BEATALLICA's LENNFIELD Explains How Band Avoided Legal Fight Before Releasing CD

Mark Carras of RockMyMonkey.com conducted an interview with Jaymz Lennfield of BEATALLICA on Monday, June 18. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Rock My Monkey: So how are you able to release a CD with all the legal limitations that go along with the music of THE BEATLES and METALLICA?

Jaymz Lennfield: Well, really the limitations became unlimited, you know what I mean? It's good we had the right people on our side. The folks at Oglio, our label, have a very good relationship with the people at Sony. That was a great thing to come into the light for us. We had other label interest, but really the key for us to sign with Oglio was their relationship with Sony. Really, we've just had a really good relationship with the guys in METALLICA themselves, and their legal aspects. Once the ball started getting rolling, it was really very easy, and the band itself was just a third or fourth party in the matter. We just watched it happen.

Rock My Monkey: Is there obviously some kind of a licensing deal where your label pays a certain percentage to the people that wrote the original music?

Jaymz Lennfield: Yeah, there's always that sort of deal. It's kind of a weird arrangement because you're dealing with two bands, you know, METALLICA and THE BEATLES.

Rock My Monkey: Right. Is there anything left for you guys?

Jaymz Lennfield: (laughs) Yeah, I know. I was just going to say, as well as ourselves as a songwriting entity, or a mashup entity with the project. For us to do the project, we knew that there was going to have to be a lot of talking within this triangle of our side and THE BEATLES side and the METALLICA side. Thankfully we got everything done. It took eighteen months, or something like that, but it was worth it because nothing like this has ever been done before. And things like that are usually worth the wait.

Rock My Monkey: I think you guys are the only mashup type thing that has actually been able to pull off a legal, high-profile, physical CD release. Most other mashups are actually still in court.

Jaymz Lennfield: That's other great thing about it. It never went to court. Cooler heads prevailed. I think it's really because we're not eighteen to twenty-two years old. We're in our mid-thirties. We like to think that we're smarter and we're more patient, and that we have a better head on our shoulders as a band unit. So really with a combination of all those things, and some guidance from Oglio and METALLICA on how to handle some things, like I say, once things started getting moving, we just hoped, and we felt it was just a matter of time before we got the thing done. If it was up to us we would have had it done right away. But we understand that things take time, and we're not in control of everything in our lives. We're just happy that it's ready to come out.

Rock My Monkey: Obviously BEATALLICA still has quite a bit of fuel left in it. But how long do you think something like this can go on? And is there any plans for any of the members to do any 100% original material?

Jaymz Lennfield: Well, to answer the first part of the question in regards to the longevity of BEATALLICA, I guess that is halfway up to us as songwriters, and halfway up to the people who are the listeners. It's the responsibility of the songwriter to write good material. We also know that we're dealing with sort of a finite pool, you know what I mean? There's only so many BEATLES tunes, so many METALLICA tunes. It's not like we're going to start mashing up other bands and keeping it under the same name, or just calling the project something different. BEATALLICA's BEATALLICA. It's written the way it is. But as of right now we could go into the studio right now and record a second album. We have the material for it. And we have material in our heads that we haven't composed yet for a third album, fourth album, what have you. We're going to start doing more songwriting probably like in the fall. We have already taken a look at the calendar for that. In regards to original music, I mean, I play music for my living. I'm in two other projects besides BEATALLICA. Our guitar player is in another project beside BEATALLICA. Our bass player as well. So we're all really involved with playing music, and the fun thing is that we get to do this project all together, and be in this odd sort of metal band that we never actually really thought that we were ever going to be in together.

Check out the entire interview in text and audio format at RockMyMonkey.com.