Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 876 - Kate Davies (Pupil Slicer) Talks New Album "Fleshwork"

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 876 - Kate Davies (Pupil Slicer) Talks New Album "Fleshwork" · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  We don't want to be making the same album twice.
• 0:02
  I think, which, you know, there is an element of fans like
• 0:05
  certain things. That's you.
• 0:07
  You want to please the fans. You don't want to leave people
• 0:10
  behind. But the same time, you know, you
• 0:12
  can't win as a band either. You do stuff that sounds like
• 0:15
  what you did before and everyone's like this band just
• 0:17
  sounds the same. I'm not listening to them
• 0:19
  anymore. Or you change it and people say
• 0:21
  I wish they sounded like the last album.
• 0:23
  So you can't really win. So I think we're just, we'll
• 0:25
  continue evolving as we want to. What's up everybody, it's Kifi
• 0:36
  of Ghost Cult Mag and I am super stoked to be joined by Kate of
• 0:40
  Pupil Slicer today. How are you doing, Kate?
• 0:42
  Yeah, really good. Thanks.
• 0:43
  Thanks, Patty. Yeah, of course.
• 0:45
  Fantastic. Thanks for thanks for having us
• 0:47
  be with you. It really is, you know,
• 0:49
  journalism and it's not what it used to be.
• 0:52
  It's not as respected as it used to be.
• 0:54
  And I appreciate your time to talk about your art, which is
• 0:57
  not always the easiest thing to drill down into sound bites.
• 1:00
  Right. Yeah.
• 1:01
  Because there's so much that goes into it.
• 1:03
  We've been, you know, much like, you know, Ghost Cult was
• 1:06
  originally founded as a Zine in Europe.
• 1:08
  So we still have a very big footprint there.
• 1:10
  And so I feel like we're at we're sort of a little bit of
• 1:13
  ahead of we here ahead of time. The little, the little birdies
• 1:16
  whisper to us, little gremlins tell us about these cool bands.
• 1:20
  And the UK has been so tremendous for bands the last,
• 1:24
  you know, pre pandemic everything just such a
• 1:28
  tremendous surge of great bands and your band is in my personal
• 1:31
  opinion, one of them. And Flesh Work is just a
• 1:35
  humongous records coming out November 7th on Prosthetic
• 1:38
  Records. And I often used to say, like, I
• 1:40
  wish Fear Factory would have scored a Terminator movie, but I
• 1:43
  actually think I'm gonna change it to this record because like,
• 1:46
  it's so encompasses everything we're going through right now as
• 1:50
  people, just every folk from every walk of life and struggle.
• 1:54
  And you know, I know you all poured your heart and souls into
• 1:57
  this. So, you know, obviously a lot
• 1:59
  has been happening, and this record feels, at least to me, I
• 2:03
  don't want to read too deeply into things and let you speak
• 2:05
  about it, but it feels like a reaction to everything right
• 2:08
  now, yeah. Yeah, I think, I think I thought
• 2:11
  it would be good. Like the first album was very
• 2:14
  personal and still about stuff, but I think I was less confident
• 2:18
  with my voice as a songwriter and lyricist.
• 2:21
  And then the second one, I tried to be more conceptual.
• 2:24
  And while I was still talking about similar things, I tried to
• 2:27
  tie it all together in a, in a, in a grander concept.
• 2:31
  And I thought with this one, right, I've done the concept
• 2:33
  thing. I, I had ideas for songs and I
• 2:36
  was thinking I'd go a bit more direct.
• 2:38
  Now I'm a bit more confident. And after writing a few, I think
• 2:44
  I sort of sort of tone and pattern emerging.
• 2:47
  And I was like, right, I'm gonna just try and concentrate on like
• 2:52
  getting across the sort of anger on the album with the state of
• 2:56
  of things and drawing attention to seeing things going on in the
• 3:03
  world at the moment. And also just giving a cathartic
• 3:06
  form of like release for myself and hopefully for listeners to
• 3:10
  find an escape in it and be like I'm not alone and just an outlet
• 3:15
  to express feelings. Right on.
• 3:17
  And you know, it's not completely hopeless.
• 3:20
  That's why we still have art and we have each other and we have
• 3:23
  our voices to to be heard. There is sort of a a glint of,
• 3:28
  of positivity in there underneath.
• 3:30
  I think just the first step on the act of rebellion is, you
• 3:34
  know, sharing your voice and sharing your story and, and
• 3:37
  seeing if other people can empathize it.
• 3:39
  Even if empathy is at an all time low, it seems from our
• 3:43
  leaders, we can have empathy as the people.
• 3:45
  And I love the just the, you know, no fucks given, not just
• 3:51
  rage sprayed out, but really refined and defined.
• 3:55
  And I think it's really important to have these voices,
• 3:59
  especially for the voiceless in society because, you know, just
• 4:02
  there, you know, there's there's such a bad pecking order right
• 4:05
  now. And I think things have never I
• 4:08
  live through like the Reagan 80s and I never thought it would be
• 4:11
  worse than Edward Thatcher. I never thought it would be
• 4:13
  worse. And I feel like this is worse,
• 4:16
  but way Dumber. I don't know.
• 4:18
  I don't have a way of putting that eloquently.
• 4:22
  Just Dumber. But yeah, this record is
• 4:25
  humongous. I I took Blossom out earlier
• 4:28
  this week and I always go back and mirror and blossom and I go
• 4:31
  back whenever I'm gonna interview somebody and I try to
• 4:33
  do my homework and, and refresh myself and, and listen for a
• 4:37
  progression. And it's definitely is, you
• 4:39
  know, everybody says, oh, my next record is my best record.
• 4:42
  Or, you know, I'm waiting for one person to say this record is
• 4:45
  not our best record. It's good.
• 4:47
  Just one time somebody surprised me with that.
• 4:50
  But I will say this is just a tremendous piece of music all
• 4:53
  the way through. And like I said, it's, it's much
• 4:57
  more it's, it's everything Pupil Slicer has been, but much more
• 5:01
  refined I would say. Yeah, thank you.
• 5:03
  I I think definitely that was the approach of like we worked
• 5:08
  on our songwriting a lot on the second album to get better at
• 5:13
  creating something that's it's heavy, but but catch more
• 5:17
  thought out less sort of just there's a bunch of riffs in a
• 5:20
  row with like nothing connecting them.
• 5:22
  And like there is still room for that style.
• 5:24
  And it's, but it's, it's learning when when to apply that
• 5:27
  kind of style to a song And when it's like, well, that riff's
• 5:31
  really cool, that should come back.
• 5:32
  And when you've got to be like, we can't, you don't want, you
• 5:35
  want someone to come back to the song again to hear the riff.
• 5:37
  You don't want them to be like you don't play it too many times
• 5:40
  to the point that they're getting it enough from one
• 5:42
  lesson. But you know, like one of the,
• 5:46
  one of my favourite Converge riffs is what's the song called
• 5:50
  So on on the Dusk and Us. And it's like a three word
• 5:55
  title, but they have this breakdown at the end and they
• 5:58
  play it for literally like 8 bars.
• 6:00
  It lasts like 4 sections and it's great.
• 6:03
  And they do a lot of that like Vengeance does that as well
• 6:06
  where it's like just, it just gives you the and it's like, oh,
• 6:08
  what a great riff. And then it ends and it's like,
• 6:10
  well, you gotta listen to the song again.
• 6:12
  I think it's fun to do that because then those songs stick
• 6:15
  with you. It's like, oh, this song's all
• 6:16
  about this moment. And that's so, yeah.
• 6:19
  Coming back to, I think we tried to be a bit more raw with the
• 6:24
  songwriting, a bit more energetic and in your face, and
• 6:30
  we approached that with the production as well.
• 6:31
  We wanted it more to be like a band right in front of you
• 6:33
  playing, but a bit less polished, basically a bit more
• 6:37
  scrappy and to give a bit more character to the sound.
• 6:41
  And combining that with more aggressive songwriting than I
• 6:45
  think we had on on Mirror, on Blossom, close to sort of
• 6:50
  Mirrors, which was a bit more unhinged that, but combined with
• 6:55
  the songwriting sort of skills we'd built up from having now
• 7:00
  done 2 full limbs into this third.
• 7:03
  And yeah, I'm really pleased with with how it came out and
• 7:06
  it's sort of capturing that aggression sonically as what
• 7:11
  sort of match directly. It's a bit more blunt, I
• 7:13
  suppose. It's there's less playing around
• 7:16
  and sort of it's more to the point of likes right here.
• 7:20
  The riffs less, less in. So I suppose like less
• 7:23
  interludes less. It's just riff, riff, riff, you
• 7:25
  know, just just getting to the meat of it, right?
• 7:27
  On and I think that served Blossom very well.
• 7:30
  So like, certainly no regrets, uh, because Blossom.
• 7:32
  Yeah, yeah, it worked for the concept of that, definitely.
• 7:36
  And we don't want to repeat ourselves.
• 7:38
  We don't want to be making the same album twice.
• 7:40
  I think, which, you know, there is an element of fans like
• 7:44
  certain things. That's that you, you want to
• 7:47
  please the fans. You don't want to leave people
• 7:48
  behind, but at the same time, you know, you can't win as a
• 7:51
  band either. You do stuff that sounds like
• 7:54
  what you did before and everyone's like, this band just
• 7:56
  sounds the same. I'm not listening to them
• 7:57
  anymore. Or you change it and people say,
• 7:59
  I wish they sounded like the last album.
• 8:01
  So you can't really win. So I think we're just, we'll
• 8:04
  continue evolving as we want to. I think if someone is into any
• 8:09
  of that, any of our stuff, they'll they'll still find
• 8:12
  things they like. They may be a massive Blossom
• 8:14
  fan and be like, I wish this new album was more conceptual or a
• 8:18
  bit more had more clean choruses and stuff and that there is like
• 8:22
  a couple. It's not as dominantly like over
• 8:25
  produced and and with like singing choruses and stuff on
• 8:29
  this new one. But there is certainly something
• 8:31
  for those people who preferred that side of us.
• 8:34
  And there'll be stuff that I think mirrors fans who are like,
• 8:37
  oh, Blossom was was a sellout album and and too well produced
• 8:42
  and to to sing songy. I think they'll be pleased with
• 8:45
  this album then being a little, I suppose, more more aggressive
• 8:49
  than Blossom was, but I think it it does.
• 8:54
  I think it suited each album to be the way it is.
• 8:57
  Like it's a Blossom's more of a Dillinger Escape Plan album and
• 8:59
  this is more of a Converge album.
• 9:02
  I love that. I'm glad you said it so I didn't
• 9:05
  have to, but I do feel that's, you know, absolutely fair.
• 9:08
  And Converge is also one of my favorite bands.
• 9:11
  And yeah, I think in the guitar work, your guitar work has has
• 9:15
  come so far and so strong on this record on just every, you
• 9:21
  know, every movement thoughtfully, you know,
• 9:23
  carefully constructed. And, you know, I love, I love a
• 9:27
  power trio anyway, from my from my youth way back.
• 9:31
  Like, there's something pure about a power trio making music
• 9:34
  that sounds like an army coming, you know, And this will
• 9:39
  definitely get people's attention.
• 9:40
  And don't read the comments too much.
• 9:42
  And my comments are also horrible.
• 9:43
  So like, then they're not like, who's this Beardo?
• 9:46
  He doesn't know anything. So like, you know, don't read
• 9:49
  the comments unless they're good because like they just, yeah,
• 9:52
  it's just gonna, you have to be your own #1 fan and have a
• 9:55
  reason for making art and doing what you do that supersedes the
• 10:00
  industry and and making it and doing all the things, you know,
• 10:03
  which, you know, I think that, you know, if you, if you're, you
• 10:06
  3 are satisfied with the record, it'll probably go over well with
• 10:10
  a, a good selection of, of fans. Yeah, I definitely I think
• 10:14
  that's the key to it. If if we were making music for
• 10:17
  other people or for trying to succeed in an industry and stuff
• 10:21
  like you can't predict what's going to do well, you can't you
• 10:26
  can't write songs with the intention of like, oh, this will
• 10:29
  be the song that makes us big, etcetera.
• 10:31
  Like, because you don't know what like Not Loose are the
• 10:34
  biggest they've ever been and their latest album was arguably
• 10:38
  the heaviest it's been and the least accessible.
• 10:41
  And I think it's their commitment to just doing what
• 10:44
  they want to do and not compromising.
• 10:46
  That's really the people have latched onto.
• 10:49
  And I think that's over an ethos we're trying to definitely take
• 10:52
  on of. Like, if we're not making songs
• 10:54
  we're happy with, why not that we ever have at any point.
• 10:58
  It's just I think that has been our sort of driving factor since
• 11:01
  the start is that we want to just make the music we want to
• 11:05
  play because we're never going to get anywhere in this industry
• 11:10
  playing this kind of music like it's a one in a million thing
• 11:14
  that you do become a bad and I've got knock loose when you're
• 11:16
  selling out 2000 cap rooms every night.
• 11:18
  So, you know, enjoy it while we do it and I think we have a
• 11:24
  really great dynamic between the three of us and I think so
• 11:27
  that's all all we've needed so far and all we continue to need
• 11:31
  is it sort of distills it very we all know what we're meant to
• 11:34
  be doing it in the band. And Guy, I think I think is this
• 11:38
  was the easiest record to write to be honest with the three.
• 11:41
  We're so used to each other now and even with a new basis, Luke
• 11:46
  coming and he slotted in perfectly and it's been easier
• 11:49
  running within than we've ever had and experienced writing and
• 11:55
  he understands what me and Josh are going for.
• 11:57
  Joshua Drama. It's just been a wonderful
• 11:59
  experience. I mean, you say the the guitar
• 12:02
  work is is really good. Honestly, this album is the
• 12:05
  easiest to play of any of the three.
• 12:07
  It was a bit more, this is the first album which was more
• 12:10
  written and sort of on a guitar instead of on a computer first
• 12:14
  coming up with stuff that's like complicated for the sake of
• 12:16
  being complicated. But I think it hasn't lost
• 12:19
  because I've improved as a guitar player over the albums.
• 12:22
  Stuff I'll just play on a guitar is gonna be more complicated,
• 12:25
  but also like achieving the things I want to achieve out of
• 12:28
  our music. Anyway, Yeah, I think they were
• 12:32
  in a good place. I think.
• 12:33
  I think I'm really happy with how the album came out.
• 12:35
  Right on. I'm so glad to hear that.
• 12:37
  And you know, again, rarely does someone say, man, I really wish
• 12:41
  we we left a lot on the table. I wish we could go back and redo
• 12:44
  it. That's usually later in life,
• 12:45
  right? Yeah.
• 12:47
  And I know one of my favorite artists ever, Vernon Reed of
• 12:50
  Living Color, said a record is really never done because then
• 12:53
  you go play it live and maybe overtime you play differently.
• 12:57
  And then you go back and listen to the record like 10 years
• 12:59
  later and be like, what the hell am I doing?
• 13:02
  I'm playing it completely different.
• 13:03
  And then again, the phone, what the Anyway, I'm playing it
• 13:06
  completely different and I don't know what I'm doing.
• 13:08
  How did I, what changed? I changed, right?
• 13:11
  Or whatever we do, our vibe live change.
• 13:13
  So so these things happen. My phone is working against me.
• 13:18
  Today we definitely we definitely have already started
• 13:22
  like since before the single Flesh Work came out.
• 13:24
  I've completely changed the delivery on the vocals live and
• 13:28
  I think it's better. But I'm also like, it's cool to
• 13:31
  have the two things that someone will come and see us and be
• 13:34
  like, oh, this is really different.
• 13:35
  And but I think that is sort of the fun of it life.
• 13:39
  Like there's definitely stuff from Blossom that's now like
• 13:42
  Josh is doing completely different things on the drums.
• 13:46
  They're like cooler things that we didn't think of at the time.
• 13:48
  Just from like vibing it out and feeling I'm getting more
• 13:51
  confident and then being able to sort of add little flourishes
• 13:54
  here and there. And I think that is part of the
• 13:56
  fun. Like a lot of my favorite
• 13:58
  things, like the Melvins are touring again with two drummers
• 14:01
  at the moment and they're playing songs.
• 14:03
  And there are moments in the set where I was like, oh, this is so
• 14:06
  sick. I'm going to go and look up that
• 14:08
  song, listen to it again after. And the little details they were
• 14:11
  performing went on the song that was like a live only thing.
• 14:14
  So I was like, OK, cool. It's just, yeah, it's always
• 14:17
  room for that, I think. Yeah, Melvin's.
• 14:19
  I can only think of a handful of artists that can just change
• 14:22
  constantly and still be themselves, and that's Melvin's.
• 14:25
  But it's important to grow. Like I said, it's important for
• 14:28
  you as an artist to have the room and to express yourself,
• 14:32
  you know, whatever the moment takes you.
• 14:34
  And, you know, we just is such a strange and bizarre time in the
• 14:39
  world. But I'm glad that we have this
• 14:41
  album and albums like this this year to really lean into
• 14:44
  because, yeah, it's bleak out there.
• 14:46
  And I do feel like overall, while you're, you know, you have
• 14:49
  a lot of, you know, important things to share, I think it's,
• 14:53
  there is a, there is a glimmer of hope in there.
• 14:56
  Like if you can get this out and get this message to the people,
• 14:59
  I do think, you know, we can activate some minds and get some
• 15:03
  people a little more invested in their futures.
• 15:06
  It's not so hopeless. We're not all going to be locked
• 15:09
  in our houses like eating Cheetos and gaming forever,
• 15:12
  which sounds wonderful. But like, you know, we, we got
• 15:14
  to find a way forward as a as a species.
• 15:17
  Yeah, definitely. I think if even if one person
• 15:21
  sort of broaches the album and like, thinks about the kind of
• 15:25
  things I'm talking about and I don't know, it just makes them
• 15:29
  reconsider anything they've they've previously thought
• 15:32
  about. Because I've got like tracks
• 15:33
  about like the way society treats disabled people and like
• 15:39
  those in poverty and homeless and just in general, sort of the
• 15:45
  way our society is built with so much pitting US against one
• 15:50
  another. I think, you know, there is a
• 15:51
  glimmer of hope. And like, there's the albums
• 15:53
  sort of rage towards towards those things and the people in
• 15:57
  charge. And at the same time, it is, you
• 16:00
  know, it's talking about how the world pits ourselves against
• 16:04
  each other. But in the hopes that, you know,
• 16:07
  we come together, we learn to. Or maybe I will rethink how I
• 16:11
  see this demographic of people because because it is, it is
• 16:15
  pointless to take your fellow man getting through the world.
• 16:20
  Everyone's everyone's just trying to survive and get by.
• 16:23
  And when we all need to support each other because it's the it's
• 16:26
  the those at the top, the billionaires and the politicians
• 16:30
  and the overlap between the two because they're basically the
• 16:32
  same thing making the policies is that that's really the people
• 16:37
  who won't care about you, but they want you to care about
• 16:41
  random things that don't even matter because it takes your
• 16:43
  attention off of them. So true Wag the dog like it's so
• 16:47
  crazy. It's so true and it's it's
• 16:50
  happening in real time. And I think the just the, you
• 16:54
  know, the blitz of nonsense really takes us out of our game
• 16:58
  and does their work for them by getting us distracted and not
• 17:01
  unified. And I think it's, you know, like
• 17:03
  things that can pull us back and snap us back into reality and
• 17:07
  into facts and not feelings. You know, feelings are important
• 17:11
  too. But like we, you know, we got to
• 17:13
  come together as people when we're really, they've got
• 17:16
  update, we've got, they've got their foots on our necks.
• 17:19
  And I don't like it, you know, and I don't like it.
• 17:23
  It's very reminiscent of of my teen years, which were brutal.
• 17:27
  And I don't want to see the world keep going this way.
• 17:29
  But in the meantime, art and music, art and music and film
• 17:33
  and games and things and books, just as we start to wind this
• 17:38
  down, I just have a couple more for you.
• 17:39
  You know, how do you see? You know, I appreciate that.
• 17:43
  You know, Prosthetic is one of the more mature labels, and I
• 17:47
  feel like they've done a very nice job with your band.
• 17:50
  You know, how do you see the streaming?
• 17:53
  Like, I feel like technology is amazing, and I'm glad we can
• 17:56
  talk to each other from across the world.
• 17:58
  I used to do only these interviews in person, and then
• 18:00
  the pandemic happened and we started doing Zoom and stuff.
• 18:03
  But I do feel like like AI is kind of out of control and
• 18:07
  there's no real governance for protecting artists and their
• 18:11
  art. As you've seen a lot of Spotify,
• 18:13
  you know, AI over, you know, taking over and, you know,
• 18:17
  random profile, you know, theft and things like that.
• 18:21
  And also I don't I feel like the major labels are colluding with
• 18:25
  like the streamers as well and AI all to, you know, keep the
• 18:29
  artist down, you know. So I was wondering if you had a
• 18:31
  take on any of that because that you, you seem very grounded in
• 18:34
  the real, you know. I think streaming is a very
• 18:39
  convenient invention, but I do think that has.
• 18:44
  All but. Entirely killed the idea of
• 18:48
  being a musician unless you have really rich parents, which has
• 18:53
  always been a thing in the music industry.
• 18:55
  And it's only reinforcing that further because 25 years ago,
• 19:00
  ADIY musician could have start gaining traction and maybe had
• 19:08
  some social mobility in terms of bringing themselves out of
• 19:11
  poverty through their music and then or at least not even just
• 19:16
  just up to a level where the music would let them survive and
• 19:19
  continue to make the music. And I think that's not the case
• 19:23
  anymore and hasn't been for a while.
• 19:26
  And definitely I think it hasn't really affected the major labels
• 19:32
  tremendously because you know, the the industry still operates
• 19:36
  on advances where it comes out of your royalties.
• 19:38
  So all the money they give you is your money anyway.
• 19:42
  They don't have to pay a penny like that is an advance, but
• 19:44
  they have so many parts they're going through that it doesn't
• 19:47
  really affect them. And then whatever revenue comes
• 19:50
  in, they get 80% of it and the 20% just goes to paying off the
• 19:53
  loan they've effectively given you anyway.
• 19:56
  So I think it's been a lot less of an impact on the labels and
• 20:00
  the way the music industry sort of set up.
• 20:03
  It's I feel like something is going to have to change at some
• 20:06
  point because I just see, I see so many bands around us just
• 20:10
  breaking up and stopping and it's not a thing of what not.
• 20:16
  I don't even know if I'd use the term breaking up.
• 20:18
  It's just stopping. Like I'm sure there are loads of
• 20:21
  our friends bands and stuff that there's only bands in the UK
• 20:26
  receiving recently breaking up. And like, it's sad to see
• 20:29
  they're incredibly talented musicians.
• 20:31
  But you know, you, you can't keep dumping money into a hobby
• 20:35
  like this. It's a very expensive hobby and
• 20:37
  it takes a lot out of you. Like we we like maybe next year
• 20:42
  will hopefully break even on tour, not costing us thousands
• 20:47
  of pounds and stuff, but like all our holiday days at work,
• 20:51
  all of our like spare savings from what?
• 20:54
  Like we're not saving up deposits for houses because
• 20:56
  we're spending the money on the band, which is probably a stupid
• 20:59
  thing in the long term, but it's the thing that's fulfilling for
• 21:02
  us as musicians. And it sort of leaves you behind
• 21:06
  economically from the rest of society trying to pursue music.
• 21:09
  And for a lot of people, that's just not realistic.
• 21:12
  And it stops those people having access to being able to do me.
• 21:17
  Like you can do so much from your bedroom now, but you'll
• 21:20
  never get to see those artists live really, because they're not
• 21:23
  going to be able to afford to tour.
• 21:24
  And I think that really sucks. And you know, something in the
• 21:28
  in, in the status of stasis quo of, of how these labels run is
• 21:33
  going to have to change at some point if they don't want to only
• 21:37
  be dealing with people who've got rich parents or, you know,
• 21:42
  that that kind of thing. Because those really the only
• 21:45
  people who are going to be able to afford it.
• 21:47
  And then the other people, people like us are just like
• 21:50
  barely scraping by and destroying their own economic
• 21:56
  futures by doing a band. But it's, it's the thing we love
• 21:59
  and, and we do it because because we love it and we want
• 22:01
  to share that with fans. So I, I mean the, the only
• 22:04
  message I can give with that is to, you know, buy merch, support
• 22:08
  your favorite bands, go to see them live, but mostly by much
• 22:12
  and like physical records where you can, if you like a band and
• 22:16
  you buy one CD, if there's that's making a world of
• 22:20
  difference to those bands because they're not going to see
• 22:22
  any of that streaming revenue. And if they're on a label, the
• 22:28
  labels probably spent all of that bands streaming money
• 22:31
  they'll ever earn on advances so that they could form film a
• 22:34
  music video, which seems like a great deal when you're starting
• 22:36
  out. And then it's, it's like, oh,
• 22:38
  but all that money was our money that's been spent just in
• 22:41
  advance. So we've spent our lifetimes
• 22:43
  worth of reserves on and royalties on on that kind of
• 22:47
  thing. So, so definitely transport
• 22:50
  bands where you can because like, if you think like 20 years
• 22:52
  ago, if a band, bands like the ones breaking up around us in
• 22:55
  the UK soon, if it, if it was like 25 years ago, those bands
• 22:59
  operating at the level they were.
• 23:01
  So they may have been able to continue doing the band because
• 23:04
  the band may have been able to pay for them to survive.
• 23:06
  But that's just not the case anymore.
• 23:08
  No one's in a band, especially in our genre of music where
• 23:11
  they're able to sort of just just just do the band.
• 23:15
  Everyone's got to be doing other stuff.
• 23:17
  And it's a massive, it's a massive tax constraint because
• 23:20
  doing a band is like a full time job.
• 23:23
  It's, it's, there's a lot of work.
• 23:26
  There's a lot of stuff with merch, with managing the labels,
• 23:28
  music videos, practicing regularly.
• 23:32
  If you want to give a good show, you have to put in the time and
• 23:36
  you don't get any financial reward for that time basically.
• 23:39
  Right on, thanks for unpacking all that.
• 23:41
  You will find that an independent non corporate music
• 23:44
  website is very much like a band very much in that way.
• 23:49
  But I appreciate you so much as I wrap this up.
• 23:52
  First of all, it's been tremendous to talk to you.
• 23:54
  I always like to end these interviews with a wild card
• 23:56
  question. And I wanted to know what was
• 23:59
  the last good book you read? I mean, the last book I was
• 24:04
  reading, I was reading one of Stuart Lee's autobiographies,
• 24:08
  The Stand Up Comedian. I can't remember the title.
• 24:12
  It's it's really good and it has a load of a load of details of
• 24:17
  like a stand up routine with like notes on every single line.
• 24:20
  A bit of like how we came up with that joke, how that joke
• 24:23
  changed every night. So that was that's really cool.
• 24:25
  And then besides that, yes, you count graphic novels, then
• 24:31
  Planet Hulk by Greg Pack. And reading that, it's funny
• 24:36
  thing the other day that was like Anthony Bourdwain.
• 24:39
  And they changed this quote to be like, once you've read Planet
• 24:42
  Hulk, you'll never stop wanting to kill Tycho Otiti with your
• 24:45
  bare hands. And I was like, yeah, fair
• 24:48
  enough. Because like Thor Ragnarok was a
• 24:51
  very loose adaptation in it. And when you've read it, you're
• 24:54
  like, oh, I can't believe he did that to these.
• 24:57
  Characters very loose, but I do I do like I love Hemsworth and
• 25:01
  Thor Ragnarok so. And I love anything with Jeff
• 25:06
  Goldblum is always a treasure. He's incredible as the
• 25:09
  grandmaster. Yeah.
• 25:10
  We're nerds here. We love contacts and graphic
• 25:12
  novels. Amazing.
• 25:14
  Kate, just a thrill to talk to you today about Pupil Slicer.
• 25:17
  Thank you so much. I feel like a band like yours,
• 25:20
  we always talk about pinnacle bands.
• 25:22
  We, we just passed the 13 year mark here and your band is a
• 25:26
  band that I would consider an archetypical Ghost Cult band
• 25:29
  that we like to cover. So thank you for what you do.
• 25:32
  Please keep your chin up and keep pushing forward.
• 25:35
  And please everybody go out and buy this record when it comes
• 25:39
  out on November 7th from Prosthetic Records.
• 25:42
  Thank you for hanging out with Ghost Cult today.
• 25:44
  Yeah, no worries. Thanks for having me.