Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 800 - Matt Harvey and Gruesome Returns with "Silent Echoes" - A Brutal Tribute to Death and Sean Reinert

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 800 - Matt Harvey and Gruesome Returns with "Silent Echoes" - A Brutal Tribute to Death and Sean Reinert · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  I look back on the music that I loved as a kid and it seems
• 0:02
  like, you know, from 8th grade until graduating high school
• 0:05
  seemed like forever. But it's like that as an adult,
• 0:08
  you turn around, you know, I mean, like we went seven years
• 0:11
  between Gruesome albums. You know, that's a high school
• 0:14
  and a half almost, you know, So it's like you need to to get it
• 0:17
  done and you need to sort of be in the moment because that's
• 0:20
  sort of part of what makes projects work.
• 0:23
  It's not just that the material is good, the execution is good,
• 0:27
  the artwork is good, the marketing is good.
• 0:30
  It's also the time and the context in which all of this
• 0:33
  stuff happens is, you know, and that's something you can't
• 0:36
  control unless you you know, the only control you have is getting
• 0:39
  it done. What's up everybody?
• 0:48
  It's your boy Kefi from ghostcultman.com.
• 0:51
  And like a movie villain, we meet again.
• 0:54
  Matt Harvey. I'll twirl my mustache a little
• 0:57
  bit. For you.
• 0:58
  Yeah, right. Yeah, but that was right.
• 1:01
  You got to do that. So, man, like I just said,
• 1:03
  another, another season, another album.
• 1:04
  We're here to talk about Gruesome's new album, Silent
• 1:07
  Echoes, out now as we record this.
• 1:09
  This will run sometime after. Congrats, Killer.
• 1:12
  New album on Relapse. Relapse what a you know, just
• 1:15
  the perfect place in general. You've got a long association
• 1:18
  with the label, but also for this project, super cool and
• 1:21
  super important that it be, you know, the home of death and and
• 1:24
  a lot of heavy things about this record, but a lot of great
• 1:26
  things to talk about about this whole album as well.
• 1:28
  Well, thank you for the kind words.
• 1:30
  Yeah, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm very, I'm excited that it's out.
• 1:33
  It's also kind of a relief after all this time.
• 1:35
  So yeah, it's good. I, I don't think I've ever asked
• 1:38
  you this. I know we just, we just said how
• 1:40
  you know how hard working and hustling you have to be to be a
• 1:43
  working musician in this day and age.
• 1:45
  You know at what point, you know, you write a record, you
• 1:47
  work with your different bands and you collaborators.
• 1:50
  Is it hard for you to say this is enough, this is done?
• 1:53
  And do you leave a record and come back to it to go tour and
• 1:56
  feel like, oh, I could have did more?
• 1:58
  Do you ever have like leftover stuff that doesn't get to come
• 2:01
  out? I know you have so many
• 2:02
  different projects, but I wonder if you ever experienced that.
• 2:05
  I don't think I've ever asked you this.
• 2:06
  I mean, there's always more riffs and more ideas, but you
• 2:10
  know, generally I like to sort of be done.
• 2:13
  And especially with, you know, death metal, having been
• 2:16
  involved in it for so long and playing it for so long and
• 2:19
  stuff, you know, at this point, I feel very comfortable.
• 2:23
  Just I'm like, OK, that's it, you know, and I like deadlines
• 2:27
  and all those things because then you're just, you have to be
• 2:31
  done because, you know, I mean, just we're working on a the new
• 2:35
  exhumed record and we're 95% of the way done tracking.
• 2:40
  But because, you know, Ross is able to track his base and and
• 2:44
  his vocals at his studio in Oakland, we did all the drums
• 2:48
  and I did all my rhythm guitars down here in San Luis Obispo.
• 2:51
  Sebastian has an entire home recording studio will not even
• 2:54
  selling a home recording. So recording studio in
• 2:57
  Baltimore. And because we're able to sort
• 2:59
  of do this at our leisure, it drags on and on.
• 3:04
  Like, I mean, we, we started working on this in, I don't
• 3:07
  know, April, you know, and it's not going to be until mid June
• 3:10
  when we're done tracking. And I fucking hate that, you
• 3:13
  know, I was really resistant to the idea of building our own
• 3:17
  studio precisely for that reason.
• 3:19
  Because when I'm home, you know, it's like, I'll be OK, cool, I
• 3:23
  got to get, you know, X amount of songs done today.
• 3:27
  But then I'll be like, oh, shit, I forgot to go to Costco and
• 3:30
  pick up the dog's prescription. OK, hold on.
• 3:32
  And then my wife will call me. Hey, I need help with this thing
• 3:35
  because she runs her own business as well.
• 3:37
  So I'm like, oh fuck, I should go over there and do that.
• 3:40
  And then I'm like, OK, well, I got some stuff down and the next
• 3:42
  day it's like, oh, I forgot my, my daddy's coming for lunch.
• 3:45
  And you know what I mean? So it's like, I like when you go
• 3:48
  somewhere else and you're just there and that's all you have to
• 3:51
  do. And you, you know, that's to me
• 3:54
  is when you really kind of lock in and, and get the work done.
• 3:58
  But it's just not, I mean, it's a double edged sword.
• 4:01
  It's great to have the luxury of having your own space and just
• 4:04
  be able to continually work on stuff at your own pace and blah,
• 4:08
  blah, blah, blah. Because sometimes life conspires
• 4:10
  against you and it's not practical to go to wherever for
• 4:14
  three weeks, you know? So it's, I don't know, it's a
• 4:18
  double edged sword, but I get frustrated.
• 4:19
  I don't like things to drag on and on and on unless it's, you
• 4:22
  know, something where I'm still kind of learning or finding my
• 4:26
  voice or trying to figure out what the fuck it is that I'm
• 4:29
  that I'm doing, you know, with the, with death metal and with
• 4:33
  Gruesome, you know, it's like every album is a specific
• 4:35
  assignment. So, you know, we know what we
• 4:38
  know what it's supposed to be, you know what it's supposed to
• 4:40
  sound like, what it's supposed to look like, what it's supposed
• 4:42
  to feel like. And once we're there, it's like,
• 4:44
  cool, let's just let's wrap it up now.
• 4:46
  Let's get it done. Right on, right on.
• 4:48
  I mean, the flip side is there too, which is if you did have
• 4:51
  your own space, the downside is probably too not to get
• 4:55
  lackadaisical at all, but to be like the the flip side.
• 4:58
  Like I think about Chicago in the 70s had their own studio
• 5:02
  owned by their manager. So they all went to like some
• 5:04
  remote cabin in Colorado and did the drugs and spent like seven
• 5:09
  months making record. Now they had like 19 guys in the
• 5:11
  band. So they needed enough time to
• 5:13
  track all the different things and mix them correctly.
• 5:15
  But but also that process, they even felt weakened their records
• 5:19
  as they went on, even though, you know, 60s to mid 70s Chicago
• 5:22
  Pan. But just challenge like, oh, we
• 5:24
  made our own Frankenstein's monster.
• 5:27
  We didn't know what we were doing.
• 5:28
  We actually needed time constraints, producer, not to
• 5:33
  coddle us, but to dictate and manage a little better.
• 5:36
  And they knew they learned that the hard way at the end of that
• 5:39
  decade. But yeah, I could see the flip
• 5:40
  side. Also to have your own space
• 5:42
  could also, you know, oh, well, well, this will never end.
• 5:44
  You know, winter sun. We're just make a record for 10
• 5:46
  years. I don't know what's going on.
• 5:48
  Right. You know, it's the old cliche.
• 5:52
  No piece of art is ever finished.
• 5:54
  It's it's abandoned. But I like the idea of having
• 5:57
  restrictions, you know, because it's, you know, I'm, I'm not
• 6:01
  that different than anybody else.
• 6:03
  It's like, yeah, of course I want to be the best I can be.
• 6:04
  And I want to, you know, you know, I want to, I want to
• 6:08
  represent our songs that, you know, at their optimum.
• 6:12
  But in pursuit of that, you can just disappear up your own
• 6:15
  asshole making these like tiny fucking changes that nobody will
• 6:19
  care about. And then by the time, you know,
• 6:22
  because really in this business, it's a very what have you done
• 6:26
  for me lately kind of business and there's a lot of churn.
• 6:29
  You know, I look back on the music that I loved as a kid and
• 6:31
  it seems like, you know, from 8th grade until graduating high
• 6:35
  school seemed like forever. But it's like that as an adult,
• 6:38
  you turn around, you know, I mean, like it's a, we went seven
• 6:42
  years between gruesome albums. You know, that's fucking a high
• 6:45
  school and a half almost, you know, So it's like it's a, you
• 6:49
  need to, you need to get it done and you need to sort of be in
• 6:52
  the moment because that's sort of part of what makes projects
• 6:56
  work. It's not just that the materials
• 6:59
  good, the execution's good, the artwork is good, the marketing
• 7:03
  is good. It's also the time and the
• 7:05
  context in which all this stuff happens is, you know, and that's
• 7:09
  something you can't control unless you, you know, the only
• 7:12
  control you have is getting it done.
• 7:13
  So yeah, I like to, to, to get stuff done.
• 7:16
  And, you know, even had different sound guys that I've
• 7:19
  worked with on tour or whatever, you know, some of them I've had
• 7:22
  to pull us out. I'm like, yo, you got to tell us
• 7:24
  to shut up. Like you're our boss for the
• 7:26
  hour we're up here. I don't want to be up here all
• 7:29
  day, but give me a fucking guitar and an amp and I'll just
• 7:31
  sit and play forever and nobody will ever shut up.
• 7:34
  And no one would. Like you got to yell at us like
• 7:36
  we're, we're musicians. We're not bright.
• 7:38
  We're, you know what I mean? Like if we could like, run our
• 7:40
  own lives, we'd be fucking, we'd own accounting firms or
• 7:43
  something. Oh man, if only we could do our
• 7:46
  own accountings, we would know our actual income and.
• 7:50
  Actually. Paying us for our records.
• 7:51
  No shade relapse. We love you.
• 7:53
  But yeah, just in general, be a greater music industry, you
• 7:56
  know, quandaries to to ponder as we get into the, you know,
• 8:00
  further and further into the streaming era.
• 8:03
  That's amazing. And I get similar feedback also
• 8:06
  on me because like this, all the comments in YouTube, you're fat,
• 8:09
  you're a beardo. What's up with your best?
• 8:11
  Why do you talk too much? But anyway, my show.
• 8:13
  My rules. Fuck off.
• 8:15
  And it's somebody like you, we, we vibe.
• 8:17
  So like I always appreciate you. So I will tell you I never have
• 8:20
  to tell you to shut up. But you know some guy.
• 8:23
  That's your job, bro. You know what, if I had been
• 8:26
  smart, I would have made those digital clocks that everybody
• 8:28
  has on the side of the stage. So at least you know how much
• 8:30
  time you have or how much time left or what time you go to.
• 8:33
  And I would have sold at least 10,000.
• 8:35
  Oh well. And I probably need one here
• 8:37
  from my studio so I know when to shut up.
• 8:39
  God damn it. So silent echoes, man.
• 8:42
  I'm sure like everybody else watching, you know, we all felt
• 8:45
  a lot of the death of you know, we the longer we go, we lose our
• 8:48
  friends, we lose rock soldiers. Sly Stone died yesterday, as we
• 8:51
  do this Bay Area legend, right? And Sean, right.
• 8:55
  Sean Reiner was the impetus for, you know, some of this new
• 8:58
  material in this, you know, this record, I don't think it's quite
• 9:01
  a concept record, but a lot of it does kind of flow together
• 9:03
  like a great death record. And Sean was a beast.
• 9:06
  And he was also a beast of a person.
• 9:07
  He was wonderful, right? I got to meet him and talk to
• 9:09
  him and interview him in the Cynic Days and in the return of
• 9:13
  Cynic Days. And he was just lovely as a
• 9:16
  human being as much as he was talented.
• 9:18
  So obviously a hard loss for you as a friend, but also like what
• 9:21
  a great tribute to pay to him with this record.
• 9:23
  Yeah, you know, I mean, I knew Sean.
• 9:26
  He was a he was a buddy. He wasn't like a close, close
• 9:30
  friend. But for for Gus, our drummer, he
• 9:32
  was, you know, really tight. It was like, hey, I heard your
• 9:36
  sister's sick. How's she doing?
• 9:37
  Kind of friend Where Sean and I, we would run into each other and
• 9:40
  we'd have a laugh and we'd hang out and we'd be like, oh, it's
• 9:42
  great to see a man cool. And then, you know, time would
• 9:45
  go on and whatever, you know, it wasn't that kind of relationship
• 9:49
  that that Gus had with him. But, you know, knowing Sean and
• 9:53
  especially with how tight Gus was, you know, when we started
• 9:56
  working on this record, we felt it was kind of a little bit of a
• 10:00
  daunting task, you know, trying to do a human, a companion album
• 10:05
  to human. And our whole strategy was like,
• 10:09
  well, we'll get Sean involved because we'd sort of started
• 10:12
  writing and then we kind of lost momentum, like, all right, well,
• 10:14
  we're going to get Sean involved as like a producer, you know,
• 10:18
  we'll send him demos and he can give us notes on the songs.
• 10:21
  And, you know, when we go into the studio, maybe, you know,
• 10:23
  we'll have him come in and listen to takes and, and this
• 10:25
  kind of stuff. And especially, you know, for
• 10:27
  the drum parts, because Sean's drumming is so distinctive and,
• 10:30
  and was such a game changer. You know, having him there as
• 10:34
  kind of a, you know, an editorial presence, really
• 10:38
  reassuring. And then, you know, beyond just
• 10:40
  the, the personal tragedy of his death, it was like, well, there
• 10:44
  goes that plan. You know, it's like first, like,
• 10:47
  fuck, my, my buddy died. Wow, that's horrible and random.
• 10:50
  You know, it wasn't like he was sick for a long time.
• 10:52
  And you, you know what I mean? Like when someone has cancer,
• 10:54
  whatever, you kind of do some of that grieving before they die.
• 10:57
  It was just literally like, Gus called me.
• 10:59
  He's like, you need to call me. And I was like, what?
• 11:01
  He's like, Sean's gone. I was like, what do you mean?
• 11:03
  Where do you like on vacation? Like what?
• 11:08
  Because it was totally out of the blue.
• 11:10
  And so, you know, that whole plan that we had just sort of
• 11:13
  blew up. And, you know, so that was a
• 11:16
  whole other delay. And then, you know, that was
• 11:19
  from the pandemic was going on. And it was just, you know, I
• 11:22
  don't know, man. The process of putting this
• 11:23
  record together was kind of agonizing at times.
• 11:27
  You know, I get that and thanks for sharing.
• 11:31
  That's got to be so hard and I know how hard it was.
• 11:34
  Gus has talked a lot about Sean in the past with me and and I'll
• 11:39
  tell you, Gus did an an incredible job on this record.
• 11:42
  Again, for the the he doesn't really kind of get the
• 11:45
  recognition that he can play like Sean and sound like Sean.
• 11:50
  close your eyes and I hear Sean and it's the same thing on other
• 11:52
  records. He can sound like Gene or or
• 11:54
  Richard also or any or himself like on his other projects.
• 11:58
  You can definitely pick out the distinctive things.
• 12:01
  It's definitely a very well constructed record.
• 12:04
  It felt very fast. It feels like all the songs are
• 12:06
  around the same time length. It's not very, you know, it's
• 12:08
  it's a very expansive sounding and you know, like death was
• 12:12
  very cinematic. I feel like they don't get
• 12:14
  enough credit for that being really one of the first extreme
• 12:18
  bands that could do cinematic music.
• 12:20
  And I think other bands were able to follow and do that in
• 12:23
  the in the footsteps of Chuck. But yeah, what a what a
• 12:26
  fantastic job Gus did. He, yeah, you know, he really,
• 12:29
  he's one of those drummers that, you know, he, his whole
• 12:33
  philosophy is he serves the song, you know, And I think, you
• 12:38
  know, anytime you're playing with musicians like that, you're
• 12:40
  going to get a better result because, you know, there's
• 12:44
  something kind of thirsty about the way a lot of musicians play
• 12:47
  where it's like, hey, I learned this trick and I practice it for
• 12:51
  10 hours in my bedroom. So I have to use it.
• 12:54
  I have to show you that I know it like, check this out.
• 12:57
  And it's like, that's cool. That's impressive.
• 13:00
  But is it really musically good? And often the answer is no, you
• 13:06
  know, it doesn't really bring anything to the song to the
• 13:10
  because ultimately, like writing a song or writing music, it's
• 13:14
  about communicating something. And all these things that you've
• 13:17
  learned these techniques in these fucking arpeggios and para
• 13:20
  doodles and blah, blah, blah, all this shit.
• 13:22
  If you can't put them together in a way that communicates
• 13:24
  something effectively, then it's just a bunch of stuff, you know?
• 13:29
  And so having a a drummer that is really good, that isn't dying
• 13:35
  to show you how good they are all the time, you know, or, you
• 13:38
  know, any member of the band, you know, you could say the same
• 13:40
  thing about, you know, Dan Gonzalez, He's a incredible
• 13:43
  guitar player. And especially on this record,
• 13:45
  he gets to do some of his, you know, fucking Alan Holdsworth
• 13:48
  shit, you know that. And and he's somehow stuck, you
• 13:51
  know, playing old school death model for most of his career
• 13:54
  where it's like, hey, I can do all this stuff.
• 13:56
  It's like, yeah, but don't do that here, please.
• 13:58
  So giving this material gives people a little bit more room to
• 14:04
  use those chops in a way that that makes sense and serves the
• 14:07
  song. And you know, I think really
• 14:10
  that's always the focus is, is it a good song?
• 14:13
  You know, is it, is it catchy? Does it have a hook?
• 14:16
  Is it heavy? Is it what I want to listen to
• 14:19
  it? And if the answer is yes, then
• 14:21
  cool, let's incorporate these things.
• 14:22
  And if the answer is no, then let's fucking ditch all the
• 14:24
  bells and whistles and just make something good.
• 14:27
  I don't. Want it right to self.
• 14:29
  Thank you for helping me as always with my segues.
• 14:31
  The next topic was guitars and Daniel Split and the beauty is
• 14:36
  some of the beautiful guitar work.
• 14:37
  I love that you said Alan Holdsworth.
• 14:38
  I don't know anybody younger than us that might get that, not
• 14:41
  get that reference, but Alan, who's a legendary guitar player,
• 14:44
  look it up. It's kind of like the last time
• 14:47
  I saw Atheist open for Sufho. And I was like, oh man, if they
• 14:51
  didn't have these Atheist songs to play, they just could just
• 14:54
  weirdly become a jazz fusion band.
• 14:56
  And there's moments on here. They're.
• 14:58
  Very all up in the fields for me for like Pat Metheny and Alan
• 15:02
  Holdsworth, like very jazz guitar E and beautiful
• 15:07
  transition sections and chill parts that really contrast the
• 15:10
  brutality and the complexity of the heavier songs.
• 15:13
  And I, and I think it's probably some of the best work between
• 15:16
  you and Daniel like for, for this.
• 15:17
  Project cool man, you know, it's it's something that I was very
• 15:21
  aware that, you know, Sean and Paul were bringing to the human
• 15:24
  project. And I think it's something that,
• 15:26
  you know, as much as death, especially going into human,
• 15:29
  it's what becomes Chuck's bit thing and then he surrounds
• 15:33
  himself with different people. But I think, you know, in the
• 15:36
  past or before human, Chuck probably would have, you know,
• 15:39
  kind of raised his eyebrows like you're putting jazzed and metal,
• 15:41
  like that's poser shit. And I think the way that that
• 15:46
  Sean and Paul were able to integrate that influence into
• 15:48
  human was really cool. I'm not terribly much of A jazz
• 15:53
  guy, but growing up, my uncle was a fusion guitar player.
• 15:58
  So I'm very, you know, I can't help but be aware of Chick Corea
• 16:02
  and, you know, Return to Forever and Mavish Orchestra, John
• 16:05
  McLaughlin, Taco Luka, all those guys.
• 16:08
  Al Dinio, obviously. And in fact, there was one solo
• 16:12
  that I was doing on the record, and I had this little kind of
• 16:15
  melodic passage, and I harmonized it.
• 16:19
  We're listening back in the studio.
• 16:20
  And I was like, what do you think, Jared?
• 16:22
  And he's like, oh, it sounds good.
• 16:23
  I'm like, I'm like, yeah, but does it sound like a metal guy
• 16:27
  that's just heard Vishnu Orchestra in the last six months
• 16:31
  or just heard Al Dimiola in the last six months and is trying to
• 16:34
  do that? And he just started laughing a
• 16:36
  lot. And I was like, OK, so yes, all
• 16:37
  right, got it. That's that's what I was going
• 16:39
  for. Right on.
• 16:41
  Well, it's kind of very similar to friends of mine that are
• 16:43
  like, Oh my God, have you heard Polyphia or Pleney?
• 16:46
  And I'm like, well, I have, but I also used to listen to King
• 16:48
  Crimson in the 80s. So I heard Adrian Blue a long
• 16:51
  time ago do this very same stuff.
• 16:53
  Also with Paul, that I think is very important is, you know,
• 16:55
  obviously he was trained by Andre Segovia only the greatest
• 16:58
  guitar player ever for classical guitar and flamenco and jazz and
• 17:02
  all these things. And so I love that you guys
• 17:04
  brought some of that flavor into in those passages also.
• 17:07
  And even I think in some of the heavier solos, it just kind of
• 17:10
  like sneaks in there a little. You can't help it once you start
• 17:12
  doing it, it just kind of, I think it just kind of leaks in
• 17:15
  the what you're. Writing, yeah.
• 17:16
  The musical framework that we're using on this record finally
• 17:19
  allows that to not sound out of place.
• 17:23
  You know, you don't want it to be like, I don't know, chocolate
• 17:25
  chips on a pepperoni pizza. It's like, I like chocolate
• 17:27
  chips, but you don't put them on there.
• 17:28
  So now that we have this sort of more expanded palette, we can
• 17:32
  just bring in these other influences and stuff, which is,
• 17:35
  you know, pretty fun. Right on.
• 17:37
  I love it so much and let's get some some prompts to Robin.
• 17:40
  I don't also think it's talked about at all much.
• 17:43
  And again, to come in here and play bass and hold it down
• 17:45
  against all these other factors like almost lead drums and these
• 17:49
  crazy songs and just do a, a, a straight up great job as a as a
• 17:54
  bassist and a former playing bassist, that much respect
• 17:57
  there. Well, just in the interest of of
• 18:00
  Full disclosure and not to throw any shade on Robin, but Dan has
• 18:04
  Dan actually recorded the baselines for the record?
• 18:08
  It was a matter of expedience and everything else, you know,
• 18:13
  And now Robin's going to have to figure out how to do it live.
• 18:16
  So she got to work cut out for I was very resistant to the idea
• 18:20
  of having Dan do it. And then I heard some of his
• 18:25
  bass stuff and I was like, OK, because as a guitar player that
• 18:28
  has played bass on stuff, like I'm can hear the difference
• 18:32
  between a guitar player playing bass and a bassist, you know?
• 18:36
  And I thought Dan did a really good job of playing like a, like
• 18:40
  a bassist, you know? Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:44
  No notes. Good job.
• 18:47
  I love hearing it. So yeah, that's that's awesome.
• 18:50
  And then of course, let's talk about this also in the tribute
• 18:54
  theme. This album artwork is really
• 18:56
  special. You know, it kind of it, it's
• 18:59
  got all the feels. It does kind of feel like human,
• 19:01
  but it also feels like it's a very apt tribute to Sean.
• 19:05
  It's kind of also like, you know, reflective of of the times
• 19:08
  and and the whole circumstance of everything.
• 19:10
  So it's a really cool piece of art and probably my favorite
• 19:13
  artwork of all the groups and records.
• 19:15
  Wow. Thank you.
• 19:17
  I mean, I obviously I didn't create it, but you know, we
• 19:20
  wanted to work with Renee. His last name always escapes me,
• 19:25
  the guy that did human, but he is no longer doing art.
• 19:29
  I found him on Instagram, the label reached out to him.
• 19:32
  He's somewhere in the he's in the Florida Keys and I can't
• 19:34
  remember if he's doing real estate stuff or boat stuff or
• 19:37
  something. Anyway, so we couldn't get him.
• 19:39
  Luckily, Travis Smith, who did the artwork for Sound of
• 19:42
  Perseverance, is very much still doing album covers.
• 19:46
  And it was really easy to get in touch with.
• 19:48
  And, you know, we, he and I had a really good e-mail exchange.
• 19:53
  Just he's like, what's his album about?
• 19:55
  Like, what is it, you know, what's the theme, what, what's
• 19:57
  going on here? And what kind of imagery do you
• 19:59
  see? And, you know, we're like, what
• 20:01
  we want to use the same kind of color palette as human, but we
• 20:03
  want it to be a different kind of image.
• 20:06
  And, you know, we talked through, you know, a bunch of
• 20:09
  stuff and. Travis was just, I mean, I was
• 20:13
  kind of taken aback by what a joy it was to work with him.
• 20:16
  He is the first cover artist I've ever worked with that sent
• 20:20
  me so much good stuff. At one point I was like, dude,
• 20:24
  stop, please stop. Because I had narrowed it down
• 20:27
  to like 3 things and now I'm like these other now there's
• 20:31
  like two more and then there's all these other elements.
• 20:33
  I was like, we have so much great stuff here and everything
• 20:36
  you're doing is killer. But like, we got to, you know,
• 20:38
  we need to figure this out and go forward, you know?
• 20:42
  And it really nailed it there. There's, you know, something
• 20:45
  kind of, I'm just glancing over at the record here.
• 20:48
  There, there's something kind of uncertain.
• 20:51
  There's like a sense of loss about it, you know, But there's
• 20:54
  something that is kind of scary but also kind of emotional.
• 20:58
  You know, I mean, I kind of have my own ideas about what exactly
• 21:03
  is going on. But I think that what's cool
• 21:05
  about it is that 10 people will see it.
• 21:07
  And, you know, then they'll all be sort of in the same
• 21:10
  neighborhood, but they're all going to find their own kind of
• 21:12
  a home within it and something that will speak to them, you
• 21:16
  know, if they choose to take the time to.
• 21:20
  Not to put you on the spot, but this is coming up a lot lately.
• 21:23
  I'm so glad that you're still working with real artists.
• 21:26
  And I understand that budgets are not what they used to be in
• 21:28
  labels or cutting places and labels are not.
• 21:30
  Not every label is relapse. But we are seeing kind of this
• 21:33
  weird disconnect between like, OK, if the place to cut the
• 21:37
  budget is the artwork or the opt to do the lyric video is with
• 21:42
  AI. And I'm not against AI because
• 21:43
  AI. AI has been part of our world.
• 21:45
  The machine learning has been part of our world for a long
• 21:47
  time, but I'm glad that's still real.
• 21:50
  Artists matter. Real art matters, especially in
• 21:52
  death metal. It's been a genre defined by art
• 21:56
  in a way as much as music. And so I don't want to lose that
• 21:59
  ever, you know? So I wanted to get your take on
• 22:01
  that. If you have the option to work
• 22:02
  with an artist, obviously, clearly you just did.
• 22:04
  So I appreciate that about y'all and I want you to keep doing
• 22:08
  that. But because I want to still have
• 22:10
  artists and producers and creators get paid for making
• 22:14
  stuff. So I don't know if you have a
• 22:15
  take on that at all. I don't look down on bands that
• 22:17
  do the AI art because it's everywhere now.
• 22:20
  But like at the same time, it's like could have did a little,
• 22:22
  you know, could have, could have taken a little more time with
• 22:24
  that. Yeah, I mean, I have.
• 22:26
  I guess my take on it is I have 0 interest in using AI to create
• 22:31
  anything, whether it's a band bio, whether it's an album cover
• 22:35
  or even a lyric video. I have no interest in it.
• 22:39
  And I may be old and curmudgeonly.
• 22:42
  I'm not against Photoshop, I'm not against Pro Tools, I'm not
• 22:44
  against editing your drums. I'm not against, you know,
• 22:47
  filtering your photos or any of that stuff.
• 22:50
  I am against just feeding a bunch of information to a
• 22:53
  machine that spits something out and you just take it.
• 22:56
  Because to me, that feels like this sort of passive consumer.
• 23:02
  Plop yourself down in front of the TV and watch whatever's on
• 23:05
  mentality, which is kind of antithetical to what I think is
• 23:10
  great about metal and the underground in the 1st place.
• 23:13
  Because you know, even somebody who's not, you know, whatever
• 23:17
  hasn't been listening to death metal for fucking 30 whatever
• 23:20
  years like I have, you know, you choose to listen to cannibal
• 23:23
  corps, even Amana Marth, you know who is like a huge band or
• 23:28
  whatever. You don't just happen to hear
• 23:30
  that on the Radio One day and tap your toe or like turn on an
• 23:33
  award show and see it and be like, Oh yeah, I like these
• 23:36
  guys. That's cool.
• 23:37
  This is something that you choose, and when the people
• 23:42
  making the art don't give a fuck about choosing or the date, they
• 23:47
  think that it's OK to just sort of feed information to a
• 23:50
  computer that randomly spits out something that they may or may
• 23:53
  not like. I don't care for that, and I get
• 23:56
  that. Yeah, being a good songwriter
• 23:57
  has nothing to do with album artwork.
• 23:59
  I totally get it. You can be a great songwriter
• 24:01
  and have something amazing to say musically and be like, I
• 24:04
  have no visual component. Like, I don't think about
• 24:07
  images, whatever. So whatever.
• 24:09
  If somebody else is going to do it, that's great.
• 24:11
  I can't stop them. I personally find it deeply
• 24:15
  distasteful. And one of the things that I
• 24:17
  really like about underground music, especially, you know,
• 24:20
  again, old guy cold take, but when I was coming into it in the
• 24:26
  80s, even the bands that were on major labels, you know, your
• 24:29
  Metallica, Slayers, whatever, there was still a very kind of
• 24:34
  homemade aspect to a lot of the stuff that you would see.
• 24:39
  I mean, like if you look at the cover for Like Hell Awaits, I
• 24:42
  mean, it looks like the sickest artist in your county who is a
• 24:46
  senior in high school drew it. That's what it looks like.
• 24:48
  And that's rad, because to me, what I like about that is that
• 24:53
  if you're a kid, or if you're a guy who maybe just has a passion
• 24:56
  for music but you're not phenomenally technically skilled
• 24:59
  or whatever that says, this is the place for you.
• 25:02
  This is where you can come and learn and grow in real time and
• 25:06
  put stuff out that is wild and fucking.
• 25:09
  It's your own shit. And it's interesting because
• 25:11
  you're making it because by the time something gets on MTV and
• 25:15
  those days nowadays, you know, whatever, By the time the
• 25:18
  algorithm recommends it to you, it's been vetted, it's been
• 25:21
  produced, it's been massaged, it's been PRD, it's been
• 25:24
  manicured, it's been airbrushed, it's been filtered, whatever.
• 25:29
  And if you look, you know, you went to a record store and you
• 25:32
  bought, you know, an underground record.
• 25:34
  And in the late 80s, you know, chances are it's four guys
• 25:39
  running the music, one guy recording it and some dude
• 25:43
  painting it, you know, and sometimes they're the same
• 25:45
  people like, you know, the early Voivod.
• 25:46
  It's all fucking away is hard work.
• 25:49
  And that is the appeal of it to me.
• 25:52
  The appeal is that you're getting something really made by
• 25:54
  another person and you're getting a sort of directly.
• 25:58
  And when you bring a computer into the creative process, not
• 26:02
  just the execution process, the recording part, that's the
• 26:05
  execution process, right? But when you bring it into the
• 26:09
  creative part and you're like, hey, computer, what's a good
• 26:12
  death metal album cover? That seems dishonest to me.
• 26:15
  You know, I'd rather see a shitty, you know, pen drawing,
• 26:20
  you know, like the old Mantis tape covers.
• 26:22
  Those are fucking killer because they are real shit made by a
• 26:26
  real weird kid somewhere in Florida in the 80s just fucking
• 26:30
  being like fuck society, fuck mom and dad, you know?
• 26:34
  And feeling a real emotion and getting it out, even if it's
• 26:37
  childish or silly or whatever. The the reality of it, the
• 26:41
  sincerity of it is the value, not the execution in my opinion.
• 26:46
  So I don't ever want to use AII. Got you.
• 26:49
  I appreciate that so much. Great answer. 2 last quick
• 26:52
  questions for you. Obviously, your record comes out
• 26:55
  on Friday and then on Sunday in Tampa, Kirk and Rob in the
• 27:00
  Metallica show play pull the plug.
• 27:02
  I saw that upstaging your tribute to Sean with their own
• 27:06
  tribute to death. I think it inherently that's
• 27:08
  super cool that Rob and Kirk like learn pull the plug to play
• 27:13
  it in Tampa as a tribute to Death and Chuck.
• 27:15
  I think that was lovely. And I know what a huge Metallica
• 27:18
  fan you are. I'm kind of over the doodles.
• 27:20
  I would. I know that Lars needs a break
• 27:22
  so he doesn't die. I know James needs to take a
• 27:24
  leak or take another sip of his whiskey, whatever the fuck he's
• 27:27
  doing. So the doodle has a purpose.
• 27:29
  And so those other guys get a break, right?
• 27:31
  And Kirk and Rob don't need a break, apparently, but except
• 27:34
  for the little interludes. But I thought it was really nice
• 27:36
  for them to do that like, and I'm sure some of the fans caught
• 27:40
  on. Seemed like there was a nice
• 27:42
  cheer that went up. I watched the video, but at the
• 27:44
  same time it's like, oh, that's really cool.
• 27:47
  Like they do these things in every city and sometimes I'm
• 27:49
  like, why? And then they did this.
• 27:51
  So I didn't know if you saw it or not.
• 27:53
  I did see it, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, I mean,
• 27:55
  Metallica is my favorite band and I think it's kind of what
• 27:58
  Robin Kirk do is just kind of cute, you know?
• 28:01
  And if they weren't playing like they play like fucking 15 songs
• 28:05
  and their songs are average like 6 minutes each.
• 28:08
  So if they were only playing like for an hour, I'd be like,
• 28:10
  get the come on, dude. Like, you know, we want to hear
• 28:13
  Trapped Under Ice or whatever. Moving along, but it's a very
• 28:16
  expansive shows and I think just something that takes it back to
• 28:20
  the fun of a couple guys jamming on riffs.
• 28:22
  It's you know, it's pretty charming and you know, I know
• 28:25
  that like when they were in Switzerland and they did like a
• 28:27
  Celtic Frost riff, Tom Warrior got all pissed off about it and
• 28:30
  it's just like, you know, dude, at the end of the day, who
• 28:33
  cares? Like, you know, it's and you can
• 28:36
  you can roll your eyes at it or you can think it's awesome, but
• 28:39
  it's like, yeah, you know, whatever.
• 28:40
  I mean, death metal at this point is part of the overall
• 28:44
  metal culture. It's been here since, you know,
• 28:46
  the mid 80s in one form of the OR another.
• 28:50
  And you know, of course those guys are aware of it.
• 28:53
  You know, actually we were in the group chat for Left to Die.
• 28:56
  We were texting about it. And I was like, well, you know,
• 28:59
  Terry, when I went to see you guys in March of 1990 in
• 29:02
  Oakland, a bunch of people are like, oh, dude, did you hear
• 29:04
  like James Metallica is here? I didn't see him, but a bunch of
• 29:07
  people. And then Terry's like, yeah, I
• 29:09
  actually, we saw him when we were loading out or whatever.
• 29:10
  I was like, yeah, OK. It's like, OK, cool, man.
• 29:12
  You know, these guys, it's not that they have their finger on
• 29:15
  the pulse or whatever, but you know, they're, they're people in
• 29:18
  the metal world like anybody else, you know?
• 29:21
  That kind of that kind of cosign does.
• 29:23
  I like the respect shown in that it does.
• 29:26
  It does feel good as a fan. Hey, anytime you want to do a
• 29:29
  Metallica cover band. Not that you need another
• 29:31
  singer, but I volunteer. My yeah yeahs are on point.
• 29:34
  I'll just say that everybody who knows me knows my first.
• 29:37
  And. I play bass and sing.
• 29:39
  I used to do all the, you know, foom the bell tolls and all that
• 29:42
  BS, but I'd just rather sing. I'd just rather yell into a
• 29:44
  stick these days if I can. But if you ever want to do one,
• 29:46
  I'm around. Just the last question.
• 29:47
  I always end with the wild card and I always love your wild card
• 29:50
  question answers. I love seeing all your your
• 29:52
  comic book box is there. Do you have a favorite book of
• 29:54
  all time? It's, I mean, it's kind of
• 29:57
  tough. I guess it would be somewhere
• 30:01
  between Avengers #4 which is when Captain America gets thawed
• 30:06
  out of the ice. That's something that I bought
• 30:09
  at AI. Think I bought it in a Wondercon
• 30:11
  in the early 90s. It was, you know, it's pretty
• 30:13
  beat up. I think I got it for like, you
• 30:16
  know, 100 bucks or something. It's certainly, even as beat up
• 30:21
  as it is now, it's certainly worth a lot more than that
• 30:24
  nowadays. That's kind of the the first one
• 30:27
  that that comes to mind that maybe, and I always forget which
• 30:30
  number this is, but the the Fantastic Four issue, this man,
• 30:34
  this monster where the guy steals Ben Graham's powers to
• 30:38
  get revenge on Reed Richards. They go into, I can't remember,
• 30:41
  it's a negative zone or another dimension.
• 30:43
  And he's like, fuck Reed. I'm going to kill him here and
• 30:46
  nobody will know because I'm in this other dimension.
• 30:48
  And all Reed Richards does is like save his family and like
• 30:51
  work to save everybody else. And he's like, Oh shit, this guy
• 30:53
  I hated like he's actually awesome and like I'm a piece of
• 30:57
  shit. And he ends up sacrificing
• 30:59
  himself in the other dimension. And Reed comes back just
• 31:02
  devastated that, you know, he thinks The thing is died and
• 31:05
  then the thing comes back and they figured out.
• 31:07
  That's probably the one I think that hits me in the feels the
• 31:10
  most in a more complicated way, but I mean, you know, I could go
• 31:14
  on for several days. I know you could.
• 31:18
  We probably have to do a whole episode on that.
• 31:21
  I would be. Any excuse to talk about comics
• 31:23
  like I'm Yeah, yeah. I'm mild.
• 31:26
  It came up in our interview for your solo stuff, too.
• 31:28
  I'm mildly excited for this Fantastic Four movie, but I'm
• 31:32
  guarded because they've been not.
• 31:34
  There were things I loved about those other movies, but then a
• 31:37
  lot of stuff I didn't love, so I'm hopeful.
• 31:39
  I mean, with Marvel's current track record, I, I have a
• 31:43
  feeling it's going to be good, not spectacular, but I think
• 31:48
  that it's going to have a different enough feel like, you
• 31:50
  know, in, in the Zoom van Ross and I have had these
• 31:54
  conversations at length about how to do the Fantastic Four
• 31:56
  correctly. My biggest thing was always it
• 32:00
  has to be in the 60s, because if you take the Fantastic Four out
• 32:03
  of the 1960s, it doesn't make sense.
• 32:05
  If you just put them in the the modern MCU, it's going to seem
• 32:09
  idiotic. And then you also get a bunch of
• 32:11
  comedy with a fish out of water if they come to the modern
• 32:13
  times, you know, but so they've sort of solved that problem by
• 32:17
  putting them in this retro futuristic alternate dimension
• 32:20
  that should allow for the FF to be the real FF, You know, I
• 32:25
  think it's going to be good. The casting is good, Galactus
• 32:29
  looks cool. They fix the silver server's
• 32:32
  hair, then we'll be fine. You know, I don't know I mean, I
• 32:36
  like the vast majority of the Marvel movies to varying
• 32:39
  degrees. Some of them I think are great.
• 32:41
  So I'm like, you know, but I've seen all of them at least once,
• 32:45
  you know, at. Least once, probably more than
• 32:48
  once. Thunderbolts was a lot of fun.
• 32:50
  I give them respect for doing that.
• 32:52
  Right. You Avengers.
• 32:53
  Whatever asterisk. I think Thunderbolts was super
• 32:55
  fun and like it's, you know, it's underperformed at the box
• 32:59
  office. I guess it's done OK, but it
• 33:02
  seems like all movies are kind of underperforming.
• 33:05
  And the 48th installment in the Marvel series, it's like, well,
• 33:09
  yeah, people's attention spans, the casual fans, which is most
• 33:12
  of the people, you know, they're they're wearing thin For me.
• 33:15
  I'd go every week, you know, I go every opening day.
• 33:18
  My wife's like, really every like, you can't wait until
• 33:21
  Friday. And I was like, no, I want to
• 33:23
  read the reviews and shit. I want to know what the.
• 33:25
  Spoilers are going to happen on YouTube.
• 33:27
  I can't watch any videos then. Right, right.
• 33:29
  And I just want to know. I'm, you know, I'm excited and
• 33:32
  she's like, did you ever get tired of these?
• 33:34
  I was like, Nope. She's like not even a little.
• 33:36
  I was like Nope. Nice work, your wife deserves an
• 33:39
  award and and you were a gentleman and scholar once
• 33:43
  again. Matt Harvey, always a pleasure.
• 33:45
  New Gruesome album out now and new zoomed on the way and
• 33:48
  hopefully some new other things. I'll see you around the way or
• 33:51
  I'll see you on one of these again soon.
• 33:53
  Thanks pal. Definitely.
• 33:54
  Thank you man. Good to see you.
• 33:55
  All right, dude, take care.