The Thousand Yard Stare

In my last column, I answered a question from Curt Pazz, who asked me how to play “More Human Than Human,” but I didn’t have enough space to finish showing you all the riffs. So here they are…..

Apart from the main slide riff we covered, the rest of the song is basically one chord (the E5 power chord shape near the nut) played in a few different ways. FIGURE 1 is verses 1 and 2; FIGURE 2 is verse 3; FIGURE 3 is the bridge (the “…Yeah…Yeah…Yeah” part) and FIGURE 4 is the chorus. That just leaves the outro section which combines the E5 chord with an ascending slide part, as shown in FIGURE 5. Once again, I doubled all the guitars to make everything sound as fat as possible.

J.,White Zombie is my favorite band in the world. You guys are great, and I’ve been listening to you every day for years. My question is: what brands of pedals do you use? I find that the guitar part at the beginning of “Welcome to Planet Motherfucker” sounds good with an MXR Phase 90 pedal, but what are you using?

-David Yourk,

Seattle, WA

I’ve been getting a ton of gear questions lately, so next month we’ll look at my guitar gear. For now, let me say that it’s interesting that you bring up the Phase 90 (more on this in a second), but you’re way off base. To get the phased, chugging sound that starts off the song (at about 0:57 on the CD counter), I used a Dunlop Crybaby wah pedal. Actually, the only things I had at the time to create effects with were my wah and the whammy bar on my guitar, so I tended to use them a lot-I guess you could say that poverty is the mother of invention! Anyway, to play that part, I strum a three-note E octave (see Figure 6) using all downstrokes while rocking the wah pedal back and forth to slowly sweep through all the frequencies. As with the slide riff in “More Human…,” I doubled the part almost exactly to give it that kind of phased, throbbing sound.

Don’t get me wrong here-doubling a part sloppily may be good for getting weird sounds, but being able to double rhythm parts as precisely as possible is a skill you’re going to want to develop, especially if you play heavier music. Sound simple? It’s not-even if you don’t have a four- track recorder, you can get a feel for how good you are at it by taping yourself playing a riff (try a low chordy one), then playing along with what you just recorded. Does it sound like you playing along with yourself, or can you get it to blend into one big, fat sound?

Another cool trick is to try to double solos. This can produce a distinctive chorusy sound that you can’t really get with a pedal or effects processor. Check out Randy Rhoads’ work with Ozzy (the solo from “Crazy Train” is a big favorite of mine) to hear what I mean.

Getting back to your question, I have an old MXR Phase 90 pedal from the Seventies. It breaks all the time, and I haven’t taken it on the road in years, but I’ve used been using it on every White Zombie session since we recorded La Sexorcisto. I have lots of phasers, most notably an Electro Harmonix Small Stone which has a really good sound. But I always go back to the MXR. For another demonstration of why I love this pedal, check out the verses to “Blur the Technicolor” on Astro Creep 2000.

I don’t use any one brand of effects exclusively. My advice to you is to listen for what sounds good (and that doesn’t necessarily mean the most expensive thing), and make the most of what you have. If you can only afford one pedal, I’d say get a wah (I like the ones Dunlop makes, and the Vox reissue is pretty nice too). Not only will you be able to play some of the coolest riffs ever (I’m talking about “Voodoo Chile” and the “Theme from Shaft,” of course), but you can produce a wide range of effects and tones in time with the song you’re playing, which is something not a lot of other pedals can do.

Well, that’s all the space we have this time. More on gear next month!

Jeez, I thought I was off the hook. I was pretty sure I’d talked about everything you would need to know about how to form and play in your own band. But I also said that if you had any questions, I’d be happy to answer them. Apparently I’m going to be doing this for quite some time because the letters and E-mails have been coming in like crazy.

Dear Astro Ink,
I’ve already formed a band, and your column has helped me immensely. It has saved me more than once from finding things out the hard way. A few months ago, you wrote about the differences between digital and analog recording. My band isn’t signed and would like to start recording our own demos instead of paying an arm and a leg for the pro-studio route. What is the most economical way for me to go?
– Elliot Hudson
Kanaga, Canada

Elliot,

The easiest thing to do is to record in your rehearsal room with a boombox that has a built-in mic. First, try to deaden the room by hanging up blankets (you can get ’em cheap at your local Salvation army or U-Haul place) or carpet scraps, or put mattresses up against the wall to help absorb stray sound waves. Then start experimenting with the placement of the amps and drums, and even of the boombox itself. Try recording with it in the middle of the room, near a wall, on top of something, with a blanket over it, etc. You never know; you might be able to get a decent recording this way. I’ve heard several such demos that were pretty good.

If you want to go to the next level, learn recording techniques and put together a basic system that you can build on later. Get a regular consumer-grade two-track (i.e. stereo) cassette deck and a small mixer (Mackie makes a nice one). You can start with one microphone in the middle of the room and pan it to the middle for a mono recording. Add another mic and experiment with stereo recording. Add another and devote it to vocals or drums, and then add another mic every time you get a little money. Before you know it, you’ll have a versatile little demo-recording factory.

After you get six or eight mikes (I recommend Shure SM57’s for guitars and drums and SM58’s for vocals-they’re cheap, can take a beating and are used in many professional recording studios), you can experiment with isolating the amps and drums by pointing them away from each other or building baffles (sound absorbing walls) between them. This will help you get a cleaner recording and have more control over the individual sounds of the instruments.

As you learn about EQ, recording levels and mixing straight to tape, you’ll probably want to start overdubbing. With a four-track cassette recorder (I recommend the Tascam 424), you can make a live two-track recording and then add tracks to it, such as a solo (this is very cool if you’re the only guitar player in the band) or some background vocals. You can also bounce tracks (copy multiple tracks onto one to free up tracks for additional overdubs) to add even more stuff. If you want to make the jump to digital, check out the four-track hard disk and MiniDisc recorders on the market or the modular eight-track digital recorders by Alesis and Tascam. Moving up to this level means spending more money, so see what’s right for your budget, as well as your needs.

J.,
I’ve been reading your column since day one, and I think it’s so cool that somebody is relaying the real-life shit without sugar coating it. My band’s been together for a little over a year, and we’ve played at a few parties. There’s this big “Battle of the Bands” thing coming up, and we really want to sign up for it. A few columns back you said that bands should play anywhere to get used to crowds and their reactions. So, even though we know we’re gonna get our asses kicked up around our ears by those other cool local bands, should we play anyway, just for the hell of it? What would you do?
-Matt Swift
Guitarist with NONOXYNOL-9
Merritt Island, FL

Matt,

Do it! If you really have what it takes to be in a band, you’re going to get your ass kicked (literally and figuratively) every night for many nights to come anyway, so you might as well get used to it. Practicing is good, but you can’t stay in the garage forever. How did it go when you played parties? What do your friends really think?

What I would do is sign up for the battle and start practicing every day. Also, see if you can organize a party to play at with the express purpose of warming up for the “big show.” Listen to tapes of your songs, and really think about making them the best they can be. When you play the gig, look the audience straight in the eye. Oh, and one final piece of advice: never practice the same day you’re performing. It’s bad luck.

Hi J.,
I recently purchased a video with an assortment of White Zombie concert footage on it. On one song, you place your fingers on one of the frets near the nut while you jerk on the whammy bar to produce a high-pitched squeal. I can’t figure out exactly how you do it.
– Mick Ende
Gainesville, TX

Mick,

I have to admit that I copped that trick from one of my favorite guitar players – Dimebag Darrell of Pantera. What we’re talking about here is a natural harmonic-you know, when you place a finger lightly on the strings directly over the 7th or 12th fret and strum the strings and get that chiming sound? This is essentially the same thing, only a little harder to do. You need a high-gain setup and a floating whammy bar (“floating” means you can pull the bar up as well as push it down) to really make it work. Try hitting natural harmonics on all six strings just below the 3rd fret, and then yanking the bar up and down for a rocket ship kind of sound. Then try to pick out individual pitches on the G or B strings anywhere between the 2nd and 3rd frets for that super-high-pitched squealing sound. There are lots of crazy harmonics to be found down towards the nut and they’re naturally kind of soft (i.e. hard to make happen), so it will take a little practice to get them to really pop out. Try stepping on a wah pedal for more high-end scream!

I’m all outta space, so we’ll have to finish “I Am Legend” next month. We’ll also look at some riffs you’ve asked about and answer more of your letters.

When Guitar World first asked me to do a column I thought, “Sure, as long as it’s about something practical instead of all that minor-flatted-third-aolean-fifth-position scale crapola that I slept through in music theory class. How about if I share what I know (and believe me, everything I know I learned the hard way) about how to form a band? I figured it’d be hard to fill more than four or five columns, let alone 18!

We’ve talked about your van, your T-shirts, your lawyer, your publishing deal, your guitar tech, the Internet, spare batteries, MTV and your set list. There are a lot of details to worry about and a lot of business to get bogged down in, but try to remember that in the end it all comes back to the music – always. The only topic I can think of that we haven’t touched on is recording your first album. What happens in the studio? What does an engineer actually do?

It used to be that unless you were recording your band in your basement on a boom-box, you had to go into a recording studio. There were “demo studios,” which were little rooms with 4- or 8-track tape machines that were used to record demos and local radio commercials. You’d set up your gear in some guy’s basement and, for the $8 an hour he’d charge you, you’d hope you would come out with something you could play for people. Then there were the middle range studios-16-track facilities that, while probably still in somebody’s garage, were a step removed from the “hobby” stage. If you were lucky, you’d have an engineer to work with who knew what he/she was doing, the ability to isolate the instruments from each other and some decent microphones. This is where you might’ve recorded your first single or album if you were doing everything yourself.

Finally, you had the pro studios which were pretty much off-limits unless you had a major label behind you. These were the fully-staffed 24- or 48-track facilities where, at $1,000 a day or more (plus producer’s fees, tape costs, gear rental, and, keeping in mind that I’m talking about the Seventies and Eighties, whatever other high-dollar items were deemed necessary to the creative process), you would work at a frenzied pace to turn out an album as quickly as possible.

The science of recording has changed drastically since the dawn of the rock and roll era. Once upon a time, a record was a document of a live performance-a monophonic analog wave, cut directly onto a master disk on a hand-cranked or spring-driven machine. Later, disks were cut electrically, and eventually recorded to tape. In the 1940’s, people started to experiment with hooking two tape machines together for a stereo image. In the Fifties came the idea of recording two, three or four simultaneous tracks on one piece of tape (Les Paul is more than the name on a guitar; if you’re interested in recording, do some research on this guy and his ideas), and it wasn’t long before there were 8-, 16-, 24-, 48- and 72-track recordings.

At the same time, with all of this new freedom to fix parts of a recording and add things to it, the idea of what a recording was went from being a “picture” of a live situation to being its own thing-a carefully crafted piece of music that would then have to be recreated in a live performance.

In the preceding section, I said “used to be” because the process of recording has changed so much, especially in the past ten years but has it? When you hear a hip-hop or techno record, chances are that at least part of it was recorded in somebody’s home studio, maybe even in their bedroom on their computer! With digital recording (encoded numbers on tape or in a computer’s memory that represent sound, as opposed to an analog-wave model of it) and the proliferation of low-cost, high-quality gear, almost anybody can make a good sounding, low-noise recording.

Buy an 8-track digital recorder, a mixer and some microphones and you can record your own demos-and your own records, if you get good enough. So why would anyone still spend thousands of dollars in a “real studio” and get nothing in return but a tape when they could use their recording advance to buy their own studio set-up?

Here’s another question: If you could use a transistor amplifier, why would you play guitar through a tube amp? Tubes give off heat, burn out, sound different every day and are an obsolete technology-apart from guitar amps, no other appliance has been tube-powered since the 1960s. In fact, tubes are no longer even made in the U.S.! Answer: The sound. Nothing sounds like a tube amp and, as it happens, nothing sounds like an analog recording. Sure, 4- and 8-track analog cassette recorders are affordable, but the stuff that your favorite albums were recorded through isn’t-what you’re paying $700 to $2,000/day to record in a pro studio for is millions of dollars worth of gear and a staff that knows how to use it. For electronic music, where the sound source is synthetic or digital, I would recommend keeping it in that medium and build and learn how to use a home digital studio. For guitars, drums, and microphones, your best bet for making the best recording possible is still old fashioned analog tape.

More on recording, what you actually hear on an album and what a producer does next time. If you have any questions-about anything-you can write me at [redacted], or you can email me at [redacted]@aol.com. I’ll keep the column going by answering your letters.

Here are the next eight bars of the “I Am Legend” (La Sexorcisto) intro (Figure1).We’re almost done!

In the last few columns I wrote about what happens when your band finds itself at the crossroads between the do-it-yourself world and the pay-someone-else-to-do-it-because-you-can’t-keep-up world. We’ve covered a couple of ways that you can actually make money (publishing, soundtracks, album royalties) and some unavoidable ways to spend it (lawyers, managers, business managers, tour managers). This month I’ve got one more of each-adding a booking agent to your team and signing a (hopefully) money-making deal with a merchandising company.

As your band becomes more successful (and your life gets more insane), one responsibility you’re going to want to delegate is booking gigs and tours. Having less to worry about, however, isn’t the only reason to hire an agent; your agent’s contacts with venues and other artists should help get you better gigs.

Booking agents usually earn a commission from concert proceeds (usually 5-10 percent). The unusual thing about hooking up with a booking agency is that you generally won’t sign any kind of contract, and you’ll generally have dealings only with your agent specifically. If you’re a gigantic, profit-generating arena band, your tour may have tie-ins with other things (sponsorships, promotions) that require you to sign something, but on any other level, a contract usually indicates something’s up. Anyway, you shouldn’t even consider signing something unless your lawyer has seen it (and maybe your manager and business manager, too), but you already knew that from reading this column, right?

The upside to all this is that if you start with a small agency (maybe through your independent record label or a music industry sourcebook) and need to then move up to a bigger company, you’re not legally prevented from doing so in any way. Also, if you have a really good relationship with your agent and he or she moves to a different company, you, by not being tied to any agency, can follow them.

Stuff that sucks, anyone? As with publishing and just about everything else in music, the touring business has changed a lot in the past 10 years. There are many booking agencies, but there are also thousands of bands playing every night, and with music videos and the Internet competing for people’s attention, interest in live music is down. Believe it or not, there are actually quite a few bands that sell records and have hits on the radio and MTV but can’t manage to make any money on the road. Being on a major label is no longer a guarantee that you can get a tour booked or get a merchandising deal.

Ten years ago, when commercial heavy metal was the biggest thing since sliced bread, signing a record deal pretty much made a merchandise deal a sure thing. As bands who had signed million-dollar t-shirt contracts became unpopular or broke up without recouping their advances, merchandise companies went out of business-or totally restructured the way they did business. These days, new bands are offered small deals and small (or no) advances.

Early on, we talked about how to make your own shirts (and stickers, etc.) to sell on the road. This is a cool way to make money and promote your band, but suppose you can’t keep up? Suppose you’re on tour and (here’s some wishful thinking) your Houston gig is packed with twice as many people as you had expected. Not only do you stay in tune the whole show and break no strings, but your set rocks like crazy. Bang! All your shirts for the next week of shows sell out, leaving you with nothing for the next day in Austin. You call the guy who screens your shirts in his basement and he’s only got 10 shirts that are dry enough to send to you, and since it’s 2 a.m., even those wouldn’t get to you by the next evening. Been there, done that, it sucks. Just like publishing, the longer you hold out before signing a merch deal, the better the deal you’ll get. When you make the initial jump to signing with a company, a smaller one may be just right for you: some have in-house designers and artists, some don’t. Some can offer you a fairly good deal, some can’t. Sometimes a deal can even be part of your record contract, as with Blue Grape, which is Roadrunner Records’ merchandise arm.

Besides the fact that with a big merch company you don’t have to worry about designing, moving, selling, or running out of shirts, an important advantage is that you have access to retail sales-i.e. your shirts will be sold in record stores, t-shirt shops and catalogs. Although these sales don’t usually account for as much profit as sales at gigs do, they can go a long way toward paying off your advance.

The way a merch deal works is pretty much the same way a recording or publishing deal does: you sell a company the right to use your name and image and you get an advance, which you then recoup at a rate of (depending on your deal) 20 to 40 percent. Well, enough of that. Play some weird chords while I try to think of what to write about next month.

Sure could! My last couple of columns have been about ways to spend money, ways to make money, and doing things at a level that’s right for you. I’ve been writing about how a record label is like a band, and I’m gonna back that up right now by explaining exactly what happens when you sign your deal and how all this money stuff ties together.

If you’ve been thinking that when you get signed a guy in a suit will hand you the keys to a Cadillac and make all your troubles vanish, think again. Unless you’re a band that has had some success previously or are the subject of a “next big thing” – type bidding war, your life probably won’t change that much upon signing. It’s fairly difficult to get money out of a label, and, outside of signing bonuses, pretty much any money you get is recoupable. Here’s where the additional members of your team come into play. Every deal is different, and it’s up to your manager to negotiate a good one for you. You’d like to assume that you have certain “rights” when you sign: the right to some money to live on, the right to make a video, the right to spend enough money in the studio to get everything perfect, the right to buy decent equipment and the right to tour support (I’ll explain that in a second).

These things are not automatic, but are determined by the deal you cut. As far as this band or that band signing a “million dollar deal” goes, don’t believe that either. You might eventually get a million dollars (to split between the members of your band, less half or so in taxes, less your manager’s twenty percent, your accountant’s five percent and your legal costs), but spread out over the release of however many albums you’re signed for, if you don’t get dropped first.

After White Zombie got signed, I was washing dishes up until the night before we went into the studio to record La Sexorcisto. For a while I managed to live on the meager advance I got, but our release date got pushed back and I had to get another crappy job until it was time to go on tour. There’s the reality of my rock and roll dream-guitar player in a signed band, trying not to get mugged on the subway on my way home from work.

So we’re clear on what the term “recoupable” means, right? You may get money to live on and to buy gear and road cases, but you gotta pay it back. You want to go into a real studio with a good producer, and depending on recording budgets specified in your contract, you can do that – but you gotta pay that money back. (Multiply $150 an hour by four or five weeks and then add 30 percent on top of that to pay your bigshot producer!)

As far as videos go, what was a sure thing ten years ago isn’t at all true today: unless your label really believes that you’re the next big thing, chances are that you won’t make one – and why would you? Videos are enormously expensive to make (a $30,000 video is considered a bargain) and since there’s really only one major outlet (MTV), most videos don’t get shown. Recoupability for a video breaks down in different ways, once again pertaining to what kind of deal you signed, but a common practice is for the band and the label to split the cost evenly. Do you really want to spend 15 grand to maybe appear on MTV once at 4:00 a.m.?

Of course, there are lots of cool local shows and The Box, and most bands do end up making some kind of video, but I’m thinking about what may be a coming trend as the market becomes more and more saturated and heavy music gets driven further underground. Have you noticed that you didn’t see a video from the last Pantera album? That’s because they knew their music wasn’t going to fit in with what the media deems acceptable right now, and a video therefore wouldn’t be aired. They decided to rely on their fan base for sales and forego spending crazy amounts of money on a video nobody would see. Smart!

Another important part of your dealings with a record company is tour support. When you put your first album out and need to go out on the road to publicize it, the label may provide some money to help you stay out there, be it to hire roadies and a soundman, buy a van, rent a bus and pay a driver, or whatever. You guessed it: you gotta pay it back. Some bands break out on radio and MTV right away, but the other 99.9 percent of us have to try to become known through touring, and the best way to play in front of a lot of people is to open for an already popular band. This is great work if you can get it, but unfortunately, for you as a new artist who’s adding absolutely nothing to the drawing power of the tour, the pay is usually shockingly low. If you’re trying to live somewhat decently (hotel rooms, showers, somebody to help carry your bass player’s SVT cabinet which feels like it’s filled with cement), you’re going to go into debt very quickly, and tour support can keep you going until you hopefully can build up a following a start making a profit.

If you’ve developed a self-sufficient lifestyle for your band and have decided to go the major label route, you’re going to have to start giving up control of certain aspects of what you do. It’s just simple math – if you’re out on the road, you can’t print t-shirts (we’ll talk about merchandise deals next month), set up future gigs (we’ll also talk about booking agents), figure out how to feed the band and crew and where to get gas, and keep in touch with everything that goes on at your label all at once. What you can keep under control is what happens to your money. Don’t be afraid to ask exactly what’s going on, what things cost and who’s paying for what. Remember, there never has been, nor will there ever be, such a thing as a free lunch.