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
Creating Art Without the Machine
When legendary bands decide to call it quits, how do we reconcile our mixed emotions as fans? Following Megadeth's retirement announcement, we dive deep into the delicate balance musicians face between preserving their legacy and continuing to perform as they age.
There's something fascinating about which artists seem to age gracefully with their music and which ones face scrutiny for continuing past their perceived prime. We explore this phenomenon through the lens of bands like Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, and Oasis, examining what makes certain musical styles more compatible with the natural aging process than others. The parallel between aging musicians and professional athletes becomes strikingly clear – both navigating the inevitable physical decline while managing the weight of their artistic legacy.
As independent artists ourselves, we pull back the curtain on our creative process, sharing the journey behind our upcoming music video for "Take the Flame." From conceptualization to execution, we reveal how we combined influences from Sin City's stark aesthetics and Foo Fighters' "Rope" video to create something visually striking on an independent budget. This conversation highlights the challenges and triumphs of hands-on creativity when you don't have major label resources at your disposal.
The discussion evolves into a reflection on how music consumption has fundamentally changed in the streaming era. Remember when you'd live with an album for months or even years, learning every nuance and developing a deep connection? We contrast this immersive experience with today's rapid-fire listening habits and consider what's gained and lost in this evolution.
Whether you're a musician, a passionate music fan, or simply curious about the creative process, join us for this candid conversation about artistic integrity, legacy, and the ever-evolving landscape of music appreciation. Don't forget to check out our new single "Take the Flame" on September 12th, with our full album "Truth of Instinct" following on October 3rd!
Learn more about The Silver Echo at thesilverecho.com
what's up. What's up, what is good we're live.
Speaker 2:Oh hell, yeah, we're live. Let's go, let's go. I love that you are sporting our rough cut of the uh of the echo yep test print test.
Speaker 1:This is not it looks pretty good on here. Yeah, if you were to see this shirt up close, you would appreciate the design, but you would see some problems with with the way that it came out. But it looks pretty cool on here.
Speaker 2:Oh, geez, hit my camera, yeah, but good from far, but far from good yeah, I mean, you can see it. You can see at least, it's a sick design oh yeah, no, it is, and I'm glad we got it cleaned up. I also am sporting.
Speaker 1:Uh yeah, if you order I should say, if you order from our website, it will be an updated, supreme, perfect version and you will love it.
Speaker 2:Yes, go ahead. So please jump to the website and order.
Speaker 1:But enough of the shameless plug.
Speaker 2:Anywho, oh yeah my shirt.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Repping the nine inch nails. Of course, woodstock Vintage Got a chance to see them, which was great. I know you and I talked a little bit about that. This, this tour, is crazy Cool. Yeah, yeah, putting the whole stage in the center and opening.
Speaker 2:There were so many unique things about that show too. A Number one Not to bounce all over the place, but the first show with Josh Freese back on drums in the weirdest drum, menage a trois. I don't know what is going on in the drumming world. It's such a crazy weird turn of events. But Elon joins Foo Fighters, I guess for this little bit of six-week run that they're going to do at the end of the year. Josh comes back to Nine Inch Nails. So the Oakland show that I got to go to was the first show that he got to play. Trent says something in the middle of that show where he's like this guy literally had one day, 24 hours, to learn this whole set and mastered it. And in his day he's like this takes us months to put this whole thing together and this, this mfr comes in here and knocks it out and 24 hours is wild just knowing their music and I've only seen them once.
Speaker 1:But I can't imagine learning one of their sets in a day it doesn't. It's crazy, that doesn't compute to me at all.
Speaker 2:No, I mean no, granted, he's played with them before he's got a leg up, so I'm sure some of the songs he probably had down pat, you know, oh yeah, but even still, that's craziness like I can't I can't imagine doing that yeah, I'm saying like, if you get a chance to see him on this leg I think it's a short leg that they're doing right before the release of the new record for tron um, but man, the light show and and how they did the stage was really impressive.
Speaker 2:And, like I said, also just to have the courage to come out in a band like that, for him to come out and start with just him and a piano, which was so raw, and it's not what you're going to expect, you know, you're going to expect that pummeling sort of industrial thing that he's got going on, but for him to come out and just do remixes of his own stuff, that's just him and a piano to start. The set out was really interesting. You know, I I don't know if I don't know. That's a brave choice to do, because you just think your audience is out there and they're ready to hear like had, like a hole or terrible lie, or you know, all of the we're in this together, or whatever yeah and you're gonna go.
Speaker 2:Oh wait, I'm gonna start with like a remix of piggy and um, some of the more ballad stuff here's the soundtrack of soul.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not that he's never challenged the the audience at all like there was one tour a little while back where they all came out and sort of played acoustic style instruments in a section and did excerpts from the ghost soundtracks that they've done the instrumental stuff, so they've done stuff like that. But again the middle of the set not to give too much away, but middle of the set was a completely away, but middle of the set was a completely. It's like he's remixing his own stuff. He has boys noise uh, out there with him and atticus on this little mini stage in the center of the floor and they're doing like remixes of closer and um, like pretty hate machine era stuff that he had on there too, like sand. So it was just really cool and I've seen them a lot, like 30 plus times. So is it really that many times?
Speaker 1:yeah, okay. So that begs the question what's the band that you've seen the most number of times? Is it nine inch nails? It would probably be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's gonna have. It would probably be Nine Inch Nails, black Rebel Motorcycle Club. I've seen quite a bit. That's got to be in the 20s. I think Lisa and I were talking about that the other day, but Nine Inch Nails I've seen. I think the first show I got to go to is 90. Well, 93, 92 or 93. The broken ep had been done. Pretty hate machine was out and he's still kind of touring on that stuff. It's pre-downward spiral. And then I saw them four or five times on that tour, um, in different places. I got to see him with David Bowie and a band, an artist that he had on his label called Prick, in Cleveland, in Columbus, which was really cool. Two shows of that, which was really great, also a very unique thing because he talks about that a lot. Anyway, I don't want to get a whole tangent on that, but a really great show to see him play with David, which is insane.
Speaker 1:But I feel like you're making me look bad because I don't think I've reached double digits with any band.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got a late start, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, sure, A little bit. There is a bit of an age difference that factors in.
Speaker 2:but even still like no, I mean a late start, just going to shows, I mean I was going early to shows. I mean I was going early, so 15, you know what I mean. Like I was, yeah, yeah, I was seeing all the hair bands at like 15 and 16 years old. Yeah, so yeah. I had a chance to see a lot.
Speaker 1:I did see some stuff earlier on, but yeah, I mean it wasn't with the same frequency and it wasn't the same uh, variety of choices. Let's say, um, as what you have been able to go see, I feel like my top, like the band that I've seen the most, is probably trivium, and I probably which is crazy to me because I would have picked.
Speaker 2:Knowing you and how much you love avenged, I figured avenged would have been the band that you probably got to see the most. I know that you've seen trivium a few times, but I would have figured avenged might have been more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know. I that kind of. I think I haven't seen Avenged in a long time and part of it is because they do really massive world tours and so they won't be in the US for like two years or something or select places, years or something or select select places, and so, for whatever reason, it hasn't worked out that I haven't seen them since, uh, the nightmare tour cycle, I think, was maybe the last time I saw them.
Speaker 2:That would have been a heyday for them, like they're sort of the pinnacle of their time, that's when they went to the next next level. Yeah, they're kind of on right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah um and so yeah, I've seen avenge probably four times I think three or four times, something like that. Yeah, but not in a long time. And yeah, I'm trying to figure out. There's a festival that happens, um, and somewhere near me. It's in kentucky though, so it must be. I can't remember what city it's in, but it's like a four-day hard rock and metal festival and the bill is amazing. We will be able to go for the whole thing, because our dog and all that we haven't figured out a way to make that happen, but they headlined one of the nights there and I was just seeing videos of events.
Speaker 1:Uh, just headlined a co-headline to show with system of a down in chicago yeah dude, that's insane. It looks so cool so I really want to go, because michaela's never seen them oh, that's right like, yeah, that's gonna be cool, yeah, that's gonna be really trivium is one of those bands that it seems like they're always in your hometown, like if you're ever like, oh, I want to see somebody, and you look up, somehow trivium is playing near you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just how it feels they never seem like they're ever off tour.
Speaker 1:That's true they're really Korn.
Speaker 2:It's like every time I turn around, at least now, which is great because I've really come to like them a lot. But yeah, Korn, same thing. It's like every time I turn around like you're on another tour this year, Like you don't even have a new record out right now, but you're still going. It's wild. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:But I know, and that's the vibe that I get from trivium, I mean, those guys seem like they're kind of workaholics because, you know, like their singer and guitar player, matt, he streams all the time all the time. Yeah, I've seen some of that stuff for him on top of that, he does jujitsu all the time and he does a bunch of other stuff right, and the rest of the guys are kind of like that too, and they're on tour constantly, constantly so I look at that and I go man, they're just hyperactive and they love what they do and they're maximizing every minute and I I respect that.
Speaker 2:I think that's no, absolutely absolutely, yeah, I think you you were talking about. I mean, yeah, I've seen them a bunch. I was fortunate to get to see them like in like the la palooza era. Um, I also got to see them later on with jane's addiction as well, which was again a big deal for me because I was introduced to Nine Inch Nails with a friend of mine, a hipster friend, that gave me a cassette tape that had nothing shocking on one side and Pretty Hate Machine on the other and I just wore that to pieces and they were both. It just kind of sparked.
Speaker 2:It was you know where you're starting to really be out on your own and kind of figuring your own life out without parental guidance or any sort of tether. And that was those two bands on that one cassette. That was kind of the thing for me. So I've seen both of those bands quite a bit, but definitely Nine Inch Nails has been the most. You were just talking about Trivium. Didn't they tour? Didn't they do a tour with? Weren't they on that tour with Megadeth and Lamb of God?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, metal tour of the year. Yeah, yeah what do you think about Megadeth calling it done? I almost forgot that they even did that, isn't that?
Speaker 2:crazy.
Speaker 1:I mean.
Speaker 2:I kind of get it.
Speaker 1:It makes me sad a little bit, but I kind of get it. It makes me sad a little bit, but I kind of I wonder, I really I feel this conspiracy theory coming well it is, didn't stain so I mean, I don't know I I don't know.
Speaker 2:I mean, I know it, it could be real yeah it could be real I feel like it's not gonna be like the motley crew thing though. Like please, god, don't do that, like don't make a big spectacle of ending your band, only to come back five years later and how many times has kiss done that?
Speaker 1:or? Yeah, that was there's been a lot of bands who have done that and yeah, I don't know that there's a couple of sides that I could see to it. I mean it's weird that they didn't really give a reason why. Yeah, I mean, like Dave's kids are grown, so he did it Well he had a throat thing, didn't he?
Speaker 2:He was going through some kind of that stuff too.
Speaker 1:So he did have his health scare. So, yeah, maybe he's focusing on other things. Yeah, but at the same time with how competitive he is with metallica, I find it hard to believe that he would want to be like all right, I quit.
Speaker 2:like you know, I I've given up the chase. I've given up the.
Speaker 1:It seems like he would want to, you know, last longer. Push it further. Prevail, yeah, like yeah if not, if not in uh one way than in another. So you know he's gonna be the band that six out the longest, or puts out the most records, or does the most tours, or whatever maybe he's like you know what.
Speaker 2:I actually did think this and this is so stupid, but in juvenile, but I'm gonna say it anyway. I actually was thinking about him calling it done and he's probably like you know what. I'm just tired of this long hair.
Speaker 1:I don't want to do it anymore.
Speaker 2:I just don't like, I want to, I just don't want to have the hair and I know if I cut it everyone's going to lose their mind, like they did with metallica and well, he's never cut his hair, has he no? I've never seen him. I can't recall if he fell prey to that in the 90s like countdown to extinction era.
Speaker 1:I don't know if he did, because I don't remember, to be honest, I don't recall and I've always felt like it's been long, with short hair. It's always been long.
Speaker 2:It's been long. So yeah, I just thought maybe he's just like it's not even about the music or anything, it's so innocuous.
Speaker 1:It's like, yeah, I just don't want to have this hairdo anymore, man well he may also be kind of like the guys in slipknot, where I mean I know david's been doing it longer, but there's a lot of physical pain yeah, I know david's talked about that, his neck problems and back problems and stuff like that, and after a while maybe he's just gotten to a point where he's like, yeah, I just don't want to keep wrecking my body, yeah, I'm gonna make it to whatever age I'm gonna make it to, and I'd like to make it there in one piece, or at least, you know, enjoying my my time not that he's super old, but you know, it's like at a certain point you have to start thinking about that, I assume, where he's well, and that's the other thing it's like.
Speaker 1:This is gonna feel like it's 75, you know yeah, I'm not gonna be out there going peace you're gonna sound like.
Speaker 2:You're gonna sound like what do you mean? I'll pay my bills help me, it's gonna stop it's gonna not be, it's gonna.
Speaker 1:Uh. How would I say that it's not gonna be an ironic lyric anymore?
Speaker 2:it's really gonna be him being a, him being crotchety old man, yeah yeah, what?
Speaker 1:what do you mean?
Speaker 2:they didn't fulfill my rider I need pepto yeah and that's probably to be honest with you, I don't want to see and I wouldn't want to see that with Metallica. I wouldn't want to see them at a sort of a shell of themselves and sort of the thing. But even that Metallica show, you know, and you got to see them a couple years back too on that same tour, but they still sound great, I mean James, still sounds healthy. They, you know, like I said, like any band that's still doing it live, with no tracks or anything else. Of course they had a couple of mistakes here and there, but for a metal band like good for you guys, like man, you're in your 60s and still pushing it I mean trent's 59 and out there screaming terrible lie every night like wailing his face off. So yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:For some reason in my mind, I think of nine inch nails is a band that could do it for a long time isn't that interesting though you said this the other day about food fighters. Like it's like dad rock.
Speaker 2:It's like I can never imagine Nine Inch Nails being called dad rock. They just continue to sort of push the envelope a little. You know, I think he would be disgusted if he heard that.
Speaker 1:Well, I agree, but I guess there is kind of a limit to things I don't know. I mean, if Trent is healthy and looking good out there, I don't see why he should hang it up. But I do think with Metallica videos that I've seen of them and stuff it's a hard line because I know that the fans really love to see whatever version of somebody that they can see. You know, like the Final Ozzy show is a good example of that You're there.
Speaker 1:It's not just about hearing the songs, it's about the communion. What was an artist that is beloved, right, and so I think especially someone like metallica uh, you know holds that sort of esteem with people. So I can imagine people wanting to see them, even if they weren't holding up super well. But I do see video of them. I mean, they were really good in the show that I saw them.
Speaker 1:They sounded awesome, they played a bunch of songs that I love to hear. That was great, um, but I see you know like um, uh, just some of the of the mental health struggles. Maybe you know that they've been going through and I mean James especially, has been pretty open about that. Had some pretty heartfelt moments on stage a few times. You know, struggled they all have at some point.
Speaker 1:But you know alcoholism and stuff like that. So you look at it and you go I don't, I don't know that I want to see them take it so far that they become. I don't want to see them hopping around like Angus Young and we've talked about that. I love Angus Young, I love ACDC and I would honestly in my heart I can never say they should hang it up.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:But if they were anybody else, I'd be like you should probably hang it up, Because I mean, Angus, it's a little hard to watch, it just feels so far removed from what they are in my mind, in my heart.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, I know there are people out there that are you know both camps and I got respect for both. Like I know people still want to be able New. What's so cool about all of these bands that we've been talking about is if they, if they've made it long enough, they've kind of come full circle to a whole new audience of people that are getting to appreciate them. So you know, at that nine inch nails show, oh, the offspring show last weekend, like you're seeing people that are my age, in their early 50s, but you're also seeing people that are 17, 16, the kids of you know. You know there and they're all just as into it as their parents and I'm like that's a beautiful.
Speaker 2:That's the power of music. Not to sound stupid, but that is it, like to be able to kind of join generationally, like that. But it makes a band like a Metallica or any of these bands we talked about. It makes it tough because you're like, oh, there's so many new people that want to come see us and hear us and be part of that family. Yeah, we owe it to them to do it and you don't like, you don't owe it anybody. You know you could still make studio albums and people still love it well, and they still love to play that's the thing too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you gotta want to do it.
Speaker 1:It's easy as a fan to be like oh you should just hang it up yeah, completely forgetting that they're real people who don't do this because people demand that they go on to tour. They do it because they love to do it, they love to do it.
Speaker 1:They're wired that way maybe you have a thought on this, because it's weird. It's a complete arbitrary line in my mind, but it's like there are certain bands that I feel I can go on forever and I don't. I don't mind it at all. The stones totally fine to see mick jagger, I mean he's in great shape. But no, mick jagger can go do his thing and I have no problem with that.
Speaker 2:Keith Richards looks terrible, I mean his hands are so gnarled I don't know how he can play. Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1:But they're awesome and I think they should go as long as they want to go, like I have no problem with that, but I think about a band like metallica getting to that point and I go. I don't know if I'd want to see them at that age. Maybe I would feel different because I'd also be older, but they're 80 and singing creeping death.
Speaker 2:You're like you're a little too close to the reality of this that's not creeping anymore.
Speaker 1:It's not creeping, bro, it's at your back door.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's already there no, and we say this obviously with a lot of love and and reverence for for all of those bands, but I do. I think as a fan you have to wonder like when is it time? When is it time you see ozzy in the chair? You know he's struggling, two weeks later passes away. But every single person that watched that had to have an emotional if you liked him or liked his music or appreciated it.
Speaker 2:It was such a beautiful thing to see. It was hard to watch that and not cry.
Speaker 2:It was painful yeah, it was, but it was so cathartic you have to understand how cathartic that would have been for him to be able to do that and it's like if I was in that place, yeah, especially given how it played out. Especially that's one where I'm like f you guys, I'm gonna do this. I have to do this for myself. You know, if I pass out or die on stage, so be it, but I'm gonna go out there and do my best to do that. And he gave everything he could for those nine songs that he did and it, it was great, it was, it was.
Speaker 1:I can't imagine going out any other way, you know but it is really weird, though, how some bands seem to not get that pass yeah. You know, I don't know what that is Maybe it has to do with, like, the attitude that I associate with the band.
Speaker 1:It's like at a certain point you kind of age out of it, like you know Pink Floyd or I guess you know Roger Waters or whatever you end up seeing that stuff's not a problem for me, you know, but thinking about something that is heavier and more I don't even want to say rebellious, because that's probably not the right way to think about it, but there's a certain attitude with certain bands that it feels like you lose a little not, I don't know, I wouldn't even know how to say credibility as you get to a certain age. It's kind of like am I buying this anymore? I don't know yeah yeah but I don't what what makes that feel that way?
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I do think there's. Like you said, there's people that sort of age, gracefully with their music, um, and the music, it's not like I say, like the we've talked about this too it, when you're 20 and you're just screaming and you don't have vocal training, you're not thinking about your instrument, you're not thinking I'm ever going to do this, 20 years from now, 40 years from now, yeah, you're not, you don't care about that. If they sat in the studio and wrote, you know, ride the lightning, they're not thinking about anything past that record, much less 40 years into their career having to think about playing songs off that record and sing that way. The same for dave mustaine, like man, that's like I just have a lot of respect for it. It's like I who am I to judge? You know, I know we're talking about. We're wondering is it the right thing to do? When is it the right time to hang it up?
Speaker 2:But it's like if you still got it in the tank and you still want to do it and you feel like you can pull it off, without additives, I would say, because I think all those bands we talked about are like I'm not going out there and playing to a stupid tape. I'm not going to do that and I don't. I think at least I could be foolish to think that but I don't think they were. If you heard Steven Tyler on that Ozzy tribute as well, man, he's 77. He was older than Ozzy and wailed Like he sounded super great. So I'm like and looks great. You know, he still got it.
Speaker 1:So that's crazy.
Speaker 2:Sammy same thing, like Sammy H hagar still sounds super good to me. So I don't know who gets to pass, who doesn't. You know I love motley crew but I don't want to see them right now. With vince neal, the way he sounds, it doesn't sound great. It doesn't do them justice. The rest of the band sounds super but vince doesn't have it. But Vince wasn't the best singer in the world anyway, you know and I don't know if he took care of his instrument either. But that's just my opinion as we're talking about it.
Speaker 1:I just feel like there's a huge parallel between this conversation and like a professional athlete yeah, yeah, in the sense that it's like you have this competitive fire within you so you want to do it. At some point, your body is going to stop working the same way that it used to. You're not going to be able to demand the same things of it.
Speaker 1:It's going to get harder to do it. But that's not the only thing you have to manage if you're really great at what you do, because you also have a legacy to maintain. You know, no one wanted to see, you know, Tom Brady out there getting destroyed just to say that he could keep doing it.
Speaker 2:It's like that's a great point.
Speaker 1:At a certain point it starts to erode your memory of the amazing things that he did. Right, it's like if he would have kept playing. At a certain point, the thing you would think about when you think of Tom Brady would be like oh yeah, the guy who, like way, overstayed his welcome. It wouldn't be the guy who won whatever six Super Bowls you know like, and so it's. It's obviously it's different with art, it's different with artists, but depending on what your art is and how you're able to represent it, I do think it starts to change how people maybe think about the legacy, and that may or may not matter to them thought, because you may just say screw my legacy, like I only get one life so if I can do another tour, that's what I'd love to do.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna play in front of people.
Speaker 2:That's what I want to do yeah, well they may say maybe it's time to pivot and do something else or like another one of my favorite bands that I get to go see this weekend, they call it quits for 15 years and then decide you know what?
Speaker 2:well, yeah, we'll take all the money to do this. Why not? This sounds like a good plan and they still sound great, I mean. And they're not. It's not like they're super old, so it's like their music is still kind of resonating with people again. And a new audience has found oasis like they're super old, so it's like their music is still kind of resonating with people again. And a new audience has found Oasis and they're like, oh, this is really great.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm excited for them because I feel like I would want to see Oasis as elderly people. Yeah, yeah, I might feel different when we get there, but I feel like if Noel's 77.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't know, what that would make, liam. I feel like I would still be able to stomach that, no problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's an attitude and a swagger that they have about him that is kind of timeless to me.
Speaker 1:I'm really looking forward to it. The songs are like, I mean, I don't think it's that crazy for me to say and I'm certainly not the first person to say that there's something Beatles-esque about their song writing, and so there's something about that that makes it, as you said, timeless, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and again, no one sings like Liam. Like you know to do a cover of an Oasis song, you wouldn't want to do it like Liam because you might run into mockery or not as good or all those kind of tropes that people fall into because his voice is so unique. It's like no one really sings or sounds like that as many of the other artists we just talked about today too. But you know getting to anyway. I'm just more nerding out about the fact that they found a way to kind of put aside their brotherly squabbles. Whether it was for all the money in the world to do this tour or not, I don't care Like I'm just happy that they came out.
Speaker 2:They give enough of a crap about their own music and their legacy to put in the work and the time. They bring back integral people that have made the band what it is back into the fold to do this tour, and they did it for the fans, and the fans have shown up in a remarkable way to really say thanks so much for coming back and giving us this music, and I think for them like seeing them come out on stage arm in arm and hugging each other after the show or between songs or something like that. It's special because the brothers can fight, you know, yeah, and it's good to see that. I love their solo stuff. I have joined that, of course, because I'm just such a massive fan of the band, but I'm very excited to see them play. I just wish they would pull more deep cuts, but I know that that's not what this is.
Speaker 1:At least not yet.
Speaker 2:Maybe in a few years Maybe they come back and do that. And again, I was fortunate enough to get to see them a few times and got to see them play some of those other songs that I do really enjoy. But again they're covering most of the songs off the first two records and a couple of songs here and there, but again they're covering most of the songs off the first two records and a couple of songs here and there I'm good with that it's the stuff that everyone it's kind of like if you only get a shot to see them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to hear Live Forever and Champagne, supernova, and Don't Look Back in Anger and Supersonic yeah, slide Away.
Speaker 1:Of course, I want to hear all of those songs. Yeah, you're going to want to hear all of those songs. Yeah, you're gonna want to hear everything, but.
Speaker 2:But if you had to choose, it's going to be those early big songs, I think I will definitely be recording some stuff, because the first night is the vip package, so we have special floor, ga floor. So we're gonna make that one the one, and then the next night we're in the seats because we probably can't hang to do it two nights in a row. Uh, we're gonna go so hard.
Speaker 1:On the first night we're gonna be like okay, I'm gonna try 15 years in the making. So you, you know, shoot up whatever steroids you need. Uh, yes, you know, athletic tape whatever you need. You, yes, you know, athletic tape whatever you need. You know, get yourself some crutches, whatever it's got to be, to keep you in the game. Oh my.
Speaker 2:God, you better come prepared.
Speaker 1:It's too much, as if I hear yeah, I left kind of early because you know we wanted to beat traffic back to the hotel. No, I won't do it.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to do it. Yeah, I would be pissed for me too if I did that. I'm like who are you right now, dude? Yeah, what happened to you, man? What happened?
Speaker 1:I don't know, I just uh, yeah my foot started cramping up and I uh my, my ankle got really.
Speaker 2:You know it was hard.
Speaker 1:It's hard to stand for that long, buddy, I had a headache all day and it wasn't going away, and so I just you know I need to go lay down.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if I hear anything like that, I'm going to punch you in the face. Yeah, I welcome it.
Speaker 2:I would respect it and I would be owed a punch in the face for that. But yeah, it's going to be great. I'm super excited this I'm stuck for you. Dude it caps off something that's really been. It's been a very exciting, creative couple months. I mean a fun transition for us, but it's like we wrapped a video, yeah and got to shoot that yeah mean, obviously we've been promoting.
Speaker 2:For those of you who are keeping up with that, we have a new song coming out very soon. Hopefully by the time this airs it'll be out or very close to being out.
Speaker 1:We have an album about four weeks behind it and something that we've always tried to do, depending on when in time people are listening to this because they may be listening to it in the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we are in the beginning of September of 2025. So on September 12th is the new single. The new album is October 4th of 2025. And, yeah, we put so going to be up of this podcast are going to be a deep dive across a whole bunch of topics that relate to the new album, from how we wrote it, the production, all kinds of stuff. So you'll be able to check all that out. But I think in the lead up and getting all this ready to go, it's been really interesting. And I remember, before we had the album mastered and before even really all the songs were totally done, I think I remember you calling me and saying, like I have this kind of crazy idea for a music video. I really want to do a music video. For at that point the working title of the song was truth of instinct, which is now the the album title title yeah and the song is take the flame and uh.
Speaker 1:So it's like, yeah, I, I have this kind of crazy idea for a video for take the flame and I think it could be really cool. I'm not quite sure how we're going to pull it off, but I want it to be sort of a uh taking influence from two really interesting to me, really interesting sources, and one is foo fighters rope right is it the rope video?
Speaker 1:yeah, so they do this this video where they're in this like kind of lit up box and the way they shoot everything. Yeah, it's a cube, that's a better way to say it. Yeah, um, they're in this cube and the way they shoot it is, everything is kind of overexposed, so they look sort of like silhouettes. Um, but then you were also thinking about uh, um, why am I blanking on the name the?
Speaker 1:sin city movie sin city yeah, and frank miller his graphic the graphic style of frank miller, yeah yeah, and so thinking like, how could we tie something like that together? What, what could that look like? And so I I don't want to spill the whole thing, but I thought from the moment that you told me that I thought that was a really cool idea yeah and I didn't second guess whether we'd be able to do it. But I also had no idea how that was going to work, and so I just sort of trusted you on that.
Speaker 1:But I think it turned out incredible. It looks super great. Hopefully, if it's more than a week after this comes out, then the music video will be available so you can check that out kind of everywhere that music videos exist um, our website, youtube, whatever, uh. But I I think it kind of nailed that idea, at least of how I envisioned that it would look, when you mentioned those references, and so I don't know, I would love for you to talk about the process and kind of how you arrived on that and you know it's what all did it take for us to to pull that off?
Speaker 2:I think what's interesting about us as creative individuals is we all have things. Aside from the beauty and the joy of getting to make music, we also when it comes to how are we going to market this stuff? How are we going to market this stuff? How are we going to put this out? We both go into very unique lanes. You, of course, focus on engineering. You've been doing a great job with the social media content and handling that stuff, and also dabbling a little bit in the own video editing as well. When you and I met, that was my gig.
Speaker 1:I don't mean to brag, but I know I.
Speaker 2:I just check out the behind the scenes video and it's pretty great. It's pretty sharp.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I was trying not to one-up the video, the music video. Well, you, you did a pretty darn good job of it. I have to say you might put me out of job.
Speaker 2:Um no, when you and I met and first started kicking off our friendship and working relationship, that was a. That was work that I did a lot, um. So I've always had an affinity for wanting to create things like that and uh each video we've done I am a film nerd yeah, that's that is true.
Speaker 2:Like I definitely love film, I love cameras. That's a whole other side of me, aside from the music that I take a lot of pride in art film, a lot of that kind of thing. Um, so, yeah, I I think when we first knew that, okay, yeah, we're probably going to do this song. Maybe this song could be the first single. I really wanted to think about a video that inspired me, and a lot of times in that point in my life it becomes a sponge, like I start grasping or seeing things. I'm just allowing myself to be open to whatever's influencing me in that moment in time, so I might see the intro. I think at that time I was rewatching True Detective and I was so fascinated with the intro credits this is something I'm really nerdy about. I love intro credit sequences to stuff going all the way back to david fincher's seven was like just perfection, perfection, um we watched that the other night, that's so good, but anywho.
Speaker 2:So sin city I loved. I loved robert rodriguez's version of that. I thought it was really great how he incorporated the style of Frank Miller's comic stuff. I've been a fan of Frank Miller as an artist, not just a graphic novelist, but the way in which those were illustrated were just incredible. So I thought, and then I saw there was a video I was trying to think of, which was a Queens of the Stone Age video that also was out, that did a very similar kind of silhouette look to Sin City and I thought, oh, this is really cool. I wonder how they did that and I wonder if we could pull off something at that level. Even for you and I, what's the magic trick for us to be able to pull off something of that quality? Be able to pull off something of that quality yeah, and the rope video, of course. Like I got to see behind the scenes of a little bit of that and go, oh wow, that's a pretty big production. We're never going to be able to pull it off that way.
Speaker 1:Well, and let's, let's pause there real quick and just talk about what, what kind of videos we've done up until this point. Um, this is our our fourth video like music video. We've got a lyric video or two in there. The first one was Rock and Roll Queen, which is a great video like a real performance type video. Nine Inch Nails influence on that one.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, but all the production and editing on that one was done by Golden Taste Media, like our friends over at Golden Taste, so we let them sort of run with like provided them a direction, but they handled you know all of it, the shots, the editing, putting it all together and did a great job, I think that video holds up.
Speaker 2:It's still great. Yeah, it looks still. It still looks great.
Speaker 1:And then we put out some singles in between albums. Whoops, what happened there?
Speaker 2:I just, I just knocked my mic oh, okay, we're good, uh.
Speaker 1:So we put out a couple of singles and we do some videos for. For two of those three songs that we put out during that time, one being paradigm, which is a cool video, um, and turned out really great, I think, and it was kind of, um, uh, also a performance video, but it was kind of also a performance video, but it was kind of an interesting challenge in that we said, okay, what if we just tried to do something with, like instead of, because for Rock and Roll Queen, we rented out like a brewery cafe place and we were there all night when they didn't have customers. We had to wait for their last call, move all the gear in, so we had to rent this place and rent all this additional equipment to pull it off. So we thought, okay, what if we do the opposite of that? We try to do something cool with whatever we have.
Speaker 1:So we have our, our studio rehearsal space here in the garage. It can we make this feel like it's not a garage, yeah? And so that video was shot in such a way that whoever you don't see in frame between you, me and at the time, michael, um, whoever you don't see in the frame is holding the camera yeah, everyone's directing that video so we shot it in such a way that never really, except for maybe if we had a tripod shot.
Speaker 2:We had one wide shot of the band that I don't know, I can't remember if we even used it, but yeah, there was maybe in the very beginning, I think yeah, a couple of times where maybe you see all three of us at once or if I needed to use it because I didn't have a good shot to cut away to, it was always like the oh shit camera.
Speaker 1:So that one was cool, but it was a little bit more. I hate the word basic, but it was a little bit more straightforward and basic of a video. It was like get some cool fog in here, get some cool lights, Shoot some nice angles, but ultimately it's just us in one space and one kind of look, you know, just us. So then you get the crazy idea that you're going to really level up the game and you want to do something super ambitious.
Speaker 1:So the next one we did was for our song Fear on High, and now I feel like, in hindsight, the video is so much cooler than the song is. That's just the growth that we've been through. I suppose but that was our first time trying, like what if we did a video that wasn't performance at all and let's do a video that is, uh, like a narrative?
Speaker 2:yeah, and it became a short film for the song.
Speaker 1:Really, yeah, you know or the or the loose message of the song, if you will, somewhat pieces of it, you know, yeah pulling from some like uh, suspense or horror is pushing it a little far, because there's not like anything gory or anything like that. But pulling from some of the scarier side of things that we love Yep, you know, creepy shots, you know mask being followed all kinds of stuff like that On theme with the song of fear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of fear Right.
Speaker 1:And that video turned out really great. But that was a huge project because we shot in my apartment in Cupertino. We shot in all kinds of different places in San Francisco. We needed hotels, we needed all this stuff, so that was a big production.
Speaker 2:That was a big production, yeah.
Speaker 1:That was a big production.
Speaker 2:Drone shots too. Yeah, thanks, frederick.
Speaker 1:Crazy, yeah, frederick coming through with the drone shot.
Speaker 2:Crazy that we even got that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah, yeah, we needed a lot of extra hands to help us out, yeah, and so then that brings us up to this video, which what I took away from it was how would I even say this? The concept had a lot to do with this, I suppose, but I feel like the quality of this video is higher than anything that we've done by a pretty wide margin. I mean, we've got some good videos, so I mean, yeah, I I don't say that to slight them, but it's a really cool art design, or art direction, I suppose, and it came together really well. It looks like we paid a lot of money for the video, like if we had hired someone to do it, you would think that that was like a top of the line sort of production company, but it was a really small crew.
Speaker 1:It was a very easy shoot.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, Was that an easy shoot I feel like every time we've done a music video of some kind, it's exhausting. I feel like we have to shoot so many different shots, so many different angles, so many different questions on how's this going to work or that, and so I don't know if it was your preparation or you know we had our friend phil there who helped me. You know he ran all the cameras, did all the cinematography, yeah, um, so you and I were really able to just sort of be, free and focus on just being in the moment with the song yeah
Speaker 1:and every time you guys were like okay, yeah, we got it. I was kind of like oh, really I was. I was almost kind of hoping we get to do a couple more of these because I'm having a good time. I felt that way too, so I didn't feel the stress that I felt with the previous ones. I didn't feel nearly as exhausted, and it took a fraction of the time. And then I'm sitting back and I'm looking at what you're sending to me. I'm going this looks so freaking cool.
Speaker 1:Like how did we, how did we do this in such a way that it comes across looking better than anything we've done, with way less like perceived effort? Maybe that's the wrong way to put it, but that's kind of how it felt to me, like it felt like we were playing, you know, rather than working. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was. It was definitely. It's a special moment for us upon reflection. It was just a great day. It was just a really good day, no stress.
Speaker 1:And we had a photo shoot.
Speaker 2:We had a photo shoot, kind of cramped into that which we just sort of ambushed Phil with that and said, hey, take a bunch of photos of us please, we're going to end up needing them. Yeah, I think conceptually I was very committed to wanting to really like with anything. It became like a magic trick and I really wanted to understand. Part of it was a growth for me as a creative person. I just want to understand how to make that magic trick. I want to. I know I wanted to know it. So, learning how to do it, learning about masking, I could probably do a video to show you a lot of the tricks and stuff back there, or we could just keep it magical, but either way, I think you should like, even if it's like a five minute video.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you should make something that just shows people a little bit of what went into it. You should make something that just shows people a little bit of what went into it. Because you know, if you watch the behind the scenes you'll see some of the standard shots, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like what it looked like to us in camera and in the room. Yeah, but then you look at what it turned into and it's probably going to be hard for a lot of people to wrap their head around how, you know, this becomes this. I mean, it's very different, yeah yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it took. Um, I'm very versed as an editor but a lot of the effects and the things that we were trying to pull off in this video took a lot, a bit of time to research. So even before we even got started, I'm researching, like, how to really do silhouetted type shots properly so that they look good, so like if the string on my boot it would show that it's, you know, moving around in the wind, things like that. They were very refined, like if you go back and you look at sin city, you can see things like that, like a button on a coat or, um, you know, like I said, a shoelace or something like that you get to see all that stuff with hair.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not just a rounded off mat, you know, like some kind of weird mat looking thing. When you try and do silhouettes or stuff on a green screen, that doesn't really look natural. Yeah, and the other thing too is, like I said, it's you and I right now that's the band. So part of it, we wanted to have some creative license to be able to make it feel as though we have multiple people playing different things, different looks, different shapes, you know of guitars and things like that, Just to kind of have fun. But the shoot itself was great.
Speaker 2:I was really nervous, to be very honest with you. I come out of that shoot and I'm like this is so much fun. And then the oh my God, what have I done? I'm going to have to figure out a way to edit this. But that was the. That was the fun part of it. Now, on the other side of it, I'm like that was so great, I'm so proud of myself for being able to do it. But I honestly had no idea if I could pull it off or not. Once I got in it I was like, okay, this isn't as bad as I thought.
Speaker 1:You very quickly started getting it together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then I really figured out okay I know what I'm trying to say and how I want to do it and then it just took flight and it felt really great to do it. So I'm excited for people to get to see it and I hope that everyone's going to love it, because it was a really fun gig to do for sure, I mean, it's probably a hard question to answer, but if you had to think about, like, how much time did you put in preparation?
Speaker 1:to get ready to make that video? Do you think like?
Speaker 2:I would say, you know, obviously I'm scrolling on my phone looking at stuff, you know, like split screen in between that and watching some nonsense on TV. But I would say, to be honest, prep work, you know, 80 hours maybe more.
Speaker 1:And that was spread across probably a month. I feel like you were really brainstorming on it for a while yeah, when I was getting all the final mixes and getting mastering ready to go, like you had already kind of moved, shifted into gear into like how are we going to get this done? Yeah, well, I was thinking about album cover artwork, all that kind of stuff that was happening in tandem with that too, but that's true.
Speaker 2:Once I knock that out I'm like, okay, now it's all fully about the video. So yeah, I would say about 80 hours of prep work and research and then a good solid 100 hours plus on the video itself, once I have all the assets done to shoot. You know five, six hours of video and then assembling all that, putting together probably a good hundred eighty to a hundred hours of assembly in refining, coloring, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's a tweaks, yeah it was a.
Speaker 2:It's a process, like there's a couple things in there. What I told you was like that five seconds that you get to see um took an entire day to to do you know, like you're making claymation video, oh yeah, that's. That's what we'll do next. We'll do the flag, the.
Speaker 1:There's a flag in this video and that that was probably one of the toughest, hardest things to do and pull off, but it looks so cool that is an interesting point and, for those keen observers, when you watch it you'll notice the shots that are of us with our instruments are pretty obvious. What those are right like. That's just a camera shooting us, but there's quite a few clips that help just articulate some of the lyrics that happen throughout. That are things that you had to make and animate, and that was really impressive too, because I hadn't anticipated that kind of thing being in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that was a fun surprise for me. And then I pushed you a little bit on a couple other things, which I'm so glad that I did, because not that my idea was so great, but what you came back with was so great, and that was really cool to see that too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just the power of that collaborative thing that you and I have and we can trust each other and we can push each other in that place and go. I think you could try this and maybe that helps to really pull it into this message of hope, rather than maybe into a place that could be more obvious and darker because the song's heavier or whatever. And I thought that's so smart and such a great idea and I did. I was like, oh, thank God, he said that. And then I hang up the phone and I'm like how the hell am I going to do that now? I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1:How, what am I gonna do like good point, but what does that mean? Like what do I do with that? Do you want me?
Speaker 2:to create like a braveheart sequence where it's like oh, you know, you know, and make something kind of warrior-esque. Yeah, how do I say that? Because you can communicate what you see and what the vision could be, and then for me I gotta go cool. Yeah, all right, I love it now how am I gonna?
Speaker 1:interpret that. Well, that is art, that is art, that's it. Uh, and you know we we have that happen a lot with the music too, where we do it to each other but it's like, yeah, I need it to just sound more, um, majestic, can you just, can you hit the majestic button? Yeah, turn that up to 100 yeah you're going. Well, okay, I mean. What does that mean? Am I? Does that mean I'm on the wrong sound or am I playing the wrong part?
Speaker 2:yeah, no, I need you to go to the majestic filter.
Speaker 1:Man just put that on it yeah, yeah, yeah or no. It just feels like it could be better.
Speaker 2:You know the ones when I'm not even looking at you and you're behind me tracking vocals and I'm like dude, I need a little more like, just you know, like cornell meets wyland meets jared leto. Can you kind of do that whole thing?
Speaker 1:all three of which sound completely different from one another, but but that kind of note even is better than a lot of the notes which is like yeah, I don't know, I just it.
Speaker 2:Um, it's just not that believable right now, I don't know can you make it more believable?
Speaker 1:yeah, looser it it feels like it just needs to be looser, okay, well I mean, it's like you know what things mean in concept, but then like how do I change what I'm doing to make it feel that way to you as a listener?
Speaker 2:but that is a interesting thing, I think you know, we did that, certainly the video too it just needs to feel more hopeful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it needs to be hopeful okay, yeah, yeah, I gotcha, I will figure it out. Anyway. There's a lot of cool stuff in that soup. That video we're obviously incredibly proud of it, lived up to me well. The pressure wasn't just about creating a great video. It was also about the expectation against the record, because we put a lot of our heart and soul into this album over the better part of six years. It sounds phenomenal and I say that not as a musician who created it, because sometimes I'm going and listening to these songs now like a listener or a fan and go god, this sounds so good, it sounds so well produced, everything has clarity, it sounds amazing and it's certainly leveled up from our previous work. Yeah, so the video had to kind of live in that space as well. I couldn't probably live with myself if I didn't feel like it was the same. And I go back to an early album cover design that I sent you and you're like no.
Speaker 2:Not gonna happen, which one no?
Speaker 2:I don't even remember that there was one where I was kind of hung on this ideas that photos might represent sort of a uh, yeah, a character or a theme of all the different things that kind of were in that soup of the album, like heartbreak, loss, death, love, you know, different emotional things and trying to find images of us in different points in our life over the last six years. It might represent that. Whether it be symbolic or it's actually an image, yeah, and I put something together. But even for me I was like I looked at it and I go that's good, we'll see what the guys think and we'll see if Justin likes it and you go hey, with love, I always love that Cause you're going to preface whatever is going to come, like all love.
Speaker 1:But because when it stings, you in your heart.
Speaker 2:it's all love, but this sucks donkey balls.
Speaker 1:Sorry, yeah, I have to say with love, because I know it's like, especially if you feel kind of committed to an idea. At least that's how it is for me. You know it's like it's gonna sting for a second. You know it's like, uh, cleaning out a wound or something, right?
Speaker 1:right, right, put some peroxide in there yeah, and clean it all out and it's gonna sting for a second, but then it's gonna feel better. Um, you know, yeah, I do remember that that was an idea, that when you told me like hearing the idea, I thought that sounds cool. And then when I saw it I was like yeah, that ain't that, ain't it that's it, and you do better than this.
Speaker 2:But you also said, kevin, you just you drew and illustrated those, those ep covers. We, we can't go backwards really like you kind of have to keep going in that style. And I'm like, no, I didn't want to sign up to be the illustrator. I don't want every one of our record, you know, our albums to have a drawing. But I'm like, oh no, but well, I didn't even mean it that way, actually, that's funny that you took it that way.
Speaker 1:I just meant more like from a quality standpoint.
Speaker 2:No, I know what. Yeah, yeah, it was like kind of like well, I need to do something, and you gave me some good things like bird of prey. I was like okay, cool bird of prey, but like a, but tough, or like a, you know, like masculine in a way, or, and I'm like all right yeah, I was like think of the word instinct, instinctual, like instinctual makes me think of like Like a hunter, wildlife or it makes me think of nature type things, which is how I think we landed on the bird, the owl.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, because I said, okay, it's a bird of prey, but it's also wise. You know the old adage of wise owl. There's just something about the ruggedness of the owl, you know like it can live for a long time. So there's just sort of uh, thought and quality about that. Plus again and I don't know a lot about owls it wasn't like that I just looked at and go, yeah, that's kind of cool. The eyes, the eyes kind of look cool. Um, so yeah, I did my best to kind of put something together and when I saw it, like, okay, this kind of looks cool, yeah, uh, but even then we, even we even hashed out things like I had a crosshair on our logo and you're like, yeah, it feels like a sniper, like why do you know? Like were we trying?
Speaker 1:to shoot us, like you know are you trying to shoot the bird? Are we shooting this?
Speaker 2:bird. What's the point of the crosshair? Yeah yeah, what was, what was?
Speaker 1:going on. It just felt out of theme a little bit. I'm like I get everything else here, the crosshairs feels like that's from a different concept.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know we're sharing all this stuff for all of you, whether you like it or not. But it's the truth of like the, the creative process you have to kind of. One person may have an idea and go. I kind of feel that's cool or that's, and I wasn't even thinking about it. I'm just like, oh, I think that looks that's kind of cool, like it's in the sites, like I got my site on you, um, but then I could read it from the other side of it. You know, it's like if you put that out and then you're like, oh, my god, what do we do? Like well, it's like people are like taking it out of context or something else. You're like I can't worry about any of that, but I again, the artwork turned out great. I'm very happy with it too, and, um, I'm glad that we, we pivoted in that space.
Speaker 2:I think these are all the things that sometimes you, after you're done with the record and you can breathe a little bit, you're like cool, that's done. But again, we're an independent band or group of people that put out creative content. We don't have a team, as they say, behind us to do any of that stuff. So if it's engineering, it's you figuring out how to engineer it, or us figuring out how to make that sound better or have better presence, transient property, all this other nerdy stuff, right? Or how does the quality of the video live up? How does it look? What's the image that we're putting out on the art and the content? How do those things look? I did mention something to you like aesthetically in the content, how do those things look? I did mention something to you like aesthetically, I think and this isn't a big hippy dippy statement about social media, so please don't think that but I do think that a lot of times, people now put out their image in front of the media, for, you know, so it becomes who they are and what they look like and how they're dressed and how they're representing themselves through something that is a very polished sort of thing. You know, you've cleaned up your photo, you've done all this stuff to and say this is me in my sexy outfit. And oh, by the way, I have a new single coming out and I'm like I was just kind of, I was sort of, I think, maybe pushing against the notion of that and going.
Speaker 2:I do miss a day, and it's. I am older, but I do miss the days in which the music had its own sort of ethos or mystery about it, like you didn't know anything about these bands. You only knew what you were able to see on a record when you opened it up and you see these people standing in a field near some dilapidated looking house and you're like these guys look evil. And you're like, oh, this music sounds evil. You're like, cool, this is Black Sabbath. This is great, you know but, I don't know them.
Speaker 2:I don't know them. I don't see a picture of Ozzy on social media all the time. So a lot of it for me was like I really want people just to be able to absorb and listen to the music in that sort of way, and so I didn't want to overpush our, our own personal image and oversell that before people really had a chance to listen to the music, and a lot of the things that I was trying to get us to from an artistic place were sort of removing us, sort of the antithesis of what people do now. And of course, I say this as we're making a podcast and we've both got our stupid mugs on here talking. It feels like it's very sub-pop of you counterculture?
Speaker 1:Yes, it is, I'm not judging.
Speaker 2:It's just that I thought what would it feel like if we didn't do that? And, strangely enough, I got to hear of all people Fred Durst has talked about recently about the sort of resurgence or the people falling back in love with Limp Bizkit. But he said I intentionally I'm not putting new shirts out at the merch, I'm not promoting things in that way. I want people just to come and listen to the music and decide if they want, if they like it or not. And I thought that's bold, obviously because he's been part of the machine and part of having to do all those things when they were coming up. But he's at a place where he's like maybe I don't really want that to be a thing. I just want to see if people will come out and really get to enjoy what we're, what we're doing and what we're saying. And the truth is they have.
Speaker 2:And when people, when he's he asked the questions like how many of you are under 30 years old and it's your first Limp Bizkit show, and it's like a majority of crowd raises their hand, you know, and he's like yeah, this is what I'm talking about. This is where I didn't go out of my way to blast stuff on social media. People just got to show up. Granted, of course he's opening for metallica, so there's that. But you know, yeah, that helps. So that helps a little bit. Which he even says, like if someone told me six years ago hey, you're going to be, your band's going to be back in popularity and you're going to be opening for metallica, and I think he even said it in the show. He's like I would have told you to go f yourself. Um, he's like that's not going to happen, but anyway, he seemed very grateful for the whole.
Speaker 2:Thing you know, and I'm like, yeah, I kind of dig it, I do understand it, because you get so inundated with everything all over the place that you don't really get a chance to fully absorb something. Or you listen to a record and it's here and gone in a week. You've listened to it, you enjoyed it, and then you're moving on to the next thing. And again, there was a point in time in life where people can live with a record for six months, a year or longer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah that Operation Mindcrime record from Queensryche. I swear to God I listened to that record for probably 18 months straight. I just all the time I couldn't let it go. Pretty Hate Machine Downward Spiral years of listening to that record over and over and over again. So that's just, and maybe it's just how I came up, but it's like I just miss it a lot. And so that's just, and maybe it's just how I came up, but it's like I just miss it a lot.
Speaker 1:And that's where I was getting to with that, you know, yeah, it's funny that you say that, because I do think about that from time to time. And what a? It's a. It's two sides of a coin, right, because it's amazing being able to stream anything at any time. It's amazing being able to have all this new music and to be able to listen to whatever you want. But, man, I have stuff that's in my recently added that I wanted to listen to for a while now that I just haven't got to at all yeah because, like there's too many things to listen to.
Speaker 1:But I remember that there was a period of time, like especially when I was in high school, and I mean Spotify comes out. I forget what year that comes out, I think that's not very far after I graduated, but it was just like on the computer. And so it was like if you were driving around in your car, you had the CDs that you had and that was it. If you were driving around in your car, you had the cds that you had and that was it. So I remember you know going and tracking down cds and I would listen to them forever. Um, I'll hold up. Looks like connection dropped.
Speaker 2:I lost you are you there?
Speaker 1:yeah, I lost you, we're losing, getting a little glitchy yeah, it looks like we just reconnected, okay all right, we should be able to edit that, I think, or yeah, we can cut that out, but we'll let it roll, but my point was like I just I miss a time where you got to really be familiar with every little nuance of a record or of a song and you'd have that stuff that you really super loved and you put it on and you know every word and you know all the little like where guitar is going to do a thing or drum's going to do a thing, and you feel like you're really a part of it. And now music can be so transient that you're kind of familiar with a lot of stuff but you don't necessarily get that same level of familiarity yeah um, I don't know, maybe maybe part of it is just being younger.
Speaker 1:So maybe you know kids who are coming up now in high school.
Speaker 2:Maybe they do just burn stuff out, but they just do it on streaming, but uh yeah, I do think there's a place, though, where new generations of people are going to start to push against the sort of prescribed notion that they got to put everything about themselves out there into the ether. And I do think, in doing that and you're already seeing movements of that now in young kids and high school kids or junior high kids, whatever where they're like no, I, I don't really want to do that, I'm not going to be blasting myself out there, I'm not going to paint myself up and put a picture up just so I can get a light, because they're realizing, I think, some of the maybe the the tougher aspects of what that could do and where and the rabbit hole you can go down if, if you're not careful. But from a music standpoint, maybe that also means that people and again not begrudging anyone putting out music we're trying to do that too, and we're obviously trying to fight for people's attention in that space, so our music can get heard and get listened to by an audience and take root right, not for money, not for commerce in that space. Obviously, that'd be great, but I think it is just for people getting to hear it. But we also are living in a reality where. What's our shelf life like? I would love for people to go back and listen to truth of instinct 20 years from now and go man.
Speaker 2:That song away from us is such a great tune and it meant so much to my life that I continually sing it and I know where the guitar solo is going to go and I could sing the solo and all that kind of stuff and it it is.
Speaker 2:I crave it, justin. I crave it a lot because I do think people deserve to be able to experience what we've experienced in our life in that way, and I don't see a lot of it these days. Of course it's great to have a phone that you can listen to music. A million songs, 50 million songs that's amazing. But it does dilute the true experience of being able to get to sit in a dark room with some headphones, open up a record, smell the inside of that vinyl, put it on, read these crazy lyrics, all this crazy artwork and get fully immersed in that thing and have it be a thing that changes your life, like really change or really inform yourself in that point in time. That cassette tape that was given to me with those two bands changed my life in that moment, and I still, to this day, listen to both of them, you know, even though Perry Farrell decided to lose his mind and punch Dave Navarro in the face.
Speaker 2:That was so wild, I still have reverence for them band and what they did. And of course I you know as well as I do how much I love Nine Inch Nails and trent rezzner and and what he does and what he stands for. So you know, I don't know if I would have that if I was growing up with music today and I'm like man, what it's like you want to be able to tell everybody like this is what it could be if you allowed it to be that way. You know not to get super, like I said, hippy dippy about it, but it's just something. It's very, it's a very important part of my life and I would really wish that people could experience music that way again.
Speaker 1:And I hope they will.
Speaker 2:One day, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, they'll have a chance to throw a record. Hell, yes, they will. We do already have more music planned for after that. So, for, we do already have more music planned for after that. So for once we're we're kind of ahead of the curve, but we'll get to that a little later. Yeah, as we wrap up, there's one last thing I have to get off my chest.
Speaker 1:I've been thinking about this a lot and uh, our record comes out the same day as taylor swift um october 3rd. Who is that? And just? I feel like I really owe her an apology. I'm really sorry that no one is going to find out about her record, cause they're all going to be listening to ours, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right.
Speaker 1:I guess that's just how the world works. Sometimes you know life's not fair, um, but you know, I just thought she should hear it from me that, um, you know life's not fair, but you know, I just thought she should hear it from me that you know we're sorry that we competed on her record.
Speaker 2:We're going on record right now and apologizing to not only to Taylor and her legions of fans, but you know what, taylor? How about share a few of them with us? It's okay, sharing is caring, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what. We're open to it. Bring some of the Swifties over and I'm sure they're going to be digging what we're giving them, you know. And then maybe you'd put us on tour with you. Who knows that?
Speaker 1:would be kind of cool. I'd open for Taylor. Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:Why not?
Speaker 1:Yeah, a fun gig yeah, her fans could use a little rock and roll in their life. Absolutely, you know not saying taylor's not rock and roll, but you know we got our own brand of it, so but I do agree.
Speaker 2:We're coming for you, taylor. Let's see how.
Speaker 1:Let's see who shows up at the box office I'm not declaring war, I'm just saying you better be ready yeah, I just saying like, don't underestimate the power of these two knuckleheads and what we bring.
Speaker 2:We are a, we are a creative bunch, you and I. I love it anyway.
Speaker 1:Well, with that, probably a good time for us to sign off. Um say all of our obligatory stuff. First, thanks for listening. If you made it this far, god bless you. We appreciate you so much for listening to the show. Hit us up if you feel like you'd be a good guest on the show or if you know someone who would be a good guest.
Speaker 1:You can find our band, the Silver Echo, at thesilverechocom or the Silver Echo on any of the major platforms streaming or social media over echo on any of the major platforms streaming or social media. And then you know, this show, sonic Alchemy, has its own website as well, and you can reach us on YouTube and on X. So if you have a question or you have a topic or, like I said, you want to be a guest or anything like that, let us know. We are open to all of that and, yeah, excited to come with our next, uh, handful of episodes. The next three episodes will be more stuff about the band and then, beyond that, we'll, uh, we'll open up the conversations to be a little wider.
Speaker 1:You know, not every episode is about the silver echo but it's a big time in our lives and we're really excited about everything that we have coming out. So we figured it was a great time for us just to unpack everything that we've been working through and the challenges and the wins, and just being able to get people kind of a behind the scenes look at our process, which is really what this show is all about. It's about being creative and, you know, finding new ways to approach our art and you know, learning from each other and all that. So we appreciate you. Uh, we would appreciate you even more if you went and uh bought one of these great t-shirts.
Speaker 1:Um and you can find those on the silver echocom or actually. Final, final plug. Uh, it took a lot of effort, but we have our merch stores on our social media now, and so you can find it on Spotify or on Instagram or Facebook and, of course, our regular website.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, guys, you know where to go. You're smarter and savvier than we are. Go find the Silver Echo. There's going to be music out there for you. There's going to be merch out there for you. There's going to be these two guys out there hoping to continue to keep creating great content and great music for all of you. We love and appreciate anybody who's taken the moment to pull over and listen to anything we have to say or anything we create. Love you all. Please support local artists and local bands. Get out there and see the favorite bands that you love, buy their stuff and keep this thing alive. Appreciate you all. Peace, peace.