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Challenging Mortality With JAKE LADERMAN & STEVIE WILLIAMS From CLOWNS · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Yeah, I'm Jake, I play drums and clowns. I'm Stevie. I'm
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  the vocalist of Clowns. And we got a new record. It's called Endless.
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  It's coming out October twentieth, fifth LP Beautiful Yesterday. No worries each
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  other expertly. Then you's have done this before, haven't you start our first
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  radio dar as you mentioned? Boys clown to release your fifth album, Endless
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  on October the twentieth. So how you feeling this short? This far out
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  from it? It feels like I'm about to Like I don't have any kids,
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  but this is what I imagine, like preparing for a child would feel
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  like years and years of creative energy, and you know, the world's completely
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  side down and from it we start writing it. We've been writing it released
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  and now it's all here. It's almost yere, so satisfying, and it's
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  like me a little bit like emotional or something. Can't wait for it to
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  be out into the world and for it to not be our record anymore,
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  you know, like it's going to be whoever listens to its record. It's
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  not going to be our little secret. We mentioned this is your fifth album,
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  guys, like does it get any easier, Like, like I imagine
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  it would be a pretty nerve wracking period wait for this album to come out,
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  Like does it get easier as you go along or is it always definitely
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  gets harder, definitely gets hot. Well, I feel like when we started
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  the band, like we were so inspired to like, you know, get
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  our music career off the ground, and there was so much like I guess
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  you would call like creative low hanging fruit. When we were starting a punk
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  band. You know, we wanted to write a song they had like screaming
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  in it. We wanted a song that sound like there are moones. We
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  want a song that sound like the Offspring. And then once we did an
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  EP, and then like four seven inches and now five albums. Now we're
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  like reaching super high up to the top of the tree to get that sweet
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  fruit. And we're doing like spaghetti Western eight minute jams. At the end
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  of our record, we're fucking around with fresh metal and like jewel guitar solos,
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  all in all in an effort to I guess keep it interesting for ourselves
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  and for the people who listen as well. But yeah, in that essence,
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  it gets harder. It gets way harder. Well, the tenth album
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  would be really turning your hair out then, Yeah, so tell us more
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  about analysts from a musical point of view, guys, and what you're going
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  for with it. It's kind of all over the place, like a lot
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  of our records. I think that what sets this record apart from other records
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  would probably be that we leaned a lot more into like a heavy metal sound.
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  We've got, like, as TeV mentioned, a couple of thrash metal
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  elements, is like a lot of like Judas Priest, you know, old
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  school new wave heavy metal influences, a lot of like lead guitar stuff.
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  Especially in the production sense, it's like there's a bunch of you know,
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  we leaned into a lot of like synthesizer stuff too. We always tried to
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  do a new thing, but yeah, this record probably leans more in the
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  metal a little bit. Speaking Western, I've to listen to it a couple
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  of times, three before the end of your guys, Like it feels a
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  lot more like a live sound album would be accurate accurate assessment. Well,
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  we sound pretty powerful when we play live, so I guess so probably the
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  least live record we've ever done. Yeah, we just wanted this one to
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  be like really fucking, really loud, really just like smacks you in the
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  jaw and knocks you out with a big old punk rock punch to the face.
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  I guess it maybe as well, Like we used a different person mixing
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  the record, which I think maybe for me personally when I listened to it,
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  it sounds really different production wise, mm hmm. And that was a
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  conscious effort to try and like take a step towards a bit more of a
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  high fire sound, but like keeping it sounding like us. And we just
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  found this sweet spot. You know. There was a couple of times in
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  the mixing process where we'd it we felt like it went a little bit too
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  far in the high five sound, and like we just dial it back a
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  little bit and you just find that sweet spot. Yeah, I feel like
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  on all of our previous records, we've wanted it to sound live, and
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  we've pushed it towards live sound, but this time we pushed it way too
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  high fire and then brought it down to the high fight. So the sound,
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  if that makes sense. Does that make sense? Well, yeah,
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  I's have no idea what he's talking about. So today, if you've released
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  a singles, thanks for Nothing for Maldehyde, Death Wish, and Bisexual Awakening.
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  So overall, would you say they're a good son of representation of what
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  to expect. Yes, I guess in the sense that they're all songs that
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  will be on the record. But there's just so much variety in the sound
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  and all the songs. Like there's one song on it it sounds like Slayer,
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  and then there's like like Thanks for Nothing. I feel like kind of
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  has like almost like a bubblegum pop kind of like melody and tinged to it.
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  There's a huge, like eight minute long spaghetti western punk rock track through
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  Creation the top of it. Introduction to the album is like stuff with po
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  we really were you can tell really onto our record in the boundaries of what
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  we can consider punk rock, and I guess it's like testing ourselves creatively as
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  well. You mentioned the album opening made so like endless, it's called it.
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  It's a live and soothing piano piece, and have just catapults straight into
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  all out aggression with Fromaldehyde. Like what was the thought process behind sort of
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  having those two opposing forces. I guess to start the album, I think
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  that whole intro into Formaldehyde and then into the next song, which nobody has
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  heard yet is U. Was very planned and very taken, you know,
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  influenced by certain bands and other albums that we really admire, and I think
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  that like, you know, everyone in Clowns has like different musical backgrounds,
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  but like we all love a big intro. So it was yeah, it's
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  a big it's a big opener. Yeah, And we really wanted the introduction
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  to the album to be like theatrical and I think nothing really drives that home
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  then, like a piano out of nowhere. And we kind of liked like
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  when when is this gonna go live? When is this? When did you
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  wanted to go? Did you want to go next week? Or we can
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  release well, I mean whatever, I mean, we were just I'm here
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  to help you. We just thought it would be cool for people to like
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  because we're obviously not releasing the opening like track before the album comes out,
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  and we want people to be like, cool, new Clowns album is going
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  to come out. I'm going to listen to it, pop it on and
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  here a piano, like release it on. It's funny if then the same
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  way the album comes out, if you're on yeah, yeah, yeah,
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  that would be awesome. Wait make a little note of that, yeah,
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  just because we thought that would be yeah, just another way. I mean,
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  we've already released that spaghetti western song, We've released a metal song,
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  We've released a song that kind of sounds like pop punk or something, and
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  yeah, we just wanted that to be another huge curve people really not letting
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  people know the songs that releasing the album. What album is gonaund like a
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  whole bunch of different stuff, And yeah, I wanted the first the first
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  notes to be a piano, just another huge curveball, like almost for people
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  that put on the first song and be like, wait, is this the
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  first clown. The album's not not a conceptual album as such, but it
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  has got a central theme of immortality running through it. So tell us a
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  bit more about that. I guess, like the central theme that was kind
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  of born through like what we like to think and like to describe as just
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  something that was surfacing like in our band's creative hive minds. Like in the
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  past we've done a full full concept records where like every song is kind of
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  like interwoven within each other, but this one we honestly, I mean,
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  when we started writing it, the world was collapsing into a pandemic, and
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  all we had was home recorded here and just you know, by free time
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  to write songs and a few homos. We wished to do a couple of
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  most like intwing lockdowns, and I got listening back to a lot of the
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  lyrics that I was writing, and I just sort of noticed that there was
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  this central theme of living forever which was just surfacing in the in the lyrics.
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  It like wasn't wasn't intentional, but then and I was also kind of
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  like searching for a concept at the time, too, searching to be inspired
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  by something. And then when I noticed that these themes were sort of,
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  I guess subconsciously coming out in the lyrics, then I just thought like that
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  would make a pretty badass sort of like concept into immortality. And I think
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  it kind of reflects our motivation at the time, which was that, you
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  know, the world was collapsing and we just didn't want the band to die.
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  We were just determined to make sure that on the other side of it,
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  we were going to be able to go back on tour and release music,
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  and for better or worse, here we are releasing how fifth album.
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  I like as it is now it has become expected for you guys to have
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  the album closed with some little bit off kilter, but the one on this
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  one's an absolutely crack of mate. It it's called a Widow's Son, which
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  essentially tells us a tale of neck Kelly. But where did the idea to
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  do that come from? Like it's it's unexpected, but it's really works well.
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  Like I guess that idea spawned. I feel like I actually started like
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  drawing this link between thrash metal and spaghetti Western back in twenty nineteen, after
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  we had released our like our first, sorry, our last record, Nature
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  Nurture, and we were touring it, and I can't remember where it was,
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  Like I think I was just watching like a Clint Eastwood film and just
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  listening to the to the music and just hearing that like didn't dig and I
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  was like, that's it's like spaghetti Western is like pretty much thrash metal.
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  It was thrash metal before rush metal was known or brought to life and popularized.
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  And then I guess that just it just sort of happened from there,
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  Like I was, I mean that that song, I was writing those riffs
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  for like many many years and then you know they were all coming into the
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  band practices, and then again we were just like stewing over it and melting
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  over it, and and it just made sense, like we mut we get
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  out the way over years that were mutual. Myras the host of case filecast,
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  and we're been in touch like Instagram stuff like we just smashed file when
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  on the road, and yeah, we we reached out. It just seemed
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  natural that we were going to have somebody narrate over that song, but just
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  from the wave that it's laid out, like we weren't going to do a
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  spaghetti western song where me or Hanni sing, It just felt right to have
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  a narration. And you know, we only know one narrator, well,
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  we know of one narrator. We actually we don't know his name name at
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  least, and he he said yes, which was cool. There's probably I
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  think me and Jake would both agree that's like probably our most prized collaboration A
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  fun Yeah. Right, So your original tour that you had planned to promote
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  the album has had to be postponed, guys, so fill us in on
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  the new dates. New dates are across March April twenty twenty four. We're
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  hitting all the capital cities. We're bringing our mates Void along. It's going
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  to be a party. We're going to play a bunch of new stuff,
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  a bunch of old stuff, and it's going to be a wicked Yeah,
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  it's very likely to be like handful of only shows in the year playing March
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  fifteen Slide in Britain, March twin Line of Factory and Avlade, March thirty
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  Amplifier in Perth, April five at once Every Russell in Melbourne and April thirteen
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  at Krubar, Sydney with Void playing it all the shows except per Before I
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  let you go, guys, I've started doing up three different Spotify playlists based
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  on songs for people we speak to you, so using your own songs.
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  Give me one for a playlist to get the party started, a playlist to
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  save your Marriage, and a playlist to end your marriage Party Start. What
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  was the second one? The album end your Marriage and Save your Marriage?
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  Well, I think end your Marriage would probably be Quicksand because you know that's
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  just a song of heartbreak. Yeah, to get the party started, Like
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  maybe thanks for is the party song and that's got the feel goods mm hmm.
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  And what song do you think really liifies marriage, it solidifies. Yeah,
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  none of them may probably you can think of a few that would end
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  a marriage. On like ear your records. I reckon the biggest song that
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  gets our party, the party started when we play live is blandest than New
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  Black, Undeniably, that song always goes off save marriage, a bit of
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  serenading spaghetti Western never never went astray. You know everyone loves Netflix and Netflix
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  and chill with your partner back end the marriage. Got a few noise songs,
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  I don't know, I can't even remember what they're called. Now focused
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  on this. We've been so focused on this record for years. Yeah,
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  anyway, I've got three between the Saturday. Yeah, thanks very much for
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  your time today. Your new album, Endless is out today when this interview
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  comes out, and she's absolutely cracky. Guys, congratulations and I'll when a
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  coup along to your what's the story from about okay? Sounding about forgo you
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  too something to make something that sounds about drums up back, but then stopped
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  to make something that soundn't coup breaking out wing to stopped to make something the
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  stent song breaking. Yeah, something funds a drum said, sorry, I
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  got job on the crown, I said, take this wild, pretty strong
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  never side. She's up. I'm looking from mouth and he's okay, John
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  lived and now pretty strong never side, she said, I look looking from
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  me sucking into mouth. Oh my ship, I love those about working blogs
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  to suthing. You make something and you're gonna love something about joy someway you
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  just shutting to may stop to have I love some Corey w you tell him
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  to something, to make something. I love you to that side comfort left
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  of the line side night job stay. I said to this wild, I'm
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  pretty strong never she's as okay from now I'm not. Here's something out here
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  and I got one l twenty and now I'm a pretty siwn time she's also
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  took them Mountain precire time she took the mouth he that's useless shops shot time
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  and did you see me the other side, I'm visiting my friends in hell
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  and I'm sitting pretty strong. That time she's also took you get from mouth
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  is the day that I got jam because now I left say and now I
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  make pretty sure I never tie because I'm excat from mouth. Jack. I'm
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  pretty sure I never tie because I'm excercat from mouth or Joy were just I'll
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  be pretty shout out