Dead Winter
STAHP
This one's a little long, so prepare yourself. Maybe I should write your paper for you 
.
Lyrically, I won't write until something hits me. I can't force good prose...it has to come out on its own. When it does, however, it's usually too much and I end up having to trim it. The other day a short story for the new album hit me and I wrote it all in one fell swoop before dinner; so for the next Skylab album, there's gonna be a little chronicle for one of the songs with two people speaking back and forth, and it's gonna go on the cd, not just the booklet for explanation.
Musically I typically lean towards the darker, more melancholy tones and scales, minor instead of major, darker modes and scales instead of brighter, etc., so that typically colors my sound. As far as writing music, just like writing lyrics, I absolutely refuse to force it. If it doesn't come naturally and flow through me like light through a pane of glass, I'm not gonna play it, song-wise. Solos and such I can tool around with to find the best accompaniment for the song, but I'm most definitely not a shredder nor do I aspire to be one. Dave Mustaine is about as fast as I wanna go. In fact, I typically lean more towards Jerry Cantrell, David Gilmour, and the like for my soloing style. It absolutely must fit the song and for my music, sweeping rarely has a place.
In Skylab I mainly write lyrics since Emanuele has the vision and the music to accompany it. He writes lyrics too but mainly for the songs from his heart and about himself. Occasionally we'll bleed over into each other's area and help each other out, but that's usually how we operate. I'm all about the end product; I don't really care if someone writes all the music as long as I like it, I like to play it, and it's good. There comes a time when you have to be honest with yourself and ask, "Would my input help or hurt the song?", and if it would take away from the song, then you just gotta STFU and play what they tell you. I have several friends who absolutely MUST get their hand into every part of their band's songwriting process, just to be able to say they did something, and you can hear it in the final product. You can hear the song take a turn for the worse. It's selfish, egotistical, and stupid.
For my other band, Them Boners (obviously an AIC cover band), when we're not playing AIC covers, we're writing our own stuff. The name will change for our own material. There's a lot of acoustic stuff so far, really sad and melancholy, but there's some really powerful, metal-tinged stuff too. Again, it has to flow through me completely and I have to hear it in my head. I typically write most of the songs with my drummer, as he plays guitar too (different drummer, not Emanuele) as well as a bit of piano. We'll collaborate with the lead guitarist who writes the solos, but I'll throw in a few melodic solos here and there as well. It's a bit more open with the songwriting and we incorporate a lot of different styles, but we all have to agree on the direction of the songs or riffs. If someone has a better idea and it goes over well with the rest of the band then we'll use it, but it has to pass the litmus test of all of us. When I hear something someone's playing, I automatically hear in my head the direction the song is going to go so I'm able to say this has to go here, let's add this, take this away, change this to this, etc. Not a lot of improvising with us either.
I'll possibly be forming another band with Emanuele since Skylab will most probably remain studio, and it's gonna be in the direction of Fear Factory/Anaal Nathrakh/Gojira. Meeting up for the first time with another guitarist and possible singer this weekend to see how it goes. I've heard some of the riffs the other guy wrote and as of right now I'm not all that impressed with it...too core-ish, chunka-chunka type stuff. Not a fan of drop tuning either, especially B tuning. I don't really like to go below C unless it's a song like Artificial, which goes simply with the synth. The B tuning chunky riff style isn't my thing; I don't like the muddiness of the sound. We'll see.
That's about it, I guess.
. Lyrically, I won't write until something hits me. I can't force good prose...it has to come out on its own. When it does, however, it's usually too much and I end up having to trim it. The other day a short story for the new album hit me and I wrote it all in one fell swoop before dinner; so for the next Skylab album, there's gonna be a little chronicle for one of the songs with two people speaking back and forth, and it's gonna go on the cd, not just the booklet for explanation.
Musically I typically lean towards the darker, more melancholy tones and scales, minor instead of major, darker modes and scales instead of brighter, etc., so that typically colors my sound. As far as writing music, just like writing lyrics, I absolutely refuse to force it. If it doesn't come naturally and flow through me like light through a pane of glass, I'm not gonna play it, song-wise. Solos and such I can tool around with to find the best accompaniment for the song, but I'm most definitely not a shredder nor do I aspire to be one. Dave Mustaine is about as fast as I wanna go. In fact, I typically lean more towards Jerry Cantrell, David Gilmour, and the like for my soloing style. It absolutely must fit the song and for my music, sweeping rarely has a place.
In Skylab I mainly write lyrics since Emanuele has the vision and the music to accompany it. He writes lyrics too but mainly for the songs from his heart and about himself. Occasionally we'll bleed over into each other's area and help each other out, but that's usually how we operate. I'm all about the end product; I don't really care if someone writes all the music as long as I like it, I like to play it, and it's good. There comes a time when you have to be honest with yourself and ask, "Would my input help or hurt the song?", and if it would take away from the song, then you just gotta STFU and play what they tell you. I have several friends who absolutely MUST get their hand into every part of their band's songwriting process, just to be able to say they did something, and you can hear it in the final product. You can hear the song take a turn for the worse. It's selfish, egotistical, and stupid.
For my other band, Them Boners (obviously an AIC cover band), when we're not playing AIC covers, we're writing our own stuff. The name will change for our own material. There's a lot of acoustic stuff so far, really sad and melancholy, but there's some really powerful, metal-tinged stuff too. Again, it has to flow through me completely and I have to hear it in my head. I typically write most of the songs with my drummer, as he plays guitar too (different drummer, not Emanuele) as well as a bit of piano. We'll collaborate with the lead guitarist who writes the solos, but I'll throw in a few melodic solos here and there as well. It's a bit more open with the songwriting and we incorporate a lot of different styles, but we all have to agree on the direction of the songs or riffs. If someone has a better idea and it goes over well with the rest of the band then we'll use it, but it has to pass the litmus test of all of us. When I hear something someone's playing, I automatically hear in my head the direction the song is going to go so I'm able to say this has to go here, let's add this, take this away, change this to this, etc. Not a lot of improvising with us either.
I'll possibly be forming another band with Emanuele since Skylab will most probably remain studio, and it's gonna be in the direction of Fear Factory/Anaal Nathrakh/Gojira. Meeting up for the first time with another guitarist and possible singer this weekend to see how it goes. I've heard some of the riffs the other guy wrote and as of right now I'm not all that impressed with it...too core-ish, chunka-chunka type stuff. Not a fan of drop tuning either, especially B tuning. I don't really like to go below C unless it's a song like Artificial, which goes simply with the synth. The B tuning chunky riff style isn't my thing; I don't like the muddiness of the sound. We'll see.
That's about it, I guess.
