transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Yo, what's up, everybody? This is Toby. Welcome to the podcast. If you're a new listener, welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm gonna give a big shout out to my day ones for the past six years. My subscribers, my listeners, I appreciate people who talk about this podcast, who share this podcast, who support this podcast, who write reviews for this podcast. Really, really appreciate all your support. I've been doing this for six years. I've been giving away for free. So many people ask me why I don't film it, why I don't monetize on YouTube, why I don't charge people for it on Patreon. And their answer is because I don't want to. I love these conversations in my kitchen. I love the honesty. I love that people want to come back for two or three episodes, the reoccurring guests that I have all the time. I love it. No lights, no cameras. I myself do not like going on podcasts that are being filmed and have lights. I've done a couple of times. I'll probably never do it again. I don't feel like myself in those situations. So I want all my guests to be as comfortable as possible. I do have sponsors. The sponsors keep my shit going. They keep it alive. But I will never interrupt a conversation with an ad in the middle of it. People do that all the time and I will never interrupt the flow of a conversation. So I don't worry about that. But I do have amazing sponsors who I align myself with, the products that I use on a daily basis. I've turned down so much money for sponsors. They want to be part of this podcast with companies I've never tried or didn't align with. I'm very picky about who I have on my sponsors and have on this podcast. That being said, check out the sponsors. Joe, cue up the music. Yo, yo, I'm so honored to announce it's only took us seven years to get a record label sponsorship. So honored to announce our new partnership with Flatspot Records. Flatspot Records was started in Baltimore, Maryland in 2004 by Che Figueroa. Later on, he linked up with my man Ricky Singh from Backtrack, who had a great episode on here with me and Matt Henderson. That's episode 367. You can check that out. I love it. This record label is doing what they represent. They're one of the most influential DIY independent record labels of the 21st century. Hardcore represent to the fullest. So many of the artists are my friends. Also been on this podcast from Trapped Under Ice to Scowl to End It to Speed to Backtrack. Friends on there like my man, Matty Matheson's band, Pigpen. Amazing hardcore band called Robogade. We got Whispers. We got Misery. It's a true honor to have this partnership of Flatspot Records. They do a thing called Flatspot World. All around the world, we played the Baltimore one. It was incredible, disturbing the peace. But the real incredible news is one of the most hardest working hardcore bands of all time. Tarev just signed to Flatspot Records. They have a new record coming out April 24th. It's called Still Suffer. They just dropped a single. They just dropped a video. It's incredible. If you had to take one person that represents hardcore to the fullest, that's Scott motherfucking Vogel. Shout out to Vogel who's won this podcast three times. Martin was just on incredible episodes. Thank you, Ricky. Thank you, Che. Thank you, Flatspot Records. You can go to flatspotrecords.com and use my code OLC and get 20% off anything on the website. That's flatspotrecords.com. Use my code OLC and get 20% off anything on the website. Terror is coming out. Still suffer. April 24th, Flatspot Records. Thank you guys. Peace.

Speaker 2:
[03:00] Welcome to the One Life One Chance podcast. I'm your host, Toby Morse. And today I'll be using my Kiwi accent instead of my Lower East Side accent. I mean, if you haven't guessed, this is not Toby Morse. I'm Dan Smith, and I have kind of hijacked the airwaves over here in his kitchen for a very special announcement. I've been friends with Toby for 25 years or so, and he's always shown me love and support with everything I've done from my music and taking bands on tour, having me create artwork for H2O and countless other things over the years. I filled in for them a couple of times on bass and guitar and made memories I could never forget. In exchange, I've tattooed him a million times and might have seen more of his body than Moon has at this point. And today he surprised me and asked me to do my very own read and announce something that I've been working on that will now be a new sponsor of this very podcast. I grew up playing and loving soccer or football. And if music and tattoos didn't get in the way, I'm literally positive I would have been a pro. A couple of years ago, me and my friend Kevin decided to start Field Soccer Supply. Field is a soccer-based clothing brand, but mostly Field's an idea. An idea that was created from me being involved in bands and tattooing, etc. for over 25 years and experiencing the crucial, amazing connecting element of what makes the world go around, community. We kind of exist to elevate the passion for the beautiful game and just connect music, culture, historic moments along the way. So if you've got kids in soccer or you play in an adult league with your mates, you know how it goes. Every season, new uniforms, new fees, new hassles, new everything. Soccer is the biggest sport in the world, but it's literally the number one sport in America that kids actually stop playing. And the main reason is simply just the cost of everything. All those old polyester jerseys end up in a landfill something too. And the love of the game kind of follows soon after. We're going to do something different. We take old uniforms headed for the dump and recycle them. We then use the recycled polyester to create uniforms that any team can love. The fully customizable team kits, fan wear, and also there's a lifestyle and essentials side to it that celebrate amazing moments in soccer and music history combined. You know, playing is the most important thing. We host monthly Play for Free pickup games here in Southern California. And we're just getting started. The goal is to eventually do this everywhere and help make playing doable for anyone. Check out The Field Dream on socials and thefielddream.com for more info and join our team. Okay, I'm going to hand you back to the real host of the pod and get back to the regular programming. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 1:
[05:49] I have a lot of friends who are sober, a lot of friends who are straight edged. A lot of my friends were going through it. I know struggling with substance abuse and alcoholism can be really, really hard, especially knowing who to turn to can be really, really daunting. I'm here to say that a good friend of mine and his friend started this incredible, incredible treatment center called Refine Recovery. They gave me a phone number 855-516-3332. You can text, you can call them. It's totally confidential. It's safe. There'll be somebody on the other line to help you out. Compassionate human being to talk to, to help you navigate the process, the insurance treatments. They accept most of private insurances. You can go refinerecovery.com, Refine Recovery Instagram. I know it's hard, but reach out to somebody, man. People care about you. People love you. People want you to be here for a long time. People love you in their lives. If you're going through it, make this phone call. It's totally private. I know people DM me all the time about going through it and going through sobriety and trying to get straight and trying to take care of themselves. And the struggle is totally real. And Refine Recovery is the definitely, definitely move. Reach out to them, 855-516-3332 or text them, 855-516-3332. You can call or text this number anytime. 855-516-3332. You know the drill. This number is here for you to call. Since 1987, Rockabilia has been around doing officially licensed merch. No bootlegs from all the artists that I freaking love. From pop to hip hop to rock to hardcore to punk. Over half a million items on this website, independently owned, operated in the USA. Custom limited collabs drop every month exclusively on this website. From visual artists and tattoo artists. We have so many bands that I love and artists that I love. From Gaga to Blink, Katy Perry, Bad Brains, Beastie Boys, Dayla, Tribe Called Quest, 50 Cent, Billie Deptones, Dead Kennedy, DMX, Dr. Dre, Eric B and Rakim, Google Dolls, Hall of Notes, Wu Tang, U2, Snoop, TSO and Paramore. Those is to name a few of all my favorite bands that are on this website. I've owned t-shirts from all those artists throughout my life. Now, I know to go here only. All officially licensed merchandise. Check out Rockabilia Instagram. Also go to rockabilia.com and use my code OLC10 and get 10% off. That's rockabilia.com. Use my code OLC10 and get 10% off your purchases. Thank you to Rockabilia for being our new sponsor. Welcome to OLC Fan. All right, let's do it. You guys ready? Welcome to the One Life One Chance Podcast. Say, I got my brother, Mr. Matt Henderson, next to me, my co-host with the most. You might have known him from some of the songs, like Pride and Down By Law. Still legendary Matt Henderson. Thanks for being here.

Speaker 3:
[08:31] Thank you for having me, my brother.

Speaker 1:
[08:33] And then back on the podcast, he was on episode 164, Mr. Justice Tripp. Thank you for being here, bro. It's great to be back. And then welcome also my man, Zech. Thanks for being here, bro.

Speaker 4:
[08:40] Of course, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:
[08:41] Introduced in the fucking house right now. It totally looks like it's going great, man.

Speaker 5:
[08:45] It's been awesome.

Speaker 1:
[08:45] It's really cool. I see the different bands you have out. You have like, Cronothorne's with you guys, Kim Buss with you guys, Jive Bomb, a bunch of bands, right?

Speaker 4:
[08:53] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[08:54] How long is the tour for now? How long have you guys been out for?

Speaker 5:
[08:57] Just over three weeks and we have almost three weeks left. It's a six week tour.

Speaker 4:
[09:01] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[09:02] Can I ask a question? Like, you know, these bills, right? It's not the same bands in every city across the country, right?

Speaker 5:
[09:09] Kind of rotating lineups.

Speaker 3:
[09:11] How much of an effort and how conscious have you guys been to really like dial that in?

Speaker 5:
[09:15] Oh, it was a motherfucker planning it.

Speaker 3:
[09:18] But it was with intent. Like you guys really kind of wanted to do it.

Speaker 5:
[09:20] Yeah, for sure. Like immediately, we went into it knowing that nobody wants to tour for six weeks. Like in the doing a six week long US tour is crazy.

Speaker 3:
[09:31] It's tough.

Speaker 5:
[09:31] Yeah. And basically we were like, all right, we should plan this to be just like, again, like a rotating thing and there's some areas. Yeah. And there's some places where we cross over close to another city and it's important to have something unique at the show that you could also go to. In theory, like if you live in New Jersey, you could go to the Brooklyn show, you could go to Syracuse, could go to Baltimore, could go to Philadelphia. So just like keep it fresh and we just like made a mega list of like all the bands we most ideally like to tour with. And I think everybody, everybody committed and an A band had, you know, it's like a personal issue where they had to bail. But yeah, getting all of our favorite bands on once horse.

Speaker 3:
[10:15] It's cool. Yeah. I want to give you guys credit for that because that's like a classy thing to do, I think, in a way, because you're really, you're putting back to the community when you do that. You know what I mean? You're giving other bands opportunities and helping to build this network that we got. I appreciate it.

Speaker 5:
[10:32] That's cool, man.

Speaker 1:
[10:33] It's nice seeing Chrono Thorns out there, too, with him.

Speaker 3:
[10:35] Oh, I love that.

Speaker 1:
[10:36] Because I'm a big fan of them and have them on the show.

Speaker 5:
[10:39] That's a dream. I always tell people when I started playing music, my childhood dream was like, I want to tour with Chrono Thorns, Agnostic Front, Negative Approach, Death Wret. Damn.

Speaker 1:
[10:52] You've done all that right there.

Speaker 3:
[10:54] Put that package together, could you?

Speaker 1:
[10:55] It's a sick package.

Speaker 5:
[10:57] Yeah, that would be huge. What is it? Negative Approach played with us.

Speaker 1:
[11:01] I saw that.

Speaker 5:
[11:02] In Grand Rapids?

Speaker 1:
[11:04] Grand Rapids, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[11:05] I have not had the fucking chance to see those dudes live yet. Every whole life.

Speaker 4:
[11:09] They play all the time.

Speaker 3:
[11:11] You have to see it.

Speaker 4:
[11:12] They're great every time, too.

Speaker 3:
[11:14] I got to commit.

Speaker 1:
[11:15] That singer is killing it, too, still.

Speaker 3:
[11:16] I got to commit. Because I'm a huge fan from my young days when they were... I never caught them. I caught them after they broke up, but still, 84, 85, I was all in, bro.

Speaker 5:
[11:28] I think they're somehow... I mean, I've only been seeing them for the last... I guess the first time I saw them was maybe 10 years ago. But they're just better.

Speaker 1:
[11:39] So tight.

Speaker 3:
[11:40] They're nasty, though, right?

Speaker 5:
[11:41] They're nasty, but they just keep getting better. I always say I want a negative approach record. I want a new record. I don't know if they'll do it, but...

Speaker 3:
[11:48] Do they hint at it?

Speaker 1:
[11:49] I could see them doing that, dude.

Speaker 3:
[11:51] I don't know.

Speaker 5:
[11:51] I don't think they do. I don't think it's on their radar to make a new record.

Speaker 3:
[11:55] That's fine.

Speaker 5:
[11:55] I would love it to happen.

Speaker 4:
[11:56] I don't seem too pressed about it. I think they just like playing the OG set. Their set is incredible. It's all bangers.

Speaker 1:
[12:04] Did the last record come on the 80s, maybe? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[12:07] Yeah, yeah. They only got a small catalog. It's just an EP and tied down, ain't it? I don't think there's anything else.

Speaker 1:
[12:15] Damn. Well, I don't know if you listened to it, but for the listeners, Trapped Under Ice record was written downstairs, and we were talking about the Hillie Williams podcast and how meeting you and all that stuff was really nice. Give a lot of love for that.

Speaker 5:
[12:26] Oh, man.

Speaker 1:
[12:27] Just the best. Yeah, you guys did that downstairs. There's a lot of history downstairs, if you know that, with Chad.

Speaker 3:
[12:32] I didn't know that. Oh, OK, that makes sense. I didn't know Chad worked with you guys, but OK, now I get it. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[12:36] I remember Chad had a little pull up bar down there. And between writing moments, I'll be doing pull ups with Max.

Speaker 1:
[12:43] Oh, really?

Speaker 5:
[12:44] I think he might have been like, how would we have been? I feel like he was like five or six.

Speaker 1:
[12:46] For sure, dude.

Speaker 4:
[12:47] Yeah, it was a big kiss goodnight.

Speaker 5:
[12:48] Yeah, doing big kiss goodnight.

Speaker 3:
[12:50] So how long of a process was that?

Speaker 5:
[12:53] You know, we did a lot of writing and like demoing and sending ideas back and forth before we got into the room. And then we did...

Speaker 1:
[12:58] Sorry, it's some weird bug in here. I'm sorry, man.

Speaker 5:
[13:01] Sorry. It was like, I would say like two weeks of pre-production. If we like started a couple of days in Chad's house, just Chad's, you know, directly underneath it here.

Speaker 1:
[13:12] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[13:12] And then we got a studio space for, I think that was like a week of like full live band jamming nonstop.

Speaker 1:
[13:19] Is that Paul Miner?

Speaker 5:
[13:19] Paul Miner.

Speaker 3:
[13:20] That's awesome.

Speaker 1:
[13:20] Yeah, Paul Miner.

Speaker 5:
[13:22] He's incredible, man.

Speaker 3:
[13:23] We were talking about guitar sounds earlier. I'm going to say this on record.

Speaker 5:
[13:26] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[13:27] He, out of every recording I've ever done, he has got me by far the best guitar sound on recording. I think he's fucking great.

Speaker 5:
[13:36] And for context, what we were saying earlier was that that is the spiritual embodiment of making rock and roll music. It's like hardcore, especially it's like, it just demands great guitar production.

Speaker 3:
[13:52] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[13:53] So let's get to Brian McTernan.

Speaker 3:
[13:55] Oh, wow. Another great guitar producer. Nice segue.

Speaker 1:
[13:57] Well, Allegheny Studios, man. Legendary, man.

Speaker 3:
[13:59] Nice segue.

Speaker 1:
[13:59] Was it your first time working with them or no?

Speaker 5:
[14:01] No, he did AD, like our Pink record.

Speaker 3:
[14:04] Oh, he did?

Speaker 1:
[14:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Speaker 5:
[14:06] AD was like a little more on the fly. Like we went into that attention.

Speaker 3:
[14:11] A little rougher sound style, right?

Speaker 1:
[14:13] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[14:13] I mean, a little tougher sound than some of the other.

Speaker 5:
[14:16] Yeah. What I like about Brian is I think he can take a band with not an identity and give them an identity.

Speaker 3:
[14:26] Because I was just starting to listen to that one a little bit this morning, and I wouldn't have picked up McTernan as a producer on that. He doesn't have what I would think are signature sounds of his. So credit to him for just doing you guys in a direction you're trying to go.

Speaker 5:
[14:40] Yeah. He's very aware culturally of what he has to offer, what is going on in the world currently, what this music comes from. So going into AD, it was like we'd had some really bad demos and we weren't great at performing as a band. We didn't know what we were doing. If you listen to the recording before that, it straight up sucks ass. He was like, oh, these are the things you're doing and this is the way to make it sound good. I remember specifically doing AD, everything we did, he was like, that's where I was getting into this mentality of, I want to do rock music. I want an acoustic guitar on here. So he let me track acoustic guitars on every song.

Speaker 1:
[15:16] Oh, shit.

Speaker 5:
[15:17] Then he didn't put that on the recording because he knew that that was not the vibe. He was right, it would have been a mess if that worked. But he humored me and then when we got to mixes, he was like, here it is. There's not acoustic guitar and it sounds great, right? He was right.

Speaker 3:
[15:32] That's a good approach. I assume you appreciate that more than him just saying, no, we're not going to do that.

Speaker 5:
[15:36] Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 3:
[15:36] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[15:37] You record everything live, like live recording everything?

Speaker 5:
[15:40] Like traditional, like I guess each instrument separately. He made us speed everything up 180. It was like no matter what we were doing, he was like, hey, I understand you like rock and roll music, but this is what you guys do, speed it up. He was right.

Speaker 1:
[15:54] It's awesome, man. He's got a good studio out there.

Speaker 5:
[15:57] Yeah, he's ever-changing. He's like a very busy guy. He's always moving things and fixing things and adding new things.

Speaker 1:
[16:05] And then when did you guys record this record? How long ago did it get finished?

Speaker 5:
[16:08] For this one, we recorded at the end of 2024.

Speaker 1:
[16:12] Oh, shit, OK.

Speaker 5:
[16:13] Is that right?

Speaker 4:
[16:15] Yeah, yeah, I think so.

Speaker 5:
[16:17] It feels crazy saying that out loud, but yeah.

Speaker 4:
[16:19] Yeah, it was around... I mean, yeah, Nick, sorry. Whenever like Nick joined the band, right? It's like when we started.

Speaker 5:
[16:30] So end of 2024.

Speaker 4:
[16:32] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[16:33] Sorry, I put your face like that.

Speaker 4:
[16:34] No, no, you're good. You're good. You're good.

Speaker 5:
[16:36] At the end of 2024, we like finished everything. And then it was like a conversation of like, all right, do we hurry up and get this out or do we take time and invest in this album, make six music videos? Yeah, you know?

Speaker 1:
[16:49] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[16:49] Oh, did you?

Speaker 1:
[16:50] The videos are great. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[16:51] Thank you. I got to dig into that.

Speaker 1:
[16:53] I love people doing videos again too. Visual is so important, man.

Speaker 3:
[16:56] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[16:56] How many bands do that in a more video?

Speaker 3:
[16:57] Was that a lot of effort? I mean, I assume to do something that you met your standards, I'm guessing. Yes.

Speaker 5:
[17:03] Yeah. The most energy I've put into anything. And wow, the team would agree.

Speaker 3:
[17:06] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[17:06] Are you part of the directing too?

Speaker 5:
[17:08] Or I think we all have like input.

Speaker 1:
[17:10] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[17:11] Most of the videos were our friend, Blaise Cepus.

Speaker 1:
[17:13] Okay.

Speaker 5:
[17:15] Who is really talented and had a vision. And, you know, there's everybody has like a little bit of creative liberty to be like, I don't want to wear a top hat or a hat.

Speaker 3:
[17:26] I don't think a top hat was ever actually an option, but but something to consider next time, maybe.

Speaker 5:
[17:31] Yeah. Straight up.

Speaker 1:
[17:33] And so obviously, you've been doing Angel Dust for a long time and Trapped Under Ice. I haven't really seen. I seen Angel Dust before live.

Speaker 3:
[17:40] We played together. Where were we? Somewhere in LA.

Speaker 1:
[17:44] We did play with him. Oh, yeah. We did play a show on Angel Dust.

Speaker 3:
[17:47] Was it with you in the band? Yeah, there was a play to him.

Speaker 1:
[17:51] Played him.

Speaker 4:
[17:51] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[17:52] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[17:52] Played him. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[17:54] That was on the Drain Terror tour.

Speaker 1:
[17:57] Because we're talking today about him playing acoustically and the crowd singing along and then take off the guitar and then sing the faster some people are diving. Like that. I love that. The first time I saw him at the Roxy, I think I saw that. It was just like, I love that dynamic. I think you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3:
[18:16] I'm fascinated by it because, and this is something I was talking about this morning too, is that thinking about Trapped Under Ice.

Speaker 1:
[18:25] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[18:26] And like if you look up the band and you go to Wikipedia, right? And it says Trapped Under Ice is beat down, tough guy, uses all the terms that we all know, right? And I don't think you would look to debate that, but I'm sure you would say, well, we don't choose that label, whatever. That's kind of the bucket you guys would have fallen in. And then Angel Dust is a different thing, for sure.

Speaker 1:
[18:52] It's rock and roll, pop, everything, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[18:53] The crowd experience, it can't be the same, but it's the same people, probably on both sides, on stage as well as in the crowd, right? So everyone's coming together, but getting a very different experience.

Speaker 1:
[19:07] It's also kids that might not go see Trapped Under Ice. They might just see Angel Dust, then they found out about Trapped Under Ice or vice versa, correct?

Speaker 3:
[19:14] Which is interesting. You're not doing beat down mosh through and through at an Angel Dust show, I don't think.

Speaker 5:
[19:20] Yeah, there's moments where you can spin kick your buddy.

Speaker 3:
[19:23] Right.

Speaker 5:
[19:24] It's like a little different of a dynamic. It's interesting. I never thought about it until you were just talking, but it's like, I'm pretty sure that the influences are almost identical for Trapped Under Ice and Angel Dust. It's just like a different combination, different blend, different dynamic, you know?

Speaker 3:
[19:38] It is, for sure.

Speaker 1:
[19:39] You get to show them more on Angel Dust and more malogac and different sides, am I correct?

Speaker 5:
[19:43] I mean, there's like, I remember recording Secrets of the World. I was referencing Prince a lot, you know? Nobody's ever gonna hear that record from Trapped Under Ice and be like, oh, you're the Prince influence? And then we were doing Brand New Soul. I was referencing Prince a lot. But now it's like, okay, we can use an acoustic guitar.

Speaker 1:
[20:01] I mean, Little House is one of my favorite songs, man.

Speaker 5:
[20:03] Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1:
[20:03] Lyrically, it's just so, I don't know, I love that. And the one with Tim Armstrong, too. Yeah, like I love when you get your singing bag and all that shit. It's just like this poppy love songs that like, yeah, it's it's quick as you get to express yourself in that way and then trap to rise to something totally different. Yeah, you're really it's the same kind of release for you and there therapeutically for you, I'm sure. But it's just a different way to get it out, I guess. Right. Absolutely. I love that. I think it's that kind of sums up like we're at in the hardcore world in 2026 or whatever. Like for us growing up, we couldn't really do that. I mean, I had Hazen Street later on was it was totally different than anything the bands were doing. But it wasn't like in two bands, I guess. I don't know. They keep in touring both every once. No, that's it's fucking sick.

Speaker 3:
[20:44] That sounds like that wouldn't suck. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[20:47] But it's still expressing yourself and you're still the same person.

Speaker 3:
[20:50] That's that's why you do it. I mean, it feels obvious to me anyway. It's very genuine. This is not like I need two bands. So I can make double the money, you know what I mean?

Speaker 5:
[21:00] I got two bands because I have more bands in theory, but two of them that are really active because my brain would not allow for me just to sit down and not make songs. And I've done the thing where I go make songs with other people and then they like take... Brad Havera one time said that songs are like your babies, you know? Sure. And when you write music with other people, you're giving them your babies. And then you watch them corrupt your babies. And again, this is a Brad quote, but they give your babies drugs and abuse your babies. And you're like, shit, man, I want to be the one... I want to be the father of those children.

Speaker 1:
[21:41] That's a good story.

Speaker 3:
[21:42] I mean, yeah. The reason I am in H2O is because I fucking love playing music and writing music. And that's what it always boils down to for people that, I think, continue to do what we do, right?

Speaker 1:
[21:58] To express yourself. Be creative and shit. Zech, are you a big part of the songwriting, too?

Speaker 4:
[22:03] No, no. No, I just... I rock.

Speaker 1:
[22:10] You just rock.

Speaker 3:
[22:11] Amen, and that's... Don't undersell that fucking role.

Speaker 4:
[22:15] I do like writing songs, but no, I didn't write anything.

Speaker 1:
[22:18] How long have you been in the band for? When did you join?

Speaker 4:
[22:20] Um, just to like, almost like four, almost four years, I think, coming on.

Speaker 5:
[22:25] I think what Zech offers is a lot of, like, mainly based in performance, which in recording or playing live, performance is really significant. It changes songs, you know?

Speaker 1:
[22:36] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[22:37] But more of the identity in Angel Dust, like, kind of begins with me writing a silly little song. Right. And now we're at a point where it's a team, where it's like, all right, here's my silly little song, and the team can make it a band.

Speaker 3:
[22:49] And that's, to me, such a fucking great role and such a good, like, smart collaborator.

Speaker 1:
[22:56] You know what I mean?

Speaker 3:
[22:56] Because, look, you got something cooking here, right? You know, and it doesn't come across like you're fucking trying to be a control freak or anything. You're just like, I got these ideas. They keep coming out.

Speaker 1:
[23:05] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[23:06] They're ideas that other smart and creative people are going to want to work with you on.

Speaker 5:
[23:10] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[23:10] And the product becomes something cool.

Speaker 5:
[23:12] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[23:12] Yeah, we, like, can jam now. Like, I feel like we've been, like, or come to, like, our band lineup is, like, so solid right now that, like, we're, like, able to, like, jam on, like, little ideas and stuff.

Speaker 1:
[23:24] So there's nothing the angel with us wouldn't want to, like, you write any type of song. It could be, I'm not going to say you're doing a ska song or something, but it seems like it's so wide, like, it's just.

Speaker 5:
[23:33] You get accused of ska sometimes. You get accused. There's accusations being thrown around, man.

Speaker 1:
[23:39] It's dancy shit, poppy shit. Like, it seems like there's no bars, no rules.

Speaker 5:
[23:43] You just can write whatever you feel. There's a song or two from Angel Dust that are like based in dance music and much like the clash when you do dance music with guitars, people start to see, especially if we have horns in a couple of songs.

Speaker 1:
[23:56] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[23:56] People see a horn and they're like, this must be ska, you know?

Speaker 1:
[23:59] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[24:00] So that's the other question I've been kind of thinking about coming to this conversation on is, again, TUI being, you know, and I want to take the time to say, you guys weren't, you shouldn't be pigeonholed as tough guy. I was going to say that too, but clearly, that was kind of the ballpark you were in, right? And because you enjoyed it, right? That was the same style of music that you liked, and that's where you're creatively going, but you guys had a lot of dynamics. Yet, then Angel Dust, now, to me, like you wanted to do something different, I felt like, right? That was the reason it started. And the demo, is that the extra raw? Is that the first release that came out?

Speaker 5:
[24:39] We didn't release it, like, as a demo, but I always saw that as the demo.

Speaker 3:
[24:42] I didn't think it was a demo either, but now I look at, like, you know, Apple Music, it says demo.

Speaker 5:
[24:46] Oh, really? I'm like, it should say demo. That's like, that's what that was.

Speaker 3:
[24:51] What I thought was going on there was, you know, Justice has got some creative outlet he's looking to just kind of, you know, do, right? And it was cool, Bad Brainsy, Ramonesy, if I were to be just really, like, outside looking in.

Speaker 5:
[25:06] It's that simple, yes, just those things.

Speaker 3:
[25:08] And fun, right? A good time. But it's evolved so much past that. Was the level that it evolved to now part of your idea at the beginning?

Speaker 5:
[25:19] I guess there was never, like, a real big vision of what it could be. Like, in that moment, it was just like, I like the Ramones and Bad Brains, but I think that was literally it.

Speaker 3:
[25:26] Yeah, perfect.

Speaker 5:
[25:28] I mean, like, how do we just, like, just want to make something fun and, like, try to see what my voice can do. And, you know, I mean, and just really a lot of it was was in that moment was an excuse to play music with Daniel Fang. I was playing drums in the band at the time. We just hung out and jammed a lot. And so it's like it's always been like this idea of like, this is a platform to experiment. And it wasn't meant to be like, this is going to be a career or this is going to be album.

Speaker 1:
[25:58] Sure. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[25:59] No, I get that.

Speaker 5:
[26:00] It's like this fun thing to explore genres and things that we don't get to do with Trapped Under Ice or.

Speaker 1:
[26:06] Totally. Because you're actually singing in Angel Dust.

Speaker 5:
[26:09] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[26:10] It's a totally different style.

Speaker 5:
[26:11] I mean, it's always like when I look at the Angel Dust discography, I'm like, at what point am I actually singing? Because there's definitely moments of trying to sing.

Speaker 3:
[26:19] And you're like, I mean, you're harmonizing, bro.

Speaker 1:
[26:22] But it works for you. You can do it.

Speaker 3:
[26:23] You know what I mean? To me, that's when you're starting to put harmonies on your vocals. I'm like, OK, you're a singer now, whether you want to admit it or not.

Speaker 5:
[26:31] I'll say I'm not the best at harmonizing. I can do like minor harmonies, but I got to give credit to the team, like Steve and Jim and our band. They're the harmonizers.

Speaker 3:
[26:40] OK, well, then you're singing melodies that...

Speaker 5:
[26:42] I hit the melody, I let them go off. Yeah, yeah. But I'll like, like when we're recording, I can like listen through. Maybe I need a guitar to help me. And I'll be like, here's the harmony. That's like a gift. People would hear it. And they're like, no, I'm going to sing a third of that. It's awesome.

Speaker 1:
[26:57] Do you write harmonies with a guitar? Are you writing harmonies?

Speaker 5:
[27:00] Yeah, I need a guitar or a piano or something.

Speaker 3:
[27:02] There's nothing wrong with that. That's legit.

Speaker 1:
[27:05] When did you like, I'm not saying you could never sing, but when did you think, I'm going to sing some poppier shit? Was it a moment or just, we getting tired of just doing the hardcore shit and it's not what you saw different?

Speaker 5:
[27:14] I think about this a lot, dude. When we were recording Big Kiss Good Night, I had a lot of, when we came in, I had a lot of things that I wanted to sing. And it was like, I understood the idea of key. I didn't have any dynamic melodies. It was like, I'm going to sing this one note, which is, I think people overlook how important tonality is in hardcore music. Like all the most important hardcore records, there's like a note value to every word. It's not singing in the traditional sense. But listen to Hey Bree, dude, satisfaction is the death of desire. Had a little coffee, dude.

Speaker 3:
[27:48] I've always said that. I always thought about that about all of our bands, right? It's like the ones that really stand out and they sound like good songs. The singer might not be doing melody, but he's laying some cadence out there that we're like, you get it. It's a singing.

Speaker 5:
[28:01] Well, Jost is like in key the whole record. I think there's literally one moment, I forget where it is, but I was like a nerd about this shit. There's literally one moment where he does a step down, literally two notes down, and it's in key of the song. I was like, that's a vocal melody on the Hey Bree song, and nobody would ever acknowledge that in the context of satisfaction. So, with Biggis Goodnight, I was like, I want to do more of that, and he's like projecting in a key. And Chad at the time was like, okay, you don't want to go overboard because people are going to assume that you're just singing because Chad Gilbert's doing the record.

Speaker 1:
[28:36] You know?

Speaker 5:
[28:37] There's a song called Dead Inside, which was like one of the songs that's like, I just wrote this, and I was like, I have this idea for a song, and I'm going to sing this melodic part, and it's the most melody I'd sang at that point in my life, and he got me through it. It wasn't easy, because I had never sang a melodic one on a recording.

Speaker 1:
[28:53] He's great with melodies, dude.

Speaker 5:
[28:55] Yeah, and afterwards he sat me down, and it wasn't critical, it was very empowering, like what he told me, but he was like, you're not where you want to be yet. I know that this was frustrating, because I was frustrated. I know you're not where you want to be, but you're actually an incredible singer, and just keep doing this. You have really good ideas, and your voice is good. So you have the tools, and then literally went home and it was just like practicing singing all the time. That's when Angel just really developed.

Speaker 1:
[29:22] Wow. Shout out to Chad Gilbert, man. A great producer, a great songwriter, structure, his melodies, everything. He has such a great ear for music, dude.

Speaker 5:
[29:31] Absolutely.

Speaker 3:
[29:32] I remember Madball was doing that EP we did after I left the band, and he came out to check us out when we were in the studio, and we were just talking shop, sort of, and he was talking about vocal harmonies, and using some technique that the Beatles used to do, where it's the sixth underneath versus harmony on top, like a third, which is kind of standard techniques, and when I'm talking to a guy that's laying that type of stuff out, you know he's a talented dude.

Speaker 5:
[30:03] Yeah. You understand so many genres of music. That's a really, I know a lot of people who can write a great hardcore song, but-

Speaker 3:
[30:10] Oh, and he picked up an acoustic guitar, and was playing more ideas that were songs leading up to Hazen Street.

Speaker 1:
[30:16] Really back then?

Speaker 5:
[30:17] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[30:17] That was that era.

Speaker 5:
[30:18] That's cool.

Speaker 1:
[30:19] Yeah. He did Lisa Loeb's record, fucking so many different bands, a big songwriter, a new friend of Glory. I want to go back to Trapped Under Rice singing. I don't think Trapped Under Rice personally is a beat down band, me personally. I think they're a hardcore band, and my son's a massive fan of Trapped Under Rice, and like we saw, I think the last show with Max, this is the hardest show I've ever seen in my fucking life. When I think about my son and his age, and the generation of people who have Trapped Under Rice, to me, it's a perfect mesh of Crown of Thorns and Madball, to me, for this generation. I feel like this is their Madball Crown of Thorns, to me personally, and that's just hardcore to me. That's my opinion.

Speaker 3:
[30:55] To me, it's a band that represents hardcore really, really well. Like, you know, it's sincere, it's got qualities that are like exactly what I'm looking to hear from like a tough sounding band, but then also clearly, you know, with more dynamics. And I'm just going to call out, like having the opportunity to work with Sam, right? Sam Trapkin. We did that SOS project.

Speaker 1:
[31:20] That's right.

Speaker 3:
[31:20] Me, Sam, Scott, Nick, and Chris Beatty.

Speaker 1:
[31:23] Chris Beatty.

Speaker 3:
[31:25] What a fucking great time it was. And what I picked up working with Sam, and we were on a mission, right? I mean, we're going to get these songs. Like we'd spent time before coming to the studio because we worked with Dean Queens, right? And we had to get, you know, the songs kind of framed out a little bit for sure. And then we had to do or die. We were going to finish this EP in one weekend, right? And so Sam, as we're working through more parts, he would kind of sit back sometimes and just listen. And I'm playing through the song and I'm looking at him like, hmm, okay. And then like we'll do another take and then maybe he's like holding a chord while I'm playing the riff. And I'm like, what's, does he not know the riff or what's?

Speaker 5:
[32:09] He's cooking, dude.

Speaker 3:
[32:10] He's cooking. He's cooking, bro. And he brought some really subtle, really cool kind of left the center for me, you know, enhancements to that recording and those songs. And I was really impressed. And so that's part of Trapped Under Ice to a degree, right?

Speaker 5:
[32:29] He's one of the most advanced musicians I've ever met. And it's funny, he would never give himself that kind of credit. He's such a fan of everything.

Speaker 3:
[32:36] That's the other thing I pick up on. He knows where his influences and inspirations come from, and he's got no problem saying it. And he just crafts them real well.

Speaker 1:
[32:43] He's big into metal, too. I long talked to him about metal recently.

Speaker 5:
[32:47] He had a thing kind of recently where he told me this and it was really inspiring to me. He was like, I'm over pretending I'm not in love with people who do this and this music. And I have no shame of, if you made something that's important to me, I used to be afraid to be, I didn't want to be a punisher, you know? He's like, well, God help you now if you went through the room. I've seen it do where the fool, he like, in that era, and I know how important your music is to him, you know? Sure. Like I guarantee he was fighting it, like fighting, hopefully he had the time to pick your brain a little bit.

Speaker 3:
[33:23] Yeah, we had, yeah, it was a good interaction. I really enjoyed, and I'd say we're friends at this point because we don't communicate a lot real regularly, but when we do see each other, he's got like seven kids. Yeah, it was good. We caught up with him at the festival. The Fern, what the heck is it called?

Speaker 1:
[33:43] Fernsfest.

Speaker 3:
[33:43] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[33:44] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[33:44] But he just used to be there.

Speaker 1:
[33:46] Yeah. After he showed up here last time, he pulled up to my crib and hung out with me and Derrick, and he was just really in-depth with Derrick, talking about Sepultura and all their songs, and that's when I realized he was like a super fan of metal. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[33:57] Sepultura is a big tool in his toolbox, I guess.

Speaker 1:
[34:01] Yeah, and Derrick was stoked. He had no idea he fucking knew anything about his band. Like, it's cool. He's got his podcast. He had his dad's podcast.

Speaker 5:
[34:07] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[34:09] So, yeah, the new record, man, Cold To Touch. Jesus Had One Of My Favorites, Man On Fire, the title track. I love the singing stuff, the melodic stuff he do.

Speaker 5:
[34:18] More the rock songs.

Speaker 1:
[34:19] Yeah, man, the rock songs.

Speaker 4:
[34:23] The two songs you mentioned are really fun to play.

Speaker 1:
[34:25] Really fun?

Speaker 4:
[34:25] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[34:26] So you're playing the whole record live too right now?

Speaker 5:
[34:28] Played most of everything at this point.

Speaker 4:
[34:30] Yeah. I think we know how to play almost every song on it, but we've been switching up the set list a lot on this tour.

Speaker 1:
[34:36] You change up every night?

Speaker 3:
[34:37] That's got to keep it fun, right?

Speaker 4:
[34:39] Like, I think we could pretty much play everything on there, but we switch it up like-

Speaker 3:
[34:44] So you guys are dialed in right now. That's, you feel that when it happens because it's not always the case, right?

Speaker 4:
[34:49] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[34:50] This is the first experience of my life where the band's been playing enough together to where we can just, hey, let's play this song and this song on the record tonight, and then let's move these songs over to here. We change the set every night.

Speaker 1:
[35:01] Every night.

Speaker 4:
[35:01] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[35:02] Who's in charge of the set list?

Speaker 5:
[35:04] Well, Jim, I think Jim's kind of the final boss because he's tour managing and he's the one who'll print it. And if I say something crazy, he'll be like, yeah, I'm going to give you a different set list than what you're talking about.

Speaker 3:
[35:12] Can you call it on the fly, too, though?

Speaker 5:
[35:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[35:16] You skip things at night, you skip, you skip. I don't feel like doing that.

Speaker 5:
[35:18] I used to run through all the songs sometimes and now there's been a couple of times when I've skipped something because I'm just dumb and I call it the wrong song. And I see them looking at each other and I'm like, I just skip some. I know it.

Speaker 4:
[35:29] Yeah, yeah. Or it's like an emergency. You know, if someone like shits their pants on stage, we might we might cut a song or two. They might still should cut a song or something.

Speaker 3:
[35:38] Got to look out for each other, you know?

Speaker 5:
[35:39] You know, every single night on stage when somebody shits their pants, we have to cut something.

Speaker 4:
[35:43] We'll cut a song or two if that happens.

Speaker 1:
[35:45] This is an ongoing thing with shooting your pants on stage. I thought I was on the band that only did that. That's crazy, dude.

Speaker 5:
[35:50] No, we're it's been got to be at least months since somebody shits their pants on stage, dude.

Speaker 1:
[35:57] But the response for the record has been great.

Speaker 4:
[35:59] Yeah, it's been very encouraging.

Speaker 1:
[36:02] Do you feel like every record for you guys has been upstream with everything?

Speaker 3:
[36:05] I feel like that's what I'm seeing.

Speaker 1:
[36:07] Crowds and tours and everything?

Speaker 5:
[36:09] Yeah, it's interesting because it's like, you know, there was a time when we shared the line up with the Turnstile members and there wasn't a team like what we have now that's like committed to doing that. And I love that piece of the legacy. I love the Turnstile part. Love those guys. Obviously, like as a band and like having goals as a band, you want this now. Yeah, I think that people know that this is the Angel Dust lineup. And there was a cool moment where these other guys got to be part of it, you know, and we got to have them be part of it. But it's like, yeah, the line up is locked in. It feels good. As far as like the songs we've been playing live, I've been pleasantly surprised by some of the more rock songs.

Speaker 1:
[36:54] The people that we're reacting to. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[36:56] Yeah, I was like, these are songs that we want to do because, you know, I love hardcore music, but I've been doing this my whole life. And like, sure, I need to do something. I throw some variation in there sometimes. And I feel like some of those songs hit harder.

Speaker 2:
[37:08] It's cool.

Speaker 1:
[37:08] I think people appreciate that about it, too, because you're going to get something like that. It's different, you know.

Speaker 3:
[37:12] I mean, that's what you're putting out on recording. That's what people are probably coming to see.

Speaker 2:
[37:16] For sure.

Speaker 3:
[37:17] And when your band is locked in is what I'm hearing you saying. And I relate to it because that's what I say about this band right now. I could get into that, but I ain't gonna.

Speaker 1:
[37:26] What did you say before that, what did you say?

Speaker 3:
[37:28] I'm just saying I know what it means to feel locked in as a band.

Speaker 1:
[37:30] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[37:31] You know what I mean? Like, there's a difference playing with people. And yeah, we're playing the song together and it's cool. And it sounds like the song versus like being locked in and everybody in the band feels it at the same time.

Speaker 5:
[37:40] Being a machine. Yeah. Not everybody in the band, everybody in the room.

Speaker 3:
[37:44] Exactly.

Speaker 5:
[37:44] You know what I'm saying? Like, you sense it. It's like not even like you hear it.

Speaker 3:
[37:47] That's right.

Speaker 5:
[37:47] You sense it.

Speaker 3:
[37:48] Yep, yep. And I'm just saying, I feel that with the group of musicians that make up our band right now.

Speaker 1:
[37:53] I mean, yeah, it's thanks to Max. So thank you guys both.

Speaker 3:
[37:55] Well, it's the whole thing. It's the songs, it's the musicians doing the songs and understanding how those songs should sound when you play together.

Speaker 5:
[38:03] Can we talk about new H2O music? Can we switch sides of the?

Speaker 1:
[38:07] Dude, did you guys talk before you got here? He's been sending me songs for a couple of months, man. He's on some shit right now.

Speaker 3:
[38:13] Can I play you some songs after this?

Speaker 5:
[38:15] Dude, I would love that.

Speaker 1:
[38:16] It's been 15 years.

Speaker 3:
[38:17] I'm going to play some songs for you after this.

Speaker 5:
[38:19] Let me ask you this. Do you feel like, are you trying more to serve the audience of the H2O fan, or are you trying to express yourself through the vehicle that's H2O?

Speaker 3:
[38:33] I could explain this to you in the most articulate way possible because I think about it very deeply.

Speaker 5:
[38:38] Yeah, you have to.

Speaker 1:
[38:39] He's the main person pushing for new songs out of everybody in the band right now.

Speaker 3:
[38:43] Let me say it this way. When I've known Toby, Toby's one of the first people I met when I moved to New York, because I joined the Gnostic Front in 90 and we started doing like a Northeast run and Sick of It All were opening for us. And so Toby was roading for them. And both Toby and I were new to New York right at that time, right? And we're the same age.

Speaker 1:
[39:06] That's when I met Freddie. Was Freddie on that? No, he wasn't. Okay, I met him after that.

Speaker 3:
[39:11] Anyway, so my friend, right? And then, you know, through the years, we're friends and we're, you know, I'm in my band and he's with Sick of It All. And then all of a sudden he's singing for a band. I'm like, oh shit, I didn't realize that he was even doing that.

Speaker 1:
[39:23] Me either.

Speaker 3:
[39:23] And then I heard the record and, you know, it was different from what everyone was doing at the time. And I'm like, this shit's great. And Mad Ball used to listen to that first record on tour the whole time. It's awesome. And we'd sing along. Everyone was having a good time with it. And after that, I didn't really pay attention to their music, right? So, but then my boys were playing shows and flopping back and forth and I just, the recordings would come out and, you know, they're doing good, we're doing what we're doing. Didn't really know the songs all that well till I had to play with them. Like 2018. I'm learning these songs and hearing this music, I'm like, these are great fucking songs. And as a guitar player, I'm having fun playing, like more than just, you know, hitting chords real hard or doing metallic, you know, palm muting. Like there's texture there, you know? And me and Rusty are doing like harmonies and shit, and it's, I love it. And when you get Max behind the kit, and you fucking hear those songs, kind of him elevating those songs, it's good. So for me to make new music, it's like we got a wide range to pull from, I think. Yeah. This band's got a long catalog of varying styles that range from pop to hardcore, straight up raw to anything in between. And as long as we're playing music that we like, that's sincere and we fucking say what we always want to say over it, it's going to sound like H2O whether it sounds like any specific style.

Speaker 1:
[40:50] Thank you, man. It was really nice.

Speaker 3:
[40:51] That's my approach. And I feel like I got some good music that can help put it there.

Speaker 5:
[40:55] That's cool. I think you've left lasting impressions in the bands you've played in.

Speaker 1:
[41:01] Facts.

Speaker 5:
[41:02] And we were talking a lot about AF before this. And it's like, obviously, if you're going to get anybody, it's going to be the show tonight. Anybody in this room, obviously, it's a really important band for all of us. But it's like they had developed a unique sound. And then when you join the band, develops a new unique sound. And you hear a lot of you in that. And then that lives on when you weren't doing the band. It's like to this day, that impression's heard it in the agnostic front. I'm really excited for what that means for H2O and how it evolves the band. And I know it's like, you say it's like, he's the one driving, Matt wants to make the new record. It's like, I'm a big fan of bands with a legacy making new music and building off of their legacy. Like, and I think that you're a band of players that are connected to culture, that could make a great record that sounds like nothing you've done before, but also everything you've done at the same time.

Speaker 3:
[42:00] That is exactly the way I think about it. That you hit the nail on the head. If I hadn't, everything I just said to you, you just summarized perfectly.

Speaker 5:
[42:09] Nice.

Speaker 3:
[42:09] Thank you, man.

Speaker 1:
[42:11] Thank you both.

Speaker 5:
[42:11] I always had that in my head.

Speaker 3:
[42:12] That was it.

Speaker 1:
[42:13] I just get nervous about it because I don't want to force anything.

Speaker 3:
[42:17] No, you can't.

Speaker 1:
[42:17] I don't want to make something, but I want to make something from my leg, whatever that word, something that you're playing on and my son's playing on, and something recorded with my son on drums together is a beautiful thing I could put on to the world for sure.

Speaker 3:
[42:29] You have to want to create some music and write some songs. And if that's not something you just feel that it's something you want to focus on right now or you don't have the time for or any of those things, that's understandable, man. And it's funny how this conversation is changing.

Speaker 1:
[42:44] No, I really love it.

Speaker 3:
[42:45] But I'm glad that, I think it's a good conversation, right?

Speaker 1:
[42:48] Yeah, Chad actually hit me up recently about it, to be honest. Oh, no way.

Speaker 3:
[42:51] And so, you know.

Speaker 1:
[42:52] I love working with Chad.

Speaker 3:
[42:53] I'm just making music and, you know. You see what happens. That's all.

Speaker 1:
[43:00] But honestly, also in his perspective is different. You're my boy. We talk about this all the time. But hearing an outside perspective like his.

Speaker 3:
[43:06] I would love to hear what you're thinking.

Speaker 1:
[43:08] No, he just said now, just about in general about making music.

Speaker 3:
[43:10] Oh, the why?

Speaker 1:
[43:11] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[43:12] Yeah. Hell yeah. That's exactly.

Speaker 5:
[43:14] At the end of the day, we like all got in this because we like making music.

Speaker 3:
[43:18] That's what I was saying with you, right?

Speaker 5:
[43:19] It's like, you know, we have to do that. There's definitely bands in the world that I love that I'm like, don't make new music.

Speaker 3:
[43:26] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[43:26] You don't even need to do that. You know, but you guys are actual musicians. You guys are really talented people.

Speaker 3:
[43:31] I love the music that this band plays together so much. I want more of it. I want to throw my hat in the ring and help do more of it.

Speaker 5:
[43:39] I agree, man.

Speaker 1:
[43:39] I think we talked about that yesterday, like how Grilla Biscuits have this one important record 40 years into it, that that's the most important one of the most important records in New York, I think.

Speaker 3:
[43:50] And they represent it so well.

Speaker 1:
[43:52] And they're still killing it off for one record. We really don't want new GB.

Speaker 3:
[43:56] I hear you.

Speaker 1:
[43:57] And the songs, you know what I'm saying? The songs and the records are so magical, front and back.

Speaker 3:
[44:00] I understand what you're saying.

Speaker 1:
[44:00] And it's amazing. I think there's still an important band that is still doing it off the one record. Other bands come and go through union shit. They try and they come and go. But GB is just, fuck. There's still an important generation.

Speaker 3:
[44:14] I hear you.

Speaker 1:
[44:14] And they're not living in the past. There's a lot of bands living in the past. I did a record 40 years ago. What are you doing fucking right now, bro? The gatekeepers are talking shit about what's hard and what isn't. What's the last thing you put out? That shit bothers me, dude.

Speaker 3:
[44:28] I think of Gorilla Biscuits as a hardcore party in a way. We're all coming to go fucking celebrate.

Speaker 4:
[44:35] Yeah, it's like a celebration of hardcore. It is, right?

Speaker 3:
[44:37] We'll start today and that whole fucking vibe that you feel when you listen to that record. But the dudes who fucking made it are there doing it with you. You know what I mean? It's a good time.

Speaker 1:
[44:45] I could see a new Crown of Thorns happening too.

Speaker 3:
[44:48] Hell yeah. For sure. Hell yeah.

Speaker 1:
[44:50] Right? Dejan is an ill songwriter, dude.

Speaker 3:
[44:53] Dejan is a fucking G, bro. Mike Dejan is, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[44:57] But I know what you're saying, like new bands making new music, it's true, man.

Speaker 5:
[45:00] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[45:01] Especially if it's still together. I'm still playing shows.

Speaker 5:
[45:03] Crown of Thorns, all great musicians, talented people that are connected to culture. They didn't go anywhere. They just disappear and pop up.

Speaker 3:
[45:11] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[45:11] I know it's true, but the ones that disappear- Just live for sure. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3:
[45:14] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[45:15] Let's look at Maximum Penalty, dude. One of the most influential, coolest bands, and their best record is the last one to- I mean, it feels new, but at this point, it's been, what, 10, 15 years?

Speaker 1:
[45:24] It's crazy, dude.

Speaker 4:
[45:25] Supertouch as well.

Speaker 5:
[45:28] yeah.

Speaker 4:
[45:28] I do that last Supertouch, like Seven Inch or the Rooper War. Yeah, like Lost My Way or whatever. Oh, yeah. See, incredible. See, I remember it was like 2015. I saw Supertouch played a reunion show at Triple B Fest or something in Boston, and Mark Ryan said on stage that they were having a new record come out.

Speaker 1:
[45:49] Really?

Speaker 4:
[45:49] But it just fell through, and I think that Mark Ryan ended up quitting, and then they were trying to get Matt from Bold to sing instead. Maybe it became a different band, but that's one of the... I was really looking forward to a new Supertouch record because they still got it.

Speaker 1:
[46:05] Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 4:
[46:06] They still got it.

Speaker 3:
[46:07] I always talk about this, I'm going to say talk in terms of generations, right? Your generation of hardcore, you guys always really seemed to be real locked in on that Reaper era with that maximum penalty and Supertouch. You know, because I always had love in New York, right? But I didn't think those two bands necessarily hit very hard outside of the Northeast region. And then like your generation came along and those releases came out.

Speaker 4:
[46:36] Earth is Flat is like one of my favorite records of all time.

Speaker 1:
[46:40] That's awesome.

Speaker 4:
[46:40] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[46:41] You see them when you played recently? You did that song live recently or something with Chaka?

Speaker 4:
[46:45] No. The last time I saw them was in 2014, I think.

Speaker 1:
[46:51] Yeah, but the Max Appellanty, Marauder, this generation loves Marauder. It's like a blueprint to a lot of the bands. You guys are big Marauder fans?

Speaker 4:
[46:58] Oh yeah, man.

Speaker 5:
[46:59] Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's a key ingredient with some TUI stuff.

Speaker 1:
[47:03] Really?

Speaker 5:
[47:03] Some guitar stuff, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[47:04] Master killer record?

Speaker 5:
[47:05] Yeah, I think there's like little moments where Sam was really, you can really hear Sam doing that on guitar. And sometimes I'm like, hey, do the Marauder thing, dude, I like that. He does it well. You know what I mean? There's definitely people who imitate Marauder. And there's, Sam's the kind of guy who absorbs the spiritual nature of it. And then he takes it and makes it something new.

Speaker 1:
[47:25] I love the end it covered, Maxim Pellington. That was amazing.

Speaker 5:
[47:27] awesome.

Speaker 1:
[47:28] Killed it. Now they're turning on so many people to that band, they probably think it's their song, you know?

Speaker 5:
[47:32] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[47:33] Just like when Drained, a Descendants song, too. I think it's cool when people do the cover shit.

Speaker 5:
[47:36] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[47:37] Did you guys ever do covers, like cover albums? No.

Speaker 5:
[47:39] Not recording.

Speaker 1:
[47:41] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[47:41] We like cover songs live.

Speaker 1:
[47:43] It'd be interesting what kind of covers you would do, because you have such a-

Speaker 5:
[47:46] Right now, we've been doing Death Threat on this tour.

Speaker 1:
[47:48] Oh, shit.

Speaker 3:
[47:49] Have you really? Nice. Oh, shit. Shout out to Death Threat. I was telling my son the other day that they're my new favorite old band.

Speaker 1:
[47:56] Really?

Speaker 3:
[47:57] Because in the same way, I talk about your music, the H2O music. I mean, Aaron, Connecticut, Death Threat, these are guys I know. If I go to Connecticut to a show, I'm going to see them and it's all love. I know they play and they open for us sometimes or whatever. Then I see they go obviously beyond opening for my bands, and they're fully established and killing it. Then it's only till years later, I listen to the music and I'm like, hell yeah.

Speaker 1:
[48:24] You're a very important band, important band to a lot of people.

Speaker 3:
[48:27] Absolutely.

Speaker 4:
[48:27] Yeah. He's security.

Speaker 1:
[48:29] Sub-Zero too, never get not a lot of love.

Speaker 3:
[48:31] Sub-Zero have put up some real cool shit, man.

Speaker 1:
[48:33] Really?

Speaker 5:
[48:34] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[48:35] Yeah, and it really talks about Sub-Zero.

Speaker 3:
[48:36] That last, I think it was the last EP that they did, and it's got rigs on drums. Very cool.

Speaker 5:
[48:43] I think for me, I got into Sub-Zero a little later because it was like less accessible to me when I was a kid.

Speaker 1:
[48:47] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[48:48] Death Threat kind of played Baltimore a little bit when I was a kid, and like probably Sub-Zero did too, I just wasn't there for it. But I always say that Death Threat was like the band that was nice to me when I was a little kid.

Speaker 1:
[49:01] See, that's important, dude.

Speaker 5:
[49:02] Yeah. A couple of my friends, we didn't have a lot of friends. We like little weird kids to skateboards, and those dudes were nice to us, and that's all it took for us to be like, okay.

Speaker 1:
[49:11] That first lasting impression, man, it's so important, man, especially in the music world, man. How did the Rolling Stone thing come up? That was pretty amazing, actually, man.

Speaker 5:
[49:20] I guess, you know, we have like a publicist, and I don't know if he reached out to them or what, but the person, the people involved with it are like pretty grounded musically and like know what's going on in the world, and it's a really beautiful experience.

Speaker 1:
[49:38] When did you shoot that, shoot in New York or somewhere? No.

Speaker 5:
[49:41] Yeah, a couple months ago we were, we got together and just did like some rehearsal type stuff and did a couple interviews including that one.

Speaker 1:
[49:50] It's crazy man.

Speaker 5:
[49:51] Childhood dream shit. Yeah dude. Like fucking asking like my grandma in the grocery store to buy me a Rolling Stone magazine.

Speaker 1:
[49:58] Then he's fucking in there and it's called Keeping It Real, Doing It The Hardcore. It's just the title of it, Keeping It Real and Doing It The Hardcore. Doing it hardcore their way is so sick. Just keeping it real and there is amazing Rolling Stone.

Speaker 5:
[50:09] Yeah. I hope I'm doing it the hardcore way or the real way, one or the other or both.

Speaker 1:
[50:14] You're doing it your way, which is you being 100% true to yourself, which is hardcore to me. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3:
[50:20] Yeah. I mean, fuck it. You're doing what you're doing and people are interested. That's it. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:
[50:31] And you guys have like, yeah, it's fucking. So would there be a new Trapped Under Rice someday or no?

Speaker 5:
[50:35] Yeah. We've been cooking.

Speaker 1:
[50:37] Really?

Speaker 5:
[50:38] We've been cooking for a long time. We're slow cookers.

Speaker 3:
[50:41] Is Brendan always a part of it? So like if TY is going to play, it's assumed that he's on his schedule too.

Speaker 5:
[50:47] So we always plan for Brendan and we've had a couple centers where he couldn't do it. And it's Derek Daniel, who's like a six member of the band, you know?

Speaker 3:
[50:57] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[50:57] He's a great, Derek is a great drummer.

Speaker 3:
[51:00] Yeah. I'm a fan of drummers, man.

Speaker 5:
[51:02] I mean, I've been the luckiest with drummers.

Speaker 3:
[51:06] Any band you can think of that is like top of your list, their drummer was making sure that that was the reason.

Speaker 4:
[51:12] I got to play like two shows with Shrath Thunderice, like filling it on bass.

Speaker 1:
[51:15] Oh, that's cool.

Speaker 4:
[51:15] And Derek played both of them.

Speaker 1:
[51:17] Nice.

Speaker 4:
[51:18] It was like the first show I played with Shrath Thunderice. It was like sold out. It was like at the time, maybe the biggest show I'd ever played. It was like three, four thousand people. And I think I had like a week to learn the songs. And we practiced the whole band that got together once before the set, like day of, and we had like an hour in a practice phase. But Derek, being with Derek and Sam and Brad, it felt like I would have been way more stressed out if it was like anybody else. Right. Yep.

Speaker 1:
[51:53] And then how did you come into the mix? What's your connection? How did you guys end up?

Speaker 4:
[51:57] Just hardcore shit, man. Like I was like a really big Chatham Rice fan when I was younger. And I used to like, I'm from Maine, so I used to tour with like Krullhand.

Speaker 3:
[52:06] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[52:07] So they kind of like brought me around. And then I ended up moving, like meeting a lot of people from like Baltimore and DC and I moved down there.

Speaker 1:
[52:15] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[52:15] And then I saw Tad. Yeah, of course. I used to work at Jinx Proof.

Speaker 1:
[52:19] Oh, fuck, shit.

Speaker 4:
[52:20] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[52:21] And then legendary spot.

Speaker 4:
[52:24] And then I like ended up doing merch for Angel Dust, like on some tours. And then my gig opened up.

Speaker 1:
[52:31] We will be playing in bands before that, obviously.

Speaker 4:
[52:33] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[52:35] Playing in Maine and shit. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[52:36] Yeah, bands in Maine, like a ton of bands in DC, too.

Speaker 5:
[52:39] Just shout out Carl. I have a memory of being at the Autobar when I was maybe 17, 18.

Speaker 1:
[52:46] Hard Carl legend.

Speaker 5:
[52:47] And a fight breaks out. And you were like, what the hell is going on? Is that Carl? Y'all better not with Carl. And I remember being like, who the fuck is this Carl guy, dude? Like, he sounds, he made him sound crazy, you know? Yeah. And then as time goes on, I get to know Carl.

Speaker 1:
[53:03] And he was pretty wild back then.

Speaker 5:
[53:04] Pretty cool guy.

Speaker 1:
[53:05] Yeah. Now he's like all like in crazy shapes, like fucking black belt and shit. Owned jeans with tattoos. He's a legend, right?

Speaker 4:
[53:12] Yeah, he's really cool.

Speaker 1:
[53:13] He's still part of that, too, right?

Speaker 4:
[53:14] Yeah. He lives in Philly now. I think he owns a shop there, but I think he like still like like I think Tad mostly like runs the shop. But yeah, I think Carl still is a part of it.

Speaker 1:
[53:25] Oh, wait, Tad runs it?

Speaker 4:
[53:26] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[53:27] Oh, shit. So let's talk about now. I got so many notes for these guys right now.

Speaker 3:
[53:33] What do you got? What do you got on the notes?

Speaker 1:
[53:34] Well, these guys got you guys going to Europe this summer too or no?

Speaker 4:
[53:39] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[53:39] You are, right? Like festivals and stuff?

Speaker 4:
[53:42] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[53:43] Yeah, we do Australia after this. I'm not. Australia to Europe and a couple shows in the UK.

Speaker 3:
[53:52] Are you guys in your life work balance, if you will? Are you guys full-time touring bands right now?

Speaker 5:
[53:59] Zech's got a lot of hats.

Speaker 3:
[54:01] But I mean, whatever other hats you're wearing, it revolves around a full tour cycle.

Speaker 4:
[54:07] I mean, this year, I think I just fully committed to this. I just knew not to make any other plans or commit myself to anything else, because we're going to be bussing ass this year.

Speaker 3:
[54:18] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[54:20] What about you?

Speaker 5:
[54:21] Are you going to not be doing personal training stuff?

Speaker 1:
[54:23] Will you do that? That's cool.

Speaker 4:
[54:24] If I'm home for like two weeks in between. Thanks for watching. I'm not going to sell someone a 10 session bundle and then leave after we get two of them.

Speaker 1:
[54:45] You know what I mean? You stay training on tour too?

Speaker 4:
[54:49] Hotel gyms. I'll pop in to friends' jiu-jitsu gyms. I'm like, I'm going to do some training. I'm like, I'm going to do some training. I try to hit famous weight lifting gyms. We're around them.

Speaker 3:
[54:58] How long have you been training?

Speaker 4:
[55:00] Jiu-Jitsu, probably close to 11 years.

Speaker 1:
[55:03] Oh, nice. How old are you, can I ask?

Speaker 4:
[55:06] 32.

Speaker 1:
[55:06] Oh, young. What about you? You're full-time music for a while there, right, Justice?

Speaker 5:
[55:12] Part-time music, full-time.

Speaker 1:
[55:16] Supermodel?

Speaker 5:
[55:17] Trying to not go crazy, you know? I spend a lot of time with that.

Speaker 1:
[55:22] But music is your main, like, how you survive?

Speaker 5:
[55:24] I mean, you know, it's like Angel Dust, TUI. We have the record label that's been Pop Wig. It's been a little less active in the last year or two because me and Daniel are like the plays in Turnstile Daniel.

Speaker 1:
[55:39] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[55:40] We're kind of two, we started together and drive a lot of the ship. Yeah. We have another partner named Dane. But it's just me and Dan have been so busy. It kind of makes more sense to take a little break from putting out new releases at least.

Speaker 1:
[55:57] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[55:58] And then I was really focused on the idea of like songwriting and production. I did a little bit of that stuff when I was in LA. And then part of my reason for going back to Baltimore was, I can do that more efficiently. Yeah. I can like build my own studio and like have people come stay with me and work on music and kind of inspired by like the way that Chad taught me about production, you know?

Speaker 1:
[56:17] Yeah. Are you doing that now?

Speaker 5:
[56:18] A little bit. Like I have bands come stay with me for a couple of days at a time and we like work on some stuff. I got like, you know, but I'll say that that idea is taking a little bit of a backseat in the context of how much Angel Dust is doing.

Speaker 1:
[56:32] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[56:33] Which is for me, as long as I'm making music, I'm happy. But I think it's the coolest thing in the world is the opportunity to like get to be a part of somebody else's record. A band that you're a fan, like an actual fan of.

Speaker 1:
[56:44] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[56:45] I'm a big fan of Combust.

Speaker 1:
[56:47] I love Combust.

Speaker 5:
[56:47] Me too.

Speaker 1:
[56:48] Yeah. That was my best record last year. My favorite records of last year. Sure, man.

Speaker 5:
[56:51] I got to do like pre-production stuff with them. And it was like, it's kind of like based on my way of, like Chad's way, the things I've learned from how Chad would do that with us. And it's cool. They're like so, like they could have never stepped foot in my house and made a great record. But like the opportunity to be like, hey, let me get in on this. Like, I like what you are doing. It's the one they put out last year, Belly of the Beast.

Speaker 1:
[57:15] Yeah. Oh, I know you wrote that. It's a perfect album for you, man.

Speaker 3:
[57:21] I mean, we had Andrew on, right? And before I knew that he was going to be on, I'm walking my dog and I'm listening to the record. Because I got a good friend who, he always kind of gives me the latest, greatest shit out there because he can just keep up on it better than I can. So that record was one of them. And I'm like, all right, I'll get to it and I'll check it out. I'm walking my dogs one night, I got my earbuds and I'm like, did I just hear that motherfucker say in the belly of the beast?

Speaker 5:
[57:48] Yeah, he's a genius.

Speaker 3:
[57:49] I'm like, this dude's got something to say. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:
[57:51] He's so New York dude.

Speaker 3:
[57:52] I'm like, so now I'm dialed in. And I'm really, I'm really absorbing it. And I'm like, so I forwarded him, I shared the song to him. I'm like, yo, it's like if, I said something stupid, like, you know, it's like if Crown of Thorns and Leeway had a baby and their kid hung out with like, I can't remember the other band.

Speaker 5:
[58:13] Got to have some killing time in there.

Speaker 3:
[58:14] Oh, killing time, yeah, yeah, yeah. Entomize, like, point being, the guy obviously, the whole band, they know New York hardcore very well.

Speaker 1:
[58:23] It's from Staten Island, bro.

Speaker 3:
[58:24] And they're able to create something that clearly falls into that game.

Speaker 1:
[58:28] But making it new in theirs, too.

Speaker 3:
[58:30] It doesn't sound like they're imitating.

Speaker 1:
[58:32] It's like a time capsule in a sense, but it's their style of New York hardcore.

Speaker 3:
[58:35] It's dope.

Speaker 1:
[58:35] And he reps it so, he loves that shit, bro.

Speaker 5:
[58:38] I feel like they've done a great job of representing New York hardcore.

Speaker 1:
[58:40] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[58:41] And I'm really eager for what, in theory, I'm supposed to work on new music with them. And again, they're writing, like, they're very capable. But in theory, I'm going to get with them and work on some stuff. I'm really excited to see, like, again, they've done, they've mastered representing New York hardcore. But I'm looking forward to what they can do to hardcore music.

Speaker 3:
[59:04] I hear where you're going.

Speaker 5:
[59:05] Progressively pushing it forward into a whole new lane.

Speaker 3:
[59:08] I love that.

Speaker 5:
[59:09] I think their band could do that.

Speaker 1:
[59:10] I feel like, just like Chad, you could work with pop artists, too. Pop artists, for sure.

Speaker 5:
[59:14] I've dabbled. I'm not gifted. I have enough free time and ADHD to, like, get some ideas across, you know? But, like, somebody like a Chad, dude, Brendan is, like, we, you know, doing writing stuff with Brendan and Sam recently.

Speaker 1:
[59:30] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[59:30] I just, like, Brendan's been in enough crazy rooms and, like, done enough, for sure, freaky writing sessions to where, dude, him and Sam have this, like, musical language that makes me feel like I'm just not competent. Like, they're, like, on such a level. Like, I'm, like, watch... I think I'm pretty talented in a studio, you know?

Speaker 1:
[59:50] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[59:50] And then you watch these two just talking and translating information so fast. Yeah. And I feel like Brendan's at this point now where it's like, you can stick him in any room in the world and he's going to make whatever is happening better.

Speaker 1:
[60:02] Like producing other artists and stuff like that, too.

Speaker 5:
[60:04] I don't know where he's going to go with that, you know? Like, who knows? Maybe he doesn't, you know, but he's just...

Speaker 3:
[60:08] Look, yeah. I mean, clearly, another example, right? Kid is extremely talented, very passionate, very creative. And, you know, he also seems to be really fucking productive.

Speaker 5:
[60:21] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[60:21] I love the whole Baltimore community you guys have, like, all the different groups you guys... Hopping out, playing with each other. It really reminds me of, like, the youth crew bands. Like, Sammy was all those... How those bands kind of rotate players and all that. Homies grew up together and playing with each other. It's awesome.

Speaker 5:
[60:36] I always saw Daniel Fang as, like, the modern Sammy. And it's kind of, like, happened, like, in a very similar...

Speaker 1:
[60:42] But it's such a cool community. Like, I mean, Baltimore has always been there. We had, like, back in the day, the Loft in the 80s. We had Reptile House, some other bands from there. Yeah, of course. Lungfish, all that stuff. But then you guys, it seems like for a while, there was really nothing coming from Baltimore. Then all of a sudden, it's just like the Mecca for hardcore. It was really cool, man.

Speaker 5:
[61:00] A handful of really cool bands that I think had a lot more influence than people always recognize.

Speaker 1:
[61:06] Next Step Up?

Speaker 5:
[61:07] Yeah, Next Step Up.

Speaker 1:
[61:07] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[61:08] I see Gut Instinct in a lot of bands' music. It's kind of interesting. When Gut Instinct was dropping music, you see a lot of things that happened on the East Coast not too far away. A year later, where there's that Gut Instinct riff, there's that Gut Instinct vocal character.

Speaker 1:
[61:26] Which a lot of the turnstile kids would never even know about Gut Instinct. A lot of those kids who find out about the bands.

Speaker 5:
[61:30] Oh, like modern young fans.

Speaker 1:
[61:31] Yeah, they couldn't even go that deep to even find that maybe. Who knows?

Speaker 5:
[61:34] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[61:35] Maybe. For you guys, for sure, your influences, but.

Speaker 5:
[61:38] Yeah. The turnstile guys, I feel like the turnstile team wears their influences on their sleeves in a cool way. Hopefully, that leads people. But yeah.

Speaker 1:
[61:48] I think I see Brendan wearing a Next Step Up shirt or something once or something like that, or Gut Instinct or something. I thought it was cool.

Speaker 5:
[61:52] I think Gut Instinct is a Baltimore band. Mine might be, if I had a gun to my head, I might go Stout. That might be my favorite Baltimore band.

Speaker 1:
[61:59] Those bands are kind of hard back in the day. When we used to go to shows, man, those bands.

Speaker 3:
[62:02] I mean, I got to admit, I don't know the bands real well, but Next Step Up, is that what we were saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the name. I know that's a Baltimore band. I know that's the hometown hero thing from them. I just don't know the music real well.

Speaker 1:
[62:17] The singer's name was Junior, was the singer's name? JR JR, JR, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[62:21] And Baltimore just kind of, I mean, from the 80s to now, you kind of just know it's like a fucking tough town. Yeah, sure, dude. Some quality shit comes from it.

Speaker 5:
[62:31] Also, yeah, shout out JR In the context of, in the way that Death Threat was nice to me when I was a kid, we all knew that JR was cool and scary, and he was nice to us when we were little kids. I had a funny moment where when we were little kids, we were bad and we would steal purses and shit and just rob things, and we found a purse at the bar. When I said we found a purse, we took a purse from the bar. And somebody grabbed a purse or whatever and stick it on their table, and I know the deal, and I put it on my legs, and then I see JR looking around and I was like, oh shit, man, I hope that guy has anything to do with this purse.

Speaker 1:
[63:08] Yeah, he has a lady's purse or something, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[63:10] He comes by and he's like, fellas, you guys see a purse by any chance? I was like, oh yeah, no doubt, I found this under the table and I just want to keep it safe.

Speaker 1:
[63:19] You tell him that story the years later?

Speaker 5:
[63:21] I don't know if I've ever even told him that. Oh shit. I'll give him a heads up and send him a link to this. But yeah, he's the kind of guy who's just cool and always commanded respect. So yeah, go ahead and hand that purse off or you get slapped up.

Speaker 1:
[63:36] Have you guys, have you felt any of the... I hate that word when we talk about this shit, man. It's dumb shit. It's a gatekeeping shit, all that corny shit, you know? It's because we're now with the old heads who love all the new shit, you know? Have you ever experienced that when you first coming up in your bands or no? Like old heads being weird to you guys or?

Speaker 5:
[63:54] No, Baltimore is like a tight knit little scene. And I always say even different genres of punk where it's like the skinheads and the crust punks and the straight edge. Everybody was just kind of cool and supportive of each other. And going to other cities, there would be a moment or two where somebody would try to project their doubt of you onto others. But then we started traveling a lot, going to other cities, like going to New York. It was like Cousin Joe was like a big advocate.

Speaker 1:
[64:28] Dan Schott, Busky shot the Busky, Cousin Joe, that's cool.

Speaker 5:
[64:31] And I feel like once those dudes just advocated for us and I feel like we didn't have to get.

Speaker 1:
[64:37] I remember you played with us at the Blender Theater.

Speaker 5:
[64:40] What theater was it?

Speaker 1:
[64:40] We played some 15th anniversary for H2O. We played our show at the Blender, that's right.

Speaker 5:
[64:43] Yeah, it was at the Blender? Okay. I remember that very well. We played The Truck before that in Philadelphia.

Speaker 1:
[64:49] With each other there?

Speaker 3:
[64:50] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[64:51] Oh, shit.

Speaker 5:
[64:52] It was like three days in a row for that 15th anniversary.

Speaker 1:
[64:54] Chocodero, shout out to Chocodero. You guys played there back in the day?

Speaker 3:
[64:57] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[64:58] Were you with Freddie that time with the Salmon? The legendary story?

Speaker 3:
[65:02] I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep.

Speaker 1:
[65:06] So many stories and so many characters, man.

Speaker 3:
[65:08] I could go out, I could, yeah, no, I ain't gonna, nevermind.

Speaker 1:
[65:11] But the gatekeeping, we don't want to talk about it. We just talk about it all the time when you're just like- Who was gatekeeping you? No, no gatekeeping. I mean, we first came out-

Speaker 3:
[65:18] I thought we were gatekeepers back when my old band was doing it in the 80s. Like Minnesota, there was like, I think there's a natural tendency for an older generation to, hey, you kids get off of my lawn type bullshit.

Speaker 1:
[65:33] Well, H2O was too melodic to be hardcore and Mad Ball was too rap, too bouncy and too metal. And that's a fact. I mean, the way you talk about that, the old heads like, what's this Mad Ball bounty rap shit? We were too melodic. Cronothorne's maybe. I feel like that Train Your Art Blues was, the lyrics was so ahead of the time. We were talking about depression, all this shit. He was talking about the fucking Train Your Art Blues.

Speaker 5:
[65:53] I talk about that all the time.

Speaker 3:
[65:55] Train Your Art Blues was a masterpiece.

Speaker 1:
[65:56] But the leads on the end, the guitar playing, was so original for hardcore.

Speaker 3:
[66:00] It was refreshing, like New York hardcore could use a little dynamic.

Speaker 1:
[66:06] Yeah. Dynamic.

Speaker 5:
[66:08] Stumbling upon New York hardcore as a kid, musically, I was intrigued, I was captured by it. But there's always this element of being like, oh, I'm not like this. This isn't who I am. And then Cruella Thorns, it's this dude expressing all the shit that's going on in my head. And it felt so seen. And I was like, wait, this guy is like this. And where people were dynamic, we have all these different. I was thinking about a lot of bands where it's like, they just got one thing they sing, that's it. Like every song is about being straight edged. Bro, you don't got no feelings. But you never got.

Speaker 3:
[66:41] Right, right.

Speaker 5:
[66:42] Like what?

Speaker 1:
[66:42] Stabbed in the, how many times have you been stabbed in the back?

Speaker 3:
[66:45] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[66:45] Oh shit, it's so true, dude.

Speaker 5:
[66:47] COT was the thing that made me be like, oh, this isn't like an experience of being tough. It's not an experience of being the most straight edged. It's a human experience. Right. And there's different bands that kind of, that might emphasize like a different side of me. COT was the band that did the most of me.

Speaker 4:
[67:06] The Chaps Under Ice lyrics are like similar, like all about like not being the biggest, the baddest about like being like G'd by a girl or being sad or something.

Speaker 5:
[67:16] Right.

Speaker 4:
[67:17] Honestly, I think Angel Dust might have like tougher lyrics than the Chaps Under Ice.

Speaker 3:
[67:22] Oh yeah, really? I haven't really put that there, but I hear what you're saying.

Speaker 5:
[67:26] It's very intentional, like the Cotomy thing where it's like, okay, we're making spin kick music. You got the COT riff with the Mad Ball bridge to the bulldoze breakdown. And then the song's about how my dad didn't love me.

Speaker 3:
[67:40] Right, right, right.

Speaker 5:
[67:42] And now it affects the way I treat people and how I'm not capable of loving. And then with Angel Dust, it's like, man, let's have the song like, I'm gonna beat you like a drum. Just like that, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1:
[67:52] It's just straight to the point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's what you expect from the other band. It's crazy.

Speaker 5:
[67:57] It's all the same music. It's just the shift of where we're taken from.

Speaker 3:
[68:01] Yeah, I think it's...

Speaker 5:
[68:03] That's why it's crazy to me. Fools get really hung up on this, like, what is and what isn't hardcore. And we've had that where people are like, you know, and it's funny. Maybe this is... I didn't experience gatekeeping as a child. And now, this modern time, in the last 10 years, I've had a couple of internet nerds be like, this is not hardcore. Or this, you know what I mean? This is this. And it's just, shut up. You have no... Exactly. You literally don't know what the fuck you're talking about. But I always save that argument and just let people talk. I'm just like, is this hard core? Let you guys talk and you can be wrong. It is. I know what it is. I don't have to...

Speaker 1:
[68:36] It's such an interesting thing too.

Speaker 3:
[68:39] I mean, I'll challenge you though, right? I mean, I believe you. You know what it is. I'm not going to question that in any way, shape or form, but I'm going to question your ability to define it.

Speaker 5:
[68:50] So I have a definition that I think a lot about. And I think it's like a three-part system of authenticity. Authenticity. Love that. It's one of the few genres that demands authenticity. Well, I don't... So I think... That's a bigger conversation, how I define authenticity. Because you can make pop music that nobody has to believe that you believe. Like, I don't believe... Like, I like Sabrina Carpenter. This isn't like a jab. I don't believe that she believes it, and I don't have to believe it. She just has to sing her little song, and I fucking like that shit. She's good with what she does. Some guy named Billy wrote it in a fucking studio in LA. I've probably been in a session with him and couldn't fucking stay in his ass. You get those writing sessions, they're the worst people.

Speaker 3:
[69:36] Not always.

Speaker 5:
[69:36] I have great friends.

Speaker 3:
[69:37] Oh, man, I'd love to talk more about this.

Speaker 5:
[69:39] Most of the room is fucking annoying losers who like...

Speaker 1:
[69:43] Is there a lot of people in those rooms? Like different writers on one song?

Speaker 5:
[69:46] I've been in a room with me and one other guy, and I've been in a room with ten people.

Speaker 3:
[69:49] I mean, are they trying to sell you something on some level? Is there that aspect to it?

Speaker 5:
[69:53] I think they're trying to find the thing to sell. And they're trying to get it from you. They're like, oh, nobody's there, because I'm not there a lot of times.

Speaker 3:
[70:00] It just seems like it would feel a little dirty on some level.

Speaker 5:
[70:03] I don't think people are seeing me and saying, oh, this guy is a talented songwriter. They're like, oh, he has a certain thing. It's hardcore. Yell, scream. All right, what can we do with that? How can we interject his value into this song? And it gets a little condescending and not respectful of the art.

Speaker 1:
[70:21] But Sabrina Carpenter, you don't have to understand or agree with the lyrics. You like the music, how it makes you feel. You're like, it's catchy, right? Same with Billie Eilish. Like, I can relate to her lyrics. She's way younger, but I love her songs. They're catchy. They make me feel a certain way, emotion. You know what I'm saying? It's not supposed to be so deep.

Speaker 5:
[70:35] Some of Billie Eilish, I feel like is really authentic. I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[70:37] Absolutely. There's her and her brother, dude.

Speaker 5:
[70:39] I feel like there's something like they might have dabbled in the punk rock arts at some point.

Speaker 1:
[70:43] For sure.

Speaker 5:
[70:43] They know something.

Speaker 1:
[70:44] I mean, their ethics, the way they are about the environment, the animals, everything, they're so punk to me. What they talk about politically on their platforms, all that shit, like they don't give a fuck. In that sense. And yeah, I heard her brother write songs in their fucking bedroom, dude. They changed the game with that shit.

Speaker 5:
[70:58] So we got authenticity with Hardcore, energy. So you're taking something authentic and you're using it to drive people to jump off the stage. And energy, it can mean a lot of things. You can go to the Youth of Today show and it's going to be kids with hoodies and we're jumping off the stage catching each other. You can be at the, you can see, right now you can see Fatal Realm. And can be blasting each other in the face, just like murdering each other, you know? I think that's the band right now that people are dying.

Speaker 1:
[71:26] Where are they from?

Speaker 4:
[71:26] So violent, man.

Speaker 1:
[71:27] Really?

Speaker 4:
[71:28] Hudson Valley?

Speaker 5:
[71:29] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[71:30] Hudson Valley Hardcore represent J. Mindforce, man.

Speaker 3:
[71:32] Wait, what was the name of the band?

Speaker 5:
[71:35] Fatal Realm.

Speaker 3:
[71:36] Fatal Realm.

Speaker 1:
[71:36] What a hard name.

Speaker 5:
[71:38] And then, so it's like, you know, again, energy, authenticity and the other thing is creation. You can't just keep reliving the same thing and be hardcore. I truly think it's like, if you, because we, who told us, who gave us the guidelines for this? The bad brains. Authentic. Rasta. Like we, we're going to, we're going to, everything we are, we're going to put this on here. It's going to be us unapologetically, 100% demand of authenticity. What's the energy going to be? I'm going to do a backflip. People are going to be doing the weirdest shit. Like look at 1982 CBGB's Bad Brain set.

Speaker 1:
[72:08] It was video, dude.

Speaker 5:
[72:09] Nobody knows what to do yet, but they're just, we're going to figure it out and we're, and energy is just happening. We don't have an outlet for this energy yet. This situation demands energy. I'm going to skank on stage, stage dive, somebody's planking on top of the crowd while they're being passed around. It's weird shit, bro. Like fool's just throwing drinks. I like the one fool who makes the knuckle sandwich and he's like shaking it at you. Like punk ass kids.

Speaker 1:
[72:32] That was one back then like that.

Speaker 5:
[72:33] Yeah, good vibe. Like that was just, did not amass yet. They were like, we're going to wave a fist at you. And then you have creation. They created something new. And I think that's what we demand from hardcore every time. So we look at a modern time and what's a lot of people's reference for what hardcore is, turnstile. Okay, well, it's authentic. I can bet my life on that. Like I know what everybody's come from and what's gone into this music and what came out of it. It's authentic. It's as authentic as fucking Bad Brains, CBGB's 1982. What's the energy? Higher than any band on that level. There's no band you can see in a space as big as turnstile and people are still behaving like a fucking prison riot.

Speaker 3:
[73:17] Right, right, right.

Speaker 5:
[73:19] And then the other thing is creation. You're gonna tell me that band's not creating anything new? They're the, that's what the Bad Brains is. They're just doing, it's the same thing. So we'd be like, oh, it's not hard. You can't redefine hardcore, bro. It's a genre of music that has been defined, I think, by those things for a long time in all the bands we love. We're talking about Agnostic Front, Negative Approach. It's all those things.

Speaker 3:
[73:39] So I agree with you 100% of everything you said. I still find the gap, though, in defining what it sounds like.

Speaker 5:
[73:46] Yeah, that's tough.

Speaker 3:
[73:48] I think we have to agree you can't.

Speaker 5:
[73:50] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[73:50] You simply can't. But you just know it because all those other characteristics you just mentioned come out through hearing it, right? It just is.

Speaker 1:
[74:00] Is Earth Crisis a hardcore band?

Speaker 3:
[74:01] Yes, 100%.

Speaker 1:
[74:03] Is it a sacred hardcore band?

Speaker 3:
[74:04] I mean, they were to me on the satisfaction of the death of desire circuit for sure.

Speaker 1:
[74:12] But Jamie, the way he grew up, his ethics putting on shows at the skate parks and playing as a hardcore kid, dude.

Speaker 3:
[74:16] Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 4:
[74:18] Oh, sorry. I think that hardcore is a subculture before a genre. Yeah. And I feel like you can't really, like, it's like you can't really just to me, like, be in it like a little bit. You know what I mean? And like, and for a band, like if a band is like in our world, in our subculture, then like that's then like, you know, you're like you are a hardcore band.

Speaker 3:
[74:41] Right.

Speaker 4:
[74:42] But also if someone who I who doesn't know any of my friends or something makes a band and they try to sound like a hardcore band, like I'm probably not going to folk with it, man. Like, you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3:
[74:51] Like, like you don't feel an attachment to it. There's a lack of, you know, connection there. It just is.

Speaker 1:
[74:59] It's or something that's real or forced to, you know?

Speaker 3:
[75:02] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[75:02] You know, and the Internet's kind of not to blame for like all the shit that went viral during the past couple of years, like like the crowd, the crowd killing videos, just the different videos, people diving and moshing. And then when you go to those shows, you think, oh, I can just do that. But no, there's like this community there. There's there's locals, there's people not to fuck with. It's people not to hit. You know what I'm saying? There's people that are like part of this world. It's like and they kind of protect it in a sense, too. Not that you're not, everybody's involved, everybody's invited. But you have to kind of know, there's not rules, but you have to kind of know what's going on before you jump in.

Speaker 4:
[75:30] Context for everything, too. People don't like, you know, if you, like you can listen to something, like a band, and be like, okay, I know where this is coming from. I know this like aesthetics, like whatever. I know where this came from. Like I know why someone's wearing a t-shirt over a hoodie and like Jordan, Jordan wants or something. Like I know why someone is doing that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I feel like, like if you just walk, like if, I don't know, like if someone's just like not in our world, but like tells me like that they like, like, oh, I like Mabel or something. I'd be like, that's cool, man. Like that, like, what do you like?

Speaker 3:
[76:08] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[76:08] What do you know? Like, what do you know about like, you like listening to some songs sometimes? Like, that's cool. I'm not really, we're not the same, dude, you know?

Speaker 3:
[76:17] It's true. Yep, yep.

Speaker 1:
[76:20] I mean, I hate seeing the word lifestyle, too, but just, I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[76:25] I know what I was gonna say, is like, as much as you got like, the question is, the guy who's saying, that's not hardcore. Oh, okay. Mr. fucking hardcore authority, what are your credentials? Let me, let's make sure we understand why you are going to tell us what is and isn't hardcore, right? And then chances are the dude's probably not going to be anybody of any like significance in the culture. He's going to be somebody online.

Speaker 1:
[76:50] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[76:51] And even if you are significant within the culture, let's say, you know, okay, then what is hardcore? Let me hear you define it and tell me why you're saying it's not. And you can't do it.

Speaker 1:
[77:01] Yeah. Have you wrote a song?

Speaker 3:
[77:03] Through characteristics and spirit, right? There's a spirit there.

Speaker 5:
[77:07] That's the word I like to use.

Speaker 3:
[77:08] There is a spirit there that is either there or it isn't. And you feel it when it's there and you don't when it's not.

Speaker 5:
[77:14] I think what Zech said about subculture versus genre touches on that. And that's where the spirit lives. It lives in subculture. And that's where hardcore lives. And hardcore still lives. Yeah, for sure. I think hardcore lives more so now than ever.

Speaker 3:
[77:28] I truly do. That's a fact. And it is almost getting more consistently at a mainstream audience level with its fucking spirit intact. So I have never seen it like this before. I've seen it reach heights of popularity.

Speaker 5:
[77:42] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[77:43] But it came by way of fashion and sort of, you know, dilution.

Speaker 5:
[77:47] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[77:47] Right now, it's legit. And it's not only the performers, but the people that are in the industry helping the industry.

Speaker 5:
[77:55] Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 3:
[77:56] Right. I mean, hardcore has infiltrated the industry to a fair degree.

Speaker 1:
[78:01] These guys are fucking backtrack.

Speaker 5:
[78:03] So we have a record label behind us of people who grew up on hardcore. And yes, they have, yes, in my opinion, one of the most successful, coolest like DIY labels that exist and run for cover.

Speaker 1:
[78:19] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[78:19] And it's like a...

Speaker 1:
[78:20] What are they based out of?

Speaker 5:
[78:22] Massachusetts.

Speaker 1:
[78:22] OK, cool, cool.

Speaker 5:
[78:23] But like just, you know, it's like having the resources of... I've worked with a major label and I have more resources now that I don't, you know, work in with these hardcore kids. And even within the context of the major label, Roadrunner, for example, they work with Turnstyle. And I've worked with those people and it's like, shout out to the people there who grew up on hardcore music and they understand this thing that we're talking about, the difference between genre and subculture, you know? And they're trying to curate and nurture subculture. And I don't think there's anything wrong with putting subculture in front of people. I don't think there's anything wrong with putting hardcore in front of people. I always kind of use the expression of soul, I guess. So like you get blues music, you have people coming, I guess, coming out of the time-wise, coming out of the civil rights movement. Well, even before that, slave music, blues, a broken black man with a guitar, expressing himself in a way that's so authentic. Yeah. Soul music. It's cultural. It's like such a cultural thing. It's not a genre. That wasn't a genre yet. And then what happens is somebody upstairs with a lot of money says, how do we package this into a genre? We sell this, we exploit it, and then it kills that thing and that thing evolves. And you see, you know, there's people who are always true to that and we'll always carry that with them, like that genre of music. But blues turns into rock and roll music. Once that gets exploited, what's the avenue? Rock and roll is dead, quote unquote. The spirit of rock and roll is not dead, but the genre is exploited. So that's where you get punk rock and metal.

Speaker 1:
[80:03] Sure.

Speaker 5:
[80:04] So then punk rock and metal were that for a long time. Got super exploited. We can see it now to this day. You can put on a lot of like, you know, not to bully anybody, but like a lot of active rock and shit where it's like, this is factory metal music. This is not the subculture of music that comes from soul. So there's a period of where does it go now? Indie rock was a thing. You had a lot of really cool authentic indie rock. The indie rock machine has been out of control. There's been a lot of hands in it, you know? So where have I seen it my entire life? I've been on earth for 40 years now. It's, dude, it's like at the sidebar tavern, 90 cat room, skinheads beating the fuck out of each other. It's stout, you know what I'm saying? It's like these spaces. And the world's been saying like, yo, where does this thing that we're looking for? And we can call it punk or we can call it rock. We can call it soul. It's got these different names. But it's authenticity. Yeah. It's that thing I'm talking about.

Speaker 1:
[81:00] Great point, man.

Speaker 5:
[81:01] Where does that exist now? And it's like, well, it's hardcore music and the world's seeing it. So we have those same leeches that exist in the world. We're gonna say, hey, I want my piece of this pie. And my thing is this, I've done this for my entire life. I got into this when I was maybe 10 years old, started touring when I was 13, 14, 15 years old. I've invested everything. You don't get the take from it. You get to contribute to it. And then you get to reap the rewards with what you've got.

Speaker 3:
[81:29] You're speaking in a way of being protective of it. And I certainly should have had emotion. And with good reason, you know what I mean? It's like I didn't come into it to profit from it. I didn't come into it to boost my own ego. I didn't come into it to try to sell anybody anything. I came into it because I identify with the culture and spiritually and musically as well. And I'm fucking 56 years old. I've been calling myself a punk rocker since I'm fucking 13 years old. And I've spiked my hair, I've fucking worn leather jackets, and combat boots, and Dr. Martens, and fucking shaved my head. And I had the honor of joining one of the most fucking world famous skinhead bands, if you will, at one point, right? And agnostic front is obviously much wider than that too. But this shit means a lot to me, man. And there's people who have fucking really driven it in a significant way, and they deserve the credit. Not somebody that can come in and pick and choose what they think is cool about it and throw their fashion together that imitates it and then fucking just strut their stuff on stage all over the place and try to own it. I will fucking be protective of that.

Speaker 1:
[82:48] Yeah, that's the difference between gatekeepers preserving and protecting something that's so dear to you that you lived your whole life, right? So that's what he's talking about. It's like keeping the culture and keeping it like you can be a part of it and you can contribute and you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3:
[83:02] But people do get confused then, right? Because, again, let's just turn style is always going to be this example for everybody, right? They are mainstream level popularity right now. And they fucking deserve it, 100%. And you cannot try to compare that to being imitators or selling out or any of that shit because it's just not accurate in any way, shape or form. And if you really stop and thought about it, because you're kind of conditioned yourself probably to think that big means fucking sellout, right? You really need to stop yourself and recognize that this is now turned into the bigger and the better that things happen from them brings all of us up.

Speaker 1:
[83:48] 100%.

Speaker 3:
[83:48] That is what people got to really start to fucking wrap their head around.

Speaker 1:
[83:51] I'm thinking about watching you and talking about the year punk broke in 94. The year we signed to Epitaph and the offspring rancid, all these bands were crushing people like, oh, you're sellout, you signed to West Coast Labor, you're on Epitaph, Bouncing Souls, All of Us. All those big bands that people called sellouts, that all trickled down to All of Us. It all helped us. Just like I see this turnstile umbrella that's helping out all these other bands that they're taking on tour, they're wearing their shirts, Speed, all these bands are putting on, like it's all helping each other. It's the same thing. But I feel-

Speaker 3:
[84:18] Well, and going back to, you know, when we're talking about the bills you guys have put out for this tour, right? I mean, you guys are creating that same opportunity, you're helping these bands.

Speaker 1:
[84:27] But also, a lot of those bigger bands didn't, it just happened to trickle down because we were on Epitaph or you're on Fat Records or you're on Victory or Revelation. People fucked with all those catalogs back then, right? But I feel like Turnstyle is specifically because they are hardcore kids. They're actually looking out for these bands and taking them on tour. They're actually doing what hardcore bands do. Unlike the big punk bands, well, it just trickled down because we're label mates and people checked out that catalog. We're on those CD samplers. Yeah, those cassette samplers. But Turnstyle is actually picking these bands themselves and putting them on. Which is really like bootstraps shit.

Speaker 3:
[85:03] I don't think it's their responsibility either to have to grab, okay, guys, now you got to take agnostic front on tour, now you got to take the chrome, you got to pay your dues.

Speaker 1:
[85:12] No, but I'm saying nobody's tell them to do that. They're just doing it because that's the kind of people they are.

Speaker 3:
[85:15] Totally.

Speaker 1:
[85:16] That's a hardcore ethic.

Speaker 3:
[85:17] But I think even short of that, people should recognize like exactly you're saying, now these labels and these, you know what I mean? It just becomes more palatable and people are going to have more interest to maybe something that you're doing that is similar. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 5:
[85:30] It's funny, now I get like the first show we played after COVID. It was like I just made a record with those guys. Then we started building the new team. I'm like, I'm going to go play some shows on this record. The first show we play is Security Guard's like, man, you guys are pretty cool. You like turnstile? It's like did this thing where it normalized some of our influences and made it, even whether you see this as a good thing or bad thing, made certain sonic elements of hardcore more palatable. I think it's a beautiful thing. Yes. Again, I love success. I love seeing everybody winning.

Speaker 3:
[86:07] That's what I'm saying. We should all be happy for that.

Speaker 5:
[86:10] I think hardcore is like this very unique thing in the world that can change the world. We have so much influence.

Speaker 3:
[86:15] I think it is changing the world.

Speaker 5:
[86:16] Dude, people think it's silly when I talk about the amount of influence we have on Earth, on the planet. And it's like all the progressive ideas that I know of, all the best things I know of, came from a hardcore t-shirt. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3:
[86:33] Some extremely creative and productive and successful, intelligent people have come from our community and are doing some really good shit in the world.

Speaker 1:
[86:41] Thinking about Veganism and Morites, how far it's come and how the original bands, the hardcore bands are singing about it. Even the shit on Age of Choral is still relevant today, lyrically, what they're talking about. The songs and the lyrics are so ahead of the time with everything, like helping the world, healing the world.

Speaker 5:
[86:54] I want to say something. I like starting with Trash Talk, and this is a thing that I've talked to Franz about, like having an impression, a way to influence people. When I was a kid, if you were black in the hardcore scene, there was nothing wrong with this, but there was a role. There was like, okay, I'm a black guy and I wear Fred Perry. You got to do the thing to mix in with what other people around you were doing. That was very much a theme. Like, what's the word for it? Like, just, you had to fit in. You couldn't be a black dude. You couldn't just be a black guy because people felt threatened by that. And I don't think it's intentionally racist, but there's an air of racism in that idea. For sure. And Trash Talk, I feel like, and I'm not saying they were the first, I don't know, but the first band that was touring with black guys who were dressing the way they grew up dressing being black guys unapologetically. And I remember meeting them and being like, wow, this is special, you know? And then, you know, they weren't like, what does a subculture look to it? It's just, we're living, dude, this is who we are. And then I met Franz and remember Franz voicing that. And then Franz has always been so unapologetically black. And I've seen it, I've seen so much to where it's like, new young people come into this world and it's okay for them just to be who they are. And it's like, just that idea, think about how powerful, outside of the context of race even, the idea that you can just be who you are, you know? It's an idea we've always projected with hardcore.

Speaker 1:
[88:24] Totally.

Speaker 5:
[88:25] But we're all learning and growing and getting better and we need certain leaders and certain types of people to enhance the movement.

Speaker 1:
[88:33] Sure.

Speaker 5:
[88:33] And we're at a world now, it's like, you go to our show and I just see individuals. And that's what I saw, Bad Brains 1982, CBGBs. I remember seeing that and being like, look at these fucking freaks, dude. Look at this room full of different people.

Speaker 3:
[88:48] In the 80s, we wore it literally, right? I mean, you looked like a punk rocker. There was no mistake about it. You looked very different than the average person walking around on the street. And you paid a price for it. It was, it was brutal. And especially when you're a young kid, I mean, grown men would want to fucking kick my ass.

Speaker 1:
[89:08] It was pretty up.

Speaker 5:
[89:09] Would you say the 90s is when that started to change, where it became fashionable to you?

Speaker 3:
[89:12] Well, it was like realizing as I got a little bit older and there were bands like Cro-Mags and Agnostic Front that actually talked about fighting and fighting back. And I'm like, oh shit, why didn't that occur to me before? And then, you know, we started to try to turn the tables a little bit where the metalheads that used to want to fucking kick my ass, now, you know, we're turning that around. And you know what, I want to take a minute to say, I got so much love for metalheads. I got a lot of old metalhead friends back home. And I kind of went off years ago about saying how metalheads used to want to kick my ass. And then we turned it around. And they kind of got offended, like, hey, remember, there's some good metalheads back there. Yeah, of course. I love you, my brothers. I love you. Anyway, I just think that this punk rock thing is, we're kind of, we found home in this community because we need it, right? It means all something to us. We might not look like the fucking outcast of society, but we still are.

Speaker 5:
[90:11] For sure.

Speaker 3:
[90:11] In here, right?

Speaker 5:
[90:12] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[90:12] We are. I mean, and that's why we've created our own community. And that's what we're coming together to help each other out. You know what I mean? And it can be hard because I see it, and I know you probably all have, too. We can also help embrace each other's fucking brokenness and the negativity. And we can, if we're not careful, we can help keep each other down and bring ourselves down. And I've been in phases like that in my life, you know? And there's plenty of people I could find that would be willing to take that ride, too, you know? So, yeah, it's an interesting thing. But I know, again, I'm 56 years old and this is where I will never not be a fucking hardcore kid.

Speaker 1:
[90:54] Me either, dude.

Speaker 3:
[90:54] And I've been working a corporate job for like decades. You understand what I'm saying?

Speaker 1:
[90:59] Yeah, but to go back to the being yourself and it seems like it's so diverse more than ever in the hardcore scene now, right?

Speaker 3:
[91:05] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[91:06] So much diversity that wasn't like that for many, many years, dude. Like there wasn't even girls really going to shows back in the day. It was too scary for people.

Speaker 3:
[91:13] It was from my memory. I mean, I grew up in St. Paul, which we had a scene, but the bigger scene was in Minneapolis, downtown Minneapolis, First Avenue, right? And Minneapolis has always been a fucking metropolitan area with multi-racial people. And when we'd go to hardcore shows, there's Spanish kids, Native American kids, fucking black kids. And we had Chicago, we had Milwaukee. I saw diversity, racial diversity.

Speaker 1:
[91:47] I mean, until I got to New York, New York changed my life with that, the most diversity, man. Coming from southern Maryland, where the rednecks would fuck with us all the time in St. Mary's County. Brutal, dude.

Speaker 3:
[91:56] I was familiar with that type of community in Minnesota. But at the hardcore shows, it was diverse for my experience.

Speaker 1:
[92:03] Rusty was our protector in southern Maryland. Rusty would be the one fighting for all of us, man.

Speaker 3:
[92:06] But there were also white power Nazis in the 80s, too. For sure, dude. I'm pretty sure that's dead now, right? You don't actually see-

Speaker 5:
[92:14] I don't know if it's dead, but I don't think it's a threat.

Speaker 3:
[92:16] I mean, you don't see them at hardcore shows. Yeah, they're not.

Speaker 1:
[92:18] No, right?

Speaker 3:
[92:19] It used to be, where it was like-

Speaker 4:
[92:21] Well, they probably have their own, like-

Speaker 3:
[92:24] No, they do. Are there little concerts going on?

Speaker 4:
[92:25] Yeah, they do, right?

Speaker 5:
[92:26] I bet they suck, though.

Speaker 4:
[92:27] They do, right?

Speaker 5:
[92:28] They got no tracks.

Speaker 4:
[92:29] Like a band like Offensive Weapon.

Speaker 1:
[92:31] Oh, there's some bands.

Speaker 4:
[92:32] Yeah, like new RAC bands. They'll do like- I'm like researched this shit, you know what I mean? But- because I like to know, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1:
[92:41] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[92:41] Like, there was a- they always do it like middle of nowhere, like New Jersey, or they'll do it in New York, like not say the address, blah, blah, blah. They'll like- they have their own thing. But the bands are- the bands all suck, dude. That's like the biggest crime is-

Speaker 3:
[92:57] There's still like, hammer skins, right? I mean, like that's still- Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[93:00] I mean, I don't know if they would use that, like I don't know if they're still under that umbrella, but no, they are still around, but their bands are trash and they're all like- Well, they're all weird losers, dude.

Speaker 3:
[93:10] The reality is that when you talk about the diversity, there was a fight to maintain it, you know what I mean? For sure. I mean, like literal fights. There were white power skinheads within our fucking world that would come to shows and try to flex sometimes and people had to rally together.

Speaker 1:
[93:27] I would say most of our friends got the worst rep in the scene, but they're the ones protecting the scene. Most of our friends were like keeping Nazis out and they always got a bad rep.

Speaker 3:
[93:35] There was a time where there were actual Nazis to have to keep up.

Speaker 2:
[93:38] For sure, dude.

Speaker 3:
[93:39] That was a real thing.

Speaker 5:
[93:40] I caught that, definitely in Baltimore when I was getting into it. That's one of the things that attracted me to it was seeing grown men beat the shit out of other grown men. I mean, like White Power Fool, like you'd be a sidebar or some weirdo pull up doing his little Z-Hail thing and he'd be like, all right, it's time to beat the fuck off this fool, beat the brakes off this fool. And then, like, I don't know, like you're a little kid, you're like, when's my time? I want to be the guy to do that. And I remember being a little kid and being like, like asking, like pulling the dude's T-shirt, being like, can me and my friends beat up the white power fool that's pulled up, you know? It was like something to look forward to. And it's almost, you know.

Speaker 1:
[94:15] Did you actually have a chance with that later on?

Speaker 5:
[94:17] Yeah, I've had a couple little experiences, but it's like almost, you know, not that I want that person at the show, but it's almost like kids get robbed of the opportunity to bang on the white power fool, you know?

Speaker 4:
[94:30] Yeah, well, I feel like it's like, like the way like hardcore was before, like when I was like growing up is like, you like we were saying, like you were protecting it, you're defending it. Like you like, we get into like fights like a lot too, like New England, man, like New England, bro, like one thing New England loved to do back in the day is beat up security guards, who like, who didn't let us do what we wanted to do at shows. You know what I mean? That's all I was saying.

Speaker 3:
[94:59] I'm familiar with the mission.

Speaker 4:
[95:01] Like you know what I'm saying? Like just people like, bro, like we didn't like people based on what high school they went to like when I was a teenager. Like there were kids in the show that we'd beefed just because they went to the wrong high school. And like dude, like today, like I mean, it's cool that everything is cool and nice, but I do feel like that's what made me like care about it.

Speaker 3:
[95:22] There's a little bit of a danger element that's missing.

Speaker 4:
[95:23] But it made me care about it. I was like, oh, this is my shit. Like if this is a joke, my whole life is a joke. Like bug you. You know what I mean? Like I would like bleed for this. You know what I mean? Sure. But now like no one has to bleed for anything, which is probably nice. Like Jeff, Jeff, Jeff Gunnell, like Jeff G from like Cold is like, we were, we had this like conversation and he's just like, he's like, he like loves what hardcore is now.

Speaker 3:
[95:46] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[95:47] And he was like, I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[95:48] I heard him say that. I heard him on a podcast. He was talking about this.

Speaker 4:
[95:50] He was talking about it. He's like, look around, bro. He's like, look around. Everyone looks weird. Everyone's nice. He's like, I didn't like doing that shit back in the day that we had to do. Like it was a pain in the ass. He's like, I wanted to play guitar and hang out with my friends. We didn't want to scrap with people. Like that was the worst part of the show.

Speaker 1:
[96:09] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[96:09] And I was like, you're right, man.

Speaker 1:
[96:12] CTYC, bro. Shit, dude. Legit back then. Beast.

Speaker 3:
[96:17] Oh, yeah. No, no, we used to call him the Detroit Monsters.

Speaker 1:
[96:19] Who was it with the Mad Ball Tat and the Down By Law video? Detroit Duggee.

Speaker 3:
[96:23] Detroit Duggee. Damn, dude.

Speaker 1:
[96:25] Down By Law is such a hard video, dude.

Speaker 3:
[96:27] I love that dude.

Speaker 5:
[96:29] I always think about the first time we toured with Death Before Dishonor, I asked Brian, just like he's like a scary psychopath. And I was like, pull him aside. And I was like, I just want to pick your brain. I just bug him about like whatever hardcore information and like tough person information. Yeah, he's got a lot of good tough person.

Speaker 1:
[96:49] Were you guys telling stories when you guys come about the scene, like the old head stories of fights? Is that something that trickled down? Obviously trickled down to you guys?

Speaker 5:
[96:56] I say I'm a person that's like, I'm like, I'm pulling that information out of people. I'm a little bit of a punisher. I've always been a little bit of a punisher. I like to talk. And I was like, Brian, what's the scariest band of all time? He did not bat an eye on that. He was like, it's cold as life, 100 percent.

Speaker 1:
[97:10] Damn.

Speaker 5:
[97:11] I was like, the most terrifying people, he was like, that's the band, the history, the music, everything, that's it.

Speaker 3:
[97:16] Their scene was like, okay, you see guys with tattoos, but you go to their scene and there's like about 20, just with the neck tattoos, like the real gnarly neck tattoos. And like that was, you know, in those days, that was not something...

Speaker 1:
[97:33] A head tattoo was not normal back then.

Speaker 3:
[97:36] You knew someone was like real committed, like...

Speaker 1:
[97:39] And I have to say, I'll say the one person was pretty, even though he is our boy, man, was rest in peace, Kevin Sear, man, Bulldoze, man. He was one of the gnarliest cats on the dance floor. He was like one of the most...

Speaker 3:
[97:50] Well, when I think...

Speaker 1:
[97:51] People feared Kevin from Bulldoze, dude.

Speaker 3:
[97:53] For sure.

Speaker 1:
[97:54] Like he was a big... He had the biggest fucking in. Any kind of beef, dude.

Speaker 3:
[97:58] I just remember like mad ball playing. I can't remember where we were. I think it was like a... What had it been? A Life of Agony record released somewhere or something? I can't remember, but we were a little lower on the bill and we're on stage.

Speaker 1:
[98:10] Was that Jersey Studio One or something?

Speaker 3:
[98:12] It might have been. That was crazy fights. I just remember we're playing and I see Kevin in the pit and then like third song in, like everything's like real open and it doesn't look like anyone's really feeling it all that much. Kevin, I just hear Kevin go, Yo, Matty, they're saying I'm dancing too hard. I'm like, sorry, Kev, I don't know. I'm talking like on the mic to him on the floor, in the middle of our set. Sorry, Kev, I don't really know what more to do. Just keep doing your role. Don't worry about it.

Speaker 1:
[98:40] I remember he did, he had walked in there or something at one show and he put a sneaker print on one of our friends faces, he printed on his face after the show. He was just so big that we would hide behind him when he was dancing. He was just such a powerful, savage man, recipes Kevin dude.

Speaker 3:
[98:55] But you know what, if the Nazis showed up, first in line, bro, first in line.

Speaker 1:
[99:01] Minus two though.

Speaker 3:
[99:02] Well, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[99:03] Minus two.

Speaker 5:
[99:04] I had a good Kev One spectacle. We played.

Speaker 1:
[99:07] Spectacle.

Speaker 5:
[99:09] It was TUI. Bulldoze, Haypreed, Biohazard, I believe.

Speaker 1:
[99:14] Sick bill.

Speaker 3:
[99:15] That's a great bill.

Speaker 5:
[99:15] Crazy bill. Did like three or four shows on the East Coast and Kev One was moshing. I don't remember if it was for Haypreed or Biohazard, but he was moshing. We were watching. There was a balcony. We posted up. The TUI team was just watching him being like, what an animal. A security guard grabbed him up and he started talking. Then something verbally happened across the line. He hit the dude and dropped him immediately. The dude went down and you see other people start running up, other security guys. I'm like, oh shit, Kev's got a team too, but they're not here right now. They're not seeing it. There's five security dudes. We're up in the balcony on the other side of the room. There's no way of us helping in any capacity. You just have to watch. I was assuming it was going to be bad, but he genuinely just beat up five security guards by himself. I had the perfect seat to just watch it above the crowd. We talk about that shit all the time.

Speaker 3:
[100:09] Well, who's going to be the first guy to have to come square up with him? That guy is going to drop. Then how do you proceed from there?

Speaker 5:
[100:16] It was impressive.

Speaker 1:
[100:16] What years was that? 90s or 2000s? Early 2010s?

Speaker 5:
[100:19] Probably early 2010s.

Speaker 1:
[100:21] He was still marching up when he passed, bro. He's still in the pit, dude.

Speaker 3:
[100:25] Look, for you kids listening out there, I'm not saying we're condoning violence in any way, shape, or form.

Speaker 5:
[100:30] I'm appreciating it.

Speaker 3:
[100:31] I do appreciate it. I remember. Here's the thing. The way I always thought about it, it was an agreed part of our culture. Yeah. You know what I mean? And everyone knew we're like, hey, if you cross a certain line, certain way, you might be dealing with some repercussions in that type of fashion.

Speaker 4:
[100:47] Exactly.

Speaker 3:
[100:48] And you don't have to worry at all if you're just coming correct.

Speaker 4:
[100:53] And beyond that, you don't even have to be here.

Speaker 3:
[100:58] Well, there's that too, right?

Speaker 4:
[101:00] If you don't f*** it, people will be... I remember back in the day, New England, our scene or whatever, people would go online and be like, oh, these... Just complaining about online, trying to call people out for violence stuff. It's just like, bro, this is our thing, man. Go join an adult softball league, bro. Start playing chess, play tennis. We like jumping on each other's heads and blasting each other in the face. And like drinking 40s in the parking lot. And that is what we like to do.

Speaker 3:
[101:35] You know what I mean? Yeah. I hear you, right? I'll say this, you got to be careful with it, right? Because it can go real bad.

Speaker 4:
[101:45] Of course. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[101:46] And we all know what those bad things are. We've seen our brothers and sisters suffer from that. That's real. That's fucking real. You know what I mean? And I'm never one to judge. You know what I mean? Like, yo, I get it, you know? But hopefully, what I like, what I feel like the culture right now is at is it just feels a little bit, it does feel safer. It feels more positive. It feels more uplifting. And, you know, if you want to, if you got to pick one or the other, which is the better one?

Speaker 4:
[102:18] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[102:19] Right.

Speaker 5:
[102:19] I'll say me at, you know, 11 years old, needed a room where somebody's going to spin kick me in the nuts. Yeah, exactly. And I could do the same, you know?

Speaker 3:
[102:29] Sure.

Speaker 5:
[102:30] I needed that. I think it was special. I hold it in like a high regard. But I'm like, this is different right now. And I think there's a lot more young people that could use this. And we have a better chance at serving planet Earth with hardcore music. You know?

Speaker 1:
[102:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[102:43] But I have friends like that are my friends like to this day, like 15, however many years later, were the first interaction we had was me just getting blasted in the face. Like Chanel from Worcester.

Speaker 5:
[102:57] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[102:58] It was like I went to like one of my first shows in Anchors Up. I was like, Scronnie, probably like 70, 70. I was at Anchors Up in in Haybrook, Massachusetts. And well, she's from Worcester. And I was moshing a little too hard. It wasn't my city. She looked at me square in the face. She's like a strong woman. Bad shit, dude. Just blasted me. Really? And I look around and I'm like, I'm like, what, you know, I was looking at the whole team, everyone who I wasn't really that close with friends yet. I was like, what are you going to do? I was just like, nothing, I guess. I just eat it. Keep moshing and stage diving, whatever. But and now, she's like a great friend of mine. We became friends because I stuck around. I kept moshing really hard. I never complained about anything. And then just like, you know, we like earned the respect from people around.

Speaker 1:
[103:49] What's the last show you moshed at?

Speaker 4:
[103:51] Oh, dude. Okay. There are certain bands that will get it out of me. Wait, what was the last? Damn, I can't even, it might have been Chatham to Rice. Like I feel like it's like Chatham to Rice, Criminal Instinct, King Nine. These are bands that will get it out of me. If I'm watching, playing with like YOT or something, I'll hit a stage dive.

Speaker 1:
[104:16] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[104:17] I'll for sure hit a stage dive. Like Killing Time.

Speaker 3:
[104:20] Oh, Killing Time.

Speaker 4:
[104:23] They'll get it out of me.

Speaker 1:
[104:24] That's one of the greatest bands of all time, Brightside, dude.

Speaker 3:
[104:27] Every time.

Speaker 1:
[104:27] I'm so happy to see them playing. They're still killing it.

Speaker 3:
[104:29] It's such a good time.

Speaker 1:
[104:31] Well, that's time you mocked, Justice.

Speaker 5:
[104:34] Shit, let me think. Give me one second.

Speaker 1:
[104:36] Set it off.

Speaker 5:
[104:37] I'm probably going to go with King Nine.

Speaker 1:
[104:38] Okay.

Speaker 5:
[104:38] I think Kriminal and King Nine, both of those bands for me as well, like that I've had so many moments of being like, oh, I don't mosh anymore. And then that happens and you're like, I have no choice right now.

Speaker 1:
[104:49] You just feel it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But watching Chron of Thorns is probably sick playing with them, right? Playing those songs and shit. Looks like they have a good response out there, you guys.

Speaker 5:
[104:56] Yeah. I actually moshed to Chron of Thorns not too long ago, but not on this tour because I was like, you know, my body can't accept getting my ass beat and then getting on stage and playing.

Speaker 1:
[105:07] You just turned 40, man. Happy birthday, man. You're in the 40s now. It's crazy, dude.

Speaker 4:
[105:11] No, actually, I jumped off a speaker while Trash Talk was playing at the show we just played. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[105:16] Oh, that's sick. Okay.

Speaker 4:
[105:16] Yeah, John. Yeah, actually, yeah. It was like, they were the last set and I climbed up a speaker and jumped into a wreckless...

Speaker 1:
[105:23] That's another great band, man.

Speaker 5:
[105:25] Another band that will pull something out of you that you didn't know existed.

Speaker 1:
[105:28] And also, it's kind of bridging that gap with Tyler, the creator back then, the hip hop artist coming to their shows. I don't know if you know about that.

Speaker 3:
[105:34] Trash talk. I'm aware, but I haven't really spent enough time digging in to really, you know.

Speaker 1:
[105:39] But they were coming to their shows, diving at their shows and shit.

Speaker 5:
[105:42] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[105:42] It's really cool.

Speaker 5:
[105:43] They created a strange lane out of like, from nothing. You know what I mean? There was no precedent for what they were doing and it has afforded them a reputation that I think they mean a lot to people and they can do this shit forever.

Speaker 1:
[105:58] Yeah. Also, streetwear culture, art future, all that stuff is just like, meshing the genres, man. Way ahead of everybody else, I think. It's really cool. Do you guys have a dream band to tour with?

Speaker 5:
[106:10] Oh, man. Honestly, for me, again, the bands I'll sell out before, The Crown of Thorns, Negative Approach, Death Red, Agnostic Front, and we're going to try to make some more of those happen this year. So we'll see what happens.

Speaker 1:
[106:27] You could be trapped in nice new music this year, maybe?

Speaker 5:
[106:29] Not this year.

Speaker 1:
[106:30] Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 5:
[106:31] I would, we're working on stuff, but, you know, Angel Dust has a lot going on and the TUI team, they have babies and a lot of babies in the band. Between Terrence Style and Angel Dust, we're all pretty busy, you know? But it's, you know, there's a moment when I'd answer this question and be like, yeah, we're working on music and what does that even mean? But like now we're at a point where I'm like, oh, I know, I know what this looks like. Like I know what we have, like the body of work, you know?

Speaker 1:
[107:02] Would you ever want to be a dad and settle down?

Speaker 5:
[107:04] Hell yeah. No, I will, I don't know. It's one of the things I go back and forth with. Like here's the thing is, would I like to be a dad? Yes. But also would I like to be a guy in a band that goes on tour for the rest of my life? Yes. So it's like, but like, just like, I like to be a resource to young people. You know what I mean? If that makes sense.

Speaker 1:
[107:21] You're doing it, dude.

Speaker 5:
[107:22] I can do that with music.

Speaker 1:
[107:23] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[107:24] But like, yeah, I mean, it's a conversation that I've had, where it's like, is it? And sometimes I do, I'm like, yeah, I want to have a kid. And then there's times where I'm like, it's a good thing I don't have a kid.

Speaker 1:
[107:35] I mean, you're definitely, I want to see a legend in the game and respected by so many people, you and everything you're part of. Like, I see you as like the new, like a Walter Schreifel's Tim Armstrong's vibe for your generation.

Speaker 5:
[107:51] Like, that's the coolest thing you could have just said. I appreciate that.

Speaker 1:
[107:54] I'm saying for your diversity and your songwriting and the culture and not giving a. Like, I saw a picture you were in, actually, I sent to Hilly. I saw a picture of you the other day wearing like a fucking, it was like a brown suede jacket with the fucking things hanging off it. You wear the fuck, that's another thing, like not saying like a hardcore fashion icon, but you wear what you want to wear. Like, you don't give a fuck about any of that shit. You're not trying to look a certain way. That comes from, dude, I respect it.

Speaker 5:
[108:17] That comes from Ezek too.

Speaker 1:
[108:18] I was going to say that, dude.

Speaker 3:
[108:19] I love to hear that.

Speaker 1:
[108:20] Ezek with the poncho.

Speaker 3:
[108:21] I wanted to hear that and now that I did, I want to hear that too. I'm very happy.

Speaker 5:
[108:24] I could never.

Speaker 1:
[108:25] That's your fashion icon?

Speaker 5:
[108:27] I mean, he's like an icon. I know. I have a lot of people I admire and it would be such a lie to pretend like he's not at the top of the list. I would never try to pretend like he's not one of the most influential people in my life.

Speaker 1:
[108:40] If the listener's Justice has mentally vexed you across his collarbone, which is one of their great albums.

Speaker 3:
[108:48] He is an example of living and breathing our culture. 100% living, breathing and contributing.

Speaker 1:
[108:57] But him wearing a poncho could have been inspired by you, who knows?

Speaker 5:
[109:00] I saw this man, what was it? Black and Blue Bull came out with the fur.

Speaker 2:
[109:07] Do you remember that?

Speaker 1:
[109:11] The Lord.

Speaker 5:
[109:13] Before music even happened, I just saw his fit and started beating the mosh pit up. I just had to go crazy. He just had that presence to him.

Speaker 1:
[109:20] He's such a New York b-boy, graffiti fucking legend, bro. Shout out to the Lord, dude. Our brother, dude. Always with the sheepskin. Back then, fucking everything. He's rocking all the U-wings, still rocking U-wings. Like 80s joints. He don't give a fuck either, as far as he wears what he wants to wear.

Speaker 5:
[109:40] It's hardcore. Authenticity, energy.

Speaker 3:
[109:42] It is. 100%.

Speaker 5:
[109:43] 100%.

Speaker 3:
[109:45] And what's even more great about it is it pushes the boundaries of what people think is the norm.

Speaker 5:
[109:53] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[109:54] And they know they gotta keep their mouth shut if they ain't liking it, because. You know what I mean? And that's not the point, by any means, right? But I kind of like that part of it, too.

Speaker 1:
[110:06] Yeah, nobody's gonna say shit to him about his wearing, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3:
[110:09] Well, nor should they, right? But I'm just saying.

Speaker 1:
[110:11] Same with him either.

Speaker 3:
[110:12] I'm just saying it's very, it's great. It's fucking Lordy, Zech.

Speaker 1:
[110:17] And even like you, you always change up your look and all that shit. I fucking love that shit, dude.

Speaker 5:
[110:20] Thank you, man.

Speaker 1:
[110:21] The glasses on stage.

Speaker 5:
[110:22] Honestly, having Zech on the team is really inspiring to me. Zech's a person who's very down to express himself in their physical appearance. And I feel like there's times when I want to do something bold and I'm like, well, look at him. We're a team, bro. We're always going to go crazy.

Speaker 1:
[110:36] I love that shit. That's punk, man. That's hardcore.

Speaker 3:
[110:39] Yeah, that's a great way to put it. That's punk.

Speaker 1:
[110:41] Yeah, it's beyond the sound.

Speaker 3:
[110:43] People.

Speaker 1:
[110:43] It's being yourself 100 percent, I think, of who's talking about it.

Speaker 3:
[110:45] That element can get lost, I think, in the hardcore thing.

Speaker 1:
[110:50] Which New York hardcore top five?

Speaker 5:
[110:52] It's always changing.

Speaker 1:
[110:54] You go first because he's going to think about his.

Speaker 5:
[110:56] Oh man.

Speaker 1:
[110:56] Just like maybe right now, this moment.

Speaker 5:
[110:58] Top five bands for today, right? Crown of Thorns is always there for life. Agnostic Front, Mad Ball. Shit man.

Speaker 1:
[111:10] That's three.

Speaker 5:
[111:11] Yeah, two more. Let's see. Let's see. Where do I go with it? There's a band or two that were really influential to me that I'm always like re-moving around. I don't want to cast any shade, but they're getting cut, dude. Burn.

Speaker 4:
[111:29] That makes sense.

Speaker 1:
[111:30] That makes sense.

Speaker 5:
[111:30] As far as just like, dude, a band that like pushes the boundaries and the rules.

Speaker 1:
[111:35] Incredible, man.

Speaker 5:
[111:37] Youth of Today, just in the context of being a good list.

Speaker 4:
[111:39] Connecticut, man.

Speaker 5:
[111:41] I know it's Connecticut. That's one of the ones I was thinking about.

Speaker 3:
[111:43] We literally had that conversation yesterday.

Speaker 1:
[111:45] We agreed.

Speaker 3:
[111:47] We say New York. We all know where they came from.

Speaker 1:
[111:51] I mean, Underdogs, New Jersey, but I can say the Underdog, New York Harker.

Speaker 3:
[111:53] Yeah, I always thought of it that way, too.

Speaker 1:
[111:55] I mean, there's not many people from New York that know. I mean, Freddie came from Miami.

Speaker 3:
[111:59] I came from Minnesota. Like, what do you want?

Speaker 5:
[112:02] I just said, the beauty of New York.

Speaker 1:
[112:03] There's like five people. I can name on my hand. They're still in New York. Harker still live in New York. There's not many, bro. They're like the New York natives.

Speaker 5:
[112:10] I want Zech's top five.

Speaker 1:
[112:11] Yeah, bro. Let's go. Pull the mic to you. Yeah, I hear this.

Speaker 4:
[112:15] So I say Breakdown, FTTW.

Speaker 1:
[112:17] Yeah, dude.

Speaker 4:
[112:18] Okay, Breakdown, Agnostic Front, Altercation.

Speaker 3:
[112:24] Okay.

Speaker 5:
[112:25] I just got something to go with Supertouch.

Speaker 4:
[112:29] And then I'll get Life's Flood.

Speaker 3:
[112:32] Oh, bro.

Speaker 4:
[112:33] That's got to be deep.

Speaker 3:
[112:35] That's got to be deep.

Speaker 4:
[112:36] That's what I'm listening to, like, when I listen to the most, I feel like.

Speaker 3:
[112:40] Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1:
[112:41] You guys Iceman fans, too?

Speaker 4:
[112:42] Oh, I love Iceman.

Speaker 3:
[112:44] Yeah, that was what Andrew called out, like he said.

Speaker 1:
[112:47] Andrew, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[112:48] I guess Carl was a big influence on his time.

Speaker 1:
[112:51] And he had another band after Iceman that he talked about. I forgot what they called after that.

Speaker 5:
[112:55] Oh, it's.

Speaker 1:
[112:56] People love that.

Speaker 5:
[112:57] They have a song, Cold World. Wouldn't be surprised if you. What the fuck is it? No, it's not. I want to say Demise, not Demise. What is it?

Speaker 1:
[113:03] It was a band, you know that band? There was the other band after Iceman.

Speaker 5:
[113:06] I feel like there's an idiot right now, dude.

Speaker 1:
[113:08] It's like a deep cut that like Andrew was.

Speaker 5:
[113:09] Andrew would kill us if he heard this happening.

Speaker 3:
[113:12] No, I remember when he mentioned it, I wasn't hip to him.

Speaker 4:
[113:16] There's always a lot of deep cut, like cool.

Speaker 1:
[113:18] But it's a band after that.

Speaker 4:
[113:18] You feel like a fit of anger.

Speaker 1:
[113:19] It will come back.

Speaker 4:
[113:21] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[113:21] You know, Giovanni, can you Google something for me? Iceman's band after Iceman. Carl. Carl Iceman, yeah. This is Giovanni right over here, legendary skateboard photographer.

Speaker 5:
[113:30] I'm so embarrassed. This is a genuine influence.

Speaker 1:
[113:32] Because Andrew is going to be so bummed, dude. What's the band called after Iceman? Mosher, Carl Mosher. He was an ill Mosher, too.

Speaker 3:
[113:43] Yeah, I know that he was known for that.

Speaker 1:
[113:45] Also, Sheldon Chaka and Gingy from Absolution, one of the first kind of spin kick dancers I've ever seen in the 80s with the arms and the kicks and like the spiritual. And it wasn't violent, but it was beautiful. It was going for real.

Speaker 5:
[113:57] Chaka and who?

Speaker 1:
[113:58] Gingy from Absolution.

Speaker 5:
[114:00] Oh, OK. This is an ongoing conversation that I feel like we hear.

Speaker 4:
[114:03] Oh, Dynamo.

Speaker 1:
[114:04] Dynamo. Yes, Dynamo. Like, who started the windmill, right?

Speaker 5:
[114:08] Shout out, Andrew. I'm sorry that I couldn't think of the name. I know you're disappointed in me, but...

Speaker 1:
[114:14] This is an ongoing conversation with you guys about who started the kicks and the spins.

Speaker 5:
[114:17] The spin kicks. So, I wrote a piece about it like 15 years ago. Really? Yeah, yeah. I have a thesis. I started it when I lived in Baltimore, and I interviewed some people about like, where's the first person you saw spin kicking? And then I moved to LA. When I was in LA, I talked to a couple of older cats that were like, oh, the first time I saw it was like the Earth Crisis team. It was Guav and Pig, DNA. Some of the Earth Crisis guys were spin kicking. So I went to those guys and interviewed them like, where did you guys first see spin kicking? Oh, it's a New York thing. It was like a New York City thing. We were doing it. And a lot of people were citing Saab. And then I took it back to New York and asked some people. And it was Saab. But the argument always comes down to Saab or Chaka. And there's people who will be like, I saw Saab do it first. And people will be like, nah, Chaka was doing it. And I'm like, I really, I got to know. Everybody's got a different definitive answer.

Speaker 1:
[115:08] I saw Saab was the first person I saw crowd killing, where he would actually spin around, really fuck people up. Like, facing them or behind, spinning frontward and backward, hitting people in the head. Chaka was more like a spiritual, he would spin and hit you, but it wasn't, he was smiling. He wasn't, it was on some like, Krishna shit, you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3:
[115:25] It's an expression, what you mean, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[115:26] It was an expression. Saab was just more like fucking scary.

Speaker 5:
[115:30] Martial arts.

Speaker 1:
[115:31] Martial arts, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, just wrecking fools.

Speaker 4:
[115:34] Watching Chaka, like, moshing, like, I do like the last Raw Deal show, like, at CBGB, that was it. Yeah, I do like Chaka was moshing on the stage.

Speaker 1:
[115:44] Yeah, he's incredible.

Speaker 4:
[115:45] Like, going side to side, like, on the stage. Because there were so many stage potatoes, he was just, like, killing everybody.

Speaker 1:
[115:50] Yeah, but Gingy Absolution was one of the first ones who inspired Chaka in the first place. We hit the last CB show, and Dominic and Bill pulled the gun out for Killing Time Show. He was there, he was there at the last Killing Time Show. That was crazy.

Speaker 3:
[116:02] No, I was in Europe, I think, with AF.

Speaker 5:
[116:05] I just feel like a fool that I didn't know about Gigi in the context of this. You said Gigi, right?

Speaker 1:
[116:10] Gigi.

Speaker 5:
[116:11] Gigi, sorry.

Speaker 1:
[116:11] Absolution.

Speaker 5:
[116:14] That's incredible respect.

Speaker 1:
[116:16] He's still around too. He's like a black boat. He was in Florida or something.

Speaker 5:
[116:19] He's a black boat. So he's still being kicked in.

Speaker 1:
[116:21] Yeah, he's legit. He was legit like a fighter back then too, like back then. You ever meet Gigi?

Speaker 3:
[116:26] No, I don't think I have.

Speaker 5:
[116:27] We gotta do a documentary about this.

Speaker 1:
[116:28] I think he popped up on New York Harker Chronicles or something a year ago. Like it'd be cool to track him down and talk to him about that shit. But he was on some like spiritual, you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 5:
[116:35] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[116:36] Basab was like a scary person. He's been on the dance floor with 100% dude.

Speaker 5:
[116:40] Yeah, to the fucking master killer video. Everybody looks so cool in that. And like the fact that they like all look equipped to do martial arts, they look like fucking just badass.

Speaker 1:
[116:51] What's the Fury 5 video where like they pull up in the white Cadillac and he's windmilling all by himself in Jersey.

Speaker 3:
[116:57] Do or die.

Speaker 1:
[116:57] Yo, that's a hard video, dude.

Speaker 4:
[117:00] He's wearing like the J.

Speaker 1:
[117:01] Fury. But he's like windmilling all by himself in a broken down building. Stickman's a legend, bro.

Speaker 5:
[117:07] We played with Stickman about like nine months ago in New Jersey and literally in better shape than I am, better shape than probably he's ever been in, performed better than I can perform, better than potentially he's ever performed. He's like at the top of his game.

Speaker 1:
[117:23] He's like 55 or something, dude.

Speaker 5:
[117:24] It makes no sense.

Speaker 1:
[117:25] He's doing those grip hangs. He's fucking.

Speaker 5:
[117:29] So I was sick when we performed with him and my voice was beat up and he's like, how you doing, man? And I was like, you know, my voice hurts and my body hurts. He's like, yeah, but you won't give it 100%, right? And I was like, you know, maybe I got 90 in me, right? And I thought he was trying to motivate me. He looked so, I thought he was going to beat me up because he was so mad that I said I only had 90%. He looked so offended by giving 90%. And he was like, he said to me, he was like, what do you mean? He's like, I don't even. He was like, well, you're dead today. It's over. He's like, I'm getting on stage 100%. I don't know how to give it less than 100%. I don't know what you're talking about right now. He was like so offended. And I was like, dude, you're right. You're gonna eat me alive on stage. And I went back to, we had a little backstage green room and I was thinking to myself, I need to get on that. I need to be 100% every time. And I think about that, I promise, I think about it every time I get on stage.

Speaker 1:
[118:18] He's a beast, dude.

Speaker 5:
[118:20] I love that.

Speaker 1:
[118:20] He's a stick man, dude.

Speaker 5:
[118:21] I'm like, I don't have him in me today. I picture him pull up out the shadows and be like, bitch.

Speaker 3:
[118:27] Yeah, I don't care if it's discipline or fucking purely being stubborn. You know what I mean? You got to fucking...

Speaker 5:
[118:34] Whatever it is, man.

Speaker 3:
[118:35] Yeah, whatever you're going to do, right? You got to fucking do it.

Speaker 1:
[118:38] He grew his dreads back. Oh, gray and shit. Hard.

Speaker 3:
[118:42] That's a hard. He's a tough.

Speaker 1:
[118:44] He's legit. What is your latest obsession?

Speaker 5:
[118:48] Denim.

Speaker 1:
[118:49] Denim is your latest obsession?

Speaker 5:
[118:50] Yeah. It's always something. There's a new thing every couple of months. Probably once a year, there's a thing that I obsess over.

Speaker 1:
[118:57] Really?

Speaker 3:
[118:57] Can we elaborate a little bit? You got your ghost.

Speaker 1:
[119:00] He's rocked all denim here. I know.

Speaker 3:
[119:01] I saw it. But where do we go with this denim obsession?

Speaker 5:
[119:04] So I got, what do I like or where my take me?

Speaker 3:
[119:10] How big of an obsession is it?

Speaker 5:
[119:13] Like information, trying to absorb as much information as possible, and then buying some stuff. The Japanese raw salvage denim thing is a little expensive, so you can't just buy everything. But like there's cool companies out of the US that are sourcing. Yesterday I got gifted a beautiful jacket from Brain Dead. A nice denim jacket, it's like clearly like slubby Japanese, like weird nerd shit. I feel like I hated this guy, like the guy that loves this. Like one year ago I'd be like, I'll kill that guy. So if you feel that way, I'm sorry, like I get where you're coming from, you can be mad at me. But it's funny, I like obsess over things, and I like project it onto everybody around me all the time. Like if you're ADHD and he hears about it all, he knows all about it. He probably knows way too much about denim. Yo, Steve is like over it. Dude, I'll be like getting anything new.

Speaker 1:
[119:58] I could be like, Steve, touch this. He's like, I'm gonna touch your fucking pants, dude.

Speaker 2:
[120:03] I know that the Japanese denim is like the highest, highest, best of the best. I'm obsessed, dude. And that's hard to get in America?

Speaker 1:
[120:10] Yeah, there's not like very many huge distributors. So also we just played with Foundation, and Champ, the drummer Foundation, is literally one of the biggest distributors of Japanese denim.

Speaker 2:
[120:20] Oh, shit.

Speaker 1:
[120:21] So there's like three or four really big companies in the US that are doing that.

Speaker 2:
[120:27] Interesting, dude.

Speaker 1:
[120:27] He has a shop called Guilty Party in Atlanta, and he was coming, we played a show in Texas together the other day.

Speaker 2:
[120:34] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[120:34] And I was like, dude, there's this pair of pants I'm trying to get. And I described it, because there's more of a cut I was looking for. And he immediately was like, it's this cut.

Speaker 2:
[120:40] He knew exactly what it was.

Speaker 1:
[120:41] He knew exactly what I was looking for. And he brought it to me in Texas, blessed me.

Speaker 2:
[120:46] Hardcore kids everywhere, dude.

Speaker 1:
[120:47] There's these pants right here, bro. Look at these.

Speaker 2:
[120:49] Damn, and you have to roll up the cuff high too. That's like part of the shit.

Speaker 1:
[120:52] I feel fucked up.

Speaker 3:
[120:53] That's like the more like, what am I trying to say? There's different textures or like blends of Denner, right?

Speaker 2:
[121:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah, bro.

Speaker 1:
[121:03] Putting all kinds of shit in there to make it feel up and cool.

Speaker 2:
[121:05] You gotta roll the cuffs up high, too. That's some reason with that.

Speaker 1:
[121:07] I don't roll the cuffs high. I like that. Why don't you do it right there? Well, because I'm gonna take my shoes off, I don't want the pants to drag. I want to get the shoes on to go back down. So that way it stacks. Because I like to like, you know, I feel like it was like in the 90s was the vibe, like you got a taper, some big pants, so they bunch up a lot as opposed to just wide legs.

Speaker 3:
[121:24] It's true.

Speaker 2:
[121:25] It's true. Zech, what about you? What's your latest obsession?

Speaker 5:
[121:29] I mean, I have a lot of like niche interests and hobbies and stuff.

Speaker 3:
[121:34] Such as?

Speaker 5:
[121:36] Well, I mean, I'm like really an anime. Like I recently got a tour of like the Crunchyroll, like studio, like in Texas. I play like a lot. I play a lot of a lot of video games. I've been like like the surf surfing.

Speaker 2:
[121:51] You're surfing?

Speaker 5:
[121:52] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[121:53] In New York?

Speaker 5:
[121:53] Rockaway.

Speaker 2:
[121:54] Yeah. Oh, that's dope. My son wants to go. That's a good dream. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[121:57] To surf in Rockaway.

Speaker 2:
[121:58] He wants to go sometime.

Speaker 5:
[121:58] Tell him, tell him.

Speaker 2:
[121:59] I'll take him.

Speaker 5:
[122:00] I'll take him out. I'll take him out for sure. For sure. That's a good dream. Yeah. And then just like martial arts, like jujitsu.

Speaker 2:
[122:06] I see you in the gym all the time. You're on your shit.

Speaker 5:
[122:09] Yeah. And then I've been running a lot. I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[122:12] Is it running?

Speaker 5:
[122:13] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[122:13] Nice. And you're trying to do a marathon?

Speaker 5:
[122:16] No, not at all.

Speaker 2:
[122:17] New York Marathon looks like a dream. Like all the boroughs. It looks sick.

Speaker 5:
[122:20] It looks cool. It's just like anything above like five, six miles, just like my knees, my knees and my feet just kind of hurt. It's like, but I like being outside a lot.

Speaker 1:
[122:31] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[122:31] What about some daily rituals for you right now, Justice?

Speaker 1:
[122:34] I do like a lot of like physical therapy type shit, you know, just getting older. I want to do this forever. Yeah. And so when I was saying like doing like the part time music thing, I think more of my life is doing things that invest in my ability, ability to do music long term, you know?

Speaker 2:
[122:50] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[122:53] So just like, you know, I get up and I move. I have dogs. I have English bull terriers. Nice. And they're like just savage, terrible animals and they just try to kill each other and eat everything. And there are a lot to deal with. But like, so just a lot of movement, dogs, gym.

Speaker 2:
[123:08] You a coffee guy?

Speaker 1:
[123:10] I dabble. Yeah. You know, I kind of go through little waves. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[123:14] You miss California?

Speaker 1:
[123:16] Yeah, all the time, honestly. But like, you know, when I'm in California, I miss Baltimore, too. So it's like, I've lived a lot of places. And I do think you carry some of that spiritually with you. Like, I lived in New York. I lived in East Village.

Speaker 2:
[123:28] Nice.

Speaker 1:
[123:28] Carry that with me. I learned a lot of things there. I lived in Atlanta. I lived in Richmond. But I spent a lot of time in LA and I always knew it was going to be somewhere that I got stuck. And I tried it. There's a lot of things I learned about entertainment industry and just even a mindset of positivity that I learned in Los Angeles. I truly had a negative mindset before moving to Los Angeles. And I think it's like, I knew that was my reason. It was like, I'm coming here to get myself right.

Speaker 2:
[123:57] Wow. I think it's the sunshine, the warmth and the people and the hurricanes. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[124:03] But there's like this also, it's like, you know, I always talk about there's like this grinding mentality on the East Coast.

Speaker 2:
[124:09] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[124:09] And I always use this reference point. I booked this Trapped Under Ice tour. It's the last real tours that Trapped Under Ice did. And I booked the East Coast in 45 minutes. 45 minutes, 10 shows. Damn. It was done. And then we had a schedule conflict where somebody in the band said, Oh, I messed up. I'm so sorry. And he called me an hour later and I was like, Well, I already booked the tour, but I'll rebook it. So I rebooked the tour again in 45 minutes again. Ten days, East Coast, 45 minutes. Like responses, like everybody's like, venues confirmed. The West Coast, I had four shows planned. And it was months of calling people, being like, Yo, we should do this. And they'll be like, Oh, that would be sick. That would be dope. I'm like, All right, man. So what you gonna do? And it'd be like, Yeah, yeah, that'll be, yeah, let's do it. Okay. So you're gonna call that venue and just go and lock that in or dope. And then you hang up the phone. It'd be like a week later. I'm like calling like in responses. I have a friend who actually, I'm not exaggerating. This sounds like a joke. The day of our show on one of these West Coast dates, he calls me and he goes, we're playing the fucking show that day. He doesn't even know it. He's like, bro, that show you were talking about, I think I got a venue. It's just like a different mentality on the West Coast.

Speaker 2:
[125:20] It's so laid back.

Speaker 1:
[125:22] It's laid back. Don't be wrong, I have friends here who grind. They do grind.

Speaker 2:
[125:26] SOS, all in the grind.

Speaker 1:
[125:27] Great example.

Speaker 2:
[125:28] Grind.

Speaker 1:
[125:29] But there's this nature of just taking it in and chewing your food. I didn't even know about that. I grew up scavengers. Mom orders a pizza. You gotta fight to get up a slice of that pizza. You better eat it fast. And it's like here people can go have coffee, have a coffee date.

Speaker 2:
[125:47] They can't for like five hours and shit.

Speaker 1:
[125:50] Yeah, my whole day. I'm gonna have coffee with Louise today.

Speaker 2:
[125:52] Yeah. I mean, it's a different energy for sure than East Coast, man.

Speaker 1:
[125:56] But I had to learn how to slow down a little bit and take it in and enjoy things around me. And I'm like a very anxious ADHD person. It's helped me a lot. I still didn't cure my ADHD.

Speaker 2:
[126:09] You take medication for it now?

Speaker 1:
[126:10] No. We talked about this a little bit last time, but not in the context of ADHD, but I smoke pot. I've kind of chilled on that too. I'm like, I think everything's a tool, man. If you got to always use the reference, it's like if you were building a house, you're doing carpentry, you had a hammer. I'd be like, go ahead, use the hammer, bro. It's a tool. That's the tool for the job. But the problem is one is trying to put it in the sink. And they're like, I'm gonna put the hammer in with the sink. No, man, you got to get a pipe wrench, bro. Like, stop with the hammer. The hammer can't cure all your problems. And it's like, sure. Cannabis has been really helpful for some stuff. It doesn't fix every problem.

Speaker 2:
[126:41] Have you been to therapy and stuff?

Speaker 1:
[126:43] Yeah, I've done a little therapy. But I only recently got diagnosed with ADHD. And we talked about like...

Speaker 3:
[126:48] Were you surprised by that diagnosis?

Speaker 1:
[126:50] I was, but nobody else was. Yo, I called my sister first. And I was like, because she works in... Dude, she works in...

Speaker 3:
[126:58] That's great.

Speaker 1:
[126:59] What is her? I forget what her title was at the time. But she like helps people get diagnosis. And I called her, I was like, did you ever suspected that I had ADHD? And she's like trying to be kind about it. And she's like, well, yeah, I mean, yeah, like I've thought about it. I was like, why does she got diagnosed with ADHD? And she was like, really, you just got diagnosed. And I was like, yeah. And I was like, have you ever suspected? And you can tell she's trying to be kind. At some point she's like, look, you're like the most obvious candidate for ADHD. Like I can't believe nobody's ever talked to you about this before. And nobody ever has. And I'm like, oh, that's why I like talk all the time about the same thing. And like, I think it's all anxious.

Speaker 3:
[127:38] There's different manifestations of it, though, isn't there?

Speaker 1:
[127:41] Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3:
[127:42] For sure.

Speaker 2:
[127:42] I was saying that's part of being having a creative mind and being a musician and artist.

Speaker 3:
[127:46] Yeah. I really feel like it's my guess is there's some positives with it that sure that that contributes to your creativity level.

Speaker 2:
[127:54] Oh, for sure.

Speaker 3:
[127:55] Right? But there's maybe some negatives that you need to just have a way to manage, right?

Speaker 1:
[128:01] Yeah. I wouldn't trade it for the world, honestly. It's like it's liberated me. It's like giving me, you know, like I...

Speaker 3:
[128:06] And once you understand it more, you can even maximize more out of it, right?

Speaker 1:
[128:09] I came out of like a lot of bad situations in a way that was like positive. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3:
[128:13] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[128:14] I can look at my life and without ego be like, I did a good job. Like I like avoided. Right. And it's like, what is the tool? And like the tool in the world was hardcore. The tool within me was ADHD and it was my way to, it's funny because you see that and you start to realize that like, you know, it's like I've had a lot of friends around me who got diagnosed with autism in the last couple of years. And you start to see their person and I realize is in hardcore scene, we basically all either this or that or somewhere in between.

Speaker 2:
[128:39] For sure.

Speaker 3:
[128:40] That's what I've been saying.

Speaker 2:
[128:41] Yeah, dude. We're on the spectrum in some way, the hardcore spectrum all connected some way.

Speaker 3:
[128:46] I'm a mess, bro.

Speaker 1:
[128:48] I think it was Dejan that was telling me, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it was him. It's a good quote. But he was talking about the idea of therapy and treating autism and stuff and being like, there's all these autistic people now. And he was like, yeah, I don't really understand this idea. We had hardcore. It's like, that's what that was. It was autistic people figuring out how to do life stuff.

Speaker 2:
[129:15] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[129:16] That's it. It's like, in the context of me having ADHD untreated my whole life and like having teachers that were like, you're an idiot, you're the loser. You're never going to be anything to have. And people be like, hey, man, you wrote this song that I can spin kick to. You're the best. Right.

Speaker 2:
[129:31] You know, you inspire a lot of people, man. It's awesome having that. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:
[129:35] So it's two gifts in my life.

Speaker 2:
[129:37] If you're not taking medication, what are some of your tools to deal with that?

Speaker 1:
[129:40] Just, I mean, honestly, stress management, having a diagnosis is nice because there's moments where I can see I'm getting flustered. And I had a little episode yesterday, when Zech saw, we did an interview thing. And it was like truly.

Speaker 2:
[129:50] He seems so chill, man.

Speaker 1:
[129:51] Zech's chill.

Speaker 2:
[129:52] Chill.

Speaker 1:
[129:53] He's got his things too, though.

Speaker 2:
[129:54] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[129:55] They're different than my things.

Speaker 2:
[129:56] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[129:56] But in the moment yesterday, it was like really, truly, nobody did anything wrong. I was overstimulated. And I was like, I have to get up and leave the situation to not piss people off.

Speaker 2:
[130:08] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[130:09] And it's not that I'm mad. And then in that moment, I was able to step away from it and explain myself without being as offensive as I could have been.

Speaker 2:
[130:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[130:21] But like, it's nice to like kind of see it coming and...

Speaker 2:
[130:25] Sure. Now you're aware of it.

Speaker 1:
[130:28] Yeah. And I know what it is. I'm like, oh, I'm getting overstimulated. I have information. And I always say with hardcore music, it's like a good tool that it gives you is you grow up feeling misunderstood.

Speaker 2:
[130:40] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[130:40] And then you have an outlet to be understood. And you can sing along to the person who understands you. Or you can say the thing that you understand that other people will hopefully come to understand.

Speaker 2:
[130:48] And so true.

Speaker 1:
[130:50] Yeah, it's like I needed that for. Hardcore is the is the tool. That's like the thing to help me as a kid. Yeah, it's like get older. I still love hardcore. I can't I can't afford any bad stage dives at this point in my life. But, you know, just like again, knowing what it is, taking a step back. I do use cannabis, so sometimes I feel like I'm going to have like a moment, a bad moment. Sure. And it helps. But again, trying to make make sure it's like all things in life. Man, it's a balance. There's no there's no right or wrong. There's no like perfect answer. It's a balance of things. And like cannabis is a tool that I use sometimes. And there's times where I'm like, hey, I'm not my best self because I just smoked weed for the last couple of days in a row. And yeah, my brain's off. I don't want my brain off. It's got to slow it down.

Speaker 2:
[131:31] Is it hard to shut your brain off at night and go to sleep?

Speaker 1:
[131:33] Hell, yeah, dude, it's like a problem.

Speaker 2:
[131:35] You have sleep issues or?

Speaker 1:
[131:37] Yeah, my whole life, I had really bad sleep issues. I'm trying to get like trying to be more proactive.

Speaker 2:
[131:41] Yeah, trying to go to bed early.

Speaker 1:
[131:43] I think our whole band except Jim is kind of on that.

Speaker 2:
[131:46] Especially on tour, it's hard to get your sleep, dude, but it's the most important shit, you know?

Speaker 5:
[131:48] I have some pretty serious sleep problems as well.

Speaker 2:
[131:50] Really, you do?

Speaker 5:
[131:51] Yeah, like really extreme night terrors.

Speaker 2:
[131:54] Really?

Speaker 5:
[131:55] Yeah, like wake up, like running, screaming, like.

Speaker 1:
[131:58] And this fool was like a.

Speaker 2:
[131:59] You had that your whole life?

Speaker 5:
[132:01] Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[132:03] Night terrors, like since you were younger?

Speaker 5:
[132:05] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[132:05] What is that? What do you think it's from?

Speaker 5:
[132:07] I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[132:09] You went to therapy at all about shit like that?

Speaker 5:
[132:12] No, no, I've never, never done it.

Speaker 2:
[132:13] So you're like, you're physically running or you're walking asleep or.

Speaker 5:
[132:16] Yeah, running, running, screaming, running, screaming. Sometimes only standing up, screaming.

Speaker 1:
[132:23] I think this fool is a trained martial artist. And there's been a couple of times where you'd be sleeping next to him. And all of a sudden, he's up, stands up, ready to beat your ass and scream and shit.

Speaker 5:
[132:32] It's scary, bro. I remember, dude, we were on a tour with Glitterer. This is like 2017. And we're in my friend's house in Richmond, Virginia. I had a pretty bad one. And I just remember I'm screaming, like just stand up, whatever. Justice was like, yo, chill, chill, chill. Everything's OK. And I looked down the couch, like Ned Russin literally has the covers over his face shaking, like looking so scared. I was like, ah.

Speaker 2:
[133:12] And you can't wake somebody up during that either, really.

Speaker 5:
[133:14] Well, it's like once the adrenaline is gone, I kind of wake up while it's happening. There's so much adrenaline that I'm like. And then it kind of all goes away at once. And I usually just pass out.

Speaker 3:
[133:25] But I mean, what's what's the best option for the person trying to deal with you at that time? Try to wake you up, try to play dead.

Speaker 5:
[133:32] Yeah, I played dead.

Speaker 1:
[133:33] I played dead. We just I'd be like, it just starts snorting and shit.

Speaker 5:
[133:36] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[133:37] Clearly not conscious, dude.

Speaker 2:
[133:39] You have to see a whole life. So you ever try to figure it out and get to the root of it?

Speaker 1:
[133:43] So it's like it's it's it's getting better.

Speaker 5:
[133:45] It's gotten better. This has gotten it has gotten better.

Speaker 2:
[133:47] But it started when you were super young, though.

Speaker 5:
[133:49] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[133:50] Wow. And nobody else in your family? You have siblings?

Speaker 5:
[133:53] I don't think it happens to my brother. I don't think it happens to him.

Speaker 2:
[133:56] It usually comes from some PTS. Something that happened. Usually, you know what I mean? Like military dudes or?

Speaker 5:
[134:00] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[134:01] There was one night we were with Daniel Fang and me and Zech were sharing a hotel. It would be like teams of three at the time. And, you know, me and Zech were talking about it. And Daniel was like, what's going on? And I was like, dude, just come stay in the room with us and experience this. You know, he's like looking forward to it. He was like excited, you know? Come witness this. So the beds were, me and Zech shared a bed that night. And Zech was like on the outside, I'm on the inside. And then the bed next to us, Daniel's on the inside of his own bed. And then on the other side, and there's like space. And like clockwork at that time was so much more frequent.

Speaker 5:
[134:36] Yeah, it used to happen like every night.

Speaker 1:
[134:37] Zech jumps up and he's like, I'll kill you. Like sometimes he says some crazy shit, like I'll kill you or some shit.

Speaker 5:
[134:44] Yeah, accusing other people of trying to kill me Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[134:46] Oh, yeah, yeah. So he's like, he stands up and he's standing above me. And I'm looking at Daniel, like I'm like waiting to see, and his eyes are just opening. I woke up before him and he's like terrified. And he's like, oh shit, you know? And Zech's asleep, like he's not awake at all. He dive rolls over me, over Daniel, onto the next bed, like into the little gap where there's not a body. He dive rolls off the bed and he's in his underdraws, opens the door and takes off down the hotel. And we get up and we're like, oh, we got to get him. So like open the door and he's nowhere to be found. And like we're in our underwear, if we're going to go search, we have to get clothes on. So like get our clothes on, we're like getting shoes on. We're like, do we have to go find him? And he like walks back in the door or he knocks a couple minutes later.

Speaker 2:
[135:29] It's totally normal.

Speaker 5:
[135:29] It's just like the sad walk back. I like, dude, like the sad walk back, I feel like, okay, fuck man. It like, dude, it's happened to like my old like room in DC. I would run out end of the street like sometimes cause my room was like a basement with like a door to the outside. I would wake up in my underwear, run like down the alley and shit and then do like just walking barefoot in my underwear in an alley.

Speaker 2:
[135:52] Walk a shame back.

Speaker 5:
[135:53] Just like fuck, yes, a walk a shame, hang my head, like barefoot and shit. It's like four in the morning, bro. Like what, like dude, like it's better now. It's better now though. It's better now.

Speaker 1:
[136:03] The athletic ability in a sleeping mode is the most impressive thing to me. Again, the dive role, we were like, there's like months of being like, bro, he did something that we definitely could not do fully awake.

Speaker 2:
[136:14] Only something you grew out of later on in life or something just might go away. I don't know.

Speaker 5:
[136:17] Yeah, I mean, it's happened less frequently now.

Speaker 1:
[136:20] I feel like it's once or twice a tour now. Yeah, yeah. Me and Jim share a room a lot of times now. Jim is the most normal. He's the guy, he's the only person, the man who might not have something wrong with him mentally.

Speaker 5:
[136:32] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[136:33] It's crazy.

Speaker 5:
[136:33] He's like, he's got his shit together too much, man.

Speaker 1:
[136:37] He's really good at balancing all of our crazy things.

Speaker 2:
[136:41] Yeah, your crazy personalities and stuff.

Speaker 3:
[136:42] That helps.

Speaker 2:
[136:43] Are you on social media a lot these days?

Speaker 1:
[136:46] I mean, I use it as a tool. I guess I do the same thing where I scroll unintentionally. Like, there's times when I turn it on, it's like a stress thing.

Speaker 3:
[136:54] It's almost impossible not to.

Speaker 1:
[136:55] Yeah. But I don't actually know what's going on in social media. And I'm not retaining information. And that's what's scary to me is like, oh, this is some autopilot thing that I do sometimes now.

Speaker 2:
[137:04] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[137:05] That's how I'm at. And I've thought about it lately, too. And it's like, it's fine, you know what I mean? It's like just a little dip in to just kind of scan around, see what's cooking, find a couple of maybe funny reels or check in on a good friend and then you're out. Yeah. That's it. Nothing wrong with that, you know?

Speaker 2:
[137:20] If you could stay off. Yeah. It's like time yourself, right? Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[137:22] I mean, I don't even time myself. It's just a little bit of bullshit scrolling through and then I'm out.

Speaker 1:
[137:27] I should, and there's like an app that can like, you can put like a timer on it.

Speaker 2:
[137:30] Yes, yes, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[137:31] So, so much.

Speaker 3:
[137:33] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[137:33] My friend showed me this phone the other day. He changed the whole screen of his phone to black and black and gray, and it takes away the initial pop of the stimulation of the colors. So his phone is just all black and gray. So when you look from your phone to real life, it really just pops like it's supposed to pop like real life. It's really interesting. There's something on line about it. You can look at people who are doing it now.

Speaker 1:
[137:51] I want to do that immediately.

Speaker 2:
[137:52] You change it to black and gray, so nothing's in color on your phone. It's kind of crazy. I'm thinking about trying it.

Speaker 3:
[137:58] I heard you mention a couple of times now. There's something to it, I guarantee it.

Speaker 2:
[138:01] Because we're all fucking addicted to this shit, dude. It's a necessary evil. You check DMs, respond to people.

Speaker 1:
[138:06] I try to, but respectfully, I do get a lot of DMs.

Speaker 2:
[138:12] I'm sure.

Speaker 1:
[138:13] Because genuinely, I do have a lot of friends. I'm a friendly person, and there's people I care about. Maybe to a fault. I feel like the average person around me is like, this couldn't possibly be all friends. But I don't know, I care about a lot of people. I've met a lot of people doing this shit that I've made these connections with. With music, we get this ability, this opportunity to see into somebody. I meet a person who sings in a band, and I like the band, I know who they are already. I'm already so attracted to them spiritually.

Speaker 3:
[138:48] Social media, it offers some benefits, I think. It really does. Just got to know how to navigate it.

Speaker 2:
[138:53] What about you? You're on that shit?

Speaker 5:
[138:55] Too much.

Speaker 2:
[138:56] Too much.

Speaker 3:
[138:57] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[138:57] All the time, constantly.

Speaker 1:
[138:59] I'm still a very popular person.

Speaker 2:
[139:00] Do you miss growing and shit?

Speaker 5:
[139:01] Highly addicted to it, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[139:03] Oh shit.

Speaker 5:
[139:03] Yeah. Too big to my phone.

Speaker 2:
[139:05] It's real, dude.

Speaker 3:
[139:06] That might not be helping the night down.

Speaker 2:
[139:08] Oh yeah.

Speaker 5:
[139:09] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[139:09] Are you on your phone in bed at night and shit?

Speaker 5:
[139:11] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[139:11] Yeah. I've been there too, man. I can't.

Speaker 2:
[139:14] It's a lot of stimulation and shit in the dark, too. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[139:18] I think honestly, it's like I think touring has made it worse because it's like, dude, we do these long ass drives and shit. And like, dude, we're going to drive. I'm just like. Yeah. And then when I get home, it's just like, I can't not do it. Like, my girl will be upset. Like, fiance will be upset because it's like, I'll just be like, put it away. Like, you're at home. Like, you don't have to be. And I'll just be like, oh, yeah. But then I'll feel like, I'll be like, so like. Crazy. I got to see. Like, I got to see what the AI like, Orange and the like, do you get those like, the AI like, fruits video drama?

Speaker 3:
[139:51] Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 5:
[139:52] I watch. I'm on like, part five of some of those, man. Like, it's like, it'll be like the broccoli, like, does something to the banana. Like, dude, I don't know why. I just can't stop watching it, dude. I don't. I can't stop watching it.

Speaker 2:
[140:06] So this is something you're deep into right now.

Speaker 5:
[140:08] My feed is evil, man. Like, that you wouldn't believe some of the stuff that comes out.

Speaker 2:
[140:14] What's going on in your mind, what you're looking at, too. Yeah. Damn, I never heard of the AI fucking vegetable thing, dude. Fuck. All right, so we know you guys are on social media. I guess we have any more questions with you guys? We have the top five. What are some new bands you guys are listening to?

Speaker 3:
[140:30] Yeah, I'd like to hear that.

Speaker 2:
[140:33] What Justice is on, too.

Speaker 3:
[140:35] And with that, do you feel like you're able to keep up with new bands?

Speaker 1:
[140:38] A little bit. Definitely falling behind. I remember being young and on that shit. I was in an interview with an adult New York Hardcore band man. And they asked him what his current favorite bands were. And I'm pretty sure he was like, Mad Ball. A band that had been in a band for maybe 20 years at that point. And I was like, man, how could you not know all the new bands?

Speaker 2:
[140:59] That's such a great... So true.

Speaker 1:
[141:02] Also, New York Hardcore is like kind of a vacuum where it's like... What's so special about it was like a very... It's like a scene of people who are feeding off each other. That was the world and it created this hyper... Like a unique pocket, you know what I mean? And you don't want too much to water it down from outside of that. True. That's a great point. I try to be the kind of person to just be in touch with young people and what they're doing. There's things that I like a lot. In the context of hardcore music, I know there's bands that are doing really cool things. I mean, I'm really excited on Haywire. It's like an obvious thing that we all love and appreciate.

Speaker 2:
[141:44] Killing it, dude. It's fun, everything, dude.

Speaker 1:
[141:47] Yeah, when I was a kid, I might have gave you the most obscure band. You'd be like, oh, but... But I've been liking following Haywire and their trajectory and new music is like... I have aspirations for a band that I like. When I like a band, I'm like, I want to see them do this. And Haywire is a band that's like... They're releasing the music that I was hoping they would release as a band.

Speaker 3:
[142:05] Yeah, that's a good source of energy right now within the hardcore thing. That's good to see.

Speaker 2:
[142:10] Looks like a big party, but it's like he says dope shit on stage, but mental health is on the floor. Great, dude.

Speaker 3:
[142:16] They're doing good work.

Speaker 1:
[142:17] Outside of them, there's a lot of stuff on this tour that like... We curated this tour around things that we appreciate. Midriff, they're like straight up babies. They're so young. Their perspective and their scene is so much different than what we came up with, but it's like completely the same intention and admiration for it.

Speaker 2:
[142:37] Where are they from?

Speaker 1:
[142:39] The Bay.

Speaker 2:
[142:39] Okay, cool.

Speaker 1:
[142:40] The Bay area.

Speaker 2:
[142:41] I'm aware it's you, man.

Speaker 5:
[142:43] Dude, yeah, I mean, there's a ton of cool stuff right now.

Speaker 2:
[142:48] And you live in New York, and New York's kind of thriving right now, too, right?

Speaker 5:
[142:51] The one New York band I want to shout out is a band called Nisomono. They're kind of like Japanese DV style. Nice.

Speaker 2:
[142:57] Wow.

Speaker 5:
[142:57] My homie, like Ty, is the singer who plays guitar in it, my homie, and Ryan Nadeau, who plays drums in Lotion and Warthog, plays drums in that band as well. And then as far as straight up hardcore goes, in my opinion, I think the best hardcore in the world right now is being created in Glasgow and Sweden.

Speaker 2:
[143:19] Damn, dude.

Speaker 5:
[143:20] Like there's all those Northern Unrest bands in Glasgow, like this band called Hellbound, like Nothing But Enemies, all these bands, and then Sweden, Existence, if you've heard them, Speedway, Bullshit, just, I don't know. Those are where my two, and then also in the UK, Wits End, too.

Speaker 2:
[143:42] Wits End, yeah, I heard that.

Speaker 5:
[143:43] Yeah, and then another, not super new anymore, but New World, man. My band No Idols is about to do a UK tour with New World, man, this summer.

Speaker 2:
[143:51] That's awesome, man.

Speaker 1:
[143:52] You listen to New World, man?

Speaker 2:
[143:53] No, I'm gonna check them out.

Speaker 1:
[143:55] Crumbsuckers, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[143:55] Okay.

Speaker 5:
[143:56] Sounds like crumbsuckers, and they can shred, dude. Shred, he's a shredder.

Speaker 1:
[144:00] I'm gonna say something that I think might offend somebody, but I think crumbsuckers are like a pool of genius ideas that were never curated into the greatest songs, or at least the most absorbable songs, do you know what I mean? It's hard to digest crumbsuckers, there's a lot going on.

Speaker 3:
[144:12] I think that's fair.

Speaker 1:
[144:13] And this is the band that was like, okay, we'll take all of that and crunch it into incredible hard core songs that you know immediately.

Speaker 3:
[144:20] Right, that's dope, dude. It takes a lot of listening. That's cool. What are they called?

Speaker 1:
[144:24] New World Man.

Speaker 3:
[144:25] New World Man, I gotta set it together.

Speaker 2:
[144:27] Yeah, we're playing Sweden like in July, like a headlining show for the first time in 15 years.

Speaker 3:
[144:30] Their bands are...

Speaker 2:
[144:31] Tell me some of these bands, I'll try to get them on.

Speaker 5:
[144:33] Existence, man, that is the one, bro. That is like one of my favorite bands. And then Speedway, bullshit, yeah. So many good bands out there.

Speaker 2:
[144:40] I love Sweden too, man.

Speaker 5:
[144:41] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[144:42] There's a band called Hitman from the UK.

Speaker 2:
[144:44] Hitman?

Speaker 1:
[144:45] Yeah, that's not exactly, I wouldn't call it hardcore, but relative to hardcore.

Speaker 5:
[144:49] Oh, yeah, yeah. That's on, yeah. You know that? Yeah, that's Kareem from Power Plant, right?

Speaker 2:
[144:58] Are you fucking with like new hip hop and shit too? I know you're hip hop, man. I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[145:02] What's new hip hop? What's going on? And you tell me.

Speaker 2:
[145:05] I listen to Baby Keem Records, incredible.

Speaker 1:
[145:07] Yeah. I'm always behind. I'm like a poser with hip hop. It's like there's certain genres of music that I appreciate.

Speaker 2:
[145:13] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[145:13] I try to appreciate from afar. I don't want to get too involved, I guess.

Speaker 2:
[145:15] Baby Keem's record is super dark about his family and child. I think you're right.

Speaker 3:
[145:18] Yeah. One of the boys was playing in the car the other day.

Speaker 2:
[145:21] It's a heavy record, man. And he's super talented. That's Kendrick's cousin. Kendrick's on two of his songs. I like the new J. Cole record. It's like it's a double album. It's his last album. He did a thing where he got into his.

Speaker 1:
[145:31] He said it's his last album as in like he announced that he's not going to do more.

Speaker 2:
[145:34] Yeah. And he got into his original car. I think it's like a four. It's like a little beat up car and he drove it around the whole entire country selling his CD of his album at the back of the trunk for $5. And he documented to go up to people's schools and high schools. People come out screaming. It was so.

Speaker 5:
[145:49] Silver Spring. He went to downtown Silver.

Speaker 2:
[145:51] Yeah. It's so so evil watching because he's just pulling up to all schools. It's in this old busted car selling some for dollars. New album for a dollar of his trunk. It was dope, dude. It like totally took it back to like the old school way of doing it.

Speaker 1:
[146:04] I saw some stuff on the Internet of people like, oh, J. Cole's in his beat up car.

Speaker 2:
[146:09] Yeah, that's his first car he had. He still has it, bro.

Speaker 1:
[146:11] It's cool.

Speaker 2:
[146:11] He had it fixed up. He broke down. He's still I mean, he's got a crew following with cameras, but he's going to every single city. Just surprising people at their high schools or colleges and shit. It's dope, dude. Tim, I'm going to go to with him, dude. So it's like it's like a eight eight series mini doc on YouTube. They came to all the different places you've been to.

Speaker 1:
[146:28] I'm always really behind again with hip hop somebody. Like last year, I found out about MF Doom.

Speaker 2:
[146:33] Just like how cool, I saw shit. It's got the ring on, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[146:37] That's genius.

Speaker 3:
[146:38] I get a lot of compliments on this ring actually.

Speaker 2:
[146:40] MF Doom is sick, dude.

Speaker 1:
[146:41] Somebody just told me last week about Joey Badass.

Speaker 3:
[146:43] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[146:43] Joey Badass is sick, dude.

Speaker 3:
[146:45] New York, dude. Joey Badass is one of my favorites of a newer generation because he really, it sounds older than it is.

Speaker 2:
[146:51] It does, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[146:52] But it's still fresh.

Speaker 1:
[146:53] Well, who's like the new kid doing shit?

Speaker 3:
[146:58] You know who knows that stuff good from my taste is Andrew.

Speaker 2:
[147:02] Oh, Andrew, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[147:03] He gave me a whole list.

Speaker 2:
[147:04] He's dialed in with the young hip hop shit. Him and JMI for us, those are hip hop heads. He sends me a bunch of shit from like upstate New York. You into hip hop shit too?

Speaker 5:
[147:13] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[147:14] Old shit or new shit, all kinds?

Speaker 5:
[147:15] All kinds. Yeah, I just like music, I guess.

Speaker 3:
[147:18] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[147:18] I just like music.

Speaker 2:
[147:21] It's my new favorite guy, man.

Speaker 3:
[147:22] I like this dude.

Speaker 2:
[147:23] He's super chill.

Speaker 5:
[147:24] I listen to a lot of different kinds of stuff. Especially in the van on tour, I just like I got to listen to find different things to listen to.

Speaker 2:
[147:31] Just zone out. Different types of music too, man.

Speaker 5:
[147:33] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[147:34] All right. Well, that's. You optimist or pessimist?

Speaker 1:
[147:37] Optimist. I definitely have naturally been a pessimist in my life, but I think you have to seek out happiness. It doesn't just come to you naturally. It's not a thing you just, you don't deserve happiness. You have to demand happiness.

Speaker 2:
[147:51] I love that.

Speaker 1:
[147:51] Optimism is the path, you know? Speaking positivity into existence, talk about the things that I want.

Speaker 2:
[147:59] Yeah. I love that.

Speaker 1:
[148:01] I mean, we're all guilty of it. It's easy to get hung up on the thing and-

Speaker 2:
[148:05] Totally, especially now in this world, dude. Yeah. It's a dark world.

Speaker 1:
[148:08] Trying to get, like I used to vent a lot more, and I still vent, I'm human, but it's like what that is is speaking negativity into the world and trying to be very cautious about how I use that tool.

Speaker 2:
[148:19] I love that, dude.

Speaker 3:
[148:20] It has impact.

Speaker 2:
[148:21] What about you, sir?

Speaker 5:
[148:23] Dude, I don't know. I think I'm like both, because it's like I know that everything is very fucked and bad, but I'm going to try to make the best out of it.

Speaker 3:
[148:32] I call that, that's like being a realist.

Speaker 2:
[148:34] Yeah, I'm saying.

Speaker 3:
[148:35] You're not an optimist, you're not a pessimist.

Speaker 5:
[148:37] I do, like I like to say, like, it's like a yin and yang of like, you got like blood for blood on one side, and then youth it today on the other side. And then youth it today is like the fantasy of what my life should be, and like blood for blood is more of the reality.

Speaker 2:
[148:50] Wow.

Speaker 5:
[148:51] And I got to kind of acknowledge and like live with, like, you know, like find balance in between, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2:
[148:57] Dude, I love that one.

Speaker 3:
[148:58] Yeah, I relate to that a lot.

Speaker 2:
[149:00] You could say blood for blood yin yang, dude.

Speaker 3:
[149:02] Smutty needs to make that shirt, dude.

Speaker 2:
[149:05] Let's be like a new bootleg shirt he puts out.

Speaker 1:
[149:07] That's the new angel dust shirt with the fucking on the back.

Speaker 2:
[149:11] So what was your last real job?

Speaker 1:
[149:12] My last real job?

Speaker 2:
[149:13] You had a boss.

Speaker 1:
[149:19] I guess it was working at Johns Hopkins. I was a maintenance mechanic, so like, maintaining machines.

Speaker 2:
[149:27] So you got skills, you're like a handyman.

Speaker 1:
[149:29] A little bit. I went to vocational technical high school to learn trades, and then I preferred running pipe to everything else. And then I worked for a mechanical contractor, like running pipe to machines. And then I learned a little bit about some of the machines, like AC units and stuff like that, to where I got a job at Johns Hopkins doing maintaining machines.

Speaker 2:
[149:49] You have skills, you have a trade.

Speaker 1:
[149:51] But I mean, this was so long ago, dude, I'm like, so I would say I was probably 22 or 23 when I like checked out of normal life work. And now it's like just, I just do music, and then there's moments in life where I'm doing less music, and I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna do something else musically, like work with somebody else on this thing, go on this tour.

Speaker 2:
[150:12] But that's like the last time you had a boss kind of.

Speaker 1:
[150:14] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[150:15] Wow, that's amazing, man.

Speaker 1:
[150:16] Yeah, it's crazy. I guess it's been getting close to 20 years since I've had a boss, and it's powerful.

Speaker 2:
[150:23] And so you're just doing your own shit now, like you do your personal training and all that, right?

Speaker 5:
[150:26] Yeah, I do personal training, teach Jiu Jitsu. Like I like to do like little gigs and jobs, like in New York, so it's so easy, like there's money everywhere. So I can tap into it. So I'm usually down there just do little hustles when I can, too.

Speaker 2:
[150:40] Yeah. Any regrets in your life?

Speaker 1:
[150:48] Getting deep.

Speaker 2:
[150:52] I don't know if you had any last time.

Speaker 1:
[150:53] I just don't. Yeah, I just don't, man. Like I like, I feel like it's almost ignorant to be like, no, no regrets. But yeah, I guess. Yeah. I can't even think of some that thing that I feel, you know, there's like a couple of little moments in my life that I felt not regret, but like I can look back at things and be like, that's not the best thing. That's not what I wanted to happen. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of that. Not a lot of not getting what I want. Do you know what I'm saying? And that feels like regret a little bit.

Speaker 2:
[151:22] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[151:22] But Rob Schnaf, who's the producer in LA., he did Yak. And we've been working with him on some other stuff.

Speaker 2:
[151:30] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[151:31] Good friend of mine and somebody I really admire. But he had a really cool conversation with me when I was talking about a record that I made that wasn't what I wanted. Like I had a vision for this record.

Speaker 2:
[151:41] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[151:41] I wasn't happy with the process. And he was kind of explained, like, putting this perspective of being like, you know, life's not about just getting what you want all the time. And even as an artist, it's not about always conveying, like you're shooting for your vision, you know?

Speaker 2:
[151:56] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[151:56] But what did you gain from that, you know? And the experience in the context of the record that I made wasn't what I loved the most, wasn't what I was trying to accomplish. I gained so much from it. I learned so much.

Speaker 3:
[152:10] Yeah, I could understand that.

Speaker 1:
[152:11] Put me in a new position. I'm like who I am because of that. And he was like, let's just, he's like, eliminate that record. Who are you now? I was like, I don't even like that guy. I don't even like that guy, then I'm without that record, you know?

Speaker 2:
[152:22] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[152:23] So yeah, no regrets, man.

Speaker 2:
[152:25] What about you, sir?

Speaker 5:
[152:28] No, not really. I don't have any. Because it all, like, I like where I am right now. It's pretty good, you know what I mean? Like, you know, this is, like, pretty much best case scenario for my life, you know? Like, to be honest, it could have gone a lot worse.

Speaker 3:
[152:41] So that's the perspective, right? That's...

Speaker 5:
[152:43] Dude, yeah, you know, so it's like, you know, I could have just never left, like, my hometown or whatever.

Speaker 2:
[152:51] You're in LA right now. You're on tour, you're doing music.

Speaker 5:
[152:53] Yeah, man, like, most of my family is... I don't think anyone in my family has ever even been to LA.,

Speaker 3:
[152:57] so...

Speaker 2:
[152:57] Really?

Speaker 5:
[152:58] Yeah, no regrets, honestly.

Speaker 2:
[153:02] Any more questions for the youngsters, man?

Speaker 3:
[153:06] I don't. I'm just gonna, again, take the time to say, you know, great conversation.

Speaker 2:
[153:11] Great conversation.

Speaker 3:
[153:11] It's really good getting to sit down with you guys and just, you know, chew the fat, as we used to say. But it's... I appreciate it, you know what I mean? Because, like, I love this shit, and I'll continue to say that every time I get in these conversations, and I hope it's apparent when I do talk. So it feels good to me to talk to other people that I know are out here doing and contributing and helping to keep it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, alive. Because it's fucking alive, it's good. And you know, credit to you and all people out there doing what's happening right now.

Speaker 1:
[153:48] I appreciate it. You guys are both huge contributors to our community. And there's, you know, you have to find new ways to to keep contributing. And a podcast is such a positive, modern guy.

Speaker 2:
[154:00] Yeah, I'm sorry about that.

Speaker 1:
[154:02] It's one that he's been talking about. that got me in the eyeball. But yes, just appreciate that you guys are using this medium to do it and asking us to be a part of it is that I appreciate you guys coming.

Speaker 2:
[154:17] I was telling her, people that pull up the day of a show on the tour, I have so much respect for them because I know what that's like being a singer, wanting to rest, not talking so much. And I appreciate you guys coming and giving us your time today. And all you contribute to the world with hardcore and you're an inspirational person figure to so many people and you inspire me and all the older heads too and you're out here with doing what you want to do and being yourself. And I fucking love it.

Speaker 1:
[154:40] Thank you, man.

Speaker 2:
[154:41] Cold to Touch is out right now. The tour is happening right now. You guys are going to Europe in May, I think, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[154:47] We'll be back here for Sound and Fury.

Speaker 2:
[154:49] Oh, you will. OK. Yeah. We're going to come back one of those days. We'll be in Europe. We're coming back. That's obituary. These guys. Weapon X. Well, just playing that shit. Marauders playing that shit. Yeah. First time in Cali for years, dude.

Speaker 5:
[155:01] Which which.

Speaker 2:
[155:02] It's Jorge.

Speaker 5:
[155:03] Jorge.

Speaker 2:
[155:03] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're playing. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[155:05] Awesome.

Speaker 2:
[155:06] You've seen them before with him.

Speaker 5:
[155:07] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[155:09] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[155:09] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[155:09] I don't think the minus one's happening.

Speaker 5:
[155:11] It's not.

Speaker 3:
[155:12] I don't know.

Speaker 5:
[155:12] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[155:13] Shout out to minus hung out a couple months ago.

Speaker 3:
[155:15] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[155:16] I like watching every version of that band.

Speaker 2:
[155:18] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[155:19] I like I like it all. So so good.

Speaker 2:
[155:22] People can find you on social media. Sometimes you check your DM, sometimes you don't.

Speaker 5:
[155:25] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[155:25] Right. Got the injury of us Instagram.

Speaker 5:
[155:27] Try to.

Speaker 2:
[155:27] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[155:28] Trying to trying to keep up.

Speaker 2:
[155:30] All right. Thank you guys for being there, man. I appreciate you, man. Thank you, man. Anderson to man.

Speaker 3:
[155:34] Thank you, Toby Morse.

Speaker 2:
[155:35] Bye, guys. Peace. Yes, sir. Morning, man. So we're back in the pod real quick. I went and saw Terra last night, this Born and Raised thing is fucking amazing.

Speaker 1:
[155:49] Oh, dude.

Speaker 2:
[155:49] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[155:50] I just saw some clips. It's really cool.

Speaker 2:
[155:52] Yeah. They didn't know what to expect because it's like a cold out. Those things are kind of interesting. You don't even know what to expect. Who's going to come from the streetwear, who's going to come from the core? But the line was around the block. Like it was fucking insane, bro. And like it was just so much love, man. I was just stoked to have Nick on the pod yesterday. Just, Terror is such an important band. Nick was giving you so much props for like being like a younger band that really inspired Terror. It was really cool, man. It was a really great conversation.

Speaker 1:
[156:18] Oh, no way. Nick's the coolest, man. I feel like you don't get a whole lot of interview stuff from Nick. Like I don't know. You don't get a lot of his brain publicly.

Speaker 2:
[156:26] You don't. He's like such an ill producer. He's like he's also a father now. He's like an ill runner. He's run like 25 marathons and shit like it's crazy, dude. Yeah. And well, since I saw you last, I went and saw your show. The 1720 show was incredible. Great fucking show. And then you went and saw the homie Haley Williams the other night. Amazing show, right?

Speaker 1:
[156:52] Yeah, dude, the coolest. I haven't been so inspired in a long time. I feel really I want to create something, you know?

Speaker 2:
[157:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's cool because it's like we both know it for a long time. This is like her first time stepping out and doing, you know, a solo tour, playing guitar, playing whatever she's playing that can synthesize the thing where she's playing piano and shit. It was like, dude, it's awesome, man. So stoked for her, man.

Speaker 1:
[157:18] Yeah, like a statement piece that I just had no idea she was so, I mean, I knew she was talented, but I didn't know she could do everything while she sings like that.

Speaker 2:
[157:28] You know, dude, it's awesome.

Speaker 1:
[157:30] So as a rock and roller, it felt more rock and roll to me.

Speaker 2:
[157:36] Yeah, man. And also obviously we all know from that my podcast, she's a big fan of you and all the stuff you've done. One of the things I mentioned in the podcast real quick, because we were talking a bunch, there's like three of us here, is that my comparison to you as I put you as a new generation, is like a Walter Schreif, was Tim Armstrong artist. And the reason why I said that is because your diversity, how obviously you can have a trap to the rice, Angel Dust, and you can, I feel like you give yourself all this freedom to create anything you want to create, especially with Angel Dust, you can make any kind of song. You can do a ska song if you want. You can do, you could rhyme on a song. People would be hyped. Like you can do all the inspirations that you have growing up and put it out in Angel Dust. And I think that's so punk rock. And that was, that was what I would reiterate with that man about that, you know?

Speaker 1:
[158:23] Yeah, I think that's the coolest. And those are people I grew up looking up to, especially Tim. So it's like, if anything, it's like, that's the reason why I can do that. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2:
[158:36] Transplants, all that shit, dude.

Speaker 1:
[158:38] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[158:38] Was, was, was I can we gonna say?

Speaker 1:
[158:42] I was gonna say, I just hope I can do that. Do the do it as a service in the way that those artists do, you know?

Speaker 2:
[158:50] Yeah. What was it like with Tim when you like, how did you guys think up when you guys worked back then?

Speaker 1:
[158:57] It was cool because we kind of linked up on the business side of things where I was working with a company like working on a publishing deal at the time.

Speaker 2:
[159:07] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[159:08] And they were like, oh, there's a guy, Tim Armstrong. And I was like, what do you mean this guy?

Speaker 5:
[159:11] You know?

Speaker 1:
[159:13] And I was like, please, whatever I have to do, let me I want to work with him.

Speaker 5:
[159:15] And it was cool.

Speaker 1:
[159:16] Then we got in the same room and it became so far on the opposite side of the spectrum from the business side of stuff.

Speaker 2:
[159:23] I love that, dude. Yeah, that's cool. And then one thing we didn't mention too in the pod is that obviously I can tell by like just the dust video itself, you know, it's got like a John Waters, PB. Herman vibe to it with the bodybuilder, with the one-eyed, like these different characters. I know that's definitely obviously from Baltimore and John Waters is a big inspiration. But, you know, I saw the video a year or two ago and it was, but he ended up being at one of your shows, Trapped Under Rice Show. Is it Angel Dust or Trapped Under Rice?

Speaker 1:
[159:53] Trapped Under Rice, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[159:54] And how does he end up at your show?

Speaker 1:
[159:57] I mean, honestly, I've seen him pop up. But I want to say a lot. It's not like he's at every hardcore show I go to. But it's been a pretty common theme in my relationship with music and alternative lifestyle. He just is in some of the, you know, from the same place and looking for different creative ventures. You find yourself in the same room a little bit. Yeah, obviously, definitely like huge influence on who I am as a person. And, you know, I got to give a lot of credit to Blay Cepus, who directed and wrote the idea for for that video and a couple of it is Cold to the Touch.

Speaker 2:
[160:38] Cold to the Touch are the dancers. That's amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[160:41] Yeah. And the beat, he kind of just like theorize all that stuff. And he's a genius. He has an incredible team. It was like the biggest production I've been a part of in my life, was making those music videos.

Speaker 2:
[160:52] Wow.

Speaker 1:
[160:53] But I think he really understands where it comes from. And he's a big fan of a lot of the same stuff we're into. So it was really the energy matched for sure.

Speaker 2:
[161:04] For sure. And that alone is so cool to be able to have those experiences and express yourself in that way. Being like a hardcore kid who's obviously way more popular, you're, I don't see the spectrum, but your palate of music is so wide, you know, you especially, the shit you listen to, you know. I know you fuck with some pop music too.

Speaker 1:
[161:26] Of course.

Speaker 2:
[161:27] Yeah. I mean, do you pay attention to like Sabrina Carpenter, shit like that, or different artists like that are out now like?

Speaker 1:
[161:33] Honestly, I was kind of just talking about this. It's like I feel out of touch with modern pop. And I think maybe it's like, I don't want to lean on that like as an identity, as a character trait. Because I think that could be a weakness, not opening myself up to enough modern pop music. But I listen to a little bit of modern pop. Like I like the things that are happening. But I just find myself like going back to the history of pop music. And like, you know, today it's ZZ Top, which is definitively rock and roll. But yeah, especially Eliminators is like a pop album.

Speaker 2:
[162:15] Oh, nice. Did you see the footage of Bieber?

Speaker 1:
[162:20] Um, I've been hearing about it a little bit. Saw like, you know, it's like clips on the reels on Instagram, you know, but no, I haven't really dove into it. Really cool idea, though.

Speaker 2:
[162:33] Yeah, like, you know, like how he knew anything about his catalog and all the reasons why he played the certain songs, it's kind of punk. It's like he sold his catalog for 200 million, all the first songs. So and then he did a deal for 10 million with his wife with their own record label. So no agents got any money. Highest paid Coachella. And then he only played snippets of the songs he didn't own anymore off his computer. And then all the songs he gets paid for, he performed standing up and did full versions. It's pretty sick, man.

Speaker 1:
[162:59] I wonder how that works as far as like doing the snippets, like him playing the track.

Speaker 2:
[163:05] Off of YouTube. Off of YouTube. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty wild. It was so low key and it wasn't like all like dancing and flashy and like at first I was like, what is this? And then, I don't know, I didn't read about the whole concept and it's pretty fucking cool, man.

Speaker 1:
[163:20] The initial feedback I saw from Coachella was, and when you're this level of artists, you have to expect this. But it was like criticism and somebody being like, oh, look at Justin Bieber. He's just sitting down at a computer. He doesn't even care.

Speaker 2:
[163:32] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[163:34] And I saw that and immediately I was like, oh, he's doing something. He's got an idea here. It's not.

Speaker 2:
[163:38] Totally, dude.

Speaker 1:
[163:40] That's not what as an artist, which he is to the fullest degree, it's like you don't have it in you to go through the motions, I guess, or half-ass it or sit it out. You know what I mean? It's like you got to.

Speaker 2:
[163:55] Yeah, and then you hear about the catalog after, like, OK, that makes sense. It's like just typing up shit on YouTube, like paparazzi fuck when they've been falling through stages, just different people making fun of them. And then type up the beginning of the first couple of words of a song. People go crazy. And he does that part like it was pretty interesting, man. It's pretty cool. I'll do that a lot. They should be awesome. What? And also what is your training? What's your training like these days? I know you're like super fit, always training. Like what is your vibes and you're working on you're working on tour also you work out.

Speaker 1:
[164:26] Oh man, my training these days is a lot like sounds so old of me. But I think it's like a good idea that everybody should just pursue if they can. But I have like a lot of like physical therapy movements. I do physical therapy at my home and I am in the gym, you know, but it's like more body weight stuff. And then every time I start creeping up over doing, which is like using my own body weight as a max for for like the weight I'm lifting. That's cool. When I start creeping up over that, I always end up just getting humbled and being like, okay, I need to like focus on this movement pattern. And yeah, it's been productive for me. I think I had a couple weird things that I did, weird habits that I built as a kid even. So by tomorrow, I was lifting weights. I was just doing shit weird and wrong.

Speaker 2:
[165:21] Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1:
[165:22] I think we all do that.

Speaker 2:
[165:23] We all.

Speaker 1:
[165:23] It's good to step back and have somebody like just to look at you and say, hey, this is how you could be moving better, because that's the stuff that's going to keep us moving.

Speaker 2:
[165:31] You know, it's all the age. Sure, man. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[165:34] I want to be 90 years old and do some shit that people don't expect. You know, fuck.

Speaker 2:
[165:38] Yeah. We got stigma out there doing that shit at 70 years old, bro. It's so inspiring, dude.

Speaker 1:
[165:43] I talk about him all the time in that context. Like he's that's the goal. I want to have that that excitement for life.

Speaker 2:
[165:49] You know, he's like, he's like a Mick Jagger or something from my genre. That's like, and he looks younger. He looks younger, too, man. It's crazy, boys. The aging backwards man. He looks great. Something we talked about off the pod. We both have a common is like the celiac shit like I'm I've been gluten free for like six and a half years now. It changed my life. I thought like being a vegan vegetarian always. I was supposed to shit my pans and have stomach issues. Literally, literally, literally carry toilet paper with me on the trains in New York. I swear to God. And yeah, I was banged out like having the bathroom, take shits in the fucking subway. But then I stopped eating gluten and it changed my life, bro. Like bathroom, stomach, my stomach's flat. I'm not bloated no more. All that shit like.

Speaker 1:
[166:34] Is that tough for you while maintaining the vegan diet?

Speaker 2:
[166:38] Not in LA. You know what I'm saying? In New York and shit like that. But Europe is a little rough. Yeah, for sure. Like some here and there have a little wheat once up. I have fucking starving somewhere. I got to do it and I'm not going to starve myself to death. But yeah, but yeah, it's interesting, man. Like I know you mentioned that you had no idea like that. And you just, you just how long you've been, how long you've been celiac for?

Speaker 1:
[167:00] Well, I guess it's not really clear as to how it starts. I think it's like something you're born with and it like you start to see the symptoms as you get older and you've abused your stomach more. And, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like the first, my first symptom would have been like, you know, just being gassy, right? And I associated that with milk.

Speaker 2:
[167:23] I love that we're talking about this. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1:
[167:26] Associated that with milk and dairy. And then, and then it's like, I eliminated that and that seemed to help. But then there's still a reoccurring problem I couldn't figure out and that problem is getting worse and worse. And I moved to LA when I was 30.

Speaker 2:
[167:37] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[167:38] I think it was just after my 30th birthday. Or just before my 30th birthday, whatever. And like started, I actually was like making the journey into becoming vegan at that time. And, you know, it's like when you're eating at that diet, it's like there's a lot more fiber.

Speaker 2:
[167:56] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[167:57] Well, more gluten available.

Speaker 2:
[167:58] Yeah. True. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[167:59] A lot of a lot of products.

Speaker 2:
[168:02] All that shit. Process it. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[168:03] Yeah. Yeah. And I was like just losing weight really bad. And it wasn't like, oh, you're losing weight because you're eating less calories. It was like I was losing it really fast. So I was bouncing back and forth. And ultimately, what I what I landed on was I personally could not maintain eating vegan and going gluten free, you know. It's tough, man.

Speaker 2:
[168:22] It is tough. It is tough.

Speaker 1:
[168:24] I appreciate the people who can who can do that.

Speaker 2:
[168:27] Yeah. My shit's more raw, just more veggies and tofu. I'm pretty old school with my shit. I with the fake meats for a little while, but it wasn't really my thing. I appreciate them being here for the planet and for like access and for people trying to cross over. But for me, I keep it like quinoa, all the basics and shit. But yeah, it's not fair.

Speaker 1:
[168:45] How is your favorite restaurant in LA to eat like that?

Speaker 2:
[168:48] This place, Green Table, it's like four blocks from my crib. It's like there's no refined sugar, there's no fake shit. There is fake shit, but it's made out of like chickpeas and all this stuff. Like everything's supernatural, dude. It's like it's not expensive. It's a good go to spot. But yeah, I ate out way too much. But yeah, so yeah, so once you figure the celiac shit out now, you've been spending hardcore no wheat for that for a couple years now, right?

Speaker 1:
[169:14] Yeah, it took me like, I would say, four or five years even to like completely figure it out because, you know, a doctor tells you what's going on. Yeah, man, he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Speaker 2:
[169:22] Totally.

Speaker 1:
[169:24] This thing and you don't know what you want. Yeah, once you're convinced, it's like it took me like another two years after being convinced to like figure out how to do it right because it still hides in so many things and it's so easy to like it's hard to cross contamination, you know.

Speaker 2:
[169:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you pretty strict about it, though?

Speaker 1:
[169:42] Yeah, like I have to be. I have to be absolute. It's if I get like if I eat something that's cross contaminated, I'll be I'll get sick for it's weird, man. Sometimes the symptoms last a couple of days and then my body forgives me and and then I've had where it's maybe like a month or so where I'll feel off and things aren't working the way they're supposed to.

Speaker 2:
[170:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's fucking crazy, man. It's just just a little bit of it, too. I know exactly when I do have it, if I did an accident or something, I just know automatically my stomach, man, it's crazy.

Speaker 1:
[170:12] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[170:13] And then what about I don't know if I asked you in the pod, too. Did you ever take vocal lessons or like warm ups and all that shit or?

Speaker 1:
[170:20] No, I mean, like I've like gone down that road a little bit of doing vocal exercises and I find that it works for me the first couple of days of tour. And then I think the abuse is just so bad that it's like, all right, this is just like survival mode, whatever I can do to make me get through it. And my voice is so bad. It's like even like doing the warm ups don't don't really compute to anything because, you know, after like a week on tour, my voice, I can't do la la la la. It's like, you know, it's so bad that I'm like, all right, just you got to get through this and a lot of water. And in theory, which I just I told Haley the other day, I learned from her the concept of vocal rest, which I've never just not talking about.

Speaker 2:
[171:08] Yeah, that's the most hard part because it's not the singing. It's after the show and you're talking to people all fucking night and you're not getting good sleep. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's so like, I try my very best to wake up and not talk most of the day until I have a sound check, whatever, because it's the talking. It's like the tea, the honey, all that shit. It's I think it's I think it's kind of a myth never worked for me. But it's just the talk and the sleep, which is the hardest thing to do. It's hard not to talk on tour and it's hard to sleep on tour. And like, unless you're on the bus or some shit, like it's hard, dude, like to get the rest you need. And yeah, I mean, Haley's voice sounds insane. She has an insane singing coach, man. Like, yeah, he does like Billy and all these people. And like he was at the shows. I forget his name. He's so sweet. He was on most of the shows I saw him at and he was just so proud. Her notes are her level of singing is crazy right now, dude. It's like, yeah, absolutely. Fuck man. And then I know, I know, I know he's acts like a big inspiration for you as far as style wise, but who's the who's the gold, the gold teeth inspiration?

Speaker 1:
[172:11] The gold teeth. Oh, that's a good one.

Speaker 3:
[172:13] Um, shit, man.

Speaker 2:
[172:17] You have one.

Speaker 1:
[172:19] I mean, I always, I always think of Goldie, like, like, off the rift, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2:
[172:24] Yeah, Goldie's sick.

Speaker 1:
[172:26] Like his mouth, and I don't know if he's got, I don't know what he has exactly.

Speaker 2:
[172:29] It looks like it's. It does, dude.

Speaker 1:
[172:32] Permanent teeth. Yeah, it looks like they're in there.

Speaker 2:
[172:34] I forgot about Goldie, bro.

Speaker 1:
[172:36] Yeah. I think I was a little kid that was burning my mind. And like growing up, it was like, you know, it was like kind of like a lot of the cool hood guys.

Speaker 2:
[172:46] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[172:46] That I looked up to when I was a little kid. The front. At least one, you know?

Speaker 2:
[172:49] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[172:51] I don't think front was a thing yet. It was just like this was like when people are doing gold teeth for, you know, I mean, like just going to the dentist and getting a gold tooth.

Speaker 2:
[172:59] Totally.

Speaker 1:
[173:00] Like we do, you know?

Speaker 2:
[173:00] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[173:02] And I think it was like a couple of years after that, like the actual like grills came in and became, you know.

Speaker 2:
[173:06] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[173:07] Which is I think that's cool. But you know what it is. It's like there's like a different level of commitment with having your teeth replaced with gold.

Speaker 2:
[173:14] Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[173:15] And I love I can't take that out. That's that's like definitively who I am. It's not something I'm putting on every day.

Speaker 2:
[173:21] A hundred percent. Our teeth are fucked. Like for listeners, we grind our teeth down. And yeah, dude, yeah. So all my teeth are like stubs pretty much. I'm probably crazy if I took all my shit out. It's like fucking. I remember little Wayne had to take all this out when he went to jail in New York because you don't want nobody fucking try to run up on him for his teeth. So he took all this shit out before he went to jail. It's crazy, dude.

Speaker 1:
[173:44] Yeah, like one of the one of the few is called where it's like it's like one piece that they put in permanently, right?

Speaker 2:
[173:51] I think so.

Speaker 1:
[173:51] You got to like, yeah, you can put one piece on.

Speaker 2:
[173:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you want to get more gold teeth?

Speaker 1:
[173:57] Yeah, I mean, that's the objective. I got actually have like an old root canal had to get done.

Speaker 2:
[174:04] Oh, yeah, we talked about it. I have two weeks home. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[174:05] Yeah. Like the day I got home from tour, I got the first such a retreatment. So they got to do it twice. So I go in the day I get back, which I got just got done. And then the day before I leave, I go back to get it done again. And it's miserable. But I'm going to get that replaced with gold. And once I get back from this tour, that's cool. Yeah, so like picking away at it, just get them all until it looks like gold.

Speaker 2:
[174:32] Yeah, t-shirts, it was dentist shit sucks, man. I fucking hate it, dude. And I had like terrible dental growing up to a craze, like 13, like silver cavities, taking all that mercury out of my mouth. And just really my mom was raised with three boys. We weren't really going to the dentist that much. Eating mad candy, you know?

Speaker 1:
[174:47] Yeah. I feel like I've always taken pretty good care of my teeth. I've always been like a brushed two to three times a day person, always flossing and like, I was always a kid, that was important to me. But I didn't, I think there's just too much trauma to my face. It's like getting, and it's so much of it is the mosh pit, dude, just getting kicked and my mouth was always, I've always been like, my face has been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Speaker 2:
[175:13] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty hard to see people back in the 90s, like wearing mouthpieces in the pit, like fucking, like what boxers wear and shit. Pretty hard, dude. It's a sick look.

Speaker 1:
[175:22] I remember, I had a thought one time, I was like, I'm going to do a mouthpiece. I talked to a friend, I was like, yo, shit, I wear a mouth guard. Like at this point, I keep my teeth up. And there's like, no, there's no, it doesn't look cool.

Speaker 2:
[175:32] Dude, dude. And I was like, all right, fuck it, you're right. I'm putting on record, if anybody could pull it off, you could pull that shit off, dude. You could pull that. Yeah, maybe. Dude, you fucking rock, you know, wild haircut. You rock your own shit. That's another thing I have so much respect for. Like you just, the glasses on, all the shit you're rocking now, like just whatever fucking. I feel like you just wear the fuck what you want. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:
[175:53] And if I could sing with the mouthpiece, I would do it.

Speaker 2:
[175:56] Yeah, that's different. Yeah. Moshing is different, but singing is that's hard as fuck. Yeah, that's different, dude. What, the crazy designer or something? Yeah, I think that's it, man. I just want to catch up with you. And obviously, the podcast is out right now for the listeners. It's 420 today. What's your next tour you got coming out? What's the next thing you guys doing?

Speaker 1:
[176:18] I'm doing Australia into a short Europe tour.

Speaker 2:
[176:23] Nice.

Speaker 1:
[176:23] And then tied down in Michigan.

Speaker 2:
[176:27] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[176:28] And then back home for a couple weeks, I think. I'm not really clear after that. It gets blurry.

Speaker 2:
[176:36] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you like being home for like a little while in between, like decompressing and all that shit.

Speaker 1:
[176:40] Oh, man. I love being home. I never like being home. That was never a thing. And then I moved to LA. And I was like, man, I really like being home for periods of time. It's cool to be home for a little bit.

Speaker 2:
[176:51] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[176:51] And then COVID happened and I was full time in LA.

Speaker 2:
[176:54] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[176:54] And that fucked my brain up, dude.

Speaker 2:
[176:55] I was like, really?

Speaker 1:
[176:57] Being home is the best, dude. It's always summer and.

Speaker 2:
[176:59] Oh, bro. Yeah. They know COVID sucks for sure.

Speaker 1:
[177:03] I get it. But like there definitely was, at least for me and probably a lot of musicians and traveling performers and stuff.

Speaker 2:
[177:10] It was like, oh, this is what it's like to be home and kind of like be a normal person. Like, you know, I mean, like this is like being home and not traveling and just kind of. It was a weird time.

Speaker 1:
[177:21] It's freaky to say that might be the most normal time of my life. Maybe the most normal I've ever experienced, you know?

Speaker 2:
[177:27] Yeah. You couldn't do anything. It was weird. Like first time ever not being in Europe in the summer. Just like we're all locked down together. It was such a weird, kind of beautiful, scary. I don't know. It was a weird time, man. But it was for a lot. Some people, they thrived and some people changed the whole, like, shout out to Horry from Apple. He changed his whole entire life and diet. He lost like fucking 100 pounds. Looked like a total. His like his like COVID fucking 360 change was bananas, bro. You know what I mean? Like how like Jack Jack he got.

Speaker 1:
[177:58] I was going to say if he lost 100 pounds, he put on 50 pounds of muscle, dude. He is Jack. He looks awesome.

Speaker 2:
[178:03] 100 percent. But he did that during the pandemic. He just said, fuck it. Like he turned this whole shit around. That was a crazy transformation. And he's still like he's still in that Mark Wahlberg fucking 4 a.m. workout right now, too, which is amazing, dude.

Speaker 1:
[178:16] What?

Speaker 2:
[178:16] So shout out to the Rock.

Speaker 1:
[178:17] 4 a.m. is like that's the that's a part of it. That's the rule.

Speaker 2:
[178:22] Oh, bro. That's the that's Mark Wahlberg's biggest shit. It's all people had someone into the day, but he woke up at three in the morning the other day, worked out his shit's like 4 a.m. He's done by like, I don't know, 637. And he think and do all his business. It's crazy, bro. I could not get a before workout, dude. Are you like a morning person?

Speaker 1:
[178:41] No, I'm like, I've always been so far from a morning person.

Speaker 2:
[178:44] Me too, bro. I hate it, dude.

Speaker 1:
[178:46] Trying to get better at, I've been waking up at like 10, 11, on my own, at least like, like on tour it's different.

Speaker 2:
[178:52] I got like earlier. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[178:53] But like, just like somewhere between 10 and 11, I want to be, I think that's like a time where I can wake up and like get to all my emails.

Speaker 2:
[178:59] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[178:59] And then by noon, I can like do stuff with my dogs.

Speaker 2:
[179:04] And how many dogs you got?

Speaker 1:
[179:06] Too many dogs, dude.

Speaker 2:
[179:08] How many?

Speaker 1:
[179:09] Currently three.

Speaker 2:
[179:10] Oh, shit. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[179:13] But bull terriers are the main.

Speaker 2:
[179:16] Nice guy.

Speaker 1:
[179:17] Was Spuzzing McKenzie's type.

Speaker 2:
[179:18] Nice.

Speaker 1:
[179:20] I get them, get them fed. And then I try to like, you know, do the gym or do something productive. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[179:26] Are you a cat person too or no?

Speaker 1:
[179:29] I like cats. I had a cat growing up. I haven't had one in a long time.

Speaker 2:
[179:32] Me either, dude.

Speaker 1:
[179:33] My dogs will eat one for sure.

Speaker 2:
[179:34] Oh, f**k. Nice. Oh, s**t, man, Justice, I appreciate you so much. I hope you have a great tour. I went into you somewhere, hopefully this summer. Will you be in Cali again or no?

Speaker 1:
[179:48] Let's see, when are we going to be in Cali? I don't think we have a plan yet, but it's a good sign. We got to start working on a plan for California.

Speaker 2:
[179:56] Yeah. And the response for the new record has been great for the new Aint You This Record. It's been going good, right?

Speaker 1:
[180:01] It's been awesome. That's all I could ask for. We invest all this time into the songs that we like. And granted, it was a different approach this time. It's not just all about what I want. It's a little more of a step outside of myself and the team. But it's been perceived very well and it feels good.

Speaker 2:
[180:26] Yeah, I feel like this is a pretty big... The Last Toy is a pretty big tour for you guys. Venue-wise, sellouts, all that stuff, you know, with all the shows, you know?

Speaker 1:
[180:32] Yeah, it's definitively the highest performing headline tour of my life.

Speaker 2:
[180:38] Really?

Speaker 1:
[180:39] You know, I don't say that. It's not like to brag.

Speaker 2:
[180:41] No, not at all. No, me.

Speaker 1:
[180:42] Very successful friends, you know what I mean? But, you know, it's like...

Speaker 2:
[180:45] That's dope.

Speaker 1:
[180:45] Just cool, man. It's an awesome milestone in my life to be like, damn, okay. You want to feel like... You know, we've been doing this for a long time.

Speaker 2:
[180:52] Long time.

Speaker 1:
[180:53] You never want to feel like you're taking a step backwards. That would be a hard blow to accept.

Speaker 2:
[180:57] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[180:58] But it's really just grateful, man. I'm really excited that people are giving it a chance and they're rocking with it.

Speaker 2:
[181:05] No, dude, I love it. I love that you have that outlet, TY outlet and all the stuff you're working on. You can just express yourself the way the fuck you want. And I think that's punk as fuck, dude. So appreciate you. Appreciate the music you put out. Appreciate the time you put into the game. And, you know, your love for the community and the scene and all that shit, dude.

Speaker 1:
[181:26] So I appreciate you. And I look forward to that H2O record we talked to.

Speaker 2:
[181:30] It's so funny to say that because my producer finished this episode like two days ago. He's like, bro, Justice schooling you on a new H2O record gave me goosebumps. And he goes, and I back and he's like, he's like, he's like, I back the whole thing. And the Henderson too. So I appreciate that, dude. You definitely you definitely let a fire under me for that. And I'm definitely going to we got some we're actually going to get in the studio in May. Once we do this Pennywise Circus Jerks run the whole band, we have some Maddie's got shit. Adam's got shit. We all shit. So we're going to get some shit together. Quiet still.

Speaker 1:
[181:58] Yes, man. The world needs it. The world needs you.

Speaker 2:
[182:00] No, I appreciate you, brother. That means a lot. And I hope you have a good day and I'll talk to you soon, brother.

Speaker 1:
[182:05] Thank you, man.

Speaker 2:
[182:06] Appreciate you. Peace. Got to give a big shot to Liquid Death. I've been in a band called H2O for 30 years and my first real job with a company is a water brand. Go figure. Love you, Liquid Death. Love the people. Love the brand. Love the concept. Love what they give back. Love the community. Love what they do for the environment. You can go liquiddeath.com/olc and get free shipping on any of their merchandise that they make. They have such incredible collabs. Also, if you want to hear the story of the CEO, my good friend Mike Cesario on the podcast, you can go to episode 115, part one. And then two years later, we dropped a part two, which is episode 275 with the CEO Mike Cesario. Just a man from Delaware with a dream, worked at a marketing company and made this become a reality. Liquid Death is an incredible company, incredible water, incredible people. I'm super, super honored to be part of them. They sponsor my life. They sponsor everything, my family. So go to liquiddeath.com/o-l-l-c and get free shipping on anything you want to buy on that site. If you want to get water, it's exclusively on amazon.com. I'm really a thirst, yo. I always ask my guests if they have any regrets. I personally don't have any regrets. Even when it comes to my tattoos, I have the silliest tattoos, even my ET on my leg. It's still a childhood memory for me and I love it. I've had tattoos on top of tattoos strictly because I wanted more tattoos. I started getting tattoos when I was 18, I'm 52 now and I can't stop. I've had lazy treatment before on something on my arm. It's four tattoos on top of each other. And that experience at that place was pretty fast, it was pretty cold. It was in and out, swipe the credit card. Don't really tell me why, she didn't give me much details or anything was going to happen. So I never went back. So as of most recently, I'm so lucky enough to have had two sessions at Removeree Tattoo Removal. My tattoo on my arm looks like a big black blob, it's now super light. I've had two sessions, I have a long road ahead of me. None of this stuff happens overnight. You cannot take a tattoo up in one sitting, you have to be patient. And it's painful. They ice you up, it's super fast. To me, it felt like a bunch of rubber bands. But what's more painful than that is looking at something on your body that you think you're stuck with for the rest of your life. That sucks. But now for me, I'm really happy I started this journey. I'm slowly gonna get this tattoo removed. I never thought in a million years I'd have any kind of real estate on my arm. I don't even know what I want, but it's exciting. I'm so honored to announce that One Life One Chance podcast is now with Removeree. Call 866-934-4570 or go to removeree.com. Use Toby H2O and get $100 off your first session. One of the most experienced tattoo removal companies in the world. Removeree has 155 locations and 1.8 million treatments. US., Canada and Australia. The state of the art Pico Way Laser Technology, Cryo Technology to reduce any discomfort. This is so exciting to me because all I do in these podcasts is talk about tattoos. From day one, if you listen to this podcast, we talk about tattoos, talk about getting removed, talk about getting covered up. So this is such a perfect fit for me. Definitely check out One Life One Chance podcast episode 281. I have Carmen Brody, Mike McTernan and Dustin Ortel from Removeree. And this is over a two-hour conversation. People have submitted questions. It's an incredible conversation breaking down the do's, the don'ts, the fears, process, the results, everything you could imagine about getting a tattoo removed. It's all in this podcast. It's an incredible episode. I appreciate them all coming out for it. So check that out if you want to learn more about Removeree and what it's like to get a tattoo removed. Once again, go to removeree.com or call 1-866-934-4570. Use my code TOBYH2O and get $100 off. These guys are located everywhere. Try it out. As we get older, we start paying attention to what we put in our bodies. I personally have been listening to my body since I was 18 when I went vegan. I've always been focused on my health. It's super important, mental and physical health. But it's really important for people who are just starting to get more healthy and trying to step up their life, doing your homework, reading the labels, researching and verifying everything that's quality. It's part of the game these days. That's why I started drinking AG1s. I'm so proud to have my sponsor, my podcast. AG1 is a foundational nutrition supplement that delivers daily nutrients and gut support and is backed by multiple research studies. You can trust what you're putting into your body. We're also busy these days. So just throw a pack of AG1 in the morning into a cup of water and shake it up and drink it. I love the way it tastes. 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