Bill's PurpleCrayon Blog

BILL MURPHY GIVEN PERMISSION TO WRITE MOVIE BASED ON BELOVED SERIES OF CHILDREN'S BOOKS

I can't tell you how thrilled I am.

I was just granted exclusive rights to adapt into a screenplay or stageplay one of the most popular and influential series of children's books ever written!

I grew up with these books. They made an indelible impression on me. So much so that five years ago I searched online for each of the 12 books in the series and bought them all in the library binding editions I vividly remember reading as a kid. Little did I know that in the spring of 2006 I'd be given permission to write a movie based on these wondrous books.

Sadly, a couple of weeks ago, Scott Corbett passed away at the age of 92. But I had the privilege of talking to him for about five minutes 10 days before that. What an honor. I actually got to thank him for writing the books that helped shape my life. I'll never forget that evening, just as I never forgot Mr. Corbett's spell-binding books.

The process of adaptation has already begun.

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PRESENTING PART ONE OF MY EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH BENEDICTUM VOCALIST VERONICA FREEMAN!

Veronica Freeman is a rarity in the world of metal. First of all, she’s a woman. Of that, one can make no mistake. One glance at her photos on the Benedictum web site eliminates any question of that. But that’s not what sets her apart. Sure, she has a killer set of pipes and can belt out a song with the best of them. And her band’s debut album has gotten rave reviews around the world – not least of which because of its pristine sound courtesy of producer Jeff Pilson, formerly of Dokken. Or the guitar and keyboards supplied by renowned musicians Jimmy Bain and Craig Goldy, who put in a guest appearance on a few tracks. But that’s not it, either. In my mind, what sets Veronica apart is her down-to-earth genuineness – in spite of the fact that her band is poised on the brink of world-wide success. Has this notoriety gone to her head? See for yourself in Part One of my exclusive three-part interview with Veronica Freeman.

This interview was conducted earlier this month, after I had a chance to listen to a promo (pre-release) copy of Uncreation, Benedictum's astounding debut CD, which Veronica was kind enough to send me. NOTE: Prior to this interview, Veronica and I e-mailed back and forth a few times. So by the time of our interview, we almost felt like we were like old friends. What follows is a word-for-word transcription of our conversation...


VF: Hello?

BM: Hi. Is this Veronica?

VF: Yes.

BM: Hi, this is Bill Murphy.

VF: Oh, no way. What are you doing?

BM: How are you doing?

VF: I’m doing okay. Oh, I’ve had a day. How are you doing?

BM: Doing great. I’ll bet you the weather is a lot better there than it is here, though.

VF: Not necessarily. It’s warmer. Of that I’m sure. But it’s sprinkling. It’s actually been raining outside.

BM: [joking] Really. Yeah, but what’s the temperature?

VF: Well, I don’t want to talk about that, I don’t want to make you feel bad. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

VF: What’s up, my friend? I finally get to hear to, like, hear your voice and everything.

BM: [laughs] Yeah. This is great. I appreciate your time.

VF: Oh my God. Please. It’s, like, my pleasure.

BM: Hey, this album of yours is great.

VF: Do you like it?

BM: Oh, man. Yeah. [laughs]

VF: You do. Okay.

BM: The guitar sounds are really punchy. I really like them.

VF: Aren’t they awesome?

BM: But they don’t go overboard to that wall-of-sound, sort of indistinct sort of riffing. They’re real riffs. They’re great.

VF: I’m glad to hear you say that. I was, like, real nervous. Like, “Oh, my. Well he’s got the CD now. What if he doesn’t like it?” [laughs]

BM: Yeah, right. [laughs]

VF: I mean, you never know.

BM: Well, I mean, how can you go wrong? I mean [producer Jeff] Pilson? Come on! I grew up with Dokken. So I love that sound. And of course [Jimmy] Bain and [Craig] Goldy. Heck. How can you argue with that?

VF: You can’t. You can’t argue with that. But I wanted to argue with it. [laughs] But that’s just my personality, you know. What can I say? [laughs] We’ll leave it at that.

BM: [laughs] So how was your day? What do you do around there for a day job?

VF: Oh, honey, I am right now in the midst of assisting in the opening of a new hardware store.

BM: Are you really?

VF: Yes. So, it’s huge. The store is 24,000 square feet. I used to be the office manager of another hardware store here in San Diego for about eight years. So I took the time off to do the album. And, of course, the album wasn’t yet paying my bills. So I had to get back to work. I just had a really wonderful circumstance happen where I could work with the owner that’s there now and do something really, really different and start it from the ground up. So I’m dealing with the city, trying to get permits and all that stuff. It’s been really crazy.

BM: So what are you telling me? You’re the manager of a hardware store?

VF: Yeah. It’s not even open yet. I mean, I’m trying to coordinate the trucks coming in with the merchandise and getting forklifts and getting staff and all that stuff. It’s just been real wild. The store is due to open around the second week of April.

BM: So you’re a hardware person?

VF: Well, that’s not my choice. [laughs] It seems to be, like --

BM: Well, you gotta pay the bills, man.

VF: Yeah, you gotta pay the bills, baby, you know. For right now, anyway.

BM: Well, there’s nothing wrong with that.

VF: Yeah, I know. But I’d rather just have the music thing totally, though. That’d be great.

BM: Well, crank out a couple of albums and do some tours and it may happen.

VF: I’m workin’ on it. [laughs]

BM: Let me ask you something about your new album. Pilson, Goldy, Bain. That’s a heck of a line-up for a debut album. How did you guys get so lucky?

VF: Well, I’ve known Craig for a long time. He’s a long time friend of mine. And he’s the one responsible for me even singing at all. As far as this type of music.

BM: Oh really?

VF: Yeah. I never really felt real comfortable with my singing voice. And he was the one that always told me I’d be perfect for metal. And at the time I wasn’t even into metal.

BM: What were you singing before that?

VF: I wasn’t singing anything.

BM: Really?

VF: At the time I knew Craig – I’ve known Craig for, like, 10 or 15 years. So he and I hooked up and he was doing his thing, on his way up to the top, and he was like “you gotta check this stuff out.” And I thought, “Wow. This music is really powerful.” My singing voice is kind of different from my speaking voice. Obviously. [laughs] So we would just hang out. I love him to death. He and I are like – you know, they call people “soulmates” and everything. He and I are like that. We don’t see each other very often. But when we do see each other we don’t miss a beat. So it’s really cool.

BM: How did you meet Craig Goldy?

VF: I’ve known him for, like, a long time. I’ve known him since high school.

BM: Really? It goes back that far?

VF: Yeah, it goes back a long ways. So he was the one that said, “You know, you need to check this stuff out.” I was, like, “Nah. Well okay. Hey, this is kinda cool.” He was the one who encouraged me to keep doing what I do now. We made this pact with each other that whoever made it first would help the other one out. Well, I went on my little life adventure and he did his thing. When it finally came down to it, you know, many many, years later he was in San Diego visiting his family. And he came by and heard what I was doing with this particular band that I have now (minus, you know, some people, but for the most part) and he was, like, “Wow. I need to do something with this.” He heard some of our rehearsals tapes. He took it to some of his people and they were, like, “This stuff is really good. But we need a little better production.” So this is what I call The Domino Effect. He then introduced me to Jeff Pilson and we took the demo that we had – we did a five song demo, originally – and took that demo to Jeff Pilson said, “Well, I’ll work with them. These guys sound like they have some potential.” And the rest is history. So it was from Craig to Jeff and Jeff was the one who suggested that toward the end of things that we hook up with Jimmy Bain because we had finished what we were going to do with Jeff and Jeff had a lot of other obligations with Foreigner and all that stuff. So we were almost done with the album and all of a sudden there was a need for a bonus track. So we’re, like, “Well we don’t have any more money -- [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

VF: -- And we don’t have any more time.” So we needed to do something all of us knew. And that’s when Jimmy Bain came into the picture. We recorded that down here in San Diego.

BM: Which one? “The Mob Rules”?

VF: “Mob Rules,” uh-huh.

BM: Yeah. That’s cool. It’s one of my favorites on the album. It’s great.

VF: You like it?

BM: Yeah.

VF: Oh, cool. Right on.

BM: Yeah, “Valkyrie Rising” and “The Mob Rules” are, I think, two of my favorite tracks on the album.

VF: Right on. I like “Valkyrie,” too. We always wanted to do, like, an epic song, you know what I mean? So we created that with the epic thing in mind. You know, going to battle and doing all that good stuff.

BM: [laughs] Were you familiar with Pilson’s work before he got to you? Did you listen to Dokken at all?

VF: Oh hell yeah. I’ve got, like, all kind of stuff from Dokken. That’s why we were so nervous when that came down. You mean Jeff Pilson? Oh hell no. [laughs]

BM: The Jeff Pilson. [laughs]

VF: [laughs] The Jeff Pilson. We were freakin’. Yeah. It was, like, “Wow.” We went in and we did a five-song demo and then Craig took that to his people, like I said. They were, like, “Ok. Cool. We see the talent. There’s a little left to be desired.” So, you know, so okay. But it was all good. But Craig was, like, “Well, I know someone who’d be great. And that would be Jeff.” I was, like, “Okay.” And then I was, like, “Jeff who?” He was, like, “Jeff Pilson.” Oh. Uhhhh. So there was a whole waiting period where we sent our stuff up to Jeff to see if he was willing to even work with us. And when he said “Yes” were, like, really thrilled. It was a really scary thing. So we went up there. We took all the stuff that Pete and I had done with Malady. And the stuff we had written since then -- which was then Bound because we weren’t called Benedictum then -- and waited to see what he was going to say. He was so thorough. He had one of those legal pads, you know, with notes on every single song: “This will work...This won’t work...I don’t like this part…I like this part...This part is good…This part is lacking…” And when we went up there to talk to him it was, like, gnarly. We only had the money for three songs. We had to pay him. So we went up there and it was, like, “These are the three songs we’re going to do.” And the three song demo consisted of “Benedictum,” “Misogyny” and “Wicca.” And the original forms were a little different. He took some bits and pieces of some other songs we had done and put those together and gave it a hook and did what he had to do with it. So that was a very interesting process to deal with that.

BM: I was going to ask you about that. Your web site says Pilson had a real focused perspective on things. You kind of answered that question before I asked it. But what exactly did he do? Did he give you new hooks? New power? New sound? What was it?

VF: All of the above. Not new sound. Because he really liked what our quote/unquote “sound” was, what our “vibe,” was, if you will. He just wanted to make it more palatable, if you will. Give it that professional edge. So the first three songs he definitely did what I would call a cut and paste. He took – especially with, I would say, “Benedictum” and maybe “Wicca.” – “Misogyny” was pretty much intact. But he just added a thing or two. The other ones he said, “You know they’re great. But they need to go somewhere.” And so he gave them a little bit more of a direction.

BM: Cool.

VF: Yeah, it’s cool now. At the time, it’s like if you consider that Pete and I had been writing together for, what, seven years and –

BM: And this guy comes in and says, “Nope. Doesn’t work.” [laughs]

VF: [laughs] Yeah. It’s like hacking up your child, you know. I’d been singing “Benedictum” in my own way for quite some time. I, personally, I didn’t have a problem with it. But it was just harder for me. And then to hear it back just kind of go, “Wow.” Now I can’t imagine it any other way. But at the time it was a little bit difficult.

BM: Are you somebody who likes to take direction easily? Or do you fight it?

VF: No, I didn’t fight it. Not with Jeff. Probably had it been anyone else, I would have fought because I’m a pretty feisty person. [laughs] But when it comes to stuff like this it’s, like, these people have had...I mean, when you walk into his house you see the gold and platinum albums on the wall. And you have to think, “Hello? Do you have one? Uh, no.” [laughs] Okay. Let’s do the process of elimination here. You have to kind of look at it, like, this person knows, or knew or whatever, at one time what was going on. And he’s very much in touch with things that are going on now. If one were to listen to his current projects or things that he’s been involved with recently. Obviously, on my own merits I have been doing this for a while and haven’t gone anywhere, so to be even talking to you, obviously somebody did something right by me, so, [laugh] you know what I mean? You gotta take that. So I had no problem with it.

BM: What are your influences? Aside from the obvious Dio and Sabbath, that is. What did you listen to a lot that sort of became who you are as a musician now?

VF: For me personally?

BM: Yes.

VF: Tina Turner.

BM: Really?

VF: If you were to listen to – and I always preface this with someone gave as me a birthday present two years ago Tina’s Turner’s whole collection, there’s this album collection and it has this stuff she did in the Sixties. If you were to listen to her vocals, take the genre out of the time, and listen to her vocals, that’s almost me.

BM: Really?

VF: At the time, they said about her the same thing I’m reading about myself. “She sounds like a guy. What’s up with that?” She things with this power. And I’m, like, “Oh wow,” you know, because I kind of trip on that. She does, she did. There’s some songs, oh, ‘A Fool in Love.” If you listen to it, the screams that she does in there are so powerful and so raw that it’s, like, “Man, she should have been doing metal.” [laughs] I think she’s a wonder to this day, you know. And I’m no spring chicken, either. But I just think, “Wow. This woman is something else.”

BM: So you can do a wicked cover of “Proud Mary”?

VF: I’d probably rather do “Nutbush City Limits.”

BM: [laughs] Ooh, yeah. That’s a good one.

VF: That’s what I want to do. It’s funny. Because Craig and I talked about that. I said, “Look. You need to listen to this. Oh, ‘Nutbush.’ I want to do that one.” [laughs]

BM: [laughs] With the experience of this album behind you, hopefully you can look back on it a little more objectively. What tracks really stand out in your mind as being favorites?

VF: I’d say “Valkyrie Rising.” I have a personal favorite for probably very personal reasons and that would be “Two Steps to the Sun.” Music to me isn’t just music. It’s, like, a part of me. I don’t know how to explain it.

BM: Sure, I understand.

VF: It’s very cathartic for me. Because I have my regular nine to five. And I always have. I have so many things going on in my life. But the one artery in my life that gives me my life force a lot has been music. So, “Two Steps to the Sun” I was in such a dark space in 2005 [laughs] –

BM: That was just last year.

VF: That was just last year, honey. I just wrote that song last year.

BM: Where did the song come from? What was going on?

VF: I was just going through such a depression. I don’t want to get too personal, but from thinking that I was going to be able to quit my job, get married, have this...walking through the house we were going to do this to the house, and we were going to remodel this and do that. And all these wonderful things. I’ve always wanted to be married and have the wedding and the whole bit. And within a 30 day period of all that everything changed.

BM: It fell through and didn’t happen?

VF: Just like that.

BM: Yeah. Yeah, I know that experience. I’ve been there.

VF: You have?

BM: Oh yeah.

VF: It sucks. Because I was, like, “What?” It was, like, “Oh, by the way, I gambled away all the money, I’m not going to be able to marry you, I love you, but I’m a hopeless alcoholic and I gotta go.” And drove down the driveway and that was that. And I was devastated.

BM: Yeah, but dude, look back on it now. Would you really have wanted to be with that guy with all those problems?

VF: Hell no. Hell no. You’re absolutely right.

BM: So it was actually a blessing in disguise.

VF: It was a blessing. But it took me a while to see that because I just thought I work really hard, you know. And I get tired. And I wanted to have his point where I could just take a breath. I was so looking forward to be able to concentrate solely on the music and taking dance lessons. I have this vision of what I want for myself as a performer. I have all these things that seem to block me from that because I have to pay the bills. So, you know. That would have been nice, you know. Plus, I’m a hopeless romantic anyway, a real softy when it comes to that.

BM: That’s amazing. You sound a lot like me.

VF: [laughs]

BM: So what you’re saying I fully understand. [laughs]

VF: Do you understand? [laughs] You know what I mean. I don’t have these unrealistic Cinderella complex things going on. I don’t expect a prince to come up on a white horse and put on the glass slipper. No. I just want someone to be real with me. And, you know, I want to have happiness in that. I do a lot better in a relationship. At least so I think. But I do believe that everything happens for a reason. And that being the case, that probably that person wasn’t right for me.

BM: Probably?

VF: Yeah, okay. Well, we know. [laughs] Okay. Fine, Bill. Thank you. Just rub it in. [laughs] Put salt in the wound. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] I’m trying to make light of the situation. It just sounds like if somebody had all those problems he would have just dragged you down and kept you away from your music.

VF: That’s true. At first, he was my biggest supporter. Half the photographs and everything. I didn’t have a lot of money at the time. It was, like, “I’m going to invest in this and that. And I really believe in you.” But as things progressed in his life I saw the other side of things. The very, very possessive person that he was. And all the sudden becoming very jealous of my time with the band and my time with this or that. I didn’t need the drama, you know what I mean?

BM: Sure. It takes away from your creative energy.

VF: Oh, it was killing me. It was killing me.

BM: What you’re saying is interesting because I was going to ask you if these songs [on Uncreation] were personal or fictitious.

VF: Oh, extremely personal. From the press that I’ve gotten so far, there are two misunderstood songs. The most misunderstood songs are “Misogyny” and “Them.” “Misogyny” is not about me. It’s a third person song. I am the biggest Court TV, A&E, Discovery Channel freak you’d ever want to know. [laughs] So I watch The Forensic Files and all that kind of stuff. I am totally into – in a very morbid sense – the stuff about serial killers and all that kind of stuff. So you take Ted Bundy and the Green River Killer and the Hillside Strangler and the BTK and all that. These people are what is termed misogynistic, misogyny meaning a deep hatred of women. Those guys, their crimes were based on a hatred of women as dictated by the way they performed their crimes. They would do very demeaning things to women, etc. So that song “Misogyny” was like a shout back from that sort of crime. So [reciting lyrics] “the bitch that you can’t ignore” and “I know who you are, a perfect stranger with a face that blends in the crowd.” If you look at a lot of these serial killers you’ll see that the same theme follows along over and over. It’s, like, “Wow. He was such a great guy. He used to mow my lawn. Wow. He was so nice. He was the elder at the church.” And “I know who you are, you’re the perfect stranger with the face that blends in the crowd.” Nobody would expect that it’s you. But behind the scenes you’re torturing and killing and raping women and all that kind of stuff. It’s really awful. So “Misogyny” is a shout back from a victim’s standpoint to a serial killer saying that even though you may have killed me and you may have done all these things to me, my spirit will rise above no matter what. You cannot take my life. Even though on this plane you may have. You cannot take my life. You cannot make it right. That’s what that song’s about. It gets twisted into, “Veronica thinks she’s the bitch that you can’t ignore.” [laughs] I’m, like, “Where does that come from? No way!” But I’ve been singing that song for a while, too. I wrote that before I was in this band. Pete and I had that song going on for a while. So it’s very interesting the way people are interpreting that.


Part Two coming soon...

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COMING SOON: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH VERONICA FREEMAN, AMAZING VOCALIST WITH CALIFORNIA METAL BAND BENEDICTUM

Earlier this month, I spent a fascinating 90 minutes on the phone with Veronica Freeman, the kick-butt lead singer for new melodic metal band Benedictum.

Uncreation, Benedictum's astounding freshman release, is now in stores or available online at Amazon or LaserCD.

My interview with Veronica will be posted soon.

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