Live, Right Now: Learn About Songwriting from Audiohammer Studios’ Eyal Levi

What’s the single most common mistake made by dudes in metal bands (besides being in a metal band, I mean)? Easy: they spend a gajillion hours to learning to play their instrument (which, granted, is obviously important), but then never learn to write decent songs. It’s the metal equivalent of a movie that spends a couple of hundred million dollars on special effects, but never bothers to develop an actual story (not thinking of anything in particular here). Meanwhile, almost every metal anthem that ever made a dent in peoples’ consciousness — from “Iron Man” to “The Number of the Beast,” from “Raining Blood” to “Hammer Smashed Face,” from “Concubine” to “Fixation on the Darkness” — has managed to do so because, above all else, they were well-written, memorable songs. You know why Metallica get to be the biggest band in the world even though Lars Ulrich can’t actually play the drums? Because they wrote “Ride the Lightning,” “Battery,” “One” and “Enter Sandman.” So, um, yeah.

Which is why you NEED to watch this currently-in-progress CreativeLive course:

“Eyal Levi, acclaimed producer at the world-famous Audiohammer Studios (The Black Dahlia Murder, August Burns Red, Whitechapel), will host his next CreativeLive class, ‘Mastering Metal Songwriting,’ on June 17 and 18 from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM PDT (12:00 PM to 7:00 PM EDT). In this two-day course, free to watch live, Eyal Levi and special guests Todd Jones (Nails, Terror) and John Browne (Monuments) will explore what it takes to craft great songs, from basic song structure and riff-writing, to writing melodies, leads and vocals, and then fine-tuning the arrangement to take your song from good to great. Head over to CreativeLive.com at: http://www.creativelive.com/courses/mastering-metal-songwriting-eyal-levi for more information and to enroll today.”

AWESOME, right? You can stream it at the top of this post (in case that video player confused you) or watch it here.