WEBVTT

00:00:00.020 --> 00:00:05.220
Metalhead Podcast, Metalhead Podcast, go!

00:00:26.260 --> 00:00:27.980
You must listen.

00:00:36.379 --> 00:00:38.740
Now, here's the podcast.

00:00:39.180 --> 00:00:39.980
Metalheads Podcast.

00:00:40.740 --> 00:00:42.060
Hello and welcome to the Metalheads Podcast.

00:00:42.260 --> 00:00:43.040
My name is George.

00:00:43.740 --> 00:00:44.300
This is Jake.

00:00:44.940 --> 00:00:45.660
This is Will.

00:00:46.500 --> 00:00:47.100
I'm Evelyn.

00:00:47.780 --> 00:00:48.580
His daughter.

00:00:50.500 --> 00:00:51.220
This is John.

00:00:52.820 --> 00:00:53.420
This is Matt.

00:00:53.920 --> 00:00:54.880
This is Markisan.

00:00:54.920 --> 00:01:24.860
We are joined today by Phil from Khemmis. Thanks for coming back to see us again. I can't believe after having been on here, you actually came back like, and then again, and then again. You're a glutton for punishment, aren't you? This was a mistake. Actually, it was a mistake. This is called getting into the ground floor. We had you guys so on early tonight, you said, like, you have to come if we ask you, which we appreciate. Yeah, it's true. It's true. So yesterday, you guys released your fourth album, Deceiver, on Nuclear Blast.

00:01:24.920 --> 00:01:54.840
Best Records. Congrats on that. Yeah, thanks. It was great. It is a great album as well. But we'll get to that. But first off, I'm going to turn the interview over to our resident Khemmis fan, Evelyn. Evelyn, you're up. Look of terror on her face. What shirt are you wearing, Evelyn? Oh, yes. Nice. I love that one. Yes. It was a shirt.

00:01:56.580 --> 00:02:24.220
that I got I don't know how many years ago. I actually wore it without changing my pajamas for like a month and I didn't even notice like honestly. Yes. So I made a whole list of questions and I'm going to start off with number one. Okay. So how do all of the album covers tell a story because I've noticed since I have all the posters on my wall.

00:02:24.920 --> 00:02:54.080
The flags, whatever. Shut up, Dad. How do all of them relate? Especially Hunted and Desolation. I can see it starts off at Hunted and then it ends in Deceber. How do they relate the art in the flags? It's the kind of question that I never want to answer fully because I like you being able to make up what you think the story is.

00:02:54.900 --> 00:03:23.500
And I don't want to ruin it for you with it being worse than you think that it actually is. That is why we had a young girl ask the question. I'll say that basically I see them as like from absolution to desolation being in chronological order. And then deceiver is like no longer part of like a rational timeline.

00:03:24.380 --> 00:03:52.880
It's like a branch of the story. And you're seeing one of the characters from one of the other album covers, but they're like not the same age. They're not really involved in the same storyline right now. So I think over time, maybe we'll unveil sort of what's happening there. No spoilers. That also makes that a very appropriate record title. Yes, me. Suddenly the scene works really well.

00:03:53.820 --> 00:04:23.740
Evelyn, do you have any guesses as to what the story is? I don't know. I've seen in like Hunted, it's like a war between these two people and a bunch of things. Like wizards and stuff? Yeah, like that. And then it seems like in Desolation, it's like the one team has like one and then all the other. So who won? The wizard and like that other girl.

00:04:23.840 --> 00:04:52.760
with the green eyes. Yeah. But yeah, and then it seems like they're in this castle thingy. I don't know. And then they're all captured and handcuffed. Well, you do know. You're telling it. Yes. Yes, I do know. I don't think that you're wrong. I just made a guess. And you didn't even notice. I did not. I actually told you. Yep, you're right. Well, I would say spend some time once your dad gets the record or wants to get you the flag.

00:04:53.820 --> 00:05:23.000
looking at both the sides of the new artwork. And there's a lot of things that tie into each of the other album covers, too. So there's like little things that it'll be fun to sort of take note of and try and imagine kind of where we are in the story and what's happening. I see. OK. All right. Question number two. What is the favorite or what is your favorite song you have ever written?

00:05:23.820 --> 00:05:51.440
It doesn't matter what album you have ever written. Sophie's Choice. Bill's Choice. Bill wrote Sophie's Choice? That's amazing. Little known fact. You know, it's kind of like, do you have a brother or sister? I have a little brother. Okay. This is like asking Will to choose between which one of you he'll save. Obviously it's you, but it's not a choice that I want to make.

00:05:53.800 --> 00:06:22.720
I think the song that still means the most to me is maybe The Bereaved from our first album. Because really we wouldn't be a band that has a record even if we hadn't had that song. That was the song on our EP that when we played it live and Dave Otero, our producer, happened to be at our show. He heard that song and he was like, these guys really have potential. I want to record their album even if they can't afford it.

00:06:23.820 --> 00:06:53.780
And so he kind of gave us the chance. And then Dave from 20 Buck Spin, Dave Adelson, who runs that label, he wasn't going to put out Absolution until he heard that song. And then he thought that there was something to it. And so that song has done so much for us. And then it also is really personal and meaningful to me, too, as like sort of being a, you know, a story about like a really important changing part of my life.

00:06:53.800 --> 00:07:20.260
And so I still get a lot out of it. And I'm really appreciative towards that song. So that's probably my favorite for that reason. Okay. All right. Third question. What's your favorite song that Khemmiss have done, Evelyn? I don't know. Oh, so you can ask the question, but you can't answer it. But I cannot answer it. Probably.

00:07:23.820 --> 00:07:49.280
This is the cover song. Rainbow in the Dark is my favorite song of all time. They didn't really write it. They just covered it. I can't really count that. You can count that. That's okay. If I count that, then that's it. Who originally did Rainbow in the Dark? Dio. That was a fast answer. Just making sure.

00:07:53.800 --> 00:08:23.740
That's good. Willie's like ready to cover off. Okay. Keep going. All right. Next question. What is your least favorite song you have ever written? Burden of Sin. Okay. That was quick. There was no doubt about that. I don't know why. That song just doesn't really like do anything for me. We played it live one time at the album release for Absolution. I've always just felt like that was like kind of the weakest link. I really like like the opening riff.

00:08:23.800 --> 00:08:53.500
And I like sort of the bridge on that song, but the rest of it like just is kind of whatever to me a little bit. Anyone that says Absolution is the best Khemmis album, I'm like, eh, but Burden of Sin, really? Well, you know, Metallica on Ride the Lightning have a song called Escape that they hate and refuse to play, and it's one of my favorite Metallica songs. I like that song too. It's, you know, it's a little more poppy, I get it, but the lyrics in that song are just so empowering. I did play it live once, George.

00:08:53.580 --> 00:08:58.000
I think they were in Delaware and they played

00:08:58.040 --> 00:09:00.220
like the Orion Fest or something and they played

00:09:00.500 --> 00:09:01.780
Ride the Line all

00:09:02.180 --> 00:09:04.340
through and that came

00:09:04.460 --> 00:09:06.160
up because they're like well we gotta play this song

00:09:06.420 --> 00:09:07.000
yeah

00:09:08.280 --> 00:09:10.420
so you know one man's garbages

00:09:10.560 --> 00:09:12.200
and others favorite song

00:09:12.760 --> 00:09:13.240
so

00:09:14.400 --> 00:09:15.680
sorry burden of sin fans

00:09:17.140 --> 00:09:18.400
it's still not a bad song

00:09:19.440 --> 00:09:19.760
yeah well

00:09:20.100 --> 00:09:22.419
these are great questions because I didn't know any

00:09:22.440 --> 00:09:25.320
this. You're going to have to be on more of our interviews.

00:09:25.980 --> 00:09:26.100
Yeah.

00:09:29.540 --> 00:09:29.800
All right.

00:09:30.280 --> 00:09:32.900
What is your favorite album you have written?

00:09:34.259 --> 00:09:34.660
Album.

00:09:35.500 --> 00:09:35.760
You know,

00:09:36.240 --> 00:09:39.500
I just listened to all four of them back to back last night.

00:09:40.380 --> 00:09:42.120
I only listened to our old albums.

00:09:42.360 --> 00:09:44.220
Like if I have to listen to a song,

00:09:44.260 --> 00:09:45.540
cause we're like relearning it for,

00:09:45.880 --> 00:09:46.900
to play it live or something.

00:09:47.240 --> 00:09:50.040
Or when we put out a new album and then I listened to everything,

00:09:50.720 --> 00:09:50.820
um,

00:09:51.100 --> 00:10:20.400
all the way through. And I think honestly that like the new one and Hunted both have like a similar feeling to me that I think sort of like, I think it's hard for me right now. I don't have enough perspective with the new album probably to like fairly assess my feelings about it. I'll have to come back to it at some point. But, um,

00:10:21.120 --> 00:10:50.579
I think for me those two are like neck and neck and that I but there's something special about Hunted I think again sort of the whole album feels like such a cohesive thing to me and I really like all the songs and the new album also feels really cohesive and feels like it takes you on a journey throughout the album and I think I like albums that are like that so I'm not sure but I think one of those two

00:10:50.600 --> 00:11:20.560
over time will end up revealing itself to be my favorite unless we put out something else that's really great okay how did you learn to play the guitar in the first place like what made what made you have the urge to want to play the guitar and then how did you learn how to play it so on six in sixth grade um my middle school class took a class trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

00:11:21.780 --> 00:11:50.560
And everybody had to go on this trip. And it was boring as shit. Because I'm not like a play person. And I don't really like sitting through like a whole play very much. But a friend of mine had just gotten an electric guitar. And he brought it with him. And we didn't have anything to plug it into or anything. But we were sharing a room together in Asheville or in Ashland, Oregon. And we were just like messing around with the

00:11:50.620 --> 00:11:56.620
this thing and neither of us could really play it but I was like that's really fun and then

00:11:58.700 --> 00:12:04.500
it really wasn't until I decided that I really just wanted to play music with other people

00:12:05.180 --> 00:12:14.939
in high school at some point where I was like convinced my parents that I had to have a guitar and they helped me buy something and

00:12:14.960 --> 00:12:43.740
And then it was really not until I heard Black Sabbath and Judas Priest breaking the law and living after midnight. These pretty simple riff-heavy songs where I was like, oh, I think I can actually play guitar like that. And just wanted to learn those songs. And stuff like Jimi Hendrix, too, was really appealing to me. Anything that was riff-based.

00:12:46.240 --> 00:13:14.900
had a lot of volume and felt really loud and powerful. I felt like all that was really inspiring and fun to try and learn how to do. Cool. Jimi Hendrix, did you turn your guitar upside down and backwards? No, but I did. The first electric guitar I got was a Telecaster, Fender Telecaster. I tore out the neck pickup and put a humbucker in the neck.

00:13:14.940 --> 00:13:42.040
So that it looked like Keith Richards guitar. Cause I've always been a big Rolling Stones fan. And I was, uh, like really happy with that. And then I, I like saved up to buy a Stratocaster cause I wanted to play a, a Jimi Hendrix guitar. So that was the second guitar I bought. Nice. Okay. All right. Next question. Why did you decide to grow your hair? I didn't have a lot to do.

00:13:44.960 --> 00:14:14.380
Because all the haircut places were closed. So I shaved my head last time in April of 2020. And then I just decided I wasn't going to cut it again until the world got back to normal. And it still hasn't. So I still haven't cut it. It's just a commitment I made to myself for no real reason. But here we are. And I'll tell you, it sucks to play.

00:14:14.940 --> 00:14:43.740
live with long hair. My hair is just in my face all the time. My hair is really thick. I can barely breathe. I get way too hot. I can't see anything. Ponytail, man. Then you just look like Isan. You need to go pigtail. I've been thinking about maybe doing bangs, but it's too 80s metal. Don't do that. Evelyn thinks it's a bad idea. Don't do that.

00:14:44.960 --> 00:15:14.220
with it or cut it at some point. You rocked the mustache. That was pretty 80s. George and Matt especially, don't you? This is always kind of hitting your heart a little bit when you're talking to somebody like, my hair is so thick and everything. Like, that's a problem. The only reason I go see obituary, I mean, they're awesome, but man, they have the best hair. And honestly, Phil, you are climbing up the list because when you say like, man, my hair is so thick, I'm like, oh, fuck, I wish I had that problem. Where's my French? Top five heads of hair in metal.

00:15:16.940 --> 00:15:44.540
No, that guy from, oh crap, Immolation. Oh yeah. He takes the cake, right? Yeah. His hair is like down to his feet practically. I honestly thought that when they were playing at the Decimal Fest. I was like, man, I wish I could grow my hair that long. That's beautiful. I wish I could grow hair. I went eight years without a haircut.

00:15:44.960 --> 00:16:13.140
When I actually had hair. Nice. Had some real split ends. But it was long. I go three months without a haircut. It's my mom who makes me cut it. I would grow it really long, but at the same time, it's thick. So I can't grow it long. And then when she cuts it, she's like, we'll just cut a little bit off. And then it's like this short.

00:16:14.940 --> 00:16:43.520
Yeah. So I actually haven't gotten cut in like three months. It's pretty long. It's hard when it comes to sports. I don't know what, especially with baseball, since like you can't put your hair like up in a bun because you have the hat. So like, I don't know what to do with my hair when it comes to baseball. And mom doesn't like the little hat when I have like the little hat. So I can't do anything. Sometimes you braid it. I don't like. Don't you like ponytail out the back of a hat? Yeah.

00:16:44.740 --> 00:16:46.420
Because then the hat goes like

00:16:47.620 --> 00:16:49.140
Because the helmet

00:16:49.780 --> 00:16:51.060
Helmet doesn't have a hole in the back

00:16:52.220 --> 00:16:54.760
You have the exact same problems as Phil

00:16:57.260 --> 00:16:59.040
You got a French braided or something

00:16:59.580 --> 00:17:01.500
I don't like having braids in my hair

00:17:01.560 --> 00:17:01.820
I just

00:17:03.020 --> 00:17:03.880
Is it too girly?

00:17:04.839 --> 00:17:06.459
Yes, also I just feel like

00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:08.060
If you're playing baseball

00:17:09.160 --> 00:17:10.640
Because I do that

00:17:11.079 --> 00:17:11.659
24-7

00:17:12.300 --> 00:17:13.280
que se hagan.

00:17:41.660 --> 00:18:08.780
A friend of mine cut it and she braided it first and then cut the braid. And so I can still have that somewhere in a box. I know that's gross, but I can't find it. So I don't know where it is. But it's horrifying. And then and then give me like a normal haircut. I think we need to start a subcast called hair metal cast because this is really fascinating. And it's not about hair metal bands. It's just about metal hair. Strictly no hair metal policy.

00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:11.980
for me.

00:18:15.160 --> 00:18:15.560
Hey,

00:18:16.460 --> 00:18:16.560
Evelyn.

00:18:17.660 --> 00:18:17.900
Yes.

00:18:18.420 --> 00:18:18.740
You have more.

00:18:19.720 --> 00:18:19.920
Yes,

00:18:19.920 --> 00:18:20.180
I do.

00:18:20.520 --> 00:18:20.820
Go for it.

00:18:21.600 --> 00:18:21.760
Okay.

00:18:22.560 --> 00:18:25.360
What is your least favorite song?

00:18:25.800 --> 00:18:26.500
You already asked that.

00:18:27.620 --> 00:18:27.760
No,

00:18:27.860 --> 00:18:28.080
I asked,

00:18:28.220 --> 00:18:29.280
I asked what is your favorite?

00:18:30.200 --> 00:18:30.540
No,

00:18:30.660 --> 00:18:30.920
actually,

00:18:31.040 --> 00:18:31.100
no.

00:18:31.780 --> 00:18:32.320
Have you,

00:18:33.580 --> 00:18:33.760
all right.

00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:36.340
Have you ever scrapped a song from an album?

00:18:36.580 --> 00:18:41.640
Like you started writing a song and you hated it and then you took it all away and

00:18:41.660 --> 00:19:11.620
you didn't put it on album have you ever like made it halfway through a song or even written the whole song and then just scrapped it all have you ever done that yeah happens all the time we we end up usually realizing that it's not working before we get too too far into it but like i would say especially for this new album because we were writing it remotely from each other so it was really easy for you to just like commit way too much to a song and get it like

00:19:11.640 --> 00:19:18.160
really far along and then like realize that it just kind of sucked at the end of the day or something.

00:19:19.340 --> 00:19:24.140
We probably had like 12 songs written to some degree for the new album.

00:19:24.740 --> 00:19:26.880
And, you know, on the album, there's half that.

00:19:28.420 --> 00:19:37.740
And so, you know, it happens pretty frequently, but usually we don't like worry about finishing a song that we know isn't going to get recorded.

00:19:37.780 --> 00:20:07.760
We just don't have enough time in the studio to record a bunch of extra stuff and decide if we like it or not. You know, try to make those choices early on. Okay. I thought it'd be much different. I thought you were going to say, like, I have never scrapped a song or something like that. I don't know. There's failed experiments all the time. You know, like nothing is perfect from the get go. And sometimes you think an idea is great, but then it doesn't lead anywhere. And something that like we always try and do as a band is to have a good idea.

00:20:07.780 --> 00:20:37.660
have every song be like a journey that, you know, ends up someplace different from where you started off with or, you know, climbs a mountain and takes you back or something. And that, you know, that journey sometimes just doesn't happen. There's certain riffs that might be like really cool. And then they just don't end up leading anywhere once we're trying to figure out what to do with them. So we have a lot of like, probably have had hundreds of riff ideas over the years.

00:20:37.800 --> 00:21:07.760
that have been cool to one of us. And then either we all disagree about what to do with it or we don't end up liking the direction the song goes in. So we just kind of forget about it. Sometimes we can come back to them, though, and they end up in another song in the future as like a transition or something. But yeah, I don't know. It's try not to get too attached to them because it's all just raw material at the end of the day. You know, it's like iron and we're building

00:21:07.820 --> 00:21:09.380
a bunch of armor with it or something.

00:21:10.880 --> 00:21:22.440
You ever have like a big blowout, like either with like Ben or Zach or, you know, a bass player that it's like, I love this song and everyone else is like, ah, I don't know.

00:21:22.560 --> 00:21:24.840
And then you ever have like one of those?

00:21:25.400 --> 00:21:32.520
I don't think it's ever gotten too heated, but yeah, I mean, definitely like, you know, one of us might have a part that we feel really strongly about.

00:21:33.880 --> 00:22:03.840
Like I had like a whole song idea for this new album that I was like, ah, yeah, this is going to be cool. And then when I shared it with everybody, everyone's like, eh, I don't really like any parts of that. But you know, that's how it is. And yeah, like I said, just try not to get too emotionally attached to something. Just like see it as, you know, really the point is that we have to all be on board with an idea or else it doesn't move forward as, you know, something that we devote a lot of time to.

00:22:03.860 --> 00:22:33.420
and try and write words for anything like that. Try and save that energy for the best songs that we can. Well, how did the Decibel Flexi song come about then? Because it is an extra song. Was it something that you recorded or just decided that you were going to do for Decibel? We had recorded it. It was one that we had written with the album too. But then when we had recorded everything, we just felt like it didn't make the album stronger to have it. It was just different enough.

00:22:36.020 --> 00:23:02.020
And we had kind of, ever since we had finished writing the songs, felt like it wasn't going to be on the album. We just felt like it was a cool song that sort of stood by itself. And so, yeah, we recorded it after we'd finished, you know, doing other stuff and, you know, just put it out that way. And we recorded another song, too, that we haven't told anybody about that will be coming out at some point as well.

00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:03.500
Secret Santa Song.

00:23:04.640 --> 00:23:04.740
Yeah.

00:23:05.120 --> 00:23:08.880
So it's another one that we thought was cool, but, you know, it just wasn't right for the album.

00:23:09.320 --> 00:23:11.920
Breaking news here on the Metalheads podcast.

00:23:13.560 --> 00:23:17.160
No actual details, but news nonetheless.

00:23:20.280 --> 00:23:20.540
All right.

00:23:20.800 --> 00:23:21.360
Next question.

00:23:21.980 --> 00:23:30.600
Have you ever noticed how the guitar riffs in each and every album, each and every song are really similar?

00:23:31.060 --> 00:24:00.300
I don't know if it's the way you tune your guitar or just you use the same riffs a lot but I've noticed that like each song I feel like has like the same I don't know if it's guitar tuning or what but it's like the same like energy in like the guitar it's it's not anything else it's just the guitar that has like the same energy for like almost every song I feel like it's like I don't know how do you make it like that?

00:24:02.360 --> 00:24:30.240
It's just the riffs and the harmonies and all the stuff they do with the guitar. It's like, I don't, it just, I feel like in each album, like it has a few minor tweaks, but like all the songs have like a similar flow to them. The guitar tone. Yeah. I mean, I think it's for a couple of reasons. Like, um, you know, it's the same two people, right?

00:24:31.100 --> 00:24:33.100
the riffs for the albums.

00:24:36.020 --> 00:24:42.740
And we've always tuned the same way ever since the band started.

00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:44.520
We've always been in this drop tuning.

00:24:45.040 --> 00:24:46.900
I have a question about that when there's time.

00:24:47.680 --> 00:24:47.820
Okay.

00:24:48.260 --> 00:24:48.780
Well, what is it?

00:24:48.780 --> 00:24:51.540
Is it relevant right now or is it going to take us on a detour?

00:24:52.080 --> 00:24:53.140
Only briefly.

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:58.640
I record a lot of cover songs, particularly during the pandemic.

00:24:59.220 --> 00:25:29.160
I use like ultimate guitar to go and find the music and play things. And just out of curiosity, while I was listening, I was like, you know, I was thinking the same thing about the tone. And I was like, what do they tune to? And I went on there and there was a couple of your songs and it was like drop a sharp. Yep. And I'm like, okay, if I try to tune my guitar to a sharp, the strings are going to fall off. So do you actually tune that low or do you use like a pedal to, to, to drop it? No, the tune, the, so the guitars are, they have pretty heavy strings on them. Okay. And the,

00:25:29.240 --> 00:25:59.060
Guitars we play have like a longer, not a longer scale length, but it's like a Fender scale length, which is a little bit longer than a Gibson guitar. Yeah. And so it has the same, it feels like the same string tension as if you were playing a guitar in standard tuning. But, but yeah, it's in, it's like C standard. So the whole guitar is down two full steps from standard tuning. Yeah. And then the low string is tuned down to be the same note as the third string. Yeah. And a lot of bands,

00:25:59.220 --> 00:26:28.920
do that so that they can play power chords really easily. But the reason why Khemmis sounds the way it does is because we try to not do that, but even though we're playing in a drop tuning. And so I think this is what you're getting at, Evelyn, is that we do a lot of the same kind of chord movements where we'll be adding extra notes to chords that you don't hear a lot in,

00:26:29.100 --> 00:26:30.840
other metal bands.

00:26:32.500 --> 00:26:39.460
So there's a lot of like these larger chord shapes with more notes in them than you typically hear in metal.

00:26:40.500 --> 00:26:43.940
And that that's something that we've always kind of played around with.

00:26:44.010 --> 00:26:46.740
It's been part of like the DNA of the band.

00:26:46.970 --> 00:26:53.220
And that I would say that the riffs for the most part are like chord based rather than note based.

00:26:53.250 --> 00:26:55.560
Like they never sound like Black Sabbath riffs to me.

00:26:56.200 --> 00:27:23.660
And anytime that we play something that sounds like a Black Sabbath riff, we're always like, okay, we have to get rid of that riff and try something else because we're trying to stay within the same vocabulary that we've always had so that it always sounds like Khemmiss. So it's a pretty conscious effort to try and, you know, discover new riffs, but that have the same feeling to them. And that that's something we've tried to keep consistent across all the albums.

00:27:24.020 --> 00:27:53.460
Yeah, because I keep trying to like, I don't, I, like I have the little tuner thingy and I keep trying to make it sound like how you guys make your guys guitar sound, but like, I can't figure it out. We'll put some heavy strings on your guitar and we'll figure it out. Yeah. That just blew my mind. I'm like, you know, if I do a Sabbath cover, I'm like, C sharp. Are you kidding me? I'm like, you know, strings are flopping around like spaghetti and I'm like, and it just sounds like mud.

00:27:54.040 --> 00:28:24.000
And I saw that and I was like, another two whole steps down? How? So bravo for making that work and sound good. Yeah, I mean, it's it ends up being a good a good tuning to play in because a lot of our songs are then either in A sharp, D sharp or F. And all those end up being good tunings for me to sing into. So it's pretty like deliberate sort of where we end up.

00:28:24.040 --> 00:28:26.180
up with the tuning.

00:28:26.620 --> 00:28:36.320
And so something like the Dio song is in D sharp because it's like the riff is based out of like the fifth fret position in that tuning.

00:28:38.680 --> 00:28:46.380
But the other thing I'd say is that like we always kind of try and play things with like a rock and roll feel.

00:28:47.100 --> 00:28:53.780
And that means that I didn't realize this until we like were writing the new album and we had to learn how to use a guitar pro.

00:28:53.880 --> 00:29:23.640
and like tab out things. But a lot of our songs have a lot of like dotted eighth notes and upstrokes. And so we do a lot of things where it's like da-dun or like da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Like where the hits are not falling on downbeats. And that gives, you know, it's kind of like an ACDC thing, honestly. Like they do that a lot.

00:29:23.860 --> 00:29:53.640
And the, um, so the feeling we're trying to go for by doing that is like a rock and roll feel. So even like when we're playing a part that is like basically a death metal riff or something, we try and keep it with that same feel so that everything feels cohesive. Uh, so it's a pretty deliberate effort and we end up usually not writing songs that have riffs that like primarily aren't doing the things that we see as being like,

00:29:54.880 --> 00:29:55.900
You have a style

00:29:56.570 --> 00:29:57.760
Yeah it's about like

00:29:58.190 --> 00:29:59.500
making sure that the style is

00:29:59.780 --> 00:30:01.480
identifiable and consistent and

00:30:02.480 --> 00:30:03.520
unique because I don't

00:30:03.800 --> 00:30:05.800
really hear other bands that do the same thing

00:30:06.180 --> 00:30:07.720
Yeah I've never heard of

00:30:07.890 --> 00:30:09.900
another band that like tunes it like that

00:30:10.220 --> 00:30:11.080
But yeah

00:30:11.720 --> 00:30:12.800
Alright next question

00:30:13.460 --> 00:30:15.500
I just had to put this question on there

00:30:15.660 --> 00:30:18.480
Cats or dogs? Which one do you prefer?

00:30:19.260 --> 00:30:19.560
Dogs

00:30:20.280 --> 00:30:20.580
Okay

00:30:21.180 --> 00:30:23.680
Yeah I grew up with dogs I never had cats

00:30:23.700 --> 00:30:53.100
Every cat that a friend had was super obnoxious and would just try and scratch you all the time. The only cat that I've ever really got along with is like, we have this pretty weird friend who lives in this strange little house that they built in Washington State. And they had this cat that would just sit on your lap and just knead your belly like it was some bread that it was making. And I thought that that was hilarious and I liked that.

00:30:53.200 --> 00:31:23.160
But for the most part, I've just always thought dogs were like smarter and well, they're not smarter, I don't think. But they're like easier to make them do what you want. More jovial. They're just more fun for me. And I have two dogs. I want to command them all. It's like an Evelyn lightning round there. We actually just adopted a dog that we were fostering like literally just today. I just adopted a new dog last week on Thursday.

00:31:24.060 --> 00:31:53.180
Yeah. I don't think we're going to be getting more. No, we're not getting it. That's enough. Yep. Thankfully you got one. Yeah. Okay. Next question. Have you ever made a mistake recording or performing at a concert? Like not just like I played the wrong fret on accident, but like a big mistake. Like where you like, like everyone noticed it, not just like a little thing, but like, have you ever made like a mistake?

00:31:53.200 --> 00:32:23.040
a big one that everyone knows, like everyone has noticed. Oh, yeah, definitely. Recording all the time, all the time. Because it's, I mean, you know, there's still songs that are pretty new to you and it's, you know, it can take a while sometimes to get the right takes on them that you want to keep on the record. And so lots of mistakes, especially vocally. Like I usually do every part, probably,

00:32:23.220 --> 00:32:29.940
like 20 times. Uh, and then we just keep whatever the best takes are. Um, so lots of mistakes.

00:32:30.500 --> 00:32:53.140
And then about at concerts, like, like, has it ever been like the whole crowd, like can see it and can feel it? Like, have they like, has it been like that? Like, Oh yeah, definitely. I have definitely like, there's some parts where you like just can't mess up because like, it's just you.

00:32:53.180 --> 00:32:53.820
doing something.

00:32:54.520 --> 00:33:12.280
And if you mess up something, then even if it's relatively minor, it's just like so obvious that it's like, like if I'm if I'm like playing the bereaved and I'm playing the clean guitar at the beginning and I just like hit like some random note that's totally out of key and it just like rings out for forever.

00:33:12.840 --> 00:33:15.940
It's like that sounds horrendous and everybody knows.

00:33:17.620 --> 00:33:21.560
You notice people when you see them looking at you and smiling and stuff and talking or pointing.

00:33:21.670 --> 00:33:22.080
Oh, yeah.

00:33:22.320 --> 00:33:52.280
He's like damn. We feel so bad for him. Or the thing that happens most often or at least used to happen a lot to me was I used to play with a bronze pick. So it was made from like a piece of cymbal like a you know like a drum cymbal. And I also like have pretty corrosive sweat for guitar strings and I would break strings all the time. And without fail like every single

00:33:52.320 --> 00:34:21.940
I would break a string. It would be like a string that I would really need for that song, but we just keep playing until we finish the song or whatever so I can switch guitars. And so like sometimes the string will be broken, but it'll just be like hanging and like hitting one of the other strings or something. And so it just sounds like atrocious or like the entire guitar is out of tune because the string tension changed so much. And there's like not a whole lot you can do about that. You kind of just have to like,

00:34:22.440 --> 00:34:51.280
do your best to try and transpose it to different strings on the fly and see if it's better. But that's always the worst and it feels super helpless. And I remember one time really clearly where this is the only time I ever played a guitar that has a Floyd Rose bridge, like a bridge with a whammy bar on it. And the reason I don't like those guitars is because of this experience, which is if you break a string with one of those guitars,

00:34:51.899 --> 00:35:20.300
The entire guitar goes wildly out of tune. The note you're playing is three notes different from what it's supposed to be. It just was so bad that it really felt like we should just stop the song and just apologize and then get a different guitar and just play something else. Yeah, I got a Floyd Rose bridge on the Ibanez right over there.

00:35:21.400 --> 00:35:51.340
Yeah, when you see somebody playing live and they break a string, you know, and they don't stop playing, you're like, oh my God, that's pro. That's like, you know, they're managing regardless. They're not, you know, you don't stop. The show must go on, all that, you know, so it's, I think, you know, I think the people there are like, you know, they understand, they can see that there's clearly a problem and you're not stopping.

00:35:52.060 --> 00:35:52.740
So that's pretty awesome.

00:35:54.300 --> 00:35:56.640
The other thing that happens is sometimes like an amp will die.

00:35:57.940 --> 00:35:59.740
And then you're not making any noise.

00:36:00.680 --> 00:36:02.660
And that's always like pretty distracting.

00:36:03.820 --> 00:36:06.160
Because, you know, all of a sudden there's like half as much sound.

00:36:07.300 --> 00:36:08.980
And that's happened several times.

00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:11.580
It happened at Psycho in Vegas this year when we were playing.

00:36:12.020 --> 00:36:14.220
My amp blew up on above the water.

00:36:14.900 --> 00:36:18.640
And I just had to do the rest of the song just doing vocals.

00:36:18.800 --> 00:36:22.780
and then went and plugged into a different amp and

00:36:23.340 --> 00:36:26.300
you know none of the stagehands helped me out at all with anything

00:36:28.020 --> 00:36:30.520
and you know it's just how it goes sometimes it's part of playing life

00:36:31.380 --> 00:36:34.220
hey george i will say that i don't know if that's true that it's

00:36:34.820 --> 00:36:38.420
professional to keep going i've i had like fifth row center stage for rush

00:36:39.120 --> 00:36:41.500
alex lifson broke a string he got really pissed

00:36:42.420 --> 00:36:46.160
stopped playing just gave a look to his tech within a second the guitar is out there

00:36:46.160 --> 00:37:16.040
The Professionals were Geddy Lee and Neil Peart that went into a little jazz fusion thing for about two minutes while he was waiting and they were laughing at him the whole time. That was the professional part. That's awesome. Alex has a temper. He was pissed. I have a professional story to share too, John. There's a video on YouTube and I'll send it to you guys. But it's Stevie Ray Vaughan doing the most epic guitar switch ever. Literally, it's the name of the video. He breaks a string in the middle of a song. And just like Phil said,

00:37:16.180 --> 00:37:45.960
He just transposes everything. He's fine. You wouldn't know he broke his string. But his guitar tech comes out behind him, undoes his straps. He's playing the whole time, takes guitar, gives it over and starts playing it. Oh, it's so fucking cool. It's amazing. Yes, it's just awesome. He would do crazy stuff like that all the time on stage. Yeah, he was nuts. I saw Genesis two nights ago in D.C. and we were looking down from side stage. We were up in the nosebleeds looking directly down at them. So you could see everything.

00:37:46.559 --> 00:38:16.140
And, you know, they've got the drums here, and Phil's sitting in the chair out front, and, you know, Tony's over on the left with his wall of keyboards, and the bass player guy, I don't know his name, but he's off to the right, and he had all his amps behind him, and behind those amps, you could see the guitar tech sitting on a chair the whole time, tuning stuff up, and then running it out to Mike, and I was just, I thought that was just kind of a cool little look behind the scenes, because I was like, wow, they don't even, like, respect that guy enough to let him stand

00:38:16.180 --> 00:38:16.560
on stage.

00:38:16.840 --> 00:38:18.280
Cause I didn't know he was the guitar tech at the time.

00:38:18.650 --> 00:38:20.900
Cause he was just sitting back there with a guitar completely out of

00:38:21.020 --> 00:38:21.200
sight.

00:38:22.020 --> 00:38:22.780
And then when,

00:38:22.960 --> 00:38:23.060
you know,

00:38:23.380 --> 00:38:23.960
when he started running,

00:38:24.100 --> 00:38:24.540
it's like,

00:38:25.200 --> 00:38:26.780
it's like they have a whole workshop back there.

00:38:26.860 --> 00:38:27.320
It's huge.

00:38:27.440 --> 00:38:27.600
Yeah.

00:38:27.620 --> 00:38:28.500
For those big bands.

00:38:28.590 --> 00:38:28.760
I mean,

00:38:28.830 --> 00:38:29.300
they got like,

00:38:29.420 --> 00:38:30.080
I don't know how many guitars,

00:38:30.200 --> 00:38:32.540
but it's like they have a workbench and everything as well.

00:38:32.660 --> 00:38:33.240
I've seen those before.

00:38:33.600 --> 00:38:33.700
Yeah.

00:38:34.980 --> 00:38:35.280
It's awesome.

00:38:35.560 --> 00:38:36.420
I wish I had that.

00:38:37.480 --> 00:38:42.140
It's always just got to make it work until you get to the next song.

00:38:42.250 --> 00:38:44.020
And then you go grab the backup.

00:38:44.140 --> 00:39:14.100
that's hopefully on stage that you remembered to tune before you got out there because you forget to tune it then once you plug it in and then you start playing and you're like god damn it this one is fucked up too do you uh are all your guitars tuned are all your songs tuned in the same like yeah they're all in that same drop a sharp so you don't have to worry about like hey i'm playing this song but that guitar over there is tuned to a different something so you're good you just yeah go grab it yeah it's it makes it easy for that

00:39:14.120 --> 00:39:42.580
Hey, Phil, do you have any rituals that you do before you start playing live? Satanic or otherwise? No satanic ones. That's disappointing. Yeah, I know. I will say to prevent this string breakage issue that I change my strings almost every night when we're on tour and I never let us go more than two shows without changing them and that that's I haven't broken a string since I started doing that.

00:39:44.120 --> 00:40:13.720
Although sometimes the string will break when I'm stretching the strings after changing them. And then you never wanted that string in the first place anyways. So you just put a new one on. So that's a pretty regular thing to do backstage. And I warm up my voice for probably like 30 or 40 minutes now before we play every time. So I'm backstage making all kinds of stupid sounding noises. Do you ever pull out the Ron Burgundy stuff? Oh yeah.

00:40:14.120 --> 00:40:15.100
100%.

00:40:18.359 --> 00:40:29.180
And we usually, as a band, will run through a song or two backstage acoustically, just with all of our stuff.

00:40:29.940 --> 00:40:31.680
And I'll sing along to that.

00:40:34.800 --> 00:40:40.520
And I usually do push-ups and planks before going on stage.

00:40:40.700 --> 00:40:43.820
I just try and get myself as pumped up as possible.

00:40:43.920 --> 00:41:13.140
And I'm trying to get like my like core activated enough so that I can sort of breathe effectively and sing well. How long can you plank? I mean, I don't try to ever do it as long as possible, but I can usually do like three minutes if I'm switching from like a standard one to side and then to the other side. Nice. But yeah, so I do, we do all those things.

00:41:14.840 --> 00:41:17.760
It kind of sucks. Sometimes we'll play a venue that doesn't have

00:41:17.890 --> 00:41:19.980
a green room or any backstage area.

00:41:20.880 --> 00:41:25.460
And so I'll have to go into the bathroom and just be warming up my voice in there

00:41:25.670 --> 00:41:27.200
while people are coming in taking a piss.

00:41:27.690 --> 00:41:28.420
You don't want to plank there.

00:41:28.520 --> 00:41:33.900
It's so awkward. Or I'll go out to the van and the van will be parked right in front of the venue

00:41:34.090 --> 00:41:36.960
and I'll be doing it in the van and people are

00:41:38.070 --> 00:41:42.280
just standing outside smoking and hearing me make ridiculous sounds in the van.

00:41:42.560 --> 00:41:43.340
It's always very uncomfortable.

00:41:45.599 --> 00:41:47.840
So what you're saying is you're never going to play Atlas.

00:41:47.990 --> 00:41:49.020
We don't have a green room.

00:41:51.060 --> 00:41:52.280
Yeah, but they can go across the street.

00:41:52.480 --> 00:41:53.200
Well, there's nobody there.

00:41:53.480 --> 00:41:54.240
Yeah, they're all dead.

00:41:54.500 --> 00:41:55.040
They're all dead.

00:41:59.500 --> 00:42:00.460
What was the next one?

00:42:00.640 --> 00:42:01.080
Oh, yeah, right.

00:42:01.480 --> 00:42:01.640
All right.

00:42:02.070 --> 00:42:06.680
What is your second favorite instrument to play besides guitar?

00:42:08.200 --> 00:42:10.440
I'm not good at it, but I like playing the drums.

00:42:11.620 --> 00:42:11.980
It's fun.

00:42:12.200 --> 00:42:40.320
It's so physical and like it's kind of like trying to do math or something like when you're trying to figure out how to like, you know, make a pattern work with your limbs doing different things. I don't know. It's like a fun physical and intellectual challenge. Wait, I thought the drummer is supposed to be the dumb ones. I don't know, man. They're doing math the entire time.

00:42:44.480 --> 00:42:47.340
I don't understand how math relates to trumping.

00:42:50.140 --> 00:42:52.900
You have to do a lot of counting.

00:42:53.600 --> 00:42:56.820
And it has to stay the same the whole night.

00:43:00.980 --> 00:43:01.740
You got any more?

00:43:06.400 --> 00:43:06.580
Hello?

00:43:07.160 --> 00:43:07.320
Thinking.

00:43:10.500 --> 00:43:10.980
You got any?

00:43:12.040 --> 00:43:42.000
I answered all the one that were on there. Okay. All right. Cool. You don't want to ask that one? No. Okay. That's okay. Maybe next time. Yeah. So you're saying there's a chance. I got one that you probably, I thought you might ask, Evan, and it was because to feel such a good singer, you know, I wondered if there's a day in your life, Phil, where you just woke up and realized you could

00:43:42.040 --> 00:43:43.200
the crap out of songs.

00:43:44.340 --> 00:43:46.040
No, I still don't believe it.

00:43:48.180 --> 00:43:53.160
I, um, I mean, I, when I started the band, I'd never had really tried to sing before.

00:43:53.680 --> 00:44:00.220
Uh, and I just knew that, um, we wanted to do something with that had clean vocals.

00:44:00.880 --> 00:44:08.140
Um, so that we didn't just have to toil in obscurity forever, like every other band that we'd been in.

00:44:08.500 --> 00:44:11.640
And, uh, so I just gave it a shot.

00:44:11.740 --> 00:44:18.140
I remember like it's not metal but I you know I'd listen to like TV on the radio

00:44:18.800 --> 00:44:41.700
they're like an indie band with a couple of really good singers and I would like to sing along to those in the car and I was like I can kind of maybe sing a little bit and always like singing along to like David Bowie songs and you know Peter Gabriel songs and stuff like that

00:44:41.700 --> 00:45:10.800
And I was never good at it. And naturally, like, I'm pretty tone deaf. And I have a really bad sense of pitch. And, you know, with enough determination and practice and figuring out how to work that instrument, you know, you can at least do what I'm doing. So, you know, you just mentioned Peter Gabriel. And I actually had a note on here because you mentioned him in the Decibel article and kind of compared your vocal styles.

00:45:10.920 --> 00:45:39.500
And when I read that, I was like, yes, I get that. I totally get that. I mean, he's got maybe a little more raspy voice, but I get it. Yeah. I think there's something about his voice that's like always sounds kind of sad, but it's also like comforting, kind of uplifting at the same time. So it's got this like strange dichotomy to it all the time. And he always is like has a pretty clean tone.

00:45:40.400 --> 00:46:07.660
Even though he does have that little bit of raspiness. But I think those are all things that I think are my strengths as a vocalist. I have a pretty good range now. I can sing really loudly. And I just sound the way that I do. And I can't really change that. But it ends up falling somewhere between pretty crestfallen and kind of uplifting somehow.

00:46:07.760 --> 00:46:29.700
So, you know, it's kind of like I've just played to my strengths over the years and gotten better at those things. But I wouldn't say that I'm like a great vocalist by any means. Like I still have a hard time singing in tune unless I'm really practicing stuff. And, you know, it's just how it is.

00:46:30.320 --> 00:46:31.700
And then Dave Otero works his magic.

00:46:32.900 --> 00:46:37.500
I mean, if I have to do the song 20 times, hopefully one of them is good enough.

00:46:37.900 --> 00:46:38.200
You know?

00:46:38.470 --> 00:46:38.580
Yeah.

00:46:38.870 --> 00:46:42.780
I mean, you sing pretty great live too because I've seen your play a lot of times.

00:46:43.100 --> 00:46:43.220
Yeah.

00:46:43.220 --> 00:46:43.300
So.

00:46:44.020 --> 00:46:44.180
Yeah.

00:46:44.580 --> 00:46:45.760
I feel like I am.

00:46:46.400 --> 00:46:47.100
It's never perfect.

00:46:47.650 --> 00:46:56.000
Like I always know when I'm not quite nailing things, I'm falling off key a little bit, but I've gotten a lot better.

00:46:56.580 --> 00:47:02.780
Like I definitely know, you know, like now it's like 90% instead of 70%.

00:47:02.780 --> 00:47:29.400
or something most of the time. And I feel like that's fine. Like that's an acceptable ratio of good notes for most singers that are playing in like a loud band. So I don't try and stress too much over being perfect. I'd rather have it have some feeling and, you know, feel like I'm actually giving it everything that I can instead of like trying to overthink it and try and be perfect. So I'm happy with that.

00:47:31.240 --> 00:48:00.520
That's interesting, George, that you brought up the Peter Gabriel part because I'm a huge Peter Gabriel fan. I don't know if you're a big fan or not, too, but you mentioned him. His voice seems to match the music he's singing to. So if you're listening to any, especially his older stuff, I know you mentioned Red Rain, which you can't picture any other vocal tone or style doing it. And I think it's the same with his older stuff like Biko or anything off of his

00:48:00.560 --> 00:48:28.500
first four albums. It sounds like that you've gotten to that point too, where you know what your abilities are and you're not trying to stay there. You're trying to just keep them going strong. And I kind of like to see that progression that you've done. I mean, you feel that. So when I say you've got more confidence, it's not that, oh, I feel like I can do it now. It's more like this is where I'm good and I want to keep doing this and make it even better, which is a big difference between people who just feel good about doing it.

00:48:28.540 --> 00:48:33.300
It seems like you actually found the place where you can really exploit it to your benefit

00:48:33.860 --> 00:48:39.500
Yeah, I think that's true. I do have a lot more confidence in it now than I used to and the

00:48:40.640 --> 00:48:45.480
The thing that I know is that it's a good voice for the music that we're playing like it's it sounds

00:48:46.020 --> 00:48:49.540
Appropriate to me and I don't hate my own voice, which I know a lot of singers do

00:48:51.540 --> 00:48:56.620
And so i've just learned to appreciate it more over time and then really my struggle has just been, you know

00:48:57.120 --> 00:49:26.420
How do I get more consistent with it? And how do I make it so that I can sing every night if we're on tour? Because it's so easy to just like blow your voice out and totally ruin, you know, how do you take care of it? Four shows that warming up helps a lot. Pretty extensive warm up. I try and drink a lot of tea. I try not to drink too much on tour or anything. Try and get sleep when I can. It's pretty hard. You know,

00:49:26.640 --> 00:49:56.240
Just like trying to be careful about it. I try not to talk to people at shows very much if I'm on tour. I'll try and just sit backstage until it's not as loud in the venue or something and then go talk to people. Is that that like talking super loud over music is like what kills you faster than anything else. Yeah, I don't even have to sing it after a show after of talking to John or somebody for the whole show. I walk outside and I'm like, Oh my God, my voice is gone. Yeah, totally. I was just gonna say, yeah, not drinking a lot.

00:49:56.260 --> 00:50:26.080
helps because the more you drink, you just naturally get louder, especially with people that you want to hang out with. And you're used to all start talking louder. You're laughing before you know, you're like, I'm screwed for tomorrow. I'm doing way too much of this tonight. And like, that's pretty easy for me to do because there's like a fine line. Like when I'm singing, like the average, like the volume is around like 90 decibels when I've measured it with like a decibel meter, which is really,

00:50:27.660 --> 00:50:31.980
But it can very easily go to where I'm pushing just a little bit harder than that.

00:50:32.280 --> 00:50:35.440
And then it just like is really bad for my voice.

00:50:35.980 --> 00:50:49.600
But I can tell when I'm doing it right and I'm like keeping a pretty balanced amount of like internal compression when I'm singing and maintaining a pretty common volume that it feels healthy.

00:50:50.440 --> 00:50:56.000
So it's really like it's all about like trying to just be aware of what your body's feeling like.

00:50:56.060 --> 00:51:22.240
And if you're drinking, it's a lot harder to know what you're feeling when that stuff is happening. It's so much easier to just want to push it harder and harder. A question for you, Phil, but it's pointed at will. In the Decibel interview, you mentioned that Desolation was like your injustice for all. So does that mean, then, that Deceiver is your black album? No.

00:51:26.060 --> 00:51:26.680
for saying that.

00:51:27.980 --> 00:51:29.260
It's our master of puppets.

00:51:29.420 --> 00:51:30.620
Okay, so you're working backwards.

00:51:31.440 --> 00:51:31.620
Yeah.

00:51:32.320 --> 00:51:33.840
The look of horror is like, what?

00:51:34.580 --> 00:51:39.040
We can't have an episode where the Black Album doesn't come up and make, we'll make a sour face.

00:51:39.430 --> 00:51:51.160
You know, you know what's driving me nuts is I guess it's the 30th anniversary and you just put on like, even Ozzy's Boneyard's been playing a lot of Black Album and they never played a Black Album.

00:51:51.280 --> 00:51:52.760
It's been driving me nuts.

00:51:53.280 --> 00:52:22.760
Yeah, just like a bunch of nothing else matters and sad but true, which I'm okay with sad but true to some degree. But yeah, it's kind of rough. For me, I feel like Hunted is kind of like our ride the lightning and the color scheme even is appropriate. And I feel like the new album kind of feels like it's like us just leveling up Hunted a little bit in most respects. So it feels like Master of Puppets to me if we're doing this analogy.

00:52:23.300 --> 00:52:52.160
Cool. So I know obviously with COVID and everything, you guys were using Dropbox and stuff, writing songs, but was there anything else like you did differently in terms of writing and recording the album other than the obvious, you know, separation? Yeah. I mean, that separation was really important. And the, you know, sort of the, the time that we ended up having before we went into the studio was so much briefer than what we usually have for working on the songs together.

00:52:52.980 --> 00:53:22.940
So we had to sort of be like pretty determined about how we were using our time pretty regimented like okay we're gonna work on this song for an hour and a half and then if we're not making progress or you know we get to a point where we can stop then we switch to this other song and work on it and usually we pretty much just kind of like run a song until it's completely done and then move on to the next one so it might be like you know a whole month that we're going to do it.

00:53:22.980 --> 00:53:51.920
We're just working on like one song or something, but we didn't have time to do that. Um, but the biggest difference was in that in the studio, like we had, I think we were in the studio for about five weeks. So we had a lot longer than we've had before to record the album. And we had sort of the space, uh, because of that to, um, to just get to use the studio a lot more as like a creative tool.

00:53:52.720 --> 00:54:22.380
And one of the things we consciously did going into the album was, into recording, was that we didn't want to completely, like, have every single thing figured out before we went into the studio. We wanted to go in and leave some things up to chance that we would kind of just, like, see what happened with. And that that was really fun because it ended up making the studio, like, more spontaneous and a more creative experience.

00:54:25.480 --> 00:54:52.660
And it meant that, you know, like when Zach was recording drums, he could just make some choices that we didn't expect that when we got to the guitars, we're like, oh, shit, we have to kind of change like what we're doing here so that it fits that because that's really cool now. And then usually in the past, the way we've recorded guitars is like either I or Ben will do all of our rhythm guitars for like a day or two and do the whole album.

00:54:52.760 --> 00:55:22.640
on that side of the stereo picture. And then the other person will play all their rhythm guitars. And then we'll move on to doing leads and then vocals last. And in this case, me and Ben would just each sort of be sitting there ready to go. And we would decide who had sort of the best feel to start a song with. And they would play through most of the song.

00:55:23.800 --> 00:55:49.620
And then we would trade over and have the other person go. And sometimes we would just be playing at the same time. And also sometimes we would just determine like you're the way you're playing this part is better than the way that I would play it or the way I'm playing it just fits better than what you're doing. And so we ended up like double tracking both of our rhythm guitars with one person a lot more than we have in the past.

00:55:52.420 --> 00:56:22.380
So like pretty much whenever Ben is soloing on the album, it's just me playing the rhythm guitars under it because I always like to sort of mutate the riff under the solo in a way that I think sort of keeps the song moving along. And it's really hard to sort of pick up those little tiny things if it's a different guitar player. So, you know, like on Shroud of Lethe, the fourth song on the album during both guitar solos, it's just me playing the rhythm guitar player.

00:56:23.700 --> 00:56:50.380
and both of those never repeat. It's like each time changing a little bit. And I really like what that brings to the album. And then the last thing is that we had more time to sort of experiment with different guitar tones. And so what you get on the album is in the past has always just been like one rhythm guitar tone. And then, you know, Ben will have his rhythm guitar tone all the way through.

00:56:51.220 --> 00:57:20.940
And for this one, you know, we shot our own main rhythm guitar tone, but then we would sometimes stack in like a really saturated, like almost like HM2, like Swedish death metal guitar sound with it too. And then other times also have like cleaner guitar sounds that we would layer in or just ones that were more like crunchy. So there's just a broader array of sounds. So it's just like a more dynamic.

00:57:22.260 --> 00:57:23.720
for that reason, too.

00:57:23.720 --> 00:57:35.780
Hey, Phil, when you're recording, is everything that you're recording in the studio, are you able to then duplicate that live?

00:57:36.660 --> 00:57:39.440
I mean, I think we can play all the songs.

00:57:41.140 --> 00:57:42.580
They're always going to be missing layers, though.

00:57:43.160 --> 00:58:12.980
You know, like on House of Cadmus, on the second song on the new album, after it goes from the second chorus into this like big sort of My Dying Bride sounding like Death Doom riff with Ben doing vocals. I think at one point there's like six different layers of guitars going on that are each doing different things. And this, you know, we can't replicate that live, but it's subtle.

00:58:13.140 --> 00:58:43.120
It's something that you get from the recording if you listen to it enough times and you're listening deeply enough. But it's not something that like is necessary for the song to sound good. So we can strip things back and so make any of the songs sound like the songs. But you know, you're not going to get that full experience that you get with the studio one. And we can't do all the vocal harmonies and stuff. So you know, it's always going to be a stripped back version of the albums. Okay. Phil, you just mentioned

00:58:43.180 --> 00:59:12.120
And I read that it's a song about your fears of an ancestral curse. So I was wondering what this curse is and how it's tied to your bloodline. Because I haven't heard any news about it. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of deliberate. It's not been something I wanted to talk about. Way to go, Marcus. It's not really something that necessarily is my story to tell. And it feels inappropriate.

00:59:13.160 --> 00:59:42.820
to do that, you know, to sort of reveal things about your family that they don't share with other people. You know, like I might be one of maybe like five people in the world that knows about like some of the stuff that really sort of that song ends up being about. And, but, you know, I would say that it's something that, that I've had to contend with my whole life with this knowledge about.

00:59:43.140 --> 01:00:12.000
sort of where I come from and that it's something that I've always been really afraid of, especially in terms of like having kids of my own or something in the future that I'm sort of passing this down to them. And it's something that, you know, also relates to some things that I sort of experienced as a kid, maybe not directly, but indirectly.

01:00:15.279 --> 01:00:42.060
that I wouldn't really want to bring on anybody. And so it feels like it's something that I kind of deliberately am choosing not to talk about in interviews. But it's definitely about something really personal to me. And it's kind of like was one of the scariest songs, probably the sort of most just like vulnerable feeling.

01:00:42.800 --> 01:01:10.340
subject to write a song about that I've ever done that with. And really, I only did that because it was something that I have struggled with so much that I wanted to do something deliberate to sort of cut the cords from this thing. And so the song is like my effort to do that, essentially. And I remember at the end of the song, like when I finished singing the last part of it, this like really low, really sad sounding part.

01:01:12.040 --> 01:01:41.880
that like, you know, I'm hearing it back in the headphones and I just started crying and I just felt like I had released something really big. And so it really meant a lot to me to do that. And I remember, you know, Dave, our producer was also really affected by it because he I'd kind of told him more of the story. And he also could relate to sort of the imagery that was coming across in the song. And he was just saying, like, man, I've never really had this kind of connection.

01:01:42.260 --> 01:02:11.840
to a song that I've recorded before. And I thought that was really cool. So yeah, it's an important song to me, but it's not one that I feel like really belongs to anybody else. It's, you know, kind of for my, for myself. Will you ever, will you ever sing it live? Yeah, I would like to do it live. You know, it's kind of like a little bit of a boring song. Like it's not like an obvious like live banger to play that song because it's like very depressing and dark.

01:02:11.940 --> 01:02:41.700
and kind of slow and doesn't change tempo really at all. But it's one that I would like to play. I think it's one of the stronger like choruses on the album. And it'd be really cathartic. We don't really play Beyond the Door live hardly ever. And it's kind of a similar song in that way, I guess, where it doesn't feel like it's a huge like live song. But we're going to be playing it in St. Vitus.

01:02:42.840 --> 01:03:11.900
for the hunted night that we're doing there where we're playing hunted all the way through and it'll be fun to play that song again because it's it's it's also really cathartic to play something like that you know not to lighten the mood here phil but uh no go for it just work out with me here hot or cold does the family curse have anything to do with hitler no it actually doesn't yeah well there you go so at least you're above that well i want to i want to reel it back into this again um since you're talking about

01:03:11.900 --> 01:03:12.620
Like emotional things.

01:03:13.240 --> 01:03:13.740
And this is,

01:03:14.260 --> 01:03:15.980
I swear it's my last decibel reference,

01:03:17.020 --> 01:03:17.140
but,

01:03:17.640 --> 01:03:17.740
uh,

01:03:18.320 --> 01:03:18.480
you know,

01:03:18.560 --> 01:03:21.180
it was a really good article and it got me thinking a lot.

01:03:21.880 --> 01:03:21.980
And,

01:03:22.160 --> 01:03:22.260
um,

01:03:23.100 --> 01:03:25.860
when you and Ben were talking about overcoming depression,

01:03:26.360 --> 01:03:27.860
I found that extremely relatable,

01:03:28.020 --> 01:03:28.740
particularly these days.

01:03:29.600 --> 01:03:29.700
Uh,

01:03:29.880 --> 01:03:33.240
it actually meant a lot to me to hear about you guys struggling with the

01:03:33.380 --> 01:03:35.560
same kind of things that I've been battling for the past year or so.

01:03:36.660 --> 01:03:36.900
Um,

01:03:37.920 --> 01:03:38.620
and not just struggling,

01:03:38.740 --> 01:03:41.880
but find a way to overcome it and transform those feelings into

01:03:41.900 --> 01:03:49.100
a musical catharsis if you will um and i gotta admit that i was reading the lyrics for living

01:03:49.340 --> 01:03:54.660
pyre for the first time today actually i and as as it that caused me to go back and

01:03:55.950 --> 01:04:00.540
listen to the whole album again with the lyrics the whole time uh and it made me cry

01:04:02.720 --> 01:04:08.700
i really love the line see i gotta write it down i can't just i can't just cast aside the burden

01:04:08.720 --> 01:04:38.680
in my heart with no relief in sight I'm being torn apart I relate to that every day so thank you for that I mean you know obviously you had to go through some stuff and deal with it but what you're doing is helping other people and it helped me that's awesome and like George Obsidian Crown Astral Road those had me tearing up too yeah and after going through all the songs and listening to them and reading the

01:04:38.760 --> 01:05:08.680
lyrics. Deceiver has now joined the hallowed ranks of one of my all-time favorite albums. Yes. No joke. Awesome. You have achieved platinum Throssenblot status. The guys know what that means. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's the golden goose right there. Yeah, it really had a profound effect on me. Wait, Joel does not listen to this podcast, right? No, he doesn't. Because he's going to be really upset that somebody's encroaching in on

01:05:09.860 --> 01:05:38.680
I mean. Especially somebody with hair that good. I know. Well, Joe's got pretty good hair. So I just, I felt I needed to like tell you this to be like, thank you for what you had to go through and but the goodness that came from it. Yeah, thank you so much. That's really always been kind of the thing with this band that keeps me going and keeps me interested is that

01:05:38.720 --> 01:06:08.340
Like it has been something that has, I think especially, uh, that I've had a lot of people share really emotional reactions to the music with me, especially men, um, over the years. And like, there's just something really special about that. I mean, it's, I have always had a really strong emotional connection to music. And if,

01:06:08.720 --> 01:06:37.920
If I feel like a song is written about something that feels like I could have wrote it if I was talented enough or whatever to have done that, it always ends up making a huge impact on me. I'll never forget the first time that somebody told me a story like what you're saying. There was this veteran who came to one of our early shows in Denver right after Absolution had came out.

01:06:39.200 --> 01:06:43.340
He had come up to me and pulled me aside and wanted to tell me that

01:06:43.940 --> 01:06:47.780
he suffers from really bad PTSD and that he can't sleep

01:06:49.220 --> 01:06:53.400
and that when he listens to the bereaved, it helps him sleep at night

01:06:54.280 --> 01:06:57.640
and I was so affected by that and it

01:06:58.600 --> 01:07:00.420
meant so much to me to know that

01:07:01.780 --> 01:07:06.119
something difficult that I had gone through had ended up having some positive impact on somebody else

01:07:06.420 --> 01:07:36.020
And so like ever since then, I've like sort of taken that to be like my goal to some degree with these albums is to try and write songs that I don't want to write because it's painful to do that. But that I think that I need to write for myself. And then I feel like if I'm successful in doing that, that there will at least be, you know, somebody else that,

01:07:36.120 --> 01:08:05.740
can get a similar thing out of it that I get out of it. And it can be really difficult. And, you know, that was really kind of where I was coming from when I started writing the words to Living Pyre, honestly, was like, you know, I've invested so much of myself emotionally and made myself so vulnerable in doing this for all these years. And I just, you know, was in such a like bad mental state.

01:08:05.860 --> 01:08:12.220
at the time that I just really didn't know whether I would be capable of ever doing that again.

01:08:13.260 --> 01:08:21.880
And I didn't know, you know, I've derived a lot of sort of my meaning in life from having been able to do that at times.

01:08:22.980 --> 01:08:30.400
And I kind of was seeing my life as being meaningless because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to tap into that again.

01:08:31.900 --> 01:09:00.859
And then it was really from acknowledging that, that I was able to start writing the words, you know, really the first words for the album were like the first words on that song. And it's just an admission of like a very honest, you know, it's just a really honest reflection of where it was. Like, there's nothing left to give musically, emotionally, really in my life.

01:09:01.480 --> 01:09:31.420
you know that I can. There's nothing left to give that I can use to keep the flame alive inside. You know, it's like it was becoming difficult to see, like if my life had any meaning and that. It's funny that you say that like that there is, you know, that you your impression is that the depression that we're talking about in that article is something that we've gotten over because it's not.

01:09:33.280 --> 01:09:45.020
What I meant was that generally speaking, when you have something bad and you write about it, it's at least cathartic. If not, it doesn't necessarily resolve the issue, but there's a catharsis that occurs.

01:09:45.640 --> 01:10:00.380
Yeah, yeah, 100%. And I knew that's what you meant, but I just wanted to clarify that really like it's not something that I think you ever get over. It's just something that you learn to live with and being open about it and honest about it.

01:10:00.920 --> 01:10:08.440
and being vulnerable with those feelings is some of the best medicine for it that I've found.

01:10:08.890 --> 01:10:21.300
Well, I think, can I add too, Phil? I think that's because you find out you're not alone. I mean, you know, in that thing, you know, because they're all tortured. Every last one of us is under the weight of the world.

01:10:22.680 --> 01:10:30.140
And that is one of the best. That's why therapy is such a good thing, because you go and you talk to somebody about it, you know what I mean? And they go, yeah, I totally know that thing. You know what I mean?

01:10:30.280 --> 01:10:57.440
And suddenly you're not unique. In a tragic way. You know what I mean? It's terrible to be unique in a tragic way. You talk about the vulnerability and the hesitancy of expressing these things, but that is such a huge part of what drew me into this album was the vulnerability and the recognition of it and the relating to that. It was very poignant.

01:10:58.780 --> 01:11:28.360
Yeah, I, it's something that I realized that I needed to see more of in the world and in myself so that I could be happier with myself to not just like bury this shit and like try and ignore it and pretend everything is fine. You know, I had to learn to be honest about it. And you're striking. I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, go ahead, Jay. Well, just that you're striking so many good chords with me that you've really, I am, I've long been under the,

01:11:29.360 --> 01:11:50.160
that not nearly enough people who know heavy metal and or love it especially understand that you can write lyrics that seem to be something involved with the fantastic or whatever it is that we do and really talk about something at the same time. You're talking about Dion. I am talking about Dion. I know. I know. I know.

01:11:58.460 --> 01:12:28.380
find other people don't necessarily find it i mean some people do so it's just that's so nice to hear you know what i mean that it's just that you're not just going well let's do you know dungeons and dragons you know i mean like there's there's an underlying metaphor that you're talking about that's just because i i'm a big uh proponent of heavy metal being a legitimate art form and one that doesn't have to be validated in any way shape or form yeah i think and that just goes a long way in doing that the thing that's always attracted me to slower heavy music

01:12:28.400 --> 01:12:58.340
like, you know, like, Doom, is that it does have, like, a more emotional component. And in a way, like, you know, I would say that Doom is kind of, like, can be sort of, like, the soul music of heavy metal, you know? And not everybody does that, but, you know, you have bands like Yob or Neurosis where they're investing themselves on a spiritual and emotional level so heavily into the music that it's palpable.

01:12:58.420 --> 01:12:59.360
when you listen to it.

01:13:00.000 --> 01:13:05.380
And that that's always been something that we've tried to strive for is that same level of like,

01:13:06.480 --> 01:13:06.600
um,

01:13:08.100 --> 01:13:08.760
just like honesty,

01:13:09.920 --> 01:13:10.000
uh,

01:13:10.520 --> 01:13:13.200
and vulnerability and emotional potency.

01:13:14.000 --> 01:13:16.940
And I think that just better than on any other record,

01:13:17.680 --> 01:13:17.800
uh,

01:13:18.060 --> 01:13:20.040
we've done that on this new one.

01:13:20.700 --> 01:13:20.860
That's,

01:13:20.940 --> 01:13:28.380
and I think that that's one of the reasons why I see it as like hard to say that I like it better than hunted is because I also think that

01:13:29.260 --> 01:13:58.280
did it, but in a more veiled kind of way. And this one's very direct. You know, I think it's pretty obvious what each song is about. I don't think it is. And I mean, then the best kind of way. So what I mean is I still think that you're steeped in metaphor and myth and things like that, which is like, again, a big thing with me. And, and that like goes all the way back to the Joseph Campbell thing, you know, which is like, that's how we express the inexpressibles. We have to use metaphors and myths and,

01:13:58.380 --> 01:14:28.340
made up shit, you know, and, but, and that's how you get the truest version of what you're trying to say. Cause you can't fucking say it out loud. You can't, it's something you can't talk about because there's not words for it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Especially if it's something that's bigger than just your own experience. Like, and that's really, I think what, uh, you know, you try to shoot for, or at least what I try to shoot for is like, um, I want to be writing about something that's personal to me so that I can feel emotionally invested.

01:14:28.480 --> 01:14:58.360
I don't want it to be like autobiographical to the point where you're like he said what you know whatever like that's not good songwriting to me necessarily like Taylor Swift every song is about some ex-boyfriend I actually I mean I actually love some of that to some degree too when it's like so Swift yo yeah that you can like that you actually can see the story playing out like as if you're like watching a movie like I actually do appreciate that kind of songwriting too but that's never what I've been trying to strive for

01:14:58.400 --> 01:15:28.360
It's more like those ancient myths. They're about tragic figures who are brought down by something. And essentially every song we've ever written, more or less, is about a figure wrestling with some inadequacy or regret or shame or some struggle and either learning from it or getting past it or succumbing

01:15:28.640 --> 01:15:41.940
to it or, you know, really like in that way, what I try to do with the lyrics is make them sort of like myths where it's more broadly applicable than just like my experience.

01:15:42.460 --> 01:15:57.780
Well, there are, there are types. That's the whole, that's the whole way that thing works, man. And not only is it's that, but those stories themselves, let's talk about some of those myths that, you know, like you're talking about, you would take inspiration from are just about some dumbass farmer who couldn't get over the fact that his wife left, you know what I mean? Or whatever it is.

01:15:58.460 --> 01:16:27.820
And that's really where those things come from. That's why they're so effective. That's what makes you cry. That's awesome. That's great. I just love to hear that there's that level of thought in your craft beer words. You have a PhD in sociology, so I was wondering how your studies over the years and observations of people, because for people who might not know, it's the study of human social relationships and behavior. How does that affect how you're going to approach the songs?

01:16:27.980 --> 01:16:57.900
Not necessarily what you're going to write about, but how you want to maybe convey it to a broader audience. Has that affected your music and lyrics in any way? Yeah, it's a good question. I don't really think it does because I'm usually trying. Well, actually, I don't know. That's not true. I'll say that it certainly does relate to something shared about my tendency as a person.

01:16:58.000 --> 01:17:26.860
that I see myself as somebody who's very empathetic and who feels like other people's pain pretty directly. And that like if I'm really tapped in with somebody or something that I'm seeing, like I experience it as if it's me that's experiencing it. And that then that makes me someone who's really affected by like social injustice in our world.

01:17:27.400 --> 01:17:57.320
And so, you know, the thing that got me interested in sociology is really like trying to understand, you know, like, why is there racism? How does it manifest itself? You know, like, what creates all this inequality? Why are, why is there a sexism? And why is our society so patriarchal? And why do we perpetuate this? And who benefits from it? And I think, I also think you can't avoid that. I mean, it's got to have some influence.

01:17:57.400 --> 01:18:27.340
If you were a dentist, dude, which would be hilarious, that would work its way in some way. You wouldn't talk about teeth, but it would have a way. It's one of the ways you did the math. A couple songs about halitosis probably may pop up. That's so interesting, by the way. A tough week for social justice. Yeah, no, for sure. I think I have written some songs that are more directly inspired by that, like Bloodletting, for instance, on Desolation.

01:18:27.380 --> 01:18:57.360
is like reacting to the 2016 election and basically like trying to make sense of like what is actually wrong. I feel like I've tried since then to do my best to sort of like listen to people and not just judge them and try and figure out like what is it that makes somebody believe something that doesn't benefit them or that they think benefits them even if like

01:18:57.360 --> 01:19:27.020
Objectively it might not. Or, you know, why I'm so convinced that somebody else is right about something. And I've tried to be really inquisitive towards that. And I think I've basically come to the conclusion that, like, we don't listen to each other enough and that we fail to recognize the shared humanity in other people. We're so, like, obsessed with our own experience in our world these days.

01:19:27.380 --> 01:19:32.480
that you can become so impossibly closed off from the shared things that

01:19:33.480 --> 01:19:37.640
this person who believes something entirely different from you is trying to get to the exact same

01:19:37.840 --> 01:19:40.660
goal, but they're just doing it in a different way that you might not understand.

01:19:41.940 --> 01:19:48.200
And so the last line in the chorus on bloodletting is

01:19:49.220 --> 01:19:53.139
without the will to look inside, we cut our wrists on the divide

01:19:55.080 --> 01:20:23.120
and I'm bleeding out with no one there beside me. If we're not willing to do this more vulnerable investigation of ourselves and share it with each other, then we're all going to kill each other over this divide. Really, we're just looking in a mirror and that we all are looking for the same thing, essentially. I have tried to write about some political issues before and I've written

01:20:23.160 --> 01:20:30.580
about like every song or every album has a song on it uh actually i guess that's not true um hunted

01:20:30.880 --> 01:20:37.620
doesn't but the other albums all have a song on it that's like about sort of uh like violence against

01:20:38.350 --> 01:20:47.880
women to some degree and i've always felt really connected to that as like something that you know

01:20:47.880 --> 01:21:17.620
that I've seen play out in my relationships and in my family. And I've seen how this affects people firsthand so much in my life that like I just I feel like it's such an important issue to sort of be raising even if it's just in art, you know, like so like Serpentine on the first album is like sort of trying to take the perspective of like an abusive man and then calls him out.

01:21:17.880 --> 01:21:21.460
on it. And then, you know,

01:21:22.060 --> 01:21:25.500
ma of time on desolation is definitely also about,

01:21:27.500 --> 01:21:30.720
you know, just like how we're basically burning our daughters.

01:21:30.980 --> 01:21:34.760
If we're raising them in this culture to, you know,

01:21:34.940 --> 01:21:36.900
have to contend with this stuff. Sorry, Evelyn.

01:21:40.360 --> 01:21:41.740
I'm going to burn you. Don't worry.

01:21:42.400 --> 01:21:43.480
I've had a revelation.

01:21:43.960 --> 01:21:45.980
So while you were talking to me, I have to share it with the group.

01:21:46.100 --> 01:21:50.060
And it's that you with hair are a mix, a weird mix

01:21:50.240 --> 01:21:53.680
mesh between Les Claypool and Lemmy.

01:21:54.240 --> 01:21:54.980
And Keanu Reeves.

01:21:56.160 --> 01:21:57.480
And Keanu, there's some Keanu Reeves there.

01:21:57.560 --> 01:21:59.340
Oh yeah, he does kind of look like Keanu Reeves.

01:22:00.640 --> 01:22:04.120
You know, I was going to make two quick comments about what you were saying, too, about the

01:22:05.040 --> 01:22:09.220
lack of empathy and trying to see the points of view. And I think part of that is that we're just constantly

01:22:10.340 --> 01:22:14.040
presented with the most extreme version of the opposite point of view, which is

01:22:14.040 --> 01:22:40.580
It's a pain in the ass, and that really sucks. But I also kind of realized recently myself that we also used to, because we're all in these weird silos now, because you can go find any weird little group you want to be in, that's an obvious part of it. But what I mean is, we used to have, what, four TV channels, and when you went to work the next day, you'd say, hey, did you watch I Love Lucy? Because at least you were all doing something together, you know what I mean? Or you were all having some shared experience, and our shared experience is now gone. Yeah, for sure.

01:22:40.680 --> 01:23:10.460
So in any case, but it was interesting to hear you talk about those things. And I've often thought that that was the social media and all that stuff has really pushed us to a place where we no longer have this common ground because we had less to choose from. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I don't engage with social media at all and I don't have any of it. And I guess I've never had an interest in doing that. It's just like, I think it makes us worse as people. I think in general, I dislike the internet other than as a source of information.

01:23:11.400 --> 01:23:12.660
I think it's kind of like

01:23:13.700 --> 01:23:15.940
That's good. Do not read the Angry Metal Guy review.

01:23:16.360 --> 01:23:16.700
It's terrible.

01:23:18.020 --> 01:23:18.800
It wasn't that bad.

01:23:19.460 --> 01:23:21.760
I have tried to avoid reading a lot of press

01:23:22.520 --> 01:23:23.280
for this album

01:23:24.020 --> 01:23:26.540
but I do like read Angry Metal Guy

01:23:28.620 --> 01:23:29.340
pretty often

01:23:29.580 --> 01:23:31.640
and I like happened to read the review

01:23:31.840 --> 01:23:32.680
on there and I was like

01:23:33.280 --> 01:23:34.940
these guys just like didn't

01:23:35.410 --> 01:23:36.240
like get it.

01:23:37.640 --> 01:23:38.660
But it wasn't like

01:23:38.680 --> 01:24:07.820
It wasn't a total diss or anything. I mean, dude was like, you know, I like Khemmiss and they're really good at these things. But yeah, he just didn't get it. Well, keep this in mind too, though, dude. He listened to a record before that, a record after that. He wrote it in five minutes. Screw that guy. And the other thing is, honestly, for the last two years or so, I've not really liked any albums that they've reviewed positively on that site.

01:24:08.680 --> 01:24:38.520
I feel like their tastes are just like not aligned with mine anymore and I just don't really like any of it and I was like man like literally like in the last week he had given like a really positive review to like some really like very basic traditional metal with awful Lovecraftian lyrics and like pretty bad vocals and I was like the music we're making is of such higher quality just in terms of the amount of thought and intention that goes into it.

01:24:38.660 --> 01:25:08.640
that like I honestly just can't like accept that this is something that I even need to like worry about. And then like the same day I got like you know three or four emails saying stuff similar to like what George was saying like how much something meant to somebody. My mom called me and we had like a really good conversation about something and she was gonna like you know I don't know she was just like getting a lot out of the lyrics to one of the songs like

01:25:08.640 --> 01:25:09.620
for her personally.

01:25:09.770 --> 01:25:13.800
And I was just like, God, like if all this stuff is having such a positive impact,

01:25:15.160 --> 01:25:19.920
like why should I care if, you know, somebody doesn't get it and they give it a bad review?

01:25:21.000 --> 01:25:22.020
Not everybody gets everything.

01:25:22.170 --> 01:25:22.700
They just don't.

01:25:22.770 --> 01:25:29.080
You know, well, keep in mind, heavy metal is riddled with guys like the guys in heavy metal parking lot.

01:25:29.110 --> 01:25:30.220
And they all got computers, man.

01:25:30.360 --> 01:25:30.740
You know what I mean?

01:25:30.860 --> 01:25:34.860
Like they really, and probably more so than a lot of genres in all honesty.

01:25:34.940 --> 01:26:04.140
and maybe country music would be a close runner up to that. And I'm not picking on the fans. I'm just saying it's just a lot of people you know who there are people who love your music. You just love it because it sounds like some loud aggressive thing that they never thought they would quite experience. And hey, you're number two on the decimal list. Yeah, totally. And I was going to ask you. Most importantly, I like it. And I got something out of it. Really, that's kind of all that matters.

01:26:04.300 --> 01:26:33.960
Hey, Phil, did Decibel actually ever review the album and give it a number? I don't know. I don't remember if they did. I think they did. There might be a review in the next issue, potentially. I'm not sure. Those reviews don't mean squat. They don't mean squat in the back because some albums they give like a seven will end up in the top 40 and others they've given a nine. They're not even in the top five that got cut in the top 40. It's got a Decibel number. It's Decibel numbers.

01:26:34.280 --> 01:26:34.580
Yeah.

01:26:35.260 --> 01:26:38.780
Absolution got a seven and was in the top 10 of 2015.

01:26:39.480 --> 01:26:39.540
Well,

01:26:39.800 --> 01:26:41.720
it's got one really bad song on it.

01:26:41.880 --> 01:26:42.800
So that's true.

01:26:43.060 --> 01:26:43.220
Yeah.

01:26:43.920 --> 01:26:45.040
That's why it was a seven.

01:26:46.380 --> 01:26:46.620
Phil,

01:26:46.620 --> 01:26:47.560
if it's any consolation,

01:26:47.900 --> 01:26:49.920
I like the site also wonder box.

01:26:50.300 --> 01:26:50.860
You ever heard of that?

01:26:51.520 --> 01:26:51.700
Yeah.

01:26:51.860 --> 01:26:53.380
I've read on some stuff on there before.

01:26:53.480 --> 01:26:54.460
They do a ton of stuff too.

01:26:54.700 --> 01:26:56.940
And this is a essential list.

01:26:57.020 --> 01:26:57.580
Is this appropriate?

01:26:58.200 --> 01:26:58.340
No.

01:26:58.440 --> 01:26:58.540
Yeah.

01:26:58.600 --> 01:27:00.040
It's called wonder box metal reviews.

01:27:01.100 --> 01:27:01.340
Oh,

01:27:01.400 --> 01:27:01.540
okay.

01:27:01.580 --> 01:27:30.420
Yeah, I'm not joking. It's a legit side. I use it all the time. They think you are essential listening. So there you go. There you go. I, yeah, our, you know, Nuclear Blast has sent us some reviews and I've looked at a couple of those from like the really big publications in Europe and everything has been really positive that I've seen other than that Angry Metal Guy review. And like the Metal, it was the album of the month at Metal Hammer Germany, which is like a huge magazine.

01:27:30.640 --> 01:28:00.420
It beat the Exodus album and Obscura album and all these other ones. And I was like, that's pretty cool. And then the Metal Hammer UK review was like super, super nice. They basically were saying like, this is the most vital Doom album since Ghost's Opus Eponymous, that it could rewrite the genre in a similar way to that did. And I don't know if I agree with that necessarily. I was going to say, is Ghost a Doom metal band? The first album was pre. It's okay.

01:28:02.780 --> 01:28:30.620
I'll take that as high praise. I mean, they're like, if it's the first man's world around. Yeah, you're getting amazing reviews. I will say this, Phil, like this is a very different world experience, but in my job at work, I have this manager who gave me a review, performance review one time, and he raved about me, man. It was just like, Jay's the greatest, blah, blah, blah, love him. Could use 10 more just like him. And then down at the bottom, it was like, it wouldn't kill you to put on a nice pair of pants every once in a while. So here was this like amazing review, and I get to

01:28:30.660 --> 01:29:00.600
the end of it. And I'm like, this mother fuck. You know what I mean? It's so easy to focus on the negative. Anyway, John, I think you were. I was just going to say real quick about Angry Metal Guy now where it's gotten. I would suggest one thing in your life, not just Angry Metal Guy, but in all our lives, never read the comments ever anywhere for anything. But if you want to know what a review is like, read the comments when it's not a negative, but a lukewarm to negative review. Because if everyone agrees on there, they're all sheepish.

01:29:01.120 --> 01:29:30.620
and you know it's bad it's always the ones that have fans or comments to say oh you're so full of it this album's awesome that's when you know the review at least is okay even if you don't agree with it it's the ones where that what's that was there any of that or was it just all sheeple there was like two guys that like stood up for themselves and said bullshit this sorry they're like yes this album's awesome and i'm like okay i'll listen to that guy but i will not listen to everybody else everyone's like oh i'm so bummed about this i'm like did you even listen to

01:29:30.640 --> 01:30:00.600
Yeah. Come on, man. I don't care about reviews. I don't either. I look at a lot of reviews. I don't read them. I don't look at the scores. All I'm doing is looking for new music. I go to Decibel. I go to Angry Metal Guy. I go to wherever. I'm like, you know, because there's always like one band that falls through the cracks, but this place reviewed it. I'm like, oh, I've never heard of them. And that's how I find new stuff. And that's the OCD kind

01:30:02.900 --> 01:30:30.560
You can't find as much as you can. Well, we also have made this comment multiple times, which is there. You'll read a negative review sometimes. And they're like, oh, no, I'm going to love this. You know what I mean? Because of the guy who reviewed it or whatever his negative comments were. So whatever. Yeah. I mean, it's subjective to everybody. So whatever they say doesn't have any bearing on what I'm going to think. Well, as long as it's not a lazy review. If they actually put effort into reasons why they don't like something, you can respect it and say, hey, that's free press for us.

01:30:30.620 --> 01:31:00.600
That's cool. It's the ones that are lazy that don't even put any effort to doing like the smallest bit of research about the band. And it's like, oh, it's this and that. It's like, okay, this is really, you don't even like this genre. You just happen to get this in the rotation for reviews at the site that you're at. Yeah. That's what it means. Zeppelin had a career of bad reviews. Oh, yeah. Their first album got mocked as, you know, they're going to go down like. As did Sabbath. Yeah. I also think, not to interrupt, but I also think

01:31:00.620 --> 01:31:02.720
I think there's more that goes into review than just the music.

01:31:03.070 --> 01:31:06.400
I feel like there's so many other factors and there shouldn't be,

01:31:06.660 --> 01:31:10.360
but I think there are in terms of like what day you listen to it,

01:31:10.520 --> 01:31:12.540
what time of day, what's going on in your life.

01:31:13.070 --> 01:31:18.040
Did you just have an argument with somebody you're in a bad mood and you're just going to take it out on this review because you're angry?

01:31:18.820 --> 01:31:21.900
Most reviewers at those sites don't get to choose what they want to review.

01:31:22.210 --> 01:31:26.140
Cause I got asked once to review at a site and I was like, well, can I choose the albums?

01:31:26.300 --> 01:31:29.680
They're like, no, we'll just assign you stuff. I was like, I'm out because if I don't like it,

01:31:29.720 --> 01:31:31.900
I don't want to trash something that I don't even listen to.

01:31:32.540 --> 01:31:32.600
Yeah.

01:31:32.960 --> 01:31:35.600
You know, that's not fair to the artists because it may be a great album.

01:31:35.800 --> 01:31:42.980
And I think most of those sites, Angry Metal, they may, some of the bigger names there might get to choose what they listen to.

01:31:43.060 --> 01:31:47.040
But I bet you the newer people, they just throw them a ton of stuff.

01:31:47.500 --> 01:31:51.200
George, I'm sure you've been posed with that in the past when you've gotten a ton of stuff.

01:31:51.320 --> 01:31:55.260
When you were doing things on YouTube, were you getting asked to do reviews from places at all?

01:31:57.380 --> 01:31:59.640
I mean, no, I always did my own reviews.

01:31:59.680 --> 01:32:29.320
Okay. And, you know, starting out, I felt I had to review everything that, you know, when you're getting promos, you know, left and right, I was like, oh my gosh, I have to review all of this stuff. Otherwise, they're going to think I'm a jerk or they're not going to send me more or whatever. And so I would review things poorly if I didn't like it. And then, as I've mentioned many times, it'll come around and bite me in the butt because I wrote like three sentence horrible review of Blue Douse Nord in,

01:32:31.260 --> 01:32:32.920
2003 or whatever. And now I'm like,

01:32:33.120 --> 01:32:34.620
Budas Nord is the greatest band ever.

01:32:36.220 --> 01:32:37.040
So, you know.

01:32:37.200 --> 01:32:38.320
So I was going to switch.

01:32:38.320 --> 01:32:39.780
You mean the third greatest band ever.

01:32:40.000 --> 01:32:40.700
Well, yes, of course.

01:32:41.040 --> 01:32:41.300
But yeah.

01:32:42.440 --> 01:32:42.860
You know,

01:32:43.180 --> 01:32:44.180
Khemmiss and Thrasim Blot.

01:32:44.220 --> 01:32:47.260
Well, I've said some things on this show about Khemmiss that I have to live down, you know.

01:32:47.380 --> 01:32:47.900
But the.

01:32:48.140 --> 01:32:49.120
No, I love it.

01:32:49.240 --> 01:32:49.500
Wait, wait, wait.

01:32:49.500 --> 01:32:50.780
They remind you all the time.

01:32:51.140 --> 01:32:51.760
Can we just pause?

01:32:52.980 --> 01:32:54.840
Evan, why don't you read that question that you had?

01:32:55.660 --> 01:32:55.880
No.

01:32:56.380 --> 01:32:57.500
No, it's about me.

01:32:57.980 --> 01:32:58.560
That's all right.

01:32:58.700 --> 01:32:59.240
It's okay.

01:32:59.260 --> 01:33:29.240
I'll tell you this though and I hope you remember this experience and this and this is this will be a private moment that I'm going to keep but I told Phil in person in Los Angeles what I thought of the last record and we had a short conversation directly after the Celtic Frost set we sat and chatted for a minute and that'll Phil may not even remember it but that will forever be my true feelings but on this show I've taken a persona with Kermis and I can stick to it. Phil I wanted to ask I wanted to ask

01:33:29.260 --> 01:33:57.120
And I wonder if it's a plug for a friend of yours, but the custom guitars that you and Ben seem to be using and acquired, I think. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, yeah. Sasha Dunnable from Internot makes those guitars. Oh, nice. So the company's called Dunnable. He's made guitars for a lot of people, a lot of cool bands. You know, like Russian Circles guys have been playing those ever since he started making them.

01:33:58.460 --> 01:34:28.420
They have such a unique sound to Russian circles. Yeah, that's really cool. Uh huh. Um, Nate from spirited drift plays one of his guitars. The dudes from deaf heaven were playing them really early on. Uh, um, uh, what's his name? Um, Jeff mats from high on fire. The bass player has been playing one of his bases, you know, ever since he started making them, uh, you know, lots and lots of

01:34:28.440 --> 01:34:58.300
Cool bands have been used. Where's he at? And how did you work with him to get it done? Yeah, we kind of knew him personally from, you know, just like we've played shows with Internat over the years a couple times and just sort of got to know those guys. They're all really nice. Except for that old drummer who's, you know, turned out to not be a good guy. But the, you know, Sasha, we knew that he was making guitars.

01:34:58.440 --> 01:35:28.360
I used to play all his instruments. And, uh, you know, I wanted to try one. And so like when we played with him one time, he let me dink around on it. And then I was like, Oh, these are really cool. And we were like, if you ever make a flying V model, you know, like let us know and like to try playing one. And he started making a V shaped guitar. Um, and I think, I don't remember if it was Ben or I that ordered one first, but each of us ordered,

01:35:28.460 --> 01:35:57.740
one, kind of around the same time. And honestly, the first one that he made for me wasn't really that good. Just like the neck is like not really my style. It might be great for somebody that wants to play like a huge baseball neck, baseball bat feeling neck. But I, you know, I just never quite got along with that guitar. Although it's sitting right back there.

01:35:57.820 --> 01:36:27.060
It's a cool guitar and it sounds great, but just not my favorite one to play. And so I asked him if he'd make me another one. And I just wanted like a bunch of custom stuff done with it. Like it has custom inlays on the fretboard. I basically wanted him to make me a guitar that looked like Nick Ronson's guitar from David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust band. He played a Les Paul with a maple cap.

01:36:27.800 --> 01:36:57.700
It was just like bare bones, no pickup covers, you know, just like really simple, but like elegant. And so I drew him a picture of the V that I wanted. And I had, you know, mahogany body, a maple cap, not a fancy maple cap, though. And then I really wanted the fret markers to be the same as on these old Yamaha guitars that I've always thought were really cool that like Santana used to play. And yeah, so he built me exactly the guitar.

01:36:57.840 --> 01:37:27.160
that I wanted and it looks exactly like the picture I drew him and I've just been playing that guitar as my number one ever since and it has a thinner neck like we you know I asked for that and it's much more to my liking and yeah so I love that guitar and it was pretty it was more expensive than like any other piece of gear I've ever bought but he still you know cut us a good deal on it and you know it's totally worth it so yeah I'm stoked about that guitar in particular.

01:37:27.220 --> 01:37:57.120
Mick Ronson, wildly underrated, by the way, or at least underappreciated. I don't know why that is. I'm never quite a middle of them connect with that fact. Such a tasteful guitar player. Everything was in service of the song and wrote some really great melodies and like orchestral backing for stuff, you know, like in Starman. And I don't know. Yeah. I'm a huge David Bowie fan. So I've always been a huge. Well, if you're a fan, you realize he wrote some really heavy stuff early on. Like width of a circle is heavier than most metal bands out there.

01:37:57.220 --> 01:38:26.200
And yet, all that everyone saw was glam rock. Like, no, dude, this could be proto-metal almost. Yeah, for sure. By the way, I saw System of a Down recently. The guys know, and Rush for Circles was one of the opening bands. And they had just literally that day gone through the theft of their band. So I hope they didn't lose their Dunnable guitars. I don't know. But they played on borrowed instruments and played for a very short period, I think, because it was bummer. That sucks.

01:38:26.380 --> 01:38:56.120
Well, um, okay. So yeah, I, it blew me away, dude. Yeah. I mean, are you a system of down fan? Yeah. They're like my favorite of that sort of era of metal bands. Yeah. There you go. Never seen them before. Tighter than a drum. Uh, first post COVID arena show that I've been to. And I suspect a lot of people in the audience as well. Cause people are like doing the fucking wave, man. And you don't see that at an arena show. It was phenomenal. It was a perfect first show to see.

01:38:56.900 --> 01:38:57.440
That's awesome.

01:38:58.960 --> 01:39:01.220
So Dunnable Guitars, you heard it here first anyway.

01:39:02.320 --> 01:39:03.180
Are you going to sell that black one?

01:39:05.200 --> 01:39:06.620
It's kind of purple, actually.

01:39:06.660 --> 01:39:06.760
Okay.

01:39:07.280 --> 01:39:07.720
You're going to sell it?

01:39:07.900 --> 01:39:08.480
Which is cool.

01:39:09.440 --> 01:39:10.360
I'm thinking about it, yeah.

01:39:10.720 --> 01:39:16.280
I played it on Doomed Heavy Metal on the live set that we did.

01:39:17.500 --> 01:39:18.080
Drop me a line.

01:39:18.740 --> 01:39:19.900
If you think about it, drop me a line.

01:39:20.200 --> 01:39:20.320
Okay.

01:39:20.900 --> 01:39:21.080
Yeah.

01:39:21.420 --> 01:39:21.540
Sure.

01:39:22.220 --> 01:39:23.400
Hey, Phil, what do you get at?

01:39:23.420 --> 01:39:53.300
We'll outbid you, by the way. Didn't Ben sell something that I was all like, oh, I gotta get that? He did sell a guitar. He sold some stuff. One of his dogs was dying, and he was trying to get money for treatment, and it ended up not being enough. So he was clearing out some stuff for a while. Sorry, Ben. If you want to take Jay for a ride, Phil, just put a lot of white dots all over that guitar back there.

01:39:53.960 --> 01:40:23.380
He'll give you everything for it. Trust me. He knows exactly what I'm talking about. Okay. He's pulling a Randy Rhodes on you there. Yeah, yeah. He'll take anything. Or a buddy guy. Yeah, that's right. He started that. So how do you feel about doing shows again in the age of COVID? I have mixed feelings. I mean, I'm really excited on one hand to get out and play for people again. I'm excited for these New York shows that we've got coming up and we're doing some

01:40:23.400 --> 01:40:49.740
West Coast stuff. I'm excited to do all of that. I think, you know, I'm going to make sure that like I get a booster shot before we hit the road. I'm trying to be as safe as I can. And it's probably going to be kind of a bummer because I'm going to want to not hang out with people as much at the shows and just, you know, because I don't want to get sick like while we're on the road and potentially be endangering people or something.

01:40:53.420 --> 01:41:22.440
being careful and trying as much as possible to get the venues to enforce like some reasonable standard for letting people come in who aren't going to be ding-dongs you know it hasn't shows that i've been to hasn't been very well enforced no the show the only show we've played so far was that psycho vegas show and zach always takes a picture from the drum seat like at the end of the show

01:41:24.560 --> 01:41:52.260
And when I look at that picture, I'm like, man, there's probably like 2,000 people here and like 60% of them aren't wearing masks. Yeah. And I'm like, that's not great. Like, I don't really want to be doing shows if it's going to be that packed. And if, you know, there's not gonna be 2,000 people to see us when we're on tour. But, you know, if it's 300 people. Well, not with that attitude. It's true. But, you know, if we're in a, you know, a small club and there's 300 people and it's just as packed,

01:41:52.460 --> 01:41:58.440
I don't want it to be a space where people are going to all get sick from each other.

01:41:58.860 --> 01:42:01.520
So I don't know. It's a little bit hard.

01:42:03.080 --> 01:42:06.000
I think I'm just hoping for the best and we're going to sort of see how it goes.

01:42:07.180 --> 01:42:08.380
But fingers crossed.

01:42:08.620 --> 01:42:12.380
But I sort of have mixed feelings about it, I guess.

01:42:13.600 --> 01:42:16.860
Are there any more plans for a more widespread tour?

01:42:18.690 --> 01:42:20.340
Particularly something East Coast other than New York?

01:42:20.440 --> 01:42:50.400
because I think it's kind of ironic that the only one on the podcast in a position to catch one of your shows is Jay. Yeah, I know. And he's never going to come see us. Yeah, we we're going to be doing something else in the Northeast just for a couple of days in May that I can't talk about yet. And then around this time next year, like in October and November, we're going to be

01:42:50.440 --> 01:43:19.640
the first band on a really big tour package that is going to be doing everything. So we're going to be on tour for a long time then. And so we're probably not going to tour a whole lot until then because we just can't take that much time off work. But so, yeah, we're going to be everywhere on that tour, I think. And it's waiting for a lot of people, hopefully. Awesome. How has it been working with Nuclear Blast, Philip? Because you seem like you've been doing a lot of interviews.

01:43:19.900 --> 01:43:49.860
a lot more than we've ever done. So how has it been with them, a bigger place? Obviously, you know, if that's true, then they've been crushing it. You know, yeah, we've done so much press for this album compared to what we've done in the past, especially last time. I don't know why, but like, I think Desolation maybe just came out at kind of a weird time for the press folks we were working with that 20 bucks spin had hired for that, but we didn't really do a lot of press for that album. And it kind of just felt like it

01:43:49.880 --> 01:44:19.860
made sort of a small drop when it came out for that reason. But this time felt like there was a huge lead up for it and got to do all kinds of press like we're in the guitar world next month, I think. And all this like cool shit that like childhood me is like super stoked about. And of course, the Metalheads podcast once again. Yeah, I know. The illustrious Metalheads podcast. Didn't Phil request to be on this? I did. Yeah, there you go. We're like a band that gets really

01:44:21.900 --> 01:44:49.660
We're going to go back to our club days. This is like when Metallica plays the spastic children. We really appreciate that. We want to get closer to the people. Phil did text me and says he can't wait to see us. Physically see us. Likewise. I like all you guys. Except for Jay. Yeah. I gotta tell you. It's a gift that has been giving. When Will and I saw you at that place,

01:44:49.900 --> 01:45:18.440
Or is it will bird song or whatever? Yeah, songbird. I literally within two seconds I said, hey, is there anything you want to say to Jay? And like everyone, all of you all just turn at the same time and say, I can't say it now because we have some young reviewers attending. Take your earplugs out. Take your earplugs out. Just for a second. Not like we haven't said this already. People may know this, but literally I see you guys on the street, hey, anything for Jay? Fuck Jay! Fuck him!

01:45:20.320 --> 01:45:21.480
Anywhere we've seen you guys.

01:45:22.160 --> 01:45:22.440
John.

01:45:23.140 --> 01:45:23.460
Atlas.

01:45:23.820 --> 01:45:24.280
Fuck him.

01:45:24.820 --> 01:45:25.380
John BT.

01:45:25.860 --> 01:45:26.420
John BT.

01:45:26.580 --> 01:45:28.400
When they played in Texas, even went up.

01:45:28.520 --> 01:45:30.280
Someone was like, hey, I know Jay's friend.

01:45:30.720 --> 01:45:31.860
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:45:32.040 --> 01:45:32.220
TR.

01:45:33.580 --> 01:45:34.620
Hey, same thing, TR.

01:45:34.880 --> 01:45:40.540
I said, TR, when you see the guys, if you're going to buy merch, just go up and say, hey, I know the guys from another podcast.

01:45:40.680 --> 01:45:43.180
But first, before you say anything, just say, hey, do you have a message for Jay?

01:45:43.280 --> 01:45:43.740
And he did that.

01:45:43.740 --> 01:45:44.540
And I don't know who it was.

01:45:44.640 --> 01:45:45.260
He could go.

01:45:46.300 --> 01:45:47.120
I really hope.

01:45:47.260 --> 01:45:47.660
It was great.

01:45:47.940 --> 01:45:48.380
I love it.

01:45:48.680 --> 01:46:13.840
I really hope I work it into a work myself into a song or a t-shirt or something you guys can be beheading me that'd be all right I don't I want you guys to call him out a decibel fest or something like that hey can we get the can we put this the lights on so we can see everybody I don't know if you can read this but this is Evelyn's handwriting and the where the arrow is that that is literally her question says what do you have to say to Jay

01:46:17.100 --> 01:46:43.000
That's the question, but you're going to answer. Funny enough, truth be told. Evelyn just might drop the whole interview. You originally said, what are you going to say to Matt? And I'm like, Matt? You have to put them in. They can't hear you. I keep getting like Jay and Matt mixed up for some reason. You look like a Matt and you look like a Jay. I don't know. Maybe there's something there. I get confused.

01:46:43.840 --> 01:47:13.120
There can only be one Markisan. Here's the thing. I created the Chemesis logo. So Chemesis, Chemesis, and I feel like that could be Jay's moniker. Well, I'll tell you what, Jay. If this album isn't on your end list next month, I'm coming out to California and I'm whooping your ass. I already told the guys, Phil, and I have found a... Whooping is a euphemism. What do you call it? A dark web way to actually keep it off of their lists. In fairness to Jay,

01:47:14.440 --> 01:47:42.660
The Khemmis albums have been on your list. They've just been ways of love. Yeah, they could change. Yeah, that's the origin of the term. I like that this isn't just like a huge, you know, I was going to say it's something that wouldn't have been appropriate, but yeah. Well, the day it's number one with me, it's over. You guys are like, well, that's it. Okay, we're done. Well, I actually said that to John. I was like, Jay is going to reverse JS and put it at number one. Yeah, then we'll all be like, it's nothing special.

01:47:44.700 --> 01:48:12.060
The highest is going to go is number two. I do like it. Wait, what? What? I think there's an honorable mention in that list somewhere. Number 51. Exactly. Number 26. What's my number one? Help me out. It sounds obvious and I don't remember what it is right now. Exodus or Cass? No, I don't know.

01:48:13.860 --> 01:48:43.820
That's right, yeah. Is that a good segue for us to move into the next phase of the show? Absolutely. Phil's like, come on, man. Hurry up. All right, let's do this. Hey, sorry, real quick. Everyone does have like one or two questions and then she's, you know, it's getting late. She's got to go. Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Last question. Yes. How did you meet your bandmates? Read Decibel. So did they even explain it this time? I feel like

01:48:43.840 --> 01:49:13.220
I don't know. It was a really good explanation, I thought. Oh. So I met Ben at, like, I was in grad school in Colorado here for a year before Ben moved out. He's in the same program as me. And I met him at, like, this getting to know the new cohort of student, like, mixer thing. We were both just, like, drinking red wine at the bar while everybody was, like, trying to schmooze with professors and each other. And we were both just, like,

01:49:16.180 --> 01:49:43.360
And, you know, he instantly looks like a metal guy. And I definitely didn't look as much like one. But I saw him and I was like, I think I saw that he had like a neurosis patch or something on his like vest or something. And I was like, oh, hell yeah. You know, and I just brought it up. And then I was like, hey, are you thinking about going to see, you know, I don't know what the show was like, St. Vitus and Weed Eater next week or something like that.

01:49:43.420 --> 01:50:13.120
And we were like, oh, okay, you're into that kind of metal and not like, you know, the other kind. Slipknot, my dying, or, you know, Vail of My Odds or something. Yeah. And so, you know, we both kind of just hit it off and we were like, oh, okay, yeah, you know, this is cool. And then we got to talking about, like, that we both have, you know, played guitar and played in some bands and stuff. And he, you know, we were both like, oh, we should get together and jam sometime.

01:50:13.780 --> 01:50:15.320
And we didn't end up doing anything

01:50:16.070 --> 01:50:16.840
for quite a while.

01:50:17.400 --> 01:50:20.360
And he and Dan had started a band.

01:50:22.840 --> 01:50:24.560
Because they met each other through Craigslist.

01:50:27.060 --> 01:50:28.500
Were they looking for musicians?

01:50:28.690 --> 01:50:29.680
Or what were they looking for?

01:50:30.100 --> 01:50:30.900
Men Seeking Men.

01:50:34.020 --> 01:50:35.200
Men Seeking Men with guitars.

01:50:36.020 --> 01:50:37.780
It's just M4M on the top.

01:50:39.440 --> 01:50:43.180
And so I went and just hung out one time with Ben.

01:50:43.240 --> 01:50:47.080
because I think I forgot what happened. Maybe practice between the two of them got

01:50:47.360 --> 01:51:12.940
canceled or something and I was going to come down and try and play with them. But me and Bang just ended up hanging out and drinking beers and playing music and sort of instantly we're hitting it off musically. And so yeah, it kind of just took off from there. And then we had a different drummer at first who was just kind of a douche. And we really didn't like having the guy in the band.

01:51:12.960 --> 01:51:41.020
And so we pretty unceremoniously fired him at a Samothrace show that we played. We played at the Samothrace. It's like our first like actual decent show that we played. And we fired that guy after the show. And Zach was at the show. And we knew about him through True Brewing, where he's the head brewer in Denver.

01:51:41.880 --> 01:52:11.720
And we knew that he'd been playing in death metal bands for years and definitely had the chops. So we asked him to come out and he was interested. And then it was kind of just the rest is history, I guess. Yeah. Nice. I'm going upstairs now. Okay. Thanks for hanging out so long, Evelyn. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Yeah. You asked way better questions. I know.

01:52:11.880 --> 01:52:41.200
you're going to come to you for all our interviews. Honest to Evelyn, that was one of the best interviews, maybe the best interview that I've had this whole press section. She had you on your toes a couple times. Like, oh, man, I got to answer this? That's a cat's and dog's question. I just sat down in a chair in the living room, found my old second grade reading notebook, ripped off the cover and just kind of used paper. It looks legit. And then just like started writing. Yeah.

01:52:41.860 --> 01:53:11.780
That's awesome. Yeah. You're natural. Thank y'all. Metalheads podcast second gen. All right. Awesome. Good night. Bye Evelyn. Bye. Phil every time we do an interview after this you're going to get questions like oh my god how is how could they not ask questions like her? I'm going to talk shit at every future interviewer. Yeah like really you can't ask me a question about dogs and cats?

01:53:11.880 --> 01:53:37.940
Yeah. Or the hard questions like, what's your least favorite Khemmis song? No one's ever asked me that before. Yeah. I can honestly say she came up with every single one of those questions on her own. So she was, she was pretty excited. She, she was nervous and stuff, but she was pretty excited. And while she's telling you these questions, you just said, uh-huh. Okay, good. Yeah. Uh-huh. And you're like, man, these are gonna be tough. But did you have to wait for the child to go away to open the beer? Exactly.

01:53:41.900 --> 01:54:11.840
now. It's very respectful. Maybe it's because I've drank at your house before, Will. Maybe we take a break. This is Hannes Grossman and you're listening to the Metal Heads podcast. I would just love and feel that you're dropping all kinds of music that I love that I have maybe only George, sometimes Jay, can talk about with. You're dropping Mick Ronson comments and Gabriel comments like, oh, yes. Yeah, I've always been pretty partial to

01:54:11.880 --> 01:54:41.840
like just like a lot of classic rock I guess but my dad especially was into like southern rock and prog rock so my dad was like really into Genesis and oh man and then like Little Feet and cool that's not bad and Allman Brothers and you know all that kind of stuff so yeah I was just exposed to all that stuff did I hear you correctly when you said you said you were a big Bowie fan

01:54:41.860 --> 01:55:11.820
Yeah, he's probably my all-time favorite musical person. As soon as you said that, I know. Yeah, John was like, oh, he's a detention. So hopefully you'll like this. He died when we were working on, or when we were writing Hunted. And I tried to have the first verse of Candlelight be like a David Bowie style.

01:55:13.100 --> 01:55:40.820
vocal to the degree that it felt appropriate. Like it was nice, like an inspiration for that. Sort of it like jumps octaves like halfway through it, which is like something that he would do. He would do all the time, you know, and so I don't know. Anyway, it was he did the most metal thing ever for not being a metal guy. And that was knowing full well his time was coming to a quick end and puts out probably his best album in 20 some years.

01:55:40.960 --> 01:56:10.460
We talked about it when you guys came on. Actually, we talked about his death at that time. And I love Bowie, too. I still, to this day, and I watch it every couple of months. I watch that goddamn Lazarus video. It's so good for that record. So affecting, man. It's just a work of art. So good. He made his death art. Honestly, nobody else has done that to that degree.

01:56:10.980 --> 01:56:40.780
I can think of. And in like three minutes, he kind of choreographs and sings his life story kind of, plus the fear and dread he's going through in this horrible. Unreal. Hey, just real quick, Phil, before we get started, do you have a favorite period of his? This is always, if you're a big boy fan, always wonder what people like the most. Yeah, the Berlin. I'm, yeah, I'm very distinct on mine. I'm, my favorite stuff is between Ziggy Stardust and the Berlin period. Okay. So I really like,

01:56:40.960 --> 01:57:10.120
Station to Station. Boom. Winner. Yeah. Always. My favorite song. Absolutely love that album. Yeah. I'm really big into Low and, yeah, the Berlin stuff, too. But, like, I'm really into Aladdin Sane, Station to Station, Heroes, Lodger, Low. Keep it going. You got to go Scary Monsters to finish off the non-Berlin Berlin album. I do love that album, too. Yeah.

01:57:11.000 --> 01:57:40.900
Honestly, I really like everything from Hunky Dory to Scary Monsters. Like every album in there is really good. Yeah, I have everything. So I even have those stuff. I'm like, ugh. I could always find one song on those albums I like. All right. Why don't we then move on to the time-honored tradition of t-shirt and beer check? How many beers am I in? It's going to be pretty.

01:57:41.960 --> 01:58:10.840
across the board, almost. Almost. Some people jade this part. We got different shirts. Yes. All right. Well, Marcus, or, well, actually, no, sorry. We've got to go with Phil, yeah. Oh, okay. I'm wearing Samothrace Life's Trade t-shirt. One of my favorite Doomy albums ever. Amazing, like, bluesy guitar playing.

01:58:11.260 --> 01:58:39.040
Very heartfelt. Emotional record. One of the best. Super underappreciated. Nice. That one's good, too. I bought this at the show. I was lucky enough to see them with Bell Witch. God, it was a good show. Oh, yeah. Nice. Yeah. Life's Trade is my favorite, but that one's really good, too. Yeah. And a funny story about that, I guess, is I bought this shirt when we played with them when we fired our first drummer.

01:58:41.239 --> 01:59:09.220
We played in this place called Bar Bar in Denver, which is like not actually a venue. It's just like a ultra shitty dive bar that's open like from like 5 or 6 a.m. until like, you know, however late they can be open. And it's like notorious as like the place where homeless people drink in downtown Denver. And the crowd like changes over at like 8 or 9.

01:59:09.800 --> 01:59:39.640
When there's a show to being like a soft mix of homeless people and like concert goers. And this guy, after we got off stage, we were loading out to our van and there's this homeless guy outside and he's just like singing Jimi Hendrix at me like really loud. And he's like, yeah, you know, like, he's like, yeah, like, you know, he's just like super drunk.

01:59:40.420 --> 02:00:09.720
or whatever. And like, and I was just like, hell yes, this place rules. And then when I went back in, uh, some guy had like been at the bar sitting there, some other clearly homeless person had been sitting at the bar and he was drinking his beer and he set it down and it was like most of the way gone. And then he like stumbled off to the bathroom and the bartender grabbed the glass and poured it out, asked me what I wanted. And I was like, whatever drink ticket will get me. And then he opened a can of PBR and poured it into the same glass.

02:00:09.800 --> 02:00:39.240
that he had just been rinsing it and handed it to me and I was like this place is fucking terrible. You know it's funny so much what you just said about that story is Atlas because we are not drinking there anymore. Yeah yeah no no sorry but just like around the corner from Atlas is a big homeless shelter and there are there are just always just we call them the outdoor the the out the urban outdoorsman club.

02:00:41.640 --> 02:01:08.120
And they just like there's a show and they just walk into the brewery sometimes. Sometimes we're brewing beer and they just walk into the brewery and one of them walked in and stole my wallet. They just steal stuff. But there's been several times where you just see like the weirdest people who they just walk in and they're homeless and like they don't have a ticket. We're just kind of like, you know what? If he's not bothering anybody, it's fine. And if he's having a good time, it's fine. And we've had some characters walk into that.

02:01:08.260 --> 02:01:09.960
It explains a lot. I mean,

02:01:10.140 --> 02:01:12.580
at least it will at least see where they are when they come in. Right.

02:01:13.320 --> 02:01:13.480
Well,

02:01:13.480 --> 02:01:14.040
cause cause John,

02:01:14.220 --> 02:01:15.240
I'm back in the back,

02:01:15.520 --> 02:01:16.420
like behind one of the tanks,

02:01:16.540 --> 02:01:16.640
like,

02:01:16.720 --> 02:01:17.300
Oh crap.

02:01:17.500 --> 02:01:17.620
Yeah.

02:01:17.660 --> 02:01:17.780
Yeah.

02:01:17.940 --> 02:01:18.640
What's this guy doing?

02:01:18.780 --> 02:01:19.360
What am I doing?

02:01:19.880 --> 02:01:20.020
Well,

02:01:20.060 --> 02:01:20.840
is he paying him back there?

02:01:22.020 --> 02:01:22.100
Well,

02:01:22.200 --> 02:01:24.080
we were just there for the Mortis skull show.

02:01:24.700 --> 02:01:25.340
And I,

02:01:25.560 --> 02:01:28.060
I always meet John up ahead of time to,

02:01:28.300 --> 02:01:28.360
uh,

02:01:28.640 --> 02:01:30.820
to go get some food and have a few drinks beforehand.

02:01:31.920 --> 02:01:32.180
And,

02:01:32.420 --> 02:01:32.640
you know,

02:01:32.680 --> 02:01:36.360
you walk down the road from Atlas and it's,

02:01:37.900 --> 02:01:38.060
it,

02:01:38.080 --> 02:02:08.020
It's like a homeless shelter. I mean, this time there was literally like tents and people in wheelchairs and it was, I was just like, John, I'm gonna die. Cause, cause I was meeting in there and so I was walking past all this by myself and I'm like, I'm gonna die. And, and then it turns into a Adams Morgan when he, yeah, like one block up. It's like, you know, hipster central. Yeah. Oh, well, the funny thing is the homeless shelter is right on New York Avenue, but that's like right next to all the hipster stuff. Yeah. That's why I'm like, this makes total sense now. Yeah. Yeah.

02:02:08.080 --> 02:02:08.980
Yeah, I know.

02:02:09.480 --> 02:02:13.520
By the way, the other half of this equation is a little something.

02:02:14.100 --> 02:02:14.740
Oh, nice.

02:02:15.680 --> 02:02:16.680
It's an old classic.

02:02:16.980 --> 02:02:17.360
Oh, nice.

02:02:17.580 --> 02:02:22.680
I hadn't had in a while out of a true brewing cold lager glass.

02:02:22.720 --> 02:02:23.160
Nice.

02:02:23.380 --> 02:02:24.140
So there you go.

02:02:24.440 --> 02:02:24.660
Cool.

02:02:25.200 --> 02:02:26.960
I have little something something in my house a lot.

02:02:27.220 --> 02:02:28.160
Actually, I used to live in Lagunitas.

02:02:29.040 --> 02:02:29.300
Oh, nice.

02:02:29.740 --> 02:02:30.920
Yeah, where the brewery was.

02:02:31.060 --> 02:02:32.660
Now it's in somewhere.

02:02:33.000 --> 02:02:35.920
They have multiple breweries because they have one in Chicago, too.

02:02:36.800 --> 02:02:37.720
They got bought out.

02:02:37.800 --> 02:03:07.560
They got bought out. That's why. Petaluma. Petaluma, that's where they are now. Yeah, that's their home quarters. All right, Markisan. Yeah, I'm wearing my Khemmis shirts. It's a new one, actually. Yeah, I like that one. Surprise. This is the goddess Morana, who is associated with seasonal rites and death and the rebirth of nature, which is pretty fucking badass. So I have like 27 Khemmis shirts, which is ridiculous. I know. I have more Khemmis shirts than anybody, plus a hoodie. So let's tell you something.

02:03:07.800 --> 02:03:37.120
I love the band, but your shirts are just some of the best shirts. Sam Turner, yo. Does Sam do all the shirts? All your merch? No, no, this is a completely different artist. That's the one that George is wearing. That's Sam. Yeah, that looks like Sam. Yeah, the one that you're wearing, Marcus, Marcus, son, is, was done by this Norwegian lady who wanted her to do something that was personal to her, and so she wanted to do, you know, a Nordic goddess.

02:03:37.800 --> 02:04:07.780
Pretty sweet. And then I am drinking a beer called Basic Witch from Hanakoa here in Hawaii. It's a shy golden ale with pumpkin spice, pumpkin puree, and lactose. And I usually hate pumpkin beers because there's not very many good ones. This one is actually very good. Pretty cool art in there too. And then I just finished off Bremminghorn because we love Bremminghorn. I think a Khemmis needs to get a mead actually. Yeah. That was called

02:04:08.420 --> 02:04:35.120
Sunbride, a honey pear wine. Oh, that's good. I just had that with Jen the other day. Yeah, yeah. They do a lot of collabs with metal bands. You probably know Phil, but you should do one with them because they're awesome guys. Nice. I don't actually know them. Well, now you do. Brimming Horn Meadery. It sounds like there's a love connection coming up here. Where's Chuck Woolery? If anyone even knows that reference. I know, I know. So then what happened on the date?

02:04:37.800 --> 02:05:07.660
Matt, yeah. All right. I've got my koala bear friendly cattle decapitation shirt. My shirt is in the laundry today. And I started the episode with a beer from Hammer Hurt called Limonelutra. It is a barrel aged dry hopped dark ale. It's fabulous. They actually released it in conjunction with something called Master's Table, which is a Belgian table beer they did with Krip Sermon. And right now I'm drinking,

02:05:07.980 --> 02:05:37.420
from Adroit Theory, Evangelion 2, Loath. You can get Adroit Theory out there. Solid, all metal beers. I can't wait for hammer. Matt and I already have plans to come to each other. I'm going to get a lot of hammer. It's only about, when I move back to Chicago, it's only seven hours, I think, to Matt. I want to do, like, when traveling is reasonable again, I want to do a Midwest podcast tour. Come see, well, obviously, Markazan will be back and see Matt, see,

02:05:40.860 --> 02:05:43.160
And Keith from Arctic Sleep.

02:05:44.200 --> 02:05:46.640
And the Utkiaru guys.

02:05:46.960 --> 02:05:47.720
All of those guys, yeah.

02:05:49.100 --> 02:05:49.780
In Miliwake.

02:05:50.560 --> 02:05:53.900
For what it's worth, that Panopticon album is one of the best albums this year.

02:05:54.040 --> 02:05:55.640
And if you guys don't agree, you can fuck off.

02:05:57.060 --> 02:05:57.860
I agree.

02:05:59.200 --> 02:06:00.160
The Hammerheart thing.

02:06:00.160 --> 02:06:03.560
I mean, it was on our mid-year list, most of ours, for sure.

02:06:03.660 --> 02:06:05.060
So we'll see what happens at the end of the year.

02:06:07.560 --> 02:06:37.540
John. Right. So me. Job. Great succession shirt. I got with the, when they reissued the album, I got the shirt with it. And all right. First beer. Three Floyd's permanent funeral is now in Northern Virginia. Really? Where did you get that? Dominion? Dominion. I just had it when I just visited Chicago. You know, what's funny is my, my, my wife's cousin lives really close to the city.

02:06:37.560 --> 02:07:07.540
and they literally said they were going there tonight because they're coming over here tomorrow for like a pre-Thanksgiving kind of whatever and now that I know that I'm going to text them as like go back and get the pig destroyer beer that's right you can just go online I order I actually don't even go into the store half the time I just order online and then it must be nice I just brought back a bunch of them from Chicago yeah so to buy a house so and well just as a quick side note that's awesome Marcus I'm because I saw you had that the other day I was like oh he actually that's right he was there he

02:07:30.899 --> 02:07:35.160
He thought he was out, but they pulled him back in.

02:07:37.580 --> 02:08:07.540
and what's he gonna get for his house? Beer! More beer! Come on! Shit! Oh yeah, cool, nice roof! Let's drink! Oh yeah, there's gonna be like two refrigerators in the basement just for beer. Alright, hey, if you need a refrigerator, I turned Matt on to one I got one I could tell you about. It's nice. It's right, it's back there and I love it. Let's do domestic talk later. Yeah, alright, so my next beer, and this relates to Marcus and to my better half who's from Chicago, Una Annie, but I had to get this

02:08:07.580 --> 02:08:37.120
This is very metal. The Devil's Reign. That's a good one. Is that a double IPA? No, it is a Belgian Imperial. Belgian IPA. With Citra and Simcoe. A Belgian, a will like this, a Belgian Imperial IPA that's at 9.2%. Yep. You had me a Belgian IPA. I used to make one. It was awesome. Yeah, I just, the wood, I was like, yes, Belgian. Anything Belgian I love anyway, and you should be drinking Belgian beers regardless of what your personal preferences are. That's how I started my day. Yeah, you should.

02:08:37.560 --> 02:09:07.540
Because that's the best. That's the best. That's the best.

02:09:07.580 --> 02:09:37.380
The yeast combo, we can be weird with the hops. You have to use the Ardennes yeast, in my opinion. If you're going to use a Belgian yeast for an IPA, you use Ardennes yeast, and that's the end of the discussion. It's interesting because around here, there's one Belgian IPA that you can get pretty regularly. It's called Raging Bitch from Flying Dog, and it's not really that good. It's not. It's there. I live like five minutes from the brewery. It's not that good. They're actually very hard to make.

02:09:37.580 --> 02:10:07.160
I actually make a really good one. I just haven't made it in years. Anyway. What else you got, John? Oh, well, coming up later because we won't get back to it. Coming attractions. Well, I'm pretty close. Did you just unzip your pants? I'm not even wearing pants. You should know that. Pants are optional. We were talking about a little something earlier. This is coming up. Is that Firestone?

02:10:08.920 --> 02:10:09.640
25th anniversary.

02:10:11.500 --> 02:10:12.220
Stopping owner.

02:10:12.800 --> 02:10:13.440
Oh, jet away.

02:10:14.560 --> 02:10:15.280
You're not some money.

02:10:15.520 --> 02:10:16.980
I love Firestone Walker.

02:10:17.580 --> 02:10:17.940
Love him.

02:10:18.480 --> 02:10:19.240
I always think of like,

02:10:19.240 --> 02:10:20.500
I don't see it that often anymore.

02:10:20.730 --> 02:10:21.480
Walker, Texas Ranger.

02:10:21.580 --> 02:10:22.260
Whenever you say that,

02:10:22.690 --> 02:10:23.740
you know, Firestone Walker,

02:10:23.750 --> 02:10:24.920
I'm like, Walker, Texas Ranger.

02:10:24.930 --> 02:10:25.980
This is a real Walker.

02:10:26.500 --> 02:10:28.980
Well, if this beer is not going to roundhouse kick you

02:10:29.160 --> 02:10:30.700
with a fucking cowboy hat on the boots,

02:10:31.640 --> 02:10:31.860
you know,

02:10:32.620 --> 02:10:33.660
or Fire Walk With Me.

02:10:34.080 --> 02:10:34.780
Yeah, there you go.

02:10:37.780 --> 02:11:04.600
All right, Will. I've been playing it pretty light because my daughter was sitting next to me. I did have an Atlas Ninja Sauce, which is a Belgian pale ale because it's pretty much the only beer I have left in the house. And then as soon as she left, I went and got my Brimming Horn. And this is from the Inengarda. Yeah, the Inengarda. It's like the one that's in like every single meal.

02:11:04.620 --> 02:11:34.480
What number will because you still have the greatest question ever when you get your first you get in guard one you're like did I get the actual first one? No, this is all good. All the guards are great. What are you wearing? Oh, and I have a Khemmis shirt on this is so this one's a little special to me. The reason being is that Danny texted me. I remember I just think we remember.

02:11:34.620 --> 02:12:04.580
I was picking my kids up from preschool. So this was like, like at least two or three years ago, uh, I was picking William up from preschool and he texted me. He's like, Hey, we're going to go play like the Thursday before Maryland death fest. And so good that night. Yeah. It's like, we need t-shirts made locally. Like who do you guys use Atlas or t-shirts? So I kind of linked them up with all stuff. I went and went to the factory, pick up the t-shirts, took them, delivered them. And then, uh, I got one of them. And then the ones that everyone has, and actually William, who was like right outside the

02:12:04.660 --> 02:12:34.580
the whole time playing with Pokemon cards. He's actually wearing his Khemmis t-shirt, which I sent you that. I think I sent you that picture once. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So the whole family was wearing Khemmiss, except my wife, who doesn't give a shit about metal. I've got that one. You know, was so I don't remember which shirt. It might have been that shirt. I remember you guys played MDF. So MDF, no, or maybe it was decibel. No, it was decibel. It was definitely decibel. And

02:12:35.260 --> 02:13:04.580
I came down and I bought up all the merch and then I went up to the press room and I left my shirt there and came downstairs like I forgot I just somehow I forgot I left it on the couch in the lounge. Were you shirtless George? No I was carrying it. I was a little like and I came down I was like oh crap I forgot my shirt up there I went back up like not even like five minutes later and it was

02:13:05.940 --> 02:13:34.480
And I came back down to the merch booth and I was like, dudes, I got to buy another shirt. I lost my shirt. And I don't remember which one of you guys it was. It might have been Ben. And he's just like, here. And I was like, thanks. So. Fuck yes. I remember watching your, that was the first time I saw you guys live. It was at Philly decibel fest. And this is before I was convinced. Everyone's like, oh, Khemmis, Khemmis, Khemmis. And I'm like, I don't know.

02:13:34.600 --> 02:13:36.600
And then I was actually like literally arm

02:13:36.630 --> 02:13:38.640
in arm with Albert from Decibel.

02:13:40.680 --> 02:13:42.460
And because obviously he's a big fan.

02:13:42.640 --> 02:13:44.720
And then that's when it clicked for me, seeing you guys live.

02:13:44.750 --> 02:13:47.020
And somebody at work was like, what's the big deal about Khemmiss?

02:13:47.020 --> 02:13:49.120
I'm like, just like go see him live.

02:13:49.400 --> 02:13:50.200
Just go see him live.

02:13:50.310 --> 02:13:51.020
And then it's going to click.

02:13:51.580 --> 02:13:52.540
I remember you saying that too.

02:13:53.110 --> 02:13:54.800
He doesn't like mixed vocals.

02:13:54.850 --> 02:13:55.720
He doesn't like growls.

02:13:55.760 --> 02:13:56.200
I know.

02:13:56.800 --> 02:14:00.080
He's all like, don't ruin my harsh vocals with your clean vocals.

02:14:00.190 --> 02:14:03.840
And now he's like, oh, clean vocals are great with a little bit of death vocals.

02:14:04.220 --> 02:14:33.940
No, he's never said that. I don't like harsh vocals sometimes where it's mostly harsh vocals and then you have a clean vocal. But when you have the clean vocal, it has to work. It can't be like some emotive 14-year-old boy. If you look at my number one albums for the last couple of years, I had Crypt Sermon on there. I've had Khemmis on there. I've had a lot of clean vocals. But if you have clean vocals and the way Khemmis does it,

02:14:34.240 --> 02:15:04.100
It's like you got some cool harsh stuff at the right time and it makes sense. Right. But if you have all harsh vocals and then for no apparent reason you decide like I'm going to put in like I'm going to bring in this 14 year old boy who's been castrated and he's going to sing for a little bit. Yeah. You know about some whiny crap. I'm like oh it just drives me nuts. Yeah. Obvious Evelyn's not around anymore. So. I will say. We can say fuck all we want now. Yeah. You guys are saying it plenty especially.

02:15:04.220 --> 02:15:34.200
I was good I only said one swear word I apologize yeah I dropped an F on by the way also Phil I saw that I've only seen you guys once and I'm in Minneapolis and I was at the show with my cousin who he doesn't live here anymore but he and I would go to shows together and you have this thing where he we would go to a show and based on the dehydration and maybe some smokeage of plants he would pass out during the show and at that ship he passed out and so I had we were at the caboose

02:15:34.220 --> 02:16:02.740
And I had to drag him outside and I looked at him like, you are damn lucky you didn't pass out during Khemmiss because I would have left you on that floor, man. I think he passed out during, um, I can't think of her name. Merker. Yes. I mean, I didn't want to see her, but I was like, fuck, I'm not missing Khemmiss. Like, dude, I've been waiting years to see them. So yeah. Oh man. That was a weird show. That place is very strange. That place is very weird. I am not a huge fan. I feel like we had a good show that night though. Oh yeah. Yes. Awesome. Yeah. It was awesome.

02:16:07.440 --> 02:16:07.800
J.

02:16:08.180 --> 02:16:08.320
J.

02:16:08.410 --> 02:16:08.500
Yeah.

02:16:10.260 --> 02:16:11.620
Blue bottle iced coffee.

02:16:12.200 --> 02:16:12.560
My favorite.

02:16:15.480 --> 02:16:16.560
And Shirley Aaron.

02:16:16.900 --> 02:16:17.280
Shirt.

02:16:18.020 --> 02:16:19.540
I'll see if you guys can guess what the shirt is.

02:16:19.640 --> 02:16:20.220
I'll say this.

02:16:20.320 --> 02:16:21.760
I do try to be kind of strategic.

02:16:22.180 --> 02:16:23.080
It's a shame John left.

02:16:23.160 --> 02:16:24.320
He's probably the only one who can guess it.

02:16:25.140 --> 02:16:26.220
But I am kind of strategic.

02:16:26.440 --> 02:16:27.520
I'm like, I'm getting on with the boys.

02:16:27.570 --> 02:16:29.440
I'll put on my cattle decapitation shirt or whatever.

02:16:29.670 --> 02:16:31.900
And it seems like all I have anymore is concert shirts.

02:16:32.500 --> 02:16:33.820
But I happen to be wearing this shirt today.

02:16:34.000 --> 02:17:01.660
Let's see if you guys know what it is. Oh, right. Uh... Tampa Bay Lightning? It's the clit commando. No, it's a magician. It's a musician. Sort of reference to a musician. Popular saying he used to use... Oh, God, you guys are such fucking Philistines. Show it to John. Maybe John will know. John will know. What's your question? What is his shirt?

02:17:04.500 --> 02:17:05.160
I don't know.

02:17:09.319 --> 02:17:09.760
All right.

02:17:09.790 --> 02:17:10.340
Well, maybe this.

02:17:10.480 --> 02:17:11.360
It's not a Khemmisry shirt.

02:17:11.360 --> 02:17:12.040
I can tell you that.

02:17:12.349 --> 02:17:12.740
Too obscure.

02:17:14.000 --> 02:17:14.160
Oh.

02:17:16.059 --> 02:17:16.780
Elvis Presley.

02:17:16.840 --> 02:17:18.340
Oh, there you go.

02:17:18.740 --> 02:17:19.860
Elvis Aaron Presley, boys.

02:17:20.099 --> 02:17:21.320
That's, yeah, I was at TCB.

02:17:21.480 --> 02:17:23.340
Elvis' old saying of taking care of business.

02:17:23.660 --> 02:17:24.240
Oh, geez.

02:17:24.920 --> 02:17:26.340
Are you about to shred for us?

02:17:27.619 --> 02:17:29.260
He always has a guitar in his hand.

02:17:29.340 --> 02:17:29.980
Is that the scallop?

02:17:30.099 --> 02:17:30.280
Yeah.

02:17:31.260 --> 02:17:31.420
Yeah.

02:17:32.920 --> 02:17:33.460
Hey, Jay.

02:17:34.160 --> 02:18:02.960
I just always thought you were jerking off. Hey Jay quick question if you're a Presley fan greatest show ever the comeback 69 show. Yeah. Hands down. Yeah. You're Elvis fans great show ever. Well I don't mean to be a douchebag but it's actually 68 but yeah yeah that and there's this one that one I have that I love is called it's the greatest name of a record ever it's Elvis live in Madison Square Garden in 1972 and it's called Prince from Another Planet.

02:18:03.019 --> 02:18:32.920
It's fucking amazing, dude. I love Elvis. Welcome to the Elvis Presley podcast. Thank you very much. When he shows up in the leather suit and that little thing in New York City where they actually, his crew went out and grabbed girls off the street and brought them in. He played in front of like 30 people in his leather suit. Nobody had seen him for a couple of years. If you think you know about Elvis, watch the 68 comeback.

02:18:33.519 --> 02:19:02.440
If you come away from that thinking, nah, I don't like Elvis, I think that's on you. Anyway, yeah, I'm a huge Elvis guy. I spent a lot of time listening to Elvis during COVID. Oh, man, fucking Elvis is the man. Oh, boy, you guys are squares. I don't care. You know, a long while back at this point, because I'm old, I recorded an album for a dude who was a big Elvis fan. He was like this acoustic, you know, what do you call it, singer-songwriter kind of guy.

02:19:03.599 --> 02:19:32.960
Did a lot of Elvis covers, but he did a lot of original stuff too. And he kind of, him playing Elvis, because I thought he was amazing, kind of turned me on to Elvis. And I was like, all right. I mean, I don't listen to a lot of Elvis, but I respect Elvis. Even Gartman sings in the ghetto. I mean, come on. You know, I won't belabor the point, but I will just say this. I'll even go on record and say I like 70s Elvis the most. I like the 50s. But like, he was fucking great. Opening riff to Suspicious Minds.

02:19:33.000 --> 02:20:02.680
Yeah. Every time. Like, oh, I got to play this loud. So good. Anywho. All right. Love. Come on. Let me. So that wasn't. Let's just have to read the shirt I was wearing today. All right. I should have worn my I have a 68 comeback special shirt. John, I wish I'd been wearing. God, it's so good. I'm going to go watch that again. It's really good. It's fucking good. All right. I'm wearing a Khemmis shirt. What is it called? Beer wizard. I thought he had a name, though. Leonard. Leonard. Was it Leonard?

02:20:02.740 --> 02:20:32.520
Okay, I thought it was. Leonard the Beer Wizard. Yeah, Leonard the Beer Wizard shirt. I started with Brimminghorn Meaderies, Dark Embrace, Honey Grape, Elderberry Mead. My mother smells like elderberries. Your father was a hamster. It's kind of reverse order. And then courtesy of Matt, I was gifted this as a, I can't take this on the plane back from Philadelphia.

02:20:34.960 --> 02:20:35.700
It is

02:20:37.641 --> 02:20:39.740
I've had too much to pronounce this long word

02:20:39.920 --> 02:20:40.620
Propitiation

02:20:41.980 --> 02:20:43.440
Russian River Brewing

02:20:45.021 --> 02:20:46.520
Show me the label

02:20:46.720 --> 02:20:47.360
Oh yeah

02:20:49.440 --> 02:20:50.160
Oh yeah

02:20:51.660 --> 02:20:54.380
It surprised me because I stopped reading

02:20:54.440 --> 02:20:54.940
at Porter

02:20:56.220 --> 02:20:57.860
and I was like oh it's Porter okay I know what I'm getting

02:20:58.200 --> 02:21:00.500
Porter aged in petite Syrah barrels

02:21:00.840 --> 02:21:01.100
and it

02:21:01.100 --> 02:21:31.080
If I turn it over on the side, I find out that this is a sour, which I found out when I took a drink of it. I was like, whoa, that's sour. Sounds amazing. They are still one of the godfather breweries that it seems like all the neckbeards have forgotten exists. We'll be there in December. You're going to love it, man. Where are they? Santa Rosa. My wife and I are staying in

02:21:31.760 --> 02:21:32.080
Heldsburg?

02:21:32.960 --> 02:21:34.040
Yeah, that's way up north.

02:21:34.160 --> 02:21:34.800
It's further north.

02:21:35.260 --> 02:21:37.620
Can I get it in LA is all I want to know?

02:21:37.700 --> 02:21:41.000
Because I'm going to be in LA next month, and I want to know if I can get Russian River in LA.

02:21:42.919 --> 02:21:48.120
So I'm going to take two steps back, actually, because I want to pitch something to Phil really quick, but also slightly to George.

02:21:48.360 --> 02:21:53.660
And you commented on this, and I'm not trying to shut off, but since you're a Stratocaster guy, I was holding some Strat.

02:21:53.840 --> 02:21:59.560
But this is a, I bought it because I like Richie Blackmore, not a huge Yngwie guy, but it's an Yngwie Strat.

02:21:59.680 --> 02:22:29.580
So it's got the scallop front board. Try this sometime, dude. I've never tried that. It's super fun. And you can adjust to it like that. I'm telling you, try one. Hey, Jay, is it coming with a Maserati and sunglasses? It's a Ferrari. Come on. Oh, sorry. It has these like stacked single coils. So these are basically humbuckers. But it's so fun to play, man. Just as a guitar player, try a scallop back someday. It's the only one I have like this, but it's a blast. You know, speaking of guitar,

02:22:29.720 --> 02:22:59.360
that are modified in strange ways. What about the ones where the frets are angled? Yeah, that shit's weird. What is that all about? I don't play those guitars. The theory is that they go with the natural slant of your hand on this so that they play the correct notes, but in theory you can reach those notes more properly. To me, that's a freak show. I'm not interested either, but that's what it is. It's weird. It's like those keyboard.

02:22:59.720 --> 02:23:16.800
where it's like all the... It's like they take the computer keyboards and split them in half. Yeah. Ergonomic. It's just weird. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That was everything. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get into some news finally.

02:23:29.660 --> 02:23:57.300
Which, when I sent this script out, there wasn't going to be any news. And shit happened. This shit's going to go fast. Eric Grief, I'm assuming that's how it's pronounced, even though it's E-I, not I-E. Eric Grief died. He was a promoter of the Milwaukee Metal Fest, but probably more known as the manager of Chuck from Death. And he was in the documentary quite a bit.

02:23:58.600 --> 02:24:06.620
I don't know what happened there but sorry to hear about that well he was a diabetic oh right that's

02:24:06.640 --> 02:24:26.080
what it was kidney failure that's right I did see that yeah he had a pancreas transplant I believed in it and it failed so I think there was some problems related to that but he was looking for a kidney donor when he died so damn well he's only 59 which is it's around the corner let's just say that

02:24:27.900 --> 02:24:55.820
All right. Moving on then. Surprisingly, Martin Axenrott has departed Opeth. That kicked off this whole, I guess we're going to have a news section. Gian, Markisan, comments? Yeah. I mean, it was a surprise to everyone, although this incident has soured me even more. We were talking, Phil was talking about,

02:24:56.100 --> 02:25:26.060
not wanting to be involved with social media and it is unreal i'm sure phil maybe you guys dealt with this a little bit uh when you started to make announcements about some band changes is unreal the amount of bullshit comments out there regarding this you're like oh they they got to america and they kicked them out of the band right when they got to america or it's because of covet it's like it was a they announced it right before the tour started and so the whole world and opeth world is going crazy

02:25:29.319 --> 02:25:31.980
He's been in the band for months. That's my guess.

02:25:34.340 --> 02:25:49.020
Obviously, they're probably okay with visas because they tour a ton. I'm sure that the guy who's filling in for him has got his visas because he's played with Therion and he's a drum tech. I'm sure he's been with a lot of people, but this is not something that just happened overnight. It's obvious.

02:25:52.399 --> 02:25:53.280
Strategically timed.

02:25:53.760 --> 02:25:56.080
He's also the newest member of the band.

02:25:57.340 --> 02:25:59.520
Well, yeah, but he's been in the band for 16 years, I think.

02:25:59.730 --> 02:26:00.700
No, he's not. He's not the newest.

02:26:01.130 --> 02:26:06.080
The current keyboardist they have has been with them for almost 10 years now.

02:26:06.760 --> 02:26:09.220
I just remember the backlash when Martin, is it Martin Lopez?

02:26:09.750 --> 02:26:11.000
Yeah, when Lopez left.

02:26:11.050 --> 02:26:13.520
Yeah, I remember when that happened and everyone was going crazy.

02:26:13.640 --> 02:26:16.080
I'm like, man, if you only knew the truth about what happened.

02:26:16.699 --> 02:26:18.880
As a matter of fact, I saw them with Gene Hoagland.

02:26:19.780 --> 02:26:20.860
He filled in for him.

02:26:21.300 --> 02:26:21.660
Nice.

02:26:22.160 --> 02:26:52.080
Yeah. Oh, it's fucking horrible. The only redeeming qualities. I'm not a GWAR fan, but GWAR was there, so I watched them and Opeth, and everyone else was like under oath, which I'm not into that stuff, or under Earth or whatever, and literally no one got Opeth there, and I was like, ah, kids. Kids these days, get off my lawn. No, it's just, you know, the stuff they like.

02:26:52.180 --> 02:26:55.980
I mean, I'm not going to knock him for that. Hey, John,

02:26:56.940 --> 02:27:00.360
three quick rule asides from that, all beer related, but OathPeth related,

02:27:00.580 --> 02:27:05.040
is that the new head brewer at Ocelot, big OathPeth fan.

02:27:05.720 --> 02:27:06.480
That's why I'm here.

02:27:07.540 --> 02:27:08.540
Because he was asking me.

02:27:09.070 --> 02:27:12.460
So I went out to Dr. Lang's going away.

02:27:12.940 --> 02:27:16.260
Dr. Lang is leaving Old Ox and she's going to move to Chicago.

02:27:17.340 --> 02:27:17.840
To be with who?

02:27:19.319 --> 02:27:20.140
She's going to be working.

02:27:21.239 --> 02:27:46.960
She's a PhD in yeast morphology. So she's going to go work at some lab that does yeast stuff. So not brewing. No, she's not going to brew. Well, she can brew with the yeast. So they have a brewery on site to do stuff. Anyway, and also, what is the name of the brewery in Falls Church that you like? Sorry, I said S maybe.

02:27:50.180 --> 02:28:20.120
down easy? Yes. I think it's them. I met those guys. Super nice dudes. Yeah. And it's a nice space, too. It's not that far from us. Hey, you know what? We should go there sometime. I know. You should invite me. They were super nice. You can come to a church. I'll drive an hour to get there. I told you we'd come up to go to Elton. Just invite me or something. Come on. Those are my three quick asides. Thank you. All in the middle and be related. It happens. Bands change. What are you going to do? I mean, who knows?

02:28:20.200 --> 02:28:21.080
Who knows what the reason is.

02:28:21.390 --> 02:28:23.300
So that's what we were just talking about with Phil.

02:28:23.400 --> 02:28:25.220
Maybe they want to bring Gene Hoglin back,

02:28:25.540 --> 02:28:25.760
you know?

02:28:26.020 --> 02:28:26.240
Oh,

02:28:27.190 --> 02:28:27.480
why not?

02:28:27.480 --> 02:28:27.640
I mean,

02:28:27.790 --> 02:28:28.260
the new drummer,

02:28:28.520 --> 02:28:29.400
Sammy's a good drummer.

02:28:29.670 --> 02:28:29.800
Oh,

02:28:29.900 --> 02:28:30.780
he's a fabulous drummer.

02:28:30.920 --> 02:28:31.840
Everyone's complaining.

02:28:31.980 --> 02:28:32.580
He's not as good.

02:28:33.000 --> 02:28:33.120
Dude,

02:28:33.180 --> 02:28:37.040
he's literally been brought on the tour to play for the first time ever with them.

02:28:37.050 --> 02:28:37.220
I mean,

02:28:37.290 --> 02:28:37.640
come on.

02:28:38.140 --> 02:28:38.320
And they're,

02:28:38.480 --> 02:28:40.500
they literally just started their tour with Macedon.

02:28:41.210 --> 02:28:42.140
So did you go,

02:28:42.300 --> 02:28:44.340
did you go to the show or is a show coming up tomorrow?

02:28:45.130 --> 02:28:45.900
Are you going?

02:28:45.910 --> 02:28:46.140
Are you going?

02:28:46.939 --> 02:28:47.300
Yeah.

02:28:48.479 --> 02:28:49.500
I've seen these songs.

02:28:50.220 --> 02:29:19.560
I don't even want to tell you how many times I've seen these songs live. You know what's funny is like I kind of like because when I was out Dr. Lang's gone away and everyone's asking are you going to go see Mastodon Opeth I'm like I would have seen that I would have gone out of my way to see that if it was like 15 years ago. I've seen Mastodon Opeth. I saw I'm kind of like I want to see old Opeth I want to see old Mastodon. Actually they're playing quite a few old songs on this tour. I don't know what the set list is. Great lives still. Even if you don't like the

02:29:23.100 --> 02:29:27.380
They're all friends. I think the point

02:29:28.160 --> 02:29:30.460
and I may feel you can answer this being in

02:29:31.440 --> 02:29:35.560
kind of a famous band or we've heard of you. I think the idea

02:29:35.660 --> 02:29:39.660
is they just want to get on the road though too. That's the other thing. You don't want

02:29:39.680 --> 02:29:43.440
to lose the chance to get out on the road if you can and it's safe to get out there

02:29:45.460 --> 02:29:47.660
because people are complaining about the set list. I think they just

02:29:47.680 --> 02:30:17.640
want to get back out because they were supposed to be doing their 30th anniversary tour thing it's been hard to watch bands make that decision they're trying yeah still playing about a set list well because they're playing a standard set list uh this time and they got a new drummer what do you want this guy literally there's one been one drummer on planet earth that was called in and had like three days to learn a set list that was alan white when he joined yes so which was like the most impossible set list ever to play i mean it's it's so hard to do is it funny when i hear a theory

02:30:17.660 --> 02:30:47.560
I think of Snowy Shaw and then I think of Gorgier. Exactly. Which is so weird. Everyone thinks of Snowy Shaw. If you're complaining about a set list, like you're looking a gift horse in the mouth, just shut the fuck up and go to the show. Post COVID, every set list is extraordinary. You're getting a fucking show. It's live music. Shut up. I saw Hunter Heritage Tour when I came through here. It was Ghost, Mastodon, Opeth.

02:30:47.640 --> 02:31:16.580
Yeah, I went to that show. Is his name pronounced Michael? Michael? Michael? Michael? Michael. He had an accident in the van. He split his head open. So I did not get to see Opeth. I mean, I've seen him at Opeth live. But it was just like, ugh, bummer. But it was a very cool set. I mean, you know. That was also, by the way, the only cool year to see Ghost. That was when you were like. Actually, I, we saw, I think I saw them here. I was with somebody who busted their head, but they busted their head on a,

02:31:17.660 --> 02:31:45.740
Those things, you know, when you go to the parking lot and the little, the little, what do you call those things? The little guardrail that comes down? The drop arm gate. Yeah, the drop arm gate. You know, I saw ghosts at what is called, used to be called Station 4. I don't know what it is now. And so, Phil, basically every venue in Minneapolis is basically a shoebox, so to reference the caboose. And so that was the Opus Eponymous Tour? Is that what that was? Yeah, it was the first time they came to the first one.

02:31:46.920 --> 02:32:16.060
Well, this is an aside here for Phil, since we mentioned set lists. You mentioned that you're going to play Hunted in its entirety in December at St. Vitus. Yep. And I remember you played Desolation front to back a few years ago, because I went to the show in Chicago. So my question for you, because the set list kind of brought this up, is how is the experience for you playing an entire record front to back?

02:32:16.920 --> 02:32:46.900
And not, you know, how is it different than playing a set of songs from various records? And do you play them in order, by the way? Yeah, you play them right from the beginning to the end. Okay. What is that experience like for you to play that way? It's definitely different than a regular set because it's like, I think more or less like our normal set, if we're doing like a tour or whatever, is mostly about trying to deliver like the songs that we think come off best in a live

02:32:46.940 --> 02:33:16.900
environment to have like a high energy show and then have a couple of like more cathartic moments you know but like it's kind of about creating this like ebb and flow and it's nothing like there's not a whole lot of specific intention going into the entire set other than that but with something like doing hunted in its entirety i feel like i want to tap into the the headspace of that album a lot more deliberately and then like try to deliver it as truthfully as possible

02:33:17.760 --> 02:33:44.580
But also there's things that I want to update slightly because I would do some things a little bit differently if we were to record it today. So I make little modifications to vocal parts and stuff just to kind of have some fun with it. But for the most part, it's really about trying to tap into that same headspace and just create that experience again. Yeah, because it's so different than the new album. Yeah. Interesting, yeah.

02:33:44.700 --> 02:34:14.680
So the new album's the first one that we won't have played all the way through for anybody. Like, because for all the other albums, we did release shows where we played the album all the way through, but we're not doing that with Deceiver. And I'm kind of thankful because the new record is really hard to play and sing at the same time. And I like can't do a couple of songs. That's because your hair is getting in the way. I know. It's the fucking hair, man. Phil, is that also too, because you've spent

02:34:14.700 --> 02:34:44.680
so much time with it that maybe you need just a tiny bit of a break when you play it you know to kind of mix it up so it doesn't seem like it's the same thing you've been doing for so long i like i know like bands say like they finish an album they go on tour and literally they're writing new music because they just got to get to do something different or new because they've been doing the same thing for a year or something do you think because of covid maybe it's just a different scenario that you were working on it it just feels different yeah you know and and because we weren't going to end up being

02:34:44.700 --> 02:35:14.680
being able to really do a show like right around when it came out it kind of felt like we didn't need to do like an album release show and you know i just would have had my work cut out for me in all honesty i would have had to been practicing that set so for the 10 year anniversary we should expect it then yeah at some point all right cool yeah it's a minor classic at that point then we'll do it not so minor not not for george apparently it's blowing all the doors out of his uh dude it's hall of fame already man

02:35:16.220 --> 02:35:44.620
It's got the Thrasenblatt Award. I know I'm spoilering next month, but what are you going to do? There's going to be large beeps during the podcast so he doesn't ruin the year end. Beep! Sorry. That's a good question. It's going to come up again. Thanks, Phil. Well, I just wondered because you were talking about your albums and how, you know, when you sit down and you're writing these songs, it's so personal. All the songs, the collection of songs,

02:35:44.700 --> 02:35:45.300
for the album.

02:35:45.790 --> 02:35:47.840
And then be able to go back and play that.

02:35:49.020 --> 02:35:51.380
Just like you said, you have to tap back into that again.

02:35:51.660 --> 02:35:54.340
And you're in a different space with the new album.

02:35:54.580 --> 02:35:57.660
So I just wondered how that experience was for you.

02:35:57.750 --> 02:35:59.560
So thanks for sharing that.

02:36:02.220 --> 02:36:02.460
All right.

02:36:02.720 --> 02:36:04.200
So next news item.

02:36:07.040 --> 02:36:09.380
I was surprised yet pleased to hear this,

02:36:09.510 --> 02:36:10.620
that Corpse Grinder,

02:36:11.520 --> 02:36:40.020
A.K.A. George Fisher from Cannibal Corpse is releasing a solo album on February 4th of next year. What? Corpse Grinder solo album? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to expect here. I mean, he's done some stuff with other people before. And this sounds like it's like a Jamie Jost. It's so fun to listen to you have a conversation with yourself. What? What? You heard me right. Yes.

02:36:41.960 --> 02:37:10.800
What did you say, George? George on George. Well, you know, the Cannibal Corpse album was my number one at mid-year, so obviously I'm going to be excited to hear that there's something new coming from Corpse Grinder. I hope he throws you guys all for a loop. I want him to do something just so awful. Well, that's what I'm worried about. I really want it to be, because he's not the prototypical, but he's just a regular dude. I mean, yeah. He loves traditional country music, man, like old. I wanted to go way out there.

02:37:10.860 --> 02:37:39.980
Well, you know, I mean, I'm a huge Twisted Sister fan. I love Dee Snider. And he did an album this year, I think, where Corpse Grinder did some, like, backup vocals. And it was like, yeah. Oh, I forgot about that. I mean, yeah. But, you know. So Dee Snider and the Corpse Grinder solo album. I did see the news item, George, but I didn't read it. I just saw the headline. Well, I got the press release from Nikki.

02:37:40.080 --> 02:38:09.780
Who are the musicians on it? It didn't say. It just said that it was like written with Jamie Josta and somebody else. It's not Corpse Grinder does Frank or something like that. No. It said it was going to be like a death thrash hardcore album because of Jamie probably. Metal Blade. Huh? Metal Blade. I don't know. No. Well, actually, I don't know who's releasing it. I mean, Nikki Law.

02:38:11.119 --> 02:38:39.420
She used to be Metal Blade, but she does her own thing now, so I'm not sure who it's for. I'll find it. There's a news item. Keep talking. I may be one of the biggest Cannibal Corpse fans here. In fact, when we got a dog, and I suggested a name. Can we call it Dog Corpse Grinder? Shot down immediately. I got shot down pretty quick. Now the dog's name is Waffles. Corpse Grinder is way better.

02:38:40.080 --> 02:38:50.020
I don't know how excited I am for this.

02:38:50.450 --> 02:38:52.000
When you put Jamie Jossa involved.

02:38:55.520 --> 02:38:56.180
That's the one.

02:38:58.380 --> 02:39:00.000
I don't dislike Jamie Jossa.

02:39:00.010 --> 02:39:01.560
I'm just not a fan of the music he plays.

02:39:01.950 --> 02:39:03.120
I respect Jamie.

02:39:04.420 --> 02:39:06.080
Weirdly enough, I like old hate breed.

02:39:06.260 --> 02:39:08.060
I'm actually an old hate breed fan.

02:39:12.539 --> 02:39:36.600
I'm nervous. I'm nervous. Don't wait to see what happens. Trust me, no offense to him, but he can only step so far left and right where he's currently at. Also, just to make it totally clear, he is on Jamie Jost's record label. So that's part of the thing there. It's not like he's going to be doing an album of Elvis covers or something like that. You mean like Danzig?

02:39:38.460 --> 02:40:07.820
I like that Danzig album. Thank you, Phil. No. Yeah, that was bad. No. Yes. Even though Danzig sounds like Elvis. He does. Yeah. I think he loves Elvis. And by the way, Phil, did you notice he ripped off the Aladdin Sane cover? Yeah. Yeah, it's a total fucking rip off. It pissed me off. And so, hey, that's all I'm going to say about it. Final fact is the record is called Corpse Grinder. Eric Rutan's on it. So is Jamie Josta. And we'll see. Yeah, it's just going to be a cannibal corpse record. I hope so.

02:40:09.800 --> 02:40:38.420
What's that? Waffles Corpse Grinder Cook. Yeah, you know what? Waffles CC. Sounds pretty good. You know what? Now that you say that, it is a nickname in the middle name. Yeah, there you go. Waffles Corpse Grinder. I like it. That's what I'm going to go with. Yeah, so you get the best of both worlds, Will. When we were in Vegas for Psycho, I was up pretty early one of the mornings, and I was walking through

02:40:38.460 --> 02:40:40.020
the casino to go find some coffee.

02:40:40.660 --> 02:40:43.580
It was like seven or 8 a.m. or something when like nobody's up yet.

02:40:44.380 --> 02:40:50.120
And I just heard this crazy sound and I thought I was hearing like a seal barking or something.

02:40:51.200 --> 02:40:57.400
And it was fucking Corpse Grinder standing at one of the bars just like talking super loudly with some random.

02:40:57.700 --> 02:40:58.260
Oh, that's nice.

02:40:59.120 --> 02:41:03.200
So if he does make a country album, like I'm real curious to hear that.

02:41:04.540 --> 02:41:06.880
And you're like, he really doesn't have a neck.

02:41:07.200 --> 02:41:07.880
What the fuck?

02:41:08.340 --> 02:41:38.240
There's a snippet available. Well, he could do something with Nurgle. You could listen to it. Well, there's a snippet in the news story, the Blabber Mons news story. And it sounds like what you might expect. It's not going to disappoint you. There's like a 30 second clip. All right. So we have. That's cool. I'm glad he's doing some. You know what? He's done. Let's do something new. I want to see something new. Or not. I want to see it. Okay. Two more news items. And the first one is a woman peed up.

02:41:38.340 --> 02:41:38.600
a dude.

02:41:39.360 --> 02:41:43.240
So I thought that would be a great name for a biography for one of us.

02:41:43.520 --> 02:41:43.640
Yeah.

02:41:43.910 --> 02:41:46.080
So the big,

02:41:46.210 --> 02:41:47.660
the big to do this past week,

02:41:47.690 --> 02:41:48.400
it's not even metal.

02:41:48.540 --> 02:41:52.240
It's only a metal adjacent brass against singer,

02:41:52.560 --> 02:41:54.320
Sophia Uresta,

02:41:54.660 --> 02:41:57.600
or as I now refer to her as Sophia Urythra,

02:41:58.070 --> 02:41:58.200
uh,

02:42:01.060 --> 02:42:01.120
uh,

02:42:01.500 --> 02:42:03.100
had to take a leak during the set.

02:42:03.360 --> 02:42:03.620
And,

02:42:04.470 --> 02:42:04.600
uh,

02:42:04.700 --> 02:42:05.240
this dude with,

02:42:05.340 --> 02:42:06.940
I guess he had a camera on his head or something.

02:42:06.990 --> 02:42:07.460
She was like,

02:42:07.480 --> 02:42:37.460
Hey, come up on stage here. And she peed in his face and the entire world lost their shit. So I don't know if you, I mean, the video is readily available, so I don't know if you've seen it or not, but hey, I will say this right before she peed. He was like, this is the best show I've ever been to. He seemed to enjoy it. So it went downhill fast, but you know, it's probably the most disingenuous

02:42:37.580 --> 02:42:45.580
I'm sorry. If you're on stage in front of that many people and you realize, I gotta take a leak, I'll just pee right here.

02:42:45.980 --> 02:43:07.400
On that guy's face. If you don't know what you're doing, fuck you. Even Bruce went out and took a dump during our show and fucked up our Eagles dare. At least he had the decency to leave the stage. I'm still fucking mad about that. That one's going on here too. That'll be in your eulogy, dude. In the newspaper. I mean, come on. Everybody knows who this band is.

02:43:07.420 --> 02:43:37.400
now, so that's good press. Yeah, exactly. My understanding was somebody told me that they are a brass-based Tool cover band. Well, I thought it was like 90s stuff. They do Tool, Rage Against the Machine, and stuff like that. And they were playing a Rage Against the Machine, Sean, when she... Apparently they make it rain during the show. Micah Rain! Yeah, okay. It sounds like it sucks. I will say, I prefer

02:43:37.420 --> 02:43:40.120
this scenario to R. Kelly doing it.

02:43:44.600 --> 02:43:48.660
Alright, yeah, speaking of Chicago there, Marcus, it's a safer city now.

02:43:48.680 --> 02:43:50.300
R. Kelly's a complete fucking douche.

02:43:50.320 --> 02:43:50.920
Maybe it's me.

02:43:54.040 --> 02:43:55.120
Big bag is what he is.

02:43:55.840 --> 02:43:57.040
Alright, let's move on.

02:43:57.300 --> 02:44:03.780
So the last thing I have on my list here is that, as I think we might have mentioned already,

02:44:03.860 --> 02:44:32.980
Decibel has released their top 40 albums of 2021 way early. Just saying. Yeah. But wait, before I have to cut you off, George, I'm sorry. They do this because somebody leaked it a couple of years ago. Yeah. So Albert's like, fuck you guys. I'll just release it in like. Yeah. Yeah. And they release it early every year. Yeah, they do. And we love Decibel and the people that work there. So I'm going to keep my statement brief. Decibel. Hold our beer.

02:44:33.860 --> 02:44:34.900
you what's up next month.

02:44:37.540 --> 02:44:37.820
Exactly.

02:44:38.520 --> 02:44:38.620
Now.

02:44:38.800 --> 02:44:40.220
I think I'll say this.

02:44:40.440 --> 02:44:45.680
They always have, I think, the best list of any of the big publications.

02:44:45.940 --> 02:44:46.240
Oh, yeah.

02:44:46.240 --> 02:44:51.160
Because they at least include a lot of the right albums, even if I don't agree with the rankings.

02:44:52.020 --> 02:44:52.120
Yeah.

02:44:52.619 --> 02:44:55.760
Usually every album that's on there deserves to be on there to some degree.

02:44:56.100 --> 02:45:01.820
And whether or not I agree it's number three or it should be number 40 or something, who cares?

02:45:02.200 --> 02:45:31.820
So they're giving recognition to good albums usually. Yeah. You don't know how this works. But Phil, you say that. Have you ever not been in the top five? Yeah. We've been in the top ten every time, but not the top five. Oh, that's why. Oh, I see. Listen to this guy. Hey, Phil. Oh, they're the best list. You don't know the dynamic we have here. Every year their list comes out like, what the fuck were they thinking? And then by the end of all the big media lists come out, we're like, well, they're by far the best list of all the big media. Totally.

02:45:33.359 --> 02:45:36.240
So, to be fair,

02:45:36.700 --> 02:45:37.320
to use a,

02:45:38.060 --> 02:45:38.580
to be fair,

02:45:39.200 --> 02:45:39.740
to use a,

02:45:40.580 --> 02:45:40.940
what is it?

02:45:42.720 --> 02:45:43.340
Just to be fair.

02:45:44.600 --> 02:45:45.000
Yes.

02:45:45.180 --> 02:45:45.620
Letterkenny.

02:45:45.740 --> 02:45:46.500
To use a letter.

02:45:46.720 --> 02:45:47.560
To be fair.

02:45:49.400 --> 02:45:49.540
I,

02:45:49.740 --> 02:45:49.980
I,

02:45:50.820 --> 02:45:50.920
I,

02:45:50.920 --> 02:45:51.860
James Lewis at Decibel,

02:45:52.180 --> 02:45:53.100
we talk a lot.

02:45:53.839 --> 02:45:55.100
And I said,

02:45:55.240 --> 02:45:55.440
dude,

02:45:55.460 --> 02:45:57.520
I am totally going to be calling you guys out,

02:45:57.720 --> 02:45:58.240
but nicely.

02:45:59.320 --> 02:46:01.700
And I told him exactly what I was going to say about,

02:46:01.940 --> 02:46:31.000
Hold our beer. And he wrote back and said, hey, I fixed this for you. And he said, your response should be decibel. Hold our beer while we talk about death doom for 80% of the episode. That's a pretty good comeback. Thanks for fixing that, James. They got two on there that I'm just like, I don't know why they keep putting that one person on there.

02:46:31.720 --> 02:46:34.440
I know which one you're talking about because it was number two last year.

02:46:34.920 --> 02:46:35.080
Yeah.

02:46:37.060 --> 02:46:38.220
There's non-metal on there.

02:46:38.940 --> 02:46:39.560
That's what I told him.

02:46:39.620 --> 02:46:40.340
There's a lot of non-metal.

02:46:40.430 --> 02:46:42.720
I mean, Genghis Tron is on there.

02:46:43.280 --> 02:46:43.840
It's on there.

02:46:43.920 --> 02:46:47.560
I thought it was okay, but I'm like, it's not even remotely close to being metal.

02:46:47.760 --> 02:46:47.840
Yeah.

02:46:48.030 --> 02:46:50.880
I love the Genghis Tron album, but it's not metal.

02:46:51.100 --> 02:46:51.520
Not metal.

02:46:53.159 --> 02:47:00.360
I didn't even hear the Def Heaven one, but I kind of read the article in Decibel, and it doesn't sound like, even Decibel said, this is not even a metal album.

02:47:00.660 --> 02:47:00.800
Right.

02:47:00.850 --> 02:47:01.480
Now it's on the list.

02:47:01.480 --> 02:47:30.740
It's not. It's their best album in years, but it's not metal. I like it. They went all post-rock based. I would rather they put an actual metal band on the list that deserves recognition for that. But then they dropped a couple. Mortiferum should be on there. Yes. Mortiferum's a good one. But they did. Oh, no. They shit on Mortiferum. They gave it like five. Did they? I saw that. Oh, yeah. That's bullshit. And then who wasn't on there? I mean, Jotun's not on there. Oh, yeah. That's right. What the fuck?

02:47:30.780 --> 02:48:00.740
And the one that just came out yesterday, along with some other band. Hold on, hold on. I love the new... I got it here. Hold on. Exodus is on there. Dream Unending. Dream Unending, yeah. On and on about them, and they're like, yeah, we didn't put them on. Yeah. I asked about that, but I'm not going to talk about that. Anyways. Can we talk about the fact that Khemmis's Deceiver was number two? Yes. Yes. They got that right. Mostly. Well, kind of right. So how many top fives might have been?

02:48:00.760 --> 02:48:30.440
That's that one top ten you had. Is that three top fives in the top ten for you guys now? No. Absolution was number nine. Okay. Hunted was number one. Desolation was number nine. What? Then the new one's number two. So they dicked you on this year. Well, they didn't go 9-1-9-1. They went 9-1-9-2. That would have been cool. So they get the cred this year by putting you two? Is that what they're doing? Yeah, exactly. Well, this... No favorites here. Exactly.

02:48:31.220 --> 02:49:00.400
Hey, I'd be number two to Carcass any day. And that was what happened with the decade list too. Is that true? Oh, that's right. I forgot about that. So we're the perennial bridesmaids. So you're the bride. Which one of your albums was number two in the decade list? Hunted. Actually, their decade list was pretty good. I thought it was actually pretty good. I mean, Surgical Steel's not a bad pick.

02:49:00.420 --> 02:49:29.200
That's definitely not my favorite album of the decade would have been In Solitude's Sister. Oh, wow. Is that true? Wow. I was just trying to sell that record to somebody in our last episode. You were. I love that album. It's funny because I liked them up until that album. I miss In Solitude. The Merciful Fate worship stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just thought that that record, they did something that no other band has been able to do since, which is combine gothy shit and that stuff in a really good way.

02:49:30.060 --> 02:49:59.780
Now you have bands that are entirely devoting their entire thing to trying to do that, and they're not as good at it. I'm not going to name names. I definitely feel like I need to recheck it out again. It was a change. I liked the earlier stuff, and so I was like, eh. But everybody loves this album so much, I need to listen. I love this smallitude. You know, I tried to sell, and you have to erase some history in your head here, but when the first Ghost record came out, people were loving it. I was like, listen to this instead, dude. Check this out.

02:49:59.820 --> 02:50:29.800
because to me it's like a good replacement for that totally yeah so wow i'm so glad you love that record dude that's a great i have that one on vinyl too that cover too what a great cover amazing fuck all right fuck we can say that now something coming all right congratulations on getting number two on the decibel yeah yeah thank you i don't take it for granted i mean it's still awesome to be appreciated that way and it gives us a lot of you know sort of push at the end of the year when so many

02:50:29.840 --> 02:50:59.400
People have so many fucking choices to spend their money on or, you know, go see a show or whatever. And so it's really nice to have that reminder. You know, I have to go back now and look at all the lists and see what years of Paradise Lost album came out. And if you guys released an album that year too. No. So they had Medusa as their album of the year. Yeah. There's a reason why I say that because I know a certain person. Albert. I love Paradise Lost too. Albert loves Paradise Lost.

02:50:59.820 --> 02:51:29.720
I saw Paradise Lost with Albert and James. I ran into them at the Medusa tour show. And that's why I'm joking, because I know he loves them so much. I love Paradise Lost, too. So well, and actually, and I know, you know, there's two John, but he loves Carcass. I mean, yeah, I know. I mean, Paradise Lost is my favorite doom band. I'll say that. What era do you like the best? Lost Brothers or something? My favorite is Shades of God. Favorite album. Early then. That's good. Yeah.

02:51:29.820 --> 02:51:29.940
Yeah.

02:51:30.540 --> 02:51:31.260
Mine's Icon.

02:51:31.300 --> 02:51:32.340
They're transitioning kind of.

02:51:32.420 --> 02:51:32.520
Yeah.

02:51:32.840 --> 02:51:33.000
Icon.

02:51:33.439 --> 02:51:36.660
What was the second?

02:51:37.240 --> 02:51:38.160
What was the penultimate one?

02:51:38.340 --> 02:51:39.120
Something about Plague?

02:51:41.540 --> 02:51:42.060
Plague Within.

02:51:42.900 --> 02:51:43.020
Yeah.

02:51:43.340 --> 02:51:45.940
Which was their best album probably in 20 years.

02:51:47.080 --> 02:51:48.100
Plague Within's awesome.

02:51:48.400 --> 02:51:49.020
That's mine.

02:51:49.720 --> 02:51:50.160
Plague Within.

02:51:51.359 --> 02:51:53.780
Medusa was kind of like, I don't know.

02:51:55.060 --> 02:51:56.640
It's pretty doomy for them, actually.

02:51:57.340 --> 02:51:57.460
Yeah.

02:51:57.640 --> 02:51:58.320
I liked it, actually.

02:51:58.580 --> 02:51:59.320
I liked it, too.

02:51:59.320 --> 02:52:29.300
I thought the heavy vocals were like the best that they'd been in a really long time on that album and I've always liked his but shades has as I die which is like the coolest song to sing in a metal show so yeah yeah first time I saw them was in the we will not speak about it period like leaving nothing yes that was when I saw them at Jax and I was like I think I saw them I mean I I mean I like the

02:52:29.320 --> 02:52:58.820
The Beginning of the Period. I mean, Draconian Times is amazing. And the one after that... One Second is okay. Yeah, I like that one too. But it's pretty much just a goth rock album. Yeah, but it's good. But then after that... It took a while. Yeah. Until In Requiem, then they picked it back up again. There's some decent stuff here and there. There's an album after In Requiem that I think is pretty good. I can't remember. Death. Death is... Yeah.

02:52:59.340 --> 02:53:23.840
Yeah, it's good. I can't think of the title now. It's long. Yeah, it's like six words, and it's like I've been drinking. Exactly. Oh, wait, that's never happened on the podcast before. Faith divides us. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's the one. That's faith. One of those. That's good, too. It kind of reminds me of Draconian times a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right, let's move on to new releases, shall we?

02:53:30.680 --> 02:53:33.620
Spend your heart and your head down.

02:53:34.040 --> 02:53:39.320
First up, Exodus Persona Non Grata, their 12th album.

02:53:40.679 --> 02:53:43.200
It lives up to what I hoped it would be.

02:53:44.140 --> 02:53:47.480
You know, it would be easy to overlook this record and overlook this band right now

02:53:47.940 --> 02:53:53.000
because they're so far into their careers, but this might be their best record as far as I'm concerned.

02:53:53.140 --> 02:53:55.380
They've become a very mature band, you know.

02:53:55.460 --> 02:53:56.580
It's pretty damn good.

02:53:56.940 --> 02:54:26.880
It's really good. There's some really complex stuff on here. A little more complexity to the writing. And Gary Holt is the Glenn Tipton of fucking thrash, dude. Might be a little better guitar player, though. Yeah, I am. This will be on my list without questions. That's all I can say. I don't know where it's going. Yeah, you were big. Right when we got this, you were big. Well, you know, it was because I kind of overlooked the last one and then went back during COVID to check it out again. And I was like, oh, fuck, this is a great record. This is great. This is really good.

02:54:27.979 --> 02:54:56.800
They should be the other band in the big four as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, well, who was it the other day said that there should be a big five? It was... Oh, Kerry King, maybe? I saw that, yeah. I can't remember who said it, though. Somebody said it. Somebody in the big four said it should be the big five and it should be Exodus. Who was that? I don't remember, but I do. Was it Charlie Benanti? Maybe. It was definitely somebody in the big four. In any case,

02:54:59.160 --> 02:55:26.860
I'm overselling it, but this is just a really fun record, and it's heavy as fuck. Exodus, their national treasure. It blew me away. And it's updated, too. That's the other thing. The Possessed record comes to mind, a band that was so good back in the day, but has so thoroughly adjusted themselves to what's happening in metal now without losing all of their original characters.

02:55:28.560 --> 02:55:31.040
So you're saying Possessed is a thrash band

02:55:31.100 --> 02:55:31.880
and not a death band?

02:55:33.320 --> 02:55:33.920
Thank you.

02:55:35.420 --> 02:55:37.080
Man, we're giving all our cards away

02:55:37.260 --> 02:55:38.080
for the year.

02:55:39.239 --> 02:55:40.640
I don't know where it's going to play.

02:55:40.700 --> 02:55:41.940
Marcus, son, will shut your mouth.

02:55:42.080 --> 02:55:43.480
I'll tell you, the Exodus album

02:55:43.620 --> 02:55:44.480
will not be on my list.

02:55:45.020 --> 02:55:45.220
What?

02:55:45.260 --> 02:55:45.660
There you go.

02:55:46.160 --> 02:55:47.780
Well, you're not welcome on my podcast.

02:55:48.460 --> 02:55:50.860
Hey, Marcus, son, you will not be Jay.

02:55:52.740 --> 02:55:54.140
I might be, well, I think George

02:55:54.240 --> 02:55:55.380
will probably ask what it sounds like,

02:55:55.380 --> 02:55:56.700
but we might be the only two.

02:55:56.700 --> 02:56:25.460
It's pretty fun. The guitars are great on it. It just sounds old to me. I was wondering what you thought of it. Did you say it sounds old? Old. It's funny you say it. I just read a review of the album and somebody I fucking hate the expression dad rock. I want to punch people in the face when they say that. In the balls. Yeah. Somebody actually referred to them as dad metal. It was probably every metal guy. Probably some fucking millennial Gen Z.

02:56:26.700 --> 02:56:56.640
That's the whole point. It's like, fuck you, dude. I have a face mask that has, like, all my favorite albums, including Iron Maiden, Death, yada, yada, yada. And some dipshit at a bike shop was like, oh, I like your dad rock face mask. I was like, okay, I'm going to take my bike to a completely different place. Wait, you literally said dad rock face mask? Yeah, because I had, like, it was, it basically, it listed out, like, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Death, I can't think of what else, but, like, classic album, so good, and he's like, oh, yeah,

02:56:56.700 --> 02:57:26.140
I'm like nope I'm done. If it had Steely Dan on it then that's one thing. Yeah. It's not Steely Dan. I don't mind Steely Dan once in a while. Oh the Eagles and Toto and Asia. Toto gets a bad fucking rap. Steve Lukather's an awesome guitarist. Is there a granddad rock then? Elvis. How far do they go back? Yeah man Elvis.

02:57:29.000 --> 02:57:56.680
It's a fun record. I mean, I think it's fun. I like the guitars on it. I'm not a big fan of the singing on it. And yeah, that's my issue. Oh, it's yeah, it's good. It's just it's not list worthy for me, but I get it. Like if you like Exodus and you like this style of music, you're going to love this record. I'm just glad that they're still doing stuff. I'm not a super fan, but I'm glad they're doing it. I have to say it's one of those things like there's a couple bands that like Halloween comes to mind that if

02:57:56.700 --> 02:58:26.680
I heard Halloween for the first time like nah it's not for me but because I got keep the walls of Jericho keep your seven keys one and keep your seven keys two and all that stuff is like I loved it and when I hear Halloween now I'm like I love it but if I would have heard the exact same album now without hearing before I'm like fuck this this is not for me Exodus and Exodus kind of comes to mind where it's like I grew up on Exodus I had every single album when they came out and like you know

02:58:26.700 --> 02:58:56.680
Now, Zetro, they've gone through three singers now, but Zetro can be grating. But to me, this is junior high to me. This is high school to me. He uses a lot of new voices on this record, though. But also, he's an acquired taste. Also, I have to tell a fast, heartbreaking story. I'm sorry, just because of the bad story. I was at the dog park the other day, and I don't have a fucking dog, but don't worry about that. My wife...

02:58:56.700 --> 02:59:26.020
My wife and I like to go take walks out there and look at the talks. You know what I mean? We would take a walk. But anyway, I was wearing an Iron Maiden. I ordered a Sinjitsu shirt. And I shit you not, some lady walking by me, she goes, Iron Maiden, huh? You don't strike me as the type. And I was like, oh man, my heart sank, man. I was just like, when did I become that guy? Iron Maiden? All right, douchebag, you show it up. Well, you live in Hippieville, so. It hurt. Phil, what were you going to say about Exus?

02:59:26.720 --> 02:59:56.540
I more or less feel like, you know, they've always had, especially with this guy, kind of like the definition of love it or hate it vocals. And I just can't with the vocals, but I love the guitars on the new record. It feels like hella reinvigorated. I love the guitar tone. The guitar tone is like nasty and like fucked up in all the right ways. The riffs are sick. So I'm a little torn on it. I think it's fun, but I just,

02:59:56.720 --> 03:00:26.380
I honestly the vocals are enough to like make me not be able to. And so exactly when I went back and I told that like hell if I heard Halloween for the first time I would hate it. If I heard Exodus for the first time now I'd be like I hate these vocals but I grew up on it like this is like middle school. I'm used to it. I'm just like you know what this is this is Zetro and. Actually I'll tell you one better I didn't really like him five years ago he got on my nerves but some gear switched in my head.

03:00:26.860 --> 03:00:56.080
not necessarily for the better or for the worse. And now I think he's great. But he used to be like, I used to hate, you know, Megadeth because I couldn't stand Dave's voice, you know. And it's just one of those things. Sometimes all of a sudden that changes for you. But I totally find all of these comments completely valid. Like if you don't like Zetra, I totally get it. I like him. Like Overkill is the same way. Like some people just hate Bobby's vocals. Yeah. That's actually a very close example. But the music sounds amazing on it. Yeah. I'm with Phil on that one.

03:00:56.140 --> 03:01:25.320
I feel the same way about Megadeth to be honest. Well, that's key. I mean, if it wasn't for the music, Zetro's vocals wouldn't have a hope. So. Hey, and hats off to Tom Hunting, by the way. I know this was recorded before he came down with the. With the big C. Yeah, but nevertheless, you know, it's good, good, good for him that he's back up on his feet and got a record out. Yeah. Also production is cool. I like that it's not too like cleaned up and perfect.

03:01:26.180 --> 03:01:28.800
Sounds like a pretty aggressive

03:01:29.200 --> 03:01:32.660
and like real, you know, somebody with a name

03:01:33.680 --> 03:01:34.760
produced it. Was it Andy Sneap?

03:01:34.800 --> 03:01:36.800
By chance. Sounds like a

03:01:37.000 --> 03:01:38.240
Sneap, but I don't know.

03:01:38.920 --> 03:01:40.260
Who is he not producing right now?

03:01:40.460 --> 03:01:41.440
That's a good point.

03:01:42.440 --> 03:01:43.180
No, he really is.

03:01:44.640 --> 03:01:46.940
He's not doing he's not doing the new creator record

03:01:47.180 --> 03:01:50.460
because Andy Andy's doing that.

03:01:50.680 --> 03:01:51.520
My homeboy is doing that.

03:01:51.700 --> 03:01:53.120
Yeah. Andy Rizek.

03:01:53.320 --> 03:01:53.420
Yeah.

03:01:54.200 --> 03:01:54.600
Andy Arthur.

03:01:54.620 --> 03:01:55.440
I don't know why I said Andy.

03:01:55.500 --> 03:01:56.720
Arthur Rizik, sorry.

03:01:56.840 --> 03:01:57.060
Oh, wow, really?

03:01:57.840 --> 03:01:57.920
Yeah.

03:01:58.020 --> 03:01:59.440
He talked about that in the last news.

03:01:59.560 --> 03:02:02.860
He's getting to the point where we're saying, who is he not producing lately?

03:02:03.320 --> 03:02:04.560
Or working with, I should say.

03:02:04.780 --> 03:02:05.080
Well, yeah.

03:02:05.220 --> 03:02:07.880
Well, I mean, he did the Cavalera thing, too, right?

03:02:08.240 --> 03:02:08.480
Yeah.

03:02:08.920 --> 03:02:09.000
Yeah.

03:02:09.500 --> 03:02:09.920
Go ahead and die.

03:02:10.300 --> 03:02:10.400
Yeah.

03:02:11.280 --> 03:02:11.880
Oh, duh.

03:02:12.500 --> 03:02:12.640
Sorry.

03:02:12.960 --> 03:02:14.460
Yeah, with Zach, of course.

03:02:15.000 --> 03:02:16.200
Yeah, we just saw him recently.

03:02:17.580 --> 03:02:18.040
Oh, yeah?

03:02:18.900 --> 03:02:18.980
Yeah.

03:02:19.080 --> 03:02:19.160
Yeah.

03:02:19.300 --> 03:02:20.820
No, he played with the Eternal Champion.

03:02:21.340 --> 03:02:22.040
Eternal Champion, yeah.

03:02:22.280 --> 03:02:22.780
We just saw him.

03:02:22.880 --> 03:02:52.800
I flew back for that show from Germany. Oh, you know what's, you know, it's a, wait, who played with Eternal Champion? Arthur. Arthur. Oh yeah. They have a new Sumerlands record too, but. Oh, really? Yeah. You know, what's weird is, do you know who played drums for Eternal Champion at Destiflefest? Who? Guy named Connor, who's local DC. He plays in Genocide Pack. Oh yeah. That's right. And it was weird. I was like, wait, that's

03:02:55.980 --> 03:03:22.800
I'm assuming he did yeah is is is eternal champion on relapse no they're on their own label it's called the sword yeah I don't know how I haven't seen Connor since then but Connor's in like like five different bands he's in um what's the other one he's in sword worship is the name of the album sword worship the name of the uh label um full uh you know uh revelation here produced by Exodus mixed

03:03:22.840 --> 03:03:52.560
by Andy Sneak. So Sneak does have his hands on him. He's involved in so much, no matter what level it's on. I love his sound so much. I do too. Going back to Nevermore, that was when I really discovered him. He plays with Judas Priest too. What? Who are they? That last Priest record is awesome. Wasn't it though? Yes. It's awesome. Bar Bar is really good. Okay, so let's move on to the next new release. I don't know if you heard of these guys. Might have been mentioned once or twice today,

03:03:52.840 --> 03:04:20.040
But the new Khemmis album, Deceiver, also came out yesterday. On my birthday. Happy birthday to Will. It's so nice a Khemmis to release it on your birthday. I know. I called Phil and like, hey, if you got a release date, can you just do it on this date? I'll be turning 29. Let's be honest. Well, you were just happy that your daughter loved that album on your birthday.

03:04:22.840 --> 03:04:51.860
I'm not going to fill the whole episode and I'll leave. I'll let other people make comments. But my single comment will be, Phil, congratulations. Yeah. Congratulations, buddy. Slow clap, man. Translation number 26. We'll take it. His number one honorable mention. Yeah. Is there a guitar solo on every single song, Phil? Probably. Isn't there always a guitar solo on every song? Yeah. Or like pretty close.

03:04:52.840 --> 03:04:56.900
I was going through all the lyrics today while I was listening. It was like lyric,

03:04:57.540 --> 03:05:00.260
lyric, Hutchinson solo lyric.

03:05:01.880 --> 03:05:04.340
We wanted to do that. I don't know why. Like, you know,

03:05:04.360 --> 03:05:07.980
we all grew up with like seeing that in the liner notes on like albums.

03:05:08.060 --> 03:05:09.640
And we were like, it'd be kind of cool if we have that.

03:05:10.699 --> 03:05:14.140
All the old priest albums used to do that. It'd be like Glenn Tipton solo.

03:05:14.460 --> 03:05:18.220
Glenn Tipton solo. Then he'd be like the obligatory KK solo.

03:05:18.500 --> 03:05:20.840
Yeah. Yeah. You could always tell without that anyway.

03:05:21.260 --> 03:05:22.060
I miss all that.

03:05:22.560 --> 03:05:51.240
You could. I love that, though, by the way. Good for you. I did, too. Oh, that's what that is. So I do have a question because I did order the vinyl. I ordered, like, all these, like, hoodies and T-shirts and flags. Like, Evelyn is waiting for the deceiver flag, but she has to wait until Christmas. This feels like a customer service question to me, Phil. In a weird sort of way. Well, it's all through night shift merch or something. I'm going to talk to my supervisor first. But where did you find the lyrics?

03:05:52.560 --> 03:06:22.360
What do you mean? Where are the lyrics? Me? I bought it on Bandcamp, but the lyrics aren't on Bandcamp. I'm a master. No, yeah. There's only like two of the songs have lyrics on Bandcamp. Living Pyre has lyrics. They have dark lyrics yet? Somebody maybe just fucked up. I supplied the lyrics with the promos, I think. Or at least I told them to send it out with them. I got it on, I just googled Khemmis deceiver lyrics and there's like some genius something. Actually,

03:06:22.580 --> 03:06:52.380
I have it open because in case I needed it, it's genius.com and they have the lyrics for each of the songs. Okay. Oh, all right. So yeah, I don't know. I Googled it too, but I got like living power lyrics and that was it. I should make sure that band camp has them because usually I think we try to have them on there, but yeah, there were only two on there this morning. Okay. That's good to know. Well, the record rules, I think it's your most dynamic album for sure. Phil, I love how you guys always straddle the line between doom and traditional and it's always just a little bit different. Each record,

03:06:52.580 --> 03:06:55.280
You get something a little bit different each time. I think

03:06:55.879 --> 03:06:57.040
your vocals are

03:06:57.930 --> 03:06:59.060
just incredibly varied.

03:06:59.510 --> 03:07:01.240
They're very passionate in it. I like that.

03:07:01.290 --> 03:07:03.280
I know you're kind of subpar

03:07:03.320 --> 03:07:05.260
on your own singing, but it's fantastic

03:07:05.460 --> 03:07:07.160
on his record. Yeah, for a guy who's like,

03:07:07.280 --> 03:07:09.520
yeah, can I sing? I don't know. Let's just give it a try.

03:07:09.700 --> 03:07:10.460
That's pretty damn good.

03:07:11.939 --> 03:07:12.880
Actually, I do have a

03:07:13.680 --> 03:07:15.160
question about the lyrics.

03:07:15.230 --> 03:07:17.220
I think it's the first song,

03:07:17.680 --> 03:07:18.280
Avril Gate.

03:07:19.270 --> 03:07:20.340
Is that the name of Avril Gate?

03:07:21.340 --> 03:07:22.380
Yeah, I have a little lean.

03:07:22.730 --> 03:07:23.760
Yeah, I have a little lean.

03:07:27.419 --> 03:07:30.340
But there's a part in there, like I think it's like three quarters of the way,

03:07:30.370 --> 03:07:33.680
where it's like a really low, like it's not your traditional, like your,

03:07:35.360 --> 03:07:37.300
I don't know, like your traditional clean singing.

03:07:37.370 --> 03:07:38.240
Like it gets really low.

03:07:38.500 --> 03:07:39.140
It's still clean.

03:07:39.340 --> 03:07:42.240
It's not bad, but it's like a low, like, is that you?

03:07:42.680 --> 03:07:42.940
Yeah.

03:07:43.380 --> 03:07:43.480
Uh-huh.

03:07:44.660 --> 03:07:45.100
That's awesome.

03:07:46.680 --> 03:07:48.040
That part I really like.

03:07:48.100 --> 03:08:18.000
Well, and then the shroud of Lethe, he does that low vocal tune, like the beginning, like after the main part, and then it settles into that kind of softer part. I love that vocal. The lowest vocals on the album are at the end of House of Cadmus, and the harmony line, the low harmony on that part is like finishes below the bass guitar. Wow. So it's like, it's really low. But yeah, that's cool. Thanks. I like that.

03:08:18.080 --> 03:08:47.600
That vocal part two that you're talking about, because it's like only it's like just between two notes. It's just like very, very simple. Yeah. And like just sounds kind of eerie with the harmony and stuff. It just sounds. Yeah, it's actually one of my favorite parts of the album is like that low note thing. Like, yeah, I can always like, like in flesh to nothing off.

03:09:18.060 --> 03:09:22.780
show you're like yeah do you remember when you were in that band that was really cool

03:09:25.060 --> 03:09:28.760
i i it's still one of my all-time favorite things i've ever seen it's like

03:09:29.200 --> 03:09:31.360
yeah paul mccr remember you did a beatles that was cool

03:09:35.020 --> 03:09:41.440
yeah so you know the thing i'll say about the album is that i like like marcus son's comment i like that

03:09:41.480 --> 03:09:46.100
you point out that like each one kind of has different variations on the combination of things

03:09:46.120 --> 03:10:15.980
And for me, the thing that's new about this album is like us more explicitly embracing the death and black metal influences that we've always had because those are have always been the styles of metal that like, you know, in the last 10 years that we listened to the most as like a band. And so it's kind of fun to have gotten to like, you know, in making our darkest album, it only feels fitting for the music to also be like the darkest version of it.

03:10:16.120 --> 03:10:45.680
Yeah, it's definitely the darkest. That's true. We tried to kind of not, you know, Desolation was very, like, trad metal heavy. It was sort of like us trying to make a record in the style of, like, our favorite, like, 70s Priest albums and, you know, stuff like that. And for this album, we wanted to not do anything that sounded trad metal until you got to the last song. We thought that would be kind of a cool payoff to give people, you know, here's what your expectations were. We're going to withhold them completely until the last song.

03:10:45.720 --> 03:11:15.340
and then we're going to try and write a better song than we did for Desolation in that style. Well, like Avernal Gate starts off and it's just like all of a sudden it's like fucking heavy as hell. Yeah. It's like what? It's like a Swedish melodic death metal riff. Yeah. But it feels right though. Like when you get to Astral Road and they start that and like, whoa, this is different. I didn't expect that. You know, you know, they've done traditional metal before, but you haven't heard it on the album until that point. And it kind of threw me for a loop when I heard it. Good. I like that. That was cool.

03:11:16.420 --> 03:11:19.620
I think that song was hard to write because like the beginning is

03:11:20.260 --> 03:11:30.420
like sort of a Pink Floyd kind of thing with like the guitar solo and stuff and then like bridging the gap from that to like a painkiller is like kind of a hard like

03:11:35.859 --> 03:11:37.420
that's his priest album

03:11:39.439 --> 03:11:45.700
and I got to do those like harmonized falsetto screams over the intro to that which I liked and

03:11:45.780 --> 03:12:15.460
stuff, but we never do it on our albums because it doesn't fit. It's not appropriate if you're singing about really heavy shit to be doing really high vocals like that. So yeah, if you couldn't tell, we're going to give it a three out of five like an angry metal guy. Yeah, fuck yeah. I mean, maybe. Maybe. Did you read the second review? That was the first one. The 2.5 out of five, yeah. What, they did another one? Yeah, it was a dual review. Oh, well, fuck.

03:12:17.680 --> 03:12:18.400
2.5?

03:12:19.000 --> 03:12:19.360
Yeah.

03:12:19.540 --> 03:12:21.080
The total is over 5, though.

03:12:21.090 --> 03:12:21.920
5.5.

03:12:21.920 --> 03:12:22.000
Yeah.

03:12:24.199 --> 03:12:24.560
Yes.

03:12:25.760 --> 03:12:26.020
Yes.

03:12:26.280 --> 03:12:27.020
Positive thinking.

03:12:27.400 --> 03:12:27.660
All right.

03:12:27.840 --> 03:12:28.740
5.5.

03:12:29.040 --> 03:12:29.700
Hey, you know what?

03:12:30.040 --> 03:12:30.760
They reviewed it.

03:12:31.480 --> 03:12:31.600
Yeah.

03:12:32.460 --> 03:12:34.380
You know, any reviews on there will get attention.

03:12:35.539 --> 03:12:38.420
That's because there's going to be enough people that say, fuck you guys.

03:12:38.560 --> 03:12:39.140
I'm going to go listen.

03:12:39.440 --> 03:12:43.420
There's going to be enough Amis out there that go, I'm just here to see that this album exists.

03:12:43.710 --> 03:12:44.840
I don't care what you say, motherfucker.

03:12:46.060 --> 03:13:14.980
They shit on tons of albums I love and I'm like, this is awesome. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, always. Just for that, this will be my number three. Fuck you guys. Shall we move on? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So next up, we have the new Mastodon album, Hushed and Grimm, their eighth album. It's a double album and was inexplicably my album of the month for October. I say inexplicably because I haven't

03:13:15.020 --> 03:13:43.060
I haven't been a fan for a while. So George, can I ask, did you like it that much? Well, I mean, it was a combination of, you know, what came out this month, but it was also, as I've told, I don't know who I told it to, but the music on the album really spoke to me. The vocals are like, yeah, they're all right. They're not like, Phil, you know, but

03:13:46.159 --> 03:14:13.040
But the music really spoke to me. And I was just like, really? I've been trashing these guys for years. And this is my album of the month? Okay. All right. No, that's fine. No, it's interesting you brought up the vocals because on this album, it's predominantly Troy Sanders and Brand Daler doing the vocals. Brent, I think, sings one song. That's it. And I've never been a fan of Brent singing because

03:14:13.080 --> 03:14:43.020
It's kind of nasally for me. Yeah. And Troy's always been the harsh vocals and he goes clean the whole album. So it's kind of different for them. I think vocal wise. Dude, the song that Brent sings on the album is badass though. Yeah. Fucking like, like heavy country ballad. And he sounds awesome doing that. See, when he, when he's not singing and he's playing, he's badass because he can play. It's just when he starts singing, he's like, he starts doing that stuff. And I'm like, oh, fuck. Although he's bad.

03:14:44.499 --> 03:15:13.040
He kills it on that, obviously. I'm just going to completely stomp all over Jay and not let him talk. No. Oh, yeah. He was about to agree with me. No. I'll let you talk, but I wanted to get my thought out before I forgot it because, you know. But, shit, I forgot what it was. Go ahead. On to Jay. Brett Hines has picked up some great

03:15:13.460 --> 03:15:43.000
this time. He's not as clear normally as John. I think he's actually a pretty good singer, personally. But also, I think that song is probably my favorite song on the record. That weird backwards-ass country song. And it brings everything he brings to the table, which is this very strange kind of, what do you call it, picking style. He's a little chicken picking a little bit. Well, there's a name for it, though. He's playing like a B-Bender guitar at the beginning of that thing.

03:15:43.160 --> 03:16:12.640
It's a hybrid. He always has played a banjo, but he gets hard picked. Yeah, that's a cool song. I think it's a little long, the album, to be blunt. It is. It's a double album. It's got some of what I don't like from The Hunter, those kind of long ballady things that are in the middle of The Hunter, which was when they kind of started to lose the plot. It's still probably the best thing they've done in a while, at the very least.

03:16:13.140 --> 03:16:41.960
I had said this to you guys earlier. I think the reason it's going more in the right direction is I think when Brent writes, they have better records. And when Bill writes, they're a little more stock. But that's funny because I think Bill wrote a lot of this. Oh, did he? Okay. I don't know because it's hard to find out because I saw a video with him and Brandon in their studio in Atlanta. He was like, well, when I write all these songs, I'm like, well, who's writing all this music? It's hard to tell. They only tell you who sings on the songs. Which brand sings a lot of them too.

03:16:42.939 --> 03:17:12.000
He's been singing a lot since Crack the Sky. I read that Bran actually wrote some of the music too. Yeah, I saw her too. The riffs and stuff, which is surprising to me. He wrote the riff to Blood and Thunder, by the way. That's a Bran riff. If you can believe that. Yeah, I mean, it's one of the greatest riffs in metal history. It's their signature riff, if they have one. I remembered what I was going to say. And this is a callback to earlier. This was

03:17:12.020 --> 03:17:40.960
In terms of like reviewers and, you know, shutting down things or not in the moment, this was the right album at the right time for me in October. I was like, whoa, this is what I'm looking for. And I'm liking it. It's the first time we've actually positively talked about them since Crack the Sky. Yeah. I think as long as you don't assume that it's Leviathan part two. Well, yeah, that's fine. I don't want that.

03:17:42.380 --> 03:17:46.140
I mean, there's like an EP worth of good songs on here for me, I think.

03:17:46.620 --> 03:17:47.720
It was a bit long.

03:17:48.320 --> 03:17:52.220
It was funny, you made that comment, Marcus, and I was like, no, there's a couple of EPs on here.

03:17:52.750 --> 03:17:54.980
Then I realized, oh, he meant quality and I wanted to be.

03:17:58.360 --> 03:18:02.640
I mean, listen, I don't fault any bands for changing their sound or doing what they want to do.

03:18:02.920 --> 03:18:05.360
I don't need to have the same fucking album every single time.

03:18:05.720 --> 03:18:10.600
But, you know, when it comes to Mastodon, like, I'm not going to spin this again, probably.

03:18:10.760 --> 03:18:39.400
I'm just going to stick with Leviathan, Blood Mountain, and crack the sky. It's because the height of their glory is so high. Their best moments are so good. That's part of the problem. They achieved something so high, something that was so important to metal. It's hard. How do you equal that? You can't. I like that they're doing other things and trying new things. I think that's interesting. I don't know. It just doesn't speak to me like some of the past ones.

03:18:39.440 --> 03:19:09.120
Yeah, we brought this comparison a couple times where it's like you have Gojira and Mastodon. And both have like, you know, they have their pinnacles, their Acmes, their Leviathan and From Mars is Sirius, which are two of my favorite metal albums of all time. And then anything after that, you're like, just goes downhill, downhill, downhill. I will say that I do have the new Mastodon on vinyl because my buddy Chop, who's down in Nicaragua, dear friend of mine,

03:19:09.620 --> 03:19:11.160
gifted to me on my birthday.

03:19:12.130 --> 03:19:13.000
So I am.

03:19:13.280 --> 03:19:13.860
Which was yesterday.

03:19:15.420 --> 03:19:16.060
It was yesterday.

03:19:16.880 --> 03:19:16.980
Yeah.

03:19:17.060 --> 03:19:17.380
I turned,

03:19:17.560 --> 03:19:18.220
I turned 29.

03:19:19.060 --> 03:19:21.260
Happy birthday to Will.

03:19:21.940 --> 03:19:22.140
You need,

03:19:22.150 --> 03:19:22.360
you need,

03:19:22.580 --> 03:19:24.840
you need somebody like Phil to sing you happy birthday.

03:19:24.870 --> 03:19:25.140
You know,

03:19:26.779 --> 03:19:28.740
happy birthday to Will.

03:19:29.540 --> 03:19:30.860
Can you do it in a sharp?

03:19:33.520 --> 03:19:34.320
But talking about this,

03:19:34.520 --> 03:19:34.640
I do,

03:19:34.690 --> 03:19:35.480
I have a question for you,

03:19:35.640 --> 03:19:35.740
Phil.

03:19:35.900 --> 03:19:36.780
And that is,

03:19:37.700 --> 03:19:38.420
there's this sentiment,

03:19:38.420 --> 03:20:08.400
Sentiment from some people in metal, the metal community, that the doom bands of recent years have kind of strayed from the sound that made people gravitate towards them and their early releases. You see it all the time. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I see it written a lot. And so obviously we love Khemmiss. We like that you incorporate new sounds and everything in your formula. But my question is, do you ever worry that you could potentially lose some of your

03:20:08.440 --> 03:20:15.860
audience by changing your sound, even if it's slightly, because that's seemingly what happens to something like Mastodon for us.

03:20:17.360 --> 03:20:38.360
I don't know. I try not to think about it. Um, I think we have to do what feels right for us. And if it's, I think it's going to be, honestly, it would be hard to feel really excited about writing a record that's like hunted part two or, you know, like that's like, just, it doesn't feel very authentic. And I think that that would end up coming through.

03:20:38.420 --> 03:21:08.360
you know, even if people think that they want that, like if they actually heard the album, they probably would be disappointed anyway. So, you know, and it's probably the same thing for Mastodon. I doubt that they have another Leviathan in them and they probably don't want to. And if you did hear it, you'd probably think it sucked anyway. So like, you know, I kind of don't understand that. I understand that people like want more of what they like best, but anything that means that a band is getting to keep it interesting for themselves and is like,

03:21:09.641 --> 03:21:37.780
feels motivated to keep going, I think is good. And I think for us, you know, this album more than the last one feels like us having the confidence to re-embrace a little bit more of the early sound, even though we're also doing new things. And that I think as long as you're connecting to the spirit of what you've always done, that you're always going to have those fans that want to hear the new stuff.

03:21:37.860 --> 03:22:03.240
And that's good enough. You can't please everybody anyway, so you might as well please yourself first. And then those people who are in it for the long run are still going to be there with you. To be clear, Phil, and I know we were just talking about Gujira or Mastodon. I don't think any of us think that you guys have changed your sounds so much the way that Gujira or Mastodon having Gujira at this point is like Imagine Dragons.

03:22:07.880 --> 03:22:37.260
Hey, they're not bad either. Actually, the point being is that I think you still sound like Khemmiss. You can listen to Absolution. You can listen to Deceiver and go like, yes, this is the same band. Yes, there's some tweaks, but it's the same band and it's still great where you listen to Viathan and then you listen to, I don't know, whatever Hunter or whatever garbage they put out lately. Hushing Grimm is pretty good. I admit that, but we're not saying that.

03:22:37.860 --> 03:23:07.720
You're still Khemmiss. It's still awesome. It is. Sorry. It's almost like it's a shame that we're talking about these other bands and then we bring you back into the fold because it's like, this is not what we're talking about. No, but I understand why. Yeah. And I think, you know, the thing I was shocked about yesterday when I listened to all of our albums in a row was how similar they all are. And I was like, man, we've really had a strong DNA since. Evelyn caught that. And I was I was really excited about that. I mean, I think that

03:23:07.880 --> 03:23:37.720
That means that like we have an identifiable sound. And I would say, I mean, actually, I would argue that Mastodon still does too. You know, there's something to the combination of like the drumming and the riffing that is like been consistent throughout time where they always kind of have this like busier rhythm section. And then these, you know, sort of like complicated riffs that go into elements of like this hybrid picking, like weirdness.

03:23:41.979 --> 03:24:07.440
and, you know, like traditional metal and ZZ Top and stuff that like that's always been there. So I'm super, I thought the new album was pretty good too. I thought it was like probably the best one since Crack the Sky. And I feel like at the very least there is, you know, probably like four or five songs that I'd be happy to hear live as part of their set list. And like, what more do you really want from a band at that point in their career anyway?

03:24:07.540 --> 03:24:36.940
And I would say that the guitar solos are some of the best ones I've heard this year. Brent Hines is fucking bonkers on this album, man. It's a great player. He really is. He's a savant. And he is. Multi-talented for different styles, too. Such a good player. There's like a solo from Kim Thale from Soundgarden on one of the songs that's amazing. And then, I don't know, Brent Hines' solo on the last song.

03:24:37.540 --> 03:25:07.500
last song overall it kind of sounds like torch to me or something um is like fucking amazing way to send the album out so i thought the beginning and the end are really strong yeah the middle is where it gets just a little yeah and it gave it at least gives off a good impression to me as an album because of the strong start and end wait do they have a bomb string on that last song no it's just the vocals like yeah i don't know it's just like lots of harmonized pretty high vocals kind of just sounded like torch it's like a driving riff too if you guys ever seen torch live and you see uh yeah base the bass

03:25:07.540 --> 03:25:37.500
does the bomb string and it is flapping in the breeze you're like oh my god how is he even playing that and it's like it's the bomb string the torch live is awesome we saw him at uh dc brown together fifth anniversary you know i think the problem when we talk about these bands and it's unfair to these bands is that we're talking about lightning in a bottle when you talk about leviathan and from ours is serious they they kind of indirectly screw themselves because you can't go anywhere from that when you when you

03:25:37.520 --> 03:25:44.180
They're not fair to judge them that way. People have said that about

03:25:44.990 --> 03:25:52.260
Rain and Blood. It happens. That's why I hate

03:25:52.540 --> 03:25:56.340
George brought this up early. I hate reviews because when they review bands from

03:25:56.500 --> 03:26:00.220
so many years that have long careers, you're like, oh, this is shit. Well, are you reviewing

03:26:00.680 --> 03:26:04.340
the album or are you reviewing them against their past great works?

03:26:04.460 --> 03:26:06.500
And it's not fair to the bands because

03:26:07.020 --> 03:26:08.380
I don't want, I honestly

03:26:08.760 --> 03:26:10.620
as much as like Overkill, I don't want to hear

03:26:10.640 --> 03:26:12.660
the same, Saxon's probably even

03:26:12.840 --> 03:26:14.280
more, because Jay and I

03:26:14.780 --> 03:26:16.540
and I know George likes, I mean

03:26:16.660 --> 03:26:18.720
I love Saxon, but after the first

03:26:18.840 --> 03:26:20.400
four or five, I don't need to hear anymore

03:26:20.620 --> 03:26:22.120
it's the same fucking album

03:26:22.340 --> 03:26:24.300
You can buy every fourth album after that

03:26:24.300 --> 03:26:26.680
And by the way, I love every album

03:26:27.120 --> 03:26:29.240
but I don't need to hear the same album

03:26:29.360 --> 03:26:31.240
I agree, I want bands to experiment

03:26:31.520 --> 03:26:32.900
and do something different

03:26:32.920 --> 03:26:33.860
for the band.

03:26:34.180 --> 03:26:36.360
Because you're going to get bored.

03:26:37.221 --> 03:26:38.380
Evolve or die.

03:26:39.660 --> 03:26:42.160
Creatively fulfilling and inspiring to you.

03:26:42.380 --> 03:26:46.540
Go back and read the early reviews of South of Heaven.

03:26:47.040 --> 03:26:48.860
They have viscerally done it.

03:26:49.360 --> 03:26:51.320
That's my favorite player album by far.

03:26:51.340 --> 03:26:52.400
It's a fucking great album.

03:26:52.600 --> 03:26:53.920
Can I talk about this for a second?

03:26:54.660 --> 03:26:54.920
Sure.

03:26:55.960 --> 03:26:56.560
I'm old.

03:26:57.340 --> 03:26:57.980
No, you're not.

03:26:58.200 --> 03:26:59.540
And my friends are old.

03:27:00.860 --> 03:27:01.060
Yes.

03:27:01.580 --> 03:27:31.540
I had I had I had I had slapping squirrels slapping squirrels uh but okay so one of my friends from high school has a son who is in high school now and he is he's like a big misfits fan and he's been getting into like some metal stuff and so where does he go to talk about this if he comes to me I'm like uncle g yo

03:27:31.560 --> 03:28:01.540
But literally today, he was like, you know, South of Heaven is actually pretty good. And I said, of course it is, you dumb little shit. I didn't say that. I didn't say that. He does not listen to this podcast, right, George? What? He does listen, so I didn't say that. Thank God you're the editor. Exactly. But no, I was like, yes, of course. But I understood what he was saying, because when

03:28:01.660 --> 03:28:31.460
and blood came out. That was the benchmark. Actually, it wasn't. People say that, but that's not true. People did not embrace brain and blood when it came out. I did. No, I did too, but there was like five of us. Okay. But the point is that when South of Heaven came out, they decided to go, we're just going to go slower instead of faster because how can we go faster? It was only because it was slower. And people were like, what? And I was one of those people. I was like, it's okay.

03:28:32.420 --> 03:29:00.260
But you know, 30 whatever years later, I'm like, no, this is totally a classic. And I told him that. I was like, yeah, of course it's a classic. Put this in perspective. The shit that they got for South of Heaven versus the shit that Metallica got for the Blackout. Think about that. Of course, not nearly as much because we still talk about Slayer on here. So to clarify my reign and blood comment, all I mean is that that was still a pretty specialized crowd at the time.

03:29:00.320 --> 03:29:29.880
So people can say that it was like, I trust me, that record has sold way more records a decade after it came out than it did when it came out. Nobody gave a fuck. Rain and Blood is the only album I've ever listened to that scared me. I was obsessed with it. When it came out, I was like, oh my God, can I listen to this? This is fucking evil. I've been waiting to tell Will. And I'm not even religious, but I was like, holy shit. Will, a friend of mine sent me a meme the other day, and you can work this into a joke, I'm sure, but you have to get somebody to say yes. But anyway,

03:29:30.320 --> 03:29:59.980
this meme and there's a guy on the phone with his friend and he says do you like Imagine Dragons? Yes. And the guy says and the guy on the other end of the phone says yes and then the last then the next comment is Imagine Dragons beast nuts across your shin. That's pretty good. There's our first floor hold. I'm glad you waited until I have a little con. Yeah. But we have degraded so far since she left.

03:30:00.320 --> 03:30:01.120
Oh, yeah.

03:30:01.760 --> 03:30:02.480
All right, what's next album?

03:30:02.500 --> 03:30:02.760
I blame.

03:30:03.000 --> 03:30:03.980
Next album, all right.

03:30:04.240 --> 03:30:04.900
Yes, come on.

03:30:04.900 --> 03:30:06.320
I feel such a bad influence.

03:30:06.820 --> 03:30:09.740
No, it's like just a massive trooper again.

03:30:11.060 --> 03:30:11.320
Yes.

03:30:11.960 --> 03:30:12.880
I'm here for the long haul.

03:30:13.000 --> 03:30:14.020
I might as well at this point.

03:30:14.460 --> 03:30:14.640
Yeah.

03:30:15.340 --> 03:30:22.480
All right, next up we have the new Morda Faram album, Preserved in Torment.

03:30:22.580 --> 03:30:22.920
Dirty.

03:30:23.260 --> 03:30:27.560
This is their second album, their Washington State Death Doom Band.

03:30:28.040 --> 03:30:58.000
80% of the podcast apparently according to James. But yeah, this is good shit. What is it, Matt? I mean... It's dirty. It's dirty, dirty death. Dirty, dirty death. I mean, Phil said it should have been on the decibel top 40. I agree. Like a five. Like they trashed it. It's not cool. It's like there's a lot of this kind of thing right now. Like this is... I don't know why, but like...

03:30:58.020 --> 03:31:28.000
fucking like every hardcore band decided that they needed to become a death metal band and make this kind of album and most of it is like not that good and a lot of it gets praised really highly and is not that good this album is pretty good I like their first one better I think still as do I yeah I think so but but I do like the new ones still and they're a good band and the production is awesome on the record I really like how it sounds it's like perfect for this style so I'm on board

03:31:28.000 --> 03:31:57.880
I think it's great. And they're good dudes. Yeah. They played, they played Atlas once. It was a great show. Yeah. And they were the nicest dudes. Uh, and I, God, I forget his name. It was the guitar player, I think. And he was like, Hey man, like, cause you know, every band that plays there, we try and send them home with like at least a case or a couple of six packs of beer. Like, you know, just go home, get in your van and go drink or whatever. No, but don't drink it and drive while driving. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's only one guy needs to drive, but, um, he's like, Oh, thanks.

03:31:58.020 --> 03:32:27.680
It's like, yeah, we're up in Vermont. I got this beer, Heddy Topper. You want some? I'm like, yeah. Yes. I'll trade a four pack of Heddy Topper. I'm like, dude, you were the nicest guy. Like, you know, like, you know, I'm not a good guy, but you want to go in the back room? Like, you know, what's going on? I got a place right around the corner that I work at on some nights a week. But I just, they were, what I love about what I do at Atlas is I get to meet people, even if it's briefly on a slightly personal level. Like, you know, it's not just like, oh, there's a picture of you.

03:32:28.020 --> 03:32:56.340
your music. You get to talk to them and meet them. Some people are just absolutely the nicest human beings in the world. That's what I love about metal. You just meet so many great people. You just meet great people. That's the whole point of this podcast. Yes, it literally is. Sorry to disappoint you all. What? Have we hung out with you at Atlas, Phil? I know Will has. I don't know. Twice.

03:32:58.000 --> 03:33:27.980
By the way, are you traveling for work again? Are you coming my way yet? I don't know. The last couple of years have been canceled for that stuff. It hasn't happened in a while, but hopefully next year. I'll let you know. Anyway, more to Firm Record. Thumbs up. Thumbs up. I like it dirty. I'm dripping with dirt. Next up, we have the new Swallow the Sun album, Moonflowers. Their eighth album. They're a finished Death Doom band because that is

03:33:28.000 --> 03:33:28.820
of what we do.

03:33:32.040 --> 03:33:32.840
And I,

03:33:33.380 --> 03:33:33.640
you know,

03:33:33.800 --> 03:33:34.040
I,

03:33:34.760 --> 03:33:34.940
the,

03:33:35.080 --> 03:33:37.340
the advanced stuff was all like the classical stuff,

03:33:37.600 --> 03:33:39.740
which is apparently part of like the second disc,

03:33:39.880 --> 03:33:43.680
which is a like bonus album of classical versions of the songs.

03:33:44.600 --> 03:33:47.280
So I didn't hear any of this stuff until today,

03:33:48.280 --> 03:33:50.840
but I listened to the whole thing today and thumbs up.

03:33:51.050 --> 03:33:51.440
I like it.

03:33:51.580 --> 03:33:51.740
Okay.

03:33:52.360 --> 03:33:53.540
I thought the same thing.

03:33:53.540 --> 03:33:54.640
Cause the last one I liked,

03:33:54.720 --> 03:33:56.060
but I was a little underwhelmed.

03:33:56.560 --> 03:34:25.400
This one's got some good stuff on it. Yeah, I like it. They kind of brought back some of their, not the old sound, but they got a little dirty like the old sound. There's some harsh stuff on this. But Swallow the Sun is the ultimate melancholy band. If you like this type of music, they just feel horrible because if you know the story about the guitarist and his girlfriend, you'll start crying. But man, I thought it was pretty good. Do they have their intense keyboardist anymore? No.

03:34:26.040 --> 03:34:56.020
I don't know. Is he still in the band? Yeah. He left like after the tour we saw them, right? He left and then I left. Yeah. No, well, the main guy, Yuri, I think his name, I don't know how to pronounce his name, woman, his partner, she passed away. She was a singer. Singer for Trees of Eternity. And so it's been rough for him because when

03:34:56.060 --> 03:35:24.580
We saw them when two wild tours collided in D.C. and Will, George, and I saw, who is it? Overkill, Nile, Amorphous, and Swallow the Sun. You're not going to get that anywhere. It was just like a weeknight in D.C. Was that the Howard Theater? Yes, it was. And we got this crazy show, and he didn't tour with them because he just wouldn't go on the road with them because he was still dealing with his loss.

03:35:26.080 --> 03:35:28.980
guy in the band in terms of writing, I think, as far as I understand it.

03:35:31.279 --> 03:35:32.720
I admit I didn't listen to this.

03:35:33.480 --> 03:35:35.040
I thought it was well, it just came out yesterday.

03:35:35.280 --> 03:35:38.160
I mean, obviously, we're spending the whole day listening to Khemmis.

03:35:38.920 --> 03:35:39.140
Yeah.

03:35:40.200 --> 03:35:41.860
So in my free time.

03:35:43.620 --> 03:35:46.140
I listened to it last night, and I thought it was pretty good.

03:35:46.300 --> 03:35:49.540
I'm not a huge fan of this band, but this one kind of hit me in the feels.

03:35:49.920 --> 03:35:54.900
I did listen to it late at night while gazing at the moon reflecting on the ocean.

03:35:55.540 --> 03:36:25.140
So that could be why. Well, that's how you listen to Swallow the Sun, honestly. I always look at the ocean because it's right out here. Now, Marcus, are you familiar with their early stuff at all? Yes, I've listened to a lot of their stuff. I think I've listened to all their albums, actually. I don't know what it is. I'm just not as big a fan of, and I love Doom, but I just know. They're pretty melancholy. I mean, they're like Songs from the North was my number one album that year. Yeah. Well, that was their like, what, 10-hour long album?

03:36:25.220 --> 03:36:55.060
They're just like a triple album. Yeah, the triple album of three different styles. Yeah, there's a song on here on moonflowers. It's woven to sorrow. It reminds me a lot of Queensryche. Did you guys get that? I listened to my listen to Queensryche. It's pretty crazy. It sounds a lot like it. So that was cool to me. I got it. I've only spun a one full good time. I got to give it another spin, but I liked it. Yeah, I did dig it. All right. Our chance to listen to the whole thing yet. But I was like about a quarter of it.

03:36:56.239 --> 03:36:56.640
today.

03:36:57.280 --> 03:37:02.980
And I've never, kind of like Marcus, I've never really been a huge fan of this band.

03:37:02.980 --> 03:37:05.520
And I haven't admittedly given them a whole lot of time.

03:37:06.160 --> 03:37:10.420
I think they've always come off as like a little bit more melodramatic than I like.

03:37:10.880 --> 03:37:11.380
Yeah, I get that.

03:37:11.860 --> 03:37:12.440
They are.

03:37:15.060 --> 03:37:18.360
But it sounded like high quality stuff.

03:37:18.600 --> 03:37:19.300
You know, it sounded good.

03:37:19.360 --> 03:37:49.320
The one thing I don't love about this band is that they too evenly partition the clean vocal and heavy vocal sections. They have the heavy parts of the song that are like, this is what we're doing. When it's clean parts, it's very different. I don't know. I think I wish that there was a little bit more crossover of the two things where it felt a little bit more cohesive. That's my...

03:37:49.899 --> 03:37:54.000
and have the clean during the harsher sounds and the harsher vocals

03:37:54.220 --> 03:37:56.700
during the kind of more mellow ambient side parts.

03:37:57.020 --> 03:37:59.920
Yeah, it ends up just feeling a little bit more formulaic.

03:38:00.000 --> 03:38:01.080
Sort of formulaic.

03:38:01.100 --> 03:38:01.440
It does.

03:38:01.900 --> 03:38:02.840
I agree with that.

03:38:02.940 --> 03:38:03.940
And I love these guys.

03:38:04.220 --> 03:38:07.360
I've loved everything since the first album, but I completely agree with that.

03:38:07.420 --> 03:38:07.880
I do too.

03:38:07.940 --> 03:38:09.980
I will say we saw them live.

03:38:10.120 --> 03:38:13.420
We played a festival with them in Germany a couple of years ago,

03:38:13.460 --> 03:38:14.420
and they were really good.

03:38:14.940 --> 03:38:15.780
So, you know.

03:38:16.220 --> 03:38:17.980
I saw them on their first US show ever.

03:38:18.640 --> 03:38:48.300
I played at Jack's in Springfield. And they were the opening band. And the guy I was talking about, the guitarist who his partner passed away, he came up to me. I said, I just looked at him and said, dude, awesome show up. It's awesome. He's like, wow, really? This is our first time ever in the US. I'm like, well, I feel really special. That's cool. He probably made his day. Yeah, he was just like, I had no idea how this was going to go. Who was the headliner then? Give me a few.

03:38:48.420 --> 03:39:16.920
I'll bring it up in a few minutes, but I'll check. But it was wild. I was like, this is your first US show ever? Of course, you know, from Finland, right? Yeah. So it's like, yeah. Well, you know, the one and only time that I got to see Sentenced was at Jaxx and they were the opener. Jaxx got everyone. I mean, In Flames was the headliner and what's that shitty band? In Flames? No, the one after.

03:39:19.939 --> 03:39:48.260
I like me some Inflames. Oh my god. No the band where there was the. Yeah. Anyway. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. But I agree with Phil like I think he nailed it when he said that Swallow the Sun has this is very melodramatic in the past but I feel like this album feels a little bit more sincere and maybe that's what I. Yeah. What I gravitate towards. That's why I like it a little bit better. So maybe because they're older now.

03:39:48.420 --> 03:40:17.800
They're nailing that little sweet spot of sincerity. I got it, George. You ready? Yeah. Here's the bill I saw for their first show ever in 2007. Swallow the Sun, Insomnia, Scar Symmetry, and Catatonia. Whoa. Yeah. That's a good fucking lineup. That's a great lineup. Damn. All right. Last new release. Unleashed. No signs of life.

03:40:17.880 --> 03:40:46.620
their 14th album of Swedish death metal. I mean, I like these guys, but this didn't do a whole lot for me. I'm sorry. I love when the album title is a plausible review of an album. That is so good. I didn't even see that. I think we're done on that note. Yep. All right. All right. You know, it calls to mind. This was a two word review. Shit sandwich. Where did they print that? They can't print that.

03:40:47.280 --> 03:41:16.300
Who said that? It's the greatest ad-lib ever. That reminds me of the Decibel review of Machine Head's album. Remember this? Oh, man. Did what's-his-name get pissed about that? Rob. Oh, he threw a shit fit online about that. Yeah, but it was so bad. It was horrible. I mean, I used to like Machine Head. I did.

03:41:17.300 --> 03:41:43.780
up through, I don't know, but I did for a while. If Phil had to leave and finally said, all right, I'm done with this payday. Yeah. Did you ever read the, there's a review of the, one of the, you remember that band called Jet? They just sounded like Aerosmith or something. Yes. With like big hair. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was a review of one of their albums on Pitchfork that was just a video of a monkey pissing into its own mouth.

03:41:47.280 --> 03:42:16.840
That's my favorite shitty negative review ever. See, when they did that machine, we just started talking about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's at that point, you just got to say, well, we got a great review from these guys. Hey, you got a review. That's what matters. All press is good press. It's better than being ignored. You guys missed out on a really big album that came out on Friday also. Oh, tell us.

03:42:16.900 --> 03:42:44.860
Well, that's my fault. What is it? The Converge-Chelsea Wolf collaboration. Oh. Yeah. I like Chelsea Wolf. I don't like Converge. I love Converge. I spun this album once and I couldn't get into it, Phil. I thought I was going to love this record. I even pre-ordered on vinyl because I was like, this sounds like the perfect collaboration. I think I need to listen to it a few more times to get into it. It's not connecting with me at all.

03:42:47.501 --> 03:42:50.580
I love converge and they're amazing live too but

03:42:51.240 --> 03:42:56.680
what do you think about it Phil I uh I don't think one spin was enough to get a fair

03:42:57.180 --> 03:43:02.020
assessment it was like very different from what I was expecting me too the uh like

03:43:03.441 --> 03:43:09.840
I usually like when converge does like slower stuff you know like the title track on Jane Doe or you

03:43:09.860 --> 03:43:38.780
That kind of stuff is amazing. But I kind of wish that it got more convergy sometimes. That it got more heavy and up-tempo. It felt like, I don't know, it felt like a little bit, it was too indecipherable for me on one listen. And I'm not a huge Chelsea Wolf fan necessarily, but she didn't show up too much on the album, honestly, I don't think.

03:43:40.020 --> 03:44:09.720
just felt like a very weird converge album to me. So I think I need to go back to it. I'm not sure what my feelings are yet. So Marcus, I'll tell you, you guys listen, is this kind of like a collab like Colta Luna did with Julie Christmas? That was good. That thing slayed. That's what they were going for, I think. It's definitely not like that album immediately was amazing. And it was not as good. One of my favorite collabs was last year. Emma Ruth Rundle.

03:44:09.840 --> 03:44:39.820
I was just going to say what was the one that was that? That was one of the most amazing collaborations I've ever heard. I think usually when I hear a collab I'm like I don't know it's probably not going to be that good. And that nailed it. And maybe I have false expectations for this converged Chelsea Wolf because of that because I listen to that other record so much. It's not that. It's very weird. Like I said it's just really

03:44:39.840 --> 03:45:09.680
Bizarre. It's not what I expected. It doesn't merge well to me. And I would have used, I think I would have used Chelsea Wolf in a different way. It doesn't seem like they utilized her skills in the right way. And Phil's right. It's not quite a Converge album. It's like a weird Converge album. It's not like, if they would have done Converge with Chelsea Wolf singing like background, it might have been better. But they tried to do something just weird and then put her in there. And I don't know. I think I got to go back to it a few more times.

03:45:09.840 --> 03:45:39.820
I always liked when they have guest singers too. So I was, yeah, I don't really know how to make of it, but like, I love, like there's a song with the singer from only living witness that was on one of their albums. I can't remember, but you know, stuff like that's amazing. So yeah, I don't know. It almost makes you wonder, would it just have been better to come up with a new name for the project to separate the bands that they're associated with? I always wonder if I would like it more, if it wasn't the names of the bands that they're associated with.

03:45:39.860 --> 03:45:43.320
they were coming from because then i wouldn't be expecting something else

03:45:44.679 --> 03:45:50.700
conveyor no i mean it just sometimes i wonder about that i and i get that it's tough just

03:45:51.390 --> 03:45:57.760
just deep thoughts by john handy this is one it just is going to require multiple spins to see

03:45:57.840 --> 03:46:03.220
what they're trying to do with it because you can tell that clearly they put a lot of time and thought into it

03:46:04.179 --> 03:46:08.780
um maybe that was the point maybe they're trying to force you to maybe to give it more time

03:46:09.279 --> 03:46:11.120
Think of that Phil when you do the

03:46:11.980 --> 03:46:12.680
Khemmis and

03:46:13.060 --> 03:46:13.880
Britney Spears album

03:46:15.619 --> 03:46:17.100
To be honest I could hear

03:46:17.420 --> 03:46:19.480
female vocals in Khemmis

03:46:19.660 --> 03:46:21.080
That actually would work

03:46:21.380 --> 03:46:23.020
I've thought about wanting to do that before

03:46:23.100 --> 03:46:23.620
I have a cousin

03:46:26.140 --> 03:46:27.740
What if she growls well

03:46:27.920 --> 03:46:29.200
If she like has harsh vocals

03:46:31.020 --> 03:46:32.720
Let Phil speak god damn it

03:46:33.520 --> 03:46:34.400
What else wrong with you

03:46:34.660 --> 03:46:36.900
I don't really

03:46:37.100 --> 03:46:38.760
I wouldn't want like some

03:46:38.760 --> 03:47:08.740
you know really kind of quiet ethereal like female vocals i would want it to be like kind of like my female counterpart somebody who's like really singing out and like passionate i have a cousin who's like a pretty good singer who i thought about like asking if she wanted to do something um but yeah i don't know maybe someday but um there's another album that i also thought was cool from this last week that was not on the list so sorry i'm adding more shit for you well no bring it to be honest

03:47:08.760 --> 03:47:38.160
I didn't spend a lot of time on it so I'm sorry. That's okay. Did anybody listen to there's an album by a band called Tower that. Oh I heard about this but I didn't listen yet. I heard about it though. It has a really cool like throwback very 80s looking sort of like what's that fucking show that British people like that has people time traveling in a. Doctor Who. Doctor Who. It has. Doctor Who.

03:47:38.780 --> 03:48:08.640
This Doctor Who meets Yes album covers from the 70s vibe going on on the phone. And it's just like some throwback trad metal stuff. I'm looking at it right now. That's perfect, dude. Yeah, it's badass. It's just some pretty basic throwback trad metal stuff, but the vocalist is amazing. This lady sounds like you took Judas... It's like you took Rob Halford.

03:48:08.780 --> 03:48:38.740
and the lady from Heart, Nancy Wilson. Anne Wilson? Anne Wilson, yeah. And you combine the two. She is, like, fucking amazing, just, like, going for it. I always really liked the singer from Royal Thunder. Yeah. But I don't really like that band that much, per se, but I always thought her voice was really good. She could melt it out, yeah. But this lady is, like, if you took her voice and you turned it up to, like, 14, and you added a

03:48:38.780 --> 03:49:08.720
Dose of Rob Halford. It's pretty badass. It makes the whole album really fun. So the band's called Tower? Yeah. What's the name of the album? Dude, it's called Shock to the System. That is the perfect description, dude. He's not joking. She literally does sound like Ann Wilson. And then she's got this way high register. She goes, this is killer. Checking that out. Balls to the wall. The vocals are so unhinged. And sometimes they are way out and don't sound right. But she's fucking going.

03:49:08.760 --> 03:49:09.800
for it. And it sounds.

03:49:10.320 --> 03:49:11.280
It's definitely exciting.

03:49:11.680 --> 03:49:12.380
That's cool.

03:49:13.020 --> 03:49:13.100
Yeah.

03:49:13.900 --> 03:49:16.680
Otherwise it's just like whatever, but yeah, I was into it.

03:49:17.140 --> 03:49:17.400
Nice.

03:49:18.740 --> 03:49:19.800
What else you got, Phil?

03:49:20.440 --> 03:49:21.000
Yeah, I know.

03:49:21.560 --> 03:49:22.580
What else did we miss?

03:49:24.240 --> 03:49:25.740
It's not even our fault this time.

03:49:26.100 --> 03:49:27.260
It's all my fault.

03:49:27.520 --> 03:49:27.760
Thank you.

03:49:27.900 --> 03:49:30.040
He he's been on the cast multiple times.

03:49:30.160 --> 03:49:30.340
Yeah.

03:49:30.340 --> 03:49:32.160
He knows what this is like.

03:49:32.420 --> 03:49:32.600
Yeah.

03:49:33.140 --> 03:49:33.760
I knew.

03:49:33.790 --> 03:49:35.240
This is his first row to marathon.

03:49:37.140 --> 03:49:37.360
All right.

03:49:37.819 --> 03:50:07.200
John, I just want to point out that I have a new beer. Oh, one that you might enjoy the alpha claws from three. Oh, alpha claws is nice. The seasonal Porter, right? That's right. Yeah, that's a nice one. I got that. And I still have a, I put painter's tape all over it so that it wouldn't spill them out of my suitcase. Nice. Markisan, are you using an earthworks Mike? Uh, no, this is a road. Okay. It looks expensive.

03:50:07.380 --> 03:50:09.280
from my poor camera view.

03:50:09.880 --> 03:50:13.620
Well, because I have the whole boom, and then I've got the...

03:50:13.800 --> 03:50:14.480
I've got the boom.

03:50:14.550 --> 03:50:15.200
What are you talking about?

03:50:15.230 --> 03:50:15.880
I forget what you mean.

03:50:16.560 --> 03:50:19.680
You got a boom, but this is, I don't know, a stabilizer or something that goes with it.

03:50:19.930 --> 03:50:20.320
I don't know.

03:50:20.540 --> 03:50:21.920
It wasn't that bad, dude.

03:50:22.660 --> 03:50:23.360
Do I sound good?

03:50:23.920 --> 03:50:24.420
It sounds good.

03:50:24.820 --> 03:50:26.840
You actually just attach the mic to a sex machine.

03:50:27.020 --> 03:50:27.540
Sound beautiful.

03:50:27.920 --> 03:50:28.080
Yeah.

03:50:28.760 --> 03:50:33.720
I had problems with my mics before, and I just wasn't talking close enough, so I just got a better mic.

03:50:34.160 --> 03:50:34.280
Yeah.

03:50:34.970 --> 03:50:35.060
Yeah.

03:50:35.450 --> 03:50:36.440
You got to talk close enough.

03:50:36.600 --> 03:51:06.520
I do a lot of interviews too because I write comic books so I'm constantly doing interviews. Wait what you do comic books? What? You might not know that though. That's weird. I don't. Yeah yeah. I have to check this out. Oh yeah you definitely can check it out. Sure yeah I mean I got a comic book coming out now it's called By the Horns it's a sci-fi fantasy book it's about a hunter named Elodie whose husband is trampled by unicorns and she swears revenge against all the unicorns on the continent.

03:51:08.880 --> 03:51:36.400
Yeah. Do you illustrate them too? No, I write. I just write. Once in a while I illustrate, I did a cover for my previous book. It's called Voracious. It's about a chef who travels through time, kills dinosaurs, and serves them at a restaurant on the present. You gotta read that shit. These aren't self-published. These are real books. They're real books. Thanks, Jack. You have to tell Phil that Khemmis is in by the horns.

03:51:36.600 --> 03:52:06.500
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, that's right. In By the Horns, we did a map for the whole thing, and I named all the places after metal bands. And so one of the places that's in it is called Khemmis, which actually, I guess, was a real place, right? Yeah, it was. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, it's because of your band. But, yeah, we've got all these different metal bands as places. Wayfair is a big one. Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's cool. Yeah, the book's doing really well, and it was a limited series.

03:52:06.580 --> 03:52:36.180
But now it's an ongoing series. So I'm having a blast writing that and doing stuff with comics. That's really cool. We can figure out a royalty structure. It's named after the place in Egypt. I was like, where is this? Is it going to come up? And it did. Don't tell the guys from Wayfair. I mean, it's funny too. Some of these names, I mean,

03:52:36.240 --> 03:52:55.860
And the bands get them from some other place. So usually, you know. Hey, Marcus, all you gotta do is change one letter in there and you're good. That's true, yeah. You don't have to do shit. You're good. Glad I have that on tape. Yeah. All right, let's move on to what we are listening to.

03:53:19.620 --> 03:53:35.980
And we will, of course, start with Phil. What are you to listen to? I gotta bring up my appy music. I have really liked, this might be my sort of like,

03:53:37.620 --> 03:54:06.200
I really like this veil burner album yeah I just heard this yeah that's good I really like that album um just like very weird death metal very unpredictable where it's gonna go gets really psychedelic kind of sometimes like approaching a Ronsa Pazuzu territory or something oh um yeah so I like that album a lot um the album's called lurkers in the capsule of the skull uh I

03:54:06.240 --> 03:54:34.100
was checking out this Nocturne album that I think also maybe came out on Friday. And that one's kind of cool. It's like black metal with some really beautiful kind of interludes. What else? There's this funeral chant album, Dawn of Annihilation. Have you guys heard that? No. It's from this year. It's like just like some frantic death metal.

03:54:35.780 --> 03:55:05.660
Very like pedal to the metal, frantic sounding riffs. Evil. Sounds good to me. That one's pretty good. Evil. Very evil. I have been revisiting Vorum. You guys know that band? I don't think so. Also a death metal band. Sounds familiar, actually. I'm pretty sure they were the last band to play Atlas.

03:55:05.780 --> 03:55:32.640
Are they from Richmond area? I don't know actually. They had an album a couple years ago or an EP a couple years ago called Current Mouth that was pretty great. But I've been revisiting their first EP called Grim Death Awaits and it's fucking awesome. Such a good fucking album. Check that out. It's only 20 minutes and the album is amazing. Grim Death Awaits. Huge recommendation. Check into that. Let's see.

03:55:35.820 --> 03:56:04.740
Listening to, I don't know, like some kind of early shoegazy stuff like this mortal coil. That's old. Yeah. That shit's good. I don't know. That's probably enough, right? Yeah. Whatever you want to do. Well, it's like, yeah, Vorarm, Vorarm played with Edmores and the Astral something or other. They were the last band to play Atlas and.

03:56:05.780 --> 03:56:34.580
February 28th, 2020. I spent the play atlas before we shut everything down. They were awesome. I loved them. I can't believe I've never heard of them. V-O-R-U-M? A-M. A-M. Is it A-M or U-M? U-M. Maybe I have the wrong band then. There's a VOR-M and a VOR-M. Wait, wait. How do you spell it? V-O-R-U-M.

03:56:37.681 --> 03:57:05.740
Oh no different band so both current mouth and grim death awaits are really good and they're totally different from each other grim death awaits is like bigger grooves better like clearer production has some kind of like do me sections but it's like very like evil death metal shit and then current mouth is way more like

03:57:05.760 --> 03:57:35.720
way more frantic and sort of like bestial shit. Yeah. Every time you say current mouth, it creeps me out. It's yeah. It's a creepy name. Every time you say Grim Death awaits, I think of Monty Python's Holy Grail and Tim and he's like, Grim Death awaits you. Oh, gosh. Yeah. Not that that's what he said. What's that? Do you know if they're on band camp? I think so. Probably. We'll check it out. Yeah. Current mouth is on band camp, but just look it up. Sweet. Don't say it anymore.

03:57:37.239 --> 03:58:05.740
Yeah, it's a really creepy name, isn't it? It really is. Yeah. All right, so it's my turn. So I listened to Lakai Shroud, The Gold Flush of the Sun, self-released. I'm a really big fan of this band. I think most of us are. I've enjoyed all the records that Brent Widenagle has put out, but I think this is my favorite release that he's done. It just has that perfect combination of progressive metal, death, and doom. And I like the

03:58:18.779 --> 03:58:34.000
A.L.A.S.

03:58:37.640 --> 03:59:01.140
S. Shroud. All the stuff's on Bandcamp. He's in another band. What was the other band he's in, John? The Doom Band. What is that band called? From Florida. I was just thinking that. Soulmass. He's in Soulmass, yeah. But he does everything for Lakai's Shroud, and it's really fucking good. He's been releasing like two albums a year for the last two or three years. That's insane.

03:59:05.760 --> 03:59:35.740
last couple years I think and this one is last three have been very good so good very good all right and then the next one is a ludium ash of the womb on prophecy productions just it's like a stunning sun drenched dreamscape metal I really like the vibe on this metal it has a you know it's like a slower doomy shoegaze type with a female vocalist is really good really like that one I'm storm

03:59:35.760 --> 04:00:05.720
which just got released tales of other time on van records i mean this band was made for me because they play medieval mystic black metal i really loved last year's galdrum ep but storm keep has significantly leveled up on this full length they're my home voice oh you know you know i'm awesome yeah yeah it's basically wayfarer yeah it's basically the same band and i love wayfarer too which ends up being part of blood incantation there's yeah one percent

04:00:05.740 --> 04:00:35.600
One Person. One Person, yeah. What's the name of the band? Storm Keep. This was on the Decibel list. Yeah, I didn't get a chance to listen yet. Yeah, I love it. I mean, I love Galdrum. It was on my top EPs, and actually, the cover was on my cover list, but I don't think we did covers last year. But anyways, if you like old school black metal fit for stabbing cave dragons, then this is probably something that you'll like. What if you like old school black metal that's maybe not necessarily?

04:00:37.960 --> 04:01:05.720
It's okay, though, too, George. It's not Stormkeep, but it's cool. It's kind of, yeah, it's like black metal filtered through the fire bowels of an old dragon on top of a, like, weathered castle. Something like that, George. They would probably be stoked by that description. Yeah, but I bet the producer would be pissed off if that's what they said they wanted. They'd be like, we want it to sound like this. He'd be like, fuck you. Because they had John Lennon

04:01:06.140 --> 04:01:35.000
once told George, what's his name? Martin. George Martin. George Martin, yeah. He said, what kind of sound are you going for here? He said, I want it to sound like an orange. This would have been the acid days. Didn't he also tell him that he wanted to sound like the Dalai Lama giving a sermon from the top of the mountain? That sounds familiar. What's the last song on Revolver? Tomorrow Never Knows. Tomorrow Never Knows. And he attained it.

04:01:35.740 --> 04:02:05.700
You know what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It wanted to. I want the description. Is this no problem? We got a reverb now. Go for it. That should just tell you how good George Martin really was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He had to put up with all that shit. That's where I'll never know this fucking badass, dude. Oh, it's maybe the first prog psychedelic song ever. It's fucking the best one. Yeah. Yeah. My next one is a glassing twin dream on brutal Panda records. Fucking greatest record label name ever.

04:02:07.001 --> 04:02:35.720
I mean this band plays an eclectic mix of sludge, black metal, post metal, noise rock I would say in there somehow that collides and comes together to create just a really compelling dynamic record. It's crazy. It's good but it's cohesive like their last time was really good too but this one's even better than that one and the first half is pretty

04:02:35.740 --> 04:03:05.200
And then I would say the second half veers more into like moody post-metal. But it all works for me. I think, yeah, this is definitely their strongest record and definitely a contender for me. I don't think people talk enough about this band. Maybe because they just incorporate so many different sounds into their mix. But they're fucking awesome. And then Ars Magna Umbre, Throne Between Worlds on I Void Hanger Records, which I fucking love. I Void Hanger.

04:03:05.740 --> 04:03:34.060
Just really incredible, progressive, atmospheric, cult metal with this one. I've been spinning this one a lot lately, so I don't know. I don't think I really listened to their last record, but this one I really dig. Noltom, Illusions in the Wake on Transcending Obscurity Records. This is phenomenal, atmospheric black metal that goes from, I would say, pretty serene melodies to just gut-wrenching fury.

04:03:35.560 --> 04:03:37.140
progressive touches on there,

04:03:37.250 --> 04:03:39.400
even some psychedelic parts mixed in.

04:03:40.160 --> 04:03:41.580
I believe it's their first record.

04:03:42.840 --> 04:03:43.740
Doesn't sound like it.

04:03:44.020 --> 04:03:45.000
It does not sound like it.

04:03:45.060 --> 04:03:45.980
This is a really great record.

04:03:47.240 --> 04:03:50.820
And then the last one I have on my list was my album of the month for October.

04:03:51.190 --> 04:03:55.320
And that was seven sisters shadow of a falling star part one.

04:03:56.300 --> 04:03:58.100
And just really uplifting,

04:03:58.400 --> 04:03:58.620
catchy,

04:03:58.920 --> 04:04:05.320
traditional heavy metal with these giant guitar leads and then passionate vocals,

04:04:05.440 --> 04:04:35.420
about space adventures. I think the whole album is a concept of them, actually. It is part one. I bought it after you mentioned it. Oh, yeah? Did you dig it, George? I did. I liked it. It's fucking good. The vocals are awesome on it. I mean, everything's awesome about that record from start to finish, but I've been spinning it a ton. So I never even heard of Seven Sisters. They have a couple albums out before. I listened to them. They're nowhere near as good as this one. So I'm looking forward to part two and looking

04:04:35.460 --> 04:05:05.020
forward to spinning this one a lot more. But that's what I got. I, Matty. So first off, how am I the youngest guy on this podcast? And I have the most wrinkliest forehead out of any of us. That is a very wrinkly forehead. It is so wrinkly. I need some Botox, bitch. Do I need to put lotion on that thing at night? No, you just need to be fatter. Yeah. You should put a giant, put a giant,

04:05:06.780 --> 04:05:35.420
I'm thinking about it I am thinking about it okay so what am I listening to you so this first brand vertebrae vertebra Atlantis I hope that it's vertebrae because I don't know that anybody would say vertebra lustral purge in cerulean bliss from I void hanger I avoid the first album from me they are an Italian black and deaf band it's also the guy from cosmic putrefaction yeah

04:05:35.440 --> 04:06:05.420
Oh, we like that. Yeah, John, you mentioned it on New Music Friday, I believe. Yes. Markisan following up Ars Magda Umbre, From Between Worlds. Love this album. Love this band. That is their third album. They're Polish. I am Polish. Everything seems right. What finally came out yesterday, Dream Unending, Tide Turns Eternal. I feel like I've been waiting for this album to come out for months. Really dig it, you know. Kind of a death

04:06:05.460 --> 04:06:35.420
with some really mystical shit. 80% of our shit, man. That's right. That's right. Featuring members of Tomb Mold and Sumberlands. I also mentioned yesterday, it just came out yesterday, The Temple self-titled release. It's the first album from New Zealand Black and Death Doom Band. Yeah, two-piece band. Again, I feel like it's been out forever because I've been kind of jonesing the tracks they've released. And lastly, Phil, I think this is

04:06:38.241 --> 04:07:05.000
The Way of Freedom. This is a German post-metal band. It's our fourth album. It came out on Season of Mist. And that's it for me. All right, then. Moving on to John. This will be fast because we've already talked about all these albums. Some band named Khemmiss. Mastodon. Mordiferum. Smallest Son.

04:07:05.420 --> 04:07:35.400
And the only one I want to talk about is because we've already talked about all those other bands. So I don't want to beat a dead horse. They're all good albums, by the way. Dream Unending, Tide Turns Eternal. I agree, Matt. It seems like this album came out five years ago because it's so much press. But I love it because it is a harken back to the Peaceville Three, especially the anathema period of like Pentecostal

04:07:35.500 --> 04:08:04.100
Three and The Son of Enigma. I heard this as like, oh, boner alert, big time, because I love the Peaceful Three. I love all three bands. And I feel like they're being kind of forgotten now in the whole Death Doom scene. I don't think people, a lot of people who are getting into Death Doom realize who those bands were, but they do kind of hearken back, but they have a lot of other influences in their music, but I think it's a fabulous album.

04:08:05.040 --> 04:08:34.920
And I'm a little disappointed that Decibel pimp these guys so hard. Hey, there's only 50 vinyl albums left. You got to buy them from us. And then they don't make their top 40. Whatever. I talked about this with someone. Especially when they put like non-metal bands on the list. But anyways. Just saying. Just saying. No. If you like any of that early Death Doom that came out in the early 90s, you'll probably dig this. It's really good. And then the only thing I have to add is,

04:08:35.040 --> 04:09:04.840
I started from Orchid all the way to Encona Venetum. I just spun the whole Opeth catalog. All 13 albums, all bonus tracks, minus covers, because I'm not a big covers fan. I don't need to listen to these albums, because I've listened to them a million times, but I figured, fuck it. I'm going all the way, because I'm going to see them on Sunday night, which is tomorrow. I've only seen them... 150 times? This will be number 62. I've seen them a few times. You might know them.

04:09:06.900 --> 04:09:35.000
Yeah. That's it. What is your favorite Opeth song? Oh, well, Evelyn. Nice. I'm sure. I do. And I regret it to this day. Not really, but I do. So probably my favorite Opeth album and song are together. So my favorite song is probably Whitecloth.

04:09:35.100 --> 04:10:04.320
off of Still Life. And Still Life is probably my favorite album. And without going into many details, I don't talk about this that much, but it is a little awkward when maybe you're talking to someone from the band that you email and your email address is White Cluster. And then you say, yeah, I feel a little awkward. I feel like an asshole for sending you an email. What the? Yes. Still Life and White Cluster 69.

04:10:04.380 --> 04:10:05.260
Or White Cluster.

04:10:05.480 --> 04:10:05.700
Yeah.

04:10:06.560 --> 04:10:08.520
Any other opus questions you'd like to ask me?

04:10:08.780 --> 04:10:10.420
Now I want to know what Phil's favorite is.

04:10:11.600 --> 04:10:12.060
Oh, man.

04:10:13.680 --> 04:10:14.880
Maybe like Bleak.

04:10:15.479 --> 04:10:16.800
Oh, that's a good choice.

04:10:17.000 --> 04:10:17.340
Yes.

04:10:18.840 --> 04:10:19.700
What's wrong with that?

04:10:20.340 --> 04:10:20.420
Yeah.

04:10:20.760 --> 04:10:22.020
Bleak from the Roundhouse tapes.

04:10:24.100 --> 04:10:24.940
Have you seen that at all?

04:10:25.260 --> 04:10:28.660
When they played, yeah, Peter Lindgren's last show with them.

04:10:29.160 --> 04:10:33.580
They played at the Roundhouse in London, which I was going to go to that show and I didn't

04:10:33.580 --> 04:10:34.040
buy tickets.

04:10:34.220 --> 04:11:03.060
I was planning on going now. Where's the roundhouse? That's an important part of London. I'm kidding. Oh, yeah. Oh, sorry. London, Ontario, Canada. London, England, UK. Yeah. I've seen it. Walked by it anyway. Milky Way. I never went over to that part. I've been there a number of times. I never went over there. That's it. That's all I got. All right.

04:11:04.699 --> 04:11:33.280
Will? I will be quick because it's getting late. Mortiferum, Preserved in Torment. We already talked about it. We did not talk about this one. Monolorde, Your Time to Shine. I think this is their best one probably since Empress Rising. I like this one quite a bit. Really? You like it that much? I kind of came up on that. Not as much, but it's good. It's better than the last couple. I like Veneer the most probably.

04:11:37.801 --> 04:12:03.800
Yeah, I like Empress. I like the first one the best. A death metal band called Hyperdontia. Their album is called Hideous Entity. I'm a big fan of that one. Dental Metal. These guys just play Dental Metal. These guys just had their album release show at Atlas and it was a phenomenal Antichrist Siege Machine.

04:12:04.220 --> 04:12:09.540
and their band or their album called purifying blade um they had this great bumper sticker

04:12:10.020 --> 04:12:13.800
that i bought at the show that says my other car is an anti-cry siege machine

04:12:15.780 --> 04:12:25.340
i really want to put that on my car um and then uh exodus persona nagrada and then of course Khemmis to see her

04:12:27.960 --> 04:12:34.180
who three out of five i'll be just as quick um a lot of uh stuff getting ready for the episode

04:12:34.960 --> 04:13:03.160
I listened to the Mastodon a couple times. The Mortiferum, by the way, I like. I think you guys were bragging about that before. I listened to that a few times recently. I listened to The Exodus has been rolling with me. I've been listening to the Khemmis album. Strangely, both Matt and John are wearing shirts for bands that I kind of picked up again this week, which was I listened to a lot of Kettle Decaptation and Yob this week for some reason. So that's totally fucking weird.

04:13:04.180 --> 04:13:32.360
Well, actually, it's boys. It's just a reverse. I can't tell. The camera's all screwed up. Yeah, I reversed my camera. You too. My bad. And then absolutely the reason I put this t-shirt on today was because I haven't listened to some Elvis lately, so I haven't listened to Elvis Presley. I don't know if that covers it. That and everybody else, every other thing I grab on a regular basis. Oh. All right. Oh, me? You? That you? That me? All right. That me?

04:13:34.200 --> 04:14:01.860
Archspire, bleed the future, their fourth album, Vancouver, technical death. I'm not into a lot of tech death these days, but these guys are something special. So they're fast. It's like, it's just, it's fucking crazy. And I can't not like it. Um, next up old man wizard, kill your servants quietly, please. Uh,

04:14:04.200 --> 04:14:05.000
Fuck those guys.

04:14:06.400 --> 04:14:09.120
They're a San Diego hard rock band.

04:14:09.260 --> 04:14:12.540
I think it's their third album and possibly their final album.

04:14:13.720 --> 04:14:14.580
Well, they killed everyone.

04:14:14.940 --> 04:14:15.660
No, apparently.

04:14:15.920 --> 04:14:17.580
They have no one left.

04:14:18.060 --> 04:14:18.700
Time to give up.

04:14:19.100 --> 04:14:24.680
I liked these guys in the past, and I bought this on spec because I was like, I know these guys.

04:14:26.000 --> 04:14:33.900
And I feel like they kind of changed their sound a bit, and this is very early Ghost-like, like the first album Ghost-like, so it's cool.

04:14:34.680 --> 04:15:03.840
Yeah, that's all right. Yeah, and it's good. So you should check it out. I did a... Well, I intended to do a prong deep dive. I only got about two albums in, but prong, yo. You know? This next one... Just stick with the early stuff like cleansing and bed and differ and you'll be all right. Yeah, yeah. Prove you wrong. Okay. I beg to differ?

04:15:04.739 --> 04:15:06.260
You can if you want.

04:15:08.780 --> 04:15:25.360
So this next one is one I tried to sell the guys on, and I didn't get a whole lot of feedback on this, but because it's not metal at all, but it's fucking metal in that it's metal. You know what I mean?

04:15:25.460 --> 04:15:27.360
I listened to it. I liked it.

04:15:28.140 --> 04:15:33.340
Russell Morris and Rick Springfield as in Jessie's Girl Springfield.

04:15:33.980 --> 04:16:03.140
I've done everything for you. Yeah. And which is Sammy Hagar, of course. Of course. Jack Chrome and the darkness waltz. It's an album of songs about Dia de los Muertos. Okay. Fuck that up. But you know, yeah, you did. I don't know. It's all right. Dia de los Muertos. Like Dia de los Morachos. Sorry. It's actually a pretty cool album. It's a really cool album. You told me I did listen.

04:16:03.360 --> 04:16:31.960
the whole thing. I thought it was actually really cool. It is a very good album. I mean, I like Rick Springfield from the 80s. Who doesn't? The group then. Jesse's Girl and all that. I'm going to cover Jesse's Girl now. But I was in the car and Rick Springfield has a show on Sirius XM, a working class DJ. And he plays shit. It's on like 80s on 8.

04:16:32.880 --> 04:17:02.860
It's good. And he's like, this isn't from the 80s, but fuck you, I'm playing it anyway. He's total anti-80s at eight. He is. He is. His attitude is so cool. And he just plays really cool stuff. I mean, he played Ace of Spades by Motorhead because he was like, fuck you, I'm playing the Motorhead. How did you describe this to me again? Who was it? You said it was Tom Waits. It sounds like Tom Waits meets Nick Cave meets

04:17:03.400 --> 04:17:32.860
Oh my god, I love Tom Waits so much. Tom Waits is the greatest. Yeah, it's Tom Waits. What? You sold me on it. It was like all blabbering and then you said Tom Waits and now Tom Waits makes Nick's Cave meets uh I'm too much alcohol. Sorry. It's got Walker or something. No, it's got a whole kind of like modern western feel to it also. Yes. It's I mean it's the it's too

04:17:37.279 --> 04:18:02.860
Dio De Los Muertos songs. It's very like, you know. Just give it a spin. There's a lot of acoustics. It's got a kind of a western, southwestern feel to it. It's so good. So good. I said Tom Waits. What is it called? We're in. Yeah. Huh? What's the name of the album though, George? The album is called Jack Chrome and the Darkness Waltz. Okay. I think you bought it, didn't you, George? I did. I bought it on Bandcamp for like a

04:18:02.900 --> 04:18:32.800
a million dollars because I didn't care. It's so good. Yeah, I actually I I can confirm. It's actually pretty cool. Okay. I mean, you know, at the end of the episode, we do our album of the episode. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it. This is my album of the episode because I fucking love this album so much. Okay. Don't don't get tricked by the whole Rick Springfield thing. It's actually he sounds great. He's playing and he plays everything on his songs. Yes, which I was impressed by because he's what?

04:18:32.900 --> 04:19:02.780
70 now or something? 72 at least. 72? He's 72. By the way, George knows this. He was also on Supernatural, so that's all you need to know. But seriously, I mean, like John said, don't let Rick Springfield fool you. This is an amazing album. Haven't you ever wanted to go to a Rick Springfield song and be like, play Born to Run? Or even better?

04:19:02.900 --> 04:19:32.720
Go to a Bruce Springsteen show and be like, play Jesse's girl. Yeah, I do now. I do definitely want to do that now. I will say from seeing Sammy Hagar a number of times before he joined Van Halen in the early 80s in San Francisco where he's from, hearing him call out Rick Springfield and say, yeah, I made someone really famous on a song I wrote and then he plays it. It's just. Well, you know, they're friends because. I know. I know. They actually, you know, Sammy,

04:19:32.960 --> 04:20:02.020
is like the god of all alcohol. Yes. It just was really funny. So, you know, he has the... They have a rum together now. They did something also? Yeah, Sammy and Rick did a rum. I forget the name now. But... His tequila was pretty good. Yeah. No, I mean, Sammy's tequila is top notch. Born to rum. The call out there was Born to rum. Born to rum, yeah. Funny, accidental.

04:20:02.900 --> 04:20:31.240
That's perfect. But yeah, I'm looking for it. I haven't found it yet. But yeah, they're doing something together. So anyway, I have two more items. First one is Thul Khandra, A Dying Wish, their fourth album. They're a German black death band. This is dissection worship, all the calories, none of the guilt. If you know what I'm saying.

04:20:32.900 --> 04:21:02.700
And I had a note for this. This is in terms of your end lists. I said, if it gives me a blister, it must be a lister. This is what I'm talking about right here. It gives me a blister. So there's you listening who can't see what we're doing. George is jerking off. Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah. With one of those bowling grip things on, too, by the way. Yeah.

04:21:04.520 --> 04:21:31.480
This is because of this album. I have tendinitis in my wrist right now because of this album. Actually, this is the Khemmis thing, but you know. To blow up like John Candy and Big Lebowski at some point. Put the wrist thing on. But if it gives me a blister, it must be a blister. That's my new motto. I have a lot on my list this year. All right. And last of all,

04:21:34.960 --> 04:22:00.320
I've been listening to a lot of that because I recently read the Pete Way book and it was really cool. Any records sticking out to you? Not yet. I mean, I've just kind of been putting it on like, you know, what do you call it? Shuffle and just listening to stuff. Well, you're not going to hear about a guitar player either, man. I could listen to Michael Schenker play all day and all night. Yeah, no, that's next on my list.

04:22:02.900 --> 04:22:32.540
The Shanker catalog is next. That's cool. That's cool. My favorite is probably George. No Heavy Petting. Maybe Lights Out. Not enough to think about it. But everything with Shanker on it is great. And it's not just because he's on it. Those are just... Of course. But I will say, some of the worst album covers in the history of mankind. You know, John, those were done by some weird... I know. I know the whole story. Hypnosis. It was hypnosis. Yeah.

04:22:32.900 --> 04:23:00.740
Is it a German thing though? Was that a German company? No. Anyway. It's just weird. Yeah. As iconic as those albums are, they're just weird. Now they're weird. All right, George, coming to the dark side. All right. Oh, for sure. Or the light side, isn't it? Pretty soon you'd be trashing scorpions. Last episode, we did our Thunderdome, which was creator versus coroner.

04:23:04.460 --> 04:23:05.560
versus no more color.

04:23:07.320 --> 04:23:08.100
Is that results?

04:23:08.400 --> 04:23:11.340
Yes, we did it last episode, Phil, and this is the results.

04:23:11.480 --> 04:23:12.260
This is the results.

04:23:12.730 --> 04:23:14.140
But you can weigh in on this after.

04:23:14.160 --> 04:23:14.860
Ahead of the results.

04:23:15.760 --> 04:23:18.840
Is there really, like, what even is this battle?

04:23:19.480 --> 04:23:24.060
Creator is like, no contest runs away with it.

04:23:24.200 --> 04:23:24.660
All right.

04:23:25.140 --> 04:23:28.800
I'll say Creator over every other thrash brand.

04:23:28.840 --> 04:23:29.100
Really?

04:23:29.620 --> 04:23:29.760
All right.

04:23:29.860 --> 04:23:59.480
Well, you are on the winning side because as of yesterday, the results were 61% corner versus 39%. Wait, did I say that right? I said that. Yeah, you did actually. I'm fucking drunk. I'm sorry. 61% creator versus 39% corner. Which means we only had three people respond, two people voted for creator, one person voted for corner. That's not true. We got quite a few actually. Yeah, we did. We always do for this. I'm glad.

04:23:59.860 --> 04:24:29.100
I'm glad Phil's got a creator. I love creator. They're great. They're in the studio right now. I love them both, which is why I created it. Creator is one of my favorite bands of all time. I mean, I think their newer stuff is just as good as some of the older stuff. I do too. I do too. And I wasn't there a while back, but then now I'm totally. Man, I even like the middle stuff like Endorama. I think Endorama is a great album. I don't feel like enough people know who Corner is though too. I agree. That's probably true. To me, I feel the same way as Phil, but opposite.

04:24:29.840 --> 04:24:58.200
Yeah, I'll take Coroner any day of the week. But that's cool. That's what made it a good choice. But I do feel... We found the two people who voted for Coroner. Two of us. Have you even listened to Coroner before? You know, weirdly enough, I really... I love Creator so much. No, but you're right. You're right. I really... I've heard Coroner. I don't really listen to them. And maybe I would love them, but I love Creator so much. Yeah.

04:25:22.060 --> 04:25:29.820
The Point of My Life

04:25:29.860 --> 04:25:38.080
Assholes. All right. Let's move on to our top five so we can end this before Thursday.

04:26:31.060 --> 04:26:59.820
George has been planning his funeral for years now. For 35 years now. Yeah. So it's our top five metal songs you want played at your funeral. And we're going to start with Phil. You know how this goes. Give us your number five. Oh, well, I didn't really do it in that way. Well, then you don't know how it does. Save the one you care about the most for last and give us everything else one at a time. I did it as I did it as like a whole

04:26:59.980 --> 04:27:28.980
Narrative. Oh, that's cool. So did I, by the way. So I have to bring up the playlist so I don't fuck it up. But, okay, so the song accompanying my death is Hallowed Be Thy Name. Both because I would want to hear it again and because, like, the song is literally about, like, you know, waiting. Waiting. Waiting to die.

04:27:29.880 --> 04:27:59.820
I don't think we have I don't think it'll break up your narrative if you want to hold on now but do other ones or do you want to just do all five so you get your story across I should probably do all five I think okay all right good man um and then solitude by candle mass great song is like sort of like you're being you know your body is kind of just lying there yeah that's a great soul is just drifting and then um uh I felt like the

04:27:59.880 --> 04:28:28.640
The Heavy Part of that song also felt like it could be like the pallbearers like carrying your casket at the funeral. And then I'm just going to make everybody sit in, you know, like in remembrance and listen to Yob's Mero for 20 minutes. Just like be forced to cry over my death, but also the beauty of life. Beautiful vocals. Yep.

04:28:31.341 --> 04:28:59.580
And then there's a plot twist that happens. And as they're playing, uh, Khemmiss, the bereaved would probably be like the actual song that someone might play at my funeral. Um, the casket busts open and as the vocals are finishing and I, uh, say I still have life and I'm, I come back from the dead. And then, uh, I leave.

04:28:59.860 --> 04:29:28.020
the procession and smite my enemies that brought me down in the first place to Mayhem's De Mysterious. That's awesome. Hey, Phil, I think you have a follow-up to Deceiver. I think the framework is there. Dude, what'd you do this weekend? I went to the best fucking funeral you had to be here.

04:29:31.539 --> 04:29:59.200
I'm not dead yet. I think I'll go for a walk. The next Khemmis's album, Resurrection. Yeah. Ooh, that's good. That is good. All right, that brings us to Mark's stuff. Yeah. Am I doing all five? Are we going to... We can do that. Yeah, fuck it. Okay. Yeah. All right, my number five is Pelican, City of Echoes,

04:29:59.860 --> 04:30:28.300
The Album City of Echoes 2007. I don't live there now, but I'm moving back to Chicago because it's my home. It feels like my home. So when I think of Chicago, I think of Pelican because they started around the same time that I moved to Chicago from New York. So the first show I attended in Chicago was a Pelican show. So at my funeral, I'd want my love for the city and the band represented. So I can't think of a better way to do that than my favorite Pelican track.

04:30:29.840 --> 04:30:59.740
Number four for me is Opeth, To Bid You Farewell from Morning Rise 1996. This is just fucking beautiful masterpiece of a song. It's mostly this deluge of gorgeous acoustic guitars and haunted singing. And honestly, that would probably be enough for me to put it on this list. But then there's this catapulting electric section. It's like maybe, I don't know, seven minutes in.

04:30:59.860 --> 04:31:29.560
something that just takes the track to another emotional level for me. And of course, it's called To Bid You Farewell, which is a pretty nice sentiment for the folks who are grieving my passing. Hey, hold on one second. My cat's crying. I hear that. Yeah, his door is closed. So that's a no-go with the cat. They want to know what's going on in that room that they can't get into. Yeah, whoa, you closed the door on me. What the fuck? Sub, so so.

04:31:30.880 --> 04:31:34.500
Now he's just gonna sit there the rest of the time but he needs to be in there though

04:31:35.740 --> 04:31:37.720
Now he went right back to the door like he wants out now

04:31:37.840 --> 04:31:38.340
Yeah exactly

04:31:40.560 --> 04:31:41.320
That's Zosa

04:31:43.319 --> 04:31:44.420
And where am I?

04:31:44.470 --> 04:31:45.320
So I did Opeth

04:31:45.979 --> 04:31:49.280
Number three for me is Primordial

04:31:49.440 --> 04:31:51.560
Wheeled Lightning to Split the Sun

04:31:52.359 --> 04:31:54.540
From Where Greater Men Have Fallen 2014

04:31:55.140 --> 04:31:55.600
Oh nice

04:31:56.300 --> 04:31:58.780
Primordial is one of my all time favorite bands

04:31:58.780 --> 04:32:23.600
because they just know how to deliver emotion and atmosphere with their songs. And this one, it just fucking drips like blood with mood and passion. I love the acoustic guitar strumming at the beginning. The tribal drumming is really great on it. And then there's this forlorn siren of a guitar riff that wails about, I'd say mid-track.

04:32:28.800 --> 04:32:57.700
Alan Averill performances because he sings with such heartbreak. At the end, he belts out these last thought lyrics that convey the perfect final moments of life for me. And the lyrics go, let lightning split my heart in two. Let me howl at the moon with desire. Stretch my arms wide to embrace the sun. Return to the earth that bore me, for there is nothing more. And I just love that.

04:32:58.320 --> 04:33:26.881
Sounds perfect. Sounds a great way to die. Number two for me is Asunder, Crown of Eyes from A Clarion Call, 2004. Wow. Okay. You can't decide what you want. This album was a big inspiration for this new record. Oh, shit. Yeah.

04:33:28.320 --> 04:33:57.779
I was saying Markisan that. Yeah. A clarion call was, uh, one of the big inspiration albums for the new Khemmis record. Oh, no shit. Yeah. You know, what's crazy. We did like a two hour interview and we didn't even get to that part. Yeah. She's, uh, that's awesome though, man. That's such a fantastic record. Um, so yeah, if I'm dead, there has to be a song played from one of my favorite old doom bands. And that's the genre of metal. I really gravitated to right after my Syracuse hardcore days.

04:33:58.320 --> 04:34:28.119
And the first band that came to mind was Asunder. I don't think there's another song in their catalog that's more slow creeping epic than that 13 minute track. I also love the lyrics at the end of this one, especially the end, which read like a dark cosmic journey to me. And the lyrics go, from across the darkness, wave upon wave form, overlap and combine, interwritten through space.

04:34:28.301 --> 04:34:57.820
and time. Love it. And then my number one is really personal to me. So it was an easy number one and it's Arctic Sleep Blade Through Your Heart from the By the Horn soundtrack 2021. So because it's my comic. So yeah, Keith D and I spent a lot of time discussing the characters and the feeling of the series so we could capture the emotions of the main character, Elodie.

04:34:58.301 --> 04:35:27.020
and a song. And he asked me to come up with the title as a starting point. And, you know, I wasn't really prepared for what he came back with, but he crafted this just gorgeous, sincere, and just dynamic track that conveyed the emotional spectrum of Elodie and that debut issue of the book. And it's the first time I've ever done something like this. And it was just immensely satisfying creatively for me and also for Keith.

04:35:27.699 --> 04:35:56.221
And he may dispute this, but I think we became really good friends because we enjoyed working on the project together. So for me, Blade Through Your Heart will always be just more than a song. It's an unexpected and personal partnership. It's a merging of creative energies. It's trust and respect. It's unicorn stabbing and sadness in musical form.

04:35:57.301 --> 04:36:27.240
And it's a great song and it's like a highlight of my life and it has to be played when I'm gone. So that's my number one. Keith is a wonderful human being. Yeah. He is. Yeah. All right, Matt. So I would say my top five are a mix of, you know, theme combined with what do you what I want played at my funeral along with what would I want to force people to listen to.

04:36:27.340 --> 04:36:32.279
to you when I'm dead. Number five, death, living monstrosity.

04:36:33.520 --> 04:36:38.080
It's not my favorite death song, but man, I love, I love spiritual healing. And I love that song.

04:36:38.180 --> 04:36:54.480
It's just kind of a dick song. And I feel like I would really want people to listen to that when I'm dead. Number four, slayer, angel of death. Like if I'm dead, you're going to listen to slayer and you're going to listen to angel of death. Number three, merciful fate into the coven.

04:36:55.740 --> 04:37:25.580
I would always want a Merciful Fate song played when I'm dead. Into the Coven is probably my favorite of theirs. Along with this as well, number two, Black Sabbath, Into the Void. I love Masters of Reality and Into the Void. That's a good one. And I just love the vibe of it. It's just, you know, that bass line. Appropriate title, too. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's not going to space, but close enough. I mean, I love that intro bass part.

04:37:25.760 --> 04:37:55.340
And then it kind of segues into like, you know, Sabbath, stoner doom. And it's just like, oh, I'm dead. This is we're going to listen to. I can make an argument that visually and sonically, that might be the heaviest record ever recorded. Oh, yeah. Truly. Yes, it might be. You know, it is the heaviest riff of all time. Yeah, it is like what we've been talking about. And this is like my theme of life. Like so much is subjective to today. Like, what do you love today?

04:37:56.580 --> 04:38:25.039
Versus, you know, like, like, if you're writing a review, how are you feeling today? I'm writing a review based on how I feel today. Like, and I say that, but like, Masters of the Reality has been my favorite Sabbath album for probably a good three years. So I say that, like, only three? Well, yeah, because it could change tomorrow. Like, I can love something different from Sabbath. I cannot get out of that album, and I cannot get out of that song. And that's totally cool. I mean, I could wake up tomorrow and be like, you know what?

04:38:25.859 --> 04:38:55.580
Although, you know, what's funny is watching that movie, Cruella, on Disney+, man, like, I've never heard The Wizard anywhere. And that song, like, a snippet of that song, that song showed up at the end, and they're like, oh, fuck, do I need to listen to the first Sabbath open now? Son of a bitch, you know? And it's like, there's all this. You actually had to ask yourself that question? I did. I have a theory about the president. And I'm just making this up.

04:38:55.740 --> 04:39:25.240
is that master of reality, that black cover with those shiny purple words on it, and the sheer dank darkness of that album, that I have a theory, and I'm not a big pot smoker, but you know how pot makes you paranoid sometimes? That before that album came out, nobody was ever paranoid smoking pot, but when it came out, everybody looked at it, and they were like, we're all gonna fucking die. And so now for, so now, even if you don't like Black Sabbath or not, pot now makes people paranoid. Black Sabbath changed reality. And Jay, that's if you got the album cover with the purple on it.

04:39:25.740 --> 04:39:54.900
Some of them are just, it's just this black Sabbath and mass reality is all black. Like embossed. Yeah. Yeah. And it starts off with maybe you choking on the puff that you took. Yeah. So funny story. I always thought that was Ozzy, but apparently it was Tony Iommi based. Oh, really? But it depends on whose biography you read. Yeah. Who says who it is. Which means it wasn't either one of them. Right. It was probably Bill Ward. Yeah. Yeah. Was there a friend of theirs?

04:39:56.240 --> 04:39:57.100
It was Sharon

04:39:57.720 --> 04:39:57.840
Um

04:39:58.520 --> 04:39:58.660
All right

04:39:58.760 --> 04:39:59.720
She wasn't in the picture

04:39:59.840 --> 04:40:00.320
That's a fucker

04:40:00.320 --> 04:40:00.820
No that's true

04:40:01.060 --> 04:40:01.360
That's true

04:40:02.140 --> 04:40:02.840
No she was

04:40:03.040 --> 04:40:03.400
She was around

04:40:03.860 --> 04:40:04.840
She was Don Arden's daughter

04:40:04.960 --> 04:40:05.380
She was there

04:40:05.580 --> 04:40:06.420
Well yeah she was around

04:40:06.960 --> 04:40:07.500
But fuck

04:40:07.600 --> 04:40:08.840
She wasn't all around

04:40:09.680 --> 04:40:10.620
There might have been the time

04:40:10.620 --> 04:40:11.280
When she was dating

04:40:11.520 --> 04:40:12.420
She dated Tell Me

04:40:12.720 --> 04:40:12.880
Tell Me

04:40:12.920 --> 04:40:13.520
Okay we don't need to

04:40:13.520 --> 04:40:13.920
Talk about her

04:40:15.060 --> 04:40:15.280
Fuck

04:40:16.060 --> 04:40:16.540
God dude

04:40:16.740 --> 04:40:17.840
Just fucking look at it

04:40:17.980 --> 04:40:19.260
Oh it's beautiful

04:40:19.640 --> 04:40:19.920
Look at that

04:40:20.140 --> 04:40:21.000
Look at those raised letters

04:40:21.200 --> 04:40:21.520
That's it

04:40:21.700 --> 04:40:22.580
That's heavy metal right there

04:40:22.660 --> 04:40:23.260
Oh yeah

04:40:23.800 --> 04:40:24.180
Oh yeah

04:40:25.320 --> 04:40:25.720
Fuck

04:40:25.740 --> 04:40:55.160
Second favorite Sabbath album from me. What's number one, John? Sabbath. Bloody Sabbath. Fair. There's no wrong answer. No, yeah. Any of the first six albums. Technical Ecstasy. Technical Ecstasy. 13, man. 13. The Dio albums are my favorite. Yeah, I was going to say first six and then the first two Dio. You can't go wrong with any one of those eight. Dehumanizer is pretty good, too. It is. Dehumanizer's good. I like it. Time Machine.

04:40:55.720 --> 04:41:23.320
Yeah, time machine was like my first like Dio Sabbath song. One of those songs is on my list from Dehumanizing. It's not. My number one between the show Billions, Jay, your article and his biography. And because he's no longer with us, I had to pick something that involved running James Dio.

04:41:25.760 --> 04:41:55.520
Stargazer. Wow. That would be Egypt. You know, one of mine is a deal. Sorry, it's just a bad joke. Fuck. I just picked a random song. Hungry for Heaven. Well, actually, that might work. No, it just has no bearing on this. My number one is Africa by Toto. Hungry for Heaven, man. That's Second Heart. That's some good shit. Oh, yeah.

04:41:56.280 --> 04:42:25.700
By the way, Hungry for Heaven, you can sing Baba O'Reilly to that song. Right? The chorus? Yeah, okay. That's fair. Put it on, and it's in the same key and everything. And you can sing, out here in the fields. You can do the whole thing. Why do you got to do that to me? It's actually kind of cool, but it's straight up that song. Oh, my God. The verse from Hungry for Heaven is, or no, from the

04:42:25.740 --> 04:42:55.500
The verse from Bob O'Reilly is the chorus from Hungry and Fry. Wow. Yeah. Sorry about that. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hang on. I mean, I like them both, so it's cool. Hang on. Satan. All right. Matt, Matt. You got to hold your glass. Yes. You need your glass. Your chalice. Yeah. Satan. John. My turn.

04:42:55.840 --> 04:43:25.300
So I didn't realize this was the top five we're doing until this afternoon. And so I just threw this together. I don't know why I didn't realize this. So it's more the song titles or the theme more than anything else. Although I do like all these songs. It's not like I hate them or anything. So there are no wrong answers. Yeah. Well, first off, I'll be dead. So I won't have a say in what really gets played. So you'd hope they play it. But no.

04:43:25.300 --> 04:43:55.220
whoever's holding my funeral, they'll be like, fuck that guy. So anyway, my number five, Devin Townsend, Song of Life, Off Ocean Machine. It's my happy song on this. It devolves from there. My number four, Dream Theater's To Live Forever. That's not happening. Or not. Or not. Oops. I mentioned the Peaceful Three earlier. Anathema, A Dying Wish.

04:43:55.320 --> 04:44:24.000
from the silent enigma, which is just a fucking killer song. That was so good. It really is. If you don't know it, that's your loss. My number two, Fate's Warning. Nothing left to say. I'm dead. I got nothing left to say. Lost for words also wouldn't work there, too. Instrumental. What is his line again? It's no bloody words at all.

04:44:25.300 --> 04:44:54.940
Oh, well, yeah. And my final song, Marcus, I mentioned it. How could I not go with Opeth to bid you farewell? I thought you might put that on there. And I was so fortunate to see them play that nine times on their porcupine tree. I don't think they've played it since then. I think that's the only time they ever played that. And Mike got actually death threats for that song, by the way. So, yeah. It's not metal. It's not death metal. That's the truth. He really did.

04:44:55.320 --> 04:45:25.280
So fuck it. Let's put it number one to bid you farewell. I'm out of here. All right. Will. My order is not 2-2 particularly. 2-2 what? 2-2 particularly. I thought that was the guy from South Africa. No, it's a Spanish band. 2-2. Remember 2-2? So I'm going to go with number five. This is my daughter's probably favorite

04:45:28.318 --> 04:45:53.220
I will go with Dio.

04:45:56.860 --> 04:46:23.240
I do love your version of A Conversation with Death. I think it's just amazing. So that is going to be my number four song because it's, you know, it's appropriate for a funeral and I do love it. I love what you guys did with that because I, you know, you go back and you listen to the original song and it's kind of like all over the place, but I just, I like the way your arrangement, you guys kind of interpreted it on your own and it's, it's, it's amazing. I think you'll like the other track that nobody knows about yet that we did.

04:46:25.360 --> 04:46:26.560
- Oh, oh, oh.

04:46:27.620 --> 04:46:30.240
- Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.

04:46:30.540 --> 04:46:32.200
- Is this for like-- - Just send that to us, Phil.

04:46:32.280 --> 04:46:34.180
You can't just keep teasing and let that to us.

04:46:35.360 --> 04:46:36.300
- Is it for like,

04:46:36.400 --> 04:46:36.500
- Is it for like,

04:46:36.900 --> 04:46:41.040
- If it's a one-off, is it for like a video game or a movie or a flexi or,

04:46:41.420 --> 04:46:41.800
- we don't know.

04:46:41.960 --> 04:46:43.260
- We don't know but it's,

04:46:43.360 --> 04:46:46.240
- Uh, it's another interpretation of an old folk song.

04:46:46.740 --> 04:46:47.140
- Nice.

04:46:47.600 --> 04:46:47.700
- Oh.

04:46:48.080 --> 04:46:48.300
- Oh, cool.

04:46:49.860 --> 04:46:50.660
- Oh, nice.

04:46:51.580 --> 04:46:52.380
- Distil your thunder.

04:46:52.680 --> 04:46:52.940
- We shall.

04:46:52.940 --> 04:46:53.780
- Is it for you when it Courtney?

04:46:54.300 --> 04:47:24.280
I can't wait to hear how you guys do Yankee Doodle Dandy. And Will can't die before he hears that because it could be on his top five. Yeah. This was a late addition because it just dawned on me when Matt, I think it was Matt, talked about a great one would be Hella Waits. Jay, that should be on your list, Hella Waits. Not only because you are going to hell, but also because I do know you like

04:47:24.320 --> 04:47:54.280
Early Slayer, a little bit more than the rest of us. Yeah. But Seasons in the Abyss. What a great, like it just, that is one of my favorite, all time favorite songs. And it just sounds like you're going off the abyss, even though it's about an acid trip, but you know, whatever, fuck it. Seasoning the Abyss? Yes, Seasoning the Abyss by S.O.D. I can probably, you know, I know Dan Lilliker, he may come play, you never know. You never know. My number two, this is my all time favorite

04:47:55.378 --> 04:48:18.740
Flesh to Nothing. I thought that was extremely appropriate to play at a funeral. And my number one, just because you've got to have the bells chiming, the rain falling, Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath. What is this? This dance before me. It's not well. He's dead. I don't think this will work on a microphone, but I still am going to, I really do want to ruin your day here, George.

04:48:27.100 --> 04:48:54.280
I want to do just put that on trust me dude and then start singing the who song and you're like well that happened yeah it's my favorite do you album I think it's a good favorite I think um number five uh I mean the terminal show by uh motorhead that's the stuff of inferno it's uh I'll just read you a couple of lyrics and I think it's pretty and I love it it's a great song but um let's see he uh we

04:48:54.300 --> 04:48:58.140
You better find out the name of the game chance of a new world sunny and fine of a burning.

04:49:24.340 --> 04:49:54.280
Released, his favorite thing that Dio sang on. And that stuck with me partially because I love Dio. And I think that's an underrated record. There's two tracks from that that would work as a eulogy song. One is Too Late, which is about the bell coming due, but I didn't choose that one. The one I chose is called After All, The Dead. After All is awesome. Such a good song. And we'll read you a couple of those lyrics too, just very briefly. And I'll tell you what I love about this song. Oh, I think it works. And it's just, he goes through a

04:49:54.320 --> 04:50:24.280
a bunch of lists of things that experiences that he sees and then in the chorus is is it just me or does somebody else believe this well i'm not alone and i'm not afraid there's just one way to see after all and what he means is the only way you're going to find out is when you die buddy what happens when you die so i love that um and it's also just a great it is dude and too late it's such a good song i is such a good song that's a great record they just re-released that record like earlier this year because i picked it up on vinyl yeah yeah shut your mouth yeah all right thanks

04:50:24.300 --> 04:50:54.280
I hope I didn't miss my chance. Like remastered. Awesome dude. I did not. I did not know that. So after all the dead. Next just for humor's sake I love the dead by Alice Cooper which which ends with the lyrics. I love the dead before they're cold they're blue in flesh for me to hold cadaver eyes upon me see nothing. And finally what I've always thought was an underrated strangely

04:51:22.100 --> 04:51:23.680
I love that album.

04:51:24.320 --> 04:51:54.080
It's a good album. I like it. It is. And Born Again, I've said this before, Born Again and Disturbing the Priest, you're not going to find better Ian Gillen performances. Zero the Hero, bitch. Zero the Hero, yeah. Yeah, strictly on the performance issue, I would say those two songs. But not that I have anything wrong with the song, you know. That's a very good cover, though. I love the cover, believe it or not. The fucking red baby. I think it's wonderful. Have you seen the picture of the real baby before? Like the before and after?

04:51:54.080 --> 04:52:23.920
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, to this day, I mean, I'm sure John knows this, because John always seems to remember the same stupid shit I do, but that was actually a joke. The guy was like, okay, I'll just give him this, and they were like, we love it. He did it in five minutes, was like, they're going to fucking hate this. Is that baby going to sue them now? I was just thinking, like, never mind. There was a meme about how that baby was going to go kick the other baby's ass at that time when that shit was done. I saw that, yeah. All right. Enjoy.

04:52:24.100 --> 04:52:25.280
All right.

04:52:28.640 --> 04:52:33.020
So my list, nothing on there that anybody's done.

04:52:33.690 --> 04:52:34.380
But that's okay.

04:52:35.740 --> 04:52:40.480
Number five, surprisingly sentenced.

04:52:42.060 --> 04:52:43.720
Everything is nothing.

04:52:45.620 --> 04:52:45.900
Weird.

04:52:46.690 --> 04:52:46.820
Yeah.

04:52:47.120 --> 04:52:47.880
Impossible is nothing.

04:52:48.010 --> 04:52:48.660
What the fuck?

04:52:48.860 --> 04:52:49.540
Everything is nothing.

04:52:49.650 --> 04:52:50.440
Didn't even know you liked that band, George.

04:52:50.680 --> 04:52:50.880
Huh?

04:52:51.460 --> 04:52:52.720
Didn't even know you liked that band.

04:52:52.900 --> 04:52:53.500
Didn't even know.

04:52:53.590 --> 04:52:53.780
Yeah.

04:52:54.180 --> 04:52:54.520
No.

04:52:56.420 --> 04:52:57.020
I'm going to be like,

04:52:57.060 --> 04:52:58.140
Jay and read some words.

04:52:59.120 --> 04:53:02.180
I'll see you all go down and witness your demise.

04:53:03.020 --> 04:53:07.780
I'll be the last to close the last to close my eyes and forgive me

04:53:07.920 --> 04:53:08.540
nothing for.

04:53:08.620 --> 04:53:10.160
I truly meant it all.

04:53:10.980 --> 04:53:11.840
What I've said,

04:53:12.460 --> 04:53:13.100
what I've done.

04:53:14.000 --> 04:53:17.300
If that's not a fuck you outro,

04:53:17.500 --> 04:53:18.260
I don't know what is.

04:53:19.120 --> 04:53:19.460
I like that.

04:53:19.460 --> 04:53:20.600
You want to go down with fuck you.

04:53:20.740 --> 04:53:20.960
That's good.

04:53:25.820 --> 04:53:50.680
But I'm going to be a little more humorous for the next one, which is Suicidal Tendencies, How Will I Laugh Tomorrow If I Can't Even Smile Today. That's good. Love that song. I've always loved that song. That's kind of a good rigor mortis joke, too, for a dead person. Exactly. You know, I don't think we talk about suicidal tendencies enough in this podcast. Don't, man. Are you being sarcastic? No, no, no. I love suicidal tendencies.

04:53:51.100 --> 04:54:21.060
I mean, I thought you were being sarcastic because we do kind of like every once in a while, we always have that conversation. We're like, you know what? We don't talk about these guys enough. It's true. It's true. We talk about them from time to time. We always say that. No, but they didn't get enough credit for what they did. For sure. Okay, so number three, Metallica's Fade to Black. I mean, come on. I mean, come on. Yeah? Nice stretch. You know what? To follow that up, for whom they're

04:54:21.100 --> 04:54:21.660
the bell tolls.

04:54:22.240 --> 04:54:22.380
Yeah.

04:54:23.060 --> 04:54:24.360
Or precede it.

04:54:24.660 --> 04:54:25.720
But either way, that's good.

04:54:25.980 --> 04:54:32.920
Well, just to piss off Metallica, number two is Megadeth's In My Darkest Hour.

04:54:33.440 --> 04:54:35.200
Oh, that's not Cliff.

04:54:35.660 --> 04:54:36.060
Cliff dying.

04:54:36.280 --> 04:54:36.560
Yep.

04:54:37.180 --> 04:54:37.260
Yep.

04:54:38.220 --> 04:54:42.580
And my number one, just to bookend this motherfucker, more sentenced.

04:54:43.540 --> 04:54:43.800
Oh.

04:54:44.420 --> 04:54:44.900
That's weird.

04:54:46.160 --> 04:54:47.440
No one there.

04:54:48.420 --> 04:55:18.360
One of the absolute saddest songs I've ever heard. Every time I hear this song, I fucking cry. You cry a lot. I'm a little bitch. You're like a big fucking cry baby man. I am, man. I listen to Khemmis, I cry. I listen to Sentenced, I cry. Okay. But this song is basically about the dude talking about, you know, he's getting ready to die. And the chorus is,

04:55:18.400 --> 04:55:46.720
And the wind blows through my heart, shivers me one last time. As I now reach out in the dark, no one there. The whole point is that, you know, he's getting ready to die. Is there anybody there? Is there a God? Is there family, friends, anyone? There's no one there. He's dying alone. It is just the saddest fucking thing you've ever heard. And so, yeah. Oh, the Black Album is probably the saddest thing I ever heard. Ah!

04:55:52.862 --> 04:55:54.920
That's my number one.

04:55:55.920 --> 04:55:56.820
Nicely done, George.

04:55:57.880 --> 04:55:59.100
Beyond the Realms of Death.

04:55:59.170 --> 04:56:01.320
I was just, you'd beat me to it.

04:56:01.320 --> 04:56:02.920
I was just saying no one picked that song.

04:56:03.260 --> 04:56:05.500
Also, Purgatory would have been funny too.

04:56:09.100 --> 04:56:09.400
All right.

04:56:10.220 --> 04:56:15.500
One last thing to do before we go, and that is pick your album of the episode.

04:56:16.440 --> 04:56:44.440
Anything that's mentioned by anybody, what's your album of the episode? Phil. What's your album of the episode? A lot of albums mentioned. There was a lot. It's okay, you can say Deceiver. Come back to me. Fair enough. Mark us on.

04:56:46.460 --> 04:57:15.240
go with a new album for this one but I'm not gonna do that because it would be Khemmiss but because I revisited a sunder a clarion call and just fucking it was an absolute sad treat for my ears a sunder a clarion call it's my album of the episode all right Matt is anytime this album is mentioned I am contractually obligated to make it my album of the episode

04:57:16.520 --> 04:57:17.640
Leviton.

04:57:22.158 --> 04:57:47.120
Underwateraudio.com. Within the last two weeks. Oh, wow. Okay. All right, then, John. Mine, real quick. We're talking doom, old doom. So mine is dream unending tide turns eternal. All right. Guess withstanding. Yeah.

04:57:47.640 --> 04:58:15.600
It's a given that the guest is the album of the episode. If I had to pick another album, it would be dream-waving. I have to pick another album? Or can I just say Khemmisry? You can. You can. That's my only episode. I mean, it's a given. Yeah, it's a given. I finally got it on Flack, which is nice because I bought it on Bandcamp, so I finally got rid of those chicken P3s. Yeah, I know. Me too. I was like, oh, hey, I can download this now. It does sound incredibly better on Flack. It's crazy.

04:58:18.080 --> 04:58:46.820
Yeah. Real nice. Very nice. Really nice. I make a lot of leaves listening to Deceiver today. Oh my god. That's next week. All right. So I was, you know, I was funny. I was going to go with Persona Non Grata, but I kind of got excited talking about Dehumanizer there, so I'm going to go Black Sabbath's Dehumanizer. Oh. All right. Jay's right now looking to buy the vinyl. I really am, John, and it's not fucking available. Yeah, yeah.

04:58:47.660 --> 04:59:15.620
what I'm doing. I feel like I have that on vinyl. Fuck you. Go to Rhino. Can you check Rhino? Thanks. No, I will. Thank you, John. I appreciate that call out. Somebody help me. It sounds amazing on there. Shut up. You'll get it. You'll get it, dude. I don't believe it, but I'm going to try. Matt had brought up death, spiritual healing, healing as a, an underrated record. And I'm going to agree with you and pick that as my, uh, his choice.

04:59:17.660 --> 04:59:47.500
Why don't you guys say that? Because like I love like I have the little spiritual healing bobblehead over there. Yeah, there you see it. I also got the leprosy one. The scream bloody boar is out of my desk at work. But uh, um, I love spiritual healing and just but no one ever talks about it. It's right. That's why it's underrated. It's just because it's in a weird spot. You know, it is. It's a tweet. Yeah, it's a tank because it's bookended by leprosy and inhuman.

04:59:48.378 --> 05:00:17.420
I mean, it's kind of screwed from that aspect. It is, because those two are two iconic albums. So interesting. Very in color, honorable mention. So good. So my album of the episode isn't even metal, but I love this album so much because Rick Springfield, Russell Morris and Rick Springfield, Jack Crone on the Darkness Waltz, man. I'm telling you,

05:00:17.660 --> 05:00:45.580
You've got to listen to this album. It is so good. It's like Tom Waits, Nick Cave, and Dusty Gibbons. Dusty? What the fuck? Billy Gibbons. Sorry. I don't know. That's a ZZ Top crossover. Billy Gibbons. Sorry. She was hot. But you were just mixing Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill. Yeah.

05:00:49.060 --> 05:01:17.620
I get what you're getting after. Yeah, but no, seriously, it's not like anything you would expect and you really need to listen to this album. I don't care who you are. I don't care who you are either. Nobody gives a shit. Just listen to the album. Fuck. Exactly. All right, well, here we are at the end. Amazingly, Phil has managed to

05:01:17.660 --> 05:01:47.260
with us the whole time. You are, man. Thank you so much for coming on again. I replaced myself with the hologram like four hours ago. Bill's actually asleep right now. Oh, no. You're a prince. You're a prince for spending all this time with us. And you're Jay's favorite guest ever. Ever. Yes. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for putting out such an amazing album. Yes.

05:01:47.640 --> 05:02:17.600
Yeah, thank you guys. I appreciate all the love. We appreciate you spending all your night with us. Yeah, five hours plus. Even we don't want to spend that much time on here, and you did it. That was pretty fun. Come on. Yeah, well, no, but also thank you for being so frank and sort of illuminating a lot. I love it when we get interviews like that. That's all. Thank you for standing the firing, rapid fire questions from our new Metalheads podcast.

05:02:20.960 --> 05:02:23.000
Yeah, she's gonna be...

05:02:23.060 --> 05:02:24.560
She'll never get an interview like that again.

05:02:24.900 --> 05:02:26.760
She wants an answer and she's gonna get it.

05:02:27.220 --> 05:02:29.040
Weirdly enough, I told her, you can ask them whatever.

05:02:30.500 --> 05:02:31.520
What's your favorite color?

05:02:32.060 --> 05:02:33.640
She came up with just more...

05:02:34.130 --> 05:02:35.160
She just wanted to know about the music.

05:02:35.250 --> 05:02:36.600
She wanted to know about...

05:02:36.600 --> 05:02:38.340
Wait, what is Phil's favorite color?

05:02:39.080 --> 05:02:39.880
What is it?

05:02:39.940 --> 05:02:40.900
It's your favorite color.

05:02:41.270 --> 05:02:42.020
Blue, no yellow.

05:02:44.480 --> 05:02:45.300
I think it might be yellow.

05:02:46.500 --> 05:03:16.100
You know, just for what it's worth, Phil, she was nervous. You could tell a little. And it's because you're a famous person to her. So that's kind of cool. That's like George talking to James Hetfield, right? Yeah, it is. It's like George talking to Joel. Come on, get it? No. I mean, yes, but no. Hetfield makes more sense. But still, that's cool. And because if you, when I was a kid that age, if my dad was that fucking cool and I could interview some metal, I'd be like, what? Like, these people aren't even real.

05:03:16.500 --> 05:03:46.480
talk to them. That's not right. So that was cool. I was still a dorky dad. Matt knows what I'm talking about. I do. Anyway, you're the best, dude. Yeah, thanks. It's always fun talking to you guys. Thank you, Phil. Hopefully I'll see you all before too long, you know. Yeah, well, schedule some East Coast dates and we'll be there. We'll be there. Let me know if you're coming out. By the way, the rest of you bitches ain't no slouch either. It's good to see your faces. Yeah, well, Jay, you can actually go see him and

05:03:46.520 --> 05:03:47.480
January, I think.

05:03:47.640 --> 05:03:48.440
Oh yeah, in the Berklee.

05:03:48.720 --> 05:03:49.140
Get out there.

05:03:50.060 --> 05:03:51.080
Please call him out.

05:03:51.680 --> 05:03:54.100
Just in between songs, please call him out.

05:03:55.120 --> 05:03:56.660
I definitely will if he's not there.

05:03:57.200 --> 05:03:58.660
Yeah, call him out regardless.

05:03:58.900 --> 05:04:01.400
As long as you're in the Bay Area, say, fuck this guy.

05:04:01.900 --> 05:04:02.380
I'll be there.

05:04:03.000 --> 05:04:03.600
I'll tell you this.

05:04:04.600 --> 05:04:07.520
It's my hand to God to everybody in this pot.

05:04:07.560 --> 05:04:08.140
I will be there.

05:04:08.460 --> 05:04:12.560
Yeah, stop the show, turn the lights on, and make him raise his hand in front of everyone

05:04:12.640 --> 05:04:13.160
in the audience.

05:04:14.860 --> 05:04:43.980
We dedicate this song to Jay. Go fuck yourself. I know you're traveling and I know you guys have to stay healthy, but I'll put some beer in your cooler too. Okay. Yeah. I'm into that. Okay, cool. All right. All right. They're definitely showing up now, Jay. Yeah. All right. Thanks for coming on and thanks to everyone. We'll talk to you next time. Have a happy Thanksgiving and see you next month. Guys. Take care. Bye. Bye, Matt's dog.

05:05:25.320 --> 05:05:33.000
My name is George Walshburn. I'm old as dirt. I like heavy metal and I like slapping squirrels and then laughing at them.