Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 745 - Diamond Rowe and Josh Fiore of Tetrarch Unpack "The Darker Side of Me" Album

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 745 - Diamond Rowe and Josh Fiore of Tetrarch Unpack "The Darker Side of Me" Album · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  You're going to hear a lot of no's, you know, like, you're
• 0:02
  going to hear a lot of no's. You're going to hear a lot of
• 0:03
  your bad's. You're going to hear a lot of
• 0:05
  hey, you should just leave the band and do something.
• 0:10
  You should have a different singer or like all kinds of
• 0:12
  stuff. You're going to hear all of this
• 0:14
  kind of stuff, and I think you have to realize that a lot of
• 0:17
  the time these guys have nothing idea what they're talking about.
• 0:20
  You know what I mean? Like they, so you just kind of
• 0:22
  have to bet on yourself. You have to know what your goals
• 0:25
  are, know what you're sure of, and you'll see them all again,
• 0:29
  you know at some point. This is Omar from Gold Skull
• 0:38
  Magazine, and I'm here with Diamond and Josh of Tetra.
• 0:42
  Tetra, how do you say your name for everybody who gets confused
• 0:46
  by it? It is tetrarch, so it's the
• 0:50
  chapter at the end makes AK sound tetrarch.
• 0:53
  Awesome. What's the funniest
• 0:55
  mispronunciation you've heard? Maybe our hometown venue back
• 1:00
  when we were coming up at the Masquerade in Atlanta had our
• 1:03
  name spelled Tech Art TE CH-A RT, But we've gotten everything
• 1:09
  Treyarch, Tetriarch. Tetrisit like that was pretty
• 1:13
  bad too. Yeah, the worst ones are the
• 1:15
  ones where it's like, clearly they didn't even attempt to look
• 1:17
  at how we spelled it. They were just, we're like,
• 1:19
  we're just gonna spell this name however we wanna spell it.
• 1:22
  That's when it's the worst. Like, I don't even know how you
• 1:24
  could get tech dash art from our name, but they did, so here we
• 1:30
  are. Luckily, it's got a lot better
• 1:32
  now. Yeah, tender for the most part,
• 1:33
  pronounce it right, so that's a good thing.
• 1:36
  It took a minute, though. You guys are like I've, you
• 1:38
  know, I am familiar with you guys just a name.
• 1:41
  We've I have not crossed paths with you guys yet.
• 1:44
  I've just kept missing you guys whenever you guys were in New
• 1:46
  York. I've I've never seen y'all, so
• 1:48
  I've you know how to do my research and like follow up on
• 1:51
  stuff that I wasn't familiar with in your discography just to
• 1:53
  make sure I'm brave for this interview and I've seen you guys
• 1:56
  around since. Oh, like you guys, your first
• 1:58
  demo came out in 07. Yeah, probably.
• 2:01
  So that's when we were like in school.
• 2:03
  We're still kids. And like, we were just like, we
• 2:06
  started just demoing things at home and, like, jamming together
• 2:10
  at home and stuff. So that's like, technically,
• 2:12
  like when Josh and I, like, met as kids and we were just
• 2:15
  started, you know, trying to try to make a real band kind of
• 2:19
  thing. Yeah.
• 2:20
  'Cause I noticed it's like, that's yeah, that's almost 20
• 2:23
  years ago now, which is insane, just just insane.
• 2:26
  And the fact that you, you guys have managed to stick together
• 2:30
  and keep a band going. I know how difficult it is to
• 2:33
  manage other relationships people.
• 2:36
  Your lineup has been fairly consistent for your most of your
• 2:40
  career. You know a little, you know,
• 2:41
  here and there, but you guys have had the same people
• 2:44
  consistently for a good run and it's impressive.
• 2:47
  Well, thank you. Yes.
• 2:48
  Yes, about kind of like, you know, luckily I met Josh really
• 2:52
  young and then it's about just kind of like making sure you
• 2:55
  meet other very like minded people.
• 2:57
  You know, I I know a lot of it's hard too, because a lot of
• 3:00
  people say they're like minded when you meet them.
• 3:02
  They're like, no, this is what I don't want to do forever.
• 3:04
  And then they fucking get married and have kids and
• 3:06
  they're like, never mind, I want to go work at UPS.
• 3:09
  So it like changes a lot. But I do think if you meet like
• 3:12
  very like minded people and you have the same goals and like
• 3:16
  that helps. Let me say, let me say that.
• 3:18
  But we definitely, we got lucky with that.
• 3:20
  You know, we met Ruben when we moved to LA and since then and
• 3:24
  we've been very, very stable. So we feel like.
• 3:28
  Ryan, you know, we got Ryan on base, you know, back when we
• 3:31
  were in Atlanta before even moving out to LA.
• 3:34
  So it's, you know, like you said, especially since our debut
• 3:37
  album, full length album Freak in 2017, you know, it's just
• 3:40
  been, it's been the four of us that you see.
• 3:43
  Yeah. And congratulations on that.
• 3:46
  And since it's your third record to guys together and we're on
• 3:50
  the eve of your new record, The Ugly Side of Me coming out on
• 3:55
  Napalm Records. Yes.
• 3:57
  Yeah. So let's talk about this record
• 3:59
  here, man. I gotta say it has people.
• 4:02
  You know, I've heard a little. Oh yeah.
• 4:04
  These are a new metal band. They're a metal core band.
• 4:06
  It's like, I don't, I can't pinpoint it.
• 4:09
  There's so many. Like I, you guys proudly wear
• 4:11
  your influences on your sleeve. You know, I hear elements of
• 4:14
  like, I hear like, yeah, obviously a little bit of corn.
• 4:16
  I hear some, some static X feeling with like the with that
• 4:20
  guys had this weird. You have this cool like
• 4:21
  industrial vibe to this record and I was like, this is kind of
• 4:26
  cool. Like you guys have very good.
• 4:27
  You guys have very it's a full sounding record.
• 4:30
  It's like you hear your instruments, you have the
• 4:31
  background ambience to the songs.
• 4:34
  Like some of them like they really stick out and I think
• 4:36
  it's really, I wasn't expecting that it was it's you guys did a
• 4:39
  really good job well. Thank you.
• 4:40
  Thank you. So what's it like now?
• 4:43
  Like this is since we're three records in 2025, how long after
• 4:49
  that thing did you guys start working on this?
• 4:51
  Because I feel like your last record kind of just got caught
• 4:54
  in the time talking to you like your first record, you know, I
• 4:57
  mean, you have that you said that little good bill of time
• 5:00
  because the world shut down. Yeah, it's interesting because
• 5:03
  we had so our last album Unstable, we had gone to the
• 5:07
  studio in 2019 and we finished it right and shot the video for
• 5:11
  our first song. I'm Not right, like a week or
• 5:14
  two before everything shut down. So, you know, we were all ready
• 5:18
  to go and we're like, we don't know what to do.
• 5:20
  So we kind of waited for like a couple months.
• 5:23
  And while the initial shock of everything being shut down was
• 5:26
  like everyone was dealing with that being home.
• 5:28
  And then for us, I mean, honestly, we put out our first
• 5:31
  single from that in May of 2020. And it was just right, you know,
• 5:34
  right place, right time, right song.
• 5:36
  And people were home. They were listening to music.
• 5:38
  And honestly, through the pandemic, we grew a lot as a
• 5:42
  band. A lot of people found us during
• 5:45
  that time. So I think the process, part of
• 5:48
  what makes it look like it was so long between then and the new
• 5:51
  album here is that we weren't able to tour right away on
• 5:55
  Unstable every the world was still shut down South, you know,
• 5:59
  end of 2021. And then all of 2022 we were we
• 6:02
  were touring, we're playing festivals, doing the the live
• 6:05
  part of an album cycle. And then we really started
• 6:08
  working on this album very end of 2022, but really like 2023,
• 6:13
  we went in the studio and you know, got what we got now.
• 6:16
  You got, you got to work with the great Dave and Terrio.
• 6:21
  It's Arrow. Yeah.
• 6:22
  You got to work with Dave. Like what did he bring to you
• 6:25
  guys? What did he bring to the record
• 6:27
  for you guys? Good, Josh.
• 6:29
  I think, you know, this is our third record with Dave.
• 6:31
  So he did Freak Unstable and then now the Ugly Side of me.
• 6:35
  And I think you know what? You know, Dave is mostly known
• 6:39
  in the metal community for sure for like extreme bands, you
• 6:41
  know, heavier bands, death metal, decapitation, stuff like
• 6:44
  that. But he has the sneaky good ear
• 6:47
  for like our Jean and you know, for harmonies especially.
• 6:52
  So I think we have a good working relationship with each
• 6:55
  other where, you know, maybe he can he helps when we have a
• 6:58
  heavy part. He knows just the right thing to
• 7:01
  be like, oh, but if you tried this, you know, it could be even
• 7:03
  heavier. And then we're also like, what
• 7:06
  if this part wasn't so this and we bring it back to Tetrarch.
• 7:10
  So it's like a really good balance and you know, he brings
• 7:14
  a really good big just Sonic sound and signature to mixes.
• 7:18
  So that's something that that's always, you know, great with him
• 7:20
  too. You get really big sounding, uh,
• 7:23
  songs and records gotta. Say it does.
• 7:25
  Yeah, the mix is the mix and the harmonies are great, man.
• 7:27
  I'm not gonna lie. It's like the breakdown.
• 7:29
  Like I'll say like the breakdown and crawl.
• 7:31
  There's that little weird breakdown spoken word ish part.
• 7:34
  I was like, what's this little double time halftime kind of
• 7:37
  what's going on here? Like that part.
• 7:39
  I was like one of my favorite. That was like one of my
• 7:40
  highlights of the record. I was like, oh, this is oh,
• 7:42
  that's a sneaky. I just like it.
• 7:44
  Which it was long. Yeah, you know, thank you.
• 7:48
  I was kind of hoping for a little bit of little extra other
• 7:50
  little like elements, cuz I, yeah, I got 1 back and I checked
• 7:53
  out like stuff like relentless and I was like, oh man, I was
• 7:55
  like, oh, will we get something like as like fast or something
• 8:00
  like that? I was like, oh man, like now the
• 8:01
  record, we had a little bit of blast speed.
• 8:02
  I was like, that's the only thing I was like just missing a
• 8:04
  little just a little sprinkle of a blast speed here.
• 8:07
  There's like some little extreme parts in there.
• 8:08
  But I, you know, you guys, you know, guys are pretty fucking.
• 8:12
  I don't know the right. It's like you guys are just
• 8:14
  good. That's you guys make it sound
• 8:17
  easy because I feel yeah, I'm a little bit older so yeah.
• 8:19
  You guys definitely bridge like a sound from a younger a younger
• 8:24
  me to like a you know, you guys hit like a nice.
• 8:28
  You guys come for like a weird like spectrum of time in your
• 8:31
  band sound and it doesn't like. I feel like yeah, your young
• 8:35
  people like you older folks like myself like you and I just think
• 8:38
  you guys are smart. It's you guys put the very smart
• 8:42
  style I. Think, well, yeah, I think when
• 8:45
  we start started, a lot of people would just, well, a lot
• 8:47
  of industry heads would disagree, but I'm glad we we
• 8:51
  stuck to our guns on that one. Yeah, everything is old.
• 8:54
  Everything that's old is like everything is getting a
• 8:56
  renaissance. Like, oh man, that wasn't cool
• 8:58
  20 years ago. Now it's like, oh man, I love
• 9:00
  that. Like, no, you didn't.
• 9:01
  You hated that 20 years? Ago, yeah.
• 9:06
  Let's see, what is it? So you guys have two videos with
• 9:09
  this record. What made you guys want to work
• 9:10
  with Vincent Corderoy? Yeah, Vicente, we.
• 9:15
  Vincente. He's done a few of our videos
• 9:17
  now. We did, you know, a couple of
• 9:20
  the last album and then these two, you know, we have, you
• 9:24
  know, same thing with Dave. It's like there's the
• 9:25
  comfortability and like the, you know, he has a very distinct
• 9:29
  style that works well with with what we do, you know, is always
• 9:34
  willing to try, you know, different ideas and and you
• 9:37
  know, we're able to you know, me and me and Diamond are very,
• 9:41
  very like hands on in Tetrarch. So for, you know, some people it
• 9:44
  can be that can seem hard to work with, maybe because you're
• 9:48
  just like, you know, everyone is an artist, whether they're a
• 9:51
  director or the artist or whatever.
• 9:53
  So everyone has a vision. So it, you know, with Vicente is
• 9:55
  like very easy to like if he gives an idea, we're able to
• 9:58
  just be like, oh, what about this instead, or you know what I
• 10:01
  mean? So it's just like a good
• 10:02
  working, working relationship, just a cool style and it just
• 10:05
  works with, you know, our. Aesthetic with the new songs and
• 10:07
  a new record, everybody's going off about, oh, Diamond is
• 10:11
  singing now. This is really cool.
• 10:13
  How soon after that was everybody like when you're
• 10:16
  putting out a solo record? Nobody has said that, but I
• 10:19
  think they probably know that's like a, a worthless endeavor
• 10:22
  because probably never know. I it was just something cool
• 10:28
  that we want, we've been wanting to try for some years now.
• 10:31
  And like, you know, before I was always a little like, I was
• 10:33
  like, Nah, too nervous to do it or just like didn't really want
• 10:36
  to do it. But this time, you know, in the
• 10:38
  past, like I've done like some backup or like harmonies and
• 10:41
  stuff on some other songs. But yeah, we finally just gave
• 10:46
  it a, gave it a shot with me doing like a couple of full
• 10:49
  verses on a couple of songs and sounds cool.
• 10:51
  Bring something different, like something people weren't
• 10:54
  expecting. You know, when they listen to
• 10:55
  the song, they're like, oh shit, is that diamonds?
• 10:57
  You know, just something cool and, and just to shake things up
• 11:00
  a little bit so it sounds cool. It has a cool dynamic.
• 11:03
  Yeah. You know, who knows what it
• 11:04
  could, what doors could open up there, but it was cool to do at
• 11:08
  least for this, you know, this batch of songs and, and it'll be
• 11:11
  cool to do live, too. You guys sound really good
• 11:14
  together when you guys do harmonize, those parts sound
• 11:17
  awesome. Like I'm a sucker for like album
• 11:19
  like sequencing. So like to me like like the way
• 11:22
  that album starts to the way it ends, it's like everything,
• 11:24
  everything's important. And I find like you guys know
• 11:27
  how to end records very strongly.
• 11:30
  You know, like, I find like the last songs on your records have
• 11:34
  all been my favorite tracks. You know, like this has like
• 11:37
  they all have this really cool vibe to them that's kind of
• 11:40
  like, they're just like a really cool, like mellow, not mellow,
• 11:43
  but darker, yeah, darker mellow vibe to it.
• 11:46
  Melodic vibe possibly. But.
• 11:48
  And I really like. Yeah, the way your vocals float
• 11:51
  on it. This was, you know, with the
• 11:53
  title track. It's like, oh, this is cool.
• 11:55
  It's like it's a song that I think it's should get put on
• 11:58
  repeat. A.
• 11:58
  Lot well, that's good. That's the goal, so.
• 12:02
  Let's see, let's see. Since we're at, since we're
• 12:04
  talking about Drew real quick, congratulations on your new
• 12:07
  guitar. Thank you.
• 12:08
  Thank you so much. It's been very cool to have it
• 12:12
  out out in the wild. I'm a I'm a drummer so I don't
• 12:15
  know guitars stuff that much. Does all that extra stuff after
• 12:19
  Monarch, does all those numbers mean something?
• 12:21
  Is that just their branding numbers or are they like?
• 12:23
  No, I mean something like the like the EVT means it's Evertune
• 12:28
  DR12 is just like the model like number diamond row and my
• 12:33
  favorite number's 12. And what numbers am I missing?
• 12:39
  To answer your question, yes they do all they do.
• 12:42
  All they mean something. They do mean something, yeah.
• 12:46
  And like it, there's a six in there, like an EDT six or
• 12:48
  something like that. It means a six string.
• 12:50
  Cool. Yeah, cuz Robert just like
• 12:53
  confused on me. I was like, hey, I'm just I just
• 12:54
  hit stuff when I I just hit stuff.
• 12:56
  This is out of my. Yeah, no, it's kind of long.
• 12:59
  It means something. I think it's it's more for the
• 13:01
  nerds. They kind of get that.
• 13:03
  But honestly, I kind of had to figure it out myself too, so
• 13:06
  don't worry about it. So I want to ask you guys about
• 13:08
  your songwriting process. Do you guys still write in the
• 13:10
  same room together or is it like hey I wrote a song like separate
• 13:13
  you guys bring it to the band rehearsal or do you guys jam
• 13:15
  stuff out like the olden days still?
• 13:17
  It's some, it's a mixture of of ways, honestly.
• 13:20
  You know, it can be. We literally had all scenarios
• 13:24
  on this album. You know, there's songs where
• 13:26
  maybe Diamond had the full structure of a of a demo laid
• 13:30
  out, you know, and sent it to me and I was like, oh, this is
• 13:34
  cool. And then I added something and
• 13:35
  sent it back. Or we have songs where we
• 13:37
  literally were just like in the same room, like, hey, let's
• 13:40
  start a song today. And then that what we made that
• 13:43
  first day ended up being on the album, you know, with some, you
• 13:48
  know, tweaks and things like that.
• 13:49
  So it's always different. It just usually will start, you
• 13:52
  know, me and Diamond will have some kind of idea.
• 13:55
  You're kicking off point. It could be just a single riff.
• 13:57
  You know, you can work all day and just have a riff that sounds
• 14:00
  cool and like, well, I got this done today and it sounds kind of
• 14:02
  cool. And then, you know, one of us
• 14:05
  just goes off of that. Or like I said, you could have a
• 14:09
  whole song structure together. There's not really like one way,
• 14:12
  I guess, but it always is like we do take pride in like writing
• 14:16
  our songs and, and you know, it's very important to us.
• 14:19
  I found these I found this record very catchy.
• 14:22
  It's a lot of really good hooks on it.
• 14:24
  It's like, Oh yeah, you pretty like all the the song they put
• 14:26
  on the video. Those would be like the big ones
• 14:29
  and everything else we kind of like, you know, like generic.
• 14:32
  But I found the whole record to be very.
• 14:35
  Yeah. Like I said, there's like, it's
• 14:36
  a there's no filler in it. That's a good word.
• 14:39
  Yeah. There's no filler in this
• 14:40
  record. I found every song could be a
• 14:42
  single. Yeah, I think we that's always a
• 14:45
  goal goal, whether it was Freak or Unstable or this one, we
• 14:48
  always wanted to. We always try to make records
• 14:50
  where like any song could be a single.
• 14:53
  Our band kind of like walks that line to where it's like we have
• 14:57
  heavy elements where we have like catchy elements as well.
• 14:59
  So it's kind of like cool that we walk that line because we
• 15:03
  never really have songs on a record where it's like, oh,
• 15:06
  that's too heavy to be like a single at all.
• 15:10
  You know, it could be like a more metal single, but it's
• 15:13
  still could be a single, you know what I mean?
• 15:14
  So it's kind of cool. It makes it hard to pick singles
• 15:17
  when it's like that, but it's kind of cool.
• 15:19
  And we always, you know, we grew up listening to bands that were
• 15:23
  like heavy or bouncy but had big choruses and like you could sing
• 15:27
  along to them. And I think we've always like
• 15:29
  prioritized that in our band as well because that's what we
• 15:31
  enjoy writing is like really catchy songs.
• 15:34
  But then you could go into like super heavy breakdown after the
• 15:37
  Super catchy chorus. So it's always cool when people
• 15:41
  say like, oh, your record's so catchy.
• 15:42
  You know, to us, that's like a we look at that as a compliment
• 15:45
  too, because we do and we still are working on trying to write
• 15:49
  like the catchiest, you know, big courses we can and still
• 15:53
  keeping that edge and stuff. And it's a lot of fun to try to
• 15:55
  kind of figure out how to how to do that like some of our
• 15:58
  favorite bands, you know, always did.
• 16:00
  Yeah, because I was listening to Best of Luck and it just
• 16:01
  reminded me that was to me, we're just like, oh, that just
• 16:04
  felt like an old school, like an old school, like late 90s, like
• 16:08
  2000s kind of song. Just what the fuck is and
• 16:11
  everything. It just like, oh, just it just
• 16:13
  though, it just took me back to that spot.
• 16:15
  Like, like, Oh yeah, this. Yeah, I could feel this.
• 16:17
  If I was like a high school kid, I could totally see myself like
• 16:20
  in school with the, with the riding on my jacket or this or
• 16:24
  the Sharpie. Marks.
• 16:25
  But it's like, oh, this is like it's.
• 16:27
  I thought it was very clever. Thank you.
• 16:30
  You guys are very seasoned veterans, man.
• 16:32
  It's like, what about this cover now?
• 16:34
  What made you go with like, I don't have the information on
• 16:37
  who did this cover. Beautiful cover.
• 16:39
  Who? Who did discover?
• 16:40
  Yeah, it's a guy named Kevin Moore.
• 16:44
  He did our last, like our layout on our last album as well.
• 16:48
  You know, he, we kind of for a while have had this idea of
• 16:52
  having some kind of bug on the on the cover.
• 16:57
  Even when we were recording this album, it was like a moth
• 17:00
  infestation in Colorado for like 3 days.
• 17:03
  There was like just thousands of moths everywhere.
• 17:05
  You would go flying around like crazy and then one day they just
• 17:07
  like disappeared and went somewhere else.
• 17:09
  It was like weird. But you know, bugs are always
• 17:12
  kind of weird. They're a little bit gross.
• 17:14
  They're kind of yeah. But you know, a revelation we
• 17:18
  kind of had is like with the album being the ugly side of me,
• 17:22
  you know, Bugs Pete, a lot of people consider to be kind of
• 17:24
  gross, like I said, or ugly. But at the end of the day,
• 17:27
  they're just another life form trying to be the best version of
• 17:30
  themselves that they can be. And that kind of resonated with
• 17:33
  us is like kind of summed up the album.
• 17:36
  I felt like like, you know, there's parts of yourself you
• 17:39
  don't maybe want to deal with or situations you're in, but like
• 17:42
  it's about just getting through those things and, and be in the
• 17:45
  best you that you can. And so it was kind of like kind
• 17:48
  of a metaphor, I would say a little bit.
• 17:49
  The fly made an appearance in your video and.
• 17:52
  I was like very good observation.
• 17:54
  Yeah, it's very intentional. I was like, OK, so this, there's
• 17:58
  a theme here. I couldn't.
• 18:00
  I was too dense at the time to put it together, but I was like
• 18:03
  oh wait a minute, I see this like.
• 18:05
  You're the first person who's actually connected the two,
• 18:07
  strangely enough, so good job. At least who's who's told us
• 18:10
  they've connected to? I mean, I'm sure they've
• 18:12
  connected. Yeah, I mean, just like from the
• 18:16
  album cover, like just from the the coloring of the yeah, the
• 18:20
  coloring of the album cover to like the video, it's like
• 18:22
  they're very, they seem seamless, like in a way, like if
• 18:26
  I pull back, if I if this cover was like in front of me, if I
• 18:29
  pull it back, you would start that video.
• 18:31
  It seems like they blend well. Together.
• 18:33
  That's awesome. Yeah.
• 18:35
  Thank you for, you know, helping our ego some, you know, we feel,
• 18:39
  we feel like we're doing something right, maybe.
• 18:45
  I understand how hard it is to stand out in the CEO of
• 18:49
  everything coming out at any given week, you know, because I
• 18:52
  feel like this year we're finally getting albums that
• 18:56
  should be coming out. I feel like the last couple
• 18:58
  years it's been COVID catch up, so like there's been more
• 19:01
  records out than to me, there should be.
• 19:03
  There's like, yeah, there's too many.
• 19:04
  We can't have like 200 records coming out this week.
• 19:07
  There's no way anybody, unless you have some kind of a name,
• 19:11
  you, you're just no one's listening for it, but.
• 19:14
  Yeah, you know, you definitely, it's definitely a lot of lot of
• 19:18
  traffic, you know, but I guess that's part of the game, you
• 19:21
  know, gotta So it's cool in some ways, especially when it comes
• 19:25
  to touring and stuff. You know, you have so many bands
• 19:27
  and awesome packages you can put together and stuff like that.
• 19:31
  But you definitely have to be strategic with when you release
• 19:34
  things as much as you can be. Like I said, it's probably just
• 19:38
  part of it, you know, something we have to all work through.
• 19:41
  So let me ask, since we're in the world, since we're in the
• 19:44
  world, we are now the current landscape of everything
• 19:48
  different. Now, is Torin gonna look for you
• 19:51
  guys overseas? Well, this is, you know, we're
• 19:55
  actually going overseas for the first time this summer.
• 19:59
  So I mean, we're, you know, for us, we'll be like, oh, I guess
• 20:02
  this is normal, you know what I mean?
• 20:04
  So, you know, we're excited to get overseas for the first time.
• 20:07
  We have a lot of. You know, we feel good about
• 20:10
  getting over there. A lot of, we've always having
• 20:12
  people write us constantly about getting to Europe.
• 20:14
  So we're super stoked to play some of those big festivals and
• 20:18
  some shows over there. We're excited to experience it
• 20:20
  so. For 20 years, like 20, almost 20
• 20:23
  years, you guys have been doing this.
• 20:24
  What is one thing you would tell younger you to look out for?
• 20:28
  To look out for. To look out for.
• 20:31
  Always, always. Bet on yourself.
• 20:37
  I mean just. Yourself, yeah.
• 20:39
  Yeah, honestly, it it's hard because, you know, you do have
• 20:41
  to have some sort of self-awareness and like your
• 20:46
  abilities and your talents and you know, can't be out here bad
• 20:51
  and being like I'm the greatest thing ever.
• 20:52
  But at the same time, there's a lot of people in this industry
• 20:56
  that like you're going to hear a lot of no's, you know, like
• 20:59
  you're going to hear a lot of no's, you're going to hear a lot
• 21:00
  of your bad's. You're going to hear a lot of
• 21:02
  hey, you should just leave the band and do something.
• 21:07
  You should have a different singer.
• 21:09
  Like all kinds of stuff. You're going to hear all of this
• 21:11
  kind of stuff. And I think you have to realize
• 21:13
  that a lot of the time these guys have no fucking idea what
• 21:16
  they're talking about. You know what I mean?
• 21:18
  Like they so you just kind of have to bet on yourself.
• 21:21
  You have to know what your goals are, know what you're sure of
• 21:24
  and you'll see them all again, you know, at some point.
• 21:28
  But I think really, like Josh said, it's just like betting on
• 21:30
  yourself. You got to know what your what
• 21:32
  your goals are. I think that's another big one.
• 21:35
  It's just like, know what you're in it for too, you know, like
• 21:38
  know what your ultimate goals are.
• 21:39
  That helps you a lot with how to progress and move forward.
• 21:42
  This is in an industry you get in just for fun, you know what I
• 21:46
  mean? It's definitely something you
• 21:47
  get in, you know, to, I think a lot of times too, it sucks.
• 21:52
  Artists get in it and they're like, you know, just going to
• 21:54
  get out here and I want to just play music with my friends.
• 21:56
  And while that is like the funnest part of it, it's also a
• 22:00
  business too. And it's a very hard one.
• 22:02
  And so you have to have your head on straight, man, you know
• 22:06
  what I mean? Because it'll beat you down.
• 22:07
  So you got to just know why you're doing this, bet on
• 22:10
  yourself, and you got to be freaking tenacious.
• 22:13
  Shit. You.
• 22:14
  Know, you know, young, like young, young us like no, just
• 22:18
  means that there's a better opportunity coming because
• 22:20
  that's always been the trajectory for our band.
• 22:22
  It's like we every time we've not got an opportunity and we're
• 22:25
  like super bummed about or like, man, this, this sucks.
• 22:29
  Why couldn't we do this? And then it's like an
• 22:31
  opportunity we would have never thought of comes along, you
• 22:34
  know? So it's just that's that whole
• 22:36
  just always just keep going, you know, and I think that's what we
• 22:39
  have. We've all, we just always keep
• 22:40
  going no matter what. Yeah.
• 22:42
  It's called the music business, not the music friendship,
• 22:45
  unfortunately. Yeah, exactly.
• 22:47
  Yeah, I remember Dee Dee Verde from Overkill, like in one of
• 22:51
  the documentaries they did for the 20th anniversary years back.
• 22:54
  He was like being in the music industry.
• 22:56
  He's being able to take a bat, a bat to the teeth every day and
• 22:59
  keep smiling. Yeah.
• 23:06
  That's one way to put it. You definitely, I think we've
• 23:11
  always too had this like mindset even like when we were in a van
• 23:14
  and like sleeping in Walmart. We just always like have this
• 23:17
  mindset of like this just a means to an ends, you know, like
• 23:20
  this is what we have to go through to get to where we want
• 23:22
  to go. Like even as like teenagers, you
• 23:25
  know, doing that, we thought that.
• 23:27
  So nothing ever like that got us down like we would, we were
• 23:31
  making 0 to $25 at a show, you know, getting screwed by local
• 23:37
  promoters and all that kind of stuff.
• 23:39
  We were young, but we always just were like, this is part of
• 23:42
  our journey and we're going to rise above it.
• 23:44
  Like I think we've always all thought that way and it never,
• 23:47
  we've never quit or been like, oh, do we want to do this?
• 23:50
  Like we've never had that thought or anything like that.
• 23:53
  It was just like, it's all good, we're going to be fine, you know
• 23:55
  what I mean? And I think that's just always
• 23:57
  helped us a lot. Like, yeah, just I don't see how
• 24:00
  to eat shit. But yeah, you kind of have to
• 24:02
  just eat shit for a while. And you know, how much can you
• 24:05
  put up with? Cuz like as you said, as you
• 24:07
  said, like earlier, it's like, yeah, some people, you know,
• 24:11
  wash out because like, you know what, I'm tired of sleeping in a
• 24:14
  van. It's like, hey, I kind of want
• 24:16
  to make more money and people just lose the passion for being
• 24:20
  in a van. That's and that's kind of brutal
• 24:23
  for some people to accept. Yeah, I think every time we
• 24:26
  found ourselves in like a tough situation on the road in like
• 24:29
  the early days and stuff, it always ended in laughter.
• 24:31
  Like it was always like, oh, we ran out of gas again, like, and
• 24:36
  we would just laugh about it and be like, well, we'll figure it
• 24:39
  out. We've always just been like,
• 24:41
  we'll figure it out. So I think that's like that.
• 24:44
  From being. Down about anything because it's
• 24:46
  like you're still having fun. Yeah.
• 24:48
  I think it also helps too that more than we even say, like
• 24:51
  we've always had very, very supportive support systems.
• 24:55
  Like our parents, all of our parents have always been so
• 24:59
  supportive of what we've done, what we do when we were young
• 25:02
  and out there on in a van with a trailer.
• 25:05
  No business being out there. Never driven a van and trailer,
• 25:07
  nothing like that before or first tour.
• 25:10
  Just kids like we can always call home and like just like say
• 25:14
  hey. And they always give words of
• 25:16
  encouragement to like we always had to like this like support
• 25:20
  system that told us, like, you guys are going to be just fine.
• 25:22
  Like you're doing what you're supposed to be doing.
• 25:24
  You don't know how much this is like teaching you that this is
• 25:27
  helping you. My dad used to always tell us,
• 25:29
  and it sounds kind of brutal, but I know what he means.
• 25:31
  Like he would always be like, just remember this is what you
• 25:33
  chose. And like to me that just told me
• 25:37
  like you're right, I could be fucking working at Walmart right
• 25:40
  now. You know what I mean?
• 25:41
  Like doing something that I don't want to be doing that I
• 25:44
  like, not against anyone I worked in Walmart loves it.
• 25:46
  Like I don't mean that. I'm just saying like we could be
• 25:48
  doing that, doing something we don't like and be miserable.
• 25:51
  But yet we're out here and we might have just played a show to
• 25:54
  three people, but we're in the middle of Oklahoma playing a
• 25:58
  show to three people. You know, like, hell yeah, we
• 26:01
  chose this. We're doing what we want to be
• 26:03
  doing. And like, that's more than we
• 26:04
  can say for, you know, a lot of people aren't able to even get
• 26:07
  get to that point. So like, we felt good.
• 26:10
  Like we're out here doing exactly what we want to be
• 26:12
  doing. You know, we chose this life
• 26:14
  that we're pursuing. And for some reason, that always
• 26:17
  gave me some kind of comfort. I was like, you know what?
• 26:18
  Hell yeah. Like, I'm doing this because we
• 26:20
  want to be doing this. I'm not being made to do this,
• 26:22
  You know what I mean? So it's always cool.
• 26:24
  Like we just always had like a lot of support and just very
• 26:30
  strong minds, I think. And we just love what we do.
• 26:32
  We love, we love it, you know? We we could take like, yeah,
• 26:35
  there's three people at this show.
• 26:38
  You know, when you're super young starting now, you're like,
• 26:40
  oh, there's only three people there.
• 26:41
  Well, also like the other bands were there.
• 26:42
  So like, oh, we're playing with like 10-12 people tonight.
• 26:44
  That's pretty sick. You know, like we always would
• 26:46
  take it and be like, that's a positive.
• 26:48
  You know, we're never like super bombed or anything.
• 26:51
  And we'd be like, hey, the bands are people too.
• 26:53
  They like bands, so, you know, like, so.
• 26:56
  So, yeah. We always turned it around into
• 26:58
  something good, yeah. It's like, it's nice.
• 27:00
  It's nice to hear you guys don't sound jaded like a lot of
• 27:04
  people. I think we try very hard to make
• 27:08
  sure we don't become that way because we're around a lot of
• 27:11
  musicians and a lot of times they are jaded and it just seems
• 27:14
  so like it's so exhausting to be around that for us because we
• 27:18
  love what we do. We're so excited about even just
• 27:21
  like playing festival still and just stuff like that.
• 27:23
  We're just getting really excited about playing for fans,
• 27:25
  like meeting fans and tours and all of that.
• 27:29
  And it keeps that passion going, you know what I mean?
• 27:31
  But then when it gets to the point when you're around other
• 27:34
  musicians that like, oh, I hate touring Europe, it sucks and I
• 27:38
  hate doing this. It sucks.
• 27:39
  It's just like, well, damn. Like, I bet it does suck with
• 27:42
  that attitude, you know what I mean?
• 27:44
  So like, we just try to have fun.
• 27:45
  Like we're like going to Europe for the first time and, you
• 27:48
  know, we have to like, limit our crew a little and stuff like
• 27:51
  that and stuff that like we're not used to.
• 27:54
  But at the same time, we're like, hell yeah, we're going to
• 27:55
  Switzerland. It's going to be sick, you know
• 27:57
  what I mean? There's just, like a lot of
• 27:59
  things that we're really excited about too, for our first time
• 28:01
  there. And we always just try to find
• 28:03
  the positive, you know what I mean?
• 28:05
  Like we just always try because at the end of the day, it's
• 28:07
  like, look what we get to do with our life.
• 28:09
  You know, we make a living doing this.
• 28:11
  This is, it's incredible. This is what we dreamed of when
• 28:13
  we were 12, you know what I mean?
• 28:15
  So we're really excited about it.
• 28:17
  We stay excited. I think it's what might be a
• 28:20
  pause apart is I think part of it is you guys are from Atlanta,
• 28:24
  so you guys are more just your mindset's a little bit more
• 28:28
  relaxed than us Northern New Yorkers who are like go, go, go
• 28:33
  or California people who are like, it's always sunny.
• 28:36
  I've got to find something to be angry at.
• 28:37
  You know, it's like you guys, you guys just have a like a
• 28:40
  nice, like you guys have a chill, a chill mindset.
• 28:43
  And I gotta say, that's kind of refreshing to see people just
• 28:46
  you're like, yeah, just some people know how to roll with the
• 28:48
  punches and some people don't Like I've.
• 28:50
  I've noticed. Yeah.
• 28:51
  You play New York City, NY City bands and shows here.
• 28:54
  Like one thing, we're all like spoiled.
• 28:57
  But, you know, back in the day when the before the chance close
• 29:00
  up in Poughkeepsie, you know, the same band would come there
• 29:04
  and the show would be 10 times more energetic because it's
• 29:09
  like, oh, wow, we're not New York City.
• 29:11
  You guys came to our town. Everybody was just excited to
• 29:14
  seeing a show up there. And no matter what, I'm like,
• 29:17
  wow, I see the same show, maybe the same market.
• 29:19
  It might be a different market, but like, oh cool, the same band
• 29:21
  will play there. I see like a week ago down in
• 29:23
  New York. It's always better.
• 29:24
  Yeah, Oh yeah. We found playing, like, we love
• 29:27
  playing everywhere, but there's some cities that just stand out.
• 29:30
  And a lot of times it's like in the Midwest, man.
• 29:32
  Like, you know, you'll play New York and like LA and stuff and
• 29:36
  it's cool. Like shows are good or whatever,
• 29:37
  but you play freaking well. Nothing top Denver, Co ever.
• 29:42
  But you play like freaking Oklahoma City or like actually
• 29:47
  whenever we play. What's that?
• 29:49
  Even Poughkeepsie, we played up there, I remember and it was a
• 29:51
  great show. Yeah, when we play Jersey, like
• 29:57
  even compared to New York, like we played, where was that?
• 30:00
  We played with the trade you, Josh.
• 30:01
  Was it like Starland or something like?
• 30:03
  That maybe Starland or something like that, like shows are
• 30:05
  awesome. Like, it's always really cool
• 30:07
  outside of the big cities too, you know?
• 30:09
  So especially for our genre, those kids just get down so.
• 30:13
  Yeah. Well, as we get ready to wind
• 30:15
  this down guys, thank you both for your time.
• 30:17
  I appreciate it very much. Yeah, no problem.
• 30:20
  I have to ask you, because I ask everybody at the end of our
• 30:23
  interviews, what was your favorite song on the record?
• 30:24
  Because, you know, it's just nice to know, like.
• 30:27
  I said I go for the title track because it's the last song on
• 30:30
  the record and it's like there's a repeat.
• 30:33
  There's a repeat like I can put this song on Luke over and
• 30:36
  that's my thing. It's like I like I'm gonna just
• 30:38
  dim the lights down. Just put this song on and I
• 30:40
  could just like vibe out to it. And that that's what gets me
• 30:44
  nowadays. I love the crazy fast technical
• 30:46
  songs like everybody does, but give it a nice slow one and
• 30:49
  like, oh, this is kind of this is it has a cool vibe.
• 30:52
  It's got a really cool mellow. Dim the lights down and just if
• 30:55
  you smoke, smoke. I don't smoke but I can't get
• 30:57
  sit there. But like, yeah.
• 31:00
  Everybody thinks I smoke. I'm straight edge guys, sorry.
• 31:04
  No, it's all good, man. That's awesome.
• 31:06
  Well, thank you. I appreciate you telling me no.
• 31:10
  Problem. So what do you guys have coming
• 31:12
  up next? You said you have a European
• 31:13
  Tour coming up. What else do you have?
• 31:15
  Anything domestic. Yeah, yeah.
• 31:18
  We we go overseas for the summer, like you said, the Euro
• 31:22
  festivals will be announcing some more European dates around
• 31:25
  that hopefully this week. And then after that, yes, it'll
• 31:29
  be a lot of American touring. So that's currently being worked
• 31:33
  on and we're really excited about that because it's been a
• 31:36
  minute since we've toured our homeland.
• 31:39
  So we're excited about touring America too.
• 31:41
  And that should be pretty much most of our fall.
• 31:43
  So more news on that too at some point.
• 31:46
  But yeah, I think now that the record is coming and going to be
• 31:50
  out, big focus on a lot of touring.
• 31:53
  Like like Josh said, especially since with Unstable, we did
• 31:57
  some, but because of the pandemic we weren't able to do
• 31:59
  like a ton. And we look at touring like our
• 32:02
  bread and butter. Like we love touring, we're
• 32:04
  touring bands, we love playing live.
• 32:06
  That's like just what we've been doing since we were kids and we
• 32:09
  still love it. So we're looking forward to just
• 32:11
  really giving this album it's due and touring and getting
• 32:14
  everywhere that we possibly can. Josh.
• 32:18
  No, I think she she said it pretty perfect honestly.
• 32:21
  And. There you have it, Josh and
• 32:23
  Diamond of Ted Shark. Thank you guys so much for being
• 32:26
  here and enjoy the rest of your evening and I'll see you.
• 32:30
  Thank you. When?
• 32:30
  You hit New York. Thank you.
• 32:32
  We'll see you soon. All right.
• 32:33
  Bye. Bye.