Bands that you suspect used ghostwriters

[Rocker4Real]

What bands do you suspect had help from ghostwriters that aren't mentioned on the liner notes? Sometimes bands will admit later on that they were used. Sometimes it's in the publishing data. Do you think it's unethical to not have it listed on the album?

[Wednesday 13 Fan]

Mötley...

Sixx always likes to have it both ways. He likes to say he was a a huge rock band, but because it was fashionable to be a heroin addict then he was that too. All while keeping up on his diary.

[roxxxtar]

Listen to the first four Poison albums, which includes Crack A Smile.
Now listen to Hollyweird and any Bret Michaels solo song or album.

No way the same guy wrote those albums.

[Bono Nettencourt]

KISS.

[dmbrocker]

Mötley...

Sixx always likes to have it both ways. He likes to say he was a a huge rock band, but because it was fashionable to be a heroin addict then he was that too. All while keeping up on his diary.

Sixx also allegedly had a ghost performer/recorder as well thanks to Matthew Trippe.

[windycitycane]

I think the producers have a big impact on these records. A good producer who can write songs a la Mutt Lange or Desmond Child would have a big influence even though they aren’t credited songwriters.

[Love_Industry]

Listen to the first four Poison albums, which includes Crack A Smile.
Now listen to Hollyweird and any Bret Michaels solo song or album.

No way the same guy wrote those albums.

Poison's first album was a low budget rush job on an indie label.
Mötley's first was self released.
Makes zero sense that they would pay ghost writers or musicians back then.
They just got lazy or ran out of ideas after a couple of albums.

Guns'N Roses on the other hand - they never sounded like on AFD, their big budget debut on Geffen, before or after so there could be something there.
I also doubt Ace Frehley wrote all songs credited to him - he's just not a productive songwriter.
His peak was on Dynasty and Unmasked - where pro songwriter Vini Poncia was the producer.

[Wednesday 13 Fan]

Mötley...

Sixx always likes to have it both ways. He likes to say he was a a huge rock band, but because it was fashionable to be a heroin addict then he was that too. All while keeping up on his diary.

Sixx also allegedly had a ghost performer/recorder as well thanks to Matthew Trippe.

Don't muddy up the works with that idiot.

[VincentVanWinger]

Virtually nobody from that era wrote or if they did they had producers fix a lot of shit. Not a damn one of them has written shit since 2000.

I think Jon and Richie can write a bit. Joe and Phil probably contributed a fair amount. A few others guys may have fed ideas or parts of songs to a team but Motley, Poison, Danger Danger, Trixter, Kiss, and most of the rest are glorified boy bands. These weren't bands they were products/brands.

GnR is tough. I think Axl and Izzy can write but it's motivation and focus. Some of the Velvet Revolver stuff is ok. I don't like anything Slash or Duff have done on their own. I'd like to think GnR was legit but who knows.

I find it hard to believe an entire generation of prolific songwriters just all collectively ran out of gas/ideas/focus/motivation after 1994. Sure.

They ran out of radio/lable support aka money and access to the best writers LA had to offer. Those people have since all moved to Nashville and write country. Modern country is just hair metal with a twang.

[Love_Industry]

Virtually nobody from that era wrote or if they did they had producers fix a lot of shit. Not a damn one of them has written shit since 2000.

I think Jon and Richie can write a bit. Joe and Phil probably contributed a fair amount. A few others guys may have fed ideas or parts of songs to a team but Motley, Poison, Danger Danger, Trixter, Kiss, and most of the rest are glorified boy bands. These weren't bands they were products/brands.

GnR is tough. I think Axl and Izzy can write but it's motivation and focus. Some of the Velvet Revolver stuff is ok. I don't like anything Slash or Duff have done on their own. I'd like to think GnR was legit but who knows.

GnR looked cool and were popular in the clubs, so Geffen signed them so they could have their own Mötley and Poison. I agree that Izzy and Axl can probably write but there is something fishy with AFD. Look at the songwriting credits. "All songs written by Guns'N Roses" is almost a giveaway, even when bands have an arrangement to share all credits they usually list the songwriters, like Van Halen. And I don't think they ever wrote any song all five (or six) of them together again. The credits on UYI list the songwriters, and by that time they were so big stars that Axl could demand full control, Geffen knew the album would sell anyway and they probably planned to kill off the genre after that anyway as they had already signed Nirvana

[Rocker4Real]

Trixter doesn't really count for his because the outside writers (mostly the producers) are listed on the liner notes. Poison is more fishy because all four of the band members are listed as writers, if I'm not mistaken. There's nothing wrong with splitting publishing equally, but I noticed the songs on Flesh & Blood were a bit more complex than on the previous albums. I don't think that's because Bobby Dall gave additional input.

[Funz]

Mötley...

Sixx always likes to have it both ways. He likes to say he was a a huge rock band, but because it was fashionable to be a heroin addict then he was that too. All while keeping up on his diary.

Was it that fashionable to say you were a heroin addict in 1986, 1987 when he said he was one?
It was acceptable to be a former alcoholic then but major drug addiction was still years away from being accepted in the mainstream.

Same as over the top sleeve tattoos. Motley did this in 1988-1989. Who else had sleeve tattoos in a major rock band at that time? The only other band I can think of were the guys in Circus of Power and maybe some hardcore punkers.

Nikki talked about keeping a diary and writings in the 1980s in magazine interviews.
Right before they released DR Feelgood he was talking about publishing a book of poetry called
"An Education in Rebellion" and discussed his diaries and etc.
Not necessarily saying they existed but just proof that he talked about all this stuff waaay before it would have been considered common or cliche'. Certainly no one in Poison or Metallica or AC/DC or GnR ever talked like this in those days.
Also, lots of books have been written by people who were addicted to drugs during the process. See Baudelaire, DeQuincy, William Burroughs wrote several books while on heroin, etc, Herbert Hunkie, Allen Ginsberg, Huxley . . . and lots of bad post Beat writers.

I've been downloading and reading a tonne of mostly 1980s era Motley magazine articles and interviews and there's a lot of interesting info and talk about things that haven't survived the cultural idea of this music as "Hair Metal". The reality was much more interesting.
It's always disorienting to read people at a place like Mental Schlubs, who should probably know better, talk about this era with the post-"Hair Metal" attitude and ideas. Some of you guys either weren't there or weren't paying attention?

[Wild Obsession]

Another vote for Poison.......

[lesty]

Virtually nobody from that era wrote or if they did they had producers fix a lot of shit. Not a damn one of them has written shit since 2000.

I think Jon and Richie can write a bit. Joe and Phil probably contributed a fair amount. A few others guys may have fed ideas or parts of songs to a team but Motley, Poison, Danger Danger, Trixter, Kiss, and most of the rest are glorified boy bands. These weren't bands they were products/brands.

GnR is tough. I think Axl and Izzy can write but it's motivation and focus. Some of the Velvet Revolver stuff is ok. I don't like anything Slash or Duff have done on their own. I'd like to think GnR was legit but who knows.

GnR looked cool and were popular in the clubs, so Geffen signed them so they could have their own Mötley and Poison. I agree that Izzy and Axl can probably write but there is something fishy with AFD. Look at the songwriting credits. "All songs written by Guns'N Roses" is almost a giveaway, even when bands have an arrangement to share all credits they usually list the songwriters, like Van Halen. And I don't think they ever wrote any song all five (or six) of them together again. The credits on UYI list the songwriters, and by that time they were so big stars that Axl could demand full control, Geffen knew the album would sell anyway and they probably planned to kill off the genre after that anyway as they had already signed Nirvana

The songs that they wrote for most of appetite were performed live before AFD and the demos from that era are plentiful. So I think they wrote most of it - but you could tell that Mike clink must’ve had a lot to do with how well that album sounded because the demos clearly weren’t very polished and the arrangements needed work.

I also agree that poison absolutely had to have writers. Brett Michaels solo stuff is just so bad that I can’t imagine he was that prolific and then turned to absolute dog shit. Period of

But I would absolutely believe that Mötley used them too, especially for theater pain and Girls, Girls, Girls. I just don’t think they were sober enough to write good stuff, and I don’t think they could be wasted and prolific like Joe Perry and Steven Tyler were in their heyday. They just weren’t good enough songwriters or musicians.

[Ryan81]

I agree with many of the thoughts given in regards to this thread. Thank You.

[Wednesday 13 Fan]

Mötley...

Sixx always likes to have it both ways. He likes to say he was a a huge rock band, but because it was fashionable to be a heroin addict then he was that too. All while keeping up on his diary.

Was it that fashionable to say you were a heroin addict in 1986, 1987 when he said he was one?
It was acceptable to be a former alcoholic then but major drug addiction was still years away from being accepted in the mainstream.

Same as over the top sleeve tattoos. Motley did this in 1988-1989. Who else had sleeve tattoos in a major rock band at that time? The only other band I can think of were the guys in Circus of Power and maybe some hardcore punkers.

Nikki talked about keeping a diary and writings in the 1980s in magazine interviews.
Right before they released DR Feelgood he was talking about publishing a book of poetry called
"An Education in Rebellion" and discussed his diaries and etc.
Not necessarily saying they existed but just proof that he talked about all this stuff waaay before it would have been considered common or cliche'. Certainly no one in Poison or Metallica or AC/DC or GnR ever talked like this in those days.
Also, lots of books have been written by people who were addicted to drugs during the process. See Baudelaire, DeQuincy, William Burroughs wrote several books while on heroin, etc, Herbert Hunkie, Allen Ginsberg, Huxley . . . and lots of bad post Beat writers.

I've been downloading and reading a tonne of mostly 1980s era Motley magazine articles and interviews and there's a lot of interesting info and talk about things that haven't survived the cultural idea of this music as "Hair Metal". The reality was much more interesting.
It's always disorienting to read people at a place like Mental Schlubs, who should probably know better, talk about this era with the post-"Hair Metal" attitude and ideas. Some of you guys either weren't there or weren't paying attention?

Wait a minute...

Do you actually think those magazine articles were legit?

I thought it was pretty well known that most were not.

[DangerZone]

Mötley...

Sixx always likes to have it both ways. He likes to say he was a a huge rock band, but because it was fashionable to be a heroin addict then he was that too. All while keeping up on his diary.

Was it that fashionable to say you were a heroin addict in 1986, 1987 when he said he was one?
It was acceptable to be a former alcoholic then but major drug addiction was still years away from being accepted in the mainstream.

Same as over the top sleeve tattoos. Motley did this in 1988-1989. Who else had sleeve tattoos in a major rock band at that time? The only other band I can think of were the guys in Circus of Power and maybe some hardcore punkers.

Nikki talked about keeping a diary and writings in the 1980s in magazine interviews.
Right before they released DR Feelgood he was talking about publishing a book of poetry called
"An Education in Rebellion" and discussed his diaries and etc.
Not necessarily saying they existed but just proof that he talked about all this stuff waaay before it would have been considered common or cliche'. Certainly no one in Poison or Metallica or AC/DC or GnR ever talked like this in those days.
Also, lots of books have been written by people who were addicted to drugs during the process. See Baudelaire, DeQuincy, William Burroughs wrote several books while on heroin, etc, Herbert Hunkie, Allen Ginsberg, Huxley . . . and lots of bad post Beat writers.

I've been downloading and reading a tonne of mostly 1980s era Motley magazine articles and interviews and there's a lot of interesting info and talk about things that haven't survived the cultural idea of this music as "Hair Metal". The reality was much more interesting.
It's always disorienting to read people at a place like Mental Schlubs, who should probably know better, talk about this era with the post-"Hair Metal" attitude and ideas. Some of you guys either weren't there or weren't paying attention?

Wait a minute...

Do you actually think those magazine articles were legit?

I thought it was pretty well known that most were not.

did you see the part that said he’s been downloading & reading a ton of motley magazine articles?

[Van Ailin']

Poison was first I thought about.

Many, like Kiss, Bryan Adams, Sheryl Crow, credited a lot of co-writers so I think don't really count. Obviously, if you see Jim Vallance, Desmond Child, Mark Hudson, or Diane Warren in credits, they actually wrote most of the song.

Listening to David Lee Roth vocal melodies before and after his first 7 albums, I have to wonder how much of a role Ted Templeman had? Since he likely got points, perhaps he didn't insist on songwriter credits?

Within the LA metal scene bands, I would think we are looking for bands with legitimate pop hooks but only internal songwriting credits. I would not include Enuff Z'Nuff because Donnie Vie and long proved that he has those pop songwriting chops.

[SW]

I assume Sleek can give us some insight regarding Poison and L.A.Guns on this one.

[Love_Industry]

But I would absolutely believe that Mötley used them too, especially for theater pain and Girls, Girls, Girls. I just don’t think they were sober enough to write good stuff, and I don’t think they could be wasted and prolific like Joe Perry and Steven Tyler were in their heyday. They just weren’t good enough songwriters or musicians.

If there's one Mötley album where I could see them using writers, it would be Dr Feelgood. Some of the songs there feel like a professional songwriter asked to write a Mötley Crue song. The leftovers like Monsterous, Say Yeah and Mood Ring are probably what sober Sixx was writing at the time, but Bob Rock and the label wanted Sticky Sweet, Rattlesnake Shake and She Goes Down. Probably someone rewrote lyrics with/for them too, the song Dr Feelgood may be their own (except for the Killing Joke lift...) and S.O.S. too, but the lyrics were completely rewritten and toned down from the demos to the album.

[Bono Nettencourt]

I think the producers have a big impact on these records. A good producer who can write songs a la Mutt Lange or Desmond Child would have a big influence even though they aren’t credited songwriters.

Yeah the Leps were basically Mutt's Marionettes.

[Wednesday 13 Fan]

But I would absolutely believe that Mötley used them too, especially for theater pain and Girls, Girls, Girls. I just don’t think they were sober enough to write good stuff, and I don’t think they could be wasted and prolific like Joe Perry and Steven Tyler were in their heyday. They just weren’t good enough songwriters or musicians.

If there's one Mötley album where I could see them using writers, it would be Dr Feelgood. Some of the songs there feel like a professional songwriter asked to write a Mötley Crue song. The leftovers like Monsterous, Say Yeah and Mood Ring are probably what sober Sixx was writing at the time, but Bob Rock and the label wanted Sticky Sweet, Rattlesnake Shake and She Goes Down. Probably someone rewrote lyrics with/for them too, the song Dr Feelgood may be their own (except for the Killing Joke lift...) and S.O.S. too, but the lyrics were completely rewritten and toned down from the demos to the album.

Outside of the production, the songs Sticky Sweet, Rattlesnake Shake and She Goes Down could have been on any other Mötley album. Dr. Feelgood has got to be one of the most overrated albums ever.

[Love_Industry]

Outside of the production, the songs Sticky Sweet, Rattlesnake Shake and She Goes Down could have been on any other Mötley album. Dr. Feelgood has got to be one of the most overrated albums ever.

I didn't mean that they were better or different. Quite the opposite, those are 80s Mötley Crüe by numbers. Labels and fans expected that on a Mötley album, not the weird rap rock or whatever Sixx wrote. And I agree Feelgood is massively overrated. Weakest of their 80s albums. But better than anything they did later.

[Mister Freeze]

I agree that Izzy and Axl can probably write but there is something fishy with AFD. Look at the songwriting credits. "All songs written by Guns'N Roses" is almost a giveaway, even when bands have an arrangement to share all credits they usually list the songwriters

The songwriting credits were listed that way, so they would all get paid equally, not to give the impression that every single song was written by all five guys in a room together.

When you're a young, hungry, broke band, it's like a gang. Everyone's loyal. Money comes later. They were probably thrilled just to get their advance for AFD.

After becoming the biggest band in the world, Axl resented Adler getting paid the same as him for "songwriting" and the credits were split on UYI.

[Mister Freeze]

Listen to the first four Poison albums, which includes Crack A Smile.
Now listen to Hollyweird and any Bret Michaels solo song or album.

No way the same guy wrote those albums.

Poison's first album was a low budget rush job on an indie label.
Mötley's first was self released.
Makes zero sense that they would pay ghost writers or musicians back then.
They just got lazy or ran out of ideas after a couple of albums.

Poison flat-out lifted other people's songs for their debut album.

[Bono Nettencourt]

Listen to the first four Poison albums, which includes Crack A Smile.
Now listen to Hollyweird and any Bret Michaels solo song or album.

No way the same guy wrote those albums.

Poison's first album was a low budget rush job on an indie label.
Mötley's first was self released.
Makes zero sense that they would pay ghost writers or musicians back then.
They just got lazy or ran out of ideas after a couple of albums.

Poison flat-out lifted other people's songs for their debut album.

From only 4 years before:

https://youtu.be/ADWG6EXrbcE?si=edrf5c6yVKgoJH_W

They're lucky that Nielsen was too coked-out to care at the time.

[SW]

From only 4 years before:

https://youtu.be/ADWG6EXrbcE?si=edrf5c6yVKgoJH_W

They're lucky that Nielsen was too coked-out to care at the time.

Honestly I have no idea what song are you comparing this to? Except there is not a single as shitty song on LWTCDI.

[Love_Industry]

Listen to the first four Poison albums, which includes Crack A Smile.
Now listen to Hollyweird and any Bret Michaels solo song or album.

No way the same guy wrote those albums.

Poison's first album was a low budget rush job on an indie label.
Mötley's first was self released.
Makes zero sense that they would pay ghost writers or musicians back then.
They just got lazy or ran out of ideas after a couple of albums.

Poison flat-out lifted other people's songs for their debut album.

True. Kee Marcello sued Poison and got paid as I Want Action is a ripoff of his Easy Action song We Go Rockin

[Bono Nettencourt]

From only 4 years before:

https://youtu.be/ADWG6EXrbcE?si=edrf5c6yVKgoJH_W

They're lucky that Nielsen was too coked-out to care at the time.

Honestly I have no idea what song are you comparing this to? Except there is not a single as shitty song on LWTCDI.

I guess since you're a Poison fan, that also makes you deaf.

[SW]

From only 4 years before:

https://youtu.be/ADWG6EXrbcE?si=edrf5c6yVKgoJH_W

They're lucky that Nielsen was too coked-out to care at the time.

Honestly I have no idea what song are you comparing this to? Except there is not a single as shitty song on LWTCDI.

I guess since you're a Poison fan, that also makes you deaf.

I've been Poison fan since my teens but also like Cheap Trick. That song sucks ass tho and I can't find other Poison comparisons other than bits in video and horrible producing.