Latest / Caught on the Mike... / “Once upon a time, we were a band..” - with Lowell and Corey of Aurasing

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“Once upon a time, we were a band..” - with Lowell and Corey of Aurasing · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: It has been 13 years since the formation of the Omaha, Nebraska based band RSA.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: It has been nine years since that band has called it a day.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: This is not a random story about some Midwestern band you have probably never heard of.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: This is a story about change, maturity, and camaraderie told through the lens of that band.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: How do creative endeavors sometimes take a life of their own and impact your core value?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: Today on the podcast, two of my best friends, Corey and Lowell, will be joining me and we'll be talking about our band, how we got started, the pleasant surprises along the way, and how it's influenced the people we have become today.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mike.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: How are you guys doing?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Hey Mike.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, how's it going?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: Good.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: Good, good, good.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we're gonna talk about uh hang on, I'm gonna open this bureau.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_04: We haven't even started in the world.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_04: Did that get caught on Mike's mic with Mike?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_07: I don't know, but I I feel like I need it.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_04: Sounds inappropriate.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Alright.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I kind of want to set the framework before uh before we get going.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: We all played in various projects over the years, um, not necessarily together.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh 2005, Corey and I had a band together that was called Right Side Impact.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: And this band came together, uh, you know, basically um I had a bunch of material that I had written that didn't fit other projects, and Corey hadn't been in a band for quite some time, right?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_07: Oh yeah, I I did like uh just kind of the bullshit like college acoustic duo kind of thing, but nothing serious.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_04: Play Wonderwall a lot, right?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_07: Actually, I have a great story about that.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_07: I don't know if we have time to get to it, but it isn't my joke.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_07: I'll tell it real quick.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_07: Like, so back in my my college town, it was a small college town, and they had we we were doing this acoustic duo thing at a bar on like it was right before Christmas break.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_07: So like the place is packed, and um a Budweiser truck shows up or a Bud Light truck shows up, and they're like delivering um Bud Light uh bottles and cans, and it was back when Bud Light you remember when like Budweiser was promoting the born-on date thing and like like really advertising freshness and stuff like that.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_07: So they they pull up and they start just distributing it to the bar, and which is a great idea, college town.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_07: So everybody's got bottles and cans and stuff like that, and uh the singer like he has to go pee, and so he's like, We're in the middle of a set, like no time for breaks, super professional outfit, by the way.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_07: Like super professional band.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_07: Um so he goes off for what feels like forever, and I don't like I'm not a singer really, so I just start like strumming like E chords and F chords and like singing like Rudolph the Red Nose, right?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_07: And he comes back and like the whole bar is like singing um singing like Christmas songs with me up there with like the chords that clearly don't even match, it doesn't even matter.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_07: Um, but I think Bud Light kind of saved me that night, so I I don't drink Bud Light anymore, but like I'll always appreciate it for that that that reason.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: Long live Bud Light.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_07: Well, so we're already off course on this.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean Lol Lol said I got a joke about Wonderwall, and my joke is how do you know uh find the asshole at a party?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: He's the guy that finds the acoustic guitar and starts playing Wonderwall.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_07: Oh god, absolutely.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm that asshole.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_07: Like there's not a washer or dryer in my college town that like at a party that I didn't sit on top of and play Wonderwall at some point.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, Mike, can you can you please stop playing Wonder Wall?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_04: Can you please stop playing Wonder Wall?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: And he says, Maybe dude, what once I found the Ryan Adams version of it, I was just like, dude, I can't hate this song.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: I like fell in love with it all over again.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_04: I love the original.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, oh yeah, you know, seriously.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: But getting back on on track, uh, Corey and I had a band that was called Right Side Impact.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: We had that band from 2005 to 2006.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think we were really proud of the songs that we were writing.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: Just maybe the technical aptitude and performance aptitude of the band probably didn't live up to what you or I thought those songs deserved.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: Is that fair?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I mean I I think so.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_07: Um the I guess on a long enough timeline, if you know life hadn't intervened in such a way that that band could have maybe gone on a little bit longer, and maybe our Sing never would have come to fruition because we'd just still be doing that thing.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_07: Definitely more poppy than what R Sing was, but at the time that was kind of what we were, I think we were both after, and it was it was super fun.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was it wasn't around very long, but it was a lot of we we had crammed a lot into one year, and that was kind of the thing is I knew you were um kind of starting to make your exit, and then I um my ex-wife became pregnant with my daughter, and so I was just like, I'm done playing in bands, like I'm done.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like this is this is over, and you know, I spent the next six months, you know, eating pizza, snacks, drinking Pepsi, and watching Scrubs reruns, and putting on about 50 pounds worth of weight.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_07: Were you um were you did you have a Netflix uh subscription back then?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: No, dude, it was on comedy, dude.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: This was like 2006.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: It was first run.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: They they had they had um marathons on Comedy Central that uh you know that I was always catching.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: So but um kind of tying that into RSing.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: So here I was like, my ex-wife has my daughter, I've put on like 50 pounds worth of weight.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: You're missing playing music, I'm missing playing music.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we kind of said, hey, let's uh let's put together a no pressure, no stress project.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: No pressure, no pressure, no stress.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: We'll just play at a bar every once in a while.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we don't have any lofty ambition.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_07: We're gonna come out of the gate with like a perfect demo, and like people are gonna love us right out of the gate.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_07: We'll be like, no, we're not gonna play shows, we're just gonna like work on our craft.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it it this is about the music, man.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's about the it's it's about the artistry, and uh it kind of uh took on a life of its own.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a little bit.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so you put out an ad, and this guy responded to it.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, like so we were just kind of two dumb, forlorn idiots that were looking to do music again, and like, okay, great, like let's let's do a band together and let's find some completely different people to play with.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_07: So uh um so we started uh putting ads out and like recruiting different folks, and uh I think Lowell you might have been the first one to actually like join the band.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_07: Is that your recollection?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_04: That is my recollection.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_04: I remember seeing uh if memory serves, I want to say Craigslist.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_04: Something to that effect.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_07: I mean back when people went looking for band members on Craigslist, you know, it wasn't just uh I had been going through like um like Slam Omaha, like the the old website Slam Omaha, like looking for different drummers there, and then I finally broke down to Craigslist because I probably jammed with like five or six different drummers and you know if not more, and half of them were like, well, let's do a cover band and let's do or let's do an original band, it just like wasn't the right fit.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_07: And then I get this email from Lowell, and I'm like, who's this 70-year-old?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_07: Lowell Beach Boys tribute band.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's like fucking whose grandpa is this?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_04: You thought about it, you're like, if we can hold it down, you know, maybe we'll cover him up.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_04: That sounds like a Mike Clark thing to do.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_04: We'll we'll we'll put him in the back.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_04: There won't be any lights on him.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_04: Just holds it down.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_04: Like, one of us will learn how to play drums and we'll just like we'll make it work.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_04: It's almost like another popular uh local band with a dad drummer, you know.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that was uh um I I think we had a conversation, and like we were pretty desperate, so Mike's like, so alright, reach out to him.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_07: And um, so I remember going over to your house.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_07: Um we lovingly it was our first practice space, like in your basement next to the water heater.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, yeah, that was pretty cramped.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_07: It was really cramped.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_07: But it was fun, you know.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_07: We had a we had a good time, and um I would have I don't know if I've ever met like another musician that was like more prepared for it because you had like downloaded all the right side impact stuff, and you I think my impression was that you thought we were just kind of restarting right side impact.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I was just gonna interject with.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: Is I I don't know, I think we were all on three different ships with that.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, totally.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because you were using right side impact material to kind of test people.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_04: I think you thought that we were well somebody gave me a disc or something or forwarded me this, and I and I I I don't I can't hammer it down, but I I got the impression that this was what you know uh I I was being tested based on, so I I kind of maybe I just jumped to the conclusion that that's what it was.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: Honestly, and I and it's a it's a pretty it's a pretty innocuous train of thought if you really think about it, because I you know to some degree I think we even pondered that to some degree because we had we had learned pretty much we had relearned and he had learned pretty much the entire uh disc, and then the first song outside of that disc that we had written together as a band was Gunfight, which that was the very that was the first official Ara Singh song.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_07: It wasn't called Gunfight when it started, though.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: What was it called?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_07: It was Oh hang on, I have the old Corey, we had all kinds of working titles.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: Editorial note, Corey has this right before I came here.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, well, I should just log on to my old Yahoo account and see what he has this way of naming songs like when they're in the pre-production and writing phase that is just fantastic.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_07: Oh yeah, like you guys remember Did Arsene have a MySpace account?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_07: Yes.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_07: This isn't like certainly not a visual um a visual medium, but I found this thing that I was like, hey guys, can we please use this as a glad we're friends?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_07: And it's like these two like frogs in like suits and bark loungers next to a fire.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_07: It's like you remember Frog and Toad are friends, like friendly, it's basically them, and it's you you designed this, Mike.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_07: I'm surprised you don't remember.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_07: It looks like a storybook, so there's like that picture on one side.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_07: The other side in this like cursive script with like flowers all around the borders is R seeing is glad we're friends.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_07: Okay, I do remember the new.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_07: Oh dude.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, hey, but yeah, yeah.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: I will say that on the uh Caught on the Mic Facebook page, I am going to post a few pictures.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so anybody that's listening to this that kind of wants to follow up with whatever the hell we're talking about.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, there's um I I can't find it, but I'll I'll send it to you.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so anyways, Corey had this way of of naming songs, and the first official song we've written as RSing was Gunfight.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Now, did we add the second guitarist or the bass player next?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Do you guys remember?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_07: Um it was uh our bass player came next.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_07: I was actually looking for a guitar player, and I've been again, same thing, like I'm going over to people's houses and like jamming and stuff like that.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_07: And so I went and went over to this like tweaker dude's house and um didn't know that at the time, but um, and so I go over to this guy's house and he's like, Well, he's I actually brought you over here to recruit you for my band, and his bass player was there, and he was um like him and I hit it off, and so you know we got back and I I think I reported back to you and was like, Yeah, the guitar player really wasn't like the guy, but like I think the bass player might actually be able to do that.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then I super slewed um the bass player through his wife's MySpace page.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, I remember hearing that story.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I messaged his MySpace page to get a hold of him, and that's how we ended up with the bass player.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: So at this point in time, you know, we've got Corey, myself, and you, Lowell.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: How did you like you hadn't been playing in a band uh for a long period of time up to that?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: How did you feel about all of this?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know how much I really made the story like uh well known at the time, but it was like I had just come out of play in a in a cover band at the time in in the year before.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_04: Um I had been in college for a long, long time and had spent way too much time just doing college work and not having any life whatsoever.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_04: So got out, you know, settled down with my wife immediately thereafter, as it would be, and had no hobbies or anything because I forgot to have how to have hobbies and all of that, because that's what it ultimately led to.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, she brought to my attention you need to get some hobbies, so I joined this cover band.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_07: And worst worst decision she ever had.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean, um, you know, it was one of those things where it was fun playing again because I had played in the 90s and then completely quit to go to college for seven years, and um, you know, it was one of those things where uh it was good to be playing again, but these guys were not the caliber.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, they were they were all car salesmen and you know very good at their jobs, and but they just wanted, you know, to play some songs and drink some beers, and you know, that they didn't want to get any better.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_04: And full disclosure, Lowell, that's exactly what I wanted to do though when I started this.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_04: Well, well, uh, you know, that that was the thing.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_04: I I wanted to get them better.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, okay, you know, like trying to make a team out of them, you know, okay, guys, let's get better, you know, let's do this, let's do and they they just didn't want to have it.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_04: And so I I remember they ended up kicking me out, and at the time, I mean it was it was almost like you know, you you're dating somebody who you think is like, you know, you're doing them a favor or something like that, and then they turn around and dump you, you know.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_04: That's what it felt like.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_04: And I was just pissed off at the world, you know, and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_04: I knew I liked playing music, but I wanted to come back and I wanted to, you know, do something big, and I wanted to show these guys, you know, and and who you know got on just show them got got on Craigslist, you know.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_04: I showed him Craigslist.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: No, but I I mean, you know, he was looking for bands in between sensual massages.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_08: Right?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, exactly.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_04: I knew Craig.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_04: His next band's name was Glory Hole.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_04: Also a cover band.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, right.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it was something where, you know, when you guys came over, it was immediately apparent that you guys were kind of of a different caliber.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_04: You know what I'm saying?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_04: You you seem to be intelligent people that were very quick on everything.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_04: And yeah, I had done some homework on this because I wanted to make this work, but on the flip side, there's just this strange thing when you start playing with people that are, you know, when it just clicks, you know, when when it's you can feel it, you know what I mean?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_04: And I totally felt that from like moment number one.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, I didn't know what it was about or what we were doing, but I just, you know, wanted to be a part of something big and really wanted to move the the needle forward, you know.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna lie, that's that's part of what scared the shit out of me and was exciting at the same time, was like Corey and I walked into this thing going, okay, no pressure, no pressure.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: This is gonna be a band that plays at Shea Riley's Rest in Peace.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: Shea Riley's once every every couple of months.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_07: I'm gonna be super proud to do it.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and we're gonna well if we only play to 50 people, we're okay.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then the and then we started writing songs, and it's like, oh shit, we're on to something here.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it was it it just you know, I and I say that over and over that it that it took on a life of its own, and it really did take on a life of its own.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, that's and honestly, that's why I I have both of you guys here, because I that life that it took on, you know, I think impacted all of us tremendously, whether we realize that or not.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I just I the whole time Lowell was talking, I kept thinking about him in the cover band environment going, You're gonna play Seven Mary III, and you're gonna get cumbersome right.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna play it 20, 30 times.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: I don't care if it takes off fucking night.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_03: So a click track no left.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no, no comment.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_07: Well, I mean, you bring up a good point there because like when right side um when right side impact ended, I think the straw that broke the camel's back on that it was a couple of different things.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_07: Like most of us were I say most of us because our drummer was a little bit older than us, um, but most of us were like in our mid-20s and still like f we're figuring life out at that point.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_07: And we had opened for blue October or something like that in Lincoln down at Knickerbockers, and then there was this like discussion that really ran out of control about like doing something um with them support like being a support act on a like the leg of a tour or something like that.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_07: And it like it scared the Jesus out of me because I was like, this band, much as I love these guys, like we're just not there to that point to like make that leap.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_07: And you know, in my life, like I'm starting a career, it's kind of that make or break moment, like, do you do music for a living?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_07: Or do you like pursue a career and get a wife and kids and a pick a fence and all that kind of stuff?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_07: And that's like where that's where I kind of quit right side and I was just kind of done with music, and it took me a year or two to kind of realize like maybe you can try to do both without you know I think that was kind of your own version of imposter syndrome though, too.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, totally.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_07: I have impos I've had imposter syndrome through my whole music endeavors.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: You hated everything five minutes after you wrote it because you thought it sucked.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_07: Oh yeah.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_07: I like okay, so funny, uh so now, like in 13 years later, and you know, older, wiser access to professional development stuff, I did this like I I have no idea how expensive this thing was, but it's like a 360 thing that like where you have like peers and other people evaluating really who you truly are, and you do a little bit of it too.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_07: And the number one thing that came back was that I am like super insecure and I have like I lack self-confidence.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_07: And thinking back, like when when you asked us to join this podcast thing, it's absolutely true that I put stuff out there, I get excited for like five minutes, and then like I sit and think on it, I take it back to my corner.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_04: Take it back to your corner.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_07: I was waiting to see how long that would take.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_07: That is Corey's life.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_07: It's absolutely true, you know, like um you dig it for a moment, and then like there's this like regret, like, well, I don't know if it's good enough, and um I don't know, that's been a pervasive thing, like not just in like right side or R Sing or like my professional career.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_07: Um I mean, even like Civic Minded, which was the band that I did after um that I joined after R Sing several years later, but like it it's it's a persistent thing, and it's probably like what set me up to like fail ultimately in R Sing and leave.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: So we rounded up the lineup, you know, kind of going back and backtracking a little bit.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we found Tony.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_04: We found Tony, we had another guitar player, we added another guitar player, and he was a sweet house that was way better than his dad's house was I mean that yeah, that was a large house.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if we if we were to uh like pick top three practice spaces we've ever had, I definitely that's in the top three.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_04: It would be Tony's dad's house, Tony's dad's house, and then Tony's dad's house.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of liked Ryan's basement.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: I just couldn't, I couldn't get my uh I couldn't get my sound right down in Ryan's basement.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_07: You guys forget the fact that I bought a house to get out of my apartment so that we could have band practice.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_07: Actually, that was that was a good that was a good you know, I I thought that was a good rehearsal space.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_04: It really did, you know.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_07: Thank you very much.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I appreciate that.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know what's funny?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_07: I overpaid for that house.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: And two years after my divorce, I lived in that house.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: With Corey.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_07: Tony lived in that house?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_04: Like that was like the the revolving door house, you know.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, really, every group of friends has one, you know.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: So here we are, we're a five-piece band.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we've shed all the right side impact material.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: We've got gunfight, we've got the song The Pulse.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, in the name of we had a couple of other songs that maybe made it one or two shows, um, and then we scrapped them.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um and Song Six.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Song six.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: I never had a name.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_07: No, I think that became untitled that was recorded.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, yep, yep, yep.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then we uh you know we started playing shows and we were really strategic about the first set of shows that we took.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember that, Lowell?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_04: I remember, yeah.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_04: I remember we we went to Des Moines to play our first show, and you know, the the uh the premise of why why why the heck would you go and drive, you know, three hours out of the way, you know, to really cultivate your fan base if you were planning on doing that and you know we were gonna hit that Des Moines market horror.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_07: Hard man, you know.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_04: It it was one of those things where what it really was was we were going out there and to see if it actually flew or not, and if the live performance worked great, and if it was just a tragic disaster dumpster fire, not a single person would see it, and we could go all about our own lives, you know.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_04: Um but I remember we just went and I mean we that's that was at House of Bricks, if I remember correctly, and it was there was like a band who was kind of a friend of ours from Minneapolis, right?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_04: That was uh I think so they played like it was weird.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_04: They had a setup where they had like an afternoon show and then a night show, you know, when going out to shows was still a thing.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_04: And um, yeah, they like hung around, they I think they headlined the the show before us but waited around to see us play, and yeah, they were pretty dumbfounded.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_04: You know, we we hit the ground not only running but like speed running.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: And when we when we booked our first show in Omaha, we're like, hey everybody, look at our balls, and we like booked our first show as a headlining show, if you guys remember that.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: That was at the Roxbury, and we just put together our own event.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_07: I missed I missed that club.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: It was it's just we're like, we're like, you know what?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody's ever heard of us before.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: Fuck it, we'll headline a show, you know, and we just put together.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I think you did a lot of the orchestrating, and as far as you know, getting things together and everything that makes an event an event, you were masterful at that, you know.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, I give props are due.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, no no pressure man with uh a very uh influential promoter uh as the He was like a social influencer before that was a thing, and before everybody was on their phones all the time.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and and I'll tell you, like, um it was that was hard.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it was it was a lot of work, and I don't think you know I I think you both realize that now, but I don't think anybody knew how much work that really was.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's like I would get home from work and I'd be sitting in front of my computer for like four hours at a time, scouting shows, putting together lineups, putting together promotional material, and it was tough.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: It was tough.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, people can say whatever they want.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, oh, his voice doesn't fit the sound of the band, or oh, he's an okay singer.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, he's fat.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: At the time I was.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but uh but what they can't say I was joking, but but uh but what they can't say is that I was a bad businessman.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like I that is my bragging right, is like I knew the business.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_07: And in we we got on a lot of shows early on that we probably didn't deserve as a new band because of that cachet, though.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_04: And I was totally happy for that.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I I was long for the ride, you know.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um I mean, you guys have been doing this for a while, you know, and here I was kind of just like, you know.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: But but but you know, that's that's the great thing.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we did get on a lot of big shows early, and it kind of like it elevated the band elevated us a ton, and it moved the it moved the whole product forward, you know?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it just like it put us in front of more people to where like we were actually cultivating fans, people beyond just being friends of the band, you know, and your average local band just out of the gate is gonna be lucky to draw fifty to a hundred people at a show, and we're playing these big 200, 300, 400 people shows just because we're for one, lucky, but two, because of a good sense of strategy, right?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's uh, you know, and that was that was really important to us.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I think um up to that which what what was our biggest show in that first year that we were together?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: You guys remember?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_04: Uh we opened up for sick puppies.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_04: I remember when they were first a thing.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_04: Um didn't we uh do a show with them like it may have been like SoL Underground or something like that, and I thought Sick Puppies and then I remember we ended up playing with sick puppies opening for them one other time.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and yeah, we did one, it was like we did a sick pupp a smaller sick puppy show at Sokal Underground.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then we did our CD release party, which was about a year into the band.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: Perfect.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: About a year into the band, we did our CD release party.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_07: So I'm gonna drink them, so I'm just gonna drink them.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: I I think our CD release party was probably our biggest show.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then after our CD release party, we did uh like a holiday havoc show at SoCall upstairs with sick puppies.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_07: I know that we did the we had a lot of big shows at The Roxbury.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_07: Um which there was the there was a show with um I guess Infatic put us on one show that was a pretty good one.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that was that was a that was a really good time.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_07: That was a big one too.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_07: Um despite the fact that we needed to, you know, allow them to have their stage set up, but Roxbury at least had a big enough stage to figure that out.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_07: Um but yeah, that was that was probably one of the most memorable shows for me.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um You know, one of the things we haven't touched on yet was kind of the immediate camaraderie within the band.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, didn't it kind of seem like we went from like not knowing each other to being everybody's best friend like overnight?
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like next thing you know maybe for you guys.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: No next thing you know, like Tony's living with you.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_07: Well, and you know, it almost didn't happen because the two of you got into a fight like three weeks in.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: Look into my eyes! Look into my eyes.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like And I was like, Tony, or I was like, Corey, Tony, Matt, like it's either him or me.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_04: I seem to remember.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_07: Rare instance.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_07: Dick.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_04: I I I don't even remember what it was about, but I just remember I you know, and I think that bit came from the fact of the matter, when I had been in bands previously, it was I was always doing the band leader stuff, you know, making sure everybody was sticking to things, and that was also the you know, very much the room in band space that you were used to populating as well.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_04: You know, and it was like one of those things where we had a disagreement and it was about something minor, but it ended up snowballing, you know.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_04: And uh I remember we had uh Yeah, it was a it was a big standoffish type moment, you know, you go this way, no, I'm going this way, no, you go this way.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_04: And I just remember thinking in my mind that, you know, uh there's enough tasks for everybody, you know what I mean?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_04: And if this is already what he does and this is already what he has down, even even though it would be the vengeful, easy thing to say, fuck you, I'm doing this, right?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_04: You know, the smart play would be let him do this and then find something else, you know, to become the master of.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and I I think that's the thing.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, every every creative endeavor has its kind of growing pains, and I do think that there was a period of time where everybody was kind of establishing their roles to a certain degree.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like, um like Corey was kind of the songwriter.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: You were the heartbeat of the band, but you were also a disciplinarian.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like the the thing that caused our clashes because of very similar personality traits that you and I have.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like that you kind of held the disciplinarian end of it.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: I was the business face of the band, you know, and I was also kind of the arranger.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, Corey would bring the song, the the song to the group, and I would help arrange it into place.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: Our bass player was kind of the image of the band, and then you had Tony.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_06: He didn't have the crown.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_06: I'm just kidding.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_06: I'm just kidding, Tony.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_06: Tony Tony had the Tony and was a good dude.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, Tony, I and actually we're gonna we'll we'll touch briefly on Tony, how kind of Tony had to shift into the Corey role whenever after Corey left and we started doing the second album run.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_07: Tony's a much better guitar player than I am.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_07: Like he's much more technical and he's much more like creative.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_07: Like I can I can go down a I can be good out of the gate and come up with like a unified like suite of ideas, but like Tony did a really nice job of playing off of that, which not a lot of you know, you have that chemistry between like songwriters that goes on beyond like the band.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_07: And Tony did a really nice job of like filling out that role.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_07: So I always get enough credit.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_04: I always remember that being the problem with you, and I mean that's the unspoken role of everybody in the band, aside from you, Corey, is that you'd come out with this amazing material and then immediately after giving a taste of it to us, you know, be like, eh no, I'm I'm gonna take this back to my corner, you know, and and we'd all be like, No, what do you got there?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I you got a recording of that?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_04: You got you know, well then let's keep it out in bad space, you know.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_07: Grimy mitts on it, and I'd be like, I don't like it anymore, I want to take it back.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, pretty much.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_07: And he'd take it back to his corner.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_07: He he's got so much in his corner.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_07: I take it anymore.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_07: To back up real quick, like you guys were talking about your you know, your early scuffles.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_07: I'll never forget when well your wife called me and said that you were out for a run and you guys were squabbling at the time.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_07: And your wife called and said you were out for a run and you had a seizure for your diabetes.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_07: But he's like, he's diabetic and he had an he had a thing, he fell down, like he had a seizure.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_07: And the way that like I called Mike immediately afterwards and was like, hey, I didn't know this about Lowell.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_07: Did you know this about Lowell?
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_07: He's like, No, I had no idea.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_07: But like the amount of concern, like that's where I feel like we gelled.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_04: So we had a CD release show and it was at the Roxbury, and that was one of my great memories because we went out and we just flyer the shit.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_04: We had like 5,000 flyers, like handbill flyers back when flyers were a thing, and handed these out to everybody.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, we went for like a month, two months ahead of time, handed them out to everybody everywhere.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_04: The entire city was, you know, just covered in like two inches of RSN flyers, okay?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_04: And so the big night came and we're like, oh my god, is it is it gonna work?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_04: Oh my god, it was is it gonna work?
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_04: It was freaking amazing.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, and you know, I invited everybody.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_04: I was very much of the philosophy at the time, you know, you get everybody there, get, you know, I mean that's more people through the door, looks bigger, get your brothers, you know, get your relatives, etc.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_04: etc.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_04: So I I I asked my parents, you know, hey, you know, you should come out, you know, you should totally see a lot.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_04: You should totally come out.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_04: And and yeah, Mike, like halfway through the set, he's like, hey, this is Lol, he's their drummer.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_04: He's got diabetes.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_04: No, this is this the this is the greatest part.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_04: So here I am, like, I I think I was 30 or something at the time, you know.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_04: I a well-established professional on my own, uh, two feet at the time, you know, and uh I'm having this talk with my folks after the show, you know, where they're asking me, um, do they make fun of you?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, no, no, mom, it's not like that.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_05: You know, it's you know you don't get it.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, okay, okay, we just we we worry about you sometimes, you know.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_07: It's always good to have mom and pay out for you.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, definitely, definitely.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you you did touch on that, like like how we kind of gelled together, and you know, I don't uh I don't want to spend a lot of time on this because it's not our story to tell, but one thing that is interesting about our CD release party was that Tony's dad passed away that day.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if you guys remember that or not, but that was the day Tony's dad passed away, was the day of our CD release party.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_04: I don't how did I forget that?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: How did I and he he none of us would have thought anything different if Tony had just said, guys, I can't do this this night.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: But he went out and he just played it like a champ.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I talked to him after the fact and he said, you know, he goes, I just wanted to make my dad proud.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it was it was a it was a big heartfelt thing for him, and I think it was a big statement for you know how we were as a brotherhood at that time.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_07: You know, you know, I think like you know, thinking about people listening to this podcast, you know, they're like, wow, they were like really like they're they're basically playing Glory Days by Bruce Ringsing in the back in the in the background, but like I think that underscores like anybody that's like been in a band or like taken on that creative effort that kind of appreciates the bonds that people form together, and like it doesn't matter like the name of our band or the songs or like that stuff, it's it's the friendships that were formed in the middle of it that like really matter and really like shape you know that period of your life.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_07: We were I was 25 when the band started, you know, it's still super impressionable, but you know, it's it's just one of those things that regardless of you know where you come from, if you've been if you've been fortunate enough to do that stuff and like get out of the garage and play some shows and record something and put some you know, go put handbills on a bunch of cars and set off a few alarms in the process.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_04: More than you know, yeah, when car alarms are still a thing too.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_07: It sticks with you.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean that's that's why that's why the three of us are here today, you know?
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, it it's it's got its ugly side too, and I think we would be remiss to not talk about that to some degree.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: So here we were.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we're about a year plus into RSync.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: We have the CD release party, it does well, we've gone through a lot of personal stuff together.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: I do think that was kind of one of the downward turns to RSync.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the things that kind of brought us together were also some of the things that might have kind of made things hard for us.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: We were having a fair amount of success and it was going to our heads to some degree.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I could I I will be the first to to own that.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, absolutely I would agree with that.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_04: Well and and that's kind of, you know, in mentally prepping for this and trying to get back in the mindset of 2007, you know, and and everything looking like affliction t-shirts and flat bill caps and smelling like axe body spray, you know.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_04: But you know while we're all wearing billibong.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_04: Right, right.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, but I mean, in all seriousness, uh that's that I that's kind of how I saw this whole thing, is it it came together all about the music, and then you know somewhere along the line it became all about lifestyle, you know, and that wasn't true to the core as far as you know, fundamental basal level uh mission statements, you know.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_04: And that that's why it felt fake, you know.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: Right, absolutely, absolutely, and I and honestly, I don't think we were the only band that that happened to.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_04: No, of course not.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there was there was a there was a handful of bands that were kind of doing similar things to us.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: As a matter of fact, we all kind of got made lumped together and made fun of on one of the local message boards as all the sound alike bands that are always playing together.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: When the fact of the matter is, it's just we were none of us were afraid to work with one another or shoulder a fair amount of that work.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_07: Those were all the bands that were actually out promoting stuff.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_07: Absolutely.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_04: Well, it it's easy to be a hater to play in in front of five people, you know, and that's that's the bottom line, you know.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: But there got to be a point where even those bands, the bands that we were working with, kind of started backbiting each other a little bit and kind of, you know.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: Again, I can't take credit for this.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um I give credit to uh Michael Chandler, uh, who is a uh fighter now with the UFC, just signed in the past two weeks.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um he was on a podcast and he was talking about how he was with Bellator and he just signed with UFC, but he's already getting pushed into the main event picture.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of people that are pissed off because this guy's in the main event picture.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: So you take that and you apply it to local bands, and the point he made was a philosophical point where it's the scarcity mindset versus the abundance mindset.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: And the scarcity uh mindset says, you know, because you're winning, nobody else can win.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: There's not enough to go around.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: So you posture based on the scarcity, and relationships suffer as as the sacrifice to that.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can't let anybody else succeed.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the Highlander mentality.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: There can be only one.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_07: Like push push everybody else down to make sure that there's only one shining star.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: And where whereas there's the abundance mindset where there's plenty for everybody, you know, that shows success, money, friends.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, your success doesn't diminish somebody else's.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: I would say that's not keeping the scene alive.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_07: That's keeping like one band alive.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: What was, Corey, what was your favorite and most memorable thing about that first album cycle?
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: Or that first couple of years.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, you mean like like recording the album or just like having the album out?
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: Boy, that's a that's a podcast in and of itself.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: That wasn't fun.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_07: Um still pretty new.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_07: Like, I don't think we had the album out yet, so can I tell this story?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_07: Like, we go up to Minneapolis.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_07: It's the Minneapolis.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_04: I I know where this story's going.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, um, I'm just gonna focus on one part of it.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_07: You guys can jump in with other parts because it was a very um Hey, this is this is officially Team This is Team Omelette.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_04: This is Team Omelette right here.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_07: Oh yeah, Team Omelette versus Team Sandwich.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_04: Like the the other two individuals in our band, we went we went to the club.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_07: Tell that tell that story real quick.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so we we went up to Minneapolis to play.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_04: We were gonna play.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_04: There's two shows, right?
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_04: It was like a two-night tour.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_04: And uh anyhow, um, yeah, there was uh three of us that went up in one car and we demanded to go to like villaging, I think it was, or something like that, get omelets, and the other two guys in the band.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_04: I I don't know if they were just like scraping by to live or what, you know, but they they brought sandwiches.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_04: And we're eating and we're eating in the car.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_07: Sat out in the parking lot, yeah.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_04: We were waving and so yeah.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_07: That's where we learned that you put like twice as much ketchup as a normal person would on an omelet.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_07: That's what it was, huh?
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, stupid road trip story, but so we got up and play at um was it the Fine Line?
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_08: Yes.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_07: In Minneapolis, and super awesome show.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_07: Like, I knew it was gonna go great when like the sound guy like made fun of me like during our sound check.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_07: He's like, Oh, he's got a triple rectifier.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_07: Look at this guy, watch out for the badass.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_07: I'm like, awesome.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_07: Like, yeah, I just bought it too, dude.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_07: Um it's awesome.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_07: Uh no, it wasn't.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_07: Um, but anyways, so we played the show, and like we were playing, we're playing with some friends up there that we uh Mike and I had met like back in the uh in the right side impact days, and so like it was old friends.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_07: Super fun night, like the green like they had a green room and it was packed with beer.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_07: Oh we just got ripped, and so the the band we were playing with, like, they were called the payback.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um no, it was it was throw the fight.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_07: Did they just change their quit like payback and they it was like one of their first shows?
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, yeah, it was like James used to sing for the payback, and then he became the new singer of Throw the Fight.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, because there was like both of those bands.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_07: Um and then James is James is from England.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: And his whole family was in there.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: And their last name is Clark.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: And their last name is Clark!
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_07: So like you're part of the family.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_07: So, like, I mean, and you're like going in and out of like your regular screeching voice and an English accent all night with like these guys.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: Dude, I had a$250 credit card tab because we were doing Clark family shots.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: All of us did.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_07: And God bless your heart, Lowell.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_07: You were our DD for the night, like to make sure we got back to the hotel room.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_04: I do remember that.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_07: And we like we're loading up, and you're like, you know, your your anal retentive self-like, do you have like we have all the amps, we have all the guitars, we have all the drums, we have all this stuff, like, yep, yep, we're great.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_07: Like, you know, we're just like burping our way, like, to loadout at the end of the night, and you got the symbols.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_07: Yep, I got the symbols.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_07: Now shit, we forgot the symbols.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_07: We don't find out until we get all the way back home from Minneapolis, and we're like unloading it.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_07: Like, I think I bought the house and we had like the practice space, and sure as shit, like you had just spent like what$2,000 on symbols?
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_04: It was$2,300 worth of symbols that I left up in Min Minneapolis.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_07: Well, yeah, you left up there, right?
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_07: That wasn't the way you thought of it.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_04: I still don't to this day let anybody help me move my drum stuff.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, yeah, less than learn, right?
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_04: Well, it's one of those things where I count everything, you know.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it should have eight stands with me.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_04: It should have five cases, you know.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_07: We got them back though.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_07: Like we didn't even have to drive up to get them.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_07: Like they shipped them to us.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_04: You got them back, and I still have that that that shipping tag on my my symbols case these days.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I go see that sometimes.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_04: It it's on there, and there's quite a few things.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_07: We were supposed to go to Wisconsin for two years.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the second night, and then some stuff came up and we ended up driving back to Omaha.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't we break our axle or or like there was something there was some issue we were having either with the trailer or with Tony's truck that I I think we were all I think we were all afraid that we if we got to Wisconsin we'd be eating cheese for a week, you know, just because we wouldn't be able to make it back.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_07: Um the Packers were playing.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well, don't you know?
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, don't you know what's funny?
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I I've probably got five or Six stories from that one trip.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: I remember crawling into the bed with you at the hotel and snug love with you, and you put your bare ass on my chest as a way to prank me.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I farted.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: I remember the bass player and I going to Taco Bell, walking through the drive-thru, and some stuff happening that I probably not my proudest moment, but I probably should have been arrested for.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_07: That whole trip was not our proudest moment.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like there were there were things that happened that we could definitely talk about off air sometime.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_07: What was the most disappointing moment?
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_07: I'm just curious.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: My symbols.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: My symbols for the symbols.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_04: Honestly, honestly.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_04: You got them back.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: I know, man.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_02: Hindsight, I think it's the fidelity of the first album.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: We were talking about that outside.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_07: Close second would be um who is the band that had the like uh shit, they're from Seattle.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_07: Um I was super stoked that we were playing with the Oh Classic Crime.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_07: Classic Crime.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_07: Um I I actually connected with the guitar player because I was gonna like get his like traveling rig or something.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_07: Like, I don't know, it was a guitar band thing for like a gear thing for another for another discussion.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_07: Um but those guys were kind of assholes.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_07: Like I was super disappointed.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_07: And who knows what was happening in the time, like for them, like maybe it was just like an off night, but like I was super looking forward to that night playing with those guys because I thought they were I was really digging what they were about at the time.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_07: Super disappointed.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: One of my favorite shows that we played was when we played with Adler's Appetite.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: That was Steven Adler's Guns N' Roses Tribut Band.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_07: Really?
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_07: Wow.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_07: So, like, okay, well, not because we played the show, like Steven Adler was super cool.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, it was awesome! And do you remember that there were like this is in the middle of like, you know, a lot of like conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, like at that time, like there was that was still pretty hot and heavy.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_07: There were a couple of um Navy guys, seamen, um that were on short they were on shore leave and they were mermen.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_04: They were mermen, all right.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_07: Well, they came to the Roxbury to like see that show, and like so like you and I were just like at the bar right randomly talking to them, and like so we're like and we struck up a conversation, like a just a quick friendship, and they were like they were down to like do shots.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_07: So you and I like were going toe-to-toe with them because they were buying, and then like I think we started buying um for some reason.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_07: Um, anyways, the next day I go to work and I had like a series of like some pretty important meetings, and I was pretty red-eyed.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_07: And I will never forget, like, my boss Toronto looked at me like on this this specific staircase at my work, and she said, like, you need to like figure out like right now if you want to be like a rock and roll guy or you want to be like a professional career guy, and like that stuck with me and stuck with it still sticks with me.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm kind of wondering if that doesn't kind of help with the next segment.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, it's totally does.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_04: I I totally want to elaborate on this Adler's Appetite show though, because I just told the story you had fun too.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I I had I I did have a decent time, you know, but no, I just told this story last week and and and uh you know it the the thing that was so funny about that is we went and we we went to go see you know, Mike insisted on getting on the show because he wanted to see Steven Adler, and you know, we're all GNR fans, but you know, an opportunity to open for the band for the guy that did too many drugs for Guns N' Roses, you know.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_07: I mean like Hey fun fun fact, I was on a um no, I'm not I'm not gonna tell that story.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_07: That's what my wife was.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_07: So so like she doesn't really know who Guns N' Roses is.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, Corey, Corey, Corey, Corey, come on, man.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_07: Anyhow, um so they came out He was also on Celebrity Rehab at that time.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_04: He was on Celebrity Rehab, and remember like Chips Enough from Enough Enough Enough was with them playing bass for him.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and and the the funniest thing about this is they had like the stage manager that came out and they they they went and they got like this velvet rope set up, you know, and they they went on the side of the Roxbury stage and they did like this little square tables located.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_04: They did this, they did this little square that was like a two by two sectioned off area, um, you know, sectioned off by velvet rope, and the four of them stood in this comically small two by two space.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_04: All doing the the the the Jesus plus one, you know, everybody looking off in a different direction, you know, and just stood there like it was cool while the rest of us were like, wait, is this for real?
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_04: Is this is this like a comedy act?
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_04: Are we being recorded here?
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_04: Hey, hold home, Drake.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_05: Well, go check and see where this thing about.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it was it was the most comically hilarious thing I've ever seen in my entire life.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, he took pictures with everybody, he talked to everybody, and it's just and he was like in a like like he said like what like back problems and stuff like that.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_07: Like, no, he was on point and he rocked it.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean he played played on my most favorite album of all time, so it's like Yeah, absolutely.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: It was just it was it was just it was a good opportunity.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: 2010.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we had been running off the fumes of that first CD for a little over a year, almost a year and a half.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we're kind of talking about January, February, 2010.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um there were some life changes happening with you where you were kind of leaning towards making that decision, career guy or rock and roll guy.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think it was ultimately it was kind of what it boiled down to was I think it was disguised as a discussion about whether or not we should order t-shirts or more merch, but it ended up becoming kind of Clever Girl.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it it kind of ended up becoming your exit from the band.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: So, where was your headspace at at that time and w what led you to that decision?
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_07: So, you're probably right that like it started as a discussion at what like Buffalo Wild Wings or something like that about like reordering t-shirts.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_07: General place of gathering.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_07: General place of gathering.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_07: And um, you know, I I hadn't really shared with you guys, but like my professional career was really starting to take off a bit, and it was it almost felt like deja vu of like right side impact, um, where I was really having a hard time balancing everything um with like what was happening in my personal life.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_07: Um and then probably the thing that I was a little bit l like more sheepish about was I just wasn't really feeling where like the music was going at the time um and wasn't quite sure how to tell such close friends where you know where my thoughts were.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_07: So there was so much energy and um uh momentum behind the band that I felt like it was probably time for me, before we ordered more t-shirts, um, to like just have an honest conversation with you guys about like where my life was at.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_07: Like I thought that within the next couple of years I'd be you know married and starting a family and stuff like that.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_07: Of course that you know didn't come to fruition for me.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_07: But uh I yeah, like I just I I I kind of blew up, you know, a little bit on what l life was was dealing with me at the time, and um that's kind of that's what happened with me.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: So what about from your perspective?
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it was one of those things where I totally I mean I saw both sides of this, you know.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it was I I also have a professional career, but I you know, at at the time there was the writing on the wall that there really isn't a lot of money in music, you know, and nobody was gonna be doing this for a full-time job.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_04: So uh uh the way I was seeing this is this was a fun, seemingly positive um thing to do with one's time.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_04: At the time I didn't have kids, you know, had enough free time to do this, you know.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_04: It it seemed like one of those things where I was thinking to myself, well, I can do it, why can't you do it?
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_04: You know?
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_04: But at the same time, it was also it was already one of those things where I had already crossed some of those bridges that you were appearing to cross before this ban even became a thing.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_04: So that that was like I, you know, it was a you know, why can't you do it?
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_04: But then also recognizing that it's kind of an invalid argument, you know what I mean?
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_04: That it it wasn't an argument at all, you know.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_04: It was one of those things where I I didn't want to see it happen.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's the bottom line.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_04: You know, some of this may have got disguised in anger, but man, I didn't want to see, you know, the band breaking up literally and figuratively, you know.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, this was one of those things where it was we were having a good time, and you know, why why why be a buzzkill?
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_04: You know what I mean?
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's kind of what seeded the rest of the years of this is that kind of mantra, you know, that uh why you know things are going good, why be a buzzkill, you know?
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_04: And even though I think the quality of the things that we put out were good, and you know, I I made other connections with other guitarists that ended up filling your role down down the road, but it was never the same, you know.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, truth be told.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, uh we're we're not here for a long time, but we're here for a good time.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you guys talk about things like writing on the wall.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think it about early 2010, it was really clear and apparent to me, without me ever admitting it, that my marriage was pretty much over, and it had nothing to do with the band, but the band was kind of fulfilling what I wasn't getting out of my relationship at the time.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_02: Now I had by that point in time, I had two beautiful children, but I still needed something for me, so it became kind of like a it became kind of like an obsession.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: So like a third child, or almost like a replacement for the fulfillment I wasn't getting out of my partner at that point in time.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I I probably did take it a lot more personally at the time than I probably should have, and hindsight, you know, we all have the power of hindsight now, that it was it was hard, and you were right, like um the fidelity of the the music that came after did fidelity-wise was probably better.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the songwriting quality, you know, it just depends on what day of the week it is you listen to it, you know, what whether it was better or worse, or indifferent, or it it maintained.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's fair to say that it it maintained.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but it was definitely hard.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I also think that we were writing on our own egos quite a bit.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um good, bad, ugly, otherwise.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_07: Well, like, generally, I think that from that first batch of songs after we had gelled a bit, like the band really started going off in a different direction.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_07: Um, I know that there were it was kind of more of this like Atreyu-ish direction, or you know, any number of you know, more metal core, thrashy kind of stuff, a lot more like you know, screams and things like that.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_04: It was legitimately screamo.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_04: It went from hardcore emo to screamo.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, exactly.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_07: And like that the neither of those were really like my intention, like with the like original vision of the band.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um I remember Saosin kind of being like what you wanted to be, you know what I mean?
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_04: That I I seem to remember have getting that explanation from you.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_07: Um and that's probably why I started like taking things like back to my corner, because like I just didn't like the the direction that things were going.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_07: At the same time, you know, I mentioned before, like pr the like professional career started taking off.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_07: And we had a pretty regimented schedule.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it was like being part of a um like a very competitive like rec team of you know practiced three days a week, and it was like four hours on one day and two hours for and these weren't like just getting all tuned and everything and dicking around.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_07: It was Yeah, you didn't bring your case of beer over and drink, yeah.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_04: Like 'cause you'd be off and you'd be called on it, you know?
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, exactly.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_07: And so I think it was like that marriage of those two things where at some point I kind of lost the perspective what we were trying to do, like the mission statement of the band.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_07: Um certainly enjoying all the success of the band.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_07: So I mean it's kind of foolhardy to say that where I thought life was supposed to take me.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_07: It certainly didn't end up going that way, and I'm forever grateful for that.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_07: Um but you know, like it was just it was time for me to bow out, you know, like end on a in on a high note.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_07: Um I remember I do remember that last show.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_07: Um another CD release show for another band.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_07: And it was awesome.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_07: Like, um, I felt like we played our best show, and I was like, shit, like maybe I maybe I'm quitting at the wrong time, but you know, life moves on.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there was like an we could get anecdotal about every single show we played if we because I remember that show vividly too.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_07: Like corner shows and like, you know, nitpick ourselves.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_07: Critique one another.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_02: Part of the reason why like we did a lot better, but I you know, going back to the first album cycle, and I just don't want to touch this on this at a bit.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_02: Do you might guys remember when we first started, like, we kind of had this very disciplined thing that we didn't drink until after we were done playing.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't drink at practice.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_02: We were like really, really structured, and then we started to kind of do well, and then it went from like, well, we don't drink to like we can't.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_07: You can't have more than three drinks before we play.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_02: Or we can't play at all unless we're half buzzed or or sloshed, you know?
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_07: Well, then I also remember like there for a good long while there, I mean, it was more drama than it was worth.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_07: Like, we'd get done playing, and somebody was pissed off all the time.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_07: Like, we put in all that work, like week in, week out, and then somebody is my nickname.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_07: Well, it was mostly you, but it was a lot of times it was me, like pissed off that this guy completely messed up or like their gear wasn't in check.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_04: And I think, and I think going on with that, I I mean, those were expectations that we set for ourselves.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_04: You know what I mean?
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_04: And that's it, it's nice to set high expectations, and I like doing that at my day job, and I like doing that for things recreationally, putting high expectations on your stuff.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_04: Or no pressure man.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, can can only lead to disappointment.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_04: At very best, if you do perfectly, you're only going to be adequately satisfied, you know?
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_07: I'll say, like, okay, so the the can the a bone of contention that I always had was that like so Gunfight was our first song.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_07: Um, Cursing Bird, I found.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_07: I always say I don't know like why that was funny, and it's like I thought it was hilarious.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_07: Um super lame.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_07: Working title, yeah.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_07: Working title, Cursing Bird.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think we had some sort of He-Man reference for uh what you get.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_02: It was like Stratos or something along the other thing.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_07: Oh yeah, I found that email too.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_07: Stratos.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_07: Um and like, you know, bits of panther or something like that.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_07: Um but like I just always had an issue, like I liked that song, but I always had an issue with like it being called gunfight and like what that represented.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_07: Like in my personal life, I was like, I'd never be in a gunfight or like an eye fight.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_07: And I did I it lost like I lost like what the the tone that you were trying to set with it, Mike.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_07: Like full respect for like all your lyrics.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_07: Like I I think I think you're you're really good at a lot of that stuff, but like I I always cringed when we played that song because I was like, this is so not me.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_07: Like I'm not a but and I took it too literal.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_04: I I I took it always as like a metaphorical fight, fight, you know, fight.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, sure.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_04: But but but but the funny thing, it and in in in you uh, you know, I that's uh been out over the course of the last you know 10, 13 years on runs and it comes It's never come back to hurt me.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_04: And well, no, I say that you know, I'll be out on a long run or something like that, and you know, shuffle on on my iPhone comes up and and it's an RSing song, and I will listen to these songs and like eh, that's not too bad.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_04: But the thing that sticks out to me every time is oh shit, this was all about Mike's ex-wife.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_04: This like at the time I I I took it as a very metaphorical, you know, like like just like a step back and it's us against the world type thing, which you did a very masterful job, like kind of filling it in for people to paint their own life on top of it, you know what I mean?
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_04: But like when I hear it now, I mean it's it's like blatantly obvious.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_02: I I think you're I'm not gonna say that you're wrong.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna say that you're right either.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think honestly, you know, my whole life story aside, like, I've always kind of been scrappy guy backed into a corner having to fight his way out.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_02: So like that is where I wrote a lot of my it just where wherever my conflict was at that point in time.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_02: So if it was a fight with my ex-wife, sure.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe maybe I wrote a song about a fight with my ex-wife.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_02: It was if it was a fight with some other guy from some other random local band, yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote a song about the song is that you know, maybe I wrote a song about that.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: Or maybe I got pissed off at one of you guys and and somebody was a little condescending uh about a lyric I wrote, and I said, you know, you're condescending verbal gestures.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe maybe that was about one of you guys.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_02: I it's just maybe not fine.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know what?
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_02: Spoiler alert, it's not you.
• 1:02:32
  unknown: Probably me.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_07: I thought that was all about me.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_07: That was pretty condescending back in the day.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, like hang up.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, yeah.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_02: I was thinking that's like my superpower.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_02: Writing with Corey, like it it was it could be tough sometimes, you know, because he was not only critical of himself, he would kind of he would kind of throw out these passive aggressive comments that would just like boil under my skin.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_07: Sometimes give us an example.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember him.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_04: Well, you had two modes when it came to creative mode, Mike.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_04: You had you had nothing hurts me.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_04: You had nothing hurts me mode, and you had everything hurts me mode, and there was nothing in between.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_04: You know what I mean?
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's who I was at that point in time.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_07: I think that's that's also what fueled like the creative process.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_07: Like, so if it wasn't Mike and Lowell arguing, it was Mike and me arguing, or it was like Tony pissed off at Lowell, or it was like our bass player pissed off at Mike for telling him what to do.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_07: And like, I mean, we were there was it was a weird dynamic where all of us there was a lot of like pushing and shoving in that band, but at the end of the day, like we had a s we had a lot of fun.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, but there was always something boiling.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I think we were all going for a greater good, you know, and I mean it pushing each other.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_04: Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_04: And we all had high expectations for one another and high expectations for the project, you know.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, if you would have I it it's that's what actually like formed the friendships, though, was like you could get past it.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_07: You didn't just like like take your take your you know ball and go home.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly, totally.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_04: I agree.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_02: So Corey makes his exit.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that CD release party was the last show he played.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_02: We put together a second lineup of the band.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_02: And we worked fast.
• 1:04:23
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_07: I have a question.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_07: Like, how did you like so you guys were like finding Adam?
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_07: Um Adam was like the replacement for me, right?
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_07: Where did you find him?
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because he was really good.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_02: He had played in a band with our bass player back in their college days.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, really?
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_02: And he came in and he played the riff uh for the song that became Long Kiss Goodnight at our rehearsal, and I like almost immediately wrote something to it.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like, okay, this is the guy.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_02: This is the guy.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_02: And we had auditioned three or four other guys.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and there were some pretty bad auditions.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, but there was a pr there was a Oh yeah, you gotta you gotta go through all that.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_04: I and the sad thing is they're all still Facebook friends of mine.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like one of those guys who doesn't like to leap.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_04: Like if you see some of these little bitches whining all the time, you just wanna, I don't know, smack them through the screen.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_02: But the thing was, is like there was there was another guy, I don't remember his name, and you don't need to fill in the blank on it, but he was pretty good.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_02: It just he didn't fit the image or the social stratosphere of the band.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_02: He was more of a metal guy.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_02: Too hot.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_02: No, he was more of a metal guy, uh huh.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I just we could talk offline about that, but but we Corey left in February.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_02: We were in ARK Studios by July for that second EP.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_02: It was quick.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_02: It was like it was like four or five months because the thing is, is Corey has three songwriting credits on our second album.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_02: At least.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_07: Well I I remember being really pissed.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_07: Often bitter about that.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_04: I I remember you being bitter, and I remember you saying things like, Oh, well, that's crap.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_04: That sounds like crap.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_07: You guys, you know, it's I was really disappointed with like how some of the songs ended up turning out.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that that's that's a fair criticism, and not not I just the fidelity's way better.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_04: The fidelity's way better, but you know, I just think this came back to I think the first album, I really do think that would have been amazing if we spent more money and spent oh, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I and nobody's gonna disagree with that.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I was I think the material on that album was better.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_04: The second album sounds way better.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_07: Oh no, I think the second album, like, I think there's an evolution with it.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_07: Like is like I said, like the Atreyu-ish, like we got more like metal core, like I don't know.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_07: Um I wouldn't call R Sing a metal band by any means.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like metal core.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_07: Metal core, yeah.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_07: Like I don't know what I don't know what the technical term is to for it.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_07: Like tougher.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, something like that.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_07: Tougher guys.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_07: But like there were some things that like in there, like I thought I was doing some I I went through a lull towards the end of writing on the first album, and I really wanted to see those projects to fruition and disappointed that wasn't a part of it, but I also totally understood because like it was a conscious decision uh decision to like tell you guys find another guy and not just like hey, break it off, even though that's what I wanted to say, and it was like way too important to you guys to keep moving.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_07: Whereas right side it was way easier to just say like I'm leaving, but hey, also Mike, you should probably break this off.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_02: And and and and honestly, I think if I had been in the headspace I ended up at about a year and a half later, because the band only went another year and a half after you left, that you know, it probably would have ended.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, we'll get to that here in a moment.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_02: But we recorded at Arc Studios, um second album, the intervention.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um I personally think the the lyricism on the intervention was a bit more elevated than it was on the first album.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_02: Totally agree.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my lyrics were better, but I do agree with you that the first album is actually better material.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a weird, weird construct.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_02: My vocal performance on the first album sucked, and it's because I was trying to make everybody happy that I was spending more time playing engineer than I was with my own takes and my own tracks.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_07: I remember that because that was that was a big struggle between like getting the guitar mix just right and getting like the drum sound just right.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_07: Like you spent more time on that than my own shit.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_07: And then we like we kind of ran out of time and ran out of money.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_07: It was like, well, this is what it is.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that's what happens with every album, though.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I was part of a project after RSing where we finally just had to, you know, take the project out of the dude's hand and say, Okay, look, I know you can fidget with this for years and years on end.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_04: It's never gonna be perfect because your vision of perfect Chinese democracy here.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_04: Your vision of perfect is an ever-moving target.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_04: You just need to take it right here and let's release this, you know?
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_04: And it wasn't quite like that, but you know, it I I agree with every bit of this.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, don't don't downgrade yourself on this one, Mike.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I I'm not, I'm not.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_04: I like it.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_04: I I but you go back and let's play it on intervention, right?
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_04: What I was gonna say is you go back and listen to the Right Side Impact album.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_04: I think, you know, the first Arsene album, the vocal performance was way stronger.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I'm not gonna disagree with that, but we also took the cheap route on the first on the art right side impact album, though, too.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I I think that's it it does come down to money to a certain extent.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_02: And when you can spend more time like recording vocal takes, like the thing about the intervention was is we did all the vocal takes on our own time, but everything else was done in a professional studio.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why that was the big difference between the first two albums as far as you know context goes.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_07: Well, and for like I remember like like being at like Warehouse, was it Warehouse?
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, where I recorded the first one, and like Jim Holman was engineering that one.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_07: He's like, you and Tony, like your guitar, like the way you guys like pick your guitars are totally different.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_07: Like it's like this like it's like a like a rudder in the water.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_07: Because like I was he was like a second ahead and I was a second behind, and like to get that together and listening to it, like once once fucking Jim Holman.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, once he pointed out, Jim Holman is amazing, by the way.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_04: That's all I'm gonna say about that.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_04: I said Jim Homan is amazing, by the way.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_07: No, no, no, like no, I I dig the dude.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_07: Like, yeah, don't get me wrong, truly talented, and but uh he's all he's doing is like saying what's there, like yeah, and you listen to it and it's just like a muddy mess, and he he did everything he could, you know, with the budget we provided him to like well and and in fairness to him, he didn't finish the first album.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_07: Like he but he and he's not playing it either.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_02: No, like he he he recorded the raw tracks, we took the raw tracks of the first album back to our buddy's basement studio.
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_02: Our buddy was in a little bit over his head as far as what his talent capacity was to be an engineer to the point where the singer of the band that is recording the album is doing more of the engineering than the actual engineer at that point.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_07: And the artwork and the t-shirts.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_02: And the artwork and the t-shirt.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, neither here nor there, like you know, going to the intervention, I would say we put just as much effort, if not more in effort, into promoting the intervention, and then it kind of it didn't have the same impact that the first album did.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_02: If you remember that.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_04: I just uh I'm trying to remember what the actual CD release where that was at and what it was.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_02: It was at the waiting room, and they we had a freak snowstorm.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_02: It was in early November, and it was like it had snowed for like we'd gotten like six inches of snow in a two or three hour point of time, and then it stopped.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_02: And like the night of?
• 1:12:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 1:12:09
  SPEAKER_04: I I just feel like um I don't know, there wasn't like the newness factor anymore, you know what I mean?
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and that's important to note too.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, I at first it was kind of like a meteoric rise, and you know, you can only keep that going for so long before you need something totally new and meteoric, and this was kind of still paint by numbers, you know, uh in its own very complex way.
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, like you guys had new material, but we were still hustling the same, you know.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it was the same, it was the same thing, you know.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've got I've actually I've got an anecdote about that, and it's uh it it's my analogy about RSing at large is like a bad hand of cards against humanity.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_02: You guys ever play cards against humanity?
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_07: Never heard of it.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_07: No, I'm just gonna be able to do that.
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_02: You guys ever play that again?
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_02: So so you get these cards, right?
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_02: And you're looking at your first ten cards and you're like, okay, I only got four cards that are really good.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_02: I got six okay cards, but I got four cards.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I need to space these four cards throughout the game so I can play to strategy and win, right?
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_02: You keep holding your best cards back.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_02: No, but the thing with Arising, instead of holding our best cards back, we played all of our like we played our bukkake card in the second round, bro.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and that's the best card in the accident.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we played our bukkake card in the second round, and it's just like so we were struggling in those later times.
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, okay, everybody's seen us pull this trick before.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's like everybody's seen us do this, and you know, and the weird thing is, is some other some of the other bands we were playing with at the time got keen to our strategies too.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, and they were using our strategies on us, you know?
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_02: So we're it made booking incredibly difficult.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_02: Incredibly difficult.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_07: How often were you guys playing at that at that point?
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the weird part.
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was Feast or Famine.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_02: We were playing either once every six weeks or That was like the the golden rule.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_02: The golden rule is once every six weeks.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_02: We're but we had a few spots in time where we hadn't played in two or three months, and then a f uh spot in time towards the end of Adam's Run where it seemed like we were fucking playing every week.
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like there were a bunch of shows that came at us all at once, I would say in early 2011.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's when we did the uh Millard South tribute and a couple of other shows, and we opened up for Hawthorne Heights.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_02: And they were all within weeks of each other, so it was just like it diminished the whole event factor that the band was good at.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I I just I don't know.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_04: I I I felt towards the end, yeah.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I agree with all these analogies, but it just had run out of steam, and you know, it was it was more about keeping the party going than it was what the party was made to absolutely you know.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_07: Okay, so how long did you guys write like did you guys do another album after intervention?
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_07: There's I feel really terrible asking questions.
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_07: Come on, correct.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_02: We did we did a single and it was called The Deepest Cut, and honestly, as far as I I really dug that one.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was gonna say, as far as fidelity, and honestly, if if I were to use one song as the calling card for RSing, uh post, I would say that would probably be up there.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_07: Is that the one that's like the deepest part of me?
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Just like that.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Just like James Huttfield.
• 1:15:40
  SPEAKER_02: But uh the deepest part of me.
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_02: So Adam left in like what, April or May, and then we brought Ryan on.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_07: Uh okay, okay.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_07: As the guy that left, why did Adam leave?
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_07: I have to ask that question.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_04: He he was he was uh going to PA school.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_04: He just got into PA school.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_07: Okay.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_04: And after having gone through a professional program and knowing that it takes like 40 hours a week of, you know, doing what is essentially homework just to know your shit to be up there, you know, he and I both knew that th there was no any kind of hobby other than just intensely sticking your head in the books, you know?
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, as a guy that left the band previously, I can understand that.
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean it's I mean I didn't go leave for PA school by any means.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_04: I and and I think even though every once in a while we send him Christmas cards and everything, I think he's doing great.
• 1:16:35
  SPEAKER_04: He's a PA now, I think.
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_04: I I think he's doing well.
• 1:16:38
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, we never get him returned, so I don't know, Adam.
• 1:16:41
  SPEAKER_04: If you're hearing this, please reach out sometime and I don't know.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_04: Uh you know, he was a good dude.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_04: I've got nothing but complimentary things to say about it.
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_07: Uh low seven dollars.
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_04: In case you did not hear that seven dollars plus interest.
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, so so Adam left kind of I I think late that spring, and then we brought Ryan on, and we kind of had a whole summer full of inactivity.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we we had a uh a CD release party booked for another band.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_02: We played somebody else's CD release party, and we were doing our I recognize like a theme of like big events going on, yes, yes.
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then we were doing a campaign to get on what was called the Rockstar Uproar Festival.
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_02: I remember that, yeah.
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_02: And oh yeah, it was and now we're kind of heading towards the end.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um so the Rockstar Uproar Festival was something that was sponsored by Rockstar Energy Drinks and Best Buy.
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_02: And that particular year the headliners were Avenge Sevenfold and Three Days Grace.
• 1:17:45
  SPEAKER_07: Never heard of them.
• 1:17:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, never heard of them.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_04: Uh wasn't uh wasn't disturbed on that in my yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:52
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 1:17:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:53
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, good.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, made it even better.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_02: So um we started a campaign to get on that.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh local bands could submit their music and then vote, and then voting for each other's bands and voting for our own band became kind of a full-time job in and of itself.
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, yeah, like the crowdsourced votes kind of thing.
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, it was a thing everybody was doing, and and by the time it was all over, we ended up with like the second highest vote total of anybody in the United States.
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_04: Nationwide.
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that was it was pretty impressive.
• 1:18:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:18:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's what you missed, Corey, huh?
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_06: Wow, yeah, and so impressed.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_07: I look at you guys so differently now.
• 1:18:37
  SPEAKER_07: Like Mike, Mike with his little podcast setup next to his Mortal Kombat 2 arcade game.
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_07: Like, God, life would not be the same for Mike Clark if it hadn't been for the best by Rockstar Energy Drake thing.
• 1:18:48
  SPEAKER_02: But so we ended up on that show.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh even getting selected for that show kind of had some shadowy stuff behind it.
• 1:18:58
  SPEAKER_04: That was a clusterfuck.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Because the radio station that was sponsoring this show in our market had picked us, but the Rockstar Energy and Best Buy people had picked another band.
• 1:19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_02: So decided to put us both on the show.
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_02: When honestly, okay, taking our opportunism out of pocket, that other band was selected by Best Buy and Rockstar Energy Drink.
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_02: They probably should have been on that show.
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_02: They were picked by the sponsors, they probably should have been on that show by themselves.
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_02: But we got put on that show because the local radio station had paid attention to our vote tallies.
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because of that, it's like, yeah, we we played on a bill with event sevenfold and disturbed and three days grace.
• 1:19:42
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, we played a good set, but I don't know if I've ever talked about this, but that was the day I decided I was done.
• 1:19:52
  SPEAKER_02: But you you were you had something there, Lowell.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_07: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
• 1:19:57
  SPEAKER_07: Before you should before you just go ahead and kick that over to Lowell, why why was that the day you decided?
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_07: I'll come back to that.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_07: Okay.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_07: I'll come back to that.
• 1:20:05
  SPEAKER_07: I just didn't want to miss it.
• 1:20:06
  SPEAKER_04: It was it was a great I mean it was a great opportunity.
• 1:20:09
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, we played in front of like 10,000 people.
• 1:20:11
  SPEAKER_04: I mean it was it was pretty crazy, you know?
• 1:20:12
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it w and and I thought we played an excellent set.
• 1:20:15
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I felt you know when you get off stage and you're you're you're either like I was so on it hurts, or you either know you did it or you didn't.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_04: And I felt like we knocked it out of the goddamn park, you know.
• 1:20:25
  SPEAKER_02: And one of your heroes told you we played an awesome set.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that that that uh Neil Purt was there?
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, no, Neil Neil Purt was not there.
• 1:20:33
  SPEAKER_04: So so uh we played like several bands before Seven Dust.
• 1:20:38
  SPEAKER_04: And if anybody's a drummer out there, Morgan Rose is a god among drummers.
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, this guy does like acrobatic stick flips in the air, throws his sticks up, you know, 20, 30 feet in the air, catches it without looking with the other hand, you know, while he's playing, while he's singing, this guy is freaking amazing.
• 1:20:56
  SPEAKER_04: And had been um, you know, looking around to see which tour bus was theirs the entire time, you know, while we're looking to go up, and finally we get called onto the stage, and it's like, okay, time to do it, time to do it, time to do it.
• 1:21:08
  SPEAKER_04: Get up there, kill it, get down.
• 1:21:11
  SPEAKER_04: Um out of every, you know, I I I was totally not even looking for it.
• 1:21:17
  SPEAKER_04: I was looking to go get a beer, and I see Greaseman walking, and and and I look over at him, and you know, hey, what's going on?
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_04: He's like, Oh, this is our guy right here, and he's walking with Morgan Rose, and I'm like, oh you know, it was this, it was this moment when I I it just took me on, you know, and and I was like, Oh my god, you're Morgan Rose.
• 1:21:38
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, Oh yeah, this guy's a drummer too.
• 1:21:40
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Yeah, I I know who he is, man.
• 1:21:42
  SPEAKER_05: I know who he is, you know.
• 1:21:43
  SPEAKER_05: And uh he's like, Yeah, this is this is our guy Lowell, you know, and they just they just played and he's like, Oh, that was your band, and and uh I said, Yeah, that was our band.
• 1:21:51
  SPEAKER_04: He said, You guys killed it, and I'm sure he says that to everybody.
• 1:21:55
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sure he didn't even see it, I'm sure he wasn't even in the park at the time.
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, but you want to talk about photos that I'm gonna supply to you.
• 1:22:01
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, I immediately turn into like a a you know, gushing little, you know, five-year-old fanboy.
• 1:22:08
  SPEAKER_04: K-pop band.
• 1:22:09
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 1:22:11
  SPEAKER_04: Here I am, here I am married, have children, super proud of all of this, you know, have my dream job that I'd worked on for a long time.
• 1:22:20
  SPEAKER_04: Dirty things in a parking lot.
• 1:22:23
  SPEAKER_05: And a drummer from Avenged Storm.
• 1:22:24
  SPEAKER_04: And I immediately say to him, Seven Dust, it was Seven Dust, you know, and I immediately say to him, Oh my god, dude, you just made my life, you know.
• 1:22:32
  SPEAKER_04: And then I then I have this picture of me looking way too excited, you know, shaking hands with him.
• 1:22:38
  SPEAKER_04: I took the pictures before.
• 1:22:40
  SPEAKER_07: I have to apologize to everybody for like just saying Avenge Seven Vold, but I I didn't okay, honestly, I didn't know it was like a I don't know drummers, but uh yeah, I will I will supply that picture to Mike.
• 1:22:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I I've I had a similar experience.
• 1:22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Funny, Corey made mentioned Atreyu, but Brandon from Atreyu, his side project played one or two bands after us.
• 1:23:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I remember that and and he had kind of the same compliment.
• 1:23:03
  SPEAKER_02: And you're probably right, it was probably you know a company line that they toss out to bands in different markets, but that was pretty cool.
• 1:23:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, kind of going going to answering your question, why was that my curtain call or where my headspace was at?
• 1:23:21
  SPEAKER_02: My headspace was very similar to yours, whether you realized it or not.
• 1:23:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think that last year of RSing, I had checked out of that style of music.
• 1:23:30
  SPEAKER_02: And to answer another one of one of your questions, we did have a third album prepped.
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_02: We were going to do a third album the same exact way that we did the deepest cut.
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the method that we were had recorded the deepest cut.
• 1:23:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that Tony.
• 1:23:45
  SPEAKER_07: What was that method, Mike?
• 1:23:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, well, it was it was done by ourselves.
• 1:23:50
  SPEAKER_02: I don't wanna I don't wanna pull the curtain back too much.
• 1:23:53
  SPEAKER_07: Sure.
• 1:23:54
  SPEAKER_02: But it it was done by ourselves.
• 1:23:55
  SPEAKER_07: But it wasn't at like Arc or like Warehouse or something like that.
• 1:23:58
  SPEAKER_02: Nope.
• 1:23:59
  SPEAKER_07: That that was really what I was getting.
• 1:24:01
  SPEAKER_07: Nope, nope.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we were gonna we were we were ready to do, but I didn't have lyrics written to shit.
• 1:24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and that's just because I couldn't.
• 1:24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I just wasn't in the headspace to write that style of music.
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_02: That whole last year, I was listening to hip hop or Ryan Adams, and that's all I cared about was hip-hop or something.
• 1:24:19
  SPEAKER_07: Hard to translate those two like influences into like what our thing was about at that time.
• 1:24:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:24:25
  SPEAKER_02: So, I mean that's the creative side of it.
• 1:24:27
  SPEAKER_02: The other side of it was the writing was definitive.
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_02: My marriage was going to end within that year.
• 1:24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, it just it was it wasn't for lack of trying on my part, but it just it was it was trying to make it work, but it was just not going to work.
• 1:24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I'm walking around Westfair Ampletheater, where this big show is at.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, whoever was playing in the background, whether it was Avenge Sevenfold or Seven Dust, or and I'm walking around and I'm just kind of drunk, um, reeling in the day, and I was thinking to myself, this is the biggest show I've ever played.
• 1:25:08
  SPEAKER_02: This is the biggest show I will probably ever play.
• 1:25:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm okay with being it being done here.
• 1:25:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like your Super Bowl.
• 1:25:20
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of, kind of.
• 1:25:21
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was kind of that moment.
• 1:25:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, but I didn't express that to anybody.
• 1:25:25
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't have any talks with anybody, I didn't kind of have a heart to heart and say, you know, this is where I'm feeling.
• 1:25:31
  SPEAKER_02: So we had one more show.
• 1:25:34
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 1:25:35
  SPEAKER_02: We we had one more show on the books, and it was a Halloween show that was being put on by our friend Dave, and it had like every big local band at the time on that bill, and that bill flopped.
• 1:25:50
  SPEAKER_02: And it flopped hard.
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not, it wasn't, it wasn't due to lack uh Dave not trying.
• 1:25:57
  SPEAKER_02: Or any of us or any of uh it wasn't he tried that that guy works hard.
• 1:26:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah like props.
• 1:26:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like he works hard, all the bands tried to promote it.
• 1:26:08
  SPEAKER_02: For whatever reason, that bill flopped.
• 1:26:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I was in a very, very, very sensitive head space whenever you take everything that I just told you that I was considering at Westfair at the time.
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I saw some things that night that I can't unsee.
• 1:26:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, um, some challenges to morality.
• 1:26:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe friends of the band committing acts of infidelity, maybe some uh chemical consumption that was outside of what Ara Singh was used to.
• 1:26:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I just like I left that venue that night and I was like, this is when I'm gonna call it a day.
• 1:26:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I was I was shaken going home from that very last show that Aurasing played.
• 1:27:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I just I don't know, I felt like my morality was challenged at that point, and I'm not gonna say that it was because of the band, but I do think that I felt like I needed to make the next step in my personal evolutionary process, and I couldn't do it.
• 1:27:24
  SPEAKER_02: That next band practice that we had, our bass player and Tony and I were sitting in a car outside of the practice space at Ryan's house, and poor frickin' Ryan.
• 1:27:35
  SPEAKER_02: Ryan barely got to have any experience.
• 1:27:37
  SPEAKER_02: He played three shows with us.
• 1:27:39
  SPEAKER_04: He was like the greatest dude who was there for 2.5 seconds I've ever worked with in my life, you know.
• 1:27:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:27:44
  SPEAKER_04: Let me give props or props or due.
• 1:27:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, solid guy.
• 1:27:48
  SPEAKER_07: Here's a postscript story about Ryan with you and me that we can talk about.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_04: We try to band after that whole thing and practice at his house.
• 1:27:56
  SPEAKER_07: With the dude that sounded like Michael Jackson.
• 1:27:58
  SPEAKER_07: It's like the full.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_07: Oh my god.
• 1:28:06
  SPEAKER_07: Weird.
• 1:28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:28:07
  SPEAKER_02: Still is man.
• 1:28:12
  SPEAKER_04: We can provide pictures.
• 1:28:15
  SPEAKER_07: No, it was just like one of those things like for me that that particular experience, many years after artisting, that's a good off topic, but uh it was it was super exciting to like get in a basement with Lowell in a music setting and have like Ryan, like who I I you know, like we we've crossed paths many times over the years, and then to have like these like new like this new blood, um, and it just was not yeah, it was it was not you feel like the sad thing was like I had had a couple of other you know things that I had tried, like there was this couple guys like Mark and Josh that had been in some other like really successful bands um and went on to do really successful things in their own rights, like some musically, some not.
• 1:29:10
  SPEAKER_07: Like we tried to pull something together and it just like the chemistry just wasn't there, like and never felt like you could for you could force this stuff a thousand different ways, and we're not professionals, and I guess that's what separates professionals from like just people that love it.
• 1:29:28
  SPEAKER_07: Professionals can make it work with anything, you know, but I guess I'm not a professional musician because and I learned that through those two experiences um because you either feel a connection or you don't.
• 1:29:42
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:29:43
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, like and you either like want to hang out with people like long term afterwards or not.
• 1:29:48
  SPEAKER_07: It's it's bands are like the the weirdest relationships.
• 1:29:52
  SPEAKER_07: Absolutely five-way marriage, yeah, yeah.
• 1:29:55
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
• 1:29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, and you know, and ours coming to an end.
• 1:29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I I sat in a car with Tony and our bass player, and I said and I told them.
• 1:30:04
  SPEAKER_02: I they were the first two that I told, and I said, you know, I had made this decision when we played River Riot.
• 1:30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then it was that decision was finalized at the Halloween show the other night.
• 1:30:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think we should schedule one more show, a final show, a farewell, and get everybody that's ever been in the band on the bill, and let's uh let's make it happen.
• 1:30:28
  SPEAKER_02: And the funny thing was, is like then those two just opened up and started pouring out.
• 1:30:32
  SPEAKER_02: Now I knew our bass player was already pretty much I could kind of read between the lines, he was pretty on his way out, anyways.
• 1:30:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:30:40
  SPEAKER_02: He was gonna join another he was gonna join another project project.
• 1:30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, and the only people that didn't know that were people that were blind.
• 1:30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um he was he was just days away from quitting himself.
• 1:30:52
  SPEAKER_02: I just provided the avenue for for that.
• 1:30:55
  SPEAKER_02: And sure.
• 1:30:56
  SPEAKER_02: I remember coming in and having that discussion with you.
• 1:31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Holy shit, were you pissed off?
• 1:31:05
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I don't really Okay, the the the part the part that I it it's not that I wasn't feeling any of this.
• 1:31:12
  SPEAKER_04: I don't even remember the sequence of events of how it happened, but whether you realize it or not, um, the thing that pissed me off about this whole thing is yeah, I could read the writing on the wall, you know, but you had said something about a final show, and I said something to the effect of, well, I I don't even know, maybe we should just leave it, you know, just making like a counter-argument type thing.
• 1:31:38
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:31:39
  SPEAKER_04: And the words out of your mouth were, we're gonna do a last show with or without you.
• 1:31:45
  SPEAKER_04: And I said, Motherfucker.
• 1:31:47
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, that doesn't sound like my clerk at all.
• 1:31:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and and so like at that point in time, and I'm like, motherfucker, we'll see if this happens.
• 1:31:55
  SPEAKER_04: I don't even remember saying that.
• 1:31:56
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, and I remember saying, I motherfucker, we'll see if this happens.
• 1:32:00
  SPEAKER_04: And I don't even remember how I did it, but I remember intentionally sabotaging something, and I don't e i it's sad that I don't even remember what it was, you know, so that nothing would happen and that would just be kind of gone in the wind.
• 1:32:14
  SPEAKER_04: And I didn't even start thinking about that again until after this, you know, that I I thought to myself, someday I'm gonna finally get to have the last laugh and be like, see, I told you over my dead fucking body, you know, and yeah, and uh I mean not that that makes any of this better and and not to like leave a bad taste in anybody's mouth, because it was fun, you know.
• 1:32:31
  SPEAKER_04: This this whole thing was a good, positive, fun experience.
• 1:32:34
  SPEAKER_04: You know, people people always give musicians such a bad, you know, musicians and over drinking and drug use seems to go uh you know hand in hand in people's minds.
• 1:32:46
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, at the same time, playing music, it's I I I mean I still do it with regularity, play out, play long periods of time.
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_04: I liken it very much nowadays to like meditation.
• 1:32:57
  SPEAKER_04: You know, you playing live, you can't you have to be in the moment, you have to be present and mindful of mind.
• 1:33:04
  SPEAKER_04: You can't be thinking about things in the past, you can't be thinking in the future, you have to be very along the lines with it.
• 1:33:09
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it is very mentally aligning, you know, and yeah, I probably was extremely pissed off at the time, but that was the part that you had to do.
• 1:33:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even remember that.
• 1:33:18
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember that.
• 1:33:18
  SPEAKER_04: That was about all that I remember about the whole thing.
• 1:33:21
  SPEAKER_04: Sure, it was me that said that I am one thousand percent sure.
• 1:33:24
  SPEAKER_04: Oh man.
• 1:33:25
  SPEAKER_04: And I know we were all caught up in our own shit at that time, you know.
• 1:33:28
  SPEAKER_04: And I can see how this could get totally overlooked, but I'm 100% sure.
• 1:33:33
  SPEAKER_02: I uh but I remember trying to schedule that last show, and we had all of our strategies used against us.
• 1:33:41
  SPEAKER_02: I had a date with the promoter at the venue, and every band that I tried to get on that show were like, Oh no, we got this other show coming up.
• 1:33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, we can't do that.
• 1:33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, we're having a lineup issue.
• 1:33:57
  SPEAKER_02: It was the And then finally I was just like, fuck this, we're not gonna do a final show.
• 1:34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:34:02
  SPEAKER_02: And just sending all you guys like a text, and like I talked to Corey about playing, you know, I'd reached out to Adam to see if there was any interest if he wanted to play a song or two, and it just it just never came into fruition.
• 1:34:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I every year after that, for like ten years, I would get a text from Dave every once in a while, hey, you want to do an R Sing reunion show?
• 1:34:23
  SPEAKER_02: You never got to do that last show.
• 1:34:25
  SPEAKER_02: How about an R Sing reunion show?
• 1:34:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just like, I don't think it's gonna happen, Dave.
• 1:34:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was fine with where things ended.
• 1:34:31
  SPEAKER_04: Well, yeah, I mean, that's like one of those things where that's in the past, and there's it there's no sense in chasing it.
• 1:34:36
  SPEAKER_04: You know what I'm saying?
• 1:34:37
  SPEAKER_04: We had that moment and it was great, and that was that moment forever, you know?
• 1:34:41
  SPEAKER_02: But as somebody that was on the outside, um, but was at the heart of forming the band, what was your thoughts when the band finally did come to an end?
• 1:34:53
  SPEAKER_07: I thought Adam did like a super nice job, and like Ryan didn't get a fair shot.
• 1:34:58
  SPEAKER_07: Like, I totally agree with all that stuff.
• 1:35:00
  SPEAKER_07: But it just went on for so long, and I had I got so disconnected with the music scene that I was keeping tabs on you guys and I was rooting for you guys, but I stopped hanging out with Tony during that period.
• 1:35:16
  SPEAKER_07: I stopped hanging out with our bass player, but I kept connections with like the both of you.
• 1:35:20
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:35:21
  SPEAKER_07: And so like that's where artisting transitioned for me from like this band and obligation and artistic project and output of creativity to um just like a part of my life.
• 1:35:39
  SPEAKER_07: It's very similar to like a band experience that I had with Trip and Default, which was like my my high school band.
• 1:35:46
  SPEAKER_07: Like my best friends from high school were all part of that band.
• 1:35:51
  SPEAKER_07: I left that band to go to college, they replaced me and they went on for like another 10 years or something like that.
• 1:35:59
  SPEAKER_07: Like it just becomes like an organ of like who you are, and I I'm never like um I'm disconnected from it.
• 1:36:08
  SPEAKER_07: Which like R saying you guys became my like my next wave best friends.
• 1:36:13
  SPEAKER_07: You're never gonna um be completely away from it, you're always rooting for those people, but at the same time, I didn't feel like I had any stake in like what happened with R saying, like if you guys went off and did like a you know a European tour, or you guys did, you know, uh bath and body salts shop, you know, like that's where R Sang like went.
• 1:36:37
  SPEAKER_07: Like okay, or opened your own brewery and you guys turned into like brewery guys, yeah, hipsters.
• 1:36:42
  SPEAKER_07: Like it's great.
• 1:36:44
  SPEAKER_07: I'm like totally supporting you guys because I was there at the beginning, yeah, but I have no stake in like what that is now.
• 1:36:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that that kind of that kind of answers a good chunk of my next question from your point of view, but from your perspective, Lowell, what specifically about this project connected us so deeply that we're all such good friends still to this day?
• 1:37:06
  SPEAKER_04: I would say, you know, the innocence and the non-planning and the organic nature of all of this.
• 1:37:13
  SPEAKER_04: If you would have found me, I mean this whole thing just happened on a strange off chance.
• 1:37:18
  SPEAKER_04: You know, if this would have happened at any other time in my life at all, I mean trying to sell me a hey, we're gonna rehearse for eight hours a week, you're gonna get paid almost nothing, you know, you you you're gonna put all this time into it.
• 1:37:34
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that sounds like a lose-lose looking through the world through my current eyes, you know.
• 1:37:38
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 1:37:39
  SPEAKER_04: It it's one of those things where a perspective changes so much, and it's just it was so special that, you know, and so unique and so strange that I just happen to find you guys at that time in my life, because that's the only time this ever would have gone down like that, you know?
• 1:37:55
  SPEAKER_04: And yeah, you know, that's the the only way that it'll ever be.
• 1:37:58
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it it's one of those things where it's you know, I've always been a big fan of more's lost by indecision than wrong decision.
• 1:38:05
  SPEAKER_04: You know, you can sit there planning and planning and planning, and you know, you never have to leave the station.
• 1:38:09
  SPEAKER_04: It's a real safe place to be, you know.
• 1:38:11
  SPEAKER_04: But sometimes say yes, say take the ride, you know, see see where the road leads.
• 1:38:16
  SPEAKER_04: And that's kind of what we did here.
• 1:38:19
  SPEAKER_04: And, you know, it was great.
• 1:38:20
  SPEAKER_04: I made two great new friends, you know, met met a lot of people, met a lot of fake people.
• 1:38:24
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, honestly, I mean we we've had we've had a text group chat going here for at least 13 years now.
• 1:38:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:38:30
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, absolutely.
• 1:38:30
  SPEAKER_07: Oh my god.
• 1:38:31
  SPEAKER_07: Like when when Mike finally became a Nebraska Huskers fan.
• 1:38:35
  SPEAKER_07: Jesus, you are like, okay, so like Lowell and I have been Huskers fans like since we like were growing up, but then Mike was a Colorado fan.
• 1:38:45
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:38:46
  SPEAKER_07: And now he lives in Lincoln, and now he's going, I don't know if it's like a business thing or whatever, or like just being married into it.
• 1:38:53
  SPEAKER_04: Which is straight up trendy.
• 1:38:54
  SPEAKER_07: But now you're wearing a you're wearing a Nebraska Cornhuskers hat right now.
• 1:38:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:38:58
  SPEAKER_02: Shh.
• 1:38:59
  SPEAKER_07: Yep.
• 1:39:00
  SPEAKER_07: You're you're outed.
• 1:39:01
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:39:02
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that was one of the part of the family now.
• 1:39:05
  SPEAKER_02: That to the to this day, that is my most favorite text between the three of us.
• 1:39:10
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:39:11
  SPEAKER_02: Corey and I taking a selfie tailgating at a Husker game and and Lol sending a picture of himself working, saying, Fuck you guys.
• 1:39:19
  SPEAKER_02: I hate you guys.
• 1:39:23
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, like I think the last time the three of us were in a room was like either somebody was getting married or mine.
• 1:39:30
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe.
• 1:39:30
  SPEAKER_02: May have been.
• 1:39:31
  SPEAKER_02: No, we were.
• 1:39:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no, it's yours.
• 1:39:33
  SPEAKER_02: Probably mine.
• 1:39:34
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, I thought I thought you got married before mine.
• 1:39:36
  SPEAKER_04: No, we were over here for your get together.
• 1:39:40
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I thought you had a UFC party.
• 1:39:42
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, UFC party.
• 1:39:43
  SPEAKER_07: But then before that, I think it was your wedding.
• 1:39:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was your wedding wedding.
• 1:39:46
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:39:46
  SPEAKER_07: And then before that was my wedding.
• 1:39:48
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:39:48
  SPEAKER_07: And before that it was, I don't know.
• 1:39:52
  SPEAKER_02: Was there like a briss or something?
• 1:39:56
  SPEAKER_02: You guys ran it.
• 1:39:58
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, and and truth be told, like Mercury was in retrograde.
• 1:40:02
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:40:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like here, bud.
• 1:40:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have uh a lot or a very strong relationship, if a relationship at all, with my extended family.
• 1:40:12
  SPEAKER_02: Outside I remember that.
• 1:40:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, my parents, I don't really have anything to do with my brothers, I've got limited contact with.
• 1:40:21
  SPEAKER_02: So when I did get married, um, my wife gave me the option of inviting my family, and I invited you guys.
• 1:40:30
  SPEAKER_02: And that's, you know, there's there's no secret to why that was, you know.
• 1:40:35
  SPEAKER_02: So how has RSing in the long term impacted your life?
• 1:40:42
  SPEAKER_02: Aside from our relationship, has it impacted your life at all?
• 1:40:46
  SPEAKER_04: You know, doing anything changes your perception of the world in ways that you can't even tell.
• 1:40:51
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, uh, top to bottom, it was a positive experience.
• 1:40:54
  SPEAKER_04: You know, the word definitely downfalls there, but it was a great experience, top to bottom, and um, you know, I I can't put a singular finger on how it changed my life, but it undoubtedly had a a long and lasting effect on my life.
• 1:41:12
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I I would say that um what started off as like a experiment in no pressure, just doing it for fun, kind of made me realize that I really when I set my heart to something, I can't do anything just for fun.
• 1:41:33
  SPEAKER_07: I'm gonna go balls to the wall in whatever I do for as long as I can.
• 1:41:37
  SPEAKER_07: And um when I'm when my heart is out of it, like there's a sense I I learned a sense of obligation to other people, but when my heart's out of it and I know it's out of it, like it's time to back out.
• 1:41:50
  SPEAKER_07: You know, like that that was like the life lesson or like the professional lesson.
• 1:41:56
  SPEAKER_07: Um certainly artisting with all of the fun we had, the innuendo jokes that would not live up in 2020, which are plenty.
• 1:42:09
  SPEAKER_07: Oh yeah, lots.
• 1:42:11
  SPEAKER_07: Um anybody that's been in a band for an extended period of time, whether you get out of the garage or not, you kind of get this like kindred spirits like from people with music.
• 1:42:25
  SPEAKER_07: And a lot of times it's the the band is really like the least important thing.
• 1:42:31
  SPEAKER_07: Getting together with people and and having fun and moving forward on a common cause.
• 1:42:39
  SPEAKER_07: So like that part of me, I think, is what has extended our friendship is that regardless of what you know what ridiculous thing Lowell's doing, um I say that because he's super like domestic right now.
• 1:42:52
  SPEAKER_07: Where Mike's journeys take him, um, or what's happened in my life, like we're buddies and we we met through a band, but like the band is the least important thing now.
• 1:43:01
  SPEAKER_07: 13 years later, it's it's the least important thing.
• 1:43:04
  SPEAKER_02: It was something we did.
• 1:43:06
  SPEAKER_02: I I'll I'll tell you, like, to summarize for me, um like Arising was kind of the was the final chapter of kind of chasing an unrealistic dream.
• 1:43:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:43:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so that was and you have to kind of come face to face with a lot of realities when you're doing that.
• 1:43:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, as much as I wanted to say, like, no pressure, this is just a hobby, it was like the need for excess kind of followed.
• 1:43:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like every good thing that happened, I wanted something better to happen next.
• 1:43:45
  SPEAKER_04: Everybody did too.
• 1:43:45
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody fancy became an obsession.
• 1:43:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I had a blast doing it.
• 1:43:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I also know that whenever I first started doing local bands, I thought everybody in the world was my best friend.
• 1:44:00
  SPEAKER_02: High five, hug, and a handshake, like we're all friends.
• 1:44:05
  SPEAKER_02: By the time RSing was done, I didn't trust anybody, including my own brothers.
• 1:44:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the guys I was playing in the band with.
• 1:44:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't because I didn't love my brothers, it wasn't because I didn't care, it's just, you know, weighing the good and the bad back and forth.
• 1:44:24
  SPEAKER_02: It just sometimes it felt like there was more bad than good, when reality there was more good than bad.
• 1:44:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I would say my biggest thing walking away from RSing for myself was being able to self-evaluate more.
• 1:44:43
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't do that as much uh before then.
• 1:44:47
  SPEAKER_02: So the greatest life improvements for me actually came after the band rather than uh with the band itself, if that makes any sense.
• 1:44:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, with all of that in mind and kind of in the interest of wrapping things up.
• 1:45:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um any final thoughts?
• 1:45:08
  SPEAKER_02: Any lasting impressions that you want to leave the listener with?
• 1:45:14
  SPEAKER_04: I can't wait till a time when can have clubs of sorts, whatever they may be, you know, whether it's a uh fight club with instruments, which I really feel Or Singh was, you know, um or or or other uh you know things like that.
• 1:45:32
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, um we're currently in what month five or six of uh uh COVID-19, you know, it's one of those things where I'm really desperately in need of some something other than transactional human back and forth, you know.
• 1:45:47
  SPEAKER_04: I I'm I'm blessed to have a wife that is uh you know able to at least keep me uh you know conversationally satisfied, but I'm sure she's looking for an out too, you know.
• 1:45:59
  SPEAKER_04: I mean it would be good to get back to hanging out.
• 1:46:02
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I mean it's too long in between, like from when like the three of us get together.
• 1:46:07
  SPEAKER_07: So like if anything else, like Mike, I appreciate you putting this podcast together as a elaborate excuse to get the three of us to hang out.
• 1:46:17
  SPEAKER_07: Um you'll welcome us back for a second.
• 1:46:20
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, absolutely.
• 1:46:22
  SPEAKER_07: Absolutely.
• 1:46:22
  SPEAKER_07: Hopefully, we have other things to talk about besides just like rehashing old days.
• 1:46:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, absolutely, but I I I think I think I want people to kind of this is a good introduction to the podcast because it's a it is such a large part of my story.
• 1:46:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm missing that, you know.
• 1:46:38
  SPEAKER_02: I've been missing that creative element in my life, and this is more my wheelhouse now, you know.
• 1:46:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and whether we all realize it or not, we are much different people since those days.
• 1:46:51
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 1:46:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:46:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we've all had big life changes, and I think someone would be foolish to assume that if they are talking to Lowell or Corey or Mike in 2020, like they talked to them in 2010 and expect the same person, I think they're fooling themselves.
• 1:47:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that says a lot about maturity and change and how relationships develop, even though we'll still crack dick and fart jokes in the tell of the day we died.
• 1:47:25
  SPEAKER_07: Daddy I mentioned that like I found a bunch of old emails from like the early days of the band, and one thing that I did notate was you send out like that persona of who you are, like through email back then versus now.
• 1:47:43
  SPEAKER_07: Like I'm so much more curt and I guess professional or buttoned up.
• 1:47:51
  SPEAKER_07: Life has gotten so serious, especially with like the last six months and what's happened with the pandemic, like it's just thing after thing after thing.
• 1:48:01
  SPEAKER_07: And to go back through those emails and have this conversation with you guys, like kind of like you know, lacks that like a period of in my life that was very transformative.
• 1:48:17
  SPEAKER_07: It would have been regardless of if I handed the band or not, but like have that added asset of like you guys and R Sing and the opportunity to go on a stage and play shows and like forever grateful for that.
• 1:48:30
  SPEAKER_07: Um it's been a cool experience to go back and just like think about how much I've grown because of that band experience and because of like knowing you two guys.
• 1:48:41
  SPEAKER_02: Likewise, likewise.
• 1:48:42
  SPEAKER_02: And that was that's I think that summarizes everything perfectly.
• 1:48:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, guys, thanks for uh making the uh Saturday night trip to Lincoln, Nebraska, so we could do this.
• 1:48:55
  SPEAKER_07: Thanks for fulfilling our writer to have us down here, you know.
• 1:48:58
  SPEAKER_07: Like we got a spread we have.
• 1:49:00
  SPEAKER_02: What is that?
• 1:49:01
  SPEAKER_02: A uh uh call that that's a white trash charcuterie.
• 1:49:05
  SPEAKER_02: I was promised a charcuterie track.
• 1:49:07
  SPEAKER_04: Charcuterie trip and Mike at the Green Eminem, so you know we're good to go.
• 1:49:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, yep.
• 1:49:12
  SPEAKER_02: All right, guys.
• 1:49:13
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much for tuning into the podcast.
• 1:49:16
  SPEAKER_02: This has been Caught on the Mic with Michael Clark.
• 1:49:18
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time.
• 1:49:19
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.