|  (A
Funny Thing Happened On) The Road To Rock Stardom
- Metal Dave
by Tammy Moore
Imagine
lying on your couch catching a few zzz’s in the early
afternoon when the phone rings. You don’t feel like
getting up to answer it so you let the machine get it. Half
dazed, you hear a voice, “Hey, hey, Dave? David Lee
Roth here! Guess I missed ya. Well, I’ll try back later
there, Dave!” Oh, that was just Diamond Dave. He wasn’t
supposed to call for four more hours, but he’s in one
time zone and you’re in another. He’ll call back.
Or maybe the phone rings again, and this time it’s Nikki
Sixx, who doubles as one of your own personal idols. You start
to interview him, and the maintenance man shows up to fix
your garbage disposal. You want to rap with Sixx, of course,
but you don’t want to be bothered with all that clanging
coming from your kitchen. So you take the phone in the closet
and chat with the icon. Imagine Bret Michaels insisting that
you join the band on stage to sing “Rock And Roll All
Nite” with him to a sold-out crowd just so you can really
understand why rock stars choose this profession. You know…see
what it feels like to perform in front of thousands of people.
Sound
like a fantasy life? Welcome to the real world of Dave Glessner,
freelance music journalist for Metal Edge magazine and known
affectionately throughout the Austin music community as “Metal”
Dave. AC/DC, the Ramones, Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, Eddie
Van Halen, Slash, the Doors, Aerosmith, Metallica, Mötley
Crüe, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Scorpions, the Misfits,
Anthrax, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Megadeth, Rob Zombie, Buck
Cherry, Queensryche, Foo Fighters, Pantera, Green Day and
Def Leppard are some of the names Glessner can list as artists
he has interviewed. His home is a testament to that fact and
is brimming with photos and memorabilia from a life that screams,
“I came to live out loud!” Take a look at his
rock and roll library, and you’ll find must-reads like
Mötley Crüe’s The Dirt: Confessions off the
World’s Most Notorious Rock Band and Legs McNeil’s
Please Kill Me. Peruse the walls of his study, and among other
things, you’ll find a letter from the late Cliff Burton’s
mom telling Glessner how his kind words help her and her husband
cope with her son’s death.
Fittingly,
he was born in San Antonio, Texas, the “heavy metal
capital of the world,” to Don and Joyce, but like most
military brats, Glessner moved around a lot as a kid. He envisioned
himself growing up to be a football player, and then his parents
moved to England in the late ‘70s, where he started
entertaining himself by watching a television show called
“Top Of The Pops.” It was here that he saw the
likes of Molly Hatchet, Thin Lizzy and Queen and really got
into music. Then a friend turned him on to Kiss’ “Destroyer”
and it was “goodbye, NFL…hello, rock and roll.”
When
the family moved back to San Antonio, Glessner was heavily
influenced by 99.5 KISS radio’s Joe “The Godfather”
Anthony, a legendary DJ who was the first to bring bands like
Rush, Killer Dwarfs and Triumph to the air. Then he saw his
first live band when the Plasmatics opened for KISS on the
“Creatures of the Night” tour. Wendy O. came out
in duct tape and a mohawk, and Glessner was hooked. Music
became everything to him, and he’s never looked back.
He hasn’t let very much get in his way either. He once
ran away from home because his parents wouldn’t let
him go to a Twisted Sister concert.
 But
he got over it eventually and came back until he left again
for college at Southwest Texas State University. He knew exactly
what he wanted to do and obtained a degree in journalism.
While there, he worked as campus newspaper cartoonist before
moving into music reviews and eventually spending a summer
as Entertainment Editor. He also deejayed on the campus radio
station and somehow managed to work as a publicist and graphics
designer for several San Antonio metal bands. His first interview
for The Daily Star was with Jake E. Lee. Glessner traded Lee
a cigarette in exchange for the interview after hanging around
by the back door and waiting for Lee to come offstage. That
was back in the days before he knew that publicists handled
such things. Before graduating college, he had landed interviews
with the Ramones, L7, Glenn Danzig and Dee Snider.
He
went on to be published in the San Antonio Express-News, Texas
Music Magazine, Houston Press, KNAC.com, and Maximum RockNRoll.
Ultimately, after banging on the door at Metal Edge time after
time and getting nowhere, he turned to his friend for help,
Ramones publicist Ida Langsam. As fate would have it, Langsams’
intern was the girlfriend of Metal Edge Executive Editor Paul
Gargano, and through that connection he was able to talk to
a girl at Metal Edge in charge of record reviews. Eventually,
he was able to talk to Gargano himself and convince the magazine
honcho to let him review Mötley Crüe on the “Maximum
Rock and Roll Tour.” Metal Edge wanted 1000 words, and
when Glessner turned in the review, Gargano’s response
was that he guessed he better find some pictures to go with
the review because it was very good. And that was his foot
in the door.
He
cites the greatest day of his life as the day this past October
when he married Kim. The second greatest day was the day he
met the Ramones in person backstage at Palmer Auditorium.
He got to meet the whole band, interview Marky, have dinner
with the crew and watch soundcheck. As an independent writer
he could live anywhere, but he chooses Austin as a home base
for one reason: the music. “This place rocks,”
he said, “If you’re playing, that’s badass.
If you’re not, you’re drawing posters, you’re
booking, you’re making up flyers, you’re doing
t-shirts…everybody that I hang out with is somehow tied
to their love of music. I live and breathe fucking music,
and I just love that there are so many other people in this
city that are the same way.”
Normally,
this column is geared towards helping to educate artists about
this business of music. But, thanks to Rank and Revue, I find
myself keeping company these days with people who, like myself,
are aspiring writers-for-hire, and for the sake of all of
us, I just couldn’t resist this opportunity to pick
Metal Dave’s brain about how to succeed in the art of
music journalism. Read on anyway, music makers. It never hurts
to know what the people who work for you are supposed to be
doing or to know what could impress a journalist that might
be interviewing you one day.
R&R:
When you worked as a publicist what did that involve?
MD: I wrote press releases announcing gigs and inviting music
writers to come out and review shows. Ultimately, the goal
was to keep the bands’ names in the local press and
make sure their gigs and album releases were announced in
the newspaper. I wasn’t getting paid. I was paying my
dues and trying to make contacts and gain experience. It was
a fun time and very educational and enlightening. I learned
how to write press releases, make contact with the appropriate
media and reap the rewards of seeing the results in print
at a large daily newspaper. It was my way of being a player
in the scene without being a musician.
R&R:
What do you do to prepare for your interviews?
MD: I’m usually very familiar with my subjects to begin
with, but to keep the news angle timely, I may need to brush
up on the latest album, tour, and other happenings. I contact
the band’s publicist and have them send all the latest
materials including band bio, latest CD, press releases and
recent press clippings. I listen to the music, formulate questions,
and then sequence them so the conversation flows. Being informed
is the best way to get the most out of a subject. People love
to talk about themselves and especially enjoy when your questions
reflect a genuine interest. That’s how you get them
to open up and tell you things that they may not tell a reporter
who is just going through the motions to complete an assignment
and beat deadline.
R&R:
What is a good writing? Why do you think your pieces sell?
MD: Once you prove that you’re capable, legitimate,
and reliable…you’re good. A lot of people can’t
do all of those things. Everybody wants to do this, but either
they aren’t good at any of them, or they’re lacking
in one of them. But if you can do all three then they’ll
run with you. People don’t understand that this takes
time and effort to do it well. You’ve got to be knowledgeable
about your subject, have a good command of the language, be
reliable, and able to work independently. NEVER EVER MISS
A DEADLINE. For me, there’s nothing more aggravating
than reading a story and finding a typo. There’s just
no fucking excuse for it. If you’re going to be taken
seriously and if you’re going to be considered a credible
source, your facts better be fucking straight, and your names
better be fucking spelled right. I read articles written in
Austin, Texas where they spell Stevie Ray Vaughan wrong! That
is inexcusable. If you’re gonna establish yourself as
that, and you’re going to have to if you’re going
to do this, you’ve got to have your I’s dotted
and your T’s crossed. You can’t fuck up Mick Jagger’s
name if you’re going to be taken seriously.
R&R:
Now how much of that is your responsibility, and how much
is your editor’s responsibility?
MD: It better be ALL your responsibility as a writer. Because
if it’s an editor’s responsibility to clean up
something that obvious, then you aren’t going to get
hired for the next job. If I’m the editor for Rolling
Stone and you misspell Stevie Ray Vaughan’s name, then
I’m not calling you back for the next assignment. The
best thing you can do for an editor is let them go to sleep
at night, peacefully, and know that you’re reliable,
accurate, got your facts straight, and your shit was on time!
R&R:
What is a realistic pay scale for writers who are trying to
sell their work?
MD: The money is in the feature interviews. You start off
doing record reviews and that is $40 or $50. It varies wildly.
I get paid by the length of the article in terms of how many
words, who this person is, how famous they are, and how the
publication wants to play it. If it’s a cover story,
it’s worth more than a “where are they now”
kind of thing. But I love nothing more than to know that the
phone’s gonna ring, and it’s fucking Peter Criss!
That just rocks my fucking world. If the phone rings and it’s
Gene Simmons or whoever, I don’t give a fuck about the
money…I just can’t wait to cackle with these motherfuckers
on the phone…It’s all about the music first!
R&R:
Knowing all that you know now, what is the best piece of advice
you could give to aspiring artists in this crazy pursuit of
success in music?
MD: More than anything, if you want to be taken as a credible
person, just be honest. If you want to be respected for what
you do and who you are, just tell the fucking truth no matter
who it hurts!
It
was a theme he stressed repeatedly throughout our interview.
As far as Glessner is concerned, the artists he has interviewed
all fall into categories. There are the guys he is proud to
have interviewed just because of their legendary status in
rock history…Bowie, Van Halen, Manzarek and Simmons,
for example. And then there are the guys that Glessner loves
because they were truly great interviews like Lemmy and Sixx.
What made those interviews great? These artists “don’t
give a fuck if their publicist, their wives, or their record
label shits a brick when they read this article,” and
they are poster children for rock and roll. It seems that
some artists might try to dance around a subject or aim for
political correctness in their answers. Forget that. Give
Glessner twenty minutes with someone like Zakk Wylde, and
he’ll give you some dirt on Ozzy that would expose Sharon
Osbourne for the spin doctor that she is like he did in Metal
Edge a year ago.
Interviews
like that keep the engaging smile on this rock journalists’
face. To know Glessner is to like him. He is humble, he laughs
a lot, and he looks you directly in the eye when he talks
to you. He was so forthcoming with information on how to succeed
at doing what he does that I almost felt guilty about sharing
the information with my readers. He gave us a goldmine of
insight. But then I shrugged it off. For one thing, “Metal”
Dave Glessner wants to see other people thrive. This is who
he is. And, after all, he knew he was talking to a reporter…and
that is just one of the lessons I learned from him! Keep reaching
for the dream.
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