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
Horror Season, Heavy Riffs, And DIY Grit
The spooky season switch is stuck on and we’re thrilled about it. We kick things off by trading horror deep cuts—from the Ed Gein dramatization that threads into Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre to the Terrifier series that’s resurrecting old-school shock. Then we jump to the music that thrives in October: Ice Nine Kills bending cinema into metal theater, and a Joker-flavored single that proves spectacle only lands when the band is laser-tight.
From there, we detour through real-life concert chaos: the venues you can’t escape, the shuttles that never show, and why a perfect set can still crack under a four-hour parking lot gridlock. Balance that with the joy of pop done right. Dua Lipa reminds us that smart electronic production, arrangement discipline, and undeniable hooks can teach any rock band new tricks. And speaking of heavy, Rob Zombie’s latest track pulls industrial metal back to the front line with piston-driven drums and a zero-wink lyric sheet that hits like a steel press.
We also pull the curtain on our own process. Our band, The Silver Echo, just released a new performance video—shot remotely from two studios, cut with multicam edits, and graded to a throwback palette that fits the song’s classic rock bones. We talk framing yourself without a camera op, relearning parts, and building a template for more videos so an album can breathe like a series of singles. The bigger theme threads through everything: make work that feels human, sharpen the craft, and keep showing up until the songs find their people.
If you dig horror culture, heavy riffs, and honest DIY creativity, hit play, subscribe, and share with a friend who needs new music. Drop a comment with your favorite Halloween watch and the worst venue exit you’ve ever survived. We read them all and it helps more than you know.
Learn more about The Silver Echo at thesilverecho.com
What's up, Kev? What is going on, Justin? How are you doing this lovely whatever day it's gonna be? We're gonna pretend it's whatever day we feel like.
SPEAKER_01:So Well, we're shooting on a Sunday. This is our, I think our first podcast in October. So I was gonna ask you, are you in the Halloween spirit yet?
SPEAKER_02:Well, my Halloween spirit lives 365 days a year.
SPEAKER_00:So uh mine too, actually.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So yeah, if you mean that I have uh I have you know fallen prey to the commercialism of setting up my house to to evoke Halloween vibes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you got your decoration out. Are you watching uh are you watching horror flicks and that whole deal?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean we could do a separate podcast about this. We did I did start watching um the the newest monster series with uh Ed Dean Story.
SPEAKER_01:It's good, dude. We just finished it.
SPEAKER_02:No, you finished all of it. Nice, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, well, I I won't ruin anything for for you or the audience. I I'll tell you off air what my criticisms are, but um Oh yeah. But no, it was it it was good though. It was really good, super creepy. I didn't really like the one with uh what was the first one they did that was um uh I'm having a hard time remembering even the actor. Um the guy with the glasses in that first season.
SPEAKER_02:It wasn't uh I can't remember because I always get it, I get it all as crazy because there's like American crime story, and then there's all this so much Ryan Murphy universe.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, right. But but yeah, it's the same actor that was in American Horror Story for quite a while that did the first season of that. Um I forget the name of the serial killer that they covered. It was a really super famous one. Oh uh who ate people. Yes. Jeffrey Dahmer. Jeffrey Dahmer, yeah. You're talking about. Yes. I thought the Dahmer one was super boring. I mean, that's just me. I did not get into it, but this Ed Gean one, and uh, we skipped the Menendez brothers. I I didn't even know that that one came out, to be honest with you. Yeah. Um but yeah, the Ed Gean one is good. Well, I do look forward to season four. They they announced what that one's gonna be too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I um I I did think that uh well Charlie Huntham, that's uh you know, I'm a fan of his from Sons of Anarchy. Yeah. So I thought he did a good job. And I do like that they tied in sort of how the ethos of or the at the the world of creating the movie Psycho as well as you know, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I think I was trying to tell my family when we were watching um, hey, this story, the story of this guy, has shown up in a lot of different ways in different films without even knowing that that's where the show is gonna go. This is why we're watching the first episode, and I'm like, you know, the movie Psycho is fully based on him, as well as many scenes in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and one could even go as far as to say Buffalo Bill, of course, from Silence of the Lambs. So I kind of mentioned all three, and then sure enough, by the time we get to sort of I think episode two is kind of where it breaks in, breaks that wall and goes into sort of the the filming of Psycho.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So I did I do like how I treated it. There's always a a fair amount of camp in Ryan Murphy's stuff. So if you're a fan of his work and all the different things we just mentioned, you'll like it. If you're not, yeah, it'll probably turn you off, you know.
SPEAKER_01:But well, compared to some of the other things that I've seen, it's not nearly as campy as a lot of stuff. And I would say it feels quite a bit darker than anything that I've seen on like American Horror Story. Oh, it's yeah. I mean, it it get it's pretty gritty. Um yeah, yeah. So we we're on a tear with all that stuff. We we just finished that one and then we watched uh The Witch last night. I had never seen that. Actually, neither of us had seen that. So Anya Taylor Joy and uh all that stuff. That was a that was a good one. That was cool. Yeah. And then uh what did we watch the night before? We watched um I think the substance is gonna happen tonight. We haven't seen that yet. Oh, okay. We've been saving a lot of this stuff. I know that was a huge one last year. Yeah. That was a good one. What did we watch the night before? We watched uh Oh, uh that's Stephen King the Monkey.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Did you did you ever check that out?
SPEAKER_02:I haven't watched I haven't watched that yet, but yeah, I know about I know about that. Was that based on Monkey Shines? I know I've seen the trailer, but I couldn't remember. I don't know what that is.
SPEAKER_01:Like basically the the the plot is a family uh basically these twin boys, their dad left when they were a kid. He was a pilot, and so he had collected all these like totchkis from all over the places that he traveled. He leaves them when they're little kids. At some point, they get into the stash of all the stuff that he would bring home because mom like kept it in a closet. One of the things that are in the closet is this big box that has a monkey inside of it, and it's like one of those uh you know, wind-up toys and wind up toys. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Every time it plays the drum, though, someone dies horrifically. Someone dies. Uh, and so the movie is not what I would call a scary movie. It is a horror movie because there's gore and a lot of death, but honestly, it's pretty funny. Like I I found myself laughing a ton. I don't know if that was the intended response, but I thought it was really funny. Um sometimes unintended, sometimes on purpose. You know, it's not like joke taglines necessarily, but it's like comedic situations, but it's put in a horror context. So I thought it was really good. We we had a a good time with it.
SPEAKER_02:Did you I didn't ask you about this? And I know I don't know, we could, like I said, you you're gonna open up the vault with me when you start talking about Halloween movies and horror movies. By the way, for anyone who's just checking this out and wants to know a little bit about that, about me, I'm an enormous fan of horror and horror genre and have been for since I was a kid, a very young kid. Thanks, mom, for letting me watch whatever I felt like watching. Uh, but no, the ones I was gonna talk about were the terrifier ones. Have you gotten a chance to watch any of those? Yeah. Yeah. Because that seems to be all the rage now. That's that's the hottest costume going, I think, this year. Is everyone's trying to get Art the Clown, you know? And it's like I've seen all these different ads and um, you know, different versions of that mask and the clown costume and the whole thing, and I'm like, oh. I even watched a guy do a a cake version on Instagram uh the other day. He made a cake of Art the Clown. You know how they do all these fancy yeah. I was like, holy crap. I mean, it was so realistic looking. I'm like, that's crazy. Yeah, but that's a those are fun, like slasher films, you know, you don't see a ton of those lately.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I was gonna say, I give a lot of respect to that series because it's kind of old school in that way. Like there's not a plot, you know, there's nothing to follow. It's just horror.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Just going straightforward, yeah, and really like uh gruesome and shocking stuff. And yeah, I I remember uh one particular death in that first movie that had me going like, whoa, oh my god. Yeah. I yeah, never in my life have I even conceived of that as being an option. Uh yeah. But yeah, if you're upside down and take a chainsaw, you know, like that's that's next level.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's a pretty intense, uh some pretty intense ones out there. But nevertheless, yeah, I'm definitely in in uh in full full spirit. There was a little bit of time there, I think, during the pandemic where I did or maybe even just in that span of time where I was like I'm always one to want to decorate the house and do something a little bit more leaning into the grotesque or macabre, you know. Yeah. And I think during that time, even I I told you know, my family, I was like, I don't know if I really want to do that now. It just feels like it's in a little bit in poor taste. So for a little bit of that time during those couple years, I kind of tamed it down. And now I'm kind of back to being like, no, I want something that scares the mess out of people. I don't want them to like if you're coming to get a treat at my front lawn, I want you to be a little bit scared when you come up. Yeah. So I'm trying to do some things that are a little more uh creepy, if you will, uh this time around. So just try and do it.
SPEAKER_01:So you've got the energy of like Claire Dunfey from uh Modern Family. 100%. Oh, I remember both those episodes.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. But that's it, that's exactly it. I love that I love that he got her back, though, that Phil got her back with going into that house and the whole setting up to tie it back to like the psycho thing with the you know the mother or whatever that's sitting in the window and he finally gets her.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, it scares her. I love that episode. I thought that was so good. I like doing those kind of things for I I always like to do that to scare my mom or my wife. My wife more than anything, because she can't stand clowns at all. So I'm constantly trying to find ways to to scare her. And then I've seen all these Instagram videos of people doing, you know, the scare things. Like the one that was the best was there was a guy that, or uh yeah, the guy, I think he's going into the laundry room or something, and his girlfriend or wife or whatever has figured out a way to get like hold himself up into the ceiling. Like there's some kind of yeah, it was it's wild. If I can find it, I'll send it to you. But yeah, he basically walks into the into the door frame and she's above him, and she makes all this like like creepy sound or whatever. And he's I swear, it's like you probably thank goodness you're in the laundry room because you probably desoiled yourself, you know. Might as well just go ahead and change your clothes there. Uh yeah, but I was like, dude, if if Lisa had done that to me, oh my goodness gracious, I would have uh I would have probably had a heart attack. Uh that was pretty scary. Oh my goodness. Anyway, well, in the in the Halloween spirit, you know, yeah, um a band that we've kind of talked a little bit about here and there, but just one that we've sort of loosely kind of checked out here and there was Ice Nine Kills. I know they just put out a new video and song. I think you told me we were talking about some topics to talk about today, but yeah. They're one that definitely evoked evoked the Halloween spirit uh quite a bit. I mean, that seems to be mostly their aesthetic, is kind of leaning into old uh horror films, you know, horror tropes, genres of that kind of stuff. Of course, they leaned into the American Psycho movie quite a bit. And all their stuff is very theme-esque of things like that, you know, like Welcome to Horror Wood and those kind of stuff. Like, but aside from all that, I felt I've always, you know, I want to get your take on this too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I just saw them recently because they opened for Metallica at the show that we went and saw. They were it was the Ice Nine Kills Limp Biscuit, Metallica was the first night. And that was my first chance of actually seeing them. I'd seen plenty of videos from I thought, yeah, they're really tight. They're a really tight band and great singer, great harmonies, incredible playing. In fact, I will dare I say that I feel like they lean in a little to some pretty technically tough stuff to play, I would say, almost like Avenge does in that way. Like they're the guitar players is very talented, yeah. And can shred with his eyes closed, no problem. So but I've I've looked at the singing, everything was just pitch perfect. It was really, really good. Um, so I just wondered. I know we kind of talked about them here and there, but I I believe you said you kind of started checking them out a little bit. So I was curious what you thought.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Knowing how much you like Avenged, you know.
SPEAKER_01:There there definitely is some carryover there um with Avenged, but that you know, it's also its own thing. So I I give them credit. You know, you as these things go sometimes, you know, you've been trying to put me onto them for a while, and I was like, Yeah, yeah, okay. Like, you know, I I think I like listen to a song maybe kind of you know half-heartedly or something like that. Uh but up until kind of recently, I don't think I fully understood what their thing was. Um and so randomly my buddy Tyler told me, You gotta check this band out. Their record, The Silver Scream, is amazing. It's like one of my favorites. And knowing his taste in music, I I kind of assume that they were maybe more cheesy. I don't know. Like here, I I don't know. That I made a lot of assumptions, I think, without really checking out the music. And his taste in music is even heavier and crazier than mine is. So I'm like, oh well, if ty if Tyler's interested in this, there must be something about it that that works. And so yeah, I checked that record out, the Silver Scream, and that's amazing. And I love that because it's each song kind of plays on a completely different horror movie. So you've got Michael Myers, you've got Camp Silver Lake, like all that stuff. All the classic horror films are kind of in one album. Yeah, the lyrics are done really well, the production is awesome. As you said, the musicality is top-notch, and the singing is great. Um yeah. So I was pretty pumped when I saw this new one come out because it's called The Laugh Track. Uh, and so it's all based around the Joker. And I haven't watched the full video yet, but the clips that I saw, I mean, the the makeup and the production that they do around that stuff is so good. Yes. Um kind of leans probably more into like uh Jared Leto Joker meets uh I would go back like Jack.
SPEAKER_02:It's like well, I was gonna say meets the Jack Nicholson one.
SPEAKER_01:Um I think Jack Nicholson was a really good joker, but this one looks a little more mangled, which is what made me think Jared Leto.
SPEAKER_00:But like I don't know. If anyone's watching might be able to see it and see what gets in focus. That's good, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But uh yeah, yeah, a little bit really cool, creepy in that sense, like Suicide Squad era. Yeah, I guess, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're uh they when you come on stage, you prepare to get I think again, Lisa coming with me to see the show. She's like, what on earth? It's like every other song, they're bringing out a character, like they'll bring out an exorcist-looking type female to do the you know, the kind of creepy walk on their back kind of thing. Oh, yeah. Okay. They have a leather face type character that comes out with a chainsaw. Right. They did a cover of Katrina in the Waves walking on sunshine, and they have a big sunshine guy, like a big old son that kind of comes out when they're doing this sort of their their version of that as well. And as I mentioned, he's dressed like um the Patrick Bateman character from American Psycho. So, like, you know, with the suspenders and the nice tie and all that kind of stuff, like a Wall Street era.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So he leans into that too. But I think what again, they you know, they have all these I don't even want to say backing tracks, so I don't think that's fair. They they do a lot of little punch-ins for like different um like movie style things, like quotes, almost like you would hear in hip-hop sometimes, so they'll do these little skits. They'll blake samples basically samples and stuff like that to kind of cue up different songs. But yeah, man, they from a live perspective, anyone's not had a chance to see them. If you dig the record, they are really great to see live, just super tight, the singing's on point, it just blows you away. Like that whole thing, again, leaning into Avenge, but also a little bit of like Mike Patton, like this guy. I feel like he could sing the phone book. Like he's got such a scream, a good scream vocal, which is kind of hard to do, I think, if you're into that stuff, but also just great clean vocal singing. So a lot of the songs you hear, he's just got a great tone. Um not like Tobias or Ghost in that way, and we're talking about you know, sometimes those things can you don't take itself too seriously. If you're going to see ghosts, you know they're gonna be a great band. You know, and uh with a great singer, and they lean into those things with the you know the masked uh ghouls and all the nameless ghouls and all this kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01:But they do it in a more old school way compared to what Ice Nine Kills does feels pretty cutting edge. And that's yeah, that's not meant as a knock on ghost, but ghost has a very classic feel because most of the musical influences are you know our heroes of you know decades ago. Absolutely. Ice Nine Kills feels very modern in that way.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, 100%, yeah. From production-wise and all that stuff. Yeah, no, that was it's really uh it was really good to see. But yeah, that video's cool. I just watched it before we got jumped on here. When you told me, like, oh my god, I didn't realize they had a new record. Uh or you know, that was coming out. I figured that was, but uh yeah, that song is really good.
SPEAKER_01:They probably should only ever put out records during October, I feel like, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Uh at least songs fully sell out to the whole Halloween vibe, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01:No, I mean all their music is already, you know, like people when they're really receptive to that kind of thing, probably don't want to do it around Christmas or Easter, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. It's like seeing all those, you know, you can always tell now if your algorithm is broken like mine, I think is. I've intentionally broken my Instagram algorithm to just play the most ridiculous, subversive nonsense on there. So now I'm just watching all of these like stupid Halloween videos of you know, all of your favorite Halloween characters in circumstances that wouldn't normally be there. Like I just watched a version of Straight Out of Compton.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02:With Freddie Krueger basically being Ice Cube, you know. Okay. And he's got like the the the whole gang colors and and uh you know flannel, but it's Freddie Krueger, you know. So I was like okay. Yeah, I guess I'm down for this. Why not? Let's just watch this trash. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:God bless AI, I suppose.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Man, that's it. Yeah, for all of its you know, nonsense, at least there's something funny out there that you could do with this stuff for good entertainment, you know. It's been it's been kind of fun.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you you're making me self-conscious about my algorithm because for as uh wacky as my taste in art tends to be and toward the dark end of the spectrum, my Instagram feed is mostly golden retriever stuff. Uh so it's a lot of cute dogs doing cute stuff. And it'll be me sitting on one side of the couch show it to my wife. Yep.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, look at this dog. Yes. When I have my own golden retriever laying on the floor next to me or in my lap, and I'm looking at other dogs, it's kind of like uh uh, you know, looking at slutty Instagram profiles, you know, on the couch. Oh golden retrievers. Yeah. But yeah, but it's just it's just instead of that, uh it's a little more wholesome. You know, it's me watching old other Goldens with mine uh in the same room.
SPEAKER_02:That's amazing. I wish I had that. Mine is is sadly now has resorted to Michael Myers is hiding in a bathroom, and a girl comes in who's really got to go to the bathroom really bad. And the smell and sounds that she makes in the bathroom basically kills Michael Myers before he could kill her. And same thing. I go, honey, watch this. You gotta see this. This is so good. You know, yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Does she ever like those videos?
SPEAKER_02:No, God, no. No, of course not. It's all potty humor. I might I might score one out of a hundred. Where she's I'll get a chuckle and she's like, Okay, that was kind of funny. I'm like, it's far humor. I'm like, I'm sorry. Like, she's one of these days I'll grow up. Yeah, oh yeah. She knows. She's like, God, what now? I'm like, well, maybe it would have might have been our podcast, or I wanted to show you something about the music or whatever, you know. Yeah. But she knows better. You never do that. She knows you never do that. She knows better. It's sort of like the what's his face with the football and peanuts that always, every single time he goes to kick it, Lucy's gonna take the ball. Lucy's like, why do I keep falling for this? Every single time you're gonna show something that's just disgusting or stupid, or it's like, yeah, why do you do this to me? Sorry. I'm so sorry. Anywho, I digress. You said you told me about Liam, like, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:He's a granddad? Liam Gallagher? Yeah, that that's what I read. His uh his daughter has given birth to uh a new baby, so he is for the first time a grandfather, which sounds wrong. No, it does sound wrong. That sounds wrong. I I I don't know why. I don't feel like he's old enough to be a grandfather, but I guess he is. Um Yeah, that's a trip. That that is a trip for sure. But congrats to the Gallagher family. I mean, that's that's gotta be huge for them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I'm sure he's already shopping for parkas, you know? Like, oh, let me see. Do they make one in like a zero to six months? Like, I gotta get a cool parka for him and a bucket hat. And I'm already assuming the sex is a male, but you know, maybe it isn't. Who knows?
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, you know, I I don't remember now.
SPEAKER_02:I haven't looked it up, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't remember now.
SPEAKER_02:Either way, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01:But there's a lot happening in their in their world, so I mean, congrats on becoming a grandfather, and then of course, uh, you know, his son is um in a band called Vil Villano or something like that. Yeah. I forget the exact name of it, but they've got a bunch of stuff coming out, and that seems pretty cool. And I can totally hear his dad in it, which yeah, I don't know if that's on purpose or if that's just genetic, but I thought that was kind of cool. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I think maybe he's like you know, creeping around the studio and go he's drinking his beer, his Guinness, you know. Yeah. And he's like, no, I think you need a little more of that. You know, maybe a little look, your pops knows how to do it, man. I mean, I can give you advice. Like, yeah, maybe you want to lean into a little sunshine. You know, yeah. I can imagine that. Punch it up a little bit. It's all good. Don't be embarrassed that you're coming from royalty.
SPEAKER_01:So lean into it, kid. Hey, you might as well. But you know, everything aesthetically about their band that I've seen, because I followed them on Instagram and I've listened to uh they've got a song or two last time I checked up on Apple Music. Um does not sound anything like Oasis or look anything like Oasis. Yeah. So it does feel like they're trying to do something really different, but it still reminds me of like kind of underground 90s stuff. Um it's very rough around the edges um and not nearly as like Oasis is a totally a rock band and they're raw, but their songwriting is really polished. Um and I mean that with all due respect. Um this band feels like they're trying to be a little different than that, which I think is cool. Um so I'm excited to hear what they're gonna do. I think the plan is for them to put out a full record soon.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, would be cool. I was just thinking in the back of my head, you think about all the famous kids from famous musicians that are now in bands, yeah. They should just kind of go on their own little tour, you know. Like uh Shane Hawkins and Wolf Cornell Van Halen and Wolfie, Cornell's daughter, yeah, you know, Cobain's kid. Yeah. You got Inhaler, which is uh Bono's sons band. Oh, that's right, yeah. You know, which they're good. They're really good.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah famous kids. Yeah, famous kids. They're not all kids anymore, but you know, like children of famous artists. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's so much. There's been so uh so many, and I know we're forgetting a lot, but I'm like, there's a lot out there. You could probably have a your own festival of just bands from their famous parents, you know. Yeah what a cool family reunion that would be, having all of them showing up, you know.
SPEAKER_01:I'm sure. Yeah, can you imagine the front row of one of those shows? Yeah. That'd be pretty wild. Exactly. You're like, oh, oh, look at that. Yeah. Oh, excuse me, Mr. Bono. Actually, I was standing here. I'm saving this spot for my wife. She she went to the bathroom. Yeah, you can't stand there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't think this is your that's this is that's what it says on my ticket. Uh I think that's my my chair that you're sitting in, Mr. Bono.
SPEAKER_01:You're I think you're back a couple rows behind me.
SPEAKER_02:You're pretty much back there in the lawn, dude. I don't know. Like Yeah, you think I carry your son? Your son didn't hook it up for you, buddy. I'm so sorry. Yeah. Um, I hate to tell you. Maybe you want to take it up with him. You know, I paid good money for these tickets. So uh yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we all know you can just go backstage, so I'm not gonna feel bad for you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, don't feel really bad for you. You probably flew a helicopter to get here. So uh we're gonna take four hours to get out of here. So, you know what? You could just kiss all of my butt and get on back to where you should be.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I will be stuck in the parking lot longer than it took for all the bands to play tonight.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, 100%. Yeah. Not bringing it back to the Rose Bowl or anything, but again, yeah, you know, people.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I wish that was the only time I've experienced that, but I've experienced that in uh too many venues. No, yeah. Levi's Stadium, terrible to get out of terrible. Never had a show at Levi's that I got out in anything close to a reasonable amount of time. No. Um, and same thing with Shoreline in the Bay Area. Terrible to get out of there. Oh my God. I remember seeing Foo Fighters there years ago, and I was stuck four hours in the parking lot trying to get out. Um Concord. I feel like the forum in LA was rough too. Oh, Concord, dude. Oh my God, that's the worst experience I've ever had was Concord.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think that pretty much ruined your entire experience of seeing 30 Seconds to Mars in Lincoln Park.
SPEAKER_01:I mean Well, yeah, because I didn't get to see hardly either of them. So that show was AFI, 30 Seconds to Mars, and um Lincoln. Lincoln Park. Right. I missed AFI, 30 Seconds to Mars, and half of the Lincoln Park set. By the time I got in my seat, I probably saw six songs.
SPEAKER_02:Jesus Christ. Yeah, it would have been so.
SPEAKER_01:And my transmission almost exploded.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:In my car. So I'm like, and I bought those tickets like a year in advance. At that point, I was really into what 30 Seconds to Mars was doing. Yeah. Since I I got to see them later, and with love and respect to those guys, I was kind of disappointed when I did get to see them. So that made me not, you know, feel too bad about missing them the first time. But Lincoln Park, I mean, you know, this is Chester. You know?
SPEAKER_02:Uh yeah, probably it was last tour, I would imagine, somewhere close to about around that same time. Was it 2017? Probably, yeah. 2016, 2017, yeah. Uh yeah, so that was probably the last time for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That was a huge bummer. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember being so tired because like I worked all day. I had a really early shift, so I was up at like four in the morning. I worked all day, left right from there, got stuck in all that traffic. I won't belabor this story for everyone, but the quick recap is I get stuck in traffic, almost blow my transmission, just trying to get into the parking. Once I get into the parking, they tell you, oh no, the parking lot's full. You can't get in here. You have to go somewhere else. So they make you turn around in a little one-lane area. I'm like, why did you even let us drive into the parking area? Like everyone's driving in here and having to turn around, like driving up the dirt embankments and stuff. I'm like, this is crazy. Like my car's not meant for this. So like, yeah, you have to go to the college that's like a couple miles away, and we'll send a shuttle for you. Like, okay, that's the worst.
SPEAKER_02:Was it Disneyland?
SPEAKER_01:Like, what are we So it's that sort of deal, right? They've got like a remote place that they're gonna shuttle us over. So get over there, park. Takes quite a while for a bus to come because I think they had to like hire a bus last minute.
SPEAKER_02:Like, you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Bus rolls up, we're all in line, ready, bus rolls up, everyone gets on, and you know, there's too many people for one bus. So I'm literally the cutoff, yeah. The cutoff happens with me. The person. The person in front of me is the last one to get on the bus.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I'm like so frustrated already because I'm like, I want to I'm I'm so stoked for this show. I'm like, okay, I'm like holding it together still, but I'm frustrated. So then it takes forever for the bus to come back around, and it does, and it drives in the parking lot, and I'm like, cool, here we go. I'm first in line, feels great. Bus comes in and drives over and parks at the back of the line. And everyone at the back of the line now gets on the bus, and I miss that bus too. I'm already I'm feeling like it's a joke. Yeah, I'm just gonna be able to do I'm looking for Ashton Kutcher, I'm on Punked. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, this has got to be, I'm on some sort of show. I'm on a reality show where they're and they picked you out.
SPEAKER_02:Like, oh, this guy, he's our mark. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:He's gonna lose his mind, it's gonna be hilarious.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, it's gonna be amazing. We got all the drone footage of it, it's gonna be awesome.
SPEAKER_01:I'm totally expecting that. Yep. There's one security guy. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you can't write this stuff.
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_01:I'm like, is this even the same bus driver? Maybe it's a different bus. That's the only thing I can figure. Because or the bus driver thought, how funny is this gonna be if I do this to these guys? Yeah. Uh, because I guess it doesn't matter to them, but yeah. So when that happened, there's almost a riot of the people who are left, and there's one security guy who's hanging out there, and he literally walks away because everyone's like yelling and crowding around him, and he goes over like by his car. He's got his back turned to everyone, he's like hunched over, trying to ignore everybody. Yeah. And I'm thinking, I started feeling bad because I'm like, as mad as I am, it's not this guy's fault. Like he didn't do anything. He's about to get jumped though. Yeah, that was the energy that I was feeling. Is like this crowd is about to turn in a big way. Like it felt kind of scary. So, anyway, I think we get on the third bus, from what I remember, get in the venue, push through, see six songs, or whatever it was. You know, it was like less than half the set.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And at this point, I'm so exhausted, I'm so tired from all of this sitting in traffic and working and everything that like I'm I'm I'm miserable. Like my body hurts, right?
SPEAKER_02:You know, like you can't even enjoy the set.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I didn't enjoy it. I didn't, which is a shame. I mean, I yeah, I enjoyed it as much as I could, but it was not a good time.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And then have to go back out, get to my car, and I remember being so tired that I had to I couldn't even get home. I had to pull, I felt myself falling asleep at the wheel. So, and Concord to my place at the time was probably a little over an hour, hour and a half, maybe, tops that time of night. And so uh yeah, I pulled over in a random parking lot of like a grocery store and knocked out for like 30, 45 minutes because I'm like, I I'm gonna I'm gonna crash and die if I don't do if I don't do this. So it's not worth it. I mean, yeah, and I was again just so frustrated. I'm like, I just want to get home. I just want to be done with all of this.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I just want to wipe this day away and start over.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, pretend it didn't happen. And I eventually got home, but man, brutal. Uh that's the worst concert experience I've ever had.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's uh uh I mean obviously it's never good, especially when you have to work all day and then you're gonna go, then you're already tired. So it's like trying to have the stamina to enjoy a show that you really want to, but of course you got your day job. Yeah. You could get in the way of that, you know. Well, tonight, even thinking about this too, like I'm about we're gonna go, not to get off topic, but it's kind of relevant. We're gonna go um to see Dua Lipa tonight.
SPEAKER_01:Lucky you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, I'm excited. I've been it's been a long time, and both Lisa and I are big fans of of hers and all their music, and I I enjoy it. So we're excited, but we also both have to work tomorrow. So, you know what I mean? You're getting out of a show, you gotta leave. It's gonna be an hour and change to get home. One time to be at home, but it's midnight. Chase Center in San Francisco.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. So you're going into the belly of the beast, too.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. Two shows though. She did one last night and then doing another one tonight as well. So I think they're both sold out, at least from my understanding. Um, but yeah, so getting out of that show once everything's over with, you know, you're figuring 11, 11:30, get in your car, get out, get back on the road another hour and change to get home. You're going to bed maybe one o'clock, and then getting up at five, five thirty. I'm not looking forward to that.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know if you're like me, but usually after a show, I have a hard time going to sleep. Yeah. So it's like you might you might be able to go to bed at one, but you know, I'm probably your brain's still going. Yeah, I'm spending for like another two, three hours, oftentimes, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yep. And then just trying to like, okay, brain, turn off, stop, stop resinging all those songs in your brain. Yeah. You know, just go to sleep. It's hard.
SPEAKER_01:I'm I'm generally not one I'm not much for pop music most of the time. I I don't hate pop music. Like growing up, I definitely would have said I hated pop music. Yeah. It's fine. You know, like the occasional song gets me. Um, but Dua Lipa is the first kind of pop artist in a long time. You know, the last one I remember feeling like, oh, I'm really into this was Gaga.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Early Early Lady Gaga. Yeah. You know, I I enjoyed, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and there have been times in her career where she's kind of brought me back around. Like I remember Joanne, and some of that stuff was like really, really awesome. Uh, and I still have a ton of respect for, I just don't listen to it quite as much now. Yeah. Uh, but it's like, you know, it's like once a decade or so that a pop artist really surprises me. And um yeah, I end up listening to her music a lot. Uh, I think she's a phenomenal talent.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I d I um and we'll save this because there's another one to unpack about all this stuff, but I guess to give a little context for me, um yes, I love rock music, and that's that's always and forever gonna be there too. But I would say almost with equal measure, I'm a massive fan of electronic music. And you know, you'll hear obviously you've heard me talk a lot about nine snails, and and but for a long period of time, I I think I've always created music in some form, but when I couldn't have instruments or the studio or all the synths and the guitars and everything that I have now, it was just about okay, well, how can I make music with whatever is around? And so I started really getting into I had a roommate that was, you know, had bought himself some turntables. Um and so I just started trying to learn how to DJ. And I thought, oh, cool. And electronic music always brought me there. And so there was there's a lot of artists over the better part of 20, 30 years that have constantly kept me in that space. And I think hearing Duo Lipo with Calvin Harris, like I was like, oh, this is really good. And a lot of times you'll hear female singers on a on a DJ's track or something like that, and you don't know who they are. Yeah. So like, oh, who's this? You know, that's how I honestly how I discovered Rihanna was also from a Calvin Harris song, uh, which was massive. Um This is what you came for. So um, and I don't even know if that's the name of the song. I know that's a lyric.
SPEAKER_01:So you you didn't uh jump on during the umbrella era?
SPEAKER_02:No, I knew that song, but to be honest with you, I didn't know that it was her. And then I hear that song from Calvin Harris, and I'm like, oh Rihanna, I think I've heard that name before. And again, go back and hear it, right? But uh yeah, so with Duo Leepa, I kind of heard those and I was like, this is a really great singer. And then I heard that first album um before Future Nostalgia, and I thought, oh, this should be really good. Yes, great.
SPEAKER_01:Those first two are phenomenal. The newest one has grown on me too. No, it definitely has good songs on it, but Future Nostalgia is like perfect.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's that's pretty much a masterpiece, top to bottom. Yeah, um, love the production. You know, a lot of people leaned in because they're like, oh, it's kind of ripping on these different things. It's like, listen, borrow from your best borrow from the best. Who cares? Yeah, I don't care if a song sounds like NXS, NXS was a great band. Good for her. Like and people sample and do all that stuff all all the time now to make old, new again and all that kind of stuff. But regardless of all that, a great talent, great production. Um super excited to see her. Just pull it off. We'll see what you know how it looks.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, yeah, I'm sure it'll be great.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I I don't know the last pop artists that I've kind of seen, you know, so because they do a lot of like choreography, that kind of stuff. I couldn't tell you maybe Madonna, to be honest. It's been a while because mostly it's bands or solo artists and that kind of thing. So it'll be fun. It's gonna be cool. I'm not looking forward to working tomorrow, but yeah, regardless of it.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe you maybe you get sick tomorrow, you know. This episode uh will come out after tomorrow, so you'll be in the clear. They won't know what you're talking about. You're like, huh?
SPEAKER_02:What do you mean? Yeah, just do me a favor and release it a few weeks later, just in case. And give me a give me a good out. Oh my god. Yeah. Anywho. Totally. Oh, um, yeah, man, we're shifting all over the place. I'm gonna go from Dua Lipa to Rob Zombie. Uh on the Halloween theme, but he just dropped a new track as well. Did you get a chance to listen to that? I sent it to you the other day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I listened to it yesterday. I don't know about you. I'm gonna go like I'm a I'm a again a huge fan of his. He was a big fan of White Zombie, loved all of his solo stuff. Um and it's been a minute since I've listened to it. I I want to say it was probably I don't know, it feels like four or five years, maybe longer since he's had a record. So to hear this, and I'm going, this to me feels like there's almost I've always felt like Rob has a a clever way of kind of infusing, again, horror style aesthetics, all this kind of stuff into his music, sampling. Obviously, he leans into that sort of again, he's a massive fan of seven seventies era style movies, production, music, you name it. Um but this song felt I mean, uh it is heavy, like ministry heavy. And it doesn't feel like there's any sort of camp or any kind of winking to any of it. It's just like straight in with a chorus that's you know, Satan. Satan. Yeah, yeah, just like Satan a bunch of times. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, you're you you're pretty much just saying what's on your mind. So it's interesting how I always feel like sometimes maybe the landscape in our society right now evokes I've told you this before, like certain periods of time, culturally, whatever's going on in the world seems to bring out some really good music, particularly if people are angry or they have something they feel like they need to say. I feel like, and I don't know this, obviously, I don't know Rob or any of that stuff, but that that song just feels like he's like, Yeah, I'm I'm kind of angry right now, and I just need to say what I need to say in the way that he says it. But it definitely felt heavy. Punks and demons, yeah. Super heavy song. Uh not a lot like if it was if it evoked anything, it goes back to his roots, you know, early into White Zombie. But even then it doesn't, even now it feels a little more like I was telling somebody the other day, I think it feels if you're a if even if you know Ministry, of course, that Psalms album that they did back in the 90s with like uh Just One Fix, Um Jesus Spilled My Hot Rod, those those songs, New World Order, it feels of that style. So if you're into the sort of industrial metal, this is definitely something that Rob leaned into a lot on this. It's a good track. It sounds cool. I like his vocal on it, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, it sounds good. Um I'm curious to hear the album because the lyrics of Punks and Demons kind of made me feel like I don't want to say that this is gonna be a concept album, but it made me wonder if there's like some sort of theme to it. Could be. Yeah. I mean, the name of the record is The Great Satan.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So we'll see. But then I'm looking at the the different tracks, track titles on here, and they don't necessarily feel all in the same vibe necessarily. But I guess we'll see. Um it is cool to hear new music from him. I mean, it's been a while. The last thing I remembered hearing was his collaboration with Marilyn Manson on uh Helter Skelter, which was really cool.
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um I enjoyed that a lot. But I always just go back to Hellbilly, Deluxe. Like I know he's he has a lot of work, and there's good songs throughout the catalog, but that uh that's a hard one to beat for me.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that was a great. And it sounds like to me, and again, I'm not I don't I'm not uh aficionado or anything on his music or the band or anything. I know John Five's, of course, not with him anymore. He's he's doing he's getting his paycheck with Molly Crew. Um But I think I was understanding that there are a couple of key members that have been in Rob's band in the past that have rejoined the band again. And it seems like the the word on the street is that people are excited by that. It seems to have brought maybe more of a heavier thing back to Rob's stuff that maybe people were feeling like they were missing. Again, no judgment at all. I think there was some funny, funny banter or um comments that I was reading about that people are like, that's an interesting, it's just three words in his title, The Great Satan. There's not like electric wizard monkey fart volume one, you know? Yeah, he does seem to have some wild and the grand Kool-Aid Acid Trip, you know, like whatever he's gonna say, you know, which I do love. I think those are always very clever and funny. So to have just three words in a title, it's it is a little to the point. That's it's pretty much very pointed. So I'm very curious to hear what the rest of his record's gonna be. And I'm a big fan of Rob, so I can't imagine. I did see an interview with him though, because I'm like, somebody said something in the comments was like, you know, he's 60 or 61 and still just out there crushing it. And I was like, you know, sometimes you just forget age for people because they've met such, you know, they've had such an impact on you, you don't really care, you know? Yeah. But I'm like, dang, Rob, I didn't realize that you had gotten up there. So I had to go look him up. I'm like, let me see what he looks like, you know. And the fun I don't know why this caught me, and again, I wish we could cut in, we probably could in post. Cut in a picture of Mark Marin, the comedian. And of course, a lot of people lean on Mark as being sort of the originator of podcasting as as to what we know today, um, with his WTF podcast. But Rob Mark, if Mark had long hippie hair like Rob, I swear to God, they would look identical to me. Uh, and I don't know why it is. And it's no, it's gotta get Mark in a wig. Yeah, it's like, let's get Mark Maron. Mark could look like Rob Zombie pretty easily because they kind of have the bit of the bearity goatee thing going. Yeah, that's true. Have a similar, a similar sort of talk, the way that they talk, a dialect almost. I don't even know if they're from the same era or area uh location, you know. But um, yeah, I just thought it was kind of funny. I'm like, man, I don't know if Rob's starting to look more like Mark Barrett or Mark Barrett's starting to look more like Rob Zombie, but nevertheless, they could probably be brothers.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe they always favored and we're just now noticing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. It just caught me that way. If anyone has any comments about that, feel free uh to rip on me for that. I'm not hating on either one. In fact, I got lots of love for both, but it just kind of caught me as like, oh, it kind of looks a little bit like it, but anyway, I digress.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I did think that was a pretty funny observation. Uh definitely.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What else is new?
SPEAKER_02:What else is going on? Oh, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01:Go ahead. Well, yeah, yeah. Uh uh, I mean, the biggest new thing for us probably is that we just put out a new music video. Well, yeah, we did do that, didn't we? So, congratulations, you and I. Yes. Uh so yeah, our band, The Silver Echo, second music video on this new album for the song Helping Hand. And I thought it might be kind of cool to unpack a little bit of how that came to be because this was yet again something pretty different for us. Um you know, we've got before this, what, four music videos and a lyric video, I think. Rock and Roll Queen, Paradigm, Fear on High, uh, Take the Flame, Runaways has a lyric video. So this is video number six, music video number five. Yeah. And we've always made our videos together at the same time in the same place. Um so, like I flew out to California for us to do our last one uh for Take the Flame, which turned out to be a phenomenal video. Um a really, really cool concept and uh execution on that, and really fun to do it. And it was fun to go back home and all that. Um, but you know, for practicality, we were talking, and you know, I live in Nashville now, so making videos was easier before because you know, we You're just right around the corner. Yeah, yeah, just lived a few miles down the road. So we were talking, and the thought was, okay, well, we need to still be able to make our content. We need to be able to make videos, and we have a whole bunch more planned, which is exciting. We need to empower ourselves to figure out how we can do this remotely in the same way that we've done our music and learned how to do that. Uh, we can't be sort of like, I don't know, stuck to where we can't make something if we're not together. Right. So I w I went out and got myself a camera, um, which is uh, you know, a little baby version of the camera that you have, but uh looks great. The the footage all looks great. Yeah. So we made our first remote video from our respective studios, and we decided to you know keep it pretty easy for this first one to do a performance style video. And I'm curious from your perspective what that was like because I know if it's like our it introduces a whole new set of challenges to solve, right? Like you have to figure out how to frame up yourself in camera without being behind the camera, control all of that. You know, you have to like have a good eye for what's going on, but also let yourself kind of cut loose and be free in front of the camera to get a good performance. Clearly learning the parts again. Like I know this is the case for you, and it certainly was for me too. Of there was a couple of moments in the song where I'm going back through and and relearning it because I haven't played it since we recorded it. Yeah, and some of those parts in that song got written at the very end of the recording process. And so there's a couple of parts where I'm like, what did I do there? Uh like none of it was hard, but I'm like, right, just like I had amnesia. Like, what was that? And so going back through and learning all the parts and then having to perform them on camera, and so it was just a really unique experience compared to what I'm used to, because like for the last video, I just had to show up and then cut loose in front of the camera. You know, and between you and Phil, you were handling all the technical stuff and telling me where to stand and you know what to look at, and you know, whatever of those kind of details needed to be handled. Right. Right. And uh so it was a really fun and educational process for me. Uh I know you had the challenge of learning the drum track, uh, which you know our buddy Michael uh recorded drums on on this record for us. Oh yeah. And uh so you're going back and kind of learning some of his parts and kudos because you did a great job. Um yeah, I I I just love to hear your your thoughts on this one. And there's so much to unpack. The other thing I was wondering too is was it hard for you to let go a little bit? Whereas normally like you're very thoughtful and practiced, like you know, you ran a video production company for a number of years, and you have done a lot of stuff like this, whether it's for the band or not, uh in your in your professional career. And so not like normally when we're gonna do a video, like you've got storyboards, you've got notes, you've got a shot list, you've got I mean, everything is very organized. And, you know, there's a huge element of trust, I think, of kind of letting go, whereas we're both doing our own thing in our own space and then trying to put together something that is gonna look good without necessarily being there to like I don't know, like give each other thoughts or anything like that. So I don't know if that was weird for you because you've you've done all of our videos up until this point.
SPEAKER_02:No, it yeah, I'll I can I'll cover all of it. Let me just start. I'll go back with the drums first. I cursed Michael and I told him this. I text him literally the day that I was filming. And it's funny enough because the day that we're shooting this today, one week ago, literally to the day I was setting up kind of a look in the garage, putting the acoustic drums up. I have a MIDI drum kit. Those of you out there who know what I'm talking about, it's it it fashions itself to look very similar to drums, and it's certainly acoustic drums. It certainly plays like it. You can dial up any sounds. It's certainly quiet for the neighbors, no one can hear you, you're in headphones, blah, blah, blah. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's click clacking.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but it also, in a way, could look like a a little bit of a fancier version of a rock band drum kit, you know? So um that's a funny way to say it. To me, I'm like, I'm not putting this, you know, and there's no shame to this at all. And it trust me when I say this, it's it's an incredible tool to help us in the recording, but it doesn't look sexy when you're trying to record it on a video. So my first thought was like, okay, well, let's not be lazy. Let's set up the acoustic kit and let's let's make it look good. So that was my first thought. Then the second part, uh, literally, as I'm sitting down to go and play this, I'm like, what in the heck have I gotten myself into? I can't learn Michael's part. This is gonna be ridiculous. I'm gonna look like an absolute idiot trying to play this part. And Michael's just got a style, again, and I I loved you you said this to me later, and I I so appreciate this. Like, you know, me loving to play drums is just because I love to play drums. And I'm not, I don't fashion myself to be a drummer, even though people say, Oh, you play drums. I do. I'm not great by any stretch, I'm getting better, and I just I love to be a student of instruments like that, and that's something that I've challenged myself over the better part of six or seven years to really continue to grow. I have to grow at my pace, so I'm not I'm not quite at the level that I want to be. But doing songs and covering other people's stuff is a great challenge. So to cover someone else's drum parts on a song that we made is a challenge, and I've spent enough time with Michael to know sort of how he approaches things, but even then, when you're trying to unto to learn it, uh it's pretty challenging to do. So I did my best to try and fake it till you make it and cover as much of it that I could. Uh so that was challenge. That's challenge number one. Challenge number two, yes, I'm an absolute egomaniac when it comes to all things creative for this band. I will say that with no apologies, uh, just like you with engineering and things like that. Ultimately, we can all share ideas and we do give each other feedback, and we've we've been really great over the years to do that, and we've got a better part of a decade doing this. So I I think very similar to me handing you uh take the flame, and you're like, what am I supposed to do with this? You wrote the whole damn song. Like, what do you want me to do? Right? Yeah, is it very similar to say, hey, Kev, I just need you to film some parts and give it to me, and I'm gonna do my best to try and edit this. And I'm like, Wait, come again? You you are gonna edit? Okay. And you bought a camera, and I'm like, oh shoot, all right, this is gonna be a whole new thing. But yeah, I think part of me is just like I have to embrace it and just go, I love that we are leveling up in many different ways for this band and for what we believe in and for the art in general. So that lasted that whole thought about, oh, I'm not gonna do the editing, that lasted about 10 seconds. And then I'm like, oh, thank God I'm not doing the editing. That's amazing. I just have to film myself.
SPEAKER_01:Well, let me say, I was secretly hoping that you're gonna be like, no, no, no, just send me the footage, I'll edit it. No big deal. Yeah. But I'm also aware that, like, you know, you've got one, the the projects take a long time, so it's a it's a big commitment, and you have your own set of responsibilities. So we're trying to balance this thing the best that we can. Yeah. And I really have pushed us to say, how can we make way more stuff than we ever dreamed we would normally make? You know, and we've got a bunch of great, what I believe are phenomenal songs on this record. And so the the best way for us to continue to give them life, because especially it's tough for anyone who's put out an album or puts out music, you know that uh it's like fast fashion with music these days, right? It's like you know, people go out and buy something that they're gonna wear once, you know. Um it's like music, and and for me as someone who really loves music, it even happens to me where like songs just kind of fly by because there's so much stuff coming out all the time. And so by the time you've heard it, you maybe listen to it a couple of times, then forget about it, um, which is not how I grew up with music at all. Like, I'm used to having a handful of CDs in the car and you listen to them for months at a time until you know every little nuance on that record. And so what most people don't even recommend that you put out an album anymore for that exact reason because you're putting out a whole batch of songs at one time, which means people maybe check it out, they listen to a song or two, and then it's forgotten as quickly as a single would be. And so the conventional wisdom these days is put things out as singles. But we come from another time, and we really love the idea of an album. We really put a lot of uh effort and energy into creating this cohesive thing, like it was important to us to make an album, you know. 100%. I think moving forward that's gonna change a little bit, not to say we won't do an album again, but you know, we're we're we're gonna play with this as we go. But at least for this time, we wanted to do an album. Yep. And uh, but now that it's out, you know, the the duty for us is how do we continue to Keep it fresh and introduce new songs to people on like a a sort of like um I don't know of time, right? Yeah, exactly. Like continually treat it as if they're singles, but they just happen to come from this one album. And so we had a really super successful first video, which was Take the Flame. Um that brought in a ton of new subscribers and um a lot of views and a lot of excitement, which is phenomenal. Yeah. And so to me, I'm going, man, we have to make sure the rest of these songs, or at least a good bunch of them, you know, there's like twelve twelve songs on the the album, I think. Yeah. So we're not we're not probably gonna make 12 videos. Excuse me. But the thought was like, could we do half that? You know, could we could we pick our absolute favorite songs and try to make a video for most of them? Yeah. And so Helping Hand was the next one that we were really excited about, a very different kind of song. And uh so anyway, sorry, I didn't mean to totally cut in there, but in my mind, it was like I'm thinking there's gonna be so much work coming up that I'm gonna kind of feel like a deadbeat if I'm pushing you to say, let's keep making stuff, and I'm just stockpiling the work on your shoulders. I'm like, well, I need to get in the game at least to be able to contribute on some level. I don't have the same level of skill that you do, but could I make something that is uh that we wouldn't be embarrassed to put up on our channel or call our own that doesn't bring the quality level down too far? Um, and then can we work in a tandem to maybe like find a way to make this work, you know?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I was I'll tell you this now in hindsight, and again, this isn't just you know just giving love and compliments already. I mean, we we are very critical of each other, and um you even when I told you, no, I think this is great, you're like, are you sure you're not just taking it easy on being liar?
SPEAKER_01:You know, yeah, that was my first thought.
SPEAKER_02:I'm like, well, but I also gave you uh an understanding of what I met. So I think as you edit and as you find things and as you do stuff, and I I've been editing for a long time, probably about 20 something years. So in videography stuff here and there, about the same amount of time. On and off. Um and I'm definitely rusty, like anything, when you stop doing it professionally, you know, you get a little rusty. So I had kind of sworn off doing corporate work and corporate video stuff a long time ago when I joined the company I'm with now. Um but it's always something that's in the back of my head, it's like it is a creative outlet, and I do enjoy it, and I've always wanted fashion myself, wanting to do film and things like that in my you know background, just being creative. So, yes, to hand over the reins of things like that, that's so very precious to me doing the videos and the content was a little bit of like, I gotta let go a little. But what I was hoping by that is that if I'm gonna do that, then I really want Justin to find his own voice as an editor and as a videographer and what he likes and what he is looking at. So it doesn't feel like it's me. It doesn't feel like it's necessarily my approach to doing that video. I know again, if you hand if you handed me all the raw footage and I handed you all the raw footage, the videos are gonna look completely different because we all have a different way and a different approach. But so I recognized that and I said, I don't want to give you a ton of notes. I don't want you to, I'll give you a few things that I feel like are things you probably want to fix or correct. Um, but I didn't want to get in it so much and like, oh, what do you think about the color palette or oh, what do you think about this cut, or maybe cut this on the on the beat and this way, because then it starts to feel like my voice and not yours. And I'm like, this if it's ever gonna work and we continue to do this in this fashion, I need you to find your own voice and find your way to get there. And you've encouraged me that way, even when we go to playing parts and recording things, and just say, Kev, just take your time. This isn't a task, it's a it's something that you're really good at and creative in. So take your time really to think about what you want to do. And I felt the same way. Like, I love that you got the camera. Those first shots, I told you, go get the 50 mil. The shots are gonna look so sexy no matter what you do. The you know, the bokeh on them are so great. It's gonna come out and it's gonna look incredible. And so, your journey of figuring that out and learning your camera and setting up shots, you were so precise. And here's the here's the crap part about it. You were so great, and all your shots are perfectly framed. There's really nice headroom on this. You did great. And here's me, it's just like, oh god, I've done this a thousand freaking times. Here's this shot. I'm gonna put a wide angle, boom, let's get a shot of the drums, let's get a side angle, let's go. I'm gonna try and set it up above me to go top down. Um, you know, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And I'm like, you idiot, why did I not just hook up my monitor? I have a monitor. I can literally look and see is the headroom correct, all that. So my stupid shots come out with me cutting my head a lot of times.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's like the top of your head is chopped up, right?
SPEAKER_02:Which is just like film, it's just like videography 101. It's just such a stupid, I'm like, Yeah, you know, but it's me just sort of like, I want to do this, and I was so I will tell you again, and I cursed Michael a thousand times that day. I was so nervous about trying to get the part because I understand, like, when you're editing stuff, here's two things vocals. If you're ever doing a playthrough video and all that, vocals have to be correct, as close as it can be, right? To being synced up. You don't want to just stand there quiet like Vince Neal when your backing track is playing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, sorry, uh it's a little stab on that one, but um anywho. But you have to have vocals that have to look good, and for the majority of it, the drums do need to be synced up, at least punctuating things like hitting the cymbal or a snare roll that you're doing, or the tom, you know, those things have to kind of line up as best as possible. At least for me, I don't yeah, I don't want to see that and not have it look like it should be part of the song, uh, unless you're doing something that's really avant-garde, if you will, slow-mo or something that, you know, it's just punctuating that thing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So I was more in my head about that. And we often get in our head about, oh God, is this right? Am I singing it correct? Am I playing correct? And all that kind of stuff. Um, the keyboard parts, that's not that's inconsequential. I only play really in the choruses on those things, so it's just kind of and a little bit in the bridge from the keyboard. So they weren't as difficult, but the drums was definitely hard, and then I realized, oh, I could have shot that a little better. So good on me the next time I set up markers to know how to set up my drums again because I did like how the drums looked. And I'm like, oh, cool. Okay, so I have all this kind of set now, so I know when I set this up again, I'll know exactly kind of how I want to frame and how I want to do that. But I was really excited and just truly impressed with the edit, the fact that you learn how to do multicam editing in in Final Cut, which is not easy, but it's fun when you kind of figure out how to do it and it can really improve efficiency for things like this.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh the the color choices I told you it I again I'll tie it back to Rob Zombie, but it had a very uh Devil's Rejects, kind of House of a Thousand Corpses era sort of color palette, um, yeah, which is a very 70s looking aesthetic.
SPEAKER_01:So it felt like that, which to me Rob Rodriguez, yeah. I I it's funny because like I got there mostly accidentally, but oh yeah, I did mention Planet Terror.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. I did say that it kind of kind of looked like that, yeah. Like Grindhouse, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, totally. Well, because the other thing that came to mind was the Tarantino uh uh the one with the car.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, can't remember the name of the Planet Terror, and then the other one I can't think of, I know, with with uh Kurt Russell, yeah. Yeah, where he's a stunt driver, yeah. Kind of like that. I love that movie too. That was really good, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um anyway. Yeah, but yeah, I so I got there accidentally, but at the same time, I think subconsciously, those are a lot of my sort of taste. It is that kind of thing. And so I'll I'll have to work on a variety of looks as time goes on, you know, not everything can be the same, but but I was pretty happy with the way that came out because I'm like, it kind of fits the vibe of the song too, because that song is probably the most classic rock sounding song on the record, I would think.
SPEAKER_02:I think so, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Definitely, I mean that's it's up there anyway, you know, because there's a variety of of sounds and sort of genre blending on this record, and that one's probably the most traditional, almost kind of classic rock vibe. Yes. Um so it made sense to do something that looked a little more like throwback footage. Um yeah, it still looks not like real film or anything, but it's got that kind of thing to it, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's got the color definitely is it leans in a little bit to that. And I love, you know, you you of course are looking for um I love plugins. I'll say that too. For anyone who's trying to add their own videos and all that, you can't go wrong with a good set of LUTs, a good set of plugins for your editor or whatever you're gonna be editing with. Those things can certainly punch up and really help help you along the way, especially if you're just learning, being able to add cool color transition or color effects, transition effects, things like that can really dress up a video and make it look professional, even if you're just kind of getting started. So doing a little dust and scratches like old film, punching up the color a little bit in the saturation also makes it look and kind of give that sort of 70s era technicolor kind of vibe, uh, which I I also truly love and appreciate. So there was a lot of things to me behind the scenes, not to get all super nerdy about it, but there was a lot of stuff in that video that that really stood out. And yeah, it's a playthrough video in its core. It's no there's not a lot of frills to it, but I think the exercise of you being able to take on the reins of doing that, I was so enamored and happy to let go of those things because I do believe it sort of helps us both continue to keep leveling up. Like making the record is important, making the song is important. Those are the things doing the podcast, all of it drives back to the record and to our love of making music together.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But you're 100% on in this day, in the modern age, having video content, having great ads, having punchy things that get people attracted or interested to go and check out your work, that's where it's at. And we have to, we've realized that we have to continue, if we want this to have legs, to continue to build an audience by all of these platforms. Cool artwork, fun podcasts that talk about different things, great music, really good videos. I do think those things make a difference. And I do believe people, like you said, if we keep putting out great content, people are eventually gonna come around and get to see it and go, I'm so excited that I discovered this band. You know, I think you got uh an email from somebody that was in Canada or somewhere. I love this too. Like people that are old school enough to go, I'm gonna write an email and say, I discovered you here on a on a platform or something like that. And I just want to say, wow, I really enjoyed your music, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You don't get a lot of that, but at our level for sure. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean, we're still in the early stages of this thing. I mean, we've been a band for a number of years, but if you look at the amount of work that we've directly put into growing the band, most of the time that we've been a band, it's really just been for us. Yeah. You know, I mean, we've done stuff, we've released stuff, and I think at times in our own minds, we were doing a lot, and I think it was a lot for us at that time. But compared to what it really takes to make something grow and take on a life of its own, we're still at the beginning. Yeah. And uh so yeah, I mean, I'm I'm really excited about all of this because I have a lot of just growing energy toward making this stuff work. And like we've talked many times, it's like my my uh I don't it's probably not right to say my greatest fear, but like a something that just doesn't sit right with me is the idea of pouring your heart and soul into your art and then posting it and no one sees it. Which is what happens if you don't do everything that you can to grow it. Yeah, and uh I think I've always thought of the process of creating the music as the work, but it's not. The work is what happens after. Like we have to do we do the music because we love to do the music, and then the work is you know, everything else that goes into getting it in front of people, and that doesn't mean it needs to be seen by hundreds of millions of people, right? If it grows into that, then that'll be interesting. You know, we'll cross that bridge. Yeah, um you know, I'm not saying no, but you know, like the goal is just to uh to find our people who like the kind of thing that we do and to be able to make stuff for them and to make you know, as corny as it is, we're we're corny people in our hearts, is you know, make the world a better place by contributing things that are real. You know, we live in a world where increasingly things are more and more fictitious, you know, and I don't just mean AI, I mean, you know, face filters and uh perfect manicured everything to look a certain way that may or may not be true and oftentimes is found out to not be true. Yeah. Uh, you know, reputations of you know, I think about it's a funny Italian, but like Diddy just got sentenced to four years or whatever. Um, you know. So we live in this world where we think things are one thing and most of them are actually something else completely. And uh I know that we're not the only ones out there trying to make stuff that's real, you know. Yeah, I I I know there's a lot of people out there doing it, and I can only hope that the way that we continue to change the tide and to help people adapt to this, because it's not like we're going back, right? Like technology is not going away, AI is clearly here to stay, we're gonna have to learn how to coexist with this stuff. Um, but how do we do it in a healthy way? And I'm not trying to take responsibility for the population, I'm just trying to do my own part and say, well, how can I at least make something that is truly reflective of my human soul and that I really believe in and that I think is great, and I'm not just doing it because I think other people are gonna like it, or you know, or change what it is I'm doing to hope that more people are into it, uh, or make myself look a certain way when that's not who I really am. Um and I've had my battles with that. I think part of that's just growing up, right? Um, looks like my camera overheated, so might be a good point for us to uh to call it here. But but yeah, anyway, that that was my thought on that is um just continuing to make stuff that we really believe in and then getting it out there to the people who resonate with that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. That that is it, and I think that's the most important part of all of this stuff is like, you know, if you're a fan of what we're doing, as we've said before, thank you so much for at least pulling over, taking a few minutes out of your day to check out a song, listen to a video, check out a short from one of these podcasts, listen to the whole podcast if you have a good hour and a half of your day to be able to uh join us on that journey. Whatever you do, and however you've come to find out about what we're doing or what we're trying to do, we just appreciate it so much. But there are also people just like us out there all over the world that are trying to do a similar thing. So no matter what part of the globe you find yourself in, support them. If you find out you've uncovered them through an ad, through a video, through a friend, however you've come to find us or find those other artists in your area as well. Support them the best way you can. It is a way for us to keep going and doing what we're doing. We've clearly we're not making money on this thing. It's not a business in that space. It's just something we totally enjoy doing, and whatever comes from that comes from that, and we get to you know be part of that ride with all of you. So we just say thank you. Thanks as always for coming and checking us out. We will we will continue to keep doing content as long as we love and enjoy doing it. Um and I think there's some really fun video concepts that we have along the way for the rest of this record that are gonna um, if we can pull them off, uh, they're gonna be pretty amazing. So, you know, stick with us. Um keep checking out the record, keep subscribing, keep telling your friends, uh, keep coming back to the silver echo.com, to the Sonic Alchemy, um, any way that you're seeing us and ingesting. So we really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Well, you said it very well already, so I'll just say thank you all for listening to the end. We appreciate you checking out the show. And uh much love. We'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and hopefully, oh, real quick, P. S. Yeah Um Yeah, donate to Justin's get a new camera fund uh for his phone. Yeah, apparently not a new camera, he just bought a new camera, but maybe probably needs to get a new phone out there. Um, you know, if anyone's got a good good idea of a really great you know phone, uh, you know, send send some uh send some love his way.
SPEAKER_01:My my current phone battery lasts about 37 minutes after the new iOS update. So um it basically lives on a charger now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Might be time to uh, you know, only if you do somebody that worked at one of those places, maybe uh maybe you could get a hookup, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think I've got a couple buddies at a phone store. Yeah, at a phone store, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:A very famous phone store, yeah. Yeah, anyway. All right, much love to all of you guys. Come check us out again. Thank you so much for listening. Support local music. We're out. Later.