When you’re a musician, it almost seems like you are not allowed to be honest or have an opinion on your own. When you do either of these things, people will call you a jealous person or call you a hateful & negative person, just because you were trying to be honest about something. You’ll also get called delusional & crazy, and people will think you’re wrong about everything you say.

When you try to be honest and having an opinion, you NEVER attacked anybody or anything. It was just honesty, you being real, and people will still want to see you as an asshole.

This happens with a lot of musicians out there, not just me. I notice that when a musician tries to be honest about something, he/she is immediately the badguy. I’ve been dealing with this stuff for years.

Here’s why I think that is. It’s just that when you become a musician, you become a public figure. Your name is widely known, likely known in your area and beyond. When the truth gets out there for the world to see, it bothers other people. Your honesty gets put out there where everyone can read. Other people think they can be honest and be opinionated when they want to but when you do it, everyone thinks it’s a bad thing to do.

People think they can have opinions on bands all they want to, but when I have an opinion, their fans will stick up for them, and call me a jerk because of it. Only for having an opinion if you don’t like their music!

A musician want to believe they are honest & real, not because it’s for attention or ego. They do it because it’s their way of showing people they can be human. Yet, honest musicians are accused of being badguys no matter what happens.

This is why I’m not liked too much by some folks around the music scene, and this is why I’ve been kicked out & banned from local music forums over the years. People didn’t enjoy me telling the truth about something.

The way I see things, there is nothing wrong with being honest & real at all. I don’t get why people get pissed, but that’s okay with me. When you’re a musician, you need to be honest about things ’cause it is good for your life and your musical career & dreams. This is why you see honest musicians online.

I’ve always believed that when you tell the truth and upsetting people, you’re probably right and they just hate hearing it. No matter how positive and nice you get, people will always find something to get mad at you about, it still happens in facebook. I post in a status when there’s nothing wrong with it and someone will disagree with it and call me out on it. Same thing happens on my blog once in a while.

Don’t let a backlash or a negative response bother ya. I’m used to it and actually enjoy it when it happens. Another reason people get mad, is ’cause jealousy is a small part of it. They get a little jealous ’cause they know you had the balls to say something in front of everyone. End of story.

Kev

While I still stand by the things I say about band & musician photos, I’m not so photo crazy, but I understand why other bands & musicians do it. When you do band photos for marketing material, YOU must do it carefully and responsibly, just like you talk to people online carefully and responsibly. The photos you post on the internet. It’s there forever. No matter if you delete it or not, it’ll always come back to you and someone will leak it.

A lot of bands will make photos to try and be funny & humorous. They’ll make silly faces at the camera (which I see a lot more often), or they’ll flip the bird to the camera or they make sexual poses. Stuff like shirtless guys grabbing their crotches or female musician showing too much cleavage.

Again, nothing wrong with it, free country, but if you want your career to be on a positive note, you must look at how you release photos carefully. Some may find your photos offensive, inappropriate, a bit controversial. Some may make fun of you with those photos. Not just to laugh with you but at you. Do you want to be listed on other music websites under the Top Bad Photos list category? They will whether you like it or not.

If you don’t want to be a target of making bad band photos, you need to do it the right way. I’m sort of a photographer myself. I’m not a professional photographer, I just do it for fun and as a hobby, so I do know some photography.

You don’t need to release every photo you take. Don’t be afraid to trash the photos you’re not happy with.

When I get a band going, I’ll make sure our band photos will be normal. Nothing humorous, nothing weird, nothing too crazy. They’ll just be normal and simple band photos.

Nothing wrong with being funny and having a laugh, but music shouldn’t be about that. Photos say things to people. If you want to show your true love for music, you need to show that in your photos too, by not clowning around too much. Being a comedian will just send the wrong message to people.

Kev

A lot of people mistakenly believe that what makes you a great lead guitarist is playing super fast notes, aka, a guitar shredder. Playing super fast guitar licks and leads is great, but in my opinion, it’s not important in music. I’ve always believed that when a guitar player wants to play super fast solos all the time, just wants to be a show off. It’s like, “Hey, look at me, I can play fast”. Playing fast is just for entertainment purposes.

If you really want to impress people with your playing. Play guitar like you’re on fire and send chills down people’s spines, then you need to play lesser notes, and play a little slower. You need to make your solo sound musical. Something memorable. Make your solo sound like it’s somebody singing a song. That’s why I admire players like Jimmy Page, Joe Satriani, Hendrix, Clapton. Those guys can do that.

This is my goal that I want to achieve with lead guitar playing. I want to sound musical, instead of sounding like I’m playing a bunch of scales and exercises. You don’t want to sound like that at all. You want to play music with solos just like you do with chords.

There are too many bands out there that try too hard on solos, mostly showing off a bit way too much. You got to have passion in your soloing and it’s hard to do. You can play a long solo as long as you want to as long as you don’t bore the audience to death with it. You need to sound musical every time, if you don’t want the audience to walk away from your playing.

When your fans go see a rock or metal concert, they expect to hear good guitar solos live on the stage. So you have to take lead guitar seriously.

Believe me, the listener will let you know if you’re playing a good solo or not, no matter where you are. If someone sticks around listening to your playing, that means you’re doing something right. If someone tells you to stop playing or play something else, that means you got a lot more work to do.

You have to impress the listener if you want to be a great guitarist. You can’t call yourself a great guitar player, you have to let the listener say that to you. The people will let you know if you are great or not.

Kev

I know I don’t have many friends in local music with other musicians. I only have very few that are buddies of mine, that I actually get along with more than anyone. I won’t name them. Those few musicians that are buddies of mine, are pretty much loyal fans of my music too. They stuck with me and supported me no matter what anybody else thought and no matter what happened. Those few musicians, are not best friends, just “buddies”, that’s it. I just talk to them online all the time mostly. If I wanted to hang out with them in person, I’d go see a show of theirs, or they would go see one of my gigs.

A lot of people mistakenly believe that you should make friends with other musicians as much as possible. It seems to be a big thing going on with local music. Musicians becoming friends with other musicians. They start hanging out with them outside of music and becoming more close.

A lot of people mistakenly believe that local music is all love-able, wonderful, and kind. Well, it’s not. Not all of it, anyway.

There are plenty of musicians out there you can’t trust. You can’t trust anybody in the music scene. I’ve made friends with musicians in the past, that I thought that was my friend but finding out they weren’t after all this time. I’ve made friends with the wrong musicians in the past over the years, that I shouldn’t have been friends with. Musicians are crazy, they will do anything to make you look bad publicly out of ego & jealousy. That’s it, really. A lot of musicians will drag you into this drama and negativity ’cause they will find it entertaining to their other friends and amuse themselves.

Things like this is why I wouldn’t be in a romantic relationship with another woman who is a musician. Having a musician girlfriend is much more dangerous than being friends with other musicians. I would much rather date a woman who is not a musician.

Do I regret being friends with the wrong musicians in the past? No. Not at all. It was good publicity for my music,  for the most part and I got some gigs out of them. So I don’t feel guilty about it at all.

If you want to be friends with musicians, you must make friends with the right people. You don’t need to be friendly with all musicians that you lay eyes upon ’cause there’s too many douchebags out there, trust me. You would  know that a musician is a true friend of yours, when he/she keeps in touch with you all the time.

Don’t get me wrong. I am nice and polite to all musicians, of course, I am approachable to talk to, but I don’t make friends with every musician I see. A friendship with another musician, just happens.

With that being said, I’m not worried about making too many friends around here. I’m all about living my own life and playing my own music. There are quite several musicians around here that will try to be friends with me. I appreciate that but truthfully I don’t do music to make friends with other musicians even though it’s a nice thing and well appreciated. I’m all about playing guitar and writing the songs, that’s it. That’s pretty much what I mostly care about.

If other musicians want to live in their own fantasy world being friends with other musicians as much as possible, be it. Not all musicians have to be that way and that’s my point.

Kev

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

There are too many bands & musicians acting like they’re comedians these days. Try to act funny in front of their fans as a way to entertain their fans and entertain themselves. I see this in facebook a lot. Bands putting up jokes in their status’s or try to post up random funny photos with humorous quotes in them. They would also post funny youtube videos, to get their fans going. They would even go as far as making fun of other bands & musicians that they think that looks funny.

Nothing wrong with making people laugh and being humorous, I like a good laugh and I try to be funny myself at times, but I try to keep the humorous stuff away from the music as best as possible. You have to ask yourself, “Do you want to be a serious musician or be a comedian?”. I would want to see myself as a “serious” musician.

Don’t overdo the comedy too much or it’ll make it look like that you don’t take music so seriously as you look. Plus, not everybody appreciates bands trying to act funny and silly publicly. Some may find your jokes offensive, and pretty childish. Or worse, some may find you’re not funny at all and may think you’re stupid as hell.

So is being funny, a good career move? It all depends. Sometimes it can be good and sometimes it can be a career destroyer.

Some people think I’m funny as a way to make fun of me, and not exactly laugh with me. I understand this, and I don’t care. It’s just that when a band does this it creates a mixed reaction from the public. Some fans would go along with it to joke around about other musicians for a laugh, but there maybe some that may find it wrong and inappropriate.

A lot of times, I just wish bands would quit clowning around and just concentrate on the music, but they won’t do that. They’re too obsessed with the attention they’re getting of being funny with their fans.

I’m all about the music, writing it, and sharing it. That’s all I care about. If I wanted to joke around with people and have fun, I’d do it privately or joke around with people in person.

When bands try to be funny, it just shows that they’re bored, when they really should be working on the music. It takes away from their music and shows they’re not being productive of what they really should be doing.

Kev

You know that old saying which seems to be my favorite quote in the blog, “Leave your ego at the door”. That’s exactly what you want to do after you do become an established act and become a successful band. Like some of you know, after a band becomes well known or popular be it, either an unsigned band or indie band, their egos would get bigger after that. Acting like their big stars or something when they’re not really. When a band constantly acts like that, it is a bit of a turn off. To me anyways.

There are big & successful musicians out there, that don’t even act like it. They still act like if they haven’t gone anywhere with their music even if a lot of people are listening to their music and supporting it. This is how I would want to be. There are bands and musicians out there that don’t even give a crap about popularity or success. It just happens.

There are even famous musicians under major labels that don’t even care about fame and popularity. Why do they agree to sign on to labels even if they don’t care? Some would blame it on the money but it’s way more than that. Maybe they take their music seriously and have a message to send out with their songs. Things like that, ya know? Plus, most importantly, playing music is what these guys do. They want to be able to make a living off of something they enjoy doing.

If these bands (be it unsigned or indie), cut out their egos completely, you WILL get a lot more respect from everybody. Of course, all these bands will never take my advice. They’ll continue to have huge egos and crave all this attention they are getting from people. Success and popularity is addicting to them. They can’t get over it, and they want more.

Even if I get bigger with my music (I’m not saying it will happen, just what if), I’m not going to continue to act like a big shot about it. I’ll continue to act like a musician and not obsess over popularity. That’s just my feelings on this stuff. So no disrespect at all to bands out there.

Kev

In these blogs, you would see me talk down on band competitions like, “Battle of the Bands” and other stupid contests. Bands would do just about anything for recognition and become more established, and they think that doing all this stuff is going to help them become more well known and successful. So you ask me, “Why do Kev hate band competitions & contests?” Well, I’m about to explain why.

I know this is going to be really harsh but it needs to said. Why don’t I agree with this stuff? Simply put. It is cheating. How is it cheating? I believe it’s a quick and cheap way to get recognition & success.

A band can get well known and popular without being a part of these things at all. There are other ways of becoming an established act. How? Just make the music, put it out there and see what happens. Let the music speak on it own. When I get a band going, I would want to see how my music will do without being a part of this stuff.

Doing these competition things is just not a good career move, just my opinion. I mean, fuck. Do you really want to see your music head down that way?

Bands have become popular by not being a part of these competitions, I’ve seen it before. It has happened to a lot of bands out there. Don’t worry about contests and awards. They’re not important and nothing special. Just keep writing the music, playing the gigs, and you’ll grow a large following just by doing that. Doing these competitions makes a band look desperate, and I don’t want to look desperate. I want to make it look like that I’m enjoying this and truly being appreciative of the fans support.

Nothing wrong with doing contests, do what you want to do, but don’t do way too many of them. Contests are a huge fuckin’ waste of time, when all you should be doing is making the music and playing the gigs.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a good opportunity every now & then, but I won’t obsess with it. I don’t need to win 20 hours worth of studio time or win a slot to play on a major festival, when a good opportunity for me is just getting an actual gig booked at a club I haven’t played before. Or getting any kind of gig, is a good opportunity for me. Another good opportunity are fans supporting your music and liking it, that’s all I pretty much need. Screw all the bigger stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kev