Bon Jovi Revisited

(Here's the latest piece I've been working on. I've wanted to tell it for a while, and got extra inspiration from Chuck Klosterman's "Fargo Rock City," one of several books I read on tour. I'm just home from six + weeks on the road in Europe and now it's time for me to hibernate for a few days. Enjoy!)

I'm going to get this out in the open right now: there is a video of me singing a Bon Jovi song at the top of my lungs. Eventually, it will find its way to YouTube. In anticipation of this, I've decided to come forward, admit my guilt and face the consequences.

It was the Summer of 2007 when the incident in question took place. I had just performed at the Sounds Of The Underground Festival in Sayreville,New Jersey.* The SOTU Fest consisted of bands that, it is safe to say, are considered heavy, even by hardcore metal fans' standards. In addition to my band, Testament, there was Shadows Fall, Chimaira, Every Time I Die, Goatwhore and others.

We had just finished watching the final band, Gwar when a small group of us knocked on the door of the Shadows Fall's tour bus, and went inside. It was dark except for a mini lighting rig which spewed colored spotlights, turning the front lounge of the bus into a makeshift disco. It was packed with musicians from different bands, crew members and local friends, all of us buzzed from the unlimited supply of beer and liquor. Some of the female guests were dancing, which caused the bus the sway in time with the music. The songs were so loud it sounded like a concert. Most were rock anthems, considered 'acceptable,' by metal standards, such as 'You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC.

All of a sudden, like a speeding time machine bound for 1987, Bon Jovi's "Livin' On A Prayer" came over the speakers. As the 'whoa' sound of the guitar (courtesy of a nifty device known as a 'talk box') permeated the lounge, we were faced with a dilemma: should we be good little metalheads and request a 'fast forward' to the next song? Should we walk out the door and continue visiting the other buses? What should we do?

In a show of mutual solidarity, a split second decision was made. Several of us, including myself, Jason Bittner from Shadow's Fall and Matt Zebroski from AS Trio, who was visiting, locked arms and started singing the first line "Tommy used to work on the docks...the union's been on strike, he's down on his luck it's tough." As the song reached the chorus, we were all singing to the camera (held by our friend Frankie, who was filming everything) screaming the lyrics at the top of our lungs like European soccer fans. It was as if we were the striking union workers in the song, and we banded together to fight the system. For these few moments, the world was ours and we could do whatever the we wanted, even committing the ultimate metal crime: rocking out to Bon Jovi.


"Guilty as charged. But dammit it ain't right.**"

At the time that line was written, Metallica was the anti-Bon Jovi, avoiding music videos, flashy imagery and anything else resembling commercial hard rock. In the press, Bon Jovi was painted as the antithesis of what Metallica represented. A few years later, Metallica would go on to hire Bon Jovi's producer, Bob Rock, and become a multiplatinum juggernaut darker and crunchier than their Jersey based peers, but by 90's standards, just as commercial. That's not meant to be a critique of Metallica. In fact, I saw them recently, thought their show was terrific and they were cool to talk to afterwards.

I only bring this up because at this time, anyone that played thrash, speed death or any other form of heavier metal, was following Metallica and influenced by this initial perception. This was especially true if you were from the San Francisco Bay Area, where Metallica was based. As a sixteen year old who just joined a band of Bay Area thrashers several years older, I was no exception. So if someone would have said back then that Metallica would soon have a common link with Bon Jovi, no one would believe it. And if you would have said that I'd one day be at a festival hanging out with speed metal musicians singing along to a Bon Jovi song, I'd have said you're out of your mind.

"Livin' On A Prayer," is about working class folks in Jersey, Tommy and Gina. He's a dockworker that plays guitar and had to put his 'six string in hock' (guitar in pawn shop). She waits tables at a diner (can't get more 'Jersey' than that...). Times are tough but they're going to hold on to what they've got, and they have each other and that's a lot. And...guess what? They're gonna give it a shot!

I'll be the first to admit that these lyrics are campy. Alright, beyond campy, so much so that they're bordering on a joke. But guess what? The lyrical content is not the point! If you want a heartfelt Jersey working class story, then there is another Garden State songwriter you should listen to: his name is Bruce Springsteen. For that matter, go beyond the New Jersey state line and listen to Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Johnny Cash. I do listen to all these artists, but usually when I'm by myself and in the mood for reflection. Putting them at a post show bus party full of metalheads would have been like serving milk at the Mardi Gras Festival in New Orleans.

Music has many purposes in life. Reflection is one, festivity is another. Every culture has love songs, spiritual songs and drinking songs as well as many other types. Just as an African drumming ritual for dancing and celebrating has its place, so does a good rock'n'roll party. Our little impromptu 'ritual' that night was powered by a good hair metal song,*** suburban America's replacement for native drums.

'Livin' On A Prayer' is a party anthem in every sense, despite the "down on their luck" working class characters in the story. I don't know what Bon Jovi's intentions were when he wrote it. If he intended to write a teary eyed tale that tugs on your heartstrings, then he failed miserably. But if he intended to write a timeless, good time sing along tune, then he succeeded on a grand scale.

"Wanted: Dead Or Alive," has a similar quality. The lyrics are about how tough and lonely it is touring in a band. There is truth to this, but it was pretty laughable when it came out. Why? Because Bon Jovi at that time had, at least from appearances, reached the pinnacle of the music industry: first class hotels, traveling in private jets as well as the 'steel horse' (tour bus) he refers to in the lyrics. C'mon, Jon, how hard can it be? But is "Wanted: Dead Or Alive" a great sing along tune? Absolutely. When alcohol is involved the song seems to get even better. Like "Livin' On A Prayer," "Wanted: Dead Or Alive" is unique in that you can enjoy it without taking the lyrics seriously. Both songs have the quality of an ironic purpose of celebration.

I'll never forget the night Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora played "Wanted..." acoustically at the MTV Music awards. I was watching it in the room with members of Testament and our crew. I was ashamed to admit how much I liked the performance, until the guys around me all agreed, it was good. In fact, it was really good. So good that there were a lot of nodding heads, mutters of 'Damn,' and 'Fuck yes,' all around. This despite the fact that none of us would be caught dead in a Bon Jovi T-shirt (and still wouldn't). Bon Jovi's performance that night was such a smash success that MTV decided to do a series based on it with other artists entitled 'Unplugged.'

MTV Unplugged ran well into the era of Nirvana. Nirvana's own "Unplugged" performance spawned a hit recording and home video, something that wouldn't have happened without, yes, Bon Jovi. And the fact is, none of this would have happened if Bon Jovi wasn't good. It may have been hard to admit but they really were. I haven't paid attention lately, but the evidence is that they still are good. Not good on the level of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Not even in the same universe. Just good at what they do.

Do I consider myself a Bon Jovi fan? No. I've never owned a Bon Jovi record. I don't think i ever will. I don't know anything about Jon personally, aside from knowing musicians and techs that have worked with him. I've heard mixed reports about how he is to be around but choose to judge him by his success and the fact that when I bumped into him last year at a NYC rehearsal studio, he was nice to me. While most other commercial rock bands of the 80's are relegated to playing the same clubs they played when they were first starting out, Bon Jovi is selling out Giants Stadium, performing on the Super Bowl, in Central Park and other a-list performances. I don't need Bon Jovi's music in my life, but I say Kudos to Jon Bon Jovi for managing to stay relevant in this day and age.

A final thought: speed metal musicians like to have fun too. It's just not something worn on our sleeves and in our lyrics like it is with commercial hard rock,'glam' metal etc... Most of us on that bus that night are in bands whose heaviness is never questioned. We've earned the right to engage in a little guilty pleasure, even singing along to a Bon Jovi song.

*Coincidentally, Sayerville, NJ is Jon Bon Jovi's hometown

**From Metallica's "Ride The Lightning

***to his credit, Jon and company shedded the big hair image early on, and are far from the textbook definition of 'hair metal.' However, much of his music, especially in the 80's, had the same target demographic.

Field Trip

In San Sebastian, Spain today. Had a nice day off yesterday. Big tour gathering at hotel bar last night. Hung out with Glen and KK from Priest, they bought me many beers. We discussed guitars, mutual acquaintances and Glen's love of fishing. At one point it dawned on me: these guys were on my wall when I was a kid. Wow.

Show was great for us and Megadeth. Above my head, I hear Priest doing "Breaking The Law" and it sounds like they're having a great one too. Thousands of Spaniards are singing every riff and lyric.

Here's a little quickie from my journal the other day when we headlined a small club, the final gig in Germany of this tour:



Mar. 10th Nurenburg, Germany 5:07pm

I'm sitting here backstage, where I've just greeted a couple dozen nine and ten year olds. They stepped up in groups of two and three as I said hello to each one. The boys waved and the girls giggled. It's something I've never seen at a gig before: a class field trip.

It turns out that these kids are all young musicians. They are being shown a live gig as part of their music class. Our German promoter and his wife have a daughter in the class and invited them to view the club being set up for our show. How cool. I never had a field trip like that.

The promoter's wife asked me if it was okay for the children to take a look. I was happy to oblige. Me typing on my Mac is probably not the best example of a typical scene backstage at a rock gig, but hey, that's what they got. Now they're moving into the main hall to look at the stage.

Just before they left, a small boy with blond hair turned around with a big smile and asked me a question with excitement in his voice. I figured he must be a guitar player. But his German accent was so thick I didn't understand the question.

"Yup lang valda vahkeft onka poota?"

"Can you say that again?" I said, smiling.

"Yup lang valda vahkeft onka poota?"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand" I said, smiling nervously as the boy and the rest of the class awaited my answer.

Just then, their teacher, a librarian like German woman with short brown hair and glasses, stepped to the front. She leaned in and spoke to the boy in a whisper. The boy whispered back to her. Then she looked at me and spoke.

"He iss asking you: 'Are you playing 'World Of Warcraft' on your computer?"

Bulgarian Rhapsody

(Being on tour in Germany all this week reminded me of the following travel story from a couple years ago. Enjoy...)


It was the spring of 2007. I'd been in Germany playing guitar for Attack Theatre, a really cool, modern dance troupe from Pittsburgh, Pa. After our performance in Dortmund, everyone caught a train back to Dusseldorf, where we'd flown in. From there, they were flying back home to the United States, while I was staying overnight in Dortmund. The reason for this was that Testament had a show in Bulgaria the following day. They were already there, having flown in a day before me. I was going to catch three flights and be in Varna, Bulgaria in time to meet them for a 5pm soundcheck.

I woke up at 5am and took a cab to Dortmund airport. Once there, I boarded the first flight, from Dortmund to Munich. From Munich I caught a plane to Sofia, Bulgaria. That flight was delayed a couple hours, and it caused me to miss the third flight to Varna. The next flight in wasn't for a couple more hours. I finally landed in Varna a little after 6pm.

"So much for soundcheck" I thought to myself.

There was hardly anyone there at the tiny Airport. I picked up my bags and walked outside. It was still light out. I looked for some sign of someone to pick me up but there was no one around. I walked back in the terminal.

That's when I noticed this giant Bulgarian guy walking around, built like a body builder. He had a crewcut, was dressed in all black and had on thick black sunglasses. He looked like Arnold schwarzenegger in "The Terminator."

"This can't be the guy" I thought to myself.

As he walked towards me I realized I was wrong. The first words out of his mouth were:

"We must hurry, we are late" which sounded like "Ve most harry, ve are leet!" I followed him back outside.

Out of nowhere, a black BMW came speeding up to the curb. It halted with a screech. The trunk popped open and we threw my bags in. I got in the back seat, he got into the front. The driver was dressed almost exactly like the other guy. I was being driven from the airport by two Terminators.

The car lunged forward, throwing my back into the cushion of the seat. Outside, the setting sun shined a bright light on the lush green trees and rolling fields, which reminded me a bit of Napa and Sonoma, the wine country region of Northern California. But it was going by so fast, I could barely take it in. Within minutes, we were approaching the Bulgarian version of Germany's autobahn, the motorway with no speed limit. As we ascended onto a curved on-ramp, my body jerked from one side to the other, barely held in place by the seatbelt.

Once we were safely on the autobahn, the driver hit the gas hard. It was like that scene in Star Wars when Han Solo hits the 'light speed' button on his space ship. The BMW jettisoned forward as the guy in the front seat turned on the stereo, creating a pulsating, hypnotic, pounding sonic sensation. It was the music of the German, techno metal band, Rammstein.

We must have been driving at least a hundred miles an hour. Rammstein's hyperkinetic chugging pulse seemed to propel us even faster. The two guys up front didn't say a word or turn around. I could see their sunglass clad faces in the mirror. They merely nodded when I asked if we were getting close. Twenty minutes later, we were pulling up to the festival, with Rammstein still blaring on the stereo.



With the help of the Bulgarian Terminators and the music of Rammstein, I had arrived at the gig as close to on time as possible. And it didn't really matter anyway because, as is often the case, things were behind schedule. The PA system had only recently shown up and soundcheck hadn't even begun.

We had made a forty minute drive in just over twenty minutes. I was worn out from little sleep, the early wake up call and the flights, not to mention a bit rattled from the drive. But I was there and ready to play.

Epilogue:

I've done my best with telling this story. However, to fully comprehend the magnitude of this experience, I recommend that you please take a moment and follow these simple instructions:

A. Take a good set of headphones or speakers and plug them into your computer.

B. Play the following clip and crank up the volume:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfcsV_GyM4M

C. Close your eyes and imagine being knocked around in the back seat of a BMW going 100mph, being driven by two Terminators.

E.S.T. R.I.P.

Mar. 1 2009 Gothenburg Sweden.

Tour going well. Nothing unusual to report. What is very much on my mind now is the fact that the pianist Esbjorn Svensson is from this city. Today I'd like to talk about him.

For the last ten years, Esbjorn has one of my biggest influences as a musician and a composer. His group, E.S.T. ( Esbjorn Svensson Trio) is the first group to come along for years that I've cited as my 'favorite band.' This hasn't happened since the days of Kiss and Van Halen in my youth. Why? Because most rock bands I've liked haven't had the consistency to retain that status in my mind, while most jazz bands I've liked are in reality a bandleader and good sidemen. They can be great but don't usually last long as 'bands.'

EST is an exception to both rules. There is no other musical group that has so purely captured everything I love about music. I only saw them once, before they were known and knew right away there were special. They were on a tiny Swedish record label. Later they would be signed to Universal/Sony.

About a week ago, my friend Max told me that Esbjorn had passed away last year in a diving accident.

"You can't be serious." I said.

He thought he may have mentioned it in an e-mail to me.

"No, I'm sure you didn't." I told him. " I would have remembered."

Max could only say for sure that it was a European jazz pianist, someone from Scandinavia. And he was pretty sure it was a Swedish musician he was thinking of, although he wasn't a hundred percent positive. Perhaps he was confusing him with someone else? I knew Esborn was passionate about diving, as well as music, so it would have made sense. Still I hoped to god Max was mistaken.

It was about an hour before showtime at London's Wembley Arena, the most important show of our current tour with Judas Priest and Megadeth. I was just about to direct Max to the 'will call' booth to pick up his passes and meet up with our other friends from London who were due to arrive soon. I couldn't go into mourning right then. I needed to warm up and chose to put off my thoughts for a while and just focus on the night's performance. Besides, maybe it wasn't true? How could I not have heard about it it was?

The next day we were in Nottingham. My plan was to write recapture my experience the last time I was there in '95 (my one and only show as guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne). I took out my MacBook and couldn't type a thing. That story would have to wait. I had to know the truth about Esbjorn.

I went on-line, started a Google search and entered "Esbjorn Svensson." One of the first topics that automatically came up was 'Esbjorn Svensson Cause Of Death." I immediately got chills on my skin and tears in my eyes.

How can Esbjorn have passed on? Even stranger is that it happened last year. How did I not know about it?

There are two reasons. One is that Esbjornn Svensson is far more well known outside of the US. When I googled him, most of the articles were from the UK and Europe. The other reason is that last year was a whirlwind year of touring for me, bouncing between Testament, Trans-Siberian Orchestra and my own improvisational group, Alex Skolnick Trio. Although there are many who naturally refer to us as 'AST,' I've always avoided officially adopting these initials out of respect to EST.

It was ten years ago in Eilat, Israel, at the annual Red Sea Jazz Festival when I first stumbled upon EST. I was visiting with my new Israeli girlfriend (future wife and ex-wife). We had met as music students at the New School in New York and it was my first time visiting Israel. I was excited to hear guitarist John Scofield and pianist Chick Corea, while she, being a singer, was looking forward to two vocalists. One was Dianne Reeves whom I'm also a big fan of having seen her on TV years ago as well as live in New York. The other singer was someone I wasn't familiar with: Victoria Tolstoy

Victoria Tolstoy (who incidentally, is descended from the great Russian author Leo Tolstoy) was very good and pleasant to listen to. But it was her backing band that caught my attention: the Esbjorn Svenson Trio. Every few songs, she would take a break backstage and let the trio perform on their own. I was expecting them to do standard jazz repertoire material. Instead, they did their own unique compositions, which were like nothing I'd ever heard before.

Just before this, on another stage, we had seen Chick Corea, one of my favorite pianists of all time. Chick's group, Origin, consisted of young 'A List' improvisers playing exciting intricate, dexterous, highly intellectual improvisation which pushed Chick to the top of his game. It was a great performance and it would take a lot for any piano player to get my attention after that. But Esbjorn Svenson made me forget all about the fact that I'd seen a Chick Corea concert.

It wasn't that I felt Esbjorn was a 'better' pianist than Chick Corea. It was that there was something very unique with Esbjorn and his band. All three were expert soloists but the music was about so much more than that and had a special synchronicity that captivated me. These guys had the ears, sense of dynamics and sensitivity of pro jazz players, but unlike Chick's gig which was especially for jazzheads (like myself), this was music which stretched beyond the jazz connoisseur. And unlike smooth jazz, one of the few genres I genuinely despise, this music was accessible without being mechanical. The listener was taken on a journey, one which could go to high peaks of excitement and dreamlike trance within a single tune. The musicianship seemed to serve a purpose other than demonstrating its own high level. Indeed, EST's musicianship existed for the sake of being better able to capture feelings and express them through music. For me, the song of theirs which most encapsulated this for me was called 'From Gagarin's Point Of View. which, Esbjorn told the audience, was inspired by deep sea diving.

After the show, he and the other guys walked to the front of the stage and sold their CD's out of cardboard boxes. When it was my turn, I complimented him on a great show. He thanked me and asked me which CD I wanted.

"I'd like the 'diving song' please!" I said handing him the equivalent of ten dollars in Israeli currency.

"Of course, the 'diving' song!" he said with a laugh. "I've got that right here. Here ya go. Enjoy!" He went on to the next customer. I didn't know this would be the last time I'd see him alive.

Unlike many pianists of his generation, Esbjorn never tried to be Brad Mehldau (my generation's jazz piano equivalent of Eddie Van Halen). He risked lack of credibility from the Mehldau disciples and the jazz police in general, and it didn't matter. He was able to tap into a whole audience that hadn't liked jazz before, eventually reaching the pop charts in Europe. And it wasn't as though EST had no jazz acceptance, either, becoming the first ever European artists to appear on the cover of DownBeat magazine. None of this would have happened if he had followed the many other pianists around who tried to suddenly be like Brad. Who knows, he might have pulled some of it off convincingly but it wouldn't have been who he really was.

By following his own path, Esbjorn helped me feel more confident in myself and more secure that as a jazz musician, I was a little 'different(understatement). He helped me feel more confident in myself. He inspired me to stop caring about the approval from the 'Jazz world," whatever that means anymore. I've learned many things from him, which I've been able to apply to my own music- experimenting, not being afraid of other influences outside the realm of acceptance, encouraging all the instruments to explore different territory and most of all, using the group as a unit, rather than a showcase for my own playing. Thank goodness I play guitar, not piano, otherwise I'm afraid I might sound a bit too much like him.

It sounds typical to say that the loss of Esbjorn Svenson is a tragic loss to the music world, but there's no other way of putting the truth. I hope more people get a chance to experieince the greatness of his music and find inspiration in it, as I have. If you would like to find out more, start with this YouTube Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VLuR7nly0I.
Here's a great tribute from the UK Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/jun/18/esbjornsvenssonsdeathisad

In this overly saturated world of short attention spans and sensory overload, it's easy to forget how music, real music, comes straight from the soul. We need reminders of that sometime. Anytime I need my reminder, I listen to EST.