HardLore - Jay Weinberg Did His Time

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

Colin and Bo talk to VERY special guest and Slipknot's own Jay Weinberg. They discuss Jay's early days of touring with Madball, balancing school on the road, rediscovering what it is to be a music fan in current times, and much more.   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. Hey, hey. It's hard more time. Bo. Yes, sir. We've got to just, what a special yes. Tell them who we got. Tell the world.

J.M.F. Weinberg. Oh, captain, my captain. My actual initial. Is that? Yeah. Legal. Your Christian name. Wow.

We've done our research. Okay. Okay. The boss, the CEO is here. We can't thank you enough for taking time out of your day to join us. Good to be here. Good to be with you guys. I want to say you and Colin obviously knew each other,

so you and I have not met in pretty much anyway. But after we had our trailer stolen, you reached out to the band to Harm's Way to say, hey, I have some stuff if your drummer needs it. Yeah. We played Colin at 1720 show where you introed us. That was good. That was good.

And he rolled up, like still, Chris met him and I guess you just come from some slip-doubt thing. I think, yeah, I want to say we were in the studio at that time. And we were like just wrapping up perhaps making demos for our last record or something. So I was like getting ready to already like just leave L.A. And I was like, oh, man, because, you know, it sucks whenever you see those posts from bands that are in our, you know, community of like we got ripped off, our trailer got stolen. like it's just awful to see that and your heart just kind of sinks like even though we hadn't met or

whatever it's just like man you know it's like it's hard enough as it is so so then when you have that uphill battle of like trying to make all those ends meet it's the worst so i was like all right i'm you know i have like a double pedal i have some symbols or or whatever you know whatever it ended up being it's like all right you guys take this and use it and hopefully that's a little bit of a bandaid on this you know, huge gaping wound and we'll figure out you guys getting that back to me later. You know, let's get, let's get you some gear. So, no, yeah, I'm glad it worked out. It's one of those things, too, we wouldn't want to post about it.

You obviously are humble. You're not going to, like, say anything about it. So I am using this opportunity to say thank you publicly because that was very helpful when Chris was very pumped. So thank you. My pleasure, man. Hey, you know, like, it's one of those things. Like, I mean, the cliches are all true.

it's like we all do have to kind of look out for each other because it's like you never know when that's going to happen you know like you you hope it never happens to you but like you got to know that when you embark on that journey of like going full in in the way that you guys have it's like you know you you hope and and trust that there is kind of that support system of like like minded people and and friends that you might not know but they're you're looking out for you because you just kind of like, you got to pay it forward and you got to look out for one another. So, yeah, it's kind of like, it's like a no-brainer, you know.

Awesome. Very cool. And I love your, I love this double Metallica logo you've got going on. You've got a Metallica logo tattooed on your arm. So you've got a Metallica logo on your shirt. So this is Metallicat, which is my cat. Oh, metallic cat. Yeah, the T is fine.

Okay. I have a friend, I have a friend who has, I have a friend who has two black flag logos right next to each other. Excellent. One right here and one right here. And I was like, when we met, I was like, you have two black flag logos right next to each other. He's like, yeah, I know. I think, I think Rollins has like four or five.

Yeah. On his actual body. Yeah. They're like, they're like military medals, you know? You get the bars for like, it's like a Cub Scout badge. Every time you. Do either of you have black flag bars? I don't.

No, I don't think I've earned the bars. One time at Sound and Fury when Colin Horabia was playing, this is when, like, the black flag bars where like everybody was getting them. Live, laugh, love. This was post-live-lap-love right into black flag bars. And Colin Arabia, somebody was filming him in his face, and he took the phone and threw it as far as good,

and I was like, that was awesome for one. And then I remember very distinctly him saying, I earned these bars. And I was like, okay, that, I get it. And I don't know if I've earned the bars yet. What's like, there's got to be like a live-lap love of hardcore. It's got to be like the bars, the crimson ghosts. and what y'all kill it.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. There you go. Well, what the live-lap love of hardcore is the unbroken life love regret. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Absolutely. Our old guitar player has that on his arm. Okay.

Who, Jay? Is it Jay? Jay, but he gets a pass because he's much older. He's 59. He was like there, you know, yeah. Okay. Jay, you know, a lot of the people that are watching this show just straight up, like, seeing the thumbnail on knot fest know you from slip knot as they should you know this is this is

your claim to fame now other than being j wineberg but like i the thing i really wanted to focus on is that like to me as a touring guy like you did your time you served your penance you know you you didn't like like sure like i like i read something about you filling in for your dad in the in the late aughts but then it was like Madball. Madball, yeah, yeah. In a van, for the most part. And, like, that's such a drastic difference in touring quality of life.

When even in Slipknot, like, right after you and I met, we were both in Europe at the same time speaking at Hellfest, and it had been logistically decided that Slipknot was going to be using a plane to tour. Right, yeah. Well, like, in those instances, like, you know, you're trying to cover so much ground that, like, to just make whatever. Like, the scenario where that ends up being the only option is when you're doing stuff where you have a string of shows. So, like, for instance, if we're playing in Switzerland one night and then we're playing the download festival the next day, which does, which has happened literally those two like back to back. It's just, you know, the layout of those festivals. and you try to hit all of them, and there's only so many miles you can travel overnight.

You know, it's like, okay, so, and then that factors into gear as well. So it's like, while I'm playing on one drum set in Switzerland, my other drum set has to be, you know, in the trailer at download, about to be set up the next morning. And then there's all the, you know, like I'm sure, I bet we were talking that day of like, like, yeah, I mean, you know, you get to fly from one show to the other,

and that's a lot easier than, you know, spending whatever it is, 25, 30 hours, 30 hours in a, you know, in a, in a vehicle. But the logistics are such that it's like, okay, you know, you finish playing at, you know, midnight or sometimes those Euro festivals, they go really late. Sometimes you're on stage at midnight, you know, at the earliest. Like we played shows where we were on stage at 1 a.m., you know, and it's amazing. And that's part of the charm of those shows. Totally.

But then you get off stage at, you know, 3 a.m. And then you're all kind of waiting as a big group, not just the band, but, you know, the crew and everybody that works on the tour, you know, doing, getting their responsibilities done, making sure all the gear is safe and in cases to go to the next show. So by the time you're on the way to the airport, it's like five or six in the morning. And then you, you know, you fly in the air and you land at your destination at nine or ten in the morning. And then you go to the festival site, you get a nap, and then you play later that day. You know, it's just like, nobody's complaining. You know, it's like, incredible opportunity to be able to do that. It's like we should all be so, you know, so fortunate to be able to like, yeah, we're playing the Greenfield Festival.

And tomorrow we're playing download. Like, it is all dream come true opportunities. But then when you, when you factor in, like, how are we going to actually be able to do this? It's like, well, this is the only way we're going to be able to do it. So, you know. The logistics of something like that, like blow my mind. I mean, when I found out that Metallica had like, like a, they have a A, B, and C rig with double redundancies for each thing. And when I, like, had to, I had to think about that because we're talking like 15 years ago when I was like, when we were really starting to tour and I was just interested in touring and stuff.

It's like, how it's crazy. It's its own thing. It's amazing. And, you know, it, like, it totally did. didn't make sense to me. I mean, when I, when I first joined the band, you know, immediately. And also, like, I couldn't, I couldn't tell anybody. I couldn't tell the guys at SJC custom drums. Like, what, you know, what I was up to and why I needed two giant drum sets, you know, immediately because I was entering this world of, like, needing all this gear just to make all these

shows happen and stuff. So, yeah, it was a complete culture shock to me. It's like, it was all very foreign to me. Even with Bruce, I only had the one drum set. And I mean, that tour was such that we weren't like flip-flopping stuff and, you know, having that crazy of a gnarly schedule of like travel or whatever or stacking shows to where we're flying, you know, and doing festivals and all that. So even with that experience, it was still foreign to me. So that took me, you know, communicating with the guys about like what what the obligations are for me to make sure,

Like I got all this stuff, you know, in order. And then I'm like, wait. So like, yeah, how are we going to make all this happen? Because it was so foreign to me. And when it gets explained to me, I'm like, wow, that's, I didn't even think that that was like possible, you know? It's like, it's like humanly not. It's like, humanly not. And then realize, like, wait, you like can't be horizontal in any way.

No, you don't sleep. But, but you're not sleeping like anyway. You know, it's like all the, all the experiences from before that. It's like, yeah, right. Okay, well, I wasn't sleeping in a, in a van. I wasn't sleeping doing this. It's like, it's all kind of like, I think at a certain point, and I'm sure you guys relate to this, much like a lot of people maybe listening, it's like, you know,

when you have just this objective that you're working so hard and putting, you know, you know, days and weeks and months and years into coordinating and stuff. It's like there's no, at a certain point when you put so much effort into just making this thing happen, there is nothing that's going to keep you from making it happen. You know, because then all that work is like is for nothing. You know, you put all this work into, you know, and we're not the ones scheduling shows and booking shows or whatever. And hats off, honestly, to, you know, to everybody we have around us.

Like we have an amazing crew and everybody that works behind the scenes to make it happen. so we can focus on just playing the best we can. But you know, you'll do whatever to make it happen. And I think that like at a certain point, that's just instinct. And you're like, okay, yeah, I'm not going to sleep for, you know, for three, four days. I mean, you know, and that's just where we are. It's like with our crew, they're so hardworking. And like, there are instances where they literally do not have a wink of sleep for several days.

And it's like, you know, it's amazing, man. So yeah, it takes many logistics, but it takes everybody in the community around a band to really make it happen. And when you're in the midst of it, you're like, wow, this is so crazy that this is even able to get pulled off by anybody. I think that happens too that I don't think a lot of people who haven't done it realize is like flying and then playing music is like one of the worst juxtapositions. It stresses me out so bad. My ears, yeah, yeah. My ears get fucked up. We did a Southeast Asian tour a few years ago in, like, Japan and Australia, and on the course of, you know, five weeks, we had 14 flights.

Because when you're over there, you know, so you're doing that kind of thing. And, like, some of them are an hour. You know, you're barely in the air, and it's fine. But, like, that fucks with my, like, inner ears and I'm dizzy all day and, like, just a little shit. Yeah, when you're flying, like, driving is one thing. It's like if you're pulling into a show, you know, on a day of, at least like the driving feels like you can kind of have control over that. When you're flying, it's an all-day thing no matter what.

Like, no matter if it's an hour-long flight or a six-hour-long flight, like you dedicate your entire day based on everything that flying entails. I mean, and that's notwithstanding what flying is like nowadays. It's like it's a whole other thing now. But no, like doing, you know, doing, you know, doing a soundwave. We did soundwave a number of years ago. And that's one thing. Yeah, it's like two weekends where you're doing like, you know, back-to-back shows and the flying on the day, you know, in the morning or afternoon of a show that you're playing somewhere else. I just get so

sketched out. I'm like, we're going to have delays. Yeah. It's going to be, you know, we're going to roll in and have to roll on stage. That's happened, you know, before. Not on that hard. Yeah. It's just, you know, it, but you find ways to, you know make it work like we've all had those those instances of like you know i don't know if it's going to happen it's heartbreaking when it when it actually prohibits you from playing a show um but i i remember i remember on one of my first against me tours we we had a show we were out with the drop kick murphy's and um forgive me if i get the city's wrong because it's kind of fuzzy at this point but we were playing chicago on the drop kick tour

but we played a festival in California in Ontario, California, or something like that. And we flew, we were going to have to play the show and then fly the morning of the show in Chicago. That's what I remember. And I remember, like, there was something messed up with the flight, like it was overbooked, and we weren't going to be able to get on the flight, and then the flight got canceled.

we were trying to get to another flight. And meanwhile, like our gear that was staying with the tour is at the venue in Chicago, and we've got to get there and figure out how to play a show. And then we're like, oh, my God, like, how are we going to make this happen? It ended up happening where we literally, we got on a flight, I think it was a different flight,

get to, you know, O'Hare, and then we're in dead stop Chicago traffic. And then we end up pulling into the venue, the band before us had just finished playing. Oh my God. And literally we're like opening up cases on the stage to play the show. We get done sending up. We play the show, play all the songs, our full set.

And then book it. And it was like, oh, my God. You know, when it's when it is that tight, it's like, it's so stressful, but it's magical when you can pull it off. Yeah, yeah. But on the flip side of that, it's like totally heartbreaking. It's like the stress is, the stress is almost gone the second you start playing. Absolutely.

Yeah. That's the big payoff. There's like a mania that takes over. And it kind of makes it a little cooler, you know, like a little bit because there's a thing. And I've missed it. Colin, I bet you've missed it too. There's a thing that would happen for me where like we would have a problem, whatever the problem was. And then as a band, you overcome it and you beat it and you figure it out.

And it feels real nice when it's like, we did it. Whatever the thing. That Euro tour with Bain, the problem. being, finding out that Vane wasn't getting paid and then basically paying them out of our pocket by switching to the lesser van. That was like, it was, we were walking around feeling like fucking Vince McMan after that. Yeah, right, right, right. That was good, but, uh, so Jay, that's the kind of, that's the kind of stuff we want to hear

about. We like that. We want to hear about nine people having, and the crew rushing stuck on I-90 East into the city and, you know, like rushing and still pulling it off. And like, did you, you guys obviously put on all the gimmicks and still had, did you have like pyro and all that stuff too? Oh, that wasn't with Slipknot. No, no, no. It was against me. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. No, no, it's cool. But even so, it's still, you know, no matter what, it's still like, yeah, you're, you're, you're, you're, it's like, you know, it feels like you're in like a Jason's Dayton movie or something

like that, you know, and to then make it happen, it's like, it's a wonderful reward to, to have it go off. Like, if, if, to have it go off in a way where nobody in the audience would be any of the wiser of what we just did to make that show happen. That's fantastic, you know, and that's, you know, that's when you win in a scenario like that. But it's tough because sometimes you don't. And sometimes the show gets canceled or something like that, you know, the things that are

out of your control, you can only, you know, you can only do so much. But I was going to say, I don't, I don't remember Slipknot opening for Dropkick Murphys. No, that would be wild. That's like a Michael Scott. We played festivals with Dropkick. One of my favorite bands and one of my favorite, you know, organizations of people. Like that, that tour we did was surrounding St. Patrick's Day and had four shows at the House of Blues in Boston. Of course. I was surrounding St. Patrick's Day and it was, you know, you're getting the full on drop kick experience. And those guys are so professional and so incredible from their band, you know, the band to the crew to everybody. They're just like amazing, amazing people. And, and they're always, you know,

it's cool because like I remember after that tour, being at like a Boston East Street Band show and those guys come out, you know, they're the mayor's Boston. Dude, they're amazing. Yeah. So when they come out on stage with the East Street band, and stuff and they, you know, do their drop kick thing. It's, uh, it's amazing. So it's all, it's always, you know, a trip when, when those worlds start to kind of like cross-pollinate in a way and, and whatever, you know.

They played a, they played a hellfest that we played. I think the year after you guys played college. Okay. So probably. Oh, man. Oh, man. Dude. Oh, my God.

We got to talk about that real. Yeah. Let's talk about it. Oh, my God. I have a very just special memory of that, Jay, of, yeah. Like, you and I. standing there together. This is like,

this is like our second time hanging out. And our second time hanging out was watching like the 10th last motorhead show ever. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah.

And just watching it like, like me and Jay, uh, me, a guy who's like kind of plays drums sometimes, like a modern goat watching like my all time goat and Mickey D. Yeah.

Just hit a drum solo. That was a moment that was just like, all right. Look at me, Mom. I never, I never, yeah. I mean, dude, those are the moments that really make you step back and, and, and really think about, like, how special it is. Because we get, you know, we get really consumed in what we're doing and, and, you know, preparation for the show and stuff like that. You kind of lose perspective of just, like, like, we're playing a show with Motorhead.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, and, and, and, it was a real bummer man. I remember that was one of a couple shows on that tour. actually that we ended up sharing the stage with motorhead and um and each time like we i'd watch them on the side of the stage and and uh but before they got too late in their set i would leave to go like warm up and get ready for our set and i remember having a clear like motorhead slipnot right usually that yeah but i remember i remember having a clear thought so misguided that i was like

I was like, man, I still haven't seen them play Ace of Spades. And I had a thought, I was like, they're Motorhead. I'll see them play Ace of Spades someday, you know. And so I never got to see them play Ace of Spades. Oh, wow. I saw, you know, we played all those shows with them. And then we had a tour in the U.S. shortly after that. And we had a night off in Austin.

And Motorhead were playing the new emoes in Austin. And we had a night off and I was like, oh my God, I'm going to see Motorhead. I'm going to finally see them play Ace Spades, this, that, the other. This was September, maybe even August, 2015. And they dropped off that tour. They played two songs. And he said into the mic, he's like, you guys, I'm so sorry. Like, I'm sick.

I can't play. You know, I'll make it up to you next time. And everybody completely understood. Of course. Like everybody, everybody felt bad, but you more so felt this, like, you know, immense respect for, you know, for Lemmy, for the band. And everybody just applauded him just for even just getting out there, giving, you know, two or three songs or something. And then three months later, he passed. Yeah.

I mean, like, it was, yeah, it's like a lifetime regret of mine. And I never, on that run of shows, I never watched Motorhead play a full set. Yeah. I've got a few of those, man. Pantera, typo. I never saw either of them. Yeah. It happens.

Yeah, it's tough. My wife and I were talking about this. It's like, you know, especially during this time where we just went to our first show as just music fans since the start of COVID. You know, our first show just like getting tickets online and going to a show. We went to see Nine Inch Nails. And both of us were like, neither of us want to ever have that happen where we could have gone to see a band but didn't. It's like, because there's always those things that you never know when, you know, like the whole ecosystem of live music and stuff. It's like so we just got a real wake up call these last two years of how fragile it really is.

And so the fact of the matter is like if we have a chance to go see a band and like not take it for granted, we're going to go. And you just got to, you know, seize those moments. Because, yeah, it's like, you never know if that's the last time, you know, knock on wood, you hope it never is. You hope these bands go long into the future. But, like, got to seize the moment. So this whole time off in between tours, like we're about to go on tour in, like, three days.

But, like, you know, instead of just, like, maximizing this time of just, like, decompressing or whatever, it's like we really, you know, We're just fans of bands and all this stuff. So we've kind of stacked this whole time off. It's like we're, you know, we went to a bunch of shows and did a bunch of stuff. And it's like, can't take that element out of our lives. You know, it's been missing for far too long. And when, when now that it's back, it's like, we got to celebrate that and make the effort of like.

And we went and you're like, you know, change our lives. It's like, you know, it's one of it's, it's, it's the moment that works. Like, like our lives revolve around music to the. extent where like music as a thing just feels like a job sometimes like like I need to listen to 10 hours of like watch mojo top 10 videos because like if I listen to a band I'll just get like this really weird but then sometimes like I have this thing where like I'll say like just got into onions like something like really normal I'll be like yeah I just got into fucking water right right like I feel like at 30 spending my life playing music I just kind of got into music

Like being a fan of just like stuff again, just liking stuff. I'm really into liking stuff lately. That's an amazing place to be. I can relate. You're posting about just going to see Ninth Snails the other day. I was like, you know what? I know that feels good. And the other day...

They're incredible. They're so incredible. I think I like, like, I'm like interested in the idea of like watching live music again. Because like, when you're at a festival or something, playing a big show, your fucking favorite band ever could be playing after you or before you or something and you're like I can't watch this because I have like this thing I have to do. Yeah, there's a part of your brain that I mean, yeah, I definitely relate to that when you're in it and you're focused on what you're creating and stuff. Like you're so laser focused and meticulous and obsessive over every detail.

And when you're, you know, when you're playing shows and wanting it to come off, properly and stuff. It's like you get psychotically focused on it. And, you know, when you're so focused on what you're creating and the stuff that you're putting out there, it takes a lot of time and focus and energy, there's nothing I'd rather be doing. But when you're able to step away from that a little bit and not be enveloped in music so much as the creator, but just as the person in enjoying it. You like, because, you know, we, we did our first tour, uh, since the start of COVID in September of last year.

It was amazing, you know, like we're, we're finally back to doing our favorite thing and we were out, you know, we're out with like coat orange and stuff. So for me, being on tour with one of my favorite bands and getting to watch them every single day was very inspiring. But it's also like, I can't, I can't fully let my, I can't, I can't, can't fully be a fan because if I was fully being myself as a fan, I would be in the crowd. Yeah. And I wouldn't be focusing on like, okay, and, you know, two and a half hours, I'm going to start my routine of getting ready and whatever. But so to let your guard down completely and just become a music fan again.

Yeah. Yeah. It's incredible, man. And I had a similar situation. It was like, you know, it wasn't fully doing what we did, like going to nine inch nails. but the last show of that tour, coincidentally, actually, Nine Inch Nails had dropped off a festival, and we took the slot that they were going to play.

And then two of the four days of that festival, Metallica, were playing. And so I was like, okay, we're going to play this show, and I'm out of our COVID tour bubble, and I'm going to watch Metallica, and I'm going to love it. I'm going to be right out front and all that. And it was incredible. But yeah, to like to be able to step in step back into those shoes of being purely just a fan.

You know, in no way am I am I sharing any of the effort of putting this on, you know, with a whole crew of hardworking people. I'm just going to let this wave of sound just, you know, overtake my body. Yeah. That's, you know, to to still be plugged into that, you know, it's a great reminder of like why we do this. And it reminds me of why I work really hard, you know, with everybody around me to put on something that we're really proud of and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, I want us to move people in the same way that I still get moved by bands. And so, you know, whether that's nine inch nails or neurosis or, or metallic or whatever, it's like, I still have that youthful excitement that I did when I was a kid. And, and, and, you know, I hope I never lose that. I hope none of us ever lose that, you know? The giddiness of like, oh, I hope they play X, Y, and Z is like, that's the best.

That was me as a 13-year-old seeing no effects at my first show, you know. Like, the more I'm thinking about that Hellfest, that was the year after you guys and the Lemmy statue was built. Oh, wow. In memoriam at the war zone stage. Yeah, that would have been, yeah, when we played the first time, that was 2015. and then, yeah, man, wow. It's such an amazing festival. Like, I was so impressed when we played.

I didn't know they were doing this, but I noticed it like halfway through our set that all the fire, because everything out in the crowd is on fire at night. Like literally everything's on fire. It's incredible. Looks like this Mad Max landscape when you're on that stage.

And the zip line going across. It's like, yeah, yeah. This is totally insane. But I noticed halfway through the show that the pyro out there was synced to our pyro. So when stuff was happening on stage, it was happening out there as well. And I'm a sucker for those details. When I noticed that, I was like, wow, that's next level. It's so funny because the crowd is probably like, wow.

Like the band puts so much detail into that. And you and the band is like, fuck, that's sick. There's just some French guy. like yeah yeah yeah it was it was serious and you know those are the moments when you know when you as a band can all look around at each other and be like this is fucking awesome like yeah yeah those are the things that you live for and you can you know you spend a lifetime chasing those moments and and it's all worth it in that moment it's all worth it you know for people for people who don't know hellfest is like a three-day uh

out in the middle of nowhere. Clisson, France. It's like a week long this year. They have every single band like in the world playing. Yeah, so people like camp and just like show up. I think it's like partially funded

by French government like some branch of blah blah blah, blah, whatever. It's fucking awesome. There's like catering showers. I got a massage. James got a haircut. You know, like it's fantastic.

The food. The food is sick. The buffet is amazing. Like I'm, I'm even talking about, like, so earlier in the day, you know, it's like I got to, because I had heard all the stories. Like, you know, there are still festivals out there that, like, friends will play and go to and stuff that I still haven't been. Like, I've never been to Roadburn. And that's, like, a big, like, bucket list thing for me.

I've always wanted to go to Roadburn. But I had heard of Hell Fest. So, like, I went early and just wanted to take all of it in. So I went out, you know, and just checked out all the everything. They were doing this thing where they had. had they had like a um i i love this it was a structure that had like raining water and it was like it was like an art installation where the water would like rain down but pause in a way that would make an image and they would do stuff like it would it would like spell out the slipnot logo in

falling water sick yeah i know what you're talking about it's like unreal and then everything at night is on fire. I remember, like, each stage had kind of a particular subgenre. So there was, like, a black metal stage where I think, like, Mayhem and Cradle of Filp were playing and stuff like that. That's like the one with the roof over it, right? Like, it's like the covered one, yeah. Yep, yep. And then I remember, I remember going, it was like right before we played, and there was kind of like the avant-garde stage where, like, you know, bands who didn't necessarily fit with all the others were playing it. So I got to watch Woveen Hand right before we played. And it was like, And that's the stuff that I live for, man.

Like when you get to play with artists that maybe you wouldn't necessarily normally get to play with, but it makes complete sense. I love when festivals have their, you know, they kind of have their finger on the pulse of that and like to curate that. That's what I feel so, you know, I feel so happy that Not Fest gets to do that in a way where it's like it's a celebration of not just, you know, loud drums and loud guitars and loud vocals and everything that, you know, black t-shirt music. You know, it's a celebration of like all the different little tangents that, you know, when we get to do the Not Fest. And actually, we had partnered with Hellfest one year. We did a Knottfest meets Hellfest and it was on the site of Hellfest and we got to kind of do our thing the night before.

It's an awesome thing, man. So it's really cool. You know, we've all done like those European runs where you get to do those very eclectic shows and stuff. And it's awesome that, you know, with, with Not Fest and a lot of the more U.S. based festivals that are like taking, kind of taking inspiration from that, it's super cool. I love it.

Colin, you'll love this. Two quick Hellfest stories. So we can move on from Europe. Sure, sure. We played, I think, second on the war zone stage, you know, at like 12 or something like noon, like very early. 5,000 people there was fucking amazing. But because people, you know, it's one of those things where they're selling your merch for you, you know, so they count you when they do all that stuff. And people are camping, so they're not going to carry around like a bunch of merch or something over a weekend because it's muddy and whatever and blah, blah, blah.

Sure. And we got done. We got done. And James went to settle up. We sold two LPs total and they took a cut. Oh my God. Dude, but the headliner of our day that we were there was Ramstein, which was obviously. Oh, man, they're fucking.

Never, yeah, never seen him before. Yeah. Truly felt like a unique thing. So James and I, again, were walking from like the backstage, like where the rooms were to that stage. And they started while we were walking behind. And their pyro went off like right to start the set. Like, hey, we're going. James and I, Colin, I'm not even kidding you.

James and I, we went, like, grab each other and ducked. Because earlier in the day, we were talking about, like, yo, like, people know where this site is because it's always in the same place. Like, they just kind of walk in. You can bury whatever. Nothing's keeping a bomb from this place. Like, we were, like, kind of paranoid. You know, it's dark.

But James and I, like, hit the deck, dude. We were so scared. And then it was just, da-da-da-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-. Yeah, it was just awesome, you know, music. and they fucking rocked and that Sublime played after him. It was weird. What?

That's awesome. I love that. Jay, I want to talk about you're a hardcore guy playing for Slipknot, you know? You started,

you started filling in for your dad for East Street band and then it's straight into Madball. Yep. How did that happen? Like, that's insane for one. And you,

I believe you told me that you didn't, you hadn't met them when you started playing with them? No. We had met through mutual friends to take it back a little bit. Like, I've been friendly with the guys in H2O for a long time. Through Rusty from H2O's wife, who worked at the Conan O'Brien program for a long, long time.

Since I was like a young person before I got into punk rock, like, Debbie passed down CDs to me of like, you got to check out this band and this band. And she formed a lot of my early adolescent, the bands I was getting into and whatever. And I was very fortunate in the regard of like if, you know, if a band I was digging was coming on the Conan show, I could take the train up to visit my dad at work and go see this band. So that's how I got to know the H2O guys. And there was a, this is, I want to say like, late 2009. I had already done the Bruce tour throughout like late 2008 and 2009. And so maybe this

2010. I forget. I'm kind of blurry on it. But I was at a Blink 1-82 show. And Adam from H2O saw me at the show and was like, do you want to come backstage and we'll all hang? I was like, yeah, sure. go I go backstage, this is at Madison Square Garden at this Blink Show, and I'm there, just kind of, you know, just kind of hang in and myths from Matt Ball, who I was familiar with, and had, you know, I'd seen Madball, of course, like, you know, over the years. And I'm pretty sure I had seen them play with, you know, I went to an H-2O show and Mad Ball was playing. And that kind of got me, you know, familiar with, you know, the very specific New York hardcore scene.

And, you know, I was born and raised in New Jersey. So I was an hour away from New York. And I was going, I was in New York all the time. Like, I would take the train up from New Jersey, you know, since ever since I was like 12. I would, you know, do my homework on the train and pop up to the city, go visit my dad. We go to a show.

And that was like so much of my adolescence. So anyway, I met Mitz at that show. And I knew he was a big Rangers fan, New York Rangers fan. I think he was wearing a Rangers hat. And so we get to just talking about hockey just because we're both very big hockey fans. And so we like, you know, gave each other phone numbers like, yeah, maybe, you know, go to a hockey game or something, sometime, whatever.

And then he had hit me up a little while later. I had done a performance with my dad where we did like a drum off thing. Yeah, I've seen that. Tommy Lee from Ollie Crew and my friend Frank plays in some 41. they put together this wild, eclectic show of drummers, you know, who were doing everything, from hip hop to heavy metal to punk rock to big band stuff. It was like all over the map. And they wanted my dad and I, because we had just done this tag team tour of the Eastry band

where my dad was playing. And when he had to do the Conan show, I came in. And so we did this thing together. And they were like, well, you know, your dad comes from this like swing, big band. You know, that's how we know him from the Conan show. And you're this kind of like crazy heavy. metal person um let's have you come together and do a collaborative thing so we did that and um and i remember mitts hit me up after that and he was like hey we're about to go on tour in like

two weeks mad ball um uh and we need a drummer um is there anybody at that like drum off thing that you just did who might want to who might want to do this and the town's back that way you are in luck there's a town about three miles that way I'm sure you'll find a couple guys there yeah and I was like I was like dude I was like I'll do it

and he was like really I was like yeah I'd love to do that so so the tour was in like two weeks or something and there was a couple there was a couple shows in the US before that

it was a European tour and and so I remember I remember showing up because I hardly had any time I also I was in a punk band in New York and we had a show we had a bunch of shows and so I was going from this this drum off performance to then a bunch of shows with my band and I was doing school at the same time so I really didn't have much time to prepare and school myself I'm like you know it's one thing to be familiar with the band's work but to sit down and woodshed and really yeah Of course. You know, like audition for a band. It's a whole other thing. So I remember I showed up and audition and I felt awful. I was like, oh, my God, I just totally botched that. Embarrassed myself.

Like, it's so mortifying. But I guess good enough to be like, oh, come back, you know, next week after you have a, you know, a week to really school yourself on this stuff. Chops is chops, brother. Yeah, right. Chops is chops. Chops is chops. You know chops. So they saw it.

So I was able, right, yeah. So I was able to, I was able to really hit the books throughout that week or whatever. Came back the next weekend. It was like, okay, this will work. And so then there was a couple shows. There was like three shows before we would leave for Europe. And I hadn't met Freddie at this point. I actually met Freddie about 30 minutes before our first show together.

Okay. That's why I thought that you guys hadn't met or something. Yeah, no, well, yeah. So we were jamming. It was like me, Mitz, and Hoya. And I hadn't met Freddie yet. And we met like I was sending my drums up on stage. And that's when we met.

And it was at the note in Westchester. Have you guys played there? No, sir. Okay, it's a cool, cool venue. I don't know if it's still around. But that was where I played my first Madball show. And then we played at the Chance in Pekitsy after that. And I felt so bad because we were all playing on,

I think all the bands were playing on. I didn't have, I know this might sound strange. I didn't have a drum set. Like I had the drum set that I was playing with Bruce and that went back to like their storage and stuff. I didn't have a drum set. I didn't have like a snare drum. Like I was spending all my time.

I was at college. Yeah. And I didn't have drums. So we were all, all the bands at that show were playing on, on one of the bands' drummers kit. You know, we were playing on this kit. And, you know, Madball, like, we were the last of, like, five or six bands to play that day.

We start playing, we start playing the show. And I'm not kidding, maybe, like, no, no, no, like two or three songs in busted through the Rack Tom head. Yeah. busted through the floor tom head busted through the kick drum head busted through the snare drum head four for four it was it was a full on like i still have like i'll have like traumatic like nightmares about stuff like that happening you know what i mean yeah yeah no like i wake up in a cold sweat like i'm busting all my drum heads and you know i'm on stage in front of all these people it was a true

nightmare uh not to mention just how bad i felt and i like busted this guy's you know just busted this dude's kit in like three songs. And I remember, I remember, I mean, it's like, what are you doing a situation like that? I literally,

there was like duct tape on the stage. I was like duct taping the fucking heads together and like played the show. I remember like trying to, I was trying to play the heads like toward, not in the center of the head.

So at least I would be hitting. Oh no. The side of the like tear? Nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. Nightmare.

Um, and then we went to, and then we went to, went to Europe and it was like a month or six weeks or something, four bands on one bus. I had never done that before, you know, just splitting, you know, all that. I think that was my first tour in a bus. Excuse me, because the band that I was in in New York, like, you know, we had a van that didn't have air conditioning and whatever.

That's what I'm saying. You did your time. Yeah, exactly. Like, that's the grind right there. You just don't think about it. This is what you have available to you, and you just get the shows done. That's what makes you appreciate, like, oh, we're on this 20 bunk big red bus in Europe, and it rocks. You know, like, that's where you're like, wait, I can just, I can sleep?

Yeah. I can lay down. You got to just, you got to just look at it. It's all the same, it's all the same thing. You know what I mean? Like, that's what it came down to. And I remember on that, on this one tour, it was the band I was playing with. and I had just come back from Europe with Bruce,

and I was still in this band. And we had booked shows from, like, New York to Chicago and back. We played Beat Kitchen in Chicago, and then made our way back to New York. But so I remember we played in Albany at Valentine's. Have you played there? Valentine's in Albany? Oh, yeah.

Cool place. Cool place. We played at Valentine's. I stayed in Albany while the band went to Buffalo. I think the singer's brother was the drummer in the other band that we were out with. So he covered my set. I flew from Albany to Tennessee to play the Bonneroo Festival with Bruce. And then the next day flew to Cleveland and met back up with the band that was playing with.

and we played the, it was a house called the Legion of Doom. Oh, fuck yeah. Yeah, do you remember that? Wow, dude, probably the second out-of-state harm's way show. Really? But it's actually, it's Columbus. Oh, okay, okay, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I've, we played there. I mean, dude, I can't believe you just said that, actually. That's amazing. It was kind of like a legendary house venue. Wow. You just blew my, you just blew my mind. Okay. Okay.

So, but that's just like, but that's just to illustrate that it's like, you know, it doesn't matter the scale or whatever. It's all, it's all about just the show and making the show happen. And if you're invested in, you know, I was invested in the East Street band. I was invested in this band that I was playing with. And it's just, it all all just becomes one like big thing. It's just like, it doesn't matter how you're getting there. or whatever, you just get there, you play, you do your thing, you put all of yourself into it,

and that's just, that's just what it is. So yeah, but then, but then I remember, you know, going into my first Mad Ball tour, it was 31 people on one bus. There was 31 bunks, and every single bunk had a person in it. It was, it was cruel hand, death before dishonor, terror, and Madball, all on one bus. If you had asked me to guess the four bands that were on the tour, Taring that ball for sure. I wish that you had asked me

because it would have been cruel hand-up. It was wild, man. I was 19 years old. It was my first tour in a bus. First tour in Europe without my family. And these guys in the East Street band are, you know, they're my uncles for lack of course.

So this is my first time really, like, to me felt like really getting out there and really doing it. And I was like, this is every dream I've had since I was 13, 14 years old, making the decision to want to play music and be like, I'm doing it. I'm here without my family or the people

that I've grown up with or whatever. It's amazing. And yeah, huge, you know, huge learning lesson. I was in college too, so I was like, you know, I was like the dork with my laptop doing like chemistry homework and stuff, you know, at the same time. But, you know, a fantastic opportunity.

And still a tour that I, you know, look back at fondly with just like, wow, what what a wild experience. What a wild first experience being, you know, in that kind of environment. And I remember, that's like throwing the kid off the pier to like learn how to swim. You know what I mean? Like when it comes to like in the hardcore world with like bands in Europe, bread and butter bands who are like in Europe, they're fucking killing it. You know, yeah, they're top tier. That's, that's quite a first experience. Well, and especially in, you know, that community is, you know, it was awesome to, I remember one show we played.

It was a really weird setup where it was like, it was two stages facing each other. And it was like, I remember the show would build as like death metal versus hardcore. So we had our, we had our tour package on that tour, right, on that show, right? So like, cruel hand, DVD, terror and madball and a bunch of other hardcore bands. I think Scarhead or Crown of Thorns played, I forget. Sounds right. Which, but maybe Trapped Under Ice played that show too. Oh, if it was 2010 in Europe, trapped under Ice Played.

Yeah, yeah. Wherever it was. Yeah. But then on the opposing side, so a hardcore band would play, and you've got all the hardcore kids that are in that pit. It was one shared pit. Right. So the back of the death metal pit was,

hardcore pit and vice versa. So I remember it was like, it was just like this. It was exactly. It was like, so you'd have kids, you'd have kids turning around after each band. And so it was like, it was like terror, decapitated, madball, obituary. It was like, it was super crazy. Wow. It was wild man, but I, I really remember having a distinct thought of just like, you know, I could have never dreamed

up that reality of playing a show like that, you know, being a kid just, you know, playing along the records. To be fair, neither could anyone from America. So, you know, don't take that personally. That can only happen in Europe. Yeah. So, so, you know, just an amazing experience. And like anything, you know, you just kind of build off of that and take that those learning

experiences and apply them to try to just do more of that. and all that. So, but that is to say, it's like, I never looked at any of that as any different from, you know, the East Street band stuff is no different from the Madball stuff. It's no different from, you know, playing the Legion of Doom. None of it is any different. And that's how I, it's just, you know, I don't know, at a certain point when you just kind of try to do all those things simultaneously or, like, quick succession.

That's all in the space of like a couple months. Like all that stuff happening Like I'm not kidding That was from like you know June maybe that Bonaroo show was And then like that You know December I was like on that tour or whatever So it's all very much in a quick

Space of time where you don't really have any time To think about it being out of the ordinary You just are like this is what I'm doing today or whatever Yeah There's a very annoying conversation that happens That's like what do you mean X band is a hardcore band kind of like they don't sound hardcore kind of thing and for a long time my whole definition

has been exactly what you just said like the reason that title fight trapped under ice tear and nails could all play together is because they're all hardcore bands because it doesn't matter what they fucking sound like like obviously the East Street band it's not a hardcore band but it's the mentality

of how you're treating it and that's everything it's a code of ethics more so than it is a genre of music absolutely it is yes it's a work ethic It's a dedication and knowing, you know, knowing that there's like kind of this separation of being a casual, someone who's applying themselves casually to something and someone who's applying themselves in a really serious way where it takes up your life.

And that's definitely what I learned because, you know, coming up, getting up to speed with where Madball was because, you know, in quick succession, I had like joined the band and then we're on tour and then we're making a record and stuff. So I had a lot to learn in a very short amount of time. And, you know, it was really amazing to get these, you know, these lessons of really, like, you know, applying yourself to it, you know, and knowing where it comes from that it isn't about a specific sound. It is about your application to it and your dedication to it no matter what.

And maybe you will play for 10 people on any given. and night. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. Terror. Terror will act the same at a basement show as they will on Hellfest. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's it.

A couple years ago, sorry, go ahead, go ahead. All right, I'll go ahead. So a couple of years ago, like 2018 or something, it was while we were making the last Slipknot record, I remember playing a Hesitation Moon's show. in a garage in in in la and uh and we were we were playing with sect which has uh chris colahan andy hurley from from fallout boy and i remember talking to andy about just like how awesome is this that you know we're playing a garage to 10 or 15 people like this is this is amazing you know and

it it really you know and those those kinds of things like you you celebrate those moments where you know you know, it's, I don't know, you still just get stoked to do that just as much you are to play for, you know, as many people as you can see in a field, you know, it's just like, it's all the same thing. I mean, the garage is much more personal. You can see the whites of the eyes of everybody in the room. You're like, Brian, I hope you like that song. You can see the glow of the phone on their faces, you know what? And that's what I think any band should want to strive for making, you know, no matter how big a show might be, you want to try to make it as feel as intimate as possible where you're establishing, you know, it's all about connection and chemistry and the reaction and, you know, what you create together as the musicians and the audience. It's all about that, you know, trying to light something on fire together. And you can get, you know, I've had plenty of shows in front of 10 people that were as much.

of a powder keg as it was to play the rock and rio festival for a hundred thousand people you know what i mean it's all you're just trying to search for creating that spark together you know and it takes takes both elements you know to to create that and you can you can create it anywhere you know so it's important to like never lose sight of just like you know the scope or the scale of things has like no factor in it you know it's all about what you put into it Colin what were you going to say I don't know if you still remember, but I have a... Just something about, like, hardcore kind of being the only genre. We're, like, of course, in every genre of music, like,

you're a fan of music, so you want to play music. But, like, hardcore is so personal that, like, not only can your favorite bands just become, like, your actual best friends, but, like, the coolest mosher at the show always starts the sickest band, you know? Like, it's inevitable that, like, the guy... The person making the show sick because they're going off so hard eventually is like intern style. Got's hate.

Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man. I mean, you know, it's so, for me, you know, it was my shield that I had to protect myself from a world that I didn't understand. I felt didn't understand me.

The music was my, it was my outlet and my way to. to get through and steal myself up from feeling misunderstood or whatever. So did you always just sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt, but despite a college, did you always know that music was going to be your thing? Did you feel it? 100%. 100%. Yeah. And, you know, even with like my studies, I tailored that to want, you know, I went to a smaller school where I felt like I could, I could make my studies revolve around.

my genuine interests, you know. So, so any, any project I had was music-based or like I had a senior design project where I started like an art gallery, you know, and, and, you know, I just wanted to, I wanted to find ways because I really enjoyed what I was studying, but I wanted to bring that together with my genuine interest. And the fact, like, I went to school right outside New York on purpose so I could be in New York every single day, be in Brooklyn all the time, going to shows, all the time, you know, going to gallery stuff all the time and it informed so much of like, you know, I could see all the commonalities between the stuff I was studying in school, the stuff I was naturally inclined to enjoy, you know, in a big city, you know, and stuff like that.

So, no, it was, it was, you know, I was lucky where I found all the commonalities there and the fact that like the school was willing to work with me because I started I started school and two months later I started playing with Bruce and I basically had to tell the school I was like I have this opportunity you can tell it's not just me in my garage with my buddies this is you know I have to do this I want to do school at the same time and if you're cool with that I will show you that I can do it um but I you know please like work with me me here, but if you make me choose one or the other, I'm playing with the fucking E Street band.

And I'm sure the music director of the school was like, go fucking play with the East Street. What are you doing here? So it worked out where they were like, yeah, we'll figure out wave, you know, instead of taking, you know, an in-class exam, I would write a big dissertation paper while I was on tour. And they were cool with me doing that. And it got to the point, though, where, like, I remember. It was like my first tour with against me where I wasn't very aware, but it was like, it was like, man, we're going to be on tour like nine months out of this calendar year.

You know, we were on tour a lot. And we were driving, we had like a show in El Paso. And then we were driving from El Paso to like our next show is in Anaheimahe chain. And I remember I was like doing an exam in the van on like a Blackberry. and I went to go like submit it. It took me like four hours on that drive. And in that drive, you're like losing service all the time. And I went to like submit it finally.

And because we were like in the middle of the desert, it just my phone like went black and it wouldn't submit it. And it erased all my work. And I like, damn near threw my phone out the van window. And we pull up to chain reaction. And I called up my school and I was like, I can't. I finally have hit a wall and I can't do this anymore. So I'm going to come back.

I'm going to finish school. But I have to just do, I can't half-ass these two things. I need to fully submit myself to. Whole ass one thing. Ron Swanson, whole ass one thing. Dude, I have. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Please continue. No, no, that was it. So I, you know, dropped out of school and, um, and made, you know, made the conscious effort. It's like, I'm going to invest myself completely into touring all the time with against me and um and then it just got to the point where i was like okay i'm ready i'm going to go back to school finished school i did and then the day i finished college was was when i got asked to come play with slipnot um what you're what was that 20 end of 2013 okay yeah so i have uh i have

one of my favorite stories to tell period but it's a a slipnot sure you're at the Allstate Arena with Corn and King 810. It's like 2000, yeah, 2016. 14. Yeah, that was my first tour. Oh, perfect. So like, yeah, it's at the Allstate, Colin, which is like we're all, that was where Chris Jericho debuted. It's like the same kind of a venue.

And my girlfriend is a huge Slipknot fan. So we went, we got good tickets. We watched King. I had never seen King before, but I knew about him, you know. I love corn growing up and everything, and I obviously was very pumped to see Slipknot. So King had, you know, what, a 50 by a 30-foot banner, and then, like, all their shit on the sides.

He said who they were a hundred times during the set. You know what I mean? Just like... And just kept nailing and nail it. They finished their set, and I had to go to the bathroom. And this is not at all a comment on fans of Slipknot or Corn or anyone. It's like the mindset of the guys who listen to K-Rock or K-Rock or Q 101 growing up

and then became like mechanics or whatever and just don't pay attention to the opener. I'm in the bathroom and I'm just using the urinal and I hear a guy say to his friend, man, corn is really different now. That's funny. That's funny.

I have a good little madball anecdote that I like to tell. Okay. This was the one, this was like right after you had left. This was post-J. But this is, I've been a madball thing, since I was 12 years old, like straight up.

Like a child being like, look my way. So this was, it was, uh, born low from upstate New York was opening, twitching tongues was second and Madball headline. And this was, there was like a four or five show run. And like, I don't think I spoke to anybody in Madball the entire time. And like, I get it, you know, I've been there. Sometimes it's just like you got, you're doing your gig and then you want to get off. So I, to this day, I love Madball.

But Born Loves from New York, you know. So Madball, during the Madball sets, this is all four shows. And like, and I get it, Twitching Tongues is a weird band. We don't sound like. It's quite a sandwich. You're the meat in a very interesting thing. We are, we're like the Chipotle Aoli of the sandwich, you know. And, you know, he's, it's like, it's like,

during the Look My Way ring out thing. He's like, you know, born low, opened the show, give it up. Like, New York Arcore Man, we love this shit. We got to support each other. Twitching Tugs played too. Look my way.

Don't have your eyes and shit. Like four shows in a row of that. Every time I was just like, all right. That's great. That's great. I love that. What can you do, you know? No, nothing.

It's Madball. What can you? Exactly. It's like the best hardcore band ever. My parents came to one Madball show. It was like the Super Bowl of Hardcore, the Black and Blue Bowl. Yeah, yeah. And it was us and Cromags. And that was my mom and dad came to the show.

And there's no way you can prepare a mom and dad to go see Madball and Cromag's in New York. And like, I was wild. Well, they were like, they enjoyed it, but it was like hard for them to process. Yeah. They were like, they were like, I don't understand anything. Were they side stage or were they like?

They were up in the, they were up in the balcony. They were up in the balcony with just like, you know, full of, you know, all the New York hardcore characters you can ever imagine.

So you can imagine my shock when I'm just like, I'm playing and I'm like looking up with my mom and dad just surrounded by, you know, New York hardcore community. And I was like,

wow, they are fish out of water here. Yeah. But, but, but you know, like they're incredibly supportive. And I mean, my mom when I was it when I was young and I'd be playing Slipknot records in my room and stuff

She'd be like what is that? They were always very supportive and let me be into the stuff I was into and now She's you know in the pit in the pit throwing elbows and stuff like that she knows every single word and that's so cool It's pretty great I mean I had to imagine your dad was like number one supporter of you being in slip knot right? Yeah, I mean he he he was in instrumental in us meeting, obviously. You know, they had come on the Conan show early on in their career. Is that picture real? Is that picture of you?

Oh, yeah. It's so cool. Yeah, the meme. Yeah. The meme of this meme, it makes more sense of like, you know, it was Halloween night. That's why I was dressed up as calling.

It wasn't just because I was like, that's what I wore every day. It was Halloween and I dressed up with Corey. I was 10 years old. And, no, that really did happen. Love that. And just thank God, you know, somebody had a camera. Your dad's talking to that moment.

He's talking to Mick? Jim. Oh, it's Jim. Yeah. Yeah. We actually, it was Jim's idea a couple years ago. My dad was at a show and he was in New Jersey. It wasn't the same venue, but he was like, we should recreate that photo.

So we, like, recreated that photo, like right after we played. It was pretty funny. That's awesome. But where was they going? No, so, you know, they played on the Conan show and he was like, this band is so crazy. My son's going to love this. And they met him and was like, yeah, totally. Like anytime you guys want to come out to a show, bring the kids out, like, whatever.

And so we did and just struck up a friendship right then and there. And that was really genuine that, like, it was the first time I felt like these, you know, these people who I looked up to were welcoming, welcoming me in the ways that it didn't, didn't matter how young I was or whatever. They could tell that the music was affecting me and that we had something in common there. And so we struck up a friendship. I was a very young person. And so that always stuck with me.

And I feel that was like such a meaningful thing as I've, you know, grown up and stuff. Like all, a lot of my friends circles, it was always like I was the youngest person. by like a long shot by like half a lifetime you know like when I was 15 like most of my friends were in their you know 30s or something like that I don't know if that's strange but it's like it's I always felt that real genuine you know appreciation for people who didn't like they didn't look at me like I was a kid or something like that it was like you're part of this you're part of this community Colin that's exactly what you were talking about when it comes to like a hardcore band 100% becoming your 100 you know what it's like it doesn't matter

Yeah, it doesn't matter what your age is. If you're responding in that, like, lizard brain way where you can't put together, you can't put into words what this music means to you, but you know it means everything to you. That breaks down all the barriers of age of anything. You know, it breaks all that down and it makes that, you know, global community that we're all a part of. And so now that, you know, it clearly created, you know, this friendship that's that's lasted and turned into, you know, a very meaningful trajectory of us, you know, playing together now.

It's like, you know, it, it's wild. It certainly is something that I don't take for granted, but I can reflect on, like, the genesis of those moments and see that it all, it all began from a very genuine place of, like, you know, you're welcomed here. And that was the first time I'd ever felt like I'm welcome in this place. I didn't feel welcome at school. I didn't feel welcome in sports. I didn't feel welcome in fucking anything until I found my community based in music.

And that's a lifelong, you know, it's a lifelong involvement in that community. And you got to, you know, and to me it's like you can't be just passive in it. You have to, you have to be active in your role within it. You have to give back, you know, it gives so much to you. You've got to commit yourself to giving back. Yeah, you gave a bunch of drum shit to it, man, you'd never met, you know? Well, right, yeah. So that's all, that's all, you know, that's, and that's what I go, that's what I mean,

that it's just like, you know, you, you understand, even though you haven't met, it's like you understand those commonalities and the type of people, you know, that, that are in this community. It's like, you got to, it doesn't matter if we haven't met. It's like you've got to be there for each other. And that was important to me then. It's important to me now. And I feel that, you know, that's not any unique story.

I'm sure you guys feel the exact same way. It's just, um, you don't even think about it. It's just like, no, it's a subconscious thing. Like, oh, I better send them some money. Yeah. What could I do? You know, you, you hope that the better sides of, of humanity, you know, show through in those moments, um, because those can be fucking dark and debilitating times.

So if you're in a position where you can, you know, help out, it's just like that's what this community is. If any kind of fate should befall any of us, we have to trust in the people around us who we might not even know. Dude, you know. And no exaggeration. The morning that we found that trailer gone, I was looking up flights just to fly back to Chicago.

because I was like, there's no way we're bouncing. You know, it was a full trailer with all, everything. There's no way we're recovering from this. James was like beside himself. Colin, I think you were one of the only people, you and Casey were like the only people I was talking to because you don't want to, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then no joke.

Yeah, I technically made the GoFundMe. Yeah, so no joke from, from Vegas to San Diego. That was the show and that was the drive we had to do where we showed up. I didn't have a pick when we showed. I had nothing. Wow. And from there to there, it was, like, inspiring.

Like, it was like, oh, we're going to be fine. We're going to be fine. Here's one more for you. Here's one more for you, Jay. This show existing is mostly in part to your recommendation. I'm glad. I'm glad, man. I mean, I'll be J.Y. Weimer production, baby.

Well, look, that's, you know, that's no credit that I can take. You know, you're a natural. and it's like, like, that's, that's just a part, I don't know, that's just being, you, you want to see your friends succeed in, you know, in what they're good at. And it's like, if I can do anything where I connect a dot, like, hey, talented person over here, talented person over here. You two meet and be talented together. You made a constellation, brother. These any dots no more. Before we sign off, have I ever talked to you about my dad working for Conan as well? I mean, that sounds familiar because I know your background in production and stuff like that. He was a tech manager. Okay. I didn't know that.

Tech manager there for years. So, Bo, you're going to have to talk to your dad and see if he can apply for something. My dad is a, he's a recording engineer. He has a studio in his house. But he only sings about Jesus. Bomber. But I was going to say he came to the post-human record release show. It was the only time my dad's ever seen his play.

And he watched from behind my. Amp and he's like, you know, he's a Michael Jackson, Steely Dan, Almond Brothers guy. Oh, absolutely. So what happened with you, dude? I just, I don't have time. I'm sick of you, man. I don't have time for that.

But anyway, he was sitting, stood behind, we played the set and it was, you know, it was a record release show, so it's going to be dope. And afterwards, he finally, for the first time in my entire life, he said, I get it. Nice. And that was, that was, that was a, that was something. That's huge. That was something, yeah, for sure. Nice. It's funny. I, you know, my dad as a student of drums and, you know, a master of the gods, a god of drums.

Yeah, yeah. You know, he watches our shows and it's funny, like we played, he came to a show, we played in Des Moines and he just can't help but be, you know, that guy like still kind of. to impress me bro kind of you're rushing that fill you're rushing that fill right yeah so you know my my wife like took a video of him and my mom's going crazy and she's you know people equal shit and uh and my and my dad is just there just like just kind of quietly taking it all in it's it's it's a little off it's a little loose it's it's it is very funny you know to have those experiences like, you know, our parents can, you know, can understand to the extent that they can, but they're always still going to be, you know, our parents and still have that generational.

Of course. They got the Home Depot theme playing in their head when they're watching anything. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, and that's a whole element of, you know, of our life as, you know, just, I don't think he ever foresaw. Is that a word, foresaw? It works for me. All right. He never saw me becoming a drummer as like something that would that would happen, much less us having this like relationship where we, you know, it's our lives. You know, he goes on his trajectory. I go on mine and they're very similar but different. And it's it's really awesome. I'm very fortunate to have that, you know, relationship with him. But, you know, I had a similar kind of, yeah, those moments where he's like, it's not my thing, but I get it.

What does he think of Blastbeats? Is he into him? Yeah. I think he just, like there's a lot of stuff that I think probably he's just like, how did that become a thing? How did that become a style of playing? You know, because growing up the way he, you know,

when he grew up, you know, Elvis was extreme. You know what I mean? Like, like, you know, you know, batah, ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Like that was extreme. That was extreme.

That's the hardest. shit of all time. So then to, you know, fast forward however many decades now, like anything, you know, it's like, well, you know, 50 years from now, well, what we're doing is going to be considered, you know, tame, I'm sure, you know, like, so, so yeah, it's, it's pretty amazing. But I'm appreciative that, you know, they still have an open ear. You know, I'll play them the stuff that we're working on. And, and they're like, you know, some stuff they like, you know, But some stuff they like, some stuff they like. But it's, you know, they're never not going to be your parents.

Yeah, of course. Beautiful. I'm inspired. Yeah. Hell yeah. I'm going to call my dad. Yeah, I got to call my pop. Yeah, yeah.

Well, Jay, this was, this was unbelievable. We're at hour 15. So, thank you for your time. That's how it happens, man. Yeah, of course. I'm so psyched. And, you know, you guys do such great stuff. And it's awesome, you know,

having this as a part of the Notfest family that has so many different branches of everything. It's pretty amazing to see. Speaking of which, you've got something coming up. You want to tell us about Jam with Jay real quick? Oh, my God. Yeah. I'm psyched, man. Like, it's not to give too much away, but I'm psyched.

I'm ants. We've created, you know, in the Notfest universe. I wanted to do something that was collaborative with, you know, given the limitations of everything we were dealing with over the last two years of not being able to be in the same room. And we and the band had to become good at, you know, doing stuff by proxy, not in the same room and still being collaborative in some way. And, you know, working on our new music in that way.

And so I wanted to do something where it's like, okay, I'm going to play songs by myself in an empty room. and I want to find a way to connect with people I don't know, people I've never met, people from all over the world, maybe, and we're going to find a way to jam together. And it was spurred on by, you know,

the amazing series of those fine folks at two minutes to late night. Yeah. Who I got involved with and did, you know, did some stuff with. Actually got my dad to play a misfits cover. Oh, yeah, that's right. Which was awesome.

That's right. Which was awesome. You know, just fun stuff like that. It's like, you know, I feel like if you have that spirit of wanting to, you know, just be a part of cool creative stuff, you know, your idle hands are going to lead you to wanting to do more cool creative stuff. And so that's what this was born out of. I was just like, I just want to do something with my time here where I could be creative

and hopefully, you know, connect with somebody who is also feeling like they're in a jam, you know, literally, you know, and really, you know, make something. And so took a while. You know, I probably filmed my performance, and it's like almost like two years ago at this point. But we put it out there of like, here's me playing a bunch of songs. I want you, anyone out there,

pick up a guitar, a bass, a cello, a microphone, a fucking kazoo. I don't give a shit. Let's jam. We're going to jam. And that's where this jam with Jay thing began. So we let that. that just kind of out there without really explaining it all too much. But the people who received that

and got the prompt and were like, I'm going to see you, your performance and I'm going to get my friend over in Brazil while I'm living in Japan and our buddy who lives in Finland and we're going to make a whole thing happen. It was so incredible. So yeah, so we're coming up on now actually having a final event because we kind of postured this in a way of like, okay, we'll make this a, let's make this interesting. Let's make this a competition. Who can make

the coolest jam session out of this raw material. This is literally just giving like a file. Like here's a video of Jay playing. Do your thing. And it, and it, you know, we all had to become self-starting engineers and self-starting, you know, producers.

In this time, we had to we had to all learn it ourselves. I had to teach myself how to use pro tools for the first time and whatever. So I wanted to see who else out there went to the same, you know, YouTube school as me to learn how to film themselves and record their audio. I got 12 masters at YouTube. Yeah, YouTube University. So we, we amassed hundreds of submissions.

And basically on June 6th, we are going to have. the first ever jam with jay notfest.com Twitch stream and uh and it's it's going to be awesome man it's the culmination of many people from different corners of the world who are unbeknownst to them going to be jamming together all right with me so so they don't even know oh that's awesome they don't even know that's they don't even know I love so the prompt was you know pick up your instrument. I don't care what instrument it is. We're all going to play with the drums because the drums are getting recorded first and nobody knows anybody, but we're all together playing the same tune and let's just see what happens. So June 6th, NotFest.com, Jam With Jay, Twitch Premiere. It is

happening. You heard it here first. Check it out. It's going to be great. I love it. All right. You heard it from Jay. You heard it from the man. Not Fest, June 6th, Jam with Jay. We will see you there. Thank you guys so much for watching today. This was lovely. Bo, you want to sign off for us? Yeah.

Hey, quick reminder, we have the Gmail inbox hardlore pod. Notfest Hardlore, isn't it? Fast hardlore at gmail.com. It's below you on the screen. If you have stories from tour, shows, things you've seen, whatever, send it to us. And when we don't have a guest, or maybe when we do have a guest, we'll talk about it and see how we, we would react to such a situation or if we heard about it or whatever trying to get the people involved a little bit thank you so so much my pleasure my pleasure we like we we we scrape the

surface of stories man like that's how that's do it let's do this let's do this let's do this again we're going on tour next week so maybe i'll have more stories for sure yeah