This is actually a question. I get a whole lot. So For people who don't know purism is this company out there that Sort of portrays himself as selling free and open source hardware and software. They have these laptops purism laptops I think they're called the Libram whatever You can check out their website. It's p u r i dot sm So they're an interesting company. They're really into this stuff They want to produce like totally free Laptops and make a business out of it basically so a lot of people Because they're so well advertised nowadays. They become a big thing. I get a lot of questions about purism Like what do I think about the company? Do I recommend the laptops yada yada yada? So first off I'm not this isn't going to be a review of purism laptops because I don't own one I can't tell you the specifics But based on what I know about the company based on what I know about the hardware I just wanted to give you some comments on it So as to the main question Do I recommend purism laptops to people who want to just have a totally free system? To that question if I had to give a binary answer it would have to be no And there are a couple reasons for that now. This isn't going to be a negative video on purism In fact, I might even have a little helpful advice for those of you who might be connected to the company But let me explain explain why my answer is no. Okay, so first off One thing that purism will admit is that purism laptops. They don't actually live up to their name Okay, they're not pure in the sense that they do have a free operating system They do they run a variety of GNU linux. That's a hundred percent free. It's basically like the FSF approved distros So that's totally good But they have they don't have a totally free bios or even though they use core boot They still have remnants of the Intel management engine So those of you who don't know the Intel management engine is the bane of modern computing all Intel you know processors since when like 2011 have this management engine all i5s i7s stuff like this And basically it is an extra processor that can look in your RAM can do all these malicious things can send your data Over the internet and it can actually do a lot of things. We don't even understand We only sort of understand a little bit of what the different modules might do So purism laptops have not gotten rid of this management engine It's not something that people in the free software community have overcome yet now for earlier processors like the Intel Core 2 Duo That you can have a totally free computer with you can totally get rid of the management engine So in the other room I have a Libre booted x200 And that is totally devoid of the management engine this computer right here. This is the x220 think pad You it's not actually fully Libre bootable. You you can do What you can do with purism laptops you can put core boot on this you can run What's called the management engine cleaner and that gets rid out of rid of like 80% of the management engine But not the the core components which you know, we still don't necessarily fully understand what they do Okay So that's sort of where we are now purism laptops as I said, they're not really a hundred percent pure to their name In the sense that They are not a hundred percent free now. I'm not making perfect the enemy of good Purism laptops are much better than just having a random acer labs laptop or something like that or having some kind of Mac device They're much better than that. But the elephant in the room is that purism charges something like You know a thousand and a half dollars for these laptops So like a fifteen hundred dollars Which is a lot of money Now part of that I understand because purism is not just the company It's a startup that wants to make effects in the field So a lot of that enormous price is going to people who are trying to get rid of the management engine or develop other Technologies, so if you're buying a purism laptop Buy it for that reason partially But in terms of if you just want a free computer like I just want a free computer and I want to you know Do my fang on it purism laptops are not a good choice for that So the two things are you one you can have a hundred percent free laptop if you go with one that has an Intel Core 2 Duo And those of you who have asked me before will know I totally think that modern Processors are extremely overrated I really get the same kind of performance out of an Intel Core 2 Duo that I do is of an i7 I don't play games that might be why but I think that the celebration of modern processors is Just pathetic sometimes. It's almost there. They're not all they're chalked up to be So that's one thing so you can have a hundred percent free device But if you think purism is free enough you can get a device like this and so this is Intel or excuse me a think pad x220 right I bought this thing for $90 on eBay You can get refurbished ones for around 200 or so usually I think I think the median is probably 150 or so Which is a tenth of the price of the purism laptop? You can install core boot on these you could bought buy them with core boot already on them And that would help you out it even more So you can get a computer like this for a small piece of the price And you can have it just as free as the purism computer In every respect you can put a hundred percent you can put core boot on it You can run the management engine cleaner you can put a hundred percent free GNU Linux distro Whatever you want So in that respect purism laptops aren't necessarily special Again, this thing here is just as good So that's one of the reasons I think that the free software element Again, well to restate what I said earlier if you want to get a purism laptop Do it partially because you want to support their company for their social goals or whatever Not necessarily because they're good deals now if you want a hundred percent free computer There are lots of little companies that do them. There are lots of people who sell on eBay I got my x200 from just some random guy who was Libre booting stuff on eBay But there is mini free which is closely related to Libre boot. They sell free computers Torinas their Vikings Viking something I don't know what the organization's actually called but there are a lot of different Companies that actually sell a hundred percent free devices or core booted devices you can look for those as well So that that's one point now my other point is more generally about what purism as a company is doing Which I'm again, I'm not against I think it's totally great that they're out here and doing these things and popularizing the ideas And I I'm not if you come away from this video thinking thinking this is like anti-purism and I've absolutely isn't But there's another field of the battle for end-user freedom And there's a and this field I don't think purism is fighting very well on That is they're doing great in the free software stuff. They're selling mostly free computers, which are good It's good to get that out there. It's good to have basically normal people talking about it but the other side of the corn other side of the corn the other side of the coin is that of sort of modular computers and You know having computers that aren't based on well, let me put it this way So traditionally computers are made just by some company. Okay, they put them all together They sell them if you want your computer repaired you have to go go to a specialist Some companies like Apple are very picky about that. They want they develop their hardware To be difficult to manipulate you want to go to approved vendors or and stuff like this And they make it very difficult for you to modify your computers now one of the exceptions to that historically has been the old thinkpads This is one of the reason thinkpads are a big deal Because thinkpads aren't really aimed to random people. They were originally aimed to corporations That wanted to have long lasting laptops that you could repair, you know over the course of years and years So that's one of the reason thinkpads are good now purism laptops I think if anything should be going towards that old thinkpad like style in the sense that So if you look at the purism laptop But again, I don't physically have but I've seen a lot of reviews and I can tell you what it you know Generally what it looks like if you want to open it up you go on the back You unscrew everything that allows you to change the RAM that allows you to change You know the hard drive and whatever now these classic thinkpad computers if I want to change my hard drive I just unscrew this one thing pull it out now the hard drives out if I want to change my RAM I just unscrew these two things open it up. There it is And that sounds like a minor point But there are a lot of things that purism could be doing that I think a lot of people actually really want They want to have computers that you can very easily take to the store and the you know Even if you don't know anything about repairing them to this them yourself Hopefully you can do that if you you know you're into computers But you know you also want to make laptops which any any jackass could repair if you brought them to their store And even more than that I think there are there are a lot of startup ideas So one of the one of the biggest out there, which I really think is the direction that computers are going to have to move in Is the what's it called? I wrote it down the EOM a 68 Okay, so if anyone hasn't heard about these I should probably actually do a video on these as well But there's this little startup, which is much smaller than purism and what they're doing is they're creating laptops Which are partially 3d printable And the other part is made out of basically renewable materials. So these laptops are made part partly out of bamboo Slut little slips that you put in They're partially 3d printed and you might say all 3d printed. I don't have a 3d printer who has a 3d printer Well, the point is you don't have to rely on one company Let's say Lenovo to you know manufacture your You know device if something breaks on your device you can just go to anyone in the world who has a 3d printer And they can print it out really easily So I don't have a printer but I can go to my university and pay them a little money and they can print out, you know Whatever part I need for that computer so So that you know if you have a paradigm like that The production is very decentralized and that's something I think that purism and other kind of companies should be aiming for You want to be in a position where indie users can you know You want to have computers that last last for indeterminate amounts of time like if something breaks I can repair it or I can get someone else to repair it like now, you know these EOM may computers or whatever You know anyone who has a 3d printer can say I know I now have a computer manufacturing business where you can come And give me your broken computers and I can fix them And the other thing about the EOM a whatever computer is that they and again This is something I think purism and other companies should look at is they really They're really aiming toward long-term computing in that the EOM a is actually on one side There's the shell of the computer. So there's a laptop But the actual computer is a little I guess slip thing that fixed fits in your wallet It has a processor. It has a hard drive and you just slip it right into your laptop and use it Or you can take it out and put it in the desktop or if you need a new computer You don't have to replace the whole laptop. You just replace this little, you know slip Or if the laptop breaks, you don't have to worry about the slip now This is the kind of manufacturing that I think start-up should be aiming for in that you want to be able You want everything to be little pieces that you can put together You want manufacturing to be as decentralized as possible and so my advice the purism This is sounds like it's not even relevant to purism, but it's not just advice for purism. It's advice for other startups Go in that direction try and make Production is decentralized as possible Now granted these companies are motivated by profit motive partially I know there's a you know, there's a lot of wanking about oh god, you know We're all about we have social purpose and blah blah blah, but they still need to make a kind of profit And it's not necessarily good to just say okay Here's the blueprints for all of our stuff, but I think people who are genuinely motivated by that kind of stuff should be making computers that you know are you know bits and pieces that any kind of person any person can sort of put together and That's I think You know the direction we should be moving in we shouldn't be making Monolithic computers which come as one big thing well that you they want to come as one big thing But they're made out of different pieces that you can replace if you don't like it if or if it breaks or something else and Really any repair shop could put together a computer based on these parts. Um, so anyway, that's my idea so it's a very long review of Purism laptops or I guess my thoughts about them. So again, I don't Disrecommend them. I don't say don't buy purism laptops I think you should buy them if you're interested in supporting the startup or other people who are interested in free software But that's my advice for not just purism But other companies who are interested in really increasing end user freedom that is They're doing good in free software purism is doing good with respect to free software But I'd like to see them and other people be more interested in you know really Making it easy to modify computers and fix them because we don't want to be reliant on manufacturing Companies and assembly lines for all life, you know You want now that we have materials like 3d printers or you know this kind of reproducible stuff That's the direction that computer manufacturing should be moving into now There are still components like CPUs that might not be possible for but we're moving in that direction and I think people should embrace it So anyway, I guess that's about it. So throw your comments if you have any that's my review. So see you next time


e since well before the start here's to many many more Well Hey, I'm totally fine with people tuning in for the episodes. They have a preference for Sometimes I do wonder how people stay up to date with uh, all of e-fap when they say they watch, you know Like like finite tights and open bar and Really, we see it's just like, hey, how do you actually have time to watch all of it because Especially with like the minis the movies the gaming streams If you uh, if you have quite a few different creators you love you're gonna have to start passing it all out Because there's only so many hours in the week This is why we're good for uh people who have work shifts. I guess Yeah, yeah, I like it when people say that we help help them get through work Uh, what about bishop exactly if bishop is awesome Uh As for exactly what bishop is philosophically speaking in um in aliens obviously as an android, but like How far does it go? It's hard to say Yep Um only sith deal in hypotheticals Happy 250 you often say the state of gaming is better than ever because there's more of them and access to older titles However, you don't often give this benefit to movies in the state of the medium. Why? um The that I don't have we ever made a claim that like gaming is good strictly because of that I feel like I'd say that gaming is healthier in general, right? Like 2023 for gaming has been a way better year than film in 2023 I think maybe to help Understand this is the um as you would intuitively understand we would have the exact same consistent standard for all of them across the board as in Uh, the creation of more video games does not mean the the better era for video games necessarily in terms of quality much like movies, however Games unlike film unlike books unlike tv as I mean not necessarily of all time, but has a distinctly Sad disadvantage of being treated as like a little kid's thing that doesn't actually matter and isn't really true art Obviously, I would cite that rogery, but one of the most influential film art critics of all time said that video games aren't art How fucking much does that suck that video games have had to claw their way into being respected and being relevant Even though they bring in the most money out of all like artistic mediums as industry So one of my saying is that at this point Especially having been a fan of games since I can remember Now is a golden time compared to when I was younger in terms of access And that's pretty much what we're talking about and you might be like well wouldn't that apply to movies? Like I don't think I ever felt restricted on my access to film ever But with games it was complicated and tough especially by the way I don't need anything more than your basic laptop to run all movies Unfortunately when I was a kid by laptop couldn't had trouble running track mania I remember I was like getting a five fps and I was like I just want to play my little car game damn it I mean accessibility in terms of backwards compatibility.  Look at this year.  Yeah, like it's uh, it seems like gaming god damn armored core So like you're gonna do a list there and then you start Well, the part of the problem is i'm thinking about i'm looking forward as well And I it's too early to say but I mean there's a lot of big games still coming out this year We'll see about starfield We'll see about starfield and spider-man 2 I suppose because yeah, uh The nature of being able to create more games is not something I would cite as reason for why we'd be in a golden age It's more so the games are better supported understood and accessed now compared to even when I was Like even 10 years ago Meanwhile, I don't think you can say the same Uh for movies or tv or or books or music. I just don't I don't think and it's like ever and it's like maybe Maybe when when I wasn't even alive, you know, there was a comparable It doesn't feel like it does it like I don't know like the early middle ages. Maybe yeah, that's what I'm saying Like if there was some era that is directly comparable sure, but uh, obviously we lived through this one ourselves So we're just commenting on how it's great for access Not necessarily for quality But I think we're doing okay for quality for video games In fact, we've said it feels like video games are the ones that are the most reliable Um, I think sorry, which is again, you have to put it in the context of majority of art is shit Which is okay. By the way, it's okay It's not like a panicking statement It's uh when everybody can create all kinds of things, you know, you'll you'll get a lot of shit and that that's fine Um, but video games, I don't know it's um As we've said before as well is there seems to be more uh pieces of video games that can be Broken apart and reviewed with with much more conviction than a lot of other artistic works Well, like this bad this good strong perspectives on mechanics Yeah, and we'll say why in a in a way that is a lot more uh Concrete or at least that people will accept as being more concrete Yeah, I don't know if this is Much of a good comparison But just in a movie where you have a character who's one of the greatest snipers ever and he just keeps missing The main character Like like as in like he's a main villain and he keeps missing the main character and action scenes and stuff will be like How is he how is he always he's supposed to be? But a lot of people will be like, I don't care. It's an action scene.     So Oh, I think they're just talking about you could have a driver who's got three bikes in front of everybody's like, all right They're too slow. I gotta go to work Here I go room in the bike lane. Damn it. Yeah Keep a dog squeezing a big red heart Yay Stop everything. Yeah, enter the chat Soon he will enter the cast He he went to sleepybys for a very long time Yeah, he did send me a message layer being like, I don't know when I fell asleep It would have been around when we were talking about marvel probably that that is a instant sleeper for uh, you know He's in the company of uh, of the ladies Nutsa hasn't fallen asleep. Has she or has she got really Oh, who am I thinking of? Well, aiden paladin and uh, that star wars girl. I think of both sleepers Star Wars girl. Yeah. Nutsa is yeah, um Jaylong bone has yet to fall asleep as well Well, she usually does this Jaylong would do this crazy thing where if she's sleeping or close to sleepy. She will uh, she will leave. She'll be like, I'm gonna go now It's uh, it's just Yeah, it makes sense. I can understand it, but I was I said on the stream. I can't I just I can't go to sleep in my in my desk chair. I'll always I can't do that If I'm like and I have been at the point where I'm I'm struggling to keep my eyes open But I will always be like I want to go to bed now. Bye. Bye Well, yeah, you don't want to sleep on your desk or in your chair, you know Nope, you gotta go to a go to a bed and get nice and snug And then go to sleep Yeah Lewis is here Howdy is Oh Hi, hello Hello Those lives in the future may be far more precious than the lives in the past Well, so that was a really interesting one to think about how we value according to time As was said, yeah past lives versus future lives, we assume And this would be correct. I think In a like a statistical average that the life will be longer But you know, you could argue longer and would you if you knew it was an unhappy life This is a happy life That's another interesting one right thing like five happy lives now as opposed to five unhappy lives in the future And I'm like, well, I haven't really thought much on how I value a life to a life if You know, based on happiness So like would you rather save, you know, 10 normal people or 10 depressed people and like, well Like all things being equal, I guess the 10 happy people, but I don't know It's not something I've really thought about Well, and the question would be like wait, so unhappy people don't deserve to live as much as happy people And you're like, it's it's not It's not about deserved. Yeah. Yeah the deserved word is a That that's a really weighty one there. I mean, we've we've had our own, you know, deserved, you know Stuff before with the bathwater stuff But yeah, it's an odd one to think about it's not one I've given much thought but I would probably lean towards the the happier people Going on to be happy instead of the sad people going on to be sad Yeah, fair enough. Um those lives in the future may be oh wait, all right, that one. What's the future done for me lately? I know, right I find the thought of a future person just minding his business when a trolley just materializes above him hilarious. Yeah Off he goes because someone made that choice Leave a note for the future people to warn them Put a note on the I don't think that's baked into the premise. Unfortunately. Damn it Assuming I see the future people through the portal I'd still save present people on the off chance that the future deaths can be alternately verted I don't think you'd be allowed to use logic like that Well, yeah, it's baked into the question that otherwise they would I think it yeah You got to run with what the question the spirit of it is of course How do you value based on whether or not a life is in the past the future of the present? It's not about whether or not it's like well, it's the future so we can we can warn him. It's like no no, that's not stop Because someone could be like wait, we've cracked time travel. He like no don't think about like that They just focus on the individual thing that they're trying to talk about Uh This is just a heart. Oh very nice Too many moles on his neck. I don't trust him I don't know if this Do we do the trolley problem and then end or do we watch another video? Uh, I thought we I think we did the trolley problem is the last thing I think My last day at work and e-faps fifth best day ever also high rags Hello Luke definitely has plot armor Oh, no, we watched another one.    I'd be like, well, yeah, I mean it is said and there is context for it You know, but if you have a title you like, um, I think character assassination is good And then your video is just about how it's bad, but sometimes things can be Things are drawn from it that tell you things about things Also, there's like such as a lie. You're just lying. You're just trying to get people to watch the video. Boo Also trying to get people to buy your thing Which fair enough, but can you do it in a way that's not as um, why me? I guess. I don't know Also have the balls to defend plot umbers a good thing. I want to see someone do it I'd be I think we could have done a better job We would be like well, the thing is it always comes at the It provides the opportunity for a bigger payoff in relation to a different aspect of the storytelling That's probably what we would try and say if we had to defend it. That would be your best I could come up with some arguments. Uh, I don't think they'd be good But I think I could come up with some arguments that makes some level of sense I do a hell of a better job than he did um But yeah, I'd probably appeal to plot armor is It's something that a lot of people it doesn't just it doesn't ruin a lot of people's suspension of disbelief It's easy to do. It allows you to focus your time and attention on other writing issues that might be You know more important to keeping You know the audience engaged Um things of um things of that nature I think you could come up with some some things, right? No, it's explained that it's from the all the life and death fights He does the fights broke his limiter not the training like gauru I don't I don't think this is for us because I don't know if any three of us recognize any of those Um Maybe it was an anime or something. I'm sure EFAB helps with depression a lot more than better help congrats on five years of surviving tisms smaller alt shift x when but anyways Hi regular Hello Alt shift x Yeah, we probably have him on at some point if he's if he's interested we can come on with gloidus They talk a lot about game thrones. We could talk to them about house of the dragon Per ha poo I like how to the dragon Oh I think every character has plot armor because their story is already determined That's just a thing about your definition of plot armor at that point, which makes it useless by the way It's only a problem when the armor actually protects them from a reasonably likely bad outcome breaking immersion Well, that would be when it is plot armor Yeah, that you just describe the big you basically describe the thing. Yes Because of course we can see everything is done. This is this was the problem with that other video about um realistic violence It's like we need You know, we can't have it so that the writers deciding who wins and who dies It's like well, but they are they always are you got to do better than that um Congratulations on 250 episodes love the cast and the breakdowns, especially recent marvel movies Thank you so much for the content. I listened to them while walking my dog and it's hilariously amazing big ups Hooray. Thank you very much And uh, I've just noticed we have passed over the three hour mark So we'll probably end that portion there Ah good because it is uh, it's almost uh It's getting quite late for me. I could use uh some little sleep some eebie sleeves We're not through all of uh The the anniversary ones as you guys have probably figured out because we're still on the part one of it But I will make sure we get through all of them and these will release gradually as well as I'm sure people are asking Whoa, if you haven't done some of the older episodes of evap, we're getting to them all We will 100 especially because uh, we got a bit of Time to use between the anniversary and when we come back I like to say like, you know, we've got time to do work in our break It's like no problem But uh, yeah, all of them will be answered and we're gonna try and get to the uh, the memes that would have been missed as well Don't you folks worry all of it'll come out And um, of course. Thank you so much for the very very kind messages Kind donations. We thank you. I'll see you in whatever the next thing will be also check out the vinyl figures Yes, absolutely. Give them a look. They look great. Look at them go. Thanks for the super chats everyone We enjoy reading them looking through them. Uh, and we will see you later Yeah, bye


Looking at the income tax formula we're focused online to that being the adjustment to income remembering that the income tax formula the first half of it at least is in essence a modified income statement although a strange one where we have income minus the equivalent of the expenses being the deductions careful deductive reasoning gets to the equivalent of net income that being taxable income our objective flipped on its head instead of us trying to maximize the net income we're trying to minimize have as low as possible the taxable income now when we think about the adjustments to income this is in essence a deduction but you can also think of it as a contra income account for example because we have income minus the adjustments to income gets to the adjusted gross income or agi the agi is an important number because when we look at phase outs for deduction phase outs due to income level credit phase outs due to income level they're generally based on the adjusted gross income agi as opposed to the top line the income line also note that the adjustments to income do not have the same kind of threshold that they have to clear as do the itemized deductions having to clear the standard deduction before we get a benefit from the adjustments to income so if we qualify for them we typically get typically get a benefit from them also note the adjustments to income might be called above the line deductions or schedule one deductions so if we look at the first page of the form 1040 we're focused down here on line 10 adjustments to income schedule one line 26 if we look at the schedule one page two we're focused here on the penalties on early withdrawal of savings and the alimony paid so if we're thinking about the penalties for early withdrawal these might be penalties that are applied to you from the financial institution depending on the type of of items that you are putting your money into sometimes you're kind of locking your money into the financial institution and telling them i'm not going to take the money out take the money just for a certain time period that usually results in a higher interest rate that you'll be able to earn on your investment and that's due to because the bank is able to take that money and say well if you promise that you're not going to pull it out then they can invest it somewhere and and they have you know it affects their reserves how much reserves they basically have to hold on to and so they can make more money with it if they're confident that you're going to you're going to leave it in there for a longer period of time which results in higher interest payments so if you take the money out early then you might be subject to penalties so then we have the alimony so we talked before on the income side of the alimony situation if you have a divorce type of situation then you could have money going from one spouse to another spouse and the question is is the one that's paying the money able to get a deduction for that payment and is the one that's receiving the money required to include it in income so it's just like a normal kind of financial transaction from the iris perspective they have the leverage on the one that's paying because if you're paying the money then you then if you were able to get a deduction that would be good for the one that's receiving the money they would like to receive the money of course but not have to include it in income so it wouldn't be a taxable income type of scenario so you'll recall that when we looked at the income side that there was a cutoff date where before that date there was a big emphasis on the distinction between the payments and you might say why does it matter what you call it and money is going from one person to the other but it was important what you called it for taxes being either alimony or child support because if it was alimony then it's something that the payer could deduct and the recipient would have to include an income and in that case just like a normal financial transaction the iris would say hey you have to tell us who you gave the money to because if we can't get our taxes from you we want to get it from the recipient the person who received the money so you got to put the social security number in there however if it was child support then the person paying the money doesn't get the deduction the person receiving the money doesn't have to record it in income the iris is basically not getting involved in the situation for that and then there was a big kind of problem in terms of well how do we categorize something as child support versus alimony which wasn't always clear in this in the divorce agreement and so on but after the cutoff date they basically are saying that the iris is just going to stay out of these payments altogether so whether it be alimony or child support the person paying doesn't get a deduction the person receiving doesn't have to include it in income now when this happened a lot of people thought that that was kind of unfair to the person paying the money because they're the ones that would benefit if they get a deduction however you would think that if the the actual contract happened or the divorce happened after the cutoff date that it would be a more simple kind of scenario and the agreement would then reflect the fact that the person paying doesn't get the tax benefit that they would have before right and if you have the contract before when there was a benefit to the person paying if it was categorized as alimony it would result in a different agreement in an ideal world if everything was everybody knew everything about the situation and was being honest about everything you would think the agreement would just change and according to what the taxes are so i would think it being more simple would be easier for a divorce type of situation so i think it would be and the way they put it in there kind of makes sense of course because if you came to the agreement before the cutoff date and you and you have these tax consequences as you made the agreement then you would that would alter the agreement you would expect and so you don't want to change the tax law retroactively but then going forward you would think that it would make more sense for the iris to just stay out of the whole thing all together and not have this complication between alimony and child support and the new agreements would then reflect the current tax situation so the agreements would look different you would you would expect but that's just my thought on it i don't know what do i know


It's amazing that many people are calling me, writing me, saying see I want you shouldn't have exposed to Shimbakamburu, you shouldn't have said those things, you shouldn't have talked about his sickness, you shouldn't have embarrassed him there in public, you shouldn't have insulted him, you shouldn't have shared the things that were presented to you in confidentiality to the public.  Shimbakamburu has been everywhere in the country speaking and insulting everybody. Speaking and insulting Aka in the etilim, actually when you insult Aka in the etilim, when you speak ill of Aka in the etilim, when you speak all these bad languages that you speak about Aka in the etilim, do you realize that he has a family? Shimbakamburu has been saying a lot of things about Aka in the etilim. Actually him and the GBM kidnapped the Hatambo family. This is a very serious crime and I know that they are going to answer this crime very soon. Kidnapped them, asked them to lie against Aka in the etilim. A lot of things have been said about him. Aka in the etilim is a kidnapper. Aka in the etilim is so demine. Aka in the etilim did this. Everybody said including I myself, I used to speak, I used to be among those people that speak evil against Aka in the etilim. And nobody complained. In my own church in Zambia, I gave my platform to Bishop Chomba. The permanent secretary of water and natural resources in the government of Zambia. And now the parliamentary candidate for PF. I gave him my platform to use it to defend Aka in the etilim. In my church in Zambia. In my crusade that attracted the highest number, the record breaking crusade that took place at OIDC. Thousands of people gathered. I gave my platform to Chomba to use it to call Aka in the etilim. To defend Aka in the etilim. So that Aka in the etilim could lose an election. No one spoke about it. All of us have spoken so many things about this man. How does he feel? How does his wife feel? How does his children feel when you defend him like this?  I have not even exposed him. I just said one out of hundreds of things that I can bring out in the public. I didn't speak about his wife and the relationship.  I just touched one because he provoked me because he denied me. And everywhere I shake him, everyone is talking about it. How much more when I start exposing them. How much more when I talk about Eddie Galungu. What I want to say is that I want you to feel the pain that Aka in the etilim and his family feels when we defend them. When we speak evil against them. When we call him Satanist. When we accuse him of things that he didn't do. I want you to feel how his children feel. The same way that Shimbakamburi is feeling now. It's the same way Aka in the etilim feels. It's a human being. What crime did they commit? I was among the people that we are speaking and defending him. Even in my church. We are thousands of people I gathered. A man that committed no crime. Except trying to rise up, become a president and save his people. All of us turned around and started speaking evil against him. What is so special about Shimbakamburi? I have a lot and a lot and a lot of things that I will say about Shimbakamburi. And the PF. Including Edigalungu. That one is just one percent. Over 100 percent of what is still hidden. What I still need to talk about. So those of you that are sending me message. See how one respect the elders. See how one respect the people that came to you in privacy. There is no other here. When an elder decide to play with children.  For children. This is just the beginning. I am not going to stop. I am not willing to stop. I am going to talk. There are so many things that I will say. So if you are sympathizing with Shimbakamburi. Why you didn't sympathize with me when he called me a Satanist. When he was insulting me. When he was telling people not to listen to see how one. Not to come to see how one. When he was coming to me behind. To look for power. To look for advice. When he was telling me to finish the criminals. When he was telling me to finish PF. So you must also balance the equation. Shimbakamburi and the PF government are ripping from what he saw. So if you are their sympathizers. I am so sorry for you. This is just the beginning. It will have not even started.


voice today on the show. I think the first time officially on the show, Joey Belladonna, Joey. Oh, thank you. What's up, boys? Metal Hall of Famer. Metal Hall of Famer, Joey Belladonna. And Kenny. Kenny, what's going on, buddy? How you doing? How's everybody doing? Hi, Joey. Where are you guys going? Where are you guys at? I'm from Brewster, Joey. I saw you two weeks ago, behind Frontiers over at the Chance in Poughkeepsie. So that's in that area, right?  And how about yourself up here? I'm in Montreal, Canada. Oh, cool. Yeah, that's where you guys played at. Heavy Montreal. We inducted you guys in the Metal Hall of Fame, yeah. Now, how do you guys, what's the, I'm interviewing you guys right now. How do you hook up with us together? Well, you know, do the Metal Voice over the years and Kenny offered his services many years ago. And he kind of takes care of the tri-state area, we'll say. And we do shout outs, run around, interviews. That's nice. Bring the BF up there to the Montreal and Canada area. That'll be good, right? Absolutely. Joey, I gotta say, you looked really, really happy up there on the stage that night doing those songs. You were bashing out one hit after a journey, hit after another. And you looked really comfortable for one and really happy up there. I gotta say that. Well, you know, for the second show, it's just starting to groove. You know, I mean, I didn't want to stop after we finished that third one. It was a really great night, too. Now, that's a good tight band you have there. Is that that Lee Greenwood's backup band normally? Is that the Nashville guys? Yeah, all those guys played with Lee and still play with Lee. You know, the bass player has been in and out doing his thing. He plays, you know, plays with a band called the Mummies, too. But either way, yeah, great tight band those guys have. They love doing it, too. So it helps when you got people that are really into it. So you can tell from the stage, you guys looked like all you guys were enjoying it. And like I said, there was never a quiet moment and you went run right through a tune like two hours of a nonstop. Yeah, just bang them out. I don't like that. All about the music, not on us, chitter chat. You know, it was a couple of tossing some stuff around, but not much, you know. But let's set this up here. So I guess anthrax is on a sort of small hiatus, right? We'll say because Charlie's sort of out with Pantera. So I guess everybody's doing their little thing. Is that it? Until the Franky put an EP out? Yeah. You know, to me, it's just part of what I like to do. I don't, my, me, you know, Chris and I, you know, working together, putting something together now, it's just a matter of time when you can get it right and to do it, you know, I've always wanted to and it just happens to be now, you know. It looks like, yeah, I'm trying to do something while everybody's doing stuff. No, I would just want to do it, keep doing it. So I don't plan to just do it for the heck of it, you know, when I feel like it, we'll do it when we're, we have shows coming up in fact in March. So just taking them as they come, you know. But Joe, you always did, you did a classic rock cover bang about Chief Bigway, right? You used to take that out on the road in the tri-state area, like upstate. Yeah. Yeah. We did, we did some stuff, you know, as much as I liked the event, I was like, to take that. It wasn't anything I planned to do, like on the road type of stuff. But I mean, if I had shot to take it out of town, we did. Now, obviously I played drums in that band too.  I'd like to catch that one day. Are you still going to be doing that? Well, I'm not sure, you know, I'm actually going to probably end up doing a lot of little solo stuff by myself. I have, I've been working on it like over the last couple years, some recordings, a lot of songs.  I mean, I could do a whole night of Steeley Dan or Huda or Eagles. That night in the parking lot, you guys were talking about, you might expand and do another next, you might do, not turning next time, you might go out and do like Dio or something, correct? Is that coming? That we'll put together too.  So for in order for us to, I mean, I could sit here today and learn more Dio as I go, but we're not ready to get into that just yet. So the plan is you're going to go out and do journey, right? Do you have more dates coming up other than the few that are in Florida? Yeah, more dates. Yeah, March. So you have two in March in Florida. Are there more dates going to be popping up or are you just kind of working on that? I mean, the book is open basically like any other band would do. They're processing and whatever comes up, you know, we're just ready to take on, you know, because I wanted to grow.  So but their goal is to do this. Okay. Did you have any set time frame for the your solo stuff coming? Is it the summer next year or the fall? Well, the solo stuff really is just me with my tracks. And it's kind of an odd, it seemed like it's an odd thing. But man, I just cover up a lot. I cover a lot of music.   Is that what his name is? Seriously? Yeah, I was thinking about it calling him. That's pretty cool. It made me smile. So I think that's good. You know, it's a good set.  I mean, it's just different for me and and doing it for two years, or even two and a half years, to know that I can actually pull it off and do it without worrying about who's showing up, who's available. I'll probably I'll probably be up in Hampton Beach in the summer. Maybe I'm planning on maybe doing something up there, like a four night kind of residency type of thing, you know, and doing a happy hour type of four to eight type stuff I'm thinking of doing, you know, you don't shy away from sort of like the grass roots clubs, right? You're open to anything, right? I mean, you would probably walk in there, you would think the jukebox was going on. I didn't know there was a dude up there doing it. It looks familiar. What was that? Yeah, it happened every time I've done it before. People were like, is the band going to start? And like bartender said to the one girl, she goes, he's been that's been him for the last hour and a half. That he paid attention to thinking that I was that somebody was spinning records. And it was me singing dollars yet, you know, so it's cool. Anyhow. Well, before anthrax, when you were upstate, you were written like AOR type of rock bands, right? That's what you did. But before even before Bible Black, you were doing that type of music, correct? Yeah, I mean, my band in high school got we were doing we were doing anything like, I mean, I'm not saying in order or any exclusive many tunes of the type of bands that we're doing. But my high school dance consists of mantros, tubes, Aerosmith, got a cheap trick, whatever. I mean, I can't even think of the list that we had, we had, you know, Van Halen, we were doing all kinds of stuff back then rush. Do you name it? I mean, we really had a lot of cool songs, UFO, you know, and it was just whatever we wanted to learn and play we did where there was no rules for us. Obviously, some of the stuff I did back in the day, even before I joined anthrax, you know, I had certain bands that we did such deep cuts that nobody would dance to, even though we were kicking hard, nobody could dance to it. So obviously, I learned that lesson, it's like, wait a minute, now maybe I should pick some stuff that get in these clubs and not just throw it out the door.  That's kind of his philosophy. Yeah, I'm like, that's what's cool. If I do the solo stuff, I could give you something, you'd be like, oh my God, that sounds like that's a really good song.  You're like, yeah, tons of that. You might never even have heard the tune before. I love doing stuff like I'll never play these songs ever in a band in my lifetime.  Oh, I don't know anything about that.  You know, it's like, that's the cool thing. But back in the day, yes, I did a lot of cover stuff. And I like doing that. I mean, but we just like, yeah, it's and obviously, I mean, it's funny. I mean, sadly, Jeff Beck passed away. And all that kind of music was such a big influence on me, you know, UK and, and, and Kansas and yes, and all the progressive stuff.  I love doing that kind of thing too. You know, I love something with the melody, but a lot of good playing, a lot of good musicianship. Tell me about this. Before you mentioned you have recordings. When you sing recordings, you mean original material recordings or just recording cover song recordings?  And I do a lot of I do all the vocals, the backups and stuff like that. That just it's different versions of songs. Some of it sounds a lot like it. Most of it will sound a lot like it. You know, and that it's just it's already I'm singing to my playbacks, you know. No, but I'm saying is it original material? Are you getting at or is it? No, it's all cover songs. It's all of it. Okay. Custom done. Okay. All right. So now I just want to talk about Bible Black for a second. How did you get involved in that?   That's what the extra elf guys Gruber and Driscoll, right? I mean, I can't even remember how I got the call. I took a bus from Syracuse to Ithaca. Remember, duck picked me up at the airport. I mean, at the bus station, went to the house and I ended up staying there. But it was just as duck would say it, they just weren't ready to do anything. They were just kind of kind of at their last kind of leg of even really wanting to do anything, even though the spirit was there. There were songs. Those the demos I did, God, I wouldn't even know what we were doing when we did them.  I mean, I have tapes of ideas and stuff, the riffs that they had that we could have done. I mean, God, I mean, I learned all the other stuff that they had already recorded. I mean, I didn't even get the chance to jam one tune at any given place, even at the house. Gary would have the kit. He'd come home from work and he'd bang in his, you know, awesome. It was this great listen to play, but nobody ever played in one room with that band. Remember, again, where I got the call to go down and meet with them. So that was, but it was great because as I left there, do Carl Kennedy enough to say, Hey, geez, there's this guy Joey was, I mean, you should give him a call. And of course, anthrax was looking for somebody. So, you know, they asked me to come down and check them out too.  Like, yeah, I read in the paper, this band anthrax is looking for a singer. So I hopped in a plane and jetted down to Ithaca to beat up with these boys. But I felt like, Hey, they were sussing me out too, you know, even though I know nothing about them, nothing about that music. And, you know, it worked out great. Obviously, I was a little intimidated to join because I didn't know if the music was even really my style. But I saw it through it enough, you know, but I know Bible black. Yeah, there was a great, great opportunity that never really got going. So your early days, you audition, what was the audition like? What were you what songs that they asked you to play covers or originals by anthrax?  I, it was one of those things, you know, you get to the point like, All right, so let's get the mic set up, let's get in that room and let's sell it.   And I, I, I cold caught just some journey stuff, you know, I think I might have did. I don't even remember. I think lights maybe or Oshari, a little bits of pieces of stuff. I don't think I did whole tunes tunes, but and then at that point, they're like, Okay, now this isn't what we expected. And when I gather, you know, because, you know, I was down in Queens and we all heard rumors about what was going on down in the area about what was, you know, and we heard they got a, they replaced Neil with a Dio Steve Perry type singer. And it was he, he was going to be the first guy in a thrash band that could like sing, sing. That's the way to sing, sing, sing, like really hit the notes and everything.   And I mean, I actually had the demo of me singing it. It's pretty damn close to the record.  Start singing. And that, that was a lot of the stuff right out the box. And then at the very, very, very end, AIR was done together with everyone. So you kind of get a little bit of both of where we're all coming from.  You really came up and hit a home run with that. Yeah. You know, what's good about that record? And I always people ask me what my favorites are. That one always hits me because at that point, nobody was really pushing me into a corner and like boxing me in and not let me do something. I just, I mean, give him a shot. Let him do his thing. You know, Carl and I, we were just like constantly try things. We had so much fun. You know, I was laying on harmonies and stuff. And it just really, really made for a cool record without even really even knowing anything about that band at all, you know, musically especially. When you hit the stage and you had to sort of do this material and the metal thrashing, mad material from the fistful of metal. I mean, what was that? What was that? Neil was a great singer too. Like, right? He's another great singer, right? So I mean, there's challenges making your own, right? You got to make it your own. Yeah. You know, I did everything but a couple of songs off that record. There's an instrumental. And I think we didn't do a subjugator. We didn't do across the river. If I remember correctly, I'm not looking at the titles, but did a lot off that record. I had, you know, just it was just inevitable. And at that time, I'm not even sure really how many people really even knew that record at all, or even spreading the Z so much. I mean, we played clubs that I had already previously played in cover band. I'm thinking, well, is this the where it's going to be? You know, those big decisions, you know, not that I was bailing out of my thoughts of being in the band. It's just like, you have to wait for the progress to happen. Yeah, I thought I could do much more than just what they did with fistful of metal. I mean, there was a certain thing that I wanted to do more than that, you know, definitely a lot more clarity and a lot more depth, you know, dynamics to, you know, I think, you know, obviously they can explain a lot more to where they went and how they were with Neil and all that stuff. I didn't know Neil and I don't, I don't cast any kind of opinions on it. I just know what I thought when I heard that. Of course, when I met them, they didn't set me down. Let me listen to all that. And I was like, okay, but I'm thinking, God, I can, man, I could take this on, you know, we could do a lot more with this. And we're spreading the Z's when you put them both together. There's a lot, a lot of both on there, you know, yeah. Now how open would they to you coming in writing was most of spreading the disease written already? Yeah, when I walked in that record, I mean, other an AIR was a brand new tune. Yeah, musically, there wasn't any that I know of.  Would you take the melodies? You write the melodies up and stuff?    You come up with, I mean, I come up with ideas all the time throughout the process of even doing each song. You know, in one day between 12 and 6 o'clock, you got a whole tune that's just starting to whip up some, some smoke, you know, it's really coming together. Like, by the time we go out for like, like a dinner-ish lunch, like I'm still like reeling from what I just did. I was like, wow, okay, geez, I'm never hurting. And I'm digging it. And now I get my feet, well, we'll come back and we'll start buttoning it up. And even if I come back the next day with ever the band here's, there's, there's a lot that's been done that people dig. So there's not a lot of changes, you know, you know, of course, everybody has input. It can't really teach what I'm doing.  I mean, people think lyrics and just the guitar parts, right, the riff, but melody is just as important as any, you know, part of the composition, right? I mean, you could talk to me. You could talk to me.   You know, that's not a good example, but you know, I mean, it's a great example because if you sing it really well, it's a different song altogether. Raising.  Some words are even hard to pronounce on just a normal conversation. They try to get them in vowel. There's vowels involved. There's keys that are being, their keys are written. There's nowhere to go. You know what?  We don't do that. Everything is buttoned up. And it's cool. I mean, why change it, I guess, right? I don't know. But then again, who knows what would happen? Like, I mean, even take Bible Black. If we went in the room, we started busting some songs out or anthrax to anybody. Holy God. And you really think you could sing something like that over this? Well, I never thought of that. Wow, that's cool. You know, so there's all kinds of stuff that happened. And there's, you know, it's tough when people go, no, I wrote that or I had that. I did that.  I don't know. That's just, well, I mean, lyrics are important, but at the end of the day, lyrics are important, but if the melody is not there, it doesn't really matter what the lyrics are. We can sing, we can talk about climbing the castle all day long. But if it's, I mean, to appeal your taste, you lost me in the first couple of lines, buddy. The melody carries it. The melody carries it. It looks to lyrics for a long, long time when I used to do stuff.  I just, you know, just did the melodies and everybody was cool with it, you know. And now I listen back, oh, I didn't, they said that. And like, oh, that's what it means. Okay, sure. I don't even like. Man for Man's always the perfect example for that, you know, like a douche. I love that. Those are my favorite things, the way people phrase stuff. It doesn't sound like something. And it's just, that's the trick of singing, you know, you can't always get stuff out the way you think that some, if somebody else said, like, yeah, do it that way. It's like, well, I can't, but I could try, I could try something else like this, sort of like that. And it works for me better, you know, as people push, push, push.   So you're like the unsung hero in anthrax, at least in my opinion, it's sort of you give so much and you do so much, but maybe because you're not always in the spotlight in that sense, or the forefront, even though you are the lead singer, but I'm, you know, I'm trying to get at it. I'm trying to get at that. Sometimes you're overlooked because of that. Oh, I mean, you know what, it's so late in the game to even consider all that. I, you know, I totally understand what you're saying. And I, you know, I'm just saying you're the unsung hero. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I appreciate that.    I just wanted to be good enough to carry my weight and carry the band into a better place.  Another story too. That was two.  Nobody wants to hear it out. I used to say, no one wants to hear that they're wrong. Nobody likes to hear that. Very, very true. Very true. And it's all, it's all in the memory. It's all in the bank. And you know, obviously it'll never leave my heart. And I, and I continue to be as humble as possible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Move forward, which that's what we all want to do. And then you handled it very well, Joey. I think you really do. It had to be tough. And then I, I don't know how it would have been going back, you know. Yeah. Something was like, what, what are you nuts? It's like a marriage at that point. Correct. I mean, Yeah. You've been in relationships. I mean, it's kind of the same idea.  You know, and what are the reasons? There's a lot to it too. There is sometimes there's just no reason for it. You know, and what do you get from it? And then you got a backtrack. And then you got to pick it up again.  Well, I, I appreciate that too for everybody's sake.  I mean, I think everything we were doing, even to the last minute before I was gone, persistence.  That was pretty great album. Yeah. You good stuff. And then there was also the sign of the times. The times were changing. They really were. And everybody, everybody was, you know, trying something different early nineties.  I mean, yeah, I mean, we could change as a band, which even our new stuff is, you know, I think it's adapting to some of the newer styles without really deliberately doing anything. And that's a whole different opinion on everybody's part, I guess. But I feel it's got a lot of both of everything, you know. But again, we're still originally, still have our own, own style, our own sound with definitive, it's pretty definitive, you know. I think being humble is the best way to be. And I think that I think at the end of the day, it's the fans that make all decisions, right? Surely you are where you are today because the fans made that decision and no other decision. And that's great. Yeah, I would hope to think that that's sure helped, you know, for everybody's sake, you know. Well, you did some stuff when you weren't in anthrax. You put out this one. I love this album. And then you came back a couple of years later, like 95 with the Spell of Fears. That stuff is, I mean, I got it. I got it stated. This is a great cover, Charlie. You got it, man. Yeah, I mean, that's a cool, I have a backdrop to that. That's cool stuff. That, that record really is all the demos that artifacts one and artifacts two. Spell of Fears is a complete demo. It's not even, it's not even ready to, that shouldn't even have saw the light of day, or it should say demo. Because that was like two weeks of just blasting out ideas. There is a difference. There is a definite difference between the two albums, definitely. The first one is definitely worth it. You got a guy that comes in out of nowhere from LA and we just kind of hang out in the room, and it's a, okay, let's put it out.  Not that I'm embarrassed at it, it just doesn't finish. Artifacts one and artifacts two is, is really the spawn to make that, that one record with different people, which is another completely different story. I could go into great details of all that kind of stuff. But all that stuff, other than that one you held up the bell down on that one, all of its demos to make that record. And unfortunately, it wasn't on a label that really did anything. What was that? Mausoleum the first one? You know, hey, we found somebody that really wanted it. That's a tough road to be on just in itself to try to get a deal back then. You know, I was all by myself.  You know, none of the guys really went off on their own that much like I did, you know, after a long period of time. But I'm proud of the demo stuff. Pauli Crook and I, we rocked every day we wrote it. Right, Paul Crook saw that stuff, you're right. And the demos, that, I mean, we really, that lineup, you know, obviously that all fell apart and then everybody went their ways and that kind of thing, no bad bloods and all that kind of stuff. Just people were just moving out. We were just sitting every day writing and then everybody moved. We could, we probably could have done the record together, at least the drummer, Jeff and me and Pauli and I. But at that time, the label had something.  But yeah, I'm glad to have some stuff out, but I'm clear that those are. Those effects one and two are an eight track cassette. Yeah, they were they were written and recorded at the day. We would go have dinner and go back and start another one. We were just banging them out and it was a blast. I don't think I've had so much fun writing music like that.  Three microphones on the drums. We had foam on the cymbals. I sang on a fifty eight, you know, a fifty seven, I'm sorry.  When anthrax started moving into, OK, your first album, second album, then you're going amongst the living right. Then you started touching into the rap business. Were you sort of a little put off with that? Or what was your opinion on I'm the man and bring the noise? I love those songs. Don't get me no clue. No clue what was going on. I remember walking in the room. There was kind of a heated moment about certain things about that. And when I heard them working on it, I thought I walked in the wrong room. I honestly did. I had no idea what was going on. I mean, obviously they think move and they go and they do whatever they need to do. And I'm happy to be a part of all of it. I had the experience has been great. I love playing drums on some of the stuff. And I love jamming with public enemy. I love listening to their stories about how they come together and play. It's super cool. And you can't you can't deny the the fans having so much fun with that stuff. But I have no idea. I mean, I even did a rap thing with this band UTFO. If I'm correct, I got called up to do something.   And I remember doing something, but I don't know much about rap. I couldn't be. I mean, I'm the furthest thing from it. When you're in that video, did you really feel out of place with the public enemy video? Bring the noise. Bring the noise. Give me something I can, you know, I'm not going to stand around and that's it. That's it. Drinks while everybody's shooting a video. I can give me some turntables. I get that, you know, it works. You should have played drums. You should have played the drums. Let's probably sing. You know, honestly, I probably should, but it's funny. My favorite one of my favorite stories is Flav. That's the only instrument that was there all day. So Flav, of course, you know, in the middle of a basketball court. All day. I'll just jamming away on by himself. It was the best. I mean, they got on a megaphone. I got everybody riled up and it was fun. It was a fun video, but there really wasn't much for me to do. But what I did was, I think, you know, fits the mold of where I'm at. You know, it's funny, Joey, because I remember when that video first went on, I go, oh, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. And then I go, where's Joey? And then, you know, he's on the tour. Why isn't he singing or rapping? I was just, I was just like, what's going on here? I mouthed a few things, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I, but I get it. I get it. Like, I'm not trying to diss it because I liked it. I'm just saying like it was out of place. Stop, man. You're over, you're over here. Oh, you good? Okay. All right. Yeah, but by doing that stuff, you definitely separated yourself from the other Thresh fans, the other big, the big four and everything. You definitely did.  Every time I see Chuck, when he comes to join us, he is so psyched to do it. We're so psyched to see him show up. It's like, he's here, man. It's great. I actually bumped into Flavor Flav and Times Square when I was leaving my building one time and I had an anthrax shirt on and that, he stopped dead in his tracks and was like, yeah. Did he have a clock on him? Was he walking around with a clock? He was doing his VH1 stuff and he was down the block at that and he was just walking past us and he saw me coming out of the building and he stopped and he acknowledged the shirt. It was really cool. He gave me so many better, better one liners. One time he called me and he goes, you, man. You motherfuckers have been blessed. I'm like, cool. Thank you, man. It's just, it's just too funny. When you sort of, when persistence of time came out, the album did good and suddenly you're out, did you ever stop and say, you know what, maybe this is not for me, the music business. Maybe I'm just going to be a milkman or something or you know what, I'm going to keep doing this in another.  But the thing is, he had a speaker and an old TV and put one in. So when we practice in the basement, like a loud as hell, he would crank the TV up and I'd, you know, I have to yell out, I said, dad, we're done. You know, because you never know, we stop and start, stop and start. Always used to play, did dances, played clubs, rehearsed, always practicing, never stopped before I even joined Anthrax. I was constantly doing it and I was destined to keep doing it. If I wasn't in Anthrax, I'd be doing something that would find, you'd find me somewhere at a club down in Albany or wherever it is doing something. So no, I would, when I left Anthrax, it was just a lot of, a lot less of things that I was doing. You know, obviously we were on the go all the time. So coming back and you had to regroup, it was a lot. It was a lot that, you know, it might as well be just set off the side of the road and try to look around and we're like, where do I go? What do I do? You know, so you got to think from it. I had, I had to take a little bit of time to deflate, you know. So a lot of people are like that, not only in the music industry, they work in a big corporate, you know, and a big job for like 20, 30 years. Suddenly they're, you know, they're let go and they don't know what to do with themselves.  And finding people was some of the hardest parts, you know, as you go. And as of even today, finding, like finding the beyond frontiers guys, it takes time to find people you can, and even then they're still like, okay, this guy doesn't want to do this today. And that guy wants to get up and this time and he doesn't want to play them. You know, there's so much to deal with, but I want to play. So I always try and try to find something and give somebody a shot to do something to play in a band together. It's really a hard, hard process, you know. But it never left my mind. I'm always willing to find that place, you know. How did you find those guys in Nashville? It's kind of. The keyboard player, Doug, we were on Shiprock together. And I wanted to do this journey on plug thing. And he was a keyboard player. And I said, dude, I go, what do you think?  Can we put something together? You can learn how I'll give you some songs. We'll learn and we'll go on the boat. Sure enough, we put the thing together.  He joined us on a keyboard stew. That was like last minute. I'm like, sure, yeah, whatever.  But Doug, the keyboard player that's in beyond frontiers, I asked him, I go, after that was all done, we did some plug thing, which was awesome.  Do you think he could, you know, want to do something like that? He goes, I can, I could definitely put a band together for you. I got the guys. There we are. You know, obviously we sat dormant for a little while for COVID. You know, there was no really no reason for us to push our way out the door for, you know, we did something just before COVID. But we, I don't even even met the guys except for the keyboard player. We never rehearsed. So that is thrown goes, which, you know, we opt out to do that again. But we still had fun. We did pretty damn good job for never even playing together or even seeing each other. So it's pretty awesome. But at the same time, we rehearsed this time. And here we are. But it's the same guys, you know, and they're really good dudes, man.  Have you ever had an audition? You want to say something? What did you want? Yeah, come on. You want to say? You know what? Obviously, I always say, you know, we, we've both been together on this. And she does a shitload of work. And, you know, a lot of times you get wrapped up in the whole band thing. But that's, that's part of it.  Bring her on. Bring her on. No, no, no, I always just bring her on. But you know what? I bring her on. This is the guy. All right. How you doing? Oh, no, no, you know what? Bring her on. But wait, what's you going? Go back. No, I just. Here's the brains. You're saying, is that what you're saying? You're saying, here's the brains behind the audition. A couple of things you just need to take care of and stuff. He's always dreamed of doing this. All right. So what's, what's it like managing Joey Baladotta? Oh, it's a dream. Yeah. Well, and I have to say because we both feel the same way that how lucky we are to be able to bring joy to other people. Okay.  Joey just wants to make people happy and the fans happy. And even when we're at the airport or we're in a restaurant, doesn't matter. Come over, say hi, get an autograph, take a picture. And to be able to work with somebody like that is, I don't know. How long have you been together? How long have you been together? Since 89. He asked me to marry him in January 20th, 1989. And did you know he was the singer of Anthrax back then or you did? Yeah, but we dated like. This isn't a Hank Williams. So she was a little scared of you. You get these stories, you get sometimes these stories of, you know, people who are, you know, famous and they didn't even know who they were famous when they met. Yeah, well, he, we dated over the phone pretty much. Oh yeah, back then, right? Back in the day, we didn't, you know, no cell phones, no zooms or anything like that. So I knew he was the one when, you know, when you're speaking with someone and there is a silence and you feel you have to feel that silence, he wasn't like that at all. I felt totally comfortable in the silence with him.  You know, you got to do all that too, but at the same time, I'm glad that she's into helping and helping put it all together basically.  So how did you meet? You didn't just elaborate on that a little bit. How did we meet? Do you remember that? Well, I remember being backstage at Maltesers Rock and I worked for Hawaiian Tropic. And I remember being chased down by somebody in a golf cart. Listen to somebody else. And so we went down to Maltesers Rock, which, you know, obviously a pretty big event back then that you only eat the Demonsers Rock. We actually ran into each other at a journey concert too. Hey, look at that. It was like almost fate. It was like we just kept running into each other when we didn't even, we lived how many states away. So I think we just, we kept running into each other. I was like, okay, this is just. So this is 89 is when you met or you got married? I'm engaged. Well, we met casually in 86, but we, you know, didn't even, there's a picture of us. He's standing behind me. He didn't even really realize it. And so, but the first time we really connected was at Maltesers Rock. Yeah.  Joey, was she the one who sort of kept you going and motivated, you know, as sort of the lean years after persistence of time, you know, when you try to focus? Without a doubt. I mean, that's, that's the bond that we have kept us for 13 years. Being able to get through all that stuff.  A lot of sadly, there's still a lot of misogyny left in the entertainment business. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, as I'm, yeah. That's hard, hard for women, you know. Yeah, yeah. But it's getting better. It's getting a lot better. It's getting a lot better. Between the time when Belladonna toured for Motorhead, I try to remember the year, and I can't remember the year, but I tour managed Belladonna. That was a motor tour. And the difference between what I had to go through back then versus what I go through now is 108. It's so much better. It's unbelievable. And there's a lot more women like this last tour we did with Beyond Frontiers. I dealt with a lot of women at the venues. That's good. Some of the nicest people. Oh my goodness, we had the best people on this. So you're like a foremother, you know, like other women will see you now and say, you know what? I can do it too, because she can do it, right? That's that's kind of like, you know, how it is. Yeah, we're not.  Some people had to learn just like anyone else. Gotta do it. There's really no. Does he do the dishes? Yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, look, there you go. That's all you need, really. Does he cook? There's a lot more than I do. So that's the word. I do all kinds of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. So that's why she's keeping on.  Well, we have our different things that we do. You get her breakfast or she gets you breakfast? I managed at William Sonoma for a long time. So he used to cook professionally, I guess you would. And during that time, when you work for it as a living, you kind of don't like to do it at home. It falls out of favor a little bit. Yeah, yeah. He picked it up. And he's so happy. I know. It's such a cool thing because you can't really plan for that. It's like, okay, what you're going to do is this and I'll do that.  And you got to be thankful for that. A lot of just working together, compromise.  Yeah, that's hard too. There's a lot of defending going on. And it's challenging, you know. It's hard. Sometimes you just want to mediate things and kind of miss it sometimes, you know. Kenny, do you do the dishes at your house? I tried to do dinner the other night, but I almost flooded the kitchen out with the spaghetti over a long time. And I even got a dishwasher set. I don't think I've used it in about at least 15 years. I've never, I mean, I want to have enough dishes to really throw in there. But yeah, I don't mind. I just, that's a given. Wow. This is a very touching moment. I like this. And the cabinets before I go to sleep, it's all put away. Yeah. And vacuuming, what's up the story? Who does the vacuum? Look at this guy. Look at this guy. He's the singer. Look at that. He's the talent. He's the, he cooks. And he cleans. Look at that. Do you do windows? Do you do windows? He does do windows. I've done windows. I'm procrastinator about it. There's just too many of them to clean, you know. There's nothing that each of us won't do. You know, we'll, we'll both do everything. I'll work on the cars. I'll change the oil. Yeah. So I know this interview turned. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no. No, I actually prefer this. I prefer this interview. Obviously there's, you know, we could talk about the same thing, record, joining the band, out of the band, but there's so much more to it. Right.  I didn't know that. So at the same time. So you've managed Joey now for 13 years. If that is that, that's what I'm hearing. Right. 13 years. You really can say, we work together. I mean, people take a, she out with you. She's got to like guide you down the stairs and make sure you're sure. No, we just constantly helping each other. I mean, we just, we do things together. That's all. I don't know. All right.  Oh, for sure. I know it'll be nice to come up there. I know we're hitting there with anthrax this time around. We got what, the West Coast. You're getting the West Coast. Yeah, you got to come to Montreal though. You got to come to Montreal, let's say. We were just there. Basically, we were up in the middle of nowhere. Did you happen to show up for that show? You know what the problem with that was, and I'm just being blunt here. It was a great gig, but it's an hour and a half from Montreal. I heard a lot of people complain about it.  Beautiful place. I mean, it is, it is, it is. And it was on a weekday from what I remember. And that's the problem. If it was on the weekend, it's easier to like make that journey, right? Yeah, well, obviously we're going to find our way back in Canada at either place. Well, fans. I would do a whole Canadian run. Yeah. It would be fun too, because I mean, motorhead, we did a quite a bit of stuff. You know, like Kingston, Ontario, like Kingston. You know, Joey, I think I remember when you came with, to Montreal, you played Fuffin Electric, if you remember this, and there was. Was it motorhead? No, it wasn't motorhead. It was a small club. The mid-90s too. Yeah, I think you lost the drummer that night. Yeah, you ended up playing the drums. That's right. I remember the club. I remember the drum set and everything. Wasn't that the place where Anthrox played? I think it was that place. But oh, no, it could be. It was a club. I know what you're talking about. It's like a 300-seater. It's a town town. It was kind of a downtown area. It's a Grand G. It's called Fuffin. It's like a Grand G sort of. Yeah, it was a good gig. I remember it was a lot of people were definitely ecstatic. Yeah, I remember I was a cool kid. I was like, I was on. Actually, here's my last question. All right. Bye. My last question is, have you ever had an audition throughout all your years?  Was there any of that big audition when you said, look, guys, I'm in a band. I'd love to do it, but I can't because I'm working. And did I get any calls? Yeah, yeah. You know, I got a few that I don't even want to mention. There was stuff that just wasn't my style. Nothing that I wish that I would have taken. There was an individual in a band, a big, huge band that had a solo thing. I don't even want to mention the name either, but it's just at the time I was working on this and my solo stuff. I wasn't sure that I wanted to go overseas.  And obviously all that stuff is... I mean, being an anthrax, I think I probably scared half those bands away anyhow. Yeah, he's just a thrasher.  I'm not like, oh, my God. I didn't know you could sing ambrosia stuff and, you know, eagle. You can do that too, or you can sing. Wow. You know what I mean? So I think I probably missed a lot of that stuff, unfortunately. But that's okay, you know, because I'm just going to do more of it now. Yeah, yeah. Kenny, do you have a last question that you want to ask? I have one more question. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. I noticed you've been hitting the National Anthem circuitly in the NFL. You did New York and you did Buffalo. And you did Buffalo. Now, you're an upstate New York guy, but I see this appears. It's a Joey Belladonna Minnesota Viking ultimate fan card. You're not a Buffalo Bills fan coming from upstate here. I like the Bills. Sure, I like the Bills. Yeah. Viking fan. I look at, you know, I can't hide a team that I've had since I was a kid. Okay. We're talking 10 days. You're going back. Yo cap, man. I mean, I watch the Vikings on TV in the snow, the purple, the helmets. I loved all of it. Then, you know, one of my friends back at home, we used to have Viking helmets and the other guys too had Ram helmets. We go and play against each other.  I love, I mean, I'm a fan. I never really diverted, but I also like some of the upstate teams. You know, I have them when it's time. Well, you just did Buffalo a couple of weeks ago. My wife's cousins are up in families up in Canada, and they come down to Buffalo for the games. And one of the kids were at the game. And I remember my cousin, Joey, text me.  Right around the time we were talking. It snowed like pretty crazy at that game. Seats were just packed with snow because it snowed that day. And they had cleaned everything up. But it was a really good game. And it was, it's always a lot of fun. That was my second, third, fourth, fourth time I've done Buffalo now. Were you born in Minnesota? Huh, born? Were you born in Minnesota? Just upstate, upstate. Upstate. We go, we go. We go, right? Yep. Right across the lake from Toronto, you know. My son's in Minnesota. He lives there now. Oh, yeah.  That's cool. Although they're at home this week, which is can't wait. You know, it's exciting, you know, two games, two games to go before you get in the dance again. All right. On, on that note, thank you so much, both of you. It's very nice to see both of you as a couple working together and being successful. I'll see you guys again on the 31st and Wellmont Theatre. And I'll be at the Jersey show. I'll see you there. We've been there before. Anthrax. I don't think Anthrax has been at the Wellmont Theatre. It's a beautiful theatre.  No, it's been around a while.  It's a great theatre. I saw Symphony X there this summer. Great, great show. I thought a film might have played there. You're going to like it. I think we might have played there if it's a theatre. Is it like right in the city? Like there's some nice shops across the street.  I think we, I think we played there a couple of times. I think we did with Kill Switz the last time we were there. Oh, that's right. You might have. You probably did. Yeah. Because it's obviously not brand new. And by now we, yeah, I'm almost sure. That's a cool place. Good place. I'll see you there. You're going to be there? And we expect you to come to Canada, at least the eastern part, not the western part, the eastern. But in a good word, we'll bring the BF up there quick. All right. All right. Got room. You bet. You bet. All right, guys. Good luck with Beyond Frontier, Joey. Thank you, good. It's a lot. Good seeing you both. I hope you enjoyed it. And thanks for asking us.