The Downbeat - MATT GARSTKA: Bicep Injuries, AI in Music, and Animals As Leaders with the G.O.A.T

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

My guest on the podcast this week is Matt Garstka, drummer, educator, amateur arm-wrestler and 1/3 of arguable the most progressive band on planet earth. We talk about his recent distal bicep tear and his recovery, as well as the use of AI in music, musical competition, and my recent drum lesson with him

Hey guys, welcome back to the Downbeat Podcast. My guest this week is Matt Gasker, drummer, educator, amateur arm wrestler that went horribly wrong. He is, in my opinion, one of the best drummers in the world. If you've seen my YouTube channel, I did a drum lesson with him. I got some problems. I called in the dock and it was eye-opening to say the least. That video is up on YouTube. But we also had a little chat. We had a chat about his arm wrestling career, which ended in a bicep tear, which took him out of playing the drums. We go deep on AI in music. His drum parts, I'm just picking his brain.

He's the only guest that's been on four times. So, you know, we have a good chat. We've got a rapport by now. Lovely, lovely lad, unbelievable drummer. Before we get started, I want to let you know. If you want to support the podcast, you have two options. You could go to patreon.com forward slash the downbeat, and you could chuck us a bit of money.

In exchange, you would get early access to these episodes. You would get ad-free episodes. You would get early access to merch. Basically anything I do, you would get it early. The other option is you could go to www. www. www.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0. And you could pick up some merch. It's designed by me.

It's made very lovingly. Lovingly by me. I don't sew it, but, you know, I do tell the people how to sew it ethically. www. www.de.combe.org.org. As ever, this episode is brought to you by the wonderful people at Neural DSP. I try not to sell you a bunch of ads, guys. If I've got ads on here, it's something cool that you're going to want, and neural DSP is no different.

They make AMP simulator plugins for your computer. All you've got to do is load it up, and you can have an unbelievable tone like Misha Mansour, like Gojira, like Tocinabasi, who plays for Matt's band, any of your favorite guitarists or bassists. They've even got vocal plug-ins. They've got a bunch of stuff. They are cutting-edge plugins.

They're at the forefront of every. music inside your computer and listeners of the podcast can get a whopping 30% off any plugin by going to neuraldisp.com and using the code Downbeat, check it out if you want to sound good. It's Matt Gasker of Animals as Leaders on the Downbeat podcast. Matt Gasker. Yes, sir. Welcome back to the Downbeat. Thank you, Craig.

Thank you for having me again. Do you know, you're very welcome. Do you know, hang on. Beesh Unleashed? The Beesh is Unleased. Did you know? You are now with this episode the most... The most...

My brain's not even working. I was going to say the most requested guess. You are the most appearances. Wow. Is this four? This is number four. Whoa. We had one on audio.

First time we ever met. Yeah. And then we had three, two video. One in your kitchen. Remember that? Oh yeah, one in your Airbnb. In Nashville. Yeah.

And now look at us. Here we are. Now you're in the big rig. Now we're next to our neighbors. We fucking are. We've only hung out once and it was for a drum lesson. But you fucked yourself up. So that was kind of on you.

We need to do a workout. I need to see what you're doing. I'm slowly recovering. I was going to say, you're the one. I moved and I feel like immediately. You were on tour when I moved with tears. ground, I think. Mm-hmm.

And then I was like, sick. Matt's going to be back soon. We're going to go to the gym. We're going to fucking hang out. And then you're like, oh, I've torn my bicep. Yeah. Yeah. You want to run me through that?

Well, you know, I don't know. I'd been training for like a year or a year and a half doing those movements and everything. I'd gotten really into it. I'm sorry. What? Arm wrestling. Like there's back pressure.

There's pro nation. There's super. supination and hand control and all this stuff is largely forearm based. And so I'm like, this is great for drums to, and grip strength is huge for humans' longevity. So I'm like, you know, and I don't know, I like extreme shit. So yeah, so I was like, I'm going to be smart and make sure I don't get injured, you know. You know, do a bunch of training way ahead of time, be slow with all the motions and movements. and yeah, I don't know.

It's different when you're pulling people, though. That's the thing. How do you train for that? Like, so you said you've been doing training. Yeah, so there's like, you can, like, put belts to weights and, like, put them around your thumb. Like, there's different ways to wrap the strap, basically, around your hand to simulate the leverage points, yeah. And then there's also, you know, I got a table and, like, I put, like, I put, like,

like a pulley system on it and so I'm pulling on a table. Rare by you. Let me calculate the most accurate way so I can train for this. You were probably going to be one of the greats, bro. No. I'm too small. I've never seen you do it, but I know your commitment to these kind of things.

It's a long forearms help, like big hands. I have small hands, short forearms. I think I've seen the guy that's like the number one in the world, like the size of his fucking hands. I don't know if it is, but he's got like,

his hands are like fucking dinner plates yeah awesome okay so what happened you you you progressed into yeah and so i pulled yeah i pulled a few people and they're like yeah we take it easy and don't go crazy and i was like i like these guys you know and then is that the lingo pulled yeah pull pulling you want to go for a pull is that where you're pulling each other it sounds insane yeah did you pull yesterday or no i pulled last week so i'm good to go oh okay yeah sounds like A little seaman. Yeah. Anyway, carry on.

So, yeah, I just really enjoyed holding dude's hands. You know what I'm saying? Looking at him in the eye. Do you look in the eye when you do it? No. That's kind of fucking... I think it's forbidden. Is it?

No, I don't know. I'm just making shit up. It should be, though. Okay, so you start pulling these guys. Yeah. And then, like, I got invited to this guy's garage. and uh i gotta find it to his house you know and we go in it's like

and it's like you know sweaty you know oh it's like underground yeah like fight club strictly for arms arm club yeah arm fight club yeah arm fight club yeah I pulled like three or four dudes in a row and it was like some of these dudes were like I'm such a child I'm so sorry sorry carry on how that sounds

by the fifth dude. I was running a train on these fucking guys. Anyway, sorry, I'm really sorry. I mean, this guy was way stronger than me, and he was just going hard. He was kind of slamming. And, yeah, like, I'd gotten fully extended and, like, went to go pull out a little bit more.

Fuck, man, you're not making it easy. Create some more leverage, you know? And, like, when your arms in that... You're, like, about to lose at this point. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, like, yeah, like when your arm is fully extended, that's when your bicep is most at risk. That's why people pull it when they...

Deadlift. Yeah, or, yeah, with the open and or more so for preacher curls, like, fully extended. People go too heavy and they get to the bottom and they can pop both. I've seen that happen. Yeah. So basically, like, it's, it was like, and I was like, uh-oh. And like he's like oh, because he heard it too. And like there's an elder dude standing there.

And I'm like, oh shit. He's like, yeah, dude, I think you tore your bicep. And I'm like, uh, did it hurt? Well, BPC. No. Didn't hurt. Didn't hurt. Just felt like, ow.

Yeah, a little something. Damn. But like, I was like, dude, would BPC help this? And he's like, no, dude. Your bicep tendon. He's like, let me feel. And I had no hook. You do a hook test?

Like you can feel it. Oh, yeah, like the little bit. Uh-huh. Yeah. And he's like, he got nothing. He's like, he needs to be surgically reattached. This is the elder telling you this. Yeah.

This is fucking. This sounds so mythical. He's like, yeah. I'm like, are you sure? Like, I couldn't just take like a lot of BPC. He's like, yeah, it's got to be surgically reattached. For the record, BPC-157, the peptide. Correct.

Awesome shit. Very good. Took it when I broke my back. My back wasn't healing. and our fucking BPC 157, I'm a TB 500, whatever the Wolverine stack was. Theta. Within, so yeah, something, within six weeks.

Obviously, we're not fucking doctors, do your own research. But my back wasn't healing or it's just still hurting and stuff. And then I started taking that. And within six weeks, I was like, oh, I'm back. Yeah. I'm back, baby. It's huge anti-inflammatory as well. How long were you injured before you were like,

I need to do something more than just try to heal naturally. So it happened in August, I want to say, 2021. No, 2020, when did touring come back, end of 2021? Yeah, so it happened in August 2021. And then I did a tour and recorded an album in December, 2021. With a messed up back? My back was literally still broken. and that tour and I was playing so badly on that tour because of the pain

because of like some weird nerve shit or whatever I had all the scans and stuff they were like this is a compression fracture it's like not when you say I broke on my back and it was like oh my god like you're going to be paralyzed it was a compression fracture so like they are stable fracture yeah like it it breaks like this instead of like that so it's better it's stabilized by your own weight so it's just going to fucking heal if you don't do anything dumb. But obviously trying to play the fucking drums

and be on tour and be in a van and stuff, it just wasn't getting any better. UK healthcare system completely fucking forgot about me. They were like, yeah, you'll have a physio appointment in six months. What? Yeah, number one,

I spoke to my friend who was a physio at Liverpool Football Club at the time and he was like, bro, I spoke to him like three days after it happened. He was like, you need to be doing physio today or else you're going to be crippled. And then even when that six-month waiting list

turned, rolled around, they, it didn't come. I'd never got the appointment. I was like, okay, I'll pay for my own physio from day one. And then when the NHS thing happens, I'll switch to that and pick it up there. It just never came. And I phoned them about it. And they were like, oh, yeah, you never got put on the list. And I was like, okay, well, can I get my scans to then give to my new physio?

And they're like, yeah, we don't have your scans. I was like, what do you mean? Out of my scans? We're like, yeah, we don't have them. I don't know. They're just not on the system. I was like, okay, I'm fucking done. So by December that tour went badly, tracking the album was incredibly fucking painful.

And I was like, I need to do something. Got on the old fucking Googlerizer. And then it was like, inject this fucking... Inject this. Pentadeca peptide. Yeah. Why don't you try injecting a, like, fucking research chemical and it might fix it. It's derived from rats' gastric juices.

Is that what it is? Yeah. Well, I mean, that's where they found. it was a Japanese guy, I think, that found it there. Classic, Tama. Yeah. Fucking crazy.

Yamaha, too, I think. Yamaha. Yeah, ma'am. I took the Yamaha. No, I took the Tamma one, obviously, because I'm endorsed. Yeah. Tamer does not make research chemicals. Neither does. Yamah probably fucking do.

Maybe. You want a speedboat? You want a piano? Do you want some research chemicals? Anyway, yeah, in that point, I was like, okay, I need to fucking do something about it. Started taking it in six weeks later, because I had like a, like, a, just to,

pain it would just always be there. And I was like, this can't be good. And when I started taking that, gone. Yeah. So you just did a six-week cycle and then... I think I did 12 in the end or something, whatever it was. And then I never took it again. Desperate for a reason to now, though.

Not really. I don't want to get fucking injured. I give you the name of the arm wrestling clubs. So, okay, so it happens. And then like, how long did you have till surgery? They were like, dude, like as fast as possible get... get the surgery, like if you can this week. So I was like, all right, bet.

And so I basically went to the ER for, you know, I didn't need to because they're like, oh, yeah, it's messed up. There's no, there's, the tendon snapped off the bone. And you're going to need a surgery. Like I knew that. The old guy told me. Yes, exactly. And so I got, uh, an orthopedic, picked one out, called them, got them, got that.

They were pretty quick, too. It was like, by the end of the week, it was five days later I had the surgery. So that was end of July, I think. How much? Or beginning of July, maybe. How much? I was quick. All, I don't have health insurance.

Yeah, you're a musician. Yeah. And, you know, I'm like, I'm saving so much money, not having health insurance. Yeah. And I have over the last 10 years, because I take very good care of myself. I do preemptive stuff, basically. but yeah all in all it was about 7k for like MRI and you know and the surgery and the surgery everything but it probably would have been three times as much like if I didn't have help well for the actual

because they do this thing where they're like you know oh yeah it's it's you know this much oh like the cash price is different the cash price is like more like the actual price if you had insurance it would have been like, okay, this is going to cost $30k, your insurance is going to cover this much of it. Yeah, and you have to pay $5,000 or $7K or whatever it is. Someone else told me this when I was looking at getting health care over here. Someone was like, it's kind of a scam. Loki. I don't want to, I don't know.

I don't want to, me neither. Me neither. Me neither. But do you say neither or neither? Neither am I. There we go. Neither. Neither. Excellent. Is that what the guy in the corner sounded like,

Ye hast broken thy distal bicept tendon? Is that what it was? The distal. Yep. I researched that before. Yeah, that's the one down here. There's two up here. Oh, so it's fucking right there.

That's the one that, yeah, the preacher girl really fucking does that shit. Okay, so seven grand. In my head, I was like, motherfucker's going to have to pay like 40 grand. That's like a year and a half worth of health insurance. And over the last 10 years. balance that out. You're saving money. Touch wood,

nothing else happens. And then so, no drums for how long? Six weeks. Well, I did feet and like some other stuff and like some high hat stuff. But yeah,

it was kind of tough to, I just, I was mostly focused on that GGG plugin. Yeah. That just came out, by the way. Yeah, me too. You want to have your arm wrestle for it?

You can buy one depending on who wins. Right, it's good. Wait, it was your left. Yeah. You are on wrestle with your left. We wrestle with both, yeah. Really?

Is it like a real men do both, Craig? Yeah, but so are you up against a lefty or are you two righties going lefty? Were you fighting goofy? No, most people are right-hand dominant. It's rare guys left-hand dominant. But sometimes... It is a feminine trait. Fuck me at this point.

The left is sometimes stronger, though, weirdly. Or in certain ways, the left is strong. Like, my left would, they were saying, like, those guys were saying, like, oh, your left is actually stronger. It's like me and my feet. You know this. My left's better. I was, like, at my peak strength.

I could, I could do, like, 65 pounds, you know, preacher curl. Not all the way down, but, like, you know, curling. And, like, I had taken, like, five, six-day height. and so when I came back, I was like super fucking strong. I was like, wow, I'm really strong right now. And I think that's kind of part of like what had happened is, is like, my muscle and everything were able to pull so hard on it. And this guy pulled so hard that it snapped.

So it was the tendon that broke or, yeah, yeah, because your muscle was too fucking strong for the tendon. And plus him. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's, that's. That's a thing. It's not when people get fucking trend out their mind and they're like, I can lift everything in the gym and then everything just goes and explodes.

Yeah. Because the tendons aren't getting the juice. Right. The tendons are slow to adapt. So you kind of need to be it, but they do adapt, bro. It's like, it's Wolf's Law, which is the, whatever you expose your, your tendons and your bone and muscle to, it's going to adapt. Like, your bones will get more dense in those places that it, that stress is being put on it. I did that. When I went to a,

when I went to, finally, I got a different physio after the whole back thing. And it was the first person to give me some good news. And he, like, did the scans and everything.

And he was like, well, everything's fine now with your back, absolutely fine. And the good news is actually your back is now stronger than someone

who didn't do this. And I was like, oh, that's it. It's like, as long as you keep on top of like, you know, you weight train all the time. You'll be fucking fine.

It'll be stronger. Yeah, that's sick. I'll survive. I mean, I survived anyway. Next time I'll go twice as high. I know I fucking won't. Okay, so when this happened, then you take six weeks off drumming or hand. Yeah.

Left hand. Yeah. And then slowly get back, basically. Are you back now? When did this happen? Yeah, yeah. It was five months ago now. That's not that long.

No, no. I'm like 85, 90% there. mobility is like the last thing that I'm like focus well on the kit on the kit or at the gym oh gym is far away from that yeah really yeah yeah yeah I'm only benching like 65 pound dumbbells right now or like like curling 20 pounds I think I'm just getting the 25 where I don't feel like that weird yeah attachment to the bone I think I very nearly rupture the tendon in my bicep once tour and I didn't and nothing pinged or anything but it hurt for like six months afterwards and I had to go like like like three months afterwards we went to one of those like you know ninja warrior yeah we went to

like one of those it was like a swimming pool that had ninja warrior shit in it and we were like let's go do this on tour and there was one part of it where the only way you could get up to the next bit is to basically do a single handed pull up to get over to the next bit and I did it and I just felt something go, and I was like, oh no, fuck. But definitely, it wasn't as bad as you, but I remember how much that fucking hurt everything in the gym after that was painful. So I can't imagine what it's like to actually tear it.

What weights did you go down to? I can't remember it. It was before I actually cared. I was just going for the sake of going. I can't remember. But I remember you were bent. Last time we trained to go, which was a while ago,

you had those hundies for fucking on incline. I'd gotten pretty high. I'll be back there in a few months. So have you had to decrease the amount of training? Yeah, I just kind of did that. I took it on the chin. I'm like, okay, I'm going to delode everything, focus on other things in life in general,

get everything else together. Yeah. And, you know, delode and become weaker and get a little leaner. I leaned out and did lean out. You did lean out. And did more yoga and tried to recover some mobility that you lose from going to the gym all the time. So yeah, that's kind of still my thing. Like I'm hitting the gym twice a week and

yoga once a week, like a yoga, hot yoga class, and then yoga every day, every morning. And I do like little PT stuff every day. Gym twice a week. That's it. That's it. Are you going to, that's like full body? Carry on with that, or are you? For a bit. Because you used to be a five day, didn't you? Yes. Yeah. But it's also, you know, part of the. too is like I've realized like drums are number one and you know I you're getting carried away with Jim yeah it's just like you become more consistent with Jim than drums sometimes and like you have that choice I feel like I did that lot last year admittedly I had a lot of life

shit to figure out moving here this fucking the drum room all that stuff yeah but if I had two hours in a day around sorting other stuff out I was picking gym over drums. And this year I'm kind of taking stock. And I'm worse at the drums than I have been in fucking years. So I'm like taking stock. And I'm like, no, I can't let this bit slip. This is like my whole thing.

I love going to the gym. I love the dopamine release from it. But it's like if I don't, like I love him to fucking death. I love the man to death. But it's not sitting right with you. I love the man to the death. But we can't become last. I love him

Love him to death But I can't I need to be fucking practicing So this year I'm back on the practice train Yeah that's sick Thanks to you Yeah

Oh yeah Put that video up today So most people are watching this Have hopefully seen that video The drum lesson Do you know That's got more views In four hours

Than any other episode Of the podcast For the last two years Really People were fucking stoked Sick you being a guru and me being shit at the drums.

We should do that more often. We should do that more often. People are stoked and do you know how many people hit me up? Random people. I'm stoked for you dude. Like, because like there's nothing like having like, okay, I'm getting my shit together this year and like kind of putting that or, you know, sometimes it's month or whatever.

But yeah, putting that out there and being like, all right. You've got to want to do it. Yes. And like now I know what you're like, you're telling me, you're stoked with me, because you can see that. I'm like, okay, I'm doing this. It's not like, oh, maybe I'll do this. No, it's like, I've decided this is fucking happening.

Yeah. So many pro-druthers. You decided it has to happen. It fucking has to do. You're like, this is, something's got to change. I mean, I'm very fortunate that you live down the fucking road, because I was sat there and I was like, oh, okay, this year, the foot. We need to address the foot.

What the fuck can I do? And I was like, fucking mad. I can't remember what it was. I mean, I think something popped up. I was like, oh, fuck, I forgot he lives two seconds away. They're on the street. They're on the fucking street. And you know how many pro drummers I've had hit me up today?

Like, number one, saying, how much did Matt charge you? Because they want to get in on the game. And then number two, just being like, that was really fucking helpful. Because, like, off the top of my head, Ralph that plays for Poppy and Dan, that plays for architects. Both of them hit me up today. And I'm just like, yeah, I've got this same shit, my feet. and they're like this is super fucking helpful and it's funny how many pros

me and Dan were talking about it extensively today I think some people because I never got taught foot technique ever and I think some people who don't get in any form of technique some people just they sit on the kit when they're learning and they happen upon

the best way to do something and some people just don't And I think... They're the church cats. They've... They got feet, bro. And they do the slide technique, like, just... It just comes to them.

It just happens from... Is that him? Maybe, bro. You got to convert. You got to get rid of these freaking pentagrams, bro. Fucking problem. Cursed. I think some people...

Some people just... It's the same way, like, I feel like everyone after playing the drums for a certain amount of time will naturally... come up with some form of molar in their like high hat playing. You know, like they don't want to play fast. Your body at some point. It is natural.

Yeah. That's right. It's a naturally occurring thing. But there is, there are, there are, uh, techniques that we've kind of honed. And, um, I don't know, gotten very specific on like, okay, this is how French grip works. This is how, you know, German grip works. This is how American grip functions and, French, it. French's thumb up, German is thumb in.

What's American? In between. Fucking classic. Like that, like that. Let's just do this in the middle. That's pretty funny. Feet. I feel like some people do sit on the kitten.

They're just like, oh, that's how you do that. And I just never fucking have it. So I'm super stoked. Madison, that's Harry. I've been doing those fucking, I've been doing those exercises. Has he? Has he been doing the spanks? Yeah.

Every day I've been doing those fucking spanks. And then also I've been going into stream. and I've been like halfway through the stream and I've been like, guys, I can feel that I'm not feeling my leg right now. I'm stopping and I'll turn the stream off and I stay there for another two hours and I just practice.

So it's terrible for content, but it's great for, like, the playing. And it is getting so much better. Like, even from fucking when was it last week? It's got so much fucking better. Sick. Graciously thankful that you live down the fucking street. Yeah.

I had one last question on the bicep tear stuff. Did that affect your mental health having like an injury like that? Because it would have crushed me. At times, yeah, I was like I would be a little agro. And also like, yeah, it's just, you know, you're constantly getting like pulled back. You know, you'll make some improvements or something. It's just like, dang, when is this going to fucking sort itself out? Because like, I'm on the peptides.

I'm doing the right things, all the right things. So, yeah, there was definitely times where, yeah, I was just, like, bummed. But, like, all in all, man, I just, like, kind of did the radical acceptance thing, and this, it is what it is, and it's my job to make the most of it. It's my job to find the other things to do so that, you know, I'm setting myself up in six weeks or, you know, I didn't realize it'd be like three, four months. Yeah. Until I was really like going.

Yeah, I'm setting myself up and like this is, this is me taking a step back like physically. Yeah. But like, you know, I'm going to rebuild. And so that's, yeah, that's what I'm in the middle of right now. And so, but I wouldn't change it because now I have like a sense of fire and like refocus. on music and playing and and yeah just being being present uh as a as a as a drummer as a public drummer or whatever and helping people more and i mean it's pretty cool you basically you basically just refocused you know what the amount of effort you would normally put into some other stuff

and it seems like that's relit the fire it's like give like you've got thankfully a temporary handicap that sort of reminds you of like what could have been and what we're will be. Yes. And so have some, some, you know, gratitude for,

like, how you have your health. You know, a lot of times we take it for granted until it's gone. Yeah. Especially health. Like,

when you get sick or something, it's like, dude, I just want to feel better. Oh, I hate it so much. I get cold. I'm like classic man

with a cold. Like, it's the end of the world. Like, I have so much to fucking do. And it's like, some people are like, fucking dying.

Or don't have an arm. or whatever and they have to deal with it and I'm like my sinuses are so bad. My head. My head hurts. You make me some soup. I was going to go, she's good at soup.

I was going to go to the fucking gym today and now I can't, yeah, I'm probably a fucking nightmare. Most people who have a career, like you said, public facing drummer, wouldn't do arm wrestling as a hobby in case something like this happens. Do you think you have like, a competitive problem.

Do I? Yeah, a little bit. I don't know this for a fact, but to be as good as you are at the drums, there must be an element of competitiveness. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I think if you're not competitive, then your eyes aren't open. But there is a limit.

As a practical. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, obviously went too far. but you know I was thinking I was doing it smart and it's like you know yep I got got but that's not gonna that's not gonna stop me from going to the gym and trying to get stronger

and like continuing to I'm not gonna arm wrestle people but I'll continue to do the all the movements and it helped me to recover actually all the knowledge that I had acquired for like over a year in arm wrestling helped me people forget people forget like

the best things you can do when you have an injury is to move and like to get blood in that area even if it is doing light versions of the thing that caused the injury especially if it's just like something like that the best way to get blood in that tendon is to like redo those movements yeah just less fucking heavy against a sweaty guy in a basement with a fucking granddad watching he says that he says uh like that's what he does for is that big hands he he's he Yeah, I'm pretty sure. That's...

One of them. Or, yeah, the number one... Why am I blanking on his name? Levon Saganashvilly. That's number one. Didn't he mean? I have to Google that insanely long name. But the number two guy, Devin, he's like the biggest educator and arm wrestling.

But that's one thing that he says is like the recovering or, you know, coming back from an injury or a match or something, he does really light work. It's blood flow work because there's not a lot of, you know, capillaries and stuff. When people tear a peck, now you've got to get back on that peck routine pretty soon. Yeah. Be fucking careful, bro.

I'll say there's a limit to, because I was thinking that, and I was like, oh, and like, oh, what's that irritated feel? Oh, let me lean into that a little bit and try to strengthen that. And I think there's a limit to doing that is what I found.

It's like, that's actually a tear. You need to fucking stop. Yeah, you should do that to some degree, but you also should feel where it's comfortable and, like, kind of take that modification in stride and be like, well, this is, I have to do curls right now a bit more pronated, like not fully supinated. Okay.

And that was helping me recover more than trying to stay absolutely flat and like feeling that pain, even though it was a lighter weight and everything, being like, ah, that hurts, but like, so there's a balance. Do you think the competitive nature that we just talked about, does that come out in writing with animals as leaders? Do you like try and outdo each other? Because like musically, it kind of sounds like you are just like,

like, do you ever write something and just like, yeah, fucking let's see you trying to write to this? I think it's just exploration and trying to innovate. Like I'm competitive with myself. But like mostly it's stemming from, for me, it's stemming from trying to do some new shit. Yeah. I'm trying to go where others haven't gone

and be. of the nature of music, it's been around for thousands of years. The likelihood you're going to innovate and a very simple thing is next to nil. So the more towards the edges of complexity you get, the higher likelihood you have to create something new. But you don't want to be out in space

where no one understands, right? So it's like there's also an art to deliver. delivering that complexity in the most simple form so that someone can understand it. Understand it on an intuitive level of some sort. Which I think animals really does do. You can play animals to like a normal person and like, oh, like a normal person, like a human being. And they'll be like, oh, this is awesome. And then you like explain what's happening here.

Like, well, he's playing groups of five as 16th. But then here, he moves the backbeat so it's quintuptus. And they go, I don't know what you fucking talk about. So, like, you do a good job at making it digestible so the nerds can still pick it up. What I always laugh the most about is, like, the fucking, the live video of CAFO at brutal assault. I did a reaction video.

It's one of my first reaction videos ever before, when I used to do reaction videos. I can never get over the fact that people are clapping that pattern. But, that, that, that, that, whatever it is. Yeah. And the whole crowd's doing it. And then we go and play a song in 4-4 and we want everyone to stay in time.

Maybe we want them to clap on 2 and 4. Maybe we want them to clap just straight quarter-knows. Dog shit. Yeah, it's interesting. It's fucking crazy. It's kind of uncanny, yeah. Like, I couldn't believe the amount of people clapping that perfectly in time as if they have clicked.

Well, perfectly. You're talking to that. comparatively. Oh yeah. It's, yeah, it is, it's pretty tight considering. Like, usually people clapping on the backbeat or whatever, it's like, you know, shot. Like a million claps rushing, everyone's rushing. And then there's a few people actually hitting on beat. So, like, to be able to do that pattern in 13, that's what it is. One, two, three, four, five, don't, three, four, five. Oh, yeah, it is. It's 13. That's why I can't count it. Was there ever a discussion to retract the first album were you on drums?

No, but I've thought about, like, maybe I'll do, like, some videos of the first album stuff, but, uh, yeah, they don't have the stems for it. So, um, basically we have stems, and, like, we ended up redoing some of the stems, like, some of the bass stems and since stems, but there's no guitar stems. for that. So it's kind of like a practical issue.

Because when I go back to those songs, I actually go back to the live album, which, I mean, I do listen to the album, I love that album, but I go back to the live album that Ronnie mixed, the whatever it was, I can't remember,

because I want to hear you on those fucking old songs. But you missed the 10 years, so I was like, if they were going to do it, they'd do it for the 10 year. Yeah. Because bands don't care about the first album. Do you care about it?

You weren't even on it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, still, I listened to it like, hell of. I was listening to it for years before I joined. Did you think it was a real drummer? I did.

So did I. I was like, I was like, this guy is insanely clean. I got to practice being insanely clean. I got to practice these six stroke rolls at like, with insane velocity. It's like, oh, that's fucking crazy shit. Yeah. I'm a, it'll push you. I'm a big, I mean, most of these people know, I'm a big animals that is.

fan. So I've got a bunch of questions on animals as leaders, but we're going to get to that. Oh, I heard, while we're talking about the writing, I said, do you think the competitiveness plays into it, but you've said you're more of a self-improvement competitive person.

I did hear a rumor, though, that you have like a system, then correct me if I'm wrong, this might have come from a bad source, that you have a system for writing things, or you've been working on a system for writing things, or maybe a combination of both

that confuses almost everyone except you. Is there truth to this? I don't think so. I mean, the sentence I heard was Matt's working on some crazy shit that I don't even understand. I believe it came from toson.

Oh, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I guess, rhythmically speaking, yeah, there's some, there's there's a new level I've started to unlock a new like series of because the metric modulation stuff I was going largely based off of groupings yep in time signatures to play like a relative five over a seven so like okay explain this like I'm five okay I am five yeah all right so the most simple form is like you have one two three one two three one two one two three one two

one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two What do you mean the most simplest? Okay. Of this precursor to what I'm going to talk about. Okay, so 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2. It's 2, 2, 5s and you've split it up. Correct. Yes.

Yes. So we're in 5. Yes. And there's 10 eighth notes or whatever. Yes. And it's 3, 3, 2, 2. And then you can imply 4, 433 over that. And now you're in 7.

Now you have 14 notes total. How are you implying that? with a basically, we'll call it a clave. Yeah. You know, that. I'm gonna, and like my music, my hair can be able to

continue my rhythm. For so, Potion Nine, of Sebastian Professional, has all what my my hair needs. Nutrition Profunda. Protection against the encrespaid.

99% less of rotura and punas abirtas under control. New Potion Nine of Sebastian Professional, the secret professional of who don't seeen tendences,

but of who they're So you're still in 5533. 5522. No, 33222. Yeah.

But you're splitting it up differently. This is your new type of writing. No. That's the old that's the old shit I've been working on.

Now, I don't want to give it away. I was going to say, yeah, you look like you don't want to give it away. So I'm right. There is a new system happening that's confusing people behind the scenes. You don't have to give me the scoop. I just want to know my research as well. So now I'm doing things.

I'm time bending essentially like on a beat scale. Okay. On like each beat I can manipulate the time in such a way that I make like a triplet it sound like a quintuplet or vice versa. Per beat. Per beat. And then I'm also... Yeah, you're like cagey about this.

Like any motherfucker watching is like, okay, I'm going to do that before him. Like, the level is so high. Yeah. I like it. I like the way you're keeping the secrets. But I'm kind of doing that like on a, on a beat scale and on a grouping scale too.

So it's, there's some cool. shit that is happening now. And you're bringing that to the new line of leaders? That's what I want. Yeah, man. And Victoria's stuff too. And yeah, I've been writing a lot.

So that's because ultimately it's like I don't just want these rhythms to live randomly on some drum video that I put on Instagram. I want them to be like, I guess cataloged in some way. And, you know, put in the history books. of like, okay, this is, you know, so people can have like a musical attachment to it as well. And I also, it's, at the end of the day, that's what we're trying to do. Yeah. And so that's kind of been my focus in music is unlocking different places to travel metrically by way of, yeah, rhythm.

And so I'm trying to write based off of that, you know, instead of just writing loops or whatever. Yeah. I'm trying to like... So will you write these? Jam them and then send them to toast in and be like, write over this? Like, how does writing work with you guys? We do it in person.

Oh my God. Old school, I guess. The most new school fucking alien tech band of all time. Jam's old school. No, we don't like track it in like, okay, one, two, three, four. No, it's like definitely peace. in and like tracked in piece by piece. And but like we,

typically we start with a solid idea. And so that's basically what I've been doing is being like, okay, I need to have like a solid enough idea that this is like a song can kind of be based around this or there's like two or three parts, places that we're looking to go metrically. Where now this song can be in these, you know, different places,

but there's this skeleton that's the same for the five, for the seven, and like the 17 or something. Kind of like, so it's like a new version, like you said of what you've already been doing, like Monomith in my head has a lot of that where, correct me if I'm wrong,

where it's like, okay, well, here's the, yeah, and then later, right, even in that whole intro, you spin that a million times. Or you can feel it And then we take the 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3. And we make 3, 5, 3, 3, 3, 5

And then it, you know. So, yeah, you get these, you build these skeleton things and they can revert back to each other at different points in the song to make it one whole piece. Is it, does it, so Toesin doesn't hear these things

until you're in the room jamming. Yeah. And sometimes that's. crazy that's it makes it difficult but like i mean he's pretty good at being able to come up a something oh yeah he's the he's the he's the you like you are the perfect fit for that fucking band like you're both fucking freaks you're all three of you are fucking freaks yeah but i personally and obviously i've got smooth brain in comparison but like i couldn't comprehend like if the roles were reversed and then i go to a jam room it's and was like well i've got

this incredibly complex idea and it does this and it does this and does this does this man, I'd need to see that on a grid. But I think that's really cool. It must be how he comes up with such complimentary yet fucking weird parts. Yeah. He comes up with ideas too. Like it's definitely, it's not, you know, I'm probably, I don't know. Yeah, he usually comes with like a set of ideas.

He'll have like a set of strong riffs. And then from there, then it's like, okay. what shit have I been working on where I could take something that and based off of what he has and bring it to another place if we need to. Yeah. Or like what other...

Because that's kind of, it's motif-based writing. That's what it is. You have a motif and you're trying to, instead of things just being like, okay, well here's this verse and then the chorus sounds totally different and they're all different parts,

but they're in the same song. You know, that's less cool, I think, than having it, it's like having it in the same key, you know? Or if you're going to... You warp it. You warp the motif instead of like the normal thing

would just be to change the key. You're like, okay, no, actually this is the backbeat now. Yeah. Boom, new section. It's like modulating to another key, but in a cool way. Instead of just doing direct modulation, you know, we're doing it.

And now it sounds like metric modulation has got boring to you because you've completed it. And now you're finding. a new way to make it fucking even more complex. Yes or not. I don't know what to call it yet. Doesn't have a name.

No, I think it's still metric modulation because, or metric implication. Ooh, metric implication. Did you just coin that? Is that new? Yeah. It's more about like implying, like, there's, yeah, and sometimes you go straight for it,

but yeah, I'm also like playing with just implying other, levels or something. Did you ever get that Gavin Harrison book back in the day, rhythmic allusions? I did, but I didn't get through it. That was one of my first, like, the first thing that I realized the metric modulation stuff,

and I went through that whole book. I can only remember, like, maybe five of them now, but, like, that was eye-opening for me. Yeah. You ever meet him? No, not yet. He is, as you'd expect. I would expect him to be reserved, but like Zen.

Yeah. He requested... Particular and responsive, directly to what you said. He requested a different green room because we were sharing a green room together. I don't think, and he was very respectful about it, but like he definitely has his zen situation. We were both playing at a Zildren event and it was like, I think he needed his own space. We had the green room together.

He's very, very meticulous about these things. And I think he just politely requested a different green room. I'm pretty sure I was drinking beers and hanging out. He's like, I don't want this scraggly, I think that's what it was. Metal, rock guy. But yeah, absolute freak of a drama. I think actually, I think I just, I mess with his routine, if you know what I mean. You're like, drinking beer and burping.

Yeah, I think I messed with his routine. He wasn't happy. He was nice though. He was really nice. I'm sure he thought nothing of it, but I would love to see if it was like, to know if it was like a meltdown that I didn't know. I was like, what's up, Gavin, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like being all of it like this. It's a good.

It's okay, great. Yeah. Yeah, nice to meet you. And then like within fucking 20 minutes. It was like, yeah, we put you in a different room. I was like, oh, interesting. I think, and you know what, in my head I was like, maybe I like, maybe I moved his sticks off his practice pad at some point.

Yeah. I mean, that's pretty outrageous behavior from me, to be honest. But like, I don't know. I messed with the system. It wasn't very happy. I'm sure he's fine. I actually want to, there's something I would like to hear your thoughts on. Fuck, yeah.

It's the Matt Gasker show. Sorry. I want to know what you think about AI and whether it's whether it's good or oh you think it's good no no no no no I just been sick conversation yeah yeah what in terms of music oh I think it's abysmal

I think it's terrifying I think it's for I think it's giving access to the things that we have worked so hard and we sweat over and fucking ruins our lives as a life sentence, getting good at the instrument, learning to write songs, all this stuff. I think it's giving access to that to people that haven't put the work in to be able to just go to a prompt and go,

I want to make this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they feel accomplished like a musician. They put on Spotify and they make fucking shit loads of money. That's my opinion. I'm very against it. Yeah, I like that. For creative purposes. You?

Uh, yeah. I agree. Like, what you're touching on to me falls in the human rights category. It's like, because they can't utilize, they can't make AI creative without, or create, they can't have it produce this stuff without training data, which is humans. And so technically now they're stealing the intellectual property or licensing it in some way. And Suno has already been caught. like scrubbing YouTube and stuff

and basically stealing the intellectual property. So I think we need to, for AI in general, develop human rights for human intellectual property. Yeah. But beyond that, I think, yeah, it's making it very easy for people. And it's just doing what producers have been doing for like the last 20 years,

which is reproducing. just being like, oh, there's a hit and it's like some shuffle and, you know, it's got some old 80s thing to it. Oh, okay, let's just, yeah, we're going to steal that and we're going to try to do a hit based off of that. And just, so these people's jobs, I don't feel bad for these people. These people who have just made derivative crap and just like re kind of like hashed other stuff or just or just make like straight up trash.

And it's like, everyone's making it, though. You can dislike it, but a guy's still making it. Okay, so maybe I do feel bad because they're humans, right? Yeah. And so it's really about being able to make the decisions necessary to curate your own style. So that's where I'm kind of callous towards people who haven't done that process. I fully get what you're saying. They just are like, oh, I'm going to do this

CGDG progression. What I'm basically saying is that those people should be very afraid of AI. And so musicians, we've got to be like, we need to be creative

and dare to do something outside of the perfect lines of what genre are you in or what style or what bands are you emulating. It's like, Like, emulate your own sound that comes from within,

actually be creative and don't just, you know, rehash what everyone's done because AI is going to do that now. And so, you know, I'm imploring people to do that. And also at the same time, I'm like, you know, when you're working in a program and you're tuning the synth and, you know, I don't know, taking all this effort, to make it sound a certain way and put these elements together, like, that's what we could be missing out on,

if we're just allowing AI, even just to write parts or whatever. So it's going through that process. The happy accidents that happen as a human twiddling with knobs. I mean, I agree. I mean, I think we agree. We're on the same stance with this. And I do agree, a lot, particularly in metalcore,

a lot of bands, they just sound exactly the same. And, you know, it is often, you know, the producer helping that. But at the end of the day, the band is saying, we want to sound like this band. And then they go to the same producer so that they can sound like this band. Those guys are in trouble. My issue is like, like, what you're saying is like, yeah, we need to dare to be so outside of the box that AI isn't trained on what we do.

Correct. But the problem is the majority of. fucking music listeners, the majority of the music that pays the bills is the shit AI is going to be able to do. Yeah, and that's also a big problem because then, you know, we're as a culture accepting that degree of like McDonald's burger or patty. Exactly that. And also, I'm already hearing it.

How many, like, I implore everyone to just listen next time they're at. This is like another way we're just getting fucked. Next time they're at like a cafe or like McDonald's, maybe I don't know, but like the people that aren't paying their license to play radio, they're now using AI versions of popular songs because they don't have to pay the licensing. I saw a thing about that. In Europe, it's big. Oh, yeah.

I noticed it when we were in Europe. I was like, this is like Taylor Swift, but it's not Taylor Swift. And someone was like, yeah, it's AI. And I was like, oh, so they don't have to pay the fucking license for people. I think it was in the UK. In PRS, you have to pay. If you own a place that plays music publicly, you have to pay a license to PRS

so that they can then collect royalties on behalf of all of the artists that you've heard. It's how we all get fucking paid. And now they don't have to do that because AI is fucking doing it. They should have to pay everyone that they stole from. How do they, how do you believe that? How, how, oh, they, you need to have it so that the law say.

He need to figure it out. to be able to see their, what their training data is. And then you just split that. Well, that's the thing, is that they need hundreds, if not thousands, or tens of thousands of examples to be able to create this stuff.

Human examples, by the way. So now you've got to pay royalties to 10,000 people because that's what it took to produce this AI. piece of music. And so now what we're getting one 10,000th of a cent for... It's like Spotify on it on fucking crack.

Yeah, exactly. We need to make laws that protect humans that we're far behind on this right now. I think we're fucked. I honestly just think we're fucked. Like I can't see them even being... That's what I'm saying.

You got to make infrastructure for that. You got to make new music. You got to be creative. Start being creative, musicians, stop playing four on the floor. Or like, stop playing the, playing the, the, that's the shit that's going to make you money. Everyone. Go into my world of insane, I mean, I'm with you.

I don't listen to fucking normal person music. I just don't. I like the weird shit. However, as humans and musicians, we have many contemporaries that rely on that dog shit for they're living and they're going to get fucked we're going to get fucked we're we're all going to get fuck i will say this about a i like oh i've got a conspiracy as well i don't know if it's a real life conspiracy and it already exists but this is my conspiracy about ai i think they have deliberately trained it on the arts first music art blah blah blah so that it will make those

jobs obsolete so that people will not do those jobs because they want more people to be doing the other work for the man instead of being free and making music. If you're good at music, there was a hot period where you could make a lot of money and now everyone you ask any kid what they want to be. I mean, number one is probably YouTuber, but number two is something creative. No one's, no one's going like, no one's even going. don't want to be an astronaut anymore. They're like,

oh, I want to be Logan Paul. So I think they're going for, they're going to destroy creative jobs. So all companies are using Sora for their video and they're using just AI. We need to make a pamphlet for something.

Do you want to pay the illustrator? No, we'll just get AI to do it. So that those jobs become obsolete so there's more people to do the drone work. Right. That's my fear. I can see that. When AI should really be doing the drone work.

Right. That's what we should have it doing first. It should be replacing, like, the, sorry, the doctors who are, like, looking at the X-ray because it can spot and save lives. Yeah, there's some good here. That should be the, or taking, like, the accounting jobs. Because, like, do we really want humans, like, doing those jobs? I'm sure they would rather be doing something else.

And also, a machine, I mean, other than, like, You see the thing where chat GPT doesn't know how to spell strawberry. If you ask chat GPT how to spell strawberry every single time, it says there are. No, you say how many R's in strawberry? And it says there's two. And no matter what you do, you cannot get it to say three, because it's trained on the Google search, how many R's are in strawberry?

And almost everyone's intention when they Google that is they want to know, is there two at the end? in berry. Because it's been trained on so many incorrect searches, it's like, there's two,

there's two things in strawberry. So like, it's also the hands on a clock. I couldn't get it to not be like this, like at 10 and 2, because most watch advertisements, that's the way it looks best. So it literally can't change the hands.

Wait, what were you using it for? It's trying to come up with some sort of, time bender or mastering time logo or something. Oh, so you used it for art? Yeah, I was trying. I was trying. You just said you fucking hate it.

And you're like, I want to pay a fucking artist. I use AI for that. Correct. Come on, brother. Yeah, I was definitely looking into it. But I got rid of it because I'm like, what am I using this for? This is like a glorified Google search.

Like pretty much everything. Although we are musicians, the fucking illustrators are our brothers. and sisters too. That's true. They're getting, they're getting fucked probably more than us right now. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Absolutely fucked. One thing real quick, I think it might be more likely if there is a conspiracy that they know that if they were to be like immediately like, oh yeah, all you doctors and accountants are losing your job because AI is going to replace them. Like people would freak or people would flip and people would be like, oh, we need human rights, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you go after the arts first, you go after

broke musicians and artists, been trod on the whole life, been trod on the whole life. That's how we're, and people will, they'll ask for it, actually. They'll be like, yeah, I would love to have an AI assistant in my Logic Pro thing so it could just write the thing for me, please. And they're asking for it. They'll pay for it. I despise it for creative stuff, despise it. I do, like you said, I think it's a human rights fucking violation and it is and it's stealing. But like,

I can also see the benefit of it for like menial tasks. I think if it was just used to alleviate banal tasks from humans

so they could be more creative. Yes. And they could enjoy their lives more, it would be fucking great, but it's fucking not. Like, I have used it. A couple of times I used it. Not for creative. That's why I fucking did it.

Not for creative stuff, though. I was getting a, I got a new car and I wanted to know what the best deal in the country was for the new car. And I googled it and it was a bunch of fucking things. There was so many fucking Google searches. You're like this, I'm going to waste an hour of my life. So I asked chat, GPT. for the best fucking deal. And people will...

This is the other thing. And I do think these people are right. People will be so annoyed that I use chat GPT there. And it's like my... I think for menial tasks, it's quite good. I don't know about the economic impact

or any of that fucking shit. I don't use it every fucking day. Or saving lives, you know, like in the medical industry or like creating proteins that have never been discovered before. Searching through a fucking genome to fight like that shit.

Fucking do it all day. Yeah. My blanket statement is like if it can be used to help someone alleviate some of the downward pressure from the man, then I'm all for it. Prime example, getting fucked at car dealerships. So I chat GPTs, what is the best deal for this car with this many miles and this year in the world? Like what is the best deal that you can possibly get? and it came up with one manager special in fucking Long Beach, California,

and it was like a website, you couldn't even get to from the official website. It was just a manager special that was like an email thing. It was like the end of the year. They're getting rid of all these cars. So then I then went into a car leadership. I was like, I'm looking at this car, blah, blah, blah. They said, this is the best deal that we can do.

And I was like, well, what about this deal in Long Beach, blah, blah, blah. And they were like pretty stumped. I don't know how they're coming up with that figure. That's crazy. And I was like, well, I could just go to them and get them to ship it to me because it's so much, it's like half the price. It's so much cheaper.

They ended up fucking doing it. Chapit, maybe? They shipped it to you? No, the people were like, the dealership phones the other place and were like, are you doing this deal? And they were like, yeah, okay. And then they did it.

I didn't tell them chat GPT was involved. But for stuff like that, I'm like, okay, like fucking go for it. I don't know about the economic things. Get it out. with creative shit. Get it fucking gone. Yeah.

Please. I'm terrified of it. Yeah. I agree. I agree. I would... Where's your line, though? Okay.

I'm going to give you an example. Because I don't know where I stand on this. So, like, you know, editing drums. Let's assume you edit your drums to the grid, which I'm sure you don't. But let's assume you track something and whoever wanted it edited to the grid. I know beat detective exists on Pro Tools, but it's very far. flawed. A.I. Beat detective? Is that you using that? I don't know where I stand on that because I would normally pay a drum editor to do that. I massage stuff. So, um, and with animals,

they really, they're, they want like almost, they're, they would probably not notice if it was 100% quantized and they want it more like that. but person I have to fight to be like, no, there's a level of natural feel and fluctuation that makes it more like a river flowing. Yeah. That is better in my opinion, partially because now we have identity attached to it and some, this human element, as opposed to sounding like everyone else. So I'm not, I'm not against people using it. or quantizing the drums or using, you know, the plug-in or whatever.

But like, the more that we do that and the more that everyone makes the same choices and is going for the same aesthetic, the less we're actually making art. So, you know, you said get it out of the arts. It's like, what about people who are not artistic who are in the arts? They're simply making derivative bullshit or just making choices. is that everyone else is making and they're like, I want to just sound like this other band. So, I don't know.

I think... So would you click the button or not? Would you click the button? If... I would not... I would try to keep it as human as absolutely possible. And maybe some of the... Some mistakes are something I would leave in there.

What about from a moral level, though? If they say you're not you and you're not making animals as leaders and the artist you're working with wants it fully gridded... I probably wouldn't work with them. Nice answer. Yeah.

What a fucking good answer. I'm like on two, I'm, I've got, I'm like, because normally I would pay a guy to fucking edit my drums if I want edited drums. So I'm like, would I actually, if I click the button? In fact, no, I've answered my own question. There is an AI multi-cam switcher on DaVinci Resolve now for podcasts, and it automatically switches based on who is talking. And I refuse to use it because Simon R.E.

editor relies on this money and I don't want to take that money out of his pocket. So actually I've answered my own fucking question. I'm for the people. But Simon, you know, pick it up, bro.

You better be sprucing up some stuff. You have to fucking pick it up. Hold on to your job. Yeah, they're coming for you. But there's shit like that though. You don't think about that. It's like, I can, I could say it's all about creative shit,

but like editors, their fucking job, what are they going to do? Fucking sucks. Yeah. I can talk about it all day. You're going to have to make more creative choices. At some point it's going to come to a head where a society essentially ends up with so many jobs to replace that.

Now we have to, like, impose some sort of universal basic income or something. You would hope. What I think we should be doing is taxing the hell out of AI anytime it's being used so that those proceeds go to supporting humans. It goes to a universal basic income For the creatives that it's stolen off Fund or whatever Yes, exactly For the fucking great idea

Yeah They'll never do it But it's great It's the best solution That is the best solution I heard It is fucking I thought of it

I'm like this would This would work It's so annoying That like our generation How old are you? 36 Yeah I'm 308 So we're the same

We got fucked We're like The first generation of musicians to get truly fucked by Spotify and all that shit. And now we're also living at the tail end of our careers. COVID wasn't enough. Oh yeah, sorry, COVID in the middle. So we had the Napster Spotify thing.

Fucked us. Still reeling from that. COVID in the middle, fucked. And then now, as we're reaching our twilight, it's like AI is just going to fucking annihilate us. Yeah. But true artists will persevere. It might be in the AI slopocalypse, fucking 50 years from now.

People remember Matt Garska. Hopefully you're still alive in 50 years. I'll say 100 years. Remember Matt Garska. One of the last true human musicians. Yeah. We two robots talking to each other at that point. They could, yeah, exactly.

Or they could have me playing, like, you know, all the covers. They could AI video me playing the worst covers and, Oh yeah, shit. Yeah, I saw you playing with them. Okay, so speaking of being more creative and, you know, not letting machines do anything for you and just generally being more human, you've got a drum plug-in. Yeah.

So do I. Correct. Dog on AI and fake shit, but we both got plugins. Which is one of the gripes that I've come up with now. I just come up with them apparently. Like machine. What's your new grime? It's when people like compressed the hell out of it's so much that it's like,

this doesn't even sound like my drums anymore. Oh, and your plug-in? Yeah, you're annoyed of people's mixes? A little bit, yeah. It's like so compressed that it squashes like so much of the tone where I'm like, it sounds like it could be any like new, gentie thing because it's like, that's the sound. But that's because you gave them the option with the plugin. I can do what they want.

I know. I know. You regret it. You regret it? No. No, no, I think far more good as being done. And there's also like the MIDI pack, which is sick. And the way that that should be presented is through the kit. Having my kit fully sampled has been actually really helpful in the writing process.

With like doing my own thing or with Victoria, with animals, we've got full mic set up now. So I do real kit on the demos, which is sick. Definitely gives more character. But yeah, no, I'm not regretting. I think it's, I think it's sick that anyone can have my kit, basically. Did you find... No regrets. Did you find...

No regrets. No regrets. Did you find the actual sampling or the grooves more difficult and or annoying? The sampling was tedious. But I was like, I'm going to focus on every tiny... I'm like, I'm going to put. it's much effort into and by the end I was like

okay this is this is kind of shot yeah yeah as much as I can try to be into it I think like how many days did you do because yours is fucking seven yeah yours is two sets of heads yeah massive kit

two kicks five snares yeah I did and this is the annoying thing I actually did I did four snares and two kicks and then they didn't use them so I could have shaved a fucking day off there because we ended up going the Wonka Wonder route. So it was only, I like shoe horned.

I was like, we did four snares. I like, you can't make me pick between, like, pick one of these snares because we deliberately tuned like what, too low and too high. So just give me two. But like there is, I went into it like you, maybe first three days. I was like, this is actually kind of good for my playing because like I'm guessing what velocity this is going to be and I'm nailing it. This must be really good for my like,

knowledge of how hard I'm going to hit the drums and then day four comes around I'm like I want to go home this is fucking crazy yeah it's the the the the MIDI pack was fun but it did it took a while how long did yours take

how long did you need that month right oh bro maybe two yeah maybe two because I was also did you clean yours up I did it myself I was like don't you guys don't have the black belt and dotted quintuplets because i did have some stuff like that in there yeah your group back's fucking crazy do um i like i ours came out quite close to each other but

i do i do like i really don't think there's any stepping on each other's toes the two completely different fucking products two completely different grooves backs two different sounds yeah yeah yeah the grooves were first like i don't know i don't know if i know 300 Like eventually I did fucking know it. But like, it's kind of hard to like, the way they ask for it in a song. So like, or at least it did for me, you know, right? You can make us whatever it was. 15 songs were 20 parts.

Oh, like, yeah, like 10 parts for a verse. Yeah. Kind of variation, 10 to 15 variations on a verse and then same on a chorus. And I was like second guessing myself with like, okay, well, like the minute, the midi is in there and I see where it is off. the grid and I'll be like I could just press Q there was a lot of that

I think a lot of the time was me was the clean up where I'm like going through it and I'm like but I don't know how that's going to sound with the guitar that sounds good right now and it's not on the grid but what if someone goes to play it blah blah blah so I think I was like you got to kind of air on a set of caution and quantize a little more

because they might also take the tempo way down too and then their project's at 90 instead of one 15 or something, you know. I did notice that with mine. I don't get annoyed by people's mixes because mine is like the mix it comes with

is like the mix you get. It's not like as outputted and intricate as your one. But like the only thing I did notice with a couple of people's play through as well, I was like, my brother in Christ, that song was written at 150 and you've written a song at 200

with those parts. Like no one's going to be able to play that. Yeah. But guitar players love them. That's still got paid. They loved it. That's one of

their favorite things to do. Yeah. Hey, I wrote some insane drum part because,

you know, I thought the guitars, you know, writing more interesting on the guitars just wasn't cutting it for me. So I wanted to do your job

for you and here it is. Exactly. And you think you're comfortable at this tempo. It's 30 BPM more. Enjoy. But now you've got a plug in

to give people to come up with your shit. I'm quite, I would like to see Because I haven't worked with anyone yet I would like to see Like if before we start working together

I can be like can I give you my plugin And then see if they can build some shit out of Grooves I already fucking know Yeah Be very fucking easy Yeah Oh yeah you can That's what you should be doing

Basically is like Like having a Catalog Yeah I would do it again I think I would do it again I think I would do a midi pack again, but like, I need some time.

Yeah, same. I need like 18 months. And I'll be like, I'll do another midi pack. I can't fucking do. Because yours is like, do you ever get worried that it's just too big brain for people? Like someone, some mad guitarist will write a cool Animals as Leaders style album with your shit. Who the fuck they're going to get to play it? A lot of people don't have, you know, a lot of people are doing.

bedroom thing where there it's one person and it's sounds like a band but it's one person you but if they want money kind of started that you but if they want money with ai they're going to have to go on the road that's the thing i i eventually i had this chat with mark morton from lamb of god and he had a more of uh admittedly he's quite removed he deliberately removes himself from like technological discourse but he was like well i went to a show last week with 50 people in it and my cousin or something played and like everyone loved it. Like that's never going to go away. A or he's never going to take that way.

No. My counterpoint to that was like, yeah, but less people, not that people start doing music to play, to make money, but like less people will be musicians because their parents or whatever. We're like, well, that's not a job anymore. So you won't get the support. So I feel like it will go away a little bit. You can't remove the live experience,

but we're going to get less musicians, 100%. Yeah. Less real musicians. We're back on fucking AI. Yeah, it's going to be like, it's going to be rich kids that can afford all the gear

and the drum lessons. That's the thing. The thought of a businessman that's never played an instrument being able to go and write animals as leaders style, gent.

Oh, I did it. You did it? I got Suno. This motherfucker been using all the shit. Well, I know. I want to see what it's about. I want to, because, like, Tosin.

No, your enemy, brother. Tosin be talking some shit. He'd be like, man, this is going to take over, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, dude, machine. Yeah, I think he likes the idea. You want that on camera? You want that on camera? You want me to edit that?

No, I'm going to out him. You guys let him out. Fuck. No, I'm against it because I'm like, I don't think that AI is simulating like real thought or genuine like I don't know it's not it's not a person it's like a massive collection it's a soup that's what ends up happening

so that's why I'm like being individual be unique you know because that's what AI is going to really struggle with but yeah I did I got Suno and I was like play animals as lead give me animals as leaders an odd time with metric modulation at this BPM or whatever it can't do the BPM

like it won't, if, with that problem. Did it sound anything like you? No. It sounded like Archieco. That's what it sounded like. Everything was in four. It just was giving the illusion of having some sort of polyrhythmic thing happening, but it wasn't polyrhythms.

And it just couldn't do odd time. It maybe did one. It did like a thing in five or something. So you are AI-proof for now. For now. But metal core and stuff isn't this? many bands on Spotify right now. And I see people actually like gassing it up and being like, you know, I don't really care. I don't care. This is what I hate about the most about everything.

The most about everything in the arts. The same people that have no problem with people faking their drum play throughs. This, this mentality is what I think is wrong with the music industry. I don't care how the sausage gets made. Those sorts of people. Yeah. Like, drives me crazy. I don't care I'm going to listen to it anyway because I like it you're not going to have anything left to like

it's going to go away they won't be able to train it and it's going to start training itself on itself and then we're going to get like music yeah I don't know if I could say any

on that Simon Cyborg some sort of cyborg in cyborg cyborg cess There's going to be... Oh, fuck.

I mean, it's something insane. Exchuous. That's not... Necessarily. But it's an... Yes. Yeah, we've got to stop saying... I think it just gets flagged.

Rightly so. What are you doing, step computer? What music are you making step computer? I'm just writing some backdoor algorithms to steal your downbeats. Okay. I feel bad. Why do you feel bad?

Because you're just asking me questions, you know. It's my fucking podcast. Sorry. I do what I want. Do you want to ask me a question? People have been doing that a lot lately, actually. All I had was the AI thing. And I don't know, I'm working out.

I'd go to the gym. I'm doing min-max training at the moment. So I'm doing... What's that? Sets a 6-8 high intensity. It's exhausted. It's kind of fun though because I'm in and out in like 45 minutes

But it's like And I've been doing volume training for so long Where I'm doing three sets of 15 And stuff like that And then now I'm doing two sets of six to eight With like big warmups And it's kind of fun to throw heavy weights around Like I'm doing that pull downs

That are like 35 pounds heavier than me So when I finish the set It takes me up with it It's kind of awesome I'm doing my lap pull downs at like 2.25 now. And it's like once I finish that eighth rep, I just let go and I just go, it's kind of sad.

It's fun. But I see that's what I've been doing. My New Year's resolution other than getting good at the drums is to eat more. Last year I just didn't eat enough for training. I kind of stagnated. It was kind of like an accident. Are you counting macros? No, I used to.

I'm airing more on the side of this year where I'd rather just be in a surplus. I don't really care. Like, I really want to gain something. Yeah. I know naturally my metabolism. If I'm playing the drums three or four times a week and I'm going to the gym five times a week,

3,000 calories is like... It's not going to cut it. Yeah, I'll lose weight. So I'm trying... It's a dirty bulk? No, I'm trying to do... Dirty boy? Around three, two, but I like I know pretty much.

I eat the same bread. breakfast, lunch, post-workout shake. I know exactly that's on 16,100 calories there. You told me you're doing big carbs. Used to. Yeah. We used to do 500 grams of carbs. And I'd play.

Well, that was when I was counting calories. And I'd play great and I'd fucking feel great. And I'd look more shredded. I find it hard in America to get clean carbs. Yeah. Like I hate it. Like bread. Your bread sucks.

Yeah. It does. I quite like bread. but not here. Not a big fan. It's a bit sugary. I should really count shit, but I'm also like kind of enjoying

freestyling dinner. I'll have pretty autistic like breakfast and lunch, post-workout meal, pre-workout, like all of that stuff is pretty regimented. And then dinner, I'm like, I kind of want to just do whatever. Yeah, that makes sense.

Are you counting at the moment? That's the one. What are you on? I'm about, well, I want. was 2,800, which was just constantly kind of losing me weight. Now I'm like around 3,000, which I'm starting to even out a bit. But yeah, I kind of need to get my food up. That's kind of, that's always my issue. It's drumming. A strumming bar. And you've got to kind

of scale based on that. Like if you don't play for a day or two, because like, you know, I was at my brother's wedding this weekend it's like yeah I was much less active yeah so I under eight but like you know how much did like it probably evened out it's really like I really didn't realize how many calories playing the drums actually burns and I don't think has anyone done a real test that isn't like a fit bit thing do you do that thing with that lady did yep Dr. Nadia what was that that fucking channel rules how much did you burn in the show do you remember oh shoot I don't. It heavily depends on how hard you're going to. Because like for the majority of that, I was like, I'm going to just kind of play the show as

it. I'm not going to go super hard. And there's one tune I did go super hard on. And I was like, this one, I'm going to have it as a stand. It's kind of the easy one. I'm going to go super hard on. And that's the one that I burn the most calories on. So you deliberately went harder because it was easier? Right. But somehow I burned the most calories on that one. because my heart was like, I was putting the most effort and I was probably hitting the most decibels.

That's probably the realest way to, actually, I don't know, yeah. 819 calories in one show. Yeah. And that's like an 86 minute show. Obviously you're going pretty hard. I was going like medium. You were medium.

So then how, and you're practicing, what I'm assuming, like three, four hours a day when you practice. Right now it's three. Yeah. That's a thousand fucking calories.

Yeah. We got to eat. I know. Yeah. So much. And I, holy shit. I definitely play better when I'm like fully fucking carved up,

but it's like, it's really hard to do cleanly. So hard to do. Do you, do drink, I've been drinking like coconut water or pineapple juice, like in, in the middle of my playing, basically. Like when I do 20 minutes a lot and then it's like, okay, next subject, I'll go up in eight ounces. Is that a bit of sugar or? Basically, yeah.

Cleanish sugar. Cleanish carbs. Keep me kind of going because I almost like to be in a fat. I just don't like playing on a fat. full stomach. Yeah. Or even like digesting food. So it creates kind of that vibe of fasting, but you get the carbs.

And so you get a little energy burst, but it's like going for a walk after a meal. You know, so I'm like drinking it. And then I'm playing drums immediately. So I figure I'm burning it and using it and, you know, getting injected into the muscle via insulin. I do notice when I do take a little step away from a practice and have a little snack or some carbs. I always come back and I'm much better.

But I don't ever... It's hard. In an ideal world, I would just be fully stocked at all times. The rate that we play, like you said, changes. So it's almost impossible to count the calories on that. Fitbits and all that shit.

It just don't fucking work. Yeah. Okay. You know what a blind ranking is? No. I'm going to say 10 things and you're going to rank them from 1 to 10. But you don't know what I'm going to say.

next. I don't know if I can remember 10 things. No, I'm going to say them one at a time. Okay. And what they are is animals as leaders songs, right? What we're trying to do is a rank in order of difficulty. So number one is the hardest. This is going to be easy. Number 10, only if I say the right songs. And number 10 is going to be the, a song that's very easy to you. And number one is a song that's very hard to you. And I've got 10 of your songs. So I'm going to say one and you're going to have the blind rank where it goes. But you don't know what I'm going to say But you do know what I have already said

Don't even don't even fucking say it Don't even say it, I'm going to go And at the end you can tell me if I missed one Okay Okay, arithmophobia from the madness of many Uh, six Six, not too hard, not Seven, seven, that's seven

Seven, seven, that's seven, seven, pretty easy for you. Um, okay Monomith from pauletia. Number one, number one, that's the hardest one. Mm-hmm. It's because my feet aren't like, like cleanly. And then to modulate that.

Yeah. Yeah, that intro when it comes in, bro, I fucking love that album so much. So much. But that song, when it comes in and I'm like, oh, yeah. And then it goes, oh, there, the fucking flip. I thought that might be number one. The kicks are crazy. The modulation's crazy.

I can't even say this word. Back fiefing schicht. Back fiefing gizished. Okay. What does that mean? It means a face badly in need of a slap. So awesome. That's number two.

That's number two. I'm so good at this. I should have done these in reverse order because I feel like I wrote them in what I think is hardest. Okay, that's number two. It's got that fucking mental kick drum pattern in it. Yeah, it's very difficult. I feel like that song,

maybe that song and maybe ecto fucking, I mean, put it on the list, what's ecto, don't even tell me what ectogenesis. But I feel like either that, that song, back, what's it, back, feluc, back fifeng gizish, back, phyphenggish. That's at 125 BPM and ecto is 118. But I feel like those two is like you doing a sequel to the woven web,

the woven web, that section. Yeah, kind of. fucking nuts. You were like to the woven web. Because when woven web came out, everyone shit. That one section, everyone shit their fucking pants.

And it's almost like those two songs you went to yourself. Hold my beer. Let me just fucking do it again. Okay, physical education. 10. 10, I thought it might be 10. Easiest one. Everyone wants to cover that one.

It's easy. It's a fucking such a great song. I love it, yeah. It's so happy. Yeah. You know what it reminds me? At first I was like, nah, I was like, man, this is like pop. I was like kind of like, dang, man.

When you heard it? Yeah. Oh, that's interesting, because that's your first album with the band. Yeah. Did you? I've totally flipped now. And now you're into it. Yeah.

Were those songs, I never really asked you before, were those songs already written when you joined? No. It depends on the tune. That tune, he had that main riff. Yeah. And him and Hav wrote with Diego, Ferius, who was in volumes. Oh, really?

Yeah. Didn't know that. RIP passed. No fucking way. Yeah. Oh, that's sad. There was other tune. Yeah, a lot of them he wrote with Misha.

And then you came in and just put your thang on it. Yeah. Nice. And in that one, you were like, this is too poppy at the time. Did you have that sort of, I'm the new guy? I can't really speak up. Was that like in your head that was too poppy? Or did you come in and go?

No, I... Yeah, of course I said that. I just... I go for it. We're the same. We're the same, you and I. Just joined a band. I joined a band once and fired their manager immediately

because their manager had hired me to join the band a session work and he overpaid the fuck out of me. And then when I joined... The band was like, I gave them the bill for the tours. And they were like, this is really big. And I was like, yeah, your manager okay did it. and then we're like oh fuck i don't know we can pay this and i was like well i'd probably join the band if you wanted me to and i'll give you you you know pay me half of it and i'll just join

the band i'll be in the band from now on but the first thing we've got to do is fire that manor because you shouldn't have fucking paid me this much i joined the band and fired the manager immediately but paying myself too much legendary business call me fucking dragon dragon tank that's shark tank and dragon's den okay uh waver and web six it's a six at the time what was it It was, I think, the hardest one. Yeah. At the time, it was the hardest one. That kick-trop pattern is...

It's nuts. Iconic. Yeah. That was Tosan. Tosan, he pieced it together with Misha. Apparently, Misha was like... And then you had to learn it? Yeah.

Oh, that sucks. In my head, I was like, okay, maybe this was some pattern that you were working on. You already knew. Oh, no. It's always worse the other way around. It's better for you. I wouldn't have come up with it, though. that I'd I don't know my head wasn't there then it's no way I can come up with that

is it cool to look back and be like look at where you were which is now to you you know probably it's I assume quite primitive to where you are now yeah it's like for instance the woven web is easy now that's an easy tune to play and like any night anytime I can I can play that kid. But there was a, of the first few tours, it was like, dude, this is hard. Like, I've got to do all this work to be able to play this thing every night. It's like I've got, it's like, it's like work being like practice backstage. Yeah. Yeah. More have the nice lavish warm up and stay, stay in shape on tour, you still have a lavish warm up. Uh, in the beginning of the tour. But then it's like, yeah, it's just there, there's a certain point

where you get tired and where, where it's sometimes going on stage. Like fresh is like sick because all your energy, everything, you're like, you can go, you can just dump, energy dump. I like doing that. The problem of other minds from Paris, never. Nine. Nine. Yeah. Okay.

It's got that really, the reason I put that in there is because it's very dynamic. It's got that sort of fucking. That's my stuff that. I like this soft stuff, man. and sometimes loud but mostly soft, you know. He's sounding like Michael Jackson. In Mike Tavern. Oh, he's sounded like Mike Jackson.

It's got that Tom Stabby thing. That's why I put that in there, actually. Maybe it's on a stack and the Tom's. That thing. That's easy? Yeah, it's all pretty easy. Pop that on a nine, okay. Gordian Nort from the Joy of Motion.

That would be five. Five? You've only got five left. You can't swap anything. Has to be. Five, yeah. No, I've got three and four. Yeah, what's difficult about that?

Because five is quite high. The stamina, for some reason, I like to go hard on that one. And there's a lot of left hand. A real swinging section in it in the middle as well. That is difficult. The double base, the double bass, For some reason, that gets a little wily sometimes live.

Interesting. And so it's like, yeah, my double bass, like the, I'm hitting crashes on, like where the crashes are in relation to the kicks doesn't always line up right and left and stuff. And I don't know. Deceptively tricky. Tooth and claw, parisia. Eight. Eight.

Easy. Yeah. Fast as fuck, boy? There's some speedy little fills in that one. That was an easy eight. That's our first tune for a reason on like almost all sets. Yeah, it's a nice warm-up. Do you find the unison kick and hands thing as a good warm-up?

Because it's got some of that. Been doing more and more of that, yeah. Started in, I haven't even got that on the list, but I think Cascades got a lot of that in it, isn't it? Where you were going like this and the hands follow the feet. Cascade got that? Some of that, yeah. Yeah, and builds. That's a real weakness of mine doing that without clamming.

Yeah. Sometimes I accidentally comes out like a split linear, though, and I'm like, you are meant to do that. Matt Greiner is really good at that. His unisons are like unisoned. It's like quantized. He's a fucking freak. He does that a lot. Ectogenesis, do you want to re-up on what you've got left?

You've got three, you've got four. And I've got... You've got three and four left. Ecto would be three. Ecto is going three. Yeah. Anything particularly difficult? Well, the kick.

Diggigdika, do-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-ggd-d-ggdeggd-d-d-d-ggdeggdeggdeggdeggdeggdeggdegg. Going from triplets to 16s, sept-toplis to 16s. Well, triplets, dotted fours into, so it's dig-d-d-d-d-d-d-deggd-d-d-d-d-d- into 30-second. into 30 seconds is like that's hard and then I do a lot of like improvised stack stuff there's a solo in there the solo is at 118 is the solo different every night oh yeah it's so cool so it's like I got mostly it's 30 seconds it's do do do do do do do it's a 16th pattern so basically I got to go 30 seconds and so that's pretty burning to improvise over that and doing like gospel chops type stuff if I did

double bass it'd be easy but yeah there's a lot of improvised like stack like I don't know just little things that so I'm pretty much on like mentally pretty hard that whole tune interesting okay last one

red miso number four yeah number four is it dude I would I think I would stick with stick with a ranking yeah maybe switch

ecto and miso because I don't know no ecto's harder red miso it's just that dude dude That gets nutty. You got the blast beat with the accents throughout it as well.

Sounds like maybe you're doing sevens as a blast. But I think it's the left-hand accents there. You can only really notice that on the live video. It's triplets. Is it triplets? It's triplets. Well, where's the accent? On the record.

Get it, get it, get it, get it. So it's groups of four. And it's starting on, like, probably what's the end of one? And the group? The accents of the group of four. Because you accent it, and it's only visible in the live video, in one of your minor play-throughs of it. In that blast beat, there's accents on the left hand.

Yep. On the record, you kind of got fucked by it. I don't know if you just didn't do it. Because they replaced shit. They fucking, they want to do that so badly, or they just need to, because they don't know how to mix real drums properly. They don't understand what you were trying to do.

Probably just thought it was like, oh, he's hitting these ones a little bit lighter. Let's just flatten it out. But on the playthrough that you do of it, you do do an accent through the left hand. It's fucking bloody gorgeous. I do remember you saying maybe it was you. Maybe it was actually Nollie.

Someone's unhappy with the Joy of Motion mix. Yeah, I think Nali could, he thinks he could do it better now. Do you, that's the feeling he has. Yes, I think he could make it more natural. It's not that natural? It sounds pretty natural. It's not. It's just cleverly done.

I think maybe it's the dryness of your symbols that makes it sound like, okay, this is happening right now. My truly natural drum sound is on the Victoria stuff. Okay. And then, is that just through choice, or are you, mixing it or is? No, it's just because I don't want samples. Parisia's got some sampled. And with animals they really

like are like they will basically go to whatever lengths to make that not so. Okay. I do see the point though because I assuming Madison many has less samples than Parisia. Yes.

Okay. It has zero samples. Okay. Right, Madison, man. And you prefer that mix to Parisia. The drums sound more natural. The drum mix could have been better. As a listener, and this is me, I'm going in on, I'm coming into the sample club a little bit.

Yep. I do love the way Parisia just slaps. Like, I don't care if there's some songs there. Like, the mix fucking hits you in the fucking face. Yeah. But I understand as an artist, You're like, you flattened out my fucking accents, motherfucker. And put samples on it, which is like, okay, now, you know.

Yeah. So there's a level of, like, in the playthrus, you can probably hear, which there wasn't a ton of time spent on those mixes. Like the mixes from Parisia, it took like nine months or something like that, maybe even a year. The mix on the playthrues is fucking crazy. Yeah. that if we spent that much time on real drums without samples and like a crazy amount of automation

and compression I think I think we could get close to that but yeah all in all I think preys is probably right now sitting at the best mix yeah okay uh what's next are you doing another album it's been four years bro give me another one it's been five years yeah it's been four years yeah came out early 2022 because I remember when it came out yeah same sort of beginning in the year as immutable Meshugger. I fucking, they're the only two albums I listen to, I reckon all of 2020,

just those two. Yeah. Speaking of fucking mixes. Have you heard the rematch, I hate, I hate a remaster normally. I don't mind a remix if something really needed a remix. Have you heard the remastered immutable,

Musugger? No. They remastered it like a fucking year after it came out. were unhappy about it? I started to. It's great. Yeah. Fucking love it.

Okay, so what's next? Are you, how much has been written? Can you tell me? Probably five, six tunes, but they're not, they're not fully fleshed out. They're like, they're demos. But like pretty much we have the parts. It's just a matter of finessing the arrangements and, you know. Is there a time limit on it?

Or you're just fucking putting it out when you put it out? No, no. We don't like to put a time limit on it. But I think there's a point where Toeson really doesn't want to put a time limit on it. But I think there's a level we get to where it's like, okay, we got to let's start grinding. Yeah. It'll be four years if you release it this year. It'll be five years if it's next year.

Obviously your music is slightly harder than the average album to make. Yeah, it'll probably be the end of this year if we're lucky, but probably next year. Five years between albums. Yeah, just because, I don't know. Yeah, we've got a tour in all of April and May. I'm going right in February and March. April and May, where's that? It's all over the U.S. with Sativai.

Oh, fuck, yeah. Are you doing Nashville? Yep. Fuck, yeah. I can't fucking wait. That's awesome. Yeah, that'll be fun. I'm stoked because it's been so long since we've done a Nashville show.

I'm like, yes, we've got to play Nashville. Is it Brooklyn Bowl? Where is it? I didn't even know where you guys play in the U.S. You don't know. I don't know either. You just want to do the fucking thing. I'd love to get toson in here.

Maybe I'll hit him up. Yeah? I don't know if he does extracurricular things. I want to talk to him about that fucking guitar. I don't, yeah, if he's, if he's. Which one, Ibane has one. Oh, yeah. They did him dirty.

I couldn't believe it. I saw it yesterday. It's egregious. It's so, so clearly stolen that. the time. You know what sucks the most about it? I mean, obviously the fucking intellectual theft sucks the most about it. But like, the fact they've obviously given it to a million creators who just make guitar

videos online. And like, I get it. You got a grind. Like right now I don't have a band. I'm a fucking content guy. But like, and the creators are like ignoring the fact that this is blatant theft. And they're like, I've been like, just released. this new guitar. It's perfect for fucking progressive

music when they really should be using their platform to go, Ibanez released this guitar. It sucks. They stole the fucking design from Tosin. Like, obviously, you can't speak for him, but that shit's crazy. Yeah. It's, I think it's wild

because there's copyrights you can have on headstocks, but not on the body. And so, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know it's going to come down to, but there's obviously more to the theft than just that. Do you know what it reminds me of? I wonder what your thoughts are on this without throwing any of your companies under the bus,

because it would also throw mine under the bus, the clap stack? Yeah, that's a tough one because, well, not really for me. I think people have been using stacks forever. But the specific curved one? The specific curved one, yeah. To me, that's the same as the tocing thing. Or like I was with Minel when they copied it And I said I think this sucks

It's a very particular process Yeah It's like it's It's fucking copied it yeah It's fucking Trevor's thing Yeah But what can you do Other than

Do you know what I actually did The use of the drumsticks In a pentagram Guess who owns the copyright Who? You? Nice I did it ages ago

I did it when some guy Actually started a podcast And he also had drumsticks In a pentagram And I hit him up on the side was like bro you can't do that as a big drummer i was like bro you can't be doing that i've already got my fucking dick and he was like oh my bad and he changed it which was fine but like at that moment i was like it's gonna be a matter of mere years before there's like a metal line

from some company symbols sticks whatever and they've got those drumsticks pentagram oh there ain't because the minute it happens i'm gonna go i'm gonna wait i planned it out wait yeah wait so you can I'm going to go. I'm going to wait. I'll let them sell loads. Stick bags, a bunch of shit. And I'm going to go. Convierre your passion in a business with Shopify. And bathe records of ventas with the form of pay with a better conversion of the world. Has heard it. The mejor conversion of the world. The incredible system of Pago of Shopify facilitates in your

website web, in the networks, and in whatever. That is music for your ears. No, let's more whiltas. Your business will be a super-exit. On Shopify, Empeza your period of a month

in Shopify pointe bar records. Oh yeah? I can't help notice you're using my

intellectual copyright. What do you want to do because it looks like you sold a bunch and then I'm

going to fucking I don't think it it might not happen but you've got protect your

shit as much as you can. Yeah it's most likely going to happen. I hope

so. I advise I can hope so. You got a lot of signature stuff. What you got? Yeah. Some symbols, some sticks.

Oh, you got sticks as well, haven't you? Yeah. The symbols, it's more like, you know, there's certain combinations of processes

that maybe companies could steal or something like the same, like my China has sandblasting and holes in it, you know, and maybe that's like, I don't know. The whole, the holes though

Sabian kind of did it first yeah yeah that's actually that's true that's another thing but yeah I heard a rumor is it enough to

maybe you could put this to bed for me I was just segueing into signature products we don't have to talk about like protecting it having said that though I heard a rumor

and I don't know if it's true I heard a rumor that Benny Greb patented or he came up with the idea for sandblast so he gets a royalty on other people's sandblasted symbols.

Is that bullshit or is that true? Doesn't sound like bullshit. Is it true? I don't know, but his was the first that I recall. That was a rumor. I don't know how I heard that, but I heard a rumor that they have to pay him every time a sandblasted symbol is made or sold.

Which if true, You got to think of a few things here, though. I'm a fucking dickhead. I might have made that up, but I don't think I made it up. Why would I make up such a specific thing? Who knows? But, like, I'm sure I heard that from some. Not from him either, from someone else.

It makes total sense. Fucking awesome, if it is. Good for him. Yeah. And he's set. Yeah. I wish I could do something smart like that. You can't.

Have you got any signature products that you haven't made yet that you would like to? Nope. Nothing. Nothing. Well, maybe like a, there's a prototype or two that I'm working on. More symbols. But you mean, I don't know, yeah. I've got a buddy who's like, dude, you got to come up with some sort of like product or something.

And I'm like, I don't know. I don't want to come up with some thing you put on your snare to, for whatever. If it's not solving a problem, it's not. Yeah, if it's not like necessary. Respectfully, your product is your fucking amazing online lessons and you're playing. So I don't think. Yeah. that's about as creative as I get

category. Most things yeah I'm kind of the same I would make more symbols there's definitely things missing from lineups that I'd like to do but I haven't been asked to do another one even I sold fucking shit loads but like I think it's cool

trying to explain I don't know how you feel about it but like once you get a signature product and you start getting paid to play a brand No one gets paid to play a brand unless they have a signature product. That's like, I don't know about you, but for me, that was like, oh, I fucking made it. That was like a made it moment.

Here's your check. Yeah. What the fuck? Yeah. There's more than Spotify's ever paid me. Yeah. It's like, oh, I achieved the dream. Yeah.

Which is, you know, I'm no longer like a starving musician. Slightly less starving because I have to eat 3,500 calories a day. So I'm always starving. Grocery money. Yeah, it's awesome. I think more, there's obviously a limit to it, but it is nice to get fucking paid to play the drums for once.

Yeah. To sell all the drums, I guess. It kind of carves out a sustainable route for us or long-term, you know. And I think it's important, like yourself and me, like we're not just making shit to sell. Like you said, your friend said you've got to come up with the product and you were basically the same as me.

Like, if it's not solving a problem that I have, I don't care. I might make a quick buck, but it's like it doesn't need to be another thing. Correct, yeah. The one I will say, I was surprised at, it's the fucking rock locks. It's in those?

Rock locks? They're like another fucking lug lock. Oh. But they're like a hemisphere shaped. And they fucking work better than all of the other ones. And you would think that that was an oversaturated market. And then a guy just comes out with like, oh, we try these ones.

They're fucking way better. Way better. Yeah. Because all of the other ones, they have their pitfalls. It's like a Swedish fish looking. Yeah, which they're cool,

but on certain lugs. But I've seen them break. They break if you hit them. And then you need some certain lugs. You need an elastic band to put them on. It's like, I'm not doing that. No. No, I'm not doing that.

And then the traditional square ones. Those are garbage. Those are garbage. And then other companies made, ones that you could still tune through. Thomas got ones. Did you know it? They're kind of like,

they've got a few little teeth, but they're... The teeth come loose. Yeah. Love you guys. Thanks for all the drums. Not the best product. Yeah.

Not terrible. They probably fix it. Remember their quick release things were shit and then they fixed them and now they're good? Oh yeah. No, I guess I left before they fixed that. But I told them, yeah,

I was like, this is, I don't know why this is the advanced stands because this is like... Yeah, they fixed them. You have to be a jazz guy. Yeah. Speaking of... 95-pound jazz guide. Do you ever feel locked in something as specific as a stick?

Like you made a signature stick. Do you ever feel locked by that? You can't. Kind of. You can't. I want to play bigger sticks. Can't. It costs fucking 20 grand for the fucking bit of machine to make them.

So you're fucked. No, it's not that I want. It's that. I've gotten so used to them, and they're like almost an extension of me at this point that using other sticks feels weird. I mean, that's good. It's an adjustment.

You don't want to change. But my example is, like, I think I want to change stick size. And if I had a signature stick, I couldn't do that. Like, now I'm not playing, because I play the rocks, big beefy motherfuckers. And now I'm, like, not playing live in, like, relatively caveman metal core shit. I'm like,

I could use a little less. Remember the finesse I had with a 5B? And I'm like, I could go back to it. Like maybe a longer 5B. Yeah, 5B is still pretty beefy. That's the thinest I can go. I can't, I just can't hold a stick lighter than that. I don't know why.

I just can't do it. I'll get blisters and shit. I need big ones. Rocks, I don't get any blisters. Is the weight also part of it? Maybe. That is variable to the extent you can get a big stick but like picked super light. I pick the heavy ones because they break those.

I think I think I want to fuck around with a thinner stick. But I've got like 48 pairs of rocks left. So I've got to go through those. You'll have them. What do you mean? You don't have to go through them first. You'll just have them. Yeah, but I've just asked for those.

I'm going to phone them and go, can I get 100 pairs? of five Bs and they're going to go, we just gave you fucking 48 pairs of rocks. You're going to have to pay for these ones. We ask for 50, you know. You'd be like, sorry, but I'm going through a creative... I got a workaround. I've got a work around, which was Monster and doing some for the podcast to do for giveaways. And they're like, they're black and they're branded with a monster and the downbeat logo,

but I got them in 5B extended so I can also fucking use them. Yeah. Someone else is paying. You know what I? Maybe I'll like them. The black shit's going to go all over my symbols, but can I look cool? Gonna look fucking sick.

Your online lessons, even with my dog shit technique, have helped me so fucking much. What I want to know, without you giving me any figures, like what I really do respect about you other than, as a friend,

as a musician, you're very, very fair with the finances of things. I asked you for that lesson. I thought your rate was very, if not too, reasonable to the point where I was willing to pay double for your lesson. And then I thought, well, I want to give this guy more. So let me film it. I like people feeling like that.

I like people feeling like they got more value than they paid for. So with your online lessons, And also we went over an hour, like, fucking bargain. But, like, your online lessons, I think you're the only person to price them at a price where I went, that's the right price. There's people selling these courses and they're fucking, like, a grand. And, like, yes, obviously, your time and your craft

and your knowledge is worth a certain amount of money, but there is a fucking limit. Yeah, that's crazy. They even, like, $100. on a masterclass or something that's like, e-ish, you know? It's worth it, but there's not reach enough people. Exactly. That's part of it, too, is you got to find a price point just from a, you know, utilitarian perspective, like, of moving more.

But it's also a thing where it's like, you know, I don't want to exclude people. And I already do, like, at the, even reasonably placed, there's people in third world countries that are like, man, like, I wish your stuff wasn't expensive or when I'm like, dude, this is like, they're cheap, but for them, it's like, it's expensive. What I wanted to ask was,

because the production quality is fucking incredible with them as well. It's shot, pro studio, pro cameras, pro everything. It must have taken a while to recoup how much you put into it. It depends on the, how big they are. Okay, so mastering time. Mastering, time three was the that was very expensive it took a minute to recoup um but that's it's also at a

higher price point for a reason you know because it costs more to make it costs more to make but it also cost more to uh get those files to people because it's like 13 gigs of a video and then you've got i get charged on bandwidth so yeah if i sell a ton of those 13 gigs you know and then somebody's downloads aren't working right and they end up going through 20 gigs of my bandwidth or they want to do multiples or whatever you can know you can download it like five times can you yeah so if someone downloads the whole pack twice it's costing you more money it is oh that sucks so bad well to say i have like a quota and if i surpass that quota that that's kind of that's how it works but no man it's it's it's it's a good passive income for me and yeah i'm

I also look at it as like a, it's a catalog due for me as to be like, these are kind of pillars of what I'm working on and have built my foundation on. And obviously I'm on to some nutty stuff, but like I still go back to those. I'm doing that right now actually to get back in shape. Are you going back to mastering time? Yep, some sheets out of mastering time one and two. There's like grooves that will have.

going um doom to get on dung doodoo like a lany white groove and then all sorts of groupings in the right hand or like universal function i'm like going through those patterns with certain is that a different pack or is that mastering time one that's a different pack that's a different pack fuck

it's a coordination I got it all brother yeah all that shit and it really I don't know the way you present it I don't want to suck your fucking arm wrestling dick too much but like the way you present it from a fucking such a big brain guy is like it is presented in a way that anyone can get anything from it

and I don't think since obviously there's always been the grid books there's always been a fucking new breed all that stuff like but in terms of like grabbing me I don't think there's been another one but between Benny's language of drumming DVD which I fucking loved that's great yeah and then yours I was like I didn't really, in between any of those, I felt like I didn't really learn anything on the drums

because there wasn't another like, okay, this shit can get as complex as you want, but here it is and here's what I do all the time. And it comes off, honestly, it's an ad for your shit now, but it comes off like, I don't know, honest, like when you were talking about, this is the shit that I did to get good,

and then you do it. You can kind of see it in my playing. Yeah, which is the same with Benny's thing. He was like, this is the thing that I used to get good, and then I did it all. And I was like, oh, I got good. but you know, it ends up. Yeah.

Not everyone's trying to sell you fucking snake oil. Yep. Buy my course. You know, do this differently. Shut the fuck up. Sit differently. Do you know many comments I've had today about sitting differently? From people that didn't watch the fucking video where we talk about where I'm sitting.

And you say, if anything, you're sat actually quite higher than me. Yeah, you are. Every motherfucker. I saw some of those, yeah. I think you'd benefit from sitting higher. I had the goat in the room looking at me. I'm good. Right?

This is how I'm going to fucking see. I mean, yeah, if you get higher, you're going to lose power. Yeah. So that's kind of the price you pay when you're really like, like this. And there's less of your weight of your legs. Yeah. I just want to play like you. So I'm just going to fucking be like, okay, he says I'm sitting fine to play the way he does.

So let me just fucking do it. There's a lot of dogmatic teaching out there. Like, you have to sit at this height. You have to sit. you have to do this and i just hate that not every one person's the fucking same yeah so annoying yeah there's there's we cluster though you know we cluster that's why we're able to teach technique and stuff but yeah there there is definitely um people's minds and bodies can work differently and and yeah not at all in my case

people's minds and bodies can work differently my fucking right leg will not work But it is working. It's getting better. Yeah. I think we're good. I think we're done. I think this is it. Unless you got anything.

Oh, no, you got a drum camp coming up. Tell me about this drum camp. It's for kids. It's for like 12 to 11 or 12 to 22. Okay. Talk me through why that specific age range. Sheila started it in Southern Maryland. And Sheila.

Sheila Klotz. She's a drummer, ex-military. Yeah, and she won the hit, hit like a girl contest. She's like 70 now, something like that. And she's still. Right, she won that contest. Yeah, yeah. How long has that contest been going?

A minute. What, like fucking 50 years old? No, no, not that. No, she won it like 10 years ago or something. In her 60s? Yep. She's still going at it, bro. It's not the one, the one old, like,

lady that played the drums, is it? Probably. Let me pull this up. No, there's like a... There's a couple. The grandma. The grandma's the one I'm thinking of. She's different, yeah.

Why, me, fucking... She's got some hands, too. Let me get a glimpse of these warlocks. Keep it. Keep it in there. It's not Sheila E, obviously. What's her name? Sheila.

Klotz. Yeah, during COVID, she started working with these young drummers and, yeah, started building up and doing, like, little mini camps and then started doing like the full-on camp and it's a it's a non-profit and yeah so um i'm proud to be a part of that so it's like a little family open open to anyone to submit yep they have to submit from all across the world yeah have to submit a video obviously they have to pay their own travel obviously i'm assuming yeah you can come from anywhere around the world it's just you it's no it's me it's larnel lewis um Sheila it's uh

Justin Scott. Yeah, yeah. Instagram guy. Yeah, he used to be Zilden moved to Minel, I think, I believe. I think so. And Zach... It's a bit. Shut up.

Zach Beal, the Zach Groves guy. Oh, love Zach. Yeah? He's a fucking psycho. I love it. Yeah. He's one of the, like, online guy. It's like, obviously, you can fucking play and he plays in a band and stuff.

Yeah, he's got his band, too. When I see his online shit, I'm like, yeah, you're funny. You can stay. Yeah, the kids love them. Yeah, kids love them. They're like, we want him. Yeah, you've got that Gen Z thing. Yeah.

We're the old man now. You're the old wise man. I'm the old fucking, er, man. We'll see. We'll see. That sounded like I meant, like I was diddling. Not diddling. That's fucking cool.

Anyone can, anyone can end 12 to 22? Oh, yeah, was there a reason for that? Was it just the age she does? I don't know. Malleable brains. I used to hate teaching. giving back, you know, giving back to, and starting them young, you know. That's cool.

I used to hate teaching fully grown men. I used to fucking hate it. Don't say me too because you did it last week with me. Because there is a point other than technique, like what I came to you for, which was strictly technique, and you didn't give me a fucking bunch of exercises to do. You looked at the mechanics of what I was doing, and we deciphered there was a mechanical problem, and I deciphered before I even came to you, this is a mechanical problem. if you don't have a mechanical problem and you're like 30 and you can already play the drums

go on the fucking internet download your fucking things like you can do it so people would come and it would just be like they were sort of paying to hang out with me and it sucks yeah that's different do you want to learn the drums or not yeah and then they come back it's yeah you got you got to put a lot of work in on your own yeah the problem with the internet is the the level of quality has dropped precipitously due to the influx of people offering courses and trying to be teachers, you know? There's a lot of that.

And there are some great ones, but yeah, there's a lot of... It just makes it harder to find the really good quality. Yeah, exactly. And I've always said to people is like when they ask me for advice or whatever, and I'll be like, Am I doing what you currently want to be doing in whatever you're just,

whatever question you just asked me? And if the answer is yes, it's like, okay, well, then I can teach you. But then if it's like, how do I get better at double base? And I'm number one thing, like I get asked that all the time. And I'm like, my brother, go on the internet and look for someone better than me, which is almost everyone, and then ask them. Like, I'm not saying, don't, like, I'm grateful for your time, but like, use your brain. find the person doing what you want

and ask them and do their courses like so strange because everyone just wants like I feel like maybe someone they just want the answer instead of being like you need to be slightly narrow minded about it like find the person you want to emulate

and then buy their lessons and try and emulate what they do rather than ask a blanket amount of people like can you improve my bass drum technique because I could if I wanted to do Lorna Shaw double strokes I wouldn't have asked you for the lesson

I want your foot technique so I asked you but like and that stuff doesn't translate so I didn't ever really like teaching people that would come for a lesson A because they wanted to hang out

but and B because it was like they're asking me for stuff that I'm not the expert on and I just feel like I have to over-provide exercises and stuff because I'm like why are you asking me? And the answer is because I just wanted to hang out, which is cool. But it's like, I don't want to get paid to hang out with you.

That's weird. Yeah, it's kind of not cool, though, yeah, because it's like, you should just be into the thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a utilitarian thing. It's like, let me use you to dive into your knowledge base. Yeah, ask me about podcasts. You can ask me about my hands. You can ask me about Phil's fucking cameras.

Like hair dye, hair dye. But just ask someone else about that other stuff. Well, how to make a niche. Because I've got a fucking niche. Speaking in niches. Not speaking in niches. I think we're done. We plugged all the shit.

That was awesome. Yeah. Are you good? You had fun? Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Number four. Number four, motherfuckers.

I'm the number one. I'm the number one. The number one. He's the number one in terms of four numbers. Being here four times. No one else has even come close. I had a couple of threes. I appreciate time.

Yeah. Appreciate your friendship. Thanks for having me. Fix that fucking arm so we can go to the gym. Yeah. I'm working on it. He's still jacked. Fucking awesome.

Check out Matt, obviously. If you got this far, you know who he is, but honestly, by his lessons, if you're a little kid, go to his camp. Give me a chance, you know. Give me a chance. Please, guys. Give the best drummer in the world a chance.

Thanks. Goodbye. Awesome!