Lesson #3. Don't Scare Children...
All of us At Born2Win ride motorcycles. I Have a giant green one. It’s a 1000cc (very fast) sports bike. I call it Big Green. (Not sure why…) It’s loud, obnoxious and aggressive. The thing won’t be tamed, it just won’t.
A sniff of damp; rear wheel starts to spin, crack open the throttle any faster than a tickle?; Rear starts to spin and it automatically chases and over-takes any vehicle with a Porsche badge whether or not I want it too… then; the rear wheel starts to spin… Why am I telling you this? Because band members are just like ‘Big Green’. Take lead guitarists for example. The lead vox only has to forget the lyrics for a single bar and ‘Jonnie Solo’, turns his amp to number 12 and all hell breaks loose. ‘Lets see how fast I can play every note on my guitar twice!’ -really? And drummers? You guys can stop laughing, you’re probably worse. There is no better excuse in the world than ‘sorry guys I don’t have a volume knob…’ I know, I started out as a drummer. Drummers treat the end of every verse as a drum battle with ‘Animal’ and because they are drummers and have to sit at the back, they don’t even have to watch the audience’s leaving… Once again, thank you Fleetwood Mac. You are ‘Big Green’. Each and every member is highly capable. Take Lindsey Buckingham for example, what kind of sadist do you have to be to take guitar playing, which is hard enough on its own, then throw your pick into the audience and just play with your little pinkie’s instead.. come on man, their steel strings…! And yet, when it’s solo time, he expresses taste and restraint and plays just enough to serve the song. See; 'Go Your Own Way'. And the man himself, Mick? For a whole minute on the beginning of the live version of The Chain, he just plays 4 on the floor, the world’s most easy drum pattern, (even our drummer can do it) just to serve the song, no more no less, just the right thing, in the right place. The result is a sound that compliments each instrument and each song. Less is indeed more. So what does that teach us? Use the power appropriately; hoon about on country roads, But we really have to stop wheeling past schools…
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