Guys welcome to another episode of Metal Mastermind. I do believe this is episode #56. Here I am your Coast and Co founder, Metal mastermind Jason Stallworth and also the Co founder and Co host the great. Yanka Dallas What's up man? I love last week when we said the great Glenn Frickers. Like what? What makes you guys so great? Yeah, Glenn is a cool guy, man. Much thanks to Glenn Fricker for coming on the show last week. That was a blast. We had a lot of fun and we're
not going to talk about this. We got a completely different topic, but I just thought about that when I said the great Ken, Ken Candelas, It was so hilarious. She was like, so wait a minute, what? What makes you guys so great? What is it you know? This. Comes right out. What a, what a show that was. But Ken, this is this is one of those heartfelt conversations, man. And it's for musicians, yes, but I know a lot of you listening, or some of you listening. You may not play music for a
living. You may not even play music for money. It might just be a really cool hobby, this conversation we're getting into. Like like most of everything we talked about the the concepts are carried over into pretty much every aspect of life and we're really talking about balancing life and mainly the highs and the lows of a musicians life. You know and Ken, I'll have you talk about some of your some of your recent highs that you have and then what kind of happens
after that. So I like there's this UPS and the downs maybe not it's maybe it's not like down right. It's not like something bad happens, but you've got this high of of finishing a project like Ken, you're just finishing up, right? Or or being at a big show, playing a big show or something like that. And then or maybe you have several shows in a row, then all of a sudden it's like, OK, that's kind of done what what am
I doing now? So Ken, talk about something recent that you've gone through, man, because I know you've been working on this huge project, dude. Well, Homeric, yeah, I mean, sure. Homeric's been kind of in the works for about 10 years now and the album's done. So yeah, that's a that's a huge milestone for me. It feels more like a a life stoned than than other things for me in this regard, mainly because of so many things that happened during that time of
making this album. But yeah, I mean after after having finished the album. Actually, funny enough, my quote UN quote high was totally ruined. Oh dude. Because once I once I actually finished the album, I was told that one of my songs was actually going to get banned. Oh. That's right. I was like, oh, yeah, because, you know, just to be very transparent, you know, like my music is about World War 2, and it has, as a protagonist,
actually a Nazi soldier. So I actually had some audio that came from Nazi Germany and that was very, very controversial. So to put it bluntly, yeah, I had to axe it because otherwise I would have been banned in like 50 plus countries. Not only that, but the distributors who have put my music out would have been banned
there too. So I had to be very, very, you know, diligent and say to myself, you know, can I tell the same story without necessarily going to the lengths of offending people so much, 'cause obviously, you know, historically, you know, Adolf Hitler was a, was a notorious, you know, madman, horrible human being. So having anything related to him in any kind of art can be very, very tricky to to navigate. And I also didn't know that his stuff was also copyrighted. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So doing a little bit of background research, I actually had to discover that too. So I was I was really in the red on doing anything regarding that song. So I had to actually redo certain parts of that after everything was mastered, by the way. So I had to go back to the drawing board on certain parts and redo some of that content. And it came out actually in my opinion, different, better in some ways. But this song, it's called Sacred Order.
So whenever, when you, when you listen to it, when Homeric comes out, you'll you'll know. But that it's kind of now become like a yin Yang type of song for me where you have instead of you know what's on the other side of the pond, you have what's here at home, which is Franklin D Roosevelt, which was actually public domain stuff to use. So I use a presidential speech in order to convey hopefully the same message that I was trying to Bay, which is the horrors of this war.
So yeah, that was that was a very, very interesting moment. What's a good example of high and low? Man, you're you're done, right? So you've got this natural high. It's like, OK, that part is done, but then you're hit with this thing. It's like crap and and you've done so much work and we all know how tedious having to go back and redo something like that as and go back to the entire process and make sure you don't miss anything along the
way as well. Sometimes when you when I used to work in my corporate job, there would be like a change in a system and I'm like, OK, if you guys make that one change, we've got to test everything else because that one change could have impacted something else and we would never know. Probably not as much as the case here. But again, you're going back to the process. So I mean I can see where that can be like, oh crap, OK, I
really don't want to do this. If you're like me, once I finish a project, once I get to a certain point, I don't want to look at it again. I don't want to look back. Yeah, You know, that's very true. And I felt I had a lot of resistance to this, but I had to, I had to kind of cave in because was it worth, you know, like my pride to have my original intention for this piece, you know, prevail or, you know, did? Was it, was it worth killing the project, you know, over it?
And I I said to myself, no. Sometimes art can be dangerous, and you have to be. You have to be willing to understand that although you may view something a certain way, you know there are tons of people who won't view it the same way at all. And that's why it's actually really important to have people that you trust critique
yourself. Because if you don't, you could be doing something that completely backfires on you for a completely different reason that you didn't anticipate because you weren't thinking about that you. Were trying to think about, you know, rightfully so, the art, right? You know, I I could think of so many different consequences, you know, after the fact. But you know, doing that was very, very revealing to me that it also showed how adaptable I could be too, because.
It. Starts to bring out the creativities from your limitations, right? You know, you can only go so far with, you know, that kind of content. So you have to be very, very creative as to how you use it and making the message clear about what it is you're trying to say. So just be careful when you do any sort of historical stuff. I'm, I'm an avid fan of history and that's why I was using it, you know. But yeah, I'm not, I'm not a Steelberg in the sense where I have his same clout.
You know, I can't make like a Schindler's List, you know, kind of movie and get away with using that kind of stuff because I don't have that kind of that cloud. So you have to be very careful. And and that's not to say that, you know, we're not doing something that's not important. It's just means that, you know, we're at a different position with where we are in regards to being realistic. You know, let's just play to the reality of the situation.
And you know, if that's something that you're really adamant about, then you know, know what the consequences are and weigh your options. And you know, my my desire is really to create this cinematic opera. That is, you know, based around metal. So that's more important to me to tell that story of an adaptation of The Inferno rather than, you know, getting this one speech that was very controversial.
So I'm not going to, I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot over because of that, even if it wasn't what I originally intended. So that's a hard truth. And some musicians and artists and and composers, you know, we're we're very tied to our work. You know, we can be very, very, you know, guarded about it. But you know, the truth is you have to think about if you're going to put your music to the world.
I mean it what? It's one thing to just keep it in your home studio and never release it, you know, but which we don't advocate for. We want you to put your stuff out to the world. The world should hear your music, right? You should add value to the
world. But if you're going to add value to the world, you know, it's kind of like thinking about actually, I was watching Oppenheimer last night and, you know, you got this nuclear physicist who's figured out how to split the atom and he makes a bomb, you know, the atomic bomb. So that is, you know, the two sides of the coin, right. Where where's an advancement in science is also, you know, to the detriment of humanity. Right.
So very interesting. No. And I like the way you handled that, man. I mean, and you could have handled it a different way too. You know, there there might even be some people that might just throw in the towel on the entire thing, right. That's true. Which that I don't ever want to see any of you allow the lower points to take control like that. So you hit kind of a low here because we're talking about highs and lows.
You know you had this height you if you completed this big thing, it's like a big load off your shoulders. But now you hit the slow point, this challenge, it's like OK, well, I think I think it's all about how we react to situations we are in. So I'll say this, we're not in control of a lot of things yet at the same time we are in control of everything. That makes no sense.
But what I mean is there are some things in life that you can't help that are happening to you and around you and that are going to impact you. But we always have full and complete control over how we react to things and how we, like you said, you were challenged in the sense that you grew because you found out how much you can adapt creatively.
And that's a beautiful thing. And that's a really cool skill to have because I believe at that point, if you can, if you can adapt to situations and still maintain your creativity and like, you know, I'm not going to be upset about it. I'm just going to find a different way. I'm going to create a different way. Like we say, create your own sound. I think that's one of the most important skills you have.
And I I think you become unstoppable at that point because now you've experienced this. And you know, we've all experienced things in life where where sometimes we fell down and we stayed down. I've been there before, you know, more than once. But other times we've learned to just, you know, I'll just do this instead. I'll find, you know, find a way either around it over or sometimes through it right, or just make up a completely different way altogether.
So I think that's a really important skill to to develop. I think, you know, yeah, you're totally right, man. And the idea of not being able to be adaptable to a situation is very difficult as a musician to like, be successful in. I would say that as we create, it's easier to actually disassociate your personal self from your music.
Because when you sever that tie of like, oh, this is me, this is my music and this is who I am now, you've now what you've attached to your music is the IT, the ego, you know? So that ego, if there's a critique on your music, it's a critique on your ego too. And that becomes very difficult for a lot of people to, you know, take that criticism, you know, it's like, oh, you know, you're attacking me.
This is, you know, it's not, it's not that it's it's it's looking at something objectively because you know, you've been very close to this project, but you're, you know, your audience has never seen this before. You know, you don't know the first impression unless you hear it from somebody. And that first impression is very important.
The last thing you need is for somebody to get the wrong impression and then completely just you know what could have been a potential fan is now completely removed from from that potential because you were too stubborn, right? And what is that? You know, like what 7 sins is? One of them is pride, right? So pride can get in your way. It can. Homeric, you know, I've been blessed to be able to, you know, create something that I feel is
like my greatest work. But in the, in the, in the grand scheme of things, all of my experience with Homeric has always been it's it's not my project in my in my mind, because it's my project, you know, it's it's in my copyright, it's all that. But in my mind, it's always been, you know, for lack of a better term, it belongs to God. It it belongs to the the ether, the the universe. I'm just, it's a messenger. Kind of.
I like that man. You and I, you and I started middle Mastermind because we, you know, yeah you could have kept doing home. Eric and I could have kept just doing Jason Stallworth things and and we could have did whatever. I don't, who knows, I don't know what we would have done. But we we came together and created this course platform because we both said we, you know we wanted to create something that was bigger than just us. For sure I can, I can do some
cool stuff. You can do some cool stuff. And it's not to say that you can't do things on your own. We all can. But I don't want to do everything on my own. And metal mastermind was something that we came together. It's like we both like, hey, let's let's put our heads together and put our passions together on this and create something that's not only greater than us as an individual, but but even greater
than that. You know, with both of us together and now everybody listening to our podcast and you guys who who leave us the comments and and you know and who we connect with and everything, we appreciate you. So in that sense we've created something much greater. So I I like the way you, I like the way you portrayed this because Homeric is not just, it's not just a band, you know? No. Yes, it's a living entity.
Right. It's a living entity and you have to nurture it. You have to take care of it and you look after it because that's probably, you know, your art is the most purest thing in the world. It's so innocent in its own right, right? It's only here for one purpose, and one purpose only is it's to serve humans. And how do you serve humans? The best way, like we tap into something that's very different from, you know, like the service industry when it comes to art,
right? We we tap into the the nurturing of the soul. And you know, all the great artists of the world, a lot of them weren't appreciated until, you know, long after they were dead because people had to, you know, in the in the times that they were in, they were thinking far beyond what everybody else was thinking about. Everybody was thinking about what's currently happening now. And you know, you have guys like, you know, Dante or even Da Vinci or Homer and all these people.
I mean, take for example, Homer. Homer is a really interesting cat. He's. If you didn't know, I mean, just some basic stuff here is that, you know, Homer, this is a Greek poet. He wrote the Odyssey, the Iliad, all that kind of stuff. And Homer, you know, is notoriously known for being blind. Now, we actually don't know whether or not for sure that was actually true. We have some. Metaphor or something, right? We have some hints that he was, but yes, it could have been a
metaphor. It could have been a bunch of stuff. But one thing that's very true about Homer, that people didn't really know about it is that Homer didn't necessarily write down his poems. He actually sang his poems. He sang his poems. And the great philosopher Plato was the one who wrote them down South. And if you know Plato, right, Plato's, you know, one of the the biggest philosophers. You know, he's during all the time of like Socrates, he was his pupil and all that kind of stuff.
But Homer, he would actually sing all of his poems. That was somewhat something known as a a rhapsode. So if you ever hear like, you know, Bohemian Rhapsody, right. It's kind of like a poem, but it's a sung poem and it tells a story. And you know, that's how, in my eyes, I know if you've ever listened to a lot of any of, like, these progressive rock epics that are like super long, right? But if you, if you like, for example, yeah, Injustice for all or something ever, even.
Like, even bigger than that. You know, I'm talking like 6° of Inner Turbulence by Dream Theater, which is like 45 minutes, right? It's like an album long, basically. So you listen to something like that. And I've been listening to 6° of Inner Turbulence since I was like a teenager. So I love that. I know if I'm like the back of my hand, but why do I know about by the back of my hand?
It's because I attach certain elements and lyrics to melodic structures that happen within that album and that piece. And so part of what I think Homer's secret was was that he associated music to his poems. And so he was able to remember these super long poems by attributing another factor that helped him to remember key elements of the story, which I think we're musical. Cues the melodies and musical,
you know. Right. So I always thought that was fascinating and that's that's one of the reasons why I use the term Homeric, which is to be, you know, super epic, super grand, like in the style of Homer. But we have music, modern music to be able to do a modern Homer piece now. And that's, you know, I'm using not one of Homer's stories, but Dante Eligieri's story, who's another poet, right, Someone during the medieval ages, not during ancient Greece.
And with Dante Eligieri, you know, Dante was he, he he struggled a lot in his life and he used the Inferno as an outlet against the people he he hated. You know, and that poetry was, was beautiful. Everything is in like threes and all this kind of stuff. There's like sort of hidden messages and allegories, right? Like allegory, right, allegory, you know, which are just messages that represent a hidden meaning, right? You know, like, for example, the
winds of lust, right? Lust blows around like a hurricane because you have a lack of control in your life. To be able to do a windows picture one. To commit to to one person. So that yeah, that's a that's an example of an allegory. So yeah, I I found it fascinating. All these historical figures and and how they they really relate to this. But All in all they they serve something that lasted longer than they did. Right. Which is a legacy, a story told that is immortalized.
And I actually made a YouTube video about this one time. So how to become immortalized? And you have a Channel 4 home, Eric, by the way. Dude, I do everybody. Listening. I talk about all this kind of stuff. Yeah, all this I I kind of like to call it dark mythology because it's pretty. Much what it is, yeah. It's yeah, it's the dark side of any of this myth for for most of the stuff I talk about, demonology and all that kind of stuff too, and I find it very
fascinating. It's a lot of my inspiration for this kind of stuff, especially because I'm doing the Inferno. Yeah I've always liked to say I'm I'm I'm fascinated overly fascinated probably by the supernatural. The things you can't see and the things that go bump in the
night. You know, like one of my favorite movies is yes, I love the tune as well great maiden tune and you know when it and I know Homerica's not you know related or not anything related to this particular series or or movie in in the case that I'm talking about it in. But I love. I love what is it now I just lost my train of thought completely It's Hellboy. Hellboy is what I'm thinking of. Oh yeah. I'm thinking of Hellboy with Ron Perlman.
The Hellboy one and two. I thought they're going to make a three for some reason. I am like deeply fascinated by those movies. I love them to death man. So of course that's during the the same era and such that you're talking about with Omeric. So anyway, I'm just throwing it out there. But are you talking about making something that's that has the longevity which not a lot of things I think today have that and that's that's a conversation for another day.
But I'm. I'm going back to like the movie Back to the Future when Marty's on stage playing guitar with the band, you know, and then all of a sudden he breaks out with a Van Halen style solo on guitar. And then everybody's like and he's like, oh, I guess you guys weren't ready for that yet. Put a great correlation to what you're talking about, these these famous poets. They didn't. Their work wasn't wasn't recognized until until way
later. And I I believe and I know you believe this too, Ken, or you wouldn't be making what you're making, what you've made. But I believe if we go into things creating, just creating what's what's coming from us and not really trying to satisfy anywhere else. Sometimes you do have to pivot, like in your case you had to make a pivot which you were able to be even more creative on top
of that, right. So you're able to discern what you can change and the really intent behind the change because you want people to get the big picture of this and having that in there wasn't worth destroying the big picture, right, Because you would lessen the amount of people that were going to get this big picture and get the full impact of of your of your storyline here. So I I think we should we should focus on those things though instead of worrying about well I
need to write a hit song. I need to write something that's you know that's going to satisfy the now I think just dig deeper inside of yourself, you know and it might be crazy like even this home air project there's probably some things that sound like crazy in this whole storyline in the way you the way
you've done it right. But this is what you were drawn to do. So I want to encourage everybody listening to man go, you know, go with your gut if you've got, I believe, if you've got pure intentions, I believe that's pretty much going to tell you. It's pretty much going to lead you into the right territory most of the time anyway. Yeah, I I really think people should make the craziest thing that they could ever think of. And then you can do a reduction
of that later. Sure. But start, but start from like your your initial intention. Because obviously, like if I didn't make sacred order the way I initially did it in the beginning, it would have been a totally different song. Yeah. You know the timings and and all these different punctuations that happen in the song that they would have been completely different, you know, had I not had done my first version.
So go and do that because it's actually really important because when you do that, you might hit the mark on what it is that you're actually trying to emotionally say with your piece. That could then be the the guiding force how you you know either. If you want to call it, censor it, but you know if you want to make a reduction of what it was originally. You can still use that emotional trail to to guide you into making something that.
Works it It really is a matter of how much you know. Do you care about saying what it is that's there like could you say it a different way and still get the same effect right that that that's a that's a lyrical thing too. Sometimes we we we really like bash ourselves on you know trying to make these lyrics unique and stuff like that.
But your lyrics, they need to be relatable and if you're if you're going to be using let's say like too much wording that is maybe that goes over people's heads, you know or whatever. And it's not like necessarily your audience, but you're trying to do it because you want to use different words. You want to use a thesaurus and so which is great, I I, I use a thesaurus too. But does it does it serve the
the song right. Because if you're going to be using big words and all of a sudden you have to like now rework like rhythms and all this kind of stuff to make it fit that word just because you want to use that word, you know, you might not even be using that word, correct? I'll focus out there too, Ken. I mean, I think the intent, you always talk about intent, right? And I think the intent behind
you have to ask skills. When you ask why do I want to use these larger words, more complex words? Is it truly serving the song or am I just kind of feeding my ego here because I want people to think that right at this high level? Yeah, you got to check yourself. You do. You do have to check yourself. And I I'm OK. I I've seen people talk about lyrics. Well, don't use the word fire or desire because they're overused. Well, So what?
It doesn't mean the song is going to sound the same if you use those words in your song, right. Because you have your own melody, you have your own, you know your melodic nature, your rhythms, and you have your own message. And like you said, Ken, if these words, they may be simple, but if if they truly serve the song, then go with it. Don't let someone tell you. Well, that's that doesn't sound unique. So what? It's going to be yours, right?
It's going to be your song at the end of the day. Absolutely. And I encourage you to think about some other historical people, like for example, Martin Luther, OK, He started the what are the what are the Pentecostal church or Right, what's it called? It's not the Catholic Church, it's I think it's the Pentecostal Church or? Something yeah, I I honestly don't know to be honest with you, but I I know he has had
some time. For I'm totally blanking on exactly what it is, but I'm But I know people who are telling me they're yelling me right now and they're telling me the right answer, but they know what I'm talking about. It wasn't the Church of Satan. We know that, right? No, it definitely wasn't. But it was it. It was essentially the Church of the Lutherian Church where people they they were not using Catholicism and you know, necessarily saying that the Pope is the the most important
person, etcetera. Right. But one of the things that's really important about it, I'm bringing this up is because Martin Luther took Latin, which was written in all the Bibles and he made it in the common language so people could understand it. By doing that, he unlocked people to be able to think critically for themselves, right, And decide what their version of worshipping God look like.
And that's super important, because I, you know, when you're writing, listen from some, like, lyrics, right? You don't have to, let's say, write in this Latin that is so hard for people to decipher, right? You know, you don't need to write something too cryptic. You can write something that's plain that is very relatable but and it hits home. It could be the same, you know
message but written differently. And if you hone in on that and if it makes the impact like listen to how the words impact, that's it's really, that's where it shines. It's that emotional impact of saying certain words. And so if it's fire and desire, right, fire and desire, OK, sure is maybe a, a, a, an overused like, you know, lyric or poem,
you know, phrase. But if it were to say it in a in a certain way that evoked the words out of, you know, the emotions out of those words, then I mean, you know, then it was effective. So try to try to.
Not let too much of the stigma. Even like if it's like just your early work, like you know you're just jotting down lyrics can you just need to find something to to put in there now and you can replace it later, you should just write the cheesy stuff, write it down and then go and revise or reduce, right. Like I was saying before, write what you think you should be
writing. Like eliminate the roadblocks right there and then that you can't do certain something because somebody else did this or somebody else did that, and then you're not going to be looking original. Just write it anyway. Write it anyway. And. Yes, we do. We talk about that, it's a whiteboard session and and we tell you guys to just even write down words that don't make sense, just have a placeholder there because what it is that triggers your brain to start acting.
There's a there's a lot to be said for execution. And I don't mean like executing people and stuff, but like executing the, you know, the task, the process rather than just sitting around not doing anything and over thinking it's like, well, I just can't do anything. Put the pen to the paper or the fingers to the keyboard and just write something. And as you as you get into motion and and start taking that action, I believe things will will develop and come to you a lot faster.
Yeah, for sure. I get a lot of my lyrical inspiration from rhythm. So just even saying certain words a certain way in time, Yeah yeah, starts to trigger some other options for that. I'm also a big fan and actually I say this in metal songwriters forge.
If you are a part of that, you'll have heard this which is that try writing in a sometimes in a different language see what it sounds like and it might open more avenues on how you you, you, you approach you know your your, your lyric writing. One of the greatest things that was really helpful for me in the first Homeric album, the debut album, self-titled by the way, it was that I wrote the music and the lyrics from the origin of let's say the either the country or the region that I
wanted to emphasize. So, you know, for example, if I was writing, you know, I wrote a flamenco piece and I I use Spanish, you know, as as a big part of that, I had a a real flamenco guitarist come and play vocalist, real flamenco vocalist. And they, they did all the things like the palomas, which is, you know, the claps and all that kind of stuff. They did everything. And I wrote the metal to that, right. It was a way for me to experiment for a different
sound. But you know, I had the metal in mind, but I wrote the metal with the ethnicity. It was very cool experiment. And, you know, I just encourage people to try that. Because if you're stuck with like doing the same thing kind of over and over, you're like, oh man, same chugs here, you know, like, OK, then, you know, try, try a different ethnicity of music and or listen, you don't even have to like, write that kind of music. You can just like immerse yourself in listening to that
kind of music. Or playing a different key we have we have plenty of videos on that we we talk about that in songwriters forged or songwriting course. Yeah, I mean just that's that's great too, right. You could, you could play a different mode, you know, and try a different key structure so that it's not just, you know, minor or harmonic minor like there's other flavors. There's like Byzantine and like, you know, like all this kind of other dark stuff, the Japanese scale, like I love those.
Those kinds of things help to unlock different styles within, you know, you're playing that you already might have. You might already know how to do certain types of styles of music just by instinct, because you might have heard it in many different capacities. Like maybe it was a video game
that you you love. Maybe it was like you played a, I don't know, like Assassin's Creed, which is like this game where you're, you're an assassin and you, you travel through time to, to, to different parts of this like entire legacy of what it means to be a, you know, a human and all this kind of stuff. But you go through the medieval ages, the Egyptian age, the Viking age, all these kinds of
stuff. And, you know, in those games, right, you can hear like the sounds and the music that comes from those regions, right. So as you're playing, you know, as a as just as a gamer, I'm sure you're hearing this kind of stuff and you're getting familiar like, oh, OK, this kind of sound associates to this time period or this culture. And those kinds of things are what I'm talking about that, you
know, you can tap into. Film scoring is such a great thing that I was learning to do during my collegial years because film scoring allowed me to really dive deep into all these different kinds of styles. Because you have to, right? If you're hired to do a mystery movie, you know, you got to learn a little bit about Blues and jazz, You know James Bond, that kind of stuff. But then you want you're going to do. You know, I don't know, Tarzan.
Now you got to know how to do Congolese drums and, you know, big boomy bass with all these kinds of percussion and chakras, which are like this African shaking sort of type of instrument. It's all these different types of things kind of come into the foray of what are your tools and you learn more about how to do this kind of stuff.
I tell people all the time that the way I started to learn how to do this kind of stuff mostly was because of The Legend of Zelda. I was a teenager learning to transcribe Zelda music. I I had a finale 2006 at the time, very old, and I was just, you know, plugging away at learning notes, and I was hearing pitch, and I would try to match pitch and time with the music, right? I was transcribing it and I would train my ear to hear different types of instruments and then to write those
instruments accordingly. That was very, very tough, especially with like lower quality sample music like N64 or even before then Super Nintendo and it was like 6, it was like 8 bit 16 bit type. Regular Nintendo before that, by the way. Yes and all. I mean, that's even worse because it's just literally like a synthesizer at that point. But it was very difficult to kind of like, you know, hear the different types of of
instruments. So you know, you'd have to really use your ear and your best judgement as to what was the sound that was used in order to write that part. That was really helpful for me as a as a composer. It it unlocked a part of myself that I didn't I wouldn't have had otherwise into doing what I'm doing. It's the reason why I sort of got into music you know So I mean like transcribing and learning music theory and all that kind of stuff is really important.
I I, I did a blog post about music theory and its complexities, and you should read it if you guys haven't. But it's it really addresses why, in my opinion, music theory is one of the most powerful tools that you can have when you're actively writing music. You're not necessarily using theory to write music, it just allows you to understand exactly what you're doing and then you might have a strategy on what to
do next. It gives you a way to overcome things like writer's block and stop doing the same usual things that you are comfortable doing. Because we have those, right? You don't need music theory to write music, but you might be writing some of the same stuff a little bit too often. Especially the metal guitars. So the metal guitars in general tend to go for the lowest note possible and that's all they.
You can probably name several albums and even great albums at that, that every song starts with the same note, the same power cord. It's in the exact same key. They don't deviate. And I'm not saying you should or shouldn't do that. Look, I'm not, you know, But it it might serve you to just explore outside of that. That's why I'm I'm, I'm always telling you one way, you know, all of you guys telling you one way to to get out of that is to
play the same thing. Start playing that in a different place in the front board. Play in the key that maybe is not a guitar friendly key. You know, I grew up playing guitar in church.
I'm playing Guns and Roses and Metallica and Hair Bands on on you know the other times and I had to go play gospel hymns where I'm following the piano and I'm playing along with my mentor who he's he passed many years ago Ronnie Goodman, he was an amazing like Blues, jazz, guitars neither are which are my preferences of music along with the hymns. But I wanted to play music so I did and he taught me to play in
different keys. So you know I was like well just play bar chords and the E flat and the B flat. Again not guitar friendly keys to playing. So I just learned to make up lead patterns to those keys. I had something in my head and I'm like, OK, well I think it goes here. So I played it sounded good. If it didn't sound good, well. Well, don't play that. Play something else. That's kind of was kind of my
simplistic approach to that. But just stretching yourself a little bit, you know, not going for that low note every single time you pick up the guitar. Just play somewhere else. Doesn't matter where it is, just pick another part of the fret board. Yeah, and you got you got tons of inspiration all around the world to to be able to to write something new and different. You know, I've seen some really cool metal artists who derives most of the inspiration from
Indian music. I love the rhythms of Indian music. They've got some cool stuff, man, Yeah. Yeah, I mean like who, who would have thought and you know, like just just take that kind of stuff, that kind of rhythmic structure and and adapt it into metal. It makes perfect sense. You know, anything that's very rhythmic makes perfect sense in metal, to be honest. And like we say, there are no
rules in music guys. They're like, there's there's no rule saying you have to write a metal song just like this or you have to sing it like this or you have to have this vocal style. I would say for all that out the window, what is, what is in your heart? What is it that you want to get out that's going to be the best and most original version of yourself? And if it ends up sounding like something else, but that wasn't your intent, OK, So what? So be it. That's just who you are right
now as a musician. But I I kind of, I kind of go against trying to sound like this or trying to fit your music in a certain category. I love what Clint Fricker said about death metal vocals. He's he's like, yeah, OK, we, we know you like Cannibal Corpse and and I love death metal too. I love a lot of death metal bands. But he's like people, you know, people are attracted to a melody. So that's why in some of my
music I'll mix both. I'll I'll I do mostly clean vocals, but I'll throw some death metal stuff in there from time to time, you know. Yeah. So just a little bit, right. Yeah. Yeah. Variety's good man. It too much of the same stuff can get stale. I'm very much more on the side of you know use melodies. I've had I had a good friend of mine who is who's interested in in in in my music and said you know you should have versions of your stuff that is instrumental as well you know.
But at the core everything really comes together with vocals like that's what people pay attention to right. I mean coming back to Homer right. It's like it was the Odyssey that they paid attention to. He he may have sang the The Odyssey, but he it was the Odyssey that had people really gripping their seats for the next chapter, you know? It's a message too, man. It's a message behind it. It's just that that feel that you're, you know, you're relating with someone with that
powerful message too, man. Yeah, lyrics are super important. Vocal is the most important part. I mean in any any like production, like you talk to any mix engineer and they say what's the most important part of the of of the mix and it's the vocals. You know it's going to be the thing that that stays in the front.
Why? Because that's what we relate to because we we hear stories come out of that all the other stuff which is beautiful, you know you know like think about anything that's here's a here's another thought we remember you know and this made this I'm. I'm just speaking as because I grew up as a Catholic. I remember a lot of the songs. I remember a lot of the songs in church. Right. I don't necessarily remember a lot of the instrumentals that happened during that time
though. You know, like how many times were were the organist playing during mass and then you know, you, you, you, you know, associate all that music towards, you know whatever was happening, they would choreograph when to do certain pieces so that you know it reflected what's happening at the altar etcetera. You don't remember that stuff. You remember the the, the vibe, the essence of what it meant to be in a church.
But what do you remember is when they tell you, hey, pick up the book in front of you and sing along with us, right? And you remember and you actually recite the words, right? There's something about words, right? This engraved thing. When you read words or when you recite or when you you write
them down. Even better when you write them down it does something in your brain which which triggers memory you know and that kind of you know impact that words have on us. It it's why we have to prioritize lyrics in such a way to make them well thought, you know I like I like lyrics that are that are deeper than than
surface level stuff. I, I, I, I can't get really into a lot of surface level music, but that kind of stuff, I mean, it could be fun, but it's not, it's not going to be anything of substance. But when you, when you record and you you sing lyrics that have a lot of deep meaning and you listen to that stuff on the other side, as a consumer, I mean you can tell, you can tell the emotion of what somebody had when they were saying those words.
They might be trembling or they might be, you know, full of joy. Those kinds of emotions that come through. It's words that that that give that to us. They trigger memories too. You. Know they trigger memories. And you know, you know, yeah, words don't hurt. You know, sticking stones may break my bones. Words will never hurt me. You know, like it's the biggest lie I've ever heard. Because it's like words are the thing. They do hurt. Yeah, they.
Can't that, that, that actually, you know, hit the soul in in a different way, you know, So I, I, I look at all this and I and I say what's what, what serves the music, the song, what, what is going to be the most effective way for me to deliver my message and why is it so important? Like why does anybody care? Why should I share this?
You have to, you have to be able to answer those kinds of questions and answer them truthfully with yourself because I I believe in, in in making something that should be your greatest work. You should always strive to make your greatest work. You know, a scientist like Einstein doesn't go in you know, looking for Cheetos. You know, he's looking to, he's looking to to to create what's the the equation for general relativity. You know, like that's his greatest work.
You know, and I'm not saying we have to be Einstein, but it's like there's a Eureka moment for for these types of folks and you know, where where is your Eureka moment at night? Strive for that. Dig deeper because we need we need that. For the humanities, for Pete's sake, we need that. Yeah, and we do need something different, man. Probably has something that's worth telling. And don't sell yourself short because you're not right now in a position like other artists
are. You have your own value to add, so make it the best that you can possibly do so that you can tell the story that's worth telling. You know everybody has their own take on life. What's yours? Good stuff, dude. Well guys, we're we're kind of getting towards the end here wrapping things up. So once they thank you so much, We do have a metal song for you. So we're we're doing that like right now. But at first I want to say thank you for listening.
We appreciate you guys appreciate all the support. Don't forget to head over to metalmastermind.com. Check out the courses that we have for you get guitar courses, we talked about theory. We've got music production, songwriting, all that good stuff. Ken Dude, Metal Song of the Week. I'm going to shoot it off with a song by a band called Serenity.
The song is called Age of Glory. It's off the War of Ages album that was released in 2013. They're sort of, they sort of remind me a mix of Nightwish and Camelot and it's it's definitely kind of a of kind of a symphonic power metal style theme there, but really cool tune. There's some orchestration in the beginning of it. They've got, you know, the clean male vocals, but there's a female vocalist that comes in in
the bridge. So it's just one of those songs, you know, we just got finished talking about having key changes, having different things happening. This song has a lot of elements, so it's a great song to display for for this kind of conversation. Awesome. I I'm going. I'm going with Belfagore today. Belfagore. Love Belfagore? Their album Conjuring the Dead
is a classic. In particular, I like the song In Death, which actually comes after the song called Conjuring the Dead, which is a fantastic tune. But in Death is, I don't know, it's got this rhythmic structure to it and the guitar tone is just it's so gnarly in this album that the drums sound just gigantic. But yeah, it it's very, very cool. I I strongly recommend if you haven't heard of Belfagorde, definitely go check them out, and if you do, if you haven't
heard in depth, check that out. Two cool tunes for you guys to go listen to guys. Thank you once again for listening, for being a part of Metal Mastermind. You guys are Metal Mastermind, You're part of this community and we appreciate you. Until next time, as always, create your own sound.