Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / A Pleasurable Pain With SAM SPADE From THE MIDNIGHT DEVILS

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A Pleasurable Pain With SAM SPADE From THE MIDNIGHT DEVILS · HEAVY Music Interviews

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What's up everybody? This is a Samn Spade, lead singer bass player of
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the Midnight Devils, and I am here on Heavy Magazine. Ladies and gentlemen.
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The world is melting before your eyes. The world is changing as you
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know it. We are about to embark on the Bopa the Walla twenty twenty
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four tour, touching down in Australia three weeks and then we're heading over to
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Japan to make our debut. Ladies and gentlemen, can you even believe this?
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The Midnight Devils in Australia then taking over Japan. We got a new
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record coming out on July second. So hard it hurts, and I hope
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you stayed hard this entire time waiting for this brand new release. I'm throwing
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it to Crispy. It's time to get this thing started. I've got nothing,
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But how the hell do you just off the bat? Just come at
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with that shit unscripted? That is sensational. Many years of working at a
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strip club, that's what it is. That's the many years as a strip
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club DJ. You gotta have a lot of lines, fair enough, So
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thanks for joining us today. I've had always a pleasure chatting with you.
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Yes, it's great being here, it really is. And the excitement is
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just this is my other line, The excitement is really high, and so
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am I. I beg all right, So we have got a bit to
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get through here, but we haven't got hours to do it, so we'll
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crack straight into album number three. So the Midnight Devil's Return with album number
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three so hard it hurts on July the second. How you feel about it,
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Brather, You're nervous, you excited, you anxious? Yeah, all
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of those things. All of those things are exactly what I'm feeling at this
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moment sitting here right now. I'm excited because I think we've done the majority
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of the hard work and we're ready. We're anticipating the release now and the
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response from our fans, from all the maniacs worldwide has just been overwhelming.
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Our pre sales have been great. Uh. And to go correspond with this
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release, we're jumping on this big tour supporting Bomb but not forgotten in Australia.
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It's our second time coming back to Australia in the year almost you know.
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And then following that is Japan, Following that is the UK and then
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Norway. So there's just like this world tour on the back of the release
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of this record, so to say, excitement is high, the pressure also
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very high. But I think that we're there and I think we have a
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quality record that that people are just gonna there. It's gonna be the party
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soundtrack of the summer or in Australia. So yeah, you've actually just give
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me a buyer to pick me the if I don't didn't know you got in
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the UK and Norway as well. How come you're dumping me back in Australia
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on the way through. Maybe we're not ah, maybe maybe you're just coming
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with I should I should pack extra five? Well we got we have we
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have three weeks off, so we when we land back from Japan, we
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have three weeks off and then we'll start. Uh, we'll head over the
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UK sporting kicking Valentine over there, which we just left. Uh we left
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the UK and so Tember I believe with pretty boy Floyd, So it's another
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kind of return visit and the rock and roll is great over there, so
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there's no reason we wouldn't how good a kick in Valentina. They're a great
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band, They're awesome, they've been doing it for forever and they've been really
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they stuck to their guns and flew that flag of East Coast USA glam sleeves
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metal that's just so brilliant, and they never deviated and they wrote that blueprint
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on just keep working and releasing records and touring and just do it. Yeah.
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I'll actually tell you an interesting story about them. Like when I was
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in Japan, not probably about two chores ago, I was looking through cow
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Records or the big records store there, and there wasn't that many like non
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Japanese bands albums on display, except for the big ones like Metallicas and stuff
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like that. But one of the bands that was on display was Kicking Valentina
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and that was the first time, first time I've ever heard of him,
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and I had to listen to him then in Japan, and that's how I
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got into those guys. So yeah, and they're the nicest dudes. Were
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super excited to play with them, to support them because they've been doing it
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for maybe five ten years longer than we have. So we're kind of like
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the kid brothers joining join our older brothers on tour, show them how it's
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done. A little bit breathe a little, but not about them, because
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this is about you. Like tell us about so hard I heard from a
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musical point of view, and what are you gone for with the album?
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With this album, we took what we had learned from two thousand and what
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was it twenty twenty two's never begged for It. We did that with Chips
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Enough in Chicago, and we learned so much on that record on how to
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take that next step from our first record to our second record. Cool.
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With that, we wanted to expand on it and really give it to production
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that it needed and really write great songs. So with this album, we
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were on tour in Italy. Our tour manager in Italy a guy by the
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name of Fabio. He goes, I love you guys. The Midnight Devils
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are incredible, but your your albums don't match your live show. And I
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go, you're totally right. We've been having trouble with that. And he
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said, he goes, I got a guy he did the first Poison record
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and he's gonna be perfect for you guys, and he calls up Rick right
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there, So we're in to Reno, you know, in sending in to
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Reno about ready to play. He calls up Rick. He's like, Rick,
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I've got these guys from the US here in Italy. Would you like
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to produce the records? And Rick's like, yep, I'll come out of
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retirement for it. And that was it. And it was like, Okay,
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we got a producer, now we got a record. We gotta get
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some songs together, and and it was really going into it. I knew
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that we had to write really good, catchy songs and that there couldn't be
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any mistakes or any falters or any lack of energy on these. I'll edit
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this bit out it later. Actually, I'm just I'll tell you know.
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I'm pretty sure you okay with it. But don't forget this is going to
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be separate to the other album, Regrease, So I don't not say anything
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in this interview because you've already said it the other one. Right, Yeah,
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that'd be easy for you, Soda go up upside this again. But
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they had completely separate entities. Yep. That is. On the subject of
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your first two albums, something bigger and never beg for it, Like you're
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talking about the production style of things improving over the albums, but how about
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musically, like what have you what have you learned and grind musically with over
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the close three albums. It's a very good question, and I think what
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we learn is to keep musically sonically is to keep it simple. Keep it
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as simple as you possibly can as musician, as artists, you tend to
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keep adding and adding and adding until it gets too blown out and the songs
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are too long. Okay, with this one, we're gonna try and keep
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all the songs relatively shorter three and a half minutes. But with this one,
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specifically Rick and cher Ross from Vixen Bam from Dogs to Moore are producing.
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Our production team really put a focus on writing lyrics and songs that tell
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a story and that people can relate to. So with this one, they
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I had my lyrics and then they go, these are great, but these
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aren't so great. So let's me make these into a story. And hell,
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each song has a start, a middle, and end, and you
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resolve the story at the end of the song and go cool. I never
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thought of it like that. That's a really good way. So I think
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we really picked up that, like, let's keep everything as simple as we
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can and write really great songs that people can relate to. Yeah, very
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cool. And I just say, somebody's stumbled upon this interview and it's the
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first time they've heard of the Midnight Devils, and they think the guy in
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makeup's kut, the board guy's kut, and they want to check out more
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of your stuff, Like give us three songs off your first two albums that
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will prepare them to listen to the new one three songs each, three songs
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of byThe I say off, just preparing to listen to. So yeah,
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and we're coming up to this point in the in the band's career where we
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have three albums out now, so picking a set list gets a little tricky.
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You know, we got to pick songs from all three records. So
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from the first record, I think the album's called Something Bigger. It was
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released twenty eighteen. We did it in Omaha, but the title track,
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Midnight Devils still played in our set list today. That song is just essentially
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it's our call to arms, and it's our call to arms for us and
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the fans. I think that song really does it. The other one,
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Memphis Mile, is one of our crowd favorite that we've been ending the sets
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with them because it's such a party anthem and because it just takes the show
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to another level. And so when you're crafting a show, you always think
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like there's a start to the show, and you come out blazing, and
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you're on that roller coaster ride going up, and the very very tip top
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is Memphis Mile, and that's where the energy of the excitement. Everybody's as
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drunk as they could possibly be. We smoked a million joints and now we're
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all feeling good. We're shaking ass. That's what Memphis Mile is. The
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other one that I love from that record that surprised the hell out of me
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was Highway sixty nine. But that's from Never Beg For It, and that
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song. I didn't love it when we started, and now it's like an
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instant we have to play it. People have High sixty nine tattoos on their
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arms, you know. It's it's taken on a whole life of its own.
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Yeah, Debby White, why didn't you like it? At first?
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I just didn't think it was I didn't think it was catchy enough. Yeah.
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Right. And one that came out and I saw the response, I
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was like, WHOA. I was completely wrong, you know, And that
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was like a sniper thing. He kind of had the idea for the the
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music and I put the lyrics down and I was like, yeah, yeah,
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it's it's all right. Little did I know that it'd be one of
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our favorite tracks. Everybody loves it. And the video came out, an
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animated video that tells the story of more of the Midnight Devils than this kind
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of world that we've created with these other characters, the Pink Bastard, Rock
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Sand all these other people that kind of jump into this story and weave their
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way around our world. Yeah, very cool. Now I've got to know
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what I'm sure other people out there need to know as well. Mate,
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Like, so hard it hurts, Where does it come from? Is there
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a good story behind that? Yes, there's a a million good stories.
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And that's kind of what we did with this record is try to take our
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experiences and our stories that we had while being on tour, being on the
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road and put them into a record so it's real life. It really happened
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to us. Was so hard it hurts. The one story that I always
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go back to, and I'm probably gonna have to tell this story like one
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hundred million times. But Jimmy called me up one day and he goes,
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bro, You're never gonna believe what happened. My roommate exit. I don't
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know if you accidentally, but he took a Biagara pillar two, I like
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two, and he goes like he got he got a heart on that didn't
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go away, and so they had to like take him to the hospital,
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you know, to I don't know how the doctors look at it. And
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he was walking all hunched over, and Jimmy's like he kept saying, it's
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so hard it hurts. I was like, that's brilliant right there, That's
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that's it. How do we know that's gonna be the Midnight Devil's album?
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A perfect No, I didn't have this one written down for you maybe,
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but I'll just sort of come up with there on the fly. But I'm
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he could like to start of music. You play like the glam rock style,
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Like it's it's very familiar to a lot of people. You know,
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you've got the big ones, like you've got your money, cruise and your
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poison to people all lately. But as a band coming into it, like,
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how how fine of a line is it between imitation and inspiration when you
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write your music? And where do you draw that line? Absolutely, the
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very very good question, because it's we didn't set out to be eighties hair
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metal band, and that's not what we are, right. We're a glam
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rock band when and we draw from the we draw from our influences, which
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were eighties hair metal, but it was also the seventies glam, you know,
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it was the nineties glam and this bubble gum and punk rock. And
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so what we kind of do is we don't want to recreate Van Halen or
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Kiss or or The Ramones or anything like that. We want to do our
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own thing, but use that influence. And we spent so much time listening
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to those bands that you can almost do it in your sleep, and and
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think of what do we want to say, How do we want to be
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creative? How are we going to push this and be a positive influence to
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the world. How are we gonna just be like we're the Midnight Devils.
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We're gonna do what we want to do no matter what you say. We're
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gonna do this, and we're gonna do it our way, and we're never
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gonna stop. And it's that that kind of gang mentality between us and the
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fans that I think pushes us over and makes us different from a lot of
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bands. Yeah right, cool. Now the Midnight Devils have going to well
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aired reputation is a good time, high energy rock and roll party band live.
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So how difficult is it to recreate and capture that intensity aguess live in
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the studio. It's it's almost impossible, Like it really is, like because
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you are as a live musician, you are flying off that adrenaline in that
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crowd interaction and that's the hardest part to recreate because you just can't. So
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in the studio, I think my thing, my trick is like Sniper does
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everything, and he really leads the band musically sonically. He's the guy that
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kind of called the shots. And so when we're sitting there, all three
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of us staring at each other, we play it exactly like we would play
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it live, and then we hit the record button. So we kind of
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fudget a little bit with using our own adrenaline and our own uh like between
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the three of us, we use that energy to kind of creak create what
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a live feeling would be. And then when we go in and do the
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vocals and stuff, I mean, I had my shirt off, I was
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going as hard as I could possibly go in the vocal booth just for like
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eight or nine hours, just to kind of keep up that that feeling like
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hey, we're we're on the on the stage in front of people. We
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just gotta keep going. Yeah, does it go as far as Jimmy put
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your makeup on in the studio as well, just so to try and put
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yourself in design. No, we didn't do that, but I mean essentially
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we always wear some if we've been blessed to be in a band where we
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can kind of get away with wearing whatever we want. And so what it's
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put into the we got what we did. Here's the Here's the kicker is
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we got ourselves out of our comfort zone and went down to Florida to do
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this record at BAM and share his house. Now, these are people that
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we respect highly, you know, like they're rock stars in our eyes.
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So you don't want to give them anything less than amazing, because they'll tell
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you. I don't want dad to yell at me. I don't want it.
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Like you smoke a point and you're like they'll be like, are you
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high? Are you recording high? I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
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I'm sorry. It feels like you don't want to disappoint your dad,
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so you always want really really hard worked so hard it hurts. Ah.
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So speaking about playing live the Midnight Devil was a returning to Australia in July
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for a run of dates through the Mighty Bomb but Not Forgotten, starting in
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Perth on July the fifth, then visit Sydney Melbourne over successive weekends. Mate,
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Like, I know you got your child to talk about to you,
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but we'll start on this one. Like that should be a lot of fun.
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It's fiftieth anniversary of On Scott's death, I believe, and it's it's
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going to be a factor. I got good stuff to talk about here.
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I'm glad you brought this up. So no, not knowing Bond Scott last
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year when we opened for them, where we went and saw them and I
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was like, yeah, yeah, I've seen a million ACDC tribute bands like
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it unless they're really good, Like I'm not interested. And so we walk
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into the venue and there's five hundred people there going ballistic. Chrispy you were
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there, you saw it, like, I was like, this is awesome.
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And Skenny what front man like he kills and so I'm like Okay,
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we got a work cut out for us, and then you got us the
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opening gig the night but the next night, and I was like, okay,
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I know what Scinny can do. I gotta bring the A game and
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really bring the heat. And I thought we did. I thought we had
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a great show that next night. Fast forward to we're playing M three Festival
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two months ago. This Australian dude comes up to me and starts giving me
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shit like hardcore. I go, hey, man, we're gonna be opening
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up for a bomb but not forgotten in Australia. And he's like, I'm
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best friends with Skenny. He's gonna eat you alive. I go tell him
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to bring it on, like I'm ready, you ain't gonna talk to these
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USA boys. We're gonna bring you the heat for sure. And he's like,
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oh, I'll call him right now, and he video chat him right
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then. Skenny's waking up at six in the morning. The dude's drunkard shit,
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just like I'm gonna you're gonna dour with these guys and they're gonna kick
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their asses. And I'm like, you'd better tell them to eat his weedies
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every morning because it's like This is gonna be a dog fight every night,
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and I'm looking forward to it in the best possible way because they're a great
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band and we're also once again we're like the new guy's coming up, so
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we got something to prove. We got a chip on our shoulder, so
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where I can make my exclusive Heavy magazine call you out, Skenny Bomb,
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but not forgotten, Jason. Make sure you guys got your shit together because
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we're coming hard, so hard, it hurts so hot. I love it.
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And you've also you got three headline shows off your Eye on Sunday,
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July seventh of the pet Iwan Brisbane, Thursday July the eleventh of the Duke
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of Edward and Sydney Thursday July eight eight the Steak Out in Melbourne. So
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are you saving something special for those show to see in that You're right?
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Yeah, absolutely, And that's kind of goes back to where we're writing a
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set list with three albums of material, when when we have these opening spots,
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it's really cool. We get to do forty five minutes. It's no
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deviation. You go as hard as you can for forty five minutes. You
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play the songs, you don't do any slow songs and you go. Now
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with the headlining set, it kind of is a little different because we have
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a little more time, so we get to joke around more, We get
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to I feel like the fans get to see more of our personality and they
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get a laugh and they really get to interact with us as a band.
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And so we get to add in new songs, songs that we don't play
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very often, and that's a really cool thing. And as artists, you're
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like, okay, cool, I get to grow. Our set list is
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not the same. We don't even have a set list. We just call
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them out, and especially on a headlining show, I'm just calling out songs.
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They kind of know where I'm going. But for the most part,
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it's a mystery. That's gonna say that lay you don't know where you go
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and say how they get it? O where you go? I have an
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idea. If we get there, then that's the the golden medal at the
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end. Man, speaking of I don't break my own nose. If I
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don't break my own nose with my knees, right, that's I'm still tell
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people that story a mate, and I'll still don't know how the fuck you
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did it? I go, I walk off stage, carry sitting right here,
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and I know you heard the story a million times. We're playing and
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the show's going great, This show is incredible, and I do one last
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jump right at the end and smash my nose with my knee and I thought
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I broke my nose in that instance. And I walk off stage and I
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tell you I will Chrispy. I think I just broke my nose. But
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luckily there's makeup everywhere. You couldn't really tell. You're like you all right,
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mate, get back out there, get out there, you stuff cook.
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And then the icee on the take froll this night is we go to
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Japan for your very first tour of the Orient, mate, Like that's exciting
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in itself, and we got a bit to get three before you even get
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there. Yeah, and that's uh, really, I think you for all
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of this, because going into this, we talked many many months ago and
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we're like, what is the biggest goal of the Midnight Devils. And since
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we were kids, it was always you join a band to tour the world
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and going to live at Buddha Khan beats from these all these great American bands
19:18
or Western bands that would go to Japan and just flourish over there. That
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was always the goal, And you said, why not tack on Japan since
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you're already over here. I said, that's a brilliant idea. I couldn't
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think of a better way to reach that goal. It's going to be sensational.
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So basically, mate, July is the month of the Midnight Devils.
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Your album comes out, your tour starts, you go to Japan, like
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every month of Midnight Devil's month. But let's officially make July the month of
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the Devils. I love that. That's really good. All month long,
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we celebrate all month long, we party all month long. We're hard.
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Oh, John Dtan, no what to side of that except all right,
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Sam well, thanks very much for joining us. Fight always a pleasure album.
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So hot, say out July the second, we've got the tour this
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dry, kick it off, July the fifth, We've got Japan. Kick
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it off. July the twenty second, I believe, says she's all happen
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the record reple cape up to date with the Midnight Devils of what you're doing.
20:22
We're very active on all social media platforms, so Facebook, Instagram,
20:26
Twitter, all of those places. You can reach us. Our music is
20:30
available on all streaming platforms, so Amazon, Spotify, anything like that.
20:34
Most importantly, though, if you dig the band, you like what we're
20:38
doing, there's videos on YouTube, but go to our website, Theminnidevils dot
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com and there you can check out the new album. You can watch the
20:45
videos. But you can also pre order or order anything on our merch site
20:52
and that goes directly to supporting the tours and it's really the only thing that
20:56
keeps us going, So any order is very much appreciated. And that's really
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our bread and butter and our heart and soul right there with love. I'm
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glad you brought that up, my friend, because for the Australian toy,
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you've actually got a special. If anyone pre orders the album for that,
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they get a mate and free eight and great with the band before the show.
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Is that correct? It's a free meat m e a t so hot
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it hurts. It's just all a big joke to you, isn't it.
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Yes, that's what we say all the time, is like, no wonder
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nobody thinks we take this very seriously. It's all just a fucking big joke,
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it is, But tell us about the special packages. Yes, so
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you for the pre sale packages. Yeah, so we put together pre sale
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package is like the so hard it hurts the album and then brand new signed
21:57
tour post they're not were posted with their album posters done by our art designer,
22:03
Livy and these are really cool. Livy did the artwork for the cover
22:07
and then we turned the cover into a T shirt as well. So there's
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kind of like these three or four different packages, and one is all of
22:14
our albums or all of our CDs signed by every one of the guys in
22:17
the band, and so you can kind of just pick and choose what level
22:21
is going to be best for you. Some people already have the other albums
22:22
so they don't need it, but there's also a package and there'll be more
22:26
vinyl coming out. It's just it's a really cool way to help us and
22:32
to push this new record that's coming out. It's exciting and that the response
22:36
has just been overwhelming. I can't even believe it, Like we're hitting our
22:40
goals of what I wanted to accomplish with the pre sale