The Digression Sessions - Ep. 138 - Zac Sewell of Pianos Become The Teeth! (@ZayRayPianos & @PianosBand)

Episode Date: October 20, 2014

Podcast Become The Teeth! Follow Us On Twitter! @BetterRobotJosh – Josh Kuderna @MichaelMoran10 – Mike Moran @DigSeshPod – For Podcast Updates! @ZayRayPianos – Zac Sewell @PianosBand – Pianos Become The Teeth Hola DigHeads! On this week’s episode, Josh sits down outside of a Starbucks with his old friend, Zac Sewell! Zac is the bass player for Pianos Become The Teeth and United Nations. Pianos will release their third studio album called “Keep You” on October 28 on Epitaph Records. And United Nations just released a new record, The Next Four Years, as well. Josh and Zac grew up together in a special little pocket of Maryland called Kent Island. So, the fellas have a nice catch up session combined with a full report of Zac’s life as a rock and roller, attempts not to gush when you meet your idols, and what happens when your drummer does PCP at a Belgian rock festival. Fun ep! Please subscribe to and rate the Digression Sessions on Stitcher and iTunes. And check out our podcast network, Thunder Grunt! Thanks everyone! We love you! Thanks everyone! We love you!

hey everybody i'm josh kaderna and i'm mike moran and you're listening to the digression sessions podcast a baltimore-based comedy talk show hosted by two young, handsome stand-up comedians slash improvisers. Join us every week as we journey through the world of comedy and the bizarreness of existence. As we interview local and non-local comedians, writers, musicians, and anyone else we find creative and interesting. Yes. Who's the guest this week? Zach Sewell is the guest on this week's program. He's the bass player of Piano's Become the Teeth and United Nations.

You can find him on Twitter. He is at ZayRayPianos, and his band is at PianosBand. And they have a new album coming out next Tuesday, October 28th. It's called Keep You, and it's going to be on Epitaph Records, which is great for those guys. And they're doing a tour of America with Circus Survive for a few weeks. So make sure you check that out if they're coming to your town. And, yeah, Zach's a buddy of mine. We grew up together on Kent Island in Maryland.

So this was a nice catch-up session just to just ask friends just to see how that fella's doing and uh yeah i'm super excited for him because we grew up listening to the same bands pretty much and playing in bands and doing shows together and that type of thing so it's awesome to see that his band's doing well and they're like touring europe and they're on epitaph records it's just it's really cool so this was a this is a fun. So I hope you guys dig it. A couple things to plug here for us at Digression Sessions. DigSeshHQ, me, Josh Coderna. I'll be doing a bunch of shows this week, a bunch of really fun ones on Tuesday, October, what is that, 21st? Yeah, 21st. I'll be doing stand-up at Vendetta Bar in D.C. I'll be doing a guest spot there. And your headliners are two really funny guys, Jay Larson and Sean Patton. So make sure you come out to that.

Wednesday, the 22nd, I will be doing improv in Baltimore at this place called The Crown. And the Wham City guys are performing, too. It's going to be really fun. And Friday, the 24th, I will be back in D.C. performing at a place called The Pinch, and it's a burlesque and stand-up show. So there'll be something for everybody. Dick jokes and pasties on some boobies. Good times. And it's the night before my birthday, too. So come out and celebrate, huh? And Mike Moran, my co-pilot when Jesus calls out sick, he is performing on Wednesday, October 29th at the

Auto Bar where they're doing a tribute to dead stand-ups and there'll be a nice little Halloween tie-in there. So check that out. Find us on Facebook. We have our own page. Follow us on Twitter. I am at BetterRobotJosh. Mike is at MichaelMoran10. The podcast

is at DigSeshPod. Go to Thundergrunt.com for all the other podcasts on our wonderful network. And I think that's it, guys. That's it for this rambling intro. And let's get into it. Let's talk to my buddy, Zach Sewell, shall we? We love you. Do it again.

Hello? Okay, there you are. There you are. Hey, Zach Sewell. Hey, this is it, man. Just us. This is another installment in the mobile series. We're recording outside of another coffee shop, another mom and pop, a little place called Starbucks here in Annapolis, Maryland.

And in front of a Whole Foods wannabe called Fresh Market. And it's nice and rainy. Good pod weather. Good conditions. Wild salmon. Yeah. Uh-huh. Alaskan.

Wild Alaskan salmon. Well, thanks for coming, man. Thanks for doing this, especially because the first time you came all the way to Baltimore, we had a great episode. I hit the space bar. I was like, that was fun. Save. And then that little spinny wheel popped up and the whole episode was gone.

And that's the only time that's ever happened to me. We couldn't recreate it. No. But I printed out a script, I think, of what we said last time. So we'll just try our best. We'll go with it. Yeah, I think so. No, I felt so bad.

Luckily, I did it with somebody that was my friend. I can't imagine having... I felt bad enough that you wasted your time, but a touring comedian like, Can you take an hour out of your time to talk to me? It was fun anyway. Yeah, it was nice catching up. It was a nice afternoon. It really was.

It really was. And I'm looking forward to another one here on this Columbus day. I keep forgetting it's a holiday. Yeah, I know. You know, we were trying to schedule it. You're like, I really need to see that Orioles game, and I'm free on Monday. And I was like, oh, fuck, I work Monday.

Oh, wait a minute. Columbus killed all those people. We're all good. Thank God he did that. Yeah. So when this comes out, I think the series might be over because the Orioles will have won by then. Probably not. But we'll go with

that. My friend Mike Fonazzo, who he co-hosts on this show a lot, he's like, I'm really worried that the Royals are the team of destiny. They are. Yeah. Do you think that's what you're up against here? Yes. I did not want to play them. I wanted to play anyone else. But you never want to play somebody who has nothing to lose. You know? Yeah. They weren't supposed to be there, so they have nothing to lose. Play on house money. Well, they won one game to get in, right?

They had to, like, win one. Wow. That's great. Yeah. Are you... Did you go to any of the games? I went to the first game of the Divisional Series. Uh-huh.

And we got standing room only. Mm-hmm. And I'm short. Yeah. So there was a lot of tall people in the front. Did Drew put you on his shoulders? No. No.

I asked Brent if he would put me on his, but he said no. These are all high school friends of ours. Yeah. Really cool. But we're talking about Drew Barryrymore and uh brent famous brent i don't know any famous friends that guy brent the guy um but yeah man uh since uh you've done the podcast your your band is now on epitaph records which is pretty insane yeah it's pretty wild like um because i mean most of the bands that you grew up listening to were on that record label so now to be on that has to be pretty surreal

right yeah it's pretty wild uh we uh we're in la and we had uh they said they wanted to do a meeting and take us out to lunch and going out out to lunch with Brett from Bad Religion was pretty surreal. Driving in his alley. Yeah, you're like, that's great already. I don't care what happens at lunch. He took us in his very nice car to go eat lunch. And he's kind of old, but he was awesome. Shout out to the head of your label he's old

yeah whatever just call him like sam he's not gonna hear this he's old he doesn't know how to work a podcast never seen a computer uh-huh so he took you out to lunch yeah and uh we just hit it off he was real cool and we had some other offers but uh at the end of the day it was like we didn't feel like we could turn down epitaph yeah so and we have a a manager now so he thought it was in our best interest to do epitaph too so you're like okay yeah we don't know what we're doing we'd. We'd go with his theory. So how does that work? Because you guys were on Top Shelf before that?

Yeah, we were on Top Shelf. And is that like breaking up with a chick? Kind of. But Top Shelf is a smaller label to a certain extent. And they always knew they were like a stepping stone to something bigger if bands wanted that. Yeah. They were more than willing to help us find a new label. They were really cool about it.

Mm-hmm. And the only weird part about it is just not working with them anymore. Yeah. Such a good working relationship for the past four years. How long were you with them? yeah like such a good working relationship for the how long were you with them four years well yeah we signed yeah in like 2000 end of 2009 we signed with them or the beginning of 2010 no shit so two records in four years so just like not working with them on like a day-to-day basis is kind of weird yeah again that's like the breakup part yeah like even if it was a

relationship you wanted to get out of like like you're like, hey, I was going to watch Netflix. Oh, there's no one here. Like not calling that person to get carry out or stuff like that. Like just something you're used to doing. Yeah. And I mean, we're still like super close to them. Right.

Right. Have you gone to any like epitaph like parties or anything? Have you had like any like record release parties or anything? Have you had any record release parties yet? No, not yet. We're doing some record release shows in the next couple weeks. Because it comes out October 28th. So we're doing Boston, New York, Philly, Chicago. And then one weird one in the middle just to get to Chicago.

Pittsburgh or Buffalo or something like that and uh i think some of the people from epitaph are flying out to the new york one just to hang out so that's awesome that should be awesome yeah it's weird that how like epitaph has like morphed into like less of a punk punk label and more of like kind of like a harder screamo ish kind of like more melodic thing now they still have you know like pennywise and bad religion and no effects sort of and like rancid but they also have falling in reverse which may be the worst band you've ever heard they uh a lot of label love yeah they uh they're like the guys hold this band sucks we're happy to be there i miss top shelf the dude from falling in reverse went

to jail multiple times yeah for what women for one okay um and but like we all make mistakes brett from epitaph was really cool about it when we went out to lunch he was like so uh let's just get this out in the open i'm sure you're wondering why we would have a band like falling in reverse on our label and we were like uh yeah we were all kind of wondering you know that was a question and uh he was like well i'm gonna be honest with you he we had signed a contract before he went into jail with him because his old band was on the label, Escape the Fate. Okay.

So when he got out of jail, he was still under contract. And he had this new band, and there was a lot of hype around him coming out and putting out a new record. So we thought, well, we could either drop him and not make any money, or we could just go with it and honor the rest of the contract. Right. Make a boatload of money and put out bands that we really like.

Keep our fingers crossed he doesn't punch any women in the interim. Any more women. And that's how we're going to play it. Yeah. So are you saying in a way That him punching chicks Got you on the label Yes

Yeah Exactly Thank you Ronnie Radke Yeah Wait what's his name Ronnie Radke Okay Shout out to Ronnie

There's a cool YouTube video Of them covering Gangsta's Paradise Oh really And Coolio's in the video Yeah I think he's looking for work As of late He's doing some weird stuff.

He's a juggalo now, right? Yeah, he's a juggalo. Uh-huh. He's got, instead of a bunch of braids, he's bald in the middle, so he just has two big ones on the sides. Yeah, like two horn-looking things. Yeah. And he's looking rough. It's a fashion statement.

Yeah. It's going to be awkward when he's on the podcast next week, but I think we can work it out um man so yeah so last time yeah you were on the show too like we were talking about being like hugely into bands when we were younger and then i remember like you went to spain and like you guys just did a chicago festival and like a dude in spain knowing your name like up front in the crowd just being like zach can i have your back yeah zach i was so so confused like me do you mean me you mean jack that guy yeah uh yeah it's weird i mean like spain was really weird but like that was one of my favorite shows we've ever played was that madrid no it was some i don't even remember what what the place was called it was uh it was like a little

little town like a lot of these places in europe have like uh arts and entertainment budgets that are astronomical really and they don't they can't use them all like there's so much money they can't use them right so they throw these huge festivals and get these pay these bands boatloads of money to come to these little places. Yeah, they're flying you guys out there on planes and shit. So on that same tour, we played a town in Germany that looked like the Shire. And there was 400 people there. 16 sheep.

They're like, are you ready to rock? Yeah, the whole thing was in hay in the middle of the field. And it was against me, agnostic front, all these bands. And it was just like, where are we? Yeah, the mayor's starting the pit. Come on, y'all. Yeah, it was the same thing in Spain. It was in the middle of nowhere.

You had to take four connecting flights to get there. And then a guy drove you in a bus like three hours more into the country. Yeah. But it was like beautiful on the coast. Mm-hmm. Couldn't tell you what the place was called. No, it does sound amazing. Is that completely surreal to be like, oh, the band that I play in is in demand in another country, in a town that I've never heard of?

Yeah. Well, it's so weird because I feel like half the time you don't think about it when you're doing it right it's just like another show yeah and then like you like it's like not until you get back that you're like man that was crazy it's really weird yeah i mean when we just played the riot fest that was probably the i feel like that was like one of the most surreal things. Like we were in Chicago, there's just like a communal open bar and cafeteria area that all the bands go to. And we're like standing there drinking and Slayer walks through like with all their gear. Yeah. And they're like personal bodyguards.

They're bodyguards? Uh, at this they did wow um like fat mike is you know like smoking weed in the corner and uh who else oh chris connelly from saves the day who's like chris i mean my favorite one of my top three favorite bands of all time yeah it's just like hanging out at our table like no clue who we are by any means but just hanging out it's like this is really weird has your urge to nerd out uh subsided over the years when meeting these people yes to a certain extent but there's like certain people that i just i will totally nerd out to

yeah i i caught myself with saves the day yeah i. I didn't punish like I wanted to. Uh-huh. Funny story, Mike York punishing Owen last night. Really? Mike Cancelo from American Football. Uh-huh. Just punishing him. Yeah.

Blackout drunk punishing him. I was going to say, I think it changes the more alcohol you have in your system. Definitely. Because I went to a party recently for the Benson Ball, which is like a big comedy festival in D.C. And I'm going to this party, and it's in this loft space, and there's weird shit. Like out of a movie where you're like, this is a party.

There's like a DJ, and then there's like a giant panda bear for some reason. You can hardly wait. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I go in, and you see there's Tig Notaro, Todd Berry, Mike Kaplan, all these comedians that I really love. And they're just hanging out. John Hodgman's there eating a calzone. And you're like, you know what?

I'm not going to say anything to anybody. Just going to let them do their thing. And then a beer and a half later, it's like, hey, Todd, I'm a big fan. And there's no easy way to do it you know like because you're like i want to connect to this person on a like a a personable level and be like i'm just a human you know i want to be your friend i'm a real guy but you can't open that you can't open the conversation like a big fan let's be friends like okay cool yeah i i did that i i forgot I totally did kind of nerd out on Daryl from Glassjaw at Denver Rite Fest.

I think I would, too. They were getting ready to play, and there was, like, same thing, like, a communal area, but there was only, like, four benches that people could sit on. Yeah. So we're sitting there, and, like, Glassjaw just sits down, like, Daryl Plumbo is sitting next to me. Mm-hmm. And there's a band we've loved since, I don't know, late middle school, early high school.

Yeah, just the bee's knees of bands. I've said it once, I'll say it again. The bee's knees of bands, Glassjaw, everybody. I held out for a solid half an hour. Which is an eternity for you. Yeah, and I could see he was looking into our conversation because they weren't really talking. I was hoping he'd just interject so it would make it easy. Yeah, and you're throwing out words like, man, when I used to worship.

Man, I can't wait to show my tribute. Anyway, oh, hey, Daryl. I got to go. See you later. They were getting ready to leave to play, and I'm just like, oh, hey, Daryl. I'm just like. Like, hey, Daryl. I'm just like... Calling them up to stage. I had a joke that I wanted to make, and I made it, and he didn't find it very funny.

That's the worst, when you're like, all right, it's up, it's in the air. That is not going to land. He was in a band for a short period called united nations that i am in can you say that by the way on the podcast yeah okay we're all good it's on wikipedia now okay now it's official good yeah he was in that band for a hot second and but never really did a whole lot was there recording yeah but like never played put that thing close to your mouth if you don't mind also the microphone anyway and i had a joke lined up where i'd be like hey daryl i'm zach i'm playing united nations i was just uh wondering why you haven't shown up to practice for the last two years uh-huh and he did not find it funny he was really confused by the whole thing really did he

take it seriously he's like i haven't been in that band for like years he was just like what like it was like oh you know i'm i'm zach it's just a little icebreaker you know just like just between the united nations guys little humor it's really nice to meet you man see ya like you can tell he's just completely weirded out wow yeah i had that with uh with todd barry i was like, big fan. I really love your special. They're like, oh, thanks, man. Thanks. All right. Well, see you later.

Bye. Big gulps, huh? Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah, so that's the worst one you've had so far. I'm sure it's just hard with people. It's probably easier with people you've come to respect like in later years we're just like oh these are just people i really dig their band but people where it was like in high school these are like gods to

you yeah like 16 years old yeah so there's still that residual like oh my god yeah um all right so let's uh speaking of those bands and then united nations Thursday. Making a lot of jumps here, but with pedophilia in these bands, like Newfound Glory. Are they on Epitaph still? Was Newfound Glory ever on Epitaph? Yeah. Are they still on? No, they're on Hopeless now. Wow, that's a rough record label name.

That's not good. Yeah. Especially for an aging pop punk band. Happy to be on Hopeless Records. on hopeless now wow that's that's a rough record label name that's not good yeah well hopeless aging pop punk happy to be on hopeless records well hopeless is the home just signed over the hill all the aging bands oh really yeah uh they were a label that we were talking to they got they got i don't know if you remember they used to to have like 88 Fingers Louie and like, I think like the first couple Thrice records were on Hopeless. Yeah, Rings of Bell.

But they were never like super huge. Yeah. And then they signed All Time Low. Oh, okay. And they got real big. Right. And now they're a big label. Mm-hmm.

But now they are the home to all the aging bands. Gotcha. It's Taking Back Sunday, Bayside, The Used, New Found Glory. Wow. All those. So like, hey, Warped Tour 2004, get over here. Get over here. You can probably still sell some records.

Yeah. We can get a little something out of this. So yeah, the dude from New Found Glory, the guitar player, got caught for pedophilia, right? Yeah. I don't know how cut and dry it is, in all honesty. I heard from a reliable source that basically it was like a video chat room kind of thing.

Okay. What's he doing in a video chat room in 2013? He's a single guy just looking to get his freak on on the internet. I mean, what else do you do on the internet? Yeah, great point. Great point. So he's in a chat room. Pinterest and child sex chat rooms.

You're right. That's what else you can do. But this is not a child sex room. It's like a normal adult sex room. Oh, yeah. And this girl is apparently like 17. Okay. Not like 11.

Oh, okay. So, and he was under the assumption that she was. Of age. Of age. Right. And there's some incriminating. That titties look 18. You know what I'm talking about there's some incriminating stuff and pictures going back and forth apparently right

but i don't think it was as uh still wrong don't get me wrong i don't i don't think it was like shaking his head no for the listeners i don's totally on board. I don't know if it was like super, super, like the real bad pedophilia. I don't know. So you're saying there's shades of pedophilia? Yeah. It's like 50 Shades of Grey. Okay. I haven't read that book, but I assume that's what it's about.

Yeah, it's definitely about that. That's why all the girls love it. Yep. No, that's why when I first heard about that, I was like, the girls love it yep no that's why i when i first heard about that i was like you know what that makes sense like the aging guy like who i love pop punk are you kidding who doesn't love pop punk i want to see the 14 year old girls at the show so what are you talking about and then um united nations band you play in um uh jeff rickley singer that band yes recently joined Lost Prophets, right?

Because their singer was convicted of trying to have sex with a, let me see if I get this right, a baby. Yes. A baby under the age of one. What? Yes. That's so insane. Yeah. I don't know if you heard about this, too.

He was in jail. They have video of him or audio of him saying, yeah, they caught me on all of it. Mega lulz. Like to his lawyer or something like that. I guess I'm busted. LMAO. Damn. I'm going to jail forever. Lulz.

They changed the name to No Dev no devotion and it's a lot different music the full title is two children right no devotion exactly you got it okay so yeah it's it's something there's been a lot of there's been a lot of, I don't know. I have no idea. I think I honestly like the music that they're making. I think it's going to be a hard road to come back from that. Oh, the new band, No Devotion? Yeah.

Did you talk to Jeff about it at all? Yeah. I just thought that was a weird spot for him, but I guess it could be good. It was probably a month after the story broke we were doing some shows the united nations and he mentioned something when we were riding in the van about it like hey their manager called me like they won't they want to start a different band because thursday was done at that point right yeah okay and they want to do something and they want to like just move away from that like because all those

other guys have kids and they're like family dudes yeah so they were like in a really rough spot so um and he said no and then i guess through talking to them and like hearing the music that they wanted to do like they had demos and everything yeah and he just thought it was like a cool thing to do um i mean i hope it works out i just feel like it might be hard yeah i mean maybe if they don't have the the stigma of the old band yeah i don't get if the music's really good but i think i also think that if i think those guys are genuinely like just trying to get as far away from that as possible yeah and it's not like they did anything but they're that stigma is always going to be there yeah but i feel like every interview is

going to be the worst how'd the band get started well Well. Funny story. You know what? Let's just move on if we could. Lord knows we've tried. Yeah, so also playing in the United Nations, like that had to be insane because Thursday was one of those huge bands for us. Yeah, like one of my favorite bands of all time. Yeah, that was like a mind-blowing thing.

Like they can be heavy, but there's pretty guitar as well, and it's really good um it's it's crazy yeah how did that come about playing united nations because originally it was like this super group that came together right and they're saying like daryl palumbo and it was like a kind of super group. Super sale. Basically, Ben Kohler, who plays drums in Converge, was the drummer. And he couldn't do it anymore because of time and contractual things. He just couldn't be a part of it anymore. Yeah.

And they needed a drummer who could play Ben's craziness. So they asked David, who plays drums and pianos with me and they had never had a full-time bass player ever it was just like whoever was in town right it was originally like the dude from circle takes a square or something like that it was a hope conspiracy one of the dudes who was in hopeacy and he was in another old hard suicide file. That's it. Okay. Old hardcore band. Uh-huh.

He was doing stuff on and off and they were just like, well, why don't we just get Zach and David the rhythm section and have like a full time bass player and a full time drummer. Uh-huh. Because we had

thursday to ask pianos to do a tour with them a couple years prior and we did like four or five dates with them we just hit it off as people there's a lot of weird things like tom who plays guitar on thursday grew up in easton maryland what which i've never heard about that that's crazy he uh we were talking one night after a show and he was like yeah i grew up in maryland i grew up in easton was like i live on ken island he was like yeah really like it's 20 minutes apart so and then we found out we had the same childhood doctor what uh yeah dr marisi r.i.p shout out uh we had the same childhood doctor yeah and funny enough now tom lives in graysonville what yeah he married his like childhood sweetheart this is so weird from ken island what? There's a restaurant in the Narrows called Bridges.

Her family owns Bridges. That's bizarre. Yeah, so now he lives in Graysonville. This place we grew up, one of our favorite bands, it seemed like. They're like worlds away. They're like, no, no, no, I'm pretty much just like you. I got brunch there as well. Yeah.

Wow. So it's just kind of weird. Like everything's kind of intermingled yeah exactly yeah yeah and it's been awesome with the united nations it's been a blast we're getting ready to go to the west coast and play like 14 shows so and is it most of the stuff mostly political, like lyrics-wise? It's a lot of politics. It's mostly politics. Yeah. Like, on the new record, there's some stuff about just, like, making fun of the punk rock community as a whole.

And just, like, the hypocrisy that is punk music in 2014. Right. Like, accept us for being different than if you're not like us fuck you yeah and like uh no matter how like much you hate capitalism and corporates like hey our merch table's in the back please buy a t-shirt yeah we had a great time with our fender guitars and amps and all that stuff yeah that's what drove me nuts about um uh fuck what was the band called the really political punk band anti-flag yes yeah it's like you guys are all wearing all black and your hair is like perfect so you're like let's get some anarchy going and you're tuning your

guitars okay all right guys yeah uh so no i mean i think that's that's awesome man just to see that like you're in the mix of all that stuff and then be on epitaph records yeah it's crazy um the uh the one thing i wanted to talk about that we lost on the first one was the the tour when you guys went over to europe and david uh losing his shit you could tell that story again yes uh because i was asking it's like anything like crazy happened like craziest thing ever probably was our drummer david being drugged in belgium it's a long story yeah it's a good one uh we played london we had we were on tour with some friends bounce composure and sea haven and it was the last time i've toured with them

in london it was a big show sold out like everybody let's celebrate and we had a we had an overnight drive like 12 hours to belgium to play this festival the show was pretty early we got up by like 10 so i guess it wasn't 12 it was a long overnight drive but anyway we're all pretty drunk our driver chris is driving and david never goes to sleep he just is drunk and stays awake the entire time yeah so we get to belgium and park at about six in the morning and david goes to find cigarettes because he's out now mind you this is in the middle of a field there's but there is one bar about three quarters of a mile away that you can see off in the distance and the guy at the gate told him that they had a cigarette machine uh-huh and that they were open at six in the

morning and he's still wasted right still drunk yeah hasn't gone to sleep so david walks there he goes in the cigarette machine does not take paper money. So to get change, he has to buy a drink with the five locals that are there. At six in the morning. At six in the morning. Belgium. So he buys a drink, which turns into two, which turns into three, whatever. Finally buys cigarettes.

And before you know it, he's best friends with all the locals doesn't speak a word of belgium right whatever they probably they love it like this long-haired weirdo he's wasted and drinking with them at six in the morning they were loving it so they invite him out on the four-wheeler of course you're wasted they all drove four-wheelers there so he gets on a four-wheeler and starts riding around with these crazy drunk belgian people it's probably at this point like eight in the morning right are you seeing any of this or you guys you guys went to sleep i'm asleep in the van uh-huh so i i get up yeah and david's not there he shows back up at around 11.

So he's been drinking since six to, you know, he's been drinking for a while with these weird Belgian people. Yeah. And then we start our day at the festival. David still has not gone to sleep yet. Oh, my God. What time are you guys playing that night or that afternoon? We played at like four in the afternoon. Wow.

So that's not a lot of recuperation time just to get sleep no that's because the the fest started at like 11 i think yeah we played like midday right right for mxpx oh there you go all stars uh-huh wait not yeah what does that mean it means it's just mike the singer, and some random goons he found to go on tour. That's weird. They play the greatest hits. That's really weird. Yeah. So, yeah, it was weird. Ended up smoking weed with Mike Herrera.

David did that, too. Sure. David's on a roll. David is on a roll. He's got to keep it going. We got lots of free drink tickets, so we're drinking steadily throughout the day, too. How is he still conscious? This is insane. Only only david so it gets to be like uh i don't know midnight or something and we have to fly out at i think our flight we had to leave by 6 30 or 7 our flight was at 9 or something like that and friends from

baltimore trapped under ice uh they were on the festival too we're on the same flight so we all take a shuttle back to the hotel david's drunk and we get off the shuttle and there's these weird german dudes that are just like hey we're going back to the after party for the festival. Like, who wants to come back with us? What time is it now? Like midnight. Okay. David's like, me.

No, David, no. No, we're flying home tomorrow. Like, you're not doing this. We're flying home in like a few hours. this. We're flying home in a few hours. We need to go to bed. Are you guys just monitoring him at this point? You're just like, hey, how's it going, man? He's just like, whoa!

I'm great. Constantly. Better than I've ever been. How does the show go? The show was good. He was on point? It was a Belgian festival. Drumming's... David's really but i mean if you're wasted for hours and hours i think he

stopped drinking for about two hours before to recuperate maybe i'm not completely positive but usually david's really good about not drinking before a show he'll have like one or two yeah and but he's very and then no holds barred afterward yeah it's like right um so i'm like no i'm trying to talk him out of it he's not listening justice from trapped under ice like hey man i'm gonna go back like i'll keep an eye on him right uh-huh i'll take care of him yeah that didn't happen we woke up at 6 6 30 whatever yeah that's the equivalent of somebody being wasted like dude you shouldn't drive all right i'm just gonna follow you home okay like yeah it was it was like uh party probably just as much as he did like look i'll keep an eye on him

so we wake up and he's nowhere to be found he's not in the room yeah and we're looking at all the rooms we go and trapped in rice's room he's not there we're going we're waking up people from foreign bands like have you seen this man like can't find him long hair freak has a beard yeah and uh they're like no i can't find him so we look all around we're just like fuck it we're leaving we've been on tour for three weeks in europe we all want to go home we're gonna get on the plane without him and he can figure it out right this is his fault so we walk downstairs for all you know you're like fuck it he's like broke down palace exactly we walk downstairs

and there's this guy who seems incredibly freaked out sitting in the computer lab and he's like is this your friend and we walk in and david is dead asleep uh-huh with his hand on his phone charger trying to plug it into the wall but it's like half in and it's just arms just like plastered to the wall right so we start shaking him and he's not waking up yeah he won't wake up and like i start like just hitting him like and he he's just slowly coming to right and all of a sudden he just bursts out of the chair and starts like going towards the wall and like starts like trying to pull the siding off the wall like the wallpaper no like the well i guess like the molding around the doorway yeah okay and then like takes the foosball table and just like pushing it against the wall and trying to pick it up and like what the hell is wrong with him so and he's like fuck you like he's not making sense he's

talking about like his mom like it was like literally nothing was making sense it was not it was like sentence fragments it was babble yeah and we were like how long has he been here to the to the guy and he was like i don't know I came in and he just kept talking about the internet and like trying to plug his phone in, but he couldn't. And then he just passed out. I was like, what? He kept talking about the internet. He was in the computer lab. I don't know what he thought he was going to do.

I don't know what time he got back. And like we get to the airport and he's like trying to look for his things, even though we have them. And we're like, David, here's your stuff. And he's like just throwing trash out of the van into the airport parking lot and being a total dickhead like he was being terrible right and we went to the airport and somehow he made it through airport security without like pissing anybody off yeah because they make you especially like in europe not not as much the uk but in europe they make you like go through a series of questions when you like handing your your ticket and your passport they like ask you all these questions like why

were you here like do you have anything like yeah is it weird do you have to say business and like show them an itinerary and all that stuff or the first time we toured europe we totally just committed crime after crime like said we were like four friends you know just hanging out with all of our equipment yeah like uh you have a huge bin mark merch we literally took all of our merch with us we didn't have any made over there uh-huh so and we like walked in the first time into sweden it was like customs like like do you have anything to claim yeah it was like claim nothing we're like claim nothing we're walking through and there's like these security guards and we have like just bags and boxes full of shirts like that say like banned merch yeah like right but nobody ever said

anything to us it's like these boys need a lot of shirts good for them like we we did it a couple times the first like two times were very like sketchy when we did it but now like we have a real booking agent over there and like he just sends in the paperwork for us like oh nice it's like there when we get there and they know right so you just show your id and be like where are these people on the list gotcha and they what they do is they work with the promoters work with them and they do the paperwork in a way that we're not getting like taxed on anything yeah because that's the weird part that's why people say like oh we're here vacationing because they can it's like that's what we do when we go to canada because right fuck canada you know i mean

yeah hell yeah no it's i i don't know how they do it they'd say like we're playing for for like promotional you know whatever we're not getting paid because it's at a bar and like the bar makes money i don't know it's a weird thing yeah okay but yeah that was he made it through he woke up he we got on the plane he fell asleep he did not wake up for eight hours until he got back to new york uh-huh like just not even uh he didn't even make a noise like didn't go to the bathroom like readjust himself yeah like he got on the plane guys are lucky he didn't piss himself yeah i know throw up all of himself in the plane yeah and he he got off the plane and had no recollection of how he got there like what had happened and we found out i i didn't know this until recently. I just thought somebody had put something in his drink because he swore he was drugged.

Apparently, there were all these people at the after party smoking cigarettes that were dipped in PCP. And they kept asking him if they wanted. This is, I found out from Justice later on. David, do you want to get wet? They kept asking him if he wanted one and he kept saying no but then he was so drunk like 10 minutes later apparently he had like was bumming cigarettes off them because he ran out so he probably smoked a cigarette laced pcp right and he's so wasted just like oh this european cigarette's awful it's crazy so he's just ranting about the internet oh man wow that's crazy you guys are wow he's lucky he made it back especially because you're

like fuck it we're just gonna leave him yeah i mean it was that was also like we had that was like the most we've ever toured in that span like we did we did 56 days in the u.s from like october 20th till december like 15th we were home for about for christmas and we left like january 13th did a full canada tour northeast went to europe came back yeah we're home for i want to say like a week and a half and then did the tour with coheed and cambria oh yeah that's right that's awesome then we were home for another two weeks and then went to europe again for three weeks. Jesus Christ. So we were just like.

So that was the end of like. That was the end. Not just the European tour, but like that whole year basically. Jesus Christ. You're like, fuck it. I'm getting home. Wow. Yeah, we were going to be off for like two months.

So like. Right. Wasn't going to miss my flight. Yeah. For me of getting smoking PCP. Yeah. What was that like like because i mean that was like your dream right i mean this is right like touring and all that stuff like does it get to the point where you're like ah it's just like business now like you know i

mean like this just not like it depends on the tour right well like flying doing ride fest and stuff like that it was like yeah pretty surreal like just like we played denver and just flew out play the show flew home like and it was cool but it was just like this honestly feels like a business trip right right because we're just like flying in the night before playing the show flying out like midnight yeah you don't get to really see the city at all you just you go to the hotel go to the show go home yeah and like now that we stay in hotels on tour and stuff it's like different you know like then like just like playing a house show and like staying on the couch in the room right just played but i kind of miss it but i don't at all right you know what i mean like i kind of miss like

just playing house shows and like yeah being at like basically a big party to a certain extent and like sleeping on the floor yeah but that shit's gonna get old after a while too yeah like i don't i don't miss like hey can we stay at your house please we have nowhere else to go yeah and also to you staying on like a filthy couch or people are partying around you and shit and that that's the only bad part is that like every person lets you stay at their house thinks you're like some like raucous party animals like hey yeah you can stay i invited 20 of my friends over so we can party it's like no oh good it's one in the morning i'd like to go to bed very tired we've been driving a long time i smoked a lot of pcp and i just don't understand

the internet i need to get some sleep man but yeah no that's awesome i would love to get to that that point where you can just like tour around but i can't see that kind of becoming a grind at the same time i mean i feel like i feel like what we've been doing lately has been cool because it's like two weeks here two weeks there instead of like 56 days so you don't get burnt out yeah like with uh like the circa tour we're doing in the end of november end of december it's like we have to drive to la to start it why do you have to drive to la because we got offered the entire tour uh-huh but chad our guitar player is going on his honeymoon in the beginning of november So we couldn't do the first half. So he's out of the band.

So he's out. Uh-huh. We just got to take time. Ronnie Rocket or whatever his name is. Ronnie Rocket. He's in. You're in. No, he's going on his honeymoon.

So we said we couldn't do it. And then they asked us to just do the second half, like when he got back. Mm-hmm. But by that point, they're in LA. And it's the day after thanksgiving so we we're doing it and it's gonna be awesome but we have to drive straight across the country so now you're gonna miss thanksgiving i guess with everybody right damn so you'll be doing thanksgiving on a truck stop somewhere no actually david's parents live in arizona perfect and he hasn't had thanksgiving

with them in forever so nice yeah so we're gonna leave like the 24th or 25th and just drive straight there and have thanksgiving because it's only five hours to la from phoenix right so we'll just have thanksgiving hang out and drive to la the next day that actually sounds fun like a band slash family thanksgiving we did we missed thanksgiving two years ago but we ended up being in chicago and a good friend of like the bands lives there now and he cooked us thanksgiving dinner and it was fun too except everybody was super hungover and mike had the flu it was weird um what is uh the tour of circuit survive where are you guys playing like what are the the venues that's the worst part well the best and worst part yeah they're huge really that band's huge yeah no i i um yeah i didn't know because i knew circuit

survive was like one of the bigger bands when they were around but then they kind of took some time off and that dude anthony green the singer was doing his solo thing so that's why i was surprised like i wonder how this tour is gonna you know they're still huge like the first show is at club nokia in la and it's like 3200 people yeah and like all the shows are i think the smallest rooms like 1800 wow like even in like dallas we're playing the house of blues it's like 2200 or something that's nuts like all the all the rooms are huge so it should be fun and our friends title fighter on it too oh cool so it'll just be fun hanging out i actually saw steve from circus survive last night at the american football show

he actually lives in graysonville too would you believe well i felt like an idiot because his name's steve clifford also know a guy named brad clifford who's also in New York. And we did a week with Cirque Survive about three weeks ago. So I knew him, but I called him Brad. I said, Brad! Brad! Brad! He was looking at me like, what? It sucks that you're doubling down on it.

You could just be like, brah! Hey, brah! Brad. You! Hey, guy. Hey, how's, hey, brah. You. Hey, guy. Hey, how's it going, chief? How you doing over there?

Yeah, I saw him last night. That was awkward. I called him the wrong name. You're like, you're late for United Nations practice. I got to go. Goodbye. Good night, everyone. What's the biggest show you've done?

Probably the Spain show. Zach. probably the spain show zach that was i think like uh i think i think the capacity at that festival was 10 000 uh-huh but i i i think there was like at least five or six thousand watching us because there's only two stages it's so crazy so in a country where yeah where they don't speak english at all they're like there to see your band that was yeah and we played right after converge really which is like a huge huge heavy band people running on heads in spain they know about that they were yeah it's such a weird thing to me for the people that don't know instead of like crowd surfing people get on the stage and they literally try to run as far as they can into the crowd on top of people's heads. Yeah.

It's a wild thing they do. That's fucking, that's so rude. It drives me nuts. It's like people's hair must get ripped out and they also get like kicked in the eye and the teeth and shit. How did that become a thing? I don't know. Actually, there was like a big thing on the internet recently with this band, Joyce Manor, who's an awesome band, who's also on Epitaph.

And they like stopped some kid on stage. Like this kid who was like probably like 250 pounds runs up on stage and just like front flips into the audience. And there's all these like young people in the front and they immediately stopped playing and were like, hey, guy, come here. They brought him on stage and they're like, I mean, you see that you're a bigger guy. You know that, right?

Like what do you think these people think about you crushing them and like basically like reprimanded him in front of everybody. And, like, there was, like, a whole bunch of internet backlash. Why? Oh, like, they're being fattest? No, like, they're being, like, trying to be strict at a punk show and, like, be elitist and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it's like, well, they just don't want people to get fucking hurt. Yeah, they released, like, a statement, like, yeah, we just don't want people to get fucking hurt yeah they release like a statement like yeah we just don't want people to get hurt we want everybody

to have fun not like stop worrying about just yourself yeah sorry we care about the well-being of our audience fuck that they should all die it's a punk show yeah we saw uh henry rollins when a couple years ago and he was doing a his spoken word thing and he told a story like that like doing a black flag show in new york where some guy did that like just this giant guy and this woman wasn't paying attention like she had her back like to the stage and of course everybody else saw this guy coming and they just didn't like they all moved so this guy just landed on her yeah and like broke her arm apparently or something like that or something maybe even worse i want to say like like crushed her eye or something like that or something maybe even worse i want to say like like crushed her eye or something but i think that's too brutal but

it's like what are these fucking people thinking yeah i mean i uh i am not a stage diver never never was no me either um i just don't get the appeal. I've been bullied into it a couple times in the past couple years by friends, but I never have a good time. I remember at the HF Festival, the huge festival that was in the Baltimore, D.C., Virginia area. When we first started going, I was like 12, I think. Might have been my first.

I think 97 was my first one, so i was like 12 i think might have been my first i think 97 was my first one so i was probably 12 and uh i'm like wow it's like my first huge concert and you're on the you're on the grass of rfk stadium and none of the bands are even playing but people are doing the blanket toss thing where people get in a circle they have a blanket and then somebody gets in the middle and they just fling you into the air and because i was so small they're like i was like no before i knew it i'm in the middle of it and they just throw gets in the middle and they just fling you into the air. And because I was so small, they're like, you're the blanket, you want to go? I was like, no. Before I knew it, I'm in the middle of it and they just throw you in the air.

And it was really cool. It was like everything got kind of quiet for a second. I had this cool panoramic view of the stadium. Then I landed and I was like, okay, I'm done. They're like, one more. And then on that one, I came down and landed on like the base of my neck. And they like dropped me because I didn't land in the middle of the blanket. So all the weight shifted to one side.

And they're like, and I was like, I'm done. I got to go. I think I just had so much adrenaline that it didn't hurt. But like, I remember that too. Like people crowd surfing, like, you want to go up? Like, no, I'm good. Like, okay. Like the first time I ever crowd surfed was at Newfound Glory show.

And it was like Newfound Glory and less than Jake at nation. And I was like 14. Yeah. And I was 14. So I was like, Hey, I want to crowd surf. This looks fun. And it is kind of fun to be like on top of people. And some guy was like, Hey man, I'll help you up.

And he like, you know, got my foot in his hands and like lifted me up. But when'll help you up and he like you know got my foot in his hands yeah like lifting me up but when i came up my foot like kicked him right underneath the jaw yeah you just see him so mad well that's the thing too like i would feel so bad because people just throw me up and then some people just aren't paying attention to you to be like excuse me sorry like you're just kicking them in the face um i remember it uh also the hf festival another thing. That also annoyed me too, people crowd surfing before a band's even on or people like moshing to the radio.

It's like, what are we doing here? Some guy was crowd surfing. He was wasted. He was shirtless, and he had like these really nice Nikes on. They had like reflective red shit in them and they were like holograms. Air Max. Yeah, pretty much. And he's crowd surfing

and Caleb You remember Caleb? My friend Caleb. Caleb just grabs this guy's shoe and just throws it as far as he can. And the guy's so wasted when he gets down. He's like, you guys seen my shoe? And Caleb's like, yeah, like 100 yards

that way. He just threw it as far as he could. Do you remember? Were you there there I know you were there for the lemon yeah the lemon yeah I forgot about that one were you there with Barrett at the Warped Tour Warped Tour when he drank that chick's Pepsi

yeah with the hat like dude's hat yeah the Pepsi's what got me, though. That's like an $8 Pepsi. Yeah, it was very expensive. Our friend Barrett, who was always like a bigger guy, I think he wrestled, right? Yeah.

Yeah, so he's a huge guy, and he would get really excited, especially when he was drunk. So Warped Tour one year, I think he was like guzzling vodka like it was water in the park. Like a bottle pop-off. Yeah. Yeah, so horrendous vodka on top of that. Yeah, $5 pop-off. tour one year i think he was like guzzling vodka like it was water in the bottle yeah yeah so horrendous vodka on top of that yeah five dollar pop-off just guzzling it and so once we get in i we kind of lose track of him and then we go to see atmosphere really in the atmosphere at the time and we're up front and atmosphere is kind of breaking at that point so it has like kind of a

diverse audience and there was there was this girl with her boyfriend that's like kind of like frail looking girl. And the show had just started and Barrett just comes like barreling through the audience. Like, Whoa, yeah. And this girl,

she's sipping her Pepsi. And of course at all these festivals, they gouge you for everything. You know, like, like you were saying, like $8 Pepsis and stuff. So she has one of those and it's like a 20 ounce Pepsi.

She's about to drink it. He just grabs it from her hand and like guzzles it and then spits it into the air like wrestler style. Just like pours the rest out and stomps on it. And this girl was so shocked and Barrett just could not give

less of a shit. She's like screaming in her face. It's like yeah. Good kid. Good kid. Now it's a marine biologist. He's doing really well. Yeah, he is. He's doing great in Hawaii. Got a nice tan.

Yeah. The other one, yeah, we'll wrap this up soon, but the lemon thing, going back to New Found Glory. We're at the festival, and speaking of wanting to meet your idols and not know how to go about it, we're walking around the festival, and we see two of the dudes from Newfound Glory. It's Chad and what's the bass player's name? Ian? Ian.

No, Steven Ian. Steven Ian. Okay. Yeah, that's right. So we see them just walking around, and Ryan saw him first, and he wanted to say something to him so he didn't know what to do like that whole awkward thing like you know a big fan and probably didn't want to like stop them and like have a bunch of people come over so unbeknownst to us he throws a lemon at him in passing and then the first person the that uh steve sees is our friend Rudy. Who has giant dreadlocks.

Had big old bleached dreadlocks. And he goes up to Rudy and goes, the fuck's your problem? And we're just like, well, it's a dude from Newfoundland. At first we're like, who the fuck? Oh, wait a minute. It's this guy. So we're excited slash weirded out. Ryan also, he was like, who the fuck threw the lemon?

And Ryan pointed at Rudy. Okay. I didn't know that. Yeah, he was pointed at Rudy. He was like, who the what's your problem guy yeah meanwhile rudy who i'm sure is probably drunk too had no idea what was going on no idea who they were yeah that too and then uh luckily like they kept moving but we're like wow holy shit then ryan's like i threw the lemon we got a picture with him. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it ended well.

It ended pretty good. Yeah, it ended pretty good. All right, man. Well, I think we can wrap this up. Is there anything else you want to talk about? Anything I should have asked? Nothing I can think of. All right.

Yeah. Well, I did a great job. I think that's what you're trying to say. I did a great job. You did wonderful. This hour in this shitty rainy weather with cars passing by a nice ambient podcast yeah and we got some sirens going yeah shoppers walking by uh what do you want to plug at the end twitter website tour uh yeah uh twitter yeah at pianos band um you're on the is the twitter or at zay ray pianos now that's dumb them tweets that's dumb yeah at pianos band for everything essentially yeah

instagrams too yeah instagram got some good instagram vines oh you guys go back and see old vines oh yeah we had a segment that i did uh-huh on tour oh yeah i like the camping one yeah yeah can you can you break that off to the people yeah i mean you camping's dumb you don't you don't work a job so you can go sleep on the ground that's true yeah nailed it nailed it all right well thanks for doing this man and uh everybody follow me on twitter i I have just as a horrendous name. It's Better Robot Josh for my now defunct record label. But, you know, this economy and this fucking Obama guy. Obama care. What am I supposed to do?

Hashtag Obama care. Ruined me and my one client. Yeah, follow me on Twitter and Instagram. It's at Better Robot Josh. DigressionSessions.com slash calendar for all of our upcoming dates. I'll be hosting for kevin nealon in early november and um i think that's it oh yeah and check out our podcast network we started a network in baltimore is that i heard thunder grunt so thundergrunt.com

check that yeah you and the rest of the world pal all right man thanks for joining me thank you this was fun bye-bye We'll see you next time.