HardLore - Mac Miller (Cosmic Joke)

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

HardLore is joined by close friend of the show and vocalist of the first ever band on the HardLore Records roster: Mac Miller (real name) of COSMIC JOKE. Fresh off of their brand new 12" EP "Forced Perspective", we hear all about their goal as a band to carry the torch for the classic style of California Hardcore Punk made famous by their influences (Bad Religion, Adolescents, Circle Jerks, etc...) and the long road as lifelong touring musicians and crew that got them there. From growing up at the Cobalt Cafe, connecting the dots between Ska and Hardcore, doing Warped Tour with The Sheds, finally playing Sound & Fury, transitioning into being a career merch guy for bands like Wallows, Death Cab, Denzel Curry and MUCH, much more.Pick up one of the last few copies of HardLore's exclusive color of Forced Perspective on our store while you still can: https://closedcasketactivities.com/products/cosmic-joke-forced-perspectiveEdited by Steven Grise (@iamoneonenineseven) • Title sequence by Nicholas Marzluf (@marzluf)HardLore: A Knotfest SeriesJoin the HARDLORE PATREON to watch every single weekly episode early and ad-free, alongside exclusive monthly episodes: https://patreon.com/hardlorepodJoin the HARDLORE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/jA9rppggefCool links:HardLore Official Website/HardLore Records store: https://hardlorepod.comGet 15% off MADD VINTAGE with code HARDLORE15! https://maddvintage.com/ FOLLOW COSMIC JOKE: INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/cosmicjokelaTWITTER | https://twitter.com/cosmicjokelaFOLLOW MAC: INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/macxmillerTWITTER | https://twitter.com/macxmillerFOLLOW HARDLORE:INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/hardlorepod/TWITTER | https://twitter.com/hardlorepodSPOTIFY | https://spoti.fi/3J1GIrpAPPLE | https://apple.co/3IKBss2FOLLOW COLIN:INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/colinyovng/FOLLOW BO:INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/bosxe/TWITTER | https://www.twitter.com/bosxe #HARDLORE #HARDCORE00:00:00 - Start00:02:47 - Colin Meets Mac00:08:22 - Cosmic Joke Self Titled00:11:01 - Finally Playing Sound & Fury00:13:42 - Forced Perspective00:16:31 - Finding Punk, Hardcore, and Ska00:22:01 - First Show Ever00:23:20 - Young Morgan Miller00:26:37 - Feeding the Band With $500:27:40 - Clean House00:31:36 - First Tour00:34:41 - First time attending Warped Tour00:39:42 - PLAYING Warped Tour00:50:09 - Mediaskare00:53:40 - Top 4 Bald Guys00:59:20 - Tony Hawk01:03:17 - Attila Shirt...01:05:40 - Highs and Lows of doing Merch01:15:12 - Pardon This Interruption01:16:01 - Worst venue In the Country01:22:50 - Merch Cuts And How To Navigate Them01:30:20 - Merch Pet Peeves01:32:11 - Whats Hot? Whats Not?01:36:15 - 2025/26 Plans for Cosmic Joke01:41:27 - Top 4 HC records of All Time01:42:07 - Top 4 Ska Records of All Time01:44:43 - Who Do You Do?01:45:42 - Ghosts?01:52:10 - Patreon Q&A01:56:15 - Favorite Punk Covers01:58:06 - Bands He Works For?02:02:35 - Favorite Bad Religion Track From Each Record02:06:16 - Favorite T Shirt of All Time  HardLore: A Knotfest Series, Fueled by Monster EnergyEdited by Steven Grise • Title sequence by Nicholas MarzlufJoin 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, APPLEFOLLOW COLIN: INSTAGRAMFOLLOW BO: INSTAGRAM, TWITTER For sponsorship opportunities, email us! [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Honestly, doing the Cosmic Joke stuff and Holy Blade stuff has kind of changed my perspective where I'm like, I just want to do this stuff that makes me happy now. I don't need to just like, yes, it's my job. And I'm fortunate enough to like my job, but I don't want to just grind myself into the ground doing work just to work on tours I don't want to do. Totally. And when I go out with Drain or when I go with Denzel Curry, it feels like home. And it feels like it's obviously cushier than the van tours we've all done. but you're with these people with like-minded sensibility. And it feels like home.

Hello, welcome. It's Hardlord time. How you doing, Bo? I'm great, Colin. Who do we got? Me! First ever me on the show. This is a big day.

We've got a very special guest here, fresh off the release of their new EP, forced perspective. We got one of my best friends in the world. Some refer to him as, my Consolieti. Many refer to him as the real MacMiller. Ladies and gentlemen, MacMiller, Cosmic Joke. Wow. Welcome. Wow. How you doing? I have you to be here. You got a big ass. Oh, yeah. No, I've been on Brittany trying to get her to. What is that? It's like, Jesus Christ. It's like 10 years in

the making. Oh my God. Sorry, man. Oh, I never, I hang on this guy every day. I never touched his back before. And that's on, and that's on me. And that's on me, welcome. Yeah, welcome. Yeah, welcome. How are you doing? Good. Happy to be here. I, uh, yeah, I need to get this, uh, uh, cyst on my back screen, apparently, but, you know. You really did. Mack, this is great timing, crazy timing.

I got something from you today. Uh, a little test press for the brand new cosmic joke record. How about that? I, I feel like we should maybe give one of those away. Not this one. No, not that one. I've got one that we can give away. Okay.

That's fun. If you are watching this episode and you want a forced perspective test press. send us a message on Instagram of you doing a breakdance. Send a breakdance back. That's really good. And the winner. Actually, no, post it. Post it as a reel.

So we can share it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So you post it as a reel and the best one will get a break dance. Do we need Sammy to judge on that? Sammy will, Sammy from Drain will be a judge as the breakdance master.

But, you know, the challenging part here is when you have somebody you talk about, you talk to and see damn near every day on your talk show, where do you start? And I think we should start with meeting each other and getting to know each other. Because for so long, I feel like we were peripheral silent rivals in a way. Oh, yeah. That's interesting. I, uh, yeah, it's funny. It's one of those people that you're constantly asked like, well, you know, Colin, like, you know, we know who each other are for sure. But, uh, yeah, it was like the, uh, yeah, it was like the, uh, The Millers and the Youngs, the Monagues, Capulance. We never crossed past.

We were in the same room half a billion times easily. Interesting. The amount of times Nicky, drummer of Cosmic joke, chef of Littlefish, pointed out the, oh, there's that life is pain guy. Every single time we saw him hitting some guy in the face. We're in a brazier shirt. Spin kicking someone in the head. Yeah. Hard to believe.

Life is pain and blazing to cross his back. I am. who I says I am. Like legit since we were probably 60 to 50 years. I'm 100%. Mac, when did we meet? We met very recently.

Yeah. Seventh and Furious? Yeah, the show is existing. That recent, which is also kind of crazy. You like me, Bo, got to know Britney first, Max White. Dude, did I ever? Brittany really made it happen.

She's the goat. Our wives becoming friends is kind of what brought us together here. Yeah. Well, I feel like, so going to the Cobalt Cafe, as it's been talked about many times, growing up, me and my brother, Morgan, who plays in Cosmic Joke, and my other brother, actually, Evan, I played in like a ska punk band, and you guys were in ruckus and all these other big fight everyone.

Just the polar opposite end of that spectrum. Yeah, but we kind of played together a lot. Which is hilarious. Yeah. So it was just like, and we had, even though we were, it's all punk rock at the end of the day. Yeah, of course. And, but we were constantly like, I don't know if you guys were thinking the same thing, but I was like, oh, those are like the jocks who hate us and we're like the nebish little like, you know. That's 100% what I thought.

Yeah. Yeah. But, but I think what it was was Morgan was literally nine years old. Oh, yeah. Playing guitar. And on one hand, I'm like, that's so fucking cool. Yeah. And on the other hand, I'm like, this fucking dwee is so much better than me a guitar.

Which is still. He's still so good at stuff. And he knows it. So he's a piece of shit. This is his brother. Yeah, yeah. Fuck that guy. He can say whatever he wants.

I don't want to demonetize you guys. No, no, you're fine. We're past that point. Fuck shit, piss. Yeah, we're good. And so Brittany brought us together. You were on tour all the time. He's a professional merch man.

We'll get there. Probably the most, the most pro merch guy I know. Oh. 100%. I think you're the top of the top of the ladder, you know. I mean, there's like a tier above where you're doing stadiums. And I honestly, that just sounds exhausting. Yeah, that's posh. You're not even selling when you're doing that.

So it's like, what's the point? That's posh bullshit. You're fucking working class, you know. Exactly. You're the cocks bar of merch guys. So we get brought together. You know, you were on tour all the time. Me and Britain, you're hanging out every day.

And I'm like, I'm like worried for you to get home because I'm like, I don't know this guy is going to really disqualify. up the vibe. Yeah, what if he hates me? Me and Brittany got a great thing going on. And then you get home and it's just like immediate, immediate brotherhood here. I didn't get to go to your wedding, which everybody else I know in the world went to. I don't think that's fair. It's funny how like a solid 80% of people we really hang with often. We're not there though. It's fucked up. And how many people have not seen since then. Maybe you should just do another one. Many are saying. I'm most of the same.

I'd be there. I'd go for sure. Yeah, not fast. Presents. Let's get this wedding now. The Miller. What's the fart video from your wedding? The fart video.

Oh, no, that's Evan Miller, middle brother. Oh, okay. His wedding up in Portland. I'm not going to share the videos, but we can share one of the videos. Just show me the far. He got absolutely smashed. You can see it here. He got absolutely smashed at his own wedding.

And Morgan, I had to, like, carry him out of his car to his doorstep. and there's a ring camera video of us trying to pick them up, and you hear a fart, and Morgan just, and we just look at each other, dear. And that's what it's all about. Yeah. Did you guys become friends over COVID? No. It wasn't it like.

Way more reason. Yeah, like I had been touring again, but it was, I think it was the first tours back. Yeah, it was probably, it was around 2020. It was kind of close to the beginning of Hardlow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We really hit it all. It's funny, even though we weren't, we'd known of each other for 15 years before. We had so many coinciding memories of the same things from different points of view that were not shared together.

And that completely aligned 90% of time. We're all the same. It's like the prestige. It's like the prestige. I'm Christian Bale. He's Christian Bale. You're Christian Bail. You're Scarlet Johansett.

Brutal. Yeah. Well, that's really fascinating. And two years later, we start a label just to put out the first Cosmic Joke self-titled. Tell me about, let's do this a little differently than we normally do. Tell me about Cosmic Joke self-titled, putting it together. I think Kamikaze is one of the greatest punk songs of this generation so far. You demoed it on the Focus Right I gave you.

You demoed the drums on the E-Kid I gave you. You listened to it with the headphones I gave you that you're wearing. now. Hamidones. What else? Yeah. I mean, we, the whole thing, how that came together is pretty interesting or, or boring. But basically during the pandemic, Morgan and I and Vince, who kind of plays with us still

from Oxnard. Legend. Dead Heat. Souvenirs fame. The mayor of Oxenard, VCHC. We started writing some songs. Morgan and I, a while before, like 2017. started jamming some songs just for fun

after our old band was done and during the pandemic Vince and I started writing some songs. We're like, these go well with those songs. Let's just put it together. It became the Cosmic Joke demo. And then at some point, Tideown Fess started Jimmy, who runs Edgeman and Tide Down, long time friend.

Was like, I love the demo, I need to have you guys come play my fest. And we're like, what? We've played literally one show. The whole thing, was let's do this you know let's put out of Denver for fun we're done being in bands right maybe we'll play occasionally with

friends when they come through town and then Jimmy asks us to come to Detroit like well I'm not gonna not go but I don't want to go out there to play five minutes of music and have our second show be in Michigan so we like started writing a bunch play as many shows we could before just to make it

feel less like we're taking someone else's spot selfless very selfless Well, it was just like, I don't know. I don't want to, I want to contribute if we're going to be a part of this. Totally, sure. Love it. So we, yeah, we wrote five more songs. And somewhere in that time is when we became friends, we asked Taylor about recording.

And then, you know, instead of just putting out another four songs, we're like, well, kind of similar to this new EP. We're like, there's a whole B-side. Let's make it the demo. These are all new. Just bleeds for a more substantial physical release. Yeah. And like, nobody heard the demo except Jimmy, apparently. So we were like, this is all new to most people.

Let's just make it a record. Totally. And it's a sick record. You can barely buy it anymore out of press. I think we have 10 copies left unless random stores have like a copy here and there. You heard it here. You're going to have to get it from him. You finally played Sound & Fury last year.

How was that? After going to all but the first one? I think we did. I didn't go to the Ventura years. I went when I moved to Oxnard. So it was like the third of four. Yeah. I mean, the dream come true.

That fest changed everything for me. I went every year since then. I was watched trash talk in the U-Haul. I was there for the trash can getting thrown through the window. It's like, I don't know. It just felt really cool to do it at all to do it. Still playing with my brother and Nikki on drums, who was in the sheds as well.

I don't know. It was a really cool culmination of everything. And by that point, we had done a little tour on our own. We'd been doing some stuff put out an LP. So it didn't feel, it felt right versus... Felt earned. Yes, it felt good. And the set was good.

Dude, shocking. When I was watching on the, like, middle, the viewer stage. The skillet. Yeah, the skillet. I was watching Colin watch you guys. And it was getting me pumped. You know what I mean? Like, it was just like a really nice, because you guys had a really nice,

good reaction. Did you open the fest? Yeah, we opened the whole thing. It was a really cool choice that Santa Fury let there be two hours between doors and our set. So you could really get people in there. Awesome. I mean, obviously, they're learning every year from the year before. Yeah. It just, you know, we were all like, we're just happy to be here. That's kind of like our motto, my motto in general. I'm just happy to be here. Of course. If people stop fucking with us, I'm still having fun. I don't care. I just. doing things. I think they've just started fucking with you. So you're, don't worry about.

We're just getting that. You just put on a record today, Mac, for God's sake. Yeah. But I'm just saying like, but we, you know, we're doing things a little bit differently and playing what we want to play. And if people don't care, like, it's cool that people are still giving us opportunities and we have friends in high places and we. Lord, are they ever? Yeah.

Because, like, now that you're not, you're done touring kind of as a musician and you're, you're getting more offers than. It's... The shit seemingly ever did. I know. Working a third is hard. But, um... But yeah, it's just I, uh, it was really cool to, you know, we were gonna, we were stoked

to just, even if there's nobody out there, we were excited to play. Sure. And to see that it was walk up on stage and it's pretty much... Yeah, it was dope. Like, as packed as you can expect for a 2 p.m. set. It was great. Punk is back. Forrest perspective is out.

today. It's a great record. Tell me about putting that together. The title track I've described as, I mean, you're keeping Tony Hawk's dream alive here. Yeah. You're creating perfect 2000s teen. We were doing this bit earlier today while we were getting coffee of like a movie where a teenager's like listening to forced perspective being like, get out of my room, mom. Yeah. And then the mom comes in and she's like, stop jacking off. And he's like, dad jacks off. No, no, no. I don't. I'll never stop jacking. off mom do do do do do do it's perfect jackoff

music you heard it here first so tell me about that record putting it together um we just I was jabbing up and this his bass line came to my mind

yeah I figured yeah we just were getting together to write like there was no I don't know we just kept getting together to write we finally like got a a practice space that is our

and we can keep stuff set up in. And that's a game change. Can you share that with the homie's bad sons? Bad sons, 818. Shout out bad sons. Going from having a thing that you have to set up and tear it on every time, including drums,

to having just symbols set up. Oh, that sounds awesome. Unbelievable. Man, it is awesome. That's huge. Yeah, we just kind of, we didn't necessarily write, like, thinking it would be an EP or an LP.

We just kept writing, and we had a play. a place where like this is a good amount of songs. And I've been fast. Yeah, yeah. I was jealous. And what's cool is, like you said, giving me the electric drum kit. I was able to demo all the songs out.

So, like, when we write, our process is usually Morgan. And Morgan, Nikki, and I have written together for 15, almost 20 years. Actually, fuck. 20 years. Like, actually. So they kind of come up with the bones of a song. we all contribute and like give our two cents and stuff but then as we demo it then I can write vocals over it

and then we adjust the drums and accents and stuff to fit the vocals. Yeah. And that's all you do, folks. Yeah. Just, you know, being conscious of like what is a good, what really helps. Just two passes.

You give it two passes. Like if you ever listen to a really popular song and you notice that there's like percussive things or little guitar licks that match the vocals, It's not an accident. No, and that happened last minute, generally. It was like, we just finished vocals. Rivers.

Can you make the lead match the chorus now? Yeah, for some reason, the vocals keep accenting on three. Everything should go with it. Oh, perfect. Yeah. Beautiful. All right. Let's go back in time here.

Tell me about finding punk and hardcore and ska in Agora Hills, California. So, I mean, for me, I never had an old head at all. I guess, I mean, I had a babysitter, which is the OG old head who showed me Blink 12 when I was like nine or something. Catalyst, dude. That'll do it. And yeah, because I was, that was one of the few bands of, you know, before that, as a kid, you get into whatever you're exposed to. So there's Backstreet Boys at the time. Yeah.

in sync and that's all you know I had an older brother who was like don't don't you fucking dare put that on and then I grew up and I put that shit on yeah meanwhile me and Mac are tearing up my heart I didn't get to tear my heart till I was 28

but yeah through Blink I like heard about WarpTor and I remember just begging to go and I didn't have any friends into pun anything like I didn't I didn't really know what it was I was into to be honest it was like I like this I don't know much about it. So my aunt ended up taking me to the Ventura Warp Tour 2004. I actually have a

photo of your outfit from that. Here it is. Wow. It's pretty good. Quite a choice. Yeah. It looks like you had your shit figured out. Well, like, I was like, oh, I hear that the sex pistols is punk. Let's get a clearance shirt at Hot Topic. Yeah. Sure. Oh, chain wallet. That's punk. I'll take that. Or I was skating a little too. So like I said there's some marriage between the stuff. You had hair at that time. I did. I really did. They're right.

You with hair don't work. We'll get there. Here's my eighth grade graduation photo. Here's him with two Cooter's waitresses. But yeah, so I go to Warp Tour, just me and my aunt. She goes to reverse daycare for the day. And again, I think I went to, by then I had heard, like, Sugar Colt, maybe Newfound Glory, like a couple things, but was mostly going, like, for Warp Tour, not for.

any bands. Yeah. And I remember walking up and seeing like, literally like noon. I walk up and I see anti-flag playing redacted. Uh, yeah. And a sea of middle fingers in the air. And I'm just like, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen. That's me. And then it's like bouncing souls plays next. Bad Religion plays. Dropkick Murphys, no effects. Lars and the bastards. Like, it was like, oh, this is me now. Suicide machines. Like, yeah. It just changed everything. And it's funny because at the time, I always talk about this. Basically, if it was at WarpTor, I was like, oh, this is punk. So I didn't, I was also like, oh, taking back Sunday.

Yeah. That was, she played a few years later. But yeah, taking back Sunday, less than Jake, uh, valiant Thor. I was like, this is all punk music and I like all of it. They use, whatever. I mean, you weren't like wrong. Yeah, I mean. It's just a broad stroke.

And I still kind of maintain that, like even, you know, when a cosmic joke plays with God's hate. It's the same thing. It's all punk music. Yeah. 100%. But yeah, that day changed everything for me. I was just obsessed.

There was like booths where you could, they had, you know, they used to have these kiosks in like weird setups at Warped Tour where you could just burn a CD of free songs. Like, Siwin Dummy would have a tent. And I just get, here's five casualties songs and three street dog songs, whatever. Really? And I just, it was absorbing everything. What a concept.

Yeah, it was, I mean, it was burns. Yeah, you could like pick from their. computer of the library of songs from Sae 1 Dummy and like burn a bunch of stuff. That's awesome. You know, it's also 2004 culture in Southern California. Yeah. So around here, I'm still, I've always, you know, I'm listening to K rock.

Yeah. And I start recognizing like, oh, face to face is on the radio all the time. Bad religion's on the radio all the time. 2004. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Bangers. And, you know, I just, I start recognizing these things and like, latching onto what it is I like and don't like. So 2004 is my first Warped Tour. 2005, we kind of realized, like, oh, anybody can play an instrument. You can just start a band. Yeah.

So me and my brothers, all three of us, started a band. And is this? This is the shitheads? Not, I don't know if it ever even lasted a day as the shitheads, but we, your parents really fucked you out of that one.

It really did. The shithead, the sheds were, were for, I guess, for less than one day called the shitheads. And I cannot tell you how different your trajectory would have. We also wanted to be

the Skidmark trio. Dude, that also would have popped. Well, the shit the shitheads were already a punk band. So you would have, you'd have I actually never heard them, but I'm sure it takes two tango. Joey Shihad, Joey Shitted from D.A.

Got that name from. Was that before D.O.A.? Yeah. I didn't even know. Yeah. So that's expired. You would have taken it and you would have been fine. They would have seen it. You could have been expire. You really would have saved a lot of people a lot of trouble with that one. Stephen?

Stephen? No, Stephen, leave it. But yeah, we start the sheds. And it's, you know, everybody, you guys, I know you always talk about like your first bands and stuff. And that's like, but we just stayed that for 10 years. What was the first show you ever played? The first show we ever played was at the. Sierra Madre Band Shell, which is a small town like near Pasadena and Altadena called the Wisteria Festival.

And it was like a flower festival in this hippie town where we played with a cover band called the Aluminum Marshmallow. That was like this, the singer of that band had opened like a, they recorded our first demo because, you know, when we were 12 and nine years old and stuff, my mom like found them online. Sure. This is a place in town that will record your brand. Okay. Okay. And we recorded like a cover of Holiday by Green Day, which came out a year before. Cocaine by Eric Clapton.

Oh, shit. And an instrumental that was like three chords. Nice. Very sick. Whoa. No. No. The Cone.

Mom and aunt sound pretty dope. It sound pretty supportive. Everyone, I mean, most supportive family we could have had. Oh, yeah. We, uh, my aunt is, it's my dad's cousin, actually, who we treat as. our aunt. She's still around. But... The homie Bonnie? Yeah, yeah. She's

nuts. It's awesome. She's... Shout out Bonnie. She's like a John Mullaney caricature of like a New York Jew. She may listen to this, honestly. I'll make sure she listens. Hi, Bonnie. Yeah. Tell me about

young Morgan. I mean... Tell me a little more about like figuring out that he could play guitar at sub 10. He just was a cocky fucker from day two. Like he, I I think he's still like, he's still, he's like 20, eight, and he still likes to tell people he

started reading at like four or something. Now he's like an executive for a really cool company. Yeah, he, which he became, he worked, okay, so his whole story is crazy, but yeah, Morgan was like reading, uh, almanacs at like five and memorizing stuff. he skipped kindergarten and just yeah I don't know

it ran for a student body was just like ahead of everything sure and then our band there's obviously some in between and stuff but once we figure out what we're doing

we start touring when we're pretty young we started touring for real when I graduated but Morgan was still in high school so he did an independent study the last couple years oh wow yeah and like our parents

were super supportive of it even though, you know, it like, they always wanted us to all go to college. And they're like, you know, if you're not going to really, if you're not going to apply yourself, you better do something and do it all the way. So they're like, yeah, let's put you all in this van that breaks down and overheats. And how far into this does media scare come along? Quite a ways, honestly. So we, there's a bunch of in between, but the sheds become a ska band at some point,

which is funny because, like, we really, I do love ska. and we all did, but that was such a weird choice. And you really stayed Scaw? It's funny because we, yeah, and we like weren't, like, we were always more into just punk, but like Skaba became a thing that Morgan was good at writing and playing. He's really good playing Scott. But it just kind of happened. Were there horns, or was it like Op Ivy?

While we were in high school, there were a lot because it's easy to get kids out of the jazz band and stuff. And then the second, you know, we get past that and we start touring. And they're either, if they're good enough to play in our band, they're also good enough to play in a college band. Yeah, they're not, yeah. Yeah, they're not like, I'm going to sleep on a floor and get paid with Little Caesars. I play trombone in the sheds. We still imagine? Yeah, so we just were constantly flipping through horn players.

So we ended up, oddly enough, on no sleep records for a second. We didn't end up putting out a release with them, but we had a song on a comp. and we were on No Sleep for a year, year and a half, and we had recorded our first EP for them. And we never had management or anything, but we were doing a lot of DIY touring. I was booking everything. Hilarious routings.

August 8th, Tucson, August 9th, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We hit Fargo twice on a tour. Oh, the 60-day tour. Yeah, yeah. Haywire kind of stole our... Haywire, you got to hit Fargo again. again. Yeah.

And then you'll be on the sheds level. Yeah. And make less money. Make none. Can you tell me about trying to feed the whole band with $5? Oh, I successfully fed the whole band with $5.00. $5 total? Famously, we were at the Lodi, California, Walmart.

I don't know why I remember that. And I went in, we were so, so broke. And I went into Walmart, came back out with, like, a bag of hot dog buns, a thing, a hot dogs, a can of hormal chili, and a thing of ketchup for five bucks. And we didn't have any way to heat them up, but it's bologna. They're pretty cooked.

Hot dogs are bologna, pretty much. Yeah. I maintain it was pretty good. I think Nikki agreed, and he's a full-on chef. Yeah, he does that. Yeah. He makes good stuff. He, yeah, he's, I mean, he'll eat any fast food, too.

Could you do anything for $5 today? The hot and red he's gone. Hot and ready is six bucks. I still think you can go to Walmart and see like the 98 cents on the shelf for like their. For the old gray hot dogs. Yeah.

Okay. You don't want those. So you could. Let's go back to end time a little more. Can you tell me about clean house with Nisi Nash? Only because you can't find this online. You can't? I think for a second it was on the, what is it called?

I'll find it. It was on the HGTV streaming service. It might be on discovery now. When we first started the Sheds, well before we were a scoban or anything, we were learning how to play our instruments, learning cover songs. I think Evan wrote into HGTV.

That's how you got that? Evan, who was 13, probably. No, he was probably 11, wrote into HGTV. Like online. on the submission form. Oh, okay. And it was like, I'm in a garage band and we don't have a garage to play in. I think was the thing.

And there, because my family, like, watched that show a lot. And, uh, clean house, it was called. With Nisi Nash. With Nisi Nash. And, uh, 10 seasons. Yeah. I checked. Yeah, we, uh, so anyways, yeah, we wrote into them, uh, part of the, the story was like,

our dad is a pack rat. So there's, it's clutter everywhere. We have a band, supportive parents, but nowhere to play, kind of. So they, yeah, they did an episode with us. They came in. They turned our garage into a practice space that was not soundproof at all. And like musicians friend donated a ton of gear. It was all gear that was incredibly incompatible with what we were doing.

For sure. Morgan got a like a got like a goth flying V. It was still cool. Like he immediately traded it for a stratocat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got the biggest drum kit. It was like a 26-foot foot, 26-inch kick. Nice.

Just, yeah, ridiculous scratch kit. But it was, they really just gave you that shit, though? That's real. And we all, before that, we had, like, the ion beginner kit that was $150 bucks at T.J. Max, like, combo amp and guitar. Sabian B-8 pack. I got a silver-tone kit from Costco. Nice. Yeah.

So, yeah, Sabian B-8. It's crazy to think that, I, I forget. Forget that you're like a drummer. I mean, I was initially. You played drums and sang in the shows? Initially. So we were like learning cover songs and stuff. We all sang a little bit.

I'm mostly saying because my voice had cracked by then and no one else's head. Nice. And yeah, for the first, until we started touring, really. Like we played shows here and there. I was drumming and singing. Funny story that also ties into how I became a touring professional. at some point at the Cobalt Cafe I met Jordan Burns the drummer of Strung Out

he was at a show Wow pretty good My notes say the Cobalt Cafe Strung Out The crazy thing is is Your best friend is his wife The dirt that can be got is It's pretty good

So we meet Jordan from Strungout Strung Out happened to be playing a show in Agora Hills which is the suburb we're from. And he was like, I'm sure you didn't even think we were good. He was just like, I bet these kids can sell some tickets to the high school. So we kind of befriended Jordan, and he just took a liking to us in general. Like, he never managed us, but he was, I called him like our guidance counselor, kind of. He was always looking out for us.

And at some point he was like, you should just sing. You have any friends that play drums? And Nikki, who is my best. To go. Nicky's been my best friend since. The tired of me. man alive. But God, he's asleep behind the kit, but he's still raging.

Yeah, so Nicky ended up playing with us. And, yeah, we start touring pretty hard. What's the first tour? Well, so we did a few weekends to the Northwest because that was like, okay, we have spring break. Some of us are still in school. Yeah. That was always easy.

I'd say that was the first one. First U.S. was just us. Like real tour. What's the first real tour? Where you guys are like, holy shit, we're for real on tour. Like we're not the next date over. We did a lot of just DIY US tour.

Wow. Where it was like sick. There's 12 people in this basement. Why are we here? This is amazing. Yeah. We really, like these 12 people really fucking want to be here. No, they're in other bands usually.

Oh, cool. Well, it's funny. Back to like Warped Tour changing my like mindset. Around the same time, like getting video. zines from like skate shops and watching fuse TV and all these things. I remember watching like this mini documentary of The Bouncing Souls and they were like, if you're going to do this, you have to, like if you want to be a band, you just have to work your ass off, which is funny because like we started working our ass off, the tail end of that

mattering and MySpace becoming a thing where so years later really jumping around, but we did a warp tour and I remember meeting this band. We met this band Crown the Empire who I think is like still. Yeah, they're out there. Yeah, they were on our stage on Warp Tour. So they were on our stage on Warped Tour, and it was, they had put out, I think, like a few songs right before that. I remember one day we get on stage at like 3 p.m. or whatever, and we're like, oh, my God, why in Louisville or wherever the fuck we are? There's hundreds of people here for us.

This is ridiculous. What's going on? And then we realized they're all just staring at their phones and they're waiting for kind of the Empire to play. who had just blown up. I remember we met those guys in a parking, like the parking lot one night. And they were really nice and like, well meaning,

but they were like, you guys got to stop playing, stop touring so much, just work on your internet presence. And I'm like, ugh, fuck that, bouncing souls,

man. But they were probably right. I mean, like, yeah. It was the tail end of like, yeah, too much,

do less. Like, well, it's, the cycle's back, dude. Yeah, no,

totally. But what was the, what was a viral thing prior to the internet? You know what I mean? Like, Jim Morrison getting arrested for profanity and obscenity.

That's like a viral thing way before the internet. We were trying to get arrested. You did it one day. It is interesting to think like, like what could you have done? Yeah.

You know? Yeah. I mean, we were just like... Kill the guy. Yeah. You know, that scoband with all the kids.

Kill the guy. I'd be like, I'm there. I'm on my, on my way. It's, yeah, we're just like,

you know, if you build it, they will come. If you just book a lot of dates, seven people will come. Yeah, that's true. And you'll make three.

But we're back now. It's cool to care. It's cool to work hard, which is really cool to see. And it's great timing for us. When you did Warp Tour, were you in a van? Yeah,

we did two. We never did the whole thing, but we were on a third the first time. I mean, you have the new notes, how we got it. on Warps, because that's...

No, no, I would love to hear. Man. Well, we did a third and we did like half at some point. But 2011 and 13. Is that kind of the heyday? Or is that kind of... No, that's...

I mean, it's still absolutely raging. Raging, but... Before the big taper off where, like, everyone starts getting canceled and stuff. Yeah, sure. And, like, there's just people criticizing everything.

It was still good, for sure. Okay. But 2009... So, you know, we live in LA, again, we have supportive parents. We're really young. So we're like, just start going to, every year there's a Warp Tour kickoff party in L.A. It used to be at the Key Club.

And we would like pop in. We would always run into Kevin Lyman and just, here's our demo, you know, whatever. And at some point, he was like, if you guys are still a band next year, you guys can play on Warp Tour. He put us home one day. And we played in L.A. There's incredibly embarrassing video. Wait, is this one you had the full home?

horns and everything. Yeah. Dude, this video, you guys rock. Pretty good. Dude, I straight up. But straight up scabing. Here's the video.

Wow. Dude, they fucking rock. If I was Kevin Liman, I would have seen this and been like, I'm putting this out, maybe. Yeah, I mean,

it was awesome. And it was a really cool experience. We're really young, and I'm wearing a mongloid stank top. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Damn. I mean, like, we loved hardcore,

though, we were played ska. Yeah, we love, again, it's all punk rock. Yeah. I think it was the next year. So we did the one. date. It was awesome. And the next year, he was like, if it goes, well,

I'll put you on some dates. And we're getting into the year, or the next year, the first lineup drop is announced. We haven't heard anything. And Morgan just emails Kevin Lyman. He's learned from Jordan Braes. Hey, it's me, Morgan. Jordan from Strong Out had kind of always

taught us to just, like, brutalize people. Guitar extraordinaire from the shreds. Or shreds, from the sheds. The shreds. Yeah. So Morgan emails Kevin, and he was just like, hey, I noticed, I heard from you. So if you don't respond, we're just going to show up to the first day and assume we're on the tour. And Kevin writes back in three minutes.

Just like, hey, I'm about to go into a seminar at this college. In all my years of doing this, I've never heard this bad of a attempt. I'm about to read this in front of all these students about what not to do. Don't show up, whatever. And like, that rules. Immediately. And also, CCed on it are 20 execs who work on World Tour or whatever. And Morgan

How old is Morgan, though? 11. Yeah. Which is insane. Fucking awesome. So Morgan calls me like on the verge of tears. It's like I've ruined the band. We got to move to Europe.

Morgan's like the seven-year-old that packs his bag and goes to him. Yeah. I'm leaving. And then within minutes we're getting like a ton of emails back from like Julie who still works with Kevin who's incredible. All these people who are just like. You come on a bad day. Don't, like, I'll talk. Don't worry about it.

He should have just responded, I'm 11. Yes. I was just going to say, Dear Kevin, I'm 11, I'm 11. The email signature. I'm 11, by the way. Morgan. In Morgan.

So, anyways, Kevin, Kevin hits his back. And he's like, hey, guys, like, I'm sorry. I went really hard there. Come in for a meeting this week. We'll talk. And we went to the office. And it was like going to the principal's office kind. He was like, you know, that was,

you know why that was fucked up, right? Kind of. And then it was just like, all right, how is this week sound, or these two weeks out? And we're like, and puts us on that year. So, like, literally we got it by punishing his balls off. Punishment works. Yes. I mean, that's what biohazard said.

That's good. Good on him. Truly. Yeah. That's a great. That's a great movie. Yeah. No, truly, like, as much he as Kevin gets constantly, truly, I think that's a good dude.

And he's, like, done a lot for me and a lot of people. And it's really hard to be perfect. when you have so much going on, but I do think he's done a lot more good than bad. And I will stand by that for sure. The anxiety that Morgan. So to the 11-year-olds out there. Yeah.

Email Kevin line. Yeah. Work throws back. Punishment's back. Start a scow band. Come on. Can you tell me, do you, do, well, let me ask you something back. What do you think has aged worse?

Oh, no. Your champion tattoo or your R. Kelly tattoo? I'm trying to think because I think there's a hat trick of another canceled thing I have tattooed on me. Oh, okay. But I think without question the archailles. Yeah, because it's like you kept the promise, you know. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So tell me about Warpter.

How was being in a band? Was that brutal? Yeah, it's, I don't regret it whatsoever. Nor should you. It's like all of, I feel like you probably feel the same way, both of you, all the worst memories. of DIY touring is the stuff later that is the fondest. Dude, it's like kale.

When kale is pissing me off, I was like, this fucking, God damn it, kale. And now nothing makes me happier than thinking about kale. I remember, yeah, like, chasing my brother Evan three blocks because he threw a firecracker at me and I was going to beat his ass. And being, like, fuming. Yeah, and you couldn't catch.

And I was like, this is the best. That was the best. So remember when I punched him in the face? So who's driving? If Morgan's 11. Morgan never drove. I should hope not. I think he never drove because he didn't have his license until we were, had just broken or about to.

He drove maybe a little at the tail end, but it was the rest of us, like all, everybody. We all drove. I drove a lot. Yeah, Morgan, we'd make Morgan sit up with everybody a lot, but then he would annoy us. So we'd get to go to bed. Were they doing the same thing at the time where you have to, you like load in is 8, 9 a.m. You unload the truck, get your merch.

Oh, for Warptor. Yeah. Oh, sorry, for WarpTor. I did so much of that driving. Yeah. We all did, but I, that's the fucked up thing as I remember. I don't remember most of those drives. Because you're just.

So, the idea of doing these like eight-hour drives. Every night. And not remembering a second of them because I'm catatonic is dangerous. Yeah, that's fucked up. But yeah, you know, basically you are at Warpter, dying in the sun. Maybe you nap, like, I would nap on a duffel bag of merch under the merch table. Nice. Or in the van with all the windows, the doors open, hopefully not cooking.

And you're there all day till if you have a long drive, you pack up early and leave it like seven, get some food and drive till, you know, 6 a.m., sit in the parking lot. the wheel asleep for two hours. Oh, my God. And then you load in when someone, like, points out where you should park. Oh, cool. Yeah. And then you lug a wagon with merch and a tent. You have to bring everything.

A table, the tent. And you're lugging it so far because the buses park near the stages. Yeah. The vans and... Do most bands playing have, like, enormous crews? Yes. Well, on our stage was the monster stage, and it was, like, the medium tier. And the...

You guys could keep gear on a semi, right? Yeah, we had gear on a semi, and like half of the bands had pretty big crew. Motionless and white and Ice 9 kills. It was that level. They all had like pretty serious crew. The money bands. Money Bay. Yeah, they had pretty serious crew.

Necro Goblican, no crew, dude. No crew. Both years we were on, we did the Kevin Says stage and the Ernie Ball stage, and they were both largely backlined. Yeah. So, you know, luckily we were only lug in, like, symbols and, you know, breakable. It's like any fest, for sure. Okay.

That's not that bad. But I'll never, I've talked about this before. I'll never forget loading the trailer in the morning and like just getting on stage and kind of looking where it was and seeing Matt from Kubla Khan pulling their wagon a mile and a half to the merch spot because that's what they had to do. They did the whole fucking thing that way. They've been grinding for fucking. Crazy. They were the local band on like one of my first tours I did with friends like in Texas. three days. And 15 years later, they're crushing. Yeah, absolutely. Are there any

lifelong friendships you made on those, on the two warped doors you did? So funny enough, like, I remember, I always bring this up, but mutual friend, Vincent from the Acacia Strain, they were on the first year we were on. And we, I was singing now, but we sold horns. We were a scob and mixed with punk and a little hardcore and stuff. but I remember the first day us playing and like a bunch of my friends that was their favorite band. I was familiar

I didn't listen to them a whole lot but like I knew who he was. He was a straight edge figure that I was aware of. I see him side stage while we play and afterwards I walk over and like hey I'm Mac like nice to me. What? What's up? And he just goes

man I love real big fish and we've been friends ever since. Do you have any lifelong enemies? you made on the two workforce you did? Shit. Is there an answer you know about or? No. Okay. I was like, am I forgetting. No, not really. That's good. Yeah, it's really like, it's kind of like, it really, I know

it's cliche, but it really is summer camp. Like, yeah. Never got to do it. Everyone meets up in catering and you go to catering with your friends and like every, we met some, I think you were just talking about it on some other episode recently, but like, I remember you're all driving at the same time. we'd end up at like a gas station in the middle of night and be like, oh, of mice and men. Not my thing, but you guys are friendly. Yeah, totally.

What's up? A Skylit drive. Yeah. Oh. Is everybody pretty cool? Everyone's, no one like cool guy to set. Especially because we're in a van. So everyone's like, fuck yeah.

Yeah, true. Yeah. Did you ever get politics into a bad time slot? We got fucked one time. No, we, we, I mean, we definitely had bad time slots occasionally, but the two stages that ever played on were always like three or four touring bands it's mostly like they put locals on so usually they put us kind of in the afternoon we'd get like a decent time so so you play a different time every day and it was like an allegedly random it's allegedly random although the big bands

tend to play around the best time like 5 p.m is three to five p.m. as they should of course but sometimes you open the stage and it's actually pretty dope sometimes you would close. Census fail closed our stage like nine times, which is a lot. It's way better to play at noon. Yeah, closing sucks. Really?

Because everybody's shot? Everyone's starting to leave. We got a really good time slot for one of them, Detroit or something. And then we got swapped to closing. Come to find a band that was originally closing, volunteered to do the catering, and a little favor you can get.

You say, hey, we would really love to play. play at like 3.30 if possible. What do you mean do the cater? To be serving and stuff. Bands do that? Yeah. So they, what they... It's like an unspoken, like rule kind of thing. And this is a thing that like started with early warp tours was, uh, if you look at like

old flyers, it would even be included on the flyer like barbecue band. So there'd be bands that like if they're van, and most bands are in vans in these earlier ones, if they're like towing the barbecue for the, the, well, I guess this is not for catering. This is for the after barbecue. Oh, okay. But there'd be bands, because on days where the drive's not long or you have a day off, you have these incredible barbecues that everybody hangs out of.

And you could be the barbecue band where basically to, it's, I mean, I think you still get paid, but as you're paid a play type thing to get a slot on the tour, you're towing the grill and then you're grilling for everyone at the internet. Yeah, but, and it's kind of sick, honestly. And then you, that band always inevitably became friends with everybody. Because everyone wants that extra hot dog. This was not that. And this was a band on the tour, on our stage, who kind of weasled their way out of closing because they were from...

Multiple times or just one? Just this one time. But they were from near where we had this really good slot. And someone from my band posted our updated time slot and said, thanks a lot and tagged that band. That's awesome. I do remember Warren Beef I ran into. Oh, what band was? was it on the we were driving to texas from l.a. to start the tour okay and we're really excited oh

it was and i tweeted it was honestly like we were kids and and teenagers swear i'm not like homophobic or transphobic or anything but i was just like can't wait to like excited to get to warpedor and meet all the girls in uh blackfield brides uh and i just get a call from kevin lineman i don't he's not following this i don't know how he got it and he just goes hey man Mack, don't do that. Like, we're all equals. He honestly was like, don't talk shit on other bands. Yeah, he got you.

Damn. Yeah. And, like, I was, like, scared. Like, oh, okay. He's like, don't do that. You're going to just turn around and drive home. Yeah. Damn, nice.

Smart. That's good. He did the right thing. He, like, dead. How old were you? 20, 19? Oh, okay. Yeah.

Maybe young. Probably 18, honestly. Yeah. You got teen at the end of it. You're allowed to be a little shit. You're, you know, you're still learning. I thought I was, I was like, we're, we're a cool scobie. Fuck the goth.

Yeah. Cry baby stuff. Yeah, whatever. Dude, the O.G. drummer of Blackfield Rides. Sandra Alvarenga. Fucking gangster. Yeah.

Valley OG. Legend. She used to play in a band called Arm the Homeless. She rocked, kicked ass. I think she's still playing drums. She pulled more straight women. than any man I know. She has the,

she had the craziest game I've ever seen. Absolute legend. So Blackfield Brides, there's at least one cool thing about them. They had Sandra. It's funny. I never thought about this connection until now either. But their longtime tour manager,

John Severson, was the drummer of daughters. See? And he tour managed a few years later. We did a support tour with the casualties. And he was their tour manager. took incredible care of us because like their van would break down but he still had to get to the show to run the whole thing so he'd be like all right with you guys i'm buying your hotel room

if you give me a ride oh like beautiful yeah we were crashing on floors all the time and he would just hey we have an extra hotel it's yours yeah constantly so when in this time so media scare i want to talk about that because i think i think that's like a thing we've not touched upon on the show ever yeah of like what a what a dark time for music media scare was Tell me about your experience there. So we... Maybe explain it just in general for those who don't know. I'll get into that.

I forgot all about it. So we were on no sleep for a second. We got our... We had no booking agent. We got on the Warped Tor because Morgan had punished Kevin. And so we finished this EP and we're like, we're on Warped Tour. We need to get a substantial, a real release out. Sure.

And they were just kind of like, well, we don't have time in our release schedule. It's not going to happen. But if you guys want, go do it yourself. So we left the label, made CDs ourselves, did the Warped Door ourselves, cut to, you know, we're getting ready to write for another EP. And in the Valley, I mean, it was not just a Valley thing, but the label Media Scare was based in the Valley. Good friends of the band who, you guys, the Cobalt Legends betrayal. Oh, yeah. They were like Media Scare's babies.

There was a ton of bands from the Valley, a lot in the, you know, metal. core death core gent field you do not want to play after betrayal in the valley in 2009 wow i see and somehow you're right just from being at the cobalt uh baron who ran the label approached us and was like hey i'll put out your stuff and we just wanted to be wanted by a label 100 so we were like yeah and it seemed cool it wasn't but uh you know at like yeah we were on media scare for a second we put it out an EP and an LP. The LP, I'm still proud of. Yeah.

We, uh, but, you know, it just took forever. I think we got CDs luckily, like, the day before we left for our next Warp Tour. Um, we never did vinyl, which was part of the deal. There's just a whole, it was a, just a bad guy. Yes, bad guy, bad situation for us, not the right place for us to be. Yeah, real weird. In general. The cool part is you got killed by murder, death kill in that video.

I think they literally scrubbed all of their videos Not murder death kill, but media scares But that one's still up, right? If you find it, here's my bloody ass face And they fucked you up They really did That's awesome That's one perk

Yeah, that's my main IMDB credit is A bloodied corpse So bad time on media scare Yeah, not a good time There's a whole Netflix documentary waiting to happen Yes, I'm sure Media Scared Media scared.

Yeah. Coming soon. But we, yeah, we basically, we toured our ass. We worked really hard. Like,

we were touring DIY. I think there was a couple years there where we literally did like 160 shows or something, all DIY. And, um, we just got burnt out and we were getting older or not old. And,

um, when do you go bald in this timeline? I shaved my head for the first time on the casualties tour. Okay. I was like, not balding yet. Writing's on the wall. It's coming. Not a look of hair in any elder male in my family. Summer tour shaved it.

And I was like, let's see how it is. It's hot. I can play it off. And I was like, no, that's me now. Could you give me your top four bald guys? Larry David. Sure. Bob Odenkirk.

Yeah. He's getting there. I don't know. Yeah. Balding. Yeah. Man. There's a fucking champ that you.

you gotta mention Stone Cold? He is a chair He's my champ In many ways In many ways, yeah But there's another one Who I just feel like he is

I don't know Like it's always Costumes It's always like Oh you're gonna be Walter White this year Yeah Yeah I think you said him

You said Patrick Stewart Oh Patrick Stewart Love Sir Patrick No problem there Bruce Willis dude Oh yeah Fucking He's powerful with it

He really rocked. He rocked it. He just, like, lets it rock as it lies. The diehard bald and cut is, like, the coolest a guy. Pulpiction. Dude. Pulpiction, he looks great. I think the third diehard when he still got hair, but it's like...

Oh, yeah. Dude, you know who's hanging on in the coolest way is Jude Law? Whoa. I've never clocked that. Dude, clock the fuck out of it. It's awesome. He's got great balding hair. Starrose.

Yeah, that's good sure. It's like the worst combover thing ever. But it would be worse if he was fully bald. Yeah, it's true. He's killing it. Mack, have you made yourself like an evangelical for the bald? Like,

do you ever see a brother struggling out there? And you say, hey, man. I think I have, honestly. It's hard to approach someone unless you're close with it. Yeah, 100%. It's a sensitive subject for every man. It is. I would be destroyed if I got that.

No one talks about me being bald as much as Colin. Sure. And I think you think that that was just a thing that was always happening, and it wasn't. Like, you started me being the bald guy. Yeah, but I love it about you. No, I'm not saying you don't. It wasn't, it was never derogical. No, I know.

That's why I don't have a problem with it because I am bald. Sometimes I would see my reflection in your head when you bent over. And I could not, there's nothing else I can say, but. I shaved it fresh for the day. I was like, I have to put a hat on her. You're going to be seeing Bow in this. That's possible. What's the, what's the, what?

What's the method? It depends. If I have time, I'll bick it. Just whatever soap and bick. Like literally just a razor. I now have like a handheld thing. Does it work? Yeah, it's easy to use on tour.

Cool. That's good. It works. It's not as close, but it takes three minutes. What piece of advice can you give to the gentleman listening or watching who whose time may be coming? This is huge. Just give it a shot. You know, maybe your head.

Maybe you got to, I have a dent in the side of my head and it doesn't stop me. You do, but you have a good, shape. Shape is important. Yeah. Yeah. Give it a shot. There's always hats. Yeah.

Small hats, really good for. No need to hit turkey yet. No, no. Do you think, does it ever, I don't know, does it ever happen where a guy will like start to thin, but it's because of stress or it's hormonal or something and it can like come back? I genuinely have no idea. I mean, I just, I wasn't losing my hair. and I was shaving my head at like 21.

Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. No, I was like, I've been doing this for 12 years and I just, uh, so now I'm almost like,

I wish you would stop growing in in the weird places it is. No, but that's the thing is that with the, well, you got to let it grow. Give me six months. What will it cost me? I think it'll cost you some record sales when people see it.

Yeah. Mac Hogan, dude. The people lost the Hulkster. He's a piece of shit. They need a good, a good bald brother to let it grow and give people something to root. You got the stash. Strong. Just some real nice curly sideburns going on.

Finally, man. Please. Let it go. Can you grow a beard, Mac? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't grow downwards. It's not just full.

Basically what I've been doing. I don't know why this is interesting. thing to have. Brittany really prefers it when he's got the beard. But basically, I'll just let it grow until it's itchy and then I just shave it again. And then I go three more weeks and let it grow. Is the mustache a tribute to your beloved late father? It wasn't intentionally. Yeah.

I just like, I mean, I like every 24 year old was like, I should get a mustache. Yeah. Yeah. It was never really full. And then during the pandemic, I tried and it was like, oh, it's pretty full. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good mustache.

It's good mustache. Yeah. My dad had the most insane mustache. My dad, we don't need to get it super into it, but had cancer. And when he lost all his hair, he shaved his mustache off. And it was the first time my mom, in like 30 years ever saw his lip. It was like, you should put that back. It was just like the weight of 30 years of mustache had pulled his lip.

That's a different guy. Yeah. The reason this is interesting, Mac, is because there is, there are listeners out there who don't realize they can customize their reality about how they look. There's options. Everybody's got options. And we figure them out late.

You know, sometimes you get a pair of white pants and shave your head late in your life and you realize that's you, you know? I can't wait for you to dump those white pants up. Never. It's never going to have. Trust me.

It's diaper time. I've come close. And it, but it may happen. Who knows? We'll see. Tell me about something, a prophecy you've already fulfilled.

Many people don't know this. Cosmic joke is straight up Tony Hawk music. They've already been on a Tony Hawk soundtrack. Sheds? The Sheds are one of the last things we did. Actually, I don't know if we're like a lot. I mean, I don't think it matters, but loud to talk about this kind of stuff. But like partially one of the last catalyst that helped us like get off MediaScare on top of breaking up.

Yeah. We on our own accord, also because. Morgan punished Tony Hawk's balls off. Pretty cool. He's pretty... I don't know if you can... Learned this theme about Morgan. The guy emails you.

God-tier punisher. Yeah. Unbelievable punishing. Thomas Jane over here. But he... But anyways, we ended up on... Morgan basically just started tweeting at Tony Hawk. And it was just like,

you got to put us in the game in for Tony Hawk 5. It was announced that Activision was working on it. Just keeps tweeting. him getting people to tweet at him and he eventually DMs Morgan like Tony Hawk himself was like hey I see you we're still working on it I'll have someone email you but just please stop I see I hear you stop I think he emailed him again like a few weeks later it was like you said I was going to hear I can send the army on you again but uh anyways uh we ended up getting a song on Tony Hawk and there's minimal licensing fees or whatever

media scare was like you know I know you work this out you have to send it all here and I'll pay you half of it not the other way around we're like I'm sure you will and then of course he didn't and we're like cool breach contract let's we're getting out oh cool yeah we're like I don't care about the $500 or whatever yeah right

Tony Hawk Tony Hawk made it happen Was Tony Hawk 5 before the worst rated game of all time on IGN? Was it before after underground the first under the first After after after after undergrounds after like Project 8

after the one where you stand on the thing after all these things they were like we're doing like we're bringing back to basics Tony Hawk 5 just called that and then is it really the lowest rated game on I I think it maybe it's changed since then

but when it was out it was literally zero out of 10 it can't be lower than like the Superman 64 game or something you know like of all time it wasn't finished though like they rush it I think he's a different engine.

It wasn't like never soft. They put it out too quick. And like there were all these, you know, you'd go up a quarter pipe. And when you come back then, you just get stuck in the ramp. Nice. Like it just. To the sheds. Yes.

To the sheds and like new American nightmare. Yeah. Who else was on the soundtrack? Do you remember? There were a few. I remember a bunch of bands never heard of. But I think there was like, you know, state champs. Like a few contemporaries.

But it was a lot of, I don't know, like so many no names that it made sense that we were. Okay. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. So goal achieved, but nobody bought the game to hear it. So Tony, if you're listening, God. Give Cosmic Joke a shot. There's no band out there doing Tony Hawk music like this.

Okay. They got, we'll get some horns if you need them. Also, if you have like two to three hours free anytime, Tony, you just let us. Oh, yeah. Hit us up. I mean, it's still. It's an accolade regardless. Like, that's awesome.

Again, we broke up like right after that. Yeah. But our whole thing was like two goals as the kind of band were. Play Warp Tour, do a Tony Hawk game, which we didn't even know it was going to be on the table. Like we didn't know there were going to be more games. Yeah. So we're like, all right. That's, that's a, we did.

You did it. We did all the stuff. You did it. I mean, you met so many people along the way that it like shaped the rest of your life. Because now, well, before we get into merch, I want to ask you something. Can you picture this? Picture the color in your head. Lime green.

Wait, the color of my head? Picture, no, no, no. Inside your head, picture the color lime grain. And now picture these words. I'm in every fucking city touching every fucking titty. Here's a video. Tell me about this Attila shirt and its significance to you. So, uh, what's the, what was the Joliet venue?

Mojos? It was Mojos. Now it's the forge. We, we had a day off. off of one of our DIY tours and our old friend Rico, who we met on, he was doing merch with the case to train on our first warped tour. He was out with Chelsea Grin on a tour with a ton of bands that like respectfully, nothing I would have ended up going to. We're like, we'll go to a show. And he gave us a 3xL, Attila shirt because they were on that tour.

That was lime green and then written in pot leaves. It said, I'm in every fucking city touching every fucking. fucking titty. Wow. And for the rest of our tour, every night, we would roll dice and whoever lost had to wear the shirt. But we also never watched it. Oh.

Yeah. So it just progressively became like, you really don't want to lose. And, uh... How many, how often did you lose? I don't think I ever lost. Wow. Morgan, who was tiny, had to wear it. And I remember our drummer who was, so after Nicky with this guy Mark playing rooms,

he had to wear it most time. And it was like, you know, the sleeves go to. hear so he's like rolling them up and they're falling down he's trying to play it during the set yeah yeah so every which also we're damning ourselves to having someone in the band wearing the shirt every show that's horrible every single you you lose

no matter what you know that video of the like the Japanese like mascot playing drums that's what I'm imagining it's kicking yeah but up that video that guy rocks come on dude he's blasts like it's nobody's business dude the forge by the way is about three blocks from Aheras Casino that has the highest payout odds in the country.

Great casino. We got our trailer stuck in the parking garage. Yeah, that'll happen. Because we tried to park at Harris for that show. Excellent. Yeah. But good casino. Great casino, big fan.

I'm only familiar with the parking garage. It's too small. All right. So this is the first time we've had a career merch man on the show. I want to get your thoughts here. It's such a fascinating industry. It's hard to break into. I want to know some career.

highlights and low lights of merch world. I mean, where you want me to begin, really. The coolest tour you've ever gotten to do. The coolest, like, on a personal level, last year. Like, personal scale. And then,

like, career. Both. Last year, I did the whole Postal Service, Death Cat for Cutie anniversary tour. That's, I mean, I don't often work for, I do, I don't always work for artists that I am like a fan of.

Yeah. You know, you can be the coolest guys and sometimes, sometimes work is just work. Usually I'm fortunate enough to go out with bands that are at least, I respect and I'm good. Not too many like horror stories, but I've been a fan of Death Cab for Cutie for a long time, Jenny Lewis for a long time, 818. Come on. And so to get to do that tour and do the whole cycle, like I did, every day. U.S. or North American data that tour. It's awesome. Yeah, it was cool.

Like, I had done some of those, you know, the big venues, like some of those arenas before, but not doing, you know, an anniversary slash reunion tour where they're putting up crazy numbers. I want to shout out Jared Hazlett. King. King, dude. He's been assisting me on these. He's the best. He's amazing.

He's like a character in a sitcom of my life who just, like, pops in and makes that episode. that week because like I never know when I'm gonna see him but when I do I'm I'm so pumped yeah that's great um but yeah so getting to do that and then sharing that with Jared was like like us together it was just it would be like having you out like every day like yeah we have all the work house Jared and are going to go get some coffee real quick and uh and then we get to work at Madison Square Garden yeah yeah it's crazy that tour was awesome too like it's a very cool tour Really cool. Yeah, I don't really have any like low, low points.

Like, damn, I can't wait for this tour. Which is hilarious because right before this, you're talking about shit getting rained out. I know you've been like flooded before. It's so funny, though, because like the worst shit is what is. I mean, Jared and I talk about this all the time because Jared also has toured in vans most of his life. Yeah. And we're always joking about like everybody else on our crew. We're working like some people are lighting techs who have only ever, you know, if you're having like, not even just like the light operator, but people who are teching the LED wall.

They've only done massive tours where you're renting an LED wall, you know? So they're like, I didn't get the peanut butter pretzels today. Like that's the worst thing. I'm like, yeah, well, I just changed the tire and the transmission gave out and I'm trying to figure out how to, you know. Yeah. So there's some sick part of us that, like, loves the turmoil because it's what is the best memory later. I don't know. It's like these shared experiences is what you learned from punk and hardcore and DIY touring.

But I did remember. I'm not going to name names, but there was one. The one tour was like, get me the fuck off of this. Thank God. I'm not staying on it. I did a leg of a country tour with like a country legend. Like he's not doing arenas. He's doing like dinner theaters and casinos.

Pretty cool. But he's on the country touring style where weekend warrior, you do shows Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday in one region. You fly home Monday through Wednesday. But you're just on tour. There's not a tour. You're just gone all year. Like instead of doing a two-month tour or whatever, a month tour and you go.

It's like a wrestling schedule. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like in perpetuity, this is your schedule. And I did a couple weeks of it covering for someone. And then they ended up basically someone like sublet me their job because they were taking a three-month tour with Matchbox 20 and Counting Crows, which he bailed off that. And I ended up getting moved to that, which saved my life. And how sick is Rob Thomas?

He rocks. Rob Thomas. Shout at Rob Thomas. First celebrity I ever saw. He's incredible. Dude, he rules apparently. Yeah, he's awesome. The man of the people. I've told this story when he was at LAX.

I don't know. Real quick, it was my first time at LAX, we were flying out of it. And I just, like, looked. And there he was, like, in the terminal, on the phone. Dude, leather shirt, leather pants, leather boots, leather luggage. Just headed to a black leather. He's on the phone, and I'm going to do it to the camera. He, like, looked at me, and he went, and then just kept walking.

He literally gave me a, yeah, that's me. and then just kept walking and I was like, yeah. Tell everybody. Tell your podcast in 12 years. These tours have like 40 crew members or whatever on it. He emailed the whole crew, got everyone's emails,

emailed the whole crew, was like, hey, on the day off in Raleigh coming up, my kids coming out to visit, we're going to go do this like zip line ropes course thing, open invite whoever wants to come. And like four of us went, including me. And you just hang out all day and zip line with drop time.

And he's like, let's go to a habachi after. And just buys us all dinner. Just sick guy. Just hang out. Talk about music. Yeah. What's he into? I mean, he's classic stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. Classic pop, classic rock, classic. You got to check out the stones, dude. Funny story, though, I talk about this all the time. I love on these bigger tours running into the secret punks. I'm sure you find this. Dude.

Secret punks kind of move the whole industry. 100% Yeah It's it's kind of like this under under belly Or like I've worked at Coachella before And like You get to your green room Let me come back to this in a second

But you get to your green room And like you know You have like a couple things in there And then you see like Oh shit Ephraim from death by stereo is The guy stock in the green rooms Hey I left a couple extra cases

A beer for your guys Yeah All right sick cool We're all they're all around But I remember It's like hardcore is the Illuminati Let's be real here. The fountain of youth.

The drummer of Matchbox 20. This tour was over three months long, by the way. Like, they do one tour every five years. Just knock out every corner of North America. Yeah. And then just don't tour. Like. That's a dream.

Drummer of Matchbox 20, his name's Stacy. He was the singer of American Hi-Fi. You remember that band? Yeah, yeah, I do remember that band. But I didn't know any of this. So I'm walking around backstage. I was wearing a His Heroes Gone shirt one day. And he just goes,

incredible shirt. And I was like, I need... Are you sure? Well, I didn't even realize who's the drummer. So I was like, oh, the catering guy. Yeah, right, right. And then a few days later, we were like,

I think there was like a little barbecue after the show or something. And I was wearing a Jesus Lizard shirt. And the same guy comes up and starts talking to me. And it's just like, my old band toured with Jesus lizard. I, we got to look this up, but he was just like, that is one of the best live bands I've ever toured with all this stuff.

And, uh, he, American Hi-Fi did a tour that was Bush headlining. And they took out American hi-fi when they were first starting to pop. I can't remember who the other support. There was someone direct support. And then Jesus Lizard was opening

just because Gavin Rossdale loved Jesus Lizard. And I think I heard that Jesus Lizard got sent home from the tour because David Yao kept just getting naked and stage diving in arenas. And just like, yeah, you can't do that? No, you can't do that. That sucks.

Can't do anything these days. Like Def Cab hanging out with Ian McKay. Oh man That's cool Yeah I'm I always want to There's not anything

To share with this really But the first That tour Started in D.C. And They did a couple days of rehearsals At the venue Anthem

Beautiful venue in D.C. And I get there a day early Just to load the merch Semi Get it all organized And We just like hear Jared and I are

Breaking down Pallets And we just hear like Like hello gentlemen And I just turn And like peaking his head in is just Ian Mackay. Legend. And I, it's like, at first time,

I, did Ian? Yeah, I was like, I can't be him. Oh, we're in D.C., I guess it makes sense. Yeah. And then, like, two hours later, I'm like, I'm going to go to the caterer room, get some coffee. And I'm just, like, walk into an artist roundtable type

setting of just Ben Gabbard, Jenny Lewis, and Ian, just chatting about the process. Ian's, Ian's a bald king. He's been a brother, dude. That might be number one. Day one, yeah. Damn, that's a good one.

And really makes like a fishing hat look good, too. Dude, any hat. How is it on there? We got to find out. Yeah. Ian, if you're listening. Ian. I'm sorry again.

Remember in Lost, there was Mr. Echo. Mr. Echo also barely had a beanie on. It's the only rival to Ian. What's the guy from Oz? Yeah. Yeah, it's the same guy. The beanie that is just touching the side of the same thing. Oh, maybe I'm confusing the two.

It's the guy who plays Mr. Echo. Yeah. Oh, is it? Yeah, I think it's the same guy. He hated loss. Yeah. Adabici's the guy in Oz. This episode is brought to you by Mad Vintage.

Hey, Colin, where'd you get that shirt? M-A-D-DVintage.com. Wow. Yeah, that's all you got to do. You go to this website. You listen to a band that we talk about on our show. He's got you covered. You're going to find the shirts you've been looking for your entire life.

And this is a more passionate about this. It's one of our favorite aspects of the thing that we're into. And it's important to note, Luke over at Mad Vintage, he's looking to buy, he's looking to trade. He wants to see what you got. You know you have things you haven't worn in a long time in that closet. And you might sell him to him and see him on this show someday. So let's hurry it up.

Hit him up. I want him. Our closets are full. So please get the stuff before we do. I can't take anymore. No. That's Code Hardlord 15 for 15% off. Mad Vintage.

Back to the episode. What's the worst venue in the country? Oh, great question. Cobal Cafe. I mean, yeah. Man, I can't think of a specific venue, but like there's all these spots that, you know, a Live Nation tour will just book a show at where it's like, it's a stage in the field. It's the whatever amphitheater, whatever bank is calling this an amphitheater today for some reason.

And you're like, you mean the mud pit that you haven't resotted since the storm three days ago. Why are we doing a show here? And then, oh, there's your merch stand. and it's like a frame of a tent with no coverage. Perfect. Yeah. You have, the last few years of your career have been defined by,

you've been with Wallows a ton. Wallows. Do you like, you like to wrong with them? Love Valley boys. Good boys. Sweet, sweet boys. You,

like, and how, like, so the singer of Wallows is a Dylan Minette, actor, sensation. Lovely guy. Prisoners, dude.

He's in fucking prison. Okay, you're in prisoners. You can do whatever you want. Sure. Shout out if you guys are listening Yeah totally I think fans of Hardlour

Yeah totally I've been in my answer I don't know Drain you've been torn with Drain a lot How's that been? They might be listening Sam how you doing Send a break dance bag

Yeah I I love Drain Best guys ever Is there a band that you are You clear your schedule for More than me At this point Probably Drain

Yeah The only times I won't Is if it's They have like a three day thing and I have a month of touring. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Denzel Curry is the other dude.

Whatever he's got, I'll do it. Totally. It's just like... He loves you. He's best. You know, but it's like doing this as long as I have. Honestly, doing the Cosmic Joke stuff and Holy Blade stuff has kind of changed my perspective where I'm like, I just want to do this stuff that makes me happy now.

I don't need to just like, yes, it's my job. and I'm fortunate enough to like my job, but I don't want to just grind myself into the ground doing work just to work on tours I don't want to do. And when I go out with Drain or when I go with Denzel Curry or even Death Cab honestly,

or Wallace to some extent, like it feels like home and it feels like it's obviously cushier than the van tours we've all done, but you're with these people with like-minded sensibility. Yeah. And it's,

it feels like home. It's like this is, what I'm used to. All it takes is to be on one of those bigger tours and you have a run-in with someone who doesn't come from that world. And you immediately are just like, oh, like this is the rock star bullshit. We, one of our first bigger tours was with At the Gates and one of the support bands had a TM for them.

And the TM was the problem to the point where the band was apologizing to us on his behalf. Like, sorry, we don't know why he's being like that. And it was immediately, like, one of the things he said was like, on this fucking tour, I could have been in Europe with Tesseract. And you're just like, go, go. You know, then go do that. Yeah, just really, and you're right, when you find out that there are secret punks in the crew,

in production, dude, especially if it's a TM who's cool, like the, of the T.m of the whole tour. Yeah. I mean, there's plenty of, you know, there's plenty of acts where, like, you know, On these bigger tours, there's large crews. And you can usually find a handful of people you get along with. And there's plenty of people are like, you know, we're best friends on the tour. I don't really talk to you anymore.

And then there's some people are like, these are my lifelong friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Drain, you barely knew when you took the tour. That was like immediate. I mean, that story is hilarious. But I, you were here. Yeah, no, I had worked the merch tent at one of those punk in the park festivals, happened to meet the Drain guys

because I think I met them really quickly at the first Twitch fits really briefly I was also in costume so they did not remember me and then was working this festival and like Sammy was dropping off their merch

because it was a venue sell festival thing and we talked for like a second nothing crazy but I was like oh that was me that sold Twitching Tongues merch what's up dude he somehow remembered that a couple months later

found my Twitter messaged me and was just like, hey, I mean the messages players, but it's like, hey, we're on tour right now. Are you busy tomorrow

for the next three weeks? And you had just gotten home from something. I think I got home days before and then the tail end of it, we were going to Japan together. So I was like, I can do, I'm down to come out tomorrow,

but I got to leave like, miss the last three days or something. And it's like, for sure, we just need somebody, please come out. And immediately I was like, these are my people. Like it feels, I mean, I, you know, I love, it's really cool to do the big cushy stuff.

But something, and something, it just immediately felt like getting back in the van, which I hadn't done. Like, when the sheds broke up, I accepted, like, I'm not, I don't play in bands anymore. And I still did some van tours, but not much. And I, um, it immediately just, it was like, nostalgia. in this crazy way of just like poop jokes let's go yeah yeah big poop guys farting all around opposite of that of collins question what is your favorite venue like like a big one give me like a like what's like that's a nice place you know like an arena we'll never be able to play yeah that that like on the insiders are like dope so a lot of outdoor stuff just playing

sucks especially do merch but like the hollywood bowl is really cool oh yeah And it's Just going there is awesome Yeah It sounds awesome And the forum honestly In L.A. is really cool They're really

Like the crew there is really sweet Like It's the worst I hate the forum But to work Yeah Yeah Yeah I mean

I don't want to go to Englewood Really It's just I don't want to go west of Dude so far It was pretty dope You got to go like In

That was crazy I haven't seen Other than the top deck It's so far Yeah I'm sure you will soon Cosmic joke LP, dude. Yeah. But yeah, it all depends.

But what makes the day good for me is if, like, the house merch crew is a nightmare or not. And mostly they're pretty good. Yeah. And if it's like a real venue, it sucks to be like, the Live Nation ones, they know what they're doing. But they're usually hiring someone who professionally really knows what they're doing. How do you as a pro merch guy feel about merch cuts and, How to navigate them. So when I'm like with a headline act,

there's nothing you can do. Well, so it's hard to explain. Like without selling anyone out and stuff. Yeah, of course. If I'm working for a merch company and I'm hired by the merch company and working for a band and, like, the booking agent contracted these merch cuts. We're just paying the merch cut.

Like, it's what it is. Now I've worked with some bands that, they let's say they sell a ton of merch they can have their agent they know what they have they know that they're going to sell a lot of merch they're yeah they negotiate with their agents and they're like hey we work in some deal like hey if we hit this number drop it 10% or whatever and honestly if you're hitting those numbers 10 whatever your percentage is still pretty good and they're happy yeah so um but i'm always advocating for like the support acts it's hard when it's venue sells, nothing you can do.

Yeah, right, because you're counted in, counted out, it's done. Yeah. But if it's, you know, if I'm selling and there's an opener next to me and they take off, I'm four weeks into a tour, I know this guy really well. And they're like, what happened to Band X? Where they, like, they didn't pay, like, oh, they're just, I don't know. I haven't even talked to that guy yet. Yeah, yeah.

Because they don't know. That's good. The House people, the house people don't know. Yeah. And like, if you're a support act, I mean, I don't, truly I don't know. sure are some of our agent friends out there who don't fight for this necessarily. But like, if you're a support act, you're kind of just along for the ride of whatever the headliners deal is. And that sucks.

Like, you know, if you're, you need every cent you can get you. 100%. Oh, yeah. But I do think merch cuts have gotten absolutely out of control. I think at, you know, at some of the festivals, it's like 30%. 30%. Yes. 30%.

Throw yourself in the fucking air. Blow your brains out. And like the festival crew does a, like, the festival crew does a, like, lot, but they also sell a lot, and that percentage makes out to be a lot. And it's also... 30%... I'm not... No member of the band

is making 30% of... Also, it's 30% gross, not net. Yeah. Like, that doesn't... Oh, my God. It should be net. And, like, we don't always know the whole story sometimes, like, the merch company that's handling this. They have to build, like, rent the storage containers

that you're using. And, like, there's a lot of expenses that you don't normally have. But... you'd be fine with 20%, which is still very high. And way too high. I was talking about this recently, but I think if it's like a normal-ass feeder show,

let's say they have a really nice merch space. They bought the nice grids. They have tables. They got good Wi-Fi. They got lighting. They got everything. Man, this must be so boring to everybody listening. No, no.

I'm engaged. Yeah, me too. But if they really actually provide you with a service, they're checking in on you while you're setting up. They're like, hey, here's my phone number of the Wi-Fi cuts out. I'll come back by. 5%. Yeah, right.

Straight up. Because that's still fine. You still didn't do 5% of the work to bring this merch here. Yeah. I could sell this in the parking lot and do almost as well. To your point, Mac, it is 100%, especially on the tours that you're working on mostly. Like, the headliners, they don't give a shit because they're getting the door. They're doing fine.

And it is very much. They can raise the price accordingly of their memorabilia to negate the merch card. But the opener doesn't want to sell an 80-0 hoodie. And you know what? Any opening band out there, you know, there's ways don't pay that fucking merch cut. Nobody should pay the real merch cut.

Lie. Message Mac. Lie through your teeth. Over your dead body should you pay 20% to any motherfucker on earth ever. Ever. He can't comment as extensively

as he has to deal with these reps and stuff. I'm not going to name names, but years ago, I remember meeting up with it was like post-pandemic, touring had just come back. Brittany and I got brunch with a couple of friends, a couple of them worked for Live Nation.

And one of them was just like, you're a merch guy. Like, can you believe what I was just doing with? I spent the last three days trying to get a hold of this band. We called their agent, called their tour manager. They skipped out on this merch cut and we just can't get a hold of them. And it's like a band we know. And they were like,

and I was like, how much do they owe you guys? Like, well, we don't know what they sold, but like, probably like $120. And I'm like, what is your, what's your daily salary? You just wasted your company money trying to chase that down for three days. Way more than $100. Why do you care? Yeah.

It's just the principle. Look in the mirror. And do what you need to do. There's a very well-known band who we already talked about tonight. I won't say who, but I know they had a, a program. like a system with their merch guy. This was over 10 years ago where it was like, hey, if the merch cut is 20%,

we will give you 10% of the cut if you pay as little of a merch cut as possible. That's genius. So you're just incentivizing your merch guy to get creative, figure it out. Yeah, one of the first bigger tours I did, it was like House of Blues type sizes. Yeah, yeah.

And stuff, which, I mean, those are the hard. Yeah, those are coming to, if they also, to an extent, Also, if they're coming and counting your merch and counting you out. Yeah. Yes, that's the pain. I should be able to wop your ass. We've all, yeah, but then you're not going to touch my stuff.

But like if they, they ahead of time, like, hey, at this venue, we count you in and I count you out. Like, again, you agreed to play the show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it sucks. There's nothing you can really do about it. But honestly, like, I have friends that like take real issue with this and light them up. And it's like, at a certain rate, like, they are.

That girl who's approaching it's not her fault. Yes. 100%. And like, yeah, I don't like, I don't give a shit about Live Nation saving money or whoever, but like they are paying somebody to be here. So like it's someone's job to make sure. I'm just saying there's a difference when they come and count your stuff and care. They, if they care at all, cool.

Versus like. 2%. But I'm just saying versus at at 1130 at night, you're getting ready to load out. And the first time you hear from someone they walk him was like, Steve with the clipboard. Hey, so it's going to be 15% Like, who the fuck are you? Yeah, yeah.

I've also... Who are you? Last thing I'll say... I'll give you 100% of these, baby. Last thing I'll say about this too is I definitely was unloading merch one time, got approach, it's like, hey, I need to count you in and I gave the whole, fine.

I shouldn't have done that. Makes it so much work. I should have been like, oh, I'd be happy to help you. You know, you catch more bees with honey than many or blah, blah, blah. And more times than I, if you're just cool and you're nicer, I mean, they were going to let you, they will straight up be like, all right, don't worry about it at the end of the night.

Yeah. That happens a lot. Yeah. If you're like, we did under a grand or under 500 bucks. Yeah. They're just going, all right, you're fine. Yeah, they used to call that either the homeboy pool or inventory. We're just like, oh, you're counting.

You empty your trailer instead of just bringing what you need. Yeah. Yeah. I need it. Yeah. Thanks for inventory. That's cool. Yeah.

I mean, it's not really. But it's smart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You're going to rob me. You may as well help me, too. Do you have any merch pet peeves to either the buyers or the sellers or anything in between?

I mean, like, I honestly, like, not to talk about myself, but like I have way more patience than most merch people. I'm not like every once in a while, like I made a joke recently where like if you could do a miced up episode, like for athletes, we just put a mic. You do in merch? I'm like, hey, how can I help you? And then as soon as I turn around to grab something, I'm just talking under my breath. You don't know what, medium?

Shmedium? If you say Shmedium, I'm going to beat your ass. I'll tell you that. They do that still? There's the, the, I'm not going to name bands,

but the white reggae demographic cannot believe Shmedium. They think it's the funniest thing ever. Pick one. But, yeah, shmidium is a pet peeve for sure. I try not to put stuff on the tables because I just don't want people pick and set up.

But, like, I have total patience if you're asking to see sizes, asking what the blank is. You know, because we all buy merch. I want to know. Yeah, we can't care about that. Of course. Mack, do you have a preference of hanger versus directly to the grid versus the half mannequin things?

I like using binder clips directly to the grid, personally. Interesting. More work for you. Yeah. But I feel like you can make it look real clean. You can make it look good. I don't mind the body forms, the body forms.

Okay. That's a lot to lug around. Also, so you're not like trashing the shirts or breaking them and stuff, you still have to like disassemble them. You can just throw them all in. Dude, Acacia strain, and we started doing it for a while too,

they would just tape the shirts onto the racks and just fucking throw them in the trailer. Oh, I've definitely done that. Yeah. Fuck yeah. And then Mac, give us some Wolf of Wall Street insider trade.

what's selling right now? What are people buying? What's hot? I mean, it's hard to speak to like what it's very... Because there's a difference between what Denzel Curry is selling, what Wall is selling. But is there, because the pop... The pop mindset is still TikTok and fucking internet shit, you know?

Yeah, I mean, uh, I, merch is... There's a huge boom after the pandemic. And I don't think merch numbers have dropped. I think ticket sales have dropped a little bit. Yeah. But people who are there are still going to spend what they're going to spend. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

And I think a black shirt will always do well. I think anyone who does, if you're doing more than a week on the road and you don't have a tour shirt, you're a fool. Really? Yeah. Dude, tour shirts used to eat ass. I remember we didn't do one for Drain on one tour and every day I was like asked by everybody. I was like, why didn't you guys do that?

Dude, but what happened that the tour shirts became cool? I've got 500. You just asked with the. No, no, no, no. That's crazy. We believe you. I'll tell you, I think it's probably the pandemic. People who are new to it are like, I want to remember this thing.

I guess. Even me, though, because, like, we all mostly buy and wear vintage shirts. But if I'm going to go see a band, I often do want a tour shirt. Dude, I love the vintage tour shirt. Yeah, that's, I love a 91. I don't love a 23. But I'm saying, like, that will be. Yeah.

I don't know if you know that about time, Colin. But eventually. I know. But that's, hindsight is just. Joey Joey. I said Joey Joey. But like when I'm thinking about, like recently I went through, I was going through like my bins of shit the other day.

And I found like a streetlight manifesto tour shirt from a tour in 2007. And I was like, damn, 2007, this was my new weird, like I wanted an older one at the time. And now I have this basically deadstock streetlight. 20 year old shirt. Yeah. You know. So like I'm still down to just. I love a tour shirt.

I stopped making them because I thought that I thought they were out. But also when you come home with 50 of them, you're fucking. Well, and that's the other thing is like even, you know, any bands, any hardcore bands listening, any of our friends, if you're like doing projections for merch, talk to me. I'll help a little bit at least. Like, if you're doing a long enough tour, you don't need to order what you think 100% of what you need is. order 60% and then if that thing eats shit you don't have the extra 40%.

Right. Beautiful. Like, you know? Smart. Also, if you're abandoned, you're trying to keep track of your accounting and stuff, I've done this for a bunch of our friends.

I made like a Google Doc where you can keep track of all your accounting. You don't need to pay me for it. I just want people to be organized and not and know how much money they owe or don't have, you know. Yeah. It's funny that you're this organized, but put your,

Turn your Apple Maps on while you're driving. And Mac has a thing that we refer to as hard mode. Where for summary, you're, you know, it's insane. No matter which phone you have, when you update your phone, the new phone is hard mode, too. Yeah. His map doesn't work. I've seen. I've seen.

It's crazy, dude. It's crazy. I'm fucking sick of hard mode, dude. I hate when you drive. It'll be like, take this exit. It was 15 miles. back. And then it's just spinning.

He's insane. Hard mode. And then he's sent, this thing, dude, he's, he's a big Google Maps guy. And he'll send me links

via Google Maps. No, no, no. You get five texts. I think they switched it. Dude, it's insane.

It was sending like the URL, a photo. Yeah. The phone number. The address. The app link. Yeah. Dude,

every time it drove me nuts. Which I started doing us a bit, to be fair. I hated it. I hate Google Maps, dude. I hate it. All right.

We're winding down a little bit here, but let's let's get into some, uh, some classics here. First of all, tell me your plans for Cosmic Joke in 2025, 2026. So the whole thing with this band is like, it's funny because I'm the one who's gone all the time,

but I'm the most like, let's do it. Like I'll take two months off. Let's go tour. Um, but every, you know, this band was made to be a thing for fun.

And I, I wish we were 23 again and we could all go for it. And part of the time, sometimes I'm like, damn, I wish I got people who could tour in this band. But if it was different people, this music wouldn't be. Yeah, of course. So, you know, everyone's got their careers now and that's cool. But we're going to do as much as we can. We've been doing festivals, weekends, fly dates.

Mack, it's also very possible that like if you were all just going for it, it wouldn't work. It wouldn't be the same. Maybe you wouldn't last or the longevity wouldn't be there, you know. I mean, we have the most fun in the world doing it. It's all of our favorite thing that we can't do all the time. It's awesome. Which, yeah. But, yeah, we're going to hit the East Coast for the first time in the fall.

Nice. That'll be coming up soon. You played the Rumble a week ago, which I'm assuming was great. Yeah, it had to be great. It had to be so good. It is in two days. No, it was a week ago. No, it was a week ago, Mackie.

Yeah, Bad Beat's set was so crazy. Yeah. Bomb it forth right after you. saying. Yeah. That makes complete sense. Yeah. Yeah, rock block. Cosmooke. Bad beat. That's what they're saying. And then Evan Rowe watching

Etown, Ev, Ev, Rowe. That's the best. Dude, what a fascinating guy. Oh, the most interesting man. Evan from Cotton. Let's run down the band members here. You got Morgan on guitar. Yep. Your brother. You've known him for a while. Nikki, known him for 20 years.

He's the chef of Little Fish. Makes a mean sandwich. I don't think this is anything they're keeping to them. themselves, but there's going to be a full service, uh, full on like nice ass fine. And you can invest. Yes.

Hit them up, man. Uh, straight up in the fall. Yeah, straight up. Little Fish looking for investors. If you're interested in a restaurant,

that's gonna win a mission. We need a finder's fee for that one for that little plug there. Yeah. I want 30 bucks. Um, and then, uh, Jake Goldstein who,

uh, played in a band called Honey forever that I used toormage. Unbelievable indie band. Yeah, check them out. Epitaph. Jake. I mean, best guy. He's like, he's, he's our guy that loves 80s punk, post-punk, 80s hardcore.

And then, like, as far as modern stuff goes, loved ceremony and fucked up. He's having a great time, like, discovering modern music. Yes. Yeah. But he'll be the first one to be like, dude, fucking panda head is DJing down it. Yeah. O'Reilly's. Yeah.

He's the best. Like, yeah, he, it's cool because he's unclouded by a new hardcore. He's just like, dude, dead Kennedy's, hell yeah. But then he's also like, dude, soul search was so dope last night. Yeah. Never heard him. That's awesome. That's cool.

Yeah, it's really cool. That's interesting. It's cool. It's so fun having, like, seeing everything through his lens. Yeah. And then we have Evan Rowe, uh, who's from brick jersey, but has lived in L.A. for 10 years or so. Dude. Him joining the band.

It was an absolute. So awesome. Just like his entire existence, absolute wildcard move. Yeah. He ended up moving in with our friend Eric. And at some point we just learned. Which was all facilitated by Pat Kinlan. Yeah.

And yeah, we were just like, oh, that guy plays guitar. We need someone to fill in for the show. And then he just ended up in the band and he's the best. Crazy-eyed, motherfucker. Him and Jake also live. I could throw stones at both of their residents. It's cool, though, that when you're able to, you continue the Valley custom of three guitars. Oh, yeah.

Vince, the legend. I love that. The mayor of Oxnard. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Yeah, it's fewer and further between. He's honestly, what he's mostly busy with is doing VCHC shows with a cam up there.

But Vince is like open invite member. If you're available, please do whatever. like you're welcome to do absolutely whatever with this. Love it. And then Mac, it must be pointed out that you have one of my favorite styles where you own the mic stand as a singer, as a stand-alone singer. You're good at that mic sound. I think it's awesome.

I mean, I legit bring one whenever I can because if there's a bendy stand, I'm not. Oh yeah, the booms. The boom stand is no good. Yeah, it feels comfortable and I just noticed not a lot of people were doing it. Yeah, it's awesome. I think I literally, I think you like like you own it. You make it your own thing.

I think it's really cool. Yeah, I, uh, you do all the stuff. Yeah. As my, as Mike Gitter would say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I, uh, I don't know. I love, I don't know. I'm just doing what feels comfortable, really. Good. Can you tell me your top four hardcore records of all time? Bad religion,

no control. Yeah. Um, I'd say minor threat out of step. Hey, pre brutality. Really? That's so cool. Yeah.

just the one that got me into them. Dude, it's, that's a great pick. Great record. Like, I went back later and like, but it's bangers. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. It's a rich record. It only took a year to write and record, too.

And maybe group sex, circle dress. Circle dress. All right. Cool album art on group sex. Oh, yeah. They're all in it. It's awesome. Yeah.

I love shit like that. Cool collage. Can you do me one more favor? Can you tell me your top four Sky Records of all times? Yeah, let's hear it. First ever. Boston's, let's face it. Yeah.

That's the age of quarrel. Of Scott. Streetlight, everything went numb. Streetlight, you got some shows of them coming up. Yeah, dream come true that my hardcore band is playing with Streetlight Manifesto before my Scott band. But you did game vocals on their record in 2013. Did you not? I did.

I also did it. One of my first tours was the band supporting them. And then I just watched them every day. And then years later, a friend of ours was like their own label, like they run their own label, managing their label. And it was just like, we need someone who can sing melody in L.A. to do gang vocals. Yeah, it's funny because I was thinking about like, oh, that was like six years ago. Yeah.

And it's, they just today put out three new songs as their first in 12 years. Whoa. It's fucked up. Wow. So since that, these are their first song. Wow. Yeah, crazy. and so sorry streetlight boston's is that the one with that crazy opening track on it

the one that blew my mind it's not the one you're thinking of that's off somewhere in the between song yeah you made me listen to it i remember this came up really early on in the show and you made because the horn riff is wild yeah it's a rip we will fall together off of somewhere in the between dude hard ass horns yeah i remember you make me listen to that the horns are palm muting it's unbelievable damn i'm trying to think of more uh probably suicide machine's instruction by definition and

uh the first english beat record yeah band i've never heard of before in my life top four scah cosmic cosmic joke i think i think that english beat is a band that i think everybody should give a shot because it's it's

touching on new wave, if you like Elvis Costello type stuff, if you like The Clash, if you like, even like Devo stuff, it kind of fits in there a little more. It's close to madness in the specials, too. One of the, I love the specials. One of the drummers from suicide machines was Derek. Yeah. Rantz, went on to do Alkaline Trio, and he's fucking Shredder.

Open-handed, dude, just like you. I mean, the rhythm section on Destruction by definition, Like, the Sheds tried to cover the song New Girl from Tony Hawk. Yeah. And I think we tried it at one practice. We're like, that'll never be good. Yeah. Good song.

Insane. Who do you do, Mac? Who's your guy? Guys. Probably Freddy Madball. I would say Milo, Ockerman, Descendants. Yeah. I can see that.

I can see that. A bit of Anthony Ketus, honestly. Which bit? They're good. They're good. Yeah, I think a bit of Greg Gaffin, Bad Religion. The glasses. It's like...

And the bald head. Again, I'm just doing what feels comfortable. I think Milo is the one where I really conscious. Oh, I've often found without consciously doing it that I've been like, I'll do something. Like, that felt cool. That I've seen Ross from Ceremony do that. He's done a lot of stuff. I could also, dude, there's a bit of Keith Morris and Circle Jerks used to rock the mic stand.

Same hair, yeah. Big, full hair. Yeah. Totally. Let me ask something, Mac. I think I know. More heads in. I think I already know the answer to this question.

Do you, you believe in ghosts? I don't. I haven't had any, like, unexplained run. It's weird. Like, if I'm alone in a big old, like, house sitting for someone, I'll feel scared.

Yeah. But not because of ghosts or anything. It's more like home invasion. What is Judaism's stance on ghosts? I have no idea, honestly. I really don't. Well, so what's interesting is, like, my stepmother was raised Jewish. She converted, and she's abhorting and Christian.

What was her stance on ghosts? They don't believe in luck. They don't believe in ghosts. Like, nothing other than God. Oh. And that's kind of like a more, not Orthodox, but a more, you know, Old Testament kind of conservative leaning into it. So I don't think Judaism is down with ghosts. Damn.

I don't actually know. Do, do, does Judaism observe angels? I don't think so. I don't think. It's weird. Like,

I'm Jewish purely culturally. Yeah. Sure, sure, I, you know, I went to temple twice with my dad and grandpa. And my mom is Catholic,

and I never went to church other than for funerals. So I know slightly more. about Judaism and still not really. But. Ghosts non-factor. Yeah. Non-factor. I,

uh, there you have it. Yeah, it's weird. I mean, on a broader topic, I don't, not that you're,

I know, not that's the same thing, but like, I don't believe in God, but I do, or I don't believe, like, in heaven necessarily,

but I do, like, think about, like, where the energy is. Yeah. Yeah. You know,

like, it's, I mean, it's like, comfortable thought of, like, No, there's something somewhere. You hope there's something somewhere.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely, I would say I'm more agnostic than atheist. Well, that's the thing. Nobody's really atheist. Yeah, being an absolutist in any sense is, like, foolish. Nobody knows. Nobody knows, but I'm on Glenn Benton's side here. He, uh...

Well, if you exist, whatever exists must die. Dude, what was the clip? Recently, I saw a clip of Dave Mustaine saying D-Asside wrong. Did you see that? He says like, Dioceded. Dude. And he's like, what do you? He's, it's nonsense.

He's like, he's already killed before. Yeah, he's already killed somebody, I guess. So. It's so stupid. Dave, if you want to be on the show. Yeah, just let us know. We'd love to have you. Tell me about, I know you eat good.

You're vegetarian now, but I know you still get fat from time to time. with your boy. Almost strictly when I'm with you. No. No. That's one of my, that's one of my favorite machisms is, no,

it's good. Like, I can't believe that, like, this band fucking sucks. No, it's good. And then,

they, they sucked. And then my stummy hurts is one that you. Stomies got. I did, okay, there's a fun story. I was on tour with this,

this rapper, not Denzel, this rapper, I'd never met him before we were like a week into the tour. So I know the whole crew and everything, but I've not met this guy. And I'm in the elevator getting down to the lobby to meet a friend to go get food. And as the elevator doors opened, because I just see a body and I assumed it was my buddy,

I just go, my stomach hurts. And I look up and it's him. Hi, I'm Mac, nice to be. I'm doing your merch. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Please don't send me home.

My stomach hurts. Oh, my God. Yeah, I've definitely taken that. That merch kid's weird. Someone's getting in the tums. A stums. So with Cosmic Joke, on the short tours you can do, Nikki's a really good guide with food.

He's got like a crazy spot absolutely everywhere. Is he tapped in? Yeah. I mean, it goes back to friends of ours, as band Bad Sons from the Valley. Nikki quit the sheds at one point to tormentors them. And I started doing merch for them, which, like, when I, I, we kind of skipped over this, but I ended up touring with Strung Out, which was the first band that took me on tour,

but I was always drum teching for them. I didn't really know how to, you know, I would be the same way we sell merch for our own bands. Like, I sold merch, but I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah, sure. And then Bad Sons took me out. And that's like when I was like, I guess I'm a merch guy now. And because just Nikki and I were on our same schedule, he would constantly be like, I got a spot and it was always like

I'll pay for half the Uber I'll pay for half the food just order whatever like Right and he always He wasn't even fully like a chef then He just was he just was down tapped in and new spots everywhere So anytime we're traveling whatever I was like yo in Buffalo do you have a spot that's not like

Not just a wing spot Yeah what do you got send me something It's always been good Yeah he knows he just found this ham place in Detroit That he's obsessed with ham Yeah he's like it's the best ham I've ever had It's like ham sandwich only. When you call, they go ham place.

What do you got there? Mack, you also have a beautiful spreadsheet that I believe is gate-kept purposefully, if I'm not wrong, of coffee spots. Your big coffee. Oh, I mean, if you ask for it, I sent you. Okay, so mildly gay-kept. Yeah, it's, I ended up in this coffee group chat with like 25 people. I probably have six of the numbers saved to this day. Yeah. And a friend of ours who's kind of a friend to all who tour, he saved, he made this Google sheet.

And then basically everybody who joins this can just save spots in any given city. And when you open it up, it's got like 700 shops in it. Yeah. Like when we're in Japan that were spots there. Yeah. And it'll just pull up whatever's the closest one to you right then. And they're usually, because it's all touring people within walking distance of a venue. Yeah.

Which is. That's Jacob A Honda on. For sure. That's the king. Jacob Alejandro, if you're listening. We'd love to have you on. Oh, you're unbelievable. Jacob, he goes.

We got some Patreon Q&A stuff now to wind this down. John Boyga asked, fuck Mary, kill, trombone, tuba saxophone. Damn. Tubba is not really the scone. Kill tuba. Kill tuba all day. We need that trumpet, the coronet. I'd say fuck trombone because if you're doing it right, it's incredible.

very saxophone because it's more... You can use that anyway. Yeah, it's... I'm with you. 100%. You killed that. Interesting. Does that thing Fortnite? Yeah.

You're pretty good. You're not good, but... You're getting there. That thing do Fortnite. You don't suck. I don't suck. I'm not good. I honestly don't even love playing Fortnite,

but it is nice to be able to hang out with people. Shut the fuck up. You love it. Max, that's exactly how I thought. Both of you, you love it. We hang out for six hours, and then he drops me on. off and they're like, all right, I'll talk to you, 20. Yeah.

I'll get on the game. Terry Carroll asked a great question here. What's it like being one of Collins' best friends? I mean, I can't answer for him. Yeah, what's it? It's great. Yeah, it's great. It's, I don't know.

It's funny to have somebody who, like, it's great that you're in a similar program where like when I am home from Tor. Yeah. We pretty much have a shitload of free time to do it. Every day. Yeah. We're doing something active. going to hike pretty frequently.

That's nice. And then eat something shitty. Yeah. No, no, we don't. No, you break even. That's right.

Exactly. Yeah. Favorite mustache rocked by anyone ever. Oh, let's see. Oh, man. Tom Selleck is like,

is like the mustache that's referenced. Yeah. Oh, dude, Sam Elliott. Oh, yeah.

Trying to think of someone who's not, who doesn't usually have one. and then there's like one role where it just... Dude, Chris Evans had a really good... Chris Evans had a mustache so good in something that I was like, damn it's... Oh, you know what? The Henry Cabell mustache in Mission Impossible Fallon.

Dude... That thing made me think I could have a mustache. Dude, I think... Are you legit? Literally could. Yeah, but it's not just... If I was just this, I'd be different. Henry Cavill, I think, might be the most handsome person.

Like, just the most handsome guy. He's just it. That's a guy that... Like, I've known that name forever, and I watched a lot of movies, and I did not know him from anything. He ain't in stuff you. Yeah, so he just watched fall. I don't watch it down to, like, fluffy action movies. I'm now newly into him, but I just saw fallout for the first time.

And everyone just kept saying, like, what do I have Henry Cavill? I'm like, that must be the hot guy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It is. He's Superman. He's the Witcher.

He's the hot guy in Mission Impossible. that cocks his arms in Mission Impossible. And then the pocket appears. You ever notice that? Oh, yeah. It's all fucked up. It's dope. Top three, no effects records.

Oh. Great question. For me, I think number one is so long and thanks for all the shoes. Really? I think punk and rubblech is unbelievable, of course. And then what got me into them that I still think is a perfect record is the war on errorism. Wow. Interesting picks, man.

I do also think the next one, Wolves and Wolves and Wolves Clothes, is damn near perfect. Great title. I'm punkad droblik number one with a bullet. White trash. Great. And then...

There's some filler in there, though. It definitely... The bangers are unbelievable. But like, No Effects is a band that insists on filler because they're silly. I mean, even... I like the...

I didn't love... That's fine. I didn't love the very last record, which is a shame because they had to go out that way. But... Up until, like, the second and last record, I'd say there's three, three to four great songs on every record. Yeah. And then I would say, I heard they suck life.

I think rock. Oh, yeah, it's the decline fake out. Yeah, it's awesome. Unbelievable. Yeah. What are some of your favorite punk covers? Oh. Like people covering punk bands?

I think punk bands covering other stuff. Much like your talking heads cover. Very good on the spot. No, that's okay. Like the one that I just immediately. I don't think is very good. I remember the unseen covering painted black by Rolling Stones. I was going to say, was it

Social D doing Ring of Fire? That covers under... Fucking awesome. Yeah, that covers awesome. Dude, the unseen did Halloween by the Misfitz. Oh, I mean, the AFI Halloween is... Yeah. A.F. Dude, I'll... Do you want better? AFI Dementia, I think is even better than the Halloween cover. I don't think I've even heard that.

It sounds awesome. Love the Talking Heads cover. Were there any other bands you considered? Yeah. So in talking, like how that song got picked was pretty funny. Because I mean, we constantly,

it's so fun playing other people's songs. Oh, and we recorded that well before we did the LA's covers. Right. So like that was just a cool reason to get to do more of them. Yeah. But, you know,

we all love a lot of like, art punk post-punk new wavy stuff what have you love the talking heads and to be honest that's like not even close to my favorite song by them but it made for a really we wanted to do like a cool like pop song and do a take on a like a lot of people have covered that song but do a version that no one's done right and uh when we were trying to figure it out that song when you take it to the you know the whole backbeat part all the intro and everything if you play it fast we notice it kind of sounds like fear and we're like, oh, cool. You can just play this faster and punk it up.

Awesome. Yeah, I don't know what else we would have done. Somebody asked, what are all the bands you've done merch for? We talked about a lot, but one that just came back to mine was Halsey. I never did merch for Halsey. But you were, oh, you were doing Badson. Supported Halsey on the floor. But she was, she was like talking to you guys about.

She, uh, she, uh, there was like a barbecue that she, she, she was like blowing up, but not quite as big as she got. Right. So it was like smaller amphitheaters, you know, still fucking big shows. Yeah. But she set up like a barbecue one after just to get to know all of us and Bad Sons and the crew and everyone. Which is really nice. Yeah, absolutely.

So we're sitting, it was like the Bad Sons guys, Nikki and me sitting at a picnic table with like her and a couple of her friends. Like just friends that don't, I don't know if they were working. They just were with her on the tour. And we're all just talking about music and stuff. and then she like honed in like just looked at Nikki and I and was like and just goes well you know I'm from New Jersey hardcore so like I don't know what else she said she's just like yeah you know I came out of New Jersey hardcore and and it's like lasering it on you guys in that moment okay you profiling us but okay I know I have camo shorts on but I remember Nikki and I

go to the bus later and like what did she mean by that yeah what does that mean Is she into floor punch? Does she like the mongoloids? Yeah. Didn't she like book shows for a while? No, she, I think she was like a pop punk girl. And we were eventually like, it had to be census fail. Yeah, sets as well.

Lifetime saves a day. Sure. Sure. I mean, I love lifetime. Yeah. Fine with census fail. Fuck, merry, kill, op I be bad religion, boss tones. I'm marrying bad religion because I will listen to 16 albums on repeat.

I will fuck Bostones Because you know you're just having a good time For a night But you're open to potential infectious diseases though But you know how good of a time Yeah totally And as much as it kills me

I'd kill up Ivy in that situation They just don't have enough music either True, true true Best place to take a nap on tour Not on a duffel bag of merch under the merch table on Warped tour. Yeah, totally. I mean, if you're on a bigger tour, you're bunk, for sure.

You know, green room couch. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. There's not much funny. It's just, yeah. What is the craziest piece or worst piece of merch you sold for a band while doing a tour?

That's a good question. Like something where you're like, this fucking thing. I hope nobody ever brings this again. Every time, every time there's windbreakers or nylon shorts, it's just a pain because they don't, they slide off each other where you're counting them. Oh, yeah. Noted. I don't think I...

I haven't personally had any crazy shit. I remember a friend's band... A friend was doing merch for... I'm not going... It doesn't meant. For the band Health. And they were selling butt plugs. And they had multiple sizes.

And I was laughing at the idea of, like, someone coming back and were like, hey, can I swap out the size? Can I just try... Can I just try this on? It doesn't fit. Oh, no. Can I do the large instead?

Yeah. Mac, it's funny to see you switch into pro guy anytime you pick up like you I've been around you I can't actually remember where but like just at shows when I'm usually when I'm over there

where you'll pick up a stack or at um are you going to talk about his technique? Yeah when he just picks up a stack and he just when he turns this I wish you could watch pro guy

I wish you could watch Taylor watch me he hates it he's got his video of it right It's good fun I mean, it's just the fastest way I love it I love it I like I like when you do it

And then do it to Respectfully I like when you're wrong I like when you I'm watching you do it Do the thing I swear to God It's how you do

And then you'll be like There's no smalls And the next day it would be like I found like eight smalls Well that stack was a dozen But I like it You're the best

It's because I'm like half doing it right when I'm doing it for you as you as you should I'm half like I'm just grabbing shit and I guess there's no small so that's what we deserve favorite damn this is a good question favorite song of each bad religion release from how could hell be any worse to recipe for hate this is also going to challenge so 81 to 93 so to recipe for it uh let's do strangers than fiction too off how could hell be any worse uh this is just off the top um if you're looking at the extended,

just because I don't want to give you an obvious answer, but on the extended version, there's a song, I think it was from the seven-inch, but it's called Yesterday. So it's like a, it's on, I guess it's on the 80-85,

yeah, comp version, but that song is one of my favorite bad religion songs. I honestly, I think how could it be any worse as good? Yeah. But there's, they get way better.

It's like kill them all. Yeah, and most other bands of the same era are doing what they're doing slightly better at the time. Yeah. Listen to adolescent. But

Suffer? Man, are we going to blow this? No, it's no control before. No. No. Suffer. I'd say Off suffer, give you nothing. One of the, I mean, like,

we basically ripped off the skank part in that song. Oh, speaking of, I discovered an unintentional riff today. That Cosmic Joke yanked a little bit. It's funny. He's texting me just like, what is that part in five years later? It was like... At the end of five years later, they play a riff once.

And he goes, la la la la la la. It's in the Mashi part. There's like the climb melodic clime. That's poison idea. But it's funny because he's like, did you do that? And like, dude, I write the guitar. Morgan's heard that in passing.

maybe. That's just a nice progression. What I said was to to unintentionally nod at an influence is even cooler. Because it means you're tapped. You're locked in. You're in there.

No, I'm not. Dude, there's much more intentional. Anyway, back, sorry to derail. No control. No control.

I want to conquer the world. Yeah. It's a good song. Yeah. It's a pretty good one. What would be next? Generator next? Yeah, I think so.

Or against the grain? I can't remember when against the grain comes in. I think it's after. 90? Because generator is, what, 92? This is so not interesting. Yeah. Against the grain, against faith alone.

God damn. It's perfect. Generator, two babies in the dark, maybe? There's so many good songs on. There's a baby. Yeah. Recipe.

Wait, oh, it was Anneson. Anesthesia. Is that on a... On Instagram, the song called Anesthesia. And we're just like, oh, they keep talking about this person, Anna. What's the last thing? Nicky's wife or Nicky's, yeah. Nicky's fiance Anna.

Brittany was like, dude, that should be her nickname. We're like, what's up? Anesthesia. That's fucking stupid. A recipe? A recipe for hate. Dude, struck her hair. Holy shit.

I mean, on any given week, what is my favorite bad religion record? change and I think recipe rate's my favorite right now. All right, strange as the fiction. Better off dead, dude. My poor friend, me also. Yeah, yeah. Better off dead. Better off dead. I'll cry right now. That's beautiful.

All right. God damn. What do we got? As a skilled merch man, favorite shirt you've ever sold. What's your favorite? Let's make this last, the last question. What's your favorite t-shirt of all time? My favorite t-shirt of all time.

Yeah. As a merch expert. Like whether you have it or not, what's a grail item? It's just like, damn. One shirt that I really, really, really want, and I will never pay $600 for is the Bad Brains Quickness Store. Or is the quick? Yeah, the Quickness Tor shirt.

The one with like the green like outline shape. Yeah. My favorite ones I have are the Lemonheads look after yourself shirt. and the bad religion generator Euro torture. Oh, yeah. Very nice. Which I couldn't believe I got one of. Good job.

I did so good by spending money. Yeah. I say that every day to you. That's true. What a beautiful conversation. This could have gone. Easily four more hours. What are some imparting words you want to leave the people with?

They're out here saying circle pits are bad. They're out here saying. Fast parts ain't cool. I'm not here saying push pits are good. All pits are good. Dude, all pits are good. All pits are beautiful. I like that.

As long as you're pitting, unless you're rowing. Yeah, that's not, that's not pitting. You're my friend. That's sitting in. That's, look at me, look at me, look at me. Yeah. Yeah, Army crawl across the front. I think you met, when you brought that up forever ago, it was like, that's where I spit.

Yeah. That's nasty. That's disgusting. I'm like, you know, get up and dive and I'm like, that was sick. That was kind of cool. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, just any attentiony shit.

Obviously, there's a certain amount. Like, if you're doing a gainer, you're going to get some attention. And like, and like, let's not be, like, if you're spin kicking and you're the guy beating ass, if you're pit boss, there's a certain amount of that too. Yeah. But like, if you're doing it really well, even the band is like, fuck, that's awesome. But if there's no good outcome to what you're doing and it's strictly for a bit. attention. I can get to the back of the room and go make a TikTok, you asshole.

I mean, they intend to. Beautiful. I'm not. Are they on TikTok? I'm not on TikTok. Probably. I got to get on TikTok. Yeah, you do, man.

I got stuff to send you. Trust me. I would love to see your, your algorithm. Mac put me onto a thing called, called Dead Guy Hub. You got to get on at Dead Guy Hub. What is that? If you want, you will find out that I didn't know that if you touch an electrical wire the right way, it'll turn your head into a candle.

Oh my God, it's people dying? Dude, he's looking at legit like tragedies. And I don't ask for it. It's just there. But that's your feed and you stop and watch them every time. Well, there's a certain friend that has put this into my feed by texting me shit.

And he's in a huge bag. It's like, dude. He's dead. Yeah. Damn, I don't. So, so dead guy. I think dead guy have is gone, right? Yeah, they've been to platform.

Damn. There's always something new. There was a recent one that was like, oh, man, they're always the funniest names where it's like, at epically gone. They'll never be a dead guy hub, though. Dead Guy Hub is. I was getting Dead Guy Hub for a while. You just buy that domain. Yeah.

Those are sick. If you're listening. I don't like it. Yeah. I didn't ask for it, but it's there and I can't look away. Yeah. And they're dead. They're really dead.

I hope they are, to be honest, because they're miserable lifestyle. All right. That's a great way to end to this episode. The Cosmic Joke, Forst Perspective, is out now on Hardlaw Records. Surely the rarest color is gone by now or almost gone. Check the site. You never know. Never know.

But, you know, first press is cruising along. Pick it up. We love working with them. We love Mac. We love Cosmic Joke. We love Hardlore. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being.

here. Love you guys. I'll see you on Fortnite and 20 minutes. I'll see you in two days. Last week. Last week in two days. Yeah. All right, cosmic joke. Thank you guys. Hardlow records forever.

Bye.