When Alcatrazz played in Japan in early '84, the record label offered me the opportunity to do a solo album while continuing to play in the band. I wanted the whole album to have vocals, but the record company didn't want that. Initially, the album was released solely in Japan.
I hope to record the perfect album, my masterpiece, before I die.
When I record an album I'm trying to get as close as possible to that perfect moment.
I think record cover sleeves really led towards, but at the same time the album as we know it didn't come into being until mainly after the Second World War because record labels realized they'd be able to make a lot more money putting all the singles of an artist onto one album and selling the whole album as a kind of a concept.
If you get a chance to be in a film, that's great. One of my goals is to make a record as good as Don Henley's album, Building the Perfect Beast.
I've been through a lot, both personally and professionally, and the album that I started to record two and a half years ago is a different album from the one that exists today. I even changed the album title. First it was 'All I Want is Everything,' and now it's 'Jumping Trains.'
It used to be that you made an album and then you went on the road to promote that album, hoping for good record sales. Well, good record sales basically don't exist any more, and the emphasis has been more on the live show.
I had a record on the Terror Squad album "My Kinda Girls", and then I had a record on the second Terror Squad album and was featured all over it. I wasn't really introduced into the game until about late 2000 where people got to see where I look like.
We had a nightmare on our first album, and went through two producers. I decided, on the second album, to take the money that we were supposed to use for pre-production, and we went into a studio and cut the album with no producer. We finished the whole thing without telling the record company.
I wish I could go out farther from my musical history. I didn't realize how hard it was until I tried to do it. All the basic tracks on Romanian Names were done in my basement, alone, without any of the self-consciousness that comes with being in the studio. It was a completely different process. And those two things definitely made the record sound different. But you want this quantum leap from record to record, and maybe if I did make a quantum leap I'd make an unlistenable album. So maybe I'm lucky that I can't pull it off.
When you love what you do, you just really fall in love with it. Sometimes you record a lot more songs than the album will even hold. You record like 300 songs and only 12 songs go on the album. It takes time. But if you love what you do, it works out.
So we are not doing the traditional album, tour, album, tour, album, tour anymore. We're going to tour when we want to, regardless of whether we've got a record out.
Some guys record an album with songs that are filler. I recorded this album like it was my last.
If we're trying to get the perfect house, the perfect relationship or the perfect job, it's likely there's some kind of fear driving us beyond the natural wish to improve. It's really the refusal to acknowledge that life - including ourselves - is simply not perfect.
Journalists constantly ask Metallica if the success of their new album means they've had 'the call' to record a Zeppelin cover album yet.
Missing You' almost didn't get on the No Brakes' album, because the record company said, 'The album's finished. We don't need any more songs.'