Stereo Warning

Ozzy Osbourne Talks Drugs, Sex & Alcohol (Sorry, No Bats) -- Interview

2010-02-01T20:14:56Z

Ozzy Osbourne talks to us about his fascinating autobiography, "I Am Ozzy." It turns out that there are many things he'd do over, but he's got no regrets. Oh, and that lawsuit against Tony Iommi? "That's my wife's department," he says, adding that he wouldn't rule out playing with Tony on stage again some day. And that's good news for Black Sabbath fans!

How did you go about writing this book?
Chris would talk to me and ask me what was your childhood like and then he'd find something interesting of what I was saying and he'd go 'can you elaborate more on that incident'. He would pull stuff out that way. I didn't actually put pen to paper; if I'd done that I'd still be on page one, you know? It was quite easy actually.

So you didn't write it all in pencil like Sharon said?
No, I did it all through Chris.

Why write it?
A lot of people through the years have asked 'when are you ever going to write a book'. There's been a lot of unauthorized books written about me. I just decided to do it, you know. ]]> Do you keep a diary?
No. I try from time to time but I forget to do it. I stop and start you know.

Lars Ulrich from Metallica told me he wouldn't publish his autobiography because he wanted to keep some of the nastier things he may have done private, especially from his children.
My antics have been more or less well documented over the years. My kids know about most of it. In my house, if any of the kids ask me questions I always give them an honest answer.

What's the difference between writing a book and writing lyrics?
Most of the time I work with someone with the lyrics. I bounce off another person. The book was a similar kind of process. It ended up being the longest interview of my life, you know.

How long?
Once a week for about six months.

Have you read your wife's book?
No, I haven't.

All the drugs and alcohol could have done a lot of damage to your body, but instead you're in great shape. Why do you think that is?
I should've been dead a thousand times. I'm not boasting about that. I don't want people to read my book and think if he can do it then I can. I'm a very lucky guy to be alive. Drugs and alcohol were fun but there is also a very bad side about it. I don't do it anymore. I enjoy life.

Have you finally kicked those habits?
For a long, long time I tried to kick them. I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't do drugs, I don't do anything anymore. For about six of seven years now. I don't even count anymore.

Has it become easier now?
When I first tried to stop drinking I used to think how will I enjoy my life anymore? Then it shifted to at the end of the day where will I be? If I'd get off the phone now, smoke a joint, have a drink, have some coke and at the end of the day I'd be fucking insane and everybody would get left at home and it would be a bad scene.

You have some strong views on tattoos in your book.
A lot of girls in L.A. have tattoos now. A girl with a tattoo of a bird on her ankle, that's fine. But now you see a pretty girl with these fucking heavy duty tattoos. They might think they're cool now but when they get older and are grandmas it's gonna be like 'what the fuck where you thinking?' If you want to be somebody special nowadays, don't have a tattoo! You have a tattoo for the rest of your life. Even if you have it removed it's still gonna leave a fucking horrific scar.

How do you feel about your tattoos now years after you had them done?
I've always had tattoos. I'm 61 and I had my first tattoo when I was 14 or 15. My son Jack -- his back is tattooed, his arms are tattooed, his legs are tattooed, I try to tell him but he goes, 'you can talk'. So I go fine, you know. I told Kelly, 'you're gonna regret having this shit. It's alright now when you're a wild kid but when you're a mature woman with a family you ain't gonna like it' and she's already saying to me 'dad, I wish I'd listened to you.'

Do you have any regrets?
Whatever I did, I did. If I'd changed anything in my past I wouldn't be here talking to you now. You come to a crossroads and whatever road you take you get the good and the bad. Everybody wants to take the road with the pot of gold at the end, but sometimes to get to that thing you've got to go across a few swamps and a few bad things. It's life! Would I do it again now? I don't think so. But I've already done it, so I've got to accept it.

What part would you not do again?
I wouldn't have picked up drugs so easily. Drugs nearly killed me. I found out that what I was doing was self-medicate because I suffered from dyslexia and ADD. I didn't like the way I felt because of the stigma that I had so when I drank I thought that was the way I wanted to feel. I wanted to be carefree. A lot of my troubles are attributed to alcohol and drugs. When I used to go to Copenhagen I used to go in a bar and ask for this extra special brew and be fucking crazy for a week. I remember being in a hotel bar in Copenhagen and I said to the guy do you have a really heavy duty beer. And he came out with this bottle of beer with a white label with a number on it. It was like drinking fucking rocket fuel. I'd have such a hangover the next day I'd have to go to the doctor. We used to play a club 40 years ago called the Revolution Club in Copenhagen. What I liked about Denmark was the fact that it was so liberal and so open. We could buy pornography and things, you know.

My first wife… I got married at the age of 20 and had two children before I was 25. At 25 years old to be a father to two children, that's ridiculous. I got married way too early and I got children way too early. Then I got divorced when I was about 30 and I got married again when I was about 32. My parents never told me it's not a good idea to get married early. I thought that's what you do, you know. What I do with my children, which I wish my parents had done with me, is talk to them. If they ever ask me questions I give them an honest answer. I would say to my father, where do babies come from and he'd say a stork brings you. It confuses kids. So you tell them the truth.

What do you have left to accomplish?
If my career ended now I couldn't really complain because I've had a great run. But I'm just finishing up a new album, I haven't got a title yet. It's gonna be released in the summer then I'm doing Ozzfest around America. I'd like to take it to Europe but I don't know if I'll be able to.

What about outside music?
I don't know. I take whatever comes my way.

How's your relationship with Tony Iommi?
I haven't spoken to him for a while. We're always falling out with each other. But I don't hold anything against him. It was just business, you know. That's my wife's department, not mine.

Will you ever share a stage with him again?
I never say never anymore because you say no no no and the next day you're on stage together. I don't have any argument with him.

Metallica debuts "stupid" instrumental song off Death Magnetic

2009-07-27T22:50:26Z

Metallica performed live "Suicide & Redemption," the Grammy-nominated instrumental track from their latest album, "Death Magnetic" for the first time in the band's history at tonight's show in Copenhagen. James Hetfield, in announcing the song, asked Lars Ulrich whether he should tell the crowd the song title, then said he wouldn't, because "it's a stupid title anyway." He did eventually mention it after finishing the song. The show, the fourth out of five the band is playing in Copenhagen, also featured another seldom played Metallica song, "Dyer's Eve." It was a messy but very fast rendition of the "...And Justice For All" crowd favorite, which Hetfield seemed to bring to a satisfactory conclusion only through sheer willpower. During the encore, the band stopped playing their Merciful Fate medley after messing up repeatedly through the first two verses, but it was unclear if the screw-ups were on purpose or not.

Ozzy Osbourne sues Tony Iommi for Black Sabbath T-shirt money

2009-06-02T12:17:32Z

Ozzy sues Tommy Iommi for keeping all the cash from Black Sabbath t-shirt sales. Isn't this a bit late? I mean, Black Sabbath has been around for 40 years and now Ozzy finally realizes he hadn't gotten any t-shirt cash? Come on...

Here's what Ozzy had to say to justify himself:]]> “It is with great regret that I had to resort to legal action against my long term partner, Tony Iommi, but after three years of trying to resolve this issue amicably, I feel I have no other recourse.

As of the mid-1990’s, after constant and numerous changes in band members, the brand of "Black Sabbath" was literally in the toilet and Tony Iommi (touring under the name Black Sabbath) was reduced to performing in clubs. Since 1997 when Geezer, Bill and myself rejoined the band, Black Sabbath has returned to its former glory as we headlined sold-out arenas and amphitheatres playing to upwards of 50,000 people at each show around the world. We worked collectively to restore credibility and bring dignity back to the name “Black Sabbath” which lead to the band being inducted into the UK and US Rock & Roll Hall of Fames in 2005 and 2006, respectively.

"Throughout the last 12 years, it was my management representatives who oversaw the marketing and quality control of the “Black Sabbath” brand through OZZFEST, touring, merchandising and album reissues. The name "Black Sabbath" now has a worldwide prestige and merchandising value that it would not have had by continuing on the road it was on prior to the 1997 reunion tour.

"Tony, I am so sorry it’s had to get to this point by me having to take this action against you. I don’t have the right to speak for Geezer and Bill, but I feel that morally and ethically the trademark should be owned by the four of us equally. I hope that by me taking this first step that it will ultimately end up that way. We’ve all worked too hard and long in our careers to allow you to sell merchandise that features all our faces, old Black Sabbath album covers and band logos, and then you tell us that you own the copyright. We’re all in our 60’s now. The Black Sabbath legacy should live on long after we have all gone. Please do the right thing.”

I have one question: What does the Black Sabbath legacy have to do with who owns the t-shirt copyright?

ozzy osbourne black sabbath tony iommi

Mike Patton talks about Faith No More reunion

2009-03-22T21:28:42Z

We're super psyched that Mike Patton and Faith No More are getting back together. So psyched, in fact, that we're republishing our interview from last year with Mike in which he talks about the last year or so in Faith No More's life, when things weren't going so well. At the time, Mike told us he would never be a part of a FNM reunion. We're glad he changed his mind!

So check out what he had to say after the break. See you at the shows!

]]>
Do you ever look back and say 'ah, the good old days...'?
Yeah, sometimes. But they're good because they ended. If they were still going, they'd be the sad new days.

Will there ever be a Faith No More reunion?
Well, not with me. I feel like when something's really done you have to have the courage and the strength to walk away from it and admit that it's done. We ended it at the right time and everyone's moved on and they're happy. In some strange way I'm busier than I was when I was doing that stuff. I'm in a really comfortable place, especially having my label and having created a bit of my own universe, it's pretty satisfying. But that was a great decade or so in my life and it's all a journey, I wouldn't be doing this now if I wasn't doing that then. I'm happy to still have something to say and have an outlet to do it.

Anyone ever suggests getting back together?
There's some guys in the band who would love to do that and then there's me. Everyone understands where I'm coming from and generally I think they agree. But every 3-4-5 years some brain surgeon in Scotland has an idea, some Svengali who thinks he can change the world, comes with a briefcase full of cash and makes a crazy offer. And it's not easy to go, 'eh, fuck it.' It would be very easy for some of us to rehearse for a couple of days, smile and cash the check. I'm not at that point. I got enough things to worry about, enough problems and enough things on my plate. Maybe if he comes with two briefcases full of money... (laughs)

What exactly did happen, you guys were still coming out with some great music, Album of the Year was awesome?
That was it though, I felt like we were slowing down. It was really hard to spit that record out. it took a long selection process with the music, I thought it was getting a little too scattered and it wasn't quite up my alley and I was ready to do some other things. I was happy with that record, I think it stands up to any of our others, but I was looking in the crystal ball and I could see where we were going with it. To me I felt like the best thing to do was to end on a good note, not walk away with a bad taste in my mouth. Surprisingly enough, everyone else agreed at that point.

So it was your idea?
Yeah, I think I brought it up first, but everyone really agreed. It was a very mutual decision, not teary-eyed. It was our time.

Your vocal range is amazing. How can you go from screaming your lungs out to whispering to singing all kinds of high notes without destroying your vocal chords?
I don't know, I don't have a good answer. I guess over the years I tried to put myself in situations where I exercise it. It's just a muscle and the more you do it the more you put yourself in situations where you gotta rise up. it's like learning a foreign language, total immersion you sink or swim. I've been lucky enough to tread water in some cases, in other cases I feel like I've learned a lot and done pretty well. I learned by doing and you have to be willing to fall on your face sometimes. I don't do it correctly, I don't do it classically, I just kind of do it.

Man, Axl Rose should have a chat with you...
No one can teach that guy anything. He's a perfect prick.

Technorati tags: peeping tom faith no more mike patton

Lars Ulrich from Metallica -- interview part 3

2008-11-22T22:45:08Z

Here is the final piece of the interview with Lars Ulrich from Metallica. Enjoy !

Where do you see the music business going?
It's an interesting time right now. A lot of defining things will happen for the next decade but it's not settled yet. For the next record we can do whatever we want. We look at all options but it's too early to say. By the time the next Metallica record rolls around who knows what the landscape will be. It goes back to communicating with the fans -- a few options would be to cut out the record company. Their biggest function is being a bank. When you don't need them to pay for stuff you don't really need a record company. You can go with independent distribution or do it over the internet. I'll figure it out in five years. Now it's interesting to see what Trent is doing, what Radiohead is doing, but it feels like everything is in transition right now.

]]> Let's talk about art for a bit. How did you become an art collector?
We had art all over the house when I was growing up. It’s been a passion of mine for 20-25 years. It’s one area where I can go and be myself. It’s not about being in Metallica or being the drummer in a rock band. I’m accepted for who I am in the art circles. I love going into artist spaces and galleries and auction houses. It’s great because it has absolutely nothing to do with Metallica. It’s my place of sanctuary.

What was the first painting you bought?
The first piece that I got was a Warhol. It’s a lithograph of three apples that my parents had when I was growing up. My parents sold it when they divorced and I chased it down and bought it back. So I have the apples that were hanging in the dining room when I was growing up.

How did you get into Basquiat?
Basquiat is just so incredible in his rawness and he was the last great American painter who got a lot of his inspiration and influence from a lot of guys that I really like, like Jean Dubufett and Asger Jorn. I really like paintings. I’m not much into conceptual art. I respect it but it’s not something that does a lot for me.

How many Basquiats did you have?
I’ve had four, but I just sold my last one.

Do you feel any nostalgia for the paintings?
Yes, but it’s also an exercise that I force myself to go through because you don’t own art. The artists own art. You just hold on to it to enjoy it for a while. It becomes a revolving door, and I have to continue to put those paintings out there. There is very little art that I hoard. I’ve had 10-15 great years with some of these paintings and now it’s time to get some other ones.

What else do you collect?
I collect a lot of modern design, furniture and artifacts. Danish design like Poul Kjaerholm, Arne Jacobsen and Hans Wegner and also a lot of African art. I enjoy a lot of different things.

How is Lars the art collector different than Lars the drummer?
I’m not sure he’s any different. He’s very passionate and he’s very into it. He researches and reads and gets to know the living artists that he’s collecting. He takes it very seriously.

When do you have the time for all of this with the band and three kids?
I don’t know. It’s what happens when you spend too much time in airplanes...

Do you have a favorite contemporary artist we should keep an eye on?
I’m getting into a lot of younger guys. In the last 10-15 years I’ve been buying a lot of more established names but in the last two or three years I’ve mostly been getting into really young guys that you’re not gonna know, like John Koerner. I’ve started going into galleries and studios a lot more, seeing artists paint. It’s very exciting. I’m meeting a lot of cool people - young guys who are really keen and hungry.

Tags: photos pictures lars ulrich metallica james hetfield kirk hammett rob trujillo robert trujillo

Lars Ulrich from Metallica interview - part 2

2008-11-21T20:44:59Z

Here is part II with Lars from Metallica. Check back tomorrow for the final installment.

Rick Rubin said he wanted you to go back to the mind set you had when you write Master of Puppets. How do you go back to that 80s mentality, where do you go to find that hunger?
I've always struggled with this concept that you have to be hungry to make a good heavy metal record. I'm not saying it's wrong but I don't know how applicable they are to us. We make fine records at home in our backyard where it's comfortable. With rick, he set the bar maybe higher than it's been set for a while and we were up for that just to challenge ourselves. It took a while to get to that place where we would feel comfortable revisiting some of the things we've done before. I purposefully tried to steer our band as far away from that as possible for many years out of fear of repetition and of cheapening the previous work by getting too close to it again. Rick found ways to make us feel comfortable about doing that again. It also coincided with the 20th anniversary of the Master of Puppets record, which we relearned and played on a nightly basis. As we got close to that record again and Rick was slowly steering us in that direction it started thawing away at that wall, that fear of repetition. It's been surprisingly efortless to go back to some of that stuff. Not as difficult physically or mentally as I anticipated.

]]> Phil said in Some Kind of Monster that your work then was gonna pay off not on St Anger, but on the next album, which is this one. Is that true and if so what that say about your future work?
It's certainly true because this record was a lot less of a burden, a lot more stress free. Rick Rubin has a very calming aura around him that he shares with everybody. He's a pretty chill guy to be around. But I also think because James and me made a decision to let go of the reins a little by bringing Rick in. What we did back then (during SKOM) was an investment in the future. I think right now the future looks great, certainly from a mental point of view. The great unkown is the physical point of view. I just don't know how long we can do this physically. I think creatively and in terms of getting along this band can go on forever but at some point the necks and the legs and the backs might break or give out.

Do you see yourself play in a later age holding back a little and not slaming the drums so much?
It's kind of difficult not to play like that when I'm up on stage in front of 20,000 people. We'll have to see. I just don't know if it's possible to do this 20 years from now.

What would you do without Metallica?
I've got a whole laundry list. I'm pretty sure I'd probably start off in the movie world, most of my friends either make or produce or write movies. I'm not so interested in acting, Connie (Nielsen) can do that. Writing, producing... directing is more challenging, maybe I'll leave that for later. But I'd love to sit down for 6 months and write a movie. There's not shortage of things to do, I'm not scared about what's gonna happen on the other side of Metallica. I just hope I get to all the things I could do.

Any ideas of what kind of movies you might write?
I got things stored up in my head. There are more film people that come over to the house for dinner than musicians. It seems natural to go that direction.

Have you thought about writing your biography?
Briefly, when I get asked about it in interviews. I really am a proponent of the truth and if you're gonna do these things you have to give it all and can't hold back. This shouldn't be a gray area. In order to write that kind of book properly it would be so many things in there that maybe should not be told and you'd probably incriminate a few other people. There were 5-6 musicians biografies that all came out right before Christmas last year: Clapton, Dio, Nikki Sixx, Slash and I read every one of them. There were a few of them that were really watered down, because I know these people. So to me if you're gonna do it then you should do it full on. I think it's probably better to not do it because you might hurt people or piss people off or maybe your kids shouldn't know what happened in that room in Portland Oregon in 1992. I might change my mind but it's not something I'm itching to do.

Is there anything you'd change in your career?
I probably would've chosen not to wear a white leather jacket in the summer of 1992.

That's right, the jacked from the "A Year And A Half In The Life Of Metallica" video! Where is it now?
Locked away safely in the attic, trust me. I also wish I might have been more preapred for the backlash on the Napster thing. Obviously I wish I could change the accident that took Cliff Burton. But other than that I'm not a guy that spends to much time in the past. If anything I'm guilty of spending too much time in the future. In the last few years I feel like I've been in the present more. I wish I'd done it earlier on cause I missed out on a lot of things that were going on around me because I was always so occupied with long-range planning.

You were right about Napster and most people would probablly admit it now, but you took a lot of heat at the time. Was it a PR mistake to take on those guys then?
No, it was the right thing to do but we should've been better prepared. But that's Metallica, man, we just jump and we don't know where the fuck we're gonna land most of the time. And that's a beatiful thing to do but once in a while you also hurt yourself when you land. They were brilliant because they set us up against our fans. It wasn't true that Metallica was suing the fans, we never sued any of our fans. We said please take us off the server, they said we can't do that, we don't know who's downloading your music. We said that's bullshit. So we called up some company and they got the names of everybody. It was as easy as putting milk on your cereal. So we said here they are, and they said Lars is suing his fans. They were very smart. I wish we'd been more prepared. It was annoying that it was so misunderstood and still to this day, 8 years later some people remember that 'Metallica is about money.' It wasn't money, it was control. It wasn't supposed to be a big thing. The way I look at Metallica this is a footnote. but to some people Metallica are the guys that went after Napster.

COME BACK TOMORROW FOR THE LAST PART OF THIS INTERVIEW. HEY, IT'S LONG AND I DON'T FEEL LIKE TYPING IT ALL AT ONCE, OKAY? HE HE HE!
(c)Stereo Warning 2008. All rights reserved. Be nice and don't steal this content without attribution and a link back to Stereo Warning.

Tags: photos pictures lars ulrich metallica james hetfield kirk hammett rob trujillo robert trujillo

New interview with Lars Ulrich from Metallica - part 1

2008-11-20T11:58:31Z

Here's the interview with Lars we promised. It's gonna come in installments, so check back for parts II and III.

At this level in your career, you hardly need any more publicity. Why still keep such a busy schedule and do these interviews?
It's a way of communicating with the fans. You choose your path early on and it was pretty clear for us early on that the bands that we idolized were more accessible. The people I idolized were on the level and were accessible. We've always prided ourselves and enjoyed being accessible. It's okay to sit and talk about what you do. You choose to answer the questions you want, and the ones you don't want to you come up with a silly, smart-ass or sarcastic comment and find a way around it. I don't mind it.

The kids are definitely interested in what you have to say and you work hard to give your fans a lot of access into the inner workings of Metallica, probably more so than any other band.
Maybe more so than they should have, ha ha ha. But it's the path we've chosen. People sit there and talk about the movie (Some Kind of Monster, ed.) but once you open yourself up you have to deal with that. Either you open yourself up and its carte blanche or you shy away. Our path has been the carte blanche accessibility, for better or worse, warts and all as they say.
]]>

I know you pushed hard for that. Was it because you as a teeneager got to hang out with Diamond Head, who you used to look up to at the time?
Maybe a little. Certainly Iron Maiden, Motorhead, all the bands I was interested in, I got close to. They were always very open to let me in. I was also extra keen and extra fanatical but I always got in there and I always appreciated when the bands that you idolize make you feel special by letting you be part of what they were doing. So I've always tried to do that to the best of our ability, but sometimes the numbers get hard. You want to go sign autographs in a record store but 2,000 people show up and it can be overwhelming. But you do the best you can.

Magazines made a big deal about you flying on different planes last summer in Europe. What's the travel arrangement on this tour?
We're flying home a lot after shows so we're travelling together. People have a tendency to focus on something that can be perceived as negative. The reason we travel separately a lot is we want everybody to be comfortable, not that we don't wanna hang out together. James Hetfield doesn't want to base in Copenhagen for two weeks he shouldn't have to just because I want to. It's about giving each other space and freedom to be comfortable in that crazy touring bubble. Guys that are content have a tendency to want to tour longer and be more productive. It's an investment back in the band. Sure, it can be perceived as overkill or excess and I understand that, especially with English magazines, but it's okay. You set yourself up for that.

They didn't complain when you took them on the private jet though.
No, of course not. People always try to find something to bang the drum about.

How is your relationship with James? Is he still your best friend?
He's more than my best friend. He's as close to a brother I've ever had. We're partners in a gang. It's beyond friendship -- as Bon Jovi would say, it's blood on blood. Especially for a bunch of people that aren't particularly like-minded. We don't have a lot in common. The only thing we really have in common is Metallica and the fact that we're passionate parents, but that's enough to keep us great friends great buddies.

Do you talk a lot about your kids?
Yea we talk a lot about that stuff. It's a great thing that we've all experienced parenthood at the same time. It's not like one guy has a bunch of kids and the others run around strip clubs every night. Everybody is on the same page.

Do you ever miss the wild old days?
I'm glad I lived them. I have a lot of great memories and I had a lot of fun. We had a lot of crazy shit that was going on. I don't need to live it anymore. A lot of kids that grow up around hard rock and metal have a tendency to be loners, outcasts and misfits, and I don't mean it necessarily as a negative thing. I was a loner. I spent a lot of time alone. I'm an only child and a lot of times in social circles guys can be awkward. When you're in a band all of a sudden girls pay attention to you, so you spend a lot of time chasing after girls, especially when as a youngster you were kind of an outcast because you didn't get a lot of girl action when you were 17. All of a sudden you are 25 and making up for that lost time. In some way it also can help give you confidence and identify who you are, because you feel better about who you are. But when you're 44, I've got a great girl, I've got three beautiful kids, I don't need to validate who I am anymore through that kind of partying or pursuit of being accepted or noticed. I've had a lot of fun but now it's not something that identifies who I am. I can drink like every body else, but mostly red wine not vodka tonic like it used to be.

COME BACK TOMORROW FOR MORE FROM LARS, INCLUDING HIS WISH TO WRITE A MOVIE, HIS PASSION FOR ART AND HIS REGRETS ABOUT THE NAPSTER AFFAIR.

Tags: photos pictures lars ulrich metallica james hetfield kirk hammett rob trujillo robert trujillo

Ask Lars Ulrich from Metallica a question

2008-10-24T17:33:20Z

One of our journalist friends is lucky enought to have been granted an interview with Lars Ulrich from Metallica and he's been nice enough to agree to ask him a few questions on behalf of readers of Stereo Warning. So leave your questions for Lars in the comments to this post and then check back in a week or so to find out what answers Lars gave. Pretty cool, huh?

Metallica: Lars Ulrich interview

2008-10-22T10:11:14Z
In honor of the fact that Metallica today kicked off their world tour in Arizona, we're posting a translation of an interview Lars Ulrich gave to a Danish magazine called "Ud&Se." Enjoy!

Is Lars Ulrich a happy man?
Ha, ha. Yes, Lars Ulrich is a very happy man. It’s going well. We’re driving hard and it hasn’t gotten any easier just as I’m getting up there in age. But as I like to say, if you ever hear me complain, smack me over the head. I have some wonderful children and a girl I’m very happy with and a father and a family and three guys in a band that I actually can talk to. We can hang out in the same space. When we’re in the same city we stay in the same hotel, ha, ha, now that’s luxury.

Have you learned to deal with the restlessness you are also known for?
Remember who you’re talking to. I still have a very frenetic energy. But I’m less restless today because of two or three things: kids, the fact that I’ve become older and… shit, we’ve been doing this for 27 years. When you’re in your 20s you don’t stop long enough to embrace what you do but 20-25 years later it’s a different story. I’ve gotten better at opening my eyes, look around me and just be for a moment.]]>
You’re in a business that sings praises to the new young thing. How do you deal with that?
I’m okay with getting older, also in this business. Shit, when I look at my dad, he’ll be 80 years old very soon. It’s inspiring. He is so calm. I’m not panicking over having already lived half my life or whatever (knocks three times on the table). I’m happy and I like being here now. Besides, all the new cool bands that are coming, such as Sword, when those boys stand backstage and stare while I bang the drums, it gives me a spark – now I’ve got to show them how it’s done.

Will you be on stage when you’re old like Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones?
I have no clue. The way things are going right now inside the band, mentally we can do it till we’re 100 years old. We’re doing alright. The problem is not here (points to the head) but down here (points to shoulders, back and neck). This metal that we’re doing pulls your teeth out. I have no idea if I’ll be able to play the way I want to when I’m 65. No disrespect to Charlie Watts, the Rolling Stones inspire me and we have played with them, but it’s a whole different thing technically and physically playing their hits like “Start Me Up” compared to playing “Damage Inc.” or “Fight Fire With Fire” or the other speed shit we play. I can see that the man that works the hardest on this tour – apart from me, of course, ha ha – is our physiotherapist, who is on call 24/7.

Back to your father. He has been a huge part of your life. How is he these days?
I have a very close relationship to my father. We travel a lot together. My ex-wife, about whom I won’t say anything bad, had a tough time with the concept of family because she had a difficult relationship with her own family. In the years we were together we didn’t visit each other’s families that much, but now with Ms. Nielsen, she loves my father and in the last five years we’ve really fired up our relationship again. It’s brilliant, he’s so inspiring. He’s so nostalgic and always tells stories of the old days but also talks about philosophy and this and that, so when you are with him you always leave richer, better and smarter.

He’s lived such an unusual life, how has that influenced you?
It was a different upbringing over there in Hellerup. It was different in our house compared to most of the houses of my classmates. But I’m really thankful for that today. My mom and dad did a great job making sure that I wasn’t trapped by all that freedom I had as a boy and that I wasn’t blind to how the rest of society worked even though I was privileged. We’re trying to teach our kids the same thing.

You moved to USA when you were 16-17, how was that?
Dad was going there to play tennis, so I went too to try to play tennis as well. I lived in a weird place that is called Newport Beach which makes the north of Copenhagen (rich suburbs, ed.) look like a slum. It was a little odd for me after two years of having hanging out in Christiania every day all of a sudden to hang out with all these rich pigs in their pink Lacoste shirts. I started to associate tennis with that world and so the rebel in me said fuck this shit, I’ll go and play rock music instead. Now the U.S. has been my home for 25 years and I love where I live. San Francisco is brilliant and my kids are Danish-American.

You’ve smashed many drums to pieces since then. Have you made it?
I won’t play it down, it’s been a long run, a hard run, but I’m not one of those that sets a target… I have a goal… I’ve always been afraid that if you have a goal and you don’t get there naturally you can change direction and become fake and creativity will be influenced negatively. The life I live today was not something I particularly was looking for when I was young. I just wanted to play music and drink some beer, hang out and meet some nice girls. It’s the same plan I have today, ha ha ha. Now we’ve all found the nice girls, but hopefully we’ll still have some beers later, instead of this protein shake.

This is also a world full of pitfalls. How did you deal with those?
We have been lucky and smart enough not to let those overcome us. I think the love for what we do has been so strong that it overcame the worst crises. There were the drugs, the fights, all that shit. But we’ve always been able to sit down, talk to each other and find ourselves again. Because Metallica is more important than all that nonsense. We’re lucky that the personalities in this band managed to keep their feet on the ground… okay there have been a couple times when there were some slipups, but shit 27 years, that’s something.

How is it being on stage today?
It’s hard to describe. I become a 12-year-old kid again. I sit there and think wow, this is pretty cool! When I’m up there it’s the best two hours ever. It’s a comfortable place, because nobody comes and tells me what to do. it’s a safe place.

Why did you decide to work with Rick Rubin?
We got Bob Rock in the 80’s, it was because he was making the best records back then, and Rick Rubin is making the best records now. We’ve always been very afraid of repeating ourselves, that’s why we’ve run in so many directions, perhaps too many. Especially me, I’ve always been terrified of doing the same shit twice. Rick got us to find inspiration in the old stuff, more musically complex Metallica. All 10 tracks on this album are from 7 to 9 minutes and we’ve gone back to working a lot with changing tempos.

What about the lyrics?
The album is called Death Magnetic. It’s not just about cruising and women. All the lyrics are about death. James wrote them and I think he’s done a great job. They are very dark, poetic. A lot of exciting things are happening in James Hetfield’s head.

Is he doing better now, he doesn’t drink anymore?
Of course, but the demons that live inside don’t disappear, they just sit under a lid and come out every once in a while. I think you can work a lot on it, but what’s in your DNA you can’t run from.

What is it with metal boys and art?
I’ve always been interested in art. When you’re lucky enough to sell all these records, you can all of a sudden get all these things that you like. I began by buying a few things by Asger Jorn and Sonja Ferlov, then I went on to people like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Willem de Kooning. These days I buy especially things from galleries, the new, young people. What attracts me to painting art is that it has nothing to do with Metallica. Here I am just Lars instead of Lars Ulrich from Metallica. It’s another identity, my world alone, where I can be myself.

Do you have a big collection?
I do, but I change it often. I found out a few years ago that I don’t want to own art. You don’t own art, it’s just something you take for a while until you pass it on.

Tags: photos pictures lars ulrich metallica james hetfield kirk hammett rob trujillo robert trujillo

Back in business

2008-10-16T14:29:57Z
Hi guys, sorry for the lenghty silence, we've had mad problems with movable type and eventually had to delete the blog completely and reinstall everything. We were too lazy to repost everything we had done over the past year, but we have published again the interviews that had the most readers -- and that were still newsworthy and timely, like the one with Robert Smith or the one with Trent Reznor.

So enjoy, and keep watching this space, cuz we're gonna publish an interview with Lars Ulrich from Metallica that one of our friends has translated from a Danish magazine. Stick around!

MGMT interview

2008-10-16T14:22:44Z

In a dusty parking lot at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in the California desert, a shiny tour bus sits in the sun, engine running to power the air conditioning. Inside, the founding members of the Brooklyn electro-psychedelic band MGMT relax on leather couches having just performed to an adoring crowd at one of America’s biggest rock festivals. Several attractive young women climb aboard, smile sheepishly at the two guys and head straight for the room at the back of the bus. As the door opens and closes, a whiff of marijuana escapes. It is a scene fitting for the young musicians, whose meteoric rise to stardom has been fueled by their hit single “Time to Pretend.”

"Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives," Andrew VanWyngarden sings on that song. "I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin and f*** with the stars/You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars/This is our decision to live fast and die young/We've got the vision, now let's have some fun."
]]> The album broke the top 10 in several countries. At one point earlier this year, “Time to Pretend” was the most requested song on the Los Angeles legendary rock station KROQ. So are these guys the new hedonistic rock stars, out to resurrect the Sunset Strip party days of the 1980s or are they just making fun of that lifestyle? Officially, they’re on the fence, but the glistening in bassist Ben Goldwasser’s eye gives a hint on which way they might be leaning.

“I’ve had this whole thing playing around my head whether I want to keep myself grounded in real life or if I wanted to completely let go and go insane and be like ‘hey I’m in a band on the road’,” says Goldwasser. “It’s hard to tell where to draw the line. I don’t want to be completely unrealistic in my view of the world, which I think kind of happens when this is all you do, but on the other hand if you’re in a band you’ve got to go a little crazy.” Goldwasser and VanWyngarden formed MGMT at university in Connecticut and have been friends since 2002. Goldwasser is unassuming but outgoing and garrulous, while VanWyngarden is flamboyant but calm and quiet. They’re the Ying to each other’s Yang.

After playing small local shows and touring a bit during their university years, they started to create a buzz, which only grew once they released an EP that included “Time to Pretend” in 2005. Only a week after moving to Brooklyn in 2006, they signed a record deal with Columbia Records. The label spared no expense and brought Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann on board to make their debut album, “Oracular Spectacular.” Before it even hit U.S. stores in February, the record sold about 20,000 copies as a digital release. It’s a warm and hazy album that pays homage to the great forefathers of psychedelic music, but still feels fresh, with catchy tracks like “Kids” and “Electric Feel” giving “Time to Pretend” a run for its money.

And here they are, in the California desert, having just played to thousands of people into a sweaty tent packed way over capacity, with L.A. B-list celebrities lining up backstage to check them out.

“I’ve never experienced something like that before, it was really crazy. I was smiling the whole time,” says VanWyngarden. Goldwasser is still on a high from the show. “It wasn’t stressful at all. Usually we have some catastrophe before our shows, but this time everything worked,” he says. “There’s been all this hype, people categorizing us as a buzz band, and that can seem all fake or like it’s not happening. People are telling you numbers, or who said what about you, but to see a crowd of people like that really getting into it and knowing the lyrics to our songs, that’s really special.”

With the notoriety of course comes the press attention. Before me on the bus, a loud and hyper woman from Rolling Stone magazine kept jabbing at MGMT with her tape recorder. “Is this is like your dream come true, or what?” she asked at one point. The boys took it all in stride, as they do the constant questions about their ridiculous name.

“The dumbest question is when people asked why we picked our band name,” says Goldwasser. “It’s not so much that it’s a dumb question, but it’s a dumb answer and people should know that. It’s not an exciting answer. It’s very boring, but everyone asks.” Well we didn’t ask about the name, but we did want to know how they came up with their sound. Was it deliberate, or did it naturally fall into place?

“We weren’t thinking about musical direction when we first started, it was really informal,” says VanWyngarden. “We just wanted to make some music together on our laptop computers. That was the easiest way for us to record songs, so it was electronic by nature. A lot of it was instrumental. That all changed when we graduated and signed to a label and were going to make a full length album. We didn’t want to do electronica.”

Adds Goldwasser: “We listen to a lot more rock and psychedelic stuff, old music, and we wanted to represent ourselves a little more and play the kind of music we would want to listen to.” VanWyngarden, who is a fan of Neil Young and a mish-mash of 60-70s mellow psychedelic music, nods in agreement.

As relaxed as they seem lounging on their tour bus and joking around with the road crew, the two know that they are under a lot of pressure to keep up the momentum and not become a one-hit onder.

“I’m excited to record and make another album, but that won’t happen for a while,” says VanWyngarden. “I think we’re going to be around for a while. I hope so. We just need to put out a strong second album.”

“When we recorded the first album we weren’t thinking that tons of people were going to love it,” says Goldwasser. “We were just making the music that we liked and as long as we keep doing that hopefully things will keep going well for us, but at least we’ll be happy and still have fun.”

Sure, that sounds good, but what about a backup plan? After all, they confess they don’t know exactly how much money they’re making, just that the record label is giving them a monthly payment.

“My back up plan is to learn how to surf and live on a beach,” says VanWyngarden.

“I want to do some really punishing social work. A job that drives me crazy but is helping people. I have friends who are social workers. They love it but it’s really hard work,” says Goldwasser.

But for now, it’s time for another kind of hard work, and quite a lot of fun, too. The band has a whole list of summer festivals in Europe ahead of them, including Denmark’s Roskilde – one of the festivals that inspired Coachella’s organizers. VanWyngarden professes to be a camping fan, so this summer’s schedule should suit him fine. Besides the three songs mentioned above, he’s looking forward to rocking the song 'Of Moons, Birds & Monsters', a spaced-out jam that seems tailor-made for festivals. “It’s great for people stoned in a field,' VanWyngarden says with a smile.

Custom Search

Tags: mgmt

Metallica plays songs for label; verdict? A-ok!

2008-10-16T14:21:12Z

The release of Metallica's Death Magnetic.

If you're a fan, this has got to be good news: the boys have brought a finished song to their record label, Warner and played it for the execs. Yes, the good news continues: label sources tell Stereo Warning that the song was "heavy" and "brutal" but also "punkish." I don't know about you, but to us that sounds kinda like "Ride The Lightning." Can anyone say "Creeping Death"? One can only hope, right?

Tags: photos pictures lars ulrich metallica james hetfield kirk hammett rob trujillo robert trujillo

Peter Hayes - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club interview

2008-10-16T14:17:38Z

As a teenager in California, Peter Hayes first tried his hand at playing guitar by learning the Jimi Hendrix song “Castles Made of Sand.” Years later, after four albums with his garage rock band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, he is keenly aware that a career in music is just as fragile these days as a kid's construction on a beach. He laments high-spending rock stars that ruin the good name of modest, hard-working musicians and low-spending music fans who would rather download BRMC for free than support the band with a little cash. Check out our interview.

Where/how did you grow up?
I was born in California and raised in Minnesota on a farm of 90 acres until I was 14, then I moved back to California. I guess I grew up with a healthy disrespect for city folks. Us farm boys stuck together. I still have a bit of that even though I live in a city now. Just holding on to the roots... I just look back at that and what I do now I don’t really consider work. That was work, on a farm. Out here, playing music, is nowhere near working. I try to keep that reality in my brain.]]> Do you have to compromise between art and money?
Definitely. All the time. Absolutely. We’re out on this tour right now and we had to drop a musician because we weren’t making enough money to survive on the road, which affects the music. This guy would play bass on some songs while I was playing piano. He’d play acoustic guitar, he’d do three-part harmonies with us, but we didn’t have enough money to make that survive and that affected the music. We could also use an extra guy to help us with the house sound. At the same time some of this stuff can be looked at as just extravagance. It could be done without those people, but it’s affecting the music.

What was your greatest moment of doubt?
I still doubt it, man. I still doubt being able to pay rent. All I wanted to do was be able to pay rent.

But critics love your music, and kids love it…
But it doesn’t mean that they buy it. They just seem to be downloading it. But that’s fine. That’s a culture thing that’s pretty sad. It’s confusing and it’s a shame, but it’s understandable. Why would you pay $13 for a CD when what’s most likely gonna happen is that musician is gonna get rich, buy 13 cars and develop a drug habit and spend $4,000 on a new shirt. That’s a waste. That’s not art, that’s a culture of crap. So once all that shit gets out of the way, hopefully we’re left with musicians that can just do their art.

I love where I’m at, because I’m able to play music, so far. I don’t really want to be anywhere else. I just want to try to keep this going, to make music that people care about and support. If you’re having the same conversation with a politician that’s not getting funding for their political campaign, is that going to work for them? If they give a fuck about it they’d happily do it for free, as long as they find a way to keep it going. If you’re a writer and you love writing, you’ll do it for free, but still you need to at least turn it into a barter system so someone gives you a sandwich for your article.

So what's the future of the music biz then? The Radiohead model?
I don’t know what’s the future of that. I do believe art is worth something. And if you’re gonna have it in your life it needs to be respected somehow. Doesn’t matter if you’re giving it away or not, people are taking it anyway. I guess it’s a nice gesture, it makes the point that art should be free, but that’s been going on from day one. Yea, art should be free, but so should food and clothes and so should the roof over your head.

Have you considered starting your own label?
That don’t work. Major labels have had their wings clipped, which is good in a way. It went down the road of just money hungry businessmen for a long time and it turned musicians into the same thing, money hungry businessmen. It’s been long overdue for that to go away. We went with an indie in England for a little while. As far as releasing ourselves, it’s possible, but… I’m not much of a businessman, I’m really not. And you kinda have to have a little bit of that to survive. I thought that’s what a record company was for. They were people that were able to get your music out to places, they schmooze the magazine guy. I like the idea of musicians being musicians and business people being business people. I don’t have to deal with having to kiss ass to have someone write about my music. I think that’s a bunch of bullshit. That’s what it’s turned into, you have to be nice to everybody. It should be if you like something you write about it. Same with MTV, if you like the band, you play it. Music is held ransom by people’s attitudes, it’s ridiculous. There should be a line in the sand, you do that, we do this.

Should artists have a political cause?
You have no option but to be political. It goes back to lines drawn, there’s us and there’s them. That’s the point of art. That was my point of art, anyway. Be it comedy or movies or poetry or writing or music, it was there to give voice to something that was not being said in the culture. That’s needed and is disappearing.

Enter your search terms Submit search form

Tags: black rebel motorcycle club

Sinead O'Connor interview

2008-10-16T14:15:54Z

Sinead O’Connor is finding her way back after a long struggle with bipolar disorder that drove her to attempt suicide eight years ago. “It gets better as you get older,” she says. “You get more used to yourself. You’re not so angst-ridden because you don’t give a shit. It’s a good place to be.” After long avoiding them, she is again performing the songs that made her famous in 1990, like “Three Babies” and the Prince cover “Nothing Compares 2 U.” After a seven-year diversion into roots reggae, she wrote the Bible-inspired “Theology,” an album in which she says God is getting a bad rap because of man’s use of religion. “It pisses me off to see people blowing up people on behalf of God,” she tells us. “I wanted to lift out scriptures and show the peaceful nature of the God character.” Amen! Read on for the full interview.
]]> Why did you avoid all those hit songs for a while?
I don’t think I avoided them, I haven’t really been on tour for 10 years is all. The only tour I did was in Ireland and England with a lot of traditional Irish songs and at the time they were more appropriate than my own songs.

Do you see those songs in a new light now?
I don’t approach them any differently, but I suppose some of the those songs I wrote when I was 15, and it’s a nice feeling to be 40 and doing stuff that you wrote that long ago. It makes even more sense to me now that when I wrote them in the first place.

They still speak to you?
I would never sing anything that doesn’t speak to me. I couldn’t do a good job singing something that didn’t.

Talk about your new album.
The theme on that album is based around or inspired by particular scriptures. For years it was something I wanted to do because some of those scriptures are really beautiful and really poetic. They’re really crying out for music, but a lot of religious music is corny. So I was really interested in trying to create something that was on the right side of the line between corny and cool. It’s supposed to just be a beautiful thing, it’s not any big message or anything.

Are you religious as a person?
I am someone who thinks that God and religion are two different things. I’m interested in religion and I study it a lot, all my life, but I’m more interested in God than religion, if you know what I mean. But I don’t believe in fucking going on about it. I lived in Atlanta and I grew up in catholic Ireland our priests are quite boring, quite bland, they flicking bits of dust off the altar in the middle of the mass like they’re bored. So I got a bit addicted watching the preachers when I lived in Atlanta cuz they were so alive and completely mental. I thought it would be great to bring them back to Ireland so they could teach the priests how to do it. There was one guy I loved best, his name was Creflo Dollar, he was always going on about how it’s okay to pray for money. I think it’s brilliant.

What do you think of religion in general in the US? Too religious maybe?
I'm not really familiar with it. The only experience I’ve ever had was on this record when I was doing promotion I talked to a lot of Christian media and 20 percent of them get really angry if you suggest that God doesn’t like war. If you even say that perhaps, maybe, God might not like war they get really angry. But that’s all over the world I supposed, with lots of different religions. They’re all wondering around insisting that God likes war, especially if it’s against people of a different religion. That’s why I separate God and religion, because God is getting a bad rap because of these fuckers.

Are you tired of being asked about that episode when you tore the Pope's picture?
No. it’s natural that people ask, so…

What did you want to accomplish with the new album?
Something that might begin to reclaim the good name of the God character. It pisses me off to see these people blowing people up and saying they’re doing it on behalf of God, and that libels God. If there is a God then that is the most libeled creature ever. I do believe there’s a God but I don’t know what it looks like or what you call it and all that kind of shit and I think it’s all the same, it doesn’t matter if you call it Allah, God or whatever. I don’t believe God is in any way violent or would support use of violence as a means of sorting things out. So I wanted to kind of argue these people on their own theology. Go into their very scriptures and show how the opposite of what their saying is true. I wanted to lift out scriptures that would show the peaceful nature of the God character.

How do you feel right now in your career and your life?
Comfortable.

Where are you going from here?
I don’t know, that’s the advantage that you don’t know what’s around the next corner.

Introduce yourself in a few words.
Christ, that’s very difficult. I’d be too nervous. I’d probably just say, I’m Sinead, and that would be it.

What's your biggest contradiction?
That I’m an intensely shy person but I do what I do for a living. I just close my eyes or look at the floor. If I look at the audience, really I’m fucked.

What's the best place in the world to be?
At home with my kids.

Have you ever had to compromise your art?
I’ve done it twice in my entire career and I hated it and I wouldn’t do it anymore. One was when I recorded a song for a band for their album. I fucking hated the song, it was horrible. Every time I had to sing in the studio I just wanted to barf, it was horrible. i won't say what it was, it wouldn't be fair. [We have a pretty good hunch she's talking about 'Tears from the Moon'... -- ed.] ]But I got paid a lot of money. The other one was recently actually, my management talked me into doing a corporate thing because they offered me 75,000 quid. It was a whisky company in Ireland launching a new whisky and it was fucking awful. It was devil business I will never do that again, but I got paid a lot.

What makes you happy/sad?
My kids make me happy. My boyfriend makes me happy. Stuff on TV makes me sad usually. The news. I’m mostly watching what goes on here and in England cuz I’ve lived in the states and in England a couple of times. I’m not so interested in irish news, it’s kinda boring. Nothing interesting ever happens.

How do you create your music?
Generally songs come to me when I’m doing stuff like washing the dishes or pushing the baby up the street. I start to get tunes inside myself when I’m doing ordinary household things. But I don’t really sit down to try to write something. If the tunes are there then I might vocalize them but I don’t sit down and try to create them. They just start singing their way to you, that’s how I see it. They have a kind of a life of their own, their own consciousness.

What was your greatest moment of doubt?
Probably in labor. With all four of my children.

Ben Harper interview -- this guy is cool!

2008-10-16T14:13:28Z

Ben Harper has been playing with the Innocent Criminals for more than a decade, each album soaring higher than its predecessor, hitting a peak with the soulful “Lifeline.” On stage he delivers electrifying slide guitar solos. He sings with abandon, eyes closed, living and breathing the songs, easily ranking as one of the most magnetic live performers out there today. Ben is a true music fan who still does it old school, listening to CDs instead of mp3s, studying the lyrics and the liner notes. In this interview, he reveals his secret: an early immersion into music and a keen ear for inspiration.

Where and how did you grow up?
I grew up in a town called Claremont, in California. It’s about 40 miles east of Los Angeles. I discovered music through my parents’ passion for it. They have a music store they built up since 1958 and it’s been open until now. That’s my earliest inspiration, the earliest way that music formed me.
]]> If you were to introduce yourself in a few words, what would they be?
I usually start with first name and go from there. I like to let other people talk and tell me more about them than I do myself. It sort of trains me in the art of listening. The older you get, the less you listen, so you’ve got to always retrain yourself to listen.

What is your greatest contradiction?
Oh man, I’m a contradiction a day. I’m choc-full of them. I can argue both sides of my own argument. It’s an exhausting proposition. Anybody who knows me will know exactly what I’m talking about.

What is the best place on Earth right now?
It could be my backyard, but basically anywhere that I can have my whole family together and just take a deep breath. That’s number one. And number two is on stage.

Do you have to compromise between art and money?
Not yet my friend, not yet.

Should artists have a political cause?
If they feel it, and only if they feel it.

What makes you happy and what makes you sad?
What makes me happy is sitting still in my own backyard. What makes me sad is waiting in line at Trader Joe’s in Santa Monica.

What comes out of boredom?
Creativity is connected to isolation. But are grownups allowed to get bored? Don’t you call that apathetic, which is more of a fancy term for slacker? What do I do with my boredom… I get out, exercise, make music, have conversations with friends, change the world. I don’t think I get inspiration. I think inspiration grabs me out, shakes me up, turns me over from the ankles puts itself in the melody. Sometimes I sit down and say I’m gonna write a song right now and I’ve done it. Sometimes inspiration just comes naturally and the song was waiting there. Sometimes you’ve got to piece it together. That’s what’s great about music and art in general, that there are no rules.

What was your greatest moment of doubt?
When concerts sell great and records are going strong, there is no doubt to be had. When ticket and record sales aren’t so great, doubt creeps in. It’s no different than sports, really.

Tags: photos pictures ben harper