Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - Cullen Moore of Sleep Theory

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

On this week's episode of Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is joined by Cullen Moore of Sleep Theory. Sleep Theory have experienced an abrupt rise over the past year, earning viral acclaim on TikTok (their clip of “Another Way” accrued half a million views within 36 hours), signing to Epitaph, and later sharing stages with Beartooth and I Prevail. It’s a sign of bigger things to come for the Memphis-bred four-piece, who meld hard rock and R&B into an intoxicating combination. Most recently, their “Fallout” video racked up 2 million views, and the band will share a new song, “Stuck In My Head,” on Thursday (July 18), which follows up last year’s Paper Hearts EP. ------- 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'll be talking to the lead singer of the band's Sleep Theory, Cullen Moore. Let's go. I don't want to bad times. I don't want to have bad. I love your music. Oh, thank you.

I've been jamming it. That's how I, like, get ready for these conversations is just listen to music. I don't do a lot of deep dives or anything. I just listen to music. The one thing that sit out to me that was really interesting, was that you were in the Army? Mm-hmm. How long were you in the Army?

I was in for three years. Okay. How was that? It was an experience. The one thing about the Army is a lot of people say it's the most fun that you never want to have again. Right. So it was a lot of, it was, you know, it taught me a lot.

And it's, you know, it taught me a lot. And it's definitely things I'm happy that I went and did. And I'm very, you know, thankful of that, the time of my life. Where were you stationed? I was in a unit. I was the National Guard. So I was in a unit in Corinth. I was, yeah, stationed on the core of Mississippi.

Cool. Yeah. Well, thank you for your service. Well, thank you. Thank you. And then you go from the Army and you start sleep theory. Yes. And that's your first band?

No. I was in another local band in Memphis. It started back in 2000, end of 2017, beginning of 2018, and did that for a good little. Maybe it was earlier than that. 2010. Yeah, something like that. So I did that with them for a little bit and then ended up leaving that band and then starting sleep theory, which was unnamed for like a good chunk of that time. It didn't have a name.

Right. You're just making music. It was just making music. It was just myself and our producer, Dave, and we were just trying to figure out what we wanted to do. Right. And so it was probably about the fourth song, which actually happened to be another way, that we really started setting in with the sound that we really wanted. Right. And yeah, that's how that went.

It's pretty cool to be able to, I'm guessing too, because that would be the beginning of really like putting music on TikTok, putting music on the internet in a way that was like, you can test things. I mean, you know right away if something's connecting with people. It's interesting to be able to, like, test out demos, really that then become songs. Yeah. And some demos are the best version of a song that will ever be. I know that from my experience is just sometimes you make a demo and then you just,

you try to redo it for an album and it never hits like the demo hit. And then a lot of times those songs get left behind because, well, back in the day when we were making records, we'd make all these demos. You couldn't just put them out. Right. You have to play them for people one at a time or whatever. And then you'd go to make the record and that standout demo actually was never as good. like when you made the record and then there then you kind of all these other songs emerge as better

better sounding or more cohesive and some of those demos we have we have tons of demos that are just sitting i always think like should you really we we should now we could actually just put them on tic-tok right see you just helped me with something who was still that we never thought of that more yeah you know uh another way actually we uh we wrote it back in 2021 and the way it released is It was actually the way that it was once we fit it. Like it, believe it or not, cut it, it released it.

Yeah, we, the way that the studio week would go whenever I work with Dave, we get in, we spend a week working on a song and another way was written within a week. And we just, and we sat on it for a year. And then we're just like,

let's release this. And then that was in 2021. And then 2020, yeah, in 2022, maybe. Yeah, it was May of 2020.

we released it just as a local band we just threw it up on Spotify and all the other DSPs or whatever it's called it out and it didn't perform the way that we thought it could so we took it off we were just like well we'll just wait for this to because we knew it the song was good we just didn't have the the exposure that no it needed so we took it off and then we're just like well we'll just wait for some kind of way that we can push this the right way and then 23 came around. I was like, should I post this on TikTok? And I went back and forth in my brain.

I was like, no, because we posted it back in 2022. And it didn't, it flopped. I was just like, so I was kind of back and forth with it. And then on a whim, I was just like, whatever. And I posted it and went to sleep and woke up. And the next day it was blowing up. I texted Palo. I texted the other guys, we post this, repost this.

And Paolo posted on his page, it blew up. I posted on my, no, I posted on my personal page first. I blew up there, then Paolo posted it, and I posted this in a band's page, and it blew up. And so we were just kind of like, maybe we should kind of ride this out. And then, you know, I was like, well, you know, it's just the teaser. And so I was like, guys, we should probably go ahead and release this. And then Powell was like, no, man, let it simmer. I was like, no, palo. I was like, normally with things with the internet, when people are interested, like, they're interested. They're going that day. I was like, but if you wait too long, like it's

gone. I was like, we got a strike now. posted it up like and it got up uh we posted the teaser on January 12th and by January 16th I think it is it was up and going sick yeah which is funny the very first day of the bear tooth tour this year was January 12th so it was a year anniversary from the point that we had posted a TikTok from being a band that no one knew yeah and then a year later on the day we were on tour of baretooth so it's pretty cool that's dope how's bear tooth i love bear tooth oh they're fun they're dope yeah they're cool nice guys too yeah it was a great experience that's cool yeah it's a good tour it's a good tour for you guys oh yeah it was um you know it was we uh we went out and um it was us invent animate animate

animate animate you and you and bear tooth and everybody's like oh man are you nervous i was like we're gonna rip this shit just get up there and do it you know it's actually funny the smaller stages are the ones that you feel a little bit weirder on like at least for us we like It felt a little bit weird on the smaller stuff, but the bigger ones, we get to run around and do this and that, so we feel a little bit more at home. Yeah. That was a lot of fun.

I think that, too. That's a good crowd for you guys, too. You have all the qualities I like in heavy music and harder rock music is some great melodies, great choruses, but I love when people know when to scream, how to scream. Do you do all the heavy screaming too? Oh, no, no. It's, it's, I do, I do some weird scream thing.

I don't even know what it's, I just, yeah, I just do something and it works. And people like, oh, it's the heavy stuff. Daniel, the guitar player. He's got a growl, yeah. It's heavy. It's cool. He really has some. Oh, yeah.

It's funny because everyone thinks he's like a baby. Right. Apparently. Of course, he just, he just looks so young, but he's the third oldest in the band, him and Benner brothers. So, the guys. a Dar player and the drummer, they're both brothers. But everyone thinks that Ben is the older brother, but Daniel is the older.

And he looks the youngest. And everybody's like, I wouldn't have expected this sound to come from this guy. I feel that way about a lot of guys who scream good. I talk about them all the time because they're my favorite, some of my favorite bands. Like I would say, like, if I put in my top 10 bands, I'd say Architects is one of them. And Sam doesn't strike me as like, he's not an angry guy at all. He's like the nicest guy ever. When he screams, I feel like the, I feel the pain.

And I feel the same way about Noah from Bad Omen's. Like when he screams, I'm like, where does that fucking come from, dude? You're the nicest guy ever. Like, and I always wonder about those guys who scream. Right. And it sounds like they're fucking tormented. Yeah, same thing with Landon from a plot in you. He's such a nice guy.

They seem so sweet. And he just starts screaming. And then you hear him scream and you're like, what the fuck is going? on man well what did you go through i always wonder because it's like always the nicest guys with the heaviest craziest like best screams right he's got a good scream yeah it's good yeah i know a lot of the new stuff uh one of the songs on the uh on the album that we're working on he's like he like leaned into it a lot more we're like that's good he was really letting it out i was like wow i didn't expect this i love i love a good scream man yeah i'm jealous when did you start

making music. What age were you? I was 14. Okay. And my dad has always supported me doing it. And so that's cool. He would take me to different studios and, you know, and it first started my friend's dad's studio. And then we went to another studio and my dad had always been trying to help me and support me. He does a type. Oh yeah. That's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mom was always like, oh, you know, you need to focus on school, this and that. I knew I wasn't ever going to focus on school. We know what we know. I knew I wasn't going to. I was like, yeah, I'm not doing that. I was the same way. I knew school wasn't going to do me any good.

Yeah, so, yeah, he helped me go back and forth. I started music with my buddy. I was like 14. So it has been however many years that's been. So it was like 2008-ish. Always rock? It was all over the place. It went from like alternative acoustic stuff to then, you know, whatever it was I was doing.

I have no clue. It was just all over the place, man. Sometimes it would be R&B. Sometimes it'd be a little bit more in the fallout boy area of things. And then it'd go back to being metal core. And then here we are. That's cool. Yeah.

I actually have never told anyone this. But it just came to mind when you said that because I was 14, 13, 14, when I started getting interested in music. But I didn't know if I could make music. And then 15 was when, you know, Me and my brother were like, oh, we could start a band. Right. We went to a concert and we were like, oh, look, there's, I think seeing it in real life was like,

oh, some real people are doing it. It's not just these imaginary people that you see in like on MTV. My very first experience with making music was we used to make little rap songs with our friends. And I used to rap. I can't. And that was how I started music because I loved hip-hop. I grew up to scene to hip-hop. And I started rapping and I was making all these little demos on a karaoke machine.

and just finding like these like these tapes would have the A side would be the song, the B side would be the beat. You remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. They'd have like some of them. Some of the hip-hop singles would have the song. And then on the other side, there would be like the beat.

Yeah, the instrumental. The instrumental. Yeah, yeah. That's what it's called. And I need to make these little rap songs. They're terrible. But then that, but I never really thought about how important that was to actually sing in a mic and practice a verse and keep trying.

And then we were into the Beastie Boys and we saw them play. We went and saw them play. And then we started Good Charlotte. That was it. That's cool. I don't know how it, I knew that I wanted to be a musician. My dad was a musician. What did he do?

He just sang. He sang. And him and my uncle, whenever they were younger, they were going and, make these little demos and record them off of a whatever them old recorders are or a track or eight track or something yeah they got the sound yeah um but then it was it was when i was around i don't know how old i was young but him and my mom have a little music video that was just done off a little VHS yeah that's cool and so like he showed me that at that moment i was like dude this is what i want to do like i know i didn't tell him that until like a few years ago because it didn't

really occur to me that that is whenever I knew I wanted to be doing music. And so, man, I just, I chased after it. And my dad would be like, man, you know, there's nothing wrong with wanting to do. See, this is where he gets me. He was like, there's nothing wrong with having, uh, with having, you know, music. He's like, but you need to have a plan A. I was like, you know, let's, you know, I got preached. And then the music blew up. He was like, man, he's like, I always told you music was your plan A. I was like, no, you didn't. This is plan A. I was like, but he would tell me, you know, go to school. I was like, yeah, this and that,

but he knew I wasn't listening. He knew, I was, I knew some way, somehow, I was going to, some way. I was, I was, I was always hyper-focused on making it. And I was like, I know I'm going to do it somehow. Yeah, I think, I think that the music business is a big mystery to everyone outside of it until you get in it. And then even when you're in it, the first 10 years, it's still kind of a mystery. You're like, so how does that happen?

But then as you get time in it, any time in a space, right, any space you're in, you start to build out your area. And then you build it out further and further. And then the ecosystem of it starts to make sense to you. You can predict the weather. You can see the dangers. You can see opportunities. You can start to see it. So I feel the same way.

My mom was supportive in a sense of she would listen. to our songs when we recorded these little demos in our bedroom. But she was terrified of us not having a better life. Because she hadn't really figured it out. My dad was gone. And we didn't have anything. So I think she really just wanted us to solidify something in the world that was better. So she was like, go to school, try to go to college or get a good job, whatever a good job is. you know and we were just like now this is what we're going to do we're going to go for it we left home got after it and just never look back that to me is the approach you have to have all in now you also have to have talent yeah right yeah so you get yeses when you have talent you put the

song out and people like it like you get yeses so someone said this to me and i always repeat it because it makes a lot of sense to me this writer jedediah at Jenkins, who's a really, really great writer, he said, you got to love the things that love you back. And there's something there with like doing things that you continue, the road continues to unfold as you go forward. If it's not unfolding, you have to look at like, you really do have to gut check. Is this good what we're doing? Yeah, you got to be self-aware. You got to be self-aware. And that was, that was a big thing is like whenever I was doing music, like I knew, be honest with you like, I knew I could sing.

You're a great singer. I knew I could sing, but I didn't think it was, like, people would hear me sing, and it's kind of like whenever you hear, like, you listen to yourself recorded. You're just kind of like, ugh. It's hard to listen to yourself. Yeah. I'm like, really? I mean, I know I can do little tricks here and there.

I was like, do I really sound? But whenever I started working with Dave, it was more so of this is what I know can do it. It's not so much of, this self-awareness is, I know this is good. I know people will listen to this. And I know I can, you know, and I know I can, you know, and I know, I could sell it is just more of the fact, how can I get the people that need to hear it to hear it. So that's where TikTok is really cool because at that point, you know that it's good. You know that people want to listen to it, but who are the people that you got to get it to?

So at that point, we released it. Well, we put it on TikTok. It's good. People like it. People listening. Now that it's creating this buzz, the people that need to hear it are going to hear it. And so TikTok is great. It was pretty cool.

I will say that I've only been hyper aware of your music the last couple months because your name came in for this. And I'd known your band name. You know, when a band starts to kind of make their way through up the touring, you know, you start getting tours and you see the name more. You see it on like a festival thing or you see it on a. So I was aware of. And right now it's interesting because I think rock is. on the beginning of this big surge. Like all these kids are getting into rock and from all these different places.

So that's why I tell bands, there's no rules right now because all the fans that are coming in, they just are interested in rock. But it's not like they have an idea of what rock even means. There's a lot of, a lot of the people that are getting into rock have been into hip hop for so long. Yeah. And so like it's a,

a weird mixture. Like I feel like the emo thing is coming back. Like emo kids are just like, they're even more emo than the emo. I don't know. Like, they're just, they're more emo than we were.

But I think emo has, I liken it to like skateboarding. Like every time it would come back around, it was bigger than the last time. I remember that when I was a kid in the 90s, skateboarding was big. It was like Tony Hawk and Steve Caballero and Christian Soi and all these amazing skaters.

And then it came back around. It was like Chad Muska and all these, all these skaters. And then it came back around. And so with each time, the skaters have figured something else out and have given less of a fuck in where they take it. There's less rules each time. And now if you think about skating, it's an Olympic sport. Right. There's no rules of where a skater can put his content out or do, like there's, it's just people skate.

It was so kind of boxed in. over the decades. And then it completely kind of came to mass culture in a way that there is no box. They're athletes. And they can do what they want, where they want. They can have brands or they can make music or

skaters can be. It's a different thing today. And I don't want me to ramble, but... No, please. Keep going. I love it. We stand on the shoulders of everyone that came before us in the prospective things we're doing. And as long as we understand that, we'll always appreciate the skateboarders that came before

the rock that came before us. But we're not beholding to the old rules and the old ideas. So I think about that. And then I think about when I started really digging into your music, first of all, I think you're one of the most underrated or undiscovered yet by the mass rock audience singers. I think your voice is one of the strongest voices in rock. Like it's really good. I appreciate it.

Thank you. I'm telling you, like, I'm a. singer, but I'm not a singer singer. I sing as a function of what I had to do in the band because that's when we were putting the band together. They were like, and what are you going to do? And at first I was like, oh, maybe we play bass. And after like a week, I was like, I'm not going to learn bass.

I'll sing. And then I had to learn how to sing. I'm an okay singer. I'm not bad. But there's singer singers. You know, when they think of Adele or I think of singers that I'm like, oh, there's a singer-singer. You know, there's some great, great singers. And when I heard your voice, I was like, oh, this is a singer. This is a real singer. And now, wherever that came from,

however you learned to sing, it's a combination of a lot of things. Like my vocal influences are very, very vast. Like, I'll say in the, in this particular area of things, Johnny Craig is like the biggest vocal influence. Second to that, would probably be Tyler Carter okay and then after that like it just kind of it goes everywhere like I listened to a lot of say ohson yeah yeah there's Cove there's Anthony Green then you get into boys demand then you're all like into the Phil Collins of things you got Michael Jackson then you have Freddie like what does that dude's not Freddie Mercury but Freddie Mercury was a great singer though yeah yeah no he was um

man i could you know it's all over the place you know it's just any jodicy no no no i love jettisey yeah no it's if uh the tevin campbell like tevin campbell's amazing so you know it's just it's all over the place i listen to a lot of fall up boy and i mean patrick is again like i said this when i was talking to pete he came on the show um i think Patrick is one of the great and underrated. Like people give them props, but I got to work with Patrick in the studio and I just heard him working.

And I was like, this guy's a freak. He's just so good. And I think he just does it because he loves it. Like, I think he'd be happy in like a little blues bar singing like jazz and blues and all this other shit. Like I actually don't even know if he was born a rock singer. I think he was, he's just a singer. He's got soul.

He loves the thing he does. And it's cool to experience that when you see someone who's just like a wild animal. Yeah. You know? And that's the thing that I really wanted to be able to do is if I'm put in one genre, be able to excel in that genre, be put in this genre, be able to excel in that genre. So it's really, because at first I thought maybe I wanted to be an R&B singer. And I mean, like I did the R&B thing.

And then I was like, well, Then I did the acoustic And then I was just like I just like rock music's more fun You know Yeah I feel like it's less of a With hip hop

And with all those things like I don't know I feel like it's more judgmental And rap and How you sing Yeah how you sing or like And it's also We were talking earlier

It's just like Whenever you listen to Rock music You can go back And you can listen To the first Lincoln Park album And you'd be like Yo I love

Classic You know love this Or you can go back listen to the first Fallout Boy album. But if you go back and you, if someone catches you, I guess you could say listening to like an old rap song you like, you're immediately made fun of. Like, oh, that's that old stuff.

You know, like this or that. Until you're my age. Then you just get to do it flag really. You know? And then like if you, if once you reach a certain age and you are like a rapper and you're a certain age and they're like, oh, you should, why is he still doing this or that? Right.

So like with rock music, people are more. fun, you know, they're a lot more accepting and a lot more just interesting to be around. Yeah, I never thought about that. You know, it's just a lot more fun. So I have a theory about that. I think that there are elements of that in different facets of rock that I experience. But again, at a different time in the late 90s, the early 2000s, things were still very, very much like genre-fied, classified. If you're this, you can't be that. I do think now all the rules have gone away. And I think there's more freedom across all genres of music.

But it takes an artist to do that. If you second guess yourself when you're stepping over into this lane, everybody's going to eat you up. They're going to eat you alive. They're going to tear you up to pieces. If you don't give a fuck, you're locked in on what you want to do. And you don't care what anyone thinks. You will usually succeed.

Yeah. People can feel like it's an energy thing. They smell weakness. Yeah. And they test our weakness. And that's because we are the human beings but also the animals we are is we're still just smelling who's for real. Mm-hmm.

And who do I want to follow? Right. Because I'm gaining my idea. If I'm listening to your music, digesting your ideas and your thoughts and your mantra and your thing for several hours, I have to believe that you're not lying to me. Right. It doesn't matter what I'm thinking while I'm, if I'm driving, if I'm working out, whatever I'm doing.

I'm receiving your mantras, like what you are projecting into the world. It's going into my brain and into my psyche. And so I'm going to sit and watch as a fan, this is the fan's job. That's why I'm not mad at it. Right. I invite it at this age. Like, yeah, test me. Right.

Because I believe in what I'm saying. I believe in what I'm doing. But that's why also I don't do anything unless I believe it. I just learned that. A young age, I kind of got lost a few times where I was like, but that'll probably be really big. I'll go after it because I thought I needed to achieve the result instead of achieve the work. Right.

You know what I mean? And so the fans are going to pressure test and smell test and authenticate every single artist to make sure that while they're going to pressure test and, you know what I mean? listen they can actually receive the ideas and the messages subconsciously and I think whether they realize they're doing it or not when something smells off and you're like man fuck that guy they're actually just saying I think he's lying to me right and I don't want someone to lie to me or you go from it the approach where you just you just kind of having fun with it they don't really you know that's how it was with with you know and like you're saying you know if if if you're going to go for something you have to be

able to sell it. You have to be able to like embody it, you know? And so even if it's just fun and meaningless. Yeah. Yeah. And so like with- I agree with you with, with, like, with a lot of our music, we're just like, man, we just want to do it because it's fun. Just felt good. It's just, it's fun. You know, so we took like gone or staying. It was just like, someone's like, man, why don't we try some lo-fi stuff? We're like, that sounds fun, like rock music and lo-fi. And then we just leaned into like super R&B and it's alternative R&B with screaming. and everybody's like, this is amazing. I mean, yeah, I mean, like, yeah, we just, it was an idea.

You know, we're sitting here looking at lo-fi thing, the girl writing, sitting on her desk with a pen, we're just like, why don't we do something like that? We're just like, okay, and then we did that. Then there's another song that we have. I called our producer, I was like, dude, I was like, I want to write a song like this. And he was like, I sent it over to him. It's Chris Brown and Drake. No guidance.

No guidance. There it goes. Like, I sent that and that was a song. song that we have written is straight R&B, straight R&B and pop, like, it hasn't been released and I don't know where it's going to, but. One day. Way, hey, maybe. Do you live in Memphis now?

Yeah, well, I live outside of Memphis. Yes. Memphis is cool. It's a crazy city. It's nuts. Every time I'm in Memphis, I'm kind of like, this is a different kind of wild that I'm not familiar with. It's interesting.

To me, it's not dance. Because I know where to and we're not to go. Yeah, it's home. You know, if you're in the hood, you know, you might get robbed, you know. But if you're not in the hood, then you're just in Memphis. Yeah. It's kind of like Baltimore. Yeah, you know, it's just, there's not much to do.

I mean, Memphis has an interesting layout. You know, there's Beal. To me, this is the way Memphis is. There's Beal. There's the Peabody. There's Elvis. Yeah. And there's barbecue.

That's Memphis to me. And there's ducks that go in and out. Peabody. I've never seen the ducks. Great music. Like, you know, great music. Yeah, you know, yeah. I mean, I, you get celebrate the music. I don't, I don't know like I'm not that I'm not that person where I, who came out of BB King? Is that a thing? Yeah. Like, BB King is a Memphis. I'm telling me I'm not. Three six mafia. Yeah, you know, I was at Lafayette's and the guy in, I forgot his name. I'm terrible with this. But he came up. He was like, yeah, I was in three six. I was like, you're in three six. He's like, yeah, I was in three six. I was like,

that's cool. And then I went inside. I'm not, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm, I, I, I'm, I, I, I'm, I, I'm, terrible at this stuff. That's good, though, you know, like, whereas, like, I could meet anybody. And if they're in a, if there's somebody, if there's somebody for, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm from a band awesome. If we strike up a nice conversation, great. It also could be the guy that's working at the coffee shop and we strike up a nice conversation. Yeah.

And I enjoy that just as much. But then I have maybe some moments where I'm like, oh, I'm a fan of that guy. I don't need to meet him though. Yeah. You know, the guy that I met, I just remember, his name was in three sixes, Little White, right? Little White.

I think. Maybe he lied to me. Maybe. No, Lil White's another rapper, though. Maybe he's from their, like, hypnotized minds. Okay, I'm glad that you know that. Okay, but yeah, we took a picture together, like, hand, like, we were shaking hands kneeled, and I don't know who this guy was.

He was like, and we were just, we posted up, and we took a picture. And I was like, this is. I like Dolph. His golf was from Memphis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's Dolph, there's Yogadi. Yeah, Yohadi's from Memphis. I mean, does Drake really count?

I mean. Is he from Memphis? His dad lives in Memphis. His dad is known around Memphis. Oh, he's from Memphis. Yeah, so his dad is from Memphis, and whenever he was younger, he would come to Memphis. He has family in Memphis or whatnot. But I guess what you said is just like, you know, I like this person, but I don't need to meet them.

I've always been a lot of people be like, oh, I have so much respect for so-and-so and so and so much respect for this person. I'm like, for me, I don't really idolize anyone until, and I wouldn't even idolize them until I meet them or when I meet them because at the end of the day people throw respect around too easily. Like, why do I respect this person? Just because they succeeded in Memphis,

I mean, in music, I respect people more at a personal level. Like, you could respect people's, you know, success, sure, but why would I respect this person at an individual? Because if I meet them, they could probably be the complete opposite of who I thought they were.

Yeah, you never know. You never know. So, I mean, like, you know. It's a nice surprise, though, when you meet someone and they strike you. Right. And even if you didn't really know their music or, you know, like I had this, this experience because I live here.

So I'm in, you know, I don't live in Hollywood, but I'm in, I'm in the, I'm in L.A. So like for the broader sense of Hollywood, you're meeting all these different artists and entertainers and of all kinds. And like every now and then you'll meet a guy. They'll be familiar to you. You'll be like, I know this guy from somewhere. but you'll end up having some like really great conversation and then you become a fan of you you start kind of following them in the world pretty cool and that's how you know um for example like

i knew i knew shine down and things that sort just like when we went on tour with them that's when i met them right and i know them now on a personal level and so now i can say that guy's cool yeah like i know this person i have respect for them because it's not just the way they present themselves on whatever like this is who they really are right you see how they operate you know it i it takes a lot more for me to just give my respect right to you know whoever because that's good you know so you strike me like that though then you like i got that impression of you i appreciate that i was like oh this guy didn't really give a fuck yeah i know but in a good in a good way well listen there's there's a way like i'm guilty of it sometimes right

There's a way I could go into a room and I could be a bit more political. And I may have my reasons. It might just be not to rock the boat. It might just be because while I'm here, I might as well be, I might as well present certain way, whatever. But then that feels like work. It's different than going in a room and being yourself and hanging out and or going to a plate, whatever.

Not to say I'm not being genuine. Yeah. I don't know. You molds years around. things. Yeah, adapt to the room and it's a music industry room and I don't really know anyone so I'm gonna be friendly. But I always feel a little awkward. I've always had that problem and I used to have to like drink to be in a room because I was just too nervous. Now as I've gotten older and I've worked on myself, I don't need to do that. But let's say I don't sometimes, but

but there is something about the truth of what you're living it's like a truth i'm gonna be myself yeah and i'm open to i'm a meat bands yeah some of them i'm a vibe with some of them we don't yeah for whatever reason and that's the main thing man it's just like i've always and no matter how i go about doing something and how about i present i'm just always going to be myself, you know, I just, I get that. You know, there's no need to kind of, I feel like too many people try to people please. Too many people try to be someone they're not in certain areas to make sure that, you know, just be yourself and people will ultimately and just like, it's easy to respect someone that's not

trying to, you know, I can sniff it out, man. I can sniff when someone's being unusually. You remind me of Sam from architects. Okay. He's very much like that. the nicest guy, but not going out to meet everybody. But if you meet him, you're going to have that experience. He's a nice guy.

And he's respectful. But if you're not respectful, he's certainly not. I definitely will give back the energy. I'm like, you know, I'm never going to be outwardly rude to anyone. But, you know, it's just like, if someone's being rude to me, I'm like, well, I'm going be rude to you. Yeah, or I'm just going to keep it moving. Right.

Or keep it moving, you know. It's just like, I don't, I don't have any interest in, you know, I don't have any interest in, you know, I don't have any interest in, I don't know how can I say it. I want to make friends, but if nobody wants to be my friend, I'm going, you know, keep it going. Be okay. You know, as I survive. You know, as I told, you know, Steve, our manager and a lot of people before the music,

I was like, dude, before the music, I was like, I worked with kids. I was like, I lived in an apartment. I was broke. I was like. What were you doing? I was after school counselor. Oh, cool. So, like, I was happy.

I was happy with life. You were being of service. And I enjoyed my life. And at the end of the day, like, at the end of the day, I felt like I was, you know, you can't really take anything from someone that already feel like they've succeeded. So I feel like I'm happy in life. So, I mean, like, whenever we started doing the music thing, nothing's going to change, you know. That sounds like good parenting to me.

Oh, man. The Moors, let me tell you, they drilled it into me. They jillian. It seems like they were good parents. Yeah, they were great. They were great. My dad was, he was in the army himself. He retired after 24 years.

He was lieutenant colonel. Wow. And he was, he was on me. And my mama. So he was a little bit of a, let me. You had that army experience from like a. Not from dad. That's the thing that's crazy.

Mama. Mom. Mom. Let me tell you something. She was the drill sergeant. She's a Cajun. Oh, yeah. She's from Baton Rouge.

Oh, wow. play no games. Yeah. And so it was, it was Fort Knox. And mom, I don't play no games. That's good, though,

when you have a mom who's like that sometimes. I'm saying this because she might watch the interview, so she probably will. I'm afraid. Were they religious people? Yeah.

Okay, so there was a value system. Oh, yeah. And still today, you know, we go to church. So it's probably some of the singing probably comes from church, huh?

Mine did. You know, it's just kind of, not that I like singing those songs, but I appreciated the vibe of, A bunch of people seen. Where it come from is grandma. Okay.

And grandma, like, she... Dad's mom or mom from? Dad's mom. Okay. And then... Is she a Joel Sergeant? Oh, no. My grandma, my dad's mom, she sang, which then my dad sings, my uncle sings, my son, my sister sings, my other

uncle sings, and her sister sang. So a lot of people, I think one of my cousins, which is my, she played in one of the, one of the movies. I think it was 12 years of slave. She's actor, singer. Okay. I could figure it out at somehow. My dad, he's super happy about all that stuff.

There's talent, though, in the family. Yeah, so, like, I just woke up into consciousness. And the very first thing I remember, my first memory I can remember is me jumping on the couch with my dad in our family's apartment singing Bobby Brown, my prerogative. Yeah. And I feel like that has been, like, without even realizing it, it came to my realization that that is kind of like, in a way, the way I live my life, it's a core memory, but it's how I kind of based my life, you know, I'll just do what I want when I want, how I just kind of.

And the idea that music is a joyful thing. We do music to feel a certain way. Most of the time, it's an expression of joy, love. Sometimes it's an expression of pain. And it's a great way to mourn someone. It's a great way to deal with pain. But, most of the time we're coming together in a joyful way with music. I think in rock, it's not like something we all talk about. Like, hey, everybody, let's have a joyful experience. But we are doing that. We're coming together to try and escape the pain of life and move forward together, right? I had the same experience. I didn't have a ton of really happy memories with my dad. But I remember one time he came home and he's in a good mood. It was kind of a rare. He always worked like two or three jobs.

He was always just tired, come home late, get up early. And that's what you saw. He got home early and he put on Stevie Wonder, I just called to say, I love you. He put that record on. And he grabbed my mom and they were dancing in the living room. And we all heard it. We like snuck down and like listen to it. And then we all went in and we were all like laughing and like jumping around and whatever.

And it was just like that's what music is supposed to be. Right. a moment for people to come together and forget about everything. Even someone who had otherwise been kind of a bad time most of the time, you got to see that side of them. And you're like, oh, and that was a side of my dad. I saw a few times. And then when I was older, I saw it more because he had lived a life.

And I think he had come to work some things out and realize some things. But it's those moments where you're like, that's the power. And the importance of music is the congregation of people. that are right it's why they sing in church yeah yes it's to praise god but it's also to ease the suffering and the pain of life for a moment together in like this happy moment that's why bands are important yeah you had all these fans that come and they all have everybody listening to this show and people that like your music that are listening to this show would probably agree with me they all have these complicated lives all of us some suffering you know it's um it's interesting that you said your dad

because my grandma every single year on all of our birthdays right when you wake up like you get a call and she i just call yeah every single year and so uh such a good song and so you know it's become a tradition you still do it yeah that's great whoever like if it's the bandmates if it's you know Grandma, she passed away like two years ago. Rest in peace. But, you know, it's just like, even when she was lit, I kept the tradition gone. You know, so I call her and I hit her with it.

And she would take over singing. I'm like, I'm supposed to be calling you. What are you doing? You know, but she would make a song out of anything. Like, she asked you to bring in some milk. She'd make a song. I'm like, Grandma, it's just milk. Like, she starts singing about it.

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business will be a super-exito with Shopify. Empeza to Pereido de preface for a euro a month in Shopify.es bar records. But somewhere in that is you.

Right. Somewhere in that is writing songs. Right. Somewhere in that forms your idea of music is free. Music is

whatever I make it. There's no rules. Which is interesting, right? Like I said, I'm telling you, remember I said this because a few years, from now, you're going to be somewhere, you're going to be further in your career. You're one of the

best singers in rock music. When I hear your music, I think you guys, it's a matter of time. It's a matter of time in songs. I appreciate it. Just keep writing the songs. As long as you keep pushing to write better songs for yourself, beat yourself. Yeah, don't complacency. Just beat yourself every time. Just keep reaching. You're going to continue to create music. You have an opportunity, though, as a singer in a space because it's just different. You can feel that the singing's coming from not a typical place. And I'm not boxing any other bands or grouping them together at all.

I'm just saying what strikes me when I hear your music is I hear a singer. And now it's going to be about continuing the songs. continuing because you guys have some standout songs. I think NUM is a standout song. Obviously, it's done well for you, but it's a standout. There's another song I was listening to today. I'll tell you right now, actually. Gone or staying is badass.

Yeah, that one's gone. It's badass. Numb really stands out for me. I don't know how you feel about that. I hope you love all your songs. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Paper Hearts is a great record. Shout out to Steve.

Yeah. When I hear you talk about your grandma, I think about it really strikes me when I think about my dad. The most joyful times I got to see from him was all about music. He would play U.R. by Lionel Richie. He would play Bill Withers. All Bill Withers. He loved Bill Withers. So he would play all this.

Yeah, yeah. He loved good music. He definitely had good music taste. And we had a record player. So he would play him on vinyl. And those were very formative moments of seeing. someone who was under the extreme pressure of a wife and four kids and job to job to job and figuring it out and how are we going to make the rent and how are we going to do all this

and you know piecing it together and trying to like figure out life also dealing with alcoholism and all this other stuff the moments of joy and relief I saw when the record would come on was probably what predisposed me to wanting to make music which I would also say to you like the joy and the fun you got to have with your dad. He likely lives vicariously through you. Oh, man. Because he dedicated his life to service. And when you do that.

He wanted to be a musician and he pushed, but then my mom pushed me up. And then he was just like, yeah, I'm just going to focus on this. I got to take care of my family. Yeah. And so, man, he's super excited. We played while on Beartooth, we played um first he came to atlanta show okay and then uh he was you know hanging out this and that yeah yeah he called me out a few times he's like hey man you walked me out to the front

and a lot of people saw you walk me out there and he was super happy he's like uh yeah they're asking me to call you to come out and say hey i'm like all right i'll come out and he's super excited that and um we left atlanta then we had to go to um i think we had to go to charlotte and then i was like uh you going home he was like uh oh I mean, I was like, you want to go to? And he's like, yeah, he just wanted to, he saw he went. And then after that, I was like, so what you're about to do? He was like, I might go home.

I was like, you want to go to the next show? He's like, yeah. And then he drove out to Virginia. And he's retired now. So he's just like, man, I got Tom. I just want to, he's just super excited. He's, he's always been the number one supporter. And he's just, yeah, he's super excited about everything.

I think that every single one of us, we are our parents, not only are we standing on their shoulders, right? We would not be here. That's why I have eternal respect for my parents. At an older age, I realized that. I didn't in my, I mean, all the Good Charlotte Records, I was talking about my relationship with my dad because we were estranged through that whole time. It wasn't until I was 30 that we reconnected. At an older age, when I had kids, I realized I'm standing on his shoulders regardless of his. mistakes or anything right um what's the new single called stuck in my head yeah yeah yeah it's a

banger yeah dude i'm i'm super i think this is actually out of all the songs that are going to be on the album even the ones that aren't written well actually i can't say the ones that aren't already written but the ones that are done this will be the one that is like kind of the one that kind of puts us on the map a little bit more i guess you could say like it's cross-genre or Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it is, it is kind of a cross genre. It's still got the heavy parts, but there's good, good melodic, catchy chorus, which I always love. I'm all about a catchy chorus. It feels like it would be like on any format and rock radio. Yeah. Which is cool. Yeah. What I like about it is, so the core building blocks that made me want to start sleep theory was issues. So like the album Beautiful Oblivion was like I was like yo this album is insane It sounds like issues got into a I always said it sounded like they co-wrote with Brunomars on that album

It was just funky but heavy I love Bruno Mars you know and so like it sounded amazing and as we started writing a lot more in sleep theory It kind of got more away from the inspiration of issues into a little bit more of something whatever we are now Your early influence, issues, Seosin, that world. Yeah. So it became less like Beautiful Oblivion if the songs after. But this one, to me it sounds like an issue song. Like if they would have done Beautiful Oblivion and then did another album, I think that this would have been in the area of where they would have landed.

It's like your dream record if they had made it. Yeah. Yeah. So it's pretty cool. It's very fun. So I'm excited for it. And when does it come out? It's coming out tomorrow.

Coming out tomorrow. It's coming out tomorrow. Great. Yeah. Congratulations. Appreciate it. Cool, dude. Thanks for coming.

Yeah, thank you for having. I appreciate you, man. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of artist friendly. If you really liked it, you can follow, like, subscribe to the show, anywhere you listen to podcast, Spotify, Apple, Amazon. We appreciate your support. And we'll see you next time. Bad times I don't