Tagged: Demo
A voice…from the other side
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This… just made me feel so aware of how fragile and elusive life is, and how little we know about what we’ve really got in this right HERE and right NOW sometimes…
I was searching for the e-mail address of a friend that I haven’t talked to in a very long time, and made a search in my Hotmail inbox.
One of the first things that popped up was a sender with his name written in capital letters: DAVE LEPARD
It was written in August 2002 – more than ten years ago now.
I opened it out of curiosity and, translated, this is what it said:
Fuck, I’m really jealous of your meetings with Baz and the boys. Damn. But I’ve had bit of luck with the Skids too because I have a few pals in NY who know Seb and the fact is, he’s listened to a record we did with my band CRASH DIET. Real fuckin’ Motley, Skid Row-kickass kind of music. Hmmm, oh well, I’m gonna copy this letter and try sending it to your other e-mail address as well… would be cool to hear from you. ///Lepardman, Uppsala
It dawned on me that it was from “the” Dave Lepard, who at the time was fronting the glam/sleaze band Crash Diet. The, at the time, unsigned band Crash Diet.
I remember finding one of their demos among my CD’s years ago, and I never realized that it might have any actual value, so I put it on eBay, thought I’d be lucky if I got ten bucks for it. I set the “Buy Now” price to $25 and thought that nobody would buy it. It took about ten minutes and it was sold! I regret selling it now, but needed the cash at the time. :-(
The demo came with a hand-written note from Dave with a short description of the band – and the cover was a photo-copied ugly thing…
Anyway, when I received that e-mail, he was just one of many who used to write to me. I guess I didn’t pay much attention. Some guy who was in some band. There are tons of them, you stop taking notice really, unless somebody really sticks out. It’s sad, but inevitable when you get lots of material from so many in a never ending stream….
I don’t know if I ever replied to Dave – maybe I did from my other e-mail that he said he was sending his mail to. Looks like he was really eager to get in touch with me.
“This guy” later became a glam-icon, a cult-figure, after his suicide in January 2006 – at the age of 25… Which means he was only 21 when he wrote that e-mail.
Crash Diet got signed by Universal in 2005 and got a big hit with “Riot In Everyone” – the first single from the debut album “Rest in sleaze“.
You will have to Google the whole story or get a short version here: http://www.allmusic.com/artist/crashdïet-mn0000756884
It just made me feel low, because it’s so sad that a talented guy with such drive and such love for music, chose to end his life – and so young. He had so much to live for.
And then I find his mail, which made me even more sad because I had almost forgotten that he tried to get in touch with me all those years ago.
His mail just popped up – like a voice from the other side. Amazing how these digital traces continue to live on even when the people who left them are gone.
He did get to enjoy his success for a short while, and that counts for something I guess.
Just becomes a reminder that the kid off the street who says he’s “in a band” might actually make a difference within his field someday, become important to a lot of people. This “kid” certainly did.
Rest in sleaze, Dave.
Gimme the microphone…! :)
I’ve been 100% absorbed working on a song all evening. I had almost forgotten that magical feeling, when you’re creating something, and you get to watch it grow into something really cool as a result of your work. :-)
Six years ago I felt that urge to record a song, so I called the best musicians, who I knew would be perfect for that particular song, and we spent many fun but also tough hours in the studio recording the Savatage-song “Summer’s Rain“.
I’ve posted it here before, but in case you just got here for the first time, this is the song I’m talking about:
Now I got a few top-notch musicians again, some of the best at what they do, and it feels great to be working with them. It’s so inspiring to hear all their ideas and just see their energy and enthusiasm.
All the guys have been so full of cool ideas that this thing would have turned into a 20-minute Led Zeppelin or Purple type of song, to fit it all in. We had to choose the best parts.
No details yet, there will be more about this soon enough. And when this project is finished, there is more music, more songs, more upcoming projects – this “all star”-thing will continue (with additions of other people), because it’s fun and it’s a great opportunity for everybody to play with other musicians that they maybe wouldn’t have worked with otherwise.
Oh yeah, here’s another “old sin” by the way….. :-D
Back in the very late 90’s I asked my “little brother” Chris Laney (multi-musician and producer at Polar Studios – where ABBA recorded their albums) for a song that had a summer-vibe to it, a mix between hard rock and summer-hit for the radio, kind of like Lita Ford’s “Kiss Me Deadly“. Just an upbeat, fun type of song.
He brought me “Ride The Future“.
As the extremely busy guy that he was – and is even more now, he invited me over to his own studio, Platform studio in Stockholm in 2001, to record this inbetween his mixing of a Candlemass-record and whatever else he was up to at the time.
The thing was – I hadn’t heard the song even ONCE before recording it! So, the way we did this was that he sang it to me – line by line and then we recorded it that way…! Line by line. I didn’t even know how the song ended…! :)
As the producer he is, he also wanted me to sing in a different style than I normally do, with more of a “girlie baby-voice”, which I didn’t quite like – but… I love the song! So did the reviewers, here’s one of the reviews for this one:
“Daniela is from Sweden and her debut single song demo packs a mighty punch.
Loaded with hot guitar layers and a great singalong chorus ‘Ride The Future’ purrs along in similar style to Aina, Alyson Avenue and No Doubt and is perfect for the radio.
The song does have some modern alternative loops in the mix, thus the resemblance’s to No Doubt , but with a killer “woh, woh” Europe style chorus, and great vocals you can’t fail but to love this song, I was hooked from the first play as this song has huge crossover potential.
Honestly this is a fantastic song and I really can’t wait to hear more from the delicious Daniela in the future. Interview soon.
Nick Baldrian
Fireworks magazine, UK”
I wish I could have done the vocals at some other, better time and actually nail it. This was a super-quick recording, but I was grateful that he had time to do this for me at all. The guy is one of the best songwriters I know, music runs through his veins!
So yeah – it’s time for more on Saturday. When it’s all done, I’ll reveal the people involved and how this whole thing came about…! :-))
Lost talent: Chains
I was on the phone with a friend the other day,talking about the local music scene in our home town. Two years ago there were a bunch of promising bands around here, but god knows what happened to them. Maybe they’re doing something but you never hear from them anymore or see them playing anywhere.
It’s a shame when the only way you get to hear something from local bands is if you’re subscribing to their Facebook-pages, which is pretty stupid as that’s like preaching for the choir.
My friend sighed and went: I miss CHAINS… That was a great band.
Yeah. That really was a great band. Probably one of the best I’ve seen in Malmo in many, many years. They were so young when I first heard them, not sure if they had even hit 18 at that point. I remember their drummer Martin walking over to me at the annual Sin City-party (a music party/event with invited guests and bands, run by Hasty Haze-singer Stellan). He said he was also working in Copenhagen and thought it would be cool to meet up someday.
Said and done. Went to Hard Rock Cafe and talked music for a few hours. Quite honestly, I was convinced that he only wanted to promote his band, so I was waiting for that. Well, you know… The “oh by the way, here’s our demo“-thing. Much to my surprise, he didn’t even mention the band until I brought it up and he hadn’t even brought a demo.
Shortly thereafter, I got their brand new demo-CD and figured I’d give it a listen. My jaw dropped to the floor like a rock. The song “Fool For Love” was this Def Leppard-ballad knockoff, but geeez, it was so well played, nice harmonies, unbelievably well arranged and produced for a local amateur band.
I was used to the crappy home-made demos from bands who had recorded their shit on a home computer (without knowing how to use the “home studio”-equpiment) – godawful, terrible demos where nothing was good, meaningless songs, bad vocals, bad everything. The demo by Chains blew me away.
I asked Sweden Rock if I could review it (cause it hadn’t been sent to the office first, which would be standard procedure…) and got an OK. I wrote it was the demo of the year, cause in my book, it sure as hell was.
The wheels started rolling for the guys after that. They were offered a management deal only two days after the magazine with the review came out and a few months later, they won a slot at Sweden Rock Festival – a contest where people could vote for which unsigned band they would most like to see at the festival.
We’re still laughing at how they had Kip Winger opening for them at The Rock in Copenhagen. The reason being that Kip was doing an acoustic set and it would sound strange if he went on after Chains. But still – he DID “open” for Chains. ;)
They also opened for Gotthard, which was a perfect combination. It was in the middle of the winter and I was a temporary “tour-van-driver” to the first gig in Gothenburg. People loved them. The guys couldn’t even leave after the show cause there were so many people wanting to talk to them and find out about more shows and where they could get the demo. It was a fun road trip.
I was a bummer when I heard that they were going separate ways. Drummer Martin called me before they went public with it to tell me the news. Maybe it shouldn’t have been a shock. The rythm guitarist was the first to leave cause he felt they were rehearsing too often and too long and he wasn’t willing to make that sacrifice. Then the singer left, I think probably for the same reason. A singer is always difficult to replace and so…. one day there was an announcement on MySpace that they had decided to call it a day.
http://www.myspace.com/chainsband/blog
That was a pretty sad day. Such a talented band – they were so young and I could see the enormous potential in them, they could have made it if they had only stuck it through. If they were able to do the things they did before they had even hit 20, just imagine where they could have been at 25 or 30. They already had a talent for songwriting. They just needed more experience.
And apparently I’m not the only one who misses them. They still get mentioned in conversations every now and then, different people who have seen them during the short but intense period that they were around.
The last time I saw them live was at my big birthday-party bash two years ago, and we did “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake together. Not only were they a great band, they are awesome guys as well. Such a waste that a good band like that split up. I guess it happens every day out in the world – lots of talent goes to waste. Guess we all have to enjoy what we’ve got while we’ve still got it.
[Chains and me performing “Here I Go Again” at my birthday party}
[Sound check, Gothenburg]
[Opening for Gotthard at the Brewhouse in Gothenburg]
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR 