Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / Andrew Schwab: Project 86 | Furnace Fest 2023 Series

Transcript

Andrew Schwab: Project 86 | Furnace Fest 2023 Series · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

• 0:30
  Today we have Andrew from Project eighty six. This is an interview that I've
• 0:34
  been looking forward to for a while Project eighty six. Andrew is one of
• 0:37
  those bands that I've been listening to for years. Uh and uh, I'm
• 0:41
  just like super super stoked. Like you know, we interview a lot of
• 0:45
  bands that may be like a newer band, so we haven't like listened to
• 0:47
  them a ton or for a lot of years. There might be some bands
• 0:50
  that we interview that we really haven't listened to them a lot. Project eighty
• 0:53
  six, for Cullen and I is one of those bands that we've been listening
• 0:56
  to for a long time and a lot. Uh and so we're just super
• 1:00
  super stoked to chat more with you. But how are you doing today,
• 1:03
  Andrew? How's how's life? I'm doing great, man, Just busy,
• 1:06
  busy like everybody else. Lots going on, a lot of spinning tops,
• 1:10
  a lot of irons in the fire. Assuming more cliches I can use,
• 1:12
  But it's really cool to come on here with you guys and talk a little
• 1:17
  bit about both the history of the band and what's been going on lately.
• 1:21
  Yeah for having me, I will say, before we get into history stuff,
• 1:25
  I do have one personal story about Project eighty six, and that is
• 1:30
  I think it was probably like maybe two thousand and eight or two thousand and
• 1:32
  nine. Culin and I went to a show in Brookings, South Dakota.
• 1:37
  Culin and I grew up in northeast South Dakota, so like middle of nowhere,
• 1:41
  you guys, I don't remember where. It was, probably like some
• 1:42
  convention center or something, but we went to see you guys play, and
• 1:47
  I forget all the bands, but you were playing. And then I think
• 1:51
  like Disciple was a band that played like I think they were like the headlining
• 1:55
  band of the show. So we saw you guys play. I think you
• 1:57
  came out with like one of those like guys, I forget how to like
• 2:00
  guy fox or whatever is that, you know, like one of those masks.
• 2:06
  Whenever you came out on stage played your side. It was unbelievable.
• 2:09
  And then later that night when Disciple played, H and Cullen and I are
• 2:14
  front stage, like it's one of those stages that's probably like chest high,
• 2:16
  and at one point I got a little too a little too gregarious, and
• 2:23
  uh was headbanging and hit my head on the monitor right on the edge of
• 2:28
  the stage, and at first I was like, oh, that kind of
• 2:30
  like hurt or whatever. And then all of a sudden, I felt like
• 2:32
  all this liquid coming down my face and I'm like, that's not just sweat,
• 2:37
  I don't think, and I put my hand on my face and I
• 2:39
  just see bread all over my hand and I'm like, oh shit. And
• 2:43
  so I go immediately to like this woman that was like kind of working by
• 2:47
  the stage whatever, and she gets me a towel and then I go on
• 2:51
  the back outside of the venue and there was like some like person who was
• 2:54
  like running merch or whatever. But she was like, I'm a nurse and
• 2:58
  so I can help you out. And she looks at my like my cut,
• 3:00
  and she was like, oh, you definitely need stitches. So Colin
• 3:04
  runs me to the emergency room really quick. I get stitches. We come
• 3:07
  back thinking like maybe Disciples playing their like last couple of songs and there,
• 3:13
  but they were done, so they were like tearing down the merch or whatever.
• 3:15
  But I remember more specifically though, as we were going to the er,
• 3:19
  I said, at least we got to see Project eighty six. That's
• 3:22
  what we're going, that's right. So even though I didn't bust my head
• 3:24
  open at a Project eighty six show. You guys did play, uh,
• 3:29
  and so it was. It was just a memorable moment, one of many
• 3:32
  between Colin and I. That's crazy, and what strikes me is the bffness
• 3:38
  that's that's I mean, that's just that has obviously been going on for like
• 3:43
  fifteen years, yes, between between your guys. Yeah, it was.
• 3:47
  It wasn't even thought. Man, he drove me the emergency room that we
• 3:50
  were the guy that's right. So it was. Anyways, well, let's
• 3:53
  talk about Project eighty six. Let's talk about some of those early years.
• 3:58
  You guys are a band that started back in I think it was like the
• 4:00
  late nineties, right, kind of like ninety six ninety seven or so.
• 4:04
  Yeah, I got to talk about some of those early years, like how
• 4:06
  did you get into music? How did you get started playing Project eighty six.
• 4:12
  It's a great question. Man. Yeah, it's been it's been so
• 4:15
  long, but the time has gone so quickly, believe or not. When
• 4:17
  you're just looking forward to the next show, the next record, the next
• 4:21
  thing that you're writing, or whatever, it's just the time just flies by.
• 4:26
  It's amazing to talk about. It's been twenty years. Yeah, ninety
• 4:30
  six. It really took a couple of years to put the band together.
• 4:32
  It spent two years plus trying to find bandmates with the right bandmates. We
• 4:38
  moved through a few guys during during the early years before settling on a lineup
• 4:44
  and right off the bat our very first show, which was in Orange County
• 4:47
  in southern California. Week all in one way or another came out of the
• 4:53
  Orange County heavy music scene, like the underground hardcore, and there were so
• 4:57
  many at the time too, it's kind of unbelievable. I mean, like
• 4:59
  Thrice probably one of the more notable ones too. And there's so many great
• 5:02
  bands that came out of the Orange County heavy music scene in those nineties.
• 5:06
  Yeah. Yeah, there were always shows every weekend. Actually just went last
• 5:11
  week too. In Decision Records thirty year anniversary was like throw Down and Unbroken,
• 5:18
  a bunch of other bands, a ton of bands that were around at
• 5:21
  that time. It's amazing how different heavy underground heavy music is now and how
• 5:27
  much it's involved. It's like I'm watching all these hardcore bands that were considered
• 5:30
  really heavy in the mid nineties and it just doesn't it sounds like pop punk
• 5:34
  or something. Now, you know, it's just so different, It's true.
• 5:40
  Yeah, So the main thing was if I were to just touch a
• 5:46
  couple of highlights from the early days when we played our first show, we
• 5:50
  had a great response because I think we did a lot of I don't know,
• 5:57
  pregaming legwork before we played our first show and just trying to create a
• 6:01
  buzz or area about what we were trying to do. And we had a
• 6:06
  really great turn out to our first couple of shows, and that just sort
• 6:10
  of propelled us forward quickly, I think, into you know, a record
• 6:15
  deal and getting tours and such. It was a different era because there weren't
• 6:20
  very many bands and all you really needed to do was get the word out
• 6:26
  via firing and telling your friends at school, and you have at least a
• 6:30
  couple hundred people show up to the show. It's just such a different world
• 6:34
  now, it's amazing. It sound like the old guys saying that, But
• 6:38
  the early days for Project we're really characterized by just excitement about playing live shows
• 6:44
  and trying to carve out a niche in southern California, which which happened pretty
• 6:48
  quickly for us. Understand, it'll be something, you guys, A sound
• 6:53
  is pretty distinct, I think, and I think more extant lyrically. Project
• 7:00
  eighty six has always always had it right. You've done it man, forever.
• 7:03
  I mean I'm biased, of course, and and though I would love
• 7:11
  to sit here and tell you confidently how great I feel about all the lyrics
• 7:15
  that have been written over the years. You know, I do a podcast
• 7:17
  as well on Patreon. This is shameless plug. We have a Patreon community
• 7:20
  for the bands just patreon dot com Slash eight six two five. I spent
• 7:26
  a lot of time going through old lyrics and picking them apart on this podcast
• 7:30
  and talking about things I don't like. So I'm just I'm a perfectionist.
• 7:34
  So I'll literally write something and then a couple of weeks go by or it'll
• 7:40
  just be finished, and then I'll go back and look at it and you're
• 7:44
  like, thank you what? What? So even songs that I think people
• 7:48
  would be mortified to hear that I'm second guessing, I pick apart all the
• 7:53
  time. Yeah, well you got you gotta be your most your most harsh
• 7:58
  critic, right, Yeah, I definitely am. I win that title.
• 8:01
  Yeah, I think I think you're probably not going to be a great lyric
• 8:05
  writer if you aren't that right, maybe, I mean I would love to
• 8:09
  sit down with guys that you know, I respect from a lyric writing standpoint
• 8:16
  and hear how they feel about songs that they wrote ten years ago. That
• 8:20
  would be a fun podcast, Like get four guys together who are in that
• 8:24
  similar job description maybe you have a you know, a small to medium to
• 8:31
  even large size following and being known for you know, lyrics or whatever,
• 8:35
  and see the process and you know how they actually feel about things that I
• 8:41
  think you might find that there there are more They are more often than not
• 8:45
  like me, like dissatisfied with what they Yeah. Yeah. We interview a
• 8:50
  lot of bands that like came out of like the Tooth and Nail solid State
• 8:52
  world, and you know, that's like the world that Culin and I grew
• 8:54
  up in. And for a lot of those people, like their faith has
• 8:58
  really changed quite a bit, and so to like ask them, like how
• 9:01
  they relate to their lyrics when they wrote those lyrics at a point where they
• 9:05
  probably don't even really much know that person anymore, or they're very different than
• 9:09
  that person ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. It's really interesting how they
• 9:13
  relate to those lyrics because some people are really open to it. They like
• 9:16
  are like, you know what, that was just me. Then some people
• 9:18
  are like very harsh critics of themselves back twenty years ago or whatever. So
• 9:22
  it's really interesting to hear how people relate to themselves, especially lyric writers.
• 9:28
  Yeah, would you like me to comment on that? Yeah, of course,
• 9:35
  given what I just said in terms of being a perfectionist and looking back
• 9:39
  and everything's through like that revisionist lens. Just from like a creative standpoint,
• 9:43
  there are many things that I would do over. There are many things I
• 9:46
  laugh at. There are many things I go, wow, that's dated or
• 9:50
  whatever. But from I guess we're talking about faith and art and making music
• 9:56
  and such. You know, I talk about this lot on and off my
• 10:01
  own podcasts. I would say, on a personal note, my faith is
• 10:07
  probably a lot deeper now than it was when we started, which I think
• 10:11
  is maybe a different direction that what a lot of heavy bands that came out
• 10:16
  of that scene might articulate. If I'm going to be really frank, I
• 10:22
  think it was a lot cooler to be a Christian band in the you know,
• 10:26
  foundational years of this scene, you know, the nineties the early two
• 10:30
  thousand, mid two thousands or whatever, and I think, you know,
• 10:33
  I don't know if I can pick one a year, but in recent history,
• 10:35
  it's become a lot less cool to be a Christian, you know,
• 10:41
  and play heavy music, whether it's in the underground scene, but definitely in
• 10:46
  the mainstream sense. I don't know that it was ever cool in the mainstream
• 10:48
  sense. There were bands that came out of the faith based scene that that
• 10:52
  made a splash commercially, but I don't know that they ever succeeded in making
• 10:56
  Jesus cool, you know what I mean. Inherently, if you come out
• 11:03
  of this world, or you play that Christian festival circuit, or you're known
• 11:05
  for being a faith based fan, that usually works against you in terms of
• 11:11
  the ceiling and potential for exposure for your band, or just it just knocks
• 11:16
  you down a notch or two in terms of people taking you seriously. And
• 11:20
  that's something that Project eighty six has always fought with and struggled with and had
• 11:24
  a hard time with, even when we were on a major label and touring
• 11:28
  primarily in that world years ago. It's something I've always struggled with. But
• 11:33
  there's always I think been a genuine desire on a personal level to live out
• 11:41
  you know, a real sense of faith that hasn't changed, I think for
• 11:45
  me though, you know, I've always wanted to make music that's just taken
• 11:50
  seriously like anyone else. You know that. I was joking about this over
• 11:54
  this last weekend. We were playing some shows and made an I meant to
• 12:00
  the guys in my band. It was just really like, it was just
• 12:03
  random. We were walking from you know, one side of a festival to
• 12:07
  the other, and I said, I remember when I first started this thing,
• 12:11
  thinking, you know, after going shows back in the day, that
• 12:16
  this would be really cool to start a band, but make it more you
• 12:20
  know, oriented around faith. And then shortly after I got into it,
• 12:24
  and I was playing my twelfth show in Indiana in front of you know,
• 12:30
  eighteen kids as some kind of youth thing, you know, and I'm like,
• 12:33
  oh, wait a second, what did I sign up for here?
• 12:37
  You know, And then and then you get and then you get pigeonholed,
• 12:39
  right, And especially if you do more any any kind of touring in that
• 12:45
  realm or you know, the more you do things in that world, in
• 12:48
  the CCM kind of world, the more you get sort of stuck there,
• 12:52
  right, Yeah, And and I think that's that's been the hardest thing in
• 12:58
  doing project at six all these years. It's like you want to not be
• 13:01
  stuck, and yet there's such a contingent of people that genuinely love your band
• 13:05
  that come from that world, and just balancing those two things. Well,
• 13:11
  and it seems like you have that conviction of faith too, where you like
• 13:13
  you don't want to like lose that part of the band either. So it's
• 13:18
  like I want to have this conviction and also it seems to be pigeonholy me
• 13:20
  at the same time. Yeah, I can double edged sword in a way.
• 13:24
  Yeah, it is for sure. And the conclusion that I came too
• 13:28
  long ago is I'm just going to be honest or try to be in the
• 13:33
  music and the lyrics in the presentation and people can do what they want with
• 13:37
  it. Well. I don't know if this is any advice, but the
• 13:41
  way I tell people about our podcast all the time is that we're not a
• 13:45
  Christian podcast. We're just Christians in a podcast that might help that might help
• 13:48
  you out on all that. So yeah, I mean that's that's the age
• 13:52
  old discussion is are you a Christian band or are you Christians in a band?
• 13:56
  And I just kind of go with what's different. It's just semantic.
• 14:01
  Just listen to the music. If you like the music, if it inspires
• 14:05
  you, who cares, Who cares what's it's what it's marketed as. Yeah,
• 14:11
  it's so strange that we draw those lines in the first place. But
• 14:15
  you know, like the Church was drawing its onlines around music that it deemed
• 14:18
  acceptable and sure that that it deemed not acceptable, and so I almost feel
• 14:24
  like, you know, Christian culture itself kind of created this boundary that made
• 14:28
  it so that definitely, you know, the message of the very positive message
• 14:33
  of a lot of Christian influenced bands never made it out beyond the audience that
• 14:39
  it was marketing too, and that it probably should have gotten to the years
• 14:43
  of So that's just frustrating though to see that, you know, yeah,
• 14:48
  yeah, I mean, and you're getting to the spiritual core of what you
• 14:52
  know music and more aggressive or rock music or extream music is and there is
• 14:58
  a clash of ideology is going on, whether or not you acknowledge it.
• 15:05
  Yeah, and you're either you know, a lamenting a lack of hope or
• 15:11
  celebrating the presence of it, and some people don't want the celebration of any
• 15:20
  sort of hope in the music that they're listening to to enhance the way they
• 15:24
  feel. Right. Yeah, So that's it's a large discussion, but I
• 15:30
  think about it all the time still to this day. Yeah. You know
• 15:35
  something that I don't want to talk about religion the entire time. That's not
• 15:39
  my goal here. But I'm kind of fascinated by your own personal journey and
• 15:45
  how it kind of influenced you throughout your years and now because if I remember,
• 15:50
  right, you grew up Catholic, right yeah, yeah, and then
• 15:52
  kind of fell into the evangelical scene. Yeah. Yeah. I ended up
• 15:58
  in southern California and Orange can I'm a junior of high school. The first
• 16:03
  group of people I became friends with were the like home Bible study crew from
• 16:07
  my high school. I had never even heard of such a thing. By
• 16:11
  that point, I had renounced church, not God. I always thought of
• 16:17
  God as being independent from church. I thought church is just something you did,
• 16:22
  you know, growing up, But the connection that God was always sort
• 16:25
  of in a roundabout way, or it was like indirectly connected, you know.
• 16:32
  So, yeah, I found this group of people that were nice to
• 16:36
  me. These were the friends that I made in going to a new high
• 16:40
  school and it went and checked out their Bible study that they bugged me about
• 16:45
  for months to check out, and finally went and had a spiritual experience there
• 16:49
  and really felt different after that and really changed my perspective as a genuine conversion
• 16:55
  experience, even if I had been raised in the church or in the Catholic
• 16:59
  Church. Uh. And then I found the you know, the brand new
• 17:04
  scene and so Colt, you know, and bands like On a Shame and
• 17:11
  Wish for Eaton and Focused. And by the time I came into the Crucified
• 17:18
  had already broken up. But I really loved the Crucified. So that planned
• 17:22
  the idea in my brand because prior to that, a funny story, a
• 17:25
  friend took me to a shortly after becoming a borning and Christian friend took me
• 17:29
  to a Christian bookstore and started showing me in music. I just thought it
• 17:32
  was the dumbest idea ever, Like let's take let's take all this stuff that's
• 17:37
  good and make it bad, you know, so that Christians will buy it.
• 17:41
  That was what I thought. And then it's like that South Park episode.
• 17:44
  Yeah. I mean I could probably quote that episode, you know,
• 17:48
  from front to back. But then I went to a show, you know,
• 17:53
  and I saw some of these bands play, and I think it was
• 17:56
  plank ey and focused were the headlining bands, and that show there's like four
• 18:00
  hundred kids there, and I was like, Wow, this is cool,
• 18:03
  this is real, this is good. I could do this, you know,
• 18:07
  and and planted the idea. It was really out of that experience that
• 18:12
  that Project eighty six was started. Had we been a little bit more intentional,
• 18:18
  we probably would have been a little bit more selective about our early touring
• 18:22
  and even management and label decisions. Perhaps, I don't know, I really
• 18:29
  you know, Dustin's a friend of mine. I really admire the way that
• 18:33
  that their band approached protecting their perception and the way that they built their band,
• 18:37
  coming out of the same area that almost the same group of friends,
• 18:40
  you know, same city, you know, but they went about it totally
• 18:44
  the I guess, the mainstream route or the underground mainstream route totally. It's
• 18:49
  interesting how like Thrice made that transition versus other bands that came out of that
• 18:56
  scene. I just feel like they were smarter than we were. Dustin is
• 19:00
  a pretty smart guy. So yeah, he's a smart dude. He's a
• 19:03
  smart dude admittedly for sure. Yeah, And you know, I've looked at
• 19:08
  bands like that over the years and even felt jealous of Just Man. We
• 19:12
  had just a little bit more careful about going so far down this road.
• 19:18
  But I mean, I only regrets. You know. We have an amazing
• 19:22
  fan base of people that continue to support the band of this day, and
• 19:27
  I'm able to do everything that I love creatively because of the support of our
• 19:33
  Diard fans. And while we may not be the headlining man at a at
• 19:37
  a festival, you know, it's still like impacting people, you know,
• 19:44
  and I feel, you know, as much as it's evolved and as much
• 19:45
  as we're veterans or old school or whatever, you know, there's still people
• 19:51
  out there across the world that are inspired by the music that is being made
• 19:53
  and the art that's being created. And that's the reason why I got into
• 19:56
  doing this. It wasn't to be the biggest band in the world. It
• 19:59
  was just to make stuff that I really enjoyed and to put on an honest
• 20:03
  live show that was fun for people do attend. It sounds like you're at
• 20:08
  a place with Project eighty six where you're able to kind of just do what
• 20:12
  you want and makes sense financially. And we've talked to some other artists,
• 20:18
  and there's one particular artist that we've talked to where it's like he was like,
• 20:21
  if I got any big, bigger, it would ruin my career because
• 20:25
  now I'm going to be answering to a bunch of other people. Where he's
• 20:27
  like, I'm right at this sweet spot where I'm able to make enough money
• 20:30
  where it makes sense for me, and also it's not too big where I
• 20:34
  have to answer to anybody else. He's like, I'm right in this sweet
• 20:37
  spot. Do you feel like Project eighty six is at that point right now
• 20:40
  where you're like not having to answer to anybody, but you're also able to
• 20:42
  like make enough money where you're able to do the things that you want to
• 20:45
  do with the band. I think you articulated it really well. Never gone
• 20:49
  into this to make money, never really have made money, carried you know,
• 20:53
  a lot of debt over the years, to be honest, Like,
• 20:56
  yeah, right up until recently, and it's been our Patreon community that's really
• 21:02
  made a huge difference. You know, you know, you can barely squeak
• 21:07
  by at this level, you know, doing all the normal things, and
• 21:11
  then we add a podcast in it a community to that to just get a
• 21:17
  little bit of a boost in the income. And that gives you just the
• 21:19
  ability to devote the time to things that are warranted without making them like an
• 21:25
  afterthought, you know. That's what that's what's hard, is like, so
• 21:29
  a lot of guys have to do the day job and then the music is
• 21:34
  a hobby. You know. I always said that as long as I'm doing
• 21:37
  Project Dating six, I don't want it to be a hobby because I think
• 21:41
  I think that that compromises the thing, because then you're not able to devote
• 21:45
  the time to it that you need. And so I've always said, if
• 21:48
  I can just get by doing what I do, and the fans have been
• 21:52
  willing to do that, and I feel like I'm doing the things that I'm
• 21:56
  supposed to be doing, and it's expand and in recent history, and the
• 22:02
  support of the fans has enabled us to make the music that wanted to make.
• 22:06
  We have a double album that's being finished right now. We're making a
• 22:10
  film that's entirely quoted by the fans. It's an animated kind of a hybrid
• 22:15
  animated film kind of like a Frank Miller inspired approach, doesn't look like a
• 22:21
  Frank Miller film, but I would say that's kind of the reference point.
• 22:25
  And never written a fiction book surrounding you know, this story with the new
• 22:30
  album, and yeah, I spent all my time working on those things,
• 22:34
  and it's it's really exciting, man, because it's I've always wanted to do
• 22:38
  everything that we're doing right now and never had the opportunity and the way you
• 22:45
  articulated that, yeah, I mean when project was on Atlantic Records, you
• 22:49
  know, we had the management team, the business management team, the touring
• 22:55
  crew and the bus and the you know, the lawyer and the big booking
• 23:00
  agents, you know, plus to all the label people you know, and
• 23:03
  we weren't able to make a living, you know, at all, because
• 23:07
  you're paying everybody else right to do everything, and usually it equates to them
• 23:11
  not doing as good of a job on things as you would do yourself.
• 23:15
  Of course, So to streamline everything and to be in charge of most of
• 23:22
  the process at this stage of the game and knowing what I want to accomplish,
• 23:26
  that takes years to finally figure out how to do everything in a way
• 23:30
  that is right for you, you know what, if that's using your voice
• 23:36
  and singing the way that you want to sound, or setting up shows,
• 23:41
  doing doing things. This way works best for me, and this model works
• 23:45
  best for Project eighty six at this stage. Took a long time to get
• 23:48
  here, but it's great man, super thankful, super fan. So you
• 23:53
  alluded to the new album. You talked about it a little bit. Omni
• 23:56
  is, in my opinion, your best work thus are. And that's saying
• 24:02
  a lot because like I still to this day, think that the song spy
• 24:06
  Hunter, for instance, is a perfect song, Like I don't I have
• 24:11
  like songs that I think are perfect. Five in the Whole World, Five
• 24:15
  in the Whole World, Don't Fear the Reaper? Is that one of your
• 24:22
  five? Coloring like like a Virgin All Star by smash Mouth. That's a
• 24:29
  good one. I could keep going the wheels. No, I got a
• 24:37
  baby, So I'm listening to a lot of Wheels in the bus right now.
• 24:41
  It's pretty good. It's about but No. I think Omni is just
• 24:45
  absolutely incredible. It's so in depth, and I love the anger that's coming
• 24:51
  out that I've not necessarily heard like like this from you. Before. Oh,
• 24:56
  it's always been there. Bro Oh, I know it's always been but
• 25:00
  man, I don't know if it's if it's like you know, your voice
• 25:03
  has gotten a little gruffer and maybe a little bit more matured or what the
• 25:07
  deal is. But man, it's it bites more and it feels darker,
• 25:14
  but it also feels so much more dynamic and so much more interesting in terms
• 25:18
  of like a mature piece of music. I'm absolutely enthralled by it. And
• 25:23
  to add on top of that, these amazing music videos that you've done,
• 25:27
  I mean, wow, like they're incredible. Man, I'm just I'm absolutely
• 25:33
  breathtaken by him. I love the content. I love I love the sounds,
• 25:37
  I love the dynamicism, all of it. I love it. Well,
• 25:42
  thank you again, and that it is super satisfying to hear somebody say
• 25:48
  those things. Because there's been a lot of work and a lot of intention
• 25:51
  put into this. I'll try to touch on each of the things that you
• 25:55
  mentioned in comment on it. When you talk about like the anger, it's
• 26:00
  all the frustration built up over the years of wanting to make a heavier record
• 26:06
  and have a heavier sound, and since drawn black lines always ending up with
• 26:11
  rock records totally, you know what I mean. And it's like, you
• 26:15
  know, I'm not the one sitting there writing the risks, And if I'm
• 26:18
  involved with the risks, you know, it's always me, you know,
• 26:22
  working with the guitarists on that stuff. You know, I'm definitely, definitely
• 26:26
  very involved in writing music, but at the same time reliance upon the band
• 26:29
  to develop it. You know. So the sound over the years has always
• 26:33
  been in some form a compromise or the meeting in the middle of the circles
• 26:38
  of the orbits of the individuals playing right, And there's always been that thing
• 26:45
  in cider. It's like, man, you know, I watch my peers
• 26:48
  play really gnarly, heavy, aggressive, active, active music and again feeling
• 26:52
  jealousy for that feeling that, Ah, I want to make those sounds,
• 26:57
  you know, or listening to bands I love. I want to make music
• 27:02
  that makes people feel the way that this makes me feel. Yeah. So
• 27:06
  finally, you know, we did the last one album, ten Sheep among
• 27:11
  Balls, was rock record. Some great tracks on there, I think,
• 27:15
  but it doesn't hit you the way that this stuff does. And it took
• 27:19
  a couple of years and we get into pandemic and finally, I you know,
• 27:22
  I'm sitting there. I'm thinking two things. One, I don't know
• 27:26
  my voice is going to handle this much longer in terms of just doing this
• 27:30
  kind of music. Although I did change the way I sang live about ten
• 27:36
  years ago and started going heavier ironically to try to save my voice. But
• 27:41
  being told all in the way, and there's a lot of things I'm touched
• 27:44
  on here, but twenty years ago we were making Truthless Heroes. I developed
• 27:48
  a vocal cordin Nonjole, and I was inches away from having surgery for that.
• 27:52
  I decided to forego the surgery because it was risky. It doesn't heal
• 27:56
  right, you can lose your voice permanent, or it can. You can
• 28:00
  you explain to the listeners what that feels like or what you experience with that,
• 28:03
  because a lot of singers say that, but no one really knows unless
• 28:07
  you've had it, what it feels like. I've always pushed my voice too
• 28:11
  hard, So when it happened, I was coming down with some sort of
• 28:15
  sickness or had some sort of weird laryngitis or something, and I tried to
• 28:18
  sing through it, which meant pushing harder and harder and harder. I just
• 28:22
  felt something like basically gidd in my throat or snap or pop. I just
• 28:27
  felt a sharp pain and like I couldn't sing anymore. My voice wouldn't make
• 28:32
  noise. I felt it in like the side of my neck. So it
• 28:36
  was like a soreness radiating kind of outward from my vocal cords and almost be
• 28:41
  like if you like snapped your acl or something. It wasn't quite as severe
• 28:45
  of a pain, Like it didn't hurt that bad. It's more just a
• 28:49
  feeling that something's wrong and your voice doesn't produce the right concern. Yeah.
• 28:55
  Yeah, So then I ended up going to a doctor that took video my
• 29:00
  vocal chords and show me that a nodule, which is basically like a callus
• 29:03
  or like a bump that's in the middle of your vocal chords, and if
• 29:07
  you keep singing on it without treating it the right way or getting it removed,
• 29:11
  you can get second one on the other side. And they're just hard
• 29:14
  growth to develop on your vocal cords that impede them from closing, and your
• 29:18
  vocal cords closing and vibrating is what makes the sound of your voice, so
• 29:23
  you lose the middle of your range, which tends to be speaking voice speaking
• 29:30
  voice, and a lot of the notes that you form was you know,
• 29:34
  singing or shouting. So it's a very real thing. It's kind of like
• 29:38
  every singer's worst nightmare. And I got to live it out. I did
• 29:42
  like six months of like voice rest and speech therapy and vocal coaching and going
• 29:48
  to the doctor's name, and finally I was over it. I'm like,
• 29:52
  ne're doing this again, so I'm just gonna go try to figure this out
• 29:53
  on my own. So for twenty years I never went back to the doctor
• 29:57
  and had everyone around me telling me, oh, dude, voice is getting
• 30:00
  worse. The voice is getting worse, voice and worse. Not thought it
• 30:03
  sound worse, but this sounds more raspy or whatever, you know, and
• 30:07
  it's also called aging. Yeah, so I don't know if that was real
• 30:14
  or if it was actually happening, but I was just terrified to go to
• 30:18
  the doctor for twenty years to get the bad news and then tell me you
• 30:21
  can't do this. An I always imagine that was on the horizon. So
• 30:23
  seventy five percent of me announcing this is the final project at six album album
• 30:27
  eleven was thinking about that and then the other twenty five percent was I don't
• 30:33
  know what else to do creatively here. We've done ten records, but you
• 30:37
  know, what else can we do that we haven't done? Each successive record
• 30:41
  gets more frustrating, more difficult to write and make because we set a pretty
• 30:45
  high bar. We've made some songs, some records over the years that people
• 30:49
  really love. I made one record that people really love, you know,
• 30:52
  drawn black lines, and it's really hard to constantly not measure up to that.
• 31:00
  So I'm like, I want to do one more one more record,
• 31:03
  but I wanted to be way heavier. I want to completely reinvent the thing,
• 31:06
  and I want to do all the things that I've always wanted to do
• 31:07
  that I never did. So I basically said, I'm not going to rest
• 31:11
  until this thing is what I wanted to be, which is really dark,
• 31:15
  really angry, really dynamic and kind of tells the story that I see about
• 31:22
  the world around me, that I see as emerging. And that's what we
• 31:25
  did. That's what Omnis become. And it turned into a double album,
• 31:29
  an animated film, and Don't un Done obviously, and a book that all
• 31:33
  fit together into one immersive experience. I hope when it's also undone, people
• 31:40
  point to this as the opus of Project eighty six. Maybe it's something else,
• 31:45
  you know, maybe I'll this is what I'm thinking now. It's like
• 31:48
  I'll finish the story. So going into making this record, we've got the
• 31:52
  music written for part one. Was it just about to go into the studio
• 31:56
  and I came down with COVID And while I had COVID, I was in
• 32:04
  my car driving one day. I remember exactly where I was and what I
• 32:07
  was listening to, and I'll tell you in a minute, because it's funny.
• 32:10
  And I'm one of those guys that sings along in my car loud on
• 32:15
  the same crank the music and sing along and doing this. And I felt
• 32:20
  that exact same feeling as twenty years ago when I was interested. Now,
• 32:25
  yeah, it was the first day of vocal tracking on Truthless Heroes when I
• 32:29
  got and I felt the exact same thing, and I said, oh,
• 32:34
  I finally did it. I finally got a second nodule and my voice is
• 32:38
  going to be destroyed before going in and making this record. So I did
• 32:43
  everything for about six weeks that I was supposed to do according to speech therapists
• 32:47
  and vocal coaches and such from years ago, you know, resting, not
• 32:52
  talking, doing certain vocal exercises, mutricking, tons of watering, tons of
• 32:58
  sleep, all things that are worked in the past, and it just didn't
• 33:00
  work. You know. Six weeks later, I was no better. So
• 33:04
  I finally had to do the thing that I feared the most, and I
• 33:07
  was just going to doctor get the news of old actually going. So for
• 33:12
  about a week, I like prayed about it and you know, obsessed over
• 33:15
  and resolve myself to the fact that I was going to get bad news and
• 33:17
  be told that I needed to end my singing career. Went into the doctor.
• 33:23
  They put a probe up your nose and film your vocal cords and you
• 33:27
  get to watch in real time your your vocal cords on video screen. And
• 33:31
  she showed me and I kind of had my eyes closed that's out there excitedly
• 33:35
  to see. She's like, take a look. She didn't say anything,
• 33:37
  and I looked to my left and she's like, whatever you have going on
• 33:40
  before is gone. Like, your vocal cords look perfect. The only reason
• 33:44
  that's you're having problems because you had covid and residual swelling in your broth.
• 33:50
  I wasn't ready for that. So the world starts spinning around me. I
• 33:53
  walked out like the best news you could have gotten was you had COVID,
• 33:58
  which for a lot of people like that wasn't the best news you could have
• 34:00
  gotten, but the fact that that was the news you got was like,
• 34:04
  oh shit, that's yeah. Yeah, it was a miracle. I walked
• 34:07
  hid and know what to do? Man, I was not ready for that.
• 34:09
  The world was spinning around me. I was like, I feel like
• 34:12
  I've been giving my life back and what to do with it? Did you
• 34:15
  feel like you're floating as your Yeah, just floating. I feel like I
• 34:17
  was in some some film where the camera spins around three year degrees, you
• 34:23
  know, and I'm just standing there in the street my arms out, you
• 34:27
  know, like what do I do? Now? What do I call?
• 34:30
  What do I do? And it was like a week of like shock,
• 34:34
  start thanking covid. Yeah, say covid, Like that could be like the
• 34:39
  phrase that I say, like what if that was like the vaccine for for
• 34:44
  vocal nodules was just covida exactly. That's it. That's it. So I
• 34:51
  get in the studio working with the producer Bobrishell. It's amazing. He also
• 34:58
  plays guitar in the bands as Yeah, he's a fantastic producer and exert When
• 35:04
  Anne was working with him, and we got through the first song I Believe,
• 35:07
  which was a Pothosis. We did that one first, which is track
• 35:13
  one on them, you know, and the second song on track was METAtropolis.
• 35:15
  I remember, you know, we got through Apothiosis, but we couldn't
• 35:20
  really hear it because we had to do a lot of like assembly. There's
• 35:23
  a lot of stuff going we're on vocally in that song, so I didn't
• 35:25
  really hear it, you know, rough mixed sense, Like I didn't get
• 35:30
  to listen to it when I drove home. So the next day I came
• 35:32
  in. We did METAtropolis and that one was a little bit more simplistic vocally,
• 35:37
  and I remember when I was tracking that song, he turned around.
• 35:40
  He said to me, He's like, man, I've listened to your band
• 35:44
  throughout most of the history, Like I'm very familiar with it. He's like,
• 35:49
  I think this is by far and away the best you've ever sounded.
• 35:52
  And I said, man, this is the best I've ever felt in his
• 35:55
  studio, And I'm finally doing something heavy year and I finally feel like I've
• 36:01
  learned how to use my boys twenty five plus years into this thing, and
• 36:07
  I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing finally, So this long and bigger
• 36:09
  out, I just can't describe the feeling. It's just incredible. It's better
• 36:14
  than any feeling I've ever had in the studio ever, because of everything I've
• 36:17
  gone through prior to that, not just my voice, but with the journey
• 36:21
  of the band too, and like creatively, like going into it feeling like
• 36:25
  now I don't know what to do, and then just kind of falling my
• 36:28
  heart in a way that I never had before and sticking to my gut and
• 36:30
  my guns way more deeply than I ever had. And Okay, no,
• 36:35
  I wanted to sound like this. I'm not gonna let anybody else sway me
• 36:37
  from what I wanted to sound. Can I just say that in all the
• 36:43
  years that I've listened to music, especially like kind of the heavier world of
• 36:45
  like metalcore, hardcore, all that kind of stuff, there was like a
• 36:50
  trend for a while where bands would like kind of experiment with like kind of
• 36:52
  softer stuff, and I love all of that, Like Cullen and I are
• 36:55
  big like post rock fans and everything. Yeah, but when there's a band
• 37:00
  like as rooted in the hardcore world or medical metalcore world, anytime they went
• 37:06
  softer, I was like, I don't know about this, but anytime they
• 37:08
  went heavier, I was like, this, even if it meant that they
• 37:12
  like it was not gonna be nearly as popular, I was like, that's
• 37:15
  the route that they should take, because they sound better going heavier. And
• 37:20
  so whenever a band like makes that decision of like, actually we're gonna sound
• 37:23
  heavier here, even though it probably is not gonna be sales wise, really
• 37:28
  good for them. I think at least like in terms of their integrity and
• 37:31
  the way that they actually are really good, it's actually gonna sound way better.
• 37:37
  I mean, that's been my experience. You know. When we were
• 37:40
  trying to write radio hits back in two thousand and one, two thousand and
• 37:45
  two, it just always felt like alien. It just felt like this is
• 37:50
  not me, this is not my band, and it was like square peg,
• 37:54
  round hole all the way. It's funny we wrote spy Hunter. We
• 38:00
  wrote that song as a part of going into the studio, like we were
• 38:07
  on Atlantic at the time, and it was after Drawing Black Lines, and
• 38:10
  they wanted us to write some new music for a single, like a radio
• 38:15
  single for a film that was coming up ended up being the film rock Star
• 38:19
  with Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Andison. We flew up to Vancouver, which is
• 38:22
  where we recorded Drawing Black Lines when I'm with the same producer. I remember
• 38:27
  we got in there and there was this song that we had written that we
• 38:30
  were trying to do something more melodic, and it just wasn't very good,
• 38:35
  and then Spy Hunter was kind of the afterthought song that we recorded as part
• 38:38
  of that. Obviously, Atlanta hated it was like, what is this crap?
• 38:43
  They hated it. Yeah, they just didn't know what to do with
• 38:45
  it, you know they were they were just like, were we asked for
• 38:47
  like a radio single? This is not a radio single. So it was
• 38:52
  like an afterthought of the session where we're supposed to be going in and writing
• 38:55
  a hit song, and that's the hit song that we got out of it,
• 38:59
  so that our version back then like, well, we couldn't write a
• 39:02
  hit, but we come up with this banger that's like aggressive and angry,
• 39:07
  and it's always felt like that's kind of the soul of this band. Yeah,
• 39:12
  this music for Omni is a lot darker, it's a lot heavier.
• 39:15
  My vocals are a lot more aggressive. The music's more aggressive, it's darker,
• 39:22
  and it just feels closer in my heart. And I think you can
• 39:24
  feel it. Oh yeah, it feels like you're like you're being more authentic
• 39:30
  than you ever have been. And that's that's such a strange thing because you've
• 39:36
  you've always had this this authenticity. I mean, Project eighty six has always
• 39:40
  been the band everyone knows is like, that's a band that says exactly what
• 39:45
  they what they're feeling. But this takes it to a different level. I'm
• 39:50
  just I'm curious to get your thoughts on some of like the content visually as
• 39:57
  well as lyrically with because it's it's something that I think because we're sharing.
• 40:05
  Yeah, I hesitate to use this word, but I don't have another word.
• 40:08
  There's a concept here, right Whenever you hear that, it's it depends
• 40:13
  on what you're talking to do, I guess. But over the years,
• 40:15
  if you say that word, you immediately think, oh, it's not the
• 40:20
  man's best record because they focused on telling some sort of Rock Opera's story,
• 40:24
  and I can assure anyone listening that that's not the case here. But I
• 40:29
  feel like I'm me at my best when I am not just painting a picture
• 40:32
  but telling a story. And that's just how I think and right. And
• 40:37
  I've had this picture, in this kind of story in my brain for a
• 40:40
  very long time. I don't know when. There wasn't a day that I
• 40:44
  woke up and felt like I had clarity on this, but it just feels
• 40:47
  like something that's been with me for a very long time, and I think
• 40:51
  the pandemic era sort of solidified it in my brain. It's like, Oh,
• 40:57
  we're gonna come out of this pandemic into a dystopian in hellscape world that
• 41:00
  we're never going to come back from. And technology is going to start accelerating
• 41:07
  forward and it's going to usher in some sort of new Earth very soon.
• 41:13
  It may do it gradually, it may do it quickly, but there are
• 41:16
  a lot of scary things happening in the world around me. And I wanted
• 41:21
  to write a story about a character who's trying to navigate the old gods and
• 41:27
  the new, like the old world and the new and everything that represents the
• 41:36
  technocracy that's emerging versus you know, the analog universe that we all lived in
• 41:40
  for so many centuries as human beings. So looking at all that, really
• 41:45
  it's a story about what would happen. For the question what would happen if
• 41:49
  a big tech company came along and invented a way for humanity to live forever
• 41:53
  through technology and so on the crazy as if you Gosh Camember, which scientist
• 42:01
  was very very well respected, biologists and everything like that, says anyone who
• 42:07
  was born in twenty nineteen or later, we'll have the potential possibility or we'll
• 42:15
  have like the potential to live forever. Right, And so we're getting there
• 42:21
  quickly, and you're hearing more and more of these authorities on biotechnology and physics
• 42:28
  and AI and how all of these things converge. Yeah, technology and everything.
• 42:35
  Yeah, nanotech is a huge thing involved in MR and A is a
• 42:38
  big part of it as well. Definitely, where basically what we're seeing happen
• 42:43
  here is this not to get too biblical, but there's no way around it.
• 42:47
  You know, in the Book of Genesis, there's what I think is
• 42:51
  a very spooky moment that occurs that people usually kind of glaze over and it's
• 42:55
  that God, God gave humans. And you could say this is a metaphor
• 43:00
  not. I don't really I'm not interested in the in the theological debate on
• 43:06
  it. I'm just looking at the story that's being told. God gives a
• 43:09
  command to humans that says, populate the earth. Instead of doing that,
• 43:14
  they came together and share information and it became smarter because of it, because
• 43:19
  they pulled their collective experience and data together to build something that was an attempt
• 43:25
  to do exactly what humanity is trying to do to this day, which is
• 43:30
  reach Heaven. What does that mean? It means live forever on our own
• 43:35
  terms. And we're seeing this come to fruition now. So there is,
• 43:38
  at least in a metaphorical sense, a re emerged tower of babble occurring in
• 43:44
  the world around us right as we speak, and really started occurring once we
• 43:47
  started sharing data via one global centralized computer network. Right now we hold in
• 43:55
  our hands and holding up a smartphone here a super computer that is the collective
• 44:01
  of all accumulated knowledge that humanity has has recorded right in our hands every day,
• 44:12
  and the very next step in our evolution, given the trajectory of all
• 44:16
  of this is that this technology is going to be in here I'm pointing in
• 44:21
  her head and my eyes. Soon. What happens when that is what will
• 44:27
  become hybrid analog and AI we become something else, become a new species.
• 44:32
  So this is kind of what this Omni story is about, because I believe
• 44:36
  when that happens, we're talking singularity and we're also talking eternal life. Now,
• 44:40
  it might not be eternal life in these bodies, you know what I
• 44:44
  mean, but internal life of the consciousness and will each probably be given the
• 44:51
  opportunity to partake in this. But what will be the consequence of that?
• 44:53
  That's what Omni is all about. Can you without getting like too nerdy into
• 45:00
  philosophical I'm sure you're familiar with, like the philosophy of transhumanism, Like is
• 45:07
  that something that you explored in this That's what that's what's about that true,
• 45:12
  right, Transhumanism is what Omni is about. I'm kind of in this like
• 45:15
  place where I'm like, I feel like technology and a part has played into
• 45:22
  the human human evolution. Like without technology, humans would not have like evolved
• 45:28
  in the way that we have, Like even if it's basic evolution like developing
• 45:30
  fire or whatever. And also at the same time, there is a point
• 45:35
  where it's like, at what point do we no longer remain human because of
• 45:38
  our relationship with technology in our human evolution? Or is that just always going
• 45:43
  to be a part of human evolution. It's a really weird like where's that
• 45:46
  fine line out where we're like, I don't know, but it is really
• 45:50
  interesting. And Uh, what I will appreciate about trans transhumanism, even though
• 45:55
  I have a lot of questions about it and a lot of concerns, what
• 45:59
  I do appreciate about it is the fact that at least interrogates that question of
• 46:04
  at what point do we no longer become human definitely? And what does it
• 46:08
  mean to be human? And that's another thing I'm really postulating in this story
• 46:19
  and in this exploration of these concepts, because I believe we have a nature
• 46:27
  as humans, right, and the age old philosophical debate is are we inherently
• 46:31
  good? Or are we inherently able? And I believe that we will know
• 46:37
  that more than ever before. Not that we don't have a lot of accumulated
• 46:43
  data to point too to make an argument on this, but I believe that
• 46:47
  if you were to remove the consequences of selfishness and the promise of mortality,
• 47:00
  that people would be free to do what they want to do. And what
• 47:04
  would they want to do. I think they would want to do. We
• 47:06
  would want to do. I would want to do whatever I want it?
• 47:10
  Right? What is that? What is that? What is that? For
• 47:14
  you? It could it could be really ugly. And that's kind of the
• 47:19
  theory I'm putting out there on this What would that look like for me personally?
• 47:22
  I can't How would you be able to answer that? And that's the
• 47:27
  whole point. None of us can answer that, honestly because I don't know.
• 47:34
  But the whole point, and again not to get to too biblical here,
• 47:38
  but again it's hard to avoid it. I think that there is a
• 47:44
  presence in this world that restrains our kernel nature, and if you were to
• 47:49
  remove that restraint in the world, then you would get a much different world,
• 47:58
  and that world would be much darker and the way we respond and treat
• 48:02
  Yeah, that that thing in the world is your frontal lobe. Like the
• 48:07
  frontal lobe is what you know, that's that's what that's what gives us,
• 48:12
  that's what separates us. Right from from animalistic or carnal nature. Right,
• 48:16
  So if we can evolve out of that to the point where our frontal lobe
• 48:23
  no longer has to be the thing that stops us from doing things that are
• 48:28
  considered selfish or you know, not altruistic, I would say, right then,
• 48:38
  that is what's ugly about it, right, And that's why Omni is
• 48:43
  such an important album. Yeah, not to go so far down, Yeah,
• 48:45
  to real it back in or whatever. I just wanted to write a
• 48:49
  record that looks at what's going on and focuses in on technology as an expression
• 48:55
  of mankind's collective consciousness and nature and see where it's all headed, and so
• 49:04
  develop a story surrounding that. It's it's a sci fi horror show man.
• 49:08
  It's it's a dark piece of piece of media. But it's been really fun
• 49:14
  to work on. Where you mentioned music videos, were four music videos into
• 49:17
  twelve totals, so we're a third of the way through and we're going to
• 49:22
  make a music video for every song on the part one and connect it all
• 49:25
  with narration. Basically, make a film, a visual album that tells the
• 49:30
  story that connects directly with this fiction book that written. It's also titled It's
• 49:35
  all so hopefully those that are interested in going a little deeper into this thing
• 49:42
  can can dive in and really go go go down the rabbit hole. Yeah,
• 49:47
  just like just like we were. I mean, I know, you
• 49:50
  didn't want to go down the rabbit hole about like spy Hunter or you know,
• 49:52
  drying black lines, but we could. We could go down the rabbit
• 49:55
  hole about transhumaners them all day, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, there's
• 49:59
  a lot to talk about, and it's real for all of us, even
• 50:01
  if it's not on the forefront of our lines at all times. It's just
• 50:06
  because we're not paying attention, you know. Oh yeah, yeah, for
• 50:08
  sure. I think the only thing that you need to do in order to
• 50:13
  complete the multi media experience that you're establishing here is get a Dodge Omni.
• 50:20
  Yeah those yeah, fuel efficient cars. Yeah. I didn't even think about
• 50:27
  that. I mean, I just that was the word that popped in my
• 50:30
  head. It was like, well, what would this tech company be called?
• 50:35
  Yeah, Omni And then that our artists give shot shout out to Donnie
• 50:40
  Phillips. These are he's doing the packaging right I'm covering, and he developed
• 50:47
  this logo that's says omni vertically O M. And it's a man h flying
• 50:55
  like ascending basically, which I was like, oh my god to capture that.
• 51:00
  Yeah, love that. So yeah, man, we're actually gearing up
• 51:07
  here. We just played a couple of shows this U this weekend August seventeenth
• 51:10
  through the twentieth, we're doing a big shoot in LA for the film,
• 51:15
  and we'll be at Furnace Fest next when we're playing on Friday the twenty second,
• 51:20
  So if anyone listening wants to join us and be part of the thing,
• 51:22
  we'll be playing some new material. We don't have a super long set,
• 51:25
  so we're gonna have to pull out all the bangers and just rock as
• 51:29
  hard as we can for people on stage, like forty minutes. Can we
• 51:32
  expect at least like a song or two from Mommy? Oh yeah, yeah
• 51:36
  yeah, we'll be playing either two or three from any Okay perfect. I
• 51:40
  gotta say that METAtropolis is probably my favorite song to play live all time.
• 51:46
  It really is a thing now that I'm feeling. I just don't understand.
• 51:51
  I can't particularly what this is all going to look like move for, but
• 51:54
  it really feels like albums one through ten or one thing and this is something
• 52:00
  new, some freshure. It sounds new, it sounds fresh. So one
• 52:05
  idea I had was if people are really feeling the story and really get into
• 52:08
  the extra stuff beyond the music, the film book, that we can make
• 52:14
  this into like a series, you know, and something we can continue to
• 52:17
  explore. Again, for my band, it's the fans that make these decisions.
• 52:23
  If enough people are into it and want to get behind it, you
• 52:27
  know, financially, but also just in support sense all across the board,
• 52:32
  then I keep making this stuff. And for me, this whole thing leaves
• 52:37
  off on an unresolved plot point on several fronts, so I left it open
• 52:45
  ended on purpose if we want to keep going. And I'm really happy with
• 52:51
  how the story has has come out in the book and where it's going with
• 52:57
  the film, so I think people are gonna be really stoked on it,
• 53:00
  and it definitely propels what people have known from me in the context of project
• 53:06
  to another level. Well, hopefully you get enough funning throughout the years that
• 53:12
  you can at least get to the point where you tell the story about the
• 53:14
  end of the universe. Whether it's gonna be a big crunch, big expansion,
• 53:17
  whatever, it might be. Yeah, man, well, we're super
• 53:22
  stoked to see you at Furnace Fast. I mean, it's just going to
• 53:24
  be such a fucking unbelievable show. Also, that lineup that Friday is going
• 53:30
  to be nuts. So we're just super stoked that you are going to be
• 53:35
  a part of just probably one of the better days of a lineup at Furnace
• 53:37
  Fest in its history. Wow. That's cool man. Yeah, And it's
• 53:42
  fun that we get to play of the three days the first day. I
• 53:46
  love playing the first day of a festival just because you get that raw fresh
• 53:51
  energy from everybody. Intense and I hope people come out, man, like
• 53:57
  I hope the people. Obviously, we've got remnant people that are still really
• 54:00
  attached to the band, that are up to date. I know that there's
• 54:04
  a lot of periphery out there, good band that maybe listen to us,
• 54:09
  you know, five albums ago or seven albums ago or whatever. You know,
• 54:15
  they like the band, but maybe just didn't stick with us along the
• 54:16
  way, or maybe they just didn't like what we started coming up with later
• 54:21
  on the catalog or whatever. My hope is that we can reel some of
• 54:23
  those people back in. And and also, you know, say hello to
• 54:27
  some new folks as well that we've never heard the band or seen the band
• 54:30
  before. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. Furnace Fest is is
• 54:36
  such a unique event, at least from the OUTSI I've never been there,
• 54:40
  but it's wild just from what I've been told from other bands and we've played,
• 54:45
  and just seeing footage and stuff online, like it's gonna be cool.
• 54:50
  It's it's yeah, it absolutely gonna be nuts. Are you playing on sticking
• 54:53
  around at least like another day or two after you after your show? I
• 54:58
  think so. I would say seven five percent sure on that. So it
• 55:01
  kind of comes down to the guys that I'm traveling with because I live in
• 55:06
  southern California, whateveryone that I work with is in Nashville, which is really
• 55:09
  close to Furnace Fast, right, So it comes down to whether it everyone
• 55:14
  wants to, you know, stick around or just get back to their families.
• 55:17
  Totally. I usually kind of ball well at least on Friday, because
• 55:22
  you know you're gonna be there Friday. Are there any bands that you haven't
• 55:25
  seen or you're looking forward to seeing that maybe you haven't seen before that you
• 55:30
  would or maybe you have seen before and you just haven't seen for a while
• 55:34
  or whatever. But yeah, are there any bands that you're looking forward to
• 55:36
  seeing that at least that Friday? Let me pull up the website here.
• 55:39
  I mean that that Friday lineup is pretty sick. So yeah, here Furnace
• 55:46
  Fast two Friday. I've glanced at this, but I'm okay. So eight
• 55:52
  Bread, Hamberling, Okay, throw Down, Cooperate, Gideon, Holy Wars,
• 55:58
  Hopes Fall. There's a lot of bands. Kilbery, Knuckle Puck made
• 56:01
  a where Nindie Humbo was no Cure, no Trigger, Marma Jean, Open
• 56:05
  Hand, Orthodox, Pieball, Approceate, six Qualifier, Show Bred, Slow
• 56:09
  Folse, Undertaking, Walls of Jericho, What Set, what Comes, Cleansing
• 56:14
  with honoring Data. Okay, if I was gonna pick, I want to
• 56:17
  watch to throw Down. He used to be friends with those guys. I
• 56:21
  haven't talked to him in the years. They used to rent our practice spaces,
• 56:23
  we had a studio, really were and so yeah, they're nice guys.
• 56:29
  I like their music too. Definitely watch them hate Bread. That would
• 56:34
  be cool, normal Jeine, good good buddies. Yeah, definitely be cool
• 56:38
  to watch them. Gotta give a shout to Grayson and Corey and Man and
• 56:45
  Michael Yeah for their help on this project. Wait what did what did they
• 56:51
  do with you? Well, I know, I know Corey sang a song
• 56:54
  and everything. He did a guess vocal, but they were basically my you
• 57:00
  know, except for Darren and Bow. I had a huge production team,
• 57:04
  but they were they were totally involved in most of the process. So actually,
• 57:07
  how this how this album started was Corey and I were talking on a
• 57:13
  call, just just hanging out to on a piece on call, or I
• 57:17
  think maybe I texted him or something, and I said, dude, you
• 57:20
  know, let's why don't I have you on a song? And he was
• 57:22
  like, why would write a song together? And that led led to me
• 57:25
  talking further. I was like, dude, I'd love to have you be
• 57:30
  involved in this thing in whatever way that you would desire and feel inspired to.
• 57:36
  Let me connect you with some folks you know that I work with,
• 57:39
  and it just kind of went from there. I was really good friends with
• 57:44
  Matt Putman, who used to play Altered Percussion and Living Sacrifice, and I
• 57:50
  hadn't talked in years, and that's Corey's brother, and so we got together
• 57:55
  with him. It was Grayson Corey, Matt him and wrote bolk of on
• 58:00
  Me together. You know, it wasn't. It wasn't without help from Darren,
• 58:07
  who plays guitar in my band and who he and I worked on the
• 58:10
  last two project Wrecords together, and bo who had a lot to do with
• 58:15
  the finished Omni Part one. I'm just talking about part one here. Part
• 58:17
  two has been different. Been myself, Darren, Matt, and Scin named
• 58:22
  Michael. But yeah, man, that whole camp was a part of this
• 58:30
  thing. And didn't know that when we got to you know, when I
• 58:32
  started talking to Corey about He's like, dude, let me help you just
• 58:36
  execute your vision, you know, And I was like, I've never had
• 58:39
  anyone say that to me before. I'm like, I love this conversation.
• 58:45
  So yeah, yeah, man kind of got outside the circle of talent here
• 58:51
  and pulled in a lot of other people to work on this thing on part
• 58:55
  two. I've never made an album, but I will say if I were
• 59:00
  to execute some vision with somebody, it would be Corey Brandon. I mean,
• 59:04
  that dude knows how to make a fucking album. Yeah, I mean,
• 59:07
  he's he's so good at what he does. He writes great lyrics he's
• 59:10
  a great vocalist. He's a multifaceted vocalist, so he's singer yeller, you
• 59:15
  know, and he's got a lot of diversity within the things that he does.
• 59:22
  He's also you know, very concept oriented, visual or like he just
• 59:25
  is good at everything. So yeah, I was just like, here's what
• 59:30
  I want to do, you know, Drew, I literally drew it on
• 59:34
  a whiteboards like story. Well, this whole thing's about I love it,
• 59:42
  we help you, you know, kind of went from there. So that's
• 59:45
  sick. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. I really want to be careful that
• 59:49
  it didn't end up being like a Frankenstein monster between his band mind and I
• 59:52
  don't think that's where we end up, not at all. I think we
• 59:55
  ended up with something unique and I'm really happy with really happy. Can't give
• 1:00:01
  enough love shoutouts to all those things. Yeah, I love it. Unbelievable.
• 1:00:07
  Uh we better get into top five most influential so that we uh can
• 1:00:12
  let you get out of here in a reasonable time. So top five most
• 1:00:15
  influential albums, Andrew, are you ready? I apply most influential records number
• 1:00:20
  one. I have to put BC Boys license to ill. Yeah, Okay,
• 1:00:23
  all right, that was like the first record I ever loved. It's
• 1:00:29
  the first band I was ever a fan of, like actual fan of the
• 1:00:31
  band, where like I imagine myself being fantasized about like being them, you
• 1:00:38
  know what I mean? Best boys. Okay, so we're talking influential,
• 1:00:45
  like influential on my like future music career type, your life, your music,
• 1:00:50
  your thoughts on life, how are however you want to say it.
• 1:00:52
  Gosh, it's so hard, dude. You know, I've had this whole
• 1:00:55
  time to think about this that we've been talking about. Okay, I have
• 1:01:00
  to go super Unknown by Sound Garden after you're speaking to Culin right now.
• 1:01:07
  It's like a timeless record, Yeah, time wars record, so weird but
• 1:01:14
  so great. Yeah, it just it still sounds awesome. Like I love
• 1:01:19
  to put that on for people who didn't really you know, either who aren't
• 1:01:23
  old enough or who just didn't listen to that kind of music back then.
• 1:01:27
  And they say that it's like a grunge record, and I'm like, I
• 1:01:30
  don't hear that at all. No, it's like a psychedelic metal record.
• 1:01:34
  Yeah. It's like it's like, what were you gonna say? I was
• 1:01:37
  just gonna say, Andrew one thing. If you should know anything about Culin,
• 1:01:42
  he can great. He can do a great Chris Cornell. Really yeah,
• 1:01:46
  I'm not gonna ask you to do it, but that's hard to do,
• 1:01:49
  man. Yeah, it's pretty fun. Colin will go from like Chris
• 1:01:54
  Cornell to like Whitney Houston. I mean he can like it's pretty impressive.
• 1:02:00
  His karaoke prowess is why good. I would love to hear that. You
• 1:02:05
  know, we did a cover of this is This was kind of blasphemous,
• 1:02:08
  I think, but I wanted to do it because the facity of it of
• 1:02:13
  fell on Black Days. Yeah, we actually recorded a cover of that song.
• 1:02:19
  Is that is that released? It's on an EP that we did.
• 1:02:22
  That was kind of an exclusive EP on one of our crowd funded records.
• 1:02:28
  It was like two albums ago. I believe it's available just on the project
• 1:02:32
  in the six web store if you just go to the website. There's a
• 1:02:37
  digital store on their own. It is on YouTube? Is it on YouTube?
• 1:02:42
  Yeah, there's a somebody uploaded on YouTube. Yeah. I think it
• 1:02:46
  came out cool. I was listening to it recently and I was like,
• 1:02:49
  you know what, this came out? This came out all right, I
• 1:02:52
  did it. It's really hard to sing. It took me so long to
• 1:02:55
  record that. It was really hard. But yeah, sound Garden supernown.
• 1:03:02
  I would say the if I could love them together both porta set records.
• 1:03:09
  Oh wow, all right, Yeah. I just fell in love with that
• 1:03:15
  band in the late nineties early two thousands. I think the year that I
• 1:03:22
  found them was like ninety nine was a little after the fact. I had
• 1:03:24
  heard of them, but I had never listened to This is my favorite music
• 1:03:30
  because it was like hunting and dark, but not like the It just I
• 1:03:37
  always loved electronic music as well, so it kind of thing was like it
• 1:03:43
  was noir. It was. It was so cool. I just when I
• 1:03:45
  found that band, I was like, yeah, what else? What else?
• 1:03:52
  Okay, we got to move forward a little bit out of that.
• 1:03:57
  We need two more right right records that I've really affected me as a person
• 1:04:06
  as an artist. I'm just trying to think about it. You know.
• 1:04:10
  It's funny. I started Vinyl Collection and I said, I'm only going about
• 1:04:14
  one hundred records, and they're going to one hundred records that have changed me.
• 1:04:17
  So I'm going through my mind at that list. That's a brilliant way
• 1:04:20
  to have a bought, because I want to be able to close my eyes
• 1:04:24
  and pick a record and have it be awesome, you know what I mean,
• 1:04:27
  no matter what the record it was. So I'm trying to think of
• 1:04:30
  all the records and I bought so far, and the ones that I'm missing
• 1:04:34
  are those that are they're behind you, yeah, over your left shoulder,
• 1:04:39
  Yeah, exactly exactly. I'm trying to stay away from like super obvious to
• 1:04:45
  It's like master of Puppets, you know what I mean, Like sometimes sometimes
• 1:04:49
  the obvious is the right choice, though. Yeah, I mean when I
• 1:04:54
  was younger, when I was in junior high and early high school, Metallica
• 1:04:58
  was definitely the bank. Yeah, so many other people. And I think
• 1:05:01
  that's probably the most talked about one on here. I would think, yeah,
• 1:05:05
  and I'm Jimmy were Old is probably the other one. Jimmy Eat World.
• 1:05:09
  Interesting. Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't. I like Jimmy World,
• 1:05:12
  but I wouldn't have picked them. Okay, I've got I've got one.
• 1:05:15
  I've got a record it would be and this is an obscure one for this
• 1:05:21
  band, but this was the record that really sold me, believe it or
• 1:05:25
  not. It was how it Feels to Be Something on My Sunny Dame Towards
• 1:05:28
  Day very good, which I don't even know if I think that's their best
• 1:05:32
  record now, which I probably need to know, But it was the timing
• 1:05:38
  of it, yeah, and what I was going through in my life at
• 1:05:42
  the time, the lyrics and the songs, and we were just starting to
• 1:05:45
  tour when it came out, so we listened to that on the road over
• 1:05:48
  and over and over again and it was just magic and there's something they're speaking
• 1:05:55
  to me. Now. I just saw them a few months ago and I
• 1:05:59
  think they I think they started the set with a I think it I always
• 1:06:03
  I don't remember song titles at all, but it was definitely the first song
• 1:06:08
  on how how it Feels to Be Something on and God so unbelievable that that
• 1:06:14
  was probably like for my twenty twenty three year of seeing bands, that was
• 1:06:17
  probably like the most like that, Like it was a concert that was really
• 1:06:21
  looking forward to, but it was like the one that like blew me away
• 1:06:24
  the most. So yeah, yeah, I saw them in two thousand five
• 1:06:30
  six something was like the first maybe two other seven dozen eights more around there,
• 1:06:35
  but like Mede the late Odds right and It was when they had been
• 1:06:42
  broken up for however many years and first got back again. Oh man,
• 1:06:46
  that was one of my That album is unbelievable. It's one of my favorite
• 1:06:50
  shows ever. Okay, I have to pick one. You got one more
• 1:06:55
  album and I will say you are probably setting up Mason and I his favorite
• 1:07:00
  album list to date. This is this one. This? Yeah, I
• 1:07:06
  mean you're you're hitting all the bases. Man. Okay, this this one
• 1:07:11
  maybe left field for you guys. This is one. I have to pick
• 1:07:13
  some of this whole matter and this is probably no good one. One of
• 1:07:19
  my two current favorite bands is this band and their first record was really Life
• 1:07:26
  Alter Okay, and it's not that old. It's a band called Health and
• 1:07:30
  it's their first record. So you probably don't even know the band. No,
• 1:07:34
  no. They are kind of a really contemporary take on almost like industrial
• 1:07:42
  music, but they do it in a really cool way. Doesn't make it
• 1:07:45
  sound what's the album that you're talking about again? I believe their first album
• 1:07:50
  is called Death Magic, So that's their third album actually, according to hold
• 1:07:59
  on, let me look here. According to Wikipedia, it's their third album.
• 1:08:01
  They have a couple others before then, but Death Magic is definitely one
• 1:08:08
  of their albums. I love that. This looks really interesting though, Oh
• 1:08:14
  they're great. Okay, So twoy fifteen YEP is when that one came out
• 1:08:24
  and looks like, yeah, I guess they have released stuff prior to that.
• 1:08:28
  I mean, everyone that I know who listens to them, we all
• 1:08:32
  refer to it as their first record and don't consider anything before that. But
• 1:08:40
  I think it's just to mind. That was the record that I've been sure
• 1:08:44
  what I mean, And they put out a ton of stuff since then.
• 1:08:45
  It's all really good, but that record just it's so good. It's melodic,
• 1:08:50
  so it's not like a like a screaming vocal. The guy's voice,
• 1:08:55
  he just sounds like an emotionless computer. And the music it is so heavy
• 1:09:00
  without being heavy in the guitar sounds. You just have to listen to it.
• 1:09:04
  It's actually it's a what an interesting, uh A way to describe a
• 1:09:11
  singer just emotionless that that that sounds so intriguing. He sounds emotionless, like
• 1:09:17
  he sounds like he's not human, and it's haunting and amazing. It's really
• 1:09:25
  cool. Sweet, I'm totally in on the intrigue here. Gonna check it
• 1:09:30
  out. The way you're describing this album, I'm sure like the sound is
• 1:09:35
  very different and everything, uh, and certainly the singer is very different.
• 1:09:39
  But there's a band called the Antlers, okay, and they have they have
• 1:09:44
  an album called Hospice, which is actually like a concept album about this like
• 1:09:47
  the like frontman or the like the lyric writer like visiting a person who's dying
• 1:09:53
  in hospice. It's not like a heavy like it's not metal or anything.
• 1:09:56
  It's just like it's like indie rock. But the way that they produce deuced
• 1:10:00
  the album makes it sound so heavy and haunting. And so the way you're
• 1:10:04
  describing this Health album really sounds similar to Hospice by the Antlers, I would
• 1:10:10
  say that Health is an andy rock band as well. Okay, okay,
• 1:10:13
  yeah, they definitely have that aesthetic going. But if you're looking for like
• 1:10:17
  another like heavy, haunting album that is like not actually heavy music, I
• 1:10:23
  really recommend the Antlers, and specifically their album Hospice. It's just like such
• 1:10:27
  a haunting album. Can't pull it up. It's so good. When I
• 1:10:31
  say heavy, like it's emotionally heavy, but it's also heavy like electronic production.
• 1:10:39
  So it's like like right, just thick and nasty and dirty, and
• 1:10:45
  like if you have a sub it's just rumbling your entire you know, home
• 1:10:50
  or car or whatever. Yeah, it's just insane and that. Yeah,
• 1:10:58
  I'm definitely to check them out. That's awesome, Well, Andrew, that
• 1:11:02
  is a great list. Even though we don't really know who Health is,
• 1:11:06
  We're definitely gonna have to check them out. But that is a great list,
• 1:11:10
  And in a lot of ways, you can really hear a lot of
• 1:11:12
  that throughout Project eighty six, which is really cool. It's always really cool
• 1:11:15
  to hear like some of those influences of albums and artists that artist, like
• 1:11:20
  different musicians have and then like actually hear that in their own art too.
• 1:11:24
  It's it's always really cool to hear that. Yeah, I mean you start
• 1:11:29
  out and thank you, you start out doing this thing because you're a music
• 1:11:31
  fan. Yeah, I wonder you have to retain that, you know,
• 1:11:36
  kind of childlike attachment to music throughout the process of trying to make your own
• 1:11:45
  and I think that's what you know, that's what inspires you to keep moving
• 1:11:49
  forward, is when you finally in bands or records or so I love talking
• 1:11:53
  about totally absolutely, Well, what do you want to plug. Obviously,
• 1:11:58
  the first part of Omni came out in March, so it's been a few
• 1:12:00
  months that it's been out, and then the second part. Is there a
• 1:12:03
  time that we can maybe expect the second to come out. Yeah, we're
• 1:12:08
  looking at October to release Part two of Omni, and the double album will
• 1:12:13
  have twenty three songs. Part one is a little bit more cinematic. Part
• 1:12:16
  two is a little bit more bangers, Like it's pretty much all bangers and
• 1:12:20
  it's composed of two EPs. One is a little bit more digital leaning ap
• 1:12:26
  the others a little bit more metal. It's really really really aggressive. As
• 1:12:31
  much as Omnipart one is the heaviest thing we've ever done, this is a
• 1:12:35
  little bit more I would say, if Omnipart one is little more doomy,
• 1:12:40
  this is a little bit more experimental metal, like a little faster. You
• 1:12:45
  know what I'm saying is week not a lot faster, a lot more double
• 1:12:48
  bass and fast roundwork and such. Yeah, it's just nasty here. It's
• 1:12:55
  really really nasty. And then the digital side, it's kind of taking some
• 1:13:00
  elements of like I guess they're more classic PD six sound and digitifying, so
• 1:13:06
  it's definitely. Both parts are unique and they sort of represent the polar ends
• 1:13:13
  of what LP one is. So if you think about Omni as a triangle,
• 1:13:16
  which is part of the logo on the album, it's kind of like
• 1:13:20
  the top of the triangles LP one and the two sides of the bottom are
• 1:13:26
  the two corners on the A two. So we want to plug that.
• 1:13:30
  That's coming out on October. If you want to hear more of usiness Projecting
• 1:13:33
  six dot com, you can pre order the new record on vinyl, CD,
• 1:13:39
  cassette, new merch and such. That's going to close at the end
• 1:13:42
  of August, and we'd love to have you guys check out our new music
• 1:13:46
  videos that are a small part of the forthcoming, forthcoming Omni film. It's
• 1:13:51
  trying to say, uh and that's just YouTube dot com slash projecting love it.
• 1:13:58
  Sure, that's so exciting. Yeah, it's only it's it's only like
• 1:14:00
  a couple of months now that it's the second part's gonna come out. So
• 1:14:04
  exciting. Yeah, we're mixing it right now. I'm just finished Killer.
• 1:14:10
  Have we got furnace best? Are there any other shows we can we can
• 1:14:13
  be looking forward to? Actually, we haven't announced it yet, but we're
• 1:14:17
  we're very close to confirming the first weekend in November for album show for All
• 1:14:24
  nice, so both parts will be out by then and then we can get
• 1:14:29
  together and really explore playing a lot of that fantastic that would be a nationale.
• 1:14:34
  And we're also thinking about live streaming it, so please basically basically saying,
• 1:14:40
  you know, come see us in person. If you can't, can't
• 1:14:43
  you let you watch on we can? Is it like is it like a
• 1:14:47
  pay per view kind of live stream? Uh, we've decided what platform will
• 1:14:53
  host it on yet. We just did it on YouTube last time and sold
• 1:14:56
  tickets for it, and you know, broadcasted whatever resolution, highest resolution impossible.
• 1:15:02
  That's right. Yeah, I'm in love it, love it, Andrew,
• 1:15:08
  anything else you'd like to plug, I think that's it man, that's
• 1:15:11
  enough. Right. Uh yeah, We've got you know, then the Omni
• 1:15:15
  double album, the Omni film and music videos dropping, got a book that
• 1:15:21
  is coming out as well around the same time, and then we've got an
• 1:15:25
  ultimate reality game with the fans created at Omncorp Dot one. Omni Corp dot
• 1:15:32
  one in love awesome, love it great, Well, We're super stoked to
• 1:15:39
  see you at furnace Fast. It's just going to be such a hell of
• 1:15:42
  a time. And so thank you so much for chatting a little bit about
• 1:15:45
  the history of Project eighty six, kind of like your mind around the new
• 1:15:48
  Omni album and kind of what you're thinking about. It's just super excited,
• 1:15:53
  uh, just to hear you talk about like some of the exciting things that
• 1:15:58
  are going on with that album and the fat if you're making some of the
• 1:16:00
  heaviest stuff that you've ever made. And so yeah, we're just super stoked
• 1:16:03
  to see you soon and uh yeah, congrats on the new album. I
• 1:16:06
  congrats on the upcoming album here in just a couple of months. Appreciate it,
• 1:16:11
  guys, and thanks for the time and thanks for having me on.
• 1:16:13
  Looking forward to seeing you guys at for natcha Best. You got a minute,
• 1:16:16
  we'll be there.