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Matt Smith: Strike Anywhere and Senses Fail · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Today, I have Matt uh from Strike Anywhere. Uh, Matt,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I'm just super excited for this. This is uh, this
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: is given me a fun time. You know, Strike Anywhere. Uh,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: you know, I was just talking to you just a
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: minute ago about you know, like you you have like
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: kind of grown up or maybe not grown up, but
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: like you know, you're you definitely are like familiar with
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of like the Tooth and Nail and Solid
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: State bands that Colin and I have grown up with. Uh.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: And obviously you know that that's very much the world
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: that Colin and I, uh, you know, we're listening to
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and have obviously interviewed a lot of those type of bands.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: So Strike Anywhere wasn't like a band that I necessarily
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: grew up with, but like have you know, definitely encountered
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: later on and then a like a mutual friend of
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: ours connected with us or connected us, and and here
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: we are, and I just like, like, Strike Anywhere is
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: kind of one of those bands where I'm like, how
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: did I not like hear about you guys earlier. It's
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: just like you know, like you guys kind of came
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: up around that same time as a lot of the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: bands that I you know, grew up with and I'm like, yeah,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: but obviously a lot of that is you know, you
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: guys were not associated with like the tooth and nail
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: scene for the most part, and that's very much the
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: world that my mom was only letting me listen to.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: So there was only probably so many Strike anywheres that
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I was ever going to be able to find when
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I was twelve years old or whatever. So but here
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: we are now, I've listened to you guys, big fan,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: and I'm just excited to chat with you. So well,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: obviously I'll want to talk about you know, we'll want
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: to talk about Strike Anywhere in your history with the band.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: But before we dive into that, how are you doing today?
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: I'm doing great. Yeah, just got back from my son's
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: baseball game.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: They won.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Heck yeah, yeah.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Lovely way to spend an evening. It was a beautiful
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: night out there sitting with some friends watching some baseball.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: So that was good.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Great. I know the band is originally from, uh, from Virginia.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Are you are you still like in the Virginia area then?
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Is that a nice thing?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah? So so we started the band started nineteen ninety
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: nine in Richmond, Virginia, and you know, me and Garthur
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: bass player and Eric our drummer went to BCU and Richmond.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: We kind of just all met kind of you know,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: coming up in the punk and hardcore scene around there.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: And then Thomas our singer a few years older. You know,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: he was in a Banquet Inquisition before before we started,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: and he already kind of you know, they had like
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: had done some touring and you know, had played lots
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: of shows with like, you know, a Veil and you know,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: a bunch of the other like bigger bands and scene.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: They they'd play shows with Hot Water Music, and so
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: we kind of had a little bit of you know,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: we had luckily a little bit of some connections from Thomas.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Everyone was excited about his new band. But we all
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: we all came up the late nineties in Richmond. You know,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: like I used to go see Garth our bass players
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: old straight edge band Count Me Out, and I used
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: to see Eric our drummer's old band, The Exploder play,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: and like everyone just knew everyone from around town. And yeah,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: and then like it was one of those things where
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: everyone from different bands just all kind of got together
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: and tried something, and you know, we each kind of
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: brought another person in and like just somehow it just
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: clicked and you know, started writing songs and it just
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: kind of fell together like pretty quickly.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Cool. Cool, So it definitely feels like a Virginia band,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: like through and through.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So everyone was living in Virginia at the time,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: and then you know, of course, after a handful of years,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: everyone kind of started to spread out, like so I
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: was maybe the first to move away. I moved up
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: to Baltimore. I had some some buzz up there. My
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: buddy Ryan Shelktt. He was in a really awesome band
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: called Cross My Heart on Deep Elm, and you know,
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: I was like starting to tour a lot with Strike Anywhere,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: and I graduated from school and didn't have anywhere to live,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: and he offered me a room for like one hundred
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: and fifty bucks a month or something, and I was like, oh,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I'll move up to Baltimore. So I kind of went
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: up there, hung out with him. We ended up actually
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: starting a band called Liar's Academy that was on Equal
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Vision Records. Oh Sweet, and we put out an EP
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: and two LPs. And I lived up there for about
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: ten years, and then after that I ended up moving
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: on North Carolina, and I'm in Wilmington, North Carolina. I've
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: been here for I don't even know, fifteen years or so.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: So I live here in North Carolina. And Mark, our
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: other guitar player, Eric our drummer, and Garth all live
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: in Richmond. And Thomas has bounced around, he's been all
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: over the place, but he's in Los Angeles.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Oh currently, like the one that's kind of the outlier
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: at this point.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So, like we just got back from Europe
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: a handful of days ago actually, and like we, you know,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: the Richmond guys will generally kind of fly together, but
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: you know, I usually just meet him there because I'm
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: flying from North Carolina and Thomas is coming from the
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: West coast. So we we met up over there and
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: usually do like a one day kind of rehearsal and
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: run through everything before we start playing shows.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: You said you're from Wilming or you live in Wilmington.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Now I got to ask again. Obviously I want to
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: talk about strike anywhere, but I got to ask. One
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: of my favorite comedians in the world right now is
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Nate Bargaski, and one of his like big I don't
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: know if you're familiar with Nate at all, but he
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: he's like maybe the most well known comedian at this point.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: He has like an early early bit from years ago,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: like seven or eight, maybe nine years ago where he
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: talks about going to this reptile place in Wilmington that
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: I think has since closed down. I don't think it's
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: open anymore. Thee Yeah, yeah, the Serpentarium, that's what it is.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: And there's like this like Google review or Yelp review
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: that's like a one star review that is hilarious that
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: he talks about. Uh and and the funny thing is
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: like it's this hilarious one star review that he happened
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: to be like in like he was there when the
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: one start what's happened? And I don't know if you've
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: seen that bit or not, but it's all about that.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: But I'm like one of the snames got out, I
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: guess and tried to like attack the children.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: So that's your takeaway of Wilmington.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: That's the old Honestly, that's the one and only thing
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: I know about you all. Yeah, now you're the second
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: You're the second thing I know about Wilming too.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a it's a fun place.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Well cool, I'm definitely gonna check that out. But yeah,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: it's a great place to live. You know, it's like
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: a smallish to medium size city, you know, kind of
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: on the coast. You know, Raleigh's the nearest kind of
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: bigger city. We have Myrtal Beach down the road, but
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: you know, it's not far from Richmond. When I get
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: up there to hang with the guys and work on
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: songs and all that, and I still have family up
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: in Virginia, so it's it's about four and a half
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: hours for me to get up there. So yeah, it's yeah,
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: it's a great place to live. I live, you know,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: a couple of blocks from the ocean, and heck you nice,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: just pretty pretty chill spot.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Love it sweet. Well, let's dive into Strike Anywhere. I
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: know you just kind of like gave like a very
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: brief submarine of how how it all started. But I
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: can think, even like before diving into like how you
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: got into Strike Anywhere, I'd love to hear just like
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: what got you into music? Like we're are you listening
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: to music earn as a kid, and you were like
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: listening to like guitars and punk and all of that,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: and you're like, I want to do that. Like I'm
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: just curious, like what made you like want to get
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: involved in punk music and rock music to begin with?
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Sure, So you know, my dad had a couple of
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: guitars laying around. My parents always listened to music, they
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: were big music fans.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: And I think it.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Was maybe I was maybe I don't know, eleven years old.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: I would say maybe twelve. I just got kind of
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: got interested in the guitars and like, I you know,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: that was like showing my age here, but that was like,
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: you know, kind of like the end of the hair
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: metal stuff, like right before Drunge was really popping off.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I don't know, I just like kind of
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: became obsessed with the guitar. My dad had a couple
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: laying around. I rented a VHS tape from the public
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: library that was like a guitar instructional video, and that's
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: how I learned kind of all the basic chords, and
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I just kind of taught myself that way and then
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: learned everything else. By year. I had a couple buddies
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: who played guitar that showed me some stuff, but I
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: just became like completely obsessed with guitar by the time
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: I was about twelve, right, and you know, like every birthday,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: every Christmas, it was something guitar related, a new a
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: up or a new guitar or pedal or whatever.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: And I'm curious, I like for those that like started guitar,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: especially at that age that you know, when you're like ten, eleven,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: twelve years old or whatever. I like, I still remember
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: getting my first guitar, man, I think I was like
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: ten or eleven. I actually got an electric guitar right away.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know why my parents let me get an
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: electric before an acoustic, but maybe it's just because like
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: the music I was listening to was like so like
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I couldn't have ever like imagined playing acoustic at the time,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: so my parents allowed me to get an electric right away.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: But I remember I like had there was this guy
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: at like my church who he was like a good
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: guitar player, and he was like like you know, kind
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: of like side hustle, like teaching kids how to play guitar,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and he you know, like you would get this like
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: guitar book whatever, and it was like you literally would
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: play like you know, one note on like a like
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: a fret and it was just like here's the E note,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: here's the G note, but it like wasn't chords. And
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I would imagine a lot of that is like because
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: my hands were probably too small to actually make any chords.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: But I often like think about like it just made
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: me so uninspired to play guitar when I was at age,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: to just play like one little G note and I'm like,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I just want to play under oath, like just teach
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: me how to play that. And I understand that there's
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: like kind of basic building blocks to get to that point,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: like I'm aware of that, but there was just something
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: so uninspiring to me that like that's how I first
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: had to learn. And it wasn't until later that I
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: learned how to like start playing some tabs or played
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: like started learning like basic guitar chords, and I was like, oh,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: like I can actually play like some of these basic
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: chords and that like can actually create this song that
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I actually really like. And that got me way more
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: into guitar than playing some individual notes. But that's interesting
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: that you were like, you know, you're watching this like
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: VHS tape of like probably basic guitar stuff, and you
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: clearly were still into it enough where you probably were
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: learning like basic stuff where you're like, this is not
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: the kind of music I'm listening to, but this is
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: like how yeah.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was songs that I didn't even
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: know at the time. I was like, John, I mean,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: you know, of course the tape was like outdated as well,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: because from the library and this was like I don't
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: even know, very early nineties, so it was probably like
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: it's like a Bruce Springsteen song and like you know,
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: eleanor Rigman by the Beatles, and like you know, I
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: think there was like a John Cougar Mellencamp song or something,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: and like I was just learning the chord shapes right,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: and then after that and then real quick, so my
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: dad he had this amazing guitar that he got. This
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: is a late sixties Gibson.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's really pretty.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Which is a student model and you know, it's like
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: it's a pretty entry level Gibson.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: But it was me it looks very basic looking, but
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: I like that, like the wood tone to it, it's
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: like very pretty.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it had a really low profile neck and
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: like as far as acoustics go, it was a really
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: great guitar to learn on. So I was really lucky
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: to have been able to learn on that. But you know,
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: shortly after that, I was like, I need an electric
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: and I got one, and you know, but I was
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: like into learning classic rock at the time. And you know,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: this is kind of before i'd really discovered punk. Like
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: I knew Fugazi and I knew like a couple other
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: kind of things. But it was probably when I was
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: about thirteen that some like older buddies, I had some
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: older friends that really just like started turning me on
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: to you know, some some more of the kind of
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: like underground just deeper, deeper cut stuff. And that's you know,
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: started with like Fugazi and then Minor Threat and Agnostic Front.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: At the same time, I was into like early Lemonheads
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: when they were like a punk band, and yeah, just
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: kind of started going down that rabbit hole. And that was,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: you know, the same time and Ravana was blowing up,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: and you know, of course I was in all that
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: as well. And then so I started started bands and
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: I started playing bands when I was in eighth through
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: and you know, played like the middle school dance talent
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: show thing or whatever, you know, like with like a
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: little three piece band where we didn't even have a
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: bass players, just two guitars and a drummer. And then
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: you know, by the time I was maybe late freshman
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: high school sophomore, I was just started playing like a
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: three piece band and we would play around town, play
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: the clubhouse in the neighborhood, you know, and like play
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: the Battle of the Bands and the talent shows and
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: all that, and you know, like little just like friends
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: parties and stuff and like kind of never really stopped,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: you know, and I was just that's I was like
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: I knew. I was like, this is what I want
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: to do. I want to play music and I want
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: to play in a band. Yeah, and you know, there's
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: been like a maybe like a year or two where
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: I kind of wasn't really active musically, but other than
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: that of an active you know, playing in a bands
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: my whole life.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm you're mentioning like kind of this like whole
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: culture especially existed in the nineties. I'm trying to think
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: if it really exists. I mean, maybe to some degree
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: it existed in the eighties, or maybe it exists in
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: the eighties in its own way, and maybe even like
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: early two thousands it existed, but maybe I don't know.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's like sort of faded off. But like,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: especially in the nineties, there was this sort of like
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: garage high school rock band culture where like you know,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: all these dudes start picking up the guitar and play
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: in their parents' garage and that's how bands start. And again,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: like maybe it's just like maybe that exists, but just
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: in its own different way now, Like maybe maybe that
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: version is like some kid on their computer playing around
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: with like logic, Like I don't know what it is,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: but that like that has to exist to some degrees,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Like I don't want to be like old man like
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: yelling at the sky kind of thing, but like it's
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: it must exist in its own way now. But like
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: what a like cool time to grow Like I grew
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: up later on in the night, or like I was
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: a kid in the nineties. I grew up more in
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: like the two thousands, early twenty tens, but like what
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: a cool time to like be a teenager in like
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: human history then like the nineteen nineties, Like especially if
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: you're into music, Like what a cool time? Like that's
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: crazy that you could just like pick up with the
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: guitar and start playing it. And if you get good
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: enough at it, you know, like you could have like
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: a successful career playing that thing. That's cool.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it was. It was. It was
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: just such like fun, you know, full of hope, inspirational times.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: And you know, like I grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia,
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: which is like a smaller town outside of you know,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: forty five minutes outside of Richmond's where I grew up
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: to an hour and uh, I mean there was like
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: maybe three or four bands total in the whole town,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: you know, like like between the multiple high schools. So
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: it's not like today. I mean there's probably just you know,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: so much. I mean, I don't know, I don't know
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: what's going on with the young kids these days, to
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: be honest, but but yeah, it was just such like
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: a fun time. And you know, do you go try
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: to get together and record a demo tape on your
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: buddy's four track or something and pass it around to
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: your friends and you know, just playing like little little
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: parties here and there, and I mean it was it
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: was super fun. And and then you know kind of
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: kicked around with a bunch of those bands.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: And then.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: When I really got more into like the hardcore scene
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: in Richmond that was in like the late nineties, and
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: you know, played in a couple of bands that you know,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: didn't really go anywhere, and then I started playing in
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: a band. There was a band that I liked a
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: lot called the Exploder that was from Richmond, and they
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: were kind of like a kind of like first wave
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: scream oh kind of emotional hardcore band, like the kind
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: of like the Ebulition gravity record style bands, and I
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: just I loved them. I thought they were great. I
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: was a big fan. They were a three piece and
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: I remember seeing them and at the time, Eric who's
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: now the drummer Strike Anywhere, was playing drums for him
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: and I was just like blown away by his drumming.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: I love that band a lot. And then they hit
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: me up and asked me to play guitar because Eric
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: had left and the the drummer who moved to guitar
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: was moving back over so there was a guitar slot open.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: So I started playing with that band. And that was
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: the first band that I ever toured internationally with. Who
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: went to Japan I don't even know, two thousand maybe
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: and did a tour over there with this amazing Japanese
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: ban called Envy. I don't know if you've heard Envy.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: They're amazing in the band called Nine Days Wonder. Well, yeah,
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: like what a crazy experience to be you know, twenty
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: or twenty one and first time really going on tour
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: was in Japan.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Well, I often think about this, especially for artists. You know,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: at this point we've interviewed hundreds of artists. There are
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of them where especially when it comes like
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: maybe guitarist or drummers maybe like the people that aren't
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: like maybe the songwriters for example, like ye, and I'm
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: not saying that like me, maybe you are a songwriter
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: in the band or not. I don't know, but you
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: mentioned like I think it's Thomas who sort of it
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: sounds like it's maybe sort of again, I have no
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: idea if like Thomas is like the songwriter, but like
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: there's some sort of like leadership that clearly Thomas has
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: within the band. It sounds like right, And and for
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: those that, like for the band members that like get
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: sort of introduced maybe later on or like maybe even
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: early on, but like aren't necessarily the leader in the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: band when especially if they have experience with other bands
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: and then they get like into this fold of this
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: new band where there's this leader within the band. There's
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: something that I've noticed when I talk to them, And
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: this is kind of the question I'm wanting to ask,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: is there must be something you're identifying in that person
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: we are like, oh, this is different than the other bands,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: like you mentioned just a bit ago, Like you were
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: in these other couple of hardcore bands that like weren't
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: you know, taken off or whatever. And there might be
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: a million different reasons why that was the case, but
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: there must have been something about like once you get
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: into Strike Anywhere and you meet Thomas and maybe some
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: of the other guys in the band, and you're like, oh,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: this has a different feel to it, Like that must
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: be like I'm trying to like think of like different
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: analogies to that. Like I remember, like I played for
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I played high school football. My high school football team
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: was like not great, and fortunately I was like good
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: enough to like get a small little college football scholarship
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: at this tiny little school. But even that like school
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: was like really good, even though it was a small, little,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: tiny school. And I remember like immediately like my first practice,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, this is just different than
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: my shitty high school football team, Like I could just
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: tell right away, like the way. So I'm just curious,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: like was there just something you knew right away where
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, this is just different, Like there's a
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: reason why this is going to go international rather than
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: like stay local.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Well yeah, so like okay, so that band, I don't
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: I'll try to get through this quick because there's a
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: lot there's a lot of history. So this band Exploder
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: that I was just talking about that I had seen
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Eric Are eventually became the drum for striking or playing.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Was really impressed by the bass player Dan Evans from
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: that band. While I was playing the Exploder, was like, Hey,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: I've been jamming with these other guys and you know,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: like we're trying to put together other bands with Thomas,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: you know from Quisition, and I knew a couple of songs.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: I wasn't, like, you know, a huge fan, but I
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: heard him on some compilations and I heard some songs
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: and I remember his voice. I just remember this like
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: huge voice, right, and it's just like it's like kind
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: of raspy but really melodic and sounded just really kind
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: of like endearing and just like you know, just really
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: like honest and rough and great. And then I walk
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: into this practice space to try to like play with
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: this group of guys and you know, Thomas, he's like this,
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: you know, five foot five, like dreadlocked, kind of like
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: small dude. And I was like, that's the guy. That's
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: the voice, you know, like it blew me away that
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: like that was the voice that was coming out of
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: that guy. And yeah, I just remember like hearing him
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: sing and you know, we're trying to write these songs
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: and the melodic sensibility and I was just like, oh wow,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: like this is gonna be this is gonna be great.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: And you know when we started playing, which it came
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: together pretty quick. We started playing maybe in like the
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: spring of ninety nine, I want to say, and by
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: the fall we you know, started playing shows, and yeah,
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know, people just kind of latched onto it quickly.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's a really really charismatic guy and you know,
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: to think the world of him, and like people just
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: listen when he talks, and like generally he has really
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: really amazing things to say, and like people people believe
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: in him, believe in him, you know, and and he
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: can just like kind of uplift the room, and uh,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: it's just it's been really fun to see but so
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: very lucky to have been playing with him for I
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: don't even know twenty six, twenty seven years now. And yeah,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: it was one of those things where, you know, I
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: mean obviously like we never like made it big or
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: anything like that, but we've had you know, limited success,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: and we've been able to kind of continue and continue
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: our career and do like really cool things. We've made
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: tons of friends along the way, and you know, played
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: a couple of thousand shows maybe at this point, I
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: don't even know, and just met so many people and
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: traveled the world, you know, a ton of times. So
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: I'm grateful, grateful for all of it. So, you know,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: the only other kind of like larger scale band that
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: I've done extensive touring with is Sinces Fail.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think it was.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: I think it was in I don't know twenty ten.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Maybe I got a call just randomly one day from
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Jason Black, who's the bass player from Hot Water Music
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: who at the time was playing in Census Fail, And
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: I think he just sent me a text and he
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: was like, hey, would you have any interest you know,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: playing with Census Fail. And I was actually on tour
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: with Striking here at the time in Florida, and I
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: was like, well, yeah, you know maybe, and i'd known
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: the band. So there's a there's a producer in Baltimore.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: His name is Brian mcturna, and he's done thrice records,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: kaven tons of Hot Water Music records, all of our records.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, like his his discography is insane of all
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: the amazing bands he's recorded. And you know, I lived
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: in Baltimore and so whenever the bands would come to town,
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: they would all live at the studio and stay for
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: you know, a month or two months. And Brian was
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: always like, We're going to this baseball game where I'm
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: having a backyard cookout, you know, come hang with the band.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Because I lived up there and me and him were tight.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: So I met since his failed by just like hanging
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: out in his backyard and we like went to an
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Orioles game, and you know, I'd come by and hang
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: out at the studio, and I was just the dude
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: that kind of popped in when every band was recording
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: and just like hung out or went out for beers
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: with them or whatever. So I knew him a bit
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: from that, and uh, but you know, not well, but
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: I knew Jason pretty well because Strake and hot Water
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: had toured a bunch and but yeah, they were like,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: we need a guitar player and do you want to
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: do it? And I was like sure, and it was
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: like not even like an audition thing. It was just like, well,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: here's the dates and here's the shows, and so you know,
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: I talked to Strike any of our guys and I
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: was like, hey, we were kind of starting to slow down.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: We had been hitting it like really hard for a
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: long time and everybody was kind of like burned out
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: and kind of wanted to take a step back. And
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: I was like, well, I want to keep touring. So
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: so I kind of slid over and I did that
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: for I think about six years.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: And with Senses Failed, yeah, wow.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I did a record called Run a Stare
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: and a record called Pull the Thorns from Your Heart,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: which is actually like the really heavy the two really
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: heavy Senses Fail albums in their kellogg and uh, but yeah,
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: it was great, like I'm still I'm still you know,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: great friends with them, texting with Buddy the other day
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: and you know, my good Buddy Gavin is still in
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: the band, and me and him played together in that
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: band for years. There's been some like lineup changes down
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: the road, but awesome guys. But yeah, same thing. Like
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Buddy super charismatic. You know, he's a showman, you know,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: and he can he can kind of have the whole
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: room and like the palm of his hand. And that
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: was another thing. When I started playing those shows, I
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: was like, oh wow, Like these people are like really
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: into this and everyone's like really, he's just super engaged
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: with the crowd, and it's just it was just a
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: really fun show. And you know, we got to play
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: some really great shows and did a couple of warped
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: tours with that band and and it was awesome, and
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: then decided to have a kid. We didn't want to
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: tour full time after that, so twenty sixteen I took
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: a step back from that band. Still buddies with them
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: and uh and then you know, Striking Your still does stuff,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: but we don't tour like we used to.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: We do.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: You know, we'll do like a maybe go to Europe
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: one time a year and then do like some weekend
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: festival stuff and then maybe do like a couple week,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: you know, thing on the East Coast or whatever in
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: the fall, but probably down to like maybe thirty year
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: show so shows a year.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but like I mean that that sounds like just
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: super doable to play that many shows. I imagine like
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: you at probably your peak, you're probably playing close to
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: like two hundred shows a year.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Or probably.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's like, yeah, I mean it was
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: like almost every day of the year. That's crazy.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was crazy. I mean we would
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: do we would play a lot of shows. We would
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: definitely play. Yeah, two hundred hundred and fifty shows a year. Wow,
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: it was a lot. It was a lot. But I mean,
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: you know, when you're twenty six or whatever, it's like
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: you can do that.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Now it's like like we just did ten days and
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: you're a and I'm like, oh, I go home, man,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I'm tired, Like how did I do this for you know,
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: eight weeks? Ten weeks at a time. But yeah, but
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: now it's like, you know, when we do it, it's
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: like it's reward and it's fun and like, you know,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: we genuinely enjoy each other's company in the band, So
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: it's like we get together and it's just like everyone's
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: laughing and yeah, making stupid jokes and like.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: You know, we have it.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: We have a great time.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: And I would imagine like at this point, I again
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: like I'm assuming a lot here, but I'm I'm imagining
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: that at some point you all like kind of have
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: your own other careers outside of the band. So yeah,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: so like it makes it a little easier where you're
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: able to now like you're not doing the band just
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: so that you can put a roof over your head.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Like now the band is like something where it's like,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: when it's convenient for all of us, we're able to
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: actually enjoy it and you know, obviously make a little
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: bit of money from it, you know, or if or
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: or at least break even, but like but it's something
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: where it's like you were doing this because we actually
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: just enjoy it and not because uh we have to
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: you know, put some food on the table.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. And there's a big and you know, and
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: we did it as our job, and it was you know,
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: that was it. We're like, oh, we got to take
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: these tours. We gotta fill the schedule, you know, like
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: it was it got to a point, you know, after
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: a while where we were just pounding the pavement and
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: just playing these shows, and we were taking tours that
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: you know, weren't necessarily like our ideal tours, just like
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: stay busy or you know, like management kind of pushing
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: us to do things outside of our comfort zone because
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: we were trying to get bigger and you know, experimenting
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: and stuff and uh yeah, and at a point we
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: were just like like this, we don't really feel we're
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: getting any bigger, Like we don't feel like we fit
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: in on some of these tours that we're on, and yeah,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: it just it kind of became a job and it
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: was like exhausting, and you know, everybody kind of got
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: burnt out. And then that was when like we were like,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: let's just like chill it out, let's just do some
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: other stuff, and let's just do the fun stuff and
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: make it more about that. So when it stopped being
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: a job and it started just being like this fun
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: reward that we get to do and still you know,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: make a couple of bucks. And now it's just like
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: I look forward to it so much. Yeah, like like
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: it's just yeah, I love it and yeah, and it's
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: just so fun when we do it now because we
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: don't have to do it. We're doing because we want
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: to do it and because we love it and because
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: we enjoy each other's company. And right, people still for
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: some reason care about our band and love the songs,
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: and like you know when you see people coming out
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: that have been coming out for fifteen twenty years and
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: you're like that guy, I remember him man him in
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: two thousand and one, Right it's venue and leads or whatever,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: and like, yeah, it's it's pretty special.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: I will say. Actually that little point that you just
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: make right there where you like you remember the fan
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: you know, you know when you're even in your Europe
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: you know from like twenty years ago or whatever it is.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: There is something special about the kind of music, you know,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the hardcore, underground punk, whatever you want to call it,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: like whatever, like that sort of scene of music. When
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: when when you haven't like transcended to a degree where
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: it's just like it's impossible to almost have any relationship
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: with your fans, like you you all are kind of
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: in this like sweet spot where it's like clearly there's
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: like a dedicated following of fans, and yet it's like
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: not transcendent where you like you don't like you're not
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: able to meet those fans again, and so you're kind
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: of in this like cool sweet spot where like, yeah,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: you met that guy like twenty years ago and like
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: you remember him like that that's a cool thing. And
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: like some artists just get to a point where like
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: that will never be able to be their interaction with
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: fans ever again. And like you all are kind of
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: in this cool little sweet spot where like you get
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: to have that and there's something spect I think there's
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: something special about it. I would call it a sweet spot.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: I like I would not be like I would if
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: I were in you know, what do I know? But
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: like I've never it's not like I've never like I've
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: ever been into that position where like I get to
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: be like a Taylor Swift. But like I can't imagine
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: being like a Taylor Swift and not be able to
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: have like a relationship with my fans if I were
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Taylor Swift in the way that you all are able
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: to have a relationship with your fans.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, like early on, you know, trying to
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: think of an example, Like you know, you show up
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: in a city and you just like run into someone
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: and they're like you guys, are straight anywhere. I love
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: your band, Like I'm coming to the show tonight, and
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: they'd be like, what are you guys doing and be like,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know, we're just walking around. They're like, we're
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: going to show you around, you know, and you end
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: up like spending four hours of this person you never
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: met and they're showing you around the city, and you know,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: you're like renting bikes and riding around or going and
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: grabbing beers or you know, touring you know, like some
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: old like historic site or something, and it's just like crazy.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: And then you know, and then it's just the thing
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: where every time you go through town, you're like, oh, yeah,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: we're gonna hang out with this person. Then we're gonna
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: go do this this time or whatever. And like we
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: just have like I don't know, one hundred or two
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: hundred of those people that we've collected over you know,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: twenty six years that we're like, oh, we're probably gonna
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: run into this person when you go to the city. Yeah,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: you know, cause they're and then like you know, everyone.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Someone those I'll just become really good friends.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely, but you know, coming up and like
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: the kind of like DIY coming up in that in
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: that that's just what it was. It's like these people
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: just become your friends. Or the guy who booked your
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: house show, you know, like now is like you're like
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: my buddy Greg. I hung out with them the other day.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: He booked a house show for us in like two
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: thousand and one, and we like we still talk all
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: the time and you know, and met him through like
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: planet in his house, right.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, it's cool. And again, like I would imagine,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: like I just am not in that like pop world
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: enough or like any sort of mainstream music enough to
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: like know if that exists maybe before as any of
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: those artists go mainstream. Maybe maybe it does, maybe it doesn't,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: But there is just something really special about uh you
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: know an artist, uh just being able to do that.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I think it's really cool. Yeah. I think like maybe
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: the closest we have to like an artist that maybe
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: came up in the same way that like you all
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: kind of came up that now now maybe maybe we
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: would describe as like kind of breaking in the mainstream
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: that maybe has to have like a different relationship with
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: their fans is Turnstile, Like you know, they definitely were
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: you know, they were playing you know you're talking about
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: like you know, living in Baltimore, like they you know,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: they're Baltimore band right through and through, and you know
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: they were probably playing a lot of those like underground
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: shows that maybe like you know, some of those venues
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: that you guys have played in. Uh so you know
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: they were doing a lot of that for years and
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: years and years and then only have recently you know,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: broke into that mainstream where again, like like I was saying,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: like maybe they have to have it somewhat different relationship
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: with their fans, especially maybe off stage for maybe on stage,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I think they still like create that like hardcore ethos still.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: But but anyway, like that's kind of like the closest
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I have or like the closest I can think of
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: of like a band that's in the world that we're
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: kind of in that has a relationship with their fans
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: in that way, but like is maybe sort of getting
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: to that point where it's like transcending it where like
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: they can't have it. But yeah, because a lot of
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of those mainstream bands or mainstream artists,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: they they just kind of initially just get started or
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: they like they get so popular so quickly that they
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: never are able to have that kind of relationship with
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: their fans. Like yeah, like again like you all are
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: and I.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: Love I love I love that about Turnstile.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: It's such like an anomaly for for a band who
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: have like been around for so long, you know, I
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: mean they were around for easily ten plus years, you know,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: and and like in the hardcore scene, playing like you know,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: small dia venues and like you know, no no barricades
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: and like just yeah, it's just it's pretty crazy and
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: cool that you know, they've they've now become.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: What they are, you know, after.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just like so much time kind of existing on
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: the same plane and you know, gradually growing, but then
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: just like man, it's wild. It's wild to see what
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: they've done and like it's really cool. It's really cool,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: and uh you know I know, yeah, I know, it's
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: like important and it's like now like they're that band
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: that's like bring a lot of people in, you know,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: they're the band that's like yep, like I remember I
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: saw I saw a kid at the skate park. I'm
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: very old and I still skateboard, which is like sometimes
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: I feel like it's foolish, but uh, but I just
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I love it so much. And I remember seeing like
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: a younger kid with a Turnstile like t shirt on
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: at the skate park and I was just like, I
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: was like, hey, have you ever heard of a I
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: was like you ever heard of like Trapped under Ice?
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: And they were like no, and I was like, well
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: you should check it out.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: I was like, you know, the the singer of Turnstyle
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: plays drums and Trapped under Ice and like, you know
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: you might like it, and like it's just I mean,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: that's how I learned about music, you know, Like you
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: had someone older was like, oh you would this band
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: that you have this shirt on?
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: Well, like have you ever heard of this?
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Like I remember, like you know, I was in like
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: you guys no matter a threat And this guy was like,
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: oh man, you got to check out Diagnostic Front.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: He's like you got to check out Gorilla Biscuits and
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: like I was just like whoa what are these? Like
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: you write them down?
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: You know, and like you know, at those days, you
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: didn't have Spotify, so you had to go like you
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: had to get like a tape off your buddy or
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: you had to go and like order this.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Like your your your friend's older brother was the Spotify Yeah,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and like that was like that, Like the fans also
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: like that was your friend's older brother, that's that's that's
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: what Spotify's fans also like.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: Was it was that that was then compilations. Compilations were
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: huge back then, so like you would get like a
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: label compilation or someone put out some like you know,
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: hardcore compilation, and then you'd be like, whoa, who are
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: all these other bands? And like that was you know,
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: that's how you found.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Out about stuff then, and and it was like, yeah,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: it was pretty it was a pretty pretty cool way
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: to like discover things. And and you know, like you
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: bought an album, you couldn't just stream it, so like
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: if you didn't love it, you're like, I'm gonna keep
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: listening to this record. I'm gonna make sure that that's
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: I don't love it, you know, and sometimes you eventually
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: you'd be like, Okay, this is great, and then you
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: would read the liner notes.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: That was the other thing.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: So like you'd open up the CD booklet or whatever
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: and you'd see the thanks and they would thank all
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: these other bands, right, and then you'd write those band
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: names down.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: You're like, well, I gotta and then you would look them.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Up and then discover them and like the just kind
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: of like yep, grew exponentially that way.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it is cool and and to some degree
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: like that kind of exists and obviously like in different
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: technologies now, but you know, obviously Spotify being a big
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: part of that. But I think one thing, and obviously
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I want to like keep talking about Strike anywhere, but
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: you bring up this like really cool point of like
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: you know, you saw like this kid wearing this Turnstile
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: shirt and like you hadn't heard Trap under Ice. What
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: I will say about Turnstile that I think a lot
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: of us who maybe are you know you you probably
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: especially feel this way where you're sort of like veteran,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: like a veteran of of like the hardcore world, like
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm over three, I'm thirty one now, and I
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: like I definitely like feel like I'm the old guy
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: now in that world. Especially if you go to like
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: a Turnstile show it. They do a really good job
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: I think to some degree of like introducing especially they're
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: like dedicated face to other hardcore bands, Like it doesn't
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: seem like they're gatekeepy or it doesn't it doesn't seem
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: like they're kind of the type of band where they're
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: not really good at like introducing fans to like other bands,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Like they they don't have that kind of vibe in
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: my opinion or at least from what I've seen. And
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: so what's really cool again, like about Turnstiles especially like
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: some of those older bands that they were really influenced by,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: you know, some of those bands that like those guys,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: those band members might be in their forties or fifties
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: now like really you know, like nineties bands that those
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: all all those like Turnstile guys grew up with. Like
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: now some of those like young gen Z fans that
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: like love Turnstile are now going to those like old
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: shows like you know where they're like watching these guys
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: that were like in their forties and fifties and we're
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: like in their heyday in the nineties. Like it's just
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: it's cool, like how that kind of gets passed down
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: and it's I don't know, there's just something really cool
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: about that within the hardcore scene, where there's just this
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: like passing down that continues to happen, and even in
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: those moments where we're like this feels like this could
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: end at any moment and it just like but it
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: keeps happening, like there's just another band, there's another turnstyle
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: that like kind of pops off and it kind of
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: like it just hands it down and there's just something
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: cool about that with hardcore I think.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely absolutely.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: So let's keep talking about Stark Anywhere. Okay, So you
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: know you talked about you know, just kind of like
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: the heyday, you know, early years. All right, so the
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: last full length album was two thousand and nine. You
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: all did release an EP in twenty twenty or sorry,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, so it's been a few years since
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: there's been new music. It's been a number of years
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: now since full EP. I'm just curious, like, you know,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: you all are still like playing a number of shows
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: each year. Yeah, just like in terms of just like
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: actually creating music. And I'm not saying that like you
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: have to like spill anything about like new music or anything,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: but just for you, like your own like maybe even
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: for you personally, Matt, Like, what what is it in
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: terms of like new music that you would love to
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: see from Stark Anywhere, if if that's a thing, like
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: is that like would you love to write new music?
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Is that like a thing that's on the radar. I'm
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: just like curious, like, yeah, what in terms of new
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: music since it's been a hot second, Like what does
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: that look like for you?
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Funny you should ask, you know. We just recently did
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: just a quick, little, like kind of long weekend of
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: shows in the Northeast.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: The first show is in Baltimore.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: We played the Autobar, one of my favorite venues of
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: all time, and so, you know, we had that weekend
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: on the books and we hit up Brian McTurnan, who's
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: the producer we've worked with on like the one I
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: was speaking about.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Earlier and that, Yeah, I was the one you're talking about,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: We hit them up and we were like, hey, you know,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: we got these three shows we're starting in Baltimore, Like,
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: there any chance you have any open time on your schedule,
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: maybe we could come in and like maybe we'll just
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: like try to record like one or two songs because
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: with Nightmares of the West, the last thing that we
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: released twenty twenty two or whenever it came out, I
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: don't even know twenty twenty who knows, but we we
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: just like booked like five days or something. Let's just
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: go in and see what we can do. We're like, man,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: if we wait to do an LP, who knows when
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: this is going to happen.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: Let's just go in. So we went in and we
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: just like blasted those songs out and we spent you know,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: less time than we had in the past.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: We're very lucky with a lot of our LPs that
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: we done with Brian to where we were able to
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: go in for you know, weeks or a month at
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: a time or whatever and like really dig into the songs.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: But that one we did like kind of the quick
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: and dirty recording session and it came out great and
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: I love it, but you know, we didn't really get
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: to like dig in deep. It was just like, go in,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: here's the songs, here's like some demos, let's just get takes.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: And we did it and I do love that EP.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: It came out great. So we hit up Brian recently.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: We wrote there, I don't know, a month two months ago,
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: and we want to do the same thing. We're like,
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: let's just try to get like one or two songs.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Because the cool thing about this new era of music
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: and like Spotify and everything being the digital age, you
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: can put out a digital single.
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: You can put two songs on Spotify.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: You know, you could press it as a seven inch
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: if you want, and then do it digitally. You don't
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: have to do an LP, you know, like you had
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: to back in the day. We have to have thirteen
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: songs or whatever and it has to be this. So
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: we were like, well, maybe we can go in and
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: just you know, maybe we can get like one or
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: two songs. We can just throw it up to have
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: something new, and then we can go back and record
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: later we can kind of like put together an EP
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: or whatever.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: But thankfully Brian with uh with his wisdom, he.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Was like, you know what if we just like go
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: in the studio and kind of work on these songs
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: and like we don't try to just kind of get
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: some stuff recorded real quick and like rush. And he's like,
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: let's just like try to get some really good demos
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: and just kind of dig into the songs.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: And so we went in.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: I think we had five or six that we all
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: kind of collectively. It's like everybody picked one or two
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: and we went in. I think we had like three
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: or four days in the studio before we did these shows,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: and it was crazy. It was just like this creative
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: burst where like all of a sudden, we got through
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: the five or six that we all wanted to work on,
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: and we got like, you know, good quality.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: Demos of them, and then we're like, what else do
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: we have?
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: And we started going back through you know, like emails
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: and voiced memos, and we started just pulling other stuff
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: out and kind of all we're just like working on
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: it together, and you know, Brian was putting in some
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: input as well, and like we left with eleven demos,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: which is which you know, I thought we were gonna
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: get maybe six, and we we got eleven, and like,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: I you know, I still like the songs.
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, they do need they still need a little
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: bit of TLC.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: But it was like the most activity we've had creatively
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: as a band since two thousand and nine or you
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: know whatever.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: We really set Olpeace. We're like, wow, like we could
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: do a record.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: So now we're just trying to figure out when we
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: can get back together because you know, we live.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: Spread out and everyone has jobs and families and stuff.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: So the hard thing is is the time right But
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: you know, this summer hopefully, I'm not promising anything, but
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: you know, our plan is to like try to try
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: to you know, maybe bring in a couple more and yeah,
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: see hopefully if we can do an olpe. So I
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: mean the plan is to maybe try to do something
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: this summer, you know.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: So that's sick, Yeah, that would be I think, like
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: I think, like you know, I've heard this from like
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: other bands too, where especially bands that you know have
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: been around for twenty maybe thirty years even is like
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: it's kind of this weird dynamic where you know, when
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: you're like in your early twenties, you have nothing else
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: going on, Like you're able to like pump out a
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: bunch of albums because there you have nothing else but
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: like tour and write and record, right Like, there's just
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: you have nothing else but time to do that. But
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: then like once you get into that period of life
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: where like maybe you start having families and like you know,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: other jobs and everything like and you start getting spread out,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: like then it just makes it a little bit more
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: difficult to do that part of it. But the benefit
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: now is like where we are are, where we're at
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: right now in the day and age is now, like
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: you know, in your spare time, like you could be
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: right in that riff and you're like God, that's a
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: really cool riff. Like let me like now record it
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: really quick on my iPhone. That sounds really cool and
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: then send that over to my buddies in the band
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: and then they're like, oh that like okay, that's like
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: I got this drum part that I've been working on
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: that like fits and all of a sudden, not like
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: you've got this song that you're writing like between like
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: two thousand miles apart from each other. And like so
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: while like there is that like downside of like the
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: fact that you're not able to be in the same
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: room together constantly like you were in your early twenties,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: there is something to be said about like just the
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: technology makes it way easier than it probably was like thirty.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: Years absolutely, like I used to do it.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: I don't even yes back there, but I had an
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: old school cassette recorder, right and I would like use
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: that and I would record next to my amp and
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: that and then I would take that and I would
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: have to like you know, give the tape to Thomas
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: or something, or i'd have to use it as a
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: reference in the practice space to like remember the part.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: To show it.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: But yeah, so now you know, I'm in my home
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: office here and I work from here as well. But
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: I also have like a ton of guitars and amps,
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: and I've got like pro tools rigging all that.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: So you know, when I'm taking.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: A break from work or you know, it's just a
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Saturday morning sitting around, I'll grab a guitar and plug
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: in and just try to call up with something. And
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: but yeah, you're right, You're exactly right. Just iPhone voice memo.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: If I can get something where it's like a verse
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: and a chorus part, or just even like a cool
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: breakdown or whatever, and then once I can get it
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: to where it's maybe like a verse in a chorus
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: or a breakdown or a bridge or whatever, just send
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: that over to Thomas and you know, and then he
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: will he throws it in garage band and he jams
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: on it, and then he'll he'll send back ideas, and
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: you know, sometimes you're like, I don't know, but sometimes
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: you're like, wow, this is really cool, and just one
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: guitar and one vocal, You're like you can see the
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: potential already, and then based on the strength of that,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: the whole band kind of like it's like, oh yeah,
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: that one's gonna be good, or like let's work on
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: that one first, or like I'm really excited about that one.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: And then when we finally all get in the room together.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: And so sometimes Thomas is still in la and I'm
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: in Richmond with the rest of the band, and we're
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: in the practice space getting the music together for the
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: song that you know, Thomas has a vocal idea for
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: that he's working on California. So then we'll do like
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: an iPhone full band recording of the song, send it
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: to him, and then he sings over the full band
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: recording in garage band, and then that becomes the demo
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: that we're like, Okay, let's like take this into the studio.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's like basically what the National does.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Like the rest of the band records all the music,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: and then like Matt Berenger, he just he starts singing
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: over it. Like from my understanding, actually the way he
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: comes up with the lyrics is he'll like I could
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: be wrong, could be totally wrong. This. The rumor that
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: I've heard is that like the band will send him
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: like music that they've recorded, He'll put it in his
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: car and then he'll just drive around for a couple
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: hours and then like sing over it and that's how
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: he comes up.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: With the lyrics. That's that's a.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: Great way to do so, Like, I mean, that's essentially
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: what you got y'all are doing. Like maybe Thomas already
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: has like lyrics written, but like that's essentially what you're doing.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think it's a combination. I think
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: sometimes he has you know, I don't want to speak
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: for him, but I think sometimes he has, you know,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: a lot of ideas. He's had notebooks of just like
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: kind of lyrics and you know, themes that he wants
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: to wants to bring in, and so he'll have some
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: stuff that he can kind of tailor to the song.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: But I'm sure.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: Sometimes he just listens to it and he's just writing
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: stuff on the spot that he thinks. Yeah, so I
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: think it's a combination of both. But but yeah, I
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: mean there's no better way to do it than just
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: like blast it in your car and trying to sing
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: or scream along with it.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, I get it. I get it. I
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: mean I do that to other people's So all right, well,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: speaking of Thomas, and I definitely want to like dive
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: into like top influential albums for you. But I remember, like,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: you know, we were talking about this just a little
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: bit ago, I think maybe even before we recording. But
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: you find Thomas very inspiring, especially when it comes like
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: obviously Strike Anywhere as a band that like very like
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Thomas's lyrics are like for the most part, very overtly
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: like political in a lot of ways, you know, talking
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: about lots of different political issues. And yeah, I'm just
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: like you talked about like how Thomas. You know, there's
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: maybe a version of a band or like a like
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: a vocalist or a lyricist in a band where you
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: know it's very political, but it's kind of like pessimistic
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: or it feels like very like you're the problem, like
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: you like a yelling at the crowd, you know, Like, yeah,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: it's kind of that, But you talk about Thomas like
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: he does it in a very different way, and I'm
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: just I don't know, like I'm curious to like hear
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: a little bit more about like what you mean by that,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: like how you receive Thomas's like very political stancet, Like
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: I'm just curious, Like, yeah, I just find that the.
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: Way that you know, the way that he.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: You know, talks about the content of the songs in
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: between the songs. It's just done in like a very
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: kind of like inspirational, like kind of we got this
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: vibe right Like it's like and you know, and it
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: can it can start with like a little bit of frustration.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: He's yelling and he's mad.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: About he's about it, you know, but then it's like
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: a we're gonna do this, we got this, and it's
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: just yeah, I don't know, it's just something about his
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: delivery has just really connected with a lot of people,
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: and it's like, you know, he's he's a pretty unassuming fellow,
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: you know, like he's he's a smaller guy with a
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: giant voice, you know, and he just has this he
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: just kind of emits this aura that people just want
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: to listen to what he has to say, and he
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: does it in a way that like makes a lot
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: of people listen. And like, there's so many times that
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: I'll talk to someone or someone be like, man, I
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: love your band so much, and they'll be like, you know,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: you guys were the first band that made me like
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: think about these things differently, or like you were the
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: band that kind of shifted you know, my thought on
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: some of these like you know, these issues, and that's
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: just a really that's it's really cool to hear that,
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: you know, and it's not my lyrics. I'm not the
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: one out there talking in between songs, but you know,
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: we're part of the band and we're all kind of
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: the united front and just really it's just really cool
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: to like been in the back seat watching him do
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: his thing for so long.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really cool. And it takes like a certain
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: skill set, you know, especially with the kind of like
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: political issues that he's talking about. Like I think there
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: probably is this innate, this innate tendency to like be
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: pestimistic and kind of just carry that forward, but to
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: be able to talk about those things in a way
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: where it's like we got this, like we can do this,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: like we can make this change that. Like that sort
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: of hope and optimism is something that you often don't
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: hear in that world. And and so it's really cool
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: when that comes very explicitly forward from somebody is like,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, shit, like I can actually like I can
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: be part of this, Like I like I I can
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: be involved in this, like this can matter to me
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: and I can like do something about this. And that
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: that's a that's a skill set, like not everybody can
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: do that, and the fact that like Thomas has that
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: ability is like that's important. Like we need that kind
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: of person the moment for sure. So that's really cool.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: And I love the fact that like even for the
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: band members that've probably heard it for nearly thirty years,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: like y'all, y'all still you y'all. I mean it sounds
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: like you're still inspired by him in some ways. So
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. And you've heard it for thirty almost
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: thirty years.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: Oh god, Yeah, it's a long time.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's been a long time. So that's cool that.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I just find that really cool. And yeah, again, like
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the things that he's talked
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: about are things that, yeah, have become really important for
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: me as well in my own life. And yeah, I
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: just like I just find it really impressive and like
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: the vibe that I've gotten from him, like you're sort
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: of confirming that for me. Like obviously I've never met Thomas,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: but like you're confirming that for me, and like that's
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: that's really cool to me.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was hoping we could have you know, the
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: time change and everything wasn't possible. I was hoping we
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: could link up while we were over there so I
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: could get him in on this as well when we
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: were just on tour. Yeah, like five hours ahead and
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: you're Central time and six hours ahead.
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: It's just challenging, but.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, is what it is? So cool? Well, yeahs for
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: thanks for trying about the history of the band. Let's
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: dive into your top five most influential albums. I know
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: this can be a little bit challenging, but yeah, like
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: the albums that maybe aren't necessarily your favorite, but the
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: albums that maybe have changed you shaped you as a person,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: could be even a Strike Anywhere album if you want.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: Okay, just kind of shooting from the hip here.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: So you know, right before I kind of got really
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: into the punk in hardcore world, I got super into, like,
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: you know, some of the britpop stuff that was going on,
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: and I just really really connected with the Smiths so
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: much when I was like a young teen and like
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: maybe like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and like, there's still one
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: of my favorite bands of all time, and Johnny Marmer's
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: guitar playing is just exceptional and like very outside the
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: box and not like, yeah, not really intuitive to the
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: way that I play, but it's taught me a lot
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: about like picking out all the notes in the chord
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: or pigeos, like how to ring how to use these
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: like fuller chord shapes and pick.
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: Out and ring out strings, and like I've.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: Lifted a fair amount of that into my guitar style,
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: which like you wouldn't think would fit into Strike Anywhere,
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: but like it's a lot of like sad minory chords
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: and you know, picked out kind of.
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: Like a.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like you got to lean into a
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: little bit more with like senses failed, just with the
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: fact that like since it's Fail kind of has a
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: little bit more of this, like like I don't know,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: there's kind of like more I don't know, a little
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: bit more of this kind of emo vibe.
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: I don't know for sure.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: And like like I think I mentioned it, but the
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: maybe we were chatting earlier, but the air of the
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: band that.
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: I played in was like really heavy air. So it's
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: all like a drop see that's true. But I mean
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: I played all the other you know, all.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: The other older songs live, but but yeah, it was
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: Strike Anywhere, Like I just tried to channel a little
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: bit of like Johnny Mars the guitar playing that I love.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: But so Smith's Louder than Bombs, which is a compilation record,
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: it's not a real record, but I mean that still
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: is like all time. You know, that's got to be
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: in my top three. I would say, let's see. Uh
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: So on the same tip, Billy Bragg. I don't know
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: if you're familiar with Billy Bragg, but he's like a
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: British kind of like a punk adjacent folk kind of
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: a singer, and you know he had a lot of
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: he started in the eighties and he was kind of
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: like adjacent to the Smith.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: What was he sort of like a I always forget
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: if they were British or not, the the the Chumbawonga band,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Like were they British?
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Was he like sort of a precursor to that, because
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: like when I think of like folk punk left Wings, yeah,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: well kind of like I think.
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: For this, he's like very much kind of like just
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: like a.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: It's just like a one guy with a guitar singing
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: some songs about some important shit and also like some
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: sad shit and uh yeah, I don't know, he's just
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: I just always loved I've always I've always loved him,
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: and that was another one that when I was like
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: coming up into and like really discovering music, Billy bragged
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: Back to Basics, which is also another compilation of some
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: early EPs, but like that is just absolutely out of
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: the park, Like listen to it thousands of times. It's
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: something I'm always gonna put on.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: Check it out. Minor Threat discography, I mean, you can't
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: go wrong.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: Like they were so young when they when they recorded
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: that record, and like just the energy and the anger
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: and like it doesn't get really any better for me.
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: It's like it's crazy, like it's just absolutely perfect and
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: perfectly raw, and like it just I don't know, And
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: like being from the East Coast, they were just up
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: the road in DC, so it kind of like resonated
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: as like they're kind of like a regional band, you know,
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: Like it felt like like a little sense of like
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: pride from them being from kind.
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: Of our area.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: But yeah, absolutely biggest fan of that. Got a little
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: bit more outside the box with this one. Alison Chain's
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Dirt Absolutely that's a great Pagans guitar playing is just insane,
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: and I mean I like their other stuff as well,
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: but like that record I recently like sought it out
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: and got it on vinyls, like I have to have this,
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: and I just still listen to it and just gets
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: me fired up.
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: It's just so good.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Wow. Wow. If if it's good that Colin's not on
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: this this interview, because if you would have brought up
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Alison Chains and we're on video, YouTube would have demonetized
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: our video. I'm just saying, like, that's how much Colin
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: loves any like sort of sound Garden, Alison Chains, like
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: any that kind of vibe of like eight nineties girl.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Culin gets us demonetized because not not just what he says,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: but what he does on cammonetized. So it's good that
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: he's not here.
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: All right. So that's four, I think. So I got
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: one left. I'm gonna go with.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: Kid Dynamite. First album self titled Are you Familiar with
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: Kid Dynamite? So there from there from Philadelphia. They were
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: on Jadetree Records, which is the label that Strike Anywhere
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: put out your first couple LPs on, and like I
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: remember getting their first LP. It was right before Strike
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: Anywhere started, And I love that band so much because.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: At the time I was like.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: Pretty into hardcore, and the hardcore world was like really
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: kind of serious, and like that record came out and
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: it was so fun. It was like you took all
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: these amazing elements of punk rock and mixed it with
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: like you know, kind of like youth Crew hardcore, and
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: they just blended it up so well into this really melodic,
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: awesome package of these explosive songs that are just ridiculously short.
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: One song starts, the other one starts immediately, like just
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: it just I was like, this is awesome.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: I was like, I want to play in a band
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: that is like somewhere near this world. And it kind
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: of like inspired me to write some of the riffs
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: and parts that became some of the first Strike Anywhere songs.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: But like, you know, became friends with those guys, played
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: with them, know them from the other bands, and it
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: was just like became part of the Jade Tree family.
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: But like, I just love that album so much and
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: it kind of just like inspired me to want to
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: do something similar and you know kind of like put
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: me a little bit onto the path that I'm still
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: somehow on today.
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: So really huge important record for me. Check it out
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: if you haven't heard it. It's so good, so catchy.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: I'm curious about your experience with this. This might be
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: a longer conversation, so if we need to keep moving forward,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: that that's fine. But I often think about, like, you know,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: with doing this podcast, I've met so many being and
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: so many artists that have been so important in my
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: life for a long time, and at some point, I
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: remember maybe early on there was kind of this like starstruckness,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: but at some point it's just like you meet enough
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: folks where you're just like, all right, yes, you were
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: really important to me, and also like I kind of
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: just like know how to be around you, Like I
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: just like know how to do the like podcast kind
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: of thing. Did Like was that like a dynamic that
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: you had to like navigate at some point where you're like,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: oh my god, like this is a band even though
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: like they're probably a small band, like in terms of
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: like you know what, you know, they're on ja tree,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: Like we might think of like, wow, that's like the
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: biggest band ever, but like they're really not h But
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: like I would imagine like when you're young, when you're
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: like in your teenage years whatever, like you're listening to
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: this band, You're like, this is so important to me,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: and then you meet them for the first time, and
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: then now you become label mates or whatever, and you're like, god,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: this is so cool. But at some point, like that
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: kind of cools down, if you will. Like I don't
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: know how to describe it, but like I don't know
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: what that experience for you at all, Like where you're like, oh, wow,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: these are all these bands I love and now I'm
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: like touring with them on the same label as them.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: Was that like a thing where you kind of had
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: to like re figure out your relationship to them or
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: like you had to like figure out like how do
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: I be okay, Like like how do I do this?
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Even though I know for a fact like I would
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: not be a band or I would not be a
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: musician without the yeah.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: You know, and thankfully, most of my experiences with that
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: are extremely positive, right, Like you know, like ah, man,
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: like right right, you know, and like at some point,
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: you know, you're like, oh man, after you get to
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: know people, you're like you know that first record, man,
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: it really just like you know, like you always got
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: to kind of just establish the friendship first, and then
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: you can learn out about like how important stuff was.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: To you or whatever. But you know, generally, and you know,
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: most of the.
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: Time, you know, everybody's just super cool and down to earth,
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: you know, especially like in the scene that we're in,
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: and you know, occasionally you'll meet a band you're like, oh,
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: I kind of wish I never met those guys, Like
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: I wish I could have just like yeah, the record.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: But you know, ninety percent of the time, ninety five
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: percent of the time, it's like you've become like buds with.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: Them, and then you're like, oh wow, now like we're
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: buddies with this band that was so.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: Important to me, and like, yeah, you know, old old
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: friends and you know, we we've had that happen, you know,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: so long ago. We've maintained these friendships with like awesome bands.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: But yeah, just you know, luckily, most of the bands
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: that you know, I've looked up to as kid and
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: or you know, records have been really important to me.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: I've met the people and you know, they've just been
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: awesome people and a lot of them have become friends. Yeah,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: and it's just it's it's really cool when that happens.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: And uh, yeah, you know, and we've we've also gotten
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: to be that band for other bands.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: As well, which which is really.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: Cool and and you know, like people still I still
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: meet people all the time and they're like, man, like
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: you guys such an important band for me, and you
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: know it really turned me on to like this whole
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: world or whatever, and it's just yeah, I mean I
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: don't take that lightly, and you know, I know how
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: it feels from both sides, and it's just like a
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: pretty special thing. And yeah, I just love like this
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: weird world that we're involved in in music.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's super cool. So cool. Well what do you
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: want to plug?
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: So?
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: You know, obviously it sounds like music is on the horizon,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: like I would imagine you all are in early stages
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: where there's no definitive date or anything like that. But
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: it sounds like music is on the horizon. But shows
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: are happening right like you all just were in Europe.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know if there's like other upcoming shows, but yeah,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: like what do you want to plug about? Strike anywhere
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: or anything else you want to plug?
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so pretty excited.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: We just announced I think it was yesterday, we have
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: a fall tour with the Balancing Souls, who are like
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: really old.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: Friends of ours.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: We've first toured with them, and I don't even know
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: two thousand and three, maybe we did a big tour
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: with them then, and we've become like pretty close and
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: we've played countless tours and shows.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: With them now over the years. So we've got a
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: tour with them in the fall.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: It's the Bouncing Souls and Suicide Machines and Strike Anywhere.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: And the leg that we are on the opener is
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: this Pan Human Issue, which I'm excited.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: To check out. But uh but yeah, so that's gonna
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: be fun. It's East Coast and Midwest.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: The leg that we're on of the tour, but it's
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: like a two week thing, and really looking forward to
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: that and then hopefully just kind of like fill in
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: some other kind of festival stuff here and there and
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: keep working on songs and uh yeah, doing our thing.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: Love it, love it. Sweet. Well, I don't know if
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: you'll be in the Twin Cities at all during that
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: Midwest portion, but if you are, I would love to
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: see you all. It would be it would be such
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: a fun time, you know.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah I can't, Yeah, I would.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: I would need to look I haven't looked yet, but
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: it'd be'ink.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: I think like Chicago or maybe Milwaukee or something is.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: You know, there have been a lot more shows in Milwaukee,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: at least the bands that I really like, they seem
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: to be like Milwaukee or Mad Sin that have been
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: like kind of the stop between the Chicago Denver stop
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: that happens all the time, or like going down to
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: like Des Moines or something that happens a lot. But
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know. There's just a lot of bands that
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: are just skipping over Minneapolis over the last year, and
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what's going on here? What's going on?
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: We've had some fun, We've had some phone ones in Minneapolis,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: we used to play there all.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Minneapolis has got a great punk scene too, So
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: like what in the world?
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely?
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so cool. Well I'm looking forward to that, you know,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: whether I see it or not, I'm looking forward to
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: it and I'm sure lots of folks will will love it.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: So anything else you'd like the plug?
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: Matt, No, not really at this time.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: I do have another fun punk band based out of
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: here in Wilmington called Evening Shadows.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: We have an LP and we have an EP on Spotify.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: Check it out. It's members. There's a band from here
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: in Wilmington. Called asg that I like a lot.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: They're on the label called Relapse and really good buds
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: of mine. And a couple of those guys playing this
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: band Evening Shadows with me now from Strike Anywhere has
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: been playing guitar in that band as well. But you know,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: we we generally just kind of play around here regionally.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: But but yeah, we've got and we've got an EP
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: and an LP on Spotify check it out.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: Nice. Is that guy that owns the Serpentarium or used
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: to own this is he in the band by any chance?
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: No? Uh no, but yeah, I'll have to look him up.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: You know, he sounds like a guy that probably would
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: have lead singer syndrome, So I just figured maybe he
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: was just like the lead singer of the band.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: But what do I The lead singer of the band
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: is my good buddy, Matt Hurd.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: He doesn't own any snakes. He doesn't own any venom mistakes, right.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: No venomous snakes. He does own our local, our local
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: kind of like punk metal venue here called Reggie.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: Of course, of course he does.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: And he's he's a wild he's a wild card and
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: a dear friend. But yeah, no snakes.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: Wow, you know what I don't know what that guy
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: from Wilmington that was owning that serpentorium, I don't know
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: what he's up to these days, but God bless him.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: And uh, you know, maybe maybe he's in like the
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: competing bunk punk band. Like maybe maybe he's in like
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: that that like capitalist punk band or something that you
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: guys have to like rivalrous. Who knows, and we'll look
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: them up.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna see what he's up to this day.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: Well, Matt, thank you so much for chatting about Strike Anywhere.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: Just yeah, I love love the music that I've listened
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: to so far, Definitely excited to dive more into the
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: dis discography. And yeah, love the fact that, you know,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: after all these years you all are still around, still
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: playing shows. I would imagine back in nineteen nine nine
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: you probably couldn't have ever envision that. Here you are,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: almost thirty years later, at least over twenty five years later,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: we're still playing shows. And you're traveling Europe and you're
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: playing the Midwest, and you're playing all around the country,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: and here you are, you're still doing it. And I
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: think that's you know, shows like that, the music stands
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: the test of time, and that's like the power of music,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: and it's just really cool that you're making that kind
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: of music and your music, you know, stands the test
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: of diamond and that's the power of it. So it's
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: just really cool.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much. Yeah, it's been a great.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: Chat with you. Also