Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / Matt Marquez: Norma Jean

Transcript

Matt Marquez: Norma Jean · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

• 0:06
  Yeah. Yeah, today we have Matt mark Has with us and Matt is
• 0:33
  the drummer for Norma Jean. We are so excited. Matt. I just
• 0:38
  have to start at the beginning and say that Norma Jean is a part of
• 0:45
  probably one of the coolest moments of my life, and that is this last
• 0:49
  year at Furnace Fast there was this very very viral video got like fifty million
• 0:55
  views of two people stage diving to Memphis, and I'll just say I was
• 1:00
  the first one. I was the one in the red shirt that jumped,
• 1:04
  and it's so cool to see like that just kind of like take off the
• 1:08
  way it did. And so anyway, I'm indebted to the coolest moment in
• 1:12
  my life to Norma Jeane. Yeah, that's awesome. This is that's actually
• 1:17
  like a really cool, little full circle moment because I that's one of the
• 1:21
  things I was talked about after the show, telling the friends or family that
• 1:26
  this part of the song, this thing happened, you know, And it's
• 1:29
  one of those moments that I just didn't forget from not just that show,
• 1:32
  but shows most shows. So it's very rare meeting person behind something like that,
• 1:40
  and so this is really cool right now. That's funny. Well,
• 1:42
  I remember like the show, you know, and it like didn't get off
• 1:46
  to the start that you wanted to right because there was all the like pa
• 1:48
  stuff going on and it took forever. And then obviously you have like the
• 1:52
  person who like collapsed in the middle of the show, and and uh,
• 1:56
  I think it was like before the show started. I remember, you know,
• 1:59
  like the the Idle Threat guys were out there and you're talking with Justin
• 2:01
  and you're just like trying to like get yourself like stay in the mode of
• 2:06
  like a show even though like everything's going wrong. And Colin and I during
• 2:10
  that time, we're talking like what, like is it possible to like dive
• 2:15
  from this, like could we actually jump? And we had just saw sixty
• 2:20
  eight and we staged ove to that when they played the City that Chariot song,
• 2:24
  so that was like super cool and so we stage staged ove to that,
• 2:28
  and so we were already in that like stage diving mode and we were
• 2:30
  like can we do it here on the main stage? Can we clear the
• 2:34
  gap? And Colin was like, I think as long as like that that
• 2:38
  like bass monitor or whatever, that monitor was in the middle between the stage
• 2:42
  and the barricade. He was like, as long as that's not like not
• 2:45
  too wet, I think you can. I think you can just like leap
• 2:47
  frog off of that and clear it. And now like now looking back and
• 2:52
  I see I'm forgetting the guy's name now from idle threat who jumped as well
• 2:57
  something like that. Anyway, he's a guitarist anyway, like to see him
• 3:01
  like actually fully cleared, I like kind of look back now and like,
• 3:05
  damn, I should have done that. Like I just wanted to play it
• 3:08
  safe though by leapfrogging off that monitor. I mean that leap frog was kind
• 3:13
  of swaggy. It was like, oh you like this was like a precision
• 3:15
  move where the other one was just a gamble. Yeah right. I was
• 3:21
  like, man, the guy that leapfrog, he knows what he's doing.
• 3:24
  Like you like sat there with a clipboard and graph paper and you engineered this.
• 3:30
  That was That was all Cullen's doing. He was the one that mastermind
• 3:34
  that, and I executed it. It's well executed. Actually it was.
• 3:39
  It was over beers at the back forty next door. It was awesome.
• 3:45
  Also, I just want to I want to have a little shout out.
• 3:47
  No I know that Matt, this is not your symbol or your signature,
• 3:53
  but I do need to get your signature on this. Right now, I
• 3:55
  have mister Holyoake or um your or your predecessor. Okay, I have I
• 4:02
  have his signature on this, Yes, says Norma Jean. Right there.
• 4:08
  Mason got this for Christmas for me a couple of years ago, and it's
• 4:12
  it's one of my most prized possessions. So I gotta get your name on
• 4:15
  it. Would you ever? Would you ever be willing? I mean absolutely?
• 4:18
  I mean you can like mail it to me and no mail it back
• 4:21
  or something, or you just got to come see another show, right Yeah,
• 4:25
  I mean now we're never gonna play shows again. That's that's the big
• 4:29
  news. Yeah, right, just dropping that early, I would be heartbroken.
• 4:36
  Mason and I both have Norma Jean tattoos, like I mean, that's
• 4:40
  I mean, we're we're we're skin deep. That's so cool deep, Like
• 4:45
  like what which what tattoos are they we have? From? Oh god?
• 4:49
  Okay, yeah, so I got I got, I got the same We
• 4:54
  all have the same tattoo. Yeah. It's sort of like I mean for
• 4:58
  us in the band, like it's It's kind of one of those things like
• 5:01
  that over time, you've been in his band long and if you should,
• 5:04
  you should maybe get it, you know, and you know, because like
• 5:10
  everyone had and now everyone in the group has one. Oh really Okay,
• 5:14
  Yeah, I think I think Corey showed us one after a show, Like
• 5:18
  when you guys were touring with Idle Threat, we saw you guys, and
• 5:21
  um, I'm pretty sure after the show, we like got to hang with
• 5:25
  Corey for just a bit and I think we like mentioned about our tattoos and
• 5:28
  I think he showed his too. Yeah. It's uh, I call it.
• 5:33
  I call it the work uniform. I'm like that, that's awesome.
• 5:42
  It's kind of crazy how like that symbol was was It was something that came
• 5:46
  out obviously for the album, but like it ended up being something that just
• 5:48
  stuck. It was. It wasn't intentional, but that just became like the
• 5:54
  thing to symbolize the band for a really long time. Yeah, I mean
• 5:59
  that was the So that's why it made sense. Like when I first started,
• 6:02
  you know, working with the band, I was like, uh so
• 6:04
  I kind of feel like I gotta earn this a little bit, you know.
• 6:08
  I guess some of get some tours under my belt and whatever. You
• 6:10
  know, it took a few years of like of like, you know,
• 6:13
  doing the Norma Gine thing for me to back all right, it's gonna I'm
• 6:15
  gonna get one now, you know. Yeah, oh yeah, well I
• 6:18
  know that. Mason and I anytime we come see Norma Jeine. You know,
• 6:23
  obviously we're checking out all the other band members up on stage and everything,
• 6:26
  But it's you in particular, man, because you beat the living shit
• 6:30
  out of the drum heads more than any other drummer I've ever seen, like
• 6:34
  especially your Floora Tims, Like, I feel really bad for your Floora Tims.
• 6:39
  Oh yeah, because it's you literally have to stand up and pound that.
• 6:44
  That's how that's how much force you're putting into it. It's incredible and
• 6:47
  it works. It works well. It's so much fun to watch. Generally,
• 6:53
  the drummer is not the most fun person to watch. You are one
• 6:55
  of the most people fun people to watch when it comes to drums. Dude,
• 6:58
  I appreciate that. That's it's it's so funny. Like I love watching
• 7:02
  other drummers play. I find total enjoyment in it. But when I'm up
• 7:06
  there playing, I feel like I'm just my brain is away. I'm just
• 7:11
  like, what do I look like? Do I look cool enough? My
• 7:13
  hitting this hard enough? I swinging this in a cool way? Or am
• 7:15
  I swinging it like a whimp? You know, like you know, asking
• 7:17
  myself like I have like this identity crisis like on stage on playing sometimes it's
• 7:23
  it's like a natural thing where you know, like I will enjoy watching other
• 7:28
  musicians playing, you know, but when I get up there and I'm like,
• 7:30
  Okay, I'm just like the goofy guy trying to pull it off,
• 7:33
  and you know, but that hard hitting thing. Uh, it's a funny
• 7:39
  story about that. We last year we did this with this like run with
• 7:44
  Emery and oh Sleeper was on some of the shows and Aaron from under Oath
• 7:51
  was was on doing acoustic stuff, acoustic songs. He was doing Southern Weather.
• 7:57
  It was pretty rad. He's doing like acoustic Southern Weather for for that
• 8:00
  that tour. But I was watching Dave Pale from Emory play at sound check
• 8:03
  one day and the snare drum is just like it's got this perfect tone,
• 8:09
  this perfect sound to it, and I'm watch trying to watch how he hits,
• 8:13
  and I'm like dude, I'm hitting like that. I think, right,
• 8:16
  I mean I think I am. And I asked Dave, what's going
• 8:22
  on, my dude, how do you get your drum to sound like that?
• 8:24
  And he's I'm like, where do you? How are you tuning it?
• 8:26
  And Aaron comes up and he's like, it's not how he's tuning it,
• 8:30
  bro, I'm like, okay, what is it? Then he goes,
• 8:33
  it's how he's playing it. So like he gets up on the kit,
• 8:37
  Aaron does I'm Dave's kid, and like grabs a stick and starts hit
• 8:41
  like punching his leg like oh yeah, for sure. He's like, you
• 8:46
  gotta punch your leg. And as you're punching your leg, the sticks gonna
• 8:48
  hit the snare, you know, like the in like this weird, perfect
• 8:50
  way. He goes, I don't know how to explain it, but get
• 8:52
  your snare close to your leg, start punching your leg. I'm like,
• 8:56
  all right, cool that night, change that night, change everything about how
• 9:01
  I play the kid. Yeah, and that was last year. You're like,
• 9:07
  you're a season veteran of drumming, and for you to like learn some
• 9:09
  like new things that completely change the changes the way you drum. That's pretty
• 9:13
  cool that you're still learning something like that years into drumming that exactly, And
• 9:20
  that's like I I kind of knew. I had a fair idea with like
• 9:24
  the toms and the symbols. You kind of really got to look like you're
• 9:26
  hit them hard, but you're not really Otherwise you're breaking symbols every show,
• 9:31
  which and you get bad overtones at times. Right, Yeah, I mean
• 9:35
  drums and symbols are only gonna get so loud, you know. But so
• 9:39
  I had it down sort of with like toms and symbols, But snare drums
• 9:43
  is something I always kind of I just never really understood it until that,
• 9:48
  until last year. Last year, I was like, Okay, there's a
• 9:50
  million ways to do it, and that's the way I want to do it,
• 9:54
  And now I know how it is. And so did you have to
• 9:56
  adjust the height of your of your snare? Do you have to pull it
• 9:58
  down quite a bit lower than you're used to? Not hype, not hype
• 10:03
  wise, but just like where it sat like further or closer to my body
• 10:07
  like when I sure hit And that rearranged the entire drum setup. The whole
• 10:11
  drum kit setup changed because of it. Who would have thought, let's talk
• 10:18
  about your your history with Norma Jean and actually just like your music history in
• 10:22
  general. I would imagine you were playing in bands and you were drumming prior
• 10:26
  to the first time that you were involved with Norma Jeine. Can you talk
• 10:30
  a little bit about what led you in the direction to eventually start drumming for
• 10:35
  Normajeene? Yeah, like what was kind of the history before all of the
• 10:37
  Norma Jean history. So I hadn't had a whole lot of on the road
• 10:43
  touring experience, maybe like a like I would say, maybe like a year
• 10:48
  and a half worth. But some of that was like being a roadie guy
• 10:52
  trying to make it in my own like local bands. We would try to
• 10:56
  go out and play like weekend Warrior type stuff, or we'd like, you
• 10:58
  know, try to book our own tours and go out and do things like
• 11:01
  that like very DIY you guys don't talking about. Probably it's like living on
• 11:07
  like you're living on ramen, noodles from the gas station and water bottles like
• 11:11
  for the whole tour. You know. I would go out as a tech
• 11:16
  for rock bands from like the La areas. I'm originally from there making dirt,
• 11:22
  you know, like I just not making hardly any money going out there
• 11:26
  and being hated on by the band. You know, you're just it was
• 11:30
  just like a weird time where like I knew I was young, I knew
• 11:33
  I needed to just shut up and do my work kind of thing. And
• 11:37
  because everyone said in the industry like, oh, if you want to learn,
• 11:39
  stop talking and listen, you know, shut up and just listen and
• 11:43
  watch what they're doing, and you know, don't talk back, don't ask
• 11:46
  questions, don't this that whatever. And it was very intimidating. And I
• 11:50
  spent years doing that, like the spent years doing that. And at the
• 11:56
  same time, when I was at home, I was in and out of
• 12:00
  the Truth Drums Shop when they were in California. Still the owner, Jeff
• 12:05
  been a longtime friend of mine. So I'd go to the shop and like
• 12:07
  you know, occasionally help with little things standing drumshells or you know, learning
• 12:13
  how to stay in and like assemble drum kits and things like that. And
• 12:18
  he he hit me up one day while I was out on a tour and
• 12:20
  I was ready to quit this tour because I was a roadie with a band
• 12:26
  that drank way too much, and they just were not the best guys to
• 12:30
  be around. And I mean, this band literally doesn't even exist anymore.
• 12:33
  So it's like, you know, it's like neither hear or there as far
• 12:37
  as who they are or anything like that. But while I was on that
• 12:41
  tour, he called me and said, hey, Norma Jean needs a drum
• 12:46
  tech for their next tour. Are you down to do it? I said
• 12:50
  sure, you know, like, what's another tech gig? You know,
• 12:52
  like eventually I'll land something, right, you know me. You know,
• 12:56
  my goal was to just get out on the road. Maybe that'll lead to
• 12:58
  something more else. So this tour ended right like a day before Norma Jean's
• 13:05
  rehearsals started. So I flew from one state to another and I meet all
• 13:09
  these guys for the first time, and all super cool dudes. It was
• 13:13
  Chris Rains, you know, playing in drums. It was Scottie and Der
• 13:18
  and Jake. Yeah yeah, this was in This was in two thousand and
• 13:24
  eight. So as I get the Anti Mother years, yeah, yes,
• 13:30
  it was right. They were doing their first headline tour to support Anti Mother,
• 13:35
  Okay, And so we get to the rehearsals and we're doing our thing,
• 13:37
  and I the bus shows up and that was my first time being will
• 13:41
  actually meet Cory. I always Cory and I laugh about this now because like,
• 13:46
  like Corey is so attentive to like to people when he's talking, whether
• 13:52
  it's verbal talking or phone stuff. That day he was on his phone,
• 13:56
  so like I'm walking on the bus and I'm meeting crew people, I'm doing
• 14:00
  this and like whatever, and Corey is in the Backlunds just as if I'm
• 14:05
  texting, and I was like, hey, I'm Matt and he's just I
• 14:09
  was like, I was like, all right, well I'll go get to
• 14:13
  work, you know, like I always give him crap about that. We
• 14:18
  laugh about it a bunch. But anyway, so we get on this tour.
• 14:22
  I'm doing the drum tech thing. You're you're setting up, you're tearing
• 14:24
  down, you're watching on stage and make sure everything goes perfectly fine on during
• 14:31
  the show. And uh we got to uh San Diego, and we had
• 14:39
  this girl, Lucy. She was doing sound for us on that tour,
• 14:43
  and we were doing We're at sound check at a venue in San Diego and
• 14:48
  Chris from the start of the tour, if he's gonna listen to this.
• 14:50
  He probably will remember from the start of the tour, he was like,
• 14:54
  just look out, just you know, like, if there's anything that's out
• 14:58
  of whack, you know, just let me know, you know. And
• 15:01
  he's talking about the drum kit, he's talking about what he's playing everything.
• 15:05
  You know, Mark, all right, my brain, I'm like, this
• 15:09
  is a text job. It's what you do, you know. And right,
• 15:13
  So at that sound check they were playing in San Diego sound check,
• 15:18
  they were playing bad Network, and before they played it, someone in the
• 15:24
  band looked at him and said, Hey, that part at the ending,
• 15:26
  make sure you do this and this instead of this. Apparently he was like
• 15:30
  playing it wrong. So he goes, hey, Marquez, do me a
• 15:35
  favorite. Just listen to this. Tell me if anything between me and the
• 15:37
  band sounds weird, you know, like all right, So they played the
• 15:41
  song and this was back when they played the full band network version, so
• 15:45
  the ending has like this weird rhythmic ending kind of thing. So they're playing
• 15:50
  the song and I'm standing on the side of the stage just listening, watching,
• 15:54
  and they stopped playing and he looks at me. The stage is quiet,
• 15:58
  the venue is quiet, and I go, that's not right. Everyone
• 16:03
  everyone in the band was like they didn't know that. Chris told me to
• 16:08
  like point those things out. So they're just what did the dude? What
• 16:12
  did the tech just say? Man, he's got some balls, right,
• 16:15
  Like, what is going on? Like everyone was like what is going on
• 16:19
  here? And and and Lucy was on the talkback mike. She's like,
• 16:22
  somebody's gonna get fired. People just could not believe. So Chris Rains gets
• 16:30
  up from the seat. He's like, all right, you play it,
• 16:32
  Like he gets up, show me how you show me whatever? And I
• 16:34
  was like crap, Like I was putting on the spot. I was like,
• 16:37
  I'm about to play the song that I know with the dudes that made
• 16:45
  it. And I've been teching at this point for so long that I haven't
• 16:48
  touched a drum kit in like eight months. Oh geez, my chops are
• 16:52
  rusty. But we get through there, We get through this song and it
• 16:56
  just it's just like, you know, play the ending, just nail it.
• 17:00
  The rest of the band is like looking at each other kind of like
• 17:03
  the grin on their face. They're like, oh wow. Lucy gets back
• 17:07
  on the mic, she goes, somebody's getting fire and it might not be
• 17:11
  the tech ye oh man. It was so funny because I can't remember exactly
• 17:18
  like the moments like after that, but I hope I didn't bump them out
• 17:25
  too hard. But it was just a funny thing to kind of realize that,
• 17:30
  like like playing the song right or wrong, ninety percent of the time,
• 17:33
  little things like that wouldn't be noticed unless like some of these fans are
• 17:37
  to die hards, you know, they would They'll know, they'll be like,
• 17:41
  oh that was you know, that was weird, that was wrong.
• 17:44
  That's basically I play stuff differently all the time, you know. Yeah,
• 17:49
  So for me, for me, it was a matter of like just at
• 17:53
  the time, being that pressure of like, oh, I'm about to play
• 17:56
  drums in front of this band, I better get it right. Yeah.
• 18:00
  So fast forward to a couple of years afterwards, when Chris was talking about
• 18:06
  leaving the band. The band was like what should we do? And apparently
• 18:10
  the first thing he said was, Hey, call that guy Matt from several
• 18:14
  years back, you know, like he clearly knows the songs. And Corey
• 18:19
  did that. I was literally at home, like I wasn't on I wasn't
• 18:23
  on tour, I wasn't in a band i'd actually I was doing. I
• 18:27
  did a fill in tour for a band that didn't work out really well.
• 18:33
  The like, I finished the whole tour, but there was just like weird
• 18:36
  energy with myself and their their like management team. I'm not really sure what
• 18:41
  happened there, but because of that, it was just like, you're not
• 18:45
  you're not going to keep touring with us. We're gonna send you home,
• 18:47
  you know. It was kind of a and that was one of those moments
• 18:49
  where also when you do this business, there are going to be times like
• 18:56
  that. You will be successful and complete a gazillion tours, and there will
• 19:00
  be some tours where no matter how hard you work, no matter how cool
• 19:04
  you are with everybody, you get sent home because someone upstairs is like,
• 19:10
  you know, it just doesn't like you, you know. So I I
• 19:14
  yeah, so I've I've had big wins, and I also got cammed pretty
• 19:17
  hard. And so I was working at the best pro shops when Corey called
• 19:23
  me. Coy was like Corey was like, dude, come play in my
• 19:27
  band, and I was like, I haven't heard from this guy in years.
• 19:30
  He's like sending me text messages and calling me like five or six seven
• 19:33
  times in a row, and I'm like, yeah, he was like they
• 19:37
  didn't even really ask me to try out per Se is like you mostly wouldn't
• 19:41
  other bands. They were just like come play. Was like, all right,
• 19:47
  they send me a list of songs. I learned him and then and
• 19:49
  then I was I was on the road with them. This was in twenty
• 19:52
  ten. My first tour with Norma Jean was playing drums was in twenty ten
• 19:56
  with um we did a tour with Alexis on Fire in Canada. Yeah,
• 20:03
  there's a Canadian run and that that was was that right after Meridinal came out,
• 20:08
  So like you had learned a whole new set of songs. Yeah,
• 20:11
  so I had to learn the old ones plus a bunch of like new,
• 20:15
  brand new ones. And I hadn't heard the record yet, you know,
• 20:18
  even though the record just came out. Oh damn, And I wasn't familiar
• 20:22
  enough with those songs. But we managed pretty well. I mean, Corey
• 20:26
  was like, here's a list of songs that we tend to play on tours,
• 20:30
  and it was like thirty songs. Yeah. I learned all of them
• 20:34
  before getting out to the first rehearsal, thinking that right there, Yeah,
• 20:41
  and they didn't even expect me too, But I just did it, you
• 20:45
  know, because I was just being like very tenacious about about being prepared for
• 20:48
  the job, being prepared for the gig. You know what if they wanted
• 20:52
  to see if they can go out on the road and change up the songs
• 20:56
  in the set list, you know halfway through, Yeah, you know,
• 21:00
  like I needed to be able to do that, you know. So yeah,
• 21:03
  I ended up learning like thirty something songs in like I want to say,
• 21:08
  like a week or two before I was behind my kit every day for
• 21:15
  just hours and hours and hours. And then when I wasn't behind the kit,
• 21:18
  I was at home listening in headphones to more songs. And then next
• 21:22
  day just get back in there. Like I built up my job, I
• 21:26
  built out everything. I was like, I'm out of here. I'm gonna
• 21:29
  go play drums and rock and roll band now and just put my whole mind
• 21:33
  to that. Like all my mind and time was just spent on that bass.
• 21:37
  Pro shops didn't know what they lost. No, So you were in
• 21:44
  the band for a little while, but then you ended up leaving and then
• 21:48
  obviously you came back later. Can you talk a little bit about kind of
• 21:51
  that transition period of you know, what what were you doing in the meantime,
• 21:55
  you know, like why like why did you initially leave and kind of
• 21:57
  what were you doing right after that and then brought you back into the band.
• 22:02
  I mean I was still playing with like local bands and stuff like in
• 22:06
  California, and at the time I was playing with a band called End the
• 22:10
  Century. In two thousand and nine, that band split, and then when
• 22:15
  I got the opportunity with Norma Gina year later, it was just like I
• 22:19
  was like, cool, I'm gonna go pursue this. It's gonna be awesome.
• 22:23
  At the time, I wasn't sure where I was going in the band.
• 22:27
  I was like, am I just a fill in touring guy? I
• 22:30
  don't know? And I'd already done like three or four tours, so I
• 22:33
  wasn't sure about what was next. And as a you know, musician,
• 22:37
  like at that point you really got to think about what's next. Some of
• 22:42
  the members from that band and the Century started a new project and they were
• 22:48
  sending me songs. They were like, dude, be sick if you know
• 22:51
  when you're not on tour, come record drums on this stuff. It's like,
• 22:55
  sure, I ended up getting these demos and was like, I was
• 22:59
  like, this is this is good, Like this is actually really good.
• 23:03
  And so I started doing the Norma Jean stuff. I was on the road
• 23:08
  for like a month, and I'd be home for a month and we would
• 23:11
  be working on on finishing like an EP. You know at vocalist and everything.
• 23:17
  The band is called Hardest, and we put together this EP. We
• 23:22
  started releasing songs slowly on like YouTube. Some of the guys in the band
• 23:26
  were like huge gamers, so like some of the Hardest guys would network with
• 23:29
  gamers on YouTube, be like, hey, like on your montage video,
• 23:32
  use our song and this there was one guy. There was one guy who
• 23:37
  did it who has like one hundred thousand subscribers or something like that. Oh
• 23:41
  damn, And when he posted it, our song just blew up. And
• 23:47
  literally, in like less than a month of being a like an established band
• 23:51
  with a record out, we didn't even we didn't even release the whole record.
• 23:55
  We only put out a few songs. Two of them were in video
• 23:56
  games things on YouTube. And already in that month that the YouTube stuff was
• 24:03
  picking up, we were getting interest from like uh Fearless Records, Roadrunner that
• 24:08
  we have. I think we let's see a equal vision. We had labels
• 24:12
  like being like, oh, hey, like we need to talk, we
• 24:15
  need to talk. And so I started sitting there, I'm like crap,
• 24:22
  yeah, like like what is going to happen here? And we hadn't even
• 24:27
  played a show, Like, we never even played a life show. The
• 24:33
  music was just blowing up on YouTube, and so labels were like, we
• 24:36
  need to talk to you guys, and like won't offer you deals, And
• 24:38
  they started skipping all this like big talk and just started throwing contracts at us
• 24:44
  jeezy, And I was still touring with Normatine at the time. And then
• 24:48
  other producers in the area that got with of this, of us, of
• 24:53
  our existence at all. We're just like, hey, I heard you guys
• 24:56
  might be signing to this label. Let me make a freeze song for you
• 25:00
  guys, and let's see if we can you know, land a deal,
• 25:03
  like a solid production deal with the label. That has to be kind of
• 25:07
  surreal, just like all this. You had been working so hard trying to
• 25:15
  kind of establish yourself. Yeah, and you get thrown this this sweet deal
• 25:19
  you know, Drumma with Norma Gine and you like it, and then all
• 25:25
  of a sudden, like this whole other route shows up and it's very enticing.
• 25:30
  I don't know what I would do in that situation. It's crazy.
• 25:33
  I mean, I mean we ended up. We ended up. We're talking
• 25:37
  with labels about stuff, and we ultimately made the decision to sign with road
• 25:42
  Runner, which obviously, looking back on that was not the greatest decision that
• 25:51
  I've ever made in my music career, but it still had its share of
• 25:56
  adventures. And one of the adventures was meeting this producer, Eric Roun in
• 26:02
  La and he at the time was he was getting off the ground in his
• 26:07
  career as a producer and a writer, and he wanted to work with us.
• 26:11
  So he did a song with us and send it to the label,
• 26:15
  and the label was like, this is great, Maybe you guys should do
• 26:18
  more. And so we're thinking, oh, we're gonna be able to do
• 26:22
  this record, you know, and Eric is really going to help us,
• 26:25
  you know, like like sore. At the same time, I was still
• 26:29
  doing normal gene stuff and I actually had to finally make a decision and and
• 26:33
  I ended up telling the guys before doing a Europe tour, I said,
• 26:40
  here's the situation. There's this thing and the opportunity here at home. What
• 26:44
  this ban It's pretty serious. I didn't expect for this to happen, but
• 26:48
  it's happening. And I told them honestly that I still was on the fence.
• 26:52
  I wasn't sure what I was going to do, and the guys were
• 26:56
  like, yeah, just let us know, you know, like like they
• 26:59
  were super cool about it. And throughout the course of the tour, I
• 27:06
  started seeing emails with more details about this contract that we were getting with Roadrunner
• 27:10
  and everything like that, and I was like, Okay, this is going
• 27:12
  to be very involving. I need to go. I need to try it,
• 27:15
  I need to see, you know. At the time, I was
• 27:18
  in a different place than I am now, and I was like, I
• 27:22
  need to just see what this is about. I'm not a permanent at the
• 27:26
  time with Normagine, I wasn't really like a you know, I was touring
• 27:30
  and I was like starting to help write with them, but I didn't have
• 27:32
  any contractual obligations or anything like that, and I wasn't sure if the guy's
• 27:38
  some of the guys wanted me to be a permanent fixture of the band,
• 27:44
  Like I think Corey was the only one I was like, oh, I
• 27:47
  know Corey wants me to stick around, like for sure, but I was
• 27:51
  real with them. I was like, I think I'm going to go pursue
• 27:52
  this opportunity with Hartist. I just got to see, you know, where
• 27:56
  this goes. And I told them when we were in Russia right before going
• 28:03
  on stage, and they were like, yeah, let's do hell yeah,
• 28:08
  you know, like go for it and and congrats on everything, and we
• 28:12
  wish you the best. Let's go out there tonight and have a blast.
• 28:15
  You know, that's awesome. They were super cool about it. Yeah,
• 28:19
  And it's and when I say that, I mean that, like it's super
• 28:25
  cool that I know what kind of hit it is for a band to lose
• 28:29
  a member. So for them to still like take that sort of pill and
• 28:33
  be like all right, we're good, you know, like we'll we'll figure
• 28:36
  something out. That was a huge moment for me in career wise, learning
• 28:41
  like I was learning still other levels of like professionalism and things like that.
• 28:48
  So then I did the hardest thing for a couple of years, and that
• 28:51
  was, like I said, it was very involving. We were going all
• 28:53
  over the place. Photo shoots here, music video shoots there, we were
• 28:57
  meeting with these people in LA or New York to have meetings about how to
• 29:03
  talk on the phone for interviews. We were meeting with what, Yeah,
• 29:07
  we're having instructions is how to how to talk on the phone. Yeah,
• 29:11
  like the pr instructors, they're like, oh, like here's how to here's
• 29:14
  how to conduct yourself in an interview. I don't think that's a thing apparently,
• 29:18
  like it was. Yeah, there's a lot of weird stuff. There's
• 29:23
  a lot of weird stuff where they were like, oh, like you have
• 29:26
  to like they were big obviously on image major labels are you know, so
• 29:30
  what kind of what what kind of image did they want you to have?
• 29:33
  I mean, obviously it's not like a it's it's not a pop it's not
• 29:37
  a pop label. So like do they want you to like dress in leather
• 29:41
  jackets and pretend to be this badass and smoke a cigarette all the time and
• 29:45
  like like while you're on your interview or what do they want? It wasn't
• 29:48
  it wasn't outfit specific, but it was more like like if you're gonna be
• 29:53
  about this type of thing, be all the way about it, and so
• 29:59
  like if you wear plaid shirts, get a gazillion plaid shirts and you know
• 30:03
  whatever, you know, or we're gonna restart grunge. Yeah, like I
• 30:07
  mean, like I they we would go to these photo shoots and it wasn't
• 30:11
  just showing up like with whatever you brought and a photographer. They had like
• 30:17
  full on like wardrobe vans show up and they would roll in racks full of
• 30:22
  like shirts and pants everything, and we would have to sit there with when
• 30:26
  like pick out what we're gonna wear for the music video, pick out what
• 30:30
  we're gonna wear for this photo shoot. And it was it was crazy.
• 30:33
  It was so crazy, right down to like are we wearing you know,
• 30:37
  accessories, necklaces, bracelets, whatever. It was like for there was a
• 30:41
  few photo shoots that were like that, and I was like, it's going
• 30:45
  on. I had no idea this existed in like the alternative music world.
• 30:51
  Dude. Well because okay, so when they signed us, and I obviously
• 30:55
  now know this, they were thinking what they heard musically that they could literally
• 31:00
  turned us into the next nickel Back. Not they thought they could turn us
• 31:07
  into the next like big like nickel Back type band, not metalcore or not
• 31:11
  no breakdowns whatever, like you know, like if They probably would have been
• 31:15
  stoked if I got rid of my China symbol. You know, they're like,
• 31:19
  this guy's serious about his future, like he's getting rid of the China
• 31:22
  symbol, you know. Yeah, so they wanted an active rock hit,
• 31:33
  very big gotcha Okay, yeah damn And obviously like that didn't you didn't become
• 31:40
  the next Nickel Back. So things change and Norma Jean welcomes you back.
• 31:47
  Yeah. So, um, things with Hardest kind of fell apart. But
• 31:51
  where things really started to ramp up for me was um that producer Eric Ron
• 31:56
  that we worked with. After the first song The Hardest did with him,
• 32:00
  he literally called me back into his studio the next day to play drums for
• 32:04
  an artist that came in from the Chicago area, I think. And after
• 32:07
  that he and I established this really cool relationship where I would come in anytime
• 32:15
  he needed solid drums for his album recordings. And so as Hardest kind of
• 32:22
  started slowing down and falling apart there. You know, after the label label
• 32:25
  dropped us, I would go figure, like, they put way more money
• 32:29
  to this thing than than a band was going to recoup. They just he
• 32:32
  used outdated business models. But so I was I was. Yeah, So
• 32:40
  I was able to start doing a lot of session recordings with Eric and some
• 32:45
  other producers, and that kept me busy for a while. I played drums
• 32:52
  on Seiler's Help album, which was like a big That was a big one
• 32:55
  that really started kind of establishing my means as like a session musician outside of
• 33:04
  specific bands. Kind of got me talking about like, oh, like I
• 33:07
  can actually maybe pursue this. I never thought about being a session drummer until
• 33:10
  Eric came along and proved to me that maybe I could. You know,
• 33:15
  here's a quick question I've always wanted to ask someone who's done session work,
• 33:20
  especially as a drummer. Do you ever you know you have the band in
• 33:25
  there? Maybe the band's not there, but like, did you ever get
• 33:29
  like a drummer that was like kind of pissed off that you were writing his
• 33:32
  parts for him or doing his parts for him or anything like that. I
• 33:37
  mean, I just I gotta imagine that in the music world, especially,
• 33:40
  there's a lot of a lot of e broken hearts when they go to record
• 33:45
  and they bring in just an absolute pro like yourself to come lay down a
• 33:50
  track. Yeah, so that act that Siler record, actually they came into
• 33:55
  the studio with a drummer who they've always been I guess doing live shows with
• 34:00
  I think, I don't. I'm not sure how long he was in the
• 34:04
  band, but I'd assumed if he was there at the studio with them,
• 34:06
  that he was probably there in the band like for a while. But when
• 34:10
  he apparently got behind the kit for the studio, Eric was like, no,
• 34:15
  we're gonna we're gonna have to we're gonna we're gonna save some time here
• 34:19
  and we're gonna get someone else in. And he was not happy. He
• 34:25
  was not happy. They the band was trying to talk to him and be
• 34:29
  like, hey, dude, like this is a huge this could be a
• 34:31
  huge learning thing for you. This might be an opportunity for you to like
• 34:35
  really see like what goes into being at this caliber of musicianship or whatever as
• 34:40
  a drummer. Is that and the other? And he was like, yeah,
• 34:44
  for sure, Okay, you know, like I'll see what you know.
• 34:46
  I don't really know how it exactly transpired, but the plan was he
• 34:51
  was going to just sort of shadow me while I'm in there working, and
• 34:57
  when I got there, he was nowhere to be found. He was just
• 35:00
  he went out on the town like every day, and he was just like
• 35:01
  partying or just doing whatever and just didn't want to be around me, And
• 35:05
  I was like, that's fine, Like, like I there have been other
• 35:09
  instances where drummers are not stoked on the fact that I have to come in
• 35:13
  and be the one to do stuff, and which is fine because I've been
• 35:21
  I've been replaced before. Yeah, you know, like it happens. But
• 35:27
  being Eric's like go to guy for his projects, He's done some really cool
• 35:30
  stuff over the years, and we've done some cool things together. But yeah,
• 35:35
  so there have been instances. Most of the time, though, the
• 35:37
  bands come in knowing that they're going to be using a session drummer. Sure,
• 35:43
  so there isn't even any drummer there to disappoint or upset at all.
• 35:47
  Yeah, it's good at least. Yeah, yeah, you know, i'd
• 35:52
  be so I don't think I could be that guy that'd be so tough.
• 35:55
  Oh what the guy that the kids, the guy that gets that gets replaced.
• 35:59
  Just yeah, in that moment being like this is my drum piece,
• 36:02
  though, come on, I've worked so hard for this. Yeah, I
• 36:07
  mean, you know, it's it's but it's gonna sound better. I mean,
• 36:10
  that's just the part that that's got to get through, you know.
• 36:15
  Well, it's it's one of those things that I don't know, like I
• 36:19
  guess because I've been like I said earlier, I've been cammed before from gigs
• 36:22
  and it sucks. It really sucks. Like I was dropped off at an
• 36:28
  airport in Oklahoma, you know, in the middle of the night, like
• 36:32
  shit, and been like here's your ticket, here's all your bags, here's
• 36:36
  your stuff by you know, Oh my god. That sucks. Yeah.
• 36:42
  Yeah, I don't even think the guy that did that to me is even
• 36:44
  working in the industry anymore. Kind of hope not but whatever, but karma
• 36:50
  a little bit. But so that sort of stuff, though, really transpired
• 36:53
  into other things that I didn't expect. Um. I was in the studio
• 37:00
  playing drums for the band Slaves on their Beautiful Death album, and after that
• 37:06
  record was done, sometime before the record release, they wanted to do some
• 37:12
  touring and they asked me to come out on the road with them, which
• 37:15
  was sick. I was like, cool, I'm down, I'll do it.
• 37:16
  I did an Australia tour and a US tour with them in twenty seventeen,
• 37:23
  and while I was out in Australia, Normachine had asked me if I
• 37:29
  would be able to play some shows with them. I'm trying to think,
• 37:37
  Yeah, they asked me to play some shows with them in like it was
• 37:40
  like an August thing and we were touring in July, so I was like,
• 37:44
  yeah, I'll be able to you know, make that happen. It
• 37:45
  was only five or six shows, like a bunch of Texas dates or something
• 37:49
  like that, and I had already committed to that because you know, I
• 37:53
  was like I need to fill my schedule here, you know, next thing
• 37:58
  right right, the next thing you're talking earlier. Yeah, yeah, So
• 38:02
  Slaves is wanting to go to Europe and I told him. I was like,
• 38:06
  I can't. I got stuff with Normal Gene. They're like all right,
• 38:09
  yeah for sure, no worries. And I went and go play those
• 38:13
  Normal Gene shows. So then I come come back home and if I remember
• 38:17
  right, there was like it was like a year ish or something. Two
• 38:23
  years before Corey called me again and was like, hey, would you be
• 38:30
  down to come to the studio. And this was when they were getting ready
• 38:34
  to make All Hail, So would you be down to come to the studio
• 38:37
  and just like hang and stuff, you know, because you know they were
• 38:42
  going to be in need of a drummer again. And it wasn't exactly a
• 38:46
  planned for me to actually even play drums on all hal It was. It
• 38:51
  was more of a just like, hey, we want you to start touring
• 38:54
  with us, but we need you to know these songs they had and the
• 38:57
  other come to the studio while we make the record and you know, uh,
• 39:00
  come hang out or whatever. And I'm like sure, you know,
• 39:02
  because you know, they were in a position where they didn't have a drummer
• 39:07
  again. And Corey's like what do we do? His wife was like call
• 39:09
  Matt, and He's like call Matt, you know, like he kind of
• 39:15
  low key. I think knew that I was hoping to come back to the
• 39:16
  band, you know eventually. Yeah, but in my brain I was like,
• 39:22
  you know, once you leave a band, or what are the chances
• 39:23
  he'd be able to come back. I'm not Jesse Leech, you know,
• 39:25
  like so so it's one of those things where it's like what are the chances
• 39:30
  that that sort of stuff doesn't really happen often? But when I got to
• 39:36
  the studio, sorry, when I was getting ready to fly. I got
• 39:42
  a text from Corey saying, hey, you might need to learn a few
• 39:44
  songs that kind of thing. Yeah, it's fine, you know, like
• 39:50
  send me some demos. I got some demos, you know, And I
• 39:52
  was listening to him on the plane. And when I got there, they
• 39:55
  had told me that basically, they told me that I was going to be
• 40:01
  playing on the whole record. And I was like, what happened? You
• 40:04
  know, what's going on here? Yeah? I was like, I was
• 40:07
  like, what's going on? Really? But what happened was Will Putney,
• 40:14
  the producer, was was working with the band and Corey's brother, Matt had
• 40:21
  been helping with a lot of the writing for the drum stuff for for All
• 40:24
  Hale and which he did an amazing job on that stuff. And for anyone
• 40:30
  that doesn't know, I really still feel like Matt Putman and myself we make
• 40:35
  a great team because I feel like, sure, I can like hit hard
• 40:38
  and I can like, you know, play along to like I could play
• 40:43
  along to Grayson's writing like all day, you know. But Matt was the
• 40:46
  one who really comes in and is like try this, try that, do
• 40:50
  this, do that, And I'm like that is so crazy. He like
• 40:52
  challenges everything I ever knew about drumming all the time. So and this started
• 40:59
  with all hale like that's cool, that's so cool. That's not something that
• 41:06
  I think a lot of pros like yourself, you know, someone who's been
• 41:07
  a session drummer and everything like that, would be willing to say, well,
• 41:13
  it's well. I mean, it's one of those things for me that
• 41:15
  I'm never afraid to admit when I'm good at something or not, you know.
• 41:22
  I mean, even back when I was getting ready to leave Norma Gine
• 41:24
  to pursue Hardest for a while, I told Corey that I don't think I'm
• 41:29
  a fit for this band. I told him that. I was like,
• 41:32
  I was like, I could learn the songs and play him live, but
• 41:36
  when it comes to writing, I don't think I'm a fit for it,
• 41:38
  you know. And he was like, nah, dude, don't say that.
• 41:43
  Don't say that. And for years he's always been like, dude,
• 41:45
  you He's like, you're you're you crush it, You're great. And I
• 41:50
  have my own like insecurities as a musician. I think that I would have
• 41:52
  to like navigate around that. I haven't yet. But so Mat helped me
• 42:00
  get through all hail a lot because I could learn the stuff. But then
• 42:05
  like things were ever changing. It was like, oh, it's tracking day
• 42:07
  and you already spent two days working on this song and changing things. Now
• 42:12
  we're going to track it and you're still going to change more things. It
• 42:16
  was a it was brutal, It was really brutal. But what happened was
• 42:21
  Matt came in to do all the help them finish writing this record, and
• 42:25
  Will Puttnan goes, hey, Matt's a Matt Putman is a great drummer,
• 42:30
  but he's not He's not going to record the record. You guys need to
• 42:35
  get someone else. And the breast of the band was like, well,
• 42:38
  we've just been sitting here for the last year, like help with him,
• 42:43
  you know, writing stuff with us. Yeah, Matt is one of the
• 42:45
  most creative minds that I know, and so I think for Will it was
• 42:50
  just like, oh, we need we need this kind of drumming, you
• 42:53
  know, and Matt is like a very creative drummer, but apparently like I'm
• 42:57
  the guy that just like slams a crap out of every thing, and he's
• 43:00
  a very Matt. Matt Putman's a finesse player. He's a he plays a
• 43:05
  lot of really sick grooves, a lot of cool finesse and his drumming and
• 43:07
  stuff, and I'm just like caveman bashing, you know, and so so
• 43:13
  it's like Pete best ringo star. Yeah yeah, I mean, gosh,
• 43:19
  I can't say enough good stuff about him because like he literally he we're like
• 43:27
  a We're like a power and what is it. It's like something strength and
• 43:32
  brains, like like you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, one of
• 43:37
  those things like we're just like a really cool duo when it comes to doing
• 43:40
  all the normal gene stuff. You know. I didn't realize how much involvement
• 43:45
  he had with normal gene stuff. Yeah I didn't either. It's really like,
• 43:49
  yeah, he's he's had a hand in like in so many of the
• 43:52
  records in the past, and especially on Death Rattle, it was very easy
• 43:58
  to I wrote. I wrote the music for the song Memorial Horde, and
• 44:05
  I sent the song to him with some guitars and drums on it, and
• 44:08
  I was like, I was like, do your Matt Putton thing on this,
• 44:13
  you know, and he literally, like an hour has sent it back
• 44:15
  to me with all these cool ethereal sounding things all over it, and I
• 44:22
  was just like, dude, this is insane. It is so it was,
• 44:27
  you know, And and so he makes it so easy to like really
• 44:31
  help layer a record, and like put he has a touch that you know,
• 44:36
  makes him literally like a sixth like ghost member of the band. Yeah,
• 44:40
  there's um, there's been some something that's been going on with Norma Jeane.
• 44:45
  There was a little bit in like Meridional, not so much on wrong
• 44:47
  Doers, but everything after wrong Doers, where it feels like every record has
• 44:54
  its own soul. And I think it is kind of like that. I
• 45:01
  don't know if it's that ethereal nous or what it is exactly, but I
• 45:06
  wonder if it's maybe Putnam stuff going on in there that's adding that. Yeah,
• 45:12
  a lot of the stuff that that did folks here on normal Gene records.
• 45:15
  Any of the noisy things between songs or after songs like that, like
• 45:20
  the old tape creepy sounds and everything, A lot of that is Matt like
• 45:24
  mostly most of Yeah, because like we'll we'll work on these songs and we'll
• 45:30
  sit down with him and be like, all right, we were looking for
• 45:32
  this kind of thing. We're working for that kind of thing here, and
• 45:36
  you know, and sometimes he'll just be like, you know, the middle
• 45:37
  of the night, I'm like, hey, I had to have this idea,
• 45:39
  I mean, know what't you guys think? And he'll play it and
• 45:42
  it's just this mixture of cool and creepy eerie sounds like that I've been that
• 45:47
  are looped into into groove in a way, and just it's it's it's awesome,
• 45:52
  you know. I think I think that that's why when it comes to
• 45:55
  normal Gene, like I very rarely, except for some of like the ear
• 46:00
  your songs or earlier record songs, I very rarely will just listen to one
• 46:07
  song at a time, right, I mean, I'm going to listen to
• 46:08
  a whole norma Gene record if I'm going to listen to a normal Gene record.
• 46:14
  And I think that that's why it feels like a like a journey.
• 46:16
  It feels like a story that's kind of cohesive in a way, at least
• 46:22
  sonically. That's the thing. Like, I mean, we all work together
• 46:24
  to obviously the songs, we make sure that the songs make sense, because
• 46:35
  like the songs that the songs that we have for say death Rattle, that
• 46:43
  came from a list of like forty tracks, these ideas that Grayson and Corey
• 46:51
  and myself like all put together, like oh like we like all of these
• 46:54
  and those forty came from a thing of like a hundred of Grayson's riffs.
• 46:59
  Like Grayson just Grayson's a writing machine. But at any old time when someone
• 47:05
  an idea gets sent out, he gets sent out to me, Corey and
• 47:07
  Matt Buttman, And you know, so from the get go, and idea
• 47:12
  like that comes from somewhere, Matt's always hearing it. Matt's always there,
• 47:16
  you know, he was. He was in the studio for most of the
• 47:21
  He was actually in the studio for most of the recording of Death Rattle.
• 47:24
  He was there for part of all Hale. I don't know if he was
• 47:27
  there a lot for wrongdoers, but I know that he also did a lot
• 47:30
  of stuff for Meridianal. Now, the other thing to note too is that
• 47:37
  Jeremy Griffith, producer for Death Rattle, also did Meridianal And he's also mixed
• 47:44
  some stuff too for a normagine. Jeremy has a really good ear for that
• 47:50
  sort of stuff too. Yeah, what we'll call sound design. You know,
• 47:53
  he has a really good ear for the sound design stuff like and so
• 48:00
  especially on Death Rattle, like Matt did a lot of really cool things,
• 48:04
  like the album starts the way it does because of Matt, you know.
• 48:09
  But then there's moments in songs like Heartache where there's like a lot of cynthy
• 48:15
  string kind of stuff where Jeremy Griffith did a bunch of that stuff, you
• 48:22
  know, And I always felt like that sound design is what really sets Normageine
• 48:25
  apart from a lot of other bands that might sound somewhat similar, like you
• 48:30
  guys are so good at, you know, obviously writing riffs, and a
• 48:31
  lot of other bands are really good at writing riffs. A lot of other
• 48:35
  bands hit the drums heavy just like you. But what sets Normajeine really apart
• 48:39
  sound wise is that sound design is that there's just like these ethereal interesting elements
• 48:45
  that aren't exactly like musical notes or anything. They're not certain kind of instruments,
• 48:47
  are just noises that just really set the band apart. And it's part
• 48:52
  of the reason why I love Normajeine so much, why they're you guys are
• 48:54
  one of my favorite artists of all time, because you guys are so set
• 48:59
  apart in that sound design. I got to give the credit to those guys,
• 49:02
  you know, like especially Matt because we work with him for those reasons.
• 49:08
  We work with people like Jeremy Griffith for those reasons, because it's like,
• 49:12
  oh we this is they get what we need, they get what we
• 49:16
  want. They understand and you know, they understand that this band like needs
• 49:22
  that kind of stuff integrated into music and stuff. They just understand how to
• 49:28
  like how to really like glue glue this together. You know, we bring
• 49:32
  a lot of colors and everything to a record, and I feel like they
• 49:37
  are the ones that pick the brushes, you know, to to really like
• 49:40
  put you know, get it all together into painting. It's it's it's it's
• 49:45
  awesome. I mean, I've heard Norma Jean at least Corey described Norma Gene
• 49:51
  as like a really a collaborative projects among a lot of different people. And
• 49:57
  even though Corey has been the through line for Norma Gene for all these years
• 50:01
  now, it does feel like every time there's a little different iteration because there
• 50:07
  might be a new drummer, there might be a new basis, there might
• 50:08
  be a new guitarist, and it sounds like you have something like Matt or
• 50:13
  Germany, but there's just this collaboration of all these different people. But yet
• 50:16
  there's still like this distinctive Norma Gene sound. Even though you can mix and
• 50:21
  match lots of people in and out of that equation, there's still like this
• 50:25
  Norma Gene sound, this quintessential Norma Gene sound. But yet every record also
• 50:30
  sounds a little different too, which is really great. So anyway, I
• 50:32
  just find that really really cool is as much as there's this collaboration, there's
• 50:36
  still like very much this theme that you get in Norma Gene. And anyway,
• 50:40
  I've heard Corey talk a little bit about that before, and I just
• 50:43
  it's really cool to hear that reinforced by kind of how you're describing how albums
• 50:49
  come together for a normal Gene. Right, that's literally like just at its
• 50:53
  at the most literal explanation of the collaborative part of it is literally is people
• 51:00
  like Matt, you know, sitting by my drum kit while I'm tracking,
• 51:04
  going try and play it this way and try and play it that way,
• 51:06
  you know, and sitting at his computer and being like, hmm, this
• 51:09
  sound of rain sounds cool. I'm gonna reverse it and loop it and put
• 51:15
  it over this old tape sound, you know, Like, you know,
• 51:20
  collaboration is key. I don't believe that any successful band um does it all
• 51:29
  by themselves, right, yeah, you know, but bands pick producers based
• 51:34
  on what they feel those producers can bring to the table for their their music
• 51:38
  totally. And Matt is a fantastic producer. So his his his production work
• 51:44
  on Norma Gine records in the past is a big key to you know.
• 51:50
  It says a lot about obviously the chemistry that Corey and Matt have his brothers,
• 51:52
  but also Matt's dedication to what Norma Gine is and what always making sure
• 52:01
  that what we're doing is new, but somehow it's still always Norma Gene,
• 52:07
  right, you know. Yeah. One of my favorite noise things that you
• 52:10
  hear in a Normal Gene album is on Polar Similar. I always forget the
• 52:15
  name of songs, but in Polar Similar there's that one track that has like
• 52:19
  that tornado warning thing go off, like the the like the emergency whatever,
• 52:23
  Like you know, whendn't you hear like on your TV or whatever, And
• 52:27
  there's a tornado warning that goes off. You hear that noise and then it's
• 52:30
  just like it sounds like a tornado. It just sounds like this creepy eerial
• 52:34
  uh, this creepy and eerie sound. Anyway, that's one of my favorites
• 52:38
  that has ever been included in Normajeene for one of those types of noises.
• 52:42
  And my guess is maybe Matt was behind that one too. Yeah, I
• 52:45
  mean, it's it's It's the thing about it is that like all of us
• 52:51
  are always listening for We're all and this is because of Matt. We're always
• 52:55
  listening for things. We're always listening for things that we can be like,
• 53:00
  hmm, that would sound cool, that would sound cool. And we're doing
• 53:02
  this in our daily lives, you know. Just recently, like my wife
• 53:07
  and I were driving to um We were driving, We're just like running errands
• 53:12
  around town with the kids in the car. I get out and I hear
• 53:16
  a train horn, like real far away. But what I hear between the
• 53:20
  train horns is that low rumble of the train engine. It was like really
• 53:24
  loud. It was loud. I was like that rumbling sound. I want
• 53:29
  that. I want that. You know, how cool would it be if
• 53:32
  you could like lay down a m a rhythm to that as well, right
• 53:39
  right, if there's some sort of noise in the in the midst of it,
• 53:44
  that can just loop over and over. I was like, and these
• 53:46
  are all things that Matt Matt has us like doing now because we're like,
• 53:52
  oh, that's what he does, and they we're seeing how well it works.
• 53:55
  And so I know for me personally, like, uh, like I'm
• 53:59
  in my studio right now, when my studio is like train tracks, I'm
• 54:02
  like, oh, one of these days I'm gonna put a microphone outside in
• 54:07
  the middle of it. Yeah, just like capture that that train sound,
• 54:12
  because like I've learned from him that you might hear a train in the microphone,
• 54:16
  but when you're done with it, it's not gonna be that. It's
• 54:20
  not gonna sound like a train. Yeah. What could we expect from Norma
• 54:23
  Jeine in the future? Obviously, you guys just released Death Rattle last year,
• 54:27
  so I can't imagine that there's like a new album already on the horizons.
• 54:31
  But yeah, what what can we expect that you guys have been touring
• 54:35
  like madmen lately? Can we expect maybe more touring anyway? Like, what
• 54:38
  what can we expect from Norma Jean here in the next year or so.
• 54:42
  Um, we are talking about trying to make some stuff happen in U in
• 54:47
  summertime. Like nothing's concrete yet, but we we're playing Frienace Fast later this
• 54:53
  year, so we're definitely gonna be making We'll be there. Let's see if
• 54:57
  we can make a go viral again. Yeah right, We're gonna have to
• 55:00
  get like ten people to do it this time, right, Yeah, just
• 55:04
  a whole like line of people. Yeah. So we're gonna see about planning
• 55:07
  some stuff before and after that obviously, and you know, it's too soon
• 55:13
  to say like when we're gonna like get back out on the road again,
• 55:15
  but I know that it's that I've seen some emails about some summer stuff,
• 55:21
  so we'll see if if if that comes to fruition. Yeah, And I
• 55:24
  mean and as far as writing goes, I mean literally, we're just we're
• 55:28
  always writing. Like even after All Hail was released, we were already writing
• 55:34
  for We're sort of already piecing together songs that became Death Rattle songs. So
• 55:39
  like we're always we're always doing something musically, like we're we just it just
• 55:45
  doesn't stop. Are most of you all in Arkansas, right. I think
• 55:50
  Corey lives in Arkansas, like you're New Jersey. Corey and Grayson are in
• 55:54
  Arkansas, Michael is in Missouri, Clay in Tennessee's in Memphis, and I
• 56:01
  live in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Oh wow, Okay, So you guys
• 56:06
  are probably just like, you know, recording like a little thing here there
• 56:09
  in your bedrooms and then like you know, sending that over a cloud that
• 56:15
  kind of thing. Is that how you guys are like sharing any of the
• 56:16
  new writing stuff that you guys are always coming up with. Yeah, So
• 56:21
  like I I'm I have like a whole like studio setup that I'm able to
• 56:25
  like write stuff and send them things. And that's how we did it most
• 56:31
  of it for Death Rattle because at the time things were weird with flying and
• 56:37
  the bulk of the writing was during twenty twenty, so like it was still
• 56:45
  people were unsure about flights and like traveling and the set and the other you
• 56:47
  know what I mean. So this time around, we're like, we're we
• 56:52
  want to try and get back to the way we usually would try to do
• 56:55
  things. We just get in a room together, you know, just getting
• 57:00
  a room together and start playing playing through stuff and start, you know,
• 57:05
  messing around with ideas. I mean, we'll still like, I'll still sit
• 57:07
  at this desk if I hear like some ideas that Grayson's working on or something,
• 57:13
  and all like like cool, I'm going to put some drum stuff to
• 57:15
  this and or just like change a guitar riff or something like that and send
• 57:19
  it back, you know. So it's it's literally just happening on all fronts.
• 57:22
  It'll be you know, when we're at home, it's gonna be this
• 57:25
  computer stuff. When we're in when we can, we're gonna get in person
• 57:29
  and get into a room together and you know, start bringing some songs to
• 57:32
  life. Love it. That's a love it all right, Matt, It
• 57:38
  is time for the top five most influential albums of your life. Okay,
• 57:45
  are you ready? I am all right. You can start whatever order you
• 57:49
  want. You can go in no order if you want. It's up to
• 57:52
  you, man, that's fair. The most influential first for me is going
• 57:58
  I gotta say that it's gonna be um reinventing the Steel from Pantera. Oh
• 58:04
  naturally was Yeah, that was one that that album was the album one that
• 58:10
  made me realize that I wanted to start learning how to play double kick drum.
• 58:15
  I was like, oh, I want to learn how to do that,
• 58:19
  you know. Yeah, definitely a guy who hits hard too, uh,
• 58:22
  well known for it. Yeah, like you can you can hear it
• 58:27
  in his playing style. Yeah, he's not playing the fastest stuff all the
• 58:30
  time. He's playing stuff that is open enough for him to really just beat
• 58:35
  the piss out of everything, you know. Yeah, that's it became entrenched
• 58:39
  in your DNA early on then I can tell yeah, oh yeah. The
• 58:45
  next one for me would would be uh slipknots Iowa album. M sure.
• 58:52
  Not only did that really kind of transform the way I was trying to start
• 58:59
  and perceive like heavier drumming, but like it made me realize too that that
• 59:07
  emotion in that record is what I wanted to start conveying to people. If
• 59:12
  that that that album influential, influentially, Like it wasn't just about drums,
• 59:17
  it was about just this This album is angry, this album is dark,
• 59:22
  you know. Yeah, so uh and the fact that there's a drum solo
• 59:28
  in one of the songs, it's just like right there in the middle,
• 59:30
  you know, like, oh, who does that slip you know, yeah,
• 59:36
  John Bonham and Slipnot that's it. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to
• 59:40
  believe they're from Iowa. That's still like kind of blows my mind. Like
• 59:44
  you think of the average Iowa person, Yeah, you don't think of someone
• 59:46
  that's in Slipknot. Yeah, that's true. But you know, they kind
• 59:52
  of explained it in like some of their older DVDs or like videos and stuff
• 59:57
  about how like there's nothing else to do out there, so the band became
• 1:00:00
  the biggest outlet that they could ever dream of. They just turned it into
• 1:00:04
  that. You know. Yeah, Mason and I are from South Dakota,
• 1:00:08
  so I mean we're we're basically in the same boat there. Yeah, there
• 1:00:13
  is nothing to do. Go freeze your balls off outside. Yeah, oh
• 1:00:17
  my god, and smell sewage outside the venue. Yeah. Uh so you're
• 1:00:23
  talking about in Sue Falls. Yeah, actually not sewage. That was um,
• 1:00:29
  the pork producing plant that's uh right down the road. It smells like
• 1:00:34
  that year round. You should smell it in the summertime. Oh warm,
• 1:00:39
  that's wild, good times. It's another record. Oh um, here's here's
• 1:00:46
  a big one. Uh seven dust Animosity. M Mmm. Listen to the
• 1:00:52
  drumming on that one. That the way that dude can groove heavy music is
• 1:00:59
  just my blowing, absolutely mind blowing. Hell yeah. And his drumming is
• 1:01:02
  in control of the music on that record, I think I think every drummer
• 1:01:07
  is technically in control. Yeah, but I mean like in the sense of
• 1:01:12
  that. Yeah, he's such a there's so many little nuances and he's playing
• 1:01:16
  that and the band is like, the band is not ignoring any of it.
• 1:01:22
  There's so many there's so many recordings where drummers have these cool little parts
• 1:01:25
  of flares and things like that, and you can I can hear them being
• 1:01:29
  overlooked by a guitarist or bass player. They wanted a sound that followed and
• 1:01:35
  mimicked. Is every move showcase? Yeah, And that's what they did on
• 1:01:38
  that album. And his and and just the fact that he I've that dude
• 1:01:44
  makes the coolest half note or what is it? Yeah, I think it's
• 1:01:49
  a half note open high hat grooves. He just does the coolest like open
• 1:01:54
  grooves. Like for how heavy their music can be, he just I can't
• 1:02:00
  explain it. His kick patterns, the way he does not try to play
• 1:02:04
  fast. He actually just sits there and just opens things up a bunch.
• 1:02:07
  Yeah, And I don't know if y'all have ever seen him play live.
• 1:02:10
  No, the dude is mind blowing. Look up any videos on YouTube Morgan
• 1:02:15
  Rose seven does all right, you'll you've never seen anything like it, I
• 1:02:20
  promise, sick. The way he plays, you've never seen anything like it.
• 1:02:23
  It's crazy. So you got pintera slipknot seven dust? Are those only
• 1:02:30
  three? Or that's the that's three? So I got a fourth? Will
• 1:02:34
  come here? Okay? The Amalgament by a Filter, Oh yes, so
• 1:02:39
  underrated in my opinion all the way around. Yeah, that whole record,
• 1:02:46
  That whole record for me, I remember listening to certain songs on repeat from
• 1:02:52
  that record. But a lot of it had to do with the fact that,
• 1:02:55
  like I was younger when that record came out out. It was like
• 1:03:00
  early two thousands, right, yep, that record came out, I think
• 1:03:04
  so, And I'm still discovering at this point the kind of drummer that I
• 1:03:07
  even want to be, Like I've but like that record challenged me to start
• 1:03:14
  mixing in a little bit finesse with all the hard slamming that I'm doing.
• 1:03:19
  You know, Yeah, that that album's got so much dynamic to it.
• 1:03:22
  Yea, yeah, yeah, wow, yeah yeah, super super cool records,
• 1:03:27
  super awesome. There's an awesome atmosphere about that album that that they haven't
• 1:03:32
  gotten on any other Filter record. Agree. I was like, man,
• 1:03:37
  this thing sounds massive. The melodies are super cool, Like the the vocal
• 1:03:44
  lines to me are very like I love dirty melodies, and that's what that
• 1:03:49
  record. That record to me is really dirty melodies. So yeah, that
• 1:03:52
  was That was a cool one because that one actually really helped me UM in
• 1:03:59
  a sense of like, if I were to write a song, what would
• 1:04:01
  I how would I write it? What would I try to you know what
• 1:04:04
  I mean? Like what am I gonna try and get out of him?
• 1:04:06
  Alot of part of a song here? I always turned back to that album
• 1:04:10
  when I'm like thinking about something more melodic or something explosive with you know,
• 1:04:15
  power or something like that. Do you ever do you ever see those um
• 1:04:19
  like Instagram or TikTok or YouTube videos were like drummers would be like, yeah,
• 1:04:26
  I'm gonna play I'm gonna play Norma Jean in the style of I'm a
• 1:04:30
  Sugar or something like that, right, like how and like how they would
• 1:04:33
  change it? Do you ever like try to exercise that and be like,
• 1:04:36
  I wonder how I would play this song if it was filter instead of me
• 1:04:43
  kind of uh yeah, dude. Just recently, actually on this last tour
• 1:04:48
  we were starting, we would sound check with part of Heartache before the show
• 1:04:54
  started. But then Grayson and I always just kind of like really eat off
• 1:05:00
  each other. He would start playing this really pretty melody kind of thing that
• 1:05:06
  resembled Heartache, but it is an actually heartache, and I would go back
• 1:05:11
  and I'd start putting drums over it, and we actually as a full band
• 1:05:15
  would start jamming this whole reimagined version of Heartache, and it was it was
• 1:05:20
  so crazy. One of our one of our crew dudes, Jack, got
• 1:05:24
  a video of it. I have to have send it to me. Actually,
• 1:05:26
  but we played this whole like reimagined version of Heartache that we just started
• 1:05:32
  jamming it right on the spot. But we knew where all the dynamic moments
• 1:05:35
  were in the original song, so we just mimicked that. Yeah, it
• 1:05:39
  was just a totally different experience, and there was the whole band minus Corey,
• 1:05:44
  Like it was the whole band playing this whole different version of it.
• 1:05:47
  It was so cool. I was like different guitar sounds different, like slightly
• 1:05:54
  different drum patterns, and like just really reimagining it. And I started thinking
• 1:05:58
  about some of these more melodic bands I was influenced by, you know,
• 1:06:02
  I'm like, oh, the drums would go like this, and the drums
• 1:06:05
  would probably feel like this exactly what you're talking about. And we actually started
• 1:06:09
  doing that, like with the with the one of our own songs recently.
• 1:06:13
  What if you just like pulled that out live one time? I played played
• 1:06:17
  it in like a completely reimagined style, and I would like be like,
• 1:06:21
  all right, Corey, figure it out. Yeah. I would like to
• 1:06:24
  do something like that, like where it's sort of out of left field,
• 1:06:29
  but it's sort of like we know in the set there's going to be this
• 1:06:31
  improvised moment, so so the fans could be like, oh, what is
• 1:06:35
  this, but like we play like a reimagined version that segues into you know,
• 1:06:41
  the song. Yeah, like that it could be really cool. You
• 1:06:45
  know, this is kind of a random tangent, but I always hate when
• 1:06:47
  people say this, when they're like, oh my god, that that show
• 1:06:49
  was so great. It sounded just like the record. I'm just like,
• 1:06:53
  why the hell would you go then like, yeah, I get it.
• 1:06:57
  I've already heard the record. You've already heard the records. Like, sure,
• 1:07:00
  you're going to see them live do it, but like, why wouldn't
• 1:07:02
  you want to see someone do something cool and different and and maybe reimagine like
• 1:07:06
  you're talking about. I think, yeah, I mean I think a lot
• 1:07:10
  of that comes from, Uh, there was there's there was a period I
• 1:07:15
  think in like the twenty tens where a lot of bands were recording records with
• 1:07:24
  this insane production quality and everything like that. But then they would go out
• 1:07:28
  and into the into the live music world and they would just kind of blow
• 1:07:32
  it bone it in. Yeah, and then you found out that the drums
• 1:07:38
  were computers, and then the voice was like severely auto tuned and everything like
• 1:07:42
  that, and they would get out there and have their music is on click
• 1:07:44
  tracks and then they you know, like the laptop takes a dive and they're
• 1:07:47
  not even really you know, playing right. It's like, oh, there's
• 1:07:54
  and I don't like I get that. Times changed and this that and the
• 1:07:59
  other, and it's like to technologies evolved. I use a lot of the
• 1:08:01
  tools, you know, computer drums, all that stuff. I use a
• 1:08:05
  lot of stuff here for you saw him writing and stuff. You know,
• 1:08:09
  it's like, I'm still building a studio. I don't have a live drum
• 1:08:13
  room. I can't play guitars, so I use MIDI guitars. You know,
• 1:08:15
  Like, so there's there's places for all that stuff. But yeah,
• 1:08:18
  when people get stoked about a band sounding like the record, I think it
• 1:08:21
  comes from the fact that they've probably had to go, they probably gotten a
• 1:08:27
  lot of shows and seeing a lot of bands that just aren't live. Yeah,
• 1:08:32
  you know, it's like the oh, like I love the ones where
• 1:08:36
  people will say, oh, the band sounds better than they're recording. It's
• 1:08:44
  like, oh, they sound they sound better live than you're doing their recording.
• 1:08:46
  That to me is always a big, right, big compliment totally.
• 1:08:50
  I think you got one more album, right album? Oh yeah, gosh,
• 1:08:58
  give me a secon here. It's gonna come to me. Maybe something
• 1:09:00
  out of left field, something out of left field. Yeah, I mean,
• 1:09:06
  shure, Okay, here's here's the left field. This will be this
• 1:09:11
  will be the this will be the biggest left fielder. Garth Brooks no way,
• 1:09:18
  Yeah, Garth Brooks, not Chris Gaines, not Chris Gaines. Garth
• 1:09:26
  Brooks is the reason I even decided I wanted to play drugs. What Garth
• 1:09:31
  Brooks when I was a kid? Yeah, was there one album in particular?
• 1:09:36
  Um? What album is it? Um? I can't remember the album
• 1:09:41
  name, but it has a song called Beaches of Cheyenne on it, okay,
• 1:09:45
  And I remember hearing so like I was brought up on you know,
• 1:09:48
  the nineties country and stuff like that. I wasn't brought up on a classic
• 1:09:51
  rock and like, you know, I wasn't really brought up like in the
• 1:09:56
  eighties world, like eighties rock and metal and stuff like that. I was
• 1:09:59
  brought up on country stuff. And my parents had this big, fancy bows
• 1:10:06
  sound system in the living room, and I remember hearing Beaches of Cheyenne from
• 1:10:12
  Garth Brooks. And I'd always heard the song in the car, you know.
• 1:10:15
  We'd always, like I hear in the car going to school or we'd
• 1:10:16
  go on family vacations. You hear Garth Brooks all the time. My bros
• 1:10:19
  And Mats all we wanted to hear, you know. But I was like
• 1:10:24
  nine years old, I think, and we were listening to one of the
• 1:10:27
  CDs in the house and I heard the thumping of the kick drum and I
• 1:10:31
  was like, what is that? And I kept starting the song over.
• 1:10:34
  I kept starting a song over im hearing the thump, and my parents were
• 1:10:36
  like, what is going on? They walk in, What are you doing?
• 1:10:40
  I'm like, am I trying to listen to this thing? I don't.
• 1:10:42
  I don't know what it is? And what my dad goes, well,
• 1:10:45
  that's the that's a bass drump. You're hearing a bass drum. Let's
• 1:10:48
  go okay, and he goes, then the you know, the other thing
• 1:10:53
  you're hearing is a snare and he was explaining to me it's like you're hearing
• 1:10:56
  a drum kit. I was like, that's what that is. He goes,
• 1:10:59
  yeah, that's what I want to make that sound. That's what I
• 1:11:00
  wanted. I want to make that. I want to make that be the
• 1:11:03
  one making that sound. Yeah, it was the most basic drum beat in
• 1:11:08
  the world. But when you're talking about like big hit songs like that,
• 1:11:13
  like like, you're not there to show off, You're there to make the
• 1:11:16
  song great. And making the song great takes a lot of patience and skill
• 1:11:24
  that I wish I had for country world, because I mean I would I
• 1:11:28
  would totally mess with country music if I I thought I had the finesse for
• 1:11:30
  it. Yeah, but that was Yeah, that was that was it for
• 1:11:35
  me. I knew right then and there. I was like, well,
• 1:11:38
  that's what's what I wanted to do. I want to start playing, start
• 1:11:41
  playing drums, and yeah, how long? How long after that did you
• 1:11:45
  do your first kid? The next year? It was the It was the
• 1:11:49
  next year, I think, because it was like a I was in like
• 1:11:54
  was it sixth grade? I think I think, yeah, thing was like
• 1:11:57
  the next year I got I got my first kid, And it took me
• 1:12:00
  a while to really understand that I had a lot to learn. I was
• 1:12:06
  not very good through you know, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.
• 1:12:11
  I didn't really start getting better at playing until like I was like getting towards
• 1:12:15
  the end of high school and getting out of high school. You know,
• 1:12:18
  I did the drum line stuff in high school, and I've got my chops
• 1:12:21
  from there. I got my concept of time and playing with power and like
• 1:12:24
  all that stuff. I learned a lot from that, but none of it
• 1:12:27
  applied to drum kit. I didn't pick up the drum set stuff, like
• 1:12:30
  seriously, seriously until like my senior year of high school. Dang, so
• 1:12:38
  you're a late bloomer. I mean, in terms of the drum world,
• 1:12:40
  most drummers, I feel like, start way earlier. Well, I was
• 1:12:43
  always playing on the kit, but I wasn't disciplined enough for lessons, private
• 1:12:47
  lessons when I was younger, and so I was always playing stuff, like
• 1:12:51
  learning songs that I like. I would grab a you know, headphones and
• 1:12:55
  like play songs that I liked and just start learning how to like play them
• 1:12:59
  that way, sure, you know. And it was a bunch of Garth
• 1:13:01
  Brooks. There was a there's some Aerosmith stuff in there, you know,
• 1:13:05
  messed around with some Metallica stuff. Um, metallic stuff really fear me for
• 1:13:12
  a loop because like it was like it's like where's the where's the tempo and
• 1:13:15
  this? You know, it's just like like I think I gotta get I
• 1:13:19
  think I gotta find a pot to hit That's what it sounds like he's hitting
• 1:13:23
  on this one. Yeah, I was like, I don't have the right
• 1:13:25
  drums for this, and so I stopped playing Metallica. But yeah, so
• 1:13:30
  there was yeah, So I mean I was definitely playing, you know,
• 1:13:34
  um, I was. I was learning any songs that I liked, you
• 1:13:39
  know, for for years. But I just think that like my seriousness of
• 1:13:44
  like wanting to be like a stronger, better drummer really started taking shape in
• 1:13:48
  my senior year of high school. Yeah dude, Yeah it was. There
• 1:13:54
  was people going around campus like, hey, I was a band called Norma
• 1:13:58
  Jean Sick, and I was like, you're like, yeah, they're pretty
• 1:14:00
  good. Funny thing about that. Funny thing about that, someone came and
• 1:14:04
  show came up to me and showed me Bless the Murder. Sure, they
• 1:14:10
  were like, check out this bander called Normagine They're sick. And I was
• 1:14:13
  like, grab the headphones. I started listening. I'm like, it's like
• 1:14:16
  this sucks. It's like this sucks and uh and so in my brain I
• 1:14:34
  was like this sucks. But oh god. The aftermath came out not too
• 1:14:39
  much longer after that, and suddenly Bless the Murder made sense, Like like,
• 1:14:47
  god, get it. I'm like, because I love I love Oh
• 1:14:49
  God. I was like, this is rad. Some way back and listen
• 1:14:51
  to some of the you know, Bless the Murder stuff again, I'm like,
• 1:14:55
  Okay, I get it, this is cool, this is rad.
• 1:14:59
  But it's I had to I had to go back and give Bless a murder
• 1:15:01
  a second listen, that's so awesome. That makes me so happy that you
• 1:15:05
  that you said it sucked. Honestly, one of the one of their quick
• 1:15:11
  side note is I just got to say thank you for playing my all time
• 1:15:15
  favorite Normal Jeans song into let Machine and the best part. I think that's
• 1:15:18
  like the coolest like little breakdown ever at the end of that song. And
• 1:15:23
  I'm so glad you guys play that because I I've worn that out on on
• 1:15:29
  multiple CDs now. So yeah, that's a that's a fun one, dude.
• 1:15:33
  That's that's That's one of my favorite moments from that album. That and
• 1:15:42
  Disconnect. I yeah, Disconnect that it's amazing. Yeah, I'm misplaying that
• 1:15:45
  one. It did that. We did that one on a tour. We
• 1:15:48
  started the set with the first half of Disconnect. I ended the whole set
• 1:15:51
  with the second half of it. Oh wow, that's yeah, that's cool.
• 1:15:56
  Yeah. I was like, man, we need to do a tour
• 1:15:59
  where we just play like long songs or something like that. You know.
• 1:16:01
  Yeah, I've always wanted to see um I always forget the name again,
• 1:16:06
  I suck at names, but uh oh Sundies blood Moon, that fucking song
• 1:16:13
  rips. It gets so heavy once that like kind of big breakdown happens,
• 1:16:17
  And I would love to see that live. I would love to see Falling
• 1:16:20
  from the Sky day seven. Oh man, we haven't played that one in
• 1:16:25
  a while. We did play that one for a little while live, Falling
• 1:16:30
  from the Sky one. I would I would go absolutely nuts. Yeah,
• 1:16:33
  that's that's a fun one. We we always talk all the time about finding
• 1:16:36
  a way to to make some guy's blood moon happen, and we will,
• 1:16:42
  well, we'll do it one day. We're after this tour especially, we
• 1:16:45
  started talking about you know, I mean, it's the time, it's the
• 1:16:50
  time to do it. Like we we we talk all the time about ways
• 1:16:54
  to to change up the live show or just give give people some than it
• 1:17:00
  that they wouldn't expect coming in a Norman Gene show because what you expected.
• 1:17:04
  They're going there for a good time obviously, and the shows are fun,
• 1:17:08
  the fans are awesome, but like, like we gotta like we want to
• 1:17:12
  do some real like left left field stuff. Yeah, like just a tour,
• 1:17:18
  just even if it's like a two week tour, just like find the
• 1:17:21
  right cities and be like all right, we're gonna do this kind of thing
• 1:17:24
  for this tour. Pull out a ludicrous song. Oh my god, here
• 1:17:29
  you go. That's an idea that would be That would be nuts, that
• 1:17:33
  would be hilarious. Actually, that really would be. What about what about
• 1:17:36
  Sean lou Oh yeah, you know, because because that's that's one that that's
• 1:17:44
  one you don't that's not even on like any records. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:17:50
  I know. We we we talked about a couple of things we almost did.
• 1:17:54
  We almost did Shark Biting on this last tour, no way. Yeah,
• 1:17:58
  but you know, because that's that's one of those ones where it's like
• 1:18:00
  it's just noise and yeah, like a blast beat or something like that and
• 1:18:06
  a fast drum fill and it's over. Yeah, we're wee time for it.
• 1:18:13
  You're right. I talk about doing little things like that and sometimes it
• 1:18:16
  never would never get around to actually like doing it. But um, we
• 1:18:23
  are talking about doing some really cool stuff like maybe this year, but or
• 1:18:28
  maybe like towards the end of the year. Um, stuff that I don't
• 1:18:31
  really want to say yet. That's all right, man, But it's definitely
• 1:18:35
  stuff that we've been talking about doing for a few years, and it's just
• 1:18:39
  trying to find the right pocket of opportunity to do and it does involve touring
• 1:18:44
  life. It's from like the live show aspect. So you know, we'll
• 1:18:49
  we'll definitely put out some some details on that. Once we really nail something
• 1:18:53
  solid, it's gonna be how shows again. Man, I Okay, we
• 1:18:57
  thought about that, and I'm like the same time, I'm like, are
• 1:19:00
  we gonna jinx ourselves? You know, because we did this. We did
• 1:19:04
  those house show tours right as they were starting to tell people to stay at
• 1:19:09
  home, and like, right, you know, it's like, oh so
• 1:19:12
  we thought it was you brought on the pandemic. Yeah right, it's like,
• 1:19:15
  oh, we we were working out of people's homes before they were told
• 1:19:18
  to work at home. You know, Well, if you guys do house
• 1:19:24
  shows, I would love to hold one here. I have a farm.
• 1:19:27
  I think it'd be cool to do a farm show. Yeah, do one
• 1:19:30
  in your in your barn. Yeah we could have like we could have like
• 1:19:32
  a backstage with like tractors and stuff like that and all that cool stuff.
• 1:19:36
  That would be so cool. Have cows moving in the distance down. Yeah,
• 1:19:44
  As you guys could tell. Sue Falls was able to pull in quite
• 1:19:48
  a few people for a place that normal Jean's never played before, so you
• 1:19:53
  could do it here, it'd be awesome. Yeah, that was. That
• 1:19:56
  was a crazy That was a surprising show. I was like, you know,
• 1:19:59
  like you have to it truthfully, you know, like you just you
• 1:20:01
  never know when you're going to city, haven't been to before? Yeah,
• 1:20:04
  you know how it's gonna go. So uh it was. It was really
• 1:20:09
  awesome that turnout and the energy and everything that that was a really cool show.
• 1:20:14
  It was fun. Yeah, it's fun. Well, uh, let's
• 1:20:17
  yeah. But what do you want to plug? Yeah? Death Brattle came
• 1:20:20
  out last year. Obviously, people can stream it, people can buy it
• 1:20:24
  on vinyl. Uh yeah, what what what do you want to plug?
• 1:20:29
  What do I want to plug? Man? I'm building a recording studio right
• 1:20:32
  now, like a full on recording studio. Damn. Are you gonna be
• 1:20:36
  doing recordings for other people or is it just for personal use? Um?
• 1:20:42
  So this studio will be used for everything. It's called boom Box Generation and
• 1:20:47
  it's going to be a lot of my purpose will be getting back into the
• 1:20:51
  swing with the session drumming stuff and uh right now, like wow, I'm
• 1:20:59
  doing some song writing with an artist here in Grand Rapids, who When we
• 1:21:05
  come out public about this record, people will probably be stoked. It's someone
• 1:21:09
  who was in a big, bigger, like touring band back in the day.
• 1:21:13
  Um, there's still well they're still a band, but we're working on
• 1:21:16
  a cool like a project together and but the studio will be full album production
• 1:21:24
  type stuff. The drum de session drumming. My wife Kara, she's a
• 1:21:28
  phenomenal voice actor and everything, so we're gonna be using a lot of her
• 1:21:33
  voice services. You know, we're gonna start reaching out to like folks that
• 1:21:38
  need like radio ads and things like that. Wow. So yeah, we've
• 1:21:42
  done a few. We've done a few. Corey's wife, Rachel I hooked
• 1:21:45
  us up with a with a gig for University of Arkansas, so like awesome.
• 1:21:48
  Yeah, so yeah, so we have like we did a recording you
• 1:21:51
  know last year it was like go to a University of Arkansas. But like
• 1:21:56
  on the radio, it's like a whole radio add thing. So I was
• 1:21:58
  like, that's super cool. I was like, we could really actually like
• 1:22:01
  nail that. Yeah, nail that. Nail that type of work easy because
• 1:22:05
  for my wife, it's just second nature for her to like get into that
• 1:22:10
  voice and do that kind of stuff. You know what I think the world
• 1:22:14
  needs more of right now is radio jingles. Like you know how like every
• 1:22:19
  like local place used to have a radio jingle and yeah, no one doesn't
• 1:22:24
  anymore. We need that again. You know, if anyone out there that
• 1:22:28
  owns a business wants to do a radio ad and they want a jingle and
• 1:22:31
  a voiceover or singing, because my wife sings also, we like put I'm
• 1:22:36
  putting this out there for people to hear, like, get me to do
• 1:22:40
  it for you? Yeah, do it? They know they know where to
• 1:22:45
  go, they know, yes, moon Box Generation. I gotta make my
• 1:22:48
  own jingle for for my own studio. There you go, right right off
• 1:22:53
  the top of your head, give me your jingle. Shit. Yeah,
• 1:22:59
  I couldn't carry tune if you gave me a bucket. There's I used to
• 1:23:02
  do this thing back in the day where um, like we'd be on like
• 1:23:05
  bus trips or whatever. We'd be going through a town and I would just
• 1:23:09
  like look at like all like the business signs that I would come up with
• 1:23:12
  like little jingles, and I would do like the tenth one. Everyone be
• 1:23:15
  like shut the hell up, please just please stop, Like we get it.
• 1:23:20
  You're you can make a jingle in a moment. Okay, it's enough.
• 1:23:28
  That's a talent though, Matt, anything else you'd like to plug?
• 1:23:30
  So, uh, side hustle business time. I'm gonna start plugging my side
• 1:23:34
  hustle business right here. All right? Total custom toilets, O the world
• 1:23:41
  needs total custom toilets. All right, toilets hand painted proprietary porcelain. It's
• 1:23:46
  it's and literally half the cost what half the cost for as toilets when it's
• 1:23:56
  hand painted? Labor's cheat? Man, damn can you do? Can you
• 1:24:00
  do like, uh like customized shapes as well? Because I went to this
• 1:24:04
  bar one time that had like a mouth urinal and I thought it was the
• 1:24:10
  coolest thing I had ever saw. Yeah, we could do custom shapes.
• 1:24:13
  Most of the shapes are just like AI based, so like we tell the
• 1:24:15
  AI to like make something and it gives us a picture and then we have
• 1:24:19
  a mold of three D scans it and stuff, and then it basically creates
• 1:24:23
  like a It's not symmetrical, so I mean, it's not the most comfortable
• 1:24:27
  thing, but it's custom, you know. Do they do any of them?
• 1:24:31
  Come with bidats? Bidays are an up charge premium up charge, But
• 1:24:39
  I mean I might have to. I fucking love a good bidet. Yeah,
• 1:24:44
  I mean, I mean, let's talk about bidays for a second.
• 1:24:45
  Change my world when I realize that those things even existed. I know.
• 1:24:49
  That's what Mason said too. I have a bidet and I use it once
• 1:24:53
  a month. Maybe I don't know. I'm bad. I use it.
• 1:24:56
  I see. The problem is I don't I don't have hot water to it
• 1:24:59
  or warm water to it, so like I only use it in the summertime
• 1:25:01
  when it's hot outside. Okay, hold outside. I don't want I don't
• 1:25:04
  want cold water my butt. But hold up though, like you Okay,
• 1:25:09
  they have bidet hits now that you could so you can install like universal kits
• 1:25:13
  that can go on any toilet. Yeah that's what I have. Yeah,
• 1:25:16
  do you have the things? You can't run it to your like hot water
• 1:25:19
  line? My hot water is really far away and I don't have an extension
• 1:25:24
  that can reach it. Otherwise I would just keep like a candle underneath the
• 1:25:30
  water pipe there like you go more. You know, I should have thought
• 1:25:33
  of that. That's why I'm in the custom toilet business. You know what
• 1:25:36
  I'm saying. I do love a good biday. But the only issue is
• 1:25:41
  and and this might be too much information, but anytime I poop, I
• 1:25:45
  always shower right after, so like I really don't need a bidday. Like,
• 1:25:50
  so if you ever see me, if you ever see like, if
• 1:25:54
  you ever see me with like wet hair or looks like I just got done
• 1:25:57
  showering, also know that I just pooped. That's true. Wow, yes,
• 1:26:02
  true every time, Like I really try to avoid pooping in public for
• 1:26:08
  that reason because I know I won't be able to shower right away. I
• 1:26:11
  literally know only one other person in the world that does that, and I
• 1:26:15
  thought I thought it was the rarest thing I'd never I can't believe I know
• 1:26:21
  a second person that does that. That's actually kind of crazy. Like I
• 1:26:25
  still wipe. I still wipe, But like it's not saying no, I'm
• 1:26:28
  not saying I'm not assuming you don't. I'm just saying, like, that
• 1:26:30
  is a lot of work to shower right after. Yeah, I like having
• 1:26:34
  a nice clean asshole. Well yeah, but I'm almosto imagining it from my
• 1:26:38
  perspective. I got a wife and two kids, Like what if? I
• 1:26:42
  what if? And and we're not the most perfect eaters in the world,
• 1:26:46
  Like what if if I were like that, I'd be having a shower like
• 1:26:50
  four times. You know, it's like these kids, are you putting in
• 1:26:56
  your body? Are you kids? Need your kid? You know what I
• 1:26:59
  mean? Yeah, he can't be taking showers all the time. Yeah.
• 1:27:01
  Kid needs their you know, kids need their parents. I'd have to change
• 1:27:05
  how I'm eating to make to make sure I'm only showering, like one whole
• 1:27:10
  lifestyle change for you. Yeah, total lifestyle change. I'm trying to wrap
• 1:27:14
  my brain around this right now. This is crazy. The only reason I
• 1:27:16
  call Mason a liar is that he doesn't always shower, but he does oftentimes
• 1:27:21
  bathe right after. And what I mean is he takes a bath because Mason
• 1:27:27
  is known for clogging toilets and making them overflow, so he's literally bathing in
• 1:27:32
  his own shit water. So that's probably actually what it is. Oh so
• 1:27:36
  that's the bid day that you were talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 1:27:41
  I uh yeah. I have a tendency of especially if it's like a
• 1:27:45
  weak toilet, like a toilet just doesn't flush very hard. Yeah, there's
• 1:27:48
  a really good chance to I'm gonna plug that damn thing. And it's always
• 1:27:53
  right before we're about to go somewhere. Yeah, like in the most inopportune
• 1:27:57
  times. It's just like clockwork. So then yeah, so if you have
• 1:28:00
  like an emergency dump, then you have to like you're supposed to be going
• 1:28:03
  somewhere, but now you got to stop everything dump and then a shower.
• 1:28:08
  Yeah yeah, Like I really I really try to like schedule out my poops
• 1:28:11
  in that way, like I won't poop until like it is literally about to
• 1:28:15
  explode out, and then I try to like do it. Like if I'm
• 1:28:19
  gonna shower, it's gonna have to be like a two second shower, but
• 1:28:23
  my butt is going to be rinsed. That's either a gift or a curse.
• 1:28:28
  And I can't tell what that which one yet. That's well, if
• 1:28:31
  there is any upside, it's that I always have a nice clean asshole.
• 1:28:36
  I'm so glad that you have a nice clean asshole all the time. Thank
• 1:28:42
  you, Matt. I really appreciate that. I'm so happy for you.
• 1:28:46
  Man. For example, Colin, I've never pooped at Furnace Vest. You
• 1:28:51
  know, We've been there for six days and you know now, and I've
• 1:28:56
  yet to have ever pooped at Furnace Vest when we spent countless hours. Dude,
• 1:29:01
  that so wait, how do you what do you do for food?
• 1:29:04
  Then? Like, I'm pretty good about Like I'm usually just so busy running
• 1:29:10
  around watching bands that I like. I don't get hungry, Like I don't
• 1:29:14
  even think about it. Eventually I do, and I'll eat when I do,
• 1:29:16
  but I typically don't eat enough where I'm gonna have to like poop every
• 1:29:19
  day. Okay, that's fair. That's fair man, That's that's wild to
• 1:29:25
  me, though, Matt, aren't you glad that you are? You know,
• 1:29:30
  you said, hey, wife, Um, I have to go do
• 1:29:34
  this interview. We're gonna go talk about normal gene stuff and then we're also
• 1:29:39
  going to talk about one of the host shitting patterns. I'm only going to
• 1:29:44
  show her the MD segment of just like here's here's here's how this interview went.
• 1:29:51
  Yeah, so we talked about poop. We talked about pooping, we
• 1:29:57
  talked about rinsing poop, We got so we talked about and poops that make
• 1:30:03
  you have to make a lifestyle change. Yeah. Ye, Like, man,
• 1:30:10
  if I have talk about like on any given day, like my kids
• 1:30:13
  won't see me at all, like pooping and showering and stuff. It's like
• 1:30:17
  yeah, sorry, dad's busy. Your your water bill would be nuts.
• 1:30:24
  Oh yeah, right, like all the hot water would be gone. Like,
• 1:30:28
  Oh well, Matt, thank you so much for chatting about Norma Jean
• 1:30:34
  and poop. It's been a blast. It wasn't a shitty time. It
• 1:30:42
  was just the opposite. It was not a shitty time. We kept the
• 1:30:45
  ship where it needed this to this day. At the end, at the
• 1:30:49
  end, Mason's going to shower having talked about poop. Now, well,
• 1:30:54
  Matt, thank you again. You're such a cool dude. I mean,
• 1:30:57
  for a band like Norma Jean that has been a part of Cullen and I's
• 1:31:00
  lives for a very very long time and is one of our favorite bands of
• 1:31:04
  all time. Like for for somebody a part of that band to just be
• 1:31:09
  as cool and as kind as you are, that really means the world to
• 1:31:12
  us that you'd be willing to hang out for an hour and a half and
• 1:31:15
  just chat um even about poop. So thank you again so much for for
• 1:31:19
  hanging Yeah, I appreciate you guys. This was This was really fun.
• 1:31:24
  And uh, I hope we get to do something mic us again some time.
• 1:31:28
  Hell yeah, we're down. We'll see at furnace us at the very
• 1:31:30
  last. Yeah, absolutely,