Modern Wisdom - #1023 - I, Prevail - The Trades You Make to Live Your Dreams

Episode Date: November 22, 2025

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Why did you get deep-throated by confetti? That is up-to-date research right there. Yeah, wow. Yeah, so, yeah, Gabe really crushes it with our content and comes up with some awesome ideas, and we kind of pitched them and throw it into a pot. And we came in for a content day and wrote this whole script up, and it was for this giveaway we were doing,

and he had written in the script that he was going to get pie in the face. And then Dylan shows up, and I don't know, he just changed his mind on the spot. like, yeah, Dylan's going to get pie. I got to be the guy behind the camera. So someone else has got to take the pie. So we piled Dylan in the face quite a bit. And from that night, Dylan plotted his revenge for pie and confetti in Eric's face.

Yeah. And I got a shout out, we came as Romans, because they went along with it. We get into their trailer and I get a text and they have this ritual before their show. It's whiskey time. And they go, you know, have this little ritual and like, get to the trailer now, whiskey time. So I'm walking in going, whiskey. going whiskey time whiskey time pie pie it again and now i can't see and my mouth's open and i'm just like whiskey time and as soon as i said time i couldn't see anything i just got a mouth full of i didn't

know what and then uh yeah couldn't breathe for a little bit and the uvula in the back of my throat turned into a disco ball it was like it was pretty pretty pretty good your uh autobiography the mouthful of i don't know what yeah i trademarked that i'm taking that yeah uh well I don't know, I feel like having a confetti Bukaki is a good way to start a show. Yeah, yeah, I think it might have to be a ritual, just not on me this time. Dylan's, Dylan, you're owed one. There's going to be some behind-the-scenes warfare, for sure. This will start a two-year war for.

Okay, this is the beginning of a vicious, retributive cycle. Yes, definitely. I want to know what you guys make of what's happening with the rock and metal scene at the because a lot of artists are rethinking touring there's some reports that have come out recently that I've read pop hip hop country a little touch and go some in decline and certainly if you aggregate it a lot in decline but rock touring seems to be bigger than ever so give me your thoughts like you guys been around for a minute yeah what do you make of the arc of alternative and heavy music and stuff like that yeah I think um I think, you know, rock and metal, we'll call it modern metal, is just in such a, it feels like a boom right now, a resurgence. Just having chats with friends, and it's like, you know, I'm 34, but back when I was like 15, 16, 17, I didn't have the funds to go out

and see my favorite bands come through Detroit or whatever it may be. And now that we're of the age and have some disposable income, when these bands do these 20-year anniversary shows, and you know come back around and they have this lineup of all these other bands that you may have grew up listening to on top of having some of these new bands and it kind of just appeals to our generation and then you know i don't have any kids but i can imagine my kids the next generation you know it's like a family affair so they're going out and seeing bands like i mean we just played when we were young and blink 182 and panic at the disco or headlining and

then back sunday brand new the used um man that that lineup was just stacked but now you go out there and you see kids that are like 15 to 18 and then you see dudes our age and older that are out there all in the crowd and I don't know I think there's a bit of nostalgia I think there's um yeah I don't know just throwback right no no old new bands with new albums new music coming out all the time too I think people are pretty I don't I don't know if desperate is the right word but I'll use it desperate for experiences and I think like pop concerts and all that stuff is like sick you get to see your favorite pop artists but the reality is

how that music is produced is very tracks heavy like a lot of these artists go on stage it's just them they have no band playing instruments and i think it's like a combination of like you want to see a little bit of that risk factor of like a band really playing and you might see them mess up and that's kind of interesting but also like in the rock and the metal community scene in particular, I think audience engagement is actually key to the experience, whether that's crowd surfing, mosh pits, whatever that is, as opposed to if you're going to go see a pop artist or whoever, you're kind of just sitting there and it's fun. It's cool. Like, I've been to pop shows and it's fun. But metal and rock, it's a little bit more visceral and with everyone

behind computers all day. It's fun to get punched in the face and to like scream your favorite songs at the same time uh makes you feel alive a little bit i think and i think to to your point too with the pop and everything is like it just it sounds just like the record which is which is great but you know there's something about that like push and pull of the live experience of the band all playing together and and uh i think there's a little bit of that on top of that too yeah especially if you love a track you love a band and they play your favorite track but there's a twist on it oh maybe there's a longer solo maybe they've added an additional chorus at the end maybe just the way that the singer that night decides to interpret a way to say the vocals sticks in your mind i remember going seeing

the bands like bring me in newcastle when they first started doing like moderate-sized theaters and uh they played a halloween show it's just after jordan had joined the band and um i'd seen an opportunity kind of like a uh an ex ugly girl who's just had a glow up. I saw the opportunity to like befriend uh Jordan because he was brand new to the band and he was having some problem with Ableton and messaged him about it on Twitter. We became friends and he said yeah, why don't you come to the show that's happening at the O2? It was on Halloween and they came out fully face painted up as skeletons. They played the whole show as skeletons. I remember like watching that show from the back and thinking so many of the songs that I

knew really well just had little twists and adaptations that had been made. Yeah. And uh, That was great, because it is a unique experience. And I guess, well, actually, if you were to say that from the pop side, who Neely fucking killed that, was it Beyonce that nearly got killed by a car that was over the top of a flying over the top of the, I swear it was. Beyonce was doing a show and she's one of those like floating stage things that, you know, goes right over the crowd and everyone gets to lock up. I'm pretty sure that some shit snapped.

And like, imagine if you were the guy that killed Beyonce. You put the carabina on wrong, or something like that. My point being, you do get to see some stuff at pop shows. I guess sometimes people go upside down when they drum, but that's really kind of the pinnacle of it from like a show experience. Yeah. There's a catwalk. Maybe there's some cool blocking.

Maybe there's not, whatever. Yeah. It suggests that there's something about rock and heavy music that you get out of that show that you can't recreate with pink flying around a stadium or the Jonas Brothers with 20 people on stage or whatever it might be.

Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. I think like pop, you're able to do the spectacle a little bit more. You can have pink, yeah, doing trapeze over the audience. It's sick.

Like, I would love if Eric did the trapeas. I don't know about that. You're built for the trapeze. Am I? Yeah, you have the exact body shape of a trapeze artist. Oh, God. I also think, like, from a songwriting perspective,

like, at least when I was growing up, metal was all about, like, how heavy can you make it? And I still think that's, like, part of it. But I think now more than ever metal and pop are fusing in a lot of ways. And fusing in a way that's done very well. Like, I think people have tried it a lot where it's like they'll have these heavy breakdowns and they'll go into a very melodic chorus.

But it just never, like, really meshes. But, you know, you've got bands who are kind of, taking these sounds and putting them all together, like, you know, sleep token, bad omens, those, all those bands who are really exploding. I mean, my theory is that they're exploding because they've mastered melodies so much. And at the end of the day, people want to listen to a song

that maybe makes them feel a certain way, gives them energy at the gym or whatever, but without a melodic chorus, not all the time, but a lot of the time, it's not going to get stuck in their head. They're not going to come back to it. Don't get me wrong. I'm at the gym sometimes listening to, ass beaters and I just want to like

job for a cowboy yeah yeah I just want to go like super hard and that's really fun too and even those bands are growing too so it's almost like I don't know if these bands all the way at the top are just kind of bringing the whole thing up with them you know

yeah definitely the verse chorus kind of pop structure of a song with some melody I mean say what you want about sleep talking dude caramel is one of the catchiest dude it's so good fucking hooks maybe of all

time of that genre. It is so sticky. It's fun. I like that. It's just, it really, you can't get out of your head the first time that you hear that. So yeah, I think you're right. And it makes it radio friendly. It makes it like sort of chart friendly.

Yeah. And it's almost like, you know, I just talked about how so many bands are getting better at blending. But sometimes when you are like, I don't actually care about blending it. Like that's a perfect example of a song where the first three-fourths of that song is a pop song. really done well and then they're just like and now we're just going to go into like the heaviest shit we've ever done ever right and it's like sicker because it didn't even try to like meld them it's just like here's this and then here's this and what a fun journey for everyone

to be on yeah it's like you're you're really trying something I think more than I don't know I don't want to be like metal versus other genres but it's something about too like you blows your expectations out like what what you you got three-fourths of the way through the song. You're like, okay, I kind of get where it's going. And then, oh, man, there's a switch up at the end. And, you know, I think when bands do that very well, it's like you have the listener on the edge of the seat,

you know, you don't know what to expect. You get halfway through the song, and you're like, okay, this is cool. And then all of a sudden the bridge comes or the breakdown comes, or the outro, whatever it is. There's, I don't see that much. And you see that in hip-hop a bit, but I don't really see that in pop, I feel like pop in country.

It's just like you get 30 seconds of the song. You kind of know what you're going to get. Yeah, you're very rightly surprised. Right, right. The final theory is that maybe we're all just getting a little more fucked up and into like these things that just make us feel like viscerally. Like I feel like horror movies. I don't watch horror movies, but like I feel like those are on the rise also

and like almost the more messed up they are, the more popular they get. Do you think the messaging of metal is tapping into a, an emotion that's difficult for people to find catharsis with elsewhere? Yeah, I, yeah, I think so. Some of these, like, very heavy metal bands and, like, just, you know, when you look at the lyrics, or listen to lyrics, it's just, like, very fucked up and aggressive, and I think it's just a healthy way to, you know, it's human emotion. It's, it's, it's, you know, you're feeling that.

It's just a healthy way, I feel like, to get that out, especially when you're in a small club with 200 people listening and just ask you to beat or breakdowns over. and over and over, just screaming about the most like dark, dark message, dark, dark stuff. You know, like the Acacia Strain is one band that had some, like, hateful lyrics back in the day. And it's just, you know, I don't feel that way. I don't feel like, you know, chopping people up or whatever, cannibal corpse or anything like that. But to feel, to feel that health in a healthy way, I guess, is something I think. But certainly elevated, if you look at like a sleep token or a bad omens now,

the message is just like poetic emo right it's Ohio is for lovers for 2025 yeah yeah you know like I'm outside of your window like that it's that sad Nikki FME type thing that we all grew up listening to yes but just like significantly elevated with much more sophisticated production

yeah but it still speaks to huh I have challenges and sometimes they're hard and nobody understands me and this is difficult and I don't know what I'm doing and there is pressure and I'm growing up and things are changing it's like these timeless modern problems yeah yeah I feel like I had the gift of reconnecting with the emotion of metal this year in particular because I'll be honest like I've been in this band for eight years and this point I'm 33 years old and I'm like yeah you know like the the emotions that I had when I was 14 are different now, right? And I'm kind of like, am I going to sing about being really stressed

about work and, you know, being married for 11 years or whatever? Messages. Yeah, dude, exactly. My inbox is a nightmare. But, man, I think for, honestly, most of us in the band, we've had one individually, some of the hardest years that, at least that I've ever had in my life, of, yeah, I mean, I lost. We, we, we, We lost our manager, our booking agent. He died tragically in a plane accident. Two days later, I lost my grandpa. One week later, someone broke into my house while I was sleeping.

And, I mean, many other things that I probably can't really get into. But I feel like it took me to low places where I, it was more than just like, heavy music is fun at the gym. And it's like, I viscerally, my emotions are viscerally connecting. with this music and it was a gift in a lot of ways because it allowed me to see through the fans' eyes of what they're experiencing when they're hearing this music. Because again, 33, I'm like, yeah, I'm just, hey, I like the song.

The song's cool, but I'm a drummer. I'm not always listening to lyrics and, like, connecting. But yeah, I feel like I got to do that this year more so. And I do think, like, metal and rock has a little bit more of that, those themes to connect with. Especially if you're getting kicked in the nuts by life, Which, you know, if everything's going great and Grammy nominations and we're on the road and ticket sales are going up, you know, how much are you connecting with the, it's kind of the like golden prison, like velvet fucking handcuffs thing that podcasters or comedians get accused of. Yeah.

You know, if you're a comedian, Whitney Cummings got this great line where she says, in order for art to imitate life, you have to live a life. and this is why you can tell when comedians are getting too successful because all they talk about are airports, dinners, and shows because that's all they know. Yeah. You know, if you're touring 200 days out of the year, what life have you got to inject into the art? And I guess for you guys as well,

this is my problem with fucking Luke Combs, man. Like, I love that guy's music so much. He was the person that got me into. He was the soundtrack to 2019, which was the year I decided I wanted to move to a memory. America. But his music, to me, has got less resonant linearly as his life's got better. Yeah. I'm like, I, fuck, do some cocaine. I'll like, get in a fight. Or like, lose a leg or something. Like, I need some, you know, I just want a little bit of sort of great. It's like,

you know, everything's going great and I'm getting a bit older and my dad's older than me, but he's really lovely. And my wife loves me and my kid loves me. I'm like, fuck, Luke, come on, man. And that's not to say that you can't make music from a happy place. but that I don't know there's something about the friction I think that causes people to dig a little bit deeper like when you're going against the grain of life it seems like people tap into emotion

a little bit more acutely 100%. Yeah, I think on this record for us there's a few songs that I had to go back and look at these events or these situations or these difficult times I had in the past and pick open some scabs that didn't really fully heal. And that also is finding inspiration and looking back on some difficult times

and hard times that I really haven't had, you know, any therapy to get through and just kind of just let it go for three or four years. So that's, you know, it's not, it doesn't always have to be about what's going on in your life right now, but to look back and really, you know, someone put it once, I can't remember how they worded it, but it takes some time to, look back and fully have a full thought or you know fully grasp what you went through and uh that that's something too if i'm not you know we're trying to draw from the well of inspiration and looking back on a past failed relationship or you know past you know you want to call it trauma um to to dig at those

and really it's very important for us to write music and every song have come from something that has some real emotion and can be relatable to someone and yeah i think i think that is a big challenge for artists when they start getting bigger and you know they're playing arenas and and you know take its sales are going through the roof and like you said grammy and all this stuff and it's hard to be relatable and that's what you know growing up i took a lot out of music and i found you know a lot of things to relate to and when i was a you know teenager going through like all the world hates me and no one loves me and and uh you know once you get to that level like how do you how do you still write music to relate to your fans and and uh yeah for me specifically was like going back and like digging through some things that just didn't work out you know and i i yeah we'll get back to talking in just a minute but first some things are built for summer sunburns hot girl walks your ex posting their euro road trip and now

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or heading to drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom that's drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom What is the process of writing records which deal with deeply emotional personal topics like that as a group because it's like, well,

I'm the guy that sings the words, but I'm the guy that makes the melody, but I'm like, I feel sad, but I feel ambivalent, but I'm uncertain. I've got, you know, I'm excited or whatever, and you're trying to,

I just spoke to the guys from Undroth, I think there's an increasing trend of solo acts masquerading as bands or bands that sort of perform publicly as a democracy, but in terms of production, it's much sort of closer to a dictatorship. And in some ways, I can see why that is a huge fucking hack. You don't have to do any of this diplomacy bullshit.

It's like, this is what the song's about, this is how the song's going to sound. You want to track on the record and help me cut it? Brilliant. If not, I got fucking 50 people that are going to come and do it. Sweet. But you often have the opportunity to tap into different people's emotion. So is that

tough? You've got, what, 10 tracks on your album? You're like, it's not a lot of room for a ton of guys to get their creative you know, like a presentation out there. Yeah. Yeah. I think being with these guys for the last

10, 11, so years, it's that was a huge plus to sit down in a room and be like, well, okay, we start working on an instrumental for a song, let's say, and it's kind of pulling out this emotion and, you know, I pull out some lyric notes, and okay, this line that I wrote a while ago, this kind of feels like it matches the mood of the instrumental. And okay, well, when I was in this headspace

and there's certain songs we sat down, I was like, you know, I think I can really pull from this. And, you know, maybe, let's say it's a bad relationship I was going through years ago. And, you know, they were around me when that was going on. So it's not like super foreign to them and sit down and kind of like write some lyrics out. And this is kind of what I was feeling.

This is kind of what I was going through. And if you can, tap into that and you have something similar, like bounce some ideas off each other and kind of like we all kind of feel, everyone's got, you know, unique stories, but there's some overlap. And if you can tap into that and help, you know, generate some lyrics out of that, you know, I'm sure there's going to be something that overlap. So, you know, I'm just thinking one song specifically, but how do you, have you ever contributed any lyrics ever? Maybe a single word. Yeah. So we, so we joke that we are business metal.

So that translates to the writing process as well, where it's like, we kind of have these different departments, right? So me and John, I would say we're more in the instrumental department because I'm not trying to play in a sandbox that I don't belong in. You know, I'm like, hey, I grew up, like, I played in so many bands. And even then it was like, I can write some like cool instrumental parts or like suggest cool things and obviously play drums well and write cool drum parts. I'm not a poet. But I'm not like, I'm happy to talk about my feelings. But if you're like, now make it like artistic. I'm like, I can hit things hard.

That's my art. And so, yeah, and then Steve and Eric are really good at like, yeah, like to Eric's point, me and John, really all of us in the room too contribute to the instrumental, but might set a vibe and that vibe might create an emotion in Steve or Eric of something that they've been dealing with in the past or recently. And the two of them will like, will almost sometimes separate. The two of them will, like, go in a different part of the room and just go back and forth. And sometimes it'll be Eric.

Like, here's what I'm trying to say. And the two of them will try to figure out how do we get to say that in the most artistic way possible or the most authentic way possible. And then, meanwhile, me and John will try to keep laying down, like, the foundation and come up with parts that we think are cool and then kind of come back together. And yeah, there are some times where I'm just sitting there, like, watching them do their thing. And there are sometimes where Eric just sitting there, like, watching me be like, okay, move the same. snare drum over one note and then hit this symbol like that you know it's like it can get very tedious but yeah it's a departmental for sure when you when any band creates something deeply emotional and then performs it a few hundred or thousand times it still resonate in the same way

does that drop over time does it heal you does it reopen old wounds yeah that's great question I think there's different songs and different points in my life and different performances, let's say that, you know, some of these new songs you just started playing, I have been like, oh, God, all right, don't mess up the lyrics. Remember, this is the first versus second. Okay, here's the note you're hitting. And I lose that for a moment. But, yeah, there's a certain point in the tour that you start playing that song that I'm, like,

I'm reconnecting with it. And then after, you know, a couple tours, you know, sometimes some of these songs are like, I'm emotionally disconnected and I'm going through the performance and there's been some times around look out and I see you know someone sobbing to a song and then I'm like brought back immediately to like the emotion that I was feeling in it and and then all of a sudden then I have a new a new connection to it again and I'd like to think after that the I performed the song a little bit better for the rest of the tour but so you feel this is an interesting one I was talking to johnny frank about this so bill Murray got that new modern hate track and um they have just started performing it live. I think it only came out maybe six weeks ago, eight weeks ago, something like that. And I was talking to him last week in Dallas, and he said,

dude, I got to be honest, like when I'm performing the track, I'm so focused on the performance because I've done it live like 15 times. And that's not a lot. That sounds like a lot, but that's not a lot. So he is still finding new ways to mess up. And he doesn't know all of the potential pitfalls.

and that I never really realized well fuck even if you've done a bunch of like run throughs in rehearsals or whatever and even if you added half an hour on sound check so that you can like run new bits a few times over and over the difference of okay and where am I going to be on the stage and what's going to go on so yeah I guess when

this is something I never considered as an audience member and I hope I don't screw up everybody's ticket sales here but if a band is touring a new album and you have the choice between being at the start of the tour and being a little bit deeper into it, I think it's probably a good idea to push your tickets.

You know, you can choose between what are the Dallas or Houston show, but for some reason, because of the routing, they're coming to Houston four weeks later. Like, do you go to the, maybe you go to the second one. Maybe they're a bit tighter by then. Maybe they know the tracks a little bit more.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's also some excitement to being there in the early stages and seeing us, like, mess up and try to do our best, you know? Yeah, yeah. yeah i think man it's like such an interesting balance of like tour life is exhausting um it's like you might start at a hundred percent i mean i'm you know this way more than i do even with all

the shit you're dealing with but like you might start at 100 percent and then okay the shows are very physical and then you're sleeping on a tour bus very poorly and then the shows are more physical and you're sleeping worse and it's like by the end of the tour I might have 30% in the tank and I'm working three times as hard to play the same part

so it's kind of this thing that you've got to balance the experience with the set with the level of gas left in the tank and also what you have in the earlier parts of the tour is adrenaline

which also will just like push you positive fatigue and resentment and boredom exactly because yeah then not only are you more fatigued but you also are low on adrenaline because you're like, well, I'm kind of bored now.

I know how to play everything. Yeah, I want that shot of adrenaline. It would help me get through this physically. So it's a toss up a little bit there. Going back to the metal world of sort of rock ascendancy that we're seeing at the moment, do you think that you need to be really talented to be a sort of world touring alternative artists now?

Basically, how much of it is talent, to how much can you ride off the back of social media hype and good marketing? I had no talent when I was starting this thing. I didn't belong out here, man. I just took like, I feel like every room I was in, I had this mentality to just be a sponge, just soak up as much as you can. And I think that got me through the first, you know, years of touring and all that. but um i do i do think it takes you know you you can go in off the hype and off the tick toks and off all that but you have to quickly figure your shit out real fast if you're up on stage and and there's so many variables you're not just posting a video you playing there's so many

variables of of a live set and i mean even like the thing where i'm looking out in a crowd and i see up on the front row and someone doesn't know the words of the song and they're just you know fish mouth and like just random lyrics I I fucked up lyrics because I was looking at that guy I was like what is he saying oh shit what am I saying oh what verse am I in where am I you know but yeah yeah I think there's man I think there's a good mix of you it's unforgiving then in that regard like the height

can kind of only carry you so far yeah I'd argue that you need a good product right so like you can first of all I'd argue that you need a lot of talent to be good at marketing and to, because you're not the labels and all that, like they will provide that for you, but like I ultimately think the bands that are doing the best

are the ones who understand how to market themselves. So one, I'd argue that's a skill. Two, if the product is shitty, right? Like, Chris, if this podcast sucks, but you're really good at marketing. Like, sure, you're going to get it

in front of a few more people, but at the end of the day, people aren't going to come back and now you're working your ass off to just market a shitty product. Right. That's not really going to work. So, like,

I do think especially in today's landscape like how it used to be is bands would get discovered by a label they explode like it's very it was very gate kept right and but if you were through you were through and you all you had to do is like show up and play music and now

you could upload a song to Spotify right now while we're having this conversation put in a prompt into AI and then upload it to Spotify right so like the landscape is more competitive than ever, which I think means that bands who are not always like, there's plenty of very talented bands who don't get traction, but it's very competitive. You need to have, like, very good songs, very good marketing. You have to be more well-rounded than ever, as opposed to, hey, I'm just like a good musician

that might not really get you noticed much. What do you make of the advent of AI artists? oh man don't get me started i um it's it's a little frightening man um you know just came across friend of mine went on a rant and posted all these bands on spotify that were you know a i bands and whether it's a band that's feeding prompts and getting it and playing it or to it's one guy that just used chat gpt grok whatever to create everything and then you go look at the monthly listeners and there's 700,000 monthly listeners. And it's, it's not the fear that someone's going to go, I'd rather listen to this AI band over, you know, a real human band. It's the fact that

it's just going to get slipped into playlisting and it's just going to be on your playlist and it's just accumulate more and more of all these other fake bands. And by the time you go and look through your playlist, you're like, oh, who's this? Who's this? And there's no real musicians. my ultimate worry is that you know who's to say that someone who owns a streaming platform doesn't just start making music off AI himself or herself and and feeding it into the playlisting and now there's even less of the pie you know artists are getting you know fractions of a penny on the dollar for streams well now that those playlists that these bands are fighting hard for who's to say the the CEOs of you know

Apple music, Spotify, title, whatever, art, just making their own music, feed it into the algorithm, putting in the place, you know, into the playlist thing. And now, how are we supposed to fight that? It would be like only fans owning the AI girlfriend generator. Yeah, you've got the distribution and you've got the source material as well. 100%. Yeah. It's a tricky balance because in one way, I'm like, you can't, very difficult to stop a train that's already moving. Right. But then also, kind of like what I was talking about with concerts, I'm like, I think people are craving more physical experiences or people to connect with. Right. Like, I think it'll be an interesting balance of like, yeah, an AI song could come on and you might not know it's AI and you might not really care that it's AI because it's like, well, the song's good. But I wonder, like, even if that has like a huge boom, that it, wouldn't end up going to the other side of like, yeah, but I kind of miss connecting with an artist or with a band or like what they actually had to say, you know, or like if it's AI, there's nothing to really, not much to really connect with, you know. All that said, yeah, I don't know. Well, we'll see what happened. Well, look, I saw, what about two months ago, there was a bunch of screenshots floating around. Maybe it was the new terms and terms of service that. that Spotify had that sounded like an adjustment had been made to say that your music can be used

in data training sets that can be reproduced in perpetuity with and without credit, etc, da-da-da-da, all of the legalese. And then I came across this, Spotify announced a collaboration with major labels, Universal Music Group, Sony Music, Warner Music Group, to build an AI-driven features while protecting artist rights and ensuring fair compensation, proactive move in the face of rising concerns about generative AI tools using artists' voices and sounds without proper licensing. Streaming giant Spotify states it will involve direct licensing and artist permission frameworks. The partnership signals industry acknowledgement of AI is both an opportunity and a threat. So I don't know where it goes.

I certainly know that I'm getting delivered more AI bands in my radio. You press one single. I think I played, this is exactly what happened. I played the new Bad Omen song the day it came out. It was on the day we were filming with McCormick. Connery. We'd finished up, and I put it on through the system at Stray Vista, where we film that shit. And it came on, and then the next track came on. And I was like, this is a really interesting sound. Funny little track. Like, I'll go over and have a little look. And I was

like, oh, it's, what are we? AI band. Like, the first, omens, next track was them. That is fucking premier position. Yeah. Yeah. Algorithmically. And it's, it's, you know, Picking up speed, I would say, but I mean, obviously the other, and you made great point, that if I use AI to enhance my songwriting and then cut the track myself with my bandmates, who knows? Yeah, right. Like, how does anybody know where the initial inspiration for this track came from? Like, hey, write me 20 number one hits in the style of sleep token and bad omens, and I prevail.

And then you go, oh, well, maybe there's our next. Yeah, 100%. We'll get back to talking in just one second, but first, if you have been feeling a bit sluggish, your testosterone levels might be the problem. They play a huge role in your energy, your focus and your performance. But most people have no idea where there's are or what to do if something's off, which is why I partnered with function because I wanted a smarter and more comprehensive way to actually understand what's happening inside of my body. Twice a year. They run lab tests that monitor over 100 biomarkers. They've got a team of expert physicians that analyze the data and give you actionable advice to improve your health and lifespan and seeing your testosterone levels

and tons of other biomarkers charted over the course of a year with actionable insights to actually improve them gives you a clear path to making your life better. Getting a blood work drawn and analyze like this would usually cost thousands, but with Function, it's just $499. And right now, you can get $100 off, bringing it down to $39.00. Get the exact same blood panels that I get and save that $100 by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom. That's functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom. Yeah, it's really, it's really interesting that way because there is like, I would imagine that music would start to get a bit watered down. Could be wrong. But that would be my theory on it. And to your point

of what you were reading, I think there's a lot of opportunity for like discoverability of like, I think I saw something that chat, GBT and Spotify are coming together. So I could just be like, hey, find me an artist who is really heavy and good for working out, right? And then they can feed me real artists. Like, that's actually a really cool opportunity where AI can actually support it. But yeah, it can be snuck into songwriting.

I feel like that's what the whole writer strikes were about a couple years back in Hollywood is like not using AI for script writing because I would imagine, I guess I don't really know if they are using it or not, but that everything would just kind of start to get watered down, but also AI is getting better and better, so will it really get watered down? Yeah, well, it enhance everything. I mean, here's another way to look at it. Everybody gets

inspired by something, you know, the way that you construct your particular melodies. Well, it's because you grew up listening to Biffy Cliro or Billy Talent or whoever the fuck, like weird My Chemical Romance is first out EP or whatever the fuck it is. You go, okay, so do they own the inspiration that came through? you? Obviously not. I don't think anybody would say that, but originality is just undetected plagiarism. Is a kind of way that you play the drums. When you hold the sticks in a particular way, you didn't invent the way that you hold the sticks. You didn't invent the way that the drums are put together. So do you always need to pass it back up? And I think there's an

interesting ethical challenge here of how much assistance is too much. How much does it sort of feel like it's being perverted by AI and how much is it just, well, it's just another tool. You know, it's fucking pro tools or decapitator or whatever the fuck. Yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting slippery slope you get down because, you know, you like to think that inspiration, you hear, you know, like these bands you mentioned, yeah, I loved all those bands and I took influence from them, you know, the style of music we want to play from, from lyrics to the melody and all that. it's it's something it's something that was you know back then there's no AI so it's something that they were inspired by and then that band was inspired by and it just waterfalls down cascades down

into our creative process and and then it's it's up to us to put it through our filter and use our own words and and generate the same emotion or feel that we're going for that we were inspired by but it all ultimately is through the human experience and then you have the opposite where it's you just go to a computer and be like I'm sad, write a sad song like My Couple Romance, and it's like, here's the options. And it's like, well, now I'm just picking and choosing. Like, I'm going down the grocery store and going, I'll take that one. I like that brand.

I'll take that one. I'll take that one. It's, yeah, it's like, where does artistry, where does artistry stop when you start using tools? But then at the same time, you know, melodine, you know, pitch correcting on the track or, or, you know, when you're demoing songs and you, you program the drums, You know, band's done that for the last, you know, 20 years, and you program the drums and, man, actually, let's track the drums. Well, the programmed drums, I think, sound better.

Well, you run with it. And, well, where's that line? You know, it's very blurred line right now. Does seem like every time there's been something that's come into the music industry that's, like, controversial at first, the convenience ends up winning out, right? Like, I feel like, you know, 50 years ago, the idea of some, someone writing a song, this is, we'd have to go back a little further, but someone, the idea of writing a song for someone else and that pop artist just taking it and then just singing what you gave me, I think was initially like, artists aren't even writing their own songs now. But now, no one, when Justin Bieber singing a song, no one's like, did he write that? Like, no one cares. They probably think that he did. But most of the time, it's someone, here's a song, you have a good voice, sing it. Cool. And I can see that, yeah, to your point of then pitch correct. in the studio, but then pitch correcting live or then, you know, quantizing to make every,

the timing of every instrument perfect. And then even samples of, oh, well, I can just take this sample and I can mess around with it, but now it's mine. And I can, like, build the song around it. We'll play to a click track. We'll have a click in our ears to ensure that everybody's at least on time, even if it's not quantized after the fact. 100%. Rick Biotto was telling me about how, um, when digital recording first came in, and it meant that you didn't just have to do things in one take. and tape. Yeah.

You go, well, I mean, that wasn't what they recorded. Yeah. And I know that there's, if you are recording something and your finger just brushes the wrong string, you're like, hey, dude, like, whatever, fourth bar in on that second bit there. I just cord it a little bit wrong. Let me just go in and then, bing, okay, there we are. Slot that one thing in that. Okay, so like, you could play, and I think you can do this, you could play an entire track

one note at a time. Yeah. Just be like, okay, there's that note. I've got that right. and then I can go in and then we'll do it again and we'll do it again and we'll do it again. You've got this Lego brick building block set and you've constructed a track.

So yeah, it's a interesting challenge. I mean, do you guys use AI tools have they assisted at all with anything that you guys do? No. Never. Fucking medieval. Yeah, dude, we're grandpa's over here. No, the most is we'll be in the back of the bus

and we'll think of a really stupid prompt for AI and then we'll just be like, oh, AI write a song about Eric falling down and his pants coming off and poop goes everywhere. And we'll see what the AI spits out. But no, in our actual entertainment tool, no. Yes. Yes, exactly. Where do you see it? Like, do you feel any type of threat about AI in the podcasting space? Because I know like AI podcasts are. No Book L.M does a really good job of it. I mean, you can now go and say, I want, I don't know whether you can say it for people, but you can certainly say I want to learn about the final week of the fall of Berlin and Nazi Germany make the podcast 20 minutes long and relatively serious and Nobacalem will spit out a very

listenable with breath breaks and ums and ours and laughter and all the rest of it and it is it's very listenable um my sort of position on this is that ultimately the the market is going to choose what's best for it and that's not always great ultra-processed hyper-palatable foods that calorie dense, people will tend to choose those over something else. It's very difficult to get them to choose the thing which is better for them. But when it comes to this, what's better for them is just what's most accurate, entertaining, educational.

So it is going to be incumbent on whoever it is, whatever industry you're in, to just be better. Like if you can be defeated by AI or a robot, I don't know what the leg is that you have to stand on to be able to compete with that. Now, there are certain things that you can do. For instance, you could go live. If you were responding live to messages and comments and stuff from people,

that would be the equivalent, my equivalent of doing a show on stage. But even then, AI is just going to get quick enough where it's going to be able to render in real time responses and video and then stream those back to people. So all you're doing is kicking the can down the road with regards to that. And I think you guys do have a good moat. I think all bands have a great moat around the main moneymaker, which is touring and sort of the associated shit that comes along with that.

Because until the robots get as good as you guys on stage, that's not going to happen. I mean, the Chuggie Cheese Band was pretty sick. That was dope. Those robots were sick. That is true. Maybe your fucking demise is closer than you think. But yeah, I think there's a mode around that.

And it'll be a fascinating few years. My like unpopular, really unpopular with musicians theory is that musicians believe that they have a, they should have a special kind of protection around them because it's so hard to be able to do the basics of what you guys do. Anybody can sit down with a microphone in front of them and do a podcast. I mean, anybody can sit down and try and sing and like make a song, but the barrier to entry is significantly higher. You need to learn so much in practice for a very long time. And I think that a shortcut to a place which is not very far away doesn't feel like that much of a cheat.

A shortcut to a place that's taken a decade or 15 years to get to feels much more unfair. And I think that this is one of the reasons that musicians have a particular B in their bonnet around why AI needs some sort of restriction on it. It feels particularly unfair that the muggles who haven't seen. spent all of their time learning to sing or play drums or guitar or whatever are just able to type some words in and then do something which is comparable whereas as is being demonstrated right now any idiot can do a podcast right like you got any three idiots any three idiots can do a podcast um so it's about how can you sort of stay ahead and you're not i mean if you think you're going to slow the

behemoth Leviathan that is AI, it's not going to happen. So it's a case of how you're going to be able to adapt to it. Yeah, totally. And I try not to just like sit around thinking, well, it's unfair and I hope it doesn't do something bad. You know, like that's not, I don't think that's really going to take me

to the place that I want to go in life. But yeah, to your point, it's like, okay, well, what's in my control? Because I can't control AI. I can control how well I show up or what I choose to spend my time focusing on that I think is the biggest needle mover in my project or my skill set or whatever that is. But yeah, to analyze all of those things is difficult, right? Because at a certain point, what got me in the band is not what's going to get the band bigger. Right. If I spend all my time 10 hours a day just practicing drums,

Like, if I get 10 times better at drums right now, the band will grow zero percent. You know what I mean? It's like, I got to a certain point where it's like, cool, I can do the job and I can do it well, and I can be creative and try to stand out in my own ways. But now what's the next thing that I can focus on that will actually take me to where I want to go? It got me the audition, which is very cool. But, yeah, that's always like a thing I'm trying to think about.

my head is like yeah what now what what is some of the other secrets that the music industry should be talking about but isn't I think that kind of like what I was saying of how competitive things are it's not for the most part enough to just be a good band anymore I think you need to be very multifaceted in having your departments in the business, right? So like, for example, if we use I Prevail, for example, we all do our music thing. We all have our own weird skills. This guy can yell really loud, and that's like a cool skill, right? But for me, okay, like my department is, cool, I can play drums, but I'm also have a ton

of experience growing in organic content media machine or team or whatever that is and marketing and back in business and growing the merch sales or whatever that is. Right. And then we have our guitar player, Steve, who's very in like the accounting business management world. Yeah, he's a really good lead guitar player, but he's also like a nerd on Excel. Right. And it's like you kind of have to have these like other facets that contribute to the overall project and outside of that I would just say I used to think that being in a band was like showing up and playing drums and like performing and someone just like hand you a check and it's like oh cool like thanks I played the show I got paid see you later but it's like oh actually there are these

nine different arms of how you can make money but before it comes to you it's going to go. 10% is going to go over here for the person who booked the tour. 20% is going to go to just the general manager who just handles business stuff. Then all of your music is going to get split into three different arms of publishing and then people who try to put it on like freaking video games and stuff and whatever your Spotify cut is and then how much goes to the label as opposed to the people who wrote the songs. And it's like this ginormous spider web of money going to a million different people. And then you're here. at the bottom and you're just like, ah, I'm trying to catch as much as I possibly can.

Yeah. That is a, it's just so complex, right? Like for, I'm, I'm sure it's complex for you, too, and I oversimplify it, but I'm like, you do a brand deal and they're like, cool, here you go. Here's your monthly or yearly, whatever. Significantly more simple. But that is because I've done the equivalent of remaining independent as an artist. I'm not signed.

I've never, ever been signed to any network. I'm not owned by a media agency. I'm not even signed. I don't even have an agent. Wow. So, like, everything is just me. Everything is bootstrapped. Everything is bootstrapped.

That's crazy. The tour that we put together bootstrapped, team that we put together, bootstrapped, everything. Like, we booked our tour manager. Like, this is not... Wow. Yeah. So, that means that there's a lot more effort that has to go in on the front end, but there's so much more control on the back end.

Yes. You're like, you know, the... Something is... isn't working out with whatever partner this is, whatever member of staff this is, whatever contractor we have, there's no obligation. Yeah.

Beyond loyalty, which counts for a lot. But, you know, there's less fuckery. And it is wild to see people just want to go and hear good music from their band that are happy and healthy in playing a show and hopefully well enough remunerated to keep doing it. And there's just a lot of holes in the Swiss cheese slice that you don't get to see and I hope that it doesn't seem at the moment

at least the genres that I'm interested in you guys and your cohort doesn't seem like that many people feel like they're eating shit because I think live is going so well for so many people but yeah if I was a big hip-hop fan or something maybe I'd feel differently maybe I'd be worried about the sort of upcoming hip-hop artists

and whether or not they can make money like they used to back in the day or something Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before we continue, I've been drinking AG1 every morning for as long as I can remember now, because it is the simplest way I've found to cover my bases and not overthink nutrition. And that is why I partnered with them. Just one scoop gives you 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics and whole food ingredients in a single drink. Now they've taken it a step further with AG1 next gen, the same one scoop, once a day ritual, but this time backed by four clinical trials. In those trials, it was shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improved key nutrient levels in just three months and increase healthy gut bacteria by 10 times, even in people who already eat well. They've upgraded their formula with better probiotics, more bioavailable nutrients and clinical validation. Plus, it's still NSF certified for sport so you know that the quality is legit. Right now, when you first subscribe, you can get a free bottle of D3K2 and AG1 welcome kit plus bonus AG1 travel packs. And for a limited time,

US customers also get a sample of AGZ and a bottle of omega-3s. Just go to the link in the description below or head to drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. That's drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. And, you know, then the tough part about being in a band, too, and I don't want to, like, complain about money. I'm not trying to complain about money. I'm just trying to say, like, I think it's important to understand how the back end of the business works. And, like, yes, now you can be independent if you want to. Like, you can. Like, there are plenty of Spotify artists who have, they made a good product, their songs are good, and they develop the skill of organic content or paid ads or, I mean, probably not paid ads as much, but like, yeah,

marketing themselves. If you have a good product and you can market yourselves and you can push people to the right, you know, whatever you want that to be, buy tickets or go stream the song, like, you can simplify the whole process and just get really good at team building, which is what I assume is the skill that you've had to build to do it all independent. It's horrendous at it, but yeah. Yeah, but it is.

Like, it's this weird. Like, for me, I look at how my life has gone and I grew up, everyone, hey, what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a drummer, and everyone's like... Is that what you said as a kid? Yeah, oh, yeah. Okay.

What was the response when you said, I want to be a drummer? You're stupid. Like, I grew up in the suburbs of Michigan. We're still from there. But yeah, there's no, there's no professional musicians that I knew of coming out of Michigan. There are, but you've got Kid Rock, you've got Eminem. Like there's some big, yeah, Uncle Cracker.

There's some big players. But, yeah, everyone's like, you're stupid. Go to school, do, you know, go to university for you. I wouldn't say college, but, you know, go to college and get a degree in business. And I'm like, I don't care about business. I want to play drums. The ironic thing is that to be able to play drums professionally, I had to learn a lot about business.

But then, you know, by my own accord, really fell in love with a lot of it. Because it's like, I think any musician starts to love it because it's very challenging. It's very challenging to develop a skill in songwriting or singing or drumming or whatever that is. And then at a certain point, it's not, you've never arrived. You can always get better, but I think business has that same thing too, right?

It's like, oh, now there's, now it's not just drumming that I have to get better at. If I, business is an umbrella term, you know, there's accounting, there's marketing, there's blah, blah, blah, blah. So there's endless things to. You have direct input on the lyrics that you write, the melodies that come out. You don't have the same with how well the accounts are put together. And if you negotiate the margin on the merch, 10% or like, I always used to feel bad when I ran nightclubs in my 20s

because I had this sense that my success, I could always excuse my successes away. I was like Velcro for criticism, self-criticism, and Teflon for self-praise, because your contribution to the success of a business, anything really within the business operations, even if you come up with the best marketing tagline of all time, you're not the one that delivered it,

and you're not the one that chose how the audience responded to it, And you're not the one that said that the sales, whatever, created the page that had the conversion rate optimization that did the, and it meant that I always was more easily able to ignore where I'd done well with things like that. And I think one of the great things about what you guys do and what I think everybody needs in their life is something where a direct, almost one-to-one input to output ratio of effort to reward is available.

If you write a fucking slamming song individually or as a group, that thing is yours and you made it directly. There was no molestation in between you and this thing happening. And I think a lot of the time people feel out of control and out of connection with what's going on in their lives because there are so many layers of fuckery

between them and the shit that is supposed to be the goal on the other side of it. 100%. And that's why I think as much as the business stuff has been enjoyable to really dive into and grow,

like, that's why I'm still so happy that I'm a musician in a band because you do have these moments. Like, with this last album we made, we blocked off eight months. We're basically Monday, from 10 to 6 we show up in the studio every day and we just walk in we walk in not knowing

what we want to create and we walk out with something and that I can't I just don't have that in any other area of my life where it feels like pure creativity and those short moments are like just so awesome like driving home in your car listening to this this 30 second demo that you just wrapped up five minutes ago. And then the next, honestly, the next day on the way to the studio, you listen to it, you're like, actually, it sucks, but the drive home felt so magical. But now we have to improve it. And you constantly, yeah, Eric comes in.

It's like, yeah, that sucks, but let's do this. And then you're like, oh, shit, that's awesome now. And it's just like, it feels like pure creativity. And it's incredible. Yeah, crazy to think that you come in with, you know, five dudes coming in a room and have haven't even talked about what we're going to work on today and we sit down and you find some central meeting point and you just pull things out of thin air and then you leave eight hours later going we have a 30 second audio file there's something that came out of nothing

you know and that that bit of creativity and feeling that reward is is unlike anything else we have going on in our life i feel like you know you come in with nothing and you leave with something that was created by a group of friends, that you're like, there was nothing before this. And now we have this piece of art, and you feel like you got something off your chest, or you feel excited with the direction this thing is going. And then it starts shaping the record.

And then you're like, okay, well, we did this. What should be the counterpart of this song? You know, what we did some little heavier on this. Let's, just the whole creative process is so rewarding, you know, in that sense. What have you learned about navigating a, a career in an industry that's ripe with burnout and crisis and recovery and stuff like that. Oh, man.

For me personally, being on the road specifically when we do like, you know, three and a half weeks in Europe and then we have two days at home and then we do a six week tour in the States and then we're home for a month and we go back to Australia for three weeks and then your time zones are all fucked up and and being lost on tour just. you know that that burnout feel you know um for me personally it's like trying to find those days off when we have them uh to feel like a human again like i'm i'm big into uh some training card games collecting records and you know finding bars or coffee shops i've been to when we had a day off in that city prior so to to step away off the bus and go explore a city on my own or go meet up

with some friends or other people on tour and play cards or you know find a bar record shop doing something that makes you feel like a person again has definitely helped that that you know four weeks into a you know seven week tour or whatever it is it's like feeling like a human again is very important so having those hobbies and having those things to to distract yourself from the the mental fatigue has been huge for me yeah i mean i think like being on the road is a gift in so many ways and you know like a dream come true and also right like life happens when when you are on the road and you miss it like people die right are our we've all lost family members while being on the road and finding out i mean friends and family members i mean you'll find out

a couple hours before you have to go play and you're like okay i just found out that a piece of my life was is now gone and now I have to go like in front of thousands of people and you know not that we played smiling music so it's not like I have to like put on a smile but man you have to you have to get through some shit and that might be in the midst of tension in the band or overall fatigue from tour where you're like already you're physically drained you're mentally trained you're in your 30s living with eight other grown men in a bus the size of this room for months at a time. You haven't seen your family for months at a time.

Tragedy happens. Like, it is a lot. And I, and also, like, on the road, there have been so many of, like, I think collectively our lowest moments. but it's also coupled with these moments that are so unique that I personally could never get. And once it's done, it's done. Like, for example, like, the creativity of creating a song.

I'm just like, I won't, I don't think I'm going to find that somewhere else or performing in front of people and being, like, part of a collective experience. Like, sorry, Eric, there have been many moments in my time with the band where I'm, like, is this really what I want to do? Like, I am exhausted from the chaos. I miss being home. I love being home. Like, is this really what I want to do?

But I think there's these things where it's like, but once it's done, it's done. And also, yes, like there are times where there's like tension in the band, but also you form, you trauma bond together as a group, you know, where when people really need it, like, you are there for each other. And, like, there's never another time in my life where I'm going to be able to have sleepovers with my 30-year-old bros. You know what I mean? But on tour, like, every night, it's like after the show, I'll see you in the back lounge.

Silly bus time. Yeah, silly bus time is what we call it. It's just kind of coming down from the adrenaline, cracking a ton of jokes, and then going right to sleep. It's a sleepover, you know? but yeah it's emotional whiplash all the time yeah and and what you're saying about going up and having some kind of loss or turmoil back home and and trying to navigate that and then an hour later you're going on stage it's it's important especially being the performer or singing the words putting on the show to remember that you know this may be the one concert that that kid is going to all year long or this uh these people these fans this group is trying to escape whatever's going on in their life, whether it's all the political stuff they're fed up with seeing online, whether it's their own family issues,

whether it's loss, whatever it may be. This is their moment where they're coming for three, four hours to forget all of that and to have a good time, drink some beers with their friends, shout the lyrics back to us and forget everything. So it's also keeping that in mind when we go on stage. like this is just as much our moment having fun up here as your moment you know you're once this month or once this year getting to to release or or exercise some demons in the pit or to just forget about all the the bullshit that they have going on at home and then you know having to

remember that when you're going through something yourself to go up there and go all right this is for them you know put put put the show we call putting getting into our show he's like you're you're you got severance to your any and your outy it's like Our normie and our showy. Yeah. So it's time to zip into our showy and get out there and give everyone the show that they want to, they deserve. That's what's called being a professional. Right.

Like, you know, if you're a firefighter and you've had a big argument in a sleepless night with the wife last night or arguing or something, it's like I'm not equating rock stars and firefighters in terms of importance. Thank you. Please, thank you. Because you're saying that we're more important, right? Yeah, okay, good, good. I just wanted to make sure. Significantly. But they have to turn up and do a job.

And I think it's good to think about it in terms of service. There's certainly, at least sort of from my side, looking from the outside in, because any job that's a lot of fun or that has just fun as a part of it starts to see anything that isn't fun as a bug, not a feature. and you go hey yeah I know that sometimes shit's hard but for some people's jobs all of it's hard

and the fact that well you know I'm tired or this has been long or I'm whining to you about how many flights I've got to do this week and tour for me starts this week and I'm like yeah

but I'm going to go and do this thing with my best friends in cities that I love and get to see and you go well I think this is why people have limited sympathy for traveling musicians that whine about how hard it is because they're complaining that some of the things are difficult. Meanwhile, most people's jobs, all of the things are difficult. They don't get the positive reinforcement in the way.

It's like, you know, I struggle to sleep because the adrenaline is high. You go, well, some people don't ever feel adrenaline. Like the reason that you've got that is because of how much positive reinforcement you got earlier in the night. Yeah. I guess it's something I'm interested in. You mentioned just like it's a sleep over with your bros in your 30s. Everybody's aging, right?

Everybody's getting older. At least a bunch of you are married or in relationships or maybe all of you are. So I'm interested in how you navigate that as everybody grows up because people have personal lives that aren't going to be as negotiable as they used to be. You don't choose when your kid's born. Your big band, tons of sperm, means lots of potential road bumps for people to navigate. So you're going to have to say, hey, darling, I know that you're really keen on having a baby next year. The wedding was wonderful. Thank you

for allowing us to slot it in between Australia and the second run on the US tour. We're not going be able to start trying until late July because we've got this new amphitheater run that we've got that's lined up and you know I like surely this is something that's in the back of your guys's minds as you start to plan your personal future and then how does this work with blending the band yeah I mean I'm going through right now playing on a wedding and next spring and just constantly reminding the guys like hey check the calendar uh we got a tour offer and is that tour offer again okay cool cool all right i have a week i can get married but uh yeah that's that's um i think it's something that we don't talk about but we all feel and know it's in the back of our mind like our guitar

steve just had a kid three years ago is during when we were uh recording our last record and he went off and melissa had the baby and then they uh we released the record and went on the road shortly after that so you know missing the you know early early years of of uh his child's child's life and it's difficult trying to plan around life events major life events like that but you know we we try our best between the the five us to plan things uh the intimate parts of our lives and in our little group and and uh you know if someone's got to fly home for a weekend we try to slot some some times you know days off where it's okay you can fly home this weekend all right cool we'll meet up with you and you know three stops from now and but yeah it's something that i think

I don't know if we have it mastered, but it's something that we, I don't say struggle with, but it's something that is a difficult thing to have our personal lives and those huge moments and having a kid or getting married or, you know, friends' weddings, standing in weddings, whatever it may be is, it's a challenge. It definitely is a challenge. Yeah, I think it's like you're trading sacrifices, right? So in the early days, the sacrifices, is I'm going to go out and tour for nine months of the year and make $12, right? That's the sacrifice, and you make it. And then that stops to be, that stops being the sacrifice.

It's like, oh, we're touring less and making more than $12. So, okay, cool. But then, yeah, as you get older, there's more sacrifice in a different way. Your parents are getting older, thinking about having kids, how do you navigate that? How do you navigate a marriage where it's long. distance that's pretty uncommon but also in some ways like i think with any sacrifice it's difficult but also there are gifts inside all of it right because what a lot of people experience kind of like to what you were saying earlier is of like oh their jobs suck all the time like you are you might

always be with your spouse and never kind of have that opportunity to truly miss your spouse. Like some people just never have the opportunity to actually miss their spouse, which is interesting. And there is like a gift in that of I'm going to be gone and I'm going to have this opportunity to desperately miss you and to have reconnection time, which yes, can sometimes be an adjustment, right? For sure. I heard you talk to the under oath guys about this very relatable of yeah, you might come home and your spouse is. was like, I was kind of used to living here by myself, right? Well, yeah, your partner is saying to you,

I know that you've come back and you immediately want me to drop into this life that you've imagined. Yeah. But I've had to create a life where I can cope with the distance of you being away. Yeah. So, yeah, I've walled myself off a little bit. Yeah, maybe I'm not as soft or accommodating as you might like me to be. Because you've been playing shows for six weeks in front of a few thousand people a night, fucking about on the bus

would you get friends right yeah totally and you you're both coping in your own ways right and I'm coping by laughing my ass off with my friends right and in yeah this weird way where

and everything is kind of handed to you on the road you know but then coming home it's like those coping mechanisms don't work in a marriage where it's like yes I want time and I want this and I want this It's like, well, this is not really a marriage, like, that's not a give and take.

That's just a take. Yeah. But, yeah, I do think, like, what that opens up then is more conversations to grow closer and be like, hey, like, this isn't actually working when I'm gone. Or it's actually not working when I come back. Like, how can we navigate this together and use it as an opportunity to grow closer or to create systems in our family or any of my relationships to make this work better? without completely overstretching both of ourselves and, you know. If your sleep's been off, you're taking ages to fall asleep, waking up at random times, feeling groggy in the morning, momentuses, sleep packs are here to help.

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will give you your money back. Plus, they ship internationally. Right now, you can get 35% of your first subscription and that 30-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to livemomomomentus.com slash modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom a checkout. That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-T-O-U-S dot com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom, a checkout. Yeah, I understand what you mean. The idea of the beauty of being able to miss someone is an interesting one. Yeah. How many months do you reckon you've been on the road on average for the last few years? We've, as we've gotten older, we've tried to bring it down to around four months a year. Yeah, four or five. Yeah. Um, where my first year,

touring with these guys. I think we weren't gone for nine. So you're still talking now about, you know, three days out of every week. So you're only home for maybe four out of seven. Plus there'll be travel, plus it'll be songwriting, plus there'll be rehearsals, plus there'll be all of the other stuff. So you're talking about, you know, if you do a month with five, with everything else on top, it's probably closer to six. Sure. So you're talking about three and a half days out of every single week that you're apart from friends, family, partner, kid, etc it's tough it's a it's a

fucking I you know that was the fascinating thing speaking to Aaron and Tim Aaron said did he get married and went on tour or had a kid and went on tour like three days later or something and just you know you got to turn it around because this is what you've got to do and it's an interesting question

most people when they're building a project what they're looking to do is overtime do fewer things that they don't want to do. Almost everybody's goal in life is to say, I just don't want to do things I don't want to do anymore. That's like where people want to arrive at. But there's an interesting challenge

that I've been feeling recently, which is what do you do when you start to get close to being able to actually making that reality? Now, what does that look like? And it's difficult because you're used to working at this particular rate and you get reward and reinforce at that same particular rate.

But what was the point of touring for nine months every year for five? If you don't then drop it down to doing it at the pace that you want to, and then how do you know what the pace that you want to is? Because you're always going to feel a high after you've come off stage, but then what's accumulating in the background? How many ruptures without repair have occurred in the relationship? how many missed weddings and degraded friendships and funerals that you haven't been able to deal with

and thoughts that you haven't given yourself time to just sit with because you're in the chaos of the show and someone's bringing you cool new food and we're going to go skiing today, we're in Salt Lake, it's going to be great. Like, all of these things are these weird hidden costs that you pay kind of out the back here. And I see especially with the age

and this is meant complementarily the metal scene is not young it's not young like you guys are a veteran band who are like middle aged I guess for

like metal stars Ollie from Bring Me must be 38 I think he's about my age 36 to like 40 or something like that I think it might be my age 37 you're talking like, I don't know what Ronnie Radkey is.

Ronnie's going to be like, you know, push. Ronnie's in his 40. Can you really still crack? You're like 46. We're still cranking it. Four months on tour. You know, the kids are off to fucking like middle school. You go, oh, if you're not careful, you missed your life.

You missed your life. You didn't just like do this thing when you were young and had fun. Fucking under oath. Right? Like the guy, I mean, what was it that Tim said? Like, I've got a 14-year-old daughter, but I only know her is seven. I miss half a life. Yeah.

It's the illusion that, it's the ever-growing illusion that. One day you'll be done. Yeah. I'm doing as much as I can right now so that I can retire at 40 and have all the time. Go fuck yourself, dude. I know, I know, but I'm saying that's what the illusion is. It's that I'm going to work really hard right now. I'm going to get it while I can because you never know when it's going to be done.

You never know when it's going to end. I understand the haymaking season thing. I get it. But it's an illusion in a way, right? It's a horizon. Every step you take toward it, it gets one step further away. And it's weird because I'm aware of it. And I also play into it.

And I feel like I can't escape it even though I've been told. And I see, and I'm like, I see that it's an illusion. In your defense, that's the same with junk food. It's the same with overusing your phone on social media. It's the same with staying up late every single night you've ever stayed. I know I need to go to bed early, but you don't, and you know the lesson, and you can feel it unfolding in front of you, and then the next day you forget it and redo it again. You know what I mean?

Like, it's the same thing. Yeah. We're just simple creatures, man. Yeah. But, yeah, yeah, that is a, man, that is something that is a little scary to think about sometimes where it's like, we've been doing this for 11 years. And I look back and like, man, remember that tour? That was seven years ago.

that was i was 23 i'm 34 like where did my life go but then you're able to look around you know our house like this house i paid for by screaming at people and i have these awesome little trinkets on the wall you know whether they're a gold gold plaque or a photo of us playing at red rocks or or whatever and it's it's it's tough to tough to think that like you're saying it's the horizon And just keeps going, keeps going. When are we going to be content? I don't, I don't know. I guess the only thing I can hope for is to build this up as big as possible.

So we can bring our loved ones out on the road more often. We can have these shared experiences more often out on the road. You're then asking a lot of your loved ones, right? Exactly. If you're saying, hey, honey, you know your life? Exactly. How do you feel about not having it? How do you feel about your life being?

How about my life is your life? Yeah, it's a difficult balance. And also, like, with what you're saying of, like, you missed your life, I'm thinking about that. And I'm like, maybe I see that point. And I think there's something to consider there for sure of missing the people who you love. But I also think if I were to flip it, I think if I were sitting in my house in my office or whatever behind my computer all day, which I just do on the road. but I think I might have the same thought of... You missed your life.

I'm missing my life. I'm wasting it in the same place every single day, doing the same thing, every single day. Like, I think it's, yeah, this... You just want what you don't have. Choose your regrets, dude. Yeah. So, so true.

You've nailed it. Everybody assumes the thing that's missing in their life is the thing that they want. Yeah. And we are like that in our ability. to be able to wish. The grass is greener despite the fact that we were on the other grass only a week ago. I know that it's the fact coming back from tour, you've just finished tour. You're like, thank fuck for that. Oh my God, I'm so tired. And I just want to lie in bed and I just want

to like cuddle my wife or do whatever. And then seven days later, you're like, I'm bored. Yeah. This sucks. I'm bored. I want to be like, I'm not doing enough. I should be in more case. You're like, you just did a seven week tour. And I think this is the same. Everybody feels it is sort of part of the human system to always feel like you're not doing enough and that not doing enough can be not doing enough peace and also not doing enough work and yeah mark of a good nervous system I think

is one that can adapt to both without feeling like it's missing the other yeah and you're like oh and like I'm just I'm okay with this yeah I feel like I'm okay with this I know um I've heard her mosey say, like something, I'll paraphrase it, of like, the grass is always greener on the other side, because there's a bunch of shit on my side, but there's also a bunch of shit on the other side. It's just different shit. Like, which shit do you want? Because there's shit on both sides, right? And I think we view other people's life through rose colored glasses, right? I'm sure, Chris,

most of your audience would be like, if I could have Chris's life, where I'm talking with interesting people all the time, doing big shit, I got this sick, drink company called Newtonic. Tasty. Yeah, it's so good. I don't know which one my camera. Is this my camera? So good.

So good. Yeah, wait. Sorry, I'll figure it out. Anyway, I'm sure a million people would be like, I want Chris's life. Yeah, sure, he's got help problems. Yeah, sure. Like, it may have been a rough couple years. But they kind of just overlook that part.

You know what I mean? And would they still take that trade? Maybe. But I think, again, yeah, we look at, we look at other people's lives and are like, I would take I would take all of it because the good thing seems so good

that all the shit with it is worth it. And maybe sometimes that's true, but people find industries that work for them. Like if you're not that much of a touchy, feely, affectionate person, well, you know, I would be at home,

but I wouldn't, like, the wife's got her thing going on. We might not be hanging all that much in any case. So I might as well be a way, right? And that's where you see, I wrote this essay a little while ago about people who have the talent,

but not the constitution, to become very successful. Lewis Capaldi was my sort of canonical example of this until he came back and smashed it at Glastonbury this year. I'm really, really happy for him. Lewis Capaldi, great example of phenomenal voice, phenomenal songwriter, but someone who suffered so badly with performance anxiety

that he went out on the main stage at Glastonbury not long ago and couldn't get his words out and he's developed this sort of Tourette-like nervous tick from how much pressure he's applied to himself and you go how unfortunate to be someone who's so perfectly constructed it's like having a really fast engine put into a Honda Civic

it's like a V12 engine so you have all the power to be able to drive real fast and none of the control to be able to direct it and that is is a unique kind of pain where you go, fuck, like the thing that I want to be a world-class recording artist, a touring musician, or fucking soldier or a sport star or whatever, I have all of the capability.

I just don't have the constitution to be able to handle maybe the pressure that comes along with it, or the work rate, or the travel. You could have really sensitive circadian disruption like in your sleeping pattern, and that would mean you could not be a touring artist. Or like it would just take such a toll on your health that your expiry date would be

would be pretty snap close. Yeah. And yeah, you're right. There will be bits of shit on either side of the fence and what is the price that you want to pay in order to have the life that you admire is a fucking really good question about that. Yeah.

Yeah. I've heard you say about life on the road and missing funerals, missing friends and birthdays. There's this Keith Urban thing, The Road on CBS at the moment. First episode came out this week. So during the premiere episode of The Road on CBS, Urban opened up about the difficulties of life on the road as a cheering musician. It's a calling and you're born to do it or you're not going to make it, he said.

When you wake upon a tour bus at 3.30 in the morning and you're sick as a dog. You're in the middle of nowhere and you've got to play your fifth show later that night. You haven't slept and you miss your friends and you're missing your family. And you're completely lonely and miserable and sick. And you say to yourself, why am I doing this? Urban, who recently split from a estranged wife, Nicole Kidman, continued. The only answer could be, because this is what I'm born to do,

we're going to find out who's made of that stuff, and we're going to find out who's made of that stuff is to do with being on the road. Really interesting that someone who recently split from his estranged wife is sort of being used as the, and look, if you two are sufficiently successful, this could be your life also. Like, really does show how narrow the app

picture is that we perceive success through, right? It really is. It doesn't sound to me like, well, I mean, it's a public interview. So how would you know it's not quite the place for someone to drop into their emotions? It doesn't particularly sound to me like Keith Urban would say I would rather give up my touring or have not toured at all and still have my marriage to Nicole Kidman. But who knows? Maybe in retrospect he'll think something differently. And yeah, the prices that you pay the things that you miss in order to do the thing that you love it's different with you guys versus um like some person that works offshore on an oil rig or a soldier right because it's not too dissimilar they do tours different sorts of venues um but i think people feel

differently about that because that feels like more of a obligation yeah there's a nobility attached to that there's some there's a you guys get less sympathy because you're like fucking about yeah champagne problems man yeah yeah yeah i do have um i do have some sense of guilt sometimes where i'm like how dare i feel so bad right now like um yeah the i feel like one of the first times i went through something hard on the road was uh one of my best friends and living at, living at my place with me, um, took his own life, um, right before we, uh, walked on stage in Pittsburgh. And that was like the first time that I, I, like, allowed myself to like, feel, feel bad about missing things. Like, when it was a wedding or something,

I was like, I was like, oh, man, I'm just, is this really, I'm, I'm getting to live my life and my dreams and do these things and like i don't you know shame on me for for feeling any type of way but when when that happened that was like the first time that i was like no it's okay it's okay to feel bad and like it's you know man sorry i'm getting thinking thinking about that time that was really really tough man but then on the outside like i said earlier you just have to suit up and go out there and play and and uh remind yourself how how look and blessed you are to be doing this and um yeah over over the last few years i've tried to balance that like sense of guilt of uh living my dreams let's say over you know missing the funerals and

the friendships and and plan oh okay well i go back i'm just kind of to rebuild that relationship or they understand my my family understands that i'm out here doing doing big things and and trying to trying to live my dreams but it's it's it's it's always a challenge it's always channel's going out on the road and being gone for so long and then looking back at the things you're missing but then, you know, reminding yourself like, this is what you signed up for, you know, how lucky are you that a fraction of a percent of people get to do this

and enjoy it while you can't because tomorrow could just be gone, you know? AI could take over, you know, we're just done. Yeah, I think it's, um, it's tricky to balance the responsibility of, you know, You have a group of thousands of people who paid, you know, however much to, like, get a release from whatever they're going on in their life. And we are kind of, like, pioneering that ship in a lot of ways.

Like Michael Jordan, you know, has that, I actually don't remember what the quote is, but there's that, like, infamous game where he's puking on the sidelines, but he's still playing. Because he's like, this might be the only time someone gets to see me. And, like, this could have been their past two weeks paycheck to be here. So I'm going to play. I'm going to, no matter what, like, be here. And so I think it's balancing that responsibility while also not becoming, not valuing their validation in an unhealthy way. So it's like give a responsibility to them, but I think some people, I can't speak for Keith Urban. But, like, I think some marriages can fall apart because a lot of artists are desperate for validation.

I mean, we're putting ourselves on a stage in front of people screaming our name, not my name, because I'm the drummer, but screaming your band's name. And it's like, yeah, those group of people, like, probably want a little bit more validation because of X, Y, and Z in our childhood, right? But I think that's when relationships, marriages can fall apart because you're so desperate for the validation from strangers as opposed to the places that it actually matters from. I think so much about how sad it is that some people got one-shotted with status games in high school and never grew out of them. Like they just need to be... accepted by the cool kids even if the cool kids were a bunch of strangers on the internet yeah and they just you can see i i think they cycle through life ignoring or almost feeling an ick or a kind of allergy to anybody who gives them free and available love it's like oh if you're

giving me something you're you're offering it to me without withholding it without there being a price attached you just oh you seem to just like me for me What's wrong with you? Yeah. No, you're supposed to make, you're supposed to reject me or not want me. You're supposed to make me hurt for it or something. And that's a pattern that is really unfortunate because it's going to cause you to ignore the very thing that you want.

You're going to disregard the very thing that you're trying to get, which is someone to just see you. Yeah. Yeah. And that can also be a good thing, though, because... some of those people don't actually really see you. You know, if you're, like, dating someone for a long time, yeah, they probably really see you.

But if someone who doesn't know you and is, like, trying to pour this validation your way, and you really receive that, which there's a healthy degree, but there's also the other side where it's like, well, you don't actually know me. You might be a fan of our songs and our music, which is really cool. But, like, if I take all this praise,

that's where I think ego can get really, really dangerous. And we've seen so many people go down that path, where you just accept all of this praise from people who don't know you. But then on the same side, that's when, like, oftentimes their downfall is because with any, almost any rise, there's going to be a time where, well, okay, you got big enough. Now the only thing left to do is to turn on you. You know what I mean? I feel like it's kind of a tale as old as time and then you have your period of time where people turn on you and you weather that storm

and then people get bored of turning on you and they go okay well now they're down to like let's lift them back up now they have somewhere to go again right I think that's so right and you can almost see it in these little cycles up and down and I think everybody has anybody that gets to a size

has to have an ascendancy right that's why you get to the size. Everybody has to have a moment where they icarus it a little, and it is just whether or not they managed to pick back up on that one. And after that, I mean, you can obviously completely like kamikaze yourself if you do something wrong. But after that one, typically, I see very few people that just keep going up. Like almost everybody has one dip.

So it's like, okay, get ready for the dip. Yeah. I guess with you guys, how has the – how do you define your guys' identity as a band now that the lineups changed, that the dynamics evolved, that the sounds evolved as well? The reason I think about that is artists, podcasters, comedians get – they capture attention for doing a thing. well. There is a temptation to just do that thing again. And there's been a lot of change from you guys last album to this one. You're stepping up into full vocalists doing everything mode, plus an evolution in terms of sound. I'm interested in how you think about sort of identity of the band and not being trapped by what you did before, but staying true to your roots, but not

being behold. You know what I mean? Like, how do you navigate all of this? yeah i think it's a it's a a challenge that we're finding out right now um learning as we go but yeah i i i think it's difficult on a personal side because you you think you haven't changed individually we haven't changed the writing is still we're still writing and no from the outside a lot's changed around the inside maybe not so much so when you hear and see out, you know, whether it's fans or fair weather fans or whatever that are like, oh, it's a whole different band, it's different. It's like, well, we don't feel that different.

We know there's a change, but we don't feel that different. So that's been a very difficult thing for me personally is like, you know, I've been writing in this band since day one, and now all of a sudden I feel like a stranger to my own band just from the perception of a couple nameless people. out there, you know, and it's, um, it's been, it's been a struggle personally, but yeah, how do you feel about this? I think our identity is, it is shifting. Like, I think to what you were talking about earlier, you have this, um, you have a, a lot of times there are like these bands with certain dynamics, right? And like, no doubt the dynamics are now.

different um and in a lot of ways with that with that change we've kind of leaned in to the different a little bit from the standpoint of like how we are trying to interact with each other as a group and trying to uh nourish our relationship with each other as much as possible but in some ways it's I keep talking about gifts. But like, they're, like you said,

the thing that got us here, we don't even, in some ways, our sound is naturally now different. So we don't even have some of, like, that option to go back to of like,

well, we did this thing. And it's like, well, no matter what we do now, it's going to be different. And so we have to, or we get to,

reanalyze, like, what do we want to be moving forward what do we want to be to each other how do we want to be with each other what do we want a sound to be it kind of um breaks open your life in a new way i i liken it to yeah a relationship where you have a relationship with someone for for 10 years and after a certain period of time it's like hey i actually think you want this and and i want this and we're going to move in those separate directions and it is a time of self-discovery you know the interesting thing about it

is that most people in a relationship they go their separate ways and there's pain there for sure but it's kind of up to you to ask yourself what do you want next in a band situation it's interesting it's like it's almost like you have a big family around you saying well I actually liked you better when you were with that person and I actually want you to do this And it's like, well, okay, like, I appreciate the feedback, like, understood. But I kind of have to go on this journey. I hope that you can come on this journey with me. Because my family, my fans, you know, the metaphor, you're very important to me.

And you've been with me this time. I would love to continue in a relationship with you guys also. Please have a little bit of trust in me that, like, I'm going to reinvent my myself in a way where I'm going to try to grow from this experience and do what is authentic to me and us. And yeah, that's kind of what the process has been like. And yeah, no doubt there's been a ton of challenges in it. But damn, do I think we've we've grown a ton from it? Absolutely. And really excited for what that, what the path is for us moving forward. I mean, I'm so stoked on this record. Chris, I told you to let me know if it's shit and you didn't let me know,

so I'm just assuming you made it. It's great. I thought it was... I'm just insecure. I need more validation. Please, strangers on the internet, tell me that I'm good enough. Fucking millions of people a year are not enough. What I thought was interesting with what you guys did, and I think, I'm not convinced that Sleep Token quite did this. It'll be interesting to see what Oman's third track comes out tomorrow, I think. Oh, does it really? Yeah.

What you guys did that was really interesting was you chose three very different tracks from the album. And I thought that was kind of unique. I would say President did a not bad job with releasing ahead of their EP. I thought that was good in terms of the sequence. I did find a couple of them a little samey, and I might have hot-swapped one of them. I thought Conclave was actually maybe a stronger track that was, like, hidden deep in the EP, and they could have brought that out. omens. Both of their tracks have been a little samey but fucking

like obviously fucking brilliant. She's great. And I thought he was interesting. I've had this idea in my mind for ages about you as a band decide that you're going to put out two or three or four singles and then you drop an album. So presumably you have an idea about what your best foot forward in some regard looks like or at least your best foot forward as a collective. When you take these three, this is an indication of what the longer record's going to be like. But then you put it out on Spotify and the fucking audience gets to decide. And you're like, track eight? Really? You motherfuckers,

really? The fucking acoustic track. Are you kidding me? Or whatever, right? They pick the thing. Well, that's actually the case here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I checked this. Okay. I was going to say it's way too specific. Yeah. No, it's weird. Dude, it's like, we, like I said, we've been writing this, I mean, man, the writing process was just eight months, but then we recorded it, then we mastered it, then we mixed it, then mastered it. And I mean, all in, yeah, a year and three months or something like that of just pouring our souls out to each other, you know, a few guys in a room. And it's like, I think this is sick. Is this sick? I think it is. I don't know, is it? And, uh, probably getting lost in the sauce. Yeah, 100%.

And we're like, we're removing tracks. We're like, this song actually sucks. Like that song, we wrote and we're like, it's not going to make the album. Like, it's different. Like, it's just an acoustic song. Like, when are we going to do that? And Eric was like, he didn't say this, but he felt so he's like, guys, if this song's on the album, I'm going to leave.

Like, he wasn't really. But yeah, so it's weird. It's just weird. Like, the insecurity just starts to like build of like, well, let's just, let's move this one out. I don't know. And then two months later. you're like, let's bring it back in. Like, I haven't listened to that one.

And you're like, oh, it's actually really good. But, yeah, then you get this, like, confidence. Once you, like, have written the whole thing, you're like, I see this as a work of art. I'm really excited to release it. Then once you've written it, the insecurity starts creeping up again. Fuck, I knew we should have put track A's in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What, um, for a normie like me, what is the sort of number of tracks that you've cut that didn't make a 10, album record a 10 song album yeah I think we had like three or so maybe that got to a second chorus am I I think I think four or five four or five but then don't forget the seven songs we wrote even before scrapping all of those yeah true good point for probably another 10 songs right that still seems relatively lean to me that seems like a pretty good

hit rate, right? To write one in two songs makes the album, makes mastered fucking out there. Yeah. That seems like I don't know, is that? It might be, yeah, I feel like every band has something a little bit different. The

interesting thing with us is that like yes, let's say one and two songs, but the song that you know it now has also taken six different forms where it's like, oh, well the chorus is actually different and verse two is actually a completely different part.

We rewrote the bridge three times. And so I think as long as we have a nugget that we think is good enough, mainly. We're building it around something. Yes. Yes. Yeah. If we're like, oh, this chorus is sick, let's keep going back to it. Let's keep going back to it.

Let's keep going back to it. And the nice thing is, like, you get to see if it stands the test of time. Yep. Like that's what I mean about when you put it out there and the audience gets to choose. Because that's also, in a really hilarious way, kind of going to determine what the live set looks like. because if song ate the acoustic song eat shit and you go wow I mean there's fucking no chance that we're playing that live

but if there's the prospect of oh fuck like this is it's a most played track on Spotify ranked at the moment or whatever we have to do that fuck we have to do this no like oh yeah or whatever right

but it's cool yeah it's cool because you've had this idea look how clever I am I know my release in advance I'm going to do my little singles I'm going to make them come out and we're in the right order. And then you put the fucking thing out and then all of your fans just go, fuck you, dude, I'm going to choose what I want. Yeah. I think it's so cool.

Yeah, and it's, it's, honestly, challenged, but it's like when we start writing the record, and then you start fantasizing about the future, like a year and a half from now, you start, okay, when we do the headliner, you know, we're going to open with this song. Imagine the set opening like this. And we were rolling this song, we pull this deep cut out from two records ago, and that goes third. and then we've learned quickly after the last record we were like this opening track is going to be the opening track to the show and then the album's been out for a couple months and maybe less than that a month and you go out there and people are excited to see you and they're excited to see some of the new stuff but they want to see that that record that they grew up on or whatever it may be and then you go out and you play that first song and you're looking in the crowd and no one's singing it because they don't know the words and you're like oh god this is going to be a rough four minutes you go to educate the next one so So now it's like, you know, we have these little nuggets of ideas like how the set's going to be, you know, when we go out and tour it out, you tour this new record again, but, you know, you got to let the fans pick the songs.

And then you see the, okay, these songs are popping off. Hell yeah, we get to play these. Well, where in the set should we play? We don't want to blow our load early and play all the cool stuff from the first half and everyone's sitting like, you know, it's building the sets like, you know, taking that emotional roller coaster. You know, we have so many different sounds and different emotions through our lyrics and moods and all that. And you don't want to put all the heavy stuff right up front. You don't want to save all the energetic stuff till the end. You know, it's what's building that dynamic roller coaster.

The journey feel like to go on. So let me give you this, right? For just in case you guys thought that you had it hard, the way that I have to put together a live show, uh, I come up with ideas in the most sterile environment possible, uh, just on my own. Maybe it gets clipped and put on the internet. I have an indication that some people think it's cool or maybe not, who knows? Then when I go and test it live, there's no sound, right?

Because the single best thing that can happen unless it's stand up and there's some bits of stand up, but that's not the meat and potatoes of my live show. If I'm going to go and do this, like the best thing that I can have is pin drop silence. Oh yeah So I'm inverting What every live artist throughout history Has ever tried to go for I want the most silent

I want deathly quiet Yeah And then like hanging on what the next bit of the story Or the word is going to be I'm like Was that more quiet than the other bit Like I have no fucking idea And then people finish up

And they go I love the bit about the man That fell over on the street Or whatever the fuck it is It someone comes up with And I'm like I'm trying to aggregate that is for me, you know, a real interesting challenge. I've loved the live element.

I've loved being able to put together a set, not too dissimilar to the way that you guys do. I've got like tracks. I've got insights and ideas and I can piece these together in an interesting manner that hopefully takes people on a journey and I don't want to have all of the funny stuff up front and I don't have all of the sad boy stuff at the end.

Yeah. You know, so on and so forth. You'll see on Sunday in Toronto. Yeah. But the fucking feedback mechanism, dude, Yeah. It's like, I don't know, I feel like a MI6 age. Sherlock Holmes.

Trying to reverse engineer what it is that the audience is thinking about. Yeah. Are you enjoying this? Do you like it more than the last bit? Who fucking knows? What does the silence represent to you? Attention. Presence.

Yeah. Like real. Like, there's bits that happen. I haven't got enough of them in this one, but the next show, which is Australian, New Zealand. in March and then Bali. There's a couple of bits where people catch their breath, where you hear like a, like that, and I'm like, oh, that's fucking cool.

That's sick. Like, especially given that the room is fucking pin drop silent, and then you hear this like collective depressurization of the whole room, as everyone just gasps a little bit. And I'm like, oh, that's fucking cool. And then there's like laughy bits, and I've got some new, I tested, I did the final work in progress show last night.

and uh tested some new stand-up bits and they fucking destroyed they was so much fun they're like there's some of them that are way too spicy for me to feel comfortable saying and like i tested some can't do that in canada stuff and i'm like i can't do that in can't do that in america rather um yeah but it's it's real interesting and i've very much appreciated getting to watch uh you guys and everyone else like how much attention gets paid to constructing a set i was with uh fucking sam and dan from architects mhm-hmm jesus fucking christ dude like they pay so much attention to like every little bit transitions bits in between songs and uh yeah you're just some fucking dude in the crowd

bopping away having a good time and you don't realize oh they played like they played the song from the old album or whatever and you go yeah do you realize how many conversations and like tens of hours were had just about that one bit of that one section of that show that you went to. It's crazy. It's so cool. It's like it's it doesn't just effortlessly happen. It's kind of like a comedy set, right? Like there's all of this work that goes into it to make it seem effortless on the front end. Yeah. I mean we're already talking about you know this this winter uh getting together and you know just you know doing some creative stuff whether it's like demo in or whatever it may be. but it's a live show.

We're playing our live show. We're planning on, okay, well, if we're going to play this song, what's the kind of cool interlude or how does it go from this song to this song? Okay, there's a guitar change, so we need to eat up some time. Well, maybe I'll talk over that part. Is it going to be dead silent? There's going to be music under it. Is it going to be, you know, and then start talking like,

well, how can we spice up these old songs? We're going to extend the bridge. I'm going to try and get... That's great jokes about America and Canada if you need to throw something. But, yeah, it's, yeah, a lot of, a lot of thought goes into that and i think that's what makes these shows even more special i've seen architects a handful of times and if i wasn't in the shoes i am now i probably wouldn't have realized all the little details but yeah you can you can tell if you if you're looking for it or

you're you're paying attention to the whole the whole set you can tell that they put in a lot of work based on your experience who do you think has got the greatest attention to detail in the world alternative music as a member of a band or a collective overall. Bring to the Horizon. I was going to say, OLLIV as well. Ollie's level of attention to detail is like a fucking universe warping thing. It's insane. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's the game, you know? I think like paying attention to those 1% details and like nailing them, it's the difference between being Bring Me the Horizon, right? Like one of the biggest rock bands right now and I guess anyone else, right? It's like Roger Federer has said

one of the greatest tennis players ever has only won like 55% of his points. So is someone that reads the newsletter. Fucking knew that I liked you, man. I fucking knew that I liked you. I also like tennis. So like... Yeah, in order to win 80% of his games,

he's only 1, 52% of his points. Yeah, and that's, and we, don't get me wrong, like we try to play that game. Like, I think, right, like, yeah, if you're at a, if you're in the audience eating a corn dog being like, oh, I'm having a lot of fun with this. Like, you don't realize that.

Not only, like, we have carefully and painstakingly built the live set. Like, we, there have been, half of the video footage from one of our tours, I filmed in my basement with these dudes, like and we just like paint because we had someone else to it and we're like it's just not right like we're just going to have to do it ourselves but you mean you filmed it filmed what so like video content in the uh in behind us on on stage we've on the iMacs yeah oh the equipment well the iMAX

would be like following right yeah but it's the screen that it's in between the iMac being bullshit we have like a character like narrate in between every couple songs and so that character was yeah that's cool yeah but then even i mean yeah going back to the songwriting process Like, I was joking about being like, hey, guys, what do you think if I add this one note where I'm playing at 30% velocity on the snare drum? Most people will never even hear it, but I think that they'll feel that it's there. And that might make a difference. And it's like paying attention to those little things.

Or like, yeah, bring these case. Like, what is the thing that builds the lore of this whole? The outfit, social posts. And then you take it a step further, I suppose, with somebody like Sleep token. But you also remove things, right? which allows you to suck in that speculation. 100% that vacuum.

Yeah, I mean, I've been thinking an awful lot recently about attention to detail and obsession. I have a conflicted relationship with obsession, quite an obsessive person, which is good and the attention to detail also good. But it comes with quite a high price. And I think you see this with any of my art. his friends that are at that kind of a level, I think it's almost impossible to not have

chronic self-doubt and a high attention to detail. I think that the two things are the same thing. I think the reason that you're pushing so much and that you're paying attention is like, can this be better? Let me give an example. Depending on how old the can of Neutronic. Okay, this is interesting. So this is a slightly older batch. I can tell that this is an older batch. From the back here, uh, yeah, yeah, okay. So you see the Instagram logo there? See, it's slightly offset outside of the follow us. Yep, to the left.

It might not be on that one. That'll be centralized. That should be centralized. So mine and yours will be off to one side. Yep. And yours should be in the middle. Do you see how mine's offset to the left of the F? Yep.

Guess who picked that up? You. Yes. Like, and this is like millions of cans deep, right? This runs being going for ages. I'm like, oh, somebody left, like half a point to the left. They left aligned it inside of the margin. They didn't central align it inside of the space.

Yeah. Great. We now have a can that's got this 1%, not even, like, 0.0.0.0.0.1%. Improvement. Fantastic. When I'm trying to refine the question idea that I've got for Matthew McConaughey or the way I'm going to word this new, oh, the Atlas complex I'm going to come up with on a newsletter, not so fantastic in my personal life.

Yeah. Right? And it's like, hey, obsession, you're great. It would work. Can I turn you off when, like, you know, I want to fucking chill out on a night time? Yeah. You don't get to do that. It permeates all of you.

And I think this is one of the reasons that artists get conflicted a lot of the time. And Ollie is a good example of that. He is a fucking good friend. friend. I've known him for like over a decade and a lovely, lovely, lovely guy, but you pay a high price. If you want to be Ollie Sykes, you pay a high price. If you want to be Vessel from Sleep token, you pay a high price. You don't get extraordinary outcomes with ordinary inputs and these guys have got extraordinary inputs, but they're not all good. Yeah. Yeah, I'm convinced that you can't achieve anything great without having high levels of, of,

obsession. And it is, I think it's just, yeah, like, what pain do you want? Do you want the pain of not achieving the big thing that you really want to achieve? Or do you want the pain of doing that while knowing that what takes you there also can be an internal struggle every step of the way? Just which pain do you want? And had a healthy dash of imposter syndrome over it. And it's great. Yeah. Mark Manson has this idea. He says, what are you willing to, what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to suffer and struggle for? Any pursuit, even the most existentially aligned, will regularly feel like work. So if you're oriented toward the pain, you're more likely going to be aligned with what you can do over the long term as opposed to if you're just oriented toward the pleasure. So everybody says, find what looks like work to everyone else, but feel like. like play to you as a good piece of advice for a competitive advantage, which is unique an end of one. But that disregards the fact that even the best pursuits regularly feel like labour, right? Like being on the bus and these sleepless nights and chaos and being away from

the family and all the rest of this stuff, like that is the price that you pay. If all it was was pleasure, you'd be like, I have no real desire to play a musical instrument. But it would be fun to get the pleasure of just, like, playing on stage. But I don't want to have to spend a decade learning to play an instrument. So orienting yourself toward the prices is better than orienting yourself toward the profits. Because people get kicked out. It's the exact same with relationships. It's the exact same with relationships.

Relationships don't end because insufficient good times. They end because of too many sufficient bad times. It's not that you're connecting a too shallow of a lot. level typically it's that your disconnections are occurring at too deep of a level and the way that you handle arguments is the best predictor of how many people break up because they say you know the exciting times they just weren't that excited no it's because we kept arguing all the time it's because things were going wrong it's because we couldn't connect it's because you know it was like an overabundance of problems not a scarcity of of praises let's say thank you

That makes sense. Yeah. And I think that, I think that you see the same thing with people's pursuits. And it's like, you want to be fucking vessel? You want to be Ollie Sykes? It's like, okay, this is the mindset that you need to have. And this is the sort of life that you're going to have to lead. You want to be Lewis Capaldi.

Because you can't separate his anxiety attacks from his songwriting ability. Yeah. That his anxiety attacks are his songwriting ability. It's like just this huge fuck. It's a onesie, right? Not an outfit. It's not something that you get to. piece together.

Yeah. This huge big onesie and you just zip the fucker up. And you're like, okay, I guess I'm just him now. 100%. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think about like, Bo Burnham comes to mind where I'm like, hmm, great example. A genius.

I'm like, you are a genius comedian. And also, to be that genius, you have panic attacks on stage. And I mean, God, I have no idea what he's just gone. He's gone. Yeah, yeah. It's, I think, you know, or like. Michael Jordan, right? Like, you want to be the, the greatest basketball player.

But to be that, you have to, what a large percentage of people who interact with him would maybe say he's an asshole. You know what I mean? And still now, the last dance thing seems, no, like, still conflicted. Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting, I find it interesting that we are, like, typically so pain averse as a collective. Well, also, the standard way of life is I'm going to get in a relationship, which means there's going to be a lot of pain in there, like with what you were saying. And then I'm going to have children, which is probably one of the, I'm not a parent, but like one of the greatest challenges.

And you just accept, you're like, oh, I just don't sleep for years. And, but like the idea, like, it's the same principle that, like, I'm going to sacrifice my life. for X period of time for this longer, greater vision that I think it's going to make my life better in the long run. If I'm not, again, I'm not apparent. I think that's what they think. I don't know. But it's interesting to me that for a lot of people, that doesn't necessarily apply to

other aspects of their life either, which is, yeah, for me, it's kind of like flipped on the reverse, though, too, where I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm willing to give the sacrifice for the career and all that type of stuff. and then you throw a kid in my face, and I'm like, I don't know if I'm willing to do that right now. You know what I mean? So, I don't know. Maybe it's just one or the other.

I don't know. I don't have a kid either, dude. Yeah. Yeah, the obsession thing, one final point on that, I'd love to get your opinion on. So people talk about sort of the relationship between discipline, motivation, obsession. And I think the reason obsession is kind of having a moment.

Right now, Zach Pogorob, a friend of mine lives in New York does a lot of running. He's like, Mr. Obsession. And I think he's fantastic at what he does. I think his new running app is great and everyone should go and download it. I've always been a little conflicted about the obsession thing because I'm trying to

detox myself at least a little bit from obsession. I'm trying to become more of a lifestyle maxi than like a progress maxi, let's say. And the reason that I think people love obsession so much is it's the freest motivation that you're ever going to get. Like if you say that sort of motivation is I kind of want to do this thing and discipline is I have to do this thing. Obsession is I can't not do this thing. So if you think about sort

of discipline is you forcing yourself through something and motivation is you encouraging yourself through something, obsession is you getting like ripped, like pulled forward by the If that makes sense, it's like, like being pulled by it. And in some ways, that's great. But in other ways, I think it's really dangerous because at least with motivation and discipline, largely you at least get to tolerate the gas pedal. But with obsession, you never get to turn it off.

It's like, oh, I have to, like, I am compelled. I can't not do this thing. What if there's a time when you do want to not do that thing? What if you need a weekend off? what if you have had somebody close in your life pass away and you need to think about that you probably could do it dealing with your emotions for a couple of weeks or something

and you go, no, no, no, I must do more tracks. I guess there's songs to play and it shows to do. Hmm, I wonder, I worry that the profits that are very obvious from obsession, free motivation, free discipline, consistency without effort, basically, because you're being pulled. I wonder how many people will look back and realize that that was like just chronic imbalance that felt easy at the time. And in retrospect, they're like, oh, fuck. I don't know whether that was the best decision

and I didn't really have that much choice. So like a little bit more scrutiny around obsession might be worthwhile. This is very wet clay fucking bro science at the moment, all right? So like it might be largely bullshit. What's making you rethink? What's making you want to step back from obsession? I'd done basically the same thing for nearly two decades now,

which is just completely bury myself at working hard. And that's great. but it can cause you to become myopic and laser-focused and blinkered about other things that you could do with your life and that's not even necessarily other things outside of the project it's other things within the project so for instance for me to go and do the live shows it makes my life harder

and financially it's a horrendous decision um it's been there it's there for sure it's I mean even you know we're we're going to do shows between 1,500 and 750

ish caps so they are perfectly profitable and and apart from the fact that I've got to fly fucking ton of people out that it's fine but if I was making a business decision I would just continue to do the show if I was making a platform decision

I just continued to do the show I was making a lifestyle decision, I just continue, like all of the elements of obsession would point me away from variation, be like, do more of the thing. But that doesn't necessarily live, lead you to a varied, well-lived, adventurous life. And, yeah, I'm thinking much more about what do I sort of want to look back, what are the memory dividends that I want to give myself in future. And maybe that means letting go of some modes of validation and positive reinforcement that I know work and rolling the dice on some. I'm like, huh, I'll see if this, I'll see how this makes me feel.

Maybe this would just be different or interesting. Maybe this will contribute to longevity, consistency, like stick with itness over time. So I'm not going to just like continue to grind away and grind away and grind away. I've just done, I've done business and like hard lots of time in front of a laptop or walking and talking on the phone coming up with ideas or writing or doing whatever. I've done that for a long time. I'm like, I think maybe trying to remove the blinkers a little bit is a bit of a good idea. The equivalent of an acoustic track, I guess, on an album. Track eight in particular? Track eight, yeah, yeah. Do you, in the back of your head, do you think at all of like, well, like, if the obsession is still, like, chirping at you, like,

Do you still think like, okay, well, yeah, like, obviously, like, I would keep doing the thing, but also knowing that if I'm going to keep doing the thing, like, sticking with the main format and repeating what works is really important, but there also has to be room for that 20% experimentation, knowing that 18% of those experiments will flop, but those 2% might be a new format that I can now use and build. Like, do you find the obsession kind of sneaking in that? way or is it purely like I just want to do this for me because I think it's like a cool thing yeah that's it's a really great question um I guess this is the same as you know

the second album third album syndrome the bands have yeah where they go we got famous for doing that thing yeah we just do it again we just do it again right we could just run it back like people want more of they love that last one they just want more of the same right um yeah the opportunity to experiment one of the slight difficulties that you have with this is that there's no such thing as practicing in private yeah every single we didn't go through this we didn't dry run this in a rehearsal space yesterday oh when you say that I'm going to make a dick joke and when you do that you know we'll do silly bus time like um nice it's stuck yeah

it's it's in um you don't get to do that so everybody gets to watch you fail in public. You sort of learn out loud over and over again. And that's great because you get to track the journey and it's like, oh, how interesting is this? You know, it would be like if every demo, in fact, no, it would be like if every practice session on the drums was published on the internet. Oh my God. Right? Because there's no such thing as practicing. There's no such thing as, like you can perform in private. You can't do that here. And you can't even practice in private. But when I could do a pod with someone that was just a friend that I wouldn't ever publish, but the stakes aren't there, which means that no one's going to take it as seriously as you need to

because you don't have the scrutiny and the fear of the audience. So, yeah, it's an interesting one, man. It's a very unique position to be in. And experimentation, new studio, which is just right now being built a couple of miles away from here. That'll be exciting. Awesome. Trying to do stuff like the McConaughey thing, running that back. yeah just okay what what's new what's different um trying to integrate music into the next live show

like the australia canada australia new zealand one next year that'll be interesting okay what what are some areas where that 20% exists where i might be able to find the two and um yeah it'll be it'll be exciting but that being said when i see the degrees of freedom and the amount of experimentation that somebody like an ollie or a noah or a whatever, is able to play with, or you guys, like, fuck, like it feels, I want to embrace more of that. I think it's very admirable. I think you guys are very fortunate that you have so much artistic freedom.

I think that's something that you shouldn't take lightly, because there are much more constricted modes of putting your ideas and your thoughts and your emotions out there, and you guys have one of the ones that's the freest, like, as is shown by the fact that you can release a fucking acoustic track. and not just release it, release it and it would be received unbelievably well. Yeah, trying to

embrace that opportunity to be, all right, we can be a bit more experimental. What do you wish when you sort of think about the next few years for the band, what would you love to experiment a little bit more with? Like if you got ideas for how you want the live show to luck, ideas for how you want new sounds to come through, like, what are you working toward?

Yeah, all of it. I mean, from, from, you know, now with this sonic change we have, still rediscovering what the next chapter iteration is going to be. This is just the beginning, you know, what we get into, now we get to see what works and what may not work. And just with, the music alone but then going to the live shows and you know we've done practical stage setups with we had a tour where there's a wrestling ring and it was rage on the stage and then we went and did the thing where it was just video content and as crazy as video content we could to incorporate with the songs whether it was lyrics or just these crazy scenes that we're staying in front of and now how do we incorporate the two to have this massive look and how do we how do we keep making the live show better how

do we uh transition from this song to the next song and make this memorable moment and uh yeah it's just like you said i think we're very lucky to be in this position as as challenging as it is also lucky to have all this open ground it's a little daunting and scary to look at the big picture of it and go okay what do we do first where do we go from here what what is the best move because like you're saying it's like you're trying things and you're trying them in front of a million people you know and their you know failure is going to feel bad but if you crush it it's going to feel so rewarding but we if you look at all these different things you know in in categories it's it's exciting to look and see you know i'm i'm ready to get back in the studio and start

writing i'm ready to get with the guys in the soft time and start playing out the live show which songs are going to be in or what's going to be the encore what's going to be the first song what what's going to be to the to the to the to the to the stock you know everything it's um there's a big open road and it's it's exciting to see it's just exciting to think about what's going to come from our creative hive mind here yeah yeah i think like i'm thinking about the obsession piece and i think like for myself probably for a lot of artists across music or whatever I feel like

obsession comes from scarcity of like I have to be obsessed about this because I this could end at any time we could put out again this is I don't think this is true but like I think the insecurity

on our part is with everything being an experiment or fully creative it's we don't have that format we can keep coming back to because then people go let me put it this way if you put out

the podcast format you've got the three cameras you go back and forth you can bring in a new guest ask good questions people aren't going to be like I'm so sick of you sitting in a room

asking people good questions and hearing thoughtful responses you don't hear that as much at least is my assumption right but if we come back I prefer the old question yeah exactly exactly but if we yeah if we keep

trying to recreate the same song people are like well I just like the original song stop trying to do the same thing. I want to hear something new. And so we're constantly in this state of like, okay, let's try to balance these people who like our old music. They might say that they want the same shit, but they don't want the same shit. But then if we give them the new shit, they're like, I don't like it because it's new. And so it's like, it feels like your whole career

is balanced on like, we release one bad song and everyone rejects us and hates us. It's not true, the insecurity and that's like the scarcity of that this whole thing could end like that at any time and so I'm going to obsess to try to build as strong of a foundation as possible so that if an experiment goes wrong meaning a song is not received well or a tour doesn't sell the way you want to that we're still okay like we're we got the next thing coming up and we got the next song and you know yeah so it's a bit well yes I agree like the creativity of it is great As a fellow YouTuber, I know what it's like to be like, this format works. We're just going to swap this word in the title.

Boom, we got a video. We're good to go. Thumbail. We know exactly what it's going to be. But yeah, in the world of creating a song, it's like, what do we think is cool? I would really struggle, I think, with the pressure of getting it right. Yeah. Because, yeah, you're right.

I put an episode out, you know, some people liked it, but no, everybody liked it. Sure. Doesn't matter. It's one of a thousand. Exactly. Literally one of a thousand. You've got many more coming that week. People already...

You don't like it on Thursday? Wait two days. There's another one on Saturday. Wait two more days. There's another one on Monday. Yep. The fucking sphincter tensing concern of album release morning.

Yeah. What are people going to say? What are the reviews going to be like? What's Reddit going to say about it? You know, like fucking are people going to download it? People are they going to stream or what are they going to do-da-da-da-da-da. Like that's a lot. And you've spent all of this time.

I mean, you've poured bits of yourself into it, and you've second-guessed it, and yeah, that would be, that must be a, that's a real, a real, real challenge. I think I'd very much struggle with that. It is. I think we had, we had one experience this year I mentioned that, I think, kind of put that in perspective. So, you know, we've had this whole situation of like, okay, we're coming out as a band with a new lineup and releasing our, first song as like the new lineup the day before our manager dies in a plane crash and it's like perspective just dawns on you so fast of i mean we've been working right like i said for 14 15 months on this this one moment of like we can't fuck this part up this is our coming out party of of

new song, new lineup and for all of that buildup to then have like the tragic event happened the day before it was a perspective shift of like dude I don't

I don't care like we yes we put this out but like we lost one of our guys like to put it out without him like just felt wrong in itself um so i think like i don't know i it it's a helpful reshift of man we are just so self-centered i think as as people and just like thinking about like what are people going to think about this what are people going to think about this what are

think people are going to think about this but like in that moment it's just like oh dude none of this none of this actually matters i enjoy doing it i want people to connect with it that is still my goal i still do have the you know with with the following singles like i still had that thought but it's like oh but in the grand scheme of things like this is this is a two and a half minute song and if people don't like it okay and if people like it that's super cool but yeah kind of like what you were talking about earlier man like i'm not my i'm not going to miss my life because of this one song because something just tragic happened in my life i'm going to make sure that like i'm with my people like seeing how you guys are doing seeing how everyone

affected is doing um yeah perspective can dawn on you real in a single moment pretty quickly yeah yeah man that was a very very tough and conflicting time and emotions you're building up for this like excitement here we go here we go about to pull the trigger here we go countdown begins you know two weeks away a week away we're getting the video back a couple days before and lining up the artwork getting the single all this stuff doing the the the press the week of to have it all drop the you know days following and and then waking up 24 hours before the song comes out i I think it was 24 hours.

I think it was that night it was coming out, I believe. Yeah, technically at midnight. So, you know, waking up to the worst, oh, man, waking up to the worst fucking phone call. And then it's all of that, all of that's gone. All that, the excitement, all the pressure, all the, the unanswer, the unknown is it doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter.

And, yeah, it's been a really, really eye-opening, really difficult release just with all of that happening on top of the change, the lineup change, the uncertainty, the unknowns, and then having that guy that you just call and text anytime if, you know, oh, man, I'm sorry, just having that rock that you're like, oh, man, I'm going to call them if, you know, we're freaking out about. about this release or the, you know, what are the comments going to be? Oh, I got Dave, I can just hit up and he'll ease my mind over it and kind of realize what's what's most important in life.

All this, it doesn't matter. Take a shot on something and it, it, it flops. It's not the end of the world, you know. There's going to be more opportunity to come, you know, and yeah, it's been a crazy time. It's been a crazy time in the I prevail camp. Yeah. yeah I mean it's weird because I feel like we were talking about it earlier almost in the opposite sense of like well I want to like I want to live life and like doing exciting things it's like that is living life but then it does always kind of come back to like yeah but who is with you like who are the relationships like it I my perspective is I don't know that unless they're bad relationships it's it's worth losing relationships over. You know, I don't know what Keith Urban thinks.

You know, maybe that's, that was an even trade for him. And God, I don't fucking know what his, what his situation was. I can't even begin to comment on it. But, like, yeah, I think what's the sacrifice? What's the cost? And, like, I think it's fair to ask, like, is it worth it or not? A lot of the times, I think that answer can be yes. But I think starts to get dicey when it's relationships.

Like, if that's the cost of losing good relationships, like, I don't know. Yeah. Dude, it is a, it sounds like it's been a series of being kicked in the dick months so far this year. I'm sorry that you guys have had to go through that. I'm really sorry. We appreciate it, man. It's been, it's been tough. It's honestly, you know, when a point where you're supposed to.

be like, oh, this is the most exciting thing that's going to happen in the next couple months getting to see what people say and have new music and material and then, you know, that happens and we each all have personal things going on at the same time and it's been tough. But I think you find strength through the struggle and I think our relationship within each other within the band has only gotten stronger. I think relationships just outside our inner circle have gotten stronger. Um, yeah, I've, I've always been, um, someone that's tried to keep that mentality of like positive mental attitude and strength through struggle. You know, you go through something, okay, what am I going to learn right now from this to carry and, and learn a lesson from or, or whatever, whatever it may be. But, um, yeah, it's been tough, but I've learned a lot. And I think we've all learned a lot. And I think, uh, it, it, you know, it, you know, know that's all you can really do is is grow from it and and learn life lessons the hard way

and implement them down the road and be try to be a better person or a better friend or a better you know a family member whatever it may be better bandmate and uh yeah yeah it's it you know try not try not dwell on it and and just take the lessons as they come well i mean you're going have one hell of an amount of deep emotional well to tap into when it comes to writing the next record and you know what better of a tribute to somebody there's a huge part of the band than to just keep doing the thing that they wanted you to crush at you know i think you see this with architects oh absolutely that that was oh man tragic tragic and then hearing the record i've been a fan of them for a while so like hearing the records leading up to um his

passing and then going back and really understanding the lyrics in context home they won't play that tribute song live anymore they refuse to uh i think that's track eight as well on their album interestingly enough and uh they'll play on this most recent tour they play the sort of like interlude and then they play an intro they play like a bridge in the intro thing and then just as the lyrics are about to start they just kill it and they're just going to the next track and yeah they were like it's just too fucking heavy

to play live but yeah man I'm sure that he's feeling real proud of what you guys have done I really think he will be I appreciate that man yeah yeah yeah it's

man just grateful grateful to have other people that like we can be open about it with you know not everyone has that fuck dude imagine if you were a solo artist 100% oh yeah you're just some bloke on a bus yeah with a new manager yeah with with the same or maybe the lighting guy maybe you've got like maybe maybe like you're fucking yeah your ld or like your tm or something is like kind of cool yeah and you have a bit of a chat with them but no one else really knows what you're going through

or the pressure of the performance or anything else. So, yeah, when you say like the relationships and the camaraderie that you have in the band, yeah, sure, would it be great if you didn't have to split the measly, tiny amount of money that the record labels drip feed to you the fucking end of the human centipede? Would it be nice if it didn't have to go

like four other ways on top of your way? Maybe, but then how much? harder would it be like it would be more than five times harder yeah you know yeah uh so bandmates are expensive but when you look at them in terms of like motivation fuel they're probably pretty cheap yeah i think i think like we all are trying to impress each other in a certain way which like grows all of what we do because i think a lot of the guys in the band are very impressive individuals and impressive people so it's like okay well if i'm gonna if i'm gonna stay in this. I got to really show up.

Game up. So that's one thing that I've noticed, at least since spending a bit of time around bands. There is this odd balance between the need to keep morale high, especially on tour, and the understanding that if you suppress your emotions for too long, that

it's going to fuck you up. Yep. Because if you're moping, like I know for a fact that there are ancillary, maybe not quite central. I In fact, no, I know for a fact, too. We all know that there are people that are part of band constructs who are more talented than they need to be,

but a sufficiently difficult hang that they actually can't survive in the world of being on the road with the other people that are there. It's like, love the video girl, thought she was brilliant. Fuck me, she did my head in. She can't stay. Well, we're not going to get someone better at video. I would happily have someone half as good at video who is like fucking 90% less than I. Yeah.

Or whatever it might be, right? It's just clash of personalities, class of culture, whatever. And one of the things I think that's in the back of the mind of lots of artists that is spending time on the road is must keep morale high. If I'm struggling and I steam into. to the fucking back lounge at 11 a.m. and go, today sucks. Everything's hard. I'm tired. My back hurts. You know, you just unload all of this. Well, now everybody else is feeling that way. And you don't want to be the guy that brings the vibe down. Yeah. But also, if you're in this

permanent, like, constant state of denial, at what point are you allowed to actually have? I'm struggling, man. I miss whoever it is. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, miss this person or I've been thinking about this or me and the misses are like made a tough conversation last night. You don't have any room for that. So you've got this weird, I got to perform on stage. And then I also kind of have to fucking perform to my bandmates to an amount. And I got to sort of tolerate the temper the fucking dose. Right. We're going to like dilute down triage this fucking sadness, the realness. Or maybe got, like, I can, I can talk to the playback. tech like he's good like i'm all right to talk to him about how sad i am or whatever but like i can't

unload it on the band because i want to make sure that like eric got a big night tonight his family's all coming he's going to be a bit more nervous than me like whatever the fuck like it permeates everything yeah yeah that's something we've we've had i think every band's had like whether it's crew or band member or something that's that's just going through something and and uh doesn't know the best time to dump and over the years the crew that we've we've had that return for multiple years uh we have strong relationships with them the guys within the band and the the crew that are on the bus with us um been doing it for long enough i feel like we have our own little uh i don't say clicks but you know uh Gabe and steve have a lot of the things in common Dylan and our other guitarist and I have a

of things in common. John and I have in common things. So there's different types like days that were, you know, a day off or something. Us two are going to go hang and, and, uh, if I'm having one of those days I really need to talk. Sometimes like, if I, if I bring it up, it's, I just got a, I got a vent about something. Like, are you emotionally available right now for me to like dump on the dump on you real quick? Oh yeah, yeah, sure. But I think we've been doing this so long that I could just, I don't know, I feel like, um, I feel like I was going through it on this last year up two are pretty heavy and i didn't say shit and i because i know everyone's going through it with with dave and everything else going on around the camp and i just you know just kind of bit my

tongue and kind of stayed shut in and i'm usually one of the guys that's like well i'm going to go check out this band we're on this fest today i'm going to hop from this stage for this stage go have some beers with them and do this and i just didn't do any of it and i i'm grateful to have of these guys be so in tune with each other that they see something go on. They know, they know. And before I even know sometimes that I'm falling off the wagon emotionally or doing, they stepped in.

They step in like, hey, dude, come have a beer with me. We're going to the bar tonight. Like, come on. Come out. And it just gets brought up in conversation. And I talk it out and it's like, damn, I really fucking needed that. I really needed that.

It's good being in tune much. Again, the fucking solo artist thing, dude. And I mean, this is another challenge, like something else that people don't realize with their favorite band. As soon as you move from mid-level to just beyond where you guys are, as opposed to being on the bus,

you'll probably be able to get hotels every night. Yeah. And wouldn't that be wonderful? God, so much better. Oh, I'm on my own. Yeah. I'm in a room on my own. I'm in a room on my own.

Yeah. and that again Velvet Hand Cup Do you know how few fucking bad You remember being in the fucking transit thing sleeping on the roof Whatever the fuck Walmart parking lots man

Yeah And you're like okay Now we've got a butt Wouldn't it be great for it would be great If we had hotels And it For every level there's a devil There's a way to look at it

Yeah I mean yeah Do you Is Taylor Swift getting a ton of sympathy You know Not really No But yeah

Like someone who's on our own on our private jet, but also alone. Very lonely. Yeah. Would it be better? I mean, my tour, we get to fly me and the guys, we can pick a row. Like, hey, we get to pick our seats. Yeah.

Like, that's kind of nice. Like, you know, you've got a board together. You're in the airport. Maybe you get yourself some fucking, like, tacos or something. Yeah. And there is this weird isolation that comes with, not that comes with success, because that sounds like it's like the ethos of being successful. or something, there is a type of isolation that is afforded by luxury,

like structurally afforded. Well, you know, you don't need to get the bus. You can get an Uber. But you don't need to get the Uber. You can get a driver. So it's the same guy, and he knows that you don't want to talk or whatever. Like, you don't need to be in the van. You can be in the bus.

You don't need to be in the bus. You can be in the hotel. You don't need to be in the hotel. You can be each in your own bus and then on your jail. You know, and you become increasingly isolated. Yeah. Well, I mean, this can even happen to people at home. too, right? It's like, oh, I just want a cool house with like, I'm sick of going to the gym.

I want a gym in my house. That'd be cool. Okay, cool. You get a gym in your house. And then you're like, I'm sick of always having to like go out for meals. I'm just going to door dash everything. And I'm sick of going out to the pool. I just want to pool in my own house. And before you know, it's like you just build. This is not from experience, by the way. But like, you know, for people who are successful at home, it's like, yeah, cool. Now I have this place where I don't have to go anywhere. and that actually kind of sucks. Yeah, I'm sick of getting complained out by my wife when I want to play video games.

I just want a video game room. You have a video game room and you spend two hours less per day with your wife. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I'm grateful for the complexities of living with a bunch of smelly men. And we have a system for this. So, yes, there's navigating our own emotional, internal struggle with each other

and yeah those I think are done typically through like one-on-one. So you're like, oh, let's go grab lunch or whatever and hey man, my whole life fucking sucks. And then you talk about that, right? But then how do we all work together and not build resentment together? A lot of testosterone, you know?

We're artists, so it's maybe a lot in the lower side, but we've built a system called Sunday Smackdowns. So every Sunday on the road, we will just kind of group together and it's kind of like hey this is the time like how has everything gone this past week are we good

is there anything yeah and I mean it can either be personal of like hey that thing you said the other day actually like really piss me off like can we kind of talk about that a little bit or hey dude I think like what you're saying during this part of the set is not landing like or Gabe your time

on this song is actually not great or your wardrobe is like pretty lame actually right like kind of the just an opportunity for us to come together and it's like creating the umbrella of we are open for criticism and we are open or constructive feedback whatever you want to say fearless feedback yeah and also able to give it and it kind of it disintegrates this awkward thing that I think a lot of us experience in relationships where, let's say your girlfriend thinks like, you know, hey, everything's all good. Then you kind of have to have this awkward moment.

You're like, hey, I want to bring something up. And now it's like, oh, she wasn't expecting you to bring something up. And now it's kind of like, well, hey, I was just kind of like wanting to have a nice little Sunday afternoon. And now you're coming to me with this thing that I did yesterday. I don't really feel like talking about it. But it's important to you, so we'll talk about it. But I'm kind of on it.

Like, now I'm on edge, but I think honestly just literally having, hey, this is a thing that we do. And hey, if we sit down, we're like, all good, yes? Okay, cool. Let's see you later. But it just creates an environment to be able to, like, open up about it and, like, not have that, like, bunting of heads. In a non-judgmental way, it's really smart.

Yeah. Especially walking off stage if something frustrated you or you bumped into, like, we don't do, like, much blocking, but it's like, oh, dude, I was, I was going to step up on the riser with the spotlight and at that point or like, you know, whatever, whatever it may be. It's like, don't have to walk off stage and it's still burning in my brain

and it's, the other guy doesn't even know he did it. And now I have to bring this up and, well, now you just look back on that show that, like, it sucked. And then it's going to roll into your next show and all that. So to have that where it's like, yeah, like a week ago, I've been thinking about it, honestly, it didn't even really bother me that much. I'm just going to say right now, but I've cooled off over it, too.

like it's but then you're not ruining someone's show the next time then you're when you go to perform you just you're thinking about that and you're not thinking about being in the moment of performing and yeah I think it's very helpful we started doing that. Dale Carnegie wrote a lesser known second book that's called how to stop worrying and start living and in it he advocates for something called worry time and that's basically what you guys have got which is if your brain knows when it's going to be able to ruminate about something it's able to release at least a little bit of the need to ruminate right now

as opposed to you like getting just a tiny bit of sand flicked at you every second you just pick this big rock up at the end of the week and I think that's really smart there's this fucking wonderful idea from Neil Strauss

he says unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments whoa wow that's shit yeah it's a fucking it's a real like oh that's so true yeah that's so true i didn't tell you that i wanted you to do this thing and then you didn't do it and i got mad at you or i didn't tell you that this thing pissed me off and i wanted you to stop and then you kept doing it and i got mad at you um unspoken expectations

a premeditated resentment and what you're doing is you're allowing yourselves to have a free non-judgmental forum where people are able to bring up any of the uh spoken expectations right and they're able to get away from those metastasizing into resentments. I think it's fucking, it's clever. I wonder how many bands would have improved their longevity if they'd implemented, what's it? Smackdown Sundays. Sunday Smackdown.

Yeah, I think. We're licensing it right now. The silly bus. Scylis time. I got a tattoo to my finger already so you can't take it. SBT, baby. That's exactly the same as registering it with the, fucking trademark office.

Yeah. Soon as you get it tattooed. And your first person to get it tattooed and said, sorry, Nike. Someone got it tattooed on them in 1940 or some bullshit. Gabe and Eric,

I appreciate the fuck out of both of you. I think the new record's fantastic. Everyone should go and stream it. Are you touring? When are you touring next? Or have you not released that? Haven't released it at the moment. We're playing Warp Tour in November.

But yeah, really busy next year that people will see. We're in Europe. Yep. In October, that's announced. September October? Yeah, something like that. And then, yeah, to be determined.

Yeah, lots of stuff coming, though, so keep an eye. We'll be, we'll be touring. We were just saying we're going to be touring like, you know, like four or five months a year. It's a lot more than that this year, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would also just like to sign off by saying, Chris, your calves are magnificent. I'm so jealous. I did not know this about you.

It has not been addressed, at least from what I've seen. And damn. Thanks, man. I wondered why you were looking at that angle. I thought it was something else. I would say. I would say sort of the forearm and calf, the extremities. Oh, yeah.

I do well at the extremities. As you get more toward the middle, less conditioned. You get out toward the ends, very lean and very well conditioned. Boys, you're great, the new record fucking slaps. I'm so happy to see you. I thought you crushed it when I saw you at Summer of Loud as well. And I'm looking forward to the tour. I'll be there.

Nice. Thanks for having us.