Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / Ryan Dominguez on The History of Tokyo Rose

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Ryan Dominguez on The History of Tokyo Rose · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey baby, do you think it'd be okay to.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Take the long way home tonight?
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Today I've got Ryan from Tokyo Rose. So excited to
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: chat with you, Ryan. I will say Tokyo Rose is
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: a newer band to me, but looking into your, you
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: guys' history, I was like incredibly shocked how, you know,
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: you guys had three albums and obviously there was kind
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: of a bit of a hiatus or however you would
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: want to describe it. But, you know, it's been some
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: time since there's last been music, but, you know, you
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: guys were doing the thing like at the kind of
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: pinnacle of, you know, doing emo, pop punk, you know, whatever,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: however you describe your sound. But you guys were like
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: right in the, the heyday of all of that, playing
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: with lots of really, you know, a lot of bands that,
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: you know, a lot of us know to this day,
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: still listen to this day. So yeah, for some reason,
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Tokyo Rose, for some reason kind of missed, but like
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: listening to your guys' stuff over the last couple of weeks,
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: I've been listening to like a lot of the older stuff.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: I've been incredibly shocked how good it was. I was
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: just like, this, I can't believe I missed this.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: This was, this is incredible.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: So anyway, I definitely want to talk all things Tokyo Rose,
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: but before we dive into all of that, how are
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: you doing today, Brian?
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: I'm doing great, man.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Just, uh, pick some apples with the fam and, uh,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: there you go.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Drank some, uh, apple cider. So it's, it's a good
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: fall day.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Love it. Is that a 76ers hat.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: You have on? It is a Montreal Expos hat.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Uh, Oh, it's, Oh, an Expos hat.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Way back in the day. Uh, They, like, left, I
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: think they, like, or I think they, like, moved, was
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: it Washington, the Nationals?
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, they became the Nationals.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I want to say that was, like, mid-2000s when that happened, right?
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I think it was mid-90s, late 90s.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, really? That long ago?
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Okay. Oh, interesting.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Well, I was so curious.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: For some reason, it looked like a 76ers hat, and
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: I was like, ooh, I bet you're excited for LeBron, but.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: You know, maybe, maybe you're like, are you one of
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: those New Jersey people that's like more of like New
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Jersey kind of like New York sports fan?
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Or are you more of.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Like, because I know a number of New Jersey people
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: that are close to Philly end up being big Philly fans.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: No, I'm in the North Jersey, born and raised North Jersey.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: So I'm a, you know, I'm a Mets fan. I'm
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: a Giants fan. I'm a Rangers fan. Yeah. And a
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Knicks fan, you know. So I'm kind of a hard luck,
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: tough luck sports fan.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Big deal.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Got to stay with it, you know.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk all things Tokyo Rose.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: You know, obviously you guys started out, you know, very
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: kind of like late 90s, early 2000s, and very quickly
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: you came along.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know if... I don't know.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: It didn't look like, at least according to Wikipedia, that
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: you were probably the original vocalist, but it sounded like
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: they kind of went through a few vocalists before they
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: landed on you. But yeah, I'd love to kind of
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: just hear... I would say even before you joining Tokyo Rose,
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: what was your involvement in music early on?
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: How did you get involved in music?
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm not an original founding member of Tokyo Rose,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: which is kind of an Easter egg for those who
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: have followed the band. I was playing in high school
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: in a ska band called Day 19. We were kind
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: of a punk ska, kind of less than Jake-influenced band. Cool.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: When that kind of started to shift because the horn players,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: one of which I was, went away to college, I
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: was really trying to find new ways to start a
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: band that, you know, I could play the songs that
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: I'd been writing since I was a teenager with different
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: friends and different, you know, co-writers and bandmates. That was
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: more in kind of the pop-punk, kind of, you know,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: slightly emo-leaning direction. And I met these guys. I met
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: the drummer previously. His name was a fellow by the
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: name of Mike Glitta, who was the original drummer in
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Tokyo Rose. He had a couple other guys he was
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: playing with.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: And he was in Senses Fail as well.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: That's right. So he started Tokyo Rose and then kind
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: of couldn't leave college. So kind of stayed at Rutgers
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: because he's a year younger than me. And then he
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: started census fail in that time. Uh, yeah. And went
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: on to kind of do that whole thing. And he's
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: still very active in, uh, the biz as, as he
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: might say, as a, uh, an A and R, uh, for, uh,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: the network media group. Um, so he's signing bands, you know,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: that like remind him of that kind of like late nineties,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: early two thousands, just energy and vibe.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Like fans like games, we play arrows in action. Yeah,
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: just Tally Spear from UK. So, yeah, and Mike and
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: I are still really good friends. We just hung out
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: a couple weeks ago.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, nice.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like, you know, he wanted to
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: do something different and, like, we wanted to do something different.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: But he's, you know, definitely one of the founding members
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: of Tokyo Rose.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, like, it sounded like, you know, you were
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: initially in SKA. did you have a sense of, you know,
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: coming from that ska world of, okay, like, if I'm
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: going to move on from this ska band, like, did
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: you have a sense of, like, this is kind of
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: more of the sound that I'm, like, wanting to explore
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: with music? And obviously, knowing you're, like, a vocalist, you know,
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: maybe there's, like, a different kind of vibe that you're
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: going for, even vocally, from a ska band to a
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: band like Tokyo Rose.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: But, yeah, did you have a sense of, because we
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: hear that from a lot of artists where they kind of, like,
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: went maybe from one genre to another, right? from like
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: the original bands that they maybe started out playing, you know,
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: in high school or whatever to whatever.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Bands they ended up being. And yeah, it's kind of,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of times we.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: Hear that, that sort of story of like, yeah, we were,
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: I was sort of over that one sound and I
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: was kind of more interested in exploring this new thing.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Did you have a sense of that as well? Yeah.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: You know, we kind of, I played saxophone in day
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: 19 to start. And then I started playing guitar on
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: day 19 cause we were all like really into, you know,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: we were into the getup kids really into Jimmy world and,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: And Midtown had started coming around in the New Brunswick area.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, a little bit of Thursday, we
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: were big Lifetime fans. So we knew we wanted to,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: you know, explore kind of heavier and some more guitar
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: driven music. And we kind of like lean towards being
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: a pop punk band with horns in like later in
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: the Day 19 world. And then as I started writing
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: more music, it just came out that, yeah, kind of
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: lean that way. You know, we we were just talking
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: about this the other day with the day 19 guys
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: that we played a show in central Jersey at a
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: place called the Cove where they had all these bands
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: play from all over. And, uh, one of the first, uh,
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: New Jersey dates that newfound glory on newfound glory, uh,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: played was that show with us at the Cove. And like,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: when we heard their sound, it was like, yeah, this is,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: this is it. We want to just like be, you know,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: bouncing around playing some heavy hitting chords and, Hearing Jordan
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: just do his version of that sound, it was like, okay,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: this is really cool. This is kind of where we're
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: leaning towards. And then that's kind of how Tokyo Rose
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: kind of shifted towards that kind of sound as well,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: away from Ska.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: What do you think, because you mentioned some of the
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: other bands that you kind of started out with or
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: even were maybe initially influenced by to start Tokyo Rose.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Many of them were New Jersey bands.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: And like, what was it in the water that was,
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: and I understand like emo just got so big that like,
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: if you were going to start a band at that time,
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: like more than likely it was going to be an
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: emo band and that's part of it. So, you know,
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: regardless of where you were at in the country, you
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: probably started an emo band, but there were a lot
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: of really good emo bands that came out of New
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: Jersey at that time.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Was there just something in the water.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: That was happening where like y'all were drinking the same
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: water and it just created all these great emo musicians
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: or what? Like, I'm so curious of like, What your thoughts,
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: when you look back at that time, why was there
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: such a disproportionate number of really good emo bands coming
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: out of New Jersey at that time?
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there was something, not just in the water,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: but maybe in the bagels. The fact that we were
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: all kind of within a stone's throw of each other.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: One of the first shows that Day 19 played, an
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: earlier version of Tokyo Rose also opened up, and then
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: a band called Hybrid opened up, and that was... I
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: believe it was Gerard and his brother Mikey were in
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: that band. That would later become Pensy Prep, adding Frank on,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: and that would become My Chem, right? So we all
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: kind of knew each other through living in Essex County
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: and then playing church basement and hall shows and then
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: kind of moving down to New Brunswick where Rutgers was.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: You had all those basement shows. My first day of class,
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: I cut. my English 101 class, to go see a
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: show at the Midtown house. Midtown wasn't playing, but it was, like,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: a band called Penfold and a couple other bands that
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: were touring. And then being so close to where the Souls,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: you know, kind of had their, like, kind of explosion
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: in New Brunswick. I mean, and then later on, like,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: having Gaslight kind of come through those same, you know,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: that same route. But, yeah, and then, like, all the
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: kind of ska bands that were happening in high school
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: kind of pivoted And like dropped the horns and like
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: got a little heavier or got a little bit more progressive.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it just seems like there was a lot
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: of inspiration, a lot of cross-pollination. People in one band
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: would kind of join other members of another band. That's
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: kind of how like Midtown formed. Like we knew the
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: drummer Rob was in a ska band called The Royalties.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Gabe was in Humble Beginnings, which is a pop punk band.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: that we all like worshipped in north jersey and then
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: like heath was in a pop punk band called nowhere
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: fast i think tyler was in that band too and
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: it's like kind of see them come from the ashes
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: of all those other bands and start something that was
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: just new and fresh sounding and and got so much
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: traction and And I think it all kind of moved
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: us kind of lower down in the scene in that
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: direction and kind of following in their footsteps.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, obviously you guys didn't get as big
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: as MCR. Sure. But it is something to be said.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: Obviously you guys did get signed. You released three albums.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: You did it for a while. It is one of
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: those things where, again, I've noticed this with other scenes
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: in different parts of.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: The country where.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: there's like a high concentration of those types of bands
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: coming out at the same time. Uh, and they more all,
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: you know, they all kind of maybe have a similar
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: sound and there's something about like a rising tide, raising
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: all boats type of thing where again, like maybe you're,
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: maybe you guys didn't rise quite to the level of MCR,
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: but like you guys did, I mean, you, you did
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: kind of probably, uh, feel like you were on that wave, uh,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: with everyone else. Uh, and, and it, it kind of
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: goes to show that, you know, obviously you have to
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: make good music. Like that, that's sort of like bare minimum,
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: but it is who, you know? And so the fact
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: that you were all kind of connected to the same people, uh,
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: you know, you, that therefore you're like playing a lot
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: of the same shows together and you all obviously.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Know each other.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: And because of that, that kind of probably more than
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: likely leads to one thing to another. And that's where
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: you all get signed and, and you play these bigger
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: and bigger shows because some of those other bands are
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: getting bigger and bigger. And, yeah, it just seems like
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: one of those things where it's just kind of more
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: of like who, you know, um, with the making good
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: music as sort of just like the, the bare minimum.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: And like, if you really want to, you know, break
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: out into from like being just some sort of local band,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: it's really who, you know?
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think a lot of that was, you know,
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: the guys, especially like I put Midtown up there and
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Thursday up there because they were always the kind of
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: had a hand down to the guys of us that,
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: you know, those of us that were kind of under them,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: you know, uh, Ben Jorgensen from Mormon for Sleep tells
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: this amazing story when he like He was driving to
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: one of their first shows, and they were going to
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: be late. So Midtown had them on the show, and
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: they were like, hey, you know what? It's cool. You
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: don't need to open. Just get here when you get here,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: and you'll still get to play. You won't miss your time,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: so I will shuffle around. Because just the familiarity we
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: all had from playing those hall shows, it's like stuff
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: happens when you're on the road. You lose a wheel.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: You crash your van. you know, all that stuff happens.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: And like, we wanted to make sure that everybody had
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: their chance to do their thing.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: That's cool. Yeah.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: And I think, you know, again, like you mentioned, it
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: seems like Midtown was maybe the, I'm trying to think
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: of the right word for it, but sort of maybe
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: the the like wise old brothers.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Of the scene where.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Like they were maybe just a little bit older than
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: you all and everybody kind of wanted to probably be Midtown.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And so it probably, or at least.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: From what I'm hearing or maybe alluding or implying here
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: is that like, you know, they probably grew up in
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: a scene where like there were other older bands that
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: were helping them out.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: And now this was a way for them to pay
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: it forward.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: And I would imagine you guys can probably think of
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: some of those bands that you maybe did the same
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: thing where other bands were playing under you that were
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: looking up to you guys.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: And you were trying to pay it forward.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: And that's the cool thing about any sort of alternative scene,
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: whether it's the metal scene or the hardcore scene or
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: the emo scene or whatever. But you really can tell
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: who are the good people in the scene by them
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: recognizing these were the bands that took us on the
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: road when we didn't.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Maybe deserve a chance.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: These were the bands that kind of took us under
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: their wing and gave us, you know, some, uh, you know,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: advice or wisdom. And, and, and as you grow up
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: and you start to learn some of those things to
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: be able to then pay that forward, you can just
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: tell like who, who those types of bands are and
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: the type of people in those bands. Um, so I, yeah,
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: I would imagine you guys like really got a good
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: sense of that. And it certainly sounds like Midtown was
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: one of those types of bands.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: A hundred percent, you know, Midtown saves the day, you know,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: before it saves the day, like Lifetime, just hearing, you know,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: just how good those guys were, and how good humans
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: they were, it was always, you know, like, hey, if
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: we could just, you know, get on, get on, you know,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: get on a phone call with them, or, you know,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: just be able to, to reach out, and see if
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: they had any opening slots, and we did a few
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: shows with, with Midtown, a few shows with Armor for Sleep,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: a few shows with, never got to do any shows
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: with Lifetime, nor Saves the Day, but it was always like,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: we were kind of always around in the same kind
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: of lower circles or maybe like further concentric circles from them.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, we were really, uh, really tight with the
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Strider from Long Island who got signed to equal vision.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: And I think their bass player ended up joining saves
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: the day for the, through being cool album and touring cycle.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: So it's like, there's a lot of cross pollination with
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Long Island and Jersey. And I want to say like
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Philly a little bit, but it was more, Like very
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: much Long Island and Jersey with the cross-pollination.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: That's cool. That's cool.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about the reinventing a lost art era. You know,
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: this is your guys' first album released in 2003. And
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: so by this point, you know, you've probably been in
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: the band for a couple of years. Yeah, I'd love
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: to just kind of hear what it felt like as
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: somebody who was... I don't know if you ever released
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: any signed albums or whatever with that ska band, but
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: I would imagine for you with Tokyo Rose, this must
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: have felt like a pretty significant moment to have this
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: album come out, being signed. I'm trying to remember what
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: label you guys were on.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, is it Sideco? Sideshow.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Is that how you pronounce it? Sideshow.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Sideshow.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the owner's name is James Cho, so... Oh, cool, cool.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: So like, yeah, I would imagine like it probably felt
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: pretty significant for you in your life at that time.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I'd love to just kind of go back
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: to that era, to that time. So whatever reflections you
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: have on it, I'm just glad to hear.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so we had put out an EP
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: like all on our own. You know, we recorded it
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: in the Poconos and that kind of got us some attention.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: We like mailed it, like literally mailed burnt copies to people.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: You know, it was before digital, the proliferation of digital
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: files and stuff. Um, so we had mailed it out
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: to a few people. There was a, like this guy
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: in Taunton, Massachusetts named Russ Orcott. He had a small
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: label that was putting out EPs and stuff for some
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Massachusetts and Connecticut bands, New England bands. And he was like, Hey,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: I can like press this and put it out for you.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: You know, like no, no charge. It's like whatever we make,
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: like we'll split it 50, 50 or whatever. So we
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: got that out and then we just blasted out to everybody.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: We could, you know, find who would listen. And so
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: we got that out to the guys at Militia Group
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: who had signed our friends, The Beautiful Mistake out of
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: San Diego.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Yep. Super good friends with Josh.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, no way. Josh is like, he's like a big
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: brother to us too. He's one of those bands, one
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: of those guys that just, you know, has always looked
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: out for us. We shared a van a couple of
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: times on tour, you know, and no matter how big
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: they got, they were always like, Hey, like, you want
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: to play a show where I know you guys are
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: coming at California. So like, let's do something. So yeah,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: we got it in the hands of the Militia Group,
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: and they put one of the songs of the EP
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: on a comp that they did, Stepping Stones. And it
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: was a comp with Beautiful Mistake, Amberlynn, Copeland, Acceptance, all
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: these great bands that we never would have crossed paths
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: with unless we had met Beautiful Mistake and got introduced
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: to Militia Group. So James was a part owner in
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Militia Group. So he kind of started Sideshow as an
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: offshoot for kind of more quirky bands. And so he
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: signed us as kind of like his like pop punk
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: emo band and the rest of the other bands on
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: the label were going to be a little bit more quirky,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: which we were cool with, you know, because it was
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: still kind of within the Militia Group family. And we
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: got to be, you know, meet some really amazing musicians
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: and artists through James as well. And James had this
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: amazing opportunity. He said, like, if you guys put stuff
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: out with me, like we'll just show it everywhere from
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: the U.S. to Europe and to Asia. And it gave us,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: you know, no opportunity to say no. And basically we
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: went with James and we had just been getting, just
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: finishing college for most of us. And we just wanted
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: to get on the road. So we had maybe about
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: 15 to 20 songs that we had written and went
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: into the studio with Chris Berdami at Portrait Studios, which is,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: you know, famous kind of in the New Jersey punk scene.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: He had just finished doing the starting line for Pennsylvania,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: and he had just started doing the early November, and
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: then Hidden in Plainview as well. So a bunch of
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: drive-thru bands were going to Chris Badami and were like, yeah,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: those are bands we know, guys we're familiar with that
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: we played a bunch of shows with in Jersey. Let's
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: go there. I thought that'll capture our sound. And we
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: ended up with Reinventing, an album that's now 23 years old.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: Wow. It is. Yeah.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: It's, it's crazy how the time flies. Yeah.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: What, what do you feel like you learned from that
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: first album cycle that maybe, maybe going into it, you
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: were just not expecting, but yeah, what I would imagine
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: like doing a first album, writing it, recording it, releasing it,
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: touring it. I would imagine there's had to have been
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: some learning, uh, maybe growing pains even.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, it was our first
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: time in the studio with a producer who was also
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: a drummer. So kind of our drummer at the time.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: uh John Smith you know he was in other bands
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: from South Jersey and so when we got into the
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: studio it was like okay like we want things to
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: uh we want the drums to really amplify and like
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: magnify the melodies but we went in there kind of
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: like we want to like make a wall of sound
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: with the guitars and like not even thinking about the drums. So, uh,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: because Chris Badami is a drummer as well, an amazing drummer,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: he was able to kind of like help us hone
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: and craft, you know, a specific sound that was like
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: very much that drive through record sound in the early
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: two thousands out of the drums. And then we would
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: put kind of like my writing and my kind of
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: vocal styling over it, which kind of made us, Sound
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: more of an acquired taste, I would say, because we
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: weren't like really that drive through sound because my voice
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: and because of the way I sing is a little
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: bit more soulful. It kind of set us apart and
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: we thought that was a good thing. And, you know,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: to our ears, it was a good thing. But I
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: think to say like the record company, they were like, oh,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: you know, we thought we were signing up for another
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: kind of like starting line early November. But you guys
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: are a little bit more have a little bit more seasoning,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: so to speak. So I think learning that, it's like, okay, no,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: we want to make sure we approach the studio understanding
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: that our sound is our sound so that we're not
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: kind of disappointed if it doesn't turn out a certain way.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: And so what we learned through reinventing was that we
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: want to define our sound and we don't want to
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: be defined by kind of preconceived notions of what comes
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: out of a studio or what comes out of a
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: certain producer. And that's why when we got to work
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: with Matt Goldman on the second album, it was like,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: this is a match made in heaven because we were
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: all about experimenting and he was all about experimenting, but
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: he also had this breadth of, whatchamacallit, a portfolio. He
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: had just recorded Under Oath, but then also recorded Copeland
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: and recorded Norma Jean, but then also recorded us. And
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: so he had a real balance of the heavy that
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: we wanted And a real balance of like the quirky
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: and the kind of sweet and kind of like muted, muted.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Or even pretty.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: Like he's really good at like bringing out the pretty.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: And whether it's.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: Guitar work or even drums or singing, like he's really
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: good at bringing out the pretty in a band. Even
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: like a band that might be like a heavier band.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: That's exactly, that's exactly the word I was looking for.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, cause like when you think of Aaron Marsh
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: and you know, the melodies he writes and the arrangements
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: he wants to get down on tape. Yeah. It's very pretty.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: So like we knew that we would have those tools
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: at our disposal. And so we were like, hey, let's
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: just experiment and see what comes out. And that's what
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: gave us that second album.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: That's cool. That's cool.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: I definitely want to talk more about that second album.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: You mentioned a second ago that you feel like maybe
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: one way that Tokyo Rose kind of differentiates itself from
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: a lot of other bands at that time. is your
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: voice being more soulful. Is that something that you feel
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: like just kind of naturally comes out? Or was that
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: something that maybe you trained yourself in or have kind
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: of intentionally made happen? Like, I'm just curious, like, where
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: does that soul, because I definitely hear it, but where
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: does that soulful voice come from for you?
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Is that just something you grew up with? It's natural
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is?
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's something that I just grew up with.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Just I idolized Michael Jackson as a musician, as a singer.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: My parents were really heavy into Motown and into early
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: R & B. Then I grew up kind of like
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: in middle school, like before I discovered Green Day and
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Offspring and Weezer, it was like, oh, I would only
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: listen to kind of like R & B. I was
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: a big Jodeci fan and like kind of this whole,
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: this soulful R & B that was coming out in
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: the 90s that was still kind of, you know, Tongue-in-cheek
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: still reserved a lot of the lyrical interpretations for the listeners.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: I feel like R & B kind of gravitated towards
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: more overt expressions. But now, you know, in the early 90s,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: it was a little bit more kind of veiled and
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: very artful with the lyrical content. And I think that
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: kind of shaped my songwriting, but also my vocal styling.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So to talk more about New American Saint,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: the second album. First off, I had no idea that
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: Goldman was the producer for that. That says a lot
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: about the album. I think in part because I'm a huge,
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: huge Matt Goldman fan. Pretty much anything that guy has
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: ever produced has been some of my favorite stuff ever.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: I'm a huge Under Oath fan, a huge Chariot fan,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: huge Copeland fan, huge Norma Jean fan. All those bands
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: that you just mentioned that he's worked with over the years.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: like those are some of my favorite bands of all time.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: And so pretty much anyone he works with, it's like gold,
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: like Goldman.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: It's just so good.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd love to hear just maybe more about the
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: recording process with Goldman. I know you mentioned some of
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: the things that you felt like he was really strong
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: at that really helped you guys in your sound. But yeah,
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: what more do you want to say about that production
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: of that album, especially maybe the recording process?
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think to kind of segue between reinventing and
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: New American Saint, because we kind of realized that disappointment
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: of kind of not falling into the mold of like
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: the drive-thrus and the victories, we, you know, wanted to
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: be a little bit more ourselves and to experiment more.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: So we did have an opportunity to possibly, if Matt
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Goldman wasn't available, because there was a little bit of
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: a question, we had also been talking with Matt Squire,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: who ended up producing one of our favorite bands from
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: the area, Receiving End of Sirens, and then Deer Hunter,
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: but also Panic at the Disco's first record. So there's
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: a lot of experimentation that happens there. Receiving End of
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Sirens was a good bit heavier than us, and then
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: Panic was a good bit, I guess, poppier than us.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: So we kind of felt like we could fall within
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: there too. But then when Matt became available, Goldman became available,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: we were like, we have to go with Matt because
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: he's just seasoned. And again, like, like the top five
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: records of that time that we were listening to were,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: you know, beneath medicine tree, you know, that are only,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: they're only chasing safety, you know, and then our drummer
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: at the time, you know, was really big into like
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: the heavier stuff. So he was into normal gene and chariot,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: you know? So we were like, okay, We could lean
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: that way and because of our experience with Militia Group
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: and those other bands like Anne Berlin and stuff, we
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: were like, okay, he can do the kind of poppier
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: stuff too. So we wanted to have all of that
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: at our disposal. And Matt was just the sweetest guy
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: to work with. He was open to anything and any
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: ideas we had. And one of his assistants, engineers, Troy Staines,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: is an incredible slide guitar player or a lap steel player.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: So he played on a couple tracks. On that as well.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: And then Matt called in a favor with a vocalist
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: that he knew so we could do a kind of
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: a full band rendition of an old song that we
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: had recorded on our first EP. So he helped us
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: really kind of make the album that we really wanted
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: to make that kind of represented us, you know, all
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: the facets of Tokyo Rose.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: We've interviewed one of Matt Goldman's old apprentices before, and
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: he talks about how Matt is meticulous at sound, like,
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: like capturing sound. And so he will like take, he'll
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: take so much time when it comes to, let's say
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: you're recording drums.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: You're tracking.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: He's a great drummer too.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: He will pain. Yeah, right. Exactly.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: And he will painstakingly just take forever to like put
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: the mic in the right exact place. And he just
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: has like such a good, deep knowledge, uh, on how
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: to capture the right sound based on what the band
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: is looking for, what, you know, what, what, what he
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: might be looking for as a producer, but he's very
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: meticulous at even just like where to put a microphone.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, I'm curious, like your thoughts on like,
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you guys were the kind of
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: band that was meticulous about your own, uh, maybe recording process,
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: but I do know Matt was very meticulous. I'm curious,
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: like your, your thoughts on, on that part of the
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: recording process.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think that that's absolutely spot on. Matt
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: is so particular, but he like has such, he's like
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: an encyclopedia for sound, right? So, We could come in
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: and say, hey, you know the piano sound in Pet
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Sounds that's kind of a little bit out of tune?
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: It's like, how do we do that? And he's like, well,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: I have a keyboard and we can do it digitally.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Or actually, I have this old upright piano that I'll
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: just mic and it's slightly out of tune. Let's do that.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: And the mic should go kind of above C4 rather
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: than directly in the middle. So he had stuff like that.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: And then we really wanted really lush feedback. You know,
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: like we wanted feedback almost like at a specific pitch
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: that would fit within the key of one of the songs.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: And he's like, oh, like you could do that with
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: the guitar, but that would sound just like regular feedback.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: I have this this megaphone that I've like reverse wired.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: So it's like a microphone instead of a speaker. So
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: if you if you like point that at the guitar cab,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: it's going to create this crazy feedback that just sounds
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: like like 10 fuzz pedals in chain. And like we
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: he was like, yeah, like and there's a video of
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: me like swinging this massive kind of it's not even
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: a megaphone. It was like a siren cone. And I
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: would like kind of wave it in front of the
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: guitar cab to get those crazy feedback, just like those screams.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: you know, and it turned out being exactly what we needed.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: You know, there was another instance in that same song.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: He asked me what the title was. I was like, oh,
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm kind of vacillating between a couple of things,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: but I'm like, I'm really kind of leaning towards the
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: Tin Man Gets His Heart. You know, like Big Wizard
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: of Oz fan and just like, wanting to make it
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: seem like, to feel like lyrically that, oh, someone realizes
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: that they actually had a, they had heart all along
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: and they didn't need it to get it from someone else.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: And so he's like, okay, cool. Actually, my friend's coming in.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: He's dropping something off. So let's put a mic by
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: the door because it's really squeaky. And he like, the
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: friend came to deliver, I can't like whatever piece of
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: equipment he borrowed. And like we recorded the door squeak
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: And it's like the intro to the song because it's
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: just like it sounds like the Tin Man, you know,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: moving around without the oil. And it was perfect, you know,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: and Matt knew that that would fit perfectly. So stuff
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: like that, you know. And then I think there's another song,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: like a hidden track on the album where we kind
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: of move towards like 70s, like 70s R & B
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: funk like sounds. uh, on the drum. So he like
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: put a special like drape over the snare drum to
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: really mute, you know, to get a really muted sound,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: but then also had like, uh, before it was really
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: in vogue, like sizzle chains on the ride symbol to
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: kind of give it that kind of like sparkly sound.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: So yeah, like, you know, Matt is, he's, he's just creative. He's,
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: he's a genius. I think in terms of like recording
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: and just like his encyclopedic knowledge of the right sound.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: I'm curious, like when you look back at your guys'
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: career and how you reflect on that, did you have
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: a sense that New American Saints was maybe your best
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: album or like at least like an album that people
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: maybe still look back to today? Like if they think
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: of like Tokyo Rose, they think of that album. Like,
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: do you have a sense of that? Because like the
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: fact that you guys did release a 20th anniversary of
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: it does feel pretty significant that like it must have
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: been really important in your guys' career. But yeah, I'm
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: curious when you look back on it in comparison to
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: the other albums. And I'm sure you love all the
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: albums in their different ways. It's like picking a favorite child.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: Probably pretty impossible. But you probably do think of the
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: fact that I would imagine New American Saint. But I
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: guess I don't know your guys' career well enough. But
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: I'm curious, do you think of New American Saint as
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: sort of that maybe pinnacle of the career?
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I think I froze. Okay, yeah.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Yep, go ahead.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: So yeah, answer that question. I think back then we
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: knew we wanted to kind of push the boundaries. You know,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: it was kind of like our attempt at a concept
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: album where kind of like there was kind of a
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: narrative that kind of told itself through each of the
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: songs and then collectively through each of the songs. And
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: then we, you know, really, we did have a vision.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Vinyl wasn't as popular then, but I had always had
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: a vision of kind of it flowing, you know, like
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: you drop the needle. on track one and then it
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: spins until it gets to the middle and then you
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: flip it over. We didn't quite divide the tracks as
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: like a side A or side B, but the label
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: was like, hey, like this really feels like it's one piece,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: like one long piece. And, you know, to think that
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: anything we did 20 years ago, people would want to
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: hear or know us by, it would kind of become
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: a calling card. It's pretty amazing to think that. And
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: the fact that New American Saint will be that, For us,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: that's something we're really proud of. Yeah, again, like getting
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: to work with Matt. It was like getting to work
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: with your dream producer and then kind of getting the
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: results of your dreams as well. Yeah, so I think
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: for those reasons, it does feel like that should be...
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: And I'm thankful that that's what people kind of go
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: back to when they think of us.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm sure it's like the opposite of like the
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: sophomore slump then.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: But I'm... So.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: A couple of years later, then you guys released The
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Promise and Compromise. And, you know, and then eventually there's
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: kind of the, again, whether you call it a hiatus, breakup,
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: whatever you guys would want to call it. But yeah,
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: I'd love to just hear reflections on that album cycle
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: specifically of, you know, going into knowing, especially knowing how well,
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: how well New American Saint was for you all. Yeah,
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: what are your reflections on The Promise and Compromise?
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think, you know, it's kind of somewhat
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a reaction to New American Saint,
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: kind of putting ourselves out there and then kind of, again,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: kind of feeling as though we were out of a
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: mold that people expected of maybe New Jersey or a
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: mold that people expected from Tokyo Rose or from, you know,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: the genre scene. So we kind of like lent back
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: on kind of our original desire to just like be
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: powerful and to be, to be accessible. But then also
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: there was a little bit of more experimentation again, coming
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: from the ska world. We knew that we had an
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: affinity for kind of specifically with our, our bass player, Chris,
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: just to, to seek grooves and to like write groovy things.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: And then to have that be a part of our sound.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: And again, with my voice to kind of settling, settling
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: more in that kind of R and B maybe slot,
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: it made sense to be a little bit groovier and
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: then throw some of those other influences back in. We
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: were finding it. We were finding kind of like where
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: maybe we thought we should be with the label, you know,
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: the labels like, Hey, like new American state was great,
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: but can we have a little bit more reinventing a
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: little bit more kind of like what Tokyo Rose was
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: at the start? I mean, you know, being young and
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: though it was our third album like being young and
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: still a good bit naive you know we're like hey
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: you guys are the record company right maybe we should
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: listen to you a little bit and at the same
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: time as well like we saw all the other bands
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: that kind of we came up with kind of getting
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: more notoriety you know seeing bands like fallout boy and
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: panic and seeing those guys kind of still be punk
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: and still be pop punk but like kind of branch
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: out into more pop and dance, you know, we tried
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: to throw some, do.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: You feel like that when the record label is like
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: telling you to like experiment a little bit more, is
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: that the direction that they're maybe pushing you as more
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: of like an actual pop sound?
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: I think so. The way that they framed it was like, Hey,
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: like your voice is more for a pop group, you know,
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: and your music tends to be a little bit more
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: in the kind of experimental rock can we try to
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: make that in the middle and, you know, try to
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: move that in the direction where things seem to be going.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: And we still found some common ground with a kind
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: of some of our influences, you know, like we went
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: back and listened to, well, we never really stopped listening
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: to like refuse the shape of punk to come and
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: just like the grooves and the dance that's in there.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, but we're not like a shouty band,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: but like that's, that's refused, you know? So like maybe
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: we can take some of those influences and then put
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: my voice over them. And so we tried that, you know,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: and it was, It felt successful to record it and
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: to get the sounds that we wanted with the producers
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: we were working with. Again, we wanted kind of heavy guitars.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: So we went with Fred Archambault, who had just done
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Avenged Sevenfold's Backcountry. And then we had Mark Rank as
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: kind of a vocal, kind of melodic producer. So he
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: was kind of helping to make sure that my voice
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: was still being my voice, but maybe being a little
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: bit more accessible. And so that kind of comes out.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: in that album. So it means, it doesn't mean like, sorry,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: I don't mean that we were constrained to kind of
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: become something that we weren't, but we kind of had
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: clear goals in mind that aligned with like the record
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: company and kind of what we saw the other bands
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: doing at that time to be a little bit more,
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: maybe pop sensibility, have a little bit more pop sensibility.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: And I think that that does come out in that album.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: But what was kind of disappointing about that album was
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: that as the the release date approached, it was kind
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: of the height of Napster and LimeWire and kind of
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: digital music piracy. The album was leaked. So, you know,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: what had promised to be, you know, a really good
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: release and, you know, in terms of like numbers and
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: scans and all that stuff was really kind of torpedoed
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: by the album being like released in full. And then
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: there was something else with like the Grace Note database
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: where like, on itunes the tracks were mislabeled and like
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: the album as a whole was attributed to a different
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: band not us oh wow so there was a lot
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: of weird stuff that happened with that album release and
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: i feel like that kind of yeah that really soured
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: things for us and i think we were at a
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: point in writing that album we had kind of written
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: more about kind of like our experience on the road
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: you know, are experiencing kind of like band culture. And yeah,
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: it almost felt as though like that was a sign
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: from the universe to kind of at least pause or,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: you know, take a, hang it up for a little bit. Yeah.
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I was going to ask like, you know, what,
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: what about that album cycle maybe caused you, caused you
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: all to like, maybe, yeah, take a break.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, that time was, there was so much, so
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: many changes happening in the music industry at that time. And,
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: Just even like where the sound of, again, obviously this
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: is sort of like 2007, 2008, 2009 is probably maybe
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: like starting now to like, we're starting to like move
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: away from like maybe the peak of that emo sound
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: to like, now we're like entering into this new phase.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: And so it was really starting to move into something
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: that was different. And so, yeah, I would just imagine
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: like a lot of bands were really struggling, but obviously
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: it sounds like there was just a total fumble on,
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: Just even the actual like logistics of the release.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That would.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine.
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: And like I would imagine it too. Like at this point,
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: you guys are probably in your mid to late 20s.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: And so it's just like now you're at this probably
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: at this crossroad of if we keep going down this
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: band pathway, like it's going to take a whole different
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: type of energy and effort than if we just start
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: to figure out like what's next in life. And so
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: I would imagine like that was probably a part of
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: it too, where you're just at this crossroads and just
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: like each one of your lives to figure out what
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: do we want to do? Do we want to keep
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: doing this band thing and like keep pushing forward? Or
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: do we want to like move on and figure out
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: something else in life?
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly it. You know, we were peak MySpace era.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: And I think by the end of or middle of 2008,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: like Facebook was taking over. And I think we felt
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: a little bit out of place. And I think, yeah,
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: like with these signs and other opportunities, you know, we
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: had become really good friends with Fred Mascherino from Taking
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Back Sunday. And he kind of, he took his step
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: away from Taking Back Sunday to start Color Fred. And
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: he was good friends with our bass player, Chris. So
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: he took Chris on the road and he took Matt,
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: our guitar player from that era as well on the road.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: And so we were like, oh, okay, you guys should
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: totally do this because Fred is amazing and he's blowing
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: up right now. They got to tour with Angels and
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Airwaves and From First to Last and MXPX. So I
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: was like, you guys should totally take that opportunity and
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: maybe this is a time that we just take a
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: break and just concentrate on life and maybe just start
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: writing for something that will happen maybe later or maybe not.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: And it just so happens that it didn't happen until
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: almost 20 years later.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Right. Right. Right.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: I'm curious. Yeah.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: What, what, uh, what all was a part of this
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: process to like, Hey, let's, let's start doing music again.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: We hear this a lot. Like there's a lot of artists.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: That Cullen and I end up interviewing that, you know,
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: maybe haven't done anything for close to 20 years. And
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: that certainly was almost you guys' case. I think it's
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: been 18 years exactly. Yeah. Like I would imagine just
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: the technology changing allows it to make it much easier to, to,
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: you know, play some riffs that you're maybe, you know,
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: playing around with and then send it to some friends,
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: send it to, you know, the other guys in the band.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: And then before you know it, like now we got
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: music like for the first time in, you know, 17,
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: 18 years. So I would imagine that's part of it.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: But also I would imagine like there was just something
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: about like you're maybe at a now a different part
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: of your life where you're like, okay, like we now
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: transition from that like late 20s trying to establish a
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: career or whatever. And I would imagine you feel pretty
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: established in whatever career you're in. And now it's like, well,
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: the creative juices still are there.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, I would imagine that that's a part
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: of it too. But yeah, I'm curious, like what, what
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: were some of the inspirations to like, let's, let's try
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: this again. Like, let's see what this feels like.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think, you know, life, uh, all that
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: kind of got, got, you know, that happened life, life,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: you know, like some of us went back to school,
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: some of us got married, some of us had kids.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: And I think, uh, it wasn't until late, uh, kind
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: of mid 2024, uh, When our friend John Damiano, who
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: runs Emo Night Karaoke, which is kind of like, you know,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: it's like a tribute to all this music. And they
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: go out and play live music. They play these songs
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: and they let audience members live out their dream as
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: the lead singer of this song. He was like, hey,
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: why haven't you guys reunited? Everybody else from the early 2000s,
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: late 90s has reunited. And we're like, oh, we didn't
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: know it was in the cards for us. You know,
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: we were kind of all doing different things. Chris and
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Matt had moved down to kind of eastern Pennsylvania. And
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: myself and Sean, you know, Sean was playing in other
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: bands after Tokyo Rose. But then he took a break
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: for a while as well. And we were still in
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: kind of North Jersey. So when John suggested it, we
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: reached out to each other. And, you know, I had gotten,
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: I think, two different phone numbers since then. So I
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: was like, I hope this is still your number. But
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: if it isn't, you know, I'll find you on Facebook.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: So we, it was either Facebook or, you know, finding
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: old phone numbers and we were able to kind of
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: just dust it off again. And through kind of rehearsing
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: for a reunion show, that reunion show kind of turned
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: into like a weekend of sold out shows. And like
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: the rehearsals for that kind of, they always sparked some
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: conversation of like, Hey, I had this riff. Would you
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: guys want to jam on it? And it just felt
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: so natural and good to play new music with these
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: guys and We just said, hey, let's go for it.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: Let's see what happens. And that's where we are today
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: with new music out.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: So obviously a couple of months ago, Never Say Die
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: came out and I think it's great. Like listening to
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: some of the new music, it just it feels reminiscent
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: of what we probably can expect from Tokyo Rose from
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: like those, you know, 20 years ago. But also certainly
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: it feels like it's taking a step forward in some
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: ways as well.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: What are maybe some of those things that you think about? Like,
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: you know, again, it's been 18 years. You probably don't
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: want to just make the same thing that you made
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: 20 years ago. What were some of those things that
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: when you came into writing, recording all of that, that
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: you feel like, oh, this is like a new thing
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: that we're trying to do or we're trying to take
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: a step forward from what we previously have done?
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Like, yeah. What are some of those things that come
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: to mind for you all?
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think some of it, you know, lyrically, like
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: all the songs that we had written back then, you know,
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: were always about life, about the experiences that we've had.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: And so we have a lot to draw on in
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: terms of writing new material for Tokyo Rose. But at
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: the same time, we've kind of challenged ourselves to think
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: outside the box. You know, like every great breakup song
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: or every great emo song is a good breakup song.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: But we're kind of all in our... point in our
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: lives where like maybe we're kind of happy where we
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: are romantically speaking maybe so like what else can we
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: write about and i think we've kind of turned it
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: more into kind of uh kind of like applying that
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: experimental lens to like the what if right like what
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: if this had happened instead of this or what what
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: would what if you know what if ai takes over
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: like uh you know kind of just uh exploring those
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: options kind of more fantastic than real life But again,
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: there's still all that bank of real life experience in
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: the last 20 years that we want to draw upon
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: as well. Because ultimately, especially with New American Saint, each
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: one of those songs was a love letter to somebody
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: in our lives. Somebody who affected us, brought us up,
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: took care of us. And at the same time, we
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: have just an anthology of many more of those people
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: in our lives today. So we'll continue to write about them,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: but then we'll also kind of delve into, yeah, that
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: realm of what if and see where it takes us.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: You know, the last track on Never Say Die is
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: my ode to the Severance program on Apple TV +.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: I was completely obsessed for, you know, two summers, like
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: kind of catching up on season one. And then watching
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: season two, you know, kind of almost all the way
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: through straight and just kind of being obsessed and just
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: curious about the characters and about the stories that they had.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: And that was kind of a new thing for me.
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: It was an experiment for me because I had normally
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: written about my life experiences and this was kind of
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: a new lens on that.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: I love that. Love that. Well, I'm super stoked about it.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: Again, like even though Tokyo Rose is more of a
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: newer band to me, like listening through your whole discography
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: now and especially listening through kind of because I'm like
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: one of those people like I like listening to the
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: first album, then second album and so on and so forth.
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: And so listening through that and hearing the growth and
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: the maturation is really cool. And so I've just been
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: super impressed. One of the better EPs I've heard of recent,
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: to be honest.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: It's a really, really incredible EP.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: That you guys put out. So very, very excited. Do
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: you have a sense of this leading to new music?
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: Maybe eventually a full-length, other shows? Do you have a
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: sense of it leading to more stuff coming out of
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: Tokyo Rose?
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we hope so.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, we're really enjoying playing together, really enjoying making music.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: We've kind of been on a circuit now where we're
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: kind of helping celebrate 20 years of New American Saint,
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: but then also many of the bands that we did
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: play with back then have kind of reunited or have
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: quietly continued to go. So we're on tour technically right
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: now with Punchline, who is celebrating 20 years of their
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: album 37 Everywhere. We did a weekend with them, and
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: we're going to do another long weekend with them in
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: November this year. But on that tour, we celebrated 20
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: years of This Too Shall Pass by The Fold. Oh, yeah.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: Another great tooth and nail band that we got to
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: tour with. And then a band called Run Kid Run
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: did 20 years of their album. And then Hot Alice,
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: which is composed of the lead singer from Alistair and
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: his brother in the Chicago area, celebrating the release of
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: their new album. new material as well. So it's kind
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: of like we're kind of doing this 20-year, like when
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: we were young kind of nostalgia route, which is great
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: because we played with all these bands before. We did
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: multiple tours with all of them. And oh, Park, who
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: we just toured with in kind of Midwest. we're looking
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: to do some more dates with those guys, with them
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: coming to the East Coast, and they just put out
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: new music, so we're really enjoying that, because we're reconnecting
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: with a lot of old friends, and at the same time,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: you know, we're inspired by their music, we were inspired
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: by their music 20 years ago, and we're inspired by
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: the new stuff that they're putting out today, but then also, yeah,
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: just like looking at life, and you know, like what
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: has happened since the first time Tokyo Rose was a band,
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: and you know, what might happen in the 20 years
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: after Tokyo Rose is a band. It's kind of like
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: we're wide open, you know, we want to see where
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: it goes.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Love it.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: Well, I just think it's super cool. I would imagine
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: it feels really inspiring and hopeful for you all right
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: now to be able to like dig back into it
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: being a band again at And, uh, you know, maybe
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: probably a little, you know, financially, you're probably not having
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: to be reliant on anymore.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: Let's, you know, fingers crossed.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: But, uh, but I'm sure it's exciting to like, feel
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: like you're doing something creative again and.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: You're like, you know, a part of a team and.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: And all the things that I think are really cool
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: parts about being in a band.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: So I would imagine that's the case. So cool.
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: Well, Ryan, let's get to your top five most influential albums.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: So the albums that have shaped you as a person,
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: as a musician.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: So yeah. What are those top five albums?
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: So, you know, I mentioned Jimmy Eat World before, you know,
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: worshipped Clarity, Bleed American really kind of breaking through to
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: the mainstream. So those are two right off the top
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: of the bat.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: So both Bleed American and Clarity.
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I feel like we hear, whether it's
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: from a hardcore band, metal band, doesn't matter. Like if
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: you were somebody who grew up in the late 90s,
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: early 2000s, almost any time those artists mentioned Clarity.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Jimmy world what what one of those two albums usually
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: right or if.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: Not both absolutely and then you know as a big
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: michael jackson fan i mean i grew up listening to
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: thriller but the very first album that i ever bought
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: with my own money was bad on cassette uh so
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: oh yeah that's gonna be up there in the top
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: five there you go i think what has also contributed
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: to some of my vocal stylings is being a huge
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: jeff buckley fan jeff buckley's great yeah you know, that
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: was just monumental.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: So good.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: So good. Just in songwriting.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Hallelujah.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: So good.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. You know, and then like his, his influences as well,
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: kind of pulling from the East, pulling from R &
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: B and soul from the blues. That's definitely influential for me.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, I mentioned them so many times
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: and kind of like towards this style of music that,
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: you know, we're all embracing as emo and pop punk
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: mid towns, uh, I think it's, is it their EP?
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: Or no, their first full length, Save the World, Lose
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: the Girl. That was just so influential to know that, hey,
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: I play guitar. I can make this kind of music.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: And people will, it'll resonate with folks. Because kind of
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: coming from those other influences, it was almost like, can
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: I make something that sounds like this? Or do I
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: need to kind of craft my own thing?
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: And Midtown was definitely like, Hey, like you can, you
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: can make this happen. So.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: I love that. I love that.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I feel like that's like a good
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: representation of what Tokyo Rose ended up becoming. Obviously some
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: of your vocals, both, that's actually, I didn't even think
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: about Jeff Buckley, but like, you can definitely hear some,
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: some influence there. And then obviously with Michael Jackson, but
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: then certainly just the, the type of pop punk emo
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: that you guys did. You can definitely hear that in
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: some of the, you know, Jimmy world with Midtown, all
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: of that.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: So, Great list. Great list.
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: Those are some bangers for albums. Yeah, Ryan, what do
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: you want to plug? Obviously, new EP is out. You
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: can get it wherever you listen to EPs. Did you
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: say there was vinyl.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: If I remember right?
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: So there's vinyl of New American Saint. There is a
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: hope for this vinyl, for Never Say Die, to make
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: it on one side of a vinyl. So we are
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: working with Manicat Records currently. They put out the re-release
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: of New American Saint. on vinyl. And then we have
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: done this first EP and then we're contractually obligated to
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: do another EP. And my hope is that they can
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: be two sides of a vinyl, a 10-track, 10 or
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: 11-track vinyl. There's some Easter eggs as well in the
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: presentation of the first EP of Never Say Die that
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: makes it sound like a cassette tape audio book. I'd
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: love for it to be on cassette because I think
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: cassettes never went away. And I think, you know, like
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: this new generation of music listeners, uh, wants something tactile.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: And for me, for my money, there was nothing more
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: tactile than that, that bad cassette tape that I bought,
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: you know, and like opening the liner notes, you know,
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: cause I'm a liner note guy. It's just, I want.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Cassettes are becoming like the ultimate hipster purchase.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: They are.
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: If you're like a music hipster, like that, like cassette. I,
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: I don't even know, like, I can't even imagine what
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: would be more, uh, more hipster than that.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: Like, I don't know, phonographs or something. Like who knows?
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: Right. Absolutely. Yeah. Some sort of, yeah, player piano scroll
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: or something. No, that would be the goal. But yeah,
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: you know, we want to get back in the studio
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: early 2027 to start recording some of the demos that
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: we have for a new EP. And then, yeah, come
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: see us on tour with Punchline. And then, yeah, like
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: early 2027, I think we're going to go into hibernation
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: and like get this new EP ready. tracks and all that.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: So yeah, come see us before the end of the
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: year with Punchline.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: Love it.
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: And then I would imagine at some point, maybe later
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: on in 27, you'll probably be touring that new EP
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: at some point, I would imagine.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: That's right. Hopefully, you know, Mr. Lyman, if you're listening,
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: if there's room on any of those stages, we'd love
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: to do a Warped, you know, in the States or
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: anywhere else you want to take it because we We
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: cut our teeth on Warped. We did three separate Warped
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: tours growing up and it formed us. It kind of
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: formed our work ethic. We were always on the road.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: We were always hustling, always selling our CDs in the
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: crowds and trying to get people to come see our sets.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: It just kind of made us the band who we
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: would become.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Love it. Love it.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm excited for it. Ryan, anything else you'd like
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: to plug?
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: You know, I just saw, and I didn't get any
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: royalty checks from this, but Uh, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, uh,
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: came out, you know, the, the full length, uh, full length, uh, motion,
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: motion pictures were re-released in theaters for a very short time,
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: but little, uh, very few people know that I was
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: a Foot Clan member.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Uh, really?
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, wearing the mask, uh, people didn't, don't,
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: don't know that. It's, I'm kind of uncredited. Like nobody
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: really got a credit as a Foot Clan soldier in
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: those movies. so wow yeah uh you know if you're
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: if you're looking for something to stream maybe that'll generate
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: a kickback to me at some point.
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: I would imagine if you're like an extra like that
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: they probably don't pay you too much other than well
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: maybe for teenage mutant and the turtles it was probably
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: they just paid you in pizza yeah exactly pizza and
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: free martial arts uh coaching wow wow The martial arts,
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: of course, of course. Was this in the kind of
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: like Hollywood area? Was this more in the New York area? Because,
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: you know, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles feels like very like
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: New York coded to me.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, it looks like we filmed
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: it in New York, right? It's supposed to be Manhattan
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: in the sewers. But it was a soundstage, you know,
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: on the Warner Brothers lot.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, good to know, good to know. Well, at least
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: they paid you in pizza though, right?
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, that feels like you can't, you can't do
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, like a movie without paying
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: people in pizza.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You know, at nine years old, like what greater
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: currency is there?
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: You couldn't have asked for more. Like now you're looking
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: back and you're like, wow, I could have maybe made
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: some money on it. But like when you're nine years old,
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: you're not thinking that you're probably just like, I want pizza.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. Yes. And yes.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: Love that. Love that.
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll be looking for you next time I watch
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: that movie. So that's super cool. Well, Ryan, thank you
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: so much for chatting more about all things Tokyo Rose. Again,
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: just really excited that you guys are back at it,
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: doing the thing. I'm sure it's exciting for you all
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: as well. So yeah, just hope, I wish for the best.
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: And if you guys happen to come through Minneapolis at
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: any point, let me know.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: I'll be around.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: Amazing. If we do, you know, it'll probably be with
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: our good friends in small towns burn a little slower.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: We're trying to get them to have a reunion.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: So yeah love it love it thank you so much thanks.
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: Mason I'm so much better when
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: You're near me I'm so much better when you're