You know what I realized this past weekend? There is a big difference between wanting to be good at something and actually being good at it. It’s hard as hell when you realize that you suck at something that you’ve wanted to be for such a long time. My case in point was singing. It failed miserably and I do mean miserably without end. I’m getting ahead of myself here though so let me start at the beginning.

Last week I flew up to Virginia to meet up with Jonah Weingarten, keyboardist from Pyramaze. We were just gonna chill and hang out and record some songs so I could get my voice on tape to get it out there to the world. The first night I got there we just discussed what is near and dear to all of us and that is METAL. It was cool to talk metal with someone else and I probably scared him and his roommates a bit with my massive Edguy love. No, that wasn’t my disappointment, to travel halfway across the US to find out that not everyone loves Edguy as much as me. So anyway, the day after I arrived we headed over to his guitarist friend Paul’s place to get things going and record what would be the first ever Interloper (my band vision) song with the help of Noah on bass and Grant as the producer / mixer. Needless to say it was a tremendous failure. Not on the musicians end at all, it was all on me. The level of musical talent in that room was amazing, Jonah kicked ass on the keyboards, Paul owned the guitar and Noah was a brilliant bassist. Even Grant was kicking ass as the producer, he had an ear for how to make things sound their best and how to obtain that optimum tone and level for the instruments. They already had their version of The Trooper down so to warm up I layed down vocals for it. Oh God, it was so bad it’s not even funny. The Pooper was a disaster and so was the song that I brought in Endless Journey, and I was pretty much crushed. I mean to want something for so long and then when you have a chance right in front of you and to just screw it all up is just mind numbingly God awful and yea, I felt like shit for a long time afterwards. After two days of recording we all just said, “Man fuck it, this isn’t going anywhere,” and scrapped the whole project and brought it to a screeching halt.

I have wanted to be a singer since seeing Iron Maiden live when I was in the summer between eighth and ninth grade. That drive just became more intensified with subsequent concerts of Motley Crue, Iron Maiden again, Judas Priest and then Blind Guardian, Gamma Ray, Angra, and (you guessed it) Edguy at Prog Power III. I had to be that person on stage, the way that they commanded the audience, the sense of vital energy that shot through them and hit me in the face five feet below them on the floor just amazed and enamored me, I had to be that person on the stage someday, I just had to be. I love this music so much and wanted to bring something to it so bad that I forgot one thing. Musically, you are either born talented or not. Even if you aren’t you can still mess around and have fun but even if you practice and play for hours upon hours a day the best you could ever be is competent if you weren’t born with that gift. I learned the hard way that I wasn’t cut out for what I really, truly wanted to be in life and so that night when we threw a big metal party with much blastage of Children of Bodom, Soilwork, Nightrage, and other assorted Melodic Death bands I was a bit more reserved than I normally would have been. After sitting outside on Jonah’s stoop for a little while I came back in and me and Noah started talking about music some and I told him that the songs that he showed us on Guitar Pro that he had written were really damn good and he seemed to take that compliment seriously, even saying that, “Thanks man, coming from someone who’s a music critic that means a lot.” I never considered my writing for metalreviews.com something that a lot of people would really take to heart or even that seriously because hey, I’m just a jaded, sarcastic dude that happens to understand and can dissect metal more than most people can. Then I remembered why I was even up here in Virginia in the first place, it was because one day I opened my email and found a message from this dude named Jonah who thought my editorials were some of the coolest things he’d read and wanted to drop me a line. So hey, I can at least do that pretty decent can’t I? Then, I can’t remember if it was Grant, Noah, or Jonah that told me this next line but it stuck with me. When I was telling whoever it was that the reason I was pretty bummed was cos I wanted to be on that stage so fucking bad I could taste it they said, “Well hey, you might never be one of the people that gets up on there, but without people like you, those guys wouldn’t be there.”

The next day after everyone recovered from the metal madness, I was talking to Jonah some more and he encouraged me to pursue a career in journalism or working for a label as a manager or A & R Rep. I remember him saying too, “Dude you know so much shit about all these bands and you never stop talking so you’d be perfect for a journalistic job.” Even though it hurt to give up on singing, (and believe me I’m doing everyone a favor, I don’t want anyone else to hear that godawful monstrosity known as The Pooper. We couldn’t even call it by its proper name it was so hellaciously bad) I decided a few important things sitting in the airport on the way home. One, was that I will major in journalism instead of just screwing around in college like I’m doing right now. Two, I am going to start writing a book based on what else but Heavy Metal. In it I will have a lengthy in-depth overview of my life and its experience through Heavy Metal and how it has affected me, a meaty chunk of many editorials similar to the ones that you have read so far, a collection of all the interviews that I have done and finally, a few appendices that will have some of my songs that I have written, a wide variety of artists responses to this question, “What does Heavy Metal mean to you?,” and maybe some more extras that I can come up with in the process. This won’t be a boring college like thesis on metal, this is by a fan of metal for fans of metal. Three, I will start contacting a bunch of different record labels and ask what sort of qualifications one would need to work for them as say an A & R Rep or manager. I know that my “official” qualifications are not much at the moment that is why I will major in journalism, but I swear man, I just have a complete and thorough understanding of the music industry and how it is run, and so much knowledge about the music itself that I know that I can do this. Even though it sounds like the stereotypical scenario of a failed musician being a bitter worker for a label, I am not bitter at all. Like I said earlier about wanting to be a singer, I love this music too much to not help it out as much as I can. If I can’t be the person on the stage in front of thousands of people then I will bring someone who does have that talent to the masses, and I will get them the shot, that chance that they never would have had otherwise. That is my goal now.

Some might question the validity of my want to be a singer if I can shift gears in such a short manner of time but believe me, if you talked to any of my friends then you would know that that was all I lived for. But once again, there’s a big difference between what you want to be good at and what you actually are good at. I’m glad I learned that even though it was extremely difficult because it would have been worse if I happened to act on one of my crazy ideas of dropping everything and moving to Europe. All in all I think that my trip up to Virginia was as important a factor in my life as anything could be. And mixed in with one of the biggest changes in my life was a whole hell of a lot of fun as well, hours spent playing Halo, metal, and chicken wings made for a killer trip, I’d do it all over again if I could. The title of this week’s editorial is A New Beginning and yea, it is a new beginning for me in life. And you know what? It feels good to know what I’m going to do.