The Downbeat - Matthew Heafy - Trivium

Episode Date: September 7, 2020

My guest this week is Matthew Heafy, singer and guitarist of the metal band Trivium and, King Of Streaming. Matt and Trivium have recently paved the way in the music industry's 'new-normal' of streaming. They recently completed the metal world's first (actual) paid live-streamed gig with 10k+ tickets sold and Matt himself has one of, if not THE biggest presence in the world of live music streaming. We talked about Trivium's plans to build a stream-ready aircraft hanger (!?) and also about his upcoming Japanese mythology inspired side project: Iburaki. Other than this I basically asked him how I can do something similar to his twitch and survive without having to sell you guys T-shirts. Enjoy!

Guys, we're back. The DBP is back. I've never called it that in my life. I insist that you don't call it that. Where have I been? I feel like I do aware of I've been one once a year because I disappear for a minute. Well, I had grand designs of doing video.

I was going to wait for Corona to blow over. I was just going to be like, you know, I'll build a studio when bands are in town. I'll grab a member of the band. it like press, we'll do a nice video podcast, it'll be really cool. And this corona just didn't go away. So here I am. If you're watching this on Notfest.com, this is a video.

I don't intend on doing video just yet, but you'll see why this episode is a video when I get onto my guest. But yeah, there was a bit of a gap between this episode and the Jordan Fish episode because I had a few guests cancel. I had a few guests get cancelled I had a few guests where I just don't want to talk about the coronavirus so I'm really been looking for a series of guests that have other hobbies which I find interesting

and which I think you would find interesting so luckily we have a few in tow for the next few episodes some good chats hopefully there's no merch left thanks for everyone that bought and is buying merch. There will be merch on the 30th of September. Very limited drop.

I think there's 50 of each item. There's quite a few items. Like a camo jacket and stuff. I'm not going to try and sell you stuff on my first episode back from a little break. I say break like it was like a holiday. It was the opposite of a holiday. It was a hell a day. Okay.

My guest this week is Matt Hafey. Yes, it's Hafei. It's not heafy. He is the singer and guitarist of popular metal band Trivium. But more importantly, more importantly in this climate, he is the king of streaming. Trivium did a, I would say the first professional live streamed show during all this with a huge venue, big production budget. I think they've got like 10,000 people who physically bought tickets to an internet show, which is sick, trailblazing stuff.

He also has a Twitch channel, which if you don't know, Twitch is like your own TV show, where people stream them just chatting. It's all live, them just chatting, them playing video games, then Matt does a lot of him playing guitar. I've got one, Twitch.com. slash renlord r-e-y-n-l-O-R-E-N-L-R-D doesn't spell anything I'm afraid like the downb-E-E-D but I've got one I play a bit of drums I make some coffee I play some video games um Matt has I think at the time of talking to him he had like 3,000 subscribers

during this pandemic a lot of musicians have turned to Twitch to try and make some money no gigs are happening. If you don't play gigs, you can't sell merch of gigs. It's a real fuck show. And I made that word up. So, yeah, I basically got him on the phone on the Zoom, actually, because you're going to be able to watch this, guys. And he taught me through his Twitch rig.

I basically stole his ideas. And we talked a lot about Japanese culture. He's got a cool solo project. we talk a little bit about tattoos it was really good he was a really nice guy didn't know what to expect because I don't really know him

but it really helped me out with the whole Twitch thing obviously subscribe to his Twitch also subscribe to mine please I need money guys and yeah he filmed the whole thing for his Twitch it went up live on his Twitch

and as a result I have the video so if you're watching this on notfess.com you will be able to see me right now. I should have said that the other way around. If you are listening to this on your favorite podcast platform, there is a video version available. The quality on the video will not be that good because I didn't know how to set my side of things up. But that was part of the reason for talking to Matt was to figure out my setup, to do more of these in the future. Keep that quality real high. It's Matt Heafie. Oh my God, it's Matt Heafie. Even I did it on the Downbeat

podcast. Hello, Matt. Good to see you, man. How are you? I'm very good. Now, I need to ask you an embarrassing question, which is, how do I pronounce your second name? Because I thought I had it right, and then I've seen that you pronounce it differently. Everyone always says hefei. I never correct them. It's actually Hafei. I was saying it on my Twitch this morning. I was saying I've got Matt Hafey on the downbeat this week, and we're doing it live. And everyone was like, It's Heafy. And I was like, I'm pretty sure it's not. You nailed it.

Nailed it. I have tricky names. Keechee's tricky. But Hafei, people have basically been saying Heifie since the beginning of time. So I just don't mess with it. But it's initially, originally an Irish name. I believe it was O-H-H-A-E-E-E-Y. It was O-A-E-F-E-Y.

Then they switched it around to H-E-A-F-Y. And lost the O. So, yeah, there's a bit of Irish in there. 33%. My beard is actually red when it. comes in. So what do you do to it to make it just a diet? No, no, no, you'll see it'll get redder as we go. Um, Matt, I thought we were already, we were already on to like clickbait. Matt Hafey dies beard. Um, you're a stream, you're a streaming god. I, no, you're the god

of streaming. I do what I do what I can. I'm a novice. I'm just an adventure. I mean, a wanderer. I, I started streaming because you know what this is like right now. Who knows what's happening. So I was like, right, okay, time to grow up. I mean, grow down. I'm going to do a Twitch. And then I went on stream labs because I gathered that's how I needed to do this. And your face popped up immediately. And I was sorry about that. Oh, oh, big deal. Can't escape me. Can't escape me. Uh, yeah. So this is the first, sorry, I, you carry on. No, you go. You go. I didn't have anything. It sound like I had something. This isn't. I didn't have anything. This is the least professional podcast ever to be at the level it is.

So there will be plenty of rubbish. Oh, I was going to say. Speaker already, so it's already doing well. That's the queen. The queen taught me everything I know. This is the first for the downbeat because I've never done it live.

I don't usually edit anything. But this is the first. I've never done it live. I've never done it on someone else's thing. So if anyone on your channel doesn't know what it is, The Downbeat is a music podcast and I talk to people like Matt here about whatever. And currently, I'm going through a little like Corona crisis where I was doing podcast episodes every other week for two years pretty much. With gaps when I was touring or whatever.

But then Corona happened and I did a few of like, you know, I'll talk to a few people in bands like how it's affecting them. and then it just became the most depressing part of my life ever. Like, oh, I have to talk for two hours about how none of us know anything, the uncertainty, no one has any answers. So I took a load of time off. You're actually my first one back because I feel like we have more to talk about than just, when do you think gigs will come back? I've got no idea.

Oh, me neither. Because trivia and killing it. Hopefully I'll bring a little light to that, bring a little happiness to that. Because, yeah, it is, it is a weird, weird, weird time as we know. But I've been trying to turn, wait, what's the phrase? Making lemonade out of lemons? Lemons in a lemonade. Something like that's an old American phrase.

Making lemon, lemon out of lemons there, brother. That's all we're doing here. You are making so much lemonade right now. How many Twitch followers have you got? Followers, let me check. as if you don't know, as if you don't check every day. Right now, 172,4802 followers, 3,408 subs, 6,043,323,000 views.

All right, take all of that and divide it by 100, and then that's almost exactly my figures. The thing I've been telling everybody, view count is irrelevant, follower count is irrelevant, view count is relevant. Community first, then the sub count is what's important. And it's about bringing your audience of your already well-established band and podcast to your channel. That's what I've told everybody. Because it's not like I started streaming on Twitch and people that were watching Shroud Dakotas and Ninja were like, hey, I'm going to start watching this guy that plays metal.

It was me for three years explaining to the Trivium fans around the world that I'm streaming on Twitch. And it took really up until the world shut down for everyone to go finally. I'm going to look at this thing Matt, what's been talking about for three years. Because that's what I did. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of people that are starting streaming now. Like a lot of band guys are like, Matt, like, how do I get the follower count up? How do I get the view count up?

I'm like, man, this stuff is just like getting in a van for the first time. It is the equivalent of getting in a van and starting to go on tour and hopefully that you're able to build it up. I've stuck to five days a week, 365 days a year off tour since I started about four years ago. and I've done seven days a week on tour as of that four years ago. So I'm like five to seven days a week for the last four years. So wait, five days a week,

what are you doing on Christmas? You got a Christmas stream? If I can, if it's on a Monday through Friday, I'm going to try to make sure I hit that to keep the consistency in the schedule. And I learned that from the pro streamers. Like I'm good friends with Dakotas, who's one of my favorite Twitch streamers

and he is well known for being like an incredible Fortnite player. he always says because he's humble he's always like I'm not as good as the pros I'm not as good as these a lot of younger kids coming out but I always tell him I'm like that may be the case because I'm not the best guitar player singer I'm not in the best band I'm not the best this or this or this but it's all about being the proper entertainer host whatever it is that like create that community that your people want to be in same thing you've got with your cast same thing you've got like that kind of thing that's the most important thing so I started streaming on Twitch

and I kept trying to bring Trivian fans over but as you've seen this really hard to port fans. It's very hard to bring them from one thing they're used to another. And it's still hard. I mean, our show that we did, the Aller Distant Mirror paid for show, was a huge risk. And we were watching ticket numbers. We spent a ton of money to put that on. We built the staging. We hired Muses's staging producer, hired videographers, bought in like a 20-person crew, flew all these people in while keeping like quarantine regulations going. And we're like, if this doesn't hit a certain number, we're already losing money. We're going to lose so much more. So that was a massive risk.

But I think that that went well because of this whole Twitch thing that we've had because we've been existing in this ecosystem for fourish years. We have been streaming. So I started streaming almost four years. It was 3.1317 is when I started streaming on Twitch. It's like five to 20 people at any time. And it took... As if you remember that date exactly.

I had to check it the other day. That's the only reason why I know. I'm really bad with numbers. It's six days before my birthday. Really? Just so you're awesome. I'll get a birthday stream in that. I'll remember that one.

But I would stream on the PS4 webcam, 20 minutes a day, not really understand what chat is, not really understand what Twitch is, have an iPad up there and kind of talk to people sometimes. We were going through San Francisco about like six months or so after that. And I was invited to Twitch HQ by these two people, John and Brandon, who are two of my closest friends

in the world now. I didn't know they were fans, but they later told me that they were fans of the band. They let me this thing called the Gun Run RRL Backpack. It's basically four hotspots. a battery pack, a live view, which is a streaming device, the HD camera that are all rigged together in a backpack. And we started streaming our shows from there.

And I said, man, this is really cool. I love this. I love streaming so much. I can't do it as much as I'd like to because I have to practice two to six hours a day, five days a week because I blew my voice out. I want to make sure I'm very compulsive and regimented. I like to keep everything at top peak form. I think of it more like an athlete. I've never been an athlete, not a professional athlete,

I do jitsu and stuff, but I wanted to make sure I kept myself at peak form for what I do. So at any moment, I have to make a record or tour, I'm ready to go. Brandon looks at me and says, why don't you stream that? I said, Brandon, no one wants to watch me play trivium songs every single day, day in and day out. He's like, I bet you they do. And so from that moment is when the channel started shifting. I went from like five to 20 viewers to like 150 to 200 viewers. Like, oh, this is incredible.

I've made it on this thing. And just steadily going on that. We started streaming every single trivium show. We still do. So basically from the moment I got that backpack, that was the arch, that was a trivium arch enemy while she sleeps for for nonops of USA tour. From that moment, we have streamed every single Tribune show for free, every single sound check, every single warm up. Like I said, seven days a week when I'm on tour, five days a week when I'm off tour.

And it was when quarantine happened that all of a sudden the numbers went extremely high because people were home and they wanted a place to be. And I look at our channel as the pub, the coffee shop, the brunch place, the church, the therapist's office, the gym, the punching bag, the shoulder crying, whatever it is for the people that are here, that's what this is. you are making this the easiest podcast I've ever done because you've answered like maybe 10 of my questions in what you can tell that you are used to like public speaking every single day no this is fantastic I'm doing nothing I'm not even to work I'm on vacation now like I tip my hat thank you

everything was just like blah blah blah blah so now I need to double back on what you have said and what you haven't said so hang on is there two separate twitches there's a trivial Twitch and there's a you Twitch or is it all you? We've discussed that a lot. And since I've kind of become like the music ambassador guy for Twitch, I've had, I've learned it from living in it. I've learned it from talking a lot with John and Brandon and with Jimmy and Ray, my two newer friends from Twitch. And what I've determined is if you're going to have a band Twitch, it needs to be well populated with content. You need to be going live at least three to five times a week.

the hard thing with Twitch is Twitch is about creating a community between viewer, viewers, and streamer, aka a host. So when it's a band, sometimes people are used to like one specific host and it's constantly rotating the content is varying like that or it's inconsistent. It becomes difficult. So we've wrestled a lot with it, but I think what we're going to do is because, simply because I did it, I started it first. All four of us in the band actually all have Twitches now.

I think Corey's going to try his first stream on Friday. Paolo started a couple months ago and Alex started around two years ago. We're always going to keep it on my channel. Like we just did a show last weekend. It was last Saturday. It was a free show. After our paid show, we did like 12,000 paid. And this free show we did on Saturday was 20,000 viewed.

So there's 20,000 people there during the show. But what we're going to do, anytime we do a free Twitch show off the backpack or something like that, it's going to be on my channel simply because it pushed the alerts out to the most amount of followers. But whenever those are going on, I constantly, during the show Saturday, I kept saying, don't sub to my channel. Don't donate here. Don't do anything to my channel. Instead, support all the trivia. links below. And so we're really pushing Trivium merch, Trivium donations, our Tribium charity, and following the other members. So I make sure that when my other band members are on quote my channel,

it becomes the Trivium channel. But to have a band channel and to only do like a thing a month, it's difficult for the Twitch thing, like Twitch ecosystem. It'd be better to go on a paper view site or something like that as opposed to Twitch. Because Twitch is about that consistency, it's about schedule. It's more like having your own TV channel. It's if you can only go live three times a week and it's an hour a day, that's fine, but keep that consistency so people know what to expect. And that's why I keep 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday, no matter what, I keep those going. And if it's not going to happen, I let people know. Or if I've got something else fantastic like we're doing right now, I try to incorporate those into what I'm doing to keep the

schedule going. So you're pretty meticulous with your, I mean, I know you are because we tried to sort this out months ago. And you said, I can do a September. And I was like, what the fuck is this guy doing for two months in a lockdown. And there you go. You're just doing a million things. So you've got a meticulous schedule twice a day. If anyone, there will be people listening to this. Like you were saying, it's really hard to bring people, I mean, for you now it's not,

but to bring people over from A, the band or B, the podcast to my Twitch has been difficult. I've been planning on doing all the downbeats like this on Twitch. I will, but I need the... quality to be without sounding like competitive. It needs to be better than every other person doing it. And I don't have the funds to do that yet. I respect. So I'm waiting. Hell out of that attitude. Because like I feel like, you know, with music, music world, with making music with being in a band, I've always thought it's very like bringing everyone up together. But anytime we go with one of our favorite bands, like if we're opening for Iron Maiden or playing a festival of Metallica, we have to be

better than them. Like that's in my head. And that's the way it should be. And that's why I think when we first came out, we were so jarring to the people that didn't like us. People that liked us were like, all right, these guys are confident, this is rad. But the band that didn't like us and see these 18-year-olds coming out saying, we're going to be the next biggest band in the world. I think that's why we were hated for so many years in the States. UK, it was only love for us until the third record came out, then it was only hate from the press world. But I respect the hell of the fact that you said that. And I love that you said that you need to make yours the best. And I think you can, though. So, like, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm

currently building his rig up. Like, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, to, to, I, to, to start quicker than later. But, if you have to do on your phone, that's fine, because people are home right now. And I, I, I think that it's, I want it, I want it to be, right, when it comes out, I want it to be like, oh my God, is this a Chris Nolan movie? it's the downbeat podcast on Twitch. That's where I want it to be because everyone else, it's happened during this lockdown

and it's cool. I love it because I listen to a lot of them that everyone is starting Twitch and everyone is starting a podcast and so my two options to differentiate myself was do I lower the amount of episodes

and increase the quality of guests which I started doing. No offense to anyone else. like the last episode before you was Jordan from Bremen Horizon like that we've got big big names or do I go video and double down and do all the like metal core drummers that people want want but aren't like the big names so I was like the only way I can do that is if the quality looks so good so I was like I'll just wait until corona clears up and I'm what I'll do I'll build a studio. I currently live in Glasgow, which is a

market town. I will build a studio close to all the venues and I'll just do it in person every episode and I'll do, you know, five times a week because there'll always be a show on. And then Corona really kicked off and now I'm like, okay, I'll just do the high quality guests. And then there's just so many podcasts out there that I'm like, I need to straddle somewhere between the two. So I'm basically finding my footing of like,

okay, I need to start this video thing soon. but it still needs to look and feel the next step above everyone else, not from like a competitive point of view, but just to put myself away from everyone. So I get the viewers, so people are into it. So I'm in this constant, what do I do? So one of the reasons I wanted to have you on,

I wanted to have you on ages ago anyway because I think you posted that you liked the new Australia album. I love your band. I absolutely love your band. That's so cool to hear. So, and then I think I hit you up immediately then. But then with the whole Twitch thing and me wanting to figure it out, I was like, now I really need him on because I need to chew his ears off. I think for your dilemma, it is, it is an interesting dilemma and it's a puzzling dilemma.

But I think while you are building the quality of your stuff up, you may as well have the camera on. You may as well be entertaining people while you're doing that because everyone's home. And we don't know how long this is going to go. I keep seeing, like I live in one of the worst states for COVID. It just people keep screwing up here. I live in one of the worst countries for it as well. People keep screwing up here. So I imagine this might take another minute.

I'm not saying this is not a doomsday scenario, but it could take another minute. So it's good to improvise. And that's what I've been telling a couple of people. One of my good friends, Jared Dyn's big YouTuber, he months and months, months back. He's like, I want to start treating me on Twitch more. He's like, what do I do? I was like, you just have to start. I was like, even the quality isn't quite there where you imagine it.

build that schedule, build the community, and you can have those streams going. Have your camera phone back here while you're building your rig and you're talking and you're like, man, this sure sucks building my stuff up, but having it going. Like while I'm building rigs or testing tones or learning how to record, like I didn't know how to do mic placements or high cut, low cut EQs on guitars or I haven't messed with vintage gear in years, but I started doing all that stuff while the cameras were on. So the channel, some of them loved it. Some of them thought it was boring, but I have it still going.

you've got that consistency. And as far as guests go, I think as long as you're doing what you love, if you love to talk to a certain kind of instrumentals of a band or a certain band or a certain genre of a band, whether big or little or medium size, as long as you love it, your viewer's going to love it.

Like they want to see something that you authentically enjoy doing. And that's at least as far as Twitch goes, I would say. Because like, there are a lot of streamers and streams out there. Because I think musicians are coming in here, maybe looking at it more so from the music angle, But I think it's important to understand Twitch culture getting into it. Like the normal Twitch streamers days are five to seven days a week,

eight to 12 hours a day as hell on these dudes stream. And some of these guys are tied to a specific video game only. There are some streamers that cannot leave Fortnite because if they stop streaming Fortnite, all their viewers go away. And that's their living. That's 100% of their living, playing specifically one game. Then there are some that people come there for the host themselves and don't really mind what game it is as long as they love it.

for me it's interesting because a lot of people, anytime I get the question about Twitch and people are like, oh, so Matt, you do that video game streaming thing and it's very successful, right? It means they haven't looked really at it at all because 75 to 95% of the time I'm playing Trivium songs for Trivium fans. And then when I play games is when I watch it, the viewer account drop off.

And if I'm trying to hammer myself with the game that I'm not having fun with, it trails off even further. But if I'm having a good time with it, they can tell them enjoying it or it's funny or fun, then you can see through my loving of something they'll be in the same thing. So I feel the same thing for what you'd be doing. And I think since we don't know how long it's going to be till we can get people in person, this is sort of the reality.

But I do agree with you that we're just seeing more and more and more of people talking. And what is the difference? How do we make it different? And that's what we said to ourselves coming up to the show on Saturday. I said, all right, we did probably one of the more successful pay-for metal live streams. How do we do a free live stream different from what other people doing? Because for our pay-for one, we looked at what people were doing. And we saw it was a lot of like, kind of like the quality of the backpack stuff that we've been streaming for free for years.

So we're like, all right, we understand that's the necessity at some point for some people. But how are we going to make it different? And that's why we hired music stage director, built staging, had time code video. It was crazy. We spared. That was extremely expensive to put together while we were not making money. So that was pretty scary to do. And then for this free show, we're like, all right, how are we going to change it up again?

And the reason we always like to rebel against or do everything different than we just did or whatever else is doing. So we just did a pay for crazy thing that people haven't really been putting that level of. What's the opposite? Let's do a free one off the backpack and let's actually treat this like a home stream. So each of us on our mic stands had the Twitch chat in our phone. So we're actually talking and have like I've got emotes in my channel. Crowd surfing, stage diving, mosh pits, like stuff like that. It actually felt more like a real show than anything I've done since this entire thing has happened.

Because we're able to watch 20,000 people doing it. It was like a festival but modern. And I feel like they felt the same thing. So it was almost like this, this home stream setup, but with my band at our like dingy DIY practice place. So it's constantly just figuring out because there's no like set rules. Even with my setup, coming up with the setup, there were no guidebooks. I had no one to consult with on what to do and I just put it together myself. Like my rig, probably a little more complex than it needs to be, but I'm feeding all the audio sources into a MacBook Pro.

The MacBook Pro is acting as a mixer. So it's set up like a live DVD. Then that gets fed into a PC. So all my audio is fed in through that. Just through an orx, just like an auxiliary out. What the key is, and you don't have to do this, like this is just like the more advanced thing I randomly figured out. My Mac has an audio interface, an Element 46.

So all the audio runs into that physical mixer into the Mac. Then that physical mixer shoots an XLR left and right into another audio input that's running off the PC. So it's all about two PCs and two audio units is kind of the way to make this setup work. But our base player, he runs everything off of a MacBook Pro. Like everything goes into each one time. I mean, I'm running the most, I've got a tailback and remember everything I've got to say.

But very quickly, I'm running the most ghetto Twitch set up ever. Everyone told me you will not be able to do it on a dual core MacBook Pro from 2013. And I was like, well, I don't have the budget to not do that. So I managed to figure it out and I managed to get some work. And when I'm doing it, I have overlays. And now we don't have any crashes. Especially now. Like, now we're able to buy more stuff.

like when things were impossible to get groceries, cameras, live stream equipment. Like, I think it created this interesting DIY vortex to see what people can put together. And I don't think anyone will fault you for not having a better setup than anyone else or different video quality than anyone else. People just, especially your fans, your fans are incredibly devoted to your band. It's about bringing them over like, hey, do you want to know this next layer of getting to know me and what it takes behind the scenes as I get ready for tours or making records? So how, right, two things. One, exactly what you said about when you're just playing guitar or when you're talking or when you're doing a video game completely mirrors obviously at a lower level what I've found

with my, I've only been streaming for about a month. But I do three different things. I either play the drums and I have Yamaha EAD 10 which allows USB out. So my streams, my drum streams have amazing audio. Nobody cares about those. This probably says more about me as the reason my podcast is more successful than my drumming. No one cares about the drum streams. I do a coffee club at like 2pm BST, almost every day, where I just make a coffee and I talk to people and Arnie's in the background.

That gets the most views. And then when I play video games, it gets even less than the drums. Here's my question. When you're doing the drum stuff, are you actively, and like, what are you? you playing? Are you talking to your chat? Hey, what do you want to hear today? Like, what stray songs do you want me to play to? Or is it just live drums in a room? I try. And honestly, people just don't even talk in those streams. You have to, you have to coach them along a little bit, especially if it's your fans that are coming over to Twitch that don't understand the Twitch ecosystem.

Like, you have to teach them a little bit about what it is. And it's, it's about that engagement, that back and forth thing. Like, if I'm recording music, it tails off. Because it's not, it's me focusing in on something else. You're not being entertaining. It's all about being yourself too. You don't have to be silly or animated or anything extra. But like the thing that does the best on my channel at home is the thing we start off every stream with.

I ask the subscribers or ask the viewers, what's our set list of the day? And I just pick stuff off our nine records randomly as they come in and I play them. So perhaps with the drumming stuff that you're doing, maybe you're, which is fine, maybe you're picking more so what you want to play, which is good too. Sometimes you should do that. But ask your channel, what do you want to hear? Our drummer Alex, you're absolutely right. Our drummer Alex, he's, I've taught him this stuff.

I've kind of brought him up with this and his drum streams actually do better than the other things he does. So it's kind of a flip. But I think he must be doing the same thing. He must be doing that. Our subscribers, what do you want to hear today? And he'll go from there. He's also better than me at the drums. So it took us, it took us 19. years of playing an existing intryphium to discover Alex Bent. It took us 19 years to discover this man. So it took... I remember him from Instagram back in the day. I can't even remember what band he was in. Brain drill. Brain drill. Yeah. And he was like super fast. Yeah. And he was like a kid.

How old was he now? He's like chat will know better than me. He's like 25, 26. Okay. So how old were you? Ascendancy. Is Hennessy was the first one? Was that the first, the big one? Second. I was 18. But I joined Trivian when I was 13. And he started playing metal drums when he was like eight or nine.

I had him on my, I have a podcast too. I had him on mine and I was learning about his backstory as well. What's your podcast? Plug. Plug. GLHF with Matt HV. It's kind of a Vodcast. Good luck.

Have fun. GERLHF with Matt Hapy. And that's on my Twitch. I do it exactly like this. Except, so let's say if we were doing this on mine, I would just save the video and I would upload this YouTube. But my YouTube views are super, super low. Like for me, it's all, it's all live in the moment for Twitch. But, yeah, Alex is a monster. I remember seeing that, that brain drill YouTube video as well where he's like, alternating blast hands. And when I saw it, I was like, this is the guy.

Because when I presented to my band, hey, guys, we got to do this again, they're like, we're dead if we switch drummers again. I was like, I understand that. I was like, but we're dead. It was a big thing. And I was like, we're dead if we don't. And Alex is, Alex is so, incredible of a person, a drummer, musician. And I asked during the live show for a letter to announce it. We were, we're helping him, we're moving him and his wife and his animals all the way back to Orlando. We're like, we want you here.

So we're moving them out of Modesto, bringing them here. Thanks to that live stream, thanks to what we've been doing and kind of scrounging up, we're buying a decommissioned airplane hanger and turning it into Trivium HQ. So in this thing, it's a giant airplane hanger. We're going to, when money is flush, we could do different phases. but phase one, we're closing in 1,500 square feet of it. It's going to have living spaces, kitchen, bathroom, laundry, all this stuff that actually our security guard is going to pay rent to us to live there while we have our stream HQ in the

middle of it. We're going to stream free shows like we did the other day. We're going to stream high quality shows, actually down from the main part of the hangar. We're going to keep all our staging down there. We'll bring in lights. We'll rent in camera crews and have all that stuff come in there in the main part of the hangar. So if this is still going on during up and through a year or.

So from now, we'll be able to keep doing things. And so Alex will stream from there. He'll do his Skype lessons from there. We're going to build the recording studio below that. And then the main part of the hangars where the staging, the drum riser, the trussing, all that stuff's going to go. So you're like chill throughout this because let me tell you, my mental health is absolute dog shit because like I don't have this like,

I don't have an airplane hanger. We had to, we have been, Tritium has never. I know every band's at different, different phases, but Trivium has never taken a raise from the moment we became cash positive. From the moment we're like, all right, we're finally actually able to pay ourselves a little bit. We did not take a raise up until about a year ago, and it was purely for a health insurance stipend because everyone knows American health insurance is the best because it's the cheapest, right? No. So that was the only time we've ever given ourselves a raise for American health insurance. And for this hangar, we had been saving our asses off, saving everything.

And we're like, if this live show goes bad, we're in a lot of trouble. But if it goes well, we have a down payment. And so with the down payment, we head up our business managers, like, can you help us find a small business association loan? Can we see if this is going to work? And basically with that down payment, with this, with the seller slash owner being my cousin in law, my wife's, my wife's cousin.

Wait, you're not money laundering. This sounds pretty money laundering. It's not a 747 hanger. It's not a, my cousin is technically in my cousin's name. It's a... It's a prop jet hangar. So it's not a giant one. But our plan is like, if we can make this happen,

then we can keep other things going. Because with touring gone, with merch sales gone, as you know this, we all know this. We just said, what are the other ways we can keep this moving? And since... Man, you could rent out to other bands as well, for shows. We can have game con festivals there.

We can have different bands play there. We can do all sorts of stuff. and that thing, the idea is that we will hold events there. I mean, we've got records that people would love to hear from start to finish for a pay-for show. A sentence is start-to-finish, Shogun starts to finish, and waves start to finish. Things like that will be pay-for shows like we did, all that or distant mirror. And you can take risks. You could take bigger risks on the set list.

Like, that's a risk. Like, you go and play a show and it's like, oh, we're going to play this album back to front. Like, the risk there is you've got people that don't like that album, don't go. Exactly. You could take crazy risks like that because they don't, they don't have to go. Yep. They can go to the next one. Yep.

So we've just, I wish I was you. No, don't say that. Don't say, you could figure your thing out. You could figure your thing out, man.

Like, for us, we had to just carefully save and plot and plan. And this was in the back of our mind because we looked at like, all right, this is how much we're paying for rent at a place that we don't like to be at. This is how much we pay for a record. Now,

how much are we going to save owning this stuff, putting that record advance into this hanger back into itself instead. So it's moments like that that we had been, all right, it's in the back of our mind. We need an HQ. We need something cool. And with this streaming experiment lifestyle change that I've been doing with the band for the last four years, we're like, all right, this is, we understand this. And the only reason why we understand this is because we've been living in. It's same thing with like being in a band, same thing with being in a metal band, a metalcore band, a hardcore band.

Like you understand it from living it and there's no like fast track to getting it. But I do believe that everyone can find their different things. Now, I know that, you know, it seems like a leg up with the hanger, but it's something that we've been. I'm not saying it's a leg up. I'm saying you're very clever and you're going to have an advantage above everyone else because you are smart enough to do it and ahead of the curve. And no way. I hope you're not thinking I'm saying. No, no, no.

I'm not going to say from you. You fucking worked for it. But I do think other people will be like, oh, man, if I can only have this. But I believe that everyone can make their version of it. Like if everyone's, fans got a practice place. You got to have a practice place. You figure out how to make it happen.

You wire up fiber internet there. You bring a laptop and a camera. You start there. Or you stream off your phone. You start there. And you figure out and use one of these pay-per-view like sites. Because I mean, so many things now are offering really,

really low royalties because they all want to get their foot in the door. There's like 30 companies now out there. So it's whatever it is, it's figuring that out. And it's, it's. I do actually have a pretty big practice place. there you go think about it no i'm thinking about it stray shows from there are you guys all indifferent now see that this is the problem is that we have me i'm in glasgow scotland right now

we have tom is in nashville drew is currently in france and we don't know if he's going to stay in france or if he can go back to the country his girlfriend's from france and he's there and then dragon neck is and for anyone it doesn't know my band our bassist it's called dragon neck because he has a tattoo of a crow on his neck, which someone once mistook for a dragon, and it just stuck. And he's in New Jersey. So currently, we couldn't do any kind of live streaming whatsoever,

but me personally, I could do things. So I want to, before I forget, and I'm going to ask this, and if you can't tell me, because of whatever reason, it doesn't matter. But, so let's just talk. This will be boring for everyone else, but me. If I was doing this on Twitch live with the downbeat, and I wanted your video, you there, this man, with this microphone, but also me and this microphone, how the fuck do I do that? Can you, do you have your phone on you? Can you tune into my channel while we're here right now?

And I'll explain out all the route. I'm using my phone for this interview. Okay, no worries. Let me see how I can explain. I have other phones. No worries. I have a burner phone. But this quality is very good, by the way. This quality is very good, by the way, that you're on.

So what I'm doing, what you're seeing me out of on this Zoom call is my fret cam, meaning, I'm usually back here. My microphone is set here. That's getting my fretboard. So to do this, because I was explaining to Brandon from Atreu as well, he was asked me the same question. What my chat is seeing is a completely different camera. They're seeing this camera, a much higher quality camera. you generally will need a multi-camera setup for you to be able to do exactly what I'm doing

because they're seeing me here you're seeing me here they're not seeing this one at all this is purely just for when I'm doing these things so you'd need at least a two camera setup to make this happen what it would be is in your Stream Labs OBS you would have your Twitch feed camera captured there and in here

the way everyone's seeing your face I don't think I can angle this enough Oh, I can. Okay. So here's what it looks like for me. So there's my audio stuff. There's my voice making sure it's recording. This is all being fed. So my amps, so I've got two microphones on my amp cab, iso cab,

my vocal mic with some studio gear that goes into here, gets fed into here. This thing XLR's out into this thing. That thing is my PC's main audio unit. You don't have to do that. But what you do need to do... I have one of those. That's fine. Is the two setups.

So the way everyone's seeing your face, what they're seeing is just a display capture. That's all they're seeing. And all they're seeing is I'm display capturing this. So if I exit full screen... So where is that from? Let me show you. So right now I'm on my speed test website. And now you can see your face is gone.

I feel like I'm in the Matrix right now. So all I'm doing is I'm display capturing this entire display right. here and all I did was line your face up here onto the spot here. That's it. So it's not even like a special application. All it is a display capture. So if I was on another website, that's all it is. Okay. So how am I hearing your beautiful microphone? Okay. So the audio of all of this feeds into the stream PC. So the stream PC is hearing everything we're talking about right here. And then your output on Zoom is or is that? is this. That's what's output to me.

So you can select the output of an audio for Zoom call and also feed it to stream labs. However, you cannot do that with video. I wish you could, but apparently the video, it can only be one thing at time. And that's why I do this different camera. Because I've had people go, Matt, how come the video quality looks so different when I'm talking to you on a Zoom Vodcast chat? Because it's a completely different source. The only thing this is for now is for you to see me.

It's me. That's it. And then everyone else is seeing far better quality. you need two cameras and they could be this one Logitex C-22 this is like

this is a baby monitor by the way wrapped in black cable cover this is C922 this is my That's the one that's just for the other person

Right This one So normally my stream looks like this Normally it's triple cam So ignore that That's this is being captured from my Mac

But normally the fret cam is there This is a picking camera And this is a fake headstock cam So this looks like this So you can get something like the C922 Or you can get the brio

A lot of people get into bros That's what you're seeing me on If you had two bros or a brio And a C922 One for your chat And then I need a sick one for me So I need a sick camera for me And then I need just a webcam to speak to you

To whoever the guest is Yes And then if you're using a laptop If you're using a laptop And you plug the brio into your laptop That is for your stream And you use your built in webcam for the person who's talking to you.

So this is where it gets difficult, though, because I have a rule on the downbeat, that I will not do Skype quality phone calls. That's why I said to you I need that lovely SM7B audio stream. So the only problem I run into with doing this is making sure the other person has enough gear to send me. So all they need to have, though, is, because I mean, I can rent it or even buy them a USB microphone.

I don't care. like they need that'll eat your budget and it'll slow you down you just need to be massive if someone massive and they're like they'll have something they'll have something and if it's a musician right now

luckily everyone's got something so all they need then all they need is a webcam ideally quite a decent one which hopefully they will have in this climate a decent microphone and then they they do the zoom call

with me I use a display capture for their face. Then they make sure that their Zoom audio output is their microphone or what their thingy is. It could even be simpler. I've had a couple of guests. I just want the quality high. I hate a Skype. You know, when you can hear the two guests have different audio, I will stop.

Inavitable. I will stop listening. You're going to run into it here and there. No, because you're going to send me your. raw file. You're not sending me Zoom. So it's going to sound good. I'm trying to see some of my last podcast. I think the one I did

with Ishan from Emperor, I think he might have been using his webcam off his iPad. Flex. Off his iPad. Nice flex. And it still looked really good. It still looked really good. So no, what I'm showing you is that you don't need, because if you make it tricky for your guest, then I'm super tech. I'm looking at mine right now.

Built in. Built in. He used a built in one. Yes. See, I feel like when you, I know in video form that was probably fine, and I'm sure it is, but when you get that just on an audio podcast and one person has a crystal clear SM7 voice and the other person has Game Boy Advance voice, I feel like that's when you lose, you might be viewers, but I would probably lose listeners. That's my, I've got 40,000 monthly listeners. So, and I attribute that not only to my excellent banter and guests, but mainly

towards the quality is always insanely high. And I worry if I go to webcam audio, I'm going to lose listeners. I might gain viewers, but I will lose listeners. Let's do a little market research right here. Everybody in chat, would you mind if Craig's... These are all your... These are the people that love you.

These people love you. That's the proof back to yourself. They love you for your podcast. You have those monthly listeners because they love you because they could listen to anyone else. So you have 40,000. They're not going to mine and they're going to understand. So nope, it's all about the content, not bothered.

Maybe add a little disclaimer. I might take both. I don't mind at all. High quality is obviously best, but as long as it's decent enough, it's fine. Hell yeah, do it. Agreed 100%. Nah, I don't care. Audio quality over video quality is more important.

Side note, there was an excellent joke that neither of us made that you were doing Isham from Emperor and he had the most black metal mic set up ever. Of course, his was just built in audio. When we did, because he's producing, he's been producing my side project for about 10 years now, which is finally, finally almost done, by the way. Is it black metal? Yeah, it started off the idea of being like second way black metal and I sent him the stuff. I managed to get a contact through him through Darren Tom's from Canada Light, who I've known since I was 18.

So I sent him this original piece and he was like, Ishaun responded. He's like, this sounds like 90s black metal. This is well done. I started getting into his solo stuff, Aramita at the time. and I said, all right, he just flipped the idea of black metal on his head for me. And it made me recognize that black metal came out to be the rebellion of everyone doing the same thing. And then when these guys stuck to tradition and they're like, well, we need to be true and stick to this original thing and nice to sound like it used to. Then all of a sudden they've kind of become complacent the same as everything else.

So what Ishaun has always done with Emperor and his stuff is apply that idea of black metal, rebelling, making something entirely different. Aramita had saxophone solos and jazz chords and clean singing and his new stuff, he's, covering aha and that is more black metal to me than someone still wearing corpse paint and recording and making it sound true. So it totally switched and it was originally called Ritsu and it became super tech and strange and interesting and it's the theory like theory and the idea of black metal. But now with his inspiration, I wanted to dig into like Norse culture. And he's like, well, why don't you dig in a Japanese culture? He's like, that's authentically you. So this thing has since shifted and it's now called Ibaraki. Everything is about

Japanese gods, monsters, goddesses, history. It sounds so sick. It's really cool. I'm singing in Japanese on one of the songs. It's really cool. Thematically, it's all Japanese now. So it's kind of like Japanese black metal, but it's different. It's not like, it doesn't sound like the true stuff.

It's my idea of black metal. I've got so many questions because I love black metal. I love Japanese culture. I have, I'm current, and I see, I see and I've known, I think maybe, even, I think I got my first Japsleave because, but probably because of you. And I'm currently having, I've got like a backpiece lined, big traditional Japanese dragon on the back. That's amazing.

But by Jim Gretau, shout out Jim. But what I was going to say is two things. One, did you get the Christoph guy to do the logo? What's his name, Christopher? Christophezegel. He did a murder two. logo he did from Ritu but then when I switched thing to Ibaraki what I did then

is if you've seen the cover of our fourth record showgun the Japanese kanji of Shogun that was done by the wife of the best sushi restaurant that we have in Orlando he's Japanese, he's a big metal head I've been friends with him since they open shin sushi in Orlando that's where we do all our band meetings all band guys whenever they're in town I go meet up with them I was take them there he is doing the English lettering for Ibaraki and it's already finished and his wife is doing the kanji

so I'm actually having Japanese letter doing the Japanese-Orawthentic. He did the English logo. But Spadjil did do the original Mirtu logo. And I think what I'm going to do is make Ritu merch anyway and sell it because the band, that's ultimate black metal. It just didn't even happen. He did. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. He did one downbeat shirt. I got him to do. And it cost like $50. He was like, okay. He does not charge enough. It was insane. He was like, oh, $50 if you don't want any changes. I was like, okay. And he was like, what do you want it to look like? I was like, I want it to look like you're just looking at a tree in winter.

I don't want to be able to read it. And then he sent me, and I was like, yeah, that's perfect. Absolutely. You can't read anything. He needs to be charging 20-fold of what he's charging. Yeah, it's insane. So my second question is, because you're obviously a big emperor fan, are there, and I hope your answer is yes.

And if it's no, it's fine. But if it's yes, I'll be very happy. Are there, like, symphonic elements to it? I'm gonna love it. He's composed me into it. Actually, with this record, because I, it's still the D.I.

tracks from 10 years ago. The first song, which is the working title is number one. The song one is the demo or is the direct input that I recorded 10 years ago. So this thing has been chronologically recorded and it's still, the D.I. tracks from 10 years ago sound better

than me re-recording it. So people listen, this is just going to be material. It'll be 11 years old, 11 years worth of material when this thing comes out. And actually there was one day, when for song four and five, one day Ishaan hits me up, he's like, I have these old emperor riffs that ever used. Do you want them? I was like, yes. Yes, I do. So there's actually two songs that he

co-wrote that are, that were old on use emperor riffs. Oh, what's happening? That timed up perfectly. What was that? That was, uh, uh, that was, yeah, okay, that stopped. Um, so hang on. So, hang on. With your reaction. Sorry. That's fine. Um, it's pretty good. So you've got some actual emperor riffs on there? They were like unused riffs. I'm not sure if they're for Emperor Ishaan, but they were older riffs. It counts. He's doing this.

He's done all the string writing, all the electronic writing. There's a bunch of Easter eggs that we won't reveal what they are until later on. He's doing some vocals on there as well. Alex is playing drums on it. Paulo does a bass solo. Corey does a guitar solo. Ishan does a guitar solo. Hopefully Jorgian from Shining will be doing a sax solo as well.

Have you got like a release? schedule? I mean, you definitely have. It's probably like five years in the future, but you've got it meticulously planned out. Surprisingly not because this one we've been working on for so damn long, but it was actually quarantine when Ishaun and I both hit each other up, but like, I think we should do this thing now. So he found this amazing program that's kind of like what we're doing, except he's able to run the recording software on my Mac. So he live tracked me and was producing me from here in Natodon. Our original plan was that I'd record it there because he took me around Notodan in his hometown.

And we actually watched Blue Velvet at his house, which was, which was pretty cool. That's an insane, like, just thing to do. Yeah, I'm just watching Debbie Lynch. He made. He made steaks that night, too. So we had stakes that he made. We watched Blue Velvet after we saw, like, the stave churches of Notodon. And so we did all this stuff from my house.

Yeah, it was awesome. It's amazing because he went from being, like, a musical hero to a mentor to one of my closest friends in the world. So I'm very fortunate to have that. he's he's cleaning up the drum tracks right now that Alex just finished we're going to get originally with the original plan of Mritziu was to have a legendary black metal guest on every single song I've since shifted that there's only going to be I mean Paulo Corey Alex they're on it but for for music people there's going to be three guests that I'm not going to announce until

this thing is out obviously did you shons one so there's two more did you intend to do that and then too many of them got canceled that's the problem I run into with black men all the time. I'm like, oh, this band's sick. Quick Google. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. Yep. Yep. There were, there were a couple bands that, that I loved and didn't really, because like, I don't really go super, like, I love music and I don't always dig really far into what the backgrounds of each person are, but there were a couple newer black metal bands that I was really into, and I looked into them, and I was like, this is horrific. Yeah, we don't have to name names, but I probably like the same bands.

Merch, merch in the trash can, delete them off of everything. Like, that stuff is not okay. It's just like, yeah. It's just overplayed as well. Even from, it's,

on one point, obviously it's disgusting. It's the lowest of the low, but also it's just like cliche and overplayed with black realm of now. Yeah, it's like, Satanism and paganism, cool, but when you start getting this other stuff,

it's like, all right, I'm done with you. Like, that's, that's, that's the hard line. It does taint. It taints the whole genre.

And I like, sometimes I'm nervous to tell people like, oh, I listen to that. Yeah, that's why, that's what's going to be great about Ibaraki. It's going to, like, the meanings that are tucked within the songs of these vast Japanese landscapes and soundscapes and stories, it is against the messaging of a genre that I grew up loving. So it's going to be the kind of black metal band, the people like you and me can go, all right, this stuff is safe because it's guaranteed safe. Yes, and it is against that crap. It is against that garbage that's in there.

That's another reason why I like. the like the, you might not like it because I know you like legit blackmail, but like, I like the shoegaze stuff. Death heaven. It's cool. Yeah, it's great stuff. Like, wolves in the throne room. I love it.

And you can pretty much guarantee with most of it. No racism. Yeah. Don't quote me on it, but. I remember there was just one day I decided to start digging. And I was like, damn it. Them to them too. Oh, no.

And it's. Yeah. There's a lot. And I'm sure. But luckily with even more. Ibaraki, you're safe. You're safe. How am I spelling that?

I, B-A-R-A-K-I. And what's fun about that, I-Beraki, this demon right here, the Shi demon right here, the story of this, this is originally from a 1700s piece by Yoshitoshi. It's Watanabe No Tuna,

the samurai, battling the demon, Ibaraki. Oh, shoot, you're right here, sorry. That's fine. Ibaraki,

battling Watanabe No-Tuna at the gate of Rashamon. If you look it up, it's my tattoo artist's rendition of an original piece. Ibaraki, the story, of Ibaraki, it was terrorizing the town of Rashamon. Only one samurai stood up to Ibaraki,

chopped off the demon's arm, demon fled. Years later, Watanmeno's aunt shows up at his house and says, I want to see that demon arm. Shows the demon arm. She takes it, turns back and Ibaraki and disappears forever. No one ever sees Ibaraki again in the history of Japanese stories. So what we did with Trivium, we said, we want an eddy. Let's make that Ibaraki. So Ibaraki became our eddy. That's what our skull thing is on everything. And when Ishaan mentioned the Japanese stuff and I started, Ashley, my wife and I, we binged Vikings hard and Last Kingdom

hard very quickly. I kept saying like, man, I wish I could do Viking stuff. I love the story of Thor and Yormangunder. Yormangunder is this beast right here. This the world's the world comes Ragnarok. Thor fights Yor Mangunder. Yormangander kills Thor. It's the end

of the Viking world. So I said, man, I wish I could write about this stuff. I said that to Ishaan as well. That's when he brought up the Japanese stuff. And then I remembered. The story on my back, Susanoo battling Yamatano Orochi in the sea. Yamaton Orochi was an eight-headed dragon serpent of the sea. Susanoo is the Japanese storm god. He came down from the heavens after he was banished for basically being a jerk to his sister. Banished down there.

Heard about this girl that was about to be consumed by this dragon. And the farmer's, the father of the girl said, If you save my daughter, you can have her. That was always the kind of give and take of Greek. mythology and Roman mythology, Viking mythology. And he saves the prince's life, cuts the demon's stomach open. And within it is a sword called the Kuzunagi no Tsudugi no Tsudugi. It's one of the three imperial regalia of Japan. And it's a sword that is actually a real thing. Like they say it exists in Japan, but no, no mortal has ever seen it other than the king. And found a penant of

that in Japan that my mom helped me acquire. So that took four months to get here. So I have gotten everything for this band. I've even gotten like, there's this cool, this is cool, Polish clothing designer who lives in Berlin, who I found his clothing as heavily inspired by military garb and Japanese garb and like Iceland and Greenland. And he helped make the clothing for the photo shoots for this thing as well. So I have left no stone unturn for Ibaraki. Wow. Man, that's so sick. It's fun. The storm god is actually on, so that's my back piece. And I've always known about that story, but I didn't realize that that was the religion that my mom still practices, Shintoism, which is the biggest religion of Japan. So all of that stuff is all interweaved in

I'm Eberaki. So it's going to be this fun. If people just want to listen to heavy music, it's there, but if they want to dig, there's so many layers. That's so awesome. I literally cannot wait to hear that. It sounds right up my tree. And even when you're like, so I missed Stray's last tour in Japan, which sucked.

I had to get a fill in and stuff. So I had like, usually we'll go once a year just to get the Japan fix and we'll go five days early and we'll go do cool shit. That's what we do. Favorite country in the world. I'm sure you agree. But like last year I missed it. So then this year I was like, I'm going to go recreationally.

I'm just going to go. I decided in January. I was like, I'm going to go to Japan. I'll take my girlfriend. We'll go to Japan. She's never been. It'll be awesome. Then all this stuff happened.

And just you there, when you like dip into just when you're pronouncing like a Japanese word and you just go like traditional. Japanese pronunciation. I just get like almost like ASMR. Like SMR. Yep. Oh, I'm the same. Japan. I want to go. I want to go so much. It's, it's my favorite place in the world. That was our, that was the last tour that we had scheduled that got canceled too. Oh, it's such a, such a horrible one to have cancel.

It's like even like, obviously Tokyo's sick and everything. But then obviously like Asaka, the samurai castle, like maybe the best day of my life. just so sick. That's awesome. That's what I love to, too, because I kept saying to myself, like, man, I wish I was part Norwegian so I can go into this fun Viking stuff. No, you have cool shit. Yeah, they like, they love the Japanese stuff just as much.

And I've always been super like, I'm always so happy to see people embracing my culture as well. Like, I love that you've got traditional Japanese tattoos and then that you love Japan. And I always love to see that. And it's just such a great thing. And I hope that I can bring more people into that because I think the mythologies, that's not mythology, that's actually still the religion. The stories are so incredible, like the story of the storm god fighting Yamata or

this is the story behind a Japanese dragon of a carp jumping over this waterfall, turning into a dragon. And it's actually a trivium song, becoming the dragon. It's just really great stuff. And I was struggling with lyrics. Like, of the, how many songs on the record? There was like eight or nine songs. I could hardly come with lyrics.

Even 10 years later, then finally when Ishaun mentioned that, I wrote all of them. Like I was sitting outside, like while it was raining underneath. Like we had these two, like, you know, like the summer festival tents that all of our bands always used to set up in the parking lot. I brought them over here because my kids, we've got a sandbox out there and want to be able to hang out without the sun blasting them. So we set that stuff up there. I was just sitting there with my notebook just writing these stories. Like I'd watch Vikings in Last Kingdom and then think about Japanese stuff and read about Shintoism and write all those things during the day. Unreal.

All right. Let me ask you this about your back piece. Does it go on to your ass? Yes, and it's supposed to traditional. How much does it hurt? Because I've only got that lined, and it was absolute hell. It's horrible. Like, I thought it would be all right because it's like fat and muscle.

It is probably one of the worst things to get tattooed, especially because Japanese, like, visually, you don't want to see your skin butt crack thong line. So they got to get in a little bit. And they get right in there. Tailbone, plus I've got a slight herniation L4L5 of my lower back. them tattooing over that. So I'm going back on Sunday because I have it like guideline because obviously, you know, big Japanese pieces have to have to all flow.

So I've got it all guidelines. And what we're doing is we're just going to work our way down and we'll just finish. You just got to do it, man. 30 hours later, I'll be finishing on the bum. That sounds bad. I'll be finishing on the ass. Interupper thighs is bad to interrupt. upper thighs, that's rough.

I got lucky. I mean, not lucky because I would much prefer the whole back piece was like a traditional like just ass and upper thighs, but I already have tattoos there, so we couldn't do that. So we just did back, back and butt. But, yeah,

I'm going on Sunday and I want to say I can't wait, but I obviously can wait because of the pain. Yeah, getting tattoos not fun, man. It's not fun. Especially the older you get. Yeah, I'm curious what you do for it too, because like for beginning, I would listen to music. I would try to watch movies. I would try to read books. And now I just do nothing.

Now I just like lay there. And if conversation comes up, it comes up, it doesn't. It doesn't. I just lay there. And in every aspect of life, I probably talk too much. So I try and talk it out. I thought about because I, I've been doing the Wim Hof breathing thing lately. And I thought like, this could actually work pretty well for tailoring. But I didn't remember to do it. that. I also, I will help my hands up and say, I'm going to take a few pain killers. I'm going to take a few pain killers these days. Yeah. Anything that can help helps. Yeah, I just bring a lot of like protein bars and a ton of water. And I just try to eat those during and not really take breaks. Oh, getting tattoos not fun. I got a lot more go to.

Yeah, the other thing that I've started doing, I don't know if you get older and it hurts more or you just run out of spaces that don't hurt. But other than Jim, who is doing my back, who he like specialises in Japanese stuff. I deliberately go to this guy Will, who's actually been on my podcast a couple of times. He's the most outrageous person you'll ever meet, like vulgar. But, you know, like, he's fine. He's not like, he's not getting cancelled,

but he's like just a vulgar human being. Very fun guest to have on the podcast. But he's, I would say maybe, I mean, definitely the fastest tattoo I've ever seen in my life. But maybe one of the fastest in the world. One hour. One hour. One hour, ten minutes.

And 40 minutes. What? Yeah, man. Holy shit. He just rams it in. And it hurts a lot. But he's just like, me. It's like he's just drawing.

Like he's got a creola and he's just going. Yeah, nah, na, no, no, no. But I've never been, like, blessed with anyone except. him that's that fast. Everyone else takes their time. This guy was so heavy handed, my arms swallowed up like probably half an inch all around.

But the Kalil is super delicate and amazing and quick. Kalil's in San Francisco Tattoo City and I just started getting tattooed by a guy I'm David Brule in Tampa. To show the quality of Florida tattoos. David Brule? Like Steve like Dr. Steve Brul?

Is that a real second? Because that obviously being England. I didn't know that was a real second name. Yeah, I think I'd have to. I mean, you don't have, I'm not putting you on the spot here. I just thought that was a made-up Tim and Eric. No, no, no, it's real. That's a real name. I love Tim and Eric. I've just, I've just insulted a man. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no. I love Tim and Eric so much. But to show the quality of Florida tattoo till I discovered David Broll, my wife and I live in Orlando and we would fly the six or seven hours over to San Francisco just to get tattooed because there was nothing here that was that was worth going to. But David Bruel is world class. Absolutely incredible. David Broll.

and Khalil Rinty and the guy that did this is Brian Bruno. Yep. Nice. Yeah. I need a tattooed. You got plans for any more? What about a nice clean neck? I don't see that nice clean neck. Yeah, I know. Well, what I'm going to do is just traditional Japanese spots, everything from here to here to my ankle line first, and then I'll go from there. Whenever I see really good. Are you going to go body suit? Oh, yeah. Whenever I see hand, like awesome hand and neck like you've got, it always makes me want it, always. I don't know if you know Paul Ryan, the booking agent from the UK. He's like one of my best friends in the world. like every time I see his hand and neck tattoos, I'm like, man, I want those.

Because he's got a cool Japanese things on his hands. I did it. Do you know, obviously, are you guys 5B management? Yeah. Yep. So, you know, Adam Foster? Oh, yeah. So Adam Foster's Japanese hand tattoos as well.

I think honestly, those were the ones where I was like, because we're very good friends from back in the day. I was like, I just need to get my hands tattooed. And I felt like my mom was like, just don't do it. just don't do it. And then I waited and in my head, I was very conscious, very cautious of like, I might need like a boring job one day. And then I got to my 30th birthday and I was like, I'm not doing anything else. There's no way. Like, I was going to do it. And then I got my hands

and my neck done within like, probably six months. It was all done. It was like, yeah, let's go. Yours look great. And every time I see that I was wanted, like, I was talking to Pat from Phippronautops. He was like, dude, when I see yours, it makes me, I was like, I want, I want that yeah I love Pat is one of the greatest people in the world. I was like Pat, I need them after senior. He's like, he's like, no, don't do it. He's like, don't do it. He's like, just, just do your other plan. He's like, he's always telling me not to do it. He's like, yeah, that's what Tatua is say, though, because that, that's what he's like, Pat's a big BMW guy. I'm quite big BMW guy as well. So he's had like a brief, we've, we've, respect.

We've, uh, we had a brief like, he's been on the podcast, but only by proxy because I was doing an episode with Tom from Stray and we were at Graphic Nature where Will Putney records and Pat was there and Pat just walked into the room while we're doing a podcast, sits down and starts talking. I was like, okay, Pat, you're in the podcast for the rest of the episode. I love all of those guys so much. Like I'd say fit are probably our closest band friends in the world. They are so tight. Hocene is just insane. They are one of the truly best bands on the planet. I say it every single time. We had more tours lined up with them this year, but it got shifted to the following.

So hopefully that one happens. And then maybe I wasn't supposed to announce that, but it is announced now. So we'll be torn with them again. I love me and that. That would be on something now. I want a tour with you guys really bad too. Could we do that with people? I mean, we'd do it.

But. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What's awesome is like our fans, anything. same thing we're talking about authenticity about the chat. Anything that like we genuinely love, they love. Like Pat, I'm sure he was just being overly complimentary and nice and humble, but he was like, dude, all these Trivian fans are here to European shows because you guys were talking about.

So we haven't toured in Europe together. And I was like, no, Pat, it's because they love you guys. They just happen like us too. But they always say that Trivium fans have been super embracing of fit. And I love, I've dug your guys' band for a long time. So I think us touring together would be pretty incredible too. It would be unreal. Even just to leave the house would be good for me, but also to talk with you would be absolutely.

But in the meantime, in the meantime, you want to pass ideas back and forth or like brainstorm some stuff like what you think for your channel. What I told Jared when he was talking about Twitch and he was deciding what to do, I was like, Jared, because he's known for his YouTube videos, the final product. Yeah. So what you should be doing is streaming the entire process of you making your videos and then they go up on YouTube after. And I feel the same for your podcast. I think that would go really well. So you preparing it, you talking all the stuff in between. It's so unprofessional.

Everything I do is unprofessional. So everyone will just be like, no, man. No, that's the vibe though. People, 40,000 monthly listeners is insane. And if you can start to port them over like, hey, do you want to watch me make these things? That's going to be the key for you. You bringing them into there. And then maybe having the chat ask a couple questions as well and to keep interacting with them.

Because they're there. It's a living organism. They're all, they're there. They're there the whole time. But I think those would be some ideas, at least if I were, to mention some ideas to you. So if my, just to really briefly go back on that so I can actually take away from this what I need to do to change.

I currently have a MacBook Pro, which I'm recording into now, and that works fine for me for recording. So realistically, I keep that for my audio. I just need a one more camera and a PC, because my MacBook Pro cannot handle stream labs. have to use the one that comes with Elgado because it's just not good. So what you will do at that point is you're going to need one more audio interface, Apertia, Focus, write something. So one can feed to the other. You're going to run your MacBook Pro for all audio. Oh, yeah, if it's just one microphone. If it's one microphone, you may as well do it in the PC. But you can run all your drums

and your vocals into the Mac onto its own digital audio converter. That goes digital audio converter of the PC into your PC. I have a whole YouTube video of it. I have all that stuff except the PC. That's the only thing I don't have. Luckily, PCs are way cheaper than Mac because like all of us band guys all grew up on Mac. And then when I walked into streaming world, everyone was like, no one uses Mac. Will a laptop do it though?

Because my drums are not here. That's my only other problem. Yeah, yeah. I just get a mad gaming laptop. Yeah. Yeah. Because you just, well, you need to capture the audio. So whatever.

it's being captured on. I need to connect you and our drummer Alex because he's got his system really set up. But if you want after this too, if you want the HD file from my end and you just want to put this up on your YouTube too so you have the video as well, you could see you could well I guess it's backwards though. You should be the bigger cam.

I should be the smaller cam. This is going on your Twitch anyway. But Twitch is live. So because this is your podcast I wouldn't put this on my YouTube because you've got like this is your thing. So I'm going to send you the files and this goes up. on your stuff.

Wait. So when you send me your audio, I could mix it with mine and then put it over this video. You could even just use this entire video and it all be set. Yeah, but then you, haven't you got crappy airport quality? Although it's the video. No, it's the same. I'll do two separate versions. Oh, I see.

So you're feeding your voice into that microphone right there. Which does not go to you, yeah. But on YouTube, I don't, I feel like people won't care because they're watching. Your audio quality sounds fine to me and I'm wearing studio reference headphones. So that's the proof that I know you're holding extremely high quality levels for yourself, but some of the guests you're going to have

are going to have their kids screaming in the background. Like I can hear mine, which I might have to go in a second to get them down for nap. I was just going to say, this has been incredible and you've answered everything. So rather than us sort of try and string it out, let's wind it up. It's been eye-opening.

And I can't wait to hear. your solo project. And it's been a nice hangout. Anytime. Anytime. If you're like, dude, what do I do about this?

Or like, if technical stuff or bouncing ideas, I'm seriously always around to help. What a legend. I'm going to text you after this. Thank you so much. Everyone on Matt's channel.

Thanks for having me. Oh, shout out of your Twitch, please. Let's get some more, let's get some more followers in there. Twitch. Twitch.tv slash renlord. R-E-Y-N-L-O-R-D.

If you're wondering why that name exists is because I needed a username for my Instagram, and I thought, what could I do with my name to make it sound blackmail? So I put Lord on the end of it. There we go. I love it. I love it. Everyone's following right now. So, yeah, we look forward to seeing you on there.

And any question you ever have ever, just hit me up. Thank you so much, man. Take care. Enjoy the rest of your day. Yeah, man. Thank you so much. And if you want this video, this video file, just let me know. I want the video and the audio, if that's okay. Okay. Yep. Yep. I will ask my mods. Help me mods. Yay. Thanks, mate.

Awesome, man. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye, mate.