Pawns & Kings (Alter Bridge - VII)

[Crumbso]

I'm excited, of course, but I'm also a little trepidatious. I don't think the well is running dry for these guys any time soon, but at the same time, we're 7 albums in now. How long can they go and still put out elite-level records rather that sounding derivative and formulaic?

I'm not gonna repeat myself a lot because we've just had an almost identical discussion in the Stapp thread but it feels like the well dried out around The Last Hero to be honest and the last 'elite-level record' came around ABIII/Fortress-ish days. They desperately need to experiment and probably try out a different producer - but yeah, as we've seen it's Elvis all over again.

Hence my shorter wish list than previous albums. I don't really expect anything majorly different anymore. It's still great stuff but I feel like I know what's coming.

[Andy92]

The Metallica comparison was one I thought of, because when you write an album with the band playing in a room just kinda coming up with songs from scratch, it tends to be less centered on riffs. Guitarists like writing riffs on their own time and bringing them to the table due to the complexity some of them end up being. I remember reading an article where Kirk lost hundreds of riffs on a tape recorder once.

The AIC Jar Of Flies EP comes to mind with a record that turned out really well in just a few days with a band getting together in a room. But it all depends on the type of sound you’re going for really.

[chtimixeur]

As for Kirk's phone, I've never really believed that excuse, and neither does James Hetfield.

Kirk‘s riffs weren’t there. I know he talks about him losing his phone and things like that with the riffs, but… No, he wasn’t involved in the process.

source: https://www.theprp.com/2016/12/13/news/ ... new-album/

That’s what he claims. I’m sure he did, but it doesn’t make sense that he wouldn’t have them on his computer, either. But, whatever…
Yeah, Kirk had some riffs that he… I guess submitted – it’s not a very nice word to be used if you’re in a band.
But you know, we all submit our tapes, and we sit there and we listen to them and we pick the best stuff.
There was not much stuff from Kirk. Whether his phone was lost, or whatever…

source: https://metalheadzone.com/james-hetfiel ... ake-sense/

That’s what he tells us [laughs], so I take that as the truth. No, he submitted some riffs. I mean, not ‘submitted’… We all pile in our ideas, and they’re in the giant Metallica riff pile, and Lars is the one — since he’s not writing any of the riffs — he sifts through ’em and he’s able to identify ’em. He’s got a great ear for the riff, and he’ll hear things that I don’t hear.
...
But as far as Kirk… Kirk was not present in the studio. He was dealing with life. He had a lot of life things going on for himself, which he’ll choose to talk about if he wants.

source: https://www.metalsucks.net/2017/01/08/j ... hardwired/

If you read between the lines and know a bit about Kirk's history, you'll get the idea of what actually happened.

[Andy92]

Haha that’s pretty funny. I never heard the follow-up interviews about that story.

My only point was it’s pretty common for guitarists to sit down and write riffs for a long time and then bring a pile of them to the band when it’s time to write an album. I could be wrong but I just don’t think many bands sit around in a room writing albums from scratch. Mark’s writing method seems pretty normal to me.

Also everyone is going to have different tastes but just because Load and Reload were different doesn’t mean they were very good albums. I never listen to them, and I also never listen to post Back In Black AC/DC. Good songs are good songs, and boring songs are boring songs. Whether or not you made those songs by keeping your sound the same or changing things up a ton doesn’t automatically make the end result good or bad.

[Dolo]

My only point was it’s pretty common for guitarists to sit down and write riffs for a long time and then bring a pile of them to the band when it’s time to write an album. I could be wrong but I just don’t think many bands sit around in a room writing albums from scratch. Mark’s writing method seems pretty normal to me.

You might be right but there are still a lot of guitar players that work really well as songwriters and arrangers in general. The take info the consideration every element of the band and come up with the whole arrangement rather than 'Hey, dudes, here's a riff - chuggachuggachuggachugga - let's have the bass play exactly the same and the drums should be whatever'. Good songwriters write for other instruments despite guitar being their first one, they are creative in terms of messing around with time signatures, key changes, tempo changes etc.

One thing that struck me was Mark saying in one of the WTS interviews that he writes riffs to drum loops, which I feel robs you of all the interesting stuff the drums can do to a guitar riff. A good drummer can listen to riff and plan how to bring out all the zests within it - put accents on the snare along with open, heavy notes, play with the kick over the palm muted notes, do a tom fill over the turnaround etc. and all of that is gone when you're jamming to your regular 4/4 kick-snare-kick-snare drum loop.
Unless he only writes the riff this way and then shows it to the drummer to jam over it - that's a different story.

[chtimixeur]

You're both making valid points.

All I know is that something magical and unexplainable usually happens when a band jams together in a room. Band members bounce ideas off each other, and that often leads to some ideas you would never have thought about on your own.
Doc Coyle from God Forbid has often talked about it on his excellent podcast, and he wishes he hadn't written the last God Forbid album alone on a computer.

Now that I think about it, I think it's one of my main issues with Tremonti's albums. We all know by now that Eric and Mark "build" very precise demos on Pro-tools, and even though it shows how professionnal and prepared they are, I'm not sure that's a actually good thing for the music. It doesn't leave any room for improvisation, and in the the end, most of those songs sound contrived and lifeless. Everything's just too scripted and predictable, and I like my rock'n'roll to be more loose and unpredictable.

I could be wrong but I just don’t think many bands sit around in a room writing albums from scratch.

Well, that used to be the norm, but home studios have changed the game.
Just because technology is more convenient doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing.

Also everyone is going to have different tastes but just because Load and Reload were different doesn’t mean they were very good albums. I never listen to them

I've pretty much always though Load was the most ambitious thing they had ever done. It's not perfect by any means, but it contains some real gems. I almost always hear something new when I listen to it, which is not the case at all with their other albums.
It's also the album with the best Hetfield vocals, by far.

I also never listen to post Back In Black AC/DC.

Most fans don't. Their albums are never bad, but nowhere near as good as the 1974-180 era.
Stiff Upper Lip is an underrated gem, though, and I strongly recommend it (especially its first half).

[Dolo]

Now that I think about it, I think it's one of my main issues with Tremonti's albums. We all know by now that Eric and Mark "build" very precise demos on Pro-tools, and even though it shows how professionnal and prepared they are, I'm not sure that's a actually good thing for the music. It doesn't leave any room for improvisation, and in the the end, most of those songs sound contrived and lifeless. Everything's just too scripted and predictable, and I like my rock'n'roll to be more loose and unpredictable.

That's a great point right there. I wish those guys where able to jam for hours and record their sessions into a DAW. If you've got a cool vibe going on, you're jamming over a specific riff or a chord progression, everybody can contribute to it, I think you'll be surprised what Brian or Flip are able to do but they've never been given a voice in this band, I mean they've been professional musicians for almost 25 years, they probably know how to lead a jam session into a specific direction but because Mark and Myles are so overwhelming with their sketches, you never get to hear their output (there are exceptions of course like, the bass breakdown in Cry of Achilles, but I'm not sure if actually Brian wrote that)
Those DAW sessions can be listened to afterwards and you can pick the best bits out, work them out and work them into songs. But that's not the way AB works, I'm afraid.

[Ubik]

You might be right but there are still a lot of guitar players that work really well as songwriters and arrangers in general. The take info the consideration every element of the band and come up with the whole arrangement rather than 'Hey, dudes, here's a riff - chuggachuggachuggachugga - let's have the bass play exactly the same and the drums should be whatever'. Good songwriters write for other instruments despite guitar being their first one, they are creative in terms of messing around with time signatures, key changes, tempo changes etc.

One thing that struck me was Mark saying in one of the WTS interviews that he writes riffs to drum loops, which I feel robs you of all the interesting stuff the drums can do to a guitar riff. A good drummer can listen to riff and plan how to bring out all the zests within it - put accents on the snare along with open, heavy notes, play with the kick over the palm muted notes, do a tom fill over the turnaround etc. and all of that is gone when you're jamming to your regular 4/4 kick-snare-kick-snare drum loop.
Unless he only writes the riff this way and then shows it to the drummer to jam over it - that's a different story.

On the drum loop - this was actually something he started on Walk the Sky, we'll have to wait for interviews to see whether he continued it but it was actually an example of him trying something new to open other creative avenues. Very much doubt he told Flip to just follow along with the loop either, both he and Myles emphasised it was just something to get ideas going in their head.

Also worth saying that the band has always talked about it being a very collaborative writing process. Sure, Flip and Brian might not write any riffs or melodies, but from Blackbird onwards the songs have been written, officially, by "Alter Bridge", not "Tremonti" or "Kennedy". This might be Mark and Myles being extremely magnanimous towards the others, but it also might mean that they really all do play a big part in crafting these songs even if those two do most of the initial work - pre-production has always been a real big part of the writing process.

Have you tried Portal Reloaded? Pretty cool using time as another portal.

Is that a fan-mod? Sounds fun, may have a look. I saw that Valve put something Cave Johnson related on Steam for it recently but it needed a controller

[Timotheus]

My only point was it’s pretty common for guitarists to sit down and write riffs for a long time and then bring a pile of them to the band when it’s time to write an album. I could be wrong but I just don’t think many bands sit around in a room writing albums from scratch. Mark’s writing method seems pretty normal to me.

You might be right but there are still a lot of guitar players that work really well as songwriters and arrangers in general. The take info the consideration every element of the band and come up with the whole arrangement rather than 'Hey, dudes, here's a riff - chuggachuggachuggachugga - let's have the bass play exactly the same and the drums should be whatever'. Good songwriters write for other instruments despite guitar being their first one, they are creative in terms of messing around with time signatures, key changes, tempo changes etc.

One thing that struck me was Mark saying in one of the WTS interviews that he writes riffs to drum loops, which I feel robs you of all the interesting stuff the drums can do to a guitar riff. A good drummer can listen to riff and plan how to bring out all the zests within it - put accents on the snare along with open, heavy notes, play with the kick over the palm muted notes, do a tom fill over the turnaround etc. and all of that is gone when you're jamming to your regular 4/4 kick-snare-kick-snare drum loop.
Unless he only writes the riff this way and then shows it to the drummer to jam over it - that's a different story.

If I remember correctly, he didn't just use drum loops. He used loops in general. Synths et cetera. Which makes sense when listening to songs like Pay No Mind.

I don't really see how that would limit Flip, even if the loops were all drums in 4/4. He's a experienced enough drummer to fill in the spaces and make things interesting.

The "issue" is that this is just the way they write songs. I understand this "they need to write music together in the same room" desire, because it sounds organic and authentic, but that's just not how some writers operate. I do agree they should spend more time with the songs collectively before recording the song though.

[Andy92]

I think there’s a bit of a debate of what writing with a loop actually does to limit Flip’s creativity. Like Timo said, as long as Flip’s drum part is in the same time signature as the riff, this is where he steps in to add his own touch to it.

Writing guitar parts to a drum loop or a synth loop is so much easier to be creative with compared to writing to a metronome click. Flip is going to add his touch to the song when recording just like he always has.

And while it’s true technology has made it easier to record parts to your laptop and bring in an arsenal of material to the rest of the band that way, guitarists did this decades back with tape recorders to save their ideas.

[cheesedip1]

What songs on AB3 and WTS have strings? Says there are string arrangements in the liner notes.

Also, what are the longest and shortest AB songs?

[SHEAKENBAKEN]

Also, what are the longest and shortest AB songs?

top 5 longest
Blackbird - 7:58
Fortress - 7:36
This Side of Fate - 6:48
The Last Hero - 6:42
Cry of Achilles - 6:31

top 5 shortest
The Bitter End - 3:44
Home - 3:30
Ties That Bind - 3:19
Ahavo Rabo Taco Salad - 3:00
One Life - 1:23

[Crumbso]

My only point was it’s pretty common for guitarists to sit down and write riffs for a long time and then bring a pile of them to the band when it’s time to write an album. I could be wrong but I just don’t think many bands sit around in a room writing albums from scratch. Mark’s writing method seems pretty normal to me.

You might be right but there are still a lot of guitar players that work really well as songwriters and arrangers in general. The take info the consideration every element of the band and come up with the whole arrangement rather than 'Hey, dudes, here's a riff - chuggachuggachuggachugga - let's have the bass play exactly the same and the drums should be whatever'. Good songwriters write for other instruments despite guitar being their first one, they are creative in terms of messing around with time signatures, key changes, tempo changes etc.

One thing that struck me was Mark saying in one of the WTS interviews that he writes riffs to drum loops, which I feel robs you of all the interesting stuff the drums can do to a guitar riff. A good drummer can listen to riff and plan how to bring out all the zests within it - put accents on the snare along with open, heavy notes, play with the kick over the palm muted notes, do a tom fill over the turnaround etc. and all of that is gone when you're jamming to your regular 4/4 kick-snare-kick-snare drum loop.
Unless he only writes the riff this way and then shows it to the drummer to jam over it - that's a different story.

The "issue" is that this is just the way they write songs. I understand this "they need to write music together in the same room" desire, because it sounds organic and authentic, but that's just not how some writers operate. I do agree they should spend more time with the songs collectively before recording the song though.

This is a very valid point. I've been a songwriter and been in bands for most of my adult life and every person works differently. Sometimes, the chaos of having a whole band constantly chipping in to ideas can be wearing for certain personality types. Or maybe they have no interest in the full creative side of things and like being brought ideas that they convert into their style. Maybe they really love the playing of their instrument as a musician, rather than the writing of music.

It all sounds very romantic to think about everyone writing as a unit but as great as it CAN be, trust me here, it can also be a personally destructive nightmare that brings certain members down and breeds resentments. I'm not saying that's how it is in AB but every organisation needs to find the way that it works.

Where I do agree with other arguments is that time and sustained attention to tweak and perfect the album as a work of art is what I needed for these albums. When that's been the case, we get their best works.

[cheesedip1]

—-@Shea

Thanks Shea.


—-The last great album AB put out was Fortess.

TLH and WTS are okay. Maybe good, but not great.

[scarecrow]

reminder that art is subjective and we all just like what we like

[Blackbirddd]

Guys you can hear something from a new song at Brian's stories on instagram, he uploaded it an hour ago.

[Dan Dando]

Guys you can hear something from a new song at Brian's stories on instagram, he uploaded it an hour ago.

A Twitter link if that's easier for anyone..

https://twitter.com/FrailTristan/status ... emO-nt58Kw

Been trying to decipher the lyrics without much luck, not that you can hear much mind.

[anguyen92]

I don't know. Something about courage?

[chtimixeur]

Last day of pre-production?!

[Timotheus]

Ohh, more of these kind of teasers please