The Downbeat - Blake Richardson - Between The Buried And Me

Episode Date: February 13, 2020

My guest this week is Blake Richardson, drummer of Between The Buried And Me. Blake is without a doubt one of the best drummers doing it right now in progressive music. The band has massively evolved over time and so has Blake's drumming so we talk a lot about that as well as influences, practice routines etc but also about health and fitness. We also delve into the realm of perfect post-show food, and the time my dad spiked me with morphine at Christmas dinner.

What the fuck is up? What the fuck is up? What the fuck is up? What the fuck is up? That jingle is the new Downbeat Podcast jingle, which is on license from Paul McCartney and the Beatles. And it's called What the Fuck Is Up by Paul McCartney and the Beatles. Hi, I've got a dog with me who is looking like she wants to play. So you might get a little bit of lunar action, a little bit of noisy puppy action. What's new? new podcast merch went well thanks there is now between 10 and 20 of each design

of the limited stuff on the website www www the downbede.ate so it's as well as the downbeat um there's 10 to 20 of each design which I over-order in case anyone is unhappy with their order um so I've got those

they're in the store if you didn't pick one up pick one the fuck up and we've got the other normal ones the Blast Beets T-shirts now's going to be always in stock I think that one just in a different colour every time I think now it's just a white print on a black t-shirt like a black metal t-shirt my guest this week is Blake Richardson

from Between the Buried and Me BT Bam Another drummer I think we're two drummers in a row now Maybe even three I've got singers coming I've got tattoo artists coming I got all that shit coming So

bear with me if you're not into the drummers. Everyone still thinks this is a drum podcast, but all the most listened to episodes are not drummers, so it's not even a drum podcast. It's a fucking lifestyle podcast thing, yo.

What have been Blake talk about? A lot of cool shit. I can't remember I did it's ages ago. Cool shit, basically. Beatty bam. There's the dog. That's just a wicked band,

wicked drummer. The dog is now playing... Listen, I'm doing a lovely podcast here And you have to be quiet Don't look at me like that Good, we can carry on I can't remember what I was saying BT Bam

Yeah This is so unprofessional, isn't it? But I can't remember what we talked about We talked about drums and why he's so good at drums We probably talked about fitness a bit And why he's so jacked Probably talked about why I'm so jacked A couple, I'm not really that jacked

That dog is going apeshit now. I'm going to call this. This is Blake Richardson on the Downbeat podcast. Apologies for the unprofessional attitude. I promise I'll do better next time. Bye. What's up? What's up, man?

Hey, we don't know each other. We've never spoke to each other other other than on the internet. Literally, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I've heard about you. I think we share, like, about a million mutual friends, but never actually got to cross paths. and in real life, dude. So it's, I mean, this kind of counts, right?

This counts, and we're doing this for the people, because you're requested quite a lot. Am I now? You want your nuggets. Yeah, people want you, people want those nuggets. I'll give it to them, dude. What time is it right now for you? Excuse me while I just crack a beer

because it's 8 p.m. on a Friday for me. Yeah, no, I was just going to say, no, it's 3.15, dude, so it's not beer time for me yet. Not yet. Whereabouts are you? Where'd you live? We're in North Carolina, dude. Fuck, yeah. With your wife?

Yeah, yeah. This is like, and funny enough, it's like, I met her in my home, like I live in my hometown still. Like I, and this is where I met her. And I was like, in a million years, I never thought I'd meet my wife in the same town that I grew up in. and she owns a local business here too. So there's no reason for us to bail. And I like, I travel so much anyways

that it's kind of nice to come back home to just a super, super chill spot. Like I see enough big cities all the time that I'm just kind of, I kind of get it. It just kind of gets overwhelming. So it's nice to come back.

Yeah. Oh, that's cute. Oh, yeah. You're dang right. That's cute. Hey, guess what? I'm getting a divorce. So that's cute.

Oh, that's fun. That's for a different podcast altogether. All right. So, man, you know what? I just did a quick bit of Googling because I was like, fuck. I've written some professional notes on a Doc Martin's box, which had boots in it, and now it has various Blake questions.

Yeah, very professional. As if, man, this is the least professional podcast in the world. I have no idea how we have so many listeners. It's fucking sick. I put no effort into it. No, that's all you, man. You're a good interviewer. You're a good podcaster, man.

There's pressure. There's pressure. I'm going to go straight in on this because my quick Googling, the Great Misdirect is like 11 years old this year. Uh, what year is it? 2020. Yeah, that's right. Damn. Yeah, that's crazy.

I feel like I bought that so recently. Dude, I know, right? Isn't that weird? it's fucking insane. Like it just, it really flies with stuff like that. Like, if it's an album that kind of sticks with you for a while,

yeah, it just, it feels like you got it yesterday. So weird. Man. Do you feel like that was your, I'm going to straight in on actual questions, which is very unlike me.

None of these are written down. This is just me thinking. Do you feel like that was your, I know, obviously, you joined on Alaska, right? Yeah, I joined like at the tail end of 2004, and that's literally when we started riding Alaska.

Cool. But do you feel like the great misdirect was when you blew up in the public eye as a drummer? Because to me, that video you put out was like mic drop. Which one? The obfuscation one? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good video.

I'm a really good drummer. Everyone. No, that, uh, that like, yeah, that was like, okay. So as far as drumming chops go, yeah, I think when we started writing for Mr. Rec, that was when I started to kind of slowly get out of doing just strictly singles and this, that and the other and being, because I was so used to being, like. like a typical metal drummer, like crazy double bass and stuff like that. And Great Misdirect is like right when I got, right around when I got into like the chops world.

So I started kind of like incorporating things like that and not even crazy stuff, just like simplistic, you know, six note stickings and things like that, but just implementing them in kind of cool ways. So yeah, I think that's where like as far as my growth and expansion as a player, kind of started with that. Like, Colors was, which was right before it, that was like kind of a landmark record for us as far as like the content goes. So I think all of us as players

kind of really expanded a lot when we were riding for misdirect. Oh, don't get me wrong. You definitely rip on all of them, but I remember just that video, like 2009, YouTube was still relatively new in terms of like drum videos and stuff. Yeah, yeah.

There was like Hudson music shit. And then you come out with like a fucking 12, 12. How long is that song? Like 13 minutes or something. Yeah, it's like, it's up there, man. You just come out with this 13 minute long drum video and then everyone exploded, myself included. Yeah. It's just like, oh my, oh my God.

Because you know, you know people are good. But like, back then especially, like you knew people were good, but you also knew about Pro Tools. And then you see it in a video. and then you're like, oh my goodness, me. Yeah. And then now, now you can't even believe the videos. I know. That's what's funny is like now you can't even really like trust it anymore.

Like it's because there's so much out. It's almost like there's there's so much incredible talent out there. It makes you question everything now. It's like, Jesus Christ, can this little 10 year old kid really play that stuff? Or am I? Yeah. Are they like processing that or something? I only trust camera audio now

that's my thing yeah totally I've been starting to try and do that like if I do videos now I'll just do like a real minimalist like mic setup like that's kind of what's cool about like Mike Johnston's videos that he does is he's got like it's not like crazy process like he's got a real kind of raw

drums out he's got some sick mics but it's like it's but it's like two of them two overheads and a kick I know yeah but they're like really nice like I looked them up I was like God, those are sick. But his videos sound amazing. Like, they just sound super real. Like, no, there's no editing to it or anything like that.

So it's, it's kind of cool to stay. I feel like that's sort of, the trend is kind of coming back to that now, I feel like. Yeah. That's what I've been doing for, like, when it's just like a little clip, mainly because I can't be bothered. Like, I'm lazy. But, like, when I'm just doing a little clip for Instagram, which I haven't done for fucking ages,

but I'll just slam up two mics and a kick mic and then put a bit of compression. And then I feel like I can look back on that myself and be like, oh shit, I was ripping. Rather than going, did I edit that? Yeah. Was that fixed? But dude, you know what's funny is like the room sound that like raw mics, you know, camera mics and stuff like that picks up? To me, always just sounds kick ass. Like even when we would do like a, even, okay, let's say we like, we like, we're, like,

record something and put like a room effect on the drums, that sounds sicker than just this super isolated drum sounds with everything. For some reason, it's got this powerful, I think just because the room compression and all that stuff, like, or compressing the room sound and all that stuff just makes it sound awesome. But it's, yeah, it's weird. I've got a theory on that. Yeah. Because like, it might be wrong. But the when you get like a cam whenever I listen to one microphone when I do a multi-track thing if I just listen to the room or I just listen to it one overhead

it sounds way tighter than when I hear everything at once and I think it's like a digital delay like every track has maybe like a minuscule amount of delay on it and the more mics you have the more that kind of just fucks up a little bit not enough to go out of phase but I've only noticed it when recently, I've talked about it on the podcast before so sorry everyone but I'm telling Blake

recently I found up on certain venues at shows my kicks felt sluggish like super sluggish and weird and then our sound guy at the time was like oh yeah you always complain about that one we've got one of those shittier digital desks

and he was like it's probably a bit of lag and I was like wait what and then he was like well the audio is going from your kick mic to the front of house then it's getting processed and all of that is digital

so all of it is adding delay and then I'm sending it back to you so there is like 0.2 milliseconds of delay which might be noticeable if you're playing like fast stuff or whatever

and then it got me thinking and I changed my setup to just split the kick drum myself and it's never happened again since. Yeah. It got me thinking about tracking multitrack, and I'm like, maybe that happens with multi-track monitoring as well.

Dude, I know. Like that, actually, I don't doubt that theory really at all, because now there's, yeah, when you do individual tracking like that, and there's such heavy processing going on on each channel, and you got to think about it too. It's like, like our in-air setup is, we basically have like a CD quality mix for our in-hears. Like each channel is running some sort of compressor or gate or EQ or what have you.

And then that's splitting to front house. Then that's getting process at front house and this, that and the other. So things like that, you got to take an effect. And the more tracks you're doing, yeah, I feel like that's just taking up more bandwidth, so to speak.

So it's, yeah, I feel like the more processing you're taking up or you're probably delaying that even more. So I don't doubt that theory at all, man. You're on to something there. And it was insane because on the same tour, it was like in the middle of the tour, we went to Audio Tree. You've done an Audio Tree before? No, no, no. I've seen a lot of videos. You've done something similar.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was all like analog, like straight into their fucking desk. and I remember just thinking, I am fucking ripping. Yeah. Because there's no, there's no like delight. And that's not me being arrogant.

I rarely think that. I was like, oh shit, I can play the drums. Yeah. So now my monitor mix is like a black metal album. Compared with your CD mix,

my monitor mix is literally, I have the click, I have a kick drum that is split, and then I just take it myself and there's like EQ, no compression. And then one, Senheiser 6-0,000.

which is mounted on my table just pointing at the drum kit that's my drum mix dude that's sick that's the way to do well even live like i'm i think the other guys probably have like more going on and their mix like for me personally i just do a little bit of kick drum some guitars and then a little bit of vocals and some keys like i don't do i don't put a lot of drums in because it's just I'm right there. So I don't really need, it's, I can hear it fine. Like the guys, once you get involved with like mixing drums, especially the amount that I have as far as your in ears go,

it's just going to be such a painstaking process. If you just don't worry about putting freaking an eight-inch tom in your ear and how your eight-inch tom sounds, then you're going to, you're going to have a happier setup for sure. It's funny as well, Mike Johnston and Benny Greb also. both told me to not put any tom's or processing really in my ears because

Benny was like, because then you're using part of your brain to listen to listen to how good it sounds. And that part of your brain should be thinking about the drums. I was like, oh, fuck off you. You're legend. You're absolutely right. Yeah, that sounds like some shitty would say. That's kind of awesome.

I've never met the dude, but like from everything that I've seen. Man, he's the fucking best. Yeah, I hear he's a good dude. Absolute guru. I was supposed to have him on the podcast and it was booked in and it was like, I was supposed to get there the next day and then I got super sick. Yeah, bummer. He's like super into like the science of drumming and just grounding yourself

and just the little nuances of the sonics that are involved in drums. Like he's, it's kind of fascinating, dude. He's really, he's into it 100%. He's mad into that Wim Hof shit as well. You know about that shit? Was that? The Ice Man, Wim Hof. No.

Do you know anything about him? Man, is this guy, his name's Wimhoff. He's from Holland, I think. And he has like numerous world records. And there's stuff like he walked to, he climbed to the base, like the summit, not the summit, the base camp of Mount Everest in a pair of boxer shorts. And people have died doing that with oxygen masks and full fucking cheer. And he went up there in a pair of boxer shorts.

And then he did a marathon in Ghana, I believe, Africa with no water. And basically then scientists were like, excuse me, what the fuck are you doing? because you're like defeating, you defy science. This is not humanly possible, yeah. This guy was like, I have a breathing technique, and it allows me to control my immune system and all this shit. And the scientists were like, okay, let's test this. And they got him in a fucking lab,

and then he did his breathing technique. It's like a meditation thing. And he takes ice baths, that's his main thing. Anyway, they got him in a lab, and they injected him with, E. coli, which has a 100% success rate of making you fucking sick as fuck.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going to ruin you. And they like hooked him up to this shit. And he did his breathing technique while they injected him with it. And his immune system beat E. coli. And they did it like three times and they were like, okay, you're the only person in the world

that is like a genetic outlier that can do this fucking beating E. Dude. Yeah, this guy's sick. So then he turns around and he goes, okay, give me seven other people, just random people, and I'll teach them to do the same thing. And he fucking did it. All seven of them, just random people in this lab, like two weeks later, he taught them the shit, and all seven of them beat the E. coli shit. And it's this combination of ice showers, ice baths, and this crazy fucking breathing technique. Dude, I'm looking, I'm looking

them up right now. Man, it's insane. But Benny Graves mega into it. I did it. There's like, the breathing technique is like a meditation thing. And you basically, you do like four rounds and in between the rounds, you hold your breath.

It's like, it's almost like hyperventilating and then you hold your breath after the rounds or whatever. And you're supposed to like, you're supposed to take a breath. Not, you're not supposed to hold your breath. So you're like,

I'm going to pass out. You hold your breath until you feel like you need to take a second breath. And the last time I did it, I, and you're supposed to do a timer to see how long you can hold your breath for because you're supposed to,

it's supposed to like oxygen, oxygen, whatever, your blood, get your oxygen in your blood and whatever, increase your fucking oxygen levels. Anyway, the last time we did it, I held my breath for four minutes and ten seconds. Holy shit. And I didn't even realize,

and I just fully, like, like, tripped out. Like, not like, oh, I've ran out of oxygen tripped out. I was like, oh, I better take a breath now. Took a breath, looked at my clock. It was four minutes and ten seconds. And I was like, hang on. And I felt like I was on, like, DMT or something.

It was fucking It was crazy Yeah The brain's a weird thing Yeah I'm looking up this guy right now The Iceman Dutch extreme athlete noted for his ability It was standing freezing temperatures Get his sick Guinness World Records

For swimming under ice And prolonged full body contact with ice Dude this guy's a psycho This is awesome There's a guided thing on YouTube It's from him It's a Wimhof guided meditation thing Do it

It's fucking cool. I don't know if you're into any wacky shit like that. No, no, that's cool. There's like, that kind of stuff reminds me, you know that guy David Goggins? Yeah. He's like, dude,

he's kind of, kind of in that world. Like, it's all, um, his is more just focused on the mentality of getting past like pressure points within a workout or something like that. Like times where you feel like unbelievable fatigue,

how he's just, his whole thing is just, like the mental process of getting past that. It kind of reminds me of that, dude. Like, David Goggins essentially is the, if there was like a battle royale with every human being on the planet, it would be, he would be at least top five.

Like survived. Yeah, he's ex-Navy SEAL, isn't he? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's like ex-Navy SEALs. He used to be super fat, and then he did all these, like, he lost a bunch of weight and tried to, you know, did the Navy SEAL training and all that stuff. I think he did it.

like twice. But yeah, it's, dude, it's crazy. Like, he's just, it's unbelievable the stuff he goes through. He's been on, he's been on Joe Rogan a couple times. I've listened that one. It's like, it's inspiring, man. He's a, he's a psycho. All right.

Wimhoff's on Joe Rogan as well. Is he really? Oh, yeah, I'm going to look that up. Okay, well, we're kind of on the subject of elite human conditioning. Yeah, let's talk about me. Are you still lifting? Yeah, I get in there and every now and again. I don't do like, I don't do crazy stuff anymore.

My wife actually teaches, she's a Pilates instructor and teaches this thing called Megafomer, which is like traditional Pilates is taught on a, this machine called a reformer. And they have this new thing called Megaformer, which is, it's kind of like, in layman's terms, it's like Pilates on steroids. Super, super hard. It's all like core intensive training, like really awkward, slow movements that are just borderline impossible for dudes. Like it's basically, for guys, it's harder because it's a lot of holding, a lot of static

strength, holding up your own body weight and stuff like that. So it's, it's funny. Like, I'll be taking a class and I'll be the only dude in there. and I'll be sweating bullets within like five minutes, the first five minutes of the class. And all the other girls are just like, oh, yeah, it's whatever. Like, it's hard for them,

but it's like, for me, it's just like, I'm struggling, dude. So I try to sneak in there and take those classes whenever I can. And then if I do gym stuff, it's typical pro shit. And I'll do some, I'll do a little bench press, some inclined flies, a little, you know, a little front squad or something like that. How many times a week we're talking? I do.

I try to hit the gym maybe like three or four times a week. Yeah. So a minute ago you were like, yeah, I'm not really doing it anymore. Three or four times a week, which is more than like a normal person. Yeah,

I guess I had to remind myself of that. Like, it's, there's just, it's weird to think that there's people that just straight up don't work out. Yeah, most people.

So you say, I imagine it's because you probably used to go six times a week and now you're like, I don't really go is I'd still go more than your average go. Yeah, like I have to, I know that's funny. Like I really have to. Yeah, I definitely don't go as hard as I used to, but still like a lot of my stuff, a lot of the time now, it's like when you get older, it's a lot of conditioning. Like I'll do shoulder shoulder kind of rehab stuff to kind of keep those good.

because I like I had some weird issues with my left shoulder like a while ago. So I was literally going to. I was going to say, I bet it's your left shoulder. No, totally. It's a drum thing. Dude, yeah. Why is that? Why is it the left?

Like, because I'm right-handed, so I use that a lot. This is the thing I've been trying to figure out with like two physios and a chiropractor. It's the slight elevation of how. having that hand is just very slightly elevated for the whole show because of the snare and it's incredibly taxing on your rear rotator cuff muscles. So like your supraspinatus and your infraspinatus and all that shit that's in the back. But then my left shoulder, it would hurt in the front, but the problem was actually this shit in the back.

like in right where my shoulder I can touch it now and I know that I need to do it but if I come off a tour and I haven't done any rehab throughout the tour it's fucking agony to press the back of my shoulder and if I press it it hurts at the front it's a snare drum thing I'm in the process right now

I'm in the process right now over the last year I've been trying to figure out like why I'm so fucking shot and like why my drumming would seem to just get worse as as like tours went on or whatever it would just instead of getting better I would actually just get worse and I did six months where I didn't squat or deadlift to test which was hell but to like test to see if that's what it was and it wasn't there and then I did the last sort of six or seven weeks I've not been practicing drums as much

as I used to, because I used to go to the gym six days a week, and I would probably play drums five days a week for two hours. Damn. And I'm just trying to get good. But I had like an impromptu two weeks off related to the divorce. And it was before a tour,

and at the end of our last tour, we literally just had two weeks off. In the end of the last tour, I was like playing shit. Not like, it was just a struggle. Everything was terrible. And then I took two weeks off and didn't even touch a drumstick. And then we went to Australia and I absolutely crushed.

And I was like, and like my hip problem wasn't there. My shoulder problem wasn't there. And I was like, okay, I really think the problem is actually I play the drums too much. Yeah. Maybe the gym and the drums, but I tried less gym and it didn't help because I think I just did more drums. Dude. Yeah. You have to like, that's one thing I tell a lot of people that I'll,

that I'll give drum lessons to and things of that nature is that like there is such a thing is like over practicing just like there's such a thing as over training in the gym or whatever what have you there it totally is a thing for drums like I not only to a physical aspect but mentally as well because you're not giving you if you're just in there every day grinding it out like you're not giving yourself your mind a a second to kind of do a creative reset so to speak like any time that I'll take like especially at the end of a tour I'll take a solid week or two off of playing drums and dude that first day back I'm shredding like coming up with cool fills like I can I'm just all these sick licks that I couldn't really

handle before and now it's like it's super fluid and it's crazy like it's some weird creative reset I feel like the brain gets when you kind of take a break from some of that stuff for a while because drums are unique in that it is both a it's a physically demanding thing but also mentally taxing and it also involves the creative part of the brain as well so you have to kind of let those those muscles rest for a little bit every now and again. It's like, it's exactly the same in powerlifting as well.

Like, it's proven that if you do the same thing over and over again, you will just get worse at it. Yeah, yeah. You take a break, like, in its purest form, like, let's just say bench pressed. If you did it, every four days,

after six weeks, it would, you would be going up and up and up, and then after six weeks, you would start going down and down and down, and then you take two weeks, weeks and then you get that super compensation and it's exactly the same in drumming. Yeah. I feel like it's like a central nervous system thing as well.

Like you just need to chill. Oh yeah. Totally, man. And two, like I think like it is it's good to involve some sort of for like drummers. It's good to involve some sort of physical activity in conjunction with playing drums because you kind of drums to a certain extent are. is kind of like a repetitive motion sort of exercise as far as like the physicality of it. So it is good to do other physical activities to kind of counterbalance that, whether it's, you know, even if it's something like yoga or something like that, really anything so that you're not,

you're doing something physically active that isn't this repetitive motion that you're doing with your feet and your hands and your wrists and stuff like that. I feel, I feel like doing those little counterbalance exercises really really helps a lot too. Yeah, I always play better if I've been, if I've been playing the drums for like a few days and then I'll just go to the gym and then I come back to the drums. It's like I've stretched a whole bunch of muscles that are needed in drums but never used. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I come back and I fucking, and I'm fucking shredding.

Yeah, not subjectively. I'm just shredding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. And you're all fucking treading. Yeah. Like it's funny. It's funny because like,

I feel like 99% of people out there probably share the same sentiment, but we were doing like a Q&A thing when we toured with the animals leaders back in the day. And sometimes we get that question, like, oh, you know, when you hit a plateau creatively, what do you do? And everyone would be like, you know, you got to take a break. You know, it's just, it's proven that if you just keep trying to grind it out, it ain't going to do anything. And Garthko would consistently be like, no, dude, if if you hit a plateau you're practicing two hours a day you need to practice four hours a day like Matt so you know what when we were talking about this I was thinking in my head I was like there are some people that don't need this break he was one of them he's totally one of them

he's just like he's a freak man it was funny like um one of our our guitar tech had done a tour with him uh right before we had done our next tour with him or um separately and he was like we were pulling up to the venue and our guitar tech was like, oh yeah, this is a place where Garstco played for like nine hours straight. I've heard this story as well. Yeah, it was like, what? He's like, dude, he was like, yeah, yeah, they went in and they sound checked and then he just took like his kit and put it underneath the stairs over there and played right after they sound checked and then right up till right in when they played the show, played the show and then packed up. I've heard that story from numerous other people

to varying degrees I love Matt, I've had him on the podcast but to varying degrees of like that guy sucks because he played the drums all fucking day and other people like yourself are just like wow that's dedication

dude it's it's like so inspiring to watch that guy play man it's freaking cool it's funny the running joke is like animals as leaders is this band that you're supposed to go and watch the guitarists play, like it's built around Tosin essentially, or at least it started with him. And now it's ended up, at least for the drummer's standpoint, they're just

going to watch Matt. It's crazy. Yeah. But they're all shredders. Like, that's the thing is like Javier and Frickin and Matt. It's like a super group of shredders, man. They're incredible. But I feel like Tosin's kind of grown up with his songwriters. So it's very, very technical, but in like a quintuplet musical way, whereas that shit will always be impressive on drums. Like he's doing impressive guitar shit, like the fucking brain dance when it goes from quintuplets to actually being in five and then like some crazy shit. But the guitar, to someone that doesn't play guitar, like myself, just sounds like, do-lil-l-l-d-l-l-d-l-l-oh, that's nice. But it's super clever. but the drums will always be like,

okay, this guy's fucking going in. Yeah, and the way that he'll like syncopate certain things and then flow out of it and then accent things that are going on in guitar world is, it's just so unreal. Like, I don't know how his brain is able to make that connection as far as like composing some of that stuff.

And it was cool as like whenever we were tour with him, it was fun to watch them too because he would, on a lot of the parts, he would improv different things every night. Like with Beekty Bam, it's like more or less, it's somewhat, as far as like the drums go, it's pretty recital bass. Like there's a few fills and little things like that

that I'll mess around with from time to time. But for the most part, as far as the grooves and everything go, I'll kind of keep that pretty close to home as far as how it is on the record. But dude, with Matt, It was just like, like, especially the times that he would have a solo section or something like that, it was cool to watch because he would just do something completely different than he did the night before and then the night before that was awesome.

Yeah, he, like, I'm with you. I have like one section where I improvise and the rest of the set is almost exactly the same every night. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't handle it. I can't take the fucking train off the tracks. whereas he just fucking just does what he wants. Yeah, he can do it. He can pull it off, man.

And it's funny because you can see, you'll know the sections where he's really getting wild with the timing, like doing some super metric modulation stuff, because you can look at, you can look at Hovin, you can look at Toeson, and they got this look like they're, they close their eyes and they're just trying to zone in on what the click's doing or whatever or whatever the downbeat is because they're like,

oh God, Matt's doing some fucked up shit. Hopefully he can come back on that one. And then he always does. It's like, God, dang. Yeah, it's absolutely.

So speaking of this shit, so how often do you reckon you practice now per week? This is the boring questions that people want to hear on this podcast. Um, well, it depends. It depends. Like,

so now I'm kind of in rehearsal mode. So I'm kind of rehearsing some songs for this tour. have coming up at the end of February. So I'll maybe dedicate like an hour or so a day, I'd say, in rehearsal mode. But when it's just normal everyday stuff, I'll be honest, unless I'm trying to get my chops up for something, some specific skill set or something like that, or if it's a lick I'm trying to learn, I will usually only practice unless I get like a creative inspiration to practice. Like I don't have a set time where I'll say, okay, from noon to one is my practice time,

blah, blah, blah, blah. Like I won't sit down at the kid unless it's, unless the meaning to do it is or the feeling to do it is genuine. Like I never do like forced practice or anything like that or forced practice sessions or But you definitely did to get good. Oh, heck yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Like, I would do, if I was learning a specific lick or something like that,

and especially when I was like, like you were talking about before, like when we were getting into, when I was getting into great misdirect stuff and composing a lot for that. Yeah, that would, I would pretty, I would have a pretty strict regimen. But I guess if you were to average it out, like per day, I'd say I'd sit behind the kit If you were to average it out for over an entire week I'd say I'd sit the kit for maybe like 30 minutes a day

Something like that And there's some days where I don't touch the kit at all And then there's some days where I like Just kind of go for it I had like a chat with Do you know that Stan Bicknell guy The guy with the Oh yeah, is he an Australian dude

Yeah the guy He's Kiwi lives in a street Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the guy with the guy with the foot, the guy with a crazy fucking... Dude, yeah, like you just play a single kick and it's like he can do double kick stuff. Man, I had a chat with him at a festival we played recently. We didn't, it wasn't like a podcast, we just had a chat and we'll do a podcast later. But he was like, yeah, I deliberately take huge stretches off of the drums because it helps my creativity so much.

And it's, that's just something I haven't ever done. so I'm in a period now of doing that. So I haven't played the drums for two weeks, and I'm going to play the drums on... It's Friday now. I'm going to play the drums on Sunday. Dude. And because I haven't played in two weeks,

I can't fucking wait. Right. I know. It, like, it kind of inspires you again. Like, it's really nice to take those breaks, man. Like, which it's kind of a blessing and a curse, I feel like, to a certain extent, because you kind of...

There's things I'll notice, like, when at the end of a tour, as far as my hand and wrist dexterity, my chops in general, it's like they're really good because I've been, I've been exercising those muscles for, you know, 30 days straight or whatever. But mentally, I'm just totally drained. So I'm like, I've got nothing at the end of the tour. So like, that's when I take those two weeks off, I come back and creatively, I'm like,

I'm on fire. So it's, it's necessary, man, unless you're, yeah, unless you're, Matt's Garts guy. That's about it. Why doesn't he need a break? I don't know. I mean, dude, he's still... Alex Rudinger as well. No breaks. Yeah, no, he's... That's true. Just shred.

That takes just a special kind of psychopath, I feel like, to do that. I'm such a psychopath. I just don't know why. I must have just have it in other ways. So you said you're practicing seamless transition. You said that you're practicing for something you got coming up. What are you got coming up? Yeah, we're doing, so we've got three days, three shows in Australia at the end of February, kind of the beginning of March-ish.

And then from there we fly to South America and do two weeks there, and we're doing some Mexico shows and stuff. This is the first time the band's ever been to South America, so I'm kind of stoked about that. Wow. Yeah. You've been going for so long and you've never been. I've never been either.

No, I know, yeah. It's one of those things. In 15 years. Yeah, we've never, Paul's been there, our guitar player. He filled in for Lamb of God, like back in the day and did a tour tour with them over there. It said it was nuts. But yeah, we just never, never got around it. We've done Mexico, you know, we've done, it's weird.

It's like we've done freaking Singapore and Thailand and all these weird places and never did. and never did South America, so we're stoked to get over there, man. I fucking love doing all those weird places. Is this the 20-year anniversary thing? It's like it's going to be a different set than the U.S. tour that we have this spring, the evening with thing.

It is going to be like pretty long set for South America and Australia, but it'll be different to a certain extent. So what's the evening with? The evening with you're doing great misdirect back to front. Yeah, we're doing one, the first set is kind of like a, not so much like a greatest hits thing or anything like that, but just a set that encompasses like our whole discography.

And then we're going to take like a little break and then do great misdirect. And then probably take another break. And if the crowd wants it, we'll do an encore. So all and all, you're looking at about, two and a half hours probably holy shit okay I got so much to talk about let's go straight in with that

before hang on before I forget okay let me make a mental note to come back to that yeah I saw you with the Dinerger Escape Plan in the UK maybe eight years ago oh shit and I feel like you did like the one

big long song off every album you had out by them. I think we probably did. So that was like Alaska. We were probably playing like Alaska colors stuff. Was it was it just? I think it was it was you were you were maybe at the tail end of the colors touring cycle. Yeah. That makes sense. Uh, whilst his name was playing drums for Dillinger, Gilcharon. Oh, okay. That was the Gilcharon tour. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So that was it 10. Maybe that's 10 years. It might be 10 then. Yeah. If it's something. like that because that's before Mr. X stuff. So, yeah.

Oh, God. That's crazy. And I remember your whole set was literally just like it was one song. I was like, wow. Yeah, because we'll, I think people, especially when they hear us for the first time, when we're doing opening sets, like we don't take breaks. Like we, our songs are so long

that we just kind of have to like force as much into a set as we possibly can. We don't have short songs, so we can't play like, oh, let's play those little three. minute song and then talk for a little bit and then play a little four minute song and then talk for a little bit. Like we just, when you only get 30 minutes to play, we need to cram it with as much material as possible. That's fucking sit. We do that as well.

But then we used to not play with a click. So we would just go right. Okay, let's play these 12 songs and we'll just play them really fast. Yeah. And it was a, it was a fucking terrible idea. Okay, hang on. So let's go back to two and a half hour set. Right, I need to know.

There's some things I need to know. Okay, so I need to know what the fuck are you eating all day in preparation for that? Because surely you have to like specifically make sure you have enough energy. Yeah. I want to know if you've got, when's your cut off before the show? Dude, we, so we kind of did it the last, we did a Europe in UK tour a few months back. or it was last year actually it was an evening with thing and we did

it wasn't great misdirect but it was just a hodgepodge of all sorts of songs that we had compiled together and we were the only band on the tour which was actually it was kind of cool man like we literally would have the venue to ourselves all day

it was kind of sick but yeah it was like that one ended up being like with the encore like we were playing an hour, take 10, 10 minutes. Then we had like a 50 minutes set after that. And then we would do an encore, which was like 20 minutes. So it was like you're looking at maybe like in two hours, 15 minutes or something like that. But and that I kind of, the first show, I was genuinely like, dude, how am I going to be able to

do this for, you know, that was like a three-week tour. It's like, how am I going to be able to do this for three weeks straight? I think we only had like two days off on the whole thing, too. And then, yeah, classic UK and Europe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, dude, when you're over there, you just got to like bang out as many as you possibly can. Um, yeah. So, yeah, that first show, I was genuinely worried as far as, like, being able to physically do that from night to night. Um, and then the second show, it kind of, it got a little easier. Third show in, I was like, I, I'm, I think I might be able to do this. And then do within, within a week, I kind of, I kind of was in the zone.

And then those days off that we did have, those were extremely helpful because I at least got a little time to kind of rest a little bit. And on those days off, I didn't do anything. Like I didn't go to the gym, usually I like go to the gym or do something or blah, blah. I was like, I'm just going to stay complacent for a little bit, or at least for the whole day. But as far as like, yeah, dude, as far as eating and stuff goes, I would try to get, you know, at least a decent meal or two in before we play.

And then I'm pre, we always did, I think we were doing it at post-show food on the rag on that tour. So, yeah, we were doing a lot of that. So probably, yeah, I was probably consuming. decent amount of calories on that tour. What was your post-show go to? Or were you just getting, like, rider food and take it away like catering? Dude, my, I don't do it every night, but, dude, something about post-show pizza, man.

Man, I knew you were going to say it. I do it every night, every fucking goddamn night. Why is it that it's pizza? Like, post-show pizza is just the perfect. It's the perfect after show food. I read something recently, right, which where like I read a lot of bullshit because I don't do anything all day. So I read something where a scientist is basically saying like in terms of like a breakfast or a meal, pizza is actually the perfect mix of carbs, fat and protein. Yeah, yeah.

Depending on your toppings, yeah, I'd say, I'd say so. Like, it's just the sickest. also you can eat it cold. You can have your shower. You can do all your shit and you can come to it and it's still sick. Yeah, I think that might. That's part of it too. Because yeah, you can like, or the best shit ever is it didn't happen all the time,

but there's sometimes where we would get off stage like from the encore. And the pizza would be like in the backstage room. So I would literally like play the last note, play drums, go walk backstage and eat a slice like right. there. It's like, oh, dude, that's, like, to me, that's pretty rock and roll right there. You fucking made it. Yeah. It's like, this is, this is sick. I'm living it up. Do you, do, do you, speaking of rock and roll, do you drink? I'm sure I've noticed. No, like, you don't drink anything?

No, socially every now and again, like, I'll have my, you know, if we're going out with some friends or something like that or having a nice dinner out, I'll have a, I'll experiment with a cocktail or two, or have a beer every now and again. But when I'm on tour, I don't really drink that much. Like on a tour, I'll maybe have, you know, if I'm feeling it like a beer or two, just in a celebratory sense for something. But as far as alcohol goes, no, I don't really drink that much. I go through stages where I'm like, I'll do whole tours where I don't drink at all.

and then I'll do like the last tour that we did to December tour I just I got drunk every single day obviously obviously after the show but yeah I just I've never done it I've never done it pre-show oh yeah fuck that I know people that do it and to be honest I only got really actually no I only got really drunk one night and the next day I played like shit

so I ran it in yeah that I was for sure tipsy that was at least tipsy every Dude, we, I did, I think I did one time where, I think we're on tour with Jopher Cowboy and they were rocking Jameson a lot. So, uh, we had an encore and I, I think the only time I played like with alcohol in my system was that one day we did an encore and I took like two shots of Jameson before we went back up. And I, I think I did okay. But it wasn't one of those things. It's like, so, oh, me. man, I did great. I'm going to do that again. Like, no, it's just, so okay, that was cool.

I don't want to get used to that. Like, it's, oh, and the only other time I think I played under the influence was back, it might have been one of my first tours with BT Bam ever. It was like back in 2005. I didn't know it at the time, but I had a kidney stone, like, attack or whatever. Like, earlier in that day, my, my. lower back was just like killing me and then it was slowly moving over to like my right side and i was like dude i don't know what the fuck's going on we we for at one second we like canceled the show

we'd already loaded in everything and it was like a sold-out shows in Albany it was like 400 kids it was going to be a really good one and i was bumming out hard and dude i was in the i was in the back and i was throwing up i was in the worst pain ever like it felt like someone was just jabbing a knife into my kidney and just wiggling it around. Like there's no position you can get in to kind of relieve that pain. And then I think we were on tour with a red cord. And Guy, the singer, his girlfriend at the time, I think was at the show and she was backstage, was like, you look like you're struggling pretty hard.

I just had knee surgery like a few weeks back and I've got some Vicodin. if you want to take some of my and I was like at that point dude I was in such pain as like please I'll take anything I don't care um and then so I took it and I think coincidentally when I took it I think the kidney stone finally passed within like 10 minutes of that so the pain was starting to go away but then dude I was I was feeling good on heroin Oh yeah, dude, I was like, I was, man, I felt great. And then so we, we went on stage and we played the show. It was like, I think we played like six songs because we were like, we were supposed

to headline and we were just told Redcourt. It's like, dude, can you guys headline and we'll at least, that way, you know, we can at least play the show. So we'll get up there and play six songs and get out. And then it was funny because the promoter, this guy Ted, who actually still does our shows in upstate New York's awesome dude but that was the first I never met him he's like he's a character man he's a total

like New York guy but he got on the mic when I was like setting up my kid he's like I want everybody here to give it up for this guy he's been in the back puking his guts out and doing nuts back there it's like he's this guy's totally sick of what you give it up for he's going to play some sick drums

for you guys tonight and everybody was like going to that's hilarious so fun it was fun but then yeah we played the show and then Matt our sound guy at the time after the gig was like, dude, that was the best you played all tour. Yeah, I was like, man, I guess I was just like super loose or something. Yeah, you just need to fucking take heroin.

Yeah. Wait, my dad, my dad spiked me with morphine on Christmas Day ones. Dude. Like, I had the flu. You know when people have a cold and they say they have the flu? I had the actual flu. Yeah, yeah, the real deal. yeah the fucking at like hallucinating couldn't get out of bed full muscle wakes like crazy shit

anyway so my dad my mom and dad were looking after me this is fucking ages ago um they were looking after me and like my dad would come up and give me like some fucking like painkillers or whatever every day just to make myself feel better and on christmas day and he came up and there was a new pill in the pills that he was giving me and i was like oh what's this pill and he was like ah it's just like an anti-inflammatory thing and then i took it And then, like, two hours later, I was like, I feel amazing. And I went downstairs. And I had full Christmas dinner with my parents and my sister.

And then my dad's, like, laughing. I was like, what's up? And he was like, you feel all right? And I was like, yeah, I feel great. I don't know what's happened. And he was like, oh, remember when your auntie was sick? God rest her soul. Auntie Lorna, shout out.

Well, anyway, she had some morphine left. I gave you some morphine. And I was like, oh. Oh, so I'm just, I'm essentially on heroin right now. Dad, that's sick. Dad hooked you up, man. And, yo, no, but you know what happened afterwards? I had a heroin come down with the flu.

Oh, yeah, that probably sucked. I, like, I relapsed for, like, two more fucking weeks. Oh, no. So fucking bad. God, dude. Like, I wonder, I wonder about that a lot with, because I toured with a lot of drummers that, it's interesting because it's such a physically demanding thing.

I tour a lot of drummers that have to play stoned too. Like a lot of them have, like they have to smoke. So many. Yeah, it's weird. And I don't know. It's weird because like weed affects people, marijuana affects people differently. And some people get super paranoid. And it just, it just levels some people out, I guess.

But I don't know. I don't know what my theory is behind that. I always, like I know Thomas Pridgen's like a super big advocate for, or at least I don't know if he still is, but he would often, from what I've seen, he would, he would smoke weed before he'd go play a set and stuff like that. But my theory is that like, you know, when you're when you're high, you can, you're kind of a little bit, you're a little bit hyper aware of what you're doing. So in this weird way, it almost sort of slows time down. in a psychosomatic way. Like the adrenaline when you're playing to loads of people when there's the click. Yeah. Like, have I set the click wrong?

Because this is crazy. This is so slow. Yeah. Oh, yeah, exactly. So it kind of, maybe it doesn't happen for me. When I smoke weed, I cannot play the fucking drums.

Yeah. I've never, yeah, I've never, I've never tried it like, like on drums or anything. But yeah, it's like,

it's weird. It's freaking, it just affects people different. Speaking of which, I remember seeing Bohemoth in like 2008 on the apostasy tour And Inferno had six shots of Valker before he played And that was like a thing that he did And it was just he did it every night

I mean, I don't think he does it now, but that's insane And actually, to be fair, he was terrible at that kick And I just saw them last week with Slipknot and he was. incredible so yeah i mean dude he stopped doing that yeah i'm pretty like dated i'm i'm a pretty sober dude on you know on i'm a sober dude on the kit and off the kit for the most part so it's for some people it's just i don't know i don't know they just whatever whatever kind of self-medicating they got to do in order to get the gig done it's it's sad because some people go to extremes to to to get that done but some people they just got

their regiment and it works for them, but I don't know. Yeah. I'll never take another drug or drink or anything again if someone just gives me a drug that means I don't have to take these breaks. Yeah. Give me, in fact, that drug is called fucking testosterone enanthae. Yeah. I'm not doing that because of the side effects.

Yeah. God damn it. The side effects. Like, no, I was I was going to make a, nope. Yeah. I'm going to make a fucking, I'm going to make a fucking horrible joke about. another band. But I'm not going to. Everyone knows what I was talking about. We all know who I'm talking about. Yeah. Same label, isn't it? What label we are? We're on, it used to be. We're on

Sumerian now. Sumerian, are you? Interesting. They've been, they've been super cool. They're like, you know, what's funny is I'm known Ash, the first tour I ever did. The first US tour I ever did was Glass Casket, we played with Reflux, and Ash was the singer of that band, and Tosin played guitar. I was like 18 years old.

I had that record. Yeah, dude. And that was the first time we met both of those dudes, and we've known there since it was kind of cool to come full circle, and now he's, now we're on his label, so it's kind of sweet. It was, but they've been great, man. They've been, like, we have no

complaints. They've been, and then, in metal blade was awesome too like they were they're great level great label brian slagel's like an awesome dude like he's just super into the metal scene like he he's just been in the game for so long and he's such a good conversationalist too man he's he's awesome um the only one we've had bad experiences with was a victory and thank god we got off of them so is everyone on the earth Yeah, we're lucky in that we were able to, like, get off that label and still had some steam left. Did you keep, what labels were on, what records were on that? Yeah, so self-titled, um, self-titled Silent Circus, Alaska.

Mr. Act actually was on there. No way. Yeah, Anatomy of and something else. I can't remember what. Why you remixed the great mystery? Well, now it's on a, now it's on those labels are released via some subsidiary because Tony had to sell his discography because of the lawsuit with Data Remember, I believe. Yeah.

So then, you know, he got sued and now he just sold his, I think most of his, most of his discography from back then. So now that stuff's under another label. And they've been really cool with like us doing, you know, a re-release and a remix. We've been wanting to do that for a while. But so now it's under the, the umbrella of some people that are, you know, really cool with us pushing that stuff. Why did you remix it? Which one?

Which one? Misdirect? Yeah. I love that mix. Dude, we. it's funny because the remix isn't like incredibly different it's just to me it's a little bit more clear we just felt like it was too a little bit too boomy um kind of on on the low end side of things like it was very it's kind of abrasive when it when it came to that sort of stuff and that

was just and when you it just had this like loudness effect to it that was a little bit overbearing for certain parts. I mean, it still sounded. It didn't sound like shit or anything. Like, it's, it's a, it was an awesome sounding a record. But yeah, that was, that was kind of, I loved it. At the time, I think I bought that at the same time as Carnival, Sound awake.

And I would just bought those two albums and just be like, oh, my God. Yeah. Who did it? Jamie guy. Yeah, Jamie, uh, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie recorded and, uh, mixed it. And then he just, he did the remix as well. Did you, have you ever heard that band Crypto Dera? I think I've seen that name before, but I haven't, I don't know.

They're just recording with him now because they're like big BT Bam fan. Oh, that's sick. But it's like, you know, it's like a twist on BT Bam. Okay. They're fucking sick. They're so weird as well. Dude. Okay.

It's like, it's got that quirky fucking circus shit that you guys love. Yeah. Well, Jamie's the perfect, yeah. Jamie's the perfect guy for that stuff, man. Like he's such a, he's really innovative. He's honestly like, we'll never record with another guy ever again. Like we might mix with other people maybe. Like we've done that for the past couple records.

But as far as recording and producing, like, dude, he's just, he's awesome to work with, man. He's funny and he's just got great ideas. And he's super easy. Like, he's got a real chill vibe to him. Like, he's cool. I can't wait to hear the Crypto Dera album. with him on it, of him like just producing it. Because they got this little guitarist, Mike,

and he sounds like a fucking, like a goblin when he does his like harsh vocals. Yeah. He's just literally like that. And I just want to, I want to see what circusy fucking BT bam shit, Jamie can slam in there. Yeah, Jamie's got a sick setup now too.

So he's got like he's, they're coming in at a good time. So sick. Okay, so you said you only really practice maybe 30 minutes a day. what the fuck do you do when you're off tour? Oh, let's see. What do you do? Well, I do a lot of Skype lessons while I'm home.

So that's kind of like, I don't count that as practice. Like I'll, I'll be at my kit and I'll, you know, be explaining certain things. So, like, outside of those. So technically I'm probably playing for a little bit more than 30 minutes a day if you include, like, meet lesson time and stuff like that. I do that. And I'm basically my wife's assistant. Nice. So I'm kind of chilling right now.

Like I, my side hustle is definitely the Skype lesson thing. And it's fun. It's one of those things. It's like I never thought I'd be into doing like the teaching thing. And I'm, I like it. And it's fun. It's like it's cool.

Like it's a real status. feeling when you're explaining something to someone and then you see you get to witness the moment in which they they grasp whatever you're showing them it's yeah it's kind of it's kind of sick it's great it's like oh man that's so cool and then it's really almost it makes you realize how old you're getting because especially when you're teaching like the younger younger kids they grasp stuff so quick it's like because their brain can just absorb things. It's such a faster rate. And it's like, dude, you learn that way quicker than I learned it.

It's like, damn, I'm getting old. This sucks. Or you're a very good teacher because you did all the bad practice of it. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Yeah, man, I don't know. It's, um, it's, it's always half full, my friend. I know, I know, dude.

But it's, it's fun though. I've got like, I'll do ones that are, you know, just one off. So they'll say it's like, yo, can we just set something up for like, you know next week and then i won't hear from them for you know yeah they just want to speak to you yeah but then i've got also ones that are consistent like i'll have ones that are um bi-monthly or weekly and stuff like that so it's it's real cool i've got like i finally got like my setup pretty dialed in so it's it's kind of legit but yeah that's kind of it's kind of my thing now is your setup running like the electric kit so you can they can hear everything you're

doing like with nice audio yeah It's awesome. It's like it's this mic and then my e-kit. It's basically, it's a rolling. I've got like a rolling TD50 brain. And then I've got, I've got these cool.

I've got like shells from a tamar kit that I didn't use anymore. I saw this. I saw this here. Yeah, it's sick. And then I just threw rolling triggers on it. And it's like playing a real drum kit, man. Man, that's so sick. I used to teach full time when I was off Thor before I moved to Nottingham.

I used to teach full time and it was so rewarding and also a fucking incredible side hustle. Dude, it is. Yeah, it totally is. Like it's, it's, um, you know, it's a catch 22 to a certain extent because it's, you do get like really invested. Not only like, you get mentally invested, I feel like to for a lot of these kids because you get to see their growth. And then what sucks about me is that when you go on tour, you kind of snap out of that mindset for a sec, and you're like, oh, damn, but yeah, there's still people I need to get in touch with. So it's nice when I get to utilize the brakes to kind of rekindle with some of these, these, these drum lesson people. It's kind of nice. Yeah, that's part of the reason that I stopped. I started weaning myself off it

when I was still back down where I was doing it, because I would go on tour for like three months at a time and they would like, they would just, some of the kids would fall off because they just need that weekly, like, here's what I need you to do, here's what you're doing wrong. Yeah. I had this one kid, this, like, the, this, maybe the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life, right? I had this one kid, Tommy, who was like, fucking seven years old. I'm not going to swear in case his mum or dad listens to this.

No swearing starting from now. He was like seven, I think, when I started, and he was on the autistic scale. And I don't know where on the autistic scale, but he was pretty bad. Yeah, he was on there. Yeah. He would, like, no eye contact at first. Like, if I told him something was wrong, he would, like, just go mute for the rest of the lesson. Yeah, yeah.

He would cry and his mom would, whatever. His mom would be like, he doesn't want to come back. So then one day, his. Mom, like, hit me up and was like, look, he loves coming, but he doesn't really, like, we don't need him to progress like you're trying to get him to progress. Like, we just want him to have 30, 45 minutes of fun on a drum kit. Like, can we just wind in the, you know, we understand you're trying to get him to a certain level, but can we just wind it in a little bit so he can just have a bit more fun.

And I was like, cool, that's fine. Because he's, like, in a, you know, in a special school for stuff like that. doesn't, you know, and then we were like, we just basically relearn everything and like, I started, he could do like crazy shit, like, you could

I could say what is going to be, what day is going to be March 19th, 2005 and he would go Tuesday. And then I'd look on my phone and it would be

right. So I was like, there is something wired in this kid's head like there's some wiring that is different and if we can utilize that like it's going to be sick so I figured out that he basically didn't like being told that he was wrong ever so like if he got something wrong and I said no not like that do it like this

he would like that's when he would shut down okay so I basically tricked him into inventing sight reading himself. So like I learned we I taught him a few basic drum beats and then I was like wouldn't it be cool if there's a way that we could like write this down so we could remember it. And he was like yeah that would be cool. And I was like what if like we drew this symbol and that would mean the high hat and if we put it on this line that would tell us the high hat and he was like yeah I think that's a good idea. And I basically tricked him into inventing sight reading and then he could

sight read anything immediately. Oh man. That's brilliant. It was insane. That's amazing. And then like, so we put him through like, I think we put him through two exams and he got like full marks on both exams. And his mom was like nearly crying and stuff like he doesn't do well in school. And he's, you know, he's got these certificates for his graded music exams now. And it was, that was the one. maybe there's maybe three or four students where like I really miss it because I miss I miss like being the progression for them and helping them progress and seeing how they would progress or whatever yeah especially just going going the way yeah it sucks that that that's the part of it that's that's kind of a bummer especially for stories like that situations like that where

you you literally spawned like the kind of you spawn like a genuine inspiration in that kid by teaching him in that way. So you've seen like the growth of that too. So yeah, it is, it's a bummer to kind of step away from that for a little bit. But it's, yeah, it's hard. It's like I'll, I'll, it's good and it's bad because there's sometimes where I will get to reconnect with people, you know, even if it's months down the road, I can still that, still still do that so you're always going to be to some degree in touch with a lot of those people

so it's kind of nice but damn that's that's a cool story man that's that's awesome i i honestly think if i would ever get that asked in an interview like what's your biggest achievement in music it would honestly be that like my heart exploded when he did his exam or like when i could just see that it'd gone in and it was just like yeah i know how to cite read drums now dude yeah that's literally it. You want to know what my biggest achievement in my life is? I would love to know that. The other day, I'd commented on Guy Fiatty's

one of Guy Fiatty's Instagram posts, and then he commented back. That pretty much made my entire career right there. What did he say? He was like, well, he does the knuckle sandwich emoji. And so if you comment right when he's on, I don't know if it's genuinely him that's that's replying back or not. I just like to think it is because he's a good Instagram follow.

But if you catch it right when he posts it or makes a post and you comment right away, it's like, yo, yo guy, can I, you know, I've been a big fan. Can I get a knuckle sandwich? And he'll reply every now and again. It's like, here you go, brother. And it'll do the, it's like a fist emoji with like the sandwich. I was like, yes, he, he did. acknowledge me. This is sick. I want to see that. What picture was it on? I'm looking right now.

God. I don't know if I made a post about it. Oh, oh, like on Guy Fieti's. Yeah. Let me look. I'm looking right now too. Let me see. Because I made like a story, but I should have saved the story. It was dude. It was so good. Dude, he's like really. God, he's really, I don't follow him, but I'm just looking, he like is aware of how funny he is. Oh, he is. Yeah, he totally is. That's what's beautiful. Frosted tips. Yeah.

Tony the Tiger thing. Like he, he loves, his whole thing too is he likes to Photoshop himself in the just random stuff. Like he did one of him as like a Fortnite character or something like that. Yeah, like he did. There's one of him, him as all three members of the cast of Hocus Pocus. Yeah. Dang, I can't find him. I'm going to drop a follow.

I'm going to see if I can get a knuckle sandwich. Yeah. So sick. I haven't pre-warned you, but there's a thing I do at the end. I got one more question that's written down, which is, what do you do on tour during? the day? If I don't, if I'm not doing like drum lessons that day, I'll usually do one,

one to two at the maximum. Some tours, it's not every tour that I'll do that. It's just if it's conducive to the timing and if we have room to do it and stuff like that. If I'm not doing that, I'm out and about, like our usual routine is find the best coffee shop nearby. That's, we go ahead and check that off the list. And then, uh, gets on. Oh, man. So you're a coffee guy.

Oh, big time. Yeah, yeah. Our, um, our guitar player, Paul's like a, he, he owns his own roasting company and works and he's part owner in a brick and mortar coffee shop. Oh, hang on. What's the name of his roasting company? Night, Night Flyer roaster. It used to be, uh, parliament. It used to be Parliament coffee now. I'm sure I saw. it. Yeah, you probably have. And it's like, and he's part owner of Queen City Grounds in Charlotte, but he kind of got me into the coffee scene. Like he, it's funny, because we sort of got into it just being on tour. And then he would take, you know, I'd tag along with him to a lot of these,

you know, boutique slash pretentious coffee shops. And then I, I kind of got into it, man. Like, that was my thing. And then it was cool because that's kind of how he did his own little independent research as far as starting his own roasting company. He kind of adapted or adopted a lot of his roasting techniques to a lot of these different coffee shops they would go to specifically like the Scandinavian countries. We really like the way that they're kind of style as far as roasting, just very light and things like that. Those are, that's some of the best coffee like I've ever had. But yeah, that's usually our routine, man. We find, some dope coffee shop do that get that out of the way and then if i'm not doing a drum lesson we'll

have sound check at some point uh try to hit the gym if when and if i can if there's one nearby um i'll do that yeah you're basically exactly the same as me yeah that's all i wanted to know i was like because some people are like you know i'll just sit and prepare for the gig and i'm like oh come on Dude, no. I, the most, I hate just sitting around the venue. I want to kind of fill the day with as much stuff as possible because it's like a good mental disconnect for me. So if I have, if I can keep busy throughout the day, I don't like psych myself out for the gig. If that makes sense. I feel like if I'm just, stewing, stewing around, like at the venue all day, like I'm,

it kind of makes my, I don't know, it kind of makes me more anxious in a weird way. So I feel like if I'm just, keep busy by, you know, if I go to the gym

or go get some coffee or do whatever, even doing drum lessons, stuff like that, just kind of takes my mind away from it for a little bit. Because I just want, I want the gig time to be gig time. I don't want to be thinking about it,

you know, up till, up till right to the moment until we play, you know. I respect that. I'm glad that you're into coffee. I'm deeply into coffee.

Do you have, do you just do a coffee shop? Would you bring an aeropress with you as well? No, we do, we do, sometimes we'll bring the aeropress with us, but Paul's got a pretty good brewer that he's brought on the bus. And then we do, if you want to get fancy, like we'll do the, we'll do the air press. But then usually my thing is like, like, like porovers are cool. like I'll do like whenever we go to the only times I do like pourovers and and things like that just straight up coffee is if we go to somewhere really like really nice like if we go to Tim Wendell Bo and Oslo they'll do this whole thing where they'll bring out like a flight of of different

coffee it's awesome like that's a cool experience and there's other coffee shops that I've been to that do that too but my thing is like I'm really in Detroit Detroit as a madcap now Oh, do they? In Detroit, yeah, and it's really near the venues. Oh, damn. Man, they got the flights there. Okay, heck yeah. Anyway, carry on.

I only found it out like last month. Yeah, no, no, but that's like, but that's doing that and then my whole thing is like espresso drinks. If they've got like a good cappuccino or flat white or something like that, I'm a flat white guy. I've got like my own machine. I figured out the latte art. Dude, that is.

I've picked my, favorite beans. That's the way to do it, man. That's like my next step as far as like a big investment. I want to get a good, I want to get a good espresso machine and start doing it myself, man. I think it would be fun. Yo, there's a mod that you can do to a DeLongi Dedica, which is like a DeLongi 680,

which is like a 200 buck machine. There's two mods you can do to it and it makes it pool coffee like a $1,000 machine. What? It's so good for learning on. That's what I do all my shit on. and I'm waiting until I am divorced and I move into my own apartment and then I'm going to spend

£2,000 on this, brother. Yeah. Because I'm a fucking, because I just love it and I will use it. Dude, I'm looking, I can't be trusting. I can't be trusting other people to use that. That's a me time. Yeah.

DeLongi Dedica, and there's two mods you do. You like, you make the porter filter, um, unpressurized. And it's just like a simple bit of melt. work and you make it a bottomless port filter and then you change the steam one for a

Rancillo Sylvia one which is just like a few a little bit of like screws that you need to do to change that. And then you change the water temperature and basically because it's 15 bar the machine it pulls

incredible espresso for 200 bucks plus parts. Yeah yeah like making the mod and all that stuff that's I'm looking at it's up that's that's sick I've got one in my kitchen and I've been pulling I don't know if you see it on my Instagram

stories or whatever I that's all that machine Yeah I see your stories And I bought a Gagia as well I bought a fuck I bought a Gagia And it doesn't pull shots as good Yeah see it's weird

It's like it's it's kind of like Even if you get like the legit machines Sometimes they just don't They don't pan out like you think they would I watch your Anytime I see someone's Instagram stories of them pouring coffee like I immediately want that like you and then uh there's this dude i follow um marco i forget his his last name but he's he plays he's like a death metal drummer

but he's the fast guy that used that Marco Pritzrella away yeah dude is he a barista dude i don't know he just he does all these instagram stories of him like just his espresso machine going and he will just like kind of zoom in on it. It's like a daily thing he does. He's a good follow. Like he's got good stories and stuff like that. But dude, I just want, I want to play in vital remains. Yeah. I think he did that. He did six feet under for a little bit. He's, he plays on like the new, uh, the latest sleep terror stuff. Uh, he might have been, wait, wait, wait, wait, there's new sleep terror. It's newish. Yeah, yeah, like. I mean, newer than 2005.

Yeah. Let me, on. I'm pretty sure that was the one. I'm looking it up right now. Yeah.

It came out. Yeah, it came out this year. No way. Is it a record? It's a whole record, dude. Yeah.

Oh my God. I used to love sleep terror back in the day when it was just like Myspace music. Yeah, that was like, that was like kind of

kind of the thing back then. But dude, his drumming on it is just ridiculously fast, like inhumanly fast. And it's, he'll do, it's cool. He's crazy. Because he'll post going full circle here when we were talking about

like processed drums and all that stuff. He'll post videos of him playing like an overhead shot of just like camera audio. And it sounds amazing. Like it's just insane, dude. Lord Marco. Yeah, Lord Marco. Oh my God. The first video I watched was boom, bum, bum, bum.

Yeah. It's just like, it's hilarious. So I was like, dude, this is legit. Like, he's insanely fast. Yeah. Isn't that brain drill band? Oh, yeah. That was him.

Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's sick. I want to see his coffee, though. What's his coffee like? Oh, there's one thing I haven't prepared you for. Yeah, what's that?

Like the. top five bands or artists of all time and I'm really sorry that I didn't prepare you for this. Whoa, dude. Yeah, it's usually I give people two days. All time? All time? You must have like three that you know. Well, definitely, I don't have to rate them in like a specific order, right? Like it just needs to be top five in general.

Musugah is definitely in there. favorite my sugar albums this is what happens i ask for top five and then we go ahead and usually usually when people talk about my sugar yeah it's it's a tasup between uh chaos fear and destroy race improve it's really hard to sometimes it's sometimes it's chaos fear and sometimes for me it's destroy race improve um you're the only other person that's ever been on the podcast that has agreed with me with at least destroy a raise and prove is one of if not maybe my favorite album of all time dude it's it's it's oh man it's incredible because that was when i love every pretty much everything my sugar's done um but they that was the record that had it had so much like

dynamics to it like it had like a little bit more kind of progressive progressive progressive elements to it too and now they're more into like the hypnotic sort of droney aspect but it's still heavy which I love that too like I love like Catch 33

was like that like it's just you could head bang to the same tempo that whole record and it was awesome like all the riffs were sick like it's just it's cool but that one just maybe it's a nostalgia thing too in conjunction with that but

yeah it's um yeah I think they definitely just they just don't do that fusion shit anymore and that fusion shit is just so fucking sick yeah like they were throwing like the alan holdsworth sort of stuff that they were throw in there I was like with his leads and all that I call them yeah I call them bubble bath solos because they sound like bubble bath

like bubbles and it's like the And it's like the drumming, and like the amount of, I think on, on destroyer A's Improved, there is three tracks which fade out and the drums just get progressively more crazy as it's fading out. And I've stolen that and put it on every record I've ever played on. Damn. Has had a fade out with the drums getting more technical. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Like he's, and yeah, that too, like is, and maybe like, drummers are obviously drawn to Musuga because it's so percussive based is.

as far as their riffs go and their musicality and instrumentation. But he, yeah, and that record especially, like he was throwing a lot of that, like fusion-y sort of his jazzy take on metal stuff into that record. Like that was their Fusion-esque sort of musicality at its peak on that record for sure. And then Chaos Fier's just got such sick breakdowns and awesome riffs.

and it's so, Chaosphere is just so intense, like the whole record. Like, that's, that's kind of what I love about it. Um, but yeah,

destroy arrays improve, both of those records straight to tape, which is insane. Destroyer rays improve, no click. That's, no click for the whole album.

Dude, what a dick. How do you do that? It's crazy. And it's so tight. It's like, unbelievably tight. Yeah.

Oh, man. All right. So, my sugar's in there. My sugar's in there. Man, I'm just trying to think. Like, if you're talking in general, I mean, bands of all time,

Beatles are in there, dude. Like, like, Beatles are in there, man. Like, they, it's funny because, uh, uh, our,

our guy that does merch in the UK, uh, Steve Lacey, he's like, I fucking love that guy. Yeah. But we always get, I see.

Yeah, you probably know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he's one of our degrees of separation. But we always get in this argument about, he loves, he thinks Oasis is more important than the Beatles. Yeah, it's because he's young. I guess so. I forget that he's young, but it's, and he has a good argument.

He's like, dude, I get it. Like, I get that they're important or whatever. But, and I understand, like, Oasis, definitely had a bigger effect, especially in the UK, than they did over here. I mean, they were huge over here, too. Like, they still are. Like, everyone in the world knows Wonderwall. Like, that's one of the biggest songs of all time.

But as far as, like, Beatles, the Beatles, like, overall impact on music or just songwriting in general, they basically comprise the, you know, the, you know, they basically comprise the, or basically made the the modern day formula of how a song is created at least a pop song no beatles no oasis yeah that's your argument closer immediately yeah and and not even like from a respect standpoint i just feel like i mean i like a lot of their stuff too but yeah like they're they're definitely in there i'm trying to think who else then i don't know pink floyd always comes comes to mind but that that might that might be a nostalgia thing too because I grew up listening to that stuff. Your band is so Pink Floyd.

What's your favorite Pink Floyd album? I mean, I love the wall, but I'm trying to think. It might be that, dude. What's your second favorite? Oh, God. That's a toss-up, dude. Oh, my God. I'd say...

It's a toss-up between Dark Side and Wish You were here. Yeah, like, I'd... For you, it's wish you were here in dark. See, for me, I think it's like the wall and dark side. Animals had some cool, cool shit on it too. Like, there's, there's tracks on that that definitely resonate with me to, like, pretty well. But yeah, dark side and the wall, man. That's kind of like, I just love those.

I'm trying to think who. So what are I got? I got three now. Is that three down? Yeah. I'm trying to think about her. Three absolute crackers as well. I know, yeah.

And I was like, I've kind of set the bar too high, like right off the bat. Uh, ta, da, da, da. I mean, five greatest vault. I guess you got to throw. You don't have to speak for all musicians. You can speak for yourself. Just your, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that's why I'm going, that's what I'm trying to go for. for sure. I mean, dude, Soundgarden was, was a big part of my, uh, part of my youth, dude. Like a lot of there, I think a lot of his, like 90s in general. Speaking of heroin. On that note, uh, yeah, Soundgarten, man, now I'm trying to think of like 90s era. Dude, either them, if I'm going to think of like 90s era, it's either them, if I'm going to think of like 90s era, it's either going to be smashing pumpkins or sound garden. I got to be like, I got to bend the rules a little bit and it's a toss up between them too as far as the number four

slot. Because they just had, there's like Jimmy Chamberlain's drumming, had a big impact on me. Matt, Matt, Matt, can you stop talking about heroin? Oh, yeah. Well, dude, it was a egg. Blake Richardson. Sober, heroin. went. It was the 90s, man. That was what you did. Those 90s drummers, man, they just went for it. Yeah. So those two. And then what's what's the? I got one more. I did technically this is a top six, but I don't really care. I mean, you don't have to give me a top six. You've fulfilled the five. Give me something you're listening to now. You know there's a band that I always, a band that I always go back to is, uh, Mew from Denmark.

BW. Oh, yes. Yeah. They're like consistently a band that I listen to quite regularly. Like, and I, I think Tommy showed me them back like when we first were writing Alaska. And I think it was, well, no, no, it was probably a little bit. It was when like glass-handed kites came out. I was like, dude, this record is one of the best things I've ever heard.

like it's just got this cool poppy-esque sort of musicality but with like a really weird proggy twist to it with insanely catchy choruses and just the most avant-garde sounding instrumentation but it works so well like it's just it's so fluid and i just yeah that's a band that like I really consistently come back to, man. Man, mu, lamb, Portishead, Radiohead, that's all my shit. Yeah, yeah, dude. Like, quirky, pop, but super clever.

Yeah, very much so, man. Like, yeah, damn, I forget about Radiohead. Dude, that's a hard thing to do, man. Top five, all time. Who. Radiohead's in mind. Radiohead is my number one of all time, I think. I've talked about it so much on here.

Radiohead Mushugger They're constantly in there And then like the rest I'm Metallica sorry That's my top three of all time Yeah And then like Other stuff pops in

Nine inch nails popping Um Gojira pop in Sick Converge popping There's a lot of There's a lot of like I've got a solid top three

And then Maybe a top ten that rotates Yeah I know it's like It's hard It's because like there's a lot that rotate in and out, I feel like. Like, ask me this same question in like five years or something, or hell, even tomorrow, and it might be a little different.

But yeah, those are good ones, though. I feel like those are... You had great ones. You might even have... Be the only person that included, like, three classic bands. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you're talking bands of all time, it's like, those kind of have to be in there. Because it's got to be yours.

A lot of people are like, someone said Kendrick Lamar. And I was like, sick. Yeah. That's, no, but they're definitely mine, though, too. Like, I, in that, I don't know if it's like a nostalgia thing connected with those as well. But they're like, yeah, they're ones that I come back to a lot, man, for sure. It's the same with me and Metallica. Like, I'm not putting Death Magnetic on.

Yeah. They're still in my top three. Even though Death Magnetic is not actually that bad. Yeah, I think we're going to call it, call it there, because this is long as fuck. That's cool, man. you got this evening with tour north america yeah yes sir when is that that's coming up uh late spring early summer i think the end of or the i think it's may sixth i believe through june is there any support no support just us dude

just the band get the you get all beatty band to yourselves get all that you get the You get all the money. Well, it's like, hey, man, we're playing two sets. Yeah, you're working. We're working, dude. Yeah. Man, it's been an absolute pleasure. Likewise, man.

Thank you so much for coming on. We're going to do a fake goodbye now, but then you're going to stay on the line and we'll just debrief. Tight. Okay, fake goodbye now. Bye. Goodbye, everybody.