Building The Ideal Band

I have given a lot of thought to music lately. It's a central theme in the novel I'm working on for National Novel Writing Month, and I am forcing myself to learn new things about a field I already knew pretty darn well. My hero needed breathing lessons, so I had to take some too. And how do you really describe a singer's voice in words?

In the end, I'm putting a fictional band together. Doing that with entirely fictional characters got me thinking about how I'd do it with real, live rock stars. Without further ado, here's what I came up with.

• On drums: Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame.

Dave is an amazing drummer but also a great singer, multi-instrumental musician, and song writer. He has a history of collaboration projects, including stints with Tom Petty, Tenacious D, and his new super group Them Crooked Vultures. Plus, he puts on a heck of a show.

Dave Grohl is my idea of the perfect musician, but also seems to be a really decent human being. I would gladly build a band around his solid backbone.

• On bass: Mike Mills from R.E.M..

Yeah, I'm starting with the rhythm section, kind of like building a football team around solid offensive and defensive lines. Mike was always the most musically educated member of my favorite band, and his melodic bass lines are the heart and soul of nearly any R.E.M. tune you'd care to mention.

We're getting another triple threat: Mike also plays a fine piano and many more instruments, and has the voice to take the lead from Michael Stipe on occasion. He's also another great collaborator, having worked with Smashing Pumpkins and Mudville. Oh, and he wrote or co-wrote many of R.E.M.'s biggest hits. Starting to see a theme here?

• On guitar: We need an axe wielder who can stand up to the raw muscle of Dave Grohl and also match wits and licks with Mike Mills. So who do we call? Hello, Slash!

Okay, Slash isn't known as a great singer and he really is mostly a guitar god, but he does fit our bill on every other level. He knows when to finesse a solo and he knows when to lay it on thick. After co-writing some of the finest cuts in rock history with Guns N' Roses, Slash moved on to two bands all his own as well as collaborations with Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Alice Cooper, and frickin' Michael Jackson. You want a team player? You got a team player -- who also happens to be a living rock legend.

• We could stop right there and just let Dave or Mike take the mic. But where's the fun in that? So on lead vocals, I can't help myself -- I need Allison Krauss.

Allison's pure and clear voice has no equal to my ears. She could sing the phone book and have me spellbound. Sure, she's mostly a country girl -- but she has proven her rockin' mettle alongside greats like Robert Plant, Sting, and Phish. She completes a full hand of accomplished song writers and plays a mean fiddle.

With Allison Krauss on lead vocals and two lead-singer candidates backing her up, the sonic explosion should be legendary. Every band member can contribute to the song list, and they are all accomplished wizards of the recording studio and mixer board. The technical skills are beyond reproach, and so is the musicianship all around. I would pay good money to hear this band, no questions asked.

I don't think you could come up with a better quartet yourself, but the comments box is dying to see you try. Good luck!

Epic Rock

Have you noticed how many of the finest rock songs ever written are more than just straight-up rock?

I've put together a little playlist with some of the best examples of this phenomenon I could think of, and I'm happy to explain exactly what I mean -- track by track:


Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody

• It's opera. It's folk rock. It's heavy metal. It's so much more. Not only that, but Freddie Mercury and the gang deliver great examples of every style they touch here. Bohemian Rhapsody is the archetype of what I mean by "epic rock."

Derek and the Dominos - Layla

• Eric Clapton's hardcore guitar duel with Duane Allman segues into a sentimental piano ballad, capped with a chirping slide guitar. One of the greatest love songs, and Clapton did get the girl -- at least for a while.

Heart - Crazy On You

• The acoustic guitar intro is a classic on its own, and then the real song begins. The Wilson sisters move with ease through hard and soft, raucous and slow, desperate and passionate rock.

Wings - Band On the Run

• This song starts out slow and traditional, but then goes through two snapping breaks and becomes the kind of anthem you'll scream at the top of your lungs after about six beers.

Metallica - One

• Now we're really rocking. No band has mastered the art of epic rock like Metallica, where nearly every song is a study in contrasts. This anti-war missive is more nuanced than most, though.

Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road

• Thunder Road doesn't do sharp style breaks, but still manages to somehow transform from a gentle ballad to a heartbreaking stadium rocker. You could build a career on trying to copy this song over and over.

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free Bird

• Like Band On the Run, Free Bird starts slow but takes a drastic turn into blistering rock. I can't help but whistling along with those legendary guitar riffs -- no matter where I am or what I'm doing.

Fleetwood Mac - The Chain

• Not too many rock standards started with a bass riff, but that's what Fleetwood Mac did here. Take one John McVie bass groove, add one unfinished Stevie Nicks lament over endless love unrequited, and wrap the whole package in the layered backing of an all-star band for the ages. This is what you get.

Pink Floyd - Time

• Parts of this song aren't even music. That's not a bad thing.

The Who - Baba O'Riley

• Lead-heavy guitar rock. Irish folk fiddle. And in the background of this glorious style contrast, there's the incessant melodic tapping of early electronica. What's not to love?

Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells

• Most people recognize the eerie intro from The Exorcist. Beyond that, Oldfield plays everything from Bossa Nova to Russian folk on a variety of guitars, glockenspiel, pipe organ, and the eponymous tubular bells. It's in two pieces because you had to flip the LP over at some point, or else I imagine Oldfield would have simply filled an entire CD with one song. You want epic? You want Tubular Bells.

I probably missed your favorite epic rock anthem. Tell me off in the comments box below.

We Need More Guitar Solos!

There was a time when no self-respecting rock song was complete without a decent guitar solo. Whethe it was a one-note Neil Young piece, twelve minutes of Dave Gilmour fighting of a strings-and-synthesizer carpet-bombing, or a kick in the gut from Tony Iommi, you had to have one.

Those days are long gone. Nowadays, it's just a pleasant surprise to find good axe work in popular music, as soloists seems to have been pushed to the fringes of Western culture.

That's just not right. Bruce Springsteen got this guitar and he learned how to make it talk. Guitar George was strictly rhythm, he didn't want to make it cry or sing. There's an entire language hidden in that Les Paul or Strat, and we need to hear a lot more of it -- before we forget.

I wish I had the skills to contribute to the cause, but alas, I'm like Guitar George. Let me settle for simply listening to anything made by a great freatboard artist. Rock out.

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Now playing: Sublime - Santeria
via FoxyTunes