Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Rituals And Rebellion: CHRIS HOWARTH Unpacks The Magic Behind IN THIS MOMENT's New Album WITCH

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Rituals And Rebellion: CHRIS HOWARTH Unpacks The Magic Behind IN THIS MOMENT's New Album WITCH · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Speaker 1: What's up everybody. That's Chris from in this moment my
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  Speaker 1: new album or my band's new album, which is coming
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  Speaker 1: out next week on August twenty eighth.
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  Speaker 2: Fantastya, thank you for having me. My absolutely pleasure bro.
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  Speaker 3: So as you say in this moment release a new
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  Speaker 3: album which on August of twenty eighth, so not long now.
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  Speaker 2: How you feeling about it?
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  Speaker 1: I'm feeling really good. We're we're excited to have it
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  Speaker 1: come out. It's always a really kind of interesting, cool
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  Speaker 1: feeling to have new music or new art coming out
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  Speaker 1: for everybody to hear. You know, we've done it. This
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  Speaker 1: will be our ninth album release, you know or whatever,
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  Speaker 1: and it's it never gets like not exciting, I guess,
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  Speaker 1: you know, never gets routine.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, wait, and can you tell us bit more about
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  Speaker 3: the album from a musical point of view and what're
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  Speaker 3: you have gone for this time around?
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  Speaker 1: Well, this album's had it's been quite a journey because
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  Speaker 1: we we really wanted to We started out wanting this
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  Speaker 1: to be a really experimental, you know, odd Time signature
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  Speaker 1: is really heavy, very hard to listen to album, and
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  Speaker 1: we went in the studio and with our main producer
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  Speaker 1: Kane Cherco and we recorded, you know, twelve songs that
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  Speaker 1: we thought at the time we felt like what we
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  Speaker 1: wanted to put out. And once we got the out
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  Speaker 1: of the studio, we were kind of listening back to everything,
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  Speaker 1: and we realized that maybe we were trying a little
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  Speaker 1: too hard and pushing a little too far in certain directions.
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  Speaker 1: Our label agreed with us, so we decided to do
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  Speaker 1: some more songs. We did three new songs, and we
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  Speaker 1: also went back into some of the songs on that
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  Speaker 1: album and redid them a little bit and just kind
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  Speaker 1: of worked on them a little bit. And at the time,
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  Speaker 1: the producer that we originally went in with, Kane, wasn't available,
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  Speaker 1: so we had to do these new songs with a
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  Speaker 1: new guy. So that added a new kind of flavor
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  Speaker 1: to the whole mix, and we ended up doing with
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  Speaker 1: this guy named Drew Folk, who's an amazing producer. Is
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  Speaker 1: We're Hot right now and they kind of gave it
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  Speaker 1: a special energy, and I think once we combined all
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  Speaker 1: that stuff together, that's kind of what me made the
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  Speaker 1: album sound the way it sounds, you know, and have
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  Speaker 1: the vibe that it has.
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  Speaker 3: Yes weight today you've released this single was Heretic Sleeping
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  Speaker 3: with the Enemy and Kroll.
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  Speaker 2: So are they good sonny representation of what do we expect?
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  Speaker 1: They definitely are. They've got both guys that produced in there.
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  Speaker 1: They're all heavy, heavy songs. There are some songs in
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  Speaker 1: there that aren't that heavy, just for everyone that maybe
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  Speaker 1: doesn't care about the super heavy stuff. We have some
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  Speaker 1: some mormlodic stuff coming. The next single that we're releasing
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  Speaker 1: is I Want to Believe with Rory from Day Seeker,
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  Speaker 1: and that one's more melodic, and you know some people
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  Speaker 1: like that too, I think.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, nice, And they're not to say it's not actually
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  Speaker 3: a song on there called which which indicates has got
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  Speaker 3: a bit of a deeper meaning for the title.
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  Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean I think, you know, every one's
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  Speaker 1: got their own kind of thing that conders up from
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  Speaker 1: the word witch, you know, And I think that's why
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  Speaker 1: we like it for the name of the album. You know,
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  Speaker 1: it's got a lot of different meanings, but it's it's
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  Speaker 1: symbolic for me. It's symbolic of persecution, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: kind of in today's climate, you see, you know, the
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  Speaker 1: kind of more powerful people kind of praying on the
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  Speaker 1: and they've always done it this way, but you just
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  Speaker 1: see a lot of oppression and a lot of people hurting,
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  Speaker 1: and you know, Witches were always kind of like targeted
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  Speaker 1: for being different than everybody else and singled out, and
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  Speaker 1: so I kind of that that kind of vibe just
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  Speaker 1: feels relevant now. So I thought that was really cool.
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  Speaker 1: And then the imagery alone that just witch, you know,
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  Speaker 1: and you think of a witch and you know it's metal.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah it's metal, dude.
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  Speaker 2: Hell yeah.
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  Speaker 3: You sort of touch on this a bit before, mate,
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  Speaker 3: But in this moment, I've always been a band who
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  Speaker 3: prefers to move forward musically rather than stick to what
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  Speaker 3: you know works. And the press release alludes to this,
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  Speaker 3: calling which your latest and perhaps boldest chapter in the
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  Speaker 3: band's musical evolution.
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  Speaker 2: Would you agree with that?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, we're definitely
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  Speaker 1: we don't want to sound the same, but we tried
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  Speaker 1: so hard to be bold that we had to like
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  Speaker 1: pull back and you know, not be so bold. You
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  Speaker 1: know with the original song. Our producer Kane has those
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  Speaker 1: songs somewhere and you know, maybe someday we'll be able
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  Speaker 1: to pull them out and release them as B sides,
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  Speaker 1: because I know our fans would probably like him. But
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  Speaker 1: just almost trying too hard to be diff to be weird,
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  Speaker 1: and you lose kind of the musicality of the whole thing.
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  Speaker 1: You know, we had to find that sweet spot. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Ess actually raise a good point because your music drawers
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  Speaker 3: from everywhere from industrial to gothic to metals, so in
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  Speaker 3: the creative process, so how do you know when you've
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  Speaker 3: gone too far in one duration or not far enough
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  Speaker 3: in another?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think you know as much until
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  Speaker 1: you listen back. You know. Sometimes you can tell her
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  Speaker 1: out right off the bat, you know it's something, But
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  Speaker 1: Maria is always afraid to have that, you know, too
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  Speaker 1: much heavy stuff at first, and that always kind of
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  Speaker 1: goes layered on afterwards in her world and in my world,
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  Speaker 1: I'm always you know, the heavy is always the mean
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  Speaker 1: what starts it, you know, and and that's where it
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  Speaker 1: kind of revolves around. So we're always kind of pulling
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  Speaker 1: that up and down and in the thing. But a
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  Speaker 1: lot of times we don't know until after the fact,
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  Speaker 1: and then you're just like, I don't like that, or
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  Speaker 1: that's you know, we didn't do that's not good. You know,
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  Speaker 1: that's tough to say to yourself.
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  Speaker 3: Sometimes yeah, we would be would be you know, again,
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  Speaker 3: we sort of touched on this before, but you work
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  Speaker 3: with producers Kane Turco, there's Carla Dell and Drew Falk
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  Speaker 3: on this album. My fault, But how did I make
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  Speaker 3: that specific brain trust in the studio shape things right?
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  Speaker 3: The guitar tones and the overall sonic in chensity compared
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  Speaker 3: to your.
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  Speaker 1: Last album, Well, the guitar tones on this album are
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  Speaker 1: Randy or the guitar player. He's like he handcraft did
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  Speaker 1: this tone to be like Razor, and he like tracked
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  Speaker 1: it like to the It's tight as a you know,
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  Speaker 1: as all get out, And I think that the way
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  Speaker 1: this album went with having the two different guys kind
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  Speaker 1: of doing it, the guitar consistency was one thing that
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  Speaker 1: really really kind of held through because we were doing
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  Speaker 1: it all, you know, digitally, So when we had that
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  Speaker 1: lock that tone, it stayed through the whole thing, you know,
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  Speaker 1: And and it's a it's a big part of it,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and it's definitely stands out more. I never
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  Speaker 1: really think about that too much, but when I listened
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  Speaker 1: to this album, you know, the guitars popping out pretty
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  Speaker 1: pretty hot, you know, compared to some of our last ones,
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  Speaker 1: which I like it sounds more more raw as a
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  Speaker 1: result of that too, less polished. But I like it
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  Speaker 1: a lot.
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  Speaker 2: It's a good thing.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, thank you.
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  Speaker 2: All right.
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  Speaker 3: And the album features some massive collaborations too, including as
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  Speaker 3: you said before, you Got Day Seeker.
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  Speaker 2: And I Want to Believe and Kim Drag you on
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  Speaker 2: the Heretics.
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  Speaker 3: So how does a writing process united in another distinct
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  Speaker 3: music goal outest he's going to be sharing some expe
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  Speaker 3: on the track.
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  Speaker 1: I think it could go two ways. You know, if
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  Speaker 1: if you're because a lot of times with like a guest,
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  Speaker 1: you know, it could be a guest that you're writing
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  Speaker 1: the song with and they're heavily invested in the lyrics
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  Speaker 1: and the writing of the actual song itself. Or it's
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  Speaker 1: a situation where you already have a song and you're saying, hey,
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  Speaker 1: we have this song that we think would be awesome,
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  Speaker 1: you would sound so good on you know, do you
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  Speaker 1: want to be on it? And you know we would.
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  Speaker 1: You know, they could write their own lyrics, or they
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  Speaker 1: can sing stuff that we have for them. It just
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  Speaker 1: depends on the situation. And in the Kim Dracula situation,
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  Speaker 1: it was we had this super badass song we knew
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  Speaker 1: we wanted to work with Kim Dracula. We knew we
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  Speaker 1: wanted him on the album, and he'd already said he
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  Speaker 1: wanted to do something, so we just sent him the song.
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  Speaker 1: We said, we have this middle part would be so
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  Speaker 1: awesome if you just did some of your gnarly go nuts.
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  Speaker 1: We pretty much sold them to do your thing on
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  Speaker 1: this bridge. And you know, it was completely instaane what
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  Speaker 1: that guy did. And that's that's kind of what we
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  Speaker 1: did with with Rory too. We let him hear a
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  Speaker 1: couple of songs, but we had, you know, I want
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  Speaker 1: to Believe in another one in mind for him, and
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  Speaker 1: he gravitated towards I want to Believe and you know,
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  Speaker 1: just did his own thing on it. Oh cool, with
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  Speaker 1: the lyrics and stuff. We're already there. You know.
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  Speaker 3: He didn't actually all right answered the shell, but it
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  Speaker 3: was already there for him.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, But we you know, wanted him to
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  Speaker 1: do whatever he wanted to do, you know, and he did.
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  Speaker 1: He did a lot of really neat stuff. You know,
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  Speaker 1: when we heard it, we were just like, oh my god,
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  Speaker 1: you know, so good.
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  Speaker 2: It's awesome.
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  Speaker 3: And he's also a chose to cover Pig Foyd's another
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  Speaker 3: Brick in the Walls and you put your iron spin
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  Speaker 3: on it beautifully mat like firstly watching and secondly, what's
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  Speaker 3: the process of deconstructing someone else's song?
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  Speaker 2: And Rie and Bennie and your image.
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  Speaker 1: It's it's crazy because Maria is like the v force
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  Speaker 1: on a lot of these like iconic covers that we cover,
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  Speaker 1: like we Will Rock You or Another Brick in the Wall.
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  Speaker 1: I would never pick a song that that kind of,
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  Speaker 1: you know, big in the culture of the world. But
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  Speaker 1: I think it's important when you do have a song
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  Speaker 1: like that, that you do take it in a completely
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  Speaker 1: different direction, you know, and it just kind of happens naturally.
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  Speaker 1: But for another Brick in the Wall, you know, I
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  Speaker 1: immediately was trying to make that more of like a
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  Speaker 1: techno kind of a dance kind of track, just to
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  Speaker 1: take it away from the original feeling of it, you know,
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  Speaker 1: and give it more of it just electronic industrial type
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  Speaker 1: of vibe. I'm glad you like that, And like a
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  Speaker 1: song like we have a Fly like an Eagle we
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  Speaker 1: gave you know, but she's not even singing those those lyrics,
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  Speaker 1: you know, She's making up her own stuff. In certain
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  Speaker 1: areas and you know, it's but it is. It's it
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  Speaker 1: to me, it would be boring if you just played
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  Speaker 1: it exactly the same way and just have a product.
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  Speaker 1: And so that's our goal was always to try to
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  Speaker 1: make it different and weird.
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  Speaker 2: And yeah we did, we.
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  Speaker 1: Did, good brother, Yeah, yeah, weird, purposefully.
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  Speaker 2: Weird, personally weird.
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  Speaker 3: How do you and Maria continue to balance each other's
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  Speaker 3: ideas out after nearly two decades of co writing? Right
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  Speaker 3: when she brings something there's wholely thematic and magical, like
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  Speaker 3: Witch to the table, what's your immediate first step to
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  Speaker 3: translate that into something a bit heavier?
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  Speaker 1: Well, which to me, when she brought that that idea
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  Speaker 1: of the concept or the name, that was immediately like
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  Speaker 1: a hard guest, you know. And we over the years
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  Speaker 1: we used to, like in the beginning, when we didn't
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  Speaker 1: know what we were doing, we would argue a lot
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  Speaker 1: more and butt heads a lot more on the direction
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  Speaker 1: because the band really didn't have a solid direction. We
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  Speaker 1: were experimenting with each album trying to figure out what
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  Speaker 1: we were and we started to feel like we kind
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  Speaker 1: of came into that a little more on Blood, you know,
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  Speaker 1: in the twenty ten, twenty twelve, but now that it's
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  Speaker 1: twenty years on, we really don't disagree too much. I
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  Speaker 1: kind of know what she's going for and she's she
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  Speaker 1: cares about me being happy too, and you know, we
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  Speaker 1: just kind of work together on it. We know what
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  Speaker 1: we're trying to achieve here. You know, we'll still butt
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  Speaker 1: heads on certain things, and you know, I'll tell her
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  Speaker 1: straight up I don't like that or I don't want
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  Speaker 1: to do that, and she'll do the same for me.
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  Speaker 1: But we we have a lot less you know, contention nowadays,
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  Speaker 1: just because we know each other well.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, right, and in this moment's legendary for theatrical, visual,
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  Speaker 3: heavy live performances. Man, we've just got a really powerful,
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  Speaker 3: almost ritualistic theme to it. So how are you prepared
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  Speaker 3: to bring those new songs to life on stage?
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  Speaker 2: Have you got something about dad?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Maria's got ideas going. We haven't. We're starting rehearsals
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  Speaker 1: in like two weeks for the tour coming up, and
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  Speaker 1: that's really where everything's going to be like put down
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  Speaker 1: and figured out, you know, solidly. But she's got a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of ideas going, and we will take from the
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  Speaker 1: videos for some of the songs that we we have
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  Speaker 1: videos for to kind of add to the the imagery.
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  Speaker 1: You know, we have some video screens on the on
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  Speaker 1: the on the walls, but we still have our blood girls,
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  Speaker 1: our dancers, and there's a bunch of stuff cooking. But
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  Speaker 1: I don't even know what's going to happen yet. It's
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  Speaker 1: where the whole goal is to be fresh and not
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: be like what people have seen before. So you know,
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  Speaker 1: I have to come check it out just to really
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: see what's happening in a couple of weeks a right, Can.
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  Speaker 3: You remember the first time you ever heard one of
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  Speaker 3: your songs on the radio and what song was it
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  Speaker 3: and where were you.
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  Speaker 1: It was? Probably our first album was probably at Prayers
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  Speaker 1: and I think it was on Serious XM. That's probably
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: in the car, didn't really have it. I don't remember
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: exactly honestly, but hearing a song on the actual radio,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: it's it's Serious XM. You know, that's where it happens.
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  Speaker 1: There's not a lot of radio stations here in America
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  Speaker 1: that play good rock and roll, you know, and metal.
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  Speaker 1: When you're driving around town, you know, just is a
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: thing they're haw's.
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  Speaker 3: A handsome feemale like here in one of your tracks
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  Speaker 3: on the writing is it something that you ever get
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  Speaker 3: used to or does it still give you a buzz
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  Speaker 3: every time?
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  Speaker 1: It gives you a buzz every time, Man, I take
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  Speaker 1: a picture. I'll take a picture of the screen on
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  Speaker 1: with my phone and send it to Maria every time
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  Speaker 1: you had every time?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, beautiful man, all right, Christmas, thanks very much for
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  Speaker 2: your time.
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  Speaker 3: Wrote the album which he's out August twenty eighth, and
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  Speaker 3: she's an absolutely cracking nice so well, don't have the
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  Speaker 3: best of luck with everything.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you, brother. I appreciate the time, man,