Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - Rory Rodriguez of Dayseeker

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

On this week's episode of Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is joined by Rory Rodriguez of Dayseeker. The Orange County post-hardcore unit are spending the rest of the year on the road, having just completed a short run overseas. In the fall, they’ll pick back up with their world tour, launching Sept. 27 in Dallas. The band also revealed that they’ve been in the studio working on new music, which will follow up their swirling, profoundly vulnerable 2022 LP, Dark Sun, and recent single “Medicate Me” featuring Rain City Drive. Grab tickets to their upcoming run here. ------- 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 everybody? I'm Joel Madden, and this is artist-friendly. On this episode, I'm talking to founder, singer-songwriter, and lead vocalist of the rock band Day Seeker, Roy Rodriguez. Let's go. That's my kind. I don't want to bed times. I don't want to have bad. Obviously, a busy guy. You have a couple kids, right? Two kids. Teenagers. I can't believe that. It's just crazy. I think people like you and anybody, I remember just from, like, being a teenager, you just expect these people to stay, like, Yeah, in their 20s forever. Yeah, so when like it's Yeah, we were talking earlier And they told me you had kids who were teenagers And I'm just like, that's why I'm late today

It's crazy, dude My wife went out of town and I knew it was going to be a hard day Because my kids do not listen to me She runs the shop So when she leaves, it's like Fucking cats are You know, what does it say when the cats away The mice will play?

The mice fucking play. I'm like, time to get up, guys. I'm trying to be like mornings were always kind of weirdly traumatic for me as a kid. I don't know why. My mom and my dad when he was around, they were really like stressed and was harsh and it was like really terrible. So I never want a morning to feel like terrible. So I refuse to like care that much about leaving on time in the mornings. Yeah, yeah. Of course. And my wife's the opposite. She's like, we got to go. They got, they have to be at school. Do you realize like it's like the law? And I was like, I don't think it's the law,

but I get it. So she's the one who cracks the whip. And I'm like, okay, guys, time to get up. And I like, like, get told in their room. And I'm like, they look so comfortable sleeping. And it's a really emotionally hard thing for me to, like, wake them from their, like, dreams. Oh, totally. I have a three-year-old, so it's not the same.

But it's the same. I suppose so, yeah. It kills me. Not very often. She's usually up, like, 20 minutes before I am. but every once in a while she'll just be out and I have to like shake her and wake her up. And I'm just like, I just feel so horrible. Because I'll bet you, from what I understand, you had a very complicated relationship with your mom.

Yeah. And so that complicates everything as a kid. Yeah. So as a parent, the last thing you want to do is complicate your relationship with your kid in any way. you just don't want to cause any pain. Yeah, yeah. I had a very clear understanding kind of for my upbringing with my mom that I needed to do everything that I could to not be that kind of parent for my kid.

And so I feel like I relate in that sense for sure. Like I want to make sure it's my weird paranoia about when she gets older. I'm just like I'm trying to, I feel like I'm going to do everything I can to maintain like the best healthy relationship with her. And I still feel like it's going to. you're still paranoid. Yeah. Or I'm just worried that there's still going to be a strain.

It just feels like there's this weird. I forgot. I feel like my uncle told me he's like, you're hitting this golden era of like four to 12. They think you're like a superhero and they just love you. And then when they become teenagers, you're like not that cool anymore because you're like, you're their dad.

Let me tell you something. As a guy who had complicated relationships with his parents. Yeah. When they turn into teenagers, it's really painful. Really? Absolutely. Thank God for therapy.

because I had to be parented through that. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like I had to have someone go, no, no, like, this is actually like what is supposed to happen. They're like breaking away from you a little bit and becoming their own person. And the little kid is gone. And they'll come back every now and then and like show you they love you. But like that's what they need to do.

They need to be, they need to go into their own space and become their own person. And like, it's like 13 it starts really like. But I have the same paranoia about you, about when they got older, would we still be close? Yeah. And that's just from not having deeply connected relationships with my parents. Yeah. That's just the way it is. My dad left when I was young.

My mom struggled to with all kinds of stuff. You know, like she was a single mom and she was dealing with like her mental health and her health. and there was a real fracture in the family, and I don't even blame them. Now as a parent, I totally understand like they're all doing it. Actually talk to The Rock about this. We had a good conversation about this. They're doing it to their capacity. Like, even with their afflictions, right? My dad was an alcoholic. And so I got to a space where I could accept them as an adult, but they still left me with the, I have no model for what happens at, like what, what, what happens when they get older?

Do they still love me? Are we still close? And the truth is is that they do. And I'm learning that as they continue to get older. And I work on it because I go dedicated therapy on. And this is like one of the things I work on all the time is like my own insecurity about. Am I a good dad? Yeah.

It's fucked up because I started therapy. I tried a few years ago and just didn't feel like it was the best fit with the person I was seeing. And then I started again about. six or seven weeks ago. And it really is a trip realizing I went in for like one thing and then it kind of unraveled into where I was like, I think I'm pretty like mentally healthy and I'm doing okay. And then all this stuff started coming up. And then I'm like, oh, I'm kind of broken in more ways than I realized.

But it was interesting realizing that it did feel like you're as people, you're just the byproducts of your parents and how they. And it's just pointing out the parallels of like how I, was with my with how my mom was like had an addiction to methamphetamine. It kind of like melted her brain in a way where even after she stopped doing it, she was still like the government's like out to get us. And I kind of grew up thinking that was like a normal mom experience. And then I went into high school and started sleeping over at my buddy's houses. And so all these really like super sweet nurturing moms going like, you guys need anything? And I'm like, what the fuck? Like that's,

Wow. That's the parenting experience that you guys get, but it was, it's a trip because you, she started pointing out my parallels and relationships with women that like I get like attracted to women who seem like they're unavailable or they're like hard. Like, I don't know if they actually really like me and it's like. Yeah, that's your experience. Yeah. And she's like, that's how it was with your mom. That's how you were loved. Yeah. Like chaotic, unstable, like vying for this woman's affection. She's not really giving it to you. So you're, it's like it ends up just translating into like. like how you are like romantically. And so it's,

it's, it's, it's tripped me out realizing, I didn't used to think those two were that closely related. And I started going and I was like, holy shit, this is like, it's pretty dead on.

It's crazy that for some reason we think that we're not the way our parents loved us. Right. Because in, but I really believe this. Like, in all their failures, they still loved us. There are sometimes where I think like,

I wouldn't let, I wouldn't let my kids. stay at that house overnight, right? Sure. Like my own house growing up. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like there were too many problems.

I live there. And then I think about with my own kids, I'm like, I wouldn't let my fucking kid go back there and spend the night. Yeah. Because I'm too protective of them. Right. And it doesn't mean that they didn't love us. It certainly doesn't mean that they didn't love other things more than us, whether they

chose it or not. Yeah. Right. But when you go to therapy. and you actually accept that like, look, I don't know what I need to work on, but I need to work on something because I don't feel happy. Yeah. There's a, yeah, my therapist described it in a really good way that she says most people

who come to her are fragmented and her whole concept is that she just wants to make sure they do enough therapy to where they, they leave feeling whole and more complete. And I don't know. Yeah, interesting stuff. She's kind of into this thing called EMDR therapy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's somewhere in like the hypnosis area, right?

Yeah, it's kind of a, she has this long kind of tube light that she puts in front of me and your eyes basically follow it back and forth and there's something. I mean, you have like a, you have like a safe space that you go to for me. I don't know why, but I picked a chain reaction in Anaheim as my, as my safe space. It was my first. Safe unless there's a hardcore show there. Yeah, yeah. It was my first show I went to and I was like 15 and it was this,

super shot local show like yeah a bunch of good memory yeah a bunch of pop punk bands and there was including me and my buddy probably like 15 people there and I still we hung out like after the show and talked to all the bands was like oh my god you're so cool man I feel like that was the first time I sort of fell in love with like live music so and I have a lot of good memories we we rehearsed there a lot of times now before we go out on tour and my daughter has like come to hang out and so there's like I just have nice little pocket memories so like if I so yeah it's interesting she'll there's something about your your eyes following this light that's meant to connect the left and right side of your brain together and then she'll basically have you think about something

that's like really distressing and then at some point she'll tell you to switch over and then I say chain reaction out loud and then I mentally while I'm following the light try and lock into like like I'm in my happy place. I'm rehearsing or my daughter's there and we're hanging out. And then it's meant to be kind of a tool of like if you find yourself in real life in situations where you're like, shit, this is like really stressing me out or I don't like this. You can kind of be like, oh, like chain reaction and like lock into this spot.

But it's still super early, but it's going really well. I feel like I should have started going a long time ago. But it is. So do I. It's a, it's just a trip realizing. Like I used to think I handled things well in difficult situations. And I think she's pointing out that at a young age, I learned a tool of resilience to compartmentalize.

And I would get hit with a really difficult thing. And I would just do a shitty duct tape job and then kind of push it off. And then I think I've just been doing that as I've gotten older. And then she's kind of now, I think that's what she wants to do with this EMDR thing is like, transfer it to times. back when I was younger, my mom was doing drugs. And like, maybe as a kid, I like just pushed it out really quick. And she's like, I want to offer support to like your younger self, maybe like when he needed it.

And it'll maybe help you feel better as like an adult instead of trying to like push difficult things away as they come at you. But it's, it's hard being in your 30s and trying to like unlearn just how you've been for your whole life, basically. How old are you? 34. Oh, okay. So you're young. I started around the same time. Really?

Yeah, that's when I really started therapy. My wife was like, I think you should maybe, she'd been going to therapy your whole life. And I never really did through my 20s and through all my experiences. I think music was my therapy. Oh, same. Yeah. It's what made me feel better. It's where I realized things.

It's where I, at a very slow pace, unpacked things. and in my own way made peace with some things and felt better about things. At the same time, it wasn't always the healthiest environment. It wasn't always the healthiest people around. And I didn't really know how to discern all that stuff. And when I met her, we got serious and we started a family. She was like, I think you should go to therapy. I think you have like some stuff to work out.

And I was like, you need to go to therapy. She goes, she was like, she was like, I go to therapy, you know? So then I started down that road trying to find someone and I would go for a month and then I'd stop or two months and I'd stop trying different people. And then I met a guy, an amazing guy through a friend who knew I was seeking out those kinds of things. Yeah.

And in L.A., it's like a fucking playground with gurus and therapists. Yeah, yeah. God bless them all. Like, they really do help people. But I'm not really a guru guy. I can't have someone where I feel like I have to follow. them and I need to check in with them on everything. I need like another person who I respect. So it's, which is hard to find like someone that I look up to because I've always been a little bit

of like I'll show you. I'm gonna, you know, I always had the chip on my shoulder. So I met this guy through a friend of mine who I respected. He's a very successful guy really has a shit together, married, great dad. Now I was always asking like, man, how do you do it? You're so. such a fucking good, you're good at everything you do. Yeah. He was just, he's just one of those guys. He just gets after it and he's like, the marriage, the kids, the business, working out, all the things that I didn't have in my, my head wrapped around. And he was like, to be honest with you, I work really hard at it. And I have a really great therapist. And then he introduced me to him. And I've been with him for 12 years, like life changer, game changer. Amazing. Yeah.

Congratulations. Thank you. That's, uh, I feel like it's, uh, it's, uh, it's important. It's I think especially as, I don't know, I feel like as men sometimes were, we're convinced that, I don't know, I feel like I'm, even I think before I went to therapy, I think music has allowed me to be very emotionally expressive and conversation. And I'm always down to kind of talk about trauma or just getting like the nitty gritty. I don't want to talk about the weather with people. And I feel like airing out your life and your songs, you kind of just find a natural comfort in that. your day to day life, but it's funny that even like guys in my band are close friends. It's just, I'll see them go through really challenging things.

I'm like, do you want to like talk about that? And they're going to like, I don't know, like, it's just, I'm a big advocate for, I mean, mental health for everybody. It's not exclusive to men. It's any, any gender I've met people where I, it's like I'm trying to like help rip it out of them because I can tell they're like, they're about to burst because they're just keeping all these things inside them. I'm always like, if you're comfortable to talk about it, that's great.

but I think it would do you a lot of good to just, I always feel better as soon as I vent anything out than I'm going through. And I feel like there's a lot of this, just suck it up and deal with your feelings with men. So it's, you're a good role model for that then because 12 years is a, is a long time. I mean, I needed it.

I don't think I would, I don't think I would have anything in my life, the way I have it, right? You can have stuff. Yeah. But do you have it if you don't know you have it? Do you have it if you can't see it? Do you have it if you can't feel it?

You know what I mean? So to actually have a life, you have to live in it. And what happens with trauma is we just want to get out of our body. And we don't want to deal with life at all. And then somewhere down the road as we grow up, especially the young emotional trauma and all the different kinds of things you can experience as a kid in a rough situation, so we get out of that and we think we fixed it because we're out of it. Right.

We didn't really fix it. We just got down the road here where life. is dramatically better. Yeah. But we're still actually kind of back there because we didn't heal anything. Yeah. And then are we really living in our real life if we're not really here most of the time? Yeah.

I mean, I'm super new into it, but I'm very optimistic about, I don't know, a lot of different things. You seem supertherapies, though. Yeah. You're very calm. I think it's just trauma, you know, from, you know, being a kid. And like, I mean, it's just, it's how we talked. It's like you're, uh, it's, I don't know if it was different for your, your experience and like good Charlie, but it feels like our content is just so heavy sometimes. And I, um, I think I started recognizing that that hooks people in by just being super transparent. And when we play live, I'll talk a lot about like what, uh, the song's meant to me or what I was going through. And it is, it is interesting. Yeah, being that open about it. But then, um, yeah, I was talking to my therapist about it and shoot, go. was like what's left for you at the end of a day, like emotionally. And it's truthfully not a lot.

I feel like most of my life is pretty open and on display. But I mean, you get a lot of people who reach out though and say like this really, really help me through a challenging time. And I think that's what I looked for in music, at least when I was in high school, when I was like in the thick of really, really shitty times with my mom and just feeling like life was this constant uphill battle. And it just never really got easier. and I put on like Lincoln Park or something

and there was all this angst and emotion and I was like I think that guy kind of knows what I'm going through and it made me feel really good when I would listen to it because it felt like I was getting out how I was feeling through their music and it's definitely one of my favorite parts in being a musician recently

is just feeling like it came like full circle and now we get to do the same thing for people who listen to our music. I feel that. I think you do. That's what I get from your music. Chester is a great example of, I think he did know. I think he went through horrible things. And then you start to realize, I think that's the power of music is like,

you start to realize that you're, you feel alone when you're going through that stuff, that horrible stuff, but, because you are alone in it. But there are definitely people out there that have gone through it. Whether they've conquered it, they made it out of it, and they turned their life into something positive. You're a great example. Like, I think I'm an example of that too. You could argue that the statistics of us growing up in all these categories, right?

Parent with an addiction, a single parent home, XYZ, right? The statistics say we're likely addicts. We're like high likelihood of all this stuff. Yeah. Every time I come across one of those statistics that I could relate to. and I go, oh, I beat another one. I beat another statistic, another odd. It's not so much about, it is about me feeling good about myself and my siblings because

we did it together. But also like the people that are out there that are actively going through that horrible time, people that are listening to your music are listening to it. Not only because it's good, but it immediately strikes me when I listen to your music, oh, they went, this guy's gone through something. You know what I mean? It makes you feel connected to the person's, singing and it makes you feel less alone. And for someone that's actively going through that horrible

time, it gives them the hope and the example in the model that they need because when you're going through it, you don't have a lot of hope and a lot of models around you. They're saying, hey, you know, things are going to be great for you. Yeah. The odds are great for you. No, it's something you definitely have to dig yourself out of, so to speak. And I thank God every day that I like found music and that I don't know. I really don't know where my life would be if I didn't just stumble onto a guitar when I was 15. I was like, I think I'm just going to give us a go and see how it goes. Really?

Yeah. Yeah. It's just weird. It's not like we're, we're not like the biggest band in the world, but I still, if our band ended tomorrow, I'd be like so grateful for just everything I've gotten to experience as a, as a result of it. And, you know, grinding out. There were a lot of years, you know, where you go on tour and I would, I'd go out for, like, a month and come home with 200 bucks in my pocket. And it was pretty brutal, you know, for a life. For a while, and then you start making a little bit more and you're like, oh, cool, maybe

there's a possibility I can. I'll be okay. Yeah, yeah. Thankfully, it finally got to that point a few years ago where I'm more comfortable, you know, than I've ever been in my life because of music. And it's, by me, it took so, so long to get there. So I always encourage bands that I like because now I spend a majority of my life and time working with artists and helping them try to develop and do exactly what everyone's trying to do, right? Is make great music and I want as many people as possible to hear the music. And then that's how you build a career, right? The function of the amount of people that either know about your band or hear your band

doesn't actually have anything to do with the quality of the music. it's just a function of distribution marketing and time so in a world where things can blow up on tic-tok and things like that which is great great possibility and certainly artists should try and find their version of working that algorithm and doing whatever because that's a marketing function it's not going to work for everyone but if you do it your own way you could benefit from it so i always kind of go like tic-tok and instagram and social media weird for artists because we're not necessarily like interested in marketing. Just want to make records and we want to put them out.

Some people, some people are like, some people are good at it. Some people post TikToks every two days. I'm like, I don't, I'm not that smart. I can't come up with that at like every. It's natural, right? I'm not, I'm the same way. This show's been amazing because it gives me a reason to be on social media. I just promote the show.

Yeah. Like, and I finally feel like I found my place. Yeah. Because I struggled for so long. Like, like, how do I even say? and I felt like I had to because everyone's like, you got to promote something. And so this is really nice.

But I always encourage artists to like trust the music. You guys make great music. Thanks, man. It's growing, but it's like a tree. It grows slow sometimes. So you don't know what kind of tree it is. But like if you water it,

you just keep doing what you're doing. It's working. Yeah. It's not going down. Yeah. It's all going up. Yeah. And then there's these inflection points.

And you don't know where they are, but you can predict they're somewhere between here and there, there's some inflection point where a song maybe connects because it's good. And I really believe in the music and the art. Like, if you make the record you love, everyone else will come to discover it on their own. And sometimes it'll be, maybe it is a TikTok, I don't know, but it'll be something that you tried, that you did. You put the record out, you went on tour, and then you have that moment where you're like, holy shit, man, like, look what we've done. It's just happens slow sometimes and then it happens fast. Yeah, it's been a, I think it's something I've tried

to remind myself of just the longer we've been a band because our, we put out a record a few years ago called Sleep Talk and it felt like it was our first big rise commercially where it just like, oh shit, there's like so many people singing the words and it was so well received online. Like, and then it was hard though, because you could tell that there's some people I think still with record they hold that as like our golden child so then we put out an album called dark sun after that and uh it's funny that that album came out it was our it was the first day of a tour we were starting bad omens and uh i love bad omens yeah uh yeah awesome band uh good scarily humble and nice for real humble unreal nice yeah insane to watch them them in these last two years the success they've had

I don't know if they know if they even really know it. Oh, I feel like they have. Other than like they get stressed out because the fan aspect of it is not what they've necessarily chased after. It is like. It's like obsessive kind of like and it's. I think it's just because Noah kind of became like somewhat of an icon. Yeah. But it felt like it was just overnight.

And I think it's super deserved. But along with that comes certain things in your fan base. And I actually think. I think artists that care deeply about the art, when anything else becomes the focus, I think it's hard for them to accept when the focus feels like it's shifted on something and it's not the art when that's what they actually care about. And I think that lots of bands struggle with that, but they handle it really well. Yeah, they were great, great guys to tour with.

Yeah, we were on their tour and we had an album come out that day that the tour started. And you know what like metalcore Reddit is? Yeah. Yeah. It's just they were like our, it just felt like there was a pocket of these people on this forum that loved us. I mean, that album came out and for us. And it was the first time I had seen like most of them were kind of like shitting on the

album. And I was just, it's funny. You see like a thousand good comments about how great the record is. And there's like five people going like, kind of sucks. It's not as good as sleep talk. And then you just really start. It's just you started getting really into your head because you're like, oh man, did I like, did we make a bad record?

Like, did it happen? And I just, I was too close to it to even see that it was a thing. And then, and then like a few days in, I was just kind of like, I'm on this tour with my band in Bad Omen's and it's sold out every night. The merch numbers are crazy. Our streaming's, it was just kind of like, and since that records come out, it's only gone so much better for us. And it's, it's, that was a record I really wanted to make just because of like what I was

going through at the time. And it's interesting because I wrote half. of it about my experience with my dad passing away from cancer. And it was just sort of like, when did that happen? July of 2021. Yeah. Sorry, man. Yeah, it's, it happens. You know, he was, he was sick for a really long time. But I think in the middle of it, you're always kind of like, there's, it was like every time we hit a hiccup in his health or like a new thing would pop up in his body, doctors would be like, we're going to do this surgery. And there's just like radiation we can do. There's all these like really interesting things we can do to help him.

And then it hit this weird point where I didn't even know this until it happened to my dad. But I guess when your cancer metastasizes where it spreads to other parts of your body, there's no, it's just a, it's like a death sentence essentially. And so there's not, it's just more of a matter of time. So initially started in like his thyroid glands here and then spread to like his lungs and his brain, his spinal cord. And then eventually they, yeah, it was kind of weird. we hit a point. It was like a month after my daughter was born and they were like,

we can do like a surgery on his spine maybe, but it might paralyze him if we do it. And it would really only buy him a couple more months. So they were like, he probably has like three to six months to live. So I think they were like, we think he should just make himself comfortable. And that was hard to hear, but the naive part of my brain is kind of like, oh, it's so rough. He's going to be around for a few more years. Like I'm not that worried about it. And it was pretty much dead on six months from that quote. He ended up passing away. I don't know if you, if you've experienced like a loss like that, but it definitely felt like it didn't get super real until like maybe like a month or a month and a half before he died because he stopped eating

and he started losing a lot of weight super rapidly. And then I would, I was living in LA at the time and he was in Orange County. And so I would try and take my daughter to see him like every week just so they could hang out and I'd bring him food and then definitely when he stopped eating food I was like oh shit like there was just like hospice packet they sent us home with it said like your body like stops burning as much energy when it's preparing to shut down so your appetite like greatly diminishes and it's just every week I would see him he'd look so much worse and then it just hit this point where I was we had kind of uh we had like a chat before he passed because I could tell it was coming and thankfully I got to say pretty much everything I wanted to say to him and just like

we lived together for a long time and I felt like I was I don't know if impatience the right word I was there was just there was just times where you just you get annoyed of each other because you're around each other too much yeah I feel like he'd he'd ask me for something and I just be like like fine you know and I just I like apologize him before he passed I was like I'm sorry I feel like I could have been more patient when you were going through what you were going through and he's like you don't have to apologize. And we had a nice, healthy talk. And I'm, I'm, like, really thankful for that.

But it is, it's a trip that it's just like, man, this stuff doesn't really feel real until it's, like, right there in front of you, kind of, you know? Yeah, I can't. Can't feel real until it's there. I don't mean to pry or anything. Or both of your parents, like, alive and well? So it's, it's, so I have never talked about it until I sat down with the rock.

I didn't even know I needed to talk about it. Yeah. I've never talked about my dad really at length other than that we had a complicated relationship and he left when I was young. Right, right. But we reconnected once I had kids. I was probably 30, 29. Did you initiate that or did you?

I did, but he was very happy. So I knew he was like waiting. He was waiting and he was a very humble guy. You know, when I was young, he had a lot of problems. And I understand that now. as he got older i think he he he still had the problem with alcohol and and to be honest he he you know two pack a day marble red smoker and heavy drinker uh worked his ass off his whole life a kind of old school you know like really tough would it get into the occasional like bar fight or this is so but like

so lovable and i saw so much of myself in him we became friends so i reached back out when you reconnected. When I had my first kid, it was 29. Did you do that kind of for the sake of your kids having a relationship with your dad? I don't know, man. I had always wanted to because I think you always want to have a relationship with your dad. I had done all the venting I needed to do on all the good Charlotte records. I was like one of our things.

Like, I hate my dad too. That's what everyone would say. My dad left me too. I hate my dad too. The story I never got to tell and I, and I do feel like at some point maybe I will in my music is like there is also something about reconciling if you can totally right and repairing what you can yeah it turns out he appreciated it but at the beginning when i had my kid it was a it was a lingering thing that i had always had and i didn't want to carry that with me i didn't want to carry any kind of

bad or toxic or unhealthy energy with me because that's where i was kind of like at in my life I was trying to like go into a positive. And it was my wife, it was my kids. I was like, oh, I think I need to try and actively be in positive and healthy and like good. Yeah. Instead of living in bad, right? Because we can hang around in like bad shit. Yeah.

And not really know it because it's all we've kind of known or expected for ourselves. So I reached back out. I reached out to him, me and my brother, and it was really nice. We had a really nice friendship for the 10 years that we got. And then he died suddenly. And, um, sorry to hear that. Oh, that's okay. You know, I mean, it was really sad.

I didn't even know if I'd be sad, you know. We were friends, but like, I think when we lose a parent, especially one that we have a complicated or conflicted relationship with, part of the sadness is we do love them and we have to come to terms with it. We still love them. We don't want to love him because it hurts to love someone who doesn't maybe love you back the way you want to be loved. Or you look over at your friend and he's all close with his dad

and he's asking him about, hey, should I do this or should I do that? And he's getting advice and he's, and you get a little jealous of these relationships. Yeah, totally. But you have to come to terms with what your reality was. Yeah. And the reality is, yes, it was complicated. Yes, there was a lot I didn't get.

But then there was still stuff I did get. The years I remember my dad when he was around from my young, my formative years before I was like 13, I didn't get a lot of memories with him, but because all he did was work. And he was just old school. He was like, I got to put a roof over your head and put food on the table. Yeah. I think, I think I relate to that definitely in ways where my, my dad wasn't, uh, definitely I think a better parent than my mom was, but still not in like, yeah, very stern, closed off emotionally. Not as emotionally in touch. Like, hey, how do you feel?

How do you feel about that? What are you going through? Yeah. I guess the point I was getting at is I feel like there were at times when I was younger that I'd get upset with my dad without telling him because I felt like I was going through things. And I just wanted him to ask how I was doing. And he didn't really do that.

And I think truthfully, I never really like full on hated him. I was just kind of like, damn, it'd be nice if you checked in, you know. and it's, I think to your point, I became a father. And then I think in just the experience of what it was like and taking care of my daughter, even in just the first few months of her life, I was like, this is wild. This is a big responsibility. It's, it's, you're constantly taking care of this little thing that depends on you. And I think doing that in and of itself is like, it's maybe not fair to, like, crucify your parents because they didn't go the extra mile to do this other thing that you wanted. And I think I said that in my dad's eulogy, after becoming a father myself, that I chose to love my dad for the person he was and not who he wasn't. Yeah, you were financially supportive and you stuck around through a really horrible time in my life. But you didn't ask how I was doing. So I don't like you. It's just sort of a...

I'm gonna. And like my music, my hair changed with me and has to be able to continue my rhythm. For so, potion 9 of Sebastian Professional has everything my new thing my hair needs Nutrition Profunda Protection Contraised 99%

less of rotura and Puntas Abirtas Bajo Control New Potion 9 of Sebastian professional The Secreto Professional of who not are not

the people who are people who are Convients your passion in a business with Shopify and batte records of the

money with the form of the market with the world Has heard well, the best conversion of the world.

The incredible system of pay for your site on your website, in the website, in the website, and in

whatever that's music for your ears. No, you'll be more your

business. Your new thing is your period of a month for a year at

a month in Shopify. at and you realize he didn't even know how to ask how

you were doing. Yeah, like, probably. They didn't have the awareness.

Yeah. They weren't even asking themselves how they were doing. That is true. You know what I mean? Like my dad wasn't going like, how do I feel about this? He's just going to work, coming home, dealing with all the struggle with my mom and dealing with his relationship with alcohol, dealing with the trauma of his childhood. I'm not excusing my experience, but we have to separate.

I've learned I've got to separate them. Yeah. And I've got to, it's not that I'm blaming myself. We can hold them accountable for the sake. of understanding the truth of our life and not telling ourselves a fairy tale so we can live with it. Totally. What I did was create a story that I could live with for a long time. And it was easier for me to go, my dad didn't love me.

He left and he left me on my own. He did leave, but it doesn't mean he didn't love me. Yeah. Doesn't mean I have to accept that he left. But I can try and understand the complication of all that and make people. and make peace with it. Yeah. So that I can move on and grow and be a better dad myself without holding this like heavy,

angry, hurt part, right? I was talking about this with my therapist, actually. We either repeat what our parents did or we heal what they did. And usually going into parent, coming from a broken, fragmented kind of family situation, we go into parenting and our usual strategy is just do the opposite. That's a great strategy, by the way. Like, most of us that come from complicated, broken homes, are like, I want to do the opposite. We don't even get into the details of opposite.

We just know what feels opposite. And we try to do opposite. Yeah. Just be the air and, you know, just show up. Yeah. It's pretty, it's an easy thing to do. But once you get opposite down, you can start digging in on, like, details. Yeah.

You can start deciding, like, philosophies. and you can start trying to like be even more thoughtful about how you do opposite. Your own version of a parent instead of just like, I'm not, I'm not that. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, I mean, I think for your sake, I'm truthfully just happy that you, that you made amends before anything happened to your father. Because I think if, God forbid, if you would have been the type of person to be like,

no, like, I'm holding on to it and like, fuck that guy. and then something happens. I think you would have a really hard time, I think in your life accepting that. So I'm happy that you, I think, I think in the same way with my mom, it's like, we're not super close, but I still see her every once in a while.

And at some point, I had a period right and talked to her for like five or six years. And then that's probably healthy. The space was nice, but I think, I think you hit this point of just understanding like I can only,

I can only change what I can change. So I, like, she made her bed. And then I'm going to deal with it the best way that I know how, but I don't think, like, resenting her is serving her or me in a good way. And I'm, it's good to hear, man. I feel like I have friends who are in similar situations to yours and they're just like, no, fuck my. And I'm just like, if they can pass away and then you still are content with your feelings,

that's fine, I guess. But if that's not the case, then you need to, like, fix that immediately. You don't want to carry that bag the rest of your life. No, no. It's, man, it's horrible. It's just, yeah, it bums me out because I feel like I have a lot of friends in my life were good people and they're just trying to do their best. But I can also see that they hang on to stuff that they shouldn't be, you know.

But I think at the core of that is someone who wants to be loved. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, I have a buddy who went through something very, very similar to what you went through. And he's still very like, fuck my dad for not being there. And he has two kids too. And I'm just kind of like, I don't know, man. Maybe just see, just reach out.

But also, like, when I reconnected with him, him. He was super proud of me, but he was never a materialistic guy. Oh, what a trip, because you must have, like, when did, like, good Charlotte kind of hit its early 20s? So he wasn't really like, he wasn't around. He wasn't so wild. So he's super proud of me. Yeah. And he followed all of it, but he wasn't, that wasn't the focus. Yeah. And he never cared about it. He just thought it was cool. He was like, you guys did well for yourselves. He was really proud of it. But he, he, that was not the focus of our relationship. And that was really nice. Like, if you think, like after 21, and, Everyone who I ever met, Good Charlotte, was like the main theme of how we knew each other.

And that's cool. I always appreciated that that success. But like for a long time, I held that success as the most important thing about me. I met my wife and I would say two key people. So I give my dad a lot of credit. But two really big keys of like getting back to like, no, what if that's not the most important thing about me? Like what if that's not what's special about me? Like, what if I didn't ever make it?

Would I still be valuable? Would I still be, like, important to someone? Yeah. And I think that's where we all have to get. It's like that self-love, that self-esteem of, like, yeah, the music is great. I'm going to keep trying to do great things and try my best. But, like, what if that is not what the measure of me is? What if it's, like, our friendship?

Yeah. And that's one thing when I met my wife. She was not that interested in that. In the music thing? Yeah, she thought it was cool. Yeah. She didn't care. That's great.

And then when I reconnected with my dad, it was the same thing. He loved it, but he didn't care. Yeah. I'd tell him about some work thing or this, and he'd be like, oh, that's cool. It sounds good. But you can feel when someone's hyper-focused on that, or they're just, they just want to know you. Yeah.

I think that's been a tough thing to kind of get used to with, like, popularity that's coming. Yeah. music is just, it just. What's it mean? Yeah, I don't know. It's just more so like, I want to call people climbers. It's just, I can just tell when people want to be close to me for the wrong reasons. God bless them.

Yeah. In their mind, they're getting closer to something that they want. Yeah. So I don't even hold it against them. Yeah. But you feel a difference, right? It just feels, I just, I think back on like girls I dated in, in my like early 20s and mid-20s when like music was not like, my family would like, still doing that little music thing,

Yeah, yeah. And I was still working my like job. And I mean, I was still proud of the music, but I just, I dated a few girls so I could tell just they were with me because they liked my personality or just the type of person I was. And it's just been weird to navigate the last couple of years, feeling like I just some people come out of the woodworks where I just feel like they're, they're trying to get close to me because they have an idea of who I am before they even meet me. And it's, it's hard sometimes to differentiate, like, who I trust or, you know, but I, truthfully, though, I feel like my life is so wrapped up in the music and just being a father that I don't even really entertain it a lot of a time, you know.

Fatherhood is a good thing for that. Yeah, absolutely. Remind you that nothing else really matters. Yeah, 100%. And, you know, I think with every stage of your life, right, with every success or failure, you get a better understanding of what that actually means, like how to measure it. even. What I learned in my 30s was what's my idea of success versus like everyone else. Yeah. And then not, I'm not mad at there. I'm not mad at anyone when I meet him and they're like,

oh, the guy from Good Charlotte. Of course I. Yeah, of course I am. Right. Like you're going to be that. So I'm going to say, hey, I love Dayseeker. You're like, thank you. And that's like the first layer. And if we get past that layer and you get to know me, you might like me more than you like my music. Yeah. Because that's also the thing is like. Someone meets you, maybe they like your music. Maybe they don't fucking care about your music. They just know your band. And in the moment they say they like your music, who even knows, right?

We don't know. But it's the surface of who we are. It's the cover of the book, right? But given the opportunity to get to know me, you might find out the value of me is not actually anything to do with music. Yeah. Might be that I am a good friend or, you know, whatever. But I got to find that in me too.

And for a long time, I walked around and I really. did only value myself at the size of my band or whatever song was doing good or whatever. And so I was constantly chasing what I thought was success was like this thing. And that is just a function of self-esteem, period. Like my self-esteem was not high enough to think I had more value than this music. And this music being successful was somehow a magic trick that the universe, the stars lined up. And suddenly the music got big. How did that happen?

And well, it happened because we worked really hard and we made some records and we toured and we did all the things and the music grew and we got some opportunities and we took advantage of them and blah, blah, blah. You're going to do that too. Every band's going to do that. What happens in the music world is with bands, you know, we're all, sometimes we can be shy, sometimes we can be made to feel like we're competing with one another and we're not. I like to try and create an environment where we can have this conversation because we all

have likely had like a similar experience. Yeah. We're coming from the same place. Similar lives for sure. Yeah. Took the road less traveled. I don't know from a lot of people we went to high school with. Yeah. Chows a weird job. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I wouldn't trade it for anything. Yeah, you guys are having a good, a good run. Are you from Orange County? Yeah. Yeah, born in Anaheim, kind of grew up around there and like Fullerton. And yeah, it's kind of bounced around Orange County in L.A. the last couple years, but this is definitely my home. Yeah. I've been here 20 years. Yeah, you're from Maryland, right? I think, yeah, yeah. Maryland. My tour manager, and she does our front of house too, is like a giant good Charlotte fan.

Oh, that's cool. What's her name? Sarah. Sarah. Sarah. Yeah, she's... My sister's name. Yeah, she's the best, but she, yeah, I was telling them that, like, word spread around when we were turn with bad omens that you guys came out to the house of blue show in anaheim i think to see him she was like oh my god you're like she was a that's funny yeah so there was some like video or she had some some thing that you guys released that she used to watch all the time i think it was inside the studio when you guys were working on your records or something and uh yeah she like just burned into the ground watching it over and over again so she's uh i'd love if we're playing a show and our paths crossed just to have you just say hi to something. We should try to do some

shows together. That'd be it would work. That'd be crazy. It would. Yeah. Yeah. I went to the bad moment show at the Palladium. Oh, sick. Yeah. It was sick. Yeah. And it made me want to tour again. Your audience is there. I mean, I feel like especially, I feel like it'd be good for you guys to capitalize on it. Like, I feel like yellow card had a thing where they like, and I love yellow card, but they like, it was like, they felt like their time was done and they dipped out. And then like they came back and just blew out rooms. And it's just like, I feel like, and I feel like you guys would go probably like doubled. And, you know, like your audience is definitely still there.

And there is this like resurgence for older, you know. We played when we were young and we had a great time. It was the, it was the first show in five years. And we did two shows. The whole band, we all felt like it was really nice. And all our families were there. And it was really nice. The next good Charlotte tour, I want to do a world tour.

and I just want to pick like 30 cities, some U.S. We got to do South America. That's like a big place for us. Asia is a big place for us. Europe, all over Europe. So 30 cities would be hard to get places like Hungary and, you know, Czech Republic. Yeah, yeah. Obviously the UK, France, Germany.

Like, Germany is like great for us. We love Germany. We always had a great relationship with Germany. It's wild. The tours were always amazing there. Australia. So when I start adding up all the cities, I'm like 30. I don't know if we can get it in 30 cities.

Then in the U.S., you're trying to figure out which cities you really, like Chicago, we have to go. Primary A market. Philly. New York, L.A. New York, L.A. So you start stacking all the cities. You guys are like, I think we need two months to get all the cities that we feel like

emotionally attached to. Yeah. And then finding that two months, that's going to be the key. It's like, is it in the summer and then we just bring all the fans. Those are the conversations we've been having. for like a year is trying to figure out how do we do this we're working on some music cool so that's starting to happen and that's exciting because it's if i think it's really good so that's a big one for us is we don't want to go out without music we really feel like that

drives us to want to go out and play yeah uh and then we want to you sprinkle in a bunch of your new stuff with your you know your older stuff and yeah even if it's like three bangers yeah make three bangers, put him out, and then, okay, now how do we do the whole world and what do we need? We need eight weeks. One of my best friends, this guy Matt Coma, he's in a band called Winneka Bowling League. He's now playing with us. Was he the singer in the band? He is.

He still is. Oh, dude. I think I saw them open up for Sasha Sloan. Yeah, yeah, probably. Dude, he's badass. Dude, they blew me away. He's so good. Oh, man.

I think they have this song called. are you okay? Yeah. And it's like, I don't know, I saw it live and it like made me emotional. Yeah, yeah. So it's funny,

they pop up on my Spotify all the time. I think they like just put out something like a week ago or something. They did. They did. A song called Sha Lala. Yeah, dude. Really good. Good singer.

He plays with you guys now? He plays with us now. Awesome. And we played together in Vegas and it sounded better. Like live, I think we did a week of rehearsals which or eight days of rehearsals

with him. It sounded better than we've ever sounded. I think as you get older, you just get better, too. Yeah. And when we... He's playing guitar and singing. He's playing guitar, keys, singing. Awesome.

He's a producer, you know, so he produces things. And I really feel like he brought another layer to live. Dude, hell yeah. So that was tight. It's a whole world, man. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And he's an old friend of mine. And he's like one of my best friends.

So it's also fun to like... And we all, the band, we all like, We're all friends. So figuring out touring for like what six guys with families, that's the hardest part for all of us. You'll figure it out. I think, yeah, you get your new music out and then you'll hit the road, you know. What's your like dream tour? Is there a band that you just like, if we could tour with them, whether you've met them or not? Honestly, architects for a long time was like a bucket list. That'd be a great tour. Yeah, just have a lot of respect for them. And obviously, I think just some parallels and like the great loss they suffered and they're super transparent about it when they play. And I feel like

I am too with my dad. I feel like our fan bases would cross over really well. I was a big Thrice fan growing up. I love Thrice. Yeah. Dude, I don't know. Just I feel like we're living out some stuff, like bring me the horizon. You know, like just bands like that would be just crazy, crazy. It's cool where like rock music is today. It's exciting. It's very, I think it used to get pigeonholed in the box if you really tried getting out of it. There was a lot of negative rejection. And then I think it got so stale that now people are starved for, I don't know, like infusions of pop and 80s and synth.

And just however weirder you can make the rock, I think bad omen is like a great example of that. Like just kind of genre bending stuff, but it's still just good music and it, it like reinforces it. I think you can tell when somebody's trying to do something different and it feels inauthentic or like it's like a metal band that's like I want to be octane so they make some guy saying who's not super comfortable and you can just tell that there's no life in the music like they're just trying to be marketable um but i think that's why that's where like bands like bad omens

and or like sleep token find success because they're just like we're just going to make a weird record and that we really like and just kind of see what happens and i think people have a lot of respect for it but it's it's cool i mean it's just there's like rmb pop Yeah, there's just so much different stuff you can do with rock music. I totally agree. When something feels forced, it's hard to listen to. But when you find that band that's organically, just making whatever the fuck they want because they think it's cool.

And they're okay with not a lot of people, if that's the case. Yeah. It makes me happy because I think that's where all good rock music comes from is guys and girls making music that they just like. Yeah. And I think we live in a world where people, are trying to construct things to put on their TikTok and or whatever. Yeah, totally.

And that's a whole that that's a, that's a hustle that I totally respect. But like, you want to believe that there's a kid somewhere that's picking up a guitar at 15. I feel like that's the romantic part of what we do is that we were 15 and we picked a guitar up not knowing how to play a guitar and going, I think I could do that. I feel like it's worth trying. Yeah. And then we did it. And now, you know, you have a life because of it.

Yeah, yeah. And no one told you like you can do it. You had like, no one took it seriously. No one like around you was like, hey, you're going to do really well at this. You literally just had to do it. Yeah. I think my sister at one point said like, like I could see it happening for you. But I was like 20 and I was kind of like, yeah, I mean, even I think I had a lot of self-doubt for a minute.

And it is just there was a weird crossover a few years ago where I was like, oh, I'm like in the middle of it. And I don't even realize it's happening because I'm just like, it just doesn't feel real sometimes. It's like you play. And then you're like, shit, there's. like there's like 2,000 people here to see us play. It's weird. And more people keep coming. Yeah, hopefully. That's what happens when the music's good. If you ever wonder, like, is my music any good? More people are coming. It's good. I hope so. It's on a nice trajectory right now where we're going to headline in the fall. We have a great lineup. It's good.

They're like, I don't know, like 2,000 to 3,000 cop. So I'm just going to go out swinging and just hope for the best. But I'm like, the lineup to me still doesn't make sense that we got some of the fans we got, but like I think it's, it's going to be great. Cool, man. Thanks for coming. Dude, thanks for having. Is there anything else you want to talk about? I feel like we like winded through a lot of stuff. We're good, man. I actually, I got to grab my kid from daycare pretty soon. 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 podcasts, Spotify, Apple, Amazon. We appreciate your support. And we'll see you next time.

times I don't