HardLore - Sam Trapkin (Trapped Under Ice)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Subscribe to the all-new Hardlore Patreon now for early, ad-free access to every episode and an exclusive episode every month. This is actually, like, I kind of got into hardcore through Traffender Ice. It wasn't like before. So my introduction to like, I hadn't even heard like Marauder before. Like, you know, like lots of what would become influential hardcore bands for me. On that record, like the song Reality Unfolds, I wrote the music for that. Even before that time, kind of just through the lens of like, what would a cool hardcore band sound like?

Starting point is 00:00:31 Sam, you were so right. Hello, welcome. It's Harlord Time. How are you, Bo? Feeling great, bright and early. Bright and early, this beautiful Sunday morning. We have a very special guest today. Who do we got? I'm going to tell you all about him.

Starting point is 00:01:08 From Baltimore, Maryland, founding member of our generation's greatest hardcore export. Where do I begin here? He's also sometimes known as the bad dog. He was formerly known, maybe currently known still mythically, as one of the most violent moshers in Baltimore. Oh, God. Hope your co-workers like that one.

Starting point is 00:01:38 He, now, you know, he enjoys lifting weights. He enjoys spending time with his family. But we know the demon that lies within. Trapped Under Ice, guitar player, co-founder. Riff, extraordinary, Mosh scientist. Sam Trappkin. Sam, how are you? Doing great, man.

Starting point is 00:02:00 Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, thanks for taking the time. Yeah, thanks for having me. You know, this was fate, this was history as, you know, you and I go way back now. You were there on my very first tour. Oh, right. Ever as a human being.

Starting point is 00:02:19 for your first U.S. and European tours. Wait, which one was the first one? The Traffern Rice Alfa Omega Bain one. The U.S. one? That was my first tour. Oh, wow. Yeah. So you, you know, you saw this duckling grow into a duck king.

Starting point is 00:02:38 A larger duck. A much larger duck. What have you been up to in the past couple of years, Sam? Well, I have a family now at three kids. living in northern Idaho. Wow. Are you in the thing? The little, the shoot of land up in northern Idaho?

Starting point is 00:03:00 Like in that thing? Oh, yeah, yeah. Wow. The panhandle. You're in there. Yep. It's actually like, have you guys played Spokane before? Yes.

Starting point is 00:03:09 Yeah. It's like 40 minutes east of Spokane. Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah. So you're a Northwest guy now. Yeah. I think it's like inland northwest is what people say.

Starting point is 00:03:19 So does it? Northwest know, do they know that they've got you now as a member? Well, Seattle's far. So I haven't even gone to anything there. And there's like really very little in terms of shows and stuff around here. I've been to one so far since I've lived here in the last two, two and a half years. Did you go to Spokane for it? Yeah, it was like actually one of the coolest shows I've ever been to. Who played? I have no idea. Like it was just like a local show in someone's add-on garage. And it was like every alternative person from like within 100 miles came to the show, which was like a total of 50 people. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:03:56 Beautiful. That's just like the best. Rocking out to every band. That's really what it's all about. Yeah. It's what it's all about. Like we ultimately don't matter. They, that is what keeps it going.

Starting point is 00:04:08 Mm-hmm. It is. Yeah. They're all having so much fun. You got Ingrown now flying the Idaho flag as well. So Ingrown, Sam will be joining soon. The band. So it'll be four piece soon.

Starting point is 00:04:21 Look out for that. I wish they looked closer. I think we'd be friends, but they're like Boise's about eight hours away from here. That's simply far. That's a long panhandled is what it is. States, you know, so big. How do they work? How do they work?

Starting point is 00:04:38 Let's go back in time here, Sam. All right. All right. Let's travel deep back into your historical growth. As a young Baltimore, what is it, Baltimoreian? I've heard that, yeah. We'll go with that. Baltimoreian, hardcoreian.

Starting point is 00:04:58 Tell me about finding this beautiful genre of music. And first of all, your kids ever seen you spin kick? I've seen them spin kick. Okay. That's what I asked really. That was a trick question. That's why I want to hear you passed. They're natural.

Starting point is 00:05:15 They're genuinely into like hard, you know, like, they love Slayer and stuff like that. Oh, good. Music and yeah, Metallica is like their favorite band. They're going to be all right. It's in the jeans, you know? It's for sure in the jeans. I feel like, is it like a biased or what I forget the term, but it's just like,

Starting point is 00:05:37 I feel like everyone who we know who have kids like aggressive music. Is that just because of the parents? It can be, but you got to think about it. there's a natural urge to rebel against what your parents like. Totally. That's why it's confusing to me. But literally, like, I'm thinking of our friends' kids, and they're all, like, pumped on heavy, you think there's something to it where they're like, my, you know, you don't get it.

Starting point is 00:06:04 The other kids don't get it. My dad likes cool shit. Ah, yeah. You know? Maybe. I will say, though, like, the age our kids have been when we've gotten them into it. It's not like, hey, check out this awesome music. It's like you put it on.

Starting point is 00:06:16 Like they'll hear Walk by Pantera. I'm not giving any like commentary on it and they're super into it. Like I think it's just something with like the energy of it. That's probably why. I don't know. Timeless. My dad was putting on Steely Dan and being like, this is music. And I was like, yeah, dude.

Starting point is 00:06:33 Yeah, like I would hear Metallica peripherally, but my dad would be like, no, no, no. Genesis is rock. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. How do they feel about dying fetus? They got, they get there yet? I'm saving that one for later.

Starting point is 00:06:48 Yeah. Yeah. As former fetuses themselves, they may not be ready for the message. Watch? It'll be too soon. Okay. That's fair. We're starting, like, there's a line as, you know, like,

Starting point is 00:06:59 Metallica and Pantera is kind of like as far as we go right now. Dude, I mean, and in all things to consider, Pantera's pretty extreme. Pretty extreme. Yeah. And we're not going deep into the catalog. Sure. So you're still at Suicide Note 1. Yeah, the pretty one.

Starting point is 00:07:14 Okay. Got it. All right. So let's go back in time here. Sam Travkin, Baltimore, as a young lad, how do you find hardcore music? Well, I'm actually not from, I grew up in Maryland, like 45 minutes south of Baltimore. Okay. And a county called Prince George's County, which is basically a different world when you're like, when you don't have a license. So. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Baltimore was where like the hardcore scene was. And we kind of, we knew that. So we had our own little. many hardcore scene in pg county like made pg hc shirts okay and who was all who was all pg yeah anyone we

Starting point is 00:07:53 so you know kenny saver cool of course great friend of the show kenny yeah i mean core pg member um my friend travis who sang in my first band my first metalcore band carroll um prime member joe hubo like these are all people that are kind of friends in high school and that sort of thing and anton notable pg Absolutely. Yeah. PG and Tom, of course. Exactly. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:08:22 But yeah, like those worlds didn't start melding until like I was 15 or 16. Like Justice came down to a PG show, like a basement show. And then I started going up to Baltimore shows around that time like 15, 16. Wow. I mean, that tracks. That's about when my suburban friend group started playing and doing shows in the city. You know, like that totally. So how does Hart?

Starting point is 00:08:45 hardcore make it to PG? Well, it's pretty much metalcore then. You know what I mean? Like, in the early 2000s, my memory of it back then was like hardcore was basically like metalcore. Like that was kind of like the main scene. Like bands like throw down and like 18 vision was. Yeah, like that was all kind of just hard core to me. Poison the well was like.

Starting point is 00:09:08 Like they're fucking. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's like they're fucking it. You know. Yeah. What time frame are you talking to him? my first show was like 2002 I think around there and it was like what was that? It was like local bands

Starting point is 00:09:22 there's a band Age of Ruin from Maryland and Carved in Stone. They were kind of like the big Maryland metalcore bands. Sick. Yeah but back then it was like I had no concept of hardcore versus metalcore and I came from like metal backgrounds you know like I grew up listening to Metallica and started playing guitar because of Metallica.

Starting point is 00:09:40 So those are the bands I was like oh, well, I can kind of get down with this, you know, like... So you, I would assume you brought the name trapped under ice as an idea. So that is just a direct Metallica reference. Yeah. That's crazy. There's definitely some, like, there's like some confusion early on where I thought Justice knew that was a trap or a Metallica song. You hold up.

Starting point is 00:10:06 He like did know it was a Metallica song. He came up with his own thesis about like what it means to feel like you're trapped Under Ice? What is Ice? We had our first show book before we had a name. And so we knew we were playing a show. And me and him had like, you know, a list of names that were trying to come up with. And I was like, yeah, Trappender Ice.

Starting point is 00:10:28 And he was like, oh, yeah, that's cool, man. I never said what it was, you know? So we just went. I think, I think like seeing, you know, what came out of that after like the Stay Cold record, all the records, the songs about being cold and cold ice and yeah you presenting that name to him was probably like holy shit i am i i myself am trappender ice yeah i think it deeply deeply stated yeah wow that's beautiful you know what i was just realizing in talking about justice i think sam might be this might be the first instance

Starting point is 00:11:03 where we have a second member of a band on the show it might be other than like people in my bands yeah Yeah, other than, yes. But, like, I think this is the first time where we, like, went out of our way to have, like, another member of a band who we already talked to. Yeah. We can talk about everything we already talked about. You're talking about Clipper again. I didn't even meet it that way.

Starting point is 00:11:25 I just think it's interesting. Prolific. No, I agree. So, Carol's your first band. You're spin kicking people's heads off. Tell me about venturing into Baltimore often. What were some big shows you saw that just really changed? things for you. Yeah, I mean, like the big shows back then would be at

Starting point is 00:11:45 Auto Bar and it would be like, Converged and Darkest Hour would be like a massive show, which in retrospect is probably like 300 people, you know? Yeah, how many people can can fit in Auto Bar? Is that where? I think it's 300 or 400. We, we, that's where we went, right? Colin? Didn't we go there? It was the pre-show for the for the, for the, uh. Yeah, did it, did that shut down for a while because of something? There's been like multiple shutdowns for different reasons, different times. Then yes, we did, but. Yeah, that is that one, yeah, for sure.

Starting point is 00:12:16 It's back. But it's just cool to put yourself in the room. I could definitely see an early converged show, like, popping there, you know? There's been eras of, like, no shows at all, than eras of, like, you can't stage dive, like, and then it's shut down again, and now it's back now, is my understanding. It sure is. It's great.

Starting point is 00:12:34 It's great in there. Yeah. But that it's really funny to think back now. Like those were like the crazy big shows that would come through. Like I remember terror coming through with throwdown and bleeding through, I think. Like that was a big tour. But mostly the shows there were pretty small and kind of dark in retrospect. You know, it was like smoking inside was still illegal.

Starting point is 00:12:55 And you go to like sidebar. You guys had played sidebar before. It's, you know, people have seen it's like a really long, narrow bar that fits maybe 100 people. And yeah, there'd be shows there like, you know, every week. And you know, every week. know every single person in the room and you're you're you're assaulting your friends i wasn't at that point i mean that was like i was just watching back then because it's learning the royal the royal you that's the that's the goal is that's my buddy people are getting the salt he better go out

Starting point is 00:13:27 my way but it's like you so you know massive like 300 pound dudes that like you know are hammered it's probably like 11 p.m and the first band is playing the room the room's full of smoke like the show's not fun at all you know what i mean like it's not a good vibe so it's actually a miracle that i mean it's just funny now because i see like the shows that are happening and probably someone's first show now is like they're going to see speed or turn style or something it's just like a thousand plus people and a nice venue and it looks so fun you can't even mosh there's so many people right so at the t ui come back dude it was unmoshable yeah it was right because everybody was singing yeah which is

Starting point is 00:14:08 I mean, that's kind of as cool as it gets. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The best problem. No room for violence. But it does make you wonder what is, what's the fallout going to be? When is that bubble going to burst and we go back into the doldrums? I mean, that was, it may have already burst and we don't know it. Right.

Starting point is 00:14:27 Yeah, you're right. When it's all barricades, the bubble has burst. Get, lose them. Anyway. So when does, so, so Stout and next. step up for you. Just tell me about finding those, like those, that era of Baltimore hardcore and realizing like, oh, my, my home area gave birth to birth to the hardest bands to ever exist.

Starting point is 00:14:55 I don't think I appreciated that until much later, you know? So like when I was getting into metalcore stuff, I had friends like Justice and others that actually knew about hardcore, like, you know, like non-metalcore, hardcore, And so Next Step Up and Stout were kind of in that bucket where I knew who they were and I'd hear of them or I'd see Stout. But I didn't understand or appreciate their significance. Sure. So back then it's like, oh, yeah, Stout's playing. Or, you know, I heard Next Step Up in the band all the time, but I didn't understand how legendary they were back then.

Starting point is 00:15:29 You know what I mean? And now, now you see. Yeah, I listen to Next Step Up way more now than I did when I was in my teens. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. You know, you know, hindsight should have had it. But that stuff like next step up, the sound of that and the sound of stout is like in the air in Baltimore.

Starting point is 00:15:48 Yeah. Even though I wasn't necessarily like listening to those bands a ton early on, it was like undoubtedly a massive influence. Yeah. I swear I didn't wear this shirt on purpose, but tell me about, because I know you're a big hate breed guy. Big hate breed guy. I know it flows through your veins. It flows through every riff that comes out of you.

Starting point is 00:16:08 Tell me about discovering hate breed and implementing their mosh science into your experiments in the lab. Yeah, I mean, hate breed was a big, big deal for me in more ways than one. It kind of coincided with my like starting to lift weights phase. Hape reeds like the best soundtrack for lifting weights. So to this day. To this day. Like to this day, my gym playlist is still probably like 50% hate breed. Perseverance.

Starting point is 00:16:38 rise of brutality. Rise, yeah. So my first hate breed was actually pretty cool. I downloaded, this was like LimeWire era, downloaded a couple songs including Smash Your Enemies. That was like the first song that I heard. And I was like, I don't know what this is, but this I like. That was kind of like in the bucket of I hadn't really heard hardcore a whole lot yet.

Starting point is 00:17:01 I like metalcore and I knew of a little bit of Mad Ball that hate breed I discovered. and I knew whatever, like one or two others. So it was kind of like an early hardcore band where I was like, oh, I actually like this.

Starting point is 00:17:14 I'm down with this. And you're not downloading records at this time. No, it's like tracks. Tracks, it's what I want people, especially younger people

Starting point is 00:17:23 listening to to realize is like, we had the finest tooth comb to try and find this music and it was fucking impossible. Hey. So to stumble upon something

Starting point is 00:17:32 we got it done. Without the help anyone, we got it done. But to stumble upon something, like hay breed through Kazah or Limewire is crazy

Starting point is 00:17:41 because I found the throwdown baby got back cover. You know what I mean? That's what I... Good song, but that's what I found. You could be led astray for sure. 100%. And there's also like back then,

Starting point is 00:17:55 like the songs that you downloaded, you just listen to no matter what. Or like the CDs that you had. Biohazard was another band that I got into back then before I was like really knew what hardcore was because our friend Ian Marshall I don't know if you guys know him.

Starting point is 00:18:08 He was like in that band Give and other Baltimore bands. He gave me a biohazard CD for my like 19th or 20th birthday. And I didn't like know who they were yet, but I just listened to it all the time. Okay. Is that simpler time? We get what we got, man. That's why I've seen Home Alone a thousand times. I had to be.

Starting point is 00:18:27 Exactly. Straight up. That's the one I had. So that's the one I like. I like that one. But so that was early Hapeed. And then right around that time, this is probably like 2005 or six, Hapre played the big room at Sonar.

Starting point is 00:18:44 And it was like comically like the most violent thing I've ever seen. Like it was like a movie. Like I walked in the back doors that kind of like walk in from the back of the room. And as soon as I walked in, I'm not joking, it was halfway through the end of, um, de, da, da, do, do, dun, dun, den, den, den, den, deholder of justice. And I could visibly see like four or five fights. happening simultaneously in different parts of the room. And back then it was like peak,

Starting point is 00:19:11 Heypreed, like it was. Yeah. College bro, like military dudes, you know, versus hardcore kids. And it was just like out of a movie. So that was like my first like real dramatic hate read exposure. It was the, this is crazy.

Starting point is 00:19:24 The Wayne's World scene. I was wanted to open a room. Exactly. Pretty much was like that. Yeah. Beautiful. So, so you're growing up in the 2000s,

Starting point is 00:19:34 hate breed is you just beheld justice. in this big room. No pun intended. I also just really quickly, that show, I walked into the back of the room with a big puffy coat on and I had a chicken breast

Starting point is 00:19:47 in each pocket of my jacket. You were lifting already? Yeah, this is like peak bodybuilder era. Oh, you had to get the macros in. Yeah, so. You can't, if you go an hour without 35 grams, you lose it all.

Starting point is 00:20:03 I mean, just out of sight here, I have a God's hate bag, like a tote bag that at all times has hundreds of grams of protein just like ready to go. What do you go? What's in there?

Starting point is 00:20:14 Like carry shakes in there. I have like beef sticks. I bring like, I've been doing a lot of carbs recently so I'll bring like all types of carb stuff. You know. You're the real deal, man. Now is that is that for literally like an emergency

Starting point is 00:20:27 or just like, oh, I got to go run errands. I don't want to think about what I'm going to eat. I'm just going to take the bag. No, it's usually like I'm going somewhere and there's not going to be food or when I come to the office, I'll bring it.

Starting point is 00:20:35 But it's, what's your shake of choice? I use this powder. I don't tolerate weigh protein very well. I'm an isolate only. I don't do well with that either. Really? Dude, there's a there's a beef, like it's a grass fed beef protein powder off of Amazon. You can get it.

Starting point is 00:20:53 The brand's called a quip. It's awesome. It's like, does it taste beefy? No, dude, it's, it tastes better than way. It's not cheap, but it's, it like, I digest it perfectly and it's like really good, really good protein. So. You got a sense of the stony?

Starting point is 00:21:07 Dude, way for some reason, man. Your stomy hurts. Dude, I'm so fortunate that way is fine for me because it's so fucking cheap. Oh, dude, way, I will blast off this chair right now. But isolate, you would never know. I would be silently blasting off the chair. I had a little, a gluttonous kid moment at the Circle K by me. They have Ness Quick makes protein shakes now.

Starting point is 00:21:34 and they're full of sugar, but they're full of protein, and they're so good. I mean, have you had the Fair Life chocolate one? That's the best one. Dude. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. I'm not even a chocolate guy. I can't.

Starting point is 00:21:47 I'm sucking this thing down all day. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Costco has one, too, that has, it's a shelf stable, so it doesn't have to be refrigerated. So you can have it in the van or something on the road. All of them are. All them are. Oh, yeah. Good point.

Starting point is 00:22:00 Good point. But this Costco ones in a white bottle that's made by Fair Life. It's got 32 grams a bottle. Wow. And it's like eight ounces. The technology is really advanced. I just want to say like, dude, when we used to travel and tour, like it was so grim, the protein options. Dude, muscle milk is to this day the grossest thing.

Starting point is 00:22:19 It's consistently. But muscle milk was like a huge step in innovation. Yeah. And I came out. You're like, oh my God, dude, they have muscle milk in 7-Eleven now. This is insane. It used to be like the massive protein bars that were disgusting, like the- The chalk, just chalk.

Starting point is 00:22:34 Just chalk. Yeah, like the Metarex bars, dude. Oh, dude. I remember those vividly. Yeah. I probably love Metarex like in my bones, probably. I lost years of my life from that. This is the opposite of the early vegan conversation.

Starting point is 00:22:48 Like, yeah, touring back in the day, it was brutal. It was like, yeah, I was eating chicken everywhere. Hey, you fuck with like the egg and the meat and cheese sticks or what? Oh, on tour? Yeah, like the gas. station egg. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:04 I went through a, um, we toured with Deathy Fortes Honor in 2008. And if you remember Frankie from that band, he was yeah, absolutely massive. And we were like, you know, both in the lifting weights at that time. And he would go to the gas station and get a dozen eggs, like raw eggs and just crack them and just dump them in his mouth raw. And he like, he, like, convinced me, he's like, dude, this is the best thing on tour because it's like the best possible protein. And I like got hyped up about it.

Starting point is 00:23:31 And I stopped and tried it. it and I just like immediately started I couldn't swallow it oh he's different yeah that's we're not built like that we're not built that way but I I get the hard boiled eggs often yeah those yeah I've done those those are good what a wacky world we inhabit but yeah but yeah going to go into see hayprey with a chicken breast with double chicken breast yeah double yeah dual wielding chicken breasts that's awesome so you're you know early phase one workout guy. How early before Trapped

Starting point is 00:24:05 of the Rice is this now? This is like right before pretty much. Do you have other bands between Carol and TUI? I joined Nick Fury, which Justice was in and Kenny sang in. Right.

Starting point is 00:24:20 Which at the time was not really my cup of tea. Like, I mean, like, it was good music and everything. I just, they were super into like, I don't know, more traditional stuff and like faster, hardcore. And that was also like when more melodic hardcore was popular so it was like you know mid 2000s we'll get to that but they're like we're literally sharing like uh we had the same drummer and carol and nick fury

Starting point is 00:24:44 so i would just hang out for the nick fury practice and then they're just like you want to be in the band now and i was like yeah sure and i would just started adding like solos to kung kung kung kung kung kung that's pretty much that's pretty much what happened is we uh i joined they had two ePs and then And then Justice and I started writing a new record in like 2006 that never materialized. And I can't remember what the songs were now, but it was basically like probably on the way to TUI sound. Like it was kind of much much heavier. The proto demo songs. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:25:17 And then I think that was kind of like a transition year. And then that summer, Justice basically lived at my parents house more or less. Like he was working down near my parents in PG County and was just like staying over a bunch. and basically that summer was just me and him lifting weights in my garage, and I had that state of the world address CD. And I'm not joking, dude. It was the only CD in the garage. So state of the world of dress,

Starting point is 00:25:44 that's the one you got that Ian gave me? That was the one, yeah. That's a great gift. How about that? Amazing. Because I call that to this day, like the most ambitious Harker record over it. I think it's one of the greatest of all time. I know you guys like Master Killer a lot.

Starting point is 00:25:58 I think it's like right up there. See, I have always argued. that I feel the same and it's it's like true that's third in most people's rankings of their first three records and it's just wrong it's the best one wait third in biohazard yes dude they everybody says urban discipline best and it's simply not true it goes state of the world address self-titled urban discipline that's that's the I was gonna say third of all time all bands okay I like I hey respect yeah because I'm a Danny schuler man and that's Danny's finest hour Drum wise, that shit is crazy.

Starting point is 00:26:33 It's so good. He's locked. That was pretty much like a super formative time because we're lifting weights every day. Like state of the world address is the only CD that we're listening to. And I feel like that was kind of the Nick Fury of T-Y transition. Wow. That's all I want to do right now. That is all I want to do.

Starting point is 00:26:50 To this day, I was doing something the other day. I was like, what was I doing, man? I was talking to justice about listening to music and just lifting weights. And he was like, oh, man, I wish I was there right now. Like just, yeah. It's still so good. You, I mean, how many, how many albums would be written in a week if you, if you two could just lift weights in a room together nearby again? Oh, man.

Starting point is 00:27:13 To be young, you know? Yeah. Oh, you're amazing. Yeah. But anyway, here we are. You know, we're about at the Genesis of TUI. Mm-hmm. The demo, what, what were you doing?

Starting point is 00:27:29 How did you know? Because how do you think to do that? Because there's a crown of thorns in there. Sure. And then you go to the straight of 0.1 mosh and reality unfolds. So many things happen on this demo that, like, you can see why every facet of hardcore was obsessed with it. Because it, like, does everything in a way that doesn't do too much, if that makes sense. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:28:01 It's focused because it is cohesive, but it's so universally palatable. It checks all boxes. What were you doing? What happened? What influenced Trapping Rice? What was the demo all about? Yeah, well, so me and Justice were writing together for that Nick Fury record, and I think that was kind of like made us think to, oh, we should maybe do another band.

Starting point is 00:28:26 But I'd say he came in with a vision for a new band more than I did. and we wanted to write. Yeah, yeah. And obviously, like, we wanted to write together. But this is actually, like, I kind of got into hardcore through Trapped andor Ice. It wasn't like before. So my introduction to like, I hadn't even heard like Marauder before. Like, you know, like lots of what would become influential hardcore bands for me.

Starting point is 00:28:51 So actually on that record, like the song Reality Unfolds, I wrote the music for that. Even before that time, kind of just through the lens of like, what would a cool hardcore band sound like having no idea like I'd heard like you know a few hardcore bands Sam you're so right but what's funny is like that that to me would be the worst advice to give someone to be like I want to start a band how should I write do what you think a cool hardcore band would do that's like the last thing I would say no I think that's the like it's so stupid that it's genius uh yeah no obviously it's it worked you know right what you think cool hardcore is and then you go jan and chintin jac jac jac and jit jac and jim

Starting point is 00:29:31 And you've never been more right in your life. Well, it's funny because, like, me and Justice, we've been friends for, you know, a while at that time. And his group of friends were more until, like, I came from, like, the straight-up, like, metalcore kind of background. And, you know, like, Carol was, like, a beat-down metalcore band. And the bands that he was in, like, he was in this band, the Fall Line, which was always, like, they didn't really have, like, mosh parts, you know, and they're a little bit more kind of, like, artistic. You know, it wasn't like a straight up hardcore band. And he didn't come from like the beat down or like the metalcore world as much. So I remember actually showing him the main riff of reality unfolds and being kind of like insecure.

Starting point is 00:30:13 I'm like, hey, man, like I think this could be cool. What do you think? And he's like, oh, yeah, nice. I like that. And I was like, all right, this is going to be good. Like he likes it. And then, yeah, seriously. But then like you can tell in a demo, if you listen to the different songs that you can tell which ones like he wrote versus me just because.

Starting point is 00:30:31 Sure. There wasn't really like a collective sound of the band yet. But it, but it both makes sense in context, which is like nearly impossible to do. Yeah, yeah. No, it was we're perfect for each other for writing because like he'll balance me out and vice versa. Like if I was the only one writing, it would be like all like metallic beat down stuff. And then if he was writing, it'd probably be like he'd probably get too melodic and too crazy like structure. Like whatever it is. Sure. We always kind of counterbalance each other. Like is it, does it like soul vice is that justice?

Starting point is 00:31:00 Yeah. So he's writing a 40 second. Like straight through. I don't think I can contribute anything to that. How do you think of that? See, justice is like a genius, man. It's like, I really genuinely believe so. And a lot of that is in the, like, the vocal placements.

Starting point is 00:31:20 Yeah. Because I have to imagine you write a song and you're like, all right, that song's written. And then he sings over it and you're like, what? This is, this is not. This is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is five. new songs. How are you going to say this many? How are you going to do this?

Starting point is 00:31:35 How are you ever going to do this again? Like the half a person intro? Yeah. Yeah. I think we had that vision, though, for the band. Because we were like, again, coming straight out of like a full summer of state of the world dress,

Starting point is 00:31:47 which is like a pretty, pretty rapy record. So I think early vision of the band was like heavy. Justice definitely had the kind of crown of thorns type of influence, but then also like kind of rapy, vocally. Like that was definitely, I think, part of the original. vision for sure. And he had some things to get off his mind. It sounded like

Starting point is 00:32:04 he did. Yeah. That seems like the purpose of the band was like, hey, I need we're going to write some stuff, but really I got to get some stuff off my mind. Well, I can't do my space. I need this. You guys probably know this, but he wasn't even supposed to sing in the band originally. It's supposed to be Anton. And it wasn't until like

Starting point is 00:32:22 I don't know how long before we recorded, but it was last minute that Justice did it instead. Really? And like we never even heard Justice this thing before. So like him recording the demo is like, Rick, I hope just this sounds cool because, like,

Starting point is 00:32:35 this could be a disaster. Wow. Was he going to play a second guitar? Yeah, just going to play guitar. Wow. It's crazy, too, that all over the,

Starting point is 00:32:46 the demo is the bar chord, you know, the like playing concord on A, but then holding your down. And like, to say that you weren't really into Marauder yet, like I would have I would have listened to that demo and been like these guys fucking love Marrador you know yeah yeah but just like musically that's that's where did that I mean I think that was covering that cord myself like being young and be like well that sounds crazy like did that come to you from something I think I think justice maybe I mean Crown of Thorns does that and I remember integrity was pretty popular then and I remember like hearing integrity do that so I think those were possible influences but then I discovered Maraul like right super early and that was a huge okay actually like this is also out of the movie I

Starting point is 00:33:34 remember the cover of the demo when we shot it we like finished we like broke down like you know finished the photo shoot or whatever and then clip a drop off a great photo good photo yeah clip a drove off in this car that was like 20 feet long like this like old like Cadillac looking type of car with like horrible speakers and he had his windows down and as he's driving away from that photo it's um did did did did cut did you do that dude got you got you and i was just like i was like wait like what is that i like ran up to his car and i was like dude what are you listening to right now and he said marina told me the record and that's how i got into marauder was from wow the day so moments after this iconic photo was taken

Starting point is 00:34:17 that's awesome if you look at that photo just imagine me like minutes after running to his car and yeah that's awesome it's beautiful but yeah like you can hear it like on stay cold it's it's it's way i mean like skeleton heads is super, I'd say marauder influenced. Yeah, you said, so you said Anton was the original singer of TY. And I feel like Anton's voice is still flowing like through the, through the veins of Baltimore. Yeah. Like there's a lot of Anton in Brendan's voice.

Starting point is 00:34:48 Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know. There could be a style thing just from there, but yeah, man. I mean, Anton's... He's the gift that keeps on giving, you know? He is, man. You follow him on letterbox? I don't even know what that is.

Starting point is 00:35:01 Dude, it's a movie ranking app. Oh, someone sent me a screenshot. I did. Oh, is you? Okay, yeah. Yeah, I just saw one day, Anton, he gave Avengers Infinity War five stars. And for some reason, it just made me laugh. Let me find his letterbox here, PG-Anton.

Starting point is 00:35:19 Yeah. We still keep in touch, man. He's awesome. He's the best. His top four, he's a movie watching motherfucker, man. His top four, Wickerman. man. Which one? Okay. For sure, OG.

Starting point is 00:35:32 I think. Rosemary's Baby. Imagine Anton watching Rosemary's Baby. I would pay $100 to watch Rosemary's Baby with Anton. You should have him on here. He would never go on, but you should have him on and just talk through his top

Starting point is 00:35:50 rankins. He loves Silence the Lambs. Beautiful. He liked long legs. Bo. You hated it. Movie rocks. Anyway, that's Anton's letterbox. Check him out on Letterbox, PGA, Anton. We always try to get him, like, when we play Baltimore now, like, Anton, can you do the Street Lights part?

Starting point is 00:36:07 And he, like, aggressively says no. Dude, I watched him physically. Well, you guys were waiting for him to do it at the return show, and he was in the back. Like, waving it on. He won't do it. His voice is unbelievable. That's him on Street Lights to the listeners.

Starting point is 00:36:25 When you hear that part, this guy that comes in where you go, well, that guy is the coolest voice I've ever heard. Yeah. That would be Anton. Yep. All right. So demo comes out. Melodic hardcore is on its deathbed.

Starting point is 00:36:38 Thank God. Coffin nail. One year later, Stay Cold hits. And it's pandemonium. Everywhere. It's worth saying, I don't think people appreciate this,

Starting point is 00:36:51 but like, if you're trying to start a popular hardcore band in like 2006 or 2007, we pretty much. did the opposite of everything that you would do like 100% having a cover of a record where you're like shirtless on a stoop and then you have like down hardcore riffs like 100% you are a complete outcast so like there's just just to be clear like no vision back then of like us being a meet like a notable band it was like we'll probably play some cool shows in baltimore was the extent of it because at that time you're rocking like a size smaller medium shirt and you're like making a band that sounds like champion or

Starting point is 00:37:25 or something like that. And we're coming in with 2x off the bat. You're right. You really were, man. It spoke to me, it spoke to me instantaneously. Yeah. Because at the same time that you were doing that, I was also breaking down every aspect of state of the world address every single day.

Starting point is 00:37:44 I was writing thesis about it privately. That is my, my earliest memory of you, I was like thinking about this. And all I can remember is you just walking around listening to your iPod, like, just your headphones are in and you're just listening to music all day long. I'm a student of the game, Sam. You were an absolute student. I could tell that you were breaking down records. I was 18 years old on that tour, and think about this.

Starting point is 00:38:09 And you let me know if you remember this. Motherfuckers double my age are begging to use my computer to take music off my eyes. Was it Brad? It was, I think it was the Bane guys, some Brad. God, I love me some Brad. Brad is his, he's a self-described completest where when we, back in those days, like, when we go on tour and there's like iPods and stuff. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:38:36 Brad would like peel off with the person we're staying with and be like going through their iTunes and like, oh, nice, man, you got this. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me get, he like pull out his iPod and like pull it all on and. And dude, you used to have to have like a special program for that to like, oh, with that and you could rip shit off of people's iPods onto your library. called I rip it.

Starting point is 00:38:55 I rip it. And dude, it felt, it was like a video game. It felt like a side quest. Yeah. Oh, I'm collecting all this music. GameShark. Yeah. He's still, Brad's still in the quest.

Starting point is 00:39:05 He still has his iPods, I think, to this day. He's a completest. I got mine. He's to this day. Still got mine. Beautiful. But yeah, that was, we'll get to that tour. We're not quite there yet.

Starting point is 00:39:14 We're at Stay Cold now, which. So the demo, that was FlatSpot? Yep. Is that like Flat Spot 0-0-0-1 or 0-2 or something? Yeah, it was, sure early on. That's really cool. And then look at them now.

Starting point is 00:39:27 The growth from now. It's awesome, dude. So cool. It's amazing. Yeah. Stakehold comes around. This is when Reaper is just running the world. Wow.

Starting point is 00:39:35 Yeah. And I remember the anticipation. I vividly remember being like, man, what is new to UI going to sound like? And like how hard it delivered immediately and how universally, it felt like a classic immediately. What year was that, Colin? 2008. Okay.

Starting point is 00:39:58 Tell me about putting together Stakehold. This is kind of, so who's in the band now? It's ban on drums. Yeah, still the same lineup as the demo, I believe,

Starting point is 00:40:08 at least for like the writing part. Brendan and Brad joined in 2009. I think Jared did. It was all kind of around the same time. Because Brendan didn't play on Secrets of the World. No. Which was two, was a year later?

Starting point is 00:40:26 I think we recorded secrets of the world in 2008, or maybe it was early 2009. I don't know, but. God, back to back to back. Just a factory over there. Yeah, so it was kind of the same lineup for stay cold in the demo in terms of, got you. Sure.

Starting point is 00:40:40 At least to my memory, but yeah, it's funny you say that because I think back then it didn't really seem like it, you know, in real time. Like when we were playing shows back then, they weren't like huge crazy shows or anything like that. But I'm in California across the country obsessing over this thing. Oh, dude, here too. In Chicago, I remember seeing the demo and I remember to your points at being like, why these guys have their shirts off?

Starting point is 00:41:07 What are they? And then hearing it. You know, and then hearing it being like, oh, this is cool. This is heavy. And then I remember even thinking like, oh, wow, the stakeholder has like illustration on it. Yeah. It's like different. Like they're doing something.

Starting point is 00:41:20 Like even that little thing was like, oh, I wonder what this sounds like, you know. Was that, was that Clippa's dad? Yep. Dan Higgs. Legendary artist? Legendary. Legendary. Okay, so as we, I brought up half a person earlier because to me that's like, even now thinking

Starting point is 00:41:40 about it, especially then, that's like an unwriteable song. Yeah. Do you ever go back and hear that and, and do you, the first, I mean, any of this, do you go back and listen to this and say, how did we do that? Yeah, because that was those first two records were like pre-ability to demo stuff. Oh, wow. Right. And so like you're not recording to a click.

Starting point is 00:42:04 You're not understanding how stuff fits together, which is like there's pros and cons to that. Yeah. It's raw. It's human. Yeah. Exactly. But it's chaos. I can't not be chaos, but it should be.

Starting point is 00:42:17 In my head, half a person was like the most well-organized, like, structured song when, like, I wrote the music for it. But like when we went to re-record reality unfolds, you know, for Big Kiss Kinnight, it was like 10 different tempos when we actually like mapped it out. So it's just like stuff like that, like half a person probably has 10, 15 different tempos. Yeah, because you're not, you're not thinking about that. And even actually riffs in the song, you probably couldn't even lay to like put on a bar because it's like it doesn't fit. Half of the bar and then three quarters of the bar.

Starting point is 00:42:48 Yeah. That's why I hate demoing like that. Totally. I still don't like to do it because it's not. I'd rather just hit play and play it. If it works, it works. Stay cold, the title track, world ending, life changing. So this is around the time when I think Melodic Harkor is now like truly begging.

Starting point is 00:43:15 Yeah, it's on its last breath. It's on a ventilator. It's going. This, people are discovering like, no, this is what we actually want. want. And this, you guys toured quite a bit on this record and the demo, right? I don't know a ton on Stakehold because I was still in school. And again, like we weren't, like it's not like if we went out and played shows, there were big shows or anything that. Even when Secrets of the World had come out, or as we toured with terror in 2008. And that was like

Starting point is 00:43:45 our first, well, there was a U.S. tour with Trash Talk, which I did not do because I was in school. And then the first like significant U.S. tour beyond that was with terror, death before us honor warriors. And that was by the way, two and a half month long tour. Holy fuck. Yeah, that was that was on stakehold, I guess. And yeah, like when we were on that, we were playing first on that bill, even the CDC was on it. We were before CDC. And we would play to like zero people some days like, you know, room was just filling up with people, really knew who we were.

Starting point is 00:44:21 It wasn't until we played Simon Fury on that tour and that was like that was like mind blowing for us because that was the first show where we're like oh, people know us. Oh dude, I was in the pit. Oh dude, that was such a good.

Starting point is 00:44:35 Simon Fury. I mean, you were you were fifth or sixth to last even then. And then headline the next year. Yeah. So that was like a cool, cool moment.

Starting point is 00:44:48 But yeah, like I, I think the heavy touring for us came more like post secrets to the world when I was out of school. Yeah. Beautiful. So that let's get, let's get the secrets of the world. It's LP time. Pressure's on. Ultimate pressure.

Starting point is 00:45:01 Ultimate pressure. This is debut because you guys like, if you look at the formula for what a hardcore band should do, you said that you did the opposite, but in, in many ways you did it perfectly, where you did groundbreaking demo, whether you knew it or not. Better 7 inch. whether you knew it or not. And now it's LP time. And like, you really did it. You did it here.

Starting point is 00:45:27 You did everything you're supposed to do. Perfect opener. Perfect. The one two, the one two punch of track one and two. Crazy. It is like, that's kind of the secret sauce to making a timeless record. It's like one and two have to be unforgettable. And by golly, did you do that?

Starting point is 00:45:46 You sent me recently. a demo of like a voice note demo of you playing believe i'm gonna pop that in here right here can you believe that i couldn't believe it i can't believe it it's just that that that makes it sound i think it's easy to look at these very mythically to me you know because like this is i'm i'm my my like peak my passion for hardcore begins 2005 six seven and then this is you're like the band that's emerging in that era and you're doing all the things that I want to hear and it's like it's like I'm seeing a mirror as a band the timing and the and the quality truly just unbelievable tell me about putting secrets to the world what was that about

Starting point is 00:46:47 I was just going to say there's other aspects of it to being a music video that was actually cool which was borderline impossible and still to this day is almost impossible yeah merch was rock and like like everything about the band was so like perfect time, perfect place along with the right creative behind it. And for in a subculture that was like dying for that kind of a sea change. Totally. Were you when you were when you were writing and recording for for this first LP, were you aware? Like did you get back from that sound infuri and go, damn? I guess we got really we got to put in some work and make sure we follow up. I think the big thing that changed for me between those two was touring with terror

Starting point is 00:47:34 and seeing what like a real band is like because, well, in a couple ways. First of all, like on that tour when we first started, we would play a song and just stop after the song and just have like feedback. And I don't know if we even had tuners with us. We had the, you know, chord coming out of the out of the amp type of style. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So bad. like touring at them and watching them

Starting point is 00:47:55 like, oh, like you can actually you can be tight, you can care and like be good and have a set list, you know? A lot of bands have that experience. That you really, it's easy to, that's a great piece of advice is look at terror. Yeah, dude. And learn.

Starting point is 00:48:10 The first real tour we did was terror. There you go. Carre in the Haitian strain and very much a similar experience was like, yeah. Oh, that's how you take care of merch or, you know. Yeah. Oh, you drive a little bit overnight and, oh, okay, cool. all the things.

Starting point is 00:48:26 We had all that. But for me, I met, so I made pretty good friends with Nick from Terror on that tour. And I never met him before. And I was like curious about how they wrote their songs. And I'd heard something about how that dude Renee from Germany was like helping them write or something, which I don't think was true. But I brought it up to Nick. And he was kind of like, nah, man, like I write our songs.

Starting point is 00:48:47 And I was like, whoa. Like, that's cool. Because he's like pretty quiet and kind of like, unassured. I just didn't think he was writing all the songs. He's the drummer. Yeah, he's the king. He's the mastermind. We started talking about that and I was like,

Starting point is 00:49:01 oh, you really think about songwriting. That's crazy. He was like, yeah, like I listened to other genres and like, you know, pick apart the structure of it. And here's what like, like, kind of helped me understand that there's like more to than just like writing random riffs, you know? And so I hadn't thought zero about songwriting before that point. And then so on that tour, he's like,

Starting point is 00:49:23 talking to me about that. He showed me how to use garage band to like make little demos. Wow. So actually that demo I sent you, I like turned into a garage band demo on that tour with Nick helping me. Wow. And if I mean, if you listen to like some parts of that demo, like they actually didn't fit into like a bar because it was like the timing made no sense. So like stuff like that, you know, I kind of figured out. But yeah, like I would say the writing of secrets of the world was very much this like shift to obsessive songwriting. And I like, you know, like, It shows. I mean, it shows even in the first two songs alone. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:49:59 See, God is another like unrightable song to me. I hear that and I go like, can you define unrightable? I don't understand how it's just a perfect, uh, the, a perfect like meeting of, of a vocal and riff where it's like, I'm not, I'm not, your justice is doing things that the average singer would not think to do. Yeah. And what he's doing enhances the music so much. The music's already good.

Starting point is 00:50:28 Which is rare in the genre. It's so rare. And it hasn't happened since with the band, really. It's a style that's impossible to replicate. Justice is impossible to replicate. 100%. One of one. One of one.

Starting point is 00:50:46 But, yeah, I mean, like stuff like that. Yeah, like me and him were sitting there together, like, vocal idea, make the song go behind the vocal idea. Like we did that a bunch. It wasn't just like, hey, I have this rip. I have this song, write some vocals. It was like, it was a collab, the riffs and the vocals are written collaboratively. Totally.

Starting point is 00:51:06 Or it'd be like, hey, this part of the song I'm leaving kind of open, you know, like, probably there's a vocal lead, I guess stuff like that. So we would definitely have that in mind because that's, I don't know, man. that's obviously a big part of the band you know yeah so there's parts and i i probably took that from nick too where it's like you have different focuses throughout the song it's not just like a raging guitar song the whole time it's like vocal vocally led parts you know guitar led parts whatever i'm just thinking of too of like the ringouts and believe in the verse land yeah it's that's really just him and drums that's textbook songwriting one-on-one yeah is hey do something

Starting point is 00:51:48 cool here. Right. Yeah. Go. That song, that's got a lot of words in it. I know from experience. Oh yeah. That's right. You were like the, I think you were the backup MVP at that show. I was chosen. There was a show in Traverse City, Michigan, where Justice was very sick and couldn't sing. Oh, that's what you're talking about. I thought about the Baltimore show. Oh, that too. That too, obviously. But, and the whole tour had to sing a song, and nobody wanted to sing, believe. Really? Because that's so many words.

Starting point is 00:52:26 Colin sang, believe. And he did all right. I remember Anton being like, yo, you did pretty good. And that meant a lot to me. Because I was just a little fucker at that time. Nobody really knew me. I barely talked. But then they let me sing.

Starting point is 00:52:44 And then the real me. That's the real me. Yeah, that was very cool. So, Secrets to World is out. This is around the time that I meet you guys, because you're touring a lot off this one. You became a German hardcore band for a while. Germany is number one hardcore band.

Starting point is 00:53:03 This is definitely what I remember seeing TY everywhere. This is where I was like, wow, they're really, they're fucking going for it. Tell us about hitting the road hard and some of your favorite tours from that time. I feel like it was a different era then because like the minimum tour length then was like eight weeks. Yeah. I can't remember playing a tour that was like less than eight weeks back then. It was just like by default at least.

Starting point is 00:53:28 So our first, I mean, one of the funest tours you did was the terror U.S. tour, which was right before Secrets. And then after we did a summer tour with terror in Europe, and that was like born from pain, terror, us. I'm forgetting one, but it was like two and a half months on a bus with them. Okay. We were like 22. I mean, amazing. Yeah. You know, like going to bed at like 5 a.m. every night.

Starting point is 00:54:00 Nick Jet like DJing downstairs, waking up at like, you know, 1 p.m. walking around a city and then sound check, you know. You guys were like a hijink band. You guys had, you were making like little fun little music videos. and rap songs. You always had something going on. It's true, yeah. So that tour was fun.

Starting point is 00:54:24 I mean, I'm bad with like the date. This is what I wish Brad was here because he would know every single tour and date timeframe. But I mean, I think the, the Bain tour was that 2010? That was 10. That was, yeah, that was a fall,

Starting point is 00:54:36 summer and fall 2010. Oh, dude, we did a full-blown chaos, rain supreme US tour. I was there. 2009, I think that was. Yeah, Ruckus opened the chain reaction date. Yep, I remember that. That was like, I'd say a real dark low point for the band in terms of just like tour or vibe.

Starting point is 00:54:54 Really? Well, we had, Jared had just joined for that tour, I believe. Nice. And Clippa was still in the band. And those two together is like total mayhem. Just like lots of, lots of things happening on that tour. I believe that was the tour where Clippa said, the famous quote of I'm tired of having shit in my ass yo.

Starting point is 00:55:21 Ah. I don't remember if that's where not, but. I mean, that changed me as a person hearing that. Yeah, we had a couple of things like that with him on the chair's places. I don't know if that, but that's what I was, it was January, first of all. So the US tour in January. It was just like lots of criminal things happening, lots of, like, mischief that shows,

Starting point is 00:55:45 shows were not. There was some weirdness with like the ordering of the band like it started off with full-blown chaos headlining and then by the end we were headlining. Oh. So yeah, just weird weird time. Brutal. When was the 10 for 10? That was 2009, I think. No, is that 10?

Starting point is 00:56:04 I think it was nine. I feel like I was still in high school maybe. That might have been the same summer as the terror Euro tour. Okay. I could be wrong, but. To this day, one of the. One of the craziest ideas of ever. Just not, just how can that possibly be profitable for, for anything?

Starting point is 00:56:23 For 10 bands. It was, it was not. We played a venue that in like Kentucky or something that was like a 3,500 cap venue, like a theater. And, you know, probably 200 people came, you know, I mean, 3,500 people in Kentucky when it was at a 700-cap place in, in California is crazy. Yeah, right.

Starting point is 00:56:48 But that, I mean, that, even if it wasn't economically feasible, it created this like timeless memory for everybody that went to it and everybody that was on it. Yeah, for us, it was great. Yeah. But for them, it was probably terrible, a terrible mistake. That's fair. That's very fair. But dude, I had Mad Ball was on that tour.

Starting point is 00:57:08 It was a great tour. Yeah. Oh, it was amazing. Poison the Well was on part of it or something. Right. I think they're on the whole thing. I think they headlined. Again, my memory is horrible with the stuff.

Starting point is 00:57:18 Wow. Yeah, so it was, yeah, that was right around that time frame, maybe the summer after, but. Thought so. Tell me about how it felt. When the band was finally, you, Justice, Jared, Brad, Brendan, tell me about that dynamic finally locking in and feeling like, oh, okay, I think this is Trapped and Drys.

Starting point is 00:57:37 It was the Europe tour, the one on the bus with terror, because that was all five of us. it was actually that Ben was supposed to go and couldn't for work. So Brennan was kind of like filling in. And that tour was just so awesome. And we spent two and a half months playing together every night. So it was kind of just like we locked in there. You're going to get good.

Starting point is 00:57:56 Yeah. Yeah. And Brennan was still super young then. He was like, I think 19 on that tour. So he, so you found him. Were you guys aware of one step too many? Oh, yeah. I'm sure.

Starting point is 00:58:10 It's okay. Because God, like some bangers. through it there for sure i'm pretty sure i'm the first person from like our group of friends that kind of reached out to him and his friends because they were younger right i was i was 19 and he was 15 i think and we would go see one step too many like we liked one step too many you know they rips dude our friends would go watch them um but yeah he was like notably younger especially at that time and i remember like driving down from baltimore to go skate with brend and his friends when they're still super young but i remember thinking anything back then like man

Starting point is 00:58:42 Brendan's just like he's got something special man he's like a genius like I don't know what it is dude I I was like peripherally obsessed with him as a friend early on like hearing one step to man I was like this guy's probably pretty cool and then befriending him on that's so yeah there's something about him where there was like a magnetism there that was just like hey man you you you should figure this out you got some there's something going on here I did this is good we were like we've been basically like I was really close friends with with him since way back then, you know, and like when he went to school in Baltimore,

Starting point is 00:59:16 I'd drive and hang out at his dorm. Like, we were writing together pretty early on. Like I pretty much as soon as we started hanging out, I was like, dude, I wanna do a band with Brendan or do something with Brendan because he's, he's so good, so talented. And then there he was. And then the, you know, the kind of the TUI,

Starting point is 00:59:33 as we know it was truly, finally formed. Yeah. I wanna stick to the secrets of the world a little bit. Let's get, let's see a couple of these tracks. American Dreams. Dan, na, na, and gink, kink, kink hard. T U.I, I remember being a single. Yeah, you're right.

Starting point is 00:59:51 That was the first single. It was first single. I remember that. I remember looking at like message boards. We posted that while we're on tour. I remember like looking at message boards to see like what people were saying. You know, it was like the B9 board era. Of course.

Starting point is 01:00:05 Yeah, I remember that. Gem and I obviously was from the split with dirty money. So we already knew that was a banger. And then, so I remember vividly asking, at this time, I think I was at the show where Ruckus opened for TUI was pulling justice aside and being like, oh, first of all, meeting him was Burge, opening the bathroom to his dick out and him pissing and him saying, that's my dick, man. But in that moment, right after he pissed probably, was like, hey, why isn't death clock ticking

Starting point is 01:00:36 on Secrets of the World? It was supposed to be. I don't know if you talk about that. It just, we were not able to get it down the way we wanted in the studio. But that was meant to be on the record. So maybe LP4 that one's fine. Could be. Could come back.

Starting point is 01:00:54 That song is basically an unwriteable song too. That's like there's probably 15 distinct different riffs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of transitions and stuff crazy. Pit is insane.

Starting point is 01:01:08 Beautiful pit to pit. If you've not heard the. the trap and write a song death clock ticking from the dirty money split go do that now too true this is a song i specifically want to talk about sam let's let's talk about it because you and i have had in-depth conversations about this privately 15 years ago that i'm sure neither of us fully remember but this is when i learned about your songwriting philosophy with mosh parts that you visualize the pit when putting the riff together specifically for this song tell me about two Too True. Tell me about visualizing the pit when you're writing.

Starting point is 01:01:45 Too True, actually, funny enough, I think Clippa wrote some of the, like, the verse part. Too true. So I think that actually started with Clippa, but, yeah, I remember being super stoked on, like, the rest of that song. That was definitely like a very, I was getting into like 25 to Life. It was like kind of that time frame for me. So I would say that, the end of that song is pretty 25 to life influence if you listen to it. Yeah. The breakdown is like 25 to life all at war.

Starting point is 01:02:17 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think with the visual, I forget what I told you about the visualizing thing, but I think that is true. I think that is true. It probably,

Starting point is 01:02:26 it probably speaks more to the idea of like, we never wrote stuff just like, oh, here's a cool riff. You know, it's kind of like you're thinking about like how the total song comes together. But it's like that. And then also I would say,

Starting point is 01:02:37 we're always really mindful of like what the kind of energy of the song would be live and just what it would be like live because you could write some super cool riff or whatever and then live, just people are standing there looking at you. So I think like there is some tapping into like what would this be like live?

Starting point is 01:02:54 How will United Blood react to this? Yeah, right. Yeah, but I'm ever being hyped on that. That's one of my favorite songs probably in general that TY's done. Mine too. Especially the end of it. I love like to this day solo and the riff and stuff.

Starting point is 01:03:08 But yeah, I think it was, you know, we're also active you know active in the in the pit at that time so it's you know definitely thinking about it's it's easier to write when you are you know when you're involved well you know what you would spin kick to it's it's a good yeah and that's a very like spin kick specific riff 100% I've done it yeah there were there were times on that tour on the on the like not good shows yeah where you would bust that out pretty much for me and franz yeah and dude you We were terrorizing. I remember that.

Starting point is 01:03:42 I actually remember that. These four Norwegians and Polish people were. Please. Dude, there was the one in Norway where they tapped me on the shoulder and were like, please stop. The second half of secrets of the world is much more like, it's a journey. Yeah. It's a dense record, man.

Starting point is 01:04:07 It's a dense 22-minute record. which is crazy to think about. Yeah. But dude, was that, was the whole thing collaborative writing wise? I know that I wrote a lot for that record. Like, that was an obsessive time where I was just like in my, you know, apartment just like laying down demos all the time. And I mean, yeah, it was for sure collaborative.

Starting point is 01:04:32 But I do remember like for me that was like a crazy writing time. And I do have a lot of like stuff on there that I wrote that, you know, maybe we didn't change a whole lot, you know, like, I remember like, eye hand was the first thing I wrote for that record. Like that's just like a million riffs into one and like, you know, something I was psyched on. But yeah, um, I don't remember like getting together and practicing a whole lot for that one. I just remember like spending a lot of time writing.

Starting point is 01:05:00 And yeah, like justice would be over all the time. We'd be sitting there going through stuff. And so part of this interruption, we got some important things to talk to you about. You know, in this episode filled with information, facts, and tidbits about your health, oh. One of the most important things you can start doing to take charge of your body is AG1. Amen. First thing we do every morning.

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Starting point is 01:05:52 I try my best to never miss it. And if I ever do, I have packets of AG1 to take with me, which you can get five of by using the link down below. Athletic greens.com slash hardlore, you will get five free travel packs. And, you know, hardcore is worldwide. There's now verified research studies that people that consistently use AG1 are more energy. So why wait? Get on the train. Athletic Greens.com slash hardlore.

Starting point is 01:06:27 We've gotten testimonial after testimonial from people who listen to the show, who start using it because of us, who give it a shout because of us. People who reach out and go, dude, that's crazy. You guys got Athletic Greens. I've been using it for years. Congrats. It's the best. People who say,

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Starting point is 01:07:54 Beautiful. Let me ask you this. This is really important. When did your love for dying feet to start? I, in the same, like, lime wire era that I found haypreed, I found, uh, dang it, what's the name? the song, it's like the first track on Stop at Nothing. Oh my God, yeah.

Starting point is 01:08:19 But there's a like a beat down part halfway to that song that was like life changing. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, I knew of them back then. Definitely saw them. But I didn't really get into them in the way that I am now until probably like mid-TY, you know, 2010, 11.

Starting point is 01:08:37 Just realizing that you had another sacred band for. for most more than pretty much really makes everything makes sense in context yeah so i mean they're probably more of like an influence for me now than they were back then but yeah i mean are you working on anything now i've been talking about writing stuff with justice like literally just recently um it hasn't really been something like it's you know we've been so we've moved a bunch last few years work stuff's crazy obviously raising little kids is crazy um but yeah i think have kind of like settled down a little bit and we've been talking about it but it takes takes time for us just because he's I'm busy he's busy yeah I mean I know how it is but I do also know

Starting point is 01:09:21 people are dying for it's time I don't know the voice memos are full on the phone there's lots of memos oh good then you're right but just just vocally not guitar just like you know beatbox but that's all that's good dude that's I mean that counts I like I like when the riff also has the little click with your tongue that's like the snare drum. Oh yeah. That's when you know you're really, you're locked into a part. Raw passion. Yeah, I mean, all the, most T.U.I stuff I would say for us, at least for me,

Starting point is 01:09:56 is always like voice note first, like, beatbox. Because all the riffs, it's not like super melodic. It's more like rhythmically driven. So it's like, I think the, what makes a riff catchy is more like the rhythm than the notes, you know, so I would usually think, I think of that stuff first and then the notes are kind of like something that happened later. But yeah, that's for me. I always start with that. Interesting philosophy. I haven't heard that before. Yeah. Sam, could you tell me about, do you, do you recall an encounter with an art teacher at a hardcore show in Baltimore?

Starting point is 01:10:35 Oh, man, yeah. That's embarrassing, man. I mean, like, like, that was kind of, that kind of summarizes the, the vibe of shows back then, to be honest. Like, 15 people in a room, you know, and like someone gets hurt. Like, that's kind of like what would happen back then. I will say, though, actually, that show and that time, that was a Brace Wars plane. Oh. And they had a song that was like, I forget what it is, but it was actually like that, being at that show is what inspired the song Gemini by T-U-I because.

Starting point is 01:11:07 Really? Yeah, it's a similar thing, like where it kind of drops down and gets kind of like, they have a song that had something like that and I remembered from that show. Wow. See, it's all coming back. This art teacher has to be sacrificed. I don't know if you've listened at all recently, Sam, but he does this thing where when we have a guest, he has his little birds out there just telling him dirt on everybody. Oh, is that, yeah.

Starting point is 01:11:33 So I heard you. So this is the thing that I also talk to this person who shared this about is that. Who are you talking to? I don't know. When these incidents occur, this is such a real thing. Think about the amount of times you've seen this happen, where a guy that's in trouble at the show takes his shirt off to escape. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:11:57 Oh, that's a classic. Yeah. I don't know. Dude, that's a classic. I remember. I'm in trouble. And I got to go. He went that way.

Starting point is 01:12:07 I don't know. Dude, I remember that like in Like being like Seeing fights and stuff in Baltimore Like you have to be fighting and everyone's shirts To just come off and people just scramble That's how you know when in trouble has begun That's how you blend in

Starting point is 01:12:23 You know exactly You become invisible when the shirt comes off To run down the street with their shirt off Yeah Now Sam how many teeth do you suppose This art teacher Had left I don't know actually what happened to him.

Starting point is 01:12:42 I should remember it was, yeah, it was not, it was unfortunate, but that was, whether it was me or someone else, pretty commonplace at the time, you know. Exactly. Yeah, of course. Just think it's funny that it was an art teacher of all things. I went to art school, so I didn't have any grudges, you know. There you go, no. It just wasn't personal.

Starting point is 01:13:00 It was just art. It wouldn't have been personal. No, no. Allegedly. Exactly. Yeah. So we, you know, let's go back. We're back.

Starting point is 01:13:08 We're back to TV. by, hey, welcome back. This is around the time, this between Secrets of the World and Big Kiss Goodnight, we meet, we get, we get familiar. I'm kind of, I'm present throughout, I've witnessed firsthand the development of Big Kiss Goodnight over about a year or so. Heard a lot of demos, kind of watched the demos involved into the record. And that that might be like the most anticipated.

Starting point is 01:13:39 piece of music of my hardcore lifetime, I would say. And my God, it delivered. Tell me about this time in the band, 2010, 2011, tell me about putting this record together. Because I can tell you what I remember is, as soon as it was done, you guys felt like the band was over. I remember you playing Rainfest having this unbelievable headlining set and I was like that was amazing and your response was good way to go out why did we say that was because the record was good or because of something else I don't remember no you don't you like the record I think you were just over touring and like and the grind yeah I can't remember like what we were feeling then but I do remember when we finished big kiss can I literally driving away from the studio with

Starting point is 01:14:31 Chad Gilbert, who produced it, and listening to, like, the raw demos in his car. And I was just like, I don't know if people are going to, you know, like, it's kind of like a, wow. We'll see what people think about this type of deal. That's so crazy. We know how it is because you don't know what's going to be like a single or what people are going to like or whatever. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:14:49 I think, like, pleased to meet you is kind of like it wasn't going to be the single or like a single at all. It was kind of like weren't super excited about it at first type of. Like, it was kind of just like, you don't know what's going to happen yet. Well, that song, that was a, that was like a produced song. That was a song where Chad had a lot of input, I remember? I don't know. You like had the mosh part written somewhere else. And the song was much slower.

Starting point is 01:15:15 And that was one thing where he was like, increase the tempo, put this mosh part here. I don't know about that. I think you can listen back to the demos we had before working with Chad. Like a lot of those songs and the structure was like, close. I can actually send you something we did before like, like born and died free Chad. And like it's just like some parts were longer and we shortened them or moved

Starting point is 01:15:39 some things. Please meet you didn't have the, I think it was the chorus before we worked with him. Like I think it was more of just like a driving like da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And the chorus was over that or supposed to be. But I don't think that Justice has had like lyrics for it yet. Like it came together kind of later on for sure. Okay.

Starting point is 01:15:58 But I actually remember him not loving that song at first either. I think I had that early on. And he was kind of like, I don't know. And isn't that like top song now? Yeah, for sure. Like across the board. That's crazy. But that was what was different about that record is again, like I was starting to,

Starting point is 01:16:17 so I started that band Diamond, which became Diamond Youth around 2009, 2010. So I was now writing a completely different style of music too. Like I was writing like these like, you know, rock, pop rock songs. getting super into that, just like really having fun, writing a different genre and learning about that. And I'd never written anything melodic before. So like my world was expanding there. And then Justice started Angel Dust around then, like running and started turnstile around then. So it was kind of like we were all dipping our toes into other stuff.

Starting point is 01:16:49 And for the for the best because it was kind of like, like I wrote like the stuff we were writing for Big Giscanite, I was writing at the exact same time as a diamond record. It was literally like I would come home from work, work on some TUI songs one night, and then next night work on some diamond songs. And I can tell you firsthand, I know that like it's really hard to separate the two once that starts. Right. Like there's a certain amount of melody you like can't undo that. Once you start writing with melody as the like intention, you really can't get rid of it. But that's not, I don't think that's a thing that negatively impacted Big Kiss Goodnight.

Starting point is 01:17:28 just as a fan. I do remember distinctly not knowing, like the inner turmoil in the band over whether to call the record Big Kiss Goodnight or Born to Die. Oh, yeah. And then Lada Del Rey is born to die answering that question for you.

Starting point is 01:17:46 Yeah. Same time. Yeah, it must have been. Same time. Right. I'm always an advocate for, I'm usually an advocate for justice as like more extreme ideas.

Starting point is 01:17:58 think, I think Big Kisskinite was kind of like a weirder title. Yeah, for sure. Born to die is a little more up the middle, you know? So I was like, yep. Born to die is basically born to expire. You're not. It's a city. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 01:18:13 Lana Del Rey did Born to Die. She did it at the same time. And the choice was, the choice was clear. Yeah, so I think that was the right choice. But yeah, I'm trying to think what else. I mean, we were just, like way more into demoing then and like, spending again, like obsessive songwriting, like literally for me a year or two of just like, my schedule was I'd work nine to five, go get Chipotle after work, get Starbucks, and then like

Starting point is 01:18:40 day number two started. And I would just write for like six hours, you know, and like demo stuff. And justice would be over like, you know, multiple times a week and we'd be laying stuff down. He'd want to demo stuff on my computer and he'd record his ideas and we'd like work on stuff together. So yeah, that was pretty intense writing process. And then obviously working with Chad, I think made it made it better, you know, like, like just spending an extra like week or two just in pre-production, just going through the songs and like, ah, you know, this could be better. Like, we should shorten this or add this. And he was, he was awesome to work with for that. So yeah. It's so funny how obviously we're talking about how the beginning of the band was very like lightning

Starting point is 01:19:23 in a bottle just had it, you know, and like didn't need to do pre-production, didn't need to to have the process laid down in that way. I didn't even know who was going to sing on the demo until right before, right? But then when you are a band that has time and some momentum and you're writing stuff and you're putting stuff aside, how effective pre-production and a third party can really be when it comes to creating the thing that you want. And it's so helpful to have somebody be like, do that again or I don't save that maybe. You know, like just little things, even as simple as that, how huge and effective that could be. I remember hearing that you guys were working with him and being like, wow, a producer in like in this genre.

Starting point is 01:20:11 Like how? Because he had just done Keepers of the Faith as well. Just on Terry. Right. And that was, I mean, that, that like, that was their, that was a rebirth for them. 100%. Yeah. So that was, that was a good move.

Starting point is 01:20:23 for you guys. It was literally, they did a great job. Night and day experience from Secrets of the World and Stay Cold. It was like, we recorded in Orange County. We were like, the homie, Paul Minor. Paul Minor. We were happy to be there. Like, it was summertime or springtime or something like that,

Starting point is 01:20:41 I think. It was warm out. And then Chad was fun to work with. Like, we're just having fun. You know, like, secrets of the world and stay cold were like some of the darkest, like, experiences of my life overall. Just like, I don't think, I don't think that I laughed or smiled the entire time. I started those stuffers. And Big Kiss Good Night, you were having a, you were having a blast.

Starting point is 01:21:01 We were like sleeping over at the studio, like, sleeping bags on the floor, like, waking up having coffee and stuff. Like, so much fun, dude. Secrets of the World and State Cold was like so dark. Like, it was, it was in Queens, New York and like January, both times or December or something. I don't remember talking to each other at the studio. It was just like dead silent the whole time. Dean Baltimore has recorded us who does not talk a lot, not a super bubbly guy. So it was just like, I remember just tracking, just like my head, just looking at the floor and just like waiting for my turn.

Starting point is 01:21:34 It was just like the darkest experience. Okay, well, I'm glad that changed for. Yeah, I think you can hopefully tell like the record. I think it's better because of that. Yeah, I would I would say that's like objective. Even just listening to it. It's like this is the, this is the like, this is TUI. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:21:54 Yeah. This is a timeless hardcore classic. I do think Secrets of the World is too. So it's, I don't want to, I don't want to minimize that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that plagued your brain during Secrets of the World, they, they helped. Yeah. It's inspired. I wouldn't do it again, but it probably helped. We were standing at Reggie's house on the, on a literal hardwood floor, like, sleeping back on hardwood floor.

Starting point is 01:22:20 Like, yeah, getting ripped off at like the coffee shop down the corner like, oh yeah. Jared and Justice were eating off a dollar menu like once a day, every day. That was it. Like it was, yeah, it was good time. TY at this point is like your crossover to you really, you haven't like changed anything about yourselves. You've evolved in all the right ways.

Starting point is 01:22:45 But like people outside of Harcourst are noticing TUI now and like love TUI. I know like, I remember like somebody from Seven Dust was to you like, you, I love TUI. Oh, so cool. I love Seven Dust, man. Yeah. Were there, are there any TUI heads out there who have like shocked you? Or somebody you, somebody you're just shocked to learn loves TY.

Starting point is 01:23:10 Yeah. It happens all the time, especially now. Now like modern day like Travis Barker like wears our shirts. Yeah. Right. I'm like, that's, that's cool. Like. Yeah, like weird.

Starting point is 01:23:22 But yeah, like there's, you know, like, I don't know, man, like random people like that or like, you know, there's a bunch of like, there are a couple comedians now that like are in a hardcore that will like wear T you I. Oh yeah, yeah, I've seen that. They were awesome, by the way. But like, yeah, stuff like that didn't happen as much back then. I don't remember, you know, like. And I just don't think that hardcore had really like gone as kind of like mainstream back then anyways. So not at all. Like when we would tour with every time I die or like four years strong, that back then was like insane.

Starting point is 01:23:49 You know, and like the fact that someone in Four Years Strong likes our band was like, oh, my God, like, what do they like about this? You know, like that was extreme back then. So I think it's like, it's gotten bigger since then. I think just the, the hardcore's reach. So we didn't have, like, there's no Travis Barker's wearing TY shirts back in the day, you know. There's somebody in Northern Idaho right now that you probably interact with in some way. Once a week, you know, the guy, the grocery bag guy. at the store.

Starting point is 01:24:21 Probably a big TUI head has no idea, you know? I have met a few people out here that literally, like, I did meet a dude that was bagging groceries one time. And like that's happened a few times. We're talking about music stuff and we'll talk about that. And they're like really confused. Like the oldered. Sam,

Starting point is 01:24:40 do you remember in the fall of 2011, November 15th, to be exact? The aides of November. The Ides of November In it was either Lubbock Or Midland, Texas We were on a tour You were on a tour It was on Big Kiss Goodnight

Starting point is 01:24:58 Yeah And it combined And it was Terror, TUI, Backtrack, Harmsway Yeah I have it up in the other room

Starting point is 01:25:10 I think Stray played And maybe two more bands It was just like A banger Of a show Yeah Was it betrayal? Yeah, it was betrayal.

Starting point is 01:25:20 Oh, yeah, betrayal, yeah. It was betrayal. Wasn't it something weird where it was like the second tour package was like way after or something like that? Or I forget it was like something was weird about the timing of it. But I did remember that. It was really odd. It was a show that could have been a fest somewhere.

Starting point is 01:25:35 Yeah, right. That maybe 40 people paid to go to. Yeah. I remember that aspect of it. I just remember it being cool. We took a picture of the whole, like the entire show. and we like smash the table after everyone fell on it afterwards. But I remember, I remember, the reason I bring it up is because I remember this time being like,

Starting point is 01:25:55 I remember feeling like, oh, there's there's trapped under ice and like, like, Godspeed guys, like they're going to the moon, you know. I just remember the feeling at the time being that that to you I was like on to be what at the time seemed unimaginable now seems very feasible for a man to to explode and you know be yeah have Travis Barker wearing their t-shirts that's funny yeah well you guys remember it was kind of yeah it was just different than like that tour like a big kiss good night tour that we did yeah it's like 150 200 people to shows most of the time and it's like that was basically as big as possible in the u.s you know it's like 300 300 kids in like big cities you know so that was like the peak back then for

Starting point is 01:26:43 us, you know, and it's definitely gotten bigger since then, you know, so it's so different. It's so wild to think about how much it's changed since then. But I do think, I mean, TY as a band is such a big part of that growth and this record is such a big part of that growth that it needs to be, we need to stamp that. And I think in the history books. I do think that touring with bands like, Four Year Strong or every time I, like we were doing stuff like that when I don't think a lot of other people were doing it. And that was, like, crazy back then.

Starting point is 01:27:16 But, you know, like, I do think that we got our style of hardcore. Everyone to call it kind of in front of more people because we were down to play whatever. You know, and we were also, like, in melodic bands and thought that was cool. And we'd play, like, mixed bill shows all the time. Like, so, yeah, I do remember, like, being younger. It's like, you'd never have shows like that. It would just be, like, all beat down bands, you know, like, exclusively. Speaking of which, do you remember a conversation we had in, probably in Switzerland or something,

Starting point is 01:27:48 where you asked me, would you rather see a good, would you rather the opening band be a good, a good melodic hardcore band or a shitty beatdown band? I remember discussing this at length with Nick, Nick Jet on the territory, and I was always in favor of the shitty beat down. Shitty beat down all day. Every single time. hands like I live like the music in my head 95% of the time is just like shitty beat down music just like paul muted yeah because like I have ideas that way but it's like most of the time it's just

Starting point is 01:28:21 like a mid 2000s like Pennsylvania beat down band with like china symbol like that's like what's playing in my head beautiful that's what gets you through the day yeah even at like literally at this point of life I don't listen to that anymore it's just like it's still in my head all the time You don't have to. Yeah. Yeah, something. It lives within. It lives within, yeah.

Starting point is 01:28:44 Beautiful. No, I'm with you every time. Should he beat them in all the way. So 2009, really, T-Y's existence and Jared killed Melodda Carcourt. It was dead gone. Have you heard the story about like the Habhart tour that we did with them and like the me snoring? No. No, but as a fellow snorer, I'd love to hear.

Starting point is 01:29:06 this is like a mythical like I don't know how true this is K Yasui who I work with and like I'm good friends with King he's the man he told the story which basically it was like we were touring with Habhart and Polar Bear Club good example of like a weird tour and we what was it it was like leading up to United Blood 2009 I think it was something like that

Starting point is 01:29:30 where they had played a crazy United Blood the year before like they headlined or something had a crazy set and that we're leading up to 2009 United Blood. I'm probably getting the years wrong, but close enough. I mean, that was the year you headline Santa Jury. So, like, timeline-wise, that makes, that sounds right. 2009, TUI, headlined the first night of United Blood.

Starting point is 01:29:52 I remember vividly because of how scary it was. I could be messing this up, but, like, long story short, there was a night on that tour where, dude, we stayed, we're playing like Albany area. And there's this dude from there named, I think his name was Dan. Do you remember him? Kind of like a bigger dude. Dan, asylum, Dan? I don't know.

Starting point is 01:30:12 I think he is like one of the bookers there? Yeah, bookers, like glasses, kind of bigger dude. Okay. He let us stay. This is like a winter tour. Let us stay in his like t-shirt printing shop, which I'll never forget the name of the shop was Schenectatitees. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 01:30:27 Oh, that's genius. It's clever. Yeah. Schenectatese was basically like a warehouse with like hard carpet floor. Like the, you know, it's like there's basically no carpet. Yeah. And I don't think any like thermostat. It was just like the same temperature as outside, inside.

Starting point is 01:30:42 And we stayed there with have heart. And for some reason like good sleeping, to be honest. It was, it was crazy. And I think we like were locked in there or something like they couldn't get. Oh, that's a bummer. Yeah. So for some reason, not everyone had sleeping stuff like sleeping bags. Okay.

Starting point is 01:31:01 So most of us were just sleeping bag on like the hard floor. And then some people in Halfheart were like sleeping and like base drum. cases and stuff like that, like to stay warm. And whatever, something happened where basically I was sleeping next to Pat from Halfheart and I was I was snoring, which I used to do. I maybe still do it. I can't confirm that. We'll never know. This is a heavy snoring era. I'm snoring.

Starting point is 01:31:25 Apparently Pat was up all night because of me snoring and he's like cold like sleeping in a bass drum case or something. And he like gets ill. It gets like violently ill, like sick. Like his body collapses because of. exhaustion and like being up all night in this cold room. And that was like the tipping point cases of like this like thing where like Pat was sick and then like messed up their tour and messed up like United Blood. Like something happened as a chain of events that was like it led to like the

Starting point is 01:31:52 collapse of Havehart in that era. You snore and killed Havehart. According to Kay, that's that's what he said later. Oh my God. That's our lore, man. Yeah. Some people are worried about ruining, you know, relationships and other things with their snoring. You changed the whole. And I've slept next to you numerous times. I was fine. Yeah, so I don't know. Maybe it was just a rough time for me and I was snoring a lot or eating too many

Starting point is 01:32:17 Metterx bars. But it was the damn Metterx bars again, man. Yeah, but that was a notable, I think, like moment for them. And we, because they had a crazy United Blood. And I think the next year we had a crazy one. It was, yeah. You sabotage. Which I have no, like, I love them and all that, but like for me, when we started

Starting point is 01:32:39 TUI, like I like explicitly did not want to be a lot of hardcore band and did not like, I'm not really lumping them in with that, but like bands that were popular. They're still a hard band. Yeah, they get the past. Yeah, yeah, like they get the past. Not lumping them in, but I'm just saying like I got in a hardcore because of like metallic stuff and heavier stuff. So I did not understand bands like champion or verse.

Starting point is 01:33:01 I was just like, why would you like this? Like this doesn't have any of like. good things of heart clean who's like was like biohazard state of the world

Starting point is 01:33:10 for us so which I guess but like that's the difference is is have heart does

Starting point is 01:33:14 they do have they do yeah they got some state of the world they they address the world

Starting point is 01:33:19 in many ways yeah so big kiss good night you know as as we've said this thing took over the world

Starting point is 01:33:26 it was a phenomenon and your response to it was we got all these other things going on. We did this. Let's take a hiatus. To be fair, we did, I think,

Starting point is 01:33:40 toured a lot. Tored for maybe two years, but instead of doing the, you know, like the immediate follow-up record, you decide to take a break to do all your other stuff. Because, I mean, you have turned to. Yeah, it makes sense.

Starting point is 01:33:56 There's a lot going on. Tell me about that decision and how that affected you guys. What year would that have been? too soon. 2013. Yeah. 13.

Starting point is 01:34:06 Wow. Okay. Yeah, that was just like a fork in the road for us where we kind of decided like, okay, because back then the only kind of like whatever, like the roadmap for what you could become. It was like, okay, either we're going to keep touring full time and just do that for a living, I guess, or like not do that because it doesn't see. Like we didn't, it didn't seem fun to us to do that.

Starting point is 01:34:30 It didn't feel like what we wanted to do. So everyone was having. fun, you know, like doing other bands. And like, I moved to LA that year. And we were kind of, I think we were kind of just like, hey, we just don't really feel like doing that, like, touring all the time. Like, let's not do it for a while. It was pretty, pretty amicable, like, lightweight decision. Yeah. It just, like, didn't feel like what we wanted to do. It would have felt like, forced to be like, oh, let's just keep touring and keep writing and, like, go, go for it. You know, and that's when it's, when it's time to stop is when the passion's gone,

Starting point is 01:35:02 even however brief it is. Yeah, that's all that was. It was the right move for sure. I mean, the highest wasn't very long, luckily. And I think it was maybe two years. Back then it seemed like forever, but yes, yes. And it was the scary thing is while we're kind of used to bands taking hiatuses and coming back. Right.

Starting point is 01:35:24 Like even if a band is, even if it's not a hiatus, if it's, we're breaking up. You're still good. You know you're going to see those motherfuckers like five years later. at the time that wasn't necessarily the case. No. Yeah. No. It's different now that every band had to stop playing for two years for the same reason.

Starting point is 01:35:42 Two years is like, okay, I'll take it. That's fine. Tell me about the decision to break the hiatus very quickly after and how that response was upon coming back. It was the same criteria. It was like, oh, we want to do this now. This sounds fun. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:36:00 that's literally all it was, I think. That's exactly what it should be. It should just sound fun because you're at the end of the day. You're doing this with guys who've had relationships with for years. We were burnt out, dude. Like, I remember just being kind of overtoring in 2013. And it wasn't fun. It didn't seem fun to keep doing that.

Starting point is 01:36:20 So as soon as it seemed fun again and seemed like something we all wanted to do. Yeah, that's the only reason. Same, same until today. You know what I mean? Like we still play. couple shows a year, like, we'll get off or stuff and be like, oh, that sounds fun. That sounds cool. That's the way to do it.

Starting point is 01:36:35 Yeah. And now that's, now that's an option. That wasn't an option 10 years ago. No, we talk about it all the time, but now you can be that band and it makes sense in all the facets that need to make sense for a band. That did not exist. It was like either you're broken up or you're doing two and a half month doors. Like, there's nothing in between.

Starting point is 01:36:53 You can only, you can now only play to who really needs you, which is nice. I think I think turnstile was at least a contributor to that because they've always like ever since they started by force or by choice because we were touring or whatever like they would only do these quick runs and they basically only ever did quick runs until you know like a little bit later on well every single one of those quick runs was sold the fuck out and was amazing yeah but like back when they started it was like conventional wisdom that you couldn't do a real band like that it's a side project yeah yeah yeah But I don't I think they resisted touring like the US until I don't know how many years ago, but it was like you know

Starting point is 01:37:34 The 2013. It was it was with switching tongues that was their first like actual tour. Yeah. Yeah. And they and I can tell you they did good. Yeah. Yeah. They did good. Uh, heat wave comes up right after this kind of high. So I remember you guys initially coming back. I'm not going to take full credit for this. Okay. I won't take full credit for it. But I do remember a conversation with justice. where he said, we're going to do a seven-inch to come back. And I said, no, you should do an LP. And he said, well, maybe we'll do an LP. And then you did an LP about six months later. That's awesome. So no full credit, but partial. You're welcome.

Starting point is 01:38:12 You deserve it. Thanks, man. Tell me about Heatwave. Heatwave was fun. That was more of like just like hang out and have fun and write songs type of deal. Like I remember doing a couple sessions with like Brendan and Justice and just kind of jamming. And I think like Brendan wrote for that. Justice wrote for that.

Starting point is 01:38:36 Like it was kind of just a fun record to put together. And same with other TY records. It was kind of just like what we felt like writing at the time. So there was no never any thought of like what would like the next TUI full length sound like. Aside from no relief, which was cut from Big Kiss Kid Night. Correct. Right, right. Not from Big Kiss Goodnight, I don't think, well, I don't remember.

Starting point is 01:38:58 It is an older. It had to have been because I remember when it was written. I remember the band and Franz mouthing the riff together and being obsessed with it. And that was After Secret of the World. I think that I remember writing out with Brendan in his dorm room. Like that was a long time ago. But yeah, that was a, that record was just like whatever we were excited to put out and write at the time. You know, so that was my memory of that one.

Starting point is 01:39:28 11 songs, 13 minutes was the, was the vibe at the time. Yeah. Yeah. That was the vibe. And that was kind of like going back to what, you know, especially like, like Justice and Brendan were, you know, like they're obviously very active, Angeluss and Turnstile then. They were writing a lot of music then. That was where, you know, their head was out for sure.

Starting point is 01:39:49 It was like, let's come in. Big case tonight was like pretty like, you know, each song had like multiple choruses. Very dense. Pretty produced, like produced in air quotes, but you know what I mean for a hardcore record. And then I think it was kind of like, oh, let's kind of do the opposite of that, you know, and just do fast, high-energy songs. And purposely, like, you know, we didn't have a, um, any like, you know, we didn't have like chat or someone helping, we record with Arthur, um, and just

Starting point is 01:40:13 busted it out, dude. And it was a super fun record to record. Yeah. I think, you know, seven years later, seven years has given it a lot of context. Yeah. And, you know, the time to grow and like as exists within the TUI discography. And it does, it really works as like a representation of who the band was in that era. Totally.

Starting point is 01:40:39 Which leads me to wonder who you are now. Yeah. I think it would be way different, honestly. Oh, interesting. I think so too. Yeah. Interesting. Times have changed, you know.

Starting point is 01:40:52 You know, you've, you've, you've, you've got fetus in your veins. Justice, I know is, I know he's got pits, he's got stuff to say that he can't say in any other band. I think it's time. It could be time. We've, we've kicked around the idea. I think if I, if I, if we were to do it again, I definitely want to do it like a, find a way to spend a lot of time, spend a lot of time writing on it type of deal. Yeah. just because at least personally that's what I'm most comfortable with.

Starting point is 01:41:26 It seems like it. Yeah, even listening to the story is like that's your writing method. Yep. And just getting to spend a lot of time sitting down and working on stuff alone with justice, you know, whatever. Like I think that would have to be achievable. I wouldn't want to like phone it in if we were going to do something else, you know. You can't. You can't. No reason to. Yeah. Well, that's the most reassuring thing too as like a fan of your band is knowing that you guys there's no pressure to do something when you're not ready to do it. Right. You know, so it's like having faith as a fan that like, when it's time, it's time.

Starting point is 01:42:01 And what we get as a listener is exactly what they want to deliver. And that's the best position to be in as like a fan of any particular band, you know. That's cool. Yeah. When writing, do you ever get stuck on a riff or a song where you've got a part you know is good? but you've got 15 different ways you want to do it. How do you decide which way is the correct way? And then how do you not regret it for the rest of your life?

Starting point is 01:42:34 I think at least what happens for me is I'll usually kind of get the ideas out that I have for a song and I'll usually get stuck to where I can't keep going by myself. Like I've never been good at just like writing end to end and just hey, it's done. So that's where it sucks to do. Yeah, like that's where writing with like justice or Bramson, Brandon or, you know, Justin, who is in Diamond. Like, it's kind of like, you go as far as you can, then hopefully someone else.

Starting point is 01:42:59 And by the way, I've written things that I thought were awesome and then, like, shared them with justice. And he's just kind of like, it's cool, but I can't really, like, figure out anything with this, like, vocally. And it's kind of just over, you know. So I think there has to be like a, here's like an idea. And then the person receives it and kind of like, if you can, because that's, you know, like, they'll show me something.

Starting point is 01:43:19 And they'll be stuck. And I'm like, oh, like, this is awesome. You can do this, this, this or that. Yeah, right. Same, same vice versa, right? So that's usually for me. I'll have like the thing I'm really excited about. That's kind of like the seed of a song,

Starting point is 01:43:31 but then it's usually like 50%, you know, and the main vibe is there, but then like figuring out how to finish it or whatever. That's usually like another person, at least for up for me. That's fair. I mean, you guys are living proof that like collaboration is the key to creation.

Starting point is 01:43:49 Yeah, I mean, yes and no. Like I think some bands think that you have to like, sit in a room together, like, and just jam to figure stuff out. Like, I would, I don't agree with that. Like, I think that's hard because it becomes kind of like decision by committee, you know. And I think there is something beautiful. I think every, every band, every good band has this where there's like, there's somebody that's like back there obsessing about something.

Starting point is 01:44:13 And you got to have a Josta. Got to have a Josta. You got to have a Jost. Rendon's like that for turnstile, like, justice is like that for Angel Dust. Nick's like that for terror you know like name your band like there's like someone who's like obsessing and they're not just sitting there

Starting point is 01:44:28 every successful band has a Jasta that's a good and that's a fact that's a fact yeah I mean dude but that's like that's also by the way like Jost is like one of the biggest influences for me for sure

Starting point is 01:44:43 like of course I remember being with someone that had toured with him early on and then being like dude Jostah took it so seriously. Like, he'd, like, roll up to shows with, like, a briefcase, you know,

Starting point is 01:44:55 and, like, just, like, like, took the band so serious. And that was, if you, like, toured with us early on,

Starting point is 01:45:02 you know how much of a joke it was. It was, like, you know, we were showing up late. You know, we'd show up, like, at our set time,

Starting point is 01:45:10 you know, or after, like, have no gear, like, be messing up songs, like, tuning on stage and,

Starting point is 01:45:16 like, dude, I don't think hardcore bands abided by load in until like three years ago. Well dude, we didn't, but then we were like Nick actually like an intervention with us. He was like he like sat me down. I remember it was in Oklahoma at like the venue there. They still have it in Tulsa. And he's like, dude, what are you guys

Starting point is 01:45:38 doing? Because we were on our first US tour just pulling up like right before our set time like a complete train wreck. He's like, you guys can't do that. Like you need to be here at load in. you need to leave at the appropriate time. You need to plan the day. I was like, oh, that's crazy. So you figure out when you're leaving the night before? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:45:57 That's insane, dude. Terror is literally the reason. That tour was literally the reason we started abiding by loading times and doing the hotel routine. Like, everything that we still do to this day because we learned it from ostensibly from Nick. I never did a full U.S. tour with terror. So I guess I missed out on that.

Starting point is 01:46:17 say i was too late but i had to figure it out other ways i think i needed terror yeah yeah that was i mean that was a turning point for us and but yeah dude like josta like beyond that stuff just like i think the attention to just like making really good songs like you can hear that pretty much the whole catalog especially like perseverance rise of brutality just like just like the structure of the songs and just how like memorable they were and oh man i think um i think um the time that this episode comes out, I think our first show on the Hayprey tour is tomorrow. I think if I'm doing that correctly.

Starting point is 01:46:56 I'm very excited. That's awesome. James and I were talking about it last night. I think it's with Hayprey and Carcas, I think it's the first bigger tour we've ever done where we're like going to watch the tour every night. Every night. And you're not.

Starting point is 01:47:08 Are you, and you're not one of four. We're two of four. Perfect. Yeah. Like right where I want to be. The dream. But yeah.

Starting point is 01:47:17 So obviously I'm sure it's going to be different than the early days of Jocel rolling up with a briefcase. Because he's got, he's got people to hold his briefcases now. That's true. I don't know that's true or not, but that's, that was what I heard. You could bring the briefcase now, but I could definitely be briefcase. I'll handcuff it. Briefcase bow. I'll have the numbers.

Starting point is 01:47:35 Yeah, but I mean, I'm excited to see how they function. Colin, you've toured with them a couple times. But I'm excited to see. Frank will be there anytime you want to talk about bluish or colt and kiss. Sick. and Matt Byrne will be warming up on a drum pad absolutely all night BD

Starting point is 01:47:54 BD is a he's a he's a he's a specter he'll be in and out you know yeah and then Jasta Josta will like beep boop boop emerge he'll vaporize in as they're starting and what I want you to really

Starting point is 01:48:11 pay attention to Bo is the set lists oh dude I already I already have thought about how I can't wait to see what they do. Because I know the hand signal of things. They're never written. There's just cues that they all know. You got to learn the cues and teach me the cues. That's so crazy. So crazy. But yeah, I'm excited to finally see how a band like that functions today because it can still be influential. You know, it could still be like, oh, that's a really good idea. Why are we not doing that?

Starting point is 01:48:42 Now, Sam, now that, you know, TUI is, uh, fuck, almost 20 years old at this point. Do you, do you look at TUI as the, as what defines your legacy as an artist? I mean, definitely a defining thing for sure. It's spent so much time and it's been cool to see like how people still care and still like, you know, newer bands still check it out and people still know us. and our shows are still pretty crazy. I'm also super proud of like the stuff we did with Diamond and like what I've done other areas of life. So I'm not like clinging to my,

Starting point is 01:49:22 my TUI legacy person. I wouldn't say it's clinging, but it's just, you know, I hope, I should say I hope that you take pride in the work that you have done and the, and the, the mark you have made with TUI.

Starting point is 01:49:37 Thanks, man. Yeah, for sure. I take pride in the fact that I think like, uh, I hope, at least that we opened up the door for people to do things that were more like authentic, you know, because I think in retrospect, if you look at everything that happened, you know, obviously us doing the band the way we did when we did it was like a very weird move. But that was like true to us and what we wanted to do.

Starting point is 01:49:59 And if you look at like angel dust or diamond or turnstile, like those are all bands that were like unusual things to do at the time. But it was like what the person really wanted to do and just like didn't have any fear about doing it. And that now is normal. Like now, like hardcore, like, it's not weird to listen to like turnstile and hate breed back to back or whatever. Whereas like early on for me, it's like if you weren't wearing like gym shorts and like a jersey and like spin kicking to whatever like beat down band like, you know, it's kind of like. We weren't the same. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:50:31 Unacceptable. You know, so I think legacy wise, I hope that is the case a little bit where I think we were able to help kind of like open the door to like people doing stuff that was. more unique to them. Because that, to me, like, if you look at, like,

Starting point is 01:50:45 the people in TY and, like, the bands that are in, like, it's because they're such unique people. Like,

Starting point is 01:50:51 if you think of, like, justice, we've already covered. It was like, you know, just... An enigma wrapped in a mission.

Starting point is 01:50:57 Enigma, yeah, like, he should be studied in a lab. He's, like, an absolute enigma.

Starting point is 01:51:04 Brendan just told, like, everyone in TY is so unique and different has their own talents and stuff. Brad, the king, and then Jared,

Starting point is 01:51:11 the like the fucking iron man yeah also all so different dude like yeah you know like some bands would pull up and I'll look the same and they're all like dressed the same they all act the same and they're like kind of sticking to the band script like TY is the opposite that everyone is completely different dresses different things different we call that the the bus stop band we used to say that about harm's way when Saba was in the band in particular is when we kind of yeah it's like those are just five guys waiting at a bus stop like you would know they're in the bus stop like you would know they're a band. I really like that. But to Collins' point, like, I don't, there's no derogatory sense in, like, the defining, you know, like, TUI's body of work defining you because a lot of what that is,

Starting point is 01:51:53 and kind of to what you're talking about with making it or showing that it's okay to do other things. It's like, there was also very much a ceiling and TUI is a band that, like, smashed through a scene. So there's no, like, it's not derogatory at all to be like, oh, yeah, one of the defining things of my life is like being involved in this band that influenced generations after. Yeah. Because hardcore generations are different than human generations. Very much. It's like every four years.

Starting point is 01:52:21 And TUI has been at the top for about five, six generations now. So it's pretty good. Let's get into some of our kind of standard hardware stuff here. First and foremost being that it is now officially fall and that the weather is getting cool and crisp and the ghouls and the goblins are out. Do you, Sam, believe in ghosts? I don't know, man. That's kind of how serious are we talking right now. I feel like I could kind of go down a rabbit hole on this. I want the rabbit in the hole. My openness to like spirituality and things existing beyond what you can see has increased in the

Starting point is 01:53:09 last several years. Because of kids? Yeah, I think that's a part of it. Yeah, you hear that. You hear that. Yeah, I think like, you kind of just start to figure out that everything can't be explained by this like really small set of like rules and like, you know, physically what we can see and control. So I'm more open to that. I don't think about like ghosts like Halloween ghosts, but I think like- Oh, see, I like those. I like those. All right. So I'm, yeah, I'm talking more broadly like the idea of there being like spirits or something that's like intangible. I'm I'm open to that. I'm happy to have that conversation. Have you ever had an experience yourself? Not really, man. There's

Starting point is 01:53:50 been times in my life where I look back and like something happened there. I've had moments where like there had to be some divine thing happening where like my wife and I were stuck in the desert one time because we got separated from someone. And like, We're crossing this insane cliff where we for sure were about to die. Like we were like last ditch. Hey, we're, we're going to die in like a few hours if we don't get out of here. But you genuinely thought that? It's a fact, dude.

Starting point is 01:54:20 Like we're in the desert for like 24 hours with no water. Which desert? In Utah. It was outside of Moab. And so we were with another girl that was like delusional. Like she was like so dehydrated that she was like falling off like she was done basically. And then me and Raquel were like, all right, let's try to climb up this cliff and get out of here. And then we're like climbing off this cliff and like rocks were like falling down like and it's like a hundred foot drop.

Starting point is 01:54:48 And then like as we're crossing it, we hear a whistle blow. And it's the parks rescue people. And like the fact that they were there right at that moment, we found out later that like people die every year trying to cross where we were crossing. Like they try to like get stuck and try to get out and people get hurt or die. So it's like stuff like that's happened where I'm just like, dude, like that couldn't have been luck, man. Were they blowing the whistle because they were like, get down from there or were they looking for you?

Starting point is 01:55:13 They were looking for us. Like, they were like blowing the whistle to see if like they heard us say anything back. So they had been looking for hours and it just so happened. God damn. And the other girl was like trapped in this place where she would have like, it was bad, dude. But it was just like. So she got out too?

Starting point is 01:55:29 She got out. Yeah. Delusional girl? It was insane, man. Holy shit. Are we in the rat? This is a good rabbit hole, right? Like this is this.

Starting point is 01:55:36 No. I'm in. I mean, because I know, I mean, Justice and Brendan were pretty, you know, like outly spiritual guys at the beginning there. So it's interesting to hear. Have you ever had a moment, Colin, where you were like, I really shouldn't have done that. That was really like similar to Sam's stories. Like that was really dangerous. That could have been.

Starting point is 01:55:57 Like, I'm glad that worked out. Like, it's crazy that that worked out. I've seen this happen to Colin one time, but I'll wait until Colin answers. Oh. Oh my God, you really have, man. Please. That was in Budapest. In Budapest, I think I've told this on here before that I was leaning against the sprinter door on a, I was sitting on a railing.

Starting point is 01:56:20 A railing that was like neck high. It was like a massive railing. It was very tall. So I was basically leaning against the top of the sprinter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And somebody opens it. I won't say who, leaves it open. I think it was sabotage.

Starting point is 01:56:34 And I go to lean back again. And I go head first into the pavement. Dude, it was like the gutter with the curb. It was like something off of like faces of death or something like that. It could not have been more brutally violent. It was like the worst possible. Like you saw it happening. It's like, you know, van wall is here.

Starting point is 01:56:56 Railings here. And there's just a curb in the street. And his like head just goes down between head first into the curb and like the street. It was horrible. What happened? I lost many brain cells that day. They're still gone. I like genuinely think I think I was maybe a little smarter before then.

Starting point is 01:57:20 Wow. That was horrific. I kind of played dead for a second because I was like, am I dead? Dude, I think I'm dead. He landed like the back of his head landed like on the curb and then his like body folded over his head. It looked like he was dead. There was a crowd of like eight people on the tour that thought I was dead for a second. Holy.

Starting point is 01:57:43 Was this like one of the first tours? This was my first European tour. You were a young boy, young. Yeah, I was just a lad. This is what I was seeing at Colin Young tagged all over every venue. Correct. I remember. And that moment was really funny because Justice gave me the marker and was like,

Starting point is 01:57:59 I need you to write something. And I needed to be good. After you fell? No, no, no. I was just on that tour that he imparted the wisdom of me. Like, you need to write your name because you're going to come back and people are going to see it. Yeah. And in that moment, I didn't know what to do.

Starting point is 01:58:14 So I just put my at. And he said, he looked at me and he said, you really came through, man. I have, I've talked about it, I'm sure, but somewhere I have a big flyer from when we went shortly after your tour there, like the Rise of All Nails Harm's Way tour. And on it, you wrote, Taylor is a big. Because your brother was going to be on the tour with us. I took it. I have it. It was like a month later.

Starting point is 01:58:40 Yeah. I went hiking one time in Colorado and we hiked up Arapaho to the top of this glacier. And I was like, I want to go touch that ice. That just seems cool. I want to touch the, and I like went down this like really loose, rocky thing into a crevasse. And I was like, I touched it. And I was like, I should get the hell out of here. Like, this is really, like, I was immediately like, if anything happens, I'm fucked.

Starting point is 01:59:09 Oh, yeah. This is the dumbest thing I've done in my adult life. And, like, I very carefully, like, slowly got after. And, like, I've had dreams about falling into a fucking crevice because of that. Damn. You think something, like, spiritual came into you at that point. I don't. I think it was my, like, a natural sense of, like, survival of being like, hey, if, if you fall,

Starting point is 01:59:33 you're with one other person, they're not going to be able to get you out. There's no cell phone service. There's no one up here. What are you doing? I think the other spirits, Sam, the bad ones, are guiding me towards evil. They want me to rock, you know? And I have to be like, guys, I don't have time today. I have to do this episode with Sam.

Starting point is 01:59:53 We can sacrifice later, okay? Where to now? I want to know what he's eaten. Oh, yes. T-Y. You know they eat good. I've seen Justice Eat maybe 32 white castles. So when TUI and, you know, let's say it's Big Kiss Goodnight era, you finally got an extra

Starting point is 02:00:16 hundred bucks to eat, you know? Hell yeah. What is the band unanimously choosing to stop and get? That era, it's straight to Taco Bell. So this is in the era of meal deals. I don't know if they still do them at Taco Bell, but this was like the- They do boxes now. The box.

Starting point is 02:00:35 Craving's box. The introduction of the meal deal was about 2010 or 11. Major milestone in TUI history. Two bucks for a five-lar burrito, a bag of Doritos, and a medium drink. Yeah. So that was, I mean, we were, I mean, we lived just a disgusting lifestyle back then. It was like McDonald's breakfast, like subway lunch, Taco Bell after the show. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:01:01 I mean, the big three, that's the unholy Trinity. That's what they say. Now, Sam, let me ask you, because I'm interested in your fitness and your dieting to an extent. What would the answer be today? Today, T-UI is posted up at Whole Foods for like hours per day when we tour. We're hitting a hot bar multiple times at the hot bar. We're getting bags full of food from Whole Foods. that's like kind of our gathering place now let me ask you this same have you had the hot bar

Starting point is 02:01:37 from errone yes i have amazing that'll do it every time it's about 500 times more than the whole food one which is free um so that there is that yeah but but my god it's good yeah the whole band i would say is like uh in a healthier era now Yeah. I mean, it was just all out, just mayhem back then with. Jared in particular, I think, went from like guy who had worked out at some point to like, if he told me to do something physically, I believe him. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:02:17 Like absolute Spartan-esque physical prowess. I mean, he lives like a Spartan-esque lifestyle now. Yes. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, so what's what tell me about what's a what's a day for you like now These days Uh, we're up pretty early

Starting point is 02:02:40 How how early? 4.30 to 5. No. No. I went to bed at four. I lost you on that. No, no. I did that for a little bit and then, and then, uh,

Starting point is 02:02:54 the deep the demons got to you. No, and then spring forward happened two years ago. Oh, yeah. And I fell off. I never fell back. Never fell back. No. Yeah,

Starting point is 02:03:05 so we're up pretty early. Wow. Straight into the gym. Yeah. 5 a.m. No coffee, no number two, nothing?

Starting point is 02:03:14 This has been something I've gone back and forth on. I like coffee before what it does cause some digestive issues. Yeah, yeah. Midset, you might have to go. I mean, I just finished my coffee and I'm...

Starting point is 02:03:28 Yeah, I'm churning here. I'm I'm I'm God Steve, bleeped just that word You know, I become a fan

Starting point is 02:03:41 of going to the gym earlier rather than later Because these days Oh, you have to do If I go late I'm starting to dread it Right

Starting point is 02:03:49 The later I go, I'm starting to dread it And getting it done early feels so fucking good Getting it done, you know The, what's funny

Starting point is 02:03:56 is getting it done early for you is like you're finally showered and you're sat down at your desk for your day at 6 p.m. Tell them about the brief combo we had last night about the episode today. Oh, I said, hey, man, is 1230 good for you tomorrow? And he said with a set, he sent the sad face emoji and said, I'll set an alarm. I thought that was in reaction to 10.30. 1230.30.

Starting point is 02:04:24 I'm 1230 in Chicago. Oh, man. I'm sorry to rip you out of bed, man. No, no, no, he needs to be ripped out of bed. I did wake up. I do generally wake up around that time, but I did set an alarm. That was not. Wow.

Starting point is 02:04:35 So after the gym, what are we doing? Oh, uh, well, let's talk about at the gym. Oh, you want to get into it? Wow. What's your, what's your weekly split? Yeah, what's the split? So I've been, uh, training with, uh, Chris Martin. Do you know him?

Starting point is 02:04:51 He was in hostage calm. He does Boston Barbell now. Cool. Okay. I thought you were talking about the guy from Coldplay. No, not in person, but he's been like helping me program and coaching. Oh, okay. We've been doing that for a few months and it's pretty sick.

Starting point is 02:05:10 Like, he's, he's awesome. He has to be doing all kinds of stuff. But, yeah, lots of like, you know, benching, squatting, rowing stuff, you know. But like. Old school. He's got like all the types of like tempo stuff built in there, like more technical things than I would think to do. because without that, I'm pretty like Neanderthal, like, squatting like the deadlifts, like, you know, no tempo anything, no real progression.

Starting point is 02:05:36 Are you five days a week? Yeah, five days a week. So there are pretty long workouts, you know, like I'm doing five until 630 basically. And then kids wake up at 630 that I'm kind of watching them making breakfast until whatever 830 is that time frame. I go to work, you know, at 9. I work here out of this office. How far is this office from where?

Starting point is 02:06:02 What's your commute like? 10 minutes. Okay. It's a beautiful downtown Cortaline. Nice. And could you talk about what you do professionally? Yeah. So I work for a tech company that I actually helped start with a few other friends.

Starting point is 02:06:18 Actually, people from hardcore. Dude, Alex Pines, who was actually in Carol back in the day. Oh, cool. I don't know if you guys know him, but he's like, if you were from. Baltimore, D.C. You would know him. Okay. Him and then K.

Starting point is 02:06:31 Usui, we started this company five or six years ago. And with someone that was a client of ours. And now it's like a real company, which is cool. That's awesome. A lot of people work for it now, at least in relative terms, like 120 people or something. Oh, wow. Basically do that full time. And it's a financial tech company around estate planning, which is.

Starting point is 02:06:56 Hell yeah. Basically, like, what happens when you die, like all the planning that happens after you die. All the taxes and whatnot. There's a lot of stuff that happens. Bordal, dude. Yeah, so we're doing that and been doing that for a while. I was doing design before that. Like, my background's in design.

Starting point is 02:07:12 I was had a design agency with Alex and went to school for design and all that. So that's nine to five, basically. And then family time, early bedtime. So, like. Yeah, how early? What were we talking? Nine o'clock, you know, 839. the kids how old are the kids five three and oh sorry five almost three and six months okay so you got them on

Starting point is 02:07:36 nine p.m. now but someday that's gonna change brother you might have a bow you might have a bow on your hands i mean hopefully not too soon like we're trying to keep it pretty consistent they can they can do that when they're like uh adults but yeah just keep them away from fucking world of warcraft oh yeah there's there's none of that in idaho we don't have that here so no war craft no no warcraft no no internet that you had to go to the office to get internet so that yeah i got you just culturally speaking they're not into that stuff here it's a little what's the vibe there um have you been up this way before no i haven't been to the northern northern version of idao i think yeah well first of all it's like super mountainy like lakes like great outdoor

Starting point is 02:08:21 area um cool like you're close to four lakes right here like i'm walking distance to one right here um now why idaho sam uh we did a couple moves since we had our our first son um that was we were in california we moved to richmond and then wanted to settle down somewhere raise our kids and uh my wife rakel lived here for a few years when she was younger and beautiful she's like hey it's pretty awesome there and you know we kind of just she still had some family here and uh we yeah it's just kind of locked in for us. It was also kind of like the COVID like remote work shift. So probably would have been like a bizarre move free COVID. But then once it happened,

Starting point is 02:09:07 it was kind of like all bets are off and people are moving all over. So yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean like amazing move for us. Like it's so good here. It's like I wish people could visit more easily. Like I wish it was off the New Jersey Turnpike or something. So what's what's the airport? What's the is Spokane? Spokane. Wow. Yeah. Oh wow. There's probably have many directs, huh? It's probably Seattle and then a layover. Yeah, you do Seattle, Salt Lake. Yeah. I think there's some directs to the bay, like to Oakland.

Starting point is 02:09:33 Okay. Cool. But yeah, there's just like a great airport. Great, great airport. Great restaurants. Salt, legit, probably my favorite one. Me too. I was there for a couple hours after 8-1-8.

Starting point is 02:09:45 I just love it there. My company's headquarters is there. Like, we go there all the time. Nice. Yeah, it's super like, like everyone has a family here. Everyone has kids. Yeah. People love.

Starting point is 02:09:56 that you have kids here. It's like kind of old fashioned. You know, people are like, the downtown here is like straight out of a movie. And you're usually moving here to like, like a horror movie where it's like before the killer starts killing and everybody's happy.

Starting point is 02:10:10 Yeah. Yeah. It's like the happy place before they're going. Okay. That's cool. I love those parts. Yeah. I wish they were like that all the time.

Starting point is 02:10:17 Yeah. So it's like, yeah, it's just, it's awesome here, man. Yeah. Beautiful. I'm happy for you.

Starting point is 02:10:23 Yeah. That's you found, found peace. I hope that you. I hope that you can find some war within soon so that new TUI can exist. So I need something, I need something, I need a mild inconvenience in your life soon. That makes you go, I got to write a song about that. I'll see what I can do.

Starting point is 02:10:44 It's all, I feel like it's all within already. Like the music is there, but it's just been a time thing. Pull it out. We've got pull it out to you. We'll figure it out. We can talk offline and figure something out. I got to get on a schedule or something. Sounds good.

Starting point is 02:10:59 Final question, Sam. Yes. Well, we'll have two-parter, really. Could you give me, and you take all the time you need, could you give me top four Baltimore, hardcore records of all time, and then top four hardcore records of all time, period? I'll start with all-time off-the-cuff. Baltimore might be harder.

Starting point is 02:11:19 All-time for me, it's probably madball, hold it down. I'm not going in super strict order, but like out four contenders hold it down is my favorite madball record love it probably state of the world dress probably probably rise of brutality yeah love it love it and probably master killer you get it man we're on the same page dude i can't believe that you love say the world address i think there's so few people i get to talk to about how good stay of the world Maybe I'll run it back at the gym tonight. Listen to the first 10 seconds.

Starting point is 02:12:01 Straight up, dude. That opening, the, it's the state of the water dress. Motherfucker. That's such a dynamic record. So much happens. So influential, dude, just the first 10 seconds. Sam, what year did you graduate high school? 04.

Starting point is 02:12:21 04, okay. Baltimore, man, I'm not going to be good at this because I'm not like a good historian. And I can tell you like like stout to me and I mean it's dude there's only so many options. I don't know a ton about gut instinct to be on to be honest. Like I know their hits. Stout I have seen like 100 plus times and it's like I literally have never listened to Stout on recording before. I'm not even joking.

Starting point is 02:12:43 And you don't. You like don't even need to because you know every song. You just know every song is back to back. Just from I used to live, you know, like a mile or left from the from like art space and like sidebar. Like I would just go to stout shows like on a Tuesday. night by myself and there'd be like you know 40 people there and like watched out at like 11 p.m. You know it's just like they play like every week basically.

Starting point is 02:13:05 You cannot. I love that 11 p.m. is your benchmark for like a crazy time. It's the witching. That's like an unimaginably late time is 11 p.m. in your mind. I'm trying to paint like a dark picture like a show that's not abiding by any rules versus like actually dawn. Yeah. But it's that was real man.

Starting point is 02:13:24 And the next step up, dude, I don't know. Like, again, like, I don't know their discography, like, record for record. It's just kind of like, it's just the music has absorbed into me. And just, you know, like, in terms of Baltimore bands, you only have so many options. I feel like, like, those three are so influential for me, especially Stout, you know, because I just sold Stout so much. And just like- You can definitely, you can trace those, connect those dots for sure from Stout to T-Y stuff.

Starting point is 02:13:52 Yeah. And also just like those dudes are like mythical. Like if you watch actually I'm I'm good friends with Will Kallin that's in like, you know, gridiron, never any game. And he sent me a video of Stout playing the other day from like 2008. And it was actually a show that we played. And you're just like looking at them on stage. It's just like they're so legendary. You know, like Tad just has like the wife beater and just looks and sounds insane.

Starting point is 02:14:17 Josh, their guitar player is wearing like jeans that the pant legs are like this big around. You know, and just like baggy, like three or four X shirt, like some type of hat, you know, like just that the vibe is so good. And then, um, and Sleep Bitch is now back on streaming everywhere for the first time in a long time. So check that out. I just can't, I honestly can't imagine listening to them on recording. Like it's just the live is so important for Stout, I feel like. I promise you, it's still good, recorded. Okay.

Starting point is 02:14:46 Yeah, I mean, it's great. You got to hear it recorded. You should check them out. It's on Spotify. I'll check it out. Yeah. Good. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:14:56 I feel like Will Kaelin is like your modern. He's your muse. Dude. Will and I talk all the time. Like it's so weird because we essentially had zero crossover in terms of like active touring time. Like if his bands were bands back then, we would have toured together all the time. All the time. We would have been best friends, you know.

Starting point is 02:15:17 And it's like, I mean, he's literally 10 years younger than me. So it's. it's insane. Like when we were touring like big kiss when that was coming out, he was like in middle school. Yeah. Oh,

Starting point is 02:15:26 I remember a very young Will moshing for. He was, he was up front in a marauder shirt when we were playing. There was nobody there. This is in Grand Rapids in the biggest room that's ever. This was like,

Starting point is 02:15:37 it felt like fucking red rocks and there were six people there and Will is one of them. And he's wearing a like the life is paying shirt and I was like, hey, it was like me addressing him personally being okay, man,

Starting point is 02:15:48 because you're the guy here, you're the only guy here. We're going to play a Master Killer. So I need you to mosh really hard. And he was like, okay. And he did. So it was good. What a great lad. Sam, this has been a blast.

Starting point is 02:16:04 Yeah. Already 2.15. You know, I'm glad that the newer generation is going to get to know. Oh, let me ask you something, Sam. Are you still straight-edge? I don't, I wouldn't say that I like self-identify as that anymore, but I don't I've never drank or done drugs or anything so now what is the choice to not self-identify as that why would you do that I just don't feel as strongly about the like I think it's like smoking weed

Starting point is 02:16:29 now I think it's a lot different than it was back when I was first straight-edge and I was like 15 you know like my opinion about at least that has changed because back then it was like your friends were smoking weed and drinking and you're just like oh I'm straight-edged I don't do that so I'm not a fan of drugs in general but like like I'm not a fan of drugs in general but like like I don't care if people are like, you know, doing. Well, it's not about caring what other people are doing. It's a personal journey, Sam. Oh, I have, yeah, I just, I just don't.

Starting point is 02:16:56 That's not the reason that I do it now. You know what I mean? Like my, I think it'd be inauthentic for me to self-identify a straight edge because I just like don't care about that anymore. But I do still think it's for me, not it. It's not for me is what I'm saying. Okay. So Sam is still straight edge is what he's telling you.

Starting point is 02:17:13 We claim him. We still claim him. We claim Sam. In broad strokes, wait, are you guys? Oh, yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. You didn't know that? Then we failed.

Starting point is 02:17:25 Then we failed, though. Yeah, you can claim me. I just, like, I just, I've like gradually just like, I don't really think about that anymore, but, you know. I think, I mean, Colin, you think you're going to be an 80-year-old guy saying your straight-edge? I know you're going to sit. But on my deathbed, I've told you, on my deathbed will be the craziest speedball combo you've ever seen. And that's how I will go out on purpose.

Starting point is 02:17:49 You know, I promise you that. I will say like Nick Fury had a song that was called Teenage Straight Edge. It was like when we were like 18 or 19. And the whole concept of the song was like, you know, older people saying like, oh, you're going to break edge eventually. Like, and the whole song was like, no, I'm not. Like you'll break before I do. And it's pretty cool because at least like they did.

Starting point is 02:18:07 Because every one did. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that's, I firmly believe I needed straight edge the most from 14. to 19. Absolutely. 1000%. That was like such a sick.

Starting point is 02:18:20 Like that was kind of my whole entry to hardcore because I was like at the aid for people start going to parties and stuff. And I was like, God, man, I don't feel like party guy. Like I'm not trying to go like smoke weed and get drunk. Like that seems stupid. But then it's a negative, right? It's like kind of like I'm just like whatever. And then you find this whole group of people that are like, no, that's awesome.

Starting point is 02:18:42 Like, hell yeah. Like don't do that stuff. Exactly. You get a bag of tomatoes at the store. You go outside the party. You have a way better time. So anybody listening that went to high school with me that there were tomatoes thrown. Look, look no further.

Starting point is 02:19:00 Yeah. So good. You're still straight hitching. In broad strokes. Yeah. That's what that's right. Whatever stroke, you know, whatever stroke you need to stroke, it works for me. I want to try to keep you on as long as possible to see how long you can go before

Starting point is 02:19:14 or shitting your pants. I'm not right now. I am. It's close. I'm about to have my first son. Are there any, you know, imparting words of wisdom you would like to leave to either the listeners or young hardcore songwriters out there or fellow edgeman like yourself? I don't know, man.

Starting point is 02:19:39 I think my observation at least has been that the coolest bands come from like the most interesting and coolest people you know so I think like I think going back to the whole idea of like being authentic and not being scared about what people think like I think that's what makes good bands you obviously have to be a good musician and like good at songwriting like that's equally important but if you're like if you're not able to be authentic and kind of be interesting as a person like your band's not going to be very interesting you know so I think every cool band has like very weird interest and unique cool people in them and that's because those people are just like fully being

Starting point is 02:20:11 themselves, you know, so I think like, I think the world needs more bands and people that are fully being themselves and then like fully expressing that and not being weird about like, well, it's not really popular right now. We kind of want to sound like madball or like turnstile or whatever. It's kind of like, just do whatever you think is cool and people may think it's stupid or it might be something that like people are like, oh my God, I've never heard something like that, you know, so it's just, I think your potential impact as a band is much bigger when you are willing to kind of just do whatever weird thing feels right for you. Love that.

Starting point is 02:20:44 Well said. Well said. Fantastic. Damn, that was one of my favorite sign-offs in history. That was really good. Well-South. Because that was genuinely great advice. And true.

Starting point is 02:20:57 And true. And your proof of it. Sam, thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah. You know, we love having you. We thank you for your contributions to this beautiful world. And we hope there are more. Well, thank you.

Starting point is 02:21:13 There may be more. Good. Thank you all so much for watching. Put T.UI on today. Put some Diamond Youth on today, formerly known as Diamond. Put a biohazard on, apparently. Put some state-of-the-world address on for sure. And have yourself a great day.

Starting point is 02:21:30 Get inspired. We will see you next week. Thank you all so much. Bye.

HardLore - Sam Trapkin (Trapped Under Ice)

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