McFarlane's art was awesome. Funny you mention John Byrne in relation to Adriana's art. John Byrne was probably my favorite artist when I was a little kid reading X-Men. I totally forgot to mention Conan. I have all of the Conans 1-14x? I collected those as a kid. Loved the Barry Smith art on the first 24 issues. He really put a lot of detail into his work. If I recall correctly, he was too much of a perfectionist to really crank stuff out quickly and as a result, he didn't really continue much in the profession which is a shame...he was extremely talented.

I'm a really upbeat person so I can write music for songs like "Save Tomorrow" and "I'd Do Anything" very easily. On the flip side, upbeat pop rock songs are harder to write good lyrics for. It's vastly easier to write lyrics for heavier music since heavy music doesn't lend itself to cheese unless you're always singing about dragons. :) I push myself more artistically as a guitarist on the heavier songs like "We Collide" since they lend themselves to more intense guitar playing. Rick really excels on the heavier tunes because that is what he loves so that pushes me a bit to maximize his potential. We recorded one song that was quite heavy that we never shared with the record company that might be on the next CD (our wives loved the song since they both like really heavy music). On the flip side, we left off a beautiful slow bluesy ballad in 6/8 time that was a really good song that the record company heard and loved. That will be on the next Bonrud CD for sure. So we recorded a pretty broad range of material for this CD and in the end, we chose these tracks as the most cohesive representation.

For modern music these days, I love Shinedown, Alter Bridge, Halestorm, and Daughtry. Alter Bridge in particular really speaks to me. Those guys rule.:)

Paul

http://www.bonrud.com
http://myspace.com/bonrud
http://facebook.com/bonrud
http://www.youtube.com/paulbonrud