HardLore - James Pligge (Harms Way)

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

Colin and Bo chat with friend of the show and CHICAGO POWERHOUSE James Pligge, frontman of Harms Way. Stop objectifying him.   HardLore: A Knotfest Series, Fueled by Monster Energy Edited by Steven Grise • Title sequence by Nicholas Marzluf Join the HARDLORE PATREON to watch every single weekly episode early and ad-free, alongside exclusive monthly episodes. Join the HARDLORE DISCORD for community discussions and to participate in our future Q&A episodes. FOLLOW HARDLORE: INSTAGRAM, TWITTER, SPOTIFY, APPLE FOLLOW COLIN: INSTAGRAM FOLLOW BO: INSTAGRAM, TWITTER   For sponsorship opportunities, email us! [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome. It's Hardlore Time. What's up, Bowen? Hey, man. How's it going? It's going so... We just had a nap. You together?

Like the whole... Everybody at our undisclosed location had like an hour nap. One bed? Yeah. Just yeah, one really big bed. Head, toe? Yeah.

No. Come on. No. We're not weird. Okay, got it. Well, let's talk about this guest we have. Who do we got? We got the...

We got the host of the number one soda review. Of all time. Number one soda review show ever. Fastest growing. Award winning. Dude, I'm getting followers by the dozens. Left and right.

Look at the shirts. Hundreds of followers since he began. Can you tell the shirts we're wearing? I don't know if you can't, but they can. You guys are reppping the dual brand, brother? Yeah, straight off. Well, anyway, it's James Puggy. James Hammers McPliggy.

vocalist of harm's way which welcome james hey thanks for having me on you know this is faded yeah it's been a long time coming i feel yeah friend of the show fan of the show all of the above let me let me let me ask you this james i i probably talk to bow as much if not more than you do at this point at this point just because you and i are so busy business partners yeah With respect to him, I'm sick of the guy. What's your relationship with Bo like to some 20 odd years later? Well, hey, we've been through a lot together. I'll tell you that much.

Through the ringer, as they say. I mean, it's funny to think that like, you know, obviously when you're in a band with somebody and you obviously tour for as long as we have and been in the band for as long as we have, it's like you basically live with them, you know, for six months out of the year for many, many years at this point. So I will say when we're at home, we probably don't hang out as much only because, you know, we're sick of each other at that point. We live a ways apart. Yeah, he lives in the city. I'm a suburban guy.

But, but yeah, we go out to eat from time to time. We obviously have band practice once or twice a week, every single week. You know, I would say most of our... That's crazy. Yeah, I mean... Oh, hold on. I just fuck something up. My bad.

My bad. Don't worry. Don't worry. It's coming. It's coming. There you go. We're good. Yeah, sorry about that.

Sorry about that. I wanted to make sure we were on the same setting. He's at it again. I can't stop. No, you know, I love me some beau. It's, it's, I just on the show. But, like... Dude, you're working with people.

You're relying on people's like everything's and like, hey, we forget. I would have forgotten XLR cable today. You do forget. But he got me today. That's what you want. James got Beau. We got mills. We bump heads.

We kind of bumped heads a little bit even today. But then like what? Two hours later we're having like a heart to heart. Creatively or like what's for dinner? Yeah. No, creatively. But sometimes it is what's for dinner. Sometimes it is.

I mean, when did we meet? When was that? We met at a stand-and-fight show. Yeah. In Dary and Illinois. Weren't they still impact? They were still impacted. So it must have been 2004.

Yeah, I couldn't drive yet. 2004. So either 2004 or 2005. I think it may have been. I couldn't drive yet. I got my license. Shit. Wow.

It might have been 2003 then. Yeah. So it was a year. that much we know. And that long, almost 20 years ago. The impact stand and fight long sleeve. Had it. Green and blue.

Green on blue? I got, I had gray with black. I had like the OG edge. One of, one of the first shirts of many that I stole from Taylor. I still have it.

I still have, the same ex-girlfriend who returned Marissa. She returned that strats me. She returned that zip up to me. She was like, you might as well. Still have it. I would love it.

I would love to see you put that on. It's a dude, I think it's a youth large. You were in, you were, you bought youth larges in the youth large era. At the time, James, at the time, including him, we all wore small, everyone wore smaller shirts. Tight smaller shirts. That was the, you know. I was there. I was there.

I was there. Well, no, not youth large. That's what I'm saying. You know what's funny is when we met him, caution introduced us to you. John caution of week and nachos and later of Harmsway was like, oh, this. This is James. We call him youth crew James. We also, people call him mini wrench.

Because at the time, he was like shaved head built, even though were you in high school still? 2003? Had to be. When I met you, I think I was a senior. So, yeah, so 2003, 2004, yeah. So there you go. So there you go. We figured out the year.

But it was like, yeah, here's this guy. And we were just, holy fun. Yeah, of course. You know. Nicest guy. Niceest man. Just born with a beautiful body, huh? Can you believe it?

What's that like? I don't know. It's a genetic gift. I got to think one Hans Bligie. Yeah. Do you ever resent the genetics thing? Because obviously you do have a genetic hand dealt to you. And Colin, I imagine you might feel this way too.

Because you do have a genetic hand dealt out to you. You guys have very different hands. Do you hear me, Colin, the very different hands. But you had to work for what you got. It's not like you woke up one day. both of you, you know. Yeah, I mean, I guess if we're going to, obviously, I think genetics play a large role in physique and, you know, health in general. But I would say, obviously, I've put in a lot of time in the gym consistently for the last, I mean, I've been lifting for what, 22 years at this point.

but I would say that it's easier for me to maintain my physique rather than somebody who might have been skinnier and then, you know, got a good physique because I, if you look at pictures when I was like, you know, in fifth or sixth grade, I already have like broad shoulders. I already have like musk luscular. Yeah, yeah. That's the thing I notice is like look at John from Vane. Yeah. He was legit shredded Before doing a single workout in his life And now he's like

Brick shit house, you know? Yeah, yeah, he looks good It's a thing. Jeans do play a part. Obviously you can't just say like, Oh, it's just jeans. That guy don't work out. Right, of course.

People work out because they're like, oh, I have the jeans to do this. I should probably do this. One of the fucking Garris brothers. Trey? Yeah, Tray. Dude. The drummer.

I got to talk to him. James, if you saw this motherfucker without a shirt, you'd be like, man, we got to get you. He's ready to rock. It's crazy. Now's the time. He's like vascular as fuck, shredded, clearly eats like Oreos and just skis.

Yeah. We've gone to the gym twice this week, Colin. Can you tell? Nope. Well, I'm basically huge. It's probably just the camera. Yeah, no, it's the end. Don't worry about it.

But what you were saying with jeans, like, like you said you can maintain easier. If I go a week without working out, no joke, I'm visibly fatter. You just like, oh, you inflate. Oh, my God. I deflate and inflate. Right. I do, I look like, people will just be like, whoa, you look worse.

How many, I don't want to talk about fitness the whole time. No, no, we don't. Because nobody's going to talk. We got to talk about food. Yeah. But how many workout programs have you made for people? Me included. that just like went into the air and became nothing.

Oh, probably. Probably in the hundreds, I would say. Gotta be. Well, I'm in the, I'm in the 20s or 30s at this point. Oh, you're making stuff for me. I still look like a sack of shit at most hours of the day, you know? Well, I think Bo was referring to how many workout plans have I created for people

who ask me about like, hey, can you make me up a workout plan? like, you know, you know, people come, you know, whatever, to the merch table or something all the time. Hey, man, how do you get so big? Well, you know, and so, you know, mostly it's friends or, you know, family or whatever. And, you know, the thing is, the reality is you have to consistently do this for a long, and, you know, over and over and over for many years, you know,

diet has to be on point. Working out has to be on point. It has to be consistent. And, I mean, the fact is, is that, you know, life gets in the way many times. I do, man. And you know the whole, like, you can't outtrain a bad diet thing? Yeah, I mean, I will be fucking buried into the earth trying to prove that wrong. I actually don't fully agree with that concept because, I mean, I'm to be honest, when I was in college, I probably looked, I probably looked.

like the best at age like 22, 23. That was like the ski mask. Right. Florida picture era. Of course. Like I weighed less then. I like probably have more muscle now. But as far as like my physique as a whole, I think that's the best I ever looked.

My diet was completely like unhinged. But when you're at that age, your metabolism will allow it to happen. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's where genetics plays plays the highest role. Because how long has it been since you worked out? Like he started working out again this week because he's had shit going on. How long had it been?

It would probably be three weeks. Dude, if I went three weeks without listening, no joke. I would be starting from scratch. Which is not true, but in my mind. Yeah, right. It's in your mind. Yeah. He's got a foundation.

You know what I mean? Boy, do you? Speaking of foundation. Nice. What's up? What's up, Colin? You guys tore with them a couple times, huh? Yeah, I just don't want to talk about lifting the whole time.

No, that's fine. Is that not all that you get? I mean, every fucking, every fucking thing. But it's like, Chicago Powerhouse. It's just like, it's always like a double in taunt. It's like, okay. No, for sure. I think that's like one really annoying thing about being physically fit or muscular or whatever

is like you automatically get thrown into this category of, you know, meat head. Yeah, meat head. Like, because like there is still an interpretation of harm's ways. Like, oh, they're this tough guy, hardcore band. Like, like, do the least true. Yeah, like, what are you listening to? Yeah.

Like, you're looking at, like, probably a video on YouTube in, like, making that judgment, right? So, you know, for me, I just, like, sometimes I resent, like, having to, that be the first thing people, you know, point out about the band because that's the least important thing about, you know, you know, I want people to listen to music. I don't want people to look at me and be like, oh, yeah, this is their singer's so rib. But the thing, the secret is that the balance is of both of those things is really what works long term. I, I genuinely believe. So true. Sure. This is, this is, this is me off the rip here. I mean, look at Peter's deal. Oh, a beautiful sexy man.

Listen, this is my theory. If I was a sexy guy when this harmony came out, would have been a different fucking story. But I was like, that was rock bottom. So, I'm sure it helps

like in the sense of like, oh, like, I'm going to check out this band because of, you know, that. But you know, I guess it bothers me more when, you know, we, you know, work on a record, for example, fucking four years we've been working on this thing.

We put all this time. And then you get this review from like some reputable place and the first fucking thing they say. Huge cocked singer. Yeah, yeah. He does. It has huge cock. Yeah.

Give me a fucking break. There's actually one particular interview when post-human came out. It was from some European. I mean, that's already a knock right there. But. Amen. Man. It begins.

Minute 14. But, no, they literally, they were like, post-human sounds like Madball. Are you serious? And I was like, dude,

Madball is probably one of my favorite bands ever. And probably, questionably the best New York hardcore band of all time. But Harms Way literally sounds nothing like Madball. And then his follow-up was like, by the way,

I have only heard Madball. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't listened to the new record yet. It's like, it's like, how could you listen to Post-Human and say it sounds anything like Madball other than it has a guitar, drums, and bass? That's like the similarities, you know? True. So, anyway.

I mean, do you experience that with Gaut's hate with Big Bad Brody King? I mean, you kind of want it, don't you? Yeah, that's the thing. That's the thing is, like, I think we've found the balance now, especially with the message that, like, life is hard to be hard. stuff. Like, hey, there you go. You got the shirt on. Like, we're doing that, you know. I, like, I, I've, my body has changed more times in the past four years. I've, I've been, I've embodied five different bodies in the past four years. So like, like, like, doing what you're saying is kind of, like, kind of what we kind of figured out is like, oh, this is, because

switching tongues never once thought about the way we looked other than, like, wearing a six shirt. Yeah. And like now I'm like maybe we should have. But in reality, like the live show is what brings people back. The record, and like you said, you work so hard on a record, but the record's only going to do half the job. Totally. We are, I mean, there's two types of bands. I guess really you could break it down to two types of bands.

I don't know if this is true, that true or not. But like there's like live bands that can rely solely on. the live thing and then there's recorded bands that can do the opposite, or, you know, rely solely on the record and like, we for a long time. It was like, we didn't get people until they saw us live.

Period. I mean, brother. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, because it's all energy. You know, it's this guy's moving all the time. I try to move as much as I can. We try to be tight. Dude, you are all over the fucking place. Gotta be. Bouncing bean. A little boy. You're a silly guy, James.

Well, I feel like we'll, We'll open this can of worms at some point in this episode. Yeah, let's go. People don't know that you're probably the funniest member of the band. I mean, that's a given. But see, it's effortless. It's like that, you know? Yeah.

It takes a while, doesn't it? It takes you, you got to be comfortable. Yeah, I mean, no, for sure. I think people know me is like a pretty quiet. you know, kind of just keep to myself person. But there's definitely that that comfortability once I'm comfortable around people. Like, yeah, I think the goofiness comes out. Yeah.

You know, I mean, out of any place on earth, like the band is obviously where it comes out for most. You know, because I'm around these guys all the time. But, but yeah, I mean, I don't know, man. Can't take yourself too seriously. No, I think your presence is what makes it. Like, you do this thing. consistently where you'd come up and just be like, he and for some reason,

I don't know what it was about, I would just piss my pants laughing every time. He's got a really good bit that he's been doing for probably a decade where someone will be like, James, tomorrow, I want to go over this with you and I think we should try to do X, Y, and Z. And he'll go, oh, yeah.

Yeah. And that's it. He just hits, he just nosels it. And it's like every, or he'll be like, oh, sure. And then he'll look at me.

And we both just like giggle, like school kids, you know? There's a, there's a classic one that you used to hit me with all the time where anytime I was complaining about something, if I'd be like, well, these motherfuckers forgot my fries, you'd be like, yeah, I wrote a song about it. It's called breeding grounds. Like any issue I had with any person, you're like, yeah, I wrote a song about it. It's called breeding grounds. I mean, I literally don't even remember that. That's classic. I got a lot of bits.

Yeah, he's up to his ears and bits. We just ate Shake Shack How was it Cross the street It was pretty good What'd you get? I just got the standard Standard burger lettuce, tomato,

onion With the sauce With the sauce You know you got it I found a little hack there They got the cherry pepper relish Oh I saw that Oh my God

It changed everything for me I will say Add a side of shack sauce for the fries Come on. Here's what's fun about James, for me personally. He and I are almost identical when it comes to palette. Yeah, it's very close. When it comes to the kind of food that we like, we may like the same things to different degrees, but we like the same things.

Interesting. Like for the most. You're a plain guy, James? I wouldn't say plain. Not as plain as me. But as far as like, like, I like. You're not like a sauceman. No.

Like, I'm not like you when it comes to. sauces at all. But I'm lost in it, man. A sick fuck. I will say, I've like, maybe in the last year, like, if I'm trying something new, I want to try it as it's supposed to be. Hence the shack sauce. So I tried, like, I've had Shake Shack before, but I never actually had the shack sauce or

whatever. How was it? What did you think of it? I thought it was good. I thought it added a nice element to the burger. I personally don't like mayonnaise that much, but. But again, you know, sometimes like, hey, like whoever thought of that idea, they thought this was an important, well, not Mayo, but Shaq sauce.

It's honestly a fucking hero to me. Nah. One of my personal air conditioning guy, Mayo guy. Well, yeah, of course. Dude, that's another. James and I have a lot of weird similarities. I talk about, I mentioned you a lot on the show. Sure.

As I'm sure you've noticed, but I'll go, you know, James. He gets as hot as me as quick as me. He needs something sweet. Listen, man. As soon as I do. I'm one of the ice box boys. Yeah, straight up. I know.

Oh, dude. Let's tell that story. That's, that's a good, this is a good way to go into some stories. Yeah, it is. All right. Fred of the show, Andrew Baker. Great guy. Great guy.

Was merch guy for the tongues? Was merch guy for us? played in bands, sang in bands. Well, yeah. And he was in band. I don't know if he was playing. We did a, he sang for what's good. He, we did an international tour.

We went to Southeast Asia, Japan, and an Australian, and he was our merch guy. And we decided, this is when he hit us with Icebox boys. The premise being, that room stays as cold as a fucking Icebox boy. and you're just in there, right? We're Byron Beach? Yeah, Byron Bay. Byron Bay.

And our, like, Australian, Josh. Shout out to Josh. Howsey and Claire at the time, like, booked us a, like, a little cabin kind of thing. I don't know how you would really, like, a camper almost. Yeah. Like, we had a few days off, and they, like, it was basically, like, just a cabin. And, like, you walk out the front door and you can literally just walk out on the beach. Like, you was.

It was monsoon season, so it was kind of not so great. It was cheap. It was cheap. And there you go. But, you know, it, it was still hot because it's, it was summer there still. It was just, yeah. But I remember it either rained or there, no joke was probably what, 5,000 jellyfish on the beach. Damn.

The blue bottle jellyfish. Like they were just everywhere. It was a really, it was a time. It was, yeah. It was a little strange. It was a little strange. But anyway, we had been making up, you know, we'd been complaining the whole tour like you do.

It's the best part, it's the only part I enjoy anymore. And like, we just decided to set the AC, which was in Celsius, to the lowest, which I believe was 16. Yeah, it was very, I think, I think 16, yeah. But I think a little part of the back. A backstory is that we had just come from Southeast Asia. And. Melting the whole time.

Yeah, basically. It was just sweating like. It's the wet season, as they say. Yeah. So like, so this is like we get to Australia and like, we're like, dude, we have to have, you know, max AC. We have to have, you know. All the comforts of home. Yeah.

Essentially. So do you want me to finish the story? Yeah. I mean. It's so. good. So, you know, everybody else, it's obviously in the, in the icebox boys on this tour, it's me, Bo and Baker. And we're in like, like the room of the cabin kind of had this one like community room and then had like another room. And A. Ross, shout out A. Ross. Chris go into this

other room and like, I think I had a separate thermostat or something. Something. Where they could turn the heat on. This other room is, so then it was what, me, you, Baker. Someone we don't talk about. Okay, yeah, someone we don't talk about. And then Josh and Claire. Josh and Claire. So it's about 2 or 3 a.m.

And I, you know, I have the normal, like, bed sheet, you know, comfort. But, but like the thin one, like a summertime bed set. And I'm about as cold as one could be. Like literally shivering. Like all of us. But all of us are just comfortably shivering. Like, no. Not comfortably.

It was fucking freezing. Like, like we're talking like, yo, like, this is like way too cold. It's too cold. Okay. So even for us. At the time. You said it's a 16 Celsius? Yeah.

Could you look that up? What's 16 into? I think it's 55 degrees. Yeah. That's incredible. So. But like the thing is, it's so,

dude, I mean, but we're so, we're the fucking icebox boys. I'm not touching that thermostat. I get it. I'll cut off my hand before I touch you,

brother. But what's funny is at the time, nobody knew that we were individually suffering. So we're all just silent in our bunk beds. But in the morning. This is fucking sick, right? I love being an icebox.

But like in the morning, we basically, like just confide to each other like yo like I out of principle didn't get up

to change the thermostat because like that's not what an icebox boy does the icebox boys we really tied one on this you took an oath straight up but no joke

like literally no joke we woke up and you could see like breath yeah coming out in the morning the windows were like frosty like like yeah like yeah

Like almost like condensation. Yeah, it cold incision. Dude, it was easily the coldest room we've ever been a part of, but out of principle. Yeah, we weren't touching that shit. Like we had a terrible night's sleep. We couldn't touch it. And so that's. And then another good, same tour, same guy, A Ross, we're in Japan.

You know, Colin, you probably know better than I remember. But in Japan, there's a gentleman who has a home that's like in between Tokyo and elsewhere. and it's just like a guy who's got like a house that everyone stays at. Is this the peanut butter guy? Oh, I don't know. I have no idea if it's a peanut butter guy. No idea. We were there for not too long because we literally got there at like 1 a.m.

and left at like 7 a.m. So we don't even know even who's house. I don't know if I'm allowed to tell this story. It's not mine. Well, think about it while I tell my story. Okay. A. Ross. Shout out to A. Ross.

Was a fucking idiot. And changed the thermostat from like probably a comfortable 18, which is like 64 degrees or something. I don't know. Like I like it cold and 64 right now. 64 is as cold as I totally want to get. It was probably like 70. Like comfortable. Just comfortable.

On a wall unit or central? It was one of those one of those like what? Taylor has in the studio. I don't know. Like a powerful wall unit. Like a powerful, like an installed wall unit. Dude. And he set it to like 23 or 24.

I think it might have been even higher. Like, like he basically, for whatever reason, didn't think about that it was in Celsius. He didn't think about that each degree of Celsius is like eight Fahrenheit or whatever, you know? So he's just like cold in the middle of the night, which I understand because it was winter in Japan.

Right. Because the hemisphere shit and we were all like sick. It was just like kind of a rough one. I honestly probably wouldn't have even minded being a little warm. When I'm sick, that's the only time I like to be warm. And I woke up. I'm not even joking.

It was like, like, I woke up like. Melting. Physically cooking. I mean, he probably put it to like a 90 equivalent. 90? No joke. Dude, a high 80. No, not even joke.

Like we figured it out. And I was like, Dude, do you realize how hot that? Like, you turned on the heat? And he was like, well, I didn't know. And it's like, who is A-Ross? Yeah, A-Ross is this guy, Aaron, who was playing bass for us at the time. Friend of ours, did he go to high school with you?

No, he went to high school with caution. Okay. Is he a friend of the show or an enemy of the show? I don't know if he listens at all. He's a friend of the show. He's a friend of the show. He would listen to this, though, and defend himself. Okay.

And that's an indefensible act. Yes. But seriously in the morning, he was like, well, I didn't know. And this was like our fourth week in Asia. Yeah, yeah. Come on. It's all we got is Celsius over here, brother. You know.

I remember just being like, dude, like, what are you doing? What have you done? Like, don't ever touch. Don't, you know. Here's where bully James came in. It's like, dude, don't ever touch the fucking thermostat again. Like, this is, that is not acceptable. Period.

as a fill in touching the thermostat he was like almost like a semi permanent filling at that how can that i don't have never heard this name in my life and iaron he ross he he played way worse by another guy he actually played for a no guys no master's tour like earlier on yeah and then he played when you had your cast and we got to talk about that we'll talk about that next um we and then he played i think that might have been the only tour. It was 2015, so he did Europe too on the Converged Tour. I don't think Colin, I don't think, no,

because when like, when just harmony, that was, that was Semiowa. Wait a minute. He had to have because you had to have meet him at least once, because we played. I'm sure I've met him. Four shows with disgrace. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So like, you probably met him, but

just briefly. What's the, what's the studio venue in Cobb, Kamkha, Kha, Kast. something that starts with a sea. Rock City. That's it. Rock City.

Yeah, I feel like. That venue had this legendary guy called the Pesha guy. Because before, he was like an older gentleman. But before the set, he would walk around all the bands, like asking about the catering and stuff. He'd be like, yeah, we got like Pesha and other things. And the way he pronounced. Eventually, people started just calling him to the Pisha guy to his face.

Yeah. Like pisha as in pizza pizza? Pizza, yeah, pizza. Oh, okay. Did that place rocked because the fucking massage parlor was right next door. Yeah, yeah. And that's where, that's where I think you and I got a massage together and, well, you know, at the same time separately. Yeah, not a couple's.

Not a couple, never. Okay. And the girl, the girl was like, I, like, saw her hand on the divider because she was standing on James back. I get one of those all the time. Dude, the best. It's so great. There's a lot of a couple of legendary. brawls at that venue for sure.

Yeah, we saw, fuck, who's the Dawson's Creek guy? Oh, Diplow. The, what was it? James Vanderbeek, right?

Yeah, he was playing Diplow at your show there, yeah. Yeah, part of that, and there was, every time I die. Yeah,

there was like a weird, I don't know. Yeah, and then there was like encouraging people to stay and boo him essentially. Yeah, basically,

it was the premise. Anyway, this place in Japan. I don't know who's going to get mad of me telling this, but I'm telling me. It's not a,

big deal. Nobody remembers this. But on the Title Fight Foundation Japanese tour, they stayed there. I'm sorry, Aaron Warman. Aaron Warman from Long Island, I believe was the first one to do it, but it is just hungry, so makes like a peanut butter

sandwich. Yeah. And I love a plain peanut butter sandwich. So every, I guess all of them are like, we're making peanut butter sandwiches now. And they eat all the peanut butter. All the peanut butter. All the peanut butter? Which is impressive to do in one sitting, all peanut butter.

And this guy posts publicly, I'm sorry to this man. I'm sorry to Foundation of Title Fight. This long message that was like, who did eat the peanut butter? My wife was mad. Oh, no. Was it? And then he goes, was it Title Fight member? Was it Foundation member?

But that's who did eat the peanut butter. And the answer was yes. The answer was neither. Yeah. We stayed at somebody's house once and it was three bands and afterwards. And it was a nice house and it was very obviously disclaimer. Anyone who let you stay at their house, thank you. Yeah.

For the most part. And afterwards, this individual was like saying that we broke a bed. We broke a toilet that literally like I went to use it as one of the first people there. And there was just like old shit in it like a horror video game or something. I hate old shit. I'm a new shit. I hate old shit. It's just not good.

It wasn't cool. How ugly is other people's turds? Mine's a work of art, but everybody else is fucking disgusting. Dude, when, okay, when was that Albion House show? When did you break your arm while we were playing? Ooh. Mid-set? Dude, you're going to love this story.

I got, we got, there's a whole, I'm going to go back, but what was that year? It had to be 2010. It was no gods. Yeah, 2010. Well, it was 2000. technically. Right, because on the tour was New Year's. Let the man tell the story, Bo.

Jesus Christ. I'm sorry. It's actually a pretty important point of harm's way, actually. So, long story short. No, no, no. Sure story long. All right. Hit it.

Sure. Let's do it. Talk about caution. So prior to this show, caution, for whatever reason, we were supposed to play, I think, a couple new songs that would eventually be no guys, no masters. We were doing Steve Kane's radio show, remember? So we were like, oh, we're going to have to do this anyway.

Oh, yeah, yeah. So let's get them down. So, and we were going to play them live in the Albion House. Obviously, most people don't know what that is. It's basically, it was just a basement venue, right? They used to have lots of different shows. And it was usually like pretty popular, so it would be super packed in there. It was the killer harm's way.

Sick? In a basement. Yeah. And so basically, caution used to work at some call center and Bo also worked at one point called total attorneys okay

and we for some reason he skips practice because he was hungry or something some idiotic reason he lived far north our practice space as far south in the city and he didn't have a car which granted like no it sucks to do that I've been doing it forever

public transportation there It rocks and he could definitely get food. This is John Koshan frontman of weekend nachos. Correct. So basically, there's some things I can't talk about in the argument, but let's just say some words were exchanged. And he basically tells me to fuck off. So he tells me to fuck off and I say, in return, eat my shorts. Okay, through a text message.

Then he quits the band. That's that. And I, well, I should say, so the tour that we had coming up immediately after this show, caution wasn't going to do. Andrew was going to do. Andrew Morris. Yeah. Legend of the show.

So we were like, okay, Andrew's going to play the killer show and Andrew's going to play the radio recording show that we're going to do. And then he's going on tour with this anyway. So like, no loss. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So Andrew comes to practice, excuse me, learns the songs.

We end up, you know, going down, playing first song, I swing my arm back as hard as I possibly can. Someone, you know, crowns, like puts their crown with the head. I hit my wrist right on their head. arm breaks immediately. Of course. First 10 seconds. Lights off. I can't hold the microphone, obviously.

Yeah. But I'm also like, I can't let people know that I hurt. So I play the song with one arm, singing with one hand, finish the set. And then... It also needs to be pointed out that during the set, when you're injured,

Hofacker, our other guitar player at the time, had equipment malfunction. Okay? This cab didn't work. Cab didn't work. But what's the last thing you check, Colin? You know what I mean? The last thing you're going to check

if it's working or not is a cab just because that means you've got to get another fucking cap. Oh, of course. Yeah. Right? So instrument cable, instrument cable, pedals, patch, patch, other guitar. Everything's fine.

Oh, it's the cab. But it's probably 15 minutes. This is also when we, like, didn't have samples. and didn't stop making noise. So I'm feeding back for 15 minutes. No fucking way. Swear to God. So James is just there like...

It was, I mean, a disaster of a set. It was horrible set. Okay. We finish. I have to vomit, so I leave... Out of pain. Because out of, yeah. How long?

Let me ask you this. As somebody who broke their hand last year. It took a wild... hurt. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, my, my adrenaline was pretty high. And just, just wait. Okay. Well, so anyway, we go upstairs. Hofacker comes up to us and says, hey, I don't want to be in the band anymore. And also quits. And we leave for tour, you know, at the time and what, maybe it was three days, three, four days of four. I think that show was probably a Friday or Saturday, and we left like Monday. Yeah.

Wow. So now two members of the band. In a week. So what material was out at this time? Reality approaches, no gods? No gods wasn't out yet. No. Imprisoned.

Yeah. Impristened the self-title. Come on in. Come on in. Nick, friend of the show. Hey, Nick. Friend of the show, Nick here. So, yeah, yeah.

So just the first two seven inches and the first LP was out. and we were actively writing for no gods. Okay. And no gods would kind of change everything. So that, so this is an important part. Hofacker, also when he quit was hilarious.

He was there with his girlfriend at the time who was a doctor who was like, you should probably get that checked out. Like that, like that was it. That's broken. And then Hofacker was our like our money man at the time, which is hilarious to think about.

And like had a checkbook on him, signed up. You know, he was like, the band has this much money in my account. Here you go, I quit. Wow. Yeah. And then what did you do on the way home? It's one of my favorite parts of this story.

I mean, this is a really dumb thing to do. Did you go to McDonald's? No, I actually don't know. I might have. But to prove to myself that I didn't break my arm, I decided to drive with the arm all the way home. with one arm just as so I oh I can I can

you know stare the wheel Mike can rotate fine what was the motivation there I just I had never I had never broken a bone until that day and I was like dude I mean I just felt like an idiot I was like

I can't break a fucking arm at a show how long between the break and stepping into the ER all right so this is actually really funny. So I didn't and I also didn't want to tell my parents.

Right. Yeah, yeah. Because I'm like, you know, I just graduated college. Like, I'm like, fuck, I'm going to have to fucking tell my parents I broke my arm at a show. So I go to bed. I wake up and move my arm like

literally a millimeter. And I literally like cry in pain. And then my parents weren't home. getting my fucking Ford escort and drive myself to the emergency room with one arm again, only now the other arm. Yeah, the one. And they're like, yeah, it's just a fracture. Yeah.

Fractured arm. They gave you a blue cast. Big blue cast. I'll never forget. Did you get the cast day of? Day of. Wow. So this is like a pair.

The exact same thing happened to me, but last year. And again, I tried to go to sleep because I was like, this is probably. I just bruised it. Of course. I heard the 10. And then I woke up and it was like twice the size and purple. And it was like, I don't think that's supposed to happen. Yeah, no.

Might as well ask somebody. So then the tour happens. This is the whole other thing. It's like we have to teach A-Ross. This is where A-Ross comes in. He was able to do the tour. And we have to teach him all the guitar parts. Andrew learns the guitar parts.

The only jacket he could fit his arm in is like a huge, like, Army trench coat. So this fucking psycho is walking around. Yeah, I forgot about that. He's walking around in like AirMax 90s sweatpants and a trench coat. Wow. And we're like loading into venues. This is still very DIY harm's way.

Like I don't even know if we had a booking agent yet. I think we probably. It might have been. It might have been Bailey. Yeah. So it's that long ago. And we're in a cargo van. Oh, God.

And we do the whole tour. We go to Vegas for the first time. And he's cast it up. whole time. The whole time. Dude, we love the... You know the Wheel of Fortune slot machine? Do I know the Wheel of Fortune slot machine?

I mean, come on, that was a bad question. Are you fucking kidding me, Beau? I'm an amateur professional gambler. So I was talking to him about that today. So when it was time for a spin, the cast would hit it, dude. Cast is lucky. Yeah, we used to... You hit the rod or the button?

You switch to alternate? We alternate. We alternate. Casted the button. Yeah, but he would cast the button. I think, yeah, I think that was funny because it was the first time as a band we'd gone to Vegas. We went to Old Vegas. Yeah.

I think we went to the Golden Nugget, actually. Classic. And we just, you know, parked the van. Dude, because we had some, we had some terrible drive and we were like, you know, if we drove all night and all morning and go straight to load in it, we could go to Vegas for like six hours. Wow. Yeah, it was, I mean, you know, like, I mean, the drives. like once you get past like Denver for people in the Midwest, they're like fucking miserable. Desolate.

Like there. It's like, oh, like. Especially at that time. Oh, yeah. That was edge network era. Yeah. Yeah, dude. Motherfuckers now don't know the pain of the, when your phone hit edge network.

It just might as well have thrown it. Hours of torment, dude. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just the salt. Like, I just remember like the salt flats. like it's like hey like hey we had these cool shows in California like you're going to play Reno

then you're going to play Salt Lake then you can play Denver then you're going to drive 10 hours to Omaha minimum minimum 10 to wherever it's like yeah fucking ridiculous while at Vegas we God it's an ugly story but one of us met a guy who

the the member The member of us, I don't want to point out who, because it's a little weird, but it wasn't either of he or I. How about that? Met a guy, got along with him, bought the guy a drink. I think, like, gambled with him a little bit or something. And then to, like, repay him, the guy had a young lady come up and was like, hey, do you want to go hang out? And the member of our touring party was like, uh-oh, like, no, thank you. No.

and like she walked away and he our guy apologized to other guy who's like sorry man I didn't you know no no offense or anything it's just not really my scene or whatever he's like don't worry about it man you think money or girls run Vegas this is what's run what runs Vegas and pulls out like crack rocks in his hand yeah yeah and it was like she just wanted this don't worry about it I'll get her next kind of dark dark very dark and it was it was like a like a all of us kind of went oh it's like some leaving Las Vegas shit yeah we we all kind of like grew up up a little bit like 4% there you know what I mean yeah that was also that same tour I'll never forget we was when we were going to Omaha and they were like hey we got a bunch of snow um we got like five feet of snow so just just so you know like be careful and we're like we're from Chicago you didn't five fucking like please five feet like maybe the drifts are five feet like at the corners with a plows but please we get there and there are snow drifts taller than houses Dude, I mean, it actually snowed 60 inches. Like, it was like, like, we had no business going to this show.

No, we shouldn't have used to. It's also the time where Harmon's Way almost died as well. Yeah. That's where I was going with it. He was driving. You tell the story. Dude, I mean, I had a couple of those. Well, obviously, you know, we play this show.

Obviously, the show is fucking abysmal. Because it's the middle of a blizzard. Yeah, who's leaving their house for that? And it's a house show. And like, I think, somehow we ordered pizza. I remember we ordered like dominoes delivered it somehow

to the show. And then we had to drive from Omaha to home, which is what, like nine hours? Something like that. Eight or nine, yeah. That's it? It's not too bad. Wow. You drive across all of Iowa and then all of Illinois.

Wow. Yeah. Basically. It's not a great drive. But anyway, I'm driving. you know, we're in the cargo van, right, with all of our equipment sitting on top of it. This was actually not to be pedantic, but this was when we had it all at the back.

Oh, yeah. And we were like using as like a headrest. So we could like lay with our feet facing forward in the direction of the van, and we're using it like a headboard. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously not the safest way to do anything. But at the time,

the cheapest way to tour was to do. a cargo van. And that's just like the danger of it is kind of a little fun. It's a little like here. You can. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Anyway, I'm driving. I fucking hit black ice.

Like, you know, it might have been maybe 10 minutes into this tribe. Yeah. It was very early on. Yeah. And the van.

You guys ready to go home? Whoa. Yeah. Straight up. Yeah. And that's, and I remember both. telling me that he you could feel the equipment like shifting right as the van went from

the left lane to the right lane to the left lane oh lord and somehow i like was able to stabilize the van without like because i mean if there was car on either side of us we were you're tough yeah 100% but we were lucky there wasn't you know obviously there wasn't anyone on the road except us because we were stupid and yeah we fucking you yeah we fucking you you know, even leveled it out. And that was when I just went on. I remember that was when I like thought to myself like, okay, James is a good driver.

Like James is an aware driver. Like he turned out of this tailspin and I'm not ground up into ground beef. Yeah. Good for you for having. James, are you the wheelman generally? I mean, Bo and I are.

Okay. Oh, right. We talked about this. Yeah. It's probably like, it's probably like 70, 30. Okay.

At most. I do the night stuff. He does the day stuff for the most part. Yeah. I don't know. I've always felt more comfortable driving. Who's the only one here who's ever crashed the van, James? Well, I recently did something dumb. That was at home. That don't count.

It's true. That's true, isn't it? It doesn't count. If you had a trailer, it wouldn't happen. Friendly fire. Don't matter. I was actually going to the hardware store to buy deck boards to fix my deck. I stopped at Speedway to get a fountain drink, actually. a fountain thing with you. I backed out. I mounted the curb thinking,

okay, well, I have the van. Who cares? Yeah, yeah. Not realizing that at the end of that curb is a large red pole. Classic. And I just fucking... I just...

I mean, it's... Obviously, the van is drivable, but now we're getting a little bit of tire friction, which I'm not too happy. about. What's funny is he texted the group chat and he was like, just to you guys know, this happened, I

was very angry. And that's one of those dry James sentences that like, that should not be funny. He doesn't mean it shouldn't be funny. But it is. Boy. Yeah. I still got the deck. Yeah. Let's talk about. Let's get into what the people. Let's give the people they want.

We're going to clash heads here, Kyle. Are we? I'm honest with you. Yeah. Why? Because you like freestyle? Because you hate freestyle. I mean, yeah. Well, you live in a place that doesn't care about you. Brother, we've had them all over, and they're all bad. Not with me. I mean, here's the thing.

I'm a very Coca-Cola purist. If I want to Diet Coke, I shouldn't have to do all this shit. Just give me a Diet Coke. I don't want to taste root beer. I mean, I would say the first place I've ever, I've actually ever had it was noodles and company. And for whatever reason, like, every single time I've had it at noodles and company, Wendy's, they have it at Wawa. For what, I don't know what it is, but every single time, it tastes like barks.

And that's a problem. If we're talking, if we're, if we're judging. Like, you know, obviously the fountain drink reviews are, you know, comedic. You know, but there is obviously some seriousness to it because I take my pop seriously. You know, I don't, you know, I don't want to have a fucking, you know, place, have a nice burger. I'm not drinking fucking water. I'm not drinking. You know I'm with you there, man.

We're carboh heads for sure. We need carbonation. Got to have. Food don't go down in the same with a smooth liquid behind it. Absolutely not. 1,000%. And like, I just figured like, hey, like, I literally. probably, you know, four or five times a week, I get a fountain drink from, you know, various

places. And you know what? I said, you know, there's not a guide to where, you know, what place has the best. So I figured, you know, I needed to fill the void in the, you know, food, a review culture. Those are the, I mean, those are the best ideas of the no brain, you know. What don't we have? I can be like, you know what I was. thinking shake shack but I don't know what their carcination is like.

They had a weird system today. We dined in. I didn't like that. They do it for you. You can't. They do it for you. And then when I went to get he and I a refill. New cup.

Yeah. That's so wasteful. It's not wasteful. It's hygienic. It is. If you're giving me a small cup, if you gave me a large, I wouldn't need a refill. It's hygienic. I mean, I get it, but I mean, if I'm watching you fill it up,

They're going to recycle that. So don't worry, it'll be back. You'll use it again eventually. Theoretically, dude. No, no theory. It's check-check. It's proven. To recycle, so they clean each individual cup?

Because if there's any organic matter on a recycled thing, they can't recycle it. I don't know. I made that up. Okay. Of course you did. Shake-chack, though. How was the soap? Better than five guys.

Right off the bat. I'm going to say that right. Better burger? I think so. It's not even close. So you're in favor? Of Shake-Shack? Yeah.

Of course. I love it. Oh, okay. Yeah. Shake-Shack Burger versus Five-guise burger is... Price aside, too, right? That's the Lakers and the fucking... The West Valley barricudas, brother.

Dude, I agree. Because, I mean, Bo and I beef five guys because it's... obviously astronomically expensive for whatever stupid reason. But Shashak, better quality, better tasting and better value. Yeah, for sure.

Like barely better value? Yes. Because the meal is so much better, you're happy or paying it. Sure. And they got a critical cut. For 12 bucks. Yeah.

It's pretty good. That's not bad. I feel like, I feel like, and it was a bacon avocado burger. I feel like that at five guys, I'd have to take out a loan. The thing is,

and people compare. Compare Shagshack in and out and and and in and out. I don't know if I stumbled there. And that's an unjust thing. I agree. Because economically, nothing compares to end and out. Nothing. And here's the,

and we've talked about this. And I think you and I agree. Like, we enjoy in and out. We love like, would you be kind of bummed if in and out open in Chicago? Like everywhere? Absolutely. Because I like it to be a treat. Like I said the last time, I like it.

I like to have it when I'm there because it means I'm in California. I'm doing something. I get it. And there is simply no better value. Dude, it's like Costco hot dog in and out. That's twice used Costco hot dog this week, huh? I have. I saw it.

It's on my mind. No, I agree with that. I mean, I think, like, to me, in and out is not in the same tier, though,

is like, you know, something like, um, shake shack. Well, to me, it removed itself from that tier by being so much more affordable. Right. That you can't compare them.

You can't compare the two. You can compare them taste-wise, which to me I'd still prefer in and out. Yeah, I think I would too, to be honest with you. Over Shake-Shack. Is Burger for burger, pound for pound? It's just like the kind that I like. I mean. But I need more experience at Shake-Shack.

Again, I got a lettuce-wrap one today, so I can't. Ooh. You hear yourself? But the lettuce. Prep wanted at In-N-Out. Delicious. Fantastic. That's true.

It kept me alive. Very, you know, days, brother. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, way-crispier lettuce. The ingredients, man. In-and-outs, they got it. They get it. They got it.

I will say, like, I've been accused of being a cereal overscorer recently. But we made a discovery, didn't we? We did. And that's really my scale that I rate is really one through five. Okay. Because I, as a teacher, I rate things based on a grading scale, right? So if it's really good, it's always going to be in the nines because that's an A, you know, and, you know, et cetera.

Because Bo said, I said my top three burgers, fast food wise, were Culvers, one. One and out. That's number one for me. We're big fans. I got to try it. You got to try it. And in part, I will say partly that's accessibility. Because I can get Culvers every day if I want it.

We can get Culver's as easily as you can get in and out. It's just that kind of thing. In and out's two for me. Love it. Three is the Dave's double. Wow. Big fan. Very interesting.

Both our moms are named Wendy, by the way. How about that? Yeah. That's, I mean, it's a strong bias. It is. But, I mean, I'm trying to think of other. We were trying to think of other fast food places. You know, we had this conversation what yesterday.

Yeah. Like what other fast food burgers are better than those three? I think the Big Mac smokes the Dave's double. Really? How interesting. But I'm like, but that's a personal thing for me. I get that most people don't feel that way. Is it the Thousand Island, the Macsauce?

I love it. Is that what does it? Oh, big time. I do, I'll do extra Mac sauce. I'll put Macsauceau on anything I get there. Wow. I've been removed. Moving the third bun lately, which is new for me.

Dude, the lettuce, it's so shredded. It's everywhere. You got to pick up them crumbs from the thing after. Dude, I fucking hate shredded lettuce. You hate shredded lettuce? I hate it. It's like shredded lettuce is the most useless thing ever invented. Dude, I'll pick up the little cardboard thing and be like,

oh my gosh. Shake it in because it's got the sauce on it still. I would also say the double whoppers. man better than the Dave's double. No. No, I can't. I really love Dave's double. You can't eat them double whoper because there's mayo on it.

Well, I get everything with ketchup only. So my scale is within my own box. You know what I mean? Which I'm not saying is better or worse than anyone's. I'm just saying. Better not. I'm consistent. You are.

You know what I mean? Dude, I mean, Wendy's quality burger, though. Never frozen. Dude, it's a better quality burger than both Burger King and McDonald's. I would say out of any fast food restaurant, though, I go to McDonald's the most. Yeah. Because it's consistently what it is and it's also the cheapest. For sure.

Like you use the app? I don't. You got to get on the app. The app's great because you can just pick it. Dude, I have a game-changing deal every time I go. Oh, yeah, the deal. The deals are huge. I get like my nuggets for free or something.

There's like for Fridays, dude, large fry for $1. Wow. You got to get. When I realized that I like spice suddenly. Sure. I was, for whatever reason, I was obsessed with putting like syracha on nuggets, on McNuggets. Yeah.

And on the app, 40 nuggets for $10. I mean, that's, that's quite the deal. It's quite a deal. People in Germany are listening to this and being like, What? What's haught to ex-zacht? They have no idea. I mean, I will say

the two things I consistently get from McDonald's are the quarter-pronger with cheese because I love the whole onion on there. Yeah, yeah. I'm not an onion guy, and I'm genuine. I like the quarter-pound onion. Dude, the McDouble bundle is probably the best deal there. What is the best deal there?

bundle. We don't have them in the city. That's the one thing about McDonald's is like he has access to different deals in the burbs than I do in the city. I imagine you get them marked up McDonald's, well. They're all privately owned, so you got the you got the fuck. Yeah. Yeah. James got the nice

suburban grandpa who's, hey there. How's it going? Owning it as a hobby. Yeah. That's true. I mean, it's nothing special, but it's just the McDouble with fries. It's 320. And like, I mean, I've never heard of such a deal.

Do you remember the two McDonald's for three bucks? That's still going on here, but it's two for 350. Yeah, so fucking, thanks. Thanks, Uncle Joe. Yeah, I mean, I usually get the McDouble bundle with a large, large diet. Yeah. That's pretty much my standard. You get one McDouble?

I mean, I usually go there. I rarely do I eat McDonald's as like dinner. No, it's like, it's like, it's like, Yeah, it's a transitional meal. I'm a little peckish. I need something. And I would love a Coke. Exactly.

I mean, dude, the $1 soda. Unbelievable. Revolution. The greatest marketing decision may be in the history of food. Yo, but hold on. They recently stopped at least at my McDonald's. I actually noticed that. Remember last night I went, when you guys with Doritos, I got a couple McDonald's and

it was a dollar. 50? Yeah, it's a dollar 50. This is devastating news live on this isn't exclusive actually. Hardlores. I mean, it is fucking bullshit. It is bullshit. Because you know, McDonald's fucking soda, you know, whatever, the inflation doesn't fucking matter for them.

I don't think anything matters for McDonald's to be. For Ronald? Dude, Ronald's fine. I just talked to. Yeah, no, absolutely. So I noticed that recently. that like, yeah, it's, you know, with tax, it's almost two bucks. Get out. Get out.

Yeah. I think it's still going strong. Let's check the app live on the show. I got the next thing I want to talk to you about. Me? No. I'll talk to you all the time. I don't talk to this guy I haven't seen in 20 years.

Free Fry Friday. See that? There it is. Hey, have you tried the affigato yet? What did you call me? The soft serve and the cold brew? Have you tried that yet? No.

is it good? Dude, I haven't tried yet, but I keep getting ads for it and frankly it looks amazing. That sounds incredible. I will not rest until the damn spicy nuggets come back. Oh my God, it's $199. Dude. This is horrible. End of an era. Hey, Hardler exclusive.

This is one of the worst things to ever happen to me. Breaking news. Two, come on. $2? We know. McDonald's? Who are you? Taco Bell? Oh. Dude. Pepsi. fucking Pepsi.

of Brits. Let's talk about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Anytime. This man loves Arnold Schwarzenegger, both from a fitness standpoint, from a human being standpoint, from a acting standpoint. And frankly, I don't disagree even a little bit. Yeah. What are the top three Arnold?

There we go. Dude, top three Arnold movies. But when I've had this discussion many times, this is hard. Predator 1. It's not even close. That's that's. Predator is not, it's in the top three. Predator's not one. Not number one.

I think you're objectively wrong there. How can that be? Because I think that is the greatest, like T2, I wouldn't call T2 straight action, you know? I would say it's a sci-fi action movie. Oh, so the movie with, yeah. Predator is too. But I also think it's in terms of pure action, a higher degree. So I would call predator.

It takes place in the alien universe. I know. No, I know that there is a science fiction element to it, to the story. But in terms of, like, action-wise, that's straight up. I wouldn't say science fiction element. I mean, it's clearly science fiction. Well, that's yet to be seen. It could just be science.

There's a hunting alien, you know. With camouflage and heat-seeking vision. Soon enough, that will be a fucking documentary. Okay. You will hear your words. And it's an action documentary. What's your top thing? Well, Terminator 2, I think, is 1.

Yep. Fair. Predator is 2. Terminator 1 would probably be 3 for me. Really? It's the same for me. Terminator 1 over any of the comedies? I know for a fact, you watch Jingle all the way more than you watch Terminator 1.

Not me. Yes, you. Really? Really? You've spoken about it. Me? You throughout your life have seen Jingle All the Way more than you've seen Terminator 1. Because you're going to watch Jingle All the Way yearly at least.

Guarantee it. I mean, I would say it's probably close, but a lot of times Jingle All the Way is not out of choice. It's just on. Yeah, but how fucking good does it end up feeling when it's just on? Well, Jiggle All the Way is incredible. I'm not arguing. But, dude, like Terminator 1, like. straight up.

It's fucking incredible. Yeah. I mean, I agree with you. And then you have Conan. Oh. Tony. Yeah.

Which is also. Both of them. Underrated. Underrated. Yeah. Like, I think people forget. And then you have like some of the more ridiculous, like, dude, commando.

True lies. Commando is absolutely bonkers. Eraser. I love Commando because it's obviously like ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, the, the animated jiff of like the suiting. Like, it's just like. iconic. Running man,

cop. Oh, running see, running man I think is one of the the least good action movies. But I like it. It's of an era. Total recall is probably number three for me, I would say. I love total recall. I kind of forgot

it. I might put total recall above T1. I'd probably go Predator T2 total recall. I, okay. I mean, total recall is great. I've watched probably total recall more than Terminator 1 by far. You heard it. There you go.

Dude, the twist of Terminator 2 with the T-800 being the good guy, right? Was so, like, shocking to me. I remember watching it. Because obviously, I wasn't old enough to watch it when it came out. Sure. I think I probably watched it on TV,

like edited with my dad, you know, when I was of age. But I had seen Terminator terminator one. So like when he's going after Danny and they're in the fucking L.A. River, like that whole shit is fucking, dude, that sequence when when dude from Salute Your Shorts doesn't sell him out to the cop. Dude. Legendary. That poor bastard who's just like, who was like, hey, you can't be back here and

that just gets shot to shit. Unbelievable. And then like that whole sequence of running the dirt bike, the chopper, the fucking like that whole thing might be the best out of all of his shit like the best thing that he's involved in. Yeah, I mean, just the fact that that's all like practical action aside from the liquid metal stuff is

absolutely bonkers. You know what's hilarious though is when there's like the jump when he's jumping on the chopper and it's just not Arnold Schwarzenegger. Oh, dude, it's so clearly a devil's awesome. Yeah, I love that. That's funny. Dude, you want to know.

So two things about Terminator 2. it's the first movie I remember going to the video store with in my dad and I renting Fuck, what a memory Like I remember like them You know like going to like

Whatever blockbuster or whatever And they had you know 50 Yeah You know T2 Because it just come out Oh man And we watched it together

I was had to be like five or six My dad did not care much about You know what I watched Um And then another cool story about Terminator 2. What's the actor's name who plays?

Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yeah. No, no, no. The kid? No, no, not the kid. The, is it the T-2000? T-1,000. T-1,000.

I forget his name. Forget the guy from, he's in peacemaker. Yeah, the guy from Wainsworth. He's seen his dad. So my sister's fiancé, Corey, shout out Corey. Corey. He works on like sets.

you know, like similar to what you, do you still do that, Colin? No. Thank you. No. All right. So, but he, he, like, more in charge of, like, prop design and things like that. Sick. He was working on a show with him.

And for some reason, they had to use liquid nitrogen for something. And he, like, was carrying it towards where they were going to use it. And he goes, he goes, whoa, don't, don't put that around me. As a joke towards being the T-1000. And I thought, like, dude, how cool. Yeah. About, like, someone guy, some, I mean, people probably ask him, you know, like, literally the only thing I can remember that guy being in is the fucking sopranos.

Oh, yeah, that's right. He's David. Yeah. That's right. You're right. We were just talking about that. That's it. I mean, like, but, like, it's just cool.

I thought that was, like, so cool that he, like. I mean, he's playing an iconic villain against, like, against who ended up being this, this iconic guy's most iconic role. yeah of course you're gonna own that and be like yeah that's fucking me bitch I hope he's getting residuals for he's dude you know how often is T2 on fucking TNT

oh fucking they're getting paid I love the movie dude you actually bring up a good point you know what I really don't like Colin is actors who are just like like yeah I was in that like don't talk to me about it they're like they're fumbling the bag man going to conventions now and just being like

I was in this movie dude like I know he's old in crotchety, and I know he was never really that into it anyway, but Harrison Ford bums me out with Han Solo. But the thing is, he's been like that the whole time. And I know, but it's still like, dude. He has to be written out of Empire.

I know. I know. So. But it's still just like, dude, come. Yeah, I know. Like, you know this is one of the movies for people. He hates. He hates Star Wars fans. It's crazy. He hates it. And I hate and like, that bums me out.

Arnold did the thing the other day, or the other day, or the other day, like a couple years ago with the Conan sword. Like, he isn't the man. He's the man. Dude, do you know why whenever you see Mondo or something do Terminator stuff, they don't put his face on it generally. Who, Arnold? Yeah, it'll be like other characters in the movies and like just the skull.

Because the likeness, like the rights to his likeness is like a flat like 50K fee or something. Fuck yeah. Dude, how about last action here? That, dude, that is number four probably. It's a great movie. Sly being the term. Dude, come on. Huge.

So fun. Yeah. I mean, that's another underrated. Very underrated. Big time. Charles Dance being the villain. And I didn't know who he was until Alien 3 and then fucking Game of Thrones. Oh, yeah.

It's true. Dude, I mean, I would, I would honestly watch any of those movies anytime they're on. Didn't we watch Commando together in Europe? Yeah, I believe so. In the sprinter. There's that one picture of you where he's like looking at a deer and there's a picture of James just like... I mean, it's just...

That movie is the most ridiculous Arnold movie. But, I mean, he just was an action icon. Change the game. 100%. He paved the way for the rock and all those guys. Dude, absolutely. That's a really good point. And like I personally don't like a lot of the Rock's movies, but I watch them.

Yeah. Of course. Because I like the Rock. And I like him. And I'll continue to watch him. He's a draw. He's like a legit draw. He's like, ah, the rocks in it.

I guess I'm going to watch it. I mean, I saw San Andreas. I had a time. Yeah. That movie. Let's get back to, let's get back to Harvestway a little bit. Right. Let's do it.

I wanted to talk about Linda Hamilton a little bit. Oh, Lord. Dude. Definitely. definitely formative for me. I've realized I've realized like her being an ass-beater in T2 is definitely...

So you're saying it's a point of attraction? Oh yeah. You like a chick who can do a pull-up? I like a strong woman. What can I say? Dude, you know what's interesting? It's like my dad anytime I would talk about Timorne and be like

Linda Hamilton, man. I never got it. Yeah. You're literally the only other person I've ever heard say Linda Hamilton is attractive. It's particularly in Terminator 2. Yeah, I wouldn't even say that she's like hot. I just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, attractive. Same with like, Sigourney. This is, Seagorny. This is Peek. In Alien. This is Peak White Mail podcast. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah. It's so good. Like, I don't even think she's hot, but I think she's sexy. No, but I'm saying the, the, the image of that is like ingrained.

Yeah, I get it, man. I mean, I love a, you're right. I mean, I love a, you're right. I'm strong woman. But, but I mean, honestly, she, I mean, both of those characters,

I mean, are kind of first of their kind in like big. Absolutely. Ripley in particular is like way ahead of her time. Wasn't that 79? Colin? Yeah,

I think so. Oh, yeah. Maybe 78. It was really amazing. It's fucking awesome. Let's talk about harm's way. Yeah.

So no, no gods was obviously I was a big, I was a fan. as you've seen from the footage from episode one of this podcast. When did the relationship with Justin and Close Casket? How did that, did he reach out to you?

That would be, Chris isn't here right now. That would be a really good question for him. I think, I think he's not up to you. No, no, I'm pretty sure at the time, I think Justin had just only, only done like... Unholy. Unholy.

What was the other? He did another victim, like a repress. One tiger's fight? Did he do that? We had one tiger's fight. Yep. I'm like 80% sure

that he contacted us about it. Putting out a record. And we talked to him at the infamous Sound and Fury, the motorcycle sound of fury year. That was then, really? No, no.

No, that was. That was 2010. Yeah. Isolation came out 2011. That's crazy. But we talked to him outside of the venue. Did he not do no gods too? He did no gods too, right?

No, he did do no gods. But, oh shit. I'm sorry, you're right. But we talked to him, but it was after we had already put out a record. It was like just so, I mean, Justin is probably one of the biggest reasons that Harms Way, like, continued to do what we have. I mean, he, like, because, I mean, the story I talked about earlier,

like a big reason, like, that John Hofacker, who quit and caution quit, like, in reality, was that we were going in a different direction. Music that they didn't agree with. And I, at the time, I wrote a lot of those songs on No God. I think he wrote 100% of those songs. And I, like, brought, like, these to the table. And it was, like, you know, a. pretty, I mean, obviously there had been some, like, metal core aspects to reality approaches.

Like, we had started to move in that direction. But I think No Gods was kind of like really the time when we started to completely separate ourselves from that sound. It's so funny. Like, as a third party, I look at the difference between those and I go, oh, they learned how to write songs. Well, so, as Colin, as I know you know, it went from. five people writing to one. And also caution. And caution was notorious for being very difficult. If he just, he, he's the kind of guy who would be like, I really don't like that riff. Okay, what about it?

I don't know. But we can't, you can't play that. And like, that's, that's it. No, because it was also in that era, too, like, prior to no God's harm's way was, like, we didn't really have a say. like caution would bring these riffs and it was his way or nothing. Interesting. And so when we kind of were like,

hey, we don't want to sound like this anymore, then, you know, obviously he ended up leaving the band. And you found your niche. Yeah. And you were immediately really good at it. So I imagine for him he was like, fuck. Yeah. He, you know, there was,

I think there was probably bitterness for like a month. Okay. I mean, because they, I mean, he had weekend notch which is his. you know, his baby. They were killing it at the same time. Which also, we were talking about that guy, Aeros, before. He was, it was cautioned in Aeros for the two original guys from nachos.

So there's a lot of crossover going on. But yeah, he had his outlet with that where he remained almost to end. Just the guy. Yeah. And I mean, like, again, like with Justin, I mean, Justin, you know, was a big part of obviously releasing no gods. and it was kind of the first time that we started to do real stuff. You know, like we played United Blood, I remember. We did United Blood.

Right after. We did real tours. We went to Europe on it. Went to Europe, yeah. I mean, that, which, what's funny we always talk about, if that European tour happened now, it would be, like, legendary. Yeah, it was the Nails Rise of Fall. It's when we met Taylor.

Yeah, it's been, you know. But, yeah, I mean, that was really the turning point for the band. And then obviously, I know, you know, for a lot of people, like, isolation is like the record that, you know, probably turned them on to harm's way the most. Sure. You know, from our era, at least. Which was again. I was OG, you know, for them, like, as we know. You were, he, you know, his, he was a Warriors will rain guy.

Like, he heard that. That was, yeah. That was the team. Well, to be fair, I saw you at the Colbalt, pre-Warriors will rain. When we covered Infest. Oh, yeah. That was a good, that was a great cover. We're not really a cover.

We were at the time we were a cover band. You did an intro or two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lots of Slayer intros. Lots of Jesus saves. I love it. That was you, that was the post-killer in you. Yeah, absolutely.

I'm going to bring up a couple things before. Please do you. A couple corrections. Oh, he's. But I'll save it. I'll save it. Okay. Do it now.

Do it now. Do it now. Correct. Let it be organic. So the, the Slayer thing that you mentioned about, it wasn't, uh,

it wasn't south of heaven. They did mandatory suicide. Who? Um, when you mentioned the last podcast about, like, being the most violent pit. It was mandatory.

Yeah. Right. It was, it was mandatory suicide. You're right. Because I remember, I remember that it would be like, obviously.

Do you remember how fucking scary that was? I wasn't physically there. Oh, but you heard about it. Yeah. Secondly, and justice, I obviously love justice, right? This actually ties into no gods as well, actually. So you said on the last podcast that justice was the first person.

Oh, that was insane. Okay. That to have brought weightlifting and kind of like this, I don't know, what would you call it? Fit. Thick eye. Yeah. Culture. into hardcore or modern hardcore.

An egregious error on my part. But it's funny that you said that because, like, for whatever reason, like pretty much around that era of like no gods, like Justice and I became friends before that reason. We connected, you know, the Trapped Under Ice Demo came out. They were all shirtless, you know, kind of had like. The back of imprisoned were all shirtless. in his bench.

Yeah. Like Sam. Yeah, maybe a little even before, no gods. And I remember him and I talking through MySpace, right?

And like, but I just thought it was funny because I was like, dude, like, I was literally like, you know, one of the only people

at the time to have been into that because it was frowned upon. He was meathead jock bullshit. The meat cross. Yeah. And it's funny that like, you know, obviously in the 90s, like, you know,

that some of that culture existed and then like completely everybody was like, no, fuck that. You know, like, we don't want any of that. Dude, 2000s teen comedies really, really ruined weightlifting. Like the fucking loser was always the hero. The hero, yeah. Can't hardly wait.

Yeah, the guy who worked out is like the biggest piece of shit. Yeah. Sure. And obviously, I don't care. I didn't take any, any offense. James, I'm really sorry. I was just like, I was like, dude, I mean, I got shit. Yeah.

Like for that, for being into that for years, you know, until, I mean, now it's like, everybody works out. Yeah, of course. And what's funny, too, is like, even, even back in the, like, you to today, like, Purcell worked out, like, all those. Absolutely. Al Barill worked out. Like, all, like, all of our, like, hardcore heyday.

They're shredded. They're all shredded. Yeah. They're all shredded in playing Gibson custom, like Les Paul. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in today's case, that's why New York didn't fuck with them.

Is that true? You didn't hear from me. I thought it was Richie. Hey, another thing that I wanted to point out that I feel like needs to be said. He was right about this one. You guys were talking about death metal being popular in hardcore bands. and then like kind of like hardcore guys kind of moving into the death metal genre. And so let me apologize because not only did he text me, but Drew, the drummer from Hate Force, also texted me.

The Hate Force demo came out 2013. And so, I mean, that's me, that was me, Drew and Todd, which, you know, Todd has been, you know, I don't know if he's been in any bands that, you know, you would know aside from. Like rats. Like rats. Yeah. The closest. Are you saying that, I mean, I don't think our claim was that like this is the first time it's happening. No, no, but I'm saying it's just not true. It was it was like, I think what we said was like who are like, who's good, who's around that you like. It was.

And they were so. Hate Force had been around for so long that I didn't even. Yeah. I mean, we were talking about the new crop. I felt like this is the direction. I thought. I thought you guys had mentioned, like, you talked about the originators of the hardcore death metal cross-off.

No, because I feel like that would even go back pre-hate force at some point. Way, way, way, way-pre-hors. Taylor was in crematorium in 2007. They were, like, their whole thing was that they were half a hardcore band and half a death metal man. Sure. No, absolutely. I just, I thought I was like, you know, as a friend and a friend of the show, And band member.

That's on Bo 100%. I felt a little. As it all. As you should, James. Honestly, Bo is... Really drop the ball. Oh, hey, we have a new record coming out. Hate Force does.

Yeah, that's right. We heard we listen to the Masters. Yeah. So, you know, it'll be... Hardware exclusive. What's the date? No, I can't say. You got test presses, yeah?

Oh, we don't have nothing. I don't know. I'm just telling you that. There's a new record coming out. I'm breaking news right now. This is frankly incredible. We get them. We got them.

Just kidding. But anyway, all right. So, no gods. Any more questions about harm's way? Yeah, let's get, I mean, isolation. What year? Was that 2011? 2011.

Because we just did the 10 year. This was, this was like also a big moment for close casket. I feel like this was like close caskets kind of coming out. Like this is a huge record, huge label. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember it broke our heart because we were, again, with, I feel like we'll do like a 10 year sleep therapy episode at some point.

But when sleep therapy, I sent it to everybody. I emailed every label under the sun. Except fucking close casket for some reason. Oh, really? When it was weird because Taylor was like a mark for closed casket early. I don't mean that respectfully. Like Taylor ordered everything that he made. And I think we just assumed like because they kind of had this text friendship that he wasn't going to be interested.

And it was legit like the day we signed the ice cream contract. Justin was like, yeah, I'll put it out if you haven't found anybody yet. No. And we do. We were so heartbroken. Because and that it could have been label mates from the get-go, dude. And like, it took another year. Sleep therapy was recorded July 2010.

Wow. Came out April 2012. Wow. Think about that. That's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. Almost two years. The only thing crazier than that is God's hate record being recorded August 2019 coming out March 2021.

Yeah. That's crazy. Fucking brutal, dude. Isolation's a funny one because we had a guy, we had Dave in the band, who was only in the band for one record. Fucking loser. Fred of the show,

Enemy of James. He's like one of those guys that everyone loves to hates. And if he was listening right now, he would laugh. Right? He would have laughed at that. Classic James.

Yeah, yeah. I hope that's what the listeners do when I shit on you a little bit about. Because it's only, well, we know they don't. I get constant. I know. John is weird.

How abusive you are. But it's truly out of love. But it was a weird one because even on the back of the record, it says like James Crispo, Dave, Sabah. Sabah didn't write, record one second. You were just excited about him being in the band. I get it. We really were.

I was never excited about him. Come on. And then. This is, dude, post-Bad seed? Yeah. This happens. Saba on the roster was a fucking...

That's fucking, that was sick. I remember thinking, damn, they got the homie from Bad Seed. How did we hook up with him? I don't even remember. This is actually... What I remember, actually, is that...

Yeah, we... We asked him to play sound infuri. We needed a guitar player. And why did you ask him? Because we knew he could play. Basically. He was living in Santa Barbara. Remember he lived in Santa Barbara for like a summer? Yeah. Exactly. So we had met him, I think, at Rainfest. Yeah, yeah. And then it was like, fuck, we're going to, we're flying in for this only. Like, we need someone to play. Maybe that guy will do it. Like, I think it was something like that. Okay. I don't know. Somehow we had met or connected with him. And I just remember him going and practicing the Harmsway songs on like a ukulele or something. It was like not even an acoustic guitar.

Like a toy guitar. 100%. I wouldn't have believed you if you said anything other than that. Dude, he, but I mean, what's funny is, you know, he was in the band for a very short time. Very short time. As was Dave. And then we moved into Jay. And then nail stole him from you.

Yeah, let's talk about when he quit. That was another hilarious thing. Dude, he's a fucking poser. So. So when our literal friend of the show listener of every episode, Andrews said. He's not my friend. I'll say that that's breaking news right now. He's not my friend.

So we bought a van once. Dude, we did a tour with Colin, you and I were just talking about the like paying your dues thing. The first we did the occasion string tour with Terror Stray and us. And we opened 100 bucks tonight. Yeah, 100 bucks. Five weeks. But what's funny is that tour at the,

At the, yeah, at the time, the band was me, Kristen James. It's always been me, Chris and James. Of course. It was Saba, and then we had this guy, Justin, from Milwaukee playing bass. You guys had, I've had some rotating jobbers, huh? Dude, for like 10 years until we found these two fucking angels in the room with us, who, like, literally changed the band for the better. But, like, at this time, Chris couldn't do it because he was in school.

We had this guy, Justin, for his first tour with us. Peter, it was his first tour with us doing merch. We had to get a fill-in drummer for Chris with this guy, Mike, who he never spoke to again. I can't believe if it wouldn't ask me. Even if you didn't know me yet, I can't believe you. We asked everyone. No, we did ask you, actually.

No. You never did. I think we did. I think we did. I think Chris asked you. Nope. I would have said yes. I don't remember for sure. Because then there was the other tour. There was the recent one where. Yeah.

Oh, maybe that's what I'm thinking. Or somebody else went and I was like, guys, I'm right here. When you, when Harmsway is, whenever I'm touring with Harmsway, you know for a fact, I'm fucking side stage hidden every fill. Kat, Koo Kats, I'm right there with it the whole time. Chris will just look at me and be like, damn, you did that. You did that film with me. I mean, dude.

So, Sab is in the band. we're doing tours. They're brutal. We do the Europeans tour with Nails and Rise of Fall. Sabah meets Todd and Taylor. I think he probably knew Taylor, right? You know. No, I feel like that was them actually meeting, probably.

But it was Nails as a three piece, right? Yeah. Sabah, one day I used to keep the van in the city for whatever reason. We had a van for that occasion. It was our first van. I used to keep the van in the city. It made, for some reason, we thought it made sense because I would use it

and so I would check out it every day kind of a thing. I think we had no place to park it. So, and you didn't have a car right at the time. So it just made sense to like to leave it on the street, you know,

like millions of other cars in Chicago are, you know, but. I woke up one day and there's no van and there's glass on the ground. And there's a couple other people walking around the same sidewalk

at my girlfriend at the Times place. And we were like, You missing your car? And I was like, yeah. And they were like, yeah, me too. So they like hit the block. It was right by the highway. They're in Indiana, whatever.

Had some gear in the back because we had just played a fest. Typical. Typical Harmsway shit. This was the first of the major incidences. Text. The best part is, I texted him. I was like, yo, you were teaching, I think. It's something at the time.

Yeah, you said, call me. I was like, call me when you have a chance. And he texted me back. He said, just tell me. He knew. We talked on the phone. I explained what happened. He's like,

all right, we'll do a police report, whatever. It was my first day at Whole Foods, too. I had to go. I was late to orientation. First day, fucking fish. First day. Your band gets stolen?

Straight up. We text. I don't even know if there was a group, was group chatting even a thing at the time? I don't think so. It was 2012. Early iPhones. So maybe,

but anyway, Sabah finds out and what was his reaction? I mean, he just was like, all right, well, I guess the band's breaking up.

Yeah. That was his reaction. And then we were like, well, no, like we're going to Australia. This sucks, but like we're going to be okay. I guess I've got to join Nails and going to tour with them in three weeks. That's literally what it was. That's what it was. And you just quit.

Yeah, I mean, really, that's what I'm saying. Like, we're going to sit here and talk good about Saba. But, you mean, he's a traitor. He's an all-out trader. And if he's got a problem, he knows where I'm at. Breaking news. But we did Australia then and we had Jay. And Jay went on to write with us for blinded and Russ.

So Jay was then in the band for quite a bit. Oldest living musician? Yeah, living. With respect. With respect. We love Jay. Don't seem enough. Friend of the show, Jay, maybe.

Maybe. We went through some serious shit with Jay. when the other van died in Texas and we figured all that shit out and he's dude jay sold a dead van to a stranger outside of san antonia texas without the title within an hour for $500 as well that a van like van didn't run the guy well it ran enough the guy lived down the road yeah i this is actually a pretty crazy story i mean i know we're we're probably this is where we want to be We're good. All right.

So on that tour, it was one of the life and death tours. I think it was the first life and death. And we bought this van for $2,000. It was a Dodge? It was a Dodge. With like the vinyl floor. You were like the shitty like. You were begging for disaster.

Yeah. Yeah. It was. I mean, it was a disaster from day one. We literally went. Oh, yeah. We purchased the van and went to exit the parking lot and it died. at the dealer.

And was the guy like that guy's, this never happens, I swear. Yeah. Yeah. They looked at it for us. This is actually a feature. This is, uh, it's anti-feph. They did, they actually did do us a solid and fixed the van. It was the vortex here, right?

Wasn't it after the vortex? So it had been sitting in the, yeah, it was like, they're like, yeah, it's been sitting in the cold. So what happened was one of the radiator pipes cracked. And they, and they fixed it. But I think by law, you have to, right? Well, I think you get 14 days. Oh, do you?

Like a letter law. Yeah. But the thing is, literally, we were about to leave for this tour. The van breaks again. Like, we're about to leave. So now we're like rushing, finding a mechanic, fixing it. And like pretty much since we left, it would like overheat. and we'd have to like pull over

but we were making it work I mean it was the middle of summer we couldn't use the AC sometimes we had to turn on the heat in order to keep it from overheating these are the dude these are the things that people don't know go into just getting to a show

for every band if you're paying us in the 2000s what's going on in the 80s oh my God I can know what yeah exactly like if you're going to a show And a band not from your state is playing and they're not on a bus. They spent a lot of fucking money to be there. Yeah.

Yep. I mean, get a shirt. Yeah, by one shirt. Please God. And so this was one of those things where like every day it was like, okay,

I'm going to, James is like, I'm going to wake up early and go to a mechanic and have this looked at. Oh, I think it's a sensor. We're going to have this checked out. Oh, like literally every show.

we'd go drive to wherever like whatever hotel or whatever place were staying and the check engine light would come on and it was a different problem every time different code every time different code we were replacing sensors on the daily left and dude we're fucking in san antonio yeah we which this is actually a hilarious story it was after Andrew got really he got big mad at us at this show we all went to see the alamo we forgot that Andrew needed to get into the van and Bitterend was playing was about to play and Andrew couldn't get his shit

because he was playing bass for Bitterend he was very big mad at us which he fine rightfully so rightfully so but but he wasn't there for loading well this is just harm's way being pre like professional

harm's way because we just used to not give a fuck and just show up when we showed up and, you know, that's not okay at this point. We weren't quite full time yet. You know, it wasn't like really the job yet. But anyway, it was Chris's birthday. Okay. The show ends late because obviously, you know, there was what, seven bands, eight bands, whatever. And so we started driving to the next show, which is in New Mexico. And Chris, we're like, okay, like, let's try to go somewhere that's open for your birthday. We basically have to land out that place, Taco Cabana,

because it's the only place that's open. Chris pulls up with the van. It's fucking closed. And, like, we're literally on that edge of San Antonio where, like, if you go any further, you're in the desert. Yeah, there's nothing. Chris fucking is pissed, fucking gets. bag on the highway literally floors the van that's literally, you know, at this point.

Frankenstein. Yeah, like, you know, made of like fish. Held together with rubber bands and fishhows. Straight up. Fucking, the thing explodes, basically. Oh. Yeah. Like, he's going on an entrance wrap and it's just like, and it just like explodes.

There's fucking coolant spraying everywhere. We're like, dude, this is. Like, it just, it just, like the van's dead. We're fucked. It's 1 a.m. We're on the side of a highway in the desert of Texas. Yeah. And what's so funny is this is where Andrew Baker is literally like honestly one of the funniest people.

Oh, he was with you at this time? This is his last tour, I think. Dude, he fucking, we pull over and he just starts like moshing the van. He starts spin kicking the van. No, wait, wait, wait. Dude, hold on. Bitter End drove past us, pull over. Daniel calls us and he's like,

I have AAA, do you want me to call them? We're like, yes, please. What a fucking guy. A legend. The van is getting to put onto a fucking toebed. And that's when Baker starts spin kicking it. Dude, he was like, like, we were just all just kicking the van like as hard as we possibly could. And Baker's over here doing his like fake metal core mosh.

Yeah, exactly. I've seen it. Exactly. Dude, he like, so like the mood is like lightning, but like basically we're like dude, we're fucked. Like, like we, our van like that we not only do we have to find a new van, but we now have a full 15 passenger van full of gear. We need to find where to go. So we have the AAA thing take us to a hotel like a holiday express that we can find. And we don't, it like unloads the van.

We check in and we all just go to bed because we're so like fuck. this. Yeah. Yeah. We just wanted to go home. We wake up the next day and James and I literally look at each other and we're like, all right, we got to find a rental. We look up like a rental place. There's one enterprise in whatever town that we're in.

Yeah. I can't believe I don't know the name because it was like literally life saving. One enterprise. We call them. They're open. They're like, we don't have anything of that size. All do we have is a minivan that's at a dealership that's like holding an enterprise sign on the side of it. If you

want it, we'll pull it down for you. But we close in 45 minutes. You got to get here. Oh my God. We don't have a vehicle and we're in the fucking desert. Yeah. So James and I and me, it's like, okay, let's go. We get dressed. We tell Jay, Jay tried to sell the broken van. We got to go. Unbelievable.

Dude, within a what, an hour? Well, remember we had to get a ride from that dude? Oh, yeah. The guy from the fucking maintenance guy from the hotel offered to drive us These are made up things that somehow... I know it sounds like a fucking movie but he was like, I'll give y'all rat

and we like straight up got in his car or truck I think. Yeah. It was a pickup truck. The pickup truck. What's crazy about it is the enterprise is like we're leaving at 12.

If you're not hereby 12, then we're closing for the weekend. Wow. So we're trying to get to California. We're trying to make money. Like we're going west. We need, we fucking need to get there. No.

So we somehow, a guy in Craigslist contacts Jay, they, he agrees. He's like, I'll take the van off your hands. I'll give you $250 up front. Once I receive the title, I'll give you the other $250. I'll give you $500. So he's doing that while we're at the enterprise. We get the minivan. We get back.

we have to switch all the shit over. Dude. To this day, I don't know how we literally put all of the gear in all of the merch in a minivan. And our bags. With fucking, we had seven people. Yeah.

Emily Chancellor was with you too, right? She was going to be with us. At this time, Andrew wasn't even with us. He went with Better End. Okay. Or no, no, the van broke. Bitter End. And then he was like, well, I got to play for Better End.

Went with them. So at this point, in an hour's time, we literally sold the van without the title, got a rental vehicle. This all happened in one day. Dude, this happened in like an hour and a half, Colin. Oh, wow. Like we literally woke up. I honestly think that they closed at 11. Well, I just mean from the van exploding.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is all one day. This is 12 hours. And then we decided like, hey, we can't make obviously the show in Albuquerque. Yeah. Which probably wasn't good anyway. It wasn't good.

We heard afterwards. Yeah. And then we, I think we just like, okay, we got to make it to, I think it was Tucson. Yeah.

So we, you're not missing Tucson. Tucson rocks. Dude. One of the most memorable things is, like I said, somehow we fucking, like,

I remember Bo was fucking ratcheting. I'm on the roof of this minivan, like ratching all of our bags down with a tarp. Like, dude, we got, we had to take L. peas out of the boxes so that we could like stash them in between seats like just chaos the worst

and then we i remember we we had one of the most iconic meals of all time we went to chilies and everybody was so exhausted but but how hard did that fucking chilies go because of how you thought you were oh my god i remember we drank like how many dr peppers like like there was i must have me about 15 dollars pepels. Dude, I mean, we were quoting that because it was like every time he came back with refills, it was like

keep him coming, brother. Like, we're died. I mean, we, I know a joke. You know, Chili's has like the big cups. I probably had five, which is like, that's a lot. That's an 8.5 fountain. That's like, that's 700 calories probably.

Oh, yeah. Dude, I just remember. And then we just fucking high tailed the fucking. We drove straight from San Antonio is to two, on. It's so crazy that that happened so fast. And we had to convince every other band to take our shit.

We got one of those tulip, like turtle top things to put our stuff in. Emily ended up coming and fitting in and Andrew did too and we finished the tour. And it was... I don't even know. To this day, that is one of the most challenging things. Aside from getting our trailers stolen, which that's actually... That's what I thought the band was done. We thought the band was done then.

Sure. When again, it was he and I, we were ahead of the group. The guys are gone. Everyone else in this band is fucking slow. Physically, like walking, slow. James and I got places to go. We got a pee. We need a Coke.

We got things to do. Yeah. We wake up at the Luxor and we go downstairs and it's he and I who, like, we were both doing the thing. I told Colin before where it was like, there was like a tree and we're like, is the van behind the trailer behind the tree or? here what's going on here and then you know but there was like about a 45 minute maybe hour period where I was like okay well I'm flying home like the band's done I mean I mean that's another that's another scenario where it's like hey like if we don't do this tour like we're going to be in $20,000 of debt if not more no nobody thinks of I mean this is obviously I made your go fund me

personally so I know I knew that that that was an option. Fucking legend. Like, you don't even think about that. At the moment, you're just like, well, I'm ruined. My life is over. Because we had, as you know it. We had the same thing happen where, on life and death,

our beloved van that Taylor bought himself the day before our first U.S. tour, because nobody else would supply one. So Taylor was just like, all right, I guess I'm buying. This is the life and death with no warning. The life and death and no warning. It lasted beautifully up until then. And we took it on those disgraced shows. See?

Oh, yeah. The last, I think it was like the last three or four days. It's dead. Taylor and I buy a new van straight up in Connecticut. Another, the same exact van, but a little newer. Yeah. Dyes immediately. so they we do the we take it back they do a little something to it

dies again in Florida the last show of tour and to that at that moment it was the only show that Taylor had never played and like it was the only show that we'd ever played without Taylor and Twitch and Tongues because he was just sitting with the van all night waiting for AAA oh my God and then we were we were Tampa residents for like four days after that.

So I lived in Tampa for four days. Big fan. Great ball. You and like Adam Cole. Me, Adam Cole and Alec Fiber. And that day, we were, I lived in Tampa. So anybody has been questions about living in Tampa? About Tampa.

Dude. Fuck, I did have a question. I'm sorry. Keep going. About Tampa? No, just something. What is, it about like why haven't we stopped harb's way has had a van stolen a van broken into a van die a trailer

stolen well like like what is it what is the adversity to quitting our our bands are our identities we're not giving that up i think they're part of us they're here i think it's a bit of that it's a bit of like brotherhood legitimately like a family feeling and then genuinely in i'm not even try to like wrap this up this episode up with a bow or something but like without the go fund me without people without the generosity of the community actually giving a shit about said bands and me making it myself personally and you of course making it and introducing us at 1720 with no there's no fucking footage of that can you believe that he did the marauder like intro thing when we played at the the record release for terror footage there's

just no video of that it was a good set too that was great yeah i mean dude it's i mean you're right in the sense that like i think that's what makes i mean and i'm sure this has been said many times but it's good to reiterate things with other people sure it shows like like europe sucking yeah of course um but like like hardcore like in you know people will always say like oh this band or this band is not hardcore because of x and y you know but you know i've i've heard all of us say this at one point It's like hardcore is not about music. There is probably 10 different genres within hardcore.

But the, you know, the ethos and like the DIY mentality. And then on top of it, when the community is down, people really do step up and, you know, pick one another up. And like, I know that's like cliche to say. No, no, no. But like, yeah. I mean, I'll, I'll tell you. tell you right now, if that doesn't happen

like with the trailer, harm's way is done. Yeah, we would have, we would have broken up for sure. It was, was it not like such a silver lining to be like, oh, like, we came out of that like energized. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? It was like, oh, people fucking care, dude. Like,

we're going to be okay and people care and we have a fucking cannibal. That seems to happen every time misfortune brings its way to these bands. It's like everybody steps up. Of course, but but things end up working out. And to a counterpoint to that is, like I said, the bands exist here.

And that's why we fight so hard for it despite everything against us at all times. So like in our tiny world of hardcore, it's big. It's bigger now. You know, with COVID and TikTok and stuff, everything's kind of exploded. But it's still, it's very small thing. So that's why other than like, Greg Benick doing spoken word. Do you remember?

Pause. I'm sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have interrupted. Like, other than Greg Benick's spoken word, our community is too small to spend our time actively shitting on other bands in it. And that, you know,

it maybe took me a little too long to realize that. Yeah, yeah. We all went through that. Of course. But, but like, and that's why there's such a difference between somebody being like,

I don't like this band. and this band sucks. Yes. Because this band sucks is, it's like, that's not about, you're not insulting the music that's being, like that's,

that's, you're hitting here, you know? Right. You're hitting, there's plenty of bands that are popular right now that I don't care for.

But you're not going to be like, you suck. Because that's, that's the, they've dedicated themselves to that. That's, you're, you're insulting the person.

We literally just talked about this. Yeah. Like, like, um, in the sense that, you know whether it's other people whether it's people online whether it's a fucking review that you read like people don't realize that like that's you put in your friends and the people you care

about put all this time and effort into an art and became vulnerable right and when people are just like oh this sucks this is terrible like i don't think they understand what that does like you know, to someone's psyche who, you know, like, man. Yeah, like this, that hurts. And, you know, whether it's, you know, other people involved in hardcore outside, you know, I, you know, I think all of us, like, no matter what, like, will always support one another's bands, like, till the end of time. Yeah, whether I like the riff or not, you know.

And it has nothing to do with music. And, like, that's hard for people to understand. but it's like, yo, like, these are my friends. This is important. Like, I might not be into this thing, but they felt it was important enough to put it out and put it out there. So, like, I'm going to support it, you know? And, you know, I mean, for me, you know, that that's always been a struggle about being in a band and like being. Especially at YouTube being like lyricists, you know.

Yeah, because that's like a double fuck you, you know. Yeah, you're, you're the forefront, especially. when it comes to fucking music journalism. Well, and that's why I do believe that I should be able to legally duel any music journalist to the death. Yeah. Fuck metal sucks. Yeah. Metal sucks is fucking bullshit.

Fucking another loser. It's total dork. All right, I have an idea for something to sign off on the column that I don't think we've ever actually talked about before, but I know James has good stories. All right. Border Patrol. Oh. Border crossing guards. Canada.

Switzerland. Oh, dude, Mexico, easily the dopest. Oh, yeah. They're like, half-pun guys. The man with the machine guns is asleep. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Dude, I mean, I will say, like, our literal sister country, Canada.

The worst of the worst. Well, I would say actually the two worst ever, Canada, England. Switzerland, I would say is worse than England. They're fucking bad. But they have a reason to be bad. The France, England borders are both. kind of equally evil? It's the,

it's the, it's the English people in Calais. Yeah. Those are the problems. Well, I mean, I got, I gotta tell the Canadian one. Yeah,

so yeah, here's the, yeah, here's the good story. Or which one, which you're gonna tell? Fucking, I can't remember which tour it was.

I think it was the one with you're the knife. So it was like the last, the one we were just talking about where we got robbed, when we went to play Toronto. We're coming back and the guy's like, he's like,

all come on up. And we all go up to the counter. And he's like, uh, You know, I only want one person to talk. Don't everybody, blah, blah, blah. And I'm just first. And like, we've done this a million times.

So I'm like, okay, yeah, sounds good. And he's like, so what kind of band are you? And I was like, we're like a metal band. You know, it's heavy. He's like, or are you a metal band? Nice. And I say, we're a metal band. He says, all right.

Anybody else going to talk or is it just this guy? But Stone's serious. He wasn't fucking joking. He told us 45 seconds before, don't everybody talk all at once. Just have one person. And then when I'm the delegate, he's, what's, you guys mute? What's the fucking problem?

And then he was like, God, what did he say? Where he's like, yeah, I don't care for that. Fuck. I don't know. Basically, we said like a popular band. We were like, oh, yeah. Metallica. Yeah, Pantara kind of being.

He said, yeah, I don't really listen to metal. Just like. Just like. Just fake. Yeah. Just fake. Okay, man. Like, can I go?

home? I'm trying to go into my country. Dude, a friend of ours just got to, of mine on a tour, just got denied into Canada straight up. Yeah. They just deny people. Just like, yeah, we're not feeling you today.

A couple, there's two, there's two stories. Do the one. That will end. Yeah. Oh, no, I was going to talk about when when, when basically, well, Chris

pulls up to this guy and the guy kept going, what are you? What are you? And Chris is like, a band? And the guy's like, what are you? And Chris, like, literally. I mean, insane question.

He was like, Americans, friends. He's like, 20 questions. He's just like, I. All right. And then, the guy goes, do you have anything you're bringing back? And Chris goes, what are those things? He said, just some cherry blasters. Cherry blasters, the fucking like, like,

Gummies that you get like that are sour gummies. He was just trying to. He was just being a dick. He was just being a dick. He was just being a dick. But I remember like waking up to this interaction. And you're like, it's just like, all right, we're just going to get. We're going to be at the border for another three hours.

And then what happened? Do you remember? Wait, which? That was the same guy. The Cherry Blasters guy was like, okay, I'm going to come around and take a look at everyone. Oh, yeah, yeah. He came around the side door of the van, opened it up at a bunch of it. You just hear clang, clang, clang, clang of all.

All the garbage falls out. And he looks up and he goes, are you fucking kidding me? No. Dude. And then he opened it. And then like, so we had like one of these, those external locks, like the puck locks on the side door. So like, you know, if someone struck broke in, they couldn't open the door. And it fell out and he goes, what the fuck is that?

So agro. He thought it was like a landmine or something. Yeah, yeah, like a weapon. I'm like, dude. like it's a lock man like dude the border patrol they're so insane other than Mexico it's one of those it's like TSA where it's like

outside of this like 300 square foot area you're literally nothing but while you're here you're fucking king of the castle but if you're listening to this border patrol or TSA we love you we love you we adore you we love how easy you make it now that they're gone the biggest tell the CalA one and then we'll be done

the phone thing. Oh, yeah. So, you know, as you know, Colin, when you go into England from Europe and you take the ferry, you need to have, you know, the correct paperwork, you know, telling you're playing. Where you're playing, you know, you need to have a work permits or. And all the passports. Just all the pedigree shit that you need. And I had all of this paperwork.

On my phone. Which? On an iPhone. How many times have you done that before? Most times. I had done this already. Dude, sometimes you print it and they're like, do you just have it digitally? I don't need to.

Yeah. Exactly. I go up to the guy. He's like, oh, this isn't. We can't have this. Like with his phone. He's like, what is that? And I'm like, okay, well, can we send it to you?

He's like, no, I need it printed physically. Fuck you. And like, and meanwhile, we need to get on. the ferry in like a half hour. Yeah, it was like the next fair. Yeah, you can only get on that one. The show or the tour is ruined. Yeah.

And basically, he refused to let us use it and we missed the ferry. And the tour was ruined. Dude, wait, just wait. Once we miss it, like this other person goes. Well,

well, the guy, we were like, well, can we print it here? Because obviously there's no print like Calais. Yeah, what are you going to do?

It's not near any. You're going to go to fucking Kinkos in Calais, France. Yeah, go to FedEx. Exactly. So we're like, can we print it here? And he was like, you could try. Like, that was his attitude. What does that mean?

Exactly. So he's like, you could try out of it. Okay, okay. Like physically? So James sends it. And eventually gets printed out. We miss the ferry, but someone's like, Mr. Pliggy, like, here's your paperwork. He grabs it.

Different Border Patrol guy comes down. Like the shift swapped or whatever. Oh, yeah, yeah. James hands him the paperwork. And he's like, why should just, use your phone. I'm not joking. Yeah.

That is what happened. Yeah. And I would have fucking Hogan to my shirt off. Well, what's dumb is like, dude, like literally all I had to do was send them an email. Like, it was a PDF file.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, if it, like, again, just something like, you know, this is my job. I need to, you know, be, like, we're here for two nights. We're playing here and here. are all the passport numbers. We applied for the visa months ago and it's approved.

Here you go. That's all it is. It's like we, it's like one of those situations where, yo, like we literally have everything. Yeah. Like why, like what is the problem? You know, like. And it's just because.

That's the problem. Just because. I remember luckily, I'm. That guy was working. Yeah. Yep. And luckily, you could, you could use the ticket for a later. Fair.

And we made it or whatever. How much later was that ferry? Like an hour and a half or something? Like we were okay, but it's still just like, come on, man. Like, you got to add something for me to worry about, really? You can look at our passports and see the same stamps with the underworld, London. Yeah. For like the last six years or whatever.

Come the fuck on. All right. Man, I can't believe we talk this long. That's how it always goes. I can't. Because this is just how. And we just, again, we barely scratched the surface. I know we didn't get into Russ.

We didn't get into our beautiful duet together. That's true. That's a nice duet. But that's another reason to have a sequel at some point. But for now, we built it up. Yeah, can you do us a favor? What's up?

Can you say, it's our Lord time? Any way you want. You can death metal it. Oh, no. His voice is hurting. It's our Lord time. Thank you, James. All right.

That was beautiful. Thank you so much for joining us. I can't wait to have you back. We'll have you back with Chris. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's also another mind to, you know, fact check. Remember things. From Bon I. Yeah. He's got a real perspective of that one. Not a friend of the show.

I don't think he ever listens. Enemy of the show, Chris Mills. He will be back on. He will be back on with James soon. Maybe maybe really soon. I don't know. You guys are going to be together for a while doing. Hey, why not?

Who know? We just hang out. I know. We just got a nice room. Travel hang out. All right, fellas. We will see you soon. And thank you listeners.

We will see you next week. Bye. Me.