Tue, Oct 30, 2007, 11:03 AM
Getting by with a little help from your friends is fine, but sometimes your friends haven't been there and done that. That's when the heavy hitters need to come in with their pearls of wisdom and what-to-look-out-fors. This week, Al Barr, singer for Dropkick Murphy's speaks on fires, jail, and Japanese tattoo culture.
AL BARR ON MODERN EXPOSURE:
Bands today have a leg-up. Since the act of buying records is becoming obsolete you don't have to connect A and B so much. It's easy to get your music out noawadays that there's really no excuse. I'm from the "put a record out and support it with a tour" school. but with computers now, that's not the only way to get big anymore. People can hear your music anywhere online. In fact, I got a buddy doing 25 to life in prison who has a band. He started it from his MySpace page from his cell.
AL BARR ON THE POWER OF PROMOTION:
In 1984, I booked my first show in New Hampshire. We had 11 bands play and spent two months fliering the whole east coast area. We'd go down to Boston on weekends and pass out stacks of fliers outside shows. There was so much buzz that we had kids coming to the show from the tip of Maine and places in Rhode Island. One time we were putting up fliers in Dover, NH and a meter maid cop came up in his little car and told us to stop. When we saw him walk into a donut shop later, we covered his car in fliers. So many kids came that we were able to pay each of the 11 bands $350 each or so. It was a success.
AL BARR ON THE DANGERS OF PLAYING LIVE:
Dropkick Murphy's was playing a few years ago when all of a sudden, one guy jumped on stage and put his arm around me to sing with me and ended up punching me right in the esophagus on accident. I lost my voice for the next seven shows Dropkick had booked. I didn't let that stop me. I sang the shows with no voice.
AL BARR ON SETTING THE STAGE ON FIRE:
One time in Australia, after visiting Bon Scott's grave, we played a show and were in the middle of the AC/DC tune, "It's a Long Way to the Top If You Wanna Rock N' Roll," when one of the monitor's exploded into flames. It was sort of ceremonial and amazing, but then the reality set in that the monitor was in fact on fire. But that's a risk you have to be willing to take, and it can either make or break the show depending on how you deal with it.
AL BARR ON THE BENEFITS OF ROCKSTARDOM:
Dropkick was in Nagoya, Japan for the first time. We checked into the hotel in the morning, when it was cold. Then it got hot while we were out so we took our jackets off, no big deal. When we tried to get back into the hotel, a woman from the hotel met us at the door and wouldn't let us back in. Our guide, who luckily was fluent in Japanese, spoke with her. He turned to us and said, "On the side of the building it says 'No tattooed people allowed.'" In their culture, tattoos are the mark of criminals and the mafia. We explained that we were American musicians and she finally let us in.
Source http://musicnation.musicnation.com/blog/2007/10/lessons-from-legends-al-barr
