antiMUSIC is pleased to welcome industry insider Jake Brown to give us his perspective on the music business. Jake comes to us with an impressive resume that not only includes heading his own record label, but also as an established rock biographer with several books under his belt. (you can read more about Jake's resume at the end of the article). 

The tides have shifted over the past few years as the 1980s heyday players of hair metal and its stylistic hard rock fringes try to find their footing in the new millennium of rock n' roll.  Where their fans are now would-be contemporaries, and arenas have for the most part become clubs, Warner Bros. become Spitfire Records, only a handful of bands (Bon Jovi, Kiss, Motley Crue, Judas Priest, Aerosmith, Iron Maiden, etc) still can claim vitality with fans or suits on any competitive level.  Where in the late 1990s, hard rock became momentarily revitalized with the breakout hit "Lit Up" by Buckcherry and the advent of tribute albums, thanks to a quick saturation of the marketplace by labels like Cleopatra Records and Vitamin Records (well OK, and my label Versailles as well), cock rock's middle class was again trying to reinvent itself, to simultaneously find a new way to pay the rent playing music and avoid a day job in the process.  The Tribute album concept worked for a while, and then experienced the natural overkill that results from the kind of massive saturation the tribute market experienced by 2001.  Enter cock rock's latest reinvention, the Supergroup.  While the concept itself was intriguing and legitimately viable among both fans and record executives when presented in the context of a GENUINE and AUTHENTIC Supergroup, i.e. Velvet Revolver, composed from principle members of Guns N Roses (Slash, Duff McKagen, and Matt Sorum) and Stone Temple Pilots (lead singer Scott Weiland), the B-Rate knock-offs followed almost as immediately as the debut of the A Brand.  While rock n' roll fans wanted a dose of the name brand Supergroups like Velvet Revolver or Audioslave (composed of Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell and Rage Against the Machine sans Zack de la Rocha), they also had generic brand bands being stuffed down their throats in the same time, polluting the purity of the entire idea.  

Just last month, I was on the phone with former Motley Crue/The Scream vocalist John Corabi, with whom I'm co-authoring an autobiography, discussing the progress LA's latest legitimate SUPERGROUP, Cardboard Vampires, is making in establishing itself among rock fans hungry for the real thing.  Consisting of John Corabi on lead vocals, and Jerry Cantrell (of Alice in Chains) and Billy Duffy (of the Cult) on co-lead guitars, this group is quickly establishing itself as the real deal by simply being so, there is nothing contrived about the group, in fact, according to its principle members, they are nothing more right now than an All-Star cover band.  Still, the industry and fans seem ready to accept them as anything more serious that they might aspire to be in time with open arms- RIGHT NOW.  This is because the Supergroup concept works in theory, and in application when properly executed.  With a supergroup, credibility is first and foremost, and must be immediate in the eyes of fans for any band of this kind to even have a fighting chance at lasting beyond a few gigs.  In the case of Cardboard Vampires, following a couple pivotal gigs in LA and Seattle designed to test the waters and introduce the band to the public, the response has been overwhelming.   The Cardboard Vampires have shows coming up this summer at Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo club, and opening several dates for ZZ Top.  In the case of Velvet Revolver, which is virtually guaranteed to go platinum off the credibility of the players in the band's line up, there is less analysis necessary, as with Audioslave, who sold 3 million records without breaking a sweat, through simple authenticity of sound and image.  Still, one certainty we can already conclude is that the concept of the Supergroup is as strong an commercially viable as ever, when it's the real deal!

Now onto the point of this editorial, the knock-offs, which are popping up LEFT and RIGHT in the industry right now, at a staggering rate- one which threatens to kill off the trend before it ever becomes something more permanent.  A primary example of this is The Brides of Destruction, a new rock "Supergroup" with ONE LEGITIMATE ROCK STAR, Motley Crue bassist and principle songwriter Nikki Sixx.  The only other member of this group with any national recognition is LA Guns guitar player Tracii Guns, whose band sold 3 or 4 million records at the peak of the late 1980s hair band explosion, and who never rose above club status at even their most popular, sans some opening spots on arena tours in 1989 and 1990.  Motley Crue, on the other hand, sold over 40 million records worldwide, and almost single-handedly launched the LA Hard Rock scene in 1981, and who today are still an arena staple.  Despite the latter, The Brides of Destruction's debut album has sold under 30,000 copies since March, and the band turned down a coveted opening slot on the Kiss tour because Sixx didn't want to open for Poison.  Instead, his band is playing to 250 people a night on a club tour very similar to the type of venue LA Guns would play on a headlining tour in 2004.  Audioslave, by contrast, co-headlined Lollapalooza last summer, and Velvet Revolver is beginning the first leg of their tour playing 4,000 seater theatres.  By mid-summer, most concert tour analysts predict they will be playing summer sheds on the tour's second leg.  In fact, the record executives backing Velvet Revolver are so confident in the group's impending success that lead singer Scott Weiland was allowed out of a court-ordered, lock-down rehabilitation facility to finish recording his vocals for the album, and adjustments have been made in his probation so he can leave the state of California to tour the country in support of the band's debut album.  

This is the appropriate progression for a legitimate Supergroup, because the formula dictates that such a band is almost guaranteed to catch on with fans, simply on the merits of the band's songs and the stars who are playing them.  I am in NO WAY suggesting we do not give every potentially legitimate supergroup the same shot to catch on as we gave Velvet Revolver or  Audioslave, or Cardboard Vampires as they begin to catch the same kind of steam.  But we must begin, as self-respecting rock n' roll fans, to draw a line between what we define as the elite of this category of band, and what we consider the secondary or B-rate variations.  For such bands, it is perfectly acceptable to define them as "jam bands" or as plain old rock bands, but SUPERGROUPS they are NOT!  And while bands like The Brides of Destruction may be in the midst of an identity crisis, fans need not be!  I love Nikki Sixx more than most Motley Crue fans I know, I wrote a biography about him praising his legacy as a hard rock icon.  Additionally, I bought the Brides of Destruction debut LP to give the band its fair shake, but while I enjoy certain songs, I would NEVER put it in the class of Audioslave's debut, or the caliber I am sure Velvet Revolver's will meet.  I am willing to recognize and acknowledge the difference, and I am sure many true hard rock purists are as well.  Still, if this sub-genre within rock n' roll is to have any sustainable chance of surviving in the millennium, we have to be ready to separate the A Brand bands from the knock offs.  The 20th century saw plenty of legitimate supergroups- Derek and the Dominos (featuring Eric Clapton and  Duane Allman), Crosby, Stills Nash and Young,  The Traveling Wilburys (featuring Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and George Harrison), and even the Damn Yankees (composed of Ted Nugent and principle members of Night Ranger and Styx).  These groups were composed of rock staples or outright legends who were among rock n' roll's elite, as the members of any SUPERGROUP, then or NOW, should be.  Slash is a hard rock legend, Scott Weiland and Chris Cornell are the Grunge equivalent, and modern rock guitar icons like Jerry Cantrell, Tom Morello, and Billy Duffy, deserve to be categorized among rock n' roll's elite players.  So does Nikki Sixx, but in a band setting apart from Motley Crue, he's missing three fellow contemporaries to make up a true supergroup.  The lazy potential to confuse the elite of this genre with the knock-offs concerns me enough to put it out there for consideration among rock fans who could potentially be misled.  And while it's perhaps only my opinion, I don't want to look back and know that the potential of our new generation of true SUPERGROUPS will be limited or compromised by something as reckless as saturation!
 

Shameless Plug: On June 15, 2004, Versailles Records will return to retail nationally with "What's Love? A Tribute to Tina Turner."  The first tribute album ever released to this rock/R&B pioneer, this compilation features performances by multi-platinum, Grammy winning pop divas/artists including Tiffany, Alannah Myles, Darlene Love, Deniece Williams, Jeff Healey, Michel'le, Jane Child, Kip Winger, and Olympic Medalist and International Skating Star Nancy Kerrigan, as well as newcomers including Richard Kendrick, Rose Reiter, Jasy Andrews, Ross Stevens, Wendy Jans, and Tony Janflone Jr.   A DVD on the making of the album will follow with a release later this summer!  
 

About the author: Jake Brown is owner/operator of Nashville-based Versailles Records, distributed in the States by Big Daddy Music Distribution, whose releases include tributes to the Cult, Satriani/Vai, Van Halen, and Tina Turner, an Alien Sex Fiend Singles collection, and a solo album by T-Rex frontman Marc Bolan, among others. As a biographer, he has published books on Death Row Records' CEO Suge Knight (Amber Books, April, 2002), legendary Heavy Metal band Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx (Black Market Publishing, December, 2002), controversial R&B Star R. Kelly (Colossus Books, May, 2004), late hip hop icon Notorious B.I.G. (Colossus Books, June, 2004), and currently is co-authoring an authorized biography with former Motley Crue frontman John Corabi, and researching and writing the first definitive Rock Producers Anthology, entitled "Behind the Boards", and featuring exclusive chapter-long interviews with rock/metal's most successful and influential producers.  His books have been reviewed in such magazines as Vibe, Ebony, XXL, Black Issues, Metal Edge, Publisher's Weekly, and Billboard, among others.