Lamb Of God

Lamb Of God

Photo: Travis Shinn

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Why Lamb Of God Frontman Randy Blythe Is Rejecting The 'New Abnormal'

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The singer for the five-time GRAMMY-nominated metal quintet gives an inside look into the pointed social commentary behind the band's eye-opening self-titled eighth album
Katherine Turman
GRAMMYs
Jun 18, 2020 - 7:11 am

During his more than quarter-century as frontman for five-time GRAMMY-nominated metal quintet Lamb Of God, singer Randy Blythe has been on the receiving end of questions from journalists ranging from inane to tough. But in the heated spring of 2020, as conversations and actions about systemic racism become omnipresent, he is now asking himself those same "uncomfortable questions."

On Instagram, accompanying photos he shot from a June 2 Black Lives Matter protest near his Richmond, Va., home, Blythe was characteristically frank: "I'm a white man with black friends. In this time & beyond, I must ask myself what that really means—in fact, I must ask myself UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS about what FRIENDSHIP ITSELF means." He goes on to mention his musical side projects that feature Black members, as well as his time performing as "the only white dude" in his favorite "legendary black punk rock group" (Bad Brains).

But it was the issues brought to light by the killing of George Floyd, at the hands of Minneapolis police, last month that truly changed the conversation Blythe is having with himself, as it has for many. When the singer meets his Black musician friends, across every genre, Blythe says they hug and call each other "brother." 

"So what does that truly mean to me?" he wonders on Instagram. "Is it just a cheap word for me to throw around in MY world—the safety of a metal festival backstage dressing room where their faces look different than almost everybody else's there?" 

To generalize broadly, metal has largely been the province of white, blue-collar suburban males. Even Body Count, the pioneering all-black metal band who formed in Los Angeles in 1990, attracts a predominately white crowd, despite the fact that the band is fronted by gangsta rap pioneer Ice-T.

In 2013, Canadian-born, New York-based journalist, scholar and metal fan Laina Dawes published "What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman's Life And Liberation In Heavy Metal," an acclaimed book that explores race, gender and heavy metal. She recently penned an article for metal/rock magazine Metal Hammer, writing, in part, "Black folks in the metal scene are realizing that some of their non-black and white friends – folks they hang out with at a metal show, talk to online or in some cases, are bandmates – are racist. Not uninformed, or simply naive, but balls-out racist."

Read: Skin, Lzzy Hale, Reba Meyers On Women Rocking The Metal World

Blythe, 49, is not uniformed, naive or racist, yet he notes that the phrase "'I'm not racist, I have Black friends,' is a pretty common thing you hear white people say- I've said it myself," he writes on Instagram. "Again, what does that really MEAN? It's UNCOMFORTABLE for me to ask myself this question, but there are A LOT of uncomfortable conversations that must be had if things are to get better … So I cannot have black friends only when it is convenient & safe for me to do so, not if I want to look them in the eye the next time I see them."

While he doesn't call himself an activist—though he's attended Black Lives Matter protests and has documented them on camera—Blythe literally stands up for what he believes, and by dint of his fame, combined with reasoned demeanor, people take notice. 

"I let my words, actions and art speak for themselves, you know?" he tells the Recording Academy by phone from home. It's a not-uncommon refrain for artists, but it's not lip service for Blythe.

"Routes," the fourth single off Lamb Of God's new self-titled album, out Friday (June 19), draws from Blythe's experience protesting, in person, against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Its lyrics are gripping: "A black snake beneath the ground / Extinction dripping from his mouth / Poisons water, hearts of men / Who choke the sky and rape the land." The very intentional guest vocals on the track are from Testament singer Chuck Billy, who's born to a Mexican mother and Native American father of the Pomo Native Americans, an indigenous people of Northern California. 

Blythe's convictions are well-suited to Lamb Of God's articulate, informed songs and albums, which have earned the band gold records, with 2009's Wrath hitting the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Hard Rock, Rock and Tastemaker charts and No. 2 on the Billboard 200. They repeated those No. 1 positions with Resolution (2012), while the band's last album, VII: Sturm und Drang (2015), debuted at No. 3 in North America and in the Top 5 in several countries. Alongside Blythe, Lamb Of God comprises guitarists Mark Morton and Willie Adler and bassist John Campbell; drummer Art Cruz, who's performed in and toured with the band intermittently since July 2018, makes his recording debut with the group on Lamb Of God.

As the band's eighth album, Lamb Of God is an eye-opener on every level: It kicks off with the spooky, slow, gloom-to-a-scream of the cri-de-coeur of "WAKE UP" in "Memento Mori" and ends with "On The Hook," a speed-metal, mosh-pit-worthy rager about opioid addiction.

With Lamb of God, the band created excellent, pointed social commentary bolstered by equally powerful musicality, well-suited to Blythe's biggest concern: climate change. On album track "Poison Dream," featuring Hatebreed singer Jamey Jasta, Blythe rails, "Fortunes made on misery / A burning river, a black sea … Toxic temple and polluted bliss / Residuals for evil men / I never had a choice in this / sacrificed for their profit." 

"I realized that every single place I've ever lived has had water pollution," Blythe, an avid surfer, reflects on the song's genesis. "Right down the road from Jamey is some sort of manufacturing plant that spills tons and tons of shi*t into the river there. He and I talked about this, and it's against FDA regulations. But because they're bazillionaires, it's just easier for them to pay the daily fine." (The song's final lyrics capture this dilemma: "Because you're not a human being, just a fine to be paid / Just the cost of doing business in their cancerous trade.") 

Read: Meet Armageddon Records, The Record Store-Turned-Label For Punks And Metalheads

Blythe has a gift for transforming his outrage toward miscreants into words, but he doesn't want to spell things out too clearly for listeners. "I decided against doing a track-by-track thing on this album because I think it destroys all the mystery of the music; it's destroying art, in a way. I think people should look at things and take it in; I don't want my hand held." 

Rather, he opts for the way he came up consuming music: not having an artist give a raison d'être behind every musical move, not being able to look up the minutiae on Wikipedia. For Blythe, not having a "guide" during his musical coming-of-age allowed him to internalize the music.

"It let me make it my own," he explains. "If I say, 'This song is about this and this song is about this,' [then] someone is going to listen to it with that in mind. When you make art, you let it loose into the world. It becomes everyone's. I don't want to deprive anyone of that experience." 

That said, Blythe will give some hints to his passionate process: "Every single one [of the songs on Lamb Of God] relate back to my concern with the environment, from the first one, 'Gears,' because it deals with the industrial revolution, which has a massive, massive, massive impact on the environment. That's how we got here, you know?"

The song "Memento Mori"—the title means "an artistic or symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death"—refers to "the universe in the palm of your hand," which is a pretty clear description of the world's addiction to small screens. 

Once a former alcoholic, the now-sober Blythe recently battled a new addiction: the pull of endless information. 

"I'm addicted to 'more,'" the dread-locked singer says. "More of everything. More alcohol, more drugs, more books, more whatever. For me, and this is something I've had to institute again starting yesterday, I'm going down the news and Instagram rabbit hole. I found myself, and that's where ["Memento Mori"] stemmed from, doing constant consumption of news, mostly."

His digital fixation got so intense—he says he was checking up to 15 different news sources on the daily, from "super tree-hugger left" to the "weirdest alt-right" sites, in search of "some objective truth"—he had to install a VPN blocker to restrict use of certain apps and websites. 

"It was driving me mad," Blythe says, "and I was wasting too much time on Instagram in the studio while I was tracking, just mindlessly looking, under the pretext of 'keeping up with my friends.'" 

Yet, he understood that "if I'm keeping up with my friends, I'm talking to my friends," he reflects. "I'm not looking at their posts, what they did yesterday." Rather than attempting to parse a million discrete sources, or give in to his screen-news addiction, Blythe opted to reach out to those very friends. 

Read: Death Angel Drummer Will Carroll Opens Up About Fighting COVID-19: "It Looked Like I Was Going To Die"

"During this pandemic, I've wanted to stay informed," he says. "But after a while, it comes down to me being responsible for my own health and looking at things objectively, trying to make a semi-educated decision. For me, it looks like talking to my friends who are in the medical professions, in [Emergency Medical Services], who are New York City firefighters, who are scientists. Because I'm not a smart guy, I got to call my smart friends [and] say, 'Guys, tell me what in the hell is going on and what I need to do.'"

When it comes to climate change and going green in the context of the music business, Blythe doesn't shy away from the tough questions—nor does he have all the solutions. There are groups such as REVERB, a nonprofit environmental organization that works with musicians to reduce the environmental impact of their tours. But it can be prohibitively expensive for a band to truly "go green." 

"For touring, that's a frustrating thing," Blythe, who drives a 10-year-old truck he plans to replace with something more ecofriendly in the future, says. "I reached out to our management because there are tour buses that run on biodiesel. And there are hybrid buses, but they're very few and far between and very expensive to maintain. Our carbon footprint as a band is huge. It's massive, and it's distressing to me, because we're either in a plane, a train, on a boat, a bus or in a car on the way to the venue. We've taken every single thing to a venue except for a helicopter so far, and all of that runs on fossil fuels.

"It's important to do what you can and recycle and all that stuff, but I think that the bigger question that needs to be asked is, 'How are we going to move away from these fossil fuels—period?' Because on a purely pragmatic level, fossil fuels are a finite resource. Why? Because they're made out of fucking fossils, things that died millions of years ago, and it become compacted in the earth and turned into coal and oil and gas and all that stuff." 

The singer has hopes that today's younger people—the Greta Thunbergs and future generations—will put words into action. "There's a population explosion, and we're using up these resources more and more and more. That means we do not have millions of years to wait until, you know, stuff turns into oil."

"On a purely pragmatic level, on a common sense level, this is where it drives me crazy" he furthers. "On a common-sense level, wouldn't we start looking for a replacement now? And implementing that now? Oil [lobbyists] and all that stuff, they care about profit margins, and that's it. That is disgusting to me; it drives me insane." 

Fortunately, Blythe has music, especially his ultra-energetic and intense live performances, as catharsis—at least he does when there's not a pandemic. Lyrics and interviews serve as a form of activism, education and personal accountability for him, too. One of his crucial goals is to always work on keeping his "moral compass correctly calibrated." That said, he acknowledges, "I'm a human being and I make mistakes and I say stupid shit just like everybody else, but overall I'm a pretty good guy." 

"I exist outside of my band. I think that's a misconception that people have," he furthers. "I am a human being; I am Randy Blythe, first and foremost. I believe what I believe, and I say what I want to say, when I want to say it, how I want to say it, without any regard whatsoever, as long as I'm not doing harm. And as long as I am speaking the truth as I know it, because I believe the truth is empirical." 

On the Lamb Of God track "Reality Bath," Blythe urges listeners to "Reject the new abnormal," warning against slipping into "dull indifference / when horror has been normalized a cynical defense." The lyrics dig deeper into his hopes. "The strongest hearts will raise their voice against the murderous tide: No! It can't go on like this! / Millions of voices echo in the darkness, screaming: No! I won't accept this!" 

The track ultimately concludes with the man who is not an activist growling his pained and passionate truth: "The faint of heart will fall in line, but I will not submit."

Nearly 30 Years After Their Debut, Body Count's 'Carnivore' Is The Thrash-Metal Band's Most Fully Realized Album

Mastodon

Mastodon

Photo: Jimmy Hubbard

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Brann Dailor Talks 20 Years Of Mastodon, New 'Medium Rarities' Collection And How He Spent The Coronavirus Lockdown Drawing Clowns

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Mastodon founding member and drummer/singer tells GRAMMY.com about how the band's "homeless" songs led the GRAMMY-winning metal group to release a collection of rare tracks, left-field covers and B-sides
Katherine Turman
GRAMMYs
Sep 13, 2020 - 4:00 am

We can all agree that 2020 is a milestone, albeit challenging, year: There's that end-of-the-world-feeling pandemic that's been going on since March. And oh yeah, it's Mastodon's 20-year anniversary, too. 

Brann Dailor, the band's drummer/singer and founding member, has been quarantined at home in Atlanta for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. His mother, who "smokes like it's her job, unfortunately, and has COPD," Dailor says, is at risk for COVID-19, so he didn't visit her in his Rochester, N.Y., hometown. (He jokes that his mom is akin to Keith Richards: eternal.) 

Fortunately, his other family, Mastodon, ended up using the last six months in lockdown wisely. Dailor and the rest of the group—bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders, lead guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds and rhythm guitarist/vocalist Bill Kelliher—compiled Medium Rarities, a collection of rarities, covers and B-sides that marks their two decades together as a groundbreaking, GRAMMY-winning quartet that's often narrowly classified as "metal." 

In a wide-ranging conversation with GRAMMY.com, the talkative Brann Dailor waxed prolifically on everything from the "homeless" songs that led to Medium Rarities, how he drew 101 clowns in 101 days during the coronavirus lockdown, and how, after 20 years with Mastodon, he continues to focus on the now. 

Medium Rarities is a collection of, as the name implies, rarities and covers. Was the project planned before the pandemic? 

I mean, we were ruminating on it. The story of our song, "Fallen Torches," explains it. A few years ago, we bought a building in Atlanta because two of the major practice facilities in town closed down. There were hundreds of homeless bands in Atlanta, and we were included in that group. 

[Guitarist/vocalist] Bill's basement is very small. There's a little studio down there, but the four of us have been in the band together for 20 years; we're not cramming in that basement to write material.

So we had to figure something out. We started looking for a building where, maybe as a band, we could go in on a building together and build it out and end up with like 20-30 rooms. So we did that. We also put a recording studio in the bottom part. 

When we got everything totally hooked up and rockin', and we got the drums set up, we were all very excited to see [what it sounded like], what we had as far as a room. That's kind of a make-or-break: whether or not we can record an actual album in our own studio. 

I went over to Bill's basement and I had like three riffs strung together. He had a couple parts. We just started, and we put ["Fallen Torches"] together. We demoed it at Bill's, then we took it over to our place, recorded it and put all the bells and whistles on there. 

Very exciting that it sounded great!

Yeah, we were stoked about what we had done, then [guest singer] Scott Kelly had come to start rehearsals for a tour that we were gonna do together. He laid down some vocals for it, and we said, "We can just put this thing out, right? It's finished." Got it mixed and mastered and said, "Here you go, Warner Bros., check it out. We want to put this out ahead of our tour with Scott Kelly." It made perfect sense. 

Ha! Uh-oh—foreshadowing. 

So two weeks into the tour: What's going on? Where's the song? I don't know what happened. Bureaucracy. Red tape. The circumstances were explained to me at some point in time, like a year and a half ago. It has left my brain, like many other things. We had talked about it in the press, too, which is just a no-no. We thought [it] was a done deal. So we had to put it in the corner; we didn't know what to do with it. Should it go on our next album …

Even though it was meant to be a stand-alone one-off with Scott ... 

Yeah. Well honestly, with every single album, there'll be riffs and parts that we call "homeless riffs." "Remember that one riff from 2006? Let's revisit that." For instance, the very first riff you hear on [2017 album] Emperor Of Sand is a 10-year-old riff written in 2007 that was sitting in the computer for that long. 

So basically, our manager Kristen [Mulderig, president of the RSE Group,] came up with the idea. "Listen, you guys have all these songs … all your covers that only came out on a special release; seven-inches that only serious collectors have … It'll be cool to put all that weird stuff that's been hanging out for a long time all together."

So our "homeless" songs now live on an actual master and a release all together. And it was also a vehicle where we can finally release "Fallen Torches" and also say, "This is our 20th year. You've collected all this. This is all your shrapnel."

Phew. Long story, great idea. 

And that's the story of Medium Rarities, a cool thing to put out while we are in the middle of writing for our next actual full-length. We're talking about going to the studio somewhere around late September [or] October.

You did some great covers for Medium Rarities and some that seem left field, like Feist and The Flaming Lips. Do you have a favorite "rarity" from the record? 

I really like the Feist song, "A Commotion." I thought that was so cool. I want to do so much more of that [artists performing each other's tunes]. We did ["Later... with Jools Holland" in the U.K.] years ago, and that's when we met [Leslie Feist] and we met Bon Iver. It was such a cool thing because, you know, when you play [in] a metal band, you just don't get those kinds of opportunities. You don't get invited to those parties. When you're there, you kind of feel like you don't really belong, like a voyeur in a weird way. But the Bon Iver guys wanted to talk to us, they wanted to meet us, and they said, "We love you guys. We listen to Mastodon before we go on stage."

Mastodon have been nominated for a bunch of GRAMMYs, with one win in 2018 for Best Metal Performance for "Sultan's Curse" off Emperor Of Sand. I'm wondering, what is success to you? Is it an award? Or the band being featured on "Game Of Thrones"? Or …

Honestly, success for me personally is the moment that the four of us can sit together and listen to a finished piece of art that we made together. The pinnacle of success for me is when we listen back and it's tears of joy, high-fives, hugs. 

Mastodon Discuss Band Origins, New Album

A different topic: your clown drawings. I've seen some online.

I was doing a lot of drawing when everything locked down. When I was a kid, I would draw all the time. I was the kid in high school or in middle school that could draw Eddie from Iron Maiden, so everyone wanted me to draw Eddie on jackets or book covers. I'd charge them $4 because it cost $4 for a hit of acid. "If I do a book cover, I can go to [name redacted!] house, get me a hit of acid for the weekend; it'll be great."

Wow! 

The doors of perception were open and my third eye was squeegeed quite well. So I hadn't drawn anything in like 25 years. The urge to sit down and draw something started to leave me in my late-teens as my life got busier; I just stopped drawing. All my concentration was towards drumming and hanging out with my girlfriend, my friends.

But I had a couple of piles, bags of art supplies in closets in my home. I was always [like], "One day, I'm going to crack you open, I'm going to write on you!" So I drew a clown on the first day of the lockdown on my 11-by-14 paper pad with like 20 pages in it. I liked how it came out. Of course, in the beginning, it was like, "This [lockdown] is gonna go on for 14 days and then we'll be back up and running and everything will be fine."

I drew the second clown. The third clown. Then I drew 101 clowns in 101 days straight. Every single day.

Different clowns?

There were all different themes. I did a Steve Harvey clown. I did a Richard Simmons clown … I did a clown in an open casket. A clown with a balloon floating up and the balloon said, "I miss you," on it. I did two clowns hugging. I did a Texas Chain Saw Massacre clown. I did a Silence Of The Lambs clown. It was crazy.

Are the drawings online? 

I haven't posted them because I went off all my social media months ago, but you can search. A guy here in town published a couple, and Metal Hammer published some as well. I think there's going to be a coffee-table book.

But I think it was just for me. It went to a snowball of friends; more people would get added to the daily clown list. It got to where it would take me 45 minutes to send in the clowns to everyone. It went to all sorts of people: Lars Ulrich [Metallica] and Josh Homme [Queens Of The Stone Age, Eagles Of Death Metal] and all my buddies from tour who were sitting at home. Every once in a while, it'd be 8 p.m. and I'd get texts from people like, "Hey, are you OK? Where's today's clown?" I'd be like, "It's coming, hang on. I had sh*t to do today!"

Does Mastodon's 20th anniversary make you thoughtful? Do you consider it a big landmark? 

I thought it was more impressive when we were a younger band and I would know that another band had been around for that long. Like, "How do you do that with the same people?" Well, usually it's not the same people; you have [band] member changes throughout the years, which makes sense. Yet here we are: same four dudes, 20 years. 

Quite honestly, the only time I haven't really thought about Mastodon in the last 20 years was over this little pause. That was the first time in forever, 'cause I'm always thinking about it. It's always this moving motion: I'm not thinking about 20 years behind me, I'm only focused on what's happening now and what we're doing right now. The constant buzzing in my brain is about new material and what to do with it and how to make it better.

Why Lamb Of God Frontman Randy Blythe Is Rejecting The 'New Abnormal'

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Dave Mason

Dave Mason

Photo: Chris Jensen

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Dave Mason On Recording With Rock Royalty & Why He Reimagined His Debut Solo Album, 'Alone Together'

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The ex-Traffic guitarist has played with everyone from Jimi Hendrix to George Harrison to Fleetwood Mac—now, he's taken another stab at his classic 1970 debut solo album
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Jan 4, 2021 - 3:33 pm

Dave Mason is charmingly blasé when looking back at his life and career, which any guitarist would rightfully give their fretting hand to have. "I did 'All Along The Watchtower' with Hendrix," he flatly tells GRAMMY.com, as if announcing that he checked the mail today. "George [Harrison] played me Sgt. Pepper's at his house before it came out," he adds with a level of awe applicable to an evening at the neighbors' for casserole. 

Last year, Mason re-recorded his 1970 debut solo album, Alone Together, which most artists would consider a career-capping milestone. When describing the project's origins, he remains nonchalant: "It was for my own amusement, to be honest with you." 

Fifteen years ago, when the Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer started to kick around the album's songs once again in the studio, he didn't think it was for public consumption—until his wife and colleagues encouraged him to reverse that stance. On his latest release, Mason gives longtime listeners and new fans an updated take on the timeless Alone Together, this time featuring his modern-day road dogs, a fresh coat of production paint and a winking addendum in the title: Again.

Alone Together…Again, which was released last November physically via Barham Productions and digitally via Shelter Records, does what In The Blue Light (2018) and Tea For The Tillerman² (2020) did for Paul Simon and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, respectively. It allows Mason, a prestige artist, to take another stab at songs from his young manhood. Now, songs like "Only You Know And I Know," "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave" and "Just A Song," which demonstrated Mason's ahead-of-the-curve writing ability so early in his career, get rawer, edgier redos here.

Mason cofounded Traffic in 1967 and appeared on the Birmingham rock band's first two albums, Mr. Fantasy (1967) and Traffic (1968). The latter featured one of Mason's signature songs: "Feelin' Alright?" which Joe Cocker, Three Dog Night and The Jackson 5 recorded. After weaving in and out of Traffic's ranks multiple times, Mason took the tunes he planned for their next album and tracked them with a murderers' row of studio greats in 1970. (That year, Traffic released John Barleycorn Must Die, sans Mason, which is widely regarded as their progressive folk masterpiece.)

Over the ensuing half-century, Mason has toured steadily while accruing an impressive body of work as a solo artist; Alone Together...Again is a welcomed reminder of where it all began. 

GRAMMY.com caught up with Dave Mason to talk about his departure from Traffic, his memories of the original Alone Together and why the new 2020 takes are, in his words, "so much better."

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Where do you feel Alone Together stands in your body of work? Is it your favorite album you've made?

No, I wouldn't say it's the favorite, but it's sort of spread out. When people ask me, "Well, what's your favorite music? What are you listening to?" I'm like, "I don't know. Which genre do you want me to talk about?" I can't pick it out and say it's my all-time favorite. There are other things I like just as much.

I mean from your solo canon, specifically.

Well, even from a solo thing, 26 Letters, 12 Notes, which I put out [in 2008], went right under the radar, because trying to put new stuff out these days is … an exercise in futility. And that was a great album! Really good. [Alone Together] definitely had great songs on it, and it still holds up, redone. So, from that point of view, it's great. It's probably one of my faves, yes.

When you made the original album, you had just left Traffic, correct?

Pretty much after the second album [1968's Traffic], I moved over here in 1969, to the U.S., for a couple of reasons. Traffic was not a viable option for me anymore, from the other three's point of view. So I decided to come to the place where everything originated from, which is America. Bluegrass, which had its roots in Europe and everything else, is uniquely American music. So that, and probably the 98-cents-to-the-dollar taxes, too. But I mostly came here for musical reasons.

Which divergent creative directions did you and the other Traffic guys wish to go in?

Had that not have happened, all those songs on Alone Together would have been on the next Traffic album.

Read: WATCH: Dave Mason & The Quarantines Uplift With New Video Version Of "Feelin' Alright"

You had quite an ensemble for the original Alone Together: pianist Leon Russell, vocalist Rita Coolidge, bassist Chris Etheridge and others. Were there specific creative reasons for involving these musicians? Or was it more in the spirit of getting some friends together?

I knew Rita and a few other people from early on, being in Delaney & Bonnie. All those people kind of knew each other. Leon Russell was new. I think Rita was going out with Leon at the time. A lot of them were gathered together by Tommy LiPuma, who coproduced Alone Together with me. Otherwise, I was just new here. I didn't know who was who.
Many of those guys were the top session guys in town: [drummers] Jim Keltner, Jim Gordon and [keyboardist] Larry Knechtel, for instance. Leon, I had him play on a couple of songs because I'd met him, I knew him, and I wanted his piano style to be on a couple of things. He put the piano on after the tracks were cut.

Let's flash-forward to Alone Together… Again. Tell me about the musicians you wrangled for this one.

Well, that's my band, the road band that I tour with. [Drummer] Alvino Bennett, [guitarist and background vocalist] Johnne Sambataro—Johnne's been with me for nearly 40 years, on and off—and [keyboardist and bassist] Tony Patler. 

Other than the slight differences in arrangements, there's more energy in the tracks. Other than the vocals, they were pretty much all cut live in the studio. The solos were cut live, because that's my live road band. "Only You Know And I Know," "Look At You Look At Me," "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave," all those songs have been in my set for 50 years, on and off, so they knew them.

If I never had that session band on the original album and could have taken them on the road for a month, then that original album would have had a little more of an edge to it, probably. This new incarnation of it has more of that live feel. Those boys knew the songs. They didn't really have to think about them, but just get in there and play.

Aside from that, there are slightly different arrangements. "World In Changes" is a major departure, "Sad And Deep As You" was basically a live track cut on XM Radio probably 12, 14 years ago and "Can't Stop Worrying, Can't Stop Loving" is a little bit more fleshed out, which I like. The other songs pretty much stick to the originals. 

"Just A Song," I think, has a little more zip to it. It's got the addition of John McFee from The Doobie Brothers, who put that banjo on it, which is cool. Then there's Gretchen Rhodes, who does a lot of the girl background vocals on these tracks.

What compelled you to change up the rhythm of "World In Changes"?

I just wanted to see what would happen, taking one of my songs and adapting it to something else. I have a version of it cut the way it was originally done, and it was a question of whether I stick to that and put that on the album or do something exciting and totally different. To me, it came out so cool. The sentiment is timeless, and I wanted something on there that was new—an older song, done in a new way.

It seems like you still feel poignancy and urgency in these songs. Besides the fact that the album's 50th anniversary just passed, why did you return to the well of Alone Together?

Well, I started playing around with doing this 15 years ago. Mostly, it was for my own amusement, to be honest with you. But then, as it started to come together, and it was approaching 50 years since the [release of the] original, my wife and some people around me were like, "You should put this out." That's how it all led up to this.

Any other lyrical or musical changes that the average listener may not notice?

As to whether this ever reaches the ears of some new people, it would be nice. It seems unless you have some Twitter trick or social media thing happen, trying to get people aware [is difficult]. In other words, if a younger audience could hear this, I'm pretty sure they would like it. You'll probably have some people out there—the purists—but otherwise, I don't know. 

"Sad And Deep As You" is so much better than the original version, frankly. To me, it holds up. I think my vocals are better, which is one of the big reasons why I decided to redo it in the first place.

When you said "purists," there was an edge in your voice.

[Long chuckle.] Everybody's got their tastes and opinions, and that's the way that is. Same reason they booed Bob Dylan when he had The Band behind him. Some people are that way.

Even if people aren't familiar with the original album, I'd think your backstory would resonate with them. Your role in George Harrison's All Things Must Pass comes to mind.

Yeah, I played on a bunch of things. With All Things Must Pass, I pretty much just played acoustic guitar stuff in there with a group of people … George gave me my first sitar and played me Sgt. Pepper's at his house before it came out. I did "All Along The Watchtower" with Hendrix.

A lot of it's available on my website. There's a lot of cool stuff on there. On my YouTube channel, there's a great live version of "Watchtower" from the Journey and Doobie Brothers tour we did four years ago. But we'd be here for another half hour or more if we went over everybody I appeared with and everything I've been on.

Read: It's Not Always Going To Be This Grey: George Harrison's 'All Things Must Pass' At 50

Regarding Hendrix, that's an experience that not many other people can say they've had.

Very few. Very few. There are a lot of great guitar players out there, but there are no more Jimi Hendrixes.

You also played with Fleetwood Mac in the '90s, yeah?

I was with Fleetwood Mac from '94 to '96. We did an album called Time, which sort of went under the radar somehow. It didn't get promoted.

Why was that?

I don't know. It's not a bad album, but Warner Bros. was trying to force the issue of getting Stevie Nicks and whatshisname back in there.

Lindsey Buckingham?

Yeah, Lindsey. Christine McVie was on the album, but she didn't go on the road with us. It was kind of weird. The only original members were Mick [Fleetwood] and John [McVie]. It was a little bit like a Fleetwood Mac cover band, but it was cool. It was fun to do for a couple of years, but then they got back together again. C'est la vie. There you go.

Anything else you want to express about reimagining Alone Together 50 years down the road?

I don't think it's just the fact that it's my stuff because there are certain songs I've done that I would not address again. But the thing about those songs is that they all have very timeless themes. "World In Changes," I mean, that could have been written a month ago. To redo them doesn't seem that out of place to me.

Director John McDermott Talks New Jimi Hendrix Documentary, 'Music, Money, Madness … Jimi Hendrix in Maui'

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Johnny Flynn as David Bowie in Gabriel Range's 'STARDUST'

Johnny Flynn as David Bowie in Gabriel Range's STARDUST

Photo Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release.

 
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Marc Maron And Johnny Flynn On Why 'Stardust' Is A Cinematic Space Oddity, Not A David Bowie Biopic

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One of the most interesting music films of the year, 'Stardust' has zero aspirations to embody the big Bowie biopic daydream, instead offering an intriguing, arty interpretation of an era that ultimately helped shape the sound and style of Ziggy Stardust
Lina Lecaro
GRAMMYs
Dec 30, 2020 - 3:49 pm

The hunger for a David Bowie biopic has intensified in the four years since the icon's death and in the wake of the breakout box office success of music films like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman. But despite its perfect title and marketing that might suggest otherwise, Stardust had zero aspirations to embody the big Bowie biopic daydream. 

Released last month (Nov. 25) on multiple streaming platforms, Stardust is an intriguing, somewhat arty interpretation encompassing a short but influential window of time before Bowie broke big. The film follows a young Bowie, played by British musician/actor Johnny Flynn, in his pre-Ziggy, boho-rock days. Aided by Ron Oberman, played by comic and podcast king Marc Maron, the record company PR guy tasked with promoting the singer in the U.S. at the start of his career, Bowie takes an ill-fated press trip to America in 1971 that ultimately helps shape the sound and style of one of music's most revered figures: Ziggy Stardust.

Despite a disclaimer that states "what follows is (mostly) fiction" at the start of Stardust, the film's basic premise is based on true facts. Bowie did have to stay with the real Oberman and his family in Maryland before embarking on a bare-bones road trip to promote his music, and due to visa problems, the singer was not able to play any substantial venues or even play his own music during the tour. He was clearly struggling with some identity issues as an artist before he evolved into the Starman, and as depicted in the film, his relationship with his overbearing wife, Angie (Jena Malone), became more and more strained as he grew as an artist, fleshing out his flamboyant, cosmic persona and music.  

While Stardust is indeed a music film, the music logistics for the movie were no easy road. Last February, Bowie's son, Duncan Jones, announced on Twitter that he and his family would not authorize the use of his dad's music for the film. Consequently, fans quickly denounced the project. But the film's writer/director, Gabriel Range, had very specific intentions, and music wasn't necessarily essential to explore them. 

"He didn't want to give us the music, but that's great because it provided us more freedom," Maron said during a joint interview with Flynn before the release of Stardust. "We couldn't afford it anyway. The idea that we can't interpret this moment in David Bowie's life out of respect is ridiculous. David was a public figure who contributed so much to artistic innovation, to creativity in his work, and it's been out there in the world for 50 years. This idea that it's off-limits by any means to express interpretation of this man is ridiculous. They are protecting the brand more than they are protecting the person."

For his part, Flynn, who in the film sings covers Bowie often played live and does a glammy new song he wrote for Stardust called "Good Ol' Jane," didn't take the lead role lightly. 

"He's a big hero to me in lots of ways," he explained. "I passed on an earlier version of the script because I thought this is not a story that needs to be out there; it was more like the jukebox musicals that we've seen out there recently."

Flynn, an acclaimed musician in his own right and a promising actor, reconsidered when Range, working alongside writer Christopher Bell, came on board and took the film in a new direction. 

"He knew Bowie really well and he said, 'We just want to look at this tiny, tiny moment of his life," the actor explained. "I went to see the “David Bowie Is" exhibition in Brooklyn, and I was walking around the exhibit. It was so interesting. He was desperate to escape this sense of mediocrity and what he thought of as banality. [Range is] always looking for interesting truths about situations that change people's opinions of what a certain time might have been. We took things step by step, and it felt right at every step. This is such a small film and it doesn't negate or tread on the toes of a big, estate-backed film about Bowie. This can exist, too."

Indeed, it can. What's explored in Stardust would have probably taken about 10 minutes in a traditional biopic. Though its limited scope and intimate approach is far from the grandiose, glam-rock affair some might have hoped for, the film has many endearing moments music fans, if not the hardcore Bowie base awaiting a blockbuster life exploration, can enjoy. There's a nice chemistry between the two leads, for one, and in many ways, the film is a classic buddy flick/road trip, quasi-comedy featuring two opposites coming together and learning from each other. 

David Bowie's '…Ziggy Stardust…' | For The Record

Of course, the monumental undertaking of tackling a beloved and legendary figure like Bowie on film is a big risk for any actor or creative. The haters were not silent. 

Naysayers pointed to Flynn's lack of facial resemblance to Bowie, but the actor wasn't going for a gauche impersonation. 

"I tried on the wig, then we tried some songs and some scenes, just to see how we could get on with that. And each step that we took just felt like encouragement to move to the next," Flynn said of playing Bowie in the film. "I didn't know if the story we were trying to tell would work, but it felt right. And this era is the only David that I would have been happy with portraying."  

Read: "Space Oddity": 7 Facts About David Bowie's Cosmic Ballad | GRAMMY Hall Of Fame

Rock movies are often in danger of coming off as corny or cliche. Stardust, and the cast and creative team behind it, mostly avoided this by keeping the narrative ambitions specific and the acting fairly measured. 

As for the fan community and their critiques of the film, Maron is pragmatic. "I dealt with that with the Marvel idiots when I did Joker, too," he shared. "The nature of fanaticism and the idea of fans and that kind of religious dogma that goes around what they think is honoring their 'God' is really problematic in terms of moving art forward in a lot of ways."

Flynn, on the other hand, took the feedback as an indicator of Bowie's impact and lasting legacy.

"What made all the reactions interesting to me is the fact that [Bowie is] such an influence, and he's a different person to everybody," the actor added. "For Marc, it was the Scary Monsters era. For me, I discovered him during like "Space Oddity" and the early stuff, but mixed in with Ziggy and Hunky Dory, which is probably my favorite album. I think that makes it worthwhile to examine who this person was. It is fascinating, in terms of cancel culture and people saying, 'You can't touch that.' [But] I'm happy that there's a dialog around it and somebody who is such a beacon of liberal expression and artistic freedom."

David Bowie's '…Ziggy Stardust…' | For The Record

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G.E. Smith & LeRoy Bell

G.E. Smith (L) and LeRoy Bell (R)

Photo: John Peden

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G.E. Smith & LeRoy Bell Talk New Politically Charged Album 'Stony Hill': "It Speaks To This Present Time"

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GRAMMY.com caught up with the music veterans to talk about how their timely debut album offers a nonpartisan, universal perspective on today's societal issues and how their rich individual careers inform their newly formed duo
Joshua M. Miller
GRAMMYs
Aug 24, 2020 - 4:00 am

Even before this challenging year, singer-songwriter LeRoy Bell was getting tired of the negative grind of daily news. He couldn't understand how the United States allowed migrant children to be separated from their families.

His frustration spawned the song "America," which appears on Stony Hill, his new debut collaborative album with veteran guitarist G.E. Smith, out Friday (Aug. 28). In the song, Bell sings, "God only knows how I miss those days / She only knows how I miss the way we were." 

"I just thought that we would be so much farther along as a nation, as a country," Bell tells GRAMMY.com during a recent interview. "And in the last couple of years, it just seemed like it was going to hell in a handbasket. I just wanted to write a song, and it was a healing process for me, and I just thought that a lot of other people can relate to it."

After Bell showed the song to Smith, the two started working on what would amount to a politically charged album full of like-minded songs. Stony Hill is a contemplative and honest look at where American democracy stands today. Rather than angrily pointing fingers, the duo instead offers constructive criticism in a nonpartisan way aimed at finding a more perfect union.

Smith and Bell use the wisdom and experiences they've gained through their long and wide-ranging careers in music to inform Stony Hill.

Best known as the former ponytailed musical director for "Saturday Night Live," Smith is a one-time member of Hall & Oates and a sideman to musicians such as David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Tina Turner. 

Bell has written hit songs for a variety of artists, including Elton John, Jennifer Lopez, Teddy Pendergrass and The Three Degrees. A finalist for "The X Factor" in 2011, Bell has also made a name for himself via his work as a solo artist and with his former soul duo, Bell and James, alongside Casey James. 

For Smith and Bell, their newly formed duo welcomes a pairing that's long been in the works.

"I'd been looking for a great singer for 30 years," Smith says. "And I've been looking for just the right voice. And [my wife] said to me, 'Hey, listen to this guy. This is the voice.' And I heard it. I said, 'Yep, that's him.'"

GRAMMY.com caught up with G.E. Smith & LeRoy Bell to talk about how their timely debut album, Stony Hill, offers a nonpartisan, universal perspective on today's societal issues and how their rich individual careers inform their latest project.

The songs on your new album, Stony Hill, feel like they were written for this moment in time.

Smith: Well, we recorded the record in 2019. We had it finished up by the early fall and then did the postproduction. And it just happened that a lot of the songs that LeRoy had written are very relevant to what's going on now; songs like "America," "Under These Skies," "Let The Sunshine In." It just speaks to this present time as things worked out.

Bell: I don't think this happened overnight, and so a situation we're finding ourselves in, it's not like I predicted anything and saw it coming. I think it was just a feeling that was going on in the last couple of years, the way things were turning. But I had no idea that it was going to end up like it is now and we'd be in this position with the pandemic and the civil unrest that we have at this point. But I think some of the signs were there.

What's the story behind the album's title, Stony Hill?

Smith: We were looking for a band name; there [have] been so many bands at this point, it's really hard to come up with a name. [My family and I] happen to live on Stony Hill Road. And so there that was, and then that image of pushing the rock up the hill just fit right in. That seems like what we're all doing now.

While writing the album, you made a point to make songs such as "America" nonpartisan and from a more universal place. Why was that important?

Bell: I think politics go back and forth, and, depending on who's in power, people use politics as a tool to control other people. And that's why I used those lyrics that way. I think you can interpret it how you want, but I think it speaks to the times that we have right now. But I think it's also a political stigma that can speak to any time, because a lot of it is general, although some of it is specific to this time.

What was the inspiration behind "America"?

Bell: I was kind of down and watching too much news on TV, which I finally just got rid of because it was just messing with my emotions. I saw this one thing where they were separating kids from their parents and putting kids in cages, and I just kind of balled up. This is not where I thought we would be in 2019. I just thought that we would be so much farther along as a nation, as a country. And in the last couple of years, it just seemed like it was going to hell in a handbasket. I just wanted to write a song, and it was a healing process for me, and I just thought that a lot of other people can relate to it.

"Black Is The Color" is a rocking modern take on the traditional folk ballad. Why did it feel like a good time to revisit the song?

Smith: I've always loved that song. I've been playing that song for 40 years at least. And most of the versions that you hear of that song are slow and beautiful. Nina Simone is the famous one that comes to mind. But in the early '60s, a lot of what they called folk artists—Joan Baez, people like that—everybody was doing that song, and everybody did it slow. But I'm kind of a rocker, bar band, guitar-player guy, so I wanted to rock it up. I love the lyrics and I really thought I'd fit in with the rest of the material that we were doing. I've always really enjoyed rearranging traditional songs like that, taking a more modern approach to them, because the lyrics are great in a lot of that traditional stuff. The stories are universal. The stories are timeless.

"Under the Skies" talks about the hopes and fears people have in this country. There's a lyric about the longing for finding the way home. Why was that an appealing metaphor?

Bell: A metaphor to finding the way home to peace and love—that's what I mean by that. Finding a way back home to reconciliation, to getting along, to where we're supposed to be as humans with each other. Like we just got so far off-track of where we should be. I think this is … just about as far away from where we should be that I can remember [in my life].

Read: Bruce Hornsby Talks New Album 'Non-Secure Connection,' Working With Spike Lee And His Ongoing Support Of Civil Rights In His Music

How did the two of you originally meet?

Smith: Taylor Barton, my wife, was listening to LeRoy. I think she found him on Spotify, or one of those places, and I'd been looking for a great singer for 30 years. And I've been looking for just the right voice. And she said to me, "Hey, listen to this guy. This is the voice." And I heard it. I said, "Yep, that's him." 

So Taylor got a hold of LeRoy, and he lives in Seattle. We're on the extreme East Coast, out on Long Island [in New York], and we invited him out January of 2019. And he came and we sat down with our guitars and started playing, and we just had a great time. He had recently written "America." He showed it to me, and within two days, we were in the studio.

Did it feel like a good pairing?

Bell: We're fans of a lot of the same music—that would be old-school music. We played in a lot of different bands that had a lot in common, and we were close to the same age and grew up in the same era. Once we started playing together, we just hit it off. It just felt very comfortable.

Smith: You never know, when you get together with people, everybody can be really talented, but it doesn't always click. Thankfully, this time it did. We got along right away, musically, because, as LeRoy said, we had grown up listening to the same records at the same time— we were [just] in different rooms. You've got to be able to like the people and hang out with them and spend time with them. So that all was very easy and comfortable right away—thankfully.

Each of you has histories of collaborating with others. How have these lessons and experiences carried over to this project?

Bell: I think when you've been collaborating with other people, you learn to listen and pay attention to what that other person has. Music is cool, but you don't want to just play it by yourself all the time; you want to be able to enjoy playing with other people. And so, collaborating with somebody else that's giving you ideas and cool things to work off of is a joy, especially if you get along personally. It's fun. It's creative.

Smith: You don't dismiss your own ego, but you've got to put your own ego aside a little bit and work with the artist, the person that day you're supporting. As a guitar player, sideman, you work with them and you try to make the idea that they have shine. You try to make it good. So LeRoy comes with these songs and then I like the songs, and then I could hear right away what I want it to sound like; it was just a great experience to be able to do it. We're looking forward to recording the next album.

Are you planning to tour together whenever things get back to normal after the pandemic?

Bell: Yeah. We were already planning on touring and then the COVID-19 [pandemic] hit, and then that just pulled the rug out from under us. But we would love to get out there and get to the people and bring them music. There's nothing better than playing in front of live audiences. 

Smith: In the middle of March, when this COVID thing really took off, we were supposed to go to South By Southwest [SXSW], play two or three shows while we were there, introduce the band and the recording. They were going to release "America" right there. But of course, that got canceled, along with everything else.

On "America," you talk about not standing idly by. Have you been involved in the community beyond music?

Bell: Not so much. My main way of being involved is through my music. I'm not out there in the streets, physically, but I try to lend my voice and my time to the causes. Somebody needs me to be there, phone lines or vocally or any way that I can that way with my support; I try to do that. But physically, as far as being out in the streets, I don't really do that. Mainly, it's just through my music and what I can bring that way.

Smith: For me, I've never been political at all. It never seemed to make much difference to me, as a musician, who was president or governor or anything. It was the same for me when Reagan was president or when Clinton was president or Obama. 

But Trump, he came along and just ... To me, he's very wrong on so many things. I hate the way that he's encouraged the white nationalist people. And he seems to thrive on this chaos; he likes it. He thinks it makes him look good to his people, I guess. I've never voted in my life, but I'll tell you what. I'm registered now. And I'm going to vote in November. I'm not going to vote for Trump—you know that.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

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