The Downbeat - PERIPHERY: MISHA AND MATT ON OBSESSION, COMPULSION, AND THE LONELINESS OF ‘A PALE WHITE DOT.’

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

My guests on the podcast this week are Misha Mansoor and Matt Halpern of progressive metal band Periphery. We talk about the mental struggles and themes that led to the creation of their new extremely collaborative album ‘ A Pale White Dot’ as well as the ins and outs of the music industry, business, money, success, AI, the future and much more. Check out A Pale White Dot on 3DOT recordings, available now.

Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.com. Every style, every home. What's up guys? Welcome back to the Downbeat podcast. My guests on the podcast this week are Matt Halpern and Misha Mansour of Periphery. Much requested, bunch of legends, close friends. We talk about the mental struggles and and themed that led to the creation of their new album, a pale white dot,

as well as the ins and outs of the music industry, business, money, success, not success, AI, the future, and much more. They sent me a pale white dot early, and it's incredible. I would probably say one of, if not, their best. You can check it out on three dot recordings right now. Before we get started, I want to let you know,

we have a Patreon. Patreon.com slash the downbeat. You're sicker hearing this, right? But I need your money, so I can do more stuff. Guess what? I upgraded the memory cards. You could have a five-hour episode now if you want.

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Simon's got his work cut out and I need to pay him. Patreon.com, 4 slash Downbeat. Please consider checking it out. We also got close. I try and speed this up as much as possible. It's really good. streetwear. It looks like metal, but it ain't metal. Well, it is, but it's a podcast, but is it a podcast? Is it a brand? It's all custom made. You're not going to get any merch better than this anywhere.

I promise you. Everyone says it. Everyone tells me how good it is. www. The Downbeat.a.80, so it spells Downbeat. I stumbled my own words because I didn't say it in the same cadence. Anyway, please check it out. Maybe even more than ever, this episode is brought to you by the wonderful people of Neural D-S-P. Neural DSP. Neural DSP make a Tate bar-based plugins for your computer that can give you the tone in your hands of people like Misha Mansoor. Tocenabasi, Pliny, Nolly. There's a base one.

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It's Misha Mansour and Matt Halpern of Periphery on the Downbeat podcast. Periphery. Two of. Two of. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Finally. It's such a fucking awkward way.

It's good to be back. I'm putting my phone in my pocket. Let's try it again. Let's try it again. No, no, we're not doing it again. I want to do it again. Fucking do it live. Let's do it again.

No, we're doing it live. We're keeping it actually. Simon. Simon. Just tighten it up and leave that bit in. Nope, done. Is this, well, first time in person, but is this my third or fourth?

I can't remember. I think it's third. Yeah. I think you did like one in 2019. Mm-hmm. Two other ones. Yeah. This was before video.

Oh, no, one of one. And yeah, you haven't done video. No, we haven't done video. You look exactly the same as 2018. It's such a, like, a youthful looking band. I'm so tired. It's because we don't really fight, I think. Yeah, maybe.

Music keeps you young. Look at you. We've got questions about fighting, actually. Oh, we'll talk about it. Not that I've even heard anything, but I have questions about it. Would you like to unleash the beast? Beast. Every time.

I can't say, Unleash the Beast. Unleash the Beast. Unleash the Beast. Ready? Misha was moaning that he wanted a coffee, luckily. Yeah, but I'm a fiend, so I opened it and I got yelled at. Cheers. Nolly liked the Java monster.

I have never had this before. Let's see what happens. It's going to be sugary. Good water. That's nice. I heartily endorse this event and or product. What's your go-to coffee order? What would you have got if you got to a coffee place?

Depends on where I'm at. Where were we yesterday? Dude, we went to, we were in Austin. We went to Proud Mary. Never been? Yes. They have Titus Nautilus grinders there. If I see that and I see a Barisha Hustle Autocombe, I order an espresso.

Okay. If they can do a good espresso, I'll order an espresso. But most places can't do a good espresso, so I'll get like a cortado. or something. And if they ask me what size I want my flat white, I'll order a cold brew. That's a great move. Australian people obviously know this. I saw something the other day where someone says, an Australian guy came into my work and asked for a large flat white. Yeah. That should be like illegal. Yes, yes. Straight to jail. I've had like rose from there before that are fantastic. I ordered a cold brew or what was it a, a nitro,

A nitro cold brew. Yeah. And then I got a flight, a pour over flight. Great move. Here's the thing, though. I thought, like, you know, when you get a flight, typically, it's like smaller amounts. Yeah. Full, uh, probably about 250 milliliters per.

Whoa. He got four. So it was four. Well, and the size of that nitro cold brew was like two, too great. You had the equivalent of like five coffees. I didn't, yeah, I couldn't finish all of it, but I did a pretty good job. And it was fantastic. You know what?

I didn't have anything else. I, no, because you know why? Because I had breakfast. That's why. And I almost got a flight of espresso and I changed that at the last minute because I didn't want to be like because I know what I get like. I like it when they do a flight. This is about music by the way, but we're talking about coffee. I like it when they do a flight and it is one of their espressoes, one of their pourovers and then like mystery third drink.

If they have like a special Madcap does that. Is that right? Grand Rapids. One in Detroit is what I think. We were there. You went there. You went there. Why were you in Austin yesterday?

And now you're in Nashville. We're doing these listening parties. We're doing these listening events for our new album. Is there one here? Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Is there? Did you genuinely not know that?

I didn't know that. I assume you were doing like some GGD shit. No, no, no, no. We're here to do that because this album's so different and it's very personal and whatever. We wanted to do something kind of different. We've never done anything really like this before. And, you know, I don't know. Maybe you're noticing this as well, but everything's getting kind of thrown back

and everything's a bit more analog these days, right? So I feel like these in-person appearances, these kind of connections are going over well. What's the set up? We're in chairs on stage, essentially, at guitar center. They're all at guitar center. They're all at guitar centers. So there's five major cities across the country.

It's, um, I wish. None of that. None of that. No, it's a mutually beneficial arrangement. Yeah. I mean, you know, they're giving us a forum for it. They're giving us a place to do this. And there's obviously a built-in audience with,

us and there. So it's a pretty easy combination. But no, I mean, we're sat on this stage and then you have chairs in the audience and it's RSVP only, limited seating. But it's free, which is why also we're not getting paid because we wanted to make these like free events. All five of you on stage. The album, but he's in full. No. Well, yes and no. So we intro every song. Okay. We explain what it's about because each song is, this is a very person. an album. These songs have very sort of deep meanings maybe in a way that songs didn't have on other albums. And we explain that before we play the song. And then afterwards, because especially because these songs tend to be kind of heavy content-wise, lyrically, like we talk about production.

Maybe like add a little levity because you can't just have it be dark the whole time. And then we just run through the album like that. Yeah, tell a story or two and try to lighten the mood a bit. Kind of like a podcast. A little bit? Like a live podcast. Except no filming or recording of any kind. The one part you forgot to talk about is how awkward it is sitting on stage while the song is playing. My instinct was like, that sounds horrible. Yeah.

But you know what? It's at the same time, it's really good like data observation in a way because you're watching people's first time responses to these songs. And you can kind of look around the room and see if it's, you know, a shared response or, you know, who likes what. And it's, it's good. It's good information. The thing I think I wasn't ready for is it's one thing to show, like, you, friends, people you like, your music, you're excited. And you show them. It's like there's a vibe and whatever.

It's completely different showing a room of strangers. And I didn't fully anticipate that. On stage, are you like also like nodding your head? No. I am. No, I'm like looking at my feet. I am. Pull your phone out or not?

No, no, no, no. Live in the moment. you just have to just sit there. That is fucking my worst nightmare. You had an analogy on like a recent podcast where you said like you pissed your pants and you had to sit in it. I was thinking about that on stage the other day. I was like,

this is exactly what we've done. And I'm just, and I have to just sit as still as possible. And pretend I haven't pissed my pants. That's what it's like for 12 songs. I don't mind it as much. I'm fine with it. No,

I mean, it's, again, because it's, it's, it's cool to see the actual responses from people. You know, the genuine,

reactions. And when I see, like yesterday, there was this, there was this guy sitting in the room. He had his little dog with him, which I felt bare for the dog because it was so loud. But I mean, there were songs where he was literally crying, like tearing up. Seeing that as a reaction was a great sort of reinforcement of like, okay, you know, this, this stuff matters. We had another kid tell us that like, that we, I don't, we don't need to get into it. But just people giving us. He pissed his pants? No. No, no, no, no. Just that, just that it's a sobering role. reminder that even though to us this stuff is what we do every day, you know, people tell us how much

the music matters to them. Yeah. And it's cool to have that experience. So I enjoy in a way sitting there and kind of seeing those, those emotions. And then the people ask you questions or yeah, we have like a Q&A at the end, yeah. Yeah. Because I thought you just did Chicago for some reason, because I missed you by one day, I think. I was like, oh shit, I'll go to that. We haven't gone yet. We haven't been to Chicago yet. I might miss you by one week then. there you go yeah we're there i only saw that one you got a fucking kick whoever's ass is promoting me because i only saw chicago gotcha well yeah guitar center where's the guitar center how many you do it five so it's uh we did l a and austin tomorrow we have Nashville uh monday chicago and then new york

city flying yeah yeah business class southwest we're in periphery southeast southeast today southwest i've been booking flights all week so flights are like on my mind yeah yeah yeah Not the same. And they're double the price that they should be. So that's fun. Iran, baby. Everything. I need new memory cards.

Went to order them. Everything's up. It's worth it, though. Iran and AI. You know how old? That's worth it too. We sound old talking about this stuff. No,

and people hate AI. You know? Well, no, no, I'm just talking about the prices of everything. It's so old, man. It's that old guy podcast.

How'd you feel about AI? It's the fucking worst, man. I deleted chat GPT because it pissed me off so much. because I, you know, I saw a meme about how it would convince me that there's two R's in the word strawberry. And I'm like, surely that wouldn't happen to me. And then it did. And they gasslet me into telling me that it only had two R's while writing it with three R's. And I was like, this is a microcosm of everything that's wrong with this. And I'm going to delete this. Like, vote with your wallet. It's a problem. Like, it just goes off what's the most commonly, people mostly search for. How many R's are in the, very part of strawberry. So all of the data it's being fed is that question. So it goes, okay, the answer is too. But my problem is unlike before where you just got regular misinformation,

now you have this confident voice gaslighting you into being like, oh, I know why you think that. But actually, this is why it only has two hours. And great. So that's funny with strawberry, but then with anything that's actually important. It sounds like you're getting legitimate information. and now you believe something that is completely untrue and you will repeat it with confidence, I don't like that. I think there was a schizophrenic man who was talking about, or like a young boy who was talking about his parents being aliens and shit like that that went and stabbed one of his parents or something

because it was going like, you're right to question that. It is kind of strange that your dad brushes his teeth twice a day. That's definitely alien. in behavior. And then some crazy person is reading that and going crazy respectfully. It's a person who's reading that and I'm like, oh, fuck, they are aliens. Better go kill them.

What about in music? That's where I especially hate it. And let me be clear. I think there's like certain things where it's cool, like in an assistive fashion, right? Like it's good at saving time where you take data and collate it or organize it or aggregating in some way. Like that's just, okay, you could do this, but it would. We'll do it faster.

We had systems for that, and this can do it more efficiently. You want to take it to an extreme example, like stem separation, right? Like it does stem separation better than most algorithms. That's fine. You're taking existing stuff. You're creating stems. But generative AI sucks. That shit absolutely, I could swear, right?

Yeah, of course. That shit fucking, that shit. Really? Is that bad? That's worse than the F word. Hate speech. You can say fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. What if it's the name of a guitar company?

Called. I don't think you do. It's a person's name. It's UNTZ. And it was used on the album. But we're going to be trusting AI algorithm to pick that word up. They're picking up vulgar slang for female. It's not my friend, Andreas K.

Made me a guitar. Deep it every time. Wow. Good guitar is it? What's your shape like? Incredible guitar. It's like a dick. No, no, no, no.

It's just a dude's name. He's German. Probably just means friend or something. I don't know. And it's the greatest acoustic guitar of all time. It's the Mike Dawes signature model. I don't know what that means, bro. Mike Dawes?

I don't know who that is. Come on. Great guitar player. Who's Mike Dawes? You know, what? Who's Mike Dawes? Incredible finger style guitarist, like acoustic. Yeah, that's, there's no drums on it.

He is the drummer. Yeah, he is the drummer. Yeah. Oh, he's one of those. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I know the guy. Yeah, yeah. He's like you.

He's from England. I'm actually Scottish. He is Scottish. But I have an English accent. I have an English accent. London's the capital of both. Yeah, it's not.

See what I deal with every day. It's not. How is that? How's your band dynamic? Great. I've got like quick fire questions later on. I'm going to get into that. Yeah, it's good.

It's good. It's good. We're good. We broke the ice enough. You want to talk about this album? We want to talk shit more? Let's talk shit. You want to talk shit more?

We'll talk shit. We'll talk some shit. straight to talking shit. Yeah. All right. Let me get some shit up. It's good to see you. I just like hanging out with you, man.

It's great to see you. I wish I had long, I mean, I got a long amount of memory. Back to the fucking AI RAM conversation. Well, the last time you saw each other was when you were fucking with his computer. Remember that? People don't know that that was real. The GGD. Yeah.

That was real. Didn't, didn't recover. I know. You didn't get any of those files back? No. That was my concept and then your script. It was my script. Your script.

My concept, your script, delivered by, and then who did all the, like, little things that I was deleting? If you don't know what you're talking about, I did to plug in GGD. GGD the downbeat. You should have it by now. Joe Hamilton did those. Yeah. It was just really good. Yeah.

Nailed the Tim and Eric vibe. It was good. It was a good one. Unsurprisingly. So your acting was actually very good, though. Really? Yeah. He is a good actor.

Me and Des have so much fun making any, all the skits. That's just kind of like the treat that is, you know, part of GGD for me and him. I like the fact that you do that, though. Like, I just don't take, like not take, obviously it's a very serious product, but don't take the content seriously. Yeah. What's that? You got to have fun. Mm-hmm.

Co-owners. Mm-hmm. Nollie deads, four of you. Yeah. Went in depth with it about, about that with Nolly. Is it? And it's all equally split, isn't it? Mm-hmm.

That's fucking cool. Congratulations. Thank you. Passion projects, man. Speaking of, I do have a question for this. I don't even have to look at my sheet. You, you like all got a million side hustle. Too many.

Not anymore. You still got like signature products, though. He's got children. Yeah. Side project. I don't have children. Side hustles. They're full time, baby.

Take me, they make enough money for you. It can be a hustle, you know. Not like that. I feel like I've definitely tried to scale down and make things, make my world smaller so I can focus more on the things that I want to be doing, you know. You don't. You don't sell. You got a coffee company, correct?

See, the bags under the eyes. I'm always tired. I have to sleep last night. Everyone normally tells me this. My girlfriend tells me this. Too many hobbies. They're right. And then I get into new things.

I just got into Magic the Gathering, which is, I don't know why I did that. Well, you do not have the time to be doing that. I know. What hustles you got? You got coffee. You got neural DSP plugin. You got a paired all company, entire company. Yeah.

drum plugging company. Periphery. Also, cradle technically. You're in cradle as well. How do you deal with that? It's an ADD part. It's an ADD part.

It's like I forget that I have, you know, and you know what? You know what? I'm sure, dude, we all, we all have to do a million things, right? Yeah. Because you can't just like be a musician anymore. And then it just, you know,

you focus on this thing for a bit and you hyper focus on that. And then it's the next thing. Right. I was going to say, it's all in blocks, you know? Right. It's not like every day you're doing all of the things full on. Yeah.

Sometimes you get those days. You do get those days. But those days are, they can be actually pretty fun because, you know, you're just, you're focused, your head down. Exactly. You're just, you're in that flow state with it. I don't know. It's really satisfying at the end of those days.

It is. Like, like, you're locked in and you're tired, but at the end, you're like, that was a good day. I fucking. That was a good day. I wonder what it is that is specific to progress. progressive music enthusiasts and musicians. It's this like side hustle. And I hate calling it side hustle because it really is for me.

It's like I love doing these other things. I'm like, I can make a business out of this. And then I get obsessed with doing that. But it really does cross over into like the progressive music world. I don't know why it does that. Like not to deviate from what you're saying, but I think for for both of us, a huge part of why we do all these things

is because we get to do with our friends. I mean, that's a huge part of it. It is a massive part. We get to work together on multiple projects, like working with Des, working with Nali is, you know, it's my favorite, one of my favorite things in the world to do,

is work with him in any capacity. But there's so many other interests that we share, such as coffee, such as food. And we get to combine all these things. You know, we go out to have a dinner meeting,

It's not just we're talking and food is, you know, like just there. It is like up. It's the main event. It's the main event. Yeah. Hate to be a massive stereotype, guys, but what I'm about to tell you about is I think a weekend curated and designed specifically for me. Incarceration Music and Tattoo Festival takes over Ohio State Reformatory July 17th and 19th.

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Possibly even more exciting than that though, more than a hundred tattoo artists from around the are going to be transforming the prison into the monster energy tattoo convention. Any psychopaths looking to take home a permanent reminder of their festival weekend can do so at the festival, but please, Lord, clean it. You know what festival you like. If I didn't mention it was haunted, they have an unparalleled scare experience. You know those haunted houses where people scare their absolute out of you, but they're not allowed to touch you? I don't think. I can't remember. the blood prison offers more than just a walkthrough of a haunted attraction. It presents a chilling encounter with the supernatural.

I love ghosts. Weekend and single day passes are on sale now, along with camping packages, VIP and ultimate experiences. Be there when it all goes down. Go to incarceration.com. I will see you there. Do you not like fight when someone's not pulling their way? I have been very reluctant to bring other people.

into what I do because I have a very specific way that I want it done and sometimes when I've tried to get other people in, it's not done the way I want or they don't pull their weight and then it blows up in my face. Visit BetMGM casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly, 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in. Loyal, invested. They're called fans.

Fans don't just listen to music. They feel seen by it, like it belongs to them. So when your brand shows up on Spotify, that's who you're talking to. And you're right next to artists like me, Lizzo. So, are you ready to talk to fans? Spotify advertising. You're among fans. We all work together very well, and there's a lot of time together in a lot of different,

sort of, you know, a lot of experience together, I guess it's the best way to put it. And I think we've all learned to communicate with each other across those different experiences, good and bad, to where now, I think, in every different area that we work together, it's the same communication, which is, I think, first and foremost, like any good relationships, you have an understanding of what team you're on. So we all know we're coming from the same place. We're all working towards the same goal, even if we have maybe a disagreement here and there or if somebody thinks we should do this versus that,

we hear each other out. And that typically is where we can convince the other person, okay, like, yeah, maybe it's not something that I 100% agree with, but I see the passion, or maybe it is a better idea. And we don't, I don't think anybody has an ego about, like, being right. It's my problem. Well, that could be my fucking problem. But that's the thing.

I mean, and I think, you know, everybody respects each other. So I think that's why. Oh, I respect them. It's like a band. It's about chemistry. Yeah. So, like, it's not necessarily that your personality type is good or bad or whatever, but if you find people that you have good chemistry with.

And I think our shortcut was that, you know, we're in bands or in projects together. Because you're not usually supposed to, like, hire your friends or work with friends because it could be very problematic. But we sort of bypass that because we already knew we worked well together. Yeah. And then by extension, you know, I think our values are also very much on the same page. That's a big one. Like let's say hypothetically you're starting a business with some friends and one of them is kind of greedy or wants to cash out.

Like that could be very problematic when you start to make money. But like it also eliminates entire conversations. If you're all, if you just know you're all kind of in it for the same reason. It's like a passion project and like, oh, let's just see where it goes and let's invest it in ourselves. Then you avoid all these arguments. And it just becomes about the excitement and the work and what you're, putting out. Do you delineate when you start these ventures who's doing what? Or is it just like, let's just go and then find out what works best for everyone? That was the nature of GGD, I think.

I mean, it started with two of us, then it became three, then it became four. And we, I think, at least a couple of us kind of were doing every, like, we're all doing everything at one point. And now it's definitely changed to specific roles. You know when you tour, you figure out pretty quickly what it's like to work with somebody and live with somebody. And you see what people's strengths are and what their weaknesses are and what annoys you and what doesn't. And we all have toured together. We've toured with Des. We've toured with Nollie. Yeah. He was in our band. So it's you just know kind of what works and people kind of jump in where they can. And if there's something that I can't do that I know Misha can, I have no

problem being like, hey, dude, can you can you hit, can you take care of this? I always, this is a funny, thing that I always say about Misha, and this is a compliment. I've heard me say this before, but he's like, Misha's like the Ron Burgundy of making music or doing, doing whatever the job needs to be for GGD. He's like, Okay, so let's say we need a demo, right? We need a product demo song.

It's, uh, or we need a video made with a script. All I have to do is write it down and give them the direction and it gets done. Oh, right? You mean the teleprompter. The teleprompter. Yes, I should have clarified. Yeah.

How Ron Bergeny reads the telepropter, whatever is on there, it's going to get done. If you give him direction, he's going to crush it perfectly. And it's just so reliable. Thanks, man. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it really is. I think you nailed it when you said, like, you know, you've all toured together. Like, what are you on?

Is this the eighth album or the seventh album? Like, what does it count as? Is that including a double? Oh, we're getting into math here. We'll call it eighth. We'll call it eight. Yeah, but like. But we've been touring together since 2009.

Yeah, so you're going to work well together. Yeah. I just start companies with random friends. Well, I don't. I just hire a random friend. But think about when you were starting a band. It's like if you hire a random person, you don't know if it'll work out or not. And sometimes it does, and then you keep them.

And sometimes it doesn't and you've got to find someone else. It's kind of the same thing. You learn each other's tendencies too, though. I mean, there's still, like any relationship, there's still hard conversations. There's little things that will annoy each other or little things that piss each other. off but you've practiced that with fucking catering and the fucking records and shit yeah or week three of any tour yeah oh hell like but you know what i mean anybody looking to uh if if they're open to it to becoming more self-aware should go tour because you'll you'll get checked pretty quickly

if you're around people that that are willing to check you okay real question then could you just live off the money from periphery without all of these side hustles? No. No. Flat out no. No. No chance. Even owning your own label?

No. Can I? That was the other one. Well, well, no. And I'm going to add to that. That answer really changed in the last like year. Like really got a lot worse. Maybe even like year, year and a half.

I mean, I'll say my grand prediction here as well. But like I predict. like a lot of bands, a lot of bands that you love that you're like, oh, these guys are all right. They're going to call it quits in the next like two years, two, three years. And here's why. It is now a non-viable business model. The margins were already razor thing.

And then after the pandemic, I know you know this, the cost of goods and services in a business, right? What happens if they go up 10%, right? Are you talking with what goods and services? I don't know, buses, gas. It's all going on. Anything's going on. If you have a business model and that goes up 10, 15%, you're in a lot of trouble.

Well, it's doubled. It's like the cost of a bus is doubled. Have your costs of goods for merchandise? I was going to say, I've gone psycho. I've had to go offshore for it because it's crazy. And then they tariff that. So this is what I'm talking about. And of course, these things don't happen overnight.

And, you know, we're talking about, like, legacy acts and people that have seen success, like, legit bands that are doing everything right and that want to fight through it at every turn. But any band that is relying on touring for income, which is now the only thing left because what? You're going to do it from streaming. Come on. So that's your last, that's your last bastion for making money. And now you can't make ends meet because you've got to pay everyone out. You got to pay your business manager. You've got to pay your manager. You've got to pay everyone else.

You've got to pay the crew that you possibly, the amount of crew that you hired in, you know, when money was a little bit better. Exactly. And their rates are going up because their cost of living going up. You're left, whatever you're left with, you split with your bandmates or if you're the only one, you know, you pay everyone out and then what you have whatever's left. And then you hold back 40% for taxes. This is not a way to support any sort of life anymore. It was already rough before all of this. But now with the costs going up, it's just non-viable. we are fortunate to be in a position where we have our other ventures.

So we can just weather it. We're doing it for fun, basically. But like anyone that needs a tour to pay bills is going to be like, hey, so the last three tours, I didn't make enough to pay my bills. I can't afford to do this. And it's through no fault of their own. They may even have seen their guarantees go up. But because the costs have outpaced that, you now have an insolvent business model.

So that's my, that's my really crappy prediction. I mean, it's dark and it's on the money, in my opinion. Which sucks. Yeah, I mean, it's not my full-time job. My full-time job is, or the companies, you know, that's the full-time job. I'm like torn on if it's this, including AI, and this is going to sound crazy, whether or not it's going to be a net positive or a net negative for music in terms of the quality of music. Because I feel like for us in our age bracket, it's going to be net negative, of course,

because less people can afford to be musicians. But like the amount of slop coming out with AI and the fact you have to love music so much you're willing to do it for free may create incredible music. because you have to, there's, there's a period of slop music that predates the AI slop that we're going to get. And around that you have people who are just making it to make it and not like the people who are like, I'm going to start a band to make money. And sometimes they do. They're going to drop off. But it's going to be in like the next generation's hands.

And it could go either way. It could just go. Everyone just goes, I'm not doing that. I'm actually kind of bullish on the future. And like maybe even sooner than that. Because the one thing about AI that surprised me was I didn't realize that there'd be so much of a backlash, like a public backlash. I thought by now everyone would be sold. Like when you think about how the internet was so easily adopted or the smartphone, we kind of like accepted and never look back.

But AI is like kind of a dirty word. Like you'll see like companies will stray from marketing with it. Like they used to like put it front and center. And now they're kind of like, oh, maybe we don't don't lead with that. And it's because there is public backlash because it is negatively affecting so many people. It's not kind of this just clear net positive. I think that's because they went for the arts first, which is in my conspiracy brain, that is them trying to get rid of quote unquote high paying jobs that are not beneficial for

capitalism. Like music, yes, it's quite lucrative, but like not as lucrative as the other jobs. That could have been easily replaced with AI. Right. And I think that's why people hate it rightfully. But I feel like if it had been made the other way around and they're like, okay, AI's come out and now you don't have to do your taxes

because it goes through your bank account and it does everything for you and it's buy the book and all this stuff, then everyone be like, AI's sick. But the fact they came straight for like, here's a song and a movie made by a computer. No humans involved. Like, people hate it,

rightfully so. But I think there is prime example that you'll love. I bought a car recently. And I did use some AI to get the best deal. Like I asked one of the fucking AI things. And before anyone gets on my fucking back, this is the other thing. The dirty word element of it,

I think really should be. be for the generative stuff and taking jobs from people. But like to help the common man, that stuff shouldn't really be a dirty word. The delineation is assistive versus generative. Yeah. And that was assistive. It was collating data. It was aggregating data for you. It's something you could have done, but it just saved you a lot of time. And a lot of money. Like I typed in, I was like, get me the best lease deal on this car in the country. And it pulled up some random like Long Beach, California lease deal on this car and I went into the showroom. He said, I want this car.

What's the best deal? I went through all the deals. I was like, this is nothing. There's nothing. I went, what about this deal that I found on this? And they were like, oh, let me go to the back. Guy comes out. Yeah, we can match that.

It was like, fucking a third of the price. Right. That shit's cool. Stop stealing art. Yeah. But here's the thing is like what I'm noticing now is now there seems to be more of a premium than ever. on analog art or whatever you want to call it.

You're just seeing in general, like people seem to be embracing instruments again. There really is a bit of a pushback because I think as much as it is impressive for AI to generate these things, and maybe that's why it's like such a impressive showcase. I remember seeing a fully generated clip or like a realistically generated song,

which in and of itself is impressive because it generated it from nothing. But neither of those things are things I would watch. You know what I'm saying? But creating something that is enticing and that's been created maybe because it's by another human. Like that's, that's interesting. That's what people seem to gravitate towards.

And now there actually seems to be a bit more of a premium on that, in my opinion. On lo-fi. Lofi analog, whatever you want to call it. Like, what's the French, no, the French Canadian. That's like grunge to me. That happening and then popping off is the weirdest music ever in there. everyone being like, this is sick. But that's exactly what I'm talking about.

I think everyone's especially receptive to that because it's so anti, it's like, AI could never make. AI would be like, that's not notes. That's not the notes that we know. It's not trained on that yet. Well, now it is. But, you know. I wish they weren't wearing masks though.

That's the only thing that my brain goes, I want to believe this is a pushback on what music's become. And then the other part of me is like, people just like it because they're wearing fucking masks. I'd say that if the music, wasn't so unique sounding with it's like you don't need them if they were wearing masks or not music would still be like insane sounding you know was the spencer that said the cat comment yeah he's he was like this is what the inside of a cat's brain sounds like at all time yeah i honestly it makes me

think of like it makes me sad for the band primus i'm a big primus fan i was like primus could have been this band they could have been the aren't they like huge and cult yeah but like if had a good run yeah they have bring them back i wish i left stray before they were looking for a new drummer i would have fucking i'd have killed someone to be primisist's drama could be the new brain exactly yeah i mean actually i don't even know who they got i'm sure he's very good i forget the guy's name he's very good he is very good yeah i forget his name when i when because they were doing it as email like whatever just because i already had the show and i wasn't really bothered i'm pretty sure i sent les claypool an email and it just said hey i really like your band

I'm on tour. I don't have the time to do a video. But here's my YouTube or something on that. Obviously, didn't fucking go anywhere. But now if that happened with No Band, Johnny No Band over here, I'd have fucking done anything to it. Do you miss it?

I think I do miss it. I think I'm getting, got to the point now. This is podcast five of six this week. Six of seven or whatever. I've done loads of podcasts. And obviously, when someone's got a show, we then also go to the show. And slowly I've been like, God, I'm glad I don't have to do this.

When I see everyone else, I'm setting up on stage and that slowly turned into like, God, I miss what that's like. So I'm in the market, but back on our conversation, I know it's a defunct model for business. And I know all my other business endeavors have done tenfold what they did when I was in Australia because I got more time to put into it. But so I'm thinking I'm either going to do like a project just for the love or a few of those. So like I'd love to do something that sounds like O-Peth. I'd love to do a black metal band.

Like stuff I know is like I know is not going to make any money, but I will love doing it or a death metal band. Or I'll take a fucking paycheck. Or I'll take like, oh, we need active radio rock band needs five grand a week to go, boom. cut it, and I'll do that. It's literally only worth doing those two things. Yeah.

Anything else is a waste of time. Yeah. Either service, you know, the creative part or get paid. Yeah. And anything else is just some weird compromise

where you're kind of getting nothing. Yeah. Which I think is why Stray sort of broke up. It's like, we was very busy. And all of us knew, like being the ages we are, being the size of the band has remained

for the last five years. It's like, really? I feel like you guys were getting bigger. Not here. The UK popped off, but you can't live off a UK, one UK tour a year. You know what?

I had a thought going back to like even with GGD. One of the, I don't want to say the only, but one of the main reasons why it works is because of the band and because of our fan base. And I have a lot of respect for our fan base because our fan base is comprised of people that are a lot like us. they make music, they produce music, they work at home, they make music at home. And if we didn't have that, I don't know if we would even still be in this band because of what we're saying. Like if we didn't have companies that were generating revenue that could help to pay the bills, we wouldn't be able to do the band.

So all of it feeds back into the support of the fan base who were willing to take a risk when we were like, hey, here's this drum library. Hope you like it. Yeah. You know, so I mean, we owe a lot to them. And it's all symbiotic. The band is, yeah, it's almost like the band is, I don't want to say unpaid because you obviously do get paid, but the fact it's not your main income. Unpaid promotion for the other stuff. At a time, yeah, in the beginning of the companies, it really was.

And now I think they're delineated enough to where it is, you know, everything kind of can function on its own. But to get to that point, we needed the fans to support us. And we're all very appreciative of that. And I think it's worth saying because it does tie back into also why we still do what we do as a band. You know, it means a lot to us to write music as a passion project. But we are lucky to have a fan base that is, you know, mature now in the sense of, you know, we've been doing this for so long. But they support everything that we do and we couldn't do it without them.

So we always say, I think, periphery is. is at the center of everything that we do. When I think about, like, when you're like, you guys have so much stuff going on. I think about it and it's kind of like you have periphery at the center and then all these prongs that go out from there. But it's been the foundation for sure.

So I can't, you can't knock it. I'm not saying you were, but you can't knock developing and fostering a band. Yeah. I don't know. I think the takeaway from this is like, you kind of have, unfortunately, you have to do it all. Yeah.

And all in tandem. Yeah. You do, but, but you know, don't want to discourage anybody either. I think if you do everything for the right reasons and then you put out good quality stuff for the people that support you, whatever that may be. You put your energy and your time and your passion into it and hopefully then they support you back. Yeah. And you develop the skills. Being in the band is like so good. I think I gave someone else this advice recently when they were like, oh, I just, my band of seven years just broke up. Like, how do I feel like that

wasn't a complete waste of time. It's not a failure. It's like, you forget, like, in those seven years, you learn people skills. Maybe you were sorting out the merch.

You learned the price of goods and how that stuff works. Like, it's all, being in a band is one of the most, like, all-encompassing, like, I don't want to use the word entrepreneurial,

but like, in terms of, in terms of, like, skills that you acquire. You acquire a bit of skill, needed for every single business on it from just being in a bank. 10 jobs and sometimes it fucking sucks.

A lot of the times it fucking sucks. You have to be open to that though. There's plenty of people in bands that don't care or pay attention to that stuff and they do it for different reasons. Or like a manager does it. Yeah, yeah. But if you are, if your eyes and ears are open to that stuff, then yeah, you can learn a ton. And it's all skills that apply to not only anything creative, but I mean anything that you

want to do going forward. You never thought about like managing bands? No. Hell no. I tried it once and I was like, no. I respect the managers that are very good. Yes. Because they have a certain resolve that I don't have as a person for one, but two, just you're on all the time.

You have no breaks. You're just, you're on call. It takes a very special kind of person to be a very good manager. And yeah, I have immense amount of respect and I know that I could not, I would not be a good manager. And here's the other part. of it, you know, I think really good managers have that resolve. The people that they represent that they work for don't have that resolve a lot of times. So you're doing all this really hard work,

sometimes menial grunt work for people that don't always appreciate it to the same level because they're just not on that same wavelength. So to me, it would be incredibly frustrating to do all this stuff and not have everybody understand it fully. However, if you're going to do that well, then you have an acceptance and you have an understanding and you're kind of like the parent taking care of the kids and making sure everything is going well. One of my main things, other than all of those points that you touched on, was like, I can't possibly, and this is like selfish musician, I know I'm coming across bad here, but music-wise, I cannot care about your shit, as much as I care about my own shit.

Like, so it's just my music is my baby, and I'll do fucking everything to respect and promote and, you know, put everything into that. And then if I was given someone else's music to care for like that, I really wouldn't, even if I loved the band, just something about like the song being my baby. The ownership. Yeah.

You know, this is also why I love your idea of you, chasing your passion projects because now you got your set up you have you have enough stuff set up to where you could just rely on this and it could just be the hobby could just be the passion project you can make the music exactly the way that you wanted to be and it will be sick as far but the problem is i only play the fucking drums so what so what's like what's like you're going to play with this motherfucker you got like yeah but you you you have so many people around you at your disposal you have like you know you know write me a song guys you know what that's not true. You're not just a drummer. You do other things. You do produce. You do have skills.

You work with DAWs. You know a lot about cameras. Microphones, recording, engineering. But that's like, that's incredible skill. That's more than most drummers. So can't riff, though. You can riff on the drums. Hey, I take back everything I say. Go on fucking Suno, whatever it is. Oh, remind me a black metal riff. Okay. So you, you both have signature plug-in products. Multiple. GGD. how many periphery kits are there the original

P3 which is part of that 4 or 5 4 or 5 yeah so and then you've got neural DSP archetype everybody watched a fucking ad mention you every single fucking time

do these plugins make it onto actual records or are they just in the demo process the answer is yes to both the new periphery album is entirely my plugin, my neural DSP plugin. And part of the reason is I got the first working build of it

like two days before our very first writing session. So obviously I was excited to use it. I've been using the neural stuff to track in the demo phase. And what's very convenient about that, and if we can get nerdy for a second, is just you record DIs, which you're then editing. So then at the end, when you're going to reamp, you can like, you know, take that DI and run it through a real amp.

It's already edited. It's already ready to go. So it's very handy. And that's what we did on our last album. On P5, I did it with the Omega amp and then reamped all those DIs through my amp collection. But this one, I don't know, like, because we wrote the whole thing with it, and it was so integral to the sound. And there's a lot of cool effects and whatever. Like, when we went to try to reamp, we ended up with cool stuff, but it didn't suit the vibe as well.

Like genuinely just the plug-in just sounded. correct. So we just stuck with it. It was less work too, which is nice. So that's, that's the sound of the album. So that those demo stems then went on the album or you retract them nicer. So this is an interesting thing. A lot of the album is demo stems. And I'm coming at this from two angles. And I'm sure you might be able to relate. Maybe people record to relate is when you're writing like sometimes there's an electricity. There's an energy to it. And you're, you're kind of just so excited. Like you're maybe you're running through it. But like, you know, you're, you're, trying to get a decent take, a decent enough take to get the idea across.

And then sometimes when you go to retract it, that magic's like impossible. It's like impossible. And it's one of the most frustrating things. You're like, this is better, but I hate it. I'm really glad we did that for this record, though. There's songs that we have on other records where I think the demos, certain aspects of it were better. 100%. I wanted to get into if this affects demoitis.

Yes. No, this has been our cure for demoitis. Yeah, okay. Which is using some of the demo. I have a pro tip. I have a pro tip. This is actually like I cracked it. Can you also explain demoitis please?

So demoitis is the process where you are demoing a song. You're hearing it so much and so many times before you actually record the thing. It becomes how the song sounds for better or for worse. And then when you go to re-record it and it invariably sounds different, even if it sounds better, it sounds worse, if that makes sense. Because you're so used to hearing it. You've been hearing it probably like. dozens of hours. It's not even worse sometimes.

Sometimes it's just wrong. It's just wrong. Exactly. It's hard to relate because you'll be like, technically it is better in every way, but it's just not, it doesn't sound right. Right.

So my trick, and I kind of steal this, please, because it works. When we're writing, we always take like that extra minute because you want to get through as quickly as possible,

but we'll take that extra minute to try to get like a halfway decent take. Because the reason that you go and retrack it is because you're like, oh, well, that was dog shit. Like that sounds terrible. And it's out of tune. So we will like, once we're like, okay, I like that, I'll take that extra second to like tune the guitar and get like a halfway decent take. And then as a result, then we did this on P5 and we did this on this. I'd say probably like 80 to 85% of what's on the album is demo takes. And we only really fix the really egregious

stuff or the stuff where I'm like, yeah, like this isn't, this isn't going to cut it. And that has really, really helped genuinely. I thought you were going to say something like, scoop a bunch out of the master bus and put it back in later on. I mean, I'll also say we are very, very fortunate to work with Nollie and he's a genius. He's, there's a lot of very, very good mix engineers out there, very talented ones. But what I like about him, I'm not saying that everyone works this way, but he doesn't use a template. always start from scratch and like the mix will often just start with a conversation because like

he wants to try to find find the sound of the album like that's a sound that like we're kind of all chasing and the demos will be reference points for that which is which is very handy and like I had many many long conversations with him because there was a sound that we were all kind of chasing with this with this album and there were times where I had to translate what you were saying to him in non-technical ways that actually, I don't know if you know this, but it was like the turning point. Yes.

Explain. This is all very vague. You were saying there's a sound, there's a moment. Hit me. I wanted it to sound very big and I wanted to sound raw. Like I've always thought Nolly did

these extremely clean mixes. Like just these like technically perfect mixes. I like that. I was like, I actually want to push you out of your comfort. So I want you do a mix that's like unlike anything you've ever done before. I think the mistake I made was

I started to like related in technical terms. like we need the kick to be hitting these frequencies and to you know like and I think I actually should have dumbed it down and be like I just want it to be more bigger you know or something like that yeah and this is something that he's explained to me that you know he tries to get all the bands that he works with to this is not yeah like for him you don't it actually makes it harder for him to translate what you're asking for if it is technical terms because a lot of times it it just you know it's all relative it doesn't really translate that that well. So if you can say, like, this particular thing that I'm thinking about was, you know, we were trying to hone in this test mix. And I was hearing what Misha was saying. And I was hearing what Nali was saying. I was like, hey, Nali, I think what Misha is trying to get across is like, right now, you know, the mix feels as an example, you know, it's, if I'm in my car, I feel like it's kind of behind my dashboard and it's kind of in the center. I want you to widen it and make it so that it is like weighing on my body.

Like I want to feel the weight of it on me. And he was like, oh, okay. You've Rick Rubinness. Yeah. And then he went and he did a mix. And that was the one you were like, oh, actually, I think we can get there. Now we're stepping the right direction. Like this is much more like what was it a difficult mixing process?

Actually, no. Get before we got there. Just the same song. He's trying different mixes on. Well, what we did is we did like a test mix for it. Because what we were going for was something was like, hey, this is out of your comfort zone. I don't really know who we would go to other than Nollie because we're doing such specific stuff. And I know that he's got it in him.

I just don't know exactly how to relate it. Once we got that test mix, it was like, okay, cool. So now it's just details. So for mixing, Spencer and I flew to, because Spencer is an incredible mix engineer too. and we flew to Bath to mix with him in person. And then that was actually very easy. I mean, it was time consuming, but it was very easy. It was actually a really fun mixing session.

Good coffee. Yeah, they had a lot of good coffee. I was jealous of that part. So the best pour over I've ever had. I'm just, I'm kind of smiling and laughing because the whole time that this was going on, that, you know, Misha and now that you're communicating and trying to translate it, he's, you know, we talk all the time.

He's saying to me, like, I really think you guys should just relax. Like, I'm going to nail this. I know what needs to be done. I understand. I don't think we need to do a test mix. Let's just do the mix and we'll nail it. And then I get neurotic. I get very, yes. You and I both do it for different reasons. But like it's like, it's, I mean, dude, at this point, it's like I've got this entire vision in my head. And it's got to be this way or I'll die. And like, it's, I recognize, I always get this way. I like know I get this way, but it doesn't matter. It's a superpower, though.

It's a superpower getting that way. That's why you are where you are. I guess it doesn't feel like in the moment because it's frustrating because I know I'm being like neurotic and unreasonable and I know it's going to be or I can like logically tell myself. But I'm also like, this is the most important thing in the world, which it's not. But it feels like it. And so then I start to like drive him crazy and drive Nali crazy.

And I'm like, we need test mixes and we need this and we need that. And all he's like, it's fine. We'll get together. And of course he's right. And of course I know he's right. But I just feel insane. Yeah, but you know what? That is unfortunately the level, let me just glaze you a little bit here.

The level of genius that you're at, that is, I'm sorry, is your life sentence. Because once you lose that, that's it. So unfortunately, you all just have to put up with it. And by this point, you know how to deal with it, obviously. Yeah, yeah. I mean, at least now it's like I know the cycle. I just tricked myself into being like, you'll be different next time. We stray exactly the same type things.

Everyone has their own neuroses that happen when we record. And then you get to the end, like, fucking how at least that's out of the way. It's not going to happen next time. And then it goes next time exactly the same loops. To your point, it's cool to see how much everybody gives a fuck about it. Yeah, that's why it ends up being so good. For this record in particular, it was just so dialed in and so just emphatic about every aspect. of it. And this was an example of that. It's just one of many, many, many, many examples.

So you're using the drum plugin, obviously, you're using drum. To write, yeah. To write. And also to set the vibe. To set the vibe. So then is that then difficult to get over the demo eyers? No. Because we have nollie. You have Nolly and that and that's the plug in anyway. Yeah. It's like, it's like just make it sound like that. Did you record the drums in that? studio that you recorded the last plug in. Why'd you do P5? No, P5 was done in... Is that real world?

It real world. Oh, that's real world. Yeah, yeah. We recorded in Baltimore at a studio called Magpie Cage, which we did the first GGD library there. Okay. Yeah. So which version of GGD did you do the demos for this album to set the vibe?

Yeah, mine are massive too. Flagship. Mm-hmm. But that was out. the kick drum on yours is that's your kick drum that's like one of the best captured kick drums the kick on the ggd pack uh the downbeat one of the greatest kick drum sounds just ever do you know what's crazy i honestly and nollie agrees i think it's the best kick drum i've ever heard like in the flesh and recorded yeah and nolly like we're talking about his dedication to everything he made me

my mics for the kick when we did that and he made me my kit to get he was like I don't know what you did just do what you do because when I sent him stems from my room before we even did the plug in he was like this kick drum might be the best kick drum ever heard yeah kind of a fun fact is the kit is actually all natural except for the kick which we've reinforced because it's a metal mix and the sample that we used is your kick drum because it is the best sounding it's the best sounding kick drum. 24 by 14. Yeah.

I don't know if you've seen any of the comments from the first song that came out, but people are just like, did you hear that kick drum? Yeah. That's a fucking great, great little snip to have there. So you're on our album.

And to answer your questions. You can switch to 24, 14? Pretty sick. It's fucking sick. They're just like 24s are like harder to play, you know? If you're Tom's where you want them.

Yeah. I never found with a, with a 24 by 14, This is my theory. Some scientists can tell me if it's right. 24 by 14 is the same amount of air as 22 by 60 to push. So I've never really found a difference. The tension of the head is kind of different,

but I tune my kicks finger tight anyway. I've never really noticed a difference in the amount of effort I have to put in to play a 24 unless it's like a 24 by 18. 24 by 14 is like a fucking... I don't know if I've played a 24. Actually, I don't know if I played a few. But a 24 by 18, it's challenging to play because of, yeah. Like at speed.

There's so much air in there, yeah. I don't think it's the area. This is my research. I think is the amount of air you have to push to get the second head to react. Hmm. On 24 by 18 is the same as having a 22 by 15. I don't use an 18 or 20, even my kick is 22 by 16. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah. Probably for a similar reason. Which is like really like a standard. try a 24 14 okay I will they also look really fucking cool it's really annoying to put your ract on of course you play a 13 mm-mm I mean I have but not lately I've been just playing 12 yeah you might be all right then but I'm tall too so I can I can have that height oh yeah yeah you're fucking fine for me I'm like hello yeah but I do love the way it looks

big fan of the 24 by 14 this podcast is sponsored by 24 by 14 kick drums you got signature snare mm-hmm that going pretty good good yeah i stopped making a signature snare because i was making yours by accident oh really and it got to the point where the specs were all done and the finish was going to be different the specs were done and i said there's nothing out here like this and then uh one of the guys that was helping it was like oh the the matt halpin one's pretty similar i looked at it and was like fuck was it a 14 by six? Did you have vents and brass and all the,

all the features? The look was different, but the sound that would have been created by, what's your shell? Brass. What is it? One. I can't remember.

I think it's one mill. I think it's one. Whatever I was working on was just like, this is just that's drums. I'm not going to do it. There's only so many combinations. I want to. There's one out there that no one's done.

That's I'm doing. Okay, good. Then don't let anyone know. I'll tell you off the record. Yeah, you can tell us off the record. Oh, that's cool. Ooh. Yeah.

I asked Pearl to make me a few snare drums that were mine, all my specs with the exception of a little bit different hardware and then three millimeter brass. They need to sell that. And that's what I played on the record. That's what typically I tour with live. Can't beat a three mil brass. It's incredible. It is. So is it like the same shell as a reference.

Yeah. And then which would your shell on it. Same shell hardware, like the strainer, all that stuff. Yeah, because I mean, I hit so freaking hard that you do. That I need, I need really beefy hardware on there. But I also just have an affinity for three millimeter brass shells. And everybody has an affinity. Yeah.

It's just the best. Yeah, but yeah. But there aren't a lot of 14 by 6s out there. So we've talked about this, you know, potential of, do we put out a limited run at some point? Do we put out like some kind of different version of it, maybe different colors, different, whatever. But I don't know if it's a lot.

Black one? Two blugs? Black? Fuck, that'd be so hot. You know, when we first started developing the syndrome a while back, it was all black, it was two blugs, it was a free floater that we were messing with. And then it had these huge, like,

you know, one inch, one and a half inch circles, vents around it. But it was too similar to Abe Cunningham's there. Yeah, which is a three male brass, four by six. But the problem, the problem, you know, you run into is, you know, this, the balance of, like, creating a really, like, top of the line product, everything I possibly want, and then making it affordable affordable for people that want to use it. And that's, you have to think about that. Three male brass.

Ain't that affordable. No. But you know what, dude? At guitar center yesterday. I went and went in the snare room and I looked at my snare. It was $200 more than what we originally listed it as because of what we were talking about before. Yeah. And also, I can say this.

You can't because you're in their pocket right now. But guitar center adds a bit of money. I went into it look for my ride and it was like a hundred bucks more than retail. Okay. Well, that's good. They got to make money. They've got paid to pay everyone. Cost of goods.

I hate to get really drummy. But people love it. Funny thing about that Abe Cunningham snare, they came out and then they disappeared off the market immediately. I don't know if there was maybe something wrong with them. I don't know. I'm trying find one of them now. I remember when they were testing them out because that was actually the year that we toured with them. And Abe and his drum tech had like three or four different versions of them. And he actually let me use them during our set a couple nights just to see what they would sound like see what they would feel like I was in the process of trying to figure out what drum

I was going to make. And they were incredible. They were good. Yeah. But, I mean, they're also really expensive. So who knows? Maybe they just didn't sell well. No, what I wonder is if they may be underpriced it and then like it was not profitable

by the time it was out or something. Because I asked for one. I was like, I'll buy it. I don't care. And they were like, no, these aren't available anymore. I was like, these came out like last week. Yeah. Kind of weird.

I like his concept is he. I think they did I think they did white pony on a bell brass and they did, I might be wrong here. And they did around the fur with a orange county

vented. 40 plie. Yeah. So then they just try to combine the tail. I mean, I was grilling him on that tour. Oh, because like my own summer

is like one of my favorite snare sounds of all time, especially on the chorus, like how it cuts through. And so I was like, Hey, like, what did you use? And I think he said he used the 40-plod. But I was like, and how'd you get that sound?

And he was like, we're still trying to figure that out today. That's the magic. He's like, and I realized it's just studio. It's just the mix. You know, even they're chasing that sound. And that his lives there, man, I was like. Well, I thought I hit hard. He hits hard as fuck.

He is hard as fuck. He, him and Aaron Gillespie hit insanely. both of them throw their whole upper body into their snare drum. Crazy you and Aaron Gillespie are on mine or hitting that hard. Oh, man. You know what, though? We're cutting that. No, I didn't even know that he had gone back.

He was fucking in here. Yeah. And he was being real cagey with the conversation. Because obviously, I fucking, everyone makes good symbols. Like, it's just a running fucking joke. But, like, we were talking about it about being on children. and he was real cagey. And then like one day later,

he announced final. Well, I'm glad he's back. He was the reason why I started playing mino. Same. But those warp tour days with those,

he just had a bunch of giant ride symbols or whatever it was. The way he was hitting him, the way he sounded, that was my introduction to Milo. So it was cool. Cool to see him back. How many sig symbols you got?

I have the double down stack and then I have the crash ride. Love a signature product. you just make your companies for your signature products, correct? Sort of. I mean, I have signature guitars and pickups. I guess. Here's the thing.

We have never been like a merch band. Like for the equivalent size band, they'll sell like triple the merch we do, but we've always been able to sell gear. So that's like, that's been our way to kind of make it work. And, you know, we recognize that from a pretty early standpoint. And so did companies. Like they kept sending us gear because if they sent me something, then they would sell it.

And then eventually the companies were like, well, be good to have them exclusively. I guess we got to get him paid. I love that you guys are a gear band, though, because I'm like a gear guy. Yeah. And that's why,

when I'm talking about doing a passion project, like I want it to be something like prog and tech and gear related, because I love that shit. Yeah, yeah. I've always loved that stuff. Well, you have a plugin. Love it.

It's doing very well. Everybody loves it. Is it? You know what I fucking found out of the other town? I paid my fucking tax bill. And I was like, it's fine. GGD pays, pays quarterly. And then I like, look at my contract.

Every six months. It's every six months. I'm not doing good right now, guys. I don't want to talk about plugins all day, but I could. I really could. We need to talk about your album, though, because, you know, people like that shit. You're getting one of the most exclusive interviews. This is at least the first time.

This is. That we'll have talked about it in an interview. We're not doing any traditional. press for this album. Traditional press is fucking dead. I'm doing all these Danny Wilma festivals this summer, every single one of them. I was like, who else is doing it, expecting it to be like the normal, Billy's fucking live podcast?

I'm just backstage, got a room, just going to podcast. And I was like, who else is doing it? And they were like, we're revamping our press. Like, it's these four people, including me. And I'm like, you are three years late, but that's what to do. Well, this is it for us. We haven't talked to anybody else. else. Yeah, you're getting the exclusive. I know Mark has something coming up, but it's going to be

very few and far between. Okay. You know. Well, you've said some stuff. I mean, I've got my questions here, but you've said some stuff in this previous run. Don't read my fucking question, right? Read my fucking questions. I work very hard on these secrets. Thank you. You said it's really, very dark content matter. Yeah. I've listened to album is fucking great. I've got, thanks. I've got some things I need to say. Thank you. The fucking first track is. the best song you've ever written. Oh, really? Yeah, absolutely.

You know me. I love a little blast beat and a bit of black metal in there. You know whose idea the blast beat was? Yeah, of course it fucking was. No, everyone would think it's Mark because he hates blast beats.

I know he hates blast beats, but... It works. If it works, it fits. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but... Get ahead of yourself. No one goes. One of the things that we try to do for this record was score it,

like from a cinematic standpoint. And we'll get into what that means more specifically, but I felt, like with the content of that song and what it's about, we needed something that was chaotic and dark and horrible. Yeah. You know, and that fits it. Okay. Before we go deep dive on the last beats, because I really could do that all day. What's it about? The album or the song? You could give it. We should start. Let's just, we'll start from me. We've been, we've been faffing

about. We can, we can get to business. We'll lock in and get serious now. Come on. All right. All right. How's my hair? All right. You look great. Thank you. So P6, is it? What are you doing? What are you doing?

You are the producer when you get up. I think something's happened. Simon, leave it in. Go. All right. So, yeah, let's just start at the beginning. I mean, for a couple years, we've been talking about what we're going to do for our next record.

And nobody was inspired by this idea of doing another, like, like, P6. You know, we've done it. P5, P4, we have, those albums have archetypes of periphery songs. You want to hear the Mark song? It's on there. You want to hear the Jake song, it's on there. You want to hear the really long pragy one? It's on there. So, I mean, the idea of doing another record like that, we were all just

like, no, like we, nobody wanted to. Nobody was inspired. And if we had tried to go down that road, I don't think we would have a record right now. So, you know, we had just kind of talked a little bit here and there. about like what do we want to do and it was very loose because we really didn't have to do it yet and then when it came closer to a time frame where it was like right now we need to buckle down and figure this out i started thinking about just i don't know concepts what the hell was going on in my life what was going on and you know what's relevant and um we were on tour with spearpox early 2025 we were in europe i was there yeah oh yeah you were camera

That's right. I forgot about that as well. Go on, sorry. Sorry to cut you. It's just forever ago. So, yeah, on that tour, we were in Munich. Remember that coffee shop? Yes.

Yeah, the really nice one. So, Mish and I were just sitting there. We were shooting the shit about what we, you know, what ideas we had. And I just said to him, you know, I've been thinking a lot lately about this concept of loneliness. Because a lot of the stuff that I had been going through, the product of that, one of the products of, of what I had been dealing with from a mental health standpoint was loneliness. And I said to him, you know, it would be really interesting to explore the different

perspectives of loneliness, you know. And when we started just talking about that idea, like what part of the human experience, maybe even not the human experience, you know, produces loneliness. And we started talking about that and how that could be a really cool idea for a record. and Misha really resonated with it and I think felt that too. It's funny because around that time, right after that, I heard somebody talk about the quote unquote loneliness epidemic. So I felt like, all right, well, maybe this is something to focus on, you know.

Anyway. And then as we were talking, I was looking at this, you know, the tattoo of our logo, the three dots and it's the, our label is called three dot recordings. And, you know, what if we even change the artwork for the record? And we made it one, one dot, you know, instead of three, because it's lonely. Lonely. We were talking about this idea of one dot, and then he brought something about the Carl Sagan. Yeah, the pale blue dot.

Like, you know that photo. It's like very, it's iconic. It's got a great quote. And it's, uh, what's it if I go off? Of the earth. Yeah. But like very distant. Yeah.

And it's just this faint little. thing. Forget the exact quote, but it's like kind of everything you know of everything in the past future all happens on this pale blue dot. I just thought like it's beautiful, but it's also like one of the loneliest pictures because it's like in the vastness of space. So like that got me thinking like like that fits with a pale white dot. We were just talking about like gray dot white dot and it just kind of came together. And it was weird like as much as that was just a just kind of a random conversation all of a sudden like we just started to have ideas. And you know what it was? It was like a box started to form of like, this is what it is and this is what it isn't, you know?

There were, there were parameters that were developed because of that. And I think we also knew from day one that we wanted to have like a North Star of some kind that was sort of the governing body of what this record was going to be. We wanted to have artwork right away, like early on. We wanted that to help inspire the music as opposed to the music inspiring and the artwork, visuals were a huge part of the writing process, and I can get into that. But we also, we had the title. Like, just from that conversation, we both were like, that sounds right.

That feels good. And then we brought it to the other guys in the band, and everybody agreed. And from there, we set some other parameters, or at least, I don't want to say parameters. We just set some different goals. But I think in general, the creative process was, the creative guidelines were established.

very early. What sort of parameters or goals would you say? I think without getting too specific, because I don't know if we really, it's like we had the stuff written on a whiteboard somewhere. It was more just like, let's just let the songs be what they're going to be and let's not try to,

you know, go down a laborious path if they don't need to be. But one thing to note is there was quite a bit that we agreed on. Like we were going to collaborate entirely. So like just for, reference, like album artwork, album title, aesthetics, like all that stuff is an afterthought. That's why we have the dumbest album titles of all time because it's just like, we got to think of something.

Okay, yeah, it's that, you know? And here we are, we haven't even written a single note. We have the album title. We have a general concept for the album cover and we're already starting to plan that out. We have a vibe. We're talking like, you know what we should do? We should have pictures up. I have a TV in my studio.

we should have pictures up there like kind of showing imagery you know and we'll all be there without exception we're all going to work on everything in tandem usually lyrics and all that those are secondary they they come like it's like spencer figure it out right and then maybe we have some input here it's like no no no we're going to talk about what this song's about and we're going to score it like cinematic this is very different to the normal process yeah and so going back to the images i around that time just started putting together like a my own Pinterest board. And, you know, I like horror movies and dark stuff. And I've always, you know, if you give me a pen and paper, I'll draw something that's like evil, just what I go towards.

And, yeah, I just started kind of collecting these images that sort of, again, were visual perspectives, visual examples of loneliness. And the idea was that when we would get together to write, that we would use, Misha has a big screen TV in his studio. that we would broadcast a slideshow of these images, let them, you know. What kind of images? You're talking about horror movies. No, it's not horrible.

It was, there was a lot of different ones. I mean, some of them were sort of, a lot of them were drawings from artists. I have no idea who they are, but, you know, it's Pinterest. So there was a lot of stuff that looked like very gloomy, dark Pacific Northwest,

houses that have been abandoned, houses that were on fire. Just like general. Anything that evokes lies. Right. I remember there was this one, it was like an aerial view of a black and white. There was like a house in the snow and there were people running out of the house. It was very high up so you couldn't make out how many people or what was happening,

but it just invoked a feeling. There was all these different images like that. And we wanted it to be dark, somber. Well, I don't know if we wanted it to be that way. It just kind of happened that way that's what the imagery was. And yeah, one of them in particular that we've talked about, out of these guitar center events is there was this image of a underground subway hallway, like a tunnel. So with tile walls, tile floor, you can imagine it. And then, you know,

there's like posters on the wall, boxes, you know, you know, oh, I don't know what the word is. Just what's the color scheme of that? Like, just looking very dreary, very, just not exciting to be there. But the walls are on fire. Russian. Yeah. Yeah. Eastern European, dark. brutalist maybe as a way to put it but um the walls were on fire and a literal photo no i don't know if it was a photo or a rindler i i wasn't it just gone right i don't think any of it funny enough i don't think any of it was a i art um but when that one flashed up on the screen i don't know who it was maybe been spencer was like wow that's really cool it's keep that there and that ended up being the image that we kept up when we wrote the song mr god which is the first single

And that visual of this, you know, subway tunnel just on fire kind of help tell the story of what that song is about. Yeah. And so every, and every song had one or, you know, a few photos that or images that were up on that screen. I thought we'd pause or cycle through, but it was good. It's like, you know, you're writing and you have a reference point. It's like kind of a North Star.

Yeah. And do you know what? The only other than like bands that do drugs, the only other band that I've heard of doing stuff like that was Lorna Shore. I was like, how do you guys write a song? And we just, like, someone comes up with just a vibe, like Christopher Nolan movie in the snow. And then we write a song about that. That's awesome.

Yeah, that's very cool. It's very cinematic. And I mean, that wasn't the only thing. That would sort of get a vibe going. But a lot of these songs, like obsession to start as like a therapy session. Yeah. It's like Matt's just talking about what he's going through. And we have a discussion.

We have a full-on discussion as a band about what. it means like oh my god didn't know that this was what it was like for you and then we'll start writing some lyrics and again lyrics are last normally so it's very interesting even if we had like basic riff ideas or whatever then we'd be very quick to get lyrics going and to work and and if it works then we move on if it doesn't work then we figure something else out but like it's the first time that everything was being done in tandem i got to thank spencer for being like very generous Like he does not care where the idea comes like Matt wrote entire choruses, lyrics and everything. And if it's cool, Spencer's like, that's awesome.

We should use that. Like whatever's best for the song. Yeah. So like it ends up being this like creative free for all where anyone can say or suggest anything. And all of a sudden it went from like, oh, I don't want to do P6 like kill me to like, I can't wait to get in the room. Like I have so many ideas. The writing sessions went fast. It was just energy.

so fucking talented in your band so like the minute you can you know defer something you'd normally do to someone else and just come in and smash you doing for like what you're known for like you're talking about spencer like fucking being able to just hey here's your lines they're awesome and then him be awesome on top of it yeah but but you know what i mean i think over the past bunch of years we have all gone through things individually that whatever the topic was each one of us could relate. And each one of us wanted to help the other realize the expression of that. Because at the time, I don't know if any of us were actually in the thick of going through anything that we wrote about in those writing sessions. We each had our own perspectives on whatever topic it was

and we could talk about it from that angle and everybody was able to relate and then apply it to their own lives. So there's, there's, there's, some songs are very specific to a certain theme or idea, but I think there's also songs that the,

you know, the concept is there, the story is there, but how we apply to our own lives is, is unique to each of us, if that makes sense. But that allowed it. So even if I was coming up

with a lyrical idea or a melodic idea, Spencer, it wasn't like he was just singing a part. He was able to connect with it and then make it his own. Yeah, the magic.

But we, so going back to what Misha was saying before, one of the parameters, it was very clear and, and non-negotiable for this record was we all had to be in the room for every writing session. And that's never happened before. No, never happened before. Normally what happens is like, all right, we need sections. We need rifts. So it'll be me, Jake and Mark, we'll, we'll do a preliminary writing session.

We'll get a bunch of material really easily. And then we'll arrange it. it but not arrange it, you know, because then we'll bring the guys in and be like, okay, what do we actually have, right? Whereas this was like, no, we're all just going to be there. We're going to start with nothing and just figure it out. And there was no friction there. No, no, we were very excited.

That's cool. And what's wild, it's like, you know, sometimes just setting parameters, that's all it takes. Because, like, one example I give is like, give me a parameter example. Well, I mean, just the vibe, but, but like, we have a riff. graveyard, right, in a Dropbox, an idea graveyard, right? 75% of that stuff became non-viable because it was just like, this is not appropriate. This doesn't fit the vibe. And I mean, like, too happy.

Yeah, too happy or like too energetic or it's like, I mean, you know, it's weird because I have to talk in abstractions. I guess you're pointing something out, which I didn't really think about, which is we really converged on it in a way that we didn't really have to define because we knew when we were doing it and we knew when we weren't. to the experience of all you guys being in that room. Yeah, and just maybe being around each other so long, but it's like we, it was like kind of like the image came in focus.

And so like, there was never a thing where it was like, oh, this fits a vibe. No, it doesn't. It was like, oh, yeah, no, like, okay, Spencer came to a table with this really awesome idea. It was like kind of like slip knot vibe and whatever. And I was like, man, this idea is awesome. Like, I can't wait to work on it, but does not fit.

And he was like, never, you and I got into it about that. Yeah, yeah. He really wanted to explore the song. I knew right away that it wasn't the right fit. And I was sort of like, I did my best to give it a little bit of time, but I knew pretty quickly. And then when I voiced it, he wanted to explore it further. And I was like, we're wasting time. No friction.

Well, there is. There's always going to be friction. But it's, again, it's coming from this standpoint of like, we all want to do what's best for the record. And I think we had to clear. clearly kind of a... We had a prioritized. We had a prioritized, but also, here's the thing about that track. That, that song in and of itself is fucking sick.

And I want to work on it. And that was the thing. This is great. We should absolutely figure out a time down the line where we are going to put the time and effort into this that it deserves, but it's not right for the theme of this record. And that was something that Misha, early on, which was very uncomfortable for me, to assume this role that he sort of appointed to me, which was you kind of need to be a producer in the room

that is making sure that that, that, that we're on track that, yeah, we honor. I'm micromanaging. I'm details. I can't take the step back. I need you to be my eyes and make sure. When I'm going down rabbit holes that we're still on track to the, to the goal, you know?

All right. There's backtrack a little bit because I wouldn't be the man. or the podcaster with these fucking grief tourists without asking you, what were you going through? If you don't mind, I don't know.

No, I mean, it is uncomfortable to talk about to a degree. You don't have to. No, I think I'll say what I do feel comfortable saying. It's nothing that I haven't talked about with you before in some way.

I mean, I don't think it's any secret that I've dealt with different bouts of anxiety throughout my life. When I had my eyes, my son, my first kid, you know, it, it shook my world in a way because it, he, you know, he's like, he and my daughter, the best things ever happened to me. My wife, of course, too. But like, when you have, when you have kids, it really makes you quickly focus and figure out your values,

your priorities and your mortality. A lot of very heavy, heavy, uh, realizations, I think, come into play. And, you know, with that responsibility came a different level of anxiety that I'd ever experienced before. And, you know, I basically, I needed to be the best parent that I possibly could, the, the, the, the best role model that I possibly could. I put a lot of pressure on myself. And, yeah, just.

just threw me for a loop. So through this process, you know, I've never been opposed to seeking therapy, talking to, I mean, I'm definitely not one that keeps stuff in. I'll talk to my wife about what I'm feeling. I'll talk to my closest friends, you know, Misha's a confidant of mine who I've gone to for many different things. But, you know, there was this sort of moral scrupulosity, per se, that I was dealing with of like, I want to be the best version of myself. I need to make sure that I am consistently modeling that in a way that was obsessive. So what didn't ever happen until this point in my life, and around this time I'm probably, I don't know, late 30s, early 40s, was the first time that I was actually properly diagnosed.

I was told my whole life, oh, you just have anxiety. Well, it's not. It was obsessive-compulsive disorder. Oh. But it's not the kind that, you know, that I think a lot of people kind of, you know, think it is. You couldn't see it. You would never know. Light switch.

Yeah. Or, you know, there's a lot of different themes for OCD. But mine was really based around this idea of being, it's honestly called moral scrupulosity, of like just being the best version of myself possible in every possible way and putting this insane amount of pressure myself to not only be, you know, the best father, but to also be the best husband, to be the best friend, to be like making sure that I dot every eye and cross every tea and don't mess up anything, even down to an email.

You know, I would be thinking about like, did I spell something wrong? Is someone going to think that I'm not taking things seriously if I don't do this right? So, you know, it gets to a point where, especially at first when this was all hitting me, where it was really hard to deal with and it became overwhelming.

But, you know, look, through therapy and through having a great support system, through different, you know, types of exposure that it's called, exposure therapy. And then just kind of learning that it, you know, look, when you have something like anxiety or OCD, the thing that most people do is they worry or they ruminate, right?

Worrying is forward, ruminating is backwards. If you think of it that way. but either way, what people going through that want is certainty. You just want certainty. And when you get to a point where you can accept, which is very hard to do, I don't want to fast forward through this process because there's been a lot of work. But when you get to a point where you can accept that the only certainty is uncertainty, as cheesy as that may sound, then you can truly start to look at it from a different perspective.

And that was sort of, that was, that was what I was going through. And that's what the song obsession is about. So if you listen to the lyrics, you know, all the noises are distorting. I want to tear out of my skin. Sick from a never-ending season. That's all about that experience that I was having. And feeling like it was just kind of, like everything felt like a car crash. Yeah.

But the funniest part, you know, now with perspective is looking at it's like talking about an example, like writing an email. I'm agonizing over this. My wife's sitting there kind of like laughing at me. It's like, what do you do? Like, it's fine. People make, they make typos. But to me...

That's a real example. Yeah, yeah, that's a real example. Bro, I write emails, not the same content, but I write emails like Jeffrey Epstein. Like, the way I type is like, no. I hope you don't do that. No, we got to leave. Great, great clip out of context. That is a real example, though.

I mean, that, that, that's an example. And there's a lot of other ones that, you know, that I could paint the picture with, but it doesn't really matter because at the end of the day, it's, it's all OCD, right? It's, it's intrusive thoughts. It's, as I call it, like, dystonic thoughts, things that all of it makes you feel shitty about yourself and shitty about your decisions and shitty about the things you do. And it doesn't matter how many people tell you, dude, you're, you're fine and you're a good person and you were a great dad and you're a great friend

and look at what you have like committed your life to and look at like think about what you're like what are your values you know even if they are great it's it's still something that you struggle with but I go back to that idea of acceptance and then thankfully I was at a point when we started writing this record where I was able to look at it from that perspective of not being in the thick of it that makes sense Can I ask you a question which is on subject but outside of the album?

Mm-hmm. Do you think influencer culture has a lot to blame for this kind of, like, having to be the best version of yourself? Because I've seen you doing the ice baths. I've seen you doing the saunas. I've seen you doing all the shit that, like, gets... And I love those things, too. Mm-hmm. But, like, they get pushed on the internet, like, they are going to fucking fix everything for you.

A lot of, I would say actually the onset of this, I, you know, I jumped to some, to like a different theme, but the onset of, of my anxiety here was health related. It was. Like, and it's, it's, it's, you're inundated with, well, the data might be out there. It might, you know, it might not. I've read some of it and it's, it's compelling. But like, you know, if you saw on a four days, four to five days a week at this temperature at this time, you're cutting down your all cause mortality by X amount, right? if you do ice baths you're doing this for yourself if you're working out it it's all good stuff like none of it's bad where it gets a little bit much and this was part of what i was dealing with even

before my kids arrived was like if i didn't hit all of the things every day i felt off like i i felt that that stress of like oh but i didn't saw on it today or i didn't get in the ice bath and that was that was OCD, you know? And I'm not saying everybody who feels that has OCD, don't get me wrong. I'm not, this is just me personally. It's how it manifested. But I mean, you know, I had a very minor health thing happen. And I went to the doctor and I saw my doctor and she was like, yeah, this is normal.

You're good. Don't worry. Don't think about it. You know, if anything, if it gets worse in a couple weeks, come back and we'll figure it out. Well, that wasn't enough. Then I went to a different doctor. Then I went to a specialist. I've done this myself.

And then I went to Dr. Google. And then I went here. Never go there. Right. Of course not. But that was sort of the beginning of it. And this is pre-kids. No, that was the sort of being hard of myself about like not hitting all the other.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry. And then this is post kids. And what it was was, oh my God, am I going to have something that kills me? And I'm not going to be able to provide for my family. I can understand that. Yeah.

It just, it went. a lot further. And it was, it was really hard for me to understand why I couldn't let it go. And it was really hard for the people around me not to, you know, to not understand it. I've never talked about it in a, in a public forum like this. Um, I'm sorry to do it. No, it's fine. It's fine because, you know, at the end of the day, I hope it can help somebody, you know, by hearing that. I see people talk about it all the time. I don't know, you know who Luke Combs is, country singer. Yeah. Huge country I only know that from living here. I've seen so many videos of him on podcast talking about the fact that he has OCD.

And what he has shared is like I can resonate with it 100%. So maybe somebody else will. So is it medications or is it just CBT, do they call it? No. Well, not to get too technical. No, I mean, for OCD, you have to do what's called ERP, which is exposure and response prevention. So you would get exposed to a trigger, something that would trigger,

an intrusive thought and then your job is to not do the compulsion is to not respond to it. Can you give me an example? I do. You did so a lot. So let's say I have like a weird ringworm or a rash or something like that, whatever, right. Is it just a little dot on my arm and it's no big deal? Or is it staff? And is it going to be Mercer?

And am I going to get really sick and die, right? Bro, I think I have this. That's my brain fucking one. An example might be like, you know, like, okay, you go online, you look at a picture of what Mercer looks like. Yeah. And then you don't read anything. You don't look at your own body. You just walk away and go do something else.

So you actually have to go do the Google for the therapy, for the exposure therapy. You might. Yeah. I mean, look, this is one of a million possible things that you could do. But yes, I mean, but that's how, like anything, anything you are afraid of to that level, the best thing to do to get over that fear is to face the fear. Yeah. And but not to try to, like after you, you experience the fear, not to try to remedy it by making

yourself feel better, you know, by seeking reassurance, by calling a doctor. Going to Reddit to find someone that had the same thing. Right. You just have to keep it moving. You're like, you have to, yeah, okay, yeah, this is telling me. like, oh, you know, I have this, this mark on my arm. I really should look at it. But you know what?

I don't need to do this right now because I want to go play with my kids. And that's more important. And the more you do that, the more you flex that muscle. You starve the monster, as people say. Yeah. And eventually the monster gets quieter and quieter and quiet and quieter. And you were doing good now. Yeah.

Yeah, doing a lot better. You never get rid of it. You're never, it's never going to go away fully. But I think you can. figure out there is hope with it you can overcome the hard the really hard parts and if if you ever face it again you're a lot more prepared to be like okay let's take a step back here is this really something that i need to worry about or is this just oCD do you then because you've done the exposure therapy do you then like if something comes up does your brain go to like no remember that last

because you expose yourself to it. That was nothing and then you can move on quicker. Yeah, that's kind of what it is. It's very much an active process. Like you have to be present, not only with recognizing the thought for what it is, which is just the thought. It doesn't mean that there's any real weight to the thought.

It's just a thought. Recognizing that and then thinking of, you know, think of it like a split path, right? Do you want to go down this road? because here's this thought, wants to pull me this way, or do I want to go down this road and keep it moving to what's really important and what my values are? And that's the decision process.

And I think the more that people realize that there is control over it, the more I've realized for me, like I do have control over this. It's not just, you know, consuming me. Then you kind of take some power back and you're able to have that perspective. So yeah, so that at the time, that was my struggle. But I'm one of five guys. was going through different things. I don't want to make this about me. How does that link into loneliness

as a concept? Think of it this way. It was very hard for anyone around me, with the exception of my therapist, and eventually, eventually once people understood what this actually was, it was very hard for anyone to understand or relate to why I was getting so worked up about the things that I was getting so worked up about. Thank goodness I have patient, really great people around me who saw it through with me. But that experience of feeling like you, like nobody understands what's happening. Talking about it doesn't help.

Seeking reassurance doesn't help. Getting, you know, there's times when Misha's waited on things. And that's the thing about getting reassurance. When you get reassured about something, when you have OCD, it helps for a short period of time. You get this like hit of dopamine and you're, okay, I can relax.

Maybe I'll go eat a meal or I'll go do something else. and then you wake up the next day and it's back, full force, probably worse than it was before. The same thing you're worried about. The same thing that someone like Misha could have reassured for me is back. So that is a very lonely experience, you know, to, and here's the other thing. It's not like I'm not a rational person. I'm very rational through all of this.

I am also still completely functioning as a, you know, as a father, a husband, an adult, someone who owns a business. Like, if you didn't know, like, did you have, any idea? No, not at all. Right. Because it's not something that you would physically see. It's not like it was behavioral in that sort of way.

It was very lonely to experience that because most people would have no idea. Yeah. You know, because really, you know, still. You're still doing stuff. Still doing everything. Everything's on time. Yeah. Did Matt's diagnosis help you understand some of his neurosis.

CES. Yeah, I mean, we talked about, we were, we were always, I knew about a lot of this stuff, because we talk all the time and like, you know, I mean, you know, sometimes if it was like flaring up pretty badly, he would call me and I'd do my best to talk him off the ledge or whatever. You know, it's like, I knew about a lot of this stuff. And then also, I don't, I don't have OCD, I don't think, but I think I have a lot of similar pattern. Like our brains sort of follow the same paths. I have a lot of anxiety to where I could relate, certainly to a certain degree. So, like, obsession for me, that song has its own meeting that's very relevant to me. That's not quite the same for him. But it's like I have my own version of that song where I find it very therapeutic. And it's very much describing how my brain works. And I think we always related over that because even though I can't fully understand what he's going through. I can kind of understand what he's going through. And I can sort of see why this would

have led to that thought, would have led to that thought. Because I kind of, if he's going, you know, sort of seven steps ahead, I'm probably going three of those steps myself, you know? So what's your interpretation of obsession? For me, it's, it's, it's a, all right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. It's, it's, it's, it's, how my brain will always or oftentimes, I'm working on it, but will oftentimes go to like worst case scenario. So I don't know, the example of like, let's say a loved one is supposed to come back at a certain time and they're not. Instead of being like, oh, they're just probably in traffic.

It's like, oh, no, they're in an accident. They're dead. It's absolutely a car crash. And like that's kind of like that, you know, the crash is for certain. It's like that's kind of a literal thing for me, you know? For certain no one survived. It's like, that's like, that's number one thought.

So you mean, probably, everyone's, for want of a better word, neuroses into the lyrics. Well, I mean, I don't know if that's necessarily true, but we just wanted it to resonate. We wanted the song to resonate to anyone who relates to it. It's not like all songs resonate with everyone at all times. But you made sure when they do that they work together, like conception. I don't even think we made sure of that. I think just by virtue of work. on the lyrics together, which we did.

We worked on all the lyrics together. And there's multiple dimensions to this too, because oftentimes we're writing lyrics. You know, we're all on our phones taking notes or writing. Stray method, yeah. Yeah. And then we're coming up with stuff. We're like, okay, that works.

Ah, but that sings like shit, or that screams like shit. Okay, we need another word. Okay, yeah, like I get the sentiment, but there's a better way to say. So we're trying to do it on many levels at once. And it eventually just sort of coalesces into something that's that we're like, oh, there we go. Now we're happy with it.

And I think we're very good about this now, about being really honest. Because, again, it's all abstractions. But if we're not there, we're just honest about it. We're like, that's not it. We're not like, we could do better. I know we can do better. We've done better. And then when we do, I don't know why, but everyone's like, okay, there we go.

Now I feel, now I can feel. That's the magic. That's the magic. You find the magic. And then we kind of either get to that point or we, we, we, we, move on to something else and we cut a lot of songs because they never got to that point, you know? It's like that's the, that's the stuff that made it on had to make sense. It had to work for everybody. And it doesn't mean that everyone can relate to every lyric at every time,

but it works as a concept. It works as it's selling the idea. Yeah. Well, and also the litmus tests, I don't think we ever talked about like, will other people relate to this? It was more like, can everybody in this room understand what this really, like what we're, what we're trying to say? Like, do you know, do you get it? Okay, I get what you're saying. Like, everything in the room is relatable for each one of us, I think is the way to put it. Which would then, by order of, you know, there's five of you in the room. You'd imagine it would relate to other people.

You said a guy pissed his pants at the fucking show or whatever. That's your interpretation. That's called projection, my friend. You said a guy pissed his pants. or something. Yeah. Ooh, that was deep,

guys. Sorry to put you through that. You're good? No, I appreciate it. No, man. It's always good to chat. This is probably how we'd be talking with you.

There were no mics. Yeah. True. It's the fun kind of conversations. A lot of synths. A lot of synths on this one. Yes. So is this the first

periphery album since the ultra-obsession with the modular synth? Yes. Well, I want to know, because I've seen the setup, and it sounds fucking amazing. The intro.

like all the little... Can I tell a story? Yeah, go. Cut me up on my fucking podcast, go. Well, it's relevant to this. Yeah, the very first day of the very first writing session, we were just kind of messing around

and I think me, Spencer, Misha, and Jake, Mark was delayed. His flight was delayed, so he wasn't there yet. But we, you know, we're in the studio and we're like, yeah, we know, we definitely should use the synth stuff. Like, and Misha's just showing us all his toys and he's showing us this and that and whatever,

just pulling a bunch of stuff out. And he's kind of starting to play with sounds and he's going off in his own world. So we left the room. Me and Spencer were downstairs. I think we were playing a video game or something. And we could hear that he started playing what ended up being the intro of obsession.

He just had it on loop and we looked at each other and like we darted up the stairs. Dude, don't like, don't change anything. Like that's it. Is the rest of the song written by this point? No, no, no. That was the beginning of that song. Right.

That was the very beginning of that song was this particular synth combo that he was playing. It was like on a little tape. Remember that? Yeah, well, I'd recorded it to a tape because like the modular stuff doesn't keep. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But that was it, that was it? That's what I wanted to know. So are the songs being built, which you've kind of answered around the, because by the nature of a modular synth, like can you even fit that in retroactively to a song? Very hard. No.

And actually, it's a really good question and a good point, which is like it's so freeform and it's so kind of its own thing that it's a lot harder to be like, oh, look, like, we need some layers. Let's do some modular sense. It's so much easier at that point to use hardware stuff or serum or whatever to get the idea across. But it's a great way to like start a section or to like get a vibe going. It's incredible for that.

And what's even better, I heard modular synthesis. describe this way. It's like you get to be the first fan of it because you don't really know what's going to happen. It's kind of just you're reacting to, you're plugging and stuff and you're like, I have a general concept of what's happened. Like I kind of know what's going to happen, but it's so generative and unpredictable to like where or you, you patch something wrong or you're like, oh, I wonder what happened. And then like all of a sudden it's like, whoa, that's cool. So you're reacting and you're, you know, the way I say is like when we're writing, it's very deterministic. It's like, I have an idea. I'm going to do the idea. Yeah.

it's like you're just slowly nudging this idea in this direction that's kind of going and you're like whoa that's where it went i'm gonna i guess i'll nudge it this way yeah and then before you know it you have like kind of a section and uh yeah it's fun i mean there isn't like a ton of modular stuff on the on because of that reason where it's like i can count two i think two two songs that sound like they were made to the synth and now i know you said you scored this whole thing i'm not wrong as well you might tell me it's just the plug in i know you said this whole thing but you gave me a Dropbox link and for some reason I listened to it. Both times I listen.

This morning I listened to it in order. The other two times I listen to it, I just listened to it in alphabetical order. I fucked up with those. But I think it was the first track. Maybe I want to say the track before Mr. God. I don't know. There's another one. Talk.

That sounds like it was made around. Oh, no. Probably Blackwall. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's the one that's all synths. Yeah. That's not modular, but that is like a lot of hardware sense.

That's like all my hardware since. And that actually started out because the guys, we could segue into something that you said earlier that was interesting. You're like, you love gear. I love gear. This is one of the reasons I love gear is because sometimes you get a new piece of gear and it just inspires an idea. It's like one of the best ways.

It's one of the most expensive ways. It is, but it's great. But it's a great way. You snare drum. So what happened was the guys were having lunch or something. Like that was just me and Spencer in the room. I'd gotten this synth. It's called an Udo.

super Gemini. It's a British, British synth company. It's one of the coolest sounding synths. And I was so stoked. I'd never plugged it in. And I just like started to play around with it. Put some reverb on it. I was like, man, this sounds good. We're not doing anything. I'll just record this. Recorded some chords, quickly just put some drums and whatever on it. And Spencer was like, I have a vocal idea for that. You know, I didn't even know he was like listening to me. I was just like playing around. So he just recorded like a gibberish vocal line in there, which is like exactly the vocal line that's on there with actual lyrics. And that was like the impetus for that.

So we weren't even good at, we were actually saying we're not going to do an electronic song because we didn't want a gratuitous electronic song on this album because it's stupid. But this was very much like, oh, we have something cool. And then Jake, I was like, I don't really know where to go. And I was like, Jake, do your thing. and he just Jake make. Jake make.

And he always has us leave the room so that he can like lock in and focus. So we all fucked off. And then we came back in like a few hours and he had this like middle section built, which was like, oh man, I have so many ideas. And then we started to build off that. So that one came together almost entirely by accident. And just because like my synth arrived that day and I was really eager to plug it in. Can you recreate the modular stuff?

Like no. Do you? Yeah. No. one of the coolest things about everyone I think about like pink forward. If you turn it off, even if it's patched exactly the same, it will be fucked. Have you ever lost magic? It's all it is.

It's the most ephemeral thing. That's why I like it. That's why I have like these tape machines I record it to. And it's like it's captured on that. I have a teenage engineering TP7, which is a digital tape machine with a really good pitch shifting algorithm. So I'll record it to that. And then I can manipulate it and have it for later. because I would never be able to recreate that.

I don't even remember what it was. So you record it to that and then what, then you record it in the door. And then I'll pitch shift it and I'll time stretch it so if it's like what we're doing if necessary or maybe it's the basis for that. I mean, oftentimes it's not even in tune with anything. It's like kind of in its own.

So I'll have to like shift it like 20 cents or, you know, whatever to, but like we, you know, you get it in and then all of a sudden it's magic. It's so funny. Like the most, I would say you're the most digitally proficient. band in the world maybe. I sincerely doubt that. Who else?

It's nice of you to say. For digital fucking plug-ins? I don't know. Every single one of you is at the door. Tap damnly. This sounds like a timidary sketch. I'm glad you picked up on it. Yeah.

Jesus Christ. Yeah. There was actually, I remember the first writing session, everybody was over at Misha's on the wall of synth. There was a groove going. And it was at a, remember that like real ghost? Like that real ghosty sound?

Oh, yeah. That like, it sounded like a, what do you call it? Like a theramine or something, almost? Yeah, it was kind of like a theramine or like, I don't know. It was, yeah, it was just like this ghoulish, high-pitched thing. And it was really cool. And we were just trying to chase a vibe. But the problem was it just didn't stay.

Yeah. So, yeah, you couldn't, it was very hard to capture. A literal musical ghost. I've just remembered something, by the way, which you telling me this OCD thing makes so much sense. Do you remember the second podcast we did? Mm-hmm. Kind of. You phoned me.

like two days later, you said, I want to do that podcast again. And I said, what the fuck? And then I think I was probably, because not knowing what you're going through, I was probably like, what the fuck? And you were like adamant that you needed to do it again. You were like, I think we can do it better and all this stuff. And I remember thinking at the time, what the fuck. And we did it again.

And it was great. But I remember thinking the other one was completely fine. and now that makes a hell of a lot of sense. And I'm sorry if at any point during that, I was like, what the fuck are you doing? I didn't know what it was either. I mean, this is just how I've been my whole life. That's the thing, my whole life.

And that's not to go back into this, but I'll say one thing. That's like one of the biggest things that I've tried to focus on is gratitude, right? because even though I've had this my whole life, you know, I'm very grateful for what I have in life. And I don't need much, but I have great friends. I have a great family. I have a job that I love, people that I love working with.

And I know myself and like what else can you ask for? You know, so, but none of that would exist if I didn't have that. And it's kind of what you were saying to Misha before, right? Yeah, even when you said it there, I was like, an unfortunate byproduct of your success. Yeah. Or catalyst for the success. Yeah. Any sort of different influences musically when you've been making this album?

Anything you were listening to in particular? I was just listening to a lot of music that was 100% lyric driven. At the time, I was listening to a lot of Sturgle Simpson. I was listening to, man, I got to think back to that time period. which was like a year ago. I mean, that was a big one, but just I love the way that he was telling stories, you know, and I listen to a lot of different kinds of music.

Lately, and this applies to, I've been listening to a lot of Stephen Wilson Jr. I'm not if you're familiar. I'm aware of Stephen Wilson. I didn't know that was an offspring. I've just, over the years, I've really honed in on lyrical content and listening to a story.

when listening to a song. And that is what speaks to me the most, I think. And then when you combine the story with the appropriate music to support it, there's nothing better. It's crazy for a drama to say that. I don't give a fuck about lyrics. Don't care.

Got a story? Don't give a shit. You know, he, Misha identified something that I never really thought of at all. But like, I don't think I am much, I'm a drummer, but like, he's not, he's not a drummer.

He's not a drummer. real drummer. I'm joking about the lyric ship. No, but he's a producer who plays drums. That's why I realized in this session. He's a producer who... He's a fucking great drummer, though. No, but that's what makes him a great drummer. So, Nali has this thing. Maybe he's told you this. There's like drummers who play for the phrase and drummers that play for the note.

Right? And a lot of metal guys play for the notes. So a lot of metal guys play for the notes. Like this symbol, this. You know, exactly this. And then like, I don't know, like church guys, gospel guys. They're not playing. You don't... You think Eric Moore knows what he's playing. He's just flowing, right? They're playing for the phrase, right? Matt's very much for a phrase, playing for the phrase, it's why I always wanted Matt or a drummer like Matt in the band,

because I like that sound. But what I didn't fully realize until this album was like, oh, the reason that he does that is because he's always hearing everything sort of from a step backwards, like as a musical picture. It's never about the drums. It's always about how did the drums fit? And that became very clear once we started to work on the songs.

And I was like, the drums are almost secondary. Or like the details are not important. They're important in any part where it has to follow the guitars exactly, like with the kicks. Aside from that, it's kind of... It's just there to support the song.

Yeah, it doesn't really matter. It just needs to be a musical instrument. There's a great job of supporting the song while also flexing, though. Yeah, but flow drummers do that. That's the thing. It's like, if you're thinking about the phrase, that's actually the gift that you have

is you can overplay because the stuff you do will be very intuitive. And it's never about like, I must have these ghost notes here in exactly in between. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. I couldn't, like, tell you every single note that I play for every song ever. Like, I understand the, to his point, I get the phrase and I know, like, what it should be in terms of a melody. Like, like, we've talked about this before.

Like, to me, drums are just another melodic expression. but I think lyrics are or vocal parts, you know, they're the front and center melody. And I wasn't as tuned into this idea, but like with this record, I really started paying attention to not only like what, what is the melody that Spencer is singing, but like how do the words work with it?

What do they mean on top of that? And then what is that supposed to make everything else feel like and how should everything work together, you know, in a way that that makes sense. And maybe that's self-explanatory of what a song should be. But I don't know. As a band even, I don't know if we ever thought about it that way. And that's why so for this record, everything was happening at the same time. It wasn't like, okay, we have a synth part or we have a drum part or we have a guitar riff.

And then we'll layer it after that. It was like, okay, what is the idea? what are we what story are we telling okay what's the first lyric what what's the what's the what's the verse about what do we want to say what what layer is going to make sense for this what drum sound is going to make sense for this and it was all happening at once which was very different for for us as band did you struggle to relinquish i mean assume you had quite a lot of control over the songs before this record. That's an assumption, by the way.

No, the way to think of it. He didn't relinquish anything. He was still very much at the helm, as he should be. But also, I mean, well, there's two ways to look at it. Like, I'm at the helm. I'm, like, producing the writing sessions, but I love the collaboration. I don't want to control.

Like, that's one thing when I started this band was like, I want to find members that I could collaborate. I don't want to do everything myself. Yeah, because Bob was just yet. Yeah. and I hate doing that to be honest. Like it's, but it's about finding members

that you have good chemistry. Like we have excellent writing chemistry. So if we get in a room, like I know I can count on them. I know I can trust them. But it is the coolest fucking thing to watch him when he's like dialed in. It is a fucking genius.

I'm nuts. I mean, I can't tell you. I went down on your discography recently. You're a fucking genius. There are so many memorable moments where I'm in the back of his studio and he's at the computer

and he's just on something. He's going in with whatever the ideas that he's working on. And I'm like laughing. Just sitting there laughing watching him work. And I'm even like, there's times when I would like go like this to Spencer. Like, bro, like look at this guy go.

And you probably have no idea that this is happening behind you. But like, that's what's going on. We're just like, we're like, this is amazing. Like jokes about you. Yeah. Well, no, but it's like, it's like so cool to see somebody so locked in that way. And like the ability is his ability, dude, his ability to focus for 12 hours in a row.

Like there are times where it's funny, he'll like, we'll all wake up and get in the studio. And he'll be like, yeah, like, yeah, I'm going to go make a coffee and I'm going to grab a shower. Then we'll get to work. But like, but first, I just want to check this one thing. Eight hours later, he's like, fuck, I didn't shower or have coffee today. I haven't moved from this seat. I need a break. But I'm not kidding. Eight hours later. Live sentence. But it's awesome. It's that ADHD thing. It's like, I'm just going to got check this thing out real quick yeah but it's also real quick being you know obsessed with what you do well yeah well partney's the same way every time i work will yeah we're supposed to go get

coffee supposed to get breakfast and it's like i'm just gonna go start this i won't do the voice will i'm gonna go start this thing the same thing he's fucking still there yeah being a fucking another genius what do you fucking know so many gene gene what do you are yeah you are too nobody does what you do do i'm not sure stop it and i play the drums okay let's see That's all I got. See, we're all bad at taking compliments. We are. You got to work on that. But I'm not a genius. I feel like, do know what? I actually do feel like I do need to make music soon because I put a lot of myself worth into making music. And I've only realized that recently.

Well, what's cool to see, too, is how open you're being about like your practice journey right now and what you're working on. Because it's cool to see. Most people don't get to see all the work that goes into then the finished product, which is what most people are. They see it play a show and they hear a record. They don't get shit. But if you're not, then you're not really practicing. As you know. True.

It's very cool for people to see that. And I think it's going to make whatever you do next musically that, obviously from a technical standpoint much better, but people are going to be like more invested in whatever you do because of that. I think that is a thing. I've been a little bit disheartened by the amount of people that, like, I know, like, I, I self-deprecate a lot. that I'm not a good drummer. I know I'm a good drummer, but like that I'm not one of the fucking greats or whatever.

But it has been slightly disheartening for people to leave a comment like, oh, I didn't realize you were this bad of the drums. Like, and I... The internet is like cruel on purpose. It doesn't affect me, but what it does, the disheartening is not for myself. It's more like, you have no idea. And as a result of that, like, I know that person that left the comment,

doesn't practice, will never practice, probably doesn't play music and then it just makes me to be sad for the other person. Good for you because I don't have the balls to show people how much I truly suck at the fucking drums. I'm terrible. And no, I'm serious. And it's like it's this thing that like eats away at me. It's like you should go practice. You should go practice. You are terrible at this. You are not good. This is you are like the king. I mean, that's me as well. Yeah. Yeah. You're the king of what is it? We all have imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome. Thank you. We all. We all have. going to say a difference.

Yeah. I can't talk about that one. Keep it, Simon. Fucking keep it. I didn't say any other words. I have two questions. One of them I have to fucking ask you. And then one that's just popped into my head. I'm really sorry to keep going on the OCD thing.

I have just one question right now. And if it sucks, then we can just cut it out of the podcast. You recently started deliberately playing a different set up every night. Or like having stuff in a different. from position. Mm-hmm. And I think I saw you talk about that before. Was that exposure therapy?

No. Because that's something I obsess over. Like my stance, I fucking measure them. I actually have zero concerns with any of that. You could put me on a kick snare drum and high hat. That's so strange. That's the thing.

It only applies. This stuff that I, that I've struggled with only applies to very small aspects of my life. and there's it's funny because like the things that like other people I know will agonize about I can understand it yeah from that standpoint but like I don't have any issue with literally most of the things of my life I'm like chill yeah you know that's interesting if I could just comment on that as well I mean I know I said that you're not a drummer but he's he he is one of the most naturally and effortlessly talented dudes at drums like it's annoying you know the thing is like

I've been playing with him for so long that like I think he's what drum sounds like, you know? Yeah. And there's times in the set where like, if it's like, you know, a simpler part, like, first of all, if ever I'm just feeling like self-conscious or whatever, I'll just go hide and jam with him. And sometimes I'll just like watch him do. I'm like, he's insane.

You're an insane drummer. But like I take it for granted because, you know, I'm so used to like, this is what the song sounds like. And I'm focused on playing my own stuff or whatever. But there'll be times where like watch him. I'm like, Jesus Christ. Like, who are? And like I know that in his head he's not he's probably not even thinking about drums.

He's probably just thinking about the song or just like it's it's so it's such a bird's eye view of everything like and I'm and I'm like what lick was that? And I know he couldn't, you put a gun to his head, he couldn't tell you what that lick was. You know? It's kind of sick. It is. I mean, you guys asked me to fill in fucking over 10 years ago and I styled it. I was busy.

I think I did have another tour. But like I styled it off of the fact that I had another tour. I was plainly just listen to it. No, you could do it. You can't fucking, 100%. 100%. Don't test me. I won't do it.

People do feel it for me, though, and they crush it. It's great. Couldn't do it. And then the other question I have to fucking ask is the artwork, because we didn't really dig into it. What's going on? What's those little fucking symbols? What's all the little smudges?

Each dot is representing a song. You know, I liked about it. We had a whole bunch of different mockups, but that one, that one I really liked. And it was like, each song is represented by a dot, the artist, Piper Ferrari. She interpreted like we gave her the meaning of every song. And she did her interpretations of it. And I think those came out really cool.

But the overarching thing, too, was I thought the irony of like being alone together. Because everyone's lonely. Everyone experiences loneliness. It's a very universal thing. And the ironies were all like right next to each other. And there's just something about that, the way that it was arranged on the cover there. where I was like, wow, like that that's, that's the vibe. That's the concept we're going for with this.

Yeah. So I worked with Piper on all the artwork for the record. Her and I just spent a lot of time talking about the songs, kind of like we are now, but talking about the songs, talking about like just trying to make her, it was tough too because we didn't have stuff that we were comfortable sending at that point musically. So I had to sort of explain it.

And it helped us, I think it helped that we were all talking about like, you know, I wasn't doing it from my own perspective solely. I was going to these guys and be like, hey, like, this is what I need to convey to her? Like, are you cool with this? Is this the right idea for this song? We're all on the same page. And it made all of us get to really know the songs. And then therefore, it helped us communicate to her and then develop the artwork around it.

Awesome. Yeah. Piper Ferrari. She's the front person of Roman Candle. Yeah. Yeah, amazing artist. I think I tried to buy one of her designs that she'd already made. It was like a rotten.com design.

And I was like, I'm going to make a downbeat t-shirt of that because I talk about rotten.com all the time. And we couldn't figure out. I think she said she was going to make prints out of it in the end anyway. But great artist. Great pick. Yeah, she really did an amazing job. There's a lot of questions that we get about this record already

from people coming to these events. There's people that are posting about the experience. There's people that are bummed out that they, won't get the same experience. And I think hopefully this podcast and hopefully the record itself will, you know, shed light on what this, what this album was about for us. And here's the big, like, this is the big thing that we see is like, you know, we see a lot of people talking about like a documentary asking, like, is there, we've

previously done it before. We've done it before. And for this record, we didn't do it for a lot of reasons. But it was just so personal for the five of us. while we were doing it, we weren't even thinking about that. We were just in it. It was like, this is what's important. And we can have distractions.

We can have distractions. You know, it's like you have a camera. You act a little different, you know. And when stuff is too personal and it's crazy because it's like a fucking, it's like a paradox. Yeah. When stuff is so personal that it would make wonderful content, it is too personal for you to want to pull out a camera and share that moment. That's what I struggled with for like vlogging. Like I did vlogging for a while.

And then these last three months, my life has had so many shit fucking things happen that a fucking tree in our reef and all this stuff that would make her fucking excellent. But I'm so miserable and depressed about the whole thing. I'm like, I don't want to pull out a fucking camera and share this with the world. It would almost like block you from really getting to 100% of what we needed, you know?

Yeah. Because it'd be like, oh, we're going to have some curated version of this for the cameras. It's like that is an affamma to everything that we're trying to do right now. I think one other important thing that I want to say, look, we talked a lot about the song obsession and what that means, but

this album is not about that. Like, it's not about me. By any means, every single one of us has really heavy stuff on this record. Just briefly, like the song Carry On is about one of the darkest times in Spencer's life.

Truly, like an extremely personal song for him, something that represents a time that he, again, now has come out of and has a really beautiful perspective on it. The song Everyone Dies Alone is about grief that we've all experienced. And it's extremely personal to each one of us. And yeah, so I guess my point is, with the exception of the few songs on the record that are more, I don't know, There are some stories. There are also ones we were just discussing concepts. Yeah.

Wouldn't it be interesting to explore this or that? Like subhuman, black wall, neon valley. Those are. Mr. God even, too. Mr. God also fits into that and malevolent. It's like there are, it's like taking the concept of this and pushing it. What's the Mr. God concept? Imagine like someone who's so powerful and influential that they don't realize

that they're engineering their own loneliness. The analogy, yeah, and the analogy is like everything they touch catches fire, and yet they're curious about why the world is burning around them. And also they're curious about why am I alone? I don't understand.

Why isn't there anyone left? Why isn't there anyone near me? And referencing that image that I talked about earlier with this, you know, I just imagine this character being very kind of like withdrawn and sad that they are alone,

but yet as they walked down, this hallway and their arms are out not knowing why am i like this they're burning the walls down and they can't they don't understand why and how this is happening but it's it's all a part of of who they are i love writing a concept song love it i love being like this isn't me but imagine if this was me and then you score it and that's fun and it gives you direction it's like what like that's why that song is so short and explosive like without that direction maybe it would have been a a longer song. Maybe it would have gone off into other places, but I like it for what it is, because to me, it sounds like the concept that we were going for.

Happy with a reaction? It's fucking song's popping. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's early days, but so far we're very happy. I got a question about the video. Amps and cabs. Yeah, got to rep the companies. And you know what's weird? It's like, we talked about that. And it's like, it's kind of weird to have a guitar and not have a cab. I don't know. Yeah, I like that. And we were doing performance videos. If there was like a concept, like kind of, right, it's like just a raw performance video.

Did you have apps and cabs on the Spirit Box tour? No, not on stage. We don't have space in the trailer. Part of that conversation was the director, too, Caleb Young, who's the director, you know, he was like, yeah, we got to have caps. You got to have caps, you know. You want to bring them back on stage?

Space in the trailer, I'm not allowed to turn them up. I love them. I love them so much. but then Marquides are in front of house. It's just like, it's too loud. You know, and then I do the thing where, like, I make it louder throughout the set. And he's like, I can hear that.

You're just ruining the show. And I'm just like, what's the point? This is so much work. It takes up space. It's just everything. And then I can't even use them. And he's the best, so we listen to. Yeah, we listen to him.

And just love Alex. He was for Metallica as well. He was James Hedfield's guy. Yeah. So sick. Yeah. Great dude. He's not just.

Never met him. I'd love to, though, James. You want to come on here. All right, quick fire. Yeah. Got a quick fire. Who's the funniest person in periphery? Mark.

Wow. And Spencer has been getting pretty close lately. He's been getting me good. Yeah. Okay. Who thinks they're the funniest? Me. You have your moments that you really do.

Who's the biggest diva? Marketes. I'm just joking. I think we've all been at different times. Okay. It's not a moral... The exception of Spencer. There's not like an overwhelming this person.

Wait, so he's the least. deeper. Oh, Spencer? Spencer is zero D. The least vocalist vocalist that I know. He's the easiest, he's the easiest guy ever. Interesting. Yeah, no, no. Who is most likely to forget their own part on stage? Me? Probably. Yeah. I mess up a lot. I don't know. Who is most likely to order something ridiculous at one of these nice restaurants you go to and then regret it? Regret it? You don't have to regret it. Who's most likely to order something ridiculous? You are Mark. Yeah, me or Mark.

What's the most ridiculous thing you've ever eaten? Anything wacky? No one. We went to, yeah, we went to Noma. Me, Mark and Dolly went. Fucking Johnny's six businesses over in. We went in 2015 before the companies. Damn.

You spent a fucking lot. Yeah, we went in 2015. And that whole meal was crazy. But the main course was a smoked duck. But it was the whole duck. The whole thing. Yeah. It's a little big.

brains and all. Beak was there. Did you eat the beak? No, you eat the beak? But it was, I mean, it was a whole thing

in a giant nest that they made. That's fucking amazing. You've seen the movie the menu? No, I haven't. I know Misha has.

Oh my God. And you like a horror movie. I need to see it. You need to watch it like straight away. It would be your favorite movie. Okay. It's fucking. It's got Ray Fines in it.

Yeah, who I love. Unbelievable. It's hard to see him though in any other role for me. Then what? In Bruges?

No. Red Dragon. Grand Budapest. Oh, yeah. Oh, he's very different. No, no, no, that's true. That's true. I'm Gustav, man.

That's one of the... That's true. If you're planning a day off on tour, who plans it? Marquides. We need to talk about that. Yeah. I want to plant it because I want to be around good food, good coffee. I want him to plant because I want to be around good food and good coffee.

That's all I care about. On tour, that's it. Yeah. I like it. I feel like I'm shitting on Marquis. I love that man so much. We went to high school together. Well, why did you say him?

Well, he plans it. He's our tour manager. To be fair, he's trying to do things as economically as possible. So he's being very responsible, and I would like him to sometimes be irresponsible so that we can have nice coffee. And the ironic part of that is he loves coffee and he loves food as much as I do. So, like, that's all we do on tour. He's making a sacrifice so that we can have a little more money at the end of tour.

That's why. It doesn't make a difference to him. he gets paid the same. He's just more comfortable drinking Starbucks than I am. Same with Misha. Starbucks cold brew. That's why I do? I kind of fuck with it.

It's fine. It's the same everywhere. Yeah. If you get anything else from Starbucks, no, you're wrong. Starbucks cold brew, if you just want caffeine and it to taste okay. I had it today. I had it today. Sometimes I treat myself.

But I got the fellow Aiden now and the cold brew saying. The thing is the... I only use it for cold brew, though, because I don't... Madison doesn't drink coffee. and then I don't have enough friends to ever use the batch brew feature. But the cold brew feature is... So I have an Aden, he has an Aden,

you have an Aiden, and then we as a band bought an Aden to take on tour. It is the greatest... It is the greatest thing to have on tour. And I discovered, or I didn't discover, I just watched Lance Hedrick. I've been using my origami filter with it because you can sort of hack it

by putting a tiny magnet there and then you could just use an origami filter and like my catholic t-92 filter or like or my whatever filter you want. That guy's responsible for some strange things that work. Yep. The V60 method, which is like a two-minute bloom and then a really slow pour. Unreal. I got to try that.

Oh, it's fucking crazy. Two minute, but it says to do between one and two minutes, but like if I've got a coffee that I'm struggling to get the right tastes out of, I try that one. and it's like, oh, this is the best thing I've done. It makes sense because that's the part where you'll extract the acidity, you know? So if you want to really, like, get the punch. It's also really good if you're feeling particularly fucking lazy in the morning. Yeah.

Too many, you can just go do something else. You know what's even better? Aiden. I haven't found a one cup setting or programming that I've liked more than my pour overs on the Aden. Do you ever use like an immersion brewer, like a Pulsar? I had a switch. Okay. Yeah, that's the same thing.

But I gave it to our sound guy at the end of the tour because I run out of space. Nali and Des and I used the hoop as well, which is great. Oh, yeah, I saw that. And you can take your time with those. I mean, you kind of do, pour it and... Have you got the Ferneau espresso machine? Yes.

It is unbelievable. So I had a Lily Bianca, which is like... I have one of those in the UK. It's great. It's a great machine. I've had it for like five years. I know it well. And the rosary, we have these linear minis, which we open the shop off.

And we just upgraded to a linear PB, I believe it's called. So a proper machine, finally. So Rosie, my partner and the guy who actually runs everything and roasts everything, I'm the money. He's the talent. He was like, hey, so we could sell one of these and you can have the other one. I was like, sick. I want a linear mini.

Those are great. And I actually went down there. with my Lili Bianca. I'm like, I'm curious, let's shoot it out. And the ES1 had arrived that day. And I brought my Legam P100 grinder. I was like, all right, let's do a machine shootout. I couldn't believe, everyone knows the grinder makes all the difference. But the machine does too. I didn't realize how much of a difference it made. And I could walk home with any of those and I walked home with the ES1. It was the best. It won every time on a standard nine bar shot. It just beat it out every time. I couldn't believe it. The price is like kind of good as well.

It's unbelievable. It's $1,500 bucks. If I were an espresso drinker, I would get one, but I'm really not. But he made me a couple earlier this week. They were great. Insane. So I'd say save the money on the machine, get an ES1, and then spend all that money you save on the most insane grinder.

Yeah. Because, yeah, like that, like, it's, I've been calling it the neural DSP of espresso machines. Because it has all the fucking sayings. But there is technically an AxeFX, which would be the decent, which is like way too far. It's like, this is the friendly one. This is the one that you don't have to be nuts. Like,

and you can just get the profiles. You can get the fellow drops. I sound like I'm sponsored by them. I'm not. I'm not by you definitely want one for free. So, come on. Golden Lantern coffee roasters. You haven't even said the name in.

Yeah. Yeah. It's my roasting company. It's fucking great. Oh, thanks. However, there's one thing. There was one that you made last year,

Saddamo. Yeah. Maybe one of the fucking best coffees I've had in the The problem is that we have to get them in stock. Yeah, but here's the other thing. I was supposed to get a re-up. Never arrived. Just hit me up or hit Rosie up.

Friends don't pay for coffee. I hit Rosie up. He's a busy man. No, no, no, no, no. You know, we had a problem because I sent some stuff to Nollie, and then I checked in with him like a week later, and he's like, still won't have it. I'm just putting it on a spot because I ran out of coffee. But no, but we had a problem with shipping where, like, it just never arrived.

And we only just got the package back. like a few days ago. So we resented. Don't worry. We'll send you some stuff. I'll send you a nice care package. Can I have? Can I have to? Of course.

Okay. Sick. I'm ready. I think that's it. The cameras are running out, Barry. If you want the longer episodes, I need you to go on the Patreon. Because what's going to happen,

the last five minutes of this episode would have been standard definition. And it's not going to last a test of time. The cards, the cards for these cameras are like, I was like, I need to upgrade those cards. I'll do it with some Patreon money. $534.

dollars each. Oh, wait. For like the size that I need. The CF Express. Oh, because you're using CF Express. And I'm recording in 4K 10 bit. So like one episode of this podcast is 400 gigabytes. And I have done six episodes this week.

So the amount of storage required to keep this podcast on the go is crazy. Like the cloud price that we're paying on cloud storage across me and Simon is such an insane monthly. because it has to be terabytes. Jesus. It costs money. Patreon.com

for slash the downbeat. I'm done. Are you done? Yeah. Thanks guys. That was fun. Yeah. Blast.

Thanks for having us on. Thanks for pushing me out of my comfort zone. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to do it. What's that T-shirt? LA Apparel? I think it is actually. You know why?

Vintage black. It was a sample that we're looking at and we're not even using this cloth for the merch we're doing. LA apparel, expensive. It's very expensive. But we're not going streetwear because you do it very well. And we don't want to.

Really? You can. No, we're not. We're not doing it. Give me some money to do your match. Let's have a conversation about that. You know what's funny? I almost actually, I almost reached out to you and was like, what would, like, could you

help us curate the, the, the, the product itself? You know what was funny? We're going to keep this on the podcast. I was thinking about this two weeks ago because what's happened with my merch. This is some new merch from me. Which is, that's great. What's happened because of this, thank you, because of this whole thing of like, prime example, I made an LA apparel t-shirt last year and I didn't really look at the numbers as much as I should have done.

And when I was revisiting wanting to reprint it this year, the t-shirt cost itself to get fully made was $32. Which is like, you just can't do it. Yeah, you just can't do it. So in the last three months, I have found different manufacturers. and, you know, settled on two that I use for everything now. And it's kind of sick. And now I'm like, I basically took the middleman out of everything I do. There's usually a middleman out of that.

Here is my idea. Let's make it. And now it's like, okay, I just go straight to the factories now. And about two weeks ago, I was like, maybe I should start, like, offering this to a few people where I'll be like, let me do you a spread and we'll do it all custom, do all the sampling, and it would be sick. idea in my head.

Good to know. Well, it's out there. Let's talk about it. Anyway, we could do a collab too. I don't know if you've ever done that, but. Yeah, I've only done it on vinyl. But let's talk. Let's get rid of this.

Love you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having us.