"Frontline: The Way the Music Died,"

[weilandhighway]

This Show is on PBS at 10:00 Thursday May 27th it features David Crosby, Hudson Brothers, Duff McKagan, Velvet Revolver.


sorry for the late notice incase you didnt know

[AdZ]

Wow Duff McKagan AND Velvet Revolver?

[Jizzo]

Anyone see it yet?

[badgirl]

I cought the last 15 minutes, but read the interviews online at PBS.org, and these are some of the highlights (the bold is from me):

Now, let me ask you this generic question about the music business. I looked, there were 34 different number one songs last year on the billboard lists. Different groups, I mean, that much churn is happening out there.

DUFF MCKAGEN: Wow.

 
There are, at any given time, 10 groups I've never heard of in the top 10. What's going on?

DUFF MCKAGEN: It all goes in cycles. It was just like that when Guns came out. There was Milli Vanilli one week, there was Paula Abdul the next week. It was, you know, Kajagoogoo the next week, it was Flock of Seagulls, whatever.

MATT SORUM: Garth Brooks.

DUFF MCKAGEN: Then there was New Kids on the Block, all these corporate-made bands. And then the real deal came out. We came out. And it was like, it just took everything by storm. I think there's a lot of groups right now, being put together by record companies, [with] songs written by other people for an artist. You know, not to name names, but a lot of pop female artists you see, they don't write their own songs. Lot of top male artists, and boy band artists, they don't write their own songs. They're just a product. They sell, they sell, they sell. They don't care about musical integrity, any of that kind of stuff.

Well, we're a band. We write our own songs, we do our own thing. Our stage setting will be of our own creation. Everything -- our t-shirts will be of our own creation. Our album cover will be of our own creation.

 
Why do you get to do that?

DUFF MCKAGEN: Because we're a band and we demand it.

MATT SORUM: Today we had a meeting with the RCA people and, you know, we had all the heads of marketing and artwork person there, and our A&R guy, and we went over the artwork and the cover. And it was very open and just the way it should be, man.



So, you're not a retro, new name, old band.

DUFF MCKAGEN: No, no. ... We're moving ahead. We will rock the sh-- out of any band that's 21 years old.
MATT SORUM: There's a retro thing happening right now, with a lot of young bands. Lot of young guys recreating the '70s sound, you know, going back to the old-school vibe. There's some bands like Jet and the Kings of Leon and the Strokes. But they're 20 years old, and they're doing something that's 30 years before them, before they were even born.

For us to come out sounding like we used to sound wouldn't do the same thing for us as it's going to do for a 20-year-old band. So, our thing was, we need to make a record that sounds fresh and it needs to just smack you right in the face.


how fucking cool is Duff??  






 

[RyanMFGs]

It really bugged the shit out of me that this guy on there was insinuating that the record company just took an old popular band and an old popular singer and put them together to make an "obvious" super group instead of finding "the next rolling stones or the next guns n' roses".

It really under sold the fact that this was a thing that was not planned by some corporation but was special and brought about by fate.

[badgirl]

totally! they were all very negative, pretty much insisting that the only reason this band is going to be successful is by their built-in fan base... whatever, our guys will have the last laugh.

[Booker Floyd]

For those who missed it, Ill offer a brief recap...

Matt shows off his corvette, and thanks rock and roll for it.

You see Duff bumping "Behold A Lady" off of the Andre 3000 (from Outkast) The Love Below album.

Only Duff and Matt contribute interviews.

Lots of office scenes, in which Duff, Matt and the record company guys discuss stuff like putting out a clean version of the album in order to get Wal-Mart to stock it, therefore upping their shipments 20%.

Duff recounts the American Music Awards fiasco and proudly states that the show has a 7-second delay now because of them.  "True story."    He says that since they didnt have girlfriends, they had "stunt dates" that were just disgusted by them, and the guys were sneaking in booze.

Duff discusses Guns' power, saying that when they played in Columbia with machine-gun toting guards to the side of the stage, had Axl yelled "Revolution!" the kids would have done it.  He says at the time, they were more powerful than the government.  He also talks about Guns having their own jet with a movie theater, on which they would smoke crack and drink.

You see record company guys watching the El Rey performance on a TV (most of it looked pro-shoe, from the stage and shit).  It was probably footage for the aborted DVD.  

Lots of music insider-types giving their thoughts on the band.  The most negative being from a Los Angelas indie DJ (whose station broke Norah Jones and Coldplay).  He says that the line of thinking in combining GNR and STP in hopes of similar success is completely boring and obvious.  The guy just seemed uninformed about how this band actually came to be...its almost like he was insinuating that the record company created this "formula".  Hes probably right about the companies' expectations and line-of-thinking, but off in the intent and formation of the actual band.

Nearly everything else VR-related is positive.  A guy from Hits! magazine saying that he likes what he hears and thinks they can do well.

One commentator says that the only that will probably hurt the band is drugs, and hopes that they can overcome self-destruction.

An RCA guy states that Contraband is RCAs most important record for the first half of 2004, and in the top 2 most important records of the whole year.  He says hes very confident in the project and believes it will be big.

A management guy says that when they did El Rey, everybodys jaw was on the floor.

The RCA guy shows the album covers ("James Bond mixed with classic rock" he says), as well as the single cover and listens to "Slither" in the office, as a preview for the cameras.  He says that the reaction theyre getting is great and that as far as hes concerned, the songs 80% successful out the gate.  The other 20% is just getting it out there.

Theres rehearsel footage of Matt and Duff playing "Suckertrain Blues".

Theres a shot of "Slither" being searched on Kazaa, and various tracks coming up...among them, "Vengeful God".  

Matt says that while they didnt attempt the "radio song," they had an awareness in being "contemporary," which is why they got a younger producer who has an understanding in making their sound "current".

Duff says that it "...doesnt take $2 million to make a record."  He think that the company appreciates the fact that they understand the value of the dollar.  Management says that the guys do a lot of pre-production and really know what they want.

A female commentator says that the guys have a lot of pressure on them.

It sounds like they (Duff and Matt) might be listening to another rock track off of the album when riding in the car, but being unfamiliar with any of the songs, I dont know.  I just heard a fast solo and Matt was miming the drums and guitar along with it.

The head of Artemis Records (something Goldberg) praises Scott as one of the most honest, genuine performers hes seen and has the utmost faith in anything he does.

Clips of the "Slither" video is shown.

The piece concludes with a voiceover telling us that Sarah Hudsons (the other subject of the documentary) single was released on May 3rd and failed to chart, while Velvet Revolver is at the top of the charts and theyre selling out every date on hteir tour across America.  Very positive ending (for VR, anyway).

Overall, a very cool, interesting watch.  Itll probably be online soon, I suggest everyone check it out.

[Booker Floyd]

Heres a fascinating interview with David Gotlieb, president of marketing and artist development at RCA...

Let's talk a little bit about this new band, Velvet Revolver. Tell me about how you first heard of these guys, what happened, how they found themselves coming to this label, what was up with Clive [Davis].

I don't know the full back story but I know good parts of it. The musicians in Velvet Revolver are three-quarters of the musicians who were in Guns N' Roses, who were one of the biggest bands between 1987 and '94, probably the biggest rock band in the world at the time. So here's four musicians who are hungry, and looking to create fresh, unique, contemporary, competitive music. And they were looking for a singer. They actually went through an extremely exhausting nine-month process, 10-month process of trying to find a singer.

Through mutual friends, they hooked up with Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots, and they clicked. They wrote one song, and then they wrote two songs, and they started working together more. I think in this case, because you were dealing with two already established artists, that for them to be able to get the attention of the record industry was not a difficult thing. They had the resources to find managers, and to take music to record labels and say, "This is where we want to go." I know that when they first played music for us, we were interested, but wanted to see where it was going to go. And after the band wrote quite a few songs together, and started to play it for people, you could identify that there was something special going on. I think that's about the time that Clive Davis got in, and said, "This is something we need to be involved with."

And since then, I think the band has really gelled into a band. And when you do this for a long time, you know when that je ne sais quoi exists, and when it doesn't. And this is one of those cases where it does. And when you first hear about it, given these two artists' histories, there's immediate cause for skepticism.

 
Why?

Well, Guns N' Roses has basically been out of the mix for almost 10 years. And because of the other half of Guns N' Roses, the Axl Rose half, a brand that was once indestructible is now like a beat-up garbage can on the street, because it's not the same thing. So, there's immediate skepticism about what guys who were great at this 15 years ago, what they can contribute now. And you combine it with Scott Weiland, who was in Stone Temple Pilots and was at the top of the world, but has also lived a roller coaster, both professionally and personally.

So there's immediately people going, "Well, how can it be relevant in 2004?" And the positive that comes out of all that is, at the end of the day, they're musicians. They create art. And when they created it, you went, "Wow. That's how." Because they made a record that, the minute you listen to it, you say, "This is dynamic. This is different. This is special." You can tell. And as much as you feel it, when you start playing it for people who are as skeptical, or not as expectant of it being good, and they have the same reaction, you know that it's absolutely on.

 
It's a funny thing. It's like it cuts both ways that they are who they are. On the one level, they get attention when they raise their hand and say, "We'd like to do it again," everybody says, "That's kind of a cool idea." On another level, some people we've interviewed say, "Come on, it's a hybrid. It's a genetically-engineered band, and the critics are going to kill them."

Absolutely right. And those are the things that we have to think about as we market and present the band to the general public. And how do you make it so that people don't think that they're a genetically-created band? Because they're not. They knew each other.

It's funny. If they were two unknown bands who lived in L.A. and had never had success, and they got together and created this, people would be going, "Wow, this is unbelievable." But because there is a history, it's great ? but it's also not great, because people go, "Well, but it's not real." But it is real.

I think for the most part, most rock bands tend to be real. Most successful music tends to be real -- rock bands, hip-hop bands, pop artists. There's enough of a reality that otherwise, it wouldn't come through. I think the general public now is way too savvy, media-washed, that they know when something's real.

 
What kind of stakes are there for RCA in pushing this band forward?

There's a lot of stakes. I mean, obviously, there's the financial ones, because winning the competition to be able to release a record like Velvet Revolver isn't an inexpensive endeavor, even in this environment. You're betting that the return, based on the musical potential, is going to make that investment worthwhile. And if you're successful at it, it's a magnet to continue attracting other fantastic artists, whether they're new or whether they're established and looking for new homes. It gives you a nice big gold star, that you've been able to create a place for something with this artist that people might not have expected or anticipated or believed could have happened. ?

 
Of the 65,000 records that will go out this year, what are you guys going to do to give some juice to Velvet Revolver? What actually is the plan?

Well, the first plan is to get people to hear the music. We've been spending about the last two months telling people what Velvet Revolver is, and who they are, and preparing our work and packaging, and things like that. While we're doing that, we're telling key taste-makers, key media people. We're playing them the record, because they're involved in the process of this with every artist. They're the skeptics. They're the people who are doling out the first report card. And we're completely confident that playing them the music, they go, "Wow, this is important. This is worth waving a flag about, or talking about, or devoting coverage to." So that's the first step, and that's usually the first step with almost anything.

The next thing we have to do after that is we have to show that they aren't a manufactured band, that they are real. And that's going to happen by touring. In about six or eight weeks time, the band is going to go out on the road. I think people are going to be curious to see what they're like, and they're going to probably be blown away when they see Velvet Revolver step onstage.

And in the course of doing all that, it's in the imaging that we put out, you know, what the album artwork looks like, what the video will look like, the song that you pick to take to radio for the first single, how their story is presented by the press. The band's already been doing interviews for two months, so when stuff starts coming out about them in early May and June, it's stuff that people read and go, "Okay, I want to know more." It's doing all those things. It's figuring out how to take them overseas, and garner success there. Because Guns N' Roses, obviously, biggest rock band in the world. There's an upside to doing that. And there's a market there that's fairly untapped and unfed at the moment, outside the U.S. That's a huge place for us to succeed, and for the band to succeed.

So we have to be conscious that they're two bands, that they're the melding of two artists, and bands that have had success and have had a lot of success. So we have to figure out how to find their audience that maybe may not be the most active music audience at the moment, because they're rarely stimulated. And at the same time, we have to get kids. We have to get people who are under the age of 24, and under the age of 20, that maybe they know the name Guns N' Roses. Maybe they know the name Stone Temple Pilots. But that doesn't really matter, because we want them to know the name Velvet Revolver, that they'll learn about the other two by liking this. And that's interesting, because we rarely have to market on that level.

 
You're going 35 and older, and 25 and younger.

Yeah.

 

[Booker Floyd]

Help me with the economics of the marketing of Velvet Revolver.

It will be expensive. It will cost us $2 million for the first six months of the project, strictly in marketing.

 
How do you spend that?

It's a combination of video, video production costs, promotion at radio, advertising, especially retail advertising at record stores, any type of record store, whether it's Wal-Mart or Best Buy or Virgin, or the small mom-and-pop shop. All of that will require a monetary advertising investment on our part, which is one of the biggest differences between now and 12 years ago. It used to be maybe it would fall between number five and 10 on your expenditure list, and now it's generally one or two. That's just marketing. That's not counting whatever the cost of making the record is.

 
Why?

Because of the way that record retailers operate in this day and age. The Tower Records, the Virgin, the Sam Goodys of the world, those stores are having an impossible time trying to survive. So if you want a record on sale there, you pay to be involved in their external advertising campaigns and in-store advertising campaigns, which are extremely pricey. And when you're talking about certain mall stores, that's what helps them cover their margin and pay the rent, is the record labels putting that kind of money in.

For the big stores -- the Best Buys, the Targets, the Wal-Marts -- who are the bulk of our business -- those three accounts alone are 50 percent of our sales -- we're nothing to them. There's a great stat that music is one-tenth of 1 percent of all of Wal-Mart's gross revenues. So we're the smallest tadpole in the Wal-Mart pond, yet they're the most important thing in the world to us. And Best Buy is not much different. I think we're 3 to 5 percent of their overall revenue.

So if music disappeared out of some of these stores, they're not really going to feel it. But if we disappeared out of their stores, we would feel it. So that's why that dynamic exists.

 
These guys were sitting in a meeting that we shot, some of the Velvet Revolver guys, and they said that they had heard that day that because of Wal-Mart and Best Buy, they had to have clean versions of their songs. And they were all looking at each other like, "a clean version of one of our songs?" What are the implications of that?

The implications are you won't be in Wal-Mart. And you potentially could not be in Best Buy. But if the band didn't create a clean version, an edited version of the album, you could walk into a Wal-Mart and not be able to buy a Velvet Revolver record. And then, you've got to figure that in large chunks of the United States, the only place that a kid, somebody who's 20 years old, and maybe at the community college or not in college at all, just working, or the person who's over 30 and has a 9-to-5 day job but wants a great rock record, the only place they can buy a record is Wal-Mart. That's the only place they can buy a CD. And if Wal-Mart's not stocking it, I don't think they're going to be driving 30 miles to find a record store. ?

And the music section at Wal-Mart is, you know, a third of the size of this office, maybe half the size of this office. It's tiny. And they are carrying maybe 600 titles at a time, 700 titles at a time.

 
Out of the 60,000--

Out of the 30,000 records that get released every year, they probably have 750 titles.

 
How do they decide?

They decide based on what's going to sell.

 
Who knows that?

They have a good gauge. They have a good idea. You know, Wal-Mart looks at the radio charts a lot, and sees what's on the radio. They play very close attention. A lot of times, you're not selling your record in huge chunks at Wal-Mart until you're two or three months into the project and a song is exploding on Top 40 radio. Wal-Mart is really only your biggest contributor market share-wise first week, if you're a country artist or a well-established pop artist, like a Christina or a Britney or a Justin or something. Otherwise, if you're a rock band or another type of artist that's developing, you're not feeling Wal-Mart until three to six months into the project.

 
Are you worried you won't get Wal-Mart?

On Velvet Revolver? No. No. Not at all.

 
And that's why Velvet Revolver if there is such a thing as a nearly sure, that is a sure bet.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. That's one of the extra things that makes it exciting to market it. Because you have enough knowledge to know where to start. And that kind of makes the field wide open for you, as opposed to some brand new artist or developing artist, where sometimes the hardest thing is figuring out where you're going to start from, and then surveying the field and saying, "Can I actually go there with that?" With Velvet Revolver, you know where you can go.

 
And where can you go?

You know, you can go anywhere. I mean, we look at the Velvet Revolver audience as being 12-, 14-year-old kids, on up to 40, 45 -- people who, 10, 15 years ago were at every hard rock/heavy metal concert, to kids now who are probably just dying for a great rock band in the classic, timeless sense of what a great rock band is.

 
How do you get airplay for a rock band nowadays? Radio is basically Clear Channel, Cox, and Infinity. It's three formats, nationwide. Is there room for a rock band on the radio?

Yeah. I mean, Clear Channel and Cox and Infinity, they all have X number of stations that handle just certain formats or genres of music, be it R&B or pop or rock. Infinity is extremely strong in the modern rock market, where we're going to live. Clear Channel is strong there. They're also strong in the rock market. So going to radio is a very rote thing, in that we know how to do that. There's a pretty standard science and checklist of how to do it. So that's a known entity. It's more how you're going to create opportunities at radio, and seize the opportunities you get with radio to exploit and market something like Velvet Revolver.

 
What does that mean?

A lot of radio stations do big festivals two or three times a year, and it's important that you have the artist playing at those a lot of times. The places where Infinity and Clear Channel approach you from a national level is if you have an artist like Velvet Revolver that's going to be an instant addition to the playlist, and they want you to invest in some of the on-air programs that they have, that they think is going to help you sell records.

So you have to look at those things, and you have to monitor those. And you kind of have to make sure that you're choosing the right thing for your financial investment, that you're going to get return, and that it's going to also solidify and reinforce the airplay that you're getting and hope to get. It's about building relationships, partnerships.

 
How involved are the guys from Velvet Revolver? We heard them talking about, "It's going to be this very cool video, and we ask for it to be this and that. It's really cool cover art. It's really cool this and that." Are these guys, who are professionals now, are they sticking their noses in a lot of marketing side of it?

They are most involved when it has to do with how they're presented, meaning the video, meaning the artwork and packaging, meaning when they go on the road. When it comes to creating what poster might go up in the store, we're creating an image that they've already endorsed. When it comes to how one of our guys walks it into a radio station, the Velvet Revolver guys really aren't involved in that. The best thing that they do is they explain to people like me what the music's about, and how they got to where they got, so that that becomes part of our story and presentation to radio or to MTV or the press. ?

 
How important to RCA is it for Velvet Revolver to be [a hit]?

It's very important. It's very important. In the first six months of the year, it's probably our single most important release. For the entire year of 2004, it's probably one of our two or three most important releases.

 
Out of how many releases?

We'll put out 15 to 20 records this year.

 
How will you know? What do you look for? Do you know before the single is dropped whether these guys are going to be a hit or not?

In the case of Velvet Revolver, no. From what I know, from what I've seen, from the way the marketplace is now, my experience tells me that we're 80 percent of the way of feeling that it's going to be a hit. And the last 20 percent is going to be it getting on the radio, and the video being seen, and the record eventually getting out there. So it feels right. You really can't judge it being a hit, so to speak, probably until you're about two or three weeks from the record being in the store.

That's when you just kind of have the feel or the vibe for it. And what's giving you that is how radio is doing, how MTV has reacted to the video, how the rest of the world and the press are reacting, and how many records you're shipping out to record stores, because that tells you too. Internet activity, all of it. You get a sense and a feeling.

[badgirl]

Duff recounts the American Music Awards fiasco and proudly states that the show has a 7-second delay now because of them.  "True story."    He says that since they didnt have girlfriends, they had "stunt dates" that were just disgusted by them, and the guys were sneaking in booze.

 
Duff fucking rules. God, i miss that "don't give a fuck" attitude.
Also, he described Axl as "tempremental". That's as succinct a description as i have ever heard.  

[Booker Floyd]

When do you know if it's a dud? When do you really give up on it?

Well, you don't tend to give up on records until you're probably six or nine months into working the project, and you haven't gotten the right sparks. If you're launching a large-scale release like a Velvet Revolver, if it didn't start the way you wanted it to, you're going to know in two months whether or not it's going to turn around. ?

 
How do you keep the kids from stealing the record?

We have developed our methods over the last four years. We have figured out ways. We're extremely cautious and protective about any advance music that we send out. It generally has to be in some pretty secure hands. There's technologies out there that allow us to trace a CD if it gets put on the Internet.

 
Watermark?

Watermarks, which we utilize. You can limit the number of times a CD can get copied, or if it can be turned into a file on a computer that can be shared somewhere. So we utilize that. And we have some other measures that we use in case there's a hole in one of those. And we've already been on that one, and it's -- what's the best way to describe it? We confuse the downloader.

 
What do you mean?

We confuse the downloader into thinking they're getting something that perhaps they're not.

 
This is spoofing?

Yes.

 
What is spoofing?

If you were to go on the Internet tonight, you could probably find files for all of the Velvet Revolver song titles. Whether or not they'd be the actual Velvet Revolver songs, you'd have to find out for yourself.

 
What would they be if they weren't?

If they weren't? Some other sort of computer file, non-harmful computer file.

 
But not something I really want.

No.

 
Will it hurt me?

Only if you probably have the volume on, like, 12, and go to play it.

 
But of course, once the CD is for sale?

Yeah, but, you know, the fact that there may be a number of other files already out there, it may be too hard for somebody to wade through the morass of seaweed to find the one gem. ? [We've] got to protect ourselves somehow. We only own the copyright. We only own the master recording.

 
Does it feel like a war in that sense?

I don't want to say it's a war, because I'm one of the few people in the record business that I don't think downloading is a cause of our problems. I think it's an effect. I think our problems were not putting out great music, charging too much money for it.

You know, the year that Napster was at its peak, so were we. I think people were using Napster and other file-sharing sites like that as listening stations, as a place to test whether they like something, the same way you might read four different reviews of a movie before you decide to go see it, the same way that now I think the Apple iTunes store is serving us. People are downloading a couple of tracks for 99 cents, and they're like, "OK, I'll go buy the whole physical piece."

But we kind of reacted to Napster in the wrong way and the people that we really nailed with that was that generation of people between 15 and 25, who was a new generation of computer-savvy, literate, technology-driven kids who maybe didn't have all that much money. Whatever the Internet boom was doing, they still were stepping out in the real world, and may not have had that much disposable income. And we shut down their filter. ? So I don't want to say that what we're doing now is a war. I think what we're doing now is protecting our territory. ?
 
 
 
? Second Interview, May 7, 2004

 
What's the buzz on Velvet Revolver? What's going on?

It's very strong right now. The record is, after about four weeks, is already top five on the alternative modern rock radio charts. It's top five on the regular active rock radio charts. Those are the two types of radio formats that play rock music. Which means the record is doing outstanding, for it to have that kind of growth in a one-month period of time. That literally puts it in the superstar echelon of artists, despite the fact that this is, for all intents and purposes, a new band.

They're going on a tour that starts in about two weeks. Going to 14 cities across the country, and they're playing 2,000- to 3,000-seat venues and they've sold them all out. Generally in about 10 minutes time they sold all the tickets, which shows there's a real pent-up demand for the record and the group and that the marketing efforts that put in, and the word of mouth has gotten out there. And that people were excited when they heard the song, and are interested in seeing us live.

 
So what's really sort of at the core of this? Is it their name, is it the one song, is it really great promotional? Why is the buzz so good right now?

I think the first thing is it's the names of who's involved. And I think the second thing is a real desire and curiosity from people to experience what this might be. And then I think the third thing is that the song just backs it all up. The song comes on the radio, and I'm guessing that the regular consumer immediately feels an identification and attachment to it. When I've heard it on the radio it sounds fresh and it sounds like it belongs. And it's the business thing of, it just feels right, and feels like a hit.

So I think it's all those things. The promotional effort is what it is, but it also means that we got the word out to people, that we let them know who Velvet Revolver actually is.

 
In just very specific terms, for the novice out there that doesn't understand this, how many cities, how much play, what do these numbers mean?

In a given week, there's going to between 2,500 and 3,000 spins of the record across the country. You're probably talking about 150 cities across the country. Probably the heaviest airplay is going to be about 25 to 30 times a week on any one given radio station. So that's the numbers that you're talking about. You're talking about a measured audience reach of about 15 to 20 million. But, you know, that's measured by Arbitron so you knock it down a little bit, and adjust for the statistical qualities to it. But that's how many people you're informing. And good marketing people will kind of say, "Okay if I can reach 10 percent of those 15 million, I'm in great shape." Right now all those signs are there. ?

 
Money-wise, what's this mean to the label?

Well, right now the initial shipments that are going to be in store in June is going to be over 600,000. So that's going to be an immediate top-line revenue shot of about $6 or $7 million dollars. Take away what you pay the band and what you spent marketing, and it's probably going to create an instant profit situation for the record label.

 
People are smiling.

Yeah. And combine overseas sales, and the smile probably shows some teeth.

 

[Booker Floyd]

What's it mean to the group, money-wise?

What it means to the group money-wise is going to be more on the ancillary side, on touring income, merchandising income, and how they can fuel that. The way the record company contracts are built, the group's gotten their advance, and now a lot of those sales go against the advance that's gone out. Throw in the video and other expenses that record companies charge back to artists, and it'll take awhile before the group sees a check from the record company again.

 
Downloading. We talked a little bit about this last time and you gave me your opinion, but give me the record company's opinion of downloading. Why are they so nuts on illegal downloading?

Because in essence technology has allowed for music to become free in the minds of a lot of consumers. So the record companies have the right thought. If somebody's giving out free bread on the street you're only going to take it if it's fresh, but you don't get to walk into the bakery and just take it out of the bin. You've got to pay for it.

I think the record company worries that it just devalues music. Which it does. But the record companies don't do a very good job of announcing it in that fashion. They make it seem more like the average Joe is a crook for stealing it. ? And the reason I say "devalue music" is because you don't want a whole generation of people growing up thinking that music is just free. That it just is out there.

And, you know, again, the music industry isn't filled with Rhodes Scholars, so at many different points along the way in the music business, whether it's giving free records to radio, giving videos to MTV for free, the record business has always given away stuff for free. This time they're not in control, so it's harder to accept that somebody has taken the control and is taking the music.

 
We talked to somebody last night who said, but the other side of it is, you know, you go into a supermarket and they're giving away free cheese, and everybody tries the free cheese. Most people don't buy the cheese, but then again you get a good percentage who do, and so therefore it makes sense. It's a way of going about it. But the record industry doesn't see it that way. They're very intense about this. Why are they so intense?

Well, I guess the difference is that if you're giving away a piece of free cheese at the supermarket, you're giving away a piece. The way that illegal downloading works, you can take the whole block of cheese. And if the cheese industry was giving away blocks of cheese for free, there wouldn't be a cheese industry. The dairy industry would be drastically different.

So one song may not seem like much, but it's the tip of the iceberg. And the smallest crack can create the biggest flood. And on some levels that happened, but I mean it wasn't, you know, it wasn't a biblical type flood. But it was halfway there. ?

 
The industry and sort of the paranoia of the industry at this point -- how great is it? Is there an attitude within the hallways of the major record labels, of trying to keep your head down so you don't get noticed by the bean counters, because of fears that you're going to be out the door?

You know, I'm sure that if you're in a middle management position at a record company, there is a definitely a tenuous feeling about how secure your job is at the moment. And having been in a lot of record company hallways recently, there's not many people smiling. And that's sad because most people get into the record business because they love music and it's a fun place to work, a fun industry to work in.

But it's difficult right now, and I think it's difficult because those people in the middle who are the ones who put their head down and fight in the trenches everyday, so to speak. They're not really being given information or vision as to where any of these major labels want to go.

And I think that's where the paranoia stems from, is that there's no leadership in the industry right now that's saying, "We need to go march in this direction, and if we do we're going to find our grail."

 
Why is that?

There's two reasons. All the record labels are controlled by major corporations now, which they weren't 15-20 years ago, or they weren't in the same way. So that's the first reason, because that immediately changes you. When you're caring about Wall Street quarterly earnings and stock prices and stuff, that's not how the music business was created. And it's hard to sustain that sort of thing when you're dealing with an artistic medium that you're trying to sell.

The other problem is most of the people who run the record companies have been around for so long, in some cases 40 years, 45 years, they don't really want to give up their throne. Having a succession plan isn't on their list. Coca Cola meets and they try to figure out what their succession plan is going to be. McDonald's meets, they try to figure out what their plan is going to be.

Doesn't really happen in record companies. It's a business of personal business between the label and the artist. People that are up there are vain and strong and have personalities and characters. And they want to stay where they are. They're happy. They're not going to do something else at this point in their career. ?

 
Lastly, consolidation of radio. The playlists we talked about a little bit. Has that hurt the industry? I mean has that killed off the ability of new artists? What has been the overall effect?

I think it's hurt. I'm not going to say killed. But it's certainly harmed it because I think it's made the consumer, the radio listener, numb and unaware of what might be out there. Because you can talk to people and say, "Okay do you listen to radio?" And they're like, "Yeah, but they just play the same songs." And then you kind of say, "Well, what do you do to change that? And they're like, "Well what do you mean?" "Do you ever call them up and tell them to play some cool record that you found? A cool artist, or if they call you to research songs, do you like really take notice of it? What do you do to make it so that they don't play the same songs?"

And that's the thing, it's made the consumer, the listener lazy for the most part. And that's how they get numb, and they just accept it.

 
But has it made the record industry lazy?

Well, yeah, of course. Because you know, the record industry still relies on radio mostly to have the biggest exposure and broadest appeal for a record. And that can make the industry lazy marketers, and that can limit how an artist gets exposed.

You know one of the reasons for "American Idol"'s success is it bypassed radio. And radio is more forced to deal with "American Idol" because it's a cultural phenomenon. And, you know, I think if most of the "American Idol" winners had been just randomly signed as artists, found and signed and records produced, I don't think you'd see them having the success they have. I don't think you'd see them having one-tenth of the success they've had.

Radio's a medium but it's no longer the platform it used to be. Part of that's technology and the way the world's changed, and we as human beings have changed from 15-20 years ago, but part of that is radio's reaction to it. Which has been, you know, it's not just the consolidation of the industry, it's the way they view they need to program.

 
What is it? A lot of people say it's just completely wrongheaded. The fact is, you've got these 150 or 300 songs or whatever the hell gets played all everywhere, and you don't have some disc jockey in Philadelphia who finds something and makes it, plays it, and it just grows and that's the birth of this new phenomenon. They're hurting themselves in a way. I mean why hasn't the record industry revolted against that?

Because I don't think they know how. I don't think the record industry knows how to revolt against radio because it relies on it so bad. I mean radio over the last 10 years has completely adopted the attitude that they're not around to play music, they're around to sell advertising. That's what drives them. And they've narrowed it down so that they play the music that they think is going to appeal to the people who are going to react to their advertisers. ?

So, you know, hopefully radio adapts and morphs into something. It certainly doesn't feel like it's going to right now. But if the record companies truly want to survive they need to find other ways to establish artists. And there are those out there that get through it without radio, and without MTV, and have successful careers.

 
And there's a lot that don't.

And there's a lot that don't. ?

[Booker Floyd]

Leonard J. Beers, Editor-In-Chief of Hits! magazine...

Now let me ask you about Velvet Revolver The new Clive Davis-paid for, genetically engineered, about to be super-marketed everywhere, hybrid of Guns N' Roses and Stone Temple Pilots.

Right. They're almost going to have to be an adult rock band now. I don't know if they're going to get the kids. The kids are sort of like past whenever that was, that moment that Stone Temple Pilots had. So they're going to get a shot on the radio right away. And the music that I've heard so far I liked a lot. So they're going to get a run. You know, we hope Scott stays healthy. And, you know, Stone Temple Pilots made great music in the past. And let's hope for the best. ?

 
Now we've spent a lot of time with the marketing guys, and the RCA people talking about how they're going to handle this band. And they have, you know, high-end management here. I mean they have serious people behind them, and they're managing every single step of the way. Worldwide tour about to happen in speedways everywhere, right around the time the album comes out.

But like we said before, just because you do everything right doesn't mean that the magic's going to happen. They're creating a scenario where if the magic does happen it will be really big. By doing things right. But just because you do things right doesn't mean the magic's going to happen.

Danny Goldberg, CEO of Artemis Records...

There's a band we're a following called Velvet Revolver, which is a hybrid of some guys from Guns & Roses--

Yeah Scott Weiland, yeah.

 
Does the world need a genetically engineered new rock 'n' roll band?

Well I signed Stone Temple Pilots when I was at Atlantic, and I've been a friend of Scott Weiland's ever since then, and I'm a big Scott Weiland fan. I don't know the other members of Velvet Revolver, but there is no more authentic and personal artist that I've ever met than Scott Weiland. He is really in his own world. He really comes from the heart in everything he does, and if he believes in this band I believe in it.

 
Will it sell records?

Well, it'll depend on the record. I haven't heard the record. If it's a really good record, if it touches and inspires people, it'll sell. If it doesn't, it won't. It's going to get played on the radio, it's going to get press, it's going to get marketed. So it's going to depend on whether or not the core audience for it, which is rock fans, like it or not. And without having heard it I just don't know.

But I would never bet against Scott Weiland. He's never been the favorite of critics, he's always been sort of in his own path, but his talent for reaching the rock public has been quite extraordinary over the years. So I would never bet against Scott Weiland, but I don't know the details -- I haven't heard the record.

 
So as a business decision though, if you're Clive [Davis] and you've never really had a rock 'n' roll success, in that way, and you've got this band there's a bidding war going on out there in the business, do you make that bet?

Well first of all my wife is one of the lawyers for Velvet Revolver, so I think it was a brilliant deal on everybody's part. Secondly, Scott Weiland's my friend so I think it's a brilliant deal on everybody's part. So that's all I'm going to say on the matter.

 
And when the world says, as the world has to us, "Wait, 20-year-olds make rock 'n' roll music. Not 40-year-old's who want another bite of the apple."

You know, it's not a business where people always wish their competitors well. I think that there's a lot of bickering and jealousy that goes on in the business, but all that matters is what the public likes. There's all sorts of people that have done very well, that the so-called smart people in the business bet against. And there are people that everybody thought was going to do well that didn't do well. All that matters is how the public feels about the record. It doesn't matter at all what people in the business think about it.

Jeff Leeds, Los Angelas Times reporter...

Guns N' Roses, Stone Temple Pilots, [their former members] form a corporate merger of their own into Velvet Revolver. A lot of people behind these guys, including Clive Davis. What's the business story associated with these guys and this album? At the rollout in May what's at stake? What kind of money are we talking about?

I think that's a really interesting situation. I was a fan of both of those bands, and so I'm looking forward to hearing what the new album sounds like. And I can tell you there was a tremendous amount of competition within the record business to sign that [group]. There was a bidding war. And I think that that was partly fueled by almost a nostalgia on the part of some of the record executives, because they think back to the era when Guns N' Roses was a big band, it was one of the biggest bands in the world. It goes back to when Stone Temple Pilots is really a powerful force and was selling millions and millions of albums. And they're thinking "Wow, if we can somehow recapture the momentum from the early '90s, we'd be in really good shape."

I think that they're probably right. I think there's going to be a market among people who were big Guns N' Roses fans, or big Stone Temple Pilots fans who will at least give them a chance. It's certainly not a sure thing, but I think that they're making a bet that there's an existing audience for that that they can use as a starting point.

And so because those are proven rock stars, they're going to obviously command a lot more money when it comes to marketing and promotion. And the record company will probably be willing to go out a little bit further on the limb to try to make that work.

 
But, it will be an interesting thing to observe too, of course, because it's a new reality. I mean, these guys all got started in the late '80s, early '90s. Completely different economics. They were telling us stories about million-dollar recording sessions. Now it's half a million bucks to record this album. [Then it was] 727s filled with coke and girls. Now, a much different orientation. The marketing is very different. They're worried about the Web, worried about how they're [going to get on the radio,] Clear Channel's [stations]. That's the new reality.

It's definitely going to be tough in some ways because the audience that existed for those bands when they were really popular has grown up a little bit. The challenge for them will be to see if they decide to go the route of trying to make it a new sensation among the youngest fans and the teens and so forth.

Like I said, I don't think they're going to have a lot of problems attracting the audience that will be curious, that will say, "I was a big Gun N' Roses fan, I was a big Stone Temple Pilots fan, I want to check this out." But those people are 30, 35, and in that sort of range. They can't market it like it's the newest rapper to come up from the streets. And so I think that's going to be their challenge.

 
They talk about this with a kind of revolutionary fervor. "We're going to change the music business." You know, buccaneers, swashbuckling, "Rock is back, goodbye hip-hop, or at least make way for us. We're going to open a wedge inside the top 10 again."

Right. It seems to me that pretty much every two years or so, like Rolling Stone or Spin or someone else declares that rock is back. I think every couple of years there are some great rock bands that come out. The Hives, I think last year created a big sensation. Didn't sell that many records, but had people declaring them, "rock is back."

The White Stripes are another example where people say, "Wow, there's really a big change going on here." And the White Stripes did have a lot of success on the charts this past year. But I don't think that rock now can be what it was in the '60s or '70s. I just think the culture has changed too much. And it's not going to be the sort of revolutionary force that it was.

 
Why?

When rock was new it was a way for an entire generation of people to embrace it and say, "This is our sound, this is our thing. And this is the way that we want to live. And this is going to be our revolution."

I think that can only happen once. And it happened. And it's over. Now people have to find a new kind of music, or a new set of bands or rappers or singers to grab onto as their own generation's most powerful cultural force. ...

 

[Booker Floyd]

Nic Harcourt, from "Morning Becomes Eclectic" at KCRW, Santa Monica...

Second group. A genetically-engineered band ... Velvet Revolver. Handicap it for me. What's the up and down side? What's going to happen to these guys, do you think?

I haven't heard it. But, my guess is that because of what they've done before and who is in the band -- it's Slash, right, from Guns N' Roses and Duff. I mean, they've got the guys. They've got these guys who have huge recognition. My guess is that it will come out and it will sell very strongly at the beginning. They'll get radio on the first single because they sure got a story of who's in the band.

But where it goes from there is anybody's guess. I don't know if it delivers musically. But these types of groups are usually marriages of convenience, where you are putting together some people who, for whatever reason, are unable to do what they used to do. Scott Weiland has blown it so many times with Stone Temple Pilots because of his addiction problems, then that band is probably cooked.

And, of course, the guys from Guns N' Roses, Axl doesn't want to play with them anymore, so that's never going to happen. So you've got people who want to work, obviously, and want to taste it again who said, "Well, look, we'll get Scott as the singer. We'll get these guys and put it together." You're manufacturing something to a certain extent and whether or not there's any soul underpinning that musically remains to be seen. Maybe there is. But oftentimes [with] those things, there's not.

 
When they say, "Hey, man, we're leading the revolution back to rock. We're going to break hip-hop. We're the new rock revolution," what do you say?

Too old. The new rock revolution is happening with 20-year-old guys; it's not happening with 40-year-old guys. The new rock revolution is kids in New York and kids in Glasgow and 20-year-old people who are forming bands. Most recently from Australia with the Vines and the Strokes and the White Stripes from Detroit. I mean, these are people in their 20s who are really what's bringing rock back. I don't think the middle-aged guys are going to reinvent rock music. ...

 
You know, middle-aged guys can go make a good living doing rock 'n' roll. Old age guys. I mean, look at the Stones. You can still make a living doing it, but are you saying anything? Or are you just sort of going through the motions and delivering a show with pomp and ceremony that goes along with that. And there's nothing wrong with that. People want that.

I talk about the Stones, they go out every three or four years and they sell out stadiums around the world. So, there's definitely an audience for that. But, it's not an audience that is looking for something other than the obvious. It's like, "Play the hits for me."

 
So why does Clive Davis, and why did every label get into this huge bidding war for these guys? What's up with that?

Because it's too obvious. It's too obvious, isn't it? It's like well, Guns N' Roses were huge and Stone Temple Pilots were huge, so let's put those guys together and it's going to be huge. And it may well be.

But that's such an old way of thinking. It's so boring. It's so stale. The thinking is just uninspired. I mean, the inspired thinking would be let's go scour the clubs in various cities and let's find the next Rolling Stones, or the next Guns N' Roses. Let's find a band that is doing that now, that is going to speak to their generation.

I mean, that's what these guys should be doing. And there are A&R executives out there trying to do that, but they're being hampered by the directions from up on top, which is, "Give me something obvious, I want it now. These guys will do it. That's a hit, let's do it." It's a whole mentality of not thinking outside of the box.

That's why the record industry is in trouble, because they haven't been thinking outside of the box for a long time. They've really just been doing the obvious stuff. "Get me a Norah Jones. They got one, I want one. And don't just get me a Norah Jones, get me a guy version of Norah Jones as well." Instead of going and discovering their thing, you know.

 
The other thing these guys are up against, they go into the studio, and the first thing everybody says is, "We need a single. We need two singles." ... The second thing is they realize, even though they say they've made an album and they're from the generation when albums mattered, that is it had to tell a story ... those days are more or less gone. The third thing is, we've got explicit lyrics here. And they say "Hey, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, they don't want explicit lyrics from you guys." "You mean we've got to make clean versions of the music?" Those are the kind of obstacles they're running into. Right?

Well, yeah, if they want to have the record carried in Wal-Mart or wherever, that only sells sanitized music, sure. It's a business. They're looking at it as a business and I understand that. But usually the best things that happen are things that come from the creative way of thinking rather than trying to predict it, because this is how it works. This is how the business works. This is what you have to do.

I understand we've got to have a single to get played on the radio. But that can also be a debilitating thing for a band to have to deliver. You're trying to make music hopefully because you have to, you know, because it's inside you. You have to get this stuff out, write the songs and record them and perform them. But, if you're focused on writing that song that is going to be played on the radio. There are people who do that for a living. Maybe they should go out and hire one of those writing teams to write the single. Maybe they're doing that, I don't know. But, I mean, it's just such a wrong way of going about art to me. And it's the classic example of art and commerce colliding and nobody wins because it's just a train wreck.

 
You mentioned it the other night, the fan base, is it 16 year olds or 35 year olds? Who are they going to appeal to? It's a problem for them.

I would think so. Because the people who are listening to Guns N' Roses 10, 15 years ago have moved on. And to be honest with you, they're waiting to see what Axl does, not what Slash does, you know?...

Michael Guido, VR attorney...

Duff and Matt [are] the genetically-engineered band. What's up with Velvet Revolver?

I wouldn't call them genetically engineered. I would call them people that found each other. Kind of destiny. That's another band I think that the sheer greatness of what they're doing is going to prevail. They're so good. ?

All I can say about them is I saw the one show they have done to date. They came out and played like an 800-seat club in Los Angeles. And it was classic, there was 800 people inside and 5,000 people outside trying to get in. People were sitting there going, "Is this hype, is this a bunch of re-treads?" And they came out and they played six songs and people's jaws were dropped. It was, "Oh yeah, this is what it's about. I forgot." It's the feeling that you got when you looked up at Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones, or somebody, and said, "This is not the world I'm living in. This is some other parallel world that I want to run away with. I want to run away with the carnival."

That's rock stars. That's big rock songs with rock stars that are bigger than life. That are not what some of these bands are when you look up at them and say, "Oh that guy's like my next-door neighbor." This is different, and it's a reminder to us that grew up in a period of rock stars, as to what it's about. And it's going to be fresh and new for kids that have gotten manufactured bands put in front of them for the past five or six or 10 years.

It has danger attached to it, which is an important element of rock. It's what hip-hop had that rock lost, which is why kids were reacting to hip-hop, to the degree this has always been about something that scares your parents. Because there's that moment in your life, when you're 15 or 14 or 16 or 17, and you're inheriting a world you didn't create, and none of it's making sense, and your boss at the deli's busting your chops, and you're in love with this person but you're not having any sex, and you've got all this burgeoning sexuality in you. And at that moment somebody starts making some music that makes it all makes sense for you. That says, "Yes, that's what I'm about. That's what I'm feeling."

For a long time rock lost that, and hip-hop had it. Hip-hop had the danger, hip-hop scared your parents. Velvet Revolver has that. It has that feeling of danger. And it has all the elements that make it combustible which make it exciting. Great musicians, great songs. ?

 
What's the bad thing that can happen to them?

The bad thing that can happen to them is the bad thing that can happen, has happened, to a variety of people in music. Drugs, self-destruction, trouble. That is the flipside of the coin, that's the flipside of the danger.

Hopefully, because these guys have survived as long as they have, and come out the other side, that they have within themselves the ability to not self-destruct. And I think that's the case. Including the one person that continues to have a problem. He's also kept himself alive for all these years, and I believe that he has a safety net within him that's going to keep himself alive. And plus the music he's making is so important, it's what he does. I think that's what's going to keep him alive as well.

[Doc Emmett Brown]

^ Booker, the above post - who is asking the questions?

After witnessing the Spice Girls and Am. Idol, they are calling VR genetically engineered?  

I'm beginning to see why Scott wants to get 'manic' on the media's ass.

[Booker Floyd]

Melinda Newman, bureau chief for Billboard...

The next group that we're going to be talking about is a group that I call the genetically-engineered rock band. This is Velvet Revolver, a combination of three players from Guns N' Roses and Stone Temple Pilots. ? Tell me where they fit in the world of music now.

Well, the pressure's on for a group like Velvet Revolver because the members come from such pedigrees in terms of Guns N' Roses and in terms of Stone Temple Pilots. So in some ways, they are probably not going to get any love from critics at all because critics are going to think this is a manufactured match made solely to make some money.

But then you have a very compelling story in Scott Weiland the front man, who is probably one of rock's strongest front men in the last decade. He's an incredibly compelling live performer, regardless of what you may think of his music, whether his solo stuff or his STP stuff or the Velvet Revolver stuff, he is tremendously compelling. And then he has the whole drug issue, so you kind of never know when he's going to implode. You never know if they've booked a gig, if he's going to show up or if he's going to get arrested two hours before. So there's a certain whole rock 'n' roll drama that he adds to the picture.

But they have a tough, tough road ahead of them in that they're not going to get any doors opened for them because of their past. Instead, it will be like "wow, you know, they've already had their success" or "we want the next new thing, not the next manufactured thing." So it's going to be tough. I haven't heard the new album. The first single, which was from The Hulk, didn't light fires for them like they had hoped it would. It was a little bit of an event record, and it was the first thing we heard from them. But not the sustained hit that people would have wanted it to be. And it could be that the movie absolutely tanked. So that could have hurt it, but the movie just came and went.

But it's more like people waiting to hear the record and really see, OK, does this really combine the best of both of the bands? And in some ways, you know, is it just going to be Guns N' Roses with a different lead singer? Or is it going to be Stone Temple Pilots with a different band? Is the sum going to be greater than the whole of its parts? Are you going to sit there and go, "Wow, this just makes me miss Stone Temple Pilots," or, "Gosh, this just makes me miss Guns N' Roses?"

 
Doesn't sound like you'd want to buy stock in this company?

I would not say that. First off, there is a plus with fans in that there's a built-in fan base for this kind of music. They aren't starting fresh. You know, the label can go to radio and say, "Listen, you guys loved Stone Temple Pilots, you loved Guns N' Roses, God only knows when the next Guns N' Roses is coming out. Axl has been working on it for a decade. Here's something for you. Here is rock that has such a pedigree that you can't deny it." There are fans who will go crazy for this because of their love either for Guns N' Roses or for Stone Temple Pilots or both. So what has going for it is somewhat a built-in fan base, even though critics might not necessarily jump on it, there'll be tons of press on it because these are names, these are names that can probably sell magazines.

So you can't count it out at all. And given that there was a bidding war for them, the label has a strong investment in wanting to make it break. You don't want to be the label that paid X amount for Velvet Revolver and couldn't make them break. ?

 
Is there an appetite for rock?

Sure, there's always an appetite for rock. There's always an appetite for everything if it's done well. There are so many different tastes out there, people want to hear music done well. So yes, there's an appetite for everything.

 
So this idea that their demographic is sort of 35- to 45-year-old men and no teenagers yet or why would teenagers listen to this? And their notion of what they're going to do is wake up a whole new generation of people to rock 'n' roll, that they're going to blow hip-hop out of the way?

I would not say that their audience starts at 35. And the label better hope that it doesn't start at 35. They're very eager to get teen and college-age males. And that's where they're going to have to find some traction. This is also a band that does have female appeal. This isn't just a male-dominated rock band, which several of them are, where the audience is just male. You know, that's not the case here. Scott Weiland is considered something of a sex symbol in rock circles. The Stone Temple Pilots fans skewed male, they're definitely female fans for that. So if they're just shooting for 35 and up, that's not what they want. They clearly want half that age and up.

 
So if you're handicapping ? when will we know if they're making it or not making it?

What you're watching for, for a band like Velvet Revolver where there's already such anticipation, is if it's going to live up to the hype. You are going to look immediately for radio success out of the box. You're going to look to see how many stations, what different formats add it. Now, the label may say, "Okay, we're going to start at modern rock and some time later in the summer start to cross it over to the Top 40." You don't normally go to all formats at once. But you're going to look for some kind of action. In a band like this, you're not looking for a slow build. As much as the label will say this is a new artist and we have to treat it like a new artist, you're looking for some kind of really big indicator that the public cares that members of these two huge groups have come together and are making what they consider this new hybrid of music. And you need that pretty fast. I would say if you don't have something by the second single, it's not going to catch fire.

 
They're also coming into this new environment, even for them. They used to make an album for a couple of million bucks. They go into a studio session. They made this for less than $500,000 in the studio. The drummer was going over the balance sheets, right? And these guys own their masters, or at least a bit piece of the masters. They're very interested in the singles and which singles to drop and how to drop it. They learned just the other day that they had to have clean versions and explicit versions for Wal-Mart and Best Buy. They are in a funny way a test of the old world meets the new world, right?

They came from a time when there was a great deal of rock excess, not like in the '70s, but there was a new wave of rock excess in the late '80s, early '90s that they were part of, where they were selling records like they fell off the back of the truck. I mean, they were really doing very, very well. They're coming back into this in a completely different economy. They're also coming back into it older and probably a lot smarter. They're probably wondering if they sold X million records, how come they only have X in their bank accounts? And so this time, they're going to be much smarter. They realize that the label gets to recoup a lot of the money that they're spending, so they want to watch what they're spending. They're just much smarter about every stage of it right now.

And it is a different stage. And they're very smart, if they're realizing that and they're looking at the budgets, they're looking at things and going, "You know, maybe we needed a catering budget of X in 1991; now we're all doing Atkins, we don't need that. We're all watching our waist lines, we only need X." You know, so there's a certain prudence in a lot of cases that has come in just because of the sheer reality of the economics of it now that they wouldn't have faced last time they were doing this. But it sounds like they're very aware of that and are very smart about it. ?

[Booker Floyd]

Michael "Blue" Williams, manager of OutKast...

One of the bands we're following is a new band called Velvet Revolver that's being made out of the old Guns N' Roses and Stone Temple Pilots guys who are saying, it's time for a revolution. Rock is back, we're going to blast through hip-hop and we're going to be back? Could rock really come back, or did rock already have its day and it's time for something else?

Comes back to the music. If you put out some music that people can feel, they can run through. Hip-hop's stale right now. What makes OutKast look so good is that hip-hop is also so stale. If people don't jump on the OutKast bandwagon, and see this as an opportunity to push the envelope, people just go back into their regular routine. Hip-hop's stale, if rock came through with some new energy or something, yeah.

It's going to be up and down. The question's going to be, who jumps back on that pop wave first, around 2006, 2007? To me whoever finds that next boy band first, that next Britney first, that next wave of artists first. That's when the labels are going to see the money they're looking for again.

But until then, I think we just keep putting out good records, we're steady as a ship, we'll be good. But yeah, rock can make a comeback. It's got to be good, it's got to be real good. It's got to be really good.

And who's the audience? Are they going after their fans from before, or are they going after new kids? I mean you talk about those two groups, what, who are they trying to get? You've got to figure that out. The problem with hip-hop is at 35 in hip-hop you're over, you're old. Hip-hop's a completely young type of genre. You've got to be young and fresh. Rock you can be older. You can be the Eagles going out now, and still have your fans.

But what they're talking about doing is something new. So are they going after their old fans or are they trying to get 13, 14, 15-year-old kids to like them? That's what they got to figure out, how you going to market it? ?

* I apologize for the insane amount of text...I just wanted to get all this stuff on here, cause Id know Id like to see.

Random, Im pretty sure its the documentarys producers asking the questions.

[YouCouldBeMine]

Awesome posts man, regardless of the band have it be Velvet Revolver, Nu-GnR, or some other band like Jet/White Stripes, someones gotta bring back rock. All those posts where pretty interesting and in all honesty if Velvet Revolver isnt a hit theres something defintenly wrong.

[SLCPUNK]

Very interesting.

My favorite quote (well one of them)

I think our problems were not putting out great music, charging too much money for it.

[GUNZforRoses]

It really bugged the shit out of me that this guy on there was insinuating that the record company just took an old popular band and an old popular singer and put them together to make an "obvious" super group instead of finding "the next rolling stones or the next guns n' roses".

It really under sold the fact that this was a thing that was not planned by some corporation but was special and brought about by fate.

I agree 100%, when I saw that guy saying "it's so obvious, guns n roses was huge and so was STP, it's so obvious why they are together" I wanted kick the shit out of him. First off the VR stuff is the best rock Ive heard in years, I may be partial because I love slash and duff, but its the truth. I liked Marilyn mansons second album and smashing pumpkins I liked that they fused electronic stuff with rock like Trent Reznor did. But as far as pure rock SLither is the best shit I've heard in a long time and I think the album will be very big. The reason being that every week on the chart a whole rock audience has no influence on it and they assume that there are no rock fans, I don't believe so I think were just waiting for something good to come out.