Latest / Caught on the Mike... / "My Favorite Band" with Adam Russell from Story of the Year

Transcript

"My Favorite Band" with Adam Russell from Story of the Year · Caught on the Mike...

0:01
SPEAKER_01: Disclaimer.
0:02
SPEAKER_01: The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: Listener discretion is advised.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: Only three years after forming the high-energy St.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: Fluids band Story of the Year's first piece of commercial success and the major label Thank you album is evident.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: Until the AI died of our dying days, you know the five albums in nearly 20 year long history, and this band is still rocking arguably bigger and better than ever.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: It just happened to be one of my most favorite bands of all time, and I have the distinct privilege of having Adam Russell with Story of the Year on the podcast today.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk a little bit about where the band's been, where they're going, and his podcast, a Star Wars themed podcast called Thank the Maker, and what it means to connect with people musically and socially in the world we live in today.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mic.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, I am talking with the one, the only, the motherfucking skull, Adam Russell from Story of the Year, and thank the Maker Podcast.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: I gotta tell you, Adam, I didn't tell you this in the text, and maybe I did, and I didn't tell you this on air, but I had a band that's name was Ara Singh.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: Whoa.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna recognize the name.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Yes, and our favorite band was Story of the Year.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: So there we go.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: Full circle, brother.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: Nice, very nice.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for being here, man.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: Good to be here.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks for having me.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited for the new material.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: Like, super pumped up.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: Every time I'm in the gym, I'm either listening to the uh Page Avenue crew podcast or I'm listening to Wolves on repeat.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it is about that album start to finish, but it gets my ass moving and I love it.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: It's great, dude.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: It's it's right up there with Page Avenue for me.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: And I I have a a special kind of perspective on that album because I wasn't in the band at the time, so I got to listen to my own band's new music completely cold, just like a fan.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: So it it has a special place in my heart as well.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: In the wake has always been kind of like that.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: That was the pivotal moment for me as a story of the year fan.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: Like I loved Paged Avenue, but when In the Wake came out, it seemed like it was this is who this band really is.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: And we could get into that later on in the podcast because I've got a funny anecdote about seeing you guys in Kansas City that I know you're gonna absolutely love because it involves you in particular.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in in the wake, um it was genuinely um authentically us.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: I I don't think it's as good of an album as Page Avenue because uh it turned out that being genuinely authentically us uh needs some help sometimes, you know.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: And we uh we were a little more confident than we maybe should have been at that point.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: But uh you're right.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: It it we did exactly what we wanted, and we had a producer who encouraged that and would steer us in certain directions, but also would kind of ask us like, what do you think?
3:42
SPEAKER_00: What would you do live?
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Or what do you want to say with this part?
3:47
SPEAKER_00: This you know, that kind of thing.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, very much us, very um, very emblematic of our identities at the time.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: For my listeners that aren't familiar with Story of the Year and who you are, why don't you introduce yourself and tell a little bit about your origin story?
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, as you said, my name's Adam Russell.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: I joined a band called Big Blue Monkey 23 years ago.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: And I was in another local band in St.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: Louis at the time.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: We're all from St.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Louis, Missouri, and we played shows with this band quite a bit.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: The guitar player played in my band a little bit, my shitty new metal band.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: And uh we it became clear that to me at least, that there was kind of like one small group of people who were gonna make it out of our small town and our our tiny little scene, and it was this band.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: So when I joined, I was like, let's fucking go.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: This is it, it's happening.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: We're getting signed, everything's happening.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: That band evolved into story of the year.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, at the time uh we were Big Blue Monkey, our singer Dan was playing drums.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: We had a different singer, and everything changed rapidly, but once it did, everything really started to fall in place.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: And all of those years we spent as teenagers and and you know, in our early 20s trying to get our shit together just culminated.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: And we got signed by Maverick Records with the help of John Feldman.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: We made Page Avenue with him, our debut album, which is coming up on uh 20 years next year, next September.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: And we toured the world.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: We met tons of people, we met tons of bands, we um did very well.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: And along the way, or actually right from the beginning, we toured with a band called Yellow Card, which most of your listeners probably know.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: We weren't friends at the time.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: There was like this unspoken kind of beef with us, and we talked about this uh on my other podcast.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it was just like kind of just douchey competition, you know, that teenagers and early 20s people have, especially dudes, especially band dudes.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: So we're just all so insecure about our own success and our own identities as musicians that we kind of had this unspoken beef.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: We never talked about it with each other, we never got into and we never actually interacted directly.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: But since our albums came out so close to each other, there was this competition, right?
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Fast forward like 10 or 15 years, and Ryan Key, the singer of that band, approached us at one point on tour and was like, hey man, um I just want to let you guys know that if I was ever a douche, if I was ever a dick, if I was just ever not a good dude to you guys, um that was fucked up.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: I apologize.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, you guys are great.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh we've always we've never had any reason not to get along.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: So just want to let you guys know that.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: And that really hit me out of left field and was one of kind of the coolest moments I'd ever had with another musician.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: So that led to us touring together a little bit not long after.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: We did a festival together in Australia and spent like the whole tour just hanging out and connecting on stuff that we had never had an opportunity to connect on before, like Star Wars and Lost and things like that.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: So we realized Ryan and I realized we were both huge Star Wars fans.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: We both had Star Wars tattoos.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: All the guys are fans, but we really specifically connected on that.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: And a couple years went by, and I guess that was, I want to say that was 2011.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: So a few years went by.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: The Force Awakens is getting ready to come out, and I made a tweet about wanting to go in spoiler-free, absolutely cold, act like it's you know, the late 70s.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: There is no internet, there is no way to just over-consume a trailer.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: You can't, you know, you don't have access to spoilers and um leaks and things like that.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: So he jumped on board.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: I think he responded to my tweet, and then uh Ryan Mendez, also from Yellow Card, and Samir, the guitar player of Fly Leaf.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: We all we started this no spoiler pact.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: And in that lead up to The Force Awakens, I started thinking this would be a really cool thing to make a podcast about, maybe just two episodes talking about our expectations based on this limited access that we've had that we've given ourselves to the trailer.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: And then after seeing it, our reaction and how that met or didn't meet our our our expectations.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: That ended up not happening because I had family stuff going on and it just didn't happen, but it planted a seed, and I knew I wanted to do some kind of podcast because I've been a I've been a podcast listener for more than half my life.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, right iPod days, I was I was doing it actually, like our second story of the year DVD, I spent a lot of time after we were done with the edit, um, censoring it.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: And I was so I didn't know how to use After Effects, I didn't know how to use anything to do it efficiently.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: So I spent like minimum 10 times the length of time that I should have, frame by frame, like censoring this thing.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: So by doing that, I listened to I like got into podcasts.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: I listened to hundreds of hours of podcasts.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: So by the time you know 2016 rolled around, I was like, I I know what I want to do.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: I know what creative project I want to do at this point in my life where I feel like I'm a little stagnant.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: I want to do this podcast about pop culture and movies.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: And I asked Ryan if he wanted to do it.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: He said, of course, yes.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: So we ended up just like dragging our feet forever, and we finally said, Okay, let's do it.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: We'll set a date, we're gonna record this fucking podcast.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: And the day before, he calls me and is like, okay, so you might not like this idea, and I'm sorry it's last minute, but what if instead of a movie podcast we just make it a Star Wars podcast?
9:50
SPEAKER_00: Star Wars only.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, I mean, that would be cool.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: I love Star Wars, obviously, it's my favorite shit in the world, but what do we do after 11 episodes or whatever?
10:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, after we cover all the movies, like we're not big into expanded universe or um whatever, you know, the uh whatever it became known at that time.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: Um are we gonna run out of shit to talk about?
10:17
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Man, Disney bought Star Wars.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: We've we're not gonna stop getting new Star Wars.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: Let's I I think we can do it.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Let's just go for it.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: And if we have to start reading all the books and all the comics and doing that, that's just fun.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: Let's just do it.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: So I said, fuck it, let's go.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: And the next day we re-recorded the first episode.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we then sat on it for a full year, though.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Oh shit, yeah, almost a full year.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Like I I would go, I would edit and I'd be like, man, that needs something else.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: And I'd kind of cut and I'd rearrange, and it just took me forever to discover, kind of like unearth what our format was going to be.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: We re-recorded probably another full hour of stuff after I finally got it kind of whittled down.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: And my, you know, I had my editing hat back on from making uh story of the year DVDs and documentaries and all that kind of stuff.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: So we re-recorded, we got it, and we finally said, okay, here's what it is.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: We launched the thing in February of 2020, right when the pandemic was about to hit, and it inadvertently became my pandemic project.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: And then we uh we were actually we were in LA or in Anaheim the week before lockdown started, basically, at Disneyland at Galaxy's Edge, and we stopped by Nick Amberian's house and recorded an episode with him.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: That was I met him for the first time.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: Then Ryan had known him casually from touring, but it ended up being a really good, like instant connection.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: And as we left in the car, I remember saying to Ryan, I remember kind of looking at him, and I was like, Nick's pretty cool, dude.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Like, he might make a good third if we wanted to do wanted to do that.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: And Ryan's like, fuck it, we should we do that?
12:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: And a couple weeks later he was on our podcast.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: So here we are now, the three of us.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: We've had this podcast for 127 episodes as of yesterday, and it's it's done well enough that it's now legitimately one of my part-time jobs.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: That is amazing.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: It was a really long-winded story story.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: You hit on so many things, and and we're gonna actually track back a little bit.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: Um, 2020, that kind of was the year to launch a podcast.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, it it's almost like society with everything that's gone on, it was it was planting the seeds for guys to get creative with being creative, because the Page Avenue Crew podcast launched that year as well, if I remember correctly, because truth be told, man, it was listening to you guys that finally got the the fire under my ass, where I was like, Awesome.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: I'd been kicking around a podcast for god, better part of a decade, and then I started listening to Page Avenue Crew, and uh what was what's hilarious is you mentioned the Ryan Key episode, and I was like, oh my god, I know this shit all too well.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: I played in bands for the better part of my life, so it's like I know all about this stuff, you know, first hand.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: It was perfectly primed, and I'll point out another seed of irony.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: You talked about being in Anaheim the week the world shut down.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: My kids were actually in Disney World when everything shut down.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: They're huge Star Wars fans as well.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: So, man, this is serendipitous to a certain extent.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's the force, it is, it's totally the force, it's bringing us together.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: What's been your most rewarding thing about being a podcast host for both the band and as a Star Wars fan?
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the on the band level, it was it's been it's been something to kind of get us moving when it was hard to do anything.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, you mentioned it being um an inflection point for the world, kind of just dusting off whatever old project you had and and making it happen.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: And for us as a band being a little stagnant at the time, it was a reason for us to get in the same room every week and talk, like kind of get re-invigorated, re-excited about our band, do the same for our fans, launch a Patreon and and give fans something when most of us as musicians were struggling to figure out what to give them because in in our genre or kind of the group of genres, touring is kind of it.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: It's the main thing.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: But this forced us to look at that a little bit differently.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: So it's been amazing to connect with those fans and engage and activate the fan base and the core fan base in a way that it it just it's it it gets the snowball rolling, you know what I mean?
14:56
SPEAKER_00: So now when it's about to be new music time, we're not coming out completely out of hibernation.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
15:03
SPEAKER_00: We're we're we're already kind of moving.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: And then on the Thank the Maker Star Wars podcast level, the most God, there's a lot, actually.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: Um the new relationships that I've made through the podcast have been huge.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: Mike Forrester from Hondo Supply, who's now basically the fourth host, right?
15:23
SPEAKER_00: He's a dude that I met.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: You may have heard this on one of the previous episodes.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: We met because he came to a story of the year show with a friend, I don't know, almost 20, 18 years ago, probably.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: He was still in high school.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: And um I have this tattoo here.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, this is a long-winded story, but I have this tattoo um with the symbol from this retreat I went on in high school.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: I went to Catholic high school.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: So there's this thing called Kairos, and it's got this, it's like kind of cross thing.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm not religious at all, but it was it was a great experience with some friends, so I have good memories.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: So I had that tattoo and he saw it.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: It's like, dude, that cross, I know that cross.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: I went to uh Catholic high school as well, blah, blah, blah.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, that's tight.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: We should you should come hang.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: So he and his friend came and hang.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: I gave them beers, had no idea that they were 17 years old.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but either way, uh, you know, 17, 18 years later, he reminds me of this on Instagram because I had started following his account.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: I I was liking the stuff that he made and vice versa.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: And that, you know, you know how it is when you're on the internet interacting with all these people and there's no filter in terms of like right, you know, it's like hard to know who to connect with and why sometimes.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: But he he kind of reminded me of that, and I was like, oh shit.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: And then we just kept talking and becoming friends.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: And then he hits me with this idea for his podcast, Armor Party, and I thought it was great, it's about costuming.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: And then he joins the Thank the Maker network.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: And it goes from like, you know, you have your kind of circle of friends who are pretty into the same thing that you were into, and varying levels, varying degrees, to actually like really finding your people.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: And Mike was one of the first.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: And then we met through him, through trying to go to uh the Galactic Star Cruiser at Galaxy's Edge in Florida, the the hotel experience, uh travel agent, and some other friends who then started another pack, another podcast, Princess and Scoundrel, that's now part of the network.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: And that new community, that new friend group that we created that also has this listener community and our patrons and everything, is like I said, finding my people.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, it's so fulfilling on that level.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: And to get messages and feedback from listeners about how the podcast got them through the pandemic or got them through a hard time or helped them enjoy Star Wars more, or help them find other people that experience Star Wars in the same way and are all about positivity and love for this universe that we all kind of live kind of uh not vicariously, but right, yeah, I guess vicariously live through this universe when sometimes it feels like the one that we live in is shit.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Right.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: Um it's it's really uh it's hard to overstate how special and important that has become in my life.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: Funny because this is something else you and I can form kinship over.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: I find that the art of podcasting, especially in the past two years, has been kind of like a form of unintentional therapy.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: Because you retrace the past, you talk with people about their life experiences.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: One of the things I like to spell out whenever I'm promoting my show is like I like to prove that we have more in common than we do different in times when the world is forcing us to be separated.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, and I I think that's huge for all of us that have been able to experience podcasting and building a community around podcasts, is just getting to know people again and getting to almost reconnect in the same ways we did when we were kids.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: Like the the elementary playground kind of thing, you know what I mean?
19:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like you like baseball?
19:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like baseball.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: Or oh yeah, you play G.I.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Joe's, yeah, me too.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: So, what is it about pop culture that tends to run in tandem with story of the year?
19:33
SPEAKER_01: Because whether you guys are on an album cycle promoting an album or listening to Page Avenue crew, you guys make the most excellent pop culture references and obscure pop culture references that I'm like, oh shit, I know what they're talking about.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: We we've always spoken in movie quotes, kind of like the majority of the time, and there's something about our humor, our humor and our personality types that is it a comedian friend kind of validated for this for me.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: It it's like a form of improv, you know?
20:12
SPEAKER_00: I'll hear a word or a sound, and maybe this is the musician brain too, but like there you'll hear like a tonality in the way that someone says a word, and it brings back just like that, a movie quote or a lyric or something.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: And we can't not just blurt that out a lot of times, you know, right conversation.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of how we banter in a way.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: And being on tour, living in a house together, all that kind of stuff that comes from being bandmates.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: We're constantly we can't we at all times would have a movie on, whether it's on in the front lounge or it's on in the house, or like Ryan and I, we were like bunk mates in our in our house back in the day.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: We had Zoolander on every single night.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: We fell asleep to Zoolander every night.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's that kind of stuff where it just it's what you enjoy kind of uh in your free time while you're doing all this other wild shit and you're enjoying it together.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: So it just becomes the kind of the glue of a friendship, at least that's what it feels like to us.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: So we're like every other kind of old person where we're we're still telling the same jokes from 20 years ago, but it just happens to all be movies.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: And a little TV and uh music, but more movies than anything.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: It's funny.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: Have you uh have you seen the new Beavis and Butthead yet on Paramount?
21:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I finally watched it.
21:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my son and I sat down and I was like, holy shit, instead of making fun of music videos, they're making fun of like viral clips and TikTok videos.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh, dude, I haven't watched the series yet.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: I've only seen the movie.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: Oh, the the series, that's what they're doing in the new series.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: They're making fun of viral shit and like TikTok videos.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: It is the best thing ever.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, I'm like, oh man, whenever something comes back, you know it's there's a good chance, there's a 50 50 chance.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: It could be watered down.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I'm on this airdyne bike riding while my son's watching it.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: This TikTok video comes up, and it's just like just like they used to do with the music videos.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, nice.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: This is fucking excellent.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: That's perfect.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: So if you haven't seen it yet, that's uh that's a definitely uh a good retread.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about the new story of the year album.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: Are you ready to start talking about that yet?
22:23
SPEAKER_01: Because I know uh I know uh that promotion cycle and a pretty badass tour to uh go along with that is coming along.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: So let's let's talk about this.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: I um I don't know if I can say any dates.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: But there will be a new song out before the end of the month.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: I can say that.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Um we we're playing some shows starting at the end of the month as well, so we'll be playing that song live.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: There should be another song out next month.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's gonna be out before the end of the tour or not, but regardless, those two those first two songs, we've shot music videos for those already.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: They're being edited right now.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's coming fast.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: And the um yeah, what else can I say?
23:10
SPEAKER_00: I'll say the tour.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: We've got one leg of a tour that starts, I want to say in Denver.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: I could be totally wrong.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: End of this month, ends September 11th, and it includes a few of the Hawthorne Heights Is for Lovers festival.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: So I want to say there's four of those shows, and I think the majority of the shows we're doing with Hawthorne Heights, they may have one or two that we don't, but regardless, it's almost the exact same routing because we're sharing a bus and we're gonna be hanging with those dudes.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: We've known them forever, so that'll be great.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: It's mostly it's kind of like Denver and East.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I think Denver and Omaha are the only ones that are east of like St.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: Louis, so it's it's mostly Midwest East Coast.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we're doing in the fall, we're doing the uh end of October, um, when we were young festival, yeah, which is gonna be insane.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like the festival that broke the internet.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, just the logistics of it, you're like, how many fucking stages is this thing gonna have?
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's here's the explanation, the the short version.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, because a lot of people saw that bill and had the same thought that you had, like, how the fuck is this gonna work?
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, to the degree that a lot of people didn't believe it was real, right?
24:35
SPEAKER_00: But I assure you it's real.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, there will be three stages, and each one of those stages is technically two.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: It's a big rotating like carousel, so there's no downtime between sets.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's awesome.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: And all the stages are going full time.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure it's gonna start early as hell.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, if you you think like 30-minute warp tour sets probably for everyone, but maybe the last band, the headliners, it's just gonna be like, thank you, we're story of the year.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: Spin, hello, we're so-and-so, like bam, just like that.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: So it'll work logistically.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it is gonna be gnarly though, trying to see everybody you want to, but I've heard that they've kind of they've kind of grouped the bands and the you know, they're not like specific genre stages, but I think they group them intelligently, they're not just kind of throwing the lineup randomly.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: So it'll work.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: And then the people that are putting it on have been doing festivals for years, they've been involved in Warp Tour and Taste of Chaos and all that kind of stuff, so it'll be good.
25:37
SPEAKER_01: Right.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: So, in this modern era, this digital, this viral era, how has marketing a project or circulating your music and giving your music to an audience changed for you and your viewpoint of it?
25:55
SPEAKER_00: It has changed drastically.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: I'll just say about the the release style and that type thing.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Um it it it was news to me a couple months ago just how drastically it's changed.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Because it used to be, you know, you put out the first song, maybe two, but most likely just one song leading up to the album.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: And you would do that a few months in advance, you get everybody kind of hyped up.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: And if you were pushing it to radio, you would leave enough time to try to get it across the entire country or internationally or whatever, which used to take quite a while.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: And then you drop the album, and then you you'd have another one, two, or three, depending on how good the album was.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Singles, you know, I'll I'll use quotes now because sometimes that would be radio, some sometimes it would just be like an online push.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: And your whole record cycle would be a year or two, depending on how well it was doing, how extensive the touring was, and so on.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: Now it's kind of flipped in a way, yeah.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Where bands will put out almost half the album as singles.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Um I'll use air quote singles again because technically, like you might put out the first one, it has its own artwork, it goes out to Spotify and Apple Music as a single, but then the rest, like you start to see, at least on Apple Music, you see the whole album, you see all the track names, they're all grayed out except for the ones that have been released, and then it slowly trickles out.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: And then at the end of that, which tends to be towards the end of the actual touring cycle and stuff, it's like, okay, here's the rest of the album.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: Just there you go, there's the rest.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: And you kind of just dump the rest because people's attention spans are so short.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you give them the whole album up front, it's kind of gone in a week in a way, which is insane to me.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh so it's like a hybrid of what hip hop and pop artists have been doing forever, where they just keep releasing singles and eventually there's an album.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: But it's you know, the rock version is that the album has been there all along.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: It's in the can.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: It's just how about how it you kind of dull it out over time.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: So hearing the release date when we finally settled on one with management was like, really?
28:18
SPEAKER_00: Are you fucking shitting me like that far?
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, man, this works the best because you know you're gonna get more attention, more plays on each song if you do it this way, blah, blah, blah.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: So that's how it's happening.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I wish the world wasn't this way, but it is.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna just do our best with that.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: And I guess uh I guess by the time the whole thing is out, I'll have to act like I'm not completely burned out on it.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: Because that long with like all those just like because the thing's been done.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: I've been listening to these songs.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: We've all been listening to them like a motherfucker.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, it at least we uh at least we'll get to spread out the uh you know, the playing them live part of it, so we'll still have a little energy on that.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: But it is weird, you know what I mean?
29:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
29:08
SPEAKER_01: You thank you for being the first person to answer that question, honestly, because that's been my my personal observation.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: It's like I don't think it's about albums anymore, it's about songs and capitalizing on songs.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of that has to do with the muting of the physical format short of vinyl.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: Like vinyl is really the only tangible format that's really making a big comeback.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: Like CDs aren't selling like they used to.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, dude, we're talking about tapes for this, just because it's something cool to hold in your hand.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: It's not about putting it into something that will play it.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: And people do still like to have some sort of tangible good with the recording on it.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: It just I don't even know that it's CDs anymore.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: It's probably tapes and vinyl, just like you know, we were saying.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: I dude, I'm such an old person when it comes to all this shit because I I love like I mean, you probably can't see, but I have Star Wars shit everywhere.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: I just love to hold the thing that represents the thing I love.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: Yes, and whether that's toys or a prop or a poster or whatever, I love that shit.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: So when CDs started to go away, we talked about this a lot in the documentary that Ryan and I made.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: What is the product now?
30:19
SPEAKER_00: What's what's the thing you actually sell?
30:22
SPEAKER_00: Because you know, you're technically selling it as it gets played on a subscription service, but it's not the same, you know?
30:31
SPEAKER_00: No, right, I agree.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: So what is the product?
30:33
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking, like, man, that'll suck when CDs finally go away.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: What do you make like something like it used to like when CDs first came out?
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Remember, it was those tall, skinny cases, yeah.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: The long boxes, yeah.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: The cardboard with the the jewel jewel case up at the top.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna be something like that where it it feels more like a collectible?
30:54
SPEAKER_00: That didn't happen.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: And now, even I with this perspective on it, with this like kind of stubborn old view on the product.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: I was going through CDs the other day because my wife and I are moving, and every one of them I opened up, I was like, God, I don't fucking want this.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, like I don't even fucking want it.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: So something like a tape or a vinyl album that feels better.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Because honestly, CDs they were fucking janky, like great technology, but so fragile.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: The case, the disc itself, it was just such bullshit.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not bummed anymore that they're gone, and I'm actually excited for the stuff that replaces them, even if it's a like the idea of getting a cassette now.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: Like if one of my favorite bands put out a cassette, I'd go get a Walkman or some shit just to put it in and feel and hear that clunk clunk of the thing, you know.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: Dude, it's a ritual thing, it's totally a ritual thing.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I get that.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: I get that.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: So we're talking about doing weird shit like actually buying Walkman's or um even like a VCR to do a VHS tape and hand painting them or something like that, or spray painting them and customizing and selling those as like one or two or three off special high dollar like pre-sale products.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've I've been thinking kind of in in weird terms like that to try to make something special, not like, well, you get the t-shirt and the poster option or just the t-shirt or just the CD that you're never gonna fucking use.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, instead give people some cool stuff.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: So we'll see what actually pens out.
32:33
SPEAKER_01: I love your your mindset with this because I think that's part of the niche of the style of bands that we played in over the years.
32:42
SPEAKER_01: And the story of the year is we want to give our fans and our followers an experience.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: We don't want them just to be like, okay, cool song, bro.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm moving on to the next one.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: And this is such an instant gratification world that we live in that it's kind of disposable, just exactly like you said, why a release schedule has to be so long and drawn out.
33:05
SPEAKER_01: It's also probably why you see bands releasing new albums, and I'm doing their quotes now, so close together, because by the time they're finished with the release cycle of the first album, they're already knees deep into recording the the next album.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's it's weird.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: We're we're already talking about writing new stuff.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: Ryan never stops writing ever, so we're fully in that mindset.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: We just we want to keep it moving because we also don't want we don't want to go another six years without an album.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Prior to that, it was seven, eight years or something, and that's just that's insane.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: And making music is so much fun.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: Why not just keep it moving?
33:48
SPEAKER_00: Keep doing it.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: One of my favorite things about Story of the Year is that your live shows are an experience, they've always been an experience.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: Is that a part of your influences from the St.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: Louis area?
34:02
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm going somewhere with this, so um, a little bit.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the bar was high for us in St.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Louis because there's a band called The Urge.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: That's where I was going with that.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: And they were, dude, still to this day, they're phenomenal live.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: And they're not, it's not like they're crazy bonkers, like flip out energetic live, but they do have a lot of energy and they have a lot of band members.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: So you know, they're from that kind of they're kind of from the ska revival 90s scene, right?
34:32
SPEAKER_00: But with more rock.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: So there's that that like ska punk kind of vibe, and we and they sound so good live too.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: So we always looked up to them.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: But just adjacent to them, like in terms of energy and the dynamics of a show and how you come out, how you build your set.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Goldfinger was one of the biggest influences on us.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: And touring with them early on when Feldman brought us out and was just kind of trying to get a feel for our band and decide whether he wanted to work with us.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: We would, after every show, kind of analyze our our set, look at Goldfinger's set, talk about the sequence, talk about the like kind of the the dynamics and the speed with which we would go from one song to another, how we would build brakes and everything.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: So heavily influenced by them.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: And then we took a lot of cues from like some 80s hair metal bands.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: Like we we would watch these old poison videos and see them doing like somersaults, and they had weird slides and shit on their stage.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: So we combined all that and Pantera and Metallica and hardcore bands, like sick of it all, and just wanted to be the most energetic, in your face, what the fuck just happened to me, kind of live band that we could possibly be.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
35:48
SPEAKER_01: It's funny, you can't talk to a musician our age that came up when we did that saw the urge, that doesn't cite the urge as a live show influence, or cite Goldfinger as a live show influence.
36:02
SPEAKER_01: You you hit all the bells and whistles that I was after with that question.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: But um, I would almost I would almost equate the urge to being our generation's bad brains to a certain degree.
36:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, dude.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know what their influence was outside of the Midwest.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: In terms of like, you know, they they had a pretty big single on the second album, but they they they definitely never got the the widespread um fandom that I think they deserved.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: Agreed.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: So like there's only one other band that I've ever met outside of St.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Louis that knew the urge and knew them well.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: It was a band called Monty RI.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: That we toured with, and they were kind of a ska mashup sort of band.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: They were they were in like the ska punk emo overlap, you know, being several years later.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: And they were big fans.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: So it's rare, but when, like you said, when you do meet somebody that has seen them, you get it.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: Like you just and they're a weird band too.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: Like they're they're such a strange combination that I think they, you know, once the 90s kind of ended, that it was tough for them.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
37:16
SPEAKER_00: Because music was so varied and weird and experimental in the 90s that you could do anything, and people were like, damn, that's interesting.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: But that kind of got distilled down to something a little dumber later.
37:32
SPEAKER_01: There's a great documentary, and I actually had the documentarian Taylor Morden on the podcast not too long ago.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: He made uh a documentary called Pick It Up Ska in the 90s, and the guys from the Mad Caddies actually talk about when new metal hit, how everybody's like, oh, ska sucks.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: It was like six months.
37:51
SPEAKER_01: It was a six-month period of time.
37:53
SPEAKER_01: There's some great folklore.
37:54
SPEAKER_01: I've had Steve from The Urge on the podcast before.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: I love that guy.
37:59
SPEAKER_01: He has spent a lot of time up here in Nebraska, and he wouldn't confirm or deny it, but there is um some folklore about 1998 when the second Urge album dropped.
38:10
SPEAKER_01: They had the opportunity to play on K-Rock's Weenie Roast.
38:14
SPEAKER_01: But there was a big airport music festival in Des Moines, Iowa that really wanted the Urge to headline, and this was the same year that Slipknot got signed.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: The Urge did that show instead of the K-Rock Weenie Roast.
38:30
SPEAKER_01: So it's like, oh fuck, man.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: What would have happened if they would have done the K-Rock show?
38:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because they probably got paid more, uh, you know, headlining that festival, and they probably needed the money at the time.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, they were probably torn their asses off in a van forever and like, fuck, we'll take this big ass guarantee.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: But if they would have done Weenie Roast, they would have gotten spun all over the place on K-Rock, at least for you know, the month leading up to it.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: They could uh they yeah, they could still be full-time musicians right now, right?
39:01
SPEAKER_01: I I asked Steve about that, and he goes, I don't I don't remember about that.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, okay, just wondering.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, back in the day, I used to run with the the guys that ran around with the Slipknot guys.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: One of the shows I played in a ska band, and God, it was very short-lived.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: But uh one of the last shows the ska band played was one of the last shows Slipknot played before they went and uh recorded with Ross Robinson for that first album.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: So just just a weird thing, weird thing, you know.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: I I love ska and and reggae and shit like that.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: And like you said, it it did it did get shit on and kind of yeah, the world kind of turned on it as a genre, which is fucked up because there are so many things that are ska adjacent or that came out of ska or overlapped that are great, like that are amazing, you know, and bands who were straight up ska ends in the beginning that went on to become some other version of themselves that was much more mainstream, like No Doubt.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite bands of all time, I have a No Doubt tattoo.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: They're a ska band, or at least they were as much as anyone else, but I guess because they transcended it, they didn't get shit on and they and they survived the uh the skapocalypse.
40:17
SPEAKER_01: Good term, good term.
40:19
SPEAKER_01: So I talked about the show at the start of this podcast.
40:22
SPEAKER_01: I talked about the story of the year show I went to in 2005.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: It was in Kansas City.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: It was you guys and Berlin, Funeral for a Friend.
40:32
SPEAKER_01: It was fucking dope.
40:34
SPEAKER_01: Sick.
40:34
SPEAKER_01: My buddy Doug, he, of course, he is like, I gotta, I gotta do the meet and greet.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: I gotta do the meet and greet.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: And uh he had his sleeves pulled up and he's got that Empire Strikes Back scene, the scene, the the Luke Invader face off tattooed on his arm.
40:51
SPEAKER_01: You saw it and you're like, dude, that fucking tattoo's awesome.
40:55
SPEAKER_01: You rip off your shirt, you had to show him the the dueling X-Wing fighters, and I'm standing back and I'm like, what the fuck is going on here?
41:05
SPEAKER_01: So that was my that was my anecdote, that was my story.
41:08
SPEAKER_01: But I remember the thing I remember about that show the most is how you guys opened that set, that tour, because you talked about the 80s influence, and you guys did the best medley of 80s tunes, followed, you know, preceding with the uh the Star Wars theme.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: So such a great show, man.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, dude.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I don't I don't remember what our medley was at that time.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: I know there was some Boston in there.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: Sweet Child was one.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: Sweet Child of Mine, yeah.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: So it was more than a feeling, sweet child of mine, and maybe fuck, I don't know what else.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, we used to love that.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, lately we've been doing the past several years, we've been doing an emo medley because as emo has become like you know the new classic rock, uh it feels good to go out there and do a medley of friends that we've toured with and have a little like mini emo night, you know, before the last few songs is pretty sick.
42:05
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
42:06
SPEAKER_01: And like Dan's been DJing a bunch of the emo nights, hasn't he?
42:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: It's um it's a crazy awesome phenomenon.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: And the thing I keep saying is because people are like, this is fucking weird when people really see what emo night is, see people out there acting like they're at an actual show, but it's just a DJ up there, just right pressing next on the thing and singing along.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: Um I I've made the point that emo is I I think going to be a longer lasting genre, I hope at least than some of the other scenes that blew up and went mainstream, like hair metal or like grunge, because let's face it, people are always gonna be sad.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: So emo music it it is like punk in a way, where it's not just about a specific sound, it's about the lyrics, it's about the message and and the vibe.
43:04
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why, you know, like Papa Roach, um Last Resort was started started to get played at Emo Knight kind of ironically.
43:18
SPEAKER_00: It was kind of a tongue-in-cheek thing, but it made so much sense because you those are some fucking emo lyrics.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they are.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: And it even though it preceded like mainstream emo by several years, it it fit in that way.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: So it just kept getting played, and people stopped kind of singing it ironically and started to really embrace it, to the point that Jacoby actually showed up at an emo night several months ago.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: And it all that's when it all made sense to me.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: Because you've got a lot of there's a lot of stuff they played at emo night that isn't true, like you know, um, deep cut.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: emo stuff like late 90s you know mineral sunny day real estate kind of shit it isn't that it's it's a lot of mainstream stuff but it's the sing-along stuff that you connect to on a on a lyrical level so I feel like there's more longevity here we're not just you know we're not just like getting back out on the road because we need to take advantage of a trend that's back before it's dead like I I think emo as like a as like a I don't want to say a lifestyle but as like a just a vibe is it has a lot of legs you know I agree with that I I agree and it it doesn't have to just be sad like it can make you feel a range of emotions yeah one of one of my favorite things to listen to I mean again kind of jerking the uh story of the year hog here is uh is I love listening to sleep off of in the wake I I love that that is my cooldown song when I'm done working out I love listening to that and that doesn't that doesn't make me feel sad it it's like it it actually chills me out a little bit yeah and I was talking to a buddy the other day and we are actually discussing the exact this exact topic and he was talking about how and and not a diss on grunge but how the grunge era will never really have like that um that renaissance that uh people will get uber nostalgic about and I I said to him you know I go not to be blunt or disrespectful but probably because all the the big grunge singers are pretty much dead short of Vetty Vetter at this point.
45:35
SPEAKER_01: So I understand why hair metal has had that nostalgia return and I really do think it's gonna jump to the emo bands but I don't necessarily think it's just nostalgia.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: I think it's just because it's damn good music.
45:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah and it and it's all whether or not it's consciously designed it's it's all designed to connect on an emotional level.
45:58
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: And it's about all of the the stardom and and fandom that emo front you know lead singers especially have have gained comes from that connection whether it's direct with the fans and actually vocalizing it or just expressing themselves through those lyrics and through the vocals.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's much more relatable I think you know especially in the the 80s there it was a much different vibe.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: It was kind of you know you're holding an artist on a pedestal in a way that um it it's like there was no connection other than you know like the the backstage groupie connection.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
46:45
SPEAKER_00: It was about look at me and look at what I'm doing.
46:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
46:48
SPEAKER_00: And then Grunge was very much like I'm doing this um you know if my band gets big I'm selling out uh uh um don't just it was a it was a whole different vibe it was very awkward and very weird right right e as artistic as it was but emo is I think it kind of gives people everything that they want and need out of music yes and out of a relationship with an artist so again I think it has more longevity and that's cool for me cool for cool for musicians that keep get to keep doing it.
47:21
SPEAKER_00: If you don't well up a little bit every time that opening piano bit of Welcome to the Black Parade starts oh yeah you're dead on the inside yeah yeah so Adam what is your advice for making the world a better place right now with everything we're dealing with oh Jesus um that's my favorite question that's kind that's usually my closer it's like all right this is your prolific statement time brother I would say you have to engage we all have to engage it doesn't it doesn't matter how worn out you are because we all are we can't just coast we can't just let things just glide along the slippery slope to shit because that's what they the you know the larger they want us to do you know you have you have to stand up and fight and be vocal and yes it's tiring yes it's it becomes noise in your social media feed but that that that doesn't mean you can just sit back and act like it's not all happening.
48:34
SPEAKER_00: Right.
48:35
SPEAKER_00: So whatever your cause is just engage and do it with your community do it with other people engage in ways that actually create relationships and not tear them down.
48:52
SPEAKER_00: Yes you need to be loud sometimes yes you know there's some days when I'm like peace brother and some days when I'm like you know fuck you I won't do what you tell me you know but uh that you regardless you have you you just you have to continue to engage and and be part of your community like I said and when you do that you find whether it's through like volunteering or protesting or or donating or anything it's such a more fulfilling more uplifting experience than buying everything that you want living in the house you want driving the car you want those human experiences those human connections and interactions our brains are evolved to thrive on those things it's natural to make those connections and those like we're we're we're social species we're social primates so just get out there and do it open your mouth and uh don't give up have hope yes yes yes I love this shit I love it I love it and then make all the dick and fart jokes you can because everybody needs to laugh yeah dick and fart jokes always land you know yeah dude I mean yeah just so you know you're episode number 69 and you don't think I'm gonna make a dick and fart joke about that fucking you're kidding yourself brother where a dick and a fart at the same time oh god man you end up with pink eye with that shit yeah where can everybody find you online and uh plug your stuff yeah my stuff is at Adam the Skull on Twitter and Instagram the Star Wars podcast is Thank the Maker it's available everywhere you get podcasts we are at thank the maker pod on Instagram and TikTok we're at thank the maker on Twitter story of the year is at story of the year on I was about to say everything, but just Twitter and Instagram.
50:59
SPEAKER_00: We're trying to make the TikTok thing happen but we're old as shit so that's taking a minute for right now it's at story of the year PAC Page Avenue Crew and then the Page Avenue Crew podcast you get that wherever you get your podcasts new episode every Friday.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: I absolutely love it.
51:18
SPEAKER_01: Dude you didn't have to do this and I appreciate everything I appreciate you making the time for doing this I appreciate all the art you've created over the years.
51:29
SPEAKER_01: It's had a profound impact on my life I think the world's a better place with you in it brother.
51:34
SPEAKER_00: Thanks man I appreciate it a lot it's good to be here.
51:36
SPEAKER_01: Ah thanks for doing the show oh yeah in the words of Lenny Pepperbottom from Nietzsche Walk that was pretty neat.
51:44
SPEAKER_01: I want to thank my new friend Adam Russell from Story of the Year and thank the Maker Podcast for making the time for being on the podcast this week.
51:54
SPEAKER_01: He's been a busy guy.
51:55
SPEAKER_01: They've just filmed a few videos for the new Story of the year album.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: News on that coming very soon to make sure you follow Story of the year on all forms of social media and keep an eye on all the streaming platforms because new music will be dropping soon.
52:11
SPEAKER_01: If you've not listened to any of their other releases in Page Avenue do yourself a favor go back and listen to them all.
52:18
SPEAKER_01: You will understand why they are one of my most favorite fans of all time.
52:22
SPEAKER_01: While you're looking things up make sure you give caught on the mic with Michael Clark a follow on all forms of social media Instagram, Facebook TikTok and Twitter and visit me at www.cotonhe dot com this has been caught on the mic with michael clark.
52:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm Michael Clark.
52:41
SPEAKER_01: Till next time thank you