Meat and Potatoes Rock and Roll

I remember reading a story about Gene Simmons auditioning Eddie Van Halen as the new guitarist for KISS. EVH is one of the greatest guitarists ever, but Gene decided against him. He said that KISS was a "meat and potatoes" band. Gene would go on to help Eddie with Eddie's own band recognizing the guy's immense talent. But Gene knew that Eddie Van Halen was not a good fit for KISS.

KISS began with a band called Wicked Lester. I've listened to some of that early stuff, and you can hear a certain KISS sound in there. The song "She" is the best example of this. Both Wicked Lester and KISS recorded the song. The difference is striking. The Wicked Lester version is gentler, has more flourishes, more instruments, and is in the style of bands during that era. The KISS version is harder but simpler.



Wicked Lester sounds more like the Doobie Brothers than KISS. It is music geared more to the critics than to the masses. The guys realized they weren't going anywhere, so they got a look straight from the comic books and changed their sound. They simplified the project. The music got simpler and heavier. Their look became iconic. It worked. These guys were never going to be confused for Jethro Tull.



Another band that is similar in the meat and potatoes vein of rock and roll is AC/DC. Like KISS, they have an iconic look with the schoolboy outfit, and the music just rocks. As Keith Richards pointed out, all AC/DC songs are the same song, but it is the best damn rock song you ever heard.

AC/DC will never be confused with King Crimson. Their music is simple and basic. They know what they do, and they do it very well. This seems like an easy approach, but it isn't. As the Eddie Van Halen story shows, meat and potatoes rock and roll requires deliberation and restraint. The impulse is to do it bigger and better. This music requires you to ignore that impulse.

Learning to ignore this impulse to complicate the simple is a skill. KISS eventually bowed to this impulse, and their music and career went downhill for a couple of decades. AC/DC never changed. They stuck with what worked. They never made a Dark Side of the Moon. They just kept rocking despite line up changes and the death of their original lead singer.

There are many strategies you can choose in the creative realm. Bands that are not meat and potatoes do well, too. Simplicity is also a strategy that works. Focusing on what you do well and eliminating the rest can be a winning approach. It will not win you critical praise or a lot of respect from other musicians. Because it is simple people assume that it is easy. But it isn't easy. Turning down Eddie Van Halen takes discipline, and discipline is never easy.

The tool is restraint. It is a recognition of the limits and living within those limits. It is discovering that after exploring and indulging all the options you find yourself back at the basics. It is finding the balance between the new and the tried-and-true. If there is one rule to follow, it is to make sure that it rocks. I don't ever see that as being a mistake.



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