Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / Bruce Fitzhugh: Living Sacrifice | Furnace Fest 2023 Series

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Bruce Fitzhugh: Living Sacrifice | Furnace Fest 2023 Series · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

• 0:09
  Corry said, it's just on the back side. Help you sorry, Grace
• 0:17
  Saw. Oh god, oh god, oh god. That's why. All
• 0:30
  right, Today we've got Bruce from Living Sacrifice, probably one of the most
• 0:35
  legendary bands we've ever interviewed on this podcast. I mean, we've certainly interviewed
• 0:40
  some big bands, but in terms of a band where everybody knows uh and
• 0:45
  is so influenced by a Living Sacrifice, it really is a special honor.
• 0:49
  So thanks so much Bruce for for joining us and uh, you know,
• 0:52
  chatting about Living Sacrifice and chatting about your upcoming for NISPECT show. Thank you,
• 0:59
  Thanks for the uh, the the nice words. I appreciate it.
• 1:02
  Yeah, yeah, well you're definitely looking forward to it for sure. So,
• 1:07
  um, I don't even know where to be. Where do I mean,
• 1:08
  where do you begin with the band like Living Sacrifice? Obviously we want
• 1:11
  to talk about the upcoming show, but you know, as much as we
• 1:15
  can, it would be really cool to hear a little bit about like the
• 1:19
  history of Living Sacrifice. Have you guys started, kind of where you're at
• 1:22
  in your careers now and just everything in between. But um, yeah,
• 1:26
  talk a little bit about kind of those early days, like what what got
• 1:29
  you guys all started, um, wanting to play in a band and and
• 1:32
  play metal music? Yeah? Yeah for sure. Well uh have you have
• 1:37
  you guys interviewed anybody, any any band that started in the eighties? Uh
• 1:42
  yeah, we have. In fact, we've we've interviewed bands from the seventies
• 1:46
  even nice. Nice. Okay, So you're not even closely the oldest,
• 1:49
  not even closer. We're ten years too young. There you go. Well
• 1:53
  we barely we barely uh formed in the eighties, I have to say,
• 2:00
  uh. Uh. Probably our our official lineup solidified, you know, towards
• 2:06
  the tail end of nineteen eighty nine, and we wow, great, great
• 2:09
  year Taylor Swift was born. Living Sacrifice started what a year? Yeah yeah,
• 2:15
  yeah exactly. And uh and so I'm sure she she named her album
• 2:19
  in on her bus not that's great, That's what I heard. So yeah.
• 2:23
  Yeah, so uh uh, Lance and uh myself and and Darren Johnson
• 2:30
  all met uh well I met them in like seventh grade junior high school.
• 2:36
  Wow. Um and uh I I wanted to hang out with them because they
• 2:43
  had like black Sabbath and uh Aussie shirts on and Jud's pre shirts on and
• 2:50
  stuff like that. And I was like, well, those are my people
• 2:52
  over there, and um and then we we we had mutual friends. It
• 2:55
  was a small a small school that that that uh you know, a few
• 3:00
  just a few neighborhoods fed into. So it wasn't hard to like, uh
• 3:06
  kind of defriended them and get to know them and everything. Well, Lance
• 3:09
  was a little hard because he was so quiet. Uh. He and I
• 3:13
  had English class together, I believe in seventh grade. And uh, these
• 3:19
  guys were cool because like well you know, like they they already had like
• 3:23
  you know, like kind of longer share and like Lance had this little rat
• 3:25
  tail that he would bleach blonde and everything, and uh and I was,
• 3:31
  I was, I was still kind of a just in a in a mullet
• 3:34
  phase, you know. Uh you know, so uh we uh we just
• 3:38
  we just you know, bonded over music kind of right away, and uh
• 3:44
  and just hanging out and doing doing doing dumb stuff. But you know,
• 3:49
  our our friendship formed over years now. Lance and DJ they grew up like
• 3:52
  just a few houses apart. So Lance, um and DJ grew up just
• 3:57
  a few houses apart. So they they they were like you know a little
• 4:00
  little kids growing up together and stuff like that. So and there's uh,
• 4:05
  there's some some pretty pretty cool pictures of them with you know, uh kiss
• 4:12
  t shirts on and stuff like that. Speaking speaking of which, you know
• 4:16
  something I'm always curious about, especially for bands that got their start in the
• 4:19
  eighties, You know, there was kind of this um, this separation between
• 4:26
  the kids that listened to metal music and the kids that listened to like punk
• 4:30
  music and things of that sort. So each of the musical categories I guess
• 4:33
  kind of had their own little silos and they didn't really cross breed at all
• 4:39
  like today they do for sure, right, I mean, yeah, Furnace
• 4:42
  best for instance. I mean, you have emo music, they have punk
• 4:45
  music, you have metal music. Was that kind of how it was when
• 4:46
  you were growing up as well? It was just like the metal kids hang
• 4:49
  out the metal kids, the punk kids hang out with the punk kids,
• 4:53
  that preps hang out with the preps, so on and so forth. Yep,
• 4:56
  yep, that's exactly right. I mean u uh And and I wasn't
• 5:00
  I wasn't privy to to the punk scene until I got into high school and
• 5:06
  we all went to high school together too, And then I met I met
• 5:10
  some dudes, and I mean we became we became friends just because we were
• 5:14
  kind of all like misfits anyways. But uh, and then every now and
• 5:18
  then we ended up at the same shows, but like we didn't we didn't
• 5:21
  run around the same circles. I mean, the punk kids we were absolutely
• 5:25
  you know, kind of rebelling against like all of us long haired uh metal
• 5:30
  dudes. And you know they're like like, because we you know, we
• 5:33
  weren't. We weren't that extreme. We weren't that extreme at that point.
• 5:36
  You know, we were just like some you know, some long haired hippies
• 5:41
  uh whoo who like metal or whatever, you know. But you know these
• 5:45
  guys who are like, you know, wearing wearing patches on their jackets,
• 5:48
  and you know, I mean like your your typical, like you know,
• 5:53
  gutter punk looking. You know, just look at look at you know,
• 5:57
  look as uh completely against society ideas you possibly can. And and I think
• 6:02
  I think, you know, long hair and metal, classic rock represented almost
• 6:09
  like their dad's music, you know or whatever. Yeah, the establishment the
• 6:14
  man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like you know, the rock bands
• 6:17
  of the world, and um, it's it's super funny, you know,
• 6:20
  like like like like listening to like people like Henry Rollins and and talk about
• 6:26
  going to shows with going to see Ted Nugit with Ian McKay and and stuff
• 6:31
  like that on various podcasts and stuff like that. I mean, those guys,
• 6:35
  those guys are slightly they're slightly older than me obviously, so or a
• 6:40
  bit older than me. So like that is the world they grew up in.
• 6:42
  But then they also created, like or also helped found this world of
• 6:47
  punk. But yeah, I wasn't too I wasn't too crivy to any of
• 6:51
  that scene until high school and then and then really I mean truly, like
• 6:56
  some of the first uh you know, punk stuff that I got into was
• 7:00
  more post more post punk, like like Fugazi and j and Jawbox and stuff
• 7:05
  like that. I love Jawbox there They're one of my favorite, uh favorite
• 7:13
  bands of you know that kind of that time period of like being young and
• 7:17
  discovering music and stuff like that and hearing something that was completely different than what
• 7:24
  I was into, which was like you know, I mean, you know
• 7:29
  essentially, and I came up within the whole eighties metal scene, you know,
• 7:33
  a new wave of British heavy metal and even into kind of the hair
• 7:36
  metal stuff with like rat Motley Crue to a certain point, and then there
• 7:41
  was a point where I was like, yeah, I'm done with this because
• 7:44
  it was just too you know, too much make too much makeup for me.
• 7:47
  Um. You know, um that's a bad thing. I mean,
• 7:50
  that's a look at the thing, it's whatever. Um. But uh,
• 7:54
  but I was I was definitely moving more towards uh, you know, your
• 7:58
  Slayers and Megadeth, Talca and stuff like that, the real masculine stuff right
• 8:03
  well, you know, it wasn't that for me. Honestly. It was
• 8:07
  more like it was more like I was in getting into like more complex music,
• 8:11
  yeah for sure, and musical composition, and the hair metal stuff was
• 8:16
  just getting dumped down, you know. I mean, I mean, if
• 8:20
  you want to blame hair metal, you blame you know, on on any
• 8:24
  one particular band. It's it's it's basically Van Halen and that's the that's the
• 8:30
  band that got me into music or whatever. And the musicianship there is just
• 8:33
  kind of already charts, yeah for sure. So you know, everything everything
• 8:37
  after that was just like a you know, not quite there. But yeah,
• 8:41
  yeah, it just got a little too too too much, too much
• 8:45
  pomp and circumstance and not enough, not enough shredding solos. What was um
• 8:54
  the scene like in those early two or the early nineties. Uh, you
• 8:58
  know, there was so much much change that happened in music, you know,
• 9:01
  especially once Nirvana came onto the scene. You know, music like that
• 9:07
  hadn't been really popular before, that really alternative, kind of heavier stuff where
• 9:11
  there's even some screaming, like legitimate screaming, like you know you'd get from
• 9:16
  Nirvana, and you know, obviously a lot of other bands that were coming
• 9:18
  up at that time. There was a lot changing in that alternative music scene
• 9:22
  where it used to be you know, very underground. It was very you
• 9:26
  know, a lot of the you know, outside the outcast type of kids
• 9:30
  listening to that music, and then all of a sudden, now a lot
• 9:33
  of people were starting to listen to that type of music. And obviously the
• 9:37
  kind of metal you guys were making and living sacrifice was always probably going to
• 9:39
  be a little too much for the you know mtvs of the world. But
• 9:46
  did you feel like a sense that like, oh there could be something here,
• 9:50
  like this could be a legitimate thing that we do. Because the music
• 9:52
  industry at the time was changing and like embracing a little bit more of this
• 9:56
  like kind of alternative type of music. Uh yeah, I mean it.
• 10:01
  It definitely changed really fast. You know, I think, I think in
• 10:07
  a lot of ways for the better. I mean, all the all the
• 10:09
  reasons I was I was not not you know into you know, the popular
• 10:15
  metal at the time, is is is was the antithesis of these these newer
• 10:20
  bands or whatever, and um, yeah, I mean honestly, I mean
• 10:24
  I just liked it right away. I like, I like Nirvana as soon
• 10:26
  as I heard it. And but what I what, what I liked more
• 10:31
  was sound Garden and yeah, and that's my jam right there, and and
• 10:35
  and Alison and alson changed and uh but you know, really really Soundgarden.
• 10:41
  I mean, um, but you can't you can't deny the catchiness of that
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  that it was the early Nirvana stuff. I mean it definitely there was a
• 10:50
  reason it exploded and and stuff. So so context for us as we grew
• 10:56
  up in a small southern city and so we didn't we didn't get a lot
• 11:01
  of shows, except for in nineteen ninety there was this one particular all ages
• 11:05
  club that opened up. There was a pizza place club and still still opened
• 11:09
  today and people still play. There's still shows there called Venos, and um,
• 11:16
  we played our third show there ever in nineteen ninety. So the club
• 11:22
  opened as Venos. It was actually an estat it was it was a punk
• 11:26
  club before that, but they bought the building and that turned it into a
• 11:28
  legitimate like pizza place, restaurant and and venue, and so we played there
• 11:35
  the same year that had opened, and we opened for We actually went in
• 11:39
  there and said, you know, because at the time, the bands that
• 11:41
  were playing you know, heavy heavy metal in Little Rock, Arkansas were mainly
• 11:48
  cover bands and there was a few other few bands playing you know, writing
• 11:52
  originals and stuff like that, but they're they're mainly playing bars and stuff like
• 11:56
  that. And we were still underage for the most part. I mean,
• 12:00
  um, when we started the band, uh you know, uh, I
• 12:03
  was seventeen, and you know, I think the DJ was the oldest oldest
• 12:09
  member of the band, you know at nineteen when when we first first started,
• 12:13
  and like even before Jason because because Lance and in DJ and I you
• 12:18
  know, probably jammed for like a year and a half or so before we
• 12:22
  met Jason, who who who became our for you know, fourth member and
• 12:28
  actually solidified, the solidified the lineup Jason Truby. You know, back then
• 12:33
  it was we went into play venos or we were we were handing off demo
• 12:39
  tapes and trying to get a show there and stuff like that. We just
• 12:41
  wanted to open for somebody because we were a brand new band or whatever,
• 12:43
  and we're like, yeah, we're a thrash band, and but you know,
• 12:48
  we don't really want we want to play with a touring band like and
• 12:52
  and that particular club was bringing in. The touring bands they were bringing in
• 12:56
  were more on the punk and hardcore side, and so I said, it'd
• 13:03
  be cool if we didn't play. You didn't just put us with another metal
• 13:07
  band, especially like on the local side, because it just we probably wouldn't
• 13:11
  have fit and we weren't really trying to go after their back to that particular
• 13:15
  crowd. And so our first show that we we opened up for Shelter,
• 13:20
  which was uh, you know Ray Capo Youth of Today, um, previously
• 13:26
  Youth It Today and that was his new band. It was called Shelter and
• 13:30
  they were and the club owner, the booker, just thought it was funny
• 13:33
  because he was like, oh, I got this, Harry Christiana band coming
• 13:37
  in to play on this date. You know, you guys want to play
• 13:41
  with them? I'm like, yeah, sure, totally. And um and
• 13:43
  at that point we we we actually knew we kind of knew who. We
• 13:46
  knew who Shelter was, so we're like, oh, this this will be
• 13:50
  rad. You know. It's like, uh, you know, we just
• 13:52
  you know, we get to play with like these these guys that are you
• 13:56
  know, veterans of their scene. You know. Not. Yeah, it
• 14:00
  was cool. It was you know, show show went killer and and uh
• 14:03
  we had a good time. But like, yeah, Little Rock was weird,
• 14:07
  man. I mean it actually had like a cool, like very underground
• 14:11
  punk indie scene and a lame metal scene. Um, there were there were
• 14:18
  there was one particular metal band where though are a couple out there that that
• 14:24
  that had some some pretty good influence and they were writing originals and stuff as
• 14:28
  well. And only one other thrash band that we were aware of, this
• 14:31
  band called Scream, And uh we got to hang out and watch those guys,
• 14:35
  you know, when we were even younger, because Darren's cousin was the
• 14:41
  drummer for the band. But yeah, it was like they were playing you
• 14:43
  know, new wave of British heavy metal stuff and just like you know,
• 14:48
  lots of satanic immag dreaming, all the all the all the fun stuff.
• 14:50
  But being in Little Rock Arkansas or just Arkansas in general just kind of had
• 14:54
  as limited as to the exposure of what what what we were you know,
• 15:00
  even exposed to on a live on on a live stage. You know,
• 15:07
  at what point did you get the sense that, oh, this could be
• 15:11
  really a thing like that We're going to be able to make it out of
• 15:13
  just being like a literal a little rock band, you know that you guys
• 15:16
  now are like nationally known. Was was there a point where maybe it was
• 15:20
  in that first album, maybe it was a couple albums later, maybe it
• 15:24
  was when you guys signed to Solid State, But at what point did you
• 15:26
  feel like, oh, this is this is bigger than um what literal little
• 15:31
  rock is like that, this is we're not just a little rock band anymore.
• 15:35
  Probably like when we you know, when we started talking to our first
• 15:39
  label, which was through the guys in Believer UM and r X Music,
• 15:46
  and they wanted they wanted to sign us. That was like kind of the
• 15:50
  first you know, when we were talking about doing signing a record deal,
• 15:54
  and we were barely one year into being a band or a full band,
• 16:00
  and that was just kind of crazy. I mean I was barely I was
• 16:07
  one. I was just a year out of high school and I was still
• 16:08
  eighteen. Jason was seventeen, and he had to have his mom signed the
• 16:14
  contract. Um yeah, yeah, so so yeah, so I mean it's
• 16:19
  his mom bring him to the venues too to play shows. No, uh
• 16:25
  no, but they all came. I mean, I mean the family,
• 16:27
  you know, the parents supported us. You know, they were they were
• 16:30
  they were really you know, they were they were cool with it and uh
• 16:33
  supportive and everything like that. But but yeah, so, um, we
• 16:37
  were all you know, we were all just super young and we had no
• 16:40
  clue what we were doing. Uh you know Darren Darren our Our our original
• 16:45
  singer who who started the band and he actually named the band like Sacrifice.
• 16:48
  He would get demo tapes from like guys in the Crucified and Believer in all
• 16:55
  of these bands in Bench its Rising and uh they were there were phone numbers
• 17:00
  on the demo and he would just call him up be like hey man,
• 17:04
  my name is my name's DJ, and and uh, you know, we
• 17:10
  got a band, you know, these guys on the other line were like,
• 17:14
  okay, cool, you know, why are you calling me something to
• 17:22
  go along with that. I don't mean to cut off the question, but
• 17:23
  something kind of going along with that. Were you guys the rest of the
• 17:26
  band, Were you guys kind of on board at that same you know,
• 17:30
  like Christian forward message as as Darren was, um, yeah, yeah.
• 17:37
  I Mean the weird thing was is like as as we were getting we all
• 17:41
  of us were, you know, we were all super into music and and
• 17:48
  and going to shows and stuff like that and really metal. I mean,
• 17:52
  none of us were raised in super religious me not at all. I actually
• 17:56
  never went to church until I became interested in those things, which I was,
• 18:00
  like I was I was sixteen seventeen. My parents, my parents were
• 18:04
  more on the that just wasn't a thing for them. Yeah, nope,
• 18:11
  nope, and and so so I mean I was you know, none of
• 18:14
  us were ever told, oh, you can't listen to that, or you're
• 18:15
  not supposed to listen to that. That was not a thing for any of
• 18:18
  us. So we were into we were into it, into music. And
• 18:22
  then all of us sort of independently but together, you know, around the
• 18:26
  same time period were introduced into the into our faith, and you know,
• 18:33
  and explore exploring that and trying to understand that, and then um and and
• 18:38
  it was it was definitely, it was definitely the uh. I mean,
• 18:42
  we were all kind of learning our instruments. You know, we're very young,
• 18:45
  fifteen sixteen years old, so you know, I could pre comparely play
• 18:52
  and and and and DJ was just super into getting as much music as possible
• 18:57
  that had to do with God as possible. So he ordered everything and anything
• 19:02
  out of these fanzines that he would get. You know, this predates him
• 19:07
  for example, maybe he you know, heck, he might have the first
• 19:12
  Him issue or Heaven's Metal issue, who knows. But like all in this
• 19:17
  time period, this has been like you know, like eighty eight eighty nine
• 19:22
  time error and you know, ninety nine percent of the things that he would
• 19:27
  order off these out of the mail order stuff was just terrible. It was
• 19:32
  just trash scrap, you know, and and even some of the more professional
• 19:37
  type stuff you know that was that was coming out. It was like,
• 19:40
  you know, the production was poor and all of that, and that was
• 19:45
  that was a big catalyst. He was just like he's like, Lance is
• 19:49
  a better drummer than this guy. And you know, it's like and like
• 19:53
  he just had this vision of like, you know, we all play,
• 19:57
  we're all in the music, we're all in a medal, we should form
• 20:00
  a band and uh, and it all kind of coincided around this new faith,
• 20:07
  um that we had as as teenagers or you know, this intense faith
• 20:11
  and so yeah, I mean we were all you know, kind of in
• 20:15
  the same place, you know, as far as that that that that part
• 20:18
  goes, Yeah, I mean it just it just all kind of coincided together
• 20:22
  for lack of a better you know type of thing. But I definitely credit
• 20:27
  you know, you know, just you know, having this intense you know,
• 20:32
  desire to you know, do something for for God and do something musically,
• 20:40
  because independent of that, I don't know that who knows if we ever
• 20:44
  would have started a band, just a regular band or whatever, you know.
• 20:48
  Now granted Hindsights twenty twenty because they put us in a box that we've
• 20:51
  been in for thirty years. So whatever is that a box you're trying to
• 20:56
  climb out of still or don't you care? I mean, what would try?
• 21:02
  How are we trying? We haven't put out like you know, I
• 21:06
  sell t shirts for a living, you know, meaning like is that is
• 21:11
  that a box you that you wanted to stay in um as as your career
• 21:15
  as your guys career progress Hill I kind of figured that was the case as
• 21:21
  part of the name like Living Sacrifice, you know. Yeah, well,
• 21:25
  I mean the name is kind of badass. It is bad, you know,
• 21:26
  it's it's it's not it's not about the name. It was. It
• 21:30
  was just about early on, you know, before before it was cool to
• 21:34
  be in Christian you know, affiliated band in the early two thousands, we
• 21:41
  were battling the whole nineties trying to get on tours like machine Head and Sepultura
• 21:48
  and signed to Roadrunner Records and Metal Blade and all that. I mean,
• 21:51
  we were we were pursuing all of that and essentially being turned down, you
• 21:56
  know, yeah, even though you were likely better than their next best signing
• 22:00
  or the next choice for a signing, right Yeah, I mean I can't
• 22:03
  say that. I just I just I think I think that we were we
• 22:07
  were achieving a certain amount of success and and people respect you know, kind
• 22:15
  of essentially had a respect for for the band, But it was just like
• 22:18
  such an uncool thing, you know, in the nineties, you know,
• 22:23
  and uh, and that'll change now early two thousands. I don't know,
• 22:26
  I don't know when, but I guess when under Oath kind of crossed over
• 22:30
  and stuff like that. But like, yeah, you know, then it
• 22:32
  was just like oh, you know, it was it was almost like easier
• 22:37
  to get things, you know, to to to do things or whatever.
• 22:41
  Well, well, well, going off of that, you know, there's
• 22:42
  something that that Mason and I have kind of discussed for a while, um
• 22:47
  and we've we've been trying to get to the bottom of it. And I
• 22:48
  think that Living Sacrifice plays a large part of it. Being a Southern a
• 22:52
  Southern metal band, maybe not like actually a Southern metal, but a metal
• 22:56
  band from the South, you know what I mean. Yeah, you know
• 22:59
  that that wave of Christian metal or Christian alternative music that kind of came out
• 23:03
  of that that Southern you know, the Dirty South, it was ubiquitous.
• 23:11
  I mean, most of the best metal bands that were a Christian influence and
• 23:17
  with a Christian message came out of the South, especially like Georgia and Tennessee
• 23:22
  and the Carolinas. And I've been trying to figure out why it is that
• 23:30
  so many great metal bands, specifically Christian metal bands, came out of the
• 23:34
  South in the late nineties early two thousands. I have a suspicion to say
• 23:40
  that part of it is because of living sacrifices influence on the region. I
• 23:45
  also think that, you know, obviously it's probably because it's part of the
• 23:47
  culture. I mean, it's the Bible Belt, so on and so forth.
• 23:49
  But here's what you thought about that. Yeah, I mean it's the
• 23:52
  culture. I mean yeah, I mean, you know, you could throw
• 23:55
  Texas in there, Florida, the Southeast in general. I mean it's the
• 23:59
  Bible Belt. So it's like you're gonna have a higher percentage of guys that
• 24:04
  came up in the church and you know, started picking up their instruments and
• 24:10
  and and and and seeing you know, kind of like, oh, well
• 24:12
  there's this whole scene around you know, God and and and heavy music and
• 24:18
  stuff like that. Yeah, and it and it was kind of like by
• 24:22
  the by their early two you know, late nineties, early two thousands,
• 24:25
  there was your to your solid state, you know, um and and a
• 24:30
  ton of credit and and your and uh facedown records, you know. And
• 24:34
  the credit goes to those guys for for providing an outlet. I mean,
• 24:38
  our first label RX, it had some heavy stuff, but then it also
• 24:44
  branched off into like you know, electronic and stuff like that, and the
• 24:47
  label ultimately just went away, you know. Um, and then that's that's
• 24:51
  what allowed us to sign to Solid State in ninety seven. Yeah, but
• 24:56
  yeah, dude, it is weird. And I've talked to I've had this
• 25:00
  discussion with lots of people that aren't Christian at all. They're like, yeah,
• 25:03
  the first ten albums that came out on Solid State are all amazing record
• 25:08
  bank. Yeah, it's like, you know, you're talking spit far,
• 25:11
  your embodiments, you're you know, overcomes, you know, and of course
• 25:17
  they oh and Norma Gines and stuff like that. That was all like pre
• 25:22
  two thousand, you know. Yeah, and uh yeah, I mean just
• 25:26
  I don't know, weird time. Kind of just a weird time. I
• 25:30
  have a suspicion to say that a lot of those bands, though, we're
• 25:33
  probably you know, in the crowd at a Living Sacrifice show, and I
• 25:38
  think maybe you guys might influenced them to a certain extent at least, you
• 25:41
  know, yeah, maybe maybe not. I don't know. We definitely played
• 25:45
  with them, We played with early early versions of under Oath and Normantine,
• 25:51
  Ludicrous and Embodiment, and yeah, we played with all of those bands early
• 25:56
  early on, you know, and like like probably as early as ninety five
• 26:00
  ninety six, well shooting you guys even had Corey Brandon from from Norma Jean
• 26:06
  in the band for a little bit, didn't you. Yeah. Yeah,
• 26:08
  I mean and and and I knew those guys because, uh we're both from
• 26:14
  the great state of Arkansas and go hogs, great great state. I like
• 26:19
  the way you put that who picked Suey? I you hear the conviction of
• 26:25
  my voice? Right? Um? Uh hey, there's there's there's very very
• 26:30
  nice aspects of Arkansas and not some uh just like every state, right totally.
• 26:37
  So uh so yeah. I we played with Eso Kris uh or as
• 26:41
  they were called originally Elliott, you know, probably sometime in ninety five or
• 26:47
  ninety six or something like that, and uh just became friends with him,
• 26:51
  and I just I love I've always I've always loved with he and and and
• 26:56
  Matt did with uh with that band and h Yeah. So yeah, it's
• 27:03
  cool stuff. Our history goes way way way back. Yeah, cert along
• 27:08
  those lines. One of the really cool things about Living Sacrifice is all the
• 27:12
  bands that you guys kind of are associated with because of how many members have
• 27:17
  been in Living Sacrifice and some of the bands that those guys have been in,
• 27:19
  And so you're not only associated with bands like Norman Gean obviously, but
• 27:25
  you're also associated with like Pod Evanescence obviously. Zaoo. It's just really cool,
• 27:32
  like how many really influential bands at that time are connected in some way,
• 27:37
  shape or form with Living Sacrifice. It really is kind of this cool,
• 27:41
  little like connecting point. Yeah, Living Sacrifice is kind of this connecting
• 27:45
  point to all these other really cool bands from from that time. Yeah,
• 27:49
  it's crazy. Yeah, I agree totally. It's like early two thousands,
• 27:55
  like we we kind of called called it quits or whatever, and because we're
• 28:00
  Britney, we were just burned out. We had little kids, and we
• 28:02
  couldn't tour anymore, and we weren't making it and nobody, you know,
• 28:03
  couldn't make a living for our families, and so I just had to completely
• 28:08
  step away from it. And that's that's when Rocky had joined Evanescence and their
• 28:12
  first album came out and just went yeah. And then not long after that
• 28:18
  Jason joined the Pod and we had you know, I mean, I mean
• 28:22
  we had played with those guys on lots of shows in the in the ninth
• 28:25
  late nineties before they signed to a major label. Because the the funny thing
• 28:29
  about it was, it's like, you know, like back then, there
• 28:30
  wasn't a ton of like metal metal bands that we could play with, you
• 28:33
  know, and so anybody that was touring, we would we would end up
• 28:37
  on just odd bills or bills. I mean we did a full like three
• 28:41
  week tour with Pod and in like nineties seven, right after Reborn came out,
• 28:48
  you know, because we knew them, Like like back then, it
• 28:52
  was like, hey, we're coming to your town and if you know some
• 28:55
  promoters in your area, we could do a show there, and then we
• 28:57
  could do a show, and so it was like you know, uh in
• 29:00
  in in ninety ninety five, ninety ninety six, if you know, we
• 29:03
  played you know, it's like the Pod guys came to Arkansas and they're you
• 29:08
  know, their RV broke down, so they like ended up stranded for a
• 29:11
  week and they stayed with with us and went down to Texas and played some
• 29:17
  shows with Embodiment, like early early embodiment and uh, and then came back
• 29:22
  and waited for their RV to get fixed and stuff like that. And so
• 29:26
  yeah, you just formed these bonds that just like lasts for you know,
• 29:30
  years or whatever. And so yeah, when you know, when when the
• 29:34
  opportunity arose, you know, uh, Jason was no longer playing with us
• 29:38
  because um, but we weren't abandon at the time. But but um,
• 29:42
  you know, he he had he had he had, he had left the
• 29:45
  band earlier to get off you know, to get off the road, um
• 29:48
  for the most part. Uh. And and so yeah, it's kind of
• 29:52
  but one of those weird, weird, weird things. And then obviously Corey
• 29:56
  you know, joining Norma Jean. Yeah. Yeah, you know you mentioned
• 30:03
  a bit ago that it's been ten years since the last album. Is there
• 30:07
  any like idea around like potentially writing a new album at some point? Is
• 30:12
  is that something that the guys in the band right now are kind of itching
• 30:15
  towards at any point? Uh? You know, you guys have like kind
• 30:18
  of played shows here and there over the last couple of years and stuff,
• 30:22
  so it's not like you guys are completely inactive. Um, but yeah,
• 30:26
  is there any idea around like potentially writing a new album. And yeah,
• 30:30
  because at this point, this is the longest between albums or the longest you've
• 30:34
  guys have gone without writing a new album and releasing a new album. So
• 30:38
  yeah, can we expect anything in the future with new music? Yeah,
• 30:41
  yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And it's strange. I mean,
• 30:45
  we didn't intend for it to be this long. Um. I think
• 30:48
  you know, things just gotten away, you know, likewise, and and
• 30:52
  uh, you know, since you know, we we don't make a living
• 30:55
  doing it. You know, it's like, you know, there's there's always
• 31:00
  you know, Uh, it takes it takes a lot. You know,
• 31:03
  it takes a lot for us to to put to put something together and and
• 31:07
  to have it be at the at the level that that we um that we
• 31:11
  normally you know, uh expect for us. But but really, you know,
• 31:15
  I mean it's probably laziness. I love the honesty. It's like,
• 31:25
  uh, you know, I mean, yeah, there, the desire is
• 31:30
  there for sure, and we've been talking about it for years and there's riffs
• 31:36
  going back and forth here there it's just a matter of like okay, okay,
• 31:41
  let's record this and you know, and they kin see where it goes.
• 31:45
  But it. You know, I don't know that it would be in
• 31:48
  the form of a full album right now. I think I think it makes
• 31:52
  more sense to just put out some songs and you know, if those songs
• 31:56
  can call, you know, collate onto an EP or or an album later,
• 32:04
  you know, for vinyl for physical release and you know, probably something
• 32:07
  along those lines. But yeah, man, a full albumof that's that's a
• 32:13
  big one. It's especially these days. I mean, most people don't even
• 32:17
  put out albums anymore. Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean,
• 32:22
  you know, it seems like they do. I mean, it seems
• 32:25
  like it. But it's it's also surprising how many people don't, right,
• 32:31
  and and and it's not you know, it's probably probably not necessary unless unless
• 32:37
  you're at the level where you know, okay, you know, we can
• 32:42
  press a thousand vinyl and sell through Nope, Nope, nope, problem you
• 32:45
  know what would you guys would be able to do? So I guess you
• 32:49
  guys have to come up with an album now. Yeah. Other than that,
• 32:53
  I just you know, it's it's it's not necessary. And I think
• 32:58
  within our our you know, with our scene, within our scene, in
• 33:00
  our genre, everything's changed. It's like how do you market, how do
• 33:05
  you how are you going to listen to it? What's what's what's necessary to
• 33:09
  to you know, put out music, um, you know, not as
• 33:14
  a career, but you know, for for the love of putting out something
• 33:17
  new and creative. And yeah, I mean it doesn't have to be ten
• 33:22
  songs for sure. Is there is there a point in living sacrifices lifespan that
• 33:31
  you felt like the most fulfilled and happy with it other than right now when
• 33:37
  you're not doing anything. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean,
• 33:42
  uh, it is the most fulfilling now because there's no pressure of like supporting
• 33:52
  family or other people or figuring out health insurance you know and stuff like that.
• 34:00
  Um and it's easy and and that's what I mean. It's like too
• 34:02
  easy because like you know, there's no expectation. We're not signed to a
• 34:07
  deal anymore, so like we don't have to put out music. But if
• 34:10
  we did, we'll do it. You know, it's like do it ourselves.
• 34:14
  But but prior to that, I would say, like, you know,
• 34:15
  right around the hammering process, when we were touring really really heavily,
• 34:21
  um man, we just we we were just firing on tons of cylinders and
• 34:27
  we you know, we're playing two hundred shows a year probably a lot,
• 34:31
  and uh, we ended up in doing some just really pretty successful, you
• 34:37
  know, some some successful tours around that time period. And um, we
• 34:43
  went out with pod you know, and they I think they had really satellite.
• 34:51
  Yeah, yeah, they had just become kind of massive. And we
• 34:57
  did a tour with Project eighty six and Dave's Acre which was just a lot
• 35:02
  of fun. So yeah, but it was like not long after that,
• 35:06
  it was like it was kind of like the realization of like, okay,
• 35:09
  we're playing with the same bands. We need to kind of like break the
• 35:15
  mold somehow. But we were also in a lot of debt, so um
• 35:19
  that you know, it was it was it was the most it was the
• 35:22
  most satisfying because of how how well we were performing and the level of of
• 35:29
  our shows. I mean, all the shows were packed, you know,
• 35:32
  and it was just a different time period. You know. There was you
• 35:36
  know, two ninety nine, two thousand and crazy, just crazy to think
• 35:42
  about close today, twenty nine. Somebody sent me a fire for the last
• 35:46
  show we did in Little Rock, which was twenty years ago yesterday. Wow
• 35:52
  wow. And that was that was to be our That was supposed to be
• 35:54
  our our final show, but then we got an awesome offer to do,
• 35:59
  like you know, a festival or or something like that that ended up being
• 36:02
  the final show for sure. But yeah, it's just you know, I
• 36:07
  mean, the other thing about the ten year gap thing is just like I'm
• 36:12
  sure you guys, you guys know, but like the older you get,
• 36:15
  it's like, uh, it's like Einstein was right, you know, the
• 36:19
  relativity thing, like so much faster it is, it does go that way.
• 36:27
  I mean, ten years is like a blink. You know. I
• 36:29
  think that I think that Hammering Process, and I don't think I'm alone in
• 36:34
  saying this. I think that Hammering Process is a perfect album, especially in
• 36:38
  the scene that that you guys come from. It is. It is honestly
• 36:43
  perfection. Was there a kind of an expectation like, hey, we wrote
• 36:46
  one hell of an album here. Was there an expectation at the time like
• 36:50
  now we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna work two hundred shows a year,
• 36:52
  We're going to put everything we have into this to try to blow it
• 36:55
  up and hit that hit that mainstream button. Yeah yeah, well, I
• 37:00
  mean whatever mainstream was at that time. But yeah, yeah, that was
• 37:04
  that was the reason we were you know, we were all just super dedicated
• 37:07
  and that was like everybody was on board to make it happen, and we
• 37:12
  were all committed, you know, and uh yeah, I mean we just
• 37:15
  went hard, hard, hard for two years and you know, and and
• 37:21
  I don't I don't think it was necessarily just because oh, we think this
• 37:24
  album is so much better than anything we've ever done before. I mean,
• 37:28
  we were proud of it, obviously, but we were at the time the
• 37:31
  time in our lives, it was just like, hey, we're either going
• 37:35
  to do this or were not, you know, so we were doing it.
• 37:37
  We were going for it, you know, for sure. I dig
• 37:39
  that. Let's let's talk about Furnace Best. I mean, you guys played
• 37:44
  a couple of years ago and you're obviously playing again now. People were still
• 37:47
  talking about it last year, by the way. Yeah, they won't shut
• 37:51
  up about your guys. Show Man awesome. So um yeah, let's talk
• 37:55
  about the upcoming show obviously. Um, you know, for people listening,
• 38:01
  go buy some Furnace Best tickets. You can see Cullen and I, you
• 38:05
  can see Bruce play. It's going to be a hell of a time.
• 38:07
  But yeah, Bruce tell us a little bit about maybe the story around going
• 38:13
  and playing Furnace Best again. Yeah for sure. Well, um, we
• 38:16
  played the original at least two of the years, I think maybe two thousand
• 38:22
  and two thousand and one. We're friends with Chad Johnson from back in his
• 38:28
  venue days, and um, he also reminds me actually had I had lunch
• 38:35
  with him last week. Um. But uh that's the other that's the other
• 38:37
  perk about living in Nashville. You can have lunch with Chad Johnson. Um,
• 38:43
  No, no need to sell me anymore. This sounds great. Yeah,
• 38:45
  Um, but Chad, you know, you know, Chad's my age,
• 38:50
  and so you go way back as far as like he was, you
• 38:53
  know, people booking bands in Birmingham back then, you know, when he
• 38:58
  started Furnace Fest. You know, we're we're all about it, you know.
• 39:00
  And uh and you always always admired him, uh you know, with
• 39:06
  with take with Take Hold, and he had his venue and stuff like that,
• 39:09
  and uh, he likes to point out that we were the last band
• 39:13
  to play his venue when he was running it because we we exceeded and no,
• 39:21
  we exceeded the fire code. And they just basically said, you can't
• 39:22
  have shows here. Um, so living sacrifices the reason that Chad lost his
• 39:29
  his his original venue. Um, but at least he still talks to you,
• 39:32
  he still has dinner with you. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But
• 39:37
  yeah, so when when when we heard that this was happening again. Um,
• 39:40
  you know, we we're still we're still you know, somewhat active as
• 39:44
  far as just playing shows and trying to do cool stuff. That's that that
• 39:47
  we all have fun doing it. That's that. That's the one thing that
• 39:50
  I love about this band still is that, uh, it's an excuse to
• 39:53
  just hang out with with with Rocky and Arthur and Lance and uh and and
• 40:00
  DJ from from time to time as well. He's been joining us recently,
• 40:04
  as you know, we've been reissuing some of our old records, our original
• 40:08
  records that he was singing on. But yeah, you know when you know,
• 40:13
  I heard early on but maybe even before they announced Furnace Best, that
• 40:16
  it was happening, and uh, you know, we were all about it.
• 40:20
  So yeah, and I tell you what, like, uh uh was
• 40:24
  it twenty one exceeded all expectations that I couldn't freaking believe it. It was
• 40:30
  just insane, Uh, just the friends and you know, the community and
• 40:37
  and not not just not just Christian scene or Christian bands, and there were
• 40:40
  a lot of a lot of a lot of dudes and a lot of bands
• 40:43
  from uh that that over the years that we've all just played, we all
• 40:47
  played together and and I have come to to to know each other, you
• 40:53
  know. Absolutely, just was like amazing. I mean, and I was
• 41:00
  there last year working with Blindside on their merch and just uh just hang out
• 41:07
  with you okay cool? Yeah, yeah, yeah, And just I was
• 41:09
  just there hanging out because that the lineup was amazing. I wanted to see
• 41:14
  Quicksand and I wanted to see Manchester Orchestra and Blindside of course the best uh
• 41:22
  you know Stairwell I wanted to see yeah, uh you know, so it
• 41:28
  was it's just it's just it's a special thing, you know. Yeah,
• 41:36
  it is one of Colin and I was like kind of more core memories.
• 41:38
  You know, Colin and I have been friends for over fifteen years now,
• 41:43
  and the things that we talk about to this day now are the last couple
• 41:46
  of years of furnace best and so we're just so stoked again going again this
• 41:51
  year and then being able to see you guys. I mean, it's just
• 41:52
  it's such a fun time. And so are you gonna are you playing on
• 41:57
  like staying around kind of the whole weekend? Are you just playing You're just
• 41:59
  going the day of your show and that's it, or what's your plan around
• 42:01
  the weekend. We'll definitely be there Friday and Saturday's the day we play.
• 42:07
  Um, maybe not sure about Sunday. So yeah, well we'll have to
• 42:12
  We'll have to see. Yeah, well, well we'd love to. We'd
• 42:15
  love to say hi if we if we run into each other at any point.
• 42:17
  Yeah, absolutely, yeah, of course, of course before we get
• 42:22
  into the top five. Though, there's one There's one other thing I have
• 42:25
  to ask, and I think this is a very very important question, and
• 42:30
  it's it's probably a question that's been seared into the minds of every single person
• 42:34
  who's ever seen Living, Sacrifice Live. What is it like playing in a
• 42:39
  band with the most beautiful person that's ever walked the earth? With Darren,
• 42:46
  especially with those long, long, beautiful locks in the early days. I
• 42:50
  mean, come on, yeah, I mean, I bet, I bet
• 42:53
  it was just I bet it's just ridiculous, girls fonding over them all over
• 42:57
  the place that kind of thing, right, Uh yeah, I mean I
• 43:01
  guess uh you know for sure, Um yeah, um, you know,
• 43:07
  I mean it didn't. It didn't hurt in the the you know the press
• 43:12
  shots to to you know, have him uh be in the band. But
• 43:17
  you know, I mean he started the band. It was his band,
• 43:20
  you know, so it's kind of like, you know, it was it
• 43:22
  was all good, but you know we were just dude, we were just
• 43:25
  we're kids, just grew up together. So I didn't really I didn't really
• 43:29
  look at it that way. It was just one of those things, you
• 43:31
  know, well you're too kind, You're too kind. Uh. He's like,
• 43:36
  in my imagination, he's like what uh the Angel Gabriel would look like
• 43:45
  he's kind of love this well uh well get you know will yeah, well,
• 43:49
  well speaking of furnaces and then you know what what what we have planned
• 43:53
  though, I I definitely want to bring up the fact that he's EJ will
• 43:58
  be uh playing some of some old songs with us. We haven't nailed down
• 44:04
  the back set list or anything like that, so you'll have to show up
• 44:07
  and find out. But you know, our first three albums that came out,
• 44:09
  you know, before the Solid State uh albums, they were all reissued
• 44:15
  obviously, but um we're we're now reissuing them again and um, you know,
• 44:20
  one of one of them, in particular, non Exist in our second
• 44:22
  album was completely remixed remastered and because it wasn't the production was pretty bad originally,
• 44:30
  and uh we we may remix and Habit as well, which is our
• 44:34
  third album. But we're still kind of like in the in the early planning
• 44:37
  phases of that. But um, you know, just loving this resurgence of
• 44:42
  vinyl and people that want to collect and people that love these old records and
• 44:46
  loved the DJ era because that is the thing. I mean, people are
• 44:52
  like, you know, bring DJ back, Bruce Stucks, you know,
• 44:55
  stuff like that, and um, just because he's pretty, it's it is
• 45:00
  yeah, well, I mean, I mean stylistically we were we were very
• 45:04
  we were very different um with with with Darren at the Helm uh and everything,
• 45:08
  and so uh it's it's it's just cool. It's cool revisiting these songs
• 45:14
  and like you know, now in a more you know, kind of mature
• 45:16
  way and and and perform and just performing them in you know, twenty twenty
• 45:22
  three or whatever year it's going to be. You know, next year twenty
• 45:28
  four Yeah, right, math anyways, uh so uh so yeah, uh,
• 45:36
  furnaces were we want to try to make it an event, you know,
• 45:38
  Um, these are not This is a time where like, uh,
• 45:42
  you can you can pull your buddies on stage like uh. In twenty one,
• 45:45
  we had Joe come up and sing one of the songs off of non
• 45:49
  Existent actually or parts of it and Joe from Beloved. Yeah, you know,
• 45:54
  it's just it's a it's a cool opportunity to make some cool stuff happen.
• 45:59
  That's like people we'll talk about like not that you're gonna find any at
• 46:01
  any other show that we're going to play you know, uh you know between
• 46:06
  now and then or after you know, um and then you know probably probably
• 46:10
  some some some uh a creative type cover of of some iconic songs with some
• 46:21
  buddies of ours and you know, some awesome, awesome bands. So so
• 46:24
  yeah, I mean we just want to we want to give people an excuse
• 46:28
  to come see us this year, um and not be like, oh I've
• 46:32
  seen Living Sacrifice, you know, I know what they do. We're we're
• 46:36
  putting something together that's different. So uh, that's that's worth the price of
• 46:40
  admission right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, I
• 46:44
  mean there's so many great bands and you know, my gosh, you know,
• 46:46
  they're probably gonna put us up again, you know, up against you
• 46:50
  know, somebody massive, and you know we'll just be like, oh,
• 46:53
  okay, we'll see you later, crowd. I doubt that'll be the case.
• 47:00
  I high laid out it, so yeah, give people a reason to
• 47:01
  stick around, stick around and watch it. Yeah, it's probably pretty cool
• 47:06
  for you guys too, you know, especially since you guys have been a
• 47:08
  band for so long, for you know, almost almost thirty five years.
• 47:12
  Now. What's really cool is the fact that you know, you guys have
• 47:15
  met so many people throughout all these years because of the band, and a
• 47:20
  lot of those people are going to be at Fernace Fest. So it's probably
• 47:22
  a really just cool place for you to connect with people that you might not
• 47:24
  have seen for a while. Yeah. No, that's that's that absolutely,
• 47:29
  that's what I'm saying. That's what I love about it. It's, um,
• 47:31
  you know, some of these folks I'm only going to get to see
• 47:36
  at at something like Furnace Fest or or a festival, or they're on tour,
• 47:40
  you know, coming through Nashville or you know, I get an opportunity
• 47:44
  to see their show somewhere. Um and yeah, yeah, it's just like
• 47:47
  a you know, a reconnection and just like hey, you know and you
• 47:52
  know, you know some of these bands, it's like, man, I'm
• 47:54
  just glad you're still playing yea or or I'm glad that you got back together
• 48:00
  and are making music again on your own terms. Yeah. You know,
• 48:05
  that's huge. That's huge thing to be able to do and to pull off
• 48:07
  and to accomplish at you know, you know, at an older age,
• 48:13
  you know, when you've got so many other responsibilities and things you have to
• 48:16
  have to have to take care of. It's like, you know, we
• 48:19
  got a new becoming an archetype record this year, like freaking awesome, you
• 48:22
  know. Yeah, and um, you know that's no easy feet. You
• 48:25
  know that takes. There's just a lot of time. I mean, we
• 48:30
  know it in ten years. It's not so exam Yeah. Yeah, we're
• 48:36
  too lazy. Should we uh? Should we do top five? Yeah?
• 48:43
  Let's do it. Man, you're ready for your top five? This is
• 48:45
  most influential, not necessarily the most favorite, but the most influential. Okay,
• 48:51
  we need a moment. We give you a moment too. These are
• 48:52
  always yeah, these are always so so hard, you know, so to
• 48:57
  speak. I guess all know the early early stuff that I got into when
• 49:02
  I was like, you know, the first show that I went to,
• 49:06
  uh was I was twelve and was Judas Priest. Very influential, But like
• 49:16
  what got me into just music beyond like you know, like all the kiddie
• 49:22
  stuff. You know, I think I think I got into like I think
• 49:24
  I went down and bought the Rick Springfield single Jesse's Girl or something. Yeah.
• 49:30
  It was like like in the eighties you could go to the grocery store,
• 49:32
  you go to Safeway and they were selling like little single seven inch singles.
• 49:37
  Yeah, and so I had a record player and so I'd go buy
• 49:39
  that. And other than that, you know, it was all just like
• 49:43
  you know, dumb stuff, Disco Duck and whatever whatever your parents were sky
• 49:46
  for you. Do you remember disco Duck. I know of it. Yeah,
• 49:51
  yeah, yeah. It's like Donald Duck singing all the disco hits.
• 49:55
  Yes, And and I had is that the cover the Living Sacrifice is going
• 50:01
  to be doing is some disco duct cover? Oh you found you found me
• 50:06
  out? Man? There should at least be an intro to Uh you gotta
• 50:10
  edit that part out because you know this is a big yeah. We can't
• 50:16
  just we can't just you know, you know, all our cards down on
• 50:21
  the table. But uh, you know, and I had, like,
• 50:24
  you know, the village people y MCA oh, yeah, of course.
• 50:28
  But it was uh, it was Van Halen, uh, their first album.
• 50:32
  Hearing that, but then the album that just like blew my mind in
• 50:37
  a way that I didn't. It's like I I I thought I knew what
• 50:40
  music was until I heard that, and it was Fair Warning. So Van
• 50:45
  Halen's Fair Warning. It came out in in nineteen eighty one, and uh
• 50:52
  it's just an incredible record and and probably one of Van Halen's least uh popular
• 50:59
  records for that time period with David Lee rock. So yeah, I would
• 51:01
  say that. And and then the other one of the other things that that
• 51:05
  kind of blew me away was hearing Mattalka for the first time. It was
• 51:10
  uh, you know, fade to Black off of Ride the Lightning. Yeah,
• 51:15
  and uh, you kind of got a Headfield look today? What really?
• 51:21
  Yeah? Yeah, man, Well, he Headfield is one of my
• 51:28
  favorite He's one of the guitar players that I looked through the most as as
• 51:31
  a guitar player, you know, and um, you know he's just his
• 51:35
  rhythm is just like just solid and he just he he invented a genre like
• 51:43
  that thud that you hear from his palm meuting. Yeah, it was the
• 51:46
  greatest. Yeah, that was not that was not much of a thing until
• 51:52
  until Ride the Lightning. Now. Granted, there if if you go back
• 51:57
  and listen to some there's some something and songs where the tone of the guitar
• 52:02
  is is such on I think women and children first. I mean there's like
• 52:10
  heavy heavy, like you know kind of palm muting and thud to that too.
• 52:15
  I have no clue, you know, obviously you know Headfield's uh,
• 52:19
  you know, influences are vast, you know, so, but but you
• 52:22
  know, uh that it was not just about playing fast, but but creating
• 52:28
  that that precision and that tone and that palm muted just junk june dune.
• 52:37
  Yeah. And so that was like you know, you know the you know,
• 52:40
  probably the the the embryonic phase of what you know, all these other
• 52:45
  bands copied when they copied Sugar, you know, Sugar was taking that and
• 52:51
  just like tizing at times you know whatever, So that would be another one.
• 52:58
  Uh, super super super influential. So we've got Disco Duck, We've
• 53:02
  got we've got Van Halen, Rick Springfield, Springfield, Jesse's Girl Girl,
• 53:09
  and we got Ride Lightning, all right, Ride the Lightning. The first
• 53:14
  two were actually ones. Those are just the precursors of the real music.
• 53:16
  Yeah, I got that's right, Not that Rick's not real music. He's
• 53:21
  you know ricks Creek, Right, He's awesome, do you know, Rick?
• 53:25
  No, but no, but the guy is still playing shows. Yeah,
• 53:30
  he's you know, he's started to Tequila brand with Sammy Hagar, so
• 53:34
  come on, you know, and he's still wishing he had Jesse's Girl.
• 53:37
  Yeah yeah, sure, um uh so yeah, so let me think influential
• 53:45
  in that way, you know. There. You know I mentioned jaw Box
• 53:47
  earlier, and um, there's uh this jaw Box record that that was their
• 53:52
  second record, Novelty. Um. I'd gotten this, uh buddy of mine
• 53:59
  in high school had given me this maximum rock and roll compilation sampler and I
• 54:05
  was like checking it out or whatever, because you know, it kind of
• 54:07
  goes back to the whole punk rock metal thing or whatever. Well, this
• 54:10
  guy was like a metal head and then he just like made this left turn
• 54:15
  into like I'm punk rock now. He gave me the sampler and it was
• 54:19
  just garbage. I mean, every band on there was just whatever. I
• 54:22
  was just like, what are you giving me here? But there was a
• 54:25
  Jabbox song and I was like, oh, this is crazy, and it
• 54:30
  was just like this whole like post punk, intricate type math rock, and
• 54:35
  so that's, you know, other than some of the Metallica stuff. That's
• 54:38
  that's where I first started hearing like these weird off time poly rhythms and just
• 54:44
  uh, you know, different different time signatures. And I'm not I'm not
• 54:46
  a theory guy at all, so I can't even tell you, like somebody
• 54:50
  plays something for me, I'm like, oh, that's you know five eight
• 54:52
  or you know three or four time or whatever like that. That's not me,
• 54:57
  but but I hear it, and firstly, I will I will write
• 55:00
  a riff with that time, with that time signature or you know, or
• 55:06
  you know, we all collaborate on something that has that and that that absolutely
• 55:12
  is part of our sound loving sacrifice. So yeah, job Box novelty,
• 55:17
  and then they put it out. They got signed to a major label not
• 55:22
  long after that and had a record called for Your Own Special Sweetheart, and
• 55:28
  also just they had to hit a sort of a video for that song Savory
• 55:32
  that got sort of big. Anyways, I love that band. That band
• 55:37
  got back together a few years back. I got tickets and drove to Chicago
• 55:40
  just see them at the Metro, and I was just like so happy,
• 55:46
  Say what am I up to? Now? That's three Yeah, I will
• 55:51
  say even though it was later on, because we were probably it was probably
• 55:53
  ninety seven, we'd already been a band for you know, good seven eight
• 55:58
  years. We put out Reborn on Solid State and somebody gave us a Sugar
• 56:05
  cassette tape that had Destroyer Race Improve on it, and uh, it just
• 56:09
  kind of changed our world. It was just kind of like, what is
• 56:14
  this? Yeah, so yeah, that's a sugar is freaky without with the
• 56:21
  way that they approached metal, I mean, it's just yeah, it's it's
• 56:23
  mind boggling. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Another really big one is kind
• 56:30
  of going back farther. It's the Man. It's hard to hard to narrow
• 56:32
  narrow it down like that. It's it's but you know, uh, diary
• 56:37
  for Man mad AUSSI, uh, you know, and then and then the
• 56:42
  first album that Dio did with Sabbath Heaven and Hell, Yes, great great
• 56:46
  album. I'm a massive deal fan, and I think that album is way
• 56:51
  underrated. You know that that when I you know, when I first heard
• 56:54
  when I first heard dial it was with Sabbath and and I made yeah,
• 57:00
  maybe I knew honestly, I mean it might have been I might have heard
• 57:04
  Deo Sabbath before I heard Ozzie Sabbath, But I I love Azzie Sabbath a
• 57:07
  lot, you know, Yeah, that's the you know, I would I
• 57:12
  would say all of those were like really you know, massively influential. Uh
• 57:17
  with Ozzie, you know, Randy Rhodes is playing oh yeah hit hit him
• 57:21
  and Eddie van Halen for me are like you know, one and two.
• 57:27
  But I'd be remiss if I didn't say one one of the bands that a
• 57:31
  few more bands that influence us as a band would crucified their first Oh yeah,
• 57:37
  and and and and Believer for sure. These guys are great. Yeah,
• 57:43
  more mortification as well. Was that a part of that not so much?
• 57:47
  Yeah? Um, uh you know, uh, you know, I
• 57:52
  mean it was he was kind of doing his own thing, but like we
• 57:54
  were more like him similar as far as like like the Leavers is very different
• 58:00
  than us, and yeah, Chriside's very different than us. And then Mortifications,
• 58:05
  you know, you know, sonically, you know, I think you
• 58:07
  know, he was probably pulling from some of the same influence as we were,
• 58:09
  so I think so, you know, uh, with with that early
• 58:13
  stuff, with the early thrash and the death metal, so we weren't necessarily
• 58:17
  you know, influenced by by that stuff at all. And and you know,
• 58:22
  I think we kind of came our stuff kind of came out around take
• 58:25
  Yeah for sure. Cool. Yeah, I was just curious in that uh
• 58:29
  sweet, Well, it is time for things you'd like to plug. Obviously,
• 58:32
  we have the uh, we have the the great furnace Fast. We're
• 58:37
  very very excited to come see you there. I'm sure the fans are very
• 58:39
  excited to come see you there as well. Um, do you guys have
• 58:43
  anything else going on other than the potentially maybe someday hopefully there will be uh
• 58:49
  maybe potentially record. Well, there's there's definitely new music coming and and and
• 58:54
  uh Grey, you know, once we have enough songs that are you know,
• 58:58
  available to you know all together onto like you know, a CD or
• 59:02
  vinyl or something like that. Yeah. Probably so. Um. Other than
• 59:06
  that, definitely we're reissuing. We've got you know. Um yeah, here's
• 59:12
  there's another fun announcement. I'll just let it out of the bag, I
• 59:16
  believe. Uh. We will have the hammering process on vinyl half furnace fast
• 59:22
  for the first time in many many years. Um. Uh, so that's
• 59:27
  there. There's that unoriginals Uh, working with the you know, tooth with
• 59:31
  solid State to do that is it is the hammering process. Vinyl going to
• 59:36
  be kind of like what, um, similar to what Blindside did last year
• 59:40
  with that super limited like five hundred copies kind of deal. Uh. Yeah,
• 59:45
  yeah, it's gonna be very limited, but but it will be releasing
• 59:50
  it, uh, you know pretty much there. First it won't be available
• 59:53
  online. Uh if there's if there's a few copies left over, um,
• 59:58
  you know, eventually it will go online. But but yeah, I mean
• 1:00:00
  first Crack is gonna be at Furnace Fest. Sweet Are you working with Jason
• 1:00:05
  Zimett with that with Unriginal Battle, Yes, yeah, yep, Jason's great,
• 1:00:10
  Yeah for sure, love him. I'm glad that's happening again. Another
• 1:00:15
  reason to get tickets at furnace Fest, because when else are you going to
• 1:00:20
  be able to get you know, the hammering process, so that'd be super
• 1:00:23
  cool. Definitely definitely dig it, Bruce. Thank you so much for hanging
• 1:00:30
  out and chatting. We're really really stoked to see you at furnace Fest.
• 1:00:34
  We'll definitely say hi to you when we run into you at some point,
• 1:00:37
  so we're really excited. It's just a couple months from now, and so
• 1:00:40
  yeah, we're just really really stoked. And so everybody, get your tickets.
• 1:00:45
  Uh, there there are There is the link in the episode descriptions.
• 1:00:49
  So if you are interested in uh seeing Living Sacrifice and all the other great
• 1:00:52
  bands at furnace Fest this year, get your tickets. And yeah, we're
• 1:00:57
  just super super stoked to see you, Bruce. So thank you so much
• 1:01:00
  for chatting more about Living Sacrifice and the show coming up awesome. Thanks Mason,
• 1:01:06
  Thanks Cold, thank you Ma.