I was thinking it might be a good thing, until they mentioned Jet and Darkness favourably.
So Bob Ezrin is still around?
Lowdown: Exclusive Canadian music news
Robin Black comes down to earth
By KAREN BLISS -- For JAM! Music
Singer and namesake Robin Black, a blue-haired, multiple-pierced, tattooed, much make-upped fellow, has boasted of fronting the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band even before it existed.
However, it was Bob Ezrin, the legendary Canadian producer of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and KISS's "Destroyer," who brought him down a notch or two, forcing the Toronto band to put its songwriting skills where its mouth is and make a world-class album.
The result is "Instant Classic," which contains the song "Over You" for which a video has been made, as well as the rocky horror "Hellraiser," obedient rocker "Why Don't You Love Me?" and poppier (and supremely catchy) "We Saw Right Through Ya," and "Better Off That Way." But prior to that, the follow-up material to 2002's "Planet: Fame" (released under the since discarded monicker Robin Black & The Intergalactic Rock Stars) simply wasn't good enough to entice Ezrin to come on board.
"He heard 12 new songs we had written and he hated them all," admits Black. "They were all 9 out of 10s on a scale of what we used to consider a 10. But he taught us the Bob Ezrin scale of 10, how emotional the music has to be, how each part has to be great -- a world-class drum beat, a world-class guitar part, world-class chorus, a world-class vocal, world-class emotion, world-class story, world-class everything."
The connection came through GGGarth Richardson (Atreyu, Rise Against, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against The Machine), who co-produced "Planet: Fame," with Moe Berg. Richardson and Ezrin had worked together for the past 15 years and started a company together called Jaxboys, and made Robin Black the first project. "We plan to find bands and make records," says Richardson.
It was GGGarth's father, Jack, who gave Ezrin his start 34 years ago in Toronto, and encouraged him to produce his first act, Alice Cooper -- who inducted Ezrin into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at the 2004 Juno Awards.
"Bob had seen our band live and spent some time with me and felt there was something special about what we do," says Black. "He was considering working with us, even though we had no money and no record deal in America. He got involved at the early stages and if our songs had potential, he would sit down and work on them with us."
At the offices of EMI Music Publishing Canada in downtown Toronto in May of 2003, Black, alongside bandmates Killer Ky and Starboy on acoustic guitars, started playing a new song, "Feel (Something So Real)." Ezrin sat at the piano, and together they worked on streamlining, working on the bridge, and making the chorus bigger and more exciting, to turn it from a good rock song to an anthem.
"Suddenly, Bob slammed the lid of piano down and started pacing and screaming for (EMI Music Publishing president) Michael McCarty that we had a hit," recounts Black.
After that day, Black says Ezrin was convinced the band had the potential to create songs that would go with its live show and Black's larger-than-life personality, and ultimately make a record "big enough" to fit with the image -- and mouth. The haunting piano ballad, "Lullaby," featuring a string quartet, Black recounts Ezrin also declared a hit, and then "Why Don't You Love Me?" which may be the first official single.
"I think Robin Black is the hardest working and innately optimistic person that I've ever encountered, so there's no stopping this guy," says Ezrin, who ended up co-writing six songs with the band. "He's going to do it, one way or another, with or without me. But I think what I've brought to him is stronger material and a better sense of how to craft a song. And I think the industry is ready for another great rock band."
Having shortened the band name to Robin Black and securing a new line-up with the addition of ex-Age Of Electric bassist John "The Creep" Kerns and drummer Christopher Alexander Kidd, the band recorded "Instant Classic" on-and-off between January and June of this year, spending six weeks at Richardson's The Farm in Gibson, BC, a week at The Warehouse in Vancouver, and a couple of weeks with Ezrin at The Carriage in Stamford, CT.
Ezrin co-produced with Richardson, even though the two weren't in the same time zone, except for during preproduction in Toronto, where they made sure the 11 songs were great. "After that, I was on the west coast and Bob was on the east coast," says Richardson.
"We tracked the CD in Vancouver with (engineers) Dean Meher and Ben Kaplin and after the drum track, we moved to my studio, The Farm, to do the overdubs. Lots of fun times. We spent three weeks working on it. We would send Bob MP3s as we went along."
Richardson, who has now known Black for more than four years and has watched the singer and band's development, says, "As for RFB (Robin F**kin' Black, as the singer sometimes calls himself), What can I say? He is a rock star. The band has come a long way from the first time that I worked with them. With the new members in the band, and also with the songwriting. I think the world is ready for RFB. It was a fun CD to make and I think it shows. Let's see if any of the A&R people get it."
That will be key. Robin Black's manager, Zack Werner, whose role as a judge on the second season of Canadian Idol ends this weeks, says that "Instant Classic" will be released on his label, Venus, in the new year, distributed by EMI Music Canada. As for the intergalactic plan, "We have lots of interest in the United States and we're going to sort through the best choices for a place to go," Werner says.
Robin Black never wiped off his make-up when glam metal went out of fashion. He rode out the cycle and now, with bands such as the Darkness and Jet making arena rock 'n' roll hip again, the band's time may have come.
"I've always believed that if you're a genuine honest songwriter and performer, whatever you do is what you do, and if you try to change so radically with the times all the time, pretty soon, even you yourself won't know what's real," says Black. "We've always made the same kind of rock 'n' roll, the same kind of honest music that I've felt has always been relevant.
"Rock 'n' roll has always been about a big f**k you, and what the world needs right now in the state that it's in is as many rock people saying f**k you as loudly and as often as possible. That's the kind of band we are.
"And when you're sitting on one of the best rock records in the world right now, made by a great rock band, produced by two of the greatest producers at a time when everybody wants rock 'n' roll, you feel pretty confident about yourself and what you're doing."
I was thinking it might be a good thing, until they mentioned Jet and Darkness favourably.
So Bob Ezrin is still around?
Is he still around?....Yes.
He recently produced Janes Addiction "Strays" and was continuity advisor on NIN last album when things weren't going well. I heard he produced some Darkness xmas single coming out as well.
No matter how you feel about the Darkness musically, I would LOVE to have an album sound like that thing!
Ezrin - Hanoi Rocks - Two Steps From The Move
take it as you will.
I love that album, and have never understood the "over-produced" problem so many people have with it. Sure the drums are big, but that was a curse of anything produced by a major label in the 80's. I still LOVE the guitar sound on that one, and the songs smoke.
With Ezrin, only one name really needs to be mentioned, and that is Alice Cooper. I would have liked to have heard Ezrin do "The Eyes Of A.C." release. I bet that would have been amazing then!
Actually, if RB wants to be HUGE, then they need to help themselves by also hiring Tony Visconti and Ric Okasek!!!
Very cool article. Thanks for posting it! I'm really looking forward to the new album.
<font size="4" face="Arial">i agree with Ric Okasek. just listen to the difference between DGen's self-titled and thier No Lunch release.Originally posted by Carl I.:
Actually, if RB wants to be HUGE, then they need to help themselves by also hiring Tony Visconti and Ric Okasek!!!
Ezrin - Kiss - Destroyer
That's enough for me I'm convinced!
Great news for RB&IRS tho' bout time they got the credit deserved, you got some serious talent goin' on in that band in my opinion, and I recon Ezrin will be able to make em' shine... [img]graemlins/beer.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/music.gif[/img]
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