Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - Cody Hanson of Hinder

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

On this week's episode of Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is joined by Cody Hanson of Hinder. Since forming in 2001, Hinder have made their mark through soaringly catchy anthems. Each of their albums has prioritized intention and growth, from the grunge-y beginnings of 2005’s Extreme Behavior to the introspective headspace of 2017’s The Reign. In conversation with Madden, the Hinder frontman details how the band have evolved over the years, the 20th anniversary of their multi-platinum hit “Lips of An Angel,” and their new upcoming single, “Bring Me Back to Life." ------- Listen to their Artist Friendly conversation on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify.⁠⁠⁠ ------- Follow Artist Friendly! IG: @artist.friendly TikTok: @artist.friendly YouTube: youtube.com/@artist.friendly ------- Host: Joel Madden, @joelmadden Executive Producers: Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Jillian King Producers: Josh Madden, Joey Simmrin, Janice Leary Visual Producer/Editor: Ryan Schaefer Audio Producer/Composer: Nick Gray Music/Theme Composer: Nick Gray Cover Art/Design: Ryan Schaefer Additional Contributors: Anna Zanes, Neville Hardman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, what's up? I'm Joel Madden, and this is artist-friendly. On this episode, I'm talking with the drummer of the multi-platinum rock band Hinder, Cody Hanson. Let's go. When I'm smoking on gas and smoking out piff, that's my kind. I don't want no bad times. I don't want to have bad. Where do you live? Oklahoma City. Oh, great. Yeah. Love Oklahoma City. I didn't know you live there. Yeah. For some reason I thought maybe Nashville. Yeah, every means shit. Can you drive to Nashville? Is that close enough? It's about 12 hours, I think. Oh, okay. It's a little too far for me to drive.

I would do it, but, yeah. You've been there forever? Yeah, I moved there when I was one. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's cool. I mean, it's got a great food scene and, you know, I mean, tons of great restaurants. Do you live in the city? Yeah, I live like 10 minutes outside of the city.

Okay. But it feels like I live on five acres. I've got a pond, so I feel like I'm way out. But it's, yeah, I'm close. That's good. You got a piece of land. Yeah, it's nice. Every man should have a piece of land.

Absolutely. I want. A piece of land so bad. Move to Oklahoma. You can have all the land you want. We're actually in the process of moving out of the city. We live in L.A. And we're going likely north.

And land is like a big driver, like just some space. So north. Where are you going north? Like Thousand Oaks or maybe even further. We're kind of debating like how far from the city we can be because my wife's parents live here and my kids have grown up here. So they're like, we don't want to be too far. But we're, and we went and looked at Nashville.

My brother lives there. My older brother lives there. And we love Nashville. But for me, I'd actually just live there. Yeah. Because it's fine with me. I don't feel like I have to be in L.A., but I married someone from L.A.

who's, it's like, it's home. So, I mean, Nashville's starting to feel a little bit like L.A. You know, it's a big city. It's getting crowded. And, you know, I mean, everybody's out there now. It's the music business is there. Yeah. Yeah.

Too bad the weather sucks in the winter. Yeah. But besides that. But I'm from Maryland. So it feels a bit more like that, like Maryland. And I need to be in the music business and like the artists and people making records and so like that. So I don't know. I don't know that I would be happy if I didn't have access to like tap into like a music.

Yeah. Culture. So Nashville to me like makes the most sense. but LA's great. I'm happy if we can move somewhere where we get a couple acres, I'd be like, okay, this scratches the itch. Yeah, absolutely. Five acres is good.

The weather's good out here, right? So, I mean, if you could get, if you can get that, it's best of both worlds. And you can get to the beach and you can get to the mountains and you can kind of, that's cool. So how long are you in L.A. for? You just hear, like, doing, like, promo and stuff? Just, we have a show tonight, yeah, at the whiskey. Oh, great. Yeah.

So, sick. It's the first time we've played it, so I don't really know what to expect, but yeah, the whiskey? Yeah, it's great. Is it? Cool. It'll be packed. Awesome. It's a good show.

Cool. What's your favorite side show? Are you, like, big arena guy, or are you like little clubs or you don't care, either one? I don't really care. It just kind of depends. I mean, just depends on the vibe in the room, you know, as long as people are having a good time and, you know, you can make a connection. Yeah. You know, that's cool.

So, yeah, I mean, I like, we did it like a really great show up in, uh, you know, Seattle recently. In the tiny room, I can't remember what it's called. I know if it was showbox. But we had done it before, but for some reason we showed up this time, and it was just like a packed tiny room. And I don't know, man. Those shows have a really cool vibes. They're a sleazy, dirty rock show. Yeah, and it's like every, it's special. Everybody's packed in there, and it's usually the people that can get tickets to those little shows are, they're putting effort in to get those tickets. So the whole, room is excited. Absolutely. And the chance to get to see you guys in a small room like that is,

it's just special. So there's something about that feeling, I think, that just feels like it's really got purpose. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. It's cool. Yeah. So I don't know, we were talking about it yesterday. It's weird, though, like the bigger, the crowd. It's like you get, you're less nervous and less anxious about it. Or maybe because it doesn't feel real. Right. because you're not making that connection. Right. But at the same time, I mean, there's just really nothing like seeing a sea of people singing your songs back to you.

So that's always cool. It's nothing like it. Yeah. You know, it's like each show has their own, like a big festival's cool too. There is something about like 10 or 15,000 people. That's like the sweet spot. Not that 30,000 isn't great or 50,000 isn't great. But there's something about like 10.

It's like really big. And yet like everybody's singing every word. And it's something like, it's hard to explain, but it's a good feeling. But then those little tiny shows are great, man. You're sweating and you're just like, you're this close to people. And there's something about that that's special. Almost feels like a house party. Yeah.

It's kind of cool. Did you guys start playing house parties and things like that? Yeah. I mean, yeah, in college, it was always fun to play, you know, some house parties. And we had some bands that we were, you know, kind of friends with that we'd go and play with. And it was always funny because, you know, growing up, all the bands were metal bands, right? And so we'd go and we'd play these house parties, and the metal bands would kind of run everybody out, you know, and then we'd come in with our songs geared toward females.

And so all the chicks would come in and start dancing, so then all the dudes would come in and it would be packed. And it was always fun to do that stuff. Are you guys metal fans as a band? I mean, you know, we like everything as long as it, like, has a cool groove, you know? I can get into it, but I'm really more like, I'm more into music that's got a melody, it's got a hook. Like songwriting. Yeah.

Yeah. I want some melodies, you know, something memorable. What would the songwriters be that you think like shaped your early perception of like what a song is? Records or songs that stand out even when you were young that just, I don't know, there's songs that I can think of that I like, I wouldn't say I'd maybe listen to them now, even though if they come on, I will. But like, they shaped my idea of like how a song was written or like what a song is.

Well, I think for me, like, the, The first song, you know, especially it was like rock leaning. They got me into it was a shooting star by Bad Company. Yeah. You know, it's got a great hook, but it, you know, it tells the story, you know, a very specific story. It's like you can almost see it play out like a movie. Yeah. And I thought that was really cool.

And then, you know, as you get older, you get into all kinds of stuff. You know, there's like really great songs, especially like in country, like writers like Jeffrey Steele, you know, guys like that that can, just really just write a script and you can just see it play out, you know, while you're listening to the song. Do you love country music? I do. I do too. Yeah, it's awesome. It's funny because I rejected it when I grew up around it my whole life and then when I was going into the world and kind of just rejecting everything that I grew up with finding my own personality in the world, I really rejected that whole side of music because I grew up with like my dad love country music and I had like conflicted relationship with him and then I found myself really rediscovering it when I had kids and I was like

probably in my 30s when I started like slowing down and like nothing mattered you know once you have kids and you're like fucking what what what is cool me I yeah who cares yeah this like something sues my soul I'm gonna yeah you know and um I found myself putting country music back on like in the morning when I listen to coffee or when I was driving and just falling in love with it and now I mean you're like nowadays nothing like no one cares about anything, everyone's just doing what they like. And country has become a different thing where, like, way more people can participate in it in different ways.

And it's just, it's everywhere in like a good way. And these days, I just listen to so much country music. I mean, country is everything now. I mean, it's now they're, you know, metal country and, you know, country rap. And I think I heard a country reggae song the other day. You know what I mean? It's everything now.

Yeah. So it's, I don't know, it's getting interesting for sure. Yeah, I don't invite it though. But, you know, I've always found that one of the things I really like about your music is I've always heard a little country in it, which I really like. Because a lot of the songs, if you, the songwriting's really good. It's telling a story. Like you said, a lot of love songs, a lot of songs about, you know, the relationship, whatever that relationship is. It always comes down to songwriting.

Can you sit down with an acoustic guitar and play it? And that's the song. Yeah, that's what I, yeah, that's what I, yeah, that's what I, always said everything we do is pretty much when we start is always an acoustic guitar or a piano and you know the theory is if if you can you know write a song that sounds like it belongs on the radio with just an acoustic guitar i mean once you go in and put the production on it's all icing on the cake that's how you know you have a great song from the get-go i mean that's kind of what we've always thought i agree us too yeah most of our songs started on acoustic guitar and then it would turn into this rock song

Yeah, we'd bring it into the band and we'd all play it and it would find its life. But me and Benj would always sit down and just fuck around with the acoustic and come up with a first chorus. Yeah, I don't know if you even remember that we wrote a song together years ago. Holy shit, I do remember. Yeah. I didn't remember until just now. Yeah, yeah.

What was the song called? I think the song was called Man on a Wire. God damn, dude. I'm going to have to go back and see. You got to find it and send it to me. Yeah, I got to find it. Maybe we'll use it. I mean, it was probably good.

Yeah, I'm sure it was. Did you ever write a bad song? I don't know if you did. I mean, no, of course I haven't ever written. Well, listen, we probably wrote a couple songs like where we were trying to go into some area we shouldn't touch. But like whenever we sat down and just wrote a song,

especially like a rock song or just acoustic guitar song, it is always pretty good. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of hard to, I mean, if you know how to write a hook, right? in a lyric. It's kind of hard to completely mess it up if you're doing it that way. Where did we write it?

LA or? Yeah, it was here. Yeah. I don't remember exactly where it was. That's cool. Yeah. Fun. I remember that was a fun day.

Yeah. So, yeah, I'll find it. Did you get a good impression of us? Of course. Okay. Yeah. You guys are great. Good.

Awesome. Good. Yeah. I always thought you were a nice guy. I always thought like you guys were like a really, a really nice band and nice guys. You know, you run into people. over the years and all you you're everywhere the festivals to this to that and like you always remember

people who were friendly and welcoming and you know i'd say like a large majority of bands are i'd say like it's like yeah yeah i mean i think that's important you know if you go around burning bridges you know i mean it's it's really is like it's a small world out there you know especially in the entertainment industry so if you go around burning bridges you know it doesn't last very long so and we always keep each other in check we're we're treating each other enough like shit that when we go see other people, we're nice. I know what I mean? Yeah. So. I'm Anna Mena.

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How long long So Blower, our guitar player and I met in 2001 in college. And we kind of started shortly after that. And then we got our deal in like 2004, 2005. Yeah. So, yeah, we've been doing it. This is the 20th anniversary of our first album, actually.

So, yeah. Are you guys celebrating that on the tour? I keep saying that we're celebrating the 20th anniversary by releasing a new album. Good. You know what I mean? That's how I feel. Yeah, we're moving forward. I'm not a big anniversary band.

Yeah. Like go and play the second record or whatever. I'm not big on that. Even though other bands do it, and I think they do it well, and I see that and I appreciate that, and it feels like fans love it. If I go out, I want to play some new stuff.

We'll play all the hits. Yeah. I definitely am not in a delusion that we shouldn't play songs people like. Yeah, absolutely. By any means. But I also want to throw some stuff in there that like we want to play, even though we like playing all of our songs, playing new stuff,

fun, working out of like cover of something, doing stuff like that. Yeah, it's hard to, like, go out and play and not play all the songs that you think are your best songs, right? Yeah, that feels weird, you know? Yeah. And no album has, I mean, well, some are. Some are amazing front to back. But, I mean, you know, there are songs from like those early albums that I'm just like.

Well, you know more now. Yeah, exactly. I would have done this, this and that. That probably wouldn't have been on the record. Yep. Because you just know more about making records. Yeah. You get a little more confident, I guess, too, as you get older.

You know, you just know what you like and what you don't. And, you know, sometimes it's not about what that person thinks. You know what I mean? You have to do what inspires you as well. You know what I mean? So it's a nice. You've got to find the balance. But I think as you get a little bit older, you get better at it.

Yeah, I do too. When's the new record? We haven't set a date for the record. We have a new song, our next one coming out on March 7th. So that'll be the third release so far from the upcoming album. Bring me to life? Bring me back to life. Bring me back to life.

Yeah. I like it. I listened to it. Oh, thanks. I listened to it this morning. I've been really excited about this song for a couple years. So thanks. Yeah, I've got to listen to it this morning when I was working out.

That's awesome. I got a link. They sent me a link and I was like, cool. I actually love that. the aspect of this show where I actually get to participate a little bit in people's. Not everyone here is coming out with a new song or a new movie or a new whatever, but every now and then someone is and I get to like watch it or see it or listen to it. I really like that.

I still really enjoy listening to a new song or even when someone sends me a demo. I like it's really good. Thank you. That means a lot, man. I appreciate it. Like I said, we've been playing that song live for almost two years thinking that we were about to release it. You know, we, it was the first song for the album that we did a video for. And so it had this, this look, you know, this all white thing.

And, you know, the backdrop was all white. So we did, we went out for like a year and a half touring with this like all white look. And then they kept getting pushed back and push back and push back. And then so we ditched all that, went with a whole new production with a different look. And then now we're going to release that song. So all of that was just wasted. We rolled around in all white looking like idiots for two years. All white could be a strong look, though.

You know, all white is good look. You could always bring that back. People, I don't think people would mind. But why didn't you release it? You know, it's just one of those things where we didn't have the right partner, you know, on the label side to release it. And, you know, the plans just haven't had, you know, it didn't really add up and make sense. And even now, it's hard, you know, because we're kind of, I mean kind of pigeonhole a little bit as like a rock band, right?

Like a heavy rock band. And a song like Bring Me Back to Life kind of has that four on the floor a little more like, it has the big pop hook, right? You know, I mean, we've always liked and enjoyed writing songs like that as well as the rock songs. So we always try to ride the line. And, you know, when you, especially when you're on a smaller label that doesn't have the massive budget, you know, it's kind of hard to figure out what that plan's going to be

to get it out to the right audience, if that makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense. Which label are you on? It's called Evilteen. It's like a small boutique label. Okay, are they fully independent or are they distributed through someone? Yeah, distributed through ADA. Okay, okay, yeah.

So that's the Warner system. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, listen, I think it's a good song and I think you have a really good fan base and I think that it starts there always. and I think it's never a bad time to release a good song. Exactly what you're saying, though, you should put together the best plan you can. So it makes the most impact possible.

But also in the world we live in today, I think even more than like two or three years ago, I actually think two years ago was different than now. And I think now you can just drop songs. And they do take on their own life. I'm learning a lot with artists we work with at our company at MDN. I've learned a lot from them

and I'm trying to take it on I'm trying really hard to take on there's an artist we work with Idris he's this like fucking super cool it's indie rock kind of it's like indie rock but it's also he's like very hip hop in his own way but he's like indie rock

he plays guitar and he writes and produces all his own stuff he just drops shit and he just gets bigger and bigger I mean he's got like I think the last time I checked he's got like 16 million monthly listeners or whatever he's not a mainstream artist by any means. He's not like on the radio. And he just drops shit. He makes a video. He does everything in house. He makes the video with his friend who directs. And he's, I mean, he's very

purposeful. He's got up in his mind. He's not just dropping shit like frivolously. He only puts out what he wants when he wants. But I've learned a lot from him. We work with a band called Chase Atlantic and they kind of the same way. They do everything themselves. They make, they write the music. They produce it, they mix it, and then they have this, like, family, like their video guy, they're, they're this guy, everybody's in this, like, Chase World, and they come up with their own plan, and then they're like, we're dropping this. And then they're kind of coordinating with the label. They're on a label, but it's like a, they have Chase Records and they have a partnership with Fearless, but, I mean, they're doing, they're like 23 million monthly

listeners on Spotify, and they just drop. They just kind of have. have their own. They make their plan and they, and I've learned a lot from them, especially in the last two years. I've seen it kind of more than ever before. People are just like dropping shit. And so we made a record and I'm trying to not hold on to it too tight and think my old way of like, I need to have a plan. I need this. I need that. So we're trying to be a little bit more like them. If we get to the middle, I'll be really happy. Because we haven't dropped anything in seven years, probably for that reason. We're like, well, what's the point? We don't have. have a we need to make a record but if we're going to make a record we have to do this and if we

if we're going to do that then we have to do this and then we get overwhelmed ourselves with like this master plan of like what we need to do and then i kind of went to my brother and i was like i think we just need to fucking make music and then if we like it put it out yeah and then we went and we did and we got like a whole album that we like and now we're just going to put it out so it's so middle ground yeah it's so hard to break the uh the uh the old old mindset, right, where you want it to be big and grand. You want your big music videos and your big photo shoots and you want it to be, you know, what it's always been, this big giant brand, right? Yeah, but that's just not how you do it anymore. But you guys are big. You're big. No, I'm telling

you, you're big. Whether you feel big, that's you. That's in your own perception, right? That's what we feel is different, but the honest truth from my perspective when I hear you say that, if I don't tell you what I think is the truth, then I'm not doing the right thing by you or me. And you're in a big band.

It's a big fucking band. You guys have a bunch of hit songs. You've sold millions of records. You've had 20 years of success. Think about this. 20 years of success. Now, in your mind, you may not think about, you don't walk around

into every room with two guys with trumpets and a scroll that unfolds and rolls across the floor and reads all your achievements. But if we put them on paper, it would be something like that to any person in the world that's just an alien to the music, to a music career. If someone was like, I'm going to start a music career and then you put your achievements on the wall and they looked at it and they said, how am I going to do all that? Right. It's just you've achieved a lot of lot. That's true. Yeah, you're not going to walk around your resume in a stack and like handed to people in every room. Like you're not looking at it every day. So in your mind, you've done nothing almost, right? You know you're, you feel what you feel and you've got the experience to do whatever

the fuck you want in music, but you're not walking around all day with your achievements right in front of your face. So when I say you're a big band, you might just go, me, you've also probably like me, been trained not to say good. shit about your band because that would be considered cocky or whatever. Okay, so I get that, me too. But you've achieved a lot. And if you only measure them against your highest and biggest, it's not a true measurement. It's not, it's just not a true measurement.

And nobody can be good Charlotte. I know that after 27 or 28 years. It's like, we're just all fucking band on our own. We're not like any other band. and I just had to like teach myself to own it somewhere back in like 10 years ago maybe. It's like when everything changed when I started to embrace what it meant to be in Good Charlotte and stop trying to keep up with anyone else and just be good Charlotte, whatever that means. And what that meant for us was stop touring, stop making records, figure out who we are.

And now we're kind of on the other side of it. And we're like, okay, now we want to make a lot of records and we want to go on tour. as much as we can and like figure out what it means to be good Charlotte in the world again because we figured out what it meant to be good Charlotte in our own lives. Yeah, it's interesting how stepping away for a little bit of time just changes your perspective. I mean, we had just kind of decided for us that we were done making new music. You know, we decided, well, the fans, you know, we kind of just thought that they just wanted to hear the old stuff. We didn't, we didn't feel like anybody really cared. And then I get that. I feel that. I've, I feel that. I, I, I, I,

feel you when you say that like i was there before and you know i was just talking about this the other day how it's amazing how one song you write one song and it changes your entire mindset and perception and uh you know when we wrote bring me back to life that was the first song that we wrote um for this cycle and it was kind of unintentional we had written over the pandemic an entire album that we just went yeah i don't know this feels like we're trying to be the first album you know so we threw it away and But you still have it? We have it. We have it.

We may recite this stuff. I would like to hear that, to be honest with you. So anyway, when we wrote Bring Me Back to Life, it was like, oh, it was a reminder that we still knew how to do it. You know what I mean? So we decided to go through that, you know, that whole process. And now that we're putting out new music and we have, you know, our first single, Live Without, it's charted so far. It's still climbing. And it's great.

It's one of the, you know, our top ten songs. songs we've ever had at rock radio. So that's a great feeling, you know, and just seeing the people show up and singing the words to the new material. It's brought new life to the band. You know what I mean? We're feeling good to be out, to be honest. Because you're still a young fucking band.

I mean, you may not feel young, but there is, we're in this different time, man. I'm looking around at people that are having their first hit at 41. Yeah. And I thought 45, I was like, Like, there's no way at 45 I'm going to still be on the stage back when I was 25. Yeah. I was like, we're good Charlotte. Like, no one's going to fuck with us when we're at 45.

Could you imagine starting, though, at 41? Like, just having your first, like your first big song at 41. I think I would have handled it way better. Yeah. I think I would have life experience. I'd have people experience. It wouldn't be as fun, though. It wouldn't be as fun.

You know, it's such a weird thing. it wouldn't be as fun because we wrecked ourselves. We did. But I would never go back. I would never go back. It's like it doesn't matter. People always ask me like, what was that like? Because there's crazy pictures.

You're with that person and that person and they see all these, these moments in this. We didn't know at the time how fucking amazing it was in the 2000s for music and pop culture and all the things mixed up. There was pop and rock. and it was the beginning of what it is now, which is there's no genre. At that time, there was genres,

but everybody was mixing it up, so it felt exciting. And now people look back on that as like, they cite it as like reference for like inspiration and whatever. You guys are one of those bands. You're young, but you're a legacy brand. You're a legacy,

just by nature of being alive. Yeah, it's pretty wild to see, you know, we were talking about country bands and one of my favorite new artists out, it's called Lakeview. Oh, yeah, I like Lakeview. Yeah, they're awesome. Great songs, and they cover Lips of an Angel Live.

Yeah. And they're talking about doing a recorded version of it. And to me, that's, yeah, me too. Like, I've heard videos of the live performance. And I don't know. I mean, what a cool thing to have, like, a band that, you know, you're into and you listen to their album all the time covering your songs. Like, to me, that's a pretty big trip.

That's pretty cool. It's just cool that you get to experience what your music means to the world. And you don't, I think a lot of times is in bands, especially bands at the time when we came out, if you had any like kind of radio success, pop success, any of that stuff, it was looked at as like not okay. It was looked at as not good. Now it's a huge deal if your song is used in a commercial or used in a movie or you, like, no one cares. but back then people don't realize how we would get attacked by our own scenes that we came up with in rock or whatever for having mainstream success like it was a real thing if you had mainstream

success you were going to get attacked by the critics the scene the other bands if like certain ones would pick it out as pick you out as the as the evil successful band i mean look at i mean use nickel back is the perfect example you know what i mean like they came out they were huge. Everybody I knew had the album. Yep, but they'd still talk shit. They're the perfect example of how you navigate that with integrity and with class. Because look at them now. Bigger than they've ever been. Straight up. Nickelback's bigger than they've ever been. Creed, I would say, is another one. Yeah, absolutely. Bigger than they've ever been. Still get a little bit of obscure, weird hate that no one listens to. Like every now and then you'll hear someone that sounds

kind of like someone's dad talking shit about Nickelback or Creed and you're kind of like yeah that was kind of a thing people said in 2005 like no one says that anymore like it's not you're like shut up please you're embarrassing like no one cares it's the legacy

it's the songs but I take a page from those bands I look at those bands and I go okay I fucking love that I love how they carry themselves what does everybody want them to do do they want them to quit and go into a hole and never make another piece of music and fucking die well i've learned too though like the more the more hate you get and the more

people talk shit about you that means you're on the right track to success right that means you're you're doing well absolutely and when nickelback came to town they played the in normodom and everyone i fucking knew went to the show and half of of them were like 25 year olds who never got to see nickel back and so they have a legacy that is who gives a fuck what anyone says yep the people who are saying it they sound like they're like stuck in 2007 and they're reading like they're on some message board and they're just trying to impress their friends by like who that's kind of what comment section is it's like everyone trying to impress each other with how clever exactly i'm just going to say that yeah absolutely absolutely

Absolutely. Everybody thinks they're a comedian. Yeah, so they're like, I'm going to be a comedian. And then the comic gets pushed up because more people liked it. And then good for them, I guess. It's kind of weird, like if that's what you're spending your day. Yeah. Like doing, like it says a lot. That's why I kind of always like remind myself when I'm reading comments,

especially about this show. I try to get some feedback. I have stuff to work on. I talk too much. I definitely talk too much. But I always talk. remind myself that people are spending their time, like having full conversations with each other or, you know what to be? Coming up with the most clever and you just got to kind of take that as

a compliment. Yeah, it's hard to do sometimes. Yeah. I mean, kind of learn, you know, learn over time how to deal with stuff. But I think, um, hinder, just by the nature of the amount of ground you guys have covered the time, two decades of success. I would say the spectrum of achievements is success. It's all success. Any failures you guys might have had, I wouldn't know about personal failures, whatever. We all have whatever. But like, I would say that the spectrum of what you guys have done is all achievements on varying levels. And just by the nature of being hinder today and going out into the world playing shows as a band you guys are a legacy rock band i appreciate that yeah i mean i'll be really honest like you know in the early days i don't i don't think we saw ourselves being able to do it for 20

years so the fact that we're we're still here doing it on the level that we're doing it is i mean i'm extremely proud of it's really fucking hard so yeah it is it's really fucking hard it's really hard to keep everybody together and on the same page, you know what I mean? So, yeah, to keep doing it. And to not get complacent. Yeah. 20 years in doing things the way you want on your terms because you want to, not because of any other fucking reason.

And if you were like, me, I mean, how many times are you like, yeah, we don't have to play that festival this year? Yeah. It's not personal. You're weighing up, like, how that makes you feel. Yep. And I think that's good. I think that you earn, I think there's a, there's a stage where you get to, where you earn the right.

A lot of bands are still going out, trying to build fan bases and get noticed and, and get the right vibe going around their band, as they should. Good for them. But you guys aren't begging anyone to listen to you. Yeah. There's something badass about that. Well, I think people can tell, too, when you're out doing things that you want to do and you feel passionate about. And it's the same, same thing with writing music, you know. It's like, I feel like, for you to put out that. album that I was telling you we wrote in 2020 that we didn't feel like it was authentic we wouldn't have put everything behind it i think people would have you know i think they would have noticed but that's a that's a that's a artistic decision made by guys who understand what they're doing versus a young man who puts the wrong album out yeah yeah well i mean that's why i got guys like you to put them in the right direction right steer them try it i mean all all we can do with each other as

artists share our experience and go like, hey, watch out for that pothole or watch out for that, you know, and usually if we can be the guys we wish we would have met when we were 21, yeah, making some decision. Exactly. Yeah. We have, you know, younger bands reaching out all the time asking me questions and, you know, I'd one the other day sent me their deal memo from a label and say, hey, what do you think about this? You know, I felt pretty good about that. you know, being able to offer up some advice. Did you give them some notes? Yeah, yeah.

Good. So it was nice to be able to do that because we didn't have that. No one did that. No one did that. So, yeah, it's pretty cool. You didn't even know what questions asked. Exactly. Yeah.

And that got us into some trouble later on, you know, because you signed the wrong thing. You didn't recognize what this clause even meant. Yes. And now 20 years later you're dealing with it. All of us. All of us have done that. That's what we, that's actually why we started our company.

Yeah. That's awesome. What happens is you come into this business or any business when you're young and inexperienced and people take advantage of your lack of experience instead of help you by giving you information. So you sign some deal where you have, God, can you think about it if you knew on your first, if you knew on your first record deal like the difference between a license deal and a fucking, could you imagine? Yeah, I mean, life would be different. It would be different. That's why we tell artists what we know about publishing deals, what we know about record deals. When we tell them there isn't just one way, be very worried if you're an artist and your lawyer tells you that's just the way it is or that's just how they do it or that's just be very, very worried.

There is no one way. Any deal can be made with any label. It means they won't do it with you. It's not that they can't. When anyone says, when anyone comes back to you and says, yeah, they can't do that. No, they don't want to do that. And you don't have to sign. Yep.

But know what you're giving up if you're signing. So if you think that's your only shot, I would question that. If you think this is the only record deal you're ever going to get or be offered, I would stop and go, wait, maybe, should I be doing this if I think it's a lottery? If you think this is the only offer you're going to get is from this label, or this manager or this publisher, then you need to stop and gut check what the fuck you're doing because you will get more offers.

Well, especially now, it's not the year 2000 anymore. You know what I mean? Like you said, there's a million ways to do it. And not all those ways include a record label. You know, I mean, a lot of people are doing it all on their own and having great success and then making more money as a result. You know, it may not be, you know,

quite as big and as mainstream, but, you know, there's, the money will be more, which will give you more opportunities to grow the brand down the road, I feel like, in a lot of instances. Well, yeah, and there's versions of independent that, like a Chase Atlantic, I bring them up because they're not a mainstream band. They don't have a song on the radio ever. They don't have a big sink, and they have more, they sell more tickets than any, band i know right like i think they sold out oh two in 15 minutes that's awesome and they did multiple nights like they just like they did like 20 000 tickets in munich and they're a band with no radio incredible and they did that by releasing music consistently and touring on their own for 10 years

and i always cite them as an example of what can be built over time with commitment and hard work and good music, obviously. And then I tell bands, like, I also don't have a problem with labels at all. You're signing the deal. You're making a deal. If you give yourself away, just recognize that you're doing that.

So own it. Yep. And if you don't want to give yourself away, make a deal that doesn't feel like you're giving yourself away. And also recognize if you want more money than you need, they're going to want you to give more. Yep. then you probably want to,

but you can't have your cake you needed too. Yeah. You say, I want $10 million and you're like, well, you're giving them your masters for $10 million, I guarantee it.

Or you're doing a very long, long licensing deal, well, license deal if you're lucky. And if you do that, I'd still be cool with that deal. As long as you get the records back at some point,

the term for me doesn't matter if you're in a partnership with someone you like, whatever, whatever. But like, I talk to artists about this all the time, and I'm like, but you want that big check.

You can't have your cake you need it too, so you've got to find the middle where it's fair for everybody because most labels will do licenses now. But if the artists that want that big check, and I don't know who talks them into that big money up front, a lot of times I think it's maybe they haven't touched enough to know that it's probably going to be gone and spent on making this and making that and doing all this.

And sometimes too much money up front when it's front-loaded can make you make really bad decisions on like how much you spend on that video. and you're not as scrappy as you were and you lose a little edge when you're not as scrappy and a big check can kind of take away that scrappiness sometimes.

So finding the middle, I always think is the right, for me anyways, the right idea. Everybody's got to run their own business. I can't imagine how hard that would be though for like a young baby band. It's the first deal, right? The idea of an advance,

especially if you need the money. Yeah. You know what I mean? When knowing, that's really not the, the smart way to do it. The smart way to do it is don't take in advance. Put that back into a guaranteed marketing budget or something like that. But I also understand the other side. You know, a young band that's, you know, they don't have money. They're probably, you know,

starving or close to it. They need it, right? So it's kind of a, it would be a tough call, I think, if you're a young band these days. Well, that's the leverage, right? Like the label or the publishing company, they got the money. And you want that, every artist is like, Anytime there's millions behind it, behind the first number, you're like, oh, my God, it is exciting. And it's something to celebrate. It's just don't make that the most important part of the deal. Yeah, it's a little short-sighted if you do. Yeah, yeah.

Just try to find the whole deal, make every part of the deal feel good. And then if that number matches and it all works together. But if you have to take that number down a little bit to have a better deal, that's betting on yourself. Yeah. It's all about the long-term goal. Like, what's,

what's that goal that you can see off in the distance and how are you going to get there? I think that's the most important thing. Yeah, I agree, but like a lot of artists,

I think, are scared to bet on themselves, even though they've been betting on themselves to get to that point. Right. And then suddenly a big, important person or company comes in and they suddenly stop betting on themselves.

Mm-hmm. And they bet on the company. Yeah. And so they flip it. And they're like, I'm going to give you all the value now because I bet on you making me big versus me making me big. And I think what they find out on the other side is we need team, we need partnership, we need collaboration to succeed.

But we are the driver of our own success. So we have to continue to bet on ourselves. And I think bringing that back to me and you, our bands are around the same ages. We might be a little bit older than y'all, but we started in high school. said of college. So same amount of time probably out there on the road and doing records and stuff. We get to this spot where it sounds like y'all were a couple of years ago

and we were too, where you have to remind yourself to have been on yourself again and be like, what the fuck else am I doing? Yep. I only get to be me. This is what I had to come to. I only get to be me. I only get to be this age.

I can't lie about it. Yep. So I'm not going to try to be younger. Yep. And I said, I said, okay, at 45, am I still going to be on stage? At the time when I was 25, that fucking sounded really fucking old.

Yeah. And I didn't think it was possible. But now I'm 45 and I'm like, I still kind of, we're actually better alive than we've ever been. Yeah. I would bet you guys are too. Yeah, I think so. Shit's probably heavier, tighter. Yep.

You just know more. So you put together sets differently. Like, just, there's just a. And I didn't start drinking at 8 a.m. Yeah. Right. Yeah, 8 p.m. It's like, exactly.

Yeah. It should make sense now. When you drink, makes sense. Yeah. Didn't make sense at 8 a.m. The fuck were you doing? Oh, man, I don't know. What were you drinking at 8 a.m.?

Well, whiskey and your coffee? Well, back then it was, we would, we had this RV when we first got going, right? Going to do radio visits. Oh, yeah. We would keep boxes of Cuervo-1800 under the bay of the RV. So, you know, you're down in Texas a lot in the summer. You can imagine how hot that was. So we'd take in these bottles of Cuervo and these styrofoam cups.

We'd take them into morning shows. And the rule was, whoever was in the room had to participate, and the bottle had to be gone or we weren't leaving. Oh, wow. So that was the rule. So the radio hosts would have to drink with you? Yeah. So we would be stumbling out of the radio stations every day at, you know.

9 a.m. after the morning show. After the morning zoo interview? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It got so bad that, you know, we got so sick of. tequila that at one point we brought in bottles of Yeager to chase the tequila with so we were at least have ice no wow we were we thought we were pretty hardcore man so we were doing it you know that's kind of what you think when you're in your 20s though you're just like this is what you

do you just drink and you play shows and you go and promote your record and you know for the most part no one gets hurt some people have to like go to rehab and stuff yeah yeah i mean you're got a couple sober guys probably now. It's okay. It's like that's kind of the story, right? Like, because the truth is, the truth of life is that alcohol and drugs will kill you eventually. If you don't get a handle on it, they will kill you. Or they'll wreck your life, one or the other.

Yeah. So. I mean, I'm still doing them, but yeah. No, yeah, but like you probably do it different. Oh, yeah, much different. Yeah, absolutely. Like you said, you've refined. Yeah.

Yeah. There you go. I like it. Refined. Yeah. It's a gentleman evolves. I like it. You know, like a gentleman didn't always, didn't start as a gentleman.

He just kind of like evolved into one because he was alive long enough and had enough success in the world that he wanted to keep it. So he had to evolve a little bit to keep it. Because at our age, if we were at 8 a.m. drinking tequila and, you know, forcing the radio disc jockey. morning zoo guy to drink tequila with us. At our age, it would be like a little more uncomfortable than 20-something. You're all going like, fuck yeah, dude, have a shot. And it would look, yeah, it would look a little pathetic if we tried to do that. Yeah. It would just be different. It would be like, God, look at that loser. You'd just be like, no, no, I don't think it would, I think people would still probably have a, I think you guys are likable. So I think they'd be like,

oh yeah, they can. They still do the drinking thing. It's, it was cool. You know what I mean, like, they'd be cool with it. But it would be different because I look at you guys as like, it's not that I didn't think you were like a wild rock band, but I always just, you guys were just a fucking rock band. You guys tour, make rock records, and that's a rock band. I felt the same way about us. At the core, you could say whatever this, that, this, but at the core, we were a fucking working class rock band.

We made records and we toured. Yeah, man. And that's what we did. And that is, to me, that was. First, everything else was just a product of that. So if we were drinking or this or that, it was all just a byproduct of the life on the road, kind of the nomadic life of Make Records Tour.

But at the core, we were like a good band. We showed up. We played a good show. We could play with anyone. That's the thing, right? How many birthdays did you miss? How many weddings did you miss? Countless.

How many fucking family things did you miss? Yeah. Because you spent two decades on the road. Yeah. That's a right. man. Yeah, you make it your priority. You know, it's, it's cool to do those, those things. We're talking about, you know, just drinking and doing all the stuff outside. But at the end of the day, and it's, I mean, it's great and fun to do all that, but at the end of the day, you have to make

the show and the band and the brand the priority. That's it. You know what I mean? So. And maybe you were just drinking to get through that goddamn radio interview because they're so fucking uncomfortable. Because I answered the same goddamn question a hundred times. And they just, suck, but you got to go do it because you put the band first. You put the record first. So you get up at 7 a.m. You go to some radio station with some morning show and they ask questions because they don't know what else to ask because they don't give a fuck. They're just playing the record. They're told to play and you're there and it all works and you respect their time and you show up and you still have to get through it because it feels like you're a little bit like a birthday clown. And so you're

conflicted. You're always conflicted. But here's the truth. To this day, if we put out a song and the radio is playing it in some station in Dallas is like, biggest rock station that's part of the country, they give you a thousand spends, blah, blah, blah.

And they say, will you guys come? We're fucking going. Yep, absolutely. Because that's the record. You put it first. How much touring you guys think you'll do on this record, you think, let's say out of a year, how many months you think you'll be out there? It's kind of hard to say. I mean, we do a lot of, you know, weekend one-offs and things like that when we're not doing the long runs. But I think, you know, we're already planning some other long runs. So I imagine we'll probably be at least half of the year, if not more.

It's real. Yeah. But, you know, like I said, this was this was something that we didn't think that we wanted to do. And now that we've decided that we're going to do it, we're going to go out and put. everything we have into it, you know, and just see what we can accomplish on this one. I like that. You know, especially with, like I said, a small label, you know, a smaller budget, you know, you gotta put in the work. Yeah. So if you wanna get somewhere, you gotta, you gotta do it right. That's great.

Who are you touring with? Right now we're headlining and saliva is support. Oh, cool. And then Kingdom Collapse is also support on the majority. And then I think the last four of the shows, a girl named Kelsey Hickickson. man, it's coming out. Oh, cool. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I don't know, it's really cool to be out with, you know, guys, other bands that have had great songs throughout the years. Yeah. So when people come out, it's this whole package. It's a whole night of music that they know and that they've

loved for years. Yeah, it's exciting. I think you guys are going to have a lot of fun. I think so as well, yeah. I'm excited for the record, man. Well, thank you. Good luck. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate you. Awesome. It's good to see you, yeah. Good to see you, man. Thank you for listening to Artist Friendly. We really appreciate it. If you like the show, you can also follow us on Spotify. You can follow us on Instagram at Artist.Friendly. And you can watch us on YouTube and Veeps.

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