Taking a walk like music saved me as you know, a kid, parents divorced, a fourteen shipped off to a school two hours away from home when I was young and feeling really isolated and music was the one thing that made me feel you know, connected, kind of like what religion does for a lot of people.

Welcome to another episode of Taking a Walk.

I'm your host, Buzznight.

This is the show where we get into deep conversations.

We strolled through decades.

Of music meaning and reinvention with Rain made frontman of the legendary our Lady Piece from the Echoing Chords, a clumsy to trailblazing new musical frontiers with technology.

Rain's journey is anything but ordinary.

What keeps an alt rock icon curious after three decades and then a world changing faster than ever?

How does he keep his creative spirit freshly tuned?

Let's clear our minds find out after some words from our sponsors.

Next with Rain taking a Walk.

Hey, Rain, thanks for being on taking a walk.

Love it very excited to be here.

So we call it taking a walk, and we like talking about music history.

If you could take a walk with somebody in music history, living or dead, who would you like to take a walk with and maybe where would you take that walk?

You know, we're so today we're at Jones Beach, just outside of Manhattan.

And I was always enamored with Jeff Buckley playing shows at Shine in Manhattan, you know, and that whole journey of him working in originals but always playing a lot of covers and just how that that time and his kind of transcendence.

I would have loved to been a part of, you know, that early journey of Jeff.

I mean it didn't very last very long obviously, and it's not because there's I know, there's a documentary or a film coming out, but it's really just my admiration for that kind of grind and putting in the work early on.

You know, that's so critical to musicians' career, and I feel like that doesn't happen as much anymore.

It's it's just a different business.

Yeah, that's a good one.

That's it's one that will never forget.

Who's got such a legacy and such a story and such a you know, commitment to his craft.

Yeah, yeah, I mean I saw the thing.

I mean, Chris Cornell's gone as well, which is terrifying, but it was Chris talking about how great a guitar player Jeff was.

I mean, he was an exquisite singer, but his his the chord structures he chose and the notes and his guitar playing really was.

He was a master.

Congrats on thirty years of our Lady Piece.

Can you believe it that?

Where is the time go on?

It's really scary.

I mean I was talking to someone the other day.

I remember we opened for the Ramones and Jersey Background just starting in like ninety six, and gosh, like that seems like it wasn't even that long ago, but it was thirty years ago.

So after more than thirty years, what keeps the creative fires burning for you personally when you step onto a stage or you go into the studio.

I mean, we're always creating new music, and I think that's the one like thread that keeps this thing together.

I think, I know there's some bands that are able just to kind of like rest on their laurels and legacy and can do that really well and tour and all that stuff.

I think without new music, I'm not sure if I'm doing this.

To be honest, I think it really has to come to with the thought of like there was new music released and we want to showcase that, or there's new music.

I mean, there's ideas that I have and I'm writing and I know that that's forthcoming.

So that's the driver.

But I think, yeah, the ability to stay creative is that the idea of being more of a robot just playing stuff that used to play and that's kind of where it starts and ends doesn't really work for me.

Well, I've heard you say that you're always focused on tomorrow to your point instead of nostalgia, But is there a time where you allow yourself to sort of look back and really contemplate the band's legacy.

Yeah.

I mean to me, it's just more of just gratitude, you know, trying to wake up with gratitude every day that we still get to do this and have fans and have new fans come out.

We had played in in Maine last night and we had a bunch of fans in the first row with like, you know, one girl wearing are, another person wearing Lady, and then someone else's Peace, and then a bunch of other fans and they were young, and I was like, this is this is this is the great thing about the paradigm shift in the music business where anyone can find you now, and I think that's that's that's it.

That's probably a bit of another driver knowing that there's new fans out there that it'll probably never see us.

I mean, we keep hearing that.

I see that on d ms every day.

It's like, wow, you know, someone introduced you to you.

I've never had the chance to see you.

I just saw you last night.

It was amazing.

So that's that.

That keeps us going too, for sure.

So you can reflect on classic albums like like Clumsy and Spiritual Machines, and then now you see this new generation of fans connecting with this music.

And then when you go out in particular out on the road, you see this and it really must be just you know, heartwarming.

Yeah, it's amazing.

And I see I see you know.

I have three boys, teenage boys, and like my youngest one day, begin in the car and you obviously taste control of like the music.

He puts a Deftone song on, I'm like, whoa Like before that it was like always you know, not Deftones, And I was like, sal like where did you where did you hear the debt?

Like the one of my favorite bands of all time, and you know it was TikTok or whatever, which is fine.

But it's that ability for music to just hit people on all these different levels now and I'm appreciative of it.

So what inspires you lyrically these days?

And how has your approach to songwriting differed at all if it's different now compared to the nineties and early two thousands.

I mean, I think songwriting I've kind of gone back to more.

It's gone through the like I have a studio at my home in Los Angeles tricked out with everything you can want, but the idea of sitting with an acoustic guitar, and I have an old like Triple Odd nineteen twenty three Martin picking that up in the morning with the glass, you know, a cup of coffee or tea like that, to me is probably the most pure relationship I have with music on a very just visceral level.

Like if I'm stroming some chords and start singing and something comes out that's evocative, to me, an idea starting there is the most pure.

So I try to really stick to that and and I like it.

I've come full circle because I used to I've done it everyway.

I've earned songs in multitude of kind of experimental fashions and starting with beats and different things.

But the idea of just acoustic and piano as well.

We have an old upright in the in the control room that I use a lot as well, and it's just like so tangible because if it works like that, if it makes you feel something just like that, then it's probably worth pursuing as as a as an actual song.

In finishing our Lady piece known for these, uh, I would say deeper more poetic lyrics.

Who are the folks over.

Your life that have had an impact and an influence in terms of the way you communicate as a songwriter.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I've always I've always loved poetry, so I kind of grew up with the beat poets from Furlongetti to to you know, all the all the more famous ones.

But the idea of condensing, even freedom from what I think the beat poets were great at at grabbing your attention with phrases, music has to go a step further where it's more condensed.

You know, you don't only have so many lines and syllables within a verse.

Or of course to grab someone's attention or evocal thought or an emotion.

So I always saw it as a challenge like that.

And and you know, Leonard Cohne was a big influence to me.

Bands like ri Em for sure, Neil Young, you know, they were able to say things in these little blurbs that just were like even though it was just a sentence or two, you know, and sort of pros or something.

So that's what I've always looked at it.

It's like, how do you create a movie for someone in three minutes?

Can you walk us through the making of a recent song?

Maybe that in the end result it surprised you where it went and where the message went and how the output finally concluded.

Yeah, I mean, we just we just recorded a bunch of new music with a Britisher named Nick Rasculin's who's Deaftones Foo Fighters in Nashville.

There was a song called I Want to Be Your Drog that I've had for probably ten years, and the lyric to it really meant something to me.

It was it was not flushed up, but we demoed it up eight or nine years ago really didn't work out.

I always liked my first just the demo that I did with myself.

But it's funny when we got into the room and Nick, he was like, there's something here I'm not I'm not sure.

I like how you guys are presenting it.

He said the same thing.

He's like, there's something in the lyric.

I want to be your drug, I want to be the air you breathe, and and all these these different like you said like it's I think he actually said this.

It's like, it's like it's creating a movie.

But I don't know the way where we've arranged the music that it's supporting that film in my head.

And so we kind of broke that song down to where it was it was more of an upbeat song, kind of like a Springstein like Born to Run.

Then we broke it down into a halftime thing.

So all of a sudden, the lyrics were much more upfront because the band it wasn't fighting with the music or it wasn't part of the music.

And I think the first first few lines, and this is to me always the kind of indicator I got a feeling you lost your faith in me.

Take your pound of flesh.

It's all that I got left.

I hope you find relief.

That first stance of lyrics was like, this has to be a song that I get to sing somewhere because it's so meaningful to me.

The idea of taking a pound of flesh and trying to give someone else some relief from a sacrifice that you make.

It's just I was just like, you know, I don't get to say things like that too often.

So we stuck with it and now we're performing live and ended up being a really powerful song.

So you have to believe in in in the fact that I think as a lyricist you're not giving.

You're not giving, like thousands of great lyrics, very sporadic, and once you hit on something that means something, you got to mind it till it finds its way to a song that everyone can can hear.

I think there's another theme I think you would agree, perseverance in the writing, both for you know, the band, certainly in the writing, but also in life.

Perseverance.

Is there one challenge that you can relate that pushed you to your limits and what did it teach you?

Song Fomiti was one of those songs.

It went through multiple We probably recorded that song six times and six different versions of that song, and it got so frustrating to where I was ready to give up on it, Like I knew there was stuff there, and but you just at some point you're like, man, how far do you go with something?

You know?

How much do you commit to an idea where it's just not revealing itself to be something good or even close to great?

And we were really close to bailing on that song.

I'm glad we didn't.

Somehow we stuck it out and it ended up being, you know, an important song for us.

But yeah, that was one of those when I look back on it, literally could have gone it was fifth like flip of a coin, we're gonna we're done with this thing, or we're gonna take another stab at it, And that last effort was what clumsy became.

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Welcome back to the Taking a Walk podcast.

Tell me how it felt when you broughte Mike Turner back for the Spiritual Machines tour and what did it reveal about the band's chemistry and the overall spirit of collaboration.

That's a great question.

I think it's the latter what you just said.

The idea of collaboration is so key, and I think you have to always pay honors to that.

And Mike was ian bringing that book The Age Spiritual Machines by Kurzweld into that Spiritual Machine, you know, recording session for that album, and I just I was.

I was blown away by the conceptual nature of Kurzweil making all these predictions that maybe even back then we thought were a little far fetched, but obviously he was, you know, ninety three percent right, from like colcular implants to the idea of driverless vehicles, which we obviously talking about AI, Like that was something that was so in the front forefront for Ray back then and the band and that that record, but no one would talk about AI, so just by virtue of Mike bringing that in and being a part of that record to do spiritual machines too, and move that chapter two decades forward and look at Kurzwild's next set of predictions.

It wouldn't have seemed right to play those shows without felt Mike there.

It was just, you know, he was He's just in trench tied to that.

I mean, he's tied to the band forever as well.

But the idea of his, like he said, collaboration on that record specifically and with Ray's book was pretty critical.

So it was amazing to have him on stage for those shows.

You know, one of the core principles of you and the band, or your your social activism and your philanthropic approach to the world as an activist.

I think that's fair to say.

Has it shaped the music in a certain way as well?

Yeah, I think it puts a weight on it, just in terms of not I would never call music important, but just in terms of understanding what it does for other people, Like music saved me, as you know, a kid parents divorced at fourteen, shipped off to a school two hours away from home when I was young and feeling really isolated and music was the one thing that made me feel you know, connected, kind of like what religion does for a lot of people, and so understanding that I think is part of it.

And I think your experience as a human, like getting outside of your community, outside of your state or country or province, like being able to travel with warchild to you know, whether it was like Iraq or Darfur or other places in Africa.

I think you start to understand, like Sudan, it's like, man, there's a much bigger world.

And to feel like the global citizen and start to understand that concept from like a thirty thousand foot view is so key in terms of what we bring back to our songs and making sure that I don't know, we're just I think we see ourselves as global citizens as artists as well, and that's that's really key in terms of how it drives the music and some of the message that makes sense.

Yeah, it totally makes sense.

We also produce this other podcast called Music Save Me coincidentally, so we focus on that core aspect of you know, what it does for the world, what it does for the artist obviously, what it does for human connections.

So it's a critical of force in our life.

I mean, it really is.

Yeah, I mean, and it was funny, like this is on a music level, but the first time I really understood that, like the cliche of music is universal, like we've all heard that, but it truly is.

I remember the first time you played in France at this little little flaw outside of Paris, and people were singing clumsy.

Then I would go to talk to them afterwards and they couldn't speak English at all, you know, and that just all of a sudden is like wow, Okay, the universality of music is very real.

And then, like I said, traveling to you know, places like Darfur and talking to people there and these like you know, and people are displaced like unspeakable sadness.

But it was like a little boombox, not like sometimes it was Lionel Richie there playing and it didn't matter.

It was just the spirit of music that lifted their souls.

And he's incredibly difficult and treacherous times that without music, it's a different scenario.

I know, it's a different it's a different outcome maybe even.

In uh in today's you know, rapidly changing landscape.

You know, you mentioned Ai earlier technology, social justice.

How do you see the role of musicians and artists evolving?

I actually see it.

I see a real strong component of music going back to basics, where the craft, the artistry, the wood shedding it takes to become a master at your instrument, be it piano, vocal, drums too, but whatever that is, I feel like there's a new appreciation for that.

And then there's also going to be this other other wave of you know, AI produced music, and the divergence I think will help you appreciate one or the other.

You know, like if that's what you're looking for, it's just something to kind of numb you, and it could be anything.

And maybe you don't even want an artist attasted with it because that always has like a different level of commitment when you know it's this person that was from here whatever.

Maybe AI music serves that value.

But I do think there's this real raft of musicianship coming back, and I'm seeing it, you know, kind of I don't hate it.

Sounds stupid like on the streets of la but I do see it with all of young musicians that are so talented and have really put in the time at an early age.

Whether you believe in like ten thousand hours whatever the concept might be.

But these kids are working at their craft and they don't actually care about social media.

They're not buying into all the other stuff, the TikTok things and trying to you know, blow up a career from something like that.

They're concerned about being great at their instrument and that's inspiring.

Fascinated with the various projects that have been sort of partnerships that you've been involved with that are new tech relationships.

Maybe talk a little bit about that.

The NFTs and some of the other projects that have I would say changed enhanced your relationship with your fans and the industry as a whole.

Yeah, I mean from the from the beginning, you know, I remember we're making a record with Bob Rock in Maui and the whole thing with Napster and obviously Metallica was a big deal.

So you start talking about that kind of stuff and it just felt like, Okay, there's a shift happening here, Like you know, we were paying for music on Apple, but like the Napster thing was happening, and Okay, where do we fit in?

What does that do to us?

As you know, recording touring musicians, and I just felt the idea of like supporting the independent musicians because I really felt like there was gonna be this movement towards independence because we could own our uff again, which is great.

But what I what you know, fast forward, like fifteen years I've been doing tech.

The the key component for an artist these days is to have that direct relationship with your fan.

The idea of building on building fan relationships on third party platforms is very volatile.

Happened with MySpace, so we all were psyched about, Wow, we could talk to fans.

We can see, Hey, there is one hundred and ninety two people in Saint Louis.

I want our Lady Piece to come play there.

This is like early data, you know, in the sense of oh God, like this is cool.

I can I'm I'm really close to these people now, and then my Space goes away.

So to all those relationships, We've continued to like bet on all these whether it's Facebook or Instagram or any other platform, which are great for marketing.

But if you can't connect directly to your fans, you're in trouble moving forward.

I truly believe that, and I feel like that there's enough information out there.

It's I look at it basically the you know my company fan drop right now, which makes that connection at a live setting because that's where you have your audience.

My thing is that our ethos and mantra at fan drop is they if they came to see you, do not let them leave anonymous.

Everybody else has their data, whether it's a ticketing company or a promoter, or if it's a merged company, or everyone else is grabbing data.

But as an artist, we've always just felt like, oh, it's amazing to play and that's all we need to do.

It's not true anymore.

You need to create that direct connection.

So fan drop makes that super simple, and that's really the mantra is to help artists build their communities.

How you communicate and what you do afterwards is really up to the artists.

We try not to involve ourselves to that because that's a very personal relationship.

But the hardest thing is is just getting that first connection.

So fan drop does that.

We use geolocation and some really cool rewards kind of features and components within our tech, but yeah, just don't let them leave a show anonymous.

I have to think there's some kind of surprise and delight theory here that you're.

Assuring as well.

Right, Yeah, we have some cool stuff.

We have like a digital scratch and win, so you know on the Canadian tour that we did, we were giving away you know, we're in these big arenas.

I get it.

There's some like American Express Platinum seats that some people can afford, but then there's the ones for like eighty five dollars in the nosebleeds that you know, people just can't get close.

So the idea of democratizing a space I think is really powerful.

So that's what fan dropped it typeinfandrop dot com, you go straight to the OLP.

It was called Encore Experience.

So ten people every night, no matter where you're sitting, one chance to be on stage with us for the Encore and feel what it felt like to be you know, literally right on stage with us and look at it out to the fans and stuff.

So there was that there.

We you know, we do, we do.

There's tons of different things.

The scratching wind is cool.

We also let people vote on the Encore songs in real time so you can see those boats go up and down.

We were selling you know, like limited edition and hoodies and T shirts just to the people because it was it was almost like saying, my view is like, if you're coming to an ural DP show at this point, I consider you a super fan.

It's my responsibility to make you feel that way, and fan Drop really helps do that.

It's awesome, it's so cool.

So let's lay out the rest of twenty twenty five.

It's not going to be a slow rest of the year.

I could certainly tell you got a lot of dates that you guys are out out on the road with, and tell me what else is going to be going on.

This We finish up in Vegas on August thirty first, and then I have actually have a book in an album coming out with my wife.

We have a project together, she's an artist songwriter as well, going to be finishing the LP album in the fall as well.

And then yeah, looking I can't believe it, but looking towards a big twenty twenty six when this year is already felt like a whirlwind.

So just keep that train in the tracks, I guess so to speak.

Oh, I love it well.

In closing back to the take of a walk theme, so if you could take a walk with your younger self from nineteen ninety two as you're just starting the band.

What advice would you give to him?

Actually just wrote this chapter in this book that my wife are doing, and it's really about being in the moment.

I think I was so focused on what's next.

It's like, you know, you get a call to open up for the Ramones and Poughkeepsie and it was incredible, but I don't remember it, like I was so like, Okay, that's amazing.

What are we doing next?

Like what's what's the next show?

And so I remember standing next to next to the guys you know and the Ramones like Joey Even, and man, it just didn't I didn't take it in.

I remember when.

Robert Plant, you know, heard our song star Seed in his limo in New York and all of a sudden we were touring.

We were in like Boston playing like the Middle East a little club and our tournament as it runs, and he's like, we're tear and now we're not playing the show tonight.

We have to drive to Indianapolis to open up for you know, the first page and plan reunion.

Didn't take it in, like Robert Plant came up there mean I was telling me how much he loved that first record na Vide, and he was like, I really relate to the lyrics and the sounds.

And I was like, some, but I didn't take it in.

I did.

I wasn't in.

I wasn't present.

So that would be if I could be walking with my my, you know, younger self, I'd be like, man, it's just stop.

Take this moment in.

You know, listen to Robert, Listen to what he's saying, ask him questions.

You know, I miss some of those opportunities.

Unfortunately.

Oh I got chills.

I've missed so many myself.

Right, No, that's life.

Yeah, yeah, but I mean I and then when I think about what I'm doing now and being able to talk to folks like you on the podcast, I go, man, I'm pretty pretty damn lucky.

So uh yeah, these are the moments I think we all can appreciate it more and get to do something more long form like this is so key, right.

It's oneful rain.

Thank you so much.

Man, I'm on, have you on.

This was a blast, man

Love it, love it, Thank you so much,