Hi all,

It has been a while since i last blogged and checked this site and for that i apologize.

I was somewhat suprised to see the very strong reactions to my statements on the show regarding Dilana's performances. I was talking with Dilana about it today on the set and we were both laughing about some of the stronger phrases thrown my way.

Let me start by saying i consider Dilana a good friend at this point. She is a pleasure to work with and an excellent singer.

As far as my comments about her work the last few weeks I feel that they were accurate if taken out of context. Her version of Roxanne I was not feeling after the first rehearsal when the interview was conducted. If they had played the entire cut of my interview you would have heard that my main concern was that I did not like what I was playing and did not feel Jimmy and I were together with our parts. That was frustrating to me as I try very hard as do all the members of the HB to support the singer and I did not fell we were at the leve yet we needed to be. Indeed her song ,Roxanne, did not come together untill we played it on stage during the show. At that point I told D that I thought that was the best we had played it and she agreed.

Also with Behind Blue Eyes ,I never questioned her integrity as was suggested below ,perhaps by someone who is confused as to the words actual meaning. Integrity means literally the quality of being honest and holding high moral value. I find Dilana to be honest to a fault. I questioned her knowledge of the song's history and original version. It was actually a general comment for most of the contestants this year who ,with no knowledge of the original version and historical perspective of the song,choose to immediately change it. I honestly don't mind experimenting with a song after you know what it was originally. Thereby the comment; change from a position of knowledge not from a position of ignorance.

Lastly,I also never had a problem with any of D's comments to the press.I have been on the road cooped up with people for months at a time.Some of them are my best friends and at least twice a day i want to strangle them. I understood where she was coming from. She said Magni wants to be with his family.Is that suprising? I have children and would not do a show like this where I could not talk to them and see them when I wanted to.

As to the comment below where someone said I am jealous of D becomming a star well i hope she becomes a huge star as she has had a rough go in her life and she has true talent and deserves it. I like my career as it is and have never had the desire to be a star.

Also it was suggested that i am a chauvinist. Tell me,if D was african-american and I made the same comments would I be racist? I have 5 sisters,and five brothers.I live in a house with my wife of 17 years and two beautiful daughters. I have spent most of my life working for female artists like Cher,Janet,Anastacia,and Pink. I enjoy and admire strong women and am not intimidated nor resentful of them.

Dilana is my friend. She feels the same way about me. I am proud of the work we have done together on this show.

Part of my job is to comment honestly on my opinions that are based on 25 years of doing what i do professionally at a very high level.

As for Lukas,I did comment that I did not particularly feel his version of "Livin" was as strong as the original and would have liked to have heard him sing it the original way.The producers chose not to use that comment. I also told Lukas the same thing in the first day of rehearsal,but when he decided to do it that way I focussed my energy on helping him in any way that I can like I do for all of the singers.There were alot of people who liked it. My wife liked it very much. I am not stupid enough to think that my opinion is the only correct one.

Well enough of that. Tommorrow is the finale. Very exciting.Today we practiced 2 songs each with each one of the contestants. Because of the way the show is formatted I do not know which ones we will be playing. But whatever we play ,they all kicked ass! Playing these songs made me realize what a blast it will be to go out with Supernova with these singers. It will be a very strong show and we have so much material to choose from that we will practically be able to play a different show every night!

Three days after the finale I am going to France to work with Pink for a couple of weeks to help her prepare for her European tour. She is such a great singer that i would reccommend seeing her if you get a chance. She is the real deal!

Then I will have 6 days of vacation with my family in Rome! I can't wait! The day after I get back the HB starts rehearsals with Paul Stanley for his tour which starts the 21st of Sept in Atlanta and goes until November 12th in Los Angeles.

The HB and I are talking about recording our own record when we get back in Nov-Dec. Then January till whenever with SN and hopefully then season three of RS!

Thanks again to everyone for the support this year! I hope to see and meet some of you on the road either with Paul Stanley or with my friends from RS in Jan 07.

Cheers,Paul

Hi all! Sorry it has been a while but this show gets more intense every week. I hope you all are enjoying the show.Today's elimination show totally rocked! I can't give too much info but I felt it was the best elimination show yet. SN played a new song that the crowd totally dug and the HB played three of our most rockin performances of this year. We actually have a day off tommorrow! I can't believe it. A day off for me means I only work 5 or 6 hours as opposed to 16 but I will take it. It looks strongly like the HB will be busy after the show is over. Paul Stanley of kiss has called us and inquired about the possibility of us backing him up for his upcoming club tour in October /November.Nothing is for sure but it would be cool to do. All of the guys in the HB have been Kiss fans forever and it would be a tremendous blast to play all of those songs as well as songs from Paul's latest release off his new album ,Live to Win, that comes out in Oct.. Plus the HB would get to play together in a show where the songs are longer than 2 minutes! Then in January we may be going out to open for SN with some of the contestants.How cool would that be?! On the personal front I am also doing some work with Pink helping her mount her European tour and will probably be going to France to assist immediately after RS ends. You all should also check out Jimmy's and Nates websites.Jimmy has a solo record coming out called Jamestown that he has been pouring his soul into for over a year.It is out now and for sale.I have not heard the whole record but what I have heard sounds great.Nate has a record entitled Dootybug that is also out now. He raps and sings on it and it very eclectic ,cool. Hafa has a record out with his band Magnetico as well. When will I get a record out? When I ever get time to do one I suppose. It is rather hard to focus when I work so much and have two children and a wife to hang with. Hopefully I will have some time in December to record. I have a bunch of tunes I could use. In the meantime please support my brothers in the HB. Hopefully we will see you on the road somewhere soon after RS ends! Of course there is a long way to go before we get there and the show is really getting exciting now!Thanks for watching and for all the support. Peace,Paul

Hi all.Just watched the show. Thought it sounded pretty amazing. I always enloy acoustic weeks especially when I can arrange for strings. I also enjoy playing the piano all night. It is also cool to lower the volume a little bit.I have to get up very early for tommorrow's elimination taping. Who will it be? I enjoyed most of the performances this week. I look forward to next week.Just a quick not. I gotta sleep. Cheers,Paul

Hi all, Below is a long ass response i wrote to a thread on TWOP forums. I though you might be interested. In response to some of the questions from my last blog: Do you every try to play scales with Zayra before rehearsal? She's always sharp or flat when singing. There is a vocal coach that works with all of the singers. Also, how much time do you guys get with the singers to rehearse? Not enough. How come nobody does a metallica, GnR or Crue song? These artists must give us the rights to use their songs and all of the writers in the band must agree. Just curious what a musician thinks about SN's picks to go so far...Are you guys held hostage or are you free to speak your minds? The only choice I would have made differently is I would have sent Chris home the first week instead of Matt. Marry Me, Marry Me, Marry Me Okay so it's a little pathetic....But I just love you so much. Thanks for the compliments but I am already extremely married. We have some cool songs this week ,I hope you enjoy them. Cheers,Paul Hi all, I wanted to take a moment to respond to this thread. Let me first thank all of you for the constant support you have given OB:House. It actually means alot to us that people appreciate what we do. It is a great gig,we work really hard,and it is nice to know it is noticed. I also wanted to explain my phillosophy about working with the contestants and why I might seem a bit rough with them at times. I am a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to music. That probably stems from years of learning Mozart,Chopin etc where what is on the page is what you play. Likewise in Rock and Roll I believe there are certain elements of the song that make it what it is. Obviously there is the lyric and the melody foremost.Also there are gtr riffs,keyboard parts,bass and drum parts and grooves that helped drive these songs into the collective mind of the public. Much of the time I would prefer that these be preserved. We in the band take alot of effort to play these songs with the intention of preserving the essence of what the songs were created to be. Can you imagine Stairway to Heaven with a different gtr line in the intro? Can you imagine Bohemian Rhapsody as a drum and bass groove? Well believe it or not I can actually imagine both of those possibilities but I don't personally think it would be in the best interest of the songs to give them that treatment. When one of the artists on the show comes into rehearsal with no concept of the song in its original form and no concept of the historical context of the song and immediately wants to change it ,I will admit I can be reactionary. I actually don't mind changing up songs, but I believe it is important to change from a place of knowledge rather than ignorance. Know what a song is,appreciate its value for what it is ,and then if you choose to change it then that is your choice as an artist. Take for example Lukas with Lets Spend the Night Together. He came into rehearsal,sang about half of the song in its original form and sounded great doing it that way. We stopped about half way through for a technical glitch and immediately he began to want to change it before he even got through the whole thing. I don't believe what the changes we implemented served either him or the song. He asked us to add some loops and a gtr riff that had nothing to do with the song and to my mind made it kind of muddy. His vocal was much more lost in the new arrangement than the original and the melody and lyric was not as prominent. A portion of the song was lost. However,that being said ,when the choice was made to go in that direction I put 100% of my and the bands focus into making his vision of the song the best it could be and it still rocked. In Zayeera's case, she is a very interesting person to work with. Z has a very limited knowledge of rick music in general. Part of it might be a cultural gap. She has not grown up listening to alot of this music. Part of it is also a language barrier. I am not speaking of Spanish to English because she is as fluent as I am and very intelligent. Her language gap is more of a lack of how to explain things to the band and I in musical terms. In the case of 8675309, she had never heard the song before. She wanted to change the song immediately without even hearing it in its original form. This was a reaction on her part I believe based upon her lack of knowledge of what the song was. She never did really learn the melody. She took out all of the gtr parts that were much of the essence of the song. I also disagree with one of the previos posts that stated that our version was WAYYYY better than the orginal. It was different not better and the fact that the original melody was never really heard to my mind made almost a different song. Again, once the choice was made to go where she wanted to take it,we took it there hard. I think the main reason she was able to pull it off musically was because of the five guys behind her. I don't know any other band that could have pulled it off. Her performance out front was pretty unvelievable from a visual perspective. She pulled it off as well. On a personal note,I like Z and believe she is talented. Also,when I am interviewed for the reakity show it is after day one of rehearsals. I am a little grumpy. I will have just finished 10 hours on my feet playing loud music,dealing with artistic demands form 10 to 15 different singers. Changing shit up constantly,different keys,parts,arrangements, etc. My feet,ears,head,and throat hurt. But I love these singers,my band ,and the gig and would not change any of it. Things are always better the second day of rehearsal and I never can go back and add to what I said after the first day so many times what feels like it could be a disaster after day one turns out great. Anyway,I apologize for the length of this post but I feel that those of you who are on TWOP often on this forum might be interested in my approach and feelings about the process. I love this show and the music we play and fell strongly that it is our resposibility to the singers,listeners,and writers of the songs to represent them in the best way possible. I hope this year OB:House and some of the Rockers will see you out on the road and play for you all in person for more than 2 minutes at a time. That would be cool. Thanks again for your support. Rock On!! Paul Mirkovich

Today is Thursday which means it is our day off. What that basically means is that I will only work about 6 hours instead of the 12-14 I usually do. I got up and took one of my daughters to camp. Then I went for a 5 mile run and to the gym to lift weights. I definitely kicked my own ass. Then I came home and picked up my other daughter and went to the grocery store. We came home and sat on the back porch and ate nearly an entire bag of cherries.Yum! That was all the relaxation time I had till I needed to work. I am not complaining,(well I am a little), as I really love this gig,but the pace of it is quite relentless. Today I have to cut all of the songs for week 6 into 2:00 minute versions and chart them out for myself. I also have to learn some parts for tomorrows rehearsal with the artists for week 5. OB:House and I rehearsed the songs on Wednesday enough to know what we need to work on and will iron out the details with the singers tommorrow,and Saturday for the show on Sunday. (That show airs on Tuesday night.) Yesterday we got to rehearse a song with Tommy Lee. It was pretty cool! He is such a great guy always up and positive! I cant give away any details of when he will be playing but I will say when he does it will be quite spectacular! Thanks for all the positive comments on the previous blog. We all feel so greatful for this gig and a real responsibility to not only play the music right but to truly rock while doing it. Thenks for all the support and please tell your friends about the show. I am proud of it and want everyone to see it. In the words of Neil Young, "Hey,Hey, My,My Rock and Roll will never die!"

Hello all, This is blog 1 on 7-18-06. Today is the first day I have access to this space. I hope to put up some music and a few friendly links as I have the time. This gig is basically 7 days a week for me and the band so it will be tough to get it together. I have some of my music I would like to upload for download by any of you who might be interested. I love doing this show. I love playing this music. I love playing with these guys in OB:House. I have been on the road and recording for 20 years or so and this might be the best group I have ever worked with. We actually are still able to get along basically pretty well even though we have to work for up to 10 hours at a time 5 days a week on the show. The other two days are spent learning and programming songs! Still it sure beats digging ditches,or a sharp stick in the eye,or any kind of real work,in an office,where no one claps for you. Today we rehearsed with the rockers all of their elimination songs in case they are in the bottom three. Some of them drive me a little crazy. Many of them are in a constant state od being somewhat wacked out by all of this. I don't blame them,I would feel the same way. Enjoy the show tonight! Cheers,Paul