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Collin Walsh of Grayscale · 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.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'll defend 15 years beyond anger into real introspective.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: We also discuss the challenges of dealing with an ever-changing music industry.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mike.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Caught on the Mic.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: We are six months in from the release of my new friend Colin Walsh and his band Grayscales release The Heart.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: We were just discussing this before I pressed record.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's not tired of this music yet, and I don't blame him.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is a fantastic album.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I actually threw on my beats headphones last night and drifted off into sleep to this album.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: It is fantastic.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Colin, how the hell are you, man?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Doing well, man.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's glad to hear I'm uh help helping helping put you to sleep at night.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's not in that way.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, bro.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm saying, I'm saying you've been falling asleep to my voice, to our band's music.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's an honor.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's how I meant it, yeah.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't give you shit, man.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: No, for sure.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're we're good.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're uh all as well in the grayscale camp.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're uh we're excited.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: We just got back from tour with Mayday Parade.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was wonderful.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: We have a busy year ahead, and uh in in cycle with our record the heart, it came out late January, like you said, and um it's been great.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's been been incredible.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's our favorite record as a band.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh had an unbelievable response, and we're we're feeling good.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Good deal, good deal.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you've kind of been doing this um this promotion cycle for this album since July of 2023.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you've been dropping like singles throughout since then, with the full album release coming out in January uh of this year.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, what has that ramp up been like for you?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's been uh it's been amazing.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: We wrote Not Afraid to Die kind of out in front of the rest of the album, and we uh had it mixed and and put it out first as sort of like a bridge single.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh in the meantime, we were recording the rest of the album.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: We had a lot of songs written, we just hadn't um gotten into the studio and properly cut them, but um it's been it's been awesome.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think what's cool, like we're definitely an album band, we always will be, but at the same time, like it's it's kind of cool.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um with just the nature of things now, like you're always sort of in cycle, it's just a matter of you know how how frequently you're putting out music, how frequently you're touring.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I think just the way like the nature of music right now, like you can put out kind of singles on on their own uh out in front of an album, and it can be you know put on that album eventually if you want, or you can just wait to put out the record, whatever you want.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: So you can be in cycle as long as you kind of choose to, and you can take time off um, you know, whenever you want at the same time.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's yeah, it's a cool, it's a cool way to do things, it's kind of unpredictable.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh that's a question that's actually come up a lot on the show is how people feel about the new release strategy.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: It used to be this thing where you'd release one or two singles, then the album would drop, and then everybody would kind of discover the rest of the album once it was fully released, but now it's kind of engineered in a different way where songs trickle out every two to three months, and then the album releases.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any particular feelings about that?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean, I'm always like an album person.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely prefer the two or three singles in the album, but it's we're all just living under the Spotify overlords at this point.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So that's I mean, that's just the nature of like when you explain it to people, but that's I don't like putting out half a record first, but um, it's the way the the pitch structure for playlisting is and DSPs, and it's like it just is the nature of it.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think on the other hand, artists have found a way to be creative.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, I think what we were kind of talking about earlier is like if you want to put out a music video and you know, really emphasize that on socials or whatever, you know, late months and months or a year later in the you know from the release, you can kind of do that.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: You always could, but I think with like short form the benefit of that is you can kind of do it without spending a ton of money on a music video for it if you want, you know.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that totally makes sense.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: It totally makes sense.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for being incredibly honest about it.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've talked to some guys that'll like say things, say one thing on recording, and then the minute the record button stops, you're like, no, I'm not that way we released that.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna not gonna get that with us, dude.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna get if anything, I'm gonna get you in trouble.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I and I think that is kind of a musician's preference thing.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you would almost rather, you know, as a former band guy myself, you'd almost rather release your entire work as opposed to like just trickle it out like that.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes I know with by the time the release comes, you and and it's happened with past albums for myself, the album almost feels dead if you've over-promoted it and over-singled it out.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think it depends on the genre.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think it depends on the record.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if you know, if I think it's easier, like when we write records, like our record, The Heart that came out, it's like it was very much written and um rec written, recorded, and tracklisted out with the intention of it being a story and like a full record and one piece of uh one piece of art, you know what I mean, with the all the elements of like the physical vinyl and everything.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I think in like pop and other genres, it that may it just doesn't quite apply as much.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: It depends on in my opinion, it depends on like the content of the music, like you know, the lyric, the lyrics of the music or like the the storytelling of it, how in depth it is or whatever.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: It depends if if it warrants being one complete piece of work or not.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'll always be an album guy.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think Grayscale will always be an album band, but um, yeah, it's just preference, I guess, you know.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's kind of let's talk about Grayscale for a moment in more in-depth.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get to the origin story of the band.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: You guys formed right around 2011, and uh, you know, you signed with your label right around 2017.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into the origin of how the band came together and what brought you from there to here now.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, like we say 2011 is the origin.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Really, we became like a full-time band, a touring band in uh 2017.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: 2018 is when we, you know, we put out a record in 2017, a full length like you know, on a label and started full-time touring then.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's really probably um we had some self-release, like self-released EP or like, you know, like kind of smaller indie label type thing in 2015 with our record what we're missing.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um but 2011 was kind of when we just you know, we've been friends since we were like 13, 14 years old, all of us like in and around the Philly area.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I feel like I don't even know how old I was then, but that was probably I mean, I must have been like sophomore in high school or something, junior in high school.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: So that I mean that timeline is really when we just started, you know, playing music and under under the name that we thought was cool, Grayscale.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't really think it wasn't at the time, like it wasn't a fully functioning band by any means, but you know, we kind of use that time.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: We think it's cool.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like we think the timeline of like this is when we were kids and we had this name, and we do covers uh in in the basement and and do house shows with uh the original music in Philly and stuff growing up.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we we like to uh that's kind of why we have that 2011 mark as like our our formation, yeah.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: So when did that switch flip for you guys where you knew it was like this is the shit, it's time to make it happen, like and you made that big push in 2017.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: What was the catalyst for that?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it might have been around 2014, 2015.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: We started just playing show.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that whole timeline was like the dark ages before we had discovered fire, like we were it was like early civilization grayscale.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, you know, we were just playing like opening local shows and playing DIY basement shows to nobody, um, driving hours to play shows to the other bands, like just the normal absolute eating shit that is part of you know touring and being in a band early on, being an artist.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um we did that until we started to you know have enough of like a small group of fans in like the Philly area from playing like college basements and whatever house shows, whatever, to the point where there was this venue called the Barbary at the time.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: It closed down, it's actually opened again now.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: But Grayscale kind of came like became like the local band that would open for touring packages at the Barbary, and then you do that enough times, and you have you're a little bit bigger.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Then eventually we like headlined the Barbary around probably 2015 with that What We're Missing album that we had, uh, or is it EP, whatever I guess technically, um long EP.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then we did that headline show, and somewhere along the lines, like just grinding it out and growing a local fan base, like a booking agent had reached out to me when I was walking home from class when I went to Drexel University in Philly.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think it might have been my sophomore junior year in high school, some or I'm sorry, college, something like that.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then that agent kind of started putting us in touch with management who put us in touch with labels, and it kind of happened for us very quickly where all of a sudden, like in the span of a couple weeks, we went from being like the band that opened the local shows to the band that had we headlined, you know, uh like some shows in the area to you know, that week or two weeks or so, it was like we had an agent, a manager, and we're talking to labels shortly after.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So then we ended up signing with the label, Fearless Records.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: We had to did our three record deal with them.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: They were great to us.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think people talk a lot of shit on labels, and I get why I think for the most part, like we were really happy with how we treated, and we we are um you know, definitely like on on good terms and satisfied with like our time there.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, I dropped out of college, and then that was it, man.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: We just started fucking touring until COVID hit, and everybody put on the brakes in the world, and then COVID ended, and we're back touring, you know, a hundred plus shows a year again.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you released an album like right before COVID hit, like in 2019.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Nellavita, our second full-length record on Fearless, yeah.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: So how did that, how did the pandemic affect your trajectory from your point of view?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think it just was like I mean, I think everybody in the music industry suffered really, no matter what level people were at.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think we were fortunate enough to kind of have our first headlining full US tours out before COVID, and we just got them in.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think like the the A market of it was in the fall of 2018, and then the B market was like winter 20.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh oh no, I have my years mixed up.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: It might have been like fall fall of 2019.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: We did our US A market headliner, and then like January, February-ish 2020, we did our B market tour, like US headline, and then the pandemic hit in like March of 2020 or whenever, or April, something like around then.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was St.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Patty's weekend, is when it's when everything shut down.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was driving back from I was driving back from Colorado back home to Lincoln, Nebraska, as things were shutting down, and I'm like taking phone calls from my day job.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, oh, so-and-so quit, so-and-so quit, so-and-so quit.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was crazy, man.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was a crazy time for any industry.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think the music industry specifically, too, because even coming back to touring in 2022 or whatever, it was still weird, and then it kind of like another variant would come, and then it was shut down, and it was like super political, and it was hard, but you know, I think it it sucked for everybody, but I think Grayscale was fortunate enough to get like our like footing as like a headlining US act kind of on paper, and that was it, that was helpful to pick up where we left off, sort of uh as things opened up again.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: But as like a band that tours and loves to tour, and like you know, live music is a huge part of who we are, it's what what we really value and pride ourselves on.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was it was tough being stuck at home for sure.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so from your personal perspective, once things started to open back up, do you feel like people started to reinvest into live music and uh rock bands, bands in particular again um after things opened up?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, it's just maybe my personal perspective, but I feel like the touring industry is really taken off more recently than what it was pre-pandemic.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think it took a minute, like when touring came back the first time, it wasn't really like you're playing shows in places where everybody is like massed up and everybody's afraid to touch each other, and like you know, like it just wasn't quite the same.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: To be honest with you, I don't think the fun element of it was really back until like as as late as last year, like 2024.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um like it it existed in 2023 and early 2024, but like I would say just from like me, like just from our time doing it, like late 24, early 25, even was when it was like, okay, this is like it's full, it's fully back, it's it's like everybody's flowing, like you know, shows are going again, and um, yeah, but you know, it I think like I said, I think it was our art industry specifically was very, very impacted by it, like like long term, I think more than people realized.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when fucking Live Nation is giving bands like that, they have that Willie Nelson on the road, which is a really cool program where they're giving bands gas, um, and like they were doing things to help uh musicians.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like when when Live Nation, the same people who fucking the whole ticket map, like when they're being charitable towards people, like you know it it was rough.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's not that's not really their MO, and I'm not, you know, I'm not talking shit.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's that's every industry has that kind of uh corporate overlord type of thing.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: But that was uh that was a sign to me where I'm like, damn, dude, this is uh this is tough for everybody.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's weird.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because I thought about it like right around 2023, all of a sudden new venues started to pop up in my market.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: And kind of being the business-minded guy that I am, I'm like, dude, this all just shut down less than two years ago.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't this like an incredibly huge financial risk?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, all of these venues have been consistently selling out shows, so I'm the fucking idiot when it comes down to it.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, you know, uh I know that I've made it a personal goal as a music fan to see more live concerts in 2025.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, as a former band guy myself, the fact that I don't go to more shows as a fan is almost kind of embarrassing.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Me too, man.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I I go to very few, very, very few.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is it do you think it's because you do it that yeah, you wonder if you have the fatigue about it?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: That was definitely man.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I just think like we were just on tour from like for like almost nine weeks straight.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: We were in Australia, came home right to a full seven-week made a parade, eight, you know, a market tour, and like when it's nine weeks of like you're either listening to the bus generator humming or uh sound check of a band or you know, house music in between bands or whatever, like you, it's just noise for nine weeks, right?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like it starts to drive you crazy.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think coming home, just peace and quiet for a while is like really important, decompressing for me.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think I had a particularly hard time this time coming back from tour of just like settling in.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's that it's super important mentally for sure.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, do you find that sometimes the fatigue of everything impedes itself upon your artistic process and your ability to create?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh no, I'm pretty patient.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm like the most impatient person ever.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: You could ask everybody in the band.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: But uh with art, I'm like, I have all the time in the world.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really put a time on it, at least for what like when the band is making stuff, you know.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I I'm a big, you know, person that doesn't I don't rush songs.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like to rush songs, take my time with them.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: So um I wouldn't say that.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think like just having a healthy mix.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like I come home and I I don't listen to music, I don't listen to the radio, I go to the gym, I don't bring headphones, like I just, you know, I do my thing.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: I I love I love like just driving my car with the radio off, windows down, like just by myself playing video games, reading, running, working out, playing golf.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like I just I don't I don't go near music at all.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to talk about music.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: I love music to death.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you know, I love it so much, but it's like I think it's like I I want to preserve it and keep it that way.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I think when you start to feel just fatigue for you know being in it and around it for you know literally 120, 150 days a year on tour, it's like it's you just need a break, and that's that's normal though.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think being able to detach from it allows the next album and the next tour to be better than it would be if you if you were fatigued, you know what I mean?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: I had a friend that was uh restaurateur, but he was fantastic at fixing computers and building computers, and we used to give him shit all the time.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: We'd be like, dude, why do you not do this for a career?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Because I would stop loving it.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: So cool.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into the heart and kind of, you know, you talked about the fact that there's an interconnectivity between all the songs on the album.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Can you kind of explain that a little bit and how the concept kind of glues itself together?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think like Grayscale's always been a band where the the records aren't, they're not concept records, they're just kind of snapshots about like where where I'm at in my life, the things I'm going through, the things I've been through and reflected on, the things my friends are going through, whatever.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think what's unique about us is we've been so close for so long that a lot of the things I'm talking about on the record that are personal to me are things like the guys who are my best friends, you know, we hang out almost every day.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're things they've all lived through as well.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's things like, and we've you know, we've had songs whether they're released or not, you know, about parts of their lives that are things we've all I've lived through with them, um, and and so on.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I I think just the the heart is another record.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's about life, it's about it's a snapshot of like a lot of things that I think as an adult for me.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think you you reach a certain point in life where you like you just have enough wisdom and life experience and perspective where you're looking you look at things uh differently.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think you as you mature you start to be hit with things that you have to confront um things that are kind of eating at you or whatever in a in a way that maybe before like for example, a better example would be like there's a song called Mom on uh our first full-length Adornment, which is about my relationship with my mom and how it was like a really hard thing and tough.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I think at the time I was angry and wrote it's an angry rocks, you know, punk rock, rock song, whatever you want to call it.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then this song, um, you know, a number of years later, seven years later, the the story, the relationship with my mom has evolved so much in the story and the perspective I've gained um from coming from a place of like forgiveness and empathy and self-reflection and what I did wrong and all those things.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it just took time to have that settle in.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's a lot more storytelling on this record, uh, looking at things kind of zoomed out and like the progression of of some of the stories and and life, etc.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not, it's not so much like it's not so much I'm I'm like I'm angry and I'm confused about this thing that I'm going through, and these are my emotions, and here's a bunch of emotions and poet poetry and colorful lines.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think this one was more storytelling-oriented, like really um going across uh emotions that maybe I I couldn't make sense of before, but now I'm are hitting me like a freight train that I have to like process or have processed, and I'm reflecting on them.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's kind of I think the the difference, and that's kind of the thing that ties it all uh together.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's what makes the heart like what it what it is, and why uniquely for me as a lyricist, it is the most storytelling-oriented record we've ever written.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, exposing that vulnerability and processing those emotions while you're writing, how did that help you personally heal?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think like writing for me has always been cathartic.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: It always has been something I can, you know.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I like I talk a lot with people like in my life, like my friends and shit, will tell you that I don't I don't shut up.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I think for the most part, outside of that, especially as I've like grown up, I I just kind of I'm less talkative and less I I think uh I just like listening more than talking.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's just kind of like where I'm at in life at this point.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's not not for any like negative reason.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: I just think like I've learned to value that a lot more.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um sick of hearing my own voice to some degree.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: But uh yeah, I think I think um music, my point in that is music's always been cathartic to me.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's I do talk a lot, was the point, or did or did, especially when I was younger.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I think um it it I don't necessarily talk deep about how like I feel about things emotionally.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'll talk shit and my friends like we're joking, whatever, and like we'll talk about serious things we're going through, but I think actually processing the emotional components to those things that I'm going through is something that has taken me a long time.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of men struggle with it, truthfully, in a lot of ways.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think writing has always literature, writing was kind of in like high school when I discovered like, oh, I can I can get these feelings out uh in a way that like I can communicate, whether it's to myself or somebody else reading it, that like feel uh I don't know.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's just like a c there's like more comfort in it for some reason.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: And and um I found like a like solace in that and building on that loving literature and loving like lyrics and that expression, I think like it just is it's pushed me more and more to be more vulnerable as I've done it.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think all the artists that I love, like Springsteen or um whoever, like all the great Stephen Jenkins from Third Eye, all like the great songwriters, they have this completely unfiltered um, you know, expression and and and lyricism.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think like just continuing to do this, the heart, there was a huge emphasis on like continually pushing myself to be more vulnerable, which comes with discomfort, but it's like that's what I've always felt, you know, all the all the songwriters I love Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Sam Fender, Stephen Jenkins that I blind, like I I just like there's no filter on that, and that's art, and that's what makes it beautiful and polarizing and all that.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I I was really compelled to to do that both for myself and for the sake of like what the art itself deserves.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're on tour with a band like Mayday Parade, who their musical structure is a little bit more on the upbeat side of things, how do you integrate the weight and gravity and themes of pain and resilience into a support slot like that?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it how how do you kind of manage balancing that out with your live performance on stage?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think like there's a lot of similarities, I feel like, between Mayday and Grayscale.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because Mayday, while they have like, you know, pop rock songs, whatever you want to call them, like whatever the genre you want to choose, like they also the ballads are so good.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny, Derek, Derek Sanders, the the singer of that band, he like we kind of sat and talked about this with the guys, and he was he was ex- Derek was expressing how sometimes when they play their live shows, like the ballads feel like boring to fans when you're playing them.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Not that they actually are, just as a performer, you're sitting on a piano and everybody you know is like chilling, whereas the songs before they're jumping around or whatever.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just funny we were laughing at them.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, dude, it's like it's it's not boring as a listener and you know to watch.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: I know it feels that way because you're on a piano chilling, but it's like that band's really, really fucking good at writing ballads and slow stuff.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and but it's uh yeah, I they're just a great band, very dynamic band.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think our band's dynamic where we have more rock and some pop rock leaning stuff on the older records that we still play or you know, or whatever.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, I don't know.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: I I think the mixed bill thing is cool too.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like matching, like Microwave was a totally different kind of band.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Like Roses was a different kind of band.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think um I think Like Roses and Mayday matched pretty well, but yeah, I just uh I think having the mixed bill um sometimes will our set list will be catered.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like we like catering our set list towards the tour on, but also like it's kind of cool to be different on the bill.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think this upcoming tour with our last night, it's like two bands that fit great together, and then Grayscale is sandwiched in between them.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we c it kind of makes no sense to have us, but at the same time, I think that's like exciting for the tour.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh Trevor and the guys were stoked to have us, and we're really thankful to be doing it, honored to do it.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's their last tour, but um yeah, I just uh I think having that change up and you know it's cool to see bands of one genre and then like another band in the middle kind of changing it up on on the same bill.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a cool thing.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a good segue into a discussion topic that's come up a lot on the pod recently.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you guys came into prominence about the same time streaming started to rise, and streaming has taken an exponential rise within the last five years, I'd say, in the post-pandemic era.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um I feel, and this is just my personal opinion, that music is becoming a little bit more boundless.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like when we were younger, um, people used to look at things as genre as identity.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like your punk rock kids were punk rock kids, your metal kids were metal kids, your hip-hop kids were hip-hop kids.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: I find that younger audiences are now just looking at music as being music.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, do genre lines really even matter anymore?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: To be honest, like I I sort of have always been that way.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I I like I've always loved 90s hip-hop.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up listening to a ton of like classic rock.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like my parents were always playing like Zeppelin and uh like also a lot of like 90s alt-rock, like Everclear, Third Eye, Gin Blossoms, like all that.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: So like I've never I've I've always been somebody who listens to all kinds of music, and you know, I I think it I mean I think I think it's healthy and it's good for people to hear things to be exposed to art that they're not familiar with.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't um and then in some ways like to I I agree with you, but in other ways I I feel like there is like a there is kind of a thing in certain genres where they really like play it up in some ways too.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I don't know, like in in I think streaming has kind of crossed the bridge a lot, but I also feel like people in some ways will choose to like uh you know, there's a social media like visual component to things and certain festivals that kind of like uh you know have like a a certain look, I guess.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know really know how to explain it, but it's like no, no, no, it totally makes sense.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: It totally makes sense.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like the the elder emo cult thing as an example, like we're emo, we're elder emo cult, like all that shit.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's you know, people do I think really identify with that, but then at the same time, to your point, like then there's uh in other instances it's like you have people who never listen to hip hop that listen to Kendrick Lamar all the time now because he's like I love Kendrick Lamar, he's amazing, he's one of my favorite artists.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I think it it uh I think I think it's both kind of things are happening simultaneously, but I I do think the genre listening um is good, and you have like artists that blend different genres, and um I think that's really cool too, what to have artists that are able to do that.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think our perspective, like mine and your perspective, is gonna be a slight bit skewed because we're musicians, you know.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: So by nature, we're going to listen to everything and borrow bits and pieces from everything.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: But it's interesting to kind of get those different perspectives.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh do you think that some of this is also grounded in the fact that more musicians are running the industry now than ever before?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: It used to be suits that would just were really good at marketing.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's musicians, people taking control of their art, taking control of the distribution, taking control of the marketing, you know, everything.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, probably.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: It probably is.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I think with that comes like people who are really putting the art forward and people who, you know, the the way it looks and the social media plan are taking precedent before the art.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I think artists have more power now than they ever have, and I think that's great.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: Grayscale, we own our own label now.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the main band we're close with have their own label.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Our last night, the band, which they have their own, like they're all kind of in like self-label independent type bands.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's an incredible thing and it gives artists a lot of power.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think on the other side of that, sometimes you get like, you know, you get people that put out songs that are so bad on socials that they go viral, and all of a sudden it's like, is that we're all kind of laughing at like that married in, you know, that like married in the year married in the year in the suburbs.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Have you seen that?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know which guy I'm talking about?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: No, you don't know which guy?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes, I do know it.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: He's like playing acoustic guitar and he's he like he's got like a bandana and he's all his friends are at the flashlights.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's like he does that, it goes viral, and it's like people are like shitting on him and they're like hating on him, and I'm like, but also it's it gains a lot of attention.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just sitting like watching things like that, and I'm like, is everybody kind like everybody's kind of bullying this guy in a way, and we're all kind of people are kind of laughing at it online, so it's like, but it has a ton of attention.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I don't there's certain things like that where I don't understand.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like that guy could uh you know get a label deal or go on tour and it may work, and like I don't it's just a weird Wild West landscape right now that I don't really understand.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't spend a ton of time on socials to be honest, it's not really my thing, and um, but yeah, I don't know.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's it is the wild west.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think artists have a lot of power.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think with that power comes responsibility, I guess, and you can become like a you know, a tick tock person that, you know, it's a great way to market your music, and it also can be a way of like the world deciding that something's like funny and they're gonna laugh at it and it's viral.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's an interesting time for sure.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's very different.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's weird because to your point, we started touring right as streaming kind of started, or we started being a full-time band, right as streaming started.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And like if you are a band that was founded full-time touring in like 208, 17, 18 when we were the the landscape since 2017, it was two years of like old school, just you know, like touring, handing out CDs, that kind of thing.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Then it was two and a half, three years of everybody sitting on their ass and making TikToks, like figuring out the landscape of where music was the if it was the if we're ever gonna be able to tour again because everybody's locked up in their basement.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have two years after this where it's this weird in-between where we are touring again, but it wasn't the same.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now it is the same, but socials still exist.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's effective in some ways, in some ways it's it's like not for the right reasons.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's weird.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Every two and a half years, like if if you're a band like Gracekill since 2017 as a full-time band, every two years it's been like a completely different landscape.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it's at least exciting, you know.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like keeps keeps things interesting.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: But we've always been a band where it's just like we write rock music, we play rock shows, that's like our bread and butter and what we love, and we do socials and stuff, and it's cool, it's a cool way to interact with your fans.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's like a bunch of platforms evolving more and more to be able to interact with your fans.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's dope that on Instagram we can post like, hey, we're gonna do this pop-up event in Baltimore in two days, and we'll just show up and you know, right, play a couple acoustic songs, you know, and and like do a QA and meet people.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's cool too.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's funny you bring all that up because uh just the other day, ironically, I was scrolling on TikTok and I saw an industry expert talking about um song structure and how you're gonna start seeing singles get shorter and shorter and shorter that he thinks that within five years, like the old rule used to be three minutes, 30 seconds.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: That was the perfect perfect length of time for a song that you were gonna release as a single.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: He thinks within the next five years you're gonna see a big trend of songs under two minutes.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, how the hell do you even get to the point in under two minutes?
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Unless you're the white stripes.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, yeah, and the other thing, it was like 330 as a song, and like the first course needs to hit it 20 to seconds too, or 30 seconds.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it became like not only is it short, but it's like, oh, that intro that you love, that riff, like cut it in half and cut v1 in half and whatever, you know.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but like, yeah, I don't know, but then again, it's like artists I love, like Sam Fender or like Fontaine's DC, Wonder Horse, there's a lot of like British rock bands that I really love, or Irish rock bands, whatever, whatever.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they don't give a shit.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're not doing that, and they're they're so I think what to me, you're kind of seeing people that like the culture of rock music is dope because if you're a band that you know you're gonna have songs that you're gonna have a five-minute, six-minute ballad that goes deep, like yes, streaming, it's not going to be pushed to playlisting, but it's also like who gives a fuck about that?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because every time when we when we play it, it's like live when it live when you play it as a band, you know, like if Mum 2 exam, for example, is by far my favorite song on our record the heart.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: All of the guys in the band, like fans really connect with it so deeply.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: And while it's not the one because it's over five minutes that gets pushed to fucking all new rock playlists, it's like I don't give a shit about that.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: And like I think you just it's gonna start just showing of people who basically like, are you writing for playlisting?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Are you writing for sync?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Are you writing for the audience, or are you making art?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like you can do either.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not being critical out of the way.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: Do whatever you want, you can do whatever you want.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I think like I just think you'll attract the types of fans that are looking for different things.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: And if you, you know, and that there's nothing wrong with that.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, I don't, it's not even a question for me.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we don't, we've just never been a band of like there's no when we write music, there's no aspect of us that's like, will this get X playlists on Spotify or Apple?
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, if so, let's let's cut it down from five minutes.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: Do we really need the bridge and the after course?
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we we do, this is how we want it to sound, and it's like, um yeah, I think yeah, I just think that's the way.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, like and even to counter myself here, um, there is, in my opinion, there is also a trending movement towards authenticity again, though, too.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: So like you talk, you talk about the superficiality of like TikTok trends and and you know, people creating music just for the sake of these trends, there's other people that are eating that alive right now and saying, okay, we're we're we're ready for the OGs to come back, we're ready for these big anthemic five-minute long songs, and you know, so an artist can completely get flesh out their whole concept.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think like you see, you know, I like an example.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't know if this is the best example.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care, I'll just explain it anyway.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: From like my perspective, is like anybody that watched what Turnstyle was doing knew that what happened was coming.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: But you see these people that don't like Turnstyle is a is a great example of a band that just makes they make their art with like so much intention and heart in what they're doing that it's like you know, and then they this you know some of the records are more genre blending than others, but as like a hardcore band, it's like that that didn't, you know, TikTok or what like even if I don't know, I don't have TikTok, I've never downloaded the app, but like I I have to imagine, even without being on it, the reason people like turnstyle and why there's been this big, you know, like blow up or whatever has been it's been this swelling wave of like growth through authenticity and playing super authentic art and and really believing in it and making other people believe in it.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's it has nothing whether viral moments or not.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if they have, maybe they have, maybe I'm talking you know out of my ass.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I just there's other examples of bands that like I like that you know you can have a moment on TikTok or whatever, but that that isn't the reason why some of these things happen.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's not why, you know, it's it's that might be something that happened happens along the way, but it's it's not the focus of those bands, is not that, you know what I mean?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think as musicians, it's something that, yeah, people see that coming.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think like I remember that Fontaine's DC band.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: I love that I loved that band for like a while.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's another one.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I remember that last record, like it, you know, people started discovering it, and just like as time went on, like they put out that new record romance, and it just was like different and real and authentic and like weird.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like it had like a weirdness to it that's like and when you look back at all the other bands, like I'm not like a crazy radio head fan, Nick our drummer is, but it's like bands that take risks and creatively do things like that and do things in an interesting way, like hats off to them.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's like you know, there's a lot of risk in that, but that's where like the best art comes from, is just like a fearlessness and an authenticity and all that shit.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: I love that, and this is a good segue to the next portion here where we're kind of looking through the windshield as opposed to rear view mirrors.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: What's in the imminent future for grayscale outside of this tour with our last night?
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, we're just touring a ton.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um our record is like the response has been incredible.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't see, you know, we're basically touring on it as as long as we want until you know it's time to put out new music.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: But uh yeah, we're just like enjoying living in it right now and um doing a ton of touring, hitting the road as like hard as we can.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: We have our first headliner after our last night.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Our last night is August, September in the US, and then November we go and we do our first UK Europe headliner as a band, which we're really excited about.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: December, we always do some kind of like holiday show type of thing uh in Philly in our hometown.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think this year it'll be earlier in December than normal, which will give people some some time to not, you know.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's tough for people to like fly in right at Christmas and shit.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we we bumped it a little early in the month.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're probably gonna announce that at some point in like the near, I don't know, sometime the next couple months, few months, whatever.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, I don't know next year we'll what what we're doing.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: We have some things in the works, but nothing I can speak on just yet.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you talked about um this being on like self-released on your own label now.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like the heart is the start of a new era for Grayscale?
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean I think our band, we just look at it like it was all the things we loved about all the elements of our first three records on Fearless, which Adorment, Nelavita, and Umbra, all of the things we loved about those records as artists, we just took those things we loved and we put it into one.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: It has all the components that we love about um from those albums kind of put into one um in into one space.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: And also the way we recorded it was done.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: So much more of it was recorded like live in the room than in the computer.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that comes through, especially like Not Afraid to Die, the single, if you listen to you can hear the room so much in that recording.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: We went in with the attention, intention with this record where like all the instrumentation of that Not Afraid to Die single, like the one um that came out.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, even the album version, it's the same, it's the same production, it's just mixed a little bit differently.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um all of the instrumentation was recorded at the same time live.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that like everything you're hearing, drums, bass, guitars was one take of the band in a room all at once, mic'd up.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's just like, and then there were some things we went and we punched in and tightened here and there and vocals, whatever.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: But like I think starting all of the songs on the heart started with that.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: We would do 25 takes of just doing the song all in the room at the same time and pick one, and that felt good, that felt like we you're hearing the performance, you're hearing the guitar playing, you're hearing Dallas's like, you know, fucking foot hit the pedal on the piano, and you're hearing the floor, like all those little things, like the playability, like all of those actual things that you know, maybe on our first three records we weren't good enough where we would have had to tune it a little more or snap it to the grid a little tighter, the drums aren't perfectly you know, nothing's perfectly on time, nothing's perfect, perfectly tuned.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think when you limit how much technology you're using, it forces the parts to be better, it forces your performance to be better.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think going in with that intention, starting a you know, 12 songs or 11 songs or whatever on the record with like a single take of the band and then building from there made this like a really profound record for us.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, I would say like the beginning of kind of chapter two in a lot of ways.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like I feel like we're like an adult rock band now, as before it was like we were just kind of like kids figuring it out, and there's beauty to both sides of it, and I love equal part of it.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: I love both parts of it equally, rather, but uh definitely I think we're the in the best place we've ever been, and we're really excited about it.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: Circling back to that notion of authenticity.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think people, listeners in particular, really like little nuances like that.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like you mentioned the the the sound of the foot pedal on the piano and little things like that that make it feel like a live performance that sets it apart from something that's maybe a little bit overproduced, over polished up and such.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I I love hearing that.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, I listened to the album last night, and it just kind of put me in a good headspace when I was relaxing at home.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: So speaking of relaxing, how does Colin recalibrate himself um outside of music?
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: By not listening to music is the first thing.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, no, I think I love to travel.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: Traveling is my favorite thing in the world on par or above music.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm like very blessed to be able to travel.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: I've you know, I've done eleven, twelve laps around the US with my best friends since I was twenty two.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm Very, very fortunate and blessed to be able to do that.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we went to Australia last year.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, no, I'm sorry, I went to Australia in fucking April.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: I can't even remember.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, for the first time.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: That was for all of us.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we took, we, you know, we toured and played every major city in Australia.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're going to Europe, UK.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we'll we'll have played so many countries, multiple continents this year, just us, and you know, I think staying in Europe, UK later and going to a soccer game or whatever.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, if if we weren't, if we didn't have Mayday Parade the American tour right after Australia, we would have stayed and probably hopped around to like some of the Pacific Islands, like like Indonesia, whatever.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: So trav traveling and how touring and traveling kind of intersect are like is I'm very blessed to have that.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I think uh even beyond that when I'm home from tour, like I'll give myself a little bit of grace and then I'll I'll go somewhere and you know go on a hike or somewhere cool.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, so I would say travel, I would say uh lifting and running is really important for me.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: Reading, I haven't done a good job reading this year, but reading and you know, journaling obviously is a huge part of my life and my emotional kind of processing.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've been really into like wellness stuff recently.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I've always liked hot tubs and saunas and shit, but I've been really into like the cold plunge thing recently.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: So lifting and like going on a run and then like jumping into like a cold plunge for 12 minutes or as long as you can kind of bear it.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's been a really good thing for me, too.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: My closing question for every single guest that I have on the show is a unique one, and uh, I expect your answer to be no less than unique also.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and it's very simple.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what's your advice for making the world a better place tomorrow than what it is today, given your life experience?
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's a good question.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think man.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think having empathy for people.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think having empathy is is probably my answer.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think I think just like focusing on yourself.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I I think like focusing not in a selfish way, but in a way of like don't don't worry so much what other people think.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like if if everybody's kind of focusing on like loving themselves, loving the people in their circle, having empathy for people when they're going through things, having empathy for people, and kind of knowing what you don't know.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think I'm the first I'm very early can be like I don't I don't know everything about X topic, and like you know, there's you should educate yourself, and you know, I I do my best certainly, but I also like I don't I don't unless I'm like really, really um in a place where like I know something I can speak on, I I I listen more than I talk, you know what I mean?
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think though that and empathy, those are my those are my main things.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome, man.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: Tell everybody where they can find Grayscale online.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's at grayscale PA for socials.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's at Grayscale PA for everything, Grayscale on Spotify.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um in case you are local to me, uh Grayscale is going to be playing with our last night on August 12th at the Astro Amplitheater in La Vista, Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska suburb.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try and make it out.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: All of you should too.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: Colin, thank you so much for jumping on the pod.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a fantastic conversation that kind of goes beyond just talking about the band, right?
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: For sure, brother.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: Man, the world is a much better place with you and it.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for doing the show, man.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, man.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: A fun little post script about this episode is there were some audio issues and some video issues with our conferencing platform.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you couldn't tell, my voice sounded a little funny in the recording of this, but hey man, we made a good episode of it, regardless.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank my friend Colin for joining me on the podcast today.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you search out the band Grayscale on all streaming platforms.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: Give them a follow at Grayscale.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: They are going to be hitting your town soon.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: So check them out if you get the chance.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you are being generous with follows, make sure you are following Caught on the Mic on all social media platforms.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you give me that subscription and interact with my videos on YouTube.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really trying to churn up the algorithm there recently.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: Visit me www.caughtonthemic.com.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate the traffic there as well.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: This has been Caught on the Mic with Michael Clark.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Michael Clark.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, thank you.