The Downbeat - Anup Sastry

Episode Date: January 6, 2019

My guest this week is Anup Sastry. Anup is one of metal's most in demand session drummers. He has played for artists like Marty Friedman (Megadeth), Jeff Loomis (Nevermore) and Devin Townsend as well as being either a touring or recording member of bands like Intervals and Monuments. We talk about how someone gets in his position, his studio, his upcoming sample pack and of course we talk a bunch about drums. It was nice. Enjoy!

Hello, it's me. Happy New Year. Hope you had a good one. I hope you had like a good holiday season, Christmas, whatever, Hanukkah, whatever you did. If you don't celebrate anything, I hope you had fun trying to go to the shops when everyone else was off. Because it was fucking annoying, isn't it? I hate the way the world just turns off. I kind of like it. Like most things, I don't really have an opinion.

one minute I have one opinion the next minute I have the other opinion this isn't my therapy session this is the podcast and this week on the podcast we have anoop sastri a noop is a very very in-demand session drummer I think I call him a session drummer he is he's played for Marty Friedman from Megadeth he's played for Jeff Loomis from Nevermore he's just just finished recording Devon Townsend's latest album. He's like the go-to guy for, I guess, solo guitarists. They just need like a hard-hitting ripper of the drummer.

He's also played in monuments, played in intervals. He's very in-demand, and he is a producer. He produces his own solo stuff, as well as other bands, like local bands and stuff. We talk about life. He just got married. congrats. We talk about drums. It's the same shit, you know.

We're talking about equipment. He's just started a sample pack with Alex Brudanga, the alumni. Podcast, Downbeat alumni, Alex Ruellinger, and Anup are making a sample pack. So we talk about that. Talk about recording with Devint Townsend

and all that stuff, all that good shit. We talk about, I talk shit about us. on stuff again and then you guys tag me in whatever I'm talking shit about and that's got a stop guys all right I know I'm talking shit and I should obviously get the wrath but don't snitch don't be snitching on me snitches get stitches and noops astry the downbeat podcast hi hey man how are you doing? I'm great. That was like passive-aggressive.

No, sorry, I was sipping coffee. Oh, nice. I've had a late start, man. I might be waking up through this conversation a little bit because this is the first cup of coffee for the day, so. Did I fuck you up by starting this early? No, not at all. No, it's totally fine.

This is an interesting thing because you're going to be the first person on the podcast that I have never had a conversation with that hasn't been in text. Interesting. Okay. Yet, you've had a conversation with my parents. Yeah, man, your dad is awesome. Lovely guy. And your mom.

But I mainly talk to your dad. Could you understand him? Scottish. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a Scottish for anyone that doesn't know. We should probably explain why you've met my parents, but not me. Well, I was borrowing some of your drums for, you know, a little recording session with Mr. Devin Townsend.

And they were at your parents' house. It was also cool to see your studio. Yeah, I haven't been there in a while because obviously I've moved. Right. Yeah, it was a bomb site because I went there the other day to pick some stuff up and I was like, fuck me, this is a mess. You must have just sort of... Well, it obviously looked like someone had moved out, so.

Yeah, I just sort of dumped a load of stuff there. Yeah. How did that go anyway? So you were recording with Devin Townsend? Yeah, it was good, man. I mean, you know, music aside, Devin is just, he's a character. He's like, probably one of the favorite people I've ever met in my entire life. I've met him once before, and I had a similar experience, was just like, you're like, just,

on a different level. Yeah, man, his energy, the sense of humor, I don't know, just everything about him was very, you know, it was such a high, high, strong situation because I had, what, three days to record, like, however many songs, and that included setting up and getting sounds, and you know the process,

how long that kind of stuff can take. So, like, I don't know, as high, strong as it was, you know, just being around a person like that, was very, um, calming. So he used three drummers for this album. Yeah. Crazy, man.

All and flew you all over. Yeah. An upcoming Devon Townsend album. Yeah. Empath. It's been, it's been announced. We can talk about it. It's not like, yeah, no, we can talk about.

I mean, I think he just tweeted the other day about, like, it being released in March or something like that. So, oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you, that same escar, Is that his name? Samus, yeah.

Samus, the blast beat guy. The other blast beat guy, I should say. And fucking Morgan Agron. Morgan Agrid, man. Crazy. I unfortunately didn't get to meet Morgan, but I did meet Samus. He was awesome. Great guy.

But yeah, I mean, basically the whole premise was that, you know, this album is the first, like, full... how do you say kind of like devon's first album in a while i think where he it's just his you know what i mean it's like this is all his creation and he was like well let's just kind of go all out and make sure i get all of the elements that i need and want you know from whoever does it uh i guess whoever is used to doing that particular thing if that makes sense so like for me you know he needed someone who can just write grooves and hit hard so it was like all right i mean i'll do that and then you know samis he needed a guy who can play fast

and then morgan was kind of like that in between that would fill all the gaps of playing you know the groove some fast stuff and mainly more so like improvising you know what i mean kind of giving some of the songs that kind of like jammy element to it man so i mean the between the two of them alone there's some insane insane talent and then you as well, it's kind of, in my head, not to be offensive to either three of you, like, why not just do one? Why not just use one drummer? Because you could play Morgan Agron style, for sure.

I don't know, man. I mean, because, you could emulate it, I'm sure. The guy's a freak, and I'm sure creativity-wise, he's on another level. Right. But, I mean, in my head, I'm thinking of, like, saving money. I'm thinking of Devon. I'm thinking of Devon's bank account here. I'm like, you could have just clicked a noop to do everything.

Well, see, but like, you know, some of the stuff, I mean, some of the fast stuff, man. I do, I can't play fast. I'm not a fast player. My feet suck. I don't do blast beats. I mean, I do if I'm, like, told to do them and there's money. You know what I mean? But like, I'm not going to just write someone of black.

That's not me. And with Morgan, you know, so that's why Sammas was brought in because he was kind of just, you know, it was a no-brainer that he would come in. That's his thing. He would kill it, you know? And then with Morgan, I mean, you know, like, sure, I can maybe like improvise and jam, but at the same time, I think it has a whole lot more to do with just, I don't think money was really an issue. I think it was more so that Devin, like, knew Morgan. They had a really, really good relationship.

Devin loves Morgan, and it's not just Morgan's playing, but it's like his sound, the way he'll tune a drum kit, the way he'll, you know, hit certain stuff. He just kind of has that Morgan sound, right? Um, yeah, that video from back in the day of Morgan Agran and Frederick from Mushugger, and he's got that yellow drum kit. Do you know the video I mean? Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Sol Niger stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that honestly changed my opinion on like being able to play jazzy stuff in metal. Yeah. I was like, hang on, you can do that. We're allowed to do that. Yeah, absolutely, man. I was young as hell when I was, can we curse on this? Oh, fuck yeah, you can.

Okay. sick. Yeah, yeah. Everything except the C word. Yeah, yeah. Because I said the C word a lot on a couple of them. And I was like, you know, I should probably rein that in. But yeah, you can swear all you like, my friend.

Yeah, well, so I was young as shit when Morgan, you know, when I saw that video and it just blew my mind. You know what I mean? Like, I was so young to the point with so young with drumming that like, you know, some of those concepts just, I didn't understand any of it, put it that way, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, it's crazy. You must have been really young because I was young when I saw it. How old are you?

I am 31. I had to think about that. I'm 32 in March. I'm going to be fucking old. Yeah, I'll be 20. So you're only three years older than me because I'm going to turn 29 in May. Oh, you just got married, didn't you? Yeah.

Congratulations. Crazy. Thanks, man. I have a wife. How is that? How many times do you call her your girlfriend? Oh man, no, not at all. I love saying wife. It's awesome.

I mean, I just still accidentally say it. I'm like two years in and I'm like, oh, yeah, my girlfriend, uh, wife. Yeah, no, absolutely. I never said fiancé though. Even when we were engaged, I just can't fucking stand their word. Yeah, we never said fiance either. It's like, I don't know why. It just sounds really pretentious.

Anyway, let's, we'll talk about that in a minute. Yeah, yeah. We're on a devon role. And it was at Mono Valley, which is sick because I've recorded there before, and it's my favorite drum room ever. Yeah, man, that was crazy. Who produced it? I mean, I guess Devin produced it, but who engineered it? Nollie.

Was he there? Yeah, he was the one engineering all the drums, so. Oh, Nolly is the fucking greatest. Yeah, man, he's awesome. What was really cool about that experience was that, because Nali used to live, in Frederick, right? And, you know, Alex, Rudinger, him and I, you know, all of us would hang out here and there, right? And there were a couple times that Halpern did a session.

What do you? I think there was twice maybe that like Halpern did stuff here and Nali was here as well for it, you know? So like, Nali and I have... Yeah, I saw those videos. Yeah, so like Nali and I would, we've like been together like, you know, we've worked on stuff together but like never him like engineering me playing and i was super excited about that yeah he's so great to work with and his drum tuning pisses me off how good he is it's like infuriating yeah i mean i sorry i um just before i forget i recorded that bell brass kit

that VK thing. Yeah. Matt and him recorded for Get Good Drums for GDD for their new thing. Right. And I got it, I was the first person to play it after them. And I took it out and set it up and everything. And I was like, this is a nolly tuning, isn't it? And it was just immediately sounded like a piano.

Like the notes were like, bing, bong, bong. Man, those videos were sick, by the way, that you posted on that kit. Thanks, mate. No one from Tamara has said, what are you doing? that so I yeah I meant to like I don't know I don't really give a shit about that stuff but when I when I saw you post I was kind of just like huh

I wonder if they care I think I think they don't care because it's like a boutique 17 grand drum kit thing and also 17 grand it's 17000 pounds so it's like 20 US oh my god the kick

the floor tom weighs a hundred pounds I have no I don't know how much thing. I couldn't pick the kick up because it wasn't like wrapped around a deadlift bar. It's like a very awkward lift, like a strong man lift. I just couldn't lift out. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, if we're, you know, if we're being serious, I could probably deadlift it. But you need to roll it into a bar first. 100 pounds. I've seen you deadlift way more than 100 pounds. No, that was the floor, Tom. The kick drum, I have no idea how heavy it was. Oh, Jesus. It's like you're trying to pick up.

It's probably 200 pounds, but you're trying to pick it up like, a 200 pound dumbbell that's 22 by 16 that's nuts man that I used I used the snare drum for the Devin record that was that was amazing so this is what I'm going to get on to was the they've stopped making the bell brass

now Tama oh as in they're not going to make any more ever I don't know if I'm allowed to say that but I have just announced that whoops but I know they They got the guy from Bring Me the Horizon because he wanted a bellbrass and they don't make him anymore. So they got him a VK. So he's playing a VK Bell Brass.

So I'm sure. Wait, wait, wait. What do you mean they got him a VK? As in they, I mean, I'm sure they pay, I'm sure bring me paid for it. But he is playing a VK Bellbrass because he said, I want a bellbrass. And Tamer, I assume, said, we can't get you one anymore. but man you can get one of these

I want that snare I definitely want to VK at some point you know I don't I don't know if I'm necessarily use it in videos and stuff if Tom is not cool with it just because you know they must be if bring these go on

yeah well I mean I but you know I guess I talk to them first is all I'm saying but like man I still I still want one of those one of those snares just to have you know I think you can't beat a bell brass snare, a bell bronze,

whatever it technically is. Yeah. You can't fucking beat it. Which one did you play? Did you play the Matt one? It didn't have that periphery logo on it, so no. It was,

I think it was part of that same kit that you used. I'm pretty sure. Oh, I played that snare also. Yeah. So, because Nali said it was the one that they used on the GGD thing. So, I mean,

it's like a four. in by six and a half. Yeah, it's a big ass snare. It was amazing. Five mil. Dude, that was, that was the first, you're a heavy hitter too. I mean, like, that was the first time I could hit as hard as I fucking wanted to with the rim shot and that thing would not move.

It was such a nice feeling. Yeah, I've seen it in some of your videos. Your drums are like fucking shaking around. Well, I have to tape some of that stuff down. And like, you know, like, even then, even with the tape, I just don't like, you know, kind of waving around and stuff. And that was the first snare that I've ever played that was just like, nope, it's going to stay the fuck put right here.

Yeah, I took a, in fact, I took a Black Beauty on my last tour because I couldn't fly with my bell brass because I got those VK hoops on it now. Yeah. So it weighs too much to take on as hand luggage. So I took like a, just a Ludwig, Black Beauty on our last snare, and I forgot how light those things are. and it was just bouncing around the fucking stage. It was like a festival riser, it was just like...

Oh, man. It was just so annoying. Yeah, fuck that. You also do hit hard too, so I can only imagine. Between the two of us, what sticks do you play? I think we both, you play the fucking monster sticks, don't you? No, fuck all that. I stopped using marching sticks, man.

I don't know what the hell I was thinking with that. That was just a phase. but I'm on to Vic Firth medals now. So I play the rocks and there's a small difference between the two and I can't remember what it is. Yeah,

the metals I think are just slightly longer. Maybe the tiniest bit thicker but like I don't even know at that point because I remember having a couple pairs of rocks and they felt pretty close except for the length. Yeah, I think the thickness is the same. Okay. But yeah, maybe they're longer.

Oh, maybe I need to play the metals. Because sometimes I feel myself coming out the back end of the rocks a little bit. If I'm trying to play something loud and controlled, you know, when you just hang off the edge a little bit. Metals are pretty sick, man. The length is, that's one of the longer sticks, I think, right now, for Kit. Nice. So, how did you become, like, the go-to metal session guy? Because you are.

Am I the go-to metal session guy? So I looked at a list of people that you've played for before this. Obviously, I knew a few of them. And the list is absolutely fucking massive. And this was like an old list from your website, off the top of my head. Really? Dang, I don't even feel like I've played for that many people. Jeff Loomis.

That was just... Intervals. Okay. Monuments. Marty Friedman, Devon Townsend. This is off the top of my head. I haven't even got the list in front of them.

Yeah, fair enough. I mean, well, it said Christopher Lee. Yeah, oh, that's one of my, Chris Smith. Oh, so it's not Christopher Lee as in fucking Dracula. No, no, no. I thought it was the old English actor. Because he did like a metal song at some point for like Christmas or something. I thought maybe you'd play that.

No, no, no. He's dead now anyway, so it would have been a while ago. No, I just put all the names up there, you know, in case people do want to hire me for session work, they can look up some of the artists, you know, whether they're known or not, you know what I mean? I get it. So. But yeah. So, I mean, I need to sort of navigate through this.

Chris needs to put that music up. He's one of my good friends. He's, he's helping Alex and I on. on the sample pack. He's one of our, one of our partners on that. Don't talk about the sample pack. Yeah,

I've got that. That's written down. We're talking about that later on. Okay, okay, okay, okay, yeah. But if anyone's listening, you're into sample packs, we're going to talk about them later on. I'm really interested in hearing about that, actually.

But I'm also interested in hearing about how you became the guy that everyone sort of picks. And like, weird people. Like, not weird people, but, like, how did you get, How's Jeff Loomis come up?

Man, that was weird. That was weird. Because, like, you know, I don't know. I just, it's kind of funny, you know, looking at me behind Jeff, out of all people. But anyways, that, I never recorded with him. I just toured his stuff live. And basically what happened was I was putting up, you know, my shit little YouTube videos. And then all of a sudden, Steve Joe, you know him?

Nope. he used to be at century media uh now he's at prosthetic that guy is awesome man such a good dude um anyways he was i guess he was you know jeff's label guy for his solo stuff at the time and he reached out to me on my sound cloud and on youtube out of all places and i thought it was a joke at first you know like guy from century media hit me up and you know this is like the first thing like first touring thing ever that I got. So, you know, I'm completely green to any of this stuff, right? It's just pre-intervals.

I was in intervals, but like, we, I think, what, we had maybe played one show. And then I was in another band called Sky Harbor as well. But again, we had only played, like, one show. So neither of those bands were like, I don't really think they were doing much at the time. Right. I can't really remember, to be honest. But either way, those bands were my bands. The Jeff Loomis thing was definitely like a hired gun type thing, right?

But yeah, so then they just asked me to audition, you know, make a couple YouTube videos of me playing a solo stuff. And then next thing you know, I'm picking up Jeff Loomis with one of my other good friends from this area, Greg Macklin from the airport, and we're starting to rehearse for a tour. Just like, holy shit, what did I get myself into? you. How do I know Greg Maclean? Greg is the man. He, what did he? He was in Alex's band, Ordinance. He was the guitar player. And then, yeah, and then when I got the Loomis gig, I actually, Jeff needed a bassist. And obviously, Greg was a guitar player. But I just asked Greg, because he was, you know, one of my best friends at the time. So it was like, hey, man, I know you can easily just pick up a bass and learn

this shit. Like, do you just, you want to go on tour? I love that. I love it when you can hook your friends up with something because it makes the touring experience that much better. Yeah. And I mean, like he was from this area too, right? He's friends with Alex.

He's just one of our guys, right? So it's good to be in a van with someone like that. Did you ever get asked to join the Heart Machine? Yes. So I rephrase that. Have you been asked to join the Heart Machine in the last 48 hours? No, not in the last 40. Man, this was maybe like a year ago or something.

I got a message saying that like Mike was back in and blah blah blah and all this stuff and I think it was is it EJ? I don't know I forget who hit me up about it

but I think it was like a manager guy and my response was just like something along the lines like hey man you know thank you for the offer or something like that but this guy has kind of dicked over a lot of, you know, my close friends and just a lot of people that I know, best friends, you know what I mean?

So I respectfully declined. It's funny, he said that Mike was back in it. It was about a year ago. That's rare. A lie. That's very rare. So, hang on. You mentioned Sky Harbor as well.

Was Dan from Tesseract in that band, or am I making that out? Yeah, he was in it. Is he still in it? No, no, no, no. He left, like, a little bit after I did. And that was because he rejoins Tesseract around, what, my last tour that I was on with Sky Harbor, that's when we all found out. We were kind of just like, all right, well, probably should start looking for another vocalist. And Mike Sameski tried out for Tesseract, probably during that interim period as well. Mike Sameski did not because he was still in intervals with us Oh so yeah sorry but he did Oh he did

I think he was in Heart Machine and someone else at the same time as well And he tried out for Tessaract and I found out from someone else So we were all just a little bit like oh did he now But yeah I don't blame anyone for trying to join Tessarac because that band is fucking incredible Yeah, absolutely. Mike is a sick guy too, man. You know Mike. I know, Mike.

Yeah, I was in a band with him. He lived at my parents' house, actually, the six months that we took to record disclosure. So that was, oh, right, okay. It's supposed to be recorded in two weeks. You know, the drums took five days. The bass took five days. The rest took six months.

That's fucking crazy, man. Yeah. You were in a band with Mike's mess. yeah he actually funnily enough when i was ejected from the harm machine um well actually i it was like a self-imposed i was like look if this is happening i'm not in the band anymore and then uh mike actually said okay don't be in the band anymore when when uh just because he was you know away from home whatever when he was actually living in my parents house and I was like you do realize what

this means and he was like I guess so and then I told my parents and they because I obviously I lived in my apartment yeah and he was staying with my parents and they just chucked him out immediately that day really so yeah literally just dropped him off at a fucking train station Holy shit. And then when the time came, when they'd finally got the album advance to pay me for my time so I would release the files, I won't go into the huge detail of the thing. Right. But I was basically holding the files ransom until I got paid at least something for my, like I quit my job or whatever. I lost a bunch of money.

When I finally got that money and they came to pick up the files off my dad. Mike and Olly asked if they could come in and say bye to my mum because obviously they'd been living there for a bit. Right. And we're like, do you mind if we go in and say bye to Elsa? And my dad just goes, no, I think you boys should just fuck off. What fucking legend. Wow, man.

Yeah, that's a bit of heart machine history there. I don't want to talk about the heart machine. That's amazing. because I don't care. Good luck to everyone in that band. Whoever you may be. So are you in a band now? I'm not.

I'm a free agent. That's not. Snap you up. That's not technically true. But like, well, no, it is. I mean, I have like a, you know, there is a project that I'm trying to work on right now with an old guitar player

from intervals who also got kicked out with me. Him and I decided to write music after that. And then, so there's that. I mean, as far as I was touring, I don't really know, you know, how that's looking just because, you know, both of, I'm jumping into a van and having the money to do all that. I personally don't know if I'm ready to do all that from scratch again. Yeah, no way. But the music that I'm writing with him is, like, very exciting.

It's the first time in a while that I've been a part of like a project from like genuinely, you know, excited about, you know, like, oh, this is mine. You know what I mean? Like, fuck yeah, this music is sick. You know what I mean? What does it take to get you to join a band? What would you need? Right now, I mean, it, it, unfortunately, it's a budget thing, you know, it's like, because I can stay home and get decent work. month to month.

And, you know, that involves, like, my dog is getting old too. So it's like his health has been going, you know, slowly down. And for me to go out and travel is kind of just really tough right now, especially if there's no budget involved. So that's what I mean. I need to know. I want to know the budget that it would take for any way. If someone say some of them might be listening to this from a band who,

and their drummer is leaving or quit or whatever and they're like, they might think they can't afford you. Well, I mean, personally, that I don't want to know the actual amount of money, but obviously you need an amount of money. But like when I spoke to Rudy about this on the podcast, we both came to the conclusion that it either needs to be the money, at this point in our career anyway,

I'm not saying for fucking people that have just started playing the drums, but to be away from home for that long, in a van, the money has to be really good, or slightly less good money on a bus for the mental health being able to fucking sleep. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, for me too, the music is a big part of it as well. Oh, yeah, shit, and that. I mean, because, you know, like, I'll go for a lower budget if I'm just. genuinely into the music, you know.

I mean, I'm about to do that, actually, with my old band, Sky Harbor. They're playing a couple of shows in Australia, and then what? I saw that. One in Mexico, and they just hit me up a couple months ago, and they were like, hey, would you be interested potentially? And I was like, yeah, but the whole premise is that it's a fill-in thing right now, which it feels great because it's like, you know, we haven't played together. and, you know, a few years

so we can kind of gauge everyone out make sure that everyone's happy and not just like, oh, a nupe is actually a shit drummer or whatever or not what we were looking for. It's not going to happen. But yeah, I mean, like, they don't really have... It's cool places.

Yeah, it's cool places, exactly. Have you been to Australia before? I have not. Exactly. That's like... Or Mexico. Everyone has the same the same criteria at this stage, in your career.

It's almost like there's a flow chart which is like first off is the music good. You're right that it should be the first thing. And then it's like, am I going to get paid well? And then if the answer to that is no, it's like is it in a place where I would spend

so much money to actually travel there myself? Yeah. And if the answer is yes, it's like, well, then obviously we're going to do it. Like when we do South East Asia, we never make any money.

We make money around it like Australia and Japan and stuff like that. But Southeast Asia, is just because the kids really want us there. And it's like people pay thousands and thousands of dollars to go on vacation to these places. And we're essentially just going for free. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean. And it's fun. It's kind of crazy to me when, you know, people, because when people ask me like, oh, what do you do? It's like, oh, I play drums. They just kind of assume that it's like, you know, like a toy, I guess. Yeah, local band. Yeah, yeah, you know, I don't know. I honestly don't even really like talking about it all that much when people ask me about that kind of stuff when I meet someone new.

It's just one of the things where I'd rather to listen to them talk about themselves for some reason. But like... No, I know what you mean. Yeah, and part of it, what surprises me is when people, you know, think it's crazy for us to want to make money from it, you know? the amount of hours that we put into practicing, the amount of stress that we put ourselves through. Because think about your day to day.

You know, like our hours don't really end if that makes sense. Yeah. You know, it's just kind of constant. I was thinking about that today, actually, because I've got like, I got a new practice regimen, which I always have a pretty good practice regimen,

but now I've started like splitting it up like a gym split almost. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, like at the gym, you will do, I will personally do a push day, a pool day, and then legs, and then have a day off and then repeat it. Right. So with drums now, I'm doing, I'm doing a day when I practice new stray stuff. I'm doing a day when I practice the old stray stuff that's going to be in the set. And then I have a day where I just work on, like, creativity and new stuff or whatever.

And then I have a day off. Oh, that's pretty cool. repeat that and it's been working pretty well but then I was thinking about it earlier like what you were saying it takes me probably 40 minutes to drive to my studio from my house so I got 40 minutes there let's say let's just call it 30 minutes to make it easier for my shit brain so 30 minutes there and then I'm a minimum of two hours there right probably more like three and then a half an hour back. So that's like four hours before I've even thought about doing a podcast or any kind of

work on other stuff. Other stuff. Yeah. Editing things. Even just answering emails. Like, social media is part of it too, man. It sucks because, you know, like, there's this whole wave of people being like, oh,

everyone's so not genuine on social. But it's like, yeah. Yeah, that's true. But at the same time, when it comes to, like, musicians, we kind of, I don't know, we kind of have to use that as, like, our portfolio slash resume. Yeah, so it's like... I'm not going to post shit stuff.

I saw something today, weren't it? It's like, I want you to go out and post something shit about your playing. I was like, nope, won't you get that? Absolutely, no. Everyone that's listening. Just know there's fucking loads of shit stuff, but you're never going to see it. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, yeah, so... Anyway. But that's another angle. that's quite hypocritical in itself. Like the people that post those things and say, oh, I want you to come out and post something that you're really bad at today. Man, that shit pisses me off.

That shit pissing me off. And it's like they're making a post about that is just them, like the deepest sub-level is them thinking, hmm, this is a good way to get some new content. Yeah, maybe. I mean, it just blows my mind, though, that like that's that that upsets you you don't I mean because it's what the fuck were you expecting when you got a Facebook and then you posted your first profile picture oh I want this picture to

represent my life right it's like that's the whole premise from literally when you start the your your account is that so when you're surprised by it later years down the line it's just like all right you know I yeah what were you expecting I'm glad you share the same uh Same thoughts on that. Yeah. I mean, I get it. I do too. And it is annoying having to just post good stuff all the time.

Absolutely. But you kind of, it's like on your CV, what do you call a CV in America? Your fucking, you know, would you give a company before you're going for a job interview? Resumet. Resumet, yeah, okay, yeah. Right. So in Britain, it's just called a CV, curriculum vitae. But you're not going to put on it like all the jobs you got fired from.

Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. As working musicians, like you said, your Instagram feed or whatever has to represent your best stuff. Otherwise, people are going to go, ah, you got fired from McDonald's. Yeah, absolutely. I'm not having him playing in my band. And maybe that argument is made a little bit more towards, you know, people where like it's just all selfies, for example, or like, I don't. know, you know what I mean?

You know, you just scroll by some accounts and, like, you tell that you can just tell that person that's put a lot of, like, thought into their picture of themselves. Yeah, but even that, like, I follow a lot of, I follow a lot of jacked dudes, you know. Yeah. And, uh, I like it when it comes up. And I think I should probably go to the gym. I should probably work a little bit harder. Yeah.

And good drummers as well. when it comes up like you or anyone like Luke Holland or whatever and there's a video comes up and I'm like fucking hell they're so good and then I go and practice because I want to be as good as them I think it's good for the evolution to see all these people who are apparently it sets a standard infallible yeah the standard is admittedly far too high because obviously you don't see the bad stuff right that's good overall that's good because everyone the standard standard is too high. So people are working to get to that standard and it ends up, they probably end up better than most people. Yeah. When they are so crushingly depressed about not being as good as

everyone on Instagram. Right, right. I mean, that's good, but to a degree as well, you know, I do think there is still like that other side of the argument you can make where it's, you know, it can be a bit poisoning as well, you know. I like the poison, though, for me personally. Like, I want to be poisoned. I want to think that everyone is better than me because then I'll be better. I need to kick up the fucking ass. But see, not everybody has that perspective either, you know?

So I just had that conversation with my wife. Yay. The other day, we were talking about this, about how, you know, everybody needs to experience some kind of ass kicking, whether it's physically or mentally in their life. Because that's what kind of, makes you want to be, you know, that's what makes you want to self-improve, right? Yeah.

And social media is one way to get it, but I don't think, I don't think everybody has the right outlook towards it in order to get it from it. You think they just get bummed out by the amount of perfect there is. Exactly. I guess so. I don't see it because I'm like, oh, these people are perfect. I must be more perfect. But that's the logical.

you're just more logical about it, that's all. You know what I mean? Like you don't let that kind of... More psychotic about it, maybe. Well, you just don't let it affect you mentally, I guess, you know, other than just wanting to self-improve. And then that's the thing. I feel like my quest for self-improvement in all aspects,

like fitness, drumming, whatever, I think that comes from not, you know, when I'm working so hard at improving on these things, I don't have time to get depressed. Yes. So it's like I like people being better than me because I think subconsciously it's like, that means I've got another eight hours this week

of not thinking about my problems and just practicing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do the same as well. So strange situation being a musician. It is, man. It is. But as long as there's some kind of sympathy, for the other half.

I feel like you're, you're fine, you know? I'm going to have to bring in that sympathy. Bring in some sympathy. I've got no time to sympathy. Everyone is better than me, so I've got no time and must be better.

Hey, the gym is a good thing for that, man. That's part of the reason why I work out as well. It's just to get that ass kicking, you know? I love it. We need to get lifting. Well, first we need to meet, meat in human form. and then get a lift.

I remember watching a video of you leg pressing something insane. Oh, yeah. 900 pounds or something. I hit a thousand pounds. A thousand pound leg press. Yeah. That doesn't help your squat at all, unfortunately, but... I am aware, but you must have, like, insane quads.

No, man, my squat, the highest ever got on a squat was 405, and it was pretty consistent for a few months. This was, like, a year ago. and then I started doing like a lot more car. I started going to an MMA gym to like do kickboxing, mainly Jiu-Jitsu. Right. So I only lift once a week now because of it. But ever since that happened, my weights have just gone down.

And now when I go lift, I do deadlift, squats, bench all in a day. Psycho. That's an ass kicking. That's an ass kicking. And my numbers have gone down. But at the same time, I'm still like pushing through and kind of trying to let. like ego lift, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's not good. So did you drop down to once a week because of just being so burnt out from the MMA gym? No, just because I'm at the MMA gym anywhere between three to four times a week. So it's like the other days that I, you know, I mean, dude, I'd get my ass kicked at that gym. So it's like, you know, by the time Friday rolls around, which is my lift day, my body is already so broken that like, you know, know. I know it. I had, when I was in Redding, I was in a moitai gym. Nice. I did that, I did that like religiously for like six months. Yeah. And I kept going to the gym as well as it, but I lost so much weight because of just how much I was exercising. Like playing drums, kickboxing

four times a week, plus going to the gym three times a week. Yeah. But it was incredible for like my productivity because I had so much to do and no time to like worry about whatever. But I feel you on just. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, just doing that kind of activity for like that many times a week, you know. After you do that, you're just like, fuck. Yeah. Now I'm going to go try to deadlift, you know?

The guy that ran my Muay Thai gym was this. this Slovakian guy, right, fucking hard as nails. There was this one time where they have this, they have one guy that's like the main fighter who actually fights in competitions and stuff. And he's like fucking absolutely jacked lad. And one day he was over his way in. I think maybe because he'd been fucking on the source or something,

but it was the way in for his fight and he was over. and this Slovakian guy had this huge argument with him in the actual place about him missing his weight. This ginormous argument, they were like, I thought they were going to kick each other's ass. And then it ended. We finished the training. And then at the end of that training session,

he's like, right, we're going to do a new thing today. It's just going to prepare you mentally for what might happen in a fight. I need a volunteer. And then picks the guy that he'd had an argument with later. earlier, stands him next to him and he's like, okay, so what are you going to do? Everyone's going to get a partner and then you're just going to and then he fucking lamps him in the stomach as hard as he can.

Jesus. Without telling him that he's going to do it, wins him, literally just punches him as hard as he can. The guy obviously is winded and then they start having a bit of an actual fight and then he stops and he says, you know, what we're actually doing is we are going to punch each other in the stomach at varying degrees.

of difficult as in like you're going to get harder and harder until the person can't take it but obviously he just wanted to fucking punch that guy all the session and then we did it and we did this thing where we're essentially just punching the person next to us in the stomach until they can't handle it anymore and it was fucking sick that's that's intense man it was like fight club yeah yeah that's some shit you see in movies for sure but that yeah i reckon in those six months I got so much, I learned so much about just myself and how much I could take. Okay, so there you go. So that brings me to something I wanted to say.

Everybody needs to be punched in life. At least physically or metaphorically at some point, you need it. You know what I mean? Like people need it. You need to get punched. You need to get punched. Is there any preference on the physically, punched or mentally punched?

Doesn't matter. Either one is going to... How hard is the mental punch? I mean, I figure it would hurt just as bad as the physical one, right? I mean... All right. What's your hardest mental punch that you've currently had? There's a few of a man.

Let's keep it to do with music. Don't give me some real darkness. Okay, okay, music. Well, getting kicked out of a band that you thought was going to, cool and then you get kicked out that's that's a pretty brutal punch I'd say was that intervals

yeah what did you get kicked out for well I mean I think he just wanted to be a solo guy because he saw all these other guitar players coming up as solo guys you know like you know like guitar players kind of

uh marketing themselves as like their name instead of like going through a band so I think he wanted it I get it but at the same time just better ways of going about doing it than just, you know, blindsiding your entire band one day.

Yeah, I don't know anything about that band, but it sucks that you got kicked out of it. Yeah, I mean, it sucks, but at the same time, I'm kind of glad at this point because I don't like working with shitty people. Ha! Exactly. I feel the same about the heart machine wasn't really a big punch,

but, yeah, it was, actually, to be honest. But once you're out at the end of it and then you see what you've achieved compared to what the other people have achieved, then you're just like, okay, that was a great thing to happen. Yeah. Shame I couldn't fucking Doc Brown and myself tell me that at the time. Yeah. I mean, for me, it wasn't really the comparison of what I've achieved versus what he's achieved currently. It's more or less just like I just learned from it. That's all.

you know, like, it made me better for me. So, wow, I sound like, like, fucking spiritual. Yeah, right. As well as you sounding really spiritual, I sound like a complete wanker. I guess that's how we're doing it. What happened with monuments? Were you in monuments? I was in monuments, yeah.

So did you leave monuments? I left monuments, yeah. How much can you talk about that? No, I mean, man, it just wasn't for me, and I don't think I was for them. That's all it was, you know? So, I genuinely miss Ali. Ali is awesome, such a good dude. But yeah, I think just stylistically, it was, you know, I just wasn't the guy.

You were the guy. You mean personality style. I think drumming-wise as well. I think a lot of things. I think a lot of things. they get you to play on the album then? Well, so a lot of the drums for the album were actually already pre-written, which is something that I try and clarify as much as possible.

But basically, they approached me with all the demos. And Ollie and Brown are both really good about writing drum parts. They have a good ear for drums. So, you know, it wasn't one of those shitty cases where it's like, you're just trying to learn a fucking guitar player who wrote drums. You're like, God, damn it, that's not even possible. I need four hands. Oh man.

At the moment. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I can't stand it either. But, you know, I mean, there was maybe only a couple instances where I was like, guys, I need three hands in order to play that one hit. But I can do everything else. You know what I mean? So they were really good about writing the parts ahead of time. They knew exactly what they wanted before bringing any of the material.

Why not just program it then? Just wanted real drums, I guess, you know? but this is the thing I feel like if you're if you're gonna if a guitarist or whoever is that married to their parts

then you just program it and get Ackle to mix it because the Teseract albums are all programmed and they sound incredible they annoy the fuck out of me when I'm learning something

and then I go and record it and they're like oh yeah can you can you play what's on the demo it's like well fucking why aren't you employing me then I mean, obviously, you know, there's a few times that that happens. But when that happens, like, throughout the entirety of every song, why are you employing me?

Yeah, I mean, but at the same time, even if they were like, hey, can you write parts to this on your own and then record those, I would have still programmed the parts to write the part in the first place. So it's like, you know, even at that point, you can have made that argument. But then you're still getting employed. And also, I feel like when a drummer programs parts, when you, when you, a guitarist is never programming a six-stroke role. Let's be honest.

So they don't need the six-stroke role. But if you're writing and you do a six-stroke role, you know that that's going to sound better with a real drummer. Whereas when drummers, when guitarists want their parts played, It's only just a bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, you know what I mean? They're never, they're never programming something that needs, like, a unique feel. Ah, yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know, man.

I didn't think it was that bad of a process, to be honest. And even further, I just didn't really read into it too much. I was kind of just like, okay, sick, you know, I'll do it. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm shitting on people here. I was just trying to... If I got you to play on my album, if I say I'm a guitarist, I would give you the guitar things

and then the program demo drums and I'd be like, do your fucking thing, my friend. Right, right, right, yeah. And I'll pay you more because I know you have the right parts. Yeah. Well, I still did my thing for sure because there were, you know, there were like placeholder fills,

I guess you could call them, you know? Like, here's a fill, but like the whole idea is we want you to do something there, so do it, you know? So there were moments like that, but as far as the actual grooves and stuff go, a lot of that was, you know, definitely premeditated.

Let's, I'm going to go slightly off-peased, but I'm interested to know how you do it and how it relates to how I do it. So when you're writing parts, whether it be for your solo stuff or a band, and you, I program them as well, the same as you. How do you go about making them interesting?

Are they interesting from the get-go? Or do you like program it simple and then jam it and then reprogram some of the stuff that you jammed? Well, a lot of times I tend to overwrite when I program. So usually I'll just do nothing but, you know, program first and then immediately just go try and track those parts. But then usually once I've gone over the song and done everything, it takes me longer to go back through

and then make things more interesting from there. So it's like sometimes there's like a three-step process to it. You know what I mean? It's like write your initial drums, program it, get your parts down, go track those parts, and then during that tracking process,

you might be like, oh, that was shittily programmed. This is how I'll actually play it, whatever, right? You track them. And you go back to the song one more time and do like a once-over, or kind of like a, after you've consolidated and edited, you know, all of what you've tracked, then it's like go back over and see if you can just make it even, you know, better from there and now that you can see it as a whole.

That's almost exactly what I do. Yeah, I mean. I get, except I program the bare minimum first. Oh. Until I, until I know. So I literally program this is the verse beat, this is the chorus beat, this is the middle eight beat or whatever. Oh, that's it. And then, so then that way I know the song, and then I just stick the song on, repeat,

and then start adding some cool feels in or whatever and changing the verses or whatever. Then I'll go back, program what I now have as the main song. So it's probably a slightly more jazzed up version. And then on the flight to going to record, then I fill in every other little gap that could be a little bit cooler. So if I have like a cool fill, I'll be like, I could do something in the bar before that. And then I'll program the lead in to the cool fill. Oh, that's crazy, man.

And then I have to learn that stuff in the studios. But it means that I have like this, it's almost like smoke and mirrors. It's like really underneath this is a very boring drum part. Right. And what I've done is just built. built stuff onto other stuff. That's pretty cool, man. There's a verse in, all day and the night on the last straight album.

The verse, I had the basic thing down, and then on the flight to go and record, I was like, man, what if I started playing groups of three on the hi-hat, like, in this bit? And I was like, oh, that's cool. And then I was like, oh, what if I fill these two ghost notes in here? And then it ended up sounding sick. and then I just have to learn it in the studio.

Man, that's brutal. I mean, that's a crazy process because, I mean, like, if I had to learn anything in the studio like that, unless it's like you're coming up with stuff on the spot with whoever you're working with, that would freak me out. Well, Will Pantley records drums last. So we had a separate room with a drum kit in it

while everyone was tracking guitar that I can practice in. So it wasn't really like I was recording I was learning it while I was recording. I was like learning it at the studio. Dude, that's sick. Doing drums last is crazy. That's how I do, well,

kind of, that's how I do my solo stuff. I feel like it's the best way, but for some reason no one really talks about it. Yeah, I mean, it's,

for my solo stuff, I can't compare to like, obviously, like, stray or anything, because my solo is just for, like, me. But like,

that kind of, of stuff, I've started to try and go back the other way and do drums first, but, and it actually helped for the current solo stuff I'm working on, just because I was able to kind of like tone shape a little bit better while I go. But before, it would kind of, it would kind of suck because I would have all my guitar tones, all my bass tones, and be like, all right, fuck yeah, this song is cool. Record my drums. And then now it's like, all right, I'm trying to get my natural drums to work with everything else that is already done, you know? And it's kind of like, I'm a drummer, I should be doing this other way around.

So that's kind of why I switched it now for recent stuff. But what were you going to say? You like it, don't you? I love it, but I feel like probably for the listeners that don't know, the usual way from the beginning of multi-track recording is that the drums are recorded first and then the other instruments on top. And what we're talking about here is a new sort of thing where you record everything except the drums first

and then you record the drums at the end. Right. Which I personally hadn't done until Will, but Nollie does it as well as far as on where. And I love it because for two reasons. One, by the time you're in the studio and you come to tracking, you really know the songs because you've been listening to them all fucking day. every day.

Right. And then the other element is like if something doesn't, when you're recording the drums first, you can hear every little thing that's out of time. So you get into, I'm sure you do the same where it's like, oh, I need to quantize that bit. Oh, I need to edit this. And then you edit it.

And you end up, the whole thing is gridded. And it's like just because everyone's used to that. But when the guitars are there first, if it sounds good, you don't have to edit it. So there's like entire sections where you can get away with not editing. Oh, that's, yeah. Because the guitars are like, there's like a feel there because the guitars are, the guitars are anchoring it to the click, if you know what I mean.

You can be a little bit ahead, a little bit behind. Right. I like it for that, but then a flip side that I don't like it for is the, you can't really get your drum parts sorted 100% before you go into the studio because if the song can change at any time because you're doing it to program drums like sometimes I'll fly in and we'll start recording and then Will it'll be like yeah this whole section is gone now

and then there's this brand new section here and I'm like okay I need to reprogram my muscle memory to do that Right. So that it's a bit annoying in that sense, but I think I would take it over doing the drums first. That's interesting too, though, because you guys, I mean, because I'm assuming straight has good budgets when going into this kind of stuff. So you can kind of get a little bit of production from whoever you're working with, right? We get so much. That's sick.

That's another thing to probably mention is that that's not really like, I mean, at least for like what I've done. I don't, I've, I've barely had those types of experiences, so that's sick to hear. Yeah, so most people will have the song completely written before they go into the studio, and it's just a case of tracking it. But with, it's usually, you're right, it's usually not with bands like ours. It's usually with like fucking Lady Gaga will go into the studio and write in the studio and through frayers and shit like that, where you don't sit huddle around a computer in the practice room and write it there and then.

Right, right. We come to Will with, like, with what we think of full songs, and then Will goes, ah, no, that section sucks. And then we write something new in the studio. See, that's how it should be done. I think a lot of bands,

because, you know, I work with, like, local bands, you know, obviously to make money when I'm home. So it's like, one of the, one of the biggest things, that I always get asked is, oh, will you produce us? And immediately, I'm just like, no. I'll mix you guys. I'll engineer and I'll mix you guys, but I will not produce. And the reason why I say that is because nine times out of ten, they'll be like, yeah, engineering and mixing, as if, like, that's what they constitute as, you know, producing.

But what they don't realize is that producing is actually going back and, you know, picking apart the songs and whatnot. Making them better. Yeah, it's like if the guitar player is recording a riff here and all of a sudden I turn around, I'm like, hey, we should do something else there. He's going to look at me like, the fuck do you mean? This is my song, right? Yeah. People aren't aware that production is not just making it sound nice.

Right. It's not the mixing and the mastering and whatnot and the engineering. It's right. Yeah, making it better. But yeah, Will does so much. So we, going into this next album, we have six songs we've pre-proed with Will already. So they've gone through like, we had them as demos, and then Will had them. And then now they are what we consider full songs.

That's cool. We did the last stray album, including Will actually producing. We did it in 14 days. and we didn't have this many songs done so this time we're shooting for 12 days to track the entire album Wow man

That's crazy Which is fucking insane Yeah that's not that long And we booked the studio for like a month So we don't have to take it that short But we just last time we just smashed it out of the park And this time You know half of it is fully done

Other than just being tracked Right Yeah. And also we like to lyrics, we write a lot of lyrics in the studio. Okay.

Obviously with like, I mean, it's not all political but a lot of it's political and that climate can change in 20 seconds. Right. Yeah. That's a part of it.

But then also just because like we say, we're doing the drums last, the arrangement can change in a split second because it's like a fucking Lego on the computer. You can be like, let's move the intro to the outro and then that's it and if Drew's come up with like a vocal

over all that then that's fucking ruined right right anyway it's not about me man I gotta I gotta bust out some stray dude I used to like listen to so much stray working out that's such good workout material I asked you to fill in for me didn't I yeah you did I was I was when you asked me that actually man I was like thoroughly excited because it was like, holy fuck yeah, man, I would just hit the piss out of my drums for that music. But as soon as you were like,

oh yeah, and there's no click, I was like, oh, fuck. And that's my lie. That our fuck that you experienced, I experience it every day. Every day on tour. Oh, we're playing a show. Oh, fuck, there's no cliff. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, if it was

one of those things where, you know, I, like, if you're joining a band and that's like what you're going to be playing, then it's a little different. But like, because it was a fill in, it's like, no, you got to just own this material for that short period of time. I was like, ah. Short notice as well. It was only fucking three shows.

My visa was late because it ends up if the president may or may not be a white supremacist sympathizer, that if you do a song about that, then your visa takes quite a long time to get processed for some reason. Wait, wait. Wait, are you being dead serious? Well, it was the longest visa processing that our lawyer has ever seen. Ah, yeah, it's getting fun these days. But it was right after Goodnight Alt-Rite dropped.

So I can only assume it was like, Google the band. Oh, okay. Because the headlines were like, the song wasn't even about fucking, the video wasn't technically about trying. but all of the right wing news picked it up and put Trump in the headline. So when you Googled the band name, it came up with just like all this anti-Trump shit. Right.

And I think that's why it took so long. Wow, that's crazy. I never even think about that, but that's like a real thing. Yeah, but then they obviously swore past it and were like, ah, it's fine, fucking. Get him in. Get him in the country. But yeah, in fact, I actually play half.

the set to a click now. Oh, that's good. I've programmed clicks, so they're not the same tempo the whole way. And just this last tour we just did with that was the easiest and most fun I've ever had on tour because you know what it's like. If you're in the practice room and the click is on, that's what it's going to be like on stage. Oh, man, tell me about it. My first experience without a click on stage in the longest fucking time ever was with Marty

Friedman two years ago something like that 2016 summer or something anyways point is it was a two hour set and what what the fuck yeah man it was brutal so because I've only ever

recorded for him two albums in the studio that's it I never I've never played live with him until that feeling of what it was like eight shows maybe nine something like that and ironically enough, my first bus tour in the

States was just a fill-in for eight, nine shows. Just like, fuck, man. Anyways, that was, what reason why I'm sour about that is because I, it was like, you know, damn, this is what it feels like to be comfortable on a tour. You know?

Comfortable on a tour, but not comfortable on the stage. Yeah, I mean, two hours set. That's including, like, so it was probably like an hour and a half to hour 45 of actual set, and then, I don't know, add another, you know, five to 10 minutes realistically for an encore. But the set could kind of take

longer or shorter because there was a lot of improvised sections, which brings me to what I was going to say, half the set was to a click, half was not. Hang on, Marty Friedman can play for an hour and 45 minutes.

Yeah, it's fucking wild. And you played none of it to a click? I played half of it to a click. Oh, same as me. What, he just had songs that he didn't want to do with a... There were just songs that that I couldn't play to a click because

it was a lot of stop and go stuff. So, like, there was like a, you know, like, do-do-d-da-do-da-da. They would just stop, and then he would play this, like, lead and, like, interact with the crowd and stuff. And then, like, you know, like, there was actually one song that did that. And while he's interacting with the crowd,

I'd have to move the cursor over to the next click. And as soon as he would hold his hand up in the air, I'd hit space bar. And the count-in was so quick because the music had to come in immediately or else it's just awkward for him to hold his hand up in air. I'm having a panic attack now.

And then another thing too was like, one thing I had to get used to was at the end of certain songs he'd hold up like three fingers which meant that we were going to do like three hits. You know and like you know the um the classic old school guitarists. Oh man.

You know the classic bucket of fish at the end of songs? Yeah. I can't. I don't do that shit. And holy fuck. had to learn how to do that. Like, and by learn, I mean, like, I had to learn how to understand when to do it. So fucking funny. It was hilarious.

Um, did you do Japan with him? No. Because he lives in Japan, doesn't he? Yeah. Is he playing Megadev songs in the set, or is it all the solo? No, he does, like, one Megadeth solo in there, uh, Tornado Souls. Yeah, fucking bang. had to be there.

Yeah. So he does, it's like literally just a short snippet of that that he breaks out and then that's pretty much it. Everything else is just, he has a fuck ton of solo material,

man. That dude is, is a busy guy. I just don't know because he's, I'm so jealous that he lives in Japan. Yeah, man.

Yeah, he's like, I mean, he's, he's full on, like, Japanese. Like,

you meet him, he'll greet you with, like, a high and, like, a, you know, slight head bell.

What fucking legend. I want to live in Japan so much. Yeah, I've seen you posting about that. Oh my God. Have you ever been? I've never been. I've been to the airport. That's it.

Mate, it's the fucking... I just try and explain it to people. I watched Anthony Bourdain the other day, and he explained it. Like, when you come to Japan, like, your perception of Japan, how different it is, is like, when Jimmy Hendricks must have come to London where like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were there and then Jimmy Hendrix turns up and it's just like nuts. That's what going to Japan is like

you're the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, not musically but just like in terms of what you think you know about the world and then you turn up at fucking Jimmy Hendrix experience nuts. It's crazy. That's pretty cool man. Yeah, I mean, I'd love to go. I'm actually going to go on vacation this year because it's the only year, Stray isn't going, because we're going next year, I think.

Okay. And I'm like, I can't go a year without it. Wow, man. Do you eat sushi? Do you like sushi? No. Why are you on the podcast? Is it because you're vegan or you just don't like sushi?

I'm vegetarian. I don't, I just, and that and I don't, I just don't like sushi. Also, vegetarian sushi is like, whatever. Yeah. I've just never really been into it. That's all. But even if you don't like it, you know, the place is great as well. But I was just going to mention that the sushi, it's not just like people just say,

oh, you've got to try the sushi in Japan. It's life-changingly different. That's awesome. It's the weirdest shit. Anyway, another me fucking gobbing off about Japan. Marty Freeman has a million, a million songs. You didn't play them with a click. That must have been horrible.

Blabba, blah, blah. That's that bit done. I didn't ask you if you wanted to, if you had anything. It's not very professional this, isn't, mate. It's not professional at all. I didn't ask you if you had anything you want. Oh, yeah, I did. I'm fucking talking to myself.

This is the point when people turn off because this guy's just rambling. You are doing a sample pack with Rudy. Yeah. Uh-huh. Has it got a name? Is this a world exclusive? R&S. That's what we're calling it.

Rudy, Rueinger and Sastry, Rudy and Snoop, whatever you want to think of, R and S. R and S, nice. R and S. Yeah, R and S. Cool. Yeah, man. It's all recorded? Everything is recorded.

We recorded it this time last year, just about, um, fuck, we did a fuck off amount of drums, dude. I remember it. You were like, it was around Christmas. I just remember YouTube were just hanging out, tonight. Oh, it was fucking crazy. I mean, we were going insane. So the other reason why I, so where I track

is, is I leave the doors open just so my room mics can like, you know. Yeah, that trick. Yeah, so my like control room, quote unquote, is right next to one of the doors that opens to the drum room. So I'm literally sitting here

in front of my monitors with them muted, obviously. And I have isolation. headphones on with a mixer and I'm just making sure I'm listening for noise because the room mics can pick up my dog walking upstairs or if my cat meows or whatever the fuck it is right Rudy's hitting a ride okay a ride symbol you know how fucking long those things take to decay so boring he's hitting it we're doing like at least five velocities for the thing and I'm just sitting there in front of my computer head in hands, just listening for noise every single hit. I bet that makes you really tired. Oh man, it was brutal.

It's weird how listening intently can make you exhausted. It was brutal. And I know I miss some stuff just because there's no way, you know, I would have been able to pay attention that well for that long. But, man, we did, what do we do? We did 13 kicks. We did like five. Give me list some off for me.

List me off the chart toppers. What you got? Well, I wouldn't really say unique, but one of our favorites is one of my kicks, the 22 by 16 Birch Babinger, Star Classic. I have one of those. Love it. Yeah, and what was really nice about that

was that we had four different sizes of kick drums between Alex and I for the Birch Babinger. Wow. Which is now discontinued as well. Which is now discontinued. Yeah. We also did a Star Classic Maple 22 by 18. We did, there's a Pearl Reference.

There's a Pearl Master's Premium. There's like a DW 22 by 18. Nice. What snares? We did 22 of them. 22 snares. Snares on and snares off. Is it all going to be in the one pack?

I guess so. Maybe. I think we might have two packs, to be honest, just because we did. So the Star Classic. Birchabinga kit that we did is probably the most well-rounded kit that we sampled. And then the second one after that was a Star Classic Maple Kid.

And we kind of had a mixed match of other drums to kind of trickle in and out of it. But for the most part, it equaled out to be about five sets of Tombs in total on top of the 13 kicks. So I don't know how we're really going to package all this stuff, to be honest. But yeah. I think it probably makes sense to do a few, like, add-ons, do a main pack and then add-on in time.

So I'm thinking of just about monetizing. Although you could argue that if you just fucking, you have a product which has absolutely fucking everything you could ever need immediately, that you would sell more. Yeah, well, I mean, the idea of it, I guess, was that, was just that it, if worse comes to work, we can package it either all together or maybe have two different things or whatever it is, but it gives us a couple of options. And then once that's out, Alex and I, I mean, we're already talking about sampling another, you know, two or three kits with like a whole bunch of other different ideas and shit. But it's crazy, man.

You got to worry about piracy. Yeah. It needs to be, obviously, you've obviously thought of this a million times, but in my head, the first thing it comes to mind is like, do whatever you've got to take to make it cheap enough that people would rather buy it than just fucking torrent it.

Do I mean, GGD is fucking cheap for how good it is. Right, no, absolutely. I mean, yeah, and that's, ours probably isn't going to be like too far off from that, if anything may be cheaper. I don't know, we don't really know yet about a lot of that kind of stuff,

but one thing that we are kind of not really worried about, but it's just on our radar is the fact that it's nowhere near as processed as what's out there now. So like it sounds much more like it's definitely processed, but it doesn't have that kind of plug-in-play effect, I guess, you know? Yeah, but the first GDD didn't have that. The Halphone one's not that processed, is it? It's pretty processed. I mean, you basically just have to put a parallel compression bus on it

and it's for the most part good to go. but I mean, at least I thought so. But this one definitely sounds like a little bit more of a freshly recorded studio kit, you know? I mean, that's cool, though. Well, like, I mean, superior drummer, you had to process the fuck out of that to get that to sound good. Yeah, no, that's true. And that is, like, still the standard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I don't know. We use the modern and massive GDD for demoing. stray and I fucking love it. Nice. It's like just immediately sounds incredible, which I am a fan of. But I remember the Halperm pack I didn't like. The first one, I was like, but I think I wanted to not have to mix anything whatsoever. Yeah, I got you.

Well, you'll probably have to mix for a... It'd be cool to send it to you though and see what you think. You know, when we have like some kind of working version, we're still, we're still so early, early stages of it so I would love to check it out I love even just fucking I'm going to get oh okay you're getting late here it's not late at all I just got drunk as fuck last night and I don't usually get drunk but my wife worked on New Year's Eve so we didn't really do anything and then she had she's got tonight and last night off she never has evenings off oh last night we were just like we I made dinner and then she was

was like, oh, going to make us some cocktails. And then we had two drinks each. And then I was like, have you poisoned me? She was like, no. And I was like, well, I am like gradually getting slower and slower the more I talk. And she was like, yeah, there were seven shots of rum in those two drinks. Oh, my God. And I just like sculled both of them because they were so nice.

They were like little shorts, like little dekiris. And I was like, dacarees. What you got, dachry, dacary, dacary. And I was just like, I'll just smash these back. And then I was immediately like disabled. That's, that's a lot of fucking rum though, man, for two drinks, seven shots. Yeah, that's why I was, that's why I'm tired. And I've completely lost my train of thought.

This is professional podcasting. This is why I can't do a sample back because there'll be. Sundays are my off days anyways, too. I've started to give myself an off day just to like not do shit and hang out with my dog and cat. Nice. What kind of dog you got? A big old German Shepherd. I know this.

I just wanted the listeners to know this. It's a big, big, cute dog. It's a big old dog. That's the kind of dog that would tear someone's face off if he had to. No, he's pretty protective. He just turned into a guard dog just because we kind of live out in the middle of nowhere. So it's like he doesn't really get socialized all that much. But after like 15 minutes of like, you know, evaluating you.

he's good nice we're going to talk about equipment for a minute yeah because we've been doing this for an hour and 20 minutes now mate so we're going to talk about equipment and then we'll talk about some of your favourite bands

and that'll kind of be it we play all the same companies yeah because they're the best ones it's funny when you meet Other people that play exactly the same companies because it's like, yeah, they are the best, aren't they? I, yeah, there's really no other way to put it. Not to sound like cocky on behalf of the companies that we're with, but I don't know, man.

They're pretty fucking sick, you know? So sick. And you just joined Evans. Oh, man. So happy. And there's just the array of heads. And obviously Aaron. Shout out to Aaron for just being a legend.

Yeah, absolutely. Aaron used to work at Tamara, and I guess that's how you know him and you moved. You moved? Yep, yep. That's a thing, isn't it? I've talked about it on the podcast before. Like, a lot of companies make good stuff, but you also need somebody who is in your corner, and sometimes that person moves companies and you want to go with them just because you built that relationship up.

Yeah, absolutely, man. I think I value artist relations more now than I do the actual, like, products. Because, I mean, like, every company is still going to make, you know, like, sick shit. I still think that the companies were with make the sickest stuff. But, like, when it comes down to it, I definitely have a lot more value for the people that we work with for that kind of stuff. So, like, Chris Brewer, for example, man. Yeah. that dude is the fucking man he's um it took me a while to get in with him

not in you know chris but i love chris by the way that sounded like i was just gonna say no um oh yeah actually he sucks no love chris but mine all germany and minel usa are two different companies right so initially when i came over i was still having to go through Minel, Germany, because I didn't really have a deal with Minerle USA. Gotcha. And that was kind of, it wasn't, I hadn't even met Chris by this point. And then at one point I just met Chris. And then the minute I met him, it was like, immediately like, yo, you know, you can just

come through me now. And I was like, oh, this is insane. So now I have two artist relations for Minel. And they're both lovely people. That's crazy, man. Yeah. I forgot to even think about that. That's a thing.

How long have you been with Minal? 2012 or 2013. I think 2012. You are one of the only people as well as me who use some of the quote-unquote lower line stuff because we like the way it sounds. Lower line meaning like what like? I mean like the classics custom dark. stuff like that.

Oh man, I think the crashes are great on those. Though the 20 Classics Customs Dark crash sounds like it costs three times the price. Yeah. It sounds like a B20 symbol. Yeah, totally, man. And the other nice thing... People get put off by it.

I don't know why, man. I think they track great as well. I think they... What was it going to say? Oh, the durability on them. too is crazy. Insane. It's really nice.

I've never really... I'm going to warp that symbol 10 times over before I'm going to crack it. You know what I mean? Have you warped? I've never warped one. Oh man, I've warped a bunch of classic custom dark. What, the 20s? 20s, 18s, 19s, you name them.

Okay, you officially hit harder than me. Because I've warped symbols before, but I've never walked one of those. Yeah. And the 18 China, sounds like that. incredible as well. That is my favorite China for sure. We just did that tour with Silent Planet and Alex

from Silent Planet was playing with like a cracked by his answer and I was like yeah I've got a backup. Classics custom dark just use that and at first he was like it looks like a slipnot symbol because it's black. Yeah. And then he played it and he was like actually this is sick and then he got one off Chris like they're fucking

great symbols. What I want to do what I want to do is get them to make one that isn't black like I get it dark the classic custom dark but like did you see the new or the latest brand dela ghost ride

so I think it's I think they took a classics custom dark or like a B8 but it was black and then they sandblasted it interesting So they put like the Benny Greb sandglass finish on it and it ended up looking so sick

that if they just like rebrand, they obviously don't have to rebrand them but if they rebranded Classics Customs Dark as like a sandblasted version that looks slightly less like a UFO than more people would buy them. I think that's a good point because like you said it looks a little bit slip-noddy,

right? I think that's what puts people off, and people are hearing with their eyes and not there ears. Absolutely, man. Yeah, because that was one of the first things that I thought as well when Mino first brought that out. I was kind of just like, oh, okay, you know, cool. Let's give it a shot.

And then they sent me a whole bunch of them. I tried them. And I was like, oh, fuck. These are, even the high hats, too, man. I remember liking the high hats. I don't use those much anymore, but they kind of nailed it on the dot, I feel like, with that, with that line. I've never tried the high hats.

They're not bad. I mean, they're not, they're definitely not my favorite anymore, but they're still sick. That's sick. I really want them to make a 19-inch China again. They don't make one anymore. No 19s.

I've never had a 19-inch China, but I'm sure that's fucking dope. My thing is, I prefer a 20 sound-wise, but I can't fit a 20 in my setup because of I don't have a huge setup and the drum risers aren't big enough for me to have my china far enough away that the playable bit isn't over my floor time, if you know what I mean? Right, right, yeah. So it's a big, a symbol.

A 19 is like almost the sound of a 20. Yeah. But slightly more positionable. Right, right, right. And I'm trying to get Minel to make me a, like, I don't want an R&D thing, because I know they do do R&D, but just make me a pure alloy 19 or a Classics Custom Dark 19 and sandblasted it and then put my fucking name on it and then we'll make millions. I bet you I could sell it. Make this, Minel, I know you're listening. I know there's two of you, at least two of you, and one of you works in the sales department.

I can sell this symbol for you, just make it happen, please. This is, yeah, this is Greg Reynolds for minor symbols. So who else do we play? Vic Firth, we've talked about that, Tamara, Evan, that's it. That's all the big ones, isn't it? That's pretty much it, man. Yeah. You got anything you want to talk about?

I've just been talking at you. I'm sorry if I've talked over you. No, not all, man. This is great. I hope we can actually meet in person someday and, you know, hang out and shit. I would love that. Work out. Let's go lift some weights or something.

I saw you post something. You were in, you were like, if I'm going through your town, let me know if you want to work out. I was so tempted to hit you up, but it was like a weekend or something like that. And I was like, I'm not trying to go work out today. That's fine. Just next time, do it. I'm, uh, I love working out. I love working out on tour.

I love, like, when Rudy came over, he was doing something with a good tiger. We were just like, I met him in London. We just went and hit a gym. It was like a good hang. Yeah. Just good vibes. That was, that was my plan as well when I was going to be out there for the Devon thing because I was like, oh, well, you know, I could hit up people I know and go work out.

Like you, uh, to, well, really just. you. I am the main one. Yeah, but then we started driving to Mono Valley and I was like, oh. I'm in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. So you know what's funny? About four more hours in that direction and then you get to the place that

Nollie records out all the time. What's that place called? The other studio. Middle Farm. Middle Farm is like you're already in the sticks for Mono and then you drive four more hours in that direction. Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, it's like the end of the earth.

Oh my God, man. But I guess it's the property prices out there are so cheap that you can have a studio. Is that what does it? It's just pricing for that kind of stuff? Okay. Yeah. That's why I live, I live technically I live up north now, whereas Redding is close to London.

And what you get for your money in terms of like buying a property is. is so much more. It's insane just because of how far you are away from London. Right. It's sickening. Yeah, we were out there, man. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it's fucking out there.

Mono Valley's so fucking cool, though. That drum room, like Oasis have recorded there. It's on the back of an Oasis record. Yeah, that is, yeah. It's legendary. Yeah, man. All right, I'm going to get your top five bands, And then we're going to call it a day.

Sounds good. Top five bands. Did I pre-warn you on this? You did. You did. I forget to pre-worn people, good. No, I appreciate you pre-warning me because I had to think about it. Yeah, because it sucks.

It sucks is a question, but that's why I like it. All right. So Ben Folds, or Ben Folds 5, either one. Sound Garden. Nice. Audio slave, which is you can argue. Whoa. Whoa. No, no, no, no, we're going to stop right there.

Unless one of these next two bands are Rage Against a Machine, what is the deal with that? I mean, I'm not, I'm not, there's no judgment, but. I know, I mean, yeah, I kind of figure I get flack for that. But at the same time, they just both each have songs that are fucking, you know, I've just kind of grown up listening to, I guess, you know. Might as well be like the same band, I feel like, but. Yeah, but how many albums did audio it?

do. I don't even know. I should know this, being that it's on the top five. I thought there was just like one. I mean, I'm probably wrong. If it is,

then they had all... No, that's Pantera. What's the main one? I don't even know the main one. There's a couple of them, man. The main...

Co-cochees. Co-chise. Co-chise, yeah. There's four. There's four. No, there's three. There's three audio slave albums. I just got Jamie to pull it up.

There's three. Gasoline is another crazy song there. They do have bangers. Yeah, they got some bangers, man. I'll give you that there are bangers there. Like a stone? Was there like, hey, we don't want to be heavy. Oh, I hate it won't bans to do that.

Anyway, right, that's your three. I'm surprised, but I'm not judging you. What's four and five? Periphery. Nice. Fucking love Periphery, man. And then Incubis. Nice.

I'm the only person I know that doesn't like Incubus. Really? Fair enough. I just never really got into it. You're not the first person I've heard say that, so. Periphery, musically, and as people, love them, I can't listen to too many songs because of the clean vocals. Really?

I'm not a big clean vocals. I'm not a big clean vocals guy over metal, other than Tesseract. For some reason, I'm okay with Tesseract. Yeah, I mean, that's your thing, man. I actually, I don't know, I like, I love clean vocals, actually, over metal, depending on the context, but, yeah. I didn't say that because I thought I was right, by the way. I just wish that I could like them more, but for some reason I don't. And I think when I see them live, I'm always like, this is amazing.

Yeah. And then, in fact, I don't think it's the vocals. I think maybe it's the production. I'm just fucking slating them all now. Interesting, really. As in like it's too good. Oh, okay. I like, because I listen to like black metal and stuff like that.

I like a bit of fucking dirt. And then when you listen to periphery on a record, it's like, this is every instrument sounds perfect. And that that should be a good thing. And in my head, I'm like, nah. Yeah. Yeah, no, I got you. Well, the one thing. Bad saying that.

No, man. I mean, the one thing I really, the reason why they're on the list for me is because in the whole progressive metal, like context they they kind of just have like all of the parts to the puzzle I guess and they do it well enough every time they they hit those types

of aspects you know like when it comes to clean vocals when it comes to odd time stuff if it's just like all right let's just write a riff and make it fucking heavy and groove out and whatever you know and the man's a fucking genius yeah I think

it's like the most well round it's also like the only progressive metal I can listen to today and not be like, oh, I've already heard this. Yeah. And I think maybe that's part of my problem as well

is that periphery came out and they like reinvented metal essentially. Absolutely. And then you had five billion bands copying periphery. Yeah. And I think I heard all those bands copying them first.

And then I was like, because like and then it came to like periphery and I was like I don't know I think I just missed the boat Matt's yeah Matt's one of the fucking best drummers Meish is fucking his like

his obviously his writing and everything but in particular his metric modulation stuff that they do blows my mind when it will like go to a 6-8 feel or whatever a dotted eighth note feel or whatever is all crazy but for some reason I'm not putting

it on? Yeah, Fair enough, man. No, I want you to help me figure out why. I don't want you to say fair enough. I want you to tell me I'm wrong and then tell me where I can start to change this. Because I mean, if I'm going to see them live, I'm like, this is amazing. And then I'll go and put it on and I'm like, nah.

I don't know. I, it's hot. I don't really, I'm not like, production. I'm not really upset that you're saying that. That's, I guess that's why I'm not like trying to. you know. I'm, I'm, I'm a self. From a songwriting standpoint, too, that's another thing.

Just, I mean, they, I personally think they fucking kill it. I think that you're right. Don't stop saying stuff like, I'm going to turn around and say, no, they don't. Because I know their songs are amazing. I just don't listen to it. I'm going to try it in a minute. I'm going to make some dinner, right? I'm going to put periphery on.

That's not even a, that's not, I would never do that, and I love periphery. Well, hang on. That's not like a good setting to put periphery Maybe when you're like driving or like So when am I putting periphery on? When am I putting periphery on? I don't know when you have like a drive When you have like you know 15, 20 minute drive

You'd be like, all right let me listen to a couple songs You know what I mean? You know like when you got to go work out or something If you have to do cardio Yeah and that won't be happening Well Okay I'm going to do this Next time I've got a 20 minute drive

In fact, when I drive to the studio tomorrow, I'm going to listen to periphery. What periphery am I going to listen to? Can you tell me? P2, the second album. Is that the one that starts with a really fast song? Yes. Have a blast. Yep.

See, I, this is a story. Right. So when Matt dislocated his shoulder, what are you laughing at? No, I'm just waiting. man that's all well because I announced the story before I started it

this is a story like when Matt disdicated his shoulder in 2000 I want to say 13 yeah before it was like at the airport for a Euro tour and I vaguely knew the guys

I hope they don't hate me if they listen to this because I do like their band I just don't listen to their band but anyway so this this is going to round off this conversation right so i knew the guys sort of basically for i can't remember how but i kind of knew them to talk to him or whatever matt disdicates his shoulder i get phone call i can't remember if it was matt or if it was misha and they were like matt's disdicated his shoulder we've got this tour that starts

in five days uh do you want to do it and i'm like in my head i'm like sure yeah i'll do that I had some like architects work like drum teching that I would have had to cancel but it was like I would do that to play anyway so then I started listening to the songs and I was like whoa hang the fuck on this this is insane

there's no way I can do this and then not in five days anyway and definitely back then just couldn't do it straight up and then so I rang Matt back and I was like yo like I don't think I can learn this in this space of time. And then Matt goes,

oh, you know, man, like, you know the song, you know the, like, structures, we just need someone that can get from the beginning of the song to the end. And I didn't have the heart to be like, yo, I don't know the song structures.

Like, there's no way that I can do this. So I just lied, and I said that, I have, like, I had, I couldn't get out of the architect's work, which I could have got out of the architect's work. I just,

line was like that because I would have just it was like a big Euro tour I would have just looked like shit I would have definitely fucked it up no that that's some bullshit where it's like we just need to we just need someone to get from the Vietnam fuck all that that's go on imagine that imagine me going and just

anyone just jamming along to a periphery and the fans the kind of fans that like periphery just being like yeah good for you that was really good no yeah that would be it career over absolutely man they've got to they've asked

it's weird i've they've asked me maybe like and they've asked a few drummers it's not you know as yourself i know boris uh mike malion who else there's anyways uh they've asked me like maybe three or four times now

like to fill in for like a couple dates or like for this or whatever and every single time they're just like it's it's within like five days you know what I mean that's the That's what happens, though, isn't it?

Yeah, and it's like, I listen to them, though. Like, I know the songs, and I'm still just like, I'm not going to fucking, like, career suicide myself like that. Are you kidding me? You couldn't have, like, told me maybe 10 days ago even, you know? Like, yeah, that's pretty fucking nuts. Yeah. I would love to play that music live, but. I would love to like that music.

It's not like dislike it. I just, it's. I hope they don't listen to this and think I hate them because I respect them all massively and I wish that I like their band and I do like their band I just don't listen to it

I'm gonna this is my own therapy right now and you know what the worst thing about all of this is the worst thing is that some motherfucker that listens to this podcast is going to tell Matt

about whoever because I remember I talk shit on Promark and And you got shit for it later. People just fucking tag me and whoever I'm talking shit about. Yeah, yeah. They're like, someone tag me.

I was just talking shit on Promark. Like, I can't remember it was that bad. I was like, oh, it was about oak sticks. I was saying that I think oak sticks are like a lawsuit waiting to happen because the fucking, the shock goes into your wrist. And then some guy, like, tag me in a Matt Halpin photo of, like, his sticks. Oh, shit. Oh, you think these suck or whatever.

And it's like, well, he doesn't play the oak ones. And now Matt's like thinking, the fuck have I been saying on his podcast. And now I've actually, technically said I don't like his band. But I do like that. Man, you're just, you're on fire right now with those guys. I'm fucking, I'm digging a hole. So I'm going to end it here.

Whatever. It'll be like, if it does make it, you know, if it does get any life after this podcast, it'll be like a few days and then people, Trump will do something or, you know another band will be accused of fucking something and i don't think me not liking peripheries on the same same level as uh trumps well that's what i mean it's like that's what i mean it's not it's not it's not going to matter is my point yeah and they're i mean i know them they'll be

fine maybe they would just suggest to me why don't you try with this start with this song but i'm gonna start with p2 on my drive tomorrow and i'll let you know i don't you know it goes The last, uh, Ragnarok, the last song is fucking sick also. Uh, there's, there's a bunch of hits on that one. Do you know who else I can't really get into? Who? Uh, animals as leaders. Oh shit, dude.

Except I love, this is the thing. Are you serious, man? Matt, Matt Gasker is incredible and I will listen to it just to listen to his parts. And are you being serious right now? I'm being 100% serious. I'm kidding. I'm trying to make this more dramatic. The self-titled,

the self-titled, which is fucking programmed drums, I am in love with. Me too. And then everything else, which is actually which Misha programmed those drums. So, Misha, I do love you, buddy. Love that album. And I love Matt Gasker's drumming,

but I just don't care about the other songs. you know one thing that always like pissed me off about the fans of animals as leaders is that with that first album that Misha Misha did with them when that first came out I thought the mix on that I thought everything

about that was just fucking awesome I thought the mix was insane loved it still I was still getting into progressive metal too at that point so for me to hear that I was like what the fuck is this sorcery right yeah you go years later after they release a bunch of albums people going back and like

shitting on that mix now? You know, like, I don't know. I mean, I've read a lot of shit comments about the mix on that first album and it just pisses me off every time because I'm just like, whatever, man. You know when that shit came out, it fucking

sent your head, you know, into la la la land because it was so fucking out of this world, you know? This is the thing and it has like a vibe. Maybe this is the great place to end the podcast because that album doesn't sound like anything else.

Even though it's programmed drums and it's, I'm guessing. Fuck, I'm going to listen to that album, man. It has a vibe and that's what I need. I don't need something that sounds like everything else. I need a vibe. And whether that vibe is shitty to some people, like, I know what maybe people are talking shit about on that album. It's like, it's really squished, but I love that.

Yeah. No, I mean, that was one of the things I think was, was the compression on it, but I thought it was amazing. Do you know what I actually, what Animals as Leaders album I listened to more than any other is the latest live one? Because I love that. I haven't even checked it out.

I honestly... What? It's insane because you get to hear Matt playing the old songs with his like parts and everything. And then it's mixed really nice, but it's real. There's no sample replacement. they haven't edited anything because you can hear

like a couple of tiny little flubs. Right. And it's like, I don't know, maybe I just like stuff that sounds a little bit shit. I haven't really listen to Animals as leaders at all in the past like three or four years, to be honest. There you go. So you're in the same boat as me.

I'm just being vocal about it. Not that I don't like them. I think they're fucking sick. I just, I don't know. I just, if I'm going to listen to metal these days, it's going to be like fucking heavy as shit.

Or, yeah, exactly. Or just, you know, I'm not going to listen to it. True. I hear that. So hang on. I've talked shit about everyone now. I'm going to go. This has been great, mate.

I would like to continue this conversation another time. Absolutely. Awesome. So now we're going to say bye and then we're going to stay on the phone and you're going to talk about sending me your file. Yeah. All right, man. Nice one, man. Fake bye now.

Bye. See you, buddy.