Sonic Fury Brigade

Dilemmas never goes out of style

The difference between a paradox and a dilemma is that in a paradox, one is faced with two simultaneous demands or expectations that must be reconciled - simultaneously. A dilemma is about making a decision and facing the fact that there is always a price to pay when choosing side.

Upon reflecting on this small incident from my youth, I realized that the process of navigating dilemmas is eternal - it is only the content that changes.

Cool music or many concerts?

When I was 17, I played in a power-rock trio called "Sonic Fury Brigade". Lasse played guitar, Brian played drums, and I played bass. Lasse rode a Yamaha FS1, Brian rode a Kreidler Florett, and I rode a Puch 2-gear. We rehearsed in a youth club outside Hillerød, where we also rode mopeds.

We looked up to Erik, who was a little older than us. He looked like one of our heroes, singer Ian Gillan from Deep Purple. He also sang a little like him - very little. He told us that we would get many gigs if he were the singer in the band. We were mostly into making our own fusion rock, but were attracted to playing more concerts, so we said yes to being his backing band.

He sent us a lot of lyrics that we had to write music to. Even though we thought his lyrics were super corny, we set aside a weekend to write music and record it on my little Philips tape recorder.

Cool lyrics for a cool band

Erik's lyrics had titles like:

"Thunder Road Warriors"

"Raging Inferno Heart"

"Grim Reaper's Dance"

"Shadow King's Rhapsody"

"Heavy Metal Warriors of the Night"

"Steel Horse Riders of Doom"

"Eternal Flame Keepers of Rock"

We wrote three extra pieces of music, and to stay in the style, we called them:

"Chaos Engine Symphony"

"Blackened Sun Horizon"

"Venomous Thunderbolt Brigade"

We wanted Erik to write lyrics for those titles.

After the recording session, we packed up, took the lyrics and the cassette tape, and drove our mopeds out to Erik's and delivered them. Then we went to the grill and got some snacks and Jolly-Cola and talked about our promising career before driving home.

Who's in charge?

Before we delivered the recordings, we had an argument. I thought Erik shouldn't know which lyrics the music was written to. That way, he could best match the mood between the lyrics and the music. Then he would also have more decision power, and this would increase our chances of playing concerts with him.

Lasse and Brian believed that when a piece of music was written for a particular lyric, it should be that way. The lyrics from "Thunder Road Warriors" should be sung over the music we had intended for "Thunder Road Warriors". To them, it didn't really matter if Erik became more engaged if he had choices. I lost that debate.

Long live democracy

Let it pass, I thought. They are two against one, so they are probably right. And Erik is a smart guy, he can figure out how to swap things around so that the lyrics and music fit better in his head. He couldn't.

Next Saturday at 11, we were back in the rehearsal room. We still hadn't heard from Erik and agreed that he was probably so ecstatic about the music that he had forgotten that we were supposed to try to play the songs together. He hadn't.

Not on the same planet

At quarter past 12, we heard the sound of Erik's Honda CB 250, and he stepped in wearing his black leather gear and took off his helmet.

"Guys" he said "You have completely misunderstood the task."

"The music for 'Sonic Fury Brigade' fits very well with the lyrics called 'Shadow King's Rhapsody'. There are also some others where you've revved the engine a bit. But the rest is just crap."

We were stunned.

"You gotta be kiddin'" said Brian "We made the music precisely for the mood in your lyrics!"

"No way. We're not even on the same planet" said Erik.

"What about 'Chaos Engine Symphony,' 'Blackened Sun Horizon,' and 'Venomous Thunderbolt Brigade'?" said Lasse. "There's some cool vibe there - just throw in some killer lyrics!"

Erik rolled his eyes while zipping up his leather jacket.

"Listen, I don't want to sing on something I didn't plant the first seed for. Adios amigos."

Defeat

When Erik left, we were silent for a while.

"We should have listened to you," said Brian. "It's obviously important for lead singers to have the final say."

"Yeah," said Lasse. "They're the ones who stand at the front of the stage."

Shortly after, Sonic Fury Brigade disbanded.

What did I learn?

Looking back, there are several things I would do differently today.

• Agree on the common goal

  • Do we want to make our own music and grow more slowly?

  • Do we want to compromise and grow faster?

• Make a decision on who decides

  • Is it Erik who has the final say - and what is the consequence?

  • Is it Sonic Fury Brigade who has the final say - and what is the consequence?

• Check-in frequently

  • We should have recorded only one or two songs before checking if Erik agreed with the direction.

  • We could have been in the same room, so feedback came immediately.

• Set boundaries for feedback

  • If we had worked more closely together and defined how we gave each other feedback on lyrics and music, we might have established a closer collaboration where we listened to each other's suggestions with our guard down. Our insecurity towards an older person who, in our eyes, had a higher status created a "make-or-break" situation.

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There are probably more points that could be relevant in teams and organizational contexts.

But if I were to go back in time and look those three young men in the eyes and try to explain the four points to them, I know what they would have said to me:

"An old fart like you doesn't know shit!"

And then they would have jumped on their mopeds and gone to the grill.

*

[The story is true, but all names, photos, and song titles are fictional]