All right, here we are another episode of let there be talk episode number 703 today. And I'm pretty fired up about today's episode because first of all, introduce yourself guys. Hey, I'm M shadows and I sing an avenge seven fold. I am Johnny Christ. I am also an avenge seven fold and a podcaster and a podcaster, I mean, that's why you look beautiful. That's why I got the golden mic, baby. He's got a set up back there, the bar. I actually like your background. I like your is that like a that's awesome. Your background is it's so real to look at entry.  I heard you talking. Yeah, I heard you talking on your podcast last week and you were talking about how you want to get rid of all your rock posters and move on to something similar to that background, but like in real life, right?  I'm sure you've got like thousands.  Oh, we played this festival or whatever. And then you get them all home and you have an apartment and they're like, well, they cost like 500 to frame. I can put up like five or six of them. And then after a while, you just put them in a closet and tubes. And then you've got like 600 tubes and then you go, you know what? I'm more into art and classic black and white photography, like stuff like I love rock photography, like the famous guys from the seventies that shot all these great people, you know, and that's the stuff I'm into now.  Yeah. Do you have a wife? No. See, I have a wife. She just threw it all out. Is it not in the warehouse? Is some of that stuff not in the warehouse? Oh, I don't know. She'll claim that it's somewhere, but it's not anywhere. It's gone. So that took care of all my, you know, posters and names on stuff. It's just I've got like one thing left. I think, Johnny, remember when we did the Iron Maiden tour in like 2008 and they they signed these huge posters for us with our name somewhere back in time that we did with them. Yeah, I have one of my only thing I have left.  And like my wife hasn't made her way in there yet. But I'm sure she'll, you know, one day take that too. But yeah, well, I got well, that's what happened in my studio because she doesn't my wife doesn't go in the studio. I was nothing to do with that. Yeah. How great was that tour, man? Someone I saw the original one. And then I saw the years later that the one you're talking about. It's just that's a mind boggling record and period and time for Maiden, you know? Yeah, we, you know, we it was a learning experience for us. You know, we got asked to go on that tour and we actually got asked by them and we got asked by Guns N' Roses to do their European tours. And somehow we figured out a way to toggle them both. So we would do we would fly like to G&R, then we'd fly to Iron Maiden and we were going back and forth. But the Iron Maiden audience, you know, is notoriously tough, especially when you got these like pretty boys from Southern California that are on MTV in America. We were in makeup at the time, too. Yeah, yeah, we we think we're cool and we go out there to a stadium and everyone's just got their arms crossed and just getting, you know, bologna sandwiches thrown at you like in Italy and stuff. So we we all shaved our heads and we got crazy on stage and we had lots of feedback in between songs to make sure people couldn't yell at us. And, you know, we have lots of stories from that tour, but it was a huge learning experience and also, you know, put us in the shoes of openers, which, you know, having empathy and trying to make sure that your opening act feels good and knows what's happening, you know, like that the audience isn't always a reflection of necessarily the band or how their career is going to go. So we always try to be really positive with our opening acts because we know that they were Iron Maiden was very cool to us. Like we'd go backstage and Steve Harris would be like, you guys are awesome. This is great. Just, just, you know, that's a tough audience, but just play it and do it. And so, you know, you learn a lot. That's that stuff you can't really prepare for.     That's how angry they are at the opener.  Here's my converse.  I don't care who it is, you know. Well, we would, we would sit out. I remember we were sitting outside the Percy in Paris and we were playing with Maiden and we were, you know, in our little van and we were opening that tour and we were watching everyone walk in. And it's a lot of fathers and grandfathers with their younger kids. And we're like, yeah, that kid's going to be on that dead shoulder. And he's going to throw a shoe at us tonight. You know, it's going to be sort of like, yeah, yeah, yeah.  You threw a shoe at the opener and we were just making so much fun of it. Just whatever it is what it is. It was fun.  Those are people that just Iron Maiden goes on tour. They're going to every show. Yeah, it was it was remarkable to see another learning experience, to see like, like how crazy that fan can be. But like by the end, you know, we got those first five rows to kind of like come around and then and then the other rows slowly came around to it. By the end of it, I felt pretty good about it.  It is an interesting thing of taking a gig like we were just talking about me opening for Metallica doing comedy.  And you have to really sit down and think about what type of person that takes to be able to go look if we get a couple hundred people one night, you know, that that join join in and dig us would just keep grinding and keep finding it. And eventually you figure out how to do this. But it's interesting, the first few nights you're out there, you're just going like, man, what are we doing? And the week do not survive.  They don't they don't end up keep going. They have a couple of opening tours and they're out. So that's a wild thing, right? It's like earning your stripes. Yeah, I think and I think humans love narratives. We all know that. I mean, look at the world we live in right now. And, you know, if you see an artist in their environment and you're having a good time and there's no expectations, it's a lot different than walking into a half empty stadium while everyone wants to see Metallica or G&R, half the people of their arms crossed. It's scattered. The sound's not great. It's just kind of this thing. And so as an artist, you kind of have to like, there's two things. You have to either I think it's really healthy when you're younger to go through those things. But then at some point you need to question, is it worth going out here and having these people see us in this environment? Or maybe they find you a couple of years later in your own environment.  Like no one wants to be in 110 degree weather in Georgia, watching as the sun's going down, some band that's annoying them because they want to see Metallica, you know? And so like we had to like a lot of times we won't open any more because we just know it's just a it's a weird. We would rather wait till people can see us in our environment at this point. But in the beginning, we needed to earn our stripes. We needed to go out there. We needed to get the bologna sandwiches thrown at us. We needed to have the Iron Maiden chant happening in between every one of our songs, you know, and everyone letting us know that we sucked, which, you know, I'm grateful for. But I don't know if I'd do that anymore.  We're going out with you.  And then after a while, you're like, all right, we did that. And we need to start saying no to stuff. And once you start saying no, instead of quantity, it's all about quality. That's how I look at it now as doing gigs. You know, it's like, OK, I did that. And I also did it maybe for a chapter in a future book, opening for Metallica, Alice in Chains or, you know, Marcus King. There's the chapter. But after that, you're like, I'm sorry.  Yeah, and I think the biggest part is just knowing that people aren't seeing the right representation of you, right?   We have this crazy stage production. We've got a third record coming out and I wanted people. I know we could do arenas on our own, so let's let them see that. But then it was like, OK, well, Metallica is doing stadiums, which is, you know, five X the arenas. And it was like, OK, let's let's give this a shot. But getting out there, it was like, dude, I don't think this is right for us right now. This is people are hearing our name and then they're seeing this version of us when I wish they'd just come into the arena and see the blown out big stage show, the the vision. And so I think, yeah, like at a certain point, you have to kind of put that to bed and go, we're not doing that anymore. We're doing this and we're standing on our own. But watching those guys, how they controlled an audience, watching how they acted, how professional all those bands were, were things that we needed to see in person to really understand how to act ourselves when we got to that point or when we were doing our own thing. So again, it's exactly what you said. It's at some point and then saying no is is powerful. And when you're saying no and you truly mean no, that's even more powerful. It's not just a, you know, like a bargaining tool when it's really like, no, we're just not doing that. Then it gets you start seeing those crazy offers. And then if you can still say no to that, then you're in a good position. Yeah. I think I think real quickly on that, just to piggyback up about what Matt said, though, too, when we did say no at first to Metallica, like you said, the stage had just come out. We were we were about to go do this whole thing with our new production, with our new album. We were really excited about we spent so much time on like we always do.  We wanted to go represent it the way that we wanted to. And then, of course, as Matt said, they misconstrued his his comments as like we said no to Metallica. I was like, we're friends with these guys. We were already friends. We've already been out with them before. Like this was not a it wasn't a pissing contest of any kind. It was literally like we were trying to think about what was best for our career. And but at the end of the day, we ended up doing it.  It was good. We still wish that we had a little bit more time with the stage. Turns out we didn't have as much time with that cycle. So it is what it is now. Well, it is a sad state of affairs now where the interviews are all about clickbait, you know, they're never going to talk about a great, great interview. I've had guys on this show and I've talked to them for two, three hours. And just incredible conversations about life, art, music, anything. And then, boom, one little thing, he said such and such. And it's like, that's not what he said.  And then it's like, oh, well, the interview got like eight hundred thousand listens, but all for the wrong reason, you know, it's like a while. Yeah, I think. Yeah. I mean, during that Metallica stuff, I remember you know, Lars was calling me on the phone. We were trying to work it out and we had said, no. And the headline made it look like we're just totally dissing these guys. Right.   And to make it look like that is just so embarrassing because it's like, come on. Like, I know they're going to wake up and read that and then they're going to have to figure it out. It's like, it just, but listen, that's that's the world we live in right now. But you kind of reap what you sow, right? Like we have art and music and all these things are so commoditized now. And it's because everyone's just got this quick, quick sort of reaction to things.  It's just not there's no place for that anymore. It's they don't take the time. Yeah, that's Twitter. It's coming and that's fine. Everyone knows that's what it is.  Like, honestly, at this point, I don't care how bad you are. Anyone talking about you at this day and age is good. It's just a weird thing. It's and it's it's it's a reflection of our society. Honestly, it's not a reflection on the people. It's a reflection on society. So in and, you know, with our new record right now, like all you all you see are 10 out of 10 reviews and zero out of 10 reviews. Right. I love that.  But, you know, it's one of those things where in 2023, having a zero out of 10 is actually better than anything you could ask for because people are talking and it's a weird society we live in at this point. Well, Missy Shore, the famous owner of the Polly Shore's mom, owner of the comedy store, she said it best. She's like, you need half the people to hate you and have to love you. And you will have an incredible career because they'll always be talking.  Nice. Now, it's an interesting thing to get into because I will be honest with you. I was never an event seven fold fan. And I couldn't figure out why because I would listen. You know, I know that you love G and R. I'm a huge G and R guy, and I know I know you guys love all the right stuff. And each record, I would, you know, I'm not a guy that's like, I don't like them. I'm never rigid. I'm not a tumbleweed. I go, let's let's give it a spin again. So this record, I've got to tell you, could be the best record I've heard in a couple years. And it may be the record of the year for me. It's pretty early in, but this Queens of the Stone Age, New Record, Rival Sons and the New King, Gizzard are just all mind boggling to me.  And it grabbed me. Nobody.  Love the video. I love stop motion. I put on the record and I haven't stopped listening to it, man. And I am hooked. And what's funny was I talked about it last week on the podcast was I know a lot of fans hated it. And or, you know, that's what I'm reading, the quick bait. And I'm thinking if they weed out some people, maybe from growing and becoming a different type of band, that's all right.  This is cool. And this record blows my mind, man. I appreciate it. I think you're exactly right. Listen, all artists can do is be a reflection of themselves at any point in time. And, you know, there's nothing worse than when people are trying to put you in a box and want you to write the same music you wrote when we were in high school or 20 years old. And those were reflections of who we were back then. We were aggressive youth, young kids that were just kind of all over the place like making a certain type of music and every record kind of changed. But this one in particular, much more musical in terms of not having to have one foot fully in metal. It's got so many different eclectic influences that we've had our whole life that we never really were able to kind of quantify. Like if you think about like the residents or Mr. Bungle or all these different things that we are growing up listening to. And I think this is just where we're at right now. And yeah, you can't worry about it's a different type of record, like you said, like the philosophy, all of it is different. And so it's not going to appeal to people that want the same thing or more of the same or or they're there in their life right now. It doesn't mean they're not going to get here. Maybe they're just not here right now. You know, maybe it's our job to put our arm around them and say, hey, you know, we're up the street at this bar and let's hang out here like this is what we're doing now. There's so many psychological things that go into if people like records are not or if they don't or what they're listening to at the time. And it's not really our job to figure that out. It's just our job to put something out that we totally back and we appreciate. And we'll see where it goes, you know, it's it's hard to really talk about it because it's hard to, you know, there's really no right or wrong answer. It's OK to hate this record. I tell you what, man, I can't even believe it, actually. I don't even know how you write a record like this. It's funny to think about nobody as a single. No way is this a traditional signal. But when you really listen to it, the hooks are there's so many hooks in this single, you know, starting with that.  And then how the verses flow and and I hear so much influence on this. I hear some Alan Parsons. I hear some Daft Punk. I hear some Allison Chains. I hear some Zappa. It is insane, some systems. But it's all blended into something that's very original.  This is something that has depth and it's going to take you a while to take it all in. Don't just spin it and go, I don't like it. Because, man, I was spinning it over and over and I was being like, wow, like when I got to ordinary, I was like, this is insane. I'm looking at my buddy. We're riding around cutie song. He loved the cutie song. I was down. Yeah, great, man. I mean, and that was calling people.  Have you heard this new sevenfold record? And they're like, is this Dean? You know, I'm like, I'm a new man.  I'm telling everyone like old school.  I mean, that thing was so different from Master of Puppets. It, you know, it has no base. The songs are long and weird and froggy. I love bands that make something totally outside the box, man. And that's what you guys did. Yeah, there's a few records, I think, of that for my era and my age when they came out. One is Pinkerton by Weezer. It was like, you know, they blew up with the blue album. And then they put out Pinkerton, which is one of my favorite records of all time is just dirty. It's so good. It's lyrically uncomfortable. It's all these things. And that's one. And then Disco Volante is one for Mr. Bungle. Mr. Bungle was already weird with the self titled. But Disco Volante was just like Mike Patton's not even singing. He's just making noises the whole time. And there's just it's like them messing around with keyboards. Like it's it blows my mind. But those are records that like Yeezus is one for me with Kanye. Like he put out a pretty much a heavy metal record that everyone in hip hop hated it. And now it's one of his essential like records. But there's always those things that kind of stand outside the box and outside the norm and they ruffle feathers and people have knee jerk reactions. And I think this is definitely one of those, you know. And but you got to make sure that it's backed up with musicality. There's it's got to be backed up with like some depth, right? They can't just be weird for weird sake. And I think that's a lot of people's I've seen.  It's like, no, actually, we're not. It's just and this is what we're into. Yeah, they're trying to be prog. It's like, prog is the last thing on our minds. We don't care about that.  And sounds good to us. And it's what we want to make. That's the whole people overthink it and they put stuff. They try to even put these things in boxes. And I think prog's even become its own box, which sucks, because prog should be it should be so many different directions. It should be, you know, why does prog have rules? You know, so I think it's such like the world is funny. People like to put things in a box so they can kind of, you know, discuss it better, I guess. But this record is kind of boxless, I guess. Let me ask you guys how you went about writing this record because there is a thing where, look, a fan can say they're just doing this to try to be weird. Look, people can sit down and try to be weird and it wouldn't work that there wouldn't be songs there. They wouldn't know how to be. You can't be authentically weird if you're just trying to be, you know what I'm saying? You can't just you can't be fake weird is what I mean. You know, like, hey, we're going to be weird on this record.  And and and it all flows. How did you guys sit down and start to write this record? It's not like you get a couple of acoustics and you're like, all right, I got this tune.  I think one thing that we I think most of our favorite musicians or writers, whether it's movies or art or music, I think one thing that I've kind of like noticed is that they have interesting minds and they and they have and they're very creative in terms of like just their taste and the things that they that like if something hits me and I'm listening to it on the radio, like I'll make a note of it. And I'm like, oh, that was that made me like feel weird or I got chills like on that part or I was thrown off, I was confused there and I'll make a note of it and kind of go back later and see why that made me feel that way. And the same happens for movies. The same happens for when I see a piece of art and I'll make little notes. And on this record, we kind of wanted to really only keep portions of songs in the record that were noteworthy. So for instance, we were if you listen to like, we love you that beginning where it's all kind of out of time. And then it jumps into that like techno rave sort of more this more that, you know, that that was like a mistake on the click track. The click got moved over to something and it moved into something else.  And it was it was all in the same grid, but it messed me up. And so I was like, well, what if we write a riff and then one's on one side of one. And so the things like that that made me jolt or my heart kind of skipped a beat. We just basically said, we're only keeping stuff that does that. Right. Or only stuff that really makes you feel something emotional or makes you turn and look at the speaker or go, what happened there? And so I think it was taking a lot of time to make sure that we had those elements, those moments walking around on mushrooms or watching movies and taking note from like maybe an Ari Aster film or something that's like, oh, that mid-summer makes me feel this way. Well, what is what does it feel like to be in the middle of the daylight, you know, in a horror film? You know, things like that, that kind of twist your like perception of what they should be and then writing music around it. So there's no real answer because it comes from so many different places. But yeah, just kind of waiting it out and not just sitting there and staring at each other plugged in going, hey, what do you got? You know, like we've done that enough. We want to get out of that world. Yeah, that was, that's always a bore. So we wanted to get away from that. So it was more like, hey, I saw this film. I felt this way about it.  You've come so far, sunny days. We're thinking of like Sesame Street growing up, this morbid sort of like big bird running around and like, hey, it's all great. Come on guys. Like, so we're trying to like channel that, right? With the grind of everyday life. So to us that shift into the 808 techno sort of Euro rave part was more like the grind of life but contrasted with Sesame Street, right? And like the sun shining and everything's great. And like, so just those kind of ideas pop in your head and you just go all in on it. Instead of trying to hide it, just step into it for what it is, right? And make other people feel that sort of crazy shift. Were there any tracks that didn't make it because they just didn't feel like the flow of the record, you know, because this record is really abstract. So if you had just kind of a normal rock tour and it'd be like, that's not really going to make it in there. Yeah, yeah, several stuff. A lot of a lot of things coming in and out.  Why am I bumpers in between each song and have them like kind of flow into each other and stuff? And it just was kind of taken away from the vibe a lot, I think so, right? Yeah, and I think what I always try to say this because I hope it inspires other people out of creative, whether they like our band or not, but 99% of the stuff doesn't get used, right? It's like we... On all of our records. Yeah, yeah, we write and we write and we write and we have, you know, when you pick up a guitar, the nobody riff as simple as it is with that tone. Yeah, that's a one in every 500 times you pick up guitar, right? Because most of the time you pick it up and it's like...  But at one in 500 times, you sit down and it's... And you've got this like vision, you're like, okay. Well, that's ominous. But what if I play with melodic or I'm sorry, minor and major and I go back and forth and build this thing, that's one in 500. But the 499 things you can get before that, they sit on a hard drive somewhere and you're probably not gonna touch them. And so to me, that's like, that should be inspirational to people because I think a lot of people, they start trying stuff and they go, oh, I don't have it. I don't have it in me because I have all these things that aren't great. Well, so do we. 99% of the stuff we make is not great or even worthwhile being on our record. It's just kind of, it's trash, right? And just kind of move on from it. Well, I think that's another part of this record too. I know you talked a little bit before, Matt, on that ear catching stuff that we're hearing. We always had those elements in our records before where we'd be writing together and laughing our asses off or doing whatever because something was happening like one time per song. But I think the focus, like Matt was saying, of making sure it happens multiple times on the song in the entire album and trimming out all the fat along the way is really a part of what brought this album together too. It's just, boys, my mind, man, because something like that is like, it's pretty basic. But when you add everything around it, the colors, how the vocal comes in and then just Brooks drumming and stuff, you're like, oh, wow, all of a sudden it becomes this whole piece and it starts to unwind and you're going like, this is just incredible, this song. And then every time I hear that intro now, it's just like, oh, yeah, you know, I know what's coming. It's funny. PTSD kicks in. Here it is, the lawnmower, as people would say. They call it a lawnmower. I haven't read that one yet. The lawnmower. It reminds me of, just for a second at Eddie Van Halen on, I think it's running with the horn at the beginning. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard that. I can hear that one. That was a car horn, you know? I never knew that as a kid, but it's that kind of vibe of things that just stick in your head.  When you get into, like I said, ordinary or easier, there's so much depth and different stuff going on. It's like a full sound landscape, man. Yeah, I think, you know, one thing that really helped push this record over the edge was the lyrical kind of themes, right? Like not only the mundaneness of life, but like the absurdity of it. And when you look at your life in like all these kind of like pieces, there's all these memories that stick out.  Like there's all these, you know, we have this like scatterbrain sort of memory of the past and how life, you know, I don't know how old you are, but I'm 41. And, you know, it's like, if I blink, I don't even know how I got here, right? And it all just, the way time works and the way we perceive time. And obviously there's entropy and things have happened and time is real, but at the same time, it feels like a dream. It feels insane, right? And I imagine the same, if I make it to 80, the same thing is gonna happen. I'm gonna feel like nothing had passed and it just, I'm there in the present. And so to really step into that and make the record, have these left turns, have these moments that are super catchy, but we never overdo them. Not trying to like milk any sort of theme. The overall theme is the sporadicness and the randomness of it, the absurdity of it. So that sort of theme lyrically helped us to make more sense of the randomness of the actual music and the tracks and, you know, not staying anywhere for too long because as life is, you're just, you're here now and you were somewhere else then and it's vastly different things, but kind of the same. And it's an interesting thing to kind of try to quantify it or to, you know, put that on an audio form, but that's kind of our best attempt at it. I think that this record is in a level of what Axel thought he could get to with Chinese democracy and he never really got there as far as being a totally different type of band from the appetite and then going into the illusion records, you're slowly losing people like what is this illusion stuff? You know what, and I think those are incredible records. Oh, I love one and two are my favorites. They're fucking, they're insane, but Chinese democracy, it just didn't get there. And I think you guys definitely got there as far as like a totally different style record. I wanted to ask you at what point because I would listen to Appetite and then I would listen to Mr. Bungal then I would listen to NWA. At what point when you were younger, did you start reaching out both of you guys and listening to different types of music? Because there are all those people that are like, no way, metal only. And it's like, really? You're not gonna listen to Johnny Cash? You're not gonna listen to Miles Davis or Peter Tosh or something?  At what point were you digging into stuff? Was it like your parents or did you just find it from other cool friends? I think a little bit of both for me. Honestly, I was growing up. My father was more of the metalhead rock guy. My mom was listening to pop music. She was an aerobics teacher. She had mixed tapes all the time around when she was listening to Michael Jackson or anything else that was popular in the 80s. So I grew up with a lot of that and I loved that stuff too. But I think it wasn't until I was about 10 or 11 when I started to kind of venture out myself, not just because my parents had showed me different music where I started discovering bands like Primus or Mr. Bungle or something like that. Or a lot of punk rock. That's when punk rock was in my life, was right around then, I was discovering No-Fix, Pennywise and Rancid. And it was all right around fifth grade of elementary school. And from then on, it was just, I always just loved music. Maybe it was because I had an eclectic house with different vibes.  She was a big Dully Parton fan. So I think just like early on, I've always had this, I was always exposed to it. And then at about 10, 11 years old is when I really started to go to the warehouse down the street and buy stuff for myself. And that's when I started to like, you'd pick out CDs or tape cassettes at the time for me based on the cover a lot of times. Like I wouldn't like, I would be like, well, I know this band kind of, but I don't know, I got to look at the album cover to see which one of them I'm gonna give a listen to.  There's a lot of guar, some of my favorite guar records I found that way. It's like, it was really fun. I think it's kind of, I hope that they can still, I mean, kids seem to still be able to do it these days.  I just don't know. Well, the difference now is that people don't have to live with a record. When we had to buy a record for 1799, if you didn't like it, you had to live with it and then you ended up liking it. One of my biggest things with that, I remember everyone at school told me new, or there's a band called Death by Stereo. It's incredible. I went to Bionic Records, bought it, could not stand it. Could not stand Ephraim's voice. But I bought the record. So then I started listening to it. It became one of my favorite records of all time, which is that first Death by Stereo record. But if I lived in, you know, if I was born in 2015, I would have been next, next, next trash. This is garbage. Yeah, all the internet for sure. Just let everyone know you think about it. So real quick for me, it was my dad was listening to the very earliest stuff I had. My dad was listening to all the stuff from Beatles to Alice Cooper, one of his favorite artists of all time, Led Zeppelin, all that head vinyl. Then he, but he was very modern in terms of he saw guns and roses on headbangers ball. So he got, you know, super unknown Soundgarden, Nirvana Never Mind, G&R, Skid Row, he was listening to all that stuff. Then I met Jimmy Sullivan, the Rev, and when I went to his house, I noticed he had 500 million tapes, you know, they're all on his room. So that got me into like everything from slayer to testament to no effects to bad religion, everything on epitaph, everything fat records. But he was also listening to like the sparks, the residents, Mr. Bungle, Frank Zappa. So that was a crazy thing. And then when I met Brian, Brian was like learning, he wanted to be a studio musician and this is like around sixth grade or fifth grade. And Brian would go into the studio with his dad and he was learning, you know, jazz and all these different things. And we showed him Pantera, which blew his mind. He heard Dimebag Darrell for the first time. So we made him a metalhead. He opened our eyes to like Steely Dan and things like that. And then Mr. Bungle was like kind of the thing that we all loved and we all love punk rock and we all loved that. So it was just like a, Jimmy really was the guy that had everything very eclectic, but Brian brought in an outside thing that most kids our age weren't listening to. You know, we weren't listening to classical or jazz or these other things that he was learning all these modes on the guitar.  So just being in Southern California, I think and having a group of friends that were just in the music, we just were taking it all in. And we were trying to fit into everything. We were going to heavy metal shows. We were going to punk rock shows. We were going to Warp Tour. We were going to Oz Fest. We were going to Metallica and Candle Box. We were going to Judas Priest. We were going to Pantera and Ozzy or Black Sabbath. I mean, we're just doing everything. It was just, I think it, and I think it comes down to where we live, right? Southern California kind of had everything and a good group of people. Dude, Orange County specifically too. They're a Dean talking about social D on this last episode. Oh, social distortion tattoo. Yeah. And it's like, it's Orange County to the max. Like where we grew up is right time, right place, right? I mean, the late nineties. I mean, you had everything. You had, you had no doubt blowing up out of Orange County all over everywhere with with Tragic Kingdom. While you still got, you know, all the other, all the other punk bands and social D's of the world that were still big, but not like on that mainstream bounce. I'll say, you know, it was like just underneath that. And we had Bionic Records, yeah, which I'd go to Bionic and this guy, Mike, who now owns it. Mike would show me like at the gates or, you know, blind guardian or something like European power metal and children of Bodom and stuff before. Like, these are like our first records, right? First, second records. And so taking that, mixing it with like Pantera and bad religion and no effects, having, having a curator like Mike in my life, where I'd go to Bionic every day. And if I was buying the new corn record, he's like, oh, check out at the gates too.  You'll probably love that record. Having a guy like that helped a lot because it opened my eyes to what was happening in Europe. And I think, you know, record shops, it's one of those things where, you know, it's not the same just seeing it on a playlist on Spotify. Just because you don't have anyone vouching for it, right? You don't have anyone like kind of curating and saying, this is the good stuff. No one said you got everyone's giving all their hate about it. So yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. And it is cool to have somebody like at a record store when you're in there and, you know, I go in and I go, man, I love this 16 horsepower of this band from Colorado. The guy goes, oh, if you like that, you're going to like where they got it from Gun Club. Check that out.     And they give you something and you're like, what is this?  And then somebody, I always said that they should induct the older brother into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Totally. I don't have one, but, you know, everybody has that guy, the neighbor, the older brother or whatever that's like, dude, put this on and learn it, you know, I had two older brothers that did that to me. So yeah, and that's Mike for me at Bionic. That's I'd walk in there.   So good. I love that. Speaking of where John is talking about artwork and looking at album covers, the album cover of this new record, I love Ralph Steadman, you know, and it has that kind of vibe. And I just love the artwork of the album cover too. Can you tell I like this record? It's like, I already know like the the sevenfold fans are going to be like, dude, enough.  But the album cover looks fantastic. Who did that? And what was the idea of it? Yeah. So West Lane did it. West Lane is, you know, described by GQ as the world's most badass artist. So he's this guy that he's a friend of ours now. But it took like six years to get to really know him. I fell in love with his stuff when I saw it. I saw it on a bunch of different things, but he ended up doing the Yeezus album with all that heavy metal artwork. He did some stuff with Amiri. He did some stuff for Grateful Dead, but he doesn't really do much. You got to got to got to know him. And he he just I was sending him demos. He was showing me art. It was both inspiring each other. And then one day he did 20 pieces of art and said, I did this for the record, you know, and I had asked him for years to do something. And it was always no. And then it was kind of amazing. Like it was just the right time in his life, the right time in our life. And he just sketched out these things. And it was just, you know, I interpret it as this the anxiety of life. And the reaper is always waiting. And he he kind of interprets it as it's my job to tap you on the shoulder and say, you are going to die. So act accordingly, right? Live in the moment. Yeah, get moving. Yeah. Do what you want to do. Yeah. And so I think it was a perfect blend of working with him on this. I don't think the record, the aesthetic would be anywhere where it is now without him. I always attribute a lot of this to him because and I always am texting him and calling him and just like this wouldn't be the same without him because everything from the merchandise to the live show to when you open up that packaging or the vinyl, the deluxe version, all 20 pieces of art, it's really stunning.  But it's probably going to be no. So which makes it even sweeter, right? It's like it's awesome that he did it. Yeah, West Lane.  I mean, this isn't I'm so bummed. I missed you guys had no idea that you played a couple of weeks ago what was it, the forum or whatever. Yeah, I'm furious because I would have loved to seen this, man. I should have texted you, man. I'm sorry. I should have let you know. I was like, yeah, here I am watching it on blabbermouth.  But once you started to, you know, you write the record, you record it and everything. And then you go, oh, my God, now we got to go out and do these songs live. How did that come about? Did you did you have to drop some stuff? Or did you just figure it out? Do you have to use some tapes? What's going on with that? Well, it's a little good, man. You want to go? Now you go ahead. So we I think we we do a really we have an interesting blend of technology and organic, right? So on the record, you know, we don't use much technology. We we, you know, we're using old technology like vocoders and real not using plugins. We're using a lot of real stuff, whether it's tape or phasers or all things that are kind of outboard gear. But, you know, the songs are on a click track, right? We're playing to some sort of click. Even if we can, even if it's not on a click, we can create a click around the things that move, right? So for instance, in Mattel, there's that. And I know it might sound crazy, but that was all done not on a click. But you could sit there and hear where the, you know, the mellotron and the and the sort of different things are playing. And you can create a click to it. So live, we're playing to a click and we're using this really cool blend of technology where because it's on a click, we can have all the guitar tones and the flute and the strings and all these things. We can actually have it all modulate and turn into what we want it to turn into at a particular time in a song. So what that means is it took a ton of time to program it all. But like if there's a flute or like some strings or there's a guitar tone that switches, the guys just have to play and it will switch through their rigs. It's automated. Yeah. So something like and we haven't seen anyone do it yet, but Brian really is kind of insane on this stuff, like learning where it's going. So like, for instance, in the middle of game over, it's like thrashed, thrashed, thrashed. And then that bridge hits. They're actually playing all those notes on the guitar, but it turns into like a flute and like a mellotron. But they're playing. Any type of shit? Yeah, it's all. Yes, it's all MIDI. It is like a little flip through like it'll turn into a fractal. And then as soon as it gets to the next part, it will flip back out and back into the amp. So and then so like in something like, you know, something like Mattel, there's this crazy solo that people aren't sure if it's a synth or if it's a guitar. It's like that weird stuff that he's doing. He's basically got that. So it clicks into a synth with a harmonizer. Thrown auto tune on it so it hits those notes real sharp and he's controlling it with his foot on a pedal. But during that portion, it flips over to that and it goes into that. And then as soon as the next part hits, it flips out. So we've basically gone down every song and programmed everything to to do what we need it to do so we can play it all live. We haven't seen that done yet. It's it's a challenge, but it's kind of even my vocal effects. When I sing like there's a phaser on it. I just have to sing and it happens. It just pops on and it pops back out or like an ordinary hard auto tune hits, then a vocoder hits, and then it's out. And so it's it's it's really fun because you can kind of just be free and and sing and it just all happens.  We're doing all of it except three songs right now. And yeah, we're doing like game over. Mattel, we love you, nobody and then G.O.D. And life is but a dream. So and we'll add cosmic in later because people are really like in cosmic. But at that point, there'll only be two songs that we haven't played, which is, you know, it's a lot for a new record. But again, we are pushing into this new era and we're not. We're not going to be shy of it. I love that, man. It's like, nah, man, this is it.  Now, and the way real quick, the way I'd put it is, you know, the way the way Joel Madden explained it to me said, you're just going to the bar up the street, put your arm around these people and say, come on up here and check this out.   Or yeah, they're just being weird to be weird or they don't.  But you don't.  And so I hope that people do that. And I know people will. People are people come around to things we all have. I hated the wall at first. I hated the wall for 10 years. And then one day I was sitting in Lake Powell and I put it on and I'm looking at the stars and I was like, what was I thinking? How did I not get this? You know, like that's that's just life.   And that came out. I bought it and I was like, oh, what happened? What happened? I think I'm like, you know, 13 or 12. And now I put it on.  I love like half the record.  It's it's it's an interesting thing. Like with Matt Metallica, they all want Metallica to be kill them all and they all want Metallica with Cliff Burton. They all want Metallica with the long hair. They all want Metallica to be strictly speed metal, you know.  It's I love it. Meanwhile, the stadiums are full, you know. Yeah. And I think one I've always had a lot of pride in Metallica because they do change it up. You know, I've always felt that was awesome. I just but that's just my personality.  Like we we we listen to this band because we like this thing. We don't we don't care about their artistic exploration. But I but I do. I think it's when I look when I like a band, I like, like I said earlier, I like their taste. I like where they're taking me because, you know, just like and I've used this analogy before.  And now I can't even believe it's nice to see where someone's someone's creativity will take you because without that, you know, we'd all be just rehashing the same things. And that's not fun. And they complain about that. They complain about that, too. They complain about that. The movies are redoing all these remakes. Well, and a lot of times what happens is people a lot of times what happens is people don't say anything. And they just move on to something else because something else will pique their interest and it'll become exciting. And and why not have your favorite band do that instead of waiting for something else to come along and knock your favorite band off the pedestal because they're stuck redoing the same thing when they could have probably done something different and taking you there. It's not always going to land. That's just the part of that's just that's just art. And it might not even land for you now. It might land for you in 10 years or next month or maybe it never does. But you might respect it. Who knows? Let's talk a little bit about the years of you singing this. The singing on this record is pretty insane. And I know over the years you've had some problems. I came close to having nodes. I got lucky, caught it quick and just relearned to sing and with proper warming up and sleep and no talking after the gigs. But what has changed over the years? I know at the beginning you were like a screamer, then you had some problems. You had some surgery. You saw Ron Anderson. Everybody comes to see him, I guess, at one point in their career looking for the magic answers. But what what changed for you? And is it tough to sing like something like this live, you know, because it's so many different flavors. Yeah, this record is actually way easier for me to sing the old stuff because the old stuff always is sitting in that that mixed bridge. And it's always at like 10, right? It's always like F sharp, G, A, B, B flat or B flat B.  And the attrition on your voice, eventually you'll have one show where you go wide on a vowel or something kind of gets out of place.  And I've got not much time to recover. So eventually things start going south, right? And things went really south for me in 2018 after the Metallica tour. It's actually after a European tour. I knew I was in trouble, but I didn't want to cancel download festival. I didn't want to cancel Hellfest and all these things I should have, probably. But I don't regret it because what had happened is Ron Anderson ended up passing away, unfortunately. And I started working with Seth Riggs and Seth and his wife, Margarita, they turned my technique around. And and even on the record, the record was difficult to get through. But even now being a year out from it, there things are even way further progressed from even that, right?  Especially after five years of not. Yeah, yeah, there's like there's like the anxiety of it. And then there's like, oh, I used to so to give like the quick macro of this. Ron really taught me to sing from the head voice down. Seth wants me to sing from chest up through a healthier bridge with more of an anchor on the voice. So I've been doing that. It's been really healthy. It's been awesome.  I do it every single day with them. And part of it is just trying to not get yourself outside the walls to start chipping away at the, you know, the attrition on the voice and just trying to stay in that tunnel and keep it clear and keep it, you know, healthy and then just doing it every night and hoping I don't fall outside of that and then get myself in trouble again. But, you know, that's kind of the the curse of lead singers.  You can't be raising your voice in a club setting. You can't be out all night. You can't be drinking before the show or anything. You know, you're kind of just there and you're kind of just got to try to get through two hours every night. Yeah. Yeah. And then what about the touring schedule now?  What's going on with that form gig? Because I don't see you guys are home right now. We're home right now. We're in between. We're kind of ramping up because like I just said, it's been five years between shows that we played since 2018 to our first one back was actually at Area 15 in Las Vegas, where we had a augmented reality set up and everything like that. It was really cool spot. And we wanted to try and do something because we were about to do Danny Wimmer's festivals in Daytona and Columbus in front of, you know, however many thousands of people that were and were like, we should probably try something a little bit smaller before we go do those after five years and not playing. So, you know, we did a fun little thing in Vegas and we did those two festival dates. We did the Kia Forum two weeks ago and this week we're going to be in New York doing Madison Square Garden. So it's been. Oh, what day is that? That will be the 23rd. What is that Sunday? This Friday, Friday, Friday. I'm gonna be in New York, but I'm not there until Sunday. I was like, oh, that'd be great to see. Oh, man. And then we start. We have three weeks off. Then we start another tour. And then that'll be more of a proper tour. Right.  It was a good set, but not great. Regrouped, got it. And then you start getting it under control, you know, because you have all these old songs that you're so used to this thing you were doing before and now it's got to be another way or you're just gonna get yourself in trouble. So we luckily we had these shows before the big boy shows, you know, yeah, just little ways of getting us back into it after so long and like, you know, it gives Matt some time in between the shows and stuff like that, which is a blessing for right now. And now that, you know, he's feeling a lot better will be in buses in July doing the, you know, the North American run. So that'll be that'll be a whole other thing that we got to get ready for. Oh, man. And who's on the tour with you guys?  Yeah, we got falling reverse falling reverse on the second half in this kid named Kim Dracula. And then on the Canadian part, we're doing Alexis on fire. Oh, they're they're a big Canadian band, you know, and they do really well there. And Kim Dracula, we wanted to give someone like we're trying to make the tour something that people haven't really seen before. It's one thing that's important to us is not bringing out the the usual suspects. And so Kim Dracula is like kind of a. I would say like a Marilyn Manson type character, but for Tik Tok, he's huge on there and he's never toured and we wanted to bring someone else that's different. And it's it's controversial for sure. The stuff he does, the music videos he does. And it seemed really interesting. Is he does he identify as he I'm sorry? Or is I don't know. I don't know. I just I just want to make sure I don't know. I don't know. Now you make me feel uncomfortable. It was success. I don't know. Oh, there's the blabbermouth quick. Yeah. Yeah. There is a person named Kim Dracula. Yeah, we got to work with us. Day, Johnny, you said an interesting thing and it does kind of blow me away of what's going on with the music biz these days. And I don't really understand it. And I loved how you guys went about it just dropping one single. Nobody. These bands are putting out like half the record before the record's out. And by the time the record comes out, I don't think there's any more heat for it.  I'm talking about for surface fans and they don't really go maybe dig the last half of it. Isn't that interesting way to do it? It's it's it's bizarre. It's like the fifties where they just dropped singles.  You want I mean, every artist wants to be on a spotify playlist, right?  And then hopefully they discover the record through that. Honestly, right now, I think it's kind of a cool time because it's kind of the Wild West. If you're going to release an entire record of music, there's no real wrong way of doing it. There's no right way. There's no wrong way. It's just kind of like, yeah, you can put out the four singles you do Metallica did like four or five singles before 72 seasons came out. Still great record. Everyone's still stuck around for it. I still hear it on the radio all the time still. And then there's something like we did. We just we started when we were mixing the Poconos, we made the decision that we only wanted to release one single. But then Matt can talk to this one where we did right before the album came out like a week before we had a VR guy come in, this guy, Ryan, come in and make this rad video for We Love You. So we're like, OK, now we got to release a second single kind of. But it was more of a. It's a fun way to get eyes on that song, I guess. Or, you know, I'll let Matt take that part. Well, what's really going on is that the label has. Boatloads of analytics and they know that if you put one single out, it just goes like this and then the album comes out and it's a little bump and it's gone and they know that. So they'll show you. They'll sit there in the meeting with you and they'll tell you why you're wrong. And this is what, you know, Godsmack did. This is what Disturb did. This is what Metallica did. And here's their numbers. Every time they put out a single goes like this. And if you actually look at the greater some, it's better than if you do what we did. And they're basically chasing the ambulance, right? They're just following data. It's what they care about. At the end of the day, we know that people don't care about records that much anyways. So let's just hit them with these peaks before. And then we don't really care if the record gets ruined. I mean, maybe they're good people and maybe they do care, but they don't care in terms of keeping their job, right? Like we need to we want to have as much play as possible. And I, I totally get it. But that's part of being, you know, in this sort of. Um, it's sort of like being open it this way. Um, our manager, he said, it's kind of like being in a stream and you're this pebble and you're just getting pushed down the stream with everything else. Um, instead of being like the solid rock with an original idea or at least being able to live and die by your idea. Right. Like if our, if our record is completely tanked off at that. When it came out, it would be our choice and our fault. And you have to be okay with that. Right. Like what the way we did it. Um, I think there's no good answer right now. I think everybody's swimming in the muck. They're all trying to figure out a way to get eyes on their records. There's too much out there right now.  Last time I was in New York, I went to the, um, the planetarium, but there's a lot of stuff next to it. And it started talking about after a certain amount of choices, humans don't know what to do with it and it becomes all the same. And that's kind of a wrap with music. There's no real curators to kind of, there's no mic at bionic records necessarily there is one bionic records. Now it's not everywhere. Um, there's no K rock. There's no, um, you know, pushing new music. There's no MTV. There's no curators now. So you have everybody's on the playlist and it's impossible to kind of figure out what's great and what's not. And you're in this situation now where you're trying to get any bit of attention you can. And I feel for those bands and the labels. But this, but like Johnny said, it's exciting because you don't have to worry about that stuff anymore. It's the freedom of knowing that it's not really going to matter. So just do whatever you want. And hopefully really cool art comes out of this instead of chasing the ambulance, you know, so just that's why people do it though. The analytics. Yeah. Well, I gotta tell you, you got a great record and I absolutely have it.  So thank you. One last question, you guys, comedy fans. Yeah, I absolutely, you know, I am doing. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I don't, I don't know how you can not be a comedy fan. Like stand up, like stand up. So here's, here's my situation. Whenever stand-ups on or there's something on Netflix or whatever, I watch it and I love it. But I don't actively seek out comedy, which I maybe I should. Yeah, we got it. We got to go up and we got to go up and check out Dean. He's a, he's a, he's a regular at the comedy store. Well, absolutely. Now, now that we know each other, of course, I got to do it. I love it. Yeah.  That was pretty well. Oh, the Troubadour. That's awesome. Little surprise gig because we leave on tour, uh, Wednesday. But, uh, that was interesting to tell some jokes in that iconic venue. I pretty much have done all the rock venues now. You know, even the rainbow, they do comedy in the rainbow now upstairs and that, you know, that bar up there, they do comedy up there. So I've done the rainbow. I've done the Roxy, the whiskey, the Troubadour, the Fonda, the Will Turn, the Forum, you know, I need the Hollywood Bowl. Have you guys done the Hollywood Bowl? Not proper. We did, uh, we did the Scream Awards there, right? We played one song at the Scream Awards at the Hollywood Bowl. I did, um, I did some stuff at Lincoln Park there. That's right. You did. Yeah, we haven't played like a set there or anything. Well, thanks for doing the show and, um, I appreciate it. Get this record, people. I know a lot of people listen to the show and I've been pumping the record for two weeks now and I can't tell you enough. Get this record, man. If you're into, uh, like we say, outside the box music, you're going to love this thing. And, uh, great talking with you guys, man. Thank you, Dean. Thank you so much, man. Really, really great to meet you. Oh yeah, you too. And I'm looking forward to, uh, seeing the tour somewhere. I'll, I'll, are the tour dates up on the website? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And you guys obviously have Instagram and take you guys doing TikTok. I think management up for us. Yeah. I think there's one set up. I don't think we've done anything with it. There's a couple of videos. I don't know. It's so fucked, man.  Okay. I got my TikTok video and I did it to Instagram and I did the YouTube short and then Twitter. I fought with some people over politics. Okay. I'm good. That's totally going to play that game with the podcast. You too.  It's crazy. Everything's a clip. Okay. I got it. Did you do a clip today?   Clip. Yeah. It's gnarly. Oh God. All right. Thank you so much guys for doing it. Thanks guys. All right. Thanks guys. Have a great one. See you later.


Hi I'm Beth Agucci and I've had the honor of working at Web Junction for over eight years now and I have to say that I am inspired by all the library staff around the country who took our project compass curriculum and ran with it to support economic recovery in their communities. I'm inspired every time I see the rich exchange of knowledge and ideas that flows through the live chat in our webinars. I'm very inspired by library staff all over who are not only embracing change but really leading the change in their communities and knowing that Web Junction is contributing to this vitality in public libraries really inspires me to keep thinking and working toward the future of libraries.