0:00

Hi there. I'm Zach Raff and I'm Donald Phason.

0:02

We're real life best friends, but we

0:04

met playing fake life best friends

0:07

Turk and j D on the sitcom Scrubs.

0:09

Twenty years later, we've decided to rewatch

0:11

the series one episode at a time and

0:13

put our memories into a podcast

0:16

you can listen to at home. We're gonna get all our

0:18

special guest friends like Sarah Chalk,

0:20

John C McGinley, Neil Flynn, Judy

0:22

Reyes, show creator Bill Lawrence,

0:25

editors, writers, and even prop

0:27

masters would tell us about what inspired

0:29

the series and how we became a family.

0:32

You can listen to the podcast Fake Doctors,

0:34

Real Friends with Zack and Donald on the

0:36

I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,

0:38

and wherever you get your podcasts. Hello,

0:59

ladies and John mn Welcome to a

1:01

hundred Words of Last the podcast. I'm your host,

1:03

Ray Harkins, Ever present to discuss

1:06

independent music, punk, hard or indie

1:08

rock, all that fun stuff, because

1:10

you know, that's that's what we all care about, right That's

1:13

what like deep is deep within our DNA

1:15

and our bones that we love this stuff and

1:17

we still still care about

1:19

it or are just discovering it like I

1:22

would love to transport myself

1:24

back to being like sixteen years old and

1:26

discover this podcast and just listen

1:29

to these interviews, because I would be like, man,

1:31

this is great. It's like you know

1:33

when I discovered zines, where it's like, oh man,

1:35

I could not get enough. And I can't even

1:37

imagine what I would do if

1:39

I would trip across this podcast and all the other

1:41

podcasts that cover this beautiful, beautiful

1:44

scene of music. But anyways, I'm

1:46

going to make this very tight and very quick because

1:48

this is a very long episode but incredibly

1:51

important. So I had an idea this

1:53

I don't know. This is one of my shower ideas that I

1:55

like to call where um,

1:58

you know, you just come up with the idea and you're like, know

2:00

what, I want to put this in action? I think this would be cool.

2:02

So basically, this is kind of like a I

2:05

called a self audit, as it were. I

2:07

approached my friend Scott Krause, who

2:09

plays guitar in Earth Crisis and I

2:11

was also played in a band called Sect,

2:13

and you know, he's just a very prolific musician,

2:16

but Earth Crisis is clearly, you

2:18

know, the thing that he has known for, and

2:21

uh, I wanted to go over each

2:23

and every single one of Earth Crisis is full

2:25

lengths from Destroy the Machines

2:28

all the way to their most recent

2:30

LP, and just

2:33

kind of like try to get a snapshot

2:35

a time and a place, like where the band's head

2:37

was at, Funny anecdotal stories that

2:40

may have been happening, like why they chose to record

2:42

with this person, you know, why did they

2:44

decide to work with this particular record label,

2:47

because there's so many things that kind of get lost

2:50

to the ether. And uh, I just

2:52

thought that this would be not only fun

2:54

for me, but fun for Scott to kind of talk

2:56

about and discuss, and then also

2:59

interesting for you. Like I

3:01

thought I knew a lot about Earth Crisis, you

3:03

know, they're clear like one of my favorite

3:05

bands of all time, But in

3:09

learning even more by asking Scott

3:11

these direct questions and kind of doing

3:13

it in chronological order, he

3:15

blew my mind on like ten

3:17

to fifteen different occasions. It was so

3:20

so cool. So I'm really really proud of

3:22

this conversation, and I thank Scott greatly

3:25

for contributing to this and entertaining

3:27

this, uh this idea, and if you like

3:29

it, please email the show. One hundred Words podcast

3:31

at gmail dot com because I plan on doing

3:33

this in the future with some other people

3:35

who I know would be you

3:38

know, good candidates for this, because to

3:40

me, a good candidate for this is a person

3:42

who you know doesn't have a

3:45

sense of ego about their work, is able

3:47

to speak plainly about

3:49

the you know, successes and failures

3:51

of whatever it is that they do. And

3:54

Scott Krause was was perfect for this,

3:56

And yeah, I hope some other people will

3:59

will be interested in this idea as well. But um

4:01

yeah, that's that's all I'm gonna say. But

4:03

I'll dive in at the very very tail end of the episode

4:05

to tell you about, of course, the upcoming

4:08

week's episode. But I'm

4:10

really really proud of this, so please share,

4:13

rate, and review this podcast, share this

4:15

specific episode because I'm

4:18

just really proud of it and I'm really proud of the conversation

4:20

we have. So here we go. It's

4:22

a little bit a little bit of a different

4:24

different flavor as it were, but like

4:27

I said, I think you really enjoy it, So let's

4:30

strap in and enjoy the deep

4:33

deep dive into Earth Crisis

4:35

is catalog and all of their full length records.

4:38

Like I'll be clear, it's their full length I'm

4:40

not diving into their EPs and everything like that. It

4:42

is all full lengths from here on out. So that's

4:45

what we got, all right, I'll talk to you at the end

4:47

of the episode,

4:48

John, So

4:58

totally. And for it's like those those

5:01

details, um, you know, like satisfy,

5:05

you know, a very small subset of people

5:07

where it's like, yeah, yeah, I don't like,

5:09

I don't care, like I don't care about that. It's

5:11

irrelevant. Yeah, totally.

5:13

It was. It was recorded and it sounded good,

5:16

and that's what we were happy with or or

5:18

didn't or did and you did, yeah,

5:21

totally. Well that's so that's most of

5:23

the time. I'll probably what I'll say in here, and I didn't

5:25

like it, but that was all the money we had.

5:29

No, it's funny, it's funny too. That was that. That's

5:31

actually a good point to kind of start off

5:33

with, because like I think, you know the

5:36

time that you know, I mean, Earth Christ has started

5:38

to exist and recording everything like that, you know,

5:40

like I mentioned, we're you know, just gonna highlight

5:42

the full links and stuff like that. But you

5:44

know, the early to mid nineties was so weird

5:46

for hardcore bands because there

5:48

was no context for most producers

5:52

and engineers to like how to capture

5:54

these sounds. They were like, well, it's not metal,

5:56

but it's obviously it's not like and

5:59

so I'm sure every studio you went into

6:01

leading up to Destroy the Machines was

6:04

basically some version of that where you're like, oh, this

6:06

guy like knows how to track, but like, I don't

6:08

know, they don't really know what to do with us Or was

6:11

that? Am I just reading too much into that? No?

6:13

No, no, that yeah, I would say that's ye accurate.

6:15

I mean, you know, Jimmy in sect,

6:18

like he and I talked about that all the time, like having

6:20

to explain, you know, to a

6:22

producer like an engineer, like

6:24

when you're in there, like hey, um,

6:26

you know Jimmy know he makes it funny. He's like, I

6:28

want all the drums to sound like a kick drum.

6:31

And the guy's like, what do you mean. He's like, I want all of them

6:33

just to sound like the kick drum And he's like what that

6:35

doesn't make any sense to me. And he's like, yeah, but that's

6:38

what I want. And and basically, because when we're

6:40

kids, we don't know how to describe it either, right,

6:42

So we're like you basically

6:45

are telling him, I just want all the drums

6:47

have a lot of attack to them, like the kickdrum, that

6:49

click, that that punch, you know. But

6:51

when you're when you're like fifteen, you don't

6:53

know the terminology. You don't know you know, so

6:55

you're just like, dude, they all need to sound like a kick

6:57

drum, and they got They're just looking at you like you're crazy,

7:00

and you're looking at them like why can't you get this? And

7:02

yeah, but and then but there's no record to just put

7:05

on and say this is it? You

7:07

know. Obviously, now you know there's

7:09

plenty, but yeah, back then it was a yeah,

7:12

there was not very many records that I felt

7:15

like achieved sonically what

7:17

they wanted to you like, the music, and

7:19

there was something about it that you that he's connected

7:21

with the Sonically they didn't. Nothing sounded

7:24

great, you know, everything sounded pretty mediocre.

7:26

Really, yeah,

7:28

and no, totally. And it is interesting

7:30

too where it was just like, you know, over the years,

7:32

because you know, taking release stuff on Goodfellow Records,

7:34

obviously became close with Chris Logan and Chokehold,

7:37

and like I always like Chocold, but the

7:40

every single recording they have ever done

7:42

sounds like, you know, trash cans being thrown

7:45

down a hallway, and like it

7:48

was just a symptom of that fact where it's just like,

7:50

well, yeah, like everybody we recorded with like you

7:52

know, like they didn't know what they were doing to capture

7:55

what it was that we were trying to get, and we just got

7:57

it as close as humanly possible

8:00

of them that we thought well, And then

8:02

the sad thing is you grow a fan base

8:04

sounding like that, so when you finally get to

8:06

the point where you're like, holy sh it, we got

8:08

ourselves a sound like we want to sound,

8:10

everyone's like, I don't like it. You guys, where

8:12

the trash cans going down the hallway? Do you know

8:14

what I mean? We loved we

8:17

loved the trash cans going down the hallway, even

8:19

though you were disappointed as hell with every

8:21

record that you've ever done. But that's they

8:24

got popular off that. So now you

8:26

know, if they put out something, which I actually

8:28

they did right, like an EP or something, and it

8:30

does sound pretty good, So I

8:32

don't know how well it's received, but I can imagine

8:35

that the older people are like, wait, dude,

8:37

yeah, right, yeah you

8:40

polish, Yeah, yeah, exactly,

8:44

so you know, kicking things off with the destroying

8:46

the machines. Like you know, clearly you guys had

8:49

you know, experience working with record labels and like,

8:51

you know, you would kind of you know, you had

8:53

done enough stuff to where going into a studio

8:56

wasn't the idea wasn't uncomfortable

8:58

at this point, or you know, maybe it was. Maybe I'm

9:00

just you know, giving you guys more credit maybe than you had.

9:03

But um, heading heading into

9:05

the studio was there,

9:07

um, I guess like a sense and not even anticipation

9:10

from the outside world, but just like you

9:12

know, were you guys like incredibly

9:14

excited? Were you guys nervous? Like

9:16

you know what? What was You don't

9:18

have to speak for the whole band, obviously you could speak for yourself,

9:21

but you know what was kind of the head space as you

9:23

were entering, you know, to record your debut

9:25

full length? Uh? Yeah,

9:27

I was. I was definitely nervous

9:29

because we had chose to work with these

9:33

guys that as far as musicians, were

9:35

just like cuts above us, like they

9:37

were on a different level. They were they were metal

9:39

guys, like progressive metal guys

9:41

like that. Could really play, you know, and

9:44

so I was like, you know, man, I need to practice.

9:46

I need to have my stuff down, like I don't want to look

9:48

like an idiot in front of these people, you know, and like.

9:51

And also we had just um lost

9:53

our second guitar player at the time, so we

9:56

we recorded Destroying Machines. We were a

9:58

four piece for a little We didn't play

10:00

out like that, but we didn't have a

10:02

guitar player near the end of writing it, another

10:05

guitar player near the end of writing and the recording

10:07

of it. So I played all the guitar on it. So

10:09

I had I felt a lot of pressure, like I

10:12

was pretty nervous, but

10:14

that only lasted, I think until maybe

10:16

the first session. And those guys were like so unbelievably

10:19

cool and supportive and uh and we

10:21

were friends, like our friend Jim Winners was

10:23

really tight with those guys. It was Joe

10:26

and Kurt who are from the band Believer, And

10:28

so I think once we got there too and saw

10:31

their set up, it humbled us

10:33

a lot too, because they were

10:35

like, you know, it was it was a home

10:38

recording situation where they were like in their gramma's

10:40

basement, you know, and it was not plush

10:42

or fancy at all. It was.

10:44

It was very d I y, and so I think

10:47

when we got through were like, all right, these guys are kind

10:49

of like like us. They're from our there

10:51

sort of from our world. They're just way better players,

10:53

you know, and

10:55

so you know, and they were

10:58

just really supportive and cool and complementary.

11:00

I just remember being very uh

11:03

like proud because when I would track the

11:05

dude, we just keep telling me, dude, you're super tight, Like

11:07

this is great, Yeah, this is gonna sound great. He was just

11:09

really like positive, you

11:11

know. So I think after the first session we

11:13

were all like, oh, this is gonna be killer. You know, this

11:16

is fine. But yeah, going into it, I was really nervous

11:18

because first record where it all kind

11:20

of was on my shoulders as far as guitar went.

11:23

And yeah, these guys were like I

11:25

really looked up to him. I loved, like, I still

11:28

love the Believer Dimensions album. It's like

11:30

one of my favorite records, you know, probably of all

11:32

time. And so yeah, going into

11:34

it recording with people that you really look up to, yeah,

11:36

it was pretty nerve wracking. I probably was, I

11:39

don't know, eighteen or something too, so

11:42

that, you know, and I knew I wasn't like

11:44

the player that those guys were like,

11:46

there was no fantasy. I wasn't like, oh, I'm as good as

11:48

you know. I knew, like I'm not as good

11:50

as these guys. Totally, I'm not going

11:53

to live up to that standard.

11:55

Yeah. Yeah. And I had like a solo, like

11:57

I remember being super nervous, and it

11:59

was like a new ethic. There's

12:01

a solo, and I was like, oh

12:03

man, I gotta you know, I gotta work this sound, make

12:05

it at least passable within my talent

12:07

level, you know. And I remember, so

12:10

our friend Jim is there. He's

12:12

just like he doesn't speak much. I don't know if you

12:14

know Jim, and he just kind of does a lot of hand gestures

12:16

and shakes his head and stuff. Yeah, he's and

12:18

he's like he's shaking his head in disapproval

12:21

while I'm doing it like no, no, And

12:23

they, yeah, they kind of spoke up. They were like, hey, you

12:25

know, let him do it the way he wants to do it, you

12:27

know. And then they chimed in. They were like, what if you

12:29

hit that note instead of that note and you know this

12:31

and that, and they were real cool, Like it

12:34

was a really good experience extra recording with those

12:36

guys. That's cool. Well, especially too,

12:38

I think when you are because I mean

12:40

I presume that you guys chose to work with them based

12:43

on, you know, like their previous records

12:45

like most bands do of you know, like when

12:47

you're whatever, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years

12:49

old, like all you're doing is looking at the records that

12:51

you enjoy it to be like and I mean, you know, frankly,

12:54

even as you get older, you just you're like, oh, who

12:56

record this record, Let's do it with them? Oh? Absolutely,

12:59

yeah, yeah, well that's what it was. Yeah,

13:01

we we loved Jim had

13:03

come you know, we had played some shows with Conviction

13:06

and which was Jim's winners

13:08

band, and he had come up and played us like,

13:10

hey, listen, I played some guitar and based

13:12

on this this album, you got to hear it and

13:14

like the production was like unbelievable for the

13:16

time, like it was just yeah

13:18

and so and that these guys did it and like their mom's

13:20

basement like that. We were just like, yeah,

13:23

we we want to record with these dudes. Because at

13:25

the same time, like kind of what we were talking about

13:27

previously, where every

13:29

hardcore record just there was nothing that

13:32

came out that I was like, man, I want to sound like that.

13:34

Like I remember snap Case went to

13:36

Don Fury, you know, in New York, and

13:38

they went there because every New York hardcore

13:41

band went there. And but I was like, why why

13:43

do you want to go there? Like all these bands don't

13:45

sound good? Though, Like the bands are good. I'm not knocking

13:47

any of the bands that recorded. I love a

13:49

lot of the records that came out of there, but not

13:52

the production. I like the records. I like the music.

13:55

I like the performance, you know, but the

13:57

production sucks. But and I and

13:59

we knew, like we that's not what we're going for,

14:01

Like we need we need something that

14:03

we want sonically to sound different,

14:06

like set us apart from all this other stuff

14:09

that you know, all these same bands go to the same five

14:11

studios. We want to go somewhere different so we sound

14:13

completely different than everybody else. Yeah.

14:16

No, And I honestly I think that really,

14:18

you know, those are the records that you

14:20

remember because yeah, you notice this, and it happens

14:22

time and time again where producers get hot,

14:25

and whether you like their recordings or not, it

14:27

just kind of is where most bands gravitate

14:29

too. And then it is the record

14:32

or two or band or two that sticks

14:34

out that she does what you guys did

14:36

and choose the person that's like, oh yeah, maybe

14:38

not on the radar, and you

14:41

know, you get a record that you know, can kind

14:43

of sty like because people can listen to the Story the Machines now

14:45

and be like oh yeah, like you know,

14:48

yes, you can understand it was recorded some years

14:50

ago, but it's not it doesn't sound

14:53

dated from that perspective sonically,

14:55

you know, right, it's not. Yeah, it's not completely

14:57

out of Yeah, there's some stuff you listen

14:59

to out and you're just like, whoa that is planet

15:04

Yeah, yeah exactly, but yeah, that's

15:06

not yeah to me. I mean we

15:08

were we There was disappointments

15:10

with it within the band for sure, um,

15:13

but it was it wasn't so much anything that

15:15

they did or anything that could have been remedy at the time.

15:17

It was just growing, you know as a band, like you

15:19

were getting better. You look back on it and you're like,

15:22

you know made The main thing was Karl's vocals, Like he

15:24

was never happy with it and he was

15:26

going through a transitional phase. You know, he Firestorm,

15:29

he blew his voice out you know,

15:31

during the recording of that, and so he

15:34

was trying to find a new voice and he was working

15:37

with like his mom is an opera singer.

15:39

Um. I don't know how many people know that, but

15:41

his mom was that was actually a pretty famous

15:44

opera singer and she um yeah,

15:46

and she was teaching him like breathing

15:49

technique and where to sing from and you know,

15:51

so he was finding his voice

15:53

again, you know during that record, and it just

15:55

didn't have the bite. You know, he didn't lose it

15:58

at all during the in the recording process, and

16:00

he was practicing better technique,

16:02

but it just didn't have the bite that Firestorm had.

16:04

So you know, it was always a little bit

16:06

of um like to us,

16:09

like, man, damn it, we almost we

16:11

almost nailed it, you know right

16:13

right, Well, no, that I mean that that's very

16:15

yeah. I had no clue about that, but that I

16:17

mean, there is a distinct difference between the two.

16:20

But it's not like you know, to whatever

16:22

my untrained you know, fifteen

16:25

or sixteen year old ear like, I noticed

16:27

a difference, but it didn't um, you

16:29

know, it was it was It wasn't it wasn't bad,

16:32

right right, right, Yeah, it didn't. It wasn't

16:34

like wow, this guy, this guy stinks now or

16:36

anything. It was just like, yeah, it's just like,

16:38

oh, he's you know, he's got a different voice

16:40

on this one, which happens a lot for for bands,

16:42

you know. I mean, you know, if you listen to a lot of bands,

16:45

early records are very different than obviously

16:47

later records because people prograss

16:49

people get better, they learn better technique

16:51

and you know, but yeah,

16:54

that was always that's I think that's the big thing.

16:56

I mean, sure, like the other guitar sounds pretty dated,

16:58

like we wouldn't probably record something that

17:00

sounded like that today, but at the

17:02

time it was. It was pretty

17:04

unique and I think especially unique

17:06

for the scene that we were operating

17:08

in. Oh totally yeah. And

17:11

so did you guys like did you record

17:13

it all in like one chunk, like you

17:15

know, were you like, oh, we're out for thirty days and we're gonna

17:17

record this, or did you guys like travel back and forth?

17:20

We traveled back and forth. Yeah, we did it on weekends

17:22

basically because that was um, I

17:24

think that was what our schedule allowed and that

17:26

was what their schedule allowed to those guys all

17:28

had day jobs and stuff, so we

17:30

were, um, yeah, we were doing like three day

17:32

weekends. I think we drive down. It

17:35

was about what maybe four or five

17:37

hours from Syracuse. It was a really

17:39

really tiny town in Pennsylvania.

17:42

Um, I mean, yeah, it's

17:44

like a town is giving it more

17:46

credit than it deserves, honestly, Like is

17:50

that where like, yeah, it wasn't cold, It's not cold

17:53

Brook. Victory wrote that wrong in that

17:55

it's cold Brook like CEO l E. Yeah,

17:59

yeah, yeah, the yeah,

18:01

so it's cold Brook, Pennsylvania. Yeah,

18:03

so it's very small, and I don't,

18:05

you know, I don't remember like eating, Like

18:08

I know we ate obviously, but I don't remember

18:10

like where we went, so like I

18:12

can't remember. I can't even think of like where

18:14

we went. I remember Jim made us like

18:16

ice cream, and it blew my mind because

18:18

he was like the first dude that ever like he

18:21

made I'm like, he made ice cream? You know, it was

18:23

like blew my mind and he's like yeah, and

18:25

it was really good. But I remember

18:27

a lot of weird things about it, like staying at Jim's

18:29

house and we watched the episode

18:32

of like Maury Povit or

18:34

something all about Tourette syndrome and

18:37

and he just sat there and just he

18:39

just played it over and over and laughed his ass

18:41

off about and we were just like, I mean, it was

18:44

pretty entertaining, you know, but that's

18:46

just like the weirdest things. Like I remember about

18:48

that. I barely remember being in there playing

18:50

or like eating drums.

18:53

Yeah, yeah, I don't remember like in Dennis

18:55

tracking drums. I don't remember it at all. Like

18:57

I remember little bits of it, and I remember the scene

19:00

being very very low and

19:02

thinking like, well, that can't be good. Like the symbols

19:05

are almost like touching the ceiling,

19:07

you know, like that's weird. But I trusted,

19:09

you know. I was like, well, these guys are professionals. I guess they know

19:11

what they're doing. But looking

19:14

back on now, yeah, not an ideal room

19:16

to play drums in for sure, but yeah

19:19

it works. Yeah yeah, no, that's that's

19:21

that's super funny. Um. So, as

19:23

you guys finished it and obviously turned it into the label and

19:25

you know, schedule for a release and everything like that, Um,

19:28

you know, the record comes out and like did you

19:30

because you know, clearly trying to put

19:33

you in context for you

19:35

know, people born of the Internet

19:37

age is next to impossible. But like,

19:40

did you guys, you know, I guess

19:42

feel a reaction once

19:44

you put it out and like once it started to kind

19:46

of matriculate out in the world. Or was it kind of

19:48

a slow role where I was like, okay, like a

19:50

year after we put it out, you know, now I notice

19:53

people, um, you know, like

19:55

reacting to the songs and stuff like that, or was

19:57

it pretty quick? Uh?

19:59

No, for us, we always have like a

20:02

a thing that we say, you know, in the band,

20:04

and it's they're always gonna like, you know, by the

20:06

time we put the next record out, they'll like the They'll

20:08

like the one we put that before, right, So it's

20:10

like, you know, so yeah, we were

20:13

still I don't remember. I

20:15

mean, yeah, I think the touring that we did off

20:17

that one, Yeah, it was. It was definitely getting There

20:20

was a lot of progress being made in the band

20:23

at that time for sure, you know, like we did,

20:25

we were getting tour offers, and but

20:27

I don't remember the show's

20:30

being like, you know, super

20:32

crazy for as far as like those songs or

20:34

anything. It was it was sort of quiet.

20:36

Yeah, I remember, you know, obviously like the

20:38

firestorm and all out worse stuff were like the hits

20:41

live at that point, but

20:43

then it was like, yeah, by the time

20:45

the next record came out, you had destroyed the machines.

20:47

Was where the hits A couple of those you know

20:50

totally yeah, yeah you started And plus

20:52

you know at that time too, it's like records

20:55

really did take a moment to matriculate

20:58

and get through the system to like, you

21:00

know, get the record stores and get to the distro tables

21:02

and stuff like that, as opposed to you know, you release

21:04

a record then like a week later, all of a sudden, everyone knows

21:06

it. Well yeah, And I think and I think

21:08

one of the things for Earth Crisis that

21:10

was always a little frustrating

21:12

that I think we didn't understand until we became

21:14

much older, was like we

21:16

we weren't like the kind of music that we

21:19

write and that we were writing. It wasn't The

21:21

bands that we were playing with were very like

21:24

live show oriented music. You

21:26

know, they were writing back like backup vocals,

21:29

and they were writing these like you

21:31

know, like three words

21:33

you know, chant sing along as you know, fingerpointing

21:35

type stuff like that's what we were playing was. So

21:38

we would see these bands play

21:40

and we're like, man, we're not getting this kind of reaction like

21:42

what's up? You know. But

21:44

we were writing, like you

21:47

know, obviously like the Firestorm stuff had a little

21:49

bit of that going on, but not

21:51

really even to that level, you

21:53

know, like those bands. It wasn't geared towards that.

21:55

It was like we were trying to write. We were trying to write,

21:58

not to disk those bands, but music, you know, like we're

22:00

trying to write not like for think

22:02

about it in a live sense, like just let's

22:04

write something that sounds cool, that's something that people

22:06

can listen to over and over again and maybe

22:09

find something that they didn't hear the first two times.

22:11

You know, it wasn't it wasn't very

22:13

We were trying to not to be very one dimensional, you

22:15

know, so I think we would um.

22:18

You know, it was frustrating because we were like, man, I don't think

22:20

these songs are connecting with people. But then it was

22:23

like later we'd find out we'd read reviews

22:25

and stuff, and years down the road, I

22:28

think we realized like, oh, Destroy the Machines is like

22:30

a big record for people. Like we

22:32

didn't really know that, you know, because

22:34

we weren't getting the same reaction as like a strife

22:37

for somebody or you know, whoever we were playing

22:39

with. You know, we would play and they would get

22:41

these sing alongs and pylons and stuff, and

22:43

we just got a lot of like head bobbing and a

22:45

couple breakdowns kids would you know, go crazy

22:48

or whatever. But for the most part, we've got

22:50

a kind of head bob and people paying attention. And

22:53

I think, yeah, very different bands, Like

22:55

in hindsight looking back and of course like where

22:56

we didn't where's this huge finger

22:59

points sing along are and destroy the machines? There's

23:01

not really one, you know, No, it's a it's

23:03

a really good point because it definitely, you

23:05

know, speaking as an outsider, like

23:08

the you know, I mean lyrically and musically,

23:10

it's like both of them. I mean, some

23:13

people can look at Earth Crisis and just be like, oh,

23:15

you know whatever over generalized

23:17

and be like, oh, yeah, whatever, it's just a dumb hardcore

23:19

band thinking about you know, veganism and straight edge or whatever.

23:21

But like when you like, there were some

23:23

words lyrically that I was like, I've

23:26

never even heard this word, Like I

23:28

had to look up the definition and yeah

23:30

you and then on the on the music side of thinks.

23:32

Yeah, there was definitely a technicality that

23:34

didn't exist within um, you

23:36

know, hardcore from that perspective, and you know, metalcore

23:39

or whatever. So I understand what you're talking about, where it's

23:41

like, yeah, this is gonna have to simmer for a while before

23:43

we actually see that type

23:45

of reaction or whatever. Yeah, not

23:47

to yeah, not to you know, pat yourself on the back

23:49

too much. But yeah, it was a little there was a little bit

23:51

more thought put into it. I suppose it was.

23:54

It was it was meant to be a little bit deeper, you

23:56

know, not not just a surface level

23:58

party at a show. You know. It was like we

24:00

wanted to write thoughtful music

24:02

with thoughtful lyrics, you know. And and

24:04

that's what was always frustrating, Like you said, you know, you'd

24:06

read the reviews and everyone just you

24:09

know, oh it's you know, mindless each chug

24:11

blah blah blah. And I was like, dude, that's

24:13

just so not true. You

24:16

know, Like I can criticize myself. I'm

24:18

you know, I'm I'm, I do it all the time.

24:20

And I always have been a really harsh critic on

24:22

myself. And that's just one

24:24

that I never will accept because

24:26

it's not true, like we were doing everything

24:29

we could to not be just like, you

24:31

know, something dumbed down like Firestorm

24:33

kind of dumbed down. But just that part,

24:36

yeah, just the part totally

24:39

totally yeah, right right, right, just

24:41

yeah, just that part that obviously incites the

24:43

you know, crowd reaction, but like everything else, yeah,

24:45

just you look a little deeper. So yeah, yeah,

24:47

it was clear people that were saying that we're clearly

24:50

playing the first five seconds of Firestorm, turning

24:52

it off and making an assumption

24:54

you know, yeah, no, totally that makes

24:56

sense. Um, it's a I know,

24:58

this is kind of cheating. But know I mentioned California

25:01

Takeover just because that was you

25:04

know, I mean from an outsider's perspective, like you

25:06

know, live records, like, you know, they existed

25:09

within hardcore, but not to the extent of

25:11

what I feel like this was essentially

25:14

to me, just like this really heightened,

25:17

glorified sampler of you know, some

25:19

of the largest bands within the context of hardcore

25:21

at that time, and it captured

25:23

a live energy in a way that

25:26

I don't think and still this day,

25:28

like even listening to it, you know whatever. This

25:30

week, I was like my God, like there

25:32

is so much that this

25:34

you know, simple Live album is

25:36

doing. Um, and I don't I don't

25:38

know. I mean, I'm sure you guys were just like, oh

25:40

cool, like this is a show that's being recorded

25:43

you know eventually would be put out,

25:46

um, you know, like for for the masses

25:48

to enjoy. But like, did I

25:50

mean, did you guys, I guess kind of feel the

25:52

impact of that or was that just kind of like, oh, yeah,

25:55

this is something that we're doing. Um. No,

25:57

I think we knew it felt like a big deal.

26:00

And I think especially it felt like a big deal because

26:02

that was the first show that we played

26:05

after our van accident, so we hadn't

26:07

played a show since

26:09

we crashed the van and then this almost

26:12

died and um, you know, I

26:15

guess in in a

26:18

not really openly discussed way,

26:20

but I know everybody was thinking like is this it? Are

26:22

we done? You know, are we not going to play as a band

26:24

anymore? And yeah,

26:27

so we got the you know, the

26:29

call like, hey, we're doing these two shows in California.

26:32

Um, you know you guys snap Case and Strife

26:34

and do you want to do them? And we were like, oh yeah,

26:36

absolutely, and uh, you

26:38

know was supposed to be. I

26:40

don't remember the live record part. I remember

26:42

it was supposed to be like a VHS.

26:45

It was supposed to be it was videoed. There was a

26:47

videotape of it, which I don't

26:49

really remember why. But Tony would always

26:51

just be like, no, it's not good, and we're like, well, let us see it. We want

26:53

to We were curious, we want to see how because the

26:55

show was so well, both show, there was two

26:57

shows, but the Yeah,

26:59

the show with the Whiskey was so good. I mean

27:01

it was it was you

27:03

know, at the time, I guess you know

27:06

obviously now I know what the capacity of the whiskey

27:08

is, but I mean I swear they it was double what

27:10

they could stay in there. Yeah,

27:14

it felt so much, you know, it felt like eight people.

27:16

I know the place only old's like four hundred or something. But

27:19

it's, uh, it was just so good. And yeah, like you

27:21

said, like the energy of the day, it was just so

27:23

good. And you know, it was it was just a good

27:25

time in general, like everybody got along

27:27

like us in snap case and strife and not that

27:29

we don't get along now, but it was just

27:31

a good vibe. We were all friends, we were all uh,

27:35

you know, working towards the same goals and

27:37

and just a mutual respect for one

27:39

another at the same time too, So it was just it

27:41

was a good time and yeah Tony came out and

27:44

everybody was happy. There was no h realities.

27:48

Yeah, it was a moment. It was well,

27:50

it felt I mean, I think to the

27:53

idea of just like something like that

27:56

happening where it's like, Okay, we're doing these you know, special

27:58

shows in California. You know, people are flying

28:00

out to it and like you know, not joining on tour

28:03

and like all of that just felt kind of unique

28:06

because that was pretty unheard of at the time.

28:08

Yeah. I remember, like I remember when he said,

28:11

like we're just gonna fly out for two shows. Were

28:13

like what, like that was just something

28:15

people never did totally do that. Yeah,

28:18

you drove across the country to get to California,

28:20

like you earned it. You didn't fly out there like you were

28:22

Metallica or something, you know. So yeah,

28:24

it's like it's almost like, wait, that's an option.

28:28

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, we still I mean,

28:30

that was an option that even after we

28:32

did it, it was never an option again, like

28:34

we were like, you can't, we can never do that. Again.

28:37

You know, in hindsight, man, I wish there was an adult

28:39

around to be like, hey, dudes, skip

28:41

Lawrence, Kansas, all right, just fly right

28:43

out to California a week,

28:46

just do the Yeah, just to the west coast of everybody.

28:48

Will we find um? Yeah, so does

28:50

the you. It's still to this day you have

28:52

never seen like the quote

28:54

unquote professional video footage that Tony is recorded.

28:57

Um, and have you heard now he had

28:59

Okay, yeah, he had like a full production like

29:01

I like, there was you know, he hired

29:04

a like a whole production crew. And

29:07

I don't remember what it was about it that he

29:09

didn't like, but maybe the audio

29:11

was messed up or something. I don't We couldn't have been

29:13

because the record came out so they couldn't just use that. I

29:16

don't. I don't know. It's just in the ahol

29:18

what it was. He was just not yeah, it's

29:20

somewhere. But I I remember,

29:23

you know, heard rumors like somebody had

29:26

told us like, oh dude, we saw it was awesome,

29:28

Like there was. It seemed like there

29:30

was a weird reason he didn't want to put it out.

29:33

I'm not saying anything sinister, but there was just something

29:35

he didn't like about it, probably

29:38

everybody else would have been fine with or maybe

29:40

there was even an issue with the company over the money

29:42

or I don't know, but yeah, yeah it's

29:44

a shame because I think, yeah, that would be and

29:47

that would be cool. Have you ever have

29:49

you heard because clearly, you know, the entire

29:51

sets reach Band were recorded, like have you

29:53

heard, like did you guys select

29:56

the songs that we're going to appear on

29:58

it? Or was that kind of just like oh, here,

30:00

like this is Tony's opinion and you guys agreed

30:02

with it. Now, we did have we had

30:04

saying it, but I don't really remember the process,

30:08

like yeah, like we I remember having

30:10

say, I don't remember any

30:12

of the reason why we chose what we chose or

30:14

I guess maybe we listened and those one of the ones we felt

30:17

like we did we performed best, you

30:19

know, it sounded best. Um,

30:22

there was no like you know, because we

30:24

had done stuff later on like the os Fest DVD

30:26

and stuff, and they wanted us to go in

30:28

and like touch up stuff. So we actually touched

30:30

up some things on that on that recording. But yeah,

30:32

the the California takeover, there was none

30:35

of that. It was just it is what it

30:37

is. You know, Wow, I had no I had no

30:39

idea that because I mean I definitely remember

30:41

that a fact. Yeah, we always after taking

30:44

practice, we would always watch that os Fest DVD

30:46

and then you know, like watch your footage and then watch neurosis

30:48

is black and white footage. But you got you guys.

30:50

You guys went back in and did like overdubs on that. Yeah,

30:53

there was a couple of vocal things like because

30:56

because it was like, dude, it was

30:59

the it was the windiest day of my life,

31:01

like on it. Like honestly,

31:03

like I remember Ian and I after the set,

31:05

like trying to get back to like our

31:08

tent or trailer or whatever it was, and

31:10

like we were walking and and we were we couldn't

31:12

move, Like we were both like dude, you know, we could not

31:14

move, so like the wind was just stopping

31:17

us from walking. Like it was just so crazy

31:19

windy, and we um while

31:22

we were playing. It was just it was like people

31:24

were shoveling dirt at us. It was just

31:26

dirt like flying in our faces. So Carl

31:29

was like literally taking like handfuls

31:31

of dirt to the mouth when he would open his mouth to take

31:33

a breath. To sing and so so

31:35

there was a couple of parts where he kind of like choked

31:38

out. He was, you know, like I could kind

31:40

of hear him like cough a little bit. So yeah,

31:42

I think it was on a like a tour.

31:44

The next time we toured. I remember

31:47

we were playing a ship. We were playing it like again

31:49

like the Whiskey or one of those places,

31:51

and some people came and

31:53

we're like, hey, we're down at

31:55

the studio down here doing like overdubs

31:58

for like the oz Fest DVD, and we want you

32:00

to come just do a couple of quick vocal lines. And

32:03

he's like okay, Like nobody

32:05

had set it up, like these guys just like showed

32:07

up to the show and we're like you, you gotta

32:09

come, you gotta come do this, And so he

32:11

went. He went down and

32:14

did it and came back. He's like, yeah, I was just literally

32:16

like two lines they needed me to punch in. So wow,

32:19

yeah, that's yeah, yeah, I mean it makes

32:21

sense. Like obviously it's a you know, that's

32:23

a very professional project

32:25

and he put together, so they wanted to make sure everything

32:27

was you know, buttoned up. But that's super interesting,

32:30

but so weird how unprofessionally they did

32:32

it. That that was the thing. That that's true. That's

32:34

true. They never caught like contacted

32:36

the label or not anything. It was just like, hey,

32:38

we're gonna catch you while you're at the show. Come

32:40

on, it's literally a block away. Let's go. You

32:43

know. Wow. Yeah, that that's true.

32:45

That's so funny. Like, yeah, we'll just put this together. Yeah

32:48

I know this this song appears on a record

32:50

from a record label. But it's fine, that's fine, we'll just figure

32:53

it out. Yeah, we'll figure it out. Yeah exactly.

32:56

Um. And so then, you know, looking

32:58

at the More Season ends, like clearly

33:00

that was a record that people I mean, I

33:02

I specifically remember anticipating, like

33:04

you know, going to my local independent record

33:07

store and you know, seeing the posters up

33:09

and like, oh dude, the more a Season and drops

33:11

in like you know, April or whatever, the month it came

33:13

out. Um, you

33:15

know, I feel like you guys probably

33:17

at this point had you know, more

33:20

I guess options in regards to like people who

33:22

to record with, and like, you know, this

33:24

also was I mean, because you guys put that out in

33:26

nineties six, I mean, at least according to the Internet

33:29

and my memory Yeah,

33:31

that's that's pretty I know you were a prolific

33:34

songwriter, like you know, you focus on that,

33:36

but like that's really quick, like you

33:38

know that's whatever a year, year and a

33:40

half. And I understand that. You know, your first

33:42

full length, you have your entire life to write, but then you

33:44

know the follow up needs to happen within like twelve

33:46

to eighteen months or whatever. Um.

33:48

Yeah, but anyway, yeah,

33:50

we didn't really have those schedules, you know, like

33:53

like we learned those schedules later, probably

33:55

after the more season ends. But I think at

33:57

that point, like are we were just setting ourselves.

34:00

We gotta churn it out, like we just loved

34:02

playing, like we loved writing music and like

34:04

we truthfully, I think earth

34:06

Prices always enjoyed that

34:09

aspect of things more than anything. Like

34:11

we we loved writing records and

34:13

we I mean we practiced like

34:16

like strictly, like three days

34:18

a week, like Monday, Wednesdays, on Fridays

34:20

we practiced and it was like everybody showed

34:22

up, you know, it was there was no there

34:25

was nobody missed out, and it was it was mostly

34:27

just writing the songs, like we would just sit there

34:30

and churn out songs and um

34:33

yeah. So I mean the goal for us, I think

34:35

was we didn't really ever say

34:37

it, but I think all of us knew, like we want to put a record

34:39

out every year, Like that's what we

34:41

want. Yeah, that's that's what we wanted to do,

34:44

you know because every time, because I was like I was saying, like when

34:46

we finished a record, we immediately like two

34:48

weeks after, we were like, we can do better than that. Let's

34:51

do better than that, you know, like we never

34:53

wanted to just like rest on it, and we were like let's

34:55

improve, like, let's get better. So

34:57

I mean, yeah that and that was go Moras like it

35:00

was like, okay, storing machines was cool,

35:02

like were we did we we

35:05

progressed, we got better, but we can

35:07

do better than that, you know. Yeah.

35:09

Wow, that's just yeah, I mean because that's that's that's a

35:11

yeah, that's just quick and a lot. But like you said,

35:13

you were on you were on your own schedule and not. Yeah.

35:17

At this point there, you know, the trappings of the

35:19

music business as it were weren't as developed,

35:21

so you guys were operating more off of instinct

35:23

in your own personal preference rather than the you

35:25

know, the music business cycle, right. Yeah. Nobody

35:28

was telling us like, oh, you got twelve months or you

35:30

know not. It was just yeah, we

35:32

were just like, no, we wanted to do it. You know, we wanted

35:34

to we wanted to put it. We were like, Okay, put

35:36

the record out and then you let's get this touring stuff

35:38

out of the way and then you know, like

35:40

like for us, I mean, we liked it, I think

35:43

to a point, you know, but for the most

35:45

part, yeah, I think that we liked playing

35:47

live. But yeah, it's the other you

35:49

know, twenty three hours of the day that suck,

35:52

you know, when you're playing shows. But

35:54

yeah, but none of us, I think would have

35:56

ever complained about meeting up

35:58

in the practice room and work on new songs

36:00

or you know, we always really enjoyed

36:03

doing that. Yeah, no, that's cool. And

36:05

did you uh, you know, because you guys recorded in Syracuse

36:07

with Steve Feldman and like, did you guys

36:10

like were there I guess more options

36:12

for you at that point, Like was there a lot of discussion on like

36:14

oh how and you know, like did you feel

36:17

I guess more of a weight on this

36:19

one, just because you know, clearly like second

36:21

full length sophomore slump. Like, you know, I'm

36:23

sure that that wasn't entering your headspace, but you

36:25

know, there is definitely different

36:27

expectations going into another

36:30

record as opposed to your first record. Yeah,

36:32

I I mean, you know, I've said this before

36:35

and a couple interviews, and again, this is something

36:37

that took me. I don't think I was

36:39

consciously aware of it, like when it

36:41

was happening, but like now when I look back, it

36:44

was definitely like every

36:46

record up into a point was like I guess

36:48

up in two Gamras was like for

36:50

me, it was like kind of an answer to criticisms,

36:53

you know, like and I like, we really

36:55

didn't want to be seen as like

36:58

like oh the little vegan kid, you

37:00

know, like we wanted we wanted to do something

37:02

like write a record that's like undeniable,

37:05

like that that that people that hated us for being

37:07

straight edge and people that hated us for being vegan

37:09

had to like listen and be

37:12

like, yeah, but this is pretty damn good, you

37:14

know, Like, yeah, these guys

37:16

suck. I hate what they say, but man,

37:18

we can't deny that this is good, you know,

37:21

And and that like moras for

37:23

me, that was like forefront

37:25

of my mind like I was like, we're going to write

37:28

like a record that like hardcore

37:30

kids are going to be undeniable,

37:32

like this is good, and like even

37:35

like metal dudes and like Neurosis kind of

37:37

people are going to be like, hey, this is pretty

37:39

damn good. These little kids are

37:41

wrote an awesome record, And that

37:44

was like, yeah, for me, it was

37:46

it was just an answer to like things I read in magazines

37:48

and like like I brought up earlier, like oh

37:51

the single note eat Chug blah blah

37:53

blah, and it's like, okay,

37:55

well we'll put some notes in this one then, you know, like

37:57

if you if you don't like the eat Jug stuff, okay,

37:59

we'll we'll throw a little bit of that in there.

38:01

But it's gonna be very notdy you

38:03

know, it's it's gonna it's

38:05

gonna show you know that we know how to play.

38:09

And that was Yeah,

38:11

that was really like the idea

38:13

behind it, Like it was, you

38:15

know, I didn't know the term, but it was very

38:18

progressive as far as metal went and hardcore

38:20

went at the time. Yeah,

38:23

for sure, it makes it makes sense because yeah,

38:25

you were you were going to

38:27

be like I was saying,

38:29

the you know, expectations can come

38:32

from you know, so many different things, whether it's

38:34

you know, the business side, whether it's you know, like you said, trying

38:36

to you know, silence critics, trying to get you know, certain

38:38

people who you respect to be like no, like we are actual

38:40

musicians or whatever. It's like, yeah, all that can all

38:43

kind of congealed together. Yeah,

38:45

and that's really what it was. Yeah, it was just like all the

38:47

you know, all the stuff that we had dealt with at that point,

38:49

and you know a lot of just negative

38:51

stuff. I mean, which is you know, really the

38:54

Earth crisis and its whole like you know,

38:56

Earth prices is a lot of negative energy.

38:58

It's a lot of rage. It's a out of like

39:01

hatred, you know, out you know, hatred at

39:03

the world in her hatred. Like it's

39:05

just negativity. And that's what a lot of people

39:07

really like don't like about it. Like the people

39:10

that hate it, you know, hate the band, like if

39:12

they really like look back on it and or

39:14

i mean really delve into why they don't like it. It's

39:17

negativity, you know, and it's it

39:19

was always meant to be like that, you know. It's

39:21

doesn't reflect who we are on a daily basis

39:23

walking around the streets. But yeah,

39:25

that's what the band was about. That's what a lot of metal and

39:27

hardcore bands are about. You know. Maybe we took

39:30

it a little bit darker, you know, which

39:32

was our goal truthfully, but you

39:34

know, like we have with with Gomeras, I

39:36

mean think that was like the pinnacle of like, Okay,

39:39

we're going to try to write like a vibe record

39:41

that like has some of the that

39:44

that brings out some of these like sonically

39:46

brings out some of the

39:49

negativity that we're trying to convey,

39:51

you know. Yeah, yeah,

39:54

answering and answering the question though,

39:57

Yeah, we did have options as far

39:59

as where we wanted to record. Um.

40:02

But you know, so this record was again

40:04

after the van crash and uh,

40:07

I think California take Over,

40:10

So we had already recorded it by the time we played

40:12

California Takeover. I'm

40:14

pretty sure either we had either

40:17

just about to. I know it was written because

40:19

some of those songs we played

40:22

at the show. But um,

40:25

yeah, so basically when we got into

40:27

the van crash, we

40:30

we used that time to like, Okay, we're

40:32

gonna try to figure out where we're going to record the

40:34

next record, you know what, Like let's

40:36

really like, this will be a strategy time while

40:38

Dennis is hurt, you know, And so we did

40:40

Path Resistance UM,

40:43

and really I think the big idea

40:45

behind Path Resistance was just to play,

40:48

just to play a little bit while Dennis was hurt. But

40:50

also we wanted to test out a couple of

40:52

studios. We were like, oh, let's go record this

40:54

somewhere. So we went to Normandy Sound

40:56

and Rhode Island and recorded that

40:59

record, and that's where we really wanted

41:01

to record UM to

41:03

go more season ends. But when

41:05

we went so when we went there for path UM,

41:08

we didn't really have the best experience there UM,

41:12

mostly because we were idiots and we were just being

41:14

dicks and the engineer was very professional

41:16

like he was, he was very very professional.

41:19

We were like fucking around with fireworks and just being

41:21

total idiots and he

41:23

kicked he kicked half the band out of the control

41:26

room because we were just yeah, we were obnoxious.

41:29

And uh. He was working

41:31

with like Donnie Wahlberg at night, like

41:33

he had Donnie Wahlberg had like a had

41:36

like a girl like that. He was working

41:38

with like a female singer that he

41:40

was working with, and so he was he had

41:42

nights and so we only had up until like six o'clock

41:45

every day, so we had just the entire evening

41:47

it to do nothing. And it was snowing

41:49

like crazy, so we were trapped in this little apartment

41:51

at the studio. So we just went nuts and we were like, yeah,

41:54

just banging on the walls and just acting like idiots. And

41:57

he came up and yelled us a bunch of times. Plus

42:00

so I don't know that we were welcome back there. But also,

42:02

um, it was just so expensive,

42:05

Like we were just like, I don't think we could really do

42:08

the record that we want to do here for this

42:10

amount of for the amount of money that we'll have to

42:12

spend, you know. And so we

42:14

um, yeah, we were. We we

42:16

went into Penguin Studios

42:19

in Syracuse to record uh

42:21

Misfits song for like a Misfits tribute

42:23

album. Yeah remember that. Yeah,

42:26

and we um, we

42:28

talked about it with him and he was like, guys,

42:30

like, let me do the record. You know, he really gave us like

42:32

the hard sell. He's like, come on, you know, I've been chugging

42:34

away locally forever, like you guys will

42:37

just have unlimited time. He's like,

42:39

you know, here's here's your butt, here's what's

42:41

your budget. And the funny

42:43

thing is like we didn't have a budget, like like

42:46

back then. It was just we would just tell Tony

42:48

this is what we'd like to do, and he would say

42:50

yes or no, sure, yeah,

42:52

right, grand go figure it out. It

42:55

was like, hey, this is gonna do okay, yeah,

42:57

so I think he came up with this. Steve

43:00

at the studio came up with this number. He was like, look

43:02

for I don't remember how much. It

43:04

was like twelve thou dollars. Maybe. He's

43:07

like, you guys can just record here until we decide

43:09

it's finished. He's like it can just be unlimited

43:11

time. And we're like yeah,

43:14

we're like wow, you know, we're like that

43:16

sounds pretty cool. And he was like he was

43:18

like yeah, and I'll build the studio for

43:21

like sixteen grand and you guys can just have four

43:24

or something, and like to us, that was just like what, like

43:26

that's unbelievable, you know, like we were just blown

43:28

away that we could put you know, eight hundred

43:30

bucks apiece in our pockets.

43:34

And so we were like okay, yeah

43:36

done man, and and

43:38

Tony agreed, and so we uh

43:41

yeah, I think we recorded for like a long

43:43

time, and it was it was like six weeks.

43:45

But it was laid back. It was it wasn't like,

43:48

um you know, it was local. So I mean we were going

43:50

home every night, which was awesome. Um

43:52

he he had the dude had like a

43:55

boat on a lake, like Steve Feldman. He had it. So

43:57

some days we'd be sitting in there and everybody'd be kind

43:59

of Friday, let's going on the boat. You know. We were just like

44:02

go ride the boat around for a little while and come

44:04

back, and it was just really chill. We

44:06

just had we just had the studio. It was like you

44:08

know what it it was like. It was like when you see the old

44:11

movies of how you know,

44:13

led Zeppelin recorded or bands like that. It

44:15

was just like you had a studio and

44:17

you worked when you were inspired, and

44:19

when you weren't, you didn't you know, and it

44:21

was like if something cool came out, awesome,

44:24

let's record that. Let's work on that, you know,

44:26

and if it if it wasn't happening that day,

44:29

no big deal. You know, let's just go

44:31

do something else, you know. Where

44:33

It's like, you know, not a lot of people ever

44:36

and I don't think ever again did we

44:38

do we ever have that luxury of just you

44:41

know, having that creative freedom and

44:43

time and not feeling pressured. And

44:45

so we did a lot of cool stuff on that record, and

44:48

because of that, like we were, you know, after

44:50

we recorded it, we were like, well, let's see if we can bang

44:53

on some pots and pants or something to make

44:55

some cool sounds. You know, We're like, just create

44:58

weird sounds and like add

45:00

these weird backup vocals, or let's add this thing

45:02

underneath, you know. And so we did a lot

45:04

of like really creative stuff on that

45:06

record, and by far, for me, like that

45:09

record was is my favorite

45:11

like that that we ever did, just because the

45:13

memories of it were so great and I think it was like

45:15

our creative height, like we were. That

45:18

was like I don't think I could ever write a record

45:20

like that again, Sure sure, yeah you

45:22

had you had the moment like it was just this perfect

45:24

confluence of events from you know,

45:26

time and place and structure

45:29

and you know, yeah, it's like that I

45:31

understand what you're talking about, where it's like all this stuff feels

45:33

like it comes together and you're like yeah,

45:36

yeah, and your motivations, you know, your your

45:38

your mind set in your motivation. I mean, there was

45:40

nothing like um,

45:43

you know, for lack of a better term, impure about

45:45

it. You know, it was just like that we

45:47

didn't care, like we weren't

45:49

trying to appease anybody, weren't trying to get

45:52

rich, We weren't trying, you know. It was just like, let's

45:54

just go do something super creative and awesome

45:57

and something that we're all really proud of, you

45:59

know. And that was it, like you know,

46:02

and then that record got

46:05

bigger, and then from there on out,

46:07

you know, then things start to get weird. You

46:10

think you could not you could not have tied me

46:12

up better, because that's why I was like, this is this

46:15

is the moment in which you know, you guys

46:17

were vaulted to you know, whatever,

46:19

you can call it a quote unquote mainstream level.

46:21

Of course, mainstream means you know, different

46:23

things to different people, but you know, ostensibly

46:26

this is when the weird offers started to come

46:28

to you guys from whatever, you

46:30

know, doing oz Fest and like you know, even though

46:32

that came technically before this, but um,

46:35

you know, like doing music videos and like all this sort

46:38

of stuff, like you know, I

46:40

guess for you, I mean I'm sure that there's not one particular

46:42

moment in which you felt like, wow,

46:44

this is really weird that this is happening

46:46

for us, um, but you know, maybe

46:48

there is like you know, one or two anecdotal moments in

46:50

your head where it was just like what the hell,

46:53

Like after this record comes out, like you know what

46:55

are removing signing to Roadrunner, like

46:58

you know what random things stick out your

47:00

head of being like this is bizarre that we

47:02

were even being asked to do this or whatever. Yeah,

47:04

well it was actually yeah, I mean the big one was os

47:07

Fest, because yeah, os Fest. I'm not sure

47:09

exactly the timeline, but it

47:11

was definitely like right before

47:13

Morris came out or after, like

47:15

it was very early on in the in

47:18

the like you know, the Go

47:20

Morris season ends era of the band and

47:24

yeah, but that was the thing we were so we

47:26

were getting the craziest

47:28

stuff at that time was just mainly the AUSI connection

47:31

because we started we got asked

47:33

to do oz Fest and we did it, and then

47:35

from there it was like this year

47:38

long uh

47:40

like conversations with Sharon Osborne

47:43

and she was calling my house and um,

47:46

you know, they were starting a new record label

47:48

and they wanted three bands

47:52

as their first like flagship bands, and

47:55

it was to be Us Neurosis

47:58

and what became Queens of the Own Age.

48:00

I don't think they were called Queens of stone Age at the time,

48:03

but they were. They were just starting that,

48:05

I think, and or

48:08

maybe they had done something. I don't know, but I think,

48:10

yeah, I think those were the three bands. If I'm not mistaken, I definitely

48:12

know Us in Rosis. I'm pretty sure Queens of stone

48:14

Age was the third. And so,

48:17

yeah, she was just like showing up places.

48:19

And this was before like anyone

48:21

knew what this woman looked like. You know, she wasn't

48:23

sharing Osborne from the Osborne.

48:26

Yeah, she was Ozzy's wife that you heard about,

48:28

but you never saw her, you know. So she's like, yeah,

48:31

they were like she would come and took

48:34

us out to dinner in New York. And

48:36

I mean, I'm living in like, you know, in an upstairs

48:38

apartment at my grandma's house, and I'm getting messages

48:40

from this person on my phone my answer and

48:43

like what the hell you know? And we were

48:45

getting offers from like ear

48:47

Ache Records was making us very very

48:50

generous offers at the time that we

48:53

were like Yeah, it's just things were

48:55

happening and we were starting to be like,

48:57

okay, well we're

49:00

at heart like who we are just

49:02

from birth or musicians,

49:04

like this is what we are, and like this

49:06

seems like we're getting the opportunity

49:09

to be that like forever, you

49:11

know, like this is you know. So

49:13

yeah, and it started that stuff starts, you

49:16

know, man, I mean everybody's seen them behind the music,

49:18

so you know it's like that stuff starts messing with your

49:20

head, you know, and like changing motivations

49:23

and um, that's

49:25

why everybody likes you know, band's first couple

49:27

of records, because that was like the pure times,

49:29

like that was before you had outside

49:32

influence directing the way that you thought.

49:34

Even if you think you're you're not there's always

49:36

something that's like pushing you a little

49:38

bit here, pushing you a little bit there. You know.

49:40

There's very few artists that can that

49:43

I think, can survive like any level of

49:45

progress and success and then still

49:47

maintain that original spark, you

49:49

know. And and yeah,

49:51

that was that was definitely starting to happen. Like

49:54

we you know, money was getting thrown around and because

49:56

you know, we were truthfully probably getting

49:58

to the point where we were. If that

50:00

didn't happen, we probably would have slowly

50:02

fizzled out. You know, we probably had another record

50:05

or so in us. But if

50:07

if you know, I just don't think we

50:10

could have continued to like, you know, come

50:12

home and

50:13

real life

50:16

starts to descend upon you, and it's just like,

50:18

well, the world's are colliding, you know, the dream,

50:21

the dream and the and the reality are

50:23

colliding at that point, you

50:25

know. But yeah, but it was very exciting. At

50:27

the same time. It was just like, man, so

50:30

so wait a minute, like we have all these avenues,

50:33

like there's we could go that way, we could

50:35

go that way, we could go that way, you

50:37

know. And at the same time we were going to Tony and

50:39

we were trying to um,

50:42

hey, look man, you know like these people

50:44

are talking to us. These people are talking to us

50:46

like we need we need

50:48

more money because we didn't we had no idea

50:51

business wise, like up until I

50:53

think that time. That's when

50:55

all of a sudden it was like, Okay, I think I

50:57

need to learn about like what's happening

51:00

because we didn't know how many records we sold. We

51:02

didn't know yeah,

51:04

never, never, I had no idea. I was just like it's

51:06

all I know is we played Connecticut last

51:08

night and there was six hundred people there, you know. But

51:11

I mean even that was naive as hell because we

51:13

would get handed like three fifty dollars

51:15

and the dude would fill our tank up with gas and buy a

51:17

snapple and we were like, dude

51:19

hooked us up, like yeah, and we

51:21

were like, you know, looking back on it now, I'm like, we'd

51:24

walk out of there with five grand from the you know, like

51:27

like you know, but like, yeah,

51:29

I mean maybe not back then because I mean, what was the door

51:32

like six blocks probably, but still you

51:34

know, yeah, but yeah,

51:37

So it was just like and that's

51:39

the funny thing too, when you know, going down and going

51:41

down to Tangent. But you know, when people back

51:43

then it was very big to complain about any

51:46

band making any money, if you charge too much for

51:48

your T shirts by blah blah, you know. Not

51:50

it's not so much to that these days, at least in

51:53

our scene. I think it exists still uncertain

51:56

scenes, but in ours, people don't complain

51:58

about that stuff too much anymore. But it but

52:01

the thing is, it's always so funny. It's like, well, wait a

52:03

minute, so I eirth Priasis got

52:05

paid a thousand bucks and as for

52:07

drawn six people in Connecticut, So

52:09

the promoter made a ship ton of money. And

52:12

that's fine. That local hardcore kid is

52:14

totally fine. He doesn't get ship at all. But

52:16

if we walked out of there with dollars,

52:19

they would have been dicks, rock stars blah blah blah.

52:21

You know, totally like the money, these be the

52:23

money's They're like, who should have go to the

52:26

dude that promoted the show or the band that's

52:28

like eating ship and you know, you

52:31

know, live sleeping on floors, you know, but

52:33

whatever, that's a conversation for a different

52:35

interview. No, no, totally no, but yeah,

52:38

your your point. I mean you mentioned

52:40

that. It just puts, you know, everything kind

52:42

of in context where it's just like these

52:44

are all these are all the things that are hitting

52:47

around in your head as the

52:49

stuff is all coming at you, and so yeah, yeah,

52:52

totally, yeah, it's all it is relevant

52:54

because yeah, at that time, that's what was happening,

52:56

and we were like, okay, so we're making

52:59

you know what over five dollars a night and

53:01

we're going to victory and we're telling him

53:04

the shows are packed. I mean in hinds looking

53:07

back on him now in hindsight, I'm like, I can't

53:09

believe that we were I mean a bad

53:11

night for us, and we would be literally bummed about

53:13

it. Like if we had like two fifty

53:16

people and like some you know c market

53:18

town. We were like, god, man, I think

53:21

we're slipping. You know. We start like, you

53:23

know, we started like getting depressed and stuff. But I

53:25

mean, you know, at the time, like we were playing the truck

53:27

in Philly and selling it out. We were playing like

53:30

it was it was and we we

53:33

appreciated it, but not you know, we

53:35

would be we would be like, oh cool, anyway

53:37

we were gonna eat, you know that kind of thing. We weren't

53:39

like, we weren't reveling and we weren't sitting down and be

53:41

like, dude, eight people just came to

53:43

see us in Philly, you know, like

53:45

there wasn't that. It was like, oh that's great,

53:48

and then we would move on, you know. But yeah,

53:51

so we would go to we were going to Tony and

53:54

and just being like, hey, man, like things are getting

53:56

to a point where we feel like we must

53:58

be doing something to weren't these kind

54:00

of offers and we like it if

54:02

you could, maybe we'd like to stay

54:05

with you. You helped us get to where we are, no doubt,

54:07

you know, and we'd we'd like if

54:09

you could come up, and he was just very no,

54:12

no, I'm not going to do it. Like he didn't budge

54:14

a little like not even you

54:17

know, he's Tony. Everybody by this point knows

54:20

stories of him. But well he was

54:22

just like yeah. We were like, dude, you know, if we could do anything,

54:25

like you know, let's let's let's

54:27

we want to work with you. And he was like no, yeah, let's

54:29

negotiate. Not not interested. Yeah,

54:32

there was no there was I don't remember, yeah,

54:35

even a little bit of back and forth. And then so we

54:37

got a lawyer, which is another Okay,

54:39

now you're fucking really screwed, you

54:42

know, like once you started going down these row yeah,

54:44

and then it was like and then somebody, and then the lawyer

54:47

is like, well, you know, guys, like

54:49

what you really need is like a manager,

54:52

you know, and you know, so it's like all these things

54:54

start happening and then you're like okay,

54:56

and then you're you're you're so far off base from

54:58

where you started, and that's that's when things

55:00

start going ugly for most bands, you know,

55:03

and and we were like,

55:05

okay, so we're gonna manager and we worked

55:08

with we started working with Scott Koenig, who

55:10

was like Rush Management, which is like you

55:12

know, Deaf Jam and all that kind of stuff.

55:15

And at the time they had like bio Hazard

55:17

when bio Hazard was at their peak, and you

55:19

know, Fear Factory and bands like that. Yeah,

55:22

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55:24

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and my son's Yeah,

56:49

thank you Sons. I mean, obviously that leads you to you

56:51

know, signing the road Runner and you know putting out breath the killers

56:53

and stuff. Um, you know the I

56:55

definitely remember the

56:57

uh, the you know ripple effect

56:59

it felt when you know, you guys had

57:01

left Victory and moved to road Runner because

57:03

you know, essensibly at that point, you

57:05

know, road Runner was by all definitions,

57:08

you know, a major label, like the most

57:10

major label that any like heavy band

57:12

could really be on with the exception of like you know whatever

57:14

hate p Read to Universal and that sort of stuff. But

57:17

um, you know, the like

57:20

as you guys, I guess, kind of made that move.

57:22

Did you, Um, did you feel

57:24

like it was a big deal. Was it one of those things where

57:26

it was just kind of the next logical step

57:29

that you guys could take based on all the craziness

57:31

that you were you know, that you

57:33

were getting involved with or was

57:35

it just kind of like okay, yeah, this is cool,

57:37

like it feels like a good partner. Yeah.

57:40

We were excited because, like we were huge

57:42

fans of like every band that

57:44

was on road Runner up unto that point, you

57:46

know, like I mean, and they had bands that

57:48

were in our in our world,

57:51

you know, like mad Ball had been on road Runner

57:53

and um, you know, just bands bands

57:55

that we liked, you know, We're sure like

57:58

you know, like Glass Jaw and stuff like that, like

58:00

the World Runner, it will in the Shelter. I mean,

58:02

it's like Ray had his little imprint for

58:04

a little while on there, and so it wasn't

58:06

like super far off course, but

58:08

but it was that it was that step in like that

58:10

professional direction that we that

58:13

we wanted to take At the time, you know

58:15

that it was just like okay, yeah, this is the

58:17

next logical step, you know, like we're we're

58:19

working with a guy that right

58:21

now we're you know, looking back

58:24

on it, I mean like it was just so bizarre

58:26

because, like I said, we didn't know. We

58:29

didn't know like anything. So we would

58:31

go to New York City. I remember playing a show in New York

58:33

and a guy from Caroline Distribution came

58:35

up and was like, man, your Firestorm album and

58:37

it's just like, we can't keep it, man, we can't keep

58:40

it in stock. It's just flying and

58:42

we're like, oh, that's awesome, like good news, you know.

58:44

And he's like yeah, I mean, uh,

58:46

what did he I can't remember the number he throughout,

58:49

but he was just at the time, he was just like

58:51

yeah, I mean I think we've moved like ten thousand or

58:53

something, you know, and it had been out, it had been out

58:55

for like not even a year or

58:57

six months or something, and we're like what, you

59:00

know, We're like, that is that a lot? You know, because we didn't

59:02

know, like, is that a lot of there is that? I mean it sounds

59:04

like a lot, but comparatively and

59:07

he was like, oh yeah, and he started telling us like,

59:09

you know, like this band, you know, they

59:11

haven't even moved ten thousand in two years or

59:13

something, you know, and it was a band, you know, somebody that we knew,

59:15

and we're like, oh my god, okay,

59:18

but but again we just kind of like chuck

59:20

that information off to the side, just kept moving,

59:22

like we we didn't like call Victory and be like, hey,

59:24

like how many did we sell? And like, you

59:27

know, and I'm not I don't think that

59:30

that we've been cheated by Victory at all, Like a lot

59:32

of people, you know, like he didn't pay

59:34

I mean, I'm sure that if we started digging

59:36

up things like yeah, there's probably this that For the

59:38

most part though, I think he's been pretty up

59:41

and up with us. I mean, we get royalty checks, we get

59:43

statements. They seemed legit every

59:45

quarter, you know. But but yeah,

59:47

it was just like there was definitely

59:50

like at that time, I wouldn't be surprised if at

59:52

that time a lot of that stuff went straight

59:55

in his pocket and didn't you

59:57

know what I mean, and didn't get counted as

1:00:00

he knew. It was like it's that same old story. It's like

1:00:02

managers and labels. I mean, they thrive

1:00:04

on naive young bands that don't know

1:00:07

how much money they deserve, you know. And

1:00:09

I think it was and I think it was the same. I

1:00:12

think it was the same story for him back then.

1:00:14

But yeah, so we wanted to, you know, we

1:00:17

were excited to like, Okay, we're gonna get up to this

1:00:19

level where this professional record

1:00:21

label who has a good track record,

1:00:23

and they pay people and they give out

1:00:26

advances for records, and you know,

1:00:29

we can spend this much on this one and we can spend

1:00:31

that much. Whereas with Victory, it was like, hey,

1:00:33

sir, are we allowed to spend eight thousand

1:00:35

dollars on this record? And he would say nowhere, yes,

1:00:38

And he yelled at us over Firestorm. I

1:00:40

remember, because we've had a nine we

1:00:42

had a nine dollar budget and I

1:00:44

think we spent eleven and he was

1:00:47

so crazy. He was like

1:00:49

he was so pissed. I remember, I remember,

1:00:52

and because I remember being like is that bad? Like that? We

1:00:54

are we really screwed? Like can we come up

1:00:56

with the two hundred dollars? Like we were? We

1:00:58

were really like concerned ab out it. Sure,

1:01:01

and obviously he made that money, you

1:01:03

know, tenfold over

1:01:05

within a month, you know. But

1:01:08

yeah, but yeah, but at that yeah, at that

1:01:10

time, you were just you know, like you truly

1:01:12

felt like children asking parents for

1:01:15

permission to totally everything

1:01:17

was everything was like asking for permission. You

1:01:19

know. We never we never got any sort of

1:01:21

like you know, any merch that we had,

1:01:23

like they made for us. We made like pennies on

1:01:26

it. You know. It was like I just remember coming

1:01:28

back from tours and and being like, well,

1:01:30

we got you know, three thousand dollars here,

1:01:32

Um, we only earned five hundred

1:01:35

of it, you know. Yeah, you

1:01:37

know we always had to pay them, you know, they're

1:01:39

cut of it and whatnot. And yeah,

1:01:41

it was you know, it was just it

1:01:44

was basically just like yeah, for yourself

1:01:46

and and to us, we were like, hey, man, like we're

1:01:49

acknowledging that you have

1:01:52

helped make us, but you need to also acknowledge

1:01:54

that we helped make you. And there wasn't that the reciprocation

1:01:57

was you know, it wasn't. It

1:01:59

wasn't a relationship like that perspective that the

1:02:01

given take. And yeah, there wasn't a yeah, it

1:02:03

was it was like a stone faced like no,

1:02:06

I did this myself. You guys can piss off,

1:02:10

you know. Yeah. Yeah, So we were like, okay,

1:02:12

we're gonna piss off and so we so, well

1:02:14

that was and so the live record that we did for

1:02:16

him, that was that was a

1:02:18

contractual obligation. We're like, we'll give you

1:02:20

a live record and

1:02:23

and we're going to move on. And he was like that's cool.

1:02:25

Yeah, so we went to Roadrunner and

1:02:28

that was bad. I'd say

1:02:30

overall, sure, well, I think

1:02:32

that, I mean the biggest thread that I want to pull on because

1:02:34

I know that's been um, you know, it's kind

1:02:36

of been dissected in a bunch of different directions,

1:02:38

but like, you know, clearly the biggest

1:02:41

deficit that they had was the

1:02:43

understanding in my opinion, of

1:02:47

like how to how to market you guys, because like

1:02:49

clearly you walking into

1:02:51

Roadrunner, people knew what they were

1:02:53

getting, Like you know, you guys were clearly

1:02:56

as far and maybe not even sonically, but just like

1:02:58

you know, the the eddic, the

1:03:01

mission statement of the band, like it's all pretty clear

1:03:03

at this point. And so I you

1:03:05

know, operating from

1:03:07

that level of knowledge, but then

1:03:09

to not understand where to I

1:03:12

guess kind of take you guys, Like did you feel like

1:03:14

that was kind of the deficit or was

1:03:16

it you know, just kind of like you know, a litany

1:03:18

of reasons that you felt like it wasn't successful. I

1:03:21

think it really was like one major thing

1:03:23

and it was like, um, and I

1:03:25

don't you know, looking back on it, I'm not sure.

1:03:28

You know, this is where a manager, you know, big

1:03:31

quote fingers managers come into play and everything.

1:03:33

I don't know what was not being conveyed

1:03:36

like clearly through the channels,

1:03:38

you know, because we had a manager at that time, which

1:03:41

we never had before. We were just used to

1:03:43

dealing directly with everybody, and so

1:03:47

um, I just remember like we

1:03:49

went in there with a definite like guard

1:03:52

up, like, Okay, we know

1:03:54

what we're doing. You guys are you guys are like the metal

1:03:56

idiots that are gonna try to make us look stupid. So

1:03:59

we're going to have we're gonna bring in our own art.

1:04:01

Guy, we're not going to use your in house dudes, which

1:04:04

they were offended by, like big time, like

1:04:06

when they when there was a big problem. I remember when

1:04:08

we were doing the layout and we had

1:04:10

like friends doing it who oddly

1:04:13

enough they hired later, right, so

1:04:16

they and and same way like T shirts, like our

1:04:18

friend Guave, like you would do our

1:04:20

T shirt designs And they were like complain

1:04:23

about him left and right, but then he ended up working front

1:04:25

for like ten years or something. But anyway,

1:04:27

they they yeah, there was just

1:04:30

this everything that we were pushing a

1:04:32

little bit on them, like no, no, we

1:04:34

were not gonna know, we're not going to do that. No

1:04:36

we're not going to do that. Like everything that they suggested,

1:04:38

we were pushing back a lot and

1:04:40

um, but I think the main issue

1:04:43

was like they expected us, they

1:04:45

wanted us to do something sonically

1:04:48

that like we weren't really ready to do.

1:04:51

Like they wanted to change like not

1:04:53

not a percent, but they were like,

1:04:56

you know, we got to work on these vocals, like we want to

1:04:58

get the vocals more audible. We want to at

1:05:00

the vote, you know, like like big label

1:05:02

stuff, Like they wanted to come to the studio, they wanted

1:05:04

to hear Daily's that kind

1:05:06

of thing, and we were like, uh,

1:05:09

you know, like this this feels weird, and like

1:05:11

you know, the engineer Andy Sneep

1:05:13

at the time was like very much on

1:05:15

our side, and he was like do you want me to lock these dudes out?

1:05:17

I mean I was locked him out of the studio and yeah,

1:05:20

yeah, and we were like, yeah, we totally do lock

1:05:22

him out. We just we want to create our own record. And

1:05:24

we were going through like a lot of personal

1:05:27

things at that time, Like we had, uh,

1:05:29

Ian, Eric and I had all gotten some legal

1:05:31

trouble and it was like serious

1:05:34

legal trouble and we were like

1:05:36

like lawyers could have got put away in jail sort of

1:05:38

scenario, like we could have went to jail,

1:05:40

yeah for sure, and uh and

1:05:42

so we um, there was a

1:05:44

lot of that. Like so I don't know,

1:05:46

I think our heads just weren't really in

1:05:50

that record, you know, like we

1:05:52

were we were doing it, but at

1:05:54

the same time, we were just like there was all this

1:05:56

stuff happening. Man. It was just like these guys

1:05:58

were coming to the studio and pressuring

1:06:01

us to do this, but we had this personal issue,

1:06:03

like our guitar player at the time was we

1:06:05

were we were, you know, one

1:06:08

tiny step away from just pushing him off a ledge

1:06:10

and kicking him out of the band, which ended up

1:06:12

happening right when we finished recording it. Um.

1:06:15

Yeah, it was just like a lot of weird stuff was happening,

1:06:18

and but I think overall. Yeah,

1:06:20

it boiled down to just like that, we weren't really willing

1:06:23

to play ball with them like they

1:06:25

I think they pretty much shelved the record before

1:06:27

it even came out, like they

1:06:30

they heard it, because I mean they got they got

1:06:32

the final product, and they're like, yeah, the vocals,

1:06:34

man, like we just we got to get these a

1:06:37

little more audible, like we want to be able to hear

1:06:39

every word. And we're like, well, you

1:06:41

know, that's just not really what we do. I mean, you guys put

1:06:43

out fucking d A side and stuff, you know, like

1:06:45

that's the problem. But I mean, but what we didn't

1:06:47

know was like two months

1:06:50

later they were nickelback, you

1:06:52

know, like World Runner, So I mean they were

1:06:54

very much like trying to go

1:06:56

away from the extreme metal thing. So

1:06:59

when we saw end Up, we were like ship obituary,

1:07:02

you know, like we got, yeah, we we got this.

1:07:04

We're in We're in this, we were in this world, like they're

1:07:06

not going to be harsh with us. So then when

1:07:08

they were pulling this like major label like

1:07:11

yeah, man, you know, can you put a little melody in the

1:07:13

scream and stuff like that, we were like what

1:07:16

you know, like do you tell obituary that like

1:07:18

I don't understand, like why are why

1:07:20

are we getting this treatment? And then sure

1:07:22

enough, like it was I mean, it was months

1:07:25

after I think Breed the Killers came out that

1:07:27

they I think they were bought by Sony

1:07:30

and then it was like their big band was Nickelback

1:07:32

and and you know, and we'll

1:07:34

Slip Not you know, but they were

1:07:37

they're an extreme band. But like I

1:07:39

remember, we were on tour and

1:07:42

the bass player, the disease based player for

1:07:44

Slip Not Now, he came to see us and

1:07:46

he was like, man, we're label mates, and I'm like, oh cool,

1:07:48

And he was explaining to us his band. He

1:07:50

was like, oh, we dress up in these outfits

1:07:52

and we wrestle on stage and where and you know,

1:07:54

one guy wears a clown mask. And to hear it,

1:07:57

You're like, that's the most ridiculous shit I ever heard

1:07:59

like that, And then and

1:08:01

Ian and I laughed about it forever. We're

1:08:03

like, dude, that band just sounds like it's the silliest

1:08:05

thing ever. And then I remember they sent me

1:08:09

are A and our guy sent me the record and

1:08:11

I played it and I was like, oh, dude, this is gonna

1:08:13

be gigantic like this, you

1:08:16

know, whether or not you like it or not. You know, like

1:08:18

you just know like when you hear something like this

1:08:20

is gonna be gigantic, you know. But they

1:08:22

were they were certainly going more towards

1:08:25

a mainstream push.

1:08:27

You know, they saw the writing on the wall, like Osfest

1:08:30

was getting big and all these things, you know,

1:08:32

the corn had started getting big and all that

1:08:34

kind of stuff. So they were they definitely

1:08:36

were like, Okay, guys, there's

1:08:38

potential for you to be on the radio. Let's make

1:08:40

that happen, you know, and you didn't

1:08:42

fit. You frankly didn't fit the

1:08:45

mold of where the future of the label was going.

1:08:47

Yeah yeah, and well we we just they

1:08:50

I think they thought like they

1:08:53

you know, are a and our guys. Looking back

1:08:55

on he said it, he did bring it

1:08:57

up to us, like he was like, well, you

1:08:59

know, they you know, what would be nice is

1:09:01

if we had a little bit of push in that direction

1:09:04

for this record and then the next record even a little

1:09:06

bit more. You know. He was basically like, they

1:09:08

had like a plan, but

1:09:11

we just we just so shut it down

1:09:13

and and not not I don't regret,

1:09:16

but like we we just were so like, no,

1:09:18

we're not even coming to the studio, We're not playing

1:09:20

you anything, like this is ridiculous fun off,

1:09:23

you know. And so yeah, they

1:09:25

were like, yeah, dudes aren't playing ball. Let's

1:09:27

just let's just scrap it. But I

1:09:29

mean all the bands got dropped, like you know, Mad Ball

1:09:31

got dropped, Glass Jaw got dropped, We got dropped,

1:09:34

v O D Got dropped, like all of all that

1:09:36

stuff was immediately scrapped

1:09:39

at the same time, you know, to make

1:09:41

room for the nickel backs and all that stuff. Totally

1:09:43

totally, and so we we basically

1:09:45

I think we signed at a bad time.

1:09:48

Like I think if it was like three years prior,

1:09:50

when they still were the label that pushed

1:09:53

Obituary and bands like that, we would

1:09:55

have been fine. But yeah, a

1:09:57

couple of a couple of years earlier, it could have been like,

1:09:59

you know, if the more season ends came out

1:10:01

on Roadrunner. Um, you know, of

1:10:04

course there's the revolving doors moment or sliding

1:10:06

doors moment where you're like, yeah, you can't you can't even

1:10:08

think about that, but like yeah, that I mean could have

1:10:10

been more ripe for you guys to be able to

1:10:12

carve out the lane at the label to be like,

1:10:15

oh, yes, like what they do can

1:10:17

do well. But you know, at that time

1:10:19

they were just looking on like, well, yeah, this is not

1:10:21

you know, you're not fitting the mold or whatever. Yeah,

1:10:24

well we learned, and we learned a lot too, because you

1:10:26

know, like for the for as much, for

1:10:28

as much as we didn't like Victory for

1:10:30

certain reasons, you know, we realized

1:10:32

like he never ever tried

1:10:35

to put input on creativity. Ever. He

1:10:38

never tried to like take creative control

1:10:40

over anything. He never pushed a direction.

1:10:43

He never you know, scoffed

1:10:45

at artwork. He never It was it was all

1:10:48

freedom on our part to do what we wanted to do,

1:10:51

you know. And and that when a little bit

1:10:53

unappreciated, you know, because we didn't know

1:10:55

anything else, you know. And so then when we went somewhere

1:10:57

else and these people were trying to like, yeah

1:11:00

everything, you know, and yeah, and stupid

1:11:02

ship was happening, like, um,

1:11:05

they they're they're merch company.

1:11:07

You know. We had we had to sign a certain

1:11:09

amount of designs or whatever over to Blue

1:11:11

Grape was the merch company at the time, and

1:11:14

they made like wool hats, you know, and we called

1:11:16

them were like hey man, you know we don't

1:11:18

make yeah, yeah, like

1:11:20

you gotta get rid of those. And they're like, well, okay, we won't

1:11:23

make them again, and you know, I don't They're probably

1:11:25

still sitting in the goddamn warehouse anywhere because I

1:11:27

don't know who buys a wool Earth Prisis hat.

1:11:29

And then then they also made like lighters

1:11:31

and ship you know, and it was like fucking

1:11:34

lighters, you know, like it's just yeah,

1:11:37

you know, you've got to realize like that we're

1:11:40

not that kind of band, like nobody's buying lighters,

1:11:42

you know. But yeah, that those

1:11:45

yeah, those are two just absolutely

1:11:47

epic examples of just yeah, like

1:11:49

completely missing the mark. Yeah you

1:11:52

just do. Yeah, you don't even know who you're working with,

1:11:54

right, like they're just another name and let's

1:11:56

put let's slap this fucking logo on whatever

1:11:59

we can and sell it, you know, and

1:12:01

and yeah, that that kind of thinking it did

1:12:03

make us appreciate victory. You know. We were like,

1:12:05

oh man, yeah, grass

1:12:07

is always greener on the other side. And then you get over and you're

1:12:09

like, oh, but it was pretty cool back then too.

1:12:11

But and you you would never ever ever know

1:12:14

unless you actually had the experience like you can

1:12:16

hear it totally absolutely

1:12:19

um and which leads us obviously to Slither,

1:12:21

which is like, you know, clearly your most divisive

1:12:23

record, and so many people, um,

1:12:25

you know, I'm sure at the time as well, looked at

1:12:27

it just like what the hell is happening? Like I can't

1:12:29

even believe this? Um, you know,

1:12:32

the like as you guys

1:12:34

were, you know, going back to Victory and and

1:12:36

you know, doing this record that clearly, like you

1:12:38

know, was a line in the sand where it was like, okay,

1:12:41

like there is still earth crisis in this

1:12:43

record, because I mean, you know whatever, I listened

1:12:45

to it, you know, last week, and there

1:12:47

are like I remember listening to it when

1:12:49

it came out, and I wasn't I wasn't bummed

1:12:51

at it, but I definitely was like this is a

1:12:53

twist, Like I didn't I didn't know

1:12:55

that this was going to go this direction. And also it

1:12:58

was you know, just in this is a nerd

1:13:00

thing, but like this is your longest LP

1:13:03

two, like you know, like close to forty five

1:13:05

minutes from what I tracked as

1:13:08

UM. But anyways, heading into it

1:13:10

was it one of those things where you you, I mean,

1:13:12

clearly you guys definitively were like, Okay,

1:13:15

this this is the time where we obviously

1:13:17

need to stretch our wings even further than

1:13:19

we have, um, and we need to kind

1:13:21

of make a not make a a

1:13:24

play for being a band that we're not, because

1:13:26

clearly you guys were still doing everything

1:13:28

that you were doing philosophically, um,

1:13:30

but yeah, you just needed to be I

1:13:33

guess different sonically. Yeah.

1:13:35

I think that. I think that exactly what you said

1:13:38

was the reaction that we wanted, you know, we

1:13:40

want we wanted every like we

1:13:42

got to a point where we felt like and

1:13:45

I feel I actually personally feel like right

1:13:47

now still like you get to a point where

1:13:49

you're like, Okay, I mean, how many

1:13:51

records of this kind of music can you do?

1:13:54

You know what I mean? Like how many? How

1:13:56

many? How many metallic hardcore

1:13:59

records? How many riffs are they're like

1:14:01

that are unique, that are

1:14:03

still inspiring

1:14:05

that you're still you know,

1:14:08

bring emotion about in you, like when you play

1:14:10

it before it gets stale, you know. And

1:14:13

I think we were sitting around like talking

1:14:15

about that, and we were talking about the

1:14:17

direction that road Runner want us to go. We're

1:14:20

like, what, like, what if we did that like

1:14:22

what if what if we actually just full

1:14:24

fledged just like dove into that and

1:14:27

wrote a record like that, tried to challenge ourselves

1:14:29

to write something like outside

1:14:31

our comfort zone, you know, and

1:14:35

and just do that because like

1:14:37

worst case scenario, everyone's gonna all

1:14:39

of a sudden pop their heads up and be like what the

1:14:41

hell you hear about? Like if, if

1:14:43

anything, it'll just rejuvenate a little buzz

1:14:45

about the band was the thinking, I think,

1:14:47

like it'll just all of a sudden be like, dude,

1:14:50

did you guys hear what Earth crisis did? And to

1:14:52

us like we had we had grown up hearing so

1:14:54

many bands did that. You know, there were so

1:14:56

many bands, like you know, you can you can count through

1:14:58

all the class ask New York hardcore

1:15:00

bands where at some point, you know, or

1:15:03

not even not even maybe their bands, but

1:15:05

the bands they did after, you

1:15:07

know, they where they did like some sort of quote

1:15:09

unquote sellout album, you know. And

1:15:11

so we're like, you know, what's screw it, man, Like we've

1:15:13

done so many LPs and EPs and

1:15:15

tours and we've been around for so long, like times,

1:15:18

shake it up a little bit. Let's just do something that's

1:15:21

gonna like maybe make some people

1:15:23

pissed, you know, but we

1:15:25

just don't care. Let's just do it in a world

1:15:27

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So that was really the thinking behind

1:16:42

it. It was just like, Okay, let's

1:16:44

just count ourselves to do something different, you

1:16:46

know, and like what do you have to lose? We're

1:16:48

either going to break up right now or try this, Like let's

1:16:50

just do it. You so,

1:16:53

yeah, yeah, I mean it, And

1:16:55

like with perspective and time, it clearly

1:16:58

makes sense where it's like, yes, like you are

1:17:00

you literally can just repeat the same formula over

1:17:02

and over and over and over. But um, you

1:17:04

know, like with eventually it's either diminishing

1:17:07

returns, especially if you are of

1:17:10

the mindset where you're trying to make the band

1:17:12

your central focus and thing. You know, you're trying

1:17:14

to make a living off of it. Um yeah yeah,

1:17:17

but yeah, but you you need to be able to have

1:17:19

the space to take a big enough swing to be like, well,

1:17:21

this is either gonna knock us into that next

1:17:23

ballpark or we're just gonna you know, play

1:17:26

in the minor leagues. And that's fine. I mean, part

1:17:28

of the metaphor because I don't know, I think about

1:17:30

baseball. But no, it's

1:17:32

true though, it's it's totally true. That's exactly

1:17:34

the way that we that we thought about it. You know. It

1:17:36

was just it wasn't so much like,

1:17:39

oh dude, that we're gonna get rich, you know, there was

1:17:41

none of that like like we're going

1:17:43

to get so rich off this record. It was seriously

1:17:45

just like, let's just shake it up. Let's like shake

1:17:47

it up all the way around. Let's do the exact opposite

1:17:50

of what like all

1:17:52

the kids that like our band wanted us to do,

1:17:55

you know. And it was and there was there

1:17:57

was a negative aspect to too, because again

1:18:00

it is earth crisis and that's what we thrive on.

1:18:02

But there was, yeah,

1:18:04

there was, you know, we were we were

1:18:06

frustrated with hardcore

1:18:09

too. I mean, like, you know, the hardcore

1:18:11

scene is fickle and

1:18:13

moves quickly and is critical,

1:18:16

you know, and it's I

1:18:19

mean, I think when you're a kid and you're in it, you're

1:18:21

not in a band or something, it's just a fun

1:18:23

time with your friends and you're you know, but yeah,

1:18:25

to being a band, and I think to being a

1:18:27

band that got popular

1:18:30

in the hardcore you know, um,

1:18:33

yeah, it's tough. You know, because it's like you're

1:18:35

cool for it's all about little

1:18:38

niches. It's not it's not so much about music,

1:18:41

it's just about like, what are the cool

1:18:43

kids in that town like right now?

1:18:45

Don't make anything popular? You

1:18:47

know, if if every if every kid

1:18:50

like hardcore kid, if the cool kid in that scene

1:18:52

decides they like band A right now,

1:18:55

everyone in that town likes band Aid, you

1:18:57

know. And you know, that was part of the thing with Earth

1:18:59

Prices, And obviously we had something that struck

1:19:01

a chord with everybody, but it struck a chord

1:19:03

with just enough kids in every town and

1:19:06

then it spread, you know. But then when that when

1:19:08

those kids moved on, and when those kids decided

1:19:10

they didn't like this crisis anymore or whatever, Yeah,

1:19:13

then everybody goes with them onto the next thing. And it

1:19:15

was it was frustrating for for us to

1:19:17

see and we knew what was happening because we had seen it

1:19:19

happen to other bands. I mean, we saw we

1:19:21

went out with Shelter, and we saw

1:19:24

us doing that to them. You know,

1:19:26

we saw you know, like when we were

1:19:28

young kids like we were, we would

1:19:30

go see Shelter like in like

1:19:33

play Syracuse and they would pack the place out, and

1:19:35

they were the Kings, you know. And

1:19:37

and then we went on to our shelter and we

1:19:39

were like wait a second, like we're having

1:19:42

yeah, we're having way better shows than shelter,

1:19:44

and half the club's leaving and you

1:19:47

know, and we weren't stupid,

1:19:49

though, and we knew someday that's going to happen

1:19:52

to us, Like someday, and it did,

1:19:54

you know, like I mentioned before, like Converge and stuff

1:19:56

we saw. I mean, we we realized that we played

1:19:58

shows with Converge, I remember, and we were like, well,

1:20:01

yeah, it's our time, it's happening. You

1:20:04

know. These guys are the new the new dudes

1:20:06

coming up and they're crushing us every night, you know. Yeah,

1:20:08

and so we just got to the point, yeah,

1:20:10

where Slither was like, all right, let's just give

1:20:13

everybody the middle finger and just do this record and

1:20:15

just see what happens and who cares consequences

1:20:17

are not Yeah, let's yeah, lean

1:20:20

into this. But I mean, I think it's like, to

1:20:23

me, the you know, divisiveness is obviously

1:20:25

solely on the music. It's not like you

1:20:27

guys changed your message

1:20:30

or you guys changed just people and it's

1:20:32

like you know, and I think that's why. You know, of course

1:20:34

you can play the revisionist history and people

1:20:36

you know, like whatever, if

1:20:38

you took a pull of a hundred people, you know,

1:20:41

back in two thousand, two thousand one, if

1:20:43

they like Slither, you know, majority of

1:20:45

them would be like, oh, it's a trash record. But

1:20:47

then you know, now there's a lot of people who

1:20:49

are like, hey, you know, what's not too

1:20:51

bad? You know, like yeah, and

1:20:54

you definitely get those. There's definitely

1:20:56

those, uh. I mean, I call him like the Double

1:20:58

Down kids, you know, like they want to they

1:21:00

want to be like the ones that are just like, no, man, it's the best

1:21:03

record they ever put out, just because everybody else

1:21:05

says it's not like I'm in the band and

1:21:07

I can I can be honest about it.

1:21:09

You know. It's like it's like the thing I always

1:21:11

used to describe it as I say, I think it's a great record.

1:21:13

It just isn't a great Earth Crisis record. You

1:21:16

know, it's a different it's a different band.

1:21:18

You know, It's it's there,

1:21:20

like you said, there's certainly elements in there,

1:21:23

you know, but but it would it more

1:21:25

sounds like a couple of guys from

1:21:27

Earth Crisis started a different band, you know.

1:21:30

And but but that was the idea. It wasn't

1:21:32

like we didn't know that that was happening.

1:21:35

I mean, we were very obviously very aware when we

1:21:37

were writing this, like Okay, Carl's

1:21:39

gonna be busting out some singing here, like

1:21:42

and that took a lot of work, like a lot of work to

1:21:44

get him to like feel confident enough

1:21:46

to do that. And I remember arguing

1:21:49

a lot with him about it because we would we

1:21:51

would sound check the songs and

1:21:54

we would practice him and obviously he felt good about

1:21:56

doing it in front of us, and

1:21:58

then we would sound check them and he

1:22:00

wouldn't do it. He would like scream through the singing

1:22:02

parts like a sound check and we're like, dude, what are you doing? You

1:22:05

know, and he would be like what do you

1:22:07

mean. He would try to like trick us like I did

1:22:09

I sang it? Yeah,

1:22:13

yeah. And so we were pushing him

1:22:15

out of his comfort zone to a lot

1:22:18

like he you know, that's not him, Like he

1:22:20

doesn't want to do that. And I mean, now,

1:22:22

the thing is about Karl now is he has like

1:22:25

he has now doubt like what we wanted

1:22:28

him to have then like down pat

1:22:30

like as far as vocally like he could. We

1:22:33

didn't necessarily want it so clean. We

1:22:35

just wanted some melody in his scream,

1:22:37

but he we couldn't really do it the way that we

1:22:40

wanted, so we just we just were like, all right, just do

1:22:42

the clean thing. But now

1:22:44

he can really like keep

1:22:47

the scream voice but add pitch to

1:22:49

it, which is like it's great if

1:22:51

if all we could go back and do it now, you know.

1:22:55

So yeah, you're like, hey man, you're a different headspace. We

1:22:57

can re record Slither and we'll probably knocking

1:22:59

out of the park this yeah, yeah, these

1:23:02

yeah, this, yeah, these days we might get yeah,

1:23:04

maybe we'll get rich. Yeah exactly.

1:23:07

But the funny thing about that record is

1:23:11

so you know, it's it was kind

1:23:13

of working like so, I mean, hardcore kids

1:23:15

were piste. There was a handful that we're just like die

1:23:18

hard Earth Prices fans that were like,

1:23:20

no, I love it, I don't care, I love it anyway, even

1:23:22

though I don't think they did. But they tricked

1:23:24

themselves or made themselves like it, and that's cool.

1:23:27

But it was like, you know, as far

1:23:29

as victory, because we went we went back to

1:23:31

victory. We kind of skipped that point, but yuh

1:23:35

so we uh they

1:23:37

were I mean, they were like, dude, this thing

1:23:39

is getting picked up in daily rotation. I'm like,

1:23:42

just like daytime radio, you

1:23:44

know. And it was like you know, and they were just constant

1:23:47

updates, like it's like, you know,

1:23:49

more stations this station added, at, this station

1:23:51

added, this station added it. And we're like, oh my god,

1:23:54

like wow, like so

1:23:56

what's that mean? And they're like, well, we want

1:23:58

you to do these like you know, these

1:24:01

like summer radio festivals, you

1:24:03

know, and we're like nah, and

1:24:05

they were like what do you mean, though, what do you mean? They

1:24:08

were like I remember them calling us over

1:24:10

and over again and be like what do you mean, what do you mean.

1:24:12

We're like, no, we're not going to do it, and

1:24:14

they were just like why.

1:24:16

And it was honestly just because we were burned out,

1:24:19

you know, and they were like they were

1:24:21

because they wanted us to like drive to like Alabama

1:24:24

to play this like radio fest which was huge.

1:24:26

It was you know, it would have been like twenty people,

1:24:28

you know, mainstream like k Rock local

1:24:31

k Rock station radio fests, you know, and

1:24:34

but they were like you got to drive down to Alabama.

1:24:36

We're like, no, fly if you want us to do it, fly us

1:24:38

down to Alabama, will play it. And they

1:24:40

were like, no, that's not happening. We're

1:24:42

like, well then we're not doing it, you know, like

1:24:45

we had we had we had already been up up

1:24:47

the mountain. Like by this point we knew,

1:24:49

no, we've seen you can pay for

1:24:51

people to go do that stuff like

1:24:53

this isn't this is an earth crisis more season

1:24:56

ends era. We realized now that we

1:24:58

got we got flown out to California takeover.

1:25:01

All right, buddy, we know the deal. Yeah we

1:25:03

learned, Yeah we learned now and so but

1:25:05

they were just like firm like no. But

1:25:08

but I remember it was like this weird backlash because

1:25:10

we would tour off of it, you know, and we would play like

1:25:12

I remember Salt Lake City in particular, because

1:25:15

we were that was one of the biggest markets

1:25:18

where we were getting played like a lot, and

1:25:20

so we would go and there was this like fifty

1:25:23

fifty crowd. There was like it

1:25:25

was a good size show, probably three fifty

1:25:28

four hundred people there, but it was like,

1:25:30

um, we played outside I remember

1:25:33

somewhere some venue, but like outside and

1:25:35

uh, there was like fifty percent

1:25:37

of these just like radio kids, you know, just kids.

1:25:41

They were like, oh yeah, I heard that song of the radio It's awesome.

1:25:43

I'm gonna go check this band out. And then they

1:25:45

were like the hardcore kids and

1:25:47

it was like an, it's salt Lake at the time

1:25:49

too, so it's brutal. Kids are just violent and whatever,

1:25:52

and so yeah it was it was just fighting

1:25:54

and like the kids were mad at us, like yelling

1:25:57

stuff at us, you know, like during this, I mean,

1:25:59

the show was over all cool. If you saw a video of it,

1:26:01

you probably wouldn't notice any of this, but like we

1:26:03

felt it, you know, and we're like, oh, man, like yeah,

1:26:06

this is like world's colliding here. It's like radio

1:26:08

kids and like hardcore kids and hate

1:26:10

those radio kids, you know, like

1:26:13

all being forced to smash together

1:26:15

and try to enjoy this band, you know, right

1:26:18

right yeah, Well, and I

1:26:20

mean the fact that you because

1:26:22

I mean I I I personally obviously

1:26:24

would not have insight into like

1:26:27

you being able to see the tangible

1:26:29

effects of like those songs

1:26:31

that didn't fit into you know, the earth

1:26:33

crisis can and be able to bring new

1:26:35

people over and then ultimately

1:26:38

have these people walking in like because

1:26:41

you know, and I don't need to tell you this, but

1:26:43

I just find it so funny where it's like those are the kids

1:26:45

where it's just like, dude, if the Earth crisis,

1:26:47

Slither is their gateway band, Just think

1:26:49

of how their life would

1:26:51

have gone if they went to that hardcore

1:26:54

show and like you know they felt welcome in

1:26:56

some capacity. Not saying that didn't happen at all,

1:26:58

that's true. Yeah, No, it's

1:27:00

absolutely And that was you know, and like

1:27:03

not to that was absolutely part

1:27:05

of our thing too. I mean, we hadn't given up

1:27:07

on the mission by that point, by any stretch of the

1:27:09

imagination, you know, I mean we

1:27:11

we hadn't. We hadn't decided, oh we're

1:27:13

gonna stop pushing veganism or a

1:27:15

drug feel lifestyle like that, you know, environmental

1:27:19

Yeah, yeah, I mean you know, like you

1:27:21

just scan the lyrics on there and all those

1:27:23

topics are are touched on, every

1:27:25

single one of them. But like, yeah,

1:27:28

I mean that was definitely part of it. We were like,

1:27:30

you know what, like I think we've done like what

1:27:32

we can do in this world. Let's

1:27:34

try to like go out into this like os

1:27:37

Fest crowd and try

1:27:39

to tell some of these people about veganism,

1:27:42

you know, because you know, at that point,

1:27:44

like you clearly your message has filtered

1:27:47

through the hardcore scene, like you you

1:27:49

would be preaching to the you know, the choir

1:27:51

and the converted at that point. So it's like just

1:27:54

you know, blowing a fifteen year old kid's mind about

1:27:56

veganism that just like you know, listen to you

1:27:58

guys and you know whatever other radio band.

1:28:00

It's like, dude, that is so valuable. Yeah,

1:28:02

totally yeah. And I mean and we were never

1:28:05

you know, like we were never

1:28:07

that band that didn't

1:28:09

wear our convictions on our sleeves.

1:28:11

Like when we played the os Fest crowd, we said the

1:28:13

same stuff as if we played you know, you

1:28:16

know, a hardcore show. Like it was always

1:28:19

the same, and we knew obviously somebody's

1:28:21

gonna throw something, somebody's gonna heckle us, somebody's

1:28:23

gonna say something, you know, not a popular

1:28:25

thing to say at a at an oz

1:28:27

Fest show. You know. It's

1:28:29

like we know that, you know, and so

1:28:32

yeah, I mean these are all conversations that we had,

1:28:34

like while we were writing Slither and stuff, like

1:28:36

look, I mean, yeah, this,

1:28:38

this, this and that, and

1:28:41

we've kind of done what we can do in this world. Let's

1:28:43

try to let's try to branch out a little bit.

1:28:45

And it was the truth of it was, like we

1:28:48

talked about this still amongst the band

1:28:51

now, because people in the band have different ideas

1:28:53

on slither Um.

1:28:55

You know, as far as I think if they're proud of it, or

1:28:57

if they're not proud of it or whatever, I think every

1:29:00

was proud of it. I don't. I don't think anyone's not proud

1:29:02

of it. Um proud of it for different

1:29:04

reasons. I suppose, you know, Um,

1:29:07

Like I'm proud of it, just because it was I

1:29:09

felt like it was such a challenge for us, like musically,

1:29:11

just to step out of our comfort zone and

1:29:13

just and and like Carl, you know, like

1:29:16

for him to like put himself

1:29:18

out there like that, like already being

1:29:20

the target of hatred

1:29:23

amongst you know, the hardcore

1:29:25

scene, and then to put himself out there like that

1:29:28

on top of it, which clearly

1:29:30

is is easy mockery,

1:29:33

you know, a low hanging, low hanging fruit

1:29:35

of mockery, you know. And

1:29:37

and for him to do that, it took a lot of guts,

1:29:39

you know, and like very you're very vulnerable

1:29:41

at that point to do something publicly that you've

1:29:43

never done before on record, and yeah that's

1:29:46

it's yeah, I agree. Yeah

1:29:48

yeah. So I mean for me, like I'm proud of it in that

1:29:50

regard, but like yeah, as far as like a

1:29:52

direction for the band, I don't think it

1:29:55

was in hindsight, wasn't a good

1:29:57

idea. I totally get why we did it, and

1:29:59

I don't think I don't think necessarily

1:30:02

we should have done anything else because the

1:30:04

only other option that would have been just like break

1:30:06

up then you know it was you

1:30:09

know, yeah, it would have been you know, yeah,

1:30:13

yeah, I think that that was the thing. We were just like we

1:30:15

were frustrated. I mean it was like there

1:30:17

was a lot of things. I mean it was like, you know, we were touring

1:30:20

with like V O D a lot, and those

1:30:22

guys come from the hardcore

1:30:24

team, but different like from us. You

1:30:26

know, they started off on like Roadrunner and labels

1:30:28

like that and always had management and

1:30:31

you know, they came from that world. So like

1:30:33

you know, we're going out and headlining

1:30:36

over them of the time, but

1:30:39

like they're getting all this ship, like all these perks

1:30:41

and stuff, and their life is easy and they got

1:30:43

texts and like we never had text

1:30:45

ever, not one time. I had one

1:30:47

tech one time in the entire history of doing Earth

1:30:50

Crisis and was my brother that I brought

1:30:52

to Europe. That's so good. Yeah

1:30:54

yeah, yeah, never, I mean I never

1:30:56

had that, you know. So we were seeing these

1:30:58

guys, were like why do you have this ship? You

1:31:01

know, like like run the same label.

1:31:03

We have management that's just as powerful as

1:31:05

your management. But stuff like was happening

1:31:07

where we were both on an Anthrax tour

1:31:10

and like on

1:31:12

select nights, all of a sudden, we'd get there and they big

1:31:14

oh v O d s playing before you tonight or after

1:31:17

you tonight. We're like why and it was because

1:31:19

you have to play right at doors and they

1:31:21

had their management call and pull like power

1:31:24

move kind of ship. And not not to diss

1:31:26

them, I love those dudes, but it was just business.

1:31:28

It was business. It was business and right totally,

1:31:30

yeah, it was business stuff. And we

1:31:32

were like, we were like what the fuck

1:31:35

you know what I mean, like what is this ship? Like

1:31:38

why you know, why are we selling like five

1:31:40

times as many records as these guys, but

1:31:43

we have nothing. They're riding around in a bus, they got

1:31:45

texts, they're getting choice

1:31:47

of where and when they get to play every

1:31:50

night, and we're just like getting pushed around,

1:31:52

you know. Yeah, and and yeah our

1:31:54

management. I mean Scott Coheneig

1:31:57

is a friend, but um

1:32:00

not, I don't think it was a manager. And I see a band.

1:32:02

I I see bands like deal with that. A lot of

1:32:04

times it's like you're not really getting a manager.

1:32:06

Get a guy that has some connections, that takes that takes

1:32:08

ten percent, you know, and it's

1:32:10

like, you know, a manager. Yeah,

1:32:13

it's like watch a couple of rock documentaries

1:32:15

or something. You'll see what a manager used to be like,

1:32:17

you know, like you know, a

1:32:19

manager was like somebody that went to bath forew like

1:32:21

crazy hard, you know, like

1:32:24

these guys are like, yeah, sorry didn't work out, you didn't

1:32:26

get that tour. We'll call again, you

1:32:28

know, totally push yeah, push,

1:32:30

push real hard that. Yeah. Yeah, those

1:32:32

are different. Yeah, those are different structures,

1:32:35

especially when you're talking about independent music as well, where

1:32:37

it's just like, you know, a lot of the times these people are just you

1:32:39

know, kind of facilitators in a way, and it's like they

1:32:41

are a big time yeah, and it wasn't even like

1:32:44

and I think they see bands like

1:32:46

like Earth Crisis was who were very

1:32:49

d i y like you know for years, and

1:32:51

they were like, well, these guys know how to do it. This will be an easy

1:32:53

gig. Like they're not going to ask

1:32:55

us to book their flights for him because they booked their

1:32:57

own. Yeah, they booked

1:32:59

their own, so they're not going to ask us to organize

1:33:02

their rental van for their tour. They've done that over

1:33:04

a hundred times. Like they know how to do that. Like,

1:33:07

you know, we're not high maintenance, like we're

1:33:09

easy, but that's all the stuff that a manager

1:33:11

earned just ten percent by doing, you know, all

1:33:14

the day to day's garbage that you don't want

1:33:16

to do. But we basically got a manager

1:33:18

and they didn't handle any of that stuff because

1:33:21

we didn't even really know what exactly does a manager

1:33:23

do do We just hand all this stuff over and

1:33:26

then I think the few things that we did hand over they

1:33:29

were done poorly or not

1:33:31

the way that we liked it. So we were like, well, yeah,

1:33:33

it was just basically a guy taking ten percent. I

1:33:37

don't think we really benefited at all from any

1:33:39

of it, but yeah, it was just yeah,

1:33:41

it was that point you know, like like I was

1:33:43

saying, you know, after Gomras, when people started

1:33:46

taking interest, and then you start hitting these slides.

1:33:48

Just get a lawyer, and then the lawyer tells you to get

1:33:50

a manager, and then the manager tells you to do this, and

1:33:52

then you sign with a label that wants to

1:33:54

change all the stuff that you do that made you cool,

1:33:57

all the stuff that made everybody like you, you

1:33:59

know, and then putting

1:34:01

ideas in your head and then before you know it,

1:34:04

you know, you're just like, man, I don't know what happened. Let's

1:34:06

quit. Yeah,

1:34:08

so no, totally, totally, which is a perfect

1:34:10

segue into the you know, when you and I

1:34:12

met each other formally and started working together,

1:34:15

when um, you know, to the death came out and

1:34:17

I I mean obviously as and I've

1:34:19

shared this with you on on multiple occasions where

1:34:22

you know, it was for sure like this

1:34:24

weird dream come true fantasy

1:34:26

life where I was just like I can't even believe that this guy's

1:34:29

that I get to work with these guys and like your

1:34:32

normal humans and like just like all

1:34:34

these things where it's like fifteen year old me my mind

1:34:36

was being blown and be like, wait a minute, I'm

1:34:39

helping Scott get Earth

1:34:41

crisis, like back together to record,

1:34:43

Like all this stuff just didn't make any sense in

1:34:45

my head. Um, but I remember

1:34:48

the biggest thing that I remember about the whole process is that

1:34:50

you know, and I know that you were also

1:34:53

aware of this where it's just like the nervousness

1:34:55

of how people were going to react to the record, because you

1:34:57

know, by that time, you guys had done some you

1:34:59

know, re mean shows and like you had played out

1:35:01

there and there was a general enthusiasm about

1:35:03

the band. But like ultimately, you know, Rubbert hits

1:35:06

the road, Well, how's the record going to react?

1:35:08

Not even from a sales perspective, but just react,

1:35:11

And and I remember it

1:35:13

was really really positive, like people

1:35:15

were genuinely excited about

1:35:17

the record, and um, you know,

1:35:19

like so as you were, I guess kind of

1:35:21

like going into this and gearing up, it

1:35:24

seemed like all of you guys were very enthusiastic about

1:35:26

kind of not only the restart of the band,

1:35:28

but um, you know just kind of marching forward

1:35:31

with this record. Yeah. Absolutely,

1:35:33

Yeah. Like well, and I think one of the big

1:35:35

pluses for where it was sort of like,

1:35:38

yeah, it was like a reset because you you know, you

1:35:40

have we had like seven years, like

1:35:42

nobody stopped playing music. Everybody played

1:35:45

music on some level. I still wrote a ton of music.

1:35:47

I mean, I had a home studio. I was pretty self

1:35:49

sufficient at that time, Like I learned how to program

1:35:51

drums and so any ideas

1:35:53

that I would still have I had. I mean I

1:35:56

had files and files and files

1:35:58

of songs. So when it

1:36:00

came time for like, you know, okay, we're

1:36:02

going to do a record, it was literally like

1:36:04

dudes, here, here's twenty songs

1:36:06

picked ten you like, you know, and

1:36:09

so it was like a lot we had a lot of material.

1:36:12

We had like a direction for the album,

1:36:14

like as far as the sound of it and etcetera.

1:36:17

And I remember like like

1:36:20

one of the key points was or

1:36:23

kind of like the base point was we wanted

1:36:25

it to kind of be in the vein of the

1:36:27

song we did on the cover's album that was like

1:36:29

an original song was called Panic Floods, and

1:36:32

that was sort of like let's do let's let's

1:36:34

like kind of like follow that band,

1:36:36

like that version of the band, you know, like let's

1:36:39

try to do that, which was sort of yeah,

1:36:41

which was sort of like, um,

1:36:44

I mean, in our in our minds, I mean I don't

1:36:46

think they ever come off like at the age

1:36:48

that we're at. If I if I'm like, I'm going to write a record like

1:36:50

more Season Ends, it might sound like that to me,

1:36:53

but it's not going to sound like that to anybody else, you

1:36:55

know. And uh, and so in

1:36:57

my mind, like to the Death was supposed to be just

1:37:00

story the machines the way that we

1:37:02

wish it sounded, you know, and

1:37:05

it doesn't sound like destroying. I

1:37:07

don't think, yeah, it's

1:37:09

yeah, yeah, I see that.

1:37:11

Yeah yeah. If

1:37:14

you tell somebody, see that's what I've I've

1:37:16

found. Like if I tell somebody like, hey,

1:37:19

you know, so this record was supposed to be sort

1:37:21

of like this, this was like the inspiration. They're like, oh

1:37:24

yeah, I get it, But they wouldn't have got

1:37:26

it because I think it's subtle. It's like, you

1:37:28

know, when I'm when I'm writing with that in mind, I'm

1:37:30

not like, I'm gonna try to copy exactly what I did.

1:37:32

I'll speak, I'm gonna use some of the same tricks

1:37:35

that I used and just put pepper

1:37:37

them in here and there, you know. And

1:37:40

and so I think when you tell somebody

1:37:42

you pointed out there, like oh yeah,

1:37:44

Alright, I hear that. I hear what you're saying. But

1:37:47

that was the idea. It was supposed to follow along

1:37:49

the lines of that song like Panic Floods

1:37:51

like which I think would

1:37:54

have been the next Earth Crisis record anyway, because

1:37:56

that was like the covers album was after

1:37:58

Slither, and

1:38:01

we were like, he's like, I want to have an original

1:38:03

song on it. We're like okay, and we

1:38:05

started writing a few songs and that's that

1:38:08

was the vein that they were kind of headed in for the next record.

1:38:10

We weren't going to do like Slither too, Like that wasn't

1:38:12

the idea, Like Slither was

1:38:15

definitely supposed to be like the holy

1:38:17

sh it, what the hell happened here? You

1:38:19

know situation. It

1:38:22

was isolated experiment. Yeah,

1:38:24

it was absolutely yeah, So

1:38:26

anyway, but yeah, I mean I even

1:38:28

to this day, like of the

1:38:31

the three the reunion albums,

1:38:34

you know, since we got back together, like yeah,

1:38:36

to the death of that record is like

1:38:39

some of those songs in there go over just

1:38:41

as well as like older songs like

1:38:44

that was that was exactly what I was going to mention where

1:38:46

it was like, because you know, it's

1:38:48

interesting too, where it's like you know and you

1:38:50

see this and you know,

1:38:52

getting to know you over the time that we were working

1:38:54