Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / Scott Acquavella (Cryptodira) on New EP Genesis of Error
Transcript
- 0:00After our last tour in Europe and kind of went, we got to go
- 0:02back to the drawing board, you know, like these we're we're
- 0:04lucky to be out of these kinds of bands.
- 0:05But you know, we watch our own set and by playing, of course,
- 0:08and then watching their set and we go like, there's we're here
- 0:12and they're there. It's time for us to figure out
- 0:14how to get here. What's up everybody, It's Kefi
- 0:23at ghostcultman.com and I'm super stoked to be joined by
- 0:27Scott for the first time ever. Scott of Cryptodigra, how are
- 0:30you doing? I'm good, man, I'm good.
- 0:31How are you? I'm really good.
- 0:33Happy summer. You know, as I say every time
- 0:36and every week, the world's on fire.
- 0:38But at least we have music to talk about and no shortage of
- 0:42good art and music and film and things to take a look at to
- 0:46distract, distract, distract. Don't look over here at what's
- 0:49on fire, just distract yourself. You have to look at everything
- 0:52too much anyway. It's nice to look away.
- 0:53Yeah, the doom scrolling will kill you.
- 0:56So, you know, new EP coming out soon on one of our favorite
- 1:00labels, Silent Pendulum, Shadow to the Homies and Seven Sons and
- 1:04many other bands on that label that we're fans of.
- 1:06They always do a really great job actually.
- 1:09You know, they kind of fly under the radar a little bit.
- 1:11They're not one of the big metal majors, but I feel like they
- 1:14command that respect for themselves and all their bands
- 1:18globally. Yeah, I mean for that, for us,
- 1:21it was our our, our contract expired with with good fight
- 1:25music and and it was all amicable there, but it was time
- 1:27for us to go elsewhere. And, you know, we we took a kick
- 1:30at some of the some of the larger labels and whatnot.
- 1:33And and for this particular release, something short it, it
- 1:35felt really good to go, you know, with friends, you know,
- 1:39the owner of Asylum Pendulum, Michael Katner.
- 1:41We had tour with him when he was in the number 12 books like you
- 1:43many years ago and obviously remain friends.
- 1:46So it it was always, you know, tag team say what's up in the
- 1:49show, Hey, hey, let's do a release one day.
- 1:50And then finally it seems like the stars in line and it was
- 1:52time to do it. So it was.
- 1:53It's been great. Right on.
- 1:54I need to get a hold of Mike for an interview one of these days.
- 1:57I plan to make my way through all the labels and, and label
- 2:01people and, and have a chat at some point about the business
- 2:04because I do feel like we're in a a weirdly transformative time.
- 2:08And, you know, props to you. And I like that vibe of going
- 2:12with friends and who you know and who you trust.
- 2:14It's so important these days and they're so it's so hard.
- 2:19You know, I was I was just at the record store and I have a
- 2:21podcast about vinyl. We do nerdy deep dives on things
- 2:26and we were talking about Melvin's reissues that came out
- 2:30on Boner Records, which was like they were original little label
- 2:33that they had. I've been a part of for their
- 2:35earliest releases before they signed to the major and then
- 2:38went back to Indy. So it's like kind of interesting
- 2:41to look at their career and put it up against everybody else.
- 2:44Like very few bands get to control their destiny.
- 2:46So that's super cool that you got to, at least for this EP.
- 2:49By the way, Genesis of Era coming out soon.
- 2:52Yes, make sure I get that out there.
- 2:54Yeah, no, it was, it was important, man.
- 2:56And we, we did the big contract thing for a little bit.
- 2:58So it's, you know, we'll probably get back to that world.
- 3:01I, I like to think we will. But it was just, you know, we
- 3:03got, we got 3 songs here. Why, why, why go for something
- 3:07so big? Why get locked in something so
- 3:08long? You know, why not just call
- 3:10buddy and be like, hey man, you go put this thing out or what?
- 3:11And it's it's it's been awesome, you know, you know, working.
- 3:14And if you want to interview Mike, I mean, you might want to
- 3:16get a poison dart and try to try to pin him down because he's in
- 3:19like 38 bands and runs the label.
- 3:21And good luck. That's all I have to say about
- 3:23that. Yeah, fun fact, my super secret
- 3:26spy favorite weapon is a blow dart gun.
- 3:29Like, you know, like it. That shit is, you know, silent
- 3:32but deadly from good range if you practice hard enough.
- 3:35I had the swag of the blow dart. It's pretty awesome there.
- 3:38It is. Nobody knows that I'm actually a
- 3:39spy when I'm not doing music journalism or marketing.
- 3:42My 2 careers, maybe I have 1/3 as a secret ninja.
- 3:45Sanson. And.
- 3:46But yeah, Silent Pendulum, if you could catch, if you could
- 3:49stop them. You're right.
- 3:50Could you stop them? And yeah, what a killer record.
- 3:52And again, we followed the band for a long time.
- 3:54Long Island, Strong Island guys. Right.
- 3:56And we, you know, we're partly based in New York City still and
- 4:00I live out West, but you guys have done some major tours and
- 4:03supported some huge bands, in my opinion, like really crucial,
- 4:07important bands. We were talking about your palm
- 4:08reader shirt off camera there for a second.
- 4:10I love them. And so you know it as you see
- 4:14this EP, you've had, you know, a bunch, a bunch of other
- 4:17releases. Where do you see the band?
- 4:19Is this sort of a step toward the next thing?
- 4:21Is this just one more rung on the ladder of progress you're
- 4:24making? Is there a grander vision beyond
- 4:27this EP? I know it's not out yet, but as
- 4:29we talk but I'm just so captivated by the music on this.
- 4:33Yeah, yeah, I would call this this EP in a lot of ways a
- 4:37rebirth of the band, believe it or not.
- 4:39It's I would describe it much less as a stepping stone and
- 4:42more as a new beginning because we changed out a member in the
- 4:45band. We completely started, you know,
- 4:47re looking at the way we wrote music prior and just sort of
- 4:50like, you know, between some of the larger tours like that you
- 4:53mentioned, we we picked up so much from those bands and, and
- 4:55we kind of came back, you know, what our after our last tour in
- 4:58Europe and kind of went, we got to go back to the drawing board,
- 5:00You know, like these. We're we're lucky to be out of
- 5:01these kinds of bands, But you know, we watch our own set and
- 5:04by playing, of course, and then watching their set and we go
- 5:07like there's we're here and they're there.
- 5:10It's time for us to figure out how to get here, you know, and
- 5:14so when we got back from Europe in 2023, we kind of almost
- 5:17scrapped a lot of the songs that we had maybe pulled a couple of
- 5:19parts out of them, mostly scrapped them all and started
- 5:21rewriting music. And then the first few songs
- 5:23that essentially came with that were the genesis of air songs.
- 5:25So between, you know, doing that and recording them and then
- 5:28changing on a long time member amicably and and kind of taking
- 5:32on a what I described as an All Star from for another band.
- 5:35We had Vin Romanelli from Moon Tooth joined our band.
- 5:38And anytime somebody from Moon Tooth joins your band, it's
- 5:40like, you know, like I said, it's like drafting an All Star.
- 5:43So that's been just like a shot in the arm for the band.
- 5:45So yeah, Genesis felt like almost like us poking back
- 5:49through daylights. We hadn't put out a full record
- 5:51since 2020 and going like, hey, man, we're back.
- 5:53Here's what it's got. Here's what to expect from the
- 5:55band going forward. And this is literally just a
- 5:57taste because we're about halfway through writing a record
- 5:59already. The idea was to do an EP and
- 6:01then pretty quickly followed up on a record.
- 6:03So no more long gaps. For us, I like everything about
- 6:06that. Thanks for unpacking all that.
- 6:08And it, you know, the music business is hard to do music,
- 6:11you know, it's it's a passion. You have to want to be, or I say
- 6:14this all the time about death metal and it's the same thing.
- 6:16Wherever you see yourself under the umbrella of metal, you have
- 6:19to want to be here. Nobody is here casually.
- 6:22You fans want to be at the shows.
- 6:24They want to find new music to listen to.
- 6:26We want to make music music makers.
- 6:28We want to play shows. I imagine most of the time we
- 6:32want to put new stuff out. So I like that, you know, sort
- 6:35of you're sort of, you know, vision boarding your success
- 6:39with this EP and the track, the title track is epic.
- 6:42It's massive, but and it feels like you guys, but it does feel
- 6:45like a leveling up of sorts. But I also love the new single
- 6:49that just came out. It kind of reminded me of
- 6:51Dillinger or Car Bomb the same river twice, right?
- 6:54That's such a banger and it's so fast and and short.
- 6:57I like that it has no fat. On it, yeah, there's there's a
- 6:59really funny story about that song.
- 7:01We come into the studio with three songs, of course, and
- 7:04that's what it became. And the second track on the
- 7:06album, Same River Twice, was about almost 5 minutes long when
- 7:10it was first brought in to the producers we worked with who
- 7:13were in this case were Greg Thomas and Chris Teddy over at
- 7:16Silver Bullet Studios, who are just fucking legends.
- 7:18I mean, the record came out amazing.
- 7:20I can't say enough about the production, but you know, those
- 7:23two guys took a real interest in not just recording the songs,
- 7:26but but making them the best they could.
- 7:27And when they they started to unpack the demos on day one and
- 7:30kind of look at each one, they were like, look, that second
- 7:32song the same river twice is is cool, but there's a Ripper in
- 7:36the middle of it. And it was a more classic Kurt
- 7:38Tedira song beforehand, which had clean sections and clean
- 7:41vocals and, you know, these Epsom flows and they kind of
- 7:44said, you know, track one, no Monuments does all that better
- 7:47than track 2. So crazy idea.
- 7:50What if you got rid of the beginning, you got rid of the
- 7:53end, you took that awesome part in the middle and you just
- 7:55flushed it out. And we kind of wrote a new song
- 7:57there. And I was like, I like, it was
- 7:59shocking. We had seven days to record the
- 8:00ZP. And I said, you want us to
- 8:02rewrite one of the songs? So Mike and I are other guitar
- 8:05player. We got straight to work and just
- 8:08he went to the rift dungeon and we said we have to write a, a an
- 8:10ass beater and and and they and they basically challenged us to
- 8:13do exactly that. They said, why can't, why can't
- 8:15your band have a 2 minute song? Why not?
- 8:17I mean, there you have a lot of nine minute songs.
- 8:19What a 8 minute song? Why can't you have a 2 minute
- 8:21song? I said, there's no reason why
- 8:22Why not? I mean, we love converge, we
- 8:24love Dillinger, we love all these bands that have dabbled in
- 8:27the short song world. So why can't we try it?
- 8:29So, you know, we rearranged it with Greg and and wrote a bunch
- 8:33of new riffs and came out and it's one of my favorite songs in
- 8:36the world to play. It's a minute and 47 seconds and
- 8:39it is just pure fun. Yeah, you definitely hit it
- 8:42right when you said ass beater. That's gonna be a song that's
- 8:44gonna need to get some work live because people are gonna want to
- 8:48mosh. I'm sure a lot of your fans are
- 8:50just like the slow bearded head nodding dude.
- 8:53And you know, like, oh, I love this part is my atmospheric
- 8:56part. I love this.
- 8:57But then you like, surprise them with the with the fast, fast
- 9:00Ripper and oh, like, you know, it's gonna like the, it's gonna
- 9:04be like the, the, the China Ting.
- 9:07What? Yeah.
- 9:08Squirrel. Right, I'm in danger.
- 9:11Yeah. Oh, I'm in danger.
- 9:13That's exactly right. Yeah.
- 9:14Nice one, you know, And of course, no monuments.
- 9:16The opener is also, like you said, super strong.
- 9:19And I love the video for it too. I know you had kind of of a hand
- 9:22in that, right? Yes, yeah, I did.
- 9:24We all did. Really.
- 9:25So funny about No Monuments is we shot it and and edited the
- 9:30video within two weeks and we had all of it coming out.
- 9:33I mean, we had legitimately no time, just a whole world, one of
- 9:37some circumstances I won't bore you with.
- 9:38But ultimately we had to go back to the drawing board from our
- 9:41original video concept very, very, very late in the game.
- 9:43And so our guitar player Mike took over a directorial, you
- 9:48know, role and then help storyboard it with Vin, our bass
- 9:52player, and Matt, our drummer. The two of them came up with the
- 9:54concept. Mike came up with all the
- 9:55directorial stuff of 1,000,000, you know, shot list type of
- 9:58things with inspirations from movies and all this kind of
- 10:00thing. And then my job was essentially
- 10:03building the production. So everything you see all like
- 10:06the curtain pipe and drape and all that kind of stuff.
- 10:08I started building with two by fours and PVC pipes as quickly
- 10:12as I possibly could, which was not all that easy.
- 10:14We shot the video until 2:30 in the morning and there we were,
- 10:18you know, disassembling all kinds of posts and everything in
- 10:20a warehouse and but very happy about the way it came out.
- 10:22I mean, it was inspired by by movies, which is what the band
- 10:26loves. We're we're all movie guys,
- 10:27especially Mike or guitar players, just like the biggest
- 10:29movie geek in the world. So he went and said, like, you
- 10:32know what, I kind of hate music videos in the sense that like,
- 10:35you know, what music really normally looks like, especially
- 10:38your friend. Metal bands, like why can't we
- 10:39make them more cinematic? Why can't we draw from Hitchcock
- 10:43and David Lynch and all these people?
- 10:45Why do we have to draw from just like other metal videos, you
- 10:48know, So it's a little kooky. It's a little, you know, a
- 10:51little quirky is probably how I would describe it, but it's,
- 10:54it's just fun. At least when I look at it back,
- 10:56there's things I would do differently, especially with
- 10:58more time. But I I really like that when I
- 11:00get to look at it, I go, you know what doesn't look like a
- 11:02lot of metal videos? It's a little, it's a little
- 11:04out. There, you know what, I still
- 11:06think there's a place for music videos.
- 11:07I know they're you know, I loved it.
- 11:09Thank you for sharing all that. I love that the whole group
- 11:12worked on it and the production and noted Mike is a big
- 11:15cinephile. Well, remember that for the for
- 11:17if we ever interview Mike, you know it's I do feel like there's
- 11:20still a place for them. They do help market the band.
- 11:23They show the personality of the band if allowed, or the
- 11:27personality is interpreted by a good director and you know,
- 11:30videographer. So, you know, I, I think it's
- 11:33super cool. I do love that video.
- 11:34It is one of the more memorable videos to come along this year,
- 11:37in my opinion. And I don't, and we see a lot of
- 11:41them and some of them are you're seeing a lot of AI stuff right
- 11:43now that I'm not a huge fan of. I'm not going to put you on the
- 11:45spot about your opinion about AI, but yeah, two thumbs down.
- 11:50Same here. Like, I get it.
- 11:51That's valuable and useful. And we've had machine learning
- 11:55for decades, right? Like correct, corrected text in
- 11:58your phone. It still doesn't know fuck from
- 12:00duck. But like, you know, these things
- 12:02are helpful. But I think the overhype and
- 12:05reliance and fear mongering, if you don't use AI, you're lost
- 12:09and behind. If you do you use AI, you're a
- 12:12complete scrub. I don't want to see art and
- 12:14music Co opted and stolen from human beings making it like
- 12:18personally. Thank you so much.
- 12:21I appreciate that thing. I'll get off my soapbox out and
- 12:23give the interview back to you. But good job.
- 12:26Good job guys and thank you for making a real actual person
- 12:30visioned and created and built video.
- 12:32Yeah, we're not doing that. We're not doing music anymore.
- 12:34Yeah. Oh, haha, right on.
- 12:36And you know, so this EP is coming out and like you said,
- 12:40it's a really good step toward the next thing.
- 12:42You're already on the way to the next record, which is cool.
- 12:45Hopefully we'll see that in 26. Do you have any touring plans
- 12:48for the summer? I'm sure you can do a release
- 12:50show right? Yeah, yeah.
- 12:51We just got back this weekend. We did like a little regional
- 12:53northeast thing in Maine, Connecticut, Upstate and
- 12:57Massachusetts. And then next weekend we're
- 12:59doing sort of home and home for any sports fans with our friends
- 13:03at East of the Wall. So we're playing New Jersey and
- 13:05they're home on Friday. And then we're doing a full on
- 13:07record release show at home in Long Island for that will be
- 13:10headlining on the 26th because the EP comes down the 25th.
- 13:13But why not wait a day and really knock it out of the park
- 13:16on Saturday? Besides that, we've got some
- 13:18stuff in the fall that's yet to be announced and then let's do
- 13:21what next year brings. Right on.
- 13:22Well, hopefully the new album will bring you over to the West
- 13:25Coast and all over the world. And that's my my hope for y'all
- 13:29just in general. What else do you have going on
- 13:32this summer? What do you do personally?
- 13:33You got any trips planned? Do you sit at home and read
- 13:36books? Do you just, you said the rift
- 13:37dungeon. I love that so much.
- 13:39You just sit in the rift dungeon and and and shred and work on
- 13:41stuff. Yeah, I mean, you know, I live
- 13:44in a one bedroom condo, my girlfriend, but I do the best I
- 13:46can to make this my little Rift Studio, you know.
- 13:49And yeah, for us, it's for me personally, it's, it's just been
- 13:53doing a lot of the, the EP prep stuff because a lot of the sun
- 13:55in house, you know, being in a band in 2025 is not just writing
- 13:58music anymore. It's being a graphic designer
- 14:00and a video editor and, and all those are roles that I take in
- 14:03the band, especially all the graphic design stuff, any kind
- 14:05of posting graphics and this type of thing and light video
- 14:08editing. I'm certainly in no way shape or
- 14:09form a real videographer, but that kind of stuff, you know, it
- 14:12keeps me busy when we're doing all this sort of roll out stuff
- 14:14'cause I mean, it's an amazing amount that bands have to post
- 14:18to stay on top of things, to stay irrelevant.
- 14:20And you're like, who is making all this shit for all these
- 14:22fans? And in in my case it's it's
- 14:25myself and Mike usually. So there's been a lot of that
- 14:28lately. Then it's we just actually, Mike
- 14:30was texting me all night last night about new songs about
- 14:32we're, we're finally getting back to that.
- 14:34We were in full on writing mode. And then now that the EP is
- 14:36rolling out, we've been kind of put a pause on it.
- 14:38But getting back to that, which has been awesome.
- 14:40And then for me personally, man, I work my ass off.
- 14:43I mean, that's why I was late today because I got stuck at
- 14:46work doing my super boring day job.
- 14:48I know it's shocking. Musicians that tour the world
- 14:50also have horrible day jobs. I was, I was screwing signs in
- 14:55the concrete because I work for a I'm a project manager at a
- 14:58sign company. So, you know, not exactly the
- 15:00most exciting thing in the world, but that keeps me busy.
- 15:02And yeah, that's pretty much it, man.
- 15:04It's, it's riffs. I mean, my girlfriend, I'll
- 15:06probably be taking a little vacation out East, not not not
- 15:09far from here, maybe like an hour out of east on Long Island,
- 15:11do a unwind for a few days and like a nice cool old House Hotel
- 15:15thing. And besides, that's business as
- 15:17usual. Right on, right on.
- 15:19I love that you mentioned that. Again, it's another sharing of
- 15:22the wealth and the responsibility.
- 15:23That's kind of usually my prototypical advice when it
- 15:26comes to music marketing is I know that it's tough to get your
- 15:29hands around the marketing of your band.
- 15:32It's equal to your you made this video.
- 15:34You have to put the same attention to making music as you
- 15:37make promoting the band. And I know that's hard because
- 15:40in the old days, musicians, we didn't have that responsibility.
- 15:44So I love that you said you guys share the wealth and who is
- 15:47making all this content. That is right, Someone is and I
- 15:51think you know, the ebb and flow of, you know, a little
- 15:54compartmentalizing I think is a real good approach to like today
- 15:57is music. Today is riffs and songwriting
- 15:59to to Hey, buddy, today we have to barrel down and do some
- 16:03content. Like that's what it is.
- 16:04I know it's an ugly word content, but it's it's what I
- 16:08teach people. Yeah, that's true.
- 16:09It's it's, it's, it's my least favorite part about being a man.
- 16:12I'll be dead honest. I mean, it's fun when something
- 16:13comes out good when you do a cool, you know, video or
- 16:15whatever. And it's, it's rewarding to
- 16:17people really resonate with it or enjoy it.
- 16:19But boy, oh boy, I would just like to sit around and write,
- 16:22man. I'm not, It's not my favorite
- 16:24part, but I don't, the last thing I want to do is look at
- 16:26Spotify numbers. Somebody brings that up and
- 16:28like, get it. I get it out of my face.
- 16:30I don't even want to think about it, you know?
- 16:31But it's important stuff, unfortunately for now.
- 16:33Yeah, I always tell people Spotify is basically, if you
- 16:37look at it as anything more than a search engine for your band,
- 16:40it's a mistake. Other platforms will pay you for
- 16:43playing songs and selling merch and connecting with your fan
- 16:46bases. Not Spotify.
- 16:48It sucks that they, the entire music industry kind of cave to
- 16:51them early. You don't, you can't listen.
- 16:54You can't watch a whole. I can't go watch Superman on my
- 16:57laptop. I mean, I probably could could,
- 16:59but I'm not going to watch all of Superman before I go see it
- 17:03in a movie theater before it comes to streaming, of course.
- 17:06Right. But like, why is the music
- 17:07industry that way? Why is it that way now?
- 17:10Why can a record come out and you can go, Oh cool, that band
- 17:14that came out, right? Let me, let me, let me check
- 17:16that first song. I'm not feeling the 1st 30
- 17:18seconds and that's it. There's no time to invest in it
- 17:20anymore. I mean, not not to be a boomer
- 17:23about it, but it's like when I was when I was young and I
- 17:25would, my parents would get and bring me like Best Buy or FYE or
- 17:27record store or whatever and be like, Hey, you can buy ACD,
- 17:30right? So now my budget's like 15 bucks
- 17:31and I would go and buy ACD. If the first 30 seconds of the
- 17:35first song isn't your favorite thing in the world, you don't
- 17:37throw the CD in the garbage. You keep listening to it and
- 17:40then you go, oh, wow, that was just the intro.
- 17:42The second track kicks ass. And then if they're, oh wow,
- 17:44then the 7th track is my favorite.
- 17:46And then those are the records you bond with, right?
- 17:48Like you're reading along the lyrics and you get the little
- 17:50booklet in your hands and those are the records that become your
- 17:52favorite. I mean, it's, I don't think I'm,
- 17:54I'm, you know, breaking a new ground by saying most people's
- 17:57favorite record when you're in your 30s or 40s or whatever, if
- 18:00your first record, if you're the most recent record you heard, is
- 18:03probably not, not one of your favorites of all time.
- 18:05It's not that it can't happen. It's not that it doesn't happen.
- 18:08But how often does someone tell you like, dude, that new one
- 18:11from last year, It's my favorite record of all time.
- 18:13No, it's probably something from 25 years ago, minimum from when
- 18:17they were a kid. And, and because there was a
- 18:19different bonding experience. And I'm finding it at times
- 18:21difficult to sort of cut through that and, and, and give people
- 18:24that sort of bonding experience with your music.
- 18:26And instead of maybe trying to do that, it's more just living
- 18:29with the fact that this is what it is.
- 18:30And and hopefully connecting people live instead because I
- 18:33think that's the new, the new Ave. to connect to people more
- 18:36than the recorded music, unfortunately.
- 18:38And lucky for us, we're in a weird age where vinyl came back,
- 18:41and I think you're a band that has always cared about every
- 18:44element, like your visual aspects, your artwork.
- 18:47So it's super cool. I'm sure to get this on vinyl.
- 18:49I know it's coming out in 2 variants.
- 18:51We'll plug that also. Silent Pendulum again, if it
- 18:54happens to be putting your record out, they always do a
- 18:56marvelous job on the packaging. It's it's really done with love
- 18:59and care as a vinyl nerd that collects a lot of stuff.
- 19:02And so, you know, I think it's pretty cool and I appreciate the
- 19:06the sentiment on that. It's true.
- 19:07It's weird, but at the end of the day, I feel like artists,
- 19:10you just have to make your art and hope it connects and sticks
- 19:13with people. I think they're hopefully this
- 19:15terrible new generation of people will grow into music and
- 19:18art and film fans and you know, not just be disposable later
- 19:23like all the Tick Tock. People eventually have to get
- 19:26their attention spans back somewhere.
- 19:28Hopefully it's in like 10 more years when long form things come
- 19:31back and appreciate it a little bit better, but we'll see.
- 19:35Who knows? I love to end these with a wild
- 19:37card question. And so my wild card question for
- 19:39you is let's get back into Time Machine.
- 19:42What is the first song or album you ever remembered loving?
- 19:45It could be as a child. It doesn't have to be metal.
- 19:48It could be embarrassing, it could be amazing.
- 19:49What is that first music memory of a song that made you love?
- 19:54Music. Let me be a couple.
- 19:55First of all, I'm not embarrassed about anything
- 19:57because everyone's musical journey gets you where he gets
- 19:59you. What do I care?
- 20:01You know, the first song, the first song that I remember, like
- 20:04feeling like it was mine and not just something that was on like
- 20:07my parents, you know, car stereo or whatever was in the end by
- 20:10Linkin Park, which I'm sure is many, many, many people my age.
- 20:13I'm 30, about to be 32, for anyone who's wondering.
- 20:16And I remember being in my dad's car and the shit was on the
- 20:19radio like every day. And I was like, this is, this is
- 20:21kind of awesome, you know? And you know, he would just put
- 20:23on whatever, you know, pop or rock radio was on at the time
- 20:26for his younger kids instead of listening to what he liked.
- 20:29And I'm glad he did because like, that felt like mine and
- 20:31not, and not his or my mom's. In 2004, I bought from my that's
- 20:36very same. Dad brought me to Best Buy and,
- 20:40and I bought Green Day's American Idiot and to this day,
- 20:43one of my favorite albums and one of my favorite bands of all
- 20:47time. So it hasn't changed.
- 20:48It's been 20 years now and absolutely no part of that has
- 20:52changed. I remember having that
- 20:54experience I detailed earlier about, you know, listening to
- 20:57the booklet and putting my brother's big stereo in our
- 20:59shared bedroom and just cranking him.
- 21:01And by cranking it was on like, you know, 10% because he had
- 21:04this giant amp that this like, you know, would never turn past
- 21:07like 1015% because it was so loud and just being wowed by by
- 21:12the songwriting. My mom had Dookie and when I,
- 21:15when I bought American Idiot, she was like, you like that
- 21:17band. I have an older one of their
- 21:18albums and she gave me Dookie and I was like, whoa, my God,
- 21:21this is unbelievable. And to this day, I'm I'm wowed
- 21:24by the songwriting on that record.
- 21:26It it there was a band that I that was kind of on the
- 21:29downswing coming from the warning album.
- 21:30And things were sort of, you know, maybe maybe people are
- 21:33starting to lose interest in them and they, they reinvented
- 21:35and re and rebirthed their entire band.
- 21:37And there's now there's pianos, now there's third guitar and now
- 21:40there's I mean, all these operatic elements to operatic,
- 21:43but these these sort of like production elements that weren't
- 21:46that were there prior. And and that band I was talking
- 21:49to guys about in the band the other day, it had two popularity
- 21:52peaks. It was like your giant 90s wave
- 21:54thing. And then it went down and then
- 21:57it did it again. And I'm like, I don't know that
- 21:59many bands that did it twice. I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure
- 22:02anyone listens to like, no, you idiot, this band, that band
- 22:05this. But like, it's, it feels like a
- 22:06lot of bands had their big moment and then they kind of
- 22:09like dip and then they maintain they were like this.
- 22:11And then, and I mean, they were just as relevant when I was a
- 22:14kid as when somebody 10 years older than me was a kid.
- 22:18And I think that's awesome, you know, So just even taking still
- 22:21to this day, that sort of rebirthing mentality is kind of
- 22:24what we were thinking about when you're doing Genesis of Error
- 22:26was like, obviously not quite the same thing or on the same
- 22:29scale, but it's like, what can we add to this band that people
- 22:31aren't expecting? And it's not that Genesis is a
- 22:33giant musical departure, but it's more of like a sign of
- 22:37where things are going. I mean, you alluded to the last
- 22:39track on the album, which has got much larger sounding
- 22:42elements to it and in a lot of ways is slower than most of our
- 22:46other songs. And it doesn't jump around so
- 22:48much and it doesn't have so much entropy in it.
- 22:52And it seems to sort of revolve around an idea or two, which is,
- 22:55which is a fun challenge. So yeah, to wrap it back around.
- 22:57Those are those are where I started, yeah.
- 22:59Nice work, always helping out the journalist.
- 23:01I appreciate you with the segue back and and I love Linkin Park
- 23:06and Green Day unashamedly. I just saw Green Day a couple of
- 23:08months ago and they did both American Idiot and Dookie stuff
- 23:11and it was weird to see them become like a huge Metallica
- 23:14like band as a punk band, but also like amazing, like a very
- 23:19amazing across my life. And I'm a little older than you.
- 23:22So wild shit. Absolutely great talking to you
- 23:25and getting to meet you formally finally.
- 23:27And congratulations on the new EP coming out soon and I wish
- 23:31you the best. Be safe on the road and we'll be
- 23:34following along and I'll see you soon out there.
- 23:36Awesome man. Thanks so much for having me.
- 23:37I totally appreciate. Stay in touch.