Nobody told Don Henley or me that we were going to make it as solo artists, but I can speak for Don when I say that we are both really happy now that the band is not together.
People from major labels were afraid to go to Black Flag gigs throughout most of the band's existence. They treated our gigs as something threatening. I'm sure that it probably was. They probably had reasons to be scared.
There was no such thing as production at Starday. We'd go in with the band, we'd go over the song, I'd look over and tell the steel player to take a break or kick it off, and I'd get the fiddle to play a turnaround in the middle.
It was about working with other musicians, but more than that it's about exploring musical areas that you could never do with the band you're in, in my case Judas Priest. You could tackle musical areas and lyrical areas that wouldn't be appropriate f...
There were some situations where I was giving up everything I had for the band and I just expected everybody else to feel the same way. I realized I was just kidding myself.
I didn't have an agent, I didn't have a headshot. I didn't even know if anyone would know where to find me. I just went back to highschool and started playing with my band.
I still feel the impulse to give young writers a hearing, and I believe I have played more unpublished compositions than any other band leader in the country.
When I write a tune - and it's been like this for many years - I always hear in the back of my head some sort of vague, orchestrated, fully fleshed-out big-band version of the song with other parts going on.
When I left the band I said Look, I am ready to move on. I was interested in playing with some of the other people that I had bee a studio musician with.
It's certainly no coincidence that big bands became the entertainment of the army in WWI and WWII, and that jazz drumming style is very military influenced. The snare drum comes from the military and becomes the core kind of sound of jazz drums.
In the early to mid-'90s, everywhere I turned, someone had died. It wasn't just people in bands. It was the people I was hanging out with. At some point, I thought, 'I may be heading down that road.'
It's been said that I formed The Wallflowers to hide my name but, really, I've always wanted to be in a band - right from the day my friends and I soundproofed a garage with bed-covers for our first rehearsal.
We used to have our own plane with the band's name on the side. It was a dream come true. You drive to a local airport. There's none of this checking in stuff; you just get on the plane.
Most bands have a sound that they're already identified with, so for the producer it becomes a process of helping them find their muse in the studio to make a record that will not only satisfy them artistically, but will also do something in the mark...
My fellow band members don't discuss their loved ones, and I don't feel that just because I am gay, I should have to discuss mine!
A very common thing these days is people show up and they ask us in the band to sign with a Sharpie right on their skin and they go get it tattooed the next day. Then they'll show up at another show and they'll have their tattoo.
I totally have this thing for Harry Styles from One Direction. But, like, I could totally date the rest of the band as one. I mean, if I could date all of them at one time, that'd be, like, ideal. They seem pretty close, but who knows? Maybe not that...
I saw Mercury Prize-winners Alt-J for the first time recently, touring their debut album 'An Awesome Wave,' and I'm still riding the high: they're the most musically dynamic and exciting band to have poured tune into my lug holes live since Bellowhea...
And I was very comfortable with this band even when we disagreed. It takes a long time to feel comfortable enough to disagree with somebody. When everything happened, it just was really confusing. It's like our weaknesses were nurtured and brought ou...
I think when you follow a band, you're following a - and I don't like to use the term 'brand,' but you are following a kind of style, if you like. So I think you have to accept that there will be different people involved from time to time.
A few years ago, one of our singles got beaten out by Better Than Ezra. The label could only have one band at a time being taken to the right people at radio, and they opted for Better Than Ezra instead of us. Who knows.
