Latest / Caught on the Mike... / Eddie Reyes- formerly of Taking Back Sunday

Transcript

Eddie Reyes- formerly of Taking Back Sunday · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: 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 today represent.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Listener discretion is advised.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And exactly where he wants to be.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mickey.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, if you are a fan of popular music anytime in the past 20-some years, yes, Eddie, we're getting old.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you recognize my next guest.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: He was the founding member and guitarist of a little band called Taking Back Sunday.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's now my friend.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's a paranormal enthusiast.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: He's living in Ohio and he's just living his best life.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome Ed Reyes to the show today.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: How you doing, brother?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: I I wouldn't say best because I'm old, but I'm trying.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, uh, I'm doing I'm I'm I'm doing good.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing good, you know?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm me.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh people ask me every day, how you doing?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I always go, I'm me.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's the only way I answer.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: But uh Yeah.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for harboring me.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, thanks for doing it.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I know we've been kind of trying to connect, and uh life happens, man.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're both dads.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: We we do the dad thing, we do the the job thing, and uh I I get it, man.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Shit happens from time to time, right?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: No, no more, no, no more rock star life.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I I went back to a normal to normalcy.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: I went back to uh having a normal job and uh just raising two kids with my with my my smarter half who's hiding.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean mu I haven't done anything musically.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't done musically anything really musically.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've done a couple of projects here and there, but yeah, I mean, but now I'm I'm looking to get back into it, you know, eventually one day.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean life is life.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we were talking before we pressed record that you were uh that you were kind of working with a buddy in the studio.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So are you still writing stuff from time to time?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: One of my best friends, uh he owns it, but I I pretty much help him run it and and stuff like that.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: But uh and uh like a little group of friends.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we all are in a band together.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Dead Hands.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's uh it's just a you know, we're taking it serious, but we're also not like you know how bands they they start and they were like, we're gonna do it, we're gonna make it, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we don't give a shit.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and the funny thing is, it's the same.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, but the funny thing is the same attitude Taken Back Sunday had.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we didn't care if we got big, we didn't care if people liked us.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: We just wanted to go on stage and break our shit and and act like, you know, tough hardcore kids when we weren't.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, so like this band, Dead Hands, is like the same thing, but it's uh it's different, obviously.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh I I don't know how to explain it.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's like if at the drive-in and hum started a band.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's the only way I could describe it.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, you you dropped the hum card.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, when it's done, I'll I'll send you a link or we'll put a we're we don't even have a website, but we gotta get that going.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we played our first show like two weeks ago, and it was it was pretty good.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, 60, 80 people came.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: The venue only held a hundred.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it was fun.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's just one of those we're old dudes now, man.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: We got teenagers that are going off to college, and we are we really gonna jump on a tour bus and leave our families for three months, you know, those days are over with for me.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I you know, uh yeah, it'd be we look at it this way we're gonna go out and play like a week of shows, come home, play weekends, go out, do festivals, yeah, stuff like that.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe a label will sign us, you know.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just that's that's if it happens.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: But if it doesn't, we don't care.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: People are still gonna hear the music.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna put it out online, and uh, yeah, like we're still mixing.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yesterday they were mixing, it's only like what, six or seven songs right now, but uh I think we're gonna slowly release them like little mini EPs online.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: But if you hear Dead Hands, that's uh the band.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I guess I am in a new band, but it's not like you know, it's fun, it's for fun.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: How about that?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it sounds like you're kind of taking it back to to your origins a little bit.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I want to.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I love that, and that the D DIY spirit.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, even the way we recorded it, even the way we we recorded it, we we're all like in the same age group, me and my guys, except my one guitarist is a lot younger, but he's still older, has kids and all that.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: But we all miss that 90s vibe, that 90s hardcore, post-hardcore uh shoe gaze, when shoe gaze was real, not these TikTok bands, I think they're shoe gaze.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's uh so it's so we are purposely record, he's a great producer.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: He worked under uh Steve Albini.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so the way we're recording is just old school.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're using uh all our we're using guitar heads through cabinets.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're not running tape, obviously, but we're doing, you know, we're trying to use less tricks.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And the sound we're getting, we don't want perfect.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you don't put in hum and hear perfect, overproduce crap like falling in reverse.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: You hear real music, raw, and that's what we're doing.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's just raw, you know, and then and that's the sound we're going for.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're going for that 90s, you know, that night like failure, bands like that, stuff like that, you know.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: So let's kind of take it back to when you started.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like your origin story.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: How did you get into music and playing in bands in the first place?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, I'm sometimes I sit there and I go, Man, I wish I could remember everything.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I do remember me and my best friend George uh George Fullen, uh, who's also on Long Island.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he's a legend and he's known as General George.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: We actually had a record label together um that we put out Saves a Day's demo and all that stuff.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is back in the early 90s.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: But um, so me and George, we used to go to this venue called the Sundance, and that's how I met a lot of my other old school hardcore buddies like Artie Shepard and George Reynolds.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: George Reynolds who sang for Mind Over Matter and uh Day in the Life and Artie Shepard, who went on to Aerotype 11 and then owning St.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Vitus and stuff like that.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, um we went to this place called Uncle Phil's, and we were going to check out some new metal records.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: We were like, I was really into like black metal and death metal, like people were listening to like Metallica and that bullshit.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was listening to like, you know, mayhem and so um so me and George, this was like 86-ish.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um me and George or 87.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: So me and George, we went through the spin and said$3 for a tape.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I pulled out a tape and it was Dagnathie, can I say?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Oh shit, I'm gonna buy this.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this looks cool, looks different, cool little symbol.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: I have a tattooed in my arm.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh and then I saw another record that I wanted.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: This record of the band called Agnostic Front, Victim in Pain.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, cool.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I bought those two.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Those two records turned me into a hardcore kid.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: But more of a crop more of a crossover kid, because I still love metal.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's one of those.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, that's how it started for me.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then we started uh uh, you know, I got my first guitar, uh, we started bands, they were terrible.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um we were going to New York City and Brooklyn and all those places to see, go to hardcore shows and all that.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: And a bunch of my friends locally are like, you know, if we're doing this over there, why don't we do that here?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And people I know, just dudes in our crew, just started booking shows at VFW halls, backyards, and you know what I mean?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like for me being from Long Island, the Long Island hardcore scene, that's how it all started for me, musically, and how I got into it.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, going to venues, like we had this venue called the Sundance, and I mean I saw Voivod and Bad Brains and all these great bands there, you know.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I had such a great surrounding of music, music around me, being from Long Island, you know, like it was a special place.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: People always talk about Seattle, but I don't know, man.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of stuff that came out of Long Island, New York, and Jersey, and even Boston, like that whole East Coast was just nonstop, you know?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how I got into it.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And this was like wow.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: I my very first really shitty hardcore band, we were called Ninth Circle, and I think it was '89, 1989.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Man, we were terrible.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: We put a demo out, and then it molded on into other bands, and uh yeah.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then like the 20,000 bands out within.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: But you you have have a wide range of influences, and it's like, and I think that's kind of a commonality with all musicians, right?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: You kind of pick up pieces from everything that you listen to.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because we were talking before we press record about how we're both fans of atmosphere.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: You've never done hip-hop, I've never done hip-hop, but we're fans of atmosphere, you know.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, check this out.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm from Amityville, New York.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: De La Sol is from Amityville.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: De La Sole went to high school with my brother.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: My brother worked with Vince Mason.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I grew up in hip-hop.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up uh Q-tip and all those guys were around the corner.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Just a town over for me, just a town over for me.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: I used to go to parties with my brother and watch EPMD, you know, spit it, spit it out in backyards.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I grew up in that scene with hip-hop and punk rock and metal, you know, and then I'm Latin, so I got my sisters blasting Merengue and all that around me.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all stewed in me, man.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I try to mix it in with the music, you know.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like for me, when I when I play power chords and just uh I have this way of writing slow, power-driven um mid-tempo parts that are usually end up being sing-along parts.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of those parts I wrote.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of that influence I got from bands like I mean, I don't know what you listen to, but I I grew up on bands like Celtic Frost, I grew up on bands like Creator, shit like that.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: So Celtic Frost, to me, are the godfathers of the breakdown.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like nobody was doing that shit in the mid-80s, you know what I mean?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Even the hardcore bands weren't, they were just playing fast.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: So that influenced me into bringing that into that sound, that power sound, you know.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, you're right.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many different, you know, uh influences, man.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's crazy.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but my my biggest influences to this day, I could say, like on the snap of a finger, who influenced you to play guitar?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I will right away, I would say Brian Baker, Walter Schreifels.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the two dudes that changed my life and taught me how to be smart about my instrument and try different things and not worry about not being cool in front of the crowd.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and those are the dudes that created hardcore, shoegase, post-hardcore, all that, you know.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of times writing for the sake of the sake of the feeling and the sake of the song.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So how did you land on what how did you land on what eventually became Taking Back Sunday sound?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: The sound of Think Back Sunday?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, before Taking Back Sunday, um it's just a uh it's just a thing that I wanted.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Every band I was in, I was in this band called Clockwise, and we we got pretty big on on the East Coast.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't branch off like all the other bands, but we did good for the East Coast.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Good enough that people know remember us if you're from the East Coast.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I remember us being like George was my singer, and Phil Hanraddy was the guitar player singer, and he sang all the beautiful parts, and George was the hardcore dude, you know?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we were one of the first bands to do that.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Not a lot of bands are doing that.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I just took that influence and carried it on to every other band I started.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Then I started a band called Inside, right?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Big Emo Band.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, well, Mike Malamo took the did most of the saying, but then I started movie life.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh I got this kid, Vini Caruana, in the band, and I tried to incorporate that in there.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I started thinking back Sunday in a coffee shop on Long Island in 1998 in Isle, coffee shop and ice lip, I said, I want to I want to take what I did with that my old band clockwise and somehow just try to sneak in some different stuff to make it different, make it melodic, more um, you know, just different.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because everybody, and not that the bands were terrible, they were all great bands, but you know, it sounded, you know, we just wanted to try something different, like Glass Shaw or, you know, whatever.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: So when I started Matter of Matter, it was like that, and it was great.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh not Modern Roman, um, movie life.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And movie life was great, but it just they were going that way, I was going this way.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: They carried it on.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Love those guys.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a bad thing when we split off.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when I started Thinking Back Sunday, that's what I wanted to do.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to incorporate every piece of great band that I was in and somehow mold that into one band.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I did it.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I think we did it, the finalized group of people, because you know, I know Thinking Back Sunday is known for Adam and Mark and Sean and me, but there were, you know, Steve.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: There was I could uh, you know, uh Jesse Lacey.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: There were a million dudes that were in that band before those dudes were in the band, you know what I mean?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: So, um right.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: So all the great people I was surrounded by, they all had their input in it.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: So Think Back Sunday is just a stew of different dudes from different styles of music, and it was just perfect.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't I didn't know we were gonna get big, but I knew that we were gonna be good.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: I knew it was gonna be fun as fuck.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, it turned out to be that way.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if you had to pick a favorite era of that band, which one would it be?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Ting back Sunday?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um I probably like I tell your friends was was awesome because we were young and and well, I wasn't that young.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was youngish.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um they were young, but we were it was new, it was fun, you know?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And people were liking us, and that feeling of knowing that you're gonna go somewhere and people are there to see you was getting exciting.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, my favorite time, um, not that all the times were bad.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying for me personally, my nostalgic time is like the towards the end of Tell Your Friends and probably like the middle of Louder Now, because Where You Wanna Be era was my favorite era.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like that was like my favorite album that we ever wrote, and it's my favorite era of the band, you know.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Even even with the swap, even when John and Sean bailed on us, even though they bailed on us, you know, when Fred and Matt Romano got in the band, they brought a next level of life, you know.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it was good.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: That was a good era.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when you guys were about to release Louder Now, you did a show on Fuse where you basically played the album front to back.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a core memory in my head.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that I still had a VCR at a time at that time, and I videotaped the thing.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: I took it to my band practice, and I was like, watch this, you fuckers, you gotta watch this.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was so good.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was just happy that the world was was understanding.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like it's just a pile of ADHD, like crazy people making music.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then back in those old days on stage, we were also crazy and just we didn't care, you know.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, after louder now, we got blew up and we got big and we had to be professional and rah rah rah rah.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, it was great, and you have to play arenas, and oh god, I'm sitting here whining about it.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: No, it was great, it was a fucking blessing.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: But a big part of me, did dinosaide miss those shows where you could smell the people.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I missed those shows.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Which so hot everyone smells.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I just missed those shows, you know.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that core of Thing Back Sunday before we blew up to massiveness was still big, but it was still those shows, you know what I mean.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, as a father of teenagers, do they w ever watch any of your old shit?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what's their thoughts about that past life?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: They think um you know, my kids lately have been reminding me uh how I should be more uh confident about myself because I I lost a lot when I walked away.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't say I walked away.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just say I had to walk away.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um Right.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: I lost a lot.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of my soul died, a lot of my confidence, a lot of me.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um I felt like the world just forgot about me, the way I was swept under the rug, you know?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: So my kids, like they saw their dad uh go through all that, and they they went to dad.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: They grew up with they grew up in a tour on a tour bus.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, they they uh they push a lot of confidence into me.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're really proud of me, and they they always constantly tell me that I I should think I'm a lot cooler than I am, and so it's like they they've always like you know, it was I I don't really get the uh my dad's a dork or anything.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I get a lot of like inspiration and stuff.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, it's my cat.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Hey buddy.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Wanna say hi?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Say hi.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, shoot, okay.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta go down anyway, but uh yeah.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um but my son is uh he's better than me at guitar, you know, like he's got his own gear in his room, you know.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: He's a sick drummer, he's a sick battery.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I was gonna ask.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: He's a sick guitar player.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know what's funny?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I didn't teach him a single ounce.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I didn't push it on him.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: He did all that on his own, you know, stealing dad's gear, sneaking it back to his room.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so proud of that kid.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: And my daughter is like, she's talented too, you know, like she's an artist, and she also she's more of a ukulele person.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: But uh yeah, I have really cool, dude.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't push, like, yeah, my kids are gonna listen to what dad lists to in a car on the way to school.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't give a crap.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: But uh maybe that influenced them, but I never pushed anything on them.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: But my kids turned out to be the coolest kids on the planet, and I'm not just saying that because of my kids, like they're cool.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's so funny you say that, dude, because my daughter, so my daughter just started singing in a band herself since she's 17.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I was driving her back to her mom's house last night.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's this the same exact thing that I said to her.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like, I didn't push this on you, you just found this on your own.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the DNA, man.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Fucking cool.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the DNA.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right, absolutely, dude.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: I buried my mom, I buried my mom a month ago, and uh, well, yeah, we had a with funeral, and all I saw my nieces and my brother and my sisters, and I just looked around the room, and we're a close family, even though we live far away, we're still very close.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a Latino thing, you know.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: We never we're always close.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I was looking around the room, and like all my nieces are talented.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: One's a chef, one's designing clothes for uh doja cat or whoever, like one is an interior designer, one's an artist.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: My nephew shreds me in guitar, you know what I mean?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I gave him his first guitar.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it's cool.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's in the DNA, man, because my dad was cool, he was a hipster, and um so was my mom.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: And if it wasn't for my brothers and my sisters, I you know, like listening to my brother just you know, the music he would blast from his room, like he's another big inspiration on me.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I don't even know where this conversation's going, but yeah.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite things about podcasting and learning about somebody else's story is being able to grab my own parallels, my own life parallels to some of the things they went through.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, reading some of your past interviews, listening to some of your past interviews when You parted ways with Taking Back Sunday, you had a lot of spirit in you that I had when I walked away from music.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was so disenfranchised with it, that's why I had to walk away from it.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was on the precipice of my divorce from my first marriage.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I wanted to be more present for my kids, and it just I couldn't I I found like I was having writer's block, and it was just like it was time to walk away from it.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I read that, you know, you had said in past interviews that you were kind of going through some similar things, it makes a lot of relatability for a guy like me in the middle of America.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: If I was I'll be honest, you know, and I'd never talked to anyone really about it like ex-bandmates.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: I just recently started speaking with Mark again.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because apparently uh he walked away from or he's not in the band anymore.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it's just uh I don't know.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think if I had handled like you know ADHD, all that crap, you know, I I don't know how to handle things, you know, I don't know how to deal with things, and and now that I'm older I've learned, you know, through whatever therapy and all this stuff and how to deal with those things, you know.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And back then I didn't because back then no one really understood that stuff, you know what I mean?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I I did a lot of drinking, and that's how I numbed the pain.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of speaking my feelings and being loud about things like how I am now and more honest about things, I think I probably would have still been in the band.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: But because I closed up so much on so many things behind closed doors that happened, um that yeah, I just turned into a massive drunk that hated everyone in the band, and I never wanted to hang out or be around, just walked out on stage and played and walked, you know what I mean?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that sucked, and that's you know, one of the things that I think led to me walking away in 2017.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it was a pretty much uh yeah, you know, but uh I I was just gonna say, when after that happened, you've obviously had some moments of clarity where you've been able to kind of reassess your life and reevaluate your life and refocus uh as a parent.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: So how much has your life changed since walking away from that?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And what have you learned about yourself in the process?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: I learned a lot.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: I learned that um like not seeing your kids grow, uh, watching a relationship fall apart, you know, that lifestyle is great, but what's really important, what's the most important thing back at home, it's not so what do you do?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: What's more important?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: This lifestyle, this music, this money, this fame, yada yada, or your two kids are are you know are falling apart because their dad is, you know what I mean?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I I chose that I chose that path, you know, I and I went to rehab and um I got off I don't drink.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um sober.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean sober-ish.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I smoke weed once in a while, but uh I don't drink.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: I I haven't drank in many, many moons, and uh I'm on the sobriety path with that, and it's just and I'm not saying I can never go back to that life.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: I just know how to deal with it now.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm I'm older, I'm an old man now, I'm wise.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so right, you know, so is there something about the age that you're at now where you're no pun intended, but everything's kind of starting to feel new again?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I'm so I I wish that my wittiness and my intelligence that I'm at right now, like just my brain the way it works right now, I wish it was like that back then, because things would have been a lot different.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, getting older, learning about your um, you know, your disabilities and and learning how to to deal with that stuff and without medicating and all that.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then um I feel now I'm I'm like so much wiser and so like there was so much shit you had to worry about, and then now you you know you're older.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: Who gives a shit?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like who cares?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I think now it's like yeah.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now that I'm older, I guess I'm just a yeah, I'm just that grouchy old Muppet now, you know, the other two old guys.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm one of those guys now.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the the the guys up in the balcony, shit, yeah, dude.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's me.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: I I say that about myself all the time too.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh that's me.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: I talk oh yeah, yeah, I talk so much shit.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but anyway, uh but yeah, yeah.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, I'm I'm still playing music, I'm still involved.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just um I don't have that energy that I had when I was younger.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: So Yeah, I totally get that.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: So before we uh before we press record, let's talk about some of our other interests and common interests.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're into the paranormal, and I have a lot of paranormal guests on my show.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my second episode was recorded at the Valliska Axe Murder House.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I recorded it in the bedroom where everything where the kids were found.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: So do you do anything on YouTube?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I have not yet.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: I have not done any investigations or anything along those lines.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: I just have a lot of paranormal experts on the show and just kind of talk about their discoveries.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you've had a lifelong interest in this?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, I've always been uh a believer in ghost.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the house that I sold, um we had to sign a waiver uh letting the people know that the house is so dead beyond haunted.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not like a bad haunting, it was it was comforting, it was gentle, but it's there.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, I mean I've dealt with all that.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've gone on paranormal uh studies, and I have friends that you also have paranormal groups, and you know, I mean, you cannot believe in that.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh you can't sit there and call yourself a Christian and believe in the Holy Spirit if you don't and say, turn around and say you don't believe in fucking ghosts, you idiot.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like we're all we're all we're all made of energy, you know.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Where does energy go?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: It goes somewhere else, you know.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully fucking we get to start over again or do it again somewhere else, you know?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: But uh so yeah, I'm a big plus I seen shit with my own eyes, and and it's uh you know, I think it's just growing up as a kid in uh Amityville, uh Long Island, it was like uh always having that spooky vibe around me, you know, like it just always made me like I've always been into Bigfoot when I was ever since I was a kid and Loch Ness, even though I don't believe in Loch Ness anymore.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: I do believe in Bigfoot, 100%.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but like ghosts and stuff, man.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I've witnessed that shit with my own my own eyes, like full figure.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, even now where we live now, where we live is haunted.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's building was built in 1901 or something, and me and my lady, we always see like bright flashes in the living room with all the lights out, and you'll see things, and the cats will stare at the walls, and little you'll hear doors open and slam, and someone walked down the hallway.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: My son's seen it.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's all around us, so how can you not be into it?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's cool, it gives me something to look forward to.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to see how many fucking people I fuck with.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be so much fun.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, have you uh have you been paying attention to what's been going on today?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of weird shit, like I guess they had congressional hearings.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know what's going on.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Is it uh they you that they finally admitted that alien UAP UFO stuff?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: They've already been here.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, let me tell you something.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: How the fuck do you think we got here?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry I'm cursing so much, but I'm from New York.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um no, no, dude, that's that's okay, man.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: How do you think we got here?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: You think you think some guy with uh blonde hair and blue eyes put us here?
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: The Anunnaki is a real thing.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's some this planet is like what billions of years old?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know how many societies have lived here before us?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, it's that I love that movie Prometheus for me personally, and my beliefs growing up explained it.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: There are people who created us, they placed us here.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: We were created in their image, yada yada.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: They're still here, they're keeping eye.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: The only reason why they don't advance anything on us, because the last time they left someone to teach us in their ways, we fucking killed them.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: His name was Jesus.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you read the Bible and you break it down, back then people couldn't explain the things the way we can now, right?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: But if you break it down, it's just people explaining the gods coming from the heavens, right?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I already know those.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: They, you know.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm typo negative.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's like the alien gene.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's crazy though, right?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yo, for real though?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, I'm I'm telling you.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm waiting for them to come back and slap us all in the face.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of like a parent who leaves their kids home and they come home and they, what the fuck did you do?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I can't wait for that to happen.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I kind of wonder if it's not already kind of happening to some extent, man.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to get into voting because I don't know how people vote, but we'll leave politics out.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: They are probably gonna head back here soon.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, well, and that should it, man.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I maybe that's why everybody's having all this UFO and UAP phenomenon now, because maybe they're getting ready to kind of come kick us in the ass, man.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because they know that we're about to blow up the planet, and uh they're like No, no, no.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: See, no, it in all honesty, I believe in there our superior race, and we are from them.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: And they created us to put us here, to work for them, to live, they create life in other planets, they're just a smarter species of us, trillions of years ahead of us.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and then people go, oh, well, then you lose faith.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: And oh, I don't lose faith.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know that there's other dimensions, and there's other time doesn't really exist, and yada yada, and there's such thing as fucking black holes and other dimensions, and yada yada, so we go somewhere else.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Merry Christmas.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what I explain to people.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: So your son plays guitar, like you said.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is is he playing in a band currently?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he's got a buddy that he jams with, but um no one around here is as cool as him.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I I I know that sounds I know that sounds shitty, uh, but I'm just being honest.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, let's be honest.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: All the kids here are like, you know, bros and they want to listen to shit, you know, shitty mumble rap.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my son listens to freaking uh, you know, uh Owen, American football, and and so like he that's the he's really into like Midwest emo style.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: So and I told him, I was like, dude, you know, Omaha is probably one of the if not the forefather grounds of Midwest Emo next to Wisconsin and Kentucky, Initial Records, and you know, poly, polydor records, and lumberjack, and you know, all those great bands.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I teach them all the time.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so my son's really into like all that.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like he plays all the crazy licks, and I got him I gave him one of my guitars, and I got him a guitar, and I gave him one of my old amps, and uh his guitar playing is so unique, his tuning.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Funny you say that, because my daughter's my daughter's almost the same way.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, all the people that she's playing with are into like the new pop and stuff, and she's sitting in the corner listening to The Smiths, smashing pumpkins, like my son, uh her favorite singer, Stevie Nicks, and she's like she's an old soul, and it's like for her to try and put a band together based around her interests is the next thing impossible because people aren't into the same shit she's into, you know?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, like my daughter, my daughter is like the goth queen of freaking 18-year-olds.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: She listens to like dude, like Christian Death and uh Joy Division, and like she's like all into that.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: And my son's into I mean, yeah, he listens to hip hop, everyone does listen to hip-hop, but he listens to like just the other day, yeah.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Just the other day, he was in a third eye blind mode, so he played like every album.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the other day he was blasting Pearl Jam.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that I love that, you know.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: I love that he has those influences, and so it's good, and that's showing his playing.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's showing how he shreds.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, man, I have really enjoyed this conversation.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you tell my audience where they can find you online?
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh type type go to this website called Facebook and type in Eddie Reyes, and my face will pop up and just go hi, and that's it.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you can probably find music there and um, you know, whatever.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm not really yeah, I'm not like a TikToker or Instagram.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I do Instagram, but it's like dumb pictures or some shitty comment I'll make that piss everybody off.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but I'm not really like, I don't know.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: I just keep an eye out for dead hands.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: The music should be out um probably by the end of the month.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: We'll have a song or two up.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: We're only gonna put songs up here and there.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like we're putting out an album or anything.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, I mean, uh, if you're in town and I'm doing emo night, come down and say hi to me.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, it's not much to say.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: I love that, man.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: Keep believing in ghosts.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: Bigfoot is real.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Aliens Live Among Us.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh keep hardcore punk rock and metal alive.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was just gonna ask, what's your advice for making the world a better place?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you just answered that.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Eddie Reyes, man, thanks for doing the show.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: The world's a much better place with you in it, man.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad we're friends.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad we're connected, brother.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we'll do it again.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: Hell yes, my man.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks for having me, man.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: Once again, I want to thank my friend Eddie Reyes for joining me on the podcast today.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Pay attention to his social media, Dead Hands Music will be premiering soon.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: At least that's what he tells me.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to hear it.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: I know you are too.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you give him a follow on Instagram or at eddie Sunday TBS.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: And while you are being generous with those social media follows, make sure you follow yours truly on all social media platforms at caughtonthemic.mike or visit me at www.cotonthemic.com.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: I am on TikTok, I am on threads, I just deleted my Twitter.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also on the face to space and Instagram.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: Check me out, it would mean the world to me.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: Shoot me an email, caught on the mic at gmail.com.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear from you.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: This has been Caught on the Mic with Michael Clark.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Michael Clark.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, thank you.