01/17/2015
I've had a lot of fun in the last couple of months recording the Death Valley WolfRiders. Three chord songs about rocking, fu***ng, fighting, drinking and smoking, general bravado and the occasional witch-coitus (been there!).
Things I'm generally in favor of.
I listen to them and I imagine Stan Lee, Ace Frehley and Malcolm Young getting together and making songs about conversation overheard between 14 year old boys who just figured out t**s and guitars and hot rods were the greatest thing that ever happened (and aren't they?).
If you know me well, you know I say this with the utmost respect. I fu***ng love the Wolfriders. They are everything rock is supposed to be in my little Marshall amp-fried medulla oblongata. Reptile brain rock is absolutely what made me want to pick up my own guitar and bring the fu***ng rock. My first concert was Van Halen, David Lee Roth era, the REAL s**t. I was 13 years old. Kemper arena dimmed to the roar of 10,000 testosterone dripping teenagers and a lone spotlight cut through the mingled cigarette and pot smoke (we used to be free,kids) to reveal two random girls who immediately took their shirts off. ACTUAL REAL LIFE B***S. A rock star hopeful was born in that moment, FORGED maybe.
I had a guitar I plonked around on for a couple of years before that, but that night I fired up my old silvertone and hit it in fu***ng earnest. I mean, if Michael Anthony can get laid from his rock I am going to be the most prolific groupie-banger in the history of the god damn world. Charlie Sheen with a stratocaster, bring on the s*x drugs and rock n roll. And keep it coming.
Not gonna lie, I still very much desire all 3.
But something happened...
It started with Metallica's "Ride the lightning", Megadeth's "Peace Sells" (I think Megadeth was first, doesn't matter) it started with U2's "Boy" and "The Unforgettable Fire".
Socially conscious music! The voices of the disaffected channeled through the sweating beast of an intelligent long-haired barbarian at 50,000 watts of power.
Yes please...
Sign me up for that s**t homie.
In the same time frame something happened to my beloved irreverent rock n roll. "The Immigrant Song" and "Kashmir" and "Back in Black" gave way to "Talk dirty to me" and "she's only seventeen" and "Teezin Pleezin" or whatever stupid way the stupid do******gs spelled their stupid s**t.
My crazy Viking rock and roll turned into transvestites longing to party.
Now, I've got nothing against transvestites, they just don't make me want to pound down a bottle of whiskey, drive 150 mph and punch a cop, and let's face it, I NEEDED that from my music. This new glam whatever didn't make me feel alive it made me feel stupid.
Even guys who started out awesome, Motley Crue's "Too fast for love" is as raw and kick ass as any punk rock DYI that was happening at the time. Well, that turned into "girls girls girls" and "home sweet home" and an ocean of horrors I don't even want to try to remember (backup singing girls? Really?)
They even tried their hand at social awareness with "Dr. feelgood" which came out about as genuine as my last gangster rap album.
So, I wrote political songs. I wrote a song about the Tianennman square massacre, I wrote about the branch davidians and the prospect that freedom of religion is only a birthright if it is approved by our handlers. I wrote a song about an 11 year old me watching a man beat my mom and how I'd some day exact my revenge when he was old and weak and had forgotten all about me.
And I felt pretty fu***ng good about myself...
I had transitioned into left-brained music.
"This is a rebel song"
It felt important, like what I said MATTERED.
I actually got to a point of thinking that if some girl wanted to show me her bo***es while I'm trying to sing about the scars of domestic violence that she was an idiot w***e who I certainly wouldn't condescend to talk to. (Well almost, let's see them one more time)
There's a scene in "Rattle and Hum" where Bono learned of an IRA massacre in Ireland moments before taking the stage. His rage is palpable, in the breakdown of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" he admonishes the Irish in America who want to "come up to him and talk about the revolution back home"...."F**K THE REVOLUTION! That the majority of the people in my country don't want"
That moment crystallized everything that I thought music meant to me.
I felt that, I wanted to be that. I still fu***ng do.
Later Rage Against the Machine made the most succinct and important political album in the history of the world.
There was nowhere to go from there. How do you perfect perfection?
Then something happened...
I turned inward. I wrote about me. I wrote about my feelings and s**t. I wrote things that I felt and lived and loved and hated.
I wanted to feel something
I wanted to make you feel something.
I had transitioned into right-brained music.
The best musical advice I've ever gotten was from a non-musician
(Though quite an amazing artist in many ways). It was, "only write what you know". I've taken that to heart for the better part of 20 years. I'm a better writer because of it. I mistakenly thought that for art to be good it HAD to be that way. I've told musicians in my studio to "be real or go home", and I meant it.
And I felt pretty fu***ng good about myself...
Here's the thing though.
I was wrong.
I was boring.
...and I couldn't find the rock if it was punching me in the face.
My "real" and your "real" don't have to be the same thing. Who am I to judge you? Do you love it? Then do that s**t.
I don't know a god damn thing about ass-fu***ng a witch (f**k what you heard) and I'm not sure the Death Valley Wolfriders do either. But I know one god damn thing. I crank that s**t up and I like it and somewhere a young teenaged Dave pumps his fist towards heaven and screams at the pagan gods to give him his due, or he's coming after them all personally, because he's got a very refined set of skills that includes killing motherf**kers with his rock and roll.
I knew I was in there somewhere...
Thank you Wolfriders, my inner kid thanks you and my outer crusty old f**k is on a mission to find what I've lost. I'll see you in the bar where I'll be sweating over a stratocaster. I hope I make you proud.
