The Sonic Alchemy

“Your EQ aura is crispy” and other fake feedback we paid for

• The Sonic Alchemy • Episode 10

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What if the problem isn’t your song—it’s your metric? We pulled back the curtain on playlist “curators,” AI-flavored feedback, and stream spikes that vanish the moment you stop paying. After years of mixed results, we changed the goal: fewer empty plays, more real people who save, share, and stick around.

We talk through how we set targets that actually matter—watch time, saves, comments, email growth—and why geography and language matching beat cheap global traffic every time. We get tactical about ad targeting for rock listeners, reading analytics for red flags (hello, 15-second session drops), and designing creative that hooks in the first moments without selling your soul. Then we zoom out: why algorithms take time to learn, how a timeless catalog works like SEO for your music, and why a slow burn can be the fastest route to a true fanbase.

Between strategy beats, we hit culture and headlines: Ghost canceling a show and the internet forgetting artists are human, Rob Halford’s wedding and a fresh War Pigs with Ozzy, AI-driven funk flips of metal classics that reframe what arrangement can do, and the ever-spicy Mustaine–Metallica discourse about riffs, credit, and fuel for competition. Through it all, we keep returning to the same north star—make better songs, talk to your people, and measure what leads to real connection.

If this resonates, stick with us: subscribe, share the episode with a friend who loves rock, and tell us your smartest (or worst) promo experiment. Want to be a guest or know someone perfect for the show? Reach out via our bio links. And if you want to rep the music, check the new Toxic Heroes tee and hoodie—art by Shannon Cullen at Santa Cruz Tattoo.

Learn more about The Silver Echo at thesilverecho.com

SPEAKER_02:

What's up? What is up? How you doing, Kev? I'm good. I'm all good. Been f staring at our results of our song to see how we're doing on that.

SPEAKER_00:

So far we're at like uh about 9,000 streams on the single so far in two weeks or so. Yeah, a week until the the full album comes out. I know our our final we're shoot we're shooting this episode the same day that the third episode that we shot for the album. That particular one has to do with uh the writing uh production, so must be the recording process, I think. Yeah, I think so. Um but yeah, yeah, it's exciting. Everything is very close to to being out and had good feedback on the song. Um video is doing really well and picked up a whole bunch of new subs. So it's an exciting time for us, for sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. I think it's very interesting to me. Like when you talk to, I don't know, I was talking to my mom or somebody. They're talking about sort of traditional ways of how you would go and get music out to somebody to try and promote yourself. You know, and you think about it, it used to be that you would go to like radio stations and so forth, and you're like, here, play my song, please play my song. Or you would ask people request the song so you know they could play it on the radio station and try and gain popularity. And then if it started blowing up in a certain market, then other markets would hear about it and organically start to add it to their rotation on the radio.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

It seems like that whole landscape is long since of the past, if you will. And a lot of it that you have been paying a lot of attention to now is really around how to effectively market to people that want to hear this kind of song or this kind of album or this sort of genre of music. And that is a very different scenario than I think a lot of people are accustomed to, right? Some are now because they're getting used to sort of that's the way the of the world and YouTube and social media platforms are the way to really get yourself exposure. And once you've able to garner yourself enough followers or enough subscribers or enough legitimate views, then other folks, labels, things like that could start to take notice and go, okay, you've already got a pretty good established fan base. Where do you need our support? Is it on the touring side? Is it on exposure beyond, you know, a certain market or a certain area that you live? And kind of going in that direction. But this is all sort of brand new frontier, I think, for both of us. So it's been interesting to kind of see how ads are working for us or against us, how you know, we you really dug in and started doing a lot of that this round because we've had such mixed results with these playlists, you know, promotional companies that advertise we'll get your we'll review your song and we'll get you legitimate fans and all this kind of stuff. And quite honestly, a lot of that is garbage. And we're we've we're learning that through different ways, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, you surprised me a little bit in bringing this topic up at all, but maybe we should zoom out and this is kind of an interesting topic to get into, I think. Um we've been a band since 2017, probably, put out the first record in 2019. So that was the first music that we had out that we could promote in some way.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Between that, the singles that we put out and some of the cover songs that we put out, and then leading up to this album cycle. So that's you know, six years worth of stuff there. We've tried a whole bunch of different types of promotion. And I think, you know, you and I have both been of the mentality that just the creative side of this band is a full-time gig, just about. Um it comes in goes in waves a little bit, so it's easier to manage sometimes than other times, but it's a lot of work. Um, and we've talked about this before, but uh, you know, we're fully independent. So we don't have any sponsors, we don't have any backing, um, we don't have anyone else on our team. You know, we have had other musicians that we've worked with before, um, you know, Michael being the biggest one, you know, he played on both records. And um, so we've had that kind of collaboration and help. But when it comes to artwork, um, when it comes to and you know, actually I should pause on that because no, there have been a couple instances where we've had a little bit of help um when it comes to uh like grabbing photographers who are um people that we respect and happen to be friends with as well. So some of that kind of stuff, you know, we've hired out before. Yeah. Um so that's been great. You know, we've had like three different photographers um and some video help, especially on uh the first video and then um the uh Fear on High video that we did. But even then it's like all of the work that goes into our band really just comes from you and I. So, you know, traditionally I've handled the audio production side. We both write the music. Um, you handled the graphics side of things and video editing and all of that. Uh and so we both have struggled, I think, to try to wrap our heads around how do we also become the master of social media and a master of understanding the changing trends that are happening all the time on the internet and understanding how to market us and understanding how to book gigs and all of these things. It's kind of like my my hope always when I started was a bit uh um I I don't know how I would say it. Like it was a bit unrealistic, I suppose, and that okay, well if I can just write a good enough song, then people are gonna want to jump on board. And I I think there is some truth to that. Like if you can consistently put out really good stuff, then eventually you are going to have people who want to be involved in what you're doing. But I think also the what I wasn't thinking about is like it's hard for everybody to get a thing going, and you don't jump on board until there's something to jump on board for, you know. And so changing our mentality to trying to take full ownership of every piece of this. Um, it's been a lot more work, but it I think also we benefit from having got our individual roles pretty well down, whereas for the last few years we've been working a lot on things that we don't have to work on as much now, you know, because we sort of know what we're doing. Um and so one of the big areas was trying to figure out how do we promote the band. And so like you in particular have put up a lot of money um over the lead years just trying to figure out like what is gonna what's gonna work. Let's find a company, because there are tons of them out there. And if you're an artist trying to find a way to promote yourself, then you probably have done a Google search and found playlist companies. You know, they promised to get you listed in playlist. Yep. Um, maybe uh, you know, get you views on a YouTube video or kind of whatever your goal is, there's someone out there who will tell you that they can do it for you. And our experience, and I can't wait to hear your perspective on this. Um I think what we found is that those things are true to a degree, but there's a catch to everything. And uh advertising and promoting cost a lot of money. And uh so there are ways to technically meet an objective while still being able to maybe maximize profit as a company that doesn't necessarily benefit the artist. And so what we found was is maybe we would generate a lot of views or a lot of uh, you know, streams or land and playlists, but they might be in places that the integrity of those streams might be called into question, or uh looking at where in the world the views were coming from, you kind of have to scratch your head and go, I mean, I I love everywhere, so this isn't a slight to anyone culturally, but our our music is in English. And we it's like, why are we getting most of our streams from places that don't speak English? That seems kind of suspect, you know. And then you also will see, you know, Spotify, for example, talks about this a lot where um they warn you against companies that will promote for you because a lot of times they are generating streams in fictitious ways or falsifying streams, which of course is fraud because there's a financial component behind all of this. And so this has led us to a place where we go, okay, well, let's try to figure out how to promote ourselves in this sort of modern world. Um, of course, a big part of that is always going to be organic. Um but when you're getting started, and even though we've been around for years, I consider us still as being in the getting started phase, perhaps not in our songwriting, but as a band, um, we don't have a large following as of shooting this today, you know, whatever this is, September 26th, 2025, as we're filming this. Um, and I can't wait to see what it looks like by this time next year. But uh it's it's just been a really interesting, complicated, confusing, and hard to swallow journey, I think. And I'll end my rant there and hand it to you because I'm curious what you think from having you've done a lot of research in this stuff too. And and I'm not necessarily saying that what we've figured out so far is uh the end all. I feel like we're kind of at a beginning journey with that too, but it feels like we've taken some power back in saying, okay, well, if we're going to invest money into things like promotion, let's make sure that we really truly understand what it is, like what are the criteria that we're looking at here? Where in the world are we promoting? To what audience, you know, how how old? What um, you know, what are we using to sort of ensure that it's getting in front of the right audience? Is it just going to anybody that will look at it, or is it going to people who maybe really like rock music and like the kind of things that we do and working to try to get that figured out so that we can maximize our ability to really support ourselves in this whole endeavor?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. There's um I could I could definitely go on a tear and I'm gonna watch my language uh as best as possible through this, because I can tend to have a a pretty foul mouth when I get riled up about something. But let me just say this. Many of us do. So here's here's here's quick just synopsis on this as well. If you're going to go with a company um that advertises, hey, we'll get you legitimate streams where based on the budget that you have, we're gonna have curators, as they call it, and I'll put that in air quotes curators, um listen to your song and they'll give you feedback. And maybe that song will end up on their playlist. Uh, and maybe it doesn't, right? So let's start there. The feedback, by and large, is usually AI generated or just completely nonsensical. Um, and I mean that with love. Even some of the positive ones that we've gotten uh are suspect in the sense of like, did you really listen to the song? You know, the ones that I find probably the most offensive are the ones that suggest things like I can't hear, like your vocals are too subtle or it's too uh hot in the low to mid-range. And I'm like, do you do you honestly understand the words that you're saying? Like when you say those things, you're obviously trying to to help or be helpful, but I question because I've read so many of these, I really just question the validity of it. I saw one today that said, your EQ aura is a bit crispy for my taste. I said, Oh, okay. Tell me what your EQ aura is. I I I would love to understand that in the musical term. And I don't say this to be conceited, I mean that because all of this for us has been a journey, even our own engineering and writing and learning the gear to mix and master and all that kind of stuff. But trust that we sent out our record to be professionally mastered. I have an incredible partner who's a pretty damn good engineer, if I might say so. Maybe I'm a little biased, but I do believe that about you. Um, so yeah, it's a little bit off-putting to read stuff like that and go, I know that you have no freaking idea what you're talking about. And you could just say, this isn't my taste. Thanks. I'll pass on at this night next time. Love to hear more from you. Keep it up, right? That's it. I don't need the whole blah, blah, blah. This is what I think you could do to make your song better. If you don't like the song, I respect that. Just let it let it go from there. I don't need your advice because honestly, from what I found, a lot of it is just garbage. It's not even real. Uh, most of it is just there to take your money. And, you know, again, I'm fortunate enough to have a job that allows Oh, it just makes you feel well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I was I was gonna say, like, well, well, sure. Yeah, but it also makes you feel like people are listening to it, I think is why they do it. Because I don't think those curators enjoy giving that feedback because I'm sure they know that they don't know what they're talking about, which is why a lot of it's AI generated or why they say dumb things. But the roots of it is they get the company's like, well, right, but but we pay a company and that company doesn't want it to just go into the void, which is what happens with a lot of these companies. Right. So to their credit, you know, they've tried to set up a a system, I think, where you feel like, okay, well, at least I know why they liked it or not. You know, and you can kind of read between the lines if there's if they're talking about something and it doesn't really make sense, you can still say, okay, well, they're basically saying that they don't like the production value of the song or whatever. One of the things that got me more than all of that is like when we covered Alice and Chains.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah. Or Ghost.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so both of those. So like Square Hammer was a Grammy nominated song or Grammy winning song.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, a huge song. And uh the Alice and Chains song is a big song too, more so a really big album. But both are good examples of, you know, we covered them. We we were in no way trying to make it seem like it was our song. Like they were very clearly and purposefully covers and tributes to bands that we really love. Even in the artwork. Yeah, totally, totally. And so, like the the ghost song we did uh for Halloween one year because we thought, hey, that'd be fun. And it's a little heavier and more metal than what we typically do, but we love that kind of music. So Halloween's a good opportunity to you know uh wear a costume. And uh so so we submit these songs to try to get them listed in playlists to get some exposure to them. And the feedback that we get is people who clearly think it's our song and basically telling us that they're not good songs, you know, in various different ways.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

And that was when the illusion kind of broke for me because if we had done that with our own music, that might have really shaken my confidence a little bit. But then hearing songs that are huge songs from huge artists that some of them award-winning or you know, at least award-nominated. I'm going, okay. It there's no getting around the the fact that um these things are just so subjective. And these people are it's not like we're submitting to the curator of Rolling Stone. No, right? This is Johnny down the street who has, you know, a couple thousand people who subscribe to a playlist, not taking shots at Johnny. But it these are just regular people, these aren't necessarily people who have a background in music or an editorial or uh any of that kind of thing. Like it might have been, you know, a couple decades ago.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. I think the thing that always is alarmed me, and then I'll get off the high horse about it, honestly, because I think everybody's journey is different. I know we don't write music that is homogeneous in the way that it might be widely accepted, right? We're not auto-tuning vocals, we're not putting all of that gloss and unnecessary sheen on something to really make it what a lot of people will feel like candy. You know, that's the only way I can think of it. Like a real candy. Yeah, candy-coated sort of pop rock song. It's it's definitely not that. I think we're we definitely lean into more of the aesthetic of the 70s and 80s and early 90s um style of production, which is our thing. That's what we do. Um, but these people that have 50,000 followers on a playlist, honestly, maybe they earn that. But I to me, I feel like they start, like you mentioned, the Johnny person. Johnny starts, Johnny finds a company to help him get subscribers. He gets a bunch of subscribers. Maybe they're not real, maybe they are, but it inflates his number. Now he can be a curator for Spotify because he has a big following, or he joins one of these companies that will pay him to review songs by other artists to see if it meets the criteria for what he needs to continue to keep his playlist thriving or alive to these faceless sort of subscribers, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So there's a model for people to make money now for doing that, and and great to Spotify for allowing that to be a thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Um well, and a lot of this has nothing to do with Spotify either. But yeah, that's what we're also. You or I could literally go on, start a playlist, and if people subscribe to it, then we're a curator.

SPEAKER_02:

You're right.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, so because there are different types of playlists. Spotify basically has algorithmic, which is just we think you'll like this based on what you're listening to. They have their curated stuff, which is like their editorial playlist, which is people hired by Spotify who do that. That would be more akin to like a Rolling Stone or you know, enter whatever you want there. And then there's user playlists. And these companies that we've used, they're just going to users who happen to have a following. See, they're they're literally just random people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

This doesn't make them not qualified, but you know, I'm saying that they're not qualified. Again, I I would almost be the person that was, you know, probably have a bit of jealousy living in there somewhere about why didn't I think to do this? I do feel like I could be a really great mentor or help for someone who like us who's trying to get their music out to an audience. And I guess I'll leave it with this. You know, as we're continuing to learn, and we can continue on this topic in future episodes. I think what we've learned right now is that sometimes, while it may be a slow burn to get your song to the audience that really deserves to want to hear it and build your audience that way, it may not be the flashy high numbers that you would hope to see immediately from a song. It still has a following that starts to grow and gain momentum and really be uh over time could really be popular. If you think about it, the average time, like I'll use a great example. The new Black Keys album came out a few weeks ago, right? If you go back 15, 20 years, people would grab that record on CD or vinyl. They're gonna live with it for a couple months. They're gonna listen to it maybe over and over again, they're gonna find new songs. It's gonna be a journey of discovery for them for that record, especially if it's a band they like. Yeah. Right now, there's such an influx of new stuff that an average time now for a lot of people, even with a big band like that, might be a couple weeks, maybe a month, but uh it it's kind of hard press. You have to really keep going back and really, it's got to be one that just has stuck with you. So it's kind of hard to penetrate in that space because there's just so many things coming out all the time that your attention span becomes less and you're not spending as much time with it. Also, with the internet and social media, you have a lot of things constantly grabbing and pulling your attention. So it does make it harder to just kind of put the headphones on, drop the record, listen to it in a quiet space and really get lost in it. And I think you both you and I live in some a bit of a nostalgic place like that where I do wish that people would find that again. And I know they're, trust me, I know there are a lot of people that do still do this, but I'm talking really broad strokes. I think a lot of people are missing out in that space where they could really spend a lot of time with that record. Now, that's not to say that you're mega artists like Taylor Swift that we've been lovingly talking about. By the way, Taylor, we'll still go out on tour with you whenever you decide to go ahead and give us a shot.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh yeah, we're not upset that it's taking you a while to get back to us. Yeah, it's the ball's in your court.

SPEAKER_02:

I know you're busy with Travis Kelsey. All understood. He's having a hard time right now with his Chiefs, not doing so great.

SPEAKER_00:

Um but all that aside, you know, uh maybe he'll she'll find time to uh the Buffalo fan uh have to get our little Chiefs jab and we're gonna get our Chief jab in.

SPEAKER_02:

We both have been burned by but that is not this podcast, I swear. We're gonna have our sports podcast, but yeah, maybe we should. Nevertheless, Taylor, if you're out there and you're listening, the offer still stands. Anywho, find your audience, continue to keep workshopping it. If there are really legitimate great companies out there that promise honest views, continue to dig in and use those analytical tools on YouTube and Spotify to really understand who's listening, where are they listening, and for how long. When you see things that are suspect, like someone's listening to your song for 15 seconds or 30 seconds almost to the nose, there's usually an ad click or uh, hey, listen to this for this amount of time and you're gonna earn credits for this game you're playing, or X, Y, and Z, some kind of you know, uh enticement for them to earn something else for something they enjoy at our cost. So if you start looking in those analytics and you're seeing that, then you know that you're probably on the wrong path, and you should fight back with those companies that you're paying to sort of promote your music and say, hey, this is bullshit. And I could show you the truth. Here's the receipts, this is garbage. Why are all of these people listening to my music that are in areas that may not even have Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, all this stuff. How on earth are they listening to this? Right, and why are they only listening to it for 10 seconds? You know?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

That's a really interesting thing to me. And again, I know everyone's on their journey, and I I hope and wish everyone finds the audience that they deserve with their music, but it's definitely been a roller coaster for you and I uh with this, you know, over the past few years.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yeah, and uh a bit of advice mixed with some um just thinking about our own expectations through this whole process. Um, the advice would be if you are gonna hire a company and get help with promotion, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, but two things I'd recommend. One is educate yourself ahead of time on how some of this works. That way you can have an informed conversation about what it is that you want. Clarify your goals. I imagine most people, and this was us when we started, was like, I just want, but like we made these songs, we put all this work into it. I just want people to hear it. I don't want to put it out into the void and then have it be, you know, my mom listens, and I'm glad she does. Not taking a shot at mom. But you know what I mean, right? Like you have the people who are closest to you check it out because they're your friends or your family, and then that's it. It goes away. It's like you want to have a chance for it to be heard. So what are you gonna do? Well, you go and you look for help, and then someone says, I can help you. I can get people to listen to your song, and you go, sounds great.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

End of questions, you know, uh say less, take my money. I know my song is so good that if people just listen to it, we'll have millions of people. We're gonna find its audience. It's gonna be great, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

And uh I think what we've learned is is that a little bit of foolish thinking, not that it's not possible, and I'm sure that it happens to people, you know. Um, you know, if you if you happen to be in the right place at the right time, but I think you should come in informed uh what it is that you're trying to accomplish. And I think today's day and age, um, what we found is through like some of the things that we've done have generated lots of streams or lots of views. And they benefited somewhat, but what we found with them is that it's very transient and transactional. You know, most of those people don't stick around through a lot of the the methods that we tried. So you're thinking, man, okay, well, we got X number of streams. I would have thought that would have turned into some sort of fans. Like, why are we not getting emails or comments or subscribers or whatever? It's like as soon as we stop paying the money, it just falls off to zero. Um, so if your goal is to get streams or views, those companies can do that. But that might not be the right goal for you. Right. The right goal might be hey, I'd rather have less streams or views, but generate um more interest from people who might actually stick around. Yes. Um, and I think that's what we're exploring right now. And so part of it is like I said, like educate yourself a little bit and clarify your goal. The other thing is, is don't and this is just my personal take, so take it or leave it, take it with a grain of salt. Um, don't pay money to a company where you don't get to speak with someone one-on-one to align on what your goals and expectations are.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

Someone who like if it's an online form and they send you a little checkout page and you buy into whatever tier and send it off. I would not, I'm not saying that all those are scams. Really, I have no way of knowing for sure. But I would just say I would not do that. I would find a company where you can talk to someone and say, here's what I'm trying to do. Here's where my my band is based, or here's where I'm based as an artist. I would like to market in these places. I would like to help figure out like what the most ideal audience to market to is. Um I I I want to maximize the money I'm spending toward trying to generate fans. So I want to make sure that I get the audience as clarified as possible so that whatever it costs, and I can tell you that doing it that way will cost a lot more money. Because it is much cheaper to, at least as of us filming this right now, it's far, far cheaper to get views or plays or any of those things in developing countries, for example. Oh yeah. Yeah. But it's like you're not going to find yourself touring there, most likely. You're many of these countries don't speak English. So in our case, that's important because we're English speakers and our music isn't English. Um now, of course, you know, multilinguage places are fine, but if the predominant and almost only language is something else, that's gonna be a problem, right? Um and so it's gonna cost more to advertise in a place like the United States or Australia or the UK and those types of places.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So just be ready for that and say, you know, like it might make you feel really good to say I got X number of streams, and that's the only thing that matters to you. Well, in that case, it's not a big deal. Because and you can do that, and you could probably do that at a reasonable price. Um, but like anything, quality cost, and so uh just do your research and and try to figure out what's gonna be best for you. And then of course, you know, don't stop working on the uh organic sort of thing as well. And so, you know, continue just making content and these algorithms. Like I I shared this with you the other day. I I found a video that was really um I wish I remember the guy's name, I would shout him out. Uh but I just found it really reassuring because it does feel as like a a small creator or you know, whatever box they put things in these days, like as someone who makes content who doesn't have a big following yet. It gets discouraging sometimes because you know you might make something that took a lot of time and energy and effort, and then you think the quality is really high, and then it seems to not get shown to anybody. You're like, man, well, I'm not YouTube, I can't control who this gets in front of. I can only make it and put it up there and hope that people see it. And uh, but the way that these algorithms seem to work these days is that they're incredibly complicated, and so it takes time for the algorithm to figure out who your audience is, and it can only do that with the more data that you feed it. So the more that you keep posting stuff, uh keep focusing on the quality of what you're doing over the views and over the subs and all that stuff, that it's easy to get really focused on. Is it's a really common story to see many creators who have videos that they made a year ago, all of a sudden one night as if by magic blow up and have millions of views out of nowhere, and it's not even one of their new videos. It's some other video that they've almost forgotten about because the algorithm finally had enough data and finally found the right subset of people that that was going to work with, and then it blew up, and they were able to continue to ride that wave and really grow from that point. So so much of it has to do with being consistent, whatever that means for you. It doesn't mean every day or every week necessarily, it just means don't give up, keep making stuff and keep putting it out as often as you can, and then trust that in time people will it will find its audience in time.

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly. And no matter what, you know, don't think of it necessarily as like, well, our album came out this date this year, because there was something I remembered as you were talking. There's um you know the artist Moby, um the electronic artist, DJ, yeah, um social activist. But in his heyday, he had a pretty great record come out, I believe, called Play. And I think if I'm remembering this correctly, Play sort of started with, you know, people kind of knew about him, knew a little bit about him, and he had some, he started getting some airplay on a few of those songs. But then it started getting into people started using it in TV and film, and there was a song on there called Porcelain that got a lot of uh a lot of airplay, but also ended up in a lot of TV and film as well. The point I'm making is I believe that record ended up being multi-platinum, and it took about 18 to 24 months for everyone to really discover it. So by the time the record had been out, over a year, people started catching on, and it just kept going from there. He had a song on there with Gwen Stefani. Um there was just a lot of really good songs on that record, but it took a long time, even for someone at that level who was somewhat popular because of his DJ stuff and a lot of things that people knew him for prior to, that was going to be like, okay, let's see how this record does. But it took a while for it to find its audience. And once it did, it just took off like a juggernaut and became likely the biggest album of his career. And certainly the one that I think if you see him or go and see him play, that's still you're still playing songs off that that album. Um speaking of some some current events though, well, one one quick thought. Oh, go ahead. Sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00:

And then let's transfer transition over. Uh yeah, I was gonna say like as much as we pine for the good old days of like physical media, right? Uh a vinyl record or a CD or a tape or whatever, and you know, like we were just talking about it, right? Spending time with it, listening to it for a month or two at a time and knowing every song top to bottom. But there are advantages to this digital age because if we released this record, you know, back in 1990, then what would happen is uh, you know, you put it out, and if it didn't do well in its first uh couple of weeks, well, whatever you're done. Yeah, they're not gonna keep printing copies and keeping them in every record store. Like they they there's not enough physical space to do that for artists. It's too expensive to make the physical stuff. But what's beautiful about this digital age is that whatever you make is actually it's really timeless and it's not subject to being successful right when it comes out. Um people can find it and come, you know, it's like you do this probably with artists all the time. It's like you find an artist and maybe they're on their third, fourth, fifth album, or maybe it's someone that you've been told forever you need to check out and you just never have, then you go and you have their whole catalog there to check out. Or podcasts are another good example. You find a podcast that you enjoy, and now great, you have all these episodes that they've done in the past that you can go back and listen to.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

You you don't have to pick up with wherever they're starting. You can pick up wherever you want, and all those things exist in perpetuity for all time as long as the internet exists. So that's pretty awesome. It means that you can just keep building your catalog over time and keep getting better and better at what you do, uh, whether that be upping the the writing or the production or the promotion or any of those things, and let it snowball and let it do its thing over time and just don't become discouraged. And it's so easy to become discouraged and so easy to convince yourself of all the reasons why it's not gonna work out or why it works out for other people and not you. And I like that we're having this conversation now because I'm fully convinced that uh things are going to continue to really take off for us, and it's gonna be cool to be able to look back at a time where we were still in the early stages but really committed to the process to be able to prove that it works and that anyone can do it. Because I don't think there's anything inherently special about what we do other than that we're super passionate about it and we love to do it. And so yeah, if you've got that, then who can beat you?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and if you have a network of friends or people that, you know, if you got a friend that does drawings or artwork or graphic design, bring them into the fold with you, right? It just so happened that you and I kind of met each other in that space, realized each other's talents in that world, and then it really took flight once we started working on a project, you know, yeah, from artwork and photos and all of this kind of stuff. But we still leaned in on a network of people that um that were really supportive of us and helped us, you know, with a project. With well, here I'll shoot some, you know, photos of you guys or I'll help you with the video or whatever. And if you have those friends in your network, it certainly it can really help you kind of take take flight, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Definitely.

SPEAKER_02:

Um so yeah, current events will come in. I should have kicked off of this because it would have probably been if you all are awake by now, still.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think that was a good discussion I think that was a good discussion now.

SPEAKER_02:

I think a lot of people will resonate with that. I do too. I I honestly do. And it again, I know that I I might have a lot more of opinionated things to say about those companies, but again, if it works for you and you're happy with the results and that's what your desire was, go for it. Um, you know, we wish everyone the best and hope everyone's success in uh in whatever endeavor they're trying to approach to gain fans and get get exposure to listen to their music. Um so we'd mentioned ghosts earlier and about covering ghosts, and I thought it was kind of interesting because there was some uh funny social media controversy this week. Um Ghosts had to cancel the show because Tobias, their lead singer and mastermind of the band, uh unfortunately came down with food poisoning, which again, if you're a touring road band, especially in this day and age, you know, traveling all over the world, so many things, you know, can happen. And so, of course, it's the unfortunate thing that happens sometimes, I imagine, when you're on the road, it's like, oh, I just had some bad whatever. And yeah, where was he? Where where was the band? I don't remember. I don't know if it's Mexico. It might have I think they're playing Mexico City. They're like trying to give Mexico a bad name. I'm not trying, nope, nope, I'm not even gonna go there. Got some bad tacos. We love Mexico. Yeah, I love Mexican food. I'm gonna go on record and say that. Been to Mexico plenty of times, had a great time. So I don't know. It could have been somewhere else, not 100% on that fact. Yeah, but he gets food poisoning. They they announce on their social media pages and Instagram and all that they've got to cancel show. And they're very open about why. And then you just get this barrage of comments about like just people just blasting him for not being able to do the show. Like, without getting disgusting here, just think about what you're asking, please. Like this poor guy's ever from the toilet, food poisoning. Yeah. You want this guy to put on his makeup and do the show from the confines of a private toilet somewhere backstage? Like, what are you asking? Like, people are human beings.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like not a tell someone is taking a phone call from the from the bathroom. Like it sounds like so echoey. He's like got the mic back there. He just sounds like he's in a porta potty. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

That's what they just wanted to. Again, as a musician, I know that's a shared thing amongst people, but my heart goes out to them. I'm like anybody that has, you know, they get sick, they get the flu, they get COVID, they get food poisoning, whatever the thing is, and they gotta keep figuring out. Bands, big bands, have brought out like their drum tech, their guitar tech to cover if a member of their band unfortunately got sick so that they would not have to cancel a tour. But it's impossible to do that if you're the front person for that band. You're not gonna just put out some anybody to go and sing two hours worth of ghost songs, right? It it's not gonna work. So of course unfortunately. No, of course not. Then they're gonna complain, oh, that wasn't really him, blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_00:

But I just know that signing up, you know, it's like going to see Pantera now. Well, I I guess that's a bad example, but you know, because it is Phil singing, but but yeah, but you're not seeing Dinebag or Vinny on you know guitar and drums, and but you know that going in. You know it's gonna be Zach.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. But in that situation, I mean, not that the two are the same by any stretch, but in the Pantera situation, there are a lot of people that are fans of both anthrax and of course Ozzie and Zach that were like, Oh, I I love Charlie and Zach playing in the band. It makes sense. It it made sense for those two folks to join the rest of Pantera and do this somewhat in homage to the brothers and them not being with us anymore.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and Zelda and Dime being good friends and all that as well. So there's a relationship there.

SPEAKER_02:

I just thought it was kind of just sad to hear that people couldn't accept. Yeah, Tobias unfortunately got sick and he's not gonna be able to do that show. But the show will go on. I think what got people upset is like two days later, you know, the show's gonna go on for the other two shows, but he can't do it for this one, you know. So people are like, oh, you could do it for those two, but you can't do it for us? Like, sack up. What's wrong with you, buddy? Just, you know, like take something so you don't want a bottle of Pepto and get out on stage and give me my money's worth, right?

SPEAKER_00:

And it's it does make you wonder like how much of that is is bots or trolls. Oh, of course. Like how much of it is even who really knows? That's why I don't because I would think an average person would get, I mean, would be disappointed, but would get it. So it's either bots and trolls or it's people with the emotional regulation of a toddler.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Right? It's like you just you can't handle disappointment at all. And so you're just gonna spew all this nasty stuff and then trust me.

SPEAKER_02:

For a whole year, I was just waiting for Noel and Liam to go, I can't freaking stand you. I'm not doing this, and be in my whole world is crushed because I'm like, oh, I gotta, I want to see them again. Yeah. So I get it. I do on some level, but I'm also like, give the guy a break, man. He's on the toilet, puking and pooping. Like, come on, let the guy have a day to be Tobias, right? Not Papa, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And let him do his thing. So anyway, I thought that was interesting. In another side, hard pivot. Um, Rob Halford, after many years, I think, of being with his partner, I believe his name is Thomas now, finally got married. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, I hope I'm not breaking any news here for anyone out there, but Rob Halford is gay. Um, you know. Uh, when did this be?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know, Kevin. When did this happen?

SPEAKER_02:

I think he's been on the record now for I don't know, most of his career. I do remember, I think I remember hearing something about that. He's like, how did people not know? I'm like rolling out the leather whips and all this stuff and motorcycles on stage. How did people not know? There were signs. There were signs. There were signs for sure. But like love is love. I'm happy for Rob. Rob's such an incredible singer and what a fantastic front man. I know he just I believe that he and Ozzy just released that posthumous uh song cover War Pigs together uh for charity as well, which is amazing. Um to just thinking about some current events there. But you know, like lots of love to Rob and uh getting married after all these years.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they did warp again. So obviously um we're used to hearing now as he sing that, but it is cool to hear him sing again in the context of something that's not, you know, his band or not, you know, Black Sabbath. Yeah. But uh yeah, I was listening to that just before we started the podcast. It sounds good. It sounds really cool. It sounds modern, you know, given the original one is old school. Um, it is cool to hear like a nice modern version of that that has Ozzy on it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I thought it was really it was kind of fun. And do you remember when T-Pain did Warpigs? Yes. Yeah. Did you ever hear that? That was so good. After Ozzy passed, there was I was obviously like many people, just kind of you know, scrolling endlessly and finding clips of him or other people covering his songs, and I came across that one. I had not heard it when it was released. Yeah, it was so good. And I'm like, I knew T Pain was a good singer. I think people, you know, honestly kind of went to him for his auto-tune sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

That he made sort of popular, but he's actually a really great singer, and uh, it was really surprising to me. Um hearing him and also hearing him do that. It's like it just shows you how uh music just transcends, you know, culture, color, race, genre, preference, genre, all of it. People just find and fall in love with things that they just it means something to them or is a was an important staple in their life. And I I find I loved it. I thought T-Pain could knock it out of the park. It was incredible.

SPEAKER_00:

It was really whole world has been shaken a little bit on this front lately, because like for so T-Pain, I don't know what he considers himself, probably an RB artist. Um I would assume some hip-hop crossover, probably, but but you wouldn't think about an RB artist doing war takes. Like that seems like a wide combo, but it sounds amazing. And then like I sent you the other day, I think they're AI generated, but they sound incredible. There's someone out there.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, the funk, the funk versions.

SPEAKER_00:

Dude, funk versions of like there was uh Megadeth. Um what song was it that I sent? Was it Peace Cells?

SPEAKER_02:

They did uh no, they did uh Holy Wars, the Punishment Digital.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, yeah, it was Holy Wars. I can't when I saw the thumbnail for that, I'm like, there's not a world in which my brain can even conceptualize what a funk version of the song would sound like. And it sounded so good. I'm like You did. I was bored. Right, yeah. And then uh they did Man in the Box, Alice and Chains also sounded incredible. Yeah, and so uh I'm like, you know what? This use of AI is kind of fun. Uh as someone who is kind of an AI hater right now, and and don't get me wrong, we we use AI, like I get the utility, but for creative things, I I struggle with that. That's a whole conversation that sounds like a lot of people do. I'm not alone there, but but it was really cool to hear those versions, and there's a whole bunch more I haven't heard yet, but uh thought that was super fun.

SPEAKER_02:

I think it was really interesting to just again, and I know more and more of that stuff's gonna come out, and you're gonna hear a lot more of those things popping up, but I do find it's kind of fun if you know that it's not real, you know, and you could just enjoy it for what it is, like, oh, this is an interesting, like mashups, you know, like an interesting mashup of this, you know, that took that song that's definitely metal and turned it into a funk song. Something else that came up since we're on that megadeth topic. I sent this to you the other day, and this may be old news. I'm not, I don't know, but it seemed like from what I'm finding from the wiki pages and all that. I thought, and again, maybe this is a long conversation for another podcast, but I'll mention it now. So Dave Mustaine is in an interview, and I stumble across this on YouTube a couple days ago, and he's talking to someone, and he's telling them, you know, he's talking again about Metallica and the falling out, and that he was fired and fired for being more violent. And he talks about a couple of instances that happened where um, you know, James, I think had kicked his dog and he got really angry and it escalated and you know, said something like, Well, if you're gonna, if you're gonna get to him, you're gonna have to go through me. And he said, Okay, well, great, and punches James in the face, something like that. Something along those lines. Okay. So I'm like, I thought we were kind of past a lot of this sort of frustration and anger. Because I remember, of course, Metallica invited Megadeth out, they went on tour, you see all the hugging on stage and all that kind of stuff. So I thought that it was kind of past, you know, and sort of laid to rest, this sort of maybe frustration about not being in that band anymore and all that stuff as well. But he went on a tear about a lot of songs that he specifically had asked them not to use or take credit for because they were his songs, songs that he had written um or contributed heavily to that they ended up uh taking full credit for without uh Dave potentially getting anything for that as well. And then he goes on to say in a very sort of wink to the camera, it's like you you should go check out this band Excel. Uh you might be fascinated, it might be fascinating to hear this song and see what you think. Certainly sounds a lot like Inner Sandman. And that song came out a couple years, maybe two or three years prior to Inner Sandman.

SPEAKER_00:

And boy, does it sound like Inner Sandman?

SPEAKER_02:

And it really does sound like that. It really does.

SPEAKER_00:

This could be very old.

SPEAKER_02:

It really does.

SPEAKER_00:

But it sounds honestly kind of cooler in some regards.

SPEAKER_02:

It's the guitar part's where you're at. Yeah. It stirred it up for me, and I'm like, huh. So I had to text you. I'm like, I don't know if you've heard about this or not, but he's kind of come out and said this and sort of put it out like these guys ripped this band off. And I thought, again, look, I love Metallica and I love Megadeth. I got no hate towards either one. I just find it interesting, sort of this whole thing that's constantly been going on for 40 years now about Dave and the band. And Dave still, it seemingly feels feels slighted by maybe the songs that he wrote or contributed to that help Metallica get to where they are. Now, again, early on, he's a guitarist, but it's like I've got a thought on that too. Yeah, because I'd love to hear what you think.

SPEAKER_00:

Because they seem to have made up multiple times over the years in different ways. That's what I've done. Some more effective than others, right? Yeah. Um and and maybe some misrepresented, because I know he's talked about how they sort of made things look in the some kind of monster documentary. And he felt like that was really misrepresented. Um, hard to say, right? I mean, they put out their version of it. Um but okay, so to put it in like a sports analogy, there uh many like exceptional athletes talk about how they've had to make up slights to give them an edge. Like to take things out of context or convince themselves that someone was their enemy. Like I feel like uh Tom Brady talked about that with Peyton Manning. How they were friends, uh, and it took a while for that to kind of come out, right? But there was this thing of like to give him an edge, he had to feel like he was an underdog or he was being disrespected, or no one thought he could do it. Um I remember uh like being a big Niner fan, this was last year and the year before, there was a clip of um a sports reporter that I follow talking about how Brandon Ayuk will I I think it was Brandon Ayuk, the week uh prep for the the upcoming game will watch Tate and to decide who he hates that week.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's this like arbitrary of yeah, I need to decide that this person, we are enemies. That way I can focus my full force of will upon winning and being dominant. Um, and that I'm sure has happened over all kinds of sports. I just happen to be a big football fan. I I wonder how much of this for Dave is a psychological way to motivate himself and to keep him moving forward because it seems like they've had every opportunity to make it right, and it seems like a lot of the things that come out are things that happened so long ago, and also he's a man of faith now, he's got a family, Megadeth is coming to an end. Um, supposedly. I'm we'll see. I'm not gonna say they're not gonna retire, but I won't be surprised if they if they couldn't.

SPEAKER_02:

We've just seen too many bands that said that that's it, and then they still want to continue. Aerosmith, look at this. I mean, just yeah, literally, you know, before we started the podcast, you're like, hey, have you heard the new Aerosmith song? And I'm like, my head scratcher. I'm like, wait a second. Didn't Steven I know Steven stopped touring because of his voice, but then you see him at the Aussie show and he crushes it at that tribute show. Crushed it. Yeah. And then he's on the thing we talked about on a couple podcasts ago with Youngblood doing the VMAs, I think, at MTV again, crushed it.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that was the Ozzy deal. Oh, you're you're talking about the Ozzy show when Ozzy was still with us.

SPEAKER_02:

Back to the beginning show where he showed up on there and they did like uh back in the saddle or whatever. Yeah. Uh, and he sounded so good. And I was so impressed because I'm like, he's a year, he was a year older. He's like 77, I think. Just sounded incredible.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But again, the new song sounds great. It does. It sounds so good. And it blows my mind because I'm like, okay, I understand not touring anymore. I could totally understand that. That's a lot. And you've done your residencies in Vegas and you've been on tour a ton, and your body has gone through all the rigors of that kind of life. So I get it, but man, he still comes out and he's got pipes like nobody else. It's so just incredible to me to hear.

SPEAKER_00:

And going back to the first new music in 12 years. So I mean, maybe just taking a long time away, you know, was what he needed to be able to come back and or just doing studio stuff and put music out.

SPEAKER_02:

It's not that saying the band's over, but hey, I'll still sing in the studio, but I just don't want to go and submit myself out to the touring and the rigors of that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Um, right.

SPEAKER_02:

Back to the Dave thing though. You know, interestingly, like I said, whether any of that's true, not true, it's definitely seems like motivation, or certainly has been motivation for Dave over the years to really build his own empire with an incredibly successful band. I know I believe Rested Peace just turned 30 this week, I think it was. I saw that somewhere on the socials, um, which is also pretty incredible. Um so I'm like, is it 30 years? That's that's amazing. Um so anyway, just thinking about that for him and going, I know you're sort of retiring, or at least ending Megadeth after this next album. Obviously, Metallic has gone on and continued to be very successful, as has Megadeth. So it was just interesting to me to kind of hear that and go, wow, he really fired a shot back at them with this whole thing about Inner Sandman and the band Excel. And he clearly is like, hey, you know, uh, they like to rip people off, including myself. And I'm like, wow, that's a pretty straight-up allegation um to be bringing out at this late a stage in both of their journeys. It's like maybe just let it go. Yeah, you know, maybe just let it go.

SPEAKER_00:

And that debate between those two bands will always be so interesting to me because clear, clearly, in if you just go by the popular metrics, you know, Metallica is the more successful band. But then you also look and you go, Okay, well, Metallica doesn't sound at all like Metallica unless you have James and Lars. And I would make the argument that also Metallica doesn't sound like Metallica at all if you don't have Cliff from the beginning to set that whole foundation and help them write all those early great songs that became Metallica. So you're looking at two to three people required to make that sound. Dave has proven he is the one and the only mastermind of Megadeth. And I'm not saying that makes a band or an artist better than another one, but my God, it's pretty amazing to have one person stand up against the collaborative efforts of you know multiple people. I would never see that.

SPEAKER_02:

No, he took a jab. He took a jab at Kirk. Um he said he has many times. He's like, he's had a hard time being able to keep up with the solos that I wrote. And I'm like, whoo, that's a ouch. That's kind of yeah. I'm like, yeah, shot's fire.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Kirk, Kirk is the kind of player that um he knows what he likes and what he wants to do, and he sticks with that. And I think his uh popularity with the fans ebbs and flows as time goes on. You know, I'm a really big fan of a lot of the earlier stuff that he contributed in the band. And uh, you know, now I have to look at it in a little bit of a different light, given this whole Excel thing. But you know, it's like that that was his riff, you know, or so the story goes is that he brought Ender Sandman to the table. Uh great song, and it gets played in every sports arena and every place you can think of, plays that song every day.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So I mean, you know, a lot of love there.

SPEAKER_02:

But uh just interesting to see where this goes and where that story is, if it unfolds or if it's already old news again, we may be behind on this one, but I just found it that way.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and Metallica would probably never address it. It's less a thing. It's like he'll, you know, Dave will take his shots and the band will just pretend it never happened and you know and life goes on, it goes nowhere, yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, either way, like I said, I I think it's interesting to see how they how that, like I said, continues to pop up and this sort of love-hate relationship that they've had over the many years. Um, but from a fan's perspective, I do enjoy them both. And um it's just interesting to me. And as far as Dave and his playing, you know, Dave's a great player. I felt like he got better when Marty joined the band, and that's my personal opinion. I think when you have someone of that caliber in your band, yeah, you have no choice but to get to level up. Like you're playing against somebody who's just a phenomenal guitar player. So I'm sure Dave picked up a lot of things from Marty or vice versa, and and ended up. Just from being around you, too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Even if Marty is not sitting there going, all right, here's how you play this, you know, it's like you absorb it from being around other great players, or at least it pushes you to maximize what it is that you do really well. And I have to imagine that that's been the case with every guitar player that they've had in that band. He's never had a scrub, he's never had someone who was not a complete virtuoso and just magnificent at what they do.

SPEAKER_02:

So he's had what I'm hoping that maybe he gets on this last round. I think it is exciting because Marty did come out even when Kik Kiko was playing with them. Marty came out and played on a few songs with them, a couple shows or festivals that they did. And of course, it came with uproarious applause when they did that. So I'm hoping that maybe on this last tour or what he's gonna call the final tour, maybe he will go back and get all of those other guitar players that have played with them at different stages in their career to maybe come and join them, you know, and play a few songs and kind of bring back the whole Megadeth family. With that being said, I don't know if Elfson's gonna come back. Uh so that might not happen. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's been enough time. Maybe Statute of Limitations have dropped on that one.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh that's a funny way to phrase that, but uh not legally, I mean, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know. Don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and I don't even know how that story ended up. Like, did those allegations and all that turn out to be real, or was that just because all that kind of came out at a time where you didn't necessarily need to find out the full results before people made extreme decisions. I wonder about that one, uh, because I I don't think I ever circled back to see if he was um found guilty of anything or um exactly how that's I don't know.

SPEAKER_02:

I know Dave distanced himself from that for a long time. So I don't really know what had come of that. Maybe that's for another time. Um But anywho, I just thought that's interesting. Well, maybe they'll uh maybe they'll you know bring back some of the old older uh members of the band to kind of come back for one last trip around the sun.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, totally. I mean, the a bunch of those guitar players I loved. I mean, Chris Polland, Chris Polland, yeah, amazing. Uh Chris Broderick, one of my favorites. I love that.

SPEAKER_02:

Broderick was incredibly good. Yeah, he was really good.

SPEAKER_00:

That dude is just wild in what he can do. Um and the the their current guitar player, I've been a really big fan of him for a long time because he's in a band called Winter Sun. And he um he plays guitar in that band. That band has three guitar players. The main guy that writes the music, like that's a band I found my freshman or sophomore year of high school. Their first record came out in 2004, and it is unbelievable the way that it sounds. Because they're from Finland, I believe. Could be Sweden, but I think it's Finland.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

And so they do this really melodic death metal type thing uh that is just super fast, and well, it's either super fast or it's really slow. And uh the the playing in it and the motifs and it's it's absolutely beautiful, but super powerful. And they've gone on to do some really cool stuff too with orchestration and so they uh it took them forever to come out with the second album because of the way that they were trying to do all of their arrangements. Um so there are these really complex, really immense symphonic elements of what they do that are much more like something you would hear Hans Zimmer doing what you would typically hear a band that has symphonic like you know, you hear the genre symphonic metal. Now that's not to take a shot at any of them, but usually that just means that strings play a pretty big role. And a lot of times they're kind of like keyboard type strings, you know. Um, and just to add to that sort of like epic atmospheric feeling, um, their thing is not that at all. It's really complex orchestral arrangements and they mixed into a metal context, and it's phenomenal. So, yeah, that uh that guitar player, he's the one who takes all the hardest lead guitar parts in that band. So when I heard he was joining Megadeth, I was super pumped because I think he is a phenomenal talent. Um and he played, he's kind of like Ingve in the sense that when they play, it seems like they're not trying. You know, like it seems like it's not hard for them at all. Uh as opposed to like, all right, the hard part's coming up, like I really need to get this. You don't get that feeling at all from a player like him, which is always a blast to watch because you know it must be hard. There's no way it's not. But the finesse and the skill and the composure, you know, makes it come across like this. What do I do? Just another day in the office. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, when you're like turkeying a blender kind of raking and all that stuff, you know. Yeah. Uh like, okay, great. Yeah, good for you. Uh that's gonna take me 20 years to figure out how my fingers could do that, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, just for that one section of that one song, let alone all the stuff that you like do all night.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Usually absolutely. Yeah. Well, maybe to wrap us up, I know not sure when this is gonna air. So maybe the record's out already, or maybe it's about to come out. Regardless, if you like what we're talking about and you've been able to listen to our music and you've discovered it either through the podcast or through the silver echo, um, we just say thanks. I just want to say thanks again. Thanks for showing up. Thanks for playing the song, for listening to the video, for listening to us spew nonsense for an hour, whatever you find that's entertaining to you, that's brought you here. We just really greatly appreciate it. And if you if you like what we're doing and you think a friend's gonna like us, that's how people and artists like us grow. Share it with a friend, you know, post it if you wish, get the word out there. Um, you'll be doing us a great favor and um helping to get really good music that we feel out into the world and have more people um get a chance to listen to it. So with that, I just want to say a lot of thanks and um we'll see you again soon.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, if you're watching on YouTube, all of the links to contact us are in our bio. Um, if you're not and you're just listening, uh that's awesome too. And you can check out more about the podcast on thesonicalchemy.com. You can find out more about the silver echo on thesilverecho.com. Also, last little thing I'm gonna throw out, uh, we're about to have our first guest on, and that's all I'm gonna say for now. But uh it's been part of the plan with this podcast all along to be able to bring in guests and have cool conversations that aren't just you and I as great as these are. Yeah. Um, so I'm really excited to have our first guest on. We'll see how that goes. And then you know, we've got more that we're planning to bring in as well. And so uh if you or someone that you know would be a really great guest on the show, hit us up. We'd love to have you on. We'd love to explore that. And uh yeah, so that's all we got for today. If you listen this far, thank you so much. Oh, yes, we got there. Buy the shirts. If you're only listening to the audio, Kevin is holding up our brand new uh Toxic Heroes t-shirt. Toxic Heroes is a track on the new album. Uh that that particular artwork was done by Kevin's very own tattoo artist at Santa Cruz Tattoo, who's done uh vast majority of the artwork he has. Uh really phenomenal artist Shannon. What's Shannon's last name?

SPEAKER_02:

Shannon Cullen. Go check him out if you need tattoos. Shannon Cullen at Santa Cruz Tattoo. I'm gonna give a shameless plug for that, but he crushed it for the shirt. So good. It looks so good. It's too good.

SPEAKER_00:

I haven't ordered mine yet, but just seeing that, that looks like that turned out beyond my wireless dream. So that I'm really excited to get that. And it comes on a hoodie. So if you're more of a hoodie person, you can get it on the hoodie. Uh awesome. Cool. Well, until next time, thank you all so much.

SPEAKER_02:

Go support independent music, y'all. Take care.

SPEAKER_00:

Cool.