Inspiration for music is a random thing, people can get it from the most unlikely places (look at Cannibal Corpse! Love those guys...). Back in the day where I could see through both eyes and I was morally opposed to strummers, I was drumming with the band and I'd occaisionally get these skittish bursts of creativity - We'd be doing a bloody wednesday cover or something and out of the relative harmony of the band I'd whip out some ridiculous, un-articulated babble of cymbal and snare. Being spontaneous on the drums when you're comepletely useless at them is a great thing - Not only the neighbours complain, but builders five doors down listening to dance or trance or prance or whatever shite actually tell ME to keep it down... As you could imagine, I just kept on playing! At the time I was full of ideas, and even though I could make one hell of a noise, I couldn't get anything coherent down.
The weird thing about the guitar is that I've learned how to make mistakes, now you might be saying ''Why the hell do you have to learn THAT?'' - Well, I hadn't leanred how to cope with making mistakes on the drums, probably 'cus I was mightily self-concious at the time, and when I fucked up the beat on the drums I'd think to myself the neighbours were laughing at me or something stupid like that... It's funny to you, But it was a big problem for me! Anyways, one day me Spike and Drew were having ourselves a bit of a jam, and I'd managed to get together some nice drum riffs that were working really well - They were even cohesive! With my Rude cymbals and my Pearl JJ sig. Snare I was owning everyone with a quiet TV in the neighbourhood... and just when I thought everything was perfect, I went and made a right balls of it. We got to the bridge between the verse and the chorus, and I got the drum riff mixed up... At first, I was a little stressed, but we went back and did it again and then came the bridge, where I fucked it up again. Spike and Drew kept on playing, as if to try and pave over my rage, But it didn't work. They both stalled and we tried it from the beginning again, but this time the singnal to start again was fairly short, as they could tell I was pretty close to snapping. So again, I get through the intro and the verse in style, and I could slowly feel my rage subsiding... and as the bridge came, I had gotten it mixed up again.
This is the bit I'm truly proud of. Spike was standing opposite me with a kind of fearful look on her face, and as soon as I fucked it up - They knew I was going hostile. I slammed down one of my sticks harder than advised on my snare, denting the skin right in... The other stick got launched at the wall, and seeing as the room was fairly small, it bounced around 'til it came to rest somewhere amongst the coats. I let out a ton of abuse to everyone in the room and legged it outta there before I did any real harm. So, in my blind rage I went downstairs and into the garden to cool off. Just when I though I was getting it all together, the sound of drumming suddenly hits me - Drew was on the drums, trying to ''fix'' my little problem... So, being the level headed guy I am, I grabbed the biggest butchers knife out of the draw, walked back outside and vented my rage on my back garden's many plants.
You could try to imagine the sort of explaination I had to conjure up for this destruction when my family got back home, But you wouldn't come up with one that worked. Saying that - When they got back, I'd cooled off and got drunk with the band. They were more likely to find us all drunk singing together rather than they were to find us jamming... Good times, and many good lessons learned the hard way. Now, hopefully without flaunting anymore nostalgiac stories I can get back on to topic...
Inspiration! That's it, yes, where was I? Well, I was thinking where I got it. Back in the band, I got tons of inspiration, but It's difficult to tab a drum riff during the early hours of the morning! That's when I started playing guitar, but seeing as I wasn't totally devoted to the instrument as I am now, ideas were few and far between - So it died out.
But, not so long ago I kept on getting ideas for guitar instrumentals... You may ask ''Why Instrumentals?'' - Probably 'cus they're simply a tune that's free. To me, a good instrumental is truly letting your guitar ''Sing'' without the boundaries of verses and choruses. The tune meanders from one end of the track to another as your will commands, and, In my head I can construct these instrumentals with ease - My only problem is forgetting them before I can get them down on paper. My inspiration is a delocate thing, and if I hear any other tune, what ever was in my head is ''Taped-Over'' and I forget what I was thinking - That's a problem, but unlike the drums, If I wake up in the middle of the night after experiencing a hallucination from not sleeping or eating too much chesse (???) then I can play my guitar and note down the tune I've thought of, and seeing as I can play it quietly I can do as much as I like, whenever I like.
I think that It's best to work with the full potential of the ideas that I get for now, rather than simply dumbing them down into paramaters that would make it easier for a singer to rule the roost. In a couple of years from now I'm not going to have the same musical freedom, seeing as I'll mostlikely be working with other musicians who don't share the same whacky auditory hallucinations that I can conjure up and spurt out in the form of song. I think that my sources of inspiration are too varied to note upon, but I know they'll take me far. At the moment, I'm only going to be working on instrumentals, seeing as making tracks consisting of only Guitar and Bass with typical lyrical derived structure would not sound very interesting.
So, I'll keep at my work and I'll keep churning out ideas 'til I can get 'em recorded. Simple...
Even though I can plan in detail what I'm doing with myself musically, I can never figure out exactly where I get my inspiration. Sometimes I get it when I'm on a bike ride, other times when I'm in the bog. Annoyingly, it comes to me best when I'm not with my guitar at hand - But wherever I am, I can never see where my idea are coming from, and I think that's weird. As an old skool Black+Thrash metal fan, I know that a dark direction is one I want to pursue, and I know that when it comes down to it, I could probably churn out lyrics and vocals myself - Which would give me more autocratic status in a band. Seeing as I was previously a drummer, the idea of having people follow my direction is an intriguing one, and seeing as I am pretty experienced at nearly every role in a band, I think it'd be good to fill the final gap and take up the mic. In time, that is... for now I've got a ton of guitaring to worry about!
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