[Music]
Hey everybody, welcome back, welcome back to Phantom Power Music.
This is the Artist Hour series where we interview unsigned artists from around the world.
This is episode four, we got a great one for you today, really cool band out of Pittsburgh,
called Herb of War, who are just getting into the whole Bitcoin value for value world.
What is value for value? That is the exchange of value between the listener and the artists
that they hear on these musical broadcasts, or between the listener and the podcast host.
That is where the listener can send in little pieces of Bitcoin, otherwise known as Satoshi's,
directly through those modern podcasting 2.0 apps that you are listening to this show on,
such as Podverse, Podfans, Curiocaster, Fountain, things like that, looked up podcasting 2.0 apps
through Google that, you will find these amazing apps where you can listen to podcasts and send in
little pieces of Bitcoin directly via Lightning Network and some cool wallets,
splitting technologies and all that kind of fun stuff that I talk about on so many other shows.
Anyways, great interview with a couple of the guys from this band out of Pittsburgh,
called Herb of War, we are going to be talking to Matt, the singer,
Anthony the drummer and Nick, who is the sound guy and part-time bass player and definitely
kind of like the sounds like he is the band historian and the band sound guy, that type of dude,
and every band needs a dude like that, he is a really cool guy.
But we are going to listen to their most recent single first, which is called On the Walk Home,
we are going to play that and then we will play the extended interview with these guys.
Hope you got your wallets all stacked up with some Bitcoin and you can send some sats to these
fellas. This is a really cool, really unique band that spans a lot of genres and they kept me guessing
and that is why they are on the show because I think they are really hip. So I will shut up,
let's play their latest single called On the Walk Home and then we will bring them on the show.
Here we go.
Boys are waiting for a sign of an engagement spot in your eyes to show me a path which
is doing a bar. It never came so high-state and dark.
Just come with me and grab our start of the track.
We got caught in the snow before we had done.
With no sound around.
We're taking to the mine as we walk slow.
And I'm lost, I have walked to the spot.
Then we knew this quite on The Walk Home would be slow.
And I'm lost, I have walked to the spot.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(loud laughter)
like if I were to, like if you guys were mixing my band.
and I said, Hey man, put some grease on that kick.
What do you think grease would be?
- Posey! - Nick?
(laughs)
- Something that's gonna give it some nice fat character.
- You know grease?
- Have you guys ever heard that?
You guys never heard that?
- I am old man. (laughs)
- Well, it's really, it's really. - I'll read you for it.
- Okay, actually never, I didn't know that.
Posey, we make, we pick one of him for having greasy air,
'cause Italian and he's our drummer.
So I would probably say something related to that.
- Drama or greasy? (laughs)
- Love it, love it.
Well let's just dive right in.
I mean, shit, I might even just, uh,
if I'd even just edit out the first couple of seconds of that,
but thank you guys for joining me.
We've got Matt, Anthony and Nick, right?
- Right. - Yep.
- Okay, now who, just, now what,
we're not gonna use the video, we're just gonna use the audio.
Like who's who here?
Which one's Matt?
- Matt. - Okay, Matt's on the right.
- Yeah, you're Matt. - Matt in the middle.
- Matt in the middle, Anthony.
- Right here. - Anthony on the right
and then Nick on the left.
All right, let me make a note over here so I can,
so I know who, Nick on the left.
And you guys are joining us from Pittsburgh,
the city of bridges, the city of city.
- Greatest city in the world.
- Right on.
And we just heard, we started off the podcast
with a little intro and then I played on the walk home
and then we're gonna do at the end of the show,
I'll take it out with pixelated smile.
But you guys are really fascinating to me.
Like every, like, what is the origin story of herbivore?
- I guess I'll take this one away a little bit.
It pretty much started with me and Anthony.
We used to work at an Italian restaurant together
and then we met there and I went over to hang out
and he had a drum set there and I was like,
"I'll do it, he played drums and stuff."
And he's like, "Yeah man, you play guitar and stuff?"
I was like, "Yeah."
And then we started jamming and that's pretty much it.
The true origin.
- Okay, well, I think Anthony might have...
- Yeah, he's got a different side of the story there.
- Well, no, I'll second that because that's pretty much
how it happened, however, just to give a little bit more
detail in context, maybe when we started playing,
I was, I don't know, a couple years out of playing
in another band and I didn't think I was really gonna play
in another band post coming to college
and then we started jamming and I was like,
"There's something here that I haven't felt in a while
since I really actually play with my cousin
and had a certain, I don't wanna say vibe,
but had that, had a certain presence with each other,
certain feel.
We had a certain feel and I was like,
this is cool and I think from there,
we just hung out and would play music and piss off the neighbors
and piss off the fraternity and sorority girls
as they walk past.
- Yeah, it was interesting.
I suppose he was a punk drummer when I met him,
straight up thrash or a fellow punk drummer.
- Very much a punk drummer still,
but obviously, Erberwurst and punk music.
So I think I kind of helped him go outside of his realm
of drum playing and he also brought a lot of good,
kind of drive to my more mellow writing style,
like acoustic based stuff,
which really helped to spice up the songs
and give a feel that we thought was pretty unique.
So.
- Nick, what do you play, dude?
- I play the sound console typically,
sometimes I pick up a bass, but I kind of enter the picture.
I mean, anything's drums were the first thing I recorded,
way back when he wrote the street for me.
So we've been tight and then he kind of contacted me
and was like, hey, kind of working with these guys
playing some music.
He's like, okay, let's go on and some tracks and stuff.
So when in for a weekend and we recorded an entire album,
I mean, we did some follow up, but I was like, hey,
I think there's a band here, guys.
- Yeah, and now are you talking about the two-south
2017 release of college years?
- Yeah, when we, the first time I met Nick was the day
that we started recording that album.
And we also met our buddy Kevin who does keyboards.
That was the first time I'd met him through Anthony here.
He's like, oh, my friend plays keys,
he'll come down and play too.
So the first time we played as a band,
we actually recorded that album.
- Damn.
Well, the reason why you guys are so interesting to me
is like, is twofold, number, while it's more than twofold.
But for starters, I look on your socials and I see
an eight person band and I'm like, oh, sweet Jesus,
how the hell's that work, right?
And then, and we'll get into that.
But then I like, when I listen to your tracks,
like if I listen to like smoke stacks or college debt,
I'm like, okay, this is a grunge band.
It's got a little, maybe it's a little bit of Beastie boys, right?
And then I hear pixelated smile and I'm like,
okay, it's just like emo pop.
Like, I dig it all.
I'm not bagging on any of it, please don't get me wrong.
But like you guys have such a wide sound.
And then you pull off something really wacky,
like birds aren't real, right?
But. - That was an amp.
- But you guys have such a wide sound.
Like as I was listening to, I think it was pixelated smile
earlier and just taking some notes.
Like I'm hearing a little bit of aquarium rescue unit,
a little bit of leftover salmon.
If you guys know that band out of Boulder.
- Oh yeah.
Like you guys can be grungy, you can be a bit of a jam band.
You can be, you're completely willing
to have a lot of fun and put wacky stuff out there too.
So that's, that huge sound is what enticed me.
And I think I wrote about that or I mentioned that
in one of the review blogs.
- Yeah, no, I think it's reflective of our own musical tastes
because like we said from the beginning,
I come from a certain background and I know Matt
comes from a certain background, but we're always finding
similarities in the bands that we listen to.
Our expanded is a really good example
because our expanded has their first albums of Scott Punk album.
But you know, they have fully grown into current day Rx
which would be frog, rock, you know, hard rock
and intricate drum parts, intricate guitar parts,
awesome vocals.
And I think it, it's just led into credence too
that the fact that a lot of the bands that, you know,
we have a wide variety of bands that we listen to.
But of those bands, those bands themselves are versatile,
you know, and not only one dimensional.
- Yeah, and to piggyback off that,
I think, I think that are, how we intentionally change things,
we've actually received some critiques from people on that,
like, oh, it's not cohesive enough, right?
And I admit, it really wasn't.
But the college years was now, there was just an amalgam
of things that we had done that we slapped together.
It wasn't supposed to be cohesive.
We didn't have like a point to doing it, right?
Aside from just doing it.
- Yeah, yeah.
- And, you know, one of my favorite bands, Faith No More,
is a band that can do heavy metal, rock, jazz, country.
And they still keep that within a cohesive lane, you know what I mean?
Like, so, I'm inspired by bands like that.
And I just think, I think too much cohesion is really good,
especially for an album, but it also kind of just gets a little boring
and stuff starts sounding the same sometimes to me, so.
- Yeah, and let me correct myself.
It wasn't pixelated smile when I was listening to that,
that kind of got me thinking of leftover salmon
and the Quarim Rescue Unit.
It was on the walk home, I apologize.
- Okay.
- Who totally different songs, like the back end of on the walk home
is where I really went, okay, I'm back in Boulder
and ingesting things I shouldn't be ingesting in those things.
(laughs)
- Right.
- So that's what I apologize, I'm a spoke.
But how do you, so are the three of you guys,
the Quarre of the band, or is it,
and you bring in the other five, or like,
what's the line up of the band?
- The Quarre would be me and Anthony originally,
and then we brought in my buddy, Chris,
who was playing bass for a lot of the original Herbervor stuff,
and then our buddy, Jake, who came in,
did a little bass and guitar.
The Quarre unit would be me, Matt, Anthony, Chris,
Heaven and Jake, and then Nick, of course, just managing it all.
Aside from that, we got older, we graduated college,
and then we're like, oh man, we're gonna be done playing music,
and then we all just ended up moving the Pittsburgh anyway,
where we were all just here.
So it was like, kind of just like an extended college stay,
you know what I mean?
'Cause we're just a bunch of 30-year-old dudes,
still in the same region, able to continue having fun.
However, some of us have just fallen off
because of life things, and it's not like they're out of the band,
but they don't have enough time to come practice and do things
that is consistently as I would like.
So then we just kind of searched outward for other good musicians
who could fit with us, and then, you know,
when we get like a bigger show or something,
we all just get together and say, well, yeah, let's do it.
And even the people that haven't been playing or practicing
with us, we invite them back too,
'cause there's always a place and sound that can be added
to make a pretty magical live experience.
- Yeah, and I'd like to, I think,
I pride ourselves on being able to show up
if it's just Matt and I, or Kevin and Matt,
or Matt and Sarah, or, I mean, there was one point,
it was, a Nervivore song was played,
while Matt was in California, it was me, Kevin, Chris,
playing Nervivore, and Kevin took the lead vocals.
So there's a band called "Bond the Music Industry"
that was really good at doing that, which Jeff Rosenstock,
back in the early 2000s, there was like 13 people in the band,
and some nights, Jeff himself would just show up,
or Jeff and a saxophone player, or Jeff in the drummer,
and I've always kind of wanted to emulate that within the band.
- Love that.
That's cool.
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of, it's, I mean,
it reminds me of Nashville a little bit,
just because like there's always a revolving cast of characters
behind whoever the artist is, right?
Like, I mean, you got in the road,
and you can have a completely different band
from one week to next.
But music, and I think this gets back to your earlier point,
Matt, and Anthony, about the vibe that you guys felt
that first day that you guys were jamming,
and once you find a good bunch of people,
it's not hard to find that vibe again
when you pick it back up, right?
And I've often thought of,
and tell me if you disagree with this,
maybe I'm just old and nuts, but like,
when you have a friendship, somebody,
your friendship is at a certain level,
like, you know, let's say that friendship is at like four feet,
and then when you have a life partner,
or a family member, you know, it's probably at five feet,
but man, when you start playing in a band
and you start communicating with a completely different language.
That level of communication is up higher.
Do you guys agree with that?
- I would 100% agree with that.
The dynamic of a relationship is different,
and it's important to maintain,
to what you say, the four foot relationship,
but there's that added, again, to use your analogy,
that extra two feet that is sometimes hard to navigate,
so you're not only just getting together
with your buddies to watch the football game
and drink and beer when your wives let you, like,
no, this is something that it's important to me,
it's important to everybody that's a part of it,
and it's deeper and outlasts anything that comes up in life.
And sometimes things come up in life that, you know,
take precedence, however, it's important to remember
where you came from and maintain that friendship,
and ultimately the connection that you have artistically.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, I can definitely communicate with the band members,
just as friends, better than my family anyway,
so then you add that extra,
you add that extra step of, you know,
that different language, that feel,
that, you know, it's, I don't envy people
who don't experience that kind of connection without talking.
- Right, and not that, like, people that aren't in bands
with their friends aren't less of friends.
That's not at all what we're saying,
and I don't think that's what you're saying either, but--
- No, it's just friends.
- Yeah, yeah, it's, I consider myself lucky that, you know,
I could also just, any one of us is good enough musicians
to go out and try out for, you know, being a studio guitarist
or a studio drummer, and, you know,
but what I yearn and what I,
and what I crave is that connection with your friends
when you're playing music.
It's really ultimately why we do it.
- Yeah, I mean, if you're not a musician,
if you're not in a band, it's so hard to understand it.
I remember I was on a golf course with my dad talking about,
hey, Kitty, what's up?
What's the cat's name, by the way?
- It's Venom.
- Venom, I love it.
What a beautiful name.
- He's a prince.
But I remember being on a golf course with my dad
having this conversation, my dad is old school, right?
He's like, you know, nothing's stronger than family,
family, family, family.
I'm like, no man, you ever played in a band?
- You know what?
- Yeah, why do you judge me all the time, dad?
(laughs)
- And I love my dad.
He said, he's an absolute sweetheart.
I couldn't ask for a better father, but I couldn't add,
but it's like, how do I explain this to a guy,
just who has no, the guy could, I mean,
carry a tune in a bucket, but that's about it, right?
Like if you've never been in a band, you just don't,
you don't get it.
You don't get that vibe.
You don't understand that level of communication.
You know, and I think, and even for Nick,
like, sometimes you play bass and,
and sometimes you run and sound,
but on those nights that you run and sound,
dude, you're part of the band too, you know?
- Yeah, and I am a band.
I'm pretty much running sound most of the time.
I had bassist rare occasion, but yeah, I mean,
when I stepped in, I didn't feel part of the band,
really, I was there to like, you know, capture stuff,
capture what was happening,
and then as we just did more and more shows, you know,
it was, you know, it's clear.
Yeah, I'm part of the band.
I'm just playing a different part.
I'm making sure things sound good out in front of house
so that they sound the best they can
when we're in a live scenario.
I mean, I hear a bunch of bands that, you know,
could maybe sound a little bit better live.
And there's a lot of stuff going on in this band,
so like, I'm riding faders all the time.
- Yeah.
- Well, and also, I think, you know,
Nick's contributions to the band are pretty much priceless.
A lot of people just don't have somebody
who has the skillset, like Nick,
I sure as fuck don't, to like actually make that sound
what we want, but also stick around for years
and years and years doing it, you know, like,
so we show up someplace and we have a whole sound system
with us too.
Like it catches people off guard sometimes, like,
oh, we're like, we show up to a venue
and Nick's like talking to the sound guy there
and he's like, I'm gonna do sound tonight
and the sound guy's like, oh, fuck yeah,
I get to sit back and just chill, you know?
(laughs)
Yeah.
- And we're kind of spoiled in that way, you know?
- I wish every band had that because, I mean,
it's just, it's invaluable to have a great FLH
who knows the set list, who knows the songs
and as a musician as well can jump in and ride the faders.
- Yeah, 100%.
- And even knows the inner workings of a show, you know?
Like we can just show up and Nick will understand
just very basic load-in time.
Like, you know, the importance of load-in
and the significance of a good sound check, you know?
That goes a long way for a band.
- Yeah.
Yeah, let's talk to me, let's dive into on the walk home
if we could please, just that single.
I wrote down one, two, three, four, five things about it
that I absolutely love and maybe you guys can dive into it.
Number one is the extensions, the cordial extensions
coming in off the electric.
Like, you know, playing the, playing the dominant cord
on the four, playing the 13 off the tonic.
Like, just beautiful shit, loved it.
I loved the rolling pattern on the acoustic,
the drone pattern, the drum pattern
and how it was mixed and produced
and I'm assuming Nick, that was you, the track,
the, who does, dude, nice job.
Lead vocals and Matt, did you lay that down?
Okay, the lead vocal was killer.
I love how the spoken context of it.
- Thank you.
- By the way, some of your other tracks,
some of your other tracks, I got a hint of Jeff Buckley
every now and then.
- I did that sometimes, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
But not only did I love the lead vocal in the way it was delivered,
but the dichotomy of having the female vocal
on the background was great.
- Yeah, because I sang that song so low,
I'm sure when Nick was recording it,
you know, everything was turned up just to like kind of hear it.
I like the feel of that as opposed to just,
I have, I consider the voice to be an instrument in itself.
So most of the stuff you hear,
I might be singing a little bit differently on most tracks.
That one in particular, very low kind of,
I guess you'd call it grooming kind of vocals.
So it was just like, oh yeah.
So if we kind of just like grace those vocals
with a female counterpart,
but without harmonizing or anything,
like she's singing the same thing,
it'll help that stand out a little bit more
and kind of pierce through a little bit more.
Also the song being kind of a love song and whatnot,
it just helps the whole theme of that song too, right?
- Yeah, it just expands the whole palette of the whole track
when, you know, it's kind of like,
it's the old flu with Mac trick.
- Yeah, and then regards to like the, you know,
so my playing style is very full on the acoustic guitar.
I grew up trying to play acoustic instrumentals
where you kind of use the whole guitar as an instrument, right?
So when I bring ideas to the band,
it's like, okay, there's a lot going on with this acoustic guitar.
How can we still add to it without being too much?
Which the electric guitar you were talking about there is Chris,
he's really good at kind of hearing what I'm doing
and just adding that texture when it's right
to kind of really fill it out.
- Nice paint.
- Yeah, and I think to build on that with drums
alluding to what we initially talked about
when we first met, it was interesting to observe
Matt's guitar work because I was able to appoint
the mimic, the strumming because it is itself a rhythmic pattern
in a beat and I can follow that if I would like to,
which I tend to especially on that song
and almost have a melodic feel with drums.
- Yeah.
- So that kind of adds an extra layer there of what Matt's doing.
- Where did you guys track it?
- Yeah, that was up at my buddy's place,
Ron State College, Pennsylvania, he's got a nice little studio
at the top of his warehouse and we took a week
to record that album and it was nice
'cause he had a place where we could stay
and so we just woke up every day, went to the studio
and then came back and mixed and did some vocal stuff
and separate little house.
But we did all of album too in a week.
- Yeah, just kind of immersed ourselves in it,
like nothing else, you know?
- Is that like the best kind of work?
- Is that the new album coming up or are you talking
about one of the EPs, that's the new album?
- Yes. - Okay, cool.
So I put the studio, just talked to me,
what walked through some of the gear that you were using,
what we should do, what the favorite mics,
all that kind of nerdy shit.
- I mean, I was just tracking on it, I'm 32
'cause that's all I had.
I mean, my choice, I'm not too picky.
I come from the live world, so I get it up and get it going.
I can work with pretty much anything.
You know, I'll spend some time getting some stuff
mic'd up the way I want to.
But we tracked it all live,
so we were basically there getting drums and bass
and I think we dubbed guitars and most of everything else.
But I mean, we kept some of the actual live takes in there
for tracks, I think.
But yeah, I mean, just a standard mic locker.
There's nothing too crazy and special.
We did go to a little session in Milk Boy, the studio,
and that's when I got to have a lot of fun
with an SSL console on all the Outboard gear,
and we found all the good patch cables in the bad patch cables.
It just, the way it sounds feels different
than what I'm getting right now,
and all of our stuff in the future were going to make some changes there.
But we were just working with what we had
and we were just focused on trying to get the tracks in.
Well, it sounds great.
Yeah, it sounds great.
Nick, you were going to, or Anthony, I'm sorry,
you were going to say something?
No, I was just going to, again,
to add some context to the timeline.
The tracking of album too,
it took place how long after the tracking of album one,
not even about a year.
Yeah, not very long.
So it would have been, we tracked the spring of 2016.
The first album came out 2017,
and then we tracked essentially this album to January of 2018.
Yep.
You track, the next record you tracked five years ago?
Six years ago?
Yeah.
That's true.
Okay, so then explain to me why you sat on it.
I mean, I know you had a five song release,
Live at Milncoy Studio in 2020,
and then yet another five song released in 2022,
can't take him out.
So why'd you sit on this record for five years?
The first pitch was me moving to California,
shortly after that for a little fellowship
for like the less important career that I want to pursue.
And then, so that kind of threw us off for a little bit.
So we were trying to do some things.
We actually released a single "Win's a Change"
while I was in California.
So we were trying to do some stuff,
but like, okay, let's just kind of wait on album too a little bit.
I came back close to 2020,
and I think what would just, a lot of us,
just going back and forth with how we were,
it just been a chaotic journey of this album.
Weird life, yeah.
I also took a long time to do so.
It happens, right?
White happens, start careers.
And we have tried to plan to release it at certain points,
and then keep wanting to make some changes,
and we hear some different things.
And also, just going through code and everything,
I'm kind of glad we have content to sit on
and now that we're feeling ready to finally push it out.
We don't have to worry as much,
'cause even some of the previous EPs,
it was still, I have the album to work on,
but then, okay, let's work on this now.
So it's gonna be time spent on that.
And we kind of rush those two to get them out and release them.
So, we feel a little bit more comfortable with album two
to release it and give it the time it deserves.
And it's, we're excited to finally push it out
and we're excited to stop running the tracks back again
and again.
- Yeah, how much reworking and re-reporting and remixing
did you do?
- I mean, not a ton of recording.
It's mainly stuff with the mix and I'll work on stuff
for maybe one day on a weekend
and then I won't touch things for another two weeks.
- Yeah.
- You know, stuff gets in the way, but.
- But it was also like, you know,
we've gotten better at recording.
Like, we're already working on future songs
and they're already kind of, you know, subjectively sounding
even a little better than that.
So it's like, now that we have stuff to compare it to
that we know we can do, we go back, listen to them too.
We're like, oh shit, we could probably change this a little bit
now and make this sound better.
So like, again, it's like, I assume most musicians experience
this where they, it's, there comes a point where it's just like,
okay, it is what it is we need to release it
and stop dwelling on it.
But from a live standpoint, sitting on all this album,
or sitting on the sound for so long,
it's actually given us time to build up a presence
and it's actually some notoriety around the city
and stuff like that.
And like, I don't know if we wanted
to release it five years ago when no one really knew about us,
right?
'Cause then, you know, so now it's like, okay,
we're actually gaining some traction
and now we have a whole album to release.
So in a way, it kind of works in that, in our favor, I think.
- That's a good point.
I mean, because you had 12 songs on the college years, right?
And then if you're gonna drop another 12 songs,
following year, you know, you're starting
an interesting precedent.
It's like, well, shit, we're gonna put it on a record every year.
- Yeah, we're not poor to the man or anything like that.
(laughing)
And I think it adds to the whole essence of the band itself,
because the intent was to record the college years
because we wanted to record the songs
so we can go back and listen to them
when we're all off in Hawaii, in Russia,
in China doing our own separate things.
Obviously that didn't happen.
So now we're here, figuring out where to go next, you know?
- And also, one last comment on this,
because when we first recorded album too,
it was much like the college years
where we kind of just got together
and we laid down what we knew.
But then we played those songs live together
for the next several years.
And they were like, oh, this sounds so much better.
So we even went back and made changes
based on actually playing it live.
- Right, so I think it's helped us a lot in that regard.
- Well, the other big thing too is, you know,
Matt, your voice, I mean, your voice changed.
- It's gotten better, yeah.
- You know, I mean, you get older and you get older
and you get a couple of more notes
and you get a couple more buckets of gravel in your throat.
You know, I mean, your voice just changes over time, right?
- Yeah, and like, I mean, there's old videos,
like 13, 14 years old on YouTube, I'm listening to them.
I'm like, man, I sucked, it's singing.
But it's truly something that if you do it all the time,
you really learn how to fine tune your larynx, you know?
- It's possible.
- Yeah, exactly.
So like, yeah, it's definitely gotten better
and I think you'll even hear more development
in the vocal field after album too.
- Okay.
Well, talk to me a little bit about the local following.
I mean, I see you guys doing some local gigs,
you were playing some festivals,
the summer you do some house parties.
Like, what are your local shows like?
- So, yeah, we had a decent summer
with some of the local festivals, Millville Festival
is always a great one and we really appreciate
the festival and the community that they bring together.
All the arts come together on a weekend
and from Millville to the local breweries.
There's just, we have a solid group of friends
that would come out, but then we have an additional,
you know, five people that will come with our friends
and then that five turns into 10
and that 10 may turn into 20.
And, you know, we are in extracurriculars as well.
You know, we'll go to the climbing gym
so we've made friends through there.
Obviously, co-workers and other bands that obviously,
we play with that always support each other.
Pittsburgh is a very interesting place right now
with the local music scene.
There's some national attention on some bands
and there's a lot here to offer in terms of
the type of music that's being played.
- Yeah, and, you know, we didn't, we kind of always just,
I think that's maybe the reason why we keep doing this stuff
is because we constantly are just checking off
like little milestones, you know, like guitar here
or something where eventually you're playing on that big stage.
You know, like, it's like, oh, we want to go to Pittsburgh
and play here and then we did it.
You know, oh, now we want to, you know, play it this more,
like this more known venue and we did it.
It's like, oh, we want to get on festival
and then we did it and then we went ahead
line the festival and then we did it.
And it's just like, we kept hitting these little milestones.
So, and then, you know, and once we got more followers that way,
it's like, okay, well, let's throw some bangin' house shows,
you know, just to have fun.
So we, we, we throw some pretty good parties up here too.
Again, most of that is because Nick has like $10,000
with the lights in the basement, you know,
it's a pretty good experience.
- Yeah, we, we, we, we can have a good time.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Nick's got a good side job as what you said.
- Mm-hmm.
- Lucrative, it's not bad.
(laughing)
- I mean, we have a big shit, but.
- Well, is the goal, you know, for some bands,
you know, they're like, hey, we just wanna play regionally
and just, you know, we're just gonna release music
and we don't really care about getting a deal and getting major
and other bands are like, nah, nah, we're in it for the long haul.
We, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna try
and play three River Stadium.
Like, what's the goal for you guys?
What's the long term goal?
- Well, I think to kind of what Matt just said,
we kept taking off the milestones.
The goal was to, was to record songs that were created
by the quote, core of the band in college.
And then we did it.
That's a good question.
And I think it's worth, it's kind of worth talking about here now.
What is the goal?
- Uh-oh.
Did I start an argument?
- I think our goal is to travel outside,
stay a little bit, play some shows.
We'd love to get an opening act with someone who has some
cloud or like a draw, you know, all that classic band shit.
I, we would love to get on some bigger festivals
or even smaller festivals, you know, just like,
we're kind of at the point now where it's like,
we've been doing this for so long
and we're finally starting to get a little bit of recognition
but it's still even not that much.
So it's like, we're trying to figure out ways to expand
and to have different ears here our stuff.
So that maybe just somebody who has any kind of pool
can be like, hey, well, I heard these guys
and just give us a recommendation, you know?
So I think that's more or less the goal is real.
Like I wanna keep going with it.
There's some people in our band who are pretty content
with not pursuing it much further
but me and Anthony are still, you know,
driving towards that goal pretty hard
and Nick is too for sure.
- Yeah, I'm there and it's a thing that's like,
we get offers to play some shows and it's like, okay,
do we wanna do that again or are we gonna save our time
for, you know, an opportunity that makes a little bit more
sense for everyone to come out to?
- Which is cool because before we've never,
you know, we would take any show at all, you know?
It's just like, yeah, of course, we gotta get out there,
we're gonna play it.
But we're to the point now, it's like, well,
we don't really need to do that show.
It might not really benefit us,
which is kind of cool to have that option.
- And I mean, to everyone, what everyone's saying here,
but what is the goal of bands now in 2023
as a working class band, as a band that goes to work every day?
Sonic Youth did it until they had their reunion show.
Like, what was their goal?
You know, I don't know what the goal is.
All I know is is that I enjoy playing music
and if I can continue to have these connections
with people that we play music in front of
in other states and other countries,
then I will do anything I can to do that.
- That's a great, it's a great approach.
- Yeah, I really think too.
It's like, you know, so people get turned off
when music becomes like a little business,
but I think we actually get pretty stoked on that.
It's cool to actually allocate your mental energy
to something that you really wanna do
and maybe profit off it a little bit at the same time, right?
But that was never the goal, but at the same time,
it's like, you know, we've had some riffs in the band,
it's like, oh, this doesn't feel like we're friends anymore.
It's getting like too serious
and it's like, okay, we gotta take a step back
and you know, accommodate everybody's needs.
But I want to get to the point where music feels kind of
like a business.
It's not gonna make any less fun for me.
- You have to treat it like a business.
I had a podcast the other day with two guys
that are deep into the Bitcoin world
and they're both, they both, I mean Bitcoin is their day job.
Let's put it that way.
And they're both musicians on the side
and we talked about, you know,
bringing musicians into the space
and we were just kind of riffing on the idea
that a lot of musicians forget that it's still a business.
And that's, you know, it's all great that we love doing,
you know, touchy-feely songs and art
and pushing the ball forward for humanity, you know,
I mean, if there's more art in the world,
to me, there's more art, there's more love
and there's less war.
I mean, you know, there's less shit, you know?
- Amen, really?
- Yeah, but you know, it's still a business
and you know, you're up against people
who are far less talented than you
who for whatever reason got a lucky break, you know?
Or, you know, they're far less talented than you
and their uncle's like, yeah, I'll give you $100,000
to pimp that thing on TikTok, you know?
- Yeah, so that's the thing we're looking for
is really that lucky break, right?
Let's like, I don't think skill alone is gonna do it.
We need a little bit more.
- Work ethic.
- Work ethic, being at the right place
at the right time, doing the right thing at the right time.
Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol, one of the greatest contemporary artists,
modern artists of the 20th century,
viewed his work, viewed his art as a business
and you look at his earlier illustrations,
they were clear, clearly human, great, great pieces of work
and then it became what is known to be pop art
and he was pushing the limits to what it was
to make art at the time and he viewed it all as,
I got to show up, I got to continue to do the work,
I'm at the factory, I don't care if people are here,
you know, on drugs or drinking, you're here to do the work
and you are here to make a product.
- Yeah.
- You know, definitely not in the basement.
- Well, I think, and I think
that there has never been a better time to be
an independent musician than now.
And part of what you're doing is part of the reason why I'm so excited
and it's the reason, and it's how I found you
and that's wayblake and bitcoin and I know you guys are just,
you know, you're pretty new to it.
You know, you got about 16,000 sats in there
but you've over on wayblake but I see you guys getting some spins
on my show and Adam Curry show and some other people.
How did you guys, and just so you know like where I come from,
I don't know if you heard any of the previous shows,
but I was in LA from '95 to '03,
I did the singer songwriter thing.
I spent four years on the road as a musician
and I still play for fun around town, around Nashville.
It's not my day job anymore, but I still adore the industry,
of course, and just got into a hard pour again
because of what I see going on with bitcoin and wayblake
and things like that.
How did you guys come across wayblake?
Oh yeah, you all look like me.
- You sound like I'm like, yeah.
- Yeah, I mean, I've listened to No Jenna and I heard Adam
very talk about it and I looked at it,
I don't know, months and months back,
but didn't do anything with it and then I think it was like,
may or so, I'm like, okay, let me create an account here,
let me sign up and let's just post something.
I mean, I saw it as a way to get to new ears.
Get out of our Spotify and Apple Music crowd already
and try to just branch out.
I mean, there was no downside that I saw.
And if anything, we're getting paid directly
with something that has gone up in value
since we started posting music.
And we've been discussing about releasing more stuff on there.
I've got hours and hours of stuff recorded
from practices, live sets.
I mean, if we're going out and playing,
I'm typically tracking it.
And so we're having discussions about,
what else could we post here?
'Cause it's like, we can kind of post anything.
And you tell me what?
And it's, I don't know, it's a nice refreshing new space.
It's nice that there's a community around it too.
And you can support each other.
You can boost one another.
And I mean, we don't really see a downside to it.
- Now, there is no, at the stands right now.
- Yeah, there is no downside to it.
I mean, the only, I've been talking to a lot of musicians
about bringing the men and the biggest thing I run into
is that they don't know anything about Bitcoin.
But I cannot think of a literal downside to it.
I mean, maybe somebody would say,
well, you know, what if I,
what if I post my music in there
and I make some Bitcoin and then Bitcoin crashes?
I long fucking shot that it's gonna crash.
- That's just going up.
- Yeah, number one.
Number two, okay, my standard response to that is,
okay, how much did you make on Spotify last year?
- Right, yep.
And we've seen just in the streams on the major platforms,
an increase since we started posting on WAPE Lake.
You know, some people I think probably go there
to find new music, find new artists
and then they're rolling back to their original,
daily app every once in a while.
And that's totally fine.
I mean, we're looking for years
and we're definitely seeing them come in.
- Yeah, and as a fan of Bandcamp,
through the good times and the bad times,
I was wondering at first,
what's the difference of someone giving me a dollar
on Bandcamp if they like my song?
But what I've noticed in a little bit of time
and the little bit of discussion that I've had with Nick
on this platform is the community.
Like you said, that's around it.
In the fact that you are willing to sit here
and interview us because you liked our music.
That's, I think, that's the main point.
And also, it's cool to just get the instant to feedback
that it provides.
Like we can see Sats coming in and we can get comments.
So that stuff doesn't happen on Spotify or Apple Music.
Like we don't, we don't feel as validated
on those platforms because we don't,
we might check how many listens we got
once a month or whatever,
but that doesn't like, you know,
it's not personalized kind of like wave-like is, you know?
- Yeah, and that can be a,
like that can be a depressing thing too.
You know, you can, ooh, let me log into my Spotify account
and see how many stairs.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, you know.
Are you guys, are you guys on Noster at all?
Or are you in that world?
- We are not.
- You might, you might want to look into that just as a,
as a way to kind of accentuate the experience.
Notes and other strings, trans-remined on relays, right?
It's all open source.
It works on, you know, iOS and Android.
It's completely censorship free.
So there's a whole community of Noster developers.
These guys and gals are just hardcore,
Bitcoiners, hardcore open source, hardcore anti-sensorship.
And right now what you're gonna find is you're gonna find
a lot of devs that you're gonna find a lot of developers.
And there's not a lot of artists in that space.
So, you know, for you guys to find a client, quote unquote,
you know, something on your phone that works best for you.
Like I'm on Android, I use Amethyst if you're on iOS,
probably Domus.
But maybe open up an account, you know,
herbivore account there and start talking about,
you know, and start following people and making friends
and start pushing your music out there.
And you might find that it helps to grow the community.
- No, that's, that's definitely appreciated.
And if I may ask a question.
You know, you said that you did some time in LA
and actually I did time in Santa Barbara,
but that was only 24 hours.
- And that was, I mean, that seemed to be an interesting time.
That was the time I, it seems that the record industry
was really scrambling because they knew what was,
what was up, what was upcoming.
You'd mentioned that it's a good time
to be an independent artist right now.
That's why you got into the game
and that's why you're doing what you're doing.
What do you see the music industry,
you know, how do you see the music industry playing out
for not only independent artists,
but for established artists right now?
- Oh, that's a great question.
- Get to edit out all this dead air now.
- No, man, it's good, it's good shit.
I love all of it.
I'm excited for independent art,
and if I get off track to stop me,
'cause I'll, 'cause you ask my wife,
I'll talk for two hours.
I'm excited for independent artists more,
more so than I have been before.
Because of the marketing possibilities
that you have at your fingertips for social media,
and I know social media sucks.
I know you're not content creators.
I know the last thing you wanna do
is go out and do TikToks all day.
I know that, I know that.
But you can figure it out yourself
and you don't need to pay anybody to do it.
That's number one.
Number two, as you guys have proven,
and as you can see here, and at home,
you don't need to go to a kick ass studio anymore.
You can do all this stuff yourself, right?
I was in LA when that transition happened
from tape to hard drives.
Like, going from hanging out at Capitol in Oceanway,
and sound on sound and all these places,
and then watching all these studios fall apart
because everybody starts doing it at home, it's fascinating.
So the cost of operating for you guys,
but these independent artists today is a lot lower
than it's ever been.
You have more competition than you've ever had,
unfortunately, that's just a nature of the beast.
On one of the podcasts I talk about how hard it is,
because there's a lot of really shitty musicians out there
that are getting a lot of spins,
and the general public does not know the difference
between somebody who is as good, and fluent,
and perfect in the industry as Taylor Swift,
and somebody who just sucks, and like, you're Aunt Karen,
who, I remember that.
Yeah, you're Aunt Karen,
thinks that the gal who sings at the church is fantastic,
and the gal who sings at the church is awful,
and but your Aunt Karen can't tell the difference
between her and Taylor Swift, right?
So you have more competition, but you have more avenues
of revenues than you've ever had before.
You have less gatekeepers than you've ever had before.
Well, I was coming up, if we wanted to get on the radio,
or if we wanted to get a deal,
it all ran through the major labels,
and pay to play gigs at the whiskey and the rock scene,
and all that shit, and yet you guys don't have that,
you don't have to do it, do it that shit anymore.
And then, oh, now here comes Bitcoin, right?
And you've got artists out there like Joe Martin,
who are doing really well in the space,
even in Ainslickestown doing really well in this space,
where you're like, man, if they really started pushing it,
like they could be doing a thousand bucks a month,
even more, you know?
And this is just at the beginning of it,
of having that direct relationship
between the artist and the listener,
and as you guys alluded to,
like when you see the stats coming in
and you see the comments coming in, right away,
that's really powerful, really powerful.
Well, you've got more competition than you've ever had,
but you have more tools that you're disposal
than you've ever had, and it's easier to report
than it's ever been.
And the new keyboards that are coming out,
the new beats and all of this technology
that you can use at your disposal,
like you are bound and held back by nothing.
You know, the only thing that holds you back
is the amount of shitty competition out there.
That's it, but you can outsmart them
if you need to work ethic.
- And yet, right, and I would even want to up you on that,
it's the shitty content that's out there,
but that's also being propped up
by manipulating the algorithm.
- Oh, yeah.
- And that's what I think the real frustration is
is because back when my cousin was playing Pittsburgh in 1988,
all he wanted to do was get her in the zine
and then go to New York and then have the label sign us.
Well, now it's just having the manipulating the algorithm
to get you on a playlist on Spotify,
to get the label to sign you.
And it's just like, what's the same shit?
- Somebody is gonna break through on this.
You guys, Joe Martin, just loud,
somebody is gonna break through on this space.
And this is what I think is gonna happen.
And I talked about it in the last podcast with Sean and Bobby.
You guys are gonna get to a point
where you're making so much money off of Bitcoin
and off of regular streams and everything like that
that a major label is gonna come to you
and you're gonna be like, why do we need you?
Why do we need you?
What the fuck am I gonna pay you guys for?
You're gonna be 40% for what?
For what?
I can go out and I can underwrite my own tour.
I can put my music in RSS feeds and get them directly
to the people who wants to hear it.
And you guys are not gonna put your hand in my wallet.
Somebody is gonna break through on this space
and it's gonna completely cut out the major labels.
And the major label is gonna be going,
"Uh, yep, well, what the hell do we,
what can we offer these guys?"
- You're right.
And I think it's harder to do that now,
but because of this platform,
we have an avenue to do that because in the past,
that's already been done.
This court records said, "F you to the labels,
we're going to keep putting out our own records
because it costs us two dollars to put us out in the basement
and we're gonna continue."
And Fugazi puts out millions of albums
and sells repeater off the shelves
and they did it by themselves.
The independent labels were doing that.
NWA was selling records out of their truck of their car
and they went platinum because eventually the labels realized,
we need to latch onto this milk cow,
but it's harder to do that now.
I can't go out in Pittsburgh and sell,
Erbubor out on his truck of my car because like you said,
the market is so saturated with good and shitty content.
- Yeah, well, I think that the labels are realizing that,
that, I don't know if the, well,
I shouldn't say that they're realizing their days are numbered.
That's not true.
I think the labels are probably scared of what's going on
because for the, you know,
they're starting to see a backlash
and they're starting to,
and the public is starting to figure out
that these guys are paying on the back end
to manipulate playlists, right?
And this, another interesting thing I saw this year,
you know, a couple weeks ago when everybody started putting out,
"Here's my Spotify year, I had 300,000 streams
and like Argentina with my favorite country."
- Right.
- Like, this was the first year where I saw a lot of artists going,
why the fuck am I celebrating 200,000 spins
when I didn't get paid?
Why are we, and as Joe Martin said when I interviewed him,
why am I paying you to rip me off?
I'm in paraphrasing what Joe said,
but, you know, you're paying money to earn nothing.
- Yeah.
- You're paying money for the privilege of being ripped off.
I can't remember exactly what Joe said,
but I think that the labels and the streaming companies,
I think they see the writing on the wall
and they're not going to be able to stop what can
and will happen with Bitcoin
or even with Ethereum and NFT use to a certain extent.
And I'm not saying this is gonna happen in 2024.
It might take a couple of years, but it's gonna get decentralized.
You're gonna start seeing artists,
you're already seeing hip-hop artists
and a lot of people earn really good money,
completely outside of the major labels.
And many respects completely outside of Spotify.
- I think a lot of it is analogous to a lot.
Why did we pay to play at certain venues back in the day?
- Yeah.
- It's like, well, the musician inherently just wants to get
more people to listen to it.
So I think, well, why am I paying you to rip me off?
Why did I do that before?
Even if there's five people at the bar,
there's five more people that listen to my music.
But again, that's when you start,
you cross that line between,
are you just doing it for fun?
Or are you trying to actually make it a business?
And I think there is a threshold that's crossed eventually
with a band when you realize,
okay, we shouldn't be paying to get ripped off anymore.
These five people hearing it doesn't matter.
We actually need to start making money on this.
- Yeah, Anthony, did I answer your question?
- You did and you made me think of more questions,
but that was, I appreciate that.
Because I ultimately think independent music
has had many battles with major labels.
And at points, independent music has won.
But I think now independent music has,
for lack of a better term, more ammo on our side,
more than ever.
And like you said, I think the labels are scared.
I mean, I just had this epiphany of the other day.
I'm like, lime wire was huge when I was younger
and everyone illegally downloaded music.
And they knew it.
So they capitulated and they just created Spotify.
You know what I mean?
They just took advantage of it
and they understood that they couldn't stop that wave.
- Yeah. - And they're both green.
- That's my picture.
- Yeah, just to summarize,
like there's more competition, I know that,
but there's more opportunity.
And with what I'm seeing artists
are starting to get paid in the Bitcoin space.
Like if they start promoting it hard in the Bitcoin space,
it's gonna pop.
You know, next week, there's a couple of shows up in Minneapolis
that are gonna be live streamed over RSS
and Noster at the same time.
And they're gonna be Bitcoin enabled, Lightning enabled.
You know?
So people can like, you know, like you guys can do this too.
Like on your next show, tie it into a live stream, right?
And Nick reached out to me.
I can point you in the right direction
that people to talk to,
but you guys could do a live stream of your next gig
and have a go over Noster and have a go over RSS.
And you guys can be making Bitcoin
while people are watching you in fucking Malaysia.
- Yeah.
- I mean, the next show is OutRelease Show.
So, I mean, there you go.
- Do it. - Yeah.
- You gotta do it.
- And like you said, creative community
with all of the people on this platform.
And eventually, hopefully one day saying,
hey, you know, we're coming through Nashville,
which I was in Nashville recently.
I was at the Cobra.
I don't know if you ever, you know about the Cobra lounge.
It was an easy come here.
My other band played there.
It was pretty cool.
But just coming through town and saying,
you know, we met on this platform
and we're in it for the same reasons.
I think that, I could see this, you know, getting to that point
where you start making connections, you know,
to go touring all across country.
- Yeah, the other thing I would bring up there
is what you're talking about there is a thousand true fans
Anthony.
That's like, if you go to that, I don't know if you've been
to that website, but all it talks about,
and the website looks like it was designed like in 2008,
like nobody's touched it.
But it's a great mindset.
It's very similar to value for value.
And the idea is you really only need a thousand true fans.
If you got a thousand true fans that are dropping like
a hundred bucks each on you for the year,
dude, that's a hundred grand.
That's a good living, you know, now granted.
You got eight people in the band.
You guys might need to be making more, right?
But-- - Matt Les.
- You know, you don't need--
- Paylor Swift size audiences, or even Jason Aldin size audiences
to have a good living.
If you guys are able to through Bitcoin
and through social media and through live streaming
and everything like that, if you guys can get like a thousand,
two thousand people a year that are kicking in between a hundred
and you know, they're kicking around a hundred bucks each.
- Yep.
- Dude, quit your day job, go tour.
- Exactly.
You know?
- Yeah, so that's what I said.
That's part of the reason why I'm excited about it.
And I think culturally too, like, you know,
I am an optimist, I am a humist.
I know there's a lot of strife in our country going on
politically, but I also see a lot of opportunity for good.
And I think people are inherently good.
And I think that the pulling apart
of the political parties right now, fuck 'em.
Let 'em do that to each other.
But in the middle, people are just,
they are so tired of the division.
And they wanna get back to a reality of a human experience.
And there's nothing better than live music, man.
You get everybody together and, you know,
you guys are playing for a crowd of 2,000 people.
And how, man, if a thousand of them are hardcore trumpers
and a thousand of them are hardcore Biden fans,
they're all having a great time
'cause it's a night of music and there's no bullshit.
- Yep. - Yeah.
- You know?
- Yeah, I think that state is the closest
that we can get to a primitive state at this point
because it really does take you over.
And I know kind of going back to even some of the songs
that are gonna be out on the second LP,
I kind of, we try to bring this tenacity
and intensity with soft songs at points.
And I know that I have witnessed people in the crowd
feeling a certain way and moving a certain way
when I'm playing my quietest, you know?
Because it has the most, I don't know, I don't wanna say effort,
but. - Yeah, I usually get to see more reactions
than you do it. - Right.
It's probably harder to play softer.
- That's true, it is.
- Especially forever. - Yeah.
Especially. - I just had this funny thought,
we played this club down in Laguna Beach.
25 years ago, and my drummer was from Sweden
and he just beats the crap out of him
and we had to, we played there two nights
and after one night we had to go to Home Depot
and get like really thin sticks warm down to him.
(laughing)
I don't know why the hell I remember that.
All right, we've been chatting for about an hour.
I'm gonna hit you with three,
just three fun and kind of lighthearted questions
to wrap this thing up.
You ready? - Yep.
- Yep, yep.
- Okay, number one, if you guys could mentor
a young band today, what would you tell them?
- Smooth, less weed.
- That's a good one, probably.
- Look, great, they're eighth graders.
Where the hell am I getting the weed from?
(laughing)
- But where'd I get it from back then?
- That's a good question.
- For the happy school.
- No, thanks, okay.
- Don't take any show you play for granted
and have fun, that's corny,
but it's the truth for me.
- Yeah, if you're not enjoying it, don't do it.
- Nope.
- Yeah, don't aim to be the best.
And again, the only reason we kept with this was
because we just saw tangible results after a while,
but at first it was really literally just
because we like doing it.
And I think people who see you can see authenticity
on the stage and they can see a connection.
So I would also say make sure that you are presenting
as a band who is connected.
What, the first time I saw Anthony's for other band,
his guitarist, like through his guitar off the stage,
whatever he's all pissed off, and I was like, yeah.
- Maybe, actually, maybe, yeah, what are you going with this?
- Well, I was saying maybe that was actually more authentic.
- I think it was.
I can see that he really cared.
I would say, yeah, just try to present yourself
as authentic musicians, not aiming for gold,
and you'll relate to more people in the crowd that way.
- Yeah.
- Being genuine because people can see through you
when you're not.
- Nick, what would you tell him?
- I would tell him to get better gear.
- Yeah, no.
- Gear doesn't matter.
Sometimes it does, but I would say just realize
that the music's never gonna leave you,
once it's there, and the way that it exists,
as you grow up, is gonna change,
and sometimes it'll be a little less present,
and times a little bit more present,
but you just have to realize that it's always gonna be there
in some way or another,
and you gotta figure out how to harness it,
strike while the iron's hot,
and for anyone recording out there,
don't be afraid to,
zero's of ones are a lot cheaper now,
so don't be afraid to just hit record and just let it go,
and just keep it going.
You know? - Yeah.
- Good, okay.
- All right, Nick.
I'm gonna ask you this one,
and then I want Madden Anthony to jump in, too.
If you could have any band from any genre,
cover any one of the herbivore songs,
what band would it be,
and what song would they cover?
- Old play, you know.
- No.
- No, I don't think that would work out well.
That's a really, that's a,
I don't know how to answer questions like that.
- Come on, look, here, I'll give you mine.
I would love to hear, I mean, living your dead, right?
Like I would love to hear Beastie Boy's cover college dead.
- I love that.
I wanna hear that.
- That's great.
- All right, that's what I'm talking about.
Come on, come on, what would you have to do?
- What do you have to do?
- Bump over there, though, let me go.
- All right, all right, Anthony.
Anthony, you go first.
Any band from any genre, living your dead,
you could dig 'em out of the grave,
give 'em smelling salts and garhite.
All right, boys,
you work up, bring this song.
- Yeah, I kinda want, I wanna hear the national,
'cause I was listening to a lot of the national
when we, the band from Ohio,
when we were recording album too.
And I kinda like to hear their rendition of,
I'd say on the walk home, which you can find now, streaming.
- Okay, okay, Matt, what you got?
- Just to totally contrast our sound,
would be cool to like if Peter Steele from type of negative
was like ripping out some sad boy herbivore,
maybe like an easy read.
- That would be cool.
- Which isn't released yet, but it's only upcoming album.
So I like, you know, just to hear maybe like a heavy
Brooklyn metal sound, the herbivore would be pretty sweet.
- That would be cool.
- I'll throw you another one since you mentioned faith in the war.
How about, you ready for this?
How about Mr. Bungle?
- Nice.
- Covering birds or you aren't real.
(laughing)
- That would be fucking awesome.
Like, they should probably do that.
- Yeah, mine would be funnier than that.
That would be funnier than hell.
- We definitely love Michael Patton around here, so that would be amazing.
- Here's another one, Sarah McLaughlin,
covering pixelated smile.
- That's nice.
How about two-pock covering smokestacks?
- I need an actual.
- Ooh, interesting.
- Interesting.
Are you two, are you two-pock or a biggie guy?
- I'm a two-pock guy, but I love both.
- Yeah, I love both too, it's hard to do.
- But I love two-pock.
Two-pock was like my childhood.
- Prolific.
- Yeah, in Kendrick.
And by the way, Nick, I'm not letting you off the hook, dude.
You still got the money.
- You still got to answer the question.
But let me tell you a funny little two-pock story, right?
- Right.
- I worked at a studio in Burbank back in the late 90s.
And two-pock had already passed away, but they were doing a remix.
He's got stuff in the vault, right?
- Oh yeah.
- A lot of stuff in the vault.
Like, they had an armed guard show up
with the two intrials.
I'm seriously like, big dude, big dude, fully armed,
standing outside the studio door like nobody gets in.
- That's fantastic.
- That was crazy.
I couldn't believe it, you know?
That and, and I used to see Barry White,
- Nice.
- You see Barry White over the studio all the time.
And he could be summer in Burbank
and it's like a hundred degrees in Barry White walks in.
And he's got a full length leather trench coat on.
A hundred degrees outside.
He's got a full length leather trench coat on.
He looks like Darth Vader coming down the hallway, right?
And just like the most aromatic smell of weed,
just like, her furates.
It's like a cloud, you know,
he's got a contact eye, just like,
"Ah, I got a morning, Mr. White."
- That's awesome.
You know, like, like, like, like, like that.
- So, all right, come on, Nick,
who is it?
What band is covering what song?
- I don't know who it is, but I want somebody to cover grips.
But I don't know who it is.
I consume so much different music.
- When I listen to grips,
I would think like a, like, a Led Zeppelin maybe.
I mean, I would always want to hear
- What mother?
- Classic.
Against me.
Maybe against me, cover grips.
- Oh, that's a good one.
- Okay.
- That'd be kind of cool.
Shout out Lord Jane.
- Okay.
- So we had to help Nick out with that.
- Yeah. - All right.
- Nick's all the questions.
- So, all right.
So what's next for you guys?
You got this record coming up in,
and Kudos for putting out a full length record, by the way,
when the rest of the world is doing singles.
It's called From the Nook, right?
And that's coming out in February.
- Yes.
The long awaited seven year journey.
Let us do from the nook.
- Like, um,
- Fucking steely Dan record, dude.
- Yeah.
- So yeah, I think when it comes out,
you'll hear some of our youth,
even as opposed to now, right?
Which I think is still cool in a way.
But yep, that's coming up next.
And we actually, we're gonna release a pixelated smile remix EP
with two songs on it.
- Nice.
- We had a couple DJ friends,
work with that a little bit.
And then other than that,
we're already demoing a third album.
So.
- Damn.
- Okay.
And then you got wrote,
you had shows booked for next year?
- We've been taking a little bit of a hiatus
just to like,
legitimately get this fucking album out.
Like, a real.
So the next,
the next show we have booked is just our
"I'm Really Showing February."
And then from there,
we'll just take it from there.
- Love it, love it.
Well, Nick reach out to me.
Let me know,
you know, if you guys wanna do,
you know, that's a streaming thing for the show.
- Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll punch in the right direction.
You can even,
it's another reason to get on Noster
because a lot of these guys,
a lot of these devs will be willing to help you out
and, you know, kind of help out on the back end of it.
But all of that is lovely.
And I really appreciate you guys coming on the show.
And we are going to,
we are gonna take them out with pixelated smile, right?
- So, thanks, Tyler.
We appreciate you guys with what you're doing.
- Yeah, love it guys.
All right, we'll talk, hang on the,
hang on the line just a little bit.
Let me, let me start the song and then we'll chat
for a little bit, but thanks for coming on.
- Thank you.
(upbeat music)
(Music playing)
It's so strange, start your thing
(Music playing)
I know more about you, friend
There's no images in the name
Interact with each day
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
From behind a screen I've managed to say
Formulating words of person is so easy
We've been knowing, broken
For a child
At least I think so
Crucier picks away smart
Then you should know
Take my ways to time, love
(Music playing)
I'll talk about what you're here every day
When you go off, I will bring you to custom
I'll always do the day when I
Yeah, I'll always do
And I'll go to jail
I just have to ask myself
To make the song stand to you, the sand of time
(Music playing)
Nice little soft landing there, huh?
That is pixelated smile from herbivore coming to you at a Pittsburgh PA
Nice little flutter pattern on the kick there at the end, that was nice
Love their vibe, love the vocals, love the way it's mixed
I really encourage you guys to go back through their catalog
They got some great stuff and another full album coming out here in about two months
So definitely add them to your list of favorites
And make sure that you are sending them some sats
Because that is what value for value is all about
Thank you guys so much for listening to another Phantom Power artist hour
This might be the last one for the year, no no
I don't know if I'm gonna have the time to do any other more podcasts this year
But definitely looking forward to 2024
And I want to thank everybody who has been so supportive of us so far
As we have rounded out this year and firing up our podcasts
A lot of great shit coming up next year
Can't wait for it, you know we got the Bitcoin Convention happening here
Nashville next summer people from all over the world coming that's gonna be a blast
But we're gonna have some big announcements coming to you guys in January
So thank you so much for supporting the show
Don't forget to send some sats
And don't forget to smile for the mug shot
Thanks y'all
(Music)