Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / Rob Beckley: Pillar

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Rob Beckley: Pillar · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Today match Today.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: We've got Rob from Pillar. Super excited about this. Rob.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: We Colin and I have loved Pillar for many, many years,
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: probably gosh, going on probably twenty years now, Colin, right.
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, two thousand and five. I actually, uh, I
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: was looking back at it Acquire the Fire, I think
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: in Minneapolis.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, Mason and I.
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: Attended and uh, Mason and I actually knew of you
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: Rob first, not because of Pillar, but because of a
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: little TV show that you hosted.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: It's right.
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you remember. It's called Mayhem. Oh
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: it was on Steel Roots. Yeah, you know if you
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: know this, Rob, but you on that show were insanely
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: influential to Mason and Ie. Right, musical tastes and our
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: upbringing and this whole world of Christian alternative music. We
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: owe a lot of that to you. And being a
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: part of that show.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: That's awesome, man, And that's crazy to just think back
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: to that. I one of the guys that was the
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: producer that show, his name was Rudy, and he just
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: like within the last probably six months, I think, had
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: reached out to me just to check in and see
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: how I was doing. It's been a while since I've
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: heard Mayhem, Like many memories come back.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Is that one of those things you almost like forgot that.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: You Yeah, one percent. There was so many little things
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: like that that we did that because I think we
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: went out there and recorded probably five six episodes at
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: a time. You know, you go out there, Wow, you
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: just do a whole bunch of them and then they
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: just air them as.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Do you know how many episodes in total there are
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: or were?
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I have no idea.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: I remember that was right, well, I remember obviously I
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: remember watching Mayhem, and if I remember right, Mayhem would
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: always air right before the Steel Roots Top ten music
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: video countdown. Yeah, but I do remember actually the first
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: time I'd ever seen Norma Jean was on Mayhem. I
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: still remember Memphis Will Be Laid to Waste. I remember
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: that music video coming up, and I was like, what
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: is this? Obviously I saw lots of other like lots
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: of other music videos, but but yeah, I still distinctly
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: remember watching Norma Jean, watching h you know, all those
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: other kind of bands.
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: I remember was what was just yeah and obsessed.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, that's awesome, man, I forgot all about that.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: That's fun. Yeah, that's fun.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Great show. Great show.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Well, thanks for being a part of our lives in
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: that way. But obviously we didn't bring you on to
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: just talk about Maham. We want to talk about Pillar.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: So before we actually get into like your own personal
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: history with Pillar, I love to just hear how you
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: got into music in general, like what inspired you to
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: want to create music.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I'll kind of start in like a little momento style.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I'll start with kind of a weird ending and then
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: like back it up a little bit, because in the
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: middle of Pillar, like one of our original guitar players,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: he just always had he was such a dreamer, and
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I loved being around him because he'd be like, man,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I could see us doing this, and I could see
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: us doing this, and I used to say, I feel
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: like I'm living somebody else's dream because I never I
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: never wanted to be in a band. I never it
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: was never on my radar. I always wanted to be
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: a professional baseball player. I grew up playing baseball and
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: worked really hard at it. During the winter, I would
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: go out, like sixteen, I would drive my car out
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: in the snow up to the baseball field and go
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: hit and throw in the snow and work out on
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: my own, so I was more dedicated to that. But
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I played saxophone in high school, little town in Western Kansas,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: and I played saxophone and got recognized during this season
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: of my life. My senior year, I got recognized as
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: it was like an Outstanding Soloist award or something. Our
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: high school band went and I got a scholarship to
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: go to play saxophone in college while I was going
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: to go play baseball. Well, in that year, in nineteen
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: ninety three, there was a strike. I graduated high school
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, and there was a baseball strike, and
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: so the major leagues called up all the scrubs, that's
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: what they call them, like all the scrip. The coach
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: of Colby Community College got called up to go play
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: for the Montreal Expos, which are now the Washington Nationals
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: by the way, and the coach left, and so they
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: brought in another guy, and it was just like, well,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: my time and hope for baseball is gone. But I
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: had this music scholarship, so I started playing saxophone at
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: this old juco in Western Kansas, which many great people
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: have gone to that college. And Mark Schultz was a
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: great kind of Christian vocalist that came out of that community,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Daniel Cormier, the UFC heavyweight champion. What was the college
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Colby Community College in Western And so I went and
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: was playing in the playing in the band, got like
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: a you know, five hundred dollars scholarship or something to
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: play in the band. And I remember pretty excuse me.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Pretty early on, like within the first couple of weeks,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: I met a friend played piano. He was an incredible musician,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: like from Chicago, had moved down there and was grew
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: up in the church. Like he could play every instrument
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and he's playing like keys. He's like, you play saxophone?
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: He should come jam with me. Man. It's like, what's
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: that mean? Like I was a little white dude from
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere at Kansas, like I don't know what.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know what this means. And this dude was
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: just a phenomenal keyboard player. Uh. And so he's playing
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: all these jazz cuts. He's like, man, just play something,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: just play. They don't even have to make sense, just playing.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: And so I started playing. Well, then he says like
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: sing with me. He's like sing can you sing this?
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I'm kind of singing a little bit. Well,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I started singing in our jazz director or the choir
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: director of the jazz choir or the choir of that
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: college was walking by. He's like, why aren't you in
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: my in my choir? I said, why aren't you giving
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: me money?
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: Uh?
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: He offered me a scholarship. Like right there, he said,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I'll pay for your books.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: It's like I'll be in your own Dang, it's awesome.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: That's kind of how I got into singing. I didn't ever,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I never thought of myself as a singer.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: But then it was during that time that my life
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: like just completely reshaped. It was like I was the
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: kid that was growing up reading the box scores of baseball,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: you know, and the newspaper or eating eating my cereal,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: reading scores too. I'm making cassettes of all these like
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: John Coltrane and uh, you know, all just all these
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: old like saxophone players and canniball adderly and like crazy
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: old school jazz.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: Yes, this is blowing my mind that you were like
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: a jazz guy growing up.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, darn youre classically trained.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm definitely not classically trained, but I got into
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: it and started to appreciate it, partly because these guys
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: were showing me, Uh they grew up, you know, in
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: an all black church. I went home with them once
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I'm back to Chicago on a break, uh, and it
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: was amazing. They're like, you got to come to come
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: check this out. And they played for like three hours
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: at church and it was just music the whole time,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: and uh, phenomenal musicians. And I was I just became
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: intrigued by these people that could do something so well. Uh.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: So when I got back kind of after that first
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: semester and going home with these guys back to Chicago
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: and seeing where they came from and how why they
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: were so passionate about music, we started a little jazz
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: band called Nightshade. It was like this, We drew this
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: like crescent moon with sunglasses and we went and played
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: ad all these little like American Legion banquets or the
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: uh you know a Wana clubs with the churches they
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: needed some background music. Or we play in the in
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: the student union during lunch. We just go set up
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: and just play anywhere. And that's all we did. Man,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I just jammed and learned learned how to appreciate music,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: and during that time I really started getting into a
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: lot of vocal like Bois to the Men, like very
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: vocal harmony, harmonies and understanding that style. But I grew up,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: so part of my history is I grew up my
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: parents were divorced in nineteen eighty one. My parents divorced,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: and I grew up in Western Kansas, and my mom
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: remarried a black man in Western Kansas, which was very
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: like early on that was kind of the transition to
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: where biracial marriages were very not common, and so there
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: was a lot I would be with my parents. My
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: dad's also would be like Conway Twitty and Alabama and country,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: and I would go to my mom's house it was
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: like earth Wind and Fire and Marvin Day and so
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: I was just exposed to a lot of different styles
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: of music all throughout my life. And it wasn't until
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I got to college that I really appreciated kind of
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: not just the artistry of it, but the craftsmanship, like
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: how well people were. I just appreciate anybody that's good
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: at anything, Like if you're good at juggling, I'll sit
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: there and watch you and be like, man, that is amazing.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: You're very talented. I appreciate anybody that's talented in any craft.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: But when I got into this jazz combo and playing saxophone,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: and then they're like, oh, you can sing too, then
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: it evolved into like a little bit more singing, like hey,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: let's go out. I'd go to win the karaoke competitions
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: in the community. Is like, man, I maybe pay two
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: hundred bucks pay for rent just doing karaoke. That was awesome.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of how I got started into the
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: entry into music as far as pillar. So I left
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Colby Community College and I went to out to Kansas
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: City area. And it was a pretty dark season of
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: my life. And I say dark like I was very
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: much drugs, alcohol, just party crazy. And it was middle
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: of the afternoon one day and I came home and
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: realized I was kind of an I was in a
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: pretty bad spot and needed to clean my life up.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: So I did kind of sobered up, called the army
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: recruiter a couple weeks later and said I didn't changed
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: my life and went off and joined the army and
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I was gone for a year. When I came back,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: I went back to Kobe Community College to connect with
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: some friends and moved in with my brother in law
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: who would become my brother in law. He wasn't married
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: to my sister yet, but he played drums and he
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: had some friends that were in the graphic design department
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: that played guitar that always talked about getting together to jam.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: They just needed somebody that could play bass and sing.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: And I'm not gonna call myself a bass player because
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not, but I can play one string with one
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: finger at a time. So I fit the bill. And
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: so we jammed and I picked up a bass and
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: they said, oh you can sing too, awesome. You guys
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: want to start a band, and like literally that night
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: or like, yeah, that sounds cool. Why not? Like I'm
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: nothing else to do, I'm out of the army and
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: joined get ready to go back to school. So we
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: started Pillar just in my brother in law's living room,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: and I think two weeks later we had some friends
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: over and we played a couple of cover songs and
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: tried to write an original song. But we didn't get
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: to play that one because the cops showed up on
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: our doorstep. We got it disturbing the peace.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: Warning at last, it was just a warning. That's good.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: They were pretty cool about it because they realized, like
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: we weren't there drinking or anything. It was just a
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: bunch of it was Christian Challenge.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: We're Christian band.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they we went to Christian Challenge and then we
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: went back to our house and it's kind of in
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: a neighborhood, but we're jamming in the living room. He's
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: like knocks on the door and he just looks through
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: the screen door and just shaking his head like, guys,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: what are you doing.
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: He must not have been that loud if you guys
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: could have heard him knocking on the door.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Well, we saw him more than we heard it. He
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: was just like now, guys. So that was kind of
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: how we started in the early days.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: So you know, you don't say anything about heavy music,
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: and you don't say anything about kind of the hip
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: hop influences. Where did that stuff come from? Because I mean,
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: especially early on, Piller had a lot of more of
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: that hip hop influence than yeah that yeah later on
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: in It's in its uh you know, kind of heyday,
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: I would.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Say, yeah, so okay, So the evolution of that from
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: that season on to kind of the next obviously, you
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: guys have had Coleel Michael Waideg on the podcast. Uh.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: He he came in and took us to a whole
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: other level because he was actually a bass player. Oh
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: you can play all You have a five string bass
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: and you can play all the strings.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: You're basically Jaco Pastorias.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're amazing. Uh. And that story is crazy too,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: because I remember talking he was in another band, how
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: was the navend mishap. He's in another local and we
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: were we were kind of just we knew it, knew
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: of each other, uh, just being out playing shows together.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: And I remember talking to him, It's like, yeah, man,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: we really need a bass player. And I never forget
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: the day he showed up. He knocked on our door
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: and he's got this little Kaki like zip up jacket on.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: He's like, you guys still looking for a bass player.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, man, it's like, come on in,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: let's let's get this going. And and uh, the influences
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: for me, like I said, growing up, it was all
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: over the place. But I really I was really into
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: hip hop rap, loved Tupac and like just that whole
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: like season of life. Was was very much into hip hop.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Hated rock, like I hated like his sucks. Like once
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: I got out of school, out of high school, was
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: like the Metallica Black Record came out, I think like
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: my junior year maybe, uh, and that was that was
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: that was just an iconic album. Like those songs were great,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: but I never really got into rock. But then there
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: was that uh season I said, I was kind of crazy. Uh.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Three Eleven's Blue Record came out during that time, and
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: that that changed a lot for me because like these
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: dudes like Nick Hexham is like the whitest dude you
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: could ever meet, and and they're doing this thing that
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: like they're from Omaha, They're kind of from the Midwest. Uh,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: he didn't have to be cool to be from Cali
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: or you know, New York. It was like these guys
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: are right around the same area as us, and they're
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: playing stuff that that I really liked. Uh. And so
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: our guitar player Travis Jenkins, that that really helped start
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: the band was very much in the three eleven, Like
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: he probably knew all of their riffs better than you
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: know the band that he knew. That's how he learned
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: how to play guitarists locked himself in a room and
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: learned how to play every riff on their on their record.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: So early stuff had a lot of three eleven influence obviously.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Uh you know, there was a couple of years before
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: we started the Limp Biscuit came came onto the scene
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and Deaf Tones and all those guys like and that
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: was just like it. It made this big wave there.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you this. I know you you guys talk
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: about influential records and stuff like that. I'm not gonna
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't say this was an influential record to me,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: but there was this There was a moment when I
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: was in high school when Public Enemy did this, did
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: this thing with Anthrax, right so cool, And I never
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: forget going over to my buddy's house. He was feeding
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: his dog. He had a boxer and he was feeding
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: it peanut butter and just were sitting there playing with
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the dog. He's like, dude, you got to check this out.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: And he puts the cassette in. It's like turn it up,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: bring the noise. It's like freaking riffs and like wrap.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: I was like, this is freaking awesome. And that was
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: in like ninety one, ninety two times. That was like
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: before that was a thing they right that was the
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: thing because Beastie Boys was one thing. But when Public
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Enemy and Anthrax did what they did, that that started
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: a whole new thing.
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. You know, we we've
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: talked about maybe like Pod might have started that whole thing.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Pod was on the birotechnically like.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: Before all that stuff, but like I actually do think
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: it was Anthrax and in Public Enemy that.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: They they they changed the game. That that vibe that
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: they had, like that started bands. They were like, yeah, man,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: let's go do this. And these kids went on their
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: garage and found a buddy that could rap and just
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: started banging on things.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: What so.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: You mentioned like you know, you learn how to sing
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: and everything, but there is like a certain kind of
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: singing when it comes to like a hard rock kind
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: of you know, alternative metal vibe. When did you realize, oh,
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: I can sing that in particular, like I've got the
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: shoes for that kind of genre.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know that. I it was basically like just
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: do it. I've always just been the person that like,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: if you if I have to, if something needs to
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: get done, and just figure it out. Uh. And I
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: I can't remember the some of the early songs that
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: we did because we played a lot of covers. When
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: we first started, we were just trying to figure it out, man, uh,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: and so we played a lot of you know, covers
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: and listen to it. I was trying to get into
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: move into like the Christian music, so I didn't know
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of the bands that were that were out there.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: So we were listening to the switch Foot like Kim
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: six s A and their very first record, and Legendre
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: and Plank Eye, some of the bands that were kind
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: of influential at that time, like these are this is cool.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: And then I learned there's this whole underground world of
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: all of these Christian like rock bands and and Doug
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: van Pelt with HM Magazine that's like really pushing this
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: this underground scene, and uh, it was. It was. It
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: was really cool to listen to some of those bands,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: but then to try to emulate it through the covers,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: right you like you so you just you're trying to emulate.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I've been to a lot of leadership conferences and stuff
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: like that, and one of the greatest quotes I've ever heard,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: uh Lee Cockrell's like just steal it and make it
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: your own. He said, like he said he quoted like
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Beethoven or Mozart or somebody said, the good artist borrow,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: great artists steal. He's like, just keep working on something
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: until it evolves and becomes your own. And I had
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: had similar advice in my life before that. So you're
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: doing these covers and you kind of start coming into
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: your own voice, so that when we started writing our
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: own songs, you just do it. I don't. And then
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: I learned the how to like scream and stuff like that,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: like because over the course of our early records, which
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: we won't talk about the very early stuff, but then
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: we did like Original Superman was like kind of our
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: first big indie record, and then we re recorded most
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: of that record and added a couple of new songs,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: and I just learned how to use my voice differently.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: And then the from fire Proof there's a little bit
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: more singing on that, and then where do We Go
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: from Here record, it was a lot of it was
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: way way more melodic, like we kind of reinvented ourselves
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: onto that record, with like Frontline being more like melodic,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: right or just rhythmic singing more than rapping, to where
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: that pushed us now out of that rap rock genre
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: more into a melodic kind of just aggressive rock being
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: yeah for sure.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: And I find that to be One of the more
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: interesting things about Pillar is that I remember walking into
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: my high school weight room and I heard a familiar song.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: I was like, all right, I know, kids don't listen
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: to what I listened to. And I heard bring Me
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: Down blasting through the through the speakers, and I was like,
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: who is playing this? I didn't know anyone outside of
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: like the Christian music world. Yea of my friends that
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: knew who Pillar was. And there's Pillar. So it is
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: kind of this interesting thing where there was a lot
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: of crossover, especially around around where do we go from here?
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: And it surprised me. And I know a lot of
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: people that are still following Pillar because of that, which
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: is such a cool thing to uh, you know, to
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: probably have on your on your your history, right.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: It is pretty crazy, man, like just to see where
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: some how some of those songs still kind of stand up,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: you know, twenty years later, and bring Me Down is
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: still it's a good song, man, Like I unbiased, like
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I'm this far removed from it now, like I don't
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: have anything to like promote about it. It's just a
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: great song. I honestly had not had a minimal part
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: in writing it. So I'll brag on the guys because
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: they were they wrote the whole composition of it. But
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: I was at so. I have six kids, all of
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: them wrestle now so and and they're very like competitive wrestlers.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: So we're at like national tournaments and uh, where my daughters,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: you know, nationally ranked? Like we're we're in this. And
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: we were at this tournament and I heard bring me Down,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: and I happened to know the guy that was running
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the tournament. So I walked up and I was like, Hey,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: are you guys paying licensing on these songs? He's like, uh,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: that's like I caught him off card, Like that's a
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: weird question. I was like, I was like, listen to
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the song. He knew me. I don't. I don't live
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: my life by going out and be like, hey, I
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: used to be in a rock band. Most people have
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: no idea like now, Like it's just they find out
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and they're like, I have no idea you were in a band,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: like you used to be a big deal. I was like,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: that's a little deal. But it was a long time
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: ago and it was just funny to be in that
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: environment and all these kids are out there like warming up,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and it's still kind of like that big anthem song
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: and it kind of fits in the wrestling world, right,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: you can't bring me down, Like that's the whole point
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: of the of the sport is to take somebody down.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: So, right, what point in pillar did you feel like, oh,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: like that this is this is a thing, you know.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: I imagine maybe those like first couple albums.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: Were a little bit of a a little bit of
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: a struggle. So at what point did it feel like
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: what was it you know, maybe like Frontline or bring
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Me Down that like that seemed to be where the
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: tides were turning where it's like, okay, this seems to
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: be like a legitimate thing where you know, people are
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: coming to shows, they know our words. Like, was it
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: around that time that that really felt like it was
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: starting to change?
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Man, that's a it's kind of a loaded question because
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: I was just talking to somebody about this today about
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: you know, work life balance, Like it's not a thing,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: that's not like it doesn't exist. It's rhythms, like, right,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: and so life is about rhythms. There's no such thing
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: as a perfect balance, so especially with work life balance.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: But there were these rhythms and seasons that the answer
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: to that question was different for each season and each
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: kind of there was like these seth Godin has a
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: book called The Dip and it's it talks about everything
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: goes up and then there's a season where it kind
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: of starts to fall, but then you gain momentum out
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: of that fall and you learn and then you grow
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: and you go higher than you were before. And then
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: it was like, that's what was happening with us. So
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I could probably rattle off like ten to fifteen of
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: those type of moments that early on, it was like
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: we moved into a new house and we all live together.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: So now we were writing songs at like two o'clock
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: in the morning next to a super old lady that
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: was deaf, so we could play as lot as we
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: wanted to. We we and she was the sweetest lady.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: We took care of her. But do we two three
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning. Guitar player had have an idea
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: we'd go down jam and we would write a song.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: We're like, dude, this is freaking awesome, right, and we
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: would we would record it with like a trash a
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: microphone in a trash can with a cassette recorder so
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: we could try to capture as much sound and like,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: check this out and play it for our friends. And
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: then you're like, they're excited. Are you guys going to
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: play that song this weekend at your show? Yes? Then
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: you go to that show you started getting getting, you
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: build it up, and then all right, now what's the
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: next thing. The biggest kind of moment, though, I think
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: for me, if I had to pick a moment, is
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: when we wrote Fireproof. It was such an emotional day.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: I got married in May of two thousand and one,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: and while I was driving. I don't just disclaimer, don't
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: do this, but while I was driving, I was coming
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: back from my honeymoon with my wife, and I I'm
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: a guy that like when my mind kind of goes
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: numb into like I wrote a lot of lyrics when
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I was mowing the yard. When I go out and
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: do something where you're just your mind shuts off. While
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: I was driving, she was asleep and I was just ideating, ideating,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: and I have anything to write on, so I'm like,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: she's asleep. I reach over into the glove box and
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I grab our like tag like registration and pan out
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: of her purse while I'm driving, and I just start
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: writing down all of these ideas, and one of the
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: words that I wrote down was fireproof because I had
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: just read the story of Shadrack Mesheck at Bendigo and
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: like that whole like walking through the fire coming out
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: not even smelling like smoke, and it just stuck with me,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: and I wrote the word fireproof down. Fast forward to
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: September eleventh, two thousand and one, and we were in
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Green Bay, Wisconsin on tour with Skillet and we were
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: supposed to play a concert that night, and we woke
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: up that morning to the same thing that everybody else
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: knows where they were at that day, and we're like, well,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: the shows are going to be canceled, right, So they
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: canceled the shows and we're like, well, let's go up
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: to the church and just rehearse because we got a
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: record that we got to write. And so we were
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: in the middle of writing and I had this idea
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: and Noah, who was this was going to be the
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: first record that he wrote with us because he wasn't
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: on our first record, He had this really cool little
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: riff was just like this little walk up thing, and
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: he had just got this new pedal that he was
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: playing with. It was like junk junk, junk, junk, junk, junk, dunk,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: dun dune. Done done, done done. And then we get
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: up there to the and that's all we had. And
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: we get up to the youth room at this church
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: in Green Bay, and the drummers like, he's like, keep
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: playing that, keep playing that, and he's like he starts
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: adding his piece, and we turned that. We had two
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: TVs on in the youth room and we're just watching
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: all of the wreckage of the day. And that's when
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I was like, man, this this, that fire proof vibe
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: probably fits into this. Uh. And so what I did
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: is I rigged up the youth soundboard. I ran out
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: of their outputs. I ran a stereo out into it,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: r C A plugs into a VCR on the front,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and I recorded the audio on a blank VHS cassette
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: because we didn't have any other way to record and
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: demo this out. And so I had the guys just
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: tracked that that verse and the chorus, just like, let's
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: get get me something to write to listen to. And
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: then I took that back to our back to the house,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: and I plugged it in the VCR with some headphones
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and I just kept rewinding it and listening to it
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: and figuring out how to make the everything fit. Uh.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: And that that's how Fireproof evolved. And when we first
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: got it kind of done, and I told the guys like,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: here's the chorus. Check this out, what do you guys think?
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: And I remember them going, that's freaking awesome, dude, that's
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: that's freaking that's that's awesome. Uh. And so we go
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: and we demo it out. We're on tour, would skill
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: it and I just remember John Cooper going, dude, that
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: song is gonna blow up. And it was just one
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: of those moments that you just kind of it just
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: it won't. I'll never forget that, you know. So that
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: was probably a moment where you realize, like, hey, we
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: went from a band that we had a double ward
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: off of our first record. It was pretty cool. But
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: that was like John John's kind of affirmation he is
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: he was an og already at that point, all right, right, No,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what status he is now, but
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: he would been around and for him to say, man,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: you guys are gonna blow.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: Up and it feel like you finally kind of like
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: maybe maybe crack the code isn't the right phrase for it,
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: But it didn't feel like, oh, this is how you
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: do this, this is how you craft a song, well,
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: like you find this catchy rift or like had that
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: happened yet? By I mean again, like you guys had
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: already a couple albums by that point, but it really
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: feel like you zoned in on.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Like this is how you do this music making thing.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I think we I mean, it was
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: no different than what we had already been doing. Really,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: like that was our style. Like the guitar player, all
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: those guys would write seven hundred and fifty rifts a week.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: I'd just be like just noodling around and come up
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: with stuff and we would take like, oh that would
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: be a cool or that riff with this piece. That's
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: kind of where we worked together. He would just write riffs. Dude,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: He's a machine. Noah is a phenomenal guitar player.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: I remember Michael saying that too.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Noah is a phenomenal guitar player. Stack him up against
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: anybody and creatively not just being able to play riffs,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: but like his His riffs that he writes are phenomenal,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: and he would just write so many of them, and
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: they would have the craziest names, like dream Catcher, I
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: don't like, just like, ok, yeah, did dream Catcher riff
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: with Tennessee. He would like geographically name where he wrote
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the song.
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: Sounds like Peyton Manning's pre play calls his pre snap count.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Like. And so it was like we had New York,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: we had Albany, we had Tennessee, Memphis. We had all
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: these like riffs that we knew them by, and we
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: would piece them together and then I would kind of
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: just sit with it. And I always felt like, let's
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: piece it together and see what's the vibe, Like what's
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: this song trying to say? And then I would come
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: up with a theme and then write around that theme.
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: That's such an interesting way of going about things because
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: I feel like a lot of times, you know, you
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: hear about like bands, you know, kind of like going
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: off to their separate corners and kind of figure out
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: their pieces.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: That bringing it all together.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it is interesting that you know, they they're like
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: here's a here's basically like a full fledged song. You
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: go figure out melodies and all that stuff, and when
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: you've got to figure it out, come back to us
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: and let's have some fun.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: With it, right, Yeah, is.
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: There a lot of changes once you got once you
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: come back to uh, come to the band.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Sometimes there were, I would say, I wouldn't say a lot,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: but sometimes there were. Just like those guys were so good.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: I they were so much better than me as far
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: as musicianship. Their talent was like so much, so far
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: beyond me. Sometimes here's a funny story to kind of
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: articulate what I'm trying to say. So, Uh, we recorded
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: most of our songs with Travis Squirick in Knoxville, Tennessee,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: which is also where Disciple was from. So we would
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: see those guys all the time, Like we got to
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: eat with them, like hang out while we're go wakeboarding
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and out to dinner. Like we'd hang out those guys
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: a lot. And I remember talking with Kevin Young one
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: time and the guys like Michael came up with this
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: gnarly riff on the base and it was just so
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: it was so ridiculous. I'm like, who are we primused?
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Like how much supposed to write to this? Like it
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: was in six ' eight. It was like do doo, dude,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: do doo, dud dude and do do dude and dud
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: It's just like this flowing moving baseline. And then the
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: chorus was like so big and melodic and different, like
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: it wasn't even like a chord structure, it was just
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: a The chorus was a it's like, how do you
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: write to this? And I remember talking to Kevin. I
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: was like, dude, maybe you should take this song if
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: you think it's awesome, because I'm it's so complicated. I
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: don't even know what to write. And Kevin says, just
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: keep it simple, man, And so that was the song
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: simply that was like, just keep it simple, and I
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: was like okay, And so that word simple and simply
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: just kept going through my head and that became the
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: you simply love dude, du like that wholegit And it
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: just fell right out like it was like sometimes you
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: just have to have somebody to just like push you
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: over the edge. And so a lot of a lot
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: of the songs were I would overthink it. It was
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: way I way over complicated things or those everybody we
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: just had a good team and all worked together.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful, you know.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: I obviously Eventually, you guys get to a point where
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: you're not you know, playing anymore.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: You kind of do this.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you guys like me, officially broke
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: up or if it was a hiatus or not, but
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: you know, after a number of years, I would imagine,
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: like life's changing, kids are coming into the picture, and
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: you know job, you know you need in full time jobs,
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: you know, the whole thing. Right, But you guys did
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: just play this last year about six months ago. You
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: guys played your first show, Yeah, like ten years or something.
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: So yeah, like I just love to hear kind of
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: where things are now with Pillar, Like what you know,
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: you guys played one show. I would imagine, you know,
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: if anything's gonna happen, it's probably gonna be way slower
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: of a process than it was before. But yeah, I'm
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: just curious, like kind of where you're at now with Pillar.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: You know, what are your maybe your goals for Pillar
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: moving forward?
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Well, the beauty of it now is it's not our
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: It's not a primary income or revenue stream for any
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: one of us. So to do it now, it's because
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: we can and we and we do it for the
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: love of it. There's it's it's really difficult. Yes, there
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: was a season where I would say, yes, we went
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: into a hiatus. There were some guys that came in,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: WITG and Lester kind of left, and I tried to
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: keep it going to f filled contracts and it just
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: became this like burden of obligation. It didn't feel the
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: same anymore. And to do it now is so much different.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: And it was really special. You know this summer, I
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: will tell you, yes, we're older. I'll be fifty this year.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: But there was something special about that night. So we
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: rehearsed the day before and it was crazy. Everybody was
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: thinking the same thing, but nobody said it. Like our
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: crew us, Like everybody was helped setting up. We had
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: some friends that were hanging out and like we all
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: got our ears checked and everybody's like, okay, we got
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: everything set. Now it's time to actually play a song.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Let's see what happened. And and uh, I think we
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: played Fireproof for the first song and we got done
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: and everybody was like, dang, that was awesome, Like it
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: was like we just did it last week. Uh, and
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: it had like man, it was so crazy. Now some
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: of that is because number one, Lester and Noah are
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: straight up pros man like they do this. They're still
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: gigging full timeson and Yeah studio and they're they're pros wig.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: I mean he practiced his butt off, you know. He
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: he was always practicing. I was doing my the best
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: that I could. Mine was like I had to fight
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: a StairMaster and really get myself back into shape. I'm
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: not in bad shape. I just it's different, like being
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: on the road and doing that is such a different
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: type of conditioning. Uh. And it was the longest set
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: we had ever played. We played for hour and forty
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: five minutes. So my little damn on fire. They were
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: literally on fire by the by the last few songs
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: that we did, I couldn't even hardly take a breath.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: It's like we had to take a break to come
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: back and play like the encore songs just I could
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: go catch my breath.
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: Well, now I know what Joe Biden felt like during
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: that debate.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Exactly it was. But it was such a fun moment
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: of like when we when we played that song, and
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: then there were songs off of the One Love Revolution
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: record that we had never played live before because we
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: wrote that record in like twenty fourteen. We had never
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: played those songs live, so doing some of those songs
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: that was, Man, that was awesome getting to play. Yeah,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: that was fun.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: Well so with that, I mean, so it sounds like
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: it was awesome. Is it awesome enough where you're like
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: maybe again or maybe like, hey, we've got a couple
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: songs still maybe left in still right, Like I'm just
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: curious like what is that like? And maybe that doesn't
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: exist at all, but I'm just curious, like has it
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: at least maybe let that flame a little bit more
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: or let that match again.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so. We do have some shows already scheduled
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: for twenty twenty five. I know we have a show
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: overseas in Germany later on in September where I know
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: that we're on for Kingdom Kingdom Bound and Albany, New
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: York or that area the six Flags out in New York.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: So we're kind of looking at this as let's not one,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: let's not stress our families out because we do have
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: other roles and responsibilities, but let's do some things to
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: keep the brand going. And it was so satisfying to
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: hear all of the stories, Like it was so cool
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: man to see some of our fans that now have kids,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: and they got to bring their kids and introduce them
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: to their favorite band when they were young, and that
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: was a really really special thing to get to see.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: As far as new music, man, I'm the I'll just
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: say it, I'm the one that holds us back because
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: it's so hard. Right now, I know that we have
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: a couple of songs right now that Noah has kind
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: of demoed out and put together. They're pretty sick. I
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: will say this. It's like it's it's some old school
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: pillar like it's heavy, it's crap, and Noah being able
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: to do his thing and the guys are like, yeah,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: let's we'll go track our part and then Rob you
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: go figure it out. It's like all right, so yes,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: we do want to put some new music out. We've
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: we did a couple of Christmas songs just to see
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: how it would go, and they're actually pretty cool. I
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: I'm pleased with how those turned out. But our future,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: I'm my guess is that will probably have a song
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: out at some point this year for sure. I mean
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: it's already it's already demoed out. Man, Like I don't
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: even know if I can I can find it. I'll
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: give you the it's called it's called Volumes.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Oh that's a fun name.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: No, that's just the working title.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: I told you, like it should be the it should
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: be the the final title. That's a great name.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: It is a cool title. But like he's like, here,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: I'll put it on a drop box. Uh. So he
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: sends it out and and roughs it up and uh here.
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: Oh dang, Yeah, you're right.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: It's pretty heavy. That is a classic piller, but it
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: just sounds yeah. Like so now it's like everybody's getting
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: all fired up and now I can put it out
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: there publicly, so now you have to finish it. But
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: that's right. Uh, those are that's those guys are so
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: talented and they put that and you can record a
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: record now so much differently than you.
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: Don't have to have a VCR anymore, which is.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: You don't need a VCR, you don't need like the analog.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: I'll never forget the first record and just that that
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: sound of like when you're tracking and then they hit
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: stop and it goes, it picks back up, like it's
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: changed so much and evolved so much. Uh. And both
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Lester and Noah are brilliant in the production world too,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: so they can they can throw a lot together pretty easy.
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well let's let's let's turn to uh a different
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: topic slightly. So it's obvious that you know, faith has
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: always been a part of of Pillar, and I, I
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: guess I'm always I've always been kind of curious as
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: to what your kind of like worldview is on faith.
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, you're a part of a pretty large church
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: organization and everything like that is what does that stuff
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: look like for you these days?
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: So I have been in full time ministry now since
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: twenty ten, Like that's kind of what I stepped into
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: coming off the road. I did worship for a while
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: and then stepped into a pastoring role at a couple
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: different churches, and now I'm sitting in more of kind
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: of operational role and overseeing multiple locations of my church.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: And man, it's it's been different iterations of doing ministry.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: But the thing that I love about it is knowing
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: my past, knowing where I came from and what I
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: went through. I want to I want to be able
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: to be that for other people. That was something that
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: I always enjoyed Pillar. Hearing the stories of how you know,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: the music helped make an impact. I just love being
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: able to be kind of on the front lines and
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: getting to hear those stories and be a part of
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: those through doing full time ministry and the church that
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: I'm at, Man, I love it. We have an incredible,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: like global impact. Or we're doing a lot of work
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: in Egypt and have a great relationship now with Convoy
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: of Hope and working with them and doing some relief
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: efforts getting supplies into the Gaza Strip through Egypt direct
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: working directly with the Egyptian government, which nobody is able
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: to do. And so that's been like our senior pastor
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: went and met with like the Pope's assistant to talk
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: to them about getting getting things through the Vatican and
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: working with them to get things into the Gaza Strip
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: to bring relief to both sides of the of the content.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: And so I love being a part of something that
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: it really is a global impact, but it's not. It's
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: a very there's a purity to the ministry that's here
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: that's very simple and effective, and I love being a
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: part of that. As far as like for me, Man,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: my faith has been all over the place. This year
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: specifically has been probably one of the most challenging years
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: of my life. My father last January in twenty twenty
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: four took his own life, and that was tough. We
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: had a little bit of strain in our relationship, and
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's given me a new empathy and
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: understanding for other men that have that are hurting. So
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I love being able to help other men that are
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: going through stuff because I think we all have something
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: from our earthly Father that is kind of we carry,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: and we carry that wound differently, been through like wild
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: at heart boot camps. And I love working with other
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: men and trying to just to help them navigate it,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: because man, that's one of the things about men that
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: I think we struggle with the most is thinking that
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: we got to figure it out our own, that we
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: got to we don't need to ask. We don't need
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: to ask, no way for help. It's a sign a
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: weakness if we're asking for help. And I don't know
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: the theology behind this. This is just kind of how
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: I read it, but somebody can pick it apart. You know,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: the Bible talks about the armor of God, the helmet
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: and the shield and the breastplate and the belt and
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: the sword and the shoes like every like your back
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: is exposed. And I think that's for a reason. I
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: think that's for us to figure out who we're going
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: to invite into our lives to watch our back and
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: who's back and we watch because I think it's important
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: to have a band of brothers. You know, some guys
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: in your life that I've heard people say, who's your
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: three AM friend?
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: We need those, uh, sort of along the faith of
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: your faith. And this is a little bit of a
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: funny story about Pillar. Uh maybe it wasn't so funny
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: for you in the moment, but I'm sure you know
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: where I'm going with this. But uh, there was a
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: show called The Ali g Show back in the day
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: and yeah, Pillar Pillar got spoofed in this.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: Now, maybe you feel a little bit better because of
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: the fact that, like this guy has duped a lot
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: of people, not just Pillow. Yeah. Uh, but I don't know,
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: like do you have like how do you look back
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: on that experience where you get this guy that you
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: know is pretending to be this like very flaming gay person. Uh,
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: and you know he's trying to you know, trying to
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: catch you off guard or whatever. But yeah, I'm just curious, like, well,
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: how do you look back to that at that memory,
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: like that's gotta be at this point, it's got to
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: be just silly, right.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, yes, today, very silly that day it was
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: so it was funny because it was it's not abnormal
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: for media to come into a Christian like So it
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: was part of that traveling festival. It's called Festival Candios
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: and the whole festival travel. There was a tour. It
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: was like nine bands and we set up in mall
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: parking lots, had the big like transformer stage opens up
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: and the had these inflatable gates that everybody walked in.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: There were multiple shows where people would come in and
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: they would ask to use people's bus to interview, and
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: I think they asked us if they could use our
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: bus and we're like no, because I remember I had
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: to work on our generator. So I was like the
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: guy that like fixed everything and our generator was down.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: So I was not in a great mood that day anyway.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Like before I went on stage, like I had to
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: wear long sleeves because my arms were covered in grease,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Like I could wear what I normally wore. I was
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: like I washed my hands otherwise I looked like a
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: homeless person that just just soiled to death. So I
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: was already not in a good mood and they're like, hey,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: we need you to come do this interview with this guy.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: He's wanting to talk about he's a little eccentric. And
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: I remember kind of describing it as like I'm not
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: talking to anybody today, and Wittig is like, I'll do it.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Number one. I'm so glad that I had the intuition
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: and know myself enough to know, because I would have
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: not had a good interaction with him, Like it wouldn't
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: have gone well. It would have been I would have
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: been on the thing at like pushing him or like
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: ripping the mic out of his hand, or I would
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: have had a horrible reaction because I was not in
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: a good state of mind. And I knew that enough
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: about myself that like, you can't go do interviews if
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: you're not in the right state of mind. And so
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Widdy did it, and then afterwards he was like, dude,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: you ought to be glad that you didn't go do
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: it this she was so weird. He's like, he's wearing
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: fishnet shirts, like nipples were hanging out, asking us a
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: question like why the cross, Why not the rainbow? The
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: rainbow is so beautiful. I was like what. I was like,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: who is this? And man, it was like maybe a
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: year later when that Alig show came out and I
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: think we were maybe at a hotel or something, and
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: somebody goes like, isn't that the guy that was at
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: the festival interviewing everybody? And then come to find out
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: on his like DVD Whittig was on the Bloopers and
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: like like, that's the guy. So now it's hilarious. That
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: day was though. Everybody was so up in arms about uh,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: this guy interviewing. They were like stopping artists before they
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: would go in there, like, hey, just be ready, because
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: he's asking some really really weird questions. And I don't
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: think he really got the reactions that he was wanting because.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: None, which is probably why I didn't make like the
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: final cutout.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: It didn't because nobody everybody was getting warned before they
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: went in, like hey, be loving, he's asking some really
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: bizarre questions. Just be patient with him, and he probably
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: didn't get there. I would have given him the exact
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: reaction that he wanted.
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: That's exactly what collel said too.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: And so I'm glad that I didn't.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: That's awesome you said that there are other artists that
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: got interviewed by him. Who were some of those other
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: artists because yours was like the pillar one was the
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: only one that made the blooper, right?
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: I think so to my recollection, it was. Let's see,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: I think Jeremy Camp would have probably been on that
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: tour because he had just started like he was meeting
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: he was meeting Addie on that tour like he and
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: his wife, they were like in catering. So I remember
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: he was on that tour. I don't remember some of
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: the openers that were there. He probably was one that
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: got interviewed. He was probably so nice about it.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: I'm sure he was still probably has no idea what
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: happened stroking.
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: His little soul patch, you know.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's such a gentle guy, like the biggest biceps
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: and so nice and gentle.
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: Well, speaking of if you had to have someone defend
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: you would be would it be lesser or kill? Because
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: they both got some pythons, you.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: Know what I mean? They do. Man. I feel like
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Lester would be like unassuming, like you know what I mean,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: because he's so quiet, but he's also he might have
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: some like nunchuck skills with the drumsticks and stuff, so
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: he I don't know, man, I how did I say?
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Neither one of them would be a bad choice.
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: At least, Like you're in a band where two of
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: your members are you know, could be bodyguards too.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: You don't have to hire that out.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: But I was telling this, They're like, I've so since then,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: I'm a purple belt in jiu jitsu, I've competed, and
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: I do all my kids wrestle, so I'm around like
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: combat sports all the time, so they would be asking
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: me to protect them. Beautiful.
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: All right, well, Rob, you ready for your top five
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: most influential albums?
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: All right?
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: Top so in any order? It could be, you know,
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: chronological order. If you actually have like a ranking system
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: to it, that's great. But yeah, what what what are
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: these five albums that have influenced you?
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, so maybe chronological. I'll kind of walk through my
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: life of like those Pinnacle moments Purple Rain, Oh number one.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I remember the year that record came out, and me
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: and my buddies were in my mom's basement and we
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: had cut up all of these cups full of confetti
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: and at midnight, we we played Let's Go Crazy, and
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: we got out some like brooms and like baseball bats,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: and we stood up on the coffee table and we're
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: like daily beloved, we gathered here to day to get
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: through this scene called life. And it kicked in and
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: we're like Happy New Year, and we throw the confetti everywhere,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: and my mom was just like, you're cleaning all this up.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: I loved that record, man, Uh. And and we've we've
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: done some uh. We we did Let's Go Crazy. Pillar
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: covered it. Uh during one of our one of our tours.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: We threw it in there. Let's see from from there,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go three eleven. The blue record that that was,
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: that was just it was such a great record. Uh.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: And like I said, it was because it was from
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: guys like from our neck of the woods. That was
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: a huge record. Johnny Cash American four.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: Albums are and favorites as well.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: So that that record. My oldest son's middle name is Cash,
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: and and it was really I had just read his
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: I listened to that record all the time, like every day.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: I was listening to it any flight we were on.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: It's like that was that was my go to and
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: I read his book, the last book that he wrote,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: What's Crazy Is. I started reading it in San Francisco
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: in the Filmore Theater at Green Room where he started
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: writing it. Wow, And I didn't know it until I
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: started reading the book, and he like notes that he
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: was writing the book in the very room that I was,
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: and you're looking around like freaking crazy. That was awesome.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: That was awesome. So I gotta go. I gotta go
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: with with that. I I don't know if I some
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: of them probably aren't super appropriate. That's okay, you don't
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: have to be my kids knowing what I was listening to. Good.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: The The next one for sure is Food Fighters, Color
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: and Shape another great one, so and a kind of
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: a cool story to go along with it. So when
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: I was in the Army, I was out in the
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: Virginia Beach area and I was housed with like Army
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: and Navy. So I had some friends that were in
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: the Navy and one of the guys like, dude, Food
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: Fighters is playing and I had I knew of them.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: They were just kind of that record had just come out,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: so it wasn't like it was big, but it wasn't
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: what it is today, right, And they were playing with
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: Stone Timple Pilots without Uh the singer. It was when
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: he was Yeah, Scott was not seeing. They had a
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: they had a fill in while he was out for
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: a bit, but they opened for him, and we're like,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: we're going to go to this concert. So we bunch
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: of military dudes jump in and drive a couple hours
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: go to this concert at Old Dominion University and my
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: buddy was wearing a hat. He had a hat like
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: this mine, mine's a homemade one pillar brand. We ride. Well,
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: his said Choka c h A k A. And if
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: you if you remember on the Smells Like teen Spirit
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: music video on Dave Girl's Kick drum, it said Chaka.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Well that was a known graffiti artist. Excuse me, it
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: was a known graffiti artist from the West Coast that
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: used to tag everything Chaka. So the thing was, it's
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: like his drums got tagged by the Griffiti artist, so
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: he was giving a nod to this guy from the
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: West Coast. Well, my buddy had a hat that said Chaka.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: And so we're out there kind of out in the
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: mosh pit, and my buddy just loses his mind. He's
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: like wrapped up in the moment he's like, I takes
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: this hat off and he throws it on the stage,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: and security comes over and grabs me and starts dragging
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: me out for throwing something on stage. And I was like,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to sell my buddy out. So I
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: didn't know you. I was like it was him. I
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't sell him out. I was like, I didn't
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: throw anything. I didn't throw anything. They're dragging me out.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: Dave Girl stops the show and says, he's like whoa.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: He's like security, He's like stop, stop, stop. He's like,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: don't kick those guys out. And he walks over and
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: he picks up the hat and he brushes it off.
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: He turns around and he sets it on his amp.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: And they were just about done anyway. He was on
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: like they were done, and he turns around and he
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: said hey, He goes, don't kick those guys out. He goes,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: they just gave us a give us a present. He's like,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: it's all good, we're good. He's like you know what.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: He goes, this one's for you guys, and they're like
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: and they played Monkey Wrinch and we're like, yes, this
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: is the only song I know. And so I just
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: became like huge food Fighter fans after that and that
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: record probably I wore that one out. I don't know
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: how many of that CD I bought.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an incredible one.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then I don't know, man number five. Yeah, gosh,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: that's that's tough. Okay, I'm gonna have to say most
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: influential Seven Dust Seasons. Oh that that record came out
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: as we were writing for or where Do We Go
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: From Here record? And I that's probably one of the
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: records that I listened to non stop, like it was.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: I had one for my car and it just stayed
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: in there. I had one that I took with me
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: on the road so I can listen to it. That
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: record was awesome. There's some other ones I think that
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: you know, it would fall in Like INKYBA said, some
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: great you know their their record was pretty influential. But
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta throw the Seven Dust in there,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: because I wore that thing out and it and it
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: really did. It pushed me. I love Lejeon. Actually, one
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: of the greatest compliments I ever got was from La
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Jehan saying standing on the side of the stage, telling
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: me I was a great front man. I like best
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: compliment I ever got because I think he's one of
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: the best front men in hard rock music.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: Tons of charisma for sure.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: That's an incredible list.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: Pretty eclectic, I guess yeah, very you can.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: You can hear a little bit of it, and you
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: know your vocals and Pillars music, but you definitely, like
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: I can kind of start piecing together.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, this kind of makes sense.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, what did I say, Prince Johnny Cash
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: three eleven eleven, uh, food Fighters and seven dusts.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: So it's a great list. Great makes love it. Well, Rob,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: what do you want to plug?
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: Literally anything?
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: It sounds like maybe you know a few Pillar shows
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: this year, maybe a song?
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you want to plug?
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the for sure, the shows being I guess this
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: is this my this is my time to like plug something. Yeah,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: anything you can you.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: Can plug a real plug first if you want.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, well definitely if you're if you're in the
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: the New York area, come out to Kingdom Bound. They
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: have been so gracious to bring us back out after
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: kind of seeing the excitement that we had at a
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: live festival and the buzz that came from that, Uh,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: they reached out and wanted to bring us out. And
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: so if you're out in that area, man, we need
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: all the old school Pillar fans to show up and
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: show them how to do it, man, because these kids
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: don't know not a rock anymore. Man. We would play
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: these festivals and they're a lot. They're so used to TikTok.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: They just stand there and pull their phones out, Like,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: just put your phone down unless freaking sweat, bro, Like,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: let's them how to do it. Uh. Yeah, So Kingdom
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: Bound is coming up. I believe that's in August. You
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: can follow any of our socials. It's on our web
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: page Pillar music dot Com. We'll have all of our
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: lists and we also Man, I also just want to
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: push the fact that we released a vinyl record, which
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: is super cool to me because that's come full circle
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: back to when I was a kid, you know, pulling
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: out the old Earth Wind and Fire records and listening
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: to them at my mom's house. So, uh, we got
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: some packages that we put together for some vinyl records
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: It anything else you'd like to play before anything else?
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: Is is there any way that someone could maybe donate
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: some money to the food, like the food and relief
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: effort that they were discussing earlier with.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: Gaza. So I'll just say there's currently through our church no,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: because we don't have any designated giving right now that's
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: opened up to be able to give directly to that.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: So I don't want to. I don't want to falsely
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: promote that you could give to our church and it
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: would be used for that because we don't have the
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: designated giving open. But Convoy of Hope is is one
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: of the most amazing organizations uh within our country that
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: does both themestic and global relief and restoration efforts. So
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: they're still on the ground right now helping in North
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: Carolina all of the devastation out there. They they don't
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: just show up with water in a truck like they
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: show up, they set up, they bring relief, and they
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: stick around through the restoration process. But they also have
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: an amazing global effort. And so if you're looking for
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: an organization that you want to give to or even
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: volunteer with, wherever you are, they're always looking for volunteers.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: Convoy of Hope is a phenomenal organization.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: Goody that awesome.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: We will will make sure that we get that all
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: linked up.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Awesome and anything else to plug. Uh. So yeah, back
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: in the day I said, I was in the Army,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: and part of my the end of my time in
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: the Army, I was kind of tasked with being a recruiter. Like, hey,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: you're if you're gonna be out here, why don't you
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: go out and plug the army and try to recruit
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: at some of your shows. And so we had set
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: up this thing where I was supposed to go, uh,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: jump out of an airplane with the Black Knights, which
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: is the Army's like uh, like their paratrooper team, like whatever,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: their skydiving team, and so they were they were set
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: set for me to go out and do that, and
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: so it didn't work out then because we had the
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: touring and all of that, I couldn't get So I'm
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: going to go jump out of the plane with the
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: freaking Black Knights, uh And I'm not really sure when yet,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to go jump out of a plane
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: with the Black Knights skydiving. Uh.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: So they kind of gave you like a rain check
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: or something.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, eternal raincheck.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: It's like, now you're to do it into a show
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: at maybe maybe at the New York Festival.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that be that would be awesome. That might actually,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: that would be one of the greatest rock and roll
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: entrances of all time if you just freaking dropped in
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: onto the stage.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: If you want Pillar to get big on TikTok, that's
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 4: how you do it.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: That's the way to do it.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: Actually, a lifelong goal of mine has been to skydives,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: So that sounds so much fun.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: There you go, you should do it.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: Love it, love it well, Rob, thank you so much
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: for chatting more about Pillar.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: It just it was.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: It's really an honor that you even like would respond
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: to us on on Instagram.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: So thanks so much for chatting more about Pillar.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: And uh yeah, hopefully things go keep going well with
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: the church and we're excited for whatever new could come
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: out of Pillar, whether it shows or new music, we're
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: excited for it.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: So thank you so much for chatting all about it.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. Well, I thank you very much. You guys
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: are great and it's been a pleasure getting to walk
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: down memory Lane with you guys. Love it.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: And how do you even wear my fish net?
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exact exactly what you want to do.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 5: Well, the general j exact