Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / Dave Elkins and Zach Gehring: Mae | Furnace Fest 2023 Series

Transcript

Dave Elkins and Zach Gehring: Mae | Furnace Fest 2023 Series · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

• 0:19
  Lately, I'm all right, Lately I'm not yet then what you douee like?
• 0:30
  All right? Today we got Zach and Dave from May, one of
• 0:33
  our favorite bands of all time, at least for me. I think last
• 0:37
  time we chatted it was like a couple of years ago. At this point,
• 0:41
  I don't remember who I told it. Maybe it was just you Zac,
• 0:44
  or maybe it was you Dave. I don't remember who I mentioned this
• 0:47
  too, But when I was in fifth grade I first heard the song Suspension
• 0:52
  for the first time, okay, and I also got a first act guitar
• 0:58
  that same year. The first song I tried to figure out and learn on
• 1:02
  the guitar, at least the first like guitar riff I tried to learn on
• 1:06
  the guitar on my first act guitar was Suspension by May Uh And so that
• 1:11
  will May you know, as great as you guys are an incredible band,
• 1:15
  wonderful We've loved your entire discography. But also that's like my personal connection to
• 1:21
  May and will always be to me, is that you guys were the first
• 1:25
  the really wrote the first song to the first song that I tried to learn
• 1:27
  on my first act guitar and what's funny about that is he still doesn't know
• 1:30
  how to play guitar. So yes, so you get clearly May did not
• 1:36
  help me in any way, shape or form. But yeah, well,
• 1:42
  next time we see you, we'll teach teach of the song and work out.
• 1:46
  That would be great. Yeah, you'll be there for days trying to
• 1:49
  figure it out how to teach him. You might have to teach me how
• 1:53
  to pronounce things first before you teach me to play guitar riffs. Colin,
• 2:00
  do you have any personal fun personal fun stories to me? Uh, personal
• 2:05
  fun stories to me. Um, it's it's it's actually my favorite band to
• 2:10
  listen to while I do dishes. There's so many profound things, you know,
• 2:15
  like I you know, some people they get in the shower and they're
• 2:17
  like, all right, I'm gonna have my my my thoughts to myself now,
• 2:22
  and they'll, you know, they'll they'll they'll think about the profound.
• 2:25
  For me, it's what I'm doing dishes, and uh, you know,
• 2:30
  I think May has just an absolute goldmine of profound things to say washing dishes,
• 2:39
  washing dishes, There's something about cleaning those dishes off that creates a profound
• 2:45
  uh self reflection in my own heart. So that's my fun story. Yeah,
• 2:51
  I don't. I feel like that's almost kind of like a dish How
• 2:58
  is that just out of all the things that could be the dishwashing band?
• 3:00
  I don't know if that's the band you want to be in the world.
• 3:04
  Oh, my Mason, that's just that's that's the person part of that.
• 3:09
  If you haven't heard that one before. I don't know how to interpret it,
• 3:12
  but I interpret it positively. Well, I'm glad that you guys are
• 3:17
  more generous than I am. Would you rather be my love making band?
• 3:21
  Like? Yeah, well, yeah, aren't we that you? I mean
• 3:27
  you might be. I mean you could be. There's no reason you could
• 3:30
  percent could be. One of the things I've always wondered is, you know,
• 3:37
  Colin and I we've released what one hundred and maybe forty episodes of this
• 3:40
  podcast. Yeah, Colin, have you ever wondered this? Because I've wondered
• 3:45
  this. How many people have had sex what like while listening to our podcast?
• 3:50
  Oh, zero's absolutely zero. Okay, you think it's zero. I
• 3:54
  think it might be more than zero. But other than you, I mean,
• 3:58
  I don't know. But let's let's Zach and Dave. How many people
• 4:04
  do you think have had sex listening to a May song? It can't be
• 4:08
  zero, No, I think it's I think it's the number high enough to
• 4:11
  say that we've got enough people that we've met that named their kids after us,
• 4:16
  Right, that's true. It's got to be at least what whatever that
• 4:20
  number is, it's got to be at least that number. So is that
• 4:23
  like a is that like a conceiving name? They're like, we conceived you
• 4:27
  to a May song, therefore we're calling you May. Yeah, I mean
• 4:30
  I've definitely, I've definitely heard that. We also have a lot of people
• 4:33
  proposed to one another during our shows on stage as well. So there are
• 4:38
  a lot of guys like Taylor Sweet if only a lot of you know,
• 4:46
  nice sentiment moments that people share with us and our fans. So yeah,
• 4:49
  I would imagine that that's happened. You know, a lot of people might
• 4:53
  give Tooth and Nail a lot of shit for a lot of reasons. I
• 4:56
  wouldn't be one of those people. Here's one of the things you can't give
• 4:59
  to Tooth and Nail. Shit about Tooth and Nail signed a lot of emo
• 5:02
  bands during their heyday that are also names that everybody named their child after May,
• 5:11
  Amberlin and Emery and being probably the most like well known of those.
• 5:15
  How many other record labels had at least three bands where people were like,
• 5:19
  Oh, I'm gonna literally name my child after this band. Yeah, I'm
• 5:23
  gonna name my kid. I'm gonna name my next kid further seems forever.
• 5:26
  So maybe the Juliana theory. Julianna. Yeah, Julianna theory. That's a
• 5:35
  good that's a good one. Yeah, a little August Burns read so cute.
• 5:45
  There's gonna be I think Elon Musk is gonna do that one next.
• 5:53
  All Right, we're getting besides the point. Let's talk about May. Let's
• 5:56
  talk about the upcoming Furnace Fast Show. A few months ago, you guys
• 6:00
  were announced as one of the furnace Fest bands. You guys played in twenty
• 6:03
  twenty one. Zach, we hung out for a hot second, um knowing
• 6:08
  you know, you were very busy that day. I think you had like
• 6:11
  a show before in the show after with like demons or something along those lines.
• 6:15
  So you were you were a busy man that were cans weren't able to
• 6:17
  hang out for super super long. But you guys played into twenty twenty one,
• 6:21
  one of our favorite sets from twenty twenty one. Obviously you guys are
• 6:25
  playing this year. But yeah, well, I mean, let's just talk
• 6:28
  about Furnace Fest and all of that. Okay, So you guys played twenty
• 6:31
  twenty one. What's the whole story around playing twenty twenty three? Was it
• 6:34
  as simple as you guys just got a DM on Instagram and we're like,
• 6:38
  Okay, was it that simple or is there more of a story to it?
• 6:42
  Yeah, there's a little bit more of a story. Chad Johnson,
• 6:45
  who you know runs Furnace Best and started it. I assume he was May's
• 6:50
  A and R one of our two and R Tooth and Nail back in two
• 6:56
  oh three, oh four, oh five, oh six, and m Chad's
• 7:00
  really during like kind of like the big like the years that you know,
• 7:04
  ever globe in during those years and then um, you know the destination being
• 7:11
  around that time, and so yeah, like that's those are big years for
• 7:14
  me and Chat and Chad's connected to him exactly. So Chad's one of the
• 7:17
  two people essentially who were at Tooth and Nail at that time, during our
• 7:25
  sort of prime years as a band, who discovered May and thankfully for us
• 7:30
  and furnace Fest. He's also you know, the founder I believe, of
• 7:35
  that festival. So we got to play furnace Fest for the first time,
• 7:39
  I believe in two thousand and three, and so we got to play it
• 7:42
  in twenty twenty one when it, you know, re emerged. And let's
• 7:46
  go back for a second with two thousand and three though, because that was
• 7:49
  during a timeframe when, at least in my perception, almost every furnace Fest
• 7:55
  band was like a heavy band. So how did May get roped into like
• 7:59
  a two thousand and three are you furnace Fest? Well? I remember that
• 8:01
  Copeland played furnace Fest as well, that he did too really wow, as
• 8:07
  as did Amberlin. Um Zach says that I sang a song with Amberlin.
• 8:11
  I don't. I don't remember that, but I've done that before. So
• 8:15
  if that was the first time you did, I remember you singing. I'm
• 8:20
  look at the furnace Fest in two thousand and three band lists right now,
• 8:26
  just so I can confirm or deny any memories that we might be calling up
• 8:31
  right now. Yeah, I would. I would trust the memory of anybody
• 8:33
  who's able to remember anything from Dos Capital, so all my memory has just
• 8:41
  spent doing that. Um. But the main stage was Amberlin, um As,
• 8:48
  Ali, Dying Copeland and Poetic further right there. Wow, this date
• 8:54
  forward was on the main stage. I guess it's a little surprising to me.
• 8:58
  The agony scene silver Steen since my Man, Minus the Bear, May
• 9:01
  and Hope's Fall. Also only one of those bands tried to kill their wife.
• 9:11
  I got that part out, but I just wanted to say that.
• 9:15
  Yeah, the ratio is a little a little more in most most years,
• 9:18
  but that year only the one I still see. Oh anyway, um,
• 9:31
  jeez, yeah, I remember Minus in the Bear. Minus the Bear played
• 9:35
  that year. Minus the Bear played that year. Hum did not play that
• 9:39
  year. It was a different year. Maybe, yeah. Yeah, Well,
• 9:43
  I'm gonna keep looking. I don't want to speak to you soon.
• 9:45
  Shihalud played, Andrew wk Finch Hate Breed Oh I'm sorry, Dave, You're
• 9:52
  correct Home played as well as Mastadon on earth Rise against m I didn't realize
• 10:01
  there there were that many kind of like more alternative and emo type bands that
• 10:05
  were playing at Furnace Fest during those original years. I always assumed it was
• 10:09
  just simply heavy music. But I didn't realize that there were more kind of
• 10:13
  those types of bands that were playing. So, I mean, Chad then
• 10:16
  really did an incredible job of curating a really interesting lineup during those years,
• 10:24
  and obviously has in these last few years. But I didn't realize that there
• 10:28
  were that many kind of emo alternative bands that were playing in those early years.
• 10:33
  I used to listen to a lot of bands on Takehold Records, which
• 10:35
  was Chad's label, you know, prior to bringing some of those artists over
• 10:41
  to Tooth and Nail, And I think under Oath was on Takehold at one
• 10:46
  point, and knew how use original band the operation was Takehold Operation. There's
• 10:50
  a band called Stairwell. I think it was sure. So I don't think
• 10:56
  I knew enough about furnace Fest to assume that, you know, like sort
• 11:01
  of regular festival goers would consider furnace Fest to be primarily predominantly a heavy music
• 11:07
  festival. So when we played that year and we saw you know, our
• 11:13
  friends in Copeland and in Berlin and knew that Minus the Bear was playing stuff
• 11:16
  like that, I think I just assumed the same thing that was like a
• 11:20
  indie alternative hard rock metal hardcore like kind of all together festival. Right,
• 11:28
  Well, I was also nine years old, so my memory of that festival
• 11:31
  wasn't the best. I was eight, so always a one upper. What
• 11:43
  have like just such an amazing years though of that festival. And yeah,
• 11:48
  it's it's really interesting to see like how many people who were a part of
• 11:54
  that original run of those shows and now are still like, you know,
• 11:58
  twenty plus years later, here they are, uh, you know, their
• 12:03
  their bodies might be a little sore from washing and from jam and out and
• 12:07
  headbanging, but still the same people showing up to the festival. That that's
• 12:11
  pretty impressive. And then also you just get this whole new generation of people
• 12:16
  who weren't a part of the original run of Furnace Fest and here they are
• 12:22
  now joining in on furnace Fest and being able to be a part of that
• 12:26
  history. And it's it's pretty cool. And again you get you see these
• 12:28
  bands that were a part of that original run. Now you get to see
• 12:31
  new bands that are able to kind of make their their stake in that history
• 12:35
  with Furnace Fest. It's such a cool festival in that way where you just
• 12:37
  see this like kind of this history unfold and it's just I don't know.
• 12:43
  I think it's really cool and you don't see that among a lot of other
• 12:46
  festivals in that way. I'd be curious to see what the age kind of
• 12:52
  ranges for Furnace Fest these years, because you mentioned this kind of you know,
• 12:56
  previous generation or what if you want to call it, that that out
• 13:00
  you have, you know, younger fans coming to these shows. I'm looking
• 13:03
  at the lineup for this for this year and you still I think there's enough
• 13:07
  range where you have grandparents that have grandchildren then are named May and then you've
• 13:11
  got people who are showing up to furness Fest that are also named me.
• 13:18
  Well maybe I don't know, maybe, but that just spun my brain.
• 13:22
  You said grandparents and May I And I was looking at the furnish Fest list
• 13:26
  at the time because bands like MxPx are on their headlining. It looks like
• 13:31
  Turnstiles the the youngest UM. They're the youngest UM main main stage childliner,
• 13:37
  and that's on Saturday. But you know Acides, Burn Armor for Sleep all
• 13:43
  these bands. I'm Midispharic Guns playing the Day We Are UM they're a younger
• 13:46
  band UM, but one King Downs playing as well with they're old hardcore band
• 13:50
  The Insiders are playing ge Strife. Um, so I've seen a lot of
• 13:56
  still older bands from like our generation and maybe maybe a little even older than
• 14:01
  us. Yeah yeah, Um, Draine's playing. I don't know Draine was
• 14:05
  on this year. You're younger the NFM. I don't know. Piebald Project
• 14:09
  eighty six showbread Cheese. I'm always I'm always surprised. I'm always surprised.
• 14:16
  I see the list every time I look at it. I'm surprised every time
• 14:20
  I look at it. Um, you know, pleasantly surprise. Actually,
• 14:22
  it's such an interesting spread of bands and age groups as you were talking about,
• 14:26
  you know, I'm kind of curious as to why Demons didn't get a
• 14:28
  call. I want to know this thing. Yes, I and when May
• 14:37
  played for an incesting Phels in twenty one, I did mention to chat.
• 14:41
  I think I messaged him on Facebook and I just was very passive about it.
• 14:45
  It's like, hey, if there's a spot, let us know.
• 14:46
  It would be really cool. I don't think i'd already yeah right, it's
• 14:52
  like, well May, he's already playing. I don't know. It's just
• 14:54
  something I aggressively kind of sought out because I had this nightmare that I go
• 15:01
  really hard for an a for an awesome show that would be for Demons,
• 15:03
  and like the promoter comes back and says yes, or the band comes back
• 15:07
  he will put you on, and then like one of the one of the
• 15:09
  guys and Demons like, oh, I'm sorry, I can't. I have
• 15:13
  to, you know, do this that day. It's very hard to kind
• 15:15
  of arrange, like you know, sell an understand of who's available, like
• 15:18
  too far into the future. So I'll have to say I kind of only
• 15:22
  passively go for these kind of things. But it would make sense and I'd
• 15:26
  love to do it, you know, you know, there's always next year.
• 15:28
  Maybe I thought you were doing it because you want to remain in obscurity.
• 15:35
  Yeah, that's like selling out. If we went and played a first
• 15:41
  last hardcore bands I've ever heard, and yeah, like just not not not
• 15:46
  eful to get up on that stage because I'll be selling out to the man
• 15:52
  we see out to Chad Johnson, the man. But for me, it's
• 15:58
  okay. Zach. When you said that it was a nightmare and then you
• 16:00
  said you went hard, I assume like your nightmare was that you played a
• 16:04
  demon show at furnace best and you went too hard when you were performing and
• 16:08
  then you like threw your back out or something, and then you had to
• 16:11
  hold on just like lay down and play. Amaze that Actually, that'd be
• 16:17
  pretty awesome. That should be. That should be the gimmick that someone does.
• 16:22
  Maybe maze the band to do it. Everyone just lays down while while
• 16:26
  they play. I would do it. Oh, well, you know that
• 16:29
  on the on the Boy Genius tour, Lucy Dacos how to. I think
• 16:33
  it was a though on her tour, on her solo tour, I think
• 16:37
  she had a back issue and she literally played on a couch laying down.
• 16:41
  Oh that's awesome. It's not quite as cool as like cool Hand Luke when
• 16:45
  he's like when the whole band faces the opposite direction. You guys, remember
• 16:51
  cool Hand Luke. Yeah, the drum yeah yeah. At one point,
• 16:56
  at one point it was like the entire band facing back words, Oh is
• 17:00
  that right? Yeah? Which I think is like the cost just like that's
• 17:03
  such a thing that what's going on those days? I feel like that was
• 17:07
  it really need I don't know. I feel like Zao's drummer played backwards too,
• 17:11
  but I might be entirely wrong. I wouldn't like I feel like there's
• 17:15
  a lot of drummers, do you mean, yeah, there's didn't they like
• 17:22
  drummers have turned sideways on stage or like super Catty cornered and Newsboys had like
• 17:27
  the drummer that was literally flying in the fucking air. I've been waiting for
• 17:33
  someone to make a Newsboys reference eighteen minutes in and we've got that taken care
• 17:38
  of. It's off the title. So you guys talked about Okay twenty twenty
• 17:45
  one, and then also here we are twenty twenty three. It's more than
• 17:51
  just simply a d M that you got from Chad about hey, do you
• 17:55
  want to play furnace fast? So what is the story there? Yeah?
• 17:57
  I mean just Beautiful is our first album, which is you know, we
• 18:02
  wouldn't have signed with Tooth and Nail if it weren't for Chad. We wouldn't
• 18:04
  have even made Destination Beautiful the way that everyone knows it today if it wasn't
• 18:11
  for Chad, for Tooth and Nail, etc. And so that's the twentieth
• 18:14
  anniversary of the release of that album, and we were asked, we've been
• 18:19
  asked to perform this album from top to bottom to close out Furnace Best on
• 18:26
  Sunday, so well, we were playing Destination Beautiful and that's kind of turned
• 18:30
  into this bigger thing. We just announced this past Friday that we're going to
• 18:33
  hit the road in the States and play about twenty two shows so far.
• 18:38
  We're kind of even talking about adding a few more where we're playing Destination Beautiful
• 18:44
  from start to finish every night. So that album turned twenty years old back
• 18:48
  in February of this year, and Furnace Best wanted us to perform the album.
• 18:53
  And now we're doing a tour, we're putting out vinyl, repressing the
• 18:57
  album on vinyl, and so it's kind of snowballed into this whole thing.
• 19:02
  And really it started with Chad and Furnace Fest reaching out to us and asking
• 19:08
  us if we'd perform the album at the festival this year. That's awesome.
• 19:12
  That's a fun one. So are you getting how long is that album?
• 19:17
  Is it around forty minutes? I think it's longer. I think it's about
• 19:19
  fifty or softy. It says forty eight minutes and nineteen seconds on Wikipedia.
• 19:26
  Okay, so so forty eight minutes, you're you're gonna have to basically demand
• 19:30
  at least at least fifty minutes, right, Well, they asked us to
• 19:33
  play it, so they have to. And I think that's why they have
• 19:37
  us closing out on Sunday nights, so that way there isn't a time crunch
• 19:41
  to fit all the songs in and then turn the stage over to get the
• 19:44
  next band on. So we are we are sitting up the vpms for each
• 19:48
  song just a little bit, so we're gonna be able to cut it off
• 19:51
  at forty five minutes on? That? Does it make it nervous going back
• 19:56
  to a twenty year old record and not only like playing those song maybe you
• 20:00
  haven't played for a long time, but also maybe looking at some of those
• 20:04
  lyrics and stuff like that and trying to recognize where you were at in that
• 20:08
  time as compared to where you're at now. Yeah, because like twenty years
• 20:11
  ago is like half your lifetime on this. Yeah. Yeah, I was
• 20:15
  twenty when that album came out, so I wrote a lot of those songs
• 20:18
  when I was twenty and nineteen and I'm forty one now. So I think
• 20:26
  that actually, when we look at the May discography, those songs are the
• 20:32
  easiest to play. We started to push our own boundaries a little bit with
• 20:36
  each album that we made afterwards, and so we you know, we've played
• 20:40
  The ever Glow from start to finish a bunch of times on tour, and
• 20:44
  I think Zach and I would much rather relax and enjoy playing Destination Beautiful.
• 20:48
  Those songs are, They're fun for guitar players to play. They're a little
• 20:52
  more raw that when I think about the lyrics the song last Call, which
• 20:56
  is like I don't know, the fifth or sixth song on that album.
• 20:59
  There was a long stretch of time when May was super active where we refused
• 21:03
  to play that song just because lyrically it kind of felt silly. Now he
• 21:07
  just kind of celebrate the fact that someone would want us to do it.
• 21:11
  So we've had, you know, different seasons where we connected more or not
• 21:17
  at all with certain songs on that record, but songs like obviously Embers and
• 21:22
  Envelopes and this time It's the Last Time, Summertime, all deliberate speed some
• 21:29
  of this songs or what certain May fans know you know most or maybe you
• 21:37
  know remember at this point their memories are attached with some songs from that album.
• 21:41
  So I think it'll be a lot of fun, and I think it's
• 21:45
  you know, very low pressure, because those are the songs in some cases
• 21:49
  that we've performed more than any other song in our touring history. I think
• 21:55
  we've probably played Embers Envelopes like literally fifteen hundred times or so. You know.
• 22:02
  Yeah, we uh, we did a play one on the last on
• 22:06
  the tour we did. I guess what that tour end, Dave, I
• 22:11
  think, did I think about Orlando specifically? Or yeah, we just did
• 22:15
  a play through one time of Dissension Beautiful on the last tour we did.
• 22:21
  So it's kind depression that sense. But some of my favorite May songs still
• 22:23
  to this day are on that record, um, like Giving It Away and
• 22:29
  Skyline Drive. Um So I look forward to playing those songs um all the
• 22:34
  time anyway. So yeah, I'm excited, like Dave did, Like they've
• 22:38
  said, they were fun to play, They're a little they're kind of easy
• 22:42
  in a certain sense, kind of straightforward. Um So it'll be fun,
• 22:48
  Dave. For you. Lyrically, I think back to like when I was
• 22:52
  like nineteen and twenty years old and writing things down, whether it was you
• 22:56
  know, college papers or tweets or whatever. It was that I was putting
• 23:00
  post to the world Facebook post. I often think about I do not want
• 23:08
  to see what that is, like, I just I feel like it's so
• 23:12
  embarrassing. There's something that's really interesting about artists that we have chatted with that
• 23:19
  whether it's made, it could be under oath, it could be whoever,
• 23:22
  that we're putting out music at that time when you were that age, and
• 23:29
  to a certain degree, you still feel proud about it. And I feel
• 23:33
  that is something that's really rare for people who are like nineteen twenty years old
• 23:37
  putting something out in the world that seems really interesting. So anyway, like,
• 23:44
  are there like thoughts that you have around that of I'm sure there's like
• 23:48
  parts of Destination Beautiful where you're like, oh, okay, that's that's something
• 23:52
  or whatever. Like I was nineteen or twenty years old when I did that,
• 23:56
  And but how do you, more than anything, how do you late
• 24:00
  to that part of yourself when you're nineteen or twenty years old, when you're
• 24:03
  writing that album and knowing how different you are now. I find that really
• 24:11
  interesting of Like, to me, it's like I'm just so cringe worthy at
• 24:15
  nineteen or twenty years old, and I can't imagine that like artists would feel
• 24:18
  maybe that much different, but maybe they do. Like maybe there is something
• 24:22
  where it's like that was really sincere and beautiful that I did, And I
• 24:26
  would love to like kind of go back and recapture that moment of when I
• 24:30
  was nineteen or twenty years old. Anyway, I'm really curious, like what
• 24:33
  that relationship for you is when you go back and you sing these songs and
• 24:38
  play these songs when you were nineteen and twenty years old when you originally made
• 24:42
  them. Yeah, well, I think that one thing to consider generationally,
• 24:51
  like frankly, the way that technology has kind of changed the way that we
• 24:55
  quickly create something. Because when you're talking about being nineteen and you're talking about
• 25:00
  tweets and Facebook posts and stuff, Well, I didn't have access to that
• 25:03
  stuffy but ao L that's about it. I didn't even have AOL until I
• 25:08
  was on tour um My. My one and only screen name was what was
• 25:15
  it like when the when when you lived in also everything else was in black
• 25:19
  and white? What was that like? Well? When I used to like
• 25:25
  kind of carry this tire up a hill to get to school and then to
• 25:30
  Brandon to band practice hill both ways, both ways, always both ways,
• 25:34
  driving snowstorms. No, I mean I want to. I want to actually
• 25:38
  kind of like kind of make the point that artists that I listened to that
• 25:47
  made time stamps, that made art, they were that age too, you
• 25:51
  know, like the Beatles were so young when they were making right. Yeah,
• 25:59
  And so by the time you're young, Dave at nineteen years old in
• 26:03
  two thousand and two or whatever, I didn't have the pressure of just being
• 26:08
  able to say something quickly and maybe delete it or you know, wish I
• 26:15
  didn't say it later. I kind of had a long time to figure out
• 26:18
  how to write that song and how to record that song. And I didn't
• 26:23
  have a Facebook post to just you know, say very quickly and then like
• 26:30
  either standby or regret five minutes later. I didn't have people commenting on it,
• 26:34
  you know. So like I think the way that we observe what we
• 26:40
  put into the world is quite different, you know. It's like I remember
• 26:44
  our manager telling me you got to get a Twitter account, and it was
• 26:47
  two thousand and seven, I think, and I joined Instagram. I started
• 26:52
  using this awful Instagram filters right away because I didn't I didn't have an understanding
• 26:59
  this like what my place was in that world, because I was used to
• 27:00
  creating things slowly instead of just quickly, you know, making a statement like
• 27:06
  you can do all day every day on social media and online. So I
• 27:11
  think that when we talk about May, and when people talk about what kind
• 27:15
  of band May is, if the word emo ever gets used, it might
• 27:19
  sound strange to us when we look at our whole catalog and we look at
• 27:23
  the songs and EPs and albums that we put out over the duration. But
• 27:27
  I think the Destation Beautiful to me, feels like a poppy sort of emo
• 27:33
  album because what I was writing about was a breakup, confusing, a confusing
• 27:40
  time for me in a myriad of relationships with family members, friends, a
• 27:47
  church that I grew up in, a connection with my own dad, and
• 27:52
  so I was really just trying to self express my way through what it was
• 27:57
  like to grow up in Virginia Beach and be confused by a lot of things
• 28:03
  I had seen in my church and in my family life that on my dad's
• 28:07
  side of the family, my parents split when I was really young. My
• 28:11
  dad's uncle, my great uncle, was this He died a bishop. He
• 28:15
  was a pastor of this mega church that had a lot of weird, manipulative
• 28:21
  kind of cultish type stuff going on. And so was your uncle the pastor
• 28:26
  of Elevation Church or Hillsong or something, Well, he would have been if
• 28:32
  that was where he was today. Like this church in Virginia Beach has scandal
• 28:37
  going on like at this very moment, and he passed in the I think
• 28:41
  early two thousands and yeah, like the executive pastor associate pastor of the church
• 28:47
  got arrested for soliciting prostitution just a year or so ago, and a lot
• 28:53
  of money ends up in the hands of these pastors and the people who the
• 28:59
  congregate to tithe they you know, they're just duped all the time. And
• 29:03
  so that was literally in another world at another church that I was going to.
• 29:08
  That was like part of the reason why this girl and I, who
• 29:11
  I loved and she loved me when I was eighteen, we broke up all
• 29:15
  of a sudden because her family and the church got involved. And I was
• 29:18
  a strange for my dad because he was he left our family all of a
• 29:22
  sudden, and so like all these things were going on in my heart and
• 29:26
  in my life at the time, and I just needed to write them.
• 29:29
  And so when I think about destination beautiful. Now, I have an amazing
• 29:33
  relationship with my dad. The whole situation with faith and church and growing up
• 29:40
  in that family dynamic has been healed through conversation and therapy, and I continue
• 29:45
  to kind of write songs that helped me deal with that. And so when
• 29:51
  I when I go back to these old songs, I think, I don't
• 29:56
  I don't really identify with that guy, that twenty year old version of myself,
• 30:03
  But I do appreciate what it took to get through that and write those
• 30:08
  songs so that way I could sort of continue to let level up the experience.
• 30:15
  I guess. Yeah, for sure, that's a that's a really interesting
• 30:19
  point to bring up. It's like that guy was there, he was a
• 30:22
  part of you at one point, um, and it's almost like you're having
• 30:26
  empathy for for the life that was lived there. Yeah, that's very true.
• 30:32
  Um, if we're gonna go all the way there at one point at
• 30:36
  therapy years ago, like during twenty twenty pandemic, tough times for everybody.
• 30:41
  My therapist is like, you get to heal that young dave that you know
• 30:45
  needed, you know, to be hugged back then or something. I've got
• 30:48
  a four year old daughter now, and so I get to experience life being
• 30:55
  a dad, thinking about what life could have been like for her had she
• 30:57
  been in my shoes, and what it could be like if she were to
• 31:02
  be in my shoes at eighteen, at twenty eight, at four, you
• 31:06
  know, etc. So, yeah, like I'll go back to some of
• 31:08
  those songs and it'll feel very very specific. You know, when I'm singing,
• 31:12
  like verse two to the song soun off destination beautiful, It's like,
• 31:18
  I can't I can't make that verse about any other thing than what was going
• 31:23
  on when I was eighteen years old and just sort of navigating through the confusion
• 31:29
  of that that moment. But I've always been really curious about this for people
• 31:33
  who write lyrics, in particular, when when it's this big of a gap
• 31:40
  in life experience and all of that, when you go back to those older
• 31:45
  lyrics, do you actually when you sing those lyrics, are you able to,
• 31:52
  like in a lot of those lyrics, are you able to like think,
• 31:56
  oh, this is how this applies to my life now? Because you
• 31:59
  talked about like son, for example, of there's no way you can think
• 32:02
  about anything else but that particular moment when you were writing that lyric. Yeah,
• 32:07
  are there other lyrics where you were able to like, oh, I
• 32:08
  can think about this in a different way, where this applies more to my
• 32:14
  life now. Is that something that actually happens for lyricists. I think so.
• 32:19
  I think that whether you're a creator, I mean, everybody's creative in
• 32:23
  some way, shape or form. So if you're taking something from your past
• 32:30
  and having to regurgitate it, sometimes you just kind of go into autopilot and
• 32:36
  you just perform those songs. And the song This Time Is the Last Time
• 32:43
  was written about me leaving a lot of manipulative situations that were going on in
• 32:49
  that particular church that I grew up in, and so it was a very
• 32:52
  angsty, heart broken, lonely song. And when May went on tour and
• 33:01
  we played Detroit for the very first time after Destination Beautiful came out, I
• 33:07
  met a guy who used the lyrics to overcome a drug addiction that he had,
• 33:15
  and I had never thought of that as anything but a way to express
• 33:22
  this anger that I had about people in the church. I grew up just
• 33:29
  messing with my life and other people, my friends, their lives, and
• 33:36
  then it just became about a man that I didn't know that would come talk
• 33:40
  to me after a show in the parking lot where may probably played in front
• 33:45
  of, like, I don't know, forty people, and he's like,
• 33:49
  look, I was addicted and I used this song as as an anthem to
• 33:53
  pull myself up. And I'm like, oh wow, I can never really
• 33:58
  go back and think about out why I wrote the song. After he told
• 34:02
  me how that song affected him, It's like it's like the scale tipped,
• 34:07
  and you don't expect that as a songwriter. I think sometimes that when the
• 34:13
  song becomes everyone else's, it can have an evolution and the impact can totally
• 34:19
  change. So, you know, what I needed to do was just express
• 34:22
  something that was really messing with me internally. My soul was damaged because of
• 34:29
  it, and then it became something of hope, you know, and then
• 34:32
  sometimes you just yeah, I think when I'm thinking about lyrics I wrote when
• 34:37
  I was young and then being able to specifically see life through the lens of
• 34:45
  being a father, I was estranged from mine for many years, so my
• 34:51
  dad got married, had me, got divorced in his early early twenties,
• 34:58
  and by the time I would have been my dad's age, after I was
• 35:01
  born, after he had had his divorce, I would have been putting out
• 35:06
  the ever globe. And so a lot of things that I did when I
• 35:10
  was younger, I did them almost in the face of what my dad would
• 35:15
  have done. I would do the opposite. And now that I'm forty one,
• 35:21
  I do almost everything with the idea of I do it because I'm a
• 35:25
  dad, and so I didn't think of it that way when I was younger.
• 35:31
  You know, I would pursue the band and creativity and a career in
• 35:38
  music, saying well, what would my dad do? I'm going to do
• 35:40
  the opposite. And now I think, oh, I'm a dad and I'm
• 35:44
  a musician, and I have the flexibility to be a good dad, Like
• 35:47
  I don't have to I don't have to nine to five it every single day
• 35:52
  and then not see I'm also a single dad, by the way, So
• 35:55
  there's a lot of flexibility that I ended up getting to have as a forty
• 36:01
  one year old single father that came from a rebellion to not be my dad.
• 36:09
  And then I've also been able to have those conversations with my dad about
• 36:14
  that, and so you know that's like a total change in the narrative.
• 36:20
  But when I'm twenty, I'm just I'm just writing about the fact that this
• 36:22
  girl I'm dating has, you know, like we've broken each other's hearts.
• 36:30
  Zach. One of the things that's interesting about you guys playing Destination Beautiful is
• 36:37
  the fact that you weren't on the recording of that album. And it's really
• 36:43
  interesting though, but you and Dave are obviously the longest members, like the
• 36:47
  longest standing members of May at this point, when you go back and kind
• 36:52
  of like play these songs that you didn't record, like, what's a relationship
• 36:57
  with that? That seems interesting When you're playing these songs for all these years
• 37:02
  and you're playing them live, but there aren't they aren't songs that are on
• 37:07
  the studio album. That seems really interesting to me. So I'm curious what
• 37:09
  your relationship with that is. I think that's one of the reasons why I
• 37:15
  enjoyed playing Destinish Beautiful songs to the degree that I do, is because I
• 37:19
  was a fan of the record before I joined the band. I remember listening
• 37:22
  to it because my old band toured with May, and that's how I got
• 37:27
  to know the guys. Initially I was like two thousand dave, I was
• 37:30
  got the year wrong one or thousand thousand two right three that we toured three
• 37:34
  see I get the year wrong. But I was a fan of the band,
• 37:37
  and I grew to like the band more and more after I saw him
• 37:42
  play live and I knew the songs. So when I was able to join
• 37:45
  the band, you know, especially in those initial years when the band was
• 37:50
  still touring on Destinies and Beautiful, I only have a very vague or kind
• 37:54
  of vague concept of what it's like to be unsure of the songs you write
• 38:00
  in terms of performing them and how people take to them. I imagine that
• 38:05
  even if the songs have some sort of success, there's still an insecurity attached
• 38:12
  to those songs, and you know, writing you know, future songs.
• 38:17
  I get that to agree with Demons on obviously a much smaller scale. There's
• 38:22
  just insecurities that always a bound for me personally when it comes to these things.
• 38:25
  I said that only to kind of make a distinction between my experience with
• 38:30
  this intropeatable because I've never experienced insecurities with those songs. I just knew I
• 38:35
  liked them already. So when I got to join the band and play those
• 38:37
  songs, it was kind of like fun. I was like, really cool.
• 38:40
  I was like, oh, this is exciting because I don't have the
• 38:43
  pressure of you know, they wrote, you know, Dave wrote their songs
• 38:47
  and David Mark recorded their songs with Jacob and Rob and others, you know,
• 38:54
  and I don't know what those processes processes involved in terms of people's own
• 38:59
  insecurities. I came to writing music, right, I don't know, but
• 39:01
  I don't have to worry about at all because I was just kind of put
• 39:05
  on and we had I had a great time playing the songs. And for
• 39:07
  me, who I've been playing music already, you know, I was being
• 39:10
  able to kind of just kind of play bigger venues, and for me it
• 39:14
  was all exciting. I didn't really have to deal with the pressures that the
• 39:16
  band were having to deal with whatever they were at the time, which we're
• 39:21
  you know, I don't know if they were at all. But so I
• 39:22
  love playing those songs and there's a simple attachment that I have to those songs
• 39:27
  that is really enjoyable, and you know, it's all positive for me.
• 39:34
  And that changed only slightly with the ever Glow because most of the songs were
• 39:38
  Dave still, but at that time I began writing a little bit more of
• 39:43
  the band. So even that small degree changed my relationship to the ever Glow
• 39:49
  and the songs we began writing or started to write appraditions to Beautiful. So
• 39:52
  for me, it's just like this kind of um detached enjoyment that I got
• 39:57
  to really enjoy. And I you know, it felt kind of aloof when
• 40:00
  I'd be on the road, you know, when initially joined and maybe have
• 40:04
  these discussions and well everything's good on mine and guy's you know, like I'm
• 40:07
  having a good time and trust me, people love what's going on. I
• 40:12
  think I had more of an objective position as well, um in those initial
• 40:16
  years. Um, not that I was wise with those of positions, but
• 40:20
  I didn't really It just wasn't a complicated thing for me yet. Um you
• 40:24
  know, so I kind of have a plegible and very simple attachment to those
• 40:30
  songs still that allows me to enjoy it and in a unique way that's still
• 40:36
  I don't have with the other records that may has done the subsequent records.
• 40:40
  Have you changed anything or have you tried to like spice some stuff up just
• 40:45
  be like, hey, this is good, but it No, I still
• 40:50
  get so nervous playing songs like good Buggy Night because of the tempo um because
• 40:53
  I usually start the song, you know, and I remember and I always
• 40:58
  have a tendency to rush. So I have like these things. I'm still
• 41:00
  nervous about those songs. But nothing substantial at all, but like a different
• 41:06
  you know, note on accord that's like what you know. No, So
• 41:08
  no, I don't change things up at all. I don't think so,
• 41:12
  Dave, unless I have, oh, the summer this the sole of the
• 41:15
  summertime, like that kind of middle section in summertime. I kind of do
• 41:20
  my own thing with and that's always fun and that's kind of involved over the
• 41:23
  years. Other than that, I don't think so it's kind of straightforward.
• 41:28
  No, It's it's like, even though Zach wasn't a part of that songwriting
• 41:32
  and recording process, Zach owns those songs from a performance perspective more than at
• 41:42
  this point someone else who would have played on that song. So if he's
• 41:46
  just got a stick to the script, you know, it's not like we're
• 41:52
  not a jam band, so it's like we're not going to just go off
• 41:54
  the rails. However, if you think about it, if you listen to
• 41:59
  Destination B sides, there's like an alternative version live of this Time Is the
• 42:04
  Last Time, and that would have been as a result of being in a
• 42:07
  band with Zach. That means more to the band maybe then the recorded version
• 42:16
  on Destination Beautiful at this Time's Last Time, because we also have this Time
• 42:21
  is the Last Time remix that we made for B sides. So like we
• 42:25
  were, we were just having fun and all of a sudden, the album
• 42:29
  was done and it was time to go, you know, try to be
• 42:31
  a band and try to play shows, and Zach saved the band. Our
• 42:35
  guitar player who was in before Zach quit twice on us, and both times
• 42:39
  or one of the two times, rather he quit, you know, by
• 42:44
  telling us that his parents were thirty minutes away, and we were like in
• 42:49
  the middle of Pennsylvania and he's like, I'm about to leave the band.
• 42:52
  They were like, well, we definitely don't want to get strained in the
• 42:54
  middle of Pennsylvania. No, no, you don't for any reason. So
• 43:00
  yeah, I mean like Zach was a savior for me at one point,
• 43:05
  so we got to let him have his opportunity to flex on his terms with
• 43:08
  some Destiny's Beautiful staff. Jack the Jesus. If there's anybody that I would
• 43:15
  love to see a flex from, it would be Zach Gary And for me
• 43:19
  it would be Jack the Jesus. Yeah, my dad. My dad calls
• 43:27
  me Jack. And because he mixes up my brother in my name, so
• 43:30
  ye, my brother's name is Josh, So he calls me, he calls
• 43:32
  me Jack. I'm like, yes, I just answer. You know,
• 43:36
  once you start playing the songs live, which just kind of always goes back
• 43:38
  to me. It's kind of unique to mention amazed stories that they had to
• 43:42
  kind of learn to be a band, a live band after the record of
• 43:45
  the songs, and so I think that's a really crazy thing for a band
• 43:52
  to kind of go through at that level when they're so young, to kind
• 43:54
  of, oh, let's go on tour, and you know, the guys
• 43:59
  never or toured before, and so you're playing these songs live, and you
• 44:02
  know how they change over the years once you start playing them, once you
• 44:06
  start realizing some some things work better live, some things don't work better,
• 44:09
  you know, don't work as well live. We played with soundtrack for a
• 44:14
  movie a whole lot put like middle sections in there. So those songs definitely
• 44:19
  grew and evolved, and I was definitely, you know, part of that
• 44:22
  communication and conversation, but it all really took place just kind of in various
• 44:28
  moments on stage where either something happens and it works or something it's like,
• 44:32
  oh that might be cool, so we think about it afterwards. In that
• 44:36
  sense, you know, the songs evolved with the five of us out saw
• 44:39
  that studio environment. But you know, and that was really really early in
• 44:44
  these you know, careers, so they're still learning to be a band amongst
• 44:49
  the five of them, and then one guy left and they had to relearn
• 44:52
  to be a band with a new guy myself. So yeah, it was
• 44:58
  interesting for sure. But again, all my memories of that era who were
• 45:01
  really just kind of you know, white eyed and you know, idyllic som
• 45:08
  Dave, I want to say one thing that I love about me and Colin.
• 45:14
  I would imagine you would test this as well. There are not that
• 45:17
  many bands where when you hear the singer sing, you can like hear what
• 45:24
  like you can hear their accent or like you can hear their actual distinctive voice.
• 45:30
  More so When I hear you talk like in your just regular talking voice,
• 45:36
  I'm like, even if I didn't know who you were, I'd be
• 45:39
  like, that sounds like the singer of May You. Your talking voice is
• 45:45
  so similar to your singing voice. And that's one of the reasons why I
• 45:50
  love me. Like when I first chatted with you, when was that like
• 45:52
  a couple of years ago, when we first chatted on this podcast, I
• 45:55
  was like, oh my god, that really is the singer of may Like
• 45:59
  you talking voice is so similar to your singing voice. There's some sort of
• 46:04
  like register there. I don't know what it is. It's just like similar,
• 46:08
  and I love it. I think it's awesome and it's what makes you
• 46:12
  guys me like, I think it really is what makes you all me.
• 46:16
  I think, thank you. Um so uh just a just a quick dad
• 46:25
  thing. I pick up my daughter Ellie today. I have her Thursday through
• 46:29
  Sunday this weekend, and last time she was over all right. We have
• 46:34
  a cat named Callie, and Callie sees my daughter. She's a little bit,
• 46:37
  you know, she's post toddler, but she can she can raise hell,
• 46:42
  you know, make a big mess. And so the cat runs and
• 46:45
  and but then the cat stops when I talk, and I said, Callie
• 46:50
  will, uh, will come to me when she hears my voice. And
• 46:53
  Ellie goes, she goes just like this, She goes, my name is
• 46:58
  David. And she tried, and I swear she would not have convinced you
• 47:07
  that that was me. My name is David. That is epic. We
• 47:17
  need to get your is it your daughter? Yeah, we need to get
• 47:21
  your daughter on the podcast because clearly she's way funnier than you. Hilarious.
• 47:25
  She's hilarious. Not that you're not funny, David. No, No,
• 47:30
  she's funnier than me. That's a fact that is awesome. Well, I'm
• 47:37
  just saying I really one of the things that I love about bands, and
• 47:42
  I find really endearing about specifically singers, is when you can actually hear their
• 47:46
  talking voices come through on live recordings. And I really do think that comes
• 47:53
  through with like May in particular. Uh, And I just really love that
• 47:58
  about me, Like your voice. You have such a distinctive voice, and
• 48:01
  not only is it a distinctive talking voice, but also like obviously that comes
• 48:07
  through singing wise, and I think it just makes May stand out versus a
• 48:10
  lot of other beans I was really insecure about my voice for a very long
• 48:16
  time, and I wrote a song on our last album, Multisensory called Sing
• 48:23
  and I wrote it to encourage myself to sing more, in to get over
• 48:29
  the insecurity of my own voice. That that was one of the reasons why
• 48:32
  the song was written. And so I have a better relationship with it now,
• 48:37
  more security with it now. But I have to say thank you for
• 48:42
  telling me that, because well, if it matters, there's one, at
• 48:45
  least one person in the world that really likes it. Thank you. It's
• 48:49
  such a clean and pure voice, you know, man, you should definitely
• 48:52
  be proud of it. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, all right,
• 48:58
  so we're at the point now we're gonna give you guys a choice.
• 49:01
  We are going to allow you to choose to either do Top five bands that
• 49:07
  you should like on paper but you don't actually like, or what was the
• 49:14
  other one, Mason bands that you do like but on paper you shouldn't like.
• 49:19
  Or we could do the other one. I mean, we could do
• 49:22
  like Most Hated if we wanted to, or we could do most Hated.
• 49:24
  Let's give Dave and Zach a little example of each one of these okay,
• 49:28
  just so they can like at least get an idea of what we're meaning so
• 49:31
  most hated. For example, I'm not going to give you my most personal
• 49:36
  hated but and I don't know about you, Dave, but Zach, I
• 49:40
  know you really like Taylor Swift. What we have heard from other people in
• 49:45
  the music industry, of the music industry that we interview, they don't like
• 49:51
  Taylor Swift, not necessarily because of the music, but when Taylor Swift does
• 49:55
  something in the music industry, whether it's released an album, do it like,
• 50:00
  do a tour, the whole music industry stops because of her, and
• 50:05
  they don't like her because of that. So that would be a reason why
• 50:09
  they don't like Taylor Swift. Uh. There might be other reasons why you
• 50:14
  wouldn't maybe hate an artist or maybe not like a band. Uh. We
• 50:17
  interviewed a guy recently because he didn't like the who was it was the Offspring.
• 50:23
  He didn't like the Offspring for a variety of reasons. Yeah, So
• 50:28
  I Colin, do you have an example of why you wouldn't like an artist?
• 50:32
  The best, the best thing I can think of is, like,
• 50:35
  you know, you're in the grocery store, and that song comes on while
• 50:37
  you're picking out bread or picking up bread or whatever, and it just it
• 50:42
  like eats it your soul. You're just so angry that you have to be
• 50:45
  subjected to it well. And it's a song that like you constantly hear every
• 50:49
  fucking time you're in that eye. Oh that's really quick. Who wrote that
• 50:53
  song walking to Memphis? Is that Mark Cone? Mark Mark Cohn? Yeah?
• 50:58
  Wow, yeah, I hate. I don't like that song. It
• 51:00
  has something to do with like you working at publics or something like that,
• 51:04
  grocery scores, and they would just always come on and be walking in Memphis.
• 51:07
  I'm like, God, damn it, I would. I hate that
• 51:12
  song. And my friend Logan always sings it to me. He'll he'll always
• 51:15
  send me like that's what we're looking for, But I'm not. I'll tell
• 51:20
  you this before Dave talks about this part this option. I don't want to
• 51:22
  talk about bands that I don't like or I hate, UM, except I
• 51:28
  don't think that what's the song? And that doesn't We could take songs,
• 51:34
  songs work better for you. I have no proximity to to that artist.
• 51:37
  Um, and that's kind of out of my generations previous to my generation,
• 51:40
  so I feel like it's a distance from it. Um So, but go
• 51:45
  ahead, more options are, Dave, if you want to jump in on
• 51:47
  that one, all right, well let's let's let's make it songs. Then
• 51:52
  let's make a little more specific. Yeah, song or artists if you happen
• 51:54
  to have an artist, but song a song would work too. Uh uh.
• 52:01
  There's a band that has actually escaping me, and maybe if Zach talks
• 52:07
  more, I might be able to remember what it is. But like,
• 52:10
  sometimes there's a band that I'm supposed to like and I just don't get I
• 52:15
  don't understand what the appeal is. And it doesn't mean that I hate them.
• 52:23
  It doesn't mean that I even dislike them. It's just right and and
• 52:30
  maybe I tried, but I just couldn't. I couldn't figure out what the
• 52:34
  appeal was. And you know, if I'm honest, and this might this
• 52:37
  might get me in trouble. But there are a lot of bands in the
• 52:40
  scene that I have been a part of as the lead singer of May And
• 52:46
  someone will say, oh, what about that band. I'm like, I
• 52:49
  have never heard that band, and they'll just say, you've never heard that
• 52:52
  band, didn't you tour with that band, I'm like, oh wait,
• 52:54
  yeah I did, And I just never really listened to him the whole time
• 53:00
  it we were you know, like they were probably really in some cases even
• 53:05
  became like good friends. But I can't say that I also listen to that
• 53:09
  band at all, never have And what band is this? Yeah? Well,
• 53:16
  you know I think that it that speaks to a broader kind of question
• 53:22
  I'm interested in. Interested in it's like how often we're willing to listen to
• 53:27
  new bands? And I say that, I guess as a fourted two year
• 53:29
  old in the streaming era, and I don't want to have a conversation about
• 53:31
  streaming, so don't get me wrong, but just the saturation and totally and
• 53:37
  the amount of you know, when music becomes content and it's like okay,
• 53:43
  you don't listen to this, and it becomes this kind of task task,
• 53:46
  and it kind of reorders ourselves to how we listen and consume music. And
• 53:52
  I think there's a dimension of Babla touring because you have a particular relationship that
• 53:57
  is multifaceted to the bands tour with, and there are a lot of presumptions
• 54:01
  and assumptions and practices and and things like that that kind of go into the
• 54:06
  relationships you develop on these tours for bands to bring us out that have So
• 54:10
  I guess i'll say it from a May standpoint, just because of bandbrigs' own
• 54:15
  tour. I do not presume that they like May in any kind of special
• 54:19
  way or listen to May because we're touring with them, And that's just because
• 54:25
  I don't want. I don't take offense to that, just because touring it's
• 54:30
  hard and it's busy, and especially with guys that are in our age brackets,
• 54:34
  your life is just so complicated and complex than you know you you'll need.
• 54:37
  It's not even like it's not even like I would be like, oh
• 54:40
  Okay, I'm going to listen to Span, but wait, never mind,
• 54:43
  I don't want to. It's more just like I don't remember to even put
• 54:45
  them on. And that's one thing I wish Spotify would adjust. I want
• 54:51
  a visual I want a visual record shelf to kind of click. But I'll
• 54:54
  have to say I think that kind of goes into this question as well.
• 55:00
  When it comes to you know what we listened to or don't listen to,
• 55:02
  I'll say this, do you remember the tour that we did that got us
• 55:07
  out to La to make the ever glip. Yeah. Okay, so the
• 55:10
  two bands on that bill, we were saying was right in the middle.
• 55:13
  We remained support the the opener was the Plain White Teas and the headliner was
• 55:20
  Simple Plan. And so that's in like November December of four December five.
• 55:30
  At Christmas, I get a wrapped present from my uncle and it's a twelve
• 55:37
  month calendar of Simple Plan. And on the front, you know, like
• 55:45
  before you take it out of the packaging, the one image that you see
• 55:47
  as a band photo, and one of the guys in the band is wearing
• 55:51
  a Mas for Lover's shirt. Well that's pretty cool. So they're rapping the
• 55:54
  band. You can buy it, you know, at a Hot Topic or
• 55:58
  at a kiosk in them any mall in a Mayor kind of thing. And
• 56:01
  I don't know Simple Plan at all, even though I've already toured with them.
• 56:07
  I might be able to recognize that single that they that they performed at
• 56:10
  the end of every show. But at the end of every you know,
• 56:15
  like you get off stage as an opener of a band on tour at that
• 56:20
  time and you just load your stuff out. You go to the merch table.
• 56:23
  You try to encourage people to buy as much stuff as you can because
• 56:27
  it's how you get to the next city, and you sort of just passed
• 56:32
  through life. I mean, frankly, I was twenty one, maybe twenty
• 56:36
  two years old, so it was like drinking alcohol as a legal adult for
• 56:40
  the first time on a you know, in a city I've never been to.
• 56:44
  So like, there's just things that I'm doing that mean more than like
• 56:50
  checking out the album from the band Simple Plan, or even though even though
• 56:55
  they literally wear you know, one of the members wears my t shirt on
• 57:00
  their calendar and they're so big that they can have a calendar that my uncle
• 57:06
  would find accidentally and then buy for me. And playing White Teas. We've
• 57:10
  been friends with this guy since they were almost a totally different band. We
• 57:15
  tour with them when they were touring Stop, which was like, you know,
• 57:19
  Fearless Records when I was in my old band, right, David r.
• 57:23
  Zeros playing White Teas, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a
• 57:28
  totally different band almost. I don't listen to plain White Teas at all.
• 57:31
  Those are those are both like really great examples of bands that would be on
• 57:36
  paper you should like, But for whatever reason this that the other thing you
• 57:39
  don't, and that's perfectly fine. Mason and I have hundreds of bands like
• 57:43
  that. Yeah, So the on paper thing, I'm trying to think there's
• 57:46
  a band that comes to my mind that I'm supposed to like, and I
• 57:52
  think it's an eighties band or something. Oh, here's an example a band
• 57:55
  that I don't get. The Smiths just don't get it. Wow, Yeah,
• 58:00
  that's good, new one I would have. I would have imagined you
• 58:04
  to have. This is a perfect example of an on paper good On paper
• 58:07
  you should like, but in real life you don't, necessarily, because I
• 58:12
  think there's a lot of people that would draw a lot of comparisons to May
• 58:14
  and in the Smiths, like songwriting style and all stuff. There's a lot
• 58:19
  there's a lot of similarities there. That's interesting because Zach knows that about me,
• 58:22
  Like, yeah, I would like Dave to spend more time with Johnny
• 58:25
  Marr's guitar playing. But that's another conversation because I've never talked to him about
• 58:29
  that. I would say that a band that I really enjoy that I shouldn't
• 58:37
  enjoy on paper, um would be a band like the nineteen seventy five oh
• 58:45
  m, yeah, would be a band and this is more about songs.
• 58:50
  And we've talked about this in the past, maybe on this one of this
• 58:54
  podcast UM the Guilty Pleasured one when we when Chris and I were on UM,
• 59:00
  I think I mentioned Maroon five is a guilty Pleasure. Yeah, we
• 59:04
  gave you some shit for that one, and rightfully so. I there's something
• 59:09
  about some of their songs that and maybe it's a sauce about that I have
• 59:14
  for song for Jane, that was the song that was their earlier record,
• 59:17
  that kind of our first songs about Jane. And you know, it's a
• 59:22
  difficult thing to have a conversation about because I can agree with everything everyone would
• 59:28
  say about five or someone that would be a fan of Moon five. But
• 59:31
  I think there's a lot of great pop music that's put out by artists who
• 59:36
  on paper I definitely should not like. But my appreciation for pop music is
• 59:40
  a result in particularly and a focus kind of cognizant approach to liking pop music
• 59:49
  is only because I was in May for so long, and that's Day's fault.
• 59:52
  Um, I've become such a pop fan and yeah, and so I
• 1:00:00
  think that it goes a lot into my like, you know, a phantom
• 1:00:04
  of Taylor Swift as well. I just kind of realize that, you know,
• 1:00:08
  there's too much fun in pot music to ignore or neglect having because of
• 1:00:14
  weird ethical hang ups that probably exists at the same time in your little indie
• 1:00:17
  underground world as well. So I'm just like, Okay, let's just do
• 1:00:21
  it, you know. But that's an example of a on paper, I
• 1:00:24
  wouldn't like that. Oh one more. I'm sorry, I'm hogging it fan
• 1:00:29
  that I should like, and I still try to like because they have a
• 1:00:32
  lot of records and I'm waiting for that moment where I listened to one of
• 1:00:36
  their songs and get it, and then a whole record that I actually it
• 1:00:38
  clicks and that sonic Youth I cannot. I'm actually right there with you on
• 1:00:44
  that one. I can't understand exactly why I should listen to all their records
• 1:00:50
  yet, but like, I'll listen to Experimental Jet Thrash, whatever that song
• 1:00:53
  or record it's or you know, Teenage Riot. They have great songs,
• 1:00:58
  but as a whole Kim Gordon's book, I'm like, I'm on I'm on
• 1:01:01
  board. No, I just haven't gone to the Red record at the right
• 1:01:05
  time. Yeah, and that's one for me that I feel like I should
• 1:01:08
  really kind of have taken up by now. I totally get that. Yeah,
• 1:01:13
  it's so interesting to think about the artists that again like based on their
• 1:01:17
  sound, based on the genre, all of those things were like, Oh,
• 1:01:22
  that seems to be in line with kind of the thing that I like,
• 1:01:25
  and then also just for whatever reason, can't get into that artist.
• 1:01:30
  It's it's super interesting to me that that is a reality in our lives.
• 1:01:37
  I would imagine anybody that we would interview on this podcast, because they're legitimate
• 1:01:43
  artists, would think through that, because you know, anybody who like doesn't
• 1:01:47
  think about the music they listen to. They just like, Oh, that's
• 1:01:51
  a song in the all that I'm listening to. That's great, wonderful.
• 1:01:53
  But people who like actually care about music and are picky about it to think
• 1:01:58
  through the fact that there are artists that like on paper, I'm like,
• 1:02:01
  I really like that sound or I really like that genre, and for whatever
• 1:02:05
  reason they can't get into it. That's an interesting phenomenon that happens. I
• 1:02:08
  think it probably happens more than we realize. Totally, absolutely, you know,
• 1:02:14
  I think the biggest barrier for me is actually the band name. Like,
• 1:02:16
  if the band name isn't something that like drives with me, I won't
• 1:02:20
  even give him a chance in the first place. Even though like people will
• 1:02:22
  be like, yeah, but they they got like they got these kind of
• 1:02:25
  lyrics, they got this kind of like style of guitar play and all that.
• 1:02:29
  I'm like, yeah, but I mean, that's just a stupid name.
• 1:02:31
  What would be an example of a of a band name that would hit
• 1:02:34
  you like multe like multe aesthetic h experience a really great example of that.
• 1:02:43
  That would be a really great one. A good example would be like um
• 1:02:46
  like slaughter to Prevail. Oh oh, like like on paper, that's a
• 1:02:52
  band that I should definitely like, but like, oh, I hate that
• 1:02:55
  band name, so I'm like, I'm not gonna listen to that personally.
• 1:03:00
  There's there's a whole bunch of emo bands that are like that too. I
• 1:03:01
  mean, I love emo music, but there's just some of the band names.
• 1:03:05
  I'm just like, I'm not even going to give you a chance in
• 1:03:07
  the first place. It's stupid, I know, but it's well, you
• 1:03:12
  know what's funny. It's like, if you think about it, I remember
• 1:03:14
  I used to do this, think about the band name Jimmy Eat World.
• 1:03:19
  Oh, I loved it. I was also like eight years old when I
• 1:03:21
  first started listening to Jimmy Eat World, So I was like, that's a
• 1:03:23
  cool band name. But like, looking back on it, I'm like,
• 1:03:25
  this is a terrible band. It's a bad band name, you know.
• 1:03:30
  And and that's one of my top like thirties or so all time favorite bands.
• 1:03:35
  And I can't get behind the band name Jimmy Eat World for a second,
• 1:03:38
  you know it. And also the acronym is just not idea either,
• 1:03:44
  yea, yeah yeah, So band Smashing Pumpkins. I think it's an awful
• 1:03:49
  band name. Um, I would agree with that. It's just been normalized.
• 1:03:53
  Um. I think the best example is Tool Tool. I think it's
• 1:03:57
  the worst band name of all time. But I love that band that But
• 1:04:00
  that was one that took me forever to get into because I didn't give him
• 1:04:04
  a chance in the first place. I mean, I think the Pearl Jam
• 1:04:08
  is borderline not a good band name, and they're like my top one of
• 1:04:12
  my top you know. I think Poison the Well is a great band name.
• 1:04:15
  I'll always stand by that band name. Um Well, on the inverse,
• 1:04:20
  though, there are band names where I'm like, that's a great band
• 1:04:24
  name and I can't get into the band. But I'm like, I try
• 1:04:28
  the hardest to get into the band simply because the band name is so badass.
• 1:04:33
  Okay, So what's an example. I think Poison the Well is one
• 1:04:36
  of those. I think Stray the Path is one of those band names where
• 1:04:42
  it's just like, that's so badass, so metal, and for whatever reason,
• 1:04:46
  I just can't get into the band. Okay. So Sound Garden love
• 1:04:51
  that band, love that band name. Same audio Slaved for me, Yeah,
• 1:04:58
  same, But I still love the band and well, yeah, there's
• 1:05:01
  something about an audio slave is a tough one because it's just like it's literally
• 1:05:05
  raging against the machine. It's their guitarist of rhythm section. Yeah, everything
• 1:05:10
  I love about raging against the machine. Um, well, I you're you're
• 1:05:17
  gonna be biased because you're communist, So it's okay. Well, no,
• 1:05:24
  I mean I do. I do think um rages in the camp of their
• 1:05:28
  own, but I don't. I love Sound Garden. I'm not a fan
• 1:05:30
  of Chris Cornell as like this kind of he he had these solo records and
• 1:05:34
  you know, I just don't like that approach to his singing as much.
• 1:05:40
  And that's kind of what he did An Audio Slave, But some of the
• 1:05:43
  guitar riffs and Audio Slave are still like really really good. I just don't
• 1:05:46
  like the mix of Chris cornell Um with that band. An Audio Slave is
• 1:05:51
  also not a great band name at all in my opinion. Yeah, all
• 1:05:57
  right, me, what do we want to apply? You guys are gonna
• 1:06:00
  be playing and just just over two months now, I'm looking at the date
• 1:06:04
  right now, just over two months from now, you guys are gonna be
• 1:06:06
  playing and then you guys are going on a whole tour as well at the
• 1:06:11
  same time, Like, what do you want to plug? Also, is
• 1:06:15
  there any new music during that time frame that we can maybe eventually expect?
• 1:06:20
  Cool? We should, right, we should just tell them, tell us,
• 1:06:25
  tell us, just like let let the black here, let me let
• 1:06:30
  me back up for a second. One of my like biggest things, like
• 1:06:33
  one of my biggest goals in life is on this podcast, a band announces
• 1:06:38
  something that eventually goes on Wikipedia as like the definitive, like oh, this
• 1:06:44
  band is has announced in a new album, or this band announced this new
• 1:06:47
  news because of the Black Sheet Podcast. That's my biggest that's my biggest goal
• 1:06:51
  in life. Whenever that happens, we can quit this goal. I'm just
• 1:06:56
  waiting for that to happen. So if it happens to be May and right
• 1:07:00
  now, that would be awesome. Yeah, let's do it. So last
• 1:07:04
  Friday we signed a record deal with Equal Vision. Yeah, and so we're
• 1:07:14
  going to be making a new album very very soon, and we'll be both
• 1:07:20
  celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Destination Beautiful while we hope to have at least released
• 1:07:28
  a song before then that we can play on tour every night. Nice,
• 1:07:32
  I love it is, Zach screaming on it. No, not yet,
• 1:07:35
  well not yet, but we can wait for that though. Yeah, we
• 1:07:42
  still gotta make it. We gotta write a few more songs that we have
• 1:07:45
  to actually make the album. So, you know, at this point when
• 1:07:49
  we're writing an album, I would I would assume, especially because of like
• 1:07:57
  you know, sitting here in the studio where I work on a regular basis,
• 1:08:00
  and what we've experienced together Zach and I over the years. There's less
• 1:08:04
  pressure to make an album now than there was after the ever Glow for example.
• 1:08:11
  You know, now we can lean on our strengths, and we can
• 1:08:15
  own our insecurities, and we can write from new perspective, and we can
• 1:08:21
  write where we feel most comfortable and where we want to be the most stretched.
• 1:08:27
  So we're probably going to have this album at least finished and out of
• 1:08:32
  our hands by the end of this year, like the very beginning of next
• 1:08:39
  year. We're going to be doing a lot of May stuff between now and
• 1:08:42
  then, because, like you said, we will, we will be touring,
• 1:08:45
  and there are plenty of cities in the US that we have an announced
• 1:08:49
  that we're playing that we still hope to hit. We don't have any shows
• 1:08:53
  in the state of Texas, we don't have a Salt Lake City show,
• 1:08:56
  we don't have Pacific Northwest shows yet, and we'd love to hit those.
• 1:09:00
  And then we love traveling over seas, so we would hope to hit Europe
• 1:09:02
  and Asia and keep playing Destination Beautiful when we can. But we are also
• 1:09:10
  looking forward to a brand new May album because we haven't put anything out since
• 1:09:15
  twenty eighteen, and now that it's you know, halfway through twenty twenty three,
• 1:09:19
  we'll be working on a May album this fall. Nice can we can
• 1:09:24
  we expect something like sonically very similar to the last album. Is it going
• 1:09:29
  to be like very like complicated and like lush um like arrangement like it was
• 1:09:35
  like in the last album or is it gonna be more stripped down or do
• 1:09:38
  you want to leave that a secret? No, I think that um I
• 1:09:42
  expressed on one of our we have, you know, like a lot of
• 1:09:45
  artists do these days. We have a Patreon page where we connect with our
• 1:09:50
  kind of more supportive and consistent, rabid fan base. If you will,
• 1:09:58
  I love it. You got a me a rabbit may fan. This guys
• 1:10:00
  are crazy. If I could, I'd try to write and produce an album
• 1:10:06
  that meets up in between Plans by Deathcap for Cutie and Harry's House by Harry
• 1:10:14
  Styles. Yeah, for sure, I like very cool, so poppy,
• 1:10:18
  but yeah, still very introspective and and and for driving a little bit,
• 1:10:25
  I would say still right, yeah, absolutely yeah, So like making get
• 1:10:29
  heavy, making get technical. Yeah, And that's that's something that we've done
• 1:10:33
  I think enough of to where I wonder if we can take the sweetest,
• 1:10:38
  most instantaneous moments that we can create with soundscapes and then give you a song
• 1:10:43
  that makes you feel and you can kind of want to listen to that album
• 1:10:47
  from top to bottom. They used to make albums like that, and I
• 1:10:50
  really would want to encourage us to try to make that album this time around.
• 1:10:56
  Totally. I love it. I'm really really excited for that. That's
• 1:10:58
  something that's it's going to be very, very exciting and I know that it'll
• 1:11:01
  be something that Mason I definitely pre order so down for. Thank you so
• 1:11:09
  much, guys. You guys have been awesome. We love having you on
• 1:11:12
  and we are so so so excited for a Furnace Flast twenty three. Hope
• 1:11:16
  to come hang out with you guys are a little bit before or after the
• 1:11:18
  show. We'd love that. Thank you for having it all. Yeah,
• 1:11:23
  back at you.