The Downbeat - THE AMITY AFFLICTION - NEW VOCALIST, LOVE, LOSS AND MENTAL HEALTH

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

My guests on the podcast this week are Jonny Reeves and Joel Birch, both vocalists of Australian metalcore band The Amity Affliction. We talk about the events which led to the new addition of Jonny, and the unlikely separate but mutual upbringings that explain some of the meanings behind their new album ‘House Of Cards’

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Wayfair, every style, every home. What's up, guys? Welcome back to the Downbeat podcast. My guests on the podcast this week are Johnny Reeves and Joel Birch, the singers of the Amity Affliction. We talk about the events that led up to the new edition of Johnny and the unlikely but separate upbrings that bring me meaning to the lyrics on their new album, House of Cards.

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Check it out. It's Johnny and Joel of the Amity Affliction on the Downby Podcast. Just talking about Zins. Hi, everyone. Hi, hi. Please introduce yourselves. Hi, I'm Joel. I'm Johnny.

From the Amity Affliction. They're both the singer. I'm half singer and he's half singer. And he's half singer. One half. Fresh face. Where's that accent? California.

Oh my God. We're all over the place now. I didn't know that. Yeah. I thought it was going to be an Aussie. No, we're 50-50 now. Ooh. Expensive.

Well, cheaper, actually. Is it? Of course it is. Oh, shit. The USVs is the expensive one. The USVs is also the flights from the bottom of the fucking planet to everywhere else. So how is the cheaper choice? Oh, shit.

Lined them up in an Excel spreadsheet of like cost per annum. Yeah, yeah. This guy is cheap. Cost benefit. Cost benefit. Is Joe mad this? You two? Have you even spoke to him?

He lives here. He does live here. He has a kid and he is home for what, 12, 12 days or something? Yeah. Not very long. Yeah. I text him like, I don't know, a week ago, just asking him how his brain was. I guess we did the European tour with Parkway and he only came for the second half of it.

So it was like three weeks. Really? Yeah, because. Fresh kid. Roman was born just before the first half of the tour. And so he stayed home. And then coming to Australia is the first long stretch away from Roman. You know, I've got a kid, and I remember, and I could see the, it's stressful.

The time difference is so bad. Yeah, the time difference in I think as well, like with a new kid, especially for the dad, because we're pretty useless. really. We have nothing. We have nothing to give other than like skin to skin kind of contact. And so he was struggling with that.

So I haven't bothered him here. I'm going to see him tomorrow. I just hope he's not annoyed that I haven't asked him. I think every time I see him, I'm like, come on the podcast and then obviously kid stuff. Yeah. It's not me, Joe, it's you. By the way, when was the last time I saw you?

I saw you, like I seriously think I was just thinking about this. like pre-COVID in a in a back room somewhere in the UK and you'd just you'd been doing this like not even for that long no i've seen you i've seen you once since then okay which i was low-key dreading this episode slightly oh why just because i feel like most of the times me and you chat it is intensely bad mental health stuff oh yeah yeah yeah yeah And obviously the fucking events of this week, my brain is in that place anyway. And I'm like, I kind of drag it all up again.

But we're going to. I know. Sorry. Which is what reminded me the last time I saw you, you were having a bit of a crisis on a tour. It hasn't ended. I know that. We'll get into that. I'm sorry.

But you were having like a, you know, when it boils over. Yeah. And I think I did the same to you when I was in Australia. I was like, do you have something? I think we like, and don't do this, guys. Yeah, I was trying to help you out. Exchanging mental health medication because you're in a different country.

A different country and you run out or something. Yeah, and it was Blue Ridge. Yeah. Yes, I remember. I gave you some metazepine and you didn't like it. Who knows? I can't. Yeah.

Don't do that, kids. You shouldn't do that, but you should do it at the same time. You should do that for your. friends if you think it's going to help if it's prescribed then it's going to help them if you think it's not going to harm them yeah just just made me fat and my dick no my dick still worked actually but i got really fat you got really fat makes you hungry as fuck but i think the american name for it is like remoron or something one of the you know when americans give it a fuck you know more than me you give it a name and it's called like zanzibar yeah and then you're gonna feel

great and then right in the end it's like you're going to feel great and then right in the end it's like you You might shit out of your eyes. You know what? I was just watching ad this morning and I was like, fuck, I love these ads because at the end, they do like the, and it's just like,

you're going to want to fucking kill yourself and shoot yourself and you're going to fucking diamond. And the first half is just leading up to it. Like, you are going to have the most amazing day. Take back your life. And it's like, your life may end.

May increase all of the things we said it was not going to do. Yeah. You don't want to kill yourself? Well, you might. You might. Take this and then you might. But you declined Zinn a minute ago. I did, yeah.

And I wanted to know because I am, I'm a post user of things. Like I don't do it anymore. Yeah. Used to fucking love it. Yeah. My voice is nicotine now. Do you have a vice?

Yeah. So, I mean, it's a bit weird, though. Like, I would say, like. Not on camera weird? No, it's no, no, no. It's like, like, like, golf. I play golf. I'm like, it's so weird. Like I started playing golf, right? Because Aran played golf and I thought if I play golf, maybe I can get him on the golf course and, um, you know, curb the drinking a little bit. It didn't work.

And I hated golf man. Like, yeah, I hated it. I was like, fuck this sport. Like, it's hard. I don't know how to do it. There's like, heaps of rich people around like I didn't really like it and now I'm like I'm a loser I love it I love it yeah dude I'm serious it's like it's like all consuming you know else did that to kick an addiction who Alice Cooper oh actually I knew that yeah yeah yeah and now he's a fucking insane handicap I think he's really good he shot like a like four under or three under the other day or some shit I saw him at a festival and uh he opened with schools out Yeah. And I was like, what on earth is he going to end with?

Just played schools out again. See, that's a power move. That's a power move. Fucking bookended. You can't beat that. No one complained. And even when it happened, I went, yeah, that's it. You strive as a career.

You strive to have two songs, one that can open the set forever and one that can close the set. Why not just cut it in half? Find one. Oh, fuck. I just imagine, like, opening with Pittsburgh. and then like going off stage and coming back and playing it. Wait, this is the thing. They would fucking love it.

They would love it. Johnny? Yeah. Not Jonathan. Not Jonathan. Johnny's fine. You referred to as Jonathan. Quite a lot on the internet.

It's like my legal name that I write on all, you know, formal documents. And that's how it came to be. Yeah. Identify as Johnny. Got any vices? Johnny? Careful. Because he's right here.

And he might kick you out of the back. Yeah. Not. Apparently I'm the only one that does that. Yeah, I'm not really into the whole golf thing, but I mean, I smoke weed at home. That's about, I don't do on tour, really. He spends like two hours a day in the gym. Gym guy.

I didn't know if that could count as a vice because it's like. No, it's not a vice. But golf is not really advice. Yeah. It's just like you've got a thing. I got you. I got you. You're a gym guy.

Yeah. I'm working out for like... I see it. 10 years and I look exactly the same. It's because you do what I do, which is like I wear oversized shit all the time. And then someone catches me when I've got a t-shirt on it doesn't fit me.

And I'm like, fucking hell. You've started going to the gym. I'm like, well, thank you. It's always been here. You've been it for fucking ages. Thank you very much. Did you go to the gym today? No, yesterday.

I'm doing this new program. It's like every other day, full body type. circuit thing. What's this program? What is it? Honestly, I just found it on YouTube. Full body every other day?

Yeah, like four times a week. That's kind of brutal. It's like a quick inversion of like, you know, a full body workout and the guy was like, oh, this is how all the pros trained before

steroids and all that, you know, but it's new. So I'll let you know how it goes. What are you doing in Nashville? Visiting you. You came all the way here for this? Yes. That's pressure.

No. No, no pressure. But we were supposed to do it in Australia, I think. Yeah, but that was way too much pressure. Yeah. I remember when that got floated and I was like, what is he thinking? Because like, I know what.

It was a live podcast. Yeah. But I know what happens in your head a little bit. And I was like, this man thinks he's doing stuff. What do you mean? Explain. I have this problem with my brain where like, you know like before coming here for instance to america i was like planning planning all this stuff

i was going to do and then it gets closer i'm like oh you're you nailed it i'm like and then the fear hits yeah and then you shrivel you're a little baby yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you absolutely fucking nailed it because i was going to do it at the end of stray's last australian yeah and then do you know what it was though Actually, I was up for doing it, and I had a short list of people, and you guys were on the short list. And I think you guys turned it down. No one was in town. And everyone on the short list wasn't available.

No, we were going to fly to Melbourne. I don't think that got to me. Really? No, we were in Sydney and we were going to fly down because we were recording. Oh, I thought, well, anyway, I wouldn't have done it with you guys. But I remember getting to the end of that tour and being like, thank fuck. I haven't done that. Yeah.

It would have been nice. It would have been fun, though. It would have been fun, but then you would have been, like, twice as burnt out as you already were. When does a tour start? On the 10th. So are you practicing here? We're practicing in Lidditz. Do you know what that is?

What is that? It's like an hour and a half from Philly? Yeah, it's in Pennsylvania. It's like an hour and a half from Philly. And it is a purpose-built hotel with studios. Kind of sick. It's really sick. It's middle of nowhere though.

Yeah. No, go. Does that mean there is golf or there isn't golf? There'll definitely be gyms. You'll find. Yeah. There's golf like close. Do you golf on tour?

Yeah. Every day? It's a problem. As much as I can. Yeah, but now it makes sense with the stopping drinking because that takes you out the whole day. Yeah, but I didn't, I mean, I didn't, I've been sober now 10 years and playing golf for two and a half.

So I did seven and a half. without it um but i got like during covid i started doing moitai and it's like any anything to fill the void yeah golf just came after moitai like i hurt my i hurt myself i couldn't train i started playing golf golf filled the gap that moitai was filling and then before that it was like i mean three years i haven't gambled but gambling was like gambling took the reins after drinking ah see this is This is what I was saying about the vice thing because most people don't go straight from drinking drugs. Wait, drugs as well? Everything.

Most people don't go from drinking drugs straight to golf. There's usually the milder thing. Milder. Yeah. It's not that milder. I was like talking to a friend and this is like years before I even stopped gambling and we were sitting there. And I was like, man, I was like, don't you reckon this is just like self-harm? and he was like, yep.

And I was like, yeah, it's like, we're not cutting ourselves, but every time we fucking do this, it's just like, oh, I'm a piece of shit. Yeah, I'm a piece of shit, I'm a piece of shit, I'm a piece of shit. What were you gambling on? Everything. What do you mean everything? I was like mainly playing pokies, right?

Because we have them all over Australia. What's pokies? Pokey is like the poker machines. You know, in Vegas, the real depressing photos of all the old people slot machines. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought they were called pokey because you poke. No, it's like poker machine. And Australia's dumb, so we...

But it's like an automated. You're not even playing against humans. No, man, you're not playing anything. That is fucking sad. So they have like a fucking army of psychologists who are working on these games. And they hit the same like pleasure receptors as like heroin and alcohol and all this stuff. So you're like getting a little dopamine. And it's like everything is made.

Yeah. The lights, the music, the pictures are made to like, suck you into it. I used to love gambling on tour. I'm weird, right? With everything, I have an addictive personality. Yeah. But there is always a moment

where it gets nearly too much and my brain goes, nah, we've got to stop this right now. Yeah, I'm similar. It's mild in comparison to how bad things could get, but for some reason I'm good at it and I'm just, okay, this could have been

the worst thing that's ever happened to me. Let's fucking stop. right now. Yeah. I think like with drinking mine was I came home from recording. This could be heartbreak and my wife was just like don't unpack your bag. Oh no. Yeah. And then I drank. I went to my friend's house at the time and he was like, hey, there's a party tonight. Like let's take you there and get your mind off it. And I drank like half a beer and I put it on the table and I was like, this is not the way. Yeah.

And that was it. There we go. My one for gambling, because I used to love gambling on tour, was actually in Sydney, in Sydney Casino. Yeah. And I fucking,

I lost, I think it was like three grand. Yeah. And then I was walking. No, I lost three grand. And then I went and I got another three grand out. Yeah.

And I was walking. No, and I won it back. I got back to six. grand from three grand yeah and I was fucking walking out I I was in there all night this was like 2012 I think it's in there all night made it back got six grand was walking to cash out there was a fucking roulette table that would been black like 10 times and I was like obviously going to be red I put it all on fucking red and it was day one of an Australian

tour I think it was the first time I'd ever been to Australia it ruined the tour so much for me because I was so fucking annoyed at myself. I didn't have that money. I don't know what the fuck I was doing. That I was like, I can never ever do that again. And I don't think I have gambled again since then. It was never a problem, but it was more like, that was really fucking stupid. I can see myself doing this again.

I'm going to just not direct. Yeah. So I went down to the local pub where I lived at the time. And it was like my sober birthday is like my. March 7th, right? So March, March 7th, or March 8th, I go down and I take 500 bucks out. Yeah, this is like, this is like, dude, this is like COVID, right? I got no fucking money. I've been like selling everything I own just to just to pay rent. We were in a house paying $670 a week and the owners were like they ran hotels in Dubai.

And we got a comic stands email saying you've got to get out. We're coming home. And like cut in colors. Like there were different colors. It was like different colors for each paragraph. Like a fucking family fair. Yeah like like rainbow comic sands like get the fuck out of our house. Get the fuck out.

And our rent went from six, 70 a week to 950. Damn. And I mean, you know, like every other musician on earth we couldn't tour or anything. So I was like selling fucking everything just to get by. And I went down to the pub and I took 500 bucks out and I sat down and I lost it in like a minute. And I sat there for like half an hour man and I was like if you do this again, you're going to kill yourself. Yeah. And like I got a kid now. I was like a little kid. I've had two I had two kids previously but like one one biological and I was just like like you know I it's it's bad to say. but I always kind of figured the older kids would be able to like figure it out.

You know what I mean? Like if I killed myself or whatever, I was always like rationalizing it. But with the little guy, I was just like, he won't know. Like he won't understand. And yeah, I sat there and I was like, if I do this again, I'm going to kill myself like properly. And then that was it.

Yeah, got him. That was like three years ago. Fuck, that's pretty recent. It's very recent. said, yeah. Sorry for the interruption, guys, but I want to tell you

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royalty options i don't know if it comes with a crown but it should be there when it happens get your passes now at sonic temple festival.com. Johnny, no vices. Nothing. Never had anything. It's fine. You can say no. Ah, yeah.

I mean, not really. Fuck, California born and bread. Yeah. Which part? Sacramento, like, Northern.

Oh, he's got, he's got quite the childhood, though. Go on. Thanks for doing my job for me. Sorry, sorry.

Tell about his childhood. He's Johnny on the spot now. Please be happy. I just, like, wasn't allowed to have vice. as I was like in such a tight grip of like my parental um overwatch you know what I mean I wasn't allowed to like do anything which normally you know makes a person a snap I guess but um I just I waited it out till till I didn't have to listen anymore and yeah I mean I just like my

mom I would say mainly like moved us out into the country and like you know I had sticks and rocks to play with. I didn't have fucking shit to do. So, skateboarding, I guess. He's laughing and he said, yeah, quite the childhood. What's, what's the story? Well, I mean, you can tell he's like softly spoken and everything. Yeah. The stories come out in like dribs and draps for us. And he'll just like,

he'll just like say something one day. He's like, oh yeah, how many siblings have you got? I have nine siblings. Nine like direct brothers and sisters. One is half. 8.5. Yeah. That's crazy. Can I ask you a question?

What's up? Christian household? Yes. Yeah. They love shagging. They love it. They love it. Are you a Christian?

No. You sure? Positive. It's fine. You are allowed on it. It's a pentagram, but it's a, was it very Christian household? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. It was like church four times a week and four? Yeah. Is that a thing? Yeah, I did pretty similar. It was like you had, you had, uh, in Australia. Yeah, I was in a bit of a cult church, though.

It was a bit weird. Yeah. I mean, aren't they all? Yeah, they kind of all are. But it was like, you go to like twice on Sunday and then. I doesn't count it's four times a week. And then one time a week. And then, okay.

But then youth group, still crazy. But then youth group and then Bible study. You're not in your head as well. First of all, I do think if you leave the church and you come back, to the church to leave again, that counts us twice. So I think you're correct here. But I did the same thing. I went to youth group.

I went to Sunday. I went to Sunday school on Sunday. We would do something later in the evening on Sunday. And then we would go on Wednesdays. Yeah. It's pretty much the exact excuse. Same shit. I mean, and I wonder everyone's kind of crazy.

That's a lot of time. Yeah, yeah. It was bad. And like, I didn't have a, It was so weird. I had like a stepdad, but then my mom and him would like split all the time. So I didn't have really have a dad. And I had all these dudes in church being like, hey, I can be your father figure.

And I was like, what the fuck, dude? That sounds like they meant well, though. Maybe, dude. Like I'm joking about the Christian chick. Yeah. A vast majority of the people that aren't at the top mean well. Listen, man. I don't know.

Like, as a, as a. father and like i'm old asking another kid anyone said that to bowie i would fucking yeah but there would be a problem there's different though because you wouldn't be around it doesn't matter if i if i if i you think there was diddling happening like you think there was a brother implied diddle you know who daniel morcom is at all i don't expect you would and super famous k infamous case in australia this kid got kidnapped from under a bridge by a pedophile obviously who then murdered the kid, right? Yeah.

He got kidnapped at the bridge of my school slash church. And the guy that did it was the nephew of one of the elders of my church. Oh, okay, yeah. And my church, the pastor knew about it, knew he was a pedophile. And there was like a report that he tried to like molest a 12 year old girl in the toilets. And they swept it under the rug. I mean, I don't know, man. I mean, I was trying to cut him some slack.

because he's right there. Like, I was going to try to cut the Christians some slack. And you're like, no, they really do all do the stuff. They really do. I knew the top did, but, you know, fucking this is already really fucking dark. Yeah. Do you still speak to your family? Yeah.

I mean, my dad and my mom are passed away at this point. And then my siblings and I are close. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I've only met two or three or three. I think you met like maybe three or four of them. Yeah, lovely. How did you all of them meet each other? A church, presumably.

Fucking nine times a week. Did link each other. Fuck me. Simon, it stays in. How did you each other? So we sent Aaron home. We're going to have to fucking talk about that at some point. Oh, we'll talk about it right now.

We played a show in Detroit and I don't know how many people were there. Over 2000. It was a big show for us anyway. and we had had like multiple chats with him at this point over years about the drinking. And he was like, go fuck yourself, fuck you, fuck all of you. You know, alcoholic, you know. Yeah. I don't want to like talk shit on him, but there is like a part of this that I guess I've kept my mouth shut about.

and so of the rest of the band. We haven't actually said shit, which is hard for so long because there's been like a sustained thing of Amity fans like talking shit, like mainly on me saying I kicked him out of the band and I'm like, it's not really how this works guys. But anyway, we play the show. We're at Detroit. We have a chat with him.

He like leaves after it and goes to a bar and he's like taking Valium as well and he gets like he goes to the bar and I guess he gets like fucking obliterated and he came back to the venue and no one knew where he was and Joe happened to go down into the basement of the venue

to warm up and Aaron was like slumped in a chair unresponsive and Joe couldn't wake him up and then Joe, Joe, like panicked obviously got our production manager nick who came down and like put his fist in his sternum or something to like wake him up and then we had to call like a medic the medic came out

it was pretty it was bad it was really bad uh i ended up kicking a hole in the wall um or enrage or so angry so angry but scared angry you know that's how my cousin died was very and drinking. Yeah. That shit will stop your fucking heart. Yeah. It was scared anger. You know what I mean?

And at this point on this tour, we were, we were, man, like everyone's stress levels was so high. Everyone on the bus thought we were going to wake up

to a dead body. Yeah. Every day. So every day we'd wake up and be like, checking to see what's going on, you know. And we were going to go home.

We were like, we're done. How far into the tour? I think we had two weeks left or something. Like enough that it would have fucked us to go home. Like on that tour, I think, or a roundabout that tour, just before or on that tour, I'd text our manager and I was like, I said like, where do I stand financially if I quit the band?

I was like, I'm done. I can't keep going. And he talked me out of it. He took me out of it, right? He took you out of it with the figures or he talked you out of it? No, he talked to me out of it. I was ready to, like, I just bought a house that I can barely afford, right? And I was like, I don't care about this.

I was like, I don't fucking care about the house. Like, I cannot keep going like this. And, you know, Dan's not really out and about on the internet, right? But Dan is like super, he has it together. He's very, like, calm, collect. did like very unflappable Dan was like not good he was shook he was like texting people like I'm not well and they're just like whoa yeah that's bad and it reaches the one who never yeah he can see a situation right and come to grips with it and he couldn't come to grips with it

and none of us could um we'd flown casey out like iron's partner on a different tour Um, and we were, it's just the end of the road, man. And, um, so we were like, well, what do we do? And we decided, well, we have to send him home because we can't keep going like this. And we're like, we might miss a few shows, but we'll try and keep going just to like try not to lose several hundred thousand dollars. Yeah. Um, and then Dan,

had been listening to this band, I think they're called True Norse. I don't know. And the singer Tim is like a really, really good singer. We were texting like everyone. You know what I mean? Like we were trying to get Jeremy from Devil Wears Prada. Another golfer. No wonder you were trying to get.

Well, I didn't know that at the time. I think we should use Jeremy. I don't know why. Yeah. Well, I didn't, I didn't, you know, I didn't. I'd only just been playing golf at this point. A motherfucker drink some golf, by the way. Yeah, yeah.

He loves it. He couldn't do it. And then we were trying to, we were like thinking about, um, the singer of like, Most of Flames because he's fucking amazing. And then we were thinking about Ryan from Miss May I. Um, he was busy. So we messaged this guy, Tim. Like he comes out.

He's great. Beautiful kid. Does not fit like too nice. You know what I mean? Like nothing. It just, I was just like, man, this is not stinky enough. No stank on it. No stank.

No, not a bogan. No. No. And then we, he couldn't do the last two shows. Yeah. Two or three? Two? Yeah.

They are. And, um, anyway, Ryan has been like, you've got to check this guy out, Johnny from Kingdom of Giants. And so we go listen and we're like, oh, like, okay. Johnny rolls up to the show. And I mean, by this time, we've been talking. the band about what we're going to do we had a european tour coming up and we were like well we're not going to take iron so we need to find someone to do that tour um and we hadn't this at this point

we weren't like irons out of the band we hadn't we hadn't gotten there yet we were like we were there but not like fully there because of all the implications and it's terrifying and scary and did you tell him sort your shit out and you can come back yeah man but we'd I mean, we've done that, you know, we've done that for years by this time. And, you know, he, man, you know, I know I'm going to cop it online for this, but he had so much support, like he couldn't have had more support. He had support from his partner. Our manager was mostly managing him, not the band.

I started playing golf. Everyone on the tour stopped drinking. everyone tried as much as they could to try and like help him get through it he just wasn't really interested you know and i guess with any addiction if if the person who has the problem doesn't want to stop it it's just not going to stop and um that's been hard for me to like sit just sit here you know and like copper because i'm just like man like this guy had so much support and he's made it out like he had no support and when I stopped drinking I had no fucking support like none um everyone kept drinking taking drugs like no support from management because he was still drinking

no one understood like or cared really that I was dealing with like bipolar and getting sober and like massive life crisis the fucking you know the train kept rolling and so when all this was happening. I was like kind of getting angry at the same time because I was like, I remember saying to my manager, I was like, what the fuck man? I'm like, I had none of this. I was like, I had none of this. And we keep, uh, everything we did was based around his drinking every decision we were making. Um, and so we sent him home. Not great. Obviously, it was like the abuse started. straight away. But anyway, Johnny comes out

for the last two shows. He shows up with a fucking notebook with like notes in it about the songs and I'm like, oh my God, like this guy likes doing this. It's like, what the fuck? What was in the notebook? He had notes on the songs and shit. Like what though?

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Spotify, it's Jay Shetty. Are you one of those media strategy people? scrolling through spreadsheets, searching for an audience that pays twice as much attention to your ads than they do on social? Let me introduce you to fast. And they're here with me on Spotify. Trust me, I know fans. They don't skip, they stay for hours. They don't move on, they manifest.

They're not a demographic group, they're fans. Spotify advertising, you're among fans. There's just all the structures with lyrics kind of... Yeah, that's normal. That's like professional. Yeah, it's professional. And like, these little pictures to like help me identify, like, okay, think of like water or a hard or

like, like, all the things of, all the themes of 15 in their songs. It's a, it's a,

it's a, it's a, it's a lot. Ghosts, it's just, you've opened it is just like, oh,

ghost is a problem. Ghost is a problem. Yeah. I thought the waves stopped a long time ago in my defense. You still got playing. Yeah, we,

I mean, but we wrote a whole fucking album where I was just like waves, ocean, water, river, lake. Yeah, it's Australian.

We'll let you off. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, he comes, he does that. We, we were playing let the ocean take me in full and then we were having a break and then doing the rest of the set fuck that okay so we do that we come off first night and uh i was like hey johnny like

we go to europe in like three weeks like can you do it and he's like yeah sure and uh and then in the in the interim we kind of decided we couldn't bring Aram back. And like Dan sent a message to Caleb and I that was like, because we were so used to putting our foot down and then not putting our foot down. And Dan sent a text that was like, hey, if Aram shows up in Europe, I'm going to go home. I'm going to go home. I'm not doing the tour.

And that was that was that. And then we didn't say anything for the longest time. So Aaron knew. And we kept our mouth shut because we wanted to give him grace. And, you know, like, honestly, man, like, at the beginning, like, when we decided to move on without him, like, there wasn't really bad blood. there was like we understood this guy's got a big problem he can't sort it out and tour it's not possible

um he hated touring like he hated it yeah but don't we all hate it right but you you uh you find the bits you love the show yeah the show i mean yeah roundly you hate except for the show reason the best experience on earth yeah exactly right and it just got to a point where man like our sound guy had a mute button for his microphone so between songs if he went to the mic he would get muted because we just didn't know what he was going to say and he was saying like really offensive shit to be you know like very very very very very offensive shit and um

it just got too much but yeah there was no there was no bad blood there were we were pretty understanding and then man the fucking the shit talking just didn't stop on the internet at all and then when you know he kept posting stuff like oh i've tried i've begged them to tell you guys i'm not touring but they won't do it and we have you know as as your band gets bigger you end up working with PR people they have crisis teams PR places and they're like you have to say something yeah because this is getting out of hand so I I was like okay everyone's going to blame me so I'm not writing the statement okay I'm like people need to hear from someone else so Dan and Caleb write the statement they send

it to Aaron for approval he makes a few changes approves it it gets posted And then the next six months of my life were some of the worst times in my whole life, I think. What, just from the back and forth? No, no back and forth with him because I'd blocked him a long time before that. But just the internet, just strangers on the internet are an airing parts of my life. The personal and extremely like, you know, things I'm not proud of that I did. you know like almost a decade ago at that point and yeah at that point I was just like

you know what like fuck you yeah I was going to say you didn't you seem angry um is there not is there a part of you the worries for him I'm worried for him I barely know the guy I was worried for him for a long time I don't know yeah you don't have to know no I just don't know I don't know it's I think it's I think it's sad

Yeah, at the same time, it's like it's going on two years and I am still getting comments from people. What are the comments? Like calling me a narcissist and telling me like basically the inverse of what happened. And people have roundly decided that I kicked him out of the band, which is not how it works, I'm afraid. generally speaking when one person gets kicked out of a band it's the rest of the band kicks him out or her out or the band breaks up and that's where we're at and we were like well we want to keep going and so the whole thing was we were like way more way more like

interested in trying to keep it going and accepting whatever happened So we kind of had a chat where we're like, yep, it might not work, but let's try. Because if we don't try, we'll kick ourselves. Because this, you know, we've been so fortunate, man. Like, we've gone up, we've gone down, we've gone back up. We were like, we've gone back down. It's the way. And, yeah, it is the way, right?

But a lot of bands don't get the chance to go back up. And we were, you know, we had planned everything around last year and this year, like everything. And we were like, well, let's just stick to it and see how it goes. And it's going pretty good. Going good. What was your band before this? Kingdom of Giants. Kingdom of Giants.

Were you still in the band when this happened? Are you still in the band? I'm not in the band anymore as of last December, I would say. Is that as of because of this? yeah um things just were coming to a head you know where they're just like we've got plans and you've got other plans going on over here and so it's kind of this it's in my core decision and i was just like you know i don't want to hold them back from you know achieving their goals but this like aligns with the goals that i'm you know after and um with things just working so well

with this group you know it was really kind of a no brainer to just is it mutual no beef um I, they're disappointed. That's a fucking no. That's a no. That's loaded. That's what I'm here for. I'm here for the loaded questions. I'm sure.

Yeah, nothing, no bad be from my end. Yeah, because you jump shit to the fucking massive band. He was, he was like doing back to back touring. Singing, that's fucking tough. Like real, is the other band like real life singing as well? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just about as much singing.

Yeah. You're playing bass in Yes Full replacement Slide in Were you What were you doing Just singing

Bass and singing? Basin's fucking right Boom Yeah Oh Boom Yeah Yeah

How old are you 35 Slots right in He's young though Yeah he's He's How was everyone else How old are you

I'm 44 You started with hit three there I was like No no I was talking I was so spack I was about to list everyone's age. Johnny,

Johnny, Dan and Aaron were all the same age. Almost, almost in the same month. I'm pretty sure. I don't know if Joe's in June, but he's like near June, but Dan and Aaron both in June. And they are 39, so turning 40. So he's like in the right age bracket.

Still a millennial. Yeah. And I was Gen X and then I got booted into the millennial. or can't? Are you a genetic? No, no. Get me get a Google on those. This shit happens every fucking episode.

No. Let me get a Google on those ages. 1981. That's the cusp or that's when you were born? That's when I was born. And so while I was growing up, they were like, your generation X. And then at some point, they're like, no, actually not.

You're a millennial. I think this is stolen valor. Now they call me an elder millennial. Oh, that's even worse than elderly. It's real bad. And I'm going to cause their dog a pupa. Oh, I've never done that. Papa, oh, let's take the doggoes out.

Oh, I've done that either. I renounce my, uh, I actually think I'm going to claim Jen Alpha by the fucking brain rot that I talked. All right. I'm like, no, that sounds like a fucking diddle a thing to say. Jen Rogan. How do you do fellow kids? Millennials is 1981 to 1996. You are on the cut.

Yes. When's your birthday? December 24th. Oh, yeah. Okay. If it was December 24th, 1980, imagine that. You're just a month, a mere month, mere days away from a generation gap. Well, I'm one year away. You are now, but in my head, in my head, you weren't. What are the other ones, just so I know? Generation Z is 1997 to 2012.

Generation Alpha is 2013 to mid-2020. Right. So Bowie's Generation Alpha. How old is Bowie? He's 10. How's his brain rock? What's his vocabular? He's, oh, wow.

You know what? Like, I said something recently, just before I left home, I said something about an aura. I said something about an aura. He does that. I said something about an aura, and he goes,

Uncle Craig has an aura. And I was like, what are you talking about? And then he's... What was his explanation of aura? Well, he doesn't know. He's 10, but he's definitely referencing the goddamn internet. Yeah.

But he, what else happened? We did something and some adults said 6, 7. And he goes, that's over. I did that to my nephew, same thing. And he rolled his eyes and I was like, wow, that's how you know. Yeah, I thought this was like cutting edge. Yep. No, it's already gone.

It's already gone. It moves so fast. Yeah. But he's excellent. He's the best kid. I, yeah. And I don't mean this as like, to be rude. But you struck me as like a, you strike me as a no TV, no iPad.

You will go surfing and it's maybe golf and that's it. No, I'm, like no shoes on the kid. No, no, no, no. Sand people. No, I'm kind of like, I'm kind of like everything in, within reason. I think I grew up with nothing and I grew up with heavy restrictions on what I did. And then I, and then like, it was so weird because then I guess my brother and sister were born to a different dad. And then I got, I got like, jettisoned.

Yeah. It was like left to my own devices with like a computer and I was just like, what the fuck? Rotten.com immediately. No, I mean, I'm too old for that. That happened when we were first starting touring. I remember actually, yeah, same as like Putrid Sex Object. Like, you know that one?

I don't know what. I don't know what? I haven't thought about that one for a while. You don't know that one? No, I just know what you should. Best Gore. Yeah. Yeah, you should be.

Ogrish. Putrid sex object, I haven't. I've talked about these. I've talked about Rotten, Ogrish, all those classic, classic fucking videos. I haven't remembered that one. No one's brought that one up.

Well, we were on tour not long after the Red Shore in Australia had this horrific accident and a couple of them died. And Roman, the guitarist, and he was like recording bands already back then. I know Roman. Yeah, you know, Roman. Yeah, I told me the Red Shore in just after that in UK and Europe. Yeah, so, you know, he left the planet there for a while. Yes. And we went to his fucking house, like in Melbourne and we arrived, I think we arrived at like one or two a.m.

And, you know, we're wasted. Been in the van drinking for 10 hours or something. And we get there. And we're all like, you know, there's like 12 people crammed in one room. And he's like, everyone's watching this. And he puts put putrid sex object on. That was me. And I was just like, what the fuck?

I still do that. So that's like a memory I'll hold forever, which is fucked, because it's just like, I just like the scene going up the stairs. Oh, yeah. It's, I can't remember it.

I remember it being bad, but it's real bad. He like fucks the head of a horse. That's what I remember, but the horse is dead. Yeah, so it's fine. It's a,

it's the chopped off head of a horse also skinned. Yeah, it's, oh, it's all flooding back now. Yeah, it's completely skinned. From a butcher's.

I think you can get away with that. It's not great, but. I think it's legal. I'm not an expert. We have hit none of my notes. It's just been fucking... Fucking...

Fucking going for it. You said you had a notepad. Come with this notepad. Come correct. Hand drawn? Yeah. Just like a pen. Or maybe a pencil so I could erase, you know,

like things up. But, yeah, just hand drawn, like 17 songs, I think. So you write... You're writing the... structure. Yeah. But you're writing lines in there as well? How long did you have to learn 17 songs?

I think it was just under like seven days or something. 17 songs of singing and bass. That's two instruments. Yeah. In a week. No wonder he had a fucking iPad. Yeah. Base I didn't have to learn.

It was two shows and they were like, we're putting you on a track just saying. And I was like, right. Yeah, but did you hold the bass? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Did you slap the bits? No one clocked it that you were...

I mean, I basically just stuck to the same like four chords, you know, open 8, 10, 5. Not a single person there is. Each song in the same. That is fucking insane. Like, I mean, in, I'm a big fan in times like this emergencies, like of tracks. They're fucking so good to get you out of, you know, having to replace a whole fucking member in seven days. But the fact no one noticed makes me a little bit sick. I think a few people said some shit, but...

It wasn't the fucking news. No, it wasn't the news. That it was when I said that there's a couple of drummers that put their kick drums on track. There was a fucking website's making news articles about it. I've got so much shit. He's making it up, he's just jealous. Nope, I'll watch the fucking drummer playing.

Yeah, listen to the fucking kicks. I love that. I love that about the internet. It's so good, isn't it? Yeah, but the thing is, I feel like you still care. Me? Yeah.

Even after all this, they come through, you rightfully said, some of the worst weeks of your life. Yes. Months. Months. Yeah. Sorry. Mitigating it slightly.

But like, you just can't not care. I say that after I've been through it as well. But once you come out the other end, now I'm like, I don't give a fuck. Yeah. Cut the fuck up. I haven't come out at the other end yet. That's the thing. Oh, once you do it, it's amazing.

Yeah. But you have to come out the other end. You do it. And by come out the other end, I mean delete Twitter, which you've already done. Yes. And then... Years ago. Never, ever, ever search for yourself.

And then you're fine. I've never done that. It's fine. Yeah. Just let them fucking... I've never done that. I've never done it? No.

I used it all the time. Did you? Like a name search. Yeah, but you know what it was? Actually, it was started from... I wanted to see who was playing my symbol. So I'd put it in to like Reddit. And put it into Reddit and it would come up with like, oh wait, like you had a symbol.

I have like a, like a Craig. Like a signature symbol. Yeah, okay. I was like, wait a second. I was like, wait, wait, someone playing your symbol? Like did you stop? No, no, no. Like someone stole your symbol?

So you're like name searching. To bring this full circle, actually, you should know that you know the sound of that symbol because Joe plays one. Yes. But I would go on Reddit and I would look for people playing my symbol. And then I thought, I would reply to these people because it's quite nice. No, that's fine. But then I started seeing bad stuff. Not a lot, but like enough for me to be like,

I'm just going to stop doing this. I'm going to stop searching my own thing. Yeah, well, my problem is that if you show me a thousand comments and 99 of them are good, I'm only going to see the one bad one. Yeah, it's awful. Yeah, and then I'm going to fixate on it. Yeah, that's, not on my screen.

Like my whole day, I'll just be thinking about that. comment. Yeah, we're the same. We're the same. Yeah, it's great. As long as you don't look at it, then you can pretend you don't care like I just did. Yeah, well, you know what?

I like, don't look at stuff on purpose, and then I'll just get a text message from someone like, look at this shit. That's the worst. I'm like, brother. That is the worst. Like, leave me alone. Someone was speaking to you recently about something like that,

and they kept reiterating. Don't send me anything. I'm not going to send you anything because I know what it feels. like yeah but that means and from being through it what are these people doing when they send send the the comment that the person is about to the person like hey look at what this person said about you ha ha isn't that stupid it's like no you've just made me fucking read it yeah yeah it's not stupid it's hurtful yeah it's horrible yeah i'm hurt if you've seen it how did you see it how many other fucking people seen it anyway yeah how's the reaction uh good on my end i mean i've seen a few

comments here and there, you know, just like trying to find things to kind of pick apart. But on the album, you've absolutely fucking nailed it. So I can't imagine what people are digging for to have something bad to say, but I know they are. The one that sticks out in my mind is so random, like from the all that I remember, a music video, somebody who's commenting on the shirt that I wore and they were like, this guy works at the gas station or something. It was like so weird.

Because it was like a Dickie's work shirt, like overshirt thing. Yeah. I mean, that's how you know you're doing a good job, though. They can only go for the shirt. It's not the vocals. It's not the base. It's nothing. It's just like, this person's got a shitty shirt.

I guess the second thing would be, people are just like, it sounds generic. Generic. It's like the most word, like, but I mean, like, no offense, men. We play metal core. Yeah, you're playing metal core. Like, yeah, I don't know what to.

People think they want different, and then you give them different. Basically, I've learned that people just, people, people, shouldn't think for themselves. No, particularly in metalcore, particularly in metal core.

It is. There was a thing recently. But like just people think they want different and then you give them different and they go, well, this sucks. And then you give them what they said they didn't want and they go, this is awesome. Man, I was just thinking like,

turn style couldn't have come from metalcore. No. They came from hardcore and everyone in hardcore went. Yep, still hardcore. Yeah. It's like not. But it is. Yeah.

But it is because they're doing whatever they want and that's part of the hardcore thing is just like do what you want you're kind of under this instead of being under this like tiny little umbrella you're under a massive umbrella where everyone's just like yep you're going to play two-step love it that's hardcore you're going to play you know like youth crew hardcore still hardcore you're going to sing still hardcore angel dust hardcore because there's a mentality in hardcore but manor core doesn't really have one no they have it's it's I don't know. Metalcore's a lot more precious.

Basically, I think there needs to be two different fucking genres of Metalcore, 100%, because that's the whole big argument right now is like, it's not real Metal Core. Really? About like bands. This is what I'm not on the internet. Yeah, no.

So I don't know if you guys would fit into it, but like what, yeah, you would. What Metal Core has become. Yeah. Versus what it was when it came out. Oh, dear. So people want what it was for some people.

But some people, yeah, exactly. This is the thing of people. I want real, I want real raw drums like Alive or Just breathing, Kill Switch. All samples. They just, it wasn't a time when the samples could sound that good. This is also something people don't know is you go into the studio, you play the guitar and it comes out of, you know, like a, speaker, a cabinet.

They know that bit. No, no. But they don't know that that then gets, goes into a computer. And then if they go, no, I don't like that head unit. They change it. They just change it. Reamping. They reamp the goddamn guitar.

I think most people know that. But why do they, why are they like this about recording? No, I don't know. And I don't want to ever dig on people for it. But the thing that sticks in my mind about like not, metal core just needs to be a different genre and people don't know what they want. because that boundary is mixed thing. Are you that offline that you don't know what that was?

Well, I mean, I saw a picture of it, you know. Like, I go on there to look at, you know, I've got a very curated Instagram. Like I have a list of words that aren't allowed to show up. It's very, very long. And I make sure I like actually take the time to click, not interested, don't show me this, all this kind of shit. So I see Muay. and like surfing and golf that's kind of it but i follow but i follow uh a few of the boundaries

guys yeah nice dudes sweat the band hard great band great band and i so i saw it and like i'd heard the mix already and i was like what the fuck is the problem so i haven't really read much i haven't read the comments but i can imagine that they're um annoying i'm i'm confused about the whole thing yeah Because they put a mix out, and I don't know these guys, but I do like the band that I know a lot of people that know them. They put a mix out. People were unhappy about the mix. I wouldn't say overwhelmingly unhappy.

The sort of people that would leave you a comment about your shirt, unhappy with the mix. And then they changed the mix because of this. Now, I'm in this weird place where I don't know how I feel about this, because my knee-jerk reaction was why the, the fuck would you put your art in someone else's hands. They're young and they're having a big moment and it's scary. It's scary is definitely a good point.

Because then the other side of the coin is like fan service. But then where did you draw the line? This isn't a question. This is therapy. Yeah, yeah. Because honestly, I couldn't sleep the night it happened. Yeah, I think. My brain went, this is Franz Ferdinand in World War I.

Yeah. you are going to start World War 3 of Metal Core. Yes. I think they are a young band. They've got one prior super successful release. They got a lot of momentum. And it must be terrifying to have your first moment where the internet turns against you. And I think that's a lot of pressure.

And I think that's another thing like being older, you know, like yeah, the comments. get to me but i can switch off i haven't grown up like i was talking to a friend the other day and i was like i feel lucky to have grown up without this access to me being something that i experienced yeah so it's it's alien to me so i can switch it off and i don't miss anything whereas you know the younger bands are fully engaged and i think you know if i were younger younger and experienced internet backlash, it would seem more important than it is. It's going to happen for everything.

Yeah, yeah, but it's like it's growing pains. I would love to get them on and to just ask them, all I want to do is ask them, were you guys unsure about this mix that you put out? And then the backlash made you think, maybe we should go with mix too. Like, that's what I want to. No, that would make me come to terms with it a little bit more.

My worry is that now every motherfucker is going to have an opinion of a mix, which they already fucking do. And I don't want it to then be like, I always think that's funny. The mix thing's always funny to me, because I'm like, listen, people in bands put their whole fiber into creating these things, whether you like it or not.

And then we spend hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours listening to the same goddamn song to the point that we're not hearing the song anymore we're hearing like bits that we think need to go up or down or whatever i'll put that to the back i'll make that make that wider or make that pan and it's like by the time people hear the mix we've put everything we have into it and they're just like don't like it yeah that's why i'm saying i don't know i've got i I don't want to waste a whole podcast on this, but I'm like, part of me is like this sets such a bad precedent for people being up, well, boundaries change their mix.

Like, it's going to, in an ideal world, everyone's going to have, okay, here's the album, and here's the stems, make your own mix. In fact, that's a good idea. Actually, they're already doing that. I'm doing that. Who's doing that? Jay Z's doing that with title.

You get the stems? You can pay for access to get the stems. I'm fucking in. You can, it's for a mix. Do it your fucking self. Oh, it's difficult, isn't it? It's like a, so it's not quite what, it's not, it's not quite what you're talking about, but it's for DJs to remix songs like with ease.

Oh, no, I think I'll just give them. It's the mixed stems. Here's my plot twist. Ready for this? Yeah. Fucking absolute plot twist of the conversation. The new mix boundaries put up is better. And this is where I struggle.

This is where I struggle with it. because it is a better fucking mix. But I'm like, I feel like if it was me, yeah, I'd have just been like, no, you get what you get. Yeah, well, I mean, I don't want to get anyone in trouble, so I'm not going to name names,

but I haven't listened to it on streaming services. I've only listened through Dropbox. Yeah, so I don't know. Right, so you've heard the original one. Anyway, I don't want to get caught up on now. We got on the generic conversation went into this. This is all because of the workshop. This is all because of the workshop.

Yeah. and being called generic. Whoever left that comment, that's all your fault if you're watching this. Even the word comment's pissing me off on now. I can really see why the fucking mask bands do it. Imagine how freeing that must be? Until it's not.

Is it not? Didn't Hanboy from Sleep Token get, didn't they all get fully? You still get the anonymity though. Like, I don't think anyone really is bothering them because their whole social media presence is anonymous. They're probably all offline on burners. But that must be so freeing to just go.

Daft punk did it at the best. Yeah. Forever. You could just bust out, bust out music and then be like, peace, I'm going to go do things. Yeah. And then glorious. Although now it's an old hat wearing a mask.

You ever think about getting him to wear a mask? No, I've always wanted to wear this, because I'm not very confident as a person. I've always wanted to wear this, like, I always joked about it. A helmet, like a Draft Punk helmet. Right. Yeah.

With like a, what's it called? Like a plague. Plague doctor. Plague doctor nose, is. With the microphone stuck in there. I bet that would sound good. Don't cup the mic. I can't help it.

It would sound so bad. But then I just get to run around like a. Is this a real idea? No. It's one I've pitched since like 2005. Pitching it as a joke or if everyone said you. Pitching it as a joke. But if they said yes.

If they said yes. Keep trying. Maybe. Yeah. It's too late. You can't do the mask gimmick is done now. Yeah, yeah. It's never done.

It's never, ever done. It's done for right now. Maybe. I think every 10 years a new mask ban comes out. But everyone thought it was kind of done with sleep token and then president came in. That's like sleep token, though. Everyone thought it was done with ghost and then sleep token. Yeah, that's 10 years.

Is it? I did the math. Oh. That's about 10 years there. Okay. And then like. Slip not. 10, more than 10 years before ghost.

but close. Here's a thing. So, like, you mentioned president, but, like, they are getting pretty cooked for having the masks. Really? I'm saying it's... Wearing a mask is 6-7.

Okay. Like, right now, there's a lot of kids that still like it. They're buying the emote on Fortnite. Right. E-mo. Yeah, yeah. And there's a lot of bands.

Well, we'll just have one member wear a mask. Who fucking can? Again, I don't. don't know where I stand on anything anymore. I think it sucks, but I'd do it. I'm not going to do it. Look, some things that suck are still fun.

Yeah, I bet it would be really fun. My main problem with that, this is my fucking soapbox today. I'm so sorry, we're going to talk about the album in a minute. Not enough evil bands wearing masks. Hmm, they wear face paint. They do, but like I need some, like, sleep token, massively successful. It's evil pop. I could do with them being a lot.

little bit more evil they're evil they need like one they seem like really nice people they are really nice people yeah see how you're gonna do it get a guy in that is a murderer okay all right now we got a man had a little bit of law in there mayhem sketchy just a one sketchy guy okay i was talking on the last podcast about i wanted to make like a woke black metal band where you where you just get like you're because not enough black metal has evil anymore because it was really quite evil. It was properly evil. Properly evil.

And I was thinking, how could you mark it evil these days? Because evil's out. But if you got like, let's say Luigi and you popped him in a black metal band, I think the public would take it. Do you just call it Luigi? Just like bosom kind of thing? It writes itself.

It writes itself. I think the public... That's a logo right there. Directly down the camera. I am not condone. or like I'm just simply stating I think the public would be okay with that and that's society's fault not mine what would you call it don't know I haven't got that far you could call it bloke bloke yeah for black metal woke below yeah I got it I got it let's fucking go

in a small logo gate because I I knew this was gonna come out I knew this was excellent we're talking about a tour that was 2017 or 2018. I can't remember one of those years with Centsis Fail. It was a co-headliner and we were, you know, picking supports and we'd found Belmont who were opening. And this band Bad Omen's got submitted and were like cool. This band, Bad Omen's. Well, it's funny to say now, right?

I'm going to get there. I'm getting there. I'm getting it. And I haven't rehearsed it, but I've thought about it because it just, it's. got things got worse for me when I found the picture of the poster let's put it that way I remember it being bad but we were we were going back and forth with their manager when the poster was being done and the the logo was a sticking point and you got to understand like growing up in Australia everyone is an asshole everyone is really mean people are mean when they like you people are

meaner when they don't like you people make fun of you it in like a lighthearted way take the piss about everything right so we we think it's funny that this is happening but we're like going back and forth we announced the tour and the day we announced they dropped off the tour and if it had to happen a day earlier none of this ever would have happened but because of this we being a bunch of fucking idiots with Twitter decided we would tell the world we thought it was funny, which we did think. We thought it was very funny. You haven't explained what it is yet.

It is. It's bad omen's logo on the poster was really small, right? And really small. Oh, I remember. I remembered it being small. And then the other day when I looked it up, I was seriously like the guy with the, are we the baddies? And I was like, I'm the baddie. To sum it up, you announced a tour.

Is there any conversations about their logo being small before this? There were, right, but the final thing got kind of approved. Like, yeah, cool, go ahead. You announced and they cancelled. We announced they cancelled unrelated, as far as I know now. Okay. I think they went and worked on their next album, which ended up. They're so big.

Yeah. They're like second only to bring me. Yeah, and they're fucking huge. The thing that actually prompted me looking up the part. poster was not coming here. It was that some kids started posting on Instagram. Like, I can't believe what you've done to bad moments. Noah's statements made me not want to listen to you ever again.

And I'm like, what is happening? I'm like, these guys. I wrote back because I never write back. So what happened? Explain what happened. Well, we went on Twitter and we were laughing about the logo because we thought it was funny because we've been on posters before. where you could barely read our name, right?

And we thought, you can read their name. Like, we don't really understand the problem. I've seen their band name on the poster now, eight years later with fresh eyes, and it's not good. It's insane. It's bad. So I'm confused at the timeline. You announced a tour, they drop off the tour.

Yes. They make a statement about the logo. No. No, no, no. Where did the logo? We started. You started it. Yeah, we started it.

Did he say, did Noah say something back? He said something back. Because I remember it being they dropped off because of it. the logo being small. That's why he hurt. That's because we said that. Because we thought that. We thought that in our defense.

It's not much of a defense. Oh, okay. Yeah, you came out and we're like, they've dropped off the tour because their logo's too small. My bad omens aren't coming because their logo is too small, right? Which we thought was fucking hilarious, right? And we're just taking the piss. We don't care.

The internet went fucking crazy. The internet went crazy, yeah. And now I'm like looking at it. I'm like, yeah. I saw all the bad omens the other week and I wanted to clarify. on their side. Yes. We did this.

Yes. And they did have to cancel, I think, to work on the record. They did. Yeah. I know. I only learned this like. Yeah. They rolled with it.

They did the best T-shirt. And they made a tiny, a t-shirt with a tiny logo like this big. Yeah. You know what? I think they might have even been able to pull that from the PSD. But I, but okay. So I have a question for you. And this is, this is possibly friendship ending.

Okay, I've got to think about how to how to dress is up. Okay, let's go. You nearly did it again. When? The toy you're about to start. Where's? So you don't know. This is what I thought happened.

This is, okay. He's complete, be perplexed in front of that camera. Okay. I go to the gym. He's going to be so fucking angry. I go to the gym with Austin from Orthodox. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, so what happens now is there's a system. Yeah. There's a system to make sure this never, ever happens again. And the system now is, is this big enough? Yeah. And we go back and forward until everyone is happy. And that's that. And I'm going to, in your defense, I'm going to tell you what happened behind the scenes.

Oh, no. No, this is great. No, because you were absolutely fine. I go to the gym with Austin. He comes in one day. And he's like, kind of in. a bad mood, but not really in a bad mood. No, no, no, no, it's fine, you're fine.

And I was like, what's up? And he was like, oh, we're just about to announce this amity tour. And I was like, what's up? And he's like, our logo is really fucking small. I laughed my fucking ass off. Like, I like, start losing it in the gym. And then I see it. And I'm like, yeah, it's kind of small.

But it's like not insane. And he was like, I get it. It's because their logo is a weird shape. And someone's just put it in the way their logo is. and he was like, hey, I don't know what to do. And I was like,

I know, Joel, all you need to do is ask them for your logo a bit bigger because I guarantee you this is an oversight somewhere and they do not want the fucking smoke

after the bad omies thing. He didn't even know about the bad omens thing. I explained it. Oh, boy. For about two or three days because they're so green. They didn't want to rock the boat.

They just weren't going to do it. Oh, rock the boat. It was neat. I said to Austin, I was like, I'm telling you if you want your logo bigger, there is no fucking way that... I can't speak for the rest of the band,

but there's no way Joel is going to let a band be unhappy with the size of the logo after that last fucking thing. So I think you should just send the email. Apparently they sent the email, and they got changed the same day, and it was fine. Of course.

I know, but it was like... It's never going to be a thing. They were so green. They didn't want to rock the boat at all. And I was like, the ball's in your court here, kind of orthodox. The ball for the record is, in everyone's court, but out forever.

I didn't want that to come across like, you fucking did it again, but it's like, we did. It is, a graphic designer did it again. And this is probably the problem. It's me. I mean,

no, I'm the graphic designer though. Oh, is you? Yeah, so I put them all together, right? And because their logo is tall,

it's slotted in, like there's a method to the madness, right? It's like, everything's in percentages. So it's like August Burns Red and Amity were at 100% and then we had

boundaries. Yeah, I knew it would be like 75% and then it was 50% and then it was whatever. And their logo because it's tall. It was just it was literally in Photoshop it's just a percentage thing

because I do it now to cover my ass because I'm like, hey, this is your logo and it's this percent of this logo and um yeah but when i got the email back i was like yeah sure because of course they were worrying so much about it no because i remember looking at it when i sent it off because now because of that whole shit like every tour now i send off just a crop of the mast head so that people can approve it yeah because it has for me to be happy it has to get approved from yeah i i think that some of the problem is people who are so green

They don't want to rock the boat So they just eat whatever it is Yeah but you know what I'm glad you spoke to him So he knows that he should advocate For himself I just knew that you Based on the bad homest thing

I just knew there's no fucking way They've done that on purpose Because they just would not want that fucking heat again No no no no Never again Never ever again House of cards At last

First record Yep happy? I'm pretty stoked, yeah. Where'd you guys record it? What was it? Something beach. Bigola Beach.

Bill Gola. Bill Gola. In Australia? In Australia. I made this motherfucker fly all the way out. I was tough, tough for him. Really? Yeah, I had to stay in a mansion by the beach.

Yeah, well, I thought it would have been a remote job. All that I remember was, I did that back at home in a pantry closet. Really? Yeah, with some packing blankets and stuff. I do audio, so it's like... Him and Dan are like two peas in a pod. It's excellent. And Dan wanted to be there, obviously, producing again.

Dan has produced the last three releases now. So. I wanted down there too. Yeah. But Dan was either going to have to record me and then fly over and record Johnny. Yeah. Or we fly Johnny and do it all at the same time. How long did it take you to track?

You in particular, I'm looking at these guys are old fucking hair. But if you're learning a song, you're learning a set in 7. days. Well, I came with like melodies that I just had like throwaway lyrics to and then Dan like the week leading up to that fitted like his lyrics into my melodies. So I was pretty familiar with like what I was going in to do just not the words. I think I finished in like 10 days. We were there for like how many days? 14 14. So you're you're the word smith. Yep. Always have been. Yep. Slot in with the melodies. You can sing though, can't you? I never wanted to.

Yeah, I think we had this chat before. Yeah, I never ever wanted to. I was like, Iron sings. You get in a little, let him have a scream? I asked him to, but he's too good at singing. He's very conscious of what he needs to do properly and what he does. He's a real fucking robot professional. He's done this right. He's a proper professional.

These are my words, you'll be singing them like this. You do that. The really, really hard bit. Like, I can do the, I can do the, I can do the, I can do the emotion. You've got to fucking make it sound like it was you. I'm working on it. I'm trying to get a scream, you know, developed in there, you know. Maybe not for the records, but for live, you know.

In your other band, did you write the lyrics? Yeah, good, good like, handful, anything that I did, yeah. Yeah, I wrote, I wrote. So like, Joel, by his own admission, am I? He's very depressed. He's very sad. And, but you are. You are. You are.

is sad. Is it difficult to convey his feelings in your voice? It wasn't so much, just because if you go listen to some of the Kingdom of Giants Records, they're mostly like heartbreak, like love songs. So they're equally as sad, but maybe just not about the same subject. Is it easy to tap in? Like tap in how he was feeling. Do you have to relate that to something that you've done?

done like i'm just trying to think when you're singing like actual singing screaming doesn't count respectfully it does it does i'm joking but like i don't think it gets when you're singing it's it's a motive in a different way like do you know what i mean

i don't know i just i don't think i could sing someone else's words and like make it sound emotive like get the emotion in there like is that difficult you just telling me no you're just going to tell me a fucking robot. Well, for this record, I actually could relate quite a bit with just like

fractured relationship with his mom. Barely touched on it a little while ago. But yeah, you know, like I, my mom and I never saw eye either. I was kind of like in support and just like, it was almost just like I was like, yeah, man, like that's right on, you know, like kind of just like getting behind him, you know, like, having his back on a lot of those things because I was just like yeah that's how I used to feel too

you know like so it was actually it was a lot easier to do that um singing you know some of the other songs live and stuff like that it has his challenges you know singing other people's lyrics um I definitely compared myself to like you know oh how would he have saying it I want I want people to be happy with you know is there any particular not to harp on about the old stuff But was there like any melodies you couldn't do and had to change? Or did you just nail up? Well, the first day I showed up with my notebook and everything, we had a rehearsal that you weren't at.

Or maybe you showed up later, but they had sent me. I was going to go with golfing, but sorry, carry on. Caleb, their manager, had sent me a download for the deluxe reissue of Let the Ocean Take Me, and that's three semitones down. And I had been rehearsing to the original. I didn't know that. All that week. So I showed up ready to sing

like at the top of my range and they were just like, no, like you're pretty just like relaxed, keep it low, keep it chill. And like I struggled with that because I was, I prepped all the like my high range stuff, you know. Damn. To do the original record.

So 10 days. Is that what you were expecting from him? 10 days? We were expecting faster. Traditionally, how long is it taken? We usually give ourselves one day per song and then i'm the one always asking for a buffer yeah like for instance the first day we i went in there to record and i couldn't scream i was just in my head about everything yeah i was

just like so under self-imposed pressure to perform that i couldn't do it i could not do it like noises were coming out of me that i did i was like i don't know and dan was just sitting there like fuck you know like he was like man it's in there like I don't know what's we just got the new other singer do your fucking thing he was being really supportive right and I was like man I don't know what's going on like um I just put myself under this immense pressure and so that was a day wasted right so this is 10 days for both of you to do yeah yeah yeah and we had 14 days there so that takes it to 13 for me right so I start panicking and for me it's like on this album i did four four takes so four kept takes of every line yeah and then

if there were higher screams and lower screams it was four of each of those so some some vocals have 12 of me yeah i can hear it sounds demonic yeah so there's like a lot going on so it's very like labor intensive and I always worry every record about losing my voice, right? And if I do that, I need a day to, like, do nothing. But it was, it was like, I don't know, it flowed so well, man. It was like, we got into a routine, and the routine just worked so well that it was just like, I would wake up, I would go get coffee,

I would go to golf, I'd come back, he was either finished or just finishing up, Dan would have lunch, I'd go in, finish up, eat dinner, go to bed, repeat, and it was just like, I don't know, just this really healthy, collaborative, positive environment that just made things kind of go smoother. So we ended up getting done with three days to spare, I think. I'm guessing from how you said that, that wasn't always the case. No, and I mean, I've talked about this, I talked about it with Rolling Stone in Australia,

and people on the internet ran with their own story and, well, Joel's voice. and talking shit about not liking recording but i've hated recording forever and it's got nothing to do with anyone for the most part like there were obviously things in the studio within the band that were pretty toxic and i didn't like and it was very stressful but most of the stress came from myself yeah so most of the thing i hated about recording was recording like just being having to perform like having to record yeah because it was like you know how it is you do a tour and then six weeks later they're like okay so instead of doing the tour you're doing the the record and I'm like well I haven't screened in six weeks and then this one was like two weeks after a tour so it was like super

super like performance fit kind of thing like felt good enough rest yeah enough rest but not enough that you yes exactly are you come into these sessions with those melodies that you had with just like filler vocals are you coming with everything like done you're just coming to perform or you guys writing stuff in the studio changing stuff it's like a back and forth to be like 95% done right yeah i mean yeah maybe 90% there actually you probably tink it a lot more yeah i mean i had like you said two weeks and i just like it felt you know like a little rush trying to get stuff together um in two weeks time um but yeah like i felt pretty confident about what i did have because i sent you guys like rough demos and you're just like

yep yep that's cool yeah it was that it was that really yeah that's great everything he sent is on the record wow that's true yeah uh dan wrote the melody and lyrics for one track that i couldn't tell you what the name of it is right now but um so and then two of the songs don't have singing yeah so it was like Dan will take what I've written And if they don't fit exactly But like add in a little line Send it back to me To check on

I'll rewrite Send it back Or he sends it to me And I say that makes no sense And rewrite the whole thing for him So it's always Always been like that Like there's

We've never done a full album When I've written every word on the album Yeah you need another set of all right I would have written 95 5% of the songs. You know what I mean? But I think, I don't know, it's always good.

Because I write them, I forget about them. So I'm not attached to them. I send them off. They come back. I rewrite what I need to. And I don't know. It works. Here's the thing I noticed.

I don't know if maybe it's wrong. But it does say all songs written by the amity of fiction. Yeah. That's a conscious, conscious effort? Or are you all in on everything? Like, we always did that. because I don't know, man, we didn't really have an ego about it. Yeah.

And then, I don't know. I like it that way. Yeah, so do I. We always did it with Australia. And you would have half an album where maybe someone's not feeling it and they can't give as much as they used to. But it doesn't matter. Yeah, you want to do that.

But not a lot of bands do that, particularly in your genre. Yeah, but I like that. It's like the big thing for me about, saying that as well is like this like this band did this and no one from the outside did a fucking thing so you're a producer yeah like I guess you could say that he's very humble I don't produce too humble for the podcast step step that humble down you produce like produce yourself I produce my own stuff you produce your own stuff Dan's obviously a producer yep you got a little rig at home fuck no dude yeah I don't know anything

about anything that's quite funny so Like you in the writing process, how are things getting started? Is Dan writing most of the song and then it's going to you? Yeah, like Dan on the few tours I was doing leading up to recording was sending demos like instrumentals that he just wrote in the bus for a few hours each day. And yeah, he sent us like a folder with 10 songs with just the instrumentals. And then I had two weeks to just sit with each one and just kind of, like I said, throwaway lyrics.

So I'm just complete jitterish. You know what I mean? And just to let you know. Give me a line. Give me the worst throwaway line. They wanted that. They weren't really bad. He thinks they were bad.

No, they were throwaway lines like they're not going to get used. They weren't like, like, throwaway lines. The cat sat on the man. No, no, no. Damn it. Yeah. No, he wrote, like, yeah, he wrote pretty good lyrics. But you wrote the melodies or was,

Dan sending you these with melodies in mind. Just instrumentals, no melodies. That's a bro. That's a fucking bro. Dan wanted to see what came back. And everything came back. It's our first record, like first full album with him. So Dan was like, Dan had melodies in his head.

But he wanted to see what Johnny came back with. And everything that Johnny came back with is on the record. That's good. That's how you know you've nabbed a good one. Yeah. He would send stuff on this like, you know, text. thing on the side like fuck you fucking hear this that's awesome yeah tell about this mom you alluded to it before

tell me about this parental unit he I'm just gonna say we were on tour and he had to go home for like his mom died and he flew back to the tour we don't have to go here but like you've alluded to it and you were like I've alluded to it and you were like I've the check of past my mom. I think what were we like one year apart in in the dead mom department? Yeah. So pretty much the same reason to cancer. Yeah, my mom drank herself to death. Yeah. So I had a friend that died of cancer that was brought on by alcoholism. Yeah. In January 24. My mom died in July 24 and in the midst of all this was everything happening with iron so i didn't really get a chance to like

grieve my friend or deal with my mom yeah hasn't hasn't really caught up yet but then he was like yeah my mom's dog depends if you want to go dog yeah we can cut it if you don't yeah i mean from my perspective like my mom was indoctrined hardcore from leaders in churches that she followed you know with her whole heart and uh she never really truly knew herself because of that and it bled out into my upbringing and my siblings upbringing too you know there was like a like a glass pain between me and her constant you know what I mean like there's just certain things that you just like almost like um I don't know like not robotic but just like she was under mind control you know what

And so everything in life from, you know, like things I'm dealing with, I could just never go to her because it was always just like, oh, well, you know, you got it, you know, pray about it. You know, go to the church leaders and like, you know, really give it to God, you know, type thing. And I mean, I don't want to play it up like, you know, like it was something that crazy. But just psychologically what that does to you, you know, as a kid growing up where you're just like, yeah, you know, yeah, I don't really.

know who this person is did you fall out yeah i mean like you know i had the classic like high school fall out got kicked out of my house you know for months at a time and you know just because i was like skipping school uh got caught smoking a few times yeah cops and you know brought me home and you know drinking all that stuff high school parties being a teenager being a teenager yeah exactly so i mean like there were years yeah we're like we really like yeah just like we're at odds you know what i mean but the weird thing about it too is just like like I just felt like it was she was only like removed by a small degree like if I could just break down a wall just slightly enough I could actually see like and feel you know her love for me and things like that but it was just like clouded by religion and like I think like there's things in her life that she never opened up to me about you know that made her go that to that extreme she. She was a religious extremist, you know. I think, like, she felt powerless her whole life.

And I think that's what causes people to go towards, you know, extremism. Yeah. Is when you feel powerless. When someone like that dies, how do you feel? Conflicted as hell. Yeah. You obviously flew back to the funeral. Yeah.

And, like, had some good memories to, you know, just her whole body was just getting riddled with, you know, cancer and things like that. It was just, it was towards the end, you know. I mean, she was like somewhat there, but really not there. But like, you know, the one last, like, good thing I can think about, I think like two days before I flew back out to the tour, was she was like pretty nonverbal for a few days there when I'm just sitting there, chilling with everybody. And we couldn't get her to eat.

And she saw a commercial for Little Caesar's Pizza. And that perked her up. I know. Is that good? They look so delicious on those ads. Is that good? Are those good? Like, it was like some little...

That's funny. Cupcake looking pizza bite things. Oh, yeah. I know. They are good. For the record. They're pretty fucking good. I was like, let's find out.

So I just went and got her some, you know. She took a few bites. That's cute. You said something earlier that made me think about this because you said, I didn't have time to agree for my friend or deal with my mom. She cut us off. So I flew my sister home from...

She lives in Spain. She lives like down near Malaga and I flew her home and my brother cut his trip overseas short. He came home and I'd just come home from, I don't even know where. I'd just come home from somewhere. So the three of us get together. We go in and before I went and saw her on my own first, sorry. And I was like, on my way there, I was like, well, she's dying. so I'm going to give her some grace

I'm not gonna you had really fallen out at this point I would I made a choice when Bowie was born you can't come near me because I don't want you to but I'll let you be close to my son I was like that's what you get you know like you don't get me

but I'm not going to stop Bowie from getting to have a relationship with you because Maybe you won't fuck that up, basically. Okay. Which, you know, for the most part, she didn't. She said some shit to him that I was just like, that is so out of pocket. I was going to say, like, if I was a gambling, man.

Like, you had fallen out with her. She does. Play letting see the kid. Yeah. Most people wouldn't. So I took, you know, I went to the hospital. I was like, I'm going to give her some grace. I'm not going to bring up anything.

She's going to tell her I love her. Yep. You know, and there was one, one. moment where I said it's all right mom and then she started crying and she said it's not it's not and then it boom gone that was it that was all I got and then it started being like why isn't your sister here why isn't your brother here you nearly got what you needed I nearly got there yeah and then my brother and sister came and then she started like abusing my sister for letting me pay for a plane ticket I'm just like what the fuck is going on and then we were trying to like get it

to sign these, you know, just legal documents so we can sort her fucking life out. She's got no money. And she's like talking to us like we're all trying to argue over her estate. And I'm just like, you have no money. Like what are we doing here? And, you know, my sister's fucking crying. My brother's like, he doesn't know what to do with himself. And we left and we were going there every day for like a week.

And then we, after the third time, I was just like, I'm not going. I was like, fuck this. And then I went, I went down a few days later. And she was like getting checked out of the hospital. And we didn't know this at the time, but she'd talked to the hospital. And she told them to check her out. And because she had had her faculties enough, they couldn't stop her. We didn't know that.

And so I've had to sit down, like her bed's here. and I've had to sit down like to my left behind her so she can't see me because I'm fuming. I'm like, you're dying. Like, why are you doing this to people? And she goes back. She's staying with my cousin in this granny flat. And in in that little period there, she told the hospital they weren't allowed to tell the three of us, her kids, her condition. And then she stopped talking to us.

She told our cousin not to talk to us. And then she proceeded to like not be able to get out of bed. She was shitting the bed. She was dying. She was dying in the house of my cousin. And my cousin's kid was like, I don't know, man, 15, 16 or something had to help my cousin clean up my mom. You know. And so my cousin doesn't know what's going on.

So she's getting angry at us. We're getting angry at her. We don't know what's going on. But you're not allowed to be there. She wasn't talking to us. Yeah, okay. So we actually had no idea what was going on. And then she gets admitted back in the hospital.

I'm calling the hospital and I'm like, what's going on? And they're like, oh, we can't tell you. I'm like, what do you mean? You can't tell me. Like, I'm her son. Like, I'm the eldest son. Like, tell me. And they're like, no, we can't.

I get a call like a week. later. So this had been a week. So she terrorized my fucking cousin for a whole week. Like pissing and shitting and falling over and not eating. I mean terrorizes a fucking bad work there. She's not doing it on purpose.

Well, look, she made the choice to go there even though she knew what was going on with her body. You really resent this person. It's like, yeah, I have such a good relationship with my mum. Both of these conversations are like, I don't even know what to say. Yeah. Well, she treated me

this way my whole life. Yeah. So I have intimate knowledge of the sort of mechanics of her mind going into this. Like, I'm a miracle. The treatment's going to work on me. And like, she's in fucking conspiratorial telegram groups and shit. She's like full Q and on like. Yeah, that's just an old person.

Yeah, like whatever, right? That's just old people. Anyway, she goes back to the hospital. They're not telling me shit. A week later they call me and they're like, hey, your mom's going to die today, like, probably three hours. And I was like, cool, I'll call the crematorium. I probably know three hours. There's like a point where they're just pumping them full of pain medicine.

My, okay. Yeah, they're not there. They're just like, that's just a body. You know what I mean? Like, there's no person left. The person has left the building. Yeah. All the person's in so much pain.

They have to make a decision. But they die. Like they, you know, from what I understand from my, my doctor friend, it's like the people that make it through surgeries where they could die, the people that kind of fight. Yeah. Their spirits kind of fighting to stay in it. And then other people will die in like a minor surgery because their body, their brain goes, nah, I'm good. Which is an Australian way to say, nah, I'm good. I'm fucking good.

Yeah. So she, she died. They told me she was going to die. I was like, yeah, cool. I called the crematorium. What happened? I was like, hey, my mom's dying today. I'm, like, shocked at how much you don't care.

Like, I feel uncomfortable. It seems like you don't care, but you've obviously written songs about it on this record. I do care. I care because of the age I'm at, you know, you hit your 30s and you start, you know, especially for me because I stopped drinking my early 30s. I had a lot to reflect on.

So that whole thing, like the Logo Gate thing, right, happened like two years i think after i stopped drinking i was still very much like in rage mode yeah because i just didn't know what to do with all these emotions right and you spend like you know three years three years of sobriety i finally started being like a bit more level my emotions and so instead of reflecting just on my drinking i started reflecting on my life and then i'm getting older and i'm like thinking about my childhood and realizing I don't remember much of it. And then I'm like, well, why?

And then talking to a psychologist and I'm like, you know, when I stopped drinking, I was like, give me hypnotherapy. And she was like, hang on a second. And she asked me a series of questions. And, you know, it was like, what do you remember from this to this, this to this to this, this to this to this, this to this to this? And I was like, nothing. She goes, all right, well, we're not doing that.

And then my doctor friend has like nearly photographic memory. and I was asking him after a few years of not drinking. And he said to me, I'm not going to tell you, man, I just wish you grew up in a house where they respected you as a human being. Right. And I was like, that's worse. Yeah. So I, you know, I did care, but I didn't care for the reasons.

And that's what the whole album is kind of exploring this disconnect between what a mother should be and what you do with yourself. and how you deal with that as a person if your mother was the complete opposite of what society kind of puts motherhood into. Because not every mother is a mother. They're just a person that had children. And that's what she was. One of the best things that happened after it was my brother and sister and I realized that she'd been basically making each of us feel like she had a great relationship with the other two. And no one did.

So my sister thought that the two brothers had a great relationship. My brother thought that myself and my sister had a great relationship. And I thought they had a great relationship. And none of us did. She was just like playing us all off one another. And so we've become much, much closer after that. So, you know, like something dies, something gets born from it. And there are positives to be had there, I think.

You weird the synchronicity between the two of your stories. Yeah. Did you not know that? No. There wasn't part of the, like, checklist. Like, is you joined a band? Mummy issues. Tick?

No, not at all. Melodies? Mummy issues? We've done all the ends? No, it's like, he comes into the band, he's new in the band, and then it's like, after several months, he just, like, starts talking. And we're just like, oh, fuck. I'm like, dude, you want to chat about it?

Like, I just did this. What does House of Cards? mean it came from a song that didn't a song lyrics that didn't make the album and the line was you grow up in a stable home i grew up in house of cards and i was writing it it was very much about someone um not iron it was about someone in my life though um who did grow up in a stable home and still and just wouldn't wouldn't uh listen to what i was saying about my upbringing yeah i think and it was just like this thing that was like i i wanted to write about it and the whole thing was like house of cards is you know easy to topple and my whole life at home

was so fragile like the time between being screamed at or hit and and like a nice moment was just so like fragile that it felt like everything could collapse at all times so you are abused by this one yeah and my and my stepfather i'm really sorry to just put that out there like that that's right but i don't know that yeah and i hear these you know stories about not you know essentially not really grieving your mother's death and i can't put i can put two and two together but i'm also just a little bit like What are you fucking, what's that face for? Because if I may, I will say you do have a really good relationship with your parents. And there is definitely, it's interesting that you brought it up because there is a difference in upbringing where my dad left and my mom and I had a very strained relationship.

So seeing the parallels, you talking about the parallels, I do see that in a day to day because of our upbringing. And then the hatred, I understand, like, it's not I wouldn't say hatred, but that, like, deep, intense emotion, you can only get if a parental unit is supposed to take care of you. You can only get that feeling if you don't. You're not being nurtured the way you're missing a piece of upbringing that is core to being a functioning human. I'd say, not to say that we're not functioning. No, I would say that. And I think that like what I was saying about examining my relationship with her is because then it's like, well, why did I become an addict? Why did I behave the way I behaved?

Why did I have the anger I had? And then it's like, you know, I just got to start thinking about this stuff, right? And then she died. And I was like, fuck. Did you want to confront her about it? I wish I did. I'm glad I didn't. I'll say that.

I wish I did for myself. I'm glad I did. for her because she was dying she's still my mother you know I don't I don't think anyone on their deathbed anyone I don't think anyone in the world on their deathbed that hasn't

done something horrendous violent or whatever deserves to be put on the spot you've alluded to horrendous and violent but I get your point yeah but you know what I mean like I'm talking like extreme go to go to jail kind of

violence I just think I think, you know, like Johnny was saying about his mom being, she was indoctrinated, she didn't know herself. My mom, similar, right? I know she was raped when she was younger. She was working on a, on like a prawn trawler or something, like in far north, far north Australia, like off Darwin, I think. And I think she was raped. I think, I don't know. She told me this, but also she was like a bit of a liar so i just it's it's hard when it's hard when someone treats you a certain way for so long and then gives you a reason and yeah and there's all these other lies in between it and you're like well i don't know but i wouldn't doubt it i mean it was the 70s in australia she's a woman so

i mean already like what one in three or even even worse is going to be a victim of sexual assault every every woman I know has at least one fucked story the at least usually multiple so I tend to believe her in in in this case and she was a woman in the 70s and then had a kid in the 80s with a chronically alcoholic guy like my dad who I'm close with now but I mean the catalyst for for their full split was she they'd already kind of separated and she left me with him for the day and she was calling him to try and come pick me up and he wasn't picking up the phone and I think I was like two years old and she went around to his house and him and his mate were passed out on the ground and I was a two year old walking around the house and so it's like there are all these

traumas right that create a problem and it's like I you know there are all these cliches out there and you feel tacky for saying them but they're they're clichés for a reason right and it's like hurt people hurt people and it's so true i spent a lot of my drinking years doing that outside of my family unit you know what i mean because i was so hell bent on not doing that in the house so i became this like pretty abusive person outside of the house and then that of course carried over several years into my sobriety and it's something that I've like obviously tried to come to grips with I've run into a bunch of people over the years and I'm like hey I'm sorry I'm a different person now blah blah blah um I heard something on a podcast just recently that was like

I was like yep so true and it's like this other guy who was who was a drug addict and he was like you know you get clean you get sober you see these people who you fucked over you apologize but it's not their fault if they hate you and you have to accept it because you still fucked with them you know what I mean and so I think that's the thing with my mom it's like she did so much fucked up shit but it's like while I can accept the trauma that built up you know to her becoming that person it sort of doesn't excuse it and especially as I'm getting older and I'm recognizing with my own patterns of behavior and I'm like well I'm not transferring this onto my kids

how do you make sure you don't know because it sounds pretty generational therapy what a therapy yeah that's the thing that particularly men have only recently bothered with yeah lots of lots of therapy and lots of um reflecting on how i've been treated versus how I would want to be treated versus how I've treated people. It's good to be sober and be able to look back on, you know, however many years of, like just being an asshole to people, being drunk and being fucking asshole. What kind of being an asshole, though?

Mean. Like I was mean. I just think I was really mean to people. I think I could make people feel really small for no reason. And I think I thought at the time that that was like a gift because I was drunk. that it's a coping mechanism and it's coming from a place of insecurity yeah so it's like before you can fuck with me i'll fuck with you you know what i mean remember our little misunderstanding no you don't remember it you weren't drinking yeah were you drinking how long you've been

sober 10 years 10 years what month much 7th maybe you weren't drinking maybe where were we we were on tour stray in europe it was just a small it was a small it was a small thing it was in Europe. It was in Europe. You said something to me and I hadn't heard you and I didn't reply. And you went into the green room

and what the fuck is your drama's problem? No. Is that what happened? It is but slightly different. You were talking the reason why you didn't hear me is because you were having a fucking conversation I didn't realize

and the person you were talking with had gone past me already. Yeah. I said something to you. You carried on your. conversation and you you were like get the fuck out of you and i thought you were talking to me oh wow that there was someone backstage or someone on the bus that you were like trying to get off the fucking bus and i remember being like what the fuck i went inside and i was like what the fuck is up

with your drama i remember nothing's up that makes poor fucking sense yeah yeah that's funny as fuck yeah i just remember that now yeah that was wild and you're like mate no i wasn't even talking yeah and i was like oh i was like oh i was like oh i'm sorry Yeah. It was like my second straight or you're the headliner. Am I going to act like that? I mean, fucking be sick if I was.

Unfortunately, I fucking first band on just coming in and I'm, what the fuck? Get the fuck off this bus headliner. Old man, small bladder. Oh, bro, tell me about it.

I'm pissing in the fucking night and shit. Yeah, it's not good. It's not good. Bowie was, well, he still wets the bed if he drinks too much. water but he was wedding the bed up until like a year ago no matter what and so for years nine

years i've been drinking heaps of water before bed so i would get up on his bladder schedule that's cute yeah leave that in the episode simon we just had a piss break here's a problem you wrote the fucking lyric i did that's the fucking problem you guys fucked up here you got the small logo here yeah yeah yeah i gave johnny the small logo i'm the graphic designer johnny's got small fucking logo. Yeah, because I've got a lot on the fucking, on the lyrics. I thought you'd let this motherfucker write some lyrics, but apparently not. No, pretty with my spot in the band, I'm afraid.

I've been thinking about that, though, and I'm like, what if you just, same with Dan, send me your, you know, lyrics. Look at that. This is happening on. Yeah, but this happening on your eyes. No, I'm happy, but this is good. Yeah, he's been thinking about that. Because I see, I enjoy using other people's, like, material to pull,

things out of it's the first album we've done with johnny first time we're done with you and dan and i already spoke and we spoke i think while we're recording i think the next one will be more collaborative and johnny and dan in studio is like funny for me because they are fucking nerds and they're loving it and i could see them loving it and i was like this is excellent and so yeah all right you heard it here first i mean you'll just be cc on the fucking email Yeah, that easy. What, lyric, there's a lyrics email. Yeah, it just says lyrics.

It says Amity lyrics 25 is what the email said. There we go. Russian hackers. Oh, I got one lyric I need to know. A town of War. Yep. My favorite song on the record, by the way. Still stuck to the skin, same hate, same sin.

Yes. What does that mean? This, that song is like another take on, I don't even know the name of the song. It's off misery. It's like, you wrote it. Yeah, I know. But I'm like, it's like a, it's the second part of this other song from misery. And it's like, Eternal War is very much a back and forth with me and me.

You know what I mean? And it's like still stuck to the skin. Same hate, same sin is like the same things that I've always dealt with are still there. Yeah. And because of my religious upbringing, I'm always going to reference. Christianity and my relationship to things based on that. They're not good branding. They do.

They have great branding. And, um, bodes well. That's, yeah, that's, that's what it is. It's like,

it's like the, the thing you can't get rid of, there's a piece of yourself. Whenever the line I really like, I'm like, fuck does that mean. I'm just a drummer. I don't really fucking know.

I got a thumb bit. You ready for a thumb bit? Sure. All, let's talk about dead mums. Yes. We're going to do a thumb bit. That sounds horrible,

but by their own admission. UK versus a, Australian translation. I think it would be funny. I've got to rephrase it because I thought you were Australian. I'm going to say a word that's mine. Yes.

And you're going to guess what it is. I think you might know most of them, but now we have an America and it's going to be good. It's going to be good. This would be funnier. Yeah, we'll just do this to you. I'll say the word, and I'll say it in a sentence.

You're going to guess what it is. Then I'm going to say what it is. Okay. And you're all going to tell me if there's an Australian equivalent for it. Oh, there we go. Okay. The word chippy. what UK and I would say I'm going to the chippy where am I going?

Sounds like the bathroom. Okay now tell me do you know what the chippy is you don't have to tell me exactly. Is it the fish and chip shop? It is. Yeah but we would call a chippy a carpenter. A carpenter? Yeah. Yeah, it would be a chippy.

So what would you call a fish and chip shop? Fish and chip shot. Not what I have here. What have you got there? Fisho. No. No. Well, I hope these aren't all the,

bad as this. If someone is a plonker, what are they? A dumbass. Pretty fucking good. You're correct. Plonker. You got a word? Wanker. Yeah, we got wanker. That's ours actually. You can't have that. There is one in Australia. It's an old school one. An old school one. Drongo. Oh, yeah. I wouldn't have thought of that, but that is one. Dronger. I have used that. Yeah, I know. Australians use it all the time. So why am I doing this? This is supposed to be a fun bit. You know what? I've toured the world for so long that it's been fucking sucked out of me. I try so hard to just keep it with me.

Like I'll deliberately say UK words when I'm here. Yeah. I'm fucking stick the fucking union jack in the ground. Not in a racist way. I think, you know what? We started touring the world in 2010. And if we spoke like that to Americans back then, like now, I mean talking to Johnny, we don't really have to tone it down much.

When we talk too fast, Johnny and Joe are just like, I don't know, man. Madison is the same. Yeah. If someone's absolutely knackered, what are they? I think that means they're drunk. Tired. Tired, yeah. I'm fucking knackard.

Have you heard me say that before? Yeah. You got a different word for that? Beat. I got buggered. Oh, we've got bugged, yeah. Australians bugged. That's right. Yeah, I'm bugged.

Which in the UK would mean anal sex. Yeah, but if you say bugger off, it means fuck off like it's anal sex. So if you're buggered, it means you've been. fucked. It certainly does. Yes. Okay. Not going as well as I thought it would, but it might be entertaining. Right. If something's dodgy, what is it? That's like sketchy, I think, yeah. It is. You got a word for that? Just hit me. Shonky. Shonky. Yeah. Shonky would be like something's not put together properly. Yeah, that'd be dodgy. Yeah, but dodgy could be like that. Well, I've got something shonky up here. Well, shonky. I was looking for something, shonky.

There's nothing shonky. Nothing shonky. Nothing shonky. Yeah. Well, fucking Google's done me dirty here. Right, I'm nipping to the Lou. What does that mean? Well, yeah, like going to the bathroom. Going in the bathroom. Taking a lot of Coke. It's kind of the giveaway.

Not anymore, sadly. You got a different word for Lou? Dunny. Dunny. And Dunny was what we were looking for in this completely dog shit segment. Well, it's dog shit. I feel like Google AI has done your dirty here. It was actually full blown a page, but it could have been written by AI.

I think you can't tell anymore. AI is writing its own code with its own pages and then giving its own search results. There was about 50 of them and I picked the ones that I'm pretty sure I'd heard. I mean, they're all... I've heard, Dany. That was good. Shonky was good. Yeah, Shonky I haven't heard since I was like fucking 10.

Bughead was from the website. So, like, I didn't know that one. And Drongo, I've heard a million times. You're fucking Drongo. Yeah, but Bugget is one of those cutesy words that's actually really fucked up to say. Like, because it does mean exactly what it means. Like, bugger me. Literally means fuck me up the ass.

And when you say I'm buggered, you're saying I've been fucked in the ass. I've been fucked in the ass, yeah. Which, you know, shouldn't really be derogatory. No, but Australia's, some people fuck up the ass. That's it. Australia is like that. All right, we're just fucking freestyle now. Okay.

What's the most shonky dune you've been to on tour? Italy? 100% Italy. You know when they say when you start touring over in Europe and, you know, every band does this they're trying to say they're playing in in Milan for example and and you're not you're playing 45 minutes outside yeah out and you're not even outside of Milan you're outside of the district of Milan so there's the edge of Milan and then you're further than that so we pull up everyone's like hungover like obviously this is like 2009 or 10 i can't remember and uh oh no

2011 sorry with these nuts with louis nucks like a rapper or a hardcore band and a fucking emo metalcore band altogether and uh i can't remember the other band they're really good real bad was in it before he was into his nuts anyway we get there and it's my friend todd and i louis nucks r i yep rip good man great man great we went like needed to shit and we go into the dunny and the dunny is two metal great great where your feet are like grip and a hole and not like a big hole like a little like a slippery dip for your shit yeah it's just like a slit yeah no and no doors stand up and shit so there's like five five shit holes like actual shit holes now i don't i don't know if it's because same experience

every time we go to italy i don't know if that's just like when they build a venue they're like there's put a fucking shit toilet in there or if that's normal in it I don't know, but you have to stand up to shit. They're all. Shonky, shonky, shonky, don'ty. Yeah, I don't know. That's worse than prison. Like, you have to shit.

You don't get fucked up the ass in the venue in my land. Says who? Bug it. You don't get bugged. A bit buggering going on. I'm sure there's been some buggering going on. Consensual buggering. How many tours have you done, like, worldwide?

Worldwide, I don't, I really. It hasn't been many. Have you been to Australia before this? No, no, this is my first trip to history. Hang on, let me correct that. That's your second trip to Australia. Well, first tour. Yeah.

We flew him out for the Let the Ocean take me tour because we were not confident Aaron could do the whole thing. So you were just there? He was there. He was in every city. Just in case? Yeah. Did Aaron know?

No. You were just flew in and you were in the hotel somewhere, just waiting on the call. Separate, but waiting on the call. And he didn't know. Fuck me. Did you pay him for that? Yeah. Fucking sick.

That's a fucking dream job. Of course we did. Being on fucking call. That's sick. Have you been to the UK? Yeah. Yeah. In my last band.

And Europe, I imagine. And Europe. Yeah, mainly. Anyway, you haven't been yet. South Asia.

I've only been there to surf. We've been trying to go there. You haven't played there. That's the one thing I miss about being in a band. Yeah. Yeah. South East Asia tours. I'm trying.

I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm trying. I haven't been to Japan I don't know if that's the same area I still technically Asia Asia Asia Asia just Asia

Asian do you want to chime in Just Asia that would be the correct way Confirmed Yeah right Like South Asian is like Indian India is South Asia No I think India has its own It goes to like Lao Thai

Yeah that's Southeast Asia Yeah So you just have been Asian And then I live in Oceania It's like Yeah. Let the ocean

Ocean take me. Yes, there's a good one. No, he's so, so unhappy. Right, anyway,

you got this tour coming up. Yeah. What? They don't know there is a cut. I know they don't know. Now they know. Because I come in with this to end the podcast

and now you're laughing about it. No, God, I'm not laughing. I'm going to say, I hope you have a lovely tour. So do I. It continues to go well with him.

Yeah. Do you drink at all? At home, I'll have, you know, some drinks here and there with my partner. I've seen him have two, I've seen him have two beers. Keep your fucking, keep your eyes on it. Yeah, a couple beers with Dan for his birthday. That's true, yeah. That was like before the tour started.

Yeah, Dan, Dan will get drunk like four or five times a year. Mm-hmm. But he does it. Yeah, I'm little and often. No, I'm often and little. Yeah. What's the, whatever. You get it.

I like, I'll binge drink like once a month. Yeah, perfect. I just do it to the point where the next day I'm like, I'm not doing that ever again. And then it comes back. I'm pretty good at. Look, not everyone has a problem with it. Many other problems.

Yeah. Well, I wish you the best, guys. Thanks for coming. I really appreciate you coming. We really just fucking rambled, but it was good. My segment fucking flopped. Trying so hard to make cool segments. It fucking flopped.

Anyway, I love you. It's been fucking good to hang out. I've seen you in fucking years. Thanks, guys.