A lot of people mistakenly think it’s wrong to be an egomaniac and a bit of an asshole in music. I’ve been called both by a lot of people over the years. I’ll have to admit, that yes, I can be a bit of an egomaniac and an asshole. Do I feel bad for being that way? No, not at all.

Sometimes you need to be that way in music if you want to get success in music or get yourself heard. You need to be that way, to get yourself noticed. Do whatever it takes.

For example, in Johnny Ramone’s book, “Commando”, he had to be an egomaniac and an asshole if he wanted the Ramones to be at their best ever. Look where they are now? They’re legends. Having an ego and a bad attitude doesn’t always end a career for a musician. It can help make them bigger and more successful if you want to be a perfectionist with your music.

I have to be that way in this blog, to keep my readers interested, ’cause if I was all nice, lovable and kind, then nobody would care what I would have to say on here.

You have to be brutally honest and real about things, if you want to make it somewhere. This is why I am what I am, in this blog. While some people will find the way you are offensive and may think you shouldn’t be like that, there will be others who will admire the way you are ’cause of your honesty. Some people will respect you because you have the balls to say what you want.

While I still go on negative and harsh rants to this day, I learned in the past to leave names out of things. I won’t change who I am. If you meet me in person, you’ll still see me being an honest and real person ’cause that’s who I am.

Whatever your dreams and goals are in life, sometimes you have to be a bit of a prick to get there. It might piss some people off, but it’s worth it sometimes going through all that negativity and drama.

Whether it’s recording in the studio, at live gigs, whatever it is in your career dreams, don’t be afraid to be a prick sometimes, if you want to become a successful musician. Sometimes it takes anger and frustration, to get what you want. Sometimes you need to act like you’re better than everyone else, to make your dreams come true.

You shouldn’t have to change your personality if other people don’t like the way you act. Just be yourself in music and be human. It’s better that way.

Kev

A lot of bands & musicians mistakenly think it’s cool to be hard party’ers. Some mistakenly think getting drunk or really high will make you play better music or better live show performances. Sorry to say this but being a hard party’er is not cool in the world of music. Some bands would get drunk, wasted or high or both before the shows or after. They would even get drunk or stoned or both at band practices as well. This too can be a big career destroyer.

A lot of famous bands over the years have gotten into a lot of trouble with the drinking and the drugs. Many careers have ended because of it, and many musicians have died of it too. There are famous bands & musicians today that don’t even drink or do drugs anymore. Like James Hetfield of Metallica and Zakk Wylde, those guys were alcoholics and they sobered up.

In my opinion, drinking and doing drugs doesn’t make you a good musician. If you clean yourself up with the drugs & get sobered up with the alcohol, you could be a more focused musician. Cutting out the hard partying completely, will make you an even better player.

Bands mistakenly think you need to have fun by drinking and doing drugs just to put on a good time with music. Not true. You can still have a blast of a time by not doing that shit at all. I gave up the drinking. I used to be an occasional drinker. When I did go out drinking, I used to get drunk until I got myself puking. I don’t do it anymore though.

It maybe a free country but think how this could make you a better person and better musician if you give up the hard partying. People spend too much money on drugs and alcohol, it’s crazy.

I don’t party as much as I used to anymore. It’s stupid. I can still have a fun time playing music or listening to other bands without drinking or smoking weed. I get easily bored of partying ’cause other people want to act all stupid and weird when they’re fucked up. I would rather stay home, playing my guitar, watching movies, reading books or playing video games. Doing that stuff is way better than messing up the inside of your body.

I’m sick of the posts in facebook by bands and music fans, saying they’re gonna go to this show to get themselves wasted. Music does not always have to revolve around alcohol. Oh that reminds me, when I get a band someday, I’ll make sure the other musicians don’t do drugs or alcohol either. Maybe a few drinks is okay but as long as they won’t be alcoholics.

People need to grow up when it comes to partying ’cause they act like high school teenagers. I don’t drink at all anymore and proud of it too! Had to give it up because it’s not good for bodybuilding.

Kev

I’ve been seeing this a lot more often in social networking sites. Bands & solo artists that are unsigned making professional looking photos for their websites, show advertisements, and other promotional stuff. When I mean professional looking photos that means the musician have to play dress up, go in a photo studio and take all these fancy looking photos by a professional photographer which I’m sure charges a lot of money for photos. They claim they do this for marketing material, but I don’t buy it. I think they do it because they want to look like superstars.

I understand that photos are very important for bands & music artists. While I do like music photos myself, I just don’t care for the professional and fancy looking studio photos. It’s just silly to me, in my opinion. When you’re a local musician, you don’t need to spend all kinds of money and don’t need to go through all that.

Truthfully, if you’ve noticed over the years with my music, I never took photos seriously like most bands & musicians do. It’s not that I’m camera shy, I don’t mind getting my picture taken. I have always been focused on the music. I won’t pay a lot of money for a professional photograher to take photos of me in a studio, when you can do all that stuff for free with your own digital camera.

All those photos I’ve had over the years, they were just photos taken at the gigs. I let fans take photos of me whenever they wanted. I didn’t take photos of me at all of my gigs. Some of my gigs, somebody did take photos and some of them, no photos at all.

If I ever start putting out albums, I won’t use too many band photos either. On album covers, I would probably have art work instead of a photo of myself on the front of it. I’m a huge fan of art work. Graphic art, paintings, etc. So I would have stuff like that on my album covers.

I truly believe bands take themselves too seriously with the photos and they need to get over themselves. Especially when you’re just an unsigned musician and local. Don’t rely on photos too much with your music. I know bands love photos, they get too crazy over them because they love the attention and publicity, but truthfully, I don’t care. The only reason I agree to let people take photos of me at the gigs or even take photos with fans, is to be nice in return since the fans have been supportive of me at the gigs. If you’ve noticed I don’t go photo crazy in music, and I like it that way.

Kev