Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode - 945 Nick Smith (Blindfolded and Led to the Woods) on New Album

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode - 945 Nick Smith (Blindfolded and Led to the Woods) on New Album · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  So much work has gone into to even get here, but we're already
• 0:03
  sort of, you know, tossing around the ideas of how we can
• 0:05
  come back and how we can do it again and better and all that
• 0:08
  kind of thing. So yeah, it's been an awesome
• 0:09
  experience. Obviously some culture shocks as
• 0:11
  well, like, you know, just getting used to driving on the
• 0:13
  wrong side of the road and the tipping culture and all that
• 0:16
  kind of stuff. So yeah, it's been, it's been
• 0:18
  awesome. And you know, one thing I love
• 0:20
  about like being a musician and being on tour is just all the
• 0:23
  problem solving you have to do. You know, like every day
• 0:26
  something pops up and you have to try and figure out how to
• 0:28
  best deal with it to get through, to play the show or,
• 0:30
  you know, to get to the next destination.
• 0:32
  So yeah, I'm loving it. What's up everybody, It's Kefi
• 0:41
  at ghostcultman.com. Under all conditions and
• 0:44
  circumstances, I am here chatting with Nicholas of
• 0:48
  Blindfolded and led to the Woods.
• 0:49
  How are you doing, Sir? I'm good man, how are you?
• 0:52
  I am Picha keen. You are on tour right now with
• 0:57
  Volcandra Band. We're big fans up and have
• 0:59
  covered. This is I think their second or
• 1:01
  third tour of the US, not counting festivals coming from
• 1:06
  New Zealand. How are you doing in America?
• 1:10
  I I don't, I don't imagine you've been here many times.
• 1:12
  Yeah, so a couple of the guys have been here before in like a
• 1:15
  tourist capacity, but this is my first time at all so tourists or
• 1:21
  playing music. So yeah, it's definitely been a
• 1:24
  bit of a wild experience. If you told me when I was a
• 1:27
  teenager that I'd eventually get to tour the USA, that's I
• 1:30
  probably wouldn't have believed you.
• 1:31
  So they actually be here doing it as a pretty cool feeling.
• 1:34
  And yeah, the response so far, everyone being super
• 1:38
  accommodating, everyone sort of like, you know, praised us for
• 1:41
  coming all the way here. And yeah, it's kind of weird
• 1:45
  because we're getting to the end of it now.
• 1:46
  I think we've got, oh, after tonight, we've got three more
• 1:48
  shows. So, you know, there's so much
• 1:51
  work has gone into to even get here, but we're already sort of,
• 1:55
  you know, tossing around the ideas of how we can come back
• 1:57
  and now we can do it again and better and all that kind of
• 1:59
  thing. So yeah, it's been an awesome
• 2:01
  experience. Obviously some culture shocks as
• 2:03
  well, like, you know, just getting used to driving on the
• 2:06
  wrong side of the road and the tipping culture and all that
• 2:08
  kind of stuff. So yeah, it's been, it's been
• 2:11
  awesome. And you know, one thing I love
• 2:12
  about like, being a musician and being on tour is just all the
• 2:16
  problem solving you have to do. You know, like every day
• 2:19
  something pops up and you have to try and figure out how to
• 2:21
  best deal with it to get through, to play the show or,
• 2:24
  you know, to get to the next destination.
• 2:26
  So yeah, I'm loving it. Right on.
• 2:28
  You know, I'm glad it's going well for you.
• 2:29
  I know how hard it is full well to do a tour of any capacity,
• 2:33
  especially coming from the other side of the world, the bottom of
• 2:36
  the world that you, you called it, which was hilarious.
• 2:40
  You know, I, I hope it's been, you know, not only the shows
• 2:44
  have been going well for you, but you know, I know how costly
• 2:46
  it is. So hopefully people are, you
• 2:48
  know, showing their love. You have a brand new album out.
• 2:51
  The hardest thing about being God is no one believes me on
• 2:53
  prosthetic records. I hope people are buying merch,
• 2:56
  picking up the record if you have it with you, Like I know
• 2:58
  how hard it is to ship merch and and sell at venues and things
• 3:02
  like that. I hope people are supporting
• 3:04
  you, not just, you know, with their their voices and their
• 3:07
  bodies, but with, you know, their purses and pockets.
• 3:10
  Oh no, they've been, everyone's been pretty, pretty supportive
• 3:12
  and we've been making a point, you know, like obviously that's
• 3:15
  the best way people can support us.
• 3:17
  Like everyone knows by merch and that kind of things.
• 3:19
  But you know, we realise, you know, the cost of living and all
• 3:22
  that stuff is the real problem for everyone.
• 3:24
  So if you can't do that, then just all you can do like spread
• 3:27
  the word about us, you know, like yes, and then hopefully we
• 3:31
  there's an appetite for us to come back, you know, and do more
• 3:33
  shows. So that was kind of one of the
• 3:35
  risks just because of the the cost of the visas and and and
• 3:39
  sort of the time frames we had. Like ideally we probably
• 3:42
  wouldn't have done like our own sort of headlining run as our
• 3:45
  first tour in the US, but because the time was running out
• 3:48
  on the visa, then tour the books so far in advance.
• 3:51
  We kind of, we were lucky that prosthetic put us inside from
• 3:55
  Volcano and then Bob Kendra and us had the same American booking
• 4:00
  agent. So it just kind of worked out
• 4:01
  really nicely. And yeah, just a quick shout out
• 4:05
  to Bob Kendra. Those boys have been absolutely
• 4:07
  phenomenal to to tour with. And it was, I believe it was
• 4:11
  their first time out on some of the West Coast states as well.
• 4:14
  So it was, yeah, cool to get some of their fans out to the
• 4:17
  shows, too. Right on.
• 4:19
  I know again full well how, how tough this all is.
• 4:22
  How are you doing with, you know, you said culture shock and
• 4:25
  certain things. I know how expensive things are
• 4:27
  here. How are you doing with the food?
• 4:29
  I'm not too well acquainted with the cuisine of New Zealand, but
• 4:33
  I'm sure in America we have no shortage of good and bad
• 4:36
  options. Yeah, I mean, we've definitely
• 4:39
  been trying, you know, lots of things that we've heard about or
• 4:41
  seen on TV and, you know, we've we've tried all like the burger
• 4:44
  joints and stuff and we definitely have.
• 4:46
  I think we've sort of started to form an opinion of, you know,
• 4:50
  what's good and what's not. But I mean, obviously being a
• 4:52
  touring band, quite often you're eating, you know, gas station
• 4:55
  food and all that kind of thing. So there's a bit of a running
• 4:59
  joke in the band. Our sound guy Marcus, has come
• 5:01
  with us from New Zealand. He seems to have taken a real
• 5:04
  liking to gas station hotdogs. So he's sort of like, you know,
• 5:07
  ranking them as we go around and that kind of thing.
• 5:10
  So yeah, I mean, there's definitely, I don't want to
• 5:14
  publicly shit talk any particular food place.
• 5:18
  This is definitely been a couple that I I won't frequent again,
• 5:21
  but there's definitely some that, you know, I'll be happy
• 5:24
  to, you know, more and more that we don't have in in New Zealand.
• 5:27
  So, yeah, I've also, you know, we've just done the Midwest, you
• 5:32
  know, Minneapolis, Chicago, and we're walking all that and we
• 5:35
  all sort of got rite of passage to try, you know, the lot, the
• 5:40
  drink. So that was I, I, I personally
• 5:43
  found it disgusting. I, I didn't think I was going
• 5:45
  to, I felt like I was going to throw up for about 10 minutes
• 5:47
  upwards. The other guys didn't find in
• 5:50
  their bed. So maybe it's just me, maybe
• 5:52
  maybe it's like coriander or cilantro, depending where you're
• 5:55
  from. You know, some people just taste
• 5:56
  it different than than other people, you know?
• 5:58
  Right on. Yeah, my Lord is horrid.
• 6:00
  I tried it a couple of years back.
• 6:02
  Never again. But the Midwest, you know, beer,
• 6:05
  meat and cheese, that's what they know they're best known
• 6:07
  for. So that in plentiful supply if
• 6:10
  you like your cop made beverages.
• 6:14
  Let's talk about the record for a second.
• 6:16
  You know, a super cool package with that band with Kendra, you
• 6:20
  know, black and death metal and you guys are kind of a
• 6:21
  progressive death metal. Let me reel it back for a
• 6:24
  second. For people who are discovering
• 6:26
  you for the first time, you know, what brought you guys
• 6:29
  together as a band? How did the band start and kind
• 6:32
  of what are the agreed upon influences?
• 6:34
  I know what it the record sounds like to me.
• 6:36
  It sounds brutal and awesome, but like, if you were going to
• 6:39
  put it in your words, how would you do that?
• 6:40
  Yeah, so we've been a band for 15 years.
• 6:43
  We've formed in 2010 and we, you know, we've had a number of line
• 6:48
  up changes over that time, but there are, well, basically three
• 6:51
  of us that have been there since inception.
• 6:54
  And so this new record is our fifth, fifth full length LP and
• 6:59
  it's sort of, well, we sort of made a pivot around our third
• 7:03
  album, Nightmare Withdrawals and to getting into the more
• 7:06
  progressive, darker doesn't that deep metal side of things.
• 7:09
  I think the the first two albums were sort of like we were having
• 7:11
  a good time just partying, being a band and just thought we
• 7:14
  should record what we were doing.
• 7:16
  But then there was sort of a noticeable shift around
• 7:18
  recording that album to, I guess, take it a bit more
• 7:21
  seriously. And, and then that seemed to be
• 7:23
  reflected as yet people all over the world started taking notice
• 7:26
  of that album. And, and then obviously we
• 7:29
  signed a prosthetic on the back of that put out Rejecting
• 7:32
  Obliteration, which was a bit of a shift for us as well.
• 7:36
  And it was also written quite quickly because of the the deal
• 7:39
  and when we had to put out the album.
• 7:41
  So that one was probably a bit more melodic.
• 7:43
  And then this album we had a bit more time.
• 7:47
  So we sort of, yeah, it took us about a year to put together
• 7:51
  like from reporting to finishing the vocals and doing all the
• 7:55
  layers and all that kind of thing.
• 7:57
  But it's definitely, but if you sort of touch, it's definitely a
• 8:00
  bit more brutal than the last one, like a bit more dark and a
• 8:04
  bit more dissonant and the lyrical themes that are but more
• 8:07
  down there down that path as well.
• 8:10
  But one thing that's cool and just sort of relating back to
• 8:13
  the tour is just a lot of people have sort of like heard of us
• 8:16
  but not really checked it out, but still coming out to the
• 8:18
  shows and being like, you know, saying that they're blown away
• 8:21
  and stuff like that. So yeah, it's been really, it's
• 8:24
  been really cool. And the receptions of the new
• 8:25
  albums been really, really great.
• 8:27
  Like, we're really stoked. And it's really cool to be in,
• 8:30
  you know, a country it's not our own to like, experience the
• 8:33
  release, you know, and a different, in a different way.
• 8:37
  Right on. And I love hearing that.
• 8:39
  And also I think it's not just like unrelenting brutality.
• 8:43
  We're crazy complicated passages all the time.
• 8:47
  There is some cool atmospherics. I think you guys, it's very
• 8:50
  cliche to say like this new record is our best record, but I
• 8:52
  actually think this is your best record.
• 8:54
  I really got on board with the I got on board with the last one
• 8:57
  kind of hooked me in. And usually prosthetic records,
• 9:00
  they do a great job. We are connected with their PR
• 9:02
  around the world. We always cover the majority of
• 9:05
  their releases. So you know, usually like a
• 9:07
  metal blade or nuclear blaster or century media.
• 9:10
  If a if a label has prosthetic on it, the band is probably
• 9:13
  decent to to good. It may not, you know, sometimes
• 9:16
  things are not for you. But like I, I dig this record so
• 9:20
  much and I like that there. It's not, you know, it's, it's
• 9:23
  not unfocused, but it's definitely got a range to it
• 9:27
  that I really like. Yeah, there, man.
• 9:29
  I think we were a lot more meticulous with this album
• 9:32
  because we had more time. Like this is actually the first
• 9:36
  album that Stacey vocalist had written.
• 9:38
  He wrote the lyrics for the whole thing.
• 9:39
  Like normally in the past, it's like Stace and Stew, the main
• 9:43
  songwriter, they would sort of split the lyric writing duties.
• 9:45
  But pretty early on, Stace said that he had a concept for the
• 9:49
  album and he wanted to tell the story.
• 9:52
  And so that meant that sort of changed the process a little bit
• 9:56
  because it meant we had to sort of dictate before we even
• 9:59
  started recording the vocals, like what order the songs we're
• 10:02
  going to go in, you know, which is something that we normally
• 10:04
  didn't do until like the mastering process.
• 10:07
  But because of the story nature of the the lyrics, yeah, we had
• 10:12
  to basically take the songs and figure out the best order to to
• 10:15
  tell that story. So just things like that, you
• 10:18
  know, added a little bit more difficulty to the process, but
• 10:22
  also because we had more time and we were mostly self
• 10:25
  producing it. I I think it turned out better
• 10:29
  than you know what we, you know, what we ever could have been
• 10:31
  expected. So we're pretty stoked on that.
• 10:34
  Right on. And I I love that the title
• 10:36
  track kind of is in the middle. So it kind of splits the album
• 10:38
  into and usually, I'm sure as a songwriter, I used to be like
• 10:42
  this also. Oh, the song that's gonna stand
• 10:45
  out the most, that'll just be end up being the thing that
• 10:48
  drives the rest of everything else.
• 10:49
  So I don't know if you write in a sequence, if you sequence the
• 10:53
  album to be this, you know, to tell this story.
• 10:55
  But I love that the title track kind of peaks in the middle and
• 10:58
  then it's kind of 1/2 and 1/2 around that.
• 11:00
  I like the the pacing. Yeah.
• 11:02
  Yeah, umm, interestingly enough, the title track, so like Stacey
• 11:07
  had written, yeah, obviously written the whole story.
• 11:09
  And the title track, which, you know, being the album name,
• 11:12
  there was a lyric in the song. And then as we were going
• 11:15
  through and recording the vocals, we sort of like had a
• 11:18
  list of just like possible album titles, you know, like just kind
• 11:21
  of things from the lyrics or, you know, think any inspiration
• 11:24
  that we had. And after we did the recording,
• 11:27
  the vocal session for that song and we tracked that outro, But I
• 11:31
  just, I just put that lyric into the list and I was kind of a
• 11:35
  joke 'cause I was like, man, this is too long.
• 11:36
  Like our band name is already too long.
• 11:39
  The album, that would be too long of an album name, you know.
• 11:42
  But the next day, the boys in the group chat checked the, you
• 11:46
  know, checked the list of album names and everyone just like
• 11:49
  unanimously was like, that should be the album name, you
• 11:52
  know, just kind of like. And ironically enough, Space was
• 11:55
  the one who was probably the most hesitant about it just
• 11:57
  because of like, the length and how it represented the album.
• 12:01
  But yeah, after some discussion, yeah, we we all decided that it
• 12:04
  was a pretty good representation of the album and.
• 12:08
  And yeah. And having it in the middle of
• 12:11
  the album was, well, it's quite important just to the story
• 12:15
  because it's kind of like the moment where the protagonist
• 12:18
  sort of takes the really dark and you realize, oh shit, this
• 12:22
  this person is a bit crazy, you know, So yeah.
• 12:26
  And just just a side note and hopefully it's not a spoiler,
• 12:29
  but like, we're on the US run. We've been, we've actually been
• 12:32
  closing the set with that song and it's been going really hard.
• 12:37
  Like people, people graving the mic and like from the I wanted
• 12:40
  to do that last line, last outdoor section and stuff.
• 12:43
  And, and also when the album came out, it got it got
• 12:45
  playlisted on what the Spotify did call playlist and stuff.
• 12:49
  So yeah, that track particularly seems to be resonating with
• 12:53
  people quite a bit, which we're, yeah, we're super stoked on.
• 12:55
  Right on. I think it's very telling that
• 12:59
  you're a band that can appeal to hardcore people, deathcore
• 13:02
  people, death metal, some black metal in there, progressive
• 13:06
  metal. Like there's no it kind of
• 13:08
  reminds me actually, like when I first heard the band, I was
• 13:11
  thinking a lot of the band doth who just recently had come back
• 13:14
  last year, right, like progressive metal, but also like
• 13:17
  guitar wizard nerds and also like great storytelling.
• 13:21
  And that's what I think about your band.
• 13:23
  And I think at a certain point, good music, good music, good
• 13:26
  songs, good song. Look at Saint Cusa Gabog, like
• 13:28
  who knew that band was going to be headlining?
• 13:30
  They're doing giant theaters on this headline tour, packing up
• 13:34
  their new record. So like Nick Corn, like what are
• 13:38
  what is in a name, right? Like maybe a?
• 13:39
  Name. Yeah, it's.
• 13:41
  Important. But is it that important if the?
• 13:43
  No, I think, I think you, I think you, you sort of asked
• 13:46
  before and I didn't really answer but about the influences
• 13:49
  of the Bandit. And primarily Stu Taras is our
• 13:53
  main songwriter. He sort of like gives us the
• 13:55
  bones of a song and then we sort of all put our own flair on it
• 13:57
  and that kind of thing. But man, like all of us come
• 14:00
  from pretty different backgrounds.
• 14:02
  Like Stu and Stace are probably the most traditional, like death
• 14:05
  metal kids in the the band. But like I came, I came from the
• 14:08
  hardcore and methcore sort of scene.
• 14:10
  Like I was playing in hardcore bands and stuff like in my teens
• 14:13
  and early 20s. And you know, Dan now new
• 14:16
  guitarist, he's he's he's very much from like the prog, prog
• 14:20
  rock, prog metal scene. His other band Claimers is
• 14:23
  awesome. They're like a yeah, like a
• 14:26
  three piece progressive band. And then Anthony, our drummer,
• 14:30
  he's just, he comes from the more like pretty much
• 14:33
  everything, but like his favorite bands with Sugar, you
• 14:35
  know, so there's there's like lots of wild influences.
• 14:38
  And yeah, I definitely think on this album we did really try to
• 14:42
  focus a little bit on like, I don't want to say like making
• 14:46
  like hooks or anything like that, but there were definitely
• 14:48
  parts that just sort of like instantly were like a bit more
• 14:51
  earwormy. And so we really tried to like
• 14:54
  nail those bits so that, you know, like for like crowd
• 14:58
  integration and like for playing live, that kind of thing.
• 15:01
  So that's probably how that influences.
• 15:03
  Yeah. And definitely like, yeah, for
• 15:05
  me personally, like the hardcore, like I love like the
• 15:08
  the latest Knocked Loose record and stuff.
• 15:11
  And you know, like those vocals, like these are there's some
• 15:14
  vocals like that and there and there that we're sort of taking
• 15:16
  inspiration from. So.
• 15:19
  But one thing I will just say on on the vocals on this album
• 15:23
  stays like he just smashed it out of the park.
• 15:25
  Like there's so many different voices and and things that he
• 15:28
  does with his voice and and once again, was a a result of having
• 15:32
  so much time to record the album.
• 15:33
  We can actually try different things out.
• 15:35
  Normally, you know, we just in the studio for a few days and
• 15:38
  try to smash out all these vocals, but we were actually
• 15:40
  like, you know, workshop and stuff on the fly.
• 15:42
  Like try and this voice try and that voice is like there's
• 15:45
  obviously some spoken word stuff in there.
• 15:47
  There's like some, you know, layers.
• 15:49
  He's like the sort of New York hardcore screaming style stuff.
• 15:52
  And then there's obviously Dick growls.
• 15:54
  And so yeah, I'm really proud of Stace on this album.
• 15:57
  I really think he's kind of like The Shining * I don't know,
• 16:03
  maybe also because he wrote the whole story.
• 16:05
  So it's like there's a lot more sort of, yeah, emphasis on on
• 16:09
  him telling this story and that. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
• 16:11
  There's a lot of him in the story.
• 16:13
  Yeah, he he absolutely beasted out, as we like to say here at
• 16:17
  the HQ. He killed it and he leveled up a
• 16:20
  lot, I think. Yeah, which is impressive.
• 16:23
  Have you written a part or a song so hard that you struggle
• 16:27
  to play it live, or you have to really concentrate hard and rock
• 16:31
  out a little less? Yeah, So, well, quite often
• 16:34
  there's Stu will seem like the basis of the songs and I'm the
• 16:37
  bass player, right? So, and by his own admissions,
• 16:40
  Stu's not a great bass player, so he often seems very basic
• 16:43
  ideas and I just like, you know, expand on them or whatever.
• 16:47
  But there's actually in the first track, Arrows of Golden
• 16:49
  Light, there's sort of after the first minute, there's sort of
• 16:52
  like a bass break, which is quite a fast tapping riff.
• 16:54
  And I sort of wrote that and then realized that, like, I
• 16:59
  don't actually think I can play it at that speed.
• 17:02
  So I literally had just been like, yeah, like a few days of
• 17:06
  the metronome getting it up to speed.
• 17:08
  And it's also one part. We open the set with that song,
• 17:11
  and when we get to that part, you'll see me like, go on to
• 17:13
  full concentration mode to play that rough and to try and get it
• 17:18
  as clean as possible. But yeah, it's pretty.
• 17:21
  Yeah. That's probably 1 if it stands
• 17:22
  out for me at least. Right on as we start to wind
• 17:26
  this down, I'm sure you have a pre show routine you need to get
• 17:28
  to as you are in the future. For me, I'm on the West Coast
• 17:32
  and you're in the middle West. So you have you have tiny, a
• 17:36
  flat, a flat circle or whatever they say it is times flat line.
• 17:41
  So this tour is winding down, you'll be back home.
• 17:44
  I know you already did kind of record release shows or pre
• 17:46
  record release shows at home. Are you going to do sort of a
• 17:49
  proper now that the album is out, show again locally to you?
• 17:53
  Yes. So I think the plan is early
• 17:56
  2026, we'll try to New Zealand and possibly Australia, but it
• 18:02
  just depends if something comes, something comes up.
• 18:06
  But yeah, it's just because of the geographical isolation, it's
• 18:08
  quite hard to do anything quite consistently.
• 18:11
  Like I mean, in New Zealand, there's only really like 4 major
• 18:14
  cities that you can play. So like if you play them once a
• 18:17
  year, that's probably about all you're going to, all you're
• 18:20
  going to do really. So yeah, we're at a stage now
• 18:25
  with the band. We're we're definitely looking
• 18:27
  more overseas to try and, you know, expand the audience and
• 18:30
  stuff. We did, we did a couple of
• 18:31
  Australian shows before we came to the US.
• 18:34
  We played a festival in Brisbane with like Portal and Boulder and
• 18:37
  stuff and that was that was super cool.
• 18:39
  So yeah, we'll we'll, yeah, we'll keep an eye out.
• 18:41
  And yeah, there's definitely drain is sort of a loose
• 18:44
  conversations about doing something like Japan.
• 18:48
  We've never done Japan. And yeah, obviously the now that
• 18:51
  we've done the US, the big one is obviously to get to Europe
• 18:54
  because we always thought it would be we'd go to Europe first
• 18:57
  just because it's a lot easier in terms of you don't need a
• 19:00
  visa, you don't need any of that kind of stuff.
• 19:03
  But just the the way that the whole US situation unfolded, it
• 19:07
  kind of fell onto our let first since since while we're here
• 19:09
  all. Righty.
• 19:10
  Well, let's clear up the thing. You mentioned a couple of sister
• 19:15
  bands and side put bands. Obviously everybody knows
• 19:18
  Ulcerate. They were also like a
• 19:20
  magnificent band. What are some bands, some
• 19:23
  underground bands or some just bands?
• 19:25
  We're not having at top of mind from New Zealand that we should
• 19:29
  be paying attention to. What are some of your favorite
• 19:31
  bands? Local, international, whoever,
• 19:33
  doesn't matter what level. Yeah, Well, sorry, obviously
• 19:36
  you're on tour in the US as well at the moment, which is cool.
• 19:41
  There's a couple this. Yeah, the the other main, I
• 19:45
  guess middle band from from our hometown is a band called
• 19:48
  Organectomy. And they're very, they play like
• 19:51
  Slam death Middle, but they're very close friends of ours.
• 19:53
  They've told the US three or four times.
• 19:56
  So they were very helpful and and, and valuable and sort of
• 20:00
  giving us advice and stuff on how we go about this.
• 20:03
  Yeah, there's, yeah, there's quite a few.
• 20:05
  Stu has a studio guitarist, he plays drums and another band
• 20:09
  with his brother called Plague of the Fallen, which I think
• 20:12
  they've got a new EP coming out next month.
• 20:14
  They're pretty that's like your more traditional brutal Dick
• 20:17
  metal. I've mentioned Danza, the band
• 20:18
  claim us more on the prog rock side, but very cool, like guitar
• 20:22
  work and that kind of thing. I'm just trying to think who
• 20:25
  else this comes to mind. But like those are sort of the
• 20:28
  ones. I mean, there's actually one of
• 20:30
  my favorite New Zealand bands is a is like a post middle band
• 20:33
  called spooked the horses. They're on they're on pelagic
• 20:35
  records, which is the ocean guys from the ocean.
• 20:39
  But they they are finally, I think they're about to.
• 20:42
  Well, they said next year they've got a new album in the
• 20:44
  weeks, which is their first in like 4 or five years.
• 20:48
  And honestly, they are one of the awesomest bands to come out
• 20:51
  of the country. Oh, and the other one actually
• 20:54
  is a band called Pull Down the Sun.
• 20:56
  I'll give a shout out to them. They're also on Pelagic Records
• 21:00
  and they've also got a new album coming out next year, I believe.
• 21:03
  But those are some off the top of my head.
• 21:06
  Those are some I definitely recommend checking out.
• 21:08
  Yeah. Right on Pelagic Records, one of
• 21:10
  our favorite labels. I love to end these with a bonus
• 21:14
  question or a wild card question.
• 21:16
  So I have one for you. Now that you've been here and
• 21:18
  your tour is winding up and you've met some of the masses of
• 21:21
  our country for all its good and bad, what are some
• 21:23
  misconceptions you have heard about New Zealand or New
• 21:27
  Zealanders while you've been on this tour?
• 21:29
  Oh. Man, I've got a couple.
• 21:32
  We've definitely had a few people think that New Zealand is
• 21:36
  part of Australia, which, you know, it's about a four hour
• 21:39
  flight from us to New Zealand to Australia, which is good.
• 21:42
  Probably my favorite interaction though, was one of the
• 21:46
  California shows. A, a lady was there with her
• 21:50
  partner and partner was describing, you know, like that.
• 21:54
  We're from New Zealand and we were playing in, we were playing
• 21:57
  Palmdale, I think. And you said, oh, did you all
• 22:00
  drive here? Like she didn't quite realize
• 22:03
  that, you know, we had to fly 12 hours to get to, to get to LA,
• 22:08
  But that was pretty, pretty funny.
• 22:12
  Apart from there. Our accents have quite often
• 22:15
  been mistaken for like the like Britain, like the United
• 22:19
  Kingdom, which is kind of funny, but it's, it's created, you
• 22:23
  know, we'll, we're a pretty dry sense of humor culture New
• 22:27
  Zealanders. So it's all pretty funny to us.
• 22:29
  And yeah, well, we've been, we've been told a few times
• 22:34
  we've been extra polite. But I don't know if that's,
• 22:37
  that's, if that's just because Americans aren't or I'm not
• 22:39
  sure. But yeah, quite, quite often
• 22:41
  we've been told there. But yeah, that those are
• 22:43
  probably some of the ones that spring to mind in terms of,
• 22:46
  yeah, misconceptions about New Zealand that we've heard.
• 22:48
  Well, we've been here. Amazing.
• 22:49
  Big guys, big hearts, big riffs. Yeah, yeah.
• 22:53
  Nicholas, man, absolutely lovely meeting you.
• 22:56
  Please be safe the rest of the tour.
• 22:58
  Thanks for coming to our shores. I hope you come back again or
• 23:00
  I'll catch you, maybe out in Europe or somewhere else, or
• 23:03
  someday I'll get to New Zealand. We'll see.
• 23:05
  It's on the list. I don't know.
• 23:07
  It's a very long list over very many long years of.
• 23:11
  Playing I've definitely been, I've definitely been telling,
• 23:14
  you know, some of the like local support bands we've had on this
• 23:17
  tour have been like outstanding. And I've, I've just sitting in
• 23:20
  like, you know, I know it seems like a long way, but if you do
• 23:23
  even make it out to New Zealand, hit us up because I need you on
• 23:26
  as a very small country. And therefore we pretty much
• 23:29
  know everyone in the music scene.
• 23:31
  So, you know, like the the way that I've heard people talk
• 23:34
  about it and one of the couple of the promoters in New Zealand
• 23:37
  talk about it's just like you just sort of book it as a
• 23:39
  holiday and then play a couple of shows, you know, like it's
• 23:42
  the way to do it. But yeah, if anyone's watching
• 23:44
  this and wants to come to New Zealand and check out the scene
• 23:47
  or play some shows, then put us up because, yeah, we can
• 23:49
  definitely make it happen. And yeah, we're already sort of
• 23:52
  having loose conversations with the volcano boys about maybe
• 23:55
  getting him out to an easy John sometime to repay the repay the
• 23:59
  favour of being on tour with him.
• 24:00
  So who knows? We'll see what happens.
• 24:02
  Right on Nicholas, once again blindfolded and led to the
• 24:05
  woods. Thanks for being awesome.
• 24:07
  We appreciate you hanging out with us today.
• 24:08
  Take care.