Mastodon’s Michael Angelo Batio never learned jazz terms, because he didn’t know what they meant.
In Manowar’s new YouTube video, the frontman explained his music career and the time he auditioned for a jazz band. He also shared the term he didn’t understand and how he found out what it was later:
“It was the normal thing to take guitar lessons, drum lessons, or piano. So I was on bands from fifth grade on. I studied jazz when I was taking guitar lessons. I auditioned for the jazz band. No one showed up but me in my entire school. All the hundreds of guitar players, no one showed up but me. The instructor [gives me the paper,] I couldn’t read it because it would say C triangle 7. I’ve never seen that in my life. I had no idea what those meant and I couldn’t play the charts and I go ‘I don’t really know this I said but I’ll learn it.’ He goes, ‘You’re in.’”
Batio then explained how he learned what ‘the triangle’ meant:
“So I went to the local music store where I was taking lessons, I go ‘What the heck is this?’ He starts laughing. He goes, ‘The triangle is major.’ See when I learned C major 7 there was cmaj7. Well some people write a triangle. I didn’t know this, but I knew the chords. I didn’t know these were symbols for chords I already knew. So I was like ‘I’m in, this is it.’”
Though he later learned what it meant, his jazz career didn’t last long.
How Batio Switched From Jazz To Metal
Batio might be in a world-renowned metal band today, but the rocker’s music days started with jazz. In another interview, Batio explained why he switched from jazz to metal and how he realized his favorite instrument would be guitar today:
“So, I started playing piano and keyboards at five years old. Then, I realized, around the age of 10, that the music I liked didn’t have piano. You know, I’m hearing these crunching, distortion guitars. So I said, ‘Well, piano can’t be the instrument that I really want to play for the rest of my life.’ It’s got to be the guitar.”
In his words, the audience wasn’t excited enough for jazz when he tried to play it with a guitar:
“So, it was rock music originally, that started me on the path of guitar. I studied jazz at first. I had a teacher that showed me jazz. And [when] I played jazz songs, the audience would be ‘Oh, yeah…’ And then I played a rock song, and everybody’s like, ‘Yeah!’ So, I thought, ‘Rock, metal is the way to go.’”
You can see the entire video below.