Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 779- Brendan of The Nocturnal Affair on Touring with Wednesday 13 and Drowning Pool, and More

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 779- Brendan of The Nocturnal Affair on Touring with Wednesday 13 and Drowning Pool, and More · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  A lot of people out here believe if you build it, they will come.
• 0:02
  And that's not how it works. You have to bust your ass.
• 0:06
  You have to be real to the music.
• 0:07
  You have to take care of your producer and your engineer and
• 0:10
  your bandmates. You have to put in the time with
• 0:12
  live, you know, live performances.
• 0:14
  You have to build your audience. You have to, like, have a proper
• 0:18
  product. You have to have the proper
• 0:19
  look. But at the time, I was like, oh,
• 0:21
  if I record this song, we're going to get signed.
• 0:23
  And then, you know, it's like, it's like what everybody thinks
• 0:26
  being in a band is, you know, we hadn't even toured yet.
• 0:28
  And I'm thinking, yeah, Mike's going to hear this and he's
• 0:31
  going to just sign us like it's the 80s, and then we're set.
• 0:34
  And that's not how it is. What's up everybody?
• 0:43
  It's Kefi at ghostcultmang.com. I'm super stoked to be joined
• 0:46
  for the first time ever by Brendan from The Nocturnal
• 0:49
  Affair. How are you doing?
• 0:50
  How? You doing?
• 0:50
  Thanks for having me man. Yeah, Las Vegas based.
• 0:53
  Are you from Las Vegas proper? Originally, I'm from Boston.
• 0:57
  No shit, I lived in Boston for a long time.
• 0:59
  It's wild that we have never met.
• 1:01
  When did you? Grow up there in Vegas, which is
• 1:04
  why I could pronounce my Rs wicked smack over there.
• 1:07
  And spent a lot of summers back East, a lot of winters,
• 1:10
  holidays, bar mitzvahs, funerals, weddings, you know,
• 1:14
  you know how it goes. Quinceaneras.
• 1:17
  Nice. All the important things.
• 1:19
  Yeah, I did like 11 years in New England, 10 in Boston, and it I
• 1:23
  would change my life for the better.
• 1:25
  They hated my sports teams. I'm a New Yorker, so they hated
• 1:28
  my guts. It's like I was the bad luck
• 1:30
  charm from New York. I moved there and then everybody
• 1:33
  started winning. Boston started.
• 1:34
  They're like, please don't leave, please, Yeah.
• 1:36
  Please don't leave. And also everybody back home is
• 1:38
  like what the fuck? Why did you do this to us?
• 1:40
  I was like, I did it to me. Please also don't leave, stay
• 1:43
  there. Yeah, please don't yeah, stay
• 1:44
  there, don't come back. But no, they welcomed me back
• 1:46
  and I went back to New York before moving to California and
• 1:49
  I love two time BU graduate. I even BU won the frozen 4 when
• 1:54
  I was there. I was like, well.
• 1:56
  Yeah. Like everybody was winning from
• 1:58
  2. 1004. Marketing and advertising, which
• 2:02
  is what I do. I do some of it in the music
• 2:04
  world and some of it in the corporate world.
• 2:05
  So that's kind of fun. But yeah, Boston was really good
• 2:08
  to me. We still have a big contingent
• 2:10
  of Boston fans and staff. So I'm a big, you know, big
• 2:14
  supporter of the area. And then Vegas is fun.
• 2:17
  I think there's a side of Vegas as a resident that people don't
• 2:20
  ever see, like the regular life. I know a lot of music people
• 2:22
  have moved out there. Corey appears from God Forbids a
• 2:25
  friend and I know he's super happy out there.
• 2:29
  Yeah, I got to. I got to meet Corey.
• 2:31
  He's he's, he's sweetheart. Yeah, yeah, a lot of a lot of ex
• 2:36
  either East Coast or LA people have migrated to Vegas.
• 2:39
  So super interested in that. But let's talk about the band.
• 2:43
  This is our first time meeting. You guys have a brand new single
• 2:46
  out today as we talk, which is a banger.
• 2:49
  It's a cover of Hataway's What Is Love?
• 2:51
  This song everybody knows and it's a bop.
• 2:56
  I don't know why it hasn't been done before as a metal song.
• 2:59
  Occasionally, like Dancy Bowl songs do translate as covers for
• 3:04
  rock and metal. And you guys just ripped it and
• 3:07
  I love it so much. And we can start here.
• 3:09
  I do want to backtrack and hear about the history of the band,
• 3:12
  but like it's so much fun and for the summertime, this is kind
• 3:16
  of like the joy we need right now in this absolute shitstorm
• 3:20
  of 2025. Why the cover and and just
• 3:24
  obviously timed. You have a big tour coming up,
• 3:26
  but like, what a fun cover to do.
• 3:29
  It was originally I thought it was a terrible idea.
• 3:33
  It was another member of the band at the time who brought it
• 3:36
  up as an idea to just party on the Jericho Cruise.
• 3:41
  So we've been on the Jericho cruise like 50 times.
• 3:43
  I know there's only like 6 cruises, but we've been on there
• 3:46
  like 50 times. And umm, they pretty much were
• 3:49
  like, you know, when you come back on for this one, it was
• 3:51
  like a third or fourth time. They're like, you know, bring
• 3:53
  some, bring some boat songs. You're on a cruise, man.
• 3:56
  It doesn't have to be exactly like yacht Lee crew, Yacht Rock,
• 3:59
  but like do something, something fun.
• 4:01
  And so, you know, one of the band members was like, well,
• 4:03
  I've kind of got this version of of what is love.
• 4:06
  And when the team got a hold of it, they, they started ripping
• 4:10
  it apart and putting it back together like Frankenstein's
• 4:12
  monster. And kind of we, we all started
• 4:14
  forming it to what it is now. But we played it on that ship
• 4:18
  and people went nuts. Like it wasn't just like some
• 4:22
  people were like Bob in their head and they're like, oh, this
• 4:23
  man's it. It was everybody was coming from
• 4:26
  the, each wing and you know, the hallways and the everybody was
• 4:29
  just loving the song. And we were like, huh, maybe we
• 4:32
  should play this on tour. So when we would play it on
• 4:34
  tour, it went from, you know, you're winning the crowd over
• 4:37
  while they're getting to know you to the entire room.
• 4:40
  It's singing the song and jumping and going crazy and just
• 4:44
  like everyone's bonding, everyone's having a great time
• 4:46
  together and smiling. You know, the guys that were
• 4:49
  like looking at you like this while the girlfriends were
• 4:51
  rocking out because we got beautiful long haired men and
• 4:54
  you know, at the front of our stage, suddenly they're like all
• 4:56
  having a good time and not worried about that.
• 4:58
  So it's we, we had to do it, man.
• 5:00
  We had no choice. That's amazing.
• 5:02
  And you know, sometimes you get proven wrong and it's a good
• 5:05
  thing. You know, that's that's proven
• 5:08
  wrong like that. You know what I mean?
• 5:09
  It's it's how you grow. It's how you learn.
• 5:12
  Are you sure you're from Boston? You'll have to be proven wrong.
• 5:15
  No, no kidding. I can't.
• 5:16
  I just, I just, I just everybody knows I'm from New York.
• 5:19
  I love being right. So I know any who.
• 5:24
  But yeah, what a bop. And such a great choice.
• 5:27
  And I think it's a lot of fun. And hopefully it just like
• 5:30
  introduces you to new people who might not have checked you out
• 5:33
  or then they will check you out and be like, holy shit, these
• 5:37
  guys have some bangers. And couple of years since the
• 5:40
  last record, but you've been putting out a series of singles.
• 5:42
  I know that's kind of the prevailing wisdom right now for
• 5:45
  the industry. It's so hard to cut through.
• 5:48
  I, I checked out your Spotify and your other streaming areas.
• 5:51
  You have a nice following there. Are you guys working your way
• 5:54
  toward a brand new album at this point with all these singles in
• 5:57
  a row? Or you're not sure?
• 5:59
  We've got an EP in the works. I've got a few ideas for some
• 6:02
  other things as well, but as far as a full album, I don't know,
• 6:07
  and if I do know I can't say. Copy not allowed to say there's
• 6:13
  nobody off camera pointing a gun at at our guy here, Brendan.
• 6:16
  But yeah, I just think it's really blink twice if you're in
• 6:20
  danger. We'll all blink together,
• 6:22
  everybody watching on YouTube and everywhere else listening on
• 6:25
  podcasts. But yeah, just, you know, it's
• 6:28
  such a crazy time and they're so we're up against so much.
• 6:32
  I know everybody's hearing about this AI band that has a million
• 6:35
  followers and they're just completely made-up, like, you
• 6:39
  know, generative AI doing a metal band, a rock and hard
• 6:43
  metal band. Like I just don't, you know, I
• 6:46
  still want real. Yeah, you know, it's
• 6:48
  interesting. I think it's inevitable,
• 6:50
  unfortunately. The whole AI world, music arts.
• 6:55
  So I think what I think is I don't AI will never copy the
• 7:00
  human aspect of music. I believe it will get very, very
• 7:03
  close, right? But at the end of the day, even
• 7:06
  when, before AI computers have been recreating musical
• 7:10
  instruments, guitar tones, drum tones, drum beats, and as good
• 7:16
  as they can get, you can still tell that it's not a real person
• 7:20
  or it's not a real amp. It's not a real Soldano being,
• 7:24
  you know, plugged into a cab mites and, and reamped.
• 7:27
  So I, I think, I think it's not as doom and gloom as most people
• 7:31
  think it is. You know, I, I think we're going
• 7:33
  to be OK. Maybe cross your fingers, but
• 7:36
  you know, who knows? It could also be Terminator.
• 7:39
  No, I'm kidding. What?
• 7:41
  At least that's exciting, right? We could just shoot well.
• 7:43
  It'd be a fun. It'd be interesting to see for
• 7:45
  about 24 hours and then we'll be fucked.
• 7:47
  But I, I also don't, there's a marketing expert that I really
• 7:51
  like and he gave a, an interview recently that was mostly about
• 7:54
  social media, but he was like the stuff in a first of all,
• 7:57
  like most of what we have that we call AI is just machine
• 8:00
  learning that we've had for years.
• 8:02
  Corrective text and texting and messenger and things like that.
• 8:05
  E-mail, Lightroom hacks, you know, Photoshop for all my
• 8:09
  artists, nerds, you know, DAW's for music producers, all kinds
• 8:13
  of things. Where it's going to go that we
• 8:16
  don't know. The Uncharted AI is super
• 8:19
  exciting. Like where it can go is great
• 8:22
  and you shouldn't be afraid of it.
• 8:24
  Some of the stuff right now, it seems very faddish because
• 8:27
  people are just jumping on it. Oh my God, AI and maybe we need
• 8:30
  to like sort of promote caution. And I am also a person.
• 8:34
  I want real artwork, I want real bands, I want real videos.
• 8:37
  I acknowledge that the cost of everything is escalating in a
• 8:40
  DIY or underground band is really hard to make it.
• 8:43
  And so every leg up you can use is fine.
• 8:47
  And some people who are very reputable musicians, it's just
• 8:49
  too cost prohibitive for them to put out content.
• 8:52
  That word again, unless you help, unless you get help.
• 8:56
  So I'm not totally against it. I just think I don't want to see
• 8:59
  real music and real artists get screwed because people are just
• 9:03
  like, well, I'll just go to AI for it.
• 9:05
  Yeah, it's it's the the genuine versus the in genuine in that in
• 9:10
  that sense I can understand and I agree with you, you know, but
• 9:14
  I'm also very supportive of bands that maybe don't have the
• 9:17
  budget for the level of art that they could get from, say, the
• 9:21
  guy that does the stuff for Sleep Token, right.
• 9:23
  And we've seen all of that, that beautiful black and gold and
• 9:27
  just amazing CGI and various other things.
• 9:30
  You know what I mean? The visualizers when you when
• 9:31
  you watch their their music videos or whatever.
• 9:33
  But I can get it because I've been an artist that's been there
• 9:37
  and you know, I want the best but can't afford the best
• 9:40
  sometimes. Yeah, like Death Heaven has a
• 9:43
  new record, you know, out and they put out a short film for
• 9:46
  their seven minute song that's kind of the centerpiece of the
• 9:49
  record. It was directed by like an
• 9:50
  acclaimed guy who was at like Cannes and Sundance.
• 9:54
  Like AI can't do that. Like AI cannot do that.
• 9:58
  It looked like Fellini, right? That did it.
• 10:00
  Like it was insane. I couldn't believe the high
• 10:02
  quality of it. So like, you know, I get it.
• 10:04
  I get it. Everybody did their.
• 10:06
  Recent videos and it's just that huge.
• 10:09
  It's like, yes, small movie. Yeah, it is a mini movie.
• 10:13
  Yeah, it's epic. Armstein at least.
• 10:14
  That's the craziest, the craziest shit.
• 10:16
  But yeah, tell me a little bit about the band.
• 10:19
  Let's dial it back for a second. We have the now covered.
• 10:22
  How did you guys form? You know, if if someone
• 10:25
  discovered you today, what would you tell them about you?
• 10:29
  Here's how. Here's where we came from.
• 10:30
  Here's who we are is where we're going.
• 10:32
  Well. I mean, do you want the long
• 10:34
  story? You want the Cliff.
• 10:35
  Let's get the long story. We got time.
• 10:37
  The the band was originally a joke goth rock band and not a
• 10:43
  joke is in I take the genre as a joke.
• 10:46
  It was more so was I didn't take myself seriously with it.
• 10:49
  I was in a metal band that I thought was going to go all the
• 10:53
  way and I was just bored one day scrolling through social media
• 10:59
  and I saw some very close friends of mine had been on a
• 11:02
  camping trip and they posted if somebody had caught a photo of
• 11:05
  the three of them walking into a body of water at the same time.
• 11:10
  They were perfectly lined up. Their feet were were moving all
• 11:13
  of the same same foot was moving forward.
• 11:16
  And I was like, that looks like an album cover.
• 11:17
  So I kind of made a mock up album cover for funnies in our
• 11:21
  group chat. And I was like, Yo,
• 11:23
  congratulations on the the record release.
• 11:25
  And I called the band the feels like, Oh, you got me right in
• 11:28
  the feels. And because they're walking to
• 11:31
  the water, I called it ripples just like the cheesiest thing in
• 11:34
  the world. And everybody was laughing.
• 11:36
  They're like, all right, Brendan.
• 11:37
  Like, what would a song from this band sound like?
• 11:40
  And in like an hour or two, I wrote a quick song, you know, in
• 11:44
  Garage Band. And I sent it.
• 11:46
  And it was I pretty much did like the simplistic chord change
• 11:49
  of like Nirvana with like the voice of Peter Steele and, you
• 11:55
  know, 69 Eyes and the specifically Dracula from
• 11:59
  forgetting Sarah Marshall. You know, when he's like, just
• 12:01
  when I thought things were going to get better and just for fun
• 12:05
  and I send this demo over. Fuck you.
• 12:07
  This is good. And I was like, no, it's it's a
• 12:09
  choke thing. Like this sounds like Type O
• 12:10
  Negative. And I'm like, I don't know,
• 12:12
  that's what this band would sound like.
• 12:14
  And they're like, you should make a few more.
• 12:15
  So I made a few more and one of my buddies goes, you know, you
• 12:19
  know, comp does that thing every Sunday in Vegas where they play
• 12:22
  bands from Vegas. You should promote it.
• 12:24
  I was like, it's going to take attention away from my metal
• 12:26
  band. And they were like, well, you
• 12:28
  know, be anonymous. So I create this fake anonymous
• 12:33
  goth rock band where I lie and I say it's band members from all
• 12:38
  over the world, including the UK, Australia, you know, all
• 12:41
  have come together in sadness for whatever just as ridiculous
• 12:45
  as I could get. Next thing you know, comp is
• 12:47
  playing it every Sunday going, we don't know who these guys
• 12:49
  are, but this is the Fields. And out of nowhere, I get a
• 12:53
  message on our, our Facebook page, which had three followers,
• 12:56
  my friends that fucking inspired me to do this.
• 12:59
  And it's the booking agent from House of Blues, the talent
• 13:02
  buyer. And he goes, I don't know who
• 13:04
  you guys are, but I've got this event coming up with the Duran
• 13:07
  Duran tribute act and Amazon has bought out Las Vegas's House of
• 13:11
  Blues. It's going to be a whole thing.
• 13:13
  It's a corporate event, completely sold out.
• 13:15
  There's going to be over 2000 people there.
• 13:17
  We need an opener for this Duran Duran tribute act.
• 13:19
  And we think he'd be perfect. And I was like, and I knew the
• 13:22
  guy at the time. I was like, dude, it's it's me
• 13:24
  from this other band. We're not a real band.
• 13:26
  Like we're just a joke band. It's this is a whole thing.
• 13:29
  I wanted to see how far I could go.
• 13:31
  And it's kind of a secret that it's me.
• 13:33
  And he goes, cool. So if you don't find a band and
• 13:35
  play this for me, I'm now going to tell Comp 92.3 and everybody
• 13:39
  else that it's you. And I was like reasonable.
• 13:43
  So I grabbed my metal band. I taught him the songs.
• 13:47
  We put on hoods and wigs and fishnets and everything and and
• 13:51
  we played in front of over 2000 people for our first show at the
• 13:54
  House of Blues and we didn't have any merch.
• 13:56
  We had about four originals and two covers and I got off stage
• 14:01
  and we were bum rushed. We were like, they were like, Oh
• 14:04
  my God, do you guys have merch? This is amazing.
• 14:07
  Where can we find you? Are you going on tour?
• 14:09
  Where are you from, blah blah, blah.
• 14:11
  And I was like, no, no, we don't actually.
• 14:14
  Thank you. And the rest of my band from my
• 14:17
  other got so they got so jealous.
• 14:19
  They're like, why aren't you getting gigs like this for us?
• 14:22
  Why aren't people reacting like this to our music?
• 14:24
  What's going on? This, this and that.
• 14:26
  And I was like, all right, all right, I'll leave it alone.
• 14:28
  It's fine. We'll focus on on the the metal
• 14:30
  music. But I kind of got like, I got
• 14:32
  that hunger. I got that fire again.
• 14:34
  I was like, OK, maybe this is it.
• 14:35
  So I started putting the band together like secretly.
• 14:38
  And we started rehearsing at night when, you know, I was
• 14:41
  rehearsing with the other band. And I eventually found us a
• 14:44
  manager and I eventually found us, you know, an agent in Vegas
• 14:49
  at least starting to get us different shows.
• 14:51
  And I didn't know how to tell the metal band I was in.
• 14:53
  It was almost like I was like cheating on them.
• 14:54
  And one night the guitar player showed up with the bass player
• 14:58
  tour. We had a 24 hour lockout studio
• 15:00
  that I was using or in the middle of rehearsing full band
• 15:03
  and the guitar player and bassist come in the room because
• 15:07
  they they stopped by the studio to smoke a joint and they catch
• 15:09
  me practicing with my goth band and they're like what the fuck
• 15:13
  is this? Like is there something wrong
• 15:15
  with us? Do you not like playing with us?
• 15:16
  Are they better than us? Like it was like I got caught
• 15:18
  cheating. And so that's where the name the
• 15:21
  Nocturnal Affair spawned. That's amazing.
• 15:24
  Oh my God, you can't make that up.
• 15:27
  It was still really cheeky, like 69 Eyes meets like Sisters of
• 15:31
  Mercy, you know? I got all the, I felt all the
• 15:35
  beats in that going, you know, deep diving, the whole.
• 15:39
  I got some old, I'll send you some old demos where it's just
• 15:42
  like it's very clearly recorded in my bedroom and you know, I'm
• 15:46
  smiling the whole time I'm sitting because I'm trying not
• 15:48
  to. And you know, there's, we have a
• 15:50
  song. I don't know if it's still on
• 15:52
  our, our socials and, and, and streaming services, but it's
• 15:55
  called Quiver. And that's kind of when we were
• 15:57
  in that era, but kind of also when we were stepping into
• 16:00
  you've got something here. I was at a festival in Seattle
• 16:04
  supporting my buddy John. So, so John Moyer from Disturbed
• 16:08
  is pretty much our main producer and he he works on all of the
• 16:12
  music with me. He helps me rearrange a lot of
• 16:14
  things for the consumers perspective.
• 16:16
  And he's just, he's got a great year for songwriting,
• 16:19
  production, sound designing, etcetera.
• 16:23
  And we were, we were in Seattle, he was playing the Paint in the
• 16:27
  Grass festival. And this just happened to be
• 16:29
  another situation where I was there with the metal band.
• 16:31
  I was in, we were playing the Hemp Fest.
• 16:33
  And David Draymond stopped by the Green Room afterwards.
• 16:38
  Jeff Tate from Queens Reich was there, Benjamin from Breaking
• 16:41
  Benjamin was there. And everybody just got really
• 16:44
  high. I don't think Ben smoked.
• 16:47
  But you know, Moyer was kind of joking.
• 16:49
  He's like, hey, Brendan thinks he's a producer and he's in a
• 16:51
  goth rock band now. And so he played the demos and
• 16:54
  the whole team there was like, oh, you've got something here.
• 16:57
  Like you'd be really stupid if you didn't pursue this.
• 16:59
  And they said it all right in front of my metal band who's
• 17:02
  sitting off to the side drinking and looking at me like you
• 17:05
  motherfucker, like, what the hell.
• 17:08
  Like they're the red headed stepchild.
• 17:09
  And so that's kind of when I was like, all right, you know, maybe
• 17:12
  maybe we'll try something. And I went through, you're
• 17:15
  getting a long story. Here we go.
• 17:17
  I don't think I've told anybody that.
• 17:18
  The whole thing, I went through a divorce and it crippled me
• 17:23
  emotionally. Like I, I didn't want to get out
• 17:26
  of bed. I didn't want to see friends.
• 17:28
  I didn't want to see family. And my late friend Ryan White
• 17:32
  Maloney, who passed away earlier this year.
• 17:34
  Rest in peace, man. He called me and he goes, hey,
• 17:38
  you're coming down the studio. I, I don't, I don't care what
• 17:41
  you have to say. I will come get you.
• 17:43
  I will come drag you out of bed. You're coming.
• 17:45
  And he did. He came and he got me.
• 17:47
  He fucking, I feel like probably didn't shower in days.
• 17:50
  And he shoved me in the vocal booth and he made me sit.
• 17:52
  He was like, he was like, what's what's your latest song with
• 17:55
  this band? I love this band.
• 17:56
  We're going to figure this out. And I, I played him quiver and
• 18:00
  it's demo form. And he goes, OK, we're we're
• 18:02
  making this real. Like it's time.
• 18:04
  Like enough people have told you to do this.
• 18:06
  Wake the fuck up, you know, let's go.
• 18:09
  And and he, he brought up the best of me in that in that
• 18:12
  studio session and he really started, you know, getting me in
• 18:14
  the right mindset to to make something of it.
• 18:16
  And without me knowing, he sent us, he sent the demo to century
• 18:21
  media to Mike Getter and was like, hey, check this band out.
• 18:23
  They're brand new and Michael's like, yo, what the fuck, where
• 18:26
  did these guys come from before realizing that we were totally
• 18:29
  brand new, totally just like a kind of a passion project.
• 18:32
  But but Ryan White Maloney was like one of the people that
• 18:36
  single handedly pushed us forward into becoming the
• 18:39
  Nocturnal affair, becoming a real thing.
• 18:41
  So and then from there, you know what every other band does to
• 18:44
  get where they are later. Hard work.
• 18:47
  Thank you for sharing and unpacking all that.
• 18:49
  Sorry for your loss number. One I yapped so much just.
• 18:53
  No, I let you. I'm usually the one that doesn't
• 18:56
  stop talking on all my shit. Believe me, I'm so thrilled to
• 18:59
  hear from somebody else. And my producer will thank you
• 19:02
  in spades because absolutely. I just never shut up.
• 19:05
  And and my mom once said that she loved me until I learned to
• 19:09
  talk. So you know.
• 19:11
  I got it. I get it everybody, I get it.
• 19:13
  This is what I do this ever since you know, till I'm dead.
• 19:16
  But yeah, sorry for your loss. And again, nobody's in a
• 19:19
  relationship. You know, anybody in a in a bad
• 19:21
  relationship, it sucks immediately when it's over, then
• 19:23
  it's a lot better. So you shouldn't be with someone
• 19:26
  you're not right for or they're not right for you.
• 19:28
  And then anecdotally, Getter is amazing.
• 19:31
  I'm a huge fan. We used to trade emails.
• 19:34
  You know how many bands he put on the map?
• 19:36
  He was a scene guy with a Zine way back in the day.
• 19:39
  Triple X scene, you know? He's a walking piece of history.
• 19:42
  That meant It's so funny because when I was such a spoiled brat
• 19:47
  when this band started. Perspective has changed so much
• 19:51
  on this journey. And when I started, I had the
• 19:54
  mentality of of every local musician.
• 19:56
  I Vegas music is kind of an interesting monster.
• 20:00
  A lot of people believe they are entitled to success no matter
• 20:05
  what they've done, which to me is, is a little pompous and
• 20:08
  it's, it's kind of disrespectful to everybody who's actually out
• 20:12
  there working their fucking asses off and, and, and
• 20:15
  successful for a reason, right people, a lot of people out here
• 20:18
  believe if you build it, they will come.
• 20:20
  And that's not how it works. You have to bust your ass.
• 20:23
  You have to be real to the music.
• 20:25
  You have to take care of your producer and your engineer and
• 20:28
  your bandmates. You have to put in the time with
• 20:30
  live, you know, live performances.
• 20:32
  You have to build your audience. You have to, like, have a proper
• 20:35
  product. You have to have the proper
• 20:37
  look. But at the time, I was like, oh,
• 20:38
  if I record this song, we're going to get signed.
• 20:40
  And then, you know, it's like, it's like what everybody thinks
• 20:43
  being in a band is, you know, we hadn't even toured yet.
• 20:46
  And I'm thinking, yeah, Mike's going to hear this and he's
• 20:48
  going to just sign us like it's the 80s, and then we're set.
• 20:52
  And that's not how it is. But he caught interest in US
• 20:55
  immediately. He came out here a couple times
• 20:57
  to watch some rehearsals. And what I love about him is how
• 21:01
  honest he is. No matter what, he doesn't give
• 21:04
  a fuck if it upsets you. He doesn't give a fuck if it
• 21:07
  doesn't. And he told me in 2017, we were
• 21:11
  barely a year old as a band and only had a few songs.
• 21:14
  Never been on tour. I'd never been on tour in
• 21:15
  general. And he goes, look, man, the
• 21:18
  music is good. You have a lot of potential.
• 21:20
  Stop skipping steps. Like you need to do this for
• 21:22
  real. And I didn't get it at this
• 21:24
  time. And I was like, well, he just,
• 21:26
  he just wasted our time and didn't sign us and fucking
• 21:29
  whatever. I don't need you.
• 21:31
  We'll do whatever I want. And but then I got to work and I
• 21:34
  learned the hard way that you cannot skip steps.
• 21:37
  You have to you have to do it right.
• 21:39
  You can't just drop a song and think, oh, here it is.
• 21:42
  We're getting famous now. That's how it works.
• 21:44
  It's not even close to it. So Mike was very sobering as a
• 21:50
  as somebody who was was introduced to us and I'm glad he
• 21:52
  was introduced to us early in our career.
• 21:54
  Right on, I'm glad and it's it's important to get that
• 21:57
  perspective. I have heard that Vegas is kind
• 21:58
  of like the new LA right now or Chicago or New York in terms of
• 22:03
  a lot of bands and it is interesting.
• 22:06
  I know Count Vamped is getting sold but apparently still being
• 22:09
  kept as a venue. Unsure about the future there.
• 22:12
  I know live there's no shortage of places to play live there and
• 22:16
  I have been to many of them and had a great time.
• 22:20
  And I do think like it's a, it's like probably most big cities,
• 22:24
  it's going through a transformation, right?
• 22:26
  Constantly evolving. But do you feel like there's a
• 22:30
  bit of a community scene there in Vegas?
• 22:33
  Are there other bands you feel close to?
• 22:35
  Assuming your your X band doesn't have a hit out on you?
• 22:39
  So I mean, dude, this is, I mean, it's 2025 now.
• 22:42
  I started writing demos for this band in 2015.
• 22:45
  So. So this is 10 years ago.
• 22:47
  I mean, the, the whole thing at the Seattle festival happened in
• 22:51
  2016, you know what I mean? So it's like it's been a long
• 22:54
  time since the drummer from my old metal band is actually in a
• 22:59
  punk band now called At Odds, and they just got signed to a
• 23:01
  subsidiary of Virgin. He's he's happier than ever.
• 23:04
  He's got a beautiful family. He's doing well.
• 23:06
  We're we're like brothers. We've known each other since we
• 23:08
  were very young. And the rest of the the guys are
• 23:11
  doing fine. I'm sure there's no chip on
• 23:13
  their shoulders. You know what I mean?
• 23:14
  It's a long time ago. Yeah.
• 23:15
  The the community in Vegas is interesting because you have
• 23:18
  some people who are sour because they're their band isn't doing
• 23:22
  well. And so they blame everybody else
• 23:24
  and they go, Vegas has no music seat.
• 23:26
  Vegas sucks. Vegas is this Vegas that and
• 23:29
  then like, and then you have the artists that go and they support
• 23:34
  other local artists and they put out good music, not because
• 23:38
  they're good, just good songwriters, but because they
• 23:40
  work with the proper producers. They work with the right, you
• 23:42
  know, other musicians that can listen and they can, they can
• 23:46
  think critically about their art and they can take advice and
• 23:50
  they can, they can, you know, build as, as artists.
• 23:53
  So they start building a fan base and they start doing well.
• 23:56
  So they start playing the casinos like Red Rock, you know,
• 23:59
  every other Friday. And I mean, one of my favorite
• 24:03
  bands that I watch bring a community together every time
• 24:07
  they play, there's two of them. They're Smashing Alice.
• 24:09
  They're like some of the kings of covers in Vegas if you want
• 24:13
  like new metal and Hard Rock and various other things.
• 24:17
  But then there's this other band that kind of just plays whatever
• 24:19
  the fuck they want and they're called Bootylicious Deluxe and
• 24:24
  they get together and it's it's to me, it's the same energy as
• 24:28
  Have you ever seen Yachtly Crew? When I saw Yachtly Crew for the
• 24:31
  first time, it was a bunch of people sweating and half drunk
• 24:35
  walking into a venue looking like they were like, whatever,
• 24:39
  I'm here, I'm around a lot of people.
• 24:41
  And then as soon as Yachtly started, it was like I was
• 24:44
  watching an 80s movie come alive and everybody was happy and
• 24:48
  dance and maybe like a little too happy, like there was
• 24:50
  something in the water. But they're, and this is what,
• 24:52
  this is what Bootylicious Deluxe does.
• 24:54
  Every time I see them at the Sand Dollar on Spring Mountain,
• 24:57
  people just lose their mind. They get out of their table and
• 25:00
  they dance in front of the stage like they're bewitched by the
• 25:02
  music. It's such a great time.
• 25:04
  If you want to see a good community of music in in Vegas,
• 25:08
  you have plenty of opportunity. And then there's another guy
• 25:10
  named Kenny Davidson. He plays at a casino called the
• 25:14
  Tuscany, which kind of all they have a room called the Copa
• 25:16
  Room. They've actually kind of taken
• 25:18
  on the torch from Vance and there's going to be a lot of
• 25:20
  vamp bands starting to play there instead now.
• 25:23
  And but, but Kenny does this like cabaret, I think every
• 25:27
  Friday, every other Friday where he gets people from, you know,
• 25:31
  major Vegas shows, musicals, various, you know, crooners and
• 25:36
  just amazing artists all around to come in and just sing
• 25:41
  everything and anything. I mean, he's even had me in
• 25:43
  there to, to do some of like my original work that hasn't been
• 25:45
  released just for fun. So there are a lot of people
• 25:48
  working their asses off to support musicians in this town.
• 25:52
  And if you if you look hard enough and you work hard enough.
• 25:56
  Right on. I often always say that one of
• 25:58
  the passports for great singers is Vegas, and people don't
• 26:03
  realize also the level of musicians and musicianship in
• 26:06
  Vegas productions that are not typically for metal fans, but
• 26:10
  they're still awesome. And so the list is numerous.
• 26:13
  I know, I know Nilly Nilly was just playing with from death
• 26:19
  Clock was just in the Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson show when
• 26:22
  she does like a figure once a month.
• 26:24
  Nilly Roche. You said from death clock.
• 26:26
  Yeah, Nellie Broch, the shredding guitar player.
• 26:28
  Was in. Really.
• 26:30
  Yeah, the Michael Jackson won. That's awesome.
• 26:34
  And then her social media is red because she'll show herself in
• 26:37
  costume and then not in costume. So wait, I didn't know she was a
• 26:41
  death clock. Yeah, she's in Death Clock.
• 26:43
  Yeah, she was on their last album and she toured with them
• 26:46
  the last couple of years. You know, I hate to be this guy,
• 26:49
  but I never looked at who the band was.
• 26:52
  Of course, it's also hard to see them.
• 26:55
  But it's like, to me, it would have worked to see magic, you
• 26:58
  know what I mean? I would have stopped imagining,
• 27:00
  you know, Nathan Explosion and Squish Guard and Toki.
• 27:03
  So that's cool, man. So cool, so cool.
• 27:06
  So so let's Fast forward to now. You have this huge tour, great
• 27:10
  new single, huge opportunity to go to Europe.
• 27:14
  And I want you to talk a little bit about, you know, I mean,
• 27:18
  we've covered both of those bands, Wednesday 13 and and
• 27:20
  Drowning Pool. We've covered so much here it
• 27:23
  goes call and we're huge. Wednesday is Wednesday is one of
• 27:26
  our biggest interviews actually ever like a top ten interview in
• 27:30
  terms of views and stuff. So we're grateful to them and a
• 27:34
  new great out mount right now near death experience, right.
• 27:38
  And so yeah, tell us about that tour.
• 27:40
  What's, what are you looking forward to for that?
• 27:41
  I'm looking forward to touring with our type of people as far
• 27:46
  as that whole spooky realm into the darker rock side of things.
• 27:50
  We've been cutting our teeth for the last four or five years with
• 27:54
  Fozzie and we love Fozzie and Fozzie's really shown us how to
• 27:58
  be professional, how to, how to tour, right.
• 28:01
  They've been such a, a, a positive.
• 28:04
  I don't know, just everything they've done for us has really
• 28:07
  helped us grow to become the band we are today.
• 28:09
  It's, it's, it's, they helped us take off our training wheels.
• 28:12
  I guess as you could say, it's a touring band, but we're we're
• 28:14
  ready to start, you know, playing to an audience that that
• 28:18
  is now. I love wrestling and I love
• 28:20
  wrestling fans, but that's kind of all who we've been playing to
• 28:24
  for the last few years. We've got a few other shows here
• 28:26
  and there. So it's, it's going to be
• 28:28
  Wednesday 13's people is like my people, you know what I mean?
• 28:32
  I grew up listening to Wednesday's music and Murder
• 28:34
  dolls and various other things like that.
• 28:36
  So it's like, you know, I was the goth kid in high school and
• 28:38
  I, I still am at heart, which is why this band started as a joke
• 28:41
  goth rock band. So it's, it's going to be good
• 28:44
  to look, you know, from the stage and see a bunch of people
• 28:47
  dressed like how I want to dress all the time.
• 28:50
  Aside from that, Drowning Pool was a staple probably at every
• 28:55
  party that I had been to since I was a preteen, you know what I
• 28:59
  mean? Somebody puts on the music, no
• 29:01
  matter where it is, no matter who it is, bodies usually always
• 29:05
  somehow gets it going. So it's going to be very
• 29:08
  interesting to have them be the reason why we are seeing
• 29:12
  mainland Europe for the first time.
• 29:14
  Very exciting about that. Amazing.
• 29:16
  I'm excited for you. What do you need to take with
• 29:18
  you to maintain? Touring is tough enough and now
• 29:22
  you're going overseas with different outlet plugs and
• 29:24
  driving on the wrong side of the road or the right side of the
• 29:27
  road if we're wrong and food different, but I mean, probably
• 29:30
  amazing. What are you?
• 29:31
  What are you, you know, what are you excited about individually
• 29:34
  outside of the playing and touring aspect, like in terms of
• 29:37
  the day-to-day? I'm just to be honest, the food
• 29:40
  over there treats me a lot better.
• 29:42
  I don't know what's in it or what's not in it, I guess
• 29:45
  compared to our food out here in America, but I always come back
• 29:48
  like 5 lbs lighter, feeling amazing.
• 29:51
  My skin is cleared up. You know what I mean?
• 29:53
  It's, it's I, I can actually drink milk over there.
• 29:55
  I'm a little lactose intolerant over here, but over there I'll
• 29:58
  have like 3 cappuccinos a day. I'm fine.
• 30:00
  Generally though, the toilets in the UK are all the size of
• 30:05
  airplane toilets. Have you, have you been to the
• 30:06
  UK before? Yeah.
• 30:08
  Oh my God. Smallest toilets I've ever seen.
• 30:10
  Smallest hotel rooms, smallest everything.
• 30:12
  They, they just don't care about urinals.
• 30:15
  They'll, they'll put them, we'll put them directly next to each
• 30:19
  other with no wall in between. Sometimes in the round and
• 30:24
  you're like, did you see being next to each other?
• 30:27
  And I'm like, I think, I think I'm going to just go outside by
• 30:29
  that tree. It was a through in Manchester,
• 30:32
  like a through. I was like, all right, cool and
• 30:35
  bring my ride my horse in here and let him also drink.
• 30:37
  I saw that too. One of our was it Manchester?
• 30:41
  We played a venue with Alien Ant Farm and I mean, it was a huge,
• 30:45
  there were three stories, the place was packed, there were
• 30:47
  thousands of people. And I go to the bathroom and the
• 30:49
  venue's beautiful. I mean, it's one of the most
• 30:51
  beautiful, like up to They could have just put real
• 31:09
  urinals in, but it was like, Nah, man.
• 31:13
  Just yeah, hey, you know what, we are the traders to them and
• 31:16
  they were first and you know, we're just following.
• 31:19
  Sorry, don't make, don't spit up your drink.
• 31:21
  We're just following along. You know, as my friends say,
• 31:25
  every 4th of July, happy Independence Day traders.
• 31:29
  And, you know, as we wind this down, obviously you're going to
• 31:32
  go on this awesome tour and come back and you've got this banging
• 31:36
  single and, you know, can we expect more new music by the end
• 31:39
  of the year? And you, are you allowed to
• 31:41
  share that or not? Oh yeah.
• 31:42
  We've got a ton more. OK, cool.
• 31:44
  I'm glad to hear it. I'm working on more as we speak.
• 31:47
  So nice. Yeah, yeah, more people, I hope
• 31:49
  more people check out your band as a result of the tour and the
• 31:52
  new single. And I always like to end these
• 31:54
  with a wild card questions. So I wanted to know for you,
• 31:57
  what is the last good movie you saw?
• 32:00
  Last good movie I saw. I'm trying to remember the last
• 32:03
  time I watched a new movie, right?
• 32:05
  Because I've got I've got those usuals that I play in the
• 32:08
  background. So does it matter?
• 32:10
  Does it matter if it's a personal favorite?
• 32:12
  Doesn't matter. Sometimes all the time.
• 32:16
  I like to Godfather wanted to. It's like they're the best.
• 32:20
  I I consider them one single movie.
• 32:23
  You know what I mean? Sometimes they're just playing
• 32:24
  in the background. Sometimes I put them on on
• 32:27
  purpose. But to be honest with you, I
• 32:29
  can't. I think of the last time I sat
• 32:31
  down and watched a new movie, which I'm going to this Friday.
• 32:35
  I'm going to go see the new Superman.
• 32:36
  I'm excited. Oh nice.
• 32:37
  Yeah, the new Superman looks good.
• 32:39
  Fantastic Four looks good. And if you like horror movies,
• 32:42
  allow me to recommend Sinners. That's my favorite movie of the
• 32:44
  year so far. Really.
• 32:46
  You know. Incredible.
• 32:48
  Incredibly done. Incredibly well done.
• 32:51
  I want Ryan Coogler to make all my horror Movies Now with
• 32:55
  Michael B. Yeah, I did see a new movie
• 32:58
  recently. A friend of mine recommended it
• 33:00
  to me and it's, I forget the name of it, but it's a Disney
• 33:04
  film and it's very much it. It it, it circulates around the
• 33:10
  subject of Dungeons and Dragons, Luke, without saying it's about
• 33:14
  Dungeons and Dragons. Remember the name.
• 33:15
  It's an animated film. Somebody told me I should watch
• 33:18
  it. And I loved it because I love
• 33:21
  D&D. I'm a huge nerd with that stuff.
• 33:24
  So when I'm not on tour, I'm usually in a campaign that one
• 33:28
  of my buddies is is D Ming. So amazing.
• 33:30
  Amazing. Good to hear.
• 33:31
  All right, keep it going. Keep that flame of nerdiness
• 33:34
  going through your whole life. It never leaves you.
• 33:36
  It's not a phase, mom. Inspires a lot more songs than
• 33:39
  you think. We've got this song called Be on
• 33:40
  the Wall of Sleep and that's actually inspired from I I
• 33:44
  played AD 20 Table Talk version of a game called Kala Cthulhu
• 33:49
  and it's all like HP Lovecraft inspired Dungeons and Dragons
• 33:52
  so. All the references, all the
• 33:54
  things. Brendan, super cool to meet you.
• 33:56
  Congrats on the new single and the upcoming tour.
• 33:59
  Thanks for hanging out with us today.
• 34:00
  We'll link everything in the description where everybody can
• 34:03
  find your stuff and keep it going, man.
• 34:06
  We'll be looking out for you in the future.
• 34:08
  We'll do another one of these and we'll catch up on some other
• 34:10
  things. Thank you so much.
• 34:11
  Thanks for hanging out.