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Harry Slash Talks ECW Music

From Harry's Myspace:

The Origin Of ECW Music. 1997

(This blog is not only about the Origin of ECW music, but also about the first time I worked with Steve “Budgie” Werner and Richie Scarlet.)

It was February 9th, 1997 and I was on one of my many “sabbaticals” away from music, I had broken up The Slashtones for the umpteenth time and quit the music business for the umpteenth time a month prior. In the early afternoon of that fateful day in February of 1997, my friend Paul Heyman called me, he paged me actually. I called him back and he took the number I was at and said he'd call me back in about five minutes. Twenty minutes later he paged me again, and I again called him back. This time Paul Heyman said “I’ll call you back in 10 minutes” and one hour later he called me and asked me for a "small" favor. ECW needed music for a cross-promotional wrestling event, an "ECW Invasion of WWF Raw". Just two instrumental songs was all he said they needed, one for Taz and one for Tommy Dreamer. Nothing fancy, just "sound alike clones" of the music they were using in ECW, but in a more WWF/WCW style. The way he explained it was along the lines of” “It has to sound just like Alice In Chains but not sound anything like Alice In Chains.” (He used Chris Jericho and DDP’s WCW themes as an example of sounding like Soundgarden and Nirvana but not sounding like Soundgarden and Nirvana.)

My head began to spin. I was still relatively new to the current wrestling world. (I had stopped watching wrestling around the time Bob Backlund was champion back in the early 80s.) I would occasionally go and meet up with Paul at his ECW shows beginning in 1995, but I would show up around 11pm when they were finishing up and then he and I would go grab a late supper. It wasn’t until shortly after Rob Van Dam joined ECW in 1996 that I actually saw an entire show, and I liked it. It wasn't the glitter and spandex cartoon wrestling that had turned me off to wresting back in the 80s, It was a hard-edged, gritty "mosh pit" kind of wrestling with an off the wall stoner meets surrealistic approach that I'd never seen before. Seeing the late "Big Dick Dudley", Alex Rizzo, throw "Big Primo" through a real plate-glass window was what "brought me back to the dance" and I then started hanging out with the folks in ECW and helping out behind the scenes. But at this point in February of 1997 I wasn’t really paying that close attention to WCW or WWF and was clueless about entrance themes.

“Let me look into this” I told Paul. Then I left my office and went to this large music store across the street from Macy's in NYC and bought some wrestling CDs. I went back to the office, listened to them and then called Paul. "I can't do this" I said. "Why not?" Paul asked, to which I replied, "Because I used to make music and what I just heard on these wrestling CDs is crap, not music." "Well, can't you do a cross between the music and crap?" Paul replied. He spent the next few minutes convincing me to do this, (funny how he could do that to people...) Then Paul told me he actually needed three songs, (one for Sandman as well. “It has to sound just like “Enter Sandman” by Metallica but not sound anything like “Enter Sandman” by Metallica.”), and that he needed them in four days!

Yes, four f***ing days! This was a Thursday and he needed them by Monday for a live television broadcast. I spent the next several minutes trying to explain to Paul how hard that would be to do in so little time. But all the technical reasons of why this was almost impossible to do got the same reaction from Paul as if I was explaining nuclear physics to a goldfish. "So you'll do it, right?" was all Paul said after I was done talking and I reluctantly said "Yes".

I then had to scramble to find an available studio and musicians. A bit of a dilemma there. Former Slashtone Roderick Kohn had a studio and could play guitar, but he was in California until later next week. I couldn't rely on The Slashtones other guitar player and producer, so because of that and a number of other reasons, I chose not to use any of the other former Slashtones or the studios that we had used. After all, this was a recording that I needed to actually finish. I needed to put a band together and find a studio. I lucked out with the first and only phone call to drummer Steve “Budgie” Werner. He was in the middle of a jam session with fellow former Ace Frehley band member Richie Scarlet and 'Soul Crush' guitarist Andy Abbene. Budgie gave me the number to Eddie Wohl's studio. “The Palace” was available, but only on Saturday. Budgie, Ritchie, Andy and I were also all available that Saturday and everyone was willing to do a marathon recording session. That was a good sign and a I breathed a sigh of relief for a change.

At 9am Saturday morning I entered "The Palace" with two cups of coffee, three packs of cigarettes, four musicians, five joints and a six pack of beer. It was great to finally work with Steve “Budgie”. He had actually accepted a spot in The Slashtones back in late 1996 after we all figured that it would be best if we had parted ways with our then drummer Lez Warner. I’d also known Richie Scarlet and Eddie Wohl for a long time so while I knew that this would be hectic, it would at least be some fun. Budgie and I had worked out most of the musical arrangements on the back of a napkin the night before at an ECW show at the Elk's Lodge in Queens NY. That morning, the four of us then worked out the bugs, came up with the best possible arrangements and started recording. 23 hours later I staggered out of The Palace with four newly written, recorded, mixed and mastered songs. Yes, four (4), Paul Heyman had called me before I went into the studio on Saturday morning and asked me to do one more totally generic song because WWF might be doing certain things differently on Monday night's "Raw" program.

It was an insane rush job to get the four tunes done in so short a time that when an occasional bad note was played I let it go. Parts of the guitar solo on one song were recorded with a slightly out of tune guitar, some bass parts were out of time, most of my guitar parts had too much feedback. Both Ritchie and Andy wanted to redo their parts, but I said "Don't worry about it, the fans will be screaming, the announcers will be talking and no one will notice. Besides, they'll only be played once." (Little did I know how wrong I was...)

I got home at 9:30 am on Sunday morning. I then left little samples of each song on Paul Heyman's voice mail and tried to go to sleep, "Tried" being the optimum word as my phone rang 10 minutes later with Paul on the other end wanting to hear all four complete songs. I put the phone next to the speaker, hit play and let the tape run. 12 minutes and 58 seconds later Paul said "I can't believe you actually got it done," "Neither can I." I said, "But I need to sleep," I hung up the phone and went to bed only to have the phone ring again in 15 minutes, This time Paul had his assistant Debbie Boumont on a conference call and asked me to play the four tunes for her to hear over the phone. I obliged and 12 minutes and 58 seconds later told Paul again that I really needed to sleep. Eight minutes later Paul called again, promising that this would be the last time, He had Taz on the line and only wanted to hear the tune I did for him. I played what would eventually become known as "Path of Rage" over the phone for Taz and then begged Paul to not call again and let me get a few hours sleep. "No Problem, he said, and "Thank you." I unplugged my phone and went to bed. Ten minutes later my beeper went off. It was Paul...

That Monday I met the ECW folks at the Manhattan Center and brought DAT copies of the four tunes with me. I remember how odd it was being there that day, it seemed like the only people that were smiling were the folks in the ECW contingent. The show went off without a hitch. (Unless you count Sabu "falling" off of the big "R" on the RAW set entrance.) And thanks to the “ECW Covert Operations Squad” giving away t-shirts to anyone that even looked like they might be going there, the already sold-out prior to ECW being announced to be there Manhattan Center looked like an ECW merchandise catalogue. ECW got over in the fans eyes, and in WWF’s eyes as well in my opinion . I’d spent a big part of the night in the control room, incase a quick EQ adjustment had to be made to the tunes I produced, and it seemed like most of the tech crew was indifferent when the Raw roster was on but really perked up when the ECW segments took place. After the show I saw an altercation in the parking garage next door between Jim Cornette and a couple of young fans that made me lose respect for him. (Yea, Jim, the kids were wrong for punching your car, a heel’s car I must add, but you didn’t need to call those two kids the “word” you did.) Then it was off to “Big Nick’s” for pizza and beer. (Pizza and beer was ECW’s champagne and caviar.)

They ended up only using two songs that night, the ones for Taz and Tommy Dreamer and not the "Enter Sandman" clone or the other generic crap we recorded. In retrospect, I'm glad those two weren't used. Our "Enter Sandman" clone was, in my opinion, better than the one WWE dubbed in on their "ECW One Night Stand" DVD, but it was still pretty lame and the other song was a very cheesy, generic rock/metal thing that may have ruined any future I had in music. Yea, it was bad, but not as “bad” as "The Clap" that I'd record years later. But that’s another story for down the road.
Regards,
Harry /

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