Open Letter To Light This City

Tonight was the last night of the “In Thrash We Trust’ tour with Death Angel, Arsis, Soilent Green and Light This City. The first thing I want to do is thank every single person who came out to this tour and rocked out with us. Some shows were packed and some shows weren’t but in the end none of that matters. The shows we played were for the people who came out to rock! I sound like a broken record but we get to play a show every day. Most of the people who come out to the show make this their one time of the week, their one time of the month — hell, their one time of the year to escape and lose themselves in some heavy fucking metal!

To those people, I THANK YOU!

After this six week run a lot of things have happened. No matter how many tours you do you never have the same story. You are always surprised. It could be the people you encounter that you haven’t seen in a long time. It could be the new bands you meet on tour who become new friends. There is a bond that is established between everyone on tour; from crew, to promoters, to bands, to fans. It really is an amazing animal. Honestly, if any of you out there are scientists in behavior you’d do well to do a study of the rhythm and mechanisms of a tour. I bet you’d find some anomalies that may coincide with the patterns of weather currents.

It is true energy.

Unfortunately, Light This City had to leave this tour early. It really sucked because I really liked everyone in the band. When a band leaves a tour prematurely it can affect you. Soilent left the tour early to do the Dethklok/Chimaira tour. I was happy as hell for them because that tour is kicking ass and they deserve to play for new people. When Soilent left we felt it. It was a blow. It was like our package had to reset itself.

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The Touring Game

Touring is a rough animal. Last week I went into a tirade about a promoter who stiffed us on cash. It may have been a little harsh but fuck it. Eventually we will be paid because there is a contract when we play. We get guarantees unless we’re doing bar shows where we do door deals. In all honesty, unless we’re getting a 3,000 and up guarantee, door deals can be fruitful.

Some of the comments about my last blog were eye opening because there is no ‘one’ way to promote a show. In our contracts it says we play and you give us X amount of dollars. There are options for percentage after a certain amount of money is made but usually if we play we get paid. If we don’t play, we don’t get paid. If you’re a promoter who’s done shows before, don’t act like you know our game because you don’t. The promoting game is just as rough as the touring game because it’s like the stock market. You win some, you lose some.

Case in point, we did a show on this tour where the promoter lost about a grand. He’s a guy we’ve known for years and he LOVES us, so we’re always welcome back. Our tour manager went to him and said, ‘Sorry about the show man. We know it was a loss!’ The promoter goes,’ Are you kidding me, we did Jimmy Eat World last week and I lost ten grand! That’s a loss!’ Look at that little equation. It’s a win some, lose some game. Sometimes you win big and sometimes you lose big. But imagine this: if you can lose ten grand and laugh about it, promoting could be a great way to do business!

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Promoters

What’s up motherfuckers? Yesterday [last Thursday, May 22 – Ed.] we played a show in Tempe, Arizona. Unfortunately, we played up against the Gigantour. Bad fucking idea. That was just the first bad idea involving yesterday’s show. Second bad idea was booking the show with a promoter who couldn’t cover his ass.

When you’re on the road most people would like to say it’s all about the music. Well, it is and it isn’t. With the cost of gas going up, the cost of crew and the need for the bands and clubs to make money, putting on a show is a risk assessment game. Yesterday the promoter skipped out on the show before we could get paid so we got FUCKED. We played in front of the people who came out so we held up our end of the deal. But this promoter, Gary Gingras at Faceless Music, who was the DUMB ASS who booked us opposite of Gigantour only 20 miles away is the one whose risk management was in the fucking gutter. Last time we played that very club we had a packed, almost sold out club. The show was utterly fucking brilliant. The cool thing was that The Sets crew, Kim and Steve, knew how fucked this guy was and they were ultimately fucking cool to help us get what we needed to have a passing grade show.

Ben and I from Soilent were talking about how good that previous show was. He was with Goatwhore on the bill when we played The Sets previously. It was amazing how far a good promoter and proper planning can make a show. For your info, Soilent didn’t get paid either. This promoter, Gary Gingras at Faceless Music, was a shitbag punk and I hope his balls get caught in a meat grinder. It definitely was “Faceless” Music cause his ass was nowhere to be found at the end of the night!

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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.

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Growth: Inside and Out

Being an artist is a rough deal. Don’t get me wrong, it’s the best thing in the world to be a creator of things, but the hardest part about being an artist is the lack of having a manual or playbook. It’s not like sports where you have a play you run or working at Borders or McDonalds where there is a set turn-key program of how the business works. Whether you’re a musician, writer or painter you make your own playbook as you create over the years and start to recognize what your voice is. Once you have your guidelines of how your art works it becomes easier to a certain extent but it also becomes more difficult to stick to those guidelines.

Take Hatebreed or Motorhead for example. They have a way they do things for years on end while establishing a hardcore fan base because they respect their general guideline for what they do. Our band is a little different. This has been our first band for the most part, so through out the years we’ve been honing our sound and changing with each album. Our newest unreleased album is the most refined record we’ve done to date because we’ve been able to establish our own set of guidelines for ourselves. Throughout doing this I’ve noticed something that this is sometimes hurtful to personal growth. When you attach yourself to your ‘idea’ of who you are as an artist it can become anchored in the art you’re doing at the time and you sometimes forget that your talent spans all types of art.

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Music vs. Politics

The last blog about the writing of IV: Constitution Of Treason received so much feedback and it blew my mind for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons was the hilarity of most of the responses. The blog was more about song writing and how our last record was written but when I was looking at the responses I realized that a LOT of people were taking issue with the events that shaped the record. Most people took a songwriting column and turned it into politics.

I got a lot of, “I can’t believe you call your fans stupid because they voted for George Bush!” First of all, I didn’t call any of our fans stupid. This was a feeling I had about America as a whole, not one person specifically. Secondly, these events SHAPED our record in my eyes so how is there any possible way for me to separate these events from the writing of the record? How is there any possible way that I was able to separate the “politics” from the “music”?

In the nature of that last blog it was impossible to separate the two which got me to thinking (again). God Forbid as a whole endorses Barack Obama for president. I don’t know if we are big enough to actually “endorse” him but as a band we all like him and have voted for him. We send out videos or bulletins from our Myspace that show some things he’s doing or we might send out some Hillary Clinton tomfoolery to turn people off of her. Lately, people have been outraged. Some say we shouldn’t mix music and politics. Some say we should keep them separated. Well, I have to disagree to a point. While I can agree that music and politics shouldn’t be the same thing, I think it’s impossible for our band to separate the two completely. We don’t sing about women breaking up with us.

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It’s The Environment, Stupid, Part 3

Last week I talked about our near collapse to oblivion and how it affected our writing on Gone Forever. On Gone Forever we did Ozzfest and we did thirteen and a half weeks with our good friends in Machine Head. We toured for three weeks in the states and ten and a half weeks in Europe with MH. It was a crazy schedule.

On Gone Forever, we learned how to really write an album and how to grab live crowds by being on stage with the best bands that year. Watching Slipknot every day on Ozzfest and playing main support to Machine Head for three months really got our band to a new level. I’m sure many of you who saw us on Ozzfest to our more recent tours can say our band has become a much better band as far as live concert and making music is concerned. We’re a much more confident band because our experiences really allowed us to open up and become something more. Our environment of bigger and better truly catapulted us into writing our best record yet.

But this blog is more than that. This blog is also about Dimebag and how his unfortunate murder shaped Constitution Of Treason. On December 8th, 2004 a ton of shit was going on. The presidential election just happened and we all saw how fucking stupid Americans were on a general level when they re-elected the best comedian our soil has ever seen. I’ll never forget that stupid shit and how Europeans couldn’t understand how Americans could elect such a fool. I got tired of explaining the two Americas most of us know and why George W. was still our president. I live in NJ which is the melting pot of ALL things but in most places in America there is no such thing as a melting pot.

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It’s The Environment, Stupid: Part 2

Let’s go all the way back to our headlining tour of Determination back in 2002 and see how your environment affects your band. Our headlining tour for that record consisted of two unknown bands (at the time) by the names of Bleeding Through and Avenged Sevenfold. For us, the tour was terrible as hell. I can’t speak for A7X or Bleeding Through but the shit was horrible. No one came to see our band play and it deflated our aspirations and brought us back to earth.

We weren’t going to be the biggest band in the world. Back to the drawing board. The environment of Century Media pushing our band in all the magazines, doing big tours like Nevermore/Opeth, Cradle Of Filth/Nile and Gwar/Goatwhore put us in a place before that headlining tour where we thought we’d be THE SHIT. Since that wasn’t the case we hit a point where we were all thinking of what we wanted in the band. Without those experiences we wouldn’t have written Gone Forever.

I’m sure some of you have heard our band was on the brink of destruction during that time, and I’m sure everything you heard was accurate. We were thinking about quitting. We wanted to be something more than we were. Jump forward to a show my brother Doc and I went to at the M&M Hall in NJ. We’re watching Killswitch play at a hall and it sounded pretty awesome. Jesse was still in the band, Adam was playing drums, Mike and Joel were still in their same positions. After the show, Mike gave me a new demo of the new stuff they’d done. It consisted of “Numbered Days,” “Alive Or Just Breathing” and one other song that escapes me. It blew my fucking mind. And it changed the way I looked at doing our band.

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It’s The Environment, Stupid…

What’s up party people? When you do a blog every week you wonder what to talk about and this week I decided to talk about the progression from our first record (Reject The Sickness) to our second record (Determination). I have no idea how familiar any of you may be with those records but I’d figure a look into the inner thinking of how each record was made and how we approached making those records will help any of you aspiring to do music for a living to do it more efficiently than we did.

I believe that people are affected by their environment more so than the other way around. When we were writing Reject The Sickness we were just finding out about the hardcore scene in NJ, which at the time consisted of a lot of types of styles, mosh-core, thug-core, rap-core, emo, tech-core. In NJ, at that time everything was hardcore. There was no metal scene. We were the metal band in NJ at the time. We had a particular incident at Obsessions Night Club that ejected us from playing with bands like Morbid Angel and Testament to playing shows with bands like For The Love Of…, Train Of Thought, E-Town Concrete, Clubber Lang, NJ Bloodline, Candiria, just to name a few. We were all metal heads when we found this new form of aggression in the hardcore scene.

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Faster. Heavier. Best We’ve Ever Done!

How many of us have seen the news where bands are informing their fans the direction of their new album? If they are metal, it is always the same bullshit. ‘This new record is the fastest, heaviest, most aggressive, most brutal thing we’ve ever done. We can’t wait for you to hear it! Your faces will melt off and you’ll eat your own brains,’OH MY GOD! It’s so heavy!’

Let’s get something straight, if you’re in a metal band, you’ve obviously heard and listen to Meshuggah. After Chaosphere, why the fuck would you ever tell people your new album is heavier and faster and more aggressive than anything you’ve ever done? Meshuggah just shit all over your band’s existence if that’s your selling point. And now with ObZen, you’re triple fucked on your selling point. I’m very happy about our bands evolution over the years because we recognized what we do well. We decided to do what we do best. We went away from heavier, more aggressive. When you hear Meshuggah and you compare it to your own band, it’s very foolish to try and get heavier than that. We dropped crazy time signatures from our sound because Dillinger was the best at that. Why would we try and compete when we lose in that department? We don’t even lose, we’re disqualified for not having the credentials to compete. We knew that about ourselves. I wish other bands would be more honest about what their best attributes are.

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[ Dallas just recorded a podcast for Issue Oriented along with Lou Koller from Sick Of It All. Check it out at Issue Oriented, or view a quick video preview at the end of this post. -Ed.]

Evolution & Becoming Who You Are

Every living organism goes through its stages of growth. Bands are no different. From an outside point of view we should look at every band as a living organism. I look at God Forbid that way. We’ve grown, we’ve faltered, we’ve succeeded, we’ve evolved. Our records are a testament to that.

I’d hope to give insight into the type of steps bands have to take to make each record better than the last. I would like this to be a guide for newer bands to take steps in making their own bands improve and creating larger fan bases by seeing the chinks in their armor and making their bands more powerful with each succeeding record by repairing those weaknesses. Every band has weaknesses and unless you recognize them you can’t move forward.

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Drugs, Sex And Rock N Roll

When we first started our band, my brother and I were vehemently against drugs and alcohol. We knew about all the cliches and stereo types. We knew that drugs ruined bands and there was no way that we were going to do ruin our band. For me, that all went out the window when we first started touring in 2000. Touring is fucking wild. On tour, we’d drink alcohol every chance we got because it was free. We’d smoke ounces of weed because we’d have to drive through New Mexico’s 120 degree heat without AC to get to Los Angeles. Weed was the only thing that made you think the heat wasn’t so bad. Also, weed passed a lot of time on the road. Time is all there is on the road. In one particular case, we went to a drug house and took X with bands we were on tour with, stayed up all night and played the show the next day. I’ll leave the bands names out of it. I don’t put people’s shit out there.

I’d like to tell you a story about my first trip into the ‘rock star’ lifestyle. God Forbid had been around on the touring circuit for about 3 years continuously before we joined the Ozzfest of 2004. This was a dream come true for me and the rest of our band. Ozzfest that year was like that movie ‘One Crazy Summer’ for bands. I think we were a part of the most historic Ozzfest in the history of Ozzfest. The first one was stellar but the Ozzfest in ’04 broke new metal bands that have careers today. Darkest Hour, Bleeding Through, Throwdown, Hatebreed, Lamb Of God, Devildriver, Unearth, Atreyu, Otep, Lacuna Coil, Slipknot, Every Time I Die. Look at that list. That was a special time in metal and we were right in the middle of all of it.

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I really should keep these blogs to music but this Obama vs. The Right Wing has got my pea-brain to react. So I will.

I’m a person of mixed race like Barack Obama. My mom is black and my dad is white. But times were so tough, I was raised by my grandparents on both sides which is where a lot of my values come from. That being said; (Bmouth spin headline) White people are afraid of this dialogue of race in America. When I say white people I mean Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Cunningham and Fox News in general. Not white metal heads.

I’ve said it countless amounts of times. I don’t watch Fox News for the news. I watch it for the stiffys. There are a lot of hot blondes on there that can use a porking or two. It’s true. I’m a proud American and will always be. I believe this Jeremiah Wright stuff is old news brought up by the GOP and the Clintons to belittle Obama as a man associated with hate. But it will all backfire on them. Americans now have a chance to do their own research. Why do black people feel the way Jeremiah Wright does? Why are whites offended by the nature of the argument? The reason is because this issue is a gut issue. It hits you like food poisoning. You have to react but you can’t react with a clear head because it is such a divisive subject. No, I can’t blame my white friends for slavery. I never would. That’s stupid. But there is a palpable, intangible element to this very real issue and it’s based around fear.

Playing metal as an ethnic band we’ve run into all sorts of racism across the world. In Europe, some people hate Americans. In the south, we’ve been called niggers. This comes with the territory. None of us are holier than thou but a lot of us act as if we are. Being in a metal band is amazing because the music itself is based in white culture which I’m proud of because I’m half white. Without metal I’d be another statistic in a prison cell obviously labeled a black man.

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It’s the songs, stupid…

A lot of the time when we’re on tour people ask us about how to get signed. It’s a hard question to answer because it’s different for every band. Every band has their song writers, their role players, etc. Essentially being in a band is a gift and a curse because it’s a lifestyle based around uncertainty and instability. Relationships inherently are unstable and uncertain.

Creation is a powerful animal. Creation is the ability to turn nothing into something. It’s the big bang theory in a rehearsal room or in your bedroom. When we go into the rehearsal room to write new songs it starts with a riff or an arrangement. But that end product doesn’t work unless you build it from the ground up with a blueprint in mind. In politics they have a saying: ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’ If you want to be a successful band I have a saying: ‘It’s the songs, stupid.’ Writing good songs is the main course in the meal. Most bands offer dessert. A sweet dish that makes you sick if you eat too much of it. Our band is much different than most bands. In the beginning, we wrote dessert songs. I don’t enjoy our first two records too much because as impressive as they are from a musical standpoint we never had the idea of writing songs when we wrote those records. We wanted to write songs that confused people. We wanted people to know we could play our instruments. If you are in a band starting out that’s the worst place to start writing.

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Last week I talked about the state of metalcore and the week before that I talked about the word ‘nigger’ and how it should be used as an equal opportunity diss for all types of people. Not just for, wait for it — African-Americans. The power of the word is too great. I’m keeping it PC for now. My last two blogs seem to be getting a good response so far. I’m at odds with what to talk about this week because there’s so much we can discuss being it’s the internet and all.

OK. How about the internet?

The blog is called The Hard R for a reason. I think a lot of you can agree that the internet should be called the wild, wild internet. All bets are off here. How many times have you seen tasteless, generic comments from people on message boards who never put a name to the face or even a name to their comment. The internet helps the cowards spread their wings a little wider, which I approve of by the way. The more cowards, the more heroes.

This is the reason I came to MetalSucks to do a blog. I noticed a lot of their stories have a point of view about the state of things, and not just metal. I think that is very important. What disappoints me is the way a lot of these websites have biases that are unsustainable. A lot of these biases breed a following that hurts or helps the site. I commend Blabbermouth for cutting down the hate speak that was inherent on their site. It’s actually amazing to look at a God Forbid news story on BMouth and not see — ‘God Forbid are Niggers’. It’s refreshing. But Lambgoat, who doesn’t cover GF anymore but used to, posts a story about a death in a band and half of the kids on that site say they are happy said person has left this earth. But these kids don’t identify themselves because they are afraid of their own shadow. Can you see where the lines lay in the sand?

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Metal-Core (R.I.P) 2001 – 2008

Metalcore: Corn Flakes or Shoprite Corn Flakes?

It is over! The revolution is over!

I hate the term Metal-Core with a passion. I hate it when people say we helped create a genre of music that has an expiration date. Are we responsible for mathcore too? Or is that The Dillinger Escape Plan’s fault? I hope you’re following me. Another stupid statement: We’re starting a movement of black metal heads. No. Being black in a metal band was never weird for us, until we played Kansas for the first time. New Jersey is the shit!

I’m sick of people marginalizing every thing. When we first started back in 1996 and when we became GF in 98 this labeling BS wasn’t very important to us. We just thought we were a metal band. And guess what? We still think we’re a metal band. When I look at our coverage on YouTube for our videos there are many things that make me laugh. Yes, of course I look at what you people are saying! The whole ‘are they metal or metalcore?’ question takes the short bus cake.

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[Welcome to the new MetalSucks column The Hard R, brought to you by none other than God Forbid guitarist Dallas Coyle. Dallas has a lot to say about politics, life, music and an assortment of other topics, and lucky for you, you'll get to read all about them here. Dallas knows where it's at, and his writing tone (and guitar tone, for that matter) fits in perfectly with what we're all about here; plus he thinks "MetalSucks" is a funny name, so how could we really go wrong? Welcome to the first installment of The Hard R. More to follow in the coming weeks, months, millenia. - Ed.]

Beware the golden tongue is Hillary Clinton’s new device of division. I love this sort of thing. I just wonder how long it’s going to take for her to come out and just say, ‘Vote for me! I am not a nigger!’ Kind of reminds me of Nixon. ‘I am not a crook!’ But he was a crook.

And Hillary Clinton is a nigger. Let’s go to my Mac dictionary. It says the word “nigger” is a contemptuous term for a black or dark skinned person. I disagree. It does mean that to some people. Steve Jobs particularly. But history is pop culture. My Merriam-Webster dictionary doesn’t even include the word “nigger.” Why? Politically correct? Merriam-Webster is gay. Put it in there, Merriam. Have some balls. It does include the word “niggard.” According to Merriam-Webster “niggard” means a stingy person. So maybe we can call Hillary Clinton a niggard. Because she is stingy. She wants the presidency herself. No matter the cost. Rules? What are those, Bill? Entitlement is a stingy characteristic.

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