Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Beware The Mixed Ape With JACK MUZAK From OSAKA PUNCH

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Beware The Mixed Ape With JACK MUZAK From OSAKA PUNCH · HEAVY Music Interviews

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You're owning a desert home and know everyone that you loved Zippana, skin and
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bones. I don't want to be some matter with that duty to call me
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out and then we'll call your band with a mouth sufi. Here you look
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at me, look at the lid when I walked us, swing like another
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thad in your head, like you come understand. So that is my Name's
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Jack. Music from a Psycho Punch. We're a little alternative rock funk metal
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band from Brisbane and we're just about to release an album called Mixtape, which
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comes out on Monday, the fourth of September. We're counting the days and
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it's just going to have a whole eclectic mix of all the types of music
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that we like to listen to and play. Beautiful Jack, thanks for joining
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us to night brother, no worries, Thanks having me a pleasure. Your
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Psycopunch will finally release what I believe your debut for length album when Mixed Ape
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hits the streets on September four. So it's a been a while coming.
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It is a bit. So we had we did. We had an album
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the that we did Vidio Machines, that actually recorded as another band when we
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were Kidney Thieves, So Ages and As and Ages we were a band called
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Kidney Thieves, and then another band called Kidney Thieves tried to sue us and
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threaten to like sort of like kick us off the face of the planet,
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and so we had to change our name, and we changed it just as
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we were releasing that album, and also just as we were moving overseas to
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the UK, so it kind of was all pretty bad timing. So we
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went went overseas, released the album as a psychopunch, and while we're in
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the UK we recorded an eph and then that was done in Liverpool and then
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we released that basically when we got back from the UK. So we're not
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very we're not very smart at to how to release things. It's like here
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I have this sela, We're going somewhere else. Then all right, we're
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recorded, see you later, blah blah blay. We're going to release another
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one. So this is the first one. They're actually going on, like
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we've recorded it in Brisbane, we're releasing it, we're touring it, we're
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doing it right. We're finally going to actually have something like an album the
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tour properly, which is cool and look it is a time frame war because
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he's a perfectionist when it comes to music or blacks it's I mean a lot
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of both really, So we do. We did take a while to write
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the songs, but then we don't. We sort of record them ourselves.
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So the problem with recording yourselves is that you can always go back in and
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change stuff, and the more you listen to it, you're like, oh,
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maybe I should have done that, Maybe we could add this, and
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maybe we could add that. Whereas if you just book a studio for two
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weeks or a month and go in and you record it, then it's done
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and your engineer goes, no, fuck off, it's done. You can't
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you can't put a banjo in there. It's done. So but another thing,
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like on top of that, we so we've had three kids in the
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band since writing and recording this album. Covid sort of took the wind down
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a little bit. That was because some of the songs were recorded before a
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lot of them were written before we were in the process of recording when COVID
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hit. During that during Covid, myself and the guitarists had a kid each
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and then with lots of stuff we get into so that did not get a
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little bit of the wet of ours out. And then another thing was that
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we were then it had to record, as we all work and have kids.
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Was Tuesday nights, and so we were recording on Tuesday nights. But
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then if there was a tour coming up and we had we had a few
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of those we got we managed to get on the Butterfly Effect, Cog Sunk,
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Lotto, Mammal, so four different sort of straight wide tours. So
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then all those recording nights turned into rehearsal nights, and you know, that's
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that's the nature of the beast, but you can only get away one night
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a week because we're all, you know, grown, grown adults and have
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to change diapers and stuff. Unfortunately, Yeah, some months and months and
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months of that was just rehearsing and getting sets together and then trying to kind
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of ride in between. So it has been busy. But I'm not going
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to lie. We are fucking lazy, that's exactly. Yeah. I know
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this is going to be difficult made because you guys have got so much going
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on musically, But tell us a bit more about mixtape from the musical point
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of view and what you were going for with it. So I mean we've
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got there's a whole bunch of songs that sort of didn't make it onto this
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album, which we'll make it onto the next one. So the ones that
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we made out of this one. First of all, we wanted it to
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show the eclectic nature of the band. We wanted to show sort of all
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the all the different facets that we that we do. Every song has either
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been written by like one different member and then added toude by others, or
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written entirely by all four band, which kind of is what gives it that
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sort of like makes it all sound so different. So, for example,
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too Old for This Ship, I basically wrote that on a computer with the
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vocals and everything, and then the big big band swing jazz section. I
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got a made of mind from the Jazz Music Institute Jami to arrange arrange the
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big band section, so that song was almost like entirely written by myself and
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Travis Jenkins, who's like an absolute jazz genius. And then the boys sort
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of like put their own flare onto it. But other songs like heckl and
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Ja which is the last last track instrumental, we basically all just like put
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our brains in together and like wrote, wrote it completely together. And the
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good thing about different brains is that we were in a different music that's if
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it wasn't the same band, and probably just like this band. But because
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you know, I listened to a funk, a funk and stole and more.
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On the jazz spectrum, the bass player listens to a lot of heavier
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stuff, a lot of instrumental stuff, crispy. The guitarist listens to like
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literally everything, but a lot more metal, grunty guitars. It kind of
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just brings it all together into this really weird, eclectic mix, which is
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cool. So yeah, I would just say, actually, I would to
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be honest, I would say the songs that were ready first were the ones
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that made it on the album. I'd like to say there's a lot of
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thought that went into it, but I was like, already, let's do
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it, let's get it out there. You know, Sorry, am I
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allowed to swear on this man? If you did not hung up on you?
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Good Good been releasing the singles from the album since two thousand and seventeen
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with How We Operate, but we've also got Drones, Wholl of Shame and
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the recently released simulate, So which one comes closest to reflexing note and reflecting
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the overall sound of the album? Wouldn't say I reckon probably the first one,
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probably how we operate. I reckon For me, that's like got all
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the all the little bits of genres and types of music that we like to
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put in songs. So it's got like like funky versus a heavy chorus,
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a big kind of like sweeping melodic bridge. So that's almost like if I
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was to try and write a template for how we would want to sound,
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that song nails it. But then you know, Drones has a lot more
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of a serious, dark kind of heavy vibe, which we also tend to
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have as well, and then simulates just a whole other, whole other creature
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for me, like that was a whole new sound for us. I thought.
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It's a lot more laid back, a lot more down tempo, the
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vocals are a lot more melodic. So yeah, I don't want to ever
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say that there's any sound that we really want to just go with because I
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never want to say, oh, this is us and then kind of put
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ourselves in the box. I always want to be able to we've got what
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I love about our band and what we've done in the past is literally do
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a thing now. People will be like, yeah, tracks, you know
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what I mean, there's nothing we'll do. People will be like, oh
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no, you can't do that. We can because we've probably done so much
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stupid ship. You know that people would no matter what we do, we're
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free to do whatever, which I actually love. But I would say probably
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how we operate is the best example of what's to come from the album.
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I reckon, Well you've heard it, what do you reckon? Yeah?
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Alright, so too ma' So it's actually got a lot more of a sort
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of a jazz please lounge sort of fee in parts and I expected, but
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that's really cool, Like I love that sound like one running I've always loved
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about you guys is like you say, like you can go for them full
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balls our metal to fucking Acapelco jazz sound and shop just by that and and
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you fucking nail it. It doesn't sound And the album has got that author
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of made I think. I think it's brilliant. It's really good. Thanks
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there, thanks eve iry to think. So so we get on to Simulate
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too, which was the last one release, Like it's different in the fact
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that it didn't come with a film clip, which is one of your strengths.
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Normally your your film clips, like whatever, there is it just a
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time consumer thing or you couldn't think of anything to go with it, or
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no, it's in the works. It's it's just it's just taking longer than
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we expected. So yeah, yeah, it's in the works that that one's
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coming. And we've actually already done a film clip for another track, so
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it was sort of like we wanted to do three film clips for the for
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this album. The one that got done the quickest, unfortunately wasn't simulated,
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but we kind of just wanted to release Simulate first, and we're like,
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let's just let's just get out there because it's like probably it's one of my
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favorite songs off the album in terms of maturity, like musical maturity, and
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we're like, you know what, we don't know. We don't know the
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funk doing who does know what they're doing, So we're like whatever, like,
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we'll release it people if people like it, they like it, and
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then when the when the film that comes out, we can get it out
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there. And one thing too, so the other film clip that we're about
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to drop just after the album releases is for Kamakazi. But I find I
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always find that if you hear a song for the first time, when you're
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watching the film clip, you don't even really hear the song. I always
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like to listen to a song first, get time to dust it, and
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then the film clip and you can share the film for what it is and
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what do you hear of the song. And it was actually at a part
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of the weekend, I just had the new film clip for the new song,
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and I just showed one of my mates because we're in puddy mode,
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and he watched it. He was cracking up. It's I'm really proud of
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this film clip. It's cracking up. But afterwards he's like, yeah,
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the only problem with that film clip is I don't know. I can't even
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I didn't even hear the song. What I mean like, there's just so
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much stupid shit going on in front of me that I wasn't even like using
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my ear. So we are gonna so after the album drops, we're gonna
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put the film about maybe a week or two afterwards, just to kind of
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like let people are give them a visual cube. But yeah, you know,
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it's coming soon for sure. It's very good. And another thing about
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you guys in your film, you're one of a better word the big black
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dildos, Like actually, yeah, no it's not on the new one.
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I didn't even but it is an album artwork. It did actually sneak its
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little sexy, little black way into the into the artwork. It's just just
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a little easter egg. But I didn't even really think of it for this
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one. It was kind of just always a little accident that it happened to
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be when wishing stuff. So it was like it just happened. It actually
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was. It was actually bottle so a dildo on the back end of it
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was was and I bought it in Greece and it was just this like massive
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don bottle opener, and so it was just like it was always around the
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house. It was always the perfect promp. Actually don't even yeah, I
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don't even know where it is now, but maybe I'll just go and buy
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a black dildo for myself and then I could try it into the next round
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Clips video. Though. There's also a bit of an urban miple legend behind
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the Mixed eight album as well. So can you go in a big greater
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detail for that for us. Yeah. Yeah, So Mixtape is actually a
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group of heroes. So the EP that we released a long time ago now
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I'm maybe ten years ago, maybe last maybe seven years ago was called Death
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Monster Super Squad, and each track of that album had its own villain with
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the name of the track. And so we've got this amazing artist that we've
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worked with for a while and basically I just gave him the titles of each
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track at EP. He just created this and out of those names and you
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can find them all on out site. And also to make the call,
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there's son, there's all these different guys, and then we won't like our
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full description about each of these villains. They're the villains, and then Mixtape
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is the heroes. So one day, if we get the time ever,
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we'll write our own comic book, which would be Mixtape versus the Death Monster
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Super Squad. And Reggie actually came up with the idea for each one of
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the apes to be one of us, so reflected by our own personalities or
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a physical characteristic. So I'm a chimpanzee. If this is all in the
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artwork too, So when you get the album artwork, you'll be able to
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see each of these apes and then on the front cover as well, which
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I think is available now as well. So Reggie who's the bass player,
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he's a pretty solid dude. He's a silver back gorilla. Chrispy who's a
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skinny, little skinny, little weedy little guy with a lot of venom.
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When you see him on stage, he's a given. And then Blair who's
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who's a big ginger. He's the ranger Tanks. So when you see the
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artwork, you'll see the you'll see all the resemblance between us and the characters.
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And then one day, if we get our ship together, we'll actually
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do it like a comic book, which will be the mixtape is all the
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character from them, the EPs superlo Okay, that'd be awesome hopefully one day
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when you get together. Yeah, and there's plenty of deals ahoy for you
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in that one mate, Thanks, but I'll be keeping an eye out for
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it. Touch. But you've got there's a mixture of like any music,
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you've got funk, pop, metals, that's rock, there's jazz, there's
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everything. So how do you get the balance right in the creative process?
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Like have you got limits? And you send yourself for how do you know
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when you got too far with I know, I don't think we've ever even
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thought about it. Hey, we're just like, is there too far?
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I don't think there is a too far because we've listened to bands like you
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listened to like Miss the Bungle or Frank Zapper and stuff like that, and
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they took it so much more to so much more extremes and than we have.
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So I feel like if anything we could, we could probably push it
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further. In the writing process, we just go with what sounds good to
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our ears, do you know what I mean. We'll just play something and
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like we're like this, you know this needs that, Or sometimes you'll have
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something like, for example, simulate where we had we had written like a
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lot of it at that point where we were like, we do need to
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make this heavier. You know, you can literally hear way through this where
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we step up the gas get heavy. So we have a little bit of
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like, oh man, I think we need a bit more of a bit
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more of that, But we generally don't overthink it or go oh no,
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we can't we do that. That's too that's too funky, you know,
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like said no one ever, that's like you know that's impossible, or no,
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that's too heavy. No you can't say that you wanted you want it
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heavier, you want a funkier you wanted more and more and more if you
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can, So yeah, that's yeah, I guess that's if that's an answer.
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Really going to get to serious out of here, I think. Now
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to celebrate the album, you've got the Mixed eight tour, which kicks off
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in Brisbane on September twenty nine. Thing goes through Adelaide, per Sydney,
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Hanbrake, Cans Towns, will Hobart, Melbourne and finishes on the Sunshine Coast
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on December the second. So it's a lot of shows broke for a band
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who hasn't done much tore it lately. Yeah, no, it's pretty good.
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We did it. We did a little mini too at the start of
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the year, which was literally just to like stretch, stretch the gig muscles,
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you know, just see how how we're doing in terms of like numbers
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and fans. So we did that was our first headline tour in in quite
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We've been doing opening and support tours over the last seven years, but this
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will be like this big one, the biggest balancing act is like being dad's
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you know, like now that we're good kids and a lot of the times,
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you know, you work during the week and the weekend is the only
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time you ever see your kids and have get to have family time. So
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that will be the that will be the big challenge. Yeah, exactly what
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you're talking about, you know, you know how it is. Yeah,
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yeah, yeah, So needless to say, I'm really looking forward to it.
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Yeah, like a punch been a band that delivers add more when it
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comes to your live shows. Bro, So what if back from this time,
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I'm sure you've got something something you're gonna pull out of one of those
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gold sleeves that yours. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna gott a couple of
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little moves, and I've been practicing in a couple of actual special moves.
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I did have for the US to what I called the anti gravity jizz cannon,
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which I pulled out at one point, which was like, it's hard
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to describe. It was like a little thing that like had this it's really
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hard to describe. It looked like jis flying out of a cannon defining gravity.
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That's what it says on the tin which I was looking forward to now
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and this still broken on the show last last two, so we would have
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to buy one or get some moves or something, but it was you.
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I just always trying to think of I don't know, the dumbest shit that
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I can do on stage, and I never I don't never try and think,
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I don't try and like come up with too much pre pre planned stuff
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because I'd like to just just come up with some stuff on the fly.
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And I think that's one of my favorite things about being in this band is
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that like there's nothing that you can do that you know, similar to the
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style of music, like we've set ourselves up, which so like we have
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so much fun on stage. There's nothing that I could do. I could
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literally like out the crowd and talk through my arts and people were like classic
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classic, yeah exactly, Like it's awesome. I love it. There's no
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we don't take ourselves seriously, so that just gives us the freedom to do
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whatever we want. So I can't wait to textas see what we come up
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with on tour. I'll get to see the first show show, so I'll
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be expected. Yeah yeah, now before you go, bro, I started
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up our three news Spotify playlists based on artists that we speak to, So
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using your own songs, I want a song for a playlist to get the
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party started. One for a playlist is going to save your marriage, and
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one for a playlistic potentially end your marriage. Good, I would say till
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for this ship. Yeah, well a few albums, isn't it yet?
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Even though it's it's like an anti party song, it's all about being like
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I'm just too odd, and it's actually like written really really from the heart.
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You know. Sometimes I'll go to or party and the music is just
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too loud, and I'll go up to the teacher. I'd be like,
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can we just turn it down a little bit? Because but I wrote it
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in a way where I wanted it to sound like it was like a real
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party song, and like yeah, if you didn't hear the lyrics, you'd
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be like, man, yeah, this is like this is a real get
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up and goer. But if you actually listen to the lyrics, it's just
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all about like God, can you just turn that down and let's go to
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bed. So I'd say that's my anti party party song. What was the
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other one? I save your marriage music? Save your marriage? Ah,
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let's see probably probably simulate, I'd say, just to say my marriage.
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There's any one where I actually get to, like use my vocals to the
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full extent, like actually sing properly and not be too wacky and silly and
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ridiculous, or actually actor Breeze, which is about a product that if you
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put it on your face, it makes you perfect. So yeah, if
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you feel like, if you feel like your missus isn't into anymore, just
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put a little bit of action Breeze on your face and mate, you look
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like everybody else. It's amazing. Either could potentially end your marriage. Oh,
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let's say probably drones. That's probably the probably the darkest, darkest song
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we've got, singing about being hung like swinging like an elephant. Marriage.
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Maybe not. You always look good in someone's exactly Jack. Thanks, you
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try to be a pleasure to finally getting the media made the album mixtape absolute
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pleasure. Fourth, then she's an absolute ball chair. If you like it's
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like a punch, you'll fucking loved this. Congrats Brown. Thanks, you
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know everyone that you love skin and bones. I don't want to be something
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of a fast to call me out and we'll call you under the mouth of
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fire. You look at me, look at the little red. When I
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walk, I swing like an elephant, and you will rubbing your head like
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you can't understand. Keep checking me out. I'm incredible. It runs start
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calls like a kind of ball, but you will run in your mouth and
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when your pack in your head, so side out out standing that chuse set
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in the house, south side siding the doll side. Alright, doll,
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that's the truth. When you're very lives you cool. The world is the
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ver one on one, the cruise back. When you feel the pressure with
22:55
the weight of the love will cross your chest and then it's syanara. You
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look at me, look at the little and when I walk, I swim
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like an elephant. When you were rubbing your head, look you can't understand,
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Keep checking me out. I'm incredible. Spit roast on calls like a
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kind of boy. But you were running your mouth and when you're picking your
23:18
hand. It's not a lot of money for a guy like you. After
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that we gave you said you could do. When everything was all, I
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was all so glad the buddy sand down who wants no fuss to the sun
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for a guy, I go swe else in the worlds but some little fools,
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and everything was all so glad. What are you waiting for? Sending
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a trouse out Holy we muther list forever. I'm going away my life outside,
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and this is where we finding each other. This is when lose our
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mind, Holy Mother, lift for I'm going away my life outside. This
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is why we finding each other. This is will we go to die?
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You look at me, look up a little one one o folk up one
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watching your first sure remember in your heads like you can't understand, keep checking
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me out of incredible still Bolston calls like a kind of woe. Sure,
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ut in your mouth and when you're taking your hand, it's not a lot
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of money for a guy like you. I said all that we came as
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Louise you kuld do well. Everything was all that. It was all so
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glad to put his hand down. There was the post to this for a
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guy I go who he lives showing up like sent a little pools and everything
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was all. I was all so glad. When you're waiting for us and
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trouts and out Holy evers, live forever and burn away my light outside.
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This is where we find each other. This is where we lose our light.
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Holy ethers live forever, burn away my light outside. This is where
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we find each other. This is where we come sometime