Absolute Ego Dance

I just emerged from an intensive crunch session to get out the next cover story for Decibel Magazine. Normally I don’t like to do things that way, but I had to perform a number of interviews and their schedules didn’t allow me to pull everything together until a few days before deadline. Luckily, experience stepped in and it didn’t cause me much difficulty, especially once I found the narrative arc. A magazine story is called a story for a reason. No matter how brief or long the piece may be, you need to find your way in. And usually, especially in media journalism, the way in is through character. Story = character, in both fiction and otherwise. So that’s what I’m gonna talk about here.

I’ve had the honor of contributing a few cover features to Decibel Magazine over the years, especially since it’s one of the few remaining magazines that hasn’t been whittled down to quarterly irrelevance. It’s actually kind of a miracle that the publication has survived in monthly print issue form (plus tours and festivals and a book line) for over twenty years. It’s even somewhat respected, despite allowing me to write for them! I don’t know whether it’s due to Editor-in-Chief Albert Mudrian’s sheer stubbornness or the loyalty of metal listeners or the will of Odin himself, but the mag has somehow managed to survive the most brutal media landscape that’s ever existed and still maintain a high level of quality. I’ve been contributing since issue 53, which was… in 2009. Woof. A while ago.

My first cover story was on Megadeth for their album 13. I was supposed to go out and interview Dave Mustaine on his ranch, but it didn’t work out and I had to settle for a phone call. Phone interviews are the least satisfying way to do something like this. At least with the advent of Zoom you can see the person you’re talking to. Dave’s always an interesting interview – he doesn’t have much patience but once you get him talking he’ll go for hours. Anyway, that one posed a very specific challenge because I was leaving on vacation right when the interview was due. So that was definitely a crunch – I did the interviews and fully transcribed them, then cranked out the 5000 word article in like one day and hopped on a plane. Don’t recommend.

Since then, I’ve done a few here and there – Armored Saint, Gatecreeper, The 2025 Decibel Tour. My favorite by far was documenting the creation of Blood Incantation’s 2024 masterpiece Absolute Elsewhere. Probably still the best album of the past decade in my opinion, just an absolutely jaw-dropping accomplishment. The guys in the band were super fun to chat with, very passionate about music history. Also the label flew them out to Germany to record at Tangerine Dream’s old studio so it wasn’t just “we recorded the album in our home studio.” I’m still proud of that article. I think I really captured the magic of the band’s process – the thing that interests me the most as a fellow creative.

This latest article presented me with a unique challenge. Most of the previous cover pieces (Decibel Tour excepted) focused on a single band writing and creating an album – and in Armored Saint’s case, their legacy as a phenomenal band that never quite broke through. I assume Albert would be really pissed if I let the cat out of the bag as to what the article’s about, so I’ll be oblique about it until it’s announced. I think I can say that it’s essentially on a tribute album, so that tossed a bunch of my usual questions out the window. Can’t really ask much about the writing process if the songs were already written! It’s also an affair with a bunch of guest vocalists but they were never in the room together or with the main band, so I couldn’t really ask about that. Plus there was corporate involvement. Corporate involvement always makes things a little tricky, even when they’re hands-off like they were here – you know they’re gonna be very concerned about the optics of the final piece so you can’t really ask about the Satanic rites that the bands performed to summon their demonic muses. I also didn’t want it to feel like an ad for the album.

The answer, as I said at the top, involved focusing on character first and foremost. What did it mean for these people to be involved in this project? What emotional reactions did it elicit? What unique challenges and opportunities did they have putting their parts together? I’m gonna let you in on a dirty little secret about music writing: nobody cares about the technical shit unless the interviewee is really passionate about it. There are definitely gearheads out there who love knowing what amps and pedals and plug-ins were used, but I’m not one of those. I try to write so that everyone can enjoy the article. And everybody can relate to being human, I hope.

There were parts during the drafting where the article felt like a slog, and across the board they were where I had quotes about technical stuff. Those things are important for the creative process. Obviously, the tools a musician uses to craft their sound are a big deal. But the way I try to approach it is, what did the musician pick up from using those tools? Did they learn something? Did they try something different or new? How did it make them feel? Whenever I looked at it from their point of view, it provided the proverbial north star for me.

Even with the involvement of so many unconnected people, focusing on their individual stories allowed me to find the common threads that allowed me to put together a coherent narrative. That’s how you keep a reader’s interest through 5000 words that essentially boil down to “we recorded an album.”  Music journalism may seem vestigial at this point in the collapse of civilization, but like any other writings about art, it’s not really about the art – it’s about the artist, because the more I write about this stuff, the more I’m convinced that the two are inseparable despite what certain sections of the internet want you to believe.

Don't forget to follow my Kickstarter – pre-launch page should be going live next week!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/waypointcomic/waypoint-1-4

NOW SPINNING

Suzi Quatro – Quatro
Tantra – The Double Album
Saint Agnes – Your God-Fearing Days Are About to Begin
Scandal – Echo
Earth and Fire – Earth and Fire