The Downbeat - SPIRITBOX: Courtney LaPlante + Mike Stringer

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

My guests this week are the wonderful Courtney LaPlante and Mike Stringer of the band Spiritbox. We caught up in LA to talk about their Grammy nomination, working with Megan Thee Stallion, the creation their latest EP 'The Fear Of Fear' , and Courtney does a wonderful Mike Tyson impression. I love these people and I love this band.

Hello, ladies, gents and everything in between. My guests on the podcast this week are the power couple, big brain power couple behind the band Spirit Box, Mike Stringer and Courtney LaPlante. They are two of my favorite humans on earth, super stoked that they wanted to do the podcast. This podcast was done in LA. To be honest with you guys, when they told me they were interested, that's when L.A. got booked. We talked about everything from their latest EP, The Fear of Fear, to working with Megan the Stallion on the song, to their Grammy nomination. I mean, those three things alone.

We talked about a bunch more stuff, how they write a song, like how they feel about their stratospheric success. Genuinely, two of the nicest people in the scene couldn't be happier for all their success. Before we get started, this episode was made possible by the lovely people at Patreon. Patreon.com forward slash the downbeat.

It's like quid. You get early access to the episodes and you get ad-free episodes and you allow me to go on trip. like this to record these episodes with guests like these, patreon.com forward slash the downbeat. We also have merch www. The Downbeat.

The Downbeat. The Downbeat. Lovely hoodies, t-shirts, all that stuff. Two locations. One ships from LA. One ships from the UK. This episode was also made possible

by those wonderful folks at Displate. Displate make metal posters. They mount on the wall with a magnet. There is no drilling, no mess. If you're harboring a fugitive in those walls and you don't want to give them air, you don't have to drill a hole to give them air. They've got everything. They've got games.

They've got sports teams. They've got bands. There's a Downbeat store. They're great products. I literally have about 10 in my house and five in the podcast studio. I genuinely love them. Displate.com. Use the code Downbeat.

You can get a whopping 22% off 1 to 2 displays or 33% off 3 or more. Dispake.com code downbeat. Now that's out of the way. Let's get on with the podcast. Courtney LaPlante. and Mike Stringer off Spiritbox on the Downbeat podcast. Oh, at last. Friend.

We did it. We did do it. Welcome to my living room. It's very cozy. I'm super stoked that we managed to fly you over to Scotland to do this. One of the perks. Been a long time coming. We're not actually in the living room.

We are, in case this fooled anyone who's watching, if it listen to the audio, come on, fuck off. Just, just, you know, watch it. Get back to work. We're in L.A. We're so happy to be here. Yeah. It's been a long time coming.

Most requested. Yeah, right. You say that to everybody. No, what do you think? Most requested, 100%. Get corny back. Get corny back. Guess what?

You got Mike, too. Yeah. A little bonus. A little flavor crystals on top. Yeah. And, you know, Michael, Michael's the one that he does the least interviews of the two of us. So he's like more of like a unique get.

Look at me as well. He is like a unique. Just lovely. Exotic. L.A. Michael? L.A. Me. Yeah, Michael cut his hair. Sure.

Has it been revealed yet? No. This is the first grand reveal. He hasn't even done a soft launch. I told him to do like a dramatic soft launch where he just like showed his hair all over the ground. Yeah. Not even an Insta story. Nothing.

You think he's going to get shit? No. You know, like have you ever done like a really dramatic hair change? I did a, my sister in Christ, I had a dramatic everything change when I got divorced. What was, you know, like, do you ever do like a, a change that your non-fashioned cool guy friends would notice? Wait, give me an example. Okay, or have you, I don't know, like if you ever got... Whose podcast is this?

Give me an example. Like, if you ever, like, when you first got your neck done or something, it's like, and then there's like this weird anxiety when you haven't seen people and they make such a huge deal out of the change. Oh, the reveal, yeah. It takes like two weeks. I've gotten to like four people so far. No. Oh my gosh. Wait, when did it?

I mean, I did it as well. Guilty. Yeah. When did it happen? When did it happen? Like it was a disease. Yeah. He got really, really specific alopecia that made his hair look lovely.

Patient Zero. He got that alopee. It happened like four days ago, five days ago. Yeah. Oh, wow. It's so, so fresh. It's pretty fresh. Yeah.

How is it like waking up in the morning? I used to have long hair and when I got rid of it, I was like, yeah, yeah. In the morning and it's not fucking. I know. It's crazy. Did you feel like you lost like, pounds when he did it no I did feel it was when I was in my met like I mean always in my

metal days but like back then I was like slayer yeah and like I felt like it was I was I felt like I was I was lying to the world like I was like I've never seen you with long hair it's just not it doesn't align with it's you are you're like guy to me yeah what does that mean hair guy like you're like Stone Island guy I haven't got single bit of Stone Island. But you know what I mean? Like, not for one of trying, you know. Like, a grey and murky day.

Oh, I'm just a British guy to you. Yeah. United, United's playing. Yeah. I got a pretty, that's Sam. I got, I got a pretty, uh, that's a peeky blinders character. Man you're a city. Do you like Man you a city?

Tommy. Man, you, Man United are playing. That's quite good. Got to go old traffic. Oh, I forgot. I forgot all about it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Where's the British? My dad's from Manchester. My mom's from Yorkshire. So it's full British. Full. Full on. My whole family. He's the, he and his brother are the only Canadians.

Yeah. Yeah, but you're not actually Canadian though. Born there. He was born there. I mean, I am, but the thing is, I woke up. You sound kind of racist. You ain't from there. Yeah, I ain't from there.

No, I woke up every Sunday when I was a kid hearing my dad scream at the TV watching Man You games. He's a man new. Yeah, yeah. He's over right now. I'm fucking Scozo. You know. yelling.

So this was 96? Yeah. He's over it though. Pretty much. Why? It's just something like broken in his brain. He was like, no. When?

Recently. He's like, you know what? I don't want to, he's like, it's like a few years ago. You know, kind of like, why do I get up at 6 a.m. and yell at the TV. Like these billionaire athletes, they're just going to do what they want. Was it COVID?

Yeah. Because I fell out of love with football during COVID. You know, actually I think it was. Maybe it's because like, it's just part of your life. And then when it goes away, you're like, huh, I don't really need this. Yeah, I don't really need this. It went away and then what happened to a pipe, this is so boring. This is a Spirit Box podcast.

We'll get to that. I'm sorry, guys. It's just that we also are friends with Craig and we haven't seen him in a long time. And this is like a real life conversation. And we are excited to talk to him about just normal dumb like bus, like bandwagon type stuff. It sounds like I forced you to say that, but it was much appreciated. They piped in the crowd noise and that was for me. It was like a reminder.

You know, when you were at home and it was like, oh, I'm going to have like a couple of Gee, this isn't that bad. And you put on the news or whatever, or the football where there's no crowd and faint noise. It's like, oh, we're in a pandemic. Kigs aren't coming back. Oh, my God. I don't want to talk about the pandemic.

Let's talk about your band. There's a hair on this. Who knows who it was? It's one of my. Definitely. We have like a thing where we say like the LA fuck boy guys, they just like vape and then they talk on their phone on speakerphone. But if you're not watching this,

you have to hold it like this. It's up like this and they moan and they don't speak of English. So they walk around and they go, uh, uh, and it's on FaceTime. It's on FaceTime. Like like speaking FaceTime, but not speakerphone FaceTime and not looking at it. It's like 90% of the people here. You're holding it like this so you don't need to even be on FaceTime. They're like, where's the Chrome Hearts, babe?

Yeah. You know what? I was thinking something to ask you, how are you like in L.A.? How long you lived there? A year. But like not even really. But we already kind of lived here. you know like we we didn't like our address was in canada but we were always down here which

is why we moved but so we're much we're much happier because we don't have to like live out of a suitcase honestly um when we're not on the road on tour yeah but we were honestly we've barely been here we've barely been here we we got here in january and like the next day with our bag still packed we went to the studio and then we did that for a month and then we left for tour and then we came back fully mid-october yeah this year for us was was like extreme for touring. For other bands, it might just be like a normal amount. But for us, it was, this was extreme.

You know, like one day off between tours type thing. Yeah, hottest band in the world problems. Sorry. That's going to happen. Where did you move from? Victoria, BC. Yeah. Are you liking it here?

Disclaimer, I kind of hate it. I wasn't liking it at first at all. It was like a huge change. But lately I've been really liking it, actually. We went back to Canada for Christmas, and I thought going back was going to make me be like, I got to move back here, but it did the opposite. Because we live in a really, we're from a very beautiful place. Yeah, it is gorgeous. But like, I don't know, I like it here.

I like the people here. I like the convenience of living here. And there's just like something, you know, I like a pretty place that smells like piss. Yeah. Everywhere it smells like piss. Pretty place that smells like pit. Yeah, I get it. I think maybe I'm just in the, I mean, I'm in downtown right now.

so it's not great. Yeah, there's a lot of peepee and stuff. Poopoo, maybe. Mainly poop. You don't see a lot of shit on the street. It's like the charm of where you're from. Like, where it's like sometimes, I'm sure, depending on where you are in your city, like it's a little much for you.

But then there's just, anytime things are wild and like the bars get out for the night and stuff and everyone's yelling and stuff, there's something charming about it. I like it. Maybe I'm just slightly scared of it. I like all the helicopters. Like that's how I go. It's like our white noise. It's pretty GTA.

Yeah, very GTA. Yesterday I was walking around and I was like, this is, actually, it was funny because I was trying to explain it to my girlfriend because we were walking around and there was like, there'd just be random people screaming. Yeah. And she was like, it's like in GTA when you walk past someone and they start screaming at you or they just make loads of noise. I was like, yes.

Yeah. Especially when you steal the helicopter and you crash it into the observatory. Yeah. I once got into an argument in a game stop with a guy because I, what did I do? returned, I like sold a PlayStation. Okay. And he was like, why are you selling it? It was like when PS4,

no, PS4 came out. Yeah. And I was like, I just don't like any of the games. I thought I could get into it. I don't like the games. And he was like, well, why not? There's so many good games. And I was like, yeah, but most of the ones that I want to play,

like, I could just go and do that. This was a thing. Was it someone who worked at games? Yeah. Like, oh, okay. I thought it was just like a random in the store you were arguing. Where do you get off? So it was like game.

No, no. And he was like, you know, what about GTA? you couldn't go out and steal a helicopter. And I was like, I could go out and steal a helicopter. And got into this weird like curb situation where he was like, you couldn't steal a helicopter. I was like, I could steal a helicopter, bro. It was the weirdest thing ever.

You know what we always think about when we're in our condos? Like, I always think about that. I'm like, what if some crazy guy steals a helicopter from like the police and then just crashes it into our condo when we're sleeping? It's the GTA effect. Yeah, that's the GTA effect. Because it could happen. Or what if one of those dudes has like a stroke when he's when he's spinning around?

looking at stuff like the police. I'm thinking about helicopters. Yeah, well, they're always around us. Yeah, we see a lot of them. Well, I can't relate. So, they're the actions. I think they've got one in Scotland. They just use it.

Everyone just takes turns. When the king comes through. Is it? Oh yeah, it's a king. I forget it's a king. I know. I wanted to show that I'm up to date on the world. He recently,

news, big news last week, he's gone in to be treated for prostate enlargement. Congrats. Do you know how they treat that? Did they rub it? They have to. to milk it. Someone is milk in the king.

Probably already milked him. Oh yeah, probably. He's done milk. He's probably used to it. He's been milk. Yeah, he's used to it.

He's dehydrated. I wonder, like, if there is any kind of, like, royal setup to it. Like, or is it different? Or is it just doctors in? Like, milk.

Like, they got to make him, are you okay? It's just making uncomfortable? No. They have to make him come with it. Yeah, they do. Yeah.

I like to think that it's the same, he's had the same doctor his whole life. And this guy's like a hundred years old. Yeah. And he's like, I remember when you were a little boy. Yeah. I was there when you were born. And I'll milk you again, Sire.

Now, band over. I'd milk you every day of the week. Yeah. Let's get into, let's get down to brass tacks. Brad and Angelina, Brandelina. Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Benifer. Selina Gomez, Bieber, what was that? Jalima?

Well, one of ours would be a slur. Well, let's not say that one. I was thinking I was... The other one? That's the slur? Wait, what did you say? Mortney. Oh, Mortonie.

I was going to go with Mortney. Mortney's fine to say? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Let's say the other one. Let's go with Mortney. Mortonys good. Have you ever had Mortonie?

We never heard Mortney, but now that's what it's going to be from here on. Oh, you're fucked now. Yeah, Morton. That is absolutely... Mortney. Mortney. That's actually out there. Mortonie.

How long has Mortney been a thing? This would be our eighth year of marriage this year. Oh my God. And then our 12th year as a couple, right? 12 years. That's so cute. And then we've known each other

since what? Has it been 15 years of knowing? 2008. 2008 we met. We know the day we met because we played a show together. Tell me the day. Tell me what happened.

Was it June 10? It was June 10th, 2008. Yeah. Yeah. I only know because we have the show flyer. What was the show? We played at an anarchist bookstore. Called Camus.

Camus bookstore in Victoria. It's still there. Nice. It was like 20 people. Yeah. It was packed. It was packed. That was the one thing about being... Different bands? Yeah. What were the bands? My first band was called Fallen Arcadia and Courtney's band was Unicron. Yeah. But that was the thing about... Reward.

Give me those names again. Fallen Archaia. I love 2008. I know. Yeah. Yeah. I can see the logo. Yeah, of course. And mine was... And mine was Unicron. Unicron. Unicron. It's from Transformers. Yeah, I thought I literally was at Universal yesterday. I was like, I can't recognize that, me. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we used to just play in like community halls and stuff and we'd like sold out tonight. And you'd like, well, yeah,

there's like room for 30 people in here. But yeah, good job. It's crazy driving by those places and going in them and stuff because when you're a kid and at the time, like, you're just like, holy shit there's 10,000 people here and then you look at pictures or like you look at you go if you go in there later most of the places we played were like not music venues they were like community halls and stuff and so you go in you're like wow it was a bunch of like 30 year old losers playing to 35 people like drink a beer in the parking lot 16 year old that was you yeah but you went 30 2008 don't want to no we were the we were like the young ones that were like it's so sick that these old 35 year old guys are hanging out with us right now and like giving us beer you know like

Or the really cool ones would just like fake their age and they wouldn't tell you how old they were So you know it was like a mystery you know what like every time someone's like bring back the small community venues I'm like you know what don't because it was pretty much just a bunch of disgusting men like trying to have sex with teenagers and like giving them drugs and stuff like we I feel like some place that has like insurance is better because then they won't don't allow that as much. It's very like youth pastor, you know. Yeah.

You know, it's very like, it's like the youth pastor pipeline. It's like the hardcore singer guy, youth pastor, fucking kids. And that's the number one. And they move a lot. What's the number one rule of being around us? Just don't fuck kids. It's the number one rule anywhere. It's pretty easy to not do.

And you know what though? Controversial opinion for better or worse, it's the only thing you can't come back from. Everyone's coming back. You try to kill your wife. You're back. Come on back. Come on back. Anything else.

Kill someone? You're back. Because in my opinion, if you're bad at it, then you deserve a second chance. Like if you're bad at murdering and you fail. I thought you were talking about bad at... Well, yeah. Like, if you did a bad job of it and you didn't... It was just attempted, then that's fine.

Attempted murder is fine. In my head, we're still talking about banging kids. Yeah. Well, like any dark bad thing. Yeah. Like if it's just attempted, then, you know, bring them on back. I mean, they're back.

Not allowed in one country, but it's back, baby. Full swing. Let's, we've already, we've already said the buzzwords of pandemic and kid banging. They can't be said. We've already said, they're on there. That's always a buzzword in our line. You're not going to be able to monetize this one. I'm sorry.

I always wanted to know how to play the guitar. It's not an ad for that, right? If you remember that ad, it's not an ad for that. Stay with me. It's the same ballpark. Are you a guitarist? You've managed to get this far. you've managed to get through the military-grade anti-gatarist systems of the Downbeat.

And I feel like it's only fair that I give you an offer for that. The lovely people at Neural DSP are giving listeners of the Downbeat podcast a whopping 30% off. That's 30 with an air, 30% off any of their plug-ins. So you can plug your guitar in and sound like anyone from Gojira to Pliny, Tim Henson. Tom Morello, you want to sound like stray? Blow that one up. There's a nolly pack. If you're listening to this podcast, you know all these people.

You want to get that tone straight out of the box, or you can fiddle with it. I've been doing some fiddling. I don't even play the guitar. It's making me sound good. So look forward to my side project. I don't know what that's going to be. Not only do you support the podcast, but you support the wonderful people at Neuralon, bringing these plugins. And they are wonderful people.

Side note, got pretty hammered with them at Nam. 30% off any plugin at NeuralDSP.com, excluding new releases until 90 days after they've released. The code is the downbeat. That's the downbeat at NeuralDSP. come let's get back to the show taking care of your health isn't always easy but it should at least be simple that's why for the last year i've been drinking ag1 every day no exceptions just one scoop mixed in water once a day every day and it makes me feel just ready to do a little podcast for you just ready to go focused energize that's because each serving of age you one delivers my daily dose of

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and five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase exclusively at drinkag1.com 4 slash the downbeat. That's drinkag1.com for slash the downbeat. Check it out. We'll see. Yeah. We'll see about that. Subscribe to the Patreon because that allows me to bring my living room to you. On the Patreon, everyone gets nude. There is actually a poster that you can get with me in the nude on the Patreon. Really? That's really cool.

How much is it? You should know. If you were a true fan, you would have described, you would have subscribed to the Patreon. I already know all about that. It's fine. It's a pound. It's a shilling. Give me that English accent. When you put me on the spot, I can't really do it.

You can do it. What type of accent do you want? Well, where is, yeah. dad from Manchester. Yeah. See, I have like a very, over the years, I kind of have really made an exaggerated version of it. Yeah. A lot of it's just like a, oh bloody hell, oh mate, no, mate, you know, like, and it's very, but he doesn't sound like that. And he's lived in Canada for 40 years. Yeah. But we do like a really rude caricature of him. We basically do it to like razum a little bit. Yeah. He does not sound like that. Yeah. People do that to me as well. Yeah, of course. I mean,

it's just kind of. That impression you can hear the teeth. Swiss. Like those big, the big teeth, like my teeth. I sometimes like doing that when I'm in a store and I'll do like a fake British accent

just so people think I'm doing a fake British accent and they're not speaking my real British accent and they're like, wait, this one's fake too. You know it's a good one. Do it in other Commonwealth countries.

Do like a, pretend like you're mocking an Australian and do a British accent with British cliches because they don't understand that you're joking and they think that you're just like really bad at doing their accent. So it'd be like, oh, I'm from Australia, give me a Yorkshire pudding.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they're like, that's not how I sound, mate. I don't know you're Australian, give me your Australian. It's not how I bloody sound. That's more Manchester than, yeah, that is more Manchester for sure. I have to, wait, I just, there's certain words that like unlock it. On the spot, it's tough. There's certain words that unlock it for me.

Come over to me bungalow. Yeah, that's what it is. Bungo. Come over to my fackin, wait. Come over to my fackin bungalow mate. Everyone thinks I'm Australian over here. Really? I don't know what it is. I think it's the surf look. Say bungalow, mate.

Why would they say bungalow? Do they say bungalow a lot? I don't know. Bangalow. Bangalow. Bangalow. Bangalow. Bungalo.

That's Canadian. Really? Fucking bungalow. Oh, come over in my fucking bungaloo, eh? Oh, yeah, eh? You fucking holeser. I thought that was Fargo place. Well, that's kind of Canadian.

It kind of bleeds into Canada. Minnesota is like right up there. I call it the construction guy accent because most of the guy's, that work construction, like, are deaf, and they just yell on the bus. Because they've been around, like, jackhammers and shit all day. They're always on the city bus, and they're just yelling. Oh, my fucking daughter, she's wicked smarty. Yeah, she's a fucking genius.

First word, I thought, Boston. Sure. Then I got Canada. Yeah, yeah. It gets pretty extreme. This episode sucks. They just talked about accent. Yeah, what else do you want?

Have you got over the spirit box injury curse? Can we talk about it? I mean, I have pneumonia right now. Then no. No, absolutely not. You have it right now. I mean, I'm not contagious anymore. I have rungitis and pneumonia.

She's at the tail end of it. Vocalists have the worst fucking job, dude. But yeah, I think that we're going to break the curse. The curse is like very specifically, it's like respiratory vibes in our U.S. territories. And then Europe is physical injuries. Yeah. Yeah, that last year I think we saw you on. Oh, we were pretty messed up.

You have finger. Yeah, I had a minor surgery on my finger, which was fun. I remember watching you ripping with four, three fingers. That was stupid. You don't use your thumb, do you? I could. No, yeah. No, I don't use my thumb.

Did I make it up or were you doing this at some point because you needed to do some other shit? Yeah, yeah. You were doing that. And I was like in the middle of the room and like I was just like this the whole time. No, am I making, am I making that up? No, I don't do that. I'm sure you had to. I think it just looked weird because one finger.

Tell your fans. You can tell them. Any time the guitar player goes like this on the neck, he doesn't need to do that. No. There's no logic behind that. That was like a 2008 through 2000. Everyone would do it this way.

Ooh. TikTok, no. Don't do that. TikTok. Just don't do that. Yeah. What about the humanity's last breath guy? Well, that guy can do whatever he wants.

I mean, he's kind of a genius. something weird? Well, no, I think he plays a lefty guitar upside down. He plays his guitar, the buster. Which is insane. Doesn't he do something weird? He said, well, no, just the complete opposite. It's just the complete opposite of what you're supposed to do. The Buster man? Buster man. He, like, how cool is that? He's, like, learned...

He's insane. He plays left hand on a right hand guitar, so it slipped upside down. Guy's a freak. Yeah, he's a freak. Buster. That's what I don't know him. I feel like you're a guy that knows this. Yeah, he's involved. Yeah, he does that. I don't know that guy, but I just, there's like, there's like, this thing where Mike Tyson was talking about Buff the Douglas one time. And so I don't know that guy.

What's his name? Can I get that a bit louder? Can I get that a bit louder? Is it last name? No. No. Bustah. Hilton or something? Anyway, whatever it is. I was going, it's a bloody foreign name. I say buff the from Humann. He's last breath. Yeah. But I don't know him. But you say that behind his back. Yeah. I just think because I can't help it because I thought it was funny that one time that Mike Tyson was like, Buster Douglas. I'm going to mess you up. It's quite a good, quite good Mike Tyson. When we were in Europe one time in my old band, there was nothing to do. There was no Wi-Fi in the bus.

And the only DVD we had was a Mike Tyson documentary. So I watched it like 10 times. And it just, he's like, so you asked me to perform Kottolingathon or in the bathroom. That's like, holy shit. We could end the fucking episode right now. And I'm so. That guy saying that is so funny to me. He's a perform Kutalingathon on the bathroom.

Look, watch the, watch it. I'm going to watch it now. I've just realized, speaking of that, you never. never told me we never finished the story of how you know no he didn't so you you pop on mike dyson DVD how did you meet um okay so it's clear the air i was 18 and michael was 16 so i know that sounds like the don't fuck kid rule is like i went again i was a hypocrite but i didn't actually start dating michael until he was 21 and i was 23 oh yeah so you met you you're allowed to meet people of it and then i groomed him and then i groomed yeah so you groomed it um

But yeah, I just, but here's all the first thing. The first thing I remember about him. I don't fucking love you guys. I was in. This is great. I was in a band with my little brother who's the same age as Michael. And so I remember Michael very specifically because his, our band started around the same time. But my band like wasn't respected.

And his band was very good and cool. And like they were like professional. Even at the time, they were like very professional. So we sucked. The little community hall with a fucking. That kind. Yeah. Yeah.

Full stacks. In ears. No, but he's joking. But, you know, I remember me and my brother watching him, and he was so good at the guitar. And my brother was just, my brother was like the other good guitar player. He was incredible, he still is an incredible guitar player. And I, to aside, said, hey, don't worry, when you're that guy's age, you'll be better than him.

And then we found out they were the same age. We were like, damn it. And you initially went, do you want to be my new brother because you're better at guitar? Yeah. And then I was like, let's do the next best thing. that's get married. Yeah. And I just always wanted to be in a band with him.

And then it turns out that it was inconveniently, like, I was in love with him. But then I figured that that would ruin our friendship. So you became friends. But you were fast forward in a lot here. There's a lot of yada yada happening. Well, most of it, most of it, we just interacted at shows. Like, we never, like, hung out. Other than that, we just both admired one another, like, mutual respect for one another.

And, yeah, I just couldn't believe. I was so shocked when I told him that. I loved him and I thought and then he like reversed unocarded and was like, I love you. I was like, well, that's cool. What? From friends to love? Yeah. That's like romance.

Yeah, so we're really lucky because I figured that I was just saying my goodbyes to our friendship because I figured that then he'd never like want to, you know, you'd be weirded out if your best friend said they were in love with you actually. Yeah. And then it turned out that we were both repressed. expressing our feelings for each other. He did do a muff diver out of my crotch. Oh, yeah.

It's a drink when they put a shot in a whipped cream. Yeah. They put a shot glass inside another highball glass whipped cream. And he did it on me. Before, this is before anything. Yeah. Yeah, well before everything. So I was, I was really.

That's fucking witch shit. Yeah. I think, you know, when I knew it was probably because I don't like smoking, but then Michael smoked and he was. like I used to smoke. He used to smoke. Cigarettes. Yeah, sagrits. And then he. Siggie butt brain. And then I can tell, I think the moment I knew I was in love with him was he was like, on his

birthday, he was like smoking a cigarette like against like the wall of like wherever club we were at. And I was like, smoking's hot. And I was like, oh no, that's kind of what I do. Yeah, oops. Oops. Oopsies. I was like, shit. It is kind of hot. It is pretty sick. I wish I could do it. I mean, I just don't want to die from cancer. Especially with long nails, like a cigarette between the long nails like this. I haven't had a cigarette and so long, but even like even now I'll see people smoking. I'm like, God, that's so fucking cool. I almost started smoking when I watched Mad Men because everyone smokes in that show.

And I was like, this looks cool. Wait, you started or you want to do? No, I just, I've never smoked. You couldn't. It would fuck. You've already got bronchitis. Yeah. And pneumonia.

Got that bronch. Yeah. Did you have bronc, which turned into pinium? No, I don't know. I went to, I went to my daughter. doctor, which it's funny because my doctor is my producer's dad. So I'll be like, I've got to go see Dr. Bronstine. And then people think that I mean like, I'm calling Dan Dr.

Dr. Dre. Yeah, like Dr. Dre. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, oh, you're like, oh, you're going to go whoop you up a new song. And I'm like, no, I'm sick. I'm going to see Dr. Ronstein. Do you get mates rates?

He bet. I bet her. Well, you must know. If there are a discount. Well, I don't know if it's a discount, but if I were to go, if I were to go to if I were to go to wait outside of the. of his office and compare my bill with another person's bill, I would hope it's... We're used to that free healthcare, brother.

Yeah, we're... Oh, fuck, yeah. How is that? It's not free here. It's not free here. You have to pay. Yeah, I had to fucking get anti-biolics, myself.

It's rude. That shit didn't work. And then it cost me like 400 bucks. Yeah, and then they go, you know what they? And then they go, oh, hold on. Maybe there's a coupon on good RX. And then you give the coupon and they're like, oh, it's $5 now. It's like, why is it just not $5?

Yeah, if you go to Target, It's so random, man Coupons are a social construct Yeah, they are. Like money. But they just press a few buttons and it goes from like 40 bucks to five And I'm like, why isn't it just five then

If you can just make it like that? Yeah, sort of relying on people's laziness To not have the coupon, but then why are you just Social constructs, coupons Comrade Courtney Money, gender, coupons That's it. I'm in.

Are you running for president? Yeah. You know, the insane thing? You'd probably win. Speaking of winning shit. Gramoa. I don't know about that. Granoa.

It would be a really big upset. As I've said to you, it would be... We will know by now. It would be a really, really big upset, but there's always, you know, you have technically the same amount of chances the other people. So I would really...

That would be so crazy. It would be wild. Like, it's the kind of thing where I'm not writing like a... exception speech or anything. It would be absolutely shocking. And I don't want to be a douchy idiot and, like, have the acceptance speech in my pocket forever. And then, like, what do I do with it?

Just throw it away. Burn it. You have to burn that. Yeah, yeah. You have to. It's fucking sad. Yeah. David Raymond finds it.

He's like, and goes, oh, what? You idiots. Wait, who we got disturbed? Slipknot. Ghost. Metallica. Spirit box.

Yeah. Yeah. So. We're fucked. We're. Are you, though? Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. The big difference is all those other people play like arenas and stadiums and then we're more like community hall vibes. Yeah. Yeah. Meeting each other smoking.

Yeah. Community all. So it would be a huge upset because we just really don't have any name recognition compared to those guys. the academy voters reflects the age of them, the time, like the, of that, like, what kind of they like doesn't really lean towards, I feel like I'll say. Is that the people who vote for who actually wins? I don't know how it works. So like you can, you can be in the academy.

You could join up. Yeah, I should have, I'll, I want you to join. We need more people. Hey, how, why can I, can you be in it? I'm in it. Yeah, I vote. As am I. Yeah, so you voted for yourselves.

was there's two. Yeah, that's at least two votes. All you need is two. Yeah, but if it's everyone like our sort of age. I think the other guys in my band, they are not. They didn't like do their due, so I don't think they got to vote. But that's okay. Sleep token, kind of snubbed.

I figured, I thought this was going to be their year. Yeah, but. We didn't even set our alarms for the nomination day. We didn't think anything of it. And then all of a sudden it was just like, holy shit. Yeah, we didn't wake up early to watch it or anything. So I always thought that I'd see you that moment happen in real life, but I didn't.

How does it work? Like the for your consideration, shit. Yeah. Do people advertise that so that other, the people who are on the voting to get the list of five names, see that and go, oh, yeah. Spiritbox. That's what that's for. Yeah. Because I always get confused when it comes up for your consideration.

I'm like, oh my God, they're up for a Grammy. It's like, no, they are telling you. It's an ad. Yeah. Oh, I'm fucking doing that next year. Oh, my God. You should do it for yourself. like you should say for your consideration Craig.

Craig Reynolds. What song? Jamaica fucking song. Yeah, so that was really shocking. And so it would be like I said, it was a big upset. Because I think, and not to go off on a tangent about music stuff, like I feel like the people that listen to all of the, let's put all of our bands under the same umbrella. Like I think that we all forget how sometimes we all forget like how big that world is. But often we forget how small.

all world. We sometimes we forget how big our world is where we're like, oh, what I say and do as consequences or impacts people. But often we forget how small it is and how most people have never, you know, whatever the biggest bands, I'm using like air quotes of our respective genres are, like most people that would be metal listeners would have no idea who we are or anything. And we would not. Yeah, like your average.

There's a difference between thousands and millions. And so it's interesting because we always see all these bands saying, oh, this was snubbed, that was snubbed. But really it's just like a category problem. There's only one metal category. So, you know, if there was best metalcore and best hardcore and best traditional metal. It'd be shit. I'd hate it.

There's only one. So, you know, I think that's the big problem is like not only is like hard rock and metal really needing two genres, but also within metal, it's so, like, it's weird because it's both like so fluid, but then depending on who you're talking to, like, extremely binary of like what each band is. So, yeah, like, I think that Sleep Token was totally snubbed because of the impact that they made, but I don't know what the song would be that made the impact, maybe the offer, what is the, was the, the offering, or that's the old one? What's that song?

The fucking choke cold. Is that the one? That's, and then also, I think another big, another really big, a really big impactful song this year was like,

was Bad Omen's, their old song becoming big, the Just For Ten song. Yeah. Like that, that, TikTok, that would have been, that would have been, so if there was a hard rock genre,

like that should be up for a Grammy. For sure. And then obviously, and I think there's other bands that I think maybe someday they'll have their time. Like every year, I always,

like, yeah, the summoning. Ah, there you go. Woo. Save that one. Still listening. Go. Because, like, I think that it's cool if it's both like culturally, culturally relevant and also, like, critically relevant, it would be great.

So I feel, you know, the next one I feel like should happen someday is, like, knocked loose. I feel like they should. I feel like they should get nominated too. I feel like if they're not putting sleep token in for, I would say, for the best is it metal album? It's just best metal performance and it's specifically performance

and you'll notice that a lot of... There isn't another metal award. Just one. Just performance because it's categorized as performance because if you notice a lot of the times it's like remixes, not remix like a cool guy remix but just like literally someone remixed it

or remastered it. You can be submitted for a remaster. You could... I'm out. I hope you win, but I'm fine. Like Metallica could just submit a remaster of Master of Puppets or something. And then like for instance, like the ghost song is a cover of an Iron Maiden song. You can also just do it for like a live recording of your song. People have won for that.

Yeah. I don't even care if you win now. It doesn't mean anything. No, I really hope you win. I want to win because I'd be, I'm the only woman nominated and I would be the first woman to ever win it. Yeah. And I wait, but I have to say the caveat that. Hailstorm won a metal and hard rock, hard rock and metal Grammy.

It was briefly, they took two categories and pushed them together. So I don't want to take away from from Hailstorm for winning. But this award, that's been like the 30 year long, like best, you know, Jethro Toll won, that one, no girls ever won. No girls ever won it. Yeah. I don't know if that makes you less likely or more likely. If I was in a casino, I'd say less.

I'd say less. Definitely. I mean, it fucking rocks, though. It's cool. I honestly think you deserve it. Thank you. I really appreciate that. And I'm a big Metallica guy.

I'm a big ghost guy. We didn't want to release this song as a single. We didn't want to put it out as a single. I wanted everyone to discover it because it's more like a textbook metalcore song. And I wanted everyone to discover it how it's meant to be heard on the EP, which is all one long song. And that's the beginning. of the song Jade is kind of is when you realize that the songs go together. And and so I want everyone to hear it like that.

But we just for once listened to our team. Yeah. They're like, please guys, put it out and we can even put out more songs. Like, we just really think you should put this song out. I just thought, and now look at your Grammy. I know. Who made that decision? I'm really thankful Sean and Jason.

Yeah. Like, guys, please. They're like, we'll do whatever you want. But our two cents are we feel very strongly. about this song. I just thought the song that we made in a day was not going to be the one that would, you know, be the one because it just came about too quick.

But I guess sometimes there's like magic in that, right? But then we realized that we were like, this song sounds so fun to play live. Yeah. We want to play it before the EP is out. So that's why we put it out because we just really wanted to play it on the last tour that we went on. Yeah.

That's pretty fucking, like when you get those songs where there's just one section and you can feel yourself on stage. I just want to go nuts. Yeah, yeah. We're about to have that on this tour because we're playing a song called Celladore.

And Angel Eyes. Celladour is my personal favorite. Oh, really? I put that out for a Grammy. Oh, I've put that out for a Grammy. I'm so excited to play that song live. Yeah. And just like, I keep envisioning

that when the big breakdown part happens, I just keep envisioning us just standing there and not moving. So like the crowd, I just keep seeing the crowd. just beating the shit of each other. Like in the sugar moment. Yeah, like my sugar style

and just staring at them and just looking at everyone. I just keep envisioning that. I mean, it's going to happen now. So now that's like, I'm hoping that's kind of like, we get really lost in our performance and we don't like choreograph it, but sometimes I like to think about like visually

how that would impact me, you know. I love the way you guys look on stage, not just because you're all beautiful. You do? But like, everyone's got their stage presence and I just love like, I love the look of one guitarist. I know. It looks right.

Yeah. Yeah. It's meant to be. It's like symmetrical. You know what I mean? It does. I mean, I think you're a little bit biased, but. Oh, bless him.

His little scooter is still in Europe. So when we go over there, we're going to get it out of the retirement. But yeah, Josh broke his foot on the first day of tour this summer on a two-month tour. He broke his foot on stage during the last song. How do you do it? He, his, in my opinion, the stage wasn't built well. And that made me really mad. And, um, because during the show, I was going, guys, everyone chill out. This, like, I'd go back to my talkback and be like, this stage is fucked. Oh, you're warning. The integrity of the stage is not good. And then his boot, this is so dushy. This is just pre-boot boot.

Yeah. Call it boot. His dude. This is so. Dushy, his Prada boot got stuck. Prada boots on stage. Yeah, dude. It's a right off. That's what we, remember? That's what I say.

It's a right off. That's a right off. Oh, I'm fucking, don't. They're watching. Stop it. They're watching. You know what sucks about that boot thing? Because we joked on that tour that he should get the mischief,

big red boot for the other boot. Then they brought him out in black, but then not only that, they brought out those mischief. boots designed for when you broke your foot. Oh my God. He could have simply got the left one. And Rick Owens made like a boot. Like they made boots that looked like when you have an air cast on.

So that should have been what we got. And he never, I'm not joking. He never complained once. Rick Owens or Josh. I don't think Rick Owens would complain either, but Josh didn't complain. He didn't complain one time. And then he had, he just never complained. He never.

he never is negative and then he was like when we go back to Paris on the tour he was like there's this restaurant I really like and I've had a really tough time admittedly and all I want to do is go to this restaurant it's like a buttery steak type restaurant it's like a buttery steak type restaurant and it's it's called macdonald McDonald's and mcdonze and so that's all you wanted that was just going to be this one little special treat to himself on this trip on this two months long extravaganza. And then the day before we went back to Paris to go to his little special place, he got horrible food poisoning.

And so he had to just lay in his hotel. So we're going to Paris tomorrow. And I really want to take him to his whatever this restaurant is called. Yeah. Oh, thank you so much for doing this. We, we. That's insane. Uwe?

We. And, yeah, so bless his little heart. I felt really bad for him. but he and okay so when we have food poisoning like or any sickness we call it like if you just to has like a code word like if you're throwing up we call it north durea and if you're shitting we call it south durea but when you have both dm z it's the dmz the dmnsie the military zone okay yeah where did that bit come from we just say like durea north you know north douria south durea yeah yeah i like we all

We all got food poisoning on this last tour and it's really complicated. You still have the curse. You were like, I think the curse is lifted. That's, you are cursed. We, we, uh, I think we just have horrible immune systems or something and we're like small Victorian children. We'd be dead if this was a different time. The Canada thing is the British thing.

We just, we're, we're like. Susceptible to. Hello, mister. Would you mind? I think I had some. Please, can I have some more? Can I have some nutrients? You just have an orange you've got there.

I've got a bit of the scare. Yeah. That's great. Have you taught her that? I got a bit of scatvy. That's all her. That's like fucking anime-level voiceover shit. It is, yeah.

What do you, don't, let me see more of your notes. I'm really perplexed how many notes you have. You want me to get into my notes? Are you trying to rush me along because you're going to Paris tomorrow? Oh, yeah, we, we go to Paris. I'm going to Paris tomorrow. Yeah, fucking Paris. You want me to run, run down my notes.

We're going to run down my notes anyway. No, I just mean like, I'm just, I'm really, I'm really, honored that you have so many well we might as well stay on the fear of fear because we're there right now but I want like a more specific I want to know how

Spirit Box writes a song how we write a song how does it happen um give me from inception from the inspiration to write the song to it being made would you like the Michael version or the

Courtney version I would like both ideally okay uh i mean it usually starts with like a sound or like a random thing like you'll notice in our songs there's some sort of thing that starts it off whether it's like circle with me or some sort of ambience or something um you start with that yeah usually just like a random starter and then a riff and then where yeah but no that that is the construction of the song or you hear a sound and you write a song around the sound usually it's yeah I find inspiration from like a random starter sound, you know,

whether it's like something for the key, something for the riff to start. Like a loop or something. Are you just like jamming around? Yeah, just like messing around with like scents. Sometimes we record. That's a grammy. Yeah, right there. Yeah, the white noise.

Yeah, I mean, it just starts with the riff, really, like after that. And then putting drums to it, adding bass, adding layering. You are skipping over. I've got nerds here. I've got nerds that are like, they want to know. Yeah. So like you're at home. usually at this point well i mean at this point i think practicing writing recording it's all in one

you know like i just sit there and when i'm practicing i'm recording myself most of the time it will just like evolve into writing a riff and then just building on it and putting midi drums and recording bass and you'll make the whole song yeah that's why i'm asking if you want the michael version or the corny version i'm getting to you and then what happens well the Courtney version of this story is that Michael is trying to figure out how to become more comfortable explaining that he is a musical genius and he makes everything and he's a multi-instrumentalist who cares very much about every instrument and he's amazing. That's my, that's the Courtney version is. So other than singing Michael's.

Post, I don't remember any, any of the podcast, thank you. And he even helps me with singing. to and melody and stuff. I think it just comes down to whatever is inspiring at the moment. Like I said, like a random sound or some sort of percussion. I mean like Angel Eyes, for instance, on the new record, that literally was just some sort of percussive loop. And then the song just evolved from that. I don't know.

It all just depends on the moment what I'm inspired by and what I'm feeling. And I don't usually listen to a lot of metal before I write my own stuff because I feel like when you do that, it all just kind of blends into one. and then you're just ripping things off without even realizing, you know what I mean? But yeah, it's not really a conventional way of doing it. I think a lot of people do it, but it's just a laptop, my guitar,

and a lot of in-the-box stuff in the dawn, you know, midi drums, and it's all just DIs. I mean, Eternal Blue, that whole record, it's all MIDI drums, DIs, bass. Crazy. Yeah, we did it in an Airbnb. I mean, I don't know if in the future we're going to continue it in that way. We've tried doing real lance. We've tried doing real drums.

But I'm the type of guy that just like really loves the ability to change things at any given moment. I mean, there's been there's been times where like literally the day we're about to submit the song, I'll change something. So all of these things that we do, there's a reason for it. It's not just because I prefer the sound of it or whatever. It's just that you can literally edit things up until the last second. but we'd like to do real drums someday because yeah it's just like we we're so blessed to have such an amazing drummer with zev so it's like sorry wait they're not real drums on the EP no no they're all midi that's sax revini we just haven't had any time like i saw a video of him playing yeah not on the not on the EP the only the only was he doing he was probably just hanging

out that's all he does i'm sure you guys were in the studio he was just probably hanging out and playing drums No, well, he did he did drums on the Rhodoscope EP. The Rodeuscope EP is the only time that we've done. Oh, you didn't continue that. Okay, so I've definitely seen it. You did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I thought you did it on the EP as well. No, I mean, for Rodescope, it's so good. Yeah, he is. Why? We didn't have time to try. It's if we didn't do it right then and submit it to Zach right then, then he wouldn't have mixed it. And we wouldn't have, we would have had to put it out this year, you know, like.

I didn't notice. I just thought that. And I'm the fucking netty professor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We take it very serious. We, we, we, we, we, we, Michael's a drummer, you know, and Dan Bronstein's a drummer too. Me and Dan will do like 90% of it. We'll just come up with like the whole entire thing.

But it sounds human because Zev, he, that's his job for that role since he's not able to like physically play it because we just haven't figured out a perfect setup for that. And we haven't had time to experiment. But he, he, he makes sure that it's human and that, that, that like, it that he would play that like he's proud to have you know he he gives a zev stamp of approval to be yeah like once once i'm done all of my stuff i'll send it to him he'll come through it and like when funny enough like when zev first joined like he was part of an instrumental band and of course like instrumental bands are entirely yeah i know he's warming up to animals leaders

yeah i know he's insane he's like at the best drummer ever but um you know i'll send it over to him And then he'll look at everything. He'll put on his, you know, put his two cents on it on it. And then I get it back and then I edit it from there. And we just shoot it back and forth. Because, you know, like it has to be the best performance for the song. How does it get from the bare bones to, okay, Courtney's doing this? Is that mutual?

Is that still you? Or is that? It's kind of a surprise. And then in the moment, Michael will be like, like he'll give me advice when I ask him. But have you got bare, like... I usually don't reveal until it's like time to track. So you have, so bare bones track goes to you.

You prepare your shit. If I really feel like something... Yeah. If I really feel something's good, like what I've thought of, then I'll track scratch vocals over it. But I don't do it just for the sake of it because I'm like, I'll figure it out. It might take me a year.

It might take me a day, but I'll figure it out. There's like different variations of it. Sometimes she'll hop on and, and she'll like do gibberish or whatever. I will say 99% of the time whenever she does gibberish and just random words in a melody, the melody at least sticks. Or some,

and some words will stick. And some words will stick. Yeah, she's very talented. But yeah, you know, the core of it is just me sitting at a laptop as lame as that is to hear.

But it's, um, Hey, Grammy nom. I guess. Yeah, I mean, it might be Grammy win by this point when this is out.

It might be. I don't think so, but it might be. I'm going to be pissed off. I, okay, I did say, I told, I was so sure that we wouldn't get nominated that the night before Michael was like, you know, they're doing the nominations tomorrow. And I was like, we're not going to get nominated. There's no shot. I'm so sure of it that if we get nominated, I'll buy you a dog and I'll train it for you.

So we're getting a dog. What are you going to get? I don't know. We don't know yet. It's a little guy. It's a little guy. I got a little guy. Yeah.

You need a little guy. It's a little guy or a little girl. It's a little girl, but I'm using guy, gender neutral guy. Yeah. Pamela. My little guy, Pamela. Yeah, your little guy, Pamela. I want a little guy.

If we're in this living room right now, if you're just listening to this in the audio, you are a fucking idiot. She would actually be right where you are. Oh, my dream. Pretent guy, little guy. She's dying. How old is she? How old is she? How old is she?

TBC because what happened she was a rescue. Who abandoned the chihuahua ends up a terrible pet parent. Oh my God. And they lose their teeth. Does she lose their teeth? So that's what happened. We got adopted this rescue. My friend has a rescue and they had no space left.

And I had just broke up with someone. I didn't have a dog. And I was missing having a dog. And my friend was just like, I got this chihuahua. We got no space. I don't know what I'm going to do. And I was like, I'll have a Chihuahua. Picked her up.

She's like so nervous and not yappy because someone's obviously treated her like shit. All her teeth were rotting. We were told she was six. Take her to the dentist to get these rotten teeth out. She has no teeth on one side because they're all rotten. They should have the little tongue come out? Yeah. Oh, bless her.

And they were like, this dog is like at least eight. and that was four, three years ago. So she might be like 11. So she's an elder. Damn. We have to respect our elders. Yeah, you have to respect the elders. She's an elder emo.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually really happy. Such shitty term. I hated so much. Elder email. I use it though. It's the same what's like I, I hate like clean vocals, but I say it.

Dirty vocals, clean vocals. The only one I don't like is fry. Ew, I hate, I'm sorry. to anyone who's a fan who's asked me this, but any of you that are like, do you do, Courtney, I have one question to ask you, do you use Fry?

I want to stab you. I don't know what it means, but every time I hear it, I'm like, my brother, what do you mean? I know, and I just, I'm like, I don't, I don't, I just go, I don't fucking know, dude.

I just scream between a mic. Is it like, shh. No, I know what it means. I know what it means. Working at McDonald's. Basically, Fry is just the same thing that you do when you're doing, vocal fry. You're using a different part of your vocal chord. I don't know what the word

fry means. We're doing vocal fry right now. This is a vocal fry. You just did it when you said fry. Fry. Whatever you go like that. Yeah. Who's your favorite male dirty vocalist? Who's your favorite male vocalist? Dirty vocalist. Who's your favorite male? Well, I always say, I always every year I retweet an old tweet of mine where I said, comment your favorite male vocalists. And your favorite male backed band. And I, male reared. Male reared. Female-fronted male reared.

We're male reared. I want to make a male reared shirt. Female fronted is a... There's something like fetish about it to me. There's something like herbie about it. Oh, 1,000%. Like, I'm sorry. Also, any of you listening right now, if you're like,

I'm not sexist at all. In fact, I only like female fronted bands. You're probably sexist. Sorry. I mean Because that's like weird Are there people that only like female front advanced? Yeah I'm like

But what? That's all that's all yeah I'm like there's like five of us She's like a she's like a rock chick I love it Tell him about the time How'd you get a gone? Yeah tell him

Tell him of this story This is such an old story I know but it's something It's not out there It's something that's been a big part of Like our lexicon I literally said it to you today actually But this is before

Bring me in bring us into the joke This is before I was in Iwobo and I would go and visit her on tour. And I don't know where it was. Here, like Louisiana. Some sort of shitty bar or whatever. And they were, they just finished playing.

Or they were smoking. Everybody was smoking. Yeah, I actually did. Everyone was cool as fuck. Yeah, of course. It was hot. Super hot. And I'm standing there and some guy

tats me on the shoulder and goes, hey, are you guys like together? Are you dating? And I went, yeah. And then he goes, how'd you get a got a goth chick? How'd you do it, man? How'd you get a metal chick?

How'd you get a goth metal chick? And I went, what? And he goes, that what was so good. I was like, did you get like, find her on the internet? I was like,

no. What are you talking about, dude? Who are you? Why are you talking to me? Um, so anyways, from there,

from there on, we've, how did you get a golf trick? 12 years ago. Yeah. How did you get a metal got a goth chick? How did you get a got a goth chick? Yeah.

I love it. I'm in. Vampire freaks. com. How did you got a goth. I'm absolutely. I was not allowed in, I'm, speaking of goth chicks, there is a, there is a club tonight. I'm going to say what it is because I'm annoyed at it.

Called club bar sinister, right? And it's like go-go dancing, goth girls. But singing like, reach out and tons. I don't know, yeah, probably, but it's like suicide girls. Yeah, like a fire and shit. Yeah, all that stuff. And we got invited to go. There's like some girls that we know there.

my girlfriend is as she was like girl they asked how to work and she was like no but we'll come and I was like cool we're gonna come there's got off chicks everywhere how do you get a golf chick this is how I got on yeah just claim I've already got one so it was like this is gonna be cool and then

there was like a text she got added to this group chat and there was a text and it was like please be aware there is a strict black clothes only thing now I got some fucking heat on oh you're actually being serious so you aren't allowed in the guy you aren't allowed so she replied was just like, hey,

uh, my boyfriend doesn't have any all black shoes. But you know what I do have? I have a pair of new balance with me, which goes perfectly with this 1980, 1990. That's real? No,

no, it's fucking face it. But I think, who knows how old it actually is. I was like, holy, that must have been fucking expensive. It's like a bootleg,

oh, an old bootleg. So it could be like 90 fucking nine. Anyway, who gets? I have a pair of shoes that match this nine, for all they know. 1990 pretty hate machine your goth icon thing and they were like no I'm afraid not

what if you can't wear our you guys can wear our clothes and go yeah I I said I'm not going and then one of the girls said oh I spoke to the guy it's fine you can come and I said well I'm not going now yeah it's rude especially when you she was invited to be in like to to perform and then now she's still supporting her local she's supporting her local she's supporting her local scene. How do you get a goff? Yeah, the goth scene. The sexy. King of the Goths, not out in. Yeah. Think of, there's going to be a bunch of bows on the back of the girl's thighs tattooed that you're not going to get to see. Yeah, you won't be able to see those. Stop it. You know, with the under the butt cheek bows.

We mustn't. We mustn't. I like those. I'm really happy you didn't know that there are many drums, by the way. To go back to that. I've been thinking about it. I've been thinking about that. I asked to say it earlier, too. Honestly. Yeah. Honestly, I only listened to it one time. Yeah, I got like 20 seconds in. I couldn't really. Craig's the first person I've sent the EP. I know. Hey, and you know what? And people dog on me for this all the time. And I get offended when people say,

oh, I can't send you this because of whatever reason. And I'm like, I am the most trustworthy secret keeper of anyone I know. You gave me that EP. Tom begged me for the whole tour. We were on tour together. And I said, Tom, I can't do it. You can speak to Courtney and you can ask if I can show you. I was like, I got him his own link.

Yeah. I said it to Tom. It's the double. We have, we got a redundant system. Yeah. Redondos. We got them double redunts because we,

we like that we just have links to stuff. So that way you can't send it. We get an alert if you send it and then. Really? So you know that I didn't send it to anyone. I didn't even know that. And so my, my people will take it down.

So sometimes, so like I have to like, let's say if I'm like, hey, send it to Tom. I'm like, but don't, let me send it to him because if you send it, it, then it'll, like, get flag and they'll pull the whole thing off. The curse will be put on to you.

I know what your accent. Your accent sounds like the guy from, I don't know if you ever seen Big Mouth on Netflix. Oh, I love Big Mouth. Yeah, the Shame Wizard. Yeah, the Shame Wizard. That's literally what you're doing. That show's so good.

Before, I got too much to fucking talk to you guys about. I know. You said you don't get inspired. You don't listen to metal before you're writing? No. What do you listen to? Honestly, it's as cliche as it sounds like pretty much everything. I pull my Spotify if you want.

Yes, because I am while you're getting that up, I'll explain. So we're writing New Stray right now and I'm the same. I don't like the metal I like, I can't do those things that they do. Like, we should do a song that sounds like bleed. Guess what? Can't do it. So like I don't do that. But I mean, as long as it's outside of your wheelhouse where it's like, it's not in the same genre and stuff.

I mean, of course, like, you're going to listen to some stuff. It's just going to happen. But, like, I try to go out of my way not to. I mean, like, it's funny. Incubis is always a band that I listen to. Insane because I see no correlation there. My kind of finger is so good. We incubus a lot.

You incubus? A lot, a lot. Yeah. They're amazing. No, I mean in the songs. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Herty is pretty much.

He's going to docks himself for the rip-off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. that song. This claim, I'm not a big in-tubicist. No, you're not? A certain shade of green. I just put them in with sublime when I was growing up. And I was like, this is music for people that wear huge Hawaiian shirts.

And have dreadlocks. Yeah. And I was like, I'm out. But like in a white way. Yeah. Like people from Bristol. Like, everyone from Bristol. Alarming way.

Okay, I have been listening to the new Tesser Act quite a bit. Yeah, he has been listening to it so much. It's insane. It's unbelievable. It's crazy. It's, I mean, we saw them live and I lost my mind. And they sounded, what you said when we were watching them. Oh, yeah.

Okay. So I, we were watching them and I had a little bit to drink and I was, you know, a little out of it or whatever. And I was watching them. And I looked over at Courtney. Like the second, like the first song started. I was like, I am so insignificant. That's what he's saying. I'm insignificant.

You know what that's cute because I get that vibe from you all. whiz. It's crazy. And it's like, your band is fucking huge and significant. But they're like. But you're still like, I'm a baby boy. Yeah, you know when people, that's how I sound to you. You know when people are just really good musicians and it just almost like slaps you in

the face. Yeah. Like you're, I don't know, I kind of get like jealous of them. I'm like, it doesn't matter what I do. I'll never. It's one thing to listen to that, but to watch it. You know what I'm saying? They're great.

Not even if I don't even, I don't even mean that I want to do that. But I couldn't even if I wanted to. No. It's insane. It's like the two bands that I think are probably the tightest bands I've ever seen, Musuga, Tesseract. That's right. That album,

album of the year, they beefed me now because I said some shit about their merch situation. Well, that was, I mean, I don't know those guys, that was, that was funny.

I know, but, like, exactly. And the problem is, you're, you're allowed to clown on shit. And I think that self deprecation is important.

Yeah. For, for, it's a protective thing. Like, I think if you're not self-deprecating and you can't like make fun of yourself, then it only sets you up for to be hurt because you take yourself seriously. Yeah, 100%.

We're still in full pandemic mode where we like don't see our band as significant. Yeah. To answer why you were, you know, when we supported you in on those off dates on the festival tour, it was like the way you guys act is like you were the support band. I truly thought that... Super like nice and gracious. And we're just like, this is your show. I truly thought that those shows that like,

because we play, the ones that we play with motionless and white, I truly thought that people were going to walk out and not watch us. I'm sorry. I think it's like a... You guys got to get over this. Grammy nom. Get over it. It's just a...

You don't, you have doubts until you see it. Guess what? It never goes away. But if people walk down, I don't think I would have had a bad time. I just had never felt... Yeah, you would. You came off the stage and they said,

we played really bad. I hate that you saw that show. It was really bad. Yeah, I hated that you saw that show. It was so good. We had Boat Boy, and we had hamburger held her hand. Hamburger. Hamburger.

That's a little hamburger. I thought you're going to say hamburger. And also, I was stressed out because we had, we freighted our stuff to that show because we had some days off. So he hadn't been able to touch your guitar until we saw you. So we didn't even know if he could play his guitar. And guess what?

ripped. Yeah. He ripped. I ripped so much ass. He did. You ripped so much. Yeah. It was fucking.

I just really, you've been a very big supporter of us. Yeah. And I really, and you've only ever seen us when we weren't very good because we were new. Well, we were newer, you know, think about where you. Growing pains, dude. You know, I'm sure when Stray played their first 10 shows together, it wasn't as tight as it was after a thousand shows. I wasn't there.

That's what I'm saying. I'm sure. Well, I couldn't say when you were in the first. band because maybe you guys when you joined you guys were like all adults and you were all good so maybe you guys were instantly good. I just made metal. I joined and I went see this stuff that we're doing?

No. I want that guillotine. We're doing this. We're doing this metal thing now. You guys ever... Tom had never heard Gojera. What? And then I joined and I was like Yeah, here's this. Here's this. There you go. And then here's my new demos. What a great band.

Whenever we watch Live videos of you guys like from festivals and stuff were like, no one else would sound good like this. No. What do you mean?

Just roll. Just bear bones. No one else would sound good. Yeah. Thanks. Raising against machine, but they're slower. Yeah.

They're not as rocking. It ain't rocking as much. Thank you. They're RIP now. Yeah. I know. I'll always regret not. There was a,

my flight got in early enough one time I went to fly into Chicago that I could have gone to the show because, like we unexpectedly got in earlier and I technically could have made like halfway through the show and I didn't go because I

I was sick of course I had a festival and rare by you yeah it turns out I have the black lung and and I was like I was like well I probably sold out and then I looked online there were still tickets and I was like fuck and I'll always regret that the one that's the one when Zach Delroca blew out

his knee or whatever that always happens I'll catch him next time and they just break up And, yeah, they done broke up. They done broke up again. They might be back. Yeah. I saw him pre-breakup, post-first breakup. And then I saw him the night after or two nights after he actually did the leg thing.

That's so cool. It was fucking, I forgot that he was even fucking sat down. Wow. It was crazy. Anyway, we're not talking about them. Oops. We're talking about you guys. I'm still not even on my fucking, I mean, I've been going down.

notes. I know it's one thing. So when we did our episode of the audio episode of the Downby, you can listen to it if you're an idiot. Actually go and listen to it because I added ads to all of those old episodes.

Casper Mattresses. Give me that fucking, I don't even know what the app are. You know what? Put fucking whatever you want in there. Old episodes, you can do it. Anyway, we talked a little bit. I'm pretty sure we talked about Bjork. right and the Bjork influence there is one fucking word

on the new EP and you say it like her and I like I heard it and I fucking screamed it's not who could have known what part is it I feel like the word is emotional oh yeah that's that is like yoga

homogenic yeah yeah um Joga yeah yeah and then my other little wink wink wink to her is in, you don't even know those, Enceloror, the, the who could have part is I say it in the same pattern as her song, Coon. Yeah. Like, so it's like the opposite of that.

It's like a, you know, don't, don't sue me, Bjork, but it's, I, it's like, I like to give her, like, a little homage. I scream, I literally screamed in my bunk, I believe it was when I noticed it. Yeah. So it's my little, like a little winky to her. Yoga. That beat in that song, Yoga Beork, side note.

Emotional landscape. I wish I knew what you guys were doing. But for real, I'm going to piss my pants. You can piss your pants. He needs to go hang out with King Charles. You need to get on the Bonapil.

I'm trying to get Bonapil sponsorship. You know what I want you to so badly have beer sponsor is the, because I can just tell everyone is embarrassed when they do this ad is like the water bottle that you squirt out. Like scent? Have you seen people?

That's gonna, they're gonna come for you. They're sweeping the nation. So I forgot the name of it. But like every time I'm watching a YouTube video, it's like, and today's video is sponsored by, and it's always like,

it's like this, I forget what it's called. Let's call it, water, scent water bottle. And so it has a scent in it. So when you drink it, you squeeze it.

And so you smell like strawberry. It doesn't the water just spray out when you squeeze it? No, it's, it's like a vape, but water. So it makes it so that way, you feel like you're drinking juice. But you're, so it doesn't taste,

just smell. But your smell and your taste are like, so connected together that it's supposed to like trick your brain into thinking that you're, and I keep like, I listen to like a show on YouTube while I'm like cleaning.

And then it gets to the sponsor and it's all, everyone's, they're with that. And I'm just like, you don't actually use this. No, I guess the thing.

I always turn down. We're still rolling, aren't we? Yeah, what is the funny. I'm just going to leave this in. Yeah, you can leave a little old P.P. McGee. We, like, I can only do the sponsors of the stuff.

What happens is they go, hey, we want to sponsor your podcast and I look at it. I'm like, that looks kind of cool. Send me it. And then I'll do it. If it's actually good. And that's why, like, I'd be taking bono bills. My pillow. Give me, oh, I'm not doing, I'm not doing that. You heard it here first.

Give me the blue chews. Give me all that shit. I can do it. You left and I started talking to your girl about blue. Blue tube, bro. Whoa. I don't even know what that is. It's like bonapills. Blue tube? Yeah.

We were just because if we were like gas station. Blue Chews. Is it like gas station? Butterfield. It's really good for your prostate. Right. It's like legit really good for it. It's a good up on there.

You need some blue shoes. He's a good on the blue choose. It's pretty solid. See? Yeah. Thank you for letting me do that. Yeah, good job. It's absolutely gone.

I just looked at the time as well. We are fucking. We're rolling. You know. ribbon throw it put on our tab throw another hour on we can't believe it I believe it closes and you need to pack yeah Megan Megan Megan yeah that stallion the stallion how why when I wake up every day and I think that exactly I say who what when when I saw it and I didn't know anything I saw it and I just like it's a joke right what the fuck is he thought it was a you were like oh

no she's having a lot she's having a lot laugh. Yeah, no, I thought it was like maybe some kind of like they she'd sampled it even though this would be sick as well. She'd sampled a bit of an already existing Spiritbox song or any of this shit and then I was like, wait, this is a. Or you probably thought we pop ghost punked it and like did a cover. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I didn't know what to think and then I looked at it and I was like, this is a song. I was greatly offended. Several people reported it as a cover. Yeah, that was annoying. And they were like, Spirit Box covers Megan the sound. No, no. Name them. Name them. Face. Name and shame.

To the face. To the face. I don't know. All of you metal ones that just need to go to journalism school. You know what they do? They watch my podcast. Then they make articles about my podcast. Yeah.

That's crazy. As long as you fucking say it was from the podcast, I don't actually care. Keep doing it. Please. Keep doing it. It's repress. Tag me. A week before our EP came out, their team reached out and we're just inquiring if we'd be interested in doing like a rock version of her new song.

And a lot of the times, whenever something like, this is just kind of like brought up. It's just kind of like, oh yeah, right. You know what I mean? Like it's not going to happen. And so they were like, well, if you're interested, we have to wait for the song to come out before we can send you stems, which obviously that makes sense. And yeah, just let us know yada yada. So of course we were just like, yeah, we would love to.

Specifically me, but all of us are, the guys are all very big Megan the Stallion fans. But I'm a very, very big. big Megan Selling fan. So I'm a haughty. Her song came out the night that our EP came out. So I remember being in our living room and we were watching our videos and everything like that, just kind of.

Like the premiere. Taking it in and whatever. And then after all that was done, we were like, oh, we should probably watch Megan's song and see if it is even like translatable to metal or whatever. And we put it on and like immediately,

I was like, oh yeah, this could really work. We were just so like the intention of the song was to do what it did to us. It shocked us. Super dark. It was a side of. of her that we have not heard.

And it was so, like, visceral what she was saying in it about her mental health and really dark, dark shit. And so I was, like, chomping at the bit to do it, obviously, but I didn't have stems or anything. So every day for, like, four days straight, I'd bother my manager. I'm like, did we get stems? And at the end of it, he was just like, dude, like, if I got them, I'd send them to you.

Stop bothering me. You know what I mean? And I was really antsy. I was like, man, I just really hope this goes through. He's like, yeah, me too. That'd be great. But you can't really bank on it. And then Monday.

you do it and they say whatever. Well, and then also they could just be like, no, we're not, we're not interested. That song came out on the Thursday. Monday morning, I woke up with a we transfer link in my email and it was all the stems. So immediately I was just like, okay, like it's go time. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen. And so I started working on it and by about, I don't know, like I started working at at like 10 in the morning and by about like 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, their team was like,

yeah, do you have anything to present? Wow. And I was like, uh, Can I please have like 24 hours? Like that would be great, you know? And so we met up with Dan and we went in the studio and I showed him everything that I did. And he was like, yeah, this translates really well. And then we started working on it.

And by about mid-afternoon the next day, they were like, okay, so we want to put this out on Thursday. Can you send us like a mixed version or whatever? Can you present anything? By about four o'clock that day, we sent it over. and they were on a flight from Miami to L.A. So their Wi-Fi was like shot. So we would get little tidbits of information here and there. We went out for dinner.

Dan went to his own birthday party because he had COVID like two weeks before and had to reschedule it. With his family, we mean like grandma and dad and pop. Shout out to Nana and Papa. Yeah, yeah. And so we were driving after dinner on the way home and they were like, yeah, we're interested. But can you fix some things? And we're like, oh, shit, like, there's actually, this actually might get over the line, you know. And so their mixed notes and everything were super kind of scattered.

Like, I remember they were like, oh, can we have the last part is the chorus? And I was like, what do you mean by that? Because we, you know, and to their credit, they didn't say anything about the screaming. They didn't say anything about our little, like tag that we had at the beginning. Yeah, we did a producer tag by the way. They wanted more of Courtney. Megan wanted more of Courtney. So I was like, holy shit.

Like, this is actually working. We didn't want to step on our song. It's her song. So we just wanted to support the song. And she said, no, you can have that, have that be like the chorus. And we had zero instruction. Like, we had no prompt at all. She said that.

Yeah. Yeah. She did you back and forthing with her. No. No, our team and her team. She's too famous for that. Yeah, yeah. You can't have a bunch of random ass, like, scene guys.

Don't have our MSN messenger. No, you can't. You know. The AOL. You can't have that. But I, but I am so thankful that she was, like, so open-minded. Yeah, she was super stoked on her. And very, um.

like someone like that who's very assured in their whatever they say like she's so confident in her decision she's not she never used words like I think maybe that she goes please have this up put this here she's like a pretty I maybe be like man she's gonna be like a producer someday so cool it wanted to be like kind of like how missy elliott does everything I can see her doing that too because she's so smart about that kind of stuff she's assured self-assured so we turn around and we call Dan and we're like you have to mix it tonight because they need it. It's so funny.

He's like, yeah, I'm just going to finish up my cake. And I was like, do you want to mix the Meg and the Stallion song? Or do you want someone else? He's got a hat on Thursday. Yeah, yeah. We went over there, had cake with him and his family. And then we showed them the song. So the first people to hear it were the Dan's family.

Grandparents. Yeah, his grandparents and his mom. And we went over to his house and he did a couple different mixes, sent it over to them. Next morning, they're like, cool, it's submitted. It's coming out tomorrow afternoon. it was a so crazy it was a two day turnaround so everyone was like why didn't you tell me about this yeah that's why i was like i didn't know about it i was like what i just said what my biggest thing though throughout the whole the whole time of us working on it i was like man if this

doesn't get across like corny's just going to be so bummed so we have to make this work because because you you know your favorite artist or whatever like you have a chance to collaborate with them and then you don't do a good enough job so it doesn't get through you know like i love megan so you know parker he he he he took took me to go see the Beyonce movie, like just Parker and I went. And there's a... Like a tour manager. Yeah.

And he, we went to Universal Studios theater. Like there's like an IMAX there. I was there two days ago. Yeah. And that place was crazy. Yeah. And I, in the movie, when she plays in Houston, Megan came out and performed Savage with Beyonce and everyone was dancing and having fun the theater and I just I just couldn't help it.

I didn't say anything the whole time and I just like and I just looked at Parker and I looked at the, you know, the giant 30 foot Megan on the screen shaking her beautiful ass and I just was like, I have a song with her. I mean, that's crazy. No way. That's fucking amazing. And then, but later on he drank a lot and he actually started drinking my drink. The guy next you?

What? Yeah. Did I ever tell you about that? No. Yeah, he was dancing in the aisle a lot and then he came and sat down. And then he started drinking my drink and I was like, he obviously needs the hydration. So I didn't say anything. You didn't say anything.

No, I could just tell he needed it more than me. I said I have a song with her. Yeah, I don't know. Well, he just was so kind to me. You knew it at work. I mean, there's a level. Yeah. There's a level.

There's a line. I could just tell he needed to hydrate a little because he was really drunk. did um did the the song did you get a monthly listener boost yeah a little yeah a little bit not as much as you think no but i mean did it come it it doesn't say it does it say it was hard to tell because we released our ep the same week yeah yeah busy fucking week for you guys i would have to have those be more separate if i could it seems like i was so coordinated but it wasn't but if you go on spotify does it say

Megan the Stalion Spirit Box or is it Megan the Stallion whatever rock version and it is with Spirit Box? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, so we get to see the back end data for that song specifically for the Cobra featuring Spirit Box. Cool. But we don't know how

it's hard to say because the bump comes from her huge song. Cobra has millions and millions of streams. So it's hard to say but it did definitely give us a bump. And her fans are like really cool. They're really open-minded. They're They all were like, sure, come on in.

Come on in fear box. Yeah, the metal people were the ones that were like, fuck this. I can't believe. Oh, my God. Not our fans. Our fans are like, this is sick name. Yeah, a lot of them were pissed. People being like all of a sudden the most pearl clutching, you know.

I fucking hate metal sometimes. Because look, there's like, there's like racism and there's misogyny. And then there's like the sweet spot, which is misogynaut, which is racism against black women and sexism. It's a double whammy. And so we got to, you know, see a little of that what Megan has to deal with on a daily basis in her life. And just people being all of a sudden, you know,

like loving songs about blood and guts and murdering their shitty girlfriends. And then all of a sudden, like, when, oh, when Megan says the word pussy. Yeah. And I said it too. I am greatly offended. Oh, they're like, oh, my God.

I hate hearing Courtney's singing. And then someone's top. talking about sex. Really? Shut the fuck up. Oh, fucking. Those people are so... My brother.

I haven't talked... This is fucking awesome, I haven't talked a lot. People never ask me this stuff. But I'm like, these people, it's so weird. They're like, I get this weird, like there's a weird conservative bent

in metal and hard music and heavy music right now that is so, it's almost like those things became, contrarian or it's like that's exactly what happened. Basically it's like conservative guys that want to smoke weeds or they don't say they're conservative. They're like, I'm a libertarian because they want to smoke

weed and like snort coke. And so they're like, so I'm a conservative, but kind of, but not actually. And they're like socially conservative. And it's so bizarre because they're like, they do like this weird like, you're on thin ice, missy, you know, kind of like, oh, I've learned a little bit about what you,

feel like it's important to you and I don't know like that and I'm just like I actively encourage you to never support me please like anytime there's any controversy within our band the one good thing about it is that like people that they don't know this but I hate them they I see that now maybe they like they were either neutral or liked me and now don't and it's like a relief oh my biggest fear and it's what has stopped me coming to on Twitter because I'm like Ben Shapiro excellent point Craig oh my god yeah so I was like I was on Twitter terminally on fucking Twitter for my whole fucking internet life and then I made some comments at the beginning of the year that were far too nuanced and neutral I can't even remember what it

was fucking about and I had everyone who I agree with and everyone who I disagree with hating me the same amount and I was like, I'm never doing this again. I was like, I'm only ever going to do fucking jokes on it. Because my worst fear is not people hating me. People I hate liking. Oh my God. It is my biggest fucking fear. I've told you. I'm like, there's some people that I'm like, they don't realize it. But like the thing that I hate the most is that they like have publicly endorsed me in any way. Yeah. And I call these people my O'Doyles. because... O'Doyles.

Yeah, I've told you this. I call them my adoyles because, like, there's just, like, a bunch of people that they've been gallivanting around our world for a long time and no one ever calls them out. But eventually, like, they will...

They will, since they suck ass, they will go down. So, like, in, you know, the movie Billy Madison? Yeah. So, like, there's O'Doyle rules in every grade. And then one time Billy's like, I have a feeling your whole family's going down. And then they slip on a banana peel.

they drive off a cliff. Yeah. So those are like my O'Doyles. There's a lot of banana peels out there. But it's like a representative thing. Like these people, it's not nothing so black and white. Everything's more fluid. Not everyone's good or bad, but it's more like a motivate even.

They more like a symbolic to me, you know. A symbolic O'Doyle. So it's like I find out that they don't suck and I'm like, I don't care. Like your whole family is going down. Nice. I love it. I need to fucking escalate. I told you.

That's why I was like, we got to rush it along. You got a pack. That's like, get it. But I told you already, I said, our flight's not till later. So we can. No, but I just appreciate you coming regardless. Well, it was our only way to get to see you. Yeah.

I mean, I would have hung out. You could have said, I'm not doing a podcast. I have bronchitis and we fly tomorrow. And I said, you're fucking absolutely right. I wouldn't do a podcast either. You promised me that. I would have liked to have known yesterday. I did actually.

I think I gave you one out. Yeah, I know. And you didn't take it. And I was like, I'm not giving a podcast. another route. I want to do this. I haven't done other people's podcast because I told you that I wouldn't until I did yours. True. Plus we skipped in Europe. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I said we're not we can I was like mentally Craig we cannot deal with this right now. And he was like, that's fine. But if you do anyone else's podcast. Did I say that? Yeah. If you do anyone else's

podcast, I'm going to threaten dust. You threatened me. And I said. Did I say that? Yeah. And I said, I said I fully meant it, but I shouldn't have said, hell out. And I said, Craig, there's nothing I want to do less than go on random podcasts that I don't want to do. I only want to go on yours. I love this. This is the only podcast. And for you. It's the only podcast.

The downbeat. I like hard law and I like my podcast and then I like comedy podcasts. I don't really fuck. I don't really fuck with a music interview. I don't really like them. So I just love hanging out. The less I know about all you people, the better. But I realize there are things.

best I like this conversation. This isn't me sat down. What do people want to know? It's like I'm a fan. What's it like being a woman in the music industry? I want to know all these things. So that's cool. And the worst is when I get like a press agent.

It's like I've got the ex person in town and they're like a big person. And then I'm like, there's a big episode, but the fuck, I need to go and fucking do homework on this person. You got to check Wikipedia. Yeah. And then, oh no,

that's the worst. And then you edit Wikipedia. Make it your own thing. Or they do the, I don't want to talk about that. So I'm doing less this year, I'm the last year. I'm just,

just the cream. See what it feels like. If it might make, you might be very happy that you didn't do a lot of them because you're not going to be as burnt out. Yeah, because I'm still,

I'm still burnt out from last year. I did three a month for the last three months. And you taught a lot. It was too many. Yeah. Too many episodes. That is way too many. That's nine hours of fucking,

it's a shitty mess. It's like at least six hours of, expecting people to listen. That's like 49 hours. At least people. You guys are bang on the quotes. I love it. That's like six hours I'm expecting people to listen to shit. They still fucking listen but yeah. I just want the cream.

Creamy. That's quite the statement. I got cream right here. I just want the king's prostate cream. It's an interesting choice of words. Is that so much to fucking ask? The milky, milky cream. I got one last like question thing and then did you

prepare what I asked you to prepare? Fuck yeah. Okay. Well, I do mine spontaneous, but Michael likes to prep. I do like to prep. So we got two there? Yeah. Okay, so let's do this question.

Which, again, I didn't. I was like, I was like, I was, I'm very much spontaneous. I go, I'll think about it eventually. It's fine. But he has a good one. What's your, we'll get into that. We're going to wrap out with that. What is, um, what are your goals now?

Because Grammy nomination, like, maybe potential Grammy win by this point. full length surely working on that working on that yeah um i kind of put my foot down and was like the next like three four months is full length time i have to no touring yeah i got to like go in the cave and freaking nerd out and see what happens um because last year was just pretty intense touring wise which i'm really glad we did and some people are good at doing both they're good at like writing on i'm not i can't do we're still new to touring so it's we haven't figured out a way to like separate the, the whole day from the one hour of the show. Yeah, but it's, for me personally, it just feels too much like work when I have to like

do the show and write. Yeah. I mean, I don't really feel creative either because I'm like, I'm waking up at like noon or one and like walking in. Yeah, just partying so hard, dude. But yeah, so working on that, working on that and trying to get that all finished up. So, yeah, we will be recording a full mate this year. And then there's other touring plans for the rest of the year,

but I'm really happy that we have this window of time. So, yeah, I mean, hopefully finishing that up and getting it done. And no pressure. Pretty much till July, we don't have anything going on. We got nothing to, I mean, we got right. We are writing and recording, but then we haven't got any shows until the end of the year, maybe. Yeah. That's awesome.

That's great. Is it? I thought it was awesome when I finished touring. And then now I'm like, you feel like a tour in, like, tour in like May. It is, it is, it's good because. It's good to take breaks. You need a break so that way if something doesn't go exactly as planned when you're

recording, it's okay. Last year, anything that went wrong, we had to just roll with it. Because we had such a busy year. Hussbound in the world problems again. Two truths and a lie. Quarney go first. Honey, I told you, I haven't, I was going to make that. I don't know if people like this segment yet because an episode has,

hasn't come out with it, but I've recorded a bunch of them. Let's just see how long his takes and then I'll do one if I have to, but, you know, there's two. They're kind of both of us. Go ahead. Do you two. And don't let them know, you know, like, have conviction. But part of it is me seeing the conviction as well. Yeah, yeah.

I have to remain straight face the entire time. Poker game, baby. Are you ready? Yeah. I broken my leg in 13 places. I've had a job for 45 minutes before. like from inception of taking the job to then quitting the job yep what was my third one the third one the lie then oh i was born without wisdom teeth how did you break this like 13

places uh i was 16 yeah and i was skateboarding and my 13 places at once uh-huh lie true true yeah what happened i was skateboarding and um i i don't know what happened, but essentially it was the last day of school before summer break, like right before summer break. You guys are fucking cursed. Yeah, completely. My leg went sideways.

Oh. Put it back into place. And the ambulance had to drive into the thing. Into the bowl. Into the freaking skate park. Down the vert ramp. Yeah. He did a kick flip and then it landed.

And he landed it and went, where do you get these gaff chicks, bro? Yeah. It was like, gawf chicks, dude. Wow. Wow, that sucks. Yeah, it's brutal. But it made him have to have the whole summer inside and stop skateboarding, so he got good at the guitar.

Yeah. Really? Yeah. That's the summer of, the summer of shred. Summer of shred. Wow. So, summer of shred. Isn't that so cool, though, that everything happens for a reason?

Yeah. And me even coming up with this dumb concept for the podcast. Yeah. And now I walk like a pirate. But that's why I thought like, because I've never seen you walk like a pirate. One of his lies is just a half-truth. It's a half-truth. I should have threw that up.

He said 40, he only had a job for 45 minutes, but that's a lie. But you did only have a job for like 90 minutes. It was like an hour and a half. What happened? You want to know? So now I know that's the lie. Okay, yeah, what happened? Okay, so I've had like 25 jobs.

He's had a lot of jobs. That's literally, because I quit or fired? Huh? Quit or fired? A little of both. Because he would like quit to go on tour. Yeah, I go on these like two, three week tours when I was like 16, 17. and I'd have to get a job and then I'd quit or I get fired because I was just doing a horrible job.

But so this was like 2012, I think it was and I was jobless and I was like recently like not in my band and not yet in Iwabo and I needed work. So there was like this ad for a hotel front desk person. And I remember it was in Victoria and it's like beside a McDonald's on a trailer park. And it was always like this like every time I drove past. I'm like, who the hell would even, like, stay there? There's some bad stuff happening there. There's like some bad shit that goes down there. So I was really desperate.

And I was like, yeah, front desk, whatever, it's not a big deal. So I get there. And the lady is like, yeah, so let me just show you around. And then she starts showing me like all of these cleaning supplies. And she's like, yeah, so you'll be using this and like, you got to make sure that you do this and everything. And I'm like, that's weird. Okay. And then we end up in the first room.

And she's like, so when you clean the room, you got to do this? And I was like, I thought, so is this not? And then so I just started doing it. And that's hard work. Yeah. So I just start cleaning stuff and she like starts yelling at me because I'm not doing a good job. But like forgetting the fact that she was forgetting that I wasn't there for that job. I just.

Yeah. Yeah. So I started doing it. And then the other, the other cleaning lady was there and she started showing me around. And she's like, yeah, sometimes like people leave you beer or like tips or whatever. And she's showing me like all these little nicknests that people have like left for her and stuff. And we get to like the third room. I'm there for like an hour.

And then I'm like, yeah, where's the bathroom? And then you just passed. I thought he was going to do that to you just now. But yeah, yeah. It's like my classic out. Yeah, yeah. No, but what I remember specifically is that I went through the drive-thru after I left. So I left the job.

Yeah. I figured I get in the car and I was like, well, I got to get something out of this. And I went through the drive-thru. And then she called me on the way home, which was like 10 minutes away. And she's like, did you just leave? And I went, yep. And she goes, are you coming back? And I said, no.

I guess not. And then she goes, okay, fine. And then she hung up the phone. This would make such a good like Wes Anderson movie. And then he did, it's also like very Larry Davidson type. Oh, yeah. Larry David, yeah. He also was born with no wisdom teeth.

He never got them removed. He just was born without him. He's like an evolved human. Good for you. Yeah, it's pretty sick. I'm sucked when they came through. Yeah. I think I got lucky though because I got braces and they took a bunch of teeth out.

It feels like a lady stepping on your head in a high heel. It was like, Has that happened often to you? Well, like, back when, before I got it, I'm never done that, but I feel like if that was my thing and a lady in a stiletto Christian Lubiton, like the chunky platform kind, stabbing my head with her foot, that's what it would be like. Anytime you say stiletto stabbing, I just think of those horrible viral videos. Which one?

The late 90s, the kitten. Yeah. Oh, I haven't meant guys getting kicked in the balls with high heels. I've seen that. No, I meant like the really bad ones. I went to the Museum of Death today, so it's really, really fresh in my brain. I didn't know what it was. You didn't know what the Museum of Death was? No, I thought. It's very straightforward. This would be cool. When I went in and I was like, well, that's a decapitated head.

You know, it also down the street is, there's an El Ron Hubbard Museum. Yeah, Scientology. Yeah. And, you know, like the celebrity centers right up the road. You can go find Tom Cruise. If you go in there, they'll test your Thetons. Yeah. I want to get those Thetton levels up. I don't do it for a bit. I feel like we should all do that. Like, that should be like their next thing is we all become Scientologist. I would get the thing is with me though I am so just bored all the time that I would just get into it and I'd be like guy I would just fully make myself into it I'd be like guys I'm into this now yeah Tom Cruise can fly I also I would love to be friends with Tom Cruise of course I'll follow him even if he does some sort of heaven's gate shit with it I mean he gives me the vibes okay so my dream is to meet a bunch of celebrities and then like they're weak because I feel like like 90% of them are probably fucked and but they're so rich everyone around them just like doesn't say anything he gives me that vibe he gives me a vibe where he'd be like excellent

to meet you i'm gonna wear your faces as a mask and all that's why yeah that's why he's so sick yeah i know and i'm and then i'm like that's fucked up to say and then all of his other all of his team will be like i think about that but then i also think about the fact that he like jumps out of planes and shit and it's he's the fucking man i love that unless something comes out that makes me not love him like i'm all for being it's stupid eccentric fucking psychopath like jumping up and down the couch

extreme eye contact oh yeah did you not know uh pat bat bat bateman it was bad yeah he based him off of him

he based him off a letterman interview where like Christian Bell said there was this letterman interview of Tom Cruise and there was just nothing behind the eyes and he was like and I just based the whole Patrick Bateman like thing off that

holy shit interestingly Jerry McGuire Jerry McGuire Great movie I mean all of his I've got two I've got two Cruz movies in my top five

I think you're gonna say you got two cruise tattoos Yeah Ah okay that's coming Two Truths and a lie Because we are running Okay Um

You don't have to You don't seem like you want to Well I told you I may get up on the spot Um Okay I have one Uh Let's see

Two Truths and a Lie most of my front teeth are fake okay teeth related again makes me kind of think lie but carry on most of my front teeth are fake um I

I played rugby and I I don't care about this game let's see I'm trying to think of like a good one because I can't be like obvious and also oh

I didn't know the lyrics to Iwobo songs for two months when I was performing them. Tell me about these fake teeth. Are they, what, veneers? They're composite. Like, basically, it's like the poor person's veneers. So this is true because you used a buzzword. Yeah. Composite.

Yeah, when I was 19, I was at a house party. Nice. And I, hell yeah, dude. And I, my friend, I was like walking through the dance floor and my friend was dancing with it with a beer bottle and he whacked me in the teeth and it shattered all my teeth with his beer bottle. And I actually never told him. He never found out.

Because I had another friend that when I was. How can you not find that out? When I had another friend that had accidentally, we were playing like touch football and he He was very, he became a professional football player and he accidentally ran into me and I hit a tree and it broke my collarbone. And that riddled him with so much guilt. It's the only bone I ever broke. It still sucks. And it filled him with so much guilt and he was so upset about it for like a decade that he hurt me.

And so we actually stopped being friends. Like he couldn't really even be around me. He was so just like sad that traumatized of hurting me. And I know. It's really sad. That is sad. And so I didn't tell this other guy because it was also an accident

and I was like, he doesn't need to know. How can you not tell when you smash someone's teeth out? Because I was a young, dumb idiot. What did you do? You went? I just went into the other room and cried and had people

and I would go, and when I'd suck in, it would like whistle. Oof. Brutal. And then the rug, so what's the other one? What about rugby?

Don't I look like I have played rugby? You look like you could kick some ass in rugby? Maybe I'm great. at rugby in the scrum. I mean, I also feel like rugby is too much of a strange one to say. Well, ask me some questions about rugby. I mean, you just said the word scrum.

So I know you know your lingo. Ask me what position I played. What position did you play? Post. I don't even know what that means. Quarterback. Yeah. Like, I'm from rugby land, but rugby kind of sucks to me.

Like, from a spectator point of view, because in the UK, it's kind of just, posh I like the shorts posh kids who men's rugby at least posh kids who like set fire the cats and shit in private school

crazy like cauliflower yeah and then they're like posh people watch it and posh people play it but the people playing it are underpaid comparatively for football

anyway this isn't about rugby were you a rugby star I played in my grade 12 year I joined the rugby team and we were so broke that we couldn't afford uniforms and the men's college team in our town donated their uniforms to us.

So there's all these little girls. Was this in Alabama? No, this was in Canada because I moved to Canada when I was 15. Okay. So I went to high school. I went to most of high school there. And yeah, I played rugby

and I scored a try one time even though I wasn't like a running back. Nice. You were just and fucking... And that's it. And then we went to like provincial championships. So it was the first year there was a team. So imagine all these little kids and like giant men's rugby uniforms.

So we were really easy to tackle because people could grab our uniforms really easy. Oh wow. Yeah. Because they were hanging off us. Like they would come out the bottom of our shorts because they were so big. Because it's just like their practice jerseys. And then my other one was that I didn't know my songs in my band. But I knew them like, okay.

But I definitely, you know, when you make that kind of music, You can just be like, blah, blah, blah, blah, everyone thinks that you know. That's not what happened. She won't tell you this, but literally when she got the call to me and Iwabo, she left like eight hours later. Iwabo is I wrestled a bear once, by the way. We haven't ever clarified that. I haven't heard that name.

Yeah. I've been dead for 40 years. It's a name I haven't heard in a long. Yeah. But she downloaded a torrent before she left of like the set list. And it was back in the day when like, you know, people would put out those fake albums that would just be like monkey noises and farts and stuff like the song would play for 10 seconds so she turned up did all these monkey noises she got on the plane she got on the plane to hit

play and start learning it and that's what it was it was like bird is the word and so it just would play the song for 30 seconds and then be like the bad is that way I don't know that's like all right awesome how to show like 24 hours later so I mean kind of that's on you for waiting for the plane to learn it yeah I know I knew some of it I knew some of it but like yeah that's why I knew some of it but like yeah That was crazy. I can't believe I did that. And I also, I felt bad. There was a, there was a marketing issue there.

Like, no one was like, by the way, this girl, like, just did us a big favor. We don't have to cancel our tour now. Yeah. Also, we don't know her. And we don't know her. And she's doing her best. Everyone help her out. They came out with a press release saying, our really good friend Courtney, who knows all the songs is going to be coming out.

I blame that as on my manager now because he was the manager of Iwabo. That's his problem. Really? That's right, Jason. I have a phone to pick with you. Carrying. I'll talk. Once you hear this, give me a text. We've got to talk about messaging. Wow. Just bringing that grudge with you. Yeah. I hold a grudge.

Twelve year grudge. Yeah, I do be grudging. I'll be grudging. I'd be grudging. I'd be grudging. Call me Sarah Michelle Geller because I'd be grudging. Whoa. Wait, was she in the grudge? She was. In the, in the American remake. Not Ju-on. Yeah, Ju-on. Great movie. I guess we're done. I guess we're done. Did you want to watch it? I guess we're done. Did you hear what I just said? I said, do you want to watch you to watch it? Wow. I mean, what better place to end it than all of us going back to yours to watch the Japanese

version of the Grudge while you guys pack. Let's do a final PSA of don't join a core band. A core band? Yeah, don't be in a metal core band. Why? Because we're the worst kind. Yeah, it sucks. It's the worst.

It's the worst. much. I don't listen to it. I write it and I go, this is cool. So don't do it. Be in a country band. No, don't mean a country band. That's where the money, be or be an EDM DJ. Be in a goth band. Goth chick. There's not enough actual. There's like fake goth shit.

Like cyber goth. There's not any like, you know what I said, Josh Middleton the other day? I feel like you'd appreciate this. I hit Josh Middleham up. And I was like, this is what I want to do. And you're the only person with the brains to do it. So you know how, like, a lot of shredding is in like, like, old school shredding is in like blues scales. But like some of the really like shreddy shreddy. I was like, all the typonegative songs are in blue scales.

Let's find someone sexy. They do the singing. And we do like, you know how like polypheria is like the shreddy shit but not like heavy? I was like, let's do. If typo negative were like shredding. like animals as leaders typo negative holy shit combo with vocals

with vocals and he said I'm in who the fuck did that so are you in sounds like you might be you have your vocalist you yeah that's fucking perfect yeah

just sample that and then I'll pose for play girl yeah we get you a stunt cock for that that's the name of the band stunt cock Stunkck Thanks for watching

the downbeat Thanks for coming on Thanks for forming stunt cock with me. No problem. Honestly, you would not, you want to carry off? You would not catch me doing a podcast. In fact, I do it all the time, but it's my own podcast. Doing a podcast before I'm going on tour.

So I really appreciate it. We love you, Craig. You're a very special part of the community. Yes. Thank you very much. Thanks to this podcast place for having us and love the engineer. Thank you. Was it Aaron, but you have an American accent?

or it's but I'm just checking because yeah oh yeah they say it might have been Aaron they say they say Aaron oh where I say Aaron I say Aaron Queen English say a Aeron perfect thank you mate thanks everyone thank you thanks guys we're done