No Jumper - The Finn McKenty Interview: Starting The Punk Rock MBA, Racism in Metal & More

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

Adam sits down with Finn Mckenty from the Punk Rock MBA channel, to talk about the rock scene of their teenage years, how Finn got into media, his content and elaborates on his goal to work with a big corporation and take their content to another level. https://www.instagram.com/finnmckenty/ https://twitter.com/thepunkrockmba https://www.youtube.com/c/ThePunkRockMBA/videos ----- CHECK OUT OUR NEW SPOTIFY PLAYLIST https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5tesvmDS8h50LkjnSAWMOs?si=j6sJD6DkR4mk5NZZWnlK7g FOLLOW US ON SNAPCHAT FOR THE LATEST NEWS & UPDATES https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_Jumper/4874336901 CHECK OUT OUR ONLINE STORE!!! http://www.nojumper.com/ SUBSCRIBE for new interviews (and more) weekly: http://bit.ly/nastymondayz Follow us on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/nojumper iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/no-jumper/id1001659715?mt=2 Follow us on Social Media: https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_Jumper/4874336901 http://www.twitter.com/nojumper http://www.instagram.com/nojumper https://www.facebook.com/NOJUMPEROFFICIAL http://www.reddit.com/r/nojumper JOIN THE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/Q3XPfBm Follow Adam22: https://www.tiktok.com/@adam22 http://www.twitter.com/adam22 http://www.instagram.com/adam22 adam22hoe on Snapchat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Jumper, coolest podcast in the world. And today I'm here with Finn of the punk rock MBA. And I have a challenge for you. Try to explain what you do in a concise fashion so that all the super casual viewers right now who aren't planning to stick around might latch onto this and want to see it through. I make videos about music and alternative culture where I unpack and try to explain trends, for example, why a given genre or a band was or wasn't popular. You know, for example, you know, like mall emo of the 2000s, that all blew up in, you know, 2008 or whatever.

Then by 2015 or 16, it was dead. What happened? Those are the kind of videos that I make. Definitely. I got into your shit because I think I was trying to just explain Earth Crisis to someone. And, you know, I have a hard time with that. That's such a strange feeling. And I bet that you feel this way from time to time where I feel like I can't explain my youth to the people that I interact with on a regular.

the basis because they don't know about straight edge, they don't know about hardcore, they don't know about veganism, or at least in the context that it existed then. And somehow your channel has like allowed me to not only be able to explain that maybe to other people, but also like watch, I just watch a video about like the death of sky. And I very much like lived through the death of sky, but I never really examined it or really thought about like why that genre just fell off in such a spectacular fashion. Yeah. So like Earth Crisis, you know, how do you explain that to somebody who wasn't there? Like, imagine if Pantara wrote songs about how cool vegan terrorists were. It's a weird thing.

Like, I told somebody the other day, I'm like, yeah, I was vegan all through high school. And they're kind of like, what? Like, back then in the 90s? And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, why? I'm like, well, I just thought it was the coolest thing in the world because of this band. I'm going to be honest with you. I would have told you at the time that it was about animals and, you know, whatever.

But, yeah. That's why I stopped being vegan because I realized I was just doing it to be trendy. It's not that I didn't or don't still agree with it. I get it. But to be honest, I was just doing it because it was the cool thing to do. And that's a pretty dumb reason to be vegan. How many years do you put in? Five. And then I was vegetarian for a few years before that too. So like 14 to 21 or so. Do you look back at that as kind of like, you know, your youthful, idealistic self that has now been replaced by your sort of cynical self that doesn't expect the world to get any better? I don't want to put it that way. I don't think anything that I thought was wrong.

Well, for one, I also wasn't healthy. I was like a junk food vegan because back then it was way, like, now you go to Panera and you can see what's gluten-free and vegan. And, you know, back in 1996, really if you're, unless you wanted to cook for yourself, you're going to either eat junk food or nothing. And so I was eating a lot of junk food and, you know, that's just not healthy.

So I got all fat and it just wasn't good for me. Yeah, when I look back on it, I remember just going out, riding bikes and it taking forever for me to like feel healed up after like a strenuous day like that that was what really turned me off to it was I was just eating so much goddamn like you know boca burgers and protein powders and just really trying to like fix whatever it was that like clearly was not giving me the stamina that a lot of my friends had and at a certain point I was just like fuck this and uh felt way better after so to me it never really I don't know I'm not sure how how popular veganism is these

days, although I've seen, like, I was seeing an article about this fucking restaurant in New York that decided they're switching to a vegan menu. And I don't know, apparently this restaurant doing it, it just was a really fucking big deal. And people were just freaking the fuck out about it. Like, like, I don't know. Do you see it as being on the rise? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the fact that like impossible, what is impossible and beyond are worth like tens of billions of dollars. Oh, they are. Huh? Yeah. They're massive, like, probably way overvalued. But that's another conversation. But, you know, there is, billions and billions of dollars to be made off

veganism now, which if you're vegan, you know, you should be happy about that. The part that I find interesting about, you know, the Earth Crisis thing is just how like super militant they were. You know, for anybody who doesn't know, like, they literally wrote songs, like tons of songs about

like burning down animal testing labs and about their friends who, you know, were eco-terrorists who like were doing federal time for blowing up whaling ships and stuff. But I thought that was so goddamn cool as a kid. It was cool, and, you know, to their credit, it's like obviously a little bit out there. But if you want to be about it, that's the logical conclusion of it.

You know, if you think that eating meat is murder, then it is logically justified to kill somebody or, you know, in the defense of an animal. If you believe that, I'm not saying you should. But, you know, they were at least logically consistent. And, you know, I still respect that. The other thing about weird is that there's so many genres that we basically, the defining bands of those genres. are basically the ones who are the most attached to violence and murder. Like that's true of black metal for sure. That's like the prevailing narrative.

When you think about like vegan straight-edge music, you go to Earth crisis because they were like the most violent, the most, who came the closest to literally endorsing burning down the McDonald's. Yeah, and certainly true of rap. Oh yeah, and especially in these days, it's like, you know, these days like you just see the audience gravitating to the realist street rappers to such an extreme degree, and it's, like, really tough to get by if you're just sort of faking it. Yep. Yeah. I mean, I think that's just human nature. We're drawn to darkness. You know, we're

drawn to violence because we should be. You know, I think of everything is in terms of, like, being adaptive to being a caveman. So back then, you needed to know where the Savor Tooth Tiger was because he might jump out and eat you. Less important to remember how pretty the sunset was yesterday, because that's not vital for your survival. So I think we're, you know, programmed to pay attention to darkness and violence. And it makes sense evolutionarily that if there's some people out there who are wild, violent, unpredictable people, your brain's going to say, pay attention

to what that guy's doing because you never know, you might be next. And that's really what sucks for Scott is that it just wasn't enough murder. I mean, there was probably somebody, you know. Right. It had to have been. But if you could have dug in on that narrative, and like when you talked about Sky, it was always just about

the dude that Gwen Stefani killed, it would just be... Right, right. I mean, you can't prove that she didn't. Yeah, that's a good point. Maybe you should work on that. It's true. I'll ask her people. Talk about the, okay, well, actually, let's go all the way back. Give us a sort of an overview of your involvement in punk and hardcore and all

this music before you actually get to the stage of deciding to start YouTube channel. Yeah. Well, I discovered it from MTV back in like 1989. I saw this thing about suicidal tendencies because they were banned from playing in L.A. for like five years because of gang violence at their show. So this

would be an example of what you're talking about. And I was like, that's fucking cool. I didn't know anything about the suicidals and, you know, I didn't know anything about it other than those guys look like the people in colors and blood in blood out. I told ICP, I'm like, I basically became a fan of you guys because it was on the news that Disney took your shit off the shelves and that was like, I have to hear it. Exactly. So I saw that story about suicidal tendencies and I was like, I don't know what this is, but it's cool. And I took my birthday money and I bought their tape and that was kind of, you know, one thing led to another. and that was that.

I discovered that they were, you know, part of this thing called hardcore, and then I think I get into black flag after that and circle jerks and all that kind of stuff. Then somehow or another, I think through Max and Rock and Roll, but I don't really remember. I discovered, like, hardcore, which at that time was a very different thing. I mean, punk and hardcore now kind of go hand in hand, I think. But back then, they were very, very different scenes. Really musically, very similar, but then, like, the scenes and the values were so different.

And that's my recollection of as a kid is that I liked both of the bands, but I just wanted nothing to do with like the fucking guy with the Mohawk and the studded vest. Like to me, that was the opposite of what I was into, even though really knowing everything

I know about music, it's like two ticks on the clock away from in the whole entirety of music, you know? Yeah, exactly. I mean, I thought the Mohawk guys were cool when I was 12. Right. But then when I discovered that there were the Camo Shorts guys,

I was like, that's way cooler. And I got into like Youth Today and Gorilla Biscuits and Judge and all that kind of stuff. That still remains where my heart is at in terms of like the, when I think about liking hardcore, I think about that sort of basket of bands for sure. It was a good time. I mean, it was new and there's still tons of people doing that same kind of thing.

But it's a recreation of something from back then, which is fine. But I think any time that, you know, something is a recreation to me, it's less interesting. Then it's like, why would I listen to a recreation of that thing when I could just listen to the thing? I didn't have to be in hardcore for that long. for that to like kick in for me and start to be like oh fuck this next crop of bands are saying the exact same shit as the bands i was into a year and a half ago and you know i was just like it just didn't take that long like i really like collected seven inches and shit for maybe like six months and then i was just like this is stupid why the fuck do i own all this shit yeah well i mean

now you've moved on to whatever the what do you call the the thing the condama not a bad business to be in them way cooler than seven inches right yeah i mean you got to put some shit in the web store And that was like honestly how it started It was just like well we all fuck with this stuff So we might as well make some And just throw it in the web store and then just sort of kept going Yeah yeah I I collected records for a while And then kind of the same thing I was just like

Why do I need to collect these you know Especially after like the internet was available And I could just download the stuff like why do I want a bunch of vinyl Like if you ever moved with boxes of records there Like fucking a black hole It's like so unbelievably dense The last thing you want is a bunch of vinyl if you're moving around a lot, which, you know, every hardcore kid moves every six months.

You know, want to drag your shit around. But so do you, did you ever get really into the collecting, or do you feel like you have any reason to have any, like, physical copy of anything? No. Like, you don't do that all anymore? Me neither. I don't own a single record now. I have one CD that a friend of mine gave me years ago, and that's it.

I'm just not into physical stuff. We were getting brunch the other day, and there was a fucking CD store right next door, and it seemed like it was like a relatively popular, like, mom-and-pop type CD store in Burbank. I was thinking about going in and just thinking about how much joy I got from going to Newberry Comics as a kid and shit. And I was just like, there's really nothing in there for me because even, like, if I see a CD that I want, it's like I'm literally going to take a picture of it and just remember to look it up on iTunes later. And, you know, it sucks that. That's kind of been removed.

They used to love going to Barnes & Noble. And still when I see Barnes & Noble, there's a little piece of my brain that's like, oh, I'm going to go in there. And I have to look at the magazine section for like five seconds before I'm like, never mind. This is not what I used to get from this. Yeah, I do the same thing with Barnes & Noble. I see all the books. I get excited about it. Then I just go look it up on my phone and buy the Kindle version on Amazon because I don't want a pile of books in my house.

Right. It's interesting that that sort of like consumerist collective, you know, collecting sort of thing goes hand in hand with hardcore. You know, it's a very, in metal, like, all those, like, kind of rock genres. They're into, very, very into, like, collecting shit. But then also charging nothing for it. Right. Like, I was, like, when I figured out how much it cost to make a seven-inch, and I'm like, you guys are selling this for $4?

It's, like, the worst business I've ever served in my life. $4. That's a King's Ransom. How much do they go for? $3. $3. Yeah, man, you can't charge $4. You get kicked out of the scene for that.

And then I would look through the vinyl section at the record store and realized, like, oh, there's a bright-ey's record for, like, $20. That like this is a pretty close genre, but then they clearly have no issue with just charging whatever for it. Right. Yeah, there's a lot of that kind of small time thinking and less than hardcore, definitely more in punk. And that's definitely something I never resonated with. Right. I used to argue with my friends who were in bands that they should sell their shirts for more.

And they just could not, like, it was just impossible to like make any sort of ground on that. And like, these people want to support you. Or like you could print on better shirts. Like all these hardcore wins I knew were printing on the worst shirts ever and I'm like this is why you walk into a show and you guys all look like a bunch of fucking scrubs is because the shirts all suck because you guys are charging five dollars for them The short and wide guildins or whatever is BMX like that Mm. At a certain point BMX riders realized that because they're hunched over the whole time that they need longer shirts So the American Apparel summer shirt around like 2008 2009 became the shirt and then they switched it up so all of a sudden the fifth It was completely different.

And a lot of those old videos from that era, the dudes look so ridiculous. Because they would also, like when your shirt was wet, you would kind of like put your foot on it and on the ground and pull on it. So it would be stretched out even longer. And I mean, it just looked insane. Quite a look.

Yeah. Well, are they very dogmatic as far as, you know, I did some work in like skateboarding and stuff years ago and it was horrible because the second you make a fucking dime, everyone comes out of the woodwork to hate on you. Is it like that in BMX also? Kind of, except nobody makes any money. there's not that much to be mad about. But I mean, I saw that transition so much from when I, in like,

you know, the late 90s and stuff and like hardcore was the, the choice of music and like indie rock and emo and all that shit. And like there was this sort of like dream of being in your 20s and you just sort of ride your bike every day at the skate park and that's your lifestyle. And I just don't see guys in their 20s really gravitating towards that in the same way. Like I see BMX as being such a youth focused thing. And then like people just are kind of out of it. by 18 and it just like that dream and the culture associated with it in a lot of ways I kind of blame what I did by taking like you know creating a BMX blog and sort of putting all that information there because I feel like before that it was all this shared collective community wide moments when videos

would come out or magazines and there was this shared culture and then all of a sudden the internet comes out and there's a period of time where like everybody's looking at the same website so they sort of all fit into that but now I feel like BMX is so fractured with just like different YouTube channels or different like influencers that people pay attention to. And there's there's just almost nothing shared as a community. And that's kind of like really broken the culture to me. Right. So it's like the same as skateboarding when like, you know, plan B would put out a new video. And for six months, that's what everyone was talking about. And like, did you see this part? Right. And now it's all Instagram clips. And there are like big moments in terms of videos.

But what I will say about skateboarding is that it's just still so much. It's a real business, you know. like it's actually like the big brands do volume and like you see the brand support thrasher so they still like even if not everybody sees thrasher and shit it still exists and it's this important shared collective thing that people all can sort of have as this token of what the the soul of skateboarding is and bmx has just kind of gotten so small and fracture that i just don't feel like that exists in the same way i wonder why bmx didn't get more popular because i remember when i was a little kid like when that movie rad came out right like bmx was pretty cool and you know by like the early 90s skateboarding was like 500 times bigger and cooler and BMX at least to me seemed like it was had kind of fallen off i wonder why

that is i mean i think a lot of it is the fact that it's just way harder to enter into like a bmx bike that then in particular was really heavy and really expensive and skateboarders boards in comparison i mean you could pick it up and bring it into the mall with you it's like a hundred bucks you can buy it at the mall. It's not like this complicated thing where you have to be replacing all these parts and stuff. Have to like be a mechanic. Yes. Being a part-time mechanic was a huge part of riding bikes back

in that day. And even before my time, it was even worse from what I hear. But like with skateboarding, it's just much more casual and like all of the pop culture looks that sort of shined upon skateboarding, whether it was like Tony Hawk becoming everything or the Tony Hawk video game series taken off

or Rob Deardick or Jackass and all of these things. Like, they were just all skateboarding moments. You know, Ryan Shekler is a skateboarder. He just didn't have an equivalent of like, and the times where I've seen BMX start to like peak again is oftentimes when there is a YouTube influencer type person who comes out in BMX and like gathers a big ass fan base

that actually goes outside of BMX and then, but the thing is that those people always fucking end up basically getting out of it because it's such like an unwelcoming or sort of niche scene. You know, I've seen that happen multiple times. and I'm pretty much an example of it. The story of every subculture. You know, you think it's cool, and then you're new kid,

and you get close to it, and then it's a fucking asshole to you. And unless you're like a real diehard that's willing to put up with the hazing, you know, or you get some sort of like cool older brother that, like, shepherds you into it, then you're like, you know what, fuck this.

I'm going to go back to playing video games like the other kids. And there being no money in it is like a self-fulfilling prophecy because then the people, like, I would see my, the people I was looking up who were, you know, pros when they're like 18, 19, 20, whatever.

And then all of a sudden they're like 21, 22, and they become a construction worker. Right. And that wouldn't happen in skateboarding because there actually was enough of an industry that if you're really great and you were a productive pro, then the industry would find a way to like take care of you. But for all these guys, you know, to get 50 grand a year being a construction worker, it was just like, am I going to ride BMX and be fucking destitute for my whole life?

Right. It's just kind of stuff. Yeah. Does it fuck up your body as bad as, like, motorcross and stuff. I mean, it can't be as bad as motorcross. When you go to a motocross event, you see so many motherfuckers in wheelchairs and shit because like it's really depressing and they're like eating out of tubes and shit. And it's like BMX is not really like that. But I will say that there's been a bunch of the biggest most marketable or like legendary BMX riders have had really tragic fates.

Whether it's like falling and crashing and never being able to really ride again, Dave Mirren killed himself. There's a bunch of other fucking BMX legends of his era who killed themselves. like the concussions and shit were so gnarly too that there's people who are legendary BMX pros from the 80s and 90s who I've met them before and the kids watching at home have no idea but they're fucked

Oh I'm sure I mean that CTE is real and decades of slamming you know on concrete And inventing all these tricks on these shitty ass bikes back then and just smashing your head into the fucking ground over and over What a way to earn a meager living Okay, nothing about me So how did you start to look at

like did you join a band or like what was your fandom like through high school and and the interesting thing about you is that you instead of sort of burrowing into one niche you seem like you always had sort of an expansive interest in uh aggressive music in general or music in general yeah i mean i i started i was in a rap before i knew what like hardcore was i discovered go m tv raps and i was like nine so i was into like you know rock kim and big daddy cane and epmd and you know all that kind of stuff of the mid 80s and then when easy e and then w a came out i thought it was even and cooler because of exactly what we talked about. You know, they were sort of the first people to be like really present themselves as like

violent, dangerous, scary people. And as an 11 year old, I thought that was super cool. So, you know, I was into all that stuff too. And yeah, I mean, I kind of have always been into just anything interesting. I was never in a band or, I mean, it was in like just shitty local bands and stuff, but never like a real band. I never really wanted to be necessarily because I've always been more interested in, like documenting it than I am doing it myself.

And I've always like been into my career outside of music. And being in a touring band, you know, that that has to be your whole life. So I've always just had other priorities aside from that. So were you doing creative stuff? Were you writing and how did you plan on being a documentarian of the culture? Well, I didn't plan it. I just did it. Yeah, I just started doing it.

I mean, back then I, when I was like 15 or whatever, I started doing fanzines, which for anybody listening who doesn't, know what that is. It's like a DIY magazine that you would, you know, cut and paste yourself and then photocopy it, you know, go to your friend's dad's office or something when he's not there and steal a bunch of copies and then you hand it out your friends or sell it through the mail, which is what I did. I sold a few thousand of them through the mail by the time I was like 19 or 20, which, you know, in hindsight is like actually harder than anything I've done on YouTube because YouTube has that growth engine built into it. If you want to sell a zine, you've got a pile of them

in your basement and it's like, what do you get to? to do with it now. How were you selling them primarily? There was a zine back then called Maximum Rock and Roll, which I think is still around. I think didn't it come out on the news that they got rid of it recently or something? Oh, maybe. I don't know. I used to look at that thing too, and I would read album reviews of these punk albums, and I would just read 10 reviews in a row, and I'd be like, these people are having an impossible task here of making these bands sound like they don't sound exactly the same. Right. Yeah, I did the same thing. But if you sent them something they would review it like records or zines the the zine section was always smaller than the

record section so it's easier to get noticed so i would send them my zines and i don't know how many people read max and rock and roll but every time they reviewed one i would get a couple hundred orders for it and you know make pen pals and all that shit and then i would also like cut out i made little like flyers uh and every time i sent out an order or letter to somebody i would include a bunch of flyers from my zine in the envelope and say please share this you know same thing as like a SoundCloud repost, basically. So then they would spread that for me, and that's how I did it. And I sold a few thousand of them.

And then the Internet started to become more viable, you know, by like the late 90s, early 2000s. And so I started doing stuff on the Internet instead. I don't have any attachment to print. I just want to get the stuff out there. And if I can do it on the Internet, that's great. So I started doing that, and I did blogs well into the 2000s. And, you know, I just always, I'm just the sort of person that if I see something interesting, I want to talk about it, and I'm going to do that

in a magazine or a blog or YouTube or whatever format is happening at the moment. It's crazy because when I look back at the time I spent going to shows and shit, I feel like a lot of the people that I went to shows with were basically like professional friend collectors. That was just a big part of hardcore.

It's like, oh yeah, I know that band. Like the drummer's cool as fuck. Right. And when I think about you like making 3,000 pen pals from selling these copies, it really like that scene, especially at that time it really felt like you had like a personal relationship with everybody that you were putting that out to and it must be like contrast to that to having 300,000 YouTube subscribers where

you know even just the comment section on one video might be almost too much to to consume on some of it. I still read all of them for that same reason because I know that maybe I can't do that forever. I mean if I keep growing then maybe I can't but I still think of it the same way you know it's it's a conversation to me it's not I'm not one of these people you know a lot of people do post and ghost they just post their shit and then they're out of there which totally cool I understand that that may be a good idea for your mental health but I still think of it that way as like I want to get to know people and I want to have a conversation so I read all those I read all my DMs you know it's impossible to reply to everything but I read all of it

for that reason because you know I don't understand how anybody can like stay on top of what's happening if you're not reading that stuff that's the reason why I know about things is because I see 50 people in my comments mention some artist and I go, hmm, I better check that out. Right. Or I almost never rewatch a full interview of mine, but I'll read the comments on every single one. And that's basically how I get to relive what was notable about that interview.

The stuff that I said that people didn't like, the stuff that was boring, the stuff that, you know, I could spend a full hour sitting there and rewatching the whole thing, which would be like torturous for me. But it doesn't matter what you think of it. It matters what they think. And that's why. if you have 50 comments telling you that you sound like an asshole even if you really in your heart of hearts

don't think that you were being an asshole you still have to take something from it there has to be something about how you're presenting yourself even if you know like if you were taking the wrong way then you were taking the wrong way you have to take that into account yeah absolutely you know I mean at the end of the day I mean I suppose you can choose to disregard comments if you want sometimes I do you know especially lately

I've just been leaning into the fact that my opinion's are the opposite of my audiences. Like, my audience loves ska, new metal, and I fucking hate both of them. But that's okay. I mean, we don't have to like the same things, you know? We can still have a conversation. I'm not one of these people that if you like different shit than me, then I don't, then we can't be friends.

Like, I don't give a fuck what you like or don't like. Right. I just want to have a conversation. And so I'm just kind of leaning into that. And for anybody that, you know, gets really upset that I don't like the same things that they like, I guess maybe they shouldn't watch my videos then. and they should probably go work on themselves a little bit because you really shouldn't be that upset about what a stranger on the internet likes or doesn't like.

Right. When you started doing this content, did it seem like almost kind of a really frightening task to take on because of the fact that hardcore and punk are really such like insular little communities that don't really, I would just imagine that the average opinion of vloggers in those communities is not great? Is that wrong? That's just my assumption.

I never really consider, I don't, I'm trying to put this the right way. You're not exactly Roman Atwood. Well, yeah, that too. But I don't, it's not that I don't care what people in hardcore think because I do care. It's the people who I care about, I already know. You know what I mean? Like, because hardcore is such a small world that there's a list of a couple dozen people whose opinions in hardcore I value and I already talk to them. and what some random 19-year-old

in Belgium thinks of me like I said I do read all the comments and I take them into account but that's not going to keep me up at night you know what I mean but the thing about hardcore is that for sure anybody in hardcore is at most one degree of separation away

so I do watch what I say in hardcore a little bit more than I do in other genres not because I'm scared someone's going to beat me up or something like that it's because I don't want to be an asshole to somebody by mistake, you know, because, I mean, I don't know the drummer of terror, but we have nine million friends in common, you know, and I know that if I said something about them, he's going to hear it, and I don't want to be a dick to him, you know? Yeah, I mean, there is a little bit of that in hardcore, at least, where it's like,

oh, like, there are people who would, like, beat the fuck out of me if I say the wrong thing about them in a video. Yeah, but I'm not, I mean, I'm not. Rap is like that also. Yeah, I'm not worried about, I mean, of all people, you've had plenty of run-ins with that, and I'm not worried about that. I don't think anybody in hardcore is going to find my house and come try to beat me up, you know? Yeah.

Back on the internet, the early days of the internet, it felt like in hardcore, that was a very real possibility, though. Or at least people were excited about the idea that. Sure. I mean, the whole B9 board. I mean, there was like, what a fucking 900-page thread of rumors and gossip and all that stuff. And, you know, that's one part of hardcore that I don't really like is this fascination with, like, third-hand stories of how so-and-so beat up so-and-so and blah, blah, blah, blah. And half the time it's completely false. Most of the time there's some element of truth.

But just people have nothing. You know, it's the same shit as rap. People have nothing to do with it speculating about what did or didn't happen. And it's just like something better to do with your life. But rap is even more fucked up because there's like a financial incentive. Because you can make a fake news video on YouTube and get like a million views and make thousands of dollars off of just basically titling a video like something that did not actually happen. Question mark. Yeah.

Or not even. Like I see it all the time and it'll be like such and such and such and such. And I'm like, I know these people and I'm like reading the title at first like, dear God. And then I'm like, wait a minute. No, no, no, no, no. This is not. You would not get the drop on this story if that was how this went down. Yeah, as opposed to being some kid on the bridge nine board, just wasting your fucking life,

making up stories about somebody in a band that you've never even met. Right. But it's a, you know, I mean, I thought that stuff was cool when I was 17 too. And, you know, I would nerd out all of these stories. but oh, I heard so-and-so got in a fight with so-and-so. And I thought that was cool when I was 17. So if it's kids, I get it. But, you know, people need to grow out of it.

Yeah, definitely. No, I feel like that's a big part of the appeal, though. Like, when I'm, when I, there was a Rolling Stone feature about, like, I forget what the context was. But there was an article about this one random-ass vegan straight-aged kid from Syracuse. And he was a huge Earth Crisis fan and shit. And I just remember reading that and just thinking that this was like the coolest, craziest shit on earth because they had a little blurb about him like fighting a guy outside a bar for drinking or some shit and it just like the danger element of that was just so attractive to me

probably didn't even happen probably didn't happen like that yeah yeah so many stories oh they beat my friend up for smoking i have asked so many people who were like notorious assholes who are the kind of people who would do that sort of thing right it's like hey have you ever seen this happen like is this a thing and everybody was like no never happened right definitely what um What were your first uploads and what was your original idea for the channel? And did it occur to you that this was going to be a very big undertaking and that it was going to take a shitload of work? But did you think it was going to be successful? I said it is going to be successful, period, because I know, especially at that point in my life,

I mean, I was old enough and I'd done enough things and built enough things that I believe in myself enough that I believe I can do anything reasonable. I mean, I can't be a pro NBA player. But, you know, as far as anything in business, I believe that I can do it if I really put my mind to it. So I said, I'm going to do whatever it takes to make this successful. Maybe that's going to take a month. Maybe it'll take two years. But either way, I'm not going to fucking stop until it is successful. The original focus of it was more about business, which is actually what I've spent the majority of my life kind of focusing on.

I mean, that's what I was school for. You know, I've always put more energy into that side of my life, you know, my career and building and running businesses than anything related to music. So that's originally what I thought I was going to talk about, but it turns out nobody gives a shit what I have to say about that. Right. Which in hindsight makes perfect sense to me. I mean, it's like, you know, people want, you know,

there's a saying they say, you know, vitamin versus painkiller. People don't want vitamins. They want painkillers. So I get it. You know, people don't want to hear some guy talk about how to run a business because that's boring. They want to hear stuff about music because that's entertaining. It's also like you're going to be successful doing the

stuff that you're especially equipped to do. Yes. And there's a lot of people that could tell me how to run a business and a lot of them have made billions of dollars. Whereas like you eventually end up honing in on, well, I guess I do know a fuck a lot about punk and hardcore and all this shit. Maybe that's what I should do. Yeah.

That's 100% right. I mean, I can certainly credibly talk about business. Right. But not to the same extent that I can talk about music. I mean, there's people like Jason Calacanis out there who, you know, or fill in the blank Naval and fucking Chimoth and all these people who have, like you said, built multi-billion dollar businesses, people should listen to them, not me. You know, they are uniquely qualified.

Like, you know, people ask Chamath about Facebook. He's like, no, no, no, let me fucking tell you how that worked because my team built it. You know, that's the sort of person who can talk about authority about Facebook. I can talk about authority, talk about music with authority, you know, because what you said, because I was there, because I know people, blah, blah, blah. And I think that's a super good lesson for any kind of content creator. You should talk about what you can speak, you know, if you want to be this sort of person. what can you talk about with authority?

And that may not seem important to you, but there's somebody out there. I mean, there's these fucking channels of people opening baseball cards to get millions and millions of views. You know, there's no such thing as content that's too niche. Right. You know, I mean, BMX is a pretty niche thing, and it got you here.

Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, that's the one thing that I find so fascinating on YouTube, and I'll still frequently, like, go down rabbit holes of people who I find who have careers on YouTube. doing the most niche things. One of my favorite things I ever discovered was, you know, price matching basically, where it's like if you go to Target and you buy something for $3, but then if you can find it at Walmart for $275, then you could, you know, in theory, take your receipt to Target and say, hey, you owe me $0.25. Well, that whole process has been automated on phones and apps and

everything like that. So there's this guy I saw who has a whole channel and apparently there's a whole community of this and he goes around and will find, he'll walk around the park. in a lot of a supermarket all day, just picking up receipts, and then he goes home at night and scans them into these apps, and it automatically searches all these other websites to see if there's a better deal. And he'll, he's talking about making $1,000 in a month off this, but, you know, I mean, that is pretty impressive considering this is picking up trash off the ground, but also like he's talking about making $1,000 a month like he hit the fucking lottery. And I'm like, I think it's the coolest thing on earth. And this guy's vlogging it.

I would watch the shit out of that And I don't give a fuck about ever doing this I can't even remember what the fucking shit was called But man I just that that blew my mind Like there could be a fucking community for anything Have you seen soft white underbelly? No uh I don't know Basically a YouTube channel

It's really big at this point where this guy is like a photographer He interviews Crackheads prostitutes Oh yeah yeah with the black and white thumbnails Yes Yes And I mean that stands out to me as like pure genius In terms of a YouTube channel

Because I started doing this downtown L.A. right next to Skid Row. Like shit, I could have given an infinite fucking feed of guests. You know, I had a whole fucking studio. These people are literally outside the store and I'm just like, oh, here, just struggling to interview every underground rapper that I could find. If I had

known that I could have just interviewed every but man, I don't know. To me, that shit always has kind of, and that's what I think keeps me from watching a lot of that content is this is just really dark. Well, we've been around that stuff enough that it's not entertaining or interesting. It's like, well, that's half my fucking family. Yeah. I don't

need to know what it's like to be a homeless crack addict because I have an uncle who was one. Right. You know what I mean? But for normal people who don't come from fucked up families like us, that's probably really interesting. But my impression of a lot of the homeless people downtown and shit, too, is like they're so fucked off drugs that the idea, like I wouldn't even want to, you know, film them and put them in my vlogs when I'm sort of vlogging my day or anything because they're so fucked up

that it's just kind of like it doesn't feel like they're in control of their behavior. So how am I going to capture it and then put it on YouTube? I mean, I'm sure I did a bit over the years, but, you know, I think it's better overall to avoid that. It feels shitty. But this guy goes about it in a very different way, I think. And also, I've seen, like, I was watching this one YouTuber who was doing, like, he would actually go into people's tents and their whole little setups in downtown. And some of them are really fucking impressive. But the people he was doing it with were people who weren't fucked up on drugs.

So that felt like a much more consensual affair. And I was finding that really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's the thing with YouTube is what people want you to do. The content that people really want you to do is oftentimes not, you know, let's say, you know, YouTube explains it as delicious versus nutritious. People don't want you to make the nutritious content. They want you to make the most exploitative, salacious, you know, just kind of negative, nasty content.

You know, your videos, the more somebody thinks that by clicking on this video, they're going to watch some motherfucker burn his life down, the faster they're going to click. Rage bait. rage bait or just watching some like delighting in someone else melting their life down i mean look at every youtube you know when they do something wrong there's a whole little fucking industry of people who make videos like just chronicling every fuck up them and i'm not making excuses for those people like if they did something wrong they you know they deserve to be called out for it but you know that's what people want and uh i struggle with that because you know in music there's a million videos that i can make about you know all the things that person x did wrong or the a hundred reasons why so-and-so is a piece of shit, scumbag.

I was thinking about that from your perspective, that that probably is, that's the temptation, because you could go viral every week if you did, like, why so-and-so are the worst band ever, why so-and-so is the worst person ever, yeah. Absolutely. And I, you know, I have, just like you do, I have, you know, knowledge that other people don't

that would probably be, you know, very, you know, be very interesting to people. This is not what I want to do. It's not because I'm protecting anybody or making excuses for them. It's just, it's not the energy that I want to put out. And not to say that I can't ever be critical or can't have a negative opinion about something, but I really don't like doing that about individuals.

I don't want to, like, put down a, I'll be happy to, like, say something critical about a genre or something or some trend, but I don't want to put down individuals because it's just not what I want to do with my life. I feel that. In rap, it's like, so-and-so sold this pathetic amount of record. That's like the stuff that will go viral or like so-and-so's career is over or, you know, all that kind of stuff. But basically just like letting you know that some guy who had like one song that got three million plays and there's really no reason that anybody should have ever expected that he would have an actual career. Well, guess what?

He doesn't have a career. Little Pumps album only went to number eight. What a fucking loser. Yeah. I mean, that circumstance with him definitely deserves some exploration for sure. That's pretty fascinating thing to watch. But with my world, it's a little bit different, for one, because for sure, I either know the person I'm talking about or know someone who works with them. So if I was to highlight, you know, the fact that some band, you know, their album flopped, you know, the fucking drummer's going to see it and be like, what the fuck, man?

Like, I don't fucking make videos about how your last video didn't do well. Like, leave me alone, man. I'm just trying to live my life. And I feel like with rap, it's almost like they understand that that's part of the ecosystem, you know, that people talking like, and the baby doesn't give a fuck if you talk shit about him. He's like, as long as you're talking about me, great. Right. You know. But the baby is like has a very real career in a way that a lot of these artists that have these like take down videos made about them are like people where you just would be crazy to have ever thought that they, that this person had a solidified career, anything to really fall off from.

Right. A lot of times, you know? Yeah, that's true too. And yeah, with someone like him, he knows he's successful. And he's like, you can say whatever you want about me. I'm good, so have at it. He's probably made enough money that he could afford to fall off right now. I would imagine so. And just sort of live a falling off rapper's life,

which realistically could probably still make you a couple million bucks a year. Yeah, I mean, there's worse things in being an irrelevant rapper that still gets, you know, 10 grand for appearances or whatever. Hmm. I remember finding out that Bain, got like $2,000 for a show. $2,000. And being like, what the fuck?

And then somebody said, they're like, well, you got to split that between the whole band, plus the other people going to tour with them. I'm like, oh, well, that immediately seems like almost nothing. But, you know, that was hard for me to wrap my head around. Like, there's such a big difference culturally where one culture completely celebrates the making of money and one basically shuns it. Yeah. And I was always more into, like, do you know, that cool G rap song, Road to the Riches?

Probably. It's like one of the first songs about like, you know, grinding hard to make money from like 1988 or something like that. Right. I was always into that stuff when I was a kid, you know, because I grew up poor, not like super, you know, cry for me, but, you know, like single mom on welfare and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, for me, like making a little bit of money was always seemed like an impossibly hard dream. Definitely not something I would ever shy away from, you know. And so that's one part of like hardcore and punk. I just never. resonated with and I and that's a big part of why I was into rap in the beginning because especially back then you know that there's that whole like sort of struggle rap genre which I mean it's still a theme you know now they do it they talk

about it you know in the context of selling drugs which is not something I ever aspired to as a kid but good call yeah that kind of set of values in in punk and hardcore really it just doesn't sit right with me yeah there's a part of it that I like the sort of shunning of materialism, although I don't know how effectively hardcore really manages to do that. Yeah, I mean, these fuckers all have a fucking closet full of Nike's and Star Wars figures. Like, dude, you collect fucking Star Wars dolls. Who are you to get up on your high horse about? When I was going to shows, I don't think anyone had nice shoes. I don't think that people were even thinking about their shoes, or at least if they wore,

I wasn't noticing. But then I guess, yeah, like, because the kind of fashion core type shit, like, I remember going to see Throwdown and then finding out about 18 Visions, like, with them and being like, how the fuck are these people on the same tour? They should not be getting along based on the idea of hardcore that I have in my head, which is like the dudes who wear makeup and have spiky hair get beat up

by the guys with camo shorts. But, you know, yeah, but, you know, 18 Visions and Monster Crew, you know, hand in hand. So they were an interesting case because, you know, you think now that people have cool haircuts and dress fancy to be cool. But the reason they did it was exactly what you're saying,

was, so a good friend of mine was in 18 divisions and is one of the people who like invented that whole thing. And the reason they did it is specifically to piss people off because it was cool to wear camel shorts and be, you know, jock and stuff back then. So they said, well, we're go, we all go to hair school. So why don't we get fucking Karen haircuts and wear ties? You know, like, it's funny to think back on all the things that I believed as a kid in regards to hardcore because there wasn't like any way to verify any of these rumors that you heard. But we used to here, and I'm not saying this as if it was actually true, but who knows, we used to hear like, those dudes in 18 visions, I heard they suck each other's dicks. They probably started that rumor.

And that to me, based on my view of the world, was like, I mean, I can't even put into words, like how foreign that was to me. I just had never even, like, I knew that gay people existed, but I had never really known anyone who was gay in real life like that. So it was just so foreign and hard for me to understand. Well, Hav, if you're listening, we'll need you to confirm or deny this rumor. Yeah, or any dicks getting sucked. need to know that yeah let's I'm gonna need to see some photographic evidence one way or the other looking back on that and like how I viewed that it well how have had three kids by three different mothers oh so I would say he was probably busy putting that thing elsewhere right I'm not assuming that that

was a real thing but I don't know um yeah but y'all another like crazy cultural moment for me was I don't remember the band but I remember there was a band from L.A. that came out and and played a show in Worcester Mass and they were wearing like big white teas and like large jeans shorts. Yeah. And that for like. Was it like E-town concrete or something? It wasn't E-town concrete, although they were at my first ever hardcore show in 97,

which was like death threat, E-town, unearthed hate breed. Like in my town. Like I could have fucking rode my bike there in like five minutes. It's so insane. How many noses were broken at that show? Probably many. Yeah. Yeah.

But, man, that was just mind-blowing. Oh, yeah, but, like, they came through and they're wearing these big white T's and, like, jean shorts, which I now understand is, like, you know, our version of hardcore had no gangster influence, whereas, like, their version of hardcore in L.A., obviously, like, gangs are a giant part of the culture, so that's kind of, like, fed into how they dress and stuff. Oh, I thought you were talking about more of, like, the Lugs kind of look. The Lug's Fubu sort of look. Kind of. But I see what you mean. It was more of a West Coast, like, you know, because there was a. time period where like every

West Coast bike rider, every West Coast rapper that I knew it was like giant white teas like the tallest of teas like every fucking day that was just the style right. I guess I come back. Yeah I it's it's time I mean the early 2000 stuff is starting to be cool you know it's like all the

Y2K you know e-girls and stuff on TikTok so it's only a matter of time until the Funkmaster Flex Lug's driving boot is a coveted collector's item. You ever notice how like all of the trends though they always lead to things that are more expensive. Yeah, yeah, that's true.

That, like, I can't imagine white tea coming back as, like, the default hip-hop style because it just doesn't feed the capitalist beast if your shirt is inexpensive. That's just, there's no future in that. And as much as for me, I kind of like, I was thinking about what I would do if I sold no jumper at some point in my life. And I was like, well, first thing first, I would wear a white t-shirt every single day in my life. Yeah, be like, Damon Dash, only wear a pair of shoes once. Do you ever see him on cribs?

I do remember that, yeah. When he licked the bottom of the shoe. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Dame Dash is wearing pairs of shoes more than ones these days, but maybe like two or three times. My favorite part was when the butler came out and offered water and he stopped the butler's like, is this the most expensive water you could find? He's like, yes, of course, sir. And he's like, okay, good. That's amazing, like faking how fancy you are for content. I think he was joking, but it was amazing.

If you in that era understood trolling in that kind of way, like if you understood that you could act like a fake version of yourself, a more exaggerated version and that basically any time you were on camera was like a wrestling promo opportunity, then the world is really your oyster because at that time, everyone's radar of what was fake and what was real was really set so low. And it's like you just took it for granted that everybody was being sincere. I mean, Paris Hilton fucking fleeced everybody doing that. You know, put some respect on Paris Hilton for inventing the influencer game, inventing trolling. Somebody like EZE who could just really say things that were so beyond the pale that he couldn't really possibly mean them. The fact that he understood how to sell that back to America at such an early stage is like pretty baffling to me because now it just feels like everyone gets that. I wonder how much of that stuff back then was fabric. and rappers in later generations emulated that,

but they didn't understand it was fake, so they did it for real, and it became real. And it just makes the problem more and more extreme that you'd have some guy in Ohio who's listening to EZE and just takes everything at face value and it's like, I'm gonna rob a bank. Right. And EZE's like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

EasyE, after his like prime, there was a lot of content around that time. Like I specifically remember one song where it was basically about robbing a bank and then taking the tell her in the back to basically assault her. That's right. And then taking her dress off

and realizing the shit of penis, I wonder if that's still on streaming service is untouched, because if they're taking away the fucking YG song about robbing Asian people's homes, I mean, I think that probably shooting the trans person and the probably, it's like the next one to go, right? That is definitely one of those.

I was a kid listening to that. And, you know, thank God I was like too timid to like act up. upon any of these sort of things because I just, I was baffled by it, but you gotta just assume that there was just as many people who like sort of sincerely bought into that worldview. I know some people who got in the hardcore scene

who got into some very, very serious legal trouble, like went to prison for shit, and I asked my friend like, you know, because he's a smart guy, he was like, what happened? And he was like, I just thought it was cool to be a thug. And then I became one and here we are. you know and a lot of rapper rap kids want to be rappers

etc would be doing themselves like they would be more honest than they've ever been in their entire life if they were to say that and just accept that that's basically why they're in the lifestyle that they're in yeah and you know you can choose to opt out of that at any time and maybe people are going to call you some names on the internet but it's better than getting shot or going to prison

I interview people all the time who basically just have to go to prison a bunch of times until they figure out that oh I guess I just don't want to live the life of a criminal, you know? And even I was interviewing Cali Mussel, who's a YouTuber and a bodybuilder and used to be in prison, street dude, etc. And he basically said that the moment

he got locked up that he just got indoctrinated into this shit because everyone respected him so much based on how huge he was and just his personality. And it's like, if you go to prison and you're good at it, I mean, that's just like, it's hard. You don't have that same

negative thing. Whereas if you go to prison, you're a total pussy and you get terrorized the whole time, then yeah, you're and probably not want to go back. My dad was a corrections officer. And so my stepmom was too. And I have a bunch of other family members who went to prison. So I remember asking my dad about that. Like, you know, why do people go back?

And he's like, some people like it there. They prefer it to be, they prefer it over being on the outside because everything's done for them in prison and they can just focus on what they want to do, which is like victimizing other people. And he was describing it as being really comfortable, too. He's like, think about it. Nobody's getting 12 hours. sleep on the outside.

Sure. But a lot of guys in prison are fucking, you know, they're putting you to bed at like 8 p.m. It's like lights out. It's like, what the fuck else are you going to do? I wouldn't be comfortable for me. Right. Especially when you see what they eat. Yeah.

That's what everyone complains about. It's like the food. Yeah. I mean, when I think about like the level of freedom I have in my life to just, you know, when you look at that postmates list and you're just looking through like hundreds of delicious restaurants and you're like, I don't want any of this. I don't know what the fuck to order. Like think about being in prison and you got to eat the same hot dog every day or

I think about that kind of stuff all the time. I try very hard to not take my freedom for granted, you know, because I think about people I know who have, you know, been locked up and just how much, I used to have nightmares all the time that I had, like, killed somebody. And then I really, you know, that I had, you know, I killed somebody in self-defense, but I realized, oh, fuck, I'm going to go to prison for this. Right. And I was like, fuck, maybe I'm going to do 10 years or something.

And maybe I'll get out, but I'm going to have to go to prison for 10 years. And I would wake up, like, in a cold sweat and stuff. Wow. And. That's a very reasonable thing to be. scared of because that is probably one of the worst things that could happen to you aside from dying. Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you ask any normal person who's went to prison, uh, what's prison like? And they look at you like you're fucking idiot and they're like,

it's the worst fucking thing ever. What do you think? Yeah. It's so bad that it's kind of hard to believe that it still exists in the way that it does. Literally the only thing they can do to you after that is kill you. Right. That's the only thing worse than prison. Hey, I watch, I watched, uh, I watched the season of the show 60 days in. And it was unbelievable. The best prison-related show I ever watch. But the main thing I got from it was just like, oh my, like I felt so thankful about everything in my life as I watched that show. And I don't get that from a lot of programming, but everything about it just made me like want to behave, my best behavior, not get in trouble, not get pulled over, not do anything bad because I just am seeing this way of life. Like you can walk across

this room without having to like worry about like the 10 bad things that could happen to you along the way. Definitely. I watched one of your videos and I feel like it might have been one of the most disliked of your videos. Not that I had like majority dislikes, but it was the one about racism and metal. What has been the conclusions that you sort of come to from talking about, you know, politics or race and stuff like that? Because that's one thing on YouTube. I think when you get into YouTube, you think it's going to be more left than it is. That is my exact conclusion.

And you see the comments and you're like, wow, I made a lot of assumptions about how you get. would take in what I'm saying about this. That is my exact conclusion. I was afraid that people were going to come after me for not being, you know, anti-racist enough. Right. You know, I mean, I was very anti-racist, but I was, you know, you know what I mean. You could have taken it further in that video in particular in terms of, you know,

sort of the whole social justice warrior. There's a spectrum. You weren't on the furthest end by any means yet. But I was definitely on that side of it. And but it was the exact opposite. I was like, oh, everybody in the internet is racist, which I know, I'm joking, that's an exaggeration, but for sure, like the vast majority of the comments on that were disagreeing with me, calling me names, you know, like, it was exactly what you said. And then I, anytime I've ever mentioned, you know, I'm not woke, like, at all, but I'm not an asshole either. You know what I mean?

I'm not racist. I don't hate women. And anytime I'm critical of those things, I get a ton of comments from people who are, I don't know who these people are. Basically don't want to have their worldview questioned at all. Yeah. And I mean, maybe it's because, you know,

we live on the West Coast and associate with the people we associate with. But it just blew my mind, to be honest, how many people out there, like, don't think that racism and sexism exist or that if they do exist, like you shouldn't talk about it. It's just, it's puzzling. You know, sometimes I read those kind of responses and I'm surprised, like, like people who think

it really shouldn't be discussed at all or that it's not a problem at all is the stuff that really kind of blows my mind because I understand the perspective of people who think that, you know, our culture basically like talks about this shit too much. I understand that because we are fucking inundated with conversations from a lot of people who don't really seem all that sincere about it. like when I have to, you know, watch like a Chase Bank commercial about how against racism they are. And I'm like, really? Like this, like, I don't know if I want to hear anybody talk about this if Chase is telling me it.

You know, and like, I understand that. But like the people are so just so resistant to having any conversation about it can be kind of amazing. Yeah. And, you know, in regards specifically to like metal. And I want to be clear, it is a uniquely metal problem. Like people in pop punk aren't racist. People in hardcore definitely aren't. racist. That's interesting. You know what I mean? Like in a hardcore show, if you're racist, you

literally might get killed. You know, I mean, that's how I grew up. That has happened. That was my understanding, and I know what you're talking about right there, at least one of them. That was my upbringing was like, oh, there are crews in hardcore and like one of the main functions of the cruise is that if anything racist happens or if somebody shows up with swastika on their shirt, they're going to get the shit beat out of them. And that to me was a big selling point. I was like, wow, that makes me think that this white culture is a lot cooler than a lot of the other white culture that I'm observing, you know? Yeah, and that's, I just sort of assumed that everybody felt the same way.

Well, it's not the case in metal. And because, you know, I mean, you can watch the video, but essentially, you know, anytime I talk about rap in a video, it comes out in the comments, you know, lots of, I don't even look at the ones that YouTube flags, you know, is whatever objectionable, because I imagine there's all kinds of bad words in there that I don't want to look at. But the ones that make it through the filter are bad enough, you know. lots and lots and stuff about how the media is conspiring

to destroy white culture and stuff and you know the media hates white people and that's why they're forcing this rap on us and they're trying to outbreed us and like all this stuff that's like it's beyond it's beyond just sort of like rednecky kind of stuff it's like into

the realm of like Q and on kind of like you literally think there's a conspiracy to like exterminate white people and you know it's hundreds of comments like this and people will say well it's just a few people on the internet. Why do you put so much weight in that? All right. Well, at what point does it become enough people that you think it needs to be paid attention to? To me, the fact that there's hundreds of people saying this on a video with a few hundred thousand views, that's

enough to represent a sizable amount of people to me. Right, because when I'm watching that video, I'm sort of wondering like, damn, there's that much racism and metal because I'm not like close enough to it to really, you know, see that. And I was just surprised to hear that. But then hearing you say that about the comments that kind of like proves the point i guess yeah and with any like european metal band uh there's sort of i don't really listen to that stuff but there's a filter i know lots of people who do and there's a filter you have to run of like okay before i like this band let me make sure that nobody in the band is it is a nazi or was in a band with a nazi really i mean it's like an actual literal nazi it's that common of a thing in those sort of scenes in like european metal yeah it's you know like

there's pictures of i don't know people like the guy from fucking behemoth you know, with his friend from Graveland, which is like a straight up like Nazi band, pictures of them together. And, you know, he asks the guy from Behemoth about it. And he's like, oh, I don't endorse his politics. Whatever. That's his business.

Damn, that's crazy because that's going to be a tough choice. I wonder how that feels. But would it be a tough choice for you? You're right. It's not a tough choice for me, but it's like I never knew a Nazi. Right. You know, so that kind of like, it makes me wonder, like, how I would feel if I was that guy and like you just socialize with other.

Well, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I don't think there's that many people. in metal who you know would just throw around the N-word right but I think there's a lot of people are like oh yeah the guys a Nazi big deal like I don't agree with them but whatever right you know and they don't see that as an issue that's interesting you think that in a way metal's kind of become like a refuge for people who feel like that because I mean I don't really know what kind of music people who are like talking about white supremacy on the internet really listen to these days I mean if it's not metal I don't know what else would it be you know yeah I

I guess maybe some kind of like real rednecky country? I don't know. That's crazy. I remember like every like outwardly racist person I've ever probably met my whole life just because it's like stood out to me so much. I just doesn't like I had a guy basically trying to recruit me to work on an oil tanker with him and one of his selling points was there was no black people. And this is just a guy talking to me outside of fucking burger spot. Yeah. And I said to him, I'm like, bro, I'm good. I'm good. I don't need a job. I'm good. And then right at the last minute, but people who listen to this podcast are heard me tell the story a bunch of times, right as he's leaving he runs up to me and gives me a business card and he goes bro like i went to

prison i did my time i came back and and you know right right right right like i put in work and i'm just like the way he said it i was like this is interesting so when i got home i googled his name and he basically like blew a portoican kid's head off with a shotgun and was in like a fucking nazi gang back in the day and went and did like 15 years for it and i'm like this is the fuck like he wanted me to google him well if you're a white guy with tattoos you know i mean i have a lot of and my tattoos are not good so they look like they could have been done in jail or something. So I remember one time years ago when I lived in Ohio, I was at some shitty dive bar. And to be fair, I was trying to buy a cocaine, so the guy was not barking up the wrong tree. But he comes up to me like all super intense with that

you know, coke kind of energy. He's some like, you know, white peckerwood type guy, a bunch of tattoos and just starts telling me about how he just got out of the joint like three days ago. And, you know, he's just trying to make some money and he's selling coke and you know how he's clicked up with the ab and i was just like i do not want to be having this conversation with you right and asking me if i want to buy coke from him and i was like yeah all right you know and then his some guy comes up to us and he's like are you talking to my brother and i was like uh yes and he's like you can are you trying to get him in trouble i'll fucking kill you if you get him in trouble you're like what the hell did i get myself into exactly i was like you know what i got that sense of like okay this guy isn't not um

this is not an empty threat. I was like, I apologize, I'm not trying to cause any trouble. I'm just going to get out of here. And that was that. And I was like, man, this is how you end up getting fucking stabbed. Right.

Dude, Coke makes for bad bedfellows. You'll just deal with people you would never deal with otherwise in the pursuit of that shit. And people who just got out of the joint are still like in that mentality. And I was like, this is just, I just literally dodged a bullet here.

Glad I, let me throw this fucking scenario out to you. because I don't even think I've talked about this on the podcast, but this happened to me recently. And I don't, I have no expectation that I should have done better because I didn't really realize what was going on until afterwards, but I've been thinking about it ever since. So we had a little BMX jam, right?

We're all hanging out, smoking. I mean, the crowd is very mixed racially. There's like black guy standing right next to me rolling a blunt. There's another, you know, it's like very, very mixed crowd at L.A. skate park. And guy comes up to me and starts talking to me about how his kid thinks, I'm so cool and wants to take a picture with me. And as I'm talking to the guy and he's got a full face, he's like a 45-year-old white guy, full face of tattoos.

And as I'm talking to him, I start to realize that every single tattoo on his face is a fucking white power thing. Got a little bolts. He got that H-88, like, all these little, like, things that I just recognize from fucking movies and stuff. And I, but I didn't fully realize, like, as I'm looking at him, and it's only like a minute-long conversation. And then he turns around and I see, like, even more.

And now I'm 100% sure, like, oh, fuck. and you know but he's he's being super nice and taking a photo of his kid with me and then he walks away and literally no but none of the people of color who are with me have any fucking clue what the shit on his face means I'm the only one and I start telling them and they're looking at me like what the fuck like why the fuck do you know about all this Nazi shit I'm like oh okay how do you know how to read all this code I know they're like kind of looking at me like they give you a handbook or something like were you a Nazi like why do you know and I'm like yeah like that's kind of a good point too Like if I were to make a big deal about this, I guess I kind of would be doing it for me.

Because you guys don't know what the fuck it is. Right. I felt like if I saw him again at a event like that, maybe I should say something, but I really, I'm kind of, he's being so nice that I'm kind of assuming, and there's like pooh-sheisty blasting right now. I'm kind of assuming that maybe it's just some prison shit. So this is like recently? This was like three weeks ago. Oh, okay. And yeah, I'm just like trying to, you know, what would you have done?

because there's been other times in my life when I think about it that I could have been less cowardly in terms of saying something to somebody who said something who said something racist around me. Well, those kind of people can and will go from zero to ten

in a fucking heartbeat. So I don't know if that's cowardly. There's a difference between like a guy at the gas station, some like just dumbass redneck at the gas station and somebody with those kind of tattoos at his age like very likely might kill you. you know i mean that's that's not unimaginable so i'm not saying shit to a crackhead because

a crackhead i can just walk past you know this guy came to an event that we threw and clearly felt comfortable being there which i mean i want everyone to feel comfortable but not of the expensive other people feeling uncomfortable you want to get rid of that guy but you got it's like defusing a bomb you know you can't just pull the red wire out right because you might blow everybody up so you got to do it in a safe way it was just crazy because his energy was the opposite of what I would ever expect from anyone on that type of time, you know, like, he's just, he was being so nice, and that's what really threw me off about the whole experience. People are very, you know, people are very multifaceted. Somebody can be super nice to you, and then be a total piece of shit

monster to somebody else for completely different reasons, you know? I mean, it's people are not one-dimensional. It's true. How do you feel about, this is an offset of that conversation, but it's like in, Okay, when you were doing the zine, you're making a zine, it's for hardcore kids. Hardcore kids are ordering it, but it basically doesn't really matter what you cover necessarily because they're just kind of a hardcore zine. It's going to have 20 different bands in it. They're going to all fuck with it. When it comes to making a video, I mean, the video lives or dies by the title and the thumbnail,

you could either make a fuckload of money or you could have a total dud, and you're probably more aware of that for your content than anything. How much does that sort of shape the decisions you make about what you cover? well at this point in my life i'm not going to invest a bunch of my time and energy in something that is not going to i don't want to say not going to make me money because you know money is the only thing that matters but it has to it has to like benefit me and my family somehow you know what i mean um when i was younger i didn't give a shit and i would just make stuff because i wanted to make it and i think that's totally cool but at this point in my life i'm not going to spend

15 hours on a video that gets 2,000 views instead of putting that money or putting that into like building some kind of business. I just can't do that. So, you know, it does matter. Like I said, I'm not gonna kind of give in to the lowest common denominator, you know, audience and make some like shitty video dragging somebody just because I know that would get a lot of clicks.

But what I try to do is like start with a topic that I'm like genuinely interested in talking about in some way or another. And I might make some compromises with, you know, shaping that to some extent, But I'm never going to do something just purely for views. It's just, this is not who I am. If I wanted to just make money, there's a lot of things I would do,

aside from YouTube, you know what I mean? The hardcore kid attitude, though, is oftentimes kind of like the band with, you know, a thousand followers is just as important as the band with a million followers. And I feel like that has got to be something that you... But I guess you're not making videos about specific bands. You're trying to tell interesting stories and entertain your audience, right? Yes, but part of the reason why is because making videos about individual bands just generally doesn't get as many views because it requires you to be. That's why I focus on like genres more because let's say making a video about emo, as long as you're a fan of one of the fucking thousand bands under the heading of emo, then you might be interested in this video.

But if I make it specifically about census fail or whatever, then it's limited to the audience of people because people only click on stuff that they know about basically, which I think is really dumb. and I would encourage people to not fucking echo chamber themselves like that. Like go out of your way to watch videos about things you don't know about. It'll make your life better. But that's the world we live in. And so, you know, what I try to do is take advantage of the fact that people will click on a video about something popular. And on the back of that, feed them something, you know, about a lesser known artist or some, you know, what I would hope is a piece of useful information or something like that. So if, for example, like I made a video of something.

video about trap metal today and you know the title and the thumbnail are like the popular stuff everyone to know like scar lord goes main city morgue um but towards the end of that video i talk about a bunch of like super obscure underground artists you know with like 5,000 monthly listeners i see you do that little sleight of hand from time to time exactly so you know that's kind of how i do it because i feel like that's the best of both worlds i can you know get the views and make a little bit of money but i can also use that to you know kind of scratch my inner hardcore kid itch of giving some attention to people who don't have as much of it. Do you think you're the only hardcore kid eating off NordVPN?

Well, my manager's a hardcore kid too, and he's the one that brings me those deals. So there's at least two of us. Right. Okay, so how do you go about building out of your team, getting a manager? And I think you said that you had somebody helping you schedule stuff or whatever, and you have an editor. How do you go about making that decision? And is this a full-time thing for you now?

It's not, but it could be. I'm a partner in two other companies. One is called URM Academy. It's an online school for rock and metal producers. We teach people how to record music. Another one is called riffhard.com, which is for like metal guitarists, teach people how to play guitar. Oh, that's cool.

So that's sort of my real job. But I could do YouTube full-time if I wanted to, but I don't want to. But as far as building a team out goes, I have seen so many people think that they can't outsource this or that. Nobody could do it like I do it. It's not true. There's a lot of stuff you can outsource. and you will be glad you did. The sooner you do it, the better.

That's how you scale yourself and your time. My manager is just through the, like, Hardcore Kid Network. You know, how do a hardcore kid? How did we find each other? You just do. You know, it's just like the magnet of hardcore kids that, you know, find each other. And he does, like, Jared Dines and Stevie T and Fluff, a lot of, like, kind of metal music kind of YouTubers.

Oh, nice. And my channel is, especially back when he started working with me, It was smaller than a lot of the other ones. But because we're both hardcore kids, he was like, fuck it. I'll get you some deals. So that's how that started. And that was awesome because anybody that does YouTube, you know, those brand deals, that's a nice chunk of change that really makes up for ad sense,

which can be up and down all the time and stuff. And you get a video demonetized. So that's how I found him. And with him, I just try very hard to be his best client because, you know, a lot of these, you know, it is working with influencers and stuff. Most of them are flakes and they don't do what they say they're going to do. They're late. I try to never be that person.

If I make his life easy and I make, you know, if I'm his easiest client to work with, then I know I'm always going to have work. So that's how I kind of, and he's my friend too. He lives down the street for me. So there's that. But that's how I think about him. As far as the podcast editor, I have, so I have a podcast editor and producer. And then I also have a video editor.

The podcast editor, I just met her friend or a friend. You know, she edits the podcast for URIM Academy. me and I just was we do this old convention sort of thing every year and I was just having lunch and talking to her and I said, I need to do a podcast. Do you want to help me make it? She said yes and that was that. And I think once you have somebody good like her who's reliable, just get the fuck out of their way and let them do their thing. You know, if somebody needs to be micromanaged, that's the wrong person. Find somebody good, get the fuck out of their way and let him do their job. The editor just emailed me randomly and said, hey, I'm a fan of the channel. I have done the following

work for this like soccer channel. I'd love to try it out with you. And I've gotten emails like that before, but there's just something about his email that seemed like he was worth taking a chance on him. And so I was like, all right. And then two days later, I sent him in the first thing. And it's been awesome. So the lesson there to me is like hit people up. If you want to work with them, like DMs and emails, that shit works. There's lots of projects I've gotten that way. Like, you know, Bridge 9. You know, that like yeah you know bird nine i did a uh flash game for him in like 2004 or something like that he also has a uh clothing company called sully's brand you know yeah you know if you're in boston you you know you know you've seen the shirts whether you know you've seen the name of the brand or

yeah exactly so i just email or i uh mailed him a package in like 2003 or something like that when i was doing graphic design it just mailed him my work and said hey i'm a fan of the label i'd love to do something and he hit me back and was like I don't need anything for bridge nine but i need something for soles do you want to do it and so it did um so the lesson there is like just put your put yourself out there you know if you want to work with somebody hit up your favorite YouTuber or artist or anybody and just send them your shit and if you do it enough time somebody eventually is going to say yes and once one person says yes then it's much easier to get everyone else to say yes it's that first domino that knocks down all the other ones and just go for it i know so many people are basically successful

online because they at one point were willing to work for somebody for free just hit them up offered I know so many people who got on by doing timestamps I believe it just hit up somebody who had a podcast and said I'm such a big fan let me do the timestamps for you and then that somehow blossomed into them making a bunch of relationships and boom they're like doing their own thing at some point yeah absolutely I mean that's half the opportunities that I've gotten did you may have seen the magazine I used to it was called flow back in like the mid 2000s it was like came with a CD a DVD and a magazine. We had a lot of action sports and music stuff,

so like Quicksilver would pay us a couple grand to make a video about some surf competition they did. We had some BMX stuff on there. I don't remember what brands because I don't remember enough about it. But I got that job. I did all the video stuff for them for like three years about. And that was the same thing.

I just mailed a package to the guy. And we worked on that thing for like a year and a half before I ever even met him. Right. Just because, and I would have done it for free. He paid me, but I would have done it for free. That is the one. way it works. Like if you have any kind of skill, you got to be good at what you do and you have

to have a network. And the way you're going to build that network is just fucking reach out to people, you know, and that's what I learned from hardcore being a little kid wanting to interview bands. I'd write them a letter and say, hey, I'm Finn. I'm 15 years old. I have a zine. Would you like to do an interview with me? And more often than not, they'd be like, all right, cool, here's my phone number. Call me. I go, oh my God, I've got to call the guy in the band. Yeah. But you get used to that and you learn that it's just a numbers game. If you reach out to people, X percent of them are going to ignore you. X percent are going to say no.

And then the rest of them will say yes. And you only need a couple people to say yes at the right time to change your life. And all those people who ignored you at some point, if you do a really good job providing value with the first gigs that you get, those gigs will 100 percent end up leading to things that are paid. And also all those people who ignored you are going to end up taking you serious once they see that you've actually put in a significant amount of work and have something to show for yourself. because that is the hardest thing is getting from zero to 60. Like somebody was asking me recently, like, when you started the podcast,

was it hard for you to deal with getting a lot of hate? And I'm like, no, it was hard for me to deal with the fact that nobody was paying attention to me. I wasn't getting anything to get hate until I was like successful and people had an expectation. You know, like I would have been so lucky to have hate early on. It probably would have blown up faster. Yeah. I mean, if people are reacting to what you're doing, then that is a sign. That's a sign of success.

The worst thing is indifference. If you put shit out, which is a part of the process, put stuff out at the beginning and it feels like three people watched it and one of them is your mom and you're like why the fuck am i doing this but that's just part of the process you know i made i want to say 70 videos before i really got anywhere it took me like nine months which i think is fast you know i i consider that to be quick but you were getting what like a couple hundred or a thousand views or something uh like one to 200 and that that i mean that is the hardest time is being a YouTuber and is when you don't have a

audience and you're just talking to the to the non-existent fan base. But at that point, you also have to start thinking promotion. How am I going to put this in front of people's faces? You know? Yep. And that it's a grind. It's hard. It's discouraging. The first part of your career in anything you do is the hardest. It gets easier. You know, I feel like I feel like I used to work a lot harder and used to like life used to be a lot harder, you know, but it's because I built that foundation and now things are, you know, the snowball is rolling. I don't have to work as hard as I used to, which I feel guilty about, but that's a whole other conversation.

In terms of your aspirations for your channel, you've been involved with media companies. Do you think about your channel as basically being you, or is it something that you could see turning into something bigger than you or where it might one day really have a life of its own and have a bunch of different people commentating on it or something? You know, I think it's me. I think the media company approach is a totally valid and smart one. I just don't think it's the one that I want. It makes sense like for you or, you know, for, I don't know, like there's another company

I follow a Collins Last Stand, now Last Stand Media, where it's like it starts with one person and then they scale it by adding other people or Linus Tech Tips does this too. You know, he has a process for building new hosts and eventually they're able to produce videos on their own and Linus is not involved at all. And I think that's totally smart, but it's not really what I want to do. I don't expect that this is going to last forever. What I hope is that I'm building some sort of brand for myself that will enable whatever I do next.

You know, like what I want in a future world is I want Amazon or Microsoft to pay me a million dollars to help them figure out how to spread their message because they suck, like Amazon sucks shit at YouTube. Amazon Web Services YouTube channel, they literally get like 250 views on videos. And this is AWS that runs, literally like 30% of the internet a I don't know what a WS makes now like 20 billion dollars a year and

they can't get more than fucking 250 views on a video so you would rather be a consultant to massive corporations it seems kind of antithical to like everything you built uh well I'm I'm happy where I'm at but it's not going to last forever what I'm going to be like 50 years old talking about fucking face tattoo rappers I feel that I feel that I actually didn't mean it that way no it's a totally perfect i dread that and think about because like that was always my thing when i was doing the bmx shit was like i got into this because i was super passionate about it in terms of like writing about it on the internet and making videos and covering it and stuff and i always used to just look at certain people in the industry and be like damn that dude is 34 and he hates his fucking life and he's only

associated with this little bike shit because he liked it when he was a kid and he doesn't know anything else i used to always think like man i hope i don't have to fucking keep doing this shit just because it's the opportunity I have to make the most money, you know? And this, where I'm at now in terms of this was pretty much just a result of me, feeling I had to branch out. I had to try other things because I was just feeling so stale with just doing the same shit over and over, you know? Yeah, you got to have an idea of where you're going with it, which, you know, some sort of an exit. And if it lasts forever, great.

But I think you should have an idea of an exit, which could be scaling it to the point where, you know, Adam started this thing. But now it's just a network of eight other people who are. the next generation that are, you know, able to do what he did 10 years ago, or if it is building a brand for yourself and then bowing out of YouTube and saying, well, YouTube, it was fun, but now I am transitioning from being a player to a coach. And, you know, my interests and experience are more along the lines of, you know, of, I guess, marketing and technology than they are talking about music necessarily. So not that I don't enjoy it, I do, but I know that I could help Amazon

for example, become a lot better at storytelling. And if they paid me a million dollars, that would be the best fucking million dollars they ever spent. So, you know, Andy Jassy, if you're watching. No, you're worth. My DMs are open. Give me a million and I'll do it.

No problem. For sure. No, yeah, that's interesting because, I mean, I could imagine your channel just like continuing to, you know, I feel like at some point, let's say you decide you want to bow out and you've got a million subscribers.

And this is a very specific audience of people who give a fuck about metal and punk and hardcore and shit it would be a real shame to let that go I feel like I feel like you would have to find a way like just being you I feel like you would find a way to breathe life into it some way like it's got at least

at least and I wish I had done this with the BMX channel or if it made more sense but I feel like at least use it as a platform and hey I'll repost clips from other people's videos to help promote you or something this person makes a dope video I'm going to post the first five minutes of it and you got to go to their channel

watch the full 15 or something like that to at least like use that audience to sort of help that community I guess yeah I'd be totally open to that I'm not necessary like that's not my plan but if it happens that'd be great you know because I do like helping you know up-and-coming artists especially at some point in my life I've fucking basically got the impression that nobody give a fuck about guitar oriented music anymore and from watching your channel I realize how much of a culture there still really is around it and especially like watching your shit and realizing how many people are talking about rock. music on TikTok. That was kind of mind blowing to me. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely, you know, it's

definitely still out there. It's not what it was in 2002. But I mean, I think especially now with the crossover of all the rap stuff that I talked about that all my metal fans, metal watchers, hate me for talking about, but, you know, which is how I discovered you was when you were doing all that like got boy click, you know, interviews and stuff like that. I know you're a big Zillikami fan. And yeah, that was a fucking awesome interview that actually we should re-upload some part of that because that was awesome. I'm a huge fan. And, So smooth, I like to sell crack. That was his best quote in the whole thing.

He was just totally honest. He was just like, I like to sell crack. It's just a hobby of mine. Some people are into making their own hot sauce or pickles. I like crack. He said it like it was saying, I like fishing. Yeah. I mean, hey, a man's got to know his lane.

But I think that to me has made guitar music much more relevant than it has been in years. Because, you know, rock, they don't want to be. stars anymore and rappers do. And, you know, I don't even consider most people consider the quote emo rappers or trap metal people to be like rap people. They're really not. You know what I mean? There's some that might be a little bit like so small as probably more on that side of things. But, you know, like all this goth boy click kids, they're not rappers. And the rap community doesn't relate to them or see them as being involved with what they're doing at all. Yeah, they don't know or care at all about that stuff. It is 100% culturally part of rock. It's dope that.

all that stuff exists, but to sort of act like that's even close to the mainstream of rap or of stuff that's really popular, you know, like even, you know, somebody like Juice World, though, is kind of like the one who sort of rose through. Obviously, a little peach career was cut super short, but Juice World really took like that sort of flavor, but really he was so hip hop too. Like he just made so many straight rap songs and was such a good rapper that he was able to navigate between the two in a way that was kind of different. But he brought attention to, you know, the guitar music that he did like. It's true, you know, Post Malone would be another person doing that. So I think that's kind of made it relevant to a younger generation that otherwise, like, why would anybody, you know, under

30-something know that Yellow Card exists other than the fact that, you know, Juice World may or may not have, you know, taken a melody from them? Right. Yeah, that has been a weird one to hear all these like rap kids being like what the fuck is yellow card and I'm just like silently over here like yeah I remember yellow card okay yeah and I mean that's a good example of how it you know that how rap is making rock relevant again in a way that or you know all the all the people that Travis Barker works with and blah blah blah you know that to me is the most interesting thing that's happened to guitar music in a long time totally unrelated but I remember one time my friend dragged me to a brand new show in probably 2008 and just really

you know, in 2008, I'm like, like 26, and just realizing like, oh, like, this is what girls are doing. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, like, you're going on all these hardcore and rap shows. Like, this is, if you want to meet girls, you got to just go to the brand new shows and shit.

Yeah, definitely. And I never, I'm just not at all. That's a more like kind of indie end of pop punk and emo and stuff. And I just don't resonate with that at all, you know? I feel that. I just don't get a small peepy energy to me. I like a lot of email and stuff,

but definitely never, like always liked it. And actually watching your shit about indie rock really expressed pretty much exactly how I've always felt about indie rock, which is that musically, I find a lot of it pretty... It's fine. And compelling. I'll, like, listen to, like,

a lot of those bands, realistically, but have never related to the culture of it at all or, like, found any of it interesting. And, like, even now when I'm, like, watching documentaries and Netflix about like folk bands and stuff. I'm just realizing like, wow, this is music I always liked, but that I never felt any need to learn about. Right.

And I think, and people think I'm being gatekeeping when I say this. I don't mean it this way at all, but I think that we don't identify with it because we come from too much of a dysfunctional background. You know what I mean? Like, to us, it's like too bland. You know what I mean? because our bar for stimulation and connecting with something emotionally requires more darkness than those people have in them. Right.

And that's not a bad thing. I'm happy for them. And I'm not like, oh, you're not as edgy as me. But you don't want to take your art in from somebody who basically is boring. I just can't. You know, and that's not a knock. And that explains why it's more popular than the stuff I like because most people are, you know, not as interested in or not as drawn to darkness as we are. And that's just the way it is.

I've listened to a lot more Chief Keith than Chance the rapper in my life. There you go. That does a lot. How did you end up in the relationship that you're in? Because I feel like one thing that we have in common that you've mentioned is that we both basically ended up in relationships with normies. Yeah. Well. And she doesn't really understand your interests as much.

Like my girl is very foreign to a lot of the drill rap stuff. She looks like a normie, but she's into all this stuff. I mean, she listens to hardcore and stuff. She was into like metalcore and all that kind of stuff. Oh, okay. I kind of got the idea from your shit that she was sort of totally in the dark. And I was like, I wonder how someone's so subculture you got into that relationship. Well, she was not into hardcore, you know, which is different.

Being into like emo and metalcore is different than being into hardcore, you know what I mean? Not as clear a sign of mental illness. Exactly. Exactly. When you go to hardcore shows, sometimes doesn't feel like that, like, man, you're going to be kind of crazy. I don't want to be here. If you don't go to one for a long time, I mean, people don't get into bands called hate breed terror and death threat because everything's fucking cool.

And those all seem like pretty nice bands in the realm of things. There's much worse. Yeah. Like, I would always be like wearing a hate breed shirt and having somebody asked me if it was like a racist thing or something. Right. It looks like it would be. Right. And that would be a really good name for a racist man.

Right. If you came out with a band called hate breed in 2021, would anyone believe you if you said that it wasn't a racist thing? I don't know. Yeah. No, probably not. And the flames, you know. Lots of things about it seem to be clear for anybody listening, not a racist band whatsoever. What kind of band do you think Chad Hanks would have been in if he was born 20 years earlier?

Gosh. Good question. It occurs to me that he could have easily been at a hardcore show of life. I've been a little different. Was it Kevin Bacon's son, I think, is in like a crust band or was, I think. I remember having that conversation online back in the day and being so in awe that somebody who is Kevin Bacon's son could want to be involved to that at all.

And imagine how hard it is for him to come out to his friends that he's Kevin Bacon's. He's like, well, you know, guys, there's something you should know about me. I hope you don't think less of me. If you do, I understand, but I just have to be honest with you, you know, this is my dad. And then he slides a picture of Kevin Bacon across the table. Living out here, I don't really see anyone reacting negatively to it

because it's kind of normal to be like close to celebrity out here. where I was like where I grew up is like but put on your like you know Western mass hardcore show hat you know like there's it's gonna be a beaten definitely that would be a weird and it's so funny to think that your dad being successful is like something that you right be ashamed of yeah yeah it's funny you got to you know you got to pull out your uh your your paperwork and show them how many like dysfunction boxes you check in order for them to take you seriously and it's still like that like there's a rapper rob banks who's shaggy's his dad And by all account...

Oh, I didn't know that. And by all accounts, Shaggy was not very involved as a dad. Yeah, shocking. And I mean, he's got to hear about this for the rest of his life. Like, his whole time as a rapper, like, people bring it up as if it's their fucking Trump card. Right, right. It's like, why... Yeah, I'm aware of who my father is.

And he wasn't present. So if you're looking for trauma, I mean, what could be your dad being Shaggy and he's not around? I mean, that does sound coming. Yeah, I mean, your dad could be, you know, vanilla ice. Hmm. You know, but that, you should do a video about Vinal Ice because in my learning about him, I basically realized that he was very much like a respected rapper at a time. And then he came out with that song and that song was doing very well. And then all of a sudden they lampooned the song on Saturday Night Live.

And it was like overnight he just became this fucking laughing stock who basically like poisoned the well for white rappers for decades to come. Sure. Yeah, I mean, that sounds about right to me. I can't speak to him being a respected rapper before that, but definitely I remember when that song came out and everybody made fun of it for a solid decade. Have you ever watched his Home Improvement show? He was on Home Improvement?

No, he had a Home Improvement show. It's called The Vanilla Ice Project. Wow. Where he'll, like, you know, fix up the basement or put in a hot tub or something. It's great. Wow. He's really, really good on camera,

and he seems like just genuinely stoked about home improvement. It seems to really know his shit. Wow. That's awesome. He'll put a new driveway or something. I just interviewed Twista. He's a gun instructor now. Oh. So he's literally from like the murder capital of the United States. He's pretty much the first Chicago rapper ever. Chicago's known for having like unbelievable amounts of bloodshed and now he's out here trying to teach people probably not mostly those rappers.

But you know, teach some people how to use guns safely. That's cool. I wonder how many rappers know how to like, you know, break down and clean a gun and all that sort of stuff. Like how much do they know about guns? The number of incidents that I know about in which. a rapper discharged a firearm accidentally in a home and either like almost shot their homie or you know whatever is pretty large that's one thing that i would say that rap has been pretty good at keeping a lid on is just how many rappers have discharged firearms in places that they shouldn't of because usually they kind of understand that that's not something to advertise yeah that's not

that you don't get any clout for that but man i mean there's like there are things that i wish i knew about, like, I interviewed King Vaughn maybe a year ago. That was a year ago. And since then, I have seen, like, conversations that he had on Twitter about basically, like, murders that he had committed. Yeah. And the extent to which he was airing himself out on Twitter and just thinking nothing of it is baffling.

Like, I don't know how I didn't know when I interviewed him, but that stuff's all out there now. And it's fucking insane. It's wild to me The amount of I guess like self dry snitching that happens in rap now And they must I mean they must understand what they're doing and they don't care And they feel like it's gonna catch up with them one or I don't understand I mean and in particular like I mean young people doing that

I look at it and I'm like holy fuck you guys are insane But also I kind of understand it The fact the NBA young boy is about to do 10 years for like possession of firearms about a felon and it's because he just wanted to be holding them in the music video and shit. Right, yeah, exactly. It's like these people know that you can't have a gun when you're on

parole and you can't hang out with your gang when you're on parole and you know, putting that in a music video that's going to get millions of views. Like, they have to understand where this goes. The video didn't even come out. The cops managed to confiscate the memory cards from the cameras that had the footage of him holding all the guns

and stuff. And I mean, NBA young boy free on the streets is probably worth like $10 million a year or some shit. Like he could just make so much money by touring and putting out music that him putting himself in that position for basically like his love of being a gangster and playing with guns. I mean, it's like unthinkable from the perspective of like a rational person.

The only way you can really understand it is just that he is so that thing that he pathologically compelled to do it. He just cannot resist the guns and the bullshit. And I mean, and that's his best behavior. because it's not like anybody got shot in this music video this is just them holding guns and he couldn't hold back from that even it's it's just surprising to me I mean I used to do graffiti when I was younger and the idea of graffiti writers being on Instagram is crazy to me and there's I mean there's a lot of the older ones that aren't for that or if they've gotten busted and you know the cops already knew who they are and you know stuff like that but you know what I'm gonna do so far enough like Casanova like he's been around the fucking block having all these Instagram conversations about selling drugs just in the DMs. So the investigators are able to just read his DMs and just basically

pieced together his whole criminal enterprise. He understands, yeah, he knows how this stuff works and it's, I don't, I just, I don't understand why they go. I don't understand. Yeah, it's like, you just, I mean, I don't know the extent to which anybody really needs to be, like, taught to be

a better criminal, but it does stand out like that, like, holy fuck, like, how could you guys be this bad at this? And like, when I, when I, when I, even occurs to me when I think about myself in the perspective of somebody on a TV show who's like going out to commit a murder or whatever. I'm just like, this shit's impossible because you can't bring your phone with you. So that's number one. If you're going to go kill someone, you can't bring your phone with you. And if you leave your phone at home, then you're going

to have to explain to the cops what you were doing for those couple hours and why your phone didn't have any activity during that time period. Because you carry the world's most like accurate surveillance device with you at all times. You know? And, like, like your car has GPS in it. They could get into your car and figure out that you went there. There's just so many things. Not to mention the cameras, not to mention what are you going to do? You're going to rent a car?

I mean, that goes back to you too. I don't understand how people, I guess I understand how by just dumb chance people get away with doing stuff like that, but I don't understand how they could go into it thinking that they would be able to get away with it. And especially in a place of Chicago where there's so many murders that never get solved. And it doesn't even seem like there's any chance of them ever being solved. I mean, a lot of those just happen on the street, so it's like less to track. Nobody cares enough about, you know, this particular case to try to close it.

And when you get 10 people killed in a weekend, it's like, well, how much resources do the cops really have to dig into this anyway, I guess? I've thought about like, you know, like in Red Dead redemption and stuff, I think about like in those games, you can just go kill somebody behind the saloon. And as long as nobody sees you, you got away with it. And I was like, man, I guess how it was back then. I think a lot of Chicago gangster kids think that that's basically how life works. And from their lived experience, it probably basically is. That's probably true. Yeah.

No, that definitely is. I mean, just, we live in a surveillance state. Like, I fucking, I was reading about or watching an interview with this dude Gorilla Black, who's like a rapper from the early 2000s. He just got out of prison doing nine years on credit card fraud. Is the exact same shit that I used to do with my friends go do credit card fraud? He just did it like 15 years after when there's fucking cameras everywhere. And they caught him, I think, just from how, like,

tracking his license plate in the parking lot of the mall. I mean, we parked in the parking lot of the mall when we were doing that shit hundreds of times and never got caught. Yeah, yeah. It's, uh, I don't know how anybody thinks they're going to get away with any crime now, which is why I do not commit crimes. Hmm. Same.

I don't even, I don't even mess around with Torrance. You don't? No, nothing. Squeak and clean. Do you know anyone's ever got caught for using a torrent? Uh, yes, Hobb from 18 Visions got a nasty letter. I think he downloaded a Harry Potter movie or something for his daughter. Damn, well, that's why you need NordVPN.

That's right. Yeah, I used to torrent and stream shit illegally all the time. Now I don't really do it because it's just inconvenient. Yeah, exactly. I'd rather just pay five bucks. Oh, no, that's a lie. I did torrent the room because it's not, you know, that movie? No.

Tommy Wiseau, like the worst movie ever made, you know, oh, hi, Mark. No. Oh, man, you got to see it. I got to find out of this. It's amazing. When I met my girl, she had every streaming service. And I'm like, wow, I'm never going on a pirate bay again. Well, the room is not available online anywhere.

Oh, I wouldn't feel bad about that. No, I don't feel bad about it. And I would have preferred to just buy it, you know, but instead of having to torrent and then connect my computer to the TV and all that shit. But yeah, I mean, there's so much good stuff out there that you can do legally. Like, why, it's just not even worth the hassle of pirating. Yeah, it's pretty crazy because, you know, they basically got rid of piracy, or at least like made it difficult by making it more easy to not pirate shit.

Like iTunes is just so much easier than pirate bay. Never mind like I don't even know how the fuck I would get those MP3s onto my phone. Yeah, exactly. I don't even know. I can figure it out. I know. Yeah, who wants to do that? Why the fuck would I do that when I could pay 10 bucks a month?

Which is not necessarily that you still see people power like these boxing matches like crazy because it is like 100 bucks for like three hours of entertainment. What do you think about, you know, the Paul brothers and, you know, their box? boxing stuff. I just think that they're both smart as fuck for figuring this out, and they're both like kind of shameless as fuck enough to like really do all this shit. Like Jake Paul, I don't know if there's anyone who's influenced him as much as Floyd Mayweather in terms of this persona that he has now is like, oh, you hate me?

Yeah. I guess I might as well just play the villain. Floyd, yeah, I mean, Floyd gave Connor the playbook and Connor gave everyone else the playbook. This is true, yeah. I think that, because, you know, Floyd used to be pretty boy Floyd. or no, no, he's money, what was it, Money Mayweather back in the day. And then he became the Floyd that he is now.

Pretty boy Floyd, I think, whatever the fuck it was. He had a heel turn is the point. And that's when he, because he's kind of a boring fighter because he's super defensive and like, he's actually boring to watch. Right. And nobody wanted to watch and he doesn't knock anyone out. He just plays defense. Then he became the heel and he blew the fuck up. And everyone was like, oh.

So real sports is just like wrestling, only the outcomes aren't predetermined. Definitely. Yeah, he just figured that out, dude. And like the Jake Paul thing is crazy because they're saying right now that he might be signing to Drake for management. Why not? I mean, I'm making enough money that it makes sense. I have a hard time imagining Drake, uh, Drake getting behind Jake Paul. Like, it's still Jake Paul at the end of the day.

Like, I mean, I guess like maybe it's just so obvious that he's going to be super successful. But in terms of Drake and this brand that he's been creating over the years, it's kind of hard to imagine him wanting to, you know, link up with Jake Paul to such an extent. I remember when Drake was just universally clowned by everybody, and then like 2011 or 12 or whatever, and then a couple years later, everybody was like, you know what, actually he's kind of cool, and now he's like universally respected.

And I find it very interesting people who are able to kind of flip that. Right. The question is really just when we're going to leave the Drake era, because he's basically just been like the god of rap for so long that it's almost impossible to it. And I've even heard people recently say, like, this is the little baby era now. It's not the Drake era anymore.

And if Drake put out a project that was like really overwhelmingly received, I guess I could kind of understand that logic better. It's impossible to say, you know, it's just like with sports, you know, just because somebody beats the long-reigning champ, it doesn't mean that the person who beat them now, you know, is going to have the same legacy.

So, you know, in any genre, some new artists might come along. But until they've been able to stay on top for 10 years like that, we don't know. And even if we could point out some rappers and say, look at this guy, he's doing better than Drake on this metric. Right. Drake Drake just crushes every metric

so across the board that it would be once you had somebody that really consistently sold more albums or their tours were bigger or they were just a bigger star, then you could start having that conversation but I mean, I don't see anyone who's even close to that level. I don't understand why people like

Drake because he's terrible. You don't like him? He's terrible. Like it literally, the stuff where it sounds like he may have written his own lyrics, it sounds like a joke. It's like Dr. Seuss. I'm the man with the plan. There's a little bit of that, yeah. Some of the 4 a.m. in Vegas or whatever, sometimes I'm a little underwhelming. I still think of him the same way people did, you know, in 2011 as basically just like a clown.

Wow. You know, and I'm obviously out of touch because nobody else thinks that way. So it's one of these things where I just don't understand why people like him. Yeah. I mean, I think when you really want to look at like talent, hits, you know, everything. Like, he just really like, and honestly, like, I feel like I fell even more in love with his character, like, when I saw him live and just really started to get the feeling of like, wow, this guy's a fucking athlete of music. Oh, I respect him. When you see somebody crush a live show the way that he did, I was just like, I don't know if I've ever seen anybody do what he just did, like in terms of the length of time, the number of hits, the way he had the audience captivated, the amount of.

I want a movement that he just had on stage. And I hate when people bring up live performance when they're talking about why a musician is good because I just feel like it's kind of... I don't give a shit about live shows. Right, because that's what... I will forever try to have a conversation that you're basically having me about Drake,

but about Travis Scott, where I just like some of why he's so amazing musically is kind of lost on me. And it's always like, you've got to go to the show. And I'm like, no, I don't. If I have to go to a show, then it's not that good, bro. That's how I feel, too. Like, because then it's not about the music.

Right. You know, it's about the experience. you had there, which is cool and good on them for providing, you know, an experience that whatever 20,000 people wanted to pay 300 bucks for. And when you have the most fans, it's not that hard to have an amazing show, even though I do hear from everybody, these amazing live and shit. And I believe that he is, but to me, that's a separate conversation, you know, of like, that's one facet of what they do. But if that's, I agree with you that, like, if you have to go to that, and to me, that's sort of like a sign that maybe something doesn't add up.

I think, because I forever will have the conversation on this podcast about how rappers are not that great live. Yeah, they're terrible. And I really feel like I feel that way only because of my upbringing going to hardcore shows and shit where it's like when you see a tight metal band perform, it's just like a thing of wonder. That's why Ghost Main is good live because he played in metal bands. He always has a live band though? No, but just like him. I think he does now. Yes. It's like twitching tongues, I think basically. But yeah, I mean, he's really good live because he played in hardcore and metal bands so he understands what that is supposed to be right you know and uh compared to fill in the blank you know mid 2000s like ringtone rapper that just stands there like holding the mic saying

every like eighth word over a backing track and even the rappers like that are the greatest of all time in my book like a Gucci man you know I think of you know it's basically one of the defining artists of my life when he performs live he walks back and forth and he puts his finger in the air right that's it right there's nothing else right every now and that and that's says one word. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even if he's rapping like a decent percentage of it, it's just he's not really giving you that much of himself,

which I respect as a businessman, the fact that he has this incredible career and that he hasn't really had to like go get sweaty on stage ever. But, I mean, when you get like, just the vibe of a hardcore show with all these kids trying to kill each other is just the fucking best. Like that's just, and not even that.

Just the playing of the instruments in all together is like you're just, it's really something to witness in comparison to the rap thing. Yeah, I mean, the standard is just, like, so much higher in rock, and especially, like, in metal and hardcore where, you know, the level of, like, intensity and the shit's hard to play, you know,

they just think about it differently than rappers do. I think to rappers, it's like a glorified club appearance. You know what I mean? They've got 85 people on stage, which I guess happens with hardcore too, but, you know, hardcore, it's a contest of, like, who can stand on the side of the stage looking the most disinterested, you know, to prove how cool they are.

Yeah, that is a weird. part is that some rap shows are like there's 80 people on stage with the rapper and then some rap shows are if you try to get on stage with the rapper for even a moment the security is going to fucking manhandle you right right like very different vibes yeah i i've been to like a handful of rap shows but especially when i was most into that stuff i lived in cincinnati and it just wouldn't have been a good idea to go see you know Gucci main and cincinnati in 2010 you know would not have been wise i could see it getting cracking there you yeah Yeah. For sure. What are you most excited about in your life that you have going on right now?

Or what are your goals going forward at this moment and stuff you're excited about? You know, it sounds corny, but the older I get, the more I just am grateful to be alive and healthy and have a family and people I care about. And the older I get, the more, like I saw you know, you posted about this. Congratulations on the family, by the way. Appreciate it, thanks. The older I get, the more I realize that the only thing that really matter, is spending time with the people you care about. You know, money and work and all that other stuff is cool and it's, you know, it's fun,

but none of it matters unless you have like your health and people you care about. You know, how many people are there that have built an amazing business, but they're unhealthy and their marriage fell apart and their kids hate them because dad worked all the time and didn't spend any time with them? And how do you think that person feels being 60 years old? with fucking $20 million in the bank, but they're pretty diabetic and their family hates them. Yeah, no, that's where I'm at 100% in the sense that five years ago or even, you know, a couple

years ago, my mentality was 100%, like, how can I work more, how can I make more shit, how can I be more productive? And there's a time and a place for that. Right. And now I find myself more often thinking, you know, like, how can I, you know, maybe, like, I want to wake up earlier so I can like get more shit done, but also have like more. more time that I could just hang out with my kid. And I mean, my kid is five months.

So it's like there ain't a lot that I'm like feeling like I'm missing out on. But I mean, it's only going to get worse over time where I'm going to feel like, holy shit. If I'm in the office 60 hours a week, maybe I'm missing out on something. And your kid's only going to be five months old once. Yeah. And you're never going to be able to get that time back. You know, and I think about, you know, like with my wife, I think about if I was

on my deathbed or worse, if she was on her deathbed, I would give every fucking penny I've ever had for like literally one more minute with her. Yeah. You know, in a fucking second for one minute. So why don't I take that minute now while I actually have it instead of, you know, regretting not having it in the future. So like she, she worked for Amazon for six years. She actually just quit her job last week to do YouTube full time.

Oh wow. And so now we're able to spend all our time together and, you know, obviously we're making less money than we would have before. But so what? You know, we have enough to live comfortably. do we need more? And what's better, you know, having tens of thousands of dollars more in the bank or spending eight hours a day together?

Right. I have a friend who had just recently realized that A, his wife is basically a billionaire because of her dad, like her dad was like some insanely successful business guy. And he works like, you know, probably 10 hours a day, Monday through Friday. And they don't have any. kids. And that was very confusing to me because I'm like, bro, if she got a billion dollars, what the fuck are you doing, not

impregnating her? I like, listen, if she can't or she really doesn't want to, I get it. But if she can, what the fuck are you doing? And also, that sounds kind of crazy to be working that much when you don't really have, like, and you make good money, but, you know,

your version of good money is obviously not touching whatever the fuck she's got. But who cares? What's the difference? Really, I mean, I'm not rich by any means, but I have more money than I ever thought I would when I was a kid. And I think about what if I had twice as much money than I, as I do right now? Would it make me any happier? No, it wouldn't change my life at all.

Maybe we could buy a bigger house, but for what? Yeah. It could buy a nicer car that my friends would pretend to be impressed by for 15 seconds. But for what? And when you're having a mental conversation about taking time off, I feel like maybe it's easier to justify working your house all the time. If you are the kind of person that always needs money for new cars and shit, It's like, what am I working my ass off for?

I guess I don't care about the business and like making sure that everybody involved with it is straight. But at a certain point, it's like if I do another couple of interviews in a week, it's like, what is another couple of thousand dollars? Like what if it really is going to negatively impact my mental health, then I probably just need to start saying no to things at a certain point to maintain balance, you know? There's a time in your career where you should say yes to absolutely everything. Like, you know, when I graduate. When you're on zero. Yeah. When I graduated from college, I owed $90,000.

You know, I had to fucking get out of that hole. I got out of that hole. There's a certain point at which then you need to start saying no to stuff for different reasons. And I'm happy that I'm at the point where, you know, saying no is the right answer. And so to answer your question I'm excited about is just being in that position and really I just want to spend as much time with the people I care about as I can and, you know, keep my health in a good place and just be present and be grateful for whatever is happening at the moment. Hell yeah. When's the last time you moshed? Oh, probably I went to go see the hatebreed Perseverance 20th anniversary tour or 10th, whatever it was, like 2011.

I guess it was 10th, yeah, 10th anniversary. So 2011, I'm never a big mosher because I was, you know, around a lot of heavy-duty people and I don't want to, I don't want any part of that. When I look back on it, I almost feel like my fascination with hardcore almost might have had more to do with the moshing than the music at times. You're a big guy. He probably got a good 30 or 40 pounds on me.

You know, I'm not a big person. Yeah, but I think my obsession with it was less about doing it and more about just trying to understand why the fuck all these other people were doing it and why they were so into it. And like, you know, I just witnessed in Boston, I'm going to some really fucking crazy shit in mosh pits that I've never. Like, seeing Converge play Metal Fest, I think was probably by far the most violence I've ever seen

in like an hour-long people. period and I've been around for like riots and shit and that I told I don't know if I believe that I told this story in a in a video but uh well I saw hate breed with a cannibal corpse in Cincinnati in like 2009 I think and at that time Cincinnati hardcore scene was super super violent and these are my friends who were you know part of the violence so I wasn't personally at risk but at that time it was like really gnarly and you know what would always happen. is they were all real into metal. So they would go see these metal bands.

And some metal guy wouldn't understand what was happening. And he'd like push one of them and get the shit kicked out of them. And, you know, my friend had just gotten stabbed at a show a couple years before that and stuff. So it was like real violent. And I went to go see hate breed with Cannibal Corpse. And I was like, I'm literally afraid that somebody is going to get killed because someone had gotten killed at that venue before. And that's like the level of violence that happens at those kind of hardcore shows that you're talking about. you're like there's a non-zero chance that somebody's going to get killed.

Right. And I'm not making light of that. It's just the, it's just reality. And so for that reason, just moshing, I'm not, I'm not,

I'm not a risk-taking person for the most part. And so just like, I don't need to do this. Some people have like a desire to go fucking mosh when they see bands. I'd rather actually watch the band. So I thought, why I put myself in harm's way and, you know,

potentially get my fucking jaw broken if I don't have to, I remember seeing this dude like just sort of like punching backwards into the crowd and he really went like boom boom and just like broke two people's noses sure like back to back boom boom blood spraying everywhere that meant that image will never leave my mind yeah I mean what exactly so like I've seen strangers complete strangers for people who are trying to understand what I'm talking about yeah there's if you don't understand it don't feel bad because it doesn't make any sense I've seen the same kind of thing happen a million times there's like I don't want to be that guy getting his nose broken who was just standing there watching the basis and then all of a sudden his nose exploded. There was a point of my life where I didn't go to a hardcore show for a long time and then I went to a hardcore show. And as it was starting, someone just like jumps and just kicks my fucking head. And I just had a really strong feeling right there.

The part of my life where this made a lot of sense to me might be over. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, if that's what you want to do with yourself, you know, go for it. But moshing, never a big thing for me. It's entertaining to watch though. You know, fighting the invisible goes. zombie ninjas. Yeah, when I see videos of people moshing online that I can't look away. There's so many things about hardcore getting back to what you're saying at the beginning

where trying to explain it to like a sane person, you know, at a certain point, you just sort of trail off because you're like there's nothing I can say that's going to make this add up. I'm wondering what the fuck Laura is thinking for some of these parts of our conversation because she just doesn't know that version of me or she probably is surprised I even know that much about this topic. And I just like, you know, if I were to like, I went through a period in my life where I would go on YouTube here and there and type like Mosh Pit Fight and find some compilations and shit. And dude, you see some shit in those Mosh Pit fights,

especially at big like radio station festivals and stuff. You see people interacting with each other in that environment and violently that you would, I don't even, I would never know that any of these people existed. Right. Like the weirdest fucking people, particularly white people.

I would never ever see you or know that you existed and you're in the Mosh Pit beating the fuck out of some other obese person. For what? Or nothing. Rob Zombie plays. Rob Zombie does not give two shits about this fight that's happening like so far away from him. One of the scarier things that I experienced was I saw All Out War with, I want to say it was cold as life in Cleveland in 98 maybe, which is a scary enough prospect of those two bands playing together because both of them draw lots of scary mosh. But what was scary about it is this sketchy venue.

I think it might have been the blind lemon, but I don't remember. It's in Cleveland, and it had like a glass, like dance floor, you know, like glass blocks. And everyone was like moshing and stuff. And I'm sure that, you know, nobody considered the fact that they were on a glass floor. It didn't break. But I was like, this is, you know, this is the kind of thing you end up seeing on the local news. Like, you know, seven youths injured today when a dance floor collapses. You're making me remember a lot of other traumatic images that I have in my head.

like, see in Hebrew, they had to play under like a fake band name for a period of time because they're like on an official tour, I think, and then they're just playing random shows or there's like a festival that they're playing where they can't tour in this area or some shit like that. And I'm just watching people Mosh and I saw a dude just like run from one side of the pit to the other and just dive and basically punch a fucking merch girl in the head. He dived over like 15, 20 feet of fucking people and somehow just, and the weirdest part about it and part of what made me so fascinated by it was that it didn't seem like anyone thought he had done anything wrong or that this was like even though it was pretty obvious to be he was targeting hitting this person but somehow in the context of a mosh pit it's just okay well it depends who it is you know if he was a you know always you know what I mean if he was a maid man in the scene then everyone will apologize for him if not then they'll fucking beat up in an inch of his life you know depending on some important dude's girlfriend then he's gonna get the shit beat out of him yeah exactly exactly and it's you know just like high school lunch table

politics, but with, you know, a mosh soundtrack. You know, and that's just, that's just part of the hardcore scene. People ask me about this a lot, you know, like in my comments, like, oh, what do you think about crowd killing and crews and all this stuff? And my answer is always like, I think it's kind of dumb, but I don't really have anything to say about it because it just is part of the scene. And for better or for worse, who am I to, you know what I mean? It's like criticizing dogs for licking their balls, like, just what they do.

And if you don't like it, don't have a dog. And, you know, people may think that it's cynical of me to say, well, if you don't like that kind of stuff, don't go to hardcore shows. But nothing I say is going to change the fact that that stuff happens at hardcore shows. That's what it is. And if you don't like it, then, which is totally understandable. If you're saying you shouldn't like it. I'm like trying to imagine like a hip-hop commentator saying, like, there shouldn't be gangs and hip-hop.

Yeah, right. It's like, all right, good luck, buddy. Exactly. It's like, well, yeah, probably not. Yeah, that would be great. I don't know what to tell you. Doesn't seem likely. Yeah.

It just is. It's part of the thing. And, you know, just don't be part of the hardcore scene if you don't like it. And that's totally okay. For sure. I got a piece of a bed. I'm going to piss my pants. So, you know, I appreciate this conversation.

That was really good. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much. Finn McKenzie. Am I saying it right? Yes, sir. Just wanted to make sure. Finn McKenzie, punk rock NBA.

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