Former FORBIDDEN Guitarist Says His New Group Is One Of The Few 'Real' Bands

Former FORBIDDEN/MANMADEGOD and current SPIRALARMS guitarist Craig Locicero has posted the following message in the "Guestbook" section of SPIRALARMS' official web site:

"Chemistry is everything in a band's growth together. When you take a one part out, it's not the same. Only the record we make will show all of the things we're trying to convey into words. It doesn't do it any justice.

"We [played] a show [Saturday night, Jan. 29] at the Blank Club in San Jose, and I [found] myself really looking forward to it more than ever. This is the time of my life. I know how lucky we are to be getting another opportunity to prove our worth to all of you and the skeptics who seem to want us to fail so badly. No hard feelings to them, it's just typical behavior really, because lets just face it, music is mostly a horrible joke right now.

"The standards are so low that it's very difficult to know what a REAL band is. Well, WE ARE a REAL BAND, and I'll tell you why. While the great majority of bands are 'chasing the dragon' and trying so hard just to fit in, we keep all of the outside pressure and other B.S. out of sight. See, what most people fail to understand is that music is supposed to be something that is not overcooked, or overscrutinized when it's being created. This IS rock we're talking about here! Come on, people, why try so hard?! This stuff should be flowing from a stream of all of your past influences, not a self conscious and predictable 'kind' of music that most musicians feel they have to play just to 'fit in!'

"For example, IRON MAIDEN was my favorite band from '81-'84, and there were plenty of other things I listened to as a kid. To most people, they started to sound painfully out of date by '87. Follow me so far? So somebody along the line discovers an old, and not one of their best (in my opinion) albums, 'Somewhere in Time', and decides to incorporate the sound and style of all of the music into some so called 'punk rock.' There is nothing punk about it!!! Please understand that I will always love MAIDEN, but this is lame! I bet you a dollar that the majority of these kids thinking that they are doing something groundbreaking with all of those cool harmonies don't even know who they are biting on. They play that way because that's what they think is what everyone expects them to sound like, following the Pied Piper. And the thing that kills me about that is all it takes to define this as punk is 'emo screamo' and that's considered aggressive.

"That, my friends, is insulting to everyone. The only people who deserve the blame for this are the record companies out there looking for the next TAKING BACK SUNDAY and the likes of that stuff. They have homogenized the industry to a whole new level. They stunt the growth of real music for the 'Hot Topic' generation and all of the poor kids who don't know any better. That is a shame because everyone is screaming for a better quality of music in times like these. They deserve it too, hell, we all do.

"There are actually a few bands who follow the true mantra of rock, but most of them are older and have the experience to get around the peer pressure that exists in the corporate climate that stunts this generations growth. QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, SYSTEM OF A DOWN, THE MARS VOLTA and AUDIOSLAVE, just to name a few, help promote free thinking regardless of their commercial success. We're just talking music here, not political views.

"So this is why I feel we can say with pride that SPIRALARMS is one of the real bands out there doing it. Even with majority of the world not knowing our caring who we are, at least we are fusing all of our influences together to try and make music fun for us and for the listener once again. This is not an exclusive club, and I urge everyone who's trying music as a career to 'LET IT GO.' Fuck being a follower, be your own leader!!! Follow your own bell.

"Just watch 15 minutes of 'Headbanger's Ball' with all of this in mind and you'll see how much creativity is being choked out by the record industry. This is 'corporate rock!!!' My, how things have changed."