HardLore - Thomas Pearson (Foundation)

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

One of the most consistently requested guest since the beginning of HardLore: THOMAS PEARSON, vocalist of Atlanta's FOUNDATION finally joins us for an epic 3-hour episode documenting Foundation's beginning, ending, and everything in between. Since their breakup in 2016, Atlanta's FOUNDATION has become a mythical band to new fans of hardcore music, a band who's message carried as much meaning and weight as their now-iconic metallic twist on straight edge hardcore. We discuss Thomas' beginnings as a hardcore kid inspired by frontmen who went above and beyond to use their time on stage as a platform to do good, his bands before Foundation, how writing evolved when Hank joined the band, putting everything they had (at the time) into their one and only LP, and finally going out on their shield with their best record. This was one of our favorite conversations in the history of the show, enjoy. HardLore is now on Patreon! Join now to watch every single weekly episode early and ad-free, alongside exclusive monthly episodes: https://patreon.com/hardlorepod HardLore Official Website/HardLore Records store: https://hardlorepod.com Join the HARDLORE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/jA9rppggef Get 20% OFF @manscaped + Free Shipping with promo code HARDLORE at MANSCAPED.com! #ad #manscapedpod FOLLOW FOUNDATION: INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/foundationatl/ TWITTER | https://www.twitter.com/foundationatl FOLLOW THOMAS: INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/mikejudge/ FOLLOW HARDLORE: INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/hardlorepod/ TWITTER | https://twitter.com/hardlorepod SPOTIFY | https://spoti.fi/3J1GIrp APPLE | https://apple.co/3IKBss2 FOLLOW COLIN: INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/colinyovng/ TWITTER | https://www.twitter.com/ColinYovng FOLLOW BO: INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/bosxe/ TWITTER | https://www.twitter.com/bosxe Check out our merch at https://knotfest.com/store/?view=hardlore Find all of our videos at https://knot1.co/3vWXsbx TIMESTAMPS 00:00:00 - Start 00:00:49 - Introduction 00:01:50 - The Reason for the Season 00:08:20 - A realization of becoming a Mt Rushmore Band 00:13:03 - Harms Way x Foundation Tours 00:17:30 - Thomas Pearson, the straight edge speech guy 00:20:01 - Bands Prior To Foundation 00:24:24 - Atlanta before Foundation 00:32:47 - Atlanta Hijinks 00:39:23 - Bad Boy (hood) Stuff 00:50:53 - Pardon This Interuption 00:53:35 - Foundation Lore 00:56:07 - Hang Your Head 01:03:32 - When The Smoke Clears 01:14:45 - Being A Teacher 01:17:49 - Tours between HYH and WTSC 01:22:29 - Tour Incidents... 01:34:13 - Foundation Touring Europe 01:43:32 - Banana microphone incident 01:46:58 - Shopping Cart Incident 01:55:26 - Releasing an Iron Boots Record 02:03:01 - Colin's recent AMC incident 02:12:25 - Foundation playing a show with Millionaires and Brokencyde 02:17:35 - The Breakup of Foundation 02:24:26 - Turncoat 02:29:44 - Ghosts 02:36:02 - Eating on tour with Foundation 02:39:28 - A Speech 02:41:57 - Final Two Assignments   HardLore: A Knotfest Series, Fueled by Monster Energy Edited by Steven Grise • Title sequence by Nicholas Marzluf Join the HARDLORE PATREON to watch every single weekly episode early and ad-free, alongside exclusive monthly episodes. Join the HARDLORE DISCORD for community discussions and to participate in our future Q&A episodes. FOLLOW HARDLORE: INSTAGRAM, TWITTER, SPOTIFY, APPLE FOLLOW COLIN: INSTAGRAM FOLLOW BO: INSTAGRAM, TWITTER   For sponsorship opportunities, email us! [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Subscribe to the all-new Hardlore Patreon now for early, ad-free access to every episode and an exclusive episode every month. When it's my time, like when I get a chance to go up there, I'm not going to waste that opportunity. Like, anytime a band gets up on stage, I don't care if you're playing in your friend's basement or you're playing a big room to a sold-out crowd. Like, you have a platform. And it's almost, I'm not getting on to bands who don't do this, but it's like it's almost your responsibility to use it. Hello, welcome. It's Hardlore Time. How are you, Bo? I'm doing very well. Who we got today? This is a big, big week. We have eight years after their incredible final show. One of the seminal, one of the preeminent straight-edge, hardcore frontmen in modern history, he's nodding.

But I'm not wrong. Mr. Coach Thomas Pearson. Hello. How are you, Thomas? I'm good. I'm good. Doing all right. Just got back from the movies. So I'm feeling okay right now.

What'd you see? What'd you see? Strange darling. I got a story about that last night that I could break into at any moment here. But, you know, this is about you, Thomas. You might as well. It's poignant while we're talking about movies. Lord, is it ever poignant.

Thomas, let's just get right into it. Okay. Okay. Because, you know, 8. years after a, what some would consider a perfect ceremonious sendoff that Bo played. What now made Foundation ready to come back and play again? Wow, that's a layered question. I know.

I got to give the people what they want immediately. So I'm going to try to do the band justice. Everything I tell is going to be from my perspective and my memory and my understanding. standing at the events. But about a year ago, Andrew was kind of Andrew Wright, the guitar player, Big Known. He was still kind of actively playing in some bands. And, you know, his favorite stuff to write was still hardcore songs. He wanted to write hardcore songs. And so when he wanted to think of other musicians to play with them, of course, his list was champ, Hank, Caleb. and then somehow I kind of got talked into the picture as well

and then we realized that if we were going to be in a band together it would it felt like it would be silly to start a new band and it would be the exact same composition of the previous band that would be so yeah um and then so you know there was talks of like well let's like hear hear me out I got some rich and stuff like that and they sounded good and they sounded like foundation songs so we're like okay like maybe this is like an indecision most precious blood type thing

And we could do that route. And then when we initially had that idea, we were like, okay, we'll maybe we'll play some shows. We'll reach out to some people and see what it's like out there. And it kind of just quickly, like, escalated almost snowballed too rapidly for anybody's taste. And it kind of spooked everyone. And we're like, we don't want to do it. How, like, let's just shut it down. Like, well, maybe this show will lead to this show and then we can go do this and then we could do that.

And then maybe we could write another EP. And then, you know, that kind of just scared everybody because, like, for me personally, I like where I'm at in my life. I love, I love teaching. Teaching. E-sports. Yeah, e-sports. Coaching.

I have kids that I'm actively trying to bring up in the world. Champ, you know, as well, small business owner. He's got kids. Hank really big in the tattooing scene. He's, like, making a name for himself. Andrews just recently started a family. And so it just kind of like, it felt scary because when we were playing as a band, what about Caleb?

Sorry, and Caleb, yeah, he's playing in other bands. He's keeping himself busy when he's not on the road, like when he's getting home. And then so, you know, a big thing about when Foundation was a band is we kind of just put, we put our lives on a shell. Not to quote blacklisted here, but we put everything on a shell to go do with this band. Like we just didn't really have lives. And so the thought of doing that again, I think really spooked everybody. But that wasn't the intention.

We just all thought that that's what was going to happen. So we just said, no. It just kind of stopped at cold turkey. What was that? What happened recently is I kind of got into the headspace of like, I don't really get to see my friends that often. I'll pop in and see Champ every once in a while at the shop. At a guilty party?

Yeah, a guilty party. Here's the address. I'll pop in and see Hank at the shop every once. in a while. I really get to see Andrew because he kind of lives north of the city now. And I'll see Caleb whenever, whenever he was kind of in the area. And I'm like, it feels like the only time we really get to see each other is when we're playing together. And I really want to see these people again. And I don't know, I think we just wanted to play.

We just wanted to play with play shows again. I don't know what happens. That's kind of, I mean, that's exactly. Well, you guys did that in that interview with weekend nachos with Drew and John. I thought they kind of had some poignant things to say about it where it's like when you're younger and everything's very black and white we're breaking up and that's it. Yeah.

And then as like a few years of past, it's kind of like maybe it's not so black and white. Maybe we can do some shows every once in a while and we don't have to pause everything we're doing to accommodate the band. And that's that's kind of universally how hardcore is now. Yeah. So it's like you guys really got out right before the whole thing changed. Yeah.

It is funny to think that I, You can see foundation with your current makeup and everybody's personal lives and everything fitting really well into it. And I'm sure it's what we're going to see fitting really well into the incendiary mind force, God's hate, even, you know, like weekend warriors. Yeah, weekend warriors, able to do what you can when you can because you want to because it's fun, you know. Yes. Which is very different than have to because rent is due.

You know, it's nice. It's kind of more pure. in a way it is well and luckily have heart really broke the the barrier of we broke up just kidding they broke the seal they broke the seal they broke up and then came back and played the biggest hardcore show of all time so yeah so foundation in the Atlanta 2026 is going to be I would never put us on the same scale as a band like that I'm I'm honestly just grateful that anybody would give a shit eight years later Well, there's an entire generation of hardcore listeners, Bo and I have found, through doing our vast research the past two years on the streets at the shows everywhere.

An entire generation that looks at Foundation as like the straight edge band for their era. And I think Bo and I like actively watched that happen in real time. They missed it. They like missed out because not only were, had you guys been broken up, but then. Then when COVID happened and this like concentration, like everything renders down and like people, I don't know, it seemed like people were like, well, what are the straight edge bands? We've all done it, right? We've all done it with like the older bands. Yeah.

Like when you and I were younger, the like the younger people who didn't get to see you guys, that all rendered out. And you have foundation. You have half heart. You have bands like that. They never got to see them. So you become one of those bands, you know. On your way out, you accidentally. became this prolific

like Mount Rush for a straight edge man. Was there a specific moment where you kind of realized that was the case or are we breaking news to you right now? Talking about like self-importance or something that just goes.

Yeah, how important are you to yourself? You know, I think God every day I wake up, me. No, I don't know. No, no, I don't. It's weird to reflect on that, but to not acknowledge the fact that we help

kind of put Georgia and Atlanta on the radar for so many people nationally. I'm not going to deny that. Yeah, sure. To be put as like a Rushmore like a straight edge band, like that's crazy to me. I'll only take that because there's so few of us edgemen left

that, you know, I know that you guys have felt it over the last few years where it's like Highlander, like I've just gotten stronger every time someone falls. 100%. Yeah, but that's kind of the point we're making now. There's a whole new crop. And now what's happening is there's a whole new crop

that we're going to outlast in the highland ourselves, too. That is true. But before they break, they really love Foundation. They got to see a foundation. Yes. Like, how I describe this? Even the ones that kind of were there for the end, it was like an overnight thing of like,

I watched Foundation struggle on this comeback kid tour. Oh, yeah. And we'll talk about that. in a minute. And then a month later, the universal sentiment was like, Foundation is the greatest

strategist band of all time. I've seen him a thousand times. I've never missed a gig. I love him so much. Everybody loves him. Can't believe they're going away. You know. I was like,

you killed him by not going to this comeback kit tour. I mean, Thomas, is it true that like, and I'm just asking, like, because this was,

this was, as Colin is saying, kind of the perception, like, the last tour that Foundation did was your best tour. agreed the band would even agree to that like yeah it felt like i feel like this happens with anybody that was kind of doing like that era of like we're

gonna play the last few shows where it's like well i better get off my ass and go see him because this is probably going to be the last time so if people by those bands do you mean only foundation and bane well how far did the did the final tour as well they did they had but that was a couple years before a solid 10 for sure but we to be fair we didn't do a full US. We just, we did like three East Coast, three Midwest, and three East Coast shows. Because again, the thought of doing a full tour at that point in our lives, we're like, no, please no more. Like we're tapping out, please no more. And we just wanted to go to like select areas that had been really good to us. So like Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, where else we go,

Wilkesbury, Long Island. Did you play Richmond? We play Richmond on United Blood. Okay, that was so Foundation was like made for me It had to have been United Blood Was it the Cromag's here? Yes Yeah, so it was it was like Cromag's Rise and Fall Converge

Right Bad Seed plate so I think that was 08 or 09 That was 09 that was the year of pulling teeth played And the sprinkler got busted The sprinkler went off this right But that was so that was I watched you guys from behind champ

and there were more Atlanta shirts than any other in the room. And it was this realization for me as like, oh, holy shit, like, this is the band, I guess. They did it? Yeah, like, they did it. You know, I vividly remember that. So it's funny you would bring that up because I always, I would joke with people all the time. If you get the third spot on Friday, United Blood, that's, that's the breakout set. Like, I don't remember the band, the year before us, I don't remember which band had it.

it, but it was like the next year for them was awesome. And then we had it that year. And the next year was like our growing year. Like we really had a lot of growth that year as far as like going out against on the country and having people come out to the shows. And then the year after we broke up, I think AOP, which was Caleb's band of Use of Power. They played it. And then they had like, you know, pretty good success as well.

So I'm always like, hey, if you get the third spot on Friday. You're saying third from the bottom or from the top? third from the bottom. Damn, good for you, man. Yeah. That's crazy. Because you remember, it was Friday was like an afternoon set. That's true.

Yeah, yeah, it was a shorter day. It was like a half day almost. Fucking perfect, perfect set. It's perfect fest. Come on back now. Jesus. Yeah. Okay, so how many times have we toured together, Thomas?

Oh, fuck. It feels like 100. Well, because there was convicted as well. Yes. And that's how I got to. know you guys and that's how that's when i i found out that bow was a good dude so can i tell a story real quick before we get into that sure foundations tell a great deal foundation's first u.s tour us and forfeit from syracuse yeah uh wildcats old band uh just hanging on by shoe string didn't get invited

to any of the major fest that year like this is our course out of fury so we're still kind of touring in that pathway but kind of behind everybody else we're kind of chewing on their breadcrumbs uh we play chicago we play i don't know where we played some some weird rec hall that have like a dance studio across from it it was near that like four tiered like military store i don't know belmont army so that would have been boy near there oh oh it was um it was the galaxy was the galaxy i think it was yeah smaller show not going to complain first time in chicago decent little crew people came out we played with uh luke's other band no risk no reward yes and you were there with i think clinton you guys and you were there with i think

Clint and you guys were packing the Harmsway 7-inch. That's right. And I remember being like, and I didn't know this. I didn't know that, like, you don't know me. I don't know you, but I was just like, hey, what's up? I was like, oh, cool, Harmsway 7-inch. And you were just like, yeah. Dude, there's so many stories.

There are so many stories of me, like my first time meeting people where I'm just a total asshole. I don't. It feels impossible to me. I know. It's like it breaks my heart because I cannot fathom it. Maybe I've never seen. I've seen you accosted by strangers left and right.

And I've only seen a cherub, you know? Yeah, I can't, I cannot fathom it. But this isn't the first report, so I have to believe. Yeah, I know. I know it. I'm learning this about myself. And now my greetings are like, hi, how are you really good? Because I just like, Jesus.

In your defense, though, I don't think you were not being cordial. I think you were a guy who was sitting there packing 4007 inches by hand. Yeah, yeah. It's the middle of summer. You know, like, you're doing something slightly stressful. You've probably seen 900 shows that summer because this is the time when everybody was touring their asses off all the time. And it was probably just like a, yeah, okay, cool.

Yeah, that place. We'll talk later if we cross paths again, but like right now is not the exact moment. Yeah, that place only did shows for a little while. The last expired youth show was there. The last convicted show was there. you know a handful of others so it's funny that you remember it because i honestly kind of almost forgot about it that you never forget your first tour you remember every shitty little detail well interestingly something that ties in with you was the first time top foundation and like

us tour it was convicted and it was alpha omega was the other band on the tour obviously you weren't on the tour but that's a little tie in with you interesting just in general and he was mostly East Coast. We picked up Alpha and Omega on the West Coast because we were limping back to the East Coast. Yeah, I don't think we made it to the West Coast, though, did we? Oh, great question.

I don't think we picked you up in like Arizona or Texas or something? We linked up again because you played the Atlanta show. Charlie could like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we only did East Coast because Charlie couldn't really go. He was an iron worker. He couldn't like go too much. Like he had to work. But I remember, one thing I remember vividly

was us playing the church in Boston, which was like a big, a big deal. Suicide file played like a surprise set. It was like a whole whole thing. But yeah, that was when I remember, I was like, oh, the foundation guys are like our age and they're all edge and they're all cool and just like want to swim or whatever. And steal stuff. But anyway, we learned that later on for sure. I I first

I think my first interaction with you was on my first U.S. tour which was the Bain, Trappinurice, Cruel Hand, Alpha Omega One. On the Atlanta date, you gave a speech just because you felt like it. And that was when I was like,

oh, he's the speech guy around here, I guess. Tell me about Thomas Pearson, the speech guy, pre-front man, growing up in Atlanta, finding straight edge. finding speeches.

Okay, so when I was getting into hardcore, first of all, that line, when I was getting into it, you know? It needs to be said. Well, the bands that resonated the most with me, other than, like,

the Rev Catalog were kind of like the really kind of dingy DIY kind of like hard bands, but with like really, you know, like hippie politics, like frail and reversal of man.

Trial, Trial, chokehold, stuff like that. The band that would, you would open up their lyric books and they would have like dissertations. Yeah. Before the record, like, this is what this record's about. And that stuff really resonated with me where I was like, oh, this band's like talking about something.

And even if it was like something I didn't really like understand or agreed with initially, like I remember like indecision was my pathway into like atheism. And I remember being like kind of skis. scared by that like what what do you mean like what do you mean that's scary yeah but you know the song was hard as fuck so like i wanted to mosh to them and that's where i got that from and then i'm gonna give a lot a great deal to uh aaron bard who's like probably one of the best you know frontmen are hardcore's existence really and that motherfucker can spin some yarns on tail dude on stage that really tie like the song together

the place they're playing and kind of like things that are happening in the world like just what do you call a great orator like he was so good I would just be mesmerized and I'm like when it's my time like when I get a chance to go up there I'm not going to waste that opportunity

like anytime a band gets up on stage I don't care if you're playing in your friend's basement or you're playing a big ass room to a sold out crowd like you have a platform and it's almost I'm not getting on to bands who don't do this but it's like it's almost your responsibility to use it.

That's just how I feel. And that's kind of what people are. Real fucking yappers, dude. So Harmsway and Foundation tour together a lot. We had a lot to say. We're Harmsway. Thanks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a place for that too. That's what I'm saying. I'm not getting wrong. No, no, no. I'm joking, of course. We need both. We need the yin and yeah.

Were you in bands prior to foundation? I'm assuming you were. So in like 10th grade I was in a band that lasted a week called MDK Murder, murder death kill Wow

From the movie demolition man Dude yeah Fuck yeah Taken again now Yeah taken again Long time We were a three piece And the other kid was this kid named Wesley

Who liked Bad Religion That was like the only band he liked Other than that he didn't even listen to punk music Gotta get him on And this kid in our neighborhood Who just happened to know how to playing an instrument named Mollet.

Mollet. Mollet. Because he had a mullet. It's a sick band. You got to get the band back together, dude. And I really remember wanting to sound like, almost like 80s new wave music. But like a punk,

like a punk, like a hard punk edge to it. You're describing like my 30s so far. I mean, they wrote all the great hooks in the 80s. I don't know what to say. Yeah, they got everything. We need a great hook.

And then this band is made. MDK. So never played a show. You were a band for one week? No, never played a show. Didn't do anything other than like a boom box recording. I remember writing a song about how I was like, do you think your green hair makes you cool, but like you're not?

Yeah, fuck you. You're all style and no substance. And now green hair is running shit, dude. They showed your eyes. The green hairs have it all. They got you, dude. They're winning. So was it MDK Foundation?

No, no, no. it was MDK and then years later like when I'd actually listen to real music and was like oh this is what a hardcore band supposed to sound like I did a band with Blake from Dead in the Dirt yeah a phenomenal musician

and this guy named evil Sean who drums for a metal band called Cloak from Atlanta what did they call him that Evil Sean nicest guy you wouldn't play drums you wouldn't believe it well his name was evil Sean because the first time I met him, he was in a, like, a high school, like, got metal band where he played a B.C. Rich Warlock and he had fishnet arm stockings. He's the coolest guy ever is what you're telling?

He's the cool. He's the cool. He's still the coolest. Okay. Wow. Big fans of Evil Sean here on Harbour. Yeah. Evil Sean. Yeah. And we did a band for Final Expression, and that was actually kind of like a real band. We played local shows. Cool. And put out a couple of demos. Hell yeah. That maybe we would do something with that. Yeah. And that was right around the same time that it still was a band. Okay. So champs, champ's first real bands. And he's been a, she's been a ripper the whole time, right? Who, champ?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And when would this, what a fucking, when would this have been, Thomas? Final expression. Oh, shit. Like 2001 to 2003, roughly. Yeah. So not long enough before Foundation, but it's the seeds are, the seeds are sprouting.

The seeds are there, but like, totally final special was very different, too. Like, I was very obsessed with, like, early. converge and cave in. Oh, so you're right. I was like... You're doing a rap. Yeah, like that kind of stuff. We're like, you know, clearly a bunch of 16-year-olds who know how to play parts, but maybe not how to structure a song correctly. And they're just putting all this noise together.

And I'm like, yeah, we've got to sound like caring and killing era converge, you know, until your heart stops cave in. Yeah. And then the biggest thing that happened to that band was we all discover tragedy kind of at the same time. And we're like, no, fuck that. That's what we're doing now. That kind of works too You know

From like that's that's that's adjacent I would say Oh for sure for sure And it was like so that kind of changed the way the band the band sounded Metal core vintage metal core to to DB pipeline was very fast Yes like like like not just not just being like oh we got be a DB band but just being like I mean you know to say how tragedy sounds like Yeah it's so melodic yet it's the heaviest thing you've ever heard at the same time and we're like we got to do that That's truly like a difficult thing to do also.

Like the web that they weave and kind of the needle that they thread. That's what I'm trying to say is like kind of crazy. That's not easy to do. Not a lot of men's can do that. It's really only tragedy and From Asthma's Rise that have. Correct. That have done it. And I wonder why.

Just kidding. Tell me about Atlanta before foundation. Yeah, at the time. Just growing up there. What a wild place. Atlanta was a, a very, I feel like every scene goes through this at a certain point where

but I'll call it the instilled era. That's kind of when all of us like me and Champ and Andrew all of us were kind of getting into our prime. We were like not just like getting our toes wet at the show anymore. We were kind of like actively taking more roles like playing a bands or booking shows

or making scenes and stuff like that just being a little more proactive. And the instilled era of Atlanta was kind of like what I feel a few scenes go through where it was like instilled had to headline the show no matter who came through town. Okay. And I feel like every scene has an error where they kind of go through that where it's like...

No, you do not want to play before the banging ass local band right now. Trust me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for real, I went to Richmond one time and all the band, touring bands played and then DTN headlines. Of course. You weren't going to play over them.

Yeah. Yeah. Because everyone was loyal to the band. And I feel like Atlanta's was like that for a long time because even before that we had bands like down for stuff and people were very low. like loyal to the bands which is important because a lot of scenes are not that LA took a long time to be that

Chicago is still not there you know so that's cool I mean Florida Atlanta Richmond Texas are all very like us first yeah yeah and clearly they were not at some point well it's I think it stems from the fact too

that uh I thought about this question today actually because I was like it might come up where um again, this is my perception of things. I don't know the reality. You can go back and talk to dudes like Ken to Four and Jeff Jock and like kind of the older guys and feel like, what was it actually? But it felt like Atlanta was also kind of like a like a show me city. Like, oh, yeah, we know you're like the big band in your area and you tour, but like we don't fucking know you.

Sick. And so like there's an old zine you can go back and read where the whole conspiracy played Atlanta. They played the warehouses. There's like 300 kids there. But everybody's just staring at them. And so Jonas, the bass player, is like talking to jock after the show, and he's like, what's the deal? Did we just fucking die in there?

And he was like, did anybody walk out? And he was like, no. He's like, no, you guys are fun. It's kind of like a, we're like an assessing city. Like, okay, what are you about? Who are you here to just like look good and flashy? Are you guys about something? Are you, you know?

The council is actively analyzing the performance. Yeah. And so that attitude, I think, kind of bled over to foundation to him. like why we toured so much like you know we're talking we're talking about now like kind of being like weekend warriors when the band first started we openly kind of beefed weekend warrior bands we didn't really understand that mindset like what do you mean you have like a job in life that's fucking bullshit yeah you that you either sacrifice everything for hardcore and touring or you ain't shit very juvenile mindset but it pushed us to do what we did those first you know nine

years of the band basically and that comes from the Atlanta mindset of like we don't know you came through town one time. But there is, of course, validity to like paying one's dues to doing the grinding. You know, nobody likes to see something come from nothing

and be the biggest thing ever. And that really doesn't happen. Like, all of the most popular bands in our genre, we've all seen play tiny ass rooms. And if not that, in that band, in the band that they struggled in before it.

Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, you watch guys kind of struggle through other bands And you're like, oh, finally, like, they got this band going and it's going to, like, get out there

and do something. And so you're, like, actively rooting for them. Yeah. Yeah. But I totally, I totally, I understand. And certainly, Young Bo identifies with the, like, part-time bullshit. Yeah. I don't know this fucking guy. I totally get that. They're not playing Omaha, you know.

Yeah. Shout out to Omaha. Straight up, dude. Played some good shows there. It seems some insane shit happened in Omaha. So, you want to tell us? about it. Okay.

Are you going to bleep the names out? Yeah, I can. Or you can just not. Yeah, you don't have to but.

You can make up a name. I prefer you did. Evil. Yeah, make up some names. On a particular tour with a

with a Southern California band of note. We played Omaha, played a sick show and in the back room, possibly the drummer of another notable band took a shit on

one of the roadies who we won't say by name. Was this? of Uno? No, not even because Oh, just because. Nobody thought it would happen.

Wait, was it a really small turd? Oh, no, this story is on the show. Like a little gerbil shit. Yeah. Oh, this is documented. But here's the thing, there's a band playing, and then all of a sudden from the back area, you see 40 people come running out screaming.

That's this band who's like trying to have a set. That's Omaha for you. This is well documented, but I didn't know it was Omaha. So. Oh, so you know the story. Oh, the poop guy as well. He's on. He's,

we've heard the story. Yeah. The Wikipedia page is being updated now with the location. That's good. So speaking of early Atlanta, anybody from the band crime scene still around? And actively coming to shows? Yeah.

I have not seen anybody from crime scene out of the Atlanta show in a long time. Do you remember crime scene, Bo? I don't. The Jeep. music video, band? System damage, my, my, now that's really fucking serious. Shit, no.

You would know. Shoot the guys. Where they're shooting guns from the Jeep in the music video. Crime scene. Is it, is it? It's like a hardcore bit? Yeah, it's like barrier dead vibes, I would say. Okay, okay, okay.

More beat down. I think they were more fascinated with like Fury of Five. Do you think they knew what that was at that time? A hundred percent. Okay. Yeah, yeah. But got, But one of the singers, this guy named Matt Harkor, or what older people refer to as Land of the Rising Mosh.

He used to wear like one of those like Japan like bandanas. Dude. When he was in the pit. Okay, Land of the Rising Mosh is pretty good because of that continuity. Did he be that? I'm on board. Oh yeah. He was like one of those guys that looked like one of the dudes from the guerrilla warfare DVDs.

Like prolific mosher crime scene. Yeah. Like hit the back flips and the one-handed car wheels. Jesus. He was the guy that was like, yo, you should listen to Fury 5. Yo, I rate, you should listen to this band.

Wow, he was ahead of his time. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. That's for me. And he'd be like, no, listen to it. What do you mean you don't listen to Candiria?

You're selling me on hardcore, hardcore Kyle. What was his name? Evil Larry. Matt Hartford. Yeah. Sick as hell. Was there a,

was there a, like an older band from Atlanta? Like, like 80s. Hardcore. Was hardcore a thing? Yeah, Neon Christ. Neon Christ was like kind of the band. Yes.

You watch older the documentary, like the American Horror, America's hardcore documentary or whatever. And there's always like the non-major cities will have like Battalion of Saints and fucking DeCroitsin and like all these like weird random. And I don't, I can't, I didn't, couldn't think of an Atlanta one. There's like a map. There's like an old punk map.

Yeah. Yeah. Of the country. And I would imagine Neon Christ is the little star on Atlanta. For sure, for sure. They actually played a few years ago. I'm going to remember this poorly. I didn't get to see it.

I was working. This is when I had like two jobs. They played a few years ago outside of a place in a little five points, and it was like a really, really big turnout because all the, you know, killed by death scene. Like, they love that band. So they all kind of came out for that. But I think that the dude who currently sings for Allison Chains was singing for them.

Whoa. I might be remembering that wrong. Oh, he's good. The one in a way is literally like throwing up right now. They're like, oh, no. You fucking idiot. That's awesome. I like your version.

That guy whales, dude. They can kill it. In the Criminal Instinct episode, we run through all kinds of classic Atlanta hijinks from the 2010s, early 2000s. Were you involved in any of that? Maybe. Statutes up, dude. Statutes. Statutes, 100%.

What can you tell me about your time as a teenage miscreant in Atlanta? Anything come to mind? You have a favorite heist? You lived in the house, didn't you? I did live at the house. I lived at Whiteford. RIP, they tore it down last year and built this monstrosity there. Unbelievable.

Like, they don't even understand the history that was in that room. So, like, it's a shame. The schemes that were birthed. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely, you know, we all kind of worked at this, at this place where we had access to a shrink wrapper. A lot of things getting bought, emptied out, and then shrink wrapped and returned. That was always kind of my favorite one because it was simple and smooth.

I can't tell a story about that. I did the iPod because we lived in a neighborhood where my truck got broken into weekly. and one time I left my iPod under the seat. I guess maybe I played it and like it fell in and I just didn't even think about it. I thought it's like I need new iPod. I buy an iPod. RIPI iPod, greatest invention.

I just reorganized this office and I found I have a bag of 480 gigs. Classics? Just classics. Yeah, four of them. Dude, I'm thinking about going back to analog iPod. Kind of. I miss it. I miss it too.

It's just not that I mean we gotta go back dude where this is oh fuck this Spotify bullshit I don't want to get on tangent real guy I want to finish this story but I do miss the time when you would be on tour with your iPod and you'd have to hook it up to someone else's computer to get something yeah it felt like a choir that local band's demo you can only get it from the locals I was that I was the 18 year old plug for for people were down grown men twice my age were using my computer to fill up their iPods It was one of the greatest honors in my life. You probably had everything.

Now we're making fucking Spotify playlist once a week, which is awesome. It's a really good playlist. You should definitely listen to it, but oh. It's not the same. Yeah, please continue. Yeah, anyway. I bought the iPod, took the iPod out, and I'm like, what similar to weight to an iPod? This Jello packet.

So I take this packet of like Jello that hasn't been made into Jillo yet. I put it in the iPod, seal it. I'm like, oh, this weight is good. Take it back to my... I mean, the store. And it's no issue. They'll take back anything. They don't care there.

One, their return policies and say, and two, why is the employee when they give you a hard time? How many of this store are in the area? Is there one that you're all going to the whole time? Oh, yeah, the store got it. You can bleak that out. There's a few, and the best practice is to not shit where you eat. Of course.

But, you know, sometimes you're lazy and you're like, I'm just going to hit the one over there. And let's be honest, a stupid young guy. Yeah. You just think you're invincible. Of course. Yeah. You're like, what are they going to say to me? It's so crazy.

I got caught stealing when I was nine and I never did it again. Dude, have I told you what I got caught ceiling? I think so, but please God remind me. I stole three DVDs from a mire. I paid everything. So this is all done. All right. I stole Saw one.

Hey, I get it, man. Saw 2. Yes. And the family guy Blue Harvest DVD. Oh, dude, that's a great special. It's a great one. I don't know how you got that one, though. It's a big box.

It wasn't. It was just like a, just the move. You were preparing for the greatest evening of your fucking right. A little saw one and then you ease it with the blue harvest and then you go saw two. And then saw two. And I got caught. Right at the door. Right at the fucking door, man.

What did they say to you? I was underage, so I was fine. Yeah. But it was like, you're going to pay a $300 fine, and we won't press charges or whatever. And at the time, I was working, thank God. I was like 16, 17. I was probably working at Subway, honestly.

And they were like, like literally pay us every dollar you have and you'll be fine. Holy shit. They extorted you. But the hilarious thing is, I went home and told my mom, and she was like, well, here's some money. Go out. Like, it was like nothing. Can you bring me back a saw one, saw two, and that new family guy's special? But I did.

I will. All is to say, I agree with you, I never stole again. Like, I was scared straight. I don't trust it. I'm not doing that. Boy, you guys are geniuses and I was a problem. So what happened? So I return it.

No harm, no foul. And then a good, a good friend of the band. So it was yours. His mom buys my new iPod from the store. Gets it home, gives it to him. He opens it up. And I get a text message and says, Hey, did you return an iPod with Jellow packet in it?

His mom and bought the iPod. I can't believe. The odds of this are astronomical. Yeah. I can't believe we finally know who returned the Jellow packet one, though. God, that's. That's good. Unbelievable.

It all comes through Atlanta. What a crazy place, man. You know, we- Lawless. When you grow up in the suburbs of Atlanta, Yeah. Atlanta not being like a big, like, it's a big city now. Atlanta's massive and it's brought a lot of industry in the last couple of decades as far as like entertainment and stuff.

And it was always an entertainment capital for like the black community. But for us, it like, we live in the suburbs, man. We don't have access to anything. how did you kill time? And you just do dumb stuff. Stealing stuff, breaking stuff. Stealing stuff, breaking stuff. Burning stuff.

The first time I ever heard hate being because we went mailbox bashing with my friends in high school. And they put it on? They put it on. And I was like, what is this? That'll bust any mailbox. Yeah. Dude.

Let's talk about, let's go on a quick tangent about like bad boyhood stuff. Oh my God, dude. One time. Have I ever told the story, Colin, about the Grinch who stole Jesus? Have I told this story? No. This is 100% true.

My mom can vouch and a few friends can as well. One year, again, driving age but underage. We were driving around in our suburb and we would steal the baby Jesus figurine from people's nativity sets out in their yards. Right. Sometimes it would just be a little baby that came out of the manger. And then sometimes you had to take the whole. manger, but it was really satisfying and there would be this like, as like you pulled the light

bulb out. And it was just like funny. You guys were addicted to the baby Jesus pop. Shitty thing. Shitty thing to do. I regret it. You know, whatever. But eventually it was like, well, we had a, we would take this, put the seat down in the back and throw the baby in the back and then put it back up and keep driving. And eventually we had so many. We had three trash bags full of these baby Jesuses in one night. And my God. It was like, what are this? It was on the news. It was like, what are we going to do?

And I was like, well, my mom won't give a shit. Mine. We'll keep it in my garage. Like, we'll figure out something. Maybe we'll use it for like a band thing. You know, it was like, whatever. So we kept them all.

Sure enough, later on that week, the Grinch who stole Christmas, NBC 5, Chicago. And there was a news, like a news, whatever, about baby Jesus statues going missing

in the area. You're the fucking, the Jesus bandit, dude. We were the grinches. And but I will say the following year, we put them all in a neat pile in front of a church

that like everyone went to in the area. We just put them all back. We didn't know what to do with it. We got to get find this news story. Steven, if you find the story, pop it in right here.

Yeah, I hope the statutes up on that one. I mean, you'd return them. You did the right thing. Yeah. Apologies to the people of Roselle. It was very Christlike of you to return it. Thank you.

It was. No harm, no foul. I was definitely a little fucker. Yeah. What's a good one? I've told the story about why I got suspended in fourth grade, right? Remind me. I don't know.

I had a class project that was to start a business. Like everybody, you have to pick a partner and start a business with them. Thomas, if you're, no, pay attention because this is something your kids could do. It would start a business with a buddy, and then everybody in the class has to choose one business to invest in. Cool. My class project was a band. which essentially was me and Mike Grinsfelder making a playlist for this kid Ben

and we it was pretty much just like a radio playlist we made like a bad it was like disturbed Blank 282 smashmouth bangers and in between it we were just talking shit all like crazy like the craziest shit you've ever heard a fourth grader said just saying horrible things

100% into like a boombox or something? Yeah. Yeah, we just like pressed record over a tape and then played a song CKY into

fuck you, Ben. You're a little bitch. So about the kid who's turning in the It was custom. It was a custom job, dude. I mean, we did it. We went above and beyond.

And this idiot, we said don't play it in front of your parents. This idiot, Ben, I think his name is Ben Wallace. Fucking moron. Plays it on the way home with his mom.

in the car. And we're talking about like the girl he likes and we're like, she thinks you're ugly, you fucking loser bitch. And we get suspended. My mom's in tears in the office. My dad hears it and he's like, that's unbelievable.

That's amazing. Just don't do it again. You know? Give me the tape. I'll hold on to it. Give me the tape. It's hilarious. I wish I still had it. Ben, if you're out there, you fucking bitch. If you still have it. Send it over.

Send it over. We'll put it in the show. Thomas, what about you? Pre-pre-I-Podd thing. I mean, we stole the baby Jesuses. Did you? Hell yeah. Oh, yeah.

I remember going to a church that sold Christmas trees. It was like coming back from a show and I was like, I'm going to be a family hero. I'm getting a tree this year. Oh. Stealing a Christmas tree by shoving it through the, the hatchback of my car at the time, like into the backseat where the trunk of it is like

up next to me while I'm driving. Now, you guys have had real trees at some point in your life. You know how sappy these things are. Oh, my God. My car's ruined. Little tight. Like, my mom comes up the next day. There's a tree just sitting in a living room on the stand.

I'm like, I got the tree. And she was like, wow, thank you so much. And I was like, I was a hero in that moment. Because you didn't put it through the... She might watch this and see that I stole it. Yeah. She's going to be bummed. You were a hero for the season, not just in that moment.

You didn't put it through the like tree condom thing either. So when you pull it out, you're going the other way. No, no, because it's it's one o'clock in the morning. It's after we got back from a show. I'm just shoving a tree in my car. And then driving home like that. My hatchback is just bouncing up and down. Wow.

You know, I'm like blasting snapcase. I'm like, yeah, it goes. It's going to be awesome. A fucking hero. Merry Christmas, Mrs. Pearson. Your son's a thief. A little full. A lot of stuff.

Just dumb stuff like that. I actually got expelled in high school, though. What did you do? Oh, now you're cooking with people. Here we go. Here we go. Yeah, I got, I got sent to the bad alternative kids school. So, damn.

This would have been like 2000, 2001. This was like the height of the popularity of bands like 18 Vision. What grade were you in? I believe I was a sophomore in high school. Okay. So 18 Visions is popular. What color was your belt? Well, that's what I'm getting to.

My belt was a, a pyramid spike belt, two pyramids. Yeah. Oh, that's a little guy, a short guy. Yeah, yeah, but with brass knuckles for the belt buckle. And I was like, dude, let's fucking go. Sure, it's small enough to sit above the belt buckle. Of course. Yeah, of course.

I mean, we're all wearing youth lot shirts. I thank God. And like, you know, diesel jeans. Right. Yeah. And so I had that belt with those belt buckles. It was that one. I had a triple X one and then like a one with a gun that was like smoke this, you know.

Yeah. And hard. I had the triple X one, and the way that it dug into my stomach, I think I'm still recovering. They're miserable. But the brass knuckles one I'd gotten from a flea market, and they were just real brass knuckles with like a little bit on the end. They can loop it in. I wore that to school.

I'm getting changed here in P.E. You know, it fucking falls off. Some kid sees it. And I guess, you know, he's like, dude, that's a weapon. And he runs and he tells administration. and I was already on the administration's radar for being a little fucker. Yeah. You know, like my group of friends, like, we had convinced that kid Mollett that I was in MDK,

who stripped down to his underwear and run around the track in, like, snow. Classic. It snows down there? I know. Not going to want me to tell the story. Yeah, every once in a while. Okay. But, um, I don't even want to miss this.

It's a name I've only heard from Josiah, and it's always like, fucking legend. Well, we're walking to class one day And the I'm so sorry in advance of all the listeners But the like the Susan G. Komen like breast cancer walk Yeah Like where the women like marched together Didn't she turn out to be it turned out to be a scam

The foundation They make way more money than they need What they give So don't feel too bad But the cancer walks coming by Right The women are there to support each other Their friends who've gotten breast cancer

Just like that we're going to class and the response is to just take this carton of milk and just and just launch it Oh no Thank God

it didn't hit anybody But you know It landed near someone's speed It busted and Spotherware Yeah And I get I get throwing out Just for being with them

Yeah just for being there So I was a little fucker I was already on the radar Yeah yeah So you bring up Now you now you've committed a federal offense With the brass knuckles So this is an Alchem's full circle.

This kid goes and he tells me like he's got a weapon. And they're like, oh, we got you now, Mr. Pearson. Like, you're out of here. And my parents, you know, for them, like, they would advocate for me, but they didn't really understand the severity of the issue. It wasn't explained to them in a way where it was, he brought a weapon to school. That's a felony charge.

Yeah. And although, like, we went through the legal process, I got expelled from school. I had to go to this bad kid school where I was in there with kids who were like asking me to sell them their urine because I told them a straight edge. They're like, yo, will you pee? Can I get that? Dude, you can bring a, that's a racket.

I should have. And then like kids who had like half of them had ankle monitors. Like they were in there for assaulting teachers and shit. Yeah. And I remember quickly being like, not supposed to be here. You know, like. And so I have to go do all this stuff. and then we go to court, we plead it down.

But years later, I'm applying for my teaching license. And they're like, have you ever been charged? They don't even care about the conviction part. Have you ever been charged with a felony? And you're asking me to think back 40 years. Yeah. I don't remember your various felonies. Yeah, like, well, I don't remember.

Like, I'm a kid. And my parents. In your mind, I mean, in the moment, that's a belt buckle. Yeah. And my parents kind of handled the situation. So I didn't, I wasn't really thinking about it. And they dinged me on that. They were like, you just lie.

You lied. Wow. We're gonna, we're gonna, you're not getting a teaching like license. Holy shit. And I'm like, it was, I swear it was like an accident. And I had to go through these crazy hoops of fires where I had like contact the DA and get a recommendation letter and had to get all this document. I actually, I got the brass knuckles back.

Oh, good. They still had them in the file. Got them in my drawer. Holy shit. So you could say, like, look at these loops. This is for a bill. This is for a very small bill. I'm like, are there any 18 Vision fans in here?

But maybe someone will understand. Any obsession guys in the house? Tower of Snakes? No? But I remember being like real, when that happened, I was like real depressed because like I'd been going to school and I was like, okay, this is like the next chapter of my life. Of course.

And it almost didn't happen because of this little fucker incidents. Wow. That wasn't, like, properly explained to me. I also had to turn myself into jail. They were like, we're not going to, like, get the cops to come get you. Like, that'll be too much of a scene. Your mom's got to drop you off at the jailhouse. You got, like, turn yourself in.

Wow. And so that was my first time. The school was, dude, you left the office, and they jumped for joy and fucking high-fived each other. Yeah, they were like, we got it. Wow. They were like, they checked me off, and they were like, how the fuck are we going to get to get killed? They never got him.

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Back to the episode. Let's get into some foundation lore now here. I feel like it's time. The people have earned it. Yeah. Did you know that your foundation number 12 on discogs? I do know that because I'm going to- You fucking made it, man.

But avid discogs, pure. Wow. I think that's something we got to start looking at. That's interesting, yeah. How many harm's ways are there? Let me check. Go ahead and talk. Let me check.

So Foundation 12 finally makes it. You do a demo, a couple seven inches, and then the hang your head record is where I feel like things really happen. To me, that's like a generational classic hardcore EP. The harm's way two, both says. The harm's way too. Tell me about putting together hang your head and what you remember from that. time playing shows writing it recording it um well can i go back for a second and address to the foundation 12 yeah foundation sure yeah of course okay foundation was not the original name of the

bands oh do you tell the original okay i hope you've already taking your socks off because it's about to get blown off the original name of foundation was turn style that's a true story after a hot water music song even clip that? Really? Yes. And I was like, that's a cool name.

Andrew's huge hot water music fan. I liked them a lot too, but I mean, he's massive hot water music fan. And I was like, I'm into that. And I think David was also really big. He was our original bass player,

one of the founding members. I think he really love hot water music too. And we were like so kind of hyped on that name. We didn't have like a committed drummer yet. And then when depression broke out, we asked champ to join. We're like, well,

we're going to get champ. Like, we're about to solidify this thing. Holy shit. And I know Champ's gonna be like, that's not what happened, but the way I remember it is champ was like,

I hate that name. And then so we, we changed it. And foundation, foundation, I don't remember who came up with it, but I do know that foundation was a band name

that I had also kicked around a few times where I was like, I feel like a good name for like a youth group band. Yeah, yeah. It is. It is.

Yeah, it is. So. Wow. So turn style, you're welcome. Hey, and I mean,

hey, they're laughing all the way to the main stage. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They won that battle. It fits. It suits them so much more. 100%. 100%. Yeah.

Wow, that's unbelievable. That's earth shattering. I had no idea. That's some real hard lore, if you will. So hang your head. Hang your head. What a record, my God. Tell me about it.

All right. So hang your head is when Hank joined the band. Hang your head. Hank your head. Yeah, Hank your head. Prior to that, it had been me, Andrew, David on bass, this kid Josh on guitar, and champ. And I don't know if you've ever heard the foundation demo or the first seven-inch.

It's very tonally different than what we kind of evolved into. It was like when we started the band, it was like really big into like the new age, like youth crew stuff. So like outspoken, early strife. Like we want that vibe. Like kind of like fast and chuggy, but the guys kind of like talk singing, which I can't fucking do, but I tried to do on the demo. So if you ever hear it, I'm sorry.

And so totally, I think we were going to do that. But then when Hank joined the band, he was, I mean, it's Hank. Like, not only was the end of that stuff, but he was also like, I love indecision as much as I love Madball and Hey Breed. Right, right, right. And he's like, and I like heavy music. You can still be kind of like fast and be, you know, tonally like what you're trying to represent and still be heavy. Absolutely. It's important. That's an important thing. And so, and I knew Andrew had that kind of stuff in the chamber, and I think Hank kind of helped bring that out.

Beautiful. So, let's just lean into it. Writing wise, was it split pretty evenly between Hank and Andrew? Or is Andrew kind of always been the writing guy? I feel like Hank and Andrew write the stuff together. Okay. That's awesome. They brought a lot of the stuff together because, as you know, Hank, not only amazing front man and guitar plays,

phenomenal drummer. Yeah. I mean, one of those once in a generation guys who kind of does everything very confidently. Dude, now tattoos. And now tattoos.

A Dead in the Dirt, Harmsway Tour would Dead in the Dirt. He played guitar. Yeah. I don't. He just filled in. Maybe it was bass, but whatever.

He filled in for the tour. Wait, was he in, he was in the Dirt, right? Yeah, he drummed. Jesus Christ. I know. That's insane.

A real ingrown. That's a real ingrown situation. Yeah, truly, truly. But he just, tell me about the record. Well, we, you know, we started writing those songs. And then, for me, the song Heartless was like they wrote, we came to practice and it was like, hey, we wrote this. And I was terrified.

Because that's like a, you're like this fucking rocks. Well, it's like, it's like an ass beater song. Yeah. And I was like, My, I think Bo will understand this. My favorite version of hardcore in a live setting is like the Ospo setting. I want lots of kids piled on, singing along, you know, doing this shit, like double finger pointing and stuff. And I was like, you don't get that with a song like this because I wasn't thinking about bands who do.

Right. I mean, they were much less common at that time. 100%. Today, it's far more, far more common. You can be both. You can be both a little easier, I think. You can be both. And for sure.

And at the time, I was like, this song is like, dudes and wife beaters are going to, like, throat chop each other to this song. That's what's up. That was like, I was kind of boomed by that. Like a person who loves moshing. But then it's up. You realize in that moment, it's up to me. It's, yes.

Then it's your job to make it both. And you did that, Thomas. So this is again where I'm going to go back to Aaron Vodard. I had a conversation with him one time where he was like, hey, totally, the music of a song can be this, and lyrically, it can be this. And he's like, and sometimes you get the best results when you have that. Look at Crown of Thorns, you know? Dude, that's a great example. That's like one.

Yeah. We're stabbing, but we're crying, too. Yes, yes. That's what's up. Even Judge has moments like that. 100%. Very much. Very much.

like, I'm listening to this song and it's like, I can hear tears in this riff. Yeah. But I'm punching the guy next to me. I lost a friend into d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d- you know what I mean? Like, absolutely. Absolutely. And so I had to, that song made me go to that place where I was like, I got to understand that it can be two things and that's okay.

And it did end up being two things. Kids were absolutely killing each other to that song. But also they would be up front being like, yeah, motherfucker. heartless too. When it sounds like you spent a week, a full week on like gang vocal placements on this record. Oh, dude. Biggest regret. Really?

I, because I noticed there's like none on Turncoat compared to. And that's very intentional. I look back on it and the big, boisterous gang vocals on every other line, that's a relic of the era. That was like a relic of like the epic chord. era where it's like, brother, where's the gang vocal? How are people going to know when to sing along? Yeah. And you know who helped me kind of figure that out was George Hirsch.

Oh, really? He said, if the line's good enough, you don't need gang vocals. And I was like, fuck, he's right. If it's strong enough and it's good enough, you don't need them. You don't need them. That's just fun to hear a bunch of guys. It can just kind of emphasize. Ironically, I think the band that really like cemented it,

for me as like, oh, this is what everyone's got to do is comeback kid, the first comeback kid. Yes. Yeah. Like, what is it? Wake the Dead? Or even before that, in turn it around. Oh, yeah. It's like every line has some punctuation with gang vocals.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's a relic of that time. It's very much. Yeah. On the end of that timeline. But it was like, oh, we need some gang vocals. Now, I will say that fireproof, the first song on the record. That's, you almost have to have it for that.

You have to have it. It's just part of that's like the call and response. There's as it's as if it's two minds saying. Yes. And that's that was kind of the attention. It was to be like call and response where it's like, hey, my part, your part, my part, your part. And it's a really easy way of being like, hey, everybody's going to know these lines. Yeah.

And like, hey guys, this is the part. You know, like it is very, yeah, yeah. It does let people know. It informs them like, okay, this is what's going to be happening in the song. It can be a little paint by numbers, but it can be very, um, a really good way to kind of break the ice at a show or something to like to get people participating in like the best way you know for sure I'm not going to argue that and so hang your head was definitely like the transition period of the of the band I think everyone can see that if you look at the demo and the first seven inch it's like

this is what they were this is where they're going so I felt like it was kind of like a good evolutionary step without just like putting out the first seven inch and then jumping to like when the smoke clears where it'd be like wait what's this it's like we're really sure we're really some darker themes here we're going to be we're going to be kind of like i want all the ospo energy but aesthetically and musically we're going to be the antithesis of that and you nailed it thank you i think you're right um a few years later your your debut LP your only LP when the smoke clears comes around i remember talking to andrew when you guys were putting it together he was exhausted he was like it was like yeah man we're writing lp it's a lot of work it's a lot of songs he couldn't

believe how many songs it was tell me about when the smoke clears all time opening track it is it is amongst definitive modern straight edge music how was it for you guys doing that many songs one single time it's excruciating i mean i hear you guys talk about it almost every every i just listen to the Alec episode yesterday and there were so many times there but I'm just like yeah fuck dude LP is so much it's torture it's daunting

I'm going I'm going on tangent with this but like did you guys watch the get back documentary with the Beatles? Yeah of course where they're just sitting in the room and kind of like noodling and shit and I've never felt more seen than watching that part where it's like God that's fucking excruciating

I get why Ringo's not showing up until fucking three o'clock like they but you know we do that unsuccessfully, they write get back. That is the beauty of it. He's just sitting there and he just hammers that riff out. But also imagine, imagine like there's that part where he's playing that and they all start jamming. John shows up and just starts riffing. He's watching George.

He just starts playing along. Imagine having an environment where you could just go into a room and everything set up for you every day. Yeah, exactly. And you're getting millions. Yeah. Like it's so. on LP 31. As opposed to like the pressure of like we're riding this in a cramped fucking shared practice space.

Were you in the storage unit? Yes. Dude. Like, not the storage unit. We were at that place, the shop. Oh,

okay. But we were sharing the unit with like four other bands. Yeah. Yeah. So you barely got room to stand up because there's 18 cabs in there. Like the storage unit that they practiced in? Uh-uh. It was like a metal like you store.

like Harb's Way practicing it before their last show just to go over our set and it was one of the craziest sounding most brutal. Horrible? It's just metal and cement. Just sound stabbing you in the ears. Everywhere. Yeah. It's just that rippled metal and that's it. Anyway, sorry. But yeah, no, it's okay. That was towards the end of the band when we were like, we don't need a practice space anymore. Right, right, right. And it was like, well, let's just keep something. You never

know. What do you remember from the response to the record? Because I, I mean, I think, I seem to remember it doing well. And that was early 2010s, mid-2010s, we're kind of, that was the beginning of the era of like, we don't like your new record, so we don't like you anymore. Where there's a lot of pressure of like, if this one doesn't deliver, we suck now, I guess. Yeah, that was a scary time for sure. It was. And I remember being scared that that would happen.

I felt like these were our best songs, musically. I just have to say from, I always felt like the outsider in the band, like I was always watching them do stuff because I don't, I don't have a musical bone in my body. I can't write anything. The most I could offer our practice was like a hum or like, you know that one part in that one song? What if we had something like that? Yeah. That's the most I can do. So I would always look at those guys and just be like, wow, I can't believe they wrote that.

Sure. Those guys are fucking geniuses. At your own practice, like, these guys are pretty good. And I still stand by that. They're very good. The talented musicians I've ever seen. Like, I can't believe I know them and I've been friends with them. You know, it's like, it's incredible.

And now one of them owns the best menswear store in America, a guilty party. Can you believe that? I can't because Champ has always had immaculate taste. That is true. You know, when we were calling him Champ Nudies, we were laughing, but he was planning. Dude, he was laughing at the bank.

He was playing his sets in, jeans that were more expensive than my guitar set up. In Iron Arts. Yeah. The shit he would wear on tour, I'm like, how are you doing that? How are you doing that? I can't. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a boot guy. You know, I feel like that's well documented. My first pair of Red Wings ever purchased via

Champs employee discount. I remember, Thomas, do you remember when I came up with you guys? We're fast forwarding a little bit for the comeback kid tour. came up with you guys to Madison and we went to like a denim store. Yes. I forget what it was called,

but I'm realizing now that that's kind of, that surely planted some seeds in Champ's head because it was kind of a similar store. Anytime we were on tour and we'll come back to one of the smoke clears, I promise. Yeah. But anytime we would go on tour, it was always like two camps.

It would be like, Andrew's camp of like, let's go explore the city or let's go do this outdoorsy thing. And then Champ's camp of like, where's the good coffee spot and where is the closest clothe or I don't know what you call that.

Taylor. I love him. And I always went with Champ for some reason because I wanted the coffee. Yeah. But I remember like, you know, going to blue and green for the first time and being like,

damn, these are expensive jeans. Yeah. $100 for a shirt? That just blew my mind. Yeah. Yeah. Excuse me. One of the smoke clears.

Pretty good record. Let's talk about it. Yeah. Tell me about putting it together. Tell me about the reception. Tell me about touring on it. Where'd you record it? With this dude named Matt Washburn at this place called Leadbelly.

Sounds fantastic. Sounds great. It's where we recorded our first seven-inch and where we recorded the song for the first American's hardcore cop, the first devotion. Devotion one. And we liked, I think we liked the way those came out because we ended up going back. I think one of the problems with hang your head is like, and some people would argue that's why they like it because it sounds so raw. But we just felt like the production wasn't there.

And this is also a relic of the era. It's like, we need this record to sound produced. Yeah, sure. And so Matt was the guy you would go see to get that effect because like kind of knew what he was doing, at least in the local Atlanta area. Yeah. So we recorded with him The process was they wrote a bunch of songs We had like three in the canon maybe

And we had a few songs that we'd already written We'd put it out with Sam The Never Stop for any seven-inch and we were like We're gonna reuse those songs Like they're too strong not to reuse them And so we had like maybe three or four songs And then they slowly started piecing everything together Like at practice they're like okay we got this

We got this we got this It was like basically Hank and Andrew jamming stuff out and then we would show up like they would always meet like an hour or two hours before and then we would show up

and they'd like he would kind of have this and then we would put a song together or they would and I would just be thinking about different lines or topics or things like that yeah but I was

I'll be honest I was never the guy that was just like uh huh and then I'll say this here and then I'll say this here I was actually bad at that Hank had to help me with that again yeah Hank was like like no cure for fools is a prime example

I didn't know how to do like fast singing because we were always like kind of fairly mid tempo kind of mid tempo sure yeah and he was like oh you you gotta do it like uh josta would not even joking like like how Heypry would do you WJD

man like and he'd be like and then he would be he would just kind of like mumble he'd be like but da da da da da da and I'm like oh okay and then that would click for me like I would understand got you and so you help me put that together I had I always kept like lyrics

books. I'm like, I want to use like these type of lines or have a song about this. I just couldn't place it initially. It took me until turncoat to figure that out. So we would show up, they would have this stuff. And then it was like, we would always do like very rudimentary demos. This is before everybody was like recording it on their phone. Like, all right, put your phone up and just, you know, hit recording. Then we'll take it home. It's going, shit, got, God, good God. Yeah. And then I would go home and then try to write lyrics to it. And that was the most frustrating part. I remember multiple times just being like I can't do this like

I'm a fool I'm an idiot and songs of lyrics who can do that that is that is a lot it sucks and then like you know when you're thinking about the longevity of a band I'm not gonna I'm not gonna lie like I wasn't trying to go for broke on the lyrics either

sure I'm like well I want to have something for later yeah not understanding that like ideas come to you your whole life yeah 100% yeah burn it while you got it dude damn That's what I think you got to do. You got to burn it when it happens. Like ride it all the way out.

Something will happen later. I have forgotten more great ideas than I will ever realize, you know? And that's, that's on me. Yeah. If I'm like walking around town, I'm like, oh, fuck, that would be like a good thing for a song. I've got to put it in my phone like immediately. Like my new bed. That's real.

It's the only way. Keep a pad. Keep a journal. Do those stupid embarrassing. voice memos, you will use them someday. You're not wrong. You'll absolutely use them. So that was kind of the process, got the lyrics down,

and then me and Hank very quickly, and like one night, tried to demo the vocals. And that was miserable. That was like, my voice was shot, so there's like, you know, I... But at least we kind of had the

layout for it. You got any of those still? Hank might. Because he had like a four track at the time. I can do everything. Hank, we're going to need those for this. Here they are. So that was kind of what we brought to the table, and then we went to Matt to record, and then it was like they finished everything they had to do,

and then it was my turn, and I blew my voice out the first day. Perfect. So we had to wait and then go back, and that's what took the longest was me just vocally trying to get it done. I know, but it was the first time. I know, but it was the first time where I was like, I had one fucking job. Yeah, I had one job and I blew it for the band.

But like, but it's not, it's just, that's the nature of what we do. Who knows what's going on in there? Exactly. But again, it was like, God forbid we had like gone out of town to record. Yeah. You know, like, oh my God, that would have been a tragedy. Yeah, true. Just burning money.

I've never in my life lost my voice doing backups for Harb's Way ever. Or the common suffering headliner, night one. And the whole time, right? And it was the whole fucking tour. It just happens. I don't know. No rhyme or reason for me. It's a muscle.

You know, it's super weird. It needs training. Well, it's a muscle that I still get to use in my current profession. You've been yelling a lot? How do they feel about you, Thomas? I think I'm a generally well-liked teacher. Okay.

I would consider myself a man about town in my school. I actively go out of my way to kind of just like me. kids like like that's why I got in the profession is I wanted to work with like young people not talk to their parents all the time yeah and so I'm like hey what's up there a little soul they're like hey but cool all right see you later any any Corman uh there was a kid last year that I had no two years ago it came to school in a bane shirt okay and I was like and you were like here we go I was like what's up brother yeah what do you know about Bain but other than that no it's

kids on a completely different end of the spectrum. Okay. Yeah. So, but I use it because I have to speak very elevated in the classroom. You need to be able to hear me in the back of the room. And then coaching, of course. I actually just got huge compliments this weekend. They're like, you have a great coaching voice.

What do you coach? Cross country and track. Wow. So like this weekend, we were down in South Georgia at the coast doing a race. And like I was helping the high school team, actually, like a bunch of my kids feed into this program. So I was kind of supporting them. But the kids I'm not that familiar with were like, hey, you have a great coaching voice.

I could hear you like 200 meters out. And like that really kind of kept me motivated when the race was happening. And I was like, yeah, thanks. And even the other coach was like, how do you do that? You don't want to know, buddy. Yeah. Like 10 years. 10 years of a hardcore band.

You're not using your stomach enough. You got any prospective spin kickers on the cross country squad? No, not a one. Not all dude. The very young generation right now, they're not that aggressive. they're a little more they want to be peaceful oh interesting

I myself once dabbled in pacifism how can you be a Skibbitty Sigma if you don't if you're peaceful if you have no Skivety Riz how are you going to be because they're all they're all just joshing

they're capping they don't want to you know I mean realistically anytime a fight does break out at my school it's because two friends were joshing each other too hard and the other one was like

didn't want to admit they were in their feelings and stop it from happening and then it got carried away. You break up a lot of fights? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That must be, because they wait for you to come

when they start fighting, right? Oh, 100%. Now I can swing. Yeah, because there's safety there. They want to like... Oh, how interesting. Oh, you're lucky that coach grabbing. Yeah. That's a tale's all his time, though.

Just bodying kids out there, though. Well, not body and then, but I definitely, a couple of years ago, grabbed a kid by his, like, shirt collar and his waistband and, like, toss him. Like, you would see, like, in an old Texabry cartoon. Like, you DJ Jazzy Jeffed him out of the door. Unbelievable. Tell me about the tours you did between hang your head and when the smoke clears.

I can tell you about four. So right after hang your head came out, that was like the, all right, we're going on tour and we did the pray for america tour yeah no no wait no we did we did the title fight tour wait shit were you on the title fight tour convicted was thinking about what what a title fight foundation tour would gross in 2004 that would play msg dude i i i probably believe that title fight would play msg i i think the comeback show could could could sell out MSG. Yeah.

We'll get there. We'll get there. It's going to happen. Maybe. I don't know. Shane, if you're listening. Well, I just saw Shane in Vegas a couple weeks ago. It was me,

Kay Yasui, and Shane, and me and Kay are, like, elbow each other, and then we're elbow and Shane, like, huh? Huh?

Huh? Let's see. We did, it was Backtrack Foundation Harm's Way. That rain. That rain fest year. Yeah. Was that the Pray for America tour?

Yeah, it had to have. That was the Pray for America because that's what we would have the roadie road trips. Because one of our vans would break down and all the roadies would sacrifice themselves and stay behind to ride in that van. Yeah, but Backtrack had six roadies. They had a tech. We were also stupid like that. You were the smartest band. Yeah, we never brought anybody.

No, you were because you understood the importance. Yeah. There's two things that Harmsway understood. The importance of legroom and to actually like, I don't know, maybe keep a spreadsheet of how much shit costs and how much you're paying for things. Pretty fiscally minded. And that tour started at Rainfest. So we all had to get to fucking Seattle.

Brutal. Foundation is from the other corner. So that means day one of that tour, Thomas, you guys got banned from REI? Interesting. You want to tell us about that? I'm not going to speak on that because there's parties involved that you know

sure well tell me about the party involved you know Thomas we'll say Thomas was banned from RIA Thomas was Thomas was a wheel man okay

sure sure sure that's what they all say that's what the leaders always say but no like Beau's not wrong we would do dumb shit like oh the tour starts at Rainfest should we book shows and way? No, we'll just, we'll just drive up.

No, I got to work. I'm going to work my my very low income job up to the moment we leave. And then was it was it was Backtracks van died? Yeah, Backtracks van died. So we had to like,

everybody to them up. And you guys had the loft van, no? Yeah, we did have a loft, which we thought was genius and was just miserable anytime you had to get in. Yep. It scared me too. I didn't like watching you guys get in there. No. And, and I feel when we built the loft, it was slightly leaned forward.

Oh, no. But your legs were always elevated up. Oh, God. And your head was always elevated down. Just head rush the line forward this way? Yeah, like you're, like you're gonna fall into the back bench. Perfect. Um, also one thing I loved about foundation that we learned right away was,

you guys were always spotable because you'd always have shit hanging off the back driving as you were driving. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. of the time. There was zero delineation from that. It was always clothes drawn. Shirts and pants and everything else.

Tollels and all kinds of shit. It's just towels and all kinds of stuff like that, you know? I really like the last show shirt evolving throughout the tour. Yes. Of the van getting more and more fucked up. Yes. That was good. It was a good

touch. That was real, too. That seemed like a thing that would actually happen to you guys. We, Champ bought that van. And then not only was it the foundation van, but it was like the local neighborhood vehicle for everyone that lived at the Weaver House. Fuck yeah. You would like come out and be like, where's the van and like Ryan Wood had driven it to go somewhere? I love that, dude. I use, we use our van for shit all the time.

I moved my mom to and from Dallas with our van. That was just James's car for a while. Mine too. Until I got stolen. Still is, I guess. Yeah. Tell me about some incidents on that tour. What did you got for me?

What comes to mind? You said it's the best tour of all time. What happened? It was the best tour of all time because, okay, I think one story, one anecdote will give you the tone of the entire tour. We play Idaho. It's Boise, right, Bo? It was Boise, Idaho. We think we're playing Boise, Idaho.

Yeah. We get to the show. There's like a truck parked outside the venue with like a big sign that's like written with like an expo marker. It's like, arm's way foundation backtrack tonight. We're like, okay, cool. go in the venue and I shit you not. This bar is like a bar and then the back half of it is the size of the masquerade upstairs.

Like the old masquerade. Yeah, yeah. It is fucking massive. And at that time, even on our most popular day, we're maybe filling a 200 cap room. Maybe, dude, maybe. This is in Boise, Idaho. Yeah.

There are exactly 10 kids there. Right. So we go outside and we say... Charlie from all of Ingrown is there. Yeah. Well, we go outside and we're like, we're like, we literally just talk to the kids. We go, hey, this show's probably going to be bad. How about you guys just come hang out with us at the park and we'll play wiffle ball?

Actually, not to be, not to contradict, but a weird thing happened where although that truck was there and I think I even have a picture of it somewhere. Yeah. The venue had it mischeduled. Oh, that's right. And there was no, like they were like, oh, we don't have like staff like there's no one doing sound like we we can't do a show tonight. Yeah. So it was just like a mis-schedul-scheduling and then we did indeed invite the few people who showed up to go play

Wiffleball with us. And we just went to a park nearby and played Wiffle Ball until the sun went down. It was awesome. It was the best day of tour. And I think we still sold like 100 bucks of merch. Yeah, the kids still bought merch. I was like, I was like, this is the best day of tour because this is all you want to do on tour anyways, go to a park and play with a ball with your friends.

That was the best part of the Rainfest that year. Yeah. Yeah. Think about the group of backtrack plus like Sealy, Big Brett, Josiah was there. Reggie McAfrety, I think was there as well. And then all the foundation and then harm his way. Like that's a group you would hang out with today.

And this is the backtrack era where Lopez and Jaycox, I believe, are still in the band as well. So it's just like everybody got along immediately. Like day one, it was like, we're all cool. Everybody's cool. You guys want to go get coffee? Yes. Yes.

And then 35 people roll up. That's awesome. Do you guys want to play Wiffel Ball in Ogden, Utah? Yes. Oh, God. I'll take me back to the Nickel Arcade. Yeah. And I'll hang out there all day.

It was so awesome. That was the first tour that like wasn't a good tour. Like as far as like the shows and stuff, but we had fun. It didn't matter. It was like, who gives us shit? Like we're hanging out with fun people. That's when a few, a year ago, I was making a tiered touring band list.

Like, who's an S-tier band to tour with? Arms Way became S-tier. It's because of that tour. I was like, I'll tour with those guys any day of the week. They might be the only S for me. And then remember the last day, Big Brett and James sumer wrestled in the middle of the street as the rest of the tour was completely shirtless and cheering in the middle of the street in Little Rock. Who won? Dude, I'm not going to lie.

I think Big Brett won, but James did not. He is big, Brett. He's big Brett. But James did not do. James did not do bad. He did not do bad. I mean, that dude, the low center of gravity. Yeah, exactly.

I think I could be misremembered, but I think. It's the irresistible force versus the immovable object. Yeah, yeah. I have an incredible picture of all of us too afterwards. I'll send it to Stephen. Here it is, Stephen. It wasn't that great. Wow.

No, that was the tour of last. like let's play wiff a ball let's find a swimming pool immediately like we just have to go swimming because it's it's the era of every hardcore band is on the road constantly so every place is overplayed yeah and so no one no one's that excited to see a band when they come to town i get it now and it's like we're just we're filling our time like we just got to find something to do yeah and those guys always wanted to do something that was also the tour where i think the last show we ate at i hop afterwards and then we tried to dine and dash but for some reason like somebody stayed

inside. And the world's point. I was. Thomas, you're about to hear the real story for the first time. I will commandeer this story, Thomas. Okay, okay. It was the Denny's. And for some reason,

this Denny's had like a meeting room. It was like a, it was like attached part of the restaurant, but it was like literally for like the local town whatever, like the civil whatever, would gather there, decide their shit because at my seat, it was shaped like a U,

and I'm at the bottom of the U. at my seat, there's a gavel. So I'm fucking, I'm hearing people and I'm giving judgment. And, you know, we're all fucking around. It's the end of the tour. We're all having a good time. Everybody orders and literally 30 fuckers, you know,

are ordering. And yes, a certain band died and dashed. Two other bands did not. not Dynet Dash. Well, those two other bands would like to have fun like the other bands. And the two other bands, particularly somebody who I don't even think

was in either band, paid for it. We paid that person back, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all good. It became like, it became a funny, like, you guys Dinah Dashed on a 30-person bill without telling anyone? Like, what are you talking about?

I do remember you having the gavel because we played telephone. Yeah, we did play telephone. At the table. things got bad. We shouldn't. Some people might have got their feelings hurt. Yeah.

It happens. It happens. Telephone's a dangerous game in real life. It really is, man. And it's a good metaphor of life, you know? It really is. It really is. Terrified.

That was also the tour that the second time, third time, third time that somebody broke down. I think it was our van this time, was in the middle of Arizona. And I think Marissa was driving to Atlanta to move. from California. Like Champ and Marissa

were like kind of like finalizing that. And they had to like leave to go pick a part up in the next town and bring it back to us to this guy who just happened to have a garage in his like personal house in this nowhere town in the middle of New Mexico.

And I remember an ice cream truck drove by and we're like, let's get some ice cream. Like this is a miserable day. And we're all like getting ice creams. And then Andrew asks the guy. He's like this older, older guy. kind of like, you know, just sun weathered. He's got like a straw hat.

And he goes, he goes, hey, buddy, you want some ice cream? It's on me. And he goes, like, very, like, solemn. He goes, no, I'm dying. I've got diabetes. Oh, Dan. Just like that. Yo, real quick, what's your ice cream man go to?

When that truck's outside, it will do the Golden Arch's question, but for ice cream. Every ice cream available ever is on the side of the truck. He's got it. When I was a kid or now? Right now. right now. Now, I like a bomb pop. Dude, bomb pops are good. They're good. They're tasty.

Colin? No hesitation, chaco taco taco. Love a chocolate taco. Wow. That's one of the, I think it's one of the greatest sweet treats ever concocted. There's a place in Chicago at a parlor pizza that does modern chocolate tacos, like an all done up. It's crazy. My choice would be a teenage mutant turtle's popsicle.

See, when I was a kid, that's the stuff I liked. I love those. To this day, I think they're so fucking good. Anything with that hard ass gumball. Yeah, when they're all crazy looking. We did,

Thomas, what was the tour where we played? Title Fight had a record release in Atlanta at something unicorn. No, no,

no. That was the hang your head record release. Oh, I'm so sorry. You're absolutely right. Of course. And Title Fight skipped a show to come play it.

To be able to play it. Yeah, it was, it was, Brace War Dude, this was like You couldn't make this lineup now Like it was Alpha and Omega

Brace War Yeah Convicted Harms Way Naysayer Foundation Idle Fight Haddle Fight

Hidal Fight Playing a Frostbite song Yeah that's right I think Badsey might have played a couple songs too Just because they happen to all be there And then Did maybe Gypsy

Played a few songs Dude yes Foster and Alex were there as well Gypsy was on a couple of those those shows That was the tour when we came up with that I got your back till the end slogan And Alex left me a note

I had to go to work Like I was we were home for one day And it was like I had to go to work for some reason I don't know why I agreed to do that I was like an idiot And I went to work and they all went to the world of Coke And I came home and Alex had written a handwritten note on my door What's funny is

Convicted in Harm's Way went to the world of Coke That day also We did the whole thing where you try all the various flavors and then you leave with a couple of glass bottles we thought like let's drink them on stage. Dude, one of the

show you ever played. Coke heavies. At the hottest show I've ever played, I went into diabetic shock. Like it was terrible. Dude, I've only done stage soda one time. It was Santa Fury 2016 and I was doing full heavy Dr. Pepper's during the set.

Oh my God. After the set, I see a Facebook comment that says, The singer of Twishing Tungs looks like he eats a box of Krispy Kreme donuts every day. How accurate was that, too? Oh, I mean, it was, like I did look like I ate a box of Krispry. I wasn't. In a perfect world, I would have been.

It would have been, yeah. It deeply upset me. So the World of Coke is, it's like, I think Atlanta's just full of dumb tour stuff, but I'm like, you got to go to the World of Coke. Oh, it's awesome. Because Coke is the best product on Earth. Of course. The puppet museum is amazing.

What? You've ever been there? Yeah, I've been there. I have two small children. Place is amazing. Dude, they had a fucking... They have the Jim Hanson stuff there. Yeah, that's incredible.

I once I saw that exhibit. It was... That makes sense. Like, it's pretty... That makes sense. Yeah, how are you going to just not... You just say, yeah, I guess it's cool. That place is amazing.

Thomas, we did another tour with Foundation riding out... Or is where it. which was also a good tour. That was more East Coast, I think, right? And Montreal. East Coast was southeast, because we went down to South Florida. And Canada.

I think that was our first time in Canada. It might have been. Early, early on, at least. Those were great shows. Those were, that was kind of the, that was like, hey, all the work we've all been doing is kind of paying off. Yes, that was the first time I was like, oh, maybe somebody gives a shit. Yeah, yeah.

I remember those very fondly. We played a lot of wiffle ball. This is post when the smoke clears? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So this is like LPs out. You've been a band for seven years or something, six years?

LPs out. We've died in Europe. We came back to the States where they had open arms waiting for us. They said, welcome back to America. They said welcome home. Yeah. Tell me about foundations European tours. Yeah, please.

So the first time we went, we went with Brace War, which I love Brace War as a band and the people. Was this when somebody said, Brace War, you come too late? I was just about to sell it. Foundation, you come too early. Yes. Like, literally the second show in,

this guy was just like to Brace War, because it was like after like the first seven inch and stuff, and they were kind of like coming back. It's when they released that really good song on the Six Feet Undercom. Right. And they were coming back. And yeah, the guy goes, you've come too late to Brace War.

And then he looks at us and he goes, and you've come too early. Well, up, we're here now, you. fuck. Yeah. Oh my God. We're fucking here now. And we went to Europe in the winter.

Oh. Rookie. I had leaned in the mic for that one, which was like, what the fuck were we thinking? Yeah. We all did. We've all done it. We did it. I take that over a brutal summer, though.

But it's a trap. It's a trap. Because at the least in the summer, you can, like, stop at a jontie little river. A village. And the shows are good. Yeah, the shows are better. The shows are good. At winter, they don't leave.

They're, they're, they're willages. It doesn't make any sense. I know. And it's too cold to go outside to get some air from all the cigarette smoke. Because they can smoke and all the fucking... Is that still going on, Bo? It's better now. Good.

There's less smoke now for sure. Yeah. Because that was like, I'm sick and I can't speak. Yeah. Day two. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

So that was definitely... How many times did you go? So good tour? I'll say that... we had a couple of good shows and there were some great people that we met out there. That's how it is. That's what it's all about. People who really took care of us when we came through.

And so, yeah, I mean, that it is what it is. It wasn't a great tour, but it wasn't abysmal. But it's like all you ever hear about are the bands that go in the summer and do the Fest Circuit. And they're like, oh, it's going to be a great time. Like shows will be good. But when you go there in the wintertime, it's not a great time. No.

And, you know, and we joke about it all the time. but we got to like the people that do show up and that you make these relationships with at these random little village shows and then you are friends with them your entire life yeah yeah that's it's unbelievable but that that is a real it's a real thing that that breakdowns have led us there you know of course oh yeah i mean like i i it's it's it's it's always a retrospectively you look at it and go i'll do that again in a heartbeat yeah 100% yeah but in the the time you're just like oh like like you know there's like a myth being sold about this and it's just not real but at the same time when you tour europe they do take care of you yeah and at that time in

the u.s you would be looking you'd be looked at like an asshole if you ask for some peanut butter and bread yeah but here's the thing okay okay go ahead there's a financial aspect of that where i don't need the show, the promoter in the U.S. to take care of me because La Quinta has got me. Right. There's just, there's a difference. And, and yes, you do get taken care of often. Yeah. But it's not, we've talked about the thing where it's like if they have guaranteed money

because something is subsidized from the government as a youth activity, they're not that worried about how well the show does because they don't have to be. Yeah. So in that subsidization, there is money set aside for breakfast. and in the morning you get a bag of sliced watermelon it is your right to throw that bag of sliced watermelon as far as it can possibly go but circling back of course the relationships you make

or dude Colin think about the fucking the Bulgarians those are our people those are the best people on our those are Americans they live here those are my close personal friends now Thomas you ever get some bread and peanut butter in Japan I have had some bread and peanut butter in Japan

well there was no bread just peanut butter Just a jar of peanut butter foundation and title fight on tour. Is that correct? Correct. How was that? Delicious. The whole jar was good. Um, so the tour with title fight was phenomenal.

Thank God they, they looked at us and said, all right, you sad, son of a bitch is like, and we got that announcement that we were going with them while we were in Europe. I remember that announcement. I remember seeing like, whole, I think foundation was like the first bank. of our era to go to Japan. Yeah. Like of heavy, you know, so like not including title fight,

not including something that's a little adjacent, but like I remember seeing that and being so jealous, like being so envious that you guys got to go. I mean, thank you. Yeah. It was, it was at the time,

it was a serious accomplishment. And then while you're doing that, you make this rookie mistake of eating this entire, this poor lady's entire jar of peanut butter. Oh, we made lots of mistakes on that trip. Oh. I mean, I had just come off of my, my vegan vacation.

I've been eating vegetarian for a couple of years, and I'd come back to being vegan. And Hankman was vegan, and we're just like, well, what the fuck do we eat here? Oh, man. Nothing. So we're eating rice balls out of the 7-Eleven every single thing. Those are good, though. They're fucking phenomenal. I wish that your 7-Eleven's here had something that good. They're going to.

We're getting there. It's going to happen. I hope so. But here's the thing, the egg sandwich already came, and it's not the same. of course it's not it's all made different yeah yeah it's brutal man they don't even cut the crust off they expect you to eat your own crust it's bullshit um the japan tour was awesome the shows were great the bands the bands um we got to play with the uskay's bands and i mean uskayed filled in for an entire tour wow who couldn't go uh that was the tour that was the tour that oh shit someone in the band

right now was just like dude how did you forget that i wasn't on that tour I think it was Hank. I think Hank had to go home and do something and he joined us much later. And so Yuskei joined us very last second. Like he learned the songs in Sam's apartment, I think. Wow. And we were like, I don't remember how we met Yuske on the Half Hart door. And we're like, hey, we're going to go on tour with Bain after this.

I don't think he was going to do it. But his friend, I think is, oh God, I'm blanking on the names now. So his friend was also over there and his friend was like, dude, you got to go do this. You're over here for like another two months. You got to go do this. And he agreed to come with us. And it was like he got kind of us out of a situation.

Yeah. Really? Yeah, because we, you know, like- ate all the peanut butter? No. This is the before we went to Japan. Oh, okay. This was on the Bain tour we did right after the eight other tours we had done that somewhere.

Right, right. And he learned all the songs. and he was just awesome to be on tour with. And that's kind of like maybe why we got to go to Japan. It's because we kind of had an end. He probably went over there and like vouched for us. Like, I know, like you guys maybe aren't like, like this band's not really on your radar that much.

They're getting there. He's like, I swear, like they're awesome dudes and they're going to put on a good show. Beautiful. I like to believe that. I don't know. He was a sickness. We'll say he did.

Yeah. So we go over there and we have awesome shows. The show in Tokyo is probably still one of my top five shows of all time. One of those shows where you're like actively looking around you're like what the fuck is how did I do that how does this happen How is this real? We're into and these kids are going insane. Yeah. Yeah That's beautiful. I got something you know I've been decorating my apartment and something that I think bands need to start doing Something I think we need to bring back into the zeitgeist

Little joint posters You got the isolation clouds with the drummer boy. Beautiful. This one's going up on the wall, of course. But I just thought I was that, was that a last show? No, that was on the tour. That was the Pray for America

Tour, I think. I think so. No, no. There was a shirt. It was hang your head, I think. Yeah, there was a shirt for that. That might have been the shows that we did with rotting out. I believe so. Yeah. And we just made someone just like made that. It was just like, yeah, we have these.

Okay. That was the tour where we played like that weird town and like where Kentucky and West Virginia meet Nitro. Lexington. What was it called? Lexington. No, it wasn't Lexington. It was like Nitro or something.

Oh, after United Blood. It was Nitro West Virginia. Yeah, and it was like a VFW hall or something. Yep, yep. And somebody had literally thrown a banana peel on the ground and then Chris slipped on it. Chris Smith? Oh, Chris Mills?

Yeah. Oh, my God. Holy shit. I forgot about that. You went your whole life for something. like that. It's very true. Speaking of bananas,

tell me about the banana microphone incident, Thomas. I don't know. I think it was the Bay and Code Orange Tour. They came to Atlanta and played a show. We're kind of like, even not just for local shows, but like we're kind of getting to that like point where it's like, we know we're, not that we know, but if we play a show, it's like we're going to get a good reaction.

Sure. It's going to be good. Yeah. So we get like a crazy reaction. The mic gets ripped out of my hands and it's gone for like half the song. If you've never noticed this about me, if I'm not actively singing the words in the moments,

I get lost in the song. There's been multiple times where I'll be talking and Andrew will kick in the opening riff for No Cure for Fools. And I won't hear it, but I'll hear Champ come in. And by that time, it's too late. You're fucked. I've like,

missed the mark and I'm like, fuck, and I have to go like an entire two verses before I can come in. And so I'm like lost and it's lost. Like I don't even know what to do here. And I remember the venue had like given bananas. And there was just like a thing of bananas there. So I just grab one,

pop it off. And I'm just pointing it out at kids. And they're singing into it. Fuck yeah. Like grabbing my arm like, oh, for how long? Like the rest of the song.

Fuck yeah. And Matt Miller's, you know, excellent photographer. he's on the side, he's just snapping pictures, and we get this great picture of, like, me pointing this banana out. Everybody's singing along,

but nobody known it had happened until he posted the pictures. Oh, that's beautiful. I'll need that for, to show the people right now. Please send it over. I don't know how I would find it. Contact Matt.

He's got the high-res copy. Four-K. And I'm like, what? I was going to say, but then it turned into a thing that when Caleb was singing for AOP, he pulled the same gimmick.

And I think like America's hardcore fest or something. Like he did the same thing where he was like, He immortalized the banana mic. Yeah, yeah. Lost the mic and was just like, fuck it, there's a banana right here. I'll just point that out.

How were all these bananas near the stages? It doesn't make sense. I remember when Gorilla did play the wrecking ball, I went to the grocery store and bought like dozens of bananas. That makes sense. So that we could throw them when they were playing. Ah. Which was a terrible idea because an unpeeled banana being thrown is like,

birth. Yeah. Well, I got. the idea because when we were younger, saves the day had played at the masquerade and it was on the Can't Hardly Wait tour. Fuck yeah. And if you if you remember, no,

but not can't not Canceled out. Great movie. Yeah. What is the what is the one where they're all sitting on the couch? Through being cool. Through being cool. God bless it. That's okay. Through being cool. And then when you're going through the lyric sheet, there's that picture I think of like the guitar player and he's like, oh,

and there's like somebody with a pizza box. Okay. So somebody have gone to like Papa Johns or Domino's and just asked for like 400 pizza boxes. And they're like them, this kid, this guy, little Joe and a couple other people are like, these are like old Atlanta people are like folding them up on the side of the thing because when they play, they just start tossing pizza boxes during their sets. And it becomes like an obstruction. Like it's almost to shut up a showdown because pizza boxes blind everywhere. Those are those can be sharp. Yeah.

Fuck yeah, dude. Cardboard cut. Cardboard's fucked. Yeah. Especially on a pizza box. What can you tell me about the most precious blood shopping cart incident? What you get? This is his new thing, dude.

He leaves me in the lurch with all this dirt, and I'm along for the ride. So I think I want you to be excited, but is what. It's true. I mean, you're not right. I am invested immediately, you're right. A fun fact about me is in high school, I got my two front teeth knocked out. That was kind of your look for it. Well, yeah.

Frankly, I didn't even know you fixed. him. Sorry, I can't hear you. I said, frankly, I didn't even know you fixed them. It's been a minute. We're going to get there. Okay. I got him knocked out. Because we went to an abandoned hospital. My friend, we're like walking around in the dark. This is like the most fun.

Like, oh my God, a ban on hospital. Like this is sketchy. We do that now. Yeah, yeah. Well, there's probably ghosts in here. I want to see something. Take it. Do you know where it is? Yeah. Yeah, it's still there.

Perfect. Coming soon. Yeah, there you go. And my friend from high school, his name's Chris Bieber, he's walking down the hallway with this PVC pipe that's about 23 feet long. And he's dragging the front end of it across the ceiling. And the ceiling is like that drop tile stuff. Yeah.

Well, eventually it gets caught in one of those little brackets. I'm behind him. It's dark. Nobody can see what's going on. And so to get it out, he brings the front end down, like yanks it down, but it brings the back end of the pipe up. And it just whops me. Who's that?

Who's that wrestler, Colin, that got it real good with the latter. WWE. I want to say Matt Seidel. It's obviously not Matt Seidel, but he like busts. It's a Hardy Boys thing, and he, and maybe, I don't remember, but I can imagine. I know, I know Cizaro lost some teeth. That was jumping into the ring post. And dude, he didn't lose him.

They got pushed in. Yeah, I'm terrible. But anyway, how old were you when that happened, Thomas? Oh, God. 16, maybe. Wow. So you rocked that for a while. No, no.

I'm going to get there. So I, they get knocked out. I immediately swallow them. You know. They get broken out. And both my lips get busted completely open. And I swallow them. Dude, that double sucks because you swallow teeth and the tooth fairy doesn't give you anything.

Yeah. You're embezzling at that point. That's bullshit, dude. Terrible. And the sad thing is, it's like, because I'm doing something, I'm not supposed to be doing. I need to come up with a story, but I also had to drive myself to my mom's work.

It's like not something like we don't have cell phones all the time. I can't communicate this to her in a fashion. I can barely talk. So I'm in the passenger seat in my car. Chris is driving it. We're like stopping at red lights. I'm looking at people and they're looking at me and I'm just like I look like leather face.

How many times did Chris say I'm sorry? Oh, so much. He thought I was going to fight him. Yeah. I think I would, I mean, to this day, does he ever like, hey man? He would look at those teeth and just be like, I did that. Yeah, probably. I mean, I haven't talked to him in years, but probably.

I would feel so bad. Sorry, but go on. So you're in the car. So we're in the car. We go to my mom's place. And I'm like, hey, I need, you know, I call, I ask for her. I'm like, I need Lori. She comes down and then she just starts immediately cry.

Now, I'm like, mom, it's going to be okay. I'm not understanding. Now that I'm a parent with kids, I understand. You just cost me so much money. That's why she cried. Of course. You fucking idiot. And then we have to make up some lie where I'm like,

I got hit in the face with a baseball while we were playing or something like that. Yeah. Not because we had legally broken in its place. Did she buy it? I get, yeah. Nice. Yeah, so hey mom. White lie.

That's a white lie. I get these fake teeth, but they're like the cheapest ones you can get. But they hold out for years. Those Dennis the Menace. Yeah, the chicklets. Yeah, but they hold out for years. Then, Foundation, you know, a decade later, we're like, let's go do like a weekend in Texas.

Let's go over to Texas and try to make a name, play some shows with some local bands there. Hell yeah. You know, what's up? So we go out there and we have to get a fill in. So Matt Miller, the photographer with a banana picture, fills in for us. He plays bass, phenomenal bass player too. the first day we go to Chili's to eat dinner and then we're leaving. We're like, let's go over to this Target real quick.

And in the Target, Target had those big, like, double, like, kid seat shopping cards with this big black bar on, like, a big piece of plastic. And he tries to, like, W.W.E, like, flip me into the cart. But instead, it just goes sideways and he just very balks my head on the bar. But he hits it at the exact right. frequency where both the teeth just go it's just caught right back out. Whoa. We're in Texas.

I don't have dental insurance. I don't have any insurance whatsoever. I'm not even sure they have hospitals there. I'm living at the Wifer house. I'm like, I don't know what to do right now. And I'm like freaking out. He's like, oh God, he's about to kill me.

And then I'm like, I'm tongue in it. I'm like, okay, we need to go to a dentist, but we can't go to an emergency dentist. Like I already know my brain. That's going to be. That's billions. Yeah. Billions. I'm like, we'll just go in the morning.

And I'm like tongue in them and I'm like, it feels weird, but it doesn't hurt. Ah. Let me drink some water. I drink the water. It's a little sensitive at first. I knew you already wits and I was like, it's a little bit sensitive,

but the sensitivity went away probably because the nerve endings were dying. But there was no, there was no blood or anything. He just broke the fake teeth back out. Yeah. So we do the tour. Everyone's just like, what the fuck is the problem with this guy?

It looks like a fucking met him. that exercise. Yeah. We get home, I finally see a dentist and I'm like, they're like, oh yeah, that's like $2,500 bucks a tooth. And like, at that point in my life, you might as a little bit.

Yeah. You might as well, yeah. So you didn't do it and they grew back or what? I didn't fix it. I didn't fix them at first because it didn't hurt to eat. They didn't cause me pain. And at least at that point in my life, the biggest concern was like,

the girls thought it was cute. Oh, fuck yeah. All right. Girls thought it was cute. Hey. They were like, I don't know. There's something about it. And I said, you know what?

You look like a fighter, you know? Did you sing with a list? Huh? No, I didn't have a list, Bernie Seng. But I remember thinking like, I wasn't the only guy at that time whose teeth got wrecked because I remember Walter. Walter is still rocking. Yeah. She has no teeth, dude.

Yeah, he probably looks fucking more badass than he's ever looked. That's, I mean, if he fixed that, I think people would be devastated. Sexy Tim once told me, he said the biggest mistake I ever did was fix my teeth. I think people who fix their like gaps or their they're like iconic imperfections are you're throwing your personality that that's you we were just talking about this Colin when I was in LA the other day that like I like a thing that's quote unquote wrong and a face I think that makes it interesting I really don't something to remember like oh that's the that's the gap guy you know yeah sure well I rock that guy I rocked that for oh it felt like five or six years

then eventually got to a point where I could afford to actually fix them. And then Matt actually got to a point in his life too where he was like, let me give you a little bit of money to help fix your team. Oh, that's so nice. And before they fixed them, they did a plaster mold of them. And he still, he has the plaster mold. It's like a fireplace. Does he, does Matt have a ton or at one point, did he have a ton of skateboards lining his house?

Yeah. Yeah, I stayed at his house once. I think Charlie, Charlie was the skateboard guy. He's since kind of cleared out a lot of that collection, but he still has some stuff. He had the Samhain board. He had like the boards. That's a cumbersome thing to collect. Dude, imagine his entire house, all of his walls were skateboards.

It's insane. And not, I don't think all of them had trucks and wheels on him, so it was mostly just decks. But it was still just like, that's that many inches less on every wall. So your house is that much smaller. Your house is six inches less. wide on every wall. Brutal. I heard you once put out an Iron Boots record.

I did. I put up the Iron Boots demo as a 7-inch. Tell me about that. So Justin Jordan was a local Atlanta guy. And he passed away, like, right as the band started. But he was like, you know how there's always a guy in your scene that's like the cutting-edge guy? Sure. He just seems to know about the fucking cool band. before you know about him and can kind of see the future.

He was that guy. Okay. Like he understood that the locking out scene was going to be the next huge thing. Gotcha. Before anybody else. And he was like, you got to listen to this band Iron Boots. And I was like, okay, listen to the demo. And I was like, that's the best thing I've ever heard in my life.

At least at that time, I was like that, it was like that in the cold world demo. And I was like, that's the best music I've ever heard of my life. Iron Boots, members of Fire and Ice. And yes pre-fire ice Pre-fire nice right Virginia Beach band Yeah And they I just like

Oh I love this demo And he was like he's like We should try to put it out as a seven inch And I'm like that's insane Like someone else Someone else is gonna put that out What are you a millionaire? Yeah

Well back then I mean you could get a record press That like musical in Ohio for like 500 bucks from Yes Like it wasn't really that much And I was like working two jobs at time And I was like he's like

We should try to put it out I said okay let's email them we emailed them and they said yes I was like what the fuck that's crazy now we're really got to do this thing and this was like the height of like you could put something cool on the bridge nine board and it'd be gone like that

oh yeah oh yeah thank you're welcome by the way would you say you're welcome for that yeah surely one of them so we I put them on the bridge nine board I wasn't like a act like I wasn't I was like the quiet guy in the group checks like I didn't actively post that much I was always keeping up with the Bridgetine board. Who was your Brousine username?

I think it was killed their past X. I think it was. Mine was BOSXE. Beautiful. What was it? My screen name on everything has been the same thing since I was like 15. Bo SXE. Bo Sexy, baby.

Bo Sexy. I love it. Mine was soaked in torment. Oh, that's a good one. That's a real good one. Good song, right? Yeah. I wonder how, what was the B9 board's piece?

amount of active users. That's a really good question. It would have had to been during the locking out era. And how many people was that? Because like our Discord has like 4,000 people. Right. You know? It felt like a million, but it was probably...

It felt like a billion. It was probably 2000. It was probably about 2,000, 2,000 to 3,000. With the same 50 people posting every day. I think it was at one point the most dangerous place on the internet. Oh, yeah. because that was that was at a time where like you would write you would write something on that board and you might get caught up yeah you're it's happening it's law you're you're you're stamping

your name behind whatever you're saying yeah someone would find you at a fest like j and silent bob and be like are you users yeah did you did you call me a like an ass licker and then you might get me up for it yeah that's that's all of twitter now though so yeah true but i don't think people are too comfortable on there right now Way too comfortable on Twitter. There needs to be a reckoning. Oh, yeah. People just think they can say or do whatever they want.

It's brutal. It's crazy. So anyway, they said yes, you emailed them. Now you got to do it. Got to put it out. Put up the pre-orders instantaneously. Like more than I could like absorb or I was like, oh fuck. Like that's a lot of people.

Wow. Yeah. Okay. And I got to do the emergency press so they can have it for positive numbers that year. Got that taken care of no problem. And then the part that caught me up, which catches everybody up, anytime. I mean,

you guys understand, you've been musicians, was the hacking and shipping part where it was like, one, it took forever to get the records. Yeah. By those standards back then.

Right, right. And then I had to individually, like, address and mail these out one in time. I didn't have like a label printer. Yeah, no. It's 2003.

What the fuck? Like, future technology. I can't do that. And so it just took a long-ass time. But like, I set every record out. You got them out.

I don't know the whole time. They're like, yeah, I finally got a record. I was going to, you know, I was going to beat your ass, but I did it. I did it. But I think somebody was like, the singer of Aftermath from D.C., John Aftermath. He was like, yeah, I was going to beat his ass, but I got that record eventually. I was like, thank God. And then I felt like, you know, like there was like a weird schism between me and the Iron Boots guys.

Oh, no. Because they were getting shit for you not shit. They were also getting shit. And I just felt so bad. I'm sure they were just like, look, we just like, want to wash our hands with this. Yeah. Time passed. And then like, you know, I ended up.

like becoming friends with flissa and them and you know it was like you laugh about it now but at the time it was like it was a very stridtsful situation was philz fliza was an iron boots too yes fucking legend dude can't tell by that drummond that you're right tichay get that good good good a good yeah yeah i agree so yeah okay that's good they made them out good for you man it was it was it was it was fun but it was a learning experience it gave me more patience for people who were doing stuff at that time. Yeah. That, that, that patience

is gone now amongst stuff buyers. I just saw you post something about like sending out the, uh, the Twitch bits thing. That took a while, but there's a couple reasons, you know? I hate you have to apologize

for something like that. But I think they came they came at the right time because the season is upon us once again. But also it's like, guys, you got a book. You got a bag. You got it. They didn't know they were getting all that. But like, can you shut up about it?

You know, like, come on. But I haven't seen a single person who's gotten them be disappointed. No, it's truly one of the best packaging things I've seen on a record. I used to love pre-ordering stuff or buy something. And then so much time of past, I'd forgotten about it. It's the best. Yeah. And it's like, oh, cool.

It's the best. Yeah. Dude, every Halloween, some company puts up some shirt for some movie. and I'm like, that's the coolest sure I've ever seen. And it comes Q3 two years later. And I'm like, this is still the sixth show I've ever seen. This is amazing. I think in modern history, the pre-order I waited for the longest was the

Born to Landhardt Press. From A389? Yeah. And that wasn't any of his fault. He wanted to make sure that thing was perfect before it got out. And when I got it, it was Christmas. It was like Christmas. How good does that feel?

Yeah. I was like, boy, I'm happy I got this thing. I literally. I used to not show up. Yeah. I literally opened up a shirt package yesterday of that in-tom shirt that's like some people don't understand. Fuck you.

And then it's just a matter of bullets. OG? No, no, no, just a boot. Like the OG is way too expensive and hard to find. That's like a $5,600 shirt.

Yeah, it's a crazy shirt. But I found it on comfort colors. I was like, oh, fuck it. I'll make it a cut off or whatever. Ordered it probably before I went to Europe.

And it just showed up yesterday. And how good did that feel? Oh, dude. I was like, oh! I forgot. I forgot I even ordered it. I love showing.

I ordered this week. Yeah, that's, dude, I love checking for mail. It's like, what did I get me? I'm so nice to me. This is incredible. All right, let's hear the Strange Darling story. Oh. Is that what you went to see?

Yeah, I went to see Strange Darling last night. It seems great. You wouldn't know. I wouldn't know. I'm done with AMC theaters once and for all. It's over. I do think, Colin,

use this platform, use this time as your PSA. I'm going to use it because, listen, AMC, you should be ashamed of yourself. It should not be my job as your customer

to enforce your policies in your theaters. 100%. You should have people standing on each corner telling people to shut the fuck up and put their phones with.

Yesterday I had to deal with, and I know when it's going to happen. You know? I can see. see when somebody's going to be a problem. Do you get that anxiety? I get this horrible feeling. Yeah.

And the theater's dark. The theater's silent. The movie is starting. And four people come up. Phones on, flashlights on. Talking full volume, like, I think it's the last row. Family-sized bag of Cheetos. And I see that. And I go, this is it.

This is going to be a problem. They're talking over the, like, epic opening of this. movie. Strange darling. Which seems great. I'm a big Kyle Garner guy.

I've had been for a long time. I'm very happy to see him, you know, have a win. These four people aren't shutting the fuck up. And my blood is boiling. I'm in combat mode,

you know, where it's like, tonight is tonight, 100%. And I give him a stern shut up. And a lady in like thick Russian is like, they sell the stuff here.

You can eat. it, they're eating. And I'm screaming at this point. So someone else, a third party. Talks to me. Because there's four people, and the one at the end, Lana's in between me and her and she's yelling at me. Oh, my God.

Pack to her, and I'm yelling at her, you're in a fucking movie theater, shut the fuck up. And then she's like, you shut up. And I'm like, no, you shut up. So, and then Lana's sitting in between, just like this. And I'm sitting there like, I'm stretching at this point. You know?

Because it's, there's two guys with her. And I'm like, okay, I'm fighting both guys. You got to take a lot. I'm mentally preparing like, okay,

the movie's ending, and then I'll have to fight two guys at the same time. So I'm, I'm stretching a little bit, you know? I'm in my seat, like,

getting ready. I'm taking things out of my pockets. I'm just getting ready. And then one of our, Erica leaves, because she's like, she can feel the tension. The tension is insane.

So then they start eating louder. They start, Instead of talking, are like, mm. Oh my God. For provocation. And I can't take it anymore. Because then it's like, okay, it's, it's leave or jail.

This will not stand. It will not stand. It is like engage in combat, 2V1, or just leave this theater and watch this great movie somewhere else, anywhere else than AMC theater. How deep into the movie were you? 15 minutes. It seems great. You're giving me anxiety right now.

I can't wait to finish it someday. I mean, the movie is, the opening is pure anxiety. So I'm feeling everything that she's feeling, essentially. They are him. I'm her, Thomas. You know, that makes sense to you. You've seen it. I haven't seen it.

So I leave and I, in the lobby, cancel my stubs. And now I will make it my lifelong goal to crush this corporation. by any means necessary. Did you say anything on your way out? No. Just. Because you know why, Bo? There's 400 other people in there trying to watch this movie.

Of course. And, you know, in my conquest for peace, I create war. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I realize, like, to some people in here, maybe I'm the bad guy. And I can't have that. There are a bunch of dubs.

They're not willing to do what needs to be done. They can't do it. And, and, but I shouldn't have to do it. That's what I was going to say is the word, the Russian woman correcting you is in the wrong. 100%. In that moment, you were being valiant. Yes. She should have supported you.

100%. I applaud anybody who's work. Because I get real, real hinky. I'm like, I want to fucking say something. But I also like, I don't, I live in Atlanta. You could possibly get shot for even asking someone to get out of this, your, your pre-registered seat. 100%. Yeah.

And I understand that. And I, and it's like, it's not that different here. You know, I've had conversations with guys who could fuck me up. Yeah. So it's like you being brave enough to say something, she should have been like, yeah, shut the fuck up. The whole theater should have backed me up because they were, they were, you could hear them in fuck on the fucking, the Super Mario world, you know? Yeah. It was at the universal AMC, which is a lawless wasteland, so I should have known better.

But it's over. I'm never going again. Well, a few things. One, I'm sorry you missed that movie because I was just saying that I think. I think it's the best movie I saw this summer. I'm not thinking it's the best movie. Dude, the opening, I was like, this is going to be the movie the year. But I saw a lot of stuff this summer that was a letdown.

And I thought that was the best movie I saw the summer. Two, the best tweet I saw the summer was people aren't going or not going to the movies because they don't, like, they don't care about seeing movies and theaters. They care about theaters not fucking holding up their policies. Oh, dude. Why would I want to pay 30 goddamn dollars to listen to kids? Nothing makes my skin jump more than children because of my profession where it's like, why are these goddamn kids in here at 11 o'clock?

Hell yeah. They don't understand. It's like complex rated R movie. Dude, they have no. They don't, kids aren't aware that like we can kill all of them. And I'm sorry, I know you're a teacher. I don't want to get you in trouble for that. He didn't say that I did.

Like, I'm so much stronger than every kid combined. How many you think you could take? Kid? Like, what grade is we talking? You're standing in a gymnasium, tile floor. Yeah. Your dress however you want to dress. Yeah.

Spin kick, God's head shorts. They can be on. You got a stream of kid. A stream of kids, let's say every 10 seconds, grade one. Grade one? Every 10 seconds, another one comes. First grader? First grader.

About thousands. A thousand? No, thousands. Okay. But that's still. Even if you're just kicking one seconds I need one second per kid if you're kicking one every ten seconds That's still you kicking like five tons Yeah, that's gonna all I have to do is get them on the ground and their brains are jelly

Would you use one as a weapon and a hundred percent easily dude you can make a barricade out of the book Yeah, a hundred percent human shield with the through the shirt. Yeah, you know yeah And I'm not saying I want to do this. You just could. But they should know that it's an option for me in a movie theater. I really don't, I don't care for, like, policing. I don't care for, like, a civil, what is it called, citizen arrests in any way, outside of movie theaters and airplanes, airports. Because realistically, this is the literal one place in the world where you can't do this.

Yeah. Like, if your goal is have a conversation to hang out with friends and, and like talk at all. You can go anywhere else. Go anywhere. Yes. In the world. I've expressed that.

I've yelled that on the show before. Yeah. For free. You can do it for free. For free. For free. You paid money to fucking talk. With much bigger,

cheaper snacks. So I wish that you could talk to Jeff Jock sometime and have him tell you the story about the movie fight that he's been in. It's an amazing story, but basically it ends with him turning around and looking at someone goes, are you going to talk to the fucking credits too? And then just a brawl breaks out. Fuck, that's a good line.

That's a good line. I mean, I've hit a lot of people with like, did you enjoy that? Could you hear it? It doesn't bring me joy. It brings me misery and pain to feel this way. Do you know the Seinfeld episode where George yells at kids doing that? And he says, yeah, I'm going to show you what it's like, dude. And do you know the story behind that, that line?

Dude, that line, Larry David was just listening to some big band record. and someone in the big band on the recording fucks up and the leader says if you can't get it right I'm gonna take you out back and show you what it's like so Larry David put it in the script

that's it show you what it's like is insane it's so good dude because when was that big band recording 1943 yeah exactly to show you what what was like but yeah

in the Seifold episode the whole audience cheers for George and that's what I want like I'm your hero Yeah. I'm your Batman and you don't respect me? Watchful protector.

Strange darling in theaters now. I haven't seen it yet. Colin hasn't seen it either. I haven't seen it either. Tell me about Thomas playing a show with Brokenside and Millionaires. Whole. All right. So again, we're on one of those abysmal tours.

I think it's the first tour with Forfeit. We're playing in Kansas. Okay. And we go to Wichita. And we're supposed to play this show that's at like a biker bar. And we can hear a band inside, like warming up. And I'm not even joking. Earlier that day, me and Andrew were talking about the band Colesque.

Coales. Yeah, Coles. They're from Kansas. And how insane of a voice Sean Ingram has. Totally. Like, nobody sounds like that. Nobody will ever sound like that. Except for whatever this opening band was in Wichita.

We just hear them like, and then we hear this guy vocal checking, and he sounds just like Sean Ingrove. And I'm like, holy shit, like, this is going to be crazy. So we go in there. There's nobody in there except for like a bunch of old VFW guys and this like dad rock band.

And the guy of vocal checking is like this guy who's like, ZZTop beard bald on top. And I'm like, is this the show we're supposed to be at? This doesn't feel like the show we're supposed to be at. And there's like two kids outside and they're like, hey, I don't think this show is going to work because Broken Side and Millionaires are playing down the street. But we can get you on that show if you want to go play that.

And we're like assessing the situation. We're like, yeah, fuck it. Let's go play. Probably would have done the same thing. Dude, millionaires are local legends here. Well, I didn't know who the fuck those bands were. You weren't on MySpace? You were on MySpace.

We were friends. I don't remember that scene. That like near like techno core fluorescent neon tube light type. Disco with breakdowns. Yeah, yeah, just go with breakdowns. And we get there and it's, I mean, it's sold out. It's like a packed crowd. Half the room is little kids.

The other half of the room are their parents. And we get on and we get to play like four songs each. Hell yeah. So we go through our set. the kids are just like this is almost like what I loved about it the kids were just there to see live music so they were going to vibe to whatever was happening and they're jumping up and down and they're going crazy and I point the mic at this one kid and he just grabs it and he's just like and in between the song I go hey you don't know the words and he goes I just wanted to scream and I was like dude

I'm like dude yeah that's all that's way cooler than making than pretending you know yeah I was like Just scream. I was like, like he had me in that moment. I can't even argue that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just wanted to scream, dude. Like, fuck, I feel you, I feel you, brother. How was the millionaire set?

Oh, it's bonkers. Couldn't believe that was real music. Let's get fucked up. I don't know. I don't know what was crazier. Give me that. Like a youth of today set from the,

from like the anthrax. Same. Like kids were going insane. Same thing. Thomas, you remember when, uh, foundation,

disgrace? and Harms Way had to play This is Hardcore after show at Kung Fu Necktie and we had like 30 minutes

for all three bands before a hard curfew. Yes, and I feel like that was That's no exaggeration, Colin. I feel like that was the last time we played this is hardcore like one of our lashes

and I think we might have been we jumped on and I always feel I know you're bringing up but I always feel guilty about that show I'm like we didn't need to jump on that it was awesome though

what our disgrace and I disgrace and harm's way are going to have 20 minutes each instead of 15 you know like I know but it was like you know you always feel bad like nah it was it was a literal I think disgrace disgrace played first and then harm's way we played after I've who who like drew like why was it like it was it was mercy was that was that was Bob was there so I feel like it was like a mother mercy set or something was this the the drop no God's say played a drop dead one there this was 2015, I think, because Samayo was with us.

Okay. So it had to be 2015. But yeah, so it was like, disgrace played. They played the fucking gung, gung, gung, gung, gung, gung, I was in that page. Yeah. That Harb's way played. Pretty good bands. Dude, changeover of maybe three minutes.

Wow. Oh, yeah, so fast. And then again for foundation. And what was cool is everyone just like stayed. Like nobody left. So it was like we got outside to like talk they just stayed in the room. We got done playing in Samio and I were just stage diving for foundation. You know, it's awesome fucking awesome.

And we fit, I think we legitimately fit three bands like four song sets in 45 minutes. That's incredible. Awesome. True story. More bands need to learn that. Yeah, it was awesome. Why are you taking so long instead of? Less is more.

Less is more. So Thomas, how early? I'm out of, I'm out of surprises. How early was the foundation breakup announced? Because I remember Turncoat coming out and the understanding was already like this is the last record, this is it. Yeah. Oh, man. If you ask Champ, he'll probably tell you, like, I was trying to kill the band for like two years.

Really? Wow. Yeah. I, uh, this is kind of one of those things of like being younger where it was like, bands don't need to stay around forever. because eventually they take up space that another band should be occupying. And I still stand by that sentiment. And I'm going to, I'll get into that a little bit later.

But like, we, we did our thing. We kind of had our time. And we went through that. And I wanted to be, I didn't want to overstay our welcome, you know, like I didn't want to get into this kind of like. And Lord, do we know that can happen? Yeah, like, all right, brother, we've seen you. Like, knock it off.

But I didn't understand that the ties were also changing. Well, we didn't need to tour all the time. Right. I didn't know that was on the horizon. I was like, we can't keep doing that. And you talked about the comeback kid tour, but that was kind of the realization where it was like, we were like, we were like, we don't want to do this all the time. I would have bet my life that that was the catalyst. But it wasn't, it wasn't them.

In fact, I would argue that comeback kid was one of the better bands to tour with. They were. Of course. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's just them. It was just that tour.

It was just that tour. It's like, okay, this is reality. This is what this is actually like once you start doing this whole time. Yeah, when you're turning that into a lifestyle, this is what it looks like. And I was like, I don't really want to do that. Yeah. And I think everybody kind of quickly came to that realization. But instead of just being like, well, let's just take a hiatus and I was like, we should kill the bands.

Like, we should end the band. She should kill their past. Yeah, kind of. But, okay, I'm going to get deep for a second. Please. Part of me wanting to break the band. up was like kind of like being okay with death like things ending and leaving them alone and that's always I mean if you've ever looked at foundation lyrics that's something I've always

kind of struggle with like there is all of this is not infinite there's a finite amount of time we have here and so I was like I've never been okay with that I've never been okay with this idea that we're just like grinding through all this and it just stops. And I thought that maybe if we could break the band up, that would be like a like a simulation of that. Of just accepting death as a concept? Yes, kind of. Wow.

Interesting. I know that seems kind of like lofty. And for some people, they might just be like, what the fuck is he on about right now? But it was like maybe we can end this thing and walk away from it. And it won't be so upsetting. Yeah. And we did.

We did that. and I'm okay I came out okay it was okay you had you had your family backing you up you had Overwatch back in you oh man

it's so much I watched it back me up but now now you know rebirth is is in the best case scenario part of death ideally you know

yeah you're it's a whole new world now well so part of that is like one of the things that always stung a little bit was I remember sitting at the last show on stage when you guys were playing when harm's way was playing and kind of like looking around and being like this might be one of the last times that were all kind of like in the room together and there's and you guys have been there you've been in situations like that where it's like it's sad yeah one of the reasons i love touring was it wasn't even so much playing the shows it was

just seeing those faces, getting California and knowing that I was going to see the young brothers, going to Chicago or somewhere in the Midwest and knowing that I was going to see Bo and Chris and Charlie getting up to Long Island and knowing that I was going to see all those guys. Like I loved that feeling. And I love like for me personally, I have a hard time keeping really close, strong relationships. So it was nice for me, personally for me, not speaking for the whole man, that like, okay, I can like step back and then I can check. came with all these people every few times a year. And when the band was sitting there playing,

I was like, this won't happen for a while. Damn. And that was really, really sad for me. Like, I had to sit with that. I cried at the end of the last show, not because the foundation was broken up. It's just like... Your life is changing.

It's a phase. I'm not going to see all these guys like I used to. It's a phase not in the phase sense of like, oh, it's just a phase, but it's like a major chapter, yes, of your life. But hardcore is not a phase, obviously. I keep these tenants with me until the day I die. But being in a touring band, which is its own thing, that phase was kind of over.

And now I see that it's a little bit different. We can go out on a weekend and it's okay. And I can see my friends again. You can play once a year and it's okay. Exactly. We can play once a year. I can see my friends and it's okay. And that's when I kind of started coming around to that idea.

And I'm like, well, I want to see my friends. I want to, there's younger bands that I want to play shows with because I like them. And I'm like. And then it turned into the. thing of like I don't want to be like a reunion band I want to come back and I want to be a part of the conversation. Ah, I like that. I love that.

I like that. I want to be a part of the conversation again. I'm not saying and I'm not trying to step on it until I'm not trying to take space from anybody. That's a big thing for me. I was talking to band about it. I was like if we do this, I don't want to take space from anybody. I just want to be a part of the conversation.

I think there's space for everybody. There always has been. Never more than ever. And there's there's young bands who we've talked to. that like exists because of foundation. Yeah. Who are, who they want to play with you,

you know? I would love to play with them. They're out there. They're watching. I want to play. I mean, I just, I think about something like,

like, the whole like Northern unrest scene. Yeah. Oh my God. It's the, we talk about it all the time. It's the sickest thing in the world. I'm like,

how would I ever have a chance to play with those bands or really even see them? Because they may not make it over to the States. Yeah. And if they do, it's usually like we're going to play like the northeast and then maybe go over to California yeah you know Atlanta still has the southeast just kind of has that problem

because once you get like down to Richmond everything is a fucking seven-hour drive yeah yeah away so and I don't fall people for that it's a big jump but it's like I won't play with bands like that I want to see them like I guarantee you they want you there yeah for sure well I'd be flattering it if they felt lads if you're watching that's gonna happen uh so tell me about turncoat because you guys knew Like, okay, this is it. We're putting it all into this one. We're making the best one last.

Which I think you did. I would agree. As a band, I think that was our best one because, one, as I said earlier, like, lyrically, I knew it was going to be the last one. So I was like, I'm going for broke on these songs. And even now, like, looking back, I'm like, oh, that's a grammatical error. I should have fixed that. Well, you're a coach.

You're a teacher, yeah. Yeah, so I should have fixed that. I meant to say this and I said that. but that's not neither here or there so i've been there we've all been there i went all out on those and i rehearsed those songs the most before we reported them interesting because we went to chicago and recorded with andy yep what caused that was dead in the dirt reported with them and when we heard that record we were like but that sounds awesome yeah like it just sounded gnarly but like not in a shitty way like ooh like this guy knows what he's doing and it still has like

I don't know. This all sounds like very like, machismo, had like big ass balls on it. And one of the biggest complaints I ever heard about foundations, people like, love the band,

love the dudes, love the live show. We don't sound like that on a record. And I was like, I think we decided that if we, if we went with someone like Andy, he would make us sound like what we sound like why. Interesting.

And I think he did. I think that's, turquode is what we sounded like why. Yeah, I agree. That's foundation to me. Yeah. I think I visited you guys when you were recording it.

Were you in town when we recorded it? I believe so. Yeah, I remember I remember visiting. I remember seeing everybody. It was still when it was the strangest studio because there's all the fucking. It was like a wood shop. The wood shop stuff and the raincoats and all this weird shit. It's just a bizarre.

I loved it, though. I would report with Andy again in a second. Like, he was amazing to report it. Drew put us up. Yep. Like he took care of us. we were there. Yep.

King. He's a king. He's a king. How many times did you get to play those songs? Uh, for just a tour and the last show? Yeah, kind of.

Wow. Except for failure of breeds failure. We had had that one in the tank for like almost a year and a half. Okay. Before we got to everything else. In fact, the first FYA Fest, we played that song in its entirety at that show. Oh, cool. How to go over?

Oh, the kids went crazy. No, but it wasn't a unique experience that we, like, played a new song. We opened with it. And even though people didn't know it, they were still, like, moshing. They understood the energy of the song, which like that. That's the dream. And that's a bang. Yes.

Yeah. It's very difficult. Opening with a new song used to be a really cool. It's a brave thing a lot of bands used to do. Absolutely. Yeah. Scary. I wouldn't do it now, personally.

So you're coming back at F. Are you scared? We are coming back at FAA. I'm terrified. Everyone's telling me, they're like, oh, just relax. It's going to be fine. I'm terrified. I've always been terrified.

What terrifies you? I think I just really understand that hardcore is like you get back what you put out. And I'm scared that if that energy's not there, it'll feel awful. The energy's there. I can probably see that now. I don't want to perform for a room of people that are like, oh, cool. No. No, there's you, there are people traveling to see you perform.

We can tell you, like, scientifically based on, like, when we've interviewed people who go to these fest and go to these things, that it is, it would be impossible for you to play that fest and have people go, oh, cool. It's, it's really you and Title Fighter are the only ones they haven't seen. Yeah. You're all they have left. So don't worry, it's going to be great. And if you're, if your concern is you get what you get, like give, you have already given, the music is for, the art lives forever, you know? Yeah.

It's not like because you stop giving the speeches before Bain plays that you won't get good reactions anymore. You don't need that the speeches were great. You already gave them. People remember them. You have the music. So now the music is the message. They know the message. Now they get to experience the message.

Well, the implication being like I don't have more speeches. Oh, I know, I know your ass got some speeches. The scroll. I know that set's going to be 50 minutes long, 20 minutes of music. I did actually talk about not playing an extremely long set. I think you should, I think you should live one more. Yes, precisely. We looked at like, how long did we play at the last show when we were like, Jesus Christ?

How long was it? I think it was like 60 minutes or something. something. Yeah, it was long. 16 songs? I don't know. It felt like an eternity. It was long. That's a lot. Yeah. It was a long ass set. But you have last one. I know. I wouldn't want to put anybody through that again, though.

They want it. They're like, God, can you just fucking play Devotion 3 already? Now, so you're scared of that. Are you, are you scared of ghosts? Great segue. Wow. I've been waiting for this question. I am

not scared of ghosts. That's what I'm talking. an educated man. But not scared. Do you not believe in them? Okay. This is where Bo is going to like, he's commending me. I tell my students this all the time, because I teach science. I'm all about the critical thinking and the skepticism.

I am a skeptic to my bone. I do not believe in ghosts yet I believe I have seen one. Now, how does that work? It's what we call a paradox. Mm-hmm. Science. Okay. So how did you see one?

one explain all right please when I was growing up we lived in the suburbs of Atlanta we lived in a house that had a long hallway on the top floor that connected all the bedrooms shot bathroom the staircase to go downstairs and all the other adjacent rooms my bedroom was at the end of the hallway like I was the dead end at the end of the hallway that's the most haunted place everybody knows yeah and I believe it was 96 or 97 hurricane years Hurricane Andrew hit and I remember waking up about

five, six in the morning and there's just like the power's out. It's a whistling outside, the wind's going crazy. It's that very soft gray glow because the sun can't get through because the cloud cover is so thick and my parents aren't there. At this time, my life my parents work nights so they were at work. I know that this hurricane's going on. I just woke up

in it and I'm like, oh, I wonder if my parents came home or I get up, open the door, and I'm like walking to the hallway, and I see my mom. And I'm like, okay, it's cool. They came home early, obviously, because of the storm. And I'm like, Mom, Mom. Mom. And as my mother turns to go down the staircase, she turns, looks back at me. It's not my mom.

It's just a very vagueless-looking face with two glowing eyes. And then it just kind of like dithers away as it moves down the stairs. and I'm not joking you like in a Tom and Jerry cartoon I just backpedal down the hallway close the door take the comfort off my bed

and then lay down on the side of my bed on the ground because in my head the logic is that they come through the door they can't see me terrible logic stupid decision and to this day like here's the thing I don't believe in ghosts so you weren't scared to that in that moment I was terrified but I know

I know that I saw something. I do too. I know you saw something. Here's the thing. What was he doing when this happened? He was vibing, I think, is what he said. Yeah, I don't know. So if you don't believe in ghosts and yet you think you saw one,

what do you think you saw? Spector, spirit. Okay, now you wanted me to explain how I think ghosts. No, I'm saying by your own rationale, isn't it more likely that you, hallucinated what you saw? So, you know, they say that most ghost sightings are because of a gas leak. Well, there's no

game, you don't have gas. You have gas that day? There was a hurricane. There might have been a pop pipe somewhere in the house. I don't know. But no, no. But also, that wasn't the only experience I've had like that in that house. So you believe in ghosts? No.

You're full shit. Pick one. Yeah. I think you're... I get the conundrum. Yeah. It is a conundrum. That's a great conundrum. I refuse to believe that it's, like, by definition, a spirit. I think what a ghost could be, if it exists, is like an imprint of energy.

Yeah, especially in violent moments. Yeah. Something from the great beyond, you know, sick of around. Something like that. I know what I experienced, but I'm not just going to be like, you know, it was definitely a ghost. Yeah. I mean, I would say that about what you experienced. It was definitely a ghost.

Because years later, when I left the home and I came back, like I was staying at home briefly, like between tours, I remember sleeping in the same bed I had in high school. And I felt someone come into my room, walk over to me and like stand over me. But I didn't want to open my eyes because it was like freaking me out. People say this, right? This is like a trope. I'm not a sweet paralysis person though. But like, dude, I sleep like on tour. I sleep in the room with two other guys

every night. I never know what they're doing when I'm asleep. I never feel like someone's walking around. You don't know anything that's going out while you're asleep. He got me there. He got me there. He texted me the other day and I texted him back at 237 in the afternoon.

It was awesome. Thomas, is that why you sleep on the floor on tour? I sleep on the floor on tour as a courtesy to other people. Yeah, I didn't forget. I'm a shift. or in a roller. Same, dude.

I always had my air mattress. Yeah, basically. He obtained, he obtained this air mattress, a really nice one somehow, and he even just lay it out. Totally legal. Through legal means, because I'm a law-abiding citizen.

Pull that sucker up, lay right down. Could you walk into R.I. right now? Yeah. I just went there over Christmas and took a picture outside and said, it's all my friends. Can you, are you, because it's a co-op, you have to join.

Could you be a member legally? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn't, I wasn't that deep in it. Okay. Yeah. I'm a member of that. Could you prove it? I'm a member of that co-op.

I get dividends still. Got to be. It's great. Gotta be, dude. If I get a new pair of hiking shoes every eight years, I got to be a member. So Boe knows that they have in a certain amount of loss prevention or loss built into their budget. And the $17 I get at the end of every year tells me exactly that. Yeah, they know.

You exceeded it in one single day. They know a couple of those giant mountain bikes. are going for a test ride and getting test ridden right out of the lot. So you've seen many ghosts, but you don't believe in them, which is stupid. Do you...

Tell me about Foundation's eating habits on tour. Dude, the day she eats, I remember. He loves to eat. Real eaters. Andrew, Andrew's like a real eater. He's a big boy. He's large. Eight feet tall.

He's like, he's so tall. Absorbing every nutrient. Yeah. Um, yeah, we like to eat. I don't, it was hard, though, because some of us were vegan and vegetarian and then other people weren't. So sometimes you'd get that disagreement on tour of like where we're going to eat. So, Thomas, if you're flying down the highway on tour, foundation, you see a magical sign with all the places to stop. Where is foundation going?

Oh, can I give you the ideal place we'd be going? Absolutely. Yeah. So there's a little, little restaurant called Whole Things. Oh, dude. Now this is true because I've seen these bastards commit war crimes. I was about to say, I do not believe that you have ever one time paid for a plate at Whole Foods. Well, that's the thing is they just give you free food. And it's accommodating to both vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters.

Yeah, and the prize. I can go in there and I can get some beautiful vegetable samosas with a chutney sauce. Andrew could get like a thing of ribs. I mean, there's something for everybody. Pay for the bone is amateur move. And then your friend Bo is at his local Whole Foods with you. Now forever remembered as being part of this group that made out like fucking bandits from the Kingsley Street Whole Foods. I remember.

I'm almost certain the rule is you can't walk out with it in your hands. Did you do feet? No, you just, you store it in your cells, like in your muscles. Oh, gotcha. And there's not a problem There's not a problem You know what though What's funny is I know that that answer is a hundred

percent accurate That that foundation would be like Oh there's a whole foods we're good Yeah we're rich That's a hundred percent accurate But we didn't figure that out until later in the tour Interesting We would do the scam where we'd like go to Taco Bell

And be like oh we didn't get this Oh we didn't get this You guys our van just came through You don't remember us Yeah or like Chick-fil-A They can't even argue it with you. No, no. You could be like, hey, we didn't get these six orders of waffles fries.

You guys were big on the Chipotle thing, too. We tried to, but man, I think other bands ruined that. We would always try it. Yeah, but other bands that kind of ruined it. I thought you guys were big on that, but I do remember the Chick-fil-A thing. Interesting. Yeah. Wow, they didn't give us our fries. So the answer's

Whole Foods. Yeah. First Whole Foods. That's the first. That's honestly great. I would have bet money that you would say that. Well, at this point, too, Whole Foods are everywhere. Everywhere. And they're owned by Amazon,

so you really shouldn't feel bad at all. If you ingest it before leaving. I'm almost certain the Whole Foods is the type of place that would be like, if you need it, then it's yours. You know, you need this food. If you're watching this, test that out for us.

Oh, so it goes. Beautiful. Holy shit. We're at 245 here, huh? Yep. Yep. Wow. How do we want it?

this down. Thomas, what is something that you want to tell that the kids, the youth, who work so excited. Give us a speech. Give us a Thomas speech live on the show. They're so excited to see it. Give them a taste. Imagine the crowd is roaring or they're silent and they're sweating and they're tired from moshing. Oh my God. Spotly. You want me to give a speech right now? Do a tight fight. Like an elevator pitch. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pitch me, pitch me, uh, your ideals in five minutes. Pitch you the ideals I have in five minutes for the, for, for the kids now. Yeah. What do they need to know? What are they missing? I would, I would start off by saying I, I appreciate everybody in this room. Wow. Um, it's, I think it's easy for people to take for granted the fact that like they did something and then rest on that.

yeah we did something you should you should acknowledge and respect that and i don't think that earns acknowledgement or respect lots of people do things that go their entire life without acknowledgement or respect that they should get um so i thank you for being here you're welcome this is the beta speech you're welcome um but then i would ask people why are you here oh are you here because this is a form of escapism for you because this is it's up there with a good time on the weekend

or because you like to cosplay as a bad guy or are you here because this is a release because you've got things going on inside of you and you've seen things that make you very upset and you don't really know how to focus that anger but for some reason this music speaks to you in a way and it feels like this could be the place

where you could let that out. So just a... Wow. It's just something I thought about. This one's called. Beautiful. You hear that? Fuckers, take that to heart.

It's real. That was good. Gorgeous. I would be pitting. Next song. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what you do.

You go, damn, that was introspective. Now here comes a real caveman riff. Amen. As your last assignment, Thomas, I'm going to ask you two things. I need

straight edge Mount Rushmore oh nice and I need top four hardcore records of all time oh my God yeah I knew there was something I was forgetting yep it's like I need to prep this it's like a mosh time baby straight edge Mount Rushmore

yeah um I gotta say gorilla biscuits that was that was the band that got me into hardcore I was listen to a lot of like epitaph punk bands and I'd kind of got wind of them

I think somebody was wearing their shirt and one of their, you know, like a lagwagon guy was wearing one of their shirts. And I said, well, that looks like a dumb punk band. Yeah, sure. Yeah. They were selling start today at the local hot topic. And I said, I'm going to buy that. And then, of course, that record starts so, you know, triumphantly.

Kind of a crazy omission last week. Yeah, you're right, actually. Well, it just, it just, like, you hear that and you go, oh, this is something. And then you read the lyrics and it's life changing. So, yeah. Gorilla Biscuits is up there for straight-edish Mount Rushmore. Earth Crisis is on the straight-edge Mount Rushmore for me. That's Lincoln.

You're not going. They weren't first, but they... Exactly. They abolished it, you know? Oddly enough, Earth Crisis is the first hardcore band I ever heard. There was a guy who rode my school bus. And he knew that I liked like New Metal, He was like, you need to listen to real shit.

Some real new metal. Yeah, and he played me in Earth Crisis. And I remember that weekend going to the mall to like an F. Y.E. Do you remember those? Oh, yeah. There's a brand new one at Mall at Mall at the mall. Yeah. And just being like, I got to find this record.

It had like a earth with like a dagger going through it. And it was like, it was the live record. It was the oath that keeps me free to the last. And I was like, I got to find this. They're like, oh, we don't have that. And I was like, fuck. And then, you know, I just kind of forgot about it. And didn't come back until until years later.

But I remember just being floor. that and then for me it came back full circle with earth crisis where i like kind of overlooked them a little bit like i like the hit you know i was like oh i like the more seasons then but then when i went vegan it was like well now i got to now i got to this is your bible now yeah yeah this is my bible no pun intended and that's when i really appreciated though okay i mean that's number that's george washington and lincoln to me you know yeah all right and ben franklin three of the great presents anyway what's your next one i'm not taking that bay dude what's your next one

this is hard man no it's not it's not you have yours like just in the chamber of straight edge bands yeah yeah that's wow I'm not giving you

I mean Thomas we do this every goddamn week every week buddy you know how many Mount Rushmore's we have playing okay but is it is it straight edge mount Rushmore because they're like one of my favorite bands in their straight edge or is it because their straight edgness

puts them on the Mount Rushmore I mean a lot of straight edge bands one of your answers is not straight-edge anymore, you know? One of them is the only one that's still straight-edge, one of two. So I think it can be both. The best straight-edge bands, what are the last two? The best bands who are straight-edge? Four punch.

Yeah. There we go. Easy. I was, I got into hardcore during the 97 revival. Nice. So I have a lot of bad seven inches. But I also, like, in my, eyes floor punch bane 10-yard fight those were like my favorite bands but they were all just on the

cusp of breaking up as i was getting into it right right right right and as much as i loved in my eyes i feel like floor punches had more longevity for me yeah that's that's that's legit timeless music yeah it's like if i put on floor punch i'm i'm turning 41 this year i still want to pit my ass off yeah when I listen to floor puncher I'm like yeah here we go so yeah and not to mention that Mark Porter is still one of the funniest people on Twitter and still edge straight edge yep and still fucking straight edge

still fucking straight edge not a lot of people can still say that god damn right I got one more a band that really wanted me to be like make me want to be like fuck I'm straight edge yeah dude great answer throwdown was probably the first one for me.

Dude, we went to Gainesville Fest 2000. This is like before the Fest. It was still kind of like a mix of like punk and hardcore. This is when distros were at shows out the ass. Hell yeah. And my, the guy wrote down there with Nate,

he bought Beyond Repair. Fuck you. And I was literally asleep in the car on the drive home and he put it on. And I like woke up and I was like, what the fuck is this? Yeah. What the fuck is this? This is it.

I mean, they were kind of the straight as torchbearers for that. Oh, my dude, dude. Yeah. I, like, you, it almost seems hokey now where it's like, you look at the lyrics and stuff, but it's like, I realize now as an older person, like, when you're 16, and somebody's like, you don't have to fucking drink or do drugs, you can extra fist up, fuck the world. You're like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was never a time in my life where I had more pressure to do those things.

100%. I never needed traders more than 14 to 21. Yeah. 100. 100. And they put it in the best way possible. Don't lose sight.

Dude. You're... Banger. You're... You're spin kicking. You're singing along. You're possibly crying because you're so proud to be straight-edge in that moment. Dude.

I just saw him play that song. I've covered that song. I've covered that song. See? Fuck, yeah. Bow. Three. It's up to us.

Dude, that in drop B. They're probably lower than drop B. It's probably even lower. Yeah, they were. Wow. You're right. Okay, so it's Gorilla Biscuits, Earth Crisis,

floor punch, throw down. Great. Very me answers. Those are very, I agree. Very me. Very good. And now,

now what's your letter moshed, baby? Top four all time. Records. Records. Okay. So, I know,

my first one, hands down. Great. Silent Majority is Life of a Spectator. Wow. Really? I know what I... It's the reason that I've been able to bond with the Long Island people. I'm sure.

Yeah. Are you a fan, Bo? I'm not... I've... It experienced. Okay. I think this record is like legit amazing. Okay.

I'm with you, Thomas. And this is not really my thing. Yeah. So, look, can I talk about why? Yeah. Any chance I get to talk about this record. Silent Majority was a case. of a band that was around playing shows when I was around and broke up before I actually saw

them because I didn't understand the immediacy of seeing them. Oh. I was like, oh yeah, that band's song majority. I've heard a couple songs. They're pretty good. But I'd rather like, you know, when you're younger, you have to pick and choose the shows you go to. Like, I'd rather go see H2O with like Shrekong song.

Sure. You know, it was like that type of case. Yeah. I didn't understand how like short-sided I was being at the time. Totally. Then a few years later, I'm listening to Life of a Spectator. I'm like, you know, I think it was crime and stereo. I kind of gotten thick with them, and they were like, oh, you should check out

out of sound of maturity. And I was like, okay, cool. I'm still young. This is before foundations, even a band, really being a band. And it just something like a bomb went off my head from the first song that I heard where it was like my favorite band up to that point was unbroken because it was like heavy. It was straight edge. It was kind of dark.

And I was like, yeah, I kind of relate to that. as soon as silent majority like as soon as it came through my headphones I was like this is my life was it to taming the L word yeah those songs

what a fucking langer dude like awkward relationships when you're a teenager watching your friends sell out and like not like in a snarky way like oh you fucking sell out you fucking waste it's just like how could you do this to me

well like the song about the train yeah he's like I put our name and our names I don't know if that's specifically a straightish song he's like I'm putting our names up on the train with spray paint and when that train comes back through town all the other names are faded but mine is still there like i'm getting goosebumps just talking about it and i related to that so much more because i grew up in the boring fucking suburbs of a city and that that's what my life was

being like a little fucker trying to fill the time and that's what those songs are kind of like about yeah and so that's just like how would you describe them thomas it's like fast emo I mean, it's like... I've heard it. You know, I've heard it, but I've never... It's dove. It's like turning point.

It's like Evo, pop punk played by dudes who listen to fucking like New York beatdown bands. Yeah. VOD. This record's amazing. I love sub-zero, but I also really like pretty parts.

So I'm playing this now. You know? And it's like, and that's a funny thing too. Like, you can talk to the dudes in King 9. They write some of the scariest rifts on Earth and every one of them, I think, low, silent majority. Yeah, oh yeah, they all do.

Isn't it, wouldn't brand new, brand new and Tegamac Sunday would both say like Silent Majority was. Yeah, there was all-time influence for them. There were like proto bands before Silent Majority, right? Like Mind Over Matter and stuff like that. But Silent Majority just kind of hit a new benchmark. Like, this is what we sound like and kind of define the Long Island sound. Totally.

Wow. You have bands like Thieves and Assassins and Crime and Stereo, Blood Red, Capital, like all those bands kind of like pose that. Like, it's a very disenfantial. distinct sound. Like, you know a Long Island band when you hear it. Totally. Yeah. I agree. Great. That's a very good answer. First sound majority on the ship. Yeah. First, for sure.

Yeah. The most important record in my life. Wow. Beautiful. Next record. Unbroken, it's getting tougher to say the right things. Which is a compilation of the seven inches. But that might be there. Not the big one. Not life love.

Yeah, not a life lover, Greg. Okay. You're an EPman. I think the last couple EPs are their best songs and i think they would say the same thing. Are they were they straight edge till the end? Yes. Love it. Yeah they were straight edge till the end.

I was gonna put them to my straight edge Mount Rushmore but then I realized not so much like i think i think of them as more of like just a band sure because of their straight edge and it's that's why I asked that question. Hey breed satisfaction. Easy easy easy pick here's the thing you can always turn to it's like it's like how Christians must feel about the Bible. You can always turn to it in times and me. It's there for if you're hung up writing-wise. If you're hung up, if you're bored creatively. Rep-wise.

If you need inspiration at the gym. Yeah. Or in your life, anything. It is truly one of the most reliable pieces of text in my life. It's like what you need. It's like electrolites. It's what you need. Amen. Um, okay, I got one more.

Yes, sir. Probably a veil over the James. Interesting. Wow. Interesting. The Richmond Atlantic Connection prevails once again. Yeah. There was a time where I thought I was going to get that album artwork tattooed on like my chest.

The guy. Is that the guy? No, it's the, it's the bird where its wing is like the James River. Oh, okay. Yeah. Just a huge guy on your chest. The stick figure guy, right? That's their logo.

Yeah. Yeah. The Dixie guy. I have a tattooed on my leg. Do they have a dancing guy? They had a dancing guy, Bobo. That's fucking awesome. Yeah.

You know I support dancing guys and bows of all variety. Three out of four of your answers we've not gotten before, which is pretty crazy. Avail was a very important band for me when I was younger because they were like a gateway drug band. I was into punk music and they kind of helped me bridge that gap to hardcore, like along with the gorilla biscuits. And then even when I got older, you know how sometimes you kind of like outwee. grow a band. You still like them, but you're like, I'm kind of moving on to different things. Yeah. They came through town with American Nightmare. I was obviously there to see American Nightmare.

I was like, I don't know if I want to stay for a veil. And as soon as they started playing, I was like, if I leave now, I'll make the greatest mistake in my life. Yeah, yeah. And I was just pitting my ass off, singing along. And I'm glad I just stayed because that was like the last time they played Atlanta. Wow. Oh, wow. So you were right. I know they play shows now, but it's like on a different caliber. I don't want to see them in like the big ass venue. lot. There's no the intimacy is not there. Yeah, yeah. And that's

hardcore at the end of, at its heart is that. Yeah. So I'm sure we can expect a couple of those from Foundation as well as FAA, you know? Maybe. We'll see. Thomas, this has been a blast, a breeze.

Yeah, truly. Everything in between. Thank you so much for joining us. Guys, Foundation's back. You're going to see them at FYA this year. January something yeah or 25 yeah yeah but dates are getting changed it's fine dates are getting changed for a good reason guys yeah so don't you don't want I don't want hear a lip well you use your voices and they were heard and then you know the right people are are doing the right things because of it it's beautiful right and

foundation's gonna be there I'll be there Bo be there Stephen will be there are you guys gonna be there for real yeah we don't miss it don't miss that one that one that That's a good one. No, definitely not. But Thomas, thank you so much. You know, you already gave a beautiful speech earlier. If there's any parting words you'd like to leave now is the time. I just hope I did my band, proud.

I hope they're not, like, wincing or cringing. No, I don't think that's possible. Listen, you got an elite group of Corman in that band with you. I would be bummed if I was in Founding. I'm breaking up just like you said just because I don't have to hang out with them as much anymore. Yeah, right. So I'm happy for you all

that that's the case. You're just back chilling. Yeah. I love it. Miss the boys. Just got to see my bros. Just miss the boys. Get the band back together. Just pause the e-sports for a bit and it's back. No, it's the school year now. I don't have time to play games.

Oh, really? That's a summer. That's a summer thing. Okay. Yeah. When we're back in session, I'm too busy. Are you on Overwatch 2? Yes. You're still on there? Yes. You a Fortnite guy?

No. Dude. You got to get on there. I don't want to play Fortnite because I don't want to have to talk about it with my students. Because that's all they do. And you will. Like, it will bubble to your head and you'll be like, you can start the new season? Yeah.

No, I know. And then they'll be like, oh, you play? Can you add me? Can we play together? And that doesn't work. And you know, none of them are playing Overwatch. well they were when two came out because it was free

yeah kind of like I kind of got revamped like okay and I actually played with a few of them and they were trash yeah we played together quite a lot I miss those days man I know man

are you still a genji man or no no Kyle was a Genji man I was always a sport guy I like Zen and Anna but it was I missed the days of me you youne

Kyle Greg Wilmot was like playing it too for some reason Fucking it up, fucking shit up, dude. And just getting on there and then making Kyle so pissed off that he would quit. Because you know, I mean, you can't heal again, gee, it's impossible. Yeah, he's all over the map. It's his fault.

Exactly. It's his fault. Well, that was incredible. What a great episode. Thomas, thank you for being here. Oh, thank you for having me. Welcome back. Thanks.

It's good to be back. We did it. All right. Thank you all so much. You know the drill. We love you so much, and we will see you next week. See you next week. Bye!