By Shawn Perry
There’s little doubt that someone at some point in time in the last couple decades probably thought it would be an interesting experiment to marry heavy metal with something else, anything else — polka, reggae, disco, Dixieland jazz, you name it.
On the flipside, you have crooners like Pat Boone and William Shatner who have tried their hand at metal. But who in his right mind would ever think metal could break bread with the Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra?
After all, it was Frank Sinatra who once said that rock ‘n roll was the “most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear…” This was after he first heard Elvis in the 50s.
Can you imagine what his reaction would be to Twisted Sister and Anthrax? Putting “The Impossible Dream” aside, the lead singers for these and a few other bands were prepared, in the face of controversy, to show their allegiance to the original rock star in a heartfelt, loving and diabolic tribute from Eagle Rock called Sin-atra.
To make it all happen, Bob Kulick and Brett Chassen, two brazen musicians and producers, took on the task of assembling 12 songs, 12 singers and a supportive band to create their heavy metal homage. The two had previously worked together in 2009 on a Christmas album called We Wish You A Metal Xmas And A Headbanging New Year, which Kulick describes as sort of a “training ground for the reinterpretation of songs.”
Essentially, they took songs like “Frosty The Snowman” and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and turned them into, as Kulick puts it, “metal opuses.” The same approach was taken when they made Sin-atra.
You have to wonder how Kulick, who’s worked on albums with Kiss and Lou Reed, and Chassen, an in-demand session drummer, could end up working on such a project. Both offer simple answers.
“The guy was a legend,” Kulick remarks as if it’s only too obvious, which it undoubtedly is. “There’s not much more you can say about it, except that these are some of the greatest songs ever written.”
For Chassen, Frank Sinatra rings a bit closer to the heart — he actually met the man. “My father owned a big resort hotel in upstate New York,” he recalls. “Frank had been there several times, so I met him when I was younger. And then I bumped into him again when I was about 20-years-old in New York City. That didn’t go quite as well as when I was a little kid…but that’s OK.”
Chassen says his drumming was heavily influenced by jazz and Sinatra, in particular. “He could take a line in a lyric and phrase it in a way that no one else could,” he says. “I incorporate that into the way I play. It’s a big part of what I try to bring to the table.”
Once the band was ready to go, selling the idea of Sin-atra to renowned singers wasn’t all that difficult. Finding the right singer for the right song, however, was arduous and time-consuming. Kulick and Chassen compiled lists upon lists of songs and singers, shared their ideas with the record label and executive producer Wendy Dio, and began piecing it all together.
“We had a lot of ideas,” Kulick says. “There were some people who I thought had bigger balls who might have at it with one of these songs and they were scared off because it’s a daunting task, knowing that people would say, ‘You did a metal Sinatra? Can’t wait to lambaste that.’”
Chassen says the biggest challenge in making Sin-atra was how to stay true to the melody of the original song. “If you change up the melody, it’s no longer that song.”
Using the song as a blueprint, Chassen, Kulick, bassist Billy Sheehan and keyboardist Doug Katsaros delivered on the instrumental undertow that drives each track. Some of the songs borrow liberally from a lethal palette of riffs. Case in point is Dee Snider’s intense reading of “It Was A Very Good Year,” which shutters forth very much on a “Kashmir” like groove. The hole is wide open for the dramatic, almost melancholic melody, and Snider comes through like you may have never heard him before.
Choosing Snider was easy, according to Kulick, because the song required an older guy. “Here was a guy with experience enough and chops enough,” he says. “We felt he would be a good match for this.”
Whereas the music of Twisted Sister rocks, it still has its limitations. Singing Sinatra, Kulick feels Snider’s true ability as a singer came to the fore. “He has been allowed to shine more as a singer on something like this. He makes that song his own.”
As the first song recorded, Chassen says “It Was A Very Good Year” set the bar high for what was to follow. “But then you go to Glenn Hughes (who sang “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”) and the bar is set even higher,” he adds.
“The Lady Is A Tramp,” with an opening straight out of Van Halenetics, is another appropriate fit for Mr. Big’s Eric Martin. “That style dictates the type of song that was good for him,” Kulick says.
From Devin Townsend’s spine-chilling, yet rather jaunty take on “New York New York” to King’s X singer Dug Pinnick’s suave vocal on “I’ve Got the World On A String,” you would think Sin-atra had all bases covered. But one singer approached in the early stages of the project was sorely missed.
Chassen said he asked Ronnie James Dio, whose last session took place in the drummer’s studio, if he’d like to be on the record. “He said, ‘Get me the right song and I will.’”
“So we had to make sure we got the right song for Ronnie and we did,” Kulick says. “But he was too sick to do it.”
And the song? “We really wanted Ronnie to do ‘My Way.’”
As with most anyone who knew him, Kulick has nothing but praise for Dio. “He was just a giant of a man. And it would have been a privilege.”
Moving forward, Kulick and Chassen say the Sinatra estate is aware of the record, but have offered no comments. For a split second, they considered bringing in Nancy Sinatra for a song, but realized they needed to stick with road-worthy hard rock and metal singers.
And as for the critics who think a record like this is blasphemy or just a sick joke, both musicians accept the bad with the good. “It’s a matter of personal taste,” Chassen says.
Kulick is less commiserating. “The songs are not crap and rubbish,” he says, “but they might not like our versions.”
Regardless of what happens, the pair has a new project featuring Dee Snider. They’ll be show tunes for an album tentatively called Dee Does Broadway. A possible tour may follow.
In the meantime, Chassen believes Sin-atra will resonate and linger for generations to come. “Sixty years from now when somebody Googles ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ or ‘It Was A Very Good Year’ and they read about it, it will say Dee Snider sang a version of this in 2011. So you become part of the history of the song. To attach yourself to songs like these…it’s a privilege.”
Billy Sheehan, dUg Pinnick, Brett Chassen & Bob Kulick
in the studio recording ‘Sin-atra’
