Latest / Caught on the Mike... / The return of AUDIOVENT- with Jason Boyd and Ben Einziger

Transcript

The return of AUDIOVENT- with Jason Boyd and Ben Einziger · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Disclaimer, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: Listen or description is advised.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I gotta tell you, friends, audio test is points to make a combat and iPad into Isaac on the podcast today to talk about their history and talk about their future.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_03: A brand new single called Sleepless 15 drops October 20th.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_03: But today they are chatting with me.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mic.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: Ladies and gentlemen, if you're anything like me, you have a workout playlist, you'll be on the treadmill, you'll be on the elliptical, you're trying to shift into that extra gear, and the right song just comes on at the right time.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: For the longest period of time, I'd say 20 plus years.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_03: I have absolutely loved this band, Audio Vent.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: And with me today is Ben Einzinger and Jason Boyd from Audio Vent.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: Guess what, friends?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: They are reunited and they are about to release some music.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna talk a little bit about that.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: How are you guys doing tonight?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: Fantastic.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, really good.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Really good.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Excited to talk to you.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: I am so excited to have you guys on the show.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: Let me give you a little bit of time to introduce yourselves.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: So take it away.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jason Boyd.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, my name is Ben Einziger, and it's it's a pleasure to meet you, Mike.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I play uh the guitar.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a co-writer and producer in uh the band Audiovent.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Jason Boyd, and uh I'm the singer and co-writer and co-producer in Audio Event as well.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we're having a damn good time being back.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's great.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_03: I absolutely love that.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: I kid you not, one of my best friends sent me the shot from your Instagram, and it was just that picture of the drum set, and he's like, Can you believe this shit?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_03: I started freaking out immediately.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: So without further ado, let's kind of talk about the origin story of you guys forming the band.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: You guys formed as Vent in the mid-90s, late 90s.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: We we actually formed first as uh Tempest.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: I can I can uh take you up through the litany of names we've had, actually.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we started first as a band called Tempest, and we were uh um essentially it was just me and my drum and a and a and a our first drummer, uh guy named Greg.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: He was a kid back then, he wasn't a guy.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and then um and then my friend Shane, and we wanted we all we knew was how to play Bad to the Bone.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's it.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we played Bad to the Bone like a million times, and then at my 14th, no 13th birthday party, uh Paul, our bass player, uh, he had really wanted to become my friend to be and come to the birthday party because it was gonna be a big party and everyone was gonna be there.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was great.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: We had great parties.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh so he bought me the uh body count tape.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Remember Ice Ice uh tea body count?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he bought me that tape and uh I invited my birthday.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next morning, um actually my brother's band played that party.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: That was their first show ever, Incubus.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: They played that party.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: And the next morning, uh I was talking to Paul and his kid Shane, and we decided to start a band.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then what, like a week later or something, Ben, when we were having like maybe our second rehearsal, uh Ben came with this with his brother Paul, stepbrother, and uh um I think he was immediately in the band because he was the only one who knew how to play anything else.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he knew he knew how to play Metallica.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was amazing.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was funny.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like I hadn't I hadn't played guitar at all.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I actually started with piano, and then I decided I wanted to play guitar because everything that I was listening to is like metal, you know, like Pantera, Metallica, Megadeh, you know, like we were just listening to really heavy stuff.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I I even got like like sheet music for piano, and it just sounded like ridiculous.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like, oh, this is not this is not the route for me at the time, although I love piano, of course.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I picked up a guitar and had been playing for like a week and I'd learned like you know how to play like like fade to black or one by by uh by um Metallica, and that's all I could really play.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then we came in the room and they showed they taught me how to play Bad to the Bone because that's all they could play.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't really teaching anything.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and then and then we just started kind of writing, you know, we started writing music um with as is like sort of uneducated and inexperienced as we were.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: We were just having fun making kind of orchestrated noise, you know, and it was uh it was a blast for us.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: We really, really enjoyed it.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And and we started writing songs.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that day, or maybe the next practice, we'd like finished one track called Why, and then uh and then it just started sort of you know parlaying into into future songs, and it just became more and more fun, something we kept doing.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: It became our outlet too.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: That that was like, I mean, all the kids were going to were, I don't know, they were doing drugs and like getting in trouble and stuff like that.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: We were just rehearsing and writing songs like every weekend because it was it was the best time ever.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: We knew exactly what we wanted to do at that point.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was great.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_03: Not to throw ages on all of us because we're all about the same age, but approximately when was this in the 90s?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, I was 13, Ben you were 14, so 92, 92, I think something like that.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's a good time.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the point I was I was kind of thinking about whenever you guys were talking about, there was no better time than the 90s to be experimental with things.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's great, man.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's fantastic.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_03: I think about my early band days, and it was kind of the similar thing.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_03: It was just like, well, learn three or four chords, let's write a song around it.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: We've got a song, let's move on to the next one.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't know any barriers yet, you don't know any limitations yet.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all it is is just stretching and playing.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's fun.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right, exactly.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: We were also really fortunate to like grow up in the 90s, you know.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly in the 80s too, there's some really great music in the 80s, but I feel like the 90s for me was like my music, you know, like when I was like discovering artists, you know, it wasn't stuff that I learned from, you know, like like my my older brother or from my parents, you know, it was like these are new bands that are like I'm hearing on the radio and blowing my mind, you know.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like I'll never forget when Nirvana first came and I was out like skateboarding with my friend, and we went inside to listen to just like hang out in in in his room and listen to music, and then all of a sudden it smells like Teen Spirit came on.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, I just remember it like so vividly, just being like, What the fuck is that?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like that was, you know, and and to me, then you know, Pearl Jam, SoundGuard, and Allison Chan, like all of those bands came out and we got to see most of them live.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just like, oh my god, being a 13, 14-year-old kid and having this just like I don't know, it was just like uh it was such a like a sonic revelation.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was just for me, it was it was so inspirational.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then to be able to use those influence influences into our band, like I think that was a really, really fun outlet is you know to like what Jason was saying.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was a really good time.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and and the fact that uh MTV was alive and thriving at the time.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like that made that made the visuals went with everything so well, and it made everything seem I don't know.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh uh music is like an music is an invisible art.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: I like to think about it as that.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: So when you put visuals to it, all of a sudden it becomes something else.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh uh I don't know, music videos always they really changed me uh a long time ago, too.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: There's a great quote that says, if paintings decorate space, music decorates time.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's that's nice.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_03: I like that.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and the timeless ones, they're decorating your head, your your existence forever.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, absolutely, and to kind of bring this point first full circle, I have struggled with the concept of feeling nostalgic about the 90s until like the last year.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_03: And for some odd reason, I don't know if it's circadian rhythms or what, like the nostalgia for the 90s has hit like a freight train recently.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely, man.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the reasons why we're excited to be coming back.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not like we were in the 90s when we were, you know, like more out, but uh still that's kind of where where our heart is, you know what I mean?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's where uh musically that's where we we uh got got inspired for the first time, like Ben was saying.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, so yeah, I I think my catalyst was the fact that my 16-year-old daughter started singing in a band this year and she covered no doubt spider webs, and I was just like, whoa, what?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: That is awesome.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so wild that that's like considered a classic rock tune now.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right, I know.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: I know the minute Guns N' Roses started getting played on classic rock radio, I started to sweat a little.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_03: Now that Nirvana is getting played on classic rock radio, I'm sweating even more.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: So speaking of which, it's crazy.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's uh uh all these bands are coming out with new uh bands from like our youth are coming out with new records now.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, Guns and Roses just put a song out.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh um well, it's the stones.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: I really like the new stone song too, actually.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I do too.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: Moving forward with the story about how the band got going.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: So you you guys started writing songs, putting things together.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like, when did it really start gelling for you guys?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's it's interesting because we never like we never really learned our instruments all that well, like on our own, you know.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like I wasn't a kid that like sat and and practiced soloing for for hours a day and and really paid attention to like the guitar savants, you know.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like I like I was just listening to songwriters and and getting inspiration from like sort of beautiful chaos and and sound, and and we just kind of learned how to be players in a band, you know, like it's like we we just kept playing together and we'd spend hours in in blistering hot, you know, garages during summertime and we just hone in on these songs.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like we wouldn't stop listening to our own music, and it's not to sound like we thought we were amazing or anything, it was just we were so inspired by this group of people coming together and making you know this this orchestrated noise together.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just we were soaked in what we wrote, definitely.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we just wanted to keep playing and play live, and we would, you know, we would play parties, we would pay play like school functions, like they have like a school cabaret show at Calabasas High School, and we would play that.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we had Murray Spaghetti Night.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's a there's a video of this, by the way.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna find uh that it was a mosh pit at our at our school in like the was it in the quad or something, or yeah, or in the theater.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember what it was.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, but the teachers didn't know what to do, so they just stood back, but they're gonna have to going on.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: But like our friends were very supportive, you know.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like we used to we we play shows at like the Roxy Ear Whiskey and and Troubadour, you know, like a majority of our high school and also neighboring high schools would come.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and then it got to a point when, you know, I think this this might answer your question um more directly.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is is there became a point where we started looking out in the audience and not recognizing people.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that was like, whoa, like this is we were selling out venues, and I'd see like three of my friends there.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd be like, but then I'd be like, who are all these people?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd look at our mailing list, and it was all these people from all over basically San Fernando Valley, all the way to you know, Los Angeles and and you know, Long Beach.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: There are people that kind of came from from all over the place.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's when I was like, wow, this thing is like starting to become you know something that you know we can't even control.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's just people are are identi are are enjoying it, I guess.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the and and and uh uh also when you looked out and you saw people you didn't recognize and they were singing the song with you.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: That I mean the first time that happened when you were teenagers.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's it was so weird because it's like uh you just you felt like a regular, you know, everything everyone's was just felt like the same people, same same type of people.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it was it's interesting that they they looked at you differently and they listened to your they listened to your music on their own.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we just made this, like we're just high school kids.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's so weird.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I still feel that way, you know, like with when people it is so weird.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Someone likes it.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you liked our band.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm like, you did?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like always very very grateful to to people that you know appreciated the art that we made then, and you know, hopefully we'll appreciate it.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, yeah.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully we appreciate the new stuff.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, culminating all of this was your first release, Papa's Dojo.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: As guys that were just kind of navigating, learning your instruments, being in a band, writing songs for the first time.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: What was it like recording that set of songs the first time around?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_03: Because Papa's Dojo kind of lent itself to your major label debut as well, right?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: That it did, yeah.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that one, you know, we'd we'd gotten like our earlier music was was sort of um, I just get I guess abstract.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't, it wasn't, you know, it didn't have any sort of cookie cutter or or architecture, sonic architecture to it that felt like like a pop song architecture, meaning, you know, here's your verses, here's your pretty course, here's your chorus.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: We just were just making parts.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Just playing whatever we liked.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was kind of musically schizophrenic.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like when we got to Papa's dojo, we started really paying attention to making sure does this feel cohesive?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Do we have a sound?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, because the earlier stuff, and I don't know if you've heard it, but like, you know, we didn't know if we were a ska band, a funk band, a metal band, like you know, we were screaming, like we would have our friend come up on stage, but say, Yeah, Jason rapped a little bit.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Even I rapped on something which was ridiculous.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, we thought about that the other day.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think all of us have a rapper in our closet.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I love rap, but you just don't want to hear me rap, you know, like it's just it's just not a good look for me.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: But um uh yeah, so if I think we were getting more cohesive at that time, we'd also I guess we probably should have gotten a keyboard player, but we just didn't have one.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: We'd we'd purchased a keyboard because we wanted to hear some synth colors into our music and also like maybe some drum type synths.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when we went into the studio, um our drummer at the time, Jamin, he had a relationship with he was helping this company who was like a publishing company, a smaller publishing company, and they had this little studio in the back, and and um this guy, CJ, who we knew who had um we'd worked with at Fourth Street Recording Studio, was was working with them and doing albums.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and um we got a really great like day rate to go in there.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember it was it was really fun.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: We just you know, we put all these songs together, and I, you know, we were all really excited about it.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember Jason went in and um and like knocked out like eight of them in one day.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was insane.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's like sometimes like watching singers, especially Jason, it's like you know, he'll have his good days and he'll have his days where he's like he's he's he has to like warm up a little bit, but like once he's in that like zone, that like matrix zone, he just goes and it's just like, oh, that was great, that was great, that was great, that was great, go, go, go.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember on that, like it was so fast, it was like insane how quickly, um, especially he he worked his parts out.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I remember we were all really proud of it.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think, at least speaking for myself, I was very proud of it.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was like the first time we'd finished like a cohesive album, you know.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And even that one has like it's kind of a little bit all over the place.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure in even the stuff we're doing now is a little bit all over the place because we never want to be like a mold, you know, of of of what we are.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: But hopefully the sound that we've made now, I'd say, is is more cohesive, even though it it enters a variety of like sonic spectrums.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it is.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's something that I've taken from it so far with with everything we've written.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: It it uh all of it sounds different, but it all sounds it all sounds like us to me.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I can hear you and I in there.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_03: So that's good.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: That's good.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you don't you don't want to lose your basic identity, obviously.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, no.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: So let's you know, flying through the the origin story, let's get to your major label signing.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_03: You sign with Atlantic Records, you start recording.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um through your recording process, you realize the songs that you had on Papa's Dojo might be the the way to go with your major label debut.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: So let's get to that major label debut and talk a little bit about that.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think the decision to use those songs, did that come a little bit later, Ben?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Did that come like when we were actually I think what happened, what happened is at the time that we got a record deal, you know, Jamin, our drummer, was was very influential as Jason and myself are.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say like us three, you know, Paul was pretty much like, let's just let's just roll with with whatever we all came up with as the basis.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, me, Jason, and Jamin were all really obviously opinionated about what we liked, what we didn't like.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um, Jamin, I think, had a very, very strong opinion about the direction of where he wanted the music to go.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I think what I was doing musically wasn't necessarily what he was liking with the in terms of where he wanted the band to go.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this is just obviously my point of view, and I don't know if this agrees uh or disagrees with Jason's point of view, but we started trying to write, and I felt like I was trying to at first make music that would sort of you know, um satiate what he his appetite, what he was looking to achieve.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right, and at the same time, it didn't really feel like what I do, you know.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: It sort of felt like like I was writing for like somebody else was playing my guitar, it didn't feel like what I would naturally write.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think our record label, when they first heard some of the stuff we were doing, remember Jay like the I never wanted you to remember some of this stuff now.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like I remember a lot of music, but remember it was right, yeah.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I remember I remember our AR guy came in and he was just like he just was so confused by it because you know he signed us based on on Papa's Dojo, which was like we were like an alternative kind of hard rock band, and we were writing songs that kind of felt a little more like 80s, and it just it seemed a bit incongruous with what we were trying to do initially or what he thought we were gonna do.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were writing, and it just like it just felt like we were kind of banging our heads, at least I felt like I was banging my head against the wall.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, I would also write like certain things that I liked, you know.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like one of my favorite songs on Dirty Sexy Nights in Paris was was um Rang.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I really, really liked that song, and and I and that was one that like I remember like it took a while for it to sort of pass through the audio event filter of of heads, but like eventually we got there and we made it work, and then you know, the energy also kind of came out of a lot of like banging our heads against the wall, but finally we started sort of identifying you know, somewhat of a sound, but at the same time, it was so hard to write new music that we kind of had to go back and reimagine some of the old songs.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think we were like, Well, those are great, we can make them greater in a studio versus being like fuck, here's the chance for us to write like 30 new songs in the next 12, like two months, three months, and like see if we can beat every song from Papua's Dojo.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: I just think we couldn't.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: That was my again, my perspective.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I just think we couldn't do it, so we just reimagined some songs off that.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: Man, when you mentioned rain, okay, so I have a small list of songs, the non-single audio vent songs that I absolutely love Gravity, Rain, One Small Choice, and Sweet Frustration.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_03: Love all four of those songs.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: And whenever people ask me, I'm like, okay, yeah, you've heard the energy, it's it's awesome.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_03: Let's listen to gravity, listen to rain, check out these songs too.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I absolutely love that album, and it came out June 4th, 2002.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I've got a little anecdote to share with you guys that's pretty hilarious.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: So I was I was playing in a band at the time, and we were doing shows all over the Midwest.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: We drove from Omaha, Nebraska down to St.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: Louis to do a show.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_03: A month before Nelly's Hot in here came on, and I'm in St.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: Louis, and there wasn't a radio station that wasn't playing the new Nellie song at all.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you you turn it to the Alt Rock station there playing Nelly's song.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like you bring it back so many memories, man.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: So they've like, they gotta embrace their hometown guy.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_03: So we literally on the road purchased Dirty Sexy Nights in Paris, and we listened to the shit out of that album while we were in St.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: Louis doing this little mini tour thing throughout the Midwest.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: And that was the moment that was the catalyst, and it was, I think, late June.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_03: I I don't think the album had been out a full month yet.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: And that was the catalyst to make my band that I was in at the time fall in love with your band.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: So that's so cool.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: I love that you have that connection, that experience connection with it.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because that, I mean, you'll have that year the rest of your life too.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: When you live in some results, so you have like memories of being were you in a van or something?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: Like oh yeah.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_03: We were we were in this big old suburban that we used to call the Powerball Express.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh with with this homemade trailer chucked full of our gear, just night trailer.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Somebody took an old truck bed and uh made a trailer out of it and like built us around.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, come on, we're in the Midwest, man.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_03: There's farms all over the place.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: But it held up, it held up, right?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, absolutely fantastic.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: And that same summer, you guys did a radio station festival in Omaha, and I think it was on, I swear to you, the absolute hottest day of the year.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_03: It was past 100 degrees.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: I remember it.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was like an outdoor shed.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I think I remember that too, actually.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: But I I think I saw I ended up seeing you guys play three different times that year.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: So no way.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: That's awesome, baby.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: So you're on the campaign for Dirty Sexy Nights in Paris.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: You're doing tours with like Saliva, Theory of a Dead Man.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, you guys did like a club tour with the used before they they became big at one point in time, didn't you?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_03: We did.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we did.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, remember when that album.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was that was our first tour actually after we finished our album.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: We um we went out with this band called Pressure for 4-5, which is some guys that we knew from we went to school up in Santa Barbara for a little bit, and uh, and all those guys, like one of the one of the guitarists was like in the same dorm that I was in my first year in college.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so we knew them, and then we met, you know, uh the used guys, and it was just a blast.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: We were all in vans, you know, nobody had any egos, which was awesome.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of chaos, actually.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sheer chaos.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and those guys were hilarious because they were super wild, you know, like especially Bert, you know.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Bert the singer.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I Ben, I just we just talked about this recently, but uh uh Bert used to come out on stage and there'll be a certain point in the in their in their set, like in the middle of their set, where there'd be like a breakdown, like they'd just the drums are they're making like a vibe, and Bert just goes up to the front with his mic and just starts heaving.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he ends up throwing up.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he did it almost, I think he did it every show.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but he threw up, and and there was one time we were forget, Ben, remember where we were when this happened with the two girls?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: There was there was no one, there was no one there except there was two two girls in the front row, like teenagers, staying there all like just watching Bert, like you know, this is a crazy show.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, it's the craziest thing you've ever seen.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he throws up on them.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: He puked on the two teenage girls.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, guarantee they'll never forget that.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was amazing, it was disgusting, and uh yeah.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to confirm that because I saw you guys on that tour too, because I saw you at the ranch bowl in Omaha, Nebraska, too.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: So uh that's yeah is the ranch bowl is that oh it's the bowling alley, yeah.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Not anymore, it's a Walmart.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no way.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: I remember playing you go in that that bowling alley, and there's a little room to the left.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: It had like a large stage, too.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that was that tour was insane.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: I remember there were some places.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: I remember we played a show in Wichita, Kansas, somewhere, and it was like nuts.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like I remember there was like maybe you know, some of the shows, like Jason said, there'd be like two people there, and then some shows there'd be like 500 people going completely apeshit for every band.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, that was that was a really, really great time for sure.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_03: Gosh, man, I yeah, it was and and the funny thing is is you kind of reflect upon it and it's almost it almost feels like yesterday, and it's hard to imagine that it's been 20 years since then.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's wild.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: So, how are you guys dealing with that?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how do you guys deal with age whenever 2003 feels like five years ago, but it was actually 20 years ago?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I mean, I don't know.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's weird.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Time is a especially nowadays, I have a funny relationship with time itself and everything because I still feel like the same exact person.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I feel a lot smarter and a lot more like lived, and you know, I understand a lot more what's going on, especially understand myself a lot more.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I understand how to how to make music better, how to make art better, um, how to actually translate what's going on in my brain better into the world.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but besides that, it all it still feels the same.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's weird.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I still see Ben as like, I don't know, it's like no time has passed, really, for me.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: Even the time we spent apart, Ben, you and I, like when we didn't, we weren't talking.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't even remember that being there.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like no time was lost.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's weird.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: So um the uh yeah, go ahead, Ben.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was just gonna say it's it's a why, it's it's a really weird thought to know in my mind when I want to say something was like five years ago.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, actually, it was 23 years ago.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was like, oh, remember when we went to and did this thing at this specific location, whatever it was.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, in my mind, it's like it feels like five years ago.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: I just I I cannot believe that we've basically like when we did audio event, I'm double the age that I was that you know, I've we've we've we've done a double lap in life from where we were when we were playing those shows in in Omaha, Nebraska.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's like to me, like that time is just it's just so un unbelievable.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because to Jason's point, I feel the same.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe my body hurts a little more.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I just have more responsibilities.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: I have kids now, you know.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I have a I have a whole family, and and and it's just it's a it's a new chapter, but at the same time, I feel like myself.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: And like when Jason and I are creating that same sort of fire or that that inspirational sort of appeal um presents itself the same way it did when we were 14, screwing around in a in in a garage playing music, you know?
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: What's funny is it almost took the 20 years for us to come around and realize that we don't have to have you don't have to abide by any rules when we're making art.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh we we got back to the place where we first started, uh in in reality, you know, we're we're just a little we're a little wiser, we're a little better at what we do.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, hopefully a lot better at what we do.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, yeah.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think the state of the industry has also had an influence on that too?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: Because I feel like 20 years ago there was a certain structure that bands and artists had to fit themselves into, but now it's almost like the Wild West where you could just kind of create again for the sake of creation.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean it's it's it's it's it's uh easier in the in the sense of you know, there's more control at your fingertips.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's harder in the sense that there's more, there's more access for everyone to do it.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it it can be harder to get yourself heard, you know, to get to really get your art out there.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think for me, like like in terms of art, you know, when I was in my 20s, you know, you're like you're trying to prove yourself.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to prove myself whether I knew it or not, you know, like I wanted, I I felt like, oh, I could be on stage, it looked like living out my dream.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be so cool.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And like I wanted to be on the radio.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted, you know, I wanted to sell a gazillion albums.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Not to say I wouldn't want that now, but that's not a driving force for me at all.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like what make what drives me is the art, and that's it.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, like like I think we, you know, we were talking earlier, Mike, about that we're gonna be releasing a song.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the first song we're gonna be releasing is not, you know, it's a it's a rather long song, and it's not at all a standard sort of arc architecture, like a pop architecture or a rock architecture that you'd hear on the radio.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and for this entire album of music that we've been making, we could care less about you know, creating anything that's gonna, that's gonna, you know, is it too long?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we maybe we need to trim the fat off the song because you know, radio or whoever or playlist won't add it unless it's it's three minutes and 30 seconds, you know, like you know, or two minutes and 30 seconds, you know.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think the Harry Styles album, like every song on it is like two minutes and 20 seconds, or and I actually like the album, but it's like it's um it's we it's we just could care less about that, and I really love it and and that we do care less about it, and I think that's freeing because yeah, there's no ego in in this at all, like it to at least for me, you know.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um I just feel like I want to make the best art that we can make together, and let's just make Sonic Odyssey as many of them as we can.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes, and that kind of lends to my to my next question and kind of like starting to put the past in the pasture.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, 2003, you guys started working on a second album.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um but 2003, late 2003, early 2004, uh Atlantic and Electra consolidated.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_03: Were you guys caught in the crossfire of that consolidation?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's not that I don't want to answer that question.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh yeah, yes, yes, yes, we were.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh our our uh and then correct me if anything's wrong here, but this was my memory of it.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Our AR guy was fired, and um, and he was our you know, he was our representative there.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: He was our our our homie at the label, basically.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh they put us with uh with a hip-hop guy that didn't didn't really like our band, anyways.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: So uh things didn't work out from that point on, and we eventually just had to uh ask to be released from our contract, and there was a deal made we did.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, yeah, because I remember when that happened, and I never knew if it had officially impacted you guys or not at the time, but I I know it it like uh third eye blind and a couple other bands that were dropped, and you're like, these guys had monster albums just three, four years ago, yeah, and and then you know that consolidation happened.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: So explain to me with all of this that happened, what was the whole name change to Nigel, the lineup change?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_03: Was that kind of a react to the record label situation, or was that a metamorphosis of your sound at the time?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we we hadn't parted ways with with Atlantic yet when we did Nigel.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we so this is twofold.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: I we have to take some some uh responsibility for the decisions we made too, because we became a different band than you know Atlantic had signed.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Jason and I, we parted ways with Jamin, right, for those same reasons um, you know, that I mentioned earlier, in terms of him wanting a specific direction, which you know, of course, he's he's entitled to what he wants to do.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and there's no shame in him wanting the sound that he wanted to go after.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, as we got older, we became more opinionated, you know, it was our second record.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: We'd sold almost 150,000 albums on Dirty Sexy Nights in Paris, and everybody kind of, you know, we we were a bit more, I'd say, you know, rigid in terms of what we wanted to do.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it just wasn't working out with Jamin.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: And at that time, um, so we parted ways with him, and then that's when we met your your friend Ryland.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'd met Ryland through my uh a few friends that um played in the band Phantom Planet and some of the rune five guys, and just loved him.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: I just loved like his energy.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: He was such a calming, you know, human.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: He just practiced all day.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: He just he loved music.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: But Jason and I at that time, you know, during Dirty Sexy Nights in Paris, for most of that writing, we didn't smoke any pot.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like we would drink, but that was about it.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like we barely like I would smoke a weed every once in a while, but I don't think Jason ever did until we were like towards the end of Dirty Sexy Nights in Paris, and then you started smoking a little bit.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um on uh yeah, I was I was 21.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was on may have been on my 21st birthday.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know we were in the studio and they they kind of peer pressured me and I did it.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that's on video as well.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sorry about that.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry that I peer pressured you.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: I know, I mean it's it's fine.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a I'm a I'm a uh uh dedicated stoner now, so it's fine.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um but uh you know, musically we we just like you know, we we were into different things and we kind of wanted to be as far away from dirty sexy nights in Paris.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think just like the the weed was making us want to be more cerebral with the music instead of like having this kind of like octane, really heavy driving power chord, um, you know, written songs.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: We we wanted it to be more melodic and more um just in terms of music, not just the vocals.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and just sort of painting with different colors, but in that we just became, in my opinion, I don't know if you agree, Jay.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me if you agree, but like I just feel like we had no idea who we were during that.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, we were kind of unrecognizable.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: We were just we uh I I purposely uh uh just stopped singing the way I was singing.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: I purposely was just trying to sing more like my regular, like like my speaking voice.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was trying to, I was like like listening to a lot of Neil Young and and uh just things that were more uh like a real person's voice, not and not a this character that I'd sort of accidentally created in in you know in my youth, uh that was just part of my voice.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh uh it didn't work out because I just I sounded like shit.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: I honestly just sounded like shit.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's fine.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean we we made some fun stuff, it was cool and everything.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we had a fun time.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um we were in a house in Topanga that Atlanta granted us, and um it was a it was a good time, great memories about and everything, but that was also the beginning of the end for a friends at the time, too.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_03: And that's where I was going next from the 30,000 mile-away view.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_03: It felt like you guys came out at a really interesting time in the industry because there was a huge musical title shift happening at that point in time.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_03: Like new metal was on the decline, the pop punk stuff was starting to rise up, the indie rock was starting to rise up a little bit more, and you guys are kind of like dead center, you're a straightforward rock band, like not even like a post-grunge type rock band, you guys were just a rock band in a time where rock bands were a rarity.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_03: I've often made the argument about both Audio Vent and one of my other favorite bands, a band called Letter Kills from Temecula, that if your album had come out maybe a year earlier or a year later, like it would have been an absolute fucking monster.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's a hey, that's that's a good point.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_03: I think about things from the perspective of marketing, so it's just I don't know.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think you're right.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: I remember I remember really vividly remembering, like, you know, that was like when the the the hives and the vines and oh yeah, and all the the bands that like were coming out that were like that indie explosion, um, you know, that that um and I like some of that stuff, you know, but I could see to your point the title change happening.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, all the bands that we toured with didn't really fit the vibe of who we were either, you know, like they weren't even bands that we really listened to, right?
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like we, you know, I was trying to think about like who we, you know, there the only bands that like I really felt like we identified with that we toured with was like when we did the used tour, you know.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, other than that, like it was fun going on tour with Bush, and I think their bands kind of liked us, you know, like that was the tour after that band.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: But then we were touring with bands like Saliva, and yeah, like you know, we're not, I mean, nice guys, but I'm not a fan of the music that that band did in and I never was.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: They were they were always really nice to us and and super, super sweet people.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: As most bands that we toured with were really sweet, but you know, we were either playing with too heavy a music, like where it's like we're playing with like we did a loco bazooka tour, and like, you know, it was a really intense tour.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: And some shows, like, you know, I'd have like eight people sticking their middle finger in my face, or the entire crowd walks away to go see like what Mushroom Head is doing at the stage right next to us, and then other shows there'd be like 2,000 people, 6,000 people jumping up and down going crazy.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we kind of didn't really find the bands that like and the the bands that we could kind of pair up with that uh the world we could live in on tour, basically would like.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, if if if your album had dropped a year earlier, it would have been nice seeing you guys with Huba Stank and your brothers and indubus on that tour because that you guys would have fit that almost perfectly.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_03: Well, perfectly.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I remember we we we did a tour.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: So this is this is Jason and I were talking about this the other day.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like we were just in the middle of our studio.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: We probably had like three songs left to do, and in um, I get a phone call from my brother, and he's like, Yeah, we wanted to take you, me and Brandon wanna wanna had talked about it.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: We want to take you guys out to Europe on our like six weeks tour, and we really wanted to go, but our label for some fucking stupid reason like didn't want us to do it.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like it would have been not only like from like a business perspective, really awesome just to have our bands, but just from like a familial, really bonding, amazing.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like it would have just been so fun to like be like our it'd be like a family tour, you know, and and yeah, and they they were already quite you know massive in in Europe.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that would have been, I think, a really good jump start for us.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: But we did do one show.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: There was a show that that I think they filmed their their out that what was that video?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um um I can't remember the name of it, but uh they filmed a live video at the Bakersfield Centennial Garden for one of their songs, and they asked us to open and and who was dang played also.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like I remember we played, it was the first time we played in arena, and we'd gone from playing like maybe the biggest show, like with like 800 people, to them playing in front of I think it held probably like 15,000, and there were maybe 10,000 when we opened up, and and it was just the most fucking crazy thing to be playing in front of that many people, and then and also my brother at the time, I didn't have a guitar tech because I just hadn't had one yet, and and we hadn't really toured yet, like like consistently.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my brother was my tech, he had a little hood on his head, and nobody realized that he was handing me my guitars and like my amp cut out one time, and he's up there trying to fix it.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you know, little did anybody know there was like 15,000 people to see them play, so that was pretty cool.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember after we played, we sold, I want to say like 1200 CDs that night, and we went and did our own show in Bakersfield like four months later, and it was sold out in a day.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was just like you know, it just made sense that that you know, like our sounds could go well together with us who stinking incubus, and it was really, really fun.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: It felt really good too.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just lending to that marketing mindset, right?
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: Hey man, any any tips you got for us less than back out again?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, neither of us are are are are great at that uh just yet, but we're we're we're figuring it out.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_03: So the band wrapped up about 2003, 2004.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_03: You guys got back together for the first time in 2019.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_03: What was the catalyst for your reunion?
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was uh um an offer to go on tour with Huba Snake, actually.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um they were they were going back out again and they um offered us some dates and Benny Maybe called me and I'm just like, hell yeah, it sounds like a lot of fun, man.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like uh, you know, let's let's let's try it, let's do it.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh it wasn't gonna work with with Jamin.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: So um we got uh uh Shane in there.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's our drummer now.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Ben Ben was friends with Shane already.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so we just we started started rehearsing for that and got all excited again, got kind of the got the butterflies back about making music again and stuff.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: It felt good.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then that that tour got canceled.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we decided to book our own some of our own shows, which we did.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: We booked uh two two nights at the Viper Room and uh what one or two one show, two shows in Arizona, one show?
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: One show, one show, yeah.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, which though those were all so fun, sold out, like just people so stoked, coming from all over the place, too.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it was it was a blast.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: It really, really was.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I cannot wait to play the new material uh for everyone because it's it's it's like where we are now versus playing songs of where we were when we were, you know, 20, 21 years old.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's gonna be great.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_03: So talking about the title shift of where things have gone from when the band initially broke up, or actually broke through, then broke up, and to though that reunion then.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_03: Obviously, social media being the biggest leveling apparatus out there.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, how do you view presenting new art now differently than what you did back then?
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's a good question.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're kind of trying to figure out now.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: We obviously see like trends in what people are doing and and how to get people to sort of get access to your art or to be kind of attracted to your art.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: How do we draw attention to what we're doing?
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the challenge for us is, you know, like we'd sold quite a large amount of albums back then, 20 years ago.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and I know just from my limited knowledge, like on Spotify, we have almost, I think, around 30,000 active listeners a month.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know what it's like on Apple, but you know, if you look at our Instagram, which I'm sure you've seen, you know, we've talked on Instagram, is is we only have about just under 2,000 people that that really have access, direct access.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jason has his followers and I have my followers on Instagram.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: But like I don't really know how to connect to all the people that might not know that we're a band.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because clearly there are a lot of them that are out there.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe some are interested, maybe some are not.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: But by the way, people gotta be curious.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: If they at least if they knew who we were back then, they'd be like, Okay, all right, what are you doing now?
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how much do you have to suck?
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want to hear how much you suck.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like you have to hate listen, I don't care.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, no matter, no matter what, no matter what we do, no matter what our sounds are, you're gonna have some people that are just like, wish it sounded like the old shit.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna go Hard, you go all the way, you don't say.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's not a joke there, but uh yeah, yeah.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's amazing.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_03: You're obviously playing by your own rules, really definitively, with this new music.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_03: Before we started recording, Ben, you were kind of telling me that you're gonna take a slow release approach with this new album, like maybe do it a song at a time, which I think is ingenious because if you're paying attention to the trends, that's pretty much what everybody is doing now.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah, so do you guys still consider things in terms of a full collective of songs?
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like ritualistically, we open up the vinyl, we put it on the record player, right?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_03: We listen to side A, we flip it over and listen to side B.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_03: But that trend has obviously changed since streaming.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_03: Do you still consider that when trying to piece together your material?
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in a way, yes.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, um, I I still have the fantasy of having the especially this this batch of songs that we're doing uh on vinyl.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it it it does um everything we've written so far uh is beautiful, unique, and special in its own way, and it and it all together absolutely does tell a story because especially just from a from a writing perspective, from the from the lit lyrically, it is all it's all pulled from my journals and it's all um part of a time period.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it all really does tell a story.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's panda there's the pandemic in there, there's a breakup, there's you know, all that's what kind of inspired us to get back together too, by the way, was or get to get start writing this record, just because I went through a breakup and I had all this writing, and I'm just like, now's the time.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now's the time we gotta do this.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: I got I got the juice in me.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: I got that bad bad juice in me right now.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta get it out.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it'll be interesting to see when we're done.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: We I think we have seven songs, right, Jay?
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is that about right?
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, seven.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and out of that batch, if we're just gonna keep writing, because you know, um I, you know, I have a company called Kaya, and we do music for all types of media, and we basically have this studio here that is we can use all the time, anytime we want, you know, like I'm a little sick, otherwise Jason would be over.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Jason's working on our video right now, but we would be over here and we can work anytime we want, which is which is awesome.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: So the idea is if seven songs is summarizes the entire story, cool.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: If it doesn't summarize it, me and Jason might decide to write a few more and add to the album, and then there's gonna probably be a cutoff time, unless we just have one album that goes for the next like 10 years and we just keep adding to like a end up just on a collection, yeah, like a collection or a couple just like this, which is sort of what any band does.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's just you know, but but maybe we'll be done with this album at seven, we'll start a new one afterwards.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the idea for us is is just to keep doing this until it's not fun anymore, until we don't like it anymore.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in at the moment, you know, I feel like Jason and my sort of musical chemistry is better than it's ever been, ever by far.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_03: So that's a that brings up another good point.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_03: What influences you now versus what influenced you the first time around?
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think just pure authenticity, not not really looking to what other bands are doing or what what we think is going to be more successful, or what we think is going to there's just no thought process in there about anything other than let's just let's just let ourselves go and make the music that feels real and honest, you know.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like like I was I've said this to Jason in the past before, you know, when we first started, Jason used to just write lyrics out of his journal, like in and when we first started the band, it would just be like lyrics, like there was lyrics right about like your parents' divorce and stuff.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like it like sounds like the first song, yeah.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and and um, and it would felt very honest.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: And as we got into more commercial music making and and you know, like with Audio Vent 30, Sexy Nights and Parents, which I'm still very proud of a lot of the stuff that's on there, I think some of it got a bit watered down, just musically, lyrically, everythingily, everythingily, um, got a little bit watered down because of you know, the pressures that we were feeling, what we were hoping to achieve, etc.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think like this has been a really big breath of fresh air for me because when Jason and I sat down, Jason, you know, we started doing it like the old way, where we would make the music really cool and then we'd be like focusing on the melody.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: Is the melody catchy enough?
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is it good enough, the melody?
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then we would be banging our head against the wall because then we tried to add lyrics, and it was like trying to fit these like cinder blocks of words that didn't that might have sounded cool and maybe had some sort of abstract meaning.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember there was like a moment when Jason and I were sitting down, he was like, I have all these like journals, but they're not necessarily like all lyrics, they're just like journal entries.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Jason's like journals is like he's like a madman when he writes, like it's like it's really interesting, it's super visceral, and he, you know, he he sort of writes in in in analogies and and images, and and it's really, really like inspiring for me to hear it.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: So luckily he was cool with me opening up his journal and like finding moments that I was like, dude, sing that melody that we were just playing with, but with these words.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember all of a sudden it was like, oh, okay, the melody has fucking meaning, and now the song feels either intense or it feels more beautiful because it's like you know, you can write melodies for days, and if like the words don't mean anything, or they just are abstractions that you can sort of apply meaning to.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: To me, it just doesn't do what his lyrics have now done for these songs.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's amazing.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now it's more now it's more authentic.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's it's actually coming from a very real place, which is exactly what I wanted when when we started back up again, which is like okay, this got it's gotta come from real place.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's why it's like I should like through this breakup.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Let's use this.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: Let's use this.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_03: And we we use so when does the first song drop?
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we don't have a full, we don't have a complete set date.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be very soon, you know, within the next maybe, I don't know, three weeks or so, two weeks, something like that.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I'm finishing up the video right now, and uh we're gonna start doing probably clips of the video with um so people can start getting a little taste of what's going on.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and yeah, we'll release a date and count down to that date.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, that's amazing.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's uh it's a song called Sleepless Machine.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's finished.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um but we want to have the visual part, and Jason's um been doing a really good job on on creating the uh the video for it.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: Him and his cousin Robin.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um Robin Chilton, amazing, amazing uh cinematographer, DP.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's so and he's also shooting, actually, he's also shooting a documentary on us too right now.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh he's he's been capturing the entire uh uh recording process and um and our rehearsals and stuff, and then um uh he shot the footage for the video and then uh gave me a cut, and then I cut into his cut and made a made a deeper cut and uh and threw threw on some some some special uh uh futuristic elements that uh sure everyone will recognize, but hopefully a few people will be a little like surprised at what the fuck it even is.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm still trying to figure out what the fuck it even is.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_03: So, real quick, what's one artist on each of your playlists that's getting you excited right now?
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_03: Oh wow.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, think about that.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_03: Do you guys have like seasons where you like have seasons where you're into a certain style or certain musician and then you move on to the next one?
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I'm I'm I'm the same way with music as I am with like TV shows and and my favorite movies and stuff like that.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I will definitely go through phases where I can listen to a certain song over and over and over again, or I can watch a TV show over and over and over again, that kind of thing.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um Right right now, I mean, all I'm thinking of right now is the uh the the newer stuff that's come out.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um the only thing that's stuck in my head right now is the new stone song.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not even the best thing I've ever heard, but I like it.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's it's cool to hear them still making music at like 80 years old.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: And my dad's 88, and I can't picture him writing him writing his song anyways.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: But uh I really like Kevin Parker's stuff.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: I really like Tim and Paula.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think that they do it where he records it and produces it all himself, and I think that's you know something that we're going for on our end too.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like not having any label, not having any.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he has a label, obviously, but like I just think the the music that the choices he makes, the sonic textures he uses, how every element just feels warm and cool and different, a little bit left to center.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: I just I just love his songwriting and how everything sounds.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, that's inspiring, and and it also inspires us, I think, or me to want to do this on our own.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, me Jason and I producing and composing all of this.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: We started doing this with in my home studio, which is like a small 13 by 12 little room, and using, you know, we didn't have a drummer in the room.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: Jason knows how to play drums, but when we first started writing, we were just you know programming beats and and basically laying out the blueprint for all of the songs that we're doing.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: And now we have a studio that we can record live drums anytime, and it sounds like a record, you know.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm just I'm uh incredible.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: So incredible.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, our record will sound as cool as you know, Tame and Paula's sounds to me, you know, to other people.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think what the sounds we're getting right now for for the audio event stuff are are I think really interesting.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_03: So, my wrap-up question that I ask all of my guests because I love everybody's answer.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_03: So you guys take your turns, answer it one at a time.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_03: But what is your advice, given everything that you've learned throughout your career and just through your life?
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_03: What is your advice for making the world a better place tomorrow than it was today?
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: Just in general, you mean?
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would say don't react right away to everything.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um take a beat.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um don't be afraid to take a beat sometimes when you're even when you want to react.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because I feel like everything is so volatile right now, um, just in general.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if people stopped and just just took a second and actually thought about what the the consequences of what was about to come out of their mouth or out of their fists would would uh you know will be.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I I know I know it's helped me greatly.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm really very into therapy, so that's also another thing.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: If talk to someone, talk to anyone, you know.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: That was a good answer, Jay.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: My my thoughts would be don't share your candle with somebody that's gonna blow it out.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know it's it's it's really important.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think in my twenties and thirties, I found myself being close or friends with people that that might have been really talented, but when you were doing really well, they were silently or passive aggressively wishing you weren't doing well.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, find the people that that cheer you on when you're doing well and also try to lift you up when you're falling down and do the same for the people that that do that for you.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: And absolutely will breed positivity.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, that's that's my advice.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_03: I absolutely love that.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_03: I tell you what, guys, I hope I hope it is somewhere within your plans to hit the road again.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'm glad we got to meet and got to know each other and spent the last hour together.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_03: It has meant the world to me.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, if you do cross through the Midwest at any point in time, I want you both to know you guys have a seat at my table.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like I'd love to hang out in the real world.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_03: It has been nothing short of a pleasure getting to have this conversation with you guys.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_03: The world is a much better place with you guys in it.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, man.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: We that we feel the same way about you.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's fantastic.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: And we definitely will.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: When we come through uh Lincoln, we'll we'll sit down at your table and hopefully there'll be something on the table.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um or we can sit on your table.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: We could do uh sit Indian style, yeah.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_03: Probably just hang out in the backyard with the the fire pit going and uh tell stories.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh I love it.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: Favorite thing to do, tell stories.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_03: Once again, I want to thank my new friends Jason and Ben for doing the show.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_03: Go listen to Audio Ven right now.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_03: Find them on your favorite streaming platform, go to YouTube, crack open your old CD wallet, and take a listen to Dirty Sexy Nights in Paris.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_03: I have to say that this new music is going to be just as good, if not better, because it does great things for all of us.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_03: Find them on Instagram and give them a follow.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_03: And while if you are being generous with the followers, make sure you follow Cop on the Mic on all social media platforms.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_03: Check me out at www.cot on the mic.com October 20th.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_03: New audio vet, check it out.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_03: Let's get them caught on the mic with Michael Clark.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Michael Clark.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_03: Until next time.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.