Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 792 - Kenny Hickey (Type O Negative) Returns with New Band Sun Dont Shine

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 792 - Kenny Hickey (Type O Negative) Returns with New Band Sun Dont Shine · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  You know, writing together involves a lot of trust.
• 0:02
  All right, so this is my baby, but it's got to be our baby.
• 0:05
  Now. I got to trust you with the rest
• 0:06
  of it, you know what I mean? And again, I'm going to refer to
• 0:09
  The Beatles, like The Beatles in it.
• 0:10
  They would bring down ideas or have songs, and then they would
• 0:13
  complete it or one of them would complete it.
• 0:15
  You know, you have to have that trust in each other, you know?
• 0:17
  And I've developed very rapidly that trust in these guys.
• 0:27
  Go Scope Magazine welcomes in Kenny Hickey of Sun Don't shine.
• 0:31
  How are you doing, brother? Shine silver tomb and Type O
• 0:33
  Negative. I mean, yeah.
• 0:35
  Oh yeah, you know you. Know I'm going to add a few more
• 0:37
  band names before the end of next year.
• 0:39
  I believe yeah. You've been around for a very,
• 0:41
  very long time, my friend. So.
• 0:43
  Remind me? How do we go from 7th void to
• 0:47
  Silver Tomb and how did we end up here at Sun Don't Shine?
• 0:50
  We're all different bands. I mean, you know, it was in the
• 0:53
  evolution of one band. True. 7th Void broke up a long
• 0:57
  time ago. No, a long time ago.
• 0:59
  And then Silver Tomb was a new incarnation of it.
• 1:04
  You know, we got juice in the band and Joe and guitar and we
• 1:07
  added boards and string sections and whole new dimensions, a
• 1:10
  whole new band. That's how Silver Tomb was born.
• 1:13
  I mean, you know, you know, the first idea for Seven Foot was to
• 1:16
  have like a bare bones rock'n'roll band, you know, and
• 1:19
  Silver Tomb was sort of wrapped, the type O to, you know,
• 1:23
  dissipated after Peter's death. We sort of wanted to Add all
• 1:26
  those dimensions that, you know, was capable with, you know,
• 1:30
  string sections and whatnot. That was the idea of a time
• 1:33
  behind Silverton. That's why we started a new band
• 1:35
  under a new name. And Sun 9 Shine is a completely
• 1:39
  different entity. Has nothing to do with any of
• 1:41
  that. The Sun Don't Shine was was a
• 1:42
  brainchild of my boy Andrew Spalding, who was my merch guy
• 1:49
  actually. And you know, he did merch for
• 1:50
  me, you know, amongst a lot of. I met him on a Danzig run when I
• 1:53
  was playing with Danzig for blacks to the black.
• 1:55
  He was Danzig's merch guy. This is how long ago I met him.
• 1:57
  That was probably like, I don't know, 2008, something like that.
• 2:01
  Yeah. We became fast drinking buddies
• 2:03
  and then we drank together for many years.
• 2:06
  He was also big drinking buddies with Kirk Weinstein because he
• 2:10
  was living in No Orleans. And he always wondered, Oh, I
• 2:13
  love this guy's heavy wrist and this guy's heavy list and this
• 2:16
  guy's songwriting. What would happen if I put these
• 2:17
  two guys in a room together? And then, you know, come about
• 2:21
  five years ago, I got sober. I, I went to a rehab, finally
• 2:25
  cleaned my act up. And then he cleaned his act.
• 2:27
  I kind of inspired him. He cleaned his act up and, you
• 2:29
  know, and he made his, his idea, his dream come true.
• 2:32
  He just got the money together and, and he was like, you know,
• 2:35
  I want to put you guys in the studio.
• 2:38
  I called Johnny up, Johnny Kelly, he's into it.
• 2:40
  And Kirk brought down Todd Strange, you know, from, you
• 2:44
  know, his, his old world of, of down and cobar.
• 2:47
  And it was really just a favor for a friend.
• 2:50
  And that's how it started. And, you know, we were like, all
• 2:51
  right, we're all over Andrew and who knows, maybe this will be
• 2:54
  cool, right? But we were kind of nervous too,
• 2:56
  because I was like, I don't know, what is this going to
• 2:57
  sound like? What the fuck knows?
• 2:58
  You know, I had a few riff ideas send the Kirk to like the night
• 3:01
  before we got on the plane. And that first song was born in
• 3:05
  like 2 days in the studio. So it was really just, you know,
• 3:08
  this band is just going to do a song together.
• 3:09
  We're in a band, we're in a band.
• 3:11
  We're just two getting together to a song.
• 3:13
  That's how it started, you know, Dreams Always Die with the Sun.
• 3:15
  That was the first single, and it got such.
• 3:18
  We came out of the studio so exhilarated.
• 3:20
  It went so well. And then we got a huge response
• 3:23
  from fans and stuff. And that's when we said, oh,
• 3:26
  well, maybe, you know, I don't know, maybe there's something
• 3:28
  here. Let's take it a little further,
• 3:29
  you know, and call it a band. When I heard it, when I heard
• 3:32
  about the project initially, I was like, oh cool.
• 3:35
  I was like, I was wondering, I've heard all four.
• 3:37
  I've heard the four songs that you guys released so far, but I
• 3:40
  when I first heard I was like, what is it going to sound like?
• 3:42
  I was like, is it going to lean one side more to their more
• 3:46
  known projects or it's going to be something completely
• 3:48
  original? To me, it sounds like a for you
• 3:50
  guys, it sounds like a whole new.
• 3:52
  It doesn't sound like anything of.
• 3:53
  It. Sounds like its own its own
• 3:55
  animal. I was very like curious to see
• 3:57
  how your guitar styles will go together.
• 3:59
  And I was always wondering like, oh, like how the vocals going to
• 4:01
  go. Like I was wondering, are you
• 4:03
  guys going to do like trade off? Like he's going to sing a song.
• 4:05
  You're going to sing a song or. Well, we're trading off binge
• 4:08
  songs. Yeah.
• 4:10
  Be more of that. Like, we just, we just.
• 4:13
  I was a conscious effort to do something different on my part.
• 4:15
  You know, I was like, I just, you know, I want, I don't want
• 4:19
  to do the typical thing that everyone's going to expect.
• 4:21
  There's like this, this, this fusion of Type O, Negative and
• 4:24
  Crowbar, you know, and me and Kirk both have been churning
• 4:28
  over the same doom riffs forever, you know what I mean?
• 4:32
  I didn't want it just to be a bunch of doom riffs, you know?
• 4:35
  So I wanted it to be, I mean, as an artist you want to, you don't
• 4:39
  want to keep repeating yourself over and over again, you know?
• 4:41
  And if you have this new union of new artists, you know, you
• 4:44
  want it to be its own thing. And as far as the vocal thing,
• 4:48
  like there's more trading off to come because we just, we just
• 4:51
  completed 3 new songs which were awesome.
• 4:53
  The three latest songs, which are the songs that'll make it in
• 4:55
  LP in June. I spent a month there when I
• 4:58
  flew in and it was literally a month of working out every
• 5:02
  morning and then going to the studio and doing a creative
• 5:06
  process, arrangement process and then recording.
• 5:08
  We got 3 monster songs down. You can hear much more from Kerr
• 5:12
  and the band. Band is still evolving so.
• 5:15
  Like I've like they had the four songs that are out right now.
• 5:17
  Like I like, they all sound like, yeah, it's the same band,
• 5:21
  people, guys doing it. But like each band, each song I
• 5:24
  feel could be its own like style or its own band.
• 5:28
  Like, oh, they don't sound. They said they have a continuous
• 5:30
  theme, but they all sound like, oh, this could be a whole
• 5:33
  different. You can do a whole song and you
• 5:35
  can do a whole like album in the song of, you know, the prom
• 5:38
  sort. Of like a Beatles record, every
• 5:40
  song is so weird and out there and different, but somehow, oh,
• 5:43
  it's cohesive. Yeah.
• 5:44
  And I think that's, that's what that's what I kind of like about
• 5:47
  it. It's that kind of like, I don't
• 5:48
  know what the hell I'm listening to.
• 5:50
  It's the same thing, but it's different, but it's the same.
• 5:54
  And it just, it just moves around a lot and I kind of enjoy
• 5:57
  that. It keeps it keeps it fresh.
• 5:59
  There's diversity in it. We keep throwing you new
• 6:02
  elements into it. I mean, it'd be so easy.
• 6:04
  Yeah. Like you guys been writing
• 6:06
  certain styles for forever. It's you can write, you can make
• 6:10
  it sound like a doom negative all day long.
• 6:12
  And you know, yes, crowbar, crowbar negative or whatever it
• 6:16
  is. That would be easy.
• 6:18
  So we take the hard way, as you know, which is the best way,
• 6:21
  almost always the hard way. And we're throwing a lot of
• 6:24
  elements of Zeppelin in there, a lot of elements of everything we
• 6:26
  love. Whatever it is is, we got to
• 6:28
  like it. Yeah.
• 6:29
  But yes, keep challenging. Especially these three new songs
• 6:33
  we did through even more elements into it.
• 6:36
  So, yeah, the band is sort of circling around its prey right
• 6:41
  now of what we're going to end up being, you know, eventually.
• 6:43
  And it's just a whole lot of ideas being thrown into the pot.
• 6:46
  And to me, it's the most fun time.
• 6:49
  The most fun part of a band is when it's inception, when it
• 6:52
  begins, you know? That's why I begin so many
• 6:54
  bands. I I get a kick out of it that
• 6:58
  it's like like, yeah, we just said like everything's
• 7:00
  different, everything similar. I don't know how the writing
• 7:03
  process sounds. Just sounds like the old school
• 7:05
  days of bands getting together in jam because like so many
• 7:07
  bands nowadays, it's like, hey, here's a check your e-mail, I
• 7:10
  just sent you another song. Check your Dropbox, I got
• 7:12
  another thing. And you guys are forced.
• 7:15
  Not forced, but you guys are just like hunkered down in a
• 7:18
  room together doing it the old fashioned way.
• 7:20
  Seems to be like you jamming out well.
• 7:22
  Like the way we've been doing it is I'll come up with a couple of
• 7:25
  ideas, but I can't, I'm not allowed to finish anything, you
• 7:28
  know, because these guys are the other part of the creative
• 7:30
  entity, especially Kirk is very creative guy.
• 7:32
  So like he would think of and they would think of things I
• 7:35
  would never think of. So I'll do a verse and a chorus
• 7:38
  or maybe just a riff, you know, and bring that down.
• 7:41
  And then we we build on it together from there, like a
• 7:44
  band, like you said, like the old days, you know, now there's
• 7:46
  one guy hogging all the OR whatever.
• 7:48
  I will have enough being forced to write everything because
• 7:50
  nobody else has got any ideas. It ain't one of those bands.
• 7:52
  We got a lot of ideas flying around.
• 7:54
  Todd's got a lot of great ideas too.
• 7:55
  This next single coming up September, that beginning riff,
• 7:58
  I don't know if you've heard it, like there's a little teaser out
• 8:00
  right now. That's a Todd strange riff.
• 8:02
  So you never know if whoever, if you're going to throw something
• 8:07
  in the pot and it sounds golden, it turns into something and
• 8:09
  we're going to use it. You know it's not about we leave
• 8:12
  our egos at the door. Yeah, because like, it could be
• 8:15
  very could you all wrote, You guys have all written like
• 8:18
  memorable songs for years, and the fact that you guys managed
• 8:22
  to do something completely different and still catchy as
• 8:26
  hell. Yeah, because Dreams Dreams.
• 8:28
  That song was just so. That shit was catchy as fuck.
• 8:32
  Dude, that that came out literally spontaneously.
• 8:35
  That whole song was spontaneous. I kind of had an idea of that
• 8:38
  vocal line, you know, for the verse.
• 8:40
  And I had the riff for the verse, which was really slow and
• 8:43
  doomy. And then Kirk had the ending
• 8:46
  part and this crazy hardcore part too, which ended up not
• 8:49
  making it. He cut it.
• 8:49
  But like that whole riff. The do now.
• 8:53
  Now, Bannett was really slow and doomy and it was all full of
• 8:56
  delay, and Johnny turned it into sliding the family stone
• 9:00
  downtown. You know, that whole thing.
• 9:02
  And that picked that, It totally changed it.
• 9:04
  So it all happened within one rehearsal session.
• 9:06
  Next day we're in the studio recording damn all music day
• 9:09
  after that I was writing lyrics in the van on the way to the
• 9:11
  studio and laying vocals and then boom was like a we're
• 9:14
  dizzy, we're done, we're done so quick my head was spinning.
• 9:17
  That's crazy. And it gives you, I think
• 9:19
  because because you don't have too much time to think about it.
• 9:22
  You don't you can't second guess or triple guess yourself.
• 9:25
  It's like, oh, because you can write this song, you can rewrite
• 9:27
  this song 20 more times and never be done.
• 9:30
  You know, just for. Spin down the rabbit hole and
• 9:32
  then go back to the original idea because that was ended up
• 9:35
  being the best idea that so it always fucking happens, right?
• 9:39
  I mean, I'm I'm good for that. Like I will literally like I
• 9:42
  give like the last three songs I had first chorus ideas, right?
• 9:46
  And I literally I have to try every possible mode.
• 9:52
  You know, I'll do a chord in mixoly and I'll go through
• 9:55
  everyone because, well, maybe it'll sound better in this mode
• 9:58
  or maybe it's, you know, I'm good for that.
• 10:00
  I'll spin my head down the freaking down the rabbit hole
• 10:02
  for days. So it's better that I just do a
• 10:05
  piece of it or have a riff and then we do that together.
• 10:08
  Whatever, you know, when we're in the studio together.
• 10:10
  And more often than not, you're like you said, when you're with
• 10:13
  a bunch of guys and you got to you got to produce right now,
• 10:17
  There's no, there's no, there's no time to do that bullshit.
• 10:20
  You know, you're going to drive everybody crazy.
• 10:21
  You're not going to drive everybody crazy.
• 10:23
  Like, you can drive yourself crazy in the studio alone, you
• 10:25
  know, So and then Kirk amazes me because he's like, like Vinny
• 10:31
  LaBelle, He he helps like produce a lot of stuff.
• 10:34
  He says if Kirk is the kind of guy, if you want a riff now, No,
• 10:39
  I mean, like right now, yes, Kirk said.
• 10:41
  So he is. He's like, all right, we need a
• 10:43
  break in the song. It's got to go somewhere.
• 10:45
  We need a rift that's double time or we need, you know, a
• 10:48
  rift that feels. And he's like, give me a second,
• 10:52
  you know, boom, riff comes about, you know, he's glorious
• 10:55
  that way. And he's a spontaneous creator,
• 10:57
  you know, So you got to, that's a very important part of what
• 11:00
  we're doing. Like, yeah, I'm the guy that's
• 11:02
  going to spin down the rabbit hole in the studio and come up
• 11:04
  with a verse and bring it down. And maybe I have an outlook of
• 11:07
  or overall vision of what the song might be.
• 11:10
  And then Kirk is just a spontaneity of it, of it all.
• 11:13
  You know, that's how it's working out right now, you know.
• 11:15
  Yeah. And like Kirk, Kirk is, that's
• 11:18
  what I give, you know, give Kirk a little shout out because like
• 11:20
  he is so prolific, you know, he's done so.
• 11:25
  My God, you have no idea this. Guy not just pro bar, Yeah, it's
• 11:29
  like it's effort. Like from that I know, I know
• 11:31
  the Kingdom of he. He doesn't get bored and nothing
• 11:35
  sounds the same and nothing sounds the same.
• 11:37
  No, no, he's fantastic. He's a fantastic player and he's
• 11:40
  he's The thing is, he has complete faith in himself when
• 11:44
  he's writing. And there was another person
• 11:47
  that was like that. Pete Steele was like that.
• 11:49
  Like, you know, what if it came out all right, that's it.
• 11:51
  And he was sure about whatever it is, it's not second guessing,
• 11:54
  third guessing any of that bullshit.
• 11:55
  None of that bullshit happens. None of that bullshit happens
• 11:58
  with Kirk either. And every time he's been right,
• 12:01
  like once we actually record it and put it down, it's fucking
• 12:03
  fantastic. So, you know, writing together
• 12:06
  involves a lot of trust. So you have to all right, so
• 12:09
  this is my baby, but it's got to be our baby now.
• 12:11
  I got to trust you with the rest of it, you know what I mean?
• 12:14
  And again, I'm going to refer to The Beatles, like The Beatles
• 12:16
  did it. They would bring down ideas or
• 12:18
  have songs and then they would complete it or one of them would
• 12:20
  complete it. You know, you have to have that
• 12:22
  trust in each other, you know, And I've developed very rapidly
• 12:25
  that trust in these guys. These guys, they're all great.
• 12:28
  And I guess it's a little, it's a little bit easier because
• 12:30
  you've known them for, I guess it's easier and harder.
• 12:32
  It's like, Oh yeah, Kurt, I've known Kurt, known Kurt for,
• 12:34
  like, for, you know, for over 30 years, easily.
• 12:38
  Well, that doesn't have any bearing on creative trust,
• 12:40
  though creative trust is a different thing.
• 12:42
  But just it makes it easy to talk to them.
• 12:45
  But now we're working on something together is that's
• 12:48
  where it gets a little, I guess that's where it gets a little
• 12:50
  nervous, like, oh man, we're great friends.
• 12:52
  But if this doesn't work, will this fuck up our friendship?
• 12:56
  Like the riff he comes up with. Oh, no, you know what I mean?
• 12:59
  And it hasn't happened. So it's just it's bonded us
• 13:03
  together even more. And then, you know, the whole
• 13:05
  process of actually, because every song has this crux.
• 13:08
  So like, you know, he'll come up with a riff for the second-half
• 13:11
  of the song and we got to figure out how to melodies 2 parts
• 13:14
  together. So a lot of times they're not
• 13:15
  the same tempo, not the same time signature.
• 13:18
  And that's where Johnny comes involved in Tide Tide.
• 13:20
  And we sit there and we, you know, we hammer it out.
• 13:22
  Yeah, because I like I, I jokingly like I misspoke.
• 13:26
  I mistakenly kept calling it before I noticed there was an M
• 13:30
  in it. I kept calling it Cryptonesia in
• 13:32
  my head, but then I was talking with my partner about it.
• 13:34
  He was like, no, no, it's cryptom.
• 13:37
  Cryptonesia like Amnesia crypto in front of it.
• 13:41
  Yeah, like I just kept forgetting it.
• 13:44
  But I don't give a shit. Crypto media.
• 13:49
  That's cool. That's that's a brilliant
• 13:51
  fucking piece, man. I mean, thus far, it's like I'll
• 13:53
  stay with Evan and sorry, look at that one.
• 13:55
  I also like the fact that you know, like for at least for like
• 13:58
  at least for like the first 3 videos you had like Micah
• 14:00
  Holderbeats like direct your videos and I like that.
• 14:03
  Great live video, yeah. They're all different.
• 14:05
  I like that. Like, you know, like I like the
• 14:07
  stage performance of the first one and the crypto.
• 14:10
  I like the studio vibness of it and it just, it's cool.
• 14:14
  It feels more like, yeah, it's a video, but it feels more
• 14:17
  document documentary. Is that?
• 14:19
  Yeah. Is that a word?
• 14:20
  Yeah, it feels more like that for that video and it kind of
• 14:23
  like the whiteness. And when we were in Louisiana
• 14:25
  last month, he shot two more 2 for two more singles.
• 14:28
  So we have two more live ones for him and another one that's
• 14:30
  not live. OK, Yeah.
• 14:32
  We got three more Holder Bees videos coming for you and you
• 14:35
  like them. I just forgot the guy's name who
• 14:38
  did the last one and I saw like the camera person was a coming
• 14:42
  down was shot by a very wonderful.
• 14:44
  Camera person? Well, Rob Lowry, the camera
• 14:46
  person was Aaliyah for me. Footage was my daughter.
• 14:50
  Wonderful camera operator. Big great work.
• 14:52
  Yes, she's really good. You know, she just graduated
• 14:54
  School of Visual Arts four years so.
• 14:57
  Congrats. She's doing great.
• 15:00
  Yeah, it's got to be fun, like working with your, you know,
• 15:02
  working with family too. Also like it's also like a, you
• 15:05
  know, like, oh, you're not performing music with her, but
• 15:07
  it's like, hey, she was part of your creative process.
• 15:09
  So it's kind of, it must be kind of cool just to have.
• 15:11
  Me, I loved it. Yeah, I loved it.
• 15:13
  I loved it. We had a great time together.
• 15:15
  Yeah, she told me the backdrop, the right material to get.
• 15:18
  I forget what it's called. You know, they're using film.
• 15:20
  I ordered that and putting the wall behind me and stuff.
• 15:22
  And it was, it was fun. We had fun.
• 15:25
  I think you guys are very smart by having like, damn, like every
• 15:28
  song, it's got like a video or something.
• 15:29
  Because I think you have to today.
• 15:31
  Yeah, I think each one needs a visual.
• 15:33
  The next one is is going to be a lyric video, but it's got cool
• 15:37
  visuals in the back. Rob Lowery, again, he made the
• 15:40
  animation for stuff. So that's coming out September
• 15:42
  3rd. So I'm pretty excited about that
• 15:44
  one. That was a more lengthy song,
• 15:45
  kind of like Cryptonesia, but not as you know, it's a
• 15:48
  different again, it's a different place.
• 15:50
  You've seen like, this industry change so much from, you know,
• 15:54
  like, oh, people have. Seen everything change the
• 15:57
  magnetic tape to fucking streaming to, you know, from
• 16:00
  record companies to no record companies to all that shit.
• 16:04
  Yeah, I've been to it all. Yeah.
• 16:05
  So for you what what has been the biggest change for you like
• 16:08
  as from you've been on every aspect of this of this world
• 16:12
  like what's been for you? What's been the biggest change
• 16:15
  in the industry? Well, well, I think the biggest
• 16:17
  change is now obviously is social media.
• 16:20
  That's that's the biggest change now you got to be somebody on
• 16:22
  social media before you, before you get anywhere, you know, so,
• 16:25
  and also the fact is that, you know, you don't, you don't have
• 16:28
  a record company anymore. We're an art department that
• 16:30
  developed artists and all that stuff.
• 16:31
  That's what we grew up doing, you know, everything, you got to
• 16:34
  do everything yourself now you got to think of everything,
• 16:36
  every single aspect, every single concept and make it
• 16:40
  happen right down to the videos, you know, So it's really like
• 16:43
  you're on your own with every aspect of it, you know, I guess
• 16:46
  until you, you make the money, then the record companies become
• 16:49
  involved, right? That's what happened.
• 16:52
  Now you break, you break yourself out-of-the-box now,
• 16:56
  right? Because now the streaming
• 16:57
  companies, they're like the gatekeepers now, yeah.
• 17:00
  Yeah, it's not like the days where it's like, hey, you have
• 17:02
  like the artist development. Yeah, I remember when.
• 17:04
  Develop yourself and you got to put yourself in this concert.
• 17:07
  I got to build my Instagram. You have to do it.
• 17:09
  It's just you can't get out of it.
• 17:12
  Yeah, yeah. I saw you weren't on.
• 17:13
  You weren't on it for a while, then all of a sudden you kind of
• 17:16
  got maybe forced into it. No, I got it.
• 17:19
  I just realized because it's got to be built.
• 17:21
  It's never going. Nothing's going to happen unless
• 17:24
  I do it again. We're going to go back to that.
• 17:26
  There's nobody to develop this doesn't matter how much of a
• 17:30
  history you have in the industry, doesn't matter how
• 17:33
  much of anything you you're going to have to get in here, do
• 17:36
  it yourself. You're going to have to get the
• 17:37
  artwork together. You're going to have to build
• 17:39
  the social media pages. You're going to have to promote
• 17:42
  it just the way it is. Yeah, like I've noticed like
• 17:44
  even some of the comments, like people like, oh, they're loving.
• 17:46
  Like I looked at the video comments and they're loving this
• 17:50
  already. Love super to man.
• 17:51
  It's like they like still like today there's like, wow, they're
• 17:54
  I'm so glad he's still making him and Jim and John, they're
• 17:57
  still making music. I'm like they never stopped
• 17:59
  making music. You know, you just weren't
• 18:01
  aware. Of people alone now unless you
• 18:04
  get out. Yeah, you have to make them
• 18:06
  aware of you got to promote yourself.
• 18:07
  I realize you said a couple of months ago I started getting on
• 18:10
  it again. That's because I realized this
• 18:13
  ain't gonna happen unless I do it.
• 18:14
  Nobody's gonna do it for me. No one.
• 18:16
  And nobody's gonna do it as good as me for myself.
• 18:19
  So it's just the way it is these days, You know, used to be you
• 18:22
  made demos and you hoped you signed a deal with a big record
• 18:25
  company. You became famous.
• 18:26
  Yeah. It ain't like that anymore.
• 18:28
  You know, you got to build from scratch on social media and
• 18:32
  playing shows slowly up from the bottom.
• 18:34
  Yeah. I remember when I was heavier in
• 18:37
  my band, like playing days, I remember Pete was like, this is
• 18:41
  before a Slipknot and before a mud vein blew up.
• 18:44
  He saw it coming. He knew it was you guys knew it
• 18:46
  was coming. He was like, yo, get a gimmick.
• 18:48
  He was like die yourself in fluorescent green paint,
• 18:50
  whatever, do something, get a gimmick.
• 18:53
  He was like music school, but I was like, get yourself a gimmick
• 18:55
  because and then like 6 months later you're a Slipknot.
• 18:59
  Here's mud vein. Here's everything of that.
• 19:02
  You know, it was always like, OK, there's always been a
• 19:05
  gimmick element, you know, in Rock'n'roll, you know, from
• 19:08
  Little Richard to Kiss to everybody.
• 19:10
  But yeah, Peter was always very keen on that, that you had to
• 19:12
  have an image. You have to have, you have to
• 19:14
  have identifiable visual image. You know, another thing that's
• 19:17
  changed about today is now you got to make your own records.
• 19:20
  So you're recording your own shit.
• 19:22
  You better learn how. You better learn your way around
• 19:25
  the studio. You better learn your way around
• 19:27
  compression, all this stuff, because nobody's going to do it
• 19:29
  for you. You know, again, there's no
• 19:31
  record company's going to do it for you.
• 19:33
  So that's why I built a studio, you know, and I took the deep
• 19:36
  dive into it. But you know what I found out
• 19:37
  this shit that I ignored him and let Josh deal with for my whole
• 19:40
  career. I actually love it.
• 19:42
  You know, I love getting guitar tones.
• 19:44
  I love getting great vocal sounds, you know, coming down.
• 19:47
  All those layered vocals are done here in my studio and my
• 19:49
  guitar work, the leads or my rhythms, you know, I can really
• 19:52
  deep dive in here and I can I can experiment on harmonies and
• 19:57
  whatever I want and get I got great compressors, like a great
• 20:00
  to make it sound great, you know, So it's become part of the
• 20:02
  passion. For me, not just it's not just
• 20:05
  about the songwriting and the lyrics, it's about the sounds,
• 20:08
  you know, the guitar tones and how they vary. 8 That's another
• 20:12
  thing we're trying to very heavy sun don't shine is all the
• 20:15
  guitar tones are different. You know, it's sometimes it's
• 20:17
  different guitar tones within one song.
• 20:19
  You know, I mean, that's part of the brain candy of the of the
• 20:22
  ear candy for me is the sounds. I'm big on sound too.
• 20:25
  And and then like I like I spoke, I spoke to the Joey ZA
• 20:29
  couple months back and it was like, yeah, it's like I'm my
• 20:32
  ears are accustomed to hear certain people.
• 20:35
  Like when I think of you, I think of systems systems too.
• 20:39
  So like everybody has a certain Sonic sound in my ears.
• 20:42
  Like your guitars tone is that whole era.
• 20:45
  Yeah of Brooklyn is like that was that was though all these
• 20:49
  this whole to me, like that was its own genre.
• 20:51
  You know, bring out that studio with its.
• 20:53
  Own Mason Boogie. Yeah, yeah, it was a great
• 20:56
  studio. I mean, it was state-of-the-art,
• 20:58
  you know, and it was in Brooklyn that was the main thing for
• 21:00
  type. Oh, you know, I feel like that
• 21:02
  Brooklyn. Yeah, that and then having all
• 21:04
  that, you know, having all that experience there makes the digit
• 21:08
  makes your new studio like very similar, but now it's more
• 21:11
  digital than analog. So that's.
• 21:13
  No, no, I have a great I have a great analog front end, dude.
• 21:17
  That's the fucking thing. I got 500 series rat.
• 21:20
  I got amazing preamps and have amazing compressors and EQ's.
• 21:26
  So everything that goes in on the front end is beautiful
• 21:29
  analog. And then of course it, you know,
• 21:31
  it converts to digital and the mixing and the stuff like that
• 21:33
  is in the box after that. But you got to have good.
• 21:38
  I'm really miking my cabinets. I'm not, you know, I'm not using
• 21:41
  any bullshit guitar sentence or anything like that.
• 21:44
  So I'm doing it the real way now I'm at the real way, the old
• 21:47
  fashioned way, the way I love to do it.
• 21:49
  I got a giant, you know, I got created a whole pedal board and
• 21:51
  from scratch. And you know, to me it's all
• 21:53
  part of the fun. You know, big part of the
• 21:56
  creative process is are the sounds.
• 21:58
  It's themselves. Sometimes I wanted to ask you
• 22:01
  what made you pick up guitar in the 1st place when you were like
• 22:04
  a little a young kid, Kenny. Ace Freely.
• 22:07
  That's what really made me pick up guitar, you know, I
• 22:10
  discovered Kiss and they discovered Rock'n'roll and
• 22:12
  Sabbath and everyone else. So, but Ace Freely probably is
• 22:15
  the first one with the smoking Wes Paul.
• 22:19
  He's like, wow. Before that was like a science
• 22:22
  geek kid, you know, Then I discovered Ace like many my
• 22:27
  generation including Kirk Weinstein and you know, and a
• 22:30
  lot of a lot of people in my generation, you know, because we
• 22:32
  were around, I was around 8 years old, seven years old when
• 22:34
  kiss was exploding was perfect age group.
• 22:36
  What was the first song you ever learned?
• 22:37
  Smoke on the water, of course. Is it not everyone's first song?
• 22:42
  That was it. I learned more chords.
• 22:44
  Got those bar chords? Yeah.
• 22:45
  Smoke kind of water. So you've got 7 more songs.
• 22:47
  You got like 7 at least seven song for this upcoming record
• 22:51
  next year I would say. 9/9. 9. We're gonna, I think we're gonna
• 22:56
  leave. Dreams was died with the sun out
• 22:59
  of it. And then just keep 9.
• 23:01
  I mean, we want to put it in, but might not just have it as
• 23:03
  maybe a bonus track or you know, just keep it released as a
• 23:06
  single on its own. There's 9 tracks because we
• 23:08
  already have this. It's like 44 minutes with 9
• 23:11
  tracks. So it would actually be on top
• 23:14
  and I don't know, like almost 48 minutes or something like that
• 23:17
  if we had Dreams, something like that.
• 23:18
  So if taking it out is not shortening the record with that
• 23:22
  much, you know it's still over 40 minutes, 9 songs.
• 23:27
  Got you. Andrew Spaulding has been doing
• 23:29
  a great job with Course Paint Records with you guys.
• 23:33
  You know what, he's got fire. He wants this.
• 23:36
  You know, he quit his job. He's doing it 100% and he's
• 23:40
  going in all the way. You know what I mean?
• 23:42
  He's got desire with the main element for success in anything
• 23:45
  in this world. Say, when my youngest daughter
• 23:47
  Lee wanted to learn guitar, I said the main element of this is
• 23:50
  desire, how much you want to do it.
• 23:52
  Because you're going to get through all those horrible
• 23:54
  stages of not being able to make a chord and then not be able to
• 23:56
  string them together. And it's going to be months,
• 23:58
  seven months of shitty playing. And you have a giant desire to
• 24:03
  overcome that. You know, and Andrew's got
• 24:05
  desire to make this happen. And he has been, he's been doing
• 24:08
  an amazing job. Yeah, cuz I rarely like he's
• 24:10
  like, I wish bigger companies, bigger record labels like did
• 24:16
  this kind of enthusiasm that Andrew has.
• 24:19
  Cuz it's like, yeah, it's like every so often you pop a hood be
• 24:21
  online just being like super like positive and just that are
• 24:25
  like Sharon, you know, like, hey, check this little behind
• 24:28
  the scenes thing we had over here.
• 24:29
  Check this little thing out. You know, he's always just like
• 24:31
  sprinkling things out there. So like, you don't forget about
• 24:34
  you guys. You know, it's like, because I
• 24:35
  think, yeah, again, it's a digital social media age.
• 24:38
  And like, he doesn't over. You guys aren't like over like
• 24:42
  putting people's faces too much. But it's like the right amount.
• 24:46
  And it's like, Oh yeah, go on. He just sprinkles little stuff
• 24:48
  across. So you always like in the back
• 24:51
  of somebody's head. Well, the major difference is
• 24:54
  that he's literally been part of this creative process.
• 24:58
  It's his baby too. From day one.
• 25:00
  He's actually, it was his brainchild to put the band
• 25:02
  together, right? And it took off from there.
• 25:04
  But he's been part of the process, so he's part of the
• 25:07
  creative entity. Record labels today are not
• 25:10
  started that process anymore to just sit around in the sidelines
• 25:13
  and wait to see what comes out and jump on it.
• 25:16
  So how could you be that married to it?
• 25:17
  You know what I mean? How could you be that
• 25:19
  enthusiastic about it? Just something you noticed and
• 25:22
  then you're jumping on, you know, it's not like, oh, this
• 25:25
  artist is great. I want to develop them, you
• 25:27
  know, and make this from here. And then it becomes part of your
• 25:30
  baby. You'd be getting very excited
• 25:31
  about it. You know, it doesn't really
• 25:32
  exist with these labels anymore. They're just sitting around
• 25:35
  waiting to see where the money falls.
• 25:36
  So who's going viral on YouTube? All right, jump on that guy.
• 25:40
  That's it. Because I, I remember like when
• 25:42
  it first started changing, I remember back when there was
• 25:44
  this thing called Myspace Boys and Girls.
• 25:47
  And then like some bands managed to blow up on Myspace.
• 25:51
  They have like a crazy big following.
• 25:53
  Like in this moment, they're one of the bands that got like a
• 25:56
  huge following on there and booked their own shows and
• 25:59
  booked their own tours and it LED them to where they are now.
• 26:03
  And now it's like, Oh yeah, if you have a thing on YouTube and
• 26:07
  then you get over like 1,000,000 views, people start sniffing
• 26:10
  around. It's very weird.
• 26:12
  It's. Weird.
• 26:14
  And then, you know, it's really that artist Zach Bryan, right?
• 26:18
  He's huge. He's like this country acoustic
• 26:20
  dude. He's a guy that he was playing,
• 26:22
  he had a YouTube channel, he'd be playing his country songs at
• 26:25
  the back of a van and he blew up.
• 26:27
  This guy could play literally 2 nuts at UBS and two nuts at
• 26:31
  Barclays and sell it out all these nights and it's this whole
• 26:35
  world. If you listen to rock or you
• 26:37
  listen to whatever reggae, well, you wouldn't know about it, but
• 26:40
  it's giant and it's like there's own little universe unto itself
• 26:43
  that you don't know about. That's huge.
• 26:45
  I know about him because my first tour manager, Michael
• 26:48
  Model called me. This was about a year ago and
• 26:50
  he's like, hey, Kenny, haven't you know, just from the
• 26:53
  beginning, Mike Amado was with us from like 1994.
• 26:56
  I'm tour managing this this artist, Zach Bryan and two of
• 26:59
  his players are huge Type O fans.
• 27:00
  I want you to come down to the show and I want to meet you.
• 27:02
  So I went down to you. We had show and they were
• 27:04
  treating me great and I hung out all night.
• 27:06
  It was fantastic, you know, But this is a whole world I'd never
• 27:08
  heard of. You know, it's not like in the
• 27:10
  90s where you were one of the whatever, two dozen bands that
• 27:16
  were chosen to be on the radio and then if you had a hit, you
• 27:19
  heard that hit over and over, that Guns and Roses hit over and
• 27:21
  over again. You went to the supermarket, was
• 27:23
  in the Super. Everywhere you went, it was
• 27:24
  there. Now we're all separated on our
• 27:27
  genres and our lives with Spotify, and there's all these
• 27:30
  worlds growing separate of each other.
• 27:32
  You know what I'm saying? Nobody's forced to listen to the
• 27:34
  same thing. So it's crazy.
• 27:36
  It's like this disjointed, this huge star.
• 27:39
  I mean, everybody knows about Taylor Swift.
• 27:40
  Yes, Because you can't just get, you can't turn on the fucking
• 27:44
  go. Yeah, go on the Internet without
• 27:45
  seeing it, you know, being accosted by it.
• 27:47
  So maybe wanted a few artists you hear about or 10:10 wins or
• 27:50
  whatever. Yeah, I didn't really.
• 27:51
  So many artists that are huge that you don't know about
• 27:54
  because you don't listen to that genre.
• 27:56
  It's not on your algorithm. You don't hear it.
• 27:59
  Yeah, I never thought about it like that.
• 28:00
  I was like, oh. Shit, what's happening, right,
• 28:03
  Because I see you there. What do you mean it's time?
• 28:05
  Who's this? What do you mean?
• 28:06
  This song on out three nights. I'm not 100 person, you know
• 28:08
  what I mean? Yeah, now, like the the
• 28:10
  equivalent of that radio hit is like a snippet of your song went
• 28:15
  viral on a TikTok reel. That's correct.
• 28:18
  Everybody's dancing to your song or whatever it is that there's
• 28:21
  like, oh, snippet, and hopefully it's my type.
• 28:23
  Out having this type, obviously that stupid lead I did for I
• 28:27
  don't want to be me went viral on TikTok and literally in one
• 28:31
  year we went from 1,000,000 listeners on Spotify to 2
• 28:35
  million and now I don't want to be me is the highest streaming
• 28:37
  typo. So now, and there's all these
• 28:40
  all these all these snippets of kids playing the lead man.
• 28:43
  You know, it was like took like 10 minutes to put down in the
• 28:46
  studio with Josh literally to write it and put it down.
• 28:48
  I'll take it. I don't care.
• 28:49
  But like it's weird. You just don't.
• 28:51
  It's become even more haphazardly, you know, get get
• 28:55
  famous by accident. Yeah, it's cool.
• 28:59
  That's a little bit in that sense, it's a little bit
• 29:01
  democratized because I was also thinking about like, dude, it's
• 29:03
  like I grew up on like, like the stuff that got me into like
• 29:06
  metal, like I was like a show tune kid.
• 29:08
  I love like movie scores and soundtracks and I love that kind
• 29:11
  of stuff like edit. Like what got me into stuff was
• 29:13
  like the Bill and Ted Bogus Journey soundtrack, like and
• 29:16
  Judgment Night soundtrack and the Last action hero soundtrack.
• 29:19
  These like crazy like big rock soundtracks that don't exist
• 29:23
  anymore. It's like, Oh, yeah, I got a
• 29:24
  movie come out and I was like, man, I don't remember the last
• 29:25
  time a movie put out like a soundtrack that was like, or The
• 29:30
  Crow or the Crow soundtrack, you know, it's like, I don't
• 29:31
  remember the last time you had one of those.
• 29:33
  Like, those are just, you know, that's what got me.
• 29:35
  It's like, oh, here's a snippet of all these different bands.
• 29:37
  Boom. And you need movement, you know,
• 29:39
  you need a movement to like a musical, new movie, musical
• 29:42
  movement, you know, and a lot of times Hollywood would jump on
• 29:45
  it, you know. But yeah, they play a lot of old
• 29:47
  artists I know for like for the Marvel comic stuff and the
• 29:51
  Sabbath. You'll hear and you know.
• 29:53
  Or the, or my favorite shit that I hate is like the, the breathy,
• 29:57
  the breathy covers of songs where it's like I got tired of
• 30:01
  like, oh, like, you know, just all breathy and they're singing
• 30:04
  like this and something dark and slow motions happening.
• 30:07
  And I'm like, all right, you've done this for like 7 movies
• 30:09
  already. I can't.
• 30:11
  I can't see this scene anymore. That's the way the industry
• 30:13
  goes, just the way the movie industry goes, just the way the
• 30:15
  music industry goes. They get on something that works
• 30:18
  and then they kill you with it, and so you don't buy it no more.
• 30:20
  Something new happens, right? What Iggy Pop said.
• 30:23
  Great music is created by the poor, then the rich take it
• 30:25
  over, exploit it and destroy it, and then it's going to be
• 30:27
  recreated again by the floor again.
• 30:29
  Which is very true for. Real yeah, I'd say.
• 30:32
  I mean, talk about a song for a second.
• 30:33
  I want to jump into a song before I forget.
• 30:35
  I wanted to talk about like the Promise song, like I felt in my
• 30:38
  head like that's a song that you know, like I don't know the how
• 30:41
  The Who wrote what parts on that song, but when I originally
• 30:44
  heard it, I was like, huh, like if Kenny was still in Danzig, I
• 30:48
  feel like this could have been a song sung by Danzig.
• 30:51
  Maybe I'm just crazy on that one, but.
• 30:54
  I don't know. Dancing was not in mind, though
• 30:56
  I thought I found the I wrote the main riff, which is very
• 30:59
  Smashing Pumpkins beginning, but actually I wasn't going for
• 31:03
  Smashing Pumpkins. I was, I was going for, uh, with
• 31:06
  a Smashing Pumpkins tone. I think that's kind of like how
• 31:08
  it came out actually. It's the immigrant song, like in
• 31:11
  Three Quarter with a Smashing Pumpkins tone, like a Siamese
• 31:14
  dream tone on it. Danzig was not mine at all.
• 31:16
  But like, yeah, I like, I like songs that are concise and
• 31:21
  catchy and have a classic musical arrangement like Glenn
• 31:26
  does, you know, so. Like at the time today, yeah.
• 31:28
  So I'm just bringing up Glenn too for a moment.
• 31:30
  Like how was your? I was like, I was like, oh wow.
• 31:32
  It's like you're going from from at the time, I was like, you're
• 31:36
  going from typo to dancing. And I was like, I unfortunately
• 31:38
  never saw you with dancing. I saw Johnny with dancing a ton
• 31:41
  of time and I was like, oh man. I was like, I felt like you were
• 31:44
  like a perfect fit. Like I did fit.
• 31:46
  I thought I was too and now it did.
• 31:49
  It went great but I only did 1 tour with him for like 2 weeks
• 31:52
  and then believe it or not Kingdom of Sorrow was going out
• 31:56
  and Kirk couldn't do it because he was going out with Down and
• 31:58
  Josh to call me up and asked me to fill in for Kirk for Kingdom
• 32:01
  of Sorrow. And I said yesterday and then
• 32:02
  Gun called me for the next Black is the black and I couldn't do
• 32:05
  it. And you know that's how I ended
• 32:07
  up getting out of it. So and I did the tour filling in
• 32:09
  for Kirk Kingdom, Kingdom of Sorrow and this is like 2008
• 32:13
  like something like that. What time ago?
• 32:15
  And you're still just ticking along, man.
• 32:17
  Like does it? Do you ever like, you ever like
• 32:19
  in the right running process with these guys?
• 32:21
  And it's like, oh, wait, this it would work like this riff is
• 32:24
  just for this project. Like do you have like those
• 32:26
  moments like, oh, this sound. Oh, this might sound better with
• 32:29
  with silver tomb. Or do you just, are you able
• 32:31
  just to like compartmentalize your writing process from the
• 32:34
  get? Go right now.
• 32:35
  Yeah, I do. I have separate songs written
• 32:38
  and it kind of like the riff comes out and the vocal melody
• 32:42
  and it kind of dictates itself where it should go to me.
• 32:46
  And if I did take something like let's say I wrote something for
• 32:49
  Silver to him and said, oh, there's so silver there.
• 32:50
  If I took it down to Kirk and return it to us and return it to
• 32:53
  sundown Shine, you know. So that's what I love about Sun
• 32:56
  Don't Shine. It's really it's, it's, it's,
• 32:59
  it's some of its parts, you know, not one guy or even 2
• 33:03
  guys, which makes it very volatile and it makes it very
• 33:05
  supreme. You never know what's how it's
• 33:07
  going to come out. Really.
• 33:08
  You can't control the exact way this song is going to come out
• 33:12
  from beginning to end. It's going to be, it's going to
• 33:14
  grow on its own and become its own thing.
• 33:15
  It's surprise and surprise you, you know, it's a delightful
• 33:19
  surprise when you listen back and you're sitting into them
• 33:21
  listening to the mix going, wow, it came out great.
• 33:24
  You know, and I would have never thought of this.
• 33:26
  I really could say like Todd was like to me, it's like Todd like
• 33:30
  be personally, because like I've always I love Todd.
• 33:32
  Todd's been a great guy, great player and like his tone is just
• 33:35
  he's got such a great. His sound is awesome.
• 33:38
  It's like. You got to hear new bass sounds
• 33:40
  on these three songs. I'm incredible.
• 33:42
  Yeah, I was like, oh man, just Todd.
• 33:44
  Just Todd's one of those bass players that like, yeah, like a
• 33:46
  lot of like, oh, like under underrated bass player, but he
• 33:50
  is legit underrated. Not enough.
• 33:52
  For a lot of people. What he does, I mean, what's
• 33:54
  underrated? People say underrated because
• 33:56
  oh, you're not Eddie Van Halen status or the whole world
• 33:59
  doesn't recognize you. But if you recognize your thing,
• 34:01
  you Deandra, you know, within the people who listen to you, I
• 34:04
  that's enough to me, you know, that's not underrated.
• 34:07
  Like, you know, they say Kirk's underrated.
• 34:09
  He's not underrated. He's well respected.
• 34:11
  I just think we all because the the fans of all you guys, it's
• 34:15
  like, oh man, it's like we love like the music that you guys
• 34:17
  have given us for all these years.
• 34:18
  It's like, man, like like I just like, I know so many people that
• 34:22
  had to stop making great music because, you know, wasn't any
• 34:26
  money in it anymore. You know, it's like, hey, you
• 34:28
  know you can't. There isn't any money still it's
• 34:30
  this is look, you're either a life for here like Alice Cooper
• 34:33
  says or not. And you're going to do this for
• 34:35
  life or not, whether it's whether it's money in it or not,
• 34:38
  you know you're gonna do it. You gotta do it is no, it
• 34:40
  chooses you. You know, you don't really
• 34:42
  choose it. Yeah, I took AI, took a moment.
• 34:44
  I took a break just from playing for a while, and then right
• 34:47
  before I decided to get like, yeah, like, you know what, that
• 34:49
  fire got built back up and I'm ready to play again.
• 34:52
  Like, Oh yeah, I got a little bit of tendonitis.
• 34:54
  I gotta like. Oh, not good.
• 34:56
  So now I can't do anything for like a bit.
• 34:58
  So I'm like, yeah, I can't hold a drumstick.
• 35:01
  It's kind of hard to hold a drumstick with like this.
• 35:04
  You get back tendonitis. Same thing in the world.
• 35:05
  Yeah, but it's just funny that the timing happens.
• 35:08
  It's like, of course, it's like right when I feel passionate
• 35:10
  again, like I want to like start yo, let's, yo, we need to hit
• 35:13
  the street and we have all these songs recorded.
• 35:15
  Let's just remember cuz I'm, you know, I've said it before, I'm
• 35:18
  sitting on like 2 records with two different products of mine
• 35:21
  and we just haven't recorded them.
• 35:22
  And like I want to record everything before people start
• 35:24
  dropping dead, you know? Cuz it's like we're like, you
• 35:27
  know, like we're in our mid 40s and it's like, you know what,
• 35:29
  you know, we're all still here. 40s unless, yeah, unless you're
• 35:33
  fucking yourself up and you're still doing drugs and shit.
• 35:36
  You know, you should be right in your mid 40s, yeah.
• 35:38
  So I'm just like, let's let's just get this stuff.
• 35:41
  Let's just get this stuff going. And it's like, Oh yeah, now
• 35:44
  they're waiting on me to like to have that fire back.
• 35:46
  Like I don't want to do it. I was like, I don't want anybody
• 35:48
  else to record my parts, but I could just to get it out the
• 35:51
  way. But it's like it needs my feel.
• 35:53
  So I was like, I can't. And I was like, I'm not in the
• 35:55
  mood, you know, like when you, you know, when you're not in the
• 35:57
  mood to write anything, you're starting to mood to play or.
• 36:00
  Yeah. Well, yo, I've learned.
• 36:02
  I think I've learned about that, especially with this project is,
• 36:05
  well, you're getting on the plane in three weeks, you got to
• 36:07
  have something. It doesn't matter if you're not
• 36:09
  in the mood. You know what I mean?
• 36:11
  And that's that in a way is very motivating and inspiring kind of
• 36:15
  thing for an artist. Because the truth is you might
• 36:17
  not be in the mood, but if you force yourself into the room
• 36:20
  within 20 or 40 minutes, you might suddenly become in the
• 36:23
  mood. You know, just got to be there
• 36:24
  and show up for it. You know, they say like you
• 36:27
  shouldn't wait for inspiration to come.
• 36:28
  You got to go after inspiration. You know, sometimes forcing
• 36:33
  yourself is the answer. How those bands you think about
• 36:35
  like Sabbath, right? They put out the first Black
• 36:38
  Sabbath record and Paranoid within like 8 months or seven
• 36:41
  months I think they were forced to direct come to force them to.
• 36:44
  You know, they came up with a lot of that shit on the spot and
• 36:46
  it was great because they were forced to.
• 36:48
  They weren't necessarily inspired at the moment, you
• 36:51
  know? There it goes back.
• 36:51
  You don't have time to second guess your stuff.
• 36:53
  It's like, cool, yeah, it's done, done enough, it's good
• 36:56
  enough. Boom, on to the next one.
• 36:58
  Some of the greatest stuff has been written that way.
• 37:00
  And then it's like, yeah, like, so sometimes, yeah, people say,
• 37:02
  oh, the sophomore slope, you know, it's like, you don't have
• 37:04
  as much time as, you know, sometimes it's good to have all
• 37:07
  the time in the world to make your first record.
• 37:09
  But then sometimes having deadlines make make you know the
• 37:14
  creative process more. Yes, art should have a deadline.
• 37:18
  Otherwise we're gone forever. Forever.
• 37:20
  Because it's never done. Let's, let's face it, man,
• 37:22
  there's things I'd want to change about every single
• 37:24
  recording I've ever done that I could still want to change right
• 37:27
  now. It's never really done, you
• 37:29
  know? And like a mix is never really
• 37:31
  done, you know? It's just all right.
• 37:33
  We're going to stop here because we have to.
• 37:35
  And then I kind of also noticed it also it also like an age
• 37:39
  thing. It's like, you know, where you
• 37:41
  were when you recorded it, say like, you know, five years ago
• 37:44
  or like a month ago, like your, your whole process.
• 37:47
  But you know what, I don't like that style anymore.
• 37:49
  Like, oh man, why did I do that? You know, and like, that's
• 37:51
  another part of you, that tasting.
• 37:53
  Yes, your. Taste.
• 37:54
  That's the word, yeah. Absolutely.
• 37:56
  Overtime your taste change and you know, it's like John Lennon
• 37:59
  said, you know, I don't want to be writing.
• 38:02
  I want to hold your hand when I'm 45.
• 38:04
  That's that's one of the reasons why I want to leave The Beatles.
• 38:08
  You know, your tastes change and you know your art has
• 38:11
  significance for whatever time in your life you're going
• 38:14
  through. You know what I mean?
• 38:15
  Yeah, and yeah, People, people, people, people.
• 38:19
  I think that's the thing. It's like people see people hear
• 38:22
  it one way, like today, then tomorrow you're like, I don't
• 38:26
  like that song as much as I thought I did, but then you do.
• 38:28
  But then sometimes it's really good to be able to stop.
• 38:33
  And just like once you, once it's out of your hands, you
• 38:36
  know, it becomes, you know. Got to give it up and then it's
• 38:40
  out of control. That's it.
• 38:41
  You know you can't. I learned to stop.
• 38:43
  People who say what they're going to say, they're going to
• 38:46
  bullshit what they're going to bullshit, they're going to react
• 38:47
  to. We're doing their app.
• 38:48
  What really matters is whether they listen or not to it, you
• 38:50
  know? And that's right.
• 38:51
  You got to have one. It's like having a child and
• 38:53
  sending them off to college, you know?
• 38:55
  That's it. You've done what you can do now,
• 38:57
  you know? They got to face the world on
• 38:59
  their own, you know? And you got to hear about, like,
• 39:00
  yo, your kids either do it good or you're like, oh, fuck, yeah,
• 39:06
  yeah. So it's like, yeah, I, I get
• 39:07
  that. Yeah.
• 39:10
  Because it's like, it's so hard to, like, let go of that control
• 39:12
  or just like, yeah, like once people hear the music, it's like
• 39:15
  you may have a certain feel of it, like, oh, it's all right.
• 39:18
  You know, like I had to learn to shut the fuck up and just accept
• 39:21
  a compliment about like the song.
• 39:24
  And it's like, yeah, it's fine, but I fucked up here.
• 39:26
  I fucked like, yo, they don't hear that shit.
• 39:29
  You got to let go of that. And it's like you got to just.
• 39:32
  You got to understand people, the average person, they don't
• 39:34
  know what it goes in, what goes into creating a painting or a
• 39:37
  song or a movie. I mean, there's so much involved
• 39:40
  in it and in just in a song alone, so many elements and so
• 39:43
  much time and effort and people don't give a shit about any of
• 39:46
  that. They just want to hear the song.
• 39:47
  You don't know what it took to play this lead.
• 39:50
  I don't know what it took to arrange this thing or Melda 4,
• 39:53
  four and three quarter walls part together.
• 39:55
  They don't understand any of that and they don't care about
• 39:58
  it. All they care about is whether
• 39:59
  it sounds good or not to them. Yeah.
• 40:01
  How catchy is it? Is it catchy?
• 40:03
  Is it too much time since? Moving.
• 40:06
  Can I relate to it? Is it?
• 40:07
  Do I think it's cool? Yeah.
• 40:09
  Yeah, like down, like coming down.
• 40:10
  It's like that's a, that's a song that it's like, oh, like
• 40:13
  there's certain songs I like, like I like, I like moods.
• 40:16
  I like some, some songs, like a lot of songs are moods.
• 40:18
  Like it's definitely not like I'm not gonna be like on a, I'm
• 40:20
  not gonna be driving, speeding down, rocking out to this style.
• 40:24
  For me. It's like, you know, this is
• 40:26
  more like, all right, It's kind of gloomy outside or just kind
• 40:28
  of chill or maybe just sunsetty. Like, this is stuff I could
• 40:32
  listen to on repeat with the lights off is like, you know,
• 40:35
  sometimes you just listen to music in the dark.
• 40:37
  This is like, yeah, like coming. Sounds good.
• 40:40
  Like hit, repeat, leave me alone.
• 40:42
  That's really probably the most original song so far that we've
• 40:45
  done. I think it came, it started with
• 40:49
  an acoustic guitar strum and that that little melody and then
• 40:52
  they just grew from there, you know?
• 40:53
  So it's like, I can't really trace the influences really.
• 40:56
  It's hard to. It's pretty original.
• 40:58
  Very proud of it. I like the little harmony at the
• 41:00
  end of it, the last minute stuff going on in that little guitar
• 41:03
  harmony at the end of it. I was like.
• 41:04
  Oh, that's curse. Yeah, that.
• 41:07
  Guitar work, guitar workers, that's a really good thing.
• 41:10
  I love about this too, is me and Kirk going trading off on guitar
• 41:13
  work is really fun. And then we'll come together
• 41:16
  with the guitar harmony at the end, you know, So that's really
• 41:19
  fun. It's really fun to make it in
• 41:20
  the studio. Like when we're together in the
• 41:22
  studio, it's even more fun. Like that song was done
• 41:24
  separately. I was here in my studio making
• 41:26
  my ref, my lead. I left the space for Kirk and
• 41:29
  then he'd filled it in in Louisiana, you know, but that's
• 41:33
  a lot of fun. The guitar work is a lot of fun
• 41:35
  because me and Kirk both are first guitar players, you know,
• 41:38
  like we're completely confident with her guitar playing and
• 41:41
  laying that down. I have the most fun expressing
• 41:43
  myself. Well, it's most it's easy for me
• 41:45
  to express myself through through my guitar.
• 41:47
  Easier than vocal. I gotta work on vocals.
• 41:49
  Yeah, it's yeah, but a lot of people, a lot of people still
• 41:52
  just remember you as like the the backup vocalist.
• 41:55
  Yeah. And, and typo, you know, it's
• 41:57
  like, oh, you're like, oh, we're always thinking like, oh, would
• 42:00
  it be cool to hear Kenny sing a full song or two?
• 42:02
  It's like, that's that's kind of cool.
• 42:03
  You know, you've done your pieces here and there and I
• 42:05
  thought that's cool. And now it's like, wow.
• 42:07
  It's like you like your voice. It is so I was like it's the
• 42:11
  word unique. I don't I don't know if that's
• 42:13
  the right word for but it's it's interesting and I think it's
• 42:16
  pretty reminds yes, like it reminds it.
• 42:19
  It has like like I'm sure you've heard people say, Oh, you sound
• 42:22
  like Chris Cornell a little bit. You sound like Ozzy.
• 42:25
  You sound like young Ozzy. It's like.
• 42:26
  You got Ozzy. There's a lot.
• 42:28
  There's a lot in there. Like, not in a negative way
• 42:30
  where it's like you're a cover band, you're a cover.
• 42:33
  Scott von Scott. Yeah, Von Scott's in there, too.
• 42:37
  Ozzy von Scott, this 10. Robert Plant.
• 42:40
  Yeah, it's all over that promise song thing.
• 42:43
  The promise song. That title is like a Zeppelin
• 42:45
  title. The rain song.
• 42:46
  The Promise song. Listen to a couple of bottom
• 42:48
  triplets in there to you somewhere I'm sure and.
• 42:51
  Just going to be Johnny. Johnny is going to be bottom.
• 42:55
  Yeah, yeah, because I remember I talked to him one day like
• 42:58
  years, years ago and it was like, I was like, I didn't
• 43:00
  really know Zeppelin was like weird.
• 43:02
  Like Zeppelin was like the dark spot like in my music, like like
• 43:05
  Sabbath, I like to who and was more of a Beatles guy, but like
• 43:10
  The Beatles and, and, and Zeppelin were the bands I wasn't
• 43:13
  really like. But if you covered them for her,
• 43:16
  maybe with the recording for me at the world where my ears were
• 43:19
  at that time, the recordings didn't really gel with me.
• 43:22
  But if somebody covered it, I'm like, oh, I kind of like the
• 43:24
  cover version, the recording differently.
• 43:26
  And he was like, oh man, it's like it hurt my feelings for
• 43:29
  like a good like 6 months. He was like, oh, yeah, yeah.
• 43:32
  Oh, you're not a drummer. He's like, you're not, you're
• 43:33
  not a real drummer if you don't, if you don't know Zeppelin.
• 43:35
  And I was like, oh, like, I didn't know Zeppelin.
• 43:39
  Not rock drummer, anyway. Yeah.
• 43:44
  Well, you got to understand the elements of Zeppelin.
• 43:46
  They drew from every single genre in one.
• 43:50
  One album would be from funk to R&B to Blues and to whatever.
• 43:55
  They made-up their own genre, you know what I mean?
• 43:57
  So Zeppelin is so vast. The spectrum of Zeppelin is so
• 44:01
  much more advanced than any band today.
• 44:04
  Nobody can even touch them still.
• 44:06
  You know, even Greta Van Fleet is just like this bare bones
• 44:09
  version of Zeppelin. You know they don't have to
• 44:11
  depth for the musical diversity. Yet maybe they will.
• 44:14
  Maybe nobody does. I'm not.
• 44:15
  I'm not putting them down. They're great at what they do.
• 44:16
  What I'm saying is nobody has that.
• 44:18
  Nobody has the diversity of Jimmy Payne's and John Paul
• 44:21
  Jones to a studio. Musicians played on every
• 44:24
  friggin recording from 1962 to 1968.
• 44:28
  They had such a vast library of styles in them, you know, I
• 44:32
  mean, how can you compete with? You really can't and.
• 44:35
  It's like it's almost not even important nowadays to like have
• 44:38
  that kind of background because everything is so.
• 44:41
  That's what makes, that's why music is so stale.
• 44:44
  That's why it's so fucking boring and stale now.
• 44:46
  Nobody really knows how to write.
• 44:47
  All that pop shit is the same 5 chords.
• 44:49
  It's the same shit, the same mode.
• 44:51
  So it's the same chord progress has ever heard a billion times.
• 44:56
  I hear it. I want to jump out a window.
• 44:57
  Oh my God, this chord progression again been used 80
• 45:01
  billion times in popular. But the average listener, Joe
• 45:04
  Schmucko, is on his way to work or whatever.
• 45:06
  Or maybe he puts his earbuds in and he only listens from the
• 45:09
  train to the job or whatever. And they don't.
• 45:12
  They're not. They don't.
• 45:14
  They don't realize that they've heard the same fucking thing a
• 45:16
  million times. It's got a bust.
• 45:18
  Sooner or later. It's got to become, it's got to
• 45:20
  get better again. It always cycles.
• 45:22
  So it's terrible. The music is terrible right now.
• 45:24
  I mean, I feel it is. Yeah, I get a kick out of
• 45:27
  catching like, you know, those TikTok or Instagram videos where
• 45:31
  it's like, oh, here's this song, you know, and 10 different
• 45:34
  versions of the same like, like progression, like, oh, here's
• 45:37
  that riff. Like here it is in this song and
• 45:39
  that song. And it's like, wow.
• 45:41
  And it's like sometimes you don't questions that work.
• 45:43
  Yeah, you know that have been known to work.
• 45:45
  So if you are if you are a band of producers that are working
• 45:49
  for multibillion dollar Warner Brothers or whatever and you got
• 45:52
  to write for this artist, are you going to take a chance on
• 45:55
  progressions that have never been tried?
• 45:56
  No, you're going to use the same fucking progressions that have
• 46:00
  worked for Beyoncé and all these artists back down the line for
• 46:03
  the last 40 fucking years in pop and just put new sounds over
• 46:06
  them or whatever and a couple of new lyrics or whatever the fuck.
• 46:09
  You know, because you know it's going to work.
• 46:10
  It's guaranteed. That's the difference between an
• 46:12
  artist actually making music and a manufactured artist that's
• 46:16
  been manufactured by the industry.
• 46:18
  I feel a lot of that and people think they wrote the words,
• 46:22
  these artists that they're like writing 3 words to the fucking
• 46:25
  song. They have a band of writers and
• 46:27
  producers, 10 people wrote the song, but as they still see the
• 46:30
  videos and they still think that, oh, Cardi's deep, you
• 46:33
  know? Also, like, I think I, I, I kind
• 46:36
  of miss is like people don't care so much.
• 46:39
  I think people care a little bit more now about albums.
• 46:42
  It's like for a minute, like, you know, like back in back in
• 46:44
  my your formative days with you and all these other bands in the
• 46:49
  90s, it's like an album was like, oh, cool.
• 46:51
  Like there was a single or two on there.
• 46:53
  But the whole album was great. And now then it was a whole run
• 46:56
  where everybody was just putting out singles and it was like,
• 46:59
  what happened to the whole. It's like a single is just like,
• 47:02
  like to me, like a single is just like, you know, just like
• 47:04
  a, it's just like a snippet of the whole album.
• 47:07
  But now it's like people forget what the.
• 47:09
  Attention span is shrunk. Yeah, attention span is shrunk.
• 47:12
  These kids, they're distracted by a lot of mediums, especially
• 47:17
  video games, you know, and like even movies and drop down on the
• 47:21
  list for them. So like, there's a lot.
• 47:22
  They got constant media being thrown at them.
• 47:25
  You're competing with that. You think these kids have 40
• 47:28
  minutes to listen to a whole record?
• 47:30
  They don't anymore. There's just too much shit going
• 47:32
  on, you know, So you have to. That's why we're releasing one
• 47:34
  single at a time every six weeks or whatever you keep in the
• 47:38
  continuum in the front of their minds, you know?
• 47:42
  Really. Yeah, obviously you keep a hold
• 47:43
  of a few songs back for that, you know, But I think the 90s
• 47:46
  was the hardest because you had CD's, you had a Phillips, you
• 47:49
  had 70 minutes possible. I mean, think about those
• 47:52
  records, those great records. There was, there was like 1517
• 47:55
  songs on the record. You know, you had to write a
• 47:58
  lot, a lot of material. I remember getting angry when a
• 48:01
  bad hat when? Like, what do you mean?
• 48:02
  This record only has 10 songs, right?
• 48:04
  Yeah, right. It was minimum 15.
• 48:07
  I mean typo never. We never had a problem because
• 48:10
  the way Peter wrote it was like everything had to happen four
• 48:12
  times or 8 times and it was like, you know, 12 beats a
• 48:15
  minute. So it was like we, we filled up
• 48:17
  every single CD to the last fucking 2nd 72 minutes or
• 48:21
  whatever it was. Even most fans have to write 15
• 48:24
  songs to get there. A typo.
• 48:25
  Only had to write 8 to get 70 minutes, you know.
• 48:27
  Yeah, like that's we were talking about.
• 48:29
  We were talking about that the other day too.
• 48:30
  It's like we've missed like the days where like where like like,
• 48:32
  you know, like like the first down record had that cool, like
• 48:35
  the the bury me in smoked weight just fades out and waited a
• 48:38
  little while and it faded back in and even you guys had.
• 48:41
  Like. The false ending, you guys had a
• 48:44
  couple of those too and and that was all those are always like
• 48:47
  the best stuff, man. It was like those little false
• 48:49
  like no, no, like it's still going.
• 48:51
  Just wait it out. Just wait it out.
• 48:53
  It's like you, you don't you don't ask what.
• 48:55
  That's one thing I miss about like about like the older days
• 48:58
  of music, because you don't get that now.
• 49:00
  But that's the. Final down, trying to recapture.
• 49:02
  That's what I'm always trying to recapture too, Even with this,
• 49:04
  man. The vibe of the 70s, which
• 49:06
  removes, that's when Rock'n'roll was.
• 49:08
  That's the golden era right there, man.
• 49:09
  Yeah, I just kind of like, I kind of fell into like a, a, a
• 49:14
  Blue Öyster Cult like rabbit hole like recently.
• 49:16
  And I was just like, how come I never heard this full record or
• 49:19
  heard like these other? There's so many, there's so much
• 49:23
  good music there that I'm angry that I should have heard, like I
• 49:26
  should have paid attention to like 20 years ago or 30 years
• 49:29
  ago when, you know, I was like, oh man, I should have, I should
• 49:32
  have seen Blue Öyster Cult like 20 times by now.
• 49:35
  I just, I missed out on some really good records and they
• 49:39
  were so prolific too. And I was just like, man, like
• 49:42
  that 70s. Think about the competition then
• 49:45
  in the 70s, when you think about like when Aerosmith released
• 49:49
  Dream On, right, which was an amazing fucking song, right?
• 49:52
  And it didn't do that well on radio because Stairway, Stairway
• 49:54
  to Heaven was blowing up. I mean, like, think about the
• 49:57
  competition you were up against. It was like, it's tremendous.
• 50:00
  You can write the greatest song in the fucking world and it's
• 50:03
  like mediocre back. Then, but now everything becomes
• 50:05
  like a classic or whatever, you know, now it's.
• 50:07
  That's my goal. I want to become classic.
• 50:09
  At this point, I'm worried about, you know, not worried
• 50:11
  about that. I'm, I'm interested in my
• 50:13
  legacy, what I leave behind as a whole.
• 50:14
  You know, I'm just trying to keep building, to keep building
• 50:17
  my body of work, you know, until dad die.
• 50:20
  Hopefully it's 90 times soon. So one song that I was involved
• 50:24
  in will end up on classic rock radio.
• 50:26
  That's my dream. 104. Dad, dad.
• 50:31
  Rock Hero. So some people know, some people
• 50:36
  don't know this. Like my first concert was Type O
• 50:40
  Negative. It was a guy.
• 50:41
  It was Danzig, God, Flesh and Type O Negative at Roseland.
• 50:44
  And my God, yeah. Yeah, that was like my first
• 50:47
  concert, so. That was a cool show man.
• 50:49
  God flesh. I wonder what what happened to
• 50:51
  those guys. Justin does it once in the blue,
• 50:54
  but he's got his other band, Jezu, he's doing.
• 50:57
  So they're just kind of dissolved.
• 50:59
  Yeah, You know, when somebody says hey, reunion kind of show
• 51:03
  thingy, he kind of perks up and or maybe that's just where his
• 51:07
  that's where the spark is right now is doing Jesu or his other
• 51:10
  projects he's got going on. He likes to hang out in that
• 51:12
  world. Then sometimes he'll get back
• 51:14
  over here. But depends on, you know, I
• 51:17
  guess you could keep writing this stuff or you're not feeling
• 51:20
  it, write something else. So hopefully I'd rather him be
• 51:24
  away and then come here and just put out lackluster music because
• 51:27
  you're just going through the motions of it.
• 51:29
  Because that's when I think there's, I don't, I don't know
• 51:32
  if there's anything worse than just going through the emotions,
• 51:33
  playing music because you could feel.
• 51:35
  It's nothing. There's no death.
• 51:36
  There's just no greater death than that.
• 51:39
  Like this again? OK, I'm just.
• 51:40
  Joining a wedding band playing a wedding band not.
• 51:43
  There's anything wrong with that?
• 51:44
  But yeah, the mouse. To me, that would be deaf.
• 51:48
  I appreciate you so much for this, brother.
• 51:50
  I appreciate you like, yeah, I mean, just put an end on this I.
• 51:52
  Appreciate you man, it's a great interview.
• 51:54
  Thank you man cool. I just want to toss 1 little
• 51:56
  thing and then we'll wrap this whole shit up and get out of
• 51:58
  here. So before I wrap this up, Kenny,
• 52:00
  I want to say thank you again for your time.
• 52:02
  Really appreciate it. But I just have to ask you one
• 52:05
  thing because to me, you're the person responsible for the
• 52:09
  Misfits coming back and everything that we have now with
• 52:12
  Glenn now and then the Michael Graves era, I feel like you're
• 52:15
  the you were the catalyst. Because I remember a show at
• 52:17
  Roseland where you were singing for a Misfit Less singer and you
• 52:22
  were you were singing a bunch of Misfit songs and that was
• 52:25
  awesome. I thought you were going to be
• 52:27
  doing that as well. That would have been fun.
• 52:29
  Yes, I remember that. That was a great night.
• 52:31
  Yeah, Jerry had me do it and they, I remember they came down
• 52:34
  to our rehearsal space, the typos rehearsal space, and we
• 52:36
  went over to songs together and stuff.
• 52:38
  Was a lot of fun. I'm a huge Misfits fan, so I
• 52:40
  knew everywhere. I didn't even have to rehearse
• 52:42
  it or anything like that, you know?
• 52:43
  Yeah, it was great, great fun. Yeah, and that's that's one of
• 52:47
  my favorite memories ever. Roseland's gone now, too.
• 52:50
  That's gone, too. It's an apartment, there's a
• 52:52
  condo. It's it's horrible, it's
• 52:55
  horrible, it's horrible. I thought about man, I'd make
• 52:57
  enough money to live at Roseland, but I still couldn't
• 53:00
  do it All the ghost of the music shows there.
• 53:03
  Right. Yeah, anyway, my friend, thank
• 53:05
  you again so much. Thank.
• 53:07
  You. Dude, this has been a pleasure
• 53:08
  and yeah, we'll do it again sooner or later.
• 53:11
  Anytime, buddy.