No Filler Music Podcast - Khemmis' Quest To Reignite Metal's Spark

Episode Date: October 13, 2019

Many metal heads remember the time they were truly impacted by a metal song. That's the goal of the Denver-based four-piece, Khemmis: to recapture that feeling with every song they write. Originally thrown in the doom metal camp after their first release Absolution, Khemmis has evolved their signature vocals and dual-guitar solos into a sound that is uniquely them. Phil Pendergast's clean vocal delivery paired with the occasional growls and grunts of guitarist Ben Hutcherson help bring depth to the storytelling in Khemmis' lyrics about depression, grief, and paralyzing fear. Khemmis expertly weave in a variety of influences and genres into their music to create their signature sound, and it is one that is sure to turn any budding metal fan into lifelong loyalists. This show is part of Pantheon Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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because those are groceries, and we deliver those too, along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. For us, sort of the wellspring of inspiration is all of these other areas that are disparate from each other. And then trying to connect it with this, like, fun and adventurous music that we're just like, fun and adventurous music that we're.

was being created in the 70s where people didn't have those boundaries yet. We want to try and tap into that sort of initial inspiration that we all had when we first heard, you know, the gateway drug to metal that we had and try to like re-express that excitement that we had when we were teenagers or kids by just drawing from everything that we think is cool and that we think is inspiring. And welcome to No Filler. the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms to fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Travis. I got my brother Quentin with me. That was the voice of Mr. Phil Pendergast, a guitar player and lead vocalist for the metal band Kimmiss. And that is who we're going to talk about today. And I just love what he said there, Q.

you probably didn't hear what he was saying because you were talking the whole time. The clip was playing. Sorry, no, I heard him. So these are basically metal fans that are just pulling from all of their favorite, like, you know, like all their favorite moments of metal on what makes it great,

and they're just playing music based off of all those, like, different parts. sure so let me let me give more context to like the interview question because I didn't play that in there but basically they were having a conversation this was a like a I think the it was called like bucket list rock reviews or interviews or something like that some YouTube channel and he was asking him and they were sort of talking about like how pigeonholed specifically metal but it could apply to rock music as well, like how sometimes bands get pigeonholed with the genre that's put on them, right? Yeah.

And so, you know, they get called Doom Metal all the time. And we'll kind of talk about why they get called that later. But he was talking about how, like, from the beginning, like, they've just set out to, like, their main goal was to capture, recapture that sense of adventure and, like, excitement that they had when they were kids, like teenagers and, and, listen. to their first metal album, sort of the gateway metal album, whatever that was for them, like recapturing that, that excitement that they had when they first heard metal and just putting that on the album. And, you know, I've been listening to and reading a ton of interviews

from these guys today and yesterday. And these guys are, you even said it, Q, you said, nerd when we were playing that. But you're right, dude. These guys are music and metal nerds. And they are knowledgeable about the history of metal and rock. And we'll talk about all that a little bit more, but you could kind of hear it there. Like these guys are like scholars of metal, you know, and they bring everything to the table on this project. And like you can hear it.

So it really is, it's hard to pigeonhole them into one sound. Like they've created their own sound. So anyway, similar to how we've done this a couple times in the past. We're not going to focus on one album. Instead, I'm going to play a track from each of their three releases that they've put out so far. Well, let me just say this real quick, dude. And anyone who's been listening to this podcast long enough knows, I am unfamiliar with metal. Let's put it that way.

It's just not something that I listen to on my own time. Right. So I'm excited to get into a band that, like he just said, these guys are nerds for metal, and they're in a metal band. Like, I'm excited to hear what these guys can bring to the table. I'm super stoked, dude. Let's fucking do it. Yeah, we're just going to dive right into the music.

But, you know, as per usual, I've got to bring some history to the table first. Although I'm realizing that it might not be appropriate for this band because they've actually said in several interviews that they they don't really like the label Doom Medal, but that's the label that was thrown on them, probably because of their first record. But I wanted to give just a quick little snippet of Doom Metal history, largely considered to be sort of like the starting point for the Doom Metal genre is Black Sabbath's Master of Reality, which came out in 1971.

We talked about this on the Black Sabbath episode that we did. So go back and listen to that. If you like Sabbath and you want to hear us, or if you want to hear me nerd out about Black Sabbath and you want to hear Quentin get confused by it. Go back and listen to that episode. So anyway, I'm going to play a quick clip. I'm pretty sure we've played this clip on this podcast.

I think actually it might have been the very first episode. I think this was our outro track for the Allison Chains episode. But when you hear the guitar sound on this song, this is sort of considered the doom metal sound. So anyway, this is a song called Into the Void, and it's largely considered to be sort of like the birth of the doom metal sound. And mostly it's the guitar sound that we're interested in here. So I'm just going to play it just a little bit of the intro. show. Okay, so like, slow, like drudgy, you know. So interestingly enough, that particular guitar sound sounds like it almost happened as not necessarily an accident, but there was a reason

that he was tuning his guitars down. So apparently Tony Iommi, the guitar player for Black Sabbath, he had a factory accident back in the day which like severed the tips of two of his fingers on his guitar hand or his fret hand so like it was painful for him to to hold down the guitar notes so like tuning the guitar down like one and a half steps reduced the tension of the strings and made it less painful for him to play. And so he did that. And then Geiser Butler, the bass player, tuned down to match Iommi.

So, like, I love that, like, that sound that has now become associated with doom metal and just that heavier metal sound happened because Tony Iommi was experiencing some pain in his fingers because of an accident. He had a few years back, and so he tuned down his guitar.

to help with that. I mean, I just love that stuff. I mean, that, dude, that's crazy to me that if he's the first one to do this, it could have sounded like shit. And then like, what would you have done in that case? But the fact that it sounded like this is really cool that it's just, it's just random like that. It was like, it just paired perfectly with, with just their whole vibe, you know? That's really cool, though. Okay. So that's, that's all I want to talk about with that. to you the question you had earlier about like what makes doom metal do metal yeah it's the characteristics of it are like that slower guitar sound right so the the rhythms and the and the melodies are like it almost it's like molasses almost you know it's just really slow moving uh melodies and stuff

but that helps with the that that like feeling of impending doom and stuff along with the lyrics which are usually about, you know, grief, desolation, yeah, isolation, like, you know, depression. Right. Right, because, like, for me, not a metal fan, there is a lot of metal where the guitar lines are super fucking fast. Right, that's, and that's, that's associated with thrash metal. And here's the thing.

It's not to say that doom metal never gets fast. So, um, the next clip I got here, so in 1984, two American people, bands, one called St. Vitus, and another band called Trouble, released their debut albums. And those two albums are considered to be sort of the first, like, official, quote-unquote, do metal albums. So they took what sort of the template, sort of the ingredients of the sabb of guitar sounds, like the slow, sludgier kind of guitar and the drop tuning and all that kind of stuff. And then just made a whole album out of it, right? Same with lyrically and all that kind of stuff. So I've got,

I've got a clip here from Trouble's first album. It's called Psalm 9. This is called Revelation, Life or Death. Okay, so as you heard there, right, that was a little bit faster, right? Now it sort of went back to... But it still has that... It still kind of like drags on. Well, hold on a minute.

Drags on, I don't think it's the right word to use here. What do you mean by drags on? I mean... What I mean is like it... It kind of seems like it... Like it changes up tempo. Yeah, yeah. Like throughout the song

to where it seems like you're kind of catching up to it. I don't know how to explain it, dude. Hey, I'm a metal novice. All right, right. So, Q, it's not strange or, like, unique to have a metal song with tempo changes or, like, different parts to it. You know, a lot of times, metal songs, especially the chemist stuff that we're going to play today, can be, you know, eight minutes long, 10 minutes or even longer. metal music often goes in and out of different tempos and sounds and different parts and stuff

kind of like how we were talking about um you know progressive rock right had those different movements and stuff like metal does that all the time um so anyway with this song by trouble you know we picked up right in the middle right but then like you said it switched and went kind of slower again yeah that's the intro of the song that's that that that that that melody. They circle back to the beginning. So anyway, I think that song plus Sabbaths into the void, that gives you a good idea, or I think it's a good, it's a good segue into the sound of Kimus. So let's get into Kimmiss. I know we just kind of rushed over that, but I just, you know, I can't out myself. I wanted to play a few clips just to sort of set the stage. So anyway,

like they were saying, or like Phil was saying in that interview clip, about how they wanted to recapture the excitement that they had when they were teenagers and they listened to whatever metal album it was that was sort of their gateway drug. Phil actually talks about Judas Priest all the time. So that's, that was his gateway drug into metal. So I got to be honest, when I first heard chemist and my intro to them was their second album, hunted. like they they pulled it off like when i heard it i just like they said like i was i found my i found myself like excited again you know like cool like hearing a uh a band a metal band sort of it was like sparked that that like he was saying sense of like adventure and like

excitement and stuff like it it was something else awesome man so awesome and not cue i'm i'm hoping that this is your, these guys end up being your gateway into metal. I'm telling you right now, man. If there's a, if there's a band that can do it, it's these guys. Let me just ask you real quick, dude, real quick. When, what age were you when you got into metal? I should have asked you this at the beginning of the episode. Probably 30.

You were in your teen. Yeah, I was probably 13 or 14. Okay. Dude, I'm 32. I find it, I find it, I'm waiting for it, man. Okay, all right. I mean, you were exposed to it because I, I would listen to it in the car and stuff, right? I mean. Right. And it, but you know what? You just like, did, did you just have,

you just had show tunes in your head the whole time or something? Yeah, just nothing, you know, nothing got me. Well, I think, I think, let's do it. Yeah. I think Kimis is, today's the day. This is it. We've arrived. This is it. Kimis is the band that's going to do it. it. Well, let's do it, man. Okay. So I've got a little bit more info to share about the second and third albums, more so than the first one. So we'll just get right into the first clip from their first album. This is called Absolution. The name of the song that I'm going to play, it's called Ash Cinder Smoke. And it's tracked two. It's about seven minutes long, so I broke it up into two different pieces,

but this is a really good sort of intro into this band and sort of what they bring to the table. So here we go. Okay, Q, what's your first impression? Okay, dude. First off, I loved it. Okay. I think what stands up to me...

This is encouraging. I'm encouraged right now. Okay, so... Okay. The only kind of music that I can compare this to as far as music that I've dove into, Do you have a past?

That you have familiarity with. I know what you're about to say. Okay. And I mean, this is such a blanket term, but emo music. Okay.

It's specifically bands like like every time I die or Emery. And that's specifically the melody like and the way that he sings. Yeah.

So that's one of the things to me that makes them really unique is Phil as a vocalist. And then they've got they've got the like the juxtaposition with his, you know, really pretty vocals. Yeah. And then you've got the guy that's fucking screaming or maybe they're both screaming together. But like it's that back and forth that makes me think of those emo bands from the early 2000s that both of us got into when we were in high.

school. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I love you, dude. Yes. Okay. Well, if you love that dude, get ready, because it only gets better from here. I'm ready, man. It only gets better from here. So, two things that make them really stand out. The vocals, like you said, already talked about. But particularly Phil Pendergast and his clean vocal delivery, right? Because usually in metal music, you're going to have a little bit of a, you know, a little, a little, a little, a little, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a a little bit of gruffness to the voice, right? Sure. Now, the guitar player who sings the secondary vocals, his name is Ben Hutcherson. He's the lead guitar player, but he does sort of the screaming, growling voice. Obviously, he's providing the opposite to that, right?

I was watching this guy do a review of their third album. And I got to find his name because he was really, I really loved the guy. He had a great passion for metal, you could tell. But the way he described it, and I like the way that he referred to it as good guy or good cop, bad cop, vocals. Oh, okay. I like that. I like that, that idea of that, right?

But he was talking just like how you said, like he reminded him more of, he didn't say specifically email, but he said metal core, which I think is bands like the used and stuff like that, where it's exactly kind of what you're saying. It's not straight emo, but it's, you know, somewhere in between, right? So, like I said, the vocals is one thing that makes them stand out. The second thing is the guitar playing. A lot of times they do this dual guitar thing that you're going to hear. I noticed it in that clip. Yeah. And they do it better than almost anybody ever.

So I was going to, yeah, like, again, I'm new to this. Yeah. Is that not something that you hear a lot in metal? or in due metal or whatever kind of fucking flavor you want to throw on there? It's not something you hear very often, period, dude. Really? No. I mean, yes, you hear it, but you don't hear it executed as well as these guys do.

Okay. And so what's funny is like there was an interview that, I think the bass player said this, that he jokingly referred to it as a thin Lizzy moment in every song. So, you know, the thing you think of when you think of Thin Lizzy is Boys Your Back in Town. I was going to say, dude, like, you say these guys are nerds. Like, how many people know exactly what you're talking about when you say a Thin'Lazy moment, you know? Probably not a lot of people. I mean, if you know that Thin Lizzie is the band that played Boys are Back in Town.

And you know that Boys are Back in Town. And you would know what I'm talking about. But yeah. They got some great dual guitars on that song. Okay. So let's play this. Let's play the second clip. I got another clip here from this song.

And, okay, what I love about this song is how emotional he gets with his singing. Like, he really, you can really feel the impact of the lyrics as he's singing. So I just want you to pay this to that. You can really feel that ash, cinder, and smoke. I'm sorry. Yeah. Well, we're just going to let that hang there for a little bit. But, yeah, listen to that.

And then you're going to hear some awesome guitar work here. just a second. I'm ready. Let's play the second clip. Let's hear your, let's hear your thoughts on the, on the vocals at the end there. Because this is what,

this is where people, this is where people, this is where people either jump ship or they stay on and, and, just hold on. Okay. Here's what I was thinking. I'm not going to jump ship.

Okay. I'm into it. Let me just say that I'm just so happy that we as a species has decided. keep going with this. You know, in all the hundreds of maybe thousands of years that we've been, you know, making melodies and, you know, music was as a part of us as a species, we decided that guttural screaming is something that we want to listen to.

Here's the funny thing, Q. What did early man probably do all the fucking time, dude? gutter little screams. Hey, now look, dude. Gutter old screams. Are you trying to say that all cavemen or dummies? No. What I'm trying to say is,

now look, I will say that as a fan of metal, I don't gravitate toward that style of singing myself. When did it start, dude? Ah, man, I've looked this up before, but it goes back to the 80s. A lot of people, say that there's a song by the who that actually... No way.

Oh, Boris the Spider? Yes, exactly. Oh, my God. No, they were doing it purely as like it, but they pointed that as like, hey, that's when sort of like, yeah, a really popular band did sort of that. I love that song. Got a roll screaming. But anyway.

Dude, I love that song. Well, a lot of people say that's where it came from. Wow. So anyway, yes, I, like, I totally get it. It's not for me necessarily. either. Okay. I like it in small doses,

which is why that being said... Yeah, go ahead. Like you said earlier, quoting that one person. Yeah. Good cop, bad cop, right? Yeah, sure. I love the melodic singer.

I love his voice. I love his delivery. Yeah. And yeah, that good cop, bad cop dynamic works. Yeah. Totally. And I'm into it, too. Yeah.

they do it really well and so here's the thing we've had this conversation on this podcast before but I like to think about metal music in the same way

that you think about horror movies like horror yeah dude that's fucking great I totally get that yeah I totally get it

people sometimes people you know people you know they see a trailer for some sort of horror movie or they go and watch a horror movie and they're like disgusted by it and I have no idea

why people would get any sort of enjoyment out of it. Same thing when you hear a song like this. I think... Let's put it this way. I totally get that. There's a lot of, like, the shock, like gore films. Yeah, I don't do it.

Like soft. But there are... Hostile. But, exactly. Gore porn. Yeah. I don't know if you want to keep that in. But yeah, that's what it's called. Torture porn. Yeah.

Yeah. But the genre as a whole, like, as an entertaining experience in the theater or whatever, I get it and I appreciate it. And I totally understand why it's something that we gravitate towards as a species, because it's like you're going into it in a safe space. Yeah. And you're allowing your, you know, your mind to get into the. these uncomfortable, bizarre, and scary situations, you know, like, it's important to get into that mind space. Yeah, because you can walk out of it unharmed, you know.

Unharmed, but changed. Yeah, yeah. It allows you to feel fear without any sort of consequences. It's like going on a roller coaster. Yes, exactly. So for the same reason that, like you just said, roller coasters, feeling fear and all that kind of stuff. Metal music allows you to feel things like adrenaline that other music just doesn't let you feel. Like there are, when a, when there's a good, you know, metal guitar riff or a great guitar

solo, it makes you feel things that other, other songs just can't do. So, yeah. Okay, so Kimis has had this really interesting trajectory. So like, Hunted comes out and they are put on number 11 of Rolling Stones 20 best metal albums of 2016 and number one for Decibel Magazine's 40 best metal albums. So this gives them all sorts of critical acclaim and attention. That's how they got on my radar because I was looking at Decibel Magazine's list and just wanted to hear what the number one record was. And so I put it on and I was absolutely blown away.

at that moment that I was talking about where I felt like that same sense that I had when I heard metal for the first time, you know? I mean, dude, that is just such a huge compliment to a metal band. Like, you get that, that sense of awe and wonder, like, the first time you've ever heard metal and you're, you're experiencing that again. That's amazing. Well, like, I, really? The funny thing is, until I heard him say it on the interview, I didn't, I wouldn't

have put it in those words. Okay. But like, it's absolutely true. Yeah. When I reflect back on it and with every album that they put out, yeah, it's true. I mean, they did it, you know. So anyway, like I said earlier, absolution is a little bit dupier, quote, unquote, than this album and the one after it.

I feel like they have, they've sort of found, they've always known who they were, but I think with hunted and desolation, they have like locked in and like they figured them out they figured out what they want to do and who they want to be and they even said in some interviews that like the stuff that they know worked well for them on absolution like his vocals and like the dual guitars they like dialed that stuff up on the next album so anyway um let's get into it um this song is probably my favorite Kimmel song, period. It's called Beyond the Door. The song is nine minutes long, and we're going to play the whole thing, but we're going to chop it up in three pieces by the queue. Get

ready to love this band, dude. This song is epic, and I hate to use that word because I feel like that word has been like bastardized by pop culture, but like, I don't know how else to describe it. So here we go. This song is called Beyond the Door. The song gets me every time. Okay, let me tell you what I liked. So I love how after the first verse, you know, after the line spreading like a cancer in me, it quiets down to like, it just quietes down to like one guitar line. And it's not as distorted.

And then in that second verse or the second movement or whatever you want to call it. Yeah. The drumbeat kind of changes up and it's more, a little bit more, I don't know, not dancey, but like it's not something you would expect to hear in a metal song. Well, like you said, the music changes, right? Like there is definitely a buildup happening on this song. And Metallica did it really well with, like, this is a song that I think everybody knows, so it's an easy one to talk about.

you know the song you've heard one right oh yeah dude okay the lyrics of that song like he's like it's about a soldier who is injured and is essentially like letting go and dying and passing on like he's one with like that's the name that's the song is called one right like yeah uh it's about like letting go and just becoming like one with like death basically and so like the guitar solo i've always seen the guitar solo in one as him releasing himself and dying basically. Okay. Yeah. So this song, okay, so let's talk about the themes of this song because it's actually

the theme of the entire album. Phil Pendergast, the lead singer, had a story about his, one of his friends' experiences like sleep paralysis, like frequently. That shit just fucking amazes me. Yeah, it's crazy. It's something else. Have you ever experienced it? Not to the extent that some people have. Yeah, I've had some degrees of it, but not...

Yes. I've never seen anything before. I have definitely woken up to where I can't fucking move. Like, I'm awake. Yes. And it is, it's fucking terrifying, dude. It's really unnerving. You start to sort of panic a little bit. Yeah.

You have to kind of like will yourself out of it. Yes, dude. Yes. But, you know, no, I have never. felt a presence, which is something that a lot of people that suffer this, they feel like there's something like hovering over them. Something is in the room. Right. Getting back to the theme of this song here, he had a friend who experiences frequent sleep paralysis and he was telling him about how the house that he grew up in or something like that. Out of the window, you could see the middle

school down the road. And he was experienced, he woke up and it was experienced. He woke up and was experiencing sleep paralysis one night and out the window the the middle school is on fire. So Phil sort of took that idea and the idea behind this song is that what happens if you wake up in and you're in sleep paralysis but the room you're in is on fire and you can't escape because you're in sleep paralysis. Literally on fire. And so you're in sleep paralysis. You don't know if it's actually on fire or is it?

Yeah. But if you're in sleep probably, you can't move. But you, so if you look at the lyrics here, there is a light dancing upon the window sill. It draws me in and I begin to realize, this is no dream. I won't escape the spreading fire. Immobilized, only my eyes can reflect my fright. I love that. Those are great lyrics, man.

All right, let's take a quick break real quick. And then we'll come back and play the next clip from this song here. All right. So let's play the second clip and get ready to have your face. melted with the guitar solo, dude. I'm ready, man. All right, Q. As a budding

metal fan, like, tell me what, tell me how you, how you felt during that. I didn't get too excited about it until the second half of the solo. Okay.

When there, when, like, the distortion was cranked up a bit and there was, it was more dual. I mean, it's a really long, yes,

yes, yes, exactly, Yeah, okay, I know what you're talking about now. Because it's a really long guitar solo. And it was like, you know what? Yon. And then, you know, two. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They sort of tee it up with the dual guitar lead in. And then Mr. The actual sort of the lead guitar player, Ben Hutcherson just kind of lifts off and fucking flies off into the stratas. And you know what? Okay, let's just let me. Okay. It's one of the best guitar solos, I think,

I'll put it on on my list of some of the best guitar work I've ever heard. Okay. Well, I hope that your list has, and this is something one of the only things I can reference because I don't listen to metal. Yeah.

But the guitar solo and metallic is one. We talked about it earlier. That to me still is one of those moments. Yes, it is. Of course it is. Okay. No doubt. but it's just a different guitar solo. Yeah.

Like it's, you know, you can't really compare the two in my mind. But as far as like, and I feel like a lot of this is because both of us watched and were in awe of Metallica's original SNM. Yes. A concert.

Yeah. Yes. And when Kirk Hammett plays that solo in that concert, and like being able to actually watch it. Yeah. You know, because that was recorded. That concert was recorded, man. That fucking, that still makes me, like, it still gives me chills.

Yeah. And that's the, that, that just speaks to how powerful that guitar solo is in that moment of that song. You know what I mean? It's all about the buildup to it. But the solo itself, there's nothing particularly like, it's, it's, it's, No, you're right. You know what I mean? You're right, dude.

Yeah, you're right. But the reason that it's such a great solo is because of what leads, what it leads in or what leads up to it. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. Right, because that's just what, like, you know, good old finger tapping. Yeah, right. And that's a thing like, Eddie, Eddie Van Hal was doing that shit. It doesn't, before Kirk Hammett was.

Yeah. What I've learned over, like, my years of, like, listening to rock music and metal is that, like, speed isn't always the end-all be-all of a guitar solo, you know? Yeah, right. Not that there wasn't some really impressive speed in this solo by Ben. Well, let me, let's, you know what? Maybe I should listen to this, maybe I should listen to this song from start to finish

and not have it split up into three different clips. Well, that would help, but I wasn't going to play that song. Sure, sure, sure. No, and I'm not dogging on that. I'm just saying, like, maybe, maybe the, Like you said, what makes that one solo so impactful as everything that leads up to it. So maybe I need to listen to the song all the way through. You definitely need to.

All right. Well, we got another clip, dude. Are we really going to play a third clip for this song? What else is there? Are you going to blow my mind again in the same song? I don't know if your mind is going to be blown. But there is a definite third part to the song that we have. that we have to kind of hear so you can get the full vibe.

So here we go. This is the last, this is sort of the outro of being on the door. Dude, I just got chills for the first time tonight. Really? Yeah. What gave you chills? For starters, so good cop, bad cop. Yeah, sure.

That's definitely the playoff, the back and forth. But that was the first time that I heard them do it kind of, overlapping each other. Yeah. Like, like, like, um, and looking at the lyrics, it's,

you know, parentheses. Yeah. Uh, you know, it's like, uh, two different ideas.

Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, they're, they're kind of overlapping each other. Yeah. And then like the,

dude, I'm not gonna fucking make the noises with my mouth. Why not, man? Okay. Are you gonna try to try to, try to, try to mimic a guitar.

Here, here, let's just, let's just, let's just, let's just, let's just replay it. Okay. Let's see if I can find it. Man, that fucking got me good, dude. Dude, cute. You've just taken your first step of their large, man. Welcome to, okay. Welcome to, this is it, man.

Well, okay, okay. My wife's going to be out of town. Okay. And I hate the whole, like, oh, my wife fucking hates the music. I listen to you. I hate that whole trope. Yeah. But, like, you know, we see out of AI with most music.

Yes. But, like, metal and, like, any kind of screaming. She's just not into it, dude. She's going to be out of town for, like, a week and a half coming up soon. I'm going to have this place all in myself, dude. I say, it's time to crank up some chemists, and you send me any other metal bands that you think I would be into. I would say play all three Kimus records.

from start to finish. Dude, I'm so into that idea. Okay, great. I love it. And you know what? Let me just say this. I love that I was like, come on, dude, another, part three. You're going to play three clips.

Come on. And then just the end of this song just fucking blew my mind, dude. Yeah, and it was totally different from anything else that happened in the song prior to it. And that's why I wanted to play it. Same with the drums and everything. Dude. I love it. I'm not even going to.

question it. I love it. Okay, so. All right. So we have another song to play. Correct. I told what the plan was, dude. We're going to play a song from each of their records. So, all right. Now, we could play, we could play this all the way through. It's, it's about six minutes long, or we could play the two clips. Six minutes, dude. Don't worry about it. All right, we'll play. Each of these clips are going to be the, the song in its entirety? Pretty much. I stopped it. My God, dude. Let's just play the whole. song. No, no, no, no. We'll do it in the two different parts. All right. All right. So let's play clip one. This is, uh, okay, so man, hold on. Let me make sure I'm not skipping anything.

I mean, at this point, we need to just play the tunes here. So, uh, you ain't got to give us any more information. All right. I'll just say this. So hunted was about dreams that, that, um, Phil has been having his whole life, like as a kid, some sleep paralysis that, uh, story from his buddy that he incorporated into a song. Desolation. So apparently a lot of, they kind of went through a rough patch as a band in their personal lives and stuff in between hunted and desolation and it informed the record.

One of the things that he talked about was just becoming like disillusioned with just the whole climate right now that America is in. Okay, when did this album come out? 2018. Now, hunted, hunted came out in 2016.

So we're all on the same page. I feel that fear. Now, now he was saying, the interview that I heard, he was not taking one side or the other, but he was saying that just, he was disillusioned with the way that society is so siloed right now.

Yeah. Right. Dude, I totally get it. I totally get it. Hopelessness and anger toward looking inside themselves and seeing the commonalities that they have with people. Yeah.

And that we're basically killing ourselves by refusing to do that is what he said. Sure, sure. So, anyway, the thing to, and we're not going to play the song, but the last song on the, on the album is called From Ruin. And it is, like, he said that this was something he has never done before, but he wanted to write a song about, like, hope, like a resolution to that, which is kind of funny to hear, like, a doom metal guy say, wow, you know, I've never really sat down and tried to write a hopeful song before. Like, what's that going to be like? But anyway, he said that, you know, he wrote it in like 30 minutes. and they put it on the album and he said that a lot of people have sort of connected with it and stuff

because you don't, you know, doom metal, like part of the themes of doom metal and just metal in general is themes of depression and death and all this stuff. Despair and there's no hope and you're suffocating in your own emotions. But yeah, he was feeling inspired and just wrote down these lyrics and they turned into a song and threw it at the end. So it's kind of cool that like they said they wanted to close this chapter with like looking forward and with some hope and stuff like that. So the last track, if you want to listen to, it's called From Ruin. We're not going to play that track, though.

We're going to play that track called The Sear. And let's see if we can get some more goosebumps on your cue. All right. So this song is called The Sear. It's off of the 2018 record desolation. So the honeymoon's over already? Fucking liar. So we've identified that one guitar part.

No, no, no, no. Okay. I need to listen to these albums all the way through. Okay. That's what we preach on this goddamn podcast. This record, I mean, this episode would be, you know, three hours long if we played these songs all over there. Hey, you know what? Dude, forget it.

Let's just scrap all this. We'll start recording again, and we'll just listen to one of their albums all the way through. I would love to do that. And then we'll just talk about it afterward. I would love to do that, but... All right. Now, we're not going to do that. All right, so that's that, dude.

This is... It was really tough for me to pick three songs. I feel like this more often than not, which is unfortunate. I feel like I, like, it's just, I'm not, like, this is not a reflective... Like, you gotta listen to the whole record.

I hate that we have to say that to every, at the end of every episode, but maybe it should be obvious at this one. I guess what... The goal should be to get you interested in what we've played. So if you found anything that you liked about those clips, go listen to the album. Because we can't play the whole album from start to finish for you on this podcast. And so a lot of times I walk away saying, man, I didn't do it justice.

Or like there's interview clips I didn't play that I wanted to play. Hey, dude, you know what, man? We're, you know, we're bringing you the goods every week, man. like this is the best we can do. I know. You know, I think you could probably relate to me as somebody who love sharing music with people. Yes.

If you, it's one of those things where like, you're introducing somebody to do a TV show and you're like, all right, let's play it. And then like halfway through the episode, you're like, son of a bitch, this is definitely not the episode I should have played to introduce somebody to this TV show.

How often does that happen, right? I feel like a lot of people can relate to exactly what you just said. Damn. it. It's not fucking funny at all. And you're like, man, these are half-ass jokes. What the fuck? Right.

So like, yeah, dude. I'm not saying that happened here on this episode. No, I get you. I think I picked good songs to play. Listen, Travis. It's just scratching the surface. Look, dude, you got to remember. You came, you gave me the bumps of goose, man.

All right. The first time since I, you've played me a lot of metal. That is amazing to me. Dude, I got it, man. I felt it. Okay, well, let me tell you something, dude. if you felt it there, when you crank up these albums in your house and sit down to enjoy them, you're going to get ready to, you're going to, dude, you're going to be,

you're going to be floating around your house, dude. What's it called? Like, you're going to reach enlightenment, dude. Okay. Let me just say this real quick. I was meaning to say this earlier, but as we mentioned, this is, I guess it's sort of our second episode. in our metal month. We've been talking about some metal bands

this month, and we're going to continue to do that. Our next full length is going to be Metallica's Ride the Lightning. And there is another podcast in our network, the Pantheon podcast network, called History and Five Songs. And he just did an episode on Metallica's production,

like the history of their production. Oh, cool. Yeah, he picks five Metallica's songs kind of from throughout their career and talked about like sort of the evolution of their production and stuff like that. So he talked about Ride the Lightning, the song, not the album, The Shortest Straw, Where the Wild Things Are, Invisible Kid and Moth to Flame. Anyway, check that out. That's episode 15 of history in five songs. It came out last week. Go check that out. And then when we talk about Metallica, you'll have a little bit of knowledge there.

on the Ride the Lightning production that they did. Sweet. Anyway, since this is Metal Month for us, might as well just keep it gone and go check out another metal episode in our network. Okay, so what you heards? I'm going to go first, Q. Okay.

So I found this playlist on Spotify of, I guess you can call it, it was a Shugay's playlist. But this band, I wouldn't, classify as shoe gaze. But I guess like shoe gaze and sort of drone, drone rock, there's a lot of bands that fall under that umbrella. So this band is called Sweet Trip and they're from San Francisco. And man, there's something about this record, dude. I played it all the way through yesterday and it's killer. It's called You Will Never Know Why. Came out in 2009. The song that we're going to

play is called conservation of two. And this came out almost 10 years ago, dude, and this is their latest album? What are they up to now? They may have disbanded, man. But anyway, I think my guess is that they're sort of thrown into shoe gaze because of her voice, you know, kind of has that shoe gaze vibe to it. Other than that, there's really nothing shoegazy about it. At least this record.

I mean, this is like you were saying, this is their latest record. They came out with four records before that. Yeah. So, yeah, that was a band called Sweet Trip. And I'll tell you, dude, they take you on a sweet trip, you know? Yeah, that was awesome, dude. I already hit Save. I've already got that album saved.

Yeah, yeah. Dude, let me tell you right now, dude. The next song, Air Supply, Primo. Primo, dude. Premo? Premo. I just wanted to play that song because of that really cool. Got that good, good?

What? Sorry, nothing. You've never heard that? You got that good, good? No. You've never heard that before? No, it was that a marijuana reference? No.

I don't know what it is. All right, it's my turn, bro. Let me tell you what I've been listening to. So, we're big fans of Fleetpoxes. You know that. I mean, you know that. Personally, you know that.

I don't know if everyone that's listening to us knows that. Well, if you listen to our episode on Helplessness Blues, I think it came across because we were just gushing over Robin Pecknold and the rest of these guys the entire episode. Yeah, I like to watch live concerts all the way through if they're recorded really well and they're available to me on YouTube. and there's a really, really great concert of Fleet Fox's. Pitchfork has a music festival now. First off, I didn't know that. And they record these concerts and do the full sets,

and they'll upload them on YouTube, and they do it really high quality. Like the sound and everything is just amazing. And they've got a concert. concert of theirs from 2018, the full concert. It's about an hour and a half long. And they do a cover of a song by the Impressions from an album called This Is My Country that came out in 1968. I just think it's cool that at the end of this concert, they're like, all right, we're just going to play, we're going to play a cover here because they had this really great horns section

that had traveled with him on this tour. So they're like, you know what, let's take advantage of having this horn section here. We're going to play a cover of an impression song. This is called Fool for You. All right, since we're in Chicago, since we have this great horn section with us, we're going to play a song by our favorite artist Curtis Mayfield. This is fucking great, dude. I love it, man.

I love when a band can play a cover and just make it their own, you know? Sure, sure. Yeah, I mean, if you don't know much about Fleet Foxes, I think it is safe to say that, like, Robin Pecknell is one of the greatest vocalists to come out in the last few decades. Dude, and you know what? He's probably even on, he would make like a top 100 vocalist of all time list, I would think. I think so.

Why not, man? Dude, and... He's just got something to him. You got to watch this set, dude. It's, I mean, you will fall in love with Flea Foxx's all over again. Yeah, well, so we'll post a link to this video on the show notes. All right, so that'll do it for us this week. I haven't decided yet.

I haven't landed. I think I'm on the fence on what the sidetrack's going to be. I think I might just throw us a curveball and just pick another random. metal band just to keep it varied and different in our metal month here. All right. So what you got for the outro, dude? Yes, okay. Oh, you're right.

I forgot about that. So the outro, I mentioned this a couple times. Lead singer of Kimis is a giant Judas Priest fan. And coincidentally, so is the producer of the Kimus Records, who they sort of refer to him as like the fifth member, you know. His name is Dave Otero. All right, so we're going to close with a song that he singled out specifically. This was on one of those YouTube videos I was telling you about where he's sort of going through

his record collection. So this song is called The Sentinel. And it is from Judas Priest's 1984 album. Defenders of the Faith. And that'll do it for us. My name is Travis. And my name is Gwen. We'll talk to you all next week.

I'm Sophia Loper Carroll, host of the Before the Chorus Podcast. We dive into the life experiences behind the music we love. Artists of all genres are welcome. And I've been joined by some pretty amazing folks like glass animals. I guess that was the idea was to try something personal and see what happened. And Japanese breakfast. I thought that the most surprising thing I could offer was an album about joy. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Oh, and remember, so much happens before the chorus.