Latest / LOYAL TO THE CRAFT / Cyrus Bolooki on New Found Glory, Tour Life, and Staying Motivated

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Cyrus Bolooki on New Found Glory, Tour Life, and Staying Motivated · LOYAL TO THE CRAFT

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today we've got Cyrus Beluki, drummer for Newfound Glory, one of my favorite drummers that I got the privilege to work with for so many years.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Cyrus, welcome to Loyal to the Craft, man.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: What's up, Mike?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to be here.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: So excited to uh to talk to you again on Loyal to the Craft.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, just let's talk everything.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk drums, let's talk life, let's talk motivations.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, dude.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into all of it, man.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, you're currently on tour with Yellowcard.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: How is that going?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's amazing.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: We've been on tour for a few weeks now.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Yellow Card is a band that we have known since uh basically the beginning almost of their band.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, to Florida bands, both of us, and um early 2000s warp tours.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: We shared summers together.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Ryan Key singer lived with me for a couple months as they were like doing the Ocean Avenue uh record and um had co-headlining tour of them about 11 years ago, and here we are again, running it back.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's us yellow card playing white tees.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: We are having a blast.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Shows are amazing.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm currently in Oregon right now, completely opposite coast from you, there in North Carolina, just as picturesque though.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: But we're on a day off on this tour and um yeah, getting ready for some huge shows, including some stops at uh Warp Tour and others.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man, big shows, it seems.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the both bands, I mean, all the bands, plain white T's included, but obviously Yellow Card's got an amazing resurgence, so to speak, with their new record and everything.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: You guys have continued to put out banger after banger, and the energy of your live show is something that I know a lot of people just continue to come back to see.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: What feels different about this tour with Yellow Card, you know, compared to a tour that you just did last year?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything different in the energy that you guys can feel backstage and performing, you know, in front of the crowd?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you you touched on it right there.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yellow card has definitely had a resurgence and props to them.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: They have taken their career to new heights.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Their new record is great.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Excuse me, new record is great.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um working with Travis Barker, I know helped them a bunch.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: They're very excited at where they are now and also where they've come from.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And this tour specifically, what is different about this tour for even us, for sure, yellow card, um, than previous tours, it just feels bigger.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've been very fortunate last couple of years.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: A few years back, we were on tour with All American Rejects for an amazing summer tour, All American Rejects uh Get Up Kids starting line, Motion City soundtrack.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Last year, it's Us, Jimmy World, Offspring.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: This year, playing white tees, newfound glory, yellow card.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's a common thread there, and that is these insane lineups, right?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something that uh bands are having a tough time doing nowadays, right?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And to have a stacked lineup, a stacked bill, uh, it really pays off.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so, of course, with us, you know, it was a no-brainer to go out with yellow card when they asked us.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, we do know that the strength of this bill, it's gonna bring people out that haven't gone to shows in a while.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And when people come out, they're fans of all of us.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: They definitely know more than just uh my friends over you or or you know, the one or two songs, they're excited to be there and it really shows.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so what we're doing is we are looking through our catalog, we are playing a lot of the hits as we have to, but at the same time, we're having fun with a show where you know there it goes up and down a little bit, may uh playing a cover here and there and just kind of playing off the fact that we are, like you said, a very energetic band.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's pretty cool.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Playing YTs, amazing band, huge hits.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: They have fun with the crowd, they do their thing to warm everything up.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: We come out there, we absolutely slaughter it, as we always do.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then Yellow Card gives you something that I feel I mean they might have started doing this last year, but since I've seen them last, which was a couple years before, they give you a show.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And props to them because this is a band that literally started, you know, warp tour days with us, and now they have this hour and a half long show that takes you on a journey and it has amazing production, and it's really cool to see them play old songs, new songs, just everything, and put it together in this, like, you know, fully focused effort.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a it's a great concert to go to.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Heck yeah, yeah.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I saw Yellow Card at Warp Tour last year, and the production level was definitely a step up from what I had seen prior.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really cool to see a band like that be able to do that, you know.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you're when you're in a band and you're starting out so young, like you guys have, and Yellow Card has, you have these ambitions, these big dreams to insert dreams that bands have, get signed to a label, record at a specific studio, put out a record, obviously grow your fan base to be able to tour the world.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: You guys have been able to do that for decades now.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of the bands you were talking about, starting line and all the other bands that you've you've toured with, those were the lineups that I always used to go see in my early days of going to the Vans Warp Tour.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: The drive-thru record stage was something that I really found my community, and I felt like I was part of something and I felt like I belonged.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to me about the early days of being on a stage like that and being on drive-thru and now going through the motions of the business.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that the music industry is a business.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're you've you've got a business.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know specifically your hands are in a lot with the band, songwriting, obviously, recording and performing, but art and all of the directions that the band's going in.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to me about the evolution, I think, specifically for the youth, you know, the the young kids out there right now.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously it's different than it was, you know, when you guys started out.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: But how would how have you guys, and you specifically, Cyrus, stayed passionate to be able to get through the hurdles of life and building a business just as it happens?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I feel like you and I always touch on this subject because it's such a crucial part to who I am, who Newfound Glory is, and and why we are still around uh 30 years later.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And basically, you know, we are kids that we're passionate because we love music, right?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And this is why we started either playing our instruments or getting in a band is because we saw other bands that we love.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, this is the mid to late 90s, and it's kind of the warp tour, but it's be it's pre-drive-thru.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's bands like Blink 182 when they were playing 200 People Clubs, Unwritten Law, MXPX, Less Than Jake, you know, and going to these shows and seeing, okay, this is uh a group of guys on stage that they don't really seem like rock stars, they seem like people next door.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: You can go outside after the show and you'll probably meet them, and they seem very normal.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: But when they're up on stage for that hour or whatever, they're completely different.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: They're just having the time of their lives, playing music that I love, and we mimicked that in our band.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we took all of our influences at the time.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: We had guys in the band that were heavily emo.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was kind of way more into like the pop punk, like the green days and the blinks that were on the radio, and uh even some metal influences, hardcore influences, and we mashed it all together, and that's where our sound came from.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: But the passion was all we wanted to do was what we saw these bands doing.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: And whenever we talked to those bands, the unwritten laws, the MXPXs, blinks, whatever, and asked them what they did, they're like, we just play shows.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Literally.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: And for us, that was the key.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: You play shows, but when you play a show, you need to make sure that people can remember you.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so they'll remember you by the live show.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: But let's say two, three weeks after you play, are they still going to remember your live show?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you need to have stickers, you need to have t-shirts, uh, CD or demo, anything that you can to kind of have these people remember you so they come to the next show.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the goal is to have them, those people that saw you, come back and bring a friend.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And luckily for us, this community you're talking about was forming because South Florida, it had this very eclectic music scene, but it was a music scene.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think some of it was because we were so isolated.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, anywhere else, if you know anything about geography, South Florida, you can get up to Orlando in about three hours, like Disney World, you know, location.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: But to get out of Florida, it takes almost six hours from South Florida.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not like the Northeast, like where you were, you know, in the Massachusetts kind of area, where within two to three hours you could be in three different states.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like we didn't have that.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: So we all kind of banded together and we had a very good local community of artists that it didn't matter what everybody sounded like.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: We would all try to put shows together.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: We'd all try to do the same thing, which was we want to like go out and play our music and have fun and not get into trouble or get into trouble, but get into trouble by playing at some club we shouldn't, or something like that.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and again, it was this sense of community that formed in South Florida.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then as we got bigger and bigger and pushed harder and harder, it turned into opening slots on unwritten law shows, MXPX shows, warp tour local stages.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: And all we did was just kept trying to organically build it.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it did.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: It built organically.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Next thing, you know, we're on warp tour for a week or two, um, you know, leading up to the entire summer.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Drive Thru finds out about us.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't do that.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Drive Thru found out about us because of Midtown, the band Midtown, who saw us play at some Jersey, you know, uh VFW hall, got a demo, and made sure Richard and Stephanie from Drive Thru heard it.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And again, this is like all of these examples are we did we we laid the groundwork, but we literally directly did not do it.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: It was indirect because of the groundwork we laid because of this community.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, if you want to talk about nowadays, again, big caveat, everything has changed, right?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want to get your music to somebody that's in another state or another country, you literally can press a button and do it.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so that has changed it.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the passion, the motivation should not change because if you aren't doing this for the right reasons or you're not into it, like why do it at all?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you should be motivated every day to get out on stage or to create something or to just try to spread what you are creating, and that kind of passion still translates today, in my opinion.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree a hundred percent.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that what you said was super important.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: The caveat is that things are different now and you can just push a button.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: But in my experience in working with musicians, I think that there's no substitute for hitting the ground and doing exactly what you just said.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: That will never go away.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: That whatever you want to call it, DIY, grassroots marketing, whatever it is, hitting the streets and being together with your friends and your bandmates, even if you're trying to build a business, your business partners, whatever it is, it is gonna be a lot harder to overcome the hurdle, the hurdles that are inevitably gonna occur.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's just life, if you're not skilled and knowledgeable about the things that can go wrong.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: When you guys are doing shows and you did end up going outside of Florida and the van breaks down and you don't have money to repair it, and you have to figure out literally on the fly as a group, there's something special that happens that that I think, or I know from personal experience reinforces that community that you're talking about.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's great to be able to share your music and your message and whatever you're building around the world with the touch of a button, but I don't think anything can ever replace the human-to-human connection and what that can do to build that community so that one turns into 10, into a hundred, into a thousand, and here you are.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you guys play arenas, you play the outdoor sheds, you play big festivals, and there's a sea of people there for you.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't just happen.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's years of hard work and the culmination of shared experience together.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you know, you were touching on um, you know, what kind of business aspects have been going on since the beginning of this band.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, when we started, it was okay, you can play a show on Friday night at this club, and they're going to give you a portion of the tickets.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we realized, okay, well, if they're gonna give us a portion of the ticket sales, we're gonna get all of our friends to come out.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're basically gonna sell those tickets ahead of time, and then we know how much money we're making.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, we don't really have any costs besides maybe maintaining our gear or I don't know, back then we were probably asking our parents for the gas money to get to the show anyways, you know, in a car that our parents gave us or something like that.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: We were fortunate in ways that maybe some other people uh, you know, weren't, but it wasn't that out of the ordinary.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then when we started getting to, you know, opening up or going away from home, it was kind of the same thing.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was just a little more importance on look, you have maybe a guarantee.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's not much.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're probably talking a couple hundred bucks at the most.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then it really is is that guarantee enough for us to eat, or more importantly, at least have gas to get back home?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can eat whatever you can find at the club, or you could, you know, go to a gas station and get a snack, and you could even go without eating for a day, and it's not gonna necessarily kill you, but you gotta have gas.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I remember the first, if you want to call it tour that we did, uh, definitely highly illegal, so I wouldn't recommend it, but it was our band and this band called the Bacon Andes, who the front man was Chris Caraba, who obviously ended up in Dashboard Confessional.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: And Chris and his bandmates were a few years older than us.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: So luckily, as uh whatever they were, 22, 23-year-olds, they were able to rent a rider truck or a Pinski truck, one of those moving trucks.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it had an open kind of uh area to get to the back to the storage area.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: So we put 10 people in that thing.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: There were only four seats, and we have four people in the seats, and the other six of us in the back with the gear laying down on a wooden floor driving, you know, kind of all over the country.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Again, do not recommend.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, statute of limitations, hopefully it's gone, so I can't get in trouble for that.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I do remember on that tour, um, on the way home from the last show, I had to use my emergency card that my parents had given me because I was only 18.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you absolutely have to do this to get us home because we didn't sell enough merch.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: There was one show that we showed up to and it didn't happen.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, we emailed you.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, well, we don't have there's no cell phones back then.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: You get email when you're lucky enough to make you make a friend at a show that lets you stay at their parents' house and then you take a computer and dial up to the internet, and it's like we didn't get that message because you sent it after we had already left, right?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we had hard times like that.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, looking back, it was obviously all fun.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then fast forward to today, I mean, it's just scaled.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same thing, but it's scale, right?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And luckily, we will never say yes to something if we're going to lose money.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or if we are going to lose money, there has to be a really good reason for it, and it has to be some kind of investment in the future.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, we have budgets that we work out, and of course the budgets change, uh, maybe up or down slightly, but fairly accurate.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Luckily, we surrounded us with a good team, managers and uh, you know, agents and people that work with us.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: But we get an offer to play a show, we put a rough budget together, and then we make a decision on it, you know, as a band.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Is it is it worth it?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, will it bring us money?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Do we want to do this?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Can we do some other things?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we add a show or two.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we never factor in merch, which is crazy because back in the day that's how you thought you would make money.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: One thing we do, and a lot of bands maybe don't do, we never put merch in a budget because it's icing on the on the cake, you know?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can't play the show and make money, then don't play the show at all.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's kind of how we do our thing.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: How did you learn to not put merch in the budget?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, that's a smart thing to do.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's icing on the cake, as you said before we went to break.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: For a young musician, though, or somebody that's trying to break into this industry, how do you and when is the right time to start finding that team?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how long do you think the DIY mindset makes the most sense?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously, more people, you got to pay out more, more money, and there's less to go around.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: At what point did you guys start bringing management in?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you look for with your team?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you actually start getting into that, that those dynamics?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, once again, I'll go back to what we discussed before.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the caveat is things have changed.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when we started this for us, this was uh we've been a band for almost 30 years now.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we probably brought on our longest running relationship, is actually with Andrew Ellis, our booking agent.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, surprisingly, he was first.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: There, we did not have a manager when we got a booking agent, but that should go to prove to you at least what our mantra was, which was it's all about playing shows.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Again, things have changed.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wouldn't say that that's necessarily the best uh, you know, kind of course of action.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think it depends on the band, honestly, on the on the performer.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but for us, it was booking agent first.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, so like surrounding ourselves with a team, if we want to talk about that, um, we found people that either if they approached us, it had to be organic or we had to have some kind of connection already or kind of know who they were.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: We haven't much in our career had to go out and like, luckily for us, you know, kind of showcase for people or or vie for people.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, once you get to a certain point, and this doesn't really apply to a new artist, but once you get to a certain point, people do approach you.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, fortunate enough, you can kind of vet through uh people like that and pick who you feel is the right pick.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: But for Angelo's, for instance, quick story, you know, this is somebody that we met because of going and doing these weekend shows, driving from Florida all the way to New Jersey.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: And again, we would be paid minimal, but we had some merch and we're like, if we could get, let's say,$200 in merch money, that's enough to get gas.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's probably even way cheaper than I'm talking, maybe I'm doing today's gas prices.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, if you could sell$200 a merch, which is let's say, I don't know, 20 shirts or something like that, you know, you can make it back home.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we would play with these brand new bands up there called Saves the Day or Thursday or Midtown, you know, and these bands were putting the shows together.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: We do whatever we play and we come back home.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Andrew Ellis was booking a lot of these bands.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: He was new, he was starting.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when he approached us, it was a no-brainer because A, we didn't have a booking agent at the time, and we knew that the scene he was connected to, it was just going to be a lot easier than us having to reach out to promoter after promoter, getting shot down.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe somebody can, you know, get a show for us, and then you got to worry about well, where's the next show going to be?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And our ticket was going to be if we had a booking agent that had relationships and could get to some of these bands or agents that we couldn't because they're not going to feel the phone call from a regular person, you're going to get on these tours.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we knew from the Blink and Unwritten Law and MXTX, you know, less than Jake talks, that's what you do.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: You open up for bands, you get on those tours.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where the Andrew Ellis, the booking agent, came from.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: And in our music, you know, and I'm talking about live kind of rock, you know, punk, the warp tour, this kind of style of music, I think that's still massive and a huge component.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Pop could be a whole nother story because a lot of times it starts with the marketing first, maybe the management first or the label, and then kind of goes to a show, and uh, there's not as much importance on the shows.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: But in our style of music, the live music is important.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's why we put so much uh you know, place so much emphasis on that.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: The rest of the team, ironically for us, uh, like I said, we started with a booging agent.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: We signed a record deal without a manager, which would not recommend at all, but we did because we had already garnered enough interest from drive-thru to sign by playing live shows.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would never advise if for some reason the record label is like we can manage you, you never do that.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's a conflict of interests, you know, and I don't know what that's happening nowadays.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: I do know something that's happening a lot more now that didn't happen with us are these 360 deals or whatever they want to call them.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure that's not phrased like that anymore, but you know, you will have companies that invest in you, and much like a Shark Tank deal, they want a percentage of your business.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: We don't do that, and we won't do that, or will probably not do that, because for us, again to go back to Shark Tank, I don't think we'll ever be evaluated correctly.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've put in so much ourselves, we brought ourselves to this point.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody's gonna give us that that multiple that we want.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: However, as a new band, again, situation dependent, but it might not be the best or though the worst idea, I'm sorry, because if you get somebody who is actually behind you and is willing to invest in you, and they want to take a percentage of everything, there is motivation now for that person who's behind you to help you with all of that stuff.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: When we signed a record deal, they don't touch touring or merch.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, they want us to go out on tour, but unless it translates to more record sales, they don't really care.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, they know that if you do play in front of 30,000 people, you're probably gonna sell more records, but they're really focused on the record thing.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where it's also changed in the industry from 30 years ago to now, because of course record sales are kind of not there anymore, and it's all about streaming, right?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so again, a lot has changed, but surrounding yourself with a team, I think you gotta obviously align with people that the values align and uh you know, people that do believe in you.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there is a component of at least, especially if you have a band of multiple people, at least one person on in your band needs to at all times kind of be checking.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Much like our government, there's a system that checks and balances.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: It you you need to because this stuff can spiral out of control.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: You can have too many cooks in the kitchen, you can have people that are making decisions because they think it's easier to make the decision rather than come to you or come to all of you, and it's a process, and you don't ever want that to happen.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that's happened with us.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Luckily, between all of the guys in the band, we've always had at least one person who's kind of had a hawk eye on everything.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, yeah, sometimes I think you stop things before they happen, not something that would be detrimental, but something that maybe you wouldn't have agreed with.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Or you do have to put your foot down every now and then.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: And luckily, again, we the way we came up, where we basically garner these relationships because the people come to us.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Luckily, we have a little bit of leverage, if you want to call it.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're able to say, no, this is not what we want to do.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Now, a new artist might not have that leverage, and I would never recommend selling your soul to the devil because that's that's an easy way to have a short career, right?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like if you can keep your integrity or your artistic integrity, do that.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a huge thing because we've always said in the band, we're going to continue this band as long as we enjoy it, as long as we're doing what we want to do.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if that stuff ever changes, we're going to start having conversations because it's not this.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: No, you might as well just go get a nine to five job and do something that you don't want to do and not have to sacrifice as much and you know go out there and kind of do something you you don't want to be doing night after night after night.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, great advice, man.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's uh landed well with me.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that listeners take that and run with it because I think there's a lot of great little nuggets in there of advice to continue to chase your dreams and do the thing.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think again, going back 30 years, if you guys hadn't drawn up drove driven up to New Jersey and played those shows, to me, the networking that you guys did there, even if you went home with no money or 50 bucks in your pocket, whatever, it was worth it because the relationships you built there obviously led to getting signed, led to many awesome tours throughout, collaborations and things that just blossomed that helped lift.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just all ships rise with the tide.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't really get around that.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: You have to get yourself out there, you have to go promote, you have to go rub shoulders and elbows and network.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the integrity piece of it is is super huge.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for sharing all that.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to me about life.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you you you you do a lot of different things, you've got a great business mind.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we've shared a lot of stories and talked pretty deeply about business and life, you know, off recording.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about just life, being a dad, what you do when you're not on tour.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me how that's evolved over the years and where you're at right now.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, I'm happily married with two kids.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And as you know, as a father yourself, it it is crazy having kids.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so when I go on tour, it's it's infinitely harder now than it used to be when I was 18.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, there's obviously a lot more responsibility and kudos to to my wife Debbie for you know all that she does and holding it down.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh way more important and more than that, way more strenuous of a job than what I have to do here on the road.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, and when I'm when I'm off the road, you know, it's I want to spend as much time as I can with my kids.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um there is a little bit of like a learning curve or growing pains or whatever the word would be.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's routines, obviously.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: I have a routine on the road.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the reasons why I love the road, because days off might be one thing, but a show day like runs like clockwork, right?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when you get home, Debbie's got a routine that she started for the three, four, five, or six weeks, whatever that I'm gone.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I wreck that routine when I get home because I'm trying to kind of morph myself into whatever they're doing, but realistically, I wasn't there and I can't know everything that happened.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, I come in and I wreck the routine, and as what usually ends up happening, by the time everybody or I adjust to that routine, I leave again.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so that is, you know, when you're when you're married to somebody that's a musician, Tory musician, I think that's unfortunately kind of par for the course.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, excuse me, but for the rest of life, I think like a lot of other people in our industry, you know, if I if you were talking to Lars from Metallica or uh, you know, the Green Day guys or whatever, everybody's got side hustles.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them don't have to hustle as much, some of them are a little more passive.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you pad your bank account with eight, nine zeros, you're you buy businesses, right?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Or I think Lars buys artwork, you know, but all these are investments.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think he's doing it so that he can get a passive return because he he needs it, you know.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Metallica, I'm sure, provides for him, right?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: But for bands like us and and you know, even bands that don't tour as much as we do, it's obviously important.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you're on the road 365 days a year, it's gonna be hard for you to have a side hustle, but bands do it.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're not on the road 365 days a year, like while you're at home, it's great to relax, but at some point you can't just sit there and do nothing.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so for me, there's a couple things I've done.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Going back to my wife Debbie, another thing that was amazing that she did, she's been a licensed real estate agent for well over, I think, 20 years now.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: And about 12 years ago, she pushed me.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was right as we were having our first child.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, I think you should get into real estate.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And my experience in real estate by then was just, you know, buying and selling a few homes for myself, not really realizing much of it, but she helped me realize that music is actually related to real estate.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I know there's actually a whole bunch of musicians that are real estate agents, whether they're still active in music or not, but it's very true.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh very creative, no two deals are the same.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um contracts, which I'm not a lawyer, but I love contracts.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Numbers as a drummer that just falls falls in my lap right there.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, marketing.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's it's so many kind of mirror things going on there with real estate.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also one of the few careers that you can do without having to show up at an office every day.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: You could do it from anywhere in the world.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, ironically, it seems like most of my deals happen when I'm gone.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, once we get off of this podcast, I have somebody viewing a house that Debbie's got to show, but she has to get the kids home from school first and then you know get over to the house.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: And like, but that's what happens, right?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was also something that was cool because of both of us being licensed, we can be a team and help each other out.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I've been a licensed real estate agent and actually a broker for um yeah, well over 12 years now.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's something I could do as long as I want, right?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a great side hustle that I do.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I also got into accounting, and that was just a random thing.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um it happened a year before COVID.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, I had no clue what was about to happen, but I got an opportunity.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, in my mind was okay, I can work for two to three hours a day, basically on QuickBooks, data entry numbers.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: I it's it's like second nature to me.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's really not that hard, right?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's just numbers and they don't lie.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I treated it as an extra per diem.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, our band and most bands or a lot of businesses, when you travel, you get a per diem every day.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's supposed to take care of your daily expenses.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, for me, it's like I could wake up maybe an hour earlier on tour.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's no reason I should be sleeping until three o'clock in the afternoon.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm in my mid 40s now, and that's not the lifestyle I want to have.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Gives me a reason to wake up, set up in the hotel room or set up in the venue, work for a few hours, and in my mind, I just made a double per diem or triple per diem, and it's you know, it's money, right?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it's great, and I do it all the time.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: And ironically, when COVID happened, that basically saved me because I ramped up that job as much as I could, uh, being able to do that.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, of course, it's luckily everybody's been very supportive of what I do and schedules can change and all that stuff.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so I'm sitting here with basically three jobs, if you want to call it, and it's not necessarily because I have to, it's just why not?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because also there will be a point in time where music will not be as active as it normally is.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I do need to either have something to fall back on, or with real estate, you know, when you are licensed, you can do that as long as you want to, but also most licensed real estate agents get into the investing side of that, and that's where you can be a little more passive.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, this now transcends music and goes into just regular life and kind of setting yourself up and things like that.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my life, and it's all packaged into one crazy thing.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Cyrus, you just finished talking about your life outside of music, and I wanna give you some kudos and commend you and also let you know that it inspired me.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: I actually got the chance to tour with Cyrus in Newfound Glory 14 or 15 years ago now, maybe maybe a little bit less than that.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: But around the time you were doing your real estate license and studying for it, and you were waking up early on the bus every day.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'd come out in the lounge and you were there studying and working for it.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's really obviously commendable, but also something that we can't lose sight of.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: We all want music to be, we all want to be in a Metallica, right?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: We all want that you don't have to worry for anything and the band's gonna provide.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't always happen though.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And whether it's you're gonna scratch an itch because you have multiple ideas for businesses or you just want to get different creative endeavors out there, but finding ways to stack revenue so that you have different income streams coming in.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: One might be higher than the other one year.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like you said, during COVID, when you're not touring and music's not a thing, the accounting side saved you.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a really smart mindset to have.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad you brought that up.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I just thought it was cool because I remember that's always how I operated.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: When I was touring in a van and then teching and being in a bus, I'm like, I'm working 24-7 now.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm setting up drums and making sure the show's going off.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I get off the stage and the drums are packed up in the truck, I'm going on my phone and doing my emails and running a business.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that, you know, it takes a certain brain to be able to do that.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I hope that people take the message and are inspired to not shy away from doing multiple things because it's a smart endeavor to get yourself into, especially if you're touring and you've got a crew, and a lot of the day is waiting around, you know, waiting for sound check, waiting for the show.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, can't be said for everybody, but if you have a couple hours, even if you're not on tour, stack your skill set and learn multiple trades.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I mean, look, you everybody's a kid, everybody, you know, if you are fortunate to have success in the music industry and it happens at a younger age, you know, everybody wants to have fun, and that's great.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: One thing our band has done throughout our entire career, luckily, we've never lost sight of either our goals or just kind of where we came from, right?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: The opportunity that Newfound Glory has had and the successes we've had uh don't happen to many people, if any.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the last thing any of us ever want to do is to look back and look back at a career that ended and realize that it ended because of something stupid.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: So even when we were 18 and 19 years old, you know, doing things we probably shouldn't be doing, or just being on the road with no responsibilities, seemingly no responsibilities, we did have a responsibility, and it was in the back of our mind, and that was tomorrow there's a show.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: And if we can't perform at that show, then we won't be able to do this or we won't get that next tour or or whatnot.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, me now looking back, of course, in retrospect, I wish I would have done some of these things sooner.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: It does seem like a lot of work, and at times it can be a lot of work, but you know, I didn't necessarily have to go out and get licensed as a real estate agent right away, but I could have done some investing or some things like that.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes the people you surround yourself with can help you with that.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, there's a lot of bands out there that for whatever it is, it's not necessarily real estate or whatever, but they they are smart about investments, and then all it does is it just eases, you know, later in life or later in your career, you know, it eases that transition if you need to go back to uh normal life or kind of like back down off the road.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know what?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I wanted to point out something really quick.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: You you told the stories of when you were a drum tech for us and you know, talking about, I guess, me being up and working and stuff like that.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: But let's be honest here, you were always awake before me and you were working.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's all, I mean, literally, if you think about it, that's how you built your brand and your business and became, you know, one of the biggest custom drum builders out there was because you never stopped.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you went out on tour, and for you, I remember talking to you about it because I think you had just uh toured a Jimmy Eat World around that time.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: You were kind of going around and like having fun by touring with your favorite drummers, and that was cool for you.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and it was a way for you to immerse yourself in that side of the touring industry.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: But by that point, you had already basically been everywhere in touring because everywhere we went as touring drummers, you were there.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and you that's how you built your brand.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was that grassroots marketing that we talked about.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was going out and doing it yourself, and it was just refusing to wait for something to happen and going and making sure people knew who you were, and that's what got you to where you are now, you know what I mean?
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so you gotta give way we we gotta turn this around on you too, and and make sure that everybody understands, you know, you you had this quick introduction at the beginning of the show of kind of who you are, but let's not forget you know what you were able to build by using all these skills we've been talking about today.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks, man.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you saying that, and and that's why I think it resonates so much for me.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: I truly enjoy these conversations, and I want all the listeners, I want anybody out there that's interested in these types of topics to have the insights to learn from them because you either inevitably have it or you can learn it.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: But learning it comes from being inspired and motivated by others, other people's journeys.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, it was my dad, it was my grandfather, it was watching drummers like you as a fan and working my way in to find, like you mentioned earlier with management, find an organic way to insert yourself into a situation authentically.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: If I just blind emailed you years before we knew each other, it wouldn't have landed.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: You had already had a relationship with a drum company.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's no, there's no way I would have even done that.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: And people do do that.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: They blind email or cold email and think it's gonna work, and maybe it does sometimes, but in this world, in the music world specifically, it is all about relationships.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we had run into each other at shows because I was there as a fan.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then eventually, you know, we've told this story before.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then eventually I'm there hanging out with the bands that you guys are taking out on tour, whether it was Four Year Strong or whoever, and we'd run into each other backstage, and then, you know, eventually it led to let's get lunch and like talk about this and like see, see if it feels right.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I want people to know that it sounds crazy and it sounds like a pipe dream, but it is actually realistic to do to chase your dreams and turn them into a reality.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: It just takes time, it takes knowledge and trial and error and figuring out who you are and what those dreams and what those ambitions you have are.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate you again, you saying that and appreciate just all the insights so far, man.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: No worries.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, again, your your your relationship with me, we gotta remember not to tell that story, but it's it was surprised, it had to be like four, you curated that relationship for like four years, never overstepping, you know.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I know your end goal in mine was to bring me on board to your drum company, and that's what eventually happened, but you never wanted to do that forcefully or in a in an organic way, right?
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you stayed patient and you understood mine.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it was nothing against the drum company, it was it was a loyalty thing, and then I think you appreciated that loyalty when you brought me on board because I still tried to stand by that that you know mantra.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: So 100%.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think we both recognized what what each other's kind of uh motivations were and how pure they were.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and just waited for the right time.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and too, I think that the the the takeaway there is regardless of what it is that you want to do, the the I was there because I was a fan and I was just happy to interact and watch you guys play.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: You knowing who my drum brand was at that point was enough for me.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, this is cool, like we're friends, we high-five at the warp tour.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: When I see you at the House of Blues in Boston, this is awesome.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: If Cyrus ever plays the drums, that'd be even cooler.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: But this is great.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: I love the band.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love you as a drummer.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Being in your circle was enough for me.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're chasing the dream, if you don't have the full thing yet, find ways to have joy and in a realistic expectation of what it can be or what it should be, and just and just leave it.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: If it happens and it gets bigger than that, amazing.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of my relationships that I had with the drum company were that, you know, it took me years to to to to interact with Trey Cool from Green Day, and eventually, boom, I was literally on tour with you, and it happened.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was like I'm gonna be at your shop in two days, and I'm like, okay, you gotta, you gotta, you know, dip, duck, and dodge and dive, whatever they say, but you gotta find what you're passionate about to get you through the uh through through the through the time and just be genuine, be authentic.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a good good segue into authenticity, talking about the new song you guys just dropped a few weeks back in early in June.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: How did the song come together?
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: What's the songwriting creative process now for Newfound Glory?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: How does it differ than than the early days?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what's been the uh the reaction to the song so far?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we dropped uh kind of surprised dropped uh the song called Good To Go.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's something that we had been working on for a little bit, at least the relationship, much like you said.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a company called Garage Beer, and they're a great uh great company where they uh they have some very famous uh partners, the the uh the Kelsey brothers, but the this is this is perfect because it like works with everything we talked about.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: The CEO of that company loves Newfound Glory because he was raised on our band and he saw us at shows, and you know, I'm just a huge fan.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: And when he became in the position he's in, uh where he had this idea, okay, we have to have some summer marketing, you know, plan.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: What do we do?
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: The light bulb went off.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, let me see if I can get in touch with Newfound Glory and see if they want to write a song.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so he hit us up.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like that's one of the cool things now about being in a band for so long is that you know, people have grown up with our band.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: And when we started it, we were 17, 18 years old, and everybody was getting out of high school and relationships and college and all this.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: And like we talked about that in our songs, right?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: We were the the relationship band.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: All of these people have now grown up, and everybody's got jobs, everybody's got big boy, big girl jobs.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Some of these jobs are really cool, and some of these people we're now envious of like who you are, and oh, you're a fan of us, but you work on this TV show, or like you've you know owned this company, or you're with this sporting team, or and it's awesome because you know, the dividends I guess we have sown or we have paid throughout our years are coming back sometimes to reward us.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: But this relationship with this company, this song, you know, the idea again was uh can you kind of write a song for this this summer marketing campaign?
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like not much else direction given.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: Just do your thing.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: The song that came out of it, good to go, is it's one of our strongest songs, and it's like crazy because we recorded it um, you know, a couple months before uh before June.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: So like this was we recorded it back in February.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: This was a year and a half after we recorded Listen Up, our newest record.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like it could have fit on that record.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we almost are like, man, I wish it would have been on that record because it's got that same vibe, right?
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but just the process was organic and we had so much fun.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: We were able to record it in like three and a half days, right before the yellow card tour and the turnaround, you know, within a few weeks, we assembled the same team we had for Listen Up, which is Steve Evitts producing it and engineering.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Neil Avron mixed it.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: Neil Avron has worked with Newfound Glory, did our first three huge records, uh, producing, engineering, mixing, all that stuff, and uh has been a very integral part of our band and making us sound the way we are.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: But the song is a fun song, you know, and it's supposed to be that.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's supposed to, yes, it's it's for a a beer company, but it's not about drinking beer.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's about hanging out.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's about realizing that no matter, you know, even if you are a little older, like this is everybody has fun together.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny because we're talking about community so much, you know, on this interview, and that's it's kind of what it is.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's a sense of community.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's a sense of, yeah, sometimes, you know, maybe you do need to kind of detach from reality and just enjoy life because it it's it is fun, and it's fun to hang out with your friends or do whatever.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: Or there's a video that that uh Jordan shot with the guys from Garage Beer.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: He had a great time, and it's just them just having fun and um, you know, being in like an amusement park or something as middle-aged men, I hate to say it, but you know, just having fun, right?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um it goes along with the spirit of the song.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: So quickly talk about the songwriting process.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh with our band, it's a little different now than it has uh in the past.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we should definitely address this.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure most people know Chad, our guitar player, uh, is very sick with cancer.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he's been dealing with it, fighting it for over four years now, four and a half years.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you want an inspiration right there, that's he is.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: He's a warrior.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh motivation, he finds motivation.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of it was or or is newfound glory.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, unfortunately, a lot of people in his position don't have or can't find motivation, and he found that immediately.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: That inspiration was the next show or the next project, or when this idea for the song came out, getting this song done, and that distracts or again motivates him to continue to fight.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so the the recording of the song, the writing was a little tough because again, logistically, it's not easy for us to do what we used to do with writing, maybe going somewhere or spending time here doing, you know, a little bit of recording.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, it was all jammed into we have to get this done in three and a half days.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: But we all brought in the skills that we have, the relationships we have, relying on each other.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if a schedule had to change last minute, it doesn't matter because we know what we're doing.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: And literally, even if like a lyric wasn't done, or if like we needed an idea for this, it's like anybody can bring it in, which we've always done, but it's very easy because we just channel what we would do.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we can think about that because we've all been together for so long and we have such a great team we've surrounded ourselves with.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I mean, the song is the reception's great so far, and there might be a uh, or we might have already had a surprise uh performance of it, you never know.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, we're very excited at the possibility and and you know, just the the idea of this collaboration.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: Heck yeah, man.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's amazing.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate you sharing the story.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out, Chad, and just you know, shout out all the great people that support, whether it's parents like you talked about earlier.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: Your parents probably gave you an emergency like debit card to use.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Parents that support their kids in music can't can't understate the the gratitude that I have for those folks and the guardians and the families and friends that support musicians, the significant others back home.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out Debbie, you know, obviously holding down the home when you're when you're away on tour, like it is such an important part of the music industry and being able to do anything in any business.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have a supportive team that can help either put you in check, give you ideas that you may not have thought of, or just hold down the hold down the uh the fort while you're gone, whether it's at home or in business.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, Cyrus Man, thank you so much for sharing all these amazing insights with you, your career, newfound glory.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot wait to see uh the rest of the year for what you guys have planned.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: Every time you put out a new song or a record, it's always exciting.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: What an amazing collaborative thing you just shared with that with that song.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the the summer anthem, you know, those those only come around every now and then, and and it's important to to have those in the scene.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and Newfound Glory has been that staple for me anyway for for literally three decades now.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been amazing uh chatting with you, Cyrus.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for being on Loyal to the Craft on Adobe Radio.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Mike.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: As always, love talking to you.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you are an inspiration as well, and I love what you're doing here.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it's great to be able to share stories and hopefully inspire the the next generation.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: Heck yeah, man.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out Adobe Radio, our partners at DistroKid who support independent music.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you're following Cyrus Beluki on Instagram and all the socials, and also Newfound Glory.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Catch them when they come to your town.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Tell your friends about them if they don't already know.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, we'll see you out there, man.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Cyrus.