Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 748 - Flynn of Gasket
Transcript
- 0:00Hey, this is Derek Verduren from Megadeth, and you're listening
- 0:02to ghostcokemag.com. Welcome back to the Ghost Coke
- 0:13Magazine podcast. I'm your host OJ.
- 0:15In today's episode, Keithy sits down with Flynn of the Baltimore
- 0:18hardcore metal band Gasket. Their new EP Babylon is out now
- 0:22on Blue Gate Records. But before I let you go and
- 0:25enjoy this lovely episode, follow us wherever you are.
- 0:28If you're listening to us or watching us, doesn't matter to
- 0:31me. Just give us a follow man, Help
- 0:34us out. Let's get these numbers up, yo.
- 0:35Let's actually make a dent and show the algorithm that we're
- 0:38serious. Anyway, enjoy the episode.
- 0:40What's up everybody? It's Kefi at ghostcoldman.com.
- 0:43I'm super stoked to be joined by Flynn from Gasket.
- 0:46How are you doing today, man? I'm good, good man.
- 0:48How are you? I'm amazing.
- 0:50I'm having the best time. Honestly, it's not always I'm
- 0:53very frank about what I'm not having the best time.
- 0:55I hope you're having the best time.
- 0:56You're about to drop this new EP, but I hope you and the band
- 0:58that everybody you're cool. It is a complicated and time in
- 1:02the world to say the. Least this is true.
- 1:05So true. Anybody out there that's having
- 1:07a hard time, we always like our DMS are always open, like come
- 1:10at us and you know, if you need help or support, we're around.
- 1:13But one thing that's great is we have music, right?
- 1:16We have music to uplift us and power us through and as I said
- 1:20before we started, we've been following you guys for a while
- 1:24and your career and Gasket is about to drop this killer new
- 1:28EP, Babylon, your second EP on the very rising and esteemed
- 1:32Blue. Great music.
- 1:33For those that and don't know, Blue Grape is a long time in the
- 1:37business for a relatively new label, but veteran, veteran
- 1:39people. So if they're promoting and
- 1:41pushing your release out on their label, it's not a small
- 1:44deal. So Congrats.
- 1:46Thank you, man. Thank you.
- 1:47Right on. So let's just just because
- 1:48you're, you're new to our audience here, let's hear a
- 1:51little bit about the origin story of Gasket.
- 1:53The comic book issue #1 this was a suit, a Marvel DCU movie,
- 1:58hopefully not a hopefully not a DC Warner movie.
- 2:01But if this is a Marvel movie or Watchmen, my favorite comic book
- 2:05ever. What would story #1 be for a
- 2:07gasket and how you guys formed? Well, I meant Max doing theater
- 2:12in middle school in a production of Legally Blonde.
- 2:15And we headed off. He showed me Bowling For Soup.
- 2:20I showed him Green Day, all the all the punk stuff you get into
- 2:24as a middle schooler, I guess. And we have been playing music
- 2:29like we both started playing guitar around the same time.
- 2:32Like I get well, in middle school we started playing guitar
- 2:36and stuff together. Like in high school we had a
- 2:38couple bands that kind of didn't really turn into much.
- 2:41But then over COVID we started gasket and then hardcore was
- 2:45popping off and it was like, damn, it's rules.
- 2:48People like it. It's.
- 2:49Cool, that's amazing. I love fellow theater kids.
- 2:53I was a theater kid a lot and I always felt like, oh, theater
- 2:57and metal go together. Oh, definitely to me.
- 3:01But hard, you know, punk is is the best man.
- 3:03I interviewed Jarrett from Bowling For Soup last fall and
- 3:07oh, really? It was like a absolute.
- 3:08I was literally like the inside. I turned into Lisa Simpson.
- 3:12Like, yeah, yeah. I couldn't help it.
- 3:15It was so awesome. And Green Day, huge fans.
- 3:19That's amazing. And like, you know, we all start
- 3:20somewhere, right? Like never be a never apologize,
- 3:24like always walk that shit up in the front.
- 3:26Like yeah, for I know, like it's not hardcore enough.
- 3:29Nobody no, like a very few people were like I was into AF
- 3:33when I was 5. Nobody, man, right from New York
- 3:36and I wasn't into AF until I was a teenager.
- 3:38Like everybody calm down about like who's tougher or whatever
- 3:42you like man Bowling for. They're great inspirations to to
- 3:46help make great music. But yeah, man Gasket is so
- 3:49killer at the previous EP that we were fans of.
- 3:51And now Babylon is about to drop before we're recording this on
- 3:55more or less the eve the week before it drops.
- 3:57This whole interview will run sometime after.
- 3:59But it's it's such a dollar EP that it's so tough and it's so
- 4:03inspiring. Like I think it's like very
- 4:05uplifting. I hear like a lot of stuff.
- 4:07I will, I never will claim that I was a hardcore kid, but I had
- 4:10a ton of hardcore experiences and and friends as a kid and I I
- 4:14feel like that thread from like early hardcore and 90s hardcore
- 4:19and modern hardcore is all in you guys.
- 4:21Thank you, man. Thank you.
- 4:22I really appreciate that. Yeah, for real.
- 4:24Great riffs and very inspirational vocals and lyrics.
- 4:28Anybody look looking for something like some good gym
- 4:30music, some running music Just get through your hard work day
- 4:33music. This is this EP Babylon is for
- 4:36you. What's the so that so you formed
- 4:38Babylon over the pandemic, which you know anybody a lot of people
- 4:42could not do anything. They were like, I don't know
- 4:44what what this even looks like when it's over.
- 4:46How do we live? So if you were able to like make
- 4:48music and be creative and I know a lot of introverts thrived
- 4:52during that time, but anybody that couldn't that's cool.
- 4:54That's also OK. And I, I like the sort of the
- 4:57progression of the group, you know, conscious effort to make,
- 5:01you know, a couple of EPS instead of like try your hand at
- 5:03a full length or it's just like, this is the course the band is
- 5:06taking. Yeah, I mean, honestly, like
- 5:08even now, like we're contractually obligated to make
- 5:12an album next after this and I'm like very stressed just at the
- 5:16idea of like 20 minutes. That's a long time.
- 5:21That's a long time. I've always been a been AEP guy
- 5:24myself. So I mean, and we've never, I
- 5:27mean we had it, we actually, we were a shoe gaze band when we
- 5:31were in high school, like before COVID and Austin and Max and I
- 5:36and we had two EPS and like 4 songs even stressed me out.
- 5:40Then it's like making baby steps but you know, we'll get there
- 5:44eventually. 6 songs. I was like a couple years ago
- 5:46that would have like terrified me.
- 5:48But it feels really good to like actually have something like
- 5:50that out. It definitely adds a lot to the
- 5:52record. Yeah, right.
- 5:53I mean this this EP is all bangers like you have nothing to
- 5:56worry about but I have full confidence Thank you.
- 5:58I believe in all of y'all to make a full album and I cannot
- 6:01personally wait but first Babylon right?
- 6:03This is so killer from the first notes and like I said it just
- 6:07pumped me up full of energy and made me smile, which is usually
- 6:10the acid test for any music. The evilest shit makes me smile
- 6:14the most energetic hardcore makes me smile the most too gazy
- 6:18doom shit makes me happy. You know, you get the the arm
- 6:21hair test, right, or the car test right around the car.
- 6:24Be like, yes, this rules. So I really feel that with you
- 6:27all. And yeah, man, it's I feel like,
- 6:30you know, there's never, you know, forget about the industry
- 6:33and critics forget about us like for a second.
- 6:36Just make music for yourself. That's the most important thing.
- 6:38I think you have to be your own first fan.
- 6:40For sure, definitely, definitely.
- 6:42And I also, I feel like every guitar player, right, you
- 6:45automatically you have like riffs you've never used that are
- 6:48just laying around. I'm sure you have the building
- 6:50blocks of a handful of new songs you haven't thought about yet,
- 6:53Like that thing we never made a thing out of.
- 6:55I think we could do that, right? Like, and then the time is right
- 6:58and it becomes a song. You know, there's tons of those
- 7:00stories out there, you know, from Nirvana doing, never mind,
- 7:04you know, whatever teen spirit in like 5 minutes to Black
- 7:06Sabbath doing Paranoid. The last we gotta make one more
- 7:10song before the session is over. Here's Paranoid.
- 7:12Right, right, the. Greatest like the most legendary
- 7:15well known metal song maybe ever.
- 7:17You know, So it's possible, right?
- 7:19Anything's possible, but umm, yeah, man, I like, I like the
- 7:21energy and then I'm really excited that like for like when
- 7:25you go guys go out and play now you have actually like a full
- 7:28headline set amount of tracks if you want to go do some headline
- 7:31shows, right. Yeah, we got, we got 20 minutes
- 7:34or so. Yeah, at least something around
- 7:36there. Right.
- 7:37They're pretty quick. They're pretty quick and to the
- 7:38point, which I like. No fat on them.
- 7:40You know it's like comedy, right?
- 7:42They say you need to have like 5 minutes to go up.
- 7:44So like every band needs like 15 to 20 minutes for anything.
- 7:47So you know what you know I'm very excited to hopefully see
- 7:51you guys on tour at some point either here or have us cover you
- 7:55somewhere. I feel like there might have
- 7:56been one show or festival somewhere.
- 7:58We were at the same place and I just can't.
- 8:01Oh really brain? My shelf is so full of riffs and
- 8:05things and and useless knowledge that I can't remember if I've
- 8:09seen you guys or not, but I. Like more.
- 8:12Maybe maybe because we, we covered a few things down there.
- 8:15We have like Philadelphia, Baltimore people, we have people
- 8:18at MBF. So like we've been around, but
- 8:21that scene right now is huge. I think between all the flat
- 8:24spot bands and the Philly and Baltimore kind of metro areas
- 8:29kind of pirate for each other with bands, right?
- 8:31So it's such a good time. Obviously you're into different
- 8:33kinds of music, but like, who are some of your peer bands that
- 8:37we need to pay more attention to maybe?
- 8:39Oh man, definitely doubt. Doubt.
- 8:44They just signed to a Get Better records.
- 8:47They're really sick. Baltimore band to check out.
- 8:49Let me think. Erode is a really, really good
- 8:55Baltimore heavy band. They're probably the heaviest
- 8:58band in Baltimore, we think. Not so much hardcore, but my
- 9:05homies have this band, Mon Dreary, which is like a scram
- 9:08screamo band. They roll, they're there.
- 9:12It's crazy when like, I don't know, I don't.
- 9:15I don't want to, I don't want to talk about like myself too much,
- 9:18but like when I was a kid coming to hardcore shows, like I was
- 9:21like for a couple of years, I was like the youngest kid in the
- 9:23room most of the time. And it was like, wow, this is
- 9:26crazy. Like, and it was like cool
- 9:28making all these friends that are like older teenagers and
- 9:30adults and stuff and just crazy meeting all these people when I
- 9:33was like in middle school, getting into it and stuff in
- 9:36like high school. And then now that since COVID
- 9:40ended, it's like so many kids are starting bands and they're
- 9:44doing it fast. And they're like, it's, it's
- 9:47crazy to see so many kids like that.
- 9:50Like when I was the age they are now, like I couldn't imagine
- 9:54booking a show or like writing an album.
- 9:57Like feel like I was saying earlier and like these kids in
- 10:00Mondrieri, the screamo band, they're really doing it.
- 10:03And they're, they're like, I think at least half of them were
- 10:06like, I think 2 out of four members are like 17.
- 10:09And they're from Harford County and they, they run Baltimore all
- 10:13the way from Harford County. It's crazy.
- 10:14They, they're really doing it and it's sick to see.
- 10:17It's really cool to see young kids getting into it now.
- 10:20It's the future, man. We need younger bands to kind of
- 10:23take the baton and, you know, listen, I'm dad aged, I'm not a
- 10:26dad, but I'm dad rock age and like we're losing.
- 10:29Like, go see your heroes now because you know, like, you
- 10:32know, the early hardcore bands are all, I just saw Harley Crow
- 10:36Mag and like, Car Bags are still doing their thing despite all
- 10:39the drama. And Harley is like almost 60 and
- 10:42he's built like a brick shit house.
- 10:43But a lot of guys are falling apart.
- 10:45And so, you know, you need younger bands to come along and
- 10:49kind of take the torch and we need older bands.
- 10:51Luckily a few of them are still doing it.
- 10:54And you are you guys from like actual Baltimore proper or like
- 10:57the? Birds.
- 10:57We're from the county, we're from Parkville.
- 11:00Generally speaking, yeah, which is like 15 ish minutes away from
- 11:03most venues in Baltimore, Yeah. Same difference.
- 11:05Same difference. Yeah, I'm from the wrong side of
- 11:07the tracks in New York City. So Baltimore, I always have my
- 11:10Oh yeah, anybody, anybody who is cut from that cloth, whatever it
- 11:14is, if you spent enough time in the city, it definitely will
- 11:16challenge you. And I feel feel like some of
- 11:18that stuff comes through in the music too.
- 11:20For sure, for sure. Yeah, any like so we got the
- 11:22record release coming up. Do you have any touring you can
- 11:25talk about yet? What's on the?
- 11:28We're hitting the whole coast going from Manchester, NH down
- 11:32to Boca Raton and so it's like 14 days down the East Coast.
- 11:37Think the only state we're not hitting below New Hampshire is
- 11:41North Carolina. We're hitting Greenville, SC, 4
- 11:44dates in Florida, we're doing Baltimore, DC, Bond DC,
- 11:49Baltimore, Philly, New York, doing New Hampshire, a couple
- 11:53other dates I can't remember right now.
- 11:55I booked it, so I should know, but you know.
- 11:58But yeah, like 14 days down the East Coast in July.
- 12:01Very, very excited for it. Nice.
- 12:02I will hit up some of our Boston and New Hampshire area people
- 12:05and see if somebody could come. Hell.
- 12:06Yeah, we're hitting Boston. Very excited.
- 12:08For that, get some photos of the band maybe and you know, help
- 12:11promote you guys. Like I said, I'm very high on
- 12:13this EP personally. You know, every once in a while,
- 12:16you know, we get, we get the very grandiose in our feelings
- 12:19about all the metal and and everything.
- 12:21But sometimes you just need like this to wake you up because it's
- 12:24been, like I said, it's crazy time.
- 12:26Yeah, definitely. What's the craziest show you've
- 12:30ever played? And just crazy in general, just
- 12:32like in Maybe the Big. Craziest.
- 12:34Show. I'd say the craziest show we
- 12:36ever played was in during our, our like, so half of us were in
- 12:42college and half of us work full time.
- 12:44So we try and book tours around like when Max our bass player
- 12:49and Calvin our guitar player when they're on break for
- 12:52school. So we did a tour that started
- 12:55like 2 days after Christmas and went a little bit into January.
- 13:00And so we played and the Baltimore, the Hometown show was
- 13:04a house show on New Year's Eve. And it was like in like a 2 or
- 13:10maybe a three bedroom townhouse, a really small house.
- 13:12We played in this living room and there was like at least 100
- 13:15kids and it was fucking awesome. And it was, it was insane.
- 13:21And we were touring with this band that is also supporting us
- 13:23on this release tour in July, this band called Agency from
- 13:27Beckley WV. And they, as I'm sure most
- 13:31people can imagine, Beckley WV is they don't have a scene.
- 13:36They don't have anything down there really.
- 13:38So and we we met them just playing a random show in
- 13:41Richmond one time. They were like, damn, this band
- 13:43is terrifying. We need to play with them.
- 13:45And then we met them and realized like they were, they
- 13:48were from West Virginia, West Virginia.
- 13:50And we're when we played this house show, they're used to like
- 13:55like Morgantown shows, which is like a college town or just
- 13:58like, it's cool. But you know, people think
- 14:00hardcore and metal bands are like cute there.
- 14:03People aren't really that into it.
- 14:05And then I was like, trust me. And I was like, we're playing
- 14:07one house show on this tour. It's going to be probably the
- 14:09craziest show. And the rest were an actual real
- 14:12venues. But nothing beat how crazy this
- 14:14show was. It was just like a bunch of kids
- 14:17in this house, shoulder to shoulder going crazy.
- 14:21And it was, it was awesome. And it was raining and no one
- 14:23even cared. It was awesome.
- 14:24It really, it was special. It was great to like share that
- 14:27moment with them because I could just tell in their eyes like it
- 14:30was like the most exciting thing ever for them because they were
- 14:33like, we don't have this. It's crazy that you guys have
- 14:36this. And it's just, it's really sick
- 14:38to be a part of. And that was definitely,
- 14:39definitely my favorite show we played for sure.
- 14:42That's amazing. If you don't have a scene, make
- 14:44your own scene. But I can imagine how hard it
- 14:46must be in a rural place. Oh my God.
- 14:49Yeah, if you don't, you know, a scene 2 bands, right?
- 14:52You need 2 bands for any kind of anything to coagulate or
- 14:55whatever. And how shows and squats have
- 14:58been some of the funnest. You know, we'll tell you the
- 15:00we'll tell you the secret. We'll text you the information.
- 15:03Shows have been some of the best shows of my life also.
- 15:06So we got, we got to keep it, you know, as DIY as possible
- 15:10sometimes. Yeah.
- 15:12Just just a few more questions for you.
- 15:14Man, this has been so much fun getting to hear your story.
- 15:17And again, like I said, everybody should check out this
- 15:19Babylon EP. You know, if you had one song of
- 15:22yours to sort of, hey, this is our band in a nutshell, this one
- 15:26song will get you into this. What song would that?
- 15:28What song would you play a new fan that doesn't know you?
- 15:31I would probably say good question.
- 15:37I guess Guillotine off of the the new record, the first song,
- 15:40I really, really like that one. It's probably my favorite off
- 15:43that for sure. I think it's a good example of
- 15:46what we're trying to do. So many, so much, so much
- 15:49riffage. It's so tough.
- 15:50I love it. And that's thank.
- 15:51You. Thank you.
- 15:52I like he is. A machine.
- 15:54He is a machine, right? I like Babylon also and Penance
- 15:59also. Coincidentally, you also have a
- 16:01song called Accolade. I don't know if you're a Star
- 16:03Wars fan, the Accolade TV series.
- 16:07Shameless plug for a company that doesn't need to plug
- 16:09Disney, but yeah, it is streaming on Disney Plus right
- 16:12now. I like to show some people no
- 16:15one hates a Star Wars like a Star Wars fan and nobody hates
- 16:18punk or metal like a metal fan and a punk fan.
- 16:20That's. Very good point, never thought
- 16:22about that. Yeah, I'm disappointed.
- 16:24Like when a band gets big or succeeds, I don't know how it is
- 16:27for y'all to get on the label. Like Blue Grape, the same label
- 16:31as Code Orange. Code Orange went through it
- 16:32right before Blue Grape a long time.
- 16:34Oh, they were cool when they were Code Orange kids.
- 16:36Now I don't like them anymore. Or these guys with the arms
- 16:39folding right. We try not to be those guys, but
- 16:42we've seen it and you know, I because poverty sucks and you
- 16:47want to be able to eat and pay rent and make music.
- 16:50I want you to be as successful as possible.
- 16:52So if Taco if Taco Bell called me and wanted to throw a bag of
- 16:55buddy at ghost cult mag, I would take it because it's not about
- 17:00being a sell out. It's like I need to live.
- 17:03Luckily I have a so so career that allows me to do this
- 17:06passion project the rest of the time.
- 17:09But you know, it's I I'm always interested in that.
- 17:12And it does seem especially harder for women and, you know,
- 17:17non white guy folks in the punk scene and the metal scene.
- 17:20It seems harder for them, like there's more judgments against
- 17:23them. We don't want it.
- 17:24We don't we want everybody to come along.
- 17:26We're we're for everybody here. I imagine this or to judging by
- 17:30your music, it seems like Oh. Yeah, yeah.
- 17:32Music for everybody's included, which I like because it needs to
- 17:35be, yeah, it's not like I don't need a helicopter parent.
- 17:37We're not trying to like dumb it down or water it down, but like,
- 17:41we should be a place where everybody could be free.
- 17:43And Oh yeah, definitely. I think that's like one of the
- 17:46best things about Baltimore right now is that like, I feel
- 17:49like before COVID, when I started going to shows, like it
- 17:53was mostly like the the very stereotypical like R slash
- 17:57hardcore Reddit member that was just like you'd imagine, like
- 18:02dude in his late 20s, thirties, tall white dude, just crowd
- 18:06killing everybody. And it was like, that is what a
- 18:08hardcore fan is. And now it's like the lines have
- 18:12been so blurred and there's so many new faces that I see at
- 18:15every show, and it's so sick to see more and more people getting
- 18:19included and feeling welcome in the community, you know?
- 18:23As a Roly Poly older guy, crowd killing irritates me.
- 18:27And especially don't crowd killing it.
- 18:28Do you want a crowd killed? Don't crowd kill anybody that's
- 18:31not right at the front in the pit.
- 18:33Don't crowd kill somebody just having a good time in their own
- 18:35world crowd. You know, I get it.
- 18:37Like, hey, violence happens, it shows going to happen.
- 18:40You're going to get hurt, you're going to get hit.
- 18:41Cool, cool, cool. Don't hit anybody that's not
- 18:44actually trying to get in the mix, right?
- 18:46That's dumb, straight up dumb. And you're not wrong about that,
- 18:50that, you know, that old school kind of paradigm we need to
- 18:53break. But I appreciate you just kind
- 18:56of for a last question. I would like to end these with a
- 18:58fun question. What is your favorite?
- 19:01My favorite animal? Probably frogs.
- 19:05Definitely frogs. I I own 6 frogs.
- 19:08I have 4 Pac-Man frogs and two Asian painted bullfrogs.
- 19:13I like weird pets, stuff like that.
- 19:18Pac-Man frogs are cool because they, they're they're sitting
- 19:22wait predators. They're like they Burrow and
- 19:24then wait for something to come in front of it and then they eat
- 19:27it. So unless they're doing that,
- 19:29they're doing absolutely nothing.
- 19:31So it's almost like I have these like living action figures in my
- 19:34house and it's really cool. The only time that they move is
- 19:38when they shit in their hole and they need to make a new hole or
- 19:41if I'm feeding them and they're they're really cool, they're
- 19:44awesome, I like. You feed nice?
- 19:47You like frogs? What do you feed the
- 19:48domesticated frog? Well, PAC Man's they eat.
- 19:53They're called PAC Man's because they're their mouth is literally
- 19:56like the whole their whole head basically.
- 19:59It's crazy. They can eat things so big it's
- 20:02insane. They eat like mice, usually feed
- 20:06a mice or fish or night crawlers.
- 20:09And my other frogs that are smaller, they usually eat like
- 20:11meal worms and crickets, stuff like that.
- 20:13All right, Flynn from Gasket likes amphibians and cool riffs
- 20:18and killer people. Hey, nice getting to hear from
- 20:21you today. I appreciate you making time for
- 20:22us and we're super pumped about Babylon once again coming out
- 20:26June 21st on Blue. Great music.
- 20:29This interview will run after, but please make sure you go back
- 20:32and listen to that EP and stream.
- 20:34Stream it and get these guys a couple of dollars or buy some
- 20:37merch at a show. That's how bands actually
- 20:38survive. Buy some albums in merch.
- 20:41And yeah, super cool getting to meet you today.
- 20:42I really appreciate. You.
- 20:43Yeah, Man, I really appreciate the time.
- 20:46This has been another episode of the Ghost Quote Magazine
- 20:48podcast. Check us out at
- 20:50ghostquotemag.com and follow our socials at Ghost Quote Mag.
- 20:54Until the next time, Peace.