Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 830 - Steve Austin (Today Is The Day) on Never Give In and 30 Years of Chaos

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 830 - Steve Austin (Today Is The Day) on Never Give In and 30 Years of Chaos · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  Tell my sons that when it comes to like creativity and art and
• 0:04
  stuff like that, it's like you cannot let business people
• 0:09
  dictate like the things that you make when you are the creator of
• 0:13
  the art or whatever. Because if you do, then the
• 0:17
  original idea of what it is is never going to be able to come
• 0:21
  to fruition because there's always going to be boundaries
• 0:24
  around it of things that you're not allowed to do or whatever,
• 0:29
  you know? So in exploiting that, once we
• 0:32
  had that freedom like that, that's what I mean about.
• 0:36
  That's what enabled being able to make albums like Supernova,
• 0:40
  Willpower, Temple of the Morning Star, in the eyes of God, all
• 0:44
  those things is because I had it straight with everybody.
• 0:49
  Hey, if you like me, then trust me, I'm going to make the very
• 0:54
  best thing that I can make. This is Tom for Ghost Cult and
• 1:04
  it is an honor to be joined by one of my personal heroes, Steve
• 1:08
  Austin, who is the long standing front man of a band that I
• 1:12
  consider to be one of the most vital and creative bands of my
• 1:14
  generation. Today is the day who will be
• 1:16
  releasing their latest album, Never Give In on Steve's own
• 1:19
  Supernova Records on October the third.
• 1:22
  Steve, thank you very much for joining us.
• 1:25
  Hey, Tom, thank you very much for having me, man.
• 1:27
  We really appreciate you and Ghost Cult and I'm psyched to
• 1:31
  hang out with you, Bobby. Awesome.
• 1:33
  No, it's I'm, I'm really excited to get the opportunity to to
• 1:36
  pick your brain about the latest record and, and the band in
• 1:39
  general because yeah, as I say, I'm a I'm a huge today as the
• 1:42
  day fan. Your music has inspired and
• 1:44
  enriched my life for years. So, yeah, it's it's really cool
• 1:49
  to get to hang out before before we get into talking about the
• 1:51
  latest record, I want to say condolences for the loss of your
• 1:55
  former bandmates. Mike Carroll.
• 1:57
  I think that the the music that you made together, those first
• 2:00
  two today, today is the day records are, you know, a
• 2:02
  testament to what a great musician he was.
• 2:05
  Yeah, no, he, Mike was incredible.
• 2:09
  I've said it before and maybe it's because he played music
• 2:12
  with me and I'm biased or whatever, but back in the day of
• 2:17
  those records, you know, I feel David Sims from Jesus Lizard was
• 2:22
  pretty much the one to beat if you were a bass player.
• 2:26
  And I am love David Sims. I consider him one of the best
• 2:30
  in the world, but I always felt like that Mike was in the noise
• 2:35
  rock movement the the, the best of anybody.
• 2:40
  And, you know, I knew him since he was 17 years old when he came
• 2:45
  to the band and so forth. And you know, he went out to
• 2:50
  dinners at my, at my parents house, like on every Sunday and
• 2:54
  stuff like that. I'd take him out there with me.
• 2:57
  Mike was up in Nashville with without any family or anything.
• 3:01
  So we always tried to include him into family things like
• 3:05
  eating dinner together and things.
• 3:07
  And he was there the day that I, we actually went to one of those
• 3:12
  Sunday dinners and I found out that my dad died.
• 3:15
  And so he was, he was there at the moment of me finding out
• 3:20
  about that. And so, you know, you know,
• 3:23
  there's a lot of fond memories from back in those days of the
• 3:27
  first two albums of three punk noise metal, experimental kids
• 3:33
  coming from nowhere that suddenly got to go travel and
• 3:37
  see places that we would have never dreamed of being able to
• 3:41
  go to together and experience it all.
• 3:45
  And I, I was absolutely shocked and devastated when I found out
• 3:52
  of Mike's passing, you know? Totally understandable thinking,
• 3:56
  thinking about those times when it was the two of you with Brad
• 3:58
  Elrod on drums, that original trio that you had.
• 4:01
  Like, I've only had the chance to sort of see clips of you
• 4:04
  playing live and it looks like I can imagine you had these
• 4:08
  incredibly intense performances because I kind of think today's
• 4:11
  the day has always been a really intense project.
• 4:13
  What do you sort of remember about the energy between the
• 4:15
  three of you on stage and the sort of reception that you got
• 4:17
  early on before people really knew who you were?
• 4:19
  You know, the really beautiful thing thing about those early
• 4:22
  days of playing together was there was a really deep
• 4:28
  commitment between the three of us about the music.
• 4:32
  And that commitment extended to a discipline of going to
• 4:38
  practice sometimes seven days a week, at a minimum, like 5-6
• 4:44
  days a week. And these practices were long,
• 4:48
  like we would get together when we would all get off work at
• 4:52
  around about 5530 and we would go from like 6 till till
• 4:59
  midnight regularly, like Monday through Fridays, Monday through
• 5:04
  Saturday. And like I said, sometimes just
• 5:06
  seven days a week because the music was all we had and we
• 5:12
  cared about it. Each person deeply cared about
• 5:15
  it immensely and about being able to do the music justice.
• 5:20
  And so when we would go to go do these shows, the early shows and
• 5:26
  what not, the band was extremely prepared.
• 5:31
  To the point that I remember Tom from Guzzard saying to me the
• 5:36
  first time that we played with them on Clusterfuck tour, which
• 5:41
  was our first tour. You guys, you guys must practice
• 5:45
  a lot because because it was an obsessive thing about really
• 5:51
  trying to do something special for the people that cared about
• 5:56
  the music and working on it. So many hours and so many
• 6:00
  minutes. But because we did do stuff like
• 6:03
  that, the shows were able to be on autopilot where there wasn't
• 6:09
  very much thinking about notes or time signatures or anything
• 6:13
  like that. It was just three super angry
• 6:17
  people getting up on stage and letting it out all at one time.
• 6:23
  And they were wild. It was some definitely wild
• 6:28
  times and playing music. You know, there was a lot of
• 6:31
  hospital visits from getting injured.
• 6:35
  Just crazy things all the time. Just so, so many, so many.
• 6:42
  Like now, today, fond memories, but just trials of just trying
• 6:47
  to be an underground band and with no money and trying to
• 6:53
  travel around and tour in a little old minivan and not
• 6:57
  really knowing what we're doing. Giving our merch away while all
• 7:01
  the other bands are selling it. We're thinking the merch is just
• 7:06
  promotional materials because we love the our fans and, and we're
• 7:10
  happy that they came out and, you know, but you know, it was a
• 7:14
  real, it was a really special time.
• 7:16
  You know, we, we, I feel like in Nashville, in some ways we only
• 7:20
  really had each other. The music scene though, it had a
• 7:25
  really strong underground scene. We were sort of the weirdos a
• 7:29
  little bit. And, you know, so it was just
• 7:34
  the three of us most of the time, you know?
• 7:36
  Yeah, you obviously Today is the Day has got such a long history.
• 7:41
  You've got all these different releases, you've played with a
• 7:43
  lot of different people and you know, every single album, all
• 7:46
  the different players that you've had have all brought
• 7:48
  fantastic playing and and energy to the to the band.
• 7:54
  One of the things that think about the latest record, one of
• 7:56
  the things that always impresses me with Today Is the Day is that
• 7:59
  even though I've listened to all of your music so much, I never
• 8:01
  know what I'm going to get the next time around.
• 8:04
  And Never Give In is no different in that respect.
• 8:06
  I was surprised and delighted when I started listening to it.
• 8:09
  I was like, OK, there are certain kind of like motifs that
• 8:12
  I sort of expect from you. Like I don't really know exactly
• 8:15
  how you would characterize it, but I feel like you've got a
• 8:17
  certain guitar style that's a kind of like you're sort of
• 8:21
  arpeggios are very distinctive. It's almost like a kind of a, a
• 8:24
  King Crimson reminiscent sort of effect.
• 8:27
  But one of the things, as much as I love that, one of the
• 8:29
  things I appreciate would never give in, is that that doesn't
• 8:32
  actually come in until about 3 tracks, I think, into the album
• 8:36
  in a intentional psychological warfare.
• 8:40
  Like the first 2 tracks are very brooding.
• 8:44
  They're kind of understated. We've got all these amazing
• 8:46
  textures going on, like with the electronics and the Moog and
• 8:49
  everything as well like that. So yeah, I was, I was delighted
• 8:52
  and fascinated with like the fact that yet again I'm like,
• 8:55
  oh, I think I know this band, but this is like a new face that
• 8:58
  I've never seen before. Yeah.
• 9:00
  You know, every time I go to create something, whether it's
• 9:05
  music for today's, they are really anything in life.
• 9:10
  I feel like my job is to bring about something brand new that
• 9:14
  you've never heard before. And that's why I like all the
• 9:18
  today's. Today albums are very different
• 9:20
  from one another, sometimes very drastically different from one
• 9:25
  to the next and whatnot. And it isn't like an intention
• 9:28
  of just being different. It's more like an intention of
• 9:32
  being real because, you know, we all change and we all have
• 9:37
  different moments in life and different chapters of how we
• 9:40
  feel. And that gets interpreted
• 9:43
  through sound and notes and music and movements, you know?
• 9:47
  So this album, like the others that I've made, like I, I didn't
• 9:53
  want to hold back about expansiveness, about the way the
• 9:59
  the music would be approached, because to me, the album Never
• 10:04
  Give In is and I, and I know everybody's heard this many
• 10:08
  times, but it's a, it's a whole piece of something where, you
• 10:13
  know, so many sometimes especially like, say if there
• 10:18
  are signature things about a band, you know, people will run
• 10:22
  that right up to the front so that everybody does immediately
• 10:26
  get the message of like, oh, OK, yeah, this is, I just took a
• 10:30
  drink of that. This is Coca-Cola.
• 10:32
  Yeah, that's exactly the way it's supposed to taste.
• 10:35
  And for me about dynamics of an album, it's important to lay
• 10:42
  like the foundation of the record in a way where as the
• 10:47
  story's being told, it's OK to to fall on to those normal
• 10:53
  concepts or normal ways that you play, if that if that is a real
• 10:58
  genuine thing that you're feeling.
• 11:01
  But I feel it's a little bit more daring to go ahead and
• 11:05
  accept reality that this is how you feel and this is what you're
• 11:09
  thinking. And this is what paints the
• 11:13
  picture of the whole album, which is a a collection of
• 11:17
  chapters to it. You know, and you know, I love
• 11:21
  all facets of music. And I think that like for me,
• 11:26
  another thing too, like just like with the lyrics of this
• 11:29
  album, more than ever these days in our day and age of Pro Tools
• 11:35
  and digital and copy pasting and putting records together in a
• 11:41
  computer type way, everything real, thought out, precise,
• 11:46
  calculated. I wanted to make this record as
• 11:49
  stream of thought and stream of conscious as it could be.
• 11:53
  So like song 1 is like this and then song 2 is like this and
• 11:59
  three and the words I'm, you know, I, I made a deal with
• 12:03
  myself when I wrote the lyrics to this.
• 12:06
  You know, you want complete honesty.
• 12:08
  So like, let's not, let's not go back and rethink these word.
• 12:14
  Like when you think it and you feel it and it fits the part of
• 12:17
  the song, then write that down and don't diminish the honesty
• 12:23
  in it. Because in real life you know
• 12:25
  you don't. You don't really get a chance.
• 12:27
  Like you're having a conversation and you say what
• 12:30
  comes to the top of your head. So you don't like constantly
• 12:34
  edit and re edit like what you said, but a lot of the things
• 12:39
  that we're exposed to films and music are edited and re edited
• 12:45
  and thought over again to where the original feeling and the
• 12:49
  original idea that you had in the 1st place gets morphed into
• 12:54
  something else. And so I thought if I was going
• 12:57
  to make a record of that's kind of like a diary of a human
• 13:01
  experience, then the best way that I could just do that is to
• 13:05
  not judge myself about the content of what I'm saying, but
• 13:11
  to safeguard and make sure that if I feel this and it fits the
• 13:16
  part of the song, then I'm writing it down and it stays
• 13:20
  that way. And then the next line and the
• 13:22
  next line. And sure, sometimes, you know,
• 13:25
  some of the lines that I'd make up at first when I would think
• 13:28
  them and write them down, they wouldn't make sense.
• 13:31
  And I'd be like, you know, what the fuck is this supposed to
• 13:34
  mean? You know?
• 13:35
  But then it's, it's funny because when you do it like this
• 13:39
  and you just let the pen flow and write the song, then at a
• 13:46
  later time, you'll come back and look at that whole piece and
• 13:50
  then start to understand the imagery in the picture that
• 13:55
  you're trying to paint. And, and, and you know, and if
• 14:00
  you're, I think if you're doing it well, just everything just
• 14:03
  shouldn't be so obvious to you right up front.
• 14:06
  It might be something that maybe challenges your stream of
• 14:10
  thought and, and like the way that you think about things,
• 14:13
  things for you to formulate your own opinion about, like what's
• 14:18
  going on with this. So I, I definitely can say that
• 14:22
  every single word and every single musical part on this new
• 14:26
  album was made like that. Where it's like we're not
• 14:29
  sitting here thinking about how much money we can make or how
• 14:33
  cool we can be or popular or any other thing like that.
• 14:37
  It's more like a commitment to honesty and music.
• 14:41
  Yeah. I mean, like definitely comes
• 14:43
  through in the record. But you know, hearing you talk
• 14:46
  about that, I kind of feel to go through the process with that
• 14:50
  kind of determination of I'm going to accept the things that
• 14:52
  are coming out of me. That must be quite a vulnerable
• 14:54
  experience and it must take quite a lot of determination to
• 14:57
  go like I'm not going to second guess myself.
• 14:59
  I'm going to allow these things to continue to exist.
• 15:01
  It is. It's very hard because I have a
• 15:04
  perfectionist streak in me too that's really, really out of
• 15:08
  control where it's difficult for me to relinquish works because I
• 15:15
  never feel like anything I do is good enough for myself or really
• 15:20
  for anybody else. And I'm always just feeling
• 15:23
  inferior and that just that it's not good enough.
• 15:29
  And so then when I that's part of why I think I adopted this
• 15:33
  mindset even more so in recent years because it's like, you
• 15:37
  know, you are who you are and you think the things that you
• 15:41
  think right or wrong. And when people admire some of
• 15:47
  the greats like Jimi Hendrix or Miles Davis or whoever, you
• 15:53
  know, they're not admiring those guys for trying to fit in or
• 15:58
  trying to be the cool guy or whatever else like that.
• 16:02
  And it happens to be that, you know, people of Miles Davis and
• 16:05
  they happen to love Jimi Hendrix, but they just as
• 16:09
  equally could not have liked them for not fitting in and not
• 16:13
  really being what you would expect out of a musician or
• 16:18
  player. And so I just, yeah, I, I
• 16:21
  definitely, I definitely have a hard time with it because I, I
• 16:25
  always just want to give my best and make people feel the emotion
• 16:32
  as deeply as I worry when I'm making stuff that like, you
• 16:36
  know, is it, is this the very best I can do?
• 16:40
  But to me as a as a manager of my own art, it's like, listen,
• 16:46
  what is the best? What is the best?
• 16:49
  That meaning, the best? That thing that you can do for
• 16:53
  somebody is to have unfiltered entertainment where they're
• 16:58
  listening to something as a story or a song and they're
• 17:03
  knowing that this isn't a bunch of bullshit that's contrived,
• 17:07
  that it's more like something that somebody is truly feeling
• 17:11
  and sharing that with, say, a stranger or a fan or a friend
• 17:17
  that's listening to it. Yeah.
• 17:19
  I mean, I think that is part of what is so powerful about today
• 17:22
  is the day is the fact that it never feels contrived.
• 17:24
  And it's like however intense or distressing or traumatic the
• 17:29
  music is, it's always like, well, this is an authentic
• 17:31
  representation of a particular experience and feeling.
• 17:33
  And so it's like you, you kind of get, you just kind of you get
• 17:38
  sort of swept in the wave of that of that expression.
• 17:40
  Yeah, it's crazy. And for me, when once the stuff
• 17:44
  is created, as a fan of Today's The Day myself, I get swept away
• 17:51
  in it, especially alive and whatnot.
• 17:55
  The the a musical set by us is like 1 blasting wave of emotion
• 18:02
  starting off from the beginning that carries through all kinds
• 18:07
  of feelings. And I, I have no problem being
• 18:12
  uninhibited and letting it go, warts and all of whatever is
• 18:17
  going because again, it's just, it's part of my heart.
• 18:21
  It's something I feel and love and admire and the people that
• 18:27
  care about it are so dear to me in a world of a lot of
• 18:30
  frustration and hurting and pain and, and trying to find a way.
• 18:35
  I'm doing the same exact thing. And I, I feel like that for
• 18:39
  anybody to relate to me, the only way that they'll ever be
• 18:44
  able to do it is if I just be myself.
• 18:47
  And so I, I, I just got a, you know, give my very best to
• 18:53
  what's going on and let it flow through me.
• 18:56
  Because when I do that, it becomes an experience, and
• 19:00
  that's what I'm shooting for. Kind of like the way that the
• 19:03
  word experience was used with, say, Jimi Hendrix shows or
• 19:07
  something. There's a point where it's not
• 19:10
  notes and chords and words. There's a air that's a air of
• 19:16
  electricity going on and vibe where every time doesn't matter
• 19:23
  and and it's a moment of something happening.
• 19:27
  And I think that in a world where, again, everything is so
• 19:31
  prepared statement and controlled and people playing
• 19:37
  the the majority of the music off of a computer or whatever
• 19:41
  and not even really performing the songs, there's a spontaneity
• 19:46
  where anything could go wrong. Anything could go right.
• 19:50
  Who knows what's going to happen next that that I think we all
• 19:55
  miss in music a lot these days, because the whole musical thing.
• 20:01
  Has turned into such a hard thing to do that capitalism
• 20:06
  about the making the money on it and every other thing is such a
• 20:10
  huge driving factor for so many people.
• 20:13
  And I have the lucky but unlucky part about this of just knowing
• 20:19
  it's like, this is music that's not necessarily made for mass
• 20:24
  consumption and the people that do follow it are there and
• 20:31
  they're deeply devoted and did people pushing you all the time,
• 20:35
  then that enables you to make a record like never give in.
• 20:39
  And that's probably the most proudest thing I am about these
• 20:43
  records and whatnot is that like I, I see the way this whole
• 20:48
  thing is changed in the last 30 something years that I started
• 20:52
  doing this. And I'd go on record to say in
• 20:57
  people could take it as bragging.
• 20:59
  And I guess I am bragging is that if you want underground and
• 21:04
  for what that means of integrity and true to the music and
• 21:08
  whatnot, this is about the most DIY do it yourself experience
• 21:14
  that you're going to get because there are no money minded people
• 21:17
  involved in any of the process of this.
• 21:20
  No one tells me what to do about the musical direction or when
• 21:27
  deadlines about like this and that and everything.
• 21:30
  And so when you get a new Today's The Day album, it was
• 21:34
  truly done on the terms of the artists making it.
• 21:38
  And for better or worse, at least you know you're getting
• 21:43
  something that was homemade and out in a way that's for the sake
• 21:49
  of the art rather than the sake of the dollar.
• 21:52
  Yeah. Oh, that definitely comes
• 21:53
  through thinking about the the players that you have on the
• 21:56
  latest record. So you brought in Colin
• 21:58
  Frecknell and Tom Jack. Tell me about those guys like
• 22:02
  and how they came to be part of the band.
• 22:03
  They've been awesome. You know, around 2000, around
• 22:09
  2020, right before COVID had hit, Tom came on board to do
• 22:18
  bass with me and toured with, toured with me on the No Good to
• 22:23
  Anyone tour with a drummer that's an amazing drummer named
• 22:27
  Vishnu Reddy. And Vishnu, when the pandemic
• 22:31
  hit, he had to go back to India because his visa from where he
• 22:36
  had been going to school at Berkeley School of Music in
• 22:39
  Boston, he had to go back. And his best friend at the time
• 22:44
  was Colin Frecknell. And he and Colin both attended,
• 22:49
  uh, Berkeley. And I ended up recording some
• 22:54
  music of Collins at my studio and when I saw him play drums, I
• 23:01
  was like, wow, like, you know, this guy is like super, super
• 23:04
  gifted and talented, like Vishnu of being schooled and
• 23:10
  unconventional drumming. And so basically Colin got on
• 23:14
  board with us in around 2, the end of 2020.
• 23:20
  And you know, during those years of between 2020 and 2024, this
• 23:30
  songwriting continued on a lot. I wrote like I think almost 2020
• 23:36
  something songs. It was like a hour and 40
• 23:41
  minutes or something like that. It was a lot of music, and so
• 23:45
  Colin and Tom would come into town and cut their parts and
• 23:49
  whatnot, and I'm really, really thankful to have them with us on
• 23:54
  this. We also another like really,
• 24:00
  really great collaboration came about through my friend Dave
• 24:05
  Brenner from Grid Failure and Matt Gullahan.
• 24:11
  Those guys for the song secret police like added like this
• 24:17
  otherworldly dimension with these far out like wretched,
• 24:23
  insane, nightmarish screams with effects and like sense and so
• 24:29
  forth that provide like this psychedelic ambience from Dave's
• 24:34
  ended things. And then Mack, who he's played
• 24:39
  on like let's dance by David Bowie and like all kinds of like
• 24:42
  really amazing artists. He he loves today's today and
• 24:47
  wanted to contribute tracks to it as well.
• 24:51
  And so he got in there and laid down some just just pure gold,
• 24:56
  like trumpet work and what what not to this song to where it's
• 25:01
  one to me. It's one of the most inventive
• 25:03
  songs on the album just because of the the mash up of what do
• 25:07
  you get when you have a Miles David Miles Davis level trumpet
• 25:12
  player with like this extreme artists like on sensing vocals,
• 25:19
  Dave Brenner. And so, yeah, it was, it was
• 25:24
  really nice to have like such a caliber of musicians to work
• 25:28
  with on Never Give In. Yeah, I love the horns on secret
• 25:32
  police. They do have this feel that is
• 25:35
  just something like kind of, yeah, totally sort of alien,
• 25:37
  otherworldly. It's great.
• 25:38
  I love it. Yeah, you don't really hear it.
• 25:40
  It almost takes the song in a different kind of way, a more
• 25:44
  modern kind of way into some amrep territory.
• 25:49
  In a lot of ways it reminds me of some of the kookiness of like
• 25:53
  certain like eclectic songs from back during the early noise days
• 25:58
  and what not where. You mean bands like Cows?
• 26:01
  Something like that. Yeah, like odd elements of our
• 26:05
  instruments were put into hardcore songs or metal songs or
• 26:10
  noisy songs. And but it's just all like, you
• 26:15
  know, it's all there to like, again, just hopefully like
• 26:18
  create something brand new so that so that it makes you want
• 26:21
  to check it out, you know, to try to figure it out.
• 26:24
  Like what what is going on with this with this trumpet part
• 26:28
  going? And then it sounds like
• 26:30
  someone's being like torn apart in the background though with
• 26:34
  like vocals. And you don't really get that
• 26:37
  combination a lot of times, you know?
• 26:40
  Yeah, absolutely. No, for sure.
• 26:42
  Like as I listen through the album repeatedly, it's like
• 26:44
  there are all these really cool textures and different interplay
• 26:47
  that's going on that I feel like is going to keep revealing
• 26:49
  itself the more I listen to it. There's another particular track
• 26:52
  that I wanted to talk about a bit, I Got Nothing, which is
• 26:55
  like, I love how it's, it's so kind of earwormy and infectious.
• 27:00
  Like you've got this this very kind of hypnotic beat and this
• 27:03
  almost like a kind of a mantra. And I don't know if it's if it's
• 27:08
  the Moog specifically or, or other electronics, but you've
• 27:11
  got this kind of like stabbing effect going on the background
• 27:14
  and it feels like it's like slightly slower than the beat.
• 27:18
  So it's like it's just always slightly going out of time.
• 27:20
  And I love that effect. Is am I right?
• 27:22
  It is on purpose like that, yeah.
• 27:25
  The sequence that's doing that is slightly timed off of it,
• 27:29
  where it'll go on and off and on.
• 27:32
  And I, I did that in the studio when I was messing with it and,
• 27:38
  and when I put it on, it didn't sound cool anymore.
• 27:42
  Like when I put it where it would lock right on.
• 27:44
  So that because then it kind of brought it more into like a
• 27:47
  techno realm or something or where it's perfectly like that,
• 27:52
  you know. But then with it way it is, it
• 27:55
  causes you to have this uneasy feeling like you're falling off
• 28:00
  of something or like like like just when you think you're going
• 28:04
  straight ahead, all of a sudden you trip over like a rock or
• 28:08
  something like that. It's got this stumbling kind of
• 28:11
  effect that goes about it. And yeah, I like that song that
• 28:15
  that that was one of the first ones that I made for the record.
• 28:20
  And the idea with that one was to it seemed like that we were
• 28:25
  all inside of this kind of like bizarre digital machine going on
• 28:31
  because the outside world had been cut off as far as you going
• 28:36
  out into the world. So everything that we were
• 28:39
  hearing and seeing and experiencing was coming through
• 28:44
  a screen like in a technology kind of way and life.
• 28:49
  It went from a first person in person thing to a absolutely
• 28:55
  cold and isolated kind of thing. And when you think about those
• 29:02
  words of like, well, how can I explain that or paint a picture
• 29:08
  of that in music? For me, it was like, you know,
• 29:12
  it's, it's electronic like that, like taking electronic tools and
• 29:18
  combining them with the heavy metal type guitars and, and more
• 29:22
  on a scary or spooky kind of vocals, almost as if a person's
• 29:27
  trapped somewhere, trapped in a, in a small room or something.
• 29:32
  And, you know, so but yeah, now that that that song is one
• 29:37
  that's very different than the rest of the album.
• 29:39
  But again, I, you know, when I made it up the you know, I kind
• 29:43
  of thought after I did it, I'm like, well, some people probably
• 29:46
  be like, So what is going on here?
• 29:49
  Like it's like dinner is, is, are we going off into a techno
• 29:53
  realm or something like that? But but no, it's, it's, it was
• 29:57
  more like just tools to get the job done of like painting that
• 30:02
  uneasy feeling of not knowing what's going on and the
• 30:07
  miserable existence of being where you can't truly talk to
• 30:13
  somebody in person about something.
• 30:15
  Everything is just behind this digital veil.
• 30:19
  Yeah, no, I definitely, I feel the atmosphere of that track for
• 30:23
  sure. Something that I want to ask
• 30:25
  you, I don't know if I've really heard you talk about this much
• 30:26
  in interviews, but you know, thinking about the Today is the
• 30:29
  Day record someone to the next for me, it's not just a matter
• 30:33
  of your music that you're creating changing each time
• 30:36
  around. I feel like you make very
• 30:37
  different kind of production choices from one record to the
• 30:40
  next. It's like to go from Temple of
• 30:42
  the Morning Star to In the Eyes of God, Sadness Will prevail,
• 30:47
  Kiss the Pig, like they all sound so different from a
• 30:50
  production point of view. And then, you know, continuing
• 30:52
  on with every album you've done since.
• 30:54
  I was kind of curious to know, do you have like kind of
• 30:57
  particular go TOS in terms of like the way that you record?
• 31:00
  Like whether it's to do with kind of like microphone setup or
• 31:03
  particular kind of techniques, like how how kind of set are you
• 31:06
  with certain techniques versus you going right?
• 31:09
  I'm going to throw everything out the window and just kind of
• 31:11
  like start from scratch from one record to the next.
• 31:15
  I record the it's kind of two different things that the
• 31:20
  recording part is very much in the old school way for, for the
• 31:25
  best way to describe it, meaning like it like all the mic preamps
• 31:30
  and mics and everything like that is like vintage stuff
• 31:34
  that's like really old from like the late 60s and 1970s, like
• 31:39
  knee preamps and API preamps, Neumann microphones, a big
• 31:46
  emphasis on the analog side of things.
• 31:48
  Because for me, out of the history of music and so forth,
• 31:52
  the golden age of audio production was like somewhere
• 31:56
  around the the mid 1990s and what not.
• 32:00
  The analog evolution had kind of reached his pinnacle and peak
• 32:05
  and the all of the equipment that you would record and make
• 32:09
  records with like knees, AP is Neumann's ribbon microphones,
• 32:15
  all these older primitive tools and whatnot that had gotten to
• 32:22
  just like a peak of golden age. And so where this comes from
• 32:27
  about the end result of the production a lot of times is
• 32:32
  more like in the mixing down of the album and the way it's
• 32:37
  supposed to be. Now, depending on how far I've
• 32:41
  went with the analog part of it, like creating my own reverbs for
• 32:47
  vocals, Like meaning you'll have a vocal mic like right in front
• 32:51
  of your face, but then you have another one that's like about 10
• 32:55
  feet away. And the idea is to grab the
• 32:58
  ambience of the room instead of like using a processed reverb or
• 33:03
  something. But then, you know, a lot of
• 33:07
  times, like honestly, in most productions, one of the key
• 33:11
  instruments that dictates sort of the way a record sounds is
• 33:15
  the drums. And you know, so like, if you
• 33:18
  think about like no good to anyone, I, I used a blending of,
• 33:25
  of like analog tones of drums with sampled tones that I had to
• 33:32
  create like more of like a mechanistic kind of drum sound
• 33:37
  on that. But then like on Never Give In,
• 33:42
  I went for full analog with no sampling of any kind.
• 33:47
  And in fact, the only album that I've ever involved samples in
• 33:53
  when it comes to drums isn't no good to anyone.
• 33:56
  But I did that on purpose because I of the drums being a
• 34:01
  really larger than life, kind of very in your face kind of thing
• 34:07
  all the time. And so by using a hybrid
• 34:09
  approach with that, I was able to do that with that.
• 34:12
  But in general, I don't like using samples and I like you
• 34:17
  going for more like room sounds and analog stuff.
• 34:21
  But then in the production, you know, you can take that in many,
• 34:25
  many different directions. You can make things sound more
• 34:29
  metal or you can make them sound more rock or whatever, depending
• 34:35
  on the way you EQ things, the way you want it to come across.
• 34:40
  And you know, some of the earlier albums, though, some of
• 34:44
  the production was dictated by limitations of things because,
• 34:50
  you know, a lot of folks may not realize it, but like, say, for
• 34:55
  instance, like self-titled and Temple of the Morning Star,
• 35:01
  you're talking about 3:00. Well, for self-titled, 2 ADAP
• 35:06
  machines, Temple three ADAP machines, which were these
• 35:11
  digital recorders that ran on these tapes that look like VHS
• 35:17
  tapes. And then for equipment, we're
• 35:20
  talking stuff that anybody right now that plays music whether
• 35:25
  they're signed or not signed or on like SM-57's, very modest
• 35:31
  cheap gear like DBX compressors, very consumer grade level of
• 35:38
  gear, very inexpensive microphones that cost 50 bucks,
• 35:42
  75 bucks or whatever, because that's all I had.
• 35:47
  So like Temple of the Morning Star, you know, it's sound.
• 35:52
  A lot of that had to do with like this board that was called
• 35:55
  a sound craft ghost that had English E QS in it and so forth.
• 36:01
  And I exploited the sub frequencies that that board
• 36:06
  would do with that. That board wasn't though, like a
• 36:10
  really big pro level like board because I had just opened my
• 36:15
  studio around 1996 in Nashville with with this modest gear, you
• 36:22
  know, and then as time progressed and I was able to get
• 36:27
  bigger recordings with other bands and then take some of the
• 36:32
  money from recording them and then putting it back into the
• 36:35
  gear that I really wanted to have.
• 36:37
  You know, it opened me up to, to being able to do big with audio
• 36:42
  and so forth. But also today is the day.
• 36:45
  But when you've only got what you got, you got to like make
• 36:49
  the best thing that you can. And, and I thankfully those
• 36:54
  records worked out really cool, even though they're, there
• 36:57
  wasn't very much money or, uh, equipment involved in them.
• 37:01
  Yeah, for sure. I mean, I guess, you know, it
• 37:02
  goes back to the principle of the necessity as the mother of
• 37:06
  invention. So it's like if you've got a
• 37:07
  creative spirit, you will use what you've got to create
• 37:11
  something artistic. I'm, I'm kind of fascinated now
• 37:13
  that you've brought up this point of, of some of what you've
• 37:15
  done coming out of necessity from a sort of a geekish point
• 37:18
  of view. I'm I'm interested to ask you a
• 37:20
  little question about Kiss the Pig, because Kiss the Pigs, one
• 37:23
  of my favorite Today is the Day Records and I feel like it's one
• 37:26
  of the harshest sounding records.
• 37:28
  So now I'm curious to know, like when you made that in terms of
• 37:32
  the way that record sounds, how much was that actually like you
• 37:35
  adapting to the limitations versus you saying, I want this
• 37:38
  to sound like as grim and noisy and abrasive as possible?
• 37:42
  It was the second one that I want it to sound like that
• 37:46
  because that recording by that time the studio had beefed up
• 37:51
  like quite a bit. I had a studentor 2 inch tape
• 37:54
  machine and a student order inch mixed down deck.
• 37:57
  Probably about 5 full racks of gear and what not by that time.
• 38:04
  This was after recording Lamb of God and a bunch of other bands
• 38:10
  converge and and so like we had really almost no limitation of I
• 38:18
  mean, the you walking into my studio during those years was no
• 38:24
  different than walking into electric lady land or like ocean
• 38:29
  way studios or something meaning student or knee Fury AP all this
• 38:35
  stuff like the high end of audio.
• 38:38
  But it's it's like about a philosophy though, meaning like
• 38:42
  when I did kiss the pig, you know, like you were saying about
• 38:46
  how one goes from the other and and then I was saying I don't
• 38:50
  like to repeat the same trick twice of whatever it was that I
• 38:54
  did. You know, if you look at that
• 38:57
  quad of Relapse albums, Temple of the Morning Star, it was sort
• 39:04
  of like a super heavy experimental noise adventure.
• 39:10
  And so there's a lot of like subsonic low.
• 39:13
  And there was an element almost of like an analog industrial
• 39:18
  thing going on with that. And then right after we got
• 39:23
  through doing that, I thought about music a lot about just
• 39:27
  what was going on at the time, what wasn't going on at the
• 39:31
  time? What was I not hearing that I
• 39:33
  wish I could hear? And I dived off into this huge
• 39:39
  thing of tripping out on Slayer and a lot of like speed metal
• 39:46
  and earache music and so forth. And by this time, oddly enough,
• 39:53
  1999, a few things going, one, I felt like that wasn't as cool
• 39:59
  anymore because it had been going on through the late 80s
• 40:03
  through the early 90s and you weren't really hearing bands
• 40:08
  trying to like break new ground with speed metal and and things
• 40:14
  like that at the time and so. I set out doing that one with
• 40:20
  like, let's try to like open a new trap chapter in music of
• 40:25
  using noise and metal with like speed metal type ideology or
• 40:30
  whatever behind it. And then right after that, umm,
• 40:35
  not wanting to, you know, just go and retread it again.
• 40:39
  I with Sadness Will Prevail felt more like like maybe it would be
• 40:46
  clear. And so the production for it was
• 40:49
  like really dirty and heavy, almost like some of the
• 40:53
  production on early black metal albums and things like that
• 40:57
  where it's not supposed to be pristine, perfect.
• 41:02
  Like, it's supposed to be really gnarly and dirty and nasty to
• 41:07
  kind of get the message across about what the album's about.
• 41:11
  And then and then right after making that slow, murky, dirty
• 41:16
  thing, I wanted to got fascinated with grind a lot and
• 41:24
  just grinding, period. And I was like, you know, sort
• 41:30
  of like, well, we dabbled in the speed metal realm.
• 41:36
  What if we like up the ante and like take it to like real hyper
• 41:42
  fast grinding elements like with with the Today is a day sound?
• 41:48
  And you know, Mike Roswag was a brutal grinder.
• 41:54
  I mean he could grind and and play shit that like it just to
• 42:00
  me seems so much more rawr in an intense than a lot of the others
• 42:05
  say bands that dabbled in grind at the time with the way he
• 42:10
  played. And so it fit perfect with these
• 42:13
  unconventional chordal structures and music and
• 42:17
  writing. That was on the Kiss the Pig
• 42:20
  album. You know, that album is really,
• 42:24
  really fucked off album. And I mean, if you think about
• 42:30
  the time period of when that was made, that was like a, it was
• 42:35
  really made about, it's the writing of it started about one
• 42:39
  year after 911 and the Iraq war starting.
• 42:44
  And so there was this like just pissed off shit going on about
• 42:52
  just the way everything is going, almost like the
• 42:56
  government had gotten out of control.
• 42:58
  We're in wars that don't make any sense.
• 43:01
  We're talking about weapons of mass destruction that don't even
• 43:04
  exist. We've got people dying in
• 43:07
  buildings, getting collapsed to the ground.
• 43:11
  We have a sense of general fear and terror going on because the
• 43:16
  media ramping it up so much all the time, acting as if when you
• 43:21
  go to the gas pump, you know someones going to do a suicide
• 43:25
  bomb right there or something. And so, you know, I was
• 43:31
  definitely feeling that too as a person just trying to find my
• 43:38
  way through life. I have gotten married within the
• 43:41
  the few years prior to this and just had my first kid like in
• 43:47
  2001, only a few months before 911.
• 43:52
  And so his whole birth and being alive was like right when all
• 43:59
  this stuff was going on. So if you could imagine trying
• 44:03
  to raise a child and, and you know, you're presenting a world
• 44:08
  that is safe and loving to them when everything around you is be
• 44:17
  scared something's going to get you, someone's going to get you,
• 44:23
  you know, it was just like, you know, I'm sick of this shit.
• 44:27
  It's like I, I, I've got to get this out of me.
• 44:31
  And so like, all that stuff is just really bare knuckle
• 44:36
  hardcore type of feelings being pummeled out through grind beats
• 44:41
  and double bass and you know. Well, yeah, I mean, I fucking
• 44:45
  love it. Oh, thanks, Claudie.
• 44:47
  Yeah, no, I was really proud that album.
• 44:49
  It it's sonically, it's funny because everything, you know,
• 44:54
  music is like, I think time and place, the right time, the right
• 44:58
  place and everything. And you know where where I'm
• 45:03
  always doing something different.
• 45:05
  It might not fit in exactly at that minute or whatever.
• 45:09
  And I think when that record came out, it was so hateful and
• 45:13
  insane and crazy that but yet it had that blending of the
• 45:19
  noisiness to it where you're straight up grind freaks might
• 45:24
  be like, you know what's going on with this or whatever.
• 45:27
  Like it's not just all guttural low vocals and whatnot or not
• 45:33
  all streamlined like distorted guitar sounds.
• 45:37
  They're more like exploding kind of sounds.
• 45:40
  And then you go back years after and listen to that and in a lot
• 45:44
  of ways it is just like a, a really big fist knocking some
• 45:50
  teeth out. Like it's a really, I don't
• 45:54
  know. I mean, I hate to say it because
• 45:55
  it's something that I've been a part of making, but it I, I
• 45:59
  think for what that record is it if you like things that are off
• 46:03
  kilter that involve speed metal and and grind and whatnot like
• 46:07
  that, that that record is really fucked up and cool in a way.
• 46:12
  For sure, man. And I think like this is a thing
• 46:13
  that I've thought to myself and I've said to other people about
• 46:15
  why I like today is the day so much is that it's like I feel
• 46:18
  like from one record to the next, you'll defy expectations.
• 46:21
  So it's like I love Temple of the Morning Star.
• 46:23
  I love the sound of it, but then I love the fact that where you
• 46:25
  went next with In the Eyes of God was different and Sadness
• 46:29
  Will Prevail is possibly my favorite album that you've done,
• 46:32
  and that's completely different. And then Kiss the Pig is just
• 46:35
  again, in a completely different direction again.
• 46:37
  So I just love the fact that it's like there's no sort of
• 46:39
  going like, oh, people liked this, I'm going to do more of
• 46:42
  this. It's like, no, no, this is what
• 46:44
  I'm going to do at this particular point.
• 46:46
  There was a pivotal moment in the history of doing this that I
• 46:52
  think set the stage. And it's one of my my most
• 46:56
  important moves I made that I'm most proud of.
• 47:00
  And I've I've told my sons this too, about just a philosophy
• 47:05
  about things of what I feel is, you know, like important when
• 47:10
  you go about doing things like this was that early on down in
• 47:13
  Nashville when we made the How to Win friends and influence
• 47:17
  people demo? You know, we were naive about
• 47:21
  anything to do with anything about the music business.
• 47:25
  We knew absolutely nothing about it other than what we'd seen in
• 47:30
  movies or stuff like that. A movie about somebody famous
• 47:36
  that was on the Doors or whoever on a record label or something.
• 47:40
  We didn't know anything about any of that stuff.
• 47:43
  It only seemed to us like on a real primitive level, Like you
• 47:47
  make a demo, you mail it out, somebody might like it.
• 47:52
  When they like it, they like what you do, and then they want
• 47:56
  you to record it and they want you to put it out.
• 47:58
  And then this is how it all works.
• 48:01
  And I found out really quick when we sent that demo out
• 48:06
  because like for the first three months that that cassette had
• 48:11
  been sent out, there was nothing but passes on it of like
• 48:16
  Caroline Records. Thank you very much for sending
• 48:20
  this. But you know, we're all good
• 48:22
  right now. And after about 3 months, four
• 48:27
  things happened, starting with a letter from Jello Biafra to me
• 48:34
  where I had sent him the record at Alternative Tentacles and he
• 48:39
  didn't have the ability to put it out at the time and felt
• 48:43
  woeful about it. And then, but then wrote this
• 48:47
  handwritten letter to me explaining how important the
• 48:51
  music was and that for no, for no reason to not stop doing this
• 48:58
  because you're on to something. And I want to see this happen.
• 49:03
  And so that blew my mind because I was just a kid living in a
• 49:08
  warehouse. I couldn't believe that one of
• 49:12
  my heroes about not only music but about free speech and art,
• 49:18
  most importantly wrote me and showed that kind of admiration.
• 49:23
  I didn't even care that Alternative Tentacles couldn't
• 49:26
  sign us at the time. It just his approval of it made
• 49:29
  me really happy. And then within about a two or
• 49:33
  three weeks span of time we got letters from Earache, TVT and
• 49:39
  AMRAP and they all were were way receptive and wanting to sign
• 49:47
  the band. So suddenly we had like 3
• 49:49
  different offers TVT at the time and just put out Head Like a
• 49:53
  Hole by 9 Inch Nails and I really love that album.
• 49:58
  I saw them on that album and it blew my mind.
• 50:02
  And so that they were a contender.
• 50:05
  And then with Amrep, everybody in the band loved Helmet, the
• 50:10
  Melvins, Boss Hog, you know, all these cool AMRAP bands and what
• 50:16
  not. And so that was a contender.
• 50:19
  And then like a dream come true, the other spectrum that we were
• 50:24
  way into, which was Earache, they wrote and said the same
• 50:28
  thing of of wanting to check this out and let's get this
• 50:33
  going. And so we're like on top of the
• 50:36
  world thinking like, Oh my God, like we had three months of
• 50:40
  people saying no. And, you know, and then all of a
• 50:44
  sudden now like our hero labels, the ones that we really looked
• 50:48
  up to wrote us back and want to do more.
• 50:52
  And so the first thing we did was we went up to CBG BS in New
• 50:57
  York City. And again, your fantasies are
• 51:00
  always different than reality. You know, you were the kids from
• 51:04
  Tennessee. We're going to CBG BS in New
• 51:07
  York to play this showcase show for Earache Records.
• 51:12
  Oh my God. And we're expecting, you know,
• 51:16
  to go there. This legendary club, there's
• 51:18
  going to be all kinds of people and it's going to be crazy.
• 51:21
  And we get there and there were like 6 dudes.
• 51:25
  It was the, the dude from Earache, Jon Vederhorn, oddly
• 51:31
  enough, this famous Music Writer.
• 51:34
  And I want to say the other four people were also something like
• 51:40
  that. And, and, and so it's very odd.
• 51:43
  You know, it kind of freaked us out at first when we went there.
• 51:45
  It's like, wow, there's it was a Sunday matinee at like 3:00 in
• 51:50
  the afternoon and, and so we played, we went crazy.
• 51:55
  I thought the show went perfect. I had ran into a wall on the
• 52:00
  very first note of that set, busting my ear into the wall and
• 52:05
  blood was coming out of my ear and I did something else where
• 52:10
  my pant leg got hooked on something and it ripped my outer
• 52:15
  seam of my pants all the way from my hip down to my foot.
• 52:19
  So I had this bizarre pant leg like hanging off of me or
• 52:23
  whatever with my bare naked leg. And like it was, you know, I was
• 52:28
  real satisfied with that and we got through and I'm thinking
• 52:31
  like, man, if we want to do this earache thing, it I think it'll
• 52:35
  be in the bag because we we killed it.
• 52:38
  And so I got, you know, I talked to the guy from Earache and he's
• 52:42
  like, OK, when you get back home, you know, I can fill you
• 52:45
  in and all this stuff. And I got back home and the
• 52:48
  first thing right off the bat was the way the band is like now
• 52:55
  you got this, you got this How to win friends and influence
• 53:00
  people demo. And then you got this 7 inch.
• 53:04
  No, it was a it was actually a cassette of I've been Scared and
• 53:09
  Come on down and Get Saved that I had recorded.
• 53:12
  And the production values on those two different things were
• 53:17
  very different. Like the How to win friends and
• 53:19
  Influence people was on purpose industrial sounding with the
• 53:23
  drums to be mechanistic sounding.
• 53:26
  And then the the cassette was super and basically saying like,
• 53:32
  well, if we were going to work with you, like, you know, we
• 53:35
  would want you to sound like the how to win friends and influence
• 53:39
  people thing instead of this other thing and this organic
• 53:44
  thing. And that hit me really weird
• 53:48
  because I thought like, how the fuck are we going to be able to
• 53:53
  make something brand new and different if before we've even
• 53:58
  released a regular album on a label?
• 54:01
  You've got it in your head that, OK, you guys are the industrial
• 54:06
  guys. That's the way you need to be.
• 54:08
  That's your angle. You can't be the Jesus Lizard
• 54:15
  wizard or shellac or like whatever kind of analog sounding
• 54:19
  thing if you wanted or some other thing, we've got it.
• 54:23
  We know what's best for you. And so we paused on that and it
• 54:28
  was really disappointing because I was just like, this is crazy,
• 54:32
  man. That's like a dream come true.
• 54:34
  And I can't believe that these dudes want to basically tell us
• 54:37
  what to do. And so when we had our next
• 54:42
  meeting about something like this, this was the the AMRAP 1.
• 54:46
  And I said to the guys in the band, I was like, OK, we're
• 54:52
  about to walk across the street to the convenience store.
• 54:56
  There's a pay phone on the wall. I'm going to put some quarters
• 54:59
  in this thing. I'm going to call Tom Hazel
• 55:02
  Meyer at AMREP, but I'm going to let him know what is up before
• 55:07
  we even go any further. And you have to keep in mind
• 55:12
  with me saying that like that, I am nobody.
• 55:15
  I am 25 years old. The brokest person on planet
• 55:21
  Earth eaten packages of $0.50 hot dogs at this little
• 55:27
  convenience store. I have literally no ground to
• 55:30
  stand on. But when I called Amrep and
• 55:35
  asked to speak to him, they put him on the phone.
• 55:37
  He was probably shocked at first because instead of a cordial,
• 55:41
  like, like, hi, how's it going? It's Tom Haselwyer.
• 55:45
  Amrep. Hi, Tom.
• 55:46
  My name's Steve. I'm from today's today.
• 55:48
  Hey, buddy, you got what, a great label.
• 55:50
  But, you know, it's like he literally answered the phone and
• 55:53
  was like, like Tom Hazelmeyer and I was like, Tom.
• 55:58
  Yeah, Hi, it's Steve. I'm from Today Is The Day.
• 56:02
  Now check this out. I got your letter here and you
• 56:05
  wrote me saying that you're into this.
• 56:08
  Now I just want to get a few things out of the way before we
• 56:10
  even talk. One more second.
• 56:12
  If you were to work with us, we are in control of the sound, the
• 56:17
  audio, the art, the music, the lyrics, the imagery.
• 56:22
  Every element that has anything to do with art, we are 100% in
• 56:28
  control of that. And you would not be able to say
• 56:31
  anything at all about anything that we do.
• 56:35
  And if you ain't good with that, then we ain't got nothing else
• 56:38
  to talk about. And I was expecting after a
• 56:42
  short, short pause where he didn't say anything for him to
• 56:46
  be like, cool, Well, then go fuck yourself.
• 56:50
  Like, you know. And instead he came back with
• 56:55
  Bub. I don't care what you do.
• 56:58
  If you want to record a fucking faucet dripping and it somehow
• 57:01
  means something or is cool, then that's fine with me.
• 57:05
  I don't give a fuck. And I was like, well, then I
• 57:10
  guess we can talk about some more stuff then.
• 57:13
  And that moment, right that second, is exactly what enabled
• 57:20
  and created. Today is the day to be what it
• 57:23
  is today. Because a lot of people in
• 57:27
  Chasing Money would have been more than happy to laugh at all
• 57:32
  the right jokes, dance around for whoever in whatever way they
• 57:38
  want them to dance, do whatever they want, just as long as they
• 57:42
  can get the record deal. And we were willing to put it on
• 57:46
  the line of we would rather have no record deal than for this
• 57:51
  great idea to get ruined. And the great idea being musical
• 57:57
  freedom, the ability to take music, tear it apart, put it
• 58:02
  back together in different ways and put it out there.
• 58:06
  And then if after doing that one you have a feeling that it needs
• 58:11
  to be this other way, then you can just do it that way or do it
• 58:16
  this way. And I, I told, you know, like I
• 58:19
  said, I tell my sons that when it comes to like creativity and
• 58:23
  art and stuff like that, it's like you cannot let business
• 58:29
  people dictate like the things that you make when you are the
• 58:32
  creator of the art or whatever. Because if you do, then the
• 58:37
  original idea of what it is is never going to be able to come
• 58:42
  to fruition because there's always going to be boundaries
• 58:45
  around it of things that you're not allowed to do or whatever.
• 58:49
  And you know, so in exploiting that, once we had that freedom
• 58:55
  like that, that's what I mean about.
• 58:57
  That's what enabled being able to make albums like Supernova,
• 59:02
  Willpower, Temple of the Morning Star in the eyes of God, all
• 59:06
  those things is because I had it straight with everybody.
• 59:12
  Hey, if you like me, then trust me, I'm going to make the very
• 59:17
  best thing that I can make. I will never play ball with you
• 59:21
  about giving you some kind of product or something like that.
• 59:25
  That's expected. And the last thing in this long
• 59:28
  winded thing that I'll say about it that proves that I was right
• 59:32
  is that when I made Temple of the Morning Star, you know,
• 59:35
  getting on a label like Relapse. And again, you have to remember
• 59:40
  time period, this is the beginning of Relapse.
• 59:43
  This is not years into it. This is when they went from an
• 59:48
  apartment putting records together to where they had just
• 59:53
  got a building to put this into. And we're just now starting to
• 59:58
  do it. Neurosis had just got signed to
• 1:00:01
  it. It's like the majority of the
• 1:00:03
  bands that were on Relapse at the time were very extreme type
• 1:00:09
  of. Like Mortician and things that
• 1:00:12
  are just crazy, brutal death metal grind.
• 1:00:15
  And so when I made Temple of the Morning Star, the guys who own
• 1:00:21
  the label, they absolutely got it.
• 1:00:24
  Several other people I think did not get it of understanding like
• 1:00:29
  the connection of why do you guys want this band on this
• 1:00:34
  label? Because these dudes are not like
• 1:00:38
  straight up Meshuggah or some other heavy band.
• 1:00:42
  This is some really weird shit, you know?
• 1:00:45
  And one dude in particular was like, I think they had like a
• 1:00:50
  vote or something where they had 17 people now working and 16 all
• 1:00:57
  gave the thumbs up. And the one dude said I don't
• 1:01:02
  like this shit. And so to Fast forward through
• 1:01:06
  this Temple comes out. It winds up being the number 8
• 1:01:10
  metal album of the year on Terrorizer magazine and all
• 1:01:13
  kinds of other things. Tours with Melvin's Napalm
• 1:01:17
  Death, all kinds of crazy things, really amazing, great
• 1:01:22
  things coming from it. And and so it's round two time
• 1:01:27
  to make album #2 for Relapse, which was in the eyes of God and
• 1:01:31
  and I will never fucking forget me turning in in the eyes of
• 1:01:37
  God. And then the report back say
• 1:01:41
  from that dude being, well, this isn't like Temple of the Morning
• 1:01:45
  Star and it's like Tom motherfucker, see, this is
• 1:01:50
  exactly what I'm talking about is I gave you Temple of the
• 1:01:56
  Morning Star and you looked at me as if I'm fucking nuts.
• 1:02:02
  And then it comes out, people admire and love and care about
• 1:02:09
  it in a big way. And then when I come back and do
• 1:02:13
  something progressed from that, that's different now you want me
• 1:02:19
  to make another Temple of the Morning Star back-to-back like
• 1:02:23
  that? And I think that shit happens in
• 1:02:27
  music all the time where you have just a little bit of
• 1:02:31
  success with some angle of something and then for that
• 1:02:36
  moment forward, all the business people want you to clone
• 1:02:42
  yourself and keep making exactly the same thing, which is not an
• 1:02:47
  honest, true artistic expression.
• 1:02:50
  And that doesn't fall within my wheelhouse because I I cannot do
• 1:02:56
  stuff like that. It I look at this shit is just
• 1:02:59
  like making movies. It's always been to me linked to
• 1:03:05
  like the idea of making movies and you look at like Quentin
• 1:03:10
  Tarantino movies from the 90s. You know, 1 moment it's
• 1:03:14
  Reservoir Dogs and guys in a building that are all dressed in
• 1:03:19
  the same outfits. The next moment it's some
• 1:03:23
  bizarre tale of a boxer and drug kingpin.
• 1:03:28
  And then the next one is an Old West thing or something.
• 1:03:34
  And you know, it's like, it's like the idea is to take you
• 1:03:38
  somewhere you've never been before.
• 1:03:41
  So if you can't have artistic freedom to create those things,
• 1:03:46
  then how are people ever going to get like the quality of true
• 1:03:51
  human emotion or something like that?
• 1:03:53
  It just seems like you're role-playing or being phony or
• 1:03:58
  fake or something like that. So it it, and by the way, it
• 1:04:03
  isn't like it's the greatest thing for you if you are hugely
• 1:04:06
  into selling records or something like that.
• 1:04:09
  I'll be the first to admit it, of owning a record label.
• 1:04:13
  I could see it be absolutely fucking frustrating because if
• 1:04:18
  you invent a product and it's really amazing, like you're,
• 1:04:22
  you're the first guy to invent a portable vacuum for your car
• 1:04:26
  that'll fit inside, inside your pocket.
• 1:04:28
  And then the next thing that you invent is a new kind of like
• 1:04:32
  lawnmower or something. It has nothing to do with the
• 1:04:36
  other thing. You can't really rely on the
• 1:04:39
  audience that bought the portable vacuum because it, you
• 1:04:43
  know, so it, I get that, you know, but I think we need to,
• 1:04:48
  when it comes to art and music, care less about numbers and more
• 1:04:54
  about quality and trueness of like what somebody is really
• 1:05:00
  saying or doing. Steve, I love it.
• 1:05:02
  It's a great story. It's a great insight and yeah,
• 1:05:06
  inspiring as well. I'm going to let you go, but I
• 1:05:08
  just wanted to ask you one last question.
• 1:05:09
  Thinking about the release of Never Giving.
• 1:05:12
  I know you've got some shows lined up.
• 1:05:14
  I think you're going to be playing with Primitive Man, who
• 1:05:16
  I fucking love as well. What have you got lined up in
• 1:05:18
  shows and is there a possibility that we'll see you in Europe
• 1:05:21
  promotion? No, I'm really psyched.
• 1:05:24
  We're going to be hitting the road in the middle of November
• 1:05:28
  on a headlining trek from Maine out to Los Angeles, which will
• 1:05:34
  then start the Primitive Band portion of the tour.
• 1:05:38
  And I've been a huge fan of them ever since they started, played
• 1:05:45
  shows with Ethan and Primitive Band and been absolutely blown
• 1:05:52
  away by their £1,000,000 ton of Corrosive, the metal coming down
• 1:06:00
  on my head and chest when I watch them play.
• 1:06:04
  And I just did a tour a month ago with Ethan with his project
• 1:06:11
  called Spiritual Poisoning. And it was so great to get to
• 1:06:15
  hang out with him, catch back up with him.
• 1:06:19
  And so we're going to be on that tour from mid November all the
• 1:06:23
  way till I believe December 21st or 22nd right before.
• 1:06:28
  So it's, it's a lot of shows. I believe it's close to 3538
• 1:06:33
  shows or something like that. And then as far as Europe goes,
• 1:06:38
  R8 has been in contact this about this during federal season
• 1:06:45
  and so far. So I'm hoping to be able to come
• 1:06:48
  over during that time. I believe Rd.
• 1:06:52
  Burn may be in is in the cards for this next year and you're up
• 1:06:57
  and so forth. I miss being there because I've
• 1:07:00
  had some really amazing times and miss my European brothers
• 1:07:04
  and sisters. So hopefully we'll get to be out
• 1:07:07
  there like in spring of 2026. Sounds great.
• 1:07:12
  Well, Steve, thank you again so much for your time.
• 1:07:14
  Thank you for the music. It's always great to talk to
• 1:07:17
  you. And yeah, I love what you do.
• 1:07:19
  You're an inspiration. So yeah, I just keep being
• 1:07:23
  yourself and keep doing what you do.
• 1:07:25
  Well, thank you, Tom, and I appreciate it and I appreciate
• 1:07:28
  every single person who's been part of the Today's Day
• 1:07:32
  experience. I I consider you and everybody
• 1:07:35
  else part of the band because we're all in.
• 1:07:38
  Today is the day in a lot of ways.
• 1:07:41
  And you know, I'll never, I'll never ever stop doing it about
• 1:07:46
  trying to make hopefully some things that we can try to figure
• 1:07:50
  out this whole existence about so.
• 1:07:52
  I love it and I feel it. Steve.
• 1:07:54
  Thank you so much. Until next time.
• 1:07:55
  Well. Thank you Tom, have a great day
• 1:07:58
  and my all my love to ghost cult Thank you.
• 1:08:01
  Thanks a lot.