Kitbag Conversations - Episode 18: Music for the Masses

Episode Date: July 17, 2022

I hope you enjoy the intro and outro music for the Croatoan Report Podcast because this week I talked with Sam Black (samblack.jpeg), the man responsible for both the sound for this podcast, and the soundtrack work for Popular Front. This week we talk about  - Music in relation to identity  - Sam's music hobby  - The outcome of the Russo-Ukrainian war  - and a melting pot of culture 

Hello, everyone. I hope you like the music that you hear at the intro and outro of every single episode from the Crow's Home Report, because this week we're talking up to The Man who created it, popular front stone Sam Black. Sam, how you doing? Not bad, mate. You're doing pretty good. I'm what doctors would call shungover today, but I had a pretty good night. That's always a good way to start morning. Saturday morning, just rolling into the weekend, perfect. Exactly. It's a sign of things to come, I imagine. It just means you have to stay up later tonight to feel better tomorrow. Well, no, what you need to do is have more alcohol for breakfast, and then that will

keep you ticking over for the rest of the day. We run it with some mimosas or Bloody Marys? Need a drink proper alcohol? Just jump right into it, mate. Yeah, not even nursing it. Just straight to the bourbon. Man, Jesus. This one's going to be a little different since you're more of a music guy than a conflict journalist or an intelligence analyst. I think the big elephant in the room before anything is popular front and your work with them. What is the story with how you got involved in your relationship with Jake Handerhand, those guys? So I've been friends with Jake. Sorry, I saw one at the door.

Fuck off. Sorry. I've been friends with Jake since I was, I want to say, 13 years old. We grew up in a similar part of the country. He's a little bit older than me. I think he was 16 when I started hanging around with him. I was 13. We had a similar sort of group of friends. We met each other through mutual friends and just always kind of got along and just been friends. And then when he started working for Vice, he mentioned to me that he was going to be doing his own podcast, his own, he didn't even know what it was going to be at the time. It was going to be called Popular Front. There were some other names that got bounced around and he was making music at the time anyway, just messing around. Just as a hobby. And I said,

well, if you want any music, you know, you can use some of mine. And that's kind of how I got involved with it. I really like the diversity when it comes to the work you do with the documentaries like Plastic Defense and then the latest one with Frontline Hooligan. It's really interesting to see how you just incorporate almost like I didn't say a proper film soundtrack, but the music complements the location very well. And so it's like you're doing your homework. Well, it's weird, you know, because I never set out to make anything in particular. Like Jake will tell me, oh, we're going to Ukraine, for example. And he's like, we're going to do a

documentary. It's going to be like this long. And every now and then he might say, well, can you make me something that sounds like X or like Y or he'll show me a song that he likes to say, can you make something similar to that? But generally, I just like, oh, it's going to be a Ukraine documentary. I'll Google like Ukrainian folk music and look for samples and that. And then just just mess around. And, you know, for each documentary that people see that they might hear three tracks, four tracks, sometimes a little bit more, but I probably make about 20 or 30. And then they just get like cherry picked for whatever fits, you know, the scenes that make the documentary, you know what I mean? Yeah, just so is that just you and him together saying this

one's the scene or is it does it give you free reign? Sometimes, sometimes it's like you like cut something together. And then you'll like say, oh, have you got anything that fits this? And then I'll, I'll send a couple of beats over and then we'll try it, see what works. Sometimes it's literally just I've made, you know, 10, 15 songs and then himself and whoever else is working on the documentary or pick and pick what goes away, you know what I mean? So I tend not to, I try not to get too involved in like any of that. One, because I'm not very good at sort of stuff anyway. But also like music is a hobby for me and making music is a hobby for me. And I don't want it to become a job. Like it's my Zen at the end of the day when I come home

from work. So the last thing I want is to, you know, feel any pressure on making, making music, if that makes sense. That makes perfect sense. It's like most people go, oh, if you do something you love, you'll never work a day in your life, but you seem to just want to do that. I don't even know what you do for your day job or anything. But I think everybody has that kind of like niche area where they're like, if I get put into a corner and have to do this for a living, I'm going to hate it. So exactly. Like so, I mean, I work, I'm not saying here I work for anything, but I work in cyber security. And like I like computers before I did it for a job. Now, like I get home. And the only reason I turn a computer on is to make music.

You know, I do not want to deal with it. And the last thing I want is for that to happen with music. Don't get me wrong. Like if someone wants to pay me 10 million pounds a year to make music, I'm more than happy to do it. But like just putting the feelers out there. But no, I couldn't, I couldn't do it as a job. So your day job allows you to travel a lot, don't they? That's how you run the States a little while ago. Yeah, so I travel a fair amount, not so much since COVID. But I get to go, you know, I've been to the US a few times. I get to go around Europe a little bit, a little bit of travel in Asia. Again, that's another thing. It's like people are like, oh, it must be so like glamorous, glorious to travel for work.

It's like, mate, it's really not like it sounds cool when you don't do it. But when you have to, you know, get up at 2am on a Monday morning to get to the airport, to catch three planes, to get to a meeting that could probably be done on Zoom and then fly back the same day and then be in the office the next day. Like it's not glamorous, believe me. It's physically exhausting getting up and especially if you do it for weeks on end where you're at your house for a week and you're in the office and then you go to say like a different state or a different area in the country and then you come back for a week and then you do it again. And then I did that earlier this year. I spent two months hopping across the US and by, it was from like late February to early May. And

I was just, I was tired. I was like physically drained of moving because you can't get comfortable because you can't, you don't have that frame of I can go home and sit down and do nothing. It's going to a hotel and I'm just, no one's comfortable at a hotel. So Exactly. Like, and there's cool things that will come from it. Like you get to meet people or whatever, but, you know, meeting people is overrated as well. You know, sometimes you just want to switch off and when you're traveling for work, you can't do that. You're in work mode the whole time. It's, it's pretty much, it's just kind of, I don't want to say kind of, kind of productive or anything about working from

home because excuse me, it's almost like you're always in work mode because it's not like you actually leave your home and you go to the office and you're like, all right, I'm here. I'm here. I'm actually, it's time to work and then you work your eight hour days or whatever and you go home. It's my office is my desk is five feet away from my bed. So it's you kind of stuck in that quasi stress state. Exactly. And like when, especially like if I'm in the States or whatever, if I fly over that way, the shit that I've got, can I swear on this podcast? You want it? Cool. The shit that I've got to do, like during the day, because of the time difference,

you know, everyone's kind of already been working before I even woke up. So my mornings I spent catching up with stuff that I've normally got to do. Then I've got to spend my whole day doing my work as well. So like you end up working longer and it's just not fun. Let's say you do a full eight hour day and you're traveling, do you just go to a hotel if you're out of town and just pop on the computer or just make some beats or you're just walking down the street going like, oh, that sounds pretty cool. Let me just incorporate that real quick and put a pin in that thought. Sometimes, yeah, you know, a lot of the frontline who live in soundtrack was made without like all my normal stuff. I made it on my work laptop. So I made some of the tracks that

were in the frontline who look in soundtrack on the, on a trip to, I don't even remember what city I was in. Now I was in the UK, but I was basically staying over for a week. I was on a training course and yeah, so our training course would always finish early about 3.30 in the afternoon. I would always have a late lunch and then I'd go back to the hotel for a few hours, make some beats, go and get dinner, go back to the hotel, make some more beats and I think three of the six that are on the frontline who live in soundtrack were made in that hotel. So that hotel is like a little piece of popular front history. Oh, very nice. Do you have a certain program you like to run with or do you like to diverse

so it's like a running kind of meme like within like some of the people that work in popular front. I make all of the popular front music with a 2010 demo version of FL studio. Very strange. Yeah, but yeah, I know it's strange. So the reason I do it is because I have a bit of like ADHD. So I can't, I never like go back to a project. So I like to just start something and finish it in as short a time as possible and then move on and do something else. That sounds like the Ian Fleming way of writing where he would never prove for you, he would just keep writing and he's like, oh, I just finished Casino Royale in three weeks. Yeah, not that I'm comparing myself to Ian Fleming, but I like to just

get it out of the way. If I have to go back to something and carry on working on it, it's not going to sound good. I'll end up ruining it. Like in the moment passage, you know, it's like I'll be screwing around with samples and, you know, synthesizers, whatever, I'll come up with something and think, oh, that's great. If I spend too long on it, I'll ruin it and I'll just have to scrap it. And yeah, so I don't want to be doing that. So I use a demo version of FL Studio. I use free sample packs for drum sounds that I find on Reddit, Reddit r slash drum kits, if anyone wants to, you know, do what I do, you know, free sample packs that people put together and that you can download

for your kick drums and snares and hi hats and all that sort of stuff. I use free VSTs for synthesizer sounds. So I've got it open at the moment. I can tell you exactly what I use if my computer decides to wake up. But anyway, yeah, I use free, free everything pretty much. The only thing I've paid for to do music is I paid for a VST. That's like a virtual synthesizer called Omnisphere. And yeah, but other than that, it's all freebies. Not that we wouldn't pay for it or not that I wouldn't pay for it. So like, you mean, Jake said, well, you know, anything you want to buy to do music for the podcast, you know, you know, we'll buy it. But if we don't need to buy it, then I don't want any money spent on it.

It's remarkably spartan considering how crisp and actually dialed in the sound is. I wouldn't have guessed that it was from a demo, you know, 12 years ago. It's because even listening to the track you put out yesterday, what was it? Epstein's favorite age? I was like, this is good. It's like, yes. Yeah, I mean, I jump on SoundCloud periodically and I'm like, I see what Sam's up to. Yeah, so I must apologize to anyone who actually likes my music because I'm very bad at uploading stuff. Genuinely, I'm just a bit lazy. And so I don't upload as frequently as I'd like, or some other people might like. But yeah, every now and then, there'll be something I'll make that it'll be used by Popular Front or H11, which is something else, or someone else.

Just like I put a pin in the conversation. What is H11? Oh, so that is a production company organization. I don't fully know the best way to describe it. But it's something that there's a production company that Jake started a while ago. I just thought it was in your Instagram, but when I haven't seen anything regarding the topic since it kind of dropped. So I just, yeah, I mean, just to keep everyone dialed in what's going on there. But yeah, yeah. So again, it's one of those things. I can't speak on it too much because I don't run it. I am genuinely just the music man, you know, me and Jake friends. But like, when it comes to like Popular Front and that is just, I do the music. I don't do too much else.

I don't really have much creative input beyond that. And then my other main role is upsetting people in the Popular Front Discord. No, that's very nice. If they offered you like a, hey, we're going to, I don't know, France for two days, would you want to go? Would you just jump on it? Or you want to keep on the same process because it's already tried and true? I think I would keep the same process because there would be no utility in me going to France or Ukraine or wherever. Some of the people involved in documentaries, like I do get to, I want to say get to know them, but like I speak to them on Instagram or whatever, whether that's a subject or a documentary or people that help with it.

And people in like, I guess what you want to call like Popular Front Sphere, if that's a word, I will, I will like help them with stuff if they want music or whatever. But yeah, there'll be no utility in me going, I'm not a journalist. I don't, I don't have that creative side to me. Yeah, I don't get me wrong. I'm very interested in it. And some of these places I would love to go and experience, but at the same time, I would be a hindrance not help. So within the Instagram, not Instagram, the like soundtrack community, do you ever follow like Orangey from a few years ago or Brian Ellis, because they seem to also do the same thing? Just like, what are your kind of, I don't know, what are you a fan of?

Uh, it sounds weird, but I don't see everything start response. No, no, no, no, I genuinely, I don't tend to like the music I make, if that makes sense. I don't really listen to much electronic music. I don't really listen to like, like soundtrack type music. I just like my music of choice is black metal. Um, you know, I like black metal. I like, uh, like gauge metal. Yeah, stuff like that. You know, things that I don't make. I mean, I do make them, but I don't put them out there. Um, but yeah, I'd say one of the bigger like inspirations musically, um, would probably be, uh, it's hard to pick one to be honest. Um, maybe on the top five where it's like your Spotify top five from the last 24 hours, that probably is a pretty good.

Yeah. So my spot, my Spotify top five from the 20 last 24 hours would be really weird. Um, so I've been listening to a lot of, um, Darina Harvey band. My Mrs put me onto it. It's like kind of like Irish folk type music. Um, then, uh, Bersam, I'd listened to, um, Bellos, the album yesterday. Um, there's another guy I've been listening to a lot of recently, um, a Garnian drill rapper called black sheriff. Um, really, really cool music. Um, it's, it's, you know, it's drill. I mean, drill's pretty standard, but, um, yeah, he's really good at it. Uh, yeah. And then other than that, I mean, as far as like individual musical, like role models or whatever are concerned, I don't really have any, you know, pretty boring response. I'm afraid, but you know, it's, you

know, I do like a lot of different music and maybe I do pull some inspirations from some of it, but it's hard to really, hard to really identify any. Um, one of the ones I can identify actually thinking about it is, um, the frontline hooligan soundtrack, a couple of the tracks on it. Um, I was really inspired by, uh, an artist called Nate no face, uh, and eight no face. Um, and yeah, so he does some like cool, I don't even know what you would call it, like synth punk, post punk stuff. It's really, really cool. I remember interested in almost like localized music that comes out of like certain parts of the, the glow where it's like, like Polish gypsy music or like Indian kind of like quasi folk. Cause I know you might have already seen this, but like a couple

of years ago, Johnny Greenwood, the guitar player from Radiohead went to India for like a month and made Junoon and it was fantastic. It was, yeah, I mean, you probably heard it, but it was like one of those where it's like, yeah, this guy makes a, there will be blood soundtrack, the guitar is for okay computer and always hanging out in India going full beetle. So it's good. Yeah. I love stuff like that. I mean, I love folk music. Um, a big kind of interest of mine for a while has been, um, Chechen folk music, um, like Les Ginko music, the dance that they do. I like some of that, not the, not the newer electronic stuff, but sort of the old, you know, accordion and a hand drum, Les Ginko music, but also like kind of more related to what

I do, I suppose was you had a lot of, um, Chechen folk singers during the first Chechen war and to a lesser extent the second one, um, who really put out some amazing music. Um, I'm going to butcher their names, but you've got the likes of, uh, Timur Mutsarayev, you've got, uh, Imam, Alim Sultanov, um, and they did kind of like acoustic, angry acoustic music, you know, where they're shouting about the war and it's just, it's something else. You don't really get music like that in any other scenario than either conflict or hardship, which is interesting to me. Really, essentially in the United States, like Vietnam has a soundtrack. Everyone just goes like, oh yeah, CCR, that's the Vietnam soundtrack. And so kind of like more on my side of the house,

where you're doing conflict reporting and analysis, and you got to really dial it into, instead of talking about how there was an explosion at a fruits factory in, you know, Chechnya, you're going to go, well, why? And then you have to listen to the, like, what are the people watching TV? What do they listen to? Yeah. You know, what kind of books, what literature do they read? Put yourselves in their shoes to understand the reasoning and bun in my head, music's probably the best one because anyone could grab a guitar with three strings, you don't even need all six, and you can make some music with that. And then it'll really just latch on to kind of like the cultural identity of any certain conflict. Because if we

look at like, I'm the star East, that's a Russian, like it's a Russian-esque Cold War music page on YouTube, which just kind of collects all these like really, really rough recordings of like Soviet era folk songs. But they're all from, most of them were from the Afghan War. And so you're like, wow, yeah, that conflict was insane. And if you read that in comparison with the book like Zinky Boys, which is a collection of diaries from all these soldiers and mothers who were in the Afghan War, it's putting yourselves in their shoes to better understand the situation. So then if you watch something like The War in Ukraine, you're going, yeah, they're trying to, it's like the American Vietnam after like the Gulf War. It's like they're trying to, it's just easier to understand

what's going on. And yeah, into something like Chechen folk music, like everyone goes, Chechens are hard motherfuckers. And you go, well, what did they listen to? You're like, I would not have guessed. Exactly. Yeah, you know, they're fucking like the hardest nation on the planet yet. They're kind of, their war music was like a guy singing about pain with an acoustic guitar. It's kind of incongruent. But you raise an important point though, that music as well as like being a way to explain and understand war and conflict and people who are involved in it, it's like, I think not enough is written about how it's like it drives it as well. So like the sort of Chechen songs that I'm referring to, they were like, they really drove morale for Chechen soldiers

and they really drove down morale for Russian soldiers during the like really brutal invasion in Chechnya. But also, I mean, you'd probably get a smack or stab by them for saying it's music, but like the likes of like Islamist Nashi, you know, for people who don't know like religious chants, very musical, very like, you know, they've got a sound that is unique and hard and almost, genuinely some of it reminds me of like metal and the in its cadences and stuff like that. And I genuinely curious as to like, there's got to be like some, you know, kid out there fighting with like HTS or ISIS or whatever. It's like, one of the primary reasons he did it was because he heard this really banging Nashi, you know, and he thought, God, that sounds cool, you know.

Yeah, exactly. It's almost an abstract thought to think about today because, you know, there's just a few songs and everyone, it's kind of like a cultural melting pot of everyone listens to this music. But if we dial it back 200 years ago post Napoleonic War, those music, the music pieces that were written for like residential marches and whatnot are still incorporated in militaries of Europe today. And so they're just like, Hey, you know, it's just that it's that cultural identity of what's going forward. And then you can look at something like, you know, the World War One, those very just depressing songs about being in the trenches were being sung by the soldiers who were the grandsons of the First World War and

the Second World War in France or like, I'm pretty sure my dad was here like 20 years ago. So it's like, it's just keeping that identity moving forward. And yeah, and yeah, just so militarily speaking, it's, oh yeah, no worries, like militarily speaking, it's everyone kind of has to have something to latch on to because in the military, it's a unit. And so if you're an insurgent or a line company in the British army or, you know, freedom fighter in Burma, you're, you're like, we need a soundtrack. We need everyone to go, if you hear this, you know, who's this with? So yeah, that's it. And there's another like, there's something it's kind of taboo to say, but there is, I mean, war don't get me wrong. When I say this war is all for war,

it's horrible. It shouldn't happen. But there is something cool about war. And it's not very, it's not very like PC in many ways to say that, you know, there's some stuff about war is cool. You know, there's like action, there's camaraderie, there is, you know, you get to blow shit up sometimes. And, you know, there's a lot of awful bits as well. But the cool shit needs a soundtrack. And the cool shit has a soundtrack. You know, I remember like the early days of YouTube when, you know, the Iraq war was at its height. And every other like YouTube video would be some like compilation of airstrikes and raids on houses with like like dead drowning pool, let the bodies hit the floor in the background. And, you know, I don't think enough attention is

really given to that. So compliments how the country viewed internationally, because if you listen to, you know, with Victor Stoik, you're going, wow, this music is depressing. This is probably what Russians are. And it just complements like a the stereotype that's been built up around Russians, I guess. And then from the from there, you could just go like, excuse me, but it just helps complement what's going on. So if you listen to a very generic action movie and the Americans walk in the room, it's just going to be metal and guitars. And then if it goes over to or you're playing a video game, I think a good good example is, and it's one of my favorites, the call of duty world that war soundtrack.

It's so diverse because it's Eastern Europe has this one sound and it complements what everyone would suspect Eastern Europe would sound like, but it tweaks it a little bit. But then when it comes to the Americans, it's more like heroic and triumphant. But then it goes to Japan and it sounds almost alien because it's like in the shoes of those Marines in the Pacific in the game you're playing, it's they had no idea they were in an alien. They were in an alien world. So then that music is kind of complimenting the idea of it's it's strange. And then it's also like, you know, the final days of the or the final map campaign missions where you're in Berlin and it's just the music's not triumphant at all. It's like, that's just the most grotesque in your face,

six string or 12 string guitar. It's like, yeah, doom's really cool. But if you will, that word did that first and it's just not in your face, aggressive. It's, it's horrific. And it's like talking about cultural stereotypes and association with music. I think the best way to associate it today is like video games and TV because like, Hey, Americans are always going to be like, let the body hit the floor if we're watching a movie about Iraq. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it was just, and I don't, maybe that's a bad example because it's kind of a bad taste, like, you know, rolling around Iraq sing and let the bodies hit the floor. But, you know, there is something that I don't think is necessarily a bad thing that, you know, America

has this kind of, I don't even, it's hard to even articulate, but you've got a good example, actually. I was watching a YouTube video yesterday and it was of, I think it's called GBRS Group. It's like, they're like X Navy SEALs and they do all this like tactical stuff now. And like, it was like a compilation and it was, it had the doom soundtrack in the background. And it's like, yeah, this fit, it makes total sense that these guys, these big fucking hulking muscle bound X Navy SEALs will be clearing rooms and running through the woods with machine guns to the doom soundtrack. But if you had like a group of Taliban doing that, you'd be like, what the fuck? This doesn't work. This doesn't make sense. Exactly. And which brings me back to the

opening conversation of associating the music with, say, the art that's, it's being attached to, where it's like frontline hulking has more of like an Eastern European sound, because if it was, if it was, you know, flutes and symphonies, you're like, this doesn't really make any sense. Why is this over, overlaid on top of, you know, mario? Yeah, absolutely. And there is a, there is a kind of a weird kind of like side note to that. The 3d printed, I can't even remember what the documentary is called now. The, the Plastic Defense. That's the one. Thank you. I can't believe I didn't know that plastic defense. Some of the sounds, some of the songs that were used in that, I actually ended up taking samples from a Creale Ender 3 printer,

which is what Jay Stark was using to make his guns rest in peace. Yeah. So like, it was just like weird little background noises. And that, that one, you know, 3d printing guns, it's very like futuristic cyber kind of, you know, vibe. So it was like, I sampled like old PlayStation one loading screen sounds and quake sounds and all sorts of stuff. Just because, you know, what Jay Stark was doing, he, he, it was, it wasn't a kind of a war or documentary. It wasn't about conflict. It was philosophical for him and the world that he grew up in. He grew up with video games. He grew up with, you know, stuff like that. So that's what the soundtrack had to incorporate.

Yeah. I do, I love that documentary. It's really good. It's, it's so good. It's, is that the one that was on a, I think Joe Rogan talked about it a few times. I know at least once it was brought up. And it's, it's just cool to see that I'm pretty, don't quote me 100% on it, but I'm pretty sure it popped up once over the last, you know, within the last several years, because he does six hour podcasts twice a day. So couldn't tell you. But yeah, man. Yeah, man, big pictures. Yeah, big picture. So I know you said you don't want to do this for a living, but do you have any like personal side projects you're trying to like dive into or? I wouldn't go as far as to say side projects. I, you know, I've started making these little

music videos to put on Instagram. Just, you know, for something to do. You know, I've got all these beats, all these little bits of music that are never going to get used by popular front or anyone else for that matter. So I've got to do something with them. So I've just started screwing around with video editing a little bit and just grabbing, you know, some scenes from documentaries and news clips and all that and putting music to them. And that's just a hobby. Then I've got a project I've been working on on and off for a couple of years now, which is a black metal project. I don't. So you're the one screaming or you're going to hire somebody? There is no decision yet on who's going to be screaming.

It probably won't be me. You know, I've got a nice pretty voice. I don't want to keep it that way. But there is going to be someone screaming on it. I've got a couple of tracks done, a couple of the instruments done. There is no timeline on that. It probably never, never see the light of day. That would be cool. Through popular front, we're doing a limited release on a tape release of just a selection of songs, some from the sound tracks, some new tracks that are unreleased and only going to be available on the tape. That's coming soon. My understanding is we've had like a test copy of it and it's cool. It's very niche, but it's cool. And that will hopefully be coming soon.

It's going to be pretty limited, I think. I don't know how many copies is going to be, but there's not going to be many. And yeah, other than that, related to popular front, I mean, I'm just going to keep lying in my bed in the evening and make him use it. Yeah, man, you're killing it so far. Keep it up. It would be really cool to see the Black Metal Side project actually roll out and get some viewership. Based on everything you've done so far, it's probably going to be good. I guess segueing into, I guess away from popular front and whatnot. Have you ever listened to like Post Rock at all? Or Progressive? Post Rock, I used to like bands like God is an Astronaut and stuff like that.

Who, sorry? Mogwai? Yeah, Mogwai. Yeah, I've got a great song called Koby. But yeah, some Post Rock, some like shoegay stuff. What was the other? Who was the Post Rock band who did the soundtrack the 28 days later? Well, God, Godspeed, you will have Emperor. That's the one. Yeah. I'm a huge fan of that. Yeah, you have 25 minutes. Just listen to one song. Yes. But it's a good 25 minutes. If you're like driving at night, like there's no one else around, that is the soundtrack for it. That is definitely the soundtrack. If you just want to go on a run and test your endurance, just put on in the home in a heartbeat from 20 days later and just kind of just run.

Pretend the zombie's behind you. Oh, well, no. So I've like, I don't like lift weights or anything, but I do like calisthenics. And every couple of days I do a burpees routine. And when I do my burpees routine, like I've been trying to find like the best soundtrack for it. That's the easiest way I can describe it. And the best I've found so far, like the sort of sort of right amount of anger and the right speed is Nate, no face. Don't die on 9-1-1. It's like this weird, like post punk, synth punk, screaming, angry mess of music. But it's not very long. It's only, it's a quick EP. It's only about 10 minutes or so. But, you know, I can guarantee you 10 minutes, nonstop burpees is killer. You're good for the day.

Burpees are, they're their own beast. It's like, I would rather, I would rather do an elliptical, the Jacobs ladder for an hour instead of doing burpees for 10 minutes. It's me too. But, you know, like I'm training for if I ever go to prison. So, I mean, just, I still got like 20 minutes here. I guess like, what's your background? Like, what's your family in the military, anything like that? So, I am from the East Midlands of England. Pretty dreary place, to be honest. Or the beautiful weather at the moment. Yeah, so like, kind of working class background, both my mum and dad, factory workers. My grandfather on my mum's side was in the navy.

He ended up in military prison. I don't know the full story, something about kicking the shit out of an officer. Yeah. Then I had no one else really in the military of my family, other than my uncle, Georgie, he was in the Australian Air Force. Never really had any kind of, I didn't have a hard upbringing, you know, have both parents who weren't rich, who weren't poor. It's kind of a normal upbringing. I never really wanted to go into the military or anything. I always kind of wanted to be like a pilot when I was younger, always like planes, you know, considered going into RAF, decided against it. And yeah, there's kind of, sometimes I feel like I picked the wrong dream and maybe should have pursued that, but

not the way you're talking about just the what is, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I know. No, I'm not saying I regret anything. But yeah, yeah, it would have been, it would have been cool, you know, zipping through valleys in a fire plane. But you know, that's what video games are for. But no, no, that is kind of my background really. I've always been into music. My granddad on my dad's side was in a quite a well-known band called the Size 7 group in the 60s. They like recorded at Abbey Road and stuff. You had a couple of like minor celebrities for friends. They never really took off. The story I heard was the band was supposed to go on a European tour to support another band from the UK.

But two or three of the guys who were in the band, their parents wouldn't let them go because they were supposed to go to Germany. And the parents are just like, no, fuck that, you're not going to Germany. Don't know why. But yeah, so that was kind of the end of the band. They stayed together, did some local gigs and then that was it really. But my uncle, my dad's brother, he was very musical as well. He's quite severely disabled now, unfortunately, so he can't play his instrument of choice, which was a keyboard. But yeah, so I spent a lot of time with him and my grandfather when I was younger playing keyboards, playing guitars and stuff. And that's where the music comes from really, is those two. My dad always encouraged it as well. He bought

me a guitar, he bought me keyboards. God love me, even bought me a drum kit, the fucking idiot. He had to put up with that for quite a while. Yeah, he always encouraged me, which was cool. My mum as well, of course, always encouraged me. And have you ever heard of me now? Oh, yeah. Yeah, man, you're doing, like I said, exceptionally well. And have you ever heard of mental association when it comes to like associating music with Alzheimer's patients to kind of like hit that subconscious note to kind of like get them to remember? I swear I've read something about that before. It's sort of like a new age. Yeah. It's like a way to calm, calm them, like calm the mind to, you know, to like,

because my understanding of Alzheimer's was like, is it like satiates that part of their brain that is like, you know, going back and remembering things, like, and it gives them the ability to retain new information or supposedly gives them the ability to retain new information. Yeah, I've read up about that. It's always a friend. Don't go ahead. No, I was just going to say a friend of mine actually is she's looking into studying what's it? It's like music therapy for people, you know, people with like trauma and stuff, children especially. They can get a lot out of, you know, not only listening to music, but making music. And it's like music based health intervention. She's looking into doing that.

And yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's kind of obviously music's just become background noise for people. And that's a shame because it's an important part of who we are as people. The music we listen to and making music and joining in with music as well, I think is very important. It's something that's lost in the modern world, I think is that element of sitting around with people you know, someone's got an instrument, everyone else singing along. It doesn't happen nearly enough because of the way modern music is. I think we need more of it. That was loopy. And just touching on what we talked about earlier with Chechen war songs or

Vietnam war songs, it's that helps music builds camaraderie between people and creates single units. And regardless if it's a, you know, a nuclear family and, you know, Georgia or an insurgent group and Belarus, it's like that just the music helps build that cultural identity or like this is ours. And I was reading into it recently how the idea of subcultures seem to have died off because the world is so integrated. There's so much hand over hand that there's no, it's really difficult to find like a niche corner where people can just, you know, identify with because everyone listens to, like you said, it's all in the background. It's not really a dedicated base like in the punts in the seventies and the eighties, that was a subculture. But then

today everyone just goes like, Oh yeah, I like the clash. They're cool. That's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't dedicate your life to anything anymore. The way people used to be like, it used to be like, you know, certainly when I was young, like when I was like in school and that if you listen to metal, you were part of the metal crowd. If you listen to rap music, you're part of the rap crowd. Like, you know, if you listen to pop music, you're part of like the pop crowd, you know, and everyone kind of had that niche and, you know, that's got, it's got its downsides, you know, but it also helps build that, that camaraderie between like, hey, you know, you're in the school days or in the world, you're going, well, I listen to a lot of,

let's say, black metal, you're like, it's kind of like dialed down. But then if you find those people that listen to it, you're like, from there, you could just start building on like, have you heard this guy? Have you heard these guys? Oh, this is their influences. This is what they read. And then just builds the identity. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I mean, unfortunately, black metal is an awful example, because there's so much in that subculture is pretty awful subculture. You know, obviously, that's what really bad example. Yeah, I suppose. Yeah. I mean, every every music subculture has got his shitheads, I suppose, but I think black black metal, especially, you know, it's got some awful people who are

guess staples of the genre, you might say. But it's good, you just got to like, hold your nose when you listen to it and pretend it's not as awful. You know, if you like the music, that is if you don't like the music, you're lucky. But yeah. Yeah, oh, I've got a question for you, actually. I responded. I responded to your poll about who I thought was going to win versus Russia versus Ukraine. What's your opinion? It's changed since the war started. Based on that, tactically, strategically thinking, you have 72 hours when you commit your offensive to as much territory as possible to kind of shock the enemy into buckling, you know, the

Ukrainians who spent eight years getting ready, but it's like they didn't really get ready. And it looked like the Russians were winning. But then after a week, there was the convoy North Kiev, there was no ground being taken and the anti tank weapons and the anti aircraft weapons were working. And I thought, oh, maybe Ukraine's actually winning. Maybe they will win. But today, it's just speaking to people I know in Ukraine and looking at a big picture. I wrote about it the other day, but I'm pretty sure the Russians are going to win not anytime soon, but it's just going to be a slow slugfest because in terms of population, the Russians outnumber them maybe five to one, you could have mobilization of the entire Ukrainian population. But at that point,

without any training, it's just, you know, scared individuals with clubs because if they don't have any ammo, you just got an expensive club. It's essentially what it is. And then big picture, there's a lot that's going into this, but the Russians are almost fighting for their own sense of survival because post they started off in 1991 after the Soviet Union collapsed with like 149 million people. And by 2000, there was like 145. And then by 2010, there was 143 and their population is a dying off because the very top age wise, so are the Ukrainians, but also they don't have kids. And you could say that because, hey, the economic situation is very bad. And the only people that seem to make money either A,

live in cultural centers like Moscow or St. Petersburg, but also the farmers who contribute to the world's distribution of grain and fertilizer and whatnot, they're also dying off because being a farmer is not a very attractive job. And especially in Russia, where it's such a vast country. And so no one's actively pursuing the idea of like, Hey, let's go make food. So the population is just dying off rapidly. And then they had the brain drain of the 90s after the wall came down, they went, Oh, I'm just, you know, I'm an artist, I'm going to go live in Paris or I'm a banker, I'm going to go live in New York. And so they lost a lot of their educated class. And so now it's just like a bunch of either A kids who have been indoctrinated for

20 years since Putin or 22 years since Putin became president, which is very, it's very similar to like Hitler taken over the Germans where the population of the youth were very like, yes, this is the way. And then the older population who either A just don't have the money to say no, they don't have the, the essentially like they're just putting this really tough corner in the way the world is working globally. Global warming is really ruining the crop capabilities like the agricultural centers are shrinking and all the farmers are dying and guess who has a lot of farms and a lot of good land, Ukraine. So, and then in July last year, Putin wrote an article called like a 5000 word essay called like on the cultural unity of Ukrainians and Russians that

said like, Hey, these are ours. We are one people were all Slavs get over it. I'm coming to take this. And so if you just look at like the migration pattern of all the Russians from the central Russian Federation, they're now all along the Eastern or the Western border of Europe. And they're all taught for 20 years or 50 years that Ukraine is there. And so the Ukrainians can say all the way that they don't want to be Ukraine or Russian, but they better they have to fight for it. And so all of their educated or not educated all their trained military personnel from eight years of rotations with US Marines and the Brit Paras, they're dying. And so the Ukrainians are doing mass conscription. But like I said, without any proper training and corruption is

really bad on both sides. So if someone could say like, Oh, you know, Ukraine's corrupt, but if they're outnumbered five to one, so it's corruption is Ukraine's bad. It's five times worse in Russia. But it's almost like that human wall application where the Russians can just keep throwing people out until Ukraine almost blockles because US midterms are coming up and both sides in the US are going, Do we even need to support Ukraine anymore? Because. And so at first, you're like, Oh, stand with Ukraine for international support. And then after a while, they're going, Oh, we get all our food from Russia. Hey, can we end this war right now? Ukraine just give him what he wants. And so yeah, it's, it's not a very easy answer. It's not very easy to say like, Yes, this is what's

going to happen because it changes every single day. And the way that the Russians are strong arming Europe with the oil exports where Germany said they're going to wean themselves off, but then are buying more than anybody else in history. And they're also buying the oil reserves and securing those in Africa, which go into Europe. And just going like, Hey, the Americans have a lot of, you know, NATO has bases in Egypt, Ethiopia, wherever all these countries, they're also the top 10 countries that rely on imported food. So the Russians could just go, Oh, I'm just going to cut off food for there. And I'm going to mine the Black Sea. And I'm not going to play nice with Turkey. So they will create like a second front for the NATO and EU to kind of redirect their focus into

keeping North Africa in the Middle East from revolting and going to civil unrest. And so you don't want that because that's where another additional echelon of oil comes from. And so I think the Russians are playing 5B chess. And I think a lot of people underestimate the fact that the Russians are Russians. And I do believe that they did too. But it's one of those things. It's like, I don't see, I don't see Ukraine. I've buried my dino fuck all about the military. I don't see Ukraine winning militarily. Like, they put up a far bigger fight when this all kicked off. I thought, you know, the Russian military is going to roll into Kiev, they're going to take every city, subject the population to like, you know, being a Russian. Like,

obviously that didn't happen. And I think Ukraine put up a far bigger fight than even the US expected. And then I also think that the Russians performed far worse than anyone expected. All of these wonder weapons people were expected to see just clearly do not exist. It's like, it's like crazy. Everyone's worried about these like futuristic tanks. And now they're rolling out T 62s. It's insane. We don't have the tractor words in Stalingrad anymore. They just can't keep rolling these things out. But speaking of in terms of population, because I started thinking about that, like, oh, the Russian population, they're dying off, you know, everyone, they're indoctrinated. And even though they're the estimate that came out of Ukraine ticket is

well, they're pretty much fluffing numbers, but they said 40,000 Russians have been killed. That's insane. And that's a large majority of the Russian military age population. But a day after that report came out, the Kremlin went every Ukrainian is now available for Russian citizenship. So they intend to at least a keep everything in Donbass. There's no way in hell the Ukrainians are getting Crimea back. That's just there's no no, no, it's not just the Russians put eight years worth of everything they had to make sure that was a secure facility. Looking back until like the Crimea war with the Brits and the French and the Turks invaded, you know, Russia to stop them from building their naval seaport. The French said, I want to say

350,000 soldiers to take Crimea and they lost 150,000. And it's just a fortress. And in World War Two, the bloodiest battle wasn't in. And that has something to do with dysentery and poor logistics and whatnot, but combat was insane. And then in World War Two, a lot of people go, Oh, the Battle of the Bulge was a really bloody battle or Stalingrad was a bloody battle. The most intense was in Crimea, because once you get behind that barrier, the invader has to go 10 to one odds to shoot south and actually secure the or the little peninsula there. And the Ukrainians do not have the means. And the Russians secure Kyrsten very quickly, because that's where the water flows into Crimea and whatnot. But

there is that counter offensive. And what was that? I was just going to say, like, it kind of changed in the topic slightly. Do you think there is there are many legs to this argument about the Russia's S 400 being useless? I don't know if you've seen this. There's a lot of speculation about the Heimars being like so good that the S 400 can't intercept them and their heads are going to roll. So I wouldn't say it's useless, but based on military doctrine, the West is very center decentralized. So, you know, you are you and I are sitting in an S 400, we see a rock and we can shoot it down. That's it. But the Russian military is very top heavy. So you and I on an S 400 go, there's an impact, there's a rocket inbound, then you've

got to call our boss and then that guy's boss and that guy's boss. And that's the Western military district going, okay, shoot it down. And so it's they don't have the retaliation time, which is not it's not the beneficial at all. It's not a good doctrine. But also, a lot of their experienced troops got killed. So they're just throwing all those like the new conscripts and the new guys that are joining to go man these and so it's just they don't have any education on the system itself. And then for Heimars, it's, it's pretty simple. I mean, you get trained up in the UK, and then they come back and they're like, I know how to man these. So yeah, and Heimars are no joke. Yeah, it's just that I remember scrolling a couple of days ago

through Twitter or Instagram or whatever it was. And it was basically a a post basically talking about how the S 400 has proven incapable of intercepting Heimars. And how it was likely that heads were going to roll with the whoever I can't remember the name of the factory that actually manufactures the S 400. But I don't have enough experience on the S 400 to give like an educated answer. But I just know that the Heimar is very, very good. It's a very good tool. And if that is the actual outcome, then the Russians better speed up their little operation. Because from what I've seen on like an institute study of war and whatnot, that the Ukrainian military so stretched thin along the border in Donbas, that they're throwing

light infantry against tank columns. And you could say, Oh, well, they have anti tank weapons, you only have so many vessels. And so once a hole gets opened up, they could just shoot south and like encircle Ukrainians and have another merry Opel on our hands. So there's a lot going into this. And it's not just kinetic force on force. It's Oh, do you want Africa to start? Do you want the Middle East to go into revolution? Oh, American farmers are not getting, you know, Americans are not getting food. Western Europe's not getting oil. China's also expanding. It's it's almost like the world is moving into a new direction from the post Soviet post Cold War era, where it was pretty conventional where like play nice, I'll play nice. It's yeah,

nationally, it's like the society's regression. I don't understand like the Russian, this like from my understanding of it and like what I've read, there's kind of a push on the part of Russia to kind of like bifurcate the world. Like we don't they want to live in kind of this post Western order world. But a post Western order world for Russia, they aren't going to be top of the totem pole in their half of the world. It's going to be China. Like it's going to be India. It's like, it's like, so you're cut this, they're basically cutting off their nose despite their face. Like from my perspective, you know, sitting here comfortably, you know, in England, it makes zero sense to me. Yeah, it's a big country. You've got a lot of

natural resources, but you know, the industrial base of us sucks. Oh, 100%. Going into like the kind of like the unified zeitgeist of the Russian population is ever since ever since they like the Kingdom of Ruiz popped up and whatnot that Europeans view them as not European. And so the Russians were going, Oh, we, we are European. We're in Europe. We want to be a part and Peter the Great had his whole expedits and toured around, you know, Paris and London and all these big states. He was like, I want to modernize my country. But it's just generations of bias of the Russians are the bad guys. So then the Russians under Putin are being told that they don't want you. And so we need to make that sure that we are not playing by their rules. But

big picture. And this is just me speaking. I don't understand how a population of 142 million is more intimidating than a population of 1.4 billion, who had five generations of just only having men. So it's like, now you have all these horned up Chinese soldiers who are actively, you know, colonizing Africa and the Indian Ocean and making very, very slow and calculated moves. But like I said earlier, I think the Russians will put into a corner of, we need to do this now. And then say what you want about Western politics. It's like, they call their bluff. We didn't do anything. And so, but yeah, the whole war is, it's changing everything. Yeah, I mean, the Chinese are definitely the winner out of all this. Oh, 100% like, I mean, I think they have made a

very good decision by not being massively openly pro-Russian in the whole thing. I mean, obviously they are landing firmly on the side of Russia. But at the same time, you know, there was that big stink about them that, you know, the Russians begging them for food and rations and stuff. You know, I think they've, they've played it correctly for their part to constantly, you know, kind of within their own media, push the Russian narrative, but at the same time, internationally call for peace, you know, similar to India. Oh, yeah, they're walking a fine line of like, hey, you know, we don't really support what they're doing. But I mean, we have Taiwan. Can you see the reasoning here? But the CCP is definitely, they're undergoing

a purge at the moment. It's very quiet. But they're definitely watching what's going on in Ukraine to go, we want Taiwan. We need it by 2049. That's our whole thing. And so they're rewriting doctrine at the moment. So yeah, I mean, I mean, that's a military that's never felt in a long time hasn't fought a war, you know, talked about that with Al-Khan as to that even a little country like New Zealand spent 20 years in Afghanistan, but the Chinese have never fought a conventional war and their entire military space on the Russian model, which isn't doing too hot. So it's exactly, exactly. I mean, there's a lot of exchange, obviously, but new exchange, everything, but at the end of the day, you've got Western countries for all their faults and for all of the silly

military adventures that, well, from my perspective, silly military adventures we've engaged in in the last, you know, 30 years. Fucking, at least we know how to fight, at least we've experienced the problems, found solutions. They haven't improvised, adapt, overcome where it's like, well, that's not working. Let's change it. But it's, yeah, like militarily, especially with like a five eye or, you know, the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, it's, they try it once ago, that didn't work. Let's try it again, a little different. That didn't work, let's change it. But it's like, like I said earlier, that the Russian whole strategy for doctrine is it's top heavy. So the general has to make the decision, not the grunt at the S 400 system. So

it's a completely different mindset. And so just, it makes me think that if a war broke out in the Cold War, we would have absolutely demolished the Soviet Union. It's, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But also, I mean, the United States, you know, and others, we had our first year of wars where we didn't do too good. You know, absolutely. The only Cold War era conflict, insurgency, whatever was the British and Malaysia, they were the only ones to be successful at stopping the insurgency. They really quelled the rebellions. They really got rid of the Chinese influence and the Americans lost in Vietnam and the French lost in Algeria. But it's like, that was that one outlier of, hey, we won. So yeah, but I mean, the way they did it in the melee emergency, though,

people wouldn't have the stomach for that in 2022, when, you know, you've got cell phone cameras and you know, you will see the brutality of what they had to do to win that against the communist insurgency. It was literally, you know, I mean, it was essentially massacres. You know, if you support these guys, you are dying. Your family is dying. It was like that tried and true British method of draining the swamp. They're like, we're going to poison all the water. We're going to burn all the food. And if you give me a communist, I'll give you a bag of rice. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously, the Malay emergency, that had like an ethnic component as well where, you know, the vast majority of the communist rebels were like Chinese, like Chinese Malayans.

And then, you know, you had the other Malay people who generally weren't communist, which not to say they didn't support Malayan independence either, the absolutely massive contingent of them did. But and ultimately, I think the thing that ended that insurgency wasn't, I mean, it was militarily, you know, you know, Britain's ability to cross the insurgency. But it was also right. It's clearly going to be a thorn in our side. Let's just give these fucking people independence on good terms. Today, like Malaysia is a very pro-west state. Yeah, they don't like Singapore, but it's like they don't like the Chinese. And so like that, even though it was within the last 75 years, it was it was like a 20 year long conflict,

I believe. But it was yeah, I was in Borneo a few years ago, you know, like in the Malaysian part of Borneo. And it's a beautiful country. And, you know, very even though the area where I was in was like the very Muslim part of Borneo, you know, still very westernized and and very, you know, very developed. And yeah, it's a great country. Here's another one. And I know we're kind of running out of time here, but Oh, perfect. So since the war in Ukraine started, the international, like I said, food just really impacting people Sri Lanka, full on like revolution. The president left, he didn't abdicate, he just left. And so he's still technically the president. It's not like a

Karzai or a president of Afghanistan leaving and abdicating into Kazakhstan or whatever. It's the president still identifies that he's the president. But the Chinese in Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka, with the first date, the Chinese were like, Hey, okay, build your railroad systems, can I build your hospitals in your schools? It's I'm doing this to be nice. And so a report came out the other day that the Chinese CCP are going, can we just take one of your military bases to help stabilize the region? We're going to give it back. There's no way they're giving it back. But they're just helping stabilize all these regions. Oh, 100%. And it worked. So it's very likely that the Chinese will start sending

peacekeepers to Sri Lanka to help stabilize the region because the Indians don't like the Sri Lankans. And then they have the whole thing with Pakistan and Bangladesh. But those are also countries prone to famine and drought and flooding. So you have that situation. And then the Chinese and the Indians are very much always at odds. And then inside, say Egypt, which has the Suez Canal, which a lot of the world's resources flow through, they have two weeks to a month's worth of food. And I think a loaf of bread, it's $20 American now, it's getting insane. And so looking at like the war in Ukraine, you're at my force to go, we have to deal with what's going on in Egypt because we cannot allow

this part of the world to go into revolution again, like it did in 2011, because that just hurts everybody. So yeah, exactly. And what will they even gain by revolution? You know, overthrowing your government isn't going to make bread any cheaper. It's just going to make it more expensive. Exactly. Yeah, it's wild, man. Like I saw a funny post actually on Twitter, and it was a picture of the Sri Lankan protesters inside the presidential palace. And they've got like the legs crossed and they're sat in like the conference room of the president is like two chairs. And right below it, it's the Q shaman during January 6 sat in the chairs. And it's like, it's only insurrection if you're unsuccessful.

And it's like, it's like, yeah, it's that part of the world is getting very bad, very fast. And they have the situation in Ethiopia, where that was a very discussed topic last year of the Tigray Revolution. And they were fighting the Ethiopians. And there was a whole war and Ethiopia is known for drought and famine. And the world really needs to keep a presence there. Well, that NATO countries really need to keep presence there because the Chinese have that naval base in Djibouti, which is literally five miles away from the American base. It's right there. They can see them outside every day. But the Chinese might just go like, Oh, the US really didn't seem to do a good job. Why don't we try? We've been here the whole time. We helped Djibouti. So

it's was a lot of moving pieces. Wasn't there something about the Wagner group in Ethiopia as well? Or one of the country's border in Ethiopia? Not great in my geography, but Wagner have been in Africa for about five years. And the French for fighting surgeons in North Africa, because the French whole method is nobody copies us, we don't copy anybody, they're going their own method. They don't want to go fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, they're going to go fight and surgeons in Northern Africa, because in the French mind, Western Africa is still theirs. They still pump French education, French schools, French everything. So they went and fought but for 10 years because the localized governments at the Sahel G5 were they suck. They're not very

unified. They're very corrupt. They the militaries are very poor and the French formation was doing a good job. But the government went, All right, let's try something new. So then they hired Wagner. But also in Libya, where countries like Italy and France got sometimes 15% of their oil is still in revolution, still in civil war. So the Wagner group was hired to go occupy oil fields and airfields in Libya. And then from there, they jumped into Mali. And then there was, I want to say it was Nigeria, where yeah, I think it was Nigeria where civilians were running around on motorcycles waving Russian flags or like we like the Russians. So which is just why completely backwards. And so going back to the initial question of, well, who's going to win

the war in Ukraine was like, I don't think Ukraine is actually like the question here. It's because they put so much work into all these other countries. And then the Chinese question, and then the US and the Western, they have their own things going on. It's they're getting tired of war. Essentially, I don't think we have the stock from another one. So yeah, I mean, we've been, I think in many ways removed from it for so long. And recent experience, you know, with war, you know, for the society in general has been great, you know. World War One was 100 years ago. And so we had that. And then World War Two. And then

it's like the age of European dominance really came to an end. They're like, we're not fighting each other anymore. We're all going to be on the same page. And then just the idea of like a cushy, staying at your apartment making music is like so common for everyone is like, there's no stress outside of like, there's no threat of, you know, Obamac's going off in your front room. It's, you know, yeah, is gas $5. It's like that's that's the kind of things we worry about not like an outside invading force. And just that it's like that's the greatest period of human history. But it's also made essentially a lot of the world weak in the sense of like, oh, well, I mean, we have McDonald's in Moscow, maybe they want to be West. Like, like, oh,

I don't think they care. So it's like that dumb meme that you see online sometimes like only silly people share it really, but it's like hard times make strong man who make good times that makes me weak man. And then it's like a circle. But, you know, it's not wrong. All the guys that share that usually can't squat their own body weight. So I was just like, I'll see you at the gym. And then like, then you can say like, you're a you're a strong man. Like, yeah, it's not it's not wrong at all. The average Jordan Peterson fan. That guy's been going, he's in a super bill and arc right now. It's no, I don't get it. Like, I genuinely don't understand why people are so enamored by it.

It's like, clean your room. Do you really need to fucking die on the internet to tell you that if you do you're a bit you're such a loser. But I cannot comprehend how you're going to turn your life around. If you need a guy on the internet to tell you to clean your room to make your life better. What the fuck, man? I don't get it. I understand the the cleaner room method. And it was, you know, earlier when he started off, it's like, yeah, clean your room, like keep a clean mind. That's the first place, you know, everyone bases their idea of, you know, their self worth based on like, can I keep my bed clean, one of those. But now he's just going, the Russians are justified, you know, ethnic cleansing. I was like, what are you talking about?

Like, how does this have anything to do with being an all meat diet? It's Oh, mate, it's just like, like I was saying earlier, it's just, it's done. Like, how do you like, it's bad enough him being like that, but it's the sycophantic following people like that get. You know, you know, they people, it's almost like a cult mindset where people find something, they gravitate to it. Then all of a sudden, they can never be wrong, you know, and it takes them to awful places. We can take that right back to where we started with like, music and community, where it's before everyone's like, they kept the community kind of strong because they're like, this is our identity, blah, blah, blah. But since there's so so much just of a melting pot of

anything, everyone's going, this fringe character, that's mine. That's, that's what we're doing. And then, you know, it's just, everyone's just trying to identify with something because, you know, back in the day, it was religion, and they had their own music and they had everything going into it. And you could just listen to Gregorian chance to go like, this sounds pretty orthodox to me. But then today that's kind of like falling out of the wayside. So they're like, yeah, I guess the Russians are justified. It's, I don't know, it's, it's weird. Humanity is such a weird point right now. Yeah, it's like, I listened to this idiot before, before he was well known, before it was cool, you know, and then they gravitated to that. But yeah, I wish I lived in boring times,

but unfortunately, I don't. It's, yeah, everyone hypes up the 80s. And it was like, I think that was the best time across the board. I mean, for us, it was. Yeah, for us. But the Russians like, or they talk about the 90s love, oh, we had grunge music, and it was a great time. And you're like, the Russians were eating each other. There was no food. It was the mafia ran the country, then that was mild. Yeah, but hey, man, I do, I know you got to get out of here. So yeah, but do you have anything you want to plug before we bounce? Follow me on Instagram, soundblack.jpeg, go to my SoundCloud, SamBlackPF.com, then yeah, go to the popular front YouTube channel because it keeps getting like, you know, demon, it's been demonetized and don't all the videos at age

restricted, it's a pain in the ass. But I'm surprised you got the YouTube 100,000 subscriber stamp because I was like, I didn't think he was going to get it. But I'm surprised it didn't blow it up. You know, YouTube have been but man, I really appreciate you coming out. No, thanks for having me. I really enjoy the podcast and listen to it for a while. So thank you so much. But all right, Sam, we'll take it easy. Cool. Have a good one.