Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 910 - Nicholas Moriarty (Nicolas Cage Fighter) on "I Watched You Burn"

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 910 - Nicholas Moriarty (Nicolas Cage Fighter) on "I Watched You Burn" · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  Could we change this? Could we, you know, put this
• 0:02
  breakdown into a different spot, or should we switch this riff
• 0:05
  up? Or how could we make this more
• 0:06
  interesting? And like, you know, we
• 0:08
  definitely had those moments with this album as well.
• 0:09
  Of course, like you're always bound to when writing music.
• 0:12
  But there was so much less of that kind of hesitation or
• 0:17
  uncertainty as we were finishing the songs and as the album was
• 0:20
  coming together. We're incredibly proud and
• 0:22
  thrilled with it. What's up,
• 0:30
  everybodyitskifi@ghostcultmag.com I am back with another interview
• 0:34
  and I'm here with Nick of Nicolas Cage Fighter.
• 0:37
  How are you doing? Yeah.
• 0:38
  Goodbye. How are you?
• 0:39
  I'm so cool. Today's a good day.
• 0:41
  First and foremost, this is our first time meeting, but I
• 0:43
  actually followed your band for a long time because of the name.
• 0:46
  Because anything with a cool name, a screen name, a band
• 0:50
  name, that's clever. I'm a very simple creature.
• 0:52
  So I leach on to things. I Leech on to things that are,
• 0:57
  you know, my level, my reading level.
• 1:00
  So first and foremost, nice to meet you.
• 1:02
  And you have a new record coming out.
• 1:04
  We'll talk all about that. But I saw the story recently.
• 1:08
  We helped share that story. But Nicolas Cage is actually
• 1:12
  aware of your band. There's no.
• 1:14
  Lawsuits. No lawsuits and he was
• 1:17
  apparently flattered. Yeah, it's so cool.
• 1:22
  It's it's funny a while back. Oh, shit.
• 1:27
  I'm drawing a blank first thing in the morning.
• 1:29
  Sorry, man. Chris I think was his name.
• 1:32
  Another another gentleman I did an interview with for our last
• 1:35
  album release. He actually sent us a clip when
• 1:40
  Nick Cage's son Wears was doing an interview with him where
• 1:44
  they'd sort of chatted about us and they mentioned, oh, you
• 1:46
  know, have you heard of this band, Nicolas Cage Fighter?
• 1:49
  And where's at the time was like, yeah, yeah, we we know the
• 1:53
  band. I've shown Dad, he thinks
• 1:54
  they're cool. And then, yeah, this this
• 1:58
  interview just like came out of fucking nowhere a while back.
• 2:02
  Yeah. Where I think it was.
• 2:04
  Yeah. Their guardian was like chatting
• 2:06
  to him. And they, I felt kind of bad
• 2:07
  because they, the guy that was interviewing Nick actually did
• 2:10
  ask him, Oh, do you know this other band, Kate Against the
• 2:14
  Machine? And we've kind of felt bad
• 2:17
  because he just completely ignored this other bed.
• 2:20
  It was like, no, I don't know them, but I know Nicolas Cage
• 2:23
  fighter. And yeah, they make all this
• 2:24
  like really cool music and they write about stuff that's like
• 2:27
  really cool and important to me that I think it's really
• 2:29
  meaningful. And we were like, fucking blown
• 2:31
  away. So yeah, we actually, we think
• 2:33
  it's awesome that he knows us. We'd we'd love to like, you
• 2:37
  know, if we make it over to the states at some point, get him to
• 2:39
  other like jump up on stage for like a cameo or like, get some
• 2:42
  photos, like a music video or something filmed with him.
• 2:44
  Yeah, it was so cool. That's definitely been like our
• 2:46
  little like blow up moment. But the name is safe.
• 2:50
  We don't have to change anything.
• 2:51
  We're not getting sued, I hope. I mean maybe the suit, maybe a
• 2:55
  lawsuit would help you. I just talked to somebody else
• 2:58
  who was used the sample in their new album that didn't clear it,
• 3:02
  and he was like, I hope we get sued.
• 3:04
  I was like, yeah, maybe. I'm to fame hell.
• 3:07
  Yeah, Nick is a well known rock and heavy metal fan.
• 3:10
  And of course, his son West has a black metal band and has been
• 3:14
  seen in all the LA You know, whenever the big black metal
• 3:18
  bands come to LA, he's out and sometimes with his dad in tow.
• 3:22
  I think a curiosity factor, right, Because you got to want
• 3:25
  to be there for death metal or black metal.
• 3:26
  Nobody's just casually at the black metal show because it's
• 3:29
  cool, the death metal show because it's fun.
• 3:31
  It is fun. Fun, fun thing to do on a
• 3:33
  Saturday. I've just.
• 3:34
  Got nothing else to do. I could go to this museum, the
• 3:36
  thrift store or the black metal show.
• 3:38
  I don't think that's a conversation for LA Denzians,
• 3:41
  but you know. Probably not for the average
• 3:43
  person, you never know. Right on.
• 3:45
  So Congrats on that. I'm glad.
• 3:47
  By the way, cage against the machine is objectively also a
• 3:50
  very cool name. Like it's very, if you're going
• 3:53
  to use a pun, go that way. But Nicolas Cage, fighter man.
• 3:57
  So like, how did the band start? How did you pick this name?
• 4:01
  Who picked the name? Was it you, your Nick?
• 4:03
  Obviously that helps, but you know who picked the name and how
• 4:07
  did you get started? How do you guys come together?
• 4:09
  So our guitarist Justin and the old original vocalist Harley,
• 4:16
  they started the band with our drummer Davo and the old bass
• 4:20
  player Tom. The name was.
• 4:23
  It was just literally a joke. Justin and Harley had, you know,
• 4:27
  just night that night out they were that had a lot of beers.
• 4:30
  I were gonna go out into town or something and Harley threw out
• 4:32
  like, hey, yeah, you gotta start a band with me.
• 4:34
  And just I was said, yeah, alright, we'll start a band, but
• 4:38
  only if we can call it Nicholas Cage fighter.
• 4:40
  And it just stuck ever since then.
• 4:42
  They were around sort of like in that lineup or that form for
• 4:47
  about about four or five years, I think it was.
• 4:50
  And then had like a little hiatus or break up.
• 4:55
  Holly and Justo moved up to Queensland.
• 4:57
  We were we're down in Victoria from in Ballarat.
• 5:01
  So the band kind of, you know, as as it happens, you know, life
• 5:04
  happens, people move around, went on to sort of a hiatus as
• 5:07
  everybody had moved apart. But a local venue in our town
• 5:14
  called Carova was sort of like closing its doors, rebranding,
• 5:18
  changing management, whatnot. And Carova had been a staple in
• 5:20
  the Ballarat music scene for the better part of like like 30-40,
• 5:23
  fifty years or something like that.
• 5:24
  It'd been around forever. So they put together like a one
• 5:29
  last metal show with all of like the original metal bands from
• 5:33
  Ballarat. So there was Nicholas Cage,
• 5:34
  Fighter, NY Breathes, Malice, Fuck.
• 5:39
  Who else played it? I was very drunk, a couple of
• 5:43
  other bands from like around the Ballarat area at the time, and
• 5:46
  Justo asked me if I wanted to jump up because we'd sort of
• 5:49
  known each other from like going to shows.
• 5:51
  And I was that dude that had like recorded himself in his
• 5:53
  bedroom doing covers of other songs just like recorded on my
• 5:56
  shitty little phone microphone. So just a newbie from there.
• 5:59
  So we got together, did some practices, played that show, and
• 6:03
  then we were like, fuck it, this is awesome.
• 6:05
  We're really having a good time. We're all getting along well.
• 6:08
  We want to do some music. Let's just fucking do it, see
• 6:10
  how far we can take it. And here we are.
• 6:11
  I'd love to hear it, and your band is absolutely killer and
• 6:15
  heavy, but what were some of your personal influences when
• 6:19
  you started as a vocalist and who would you say the band had
• 6:23
  like? What are the common bands that
• 6:25
  everybody in the band likes? So it's a bit of a spread
• 6:28
  because we like we all listen to like heavy music obviously just
• 6:33
  don't Davo as far as I suppose like more like, I guess like
• 6:36
  traditional bands, like like big household name bands, I suppose
• 6:41
  like, you know, Sepultura Slayer on the more like death core side
• 6:45
  of things, there's bands like Suicide Silence and Whitechapel,
• 6:47
  Black Dahlia Murder that we all like listen to.
• 6:49
  So our drummer Davo, he's really into like a lot more like death
• 6:53
  metal and black metal, just a big mixture of I suppose a lot
• 6:57
  more traditional metal bands and a lot of modern hardcore just
• 7:00
  absolutely fucking loves Gate Creeper.
• 7:02
  So you'll you'll hear Gate Creeper in our reefs. 100%.
• 7:05
  For me, like personally, I've I was bit of more of like a death
• 7:09
  core kid growing up vocally, I think sort of the biggest
• 7:12
  inspirations were John Huber, like the original I declare war
• 7:17
  vocalist. I saw the I Declare Goddess
• 7:20
  crossover that he did with Cameron from disfiguring the
• 7:24
  Goddess and that just like I was like 15 or 16 when I saw that
• 7:27
  like 144 P video on YouTube and that just blew my fucking mind.
• 7:32
  So he that's always been like a big inspiration for me to just
• 7:36
  get my voice as angry and powerful as possible.
• 7:39
  Probably Nate Johnson off the first fit for an autopsy or the
• 7:42
  1st 2 fit for an Autopsy albums. Yeah, those two vocalists are
• 7:47
  just so loud and powerful. And like, when when they make
• 7:52
  noise, they fucking mean it. You know, I think that just that
• 7:55
  probably summarizes like, yeah, what we're about.
• 7:58
  Nice work. I heavy.
• 7:59
  Yeah, absolutely. Both very heavy.
• 8:02
  I covered both bands and I know both those vocalists.
• 8:04
  I definitely did a metal festival here in America where
• 8:09
  both bands were on the bill and they were in the little room
• 8:12
  instead of the big floor with the mainstage.
• 8:14
  And they were in the little room and it was a bloodbath, like
• 8:17
  teeth on the ground and black eyes and lots of brutality.
• 8:22
  You. Got like you got like shoe
• 8:24
  prints on people's foreheads. Yes, a lot of that and I was
• 8:28
  cowering in the corner with my camera cuz I'm old and round and
• 8:31
  I don't shoot anymore bands. But like, yeah, a lot of people
• 8:35
  limping out of that one. Good times, good times.
• 8:39
  Good. Yeah, that's a good show.
• 8:40
  Right. So I Watched You Burn is coming
• 8:43
  out soon on a Bleeding art collective, also blood blast
• 8:46
  distribution. So we're fans of that.
• 8:48
  And I like the first, the last record is where I became aware
• 8:52
  of you guys. And now this new record, I got
• 8:54
  to spend a little time jamming it out before this chat is
• 8:57
  definitely, everybody says my new record is our best ever.
• 9:00
  But like, this is definitely, you can tell you guys worked
• 9:04
  woodshedded prac, you know, worked hard to level up.
• 9:07
  And I think that's fair to say, right?
• 9:08
  Yeah. Yeah, 100%.
• 9:10
  It's, it's funny, like almost word for word I always say to
• 9:13
  people like whenever they like ask or they say, you know, like,
• 9:16
  what are you up to? How's the album going?
• 9:17
  Like, it does feel like such, like a super cheesy thing to say
• 9:21
  because like, every band is like, oh, this new album's like,
• 9:23
  so much better than the last one.
• 9:25
  It's such a big improvement and the songs are way better, yadda,
• 9:27
  yadda. But it is, yeah.
• 9:28
  And we're super fucking proud of him.
• 9:30
  Well, yeah, really appreciate that.
• 9:31
  You can actually like that. You can notice it and you can
• 9:33
  tell the difference. I think that's like a good sign
• 9:36
  that not only is it received that way as well, but also that
• 9:39
  we feel that way. You know, we we're like
• 9:41
  incredibly proud of it with like, all of the releases and
• 9:45
  music that we've written in the past.
• 9:46
  There has always been like, not like a but like just in the back
• 9:50
  of our minds when writing and putting it together.
• 9:53
  We've always gone, ah, could could we change this?
• 9:56
  Could we, you know, put this breakdown into a different spot
• 9:59
  or should we switch this riff up?
• 10:01
  Or how could we make this more interesting?
• 10:02
  And like, you know, we definitely had those moments
• 10:05
  with this album as well, Of course, like you're always bound
• 10:07
  to when writing music. But there was so much less of
• 10:11
  that kind of hesitation or uncertainty as we were finishing
• 10:15
  the songs and as the album was coming together.
• 10:18
  Yeah, we're incredibly proud and thrilled with it.
• 10:20
  So, yeah, stoked to hear that you rate it and that, yeah, it's
• 10:23
  seeking a good improvement. That's what we want.
• 10:25
  Definitely. And it's it's risky, you know,
• 10:27
  like you have a little bit of a success and you want to go
• 10:29
  further. Bands that are still trying to
• 10:32
  make it in the traditional sense, like, you know, grow my
• 10:34
  band and get out there and, you know, be appreciated and learn
• 10:37
  and learned about and heard more.
• 10:40
  I think it's a good healthy risk to not try to repeat the past
• 10:45
  that, hey, this is what we sound like, but we can do more.
• 10:48
  And I think that's we're seeing so much.
• 10:50
  I get a lot of music across my desk.
• 10:52
  We review, I don't know, 400 to 600 records a year as a team,
• 10:57
  and it's like a lot of stuff sounds the same.
• 11:01
  So when we hear something that's not just brutal but refreshingly
• 11:03
  different and stands on its own, I'm really happy because like,
• 11:08
  oh, not another one of these. Like, I didn't have that at all
• 11:11
  with this. So I'm really thrilled for you.
• 11:13
  Yeah, that's best if you can give us.
• 11:15
  Thank you. Oh, wow, My pleasure.
• 11:17
  Hopefully we'll try to get somebody on the team to pick it
• 11:20
  up for review. If not me, I'm the, I'm the last
• 11:23
  resort. I'm the goal, the goaltender.
• 11:25
  So like, I have to be the goalie sometimes.
• 11:27
  But yeah, it's all good. And then, you know, I'm not too
• 11:30
  familiar with Victoria. I don't mean to sound like an
• 11:33
  ignorant American, but I don't know much about the town.
• 11:35
  Is there a? Modest and much about America?
• 11:38
  Don't stress. Fair enough.
• 11:40
  Well, I mean, like, you know, we think we're the center of the
• 11:42
  world, man. I'm from, I live in California,
• 11:44
  but I'm from New York. So it's like I've had like, you
• 11:47
  know, the sudden complex my entire life where like everybody
• 11:51
  revolves around us and then you live somewhere else and they're
• 11:53
  like, yeah, no, we don't think about you ever.
• 11:56
  I was like, oh, OK, cool. And but yeah, just wondering if,
• 12:01
  you know, what, is there a scene there?
• 12:03
  Did you come up in a scene? You mentioned this one club
• 12:05
  that's been there forever which is nice.
• 12:07
  Is there like bookings is are there bands that come through?
• 12:11
  Major bands? I know you know, in general
• 12:13
  Australia is only like 7 big cities compared to like one
• 12:17
  coast of our country has 10. So like, you know, we're absurd.
• 12:21
  Yeah, yeah, it's that, yeah, it's funny.
• 12:24
  That's such like, I think a stark difference with the
• 12:27
  Australian scene in general compared to, yeah, like America
• 12:31
  and Europe and whatnot. It's it is very, very heavily
• 12:34
  concentrated. Yeah.
• 12:35
  So basically we're from a town called Ballarat, which is about
• 12:40
  an hour to an hour and a half West of Melbourne, which is
• 12:43
  their capital city in Victoria, on the southeastern side of
• 12:46
  Australia. Yeah.
• 12:47
  So Ballarat has always had a pretty healthy music scene.
• 12:52
  It is in a little bit of like a lull at the moment.
• 12:55
  I think that's just cause at the moment everybody's fucking
• 12:58
  broke. Living over here is very
• 12:59
  expensive, even in slightly more regional areas.
• 13:02
  But there's yeah, as we've grown up and come through the scene,
• 13:07
  there's always been bands and local shows and yeah, like
• 13:10
  cornerstone venues like Carova now, Volta and the Eastern
• 13:13
  Station, which unfortunately is closed now, where there's always
• 13:16
  been like this really tight knit community of metal heads and
• 13:19
  there's always been shows happening.
• 13:20
  Ballarat's definitely a lot more on the map nowadays for like
• 13:23
  larger touring bands, bands like they artist murder Justice for
• 13:27
  the Damned to make them suffer. Polaris, like you know, some
• 13:30
  more big like household name Aussie bands Speed have all come
• 13:35
  and played Ballarat at least like in the last year or two.
• 13:38
  And usually every couple months you've got a pretty decently
• 13:41
  sized tour coming through. So it's really cool to see.
• 13:44
  Like regional towns in general are being put on the map a lot
• 13:48
  more in Australia because you have got anywhere like at a
• 13:51
  minimum a six to seven hour trip between major cities.
• 13:54
  More usually it's like 10/12/20 or 40 hours of travel to get
• 13:59
  from one city to another where 90% of the population live.
• 14:03
  And then you've got all these regional towns that are sort of
• 14:05
  dotted around on the outskirts or a couple of hours away
• 14:08
  historically. And still definitely happens
• 14:11
  when you get larger like festivals and major tours
• 14:14
  happening, it'll usually only be like, you know, Adelaide,
• 14:17
  Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and that if you're lucky, Perth
• 14:21
  maybe you know, if these smaller areas or places that are more
• 14:24
  further out of the way would traditionally get shows.
• 14:26
  But there's a big push lately for bigger bands to really go to
• 14:30
  all these regional and small towns, play these venues that
• 14:33
  have, you know, 50 to 300 capacity venues that will be
• 14:37
  just packed out floor shows, tiny little stages.
• 14:40
  And it's sick. It lends us some awesome shows
• 14:43
  and yeah, really builds that community up again.
• 14:45
  So yeah, we're in a, we're in a good spot, I think.
• 14:48
  Nice. Thanks for unpacking all of
• 14:49
  that. I know that there are sound wave
• 14:51
  festivals not around anymore. That was a big one we used to
• 14:54
  hear about. And I know your major bands are
• 14:57
  still. Yeah, Rest in power.
• 14:58
  We know Metallica's coming there later in the year and the Good
• 15:01
  Things Festival. We've we've helped share that
• 15:04
  news too. So very an eclectic mix, but
• 15:08
  still pretty heavy despite like, you know, different, different
• 15:11
  little tribes, punk rock and you know, you got all time low and
• 15:14
  machine head. So cool.
• 15:17
  You know, like very cool actually.
• 15:19
  So I I think that's really encouraging.
• 15:21
  And I always think I always think about Australian bands and
• 15:25
  fans being very like first on the scene forward thinking
• 15:28
  again, you are in the future as we're talking today, you're in
• 15:31
  tomorrow as I am here in California tonight.
• 15:34
  But I always feel like the fans I've met from around the world
• 15:38
  who have come here to see shows, or when I was in Europe and met
• 15:41
  people from elsewhere, they always seem like very
• 15:44
  enlightened and thirsty for good music and heavy music.
• 15:47
  So I'm really happy about that. It seems like you got a good
• 15:50
  group out there. Yeah, definitely, definitely
• 15:52
  seems that I think it comes back to yeah, like that concentration
• 15:56
  in the scene. It's like competitive in a good
• 15:59
  way because it's, you know, you'll have, yeah, it's
• 16:03
  relatively speaking, a couple million people in one city might
• 16:06
  not seem like a lot on an international scale, but for a
• 16:09
  place like Australia, it, it does lend to it being very
• 16:12
  heavily concentrated and like competitive in a healthy way.
• 16:15
  And you do get all these sort of little bubbles of the different
• 16:18
  like scenes and clicks, I suppose within like the
• 16:22
  different shades of heavy music. But yeah, it just leads to a
• 16:25
  good community. We, just like everybody in
• 16:27
  Australia, just loves going to shows, listening to good music,
• 16:30
  catching up with all your mates and beating the shit out of each
• 16:33
  other. Hey, nice to see you again in
• 16:35
  the pit. Yeah, of course.
• 16:37
  And picking up someone falls. Pick him up, man.
• 16:39
  Pick him up. Pick him up.
• 16:41
  Nobody wants to get stabbed on. I hate that shit.
• 16:43
  That's why. It's not like you don't want to
• 16:45
  get stomped out by accident by a friend.
• 16:47
  Oh hey, sorry. Gosh, like, don't get me wrong,
• 16:50
  you can throw your fist into the back of my head, you can kick me
• 16:54
  in the ribs. It's cool, but if we're on the
• 16:56
  ground, if somebody's getting stumped on yeah, pick them up,
• 16:59
  make sure you can at least get home and you want to be able to
• 17:01
  wake up safe in the morning and hopefully not have too many
• 17:03
  broken bones and. Then you hope your health
• 17:06
  insurance might be better than ours for sure.
• 17:08
  So fingers. Lucky, lucky, lucky on that.
• 17:13
  Have had to leverage it a couple times.
• 17:15
  Right on. You know, interestingly, I'm
• 17:18
  trying to think I have the credits open here and I didn't
• 17:20
  remember seeing the production credits, but I did see friend of
• 17:24
  ours, Christiane Donaldson of Kryptopsy mixed the record.
• 17:28
  So that's just brutal. That's why it sounds so good,
• 17:30
  especially the guitar stuff, because you know, Christiane is
• 17:33
  going to have a very tight, nicely, nicely couched in the
• 17:37
  mix guitar sound always. But I, I didn't know if you guys
• 17:40
  produced it yourself, if you had, if you had somebody
• 17:43
  outside, I wasn't sure. So yeah, dude, yeah.
• 17:47
  Shout out Christian. Fucking phenomenal job of sound.
• 17:50
  Record sounds incredible as far as like, yeah, the recording and
• 17:54
  production side of things. So we did pre production and
• 17:59
  recorded guitars and bass with our good friend Dylan Volk from
• 18:03
  Slowburn, also based out of Ballarat, just because he lives
• 18:07
  close to us. He vibes at the same sort of
• 18:10
  music or very similar sorts of music and we thought it'd be
• 18:12
  good to work with and sort of help piece together and write
• 18:14
  things and put some different influences together.
• 18:17
  I can never fucking remember where Davo recorded drums down
• 18:20
  in Melbourne and I always feel really guilty for it.
• 18:22
  But he'd went and recorded at this studio in Melbourne and
• 18:27
  incredible, incredibly high quality drum recording.
• 18:31
  And then I went and recorded vocals with Mike Trebetzko and
• 18:34
  also in Melbourne just. We sort of each went to these
• 18:38
  different locations to record our own portions of the album.
• 18:42
  Once we had everything written and all the pre production done
• 18:45
  just to get the best quality recordings that we could with,
• 18:48
  you know, the people and the locations we had available to
• 18:51
  us. And when we were yeah, picking
• 18:54
  it out and putting the feelers out for like, yeah, mixing and
• 18:58
  mastering. When we heard that, yeah,
• 19:01
  Christian was an op op, like someone we could work with and
• 19:04
  an opportunity we could take up, he sent us like a text mix for
• 19:08
  one of our previous songs off the last album and we were
• 19:11
  instantly blown away. So yeah, we jumped on that
• 19:14
  opportunity very, very quickly. Yeah.
• 19:17
  Record sounds fucking incredible.
• 19:18
  W thrilled with how it sounds. Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:21
  I'm I I, yeah, a good sounding record is, you know, all I ever
• 19:25
  need for me personally. Also, I love the artwork.
• 19:29
  It's very love crafty and it's got like a mystical feeling to
• 19:32
  it, which I think I was a little surprised at because like, you
• 19:35
  know, there again, there's just a lot of stuff comes across my
• 19:39
  desk. It's super duper heavy and I
• 19:42
  like the interesting artwork, almost like a death metal, like
• 19:46
  a pure death metal, like a old school death metal artwork
• 19:49
  almost would have been like on a suffocation or Nihil, like
• 19:53
  really cool and not as modern feeling.
• 19:56
  And I like that it's real art way.
• 19:59
  I hear everybody. Yeah, the constant com com.
• 20:02
  I'm asked about this constantly. Like some listen, like we all
• 20:05
  use machine learning text, you know, things like that Help.
• 20:09
  We do a lot of graphic arts and video and some of that stuff is
• 20:13
  driven by, you know, what is ostensibly machines.
• 20:17
  But I still want real music made by real people.
• 20:19
  And I want painted and graphically designed artwork and
• 20:23
  Flyers and posters and things. 100% yeah, yeah.
• 20:27
  AI in general, like it's, it's a tool like anything else.
• 20:31
  You know, I heard somebody once like refer to it like use the
• 20:35
  analogy of like handworking, like tools, like, you know,
• 20:40
  Phillips head screwdrivers and wrenches and spanners.
• 20:43
  And then you've got power tools, you know, like, yes, it's a tool
• 20:47
  and you can leverage it and you can use it to, you know, help
• 20:50
  construct ideas or to speed up a workflow or to just make your
• 20:55
  life easier. But at the end of the day, then
• 20:58
  when you start start letting, yeah, just a machine do the
• 21:01
  creative work for you, then what's the fucking point?
• 21:03
  Because the whole purpose of like your creative artist, it's
• 21:06
  meant to have, yeah, some sort of like soul or like your own
• 21:09
  expression and personality behind it.
• 21:10
  And you don't, you don't capture that when you've got a tool that
• 21:12
  does all of that creative work for you.
• 21:15
  Like, sure, use, use it if it makes life easier for you, but
• 21:19
  don't rely on it because then it's, it's not you, you know?
• 21:23
  And yeah, with the artwork as well, bro, doing interviews in
• 21:27
  the morning, it's hard. I'm drawing a blank on the
• 21:29
  artist. Oh my God.
• 21:30
  It's It's funny you mentioned Suffocation though, because it's
• 21:33
  the same artist who did the artwork for the last Suffocation
• 21:37
  album. Giannis Nacos.
• 21:39
  Thank you. Yeah.
• 21:40
  Giannis. Giannis, thank you.
• 21:42
  I was trying to think of, like, the Instagram handle, but it
• 21:44
  just wasn't coming to me. Yeah, it did brilliant job.
• 21:49
  I don't think, I don't think we really gave him that much, like
• 21:53
  reference or like an idea. I think we just gave him like
• 21:57
  the the name of the album, the general gist of like what the
• 22:00
  songs and the album's kind of about as a whole.
• 22:03
  And he just whipped it up on the spot.
• 22:04
  It's yeah, we love it. We're we're thrilled.
• 22:06
  We reckon it's yeah, just this cool style of artwork.
• 22:09
  It's it catches your eye. And yeah, it's a bit more like
• 22:13
  old school, which is a lot of that kind of aesthetic and
• 22:16
  energy that we really like. Right on.
• 22:18
  Yeah, he did a ever great record that I'm particularly fond of.
• 22:21
  Also an emperor and a bunch of credits.
• 22:24
  You all can look it up. We'll link it in the description
• 22:26
  if we can. I'm sure we can, actually.
• 22:31
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 22:32
  We like to support everybody and promote whoever.
• 22:35
  You never know when one thing somebody sees something they
• 22:38
  like and they wanna pay, you know, pay someone else to make
• 22:40
  something for them. I love doing that when it's
• 22:42
  possible. So what else do you have going
• 22:44
  on? You have this record release
• 22:46
  coming. Do you have shows?
• 22:48
  Do you have a tour? I know it's right now.
• 22:51
  Touring is brutal. It's expensive.
• 22:54
  Lucky if you like your band after a run of tour dates, but
• 22:58
  you know what's on the docket that you can share.
• 23:01
  Yeah. So album release, we've just
• 23:04
  been sorting out new merchandise like all the physical like
• 23:08
  copies, like CD and vinyl to make sure that we're stocked up
• 23:11
  for that. We have been, yeah, putting
• 23:15
  together like a album release tour of across Australia when
• 23:19
  that's released. I think we're looking at doing
• 23:21
  that early next year from the sounds of things.
• 23:23
  We've got, yeah, just a couple of shows that are around the
• 23:26
  corner relatively soon. We're hoping to get overseas,
• 23:31
  yeah. We'd really love to go to Europe
• 23:33
  at some point. Plans to go back to Asia either
• 23:37
  later on this year or early mid next year as well.
• 23:40
  We're very lucky that we're quite good mates with a couple
• 23:43
  of people that are based out of Singapore and Taiwan that have
• 23:47
  put shows and tours together for us in the past.
• 23:50
  Yeah. Brett and Leon, we also all work
• 23:54
  with Greg from Bleeding Art and yeah, we.
• 23:56
  Yeah, just. We just want to tour and play
• 23:58
  shows. It is expensive.
• 24:00
  It is. It is hard.
• 24:02
  I'm not sure if it's quite what it's quite like overseas, but
• 24:05
  yeah, just cost of living and just getting by day-to-day is
• 24:09
  very fucking expensive here in Australia at the moment.
• 24:12
  So it's a bit of a slow process unfortunately.
• 24:15
  Just making sure that we can actually afford to do everything
• 24:18
  and, you know, still, you know, pay for rent and mortgages and
• 24:21
  still put food on the table at the end of the day.
• 24:23
  But yeah, just touring, getting ready for the album release,
• 24:26
  playing shows, making sure we know all the songs about it.
• 24:29
  Business as usual. It's always important to make
• 24:32
  sure you know the material, especially the new ones.
• 24:36
  Yeah, I got to say, I've been seeing a lot.
• 24:38
  You know, one of our main calling cards beside interviews
• 24:41
  is metal festivals around the world.
• 24:43
  And I have noticed that Singapore has been getting, you
• 24:46
  know, very heavily into the death and black metal festival
• 24:50
  scene and circuit. And I know a couple people tan
• 24:53
  generally out there who are also do booking and stuff like that.
• 24:56
  So that's super cool. I'm really glad to see the
• 24:59
  spread of metal everywhere. It's all metal at the end of the
• 25:02
  day. I always end these with a wild
• 25:04
  card question and I have to ask. Of course.
• 25:07
  I'm sure you've been asked, but I don't know, so I'm going to
• 25:09
  ask. What is your favorite Nicolas
• 25:11
  Cage movie? There's always a tricky one.
• 25:14
  Yeah, it's so hard. Might be a bit of a lame pick
• 25:19
  because he's got so many, like, you know, cult classics.
• 25:22
  But I watched with my wife the unbearable weight of Massive
• 25:28
  talent not too long ago. I I actually really thought it
• 25:32
  was pretty fucking good. Just there's some just comical
• 25:35
  funny scenes in it. It's just like some just clever
• 25:38
  wit. I I actually really rated that,
• 25:41
  you know, face off gone in 60 seconds or are always classic
• 25:45
  and fucking Ghost Rider as well. Bit of a meme, but we yeah, I
• 25:49
  think, I think for the band probably say Ghost Rider.
• 25:53
  Such an underrated film. I loved his portrayal of Johnny
• 25:57
  Blaze so over the top. Him and Donna Log together kind
• 26:01
  of make up for the fact that even Mendez is beautiful but
• 26:04
  cannot act and Jesus Christ like a wood.
• 26:07
  A board of wood has more personality, but she's you know,
• 26:11
  she's attractive and she's also an actress.
• 26:14
  I think I think you know, she says words in the screen.
• 26:17
  Here's a here's a underrated Nick Cage movie for you and
• 26:21
  we're big Nicolas Cage means you're not Mandy, not
• 26:24
  moonstruck. If you need romantic comedies,
• 26:27
  Nicolas Cage's bad Lieutenant like reboot that he did.
• 26:32
  Now the bad Lieutenant with Keitel is unfuck withable.
• 26:35
  He's so good in this bad Lieutenant part of call.
• 26:39
  It's called. It's not really bad Lieutenant
• 26:41
  too and a Tim and I think Feruza Bach and they are unbelievably
• 26:46
  unhinged in this performance. So go look it up if you like cop
• 26:49
  movies and cops on drugs and rogue cops.
• 26:53
  Like it's like a discount training day.
• 26:55
  Like we have training day at home and we have Denzel
• 26:57
  Washington. No, no, you want this?
• 27:00
  And I think maybe even Abel Ferrer directed it also or maybe
• 27:04
  had something to do with it, produced it since he did the
• 27:06
  first one. So crazy shit but I know people
• 27:09
  are love Mandy now and long legs was quite good actually.
• 27:12
  I one of the few people like I love serial killer and and
• 27:16
  creepy shit and I love that film actually he's again bizarre so
• 27:20
  but he does bizarre so well. I never want him to stop being
• 27:24
  his own weird self. Yeah, same where that's, that's,
• 27:27
  I think the, yeah, the exact same like feeling we've all got
• 27:31
  as well. He's just, he's him.
• 27:33
  Don't change, don't change. He's him for a reason, you know?
• 27:36
  Yeah, I feel like he's got a real kinship with his work.
• 27:40
  To Dennis Hopper. Dennis Hopper, I'll leave you
• 27:43
  with this movie. Film fans, come join my new
• 27:45
  podcast with Nick where we talk about the films of Nicolas Cage.
• 27:49
  Just an idea for you for free. Dennis Hopper is a guy.
• 27:53
  He worked constantly. He didn't always make the best
• 27:55
  films, but he worked all the time.
• 27:56
  And he said, if I don't work all the time, how do I know if I'm
• 28:00
  good or not? And I think Nick, yeah, probably
• 28:02
  the same. He doesn't take the popular
• 28:05
  movie, he doesn't take the easy movie.
• 28:06
  He doesn't take the easy money. But he does.
• 28:09
  He's doing like his own journey as an artist and an actor and
• 28:12
  like, how do I create this body of work?
• 28:15
  And I love that for him and I love that for everybody.
• 28:19
  I want everybody to do that journey.
• 28:21
  I, I, I fuck with that a lot. Yeah.
• 28:23
  Yeah. You've got to do.
• 28:25
  You've got to do yourself, you know, you've got to do you.
• 28:27
  I suppose it's parallels to, like, what we were saying before
• 28:30
  about, like, AI. Yeah.
• 28:32
  The only way you can, like, improve and find your own
• 28:36
  nation, find yourself and like, what you like to make and do is
• 28:40
  just to do it. You know, don't compare yourself
• 28:43
  to what other people do and don't, you know, comparisons.
• 28:46
  The thief of Joyce, I suppose. The lame cliche I can throw out
• 28:51
  there, but yeah, I really. Yeah.
• 28:53
  Agree with and resonate with that idea.
• 28:55
  Just do, do what you love. Do what you really like.
• 28:57
  Make your own, I suppose, like history.
• 29:00
  And yeah, find the find the shit that you like and do as much as
• 29:03
  you can. That's cool.
• 29:04
  I'm sorry. I was just reading.
• 29:05
  Yeah. A bunch of the movies that he's
• 29:06
  done. I didn't realize his beat.
• 29:08
  Yeah, and he's in he's in all those things.
• 29:10
  Good shit to end on Nick Moriarty of Nicolas Cage
• 29:14
  fighter. Super cool getting to meet you
• 29:15
  and catch up with you. Congrats on a lot.
• 29:18
  I watched you burn. It's a banger.
• 29:20
  I highly recommend it to people out.
• 29:22
  We're going to list everything in the description where people
• 29:24
  can pick it up on September 12th from bleeding our collective and
• 29:27
  stream all the things and follow your artist Giannis and
• 29:30
  everything. Thanks so much man.
• 29:31
  I appreciate you have a great rest of your day.
• 29:33
  I'm going to go have a great rest of my evening time travel.
• 29:37
  Your evening time future baby. That's it.
• 29:41
  You're going to gun it to 88. I'll see you soon.
• 29:44
  See you bro, appreciate it.