HardLore - Vincent Bennett (The Acacia Strain)

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Colin and Bo talk to The Acacia Strain frontman Vincent Bennett about co-creating a genre (which he denies), touring in a world they felt they didn't belong in, and a van accident that traumatized him to this day.   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.

Hello, welcome. It's our Lord time. What's up, Bo? Hey, man. How you doing? You're pretty sick, huh? I'm pretty sick. And for, I feel like we need to start every episode with like a little catch up

because someone's going to be like, wow, Bo's sick a week for a week now. No, no, no, no, you idiot. You recorded yesterday two days ago or whatever. So it's the same week. This is the same sickness. Same disease. You know what else is sick? The sick.

guest? Who do we got? A fucking legend, dude. He created a genre. Oh, calm down. New England's own. Vincent Bennett. I take no credit for that. I co-created a genre. I was thinking...

What's the genre? Yeah, what is the genre? Dope shit, dude. Wild shit. Swag. I was thinking in the shower, Vincent, as I often... Shower thoughts.

I often think of you in the shower. That's good. Is apart from possibly Andy Williams and maybe Sean Martin, you might be the most toured person who we've ever had on. And one of the most toured individuals, like, I personally know. You had scoffable on. You'd be touring. Yeah, but I'm saying, okay, so there's your company.

You know what I mean? Like we've had like Emma Emma just went to Europe for the first time. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like we've we've had people on who are like, yeah, I haven't done that yet. And it's weird. It's weird to think about as I'm 40 years old, but I don't feel it. And I still don't feel like I've really done a lot.

Look at this room behind you and tell me you haven't done a lot. That's a green screen. It's beautiful. No, I don't, I just don't feel like I've done. Well, you just named like Andy Williams and Scott Vogel and, and Sean Martin. I feel like those guys are just like, I'm in the shadow of those guys, you know, and it feels odd to be even lumped into the same category as people like that because I'm just, I don't know, I didn't ever think this was going to be anything.

You know, I started in Grindcore bands and I just was having fun with it all. And I never, I still don't think this is really anything. You know, I don't, this is a, it's a case of strain. like one of those bands it's like a novelty act or whatever and we have car bomb and nobody gives a shit about anything else. But so when I hear my name in the same category as like people like that, I just, no. I don't get to say no. I'm here.

I'm here to tell you, yeah. It's the facts, brother. And speaking of car bomb. Yeah. Damn, dude. Those upsurgeons in that right now for some. I think stage. Yeah, stages I have Jesus like memed about.

it. Oh, God. And it's on some playlist now. So we, I get like, I have like Spotify tracker and Griffin's like insane with like keeping up on like he searches our band name and Twitter and stuff like that because he's weird and

he has the Spotify for artists and he's like screenshoting car bombs like it went from just going it just went straight up for some reason. Maybe a TikTok or something? I I'm that. That's what's been going on.

I'll tell you, my jam is, and it always has been. It's, uh, fucking hills, dude. Shat,

dot, dat dat. It's also, the ending of that fucking song is so heavy. So there's an anvil sample, right? In the end of that.

And I've always wanted to do it live. I always wanted to have Kevin have like a thing where he hit it and it, either a real life anvil that we tore with or like even just a sample. And he never wanted to do it. And now we, we have in ears and we play to a click which is the first like this is the first year we've ever done that. Oh wow.

Now we get to use that live play it plays you know to a click so we're just like and every time I because I can't hear it in my ears but I hear it in a live video I'm just like oh this is what it's supposed to sound oh finally sounds so sick yeah tracks are just kind of the ultimate

no like in that way ultimate no brainer for for just getting the real live thing people shit on the laptops or whatever I shit on him. I still shit. I hate it. Like, I hate the fact that we use it.

But, like, it's necessary in some situations where, like, Devin just spent three days on tour and had emergency at home, had to go home. So we had, like, Robo Devin playing through, you know, we hooked it into a laptop, hooked it into an interface, hooked it into his, his, his amp. And so the keyboard, the keyboard, the computer was actually playing his guitars. Yeah, it's his sample of his playing. But I still hate, I don't like it. You know, I don't, yeah. I've told us so many, I've told us so many bands that like, we will be playing outside in Las Vegas in like July and it will be 100,000 degrees outside.

And their laptop will just stop working and they'll just, we can't play anymore. And they'll just get offstage. That's exactly. We played, what was, Vince, you might know. It was like kind of a right wing fest in New York, like upstate. Who is we? Am I? we both both our bands played this i i just feel like you might know oh i don't remember if you i don't

think you guys played maybe you did a right wing fest and they they were playing like ads on like the l ed screens for like regan i'm running for the republican party oh you know what i mean it was like kind of it was like we care fest or we matters fest yeah i matter fest maybe i matters they do that still in a church. So there you go. It's like a giant mega church. Yeah. Some band was playing and they're,

it wasn't even that hot. Their laptop died and they, it was literally, they were having a great set. I don't remember who it was. And they were just like, all right, well, see ya.

Yeah. Man, you can't just pull together something. Once you commit in a certain way, dude, this is, how about this? So I went and saw the who last night with my mom.

and Pete Townsend's like deaf, deaf, like notoriously he cannot hear a thing. Zach Starkey was playing a full electronic kit. The stage was silent. Wow. Think about that. So they're all in years. Sounds fucking miserable.

Right? Like no. So I'm like, I was kind of like staged left and like kind of good seats but bad seats, you know, not like the PA wasn't that? So you could just hear like, plop, plop, blah, blah. Dude, yeah.

So no symbol wash. No snare. Oh. It was really, I mean, for a band like that, it doesn't really matter, you know? But for, for like someone who, yeah, for someone who's used to like, you know, live stage sound, it was very bizarre. I just can't imagine. And they had fucking technical shit all night, too. Wow.

A keyboard died in the beginning of love rain over me. On the laptop, running the whole show. Laptops, dude. Pyrone and everything. When I said, when I said you invented a genre. You know what I'm talking about, Vincent. I didn't do anything. I think you did.

And I think there's two, there's two perspectives here. Like, I think it's a case of strain kind of brought the, the hardcore perspective, while Masuga brought the death metal perspective.

And they kind of met in the middle to give all these people jobs. I think that you have probably created more jobs than Amazon at this point. for better or for worse and you know good for you man I didn't do a thing

you did it you did it whether you agree or not you wrote the thing you went dun dun and then they were like we're going to do that now 100,000 people said that I saw a meme recently that was like a case of strain is

Meshuga for people who work at advanced auto parts. And I was like, yeah. The thing is, those advanced auto parts motherfuckers, they got both on the playlist, for sure. I don't understand anything. Like, I know, like, I try every day to, I have a, I have a habit of, I find a brand new band every single day.

Like a new band I have never heard of. I listen to a new band every day. And really? If it's, yeah. If it's one thing I enjoyed doing is finding new music, but I don't understand my contribution to this at all. And I don't think I ever will. It's just like a, I don't think.

And even from an inside perspective, like, I go out and I play shows and I, you know, they're good. They're okay. They're mid-level shows as far as like us. We are concerned. We've been a band for 21 years and like, yeah, the shows are okay. But it's not like, you say like, you, you, you, invented a genre and you did this and you did like if we did that and if it was true like wouldn't

there be more like I just think like we're a mid level band we have mid level shows and we do okay like I don't think there's anything special about us I don't think I personally did fucking anything for anyone I just think like we came out uh with 10 records and they're all pretty good but I don't think we I don't think we I think we control I've contributed either way. You know, I think it's just like, there's a, there's way more bands out there that did way more than we did at the same, in the same time period as us, I think. Bo, is this our humblest guest ever? Yeah, it's annoying.

Bar none the most humbling. I just don't want to own anything because I don't feel, I don't want to lie. Like, I don't want to be like, yeah, we, I'm speaking to objectively, though. I have no, I have no opinion on it. I'm just telling you what happened. Right. Historically. Like, who, who at the same time as you sounded like you?

Bloodsman Shed. In case strange is a Bloodsman Shed ripoff band. Well, there you go. There's two records. The Bloodsman Shed invented a genre. There you go. We met, Vincent, I think we met like cold on a tour in 2011. You were playing in Latham, New York.

Yeah. Something. Latham, New York you were playing at a, was a drop zone or something like that. It was an airport bar. Oh, yeah. That's right. That's where I saw it. And Pat Kindlin actually booked the show.

Pat Kempel and Justin Loudon actually booked that show. Did you get paid, Paul? Did you get paid good? Yeah, for sure. Justin. Justin. But Pat, yeah, you never know. You never know.

And then we did the first, probably one of the biggest, like, learning tours for harm's way was Acacia strain, terror straight from the path Harm's way opening and I think it was like a five it was like around this time of year

11 years ago and I believe we opened we ordered also because of Justin way too much merch like we had like eight full duffel bags of merch

because Justin Justin probably went well Acrein brings a lot of merch on tour you need to as well yeah and it was There was like an insistence of like, you need a shirt that has like words, like lyric, lyric, lyric, you know, for like, for the demographic. And we still have them in the practice space. I bet.

Oh, I've been there. Yeah. From the same tour. If we create anything, it's too much cotton. That's what it is. Oh, cotton. Too much excess. Women and cotton.

The fucking Michael Jordan shirt was the only thing that sold on that whole tour. But, um, we, we open. that for like five weeks for $100 a night. And that was like, that was, that was a tour where Chris wasn't with us. Oh my God. And they didn't ask me.

Can you believe that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've talked. That's right. We have talked about this. But it was just like, it was a tour where we learned like so much. But even at that point, it was like, oh shit, Acacia strain's like, they've been, they've been around. They've been touring. And this was 11 years ago. What was that tour called?

The goddamn tour. God damn. I have that poster on my wall. Yeah, the goddamn tour. And we did two years in a row headlining over terror and I never want to do it ever again in my life. Like I hate playing after terror.

I hate it. It's like the, it's, it's, it's, it's like now, I don't want to ever play after Kubla Khan ever again because it's the same energy. They completely just drain the crowd of any enthusiasm by making them work 110%. So then we hit the stage and I'm just like, it sucks.

Because they're just like, I'm going to go sit. That happened with us on Warped tour quite a bit. They would play either right before or while we were finishing our set, you'd watch everyone move to the other stage. We seem to always kind of A, B with each other. And they were, of course, we're on the white stage. there on the red stage. Kubla Khan is living proof of the grind, man.

Dude, yes. We've just been opening, opening case train tours for probably 10 years now. And I bet any amount of money the next time a case train tours with Kubikon is going to be supporting them. Wow.

Yeah. It's some real kiss, Blue Easter Colt touch. I love it. I, I couldn't be happier. It's like, it's like some wrestling shit,

you know, where it's like the bigger, the bigger name is putting over the newer name. Yeah, the ultimate warrior's got to beat Hogan real quick, you know. And they'll now know what it feels like to play after a band that has high energy. Like, I guess, yeah, they don't know. They're always right before. It forever.

And on anything they do, they get to steal the show. Yeah. They got the track and it just gets people. I want to open for Kubukon now. I'll put it together. I'll make it happen. I'll make it happen. I'll make it.

You know, what else? What were some highlights of that tour you guys did together? We played a Joliet and everything went wrong during every band set. Every single band, yeah. I think during Harmsway, someone got a concoct or had a seizure. Yeah, they got like severely. Seas? By a person that you and I both know.

Yep. Yeah, you know them too. All right. It was at the front of the show. It was at the forge. Yeah, you played there quite a bit. Yeah, yeah, play there twice. Yeah.

I think during terror, the PA, the subs, like, started smoking and lighting, they lit on fire. It's a pro-ass venue, too, to anybody listening. That's not like some, like, I saw ghost there. Yeah. I don't know what happened during straight from the path or us. I think during us, what happened during us? No, I think during you, there was just a large-scale brawl. There was a fracas.

Which was a pretty normal thing. You had the seizure? during us it was a seizure. I don't think anything happened during straight from the path. I just remember you know what we've never talked about is slippy

floors. I hate it. Oh my God, dude. It's something that ruins the vibe. It ruins the vibe immediately. You'll see it's so fucking funny because you've seen it a thousand times where someone's like, here's my.

Dude, you know the little giff of the guy shoveling the snow and he's falling. He's falling for like 11 seconds. That's trying to mosh at the wet floor gig. The damn God's Hey record release shows were like the second shows at this new venue. And the floor was, it felt freshly mopped when we played. So just insane.

I understand when it's like snowy out, you know, or like rainy or whatever. I don't understand when it's just like a bright, sunny summer day. If I am to claim responsibility for. anything, it's my breathers. Oh yeah, that's true. He's a water head. I usually have a case of water on I don't know when or why it started, but I just think it's fun. And I just dump water onto the crowd. And people are always, um, and the stage, like this stage, Devin had to get like, Devin wraps his pedal board in like a shower curtain now because I just destroyed all of his pedal boards. Nice. And, um, yeah, I tossed water in the crowd. There's a, I think,

think it started because we used to play, we used to do tours that did make any sense. Like we opened for I see stars. We opened for, you know, attack attack. We did tours where we were just like the band that the kids are just flipping us off the whole time. And I think it started because I just wanted to be like, don't stand in the front row. You know, like I was just whipping water onto these kids and dumping water on their heads and spitting in the air and carpeted stages are my favorite thing.

They're disgusting. thing, but carbon stages are a lifesaver because every once in a while we'll get one of those stages that's just like auditorium floor wood. And that's your dad. That's like the, what's the venue in, there's a venue in Illinois. And it's like tiered and a big stage. What is Bloomington? Pearl Room.

No. You've, you've taken a couple nasty tumbles, have you? I fell hard on that. And any festival stages are dangerous, too, because they're that, like, carbon fiber kind of plastic-y stuff. Totally. And that will just, that's done. I put you down.

The worst, in my opinion, have you ever played a concrete stage? I think I had. Like a stage that's literal concrete. There's this one in Mesa. Mesa, Arizona, I think it's called the Mesa. Okay. The Nile? No, not the Nile.

There's another venue in Mesa, Arizona? I think I played there and the air conditioning broke. Yeah. When we play. They don't have that in Mason. They have a carpeted stage at the Nile. But no, there's another, there's a venue that we play there with like at the gates and soulfly. So it's like a bigger venue.

But the stage is straight up concrete. It's the most shrill sounding room ever. And what's brutal about that is like if you, if you jump around and move around, which Vincent, I know you do. Nothing fucks me up more. Like my knees, the next day. after that. Jumping on concrete? Just zero absorption whatsoever.

Bo, can I ask you something? Yeah. Is there a booger you're trying to get in your right, National? I keep seeing you do a thing. What am I doing? You're doing one of these. No, no, I'm fidgeting with my mustache.

You were with, we're amongst friends here. I know, but I've been doing that probably for like the last six months. This is what I do when I listen. I've seen the mustache move. This was different. I got no boog.

I got nothing. Let me see. You want big bow? Yeah, give me a big bow. Show me the big nose. Nice work. Vincent, you know where we met. Did we meet there?

I think we had corresponded prior. Right. You know, I was familiar with you, of course, as a young spin kicker. Also, I was familiar with you. Hey, there you go. So we met in, was it Sacramento? Zach Clemente. Ace of Spades.

Ace of Spades. Oh, yeah. One of two gigs that you guys got to play on that one. Great show. Great show. Great show. Tungs did okay on that? Tungs did all right.

The twisting tongues, according to the Vale of Maya. Every day. Yeah, we had just played California Metal Fest. Yes. It started there. And that was the actual first date. Right. and then the Ace of Spades.

Ace of Spades. What a gig that was. That was a great tour for us. We did two shows and just went home. I guess let's get into that, huh? Yeah. You and I have never talked about it. Never talked about it.

Soar memory. We have different trauma from the same event. Of course. Where your trauma lasted a month. And my trauma still is ongoing. Your is ongoing. Explain the tour. Give us the lineup.

So the tour was a co-headlining tour, right? Occasion of Strain veiled Maya. Flip-flop. Upon a burning body as direct to the co-headliners, volumes, two of five, which is like, those are two poppin ass bands at that time. Yeah. Pushing tongues in the bottom slot,

hand-picked by Mr. Bennett. Well, I was not going to do the tour unless you guys were on it. See? There you go. And then we did the tour. No, I didn't do the tour. You know, and it was, I was, we were hoping we, I think this was after that Harmsway, terror thing. There was a period of time where it was kind of like every fledgling hardcore band was touring with these kinds of bands to like get, because like terror, terror, for example, are like the prototype of like,

play all different genres of heavy and just get people. Because you do. And they fucking do. And yeah, it was after us. And then I remember shortly thereafter, I think, rotting out did one as well. You know, and like just, it was just kind of like that time period. So it must have been 2000. It was 2012.

2012. Yeah, there you go. That makes perfect. sense. So and yours went well. The gigs were popping. And I remember seeing it was like, all right, Harm's Way is having a great time on this. Maybe this is

something. Because obviously you have reservations. This is like this is the first and only time we ever did anything like that. Yeah. And it was really only because you, A, you guys were on it. B, because it was you guys being like we are personally

requesting you. Back back then it was hard to put tours together because if you wanted to do a co-headliner like this like both bands wanted to bring the tours they wanted to bring the bands they wanted to bring and as far as like and then after the bands it's all management and booking agents and it's really it's it's really annoying and I don't think people understand like how much outside chit-chat that you hear from people who has nothing to do with your band personally. Dude.

It's mostly outside chit-shatter. Yeah. One thing we've never talked about that I know people don't know about is like why routings are the way that they are. Like people don't understand an A market, B market. They don't understand like a booking agent being like, hey, promoter X, if you do this tour for this much money,

then when big band comes through, I guarantee them to you. It's all a game. They don't, like people don't. So I also don't understand that six months is not a long time. So if like you play Chicago and your next door six months down the road, you're not going to play Chicago again because that's too soon. It's way too soon.

So you're playing, you know, Milwaukee or who knows where, not even the Midwest at all. Also, here's some real inside baseball that we've literally never once brought up. Tours that are put together by management teams and booking agents. Yeah. put their bands that they represent on them only. So they can get the fucking cut of the whole tour. They're getting 40% of every.

Any branded tour you see, any tour that's called like, you know, summer fuck fest or whatever the hell you might call it. Like it's always like going to be a management team putting that together. And if it's like six bands from X record label, well, guess what? It's that record label is owned by that management.

And it's like there's a whole underground of dirt that's that people don't really see. And we're trying to like get away from it. And and this this tour that we're talking about was like kind of put together by, you know, management company A, management company B and booking agent A. And like they wanted rub, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, well, I don't want a tour with just like a bunch of bands that sound exactly the same. Like I don't want to tour, Gent band one, jam band two and Deathcore band one. Like can we bring a band on tour with us?

And our booking agent at the time. time was like pick a band and I was like okay I want twitching tongues and like at first they were like we're not going for it we don't even know what that band is we don't care and I was like well that's fine you can just do the tour with these three bands and we'll just put our own tour together and they're like well no no no no no we want this to work out I never heard any of this yeah well that's I got enough phone arguments uh about twitching tongues like it was an insane thing um and I did I did a lot of fighting to get it kind of because I didn't want to just tour and no offense to any of the bands involved but I didn't want to tour with three bands. It's almost sounded not exactly the

same but in the same genre like what happened to you know kind of mixing it up a little bit or inviting bands on tour that you're not necessarily friends with just that you're a fan of. And that was like back then it was super hard to get anything like that because the management and the booking companies had such a stranglehold over everything. thing and you had to play ball and if you don't play ball you're not going to get on tour with you know one of their bigger bands and it was all like it yeah it was all like if you do this for us we'll give you that and and we got kind of we got kind of you know backed into a corner a bunch of times and that's why you saw us on tour with i see stars and attack attack and doing screaming it like

you mean it and stuff like that because we were promised other stuff that never got delivered because we didn't play ball on those tours so it was like you have to just keep playing the game in order to get your band anywhere. And we just decided, you know what, fuck it. We don't care. And this was kind of the beginning of it where we were like, I'm taking Twitch and Tongues on this tour. I don't care what you think.

Like, they're going to get it. Like, they're going to get the tour. And if not, we're not going to do it. And since then, it's been like, I think every headliner and co-headliner we do, we have at least one pick. Like we just did a Chelsea Grin just, it was two, three, years ago now. We did a tour

Chelsea Grand and they were headlining and I was like, we'll do the tour on the basis that we could take left behind. You know, because they took two of their friends' bands. So why can't we take one of ours? Like, we're on the tour too.

So, and it, that's what we don't get. If you notice our last like five tours, it's all case trend headline and case trend headline. Because we, we don't get these direct support offers anymore because A, people think that we're too expensive. And B, we always want like that.

one addendum to the tour contract that's like we need to take a band that we want to take on a tour so we don't get we don't get big you know uh i guess big is relative but we don't get those big offers anymore because people know like we are going to ask we're five adults uh i'm 40 everybody else is in their 30s and three people in my band have kids and families so it's like we're going to ask for what we think we're worth and if we're not if that's not going to for you. We'll just do a headliner. It's not a big deal. And the fact that nobody, nobody wants to take, nobody wants to take a band they, they don't think is like marketable, such as left behind or twitching tongues. It's just like in that world, they don't see it's,

they have a weird veil up. It's a veil of Maya that's, they have this veil up that they don't want to pull back and see that there's other bands outside of the world that they are you know so encompassed in um and i think i think twitching tongues was the first band where i was like we're going to do this we're not going to do the tour um and then which is so funny to think about because like it was a hundred dollar guarantee you know that's 20% of the catering budget per night being allocated to a whole band playing like the fact that like the fact that the fact that you had to fight so hard for that is so funny. Yeah, and then I decided I didn't want to tour with you and I crashed with him. Yeah, that happened twice. So should we get into that?

The whole story. Yeah. I don't even know what happened, man. I'll start from the beginning. All right. If you want. So we were in Europe, right? We were in Europe all of October and most of November. We had just gotten home from Europe and it was Thanksgiving time. So we wanted to be home for Thanksgiving because we just got home from Europe and it was just. just like we were exhausted. And it was like, okay, your home drives to California. And we were like, no, we're going to be home for Thanksgiving.

So we had our tour manager, Bruce, who we all know and love. Mr. LaPage. Shout out Bruce LaPage. Her friend of the show, he's for sure listening right now. Bruce is the best. I miss Bruce a lot. So Bruce, if you're listening, I miss you.

Sorry, my dog is just whining at me. No, that's all right. I was talking about the who. Huge. Yeah, Bruce ketchup fans too. Bruce a page, our sound man Chris, who you guys know. Love Chris. And our merch guy Don, who is now doing merch for, what's that, Led Zeppelin band?

Oh, Greta Man, Flea. Yeah, he's doing merch for them, which is. Enemies of art. Greta Van Fleet. I mean, they're not great, but he gets paid from it. And it's a huge step from doing merch for the occasion strain. So congratulations. Shout out Don.

I just, I hate that guy with his feather earring. Oh, no, they're terrible. There were. enemies are. So we said, hey, guys, how would you feel about us staying home for Thanksgiving? Because we just got home. You guys take our van.

You drive to California to start Metal Fest and start the tour. And they were like, yeah, it's fine. Like we don't, Bruce fucking hates Thanksgiving. Don hates everything. And Chris doesn't care. So they drove the van across the country. And somewhere in Texas. it was thanks it was thanksgiving morning or the day after thanks more one of the other i got a phone call

from scottley who was our manager at the time was like bruce god of crash dessert they're all okay it's just the van's broken i was like what dude i you it's 8 o'clock in the morning you can't just hit me with that so apparently bruce they were running out of gas it was like 3 o'clock in the morning like bruce was freaking out because he couldn't find any gas stations it was on that stretch road and i i 5 that there's nothing um or 10 or whatever whatever. 10 or whatever. Yeah. So. Coco. He's telling a story. You need to chill. You need to chill. Here. Come on and sit down. Go. So he saw a gas station the other side of the highway. So he decided to use the no-you-turn area of the highway and turn around. And someone just came barreling. Oh. T-boned him and flipped the van on its side and there was gas everywhere. And Don like had his feet.

in a position in a way where they just got crushed and it was a nightmare and I felt horrible because it was my if I felt like it was my fault because we're all like we need to spend Thanksgiving with our families right you peasants you you know you're the help you go do so I felt horrible and they were like it's not your fault it's not your fault Bruce felt worse than anybody and so Bruce Don and Chris gathered up all of the things including the trailer, which was fine, got a box truck from U-Haul and then drove a box truck from U-Haul from Texas, after getting into an accident from Texas to California, which is uncomfortable if you've ever sat in the front of a U-Haul truck.

Because there's only room for three. Yeah. Like there's really only room for two. Yeah. They made it and we just, we found Nate from Zabalba. said he was going to let us rent his van and this other dude who I don't remember who it was

this dude he said he was going to let us borrow his trailer. It's going to us borrow his trailer so we could do the tour and I was like cool so they met us they met up with us in California like right as we were going on stage

of California Metal Fest we got all the stuff we moved into a new van trailer no problem so this van nothing bad to say about Nate in my life. I love Nate. But it was the van straight was this.

Yeah, yeah. It was rough riding van. But we made it to the, we made it Sacramento, no problem. Trailer was fine, whatever. Drove down to wherever we played in South Carolina. Lancaster. Lancaster played that show.

And then the next we had to drive to Phoenix. and it was far. So we drove overnight. We drove a little while. Bruce drove until he was tired, fell asleep, woke me up, and then said, your turn to drive, I'm going to go inside, get some snacks, hit the road. So I got gas, hit the road. This van didn't have a gas cap for it either. Oh, sick. Nice. So we get going. I'm driving for about an hour straight is that. And we get, It's super windy. It's crazy. And I was like,

oh my God. It's a winter tour. It was. Legit winter tour. Arizona apparently is very windy. Very. So we, we're driving and the van is,

you know, shimying because of the wind and I'm trying to keep it straight. This truck blows by us. I start going like the van starts doing this. And Bruce is sitting next to me shotgun going, don't, don't try and straighten it out.

Don't try and straighten it out. Just pull over. Don't hit the brakes. And as he says, hit the brakes. I hit the brakes. The trailer, which doesn't have brakes, didn't tell us, didn't tell us that. Trailer doesn't have brakes. The trailer pushes us forward as we're doing this, pushes forward into the truck. We hit the truck front, our front goes to the truck side. The truck moving forward flips us over and we flew upside down on the highway for about 100 yards.

Oh my God. And the whole time, as soon as that sound hit, and I'll never forget the sound, it's like bolts in a blender. Yeah. As soon as that sound of the bumper hitting the truck and grinding, I said, I'm going to die. This is how I die. Yeah. And I just completely came at peace with everything. And I was upside down.

and it it smashed and I was like this is it and somehow I we all walked away from it somehow we all and in the panic like you don't know what's going on yeah so Bruce is out of the van already like he fucking bolted he was like get out of the fucking van get anybody and I was like I was screaming I'm okay is everybody okay is everybody okay so I'm stuck in my seatbelt and I can't fucking get out and I was like I was hanging or is it I was hanging up, I was hanging upside down. Oh my God. And my seatbelt. And I

unbuckled it and crawled out Bruce's window because my window was collapse. So like there was about that much room. My hair got pulled out because it was dragging along the road. So I crawled out Bruce's window and I was trying to

get everybody else out of the van. I was trying to get as far away from the van as possible because there's no gas cap. We just filled up. There was gas pouring all over the fucking place. So Tony, who's playing guitar first of the time, Jack our bass player got out that window through a waterfall gasoline. Chris is in the back seat and he's, I see him punching the window and he couldn't get out. I was like, use your fucking feet.

And he kicked the windows out. And everybody got out of the van that way. So Bruce, I broke down. Like I fucking, I lost it. I was in the desert floor. I was on the desert floor just like crying. covered in sand covered in gasoline. I hadn't realized yet that I shattered both of my knees.

Oh my God. And everybody else, like Tony was covering gasoline. Bruce dislocated his shoulder because it was the one time he wore a seatbelt. He just never, he's just like, I don't fucking believe in those things. I think they're stupid. The one time he wore a seatbelt dislocated his shoulder. And then Chris broke his hand. He lives.

Oh, wow. Yeah, Chris broke his hand trying to smash the window. Don like broke his feet even more and I think Tony dislocated his shoulder as well and Tony had some like like like like gravel rash to like yeah road road well because the the roof was off and we were we were grinding on paper. I remember that. And my phone was gone. My sweet, sweet Tony. My phone was in the dashboard of the van. I couldn't find my phone.

Tony's van landed. Tony's phone landed directly into a puddle of gasoline in a rumble. strip. It was it was all fucking nightmare. Like there was merch everywhere. There was gear everywhere. Oh my God. So I'm sitting on the ground and the truck driver comes up to me and he's like, are you guys okay? And I was like, yeah. I think we're fine. He's like, all right, I'm going to go. And I was like, no, you're not. Dude, no. Where are you where? He's like, I got to go. I got to, I got to deliver my ship. And I was like, you can't leave. You're a part of this. There's like a bunch of people here that saw it.

And of course, somehow there was like a bunch of EMTs just behind us on the road. Unbelievable. And the truck driver tried to leave. And there was like five people who are like, if you leave, click, I have a picture of your face. I have a picture of your license plate. It's a hit and run. It was crazy. P.S.

That truck company tried to sue me for ruining one of their trucks. Wow. Yeah. So that's a little story. Tony, Bruce, Don, went to the hospital. I didn't. We sat with the van. And your knees are shattered.

Yeah. I mean, I had glass in them. Yeah. So when you say your knee, what part of your knee? Like I have bone, I still have bone fragments like in floating around inside of my knee. Like I could walk. My knees. Like in the joint?

Yeah. Like in the front. Like when I drive in shorts, I like feel around and I can feel like the bone. There's a whole, there's a indentation. of a hole in my knee from that. So everybody, these three dudes go to the hospital. I, um, stay with the van because the tow truck's coming in three hours and,

uh, everybody's like cleaning up and the, the van and trailer get loaded onto a tow truck, literally three hours sitting there for three hours waiting. Um, go to the impound yard. I found my phone somehow. It was in the dashboard.

like on behind the steering wheel because I couldn't contact my family. I couldn't contact my family. Yeah. So we got the van to an impone yard and there was a hotel across the street. My favorite part of the story is I walk across the street to this hotel.

I'm covered in blood, gasoline, sand, tears. I have hair ripped out of my head. I'm literally bleeding. I walk up to the counter and the lady's like, can I help you? I mean, that's normal shit. That's a day of life for her.

I was like, what happens? What happens? We got another one. What happens out here that this lady's just like, this is good? You good? This guy needs a room. What do you want?

Desert living. Yeah. And I took a shower and it was just the dirtiest I've ever been in my entire life. Oh my God. But then we had to go home because we just totaled two vans and I'm sorry, twitching tongues. Oh, no. I don't think that we there was just no way for us to know that it was that gnarly you know

yeah it was fucked and then honestly god the first like clear thought in my head after breaking down was oh Nate's gonna kick my ass yeah like I was I was like bummed because I just ruined their van and trailer you know right um that's the least of your concerns Jesus it was it was a on the top of my lips. If it's any consolation, a couple weeks later, to which he tux were supposed to stay with me and I overslept. He blew it, dude. I dropped. That was that chore. I dropped. But I, so what time did that? That was a middle of the night? Clearly the same experiences we did it. It was like seven or eight in the morning. Okay. Because we,

we stayed at our homes peacefully. Yeah. And on the way, uh, red on lamb goat. at case you strain drops current headlining tour because they crashed the van. Yeah. And we were halfway to Arizona at like a Carl's Jr. or something.

Thinking about turning around. Yeah. Just not doing the tour. Did you make the right decision? Uh, there's a handful of people to this day who say they got into hardcore music because of us opening that tour.

That's awesome. one of one person saying that would be enough for me right you know but the fact that there are several who are like i saw your set and it changed my life is insane so yeah i think we made the right call and you know we're talking about it we get paid to talk about it now yeah 10 years uh in a month i think literally 10 years next month what's crazy is on the the goddamn tour the tour that we did stray flipped their van yeah that was and chris and chris was riding with them so he's been three van Flicks.

Wow. Yep. Jesus Christ. I just, so I think we didn't really spend time together at the Sacramento show just because it was like day one kind of madness type thing. But Lancaster we got to chill a bit and that was when I met Tony as well. Who is like.

Tony's the best. Oh my God. I would do anything for that. Tony's the best. I would do anything. Tony, if you're listening. That means the best. You got three traint.

You got three killers for you, if you need them. Three diers, too. Yeah, that was, uh, it was a, it was a one of, that was the only time we experienced bands with laptops, like needing their laptops to do it. So every night on that. Yeah, Valmy didn't even have cabs on stage. Valmy had no cabs on stage.

Volumes. No. volumes one guitar other one was a laptop yeah and once somebody's shit got fucked up every night which was the best you know

it makes me so nervous it makes me nervous about buying a laptop no no no just don't for overcomplicate it that's what that's what the problem is is everybody decides well we can do everything like we've toured with bands who literally their their laptop is a member of the band because

they don't play their instruments at all we've toured with the bands on these scream it like you mean it's or whatever where bands will i'll be standing on stage nothing's plugged in guitars are not live the only thing that's live is the drums and it's which are to a click absolutely it will have so yeah it has a trigger if they're playing to just playing to the music recorded it's it's insane and it's insane to me the amount of people who are watching these bands being like this is my favorite band. Yeah. Yeah.

And this is their, this is the recording of the album that I'm listening to live. They sound just like the record. It's, it is the record. Yeah. I'll never forget on that tour of volumes like two weeks in.

Gus, we realized that they were from the valley. Yeah. Which we had no idea. And, and Gus found out that Taylor and I were in fight everyone. And was like, what do you mean?

Like, you don't like that's wait you like you're just so confused and then watch our set every night we we ran across Gus when he was a young boy he was 14 or 15 years old and remember the whiskey like how they used to make locals close the show like they would have to sell tickets and then the locals would have to play after the headlining band like there'd be one local that opened and one local that closed the show and that was always insane to me, but Gus was in a band that closed

the Whiskey AGoGo show. And he was, I think he was 14 years old. And I was like, wow, this kid's 14. It's crazy that he's in a band. Fast forward to like, whenever 2000, whatever. And I was like, wow, I can't believe this dude's in a band. And I have volumes of volume stories,

but I just don't want to tell him. Yeah, that's fair. That's for another show. covered carnivore on that tour. Only on the bad sets. Really? So when it was super awkward, we closed with Suck My Dick.

Yeah. He sure did. Arms way covered cold his life on the tour we did. That's also correct. Which is so funny. It was because Peter. Peter, our,

our merch lad was a huge Clevo hardcore fan. And we just like promised them. What is that? What? Clevo Hardcore.

Wait, wait, Wait, was, oh, it was cold his life. I'm sorry. Dude, I'm sorry. Sudafed, I'll five. Dude a fed. Yeah, my, my bad guys. It was on drugs. Great. I think, Colin, correct me if I'm wrong, at that,

at that show, that Joliet show, you got, you said, like, we got two songs left, and people, like, cheered. Yeah, yeah. Fuck. That actually happened. That was one of the gnarliest ones. So it's so brutal. Yeah.

I mean, we worked that into the live album. That's right. Directly inspired by the Juliet thing. I've definitely heard a band open and then in between like, you know, the second and third song, people say one more song. Yeah, that's the best.

Definitely heard that. But like voracious applause at two, we have two left was definitely like, we got to get out of here. I mean, did we play suck my dick that night? Yeah, that must have been bad. Yeah. Because that was, that was specifically a thing we did when the show sucked.

I think I went there with Andrew, I believe, Mr. Morrissey. Toledo, I remember being really bad. But we had, we were doing like a secret set at the middle frat or something. Oh, sick. So like there was a couple hardcore kids there. Slippery floor at that middle floor. slippery floor at the metal frat. But they knew, I was like, we'll see you guys tomorrow.

And they were all like, dude, Richmond on that was unreal. For us, specifically. I don't know what happened. There's just no rhyme or reason. No, they don't, they never fucking make their money. They don't know what they're doing. It's good and then it's not.

And then it's good and then it's not. Vincent, let's talk about like summer slaughter tours. Okay. Let's talk about, let's talk about, let's talk about, a tour you've done that had way too many bands. I'm just throwing this. I'm playing bingo right now because I know it happens. Way too many bands.

Okay. Where like opener starting at like 4 p.m. on a weekday. Okay. You know, with like one green room that's just full of like. I'm like like like. Like happy those don't happen anymore. We did we did one summer slaughter.

We did one. All Stars tour. And we did Scream It Like You Mean It. And obviously we did two warp tours. That's a different, that's a different animal. But we'll never forget. So we did Summer Slaughter. And there was a local on every show that had to play in a battle of bands to

gain the permission or the honor, I guess, to open their city's somerslaughter. So there was always a battle. bands and the first day was in Denver, Colorado. I hate that. I was sitting outside. And I was talking to this kid, Kim, he was like, oh, I'm in the local band. I really like would be, I thought it would be sick if you guys watch this, blah, blah, blah.

I was like, yeah, sure. And he goes, dude, it just dawned on me. This is the first day of tour, right? And I was like, yeah. And he's like, we're the first band to play the entirety of Summer Slaughter. first band first day this is awesome and i was like not as awesome as you think man but that always like that his delivery and his flap room hat like everything made me

everything they think about madness in that moment like his monster energy drink jersey like everything every time i think about it i just laugh because i'm like yeah yeah you're perfect yes yes you absolutely are but it it was 11 o'clock in the morning. Like we were there, like load-ins were around 10. Wow.

Because there's... 8.m.? Yeah. 10 a.m. 10 a.m. load-in for a summer slaughter tour. You have to get there and bring all your stuff inside. And then we get kicked out of the venue

after we bring all our stuff inside because our 10-a-me has to sound check and they don't want anybody inside on the sound-check, which was weird, but whatever. So we got to enjoy our day. I don't, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm glad those tours are gone, but I'm also, I'm, I'm reminiscent of them because, sure, because you get there at not at 10 and then you just hang out all day.

You play a 30 minutes set and you're done. Like, we would get done at, you know, 3.34 o'clock in the afternoon and then just be done. A great day. Yeah, it's awesome. I can go to bed whenever I want. It's, it's cool. But at the same time, you're like, here's another overnight drive. like that that's where we actually got into like fuck hotels fuck it all we're just going to sleep in

the van and that's that's how we got into that because load in at 10 a.m. the shows over at 10 p.m. 11 p.m. You that's a dead drive every night and the drives were not the drives are routed for a bus. So it's like that's an eight hour drive. That's a nine hour drive. Eight to eight to 15 every night. That's not great. We did that sounds sounds of the other one was the first one we ever did. It was 2007. We were rotating tiers. Like there was first a tier was goat whore and this is hell. Second tier was us rotating with devil wears Prada, heavy, heavy, low, low, and number 12 looks like you. Wow. Rotating every day. So we were there playing third or seventh every day. Between those, third, fourth, fifth or six, I guess. And then

third or sixth. seven. Yeah. It was any number between, any number between that. So it was that and then it was like Dark Sour Jopher Cowboy and then rotating every time I die, shadows fall Camara and then

Gwre. Gwar was headliner every day. War headline every day and every once in a while they would interspice like mushroom head would play six days in Ohio or whatever and you know all their remains played a day and

Testament played a day. So they kept, they were adding bands certain days you'd never know no idea when you're supposed to play and load in was nine o'clock in the morning every day that's where i learned how to sleep in a van in 2007 and not shower um because then there there was obviously there was places there was places you could go to shower but we were not allowed to use them because we were the second tier band we were not sure we weren't job for a cowboy or amon of marth was on it too forgot about that oh yeah that's a big one uh we we did a mini hard lore with you at Furnace Fest. Yeah.

That isn't out yet and probably won't be out for a minute. And we talk about the DIYness of the occasion strain. Oh. But I think we should talk about it here too. Yeah, yeah. It's like,

Big Daddy. I. Borderline thought you guys were like fucking with me the first time I like found out that you guys just slept in the van. Like I legitimately couldn't believe it.

Still still doing it. Still doing it. Is Devin back bench or? No, Devin is shotgun. Shotgun. Shotgun sleeper. These new, these new vans like the transits. They recline all the way.

And apparently Devin could sleep there. Devin was mattress. Like we have a mattress in in the front behind the front seats and then three benches. Yeah. So they would have the first bench out. I'm in the back. I've been in the back since I crashed a van. I'm not allowed to drive anymore.

And nor do I want to. Yeah, because I tried to drive again. I had a fucking panic attack and had to pull over on the side of the highway. Do you get that same anxiety driving at home or is it just a van? Not at all. I think it's with a van with a trailer attached with a bunch of lives. With your boys.

Yeah. So it's me. And then the second bench in front of me used to be Kevin. but now it rotates out between tour manager, Sound Guy, Merch Guy, and then Griffin, and then Kevin and Mike are on the mattress, where it used to be Devin and Tom on the mattress, and I think that's why Tom quit the band. So Devin sleeps in the front seat now. Okay.

And then whoever's driving just kicks it back and sleeps up there too. Does that cover the mattress? It gets close enough where they can still be comfortable. So Devin, this is like I'm Devin. This is the... Basically. But Devin seems like he could sleep fucking anywhere. He does.

I just can't fathom driving six hours, getting to wherever you're parking for the night, and then being like, all right. Good night, guys. And then one of these? You guys are maniacs. A lot of people can't. No, no way.

I can't sleep sitting up. Period. Either can I. That's why I'm in the back. First of all, no one wants the back. No, I couldn't do the back too hot

and I'd get too nauseous. I love the back bench. Really? Love it. Why do you love it? When there's a vent that works. Yeah. It's just,

it feels like my little place, solitude. You got a jerry rig event regardless. Like you take one of the vents and you buy a tube. HVAC tube and you snake it back there. You have to. I think the plan

the plan now is to build bunks. Like we're going to build bunks for the back that can be removed and anchored properly. And just a regular 15 past van? Yeah, whatever the transits, because we rent. Okay. We've been through too many vans to own ever again. Sure, sure. And, well, how expensive?

What's the price different? difference at this point than renting a bandwagon. The bandwagons are insane right now. Are they? It's, well, not only is it price per day. Yeah, I think it's like $6.50 per day or something. Gohoo. Yeah, it's a lot.

It's price for day. Plus, you need to hire a driver. The drivers now are not fucking clowns. Like, they're like, this is what I have to get sleep every eight hours. Do you have to pay me my rate? All the stuff. Like you can hire your friends, but I wouldn't. Yeah.

And then gas and the generator is running 24 hours a day. Oh. So, and those things break. Like they're in the thousands a day for sure. I've also heard that like bandwagons are not built. They're converted. They're not built for what they are. They're converted box trucks.

Yeah. Yeah. They're box trucks. So like suspension, brutal. Yeah. You're sleeping on a bump. It's just like it's not like a bus. Some of you get launched in the air.

when you go over a bomb. Wow. I used to be very like, oh man, I can't wait to do a fucking bandwagon someday. And then I heard a couple, I heard all of this basically.

It was like, oh, maybe. We've done a couple. We've done it a couple times. Like the tour after the van flip tour, because we were like, I don't know if we can ever do this again. How long before you toured again after that?

When did we tour? We toured in November. Our next tour was in February or March. Oh, God. That's right then. It was Eat. though. Like, we couldn't say no. Yeah. Every time I die, us and Vana and No Brangler writes, it was a good tour.

Vanna, man, Bruce loves them, huh? I felt, what? Does he? No. Was that Tony's? How long after did Tony leave the band? That was Tony's last store. Okay. Because then we had Richie join.

Richie's first day, first tour was every time I die. And I felt insanely dumb because I Ted always tours in the van. Yeah. So they had a van and we were in a bandwagon like direct support bands, you know, but I couldn't step foot in a van like I couldn't do it. I feel like you get a pass for that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

It was the only way we could do it. And it was still not easy because bandwagons, as you said are not, they're not great. like you any any turn or bump it's you're falling out of your bunk like it's no joke in there yeah it's out yeah i fell out of my bunk on warp tour in a dream does you uh yeah i did i was like screaming and i scared the fuck out of keith i landed dude what is wrong with you screaming in your sleep you're tortured yeah i don't know what do you want from me well fix it all right um if you ever need to You know like we only talk about the show now. Yeah.

So your friend, yeah. Question or no, comment was a lot of bands of this of like your guy's level. Every time I die, we toured with Black Dahlia murder and it was the same thing. They're very DIY. Like an A man. Like 15 passenger van and like everyone's sharing one room. Yeah, money sucks. Like you can't be just throwing it everywhere.

You got to understand it like this isn't forever. You know, you're not going to be in abandon all ships for the rest of your life or whatever. You know, like you can't just. And even now, 21 years in, I'm just like, yo, would I rather, you know, hang out in my home and be comfortable and not have to worry about, fuck, like, what the fuck am I going to do? I shouldn't have got that bus, you know, like, I would rather just sleep on a bench and be homeless for a month than be comfortable for a month and then just be homeless in real life. You know, it's it's a give and take and we don't, it's not like we're making 10 grand a show, you know, like we're still not making a 10 grand a show. So it's like, it's like we could take that money and use it, you know, when we're home or we could take it, we could use it right now and just look at us. We're in a bus.

You know, it doesn't feel. I mean, every dollar you spend is a dollar out of your own pocket. It doesn't feel right. And even now, like, we get out of the van, Mike, our new guitar player, Mike jokes like every time he steps out of the van, he spends $20. Just because you stop at a flying J, you're like, well, be jerky. Great. Yeah. His hat.

20 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, nothing. We got done with WarpTor. We split a bus with every time I die. And, you know, the day rate for a bus is $1,000.

So half of that over six weeks, she adds up. Yeah. It's a serious number. Plus the gap. Again, you got to run the generator all day. But I couldn't have done something like WarpTor in a van. Never. No way.

Kubla Khan. Yeah, we got a mini hard lore with them coming up. They did all of Warped Tour in a van. That would have broken me. And did merch. They do their own merch? Like they had a guy with them, but Matt was often. I remember,

broken up. I remember, you know how you had a, like, you set up, you load the stage, you know, every morning? Yeah. I remember doing that and seeing them dry, because the vans can't park by the buses. No. So they're way the fuck away.

I remember watching this dot get bigger and bigger as they're just dragging their merch and their tent to wherever they're going to set up every fucking morning. I could after the story you just heard about me almost dying like that didn't break us up. But if I had to do warp tour in a van, we would have. That would have been it. God, fuck. No way. No way. Warp tour is already enough of a living hell that you you have to give yourself something.

you can't you can't just do it and and we did we did it we did it with a bunch of bands that did it emuyer did in a van fit for king did it in a van like these are bands that you figure would get a bus but like no yeah emuro did it and that's very surprising it was crazy but warped tour is the kind of the time financially where you're like okay well this makes sense to do it too yeah it's like two months yeah and it's all outside you have nowhere to go there's no green room there's no Need a spot a place. That, that, I just needed, I needed even a place to put my things. You know what I mean?

Like, it was just like, I have my bunk. It's there. Oh. So brutal. Yeah. It's gonna rain. Yeah. And it's gonna rain.

And then you're just, dude, one day, one day, somewhere in Texas, there was like a, like a several hour rain delay. And I just, I was like, I'm hungry. What, what should I do? And I remember it. I had a fucking Olive Garden gift card. I just took myself to Olive Garden for like hours of And you remember it to this day

So that was one of the greatest meals So pleasant Also though That was when I opened up a porter potty And saw Shit above the rim Like stacked above the rim So somebody

Yes Kept shitting after It's a bad time Well I still gotta go Yep That's the toilet at the Emerson Theater Oh the embertson theater Oh the embersome

Collin, you ever play the Emerson theater? Where's the Emerson? Indianapolis. No, I don't think. Wait. It's just a big room with like slanted. Because, you know, I don't, I don't know. If we did it, it would have been on the hatred thing with Acacia Strait.

So I don't know. No, no, no. We didn't play the Emerson there. Okay. We played some other venue in Indianapolis. But like the Emerson, we've played over a dozen times. It's always, it was always on the routing. And anybody from Indianapolis knows exactly what I'm talking about.

when I say it's the worst venue in America. Like, I said that in an interview once with someone, someone was like, what's the worst place? I was like, I will tell you the worst venue in America is the Emerson Theater. And I'm not even, I didn't even take into account that Jerry's Pizza existed. But like, the Emerson Theater is the worst venue in America, said in an interview, and the venue took that, quoted it and put it on that they, that's how they started marketing the venue, the worst venue in America.

That's kind of a great. spin though. But they legit and everybody in Indianapolis knows this when I say the toilet had a mountain of shit. Yeah. Always. Iiled up. And I thought, I thought I made that up in my own brain because I was like, oh, I'm exaggerating. That's crazy. But I'm like, did the mountain of shit

toilet actually happen? They're like, oh yeah, that's still there. Still there. Same poop? Yeah, it's got to be. Or people's no. It's like a legend. Wow. There's no room for like anything. Nope. They did. They built like a little. Yeah. They built.

like a little lofted green room above the entrance now. That's the last time I played there. Last time I played there was like 2016 would knock loose and still bad. And then the area too, there's like nothing around. It's like no cute restaurants. No, there's a little Cesar. Yeah. There's a McDonald's if you want to get stabbed.

There's a worth it. There used to be a like a head shot. next door and the guy was called Dr. Feel Good. Yeah. And we went in there. The first time we were played there, we went on Dr. Fieldgood, dude was asleep on the floor. He was asleep.

And we were looking around and he sells porn and he sells meth pipes. And he was like, holy fucking shit. What the fuck are you guys doing here? Like you're open. Like you're in your store. So then he just like regaled us with tales from his youth and told us all about how he was in this music video. And yeah, I fucking sorry, man.

Sometimes I fall asleep here. I woke up one morning. You know, I fall asleep on the floor here. I woke up one day and some chick was just fucking my cock. And I was like, well, that doesn't happen. But doctor, he said, don't call me Dr. Feel Good. Call me Dr. Dirtnap because I sleep all the time. And I was like, all right.

So the last time we played the Anderson Theater in 2016 with Knock Luce, Dr. Dirtnaps was gone. He vacated the area. So there was a, they opened a convenience store and said. This is way better because they sell candy. and they sell soda and I don't have to walk to Little Caesars. So at the end of the show I was going to go into the convenience store and get some candy for the road. And I went in the wrong door, which I thought was the door to the convenience store,

but it was a door to like some weird dark wave sex club. Oh. And there was just people in the club just going. Oh, fuck yeah. And it was like loud, super loud. like, remember we hackers when they go to that club? Or, yeah, it sounded like that. But they were all just fucked up.

And they, as soon as I opened the road, I went. I was like, holy shit. Was Dr. Gnaps there? I found that, no, it wasn't. He's the DJ. He probably haunts the place. But that was, I have many experiences with the Emerson Theater. We played there once on Halloween.

Yeah, yeah. arms away in a case of shame. And I hated that venue so much. Like I still like we've never played a bad show there. That's the problem. It's like I dislike the venue, but every show is good. What can you do, you know? Exactly. What you do is you say, well, it's Halloween. Let's throw candy in the crowd and toilet paper the entire venue. So that's what we did. And this, I felt bad for the staff because the staff were just like hardcore kids. Like they were innocent bystanders, but like we were throwing twosy rolls. And then toilet papered the venue. And they were like had to scrape up stepped on Tootsie rolls off the floor and I yeah yeah well you know we that's what

we suffer for art you know they're part out the Emerson theater for being still the worst venue in the country we're spending you in America now something I'd like to talk to you about Vincent is another genre that you created and that is ketogenic hardcore okay did I do that You were the first person I ever talked to about not eating carbs. Because you, you had a pretty substantial weight loss. You got very fit around that. I'm getting it back.

Well, no. I can see it in your face that that's just not true. I can see it in my face is going back. But I will take credit for that. You should. If you want to give it to me, like, it was people were,

people were surprised. Yeah. That the job. I went incognito for a while. Like I was like off because we did. I was, I didn't want to be in a band anymore. Like I was just depressed.

I was fucked. I was over it. I was over everything. And I was just trying to figure out like what I was going to do with myself. And I was sad. I was in a bad mood all the time. And I realized like I was like, what is my problem?

Like why? When did I get to this? Like when did it all come to this? Because I wasn't always a. fat person. You get fat. Like some people were born fat, but I got fat. And I was seeing pictures of, you know, of me at shows. And I was like, that's not me. So I figured I had to do something. And I went through a nutritionist. And I, they gave me a plan. I stuck to it. And the, the thing that really, it's not, I think it's discipline. It's, I'm giving this person money.

a week until I'm done. So like that's what motivated me. He's like, I don't want to keep giving this person money. Like I want to not keep giving this person money, but I wanted to prove this person that I could do what they're asking of me. So I did it. And it was it was crazy when, because when you're in your own body, you don't feel it, you don't see it.

You don't know until people start telling you, Like, the fuck? I worked at a venue around here for a while. And I was doing it as I was working. So I was like working shows for friends, you know, friends bands would come through. And I would work to shows like every time I die played this venue and I was loading them in. And Keith didn't recognize me. Like Keith, I straight up said hi to Keith, who we've toured with a thousand times in multiple different countries.

said hi to him and he just walked by me and I was like fucking is he mad at me and then he like took five or six steps turned around and said dude I didn't even recognize you wow and that's like holy shit so I'm not a promoter of keto like I don't promote anything like I don't want to tell people what to do or how to do it but I am a promoter of like if you want to feel better about yourself, see what you can do, make a change in your diet one way or the other, and try and just like, see if it works. He doesn't work for everybody. I'm surprised it worked for me. So like, not only that, but like my mood changed. I was happier now. My stage presence was better. I felt better on stage. And Warped Tour was like the first tour. I think we did, or Tour 2017.

It was like the first tour we did after I completely hit my goal. And I was like, it felt like night and day. It was crazy because I was like running around. It was 100 degrees out. And I felt bad, but I didn't feel the same kind of bad that I did before. Of course. And it just felt. I texted you and I was like, what have you done?

Yeah. Like how are you doing this? Did you send me just like a little chart? Yeah. You know, and I didn't know anything about it. That's it. Yeah. And I've, same thing.

Stuck to it. And it was 2018 was when I got really fit. Yeah. Same here, boys. Yeah. I remember on the tour, the Hapri tour that we did, you were posting pictures and just keto.

That was your, that was it. Like it was me jumping for the first time in three years. Yeah. So I just be like, yeah, this is keto. Yeah.

So I honestly didn't even realize that the domino effect was you doing it first. So you did it, Beau did it. Taylor did it. Taylor would like killed it for a while. Yep. And that was when I was like, all right. I got to, I got to try something.

And it's crazy how fast you start seeing it. First week I did it. I lost six pounds. Dude. I mean, the blow, the water weight, all that shit is like real. It's real. It's not always, she. The only problem.

Yeah, go ahead. Is now that I'm, now I'm like, I got to get back on keto. I know. I never do it. It's always like, there's always some like date where it's like, well, I know I'm going to be out of town and I'm going to eat whatever. Right. But then when I get back, I'm just, I'm going to cook every day.

Yeah. No. And it was really, so I was around 260 when I started it. Wow. Zero muscle, you know, just straight up, like a soft 260. And. And you got scary, skinny. I did.

I went into full disordered eating. I'm pretty sure everybody hits that. And you get, you get body dysmorphia. for sure. Yeah. I'm still like that's, I'm, every day I deal with that at this point, but like you look great. But then you see, hey, thank you. You look awesome.

Every pizza, every pizza Friday, I'm like, damn, kind of looks awesome. I got, I need to lay off the pizza for a while. Oh, I meant to tell you, you know it's national pizza month. All right. Clocking in. Yeah, it was 260 when

and so we recorded the the nudie mag demo, which is like just kind of like weezer's thing that Alec and Shannon and I did. And I ate like six chili dogs after we did it. You were sucking out of chili dog? It was literally, I ate five and then I finished Shannon's. And I was sitting there like, I should probably do something about this. And the next day I was keto.

And a week later, I lost 10 pounds. A week later, I lost another 10. Do you remember the first time you ate carbs after and how guilty you felt? Oh, it was horrible. Dude, I felt like I got hit by a, I felt like I fell asleep. I fell asleep. I fell asleep. It was Thanksgiving.

Yeah. And I was, I was home with Max girlfriend. And I cooked everything and made all the fixings. And we ate and just passed out on the couch. And then even the next day, I was like, whoa, like, I felt dumb. Yeah. To this day, I will not drink a calorie. No, never.

Won't do it. No. I was straight. Drink a sugary drink ever. Diet. I broke keto at my friend John Torn's birthday party with pizza and I couldn't drive home. I had to I had to have somebody else drive me home. Couldn't do it.

That's a real thing. So let's let's compare. I was I was about 210 and I went I was sub 180 by the end. Okay. Vincent? I was 275, 280. I got as low as 187, which is. absolutely unhealthy.

100 pounds. 187, yeah. That was as low as I got. Yeah, but that's... Yeah, it was crazy. It was... You're a fair deal taller than me, right? Yeah, you're six four.

Yeah. Oh, you're six four? Yeah, he's a big boy. I knew you were tall. I didn't know you're that tall. I'm quite a bit shorter than both of you. So I'm 6.1. I was 260.

165. Oh, fuck. You guys really lost. Like every day I would weigh myself and be like, all right, lost another two. I weighed once a week. Just obsessing. Once a week. Once a week.

Same exact time. Same exact close. Same exact everything. And I'm still like my brain. I'm at I'm around 220 right now. Because I have workout. Me too. Yeah.

Like that. But like my brain sees that number and it goes, do you got fucking do you got to stop? Same. But because I'll eat cereal for breakfast. and and it's just like, exactly. And I don't eat what I used to eat though. That's the,

that's the most important thing. I was thinking about like what I used to get at, you know, Taco Bell or what I used to get at certain places. And I'm just like, fuck, I used to eat an entire dejournal pizza by myself. That is 2,000 calories.

Yeah, but that's where I'm out now again. It's not delivery though, you know. That's not true. So we've arrived finally where we always knew we were going to end up. Yeah, yeah. Was that the segue? I want to know, I want to know what you used to eat that was bad. I want to know your go-toes on the road doing keto.

Because that's a first on the show. And what are you eating now? I want, I want to all throw out the trilogy. Cross the Lord? Colin's sucking down six chili dogs. Six chili dogs at my worst. No, no problem. Entire de journo pizza.

Easy. Bag of chips and a pint of ice cream. Easy. Now the ice cream, that's where it comes. I also used to crush a 12 pack of Mountain Dew like a day. I've been there. Woo. Just we're thirsty.

You know, that's the thing. It's not that it's water sucks. Can I say that? Water sucks. It's just like you have to do it. Now I'm drinking. I drink like a gallon of water a day. So much.

But at the same time, it sucks every single time. I love. I'm a water boy. I love that. I hate water. Real into Gatorade Liquid Ivy lately. Yeah. And dude Colin. I took

40 packets from TwitchCon because they just had them there because everybody gets really ripped at all the bars. That's like $65. That's the one thing that we splurge on is Liquid Ivy. We buy that for us. Like we use band money and we buy Liquid Ivy for us on tour because it's a really good idea. Getting sick on the road is the worst.

I drink it every. day now. And I'm, I look at, by 9 a.m. I'm like, I'm hydrated. I'm good. He's hydrated. Yeah, it feels really good. All right. So then you switch to keto. When you're on the road, try to remember back. Because there's a thing with keto too that I think philosophically, I think if you're, if you're eating just like meat and vegetables. Yeah. You're, you're good. But when you start to get into the like, when you start to get into the like, oh, I'm going to make a keto cheesecake. Yeah, that's shit's fucking. up.

That's fucked up. It throws you off. Yeah. It throws you off. It makes you, it gives you the craving. I totally think that. I,

uh, I do on tour, I do egg with muffins, sub egg, extra egg. And then I would throw the muffin. I'd ask for no muffin because I don't want to waste of food. Yeah.

But every, they would not understand me. Yeah. Yeah. I would just start away. So I get two of those. That's my breakfast. Um,

lunch. You can find a, you can find a salad place. Or a burger place that does like lettuce wrap. like a shake shack does lettuce wrap, In and Out Burger does lettuce wrap. A lot of places do it now. McDonald's, dude, the Big Mac salad.

Okay. If you ask for a Big Mac with no bun, they'll put it in a little plastic tray. I like that. Yeah. But when I was doing it like, when I did keto, it was not like a huge thing.

Oh, you're doing, you're doing Atkins. No, I'm not doing Atkins. I'm doing keto. And they didn't know what the fuck that was. So back then it was like a little harder.

Or I'll do like a salad. it'll do, you know, bunless whatever. And then gas station stops, I would just get a brick of cheese, like straight up, brick of cheese, stick of pepperoni. Yeah. I'm good. Gas stations sell cheese in the full brick, and it's really helpful. Pork rinds. Pork rinds are good.

Pork rinds were huge. I grew to love pork rinds. They were weird at first. And now I'm fucking pork rins and like a cheese sauce or something. Yeah. delicious. Yeah. I've,

I've bred it, I've made, there's a company out of Illinois called pork P.O. Oumlaut R. Q. Yeah,

you turn me on to those breadcrums. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They make pork rind breadcrumbs that you could make yourself. Yeah,

no, yeah, I'm a porking good guy myself. Yeah. Yeah. And I made keto chicken, like breaded chicken. Yeah,

I did the same thing. It's good. And so now what are you eating? Now, that you've come out of the eye of the keto store. So I don't eat breakfast anymore for the most part. Like I'll, I'll do like a,

I guess intermittent fasting is the official name for it where I start at noon and and end around six or I don't. I only have a six hour window where I actually eat, but I just eat normal. Like lunch will be like, I'll go get a sandwich somewhere or I'll make a sandwich here. Chili. It's not like,

nothing crazy like I don't go out a lot anymore on tour on tour it's it's terrible but every once in a while my girlfriend and I'll be like let's go to Taco Bell and we'll get Taco Bell so I don't feel guilty or I'm still adhering to something yeah I don't feel guilty where I work out at nine o'clock in the morning so I'm fasted burning then and when I eat when I finally eat at 12 I feel okay and I don't feel like shit before I go to sleep and that was my problem on the road a lot is that and my is it's so hard to be in this band. Is there so naughty? And not eat after a show where we would stop at the first gas station.

We'd go to, you know, pilot, Fine J, while our sheets, if it was available, Bucky's, whatever the fuck. And everyone would just go in and I would force myself to go to sleep before we would get to that point. Smart. And I think I just eat, I don't know, I think I eat kind of normal. Like I eat poorly sometimes, but it's not as much bad food as I was eating. Like I don't eat an entire pizza.

I eat half a pizza. It's not. Well, because the other thing, too, is you're one of the first people who I've seen and who we've toured with like bring a yoga mat and a kettlebell. Yeah. You know, like. Yeah, you were a kettlebell guy. James, like, they'll bring dumbbells and stuff. But like, every day you would go and set up and.

do your shit, you know. Easy train. They're easy to take. Like, it's like an easy transport. I keep it in the back of the van with my stuff and it's just there. Yeah. And the important thing to me is a set schedule. Like being on the road is perfect because I will load in is at a certain time every day.

And we have to load in. And I'll help. Like, I'll help load in. That's my, you know, my pre workout warm up. And then I'll work out and I'll be done. And I can go for a walk and I can do whatever I want. Because I don't do sound check or anything. like I just do my own thing.

Yeah. And it's easy for me to to work out like that because I have a set schedule every day. When I'm home, it's a harder. Yeah. I love a routine. It's nice. And I think the being quarantined like gave everyone like us, I have to do this at this time of day or else I'm going to fucking die.

Like kind of. Or they or and if, and you can kind of tell whoever didn't adopt that, you know. Right. Yeah. Oh, I'm trying to. Leave boat. I woke up at 12.30 today. Today?

Yeah. No, dude. What time is your shift? What time did your shift, sir? 8 a.m. He's an animal this guy. I can't, dude. 7.30 every day.

I'm a 6.30, man. So. Yeah. Yeah, Colin, you're always up so fucking early. I know. It's crazy because I'll text our manager at 8 o'clock in the morning and he lives in California and he'll be up. So you have kids.

You're just awake. kids and dogs yeah i got chit chili is my alarm clock bro he rips the blanket off and then i'll go sleep till 10 i got an automatic feeder these cats are fine my cat is a piece of shit she would wake me up she could but the door's closed because of fires or whatever there's something about closing the door and fires you read that what some kind of thing there's this video of this you don't close your door your house completely burned down except for this one bedroom because the door was closed. Really?

Yeah, it's like a thing, like sleep with your doors closed. Huh. My cats would drive me insane if I did that. Yeah, mine does. I did something sad today that I think you'll both appreciate as, you know, people who I assume like being cold, I had to turn on the heat. Wow. Yeah, you're an AC man, Vincent?

Me? I bet you are. Ooh, baby. I just got, so I bought this house two years ago. knowing there's no central air. I was like doomed, you know. I did one year of window units and no, never again for the rest of my life. Like, this is my basement.

I'm in my basement right now. We have band practice right over there. So like this is a basement. There is a door that leads outside and that's it. There's no windows. That's the ventilation. There's no ventilation. So the first time we had band practice down here,

it was soaked like it was soaking wet. I was like, what am I going to do? I bought a bunch of dehumidifiers and it made it even hotter. One year later, I was like, I got to do something. And HVAC is, I might as well just buy a new house. So I did mini splits and lifesaver. Too many splits. One upstairs.

Yeah, what's that? So it's European things that you see like, you know, when you tour Europe and they have the thing that's up on the wall and it's got the thing that goes like. Oh, like what Taylor's got in the pit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I have two of those in my house. And the guy who installed them is like a friend of a friend. And he was like, yeah, these are industrial. So your house will be fine. And they work well. They're awesome. Yeah. And I have solar. So like, the sun is cooling my house. Come on. Yeah. Incredible. What a guy. That's sun. Yep. And they. Generally. They pump out heat too, which I'm not going to use until probably December. But you'd be using that. Yeah. You have to hear. I'm on the first floor here too. And there's a basement beneath me and it's all concrete.

So my apartment stays really cold. But like today, mid-October, like, and I'm sick. I don't want to be walking around. I mean, echo. What's the temperature right now? Right now, it's 47 degrees Fahrenheit. Oh, my God. Have a good evening.

You better fucking send me that audio, God damn it. I'll say that. Don't you forget the fucking echo. What is Colin? Aurelion Colin. Echo. What is Colin? God damn it.

Son of a bitch. Arellion Colin is 36. Just shut up. Shut up. Ruin me. I fucking ruined your bit, dude. It killed my bit, dude. But you better fucking send me that on.

I'll send you the audio. I'll send you the damn folder, you son of a bitch. What do you got coming up, Vincent? New album? New album coming soon. No, no idea how soon, but got mixes two days ago. Oh. Oh, Mazel tov.

Oh, it's like that. We got mixes, got second mixes. some even third mixes. Holy moly. And I'll tell you, like, I got these mixes when I was driving in my car. And I cried. Wow.

Really? Yeah. First time my band has ever brought me to tears. Like, I was listening to this, and I couldn't, I couldn't hold it in. Like, I was actually, I wept. But it was, I'd say it was a pretty, you know, this was the first album that I actually had a hand in writing.

Musically? What's up? Musically? Yeah. Wow. I mean, this far in your band's career, like, you know what you want your band to sound like. Yeah, usually don't help. Was the emotional response that you had, like, a sense of, like, we did it in, like, relief?

Or was it like, this sounds so good? I can't believe it. I think it's a combination of a lot of things. Like, we went in the studio with basically no material. Like, we went in cold. And I was like, this is fucked. Like I was so stressed out. Like we had no music.

And that's the first time it's ever happened. And we, we did a lot of, a lot of stuff in a short amount of time. And so that was a relief because I was stressed up until that point. And then I was stressed about doing vocals. And I was stressed about, you know, how everything was actually going to come out. And recording sucks. Like, yeah. I hate it.

I don't I don't like doing it at all. My lyrical content, I'm always worried about that as well. So like it's, it was a, it was a whole mess of things kind of jumbled up in the ones and the one, in one big ball. And when I finally got to hear it all laid out and I, I just had a physical response, I guess. The songs are good, I think. And I don't know. We got a group of guest vocalists on this one that are, I think, pretty, you know,

they span the gamut. Sure. And I'm really excited about it. So that's what we got coming up next. It's a new record. New record. We got some tours that we can't talk about because that's how things work. And I can't even tell you anything about the record except that it made me cry.

That's, I mean, enough said. What else do you need? You know, we didn't even talk about the tour that we actually did do together. Oh, yeah. Kind of the sickest. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. Twitching tongues,

case you trained, Crowbar, Hayprey. Hayprey's satisfaction tour. Yeah. Like the one. With Sean playing a bunch of songs. Yeah.

I remember. Yeah, that was awesome. When I went, Colin, you couldn't talk because your voice was shut. Yeah, of course.

I mean, that happens to me every time. That, you know, I feel, was that, that was the keto tour? Or was that?

No, a year later was the keto tour, I feel like. Um, so that, you got me right before. I was like a miserable fuck on that one. So I don't even know if I was like cool or friendly or anything. You were miserable because your voice was all shot. Every day.

And that's another thing that I've noticed and you'll probably notice too is that it doesn't do that anymore. Like when you're when when you're like healthier and you're doing like better stuff with your body like your voice is better. Hmm. I mean it's maybe I'll find out one day. Maybe not. We'll see. That's up to you. It's up to me.

But yeah, that tour was awesome. That was so safe. That's the tour where we made the Haypreed rip-off shirt that said Vincent sang for Heyprey once. I remember that. That was on Warp Tour, right? Yeah, you got to sing Haypreed songs. You also, something I just remembered was the shirt you made after that.

the bus crashes. Yeah. That was because we basically had to throw all of our merch away. Yeah. That we had already paid for and or had to pay for. And then I owed, you know, Nate money for the van. So we were like, how the fuck are we going to do this? And luckily, people really liked the shirt.

Did they step up? Yeah. Yeah. Everything got covered, which is good. because that's huge. I can't I that amount of debt it was the numbers are I can't even I don't even remember what they were but they were dumb. I bet.

Yeah. Well we all made it you know. We did. We're all here. Definitely been there and I've said this before but there's a sense of like when you suffer some kind of financial blow in the music world and like in our world and then like the community is what brings. back into the, into the black, you know?

It's like... Damn, maybe this shit is real. Yeah, maybe, like, people actually do give a shit. Oh, wow. You know, it's a good, it's like a double, an additional silver lining to the whole thing. It's just like, oh, huh. Not to backhand that, but there were people who were like,

I bought your shirt, so you owe me. Oh, this song. Fuck them. You better play the song live. I bought your shirt. And it's like, and there was also, people who are like, what do you mean you cancel the fucking tour? All right.

See you never, I guess. Yeah. This is the, I mean, the irony of the van flip stuff is not lost on you, I'm sure. Right. No. It was written in the stars. Written in the stars. Yeah. Unbelievable. Well, may we, may none of us ever do that again.

I know. Flip, flip fans. may we all spend some more time together maybe in a van at some point. Whoa, bow flip. This was this was Vincent in the van. Oh, how could you do this too? That was me. See what I'm saying?

I'm stuck. Thanks for making me really that trauma. I just, you know, I was like, it's been an hour. I should do a bit. That's good. Yeah, I got to go pick up medication. Vincent's got a stream. Collins got to eat.

stream time surely it is well awesome thanks for joining us man thanks for having me lovely chat i hope i i hope i fulfill all the hard lore needs i i believe you have i think you did you know if if if you didn't to the people this is just we'll do it again this is the hottest this is the hottest thing going right now oh come on man all the all the kids all the kids love it and i say i use the word kids and like a I'm the royal the people yeah the hardcore we got done with the the mini one at furnace fest and Colin and I were immediately we're like we got to have him I have a lot you know like I said I don't I don't do podcasts but hey I'll do this one anytime we got a hard lore exclusive for life don't ask me to do your podcast either if you're watching

and have a podcast I don't want to do that's right you hear that scope to exposure don't email him just kidding uh yeah thanks for joining us man thank you all for watching Vincent Bennett case you do can you do us one favor what's up can you say it's hard Lord time absolutely it's hard Lord time wow that was a good one gorgeous thank you so amazing thank you sir is that what do we got what are you drinking that's a waterloo spice to apple seltzer yeah um that sounds Yours. Fantastic.

Oh, it's nice. Oh, we didn't even talk about polar. Good time. I mean, we're still rolling. Polar Seltzer, they were the first ones to like really ride for that. Yeah. And you got it, you got a Dorsman or what, a little Dorsey? I used to know someone that worked there.

Close. They used to just bombard us with free product. It was nice. Good for you, man. The holiday flavors are so. awesome. Yeah. There's like mold apple cider.

This year's pretty crazy. They have like a pomegranate sangria or something, champagne. I don't know. I'm excited. I'm always excited. They used to send me a gift box, you know, and I don't get that anymore. Wow. Maybe after this new album.

Yeah. Maybe after this hard to cry. After this episode, yeah. All right, everybody. good night and good bye