbid records we never had producers re-arrange or write material for us. As a band we always had our songs the way we wanted them to be when we went into record. I’ve always hesitated working with producers who want to re-arrange stuff because it’s our band and we should know how things work. We are the professionals at writing, they are the professionals at recording. So I like to keep that boundary. That’s not to say I wouldn’t mind working with a producer who understands song writing, it just means that for GF we always constructed our songs in ways that couldn’t be fucked with. We very rarely did the verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge structure. As far as quality sounds, we worked with the most professional people so they knew what they were doing. My favorite mix of ours is Gone Forever, ’cause Colin Richardson just killed it. Hire good people and you will get a good product. Just write good songs that can’t be fucked with!
@ ‘balls mahoney’:
“When on the road you’re out of your element as far as just about everything in a normal daily life goes. regular meals, good sleep, good hygiene, etc., etc. do you end up losing a significant amount of weight from the day you leave to the day you come home? i remember asking the keyser bros. from skinless a similar question and they both just sighed and said ‘you have no idea…’”
Maybe in the beginning of touring I would lose weight because we were sleeping in the van, eating club pizza and just struggling. But, really, in the last five years we never had that hard of a time touring, because we got big enough to where we could get a bus or tour in a van with hotels every night. You have to remember that you only play for about 40 minutes to an hour every nigh,t so you don’t get too much ‘exercise’ unless you want to get up and lift the weights, do your cardio like a lot of people do. I remember on Ozzfest, Ben from Throwdown was lifting every day and he was in pretty damn good shape. In the beginning you lose weight. If you happen to get more successful and you can live fairly human on the road you most likely could gain weight. Shit, look at Chino from the Deftones. Speaking of the Deftones, I hope Chi gets better. White Pony was on my top 21 list, by the way!
@ ‘pungent cunt fart’:
“Can you convince Doc to start blogging for Metal Sucks? I think you are a dildo.”
I asked him to do a blog here because he’s a much better writer than I am. I’ll ask him again. If I’m a dildo, then your mom’s vagina got me too wet and then she put me in her drawer. Good thing though: I was back in the vag two hours later. Slimy, wet mom juice!
@ ‘Oriana Smith’:
“Hi, I’m thirteen and started my own metal band. How do we promote ourselves if we can’t find any one to take us seriously!”
Well, it’s good you’re starting early. Very good actually. You don’t want to promote yourselves until you find the music is worth promoting. You have to be very honest with yourself and see if what you’re doing stacks up against the big boys. If you have music you’re proud of the best way to promote is to play live. Jump on shows for free, ask friends to help out and get a live show that people can’t deny. Once you start playing regularly then get a couple of songs recorded and a t-Shirt and start selling them. If you sell 100 demos in a month from playing shows, I’d say it’s a great start. Then go to the internet, hire a good artist to design a great MySpace page or, my preference, a ning site. Get your artwork together, find your vibe and play shows. No better way of promoting. Make sure the music is great then you won’t have any problems. Remember one thing: if you’re up there playing music at a show, most people will want to be doing what you’re doing so you’re one step ahead. Stay positive!
Again, leave your questions in the comments section. From this point on I’m your Dr. Music Man! HA!
-DC
I play guitar in a metal band, and critically, I think the music is pretty sound. My question is, in this day and age of dying music labels, what is the goal of the contemporary band? Also, do you need to be signed to a label to get on big tours, or just be able to sell tickets? This seems a very confusing time for musicians these days. 10 years ago the goal was to get discovered, sign the contract, and your golden. You’re in the industry. What is your insight into this topic?
http://www.lefsetz.com
when are you going to post samples of the new tunes
What are some constructive ways to cope with a feud with another band? And how can it be resolved if the other side seems unwilling to make peace?
make a diss track of course
Do you regret leaving GF? I saw them yesterday, and they played really well.
Do you regret being, apparently, illiiterate?
What are your thoughts on Zakk Wylde’s pinch harmonics? Are they passe?
No question here, but Gojira meets Alice in Chains? My appetite is whetted.
I’m sorry, what?
Does success take the fun out of music?
Oriana Smith (if you’re reading this): my friend and I are starting a music social networking site with many features that might help emerging artists like you. it is just in the design/programming stage so it’ll still be a few months before it goes up, but look out for hypedsound.com when you start getting your songs recorded. remember promotion online can be just as important in promoting your band on a larger scale. good luck!
How did you have time to write this while you’re busy touring on Mayhem? Ohhh.. my bad.. I forgot.
You and Doc are really good guitarists. Being a player myself, I know that guitarists tend to show off as much as they can, whenever they can. My question is: what is your advice, when it comes to songwriting, how to avoid fucking up a tune by needless shredding? How to find the right balance between what a song needs, and the propensity for sweep picked arpeggios?
Thanks! I’ll consider all y’alls advice.
Here’s a hypothetical scenario for you: Let’s say I am a white male under the age of 25 living in a comfortable Midwest suburb. How long before I start a Christian metalcore band that steals your riffs and repackages them with theremin breakdowns?
win.
if a wood chuck could chuck wood how much wood could a wood chuck chuck
if a nunchuck could chuck nuns, how many nuns would a nunchuck chuck?
At what point will this advice column segue into a full-blown advertisement for your “Coyle Music Consultation” business I saw linked through here on MySpace? Or are these posts now about maintaining shreds of metal cred to make the business look good?
What differentiates your business from any of the myriad “Your Child Can Be A Star! Casting NOW!” or “Model Search” advertisements in the local papers or on Craigslist? Is it not the same kind of profiteering off of naive bands who, even with your help, may not have the slimmest of likelihoods of being signed?
If a band were to approach you for business, and they were simply not good, would you turn them away rather than accept their money, or would you (perhaps cruelly) overlook their lack of talent to “keep them on the hook” for their cash? After all, you have a fledgling business to keep out of the red.
As someone who has quit a modestly successful metal band (for reasons nebulous at best) and is now offering advice, what do you make of the old adage “those who can’t do, teach?”
I don’t mean to sound vitriolic, but I can sense when someone’s about to try and sell me a bunch of fucking snake oil. It’s like having a pleasant conversation with someone on the subway, there’s a tense pause, and out of left field they whip out a copy of the Watchtower and start selling me on Jehovah.
Here comes the bait and switch. Watch.
cynical much?
You didn’t know? The first blog was an advertisement for Coyle Media Consulation! You just missed it. Oh, and thanks for doing the work for me.HAHAHAHAHAH!
…dick…
Sven -
If you can sense someone’s going to sell you snake oil, and you’re intelligent enough to acknowledge that it’s being sold, what do you have to worry about? There are worse people out there selling bands useless tools, banking off of their lack of music business ethics.
You don’t understand.
It’s one thing for bands to have vanity projects, but this strikes me as flagrantly trading on some kind of perceived level of “fame” or street cred. But to some starstruck, naive bunch of kids in a band, it might enough to grease up their wallets to pay for some kind of nebulous consultation – whatever that entails (”Play faster”, “More synchronized headbanging”, “Make a mean face at this part of the song”, “how about you wear TWO chains on your wallet! There’s a Hot Topic, let’s go!”)
I have plenty of friends and acquaintances who will tell me my demo sucks for FREE.
Additionally. I’m skeptical of a music consulting website that has movie pitches on it, seeking investors. One of which is basically Predator with voodoo. Where is the focus? Way to have a professional website. I’d hate to be in the studio only to be interrupted by phone calls from the SyFy channel. Yeesh. Fucking embarassing.
I’m glad to see you guys learned something from touring with Anthrax and Scott Ian. Be as much of a whore as possible, and profit by attrition, because respect and credibility are nice but they don’t pay the bills. What next, hot sauce? I’m sure the graphic novel and VH-1 appearances are coming next. Say Dallas, what’s your opinion on Popples? Just how rad WERE the 80’s? (Super-rad, I bet)
The idea is to find a niche, something that you not only like but are good at, and turn it into a way to earn a living. What you call “whoring” others would call “earning a living” or “paying the mortgage”. For all of the fame and money earned by Sammy Hagar playing in not one, not two, but three or four or five famous bands, he made more money investing in and then selling the majority share in his Cabo Wabo tequila.
It’s called being a good businessperson. So what if it’s hot sauce? You want to know who will never use the term “sell out”? Someone who is successful.
What you fail to understand is that Sammy Hagar isn’t making lofty claims of being able to help bands get signed if they pay him enough money.
Lots of stuff gets said about how awful the business aspect of the music industry is. As a former member of a band on Century Media, one of the bigger labels in metal, what have your experiences been with the label? Were you ever forced to compromise your sound to appease whoever was funding the album/promotion/distribution/etc? Do the musicians really get screwed over as badly financially by labels as rumors say (if so, could you provide a few rough statistics for reference)? Also, are there any insider parts of the business that ordinary fans don’t really hear about? I don’t know if you’re affiliated with a label as of now, but I hope any answers (if you address my questions) would be unbiased.
After being in a band that is so good, and not getting comercially far while bands that are 10 times worse get comercial success, does that piss you off?
what are your thoughts on the dying breed of metal with actual vocal melodies, as opposed to… screaming
“Dying breed”? Uh… what are you talking about? If anything, prog and power metal have been making quite a resurgance as of late.
Why is it you people think so-called “screaming” is new? It’s been around since the early 80s when the first thrash and grindcore acts popped up. It’s not going anywhere, and neither is “Singing” in metal.
You are very smrt!
What are some of the ways you went about seeking sponsorships so that you didn’t have to pay for guitars/amps/accessories/clothes?
what are your thoughts and opinions on being in a band with a sibling?
What do you think about the “$10 for 10″ tour that’s going on right now? Aside from the music, it’s a pretty great idea, and really shows the community that these artists are in it for the music, amirite? It’s a great idea: you get a great tour that seems hand-crafted for music fans. But then you get dudes who can’t put their daddy issues aside, and they end up ruining (refer to: http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=93112&catid=2). You give an inch, they take a kilometer. Your thoughts.
PS: you can answer any of the questions if you’re too tied up.
How the fuck do I keep a drummer? And where do you find drummers that aren’t complete dope fiends to the point where they fall off of their stools at practice? Seriously….that just described my last 3 drummers and they were ALL promising leads at the start.
If K.F.C. stands for Kentucky Fried Chicken, why do they play sweet home Alabama on the commercials?
Sorta out there, but do you think so many smaller, maybe not “underground” but lesser-known bands that break up do so because of the difficulty in signing to a label, due to the seeming preference of labels to sign “safe bands” that are following in current trends? There have been a lot of small bands that do one or two albums, either as something like a demo release without having any signed label, or one or two albums on a tiny label, and it sort of seems like the lack of backing capital (that I’d assume a larger label could provide, for bigger tours, more promotion, etc) was what killed the band, not the content or actual musical ability of the band. Are a lot of those smaller bands that could have the prospective chance to sign on a big label wary of doing so because of the possibility that the label might start leaning on them to do specific things, musically?
It seems like some of the best bands out there (at least among the non-headliner names) only get one or two albums out, then nosedive.
Hey Dallas,
You are a great guitar player, i loved your contribution to God Forbid, I think you and Doc had a great connection, and i think it made God Forbid amazing…
You will be missed…
Do you still play guitar while you are hanging at home?
Rip out some awesome licks like on Chains of Humanity or Empire of the Gun…
Do you and Doc ever get together just to do some brotherly Jamming?
Dude, i hope you are still playing…
I Love Earthsblood!!!
Dallas I was in a band for a long time (more of a rock band then metal band) and we received local radio air play and had good support at local shows. However, for whatever reasons we couldn’t get anything going outside of Philadelphia and couldn’t figure out how to start getting on any tours. No one wanted to book us because we didn’t have a draw in there area and if we did get a show even if they liked our music it would be hard to get another gig because we couldn’t bring a ton of people.
My question is mainly how did you start the process of moving from local band to successful touring band? How were you able to make that transition and what steps did you take along the way.
Hey man Are the legends about crazy groupie sex true? Do you have any crazy groupie stories that you can share?
hey Dallas my brother has a band he plays drums in and im trying to get them moving if i send you some mp3’s of their work would you take a listen and give an honest opinion .
Hi Dallas,
Could you give a detailed analysis (using charts and graphs if possible) on what it is that makes High on Fire rule so damn hard?
Come, enter the feast, eat flesh of kings
Hands crying blood, scourge making way
Sonic its sound, destroyer comes down
Feet plant on Earth, forcing the toll
Wasting what was, reap what you sow
Hammer of death delivers the blow
I don’t dig High On Fire
No, I won’t. Tell your brother to pick up the guitar like Dave Grohl did. Then I’ll listen.
the fucked up thing Dallas is he does play guitar for the last ten years but this band needed a drummer and he doesn’t care if he’s playing drums he just wants to be on stage + he writes riffs for some of the songs but if you dont wanna listen thats cool thanks anyway.
Hey bro, im really bummed about GF, the chemistry you guys had was amazing, but i’m super stoked about your new stuff.
so i had a question about your new material, are you going to be assuming vocal duties? the back ups you did with GF were amazing.
check out the Metal band im in http://www.myspace.com/sagaciouspast . Do you think we got the chops? what would you recommend we do to improve?
i wish you the best of luck with your new ventures.
Hey Dallas,
So what do you think of this new genre called Bro-Core?