The Sonic Alchemy
Welcome to Sonic Alchemy, the ultimate podcast for creatives looking to elevate their craft and gain insider insights into the world of artistry. Hosted by Justin Webster and Kevin Crouch of the band The Silver Echo, this engaging show provides a dynamic platform to showcase artists and delve into the myriad skills and layers that contribute to a successful creative career.
Each episode of Sonic Alchemy offers a blend of captivating interviews and insightful discussions. Our interviews feature a diverse array of artists who share their unique journeys, techniques, and sources of inspiration. These conversations provide listeners with a rare glimpse into the personal and professional experiences that shape creative success.
In addition to interviews, Justin and Kevin host thought-provoking discussions on various topics relevant to creatives. These episodes explore everything from honing specific skills and overcoming creative blocks to navigating the business side of art and staying inspired in a rapidly changing world.
Discover how successful artists overcome challenges and find their voice.
Gain practical advice on developing skills, managing a creative career, and staying motivated.
Connect with a community of passionate creatives who are dedicated to their craft.
Sonic Alchemy is more than a podcast; it's a journey into the heart of creativity. Join Justin and Kevin as they uncover the alchemical process that turns passion into artistry and artistry into success. Whether you're an aspiring artist or an established creator, Sonic Alchemy offers the insights and inspiration you need to thrive.
Tune in and transform your creative potential into gold with Sonic Alchemy!
The Sonic Alchemy
"Truth Of Instinct" Part 1: Writing the record
What happens when two musicians collaborate across 2,700 miles, navigating a pandemic and six years of musical exploration? The Silver Echo's Justin and Kevin reunite in this illuminating conversation to peel back the curtain on their creative partnership and upcoming second album.
Their journey from sweating in a California garage studio to Nashville's air-conditioned comfort parallels their sonic evolution – from classic rock tributes to a genre-defying sound that incorporates everything from danceable grooves to soaring emotional landscapes. The duo candidly discusses how remote collaboration transformed their process, allowing them to exchange and develop ideas in ways impossible during their early days jamming on Friday nights.
Most fascinating is their honest exploration of the creative struggle. Songs like "Helping Hand" (originally code-named "Panama Salute") took years to complete, evolving through multiple iterations – from AC/DC-inspired riffs to Van Halen homages – before finding their true form. "Away From Us" required breaking through seemingly insurmountable creative walls, while "Take the Flame" represented a reversal of their typical songwriting roles that pushed both musicians into unfamiliar territory.
Beyond technical discussions, the conversation reveals something profound about artistic persistence. As Justin eloquently puts it: "Not everything is going to be a lightning bolt." Their experience proves that sometimes the most rewarding creative work emerges not from sudden inspiration but from dogged determination to find the right solution – even when it takes years to arrive.
Ready to join them on this musical journey? Follow The Silver Echo at thesilverechocom and discover how two friends turned pandemic frustration into sonic alchemy that speaks to both struggle and hope.
Learn more about The Silver Echo at thesilverecho.com
Let's get rolling. What's up, what is up. It's good to see you.
Speaker 2:It is so good to see you. I know, like I said, we talk. We probably talk every day, yeah pretty much. It's always great to see your beautiful mug, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we don't FaceTime often enough no no, we don't. We don't actually. Maybe, maybe we facetime plenty, but when I see you, it's always.
Speaker 2:Usually I don't see you very often, but it's always some nonsense where we're trying to. Usually, me it's not, it's not you, it's usually me saying help me, obi-wan, because I've know screwed something up in the studio that I'm needing to figure out, and so I'm calling you to help me triage it Used to be. I could call you, though, and say, hey, can you come over and help me move some junk that my family can't help me with, but, given our current distance apart, that might be a little more challenging than right now. Given our current distance apart, that might be a little more challenging than right now, because you had to go and up and leave California and move to the great, great little city of Nashville. Yeah, I'm still a little jealous about that.
Speaker 2:I do think that there's, you know, as we get a little bit older, things that you kind of grew up we both sort of grew up in a sort of small town aesthetic, you know, and you get to go out and experience different things, and both of us experienced stuff in the Bay Area and all that.
Speaker 2:But as you get older, you start craving some of the simplicity of things and not that Nashville is simple by any any stretch at all, but I think some of the, the, the, maybe the mentality there, the, the sort of small home vibes, the, the sort of focus on family and those kind of things are very present in that city and in the surrounding areas there especially, and even in the South. And you know, when I'm younger and I'm 18 and I want to get out of my small town in Crestview, florida, I'll pack up and go anywhere, and I did. But now in retrospect I'm kind of looking back and going. There's some things that you miss about it, you know. So part of me is very excited that you're there. Part of me misses you, of course, you know, and the missing to be able to kind of work in the space of writing music in the same room.
Speaker 1:But like I told you.
Speaker 2:I know it's just a plane ride away, away, but, um, it still makes. It makes it hard, but it's good. Like I said, it's good to kind of get to see you in these moments and be able to share a little bit. So, yeah, how's the city, treating you.
Speaker 1:It's been cool so far. I mean, truth be told, I haven't done as much as I would have expected to do almost a year in Um. It's wild how much it takes to just acclimate to a new place. Um, you know, know, I'd been out here before for small stints of time, probably three, four times over to.
Speaker 1:You know the years yeah not enough to really know the city, but enough to, like you know, catch a vibe, and so, yeah, so far it's been great. I've seen a lot of really cool music. I mean, the scene out here is pretty incredible, so I'm excited to get more tied into that. Obviously, you can't really see it behind me, but I have my studio set up here, which is far and away the best space I've ever had to record in no offense uh, but your garage was what are you saying you don't like to record music in a sauna?
Speaker 2:I don't understand.
Speaker 1:You know it was wonderful to record in there maybe two months out of the year and the rest of it it was either too cold or too hot. Uh, or spiders crawling on me or whatever.
Speaker 2:So that's just the aesthetic man. Like that's what it's for, like, come on.
Speaker 1:But I will say it definitely drove some great performances. Yeah, we did the whole first record. We made it work.
Speaker 2:We definitely made it work. And boy, yeah, if you, if anyone, was brave enough to go smell that drum thrown, you'd understand all the hours spent in that space sweating profusely, you know that's a whole other topic.
Speaker 1:If you are brave enough, there's no benefit to you doing that.
Speaker 2:Just trust that it's nasty in there, no, but we both kind of came up. I just recently moved my studio finally, thanks to listening to you. It's only taken me a decade to do that, but to finally move the studio inside our guest room, which was basically being used as in a giant closet, yeah, and kind of moved inside as well, because I kept seeing yours once you had it set up and I'm like man, the air conditioning. What a blessing just to have that and be comfortable.
Speaker 2:And they're gonna have to go out there and clean everything off from all the dust and, like you mentioned spiders and you know, God only knows what other rodents are running around in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, like in the garage, you're constantly fighting.
Speaker 2:You're coming face to face with the forces of nature. Yes, that being indoors, it's some Bear Grylls shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So it was great. We did a lot in there. I am still grateful for that time, for that space, because it was needed.
Speaker 1:But it's cool to be in a spot now where I have AC. I don't have any clutter in here. You know, I'm really fortunate in that regard that the space is truly dedicated to its purpose, which is just, you know, writing and recording music in here. Yeah, my poor neighbors because I do have neighbors I'm in an apartment, uh, you know they have to hear me uh blowing it out sometimes in here yeah, but you're not doing a lot of the like, didn't do a lot of the screaming stuff.
Speaker 2:Like we were here where it sounded like if you were outside, like in the movie moment of having people, lot of the screaming stuff. Like we were here where it sounded like if you were outside, like in the movie moment of having people walk by and you're like, oh, it's like somebody getting murdered inside that room, like what is happening inside there you know at least, we're not doing a lot of that in the moment, right now and we can talk a little bit about that, of course, like between um first record and now, because we've had Jesus, six years since we did the first record.
Speaker 2:We didn't stop making music, but six years from sort of the first record that we release, yeah, we go through like everybody, go through a weird pandemic and then come back and really started working on this record, seriously working on this record. What do you think?
Speaker 1:2023, 2024, no, it's got to be earlier, so 2022 I mean it depends on how you define it, because we were writing songs for it before the last album came out. That's true. Yeah, and then the way that I see it is that we went through periods and so starting, you know, because we were putting out Aurora and at that same time we were rehearsing a lot, and so we were also sharing ideas a lot, and so a couple other song ideas that popped up.
Speaker 1:They were like, okay, let's put a pin in that. And then, uh, the pandemic hit, and pretty much right after that we played two gigs and then, you know, uh, got shut in. Yep, didn't do much there for several months but then, you know, had to sort of figure out how are we going to adapt to working more remotely from each other?
Speaker 1:which turned out to be a really big part of how we work now, and I think it was sort of necessary, even pandemic aside pandemic aside um to be able to not, like before this, we had to be in the same room at the same time to work on an idea and really to even share an idea, like, yeah, I could call you or send you a little voice memo or something, but you know it's not. It's not the same as being able to turn up and really, you know, explore something. And still there's pros and cons. I really like being in the same room because an idea can evolve a lot faster.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Cause you're working off each other in real time, yeah, but you know, I mean being able to at least send ideas back and forth. Get on a call, talk about it, or you send an idea back, us both having a space that we can record in. That's comfortable. I think that's maybe the biggest thing. It's just being able to be comfortable in a space Like when your fingers are freezing or you're just sweating like crazy, right, you know those aren't good conditions to really focus on what it is, or you're just sweating like crazy, right, you know those aren't good conditions to really focus on what it is that you're doing.
Speaker 2:No and no, it really does give some kind of a. It's kind of funny. As we're sitting here talking, I'm thinking like there should be a reality of competition. It's a battle of the bands meets survivor. Yeah, you know, like just grueling elements to really teach you that. But I think anybody out there, any band that's out there doing it every day you're already in grueling conditions from working out of bands or sprinter vans, whatever a bus, a truck, just figuring it out. You're dealing in small establishments, bad sound guys, sometimes all this stuff that you're you're combating and dealing with.
Speaker 2:But yeah, Outdoor gigs you know, those are going to be cold sometimes those are going to be hot sometimes.
Speaker 1:I mean, things are rarely perfect, you know, like being in a controlled studio setting is a huge uh luxury, but uh, but yeah, we definitely have some good experience, you know, working in uh extreme temperatures.
Speaker 2:So oh yeah, but the studio is not doing that anymore. Yeah, I was just gonna say the. You know there is a. There is sort of a a beauty in everything, despite what happened during the pandemic. You're absolutely right that it.
Speaker 2:What it forced us to do was like we're not going to stop writing music, but we have to. We have to figure out how to do this in a more efficient way. For, for the obvious things, but also for the for the reasons that it wasn't ideal, and as we continued to sort of expand what we wanted this new record or whatever our new batch of songs to be, we just thought it could be a lot better for us to be more efficient in that space, to have places where we could work separately and use all the technology that's available to us to be able to share ideas, so shared folders and and iCloud or Google Drive, you know, being able to access a whole live session or an Ableton session with everything in. It was so convenient to be able to. You know, for us to kind of work and say, hey, here's what I got, send me back your ideas, let me keep working off that. So it was still very, very collaborative, but just really taking advantage of the great technology that we have to be able to do that in a way, and I agree with you, like on the sentiment of playing in the room, like I think, about a song or a couple of songs that we've done for this new record.
Speaker 2:I know we had plenty of roadmap to talk about a new record, but in writing, some of the new records, some of the songs that I really resonated with were some of the ones that we did when we were able to be in the studio, and one in particular we'll talk about maybe down the road. But there's a song on the record that, given the conditions of the room and also our own personal conditions on that day, we were all pretty pissed off. Um, and the song we wrote was pretty pissed off and it was great, it was absolutely great and it was visceral and in the moment and it just it came out of us. So there are moments in which it can challenge in that space. But I also think that we really did a great job of being able to figure it out despite the circumstances and still continue the path of creating and being good partners in writing together.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, so let's talk about that then. Like I know, we want to do probably a couple episodes talking about different facets of yeah this record.
Speaker 1:There's a lot to talk about, a lot to share, but maybe it makes sense to just start with the actual, you know, the writing process and just to clarify for anyone who might not be aware of what we're talking about. Kevin and I are in a band called the Silver Echo and we are the band in this project. We are yeah, we do make music outside of that band, but in this case, you know, we're talking about this new Silver Echo record. And so, talking about this new uh, silver echo record and so, um, yeah, I mean there's a lot about it. To me that's different than last time, and there are some similar threads, but I don't know where you might want to start, but I guess maybe we could start with what's different I was.
Speaker 2:Maybe we kind of kick in. Yeah, I think I'll use a reference, because I know we we both love the foo fires and and dave um, and there was something he talked about where in the first record was sort of like his demo tape, if you will. Like he did everything himself. It had a very raw sort of aesthetic to it, yeah, immediate in the moment, just because he was so hungry to get music out in the wake of Nirvana that he just kind of came in with his buddy and they recorded something. It was pretty simple and um didn't know what it was going to turn out, you know, and it ends up being big. So by the time he goes back in to make a second record. The idea was he wanted something that was more fully realized and bigger, and I I think on some level that's exactly what we set out to do.
Speaker 2:The first record in Aurora and I know you may have your own thought about this, but to me it was like our ode to sort of classic rock, you know, the Tom Petty, the Foreigners, the bands that we, the Eagles, the bands that we really love from that sort of 70s, 80s era, not just in their own music but in their production, like the production quality was something we were chasing. We were looking for real authenticity and sound, and that led us down a path where everything we were really doing was very sort of traditional I guess is the best way I could say it Like we were actually miking amps, you know all of this kind of stuff. We weren't into this sort of fractal area or using you know digital cabinets and these kinds of things that we've kind of moved into or some software instruments. We were doing a lot of like actual live instrumentation with guitars and bass and sort of in recording in that space and live performances.
Speaker 1:I think that was another part of it was trying to. The most common way to record these days is you record a person at a time, you record a section at a time until you get that right and move on, which is fine. But you know the kind of the, the older way to do it and, um, you know, possibly ironically, the nashville way to do things right, yeah, it's still to do it live.
Speaker 1:You know to do a full take, play the entire song the way that you would if you were playing it at a, you know, at a show and so that we didn't do everything full takes and not everything was full band, but as much as we could get that element into what we were doing, we were trying to capture reality the best that we could, I suppose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think a lot just that started. The genesis of that was when we started working. We were, we had built the studio in the garage. Of course we joked about that, but the process was we needed a place to play together. We I had a house, so we had, we leveraged a garage to be able to use that and started really building a studio in that space, and so part of it was building a studio, part of it was us getting together and just jamming out ideas. I jokingly used to call that like Friday night lights, like we would get together on Friday nights and jam after work and come up with some ideas. But it was also early in our music partnership, so we were learning each other, learning what worked, learning our musical styles.
Speaker 2:So there was a lot of moments of discovery and I think, post that record going into maybe the EP and of course, during that pandemic point where we started having to kind of record in a separate space, we also started evolving what were we going to do with our sound and the evolution of the sound in that space? And maybe a little bit of a detour and you can speak to some of that as well but, thinking about, we finished the record. The record was, like I said, our wanker ode to 70s and 80s style production. Then we go in a pandemic. We kind of get a little angry, given the environment that we were in, and so our love and taste of metal music or heavier music started coming out and we thought maybe this will be an interesting direction to go. Maybe this will be an interesting direction to go. So do you want to talk maybe a little bit about that and kind of how we led into?
Speaker 1:because we were writing some ideas.
Speaker 2:as you mentioned, we were writing some ideas that ended up becoming something on this new record, but there was a moment in between that where we kind of shifted directions and we didn't know are we going to go in and be a metal band now, or are we going to go back to, maybe what we initially started?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean there was a. There was a little bit of an identity crisis there, probably for a while of like, we like so many styles of music that sometimes it is hard to narrow down like what it is that we want to be doing. And so we did the classic rock thing. You know more or less our, our version of that. And then the thought was, well, let's do something different. And, uh, we put out runaways, which was like a more modern, produced um pop rock song.
Speaker 1:I guess you know it's not particularly heavy, but, you know, heavier than what we had done that felt good, so we pushed the boundaries a little more. We did paradigm, which I still feel like actually fits in probably the best with with where we're going um heavy aspects of it. But it's not. It's not overtly metal or it's kind of almost genre confusing a little bit.
Speaker 2:And it's got a really powerful chorus. You know it's still yeah Big hooks.
Speaker 1:You know Soundgarden influence in that song for sure, with some other things. So we we put that out. Um did a video for that. You did a great job on that video. So we pushed it a little further and we said, well, let's do something really experimental. And I was really into, uh, mega death in that period of time, I mean I'm always in mega death, but I was in a mega death mood death spiral.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, uh, yeah, so I was thinking like let's do something like that. So we put fear on high together, which was super fun um and we did some things with that song that we had not done before ever yeah, and so then that got us thinking how can we turn this into maybe a record? And let's pursue this. We wrote a handful of other songs in that similar vein, and some even heavier yeah that, uh, sadly, will never come out.
Speaker 1:I don't think because we decided ultimately that it wasn't the right fit, even though we enjoy that kind of music. What we found through the process of making those songs is that we can do it, but it didn't feel right. It felt like we moved really slow through those songs. Sorry, give me a second here. I don't know what happened.
Speaker 2:No, it's okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, oh, uh, anyway, I'll, I'll fix it when my ipad reboots, um, but uh, uh, what was I saying? Uh, oh, yeah, we were moving really slow through the writing process, so that was sort of one idea as to yeah why it wasn't quite right. And then, uh, I don, I don't know it, just um, it felt like we had gone too far, and so we decided we needed to write the ship and sort of scrap what we were working on to get back to a place that was a little more authentic feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so that was a, a place that was like, um, I don't even know how I would describe it because to the listener a lot of it you might not even notice the difference, but for me it feels more grounded in classic music. It feels more based around a chord progression than it does around a riff maybe. It's a little less technical, not quite as angry, that sort of thing Allowing for more themes to show through in the music, I guess Would you agree with that.
Speaker 2:I think there was something that I have a. I have a couple of thoughts on that too. Like we were really trying to push our uh writing and we were doing some very complex chord progressions, things. That just felt like it was a challenge. I'll say that, like a couple of songs that we know may never see the light of day, we probably had some of the most creative bridge section that we've ever written. That's super complex. Maybe at some point we'll Maybe it's a Halloween release We'll put back on our metal roots, or we'll make another project that isn't the.
Speaker 1:Silver Echo, where we can kind of put out some of that other stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think what was interesting to me at least how I was feeling while we're doing this was that, like we said, we wrote these songs, or at least the two that really, and more that started getting more in that heavy direction. I don't count Runaways in that space, because I do think that was one that kind of felt very much like a transitional song into what we were hoping to do for this new?
Speaker 2:record. But we went on a detour and because, like I said, we were pissed off. The world was an angry, divisive, crazy place. So our environment really bled into that, in my opinion. But there were points when we were starting to finish all of that where I think both you and I were coming out of that headspace and we just wanted to experience not that the writing of the music wasn't fun, it was just we wanted to experience something that was a little bit more light and immediate and of the moment and maybe still borrowing elements from things that we've written. So some songs could be heavier, but some songs I don't know how I'd say it, but I felt like in that period, maybe what changed for us was that we almost started feeling like it was pigeonholing us into this. Okay, if we're going to do this, we're going to be in this direction. Now, and it's like I don't think any one of us wanted to be Megadeth, Although we have a lot of love for a lot of different metal bands.
Speaker 2:We can certainly talk a lot about that, yeah, but they do it better, you know, and they've had plenty of years of practice in it, but I think you and I have always loved like not really getting locked into a genre per se. And the first record, while we definitely mentioned influences there, it can be all over the place and it kind of felt like it can belong in any sort of decade. And I think, as we're working on this record, it's sort of I feel like for me, I just we had some different things we wanted to say. We were coming out of sort of the darkness of what was going on and, like you know, I really wanted to get us to back to talking about things that could feel like love and hope and frustrations or how we combat these things and move through them.
Speaker 2:And there was a lot of personal stuff too. I mean, you get married during that time, you know, and so there was just a lot of change and outlook that was happening and I think we wanted our music, like anybody, to reflect our state of mind and where we were. And we had a lot more, dare I say, hope, but just more. We were just more enthused once we were getting. We had a lot more, I dare I say, hope, but just more. We were just more enthused once we were getting out of that that space to really get back and go. Who do we want to be as a band and what do we really want to say? And let's see what this feels like to do that, and that I felt like it brought us back to kind of the original joy of us first starting to do that and that I felt like it brought us back to kind of the original joy of us first starting to write that first record.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the mentality is really important for me in the approach and so I think with what we were doing, I felt a certain amount of pressure to um, have the technicality of things be more front and center, but that's not really. It's not really where I excel or what I enjoy. I'm not a I'm not an athlete player, right, like I don't know how else to say that yeah, and there was a point in my life where I was really ambitious to try to I don't know demonstrate how good I was, or maybe how good I wasn't Right, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:I wanted to feel like it was okay if I wrote a simpler song. Good, I wasn't Right, but I don't know. I wanted to feel like it was okay if I wrote a simpler song and that that would make sense, and I also yeah, I don't know I was just feeling restricted by the way that we were doing it, and so, you know, I think we were still able to take some of those heavy ideas, and there's definitely some of the songs on this new record that are heavy rock songs.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:But I don't really think anyone is going to hear it and think metal no, whereas they might with some of the other things that we were doing before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were doing before you know. Yeah, do you recall like, um, I was trying to think about this the other day, just to really going back to thinking about coming out of aurora we start? We were already still writing because we were just on a good clip of writing. Do you remember the first song that we wrote for this new record?
Speaker 1:Well, there was a couple ideas. That happened really early and if it's the first song that we finished, I think that would have been blanking on the title, the one that you wrote.
Speaker 2:This Moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this Moment which is a working title. I'm not sure what that one will be called. Yeah.
Speaker 2:For those of you listening out there. I, for many of you probably do this, but you know, when you're writing a song, it's not always, it doesn't always come to you yet what the title is going to be, so we always have creative names like wink at the cops, because it felt like a police riff that was in six eight and that's ended up turning into something else called here in the dark. But we just thought it sounded like the police a little bit.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, and to be honest at the time it did um or you know, part of it had to do with the drum beat originally on.
Speaker 2:That idea was a very stewart copeland sort of very which yeah, it didn't turn out to be the direction we went ultimately no, no, but in the beginning, when we're writing these things, it kind of feels that way. So, yeah, some of these titles I remembered what we now, I think, all helping hand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was the only one that came to mind.
Speaker 2:Code name Panama, yeah, which is definitely 1,000% a wink to Van Halen for those of you out there that love Van Halen and I can't. I think it's just because it felt a little bit like had the sort of punchy chord progressions that kind of came that just evoked that feeling of Panama, just a fun sort of summer song, you know well it was.
Speaker 1:The original working title of that was panama salute, panama salute, yeah because, because we were. It was, uh, basically an homage of acdc meets we were like what would happen if ACDC and Van Halen wrote a song together and so we had this verse that was kind of ACDC-ish, with, you know, open chords, and then the chorus at the time was very Panama sounding and that part ultimately got cut. That chorus, it sounded like Van Halen E ish Uh yes.
Speaker 1:And uh uh that song is one of the stronger songs on the the record, I think now, but it it also is a. Uh, it was a labor of love, like it took so long it was a journey. Right, yeah, I mean, it was one of the earliest songs that we started writing and one of the very last ones that we finished. Yep, um, and it went through it's ACDC sort of uh, phase Um, and then that didn't work, and so then we tried like black crows was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we tried like a southern rock version of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we tried just a handful of different directions to try to figure it out, because I wholeheartedly believe that this is a really good song.
Speaker 1:It just has to it just has to find its groove, like it's so close, but something about it just wasn't working, yeah, and then, you know, eventually, just through sheer persistence, um, and not giving up on it, uh, it eventually emerged into something that feels really, really great. I'm excited for people to hear that song, and me too I've. I've shared it with a couple of people so far, and everyone who's heard it has been a really big fan, which is encouraging. I mean, I don't expect the people I'd share it to right now to, you know, tell me that they hate it, even if they did, but but you know how.
Speaker 1:That is right. Like you're, you're hoping for positive feedback Um yeah we certainly have gotten uh which is yeah it.
Speaker 2:It's interesting to like to think about the writing for this record, but, like there are moments that you know, I don't know, as we're, as we're really wrapping this up and we're kind of in the stage now it's about to go out to master and we'll hopefully be able our runway is getting closer to be able to release it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, by the time this podcast comes out it probably will be mastered and more or less like we should have some more information about it, I would think. But yeah, sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, it just it was. It's like when you're those moments where you see uh sort of life pass before you if you will. But I'm thinking about all these little moments in a flash, these past six years of different moments in time where we were writing or different things that kind of stick out in my head as we're talking and remembering um sitting on the ground and I decided because I couldn't play.
Speaker 1:You know, I was often doing demos for drums, so you know I fashioned myself a utility player in that space to get the job done, by the way it's wild how much better at an instrument you can get when you have six years.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly. Where you're at now, from where you started at the beginning of this cycle is pretty remarkable. You had a lot of pages to be like hey, hey, I want to play drums. Man, let me do that, I know I can play keyboards I'm good with that, but I needed to do something that was able to help move us along. And yeah, I remember in this one song, this moment which we're talking about, um, I just couldn't play that speed like I wanted a fast song.
Speaker 2:That felt like a certain thing, but I wasn't able to to pull it off and we were so in the idea and that initially came from a bass riff that I had showed you. Yeah, and I remember sitting on the ground with a drum machine on the floor in that hot ass studio, hammering out and playing that beat live. Yeah, and just that, and getting the bass locked in. We pretty much wrote that within a couple of days. Um, yeah, yeah, it was. There was a lot, I think.
Speaker 1:The other thing funny we had everything but vocal probably in that session, because I remember okay. So one bit of context just to back us up a little bit. And this would be a key difference from the first record to the second one Is that in the first record most of those songs were written from ideas that I had, that I brought to you yeah, and basically we said is there something here or not? And then we developed it and I would have most of a song and then you would often write the bridge.
Speaker 2:It became a running joke that you're the bridge guy so it's like, hey, I have this idea, yeah, I've got a chorus.
Speaker 1:I've got a verse, but we need something that goes somewhere else. So let's get a fresh brain on it. What do you hear? And then you would come up with a piece. If I remember, right on the first album, you wrote one song which was Midnight Train. Yeah, but really like it was a chord progression that you had written that I then kind of rewrote oh yeah.
Speaker 2:It went from Ryan Adams to Guns N' Roses quickly, and it was so much better you know, Well, yeah, I'm happy with the way that it turned out.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, uh, well, I don't yeah it. Yeah, I'm happy with the way that it turned out, oh yeah, um, but then you know, if we fast forward to this album, there's a lot more collaboration of songs that came from me versus songs that came from you, and I think that's a really good thing.
Speaker 1:um, and that probably wouldn't have happened in that way if we hadn't learned to work remotely yes because before it was like I would come bring an idea, we jam on it together and then it would get kind of maybe even confusing sometimes on who wrote what. Yeah, um. And now, with you empowered to just sit there whenever it was convenient for you and come up with ideas, you know, you wrote um this moment. You wrote. Uh, take the flame. Um, you wrote. I'm blanking on our songs at this point, let me see, real kind of came um and it came.
Speaker 2:I think that was one you wrote a drum beat for that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But the.
Speaker 2:But it definitely changed. So yeah that's probably not fully.
Speaker 1:The song of that was me, because I had that idea for a while. Yeah, that's true. Oh that's right Kind of thing.
Speaker 2:See, it's very difficult for us to remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, but that song is called the Wheel that you were just talking about. Yeah, the Wheel.
Speaker 2:That's what it was Code name. We're still stuck in code names for that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Toxic Heroes was a group effort. Yep, oh Tailspin, oh Tailspin. You wrote Tailspin.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is a really interesting song on here.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, your normal collab. Not collaborations, that's not the word I'm looking for but contributions to the other songs because you know it's still a thing where you know we all, you know we kind of get to play a role on each other's songs. But that was a big difference from record one to two was just the comfortability of contributing ideas. I think At least I saw that from you. I'm sure you probably feel that way about it, or you, you feel some way about it I definitely the take the flame.
Speaker 2:um, I remember like finishing that song and thinking this is the most fully realized demo that I'll have ever done for Justin, because most of the time it's just going to come out that I might have an idea it's going to be half cocked.
Speaker 1:And to talk about this for people listening.
Speaker 2:I'm very more comfortable to just send all of my idea. I just like to live in that space and if there's a spark that comes from that, or or Justin here's something that he likes, then I'll go. Okay, cool, we're on the right track. I'll keep working on, I'll keep revising it. But, yeah, justin will often send me things that are what I feel to be almost like well, that's the whole damn song. What do you need me to do? Like you've done pretty much everything here, or he'll get it as far as you can, or as far as you can, and we'll go from there.
Speaker 2:But I turned in or send you, take the Flame. Yeah, and I think your response you called me back. I remember that day because it was you and your wife listening to the song and you're like dude, is this is incredible? Um, I don't know what to do. So, because it was weird. I remember you talking about that and saying this is so weird because I'm used to be the one that's writing it and you're filling in the spaces where I might get stuck, or I might need a better bridge, or I'm just not. I'm not sure where to take the idea, but I thought, oh, this is interesting Cause I handed you something, even just writing parts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, even just writing parts, like, typically, the guitar gets written first and then you figure out how keys work around. That, yeah, this was the opposite. This was there's a bunch of keys and now I have to figure out how to fit guitar into this. It was different for me in the way that we've normally worked. It was kind of the opposite and, uh, it yielded a really good result, though. So absolutely as much as I was lost in that moment, it worked out.
Speaker 2:That was one that we I know initially there was something there even in our writing for this and I think it's important to share that song in particular pushed you in a different direction. There was. There's definitely things on this record that feel well. There's certainly things on this record that feel very intimate and there are things on this record where you are really trying different things, different maybe characters, if you will to evoke a certain feeling or emotion or emote in a different way. You're talking about vocally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there is a lot of vocal things that you really push yourself on in this record. That'll that'll show up and again, not that anyone might care, but I think from record to record, you will notice an enormous amount of growth in your vocal range, your ability, but also the comfortability in your voice and what it can do. It just sounds so effortless in places helping, helping Hand when we're talking about that song. Or Panama Salute has one of the best choruses to me that we've ever written. It just and really you I mean because it really comes out in the vocal performance just how great that song sounds. Take the Flame is another one where I think in the initial, if I remember, when we're doing the vocals, you're like man, I don't. I don't know if I feel comfortable in this, in this sort of space of this character or what it is. It felt a little different to you in that moment.
Speaker 2:I remember when we were cutting the vocals for that and you're like, I'm going to do it, I'm going to, I'm going to get out there and sort of evoke this thing, but I don't know where it's gonna go, so even then it was, it was very nervous, nerve-wracking for me because I'm like I finally got a song across, like the whole song, and I was so proud of that and I'm like damn it. Please don't reject this song we've got to get through it.
Speaker 2:We're gonna push through this together yeah we're gonna figure this out, because I know like sometimes when you're doing it and we're just beating a wall, we'll pause on songs and sometimes they won't make it. They won't survive that sort of grueling process of you and I putting it through the gauntlet, and I know that was one where we really did fight to make it special, and there's a lot of hidden truths in some of that stuff that was going on, some pain that was happening during that time for me that really wanted me to get it over the finish line.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, but that's for another day. But the good news is we did it and we saw it and saw it through, and it is still one of my favorites on the record not and I go back and forth every day because there's a different one every day, but that one still lives up there for me and I'm very proud of what we did.
Speaker 1:it sounds incredible to me yeah, it's, it's really, it's a fun song yeah, that's what's cool about it.
Speaker 1:It's a, it's a fun song, it has a good message, um, which really like the. You know we won't dive into all the lyrical interpretation, but basically the the point of the song is to face difficulties and don't give up and, you know, persevere through hardship, and so it's this kind of uplifting, optimistic sort of song that is kind of like a dancey rock song, if that makes sense. You know it's this kind of four on the floor feeling, you know, like if, yeah, I don't know, that's the best way I can explain it.
Speaker 2:we're never uh, we're unapologetic about our references and what we, what we love, and that one feels like 80s era ozzy, like the blonde yeah look at the moon or ultimate sin level ozzy, like if we're doing a song that had a four on the floor beat to it and now, of course, with the guitars in there, I think everyone will hear it kind of understand what I'm getting to, but it's it's just kind of got a vibe that I could hear him all right now, you know yeah just yeah doing his aussie thing, you know, uh, so I don't know it.
Speaker 2:For me it evokes, yeah, 80s era aussie. I don't know why, but it does.
Speaker 1:It just has that feeling to me well, yeah, no, I, I totally agree with that. Um yeah, but it but it also takes influence from uh most stevie nicks yeah, just 17 stevie nicks that's definitely a place.
Speaker 2:I think that I was like I wanted something that feels like you know that whole little intro to that song. I wanted something that was like that and kind of had that vibes you could dance to it. But it was also a rock song, you know Totally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, yeah. So that one, I'm excited for people to hear that one. I'm excited for people to hear the whole record. But I think that one's probably one of the more accessible songs and it's hard not to, you know, just kind, just kind of you know, at least, want to move a little bit to it.
Speaker 1:um, at least for me, when I put that in in the headphones and I'm doing chores or whatever, checking mixes that one I often find myself dancing to in my kitchen or or wherever oh yeah, to get your little groove on that that is in in and of itself a little bit of a different direction for us.
Speaker 2:Because, you know, in the flavor of a and I think maybe you know I've written down kind of a question but thinking about like what was, was there a moment when I was like something that could define what this record could be? Because I think when we finally got that and really heard it fully realized I'm like, oh, the gloves are off, we can go in any damn direction. We feel, yeah, you know, and I think, listening to that song, yeah, that song.
Speaker 2:And this moment and then helping hand are vastly different from each other. Um, yeah, but they're all just kind of over the place. Tailspin is another one that's just like. That would not typically be a song that I think we would have probably thought to write together six years ago. But here we are. No, and it's got horns.
Speaker 1:That was another one that made me uncomfortable. Oh yeah, because I'm going. How would I say this? I heard you play the idea and immediately thought it was a good idea, so didn't have an issue with that. But then, where it took me as a songwriter felt so different from things that I'm used to doing. It's like what would I want to hear on this? Yeah, okay, well, what I'd want to hear? I can write an idea like that, but then, when it comes time to actually demonstrate it, I'm like, well, this almost feels like something I would have written for somebody else you know, yeah, or I don't know whether it makes sense for me to like I've never.
Speaker 1:I've never seen myself wear that type of clothes. I don't know if I look good in in those kind of clothes right. So if you've never worn a suit. You're going. Am I going to look like james bond or am I going to look like, uh, some idiot wearing his dad's suit?
Speaker 2:like a chump. Like a chump, hey, like a chump, yeah.
Speaker 1:But that that question really comes to mind. At least for me it does, Um, as someone who, who often overthinks things that I shouldn't. And so then you know, you get in in the moment and you're saying, okay, well, since I haven't done this, I know what it sounds like in my head, but I've never had to actually do this, so I don't even know if I can. And then, if I can, doesn't even make sense for the band. So you're like 10 layers deep and self-doubt and questions because it's outside of your comfort zone, or at least it was outside of my comfort zone. And then you're kind of going well, let's take the Rick rubin approach, where we're not going to prejudge anything here, we're not going to assume what shape the record is supposed to take until all the songs are done yeah and so let's just do it, and if it sounds good, it is good.
Speaker 1:If it makes the cut, it makes the cut, if it it doesn't. Either way we stand to lose nothing, really, because we're gaining experience and you're not going to break new ground or get better if you just keep doing the things that are safe and comfortable.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I have at this point, I have a pretty good idea of the things that my voice does, well, but I think it would be a disservice to me as a as an artist, as a creative person, to just stay in that lane forever.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Some people may prefer that I stay in that lane.
Speaker 2:Find what works. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, there's that too right. There's something to be said. For artists to find their thing, and then they just do that, and there's nothing wrong with that either? Right, you could say that about ACDC. But when you're that good at a thing, you shouldn't be doing anything else.
Speaker 2:And I don't think I'm on that level. Um, I don't want to hear them do queen. Do you know?
Speaker 1:what I mean, like I don't, I don't, or well, maybe, maybe we would.
Speaker 2:I don't know maybe, maybe. So I don't dare I say it's hard to say yeah, I do remember when you dropped the amazing the vocals for that song. Now, going back to those sort of fast moments coming by thinking about this record um, you were at home because we were. We were working more remotely at that time. Well, we had just done a podcast. Yeah, that's right. You showed me your idea for this after the podcast. We did the podcast, or I?
Speaker 1:think you had sent me a voice memo of the key like a piano version yeah, I want to say, maybe the night before yeah and then I asked you like hey, can you, since you're here, break this down with me so that I can get a feel for that's right.
Speaker 2:I was drumming on my leg and talking to kind of how this was going to play out or what sort of the vibe of the song and the, the sort of meter or feeling of the song. Right, and I remember this one when you, um, I was at a restaurant with some friends that were visiting us my wife and I and I think we're in santa cruz and you sent me the like hey, does this guitar stuff sound good? And I was like hell, yes, that's exactly what I was talking about?
Speaker 2:yeah, and because, again, we, we listened to a lot of same stuff, but we also have different tastes as well, and I'm a like I've listened to a ton of arctic monkeys. I love spoon the band spoon like yeah, and so that wanted something that kind of felt in that vibe. But I never said that to you because it wouldn't be so. I mean, you know, obviously, like everybody probably knows, the biggest arctic monkeys record, yeah, but I was like it was something about alex turner that I was really trying to get to and I never said that to you up front ever. Yeah, you told me black keys.
Speaker 2:I said black keys, yeah yeah, and yeah, and initially that's, and even now I think, even when you hear it it kind of evolved in that space. The first demo which I love, and maybe we'll find a time to put that first one out definitely leaned in on the alex turner vibe and it. It was so sexy and and cool, but almost to the point where I'm sure even for you.
Speaker 1:It's like it's a little too sexy.
Speaker 2:This is gonna, it's really gonna, really gonna hurt our population out there of listeners. They're gonna go.
Speaker 1:Oh man, whew, okay, yeah, a little hot got to turn that down, got to turn that heat off.
Speaker 2:It is way too sexy jackie moon, um. So anywho, yeah, it ended up. The evolution of that basically goes it turns into a really kind of great bluesy type song, um, but it had so many different iterations along the way and I love the journey of that. Like I'm always excited because you never really know until you know, I think, maybe until we say, okay, that's the final, final, final for all time final.
Speaker 2:And then we still go back in and tinker with it. But it's like in the writing process to me, the discovery, what's coming around every corner, because you don't know what's next. So this part of collaboration, what's sort of fun in this way of working remotely is you'll send something to me and you have no idea. You'll know my taste so you might know what to imagine. But then I send something back and you go oh, you took it in a place I didn't know it was going to go, and same for you. Like if I hear something come to me and it's like oh, wow, now that is a really cool idea and definitely not a place where I thought it would go. Like I said when I heard the vocals on that for the first time, when you actually laid vocals onto that, that song, yeah, I'm like this is nothing like anything you've ever done and I was right.
Speaker 1:yeah, and you see why I was nervous, yeah.
Speaker 2:So tearful with joy, just overjoyed in that moment, cause I'm like oh man, it just further exemplified like we are not putting any sort of um label on anything. We're just going to write what feels good and trust that our instincts in that are right. And trust that our instincts in that are right.
Speaker 1:And it's really made for a record that I'm so proud of and so excited to get out for people to hear and put it out in the world so that other people can share the same joy that you and I had making it. You know, what do you think was like the toughest song for you to write or work on Like what gave you personally the biggest challenge? Do you think was like the toughest song for you to write or work on Like what gave you personally the biggest challenge? Do you think?
Speaker 2:I'm thinking that I think there was some really well sending me your version, like of Forgotten man, and I'm like, again, this is so fully realized, I didn't know where to take it. They know what to do with it, because it was a fully completed idea and so I was like, yeah, I just don't really know if I want to touch it. So sometimes it isn't necessarily about the difficulty in the song, but it's also me hearing it and going I don't really want to mess with it. Toxic heroes was another one, because he wrote that in space and I'm like there's just such an immediacy about it.
Speaker 1:Well, and you wrote that on base too.
Speaker 2:So your contribution was, yeah, slamming the base, yeah, but I think, honestly, now that I'm thinking about it, Honestly, now that I'm thinking about it, I feel like maybe Rest Easy was one that took a long time. That was another one codename Empty Walls that we started.
Speaker 1:No Right, wasn't it? Rest Easy is Rest Easy, oh sorry, rest Easy is Rest Easy. Empty Walls became Away From Us. Away From Us. Sorry, there we go, jesus, wasn't it? Rest easy as rest easy, oh sorry, rest easy, rest easy. Empty walls became here in the dark.
Speaker 2:Away from us, away from us, sorry, there we go, jesus yeah eventually I'll remember our own songs I don't know that I ever will I don't know that it's been so hard because we've gone on these forever.
Speaker 2:but away from us was um a very challenging song for us to get across. We just kept getting stuck in the same place and I think, we both knew that there was something very special about it. Well, we had a clear vision for where we wanted it to go, it just couldn't get there. I just couldn't figure out how to get there until we did yeah neither could I.
Speaker 2:And it was very frustrating. I think I don't call it writer's block. It's just sort of like you've reached a wall in the song and you go. I don't know what to do with this and it had. So I remember playing these demos to you a few weeks back.
Speaker 1:I'm like, do you?
Speaker 2:remember we did this one. This is all like, like electronic. So there was one version that was very electronic, heavy. We just kept trying different things. Say Something on. The first record was one that was like that. It was incredibly challenging to write and the song now, when you listen to it, it's so not simple, it's kind of insulting.
Speaker 1:But there's something sort of understated and simple about the song and it went all over the place.
Speaker 2:We jokingly said at one point that was going to be like our African child, like the get into the Greek reference. Like it just had everything in the kitchen sink in it and it was like this is terrible. We got to shift this down to the foundation, away From Us or Empty Walls, had a really good immediate idea and you had a really great couple of lines that you had written.
Speaker 2:But, then every time we just got stuck and I think it took us listening to a couple of things and trying to figure out where it was going to go and we finally got that sort of chord progression that allowed us to. It really opened up the rest of that song and then it became much easier. But until that space, that was a challenging song for us to get through, but now it's also one of my favorites. Well, that song is immense. I mean, it was a huge undertaking, and it was.
Speaker 1:it's the longest song on the album and on purpose. It takes people to church, yeah, I mean we wanted to do something that was drawn out. Another band that we really love is the War on Drugs, the war on drugs, and, whereas they have this very like um dylan, bob dylan sort of influence and and we don't sound like that band, but we wanted to do our version of something that they might do, which are these big like for the rafters, spacey, emotional, convicted, you know.
Speaker 2:Guitar jam for days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like something that just feels like it's okay that we slow down and take our time. You know, we're not trying to write a pop song per se. We're trying to take you on a journey and the lyrical concept was always really strong with that, which is like if you've ever moved which I imagine most people have if you've ever left a place that you've lived in for a while, you get this weird feeling as you're moving.
Speaker 1:But especially when you're doing those last couple trips where everything's basically gone and you have this moment where you are kind of staring at all these empty walls that used to have photos on them or artwork, and the TV used to be over there. You go in the bedroom oh yeah, there used to be be over there, you know. You go in the bedroom oh yeah, there used to be a bed there. You know you're kind of looking at a place that you recognize but you don't recognize.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you have this weird nostalgia. Um, and so the idea was to sort of capture that feeling in a song, the best that we could. And this is where I get hung up a lot when we write, and why not having the right chord progression was so tough. It's very hard for me to write Like we'll put it this way the chords and the underlying harmony of the chords very much inform what the lyrics should be to me. Uh, it's not that I've never written a song without music before, like lyrics without music before, because I have yeah, but it that's not natural to me.
Speaker 1:My idea is sort of I I've used this analogy with you a lot. When it comes to songwriting, I'm more of a sculptor than I don't know what the opposite of that would be, but I always feel like the idea is like a block of marble and I just have this intuitive sense of if there's a song in there or not. That's why some ideas resonate with me immediately, whether they're really fleshed out or whether they're still really basic. Where I'll, I'll have this feeling that like oh no, that's a, that's a song.
Speaker 1:Like I just know that's a song.
Speaker 2:I couldn't tell you why.
Speaker 1:I know that, and I couldn't even tell you what it's going to sound like, necessarily, because usually it'll evolve multiple times before it gets to the end. But I have this intuitive sense that there's something in there, something about it is speaking to me, and so now it's my job to go chipping away at the granite and trying to figure out what it is. You know, let it kind of reveal itself. I suppose Now we're getting a little bit pretentious, but that is how I feel about it, and just don't say you're a storyteller.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I craft artful stories. I'm a story, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 1:Don't get me on that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I do, I do understand, you know.
Speaker 1:But you go through that process and so and a big part for me is then, like you know, you have your initial idea and it's finding other complementary ideas that help Evolve so that you can connect the dots that need to be connected. And it's all an intuitive thing. Sometimes you can intellectualize it and be like okay, well, maybe you know if this part's hot, this other part should be cold. Maybe that you know, you, you can kind of say that. But with that song we wrote because it's basically an A section and a b section we had the a section and the question was what's the b section going to be? And we probably wrote three or four different ones and to where it's like okay, yeah, I like that. And I'd go back, I'd take the idea and I would try to write the rest of the lyrics or the rest of the melodies and just feel like I was banging my head against a wall. You know, it's like man, I don't know why I can't do it.
Speaker 1:And then once we got to where it is now, as soon as. So you, you, I remember you playing it, hearing the motif that you know it starts off, that chorus and just going. That's what I've been looking for, and I remember very quickly the rest of the song.
Speaker 2:No, it just went.
Speaker 1:It just unraveled, right there.
Speaker 2:It's like lightning in a bottle in that moment. It's so exciting to have that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's frustrating because you're going. Man, is it that I suck and I can't figure?
Speaker 2:out what's going on here. I can't write, or is it that I suck and I can't figure out what's going on?
Speaker 1:here I can't write or is it that we just haven't found the right thing and your gut's telling you you just haven't found the right thing yet? Yes, but you're wondering, like, can I trust my gut on this? Because I don't know if I'm just telling myself that and really what I need to do is just buckle down and write the song. But I don't like that. Uh, I I that feeling that I get when it's like, oh, you should just push through and write it. I'm glad that I rarely do that because, especially if I really believe in an idea, every time that I've just let it take the time that it needs.
Speaker 1:It's ultimately gotten where it needs to go because like. I would hate to have a really great part that excites me turn into a song that never comes out because it's like well, yeah. I mean, we wrote, I wrote it. Yeah, I checked the box Like I. I wrote another section, finished some lyrics and wrote a melody, but somewhere along the line it it lost its way and it kind of lost touch with me, and so it doesn't really even matter that you finished it.
Speaker 1:It's like what good is it to have a finished song if it's not right? You know, and I was frustrated with that song for a long time, but it felt amazing to get it where it was supposed to be.
Speaker 2:There are moments there. This will be a random reference maybe for our listener, but I keep going back. There's a favorite moment in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with Leonardo DiCaprio. He's playing the character Rick Dalton and he screws up his lines and he's got this little girl in there in a scene that just shows him up and it shows him coming into his trailer and he just smashed everything around.
Speaker 2:It just has a full meltdown which is one of the best scenes in that movie by far and I go back and watch that so much because it's very illustrative of exactly how I feel in certain moments in time, where you just feel like an absolute failure and you just can't and you just question everything and like am I just a shitty musician? Can I just not write songs?
Speaker 1:anymore. Is that what?
Speaker 2:I just can't write a song. I might as well just quit, yeah, because I don't know how to write a song and you just get get into that sort of spiral, or you don't even know what you're looking for.
Speaker 1:So how do you know? You haven't found it. What am I trying to say?
Speaker 2:Am I being pretentious? Am I some pretentious asshole now writing?
Speaker 2:asshole music and all this kind of weaving of self-doubt, that kind of festers in you for a while, but eventually you come to your senses and go.
Speaker 2:Is this a song I really believe in or not? And I think all of the songs that we've been able to finish, even ones that that, like I said, or like we've talked about, we we don't know yet where they're going to go or what what may come of them, and some we don't feel like are fully the best product that we could create. They just checked a box to your point, yeah, but the ones that are here that we've that made it through sort of our own blender, if you will, I think there's something that's really important for anybody that's in a writing. Partnership is like both people, or all three or all five or 10 or however many really do have to find a place where it can be a shared agreeance that, yes, these are, these are good, these make the cut, these are good songs, and I think yeah once we've gotten these out there and really started to realize that this was a record.
Speaker 2:Um, there's a lot of songs on there that we were just incredibly proud of and I know we worked really hard.
Speaker 2:We've only touched on a few and I'm sure there's plenty of podcasts to go that we could talk about other stuff and other songs.
Speaker 2:But I know we really want to save a lot of it for the people to get to hear it, because it becomes yours once it comes out into the world, and how you interpret it, what you hear from it comes out into the world and, yeah, how you interpret it, what you hear from it, what it does for you, how it motivates you, how it makes you feel those are your emotions to have. We're just the people that get the the pleasure being able to kind of create in that space and I know, just to put a bow tie on the whole thing, I'm just super grateful that in six years since the last record, we've just never closed the door, and there's so much underneath that statement that I know we can talk about in another podcast or another time time, but just the fact that we're still sitting here today, even though we're 2,700 miles away but still writing music to this day and still actively focused on continuing to do this thing. It's just a testament to our resilience and our love of working together.
Speaker 2:It's like a brotherhood in that space and it means a lot to me it really does To have a person that shares a similar vision, that wants to do things that is very headstrong and focused in that way, and we obviously have our own arguments and debates and discussions and things, but we've done that to create something that we're very proud of in the end of the day, and whether it's the art, whether it's the videos, whether it's the music itself, we want the thing to evoke the same feelings that we had when we listened to music for the first time, in whatever medium we listened to. That we had when we listened to music for the first time, in whatever medium we listened to, just to have that sort of excitement. The hair on your arms stand up when you hear a song and you get excited. Or you're singing the lyrics in the car at full volume, you know, while someone's looking at you at the stop sign you know, while you're just, belting it out, living your best life.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's the thing that keeps me awake at night, thinking about new stuff, and it keeps me motivated to keep wanting to do this thing, because it isn't easy. I mean, for anybody out there that knows that it's like working bands, people writing music. It's not easy to do that stuff. It's not easy to sit down and just say, yep, today I'm going to write a song. Okay, what's that really going to turn into? You know?
Speaker 1:yeah, well, I mean, there's a difference between writing a song. I think anyone can write a song.
Speaker 1:You could write a song in 30 seconds yeah um, and there's there's a difference between just writing something in the same way that anyone can write a story right, but not everyone's, stephen King, you know it's. There are different levels to this, and I think when you're trying to really make art and you're having to look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself is this genuinely what I want to say? Is this genuinely what I want to say? And I don't just mean with the lyrics, but I mean with the music, with all of it and how it's put together, is it? Does it really reflect who I am or what I believe in, or what excites me or what I think is cool, or is it just something I made? Not that just making something is bad, and sometimes the things that you don't put that much thought into turn out to be great, and the irony is is that a lot of times, those things do reflect your parts of yourself that you didn't realize you were reflecting, and that's why it's great, and other people can can see that, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:One other thing that I wanted to share was um, I think probably the single biggest thing that I learned writing this record was how to not give up, which sounds kind of stupid to say it that way, and maybe it is kind of stupid to say it that way. Um, one of the hardest things for me is pushing through when it's not working. It's so demotivating like, oh my God. And so part of why I think it took us so long to write this record is that what comes easy, I think, to both of us, is new ideas. Oh yeah, new ideas are cheap. Like they come easy. They come easy.
Speaker 2:Knock on wood. They come easy.
Speaker 1:Right now you can sit there and jam on a guitar or find a couple of chords that work. It's very rare that I can't sit down and come up with something that feels like a nugget of something that could be cool. Right, not everything I make like that turns into a song, but you know what I mean. Right, like you, you sit down. It doesn't take a long time to get something that excites you.
Speaker 1:What's hard is, once you've found something that excites you, you've built it out and you're like 70% of the way there 80%, 90% or whatever percentage you are you're too far to want to give up on it, or at least your integrity tells you I can't give up on it because I know there's something great here, yeah, but also what I'm doing right now to finish, it does not work and I don't have the answer to what works. And that's when what I've started to get a lot better at and I think this album forced me to do it, because I think we got a bunch of songs to that place where it's like these are all really cool.
Speaker 1:We believe in these, we think these are going to be great songs. They're just not great songs right now. Yep, yeah, or this guitar part doesn't really work, or this section loses steam, and so you end up getting to a place where you're like, well, I mean, we need to write more songs anyway. So why don't we just put this on the back burner until we have a good idea for it and we'll just work on something else? And I think early in the process, that's probably not a terrible idea, because you do need to just keep writing and so if that keeps you efficient, then great.
Speaker 1:But at a certain point that becomes a big problem, because then you're sitting there and you've got a stack of unfinished things that are all a challenge and the only way that you're going to make it through is to put in the time, put in the energy and be willing to have it perpetually, not work until it does and not let it get you down, because for me I can tell you like especially. You know we talked about helping hand at the beginning and maybe it's fitting to talk about it at the end. It's a song that the hang up with it, of all the iterations we did, was the vocal For whatever reason you know, it was like is it the lyrics, Is it the melody, is it the delivery, is it the key?
Speaker 2:Is it like what is it so you have?
Speaker 1:to try 5,000 different things and sometimes in the process of doing that you find out what the problem is early and something clicks. But sometimes it's not until the 5,000 thing that you've tried before it's like there it is, there's the light bulb Edison.
Speaker 1:And so that required me being in this room actually singing that same song over and over and over and recording a million different takes, trying to find something that was going to work. Because sometimes when something is just like, uh, like maybe a good analogy is flying right, like if you're in an airplane and you're bearing, you know, if I fly from here in Nashville to California and the pilot's bearing is off by a degree by the time I cross that 2,700 miles or whatever, I'm going to end up nowhere close to my ultimate destination. I was only one degree off at the start, but you take that over a greater distance and it becomes a big problem. And so sometimes it's not that you're way off, sometimes it's. It's just you got to find the pocket, and that requires kind of loosening up and not being so caught up in just getting it done.
Speaker 1:You know thinking, man, I've been working on this song forever. I really want to complete it. It should. It shouldn't be this hard, getting too caught up in the details instead of just being in the moment and trying to find, okay, where's the pocket, where can I fit in? That this is going to really make sense, and a lot of these songs had those moments for me and I think ultimately have made me a much better writer, because it's recognizing that it's okay if it's not working, it just takes some time. Yeah, just be willing to put in the time.
Speaker 1:There's no substitute for that Time and energy. Like not everything is going to be a lightning bolt, you get the whole song in one shot. There are some of those. Forgotten man is one of those songs on this record where it came in like an hour or two. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was immediately there.
Speaker 1:I performed it a couple of times to get a decent take and a voice memo on my phone and I sent it to Kevin and how you hear it is basically identical.
Speaker 2:Pretty darn close to what it was, it's just a full band playing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know. So you have those, but then you have others that are labors of love and require a lot more work. And I would say, you know if you're working on something and it doesn't even have to be a song, but you know if, if you're putting your heart into something and you really believe in it, don't give up on it. You know they're not. Everything is going to be. You know that divine inspiration.
Speaker 1:And that's great when that happens, um, but you can't be overly reliant on that, because that's not the only way to get to the end goal. And I think in the past, um, and maybe the, the that just speaks to my lack of experience in in that you know you overly rely on those moments where you kind of get the lightning strike, uh, but if you do that, it's going to take forever to, you know, have enough work to show for your time. So, so that was huge for me. And the only other thing that really I wanted to mention about the writing is uh and I hope this comes through for everybody Certainly not every song is a positive, uplifting song. Uh, don't, don't want to give you that impression. There's a couple of negative ones on there.
Speaker 2:We're not always positive, uplifting people.
Speaker 1:No, but at the same time I distinctly felt, writing this record, like I wanted to do my best to bring a positive outlook even in the songs that are kind of negative. It's almost like tough love, and in fact I think that was a working title for one of the songs. Yeah, because this speaks to a post-pandemic world it speaks to, especially here in the United States, like a divided political climate to all the different things that we come into contact with. There's so much negativity and there's so much getting sucked into that.
Speaker 1:And I think I don't know. Not that I felt responsibility, but I just felt like I wanted to put some more I don't know optimism into the world, some more fun, some more joy, some more care, and to do it in a way that's still rock and roll, to do it in a way that is still authentic to who we are. That doesn't feel cheesy. It's not about that. It's just about, um, I I've always tried to write lyrics that were really honest, and it doesn't mean I haven't written a story here or there or something that was just kind of cheeky and fun, right. But most of these things are deeply reflective of something that I care a lot about or I'm thinking a lot about or that I'm going through. So it still needed to fit within that, but I wanted to.
Speaker 1:I didn't want people to leave listening to this feeling bummed out or negative or frustrated.
Speaker 1:I wanted people to listen to this and feel like I don't know, a little lighter maybe, and like there's still people out there who are trying to make the world a little bit better in their own way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so that maybe, if we all try to do that and again, this is. This is cheesy and corny, but I guess I am what I am uh that maybe other people would I don't know follow suit, or or feel, uh, if they're already doing that, to feel encouraged that other people would I don't know follow suit, or or feel, uh, if they're already doing that, to feel encouraged that other people are in the trenches with them, uh, and that we don't have to let the world fall into endless infighting and negativity and divisiveness and all these other things. I mean there's a lot of important stuff happening in the world. You know, I I'm not gonna argue with that or take a side, but just to remind us that we're all people trying to do our best and yeah, um, that we got to take care of each other um and that we, we do make a difference with the actions that we take and the the work that we contribute.
Speaker 1:so anyway, uh, long-winded, so sorry, kev, but no, I love that.
Speaker 2:I think, just to wrap us on this as well, it's like writing is a journey, and a journey that evokes not only the process of, as musicians, to really articulate what you're trying to say, but also being more aware and more in tune with your life as it's happening, because it is very reflective of where we were, our moments in time. I heard a thing, and I'll maybe close this out with this You're not to get us on the topic of Bush, because I know you maybe aren't as big of a fan as I am, but Gavin Rosdale said something on it.
Speaker 1:I thought it was like George W.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not that Bush, yeah, the band. We'll get into another podcast about our love and hate for different bands that we like. But, again Guilty Pleasure, not even Guilty Pleasure. I like the band. I think he writes great music.
Speaker 1:I don't have any issue with Bush, I just really haven't ever listened to them.
Speaker 2:Again, a guilty pleasure, Not even guilty pleasure.
Speaker 1:I like the band. I think he writes great music. I don't have any issue with Bush, I just really haven't ever listened to them. Yeah, so I don't have much of an opinion.
Speaker 2:But Gavin said something you know that I did take to heart. I thought it was really interesting. He was sharing something on the radio and he's like you know, they ask or you know, Swallowed, or anything that he's done Glycerine, all these songs, big hits that he had, you know, and he's like, when I wrote them I was in a time and place where they really I had something to say in that moment and as I play them now, my life has evolved and changed. So those songs mean something completely different to me in this moment in time and that's how, every single day, every time I get to play them or perform them or go back and hear them now as a listener, it's taken me to a different place. And a lot of times I'll hear my own song, not even think that it's me that wrote that, and just find myself relating to this person who has something to say.
Speaker 2:And I'm 40, 50 years, you know old. You know what I mean. Yeah, but he's like listening to his 20 year old self and and he goes. But what he's saying then means something completely different to me now and it's a bit of a head trip, but it's something he's like. It really keeps the freshness in the songs, Because every single year, every single minute, every single day, these songs begin to evolve and take new life and become different as people hear them. Great books, great art evolves with the time and people find substance in them years and years and years and years from now. So to bow tie this, being able to parent these songs with somebody and get them out, I think is very important, obviously to us, because us, because it's getting out things that we need to say and exercising our own demons and thoughts and, you know, emotions about the world and each other and all of this stuff.
Speaker 2:But when people hear them, they get to make that their own and it becomes their own experience, and I think that's such a special thing that really can help us all somewhat come together, not to be hippy dippy, but it's like music does unite people yeah and because they all know like, the human condition is such that we share very similar things.
Speaker 2:No matter what country you're in, who you are, what race you are, what you believe, we all have those shared things and it's just special being able to have the gift to write music and certainly the gift of having to be able to do that and experience that with someone that you love and appreciate. It's just very special and I don't take that for granted. It's a responsibility that I love to be part of and I'm going to keep doing it until the wheels fall off to be part of and I'm going to keep doing it until the wheels fall off.
Speaker 1:I love that. Well, I guess we'll wrap it there, you think?
Speaker 1:Yeah it feels good, I would say, uh, thank you for listening. If you made it this far, we appreciate it. Um, I guess, if you didn't make it this far, we're still grateful, but you won't know that, uh, uh, if you would like to check out the band, um, go to the silver echocom. Uh, you can find all of our links to, you know, social media, youtube, all that kind of stuff. Stay in touch with us there. Um, if you want to learn more about the podcast, uh, if you want to be a guest, you want to recommend a guest? Uh, you have an idea for a topic, anything like that? We are open to that stuff.
Speaker 1:So, thesonicalchemycom as well, as we're on YouTube and X, I believe. So, yeah, check us out in any of those places. Stay in touch. We'd love to hear from you and hear your ideas for the show. You know, obviously, if any of this content connected with you in some way, we'd love to hear from you and hear your ideas for the show. Obviously, if any of this content connected with you in some way, we'd love to hear that as well. We wish you all a wonderful day. Kev is, I guess this is going to date this episode, but you're about to go see a show tonight. You want to tell the people before we leave what that is.
Speaker 2:Yes, we're going to see uh metallica. Um, in their most recent tour I signed kills and limp biscuit opening up for them as well. Two night bill, suicidal tendencies and pantera opening on sunday night for the second night of their two night shows. Um, obviously, I I love all of those bands for different reasons, but uh, yeah, super excited to get some inspiration there, uh, from some veterans in the metal world. But uh, also really excited to see limp biscuit.
Speaker 2:To be honest with you, I I just I've fallen in and out of love with that band, but I'm back in love, love with them and just appreciate what they do and, you know, not taking things too seriously but just having a good time. So on that I will bid you all adieu.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have fun at the show. Maybe next episode you can tell us how it was. Yeah, and for the rest of you at home, have a wonderful day. We will see you later.
Speaker 2:See ya.