Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / EP: 760 - Tom Osman Interviews In The Company of Serpents About Their New Album "A Crack In Everything”

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EP: 760 - Tom Osman Interviews In The Company of Serpents About Their New Album "A Crack In Everything” · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

0:00
I've joked with this with bandmates and other musicians
0:02
sometimes that they're just like, there are a lot of people
0:04
out there who like the idea of being in a band more than they
0:08
like creating music. You know that that they like the
0:11
the idea that it's going to be some prestigious thing that's
0:13
going to get them laid and and up whatever they want.
0:17
Got to tell you there's there are other routes to doing those
0:20
things as much as you want. And I, I really think that you
0:24
should be valuing the music or treating that as of the utmost
0:26
importance before all of the, you know, a trap tertiary
0:31
benefits. Hey, this is Tom for Ghost Cop
0:40
Magazine and it's a great pleasure to be joined by Grant
0:43
Netsorg of sludge metal, spaghetti Western, three piece
0:47
in the company of serpents who are poised to release their
0:50
latest album, A crack in Everything.
0:53
Grant, thank you very much for joining us.
0:54
Thanks. For having me, Tom.
0:56
So just sort of getting straight into the records, One of the
0:59
things I really appreciate about it is it has this kind of like
1:02
cinematic aspect to it. I would say there's the, you've
1:06
got the contrast of the, the really kind of crushing
1:10
overwhelming, like really sort of like oppressive sludge metal
1:14
parts. And then you've got the the more
1:16
kind of spaced out sections. You've got these, I guess you
1:19
know, where the sort of spaghetti Western element comes
1:21
in, the more sort of twanging guitars.
1:22
And it really, it really does feel a lot when I'm listening to
1:25
the album, Like there's this lone figure that's trudging
1:30
through the desert, hopefully towards some sign of salvation,
1:33
but it's not entirely clear. So like, how much did you sort
1:36
of have that cinematic picture in mind when you were making the
1:39
album? Well, first of all, I love that
1:42
that's the impression you take away from it.
1:43
I love that imagery of just like the lone figure just kind of
1:46
forging along in a desolate West or something like that.
1:49
That's, that's really cool that it, that, that it's evocative in
1:53
that way for you. And I appreciate hearing that.
1:56
It's, it's not really like a hyper conscious decision, but I
1:59
think those influences kind of filter in via osmosis.
2:03
You know, I'm, I'm a big movie buff and I I love sort of eerie
2:08
spare scores in film, particularly when it comes to,
2:14
you know, spaghetti westerns or or westerns in general, but lots
2:17
of horror flicks as well. There's some incredible score
2:21
work touchstones that I think we refer to, you know, like, for
2:25
example, like, like one that I've always really loved well
2:28
before I started this band was Neil Young's soundtrack to the
2:33
film Dead Man. You know, it's, it's this great
2:35
eerie spare, very guitar heavy. Well, I mean, I think it's
2:39
exclusively guitars, just this smoky desert sort of sound that,
2:46
you know, he's alternately making these noises, emulating
2:50
the sound of like, you know, a, a train crossing the western
2:54
plains and the 1800s. And it, and it works perfectly.
2:57
And to my ear, it's, it's obviously like a huge influence
3:01
on like later Earth who's another major touchstone for me
3:06
musically. But I've, I've also like, I grew
3:08
up watching a lot of like Sergio Leone westerns with any of
3:12
Morricone scores. So those are kind of just etched
3:15
into my subconscious to a certain degree.
3:18
So I think a lot of that bleeds through, but I also, you know, I
3:22
think very early on, especially when looking at some of our
3:25
peers, I realized that, you know, we weren't in the arms
3:28
race for most crushingly heavy all the time band.
3:32
I mean, I like to intersperse those little instrumental
3:35
passages and bits of ambiance that that let it breathe a bit
3:38
more. You know, some of our peers
3:40
locally are bands like Primitive Man who I adore, but like,
3:44
nobody's going to be heavier than them.
3:46
So I, I got out of that arms race pretty early on and you
3:49
know, those guys are friends of ours.
3:51
But like, if I, I don't think that I write well, if what I'm
3:55
trying to do is just sonically punishing the entire time and I
3:58
don't do it as well as some of my peers, chiefly like bands
4:02
like Primitive Man who I just mentioned, you know, So being
4:04
able to kind of give that space and have that breath that makes
4:09
it get, get that sort of cinematic feel, I think really
4:12
just lends itself to my writing style.
4:14
And I, I hope it help. I, I feel that it helps make
4:18
our, our, our records have more of a cohesive feel to them and
4:23
not just feel like, you know, handful of songs kind of jammed
4:27
together. It for me it helps create a
4:29
thread throughout them. Yeah, no, it makes a lot of
4:32
sense. And those are all really
4:33
interesting reference points. Like from time to time when I am
4:36
talking about like what's the most crushing, sonically heavy
4:38
thing I can think of around the moment.
4:39
Like I've definitely mentioned primitive man before.
4:41
It's just like there's no escape from the crush of them.
4:45
So like you say, it's like if you're trying to compete with
4:47
that, you know, it's really just sending you in one in One
4:49
Direction. But I do, I do think that, you
4:53
know, to your point, it really does give this nice contrast the
4:55
way the album does flow. And obviously you've got like
4:58
you've got a couple of tracks which are these little sort of
5:00
instrumental interludes, if I can call them that.
5:03
And then even within particular tracks, like I was thinking like
5:07
Buzzard Logic, for example, I love how that one starts out.
5:10
And it really does feel like obviously in the title that kind
5:12
of alludes to the idea of being out in the desert.
5:14
But it really feels that kind of like contemplative at the start.
5:18
And then it gets heavier and it gets faster as well.
5:20
So like, even within tracks, you've got quite a lot of
5:22
changes and flows and and contrast, which is, yeah, which
5:27
is kind of enjoyable to, you know, to go through those arcs
5:30
when listening to the album, yeah.
5:31
Thanks. That that one Buzzard logic is,
5:34
is one that's it's kind of prescient that you're
5:37
interviewing me where I'm sitting right now.
5:40
I'm in the back bedroom of my sister in law's house in the
5:43
Four Corners area of Colorado. We come down, my wife and I and
5:47
our daughter come down and visit them probably once a year,
5:49
usually for the last five or six years.
5:52
It's a good 6 to 8 hours from Denver where we live.
5:55
But that song, Buzzard Logic. I initially started writing here
5:59
in like 2020 when we were visiting them after our previous
6:03
record, Lux had come out. I was mucking around on my
6:09
brother-in-law, Rob's Martin acoustic and came up with that
6:14
initial phrase that that became the beginning of that song.
6:18
That's the the more, I guess, subdued, eerier intro before it
6:22
gets into the full bore heavy stuff.
6:24
But it was written on an acoustic guitar in the desert,
6:28
you know, of in a very cool part of of Colorado.
6:32
And yeah, we're, I mean, like 2020 yards from where I'm I'm
6:37
sitting currently. So that song in particular has
6:40
its genesis point from where I'm currently sitting.
6:44
That's cool. And I, there's, there's like a
6:45
couple of things that I wanted to get into about sort of the
6:48
themes that you're tackling on this album.
6:50
So well, sort of before that actually one of the funny things
6:53
for me was that before I read any of the press release, I
6:56
listened to the album once the whole way through.
6:59
So I wasn't primed in any way even about like the reference of
7:02
the, of the, the album title. So I got to the end of the
7:04
record and then you have the line where you say there's a
7:07
crack in everything. That's how the light gets.
7:09
And I went, hang on a minute, that's Leonard Cohen.
7:10
And then 'cause I hadn't realized that that was the
7:12
reference to the to the title. And it's it's particularly apt
7:15
for me because my introduction to Leonard Cohen was the Natural
7:19
Born Killers movie. And, you know, there are several
7:21
tracks from that album, The Future, which are in that
7:24
soundtrack. So it's.
7:25
Cool is in there. What's that anthem?
7:27
That's in particular is in there in the in the scene where the
7:31
prison's all like going completely to hell and like
7:33
Robert Downey Junior's like media Geraldo amalgam is being
7:38
like carried out by the president.
7:40
You hear anthem in the background.
7:41
It's funny you should say that. That was absolutely the first
7:44
place I heard Leonard Cohen as well.
7:46
Oh, that's funny because I was, that was going to be my
7:48
question, like what was your, well, a kind of a two-part
7:50
question, What was? So you've answered the first
7:51
part, what your introduction was, but why did you feel like
7:55
you wanted to honour him with that reference on this
7:57
particular album? Well, so first of all, I adore
8:01
Leonard Cohen. He's, you know, an all time
8:05
great and is pretty much insurmountable as a lyricist.
8:09
And in my view, his music's been really important to me
8:13
throughout my life. I discovered him as a kid seeing
8:16
Natural Porn Killers and hearing all that stuff from the future
8:20
on that. That soundtrack, I think it had
8:23
Waiting for the Miracle, the the Future, of course, Seeing the
8:26
Future Brother, It is Murder and Anthem, We're all on that
8:30
soundtrack and I loved all of those.
8:31
So that was my entry point into Leonard Cohen and I think I got
8:35
Songs from a Room shortly after that.
8:38
And he sounds completely different as a young man, which
8:41
is ironic because he's at that point, he was still in his mid
8:44
30s when he began as his musical career.
8:46
And I found out shortly after that my dad had been a huge
8:49
Leonard Cohen fan. He heard me playing.
8:51
And he's like, where did you hear this?
8:52
Like, who told you about Leonard Cohen?
8:54
Like he knew about, like, I knew about Dylan and all the major
8:58
folk guys of the 60s. My dad was big into a lot of
9:01
like hippie music from the 60s. But he also, you know, like I
9:04
have a, an OG copy of the Velvet Underground and Nico with the
9:07
sticker still intact that I swiped for my dad's record
9:10
collection when I was like 10. So he had some other darker shit
9:13
in there too. And so it has been a musical
9:18
touchstone for me for quite a long time.
9:20
And I was lucky enough to actually see Leonard perform
9:22
live twice with my dad, You know, very cool experience with
9:26
my father's also a fan, one of which was that Red Rocks, one of
9:29
in arguably the best concert venues in the in the world.
9:34
So it's always been very special music for me, but also like the
9:39
intensity of his lyrics is is just absolutely unmatched.
9:43
And he's such a just died in the wool poet with how he approaches
9:48
everything. And I just have the utmost
9:51
respect for him. And that song anthem has long
9:54
been my my favorite Leonard Cohen song.
9:57
And I was trying to think of different ways to.
10:00
Kind of. I don't know how.
10:02
To express what I wanted to about the the particular breed
10:07
of darkness that this album expresses or explores while
10:13
still being able to play with the theme of light, which has
10:16
been a common recurring theme for us as sort of this
10:19
metaphysical abstract or, you know, fundamental rude essence,
10:23
sort of prima materia. I like that analogy and I like
10:28
that metaphor of life as this sort of life force beyond
10:32
everything or that it's fundamental to everything.
10:35
But how do you talk about that in the sphere of, you know,
10:38
utter despair and despondency? And I thought that the the line
10:43
there's a crack and everything that's how the light gets in was
10:45
really apartment for that and that it came from one of my all
10:47
time favorite artists, you know, was it's just a cherry on top.
10:51
And so I thought it was perfect for it.
10:53
And I just kind of that that theme hit me when I think we
10:58
were maybe 2 songs into the nine that ended up comprising the
11:02
record, and it just stuck and I really liked it and we just kind
11:05
of ran from there. I think it's also kind of fun to
11:09
to play like very heavy music and include some out of of left
11:13
field influences in there that people don't expect.
11:16
But I think, you know, anybody who listens passionately to
11:19
music is never surprised when somebody has a broad range of
11:22
tastes. But, you know, there's always
11:24
some some metal head who's convinced that like some obscure
11:28
black metal band is, is like your chief influence when you're
11:30
like, Nah, man. Like I was bumping some Leonard
11:33
Cohen when I was writing this. Yeah, well, to your point and,
11:37
you know, to reference someone that I think sort of has a
11:39
certain affinity in terms of some of the music they make, I
11:41
interviewed Steve Von Till recently, absolutely lovely guy.
11:45
And I was just then I saw on Instagram some little real, I
11:48
think it was one of these, you know, fan question things where
11:51
someone had asked him like, what's your favorite non metal
11:54
music at the moment? He's just like, this might
11:56
surprise you, but actually a lot of music that I listen to isn't
11:58
metal. In fact, possibly most of the
12:00
music I listen to these days isn't metal.
12:02
So. So yeah, exactly to your.
12:03
Point that doesn't. Surprise me at all about that
12:05
guy. Yeah, I love Neurosis and Steve
12:09
Vontell seems like an amazing person.
12:10
I've met him a couple times. We pretty early on in like, I
12:16
think we were only a band for like 3 or 4 years.
12:17
We got the amazing opportunity to open for Neurosis in like
12:21
2014. So that was a absolute, you
12:26
know, bucket list sort of performance for me.
12:28
And then I've, I've met him once or twice just at different shows
12:31
over the years. He always seems like an
12:32
incredibly intense, focused, but very cool artist.
12:36
You know, that the like the artistry that that guy and that
12:40
band were responsible for was just absolutely next level.
12:44
But yeah, it, it surprises me not at all to find out that that
12:47
Steve Von Till isn't constantly listening to metal.
12:50
I mean, he's shoot, he's he's on a compilation of of towns Van's
12:54
Ant covers. So I mean.
12:55
What do you expect for sure, exactly.
12:57
Yeah. Yeah.
12:58
I was a bit when I was about to talk to him, I was quite
13:00
intimidated because I just sort of had the sense he's going to
13:03
be incredibly serious. But he was actually very sweet,
13:06
so he put me at ease very quickly.
13:08
He seems like an awesome guy. I don't know him personally, but
13:10
major respect. Definitely the impression that I
13:12
got. So you touched on the fact that
13:15
I, so I think you said with Buzzard Logic that you actually
13:17
started coming up with part of the guitars that would end up
13:21
being in the final track back in 2020, just after you'd put out
13:24
your previous something. I did want to ask you about the
13:27
gap in between them. And obviously we've all gone
13:28
through the whole pandemic black hole that sort of sucked
13:31
everything into like a sensors like what is time anymore?
13:35
But you know, from reading the press release, I understand that
13:38
there's various struggles that you've gone through that led
13:40
towards the making of the album. I mean, how much of that sort of
13:43
connected to the whole COVID situation?
13:45
And you know, as much as you're comfortable talking about, how
13:48
would you sort of describe the process of getting from that
13:51
initial coming up with guitar parts to actually finally having
13:54
the album finished? Well, you know, this, this is
13:57
one thing that I definitely had some trepidation about when, you
14:01
know, it became evident what the theme of this record was going
14:03
to be. You know, it's, it's
14:05
uncomfortable to talk about addiction and, you know, really
14:09
holding a mirror up to oneself and, you know, embracing that
14:12
shadow work. But I also, you know, value
14:17
honesty. And, you know, if I, if I tried
14:20
to pass this off as this record being about something other than
14:23
my struggle with alcoholism, then, you know, it would be a
14:26
stretch. There are elements of other
14:27
things that I'm interested in it, you know, very interested in
14:32
esotericism and, you know, various strains of Western
14:37
occultism. So that there are there are
14:41
facets of that that are interwoven throughout.
14:43
But chiefly, this is a record that's about my struggle with
14:45
alcoholism. And when you talk about how that
14:48
that works with with 2020 and everything that went down,
14:51
obviously that that factored for us specifically that whole
14:55
period, like specifically like my family, I don't mean the
14:59
band. That period was already very
15:02
fraught time for us. We we lost a close family member
15:07
to suicide about six months before the pandemic shutdowns.
15:10
And that kind of had set the tone leading into that whole
15:16
very bizarre period. So things were already kind of
15:19
out of nadir before us when they broke out the shovels and said
15:23
dig deeper. You know, and I think like a lot
15:28
of folks, you know, like self medication came in pretty
15:32
heavily during that time and you know, everybody's at home and
15:35
like, with nothing to do. And so why not have a drink?
15:37
And of course, I've, I've been a very heavy drinker for long
15:41
before that, but I think that absolutely catalyzed it becoming
15:45
much worse, you know, for a long time, you know, because I've,
15:51
I've, I've probably started the first time I got drunk, I was
15:55
probably 13 or 14. And then I'd say from maybe 17
16:01
to I'm now 39, so 38, from 17 to 38, a little over 20 years.
16:08
I'd say the longest period of sobriety I had I ever had was
16:11
maybe 15 days. So most of that time I consider
16:15
myself sort of a bon vivant, you know, just somebody who likes to
16:18
party and enjoy himself. And for the most part, it didn't
16:20
really turn me into too egregious an asshole, or at
16:24
least not one that I was capable of observing when upon self
16:29
reflection, you know, And so for a long time, I was basically
16:33
what what most would characterize as like a
16:36
functioning alcoholic or a high functioning alcoholic.
16:39
You know, I, I drank very regularly.
16:42
That wasn't hiding it wasn't doing really anything sketchy
16:45
with it other than just having a very outsized or Herculean
16:48
consumption compared to the average person.
16:51
But that it definitely started to take a darker turn.
16:55
As you know, we dealt with the aftermath of, you know, suicide
16:58
of, of, of a parent and then the subsequent shutdowns.
17:05
You know, we we just started to go down a dark hole and I've in
17:08
particular started drinking very, very heavily and that bon
17:12
vivant enjoyment of things kind of slipped away.
17:16
You know, I was, I was the sort of dude who would get
17:19
passionately into anything that I was interested in and liquor
17:23
was no different. Like, I like if you wanted to go
17:25
on a rant about the different regions of single malt Scott
17:30
Scotch producers in Scotland, I can tell you about every region
17:34
and tell you why my favorites are there are my favorites, even
17:38
if I haven't had any of them for over a year at this point.
17:41
Like it was something that I was passionately interested in.
17:43
But like, however fancy a drunk, you know, you might be when you
17:48
think you're at your best or however cosmopolitan you think
17:50
you might be, it always ends up in like rock gut vodka, you
17:53
know, hidden behind shelves and day drinking to to quell, you
17:58
know, withdrawal symptoms. That's really when it when it
18:01
became very dark was when physical dependency started to
18:06
rear its head. I had drank heavily for, like I
18:09
said, like 20 years without really seeing any sort of
18:12
dependency issues until, Yeah, well, I guess it wouldn't have
18:15
been 20 years. In those last five years of my
18:17
drinking, I started to, to see the ill effects of dependency
18:21
where, you know, you wake up sick and vomiting, you're
18:24
shaking and you basically don't feel human until you've been
18:28
able to get a little bit of that poison in you and just kind of
18:32
reset because you are, you've become physically dependent upon
18:34
it. And that leads to drinking
18:36
earlier and earlier in the day and greater and greater quality
18:40
quantities. And I, you know, I, I recall,
18:43
you know, when I was a kid just starting to drink, like if you
18:45
got a pint of hard liquor, that was like good for a whole
18:48
night's entertainment. And by the end, like, you know,
18:51
I could, I remember cracking a joke when I was going through
18:58
withdrawals, but still trying to like, dry myself out and trying
19:01
to taper. Like, my wife was kind and she
19:03
bought me some vodka to help me taper off of, you know, a very
19:08
heavy binge. And she came home with like, a
19:10
little pint of vodka and being a corny dork, I cracked a joke
19:15
from Zoolander. I was like, what is this, a
19:17
vodka for ants? You know, like, because a pint
19:21
of hard liquor was going to do Dick shit for me.
19:25
And that's, that's the problem. You know, when you get
19:28
physically dependent and you have a, a curriculum tolerance,
19:33
you know, burning through 1/5 a day is, is something you do
19:37
without batting a dot. And I, and often it was north of
19:40
that, there were days where, you know, I consumed, you know, like
19:44
an entire handles worth of part alcohol and it's hard to recover
19:48
from. And it also like it's a
19:49
depressant for a reason. For all of the things I loved
19:52
about alcohol that, you know, made me feel joyous and social
19:55
or just vibrant. Those things go away once you
19:59
crack that physical dependency seal and go down that road and
20:03
it becomes darker and darker and the level of like self loathing
20:07
and self destruction. Just ramps up incrementally with
20:13
that and just gets worse and worse and you know, suicidal and
20:16
ideation enters the picture and just utter despondency kind of
20:21
takes over. And I could see for several
20:25
years that this needed to end and it had become a problem.
20:29
It wasn't the type of person I wanted to continue to be.
20:33
First of all, you know, I've got a wonderful 7 year old daughter
20:36
and a amazing wife, both of whom I cherish and didn't want to
20:41
drink out of my life or drink myself to death and drink myself
20:45
out of their lives, you know, so I knew I needed to stop.
20:49
The other alarming thing about alcohol dependency is it's as I
20:55
understand it, it's one of two substances where the withdrawals
20:58
can literally kill you. That and benzos.
21:02
You can cold Turkey heroin and you will think that you want to
21:07
die but it's not going to kill you.
21:09
But you can literally die from from alcohol withdrawals if
21:13
you're a happy, happy enough user.
21:15
And I had a friend, another musician who I won't name, who I
21:19
had no idea had struggled with an alcohol problem as well that
21:22
I heard about trying to go cold Turkey and he had a seizure and
21:25
had to get a hospitalized. It was terrifying to me.
21:28
So I was hyper aware of that. And I was also adamantly opposed
21:31
to getting any sort of medical help or or intervention going
21:34
through a medical detox. I didn't want it on my records
21:36
then want it public. It's embarrassing shit.
21:38
I'm I'm embarrassed talking about it right now knowing that
21:40
this is part of the fucking publicity for our pants new
21:44
record. You know it's it's painful to
21:47
expose this a pretty vulnerable part of yourself.
21:49
But again, I I I value honesty. So here we are.
21:53
But that that notion of the, the fact that I had been a heavy
21:57
enough drinker that I needed to taper or I'll seek medical
22:01
intervention, otherwise I was going to have a seizure and
22:04
potentially die was very present in my mind.
22:06
And that kept me from being able to successfully quit for quite a
22:09
long time because I would just taper, taper, taper.
22:11
And then at one point, you know, I'd get three to three weeks
22:15
sober and then, you know, I think, oh, well, I got this
22:19
licked. I better have a drink about it
22:20
to celebrate, you know, and go right back after it.
22:22
And the vicious cycle continues. So ultimately I ended up
22:26
capitulating and caving in and getting, getting medical
22:31
attention and I went to a medical detox for a week and
22:33
then IA rehab facility for a month.
22:40
You know, not something that I was super stoked to do, but it
22:43
was necessary and quite possibly saved my life all throughout
22:48
that period. Trying to to bring this back
22:52
down to the runway of your original question of how this
22:55
operates with the the songwriting.
22:58
A lot of these riffs might have had their genesis points before
23:03
I had made that jump to sobriety, like the song Endless.
23:08
Well, for example, the opening riff on that is something I had
23:12
thought about using in a heavy song as many as like 8, maybe
23:16
even 10 years ago, but I had never written it into anything.
23:20
But a lot of this stuff did evolve after I made the decision
23:24
to start getting sober. The the the only song that was
23:27
fully written, lyrics aside, prior to to going into rehab and
23:33
entering into sobriety here or I guess Colorado sober because
23:37
yeah, I don't drink alcohol anymore.
23:39
I still, you know, smoke weed, the occasional psychedelic, but
23:43
alcohol is off the menu. The only one that was really
23:46
kind of fully formed musically was Ghosts on the Periphery, the
23:49
final track on the record. But then I didn't finish the
23:52
lyrics for the subsequent 3 verses.
23:54
Only the first verse was written before I entered rehab.
23:59
But, but I've also like, I have a lot of musicians that I'm a
24:04
big admirer of who have struggled with, with various
24:07
episodes in their life, whether it's mental health issues,
24:10
addiction, etcetera. And I've always really admired
24:13
the ones that continue to work through these really fucked up
24:16
periods in their lives. You know, like a favorite one
24:20
that I always love to point out is like people talk about, you
24:23
know, mental illness and, and just different things that
24:26
people struggle with with musicians.
24:28
And people love to point at point at like, or point to Brian
24:33
Wilson and Sid Barrett as being like these acid casualties of
24:37
the 60s that like fried themselves into schizophrenia or
24:40
something, which, you know, this.
24:42
I'm not saying that's what's happened.
24:44
I'm saying that could. Set a lot, but one artist who I
24:47
always have loved who falls in that same category is Rocky
24:50
Erickson. And Rocky was given the choice
24:54
to go to a state penitentiary for something like 20 years for
24:58
possession of 1 joint. Or he could go to Rusk State
25:01
mental Institution and he chose the mental institution for those
25:06
draconian Texas marijuana laws. And they subsequently gave him
25:10
all kinds of Electro shot therapy.
25:12
And by all accounts, he kind of lost his marbles.
25:14
But the man continued to produce and write music throughout that
25:17
entire period. And I love that.
25:19
So I love the notion of continuing to try and write and
25:22
create when you're, you know, at your nadir or just experiencing,
25:27
you know, intense tragedy. Like another favorite artist of
25:30
mine is Nick Cave. Nick Cave in the Bad Seeds.
25:32
Of course, Nick Cave suffered horrible tragedies in the loss
25:35
of several of his children. And there's a great documentary
25:39
about him in the studio working on that.
25:41
And, you know, just this urge to just get in and work and still
25:46
to try and create in the face of that kind of adversity is
25:49
something I find really inspiring.
25:50
So while I was doing this, I, I tried to continue to write and I
25:54
have journals full of absolutely terrible lyrics that I produced
25:59
from that period. But I felt like we were kind of
26:02
able to glean some stuff that we could work with and subsequently
26:06
refine after that. But really a lot of this I, I
26:09
began working on while I was still heavily alcoholic or in
26:14
the throes of active addiction. And then much of it was polished
26:17
afterwards. Some songs were straight up just
26:19
written in rehab, like Cinders is a song that was almost
26:25
entirely composed in rehab on a a classical acoustic guitar.
26:29
But a lot of these songs start before that that period of
26:33
sobriety, and then we're polished later on.
26:35
So a very long and rambling response, no?
26:38
No, no, no, no, no. Aspect of your question I
26:40
missed. And no, no, no, no, no, no, that
26:42
was that was an amazing answer. And I, and I want to say, you
26:45
know, First off, thank you for being so open about all of that.
26:49
You know, 'cause I can understand it is very vulnerable
26:51
to lay all that stuff out there. But I do think that to get that
26:54
insight from you is going to be really valuable for a lot of
26:56
people because, you know, a lot of people in one way or another
26:59
to 1° or another struggle with addiction.
27:03
You know, talking about self medicating, that's obviously a
27:06
thing that that people do as well, whether they sort of
27:08
acknowledge it as such or not. And then, you know, going back
27:11
to talking about the pandemic as well, it did put a lot of people
27:14
in an environment where if there already were some kind of mental
27:17
health issues or there was some kind of addiction issues, it
27:19
really pushed a lot of people into a situation where it became
27:23
a lot more difficult to kind of find ways around it.
27:26
So I, yeah, I completely understand about, you know, it's
27:31
really hard to, to make ourselves vulnerable.
27:33
But I also think as well, you know, metal to a lot of people,
27:36
like particularly people who aren't into metal, they can
27:39
think of it as being like, oh, it's like it's the music of
27:41
tough guys. But you know, obviously, you
27:44
know, I, I love metal. I love loads of other music like
27:46
we talked about, you know, you can like Nick Cave is also one
27:49
of my absolute favourites growing up as well.
27:52
So there's plenty of music that I like.
27:54
That's sonically extreme. There's plenty of music that I
27:57
like that isn't. But I do think for a lot of
27:59
people more from a distance, there's this idea of people that
28:02
play metal as being somehow just tough guys that don't have any
28:04
sort of emotional feelings. So I do think that that's, you
28:08
know, it's, it's good for people to sort of see another side of
28:10
that. And I do also think as well
28:12
that, you know, from stories of bands like Mötley Crüe, even
28:15
though I think anyone that looks at Mötley Crüe now can go, this
28:18
is not a romantic story. But, you know, there are plenty
28:21
of stories of bands of like, you know, the rock'n'roll excesses
28:24
of the whatever, the 60s, 70s, eighties, 90s.
28:27
And, you know, that can be kind of appealing to some people if
28:31
they go like, oh, this is great. I'm going to be a rock star and
28:32
I'm going to go and I'm going to drink Jack Daniels every night.
28:34
And that's going to be amazing. So I think it's good for people
28:37
to have the cautionary tales to go.
28:39
Yeah, there is another side to these things.
28:40
Yeah, yeah. The reality of of alcohol.
28:43
Dependency is a lot less glamorous than sex drugs.
28:48
And rock'n'roll, you know, like. I I never got into Mötley Crüe
28:53
musically nor, you know, as individuals, but I will say
28:59
that, you know, I read the dirt. Maybe 20 years.
29:02
Ago and it's it's a fantastic read because of how fucking
29:05
debauched it is. You know, like those guys are
29:07
utter dirtbags and it's very entertaining.
29:10
That's also no way to live. But yeah, I mean, I don't know,
29:17
you know, a lot of my, my artistic heroes were kind of
29:20
questionable. And, and it's no, no, no stretch
29:24
to see why I kind of went down the roads.
29:26
I did, you know, some of my musical heroes, you know, like,
29:30
like a guy like Lemmy Kilmiss or if you're into heavy music, how
29:33
do you not fucking adore that guy?
29:34
You know, and like guy had a, you know, 5th of bourbon a day
29:39
diet mixed with heavy amphetamine use well into his
29:43
60s. You know, not many people can
29:45
pull it off. And you know, that's, that's one
29:47
of my musical heroes or, or just personal, personal heroes.
29:52
Dude was just awesome. But then also, you know, like
29:54
writers like, you know, Charles Bukowski and and Hunter S
29:58
Thompson were people that in my youth I loved quite a bit.
30:02
With Hunter Thompson, it was like the lifestyle was almost
30:04
more appealing than his actual writing.
30:06
Like the only stuff I really liked from his writing was like
30:10
the early shit like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hell's
30:13
Angels and The Rum Diaries were the only ones that I actually
30:16
like, really enjoyed reading a lot of.
30:17
It's like you have to be, you know, pretty into or aware of
30:22
like the 1970s political scene and like having real, that's
30:26
quite vested interest in, you know, George McGovern, who, who
30:30
like I was born in 1985. I missed that entire period.
30:34
So like reading The Great Shark Hunt is insightful.
30:37
But like, you know, for me, Hunter Thompson was mostly about
30:40
like getting fucked up and, you know, being creative and wild
30:44
while still, you know, intelligent and being an utter
30:47
hedonist. And that was, that was appealing
30:49
to me, you know, the, the hedonic parts of Rock'n'roll
30:52
access. I definitely understand the
30:53
appeal, but you know, that's that's also not why you should
30:57
be making music. You know, like, like I've, I've
31:02
joked with this with with bandmates and other musicians
31:04
sometimes that they're just like there are a lot of people out
31:07
there who like the idea of being in a band more than they like
31:10
creating music. You know, that that they like
31:13
the the idea that it's going to be some prestigious thing that's
31:16
going to get them laid and and fucked up whenever they want.
31:20
Got to tell you, there's there are other routes to doing those
31:23
things as much as you want. And I really think that you
31:27
should be valuing the music or treating that as of the utmost
31:30
importance before all of the, you know, tertiary benefits.
31:36
But yeah, like sex, drugs and rock'n'roll is appealing.
31:38
But like, we're not all let me kill Meister.
31:41
We're not going to fucking be able to drink 1/5 of bourbon a
31:44
day and you know, several grams of amphetamine into our late 60s
31:49
and survive it. You know, not everybody is a
31:52
fucking tank like him. No, indeed.
31:54
I, I, I remember there was that line from him at one point where
31:57
he's talking about back in the day taking acid.
32:01
I think this was the time where he was like guitar tech for, for
32:04
Jimi Hendrix. And he was, he said he had some
32:06
off sort of offhand remark. We just like, yeah, we took a
32:09
lot of acid and, you know, if you could handle it, it was
32:11
fine. And some people couldn't handle
32:12
it. And then that was that was it
32:14
like shit. All right.
32:16
Yeah, No, he's, he's great. His his book's a lot of fun.
32:19
And another fun quote from him was that he got effectively
32:23
hired, fired from Hawkwind for doing the wrong kinds of drugs.
32:28
Like, they were all really into drugs.
32:30
But because he was doing speed, which was profoundly uncool and
32:33
like the psychedelic scene, he was fired for that and then
32:38
started Motörhead, which is, you know, a slang term for speed
32:41
freak. But yeah, that's, yeah, I mean,
32:46
not everybody's Lemmy. You know, another thing he said
32:48
in his book that's that's like weirdly more impactful for me
32:52
now having experienced alcohol dependencies.
32:54
He talked about a lot of his friends getting older and
32:57
quitting and then dying because they'd relapse and then or
33:02
whatever. And his advice was like, well,
33:04
if you never quit in the 1st place, you can't have a relapse.
33:07
But I've learned about this now that I've experienced physical
33:09
dependency that like there is something called the kindling
33:12
effect with alcohol in particular, where you can cross
33:15
a threshold of dependency and each time you break it, but then
33:18
get clean and then come back, it's easier to cross that
33:21
threshold once you've done it before.
33:23
And it's more and more addictive and more and more damaging each
33:26
time you do it. So it takes less for you to
33:29
become addicted again. And the ill effects and horrible
33:33
hangovers and horrible physical effects hit you that much harder
33:36
once you've done it. And then especially once you've
33:38
done it dozens of times as I have.
33:40
So there's a kernel of truth in Lemmy's stuff there.
33:44
How did I just decided to just forever fucking, you know, drink
33:47
north of 1/5 of hard alcohol a day?
33:49
You know, I probably wouldn't experience the withdrawals
33:52
because I would just be permanently fucked up.
33:53
But. Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty
33:55
heavy. I mean, he, I guess in a way he
33:57
was kind of a special case. And I don't really know the INS
34:00
and outs of exactly how he, you know, he got through his regime,
34:05
let's say, but it kind of seemed like he he managed to get to a
34:09
level where it was just like, this is my level and I'm just
34:11
like, it didn't escalate. I don't know, I could be wrong
34:13
about that. I don't really know these and
34:15
outs enough. The, I think the the guys that
34:17
that do it successfully just kind of hit a plateau and they
34:20
just keep on that that plane. They don't go above it.
34:22
They don't go below it because you go below it, you start
34:25
withdrawing and you have horrible effects.
34:27
You go above it and you got to keep pushing the limit.
34:29
Yeah, the fact that he was a lifelong speed user too.
34:32
I think factors usually because like when you're drinking 1/5 a
34:36
day, it saps the fuck out of your energy.
34:38
Like I could, I could get 12 hours sleep and wake up tired
34:42
when I was drinking heavily and it just saps so much from you
34:46
and like you just feel utterly dreamed and and weirdly
34:50
vampiric, you know? I think there's no way you
34:54
function at a level like Lemmy's without, you know, having the
34:57
uppers there to to counteract the constant Downers.
35:01
That is a very valid point, steering into something that's
35:04
more directly about the music. I wanted to to ask you a bit to
35:09
go back to the to the formation of the band.
35:12
So from what I understand, you started the band with Ben Pitts
35:17
with your No, you do not. Tell me.
35:20
Tell me the origin. Sure.
35:22
Yeah. And I mean, we haven't talked a
35:24
lot about it. So it's not it's no shame on you
35:26
for for like that knowing it. So I started the band with JJ
35:32
and Selmy in 2011 and we were two pieces, myself on guitar and
35:37
vocals and JJ on drums. JJ lived in Denver at that time
35:43
and was performing in another country band.
35:45
I actually don't even remember the name of the band he was
35:47
performing with, but I was performing with kind of a pseudo
35:50
country slash rock band called Bona or Trig Revival.
35:53
And we were both on the same bill.
35:55
And during my sound check, I was warming up with some of or just
35:59
getting, getting getting levels with some earth rifts from the
36:04
the record. The bees made honey in the lion
36:06
skull and JJ recognized them. That was a pretty new release at
36:09
that time. Like I think it came out like a
36:11
year or two prior. And he immediately recognized
36:14
the work. And he's like, oh, you're into
36:15
Earth, man. I'm like, well, and then we
36:16
started talking about doom and sludge and Stoner rock and all
36:20
that and really like the full brunt of that resurgence of
36:25
those bands hadn't quite hit at that stage.
36:27
It was so felt relatively underground.
36:29
So we're like, neither of us had friends that wanted to play that
36:32
music. So we decided to start a band
36:34
ourselves and start writing that.
36:36
So JJ and I run recorded the first record within a few months
36:42
of meeting each other. Like we started the band and
36:45
recorded the record, But within nine months he had already
36:47
accepted a teaching position at a College in Fresno and moved
36:51
out there. So we like before the record was
36:54
even out, he had like basically left the band.
36:56
But initially I was like, well, fuck it, I'll just start a new
36:59
band. But JJ was like, no man, like
37:01
you've created a a sound with this music.
37:04
You should carry it on. And so with his blessing, I then
37:09
found somebody else to fill his shoes, a guy named Joe Weller
37:12
Meyer. And Joe and I remained A2 piece
37:15
for the subsequent 7 years that he was in the band.
37:17
And right towards the end of Joe's tenure, Ben Pitts joined
37:22
on bass and lap steel guitar. I had known Ben from a bunch of
37:28
other bands, but mostly his previous project Black Sleep of
37:33
Collie. But he's a multi
37:35
instrumentalist, great dude and just talented musician.
37:39
And at that point as a two piece, having been a two piece
37:43
up through our last record as a two piece was ain't so far.
37:47
I felt that in order to expand what I wanted to do or achieve
37:51
what I wanted to do sonically, we needed to have an additional
37:55
number because I didn't want to rely heavily on studio tricks
37:59
that couldn't be replicated live.
38:00
Like one example is I've been using drones on a lap steel
38:06
guitar tuned to an open minor tuning on all of our recordings,
38:09
saved for the very first one. It's something I picked up after
38:13
seeing Swans live in like 2012. Christoph Hahn has several lap
38:18
steel guitars arranged on a table in the different tunings.
38:21
And he'll just kind of drone the the slack key on the strings on
38:27
a particular note. And it creates this crazy
38:29
ethereal, sort of ghostly, haunting sound.
38:31
And I immediately wanted to start playing with that.
38:33
And so we've incorporated that approach in the background of a
38:36
lot of our music. But where it was on records, I
38:39
would have to if I wanted to do it live, I recorded myself doing
38:43
it onto a sample pedal that I could then hit from my pedal
38:47
board while playing live to have this drone in the background.
38:50
And it's just it it doesn't have that live performance aspect of
38:53
it that I I really cherish as a fan of music and also a
38:56
performer of it. So we brought Ben in in in like
38:59
20 early 2018 to play lap steel and bass.
39:03
So flush out that sound. I think for a long time too,
39:06
because we were two piece with no bassist and a fucking doom
39:09
band. People were like, what are you
39:10
going to be a get a bassist? I kind of defiantly, it was just
39:13
like fucking never quit asking because I've, you know, I've
39:17
done a lot with my, my rig to, to really have or flesh out the
39:22
heft of the sound. You know, I, I have a very
39:25
unconventional rig for my guitar.
39:27
I basically played through a full bass stack and a full
39:31
guitar stack for my heavy sections.
39:34
And I have part of the signal going to the bass amp dropped an
39:36
octave. So it really does fill out a lot
39:39
of that Sonic territory that a bass would previously have
39:42
covered or traditionally have covered.
39:44
And that's kind of a vestigial tale of us being a two piece
39:48
that I retain today. Like I can't get away from that
39:50
tone. Anything else sense then to me
39:52
for this band and these tunings? So I still have these crazy low
39:55
register tunings and approaches to it, but the bass still gives
39:58
us that extra breath. And then the lap steel is
40:01
something that Ben's kind of run with live, like he does the
40:04
drones that were present on those records that I was, you
40:07
know, trying to do my best Christophe Hahn impersonation,
40:10
you know, from this. 2010 Swans era.
40:14
And Ben also added all these other flourishes and he kind of
40:17
developed a technique where he'll be hammering on and
40:20
sliding into notes with his left hand on the neck of the bass and
40:23
then still hitting these notes kind of percussively with the
40:26
key on the the lap steel to still bake these almost bell
40:30
like drone sounds while performing live.
40:33
And that's that's helped broaden the sound quite a bit.
40:36
And then couple years ago, our friend Andy Thomas joined on
40:39
drums when our then drummer, drummer JP Dameron had to leave
40:44
the band because his other projects were just simply taking
40:47
up more of his time. We were the least active of his
40:49
33 bands and he had a lot of other stuff going on.
40:53
So he left on amicable terms and Andy Thomas joined and that's
40:58
that's the lineup that you have on this record is Andy Thomas on
41:01
drums, Ben Pitts on bass and Lap Seal and myself on vocals and
41:05
guitar. There's some other auxiliary
41:08
instruments just from kind of messing around in the studio.
41:10
There's some weird Moog sense in there that the the engineer Pete
41:17
de Boer had in his studio. He's got a crazy great studio
41:21
filled with like a lot of great analog equipment.
41:24
We got to record the tape for the first time, which has been a
41:27
dream of mine for quite some time.
41:29
But there's a reason why Blended Contagion used him to do their
41:33
ambient record, because he's just got walls of vintage scent
41:38
gear and all kinds of really fun toys.
41:41
So there's some of that on there too.
41:42
But anyways, I feel I'm rambling a bit more.
41:44
That's not really about the history of the band, is it?
41:46
No, no, no, no, no. This is all.
41:47
Incredibly useful, insightful. And I'm kicking myself as well
41:49
because I realized that all I had to do was just on metal
41:53
archives, just look at the line up for the specific albums and
41:56
go like, oh, yeah, Ben hadn't joined at that point.
41:58
But I suppose also you can take it.
41:59
You can take it as a mark of how effectively that you'd worked
42:02
out putting in the low end that I was just like, yeah, that was
42:05
obviously there before. That's all right, man.
42:08
Yeah. And I was actually, I was going
42:10
to ask you. About Andy Thomas as well,
42:12
because I was thinking to myself, OK, well, you know, I, I
42:14
was aware that there'd been a few different drummers in the
42:16
band and I and I was aware that you'd had other bands you'd been
42:18
in before. So I thought, well, you've
42:20
obviously worked with a lot of drummers.
42:22
And so I was thinking, like, to have Andy Thomas in the band
42:25
now. Like I think there are certain
42:26
elements of the album where he really shines.
42:28
Like I was thinking endless. Well, in particular, like I love
42:31
the kind of I don't even know quite whether to call it roles
42:34
exactly, but he's got this whole sort of like a flourishing
42:37
pattern that he plays for for various sections of it that I
42:41
think sound really, really cool. So there were there were aspects
42:43
where I really enjoyed the drumming and kind of it's got a
42:47
very it sounds very kind of like loose, but without sounding
42:50
sloppy, if you know what I mean. Like it doesn't sound too rigid.
42:53
It's got that kind of like nice groove to it.
42:55
And I was just thinking for endless well.
42:58
Are you by any chance thinking about some of his, his playing
43:02
like, like right in those opening riffs?
43:04
Yeah, there's a lot, A lot. Of Tom Heavy, Yeah.
43:10
So it's it's. Funny that that.
43:11
Resonated with you because that was something he came up with
43:13
that absolutely improved that composition.
43:15
That was a song that we almost scrapped.
43:18
So I I wrote that initial riff. There's a song off of Captain
43:22
Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica called Moonlight on Vermont that
43:27
has this really jangly riff, very kind of like piercingly
43:32
tinny guitars. This and in.
43:40
The back of my head I. Thought forever that would make
43:42
a fucking great riff if you tuned it down an octave and
43:45
played it very heavy. So I use that as the springboard
43:48
to start that song. And that's really where there's
43:51
someone stops. But we were writing that song
43:55
and we had most of it musically written.
43:57
The the lyrics were the last thing to to get finalized for
44:01
that. And we just weren't taking it
44:04
anywhere that I was happy with. And nothing was really working
44:08
for the song overall as a composition.
44:10
And that was one of the ones that I almost scrapped entirely
44:12
and didn't make it on this record until Andy came in with
44:15
that drum part. So he started playing what I
44:18
would call like a very Dale Crover style Tom heavy set of
44:22
fills over that opening intro. And it absolutely made it a much
44:26
better song for it. And it reignited my interest in
44:29
that song to the point that it's become one of my favorites on
44:32
the record. But there was a point where that
44:34
almost got scrapped. And then he came in with that
44:36
drum part and it all came together from there.
44:39
So it's cool to hear that that resonated with you as well.
44:42
Yeah, it's a very cool insight. I'm.
44:43
Going to I'm going to let you get away in a minute.
44:45
But before we finish, I did want to ask you about the vinyl
44:48
because you know, in this digital age, it always kind of
44:52
warms my heart when I see bands and artists dedicate some time
44:57
and energy and resources into beautiful physical artifacts.
45:01
And you do have some really beautiful vinyl editions of the
45:05
album that are going to be coming out.
45:06
So can you tell me a bit about how you constructed that
45:09
physical side of the of the record?
45:11
Certainly. So this is.
45:12
If if you'll afford me 10 seconds, I'll go grab a copy and
45:16
and and we can talk about. It give me one moment, sorry.
45:18
All right, so I, I happen to have one copy of the deluxe
45:21
edition here with me because I brought it down to give to my
45:25
sister and brother-in-law who were visiting.
45:28
So it's not the complete deluxe package.
45:30
We're still waiting on the the slip mats to come in, but this
45:32
is most of what the deluxe packages.
45:34
But yeah, I. Absolutely.
45:36
Love over the top packaging and really well thought out just
45:40
record designs. So, you know, I'm a fan and
45:43
collector myself, so I always try to imbue our works with a
45:47
little bit of that as well. You know, with everything
45:52
basically being free on streaming, I think it's
45:55
worthwhile to kind of incentivize those of us that
45:58
still go out of our way to, you know, procure physical media.
46:01
So I don't know if I can get. The light to.
46:04
Catch it really here? Yep, that shows up.
46:06
That's awesome. So this is the outer cover is a
46:10
spot gloss printed version of the full cover with these two
46:13
die cuts kind of matching up to two thematic elements.
46:17
There's so we've got the skull kind of on a tower and on its
46:21
forehead is our cross Insignia. It's being struck by a bolt of
46:25
lightning that the direction I gave the artist was if you look
46:30
at, you know, the Rider Waite Smith tarot and the tower card,
46:34
there's this lightning bolt striking it that's reducing it
46:37
to rubble. And it's about calamity and you
46:40
know, disaster and things like that.
46:41
If you're into tarot, which you know is an apartment metaphor
46:44
for this. Also, the idea of just light
46:47
piercing this sort of decaying object, a skull and light
46:51
pouring forth from it, I thought was a cool visual analogy to the
46:56
record title. A crack and everything.
46:57
That's how the light gets in. So your skull being split by a
47:00
fucking bolt from the heavens. But here's the full cover.
47:04
And this is Mike Lawrence who did this art.
47:06
He's a very talented artist out of Georgia.
47:10
I believe this is where his home base is now, although he's
47:12
originally from elsewhere. Yeah, I, I, I always.
47:16
Love. Going over the top with the
47:17
packaging, the idea of the the lightning bolt is supposed to
47:20
reflect the same. Sort of pattern.
47:25
That the lightning bolts in Kabbalistic War comes down and
47:30
manifests everything in the Tree of Life.
47:31
It's a little bit more like that in the block print that I did
47:35
for the special edition, if you're familiar with that image.
47:38
I guess I could, I have a tattoo of it, Maybe that's better.
47:42
But this sword slide, so it's alternately known as the flaming
47:46
sword or the lightning flash of manifestation, but it's a
47:50
specific pattern that touches on all the spheres of the Tree of
47:52
Life as it's basically some abstract thing coming into
47:56
manifestation in the material world.
47:58
So I wanted the lightning bolt to reflect that, but also kind
48:01
of have some hallmarks of the tower, Major Arcana and Tarot.
48:06
But yeah, you know, the deluxe edition, and we only made 100 of
48:11
and it's basically got both versions of the vinyl have two
48:14
covers. There's the outer cover with the
48:15
black on black and the die cuts revealing the inner color.
48:19
And then the deluxe edition is going to be this sort of gold on
48:23
black. I don't know what you can't call
48:25
it a splatter. I think they call it half on
48:27
half, but that doesn't seem right to me either.
48:29
But it's this kind of cool weird BLOB of gold color through the
48:33
black and the other ones are white on black for the standard
48:38
edition. So the deluxe edition, there's
48:39
100 copies and they come with a block print that I carved and
48:43
print myself as well as little bling.
48:48
There's a, a pendant of our cross Insignia that comes with
48:52
that and there will be a slip mat of this same cover design as
48:57
well for your turntable. So there's 100 copies of that.
49:01
I only released 100 or excuse me, 40 of those online with the
49:06
idea to sell the rest of the copies at our on our upcoming
49:10
tour dates and our record release show.
49:13
But I might, I, I, we've already pretty much sold through all of
49:15
the 40 that we released online. So I might release like another
49:19
20 just to give folks that don't have the opportunity to come see
49:21
us shot at getting some of those.
49:24
But yeah, I always have adored over the top packaging.
49:27
I'm a nerd for elaborate packaging designs.
49:30
And, you know, I always try to make sure that works its way
49:33
into what we release. If you're going to go out of
49:35
your way to pick up something physical, it might as well be
49:37
fucking cool. I love it.
49:38
I love that sentiment. Yeah, I, I'm also, I'm, I'm
49:41
staying at my mom's place. The moment usually I would have
49:43
a wall of vinyl behind me, but umm, I had to rein it in a
49:46
little bit because I got carried away with type of negative like
49:50
double, triple vinyl reissues and a couple other things as
49:53
well. I was just like, OK, there's
49:55
like a limit to how much I can keep buying this stuff.
49:57
But yeah, I I really appreciate a beautifully, A beautifully
50:01
constructed vinyl release. So I think that's, that's super
50:04
cool. What what what's the record that
50:06
you? Have the most copies of a single
50:08
release of all what you. Mean like like multiple like
50:12
you've got different variants of the same album.
50:14
Well, I can. I can then reveal.
50:15
That I'm not as extreme as I could because I don't think
50:18
there's any. I mean I've got like basically
50:21
every Today is the Day album or Killing Joke album.
50:24
I have pretty much all of them on CD and on vinyl.
50:27
Like not not all the vinyl, but most of them.
50:29
And the same with Swans as well. Like I basically I've got every
50:32
CD and then I've got most of the vinyl, but I have not delved
50:36
into the I'm not like Henry Rollins with I've got to have
50:39
every single different. I've got to have the Argentinian
50:41
and I've got to have the German pressing, you know, is that how,
50:43
how far have you gone to that extreme?
50:45
I'm I'm not that bad I think. There's there's a handful of of
50:48
Sun records that I have multiple vinyl releases because they get
50:51
very fun with all their various limited releases.
50:56
I love Killing Joke as well. Jazz Coleman's vocals are a
51:00
major touchstone for me. I don't.
51:01
I don't have a lot of range, but when I scream or or shout, I try
51:05
to have that same sort of tonality that Jazz does where
51:09
he'll have a shout that's kind of starts with that, like I love
51:12
doing. That and it's.
51:13
Absolutely influenced by my love of that band.
51:16
Swans are one of my favorite all time bands too.
51:18
I too have pretty much everything they've released,
51:20
including a lot of like the rare fundraiser CDs where it's like
51:23
live recordings where they make 1000 copies to fund the
51:26
production of the next record. Yeah, that last one Live Rope
51:30
was awesome and I've got several of the others as well.
51:34
But yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm I'm a collector nerd as well.
51:38
Like I've I've I will stump for physical media for a long time.
51:42
Like I I still have way more DVDs than the average adult.
51:47
Like, well, I ridiculously I'm I've.
51:49
My, my friends make fun of me, but I just went out and bought a
51:52
DVD player the other week because I'm like, you know what?
51:54
I've, I'm fed up of like Netflix and all this stuff.
51:56
It's like if I want to watch something, I'm going to go and
51:59
like, I mean, could you go and find DVDs second hand for like a
52:02
pound or 2 lbs or whatever? So it's like I, I kind of prefer
52:06
that that fun of like going like this is what I want and I'm
52:08
going to find it, you know, like with records, like searching for
52:10
records is fun. Well, not to mention that
52:12
Blu-ray is a. Wonderful format and like it
52:16
often has all of these fun extras that you just don't get
52:19
anymore. I would think we really took
52:20
that for granted in the the DVD era, all these extras.
52:24
And like it seems like it would be so easy for them to include
52:27
that in these streaming services, like have, you know,
52:29
directors commentary track as an option for the audio and things
52:32
like that. But you lose all that shit with
52:34
streaming. And not to mention there's the
52:36
very pernicious possibility that whatever questionable arbiters
52:40
of taste out there might decide that you don't get to see a
52:43
certain film and it's just struck from a server and
52:46
unviewable anymore. Or they say edit bits out.
52:49
Yeah, so like an example that I that.
52:51
I think is is an appropriate ones.
52:53
Like right now he's enjoying a renaissance as being like
52:56
revered as this sort of ground breaking, very cool punk
53:00
filmmaker. But John Waters was not always
53:02
viewed that way, right? Like people straight up loathed
53:05
his shit. And when Pink fling Mingos came
53:07
out, it infuriated a lot of people, right?
53:11
And right now, you know, he's got he's got exhibits at the
53:13
Academy Museum in LA, You know, he's got coffee table books and
53:17
is generally he's he's grown into his weird elder statesman
53:21
of like punk's cinema role. And the guy still rules.
53:25
But I could see a world where some arbiter of taste is like
53:28
Pink Flamingos isn't OK anymore. And so we're striking it from
53:31
the rolls and you can't see it or any other controversial
53:34
cinema, you know, like, like I own a copy of Pasolini, Salo and
53:39
it's not a movie I'm going to watch probably ever again.
53:43
It's that's like a one and done film.
53:45
That was an experience for me. I I.
53:47
Actually, I watched it with my girlfriend at the time and we
53:49
had to watch it in 2-2 phases. We had a, we had a, yeah, we had
53:52
a gigantic argument after we got halfway through it and then we
53:55
got through the rest of it. That is, that is an experience.
53:57
Well, so. So that's an example like.
53:58
It's it's uncomfortable, like fucked up stuff that, you know,
54:04
is is rightly censored in a lot of cases.
54:07
And I don't agree with censorship and basically any
54:09
capacity, but I understand not wanting to let children see that
54:12
film, right? But there's also this weird sort
54:17
of moralistic current where people think that they have to
54:20
be arbiters of taste for everyone else and protect them
54:23
from cursed media, right? And it makes it so that any film
54:28
with any sort of modicum of controversy behind it is
54:32
potentially a target for the morality police.
54:36
And I don't think censorship is ever going to be a fruitful or
54:41
positive thing for arts. I absolutely.
54:49
Yeah. I think there was a Mark Twain
54:52
quote that was something to the effect of censorship is telling
54:55
a man he can't eat a steak because a baby can't chew 1.
54:58
You know, that's brilliant. I like this.
55:00
And so, I mean, this is a roundabout way of saying that
55:03
physical media at least gives you a copy of something that you
55:05
can watch whenever you want to, and it's not subject to the
55:08
weird whims of somebody who thinks that they're the morality
55:11
piece police of whatever server farm is operating your favorite
55:16
streaming service. Totally couldn't agree more.
55:18
And on that totally agreeable and forthright notes, Grant, I'm
55:22
gonna let you go away. Thank you so much for your time.
55:24
It was, it was great to chat to you.
55:26
And yeah, thank you for your candor and for all of your
55:28
insights. Yeah, thank you, Tom.
55:30
I appreciate this. And.
55:30
Thanks for reaching out to us and listening to the new record.