The recording of "Metalblue"

"Victoria LTD, Metalblue and Ken Roberts"
Christian music in 1987 was still a pretty small industry and Christian metal even smaller. In all my years there at the time I never met anyone that made a dime. Maybe Stryper. But the rest of us were swinging day jobs and doing shows in hopes of something more. One of my oldest and best friends was in a major band 3 albums into a deal and he was lucky after they paid the crew,the label and expenses to have maybe a couple of dead presidents in his pocket. It was brutal,and not for the faint of heart....and the Saints loved it..trench frontline warfare. The one thing I learned and would see over and over again..With a call and a vision comes a price tag and a bulls eye.
We met with Ken in Torrance at his studio. Tink and John had met with him a few days before( I was down with the flu at the time)and the first thing Ken asked them was this...."How serious are you guys?" well Tink steps up and says. "When can quit my day job?..while John damn near blew the whole deal by dragging his knuckles in response. Luckily Ken was an astute enough to judge where the focus and talent of the band lay. So when I got to sit down with him the first thing he said to was this"You are a charismatic and powerful front man and one of the best guitar players I ever heard plus you got good songs..so here is what I got...." What he had was a studio, a label, lots of know how but little else..like us (and most in those days)..we were flying blind like I had been my whole life. There are those who would have passed on Mr Roberts ,looking back I liked him felt I could trust him..and really at that time what other offers or options did I have?..none. Just a few short years before I was a fat boy living in Fairbanks Alaska taking care of old folks one step from deaths door. 5 years later I was a GIT graduate with a band that was less than 2 years old..and out of the thousands of musicians and hundreds of bands in the south bay ...I was getting offered my dream on a plate...a record deal....what would you do?...the Bible says this "Despise not the days of SMALL beginnings"...from this mustard seed could grow...something.
Ken was an odd mix...half legalistic Baptist...half rock and roll madman, cynic and saint ...married to a church secretary. With a sharp sardonic wit and a fowl mouth....he fit in with the Saints like a hand in a shoe..or a glove depending on the time of day..face it I liked him, yet at times wanted to kick him in the shins ...then he'd do something that made us all laugh..I just couldn't ever stay mad at him. He and I would talk for hours...about God,music and life. He became my musical mentor,my friend and has over all these years been a stalwart believer in my gift ,call and talent...forever the biggest fan of the Saints..and in many ways...our soul...He truly saw us in the light of the whole of the music world then as...unique...and far better than any of us in the band thought we were at that time...
We began to recording of what would be "MetalBlue" a fusion of blues and metal with an out front Christian message. The songs covered everything from salvation,family commitment, God's provision to returning to Christ after falling away to a rally cry "Don't Knock the Rock" (my reply to certain TV preachers of the day)...when used for God's redemptive purpose.
The first session was a marathon of drum tracks. The first thing was Tink had to replace all his drum heads and tune them just right. Being our first real experience in a studio there would be many eye openers on what would work and wouldn't. You be surprised at some of the stuff you'd do just to get the right feel or vibe. Ken was very good at just that. He understood we were less about "finesse" and more about feel and capturing a "moment". I laid down a basic guitar track with a "scratch" vocal (vocal not to be saved) It was funny being typical to the Saints ,everything on a shoe string,Ken had used up all the mic stands on Tinks drum kit. He wanted Tink and I to lay the track down live, playing together rather than use a metrodome this way he could capture the right feel. With no more mic stands The Kid had to stand there and hold a microphone while I sang and played!
We were basically a "live" band. We were far to poor for studio time until we met Ken. Writing songs for a studio setting and ones for live playing are two completely different approaches. Being a "live" band which ment our arrangements were a lot more "loose"..Tink and the Kid had figured out early on to keep their eyes on me and we had instinctively developed subtle signals and gestures on stage to point the way during a performance. If the crowd was digging it I might extend a solo, lay back into a grove and milk it till the moment was ripe..to rip...or bring the band down from a roar to a whisper..there was no telling..and I never knew either till we were "in it to dig it"...the studio was a whole different animal. And Ken would teach me the ropes.
With the guitar track and scratch vocal down we now had a frame work or blue print to build the rest of the songs. A skeleton on which to hang the rock and roll flesh,blood,sweat and sinue. It was amazing to watch this process take place.
That night as we drove home I sat in the back of Tinks beat up old truck and felt like a million bucks...I could hardly believe I was doing this, the dream and the Vision God had given was taking place..The Rock and Roll American dream..a Christian version of it....It was a long way from Fairbanks..I slept happy that night, happy and full of peace.
The recording continued with Long John laying down his guitar parts and the kid dropping the bass into mix.
Right after doing his parts Long John left for vacation. The next day Ken called and asked me to come down and redo some of Johns parts. So I show up and ask "which ones?"..Ken goes "All of them" This shocked me a little till Ken played them back. John was always at best a fair guitar player. He sort of filled in the empty spots. Kinda like the condiment between the meat,cheese and bread. A good condiment can make a deli exceptional a tasteless one becomes nothing more than clue to keep down lettuce and tomato "slippage". His tracks lacked fire and drive. Ken being the astute producer he was wanted tracks that pumped. I felt bad but from what I would learn latter many bands use studio guys in place of band members who can do the parts faster and cheaper then use the guys in the band for all the tours and live stuff. Off we went and a few hours later we had a rythum section of drums,bass and guitar ready to roar.
Coming from a live back ground to the studio was a challenge at first. It was difficult for me when we began to record to connect emotionally with what I was playing because the stage and audience were so intermingled with my experience of creating music. I feed off the audience, the band, the physical "feeling" of the sound as the amp pushes the air. In the studio I played thru head phones or thru monitors with the amp in another room. I felt a bit disconnected from it and a bit less excited by it all. Maybe even uninspired.I remember saying as much to Ken one night as we were recording the solos for a song called "Saints Boogie". I told Ken that I felt like I had played the song better in the past..his response was "Don't worry what you're playing sounds killer" in the final mix he was right.
John returned from vacation and was less than pleased that Ken had me replace his tracks. I could understand his displeasure...but hey we were half way thru the guitar solos and Ken was not about to back track the project just to appease some ones ego. The Saints to John were more a hobbie than a call. For the rest of us and in particular, me, it was a very serious Call and we were prepared to run the course. John wasn't. He had a good day job and wife and kids and there is nothing wrong with that but I didn't ever see him making the sacrifices I was prepared to make. So he basically said if he didn't get to play on at least half the album he was going to quit. We became a trio.
Ken brought in a few other player to add parts and flavor to the album. One guy who would continue to play a part on both albums would be a guy named Ralf Sappington. Ralf was one of these all around jack of all trades musicians. The guy played everything, bass,guitar,keyboards,horns, everything. He had a musical partner named Kathy who would add backing vocals as well.
Ken would create a "call and response"type of vocal tracks that I loved. With my gnarly singing style he had Kathy and another singer create these almost "black chick gospel" vocal tracks. They came out great. Ralf laid out all the keyboard tracks on songs like "One in One hundred" one of only two songs I co-wrote. I had written that song years before with my first band back in Alaska. I had saved it and put it in the live show. The other song was a tune that Tinker had written lyrics to. As i said earlier you never know what tricks you'll find in the studio. As we were doing the solo for "One in One Hundred" Ken on a whim pulls down this old beat to piss Harmony F hole guitar that he had recently restrung. This thing had a neck like a tree trunk but wasn't to hard to play. Not a pro guitar at all. But that acoustic solo was just the thing that song needed and it would off set the other songs nicely. Ken would have Ralf lay down an organ solo and he would toggle between us two,acoustic guitar for a few bars then organ solo for a few bars and so on.
With our parts done Ken went to work on putting it all together,mixing and mastering. we had a few more shows to do and continued to "run the set" during weekly rehearsals. Ken had a specific idea for the album cover. we did several sessions with a school friend of mine that had moved down from Alaska. He was a bit of an artist so he would end up doing the final photo for the front cover. In typical Saints fashion he would do it low key and cheap. Tink had dyed a sheet black(it came out grey) one day during rehearsal my friend shows up with a borrowed camera. We pause, Tink tacks the sheet on wall of a side room of the church, we toss on some of our stage close, I borrow a set of sunglasses from my friend and hand them to Tink. My buddy didn't even have a tri-pod for the camera. He stacked up this huge pile of hymnals and used them to steady the shot,then "click.clik.click" and...history...three tuff looking guys in suits ,sunglasses and a beret.
We finished the final tracks and vocals at a 16 track studio in Burbank. I remember it being located in an old theatre, real funky place. The engineer on the project got real excited when he heard us and especially the acoustic guitar track. Tinker did the lead vocal on the song he wrote and I followed suit. This was the first time I sang into a high end vocal mic. It was really something, I could even hear myself breathe. As I sat in the control room I had to pinch myself again. I could not believe this was really happening. I was RECORDING a bonifide professional album with a producer ,session musicians,and my band!.God had been good to me and the tears in my eyes under my sunglasses were another thank you to Him. A week of two later I get a call from Ken to come to the studio. There he presented me with a shinny new cassette of "Stevie and the Saints, Metalblue" there we were three guys in a black and white photo tipped sideways on a blue background..all done on a shoe string with a borrowed camera. Ken had all of 1100.00 into the project,most of that was the album art. I was a happy man. I went home walked into my little hovel of an apartment to my wife and two wonderful children,put the cassette in my player and listened to it over and over again. Ken had done a masterful job of recording us and I as blown away as anyone would be. The reality of my life at that moment was this. Parked outside my door was a 1971 Ford Maverick that I paid 235.00 for and had to make payments. I had gone 8 months without a car and almost 2 years without a phone. I was behind on the rent and there wasn't much in the fridge to feed my growing family. I was in debt up to my ears with no way to pay and everytime the phone rang my heart skipped a beat because it was probably a bill collector. I was married to someone who did nothing but complain.(I couldn't blame her)... But I had two things no one else had...a KILLER BAND and now a KILLER ALBUM!!!!With in month of Ken sending out advance copies reviews started rolling in. I remember Ken calling me with the first one. The reviewer went on and one how good we were and what a monster guitar player I was going as far as calling me a guitar hero. This made the rest of my dismal life shine a little more...killer band,killer album and now...killer reviews!!!!!