The Trades You Make to Live Your Dreams - I Prevail

Why did you get deepthroatated by confetti? >> That is up to-date research right there. I respect that. >> Yeah. So, um, yeah, Gabe, uh, really crushes it with our content and comes up with some awesome ideas and we kind of pitched them and throw it into a pot and and, uh, he we came in for a content day and wrote this whole script up and it was for this giveaway we were doing and he had written in the script that he was going to get pied in the face and then Dylan shows up and I don't know, he just changed his mind on the spot was like, "Yeah, Dylan's going to get pied. >> I got to be the guy behind the camera so someone else has got to take the pie." So, we p we we pied Dylan in the face quite a bit. Mhm. >> And uh from from that night, Dylan plotted his revenge for pie and confetti in Eric's face. >> Yeah. And I got a you know, shout out, we came as Romans cuz they went along with it. We get into their trailer and I get a text and they have this ritual before their show. It's whiskey time. And they go, you know, have this little ritual and like get to the trailer now. Whiskey time. So I'm walking in going whiskey time. Whiskey time. Pie. Pie it again. And now I can't see and my mouth's open and I'm just like whiskey time. And as soon as I said time, I couldn't see anything. I just got a mouthful of I didn't know what. And then uh yeah, I couldn't breathe for a little bit and the uvula in the back of my throat turned into a disco ball. It was like it was pretty >> title your uh autobiography. >> The mouth full of I don't know what. >> I trademarked that. I'm taking that. >> Yeah. Uh well, I don't know. I feel like having a confetti [ __ ] is a good way to start a show. >> Mhm. Mhm. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think it might have to be a ritual. Just not on me this time. Dylan Dylan, you you're owed one. >> There's going to be some behind thescenes warfare for sure. This will this will start a two-year warfare. >> Okay. This is the beginning of a a vicious retributive cycle. >> Yes, definitely. Um, I want to know what you guys make of what's happening with the rock and metal scene at the moment because a lot of artists are rethinking touring. There's some reports that have come out recently that I've read. Uh, pop, hip-hop, country, uh, little touch and go, some in decline and certainly if you aggregate it, a lot in decline, but rock touring seems to be bigger than ever. So, give me your thoughts. Like, you guys been around for a minute. >> Yeah. What do you make of the arc of alternative and heavy music and stuff like that? >> Yeah, I think um I think you know rock and metal, we'll call it modern metal, is just in such um it feels like a boom right now, a resurgence. um just having chats with friends and it's like, you know, I'm I'm 34, but back when I was like 15, 16, 17, I didn't have the funds to go out and see my favorite bands come through Detroit or or whatever it may be. and and now that we're of the age and have some disposable income. um when these bands do these 20 year anniversary shows and and you know come back around and they have this lineup of all these other bands that you may have grew up listening to on top of having some of these new bands and it kind of just appeals to our generation and then you know I don't have any kids but I can imagine my kids the next generation you know it's like a family affair so they're going out and seeing bands like I mean we just played when we were young and Blink 182 and Panic at the Disco are headlining and then bands like >> Back Sunday Brand Newh the used um man that that lineup is just stacked. But >> now you go out there and you see kids that are like 15 to 18 and then you see dudes our age and older that are out there all in the crowd and I don't know. I think there's a bit of nostalgia. I think there's um Yeah. I don't I don't know. >> It's not just throwback, right? >> No. All new bands with new albums, new music coming out all the time, too. I think people are pretty I don't I don't know if desperate is the right word, but I'll use it. Desperate for experiences. And I think like pop concerts and all that stuff is like sick. You get to see your favorite pop artists, but the reality is how that music is produced is very track. Like a lot of these artists go on stage, it's just them. They have no band playing instruments. And I think it's like a combination of like you want to see a little bit of that risk factor of like a band really playing and you might see them mess up and that's kind of interesting, but also like in the rock and the metal community scene in particular. I think audience engagement is actually key to the experience whether that's crowd surfing, mosh pits, whatever that is. As opposed to if you're going to go see a pop artist or whoever, you're kind of just sitting there and it's fun. It's cool. Like I've been to pop pop pop shows and it's fun, but metal and rock it's a little bit more visceral and with everyone you know >> behind computers all day, it's fun to get punched in the face and to like scream your favorite songs at the same time. Uh makes you feel alive a little bit, I think. And I think to to your point too with the pop and everything, it's like it just it sounds just like the record, which is which is great, but you know, there's something about that like push and pull of the live experience of the band all playing together and and uh I think there's a little bit of that on top of that, too. >> Yeah. Especially if you love a track, you love a band and they play your favorite track, but there's a twist on it. Oh, maybe there's a longer solo. Maybe they've added an additional chorus at the end. Maybe just the way that the singer that night decides to interpret a way to say the vocals sticks in your mind. I remember going and seeing the bands like Bring Me in Newcastle when they first started doing like moderatesized theaters. >> Mhm. >> And uh they played a Halloween show. It's just after Jordan had joined the band. And um I'd seen an opportunity kind of like a an ex ugly girl who's just had a glow up. I saw the opportunity to like befriend uh Jordan cuz he was brand new to the band and he was having some problem with Ableton. I messaged him about it on Twitter. We became friends and he said, "Yo, why don't you come to the show that's happening at the O2?" It was on Halloween and they came out fully face painted up as skeletons. They played the whole show as skeletons. I remember like watching that show from the back and thinking so many of the songs that I knew really well just had little twists and adaptations that had been made. >> Yeah. >> And uh that was great cuz it it is a unique experience. And I guess >> well actually if you were to say that from the pop side, who who nearly [ __ ] killed that? Was it Beyonce that nearly got killed by a car that was over the top of a uh flying over the top of the I swear it was Beyonce was doing a show and she's one of those like floating stage things that you know goes right over the crowd and everyone gets to look up. Uh I'm pretty sure that some [ __ ] snapped and like imagine if you were the guy that killed Beyonce. Um you put the carabiner on wrong or something like that. Um >> my point being >> you do get to see some stuff at pop shows. Yeah. >> It suggests that there's something about rock and heavy music that you get out of that show that you can't recreate with Pink flying around a stadium or or the Jonas Brothers with 20 people on stage or whatever it might be. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. I think like pop you you're able to do the spectacle a little bit more. You can have Pink Yeah. doing trapeze over the over the audience. It's sick. Like I I would love if Eric did the trapeze. >> I don't know about that. >> You're built for the trapeze. >> Am I? >> Yeah. You have the exact body shape of a trapeze. >> God. >> I also think like from a from a songwriting perspective, like at least when I was growing up, metal was all about like how heavy can you make it? And I still think that's like part of it. But I think now more than ever, metal and pop are fusing in a lot of ways and fusing in a way that's done very well. Like I think people have tried it a lot where it's like they'll have these heavy breakdowns and they'll go into a very melodic chorus, but it just never like really meshes, but you know, you've got bands who are kind of taking these sounds and putting them all together like you know, Sleep Token, Bad Omens, those >> all those bands who are really exploding. I mean, my theory is that they're exploding because they've mastered melody so much. And at the end of the day, people want to listen to a song that maybe makes them feel a certain way, gives them energy at the gym or whatever, but without a melodic chorus, not all the time, but a lot of the time, they're it's not going to get stuck in their head. They're not going to come back to it. Don't get me wrong, I'm at the gym sometimes listening to >> ass beaters and I just want to like >> job for a cowboy. >> Yeah. Yeah. I just want to go like super hard and that's >> really fun, too. And even those bands are growing too. So it's almost like I don't know if these bands all the way at the top are just kind of bringing the whole thing up with them, you know? >> Yeah, definitely the verse chorus kind of pop structure of a song with some melody. I mean, say what you want about Sleep Talk, dude. Caramel is one of the catchiest, >> dude. It's so good. >> [ __ ] hooks maybe of all time of that genre. Like it is so sticky. Yep. >> Um and uh >> it's fun. I like that. >> It's just it really you can't get out of your head the first time that you hear that. >> Uh so yeah, I think you're right. And it makes it radio friendly. It makes it like sort of uh chart friendly. >> Yeah. And it's almost like, you know, I just talked about how so many bands are getting better at blending, but sometimes when you are like, I don't actually care about blending it. Like that's a perfect example of a song where the first three4s of that song is a pop song really done well and then they're just like now we're just going to go into like the heaviest [ __ ] we've ever done ever, right? And it's like sicker because it didn't even try to like meld them. It's just like here's this and then here's this and what a fun journey for everyone to be on. Yeah. It's like you're you're really trying something I think more than >> I don't know. I don't want to be like metal versus other genres, but >> it's something about too like uh you blows your expectations out like what what you were you got three4s of the way through the song you're like okay I kind of get where it's going and then oh man there's this switch up at the end and you I think when bands do that very well it's like you have the listener on the edge of the seat you know you don't know what to expect you get halfway through the song and you're like okay this is cool and then all of a sudden the bridge comes or the breakdown comes or the outro whatever it is that there's I you know I don't see that much and you see that in hip-hop a it. But don't really see that in in pop. I feel like pop and country, it's just like you get 30 seconds of the song, you kind of know what you're going to get. The emotion, the ride, >> very rarely surprised. >> Right. Right. >> The final theory >> is that maybe we're all just getting a little more [ __ ] up and into like these things that uh just make us feel like viscerally. Like I feel like horror movies, I don't watch horror movies, but like I feel like those are on the rise also. And like almost the more messed up they are, the more popular that they get. Like uh do you think the messaging the messaging of metal is uh tapping into an emotion that's difficult for people to find kathis with elsewhere? >> Yeah, I I Yeah, I think so. Um, there's some of these like very heavy metal bands and like just, you know, you look at the lyrics, you listen to the lyrics, it's just like very [ __ ] up and aggressive and I think it's just a healthy way to, you know, it's it's human emotion. It's it's it's, you know, you're feeling that. Uh, it's just a healthy way I feel like to get that out. Especially when you're in a a small club with 200 people listening to just ass beater breakdowns over and over and over just screaming about the most like dark dark message dark stuff, you know, like the Acacia Strain is one band that had some like hateful lyrics back in the day and it's just, you know, I don't feel that way. I don't feel like, you know, chopping people up or whatever, cannibal corpse or anything like that, but to feel to feel that health in a healthy way, I guess, is um something I think is special. >> Certainly elevated. If you look at like a sleep token or bad omens now, uh the message is just like poetic emo, >> right? It's Ohio is for lovers for 2025. >> Yeah. >> You know, like I'm outside of your window like that. It's that sad Nikki FM type thing that we all grew up listening to. >> Yes. >> But just like significantly elevated with much more sophisticated production. >> Yeah. >> Um but it still speaks to huh I have challenges and sometimes they're hard and nobody understands me and this is difficult and I don't know what I'm doing and there is pressure and I'm growing up and things are changing. It's like these timeless modern problems. >> Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I had the gift of reconnecting with the emotion of metal this year in particular cuz I'll be honest like I've been in this band for 8 years and this point I'm 33 years old and I'm like yeah you know like the the emotions that I had when I was 14 are are different now. Right. And I'm kind of like >> am I going to sing about being really stressed about work and you know being married for like messages. >> Yeah. Exactly. my inbox is a nightmare. But um man, I think for honestly most of us in the band, we've had one individually some of the hardest years >> that at least that I've ever had in my life >> of >> uh Yeah. I mean, I lost we we lost our our manager, our booking agent. He died tragically in a in a plane accident. Two days later, I lost my grandpa. One week later, someone broke into my house while I was sleeping. And I mean many other things that I probably can't really get into, but um I I feel like it took me to low places where I it was more than just like heavy music is fun at the gym. And it's like I viscerally my my emotions are viscerally connecting with this music. And it was a gift in a lot of ways because it it allowed me to see through like the fans eyes of what they're experiencing when they're hearing this music. Because again, 33, I'm like, yeah, I'm just, hey, I like the songs. Song's cool, but I'm I'm a drummer. I'm not always listening to to lyrics and like connecting. But yeah, I feel like I got to do that this year more so. And I I do think like metal and rock has a little bit more of that those themes to connect with, >> especially if you're getting kicked in the nuts by life, which you know, if everything's going great and Grammy nominations and we're on the road and ticket sales are going up, >> you know, how much are you connecting with the It's kind of the like um golden prison uh like velvet [ __ ] handcuffs thing that podcasters or comedians get accused You know, if you're a comedian, Whitney Cummings got this great line where she says, uh, "In order for art to imitate life, you have to live a life." This is why you can tell when comedians are getting too successful cuz all they talk about are airports, dinners, and shows >> because that's all they know. >> You know, if you're if you're touring 200 days out of the year, what life have you got to inject into the art? >> And um I guess >> for you guys as well, uh if you This is my problem with [ __ ] Luke Combmes, man. Like I love that guy's music so much. He was the person that got me into he was the soundtrack to 2019 which was the year I decided I wanted to move to America. >> But his music to me has got less resonant linearly as his life's got better. >> Yeah. I'm like, I [ __ ] do some cocaine or like get in a fight or like lose a leg or something. Like I need some, you know, I just want a little bit of sort of great. It's like, you know, everything's going great and I'm getting a bit older and my dad's older than me, but he's really lovely and my wife loves me and my kid loves me. I'm like, [ __ ] Luke. Come on, man. And that's not to say that you can't make music from a happy place, but that >> I don't know. But there's something about the friction, I think, that causes people to dig a little bit deeper. Like when you're going against the grain of life, it seems like um people tap into emotion a little bit more acutely. >> 100%. >> Yeah. Um, I think I think on this record for us, uh, there's a few songs that had to go back and like look at these events or these uh, situations or these difficult times I had in the past and uh, pick open some scabs that didn't really fully heal and and that that also is finding finding inspiration and and looking back on some difficult times and and hard times that I really haven't had, you know, any therapy to get through and just kind of just let it go for for 3 or 4 years. So that's, you know, it's it's not doesn't always have to be about what's going on in your life right now, but to look back and and really, you know, someone put it once, I can't remember how they worded it, but it it takes some time to look back and fully have a a full thought or, you know, fully grasp what you went through. And uh that that's something too if I'm not you know I'm trying to draw it from the well of inspiration and looking back on a a past failed relationship or you know past you know you want to call it trauma um to to dig at those and and really it's very important for us to write music and every song have come from something that has some real emotion and and can be relatable to someone. And yeah, I think I think that is a big challenge for artists when they start getting bigger and you know they're playing arenas and and you know ticket sales are going through the roof and like you said Grammy announce all this stuff and it's hard to be relatable and that's what you know growing up I took a lot out of music and I found you know a lot of things to relate to and when I was a you know teenager going through like oh the world hates me and no one loves me and >> and uh you know once you get to that level like how how do you how do you still write music to relate to your fans and and Uh yeah, so for me specifically it was like going back and like digging through some things I just didn't work out, you know, >> and I I Yeah, >> we'll get back to talking in just a minute. But first, some things are built for summer. Sunburns, hot girl walks, your ex posting their Euro road trip, and now lemonade and salt. Huh? 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You don't have to do any of this diplomacy [ __ ] >> Yeah. >> It's like this is what the song's about. This is how the song's going to sound. You want to track on the record and help me cut it? Brilliant. If not, I got [ __ ] 50 people that are gonna come and do it. Sweet. >> Um, but you often have the opportunity to tap into different people's emotions. So, is that is that tough? You got what 10 tracks on a new album and you're like, it's not a lot of room for ton of guys to get their creative, you know, presentation out there. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I um I I think being with these guys for the last 10 11 so years it's it's uh that was a huge plus to sit down in a room and be like well okay we start working on an instrumental for a song let's say and it's kind of pulling at this emotion and you know pull out some lyric notes and okay this this line that I wrote a while ago this kind of feels like it matches the mood of the instrumental and okay well when I was in this headsp space and and there's certain songs we sat down I was like you know I I think I can really pull from this and you know maybe Let's say it was a a a bad relationship I was going through years ago and you know they were around me when that was going on. So it's not like super foreign to them and sit down and kind of like write some lyrics down this is kind of what I was feeling. And this is kind of what I was what I was going through and and if you can tap into that and you have something similar like bounce some ideas off each other and kind of like we all kind of feel there's everyone's got you know unique stories but there's some overlap and if you can tap into that and and help you know generate some lyrics out of that you know I'm sure there's going to be something that overlaps. So you know I'm just thinking one spot song specifically but >> how do you have you ever contributed any lyrics ever? >> Um maybe a single word. Yeah. So we so we joke that we are business metal and so that translates to the writing process as well where it's like we kind of have these different departments right so um me and John I would say we're more in the instrumental department >> cuz I I'm not trying to play in a sandbox that I don't belong in you know I'm like hey I grew up like I played in so many bands and even then it's like I can write some like cool instrumental parts or like suggest cool things and obviously play drums well and write cool drum parts I'm not a poet. I'm not like I'm happy to talk about my feelings, but if you're like, "Now make it like artistic." I'm like, "Uh, >> I can hit things hard. That's my art." Um, and so yeah, and then Steve and Eric are are really good at like, yeah, like to Eric's point, me and John, really all of us in the room too, contribute to the instrumental, but >> might set a vibe and that vibe might create an emotion in Steve or Eric of something that they've been dealing with in the past or recently. And the two of them will like will almost sometimes separate. The two of them will like go in a different part of the room and just go back and forth. And sometimes they'll be Eric like here's what I'm trying to say. And the two of them will try to figure out how do we get to say that in the most artistic way possible or or the most authentic way possible. And then meanwhile me and John will try to >> keep laying down like the foundation and come up with parts that we think are cool and then kind of come back together. And yeah, there are some times where I'm just sitting there like watching them do their thing and there are some times where Eric's just sitting there like watching me be like, "Okay, >> move the snare drum over one note and then hit this symbol like the," you know, it's like it can get very tedious. But >> yeah, it's uh departmental for sure. When you or when any band creates something deeply emotional and then performs it a few hundred or thousand times, does it still resonate in the same way? Does that drop over time? Does it heal you? Does it reopen old wounds? Yeah, that's a great question. I think there's different songs and different points in my life and different performances, let's say, that you know, some of these new songs we just started playing. I have been like, "Oh god." All right, don't mess up the lyrics. Remember, this is the first second. Okay, here's the note you're hitting. And and I I lose that for a moment. But um yeah, there's a certain point in the in the tour that you start playing that song that I'm like I'm reconnecting with it. And then after, you know, a couple tours, you know, sometimes some of these songs are like emotionally disconnected and I'm going through the performance and there's been some times where I'm look out and I see, you know, someone sobbing to a song and then I'm like brought back immediately to like the emotion that I was feeling in it and and then all of a sudden then I I have a new a new connection to it again. And I'd like to think after that the I perform the song a little bit better for the rest of the tour. But >> so you feel this is an interesting one. I was talking to Johnny Frank about this. So, Bill Murray got that new More Than Hate track. >> And um they have just started performing it live. I think it only came out maybe 6 weeks ago, 8 weeks ago, something like that. >> And uh I was talking to him last week in Dallas. And he said, "Uh, dude, I got to be honest, like when I'm performing the track, I'm so focused on the performance cuz I've done it live like 15 times. And that's not a lot. That sounds like a lot, but that's not a lot." Yeah. >> Um, so he is still finding new ways to mess up >> and he doesn't know all of the potential pitfalls and uh that I never really realized well [ __ ] like even if you've done a bunch of like runroughs and rehearsals or whatever and even if you added half an hour on sound check so that you can like run new bits a few times over and over the difference of okay and where am I going to be on the stage and what's going to go on. So yeah, I guess when this is something I never considered as a an audience member, and I hope I don't screw up everybody's ticket sales here. Um, but if a band is touring a new album and you have the choice between being at the start of the tour and being a little bit deeper into it, I think it's probably a good idea to push your tickets. You know, you can choose between what the Dallas or Houston show, but for some reason because of the rooting, they're coming to Houston four weeks later. Like, do you go to the maybe you go to the second one? Maybe they're a bit tighter by then. Maybe they know the tracks a little bit more. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's also some excitement to being there in the early stages and seeing us like mess up and try like to do our best, you know? >> Um, >> yeah. I think, man, it's like such an interesting balance of like tour life is exhausting. Um, it's like you might start at 100%. I mean, I'm you know this way more than I do, even with all the [ __ ] you're dealing with, but like you might start at 100%. And then, okay, the shows are very physical and then you're sleeping on a tour bus very poorly and then the shows are more physical and you're sleeping worse and it's like by the end of the tour I might have 30% in the tank and I'm working three times as hard to play the same part. So, it's kind of this >> thing that you've got to balance the experience with the set with the level of gas left in the tank >> because and also what you have in the earlier parts of the tour is adrenaline, which also will just like >> push you to fatigue and resentment and boredom and >> Exactly. Cuz Yeah. Then not only are you more fatigued, but you also are low on adrenaline because you're like, well, I'm kind of bored now. I know how to play everything. >> Yeah. I want that like shot of adrenaline. and it would help me get through this physically. >> So, it's a it's a tossup a little bit there. >> Going back to the metal world of sort of rock ascendancy that we're seeing at the moment, do you think that you need to be really talented to be a sort of world touring alternative artist now? How basically how much of it is talent and how much can you ride off the back of social media hype and good marketing? I had no talent when I was starting this thing. I I didn't belong out here, man. I I just took like I feel like every room I was in, I was had this mentality, just be a sponge. Just soak up as much as you can. And I think that got me through the first, you know, years of touring and all that. But, um, I do I do think it takes, you know, you you can go in off the hype and off the Tik Toks and off all that, but you have to quickly figure your [ __ ] out real fast if you're up on stage. And and there's so many variables. You're not just posting a video, you playing. There's so many variables of of a live set. And I mean, even like the thing where I'm looking out in a crowd and I see up in the front row and someone doesn't know the words to the song and they're just, you know, fish mouth and like just random lyrics I I [ __ ] up lyrics because I was looking at that guy. I was like, what is he saying? Oh [ __ ] what am I saying? Oh, what verse am I in? Where am I? You know, but um yeah. Yeah, I think there's Man, I think there's a good mix. you >> it's unforgiving then in that regard like the the the hype can kind of only carry you so far. >> Yeah, I'd argue that you need a good product, right? So like you can first of all I'd argue that you need a lot of talent to be good at marketing and to cuz you're not the the labels and all that like they they will provide that for you but like I ultimately think the bands that are doing the best are the ones who understand how to market themselves. So one I'd argue that's a skill. Two, if the product is shitty, right? Like Chris, if this podcast sucks, but you're really good at marketing, like sure, you're going to get it in front of a few more people, but at the end of the day, people aren't going to come back. And now you're working your ass off to just market a shitty product, >> right? >> That's not really going to work. So, like I I do think especially in today's landscape, like how it used to be is bands would get discovered by a label, they explode. Like it's very it was very gatekept, right? M and but if you were through, you were through and you all you had to do is like show up and play music and now you could upload a song to Spotify right now while we're having this conversation, put in a prompt into AI and then upload it to Spotify, right? So like the landscape is more competitive than ever, which I think means that bands who are not always like there's plenty of very talented bands who don't get traction, but it's very competitive. you need to have like very good songs, very good marketing, like you have to be more well-rounded than ever. >> Um, as opposed to, hey, I'm just like a good musician. >> That might not really get you noticed much. >> What do you make of the advent of AI artists? >> Oh, man. Don't get me started. I um it's it's it's a little frightening, man. um you know just came across a friend of mine went on a rant and posted all these bands on Spotify that were you know AI bands and whether it's a band that's feeding prompts in getting it and playing it or to it's one guy that just used Chat GPT Grock whatever to create everything >> and then you go look at the monthly listeners and there's 700,000 monthly listeners and it's it's not the fear that someone's going to go I'd rather listen to this AI band over you know a real human band. It's the fact that it's just going to get slipped into playlisting and it's just going to be on your playlist and it's just gonna just accumulate more and more of all these other fake bands and by the time you go and look through your playlist, you're like, "Oh, who's this? Who's this? Who's this?" And there's no real musicians. But my ultimate worry is that, you know, who's to say that someone who owns a streaming platform um doesn't just start making music off AI himself or herself and and feeding it into the playlisting. And now there's even less of the pie. You know, artists are getting, you know, fractions of a penny on the dollar for streams. Well, now that those playlists that these bands are fighting hard for, who's to say the the CEOs of, you know, Apple Music, Spotify, title, whatever, aren't just making their own music, feed it into the algorithm, putting in the place, you know, into the playlist thing, and now how are we supposed to fight that? >> Be like, uh, Only Fans owning the AI girlfriend generator. You've got the distribution and you've got the source material as well. >> 100%. Yeah, it's a tricky balance because in one way I'm like you can't very difficult to stop a train that's already moving, right? But then also kind of like what I was talking about with concerts, I'm like I think people are craving more physical experiences or um people to connect with, right? Like I think I think it'll be an interesting balance of like yeah an AI song could come on and you might not know it's AI and you might not really care that it's AI cuz it's like well the song's good but I wonder like even if that has like a a huge boom that it wouldn't end up going to the other side of like yeah but I kind of miss connecting with an artist or with a band or like what they actually had to say you know or like if it's AI there's nothing to really not much to really connect with, you know. Um, all that said, I don't know. Well, we'll see what happens. Look, I I saw um what about two months ago, there was a bunch of screenshots floating around. Maybe it was the new terms and terms of service that Spotify had that sounded like an adjustment had been made to say that your music can be used in data training sets that can be reproduced in perpetuity with and without like credit eta du all of the legal ease and then I came across this Spotify announced a collaboration with major labels Universal Music Group, Sony Music, Warner Music Group to build an AIdriven features while protecting artist rights and ensuring fair compensation, proactive move in the face of rising concerns about generative AI tools using artists voices and sounds without proper licensing. Streaming giant Spotify states it will involve direct licensing and artist permission frameworks. The partnership signals industry acknowledgement of AI as both an opportunity and a threat. So, I don't know where it goes. I certainly know that I'm getting delivered more AI bands in my radio. You press one single. I think I played this is exactly what happened. I played the new Bad Omen song the day it came out. It was on the day we were filming with McConnA and we' finished up and I put it on through the the system at Stray Vista where we filmed that [ __ ] and it came on and then the next track came on and I was like this is a really interesting sound. This is a funny little track. like I'll go over and have a little look. I was like, "Oh, it's what AI band like the first Omen's next track was them." >> That is >> [ __ ] premier position. >> Yeah. >> Algorithmically. >> Yeah. >> And uh >> it's picking up speed. I would say it's but I mean the obviously the other and you made great point that >> if I use AI to enhance my songwriting and then cut the track myself with my bandmates, >> who knows? >> Yeah. >> Like how does anybody know where the initial inspiration for this track came from? Like hey write me 20 number one hits in the style of Sleep Token and Bad Omens and I prevail and then you go oh maybe this there's our next album. 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And right now, you can get $100 off, bringing it down to $399 bucks. Get the exact same blood panels that I get and save that $100 by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com/modernwisdomd. That's functionhealth.com/modern wisdom. Yeah, it's really it's really interesting that way because there is like I I would imagine that music would start to get a bit watered down. Could be wrong, but that would be my theory on it. And to your point of what you were reading, I think there's a lot of opportunity for like discoverability of like I I think I saw something that chat GBT and Spotify are coming together. So I could just be like, "Hey, find me an artist who um is really heavy and like good for working out, right? And then they can feed me real artists." Like that's actually a really cool opportunity where a I can actually support it. Um but yeah, it can be snuck into songwriting. I, you know, I feel like that's what the whole writer strikes were about uh a couple years back in Hollywood is like not using AI for script writing because I would imagine >> I guess I don't really know if they are using it or not but that everything would just kind of start to get watered down but also AI is getting better and better. So will it really get watered down? >> Yeah. Will it enhance everything? I mean here's another way to look at it. Everybody gets inspired by something, you know, the way that you construct your particular uh melodies. >> Well, it's because you grew up listening to Biffy Cairo or Billy Talent or whoever the [ __ ] like weird My Chemical Romance's first style EP or whatever the [ __ ] it is. You go, "Okay, so >> do they own the inspiration that came through you?" Obviously not. I don't think anybody would say that. But, uh, originality is just undetected plagiarism. Yeah. is a kind of way like you play the drums. Well, you hold the sticks in a particular way. You didn't invent the way that you hold the sticks. You didn't invent the way that the the drums are put together. So, do you always need to pass it back up? And I think you there's an interesting ethical challenge here of how much assistance is too much, right? How much does it sort of feel like it's being uh perverted by AI and how much is it just well it's just another tool you it's [ __ ] pro ProTools or Decapitator or whatever the [ __ ] >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That's that's an interesting slippery slope you get down cuz you know you like to think that inspiration you hear you know like these bands you mentioned Yeah. I loved all those bands and I took influence from them. You know the style of music we want to play from from lyrics to melody and all that. It's it's but it's something it's something that was you know back then there's no AI so it was something that they were inspired by and then that band was inspired by and it just waterfalls down cascades down into our creative process and and then it's it's up to us to put it through our filter and use our own words and and and generate the same emotion or feel that we're going for that we were inspired by. But it all ultimately is through the human experience. And then you have the opposite where it's you just go to a computer and be like, I'm sad. Write a sad song like Myical Romance. And it's like, here's the options. And it's like, well, now I'm just picking and choosing. Like I'm going down the grocery store and going, I'll take that one. I'll I like that brand. I'll take that one. I'll take that one. It's it's Yeah. I It's like, where does artistry where does artistry stop when you start using tools? But then at the same time, you know, Melodine, you know, pitch correcting on the track or or you know, when you're demoing songs and you you program the drums, >> you know, bands done that for the last, you know, 20 years and and you program the drums and man, actually, let's track the drums. Well, the program drums I think sound better. Well, you run with it. And well, where's that line? You know, it's so it's it's it's very blurred line right now. does seem like every time there's been something that's come into the music industry that's like controversial at first, the convenience ends up winning out, right? Like I feel like, you know, 50 years ago, the idea of someone writing a song, this is we'd have to go back a little further, but someone the idea of writing a song for someone else and that pop artist just taking it and then just singing what you gave me, I think was initially like artists aren't even writing their own songs now. But now no one when Justin Bieber's singing a song, no one's like, "Did he write that?" Like no one cares. Yeah. They probably think that he did, but most of the time it's someone here's a song, you have a good voice, sing it. Cool. And >> I can see that. Yeah. To your point of then pitch correcting in the studio, but then pitch correcting live or then, you know, quantizing to make every the timing of every instrument perfect. And then even samples of, oh well, I can just take this sample and I can mess around with it, but now it's mine and I can like build >> to a click track. We'll have a click in our ears to ensure that everybody's at least on time, even if it's not quantized after the fact or >> Rick Bato was telling me about how um when digital recording first came in and it meant that you didn't just have to do things in one take. Yeah. >> Tape. >> You go, well, I mean that wasn't what they recorded. Yeah, I know that there's if you are recording something and your finger just brushes the wrong string, you're like, "Hey, dude." Like whatever, fourth bar in on that second bit there. I just caught it a little bit wrong. Let me just go in and then bing. Okay, there we are. Slot that one thing in there. Okay, so like you could play, and I think you can do this. You could play an entire track, one note at a time. Yep. >> Yeah. Just be like, "Okay, there's that note. I've got that right. >> And then I can go in and then we'll do it again, and we'll do it again, and we'll do it again." and you got this Lego Lego brick building block set >> and you've constructed a track. So, yeah, it's a interesting challenge. I mean, have you guys do you guys use AI tools? Have they assisted at all with anything that you guys do? >> No. >> Never. >> [ __ ] medieval, dude. We're grandpas over here. No, the most is we'll be in the back of the bus and we'll think of a really stupid prompt for AI and then we'll just be like, "Oh, AI, write a song about Eric falling down and his pants coming off and poop goes everywhere and like we'll see we'll see what the AI spits out." But no, in our actual >> entertainment tool, not Yes, exactly. Where where do you see it like do you feel any type of threat about AI in the podcasting space? Because I know like AI podcasts are >> Notebook LM does a a really good job of it. Um I mean you can now go and say I want I don't know whether you can say it for people um but you can certainly say I want to learn about the final week of the fall of Berlin in Nazi Germany uh and make the podcast 20 minutes long and relatively serious and not will spit out a very listenable with breath breaks and ums and laughter and all the rest of it and it is it's very listenable. Um my sort of position on this is that ultimately the the market is going to choose what's best for it and that's not always great. Ultrarocessed hyper palatable foods that calorie dense like people will tend to choose those over something else. It's very difficult to get them to choose the thing which is better for them. But when it comes to this what's better for them is just what's most accurate, entertaining, educational. Um, so it is going to be incumbent on whoever it is, whatever industry you're in to just be better. Like if you can be defeated by AI or a robot, I I don't know what the leg is that you have to stand on uh to be able to compete with that. Now, there are certain things that you can do. For instance, you could go live. Um, if you were responding live to messages and comments and stuff from people, that would be the equivalent, my my equivalent of doing a show on stage. >> Um, >> but even then, AI is just going to get quick enough where it's going to be able to render in real time responses and video and then stream those back to people. So, all you're doing is kicking the can down the road with regards to that. And I think you guys do have a good moat. I think all bands have a great moat around their um the main money maker which is touring and sort of the associated [ __ ] that comes along with that. Uh because until the robots get as good as you guys on stage, that's not going to happen. >> I mean, the Chuck-e-Cheese band was pretty sick. >> That was dope. Those robots were sick. >> That is true. Maybe maybe your [ __ ] demise is closer than you think. >> Yeah. >> Uh but yeah, I think there's I think there's a motor around that. And um it'll be it'll be a fascinating few years. My my like unpopular really unpopular with musicians theory is that musicians believe that they have a they should have a special kind of protection around them. Uh because it's so hard to be able to do the basics of what you guys do. Anybody can sit down with a microphone in front of them and do a podcast. I mean, anybody can sit down and try and sing and like make a song, but >> the barrier to entry is significantly higher. Like, you need to learn so much and practice for a very long time. And I think that >> a shortcut to a place which is not very far away doesn't feel like that much of a cheat. >> A shortcut to a place that's taken a decade or 15 years to get to feels much more unfair. And I think that this is one of the reasons that musicians have a particular bee in their bonnet around why why AI needs some sort of restriction on it. It feels particularly unfair that the muggles who haven't spent all of their time learning to sing or play drums or guitar or whatever are just able to type some words in and then do something which is comparable. Whereas, as is being demonstrated right now, any idiot can do a podcast, right? like any three idiots, any three idiots can do a >> podcast. Y >> um >> so it's about how can you sort of stay ahead and you're not I mean if you think you're going to slow the >> uh behemoth leviathan that is AI, it's not going to happen. So it's a case of how are you going to be able to adapt to it. >> Yeah, totally. And I try not to just like sit around thinking, well, it's unfair and I hope it doesn't do something bad, you know, like that's not I don't think that's really going to take me to the place that I want to go in life. >> Um, but yeah, to your point, it's like, okay, well, what what's in my control? Because I can't control AI. I can control how well I show up or what I choose to spend my time focusing on that I think like is the biggest needle mover in my project or my skill set or whatever that is. But yeah, to to analyze all of those things like is is difficult, right? Because at a certain point, >> what got me in the band is not what's going to get the band bigger, right? If I spend all my time, 10 hours a day just practicing drums, like if I if I get 10 times better at drums right now, the band will grow 0%. You know what I mean? It's like I got to a certain point where it's like, cool, I can do the job and I can do it well and I can be creative and try to stand out in my own ways, but now what's the next thing that I can focus on that will actually take me to where I want to go? It got me the audition, which is very cool. >> But yeah, it's it's always like a thing I'm trying to think about in my head is like, yeah, what now? What? What are some of the other secrets that the music industry should be talking about but isn't? >> I think that kind of like what I was saying of how competitive things are. It's not for the most part enough to just be a good band anymore. I think you need to be very multiaceted in having your department in the business, right? So like for example, if we use I prevail for example, we all do our music thing. We all have our own weird skills. This guy can yell really loud and that's like a cool skill, right? But for me, okay, like my department is cool, I can play drums, but I'm also have a ton of experience uh growing in organic content media machine or team or whatever that is and marketing and back-end business and growing the merch sales or whatever that is, right? And then we have our guitar player, Steve, who's very in like the accounting, business management world. Yeah, he's a really good lead guitar player, but he's also like a nerd on Excel, right? And it's like you you kind of have to have these like other facets that contribute to the overall project. And outside of that, I would just say I used to think that being in a band was like showing up and playing drums and like performing and someone just like hands you a check and it's like, "Oh, cool. Like, thanks. I played the show. I got paid. See you later." But it's like, oh, actually there are these nine different arms of how you can make money. But before it comes to you, it's going to go a percent 10% is going to go over here for the person who booked the tour. 20% is going to go to just the general manager who just handles business stuff. Then all of your music is going to get split into three different arms of publishing and then people who try to put it on like freaking video games and stuff and whatever your Spotify cut is and then how much goes to the label as opposed to the people who wrote the songs and it's like this ginormous spiderweb of money going to a million different people and then you're here at the bottom and you're just like ah I try to catch as much as I possibly can. Yeah, >> that uh is a it's just so complex, right? Like for I'm I'm sure it's complex for you too and I oversimplify it, but I'm like you do a brand deal and they're like cool, here you go. Here's your monthly or yearly significantly more simple. But that is because I've done the equivalent of remaining independent as an artist. >> Uh I'm not signed I've never ever been signed to any network. I'm not owned by a media agency. Uh, I'm not even signed. I don't even have an agent. Wow. >> So, like everything is just me. Everything is bootstrapped. Everything is bootstrapped. The tour that we put together bootstrapped. Team that we put together bootstrapped everything. Like we booked our own tour manager. Like this is not Yeah. So, um, that means that there's a lot more effort that has to go in on the front end, but there's so much more control on the back end. >> Yes. Yes. You're like, you know, the something isn't working out with whatever partner this is, whatever member of staff this is, whatever contractor we have. There's no obligation um beyond loyalty, which counts for a lot. But, you know, there's no there's less [ __ ] and it is it is wild to see people just want to go and hear good music from their band that are happy and healthy and playing a show and hopefully well enough remunerated to keep doing it. Uh, and there's just a lot of holes in the Swiss cheese slice, uh, that you don't get to see. And, uh, I don't know. I I I hope that it doesn't seem at the moment, at least the genres I'm interested in, you guys, uh, and your cohort, doesn't seem like that many people feel like they're eating [ __ ] because I think live is going so well for so many people. Um, but yeah, if I was a big hip-hop fan or something, maybe I'd feel differently. Maybe I'd be worried about the sort of upcoming hip-hop artists and whether or not they can make money like they used to back in the day or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Before we continue, I've been drinking AG1 every morning for as long as I can remember now because it is the simplest way I found to cover my bases and not overthink nutrition. And that is why I partnered with them. Just one scoop gives you 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and whole food ingredients in a single drink. Now, they've taken it a step further with AG1 NextGen. the same one scoop once a day ritual, but this time backed by four clinical trials. In those trials, it was shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improve key nutrient levels in just 3 months, and increase healthy gut bacteria by 10 times, even in people who already eat well. They've upgraded their formula with better probiotics, more bioavailable nutrients, and clinical validation. Plus, it's still NSF certified for sport, so you know that the quality is legit. Right now, when you first subscribe, you can get a free bottle of D3 K2 and AG1 welcome kit, plus bonus AG1 travel packs. And for a limited time, US customers also get a sample of AGZ and a bottle of Omega-3s. Just go to the link in the description below or head to drinkag.com/modern wisdom. That's drinkagg.com/modern wisdom. And you know, then the the tough part about being in a band, too, and I don't want to like complain about money. my my I'm not trying to complain about money. I'm just trying to say like I think it's important to understand how the back end of the business works and like yes now you can be independent if you want to like you can like there are plenty of Spotify artists who have they made a good product their song their songs are good >> and they develop the skill of organic content or paid ads or I mean probably not paid ads as much but like yeah marketing themselves. If you have a good product and you can market yourselves and you can push people to the right, you know, whatever you want that to be, buy tickets or go stream the song, like you can simplify the whole process and just get really good at team building, which is what I assume is the skill that you've had to build to to do it all independent. >> Horrendous out of it. >> Yeah. But it is like it's it's this weird like for me I look at how my life has gone and it I grew up everyone Hey, what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a drummer. And everyone's like, >> you know what you said as a kid? >> Yeah. Oh, yeah. >> Okay. >> Um I >> What was the response when you said I want to be a drummer? >> You're stupid. Like I grew up in the suburbs of Michigan. We're still from there. But >> yeah, there's no there's no professional musicians that I knew of coming out of Michigan. There are, but you've got Kid Rock, you've got Eminem. Like there's there's some Yeah. Uncle Cracker. There's some big players. But yeah, everyone's like, "You're stupid. Go to go to school. do, you know, go to university uh for you. I wouldn't say college, but um go, you know, go to college and get a degree in business. And I'm like, I don't care about business. I want to play drums. The ironic thing is that to be able to play drums professionally, I had to learn a lot about business. But then, you know, by my own accord, really fell in love with a lot of it cuz it's like I think any musician starts to love it because it's very challenging. It's very challenging to develop a skill in songwriting or singing or drumming or whatever that is. And then at a certain point, it's not you've you've never arrived. There's you can always get better. But I think business has that same thing too, right? It's like, >> oh, now there's now it's not just drumming that I have to get better at if I business is an umbrella term, you know, there's accounting, there's marketing, there's blah blah blah blah blah. So, there's endless things to have direct input on the lyrics that you write, the melodies that come out. You don't have the same with how well the accounts are put together. And if you negotiate the margin on the merch 10% off, like I always used to feel bad when I ran nightclubs in my 20ies because I had this sense that my success I could always excuse my successes away. Uh I was like velcro for criticism, self-criticism and teflon for self-praise. Um because your contribution to the success of a business, anything really within the business operations, even if you come up with the best marketing tagline of all time, you're not the one that delivered it. You're not the one that chose how the audience responded to it, and you're not the one that said that the sales whatever created the page that had the conversion rate optimization, that did the um and it meant that I always was more easily able to ignore where I'd done well >> Mhm. with things like that. And I think one of the great things about what you guys do and what I think everybody needs in their life is something where a direct almost one:1 input to output ratio of um effort to reward is available. If you write a [ __ ] slamming song individually or as a group like you that thing is yours and you made it directly. there was no molestation in between you and this thing happening. And um I think a lot of the time people feel out of control and out of connection with what's going on in their lives because there are so many layers of [ __ ] between them and the [ __ ] that is is supposed to be the goal on the other side of it. >> 100%. And that's why I think as much as the business stuff has been enjoyable to really dive into and and grow. Like that's why I'm still so happy that I'm a musician in a band because you do have these moments. Like with this last album we made, we blocked off eight months. We're basically >> Mondays from 10 to 6. We show up in the studio every day and it we we just walk in. We walk in not knowing what we want to create and we walk out with something >> and that I I can't I just don't have that in any other area of my life where it feels like pure creativity >> and those short moments are like just so awesome like driving home in your car listening to this 30 secondond demo that you just wrapped up 5 minutes ago and then the next honestly the next day on way to the studio, you listen to it and you're like, "Actually, it sucks, but the drive home felt so magical, but now we have to improve it." And you constantly Yeah. Eric comes in, it's like, "Yeah, that sucks, but >> let's do this." And then you're like, "Oh [ __ ] that's awesome now." And every It's just like it feels like pure creativity. And it's incredible. >> Yeah. Crazy to think that you come in with, you know, five dudes coming in a room and have haven't even talked about what we're going to work on today and we sit down and you find some central meeting point and you just pull things out of thin air and then you leave 8 hours later going, we have a 30-se secondond audio file. There's something that came out of nothing, you know? And that that that bit of creativity and and feeling that reward is is unlike anything else we have going on in our life. I feel like, you know, you come in with nothing and you leave with something that was created by a group of group of friends that you're like there there was nothing before this and now we have this this piece of art and and you feel like you got something off your chest or you feel excited with the direction this thing is going and then it starts shaping the record and then you're like, "Okay, well, we did this. What what what should what should be the counterpart of this song?" You know, what what we did something a little heavier on this. Let's uh just the whole creative process is is so rewarding, you know, in that in that sense. >> What have you learned about navigating a a career in an industry that's ripe with burnout and crisis and recovery and stuff like that? >> Oh man. Um, for me personally, being on the road specifically, uh, when we do like, you know, three and a half weeks in Europe and we have two days at home and then we do a 6 week uh, tour in the States and then we're home for a month and we go back to Australia for 3 weeks and then your your time zones are all [ __ ] up and and being lost on on tour just, you know, that that burnout feel, you know. Um, for me personally, it's like trying to find those days off when we have them. uh to feel like a human again. Like I'm I'm big into uh some trading card games, collecting records, and you know, finding bars or coffee shops I've been to when we had a day off in that city prior. So to to step away off the bus and go explore a city on my own or go with meet up with some friends or other people on tour and play cards or you know find a bar record shop doing something that makes you feel like a person again uh has definitely helped that that you know four weeks into a you know 7 week tour or whatever it is. It's like >> feeling like a human again is very important. So having those hobbies and having those things to to distract yourself from the the the mental fatigue has uh been huge for me. >> Yeah. I mean I think like being on the road is a a gift in so many ways and you know like a dream come true and also right like life happens when when you are on the road and you miss it like people die right our our we've all lost family members while being on the road and finding out I mean friends and family members I mean you'll find out a couple hours before you have to go play and you're like, "Okay, I just found out that a huge piece of my life was is now gone and now I have to go like in front of thousands of people and you know, not that we played smiley music, so it's not like I have to like put on a smile, but man, you have to you have to get through some shit." And that might be in the midst of tension in the band or overall fatigue from tour where you're like already you're physically drained. You're mentally drained. You're in your 30s living with eight other grown men men in a bus the size of this room for months at a time. You haven't seen your family for months at a time. Uh tragedy happens. Like it is a lot. And I and also like on the road there have been so many of like I think collectively our lowest moments but it's also coupled with these moments that are so unique that I personally could never get and once it's done it's done. Like for example like the the creativity of creating a song. I'm just like I won't I don't think I'm going to find that somewhere else or performing in front of people and being like part of a collective experience. Like sorry Eric I there have been many moments in my time with the band where I'm like is this really what I want to do? Like I am exhausted from the chaos. I miss being home. I love being home. Uh like is this really what I want to do? But I think there's these things where it's like, but once it's done, it's it's done. And also, yes, like there are times where there's like tension in the band, but also you form you trauma bond together as as a group, you know, where when people really need it, like you are there for each other. And like there's never another time in my life where I'm going to have be able to have sleepovers with my 30-year-old bros, you know what I mean? But on tour, like every night, it's like after the show, I'll see you in the back lounge. >> Silly bus time. >> Yeah. Silly bus time is what we call it. Uh it's just kind of coming down from the adrenaline, cracking a ton of jokes, and then going right to sleep. It's a sleepover, you know. But >> yeah, it's emotional whiplash. all the time. >> Yeah. And and what you're saying about going up and having some kind of loss or turmoil back home and and trying to navigate that and then an hour later you're going on stage. It's it's important especially being the performer or singing the words putting on the show to remember that, you know, this may be the one concert that that kid is going to all year long or this uh these people, these fans, these this group is is trying to escape whatever's going on in their life. Whether it's all the political stuff they're fed up with seeing online, whether it's their own family issues, whether it's, you know, loss, whatever it may be, this is their moment where they're coming for 3 4 hours to forget all of that and to have a good time, drink some beers with their friends, shout the lyrics back to to us and and and forget everything. So, it's also keeping that in mind when we go on stage like this is just as much our moment having fun up here as your moment. you know, you're once this month or once this year getting to to release or or exercise some demons in the pit or to just forget about all the the [ __ ] that they have going on at home. And then, you know, having to remember that when you're going through something yourself to go up there and go, "All right, this is for them." You know, put put the show we call it putting getting into our showies like you're you got >> severance. It's your innie and your audi. It's like our normie and our showy. >> Yeah. So, it's time to zip into our showy and and get out there and give give everyone the show that they want to they they deserve. You know, >> that's what's called being a professional, >> right? Like, you know, if you're a a firefighter and you've had a big argument in a sleepless night with the wife last night or arguing or something, it's like I'm not equating rock stars and firefighters in terms of importance. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Cuz you're saying that we're more important, right? Yeah. Okay. Good. Good. I just wanted to make sure >> significantly. Um, but they they have to turn up and do a job. And I think it's good to think about it in terms of service. There's certainly at least sort of from my side looking from the outside in um because any job that's a lot of fun uh or that has just fun as a part of it uh starts to see anything that isn't fun as a bug, not a feature. M. >> And you go, "Hey, yeah, I know that sometimes shit's hard, but for some people's jobs, all of it's hard." >> Yeah. >> And the fact that, well, you know, I'm tired or this has been long or I'm whining to you about how many flights I've got to do this week and tour tour for me starts this week. And I'm like, "Yeah, but I'm going to go and do this thing with my best friends in cities that I love and get to see." and you go, "Well, I think this is why people have limited sympathy for traveling musicians that whine about how hard it is because they're complaining that some of the things are difficult." >> Meanwhile, most people's jobs, all of the things are difficult. They don't get the positive reinforcement in the way. It's like, you know, I struggle to sleep because the adrenaline is high. You go, well, some people don't ever feel adrenaline. Mhm. >> Like the reason that you've got that is because of how much positive reinforcement you got earlier in the night. >> Um yeah, I guess >> something I'm interested in. You mentioned it's like it's a sleepover with your bros in your 30s. Everybody's aging, right? Everybody's getting older. Uh at least a bunch of you are married or in relationships or maybe all of you are. So, I'm interested in how you navigate that as everybody grows up because people have personal lives that aren't going to be as negotiable as they used to be. You don't choose when your kids born. >> Your big band turns of sperm means lots of potential road bumps >> for people to navigate. So, you're going to have to say, "Hey, darling. Um, I know that you're really keen on having a a a baby next year. The mar the wedding was wonderful. Thank you for allowing us to slot it in in between Australia and the the second run on the US tour. Um, we're not going to be able to start trying until late July. Um, because we've got this new amphitheater run that we've got that's lined up and you know I like surely this is something that's in the back of your guys' minds as you start to plan your personal future. And then how does this work with blending the band? >> Yeah, I mean I'm going through it right now planning a wedding and next spring and and just constantly reminding the guys like, "Hey, check the calendar. Uh, we got a tour offer." And is that tour offer again? Okay, cool, cool, cool. All right, I have a week I can get married. But uh yeah, that's that's um I think it's something that we don't talk about, but we all feel and and know it's in the back of our mind. like our guitar Steve just had a kid 3 years ago during when we were uh recording our our last record and he went off and Melissa had the baby and then they uh we released the record and went on the road shortly after that. So, you know, he missing the the you know, early early years of of uh his child's child's life and it's difficult trying to plan around life events, major life events like that. But, you know, we we try our best between the the five of us to plan things uh the intimate parts of our lives and in our our little group and and uh you know, if someone's got to fly home for a weekend, we try to slot some some time, you know, days off where it's okay, you can fly home this weekend. All right, cool. We'll meet up with you in you know, three stops from now. And but yeah, it's something that I think I don't know if we have it mastered, but it's it's something that we I don't want to say struggle with, but it's something that is a difficult thing to to have our our personal lives and those huge moments and you know, having a kid or getting married or, you know, friends weddings, standing in weddings, what whatever it may be is uh it's it's a challenge. It definitely is a challenge. >> Yeah. I think it's like you're you're trading sacrifices, right? So, in the early days, the sacrifice is I'm going to go out and tour for 9 months of the year and make $12, right? That's the sacrifice and you make it and then that that stops to be that stops being the sacrifice. It's like, oh, we're we're touring touring less and making more than $12. So, okay, cool. But then, yeah, as you get older, there's more sacrifice in a in a different way. Your parents are getting older, >> thinking about having kids. How how do you navigate that? How do you navigate a marriage where it's long distance? That's pretty uncommon. But also in some ways like I think with any sacrifice it's difficult but also there are gifts inside all of it, right? Because what a lot of people experience kind of like to what you were saying earlier is of like oh their jobs suck all the time. like you are you might always be with your spouse and never kind of have that opportunity to truly miss your spouse. Like some people just never have the opportunity to actually miss their spouse, which is interesting. And there is like a gift in that of I'm gonna be gone and I'm gonna have this opportunity to desperately miss you and to have reconnection time which yes can sometimes be an adjustment. Right. For sure. Uh I heard you talk to the underworld guys about this very relatable of yeah you might come home and your spouse is like I was kind of used to living here by myself. Right. Yeah. Your your your partner is saying to you, I know that you've come back and you immediately want me to drop into this life that you've imagined, >> but I've had to create a life where I can cope with the distance of you being away. >> Yeah. >> Like, so yeah, I've walled myself off a little bit. Yeah. Maybe I'm not as as soft or accommodating as you might like me to be >> because you've been playing shows for six weeks in front of a few thousand people a night [ __ ] about on the bus with your friends, >> right? >> Yeah. Totally. And you you're both coping in your own ways, right? And I'm coping by laughing my ass off with my friends, right? And uh in yeah, this weird way where and everything is kind of handed to you on the road, you know? Um but then coming home, it's like those coping mechanisms don't work in a marriage where it's like, yes, I want time and I want this and I want this. It's like, well, this is not really a marriage. Like that's not a give and take. That's just a take. >> Um >> but yeah, I do think like what that opens up then is more conversations to grow closer and be like, "Hey, like >> this isn't actually working when I'm gone or it's actually not working when I come back. like how can we >> navigate this together and use it as an opportunity to grow closer or to create systems in our family or any of my relationships to make this work better uh without completely overstretching both of ourselves. And >> you know if your sleep's been off, you're taking ages to fall asleep, waking up at random times feeling groggy in the morning. Momentouses sleep packs are here to help. They are not your typical knock you out supplement overloaded with melatonin. Just the most evidence-based ingredients are perfect doses to help you fall asleep more quickly, stay asleep throughout the night, and wake up feeling more rested and revitalized in the morning. 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Yeah, I I understand what you mean. the the the idea of the the beauty of being able to miss someone is an interesting one. >> Yeah. >> Uh how many months do you reckon you've been on the road on average for the last few years? >> We've as we've gotten older we've tried to bring it down to around four months a year >> or five. >> Yeah. Um where my first year touring with these guys I think we were gone for nine. >> So you're still talking now about you know three days out of every week. So you're only home for maybe four out of seven. Plus there'll be travel. Plus, there'll be songwriting, plus there'll be rehearsals, plus there'll be all of the other stuff. So, you're talking about, you know, if you if you do a month with five with everything else on top, it's probably closer to six. >> Sure. >> So, you're talking about three and a half days out of every single week that you're apart from friends, family, partner, kid, etc. >> It's tough. It's a it's a a [ __ ] you know, that was the fascinating thing speaking to Aaron and Tim. Uh Aaron said, did he get married and went on tour or had a kid and went on tour like three days later or something and just, you know, we got to turn it around because this is what you've got to do. And um it's an interesting question. Most people when they're building a project, what they're looking to do is over time do fewer things that they don't want to do. Like almost everybody's goal in life is to say, "I just don't want to do things I don't want to do anymore." >> Right? that's like where people want to arrive at. >> But there's an interesting challenge that I've been feeling recently, which is what do you do when you start to get close to being able to actually making that a reality? Like what does that look like? Um, and it's difficult because you're used to working at this particular rate and you get reward and reinforcement at that same particular rate. But what was the point of touring for 9 months every year for five if you don't then drop it down to doing it at the pace that you want to? And then how do you know what the pace that you want to is? Because you're always going to feel a high after you've come off stage, but then what's accumulating in the background? How many ruptures without repair have occurred in the relationship? How many missed weddings and degraded friendships and funerals that you haven't been able to deal with and thoughts that you haven't given yourself time to just sit with because you're in the chaos of the show and someone's bringing you cool new food and we're going to go skiing today. We're in Salt Lake. It's going to be great. Like all of these things are these weird hidden costs that you pay kind of out the back here. And um I see especially with the age and this is meant complimentarily the metal scene is not young. >> Yeah. >> It's not young like you guys are a veteran band who are like middle-aged I guess for >> like metal stars. >> Yeah. >> Ollie from Bring Me must be 38. Uh I think he's about my age. 36 to like 40 or something like that. I think he might be my age. 37. Um, you're talking like I don't know what Ronnie Radkkey is. Ronny's going to be like, you know, 40s. I think >> Ronny's in his 40s. Like, >> can you really still cr Like 46? We're still cranking it. Four months on tour. You know, the kids are off to [ __ ] like middle school. You go, "Oh, if you're not careful, you missed your life. You missed your life. You didn't just like do this thing when you were young and had fun." [ __ ] under oath, right? Like the guy I mean, what was it that Tim said? He's like, "I've got a a 14-year-old daughter, but I only know her as seven." >> Oh, wow. >> You missed half alive. >> Yeah. It's It's the illusion that it's the ever growing illusion that >> one day you'll be done. >> Yeah. I'm I'm doing as much as I can right now so that I can retire at 40 and have all the >> retire. I know. But I'm saying that's what the illusion is. It's that I'm going to work really hard right now. I'm going to get it while I can because you never know when it's going to be done. You never know when it's going to end. >> I understand the hatemaking season thing. I get it. >> But it's an illusion in a way, right? Like I >> It's a horizon. Every step you take toward it, it gets one step further. >> Exactly. And it's weird cuz I'm aware of it and I also play into it and I I feel like I can't escape it even though I've been told and I see and I'm like I see that it's an illusion. >> In in your defense, that's the same with junk food. It's the same with overusing your phone on social media. It's the same with staying up late. Every single night you've ever stayed up late. I know I need to go to bed early, but you don't. And you know the lesson and you can feel it unfolding in front of you and then the next day you forget it and redo it again. You know what I mean? Like it's the same thing. >> Yeah. >> We're just simple creatures, man. >> Yeah. >> But Yeah. Yeah. That that is a man that is something that that is a little scary to think about sometimes where it's like we've been doing this for 11 years and I I look back I'm like man remember that tour that was 7 years ago that was I was 23 I'm 34 like where did my life go? But then you're able to look around, you know, our our house, like this house I paid for by screaming at people. And I have these awesome little trinkets on the wall, you know, whether they're a gold gold plaque or a photo of us playing at Red Rocks or or whatever. And it's it's it's tough to tough to think that like you're saying, it's the horizon just keeps going keeps going. When when when are we going to be content? I I don't I don't know. I guess the only thing I can hope for is to build this up as as big as possible so we can bring our loved ones out on the road more often. We can have these shared experiences more often out on the road or >> you're then asking a lot of your loved ones, right? >> Exactly. >> If you're saying, "Hey honey, you know your life." >> Exactly. >> Um, how do you feel about not having a >> How do you feel about your life being How about my life is your life? >> Yeah, it's a difficult balance. And also like with with what you're saying of like you missed your life. I'm I'm thinking about that and I'm like maybe I I see that point and I think there's something to consider there for sure of missing the people who you love. But I also think if I were to flip it, I think if I were sitting in my house in my office or whatever behind my computer all day, which I just do on the road, but I I think I might have the same thought of >> you miss your life. >> I'm missing my life. if I'm wasting it in the same place every single day doing the same thing every single day. Like I think it it's Yeah. This you just want what you don't have. >> Choose your regrets, dude. It's so so true. You've nailed it. >> Um >> everybody assumes the thing that's missing in their life is the thing that they want. >> Yeah. >> And we are >> like that. >> Yeah. >> In our ability to be able to wish the grass is greener despite the fact that we were on the other grass only a week ago. >> Yeah. I'm I I I know that it's the fact coming back from tour, you've just finished tour, you're like, "Thank [ __ ] for that. Oh my god, I'm so tired and I just want to lie in bed and I just want to like cuddle my wife or do whatever." And then seven days later you're like, "I'm bored." >> Yeah, this sucks. I'm bored. I want to be like, "I'm not doing enough. I should be in more chaos." You're like, >> you just did a seven week tour. And I think this is the same. Everybody feels it is sort of part of the human system to always feel like you're not doing enough. And that not doing enough can be not doing enough peace and also not doing enough work. And uh yeah, mark of a good nervous system, I think, is one that can adapt to both without feeling like it's missing the other. >> Yeah. >> And you're like, "Oh, like I'm just >> I'm okay with this." >> Yeah. >> I feel like I'm okay with this. I >> I know. Um, I've heard her Mosy say like something, I'll paraphrase it, of like the grass is always greener on the other side, but cuz there's a bunch of [ __ ] on my side, but there's also a bunch of [ __ ] on the other side. It's just different [ __ ] Like, which [ __ ] do you want? Cuz there's [ __ ] on both sides, right? And I think we view other people's life through rosecolored glasses, right? I'm sure Chris, most of your audience would be like, "If I could have Chris's life where I'm talking with interesting people all the time, doing big [ __ ] I got this sick drink company called New Tonic." >> Tasty. >> So good. I don't know which one my camera. Is this my camera? >> So good. >> So good. Yeah. Wait, sorry. I'll figure it out. Anyway, I'm sure a million people would be like, I want Chris's life. Yeah, sure. He's got health problems. Yeah, sure. like it maybe been a couple a rough couple years, but they kind of just overlooked that part. You know what I mean? And they would they still take that trade? Maybe. >> But I think again, yeah, we we look at we look at other people's lives and are like, I would take I would take all of it because the good thing seems so good that all the [ __ ] with it >> is worth it. And maybe sometimes that that's true, but people find industries that work for them, >> right? Like if you're not >> that much of a touchyfey, affectionate person. >> Well, you know, I would be at home, but I wouldn't like the wife's got her thing going on. We might not be hanging all that much in any case, so I might as well be away, >> right? Um, and that's where you see I I I wrote this essay a little while ago about people who have the the talent but not the constitution to become very successful. Uh, Lewis Kapaldi was my sort of canonical example of this until he came back and smashed it at Glastenbury this year which I'm really really happy for him. >> Nice. Um, L Capali, great example of phenomenal voice, phenomenal songwriter, but someone who suffered so badly with performance anxiety that he went out on the main stage at Glastenbury not long ago and couldn't get his words out and he's got this he's developed this sort of Tourette's like nervous tick from how much pressure he's applied to himself. You go, how unfortunate to be someone who's so perfectly constructed. It's like having a really fast engine put into a Honda Civic. It's like a V12 engine, so you have all the power to be able to drive real fast and none of the control to be able to direct it. >> Yeah. >> And um that is a a unique kind of pain where you go, [ __ ] like the thing that I want to be a world class recording artist, touring musician or or or what [ __ ] soldier or sports star or whatever. I have all of the capability. I just don't have the constitution to be able to handle maybe the pressure that comes along with it or the work rate or the travel. Like you could have really sensitive circadian disruption like in your sleeping pattern and that would mean you could not be a touring artist or like it would just take such a toll on your health that your uh expiry date would be would be pretty snap close. >> Yeah. >> And um Yeah. Yeah. You're right. The there will be bits of [ __ ] on either side of the fence. And what is the price that you want to pay in order to have the life that you admire is a [ __ ] really good question about that. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I've heard you say about life on the road and missing uh funerals, missing friends and birthdays. There's this Keith Urban thing, The Road on CBS at the moment. First episode came out this week. So during the premier episode of the road on CBS, Urban opened up about the difficulties of life on the road as a cheering musician. It's a calling and you're born to do it or you're not going to make it. He said when you wake up on a tour bus at 3:30 in the morning and you're sick as a dog, you're in the middle of nowhere and you've got to play your fifth show later that night. You haven't slept and you miss your friends and you're missing your family and you're completely lonely and miserable and sick and you say to yourself, "Why am I doing this?" Urban, who recently split from aranged wife, Nicole Kidman, continued, "The only answer could be because this is what I'm born to do. We're going to find out who's made of that stuff. And we're going to find out who's made of that stuff is to do with being on the road." Really interesting that someone who recently split from his aranged wife is sort of being used as the and look, if you two are sufficiently successful, this could be your life also. like really does show how narrow the aperture is that we perceive success through, right? Like it really is. I It doesn't sound to me like Well, I mean, it's a a public interview, so how how would you No, it's not quite the place for someone to drop into their emotions. Uh it doesn't particularly sound to me like Keith Urban would say I would rather give up my touring or have not toured at all and still have my marriage to Nicole Kidman. But who knows, maybe in retrospect he'll think something differently. And uh yeah, the prices that you pay, the things that you miss in order to do the thing that you love. It's different with you guys versus um like some person that works offshore on an oil rig or a soldier, right? Cuz it's not too dissimilar. They do tours, >> different sorts of venues. Um, but I think people feel differently about that because that feels like more of a obligation. >> Yeah. >> There's a nobility. >> Yeah. >> Attached to that. There's some there's you guys get less sympathy because you're like [ __ ] about. >> Yeah. >> Champagne problems, man. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. I I do have um I do have some sense of guilt sometimes where I'm like, how dare I feel so bad right now? like um the I feel like one of the first times I went through something hard on the road was uh one of my best friends and uh living living at my place with me um took his own life um right before we uh walked on stage in Pittsburgh. And that was like the first time that I I like allowed myself to like feel feel bad about missing things. Like when it was a wedding or something, I was like I was like, "Oh man, I'm just is this really I'm I'm getting to live my life and my dreams and and do these things and like I don't you know, shame on me for for feeling any type of way." But when when that happened, that was like the first time that I was like, "No, it's okay. It's okay to feel bad." Like it's, you know, man, sorry, I'm getting thinking thinking about that time. That was really really tough, man. But then on the outside, like I said earlier, you just have to suit up and go out there and play and and uh remind yourself how how lucky and blessed you are to be doing this. And um yeah, over over the last few years, I've tried to balance that like sense of guilt of uh living my dreams, let's say, over, you know, missing the funerals and the friendships and and planning. Oh, okay. Well, I go back, I'm just going to have to rebuild that relationship or they understand. My my family understands that I'm I'm out here doing doing big things and and trying to trying to live my dreams. But it's it's it's it's a it's always a challenge. It's always a challenge going out on the road and being gone for so long and and then looking back at the things you're missing, but then all you know reminding yourself like this is what you signed up for. You know, how lucky are you that the fraction of a percent of people get to do this and enjoy it while you can cuz tomorrow just be gone. You know, AI could take over. You know, we're just done. >> Yeah. Yeah, I think it's um it's tricky to balance the responsibility of you have a you have a group of thousands of people who paid, you know, however much to like get a release from whatever they're going on in their their life. And we are kind of like pioneering that ship in a lot of ways. like Michael Jordan, you know, has that I I actually don't remember what the quote is, but there there's that like infamous game where he's puking on the sidelines, but he's still playing cuz he's like, "This might be the only time someone gets to see me." And like they this could have been their past two weeks paycheck to be here, so I'm going to play. I'm going to to no matter what like be here. And so I think it's balancing that responsibility while also not becoming um not uh valuing their validation in an unhealthy way. So it's like you have a responsibility to them. But I think some people I can't speak for Keith Urban, but like >> I think some marriages can fall apart because a lot of artists are desperate for validation. I mean, we're we're putting ourselves on a stage in front of people uh screaming our our name, not my name cuz I'm the drummer, but screaming your band's name. And it's like, yeah, those group of people like probably want a little bit more validation because of X, Y, and Z in our childhood, right? But I think that's when relationships, marriages can fall apart because you're so desperate for the validation from strangers as opposed to the places that it actually matters from. >> Bro, I I think so much about how sad it is that some people got oneshotted with status games in high school and never grew out of them. Mhm. >> Like they just need to be accepted by the cool kids, even if the cool kids were a bunch of strangers on the internet. >> Yeah. >> And they just you can see I I think they cycle through life ignoring or almost feeling an ick or a kind of allergy to anybody who gives them free and available love. It's like, oh, if you're giving me something, you're you're offering it to me without withholding it, without there being a price attached. You just, oh, you seem to just like me for me. What's wrong with you? >> Like, no, you're supposed to make you're supposed to reject me or not want me. You're supposed to make me hurt for it or something. And um that's a pattern that is really unfortunate because it's going to cause you to ignore the very thing that you want. you're going to disregard the very thing that you're trying to get, which is someone to just see you. >> Yeah. Yeah. And that can also be a good thing though because some of those people don't actually really see you. You know, if you're like dating someone for a long time, Yeah. they probably really see you. But if someone who doesn't know you and is like trying to pour this validation your way and you really receive that, which there's a healthy degree, but there's also the other side where it's like, well, you don't actually know me. You might be a fan of >> our songs, our music, which is really cool, but like >> if I if I take all this praise, that's where I think ego can get really dangerous. And we've seen so many people go down that path. um where you just accept all of this praise from people who don't know you. But then on the on the same side, that's when like often times their downfall is because with any almost any rise there's going to be a time where well okay you got big enough now the only thing left to do is to turn on you. >> You know what I mean? Um, I feel like it's kind of a a tale as old as time and then you have your period of time where people turn on you and you weather that storm and then people get bored of turning on you and they go, "Okay, well now they're down so like let's lift them back up. Now they have somewhere to go again." Right. >> So I think that's so right. And uh you can almost see it in these little cycles. >> Yeah. >> Up and down. And um I think everybody has anybody that gets to a size has to have an ascendancy, right? That's why you get to the size and everybody has to have a moment where they icorus it a little and it is just whether or not they manage to pick back up on that one. And after that I mean you can obviously completely like kamicazi yourself if you're >> do something wrong. But um after that one typically I I see very few people that just keep going up. >> Like almost everybody has one dip. So it's like okay get ready for the dip. >> Yeah. Um, I I guess with you guys, how has the or how do you define your guys' identity as a band now that the lineup's changed, that the dynamics evolved, that the sounds evolved as well? Um the reason I think about that is artists, podcasters, comedians, um get they capture attention for doing a thing well. >> Yeah. >> There is a temptation to just do that thing again. Uh and there's been a lot of change from you guys last album to this one. You're stepping up into full vocalist doing everything mode. Uh plus an evol evolution in terms of sound. I'm interested in what like how you think about sort of identity of the band and not being trapped by what you did before but staying true to your roots but not being behold. You know what I mean? Like how do you navigate all of this? >> Yeah, I think it's a it's a challenge that we're we're finding out right now. Um learning as we go. But yeah, I I I think it's difficult on a personal side cuz you you think you haven't changed individually. We haven't changed. The writing is still we're still writing and not from the outside a lot's changed, but on the inside maybe not so much. So when you hear and see out, you know, whether it's fans or fair weather fans or whatever that are are like, oh, this it's a whole different band. It's different. It's not it's like well we we don't feel that different. We know there's a change but we don't feel that different. So that that's been a very difficult thing for me personally. It's like you know I I've been writing in this band since day day one and now all of a sudden I I feel like a stranger to my my own band just from the perception of of a couple nameless people out there, you know, and it's um it's been it's been a a struggle personally, but yeah. How how do you feel about this? >> I think our identity is it is shifting like I think to what you were talking about earlier, you have this um you have a a lot of times there are like these bands with certain dynamics, right? And like no doubt the dynamics are now different. Um, and in a lot of ways with that with that change, we've kind of leaned into the different a little bit from the standpoint of like how we are trying to interact with each other as a group and trying to uh nourish our relationship with each other as much as possible. But in some ways it's I keep talking about gifts. Um but like there like you said the thing that got us here we don't even in some ways our our sound is naturally now different. So we don't even have some of like that option to go back to of like well we did this thing and it's like well no no matter what we do now it's going to be different. And so we have to or we get to reanalyze like what do we want to be moving forward? What do we want to be to each other? How do we want to be with each other? What do we want a sound to be? >> It kind of um breaks open your life in a new way. I I liken it to Yeah. a relationship where you have a relationship with someone for for 10 years and after a certain period of time it's like hey I actually think you want this and and I want this and we're going to move in those separate directions and it is a time of self-discovery you know the interesting thing about it is that most people in a relationship they go their separate ways and there's pain there for sure but it's kind of up to you to ask yourself, "What do you want next?" in a band situation. It's interesting. It's like, it's almost like you have a big family around you saying, "Well, I actually liked you better when you were with that person, and I actually want you to do this." And it's like, "Well, okay." Like, I appreciate the feedback. Like, understood, >> but >> I kind of have to go on this journey. I hope that you can come on this journey with me. Um because my my family, my fans, you know, the the metaphor, you're very important to me and you've been with me this time. I would love to continue in a relationship with you guys. Also, um please have a little bit of trust in me that like I'm going to reinvent myself in a way where I'm going to try to grow from this experience and do what is authentic to me and us. And yeah, that's kind of what the process has has been like. And yeah, no, no doubt there's been a ton of challenges in it. But damn, do I think we've we've grown a ton from it? Absolutely. And really excited for what that what the path is for us moving forward. I mean, I'm so stoked on this record. Chris, I you I told you to let me know if it's [ __ ] and you didn't let me know. So, I'm just assuming you It's great. I still >> I'm just insecure. I need more validation. Oh my god. >> Please, strangers on the internet, tell me that I'm good enough. [ __ ] millions of people a year are not enough. Um, >> what I thought was interesting with what you guys did. And I think I'm not convinced that Sleep Token quite did this, it'll be interesting to see what Omen's third track comes out tomorrow, I think. >> Oh, does it really? >> Yeah. Um, >> what you guys did that was really interesting was you chose three very different tracks from the album. Um, and I thought that was kind of unique. Uh, I would say President did a not bad job with releasing ahead of their EP. I thought that was good in terms of the sequence. I did find a couple of them a little sy and I might have hot swapped one of them. I thought Conclave was actually maybe a stronger track that was like hidden deep in the EP and they could have brought that out. >> Um, Omens, both of their tracks have been a little sy but [ __ ] like obviously [ __ ] brilliant. which is great. And uh I thought it was interesting. I I've had this idea in my mind for ages about um you as a band decide that you're going to put out two or three or four singles and then you you drop an album. So presumably you have an idea about what your best foot forward in some regard looks like or at least uh your best foot forward as a collective when you take these three. This is an indication of what the what the longer record's going to be like. But then you put it out on Spotify and the [ __ ] audience gets to decide and you're like track eight. >> Really? You [ __ ] Really? The [ __ ] acoustic track? Are you Are you kidding me? Or whatever. Right. They picked the thing. >> Well, that's actually the case here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I checked this. >> Okay. I was going to say it's way too specific. >> Yeah. No, it's weird, dude. It's like we like I said we've been writing this I mean man the writing process was just 8 months but then we recorded it then we mastered it then we m mixed it then mastered it and I mean all in yeah a year and three months or something like that of just >> pouring our our souls out to each other you know a few guys in a room and it's like I think this is sick. Is this sick? I think it is. I I don't know. Is it? And uh >> I like getting lost in the sauce. >> Yeah, 100%. And we're like we're removing tracks. We're like this song actually sucks. Like that song we we wrote and we're like it's not going to make the album. Like it's we it's different. Like it's just an acoustic song. Like when are we going to do that? And Eric was like uh he didn't say this but he felt so he's like guys if this song is not in the album I'm going to leave. Like he wasn't really but >> um but yeah. So it's weird. It's this weird like the insecurity just starts to like build of like well let's just let's move this one out. I don't know. And then two months later you're like let's bring it back in. Like I haven't listened to that one. And you're like oh it's actually really good. But yeah then you get this like confidence once you like have written the whole thing. You're like I see this as a work of art. I'm really excited to release it. Then once you've written it the insecurity starts creeping up again. >> [ __ ] I knew we should have cut track eight. Yeah. What um for a normie like me, what is the sort of number of tracks that you've cut that didn't make a 10 album record, a 10 song album? >> Yeah, I think we had like three or so maybe that got to a second chorus. Am I >> I think I think four or five. >> Four or five. Yeah. Then don't forget the seven songs we wrote even before scrapping all of those. >> Yeah, true. Good point for >> probably another 10 songs, >> right? >> That still seems relatively lean to me. That seems like a pretty good hit rate, right? To write one in two songs makes the album >> makes Master [ __ ] out there. >> Yeah, >> that seems like I don't know. Is that >> It might be. Yeah, I I feel like every band has something a little bit different. The the interesting with thing with us is that like yes, let's say one and two songs, but the song that you know it now has also taken six different forms where it's like, oh well, the chorus was actually different and verse two is actually a completely different part. We rewrote the bridge three times. And so I think >> as long as we have a nugget that we think is good enough, mainly >> we're building it around something. >> Yes. >> Yeah. if we're like, "Oh, this course is sick. Let's keep going back to it. Let's keep going back to it. Let's keep going back to it." And the nice thing is like you get to see if it stands the test of time. >> Yep. >> Like that's what I mean about when you put it out there and the audience gets to choose because that's also in a really hilarious way kind of going to determine what the live set looks like. >> Mhm. >> Because if song eight, the acoustic song eats [ __ ] and you go, "Wow, I mean there's [ __ ] no chance that we're playing that live." But if there's the prospect of, oh [ __ ] like this is it's a most played track on Spotify ranked at the moment or whatever. We have to do that. [ __ ] We have to do this. No. Like, oh yeah, whatever. Right. But it's cool. It's cool cuz you've had this idea. Look how clever I am. I know my my release in advance. I'm going to do my little singles. I'm going to make them come out and be in the right order. And then you put the [ __ ] thing out and then all of your fans just go, "Fuck you, dude. I'm going to choose what I want. >> Yeah. >> I think it's so cool. >> Yeah. And it's uh it's I don't want to say challenge, but it's like when we start writing the record and then you start fantasizing about the future like a year a year and a half from now, you start, okay, when we do the headliner, you know, we're going to open with this song. Imagine this the set opening like this. And we rolling this song, we pull this deep cut out from two records going that goes third. And then we've learned quickly after the last record, we were like, this opening track is going to be the opening track to the show. And then the album's been out for a couple months and maybe less than that, a month. And you go out there, people are excited to see you and they're excited to see some of the new stuff, but they want to see that that record that they grew up on or whatever it may be. And you go out and you play that first song and you're looking in the crowd and no one's singing it cuz they don't know the words and you're like, "Oh god, this is going to be a rough four minute. You got to educate the next one." So, so now it's like, you know, we have these little nuggets of ideas like how the set's going to be, you know, when we go out and tour it, you tour this new record again, but you know, you got to let the fans pick the songs. You and then you see the, okay, these songs are popping off. Hell yeah, we get to play these. Well, where in the set should we play them? We don't want to blow our load early and play all the cool stuff from the first half and everyone's sitting like, you know, it's building the set's like, you know, taking that emotional roller coaster. You know, we have so many different sounds and different emotions through through our lyrics and and moods and all that and you don't want to put all the heavy stuff right up front. You don't want to save all the energetic stuff till the end. You know, it's building that dynamic roller coaster >> journey feel like to go on. So, let me give you this, right? But just in case you guys thought that you had it hard, the way that I have to put together a live show, uh, I come up with ideas in the most sterile environment possible, uh, just on my own. >> Maybe it gets clipped and put on the internet. I have an indication that some people think it's cool or maybe not. Who knows? Then when I go and test it live, there's no sound, right? Because the single best thing that can happen at a unless it's standup and there's some bits of stand up, but that's not the meat and potatoes of my live show. If I'm going to go and do this, like the best thing that I can have is pin drop silence. >> Ah, yeah. >> So, I'm inverting what every live artist throughout history has ever tried to go for. I want the most sil I want deathly quiet. >> Yeah. and then like hanging on what the next bit of the story or the word is going to be. I'm like, was that more quiet than the other bit? Like I have no [ __ ] idea. And then people finish up and they go, I love the bit about the the man that fell over on the on the street or whatever the [ __ ] it is that someone comes up with. And I'm like >> I trying to aggregate that >> is uh for me, you know, a a real interesting challenge. I've loved the live element. I've loved being able to put together a set not too dissimilar to the way that you guys do. I've got like tracks. I've got >> Mhm. >> insights and ideas and I can piece these together in an interesting manner that hopefully takes people on a journey and I don't want to have all of the funny stuff up front and I don't want to have all of the sad boy stuff at the end and you know so on and so forth. You'll see on Sunday in Toronto. >> Um >> but the [ __ ] feedback mechanism, dude. >> Yeah. >> Is like I don't know. I feel like a MI6 a Sherlock Holmes trying to reverse engineer what it is that the audience is thinking about. Yeah. >> Are you enjoying this? >> Do you like it more than the last bit? Who [ __ ] knows? >> What does the uh what does the silence represent to you? >> Tension, >> presence. >> Yeah. >> Like real like I I there's bits that happen. I haven't got enough of them in this one, but the next show, which is Australia, New Zealand in uh March, um and then Bali, uh I there's a couple of bits where people catch their breath where you hear like a like that. I'm like, "Oh, that's [ __ ] cool. >> That's sick." >> Like, especially given that the room is [ __ ] pin drop silent and then you hear this like collective depressurization of the whole room as everyone just gasps a little bit and I'm like, "Oh, that's [ __ ] cool." >> Um, and then there's like laughy bits and I've got some new uh I tested I did the final work in progress show last night and uh tested some new standup bits and they [ __ ] destroyed. They were so much fun. They're like there's some of them that are way too spicy for me to feel comfortable saying in like I tested some Canada stuff and I'm like I can't do that in Canada and I tested some America stuff and I can't do that in America either stuff. Um >> slip them. >> Yeah. But it's it's real interesting and I've I've very much appreciated getting to watch uh you guys and and everyone else like how much attention gets paid to constructing a S. I was with [ __ ] Sam and Dan from Architects. >> Jesus [ __ ] Christ, dude. Like they pay so much attention to like every little bit, transitions, bits in between songs and uh yeah, you're just some [ __ ] dude in the crowd boopping away having a good time and you don't realize, oh, they played like they played the song from the old album or whatever and you go, yeah. Do you realize how many conversations and like tens of hours were had just about that one bit? >> Oh yeah. of that one section of that show that you went to. It's crazy. It's so cool. It's like it's it doesn't just effortlessly happen. It's kind of like a comedy set, right? Like there's all of this work that goes into it to make it seem effortless on the front end. >> Yeah. I mean, we're already talking about, you know, this this winter uh getting together and, you know, just, you know, doing some creative stuff, whether it's like demoing or whatever it may be. But it's live show. We're we're planning our live show and we're planning on Okay. Well, if we're going to play this song, what's the kind of cool interlude or how does it go from this song to this song? Okay, there's a guitar change, so we need to eat eat up some time. Well, maybe I'll I'll talk over that part. Is it going to be dead silent? There's going to be music under it. Is it going to be, you know, and then start talking like, well, how can we spice up these old songs? We're going to extend the bridge. Am I going to try >> great jokes about America and Canada if you need to throw something? But yeah, it's um yeah, a lot of a lot of thought goes into that and I think that's what makes these shows even more special. I've seen Artex a handful of times and if I wasn't in the shoes I am now, I probably wouldn't have realized all the little details. But yeah, you can you can tell if you if you're looking for it or you're you're paying attention to the whole the whole set, you can tell that they've put in a lot of work. Based on your experience, who do you think has got the greatest attention to detail in the world of alternative music as a member of a band or a collective overall? >> Bring to the Horizon. I think >> I was going to say as well Ollie's level of attention to detail is like a [ __ ] universe warping thing. >> It's insane. Yeah. >> Yeah. I I think that's the game, you know? I think like paying attention to those 1% details and like nailing them. It it's it's the difference between being Bring Me the Horizon, right? Like one of the biggest rock bands right now and I guess anyone else, right? It's like Roger Federer has said, you know, one of the greatest tennis players ever like has only won like 50 55% of his points. says, "Someone that reads the newsletter [ __ ] knew that I liked you, man. I [ __ ] knew that I liked you. >> I also like tennis." So like, >> but yeah. Yeah. In order to win 80% of his games, he's only won 52% of his points. >> Yeah. And and that that's and we don't get me wrong, like we try to we try to play that game. Like I think right like Yeah. If you're at a if you're in the audience eating a corn dog being like, "Oh, I'm having a lot of fun with this." Like you don't realize that not only like we uh have carefully and painstakingly built the live set like we there have been half the video footage from one of our tours I filmed in my basement with these dudes like and we just like paint cuz we had someone else do it and we're like it's just not right like we're just going to have to do it ourselves. >> What you mean you filmed it? Filmed what? So like video content in the uh in behind us on on stage. We've uh >> on the IMAX. Yeah. The equivalent. >> Well, the IMAGs would be like following. >> Yeah. But it's the screen that it's in between the [ __ ] >> We had like a character like narrate in between every couple songs. And so that character was cool. Yeah. But then even I mean Yeah. Going back to the songwriting process, like I was joking about being like, "Hey guys, what do you think if I add this one note where I'm playing at 30% velocity on the snare drum?" Most people will never even hear it, but I think that they'll feel that it's there and you that might make a difference. And it's like paying attention to those little things or like Yeah. And bring these case like what is the thing that builds the lore of this whole >> the outfit or social posts. And then you take it a step further, I suppose, with somebody like Sleep Token. You also remove things, right, which allows you to suck in that speculation >> 100%. >> That that vacuum. Yeah. I mean, >> I've been thinking an awful lot recently about uh attention to detail and obsession. Um kind of I have a conflicted relationship with obsession. Uh quite an obsessive person, which is good, and the attention to detail also good, but it comes with quite a high price. And I think uh you see this with uh any of my artist friends that are at that kind of a level. Um I think it's almost impossible to not have chronic self-doubt and a high attention to detail. I think that the two things are the same thing. >> Um I think I think the reason that you're pushing so much and that you're paying attention is like can this be better? Let me give you an example. depending on how old the can of Newtonic. Oh, okay. This is interesting. So, this is a slightly older badge. I can tell that this is an older badge from the back here. Uh, >> yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, you see the Instagram logo there. >> Mhm. >> See, it's slightly offset outside of the follow us. >> Yep. >> To the left. It might not be on that one. That'll be centralized. That should be centralized. So, mine and yours will be off to one side and yours should be in the middle. Do you see how mine's offset >> to the left of the F? Yep. Guess who picked that up? >> You. >> Yes. Like, and this is like millions of cans deep, right? This this run's been going for ages. And I'm like, >> oh, somebody left like half a point to the left. They left aligned it inside of the margin. They didn't center align it inside of the space. >> Yeah. >> Great. We now have a can that's got this 1% not even like 0.0 1% uh improvement. Fantastic. when I'm trying to refine the question idea that I've got for Matthew McConnA or the way I'm going to word this new oh the atlas complex I'm going to come up with on a newsletter not so fantastic in my personal life. >> Yeah. >> Right. It's like hey obsession you're great at work can I turn you off when like you know I want to [ __ ] chill out on a nighttime. >> Yeah. >> You don't get to do that. It permeates all of you. And I think this is one of the reasons that artists get conflicted a lot of the time. And um Ollie is a good example of that. He is a [ __ ] good friend. I've known him for like over a decade and a lovely lovely lovely guy. But you pay a high. If you want to be Ollie Sykes, you pay a high price. If you want to be vessel from Sleep Token, >> you pay a high price. >> Yeah. >> Um >> you don't get extraordinary outcomes with ordinary inputs. And these guys have got extraordinary inputs, but they're not all good. >> Yeah. I Yeah, I'm convinced that you can't achieve anything great without having high levels of of obsession. And it is I think it's just yeah like what pain do you want? Do you want the pain of not achieving the big thing that you really want to achieve? Or do you want the pain of doing that while knowing that what takes you there also can be an internal struggle every step of the way? Just which pain do you want? >> Mhm. >> And had a healthy dash of imposttor syndrome over it. And >> it's great. >> Yeah. >> Uh Mark Manson has this idea. He says um what are you willing to what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to suffer and struggle for any um pursuit even the most existentially aligned will regularly feel like work. So if you're oriented toward the pain you're more likely going to be aligned with what you can do over the long term as opposed to if you're just oriented toward the pleasure. So everybody says find what looks like work to everyone else but feels like play to you as a a good piece of advice for a competitive advantage which is unique and N of one. But that disregards the fact that even the best pursuits regularly feel like labor. >> Mhm. >> Right. like being on the bus and these sleepless nights and chaos and being away from the family and all the rest of this stuff like that is the price that you pay every if all it was was pleasure be like I have no real desire to play a musical instrument but it would be fun to get the pleasure of just like playing on stage but I don't want to have to spend a decade learning to play an instrument. >> Mhm. So orienting yourself toward the prices is better than orienting yourself toward the profits because people get kicked out. It's the exact same with relationships. It's exact same with relationships. Relationships don't end because insufficient good times. They end because of too many sufficient bad times. >> It's not that you're connecting at too shallow of a level typically. It's that your disconnections are occurring at too deep of a level. M >> and the way that you handle arguments is the best predictor of it. How many people break up because they say, you know, the exciting times, they just weren't that exciting. No, it's because we kept arguing all the time. It's because things were going wrong. It's because we couldn't connect. It's because, you know, it was like an overabundance of problems, not a scarcity of of of praises, let's say, if that makes sense. Yeah. And uh I I think that I think that you see the same thing with with people's pursuits. And it's like you want to be [ __ ] vessel, you want to be Ollie Sykes, okay, this is the mindset that you need to have and this is the sort of life that you're going to have to lead. This is you want to be Lewis Kapaldi. >> Mhm. Cuz you can't separate his anxiety attacks from his songwriting ability. Yeah. That his anxiety attacks are his songwriting ability. >> It's like just this huge [ __ ] It's a onesie, right? It's not an outfit. It's not something that you get to piece together. This huge big onesie and you just zip the [ __ ] up and you're like, "Okay, I guess I'm just him now." >> 100%. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I think about like Bo Burnham comes to mind where I'm like, >> great example. >> A genius. I'm like, you are a genius comedian. And also to be that genius, you have panic attacks on stage. And I mean, God, I I have no idea what he's just gone. He's gone. >> Yeah. Where the [ __ ] is Bo Burnham? >> Yeah. Yeah. It's I I think you know or like Michael Jordan, right? Like you want to be the the greatest basketball player, but to be that you have to what a large percentage of people who interact with him would maybe say he's an [ __ ] You know what I mean? >> And still now at the Last Stands thing seems >> No, like still conflicted. >> Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting. I find I find it interesting that we are like typically so pain averse as a collective while also the standard way of life is I'm going to get in a relationship which means there's going to be a lot of pain in there like with what you were saying and >> then I'm going to have children which is probably one of the I'm not a parent but like one of the challenges and you just accept you're like I just don't sleep for years and but like the idea like it's the same principle that like I'm going to sacrifice my life for x period of time for this longer greater vision that I think it's going to make my life better in the long run if I'm not again I'm not a parent I think that's what they think I don't I don't know but it's interesting to me that for a lot of people that doesn't necessarily apply to other aspects of their life either Um, which is, yeah, for me it's kind of like flipped on the reverse though, too, where I'm like, oh yeah, I'm I'm willing to give the the sacrifice for the career and all that type of stuff. And then you throw a kid in my face and I'm like, I don't know if I'm willing to do that right now. You know what I mean? So, I don't know. Maybe it's just one or the other. >> I don't know. I don't have a kid either, dude. >> Yeah. Yeah. I uh the obsession thing, one one final point on that I'd love to get your opinion on. Um, so people talk about sort of the relationship between discipline, motivation, obsession, and I think the reason obsession is kind of having a moment right now. Zack Pogb is uh a friend of mine, lives in New York, does a lot of running. He's like Mr. Obsession. And I I think he's fantastic at what he does. I think his new running app is great and everyone should go and download it. I've always been a little conflicted about the obsession thing. Um because I'm trying to detox myself at least a little bit from obsession. I'm trying to become more of a lifestyle maxi >> than like a a progress maxi, let's say. And um the reason that I think people love obsession so much is it's the freest motivation that you're ever going to get. Like if you say that sort of motivation is I kind of want to do this thing and discipline is I have to do this thing. Obsession is I can't not do this thing. >> So if you think about sort of uh discipline is you forcing yourself through something and motivation is you encouraging yourself through something. Obsession is you getting like ripped like pulled forward by the thing. Does that make sense? It's like like being pulled by it. And in some ways that's great, but in other ways I think it's really dangerous because at least with motivation and discipline largely you at least get to tolerate the gas pedal but with obsession you never get to turn it off. >> Mhm. >> It's like oh I have like I am compelled I can't not do this thing. What what if there's a time when you do want to not do that thing? What if you need a weekend off? What if you have had somebody close in your life pass away and you need to think about that? You probably could do it dealing with your emotions for couple of couple of weeks or something and you go, "No, no, I must I must do more tracks. I there's songs to play and I get shows to do." And h I I wonder I worry that uh the profits that are very obvious from obsession. Um free motivation, free discipline, consistency without effort basically. um because you're being pulled. I wonder how many people will look back and realize that that was um like just chronic imbalance that um felt easy at the time and in retrospect they're like, "Oh, [ __ ] I don't know whether that was the best decision and I didn't really have that much choice." So like a little bit more scrutiny around obsession uh might be worthwhile. Like this is very wet clay [ __ ] bro science at the moment. All right. So like it might be it might be largely [ __ ] But >> what's making you rethink? What's making you want to step back from obsession? >> I've done basically the same thing for nearly two decades now, which is just completely bury myself at working hard. And that's great. Um, but it can cause you to become uh myopic and laser focused and blinkered about other things that you could do with your life. And that's not even necessarily other things outside of the project. It's other things within the project. So, for instance, for me to go and do the live shows, it makes my life harder. Um, and financially it's a horrendous decision. Um uh >> there for sure. >> It's I mean even you know we we're going to do shows between 1,500 and 750ish caps. So they are you perfectly profitable and and and apart from the fact that I've got to fly a [ __ ] ton of people out. Um >> uh that it's fine. But if I was making a business decision, I would just continue to do the show. If I was making a platform decision, I'd just continue to do the show. I was making a lifestyle decision. I just continue like all of the elements of obsession would point me away from variation be like do more of the thing. >> Mhm. >> But that doesn't necessarily live lead you to a varied well-lived adventurous life. And um yeah, I'm thinking much more about what do I sort of want to look back? What what are the memory dividends that I want to give myself in future? And maybe that means letting go of some modes of validation and and positive reinforcement that I know work and rolling the dice on some. I'm like, huh, I'll see if this I'll see how this makes me feel. Maybe this would just be different or interesting. Maybe this will contribute to um longevity, consistency, like uh stick with itness uh over time because I'm not going to just like continue to grind away and grind away and grind away. But I've just done I've done business and like hard lots of time in front of a a laptop or walking and talking on the phone coming up with ideas or writing or doing whatever. I've done that for a long time. I'm like I think maybe trying to remove the blinkers a little bit is a a bit of a good idea. the equivalent of an acoustic track, I guess, on an album. >> Track eight in particular. >> Track eight. Yeah. Yeah. Do you um in the back of your head, do you think at all of like well like if the obsession is still like chirping at you like >> do you still think like okay well yeah like obviously like I would keep doing the thing but also knowing that if I'm going to keep doing the thing >> like sticking with the main format and repeating what works is really important but there also has to be room for that 20% experimentation knowing that 18% of those experiment experiments will flop, but those 2% might be a new format that I can now use and build. Like, >> do you find the obsession kind of sneaking in that way or is it purely like >> I just want to do this for me cuz I think it's like a cool thing. >> Yeah, that's it's a really great question. Um, I guess this is the same as, you know, the second album, third album syndrome that bands have where they go, we got famous for doing that thing. >> Yeah. We just do it again. We just do it again, right? We could just run it back. Like people want more of they love that last one. They just want more of the same, right? >> Um yeah, the opportunity to experiment. One of the slight difficulties that you have with this is that there's no such thing as practicing in private. Yeah. Every single We didn't go through this. We didn't dry run this in a rehearsal space yesterday. Oh, when you say that, I'm going to make a dick joke, and when you do that, you know, we'll do silly bus time. Like, um >> it's stuck. >> Yeah, it is. It's it's in um you don't get to do that. So, everybody gets to watch you fail in public. >> Um you sort of learn out loud over and over again. And that's great because you get to track the journey and it's like, oh, how interesting is this? You know, it would be like if every demo it, in fact, no, it would be like if every practice session on the drums was published on the internet. >> Oh my god. >> Right. Because there's no such thing as practicing. There's no such thing as >> like you can perform in private. >> There's you can't do that here. And you can't even practice in private. Yeah, I >> mean, I could do a a pod with someone that was just a friend that I wouldn't ever publish, but the stakes aren't there, which means that no one's going to take it as seriously as you need to because you don't have the scrutiny and the fear of the audience. >> Yeah. >> So, yeah, it's just it's it's it's an interesting one, man. It's a a very unique um position to be in and uh experimentation new studio which is just right now being built a couple of miles away from here. That'll be exciting. >> Awesome. Um, trying to do stuff like the McConna thing, running that back. Uh, yeah, just okay. What what what what's new? What's different? Um, trying to integrate music into the next live show, like the Australia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand one next year. That'll be interesting. Okay. What what are some areas where that 20% exists where I might be able to find the two? And um, yeah, it'll be it'll be exciting. But that being said, when I see the degrees of freedom and the amount of experimentation that somebody like an Ollie or a Noah or whatever is is able to play with or you guys like [ __ ] like it feels I want to embrace more of that. I think it's very admirable. I think you you guys are very fortunate that you have so much artistic freedom. I think that's something that you shouldn't take lightly because there are much more constricted uh modes of putting your ideas and your thoughts and your emotions out there and uh you guys have one of the ones that's the freest >> um like as is shown by the fact that you can release a [ __ ] acoustic track. Uh and and and it not just release it, release it and it be received like unbelievably well. Um, yeah, trying to trying to embrace that that opportunity to be all right, we can be a bit more experimental. What are you like what what do you wish when you sort of think about um the next few years for the band? What what would you love to experiment a little bit more with? Like have you got ideas for how you want the live show to look, ideas for how you want new sounds to come through? Like what are you working toward? Yeah. Um all of it. I mean from from the you know now with with this sonic change we have uh still rediscovering what the next chapter iteration is going to be. This is just the beginning. You know what we getting to now get to see what what works and what may not work and just with the music alone. But then going to the live shows and you know we've done practical stage setups with we had a a tour where there was a a wrestling ring and it was rage on the stage and then we went and did the thing where it was just video content and as crazy as video content we could to incorporate with the songs whether it was lyrics or just these crazy scenes that we're standing in front of. And now how do we incorporate the two to have this massive look and how do we how do we keep making the the live show better? How do we uh transition from this song to the next song and and make this memorable moment and and uh yeah, it's just like you said, I think we're very lucky to be in this position as as challenging as it is. Also lucky to have all this open ground. It's a little daunting and and scary to look at the big picture of it and go, "Okay, what do we do first? Where do we go from here? What what is the best move?" move cuz like you were saying it's like you're trying things and you're trying them in front of a million people. You know there, you know, failure is going to feel bad, but if you crush it, it's going to feel so rewarding. But we if you look at all these different things, you know, in in categories, it's uh it's exciting to to look and see, you know, I'm I'm ready to get back in the studio and start writing. I'm ready to get with the guys in this off time and start playing out the live show. which songs are going to be in or what's going to be the encore, what's going to be the first song, what what what's going to be to the to the merchandise to the the stock, you know, everything. It's um there's big open road and it's it's exciting to see it's just exciting to think about what's going to come from our creative hive mind here. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think like I'm thinking about the obsession piece and I think like for myself probably for a lot of artists across music or whatever I feel like obsession comes from scarcity of like I have to be obsessed about this because I this could end at any time. We could put out again this is I don't think this is true but like I think the insecurity on our part is >> with everything being an experiment or fully creative >> it's we don't have that format we can keep coming back to because then people go like >> let me put it this way if you put out the the podcast format you've got the three cameras you go back and forth you can bring in a new guest ask good questions people aren't going to be like I'm so sick of you sitting in a room asking people good questions and hearing thoughtful responses, you don't hear that as much, at least is my assumption, right? But if we >> I prefer the old question. >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But if we Yeah. If we keep trying to recreate the same song, people are like, >> I just like the original song. Stop trying to do the same thing. I want to hear something new. And so we're constantly in this state of like, okay, let's try to balance these people who like our old music. They might say that they want the same [ __ ] but they don't want the same [ __ ] But then if we give them the new [ __ ] they're like, I don't like it because it's new. And so it's like it feels like your whole career is uh balanced on like we release one bad song and everyone rejects us and hates us. It's not true, but that's the insecurity and and that's like the scarcity of that this whole thing could end like that at any time. And so I'm going to obsess to try to build as strong of a foundation as possible so that if an experiment goes wrong, >> meaning a song is not received well or a tour doesn't sell the way you want it to that we're still okay. Like we're we got the next thing coming up and we got the next song and you know >> so it's a bit >> while yes I agree like the creativity of it is great. As a as a fellow YouTuber I know what it's like to be like this format works. We're just going to put swap this word in the title. Boom. We got a video. We're good to go. Thumbnail. We know exactly what it's going to be. But yeah, in the world of like creating a song, it's like what do we think is cool? >> I would really struggle, I think, with the pressure of getting it right. >> Yeah. >> Because Yeah, you're right. I I put an episode out. It, you know, some people liked it, but not everybody liked it. >> Sure. >> Doesn't matter. It's one of a thousand. >> Exactly. >> Literally one of a thousand. >> You got many more coming that week. People already >> You don't like it on a Thursday? Wait two days. Yeah, there's another one on Saturday. Wait two more days, there's another one on Monday. >> Yep. >> Um >> the [ __ ] sphincta tensing concern of album release morning. >> Yeah. >> What are people going to say? What are the reviews going to be like? What's Reddit going to say about it? What's, you know, >> like [ __ ] are people going to download it? People going to stream it? Are they going to d Like that's a and you've spent all of this time and you've poured bits of yourself into it and you've second guessed it and yeah, that would be that must be a that's a real a real real challenge. I think I'd very much struggle with that. >> It is. I I think we had we had one experience this year I mentioned that I think kind of put that in perspective. So, you know, we've we've had this whole situation of like, okay, we're coming out as a band with a new lineup and releasing our first song as like the new lineup the day before our manager dies in a plane crash. And it's like perspective just dawns on you so fast of I mean we've been working right like I said for 14 15 months on this this one moment of like we can't [ __ ] this part up. This is our coming out party of new song, new lineup. And for all of that buildup to then have like the tragic event happen the day before, it was a perspective shift of like, dude, I don't I don't care. like we yes we put this out but like we lost one of our guys like to put it out without him like just felt wrong in itself. Um, so I think like I don't know I it it's a helpful reshift of man we are just so self-centered I think as as people and just like thinking about like what are people going to think about this? What are people going to think about this? What are people people going to think about this? But like in that moment it's just like oh dude none of this none of this actually matters. I enjoy doing it. I want people to connect with it. That is still my goal. I still do have the, you know, with with the following singles, like I still had that thought, but it's like, oh, but in the grand scheme of things, like this is this is a two and a half minute song. >> And if people don't like it, okay, and if people like it, that's super cool. But yeah, kind of like what what you were talking about earlier, man. like I'm not my I'm not going to miss my life because of this one song because something just tragic happened in my life. I'm going to make sure that like I'm with my people like seeing how you guys are doing, seeing how everyone affected is doing. >> Um yeah, perspective can dawn on you real in a in a single moment pretty quickly. >> Yeah. Yeah, man. That was uh very very tough and conflicting time and emotions you're building up for this like excitement. Here we go. Here we go. We're about to pull the trigger. Here we go. Countdown begins. You know, two weeks away, a week away. We're getting the video back a couple days before and lining up the artwork, getting the single, all this stuff, doing the the press the the week of to have it all dropped the, you know, days following and and then waking up 24 hours before the song comes out. I don't think it was 24 hours. I think it was that that night it was coming out I believe. >> Yeah, technically at midnight. Yeah. >> So, you know, waking up to the worst man. Waking up to the worst [ __ ] phone call and and then it's all of that all of that's gone. All that that the excitement, all the the pressure, all the the unanswered, the unknown is it it doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter. And uh yeah, it's been a really really eye opening, really uh difficult release just with all of that happening on top of the change, the lineup change, the the uncertainty, the unknowns, and then um having that guy that you just call and text anytime if you know, oh man, I'm sorry. just he having that rock that you're like, "Oh man, I'm going to call him if you know we're freaking out about this release or the you know what are the comments going to be? Oh, I got Dave I can just hit up and he'll ease my mind over it and you kind of realize uh what's what's most important in life all this it doesn't matter. Take a shot on something and it it it flops. It's not the end of the world, you know. it there's there's going to be more opportunity to come, you know, and yeah, it's been a crazy time. It's been a crazy time in the Hyperville camp. >> Yep. Yeah. I mean, it's weird cuz I feel like we were talking about it earlier almost in the opposite sense of like, well, I want to like I want to live life and like doing exciting things is like that is living life. But then it does always kind of come back to like Yeah, but who was with you? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Like who are the relationships? Like it I my perspective is I I don't know that unless they're bad relationships, it's it's worth losing relationships over. You know, I don't know what Keith Urban thinks. Um you know, maybe that's that that was a even trade for him and God, I don't [ __ ] know what his what his uh situation was. I can't even begin to comment on it. But like >> yeah, I think what what's what's the sacrifice? what's the cost? And like I think it's fair to ask like is it worth it or not? Um a lot of the times I think that answer can be yes, but I think starts to get dicey when it's relationships. Like if that if that's the cost of losing good relationships, like I don't know. Yeah, dude. It is a It sounds like it's been a series of being kicked in the dick months so far this year. I'm sorry that you guys have had to go through that. I'm really sorry. >> We appreciate it, man. Yeah, it's been um it's been tough. It's honestly, you know, in a point where you're supposed to be like, "All right, this is the most exciting thing that's going to happen in the next couple months getting to see what people say and have new music and material and then, you know, that happens and we each have personal things going on at the same time." And it's been tough, but um I think uh you find strength through the struggle. And I think our relationship within each other, within within the band has only gotten stronger. I think um relationships just outside our inner circle have gotten stronger. Um yeah, I've I've always been um someone that's tried to keep that mentality of like positive mental attitude and strength through struggle. You know, you go through something, okay, what am I going to learn right now from this to carry and and learn a lesson from or or whatever whatever it may be. But, um, yeah, it's been tough, but I've learned a lot. And I think we've all learned a lot. And I think, uh, it it, you know, that's all you can really do is is grow from it and and, uh, learn life lessons the hard way and and implement them down the road and be try to be a better person or a better friend or a better, you know, family member, whatever it may be, better bandmate. And, uh, yeah. Yeah. That's it. You know, try not try not to dwell on it and just take the lessons as like um well, I mean, you're going to have one hell of an amount of uh deep emotional wealth to tap into when it comes to writing the next record. And you know, what better of a tribute to somebody that was a huge part of the band than to just keep doing the thing that they wanted you to crush at, you know? I think you see this with architects. >> Oh, absolutely. That that was Oh, man. Tragic. tragic. And then hearing the record, I I've been a fan of them for a while. So like hearing the records leading up to um his passing and then going back and and really understanding the lyrics >> in context. Oh man, >> they won't play that tribute song live anymore. >> They refuse to. >> Uh I think that's track 8 as well on their album, interestingly enough. M >> and uh they'll play on this most recent tour, they play the sort of like interlude and then they play an intro. They play like a bridge and an intro thing and then just as the lyrics are about to start, they just kill it. >> And they just go into the next track. >> Yeah. >> Um and yeah, they were like, it's just too [ __ ] heavy to play live. Yeah. >> Um, >> but yeah, man. I'm sure that he's feeling real proud of what you guys have done. I really think he will be. >> Thanks, man. >> I appreciate that, man. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's uh man just grateful grateful to like have have other people that like we can be open about it with, you know, like not not everyone has that >> [ __ ] dude. Imagine if you were a solo artist. >> 100%. >> Oh, yeah. You're just some bloke on a bus. >> Yeah. >> With a new manager. >> Yeah. >> With with the same Maybe the lighting guy. Maybe you've got like maybe maybe like your [ __ ] Yeah. your LD or like your TM or something is like kind of cool. >> Yeah. >> And you have a bit of a chat with them, >> but no one else really knows what you're going through or the pressure of the performance or anything else. So, yeah, when you say like the relationships and the camaraderie that you have in the band, um, yeah, sure. Would it be great if you didn't have to split the measly tiny amount of money that the record labels drip feed to you? The [ __ ] end of the human centipede. Um uh would it be nice if it didn't have to go like four other ways on top of your way? Maybe. But then how much harder would it be? Like it would be more than five times harder. >> Oh yeah. >> You know. >> Yeah. >> Uh so band mates are expensive, but when you look at them in terms of like motivation fuel, they're probably pretty cheap. >> Yeah. I think >> I I think like we all are trying to impress each other in a certain way which like grows all of what we do cuz I think a lot of the guys in the band are very impressive individuals and impressive people. So it's like okay well if I'm going to >> if I'm going to stay in this I got to really show up >> game up. >> So that's one that's one thing that I've noticed at least since spending a bit of time around bands. Um, there is this odd balance between the need to keep morale high, especially on tour, and the understanding that if you suppress your emotions for too long, that it's going to [ __ ] you up. >> Yep. >> Because if you're moping, like I know for a fact that there are ancillary, maybe not quite central. In fact, no, I know I know for a fact too. We all know uh that there are um people that are part of band constructs who are more talented than they need to be but a sufficiently difficult hang that they actually can't survive in the world of being on the road with the other people that are there. It's like loved the video girl. thought she was brilliant. [ __ ] me. She did my head in. >> She can't stay. >> Well, we're not gonna get someone better at video. I would happily have someone half as good at video who is like [ __ ] 90% less annoying. >> Yeah. >> Um or whatever it might be, right? It's just clash of personalities, class of culture, whatever. And one of the things I think that's in the back of the mind of lots of artists that are spending time on the road is must keep morale high. If I'm struggling and I steam into the [ __ ] back lounge at at 11:00 a.m. and go, "Today sucks. Everything's hard. I'm tired. My back hurts." And you know, you just unload all of this. Well, now everybody else is feeling that way. >> Mhm. >> And you don't want to be the guy that brings the vibe down. >> Yeah. >> But also, if you're in this permanent like constant state of denial, at what point are you allowed to actually have I'm struggling, man. I I miss whoever it is. I I miss this person or I I've been thinking about this or me and the misses are like we had a tough conversation last night. Uh you don't have any room for that. So you've got this weird I got to perform on stage and then I also kind of have to [ __ ] perform to my bandmates >> to an am and I got to sort of tolerate the temper the [ __ ] dose, right? We got to like dilute down triage this [ __ ] sadness. the realness or maybe go can like I can I can talk to the playback tech like he's good like I'm all right to talk to him about how sad I am or whatever but like I can't unload it on the band because I want to make sure that like Eric got a big night tonight his family's all coming he's going to be a bit more nervous than like whatever the [ __ ] like it permeates everything. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That's something we've we've had. I think every band's had like whether it's crew or band member or something that's that's just going through something and and uh doesn't know the best time to dump. And uh >> over the years uh the crew that we've we've had that returned for multiple years uh >> we have strong relationships with them. The guys in the within the band and the the crew that are on the bus with us. um been doing it for long enough. I feel like we have our own little uh I don't want to say clicks, but you know, uh Gabe and Steve have a lot of things in common. Dylan and our other guitarist and I have a lot of things in common. John and I have in common things. So, there's different types like days that where, you know, a day off or something, us two are going to go hang. and and uh if I'm having one of those days I really need to talk sometimes like if I if I bring it up it's I just got to I got to vent about something like are you emotionally available right now for me to like dump on the a dump on you real quick? >> Oh yeah yeah yeah sure. But >> I think we've been doing this so long that I could just >> I don't know. I feel like um I feel like I was going through it on this last Europe tour pretty heavy and I didn't say [ __ ] and because I know everyone's going through it with with Dave and everything else going on around the camp and I just, you know, kind of bit my tongue and kind of stayed shut in. And I'm usually one of the guys that's like, I'm going to go check out this band. We're on this fest today. I'm going to hop from this stage to this stage. Go have some beers with them and do this. And I just didn't do any of it. And I uh I'm grateful to have these guys be so in tune with each other that they see something go on. They they they know. They know. And before I even know sometimes that I'm I'm falling off the wagon emotionally or doing they step in like, "Hey, let's dude. Come have a beer with me. We're going to the bar tonight. Like come on. Come out." And and it just gets brought up in conversation. and I talk it out and it's like, damn, I really [ __ ] needed that. I really needed that >> being in tune much. But again, the [ __ ] solo artist thing, dude. And I mean, this is another another challenge like something else that people don't realize with their favorite band. As soon as you move from midlevel to just beyond where you guys are, as opposed to being on the bus, you'll probably be able to get hotels every night. >> Yeah. >> And wouldn't that be wonderful? Ah, so much better sleep. Oh, I'm on my own. Yeah, >> I'm in a room on I'm on my own. I'm in a room on my own. >> Yeah. >> And that again, velvet handcuff. Do you know how few [ __ ] bad You remember being in the [ __ ] transit thing, sleeping on the roof, whatever the [ __ ] And then >> Walmart parking lots, man. >> Yeah. And you're like, "Okay, now we've got a bus. Wouldn't it be great for Wouldn't it be great if we had hotels?" And it um for every level there's a devil >> is a way to look at it. >> I like that. >> Yeah. I mean, yeah. Do you is Taylor Swift getting a ton of sympathy? You know, not really. No. >> Um, but yeah, like someone who's on her own on on her private jet, but also alone, you know, >> very lonely. Yeah. Would it be better? I mean, I my tour >> we get to fly me and the guys, we can pick a row. Like, hey, we get to pick our seats. Like, that's kind of nice. Like, you know, you've got to board together. You're in the airport. Maybe you get yourself some [ __ ] like tacos or something. Yeah. And there is this weird isolation that comes with not that comes with success because that sounds like it's like the ethos of being successful >> or something. There is a type of isolation that is afforded by luxury like structurally afforded well you know you don't need to get the bus you can get an Uber or you don't need to get the Uber you can get a driver. So you don't even you it's the same guy and he knows that you don't want to talk >> or whatever. >> Yeah. >> Like you don't need to be in the van, you can be in the bus. You don't need to be in the bus, you can be in the hotel. You don't need to be in the hotel. You can be each in your own bus and then on your you know and you become increasingly isolated. >> Yeah. Well, I mean this can even happen to people at home too, right? It's like, oh, I just want a cool house with like I'm sick of going to the gym. I want a gym in my house. That'd be cool. Okay, cool. until you get a gym in your house and then you're like, I'm sick of always having to like go out for meals. I'm just going to door dash everything and oh, I'm sick of going out to the pool. I just want a pool in my own house. And before you know it, it's like you just build this is not from experience, by the way, but but like, you know, for people who are successful is like, cool, now I have this place where I don't have to go anywhere. And that actually kind of sucks. >> Yeah. I'm sick I'm sick of having to I'm sick of getting complained at by my wife when I want to play video games. I just want a video game room. Yeah. >> You have video game room and you spend 2 hours less per day with your wife. >> Yeah%. >> Yeah. And yeah, it's I'm grateful for the complexities of living with a bunch of smelly men and we have a system for this. So, yes, there's navigating like our own emotional internal struggle with each other. And yeah, those I think are done typically through like one-on- ones. you're like, "Oh, let's go grab lunch or whatever." And, "Hey, man, my whole life [ __ ] sucks." And then you talk about that, right? But then how do we all work together and not build resentment together? >> Um, a lot of testosterone. You know, we're artists, so it's maybe a lot on the lower side, but um, >> we've built a system called Sunday Smackdowns. So every Sunday on the road, we will just kind of group together and it's kind of like, hey, this is the time like how how's everything gone this past week? Are we good? Is there anything? >> Yeah. And I mean it it can either be personal of like, hey, that thing you said the other day actually like really pissed me off. Like, >> can we kind of talk about that a little bit? Or >> hey dude, I think like what you're saying during this part of the set is not landing like >> or Gabe, your timing on this song is actually not great or >> your wardrobe is like >> pretty lame actually, right? like kind of the just an opportunity for us to come together and it's like creating the umbrella of we are open for criticism and we are open or constructive feedback whatever you want to say. >> Fearless feedback. >> Fearless feedback. Yeah. and also able to give it and it kind of it disintegrates this awkward thing that I think a lot of us experience in relationships uh where let's say your girlfriend thinks like you know hey everything's all good uh then you kind of have to have this awkward moment you're like hey I want to bring something up and now it's like oh she wasn't expecting you to bring something up and now it's kind of like well hey I was just kind of like wanting to have a nice little Sunday afternoon and Now you're coming to me with this thing that I did yesterday. I don't really feel like talking about it, but it's important to you, so we'll talk about it. But I'm kind of on ed like now I'm on edge. But >> I think honestly just literally having, hey, this is a thing that we do. And hey, if we sit down, we're like, all good. Yes. Okay, cool. Let's see you later. But it just creates an environment to be able to like open up about it and like not have that like butting of heads >> in a non-judgmental way. It's really smart. Yeah, especially walking off stage if something >> frustrated you or you bumped into like we don't do like much blocking, but it's like ah dude, I was I was going to step up on the riser with the the spotlight and at that point or like you know whatever whatever it may be. It's like don't have to walk off stage and it's still burning in my brain and it's the other guy doesn't even know he did it and now I have to bring this up and well now you just look back on that show that like it sucked and then it's going to roll into your next show and all that. So to have that where it's like, yeah, like a week ago I've been thinking about it. Honestly, it didn't even really bother me that much. I'm just going to say right now, but I I've cooled off over it, too. Like it's But then you're not ruining someone's show the next time. Then you're when you go to perform, you just you're thinking about that and you're not thinking about being in the moment of performing. And yeah, I think it's very helpful we started doing that. Dale Kanigi wrote a lesserk known second book that's called uh how to stop worrying and start living. And in it, he advocates for something called worry time. Uh, and that's basically what you guys have got, which is um, if your brain knows when it's going to be able to ruminate about something, it's able to release at least a little bit of the need to ruminate right now. As opposed to you like getting just a tiny bit of sand flicked at you every second, >> you just pick this big rock up at the end of the week. >> And um, >> I I I think that's really smart. There's this [ __ ] wonderful idea from Neil Strauss. He says, "Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments." >> Whoa. >> Wow. >> [ __ ] >> Yeah. It's a [ __ ] It's a real like Oh, that's so true. >> That's so true. I didn't tell you that I wanted you to do this thing and then you didn't do it and I got mad at you. >> Mhm. >> Or I didn't tell you that this thing pissed me off and I wanted you to stop and then you kept doing it and I got mad at you. >> Um, unspoken expectations or premeditated resentments. And what you're doing is you're allowing yourselves to have a free non-judgmental forum where people are able to bring up any of the uh spoken expectations, right? And they're able to get away from those metastasizing into resentments. Uh I think it's it's it's [ __ ] it's clever. I wonder how many uh bands would have uh improved their longevity if they'd implemented what's it Smackdown Sundays. >> Yeah, Smackdown. Sunday Smackdown. Yeah, I think Wonder >> We're licensing it right now. >> The silly bus and >> silly bus time. I got it tattooed on my finger already, so you can't take it as you baby. >> That's exactly the same as registering it with the [ __ ] trademark office. Yeah. >> Soon as you get it tattooed, I'm first person to get it tattooed on. So, sorry Nike. [ __ ] someone got it tattooed on them in 1940 or some [ __ ] Uh, Gabe and Eric, I appreciate the [ __ ] out of both of you. I think the new record's fantastic. Everyone should go and stream it. Are you touring? When are you turning next or have you not released that? >> Uh haven't released it at the moment. We're playing Warp Tour in November, but yeah. Uh really busy next year that people will see. We're we're in Europe. Yep. >> Uh in October that's announced. >> September, October. >> Yeah, something like that. >> And then Yeah. to to be determined. >> Yeah. Lots of stuff coming though, so keep an eye. We'll be we'll be touring. We were just saying we're going to be touring like, you know, like four or five months a year. It's a lot more than that this year, I think. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would also just like to sign off by saying uh Chris, your calves are magnificent. >> I'm so jealous. I did not know this about you. It has not been addressed, at least from what I've seen. And >> damn. >> Thanks, man. I wondered why you were looking at that angle. I thought it was something else. I would say >> I would say sort of the forearm and calf, the extremities. Oh, yeah. I do well at the extremities. As you get more toward the middle, >> uh less conditioned. Did you get out toward the ends? Very, very lean and very well conditioned. Boys, you're great. The new record [ __ ] slaps. I'm so happy to see you. I thought you crushed it when I saw you at Summer of Loud as well. And uh I'm looking forward to the tour. I'll be there. >> Nice. Thanks for having us. >> Congratulations for making it to the end of a podcast episode without getting distracted. What a wonderful achievement. How about another achievement? Uh this episode, which I also love. Come on.