What's up guys?

Welcome back to the Downbeat podcast here live from Nashville, TN Working on that accent, making sure that accent's not at all racist.

Can you be racist to white people?

I don't think you can.

OK, now that's out of the way.

My guest this week is Eric in Prota.

You might know him from being the guy that does backflips.

You might know him from being what I think is maybe one of the last remaining artists in drumming You might know him from.

He used to lay in a band called Fever 333.

He has a new band, House of Rotection.

He has his other band, Night Verses.

They just finished touring with Tool.

He's a great friend of mine.

He's been on the audio episodes of The Downbeat and now he's back to do the video one because House Protection are on tour and they are playing with Poppy tomorrow here in Nashville, TN.

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Without further ado, it's Eric in Proter on the Downbeat Podcast.

Eric and pro Craig Rooney, welcome to the Downbeat.

How you doing man?

I'm all right mate, how are you?

Good.

We just got off a drive from Charlotte.

Pro mode Pro mode so quick immediately Charlotte show last night.

Yeah, we're House Protection.

One of the bands I meant is opening for Poppy and we did the Fillmore and it was awesome.

Fillmore, Charlotte.

I don't know if I've done it.

It's cool.

It's cool because the crowd is like like three ways around you and in this setup I'm playing sideways to Steve, so it was like 360 audience almost.

Sick.

What's the sort of caps on this tour because you're doing East Side Bowl tomorrow?

Yeah, what's that?

Like, I don't know, like maybe 7.

I think for the most part it's been between 1000 and maybe 2-15 hundred.

Yeah.

And this is another room that you talk about that I don't know about.

Maybe there is?

I don't know.

I mean, every day has been full and the crowd comes early.

I mean, we're the only opener, so it's like direct support people are there.

Dream, yeah.

Dream.

It's been awesome.

What's your life set up like?

Just you 2?

Or have you got like, sneaky little session musicians?

Hiding in the kick drum.

Have you got?

Have you got?

No, no, no.

We, you know, we're still figuring it out, but right now it's US 2 and tracks because, you know, there's only two people.

It's got to sound full.

How much track You said that as if like a part of you is dying inside.

No, no, no, I, you're funny.

I, I draw the line in that like with Knight versus my other band, I do, we do no tracks.

So with this band, I don't have to care, you know what I mean?

Like I have that one to be my like elitist self.

And I'm very like curious about what, how long a loop is going to be.

Whatever.

With this, I'm just like, whatever makes it sound cool.

Like the priority is to put on a good show and be able to jump around.

So my vocals are all real and the drums are all real.

And then I don't really care what sense.

Yeah, like I'm not like in night VS that trigger everything.

And this one, there's a bunch of sense that I don't have to touch.

Are you doing any classic Eric and Pro?

You know, like setting something off.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, there's stuff where like we have a song where we use this sample of like a whip, like to crack on the snare.

So stuff like that I'll play like if it's a integral part of the drumming, but like bunch of synth lines and stuff now, like I'm trying to jump off my drums and like have fun.

And also, I've never sang and drummed for any other project, so it's like it's already kind of a lot to take on.

I remember bumping into you at the Tam or event in Where Were We?

House of Blues, Anaheim.

House of Blues Anaheim.

And you were telling me about this project because you were recording at the time with Jordan Fish and you were like, bro, I got a scene, bro, I'm scared.

And I was like.

You're fucking great.

Now you know what it's it's mostly just that, like I don't like to do things unless I know I can do it at a certain level.

Like the the confidence of having a mic.

I don't care about that.

But like, I don't want to go on stage and think somebody else should be doing this.

But the cool thing about this project is because me and Steve have never sang before, we were just like, fuck it, you know, like, let's, let's see what happens.

All of our favorite bands were just a bunch of friends that figured it out.

And our references, like, we made a playlist of 50 songs we love with bad singers or like, unorthodox singers.

And we're like, OK, like Prodigy.

I was going to say it's the Prodigy on that list.

Oh, absolutely.

Like that's, I think that was the first band when we were making this that made me think we could try and do it because I just watched, I was on a plane flight home and they had their live DVD on the plane and they played to like 150,000 people as a headliner.

And I'm like, OK, if he can do this singing the way he does there, there's options here, you know, like, like I'm too old to be sitting here worried about what people think.

So it came from that.

And then obviously there's a ton of other influences like Block Party comes up a lot, Crystal Castles comes up a lot, like, and then we obviously we love all the heavy music we grew up on.

So it's been kind of mixing that.

But I don't know, man, because it's my friend.

You just get on stage and like, you've done this so long.

Touring with like 2 people and obviously some crew but like the fucking dream.

It's been very cool.

You don't have like every, I love every single member of my band, but there's an X part of their personality I don't love sometimes or like a little argument that comes up or whatever.

Two piece.

So how many tours have you done?

As this band Yeah Two, we opened for Poppy and Battlements in Australia and.

What tour it?

Was awesome, but it was like a real test because other than that, we'd only played two headliners and as you know, headliners like they're there for you.

So you could kind of just hold the mic out and they would sing along.

I felt like that was the real challenge of like, how do you win people over that are not there for you at all?

And that went awesome.

And honestly, I could not have predicted this because you were asking about if we were going to have backing musicians.

And I think we've had conversations about like, let's let's see where this goes.

But I swear to God, like Within Two shows Steve's ability as a singer because he has more of the heavy lifting.

I shout but like I'm not trying to hit notes.

You shout in your drum solos anyway.

Yeah, it's like it's really does feel like that Steve is the one that kind of like we didn't realize actually had a pretty good voice, especially working with Jordan.

So he had more of the challenge and I swear like show to it felt like he progressed in like like as if he'd been playing for two years.

Like it was kind of like, oh, OK, cool.

This is a lot less stressful.

So we did 6 shows with them.

I went, I came home, did Animals Leaders tour with Night Versus, had a week off and then we started this.

That's some busy, busy shit and also like just so you got bad omens, poppy, you got their fans, you've got prove yourself to them and then you've got on the night versus side, proving yourself to animals leaders fans yes, I bet you went down pretty good on that, though.

Oh it.

Was awesome their their fans were like like the perfect crowd for night versus and I think we sound different enough that there was no like I don't think it ever felt like baby Animals As Leaders or something.

I think it was just happened to be 2-3 pieces that play instrumental music so.

It was Oh yeah, you didn't sound anything like them.

But it is weird that two instrument.

Who else was on the tour?

It was just us.

Not single singer on tour.

No.

Again, what?

What a fucking treat.

A relaxing backstage.

It's it's been quite nice.

No one.

No one backstage that's.

Me now so.

Is it do you do all the warm ups?

Kinda like I've I've, I've watched enough stuff on YouTube in the last month to try and make sure I don't blow out my voice beforehand.

But again, I don't.

I'm literally yelling like I do when I drum.

We just have a mic and some distortion.

Steve's the one that actually has this thing.

Can't wait to see you play the drums.

Thanks man.

I said it in the intro to this episode, which I already recorded, but I've said it to you to your face before.

I think you are one of, if not the last artist drummer in existence.

I sell fucking T-shirts, bro.

I'm not an artist, I.

No, you've just adjusted your art.

You write really, really well.

But you thank you man.

But you are like a actual artist.

Artist.

That's very kind of you to say I.

Appreciate that, but you don't have like, I mean I'm sure you do in like your private life, but you don't have any like weird conversation that artist arts have like.

What do you mean?

No eye contact, like, you know, like the weird shit if it's like a guy and then your art is art.

Yeah, I have a pretty like strong opinion about that.

And not that I, I ever expect my opinion to be for anybody else, but I just think like, I don't know, I in regular life, I, I'm pretty good at just kind of doing what you're supposed to do.

Like I try to do things the right way, whatever I've grown up to think the right way is.

And then when it comes to music or being on stage or art or anything, like, I don't care what anybody tells me to do.

And that's sort of my opportunity because I never drank or smoked or did any like, bad shit in real life.

When I play on stage, I just am like, I don't care what breaks.

I don't care what anybody.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

Like honestly, like, so it's one of those things where I'm happy to go to a very prestigious drum event and stand on my drums and just shout at people because like, that's, I don't know.

That's what seems fun to me.

You got the chops to back it up though as well.

Like it's not like you're just going up there and playing rock beat one and then going it's like 40.

How long is the drum solo the one that's on?

Spotlight the one that you.

It's 3940 minutes pretty much.

40 minutes and we didn't talk.

You talk told me this in person, but you didn't tell me this like on the podcast because you've done the podcast before.

But it was audio eight years ago.

Yeah, right.

That's when I used to record them sat on my bed in my house and I'd have you listen.

Record the thing, dude.

Look how far you've come.

This is I was literally like in my parents' house with bad reception.

Look how far you've come.

Here we are bro.

But like that drum solo, How many times did you practice it?

Once it was done, because I composed like pretty much 100% of it.

Once it was done, I did it 100 times, but it took 4 1/2 months to write too.

So like in that time you're running the parts over and over.

How are you writing a drum solo?

The goal is to just not be boring, like to me, but like.

Physically, you sat on the drums.

Are you writing bars?

No, no, no.

I just, it's like you just keep you run the first minute and then how do?

You make the first minute, Give me, give me how.

How do you write the drum sound?

I run the 1st.

Minute No.

No.

It didn't exist yet.

I get what you said.

I don't know dude.

I just sit there and I will freestyle until something feels special and then I'll film it and make sure that it actually is special.

Because a lot of times you think you wrote something cool and then you watch the video back and you're like, this is terrible.

Or vice versa.

Which is also an awesome surprise.

I think that's another piece is I'll do something that I didn't get right.

So I'm frustrated.

And then you do that like venting fill like you're like fuck this.

And you just do something crazy and then that ends up being better than the thing you were working on for 30 minutes.

So.

Absolutely.

I work out stuff that way, but a lot of times I use like the pad melodies and the samples to kind of guide where it's going to go because you sit there with like 20 fills and you're like, I don't know where to start this with.

So if I have like a, I don't know, like in that one, there was like a lot of samples from Willy Wonka for some reason.

And I wasn't good at the Internet.

Which Wonka, original Wonka, Gene Wilder, OG Wonka.

Yeah, I, I don't know why.

I think I liked the fact that his, his setup felt like an obstacle course for them to go through.

So I wanted the solo to kind of have this aspect of like, how are you going to get from point A to point B?

And so I would just put in a sample and it would be like a drastic change in tone.

So it kind of triggered the the whole mood to change it.

So I would kind of let the samples guide like what it was going to do.

And then it's sort of like working with a singer and you sort of narrate off of the pad melodies that you're writing and the samples, I don't know, because otherwise you're just like just a bunch of drums.

How am I supposed to make some sense of this?

So you had a bunch of these parts that you would just do in jams and record them.

Yeah.

And then did you, you know, mix and match which who comes first or did it?

Yeah.

I mean, I would definitely use like common tempos because I had a click, I, I had like my phone click on my hip and that also sucked because I was like changing it manually while playing.

So yeah, I would kind of pair them based off of like the, the tempos that matched.

But again, you write these things and you can spend like an hour on one section, then you watch it back and it's like, Nah, this is boring.

So I would, I would film a lot just because I like, I the only reason I did a 40 minute solo was because I did Seoul Korea Drum fest and JoJo Maher was talking a bunch of crap on how boring a lot of drums are right now.

And he was like, oh man, Terry Bozzio used to do 20 minute solos and that was mind blowing.

So I remember at the time I was like, all right, I'm doing 40 minutes solo.

Like just in my head.

I was like, yeah, I was like, if, if that was because JoJo Maher is amazing.

And I'm like, if that's what it takes to impress someone like him.

I don't want to play a festival with people that are on the level of Benny Greb or Thomas Lang or whoever else and not bring something to the table because obviously years of experience, I'm nowhere near them.

So yeah, it was like, all right, let me just pick something overly ambitious and make sure that for that six months I prepare it as much as possible.

Which is cool because it's a niche.

Like that drum solo is like no one's doing that anymore.

But it didn't come from you going like, why?

What's nobody doing?

What's nobody doing?

I'm going to do that.

It came from like fuck, fuck you, I'm doing a fucking 40 minute drum solo.

Like it came from like overcoming a problem and not just being like what's no one else doing?

Well, you know, because I was asking him like what?

Like kind of just trying to get an idea because I love to.

Play This is a face to face conversation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was.

I like, I like picking the brains of people that I've done more than me or.

Crazy, isn't it?

I mean, listen, I really like him.

I think his passion comes through in his music and talking to him, you get that and you hear things about drums that I don't think you'd ever anticipate.

But I did get to tell him what I'm telling you.

The next time I went back to Soul Drum Fest in 2023, we happened to be booked together again.

And I was like, dude, I got to thank you.

I did a 40 minutes old just because you were like riffing on this.

And he was like, I was like, he had no idea, which is fine, but like, I love that, you know what I mean?

Like something, he said flippantly.

Like it's like, without being dramatic, changed the course of your life somewhat.

And he just just went totally that was it.

And, and he's so good that it's like, I want those moments when I get to come across any musician on that level, whether it's bands we tour with or drummers or whatever.

Like I don't, I don't want to walk up and say, what should I do?

But I want to have a genuine conversation.

And if I see like a hint at like a gap that could be filled creatively, like then that sort of gives me like a new goal because it's hard to just sit there by yourself and go like, what do I want to do?

And flipping through your phone, seeing what's trending is like, dangerous.

So that is the poison because it's just like everyone's too late.

If you've already seen it, you're too late, right?

It's the same like even that thing the other day, like the guy, the guy's daily routine.

Did you see that popping off?

If you tell me no.

What is it?

You don't, you don't live in my world, love.

So jealous.

Like there's a guy on Twitter or whatever and it's like, you know, like the grind mentality.

Oh yeah, wake up at six AM, 4:00 AM or whatever.

It's like it was like a viral video as a guy is 100% serious and it's like my day in the life

and it's like 4:00 AM.

He wakes up his head in an ice thing immediately and then it's like someone's obviously filming.

It's all like stage, but it's my daily routine.

It's not supposed to be funny, but it's like he's got some poor woman making all his meals for it.

It never gets addressed, but it's always just like this little woman making his meals and doing his suit and stuff.

And it's like it's like by 10 AM he's been to the gym, he's done 2 ice baths and then he's on on the phone.

Like, yeah, we've got to get up to 10,000, like one of those yeah things, right, right, right.

It comes up and everyone's obviously dunking on it.

It's funny because it's funny.

And then one person made like a parody.

And then like, yeah, that's very funny, the parody.

And then because of how long something like that takes to get filmed over the next two weeks, there was like 100 parodies, and it's already too late.

Like whoever got that first parody in it has money there.

Like that's it.

But then by that point it's overstagnated.

So the same with drums.

If you're looking and like, well, this guy did this thing, then if you try and emulate that, not only do you like stunt your own musical growth or artistic growth, but you're just too late, right?

You're going to put in hours.

I see it all the time, people.

They will put in hours to like something that is a trending topic, right?

And it doesn't pop off because the original always pops off.

And then like, they get downtrodden because it's like, I just spent three days, like 60 hours editing this video.

Why didn't it pop up?

Was it because you're not doing you?

Totally.

You know, I, it's, it's interesting you bring this up because I was having a conversation recently about how one of the things I think it's really tough about making music in a band right now is that if you're a band that has any credibility, you're following whatsoever it, you can't play your new stuff because immediately there's videos all online and if there are people that look up to you or are in the studio currently, they can just watch that video and within seconds take that part.

And the reason that that sucks is that a lot of times you come up with your best feels after you've played them live 100 times.

So like bands before this was an issue would run a song a year straight and figure out like all the bridge needs to be twice as long or whatever.

And you can't do that now.

So you sit in a room and, like, guess at what connects with people, and it's just not quite the same level of effectiveness.

And then at the same time, because nobody wants to gamble on weird ideas, you're like, well, I know if I put a breakdown here, that'll get them.

So again, don't get me wrong, I love breakdowns, but you end up doing things that, you know, work because you have no proof.

You're just recording it and crossing your fingers.

Yeah.

So it's like AI don't know.

You have to be like creative, like I know with night versus we'll sneak in jams.

That don't belong in a song for a part.

So it's like it's labeled as like an extended bridge under something, but no one's going to record it as new night versus song.

So we'll test things that way.

But yeah, I'm still trying to figure out how to how to navigate that.

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It's really funny you say that as well, because Stray on our last run, we just did, we did a headline show before we did a run the Spirit Box.

And we were like, we're sick of playing a lot of the old songs.

Let's just play a brand new song.

Yeah.

And we, and then we had that conversation that you had, like, what if someone steals it?

What if someone does this?

And then all of us, I don't know what it is.

We're all old now, right?

And we're all like, everyone's got their own thing in life.

And in a weird way, it's kind of freed up how we view the band, got you not doing stuff like, what's gonna really get them?

What's this?

What's everyone else doing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We had the discussion about we can't really play a new song live.

It's not recorded, no one knows it, whatever.

And then all of us just kind of something with someone just went, let's just do it.

And then the rest of us just went, yeah, right, then let's do it.

And then we played it.

And you know what?

Like I played the song a little bit differently.

Crowd loved it.

There wasn't that many videos online and I was like, this is sick.

I said.

What people used to do is the conversation we're having.

Dude, it goes a long way.

I'm not even lying when I say this.

We, the song that we just released in House Protection, the video for Fire, we had that and we weren't sure if we were going to put it on the EP or a different one.

And then when we did our headliner in London, we played it and it went crazier than most of the songs that everybody knew.

So we were like, OK, it made the cut.

But like, I don't think it was even going to make the EP if we didn't play it live and find out.

And it's not like the audience determines it.

It's just more, I don't know you when you spend too much time with your own music, like you it, it's not a like, it's not a reality.

You've heard it too much.

You need to like feel it with other people and so we got the opportunity to do that, which was cool.

It like reinforces what you think you knew that you didn't have any kind of like like proof like totally I know this fucking rocks really weird as well.

We did it at the same venue.

Oh really the underworld.

We both played these new songs at the underworld.

That video.

So the video for Fire you directed it I.

Co directed it.

Where'd that come from?

Did you Co direct both videos?

Right, there's how many videos?

Yeah, so for the new EPI, Co directed both these videos and then I helped out a lot with the other ones, but it was more like the creative direction with these.

There were days where our director Kevin Garcia, who's amazing, I've worked with him on everything, he couldn't be there.

So it's like, I mean, we've worked together enough to where like I kind of know how to navigate those situations.

But yeah, I don't know.

I mean, visual stuff is so fun for me.

And at this stage in music, it feels like it's necessary.

It's so hard to put a song out and have anyone pay attention when it's just audio and they pull up the phone speaker and then in the middle of your build up an intro or your really cool drum intro, they get a text and then they're not paying.

It's like with a video at least you kind of have to like.

Have to watch it.

Grab them from every angle.

So yeah, I mean, it's just something when we write songs, we talk about what's going to be in the video while we're writing it.

So it's kind of like, I don't know, so far.

I mean, we've done a video for every single and I feel like it's gone a long way, so it's been cool.

What counts as directing?

I come up with the concepts and I tell the person that's not me on camera how to convey those parts and like I edit 50 to 80% of the videos really.

So.

So I mean actually.

Really like not just Co directing, that's like Co producing.

I guess I'm not good with all these terms.

I'm more just like, let me, let me stress this, everybody that's helping this band right now, it's more for passion that it is for money.

It's a new band and they're they've helped with like 7 videos.

So when we're doing this, I don't really care what my title is so long as we get a really good product.

And like I've got an amazing director that busts his ass to make sure it's good.

I've got his name's Kevin.

I've got Sam Shapiro who he actually edited like 60% of fire and all of the architects video.

And so working with someone like him too, I'm like whatever credit, we need to make sure that this is the right thing.

Like I don't care where my name falls, I'm in the video, you know what I mean?

But on the back end, like as far as planning and location scouting and editing and making sure that like the like getting the wardrobe or whatever, I do a lot like at least 50% of all that stuff.

Sick.

It's weird like because I don't think you really have a producer in a music video, but you do have a producer in a movie and then like the line, the line between producer and engineer with music is blurred and then the line between producer and director in film is blurred.

There's no real like.

That's why it's weird is like when it comes to getting the cameras, like that's all Kevin.

I know nothing about that.

And when it comes to like, it's like we did a video in like a warehouse and he set up the warehouse and the lights and there's so many things that again, we've just sort of been like, I don't know, you want to just split the credits here because we've done so much work outside of it.

And yet I don't think that these videos could have happened without the either one either of us being there.

So it's kind of like, I don't know, he's one of my best friends.

We just find a way to make both of us happy.

You can see there's a lot of you in the videos though as well, because there's like, I don't know, it feels 90s it feels like.

I'll take it.

Mid 90s.

Yeah, yeah.

That, that's also Steve is a big part of that too.

I was going to say while we were on the subject, when you were like, no one can go play new songs anymore, but just something that I thought about.

So we're obviously both pretty good Bjork fans.

Absolutely.

I want Sorbjork live.

I can't remember what album came out.

The album which had the hand pans on it, I can't remember.

It's like a fairly recent one.

I want to say it's like 2011.

I know what it is.

Don't worry, you're not going to get tested on this.

No, but I want to know.

That record I played a festival.

I played the Isle of Wight festival with Bjork was playing.

It was crazy.

Bjork, The Cure, I can't remember who else.

It was the most insane line I've been ever.

But Bjork came on stage.

That album wasn't out yet.

She paid that album back to front, front to back.

And then she literally went up to this microphone and she goes do a pure compression now.

My manager said I shouldn't have done that, fuck him, no way.

And then she played like whatever rest of the bangers after that.

It was just like, and I was just like, you, you are the artist.

You are an artist, artist.

It's fucking sick.

She's the absolute best, yeah.

It was awesome.

The reason I think I could be wrong, I think it's biophilia.

That's the one where she, like, invented all the instruments.

That's the one, yeah, Yeah.

I wonder if it's that.

I think that's the one, but I know she got her hand pen guy from like YouTube and then he became her drummer.

So I know that's because I've been like, if there's ever an opening, you've got.

Too many things bro.

Right now, yeah, but like later on 45, should I still be killing?

Where's your dream gig?

I'm in both my dream bands.

I have.

No, I've turned down every cool audition to be in these two bands.

What?

Have you turned down?

Come on.

Give me, give me, give me a big one.

Give me a a juicy.

When I say turn down, I don't know.

I don't.

Respectfully, Connor, you must be able to give me something, some schedule a scheduled clash.

You know what it's it's more like somebody said, hey, do you want to try out for this?

It's not from the band, it's from somebody working with the band.

And I was just like, no, so it's not like I got a direct message from.

But you do want to know how there was.

I don't know, man.

Yeah, you put me on the spot right now.

Say it.

I I had a chance to try out for Slipknot.

I had a chance to, I had a connection to the Primus situation and then that was hitting me up about it.

And then Trans-siberian Orchestra and.

Didn't you play with them?

Though I was there under study for two years, So what happened was I was.

Just big fan over there.

Big fan now soon.

TSO yeah, you are a fan.

Yeah, that's real shit.

You know, they were very, very cool to work with.

And I just did that stuff from home.

And then there was an opening and I got the offer.

But at the time it was right when Fever had started.

So I was just like, I'm always more interested in doing a band that I'm the original drummer.

And that's kind of where like, again, all those things that I just said, like I don't actually know how far those things would have gone.

It's just more that when the person came to contact see if I was interested, I just shut it off.

And again, that's their awesome gigs.

Like shout out to everybody that did those things.

I just only want to do bands with my friends.

Respectfully, Slipknot with you would have been the weirdest thing ever.

Look, I don't even fucking awesome.

Wait, wait, let me let me stress this.

If we're talking about Slipknot, I think Eloy is such a good choice because also like, they need a guy that just reminds you of no one they've ever had and no one drums like him and like.

It's hard.

He's the best metal drummer in the world in my opinion.

He's a fucking freak.

I think it's a fair opinion, man.

It's it's hard to come into a situation where you've already had two drummers that were well known and have any sort of presence and yet he comes in and it's instant.

There's no like, you're just like, oh, yeah, fuck yeah, I do.

I want to watch this live.

So I don't know.

I mean, I think that was a perfect situation.

And to your point, when you talk about it being weird, yeah, I don't.

I found that, like, my playing requires context where when I can be in a band with my friends, it makes sense.

When I'm in a band where I have to do something that's sort of like expected of me, I think I almost get too normal.

I hate it as well.

Like there's like a weird I can't learn other people's songs.

I can't fucking do it.

I don't know what it is.

I don't know if it's ADHD.

I don't know if it's I think I could do it bear or just like I wouldn't have done this.

What's the fucking point?

Obviously, if there's loads of money, then yes, I'll do it, But like I'm good friends with V man, obviously.

And like when everything kicked off, I didn't even think to go Oh, let me get an audition because it's just like it's not my gig.

Like that's not Jay would fucking stab me in the head, but like also it's just not like I I don't think I could have been in slip mite either.

They got the right guy.

I feel like you just, it's just kind of one of those things too.

And like, it feels like he was born to do it.

And I'd have been pissed off it was anyone else because he's like fucking Sepultura is breaking up.

He's, in my opinion, the best fucking metal drummer in the world.

So it's like if you didn't get him, you are dumb as fuck.

I could be insane.

Anyone else would be actively pissed off and like to get rid of Jay, who's a great drummer, and then just get like another great drummer.

What's the point?

Yeah.

That they got a Brazilian freak.

Yeah, And like, I don't know, man, being in a band that long, that's crazy.

It's it's hard, like and nine people or whatever the number is like.

Fuck that, you got two, I got 4.

Fuck 9.

Add those together, we still need fucking three more.

The reason I stress that is like, I've never been in a situation of being a legacy metal band with 9 members, a member that's passed away.

Like there's so much to that that I'm just like, again, I'm not even saying that there was like a member that hit me up, but there was somebody that was in the conversation that was getting people for them and I was just like, that's again, I'm like, I don't know, man, I don't.

I just want to play with my friends.

What a Primus were you didn't that didn't float your boat a little bit.

No, I mean, look, this just started like, do you like Primus?

I do love, I do love Primus.

No, no, I mean, and again, it was like a very close friend of the band was like, I can make this happen.

And I was like, he was like, I'm bragging about you and I'm like, Nah, I'm good.

But but look, I I hate that you made me say this because I don't mean to ever present this as though it's like, and if I would have tried, it's not like that.

I just no you.

Probably would have got primers.

Let me just.

You're coming across fine, by the way.

I can see you tensing up.

No, no, no.

It's just, I don't know.

I just don't because I'm very like private about like if cool shit happens behind the scenes.

I always wanted to be my experience more than me using it to like promote myself.

I think so.

But you're friends.

Let's find one girl.

10s of thousands of people.

Yeah, just the smallest drum podcast on the it's.

Fine, please don't call it a drum podcast.

Fuck you.

Please, please, I'm trying to beat the allegations your.

Your name is a downbeat.

It doesn't matter.

It's like fucking doesn't matter.

Do you do you guys?

I watch with Danny Filth.

Yeah, exactly.

Thank you.

Do you go to McDonald's and buy a farm?

No, you don't.

You buy a hamburger.

Sorry, it's not going to Hamburger World.

Doesn't matter what the.

Name is OK, you can bleep that part out.

No, it's fine.

I like this conversation because then it will piss more people off because I got them with Better Lovers and they kept calling it to piss me off.

The drum beat.

Oh really?

Fuck you guys.

They would.

It's so annoying because I get like, I would say maybe 30% of the guests are drummers because I'm a drummer.

I love fucking talk about drums.

But it's right.

The press agents are still like, hey, we've got this, these people coming, these bands coming to town.

Do you want to do them?

And then there's like one person in the band that's like known for being insane storyteller and all this stuff, all the face of the band.

And I'm like, cool, yeah, I'll do that person.

And they're like, oh, do you want to do the drummer instead?

And I'm like, I have to lay it down.

And no offence to the drummer because I do like giving the drummers a platform because we never get a fucking platform, of course.

But like, I have to go to the room.

Like, OK, just so you know, this is the best bit of press that you're going to do.

Like there's 20,000 audio listeners, there's 100,000 video watchers.

This is the best bit of pressure you're going to do.

Just for the record.

You want to give me this person who I've never seen do an interview before, which is fine, instead of the person that's probably going to sell the most records And they're like, oh, I thought it was a drum podcast.

I'm like fuck you thought about changing the name?

I mean now because I see too many Downbeat T-shirts now.

Downbeat can apply to other things.

Yeah, exactly.

Everyone's coming in on one.

The singer, the singer's gotta come in on one.

Come on.

You mentioned Brain Dead with Architects.

Architects.

I want to know who's playing what on that song.

Oh, OK.

How?

How did this happen?

Who's playing what right?

Right, right.

This has come up a lot actually.

So Architects plays the music.

It's just crazy because it sounds like you playing the drums.

This came up.

Who has she been talking to?

Who are?

Well, I mean, like I haven't done a lot actually.

No, it, it came up on comments and stuff, but I don't know.

I mean, no, they just, they wrote the song with Jordan and Jordan was in the studio with us at the time doing our second EP that's coming out.

And like he was just like they want to actually, they asked if we could be on a song I think before our band even got announced.

So Jordan showed them some early stuff and like that was just too cool.

Like nobody asks a band to be featured before they've come out and obviously like they are like the best at what they do.

It was in honour and we got the song and the only thing that's kind of funny is like, I never wanted to scream, like scream, scream like I'm happy to like shout or whatever.

And Jordan like got me to do it on one of the house songs.

So then when this came up, he's like, you know what voice I'm going to make you do on this?

And I was like, let me try the other ones first.

So I tried what I normally do and it just didn't work.

So we ended up I scream on the second verse and then sing in the second chorus like the backups and Steve sings through the whole chorus and then like the weird vocal delays in the breakdown.

All that stuff was was us just trying some stuff, so.

That's so cool.

I really want to go back and listen now.

I know that because the whole time I was listening to it, I was like, well, I know this chorus is House of Protection, but I don't know who, I don't know what's happening.

Yeah, I thought it was really cool.

I don't know whose call this was, but that they did the whole first half completely architects.

And then after my verse, it's the same course but with us singing the parts because like, I don't know, I feel like features people don't get that creative.

They usually get like a 15 second clip recorded on a phone and then just sneak it in so they can say the name.

Like that band really did a lot to make sure, even with the video, they wanted the video to be in the locations that we'd shot places before they flew Sam out.

And like we just had a day where we went around to like around my house, around my roof.

We went to like a monster truck rally, like all the places I grew up skating, like the riverbed, everything.

They just came and hung out and we filmed there.

I think it's really cool that for some reason with a two piece you can have a band song featuring another band, but like you never see it with like a four piece.

That's true.

I didn't think about that.

It's almost like like a producer.

It's almost like a producer thing in hip hop where it's like like Jedi mind tricks or something.

You know, it's like 3 guys, but it's like featuring Jedi Mind Tricks, but it's the three guys.

But you never see like a song featuring an entire band.

Right.

Well, I think I mean Jordan being a part of that was, was a huge factor, obviously.

And then they wrote a great song.

But for us, I forget like I wasn't supposed to sing ever.

So the fact that we both sing just it lends itself to be able to do stuff like that.

And it that wasn't anything we anticipated.

We, we again, we just kind of were like, do you want to sing?

Do you want to sing?

Do you want to figure out how to sing?

And then it kind of happened.

I imagine you got a pretty good pop as well then from being featured on an Arctic song like that.

You found everything.

Oh, it helped out, Yeah.

I mean, like, I mean, they're fucking huge.

Like, that was cool, but it was nice because we at least got a single out right before.

So it was like, it was a good trajectory.

And then when they came along, it just kind of like pushed everything.

I mean, as you know, that's just like Spotify and the world.

It's like those things do a lot.

But I genuinely mean this, like if we didn't love the song, I don't know that we would have done it.

So it was cool.

That's like, that's the bonus after you do it.

But we are trying to be pretty picky because as you know, once you start something, it's very easy to just like take every opportunity they can help you out.

They were genuinely friends in a band that we were excited to work with.

When you did these headline shows did you have how many songs did you have out?

Six.

So the first show we just played six and then we did like a drum and bass jam.

I was going to say what you feeling about the rest of the time with.

I don't know, I think because we only had 6 songs, everybody kind of just understood it wasn't like a.

How long was the set and?

It'd be like 35 minutes.

That's not bad for six songs.

Yeah, and a drum and bass jam.

45 minute drum solo.

Fucking slap that in Just.

Tag that on.

No, I mean, again, I think like we're in real time learning how to do this, like learning how to sing everything else.

It's not, again, it's not like the hardest singing, but when you're like trying to figure out how to play a fill and sing a like tagline, 35 minutes is enough.

Like I'm like, let me get this down.

Now we're a little bit longer and then, you know, I want to have like an hour when we go out this summer, but it's it's more busy.

It's like trying to make music videos and recording PS and learn how to sing and.

You got another band.

And I got another band and I have a four month old baby.

So it's been like, I didn't know that, yeah.

Congrats.

Thank you.

Oh.

My God, that's cool.

It's been crazy.

Get that offline.

Yeah, I mean, it's weird.

Like I I love her to death.

I'm very proud and my wife is been amazing.

But I don't know man.

No, I don't want to post a bunch of photos of my kids.

I agree with what you're doing.

If you want the privacy, don't post the kid.

Right.

Yeah you know where I draw the line?

Emojis over the kids face to the point where I have a close friend who had a kid, right, because I didn't get it.

I didn't understand it.

You know, it's just like posting all these photos with an emoji over the kids face.

And I had to, I have a close friend.

I had to hit up our other close friend and go boy is his kid all right.

And then my and then my mate was like, what do you mean?

And I was like, they keep like hiding its face and I don't know, like if something like something's gone wrong or whatever.

And.

I don't know, man.

I feel like with kids you just got to let everybody do their own thing, because the minute you say anything about how you raise your kid, I've learned that it offends anybody on planet Earth.

I didn't.

Give a fuck.

No, I don't put that fucking up.

Don't put the emoji on the kids face dude, what's the point?

Just don't push it, Don't put oh, it's a private and then I actually hit our friend up.

I fucking he's gonna watch this.

I hit my friend up and I was like, I knew the kid was fine, but like at this point because I lost my other friend, but I couldn't help but just go.

Is your kid all right?

Like just a little fucking little fucking thing in there.

It's a privacy thing.

And I was like, OK, fair enough.

And in my head, just don't post it.

People have a hard time drawing the line with social media, like, and I don't mean that judging, I mean like straight up, there's things that I think because probably because we've done social media for so long, there's things where you just learn like, I'm just not going to do this thing ever.

Even like when you were telling me last time we hung out how you just stopped doing reaction videos.

Like there's certain morals that you sort of develop where you're like, all right, I know this community might want this, but I want things to be this way.

And when you don't do it for a living, I can see the impulsiveness being like, damn, they're really cute.

But oh, I don't know what to like.

I just think it's still like new territory for people, weirdly, even though we've had it forever.

It's like you get emotional, human beings are emotional, then they close some shit and then they're like, maybe I shouldn't put this up or whatever.

Yeah, just draw the line in the emojis.

I think if I had a kid, I'd post it.

I'd post it like it's my kid and the kids doing something.

I'd post it and then maybe when the kid got to like sentient age, I'd be like, I don't know when that is.

I would be like, OK, well, I'll stop posting the kid now until the kids are old enough to go, yes, I want to be on the Internet.

Right, right, right.

But like until that point, I'll be putting fucking emojis over your face.

It's bad, it's bad content, it's terrible content.

Guys fearful.

Stop doing the fucking emojis on the kids face because also like, you know, I have privacy or you know, creeps online or whatever.

A creep could probably get it done with emoji on there.

You know what I mean?

You know what I mean?

You know what I mean?

I don't think they're looking like Simon.

Leave it.

In this has gotten so dark.

Leave it the fucking.

I felt like I enjoyed my childhood, so with a kid, I'm just like, what was it like for me?

I didn't have to deal with anything like that.

I just sent photos to my family.

Your kids going to be so fucking cool.

They're so sick.

No, there's no way.

It's not.

There's no fucking way.

When I was teaching drums I used to teach so many kids and every time a kid would come and be a little shit head.

When I met the parents, also a shit head.

Oh, absolutely.

Anytime.

No, that's where.

It was a legend.

Parents were legends like it's Apple does not fall far from the shit.

It's great.

It was like an almost like a cheat code for if I ever have kids, like just seeing that because you don't, you don't hang out with like fucking millions of kids when you're when you're like grown up, unless you teach them or you know, you're weird as fuck.

But like seeing that, like people tell you, like you've learnt it from your parents or all that stuff.

But seeing first hand like this kids a legend.

Their mum and dad are also legends, just like me.

Like you really do teach your kids to be you.

Essentially, no.

I, I worked at the YMCA in an after school program from through all of College in the first few years of touring.

And it was exactly what you said.

Cool kids, their parents come in and like you forget people do this, but like there's parents that just literally don't gossip.

They come in and all they talk about is like good stuff.

And I'm not saying that like I'm free of gossip.

I just mean it's exactly what you said.

Then you see a kid that gets in trouble and their parent comes in and they're talking crap on every teacher.

They're complaining about work and you just go, Oh, that's that's.

It so therefore your kids going to be so fucking cool.

I hope I hope you're fucking skateboarding, flipping little thing going on.

Speaking of flipping, I wanted to ask you because I injured myself earlier right?

I'll get on to my injury, serious injury.

Madison.

How serious was this injury right?

We'll get back to that.

You ever injured yourself doing all your backflips and stuff?

Yeah, I mean, not like I I I had like a three month tour, like a couple tours together and the night before I got home we were in Vegas.

So it's obviously close to California where I live.

So amped to get home like the most adrenaline show, I go to jump.

I must have been because I'm going off the throne.

So I'm like 6 feet up in the air and I came down on my foot crooked and it just swelled up like a balloon and I had to sit in the hospital till like 4:00 AM and that was my trip home after four months or three months so.

At least it was the last day of three months.

That's true, but like I was excited to be home and like just get to skate every day and be like on break and it was gone.

And then the one that was probably worse I actually totally forgot about till recently was I used to do the when you go in the pit and you would have your friend like backflip you like you'd run and like jump off his hand.

So I had this friend Tim, who's 6-7 and we would do it and he could get me like up above a crowd.

And we were actually watching my old singers band the Sleeping because night versus had a singer named Doug that is with the band called the Sleeping.

Before we had him, I was like a fan of the band.

We went to watch him.

The Troubadour.

The floors are concrete, the pit opened up so I'm like here's my moment.

Tim sees me and then he called for like a mini wall of death.

At the same time.

Yeah, I mean, he didn't see me.

Summoning like spells.

Yeah, so I ran to do it and as I see people coming together, I'm like, oh, I don't want to go upside down.

So I tried to go up and he's thinking like he wants to flip.

So he basically threw me like 6 foot seven in the air and I landed flat, had a concussion and then got like kind of trampled.

Jesus.

But that wasn't during the show.

That's no, no during the show, not come on professional, you mess up.

You've had one bad one during the show and it was the end.

The last tour, Yeah, that's like Sod's law, that it's like, wait, what do you call it?

America Murphy's Law, Sod's Law in.

The UK, you're saying?

Murphy's Law.

Oh shit, Yeah, you're big on the superstition thing.

I just, yeah, I don't want to jinx it, but I was a competitive gymnast till 5th grade and I backflipped off of benches for money at school when I was a kid.

Like that's how it would get like extra lunch money or whatever.

So I don't know, man.

It's like walking up stairs.

You do it every day your whole life.

It's kind of there, but I'm sure there's going to be a day where I just come down wrong and.

I'm scared now that we've talked about this, you'll see it.

You have a you, You have a thing.

You said you didn't watch my vlog yesterday.

Because oh, I do have, OK, actually I do have a superstition with with backflips and it's really weird.

But I'll just pick something I need to see.

Like I know this is weird but.

I'm sorry, what?

I'll just be like, I need to see a circle light blinking or like a triangle lit up.

Like I'll just pick a random thing and if I see it, I'm like, I'll be fine today.

And if I don't see it, I'm like looking out in the crowd, whatever The thing is that I picked that day.

There it.

Is then I don't do it.

There's the weird artist.

So yeah, yeah, I do.

I do have.

This guy so normal for an artist.

I need to see a red blinking light.

It's.

True.

No, that is weird.

Go on, what was yesterday's?

It was a red blinking light actually.

That's funny you said it.

But also like, OK, sometimes I think now baby, sometimes I think I cheat this system because like when I really want to do it, I know like by the mixing board where I can see certain things.

So there's moments where I'm like, I remember we played Florida and I was walking out of the venue and there was something I wanted to climb.

It wasn't a backflip.

It was like a a setup that I wasn't like when I backflip off an amp, I know what that is.

I was trying to climb some shit that I didn't know how sturdy it was going to be.

And I saw three people on the street within a couple minutes on crutches or wheelchairs.

And I was like, I'm not doing that today.

So again.

Are you are real superstitious?

Yeah, but like it's with just stuff with myself, like with I guess.

Yeah, but.

If you believe it, it's not just superstition that's true.

If you believe it, it is true.

Like you made the right call there.

I think that's fair.

Yes, if someone.

Else said to you, oh, you've seen this, so this is going to happen.

It doesn't count.

But if you've manifested it from that and you've decided that's a no go or whatever, then that's true magic.

You're going to put that into existence.

Fair enough.

But I've definitely had moments where I also just forgot and did it like I was, you know what I mean?

Like when you have full adrenaline, like like in our old band we I met Steve Aoki one night.

He took us out to dinner.

Oh, he loves jumping off stuff.

And he was side stage, so I saw like a six foot side feel.

And I'm like, I have to flip off this.

Like if he's standing right there.

Yeah, it is what it is.

So I don't think I'm looking for something there.

But if I'm like, it's more like if I'm feeling kind of out of it.

Oh, I did get injured, not on stage, but actually this was like the first sign I was getting older because I'm 35 now.

This is very stupid, but I went on a vacation to Hawaii and there was a bunch of dudes outside a bar at 3:00 AM doing like a breakdance battle.

Oh, I thought you.

Were going to say you got into a fight and I was going to say, wow, that's.

No, no.

But there was a breakdance battle and I don't know why, it just seemed like a good idea.

But it was 3:00 AM and I had skate shoes on, which are heavier than the normal Vans, and I went to huck a backflip at the end of my my routine, and I sprained both my ankles instantly.

And like in Hawaii, Yeah, on vacation.

And I remember.

The last day of vacation there.

No, no, it was the middle, but it was fine.

It's it was like a a the the ankle got huge, but I could walk on it.

But it was one of those things where I'm like, Oh yeah, at 32, when it's 3:00 AM and you're tired, you shouldn't just challenge locals at a breakdance competition, you know what I mean?

So my injury earlier on today, pretty sure I've like marginally Madison's like not happy about this.

I feel like I've dislocated my shoulder a bit, like a little bit really.

I was dancing in the kitchen.

What was the song Since you've been gone, Kelly Clarkson?

But I was like spinning around kind of like a frozen vibe.

Would you say it was a frozen vibe?

Like spinning around like this in the kitchen?

OK.

And she's like, stop, but it was like coming up to the key change, right?

Ain't gonna fucking stop.

And they kept spinning around and I fucking like straight armed right into the microwave and it went ping and it's been hurting ever since.

Wait, and how long ago was this?

Matter of hours I'm.

Sorry.

Matter.

We'll see tomorrow how bad it is, but it's like such a, you know, last air tour.

I was about to ask you wait, when?

When When's your next tour or your next show?

Pretty Soon next month, I think I'll be fine.

I'll be all right.

Yeah, you got enough muscle, you'll be able to get through it.

Yeah, Also, I'm at that age where it's just like any and I'm in America now.

Is it anytime anything breaks I should be like give me the drug that fixes that?

Good luck, Good luck.

I kind of love America.

I'm sure you do.

I'm sure you do.

Everyone's like all the comments on that on that vlog, everyone's like, you picked the worst time to come and all this stuff, blah, blah, blah.

It's like, when is this country ever been sick?

Like as in like it's always been fucked.

So there's never a good time to join, right?

I joined.

It's not a great time, sure, but it's like that's just as fucked as it's been for the last fucking eight years or whatever.

So I'm just like, this is kind of, I can dry my clothes.

I've got a dryer.

You're also the type of person that's just like, I'm going to find a way to do this and I I get that.

I got AC, we don't have AC in Europe.

Fucking AC blaring.

I love it.

That's awesome.

Did you eat or anything?

Did you get food?

We had like Bucky's on the way here.

Pretty good.

What'd you get?

Chicken burrito.

It's all right.

The briskets, the move.

I know, but I had too much red meat and I could feel it and I had the brisket in my hand and I was like, I want to enjoy today.

But you sacrifice the food.

Yeah, I mean always.

Yeah.

I hate feeling sluggish or sleepy or anything.

Does red meat fuck you up?

No but I had like wait I because we went to the Deftone show the other night so I had a hot dog which isn't normal and then we also had to have another gas station hot dog.

It was the only thing to eat.

So I'm coming off like 2 meals of hot dog.

Hot dog.

So.

Do love a hot dog though, but it fucks me indigestion wise.

I mean on round 3 you have to have something else.

We were making, I mean red meat bonanza.

I'm making a chili, but I'll be making so much chili at the moment.

Like I'm making that 3 lbs of meat, cheese or chili.

So I could huge pot.

The pot is like overflowing.

I've managed to make it so all my ingredients just come to the top of the pot like that and then making chili dogs, but it is just terrible for the bowel.

You are becoming American.

Oh, I'm so bad, but I always have been.

Even when I go on tour, OK, everyone's like, I wash your diet because obviously I'm kind of ripped.

But like everyone's like I wash your diet and I'm like, what if I told you this fucking.

Shit.

Just eating like, I don't know when I'm like, well on it, when I'm trying to lose weight, I'm pretty good.

I'll eat the same 4 meals every day and it's like chicken, rice, broccoli.

I'm boring shit, yeah.

But when I go on tour, even if I'm like bulking, I just like the biggest bowl of cereal you've ever seen.

It is very weird how much tour can mess with what you eat.

Like you think, OK, I have kind of a routine here, but because you never know when you're going to eat, there's so many times when you're like, I just need something and that something is a gas station hot dog.

Unfortunately it's like the only thing that's available.

You must be the same.

I mean, I hope you're the same because I spoke to some people like Tosh where he's like I one meal a day after the show and that's it.

And that's.

Hell no.

That's.

Crazy.

He's like ripping away.

He's playing for Lady Gaga's now.

That's amazing.

Do you know how old he is?

Yeah, fuck that.

I used to see him at Nam when he was like 9 years old.

He is 24 and he's headlining with Coachella.

Insane.

He was the only episode of the podcast really where I did it and I was bummed out like every time.

Not even like in a in a jealous way.

It was like it was, it was so melancholy.

It was equal parts like you are.

You don't understand that you are an outlier here.

You are living a dream that maybe no one else will ever live.

Like being this young and playing for like the most prestigious artists in the world.

And then another part where it's like, what am I doing in my life?

I'm 38.

Honestly it was the weirdest melancholy afterwards.

That's so funny.

Guy's a fucking trailer but he was telling me you only eat one minute day.

I find on tour if I'm not in, not even calculating it, but if I'm not in a calorie surplus, like I play like shit and it just gets worse and worse the way the tour goes so I have to eat bullshit on tour.

Yeah, I think, I don't know, man.

I just got to get on stage and feel good.

There's like the line, right?

Like you need some food, you need fuel, but the minute you feel full, the minute you're like second guessing, like now that's the worst.

Have you got cut off?

Eat into stage.

No you don't.

I've definitely eaten a peanut butter and Jelly sandwich like a minute before stage.

I used to have like a strict 3 hour cut off and then by accident on that last tour I hadn't eaten all day and I had like I had like AKFC and a Margarita.

That's.

Crazy.

10 minutes before I played the show, let me tell you, I fucking ripped.

I was fucking ripping.

And then so I pushed it for the rest of the tour.

I was like, I'm gonna see how late I can eat and how much junk I can eat before I play the show.

And then it really did bite me in the ass a couple of times.

I got puked in my mouth while I was playing.

So then I'm like scared it back a bit.

Now honestly, you're nuts.

I if my show doesn't go well, then I feel like the rest of the day is like, what was the point?

Like I need to.

I was actually talking.

It was funny because I had a lot of conversations with Matt on the Animals As Leaders tour and like just talking about different perspectives of drumming.

And one thing that I think he was surprised is I was just like, look, whatever I'm doing, I need to feel as free as possible.

Like if I'm writing a part that is so hard that it's like not enjoyable for me, I just don't write it.

Which is obviously like Matt is like out there doing like some of the hardest stuff ever.

But he was just like, oh, that's interesting because like there's seriously moments where if I'm on stage and it's not going to be fun, like like I was saying earlier, it's like I don't want to be on stage stressing.

I don't like I can play pretty complicated.

But if it gets to the point where like the whole show is me just hoping to land the trip.

Worrying about that bit, yeah.

What's the point?

Like that's not what I designed my life to be.

Yeah, but also, I think you're talking shit because you practice as much as you fucking practice.

Oh, I do.

Of these hard fucking parts so you can land the trip totally totally point when you can't play it.

Yeah, no, no, no.

I mean, there's a there's definitely stuff that I rehearse like crazy, but there's also a lot of stuff that if it's not ready, it'll make the next record.

Like I'll I'll get it in there.

But I am not like even when we're picking the songs, like I'm picking songs that I can play sequentially.

Like I there's certain songs I can't start to set with because if my whole like I don't get to walk to the Eiffel Tower or whatever or skate like because of down the waterfront, whatever because I have to warm up for two hours before like I'm not doing.

That that's why I stopped playing double kick.

Like I stopped that.

Well, I stopped playing.

I play a double kick pedal, but I stopped practicing it completely because the let the amount of warming up and the amount of practice that I'd have to do to maintain like one set I could play up to 170.

Yeah, without a warm up and will be minimal warm up.

180 and beyond I need to warm up for and I need to be practicing it like 3 or 4 times a week.

And I do like playing the drums, but like I like looked at the I did the sums and put my little tennis visor on.

I was like, how many times in a set do I actually hit 200 BPM?

It's like once and I'm like and I'm wasting X amount of hours a week like going so literally what you're saying so I can play that part and I was like, I'm wasting some of my life.

I was like, I'm just not going to do it anymore.

But it is a real way to look at it because like, and don't get me wrong, I you're right, I do practice.

Like if I have a record coming up, I'm doing 5 hours a day because I want to do something I couldn't do on the record previous.

But for sure when I'm picking my set and when I'm going into something where it's like we're about to tour an hour, I'm not putting something in that's going to just ruin my experience.

Because also like you want to put on a good show.

Like I hate watching somebody that looks.

Like, again, like they're on edge and nervous to play the part.

Like, I want to watch somebody that's brain is off and they are just like in a flow state.

And it's really hard to do that when you write stuff completely above your ability and then try and pull it off before you've practiced it 100 times or whatever.

Yeah.

So the moral of the story there, and I've got a great little full circle moment for this moral of the story there is test yourself, but then practice it a billion times until you can play.

That's how you progress.

That's become a drummer like you.

Which brings me to there's a nice full circle moment because we were talking before about like sometimes you don't know what Phil is going to be in the song until you play the song X amount of times.

There was an old stray song called Die Pig, right?

Everyone thinks it's about cops.

It's about sexual predator.

Sorry, it's not about cops, but it has word pig in it and Australia everyone thinks cops.

I digress.

And it was the old drummer.

And as I said, I just hate learning songs that I didn't play the drums on.

I'm just I don't know what it is.

I just can't do it.

I just I would do that differently or whether not in an arrogant way.

I'm just like I can't put my brain towards something unless I helped create it in some way.

I don't know what's wrong with me, but the vert, the chorus isn't that like quite a technical drum beat?

And I used to play this one, Phil, and did it all crossover in the film.

It's like a little thing.

And then when I was going to write Euthanasia, the way we wrote Euthanasia was me and Tom.

It was in the pandemic.

Me and Tom would do on stream where I'll just sit there quite like what you do.

You know where this is going quite like you do for your drum solos.

I just sit there just jamming until something sticks.

And I was just playing that song and that film was cool.

And then someone in the Twitch chat was like, that feel was really cool.

And then I was explaining it to them and I tried to loop it.

And then I was like, that sounds like Eric, like what I'm doing right now sounds like Eric.

And then Tom sees that clip and he's like, we need to use that drum beat.

I remember hitting you up once we because we built this song out of it.

The song was is Guillotine.

And it's like my, my fucking gravestone will have the tabs for Guillotine on it.

It's like the only thing I've ever done in my life is that fucking song.

And like it was written at 160, which I could do.

And I remember we wrote the song at 160 or whatever.

And then I spoke to you and I was like, bro, I've got I've got to ask you if it's OK because it's not specifically your drum beat, but it sounds like you wrote it.

Yeah, OK, keep going.

I have a funny comment about this.

Keep going.

OK, good.

And then and then what happened was I could play at 160 and then it goes to Will Putney and Will was like this needs to be 180.

And I was like, I cannot fucking play this at 180.

But I had like 6 months and now I can play at 180 and everyone else is like, that's the most insane drum beat.

And it's like to me now it's easy.

Like I could probably push it to 200 and it'd be done.

But it's funny to see a the progression of like this is an impossible part.

Absolutely.

And now I can play it.

Yeah, but it's weirdly full circle because it wasn't ever intentionally supposed to sound like you, but I held my hands up the minute I wrote it and I was like, this sounds like Eric Crow.

No, you, I really appreciate you calling me about that.

I remember it because I have a very similar beat in the thing I did with Justin from Tool.

And what's funny is now people see that and they go, this sounds like guillotine, like I just let it go because we've talked about it.

But it is really funny because I have another beat like that in another night versus song.

And I also get told it's.

So insane.

And because I and I've always I asked you I.

Know I told you I don't care like it is what it is like you.

It's not like you were like oh, let me take this intro like used it different, but it was it was very funny when it came up.

But to your point, talking about working on something till it gets to that stage, I heard this really cool quote.

It's very simple.

It doesn't seem that deep until you're in the moment, but it says if you have a hard part giving you a hard time, you need to give it a hard time back.

And I think there's a lot of moments where you're in that and you're sort of like overwhelmed and you start to do that stupid thing where you're like, is this beyond me?

Like is this worth like you ask these questions and when you start to treat it like you're fighting that part and you're like, no, fuck this part.

Like I've, I've got 4 hours.

Within 4 hours I can get warmed up enough to nail this.

Like I've had a lot of those moments where I have to kind of flip it.

And then once you remember how far you came from 160 to 180, then that stuff comes up later and you're like, I've, I've been through this before.

So the fact that you've like come through that and I know will very well.

I love working with Will and him being like.

Your Will's favorite drummer.

Your Will's favorite drummer's attract.

He's the best he's when it comes to drummers, he's the best I've ever worked with at like getting something that feels modern but still feels real 'cause there's that line where it starts to become like just fake drums or it's so organic that you don't hear all the details and then you go fast and it's just kind of muddy and will have people.

Think it's bad production.

It's just like, no, you're hearing real drums for the first.

Fucking time, right?

But Will has like rode the line perfectly.

It's, it's unbelievable.

When was the last time you tracked with him?

Two years ago.

I think so.

It was in the new place.

Yeah, the cabin, yeah.

Sick, man.

I can't believe it.

Like the drum sounds that he's got on our new record is like the best drum sounds I've ever heard.

But also, we did, correct me if I'm wrong, William, you can message me because I know you'll watch this because we're your fucking boys.

But like minimal samples, always on stray stuff like this, you know, just stuff to beef stuff up.

I'm pretty sure on this one because I actually fucking practice for once as well.

So like, I nailed it.

There's only like 1 snare sample layered in OK And it's the same angle snare.

So.

Tight.

It sounds incredible and the only the only time you can hear it is when there's a snare on its own and there's a gap after it.

You hear the iconic hung but like, pleasant right, right, right and justice for the Saint Angus snare.

I have a hot tank on the Saint Angus snare.

Is it as hot as using it on a record?

No, hit me.

First of all, I love that you did that.

Thank you.

I think it was a good move.

And the reason I think it was a good move is because it's the only thing that made that record relevant.

It's the most famous snare choice in the history of rock and metal.

I'm not saying it sounds good.

You are you are preaching to the choir.

I'm not saying it sounds good, but if Tama made a signature St.

Angus snare, it would sell out.

Yeah, non-stop.

As many as they print would sell out.

And like again, I'm not here to tell somebody they should like it.

I'm just saying, would anybody talk about that record or would anybody ever talk about another snare?

Because normal people talk about that snare not.

My mom knows what that snare is.

My mum knows.

She's like, if I bring up Saint Anger, she'll go.

Is that the one with the bad snare?

No way you're.

The fucking best.

She remembers I bought it, I bought it on release day, I brought it home, I put it on in the car and she just remembers my disappointment.

No way.

Yeah, pivotal moment in my life.

Amazing.

My 13 or something.

It's so funny that we have the same opinion on that.

Oh, have you talked about this?

Before I have.

Said Nice.

That it is art, that Saint Anger is art, and you don't have to like it.

Right.

But it is a conversation and it exists as art.

It's, you know, I'm being, I'm always dramatic when it comes to art.

And I'd say that you're the last, the last great artist of drumming.

But like that is art in a time when music was so stagnant.

It's like it's like the banana take to the fucking wall.

Right, it really it that's a perfect.

You can be like, that's just a fucking banana take to a wall, or you can be like, it's a conversation starter.

You can think it's shit.

You could think about it in a crazy different way that's really artistic.

The other thing with that is if you ruined a great record with the Saint Angus snare, I think it changes the context.

If it becomes the, that's very funny, If you become the most, like, relevant part of the record, like, then to me, that's where it crosses the line of like, well, what else was there to talk about?

Like, I'm not even saying I've even listened to the full record.

Maybe I'm not the right person to judge this, but I do know that even not listening to that full record, I know exactly what it is because of that snare drum.

And like, I don't know, man.

That's still a risk.

You know, Like, most bands at that size take no risks.

So it is what it is.

Like I don't think it hurt their fan base.

Now he's got a famous snare drum tell.

Him ask him yourself these were gifted to me from him from him to I kindly talk about our talk about the programs I talk about all the time gifted from him to another lovely two piece band Ben from royal blood sick was wearing the T-shirt and made of Lars Wreck, which it's like a wrestling T-shirt that says Lars Wreck.

OK and he wore festival they pay with Metallica and he basically Lars saw the T-shirt and was like the fuck is that obviously yeah and then Ben like tells him and then he's like tells him I'm like the world's biggest Lars fan so you give him a pair of sticks to give to me and then Lars's wife hit Ben up and asked for six of the T-shirt.

So somewhere there is a photo of, I hope it was for like a family photo of them or wearing the T-shirt.

And you'll have that.

I need him on the fucking podcast.

Come here, fucking Mars.

You brought Tool up.

Justin Chancellor.

Yeah #1 What's it like working with him?

And #2 what's it like touring with Tool?

Justin is one of the coolest people I've ever met in music, hands down.

He's like the the enthusiasm that you have when you first start a band.

He still has that and I think that's why we ended up connecting because we met at Download in Spain in 2019.

I think he saw us in Fever and then he gave us some like side stage passes.

And as you know, when Tools playing a festival, no one gets side stage passes.

So I'm like, Oh my God, I got to go.

And then we were just on a couple more shows with him and he watched the set.

His wife saw that I had a Bauhaus shirt on and she's like that.

All her favorite bands are like Bauhaus, Joy Division, The Cure, everything.

So we started talking, he walks up and then we just kept in contact.

And as the pandemic hit, I built this mirror room just because I like, I want to do something in a mirror room.

And I hit him up and was like, do you want to make a video?

And he was like, oh, this mirror room, it's like Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon.

I'm like, I don't know, I haven't seen it.

He goes if you watch Enter the Dragon, I will play in that mirror room.

Sounds so sick.

Sounds good.

So I watched it and we're messaging him and he sent me photos.

He had the full Enter the Dragon outfit.

So he was sending me photos with like nunchucks, posed like in his backyard.

Crazy.

And yeah, we we wrote that song together.

And then I think Tool fans know this, but they basically just all take turns when they pick the band that's going to open.

So when they had this Europe run, Justin was like, want to go on tour?

And obviously that's like a, that was the first concert Nick had ever gone to was Tool when he was in 6th grade on the Ladder Alice tour.

I know Riley uses delay on his bass because of Tool.

And you know when you play drums and you grew up in the 90s, you can't.

Man, you want to work?

You think I I RIP you off by accident?

I RIP that motherfucker off on purpose so many times.

The eulogy hi hat.

Oh my God.

On every stray record.

I'll actually notice that.

That's so funny, yeah.

Of course I fucking I'll take.

That dude.

So, so from that we went on the tour and if I'm being completely honest, if I never toured again, that was the one.

Like, these are my best friends from junior high.

We've played Battle of the Bands together.

We've done everything.

We've gone through 30 singers that have all not worked out for one reason or another.

You make an instrumental.

Band.

I'm sorry, is that a real number?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, like.

30, yeah.

I mean where like we had them for like everywhere from.

A song.

To like five years.

I mean, Doug, the last singer of Night Versus, he's still our good friend.

That was just like a mutual, like, I think we're both at a different point in life, but the yeah, we've been through a lot of singers.

And are you counting Brandon Boyd in this?

No, no, he's not.

No.

He was.

So you mean like real singers not even featured like?

People that we tried out that were there for a week or two months or whatever, I mean, yeah, I mean, you got to think we're starting from like 12.

To.

35.

Still more than one a year.

It was brutal.

It sucked.

I mean, well, there were years where like, we just tried out 15 and none of them made it.

So that's what I mean, like, but but as far as people coming over to my house and going in our practice space and practicing with us, like, yeah, 30.

Crazy.

So to get to play 20,000 people with one of our favorite bands and it's like like I'm having flashbacks to like battle the bands or like Knights in front of 0 people.

Just the bartender to do that.

Like I don't know.

That was again when we're talking about goals like I if like Nick Riley and then Steve in house protection.

Those are my best friends in the world.

If I get to just keep touring with them and things don't get bigger, but I can afford my house and take care of my family and be with my wife and my daughter.

I don't really care if like obviously I'm ambitious.

There's bigger goals I have, but that was one of those things where I was just like, damn man, this all the things that I'd ever like hoped to line up, especially with that coming through that year.

It was.

It was insane.

Does a band like Tool pay you properly to open that all Like you don't, you know, have to give me a number, but like I I know bands that are huge and you know, you're either technically paying to play or you're doesn't really happen how much these days or, you know, you get paid very little because you know, the band doesn't need you, right.

Right, right, they do.

And awesome all I need to hear.

And let me stress this because I know you have a lot of people that watch that are trying to figure out how to make their band work.

We were in a weird position because we hadn't put out a record in like 5 years.

And I was looking at this like, how do I, again, how do we make this work with my best friends?

And one of the things that's tough is when you take five years off and nobody has a track record of what you bring in, you don't get offers that necessarily represent what you're worth.

So I was like, all right, we have to do something about this.

There's a way to do this.

So that's actually why we split the record up in 2 halves as we've written all these songs and I'm like, look, people forgot we existed for one reason or another, you know, like, I mean, just in the five years off COVID, all that stuff, like you have to do something around them.

So we literally dropped the first half and just played the songs on social media and stuff like that.

So people just saw it and then we're coming from that.

And then literally after we did six months of that, we got the song with Brandon from Incubus, we got the Tool offer, we went on tour, and then we finally got the the guarantees that were what it was worth.

And then our record actually came out.

So it was literally like going from basically what felt like starting over to immediately being where we thought, I mean, six months of work, but being where it's like, OK, this is actually sustainable now.

And then that's when after that we got plenty of animals leaders and then we have a headliner coming up.

And again, also there were festivals connected to the Tool run that put us on.

But if that didn't happen, we would probably just be writing records from home because it's just, it's like impossible.

It's so hard to be in a band that's not already successful and tour without losing money.

And they really were like a big reason why we were able to do things that I think we deserved.

We just are with the timing and the way that the world moves, it was like we needed that kind of like Rev up to to get back to where it's like actually sustainable.

But it's so cool that they picked you literally 100% on music.

Yeah, no offense to you.

They didn't need you.

No, they don't need anybody.

And you're like, again, no offense to you, you're not pulling anywhere near their numbers in the UK.

So it was just literally here's the the message, right?

Cool music and eventually your favorite man might take you on tour if you're like, honest to yourself about it.

Man, and they that's, that's one thing that like it was really cool to see about them is you can tell that that is their priority.

That's why it takes them so long is they care so much much about what they're doing and they don't care how long it takes them to feel good.

It's like when it feels done, it feels done.

I'm sure for some members it probably gets frustrating at times, but ultimately talking to them like Danny, you can tell he loves what he does.

Adam told us at one point he was like, look, if I can give you guys any advice, the one thing that's worked for me is letting people be themselves.

And he's like, some people write their parts in a day, some people write their parts in three years.

And he's like but.

13 years.

But he was like, you can't make people be something that they're not.

And if you value what they're bringing to the table, you need to find a way to make that work.

And I feel like we've done that.

But to hear it from someone like that, you're like, OK, we're, we're seems like we're taking the right steps, you know, because I don't know, man, you're caught in all these phases and you're, you're trying to make shit happen.

And the only thing you can do is look at the people that did it the way you want and go, what did they actually do 'cause I feel like.

Copy it, but like what?

What was the process like?

How genuine was it?

Like what things did they not do 'cause especially now there's all this advice that comes from like a, a label or whatever else that it ends up like asking to do these things that have nothing to do with the music or the art or they compromise how your art is.

And I've always tried to look at the bands that I grew up admiring and be like, would they do this?

And if it's no, I just don't do it.

Which is cool because realistically they didn't have TikTok or anything so they're not going to be doing any of this shit.

But I do think that the general listener music consumer is getting tired of everything being so formulaic.

So when a band like yourselves, like turnstile do something a little bit like 90s to all the new kids that are TikTok, they're like, what's this?

And most new thing I've ever heard in my fight.

What what a crazy way to go about stuff or whatever.

And they're like, it's, it is shining through, like it comes across as some new cool thing, but it's actually just like just just being old school.

Yeah, well, and they're such a turnstile is a great example because it was almost like like a sigh of relief because you're like, that's the example.

They did it without having to do this.

So if they can make it work.

And I'm also the type of person that I just don't like excuses.

I'm like, I remember when I was first starting to try and figure out the Internet or Instagram or whatever, like I remember seeing Eric Moore have a huge, huge following and he had cell phone videos.

And so rather than me like stopping what I'm doing to get all this gear that at the time I couldn't afford, I'm like, if he can do a cell phone videos, I've just got to be a good enough drummer, you know what I mean?

Like, and then obviously when you get geared like this, it's amazing.

It makes everything better.

But I had a lot of friends that sort of tripped on it not being professional enough or whatever else.

And I've just always been like if one person can do it.

And the example there you can figure it out.

There's a weird line there, which I agree with you, but at the same time we are shooting this on the same cameras that they shot the movie, The creator.

But like if I could have this?

But The thing is like I agree, especially with like gear.

So like whenever anyone would ask me in a twitch chat like hey, what double pedal should I use?

What what snare should I use?

Any of this stuff, I'd be like genuinely look at the person you want to sound like or play like and just play what they're playing.

Like the reason I played speed cobras, Tamas speed Cobras and not like.

Any of the fast wizard pedals or anything like, you know, the axis and all that stuff was like Alex Rudy was playing to be Cobras, right, and his feet are in phenomenal and real right, and I was just like, if he can do it on those, like why do I need to spend like that 800 bucks on the crazy pedal?

Much like what you're saying, like the same with social media, same with everything.

But with the podcast I had, you know, I did start and it was kind of lo fi or whatever.

And then I had the opposite effect where it was just like, OK, there are all of these similar podcasts right now.

And I did the other thing, which I do think is a valid thing to do with music or anything artistic, which is look at the person who is doing what you want to do.

Absolutely.

And how can you make that better?

So I looked at like, Joe Rogan, which I like.

I don't watch the show or whatever, but it's the biggest podcast in the world.

Yeah.

And I looked at it and I put it on.

I was like, what can I do different here?

I was like, this looks like it's filmed on a fucking Game Boy.

And I was like, well, I got everything else the same.

Let me just make my podcast look like a movie because I'm pretty sure I can figure that out.

So it was like a weird, it's like just just a slight impact.

No, it's a cool, it's a cool challenge.

It's you.

You created the 40 minutes, although you're like 20 is not enough.

20 is not enough.

I mean fucking cinema cameras pain in the ass but.

This is, to your point, like all I mean is that at the time that I started, that would have been my biggest hurdle.

And it's like, if you can find one example, then just shut up and figure it out now, once you have the opportunity to make it as good as possible, you know, and also to be fair, I'm talking about drummers in, in 2015, the level that podcasts are at now, there's not a lot of examples of successful podcasts recorded on GoPro fours.

So I think you you definitely made made the right choice with the the moves you've chosen.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

We need to get get back on the track.

Oh yeah, yeah, the the test of the tool thing is going to be obviously you've got this headline tour coming.

Right, right, right.

And that's when people don't know the reason you go on a support tour is not because you get paid loads of money.

Sometimes you do get paid.

It is so you can play to new fans who may like your music because hopefully the band has picked you because they either like you or they match your style, the vibe of the show or whatever.

And then you go and you do your headliner and it's the biggest dice roll ever to just see like, did we get any fans there?

So you're doing UK and Europe?

Yeah, we're doing UK and Europe in September.

And the one thing that was cool that we saw is when we did the Plenty tour a month later, half the audience was in tool shirts and our line was pretty much all tool shirts.

So at least we saw something.

But yeah, when it comes to the headliner, I don't know one, it's exciting because we've only done like a 5 show headliner.

We've never actually done like a proper one.

And you want to do your absolute best and make something that's going to be memorable.

And at the same time, the last thing you want to worry about is pulling up someplace and there being like 5 people so.

How big are the venues?

Between 3 and 600.

Nice.

So that's fine because like obviously Touchwood, this isn't having touch MDF, touch IKEA MDF, this is not happening.

But like 150 people in a 300 cat room still looks good.

I'm hoping that doesn't happen but like it still looks good.

Now, yeah, if you were like.

Coming in at 15 hundreds, I'd be like wow, good for them.

Very polite, good for them.

No, I mean, honestly, I think we're excited to do it.

And as you know, when you do support towards the hardest thing is to create the environment that you want.

Like when we were on the tour run and we were sound checking and they would turn on the video wall, you're like, Oh my God, if this was on when we played, we'd sell $10,000 in March every night.

But obviously I get it, they paid for the walls, their stuff.

But that's the hard thing is you have to create as much of A vibe as you can with basically some cool lights and your songs.

When it's like your headliner, you get to do more stuff.

So I know we like to jam.

Like we did a show in in Germany where we didn't have an encore, so we just made-up a song for 10 minutes.

And every time we go back to that spot, everybody just talks about that song.

They don't even talk about the set.

So I think doing stuff like having a like encore that's just improvised every night and like having projections that match the whole set, like trying to do things that actually put you in a place where it's, it feels unique from the the opening slots.

Like that's the part we're really looking forward to.

Are you doing projections for the whole set?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've already made most of them.

Old school neurosis style.

Oh yeah, I do.

I saw like one of their last shows where they had the guy the guy that did the projector shit.

How was it?

Fucking amazing.

It was Hellfest, it was pouring down the rain.

Hellfest 2006 pouring down the rain.

It was also we are just the fucking same people.

It was also before I knew that this is always a scam Emperor reforming for one off show and it was Hellfest France and I was like, I gotta go.

There's no like it's a one off.

I have to go.

I've never seen them so trudge all the way to France.

Watch Emperor and their reform show incredible Neurosis hadn't really listened to them, but someone that need to go check them out.

And then there was like fell in love with them or whatever.

But like, little did I know that anytime a band's doing a one off show festival and it's like 1,000,000 miles away, don't go.

They're coming back.

They're coming back.

They've been told to tell you that.

Like to sell more festival tickets.

The only show we're doing, unless this is the only show we're doing this year because then they fucking mean business.

Like the comeback show.

And then it's like on the day of that show, 10 times out of 10 announced AUK tour.

Oh, they're playing at the end of my fucking St.

Idiot.

I was an idiot.

We plugged your tour in me.

That's that's a tour plug.

Yeah.

Thank you.

You should go and see night versus though, because they're absolutely incredible.

Thanks, man.

Yeah, we we love Europe.

They are awesome.

We actually even neglected the stage just because all the momentum has been out there.

But.

Same because the states hates us.

Do they?

Oh yeah, well we haven't.

We haven't played here non hit like non support since 2017, I want to say, because it just there was just a real dip, a political dip.

Like we're like quite an outspoken band.

And there was a moment where everyone was like, I guess it's not coming to show we're going to do some this year.

Well, I think what's tough is like, as you know, you announce a tour and obviously I understand the perspective of being a kid.

That's like, why aren't you coming to my city?

But like, if bands had choices, they would go to every city and they would just live a successful life.

But unfortunately, you still have to like, figure out how to like, pay for your rent or your mortgage or whatever.

And that's the hard part that I don't think people understand.

It's like I would love to play literally everywhere.

Yeah, I want to play all my best friends in the industry.

If anything, kid, it's on you.

Why don't you tell your friends about us?

And we wouldn't be having this conversation because you'd be first in line when we're like, well, what city should we play?

Yeah, man, I would play the States all the time.

It's a shorter flight.

I can get back home quicker.

It's definitely not anything against them, but yeah, it sucks because you like you still have to like you're on your own.

I think that's the one of the best parts about being a band.

But the hardest parts is like there's really not a lot of help for most of my friends.

I'm sure there's some like Neppo bands that have connections, but like some.

But for my friends, every situation I've been in, there's a lot of I just got to figure this out and sleep on floors for a long time.

Yeah, but 30s.

I'm late 30s now, officially late 30s and I'm not doing that.

But if we do AUS tour and it sucks, I'm not doing it again.

I'll say that right now on camera, I'm just not going to do it.

Well and the other thing about that is like if you want to keep hearing music from that band, they need to be able to survive.

And like if you just go on like 4 tours in a row where you make no money and everybody's like now angered their significant other or can't.

Afford or have children and it's like I slept on a couch last night.

I'm not a dad.

Man, if if if if touring ever seemed out of the picture for Night Versus, I know we would still write till we're 70.

Because if I'm being completely honest, like shows are cool, I love them, but like, I like making music with my friends more than I like anything else that has to do with this industry.

So if it ever came to that, I would much rather work really, really hard at home with them and just make stuff we're proud of.

Then like keep rolling the dice to find out what's going to happen and then eventually just burn out and stop making music like that.

That's why I got into this, was to to hear the sound of our instruments together.

And then if the crowd's there, it's a bonus.

But the.

Burnout's a good point.

Like.

Dude, it's real.

It happens to so many amazing bands.

I would say I've just recovered from burnout where I took technically I took time off from December until last week.

I did this massive move.

I've did 2 solid years of video podcasts.

I'll put two to three out every single month for two years and then stupidly decided to move countries and do it at the end of a podcast tour, like a live tour.

So I packed my stuff off and then I went on this US live podcast tour.

And then I came here and attempted to hit the ground running and it was, I was already burnt out and that everything was taking so long that we talked about before the cameras were on.

SSN, like relies on each other.

Can't get a car till I've got a driving license, Can't get a driving license until I've got an SSN.

Can't get the SSN because I've gone in and it takes six weeks or whatever.

All of that stuff was just so burnt out.

I thought I was like, I'm just going to not do anything.

I'm just going to wait.

Yeah, man.

And I've got back to working technically last week.

Am I different man from working?

I feel it.

That's just because I'm back to work.

I'm working.

Well, and look.

But I feel happier.

Do you?

You've snapped back enough to be like, excited for the next tour.

Yeah, the, the, the tour and like the podcast, like I was, I didn't know that, but I was burnt out.

There'd be episodes I was doing with like some of my favorite people on earth.

I just couldn't be bothered to do it because of all the all the setup, all of everything and just running a merch company as well like everything.

You really are actually.

And now I was really mean to some people because people would make a mistake and I'm spinning like fucking templates.

Someone would make a mistake and I've got such a short burnout fuse that I was just like fucking.

You're the only one that's dealing with that mistake.

That's the hardest part.

I here's the thing, before we go further with this before like so this doesn't get misinterpreted.

Obviously when you choose to do a band, you know these problems are going to happen.

I just think like, I'm never complaining, like you know what I mean?

If people don't pull up to a show, it's not their fault.

Like to me, I'm just like, I only went to shows I was excited for is what it is.

I just mean the reality is because I think sometimes this gets skewed, I do think bands would love to go everywhere if it's the point where like things aren't lining up.

You're just like, I don't know, man.

I can't, I can't like ruin my life to possibly meet a fan in this country I could go to.

And that's where when you take on as many things as you're doing and I think I feel like because I've, I'm in two bands touring right now and it's like trying to juggle that and do the videos and stuff.

It's a lot.

And it's your favorite thing to do.

It's the job you care most about.

But there is also that hard line where you're like, OK, if I say yes to this, my life might literally fall apart.

So finding that line, especially when you have multiple endeavors, is really, really tough because there's part of you that's like, I'm going to die.

And then part of you that's like, this is a really good opportunity I need to find a way to make the most of.

This and to take the gamble and The thing is all of this could be solved and a lot of this gets misconstrued because people assume that we make money making music, which we don't.

If royalty's paid, then we could do the gamble tour.

It's like I'll go to every seat or I'll play a gig or whatever because I don't mind because my royalty check is this much because whatever.

But that's.

No, it's all the side hustle that makes the money.

Yeah, I know, but I want to make music.

Let me get paid for music, not selling the T-shirts at the show where I played the music, which is how everyone makes money.

Did you do all right in merch on tour?

Every time we've done a big like thing like that, we don't do that well.

I'll be transparent.

It was a little complicated.

We did well in merch, but when you're in an arena and there's multiple merch stations and then the arena does your merch and then they take the cut that they want, all of a sudden what would be good in a normal show?

He isn't that good.

But like as far as the actual number itself, it was surprisingly high.

But then it became very normal once, once we got the money back.

Yeah, yeah, there's much cuts in Live Nation to their credit, in the US, they're doing bits like getting rid of merch cuts and stuff like that.

And they're like the money for the travel or whatever, which is slightly, you know, it's the Shell gift card.

I can only be used at Shell, which is like, what sort of Saudi oil deal have you got going on for that?

But like getting rid of the merch cuts in the US has been kind of sick.

That's been awesome.

Again, I don't like this is a job we signed up for.

I just think when you sign up for it, you don't always know all these things.

You're like, it's like you get this.

When I started, I would have to do a podcast and sell T-shirts.

Right.

But at the same time, man, I, I wouldn't trade.

I've been in the position where you're not the one making the decisions and you're hoping somebody else cares enough about you and your life.

And when that doesn't work out the way you hope it would, what?

Are you doing?

I'm not going to make you say.

It no, no, I'm not going to make you say it.

I just mean I, well, I've, I've played with multiple bands though that are not it's.

Not me running the show.

It makes you sound like it's not something else.

Come on, look.

Come.

On if he eats their own, I'd just much rather be the one that's making the decisions.

Yeah, because you.

Have to live with it and it is more responsibility.

Like there are definitely things when I wasn't in this position where now I'm like, oh, I see how that was hard, but also like, I don't know, man, you figure it out.

And also I like it being my fault when something fucks up because I don't, I don't, I don't get angry at anyone but then I know so.

But I'm just like, OK, well what can I do to make this better instead of instead of not even knowing sometimes if someone else is pulling the shots on anything even like when I'm making merch or whatever, someone else is in charge of something else for me.

And if something goes wrong, I have no way of knowing.

The story that I got told is what actually happened.

Whereas if I did it, I know what happened and I can move forward and work from it or what have changed, whatever needs to be happened.

The story comes from a third party.

Then it's just like, how can I progress from this?

Oh, I guess that's fine.

Right, for sure.

And then?

I'm not annoyed, yeah.

I know that feeling very well, but like, I mean, you're, you're right.

When you were the one that makes a mistake, you just get to write it down and be like, never do this again.

Yeah, exactly.

And then it doesn't happen again.

And I don't want to, I don't want to make it seem like I'm back complaining about what I do because I obviously love this and I love making clothes or someone fucking do it.

But like, the burnout becomes very real when you realize the thing you signed up to do, which was just make music, right, is not how you make the money.

So then it's very easy to get burnt out from the other stuff and just be annoyed about it.

But.

Right.

And yet somehow, and this does give me hope, it adds all the legitimacy that you need because ultimately it still shows you're an artist.

Like you are going out of your way, whether it makes money or not, to really, really give a shit about writing your parts.

And air drum bad on that album.

But you know what I mean?

It's like if you didn't do that, then like you're sitting here talking about art, but it's like, what do you do?

I think the fact that you do all those things, it proves that you as a person, or at least I, I tell myself this because I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't important to me.

It really makes it feel like whether or not that's the thing that that the people watching are paying for.

They get to connect with you on a way that isn't monetarily focused.

They're connecting because they're like, this is genuinely who you are when you sit at a drum set.

And even though it would be nice if the system was set up to have you make money that way, you figured out another way that you still get to do what you want, and they can connect with that, and then they can pay you directly for these T-shirts or whatever else.

And yeah, you're right.

I'm sure you do that.

Bunch of stuff you didn't think you had to learn, but you've done very well for yourself and it's a good, good place to be.

The way that you made yourself made it, made yourself correct yourself so you didn't sound like you were moaning, made me feel bad.

I corrected myself.

No, I'm fucking starved.

I'm going to move to Nashville.

I'm living the fucking dream.

No, I don't ever want to complain, man.

It's nobody's fault we chose to do this.

Holy shit isn't a long one.

You can cut whatever man I.

Ain't cutting anything other than when I said not going to say anything.

Leave that in Simon.

I'm being crazy.

You want to do what?

What did you want to do?

2 Truths and a lie.

I think so.

OK, are you aware of the concept?

Yeah, I think I tell three stories and you got to pick which one's fake.

OK, two truths and a lie.

American Pro.

I was in a drum competition that ended in blood.

Ended in blood.

A lot of blood.

OK, I stayed at a famous porn stars house on tour and I had to save a bunch of kids from a decapitated bird.

Tell me about this porn star.

That is the one you want to start with.

What's your fucking name?

Look.

Who?

Who was it?

Who was it?

Pretend you don't know the name.

It was Jenna Jameson.

So we were our singer, Doug, our night versus the earliest singer he, or at least the the one that we did records with.

He's one of my best friends.

He is very good at making the most of a dull moment.

And he was like, OK, I know this drummer that's married to somebody famous and we're going to stay at her house tonight.

And we're like, who is it?

And he's like, I can't tell you.

You're going to get weird.

And we're like, can you please tell us who you're going to sleep?

Well, 'cause you're just like, what do you do here?

Like, I don't know, it's going to be weirder.

But Doug is the, the, This is why he's awesome to be on tour with.

He's the type of person to be like, all right, I'll tell you.

No, I'm not going to tell you.

So it's just like this long drive into to I think it was Arizona.

And we so again, we didn't know who it was.

We pulled up to the house and knocked on the door of this very nice house at like, I don't know, you know, when you pull in the middle of the night midnight and not at midnight.

It was earlier because her daughter answered the door.

And I'm not lying when I say this.

This was the most intelligent child I've ever met in my life.

Like you know the scene and Once Upon a time in Hollywood when Leonardo Dicaprio's like being questioned by the little girl and he's like, how old are you?

It was that level of like even working at the YMCAI thought she was 10 and she was like 6.

She's like, hey, like so and so said you're or mom said you're coming over and then like up walking to the door was her and everybody's like, what?

Oh, it's going on.

Seen you before.

So then what happened was we were in the house, She was super cool.

I think they were like cookies baked.

And I remember she like went to step away for a second and one of the people that was with us, I don't know if it's like a merch guy or what was like I can't look like I've seen too many videos.

I can't I cannot look at this person right now.

So I think every time she spoke to him, he'd be like, yes, just like look at the ground and try and get out of it.

So anyways, spent the night, beautiful house, awesome couch because I slept on the couch and then she hung out.

Risky.

No I mean no I mean no we were all sleeping on the like parts of the couch.

It was fine.

But then the next morning we had an awesome breakfast.

I think she asked me to sign a drumstick because they had like a collection of drumsticks and that was it.

A lot to unpack there.

Side note, if I'd have been in that house, Oh no, I don't know.

But she lived with her husband.

He, I think he was on tour at the time.

Yeah, I would have done it.

So I wouldn't have done it.

No, I would have done what I'm talking about saying right now.

Integral to my sexual awakening.

Not Napster, Kazaar.

Kazaar came after Napster or Morpheus, whatever the I had Morpheus, right?

P2P, P2P file sharing, right?

We used to go on.

My friend, I'm not going to say his name's house because his dad had, this is like 1990 fucking 9.

His dad had like ISDN Internet, which wasn't around back then.

OK, It was like the first time you could like download videos of Morpheus because I had a fucking phone that was doing my thing and I just put in porn.

And then this one video came up.

I remember it like it was yesterday and it was just called Best lesbian scene ever and it was her and another lady and it was the first time I'd ever seen anything like that.

And yeah, really has a lot to answer for.

I don't know if.

Are you saying you would have brought that up?

I don't know, I feel like if I had a couple of drinks I definitely brought out respectfully.

I've been like, hey, just want to thank you for the I don't know what the fuck I want to say.

I got no idea.

I think I would have had to have brought it up.

Look, I mean, it wasn't hard for me to just pretend like she was a normal person because she was so cool.

Again, beautiful.

House She is a normal person.

That's not what I meant.

Don't turn that around.

I mean, like, it was just one of the things where she made it so easy.

She was like an incredible Hostess.

And her daughter was so nice.

And you're just like, oh, OK.

It's like you could I could get into the mode of staying at someone's house.

Oh.

Yeah, you never met a porn star.

Before the person on tour that I was talking about could not, which is funny.

But if that's a lie, you're the world's greatest liar.

And now I'm terrified.

OK, talk to me about this decapitated bird.

OK, so I worked at the YMCAI, generally had third graders that were the group that I watch and it's like after school program.

So basically they would get out

at 2:00, we would do like homework and then sports.

And then kind of like everybody that was left at the last hour, they get picked up.

And so the last hour is kind of the craziest hour because you have kindergarteners and 6th graders in the same place.

Everybody's trying to watch them, but it's kind of hard to make like an activity for everybody.

And kids are crazy.

And then their parents are picking them up.

So while this is happening, we're playing dodgeball or something.

And I noticed like 1/2 circle of kids over in the corner, like against the wall.

So I, you know, when your teacher, you got to make sure nothing bad is happening, walk over and they're like, look, Mr.

Eric, there's a hurt bird and this bird is just lying here.

It's not moving.

Like maybe it's like a wing, but there's nothing wrong with it.

And so I'm like you, we have to back up, like I'm trying to clear the room, you know, like little mini mosh pit, like push everybody back.

And I'm trying to explain to them, you know, this could have a disease or something.

You don't want to touch it.

We have to make sure we take care of it.

At that time, we had just hired a 19 year old.

I was like 22 and his name was MO and he was really, really cool, really smart, but he kind of carried himself very aloof and just like was like happy go lucky everywhere.

He comes out of the bathroom and it triggered a sliding glass door that cut the head off the bird.

And all of a sudden 20 kids start screaming like the end of Carrie.

Everybody is running, like kids are like grabbing the lunch table, like hiding with their eyes closed.

And one kid looks at MO and he doesn't know what's going on and goes.

Bird murderer?

No way.

And then kids start screaming.

Great name for a band, by the way.

Bird murder.

Bird murderer.

And I couldn't help but laugh.

So I'm trying to deal with kids screaming bird murderer, a new employee that's just, he has no idea what's going on and parents picking up the kids and there's just a decapitated bird.

And I'm trying so hard to be serious but I'm literally like in tears.

What type of bird?

Laughing.

I think just a general like Sparrow or something.

It wasn't like anything of note.

I felt like you'd remember what the bird was.

No, I mean like, I don't know that.

What's a Sparrow?

Like it's the brown bird, right?

Whatever that normal bird is.

Yeah, I'm just trying to decide what's a lie.

Like Sparrow's pretty small, Sparrow's pretty small.

If you just have pigeon, I'd be like, yeah, maybe possible.

Sparrow's pretty small, right?

What was what was story #1?

The the drone battle that ended in blood.

I mean this one definitely true.

Just tell me the story.

I could have picked a better headline.

You didn't give me time.

You can have all the.

Time you want?

Because that's on you, bro.

What's a good headline?

I don't know.

I'm just going to tell you the story.

So I used to do the drum off in Guitar Center, and I remember, yeah, I did it for five years.

So when I got to the finals, that was my fifth years at my end of college.

But when I first started, like you get to the the beginner rounds, anyone can sign up.

And there's a pretty strict rule that if anybody that signed up is late because it's like 10 people a day, even by a minute, you can cut them.

Fun fact, one of these competitions, Greg from Better Lovers was a judge when I was like a kid and.

Greg Pusciato.

Yeah, I don't know if it was this one really.

I don't know if it was this one, but I remember meeting him and whatever 1 he was there, I won.

So thanks to Greg.

I don't know.

I doubt he remembers this.

I.

Would have been Dillinger era Greg as well.

Yeah.

He'd be a good judge of dramas back then, definitely.

So wait, was Billy Billy?

Because Billy did some drum offs as well, didn't he?

Probably, but I didn't run into Billy.

I did meet a lot of really good drummers in the drum off though that ended up doing.

It'd be funny if you won the one that Billy was at and Greg and voted for you.

No, Billy might have pen in the band or it was the Gil Sharon era.

I think this was, It was Gil Sharon because it was post, Chris Penny because that came up.

I love that album with Gil Sharon.

Side note, it's so.

Good.

Is that Ironworks?

Yeah, yeah.

So anyways, they ask all of us if we want to allow the last guided run.

And I don't know, it's like a pretty nice group where it's just like, yeah, he's a minute late, but they're like, well, you know, you can pick that.

He doesn't, and you're kind of just like you still want to win.

Survivor shit.

Yeah, And you kind of, you want to know, like you at the same time, if you knew he was the best drummer in the group, you'd be like, no, cut him because you want to move on.

So I swear to God, I'm not like, like this is what it felt like.

He walks into the doorway and you just see a silhouette that looks like the singer of Shadows Fall, like the dreads down to like the ankles.

He's got like Beetlejuice, red and black socks up to his chins and you're kind of just like he's going to be the best or the worst drummer here, but there's no way of knowing.

So then they make us pull numbers out of a hat for the order, and of course he pulls the last number, so.

Real tiebreaker reality TV shit.

Yeah, so you don't know, like you don't even get a heads up to know.

Like I have to step up my solo.

You're just like shit.

OK, so we all go through our things.

Somebody did like a really good jazz solo.

Somebody did a very Neil Pert solo where I think when they listed their influences, it was like Neil Pert, Neil Pert, Neil Pert and it was just like probably one of his songs.

Somebody did a Dillinger kind of solo.

I did my thing and then this guy comes up at the end of 10 and he has said nothing the whole time.

So again, we have no idea what the vibe is.

If he's like an ex touring musician, whatever, and he drops into a really, really sick beat that's just like some China, like Sepultura kind of beat and starts spinning his hair like a helicopter.

And then he just, yeah, but he doesn't stop that beat for a minute straight.

And you have 3 minutes.

So at a certain point, you're kind of like, OK, what's going on, right?

And then he drops a stick and it is like the most silent.

Like I think what happened if I remember right is the dread like slow motion.

Victim of his own success.

Flipped it out, hits the ground and I hear him go like shit and my dad is like, well he's done because my dad talks a lot.

My dad is like sick.

You're going to be that dad.

My dad is notorious for talking shit, whatever it is, like he's the best at it.

So it's just like you kind of get this laugh and out of nowhere, instead of grabbing the stick, he just starts bashing his head on the cymbals.

And this is how he goes to end the solo.

And he's just bleeding like out his forehead on all the drums and, and then, well, it's not over yet.

And then his hair got caught and then it kind of just ended in him like pulling it out.

So I remember at the very end, we were all pretty young.

He was definitely older than everybody there.

I won.

And he was like, at least you won.

The rest of these pussies don't know how to put on put on a show.

I remember.

Just bleeding everywhere.

Yeah, just down, down his face.

That's sick.

I'm going to say at the the chime of two hours, I'm going to say the the Sparrow.

I'm going to preface this that if one of these is a lie, you're very good at lying, which is scary.

I hate knowing that someone's good at lying because I don't trust them.

But I would say this based on the size of bird.

I'm going to pull Sparrow OK as a lie and I'm going to say the other two are true.

OK, I'm not good at lying, but the porn star was a lie only because it wasn't Jenna Jameson.

It's still true, though.

Still true.

I'm not good at lying.

Yeah, you just changed the name so you haven't lied.

So three true stories and one lie of a name, but she's still finding out great stories.

That's why I don't, I don't know, I don't lie that much.

Who was it?

Stormy Daniels.

Oh, the the Trump one.

The most famous porn star in the world right now.

She was cool as hell.

Smartest kid I've ever met.

That's.

Insane.

Was this pre or post the Trump shit?

Pre well, I don't know if it was going on then, but she hadn't.

I mean, this was five years ago.

She was so cool, though.

And also, I was thinking about lying and saying it was Pamela Anderson, but I was like, he's going to know that's fake.

Yeah and also she was only that I'm not, I'm a fucking scholar on pornography but it's only a leaked 1 leaked video I believe.

Dude, listen, I was like.

You laughing about?

Look, I was on the way here and I was like, OK, I'm not good at lying.

So if I tell a story that will seem like it's very true, if I was lying, you would know right away.

At least I got to put my Jenna Jameson story in there.

Yeah, it's crazy how that video is burned on my brain.

Everything about it.

I remember everything about that video.

What we watching later on?

No.

No, we're.

Actually going to watch The Avengers, which is like nerd porn, so that's fine.

I haven't seen it.

I'm recently.

I'm doing the Marvels.

You ever you ever done a Marvel movie?

I don't like?

You don't.

Yeah, you don't strike me as it.

I was so against it.

And then she got me on the X-Men, OK, Because I was like, this is sick.

And then I was like, I'm like flirting with the other ones.

OK, so what's Incredible Hulk?

No.

Dude, And now I'm in on it.

Now I'm in on it.

That's cool.

I'm jealous because it's like more film to like my brain shuts off I feel like.

The green screen still gets me.

Here's the thing, I've had this conversation before when I watch a 824 film where someone falls off a building.

It's painful.

And you watch it and you feel it.

You're.

Talking about good time specifically.

Not just good time.

I think it happens in the Lobster, It happens in What's the Midsommar?

It does happen in all of those.

All three of those people falling off shit are fucking.

Brutal.

It's uncomfortable.

I have never once felt anything when someone falls off a building in a Marvel movie.

Every time I'm like, he's going to get up.

Even the biggest plot twist in all of Marvel, everybody's like, yeah, he's going to snap his fingers and end the universe.

It's not really over.

So I'm just like, I don't feel anything because I'm never worried about anything.

I'm not saying it's it's there for other people, but I just get like my brain starts thinking of like drum beats or something.

That's how I thought about it.

And then I now treat it like fast food and I'm like, this is ridiculous.

This is sick.

Look, maybe my kid will convince me.

Yeah, now you'll.

Be watching fucking a 24 presents Bluey.

That's actually I do hope if I could pick one job for her, it would be to be a director.

I think that would be so sick.

What's your favorite movie?

What's your Give me give me a top five movies top.

5 movies.

Yeah, I feel like you've got good ones.

There's a movie called Control.

That's number one.

It starts with AK.

It's a Hungarian film about the subway system and there's this dude that pushes people in front of subways and they have to play this game where they chase the subways before the last one gets them and there's a weird underground rave scene.

Oh, I'm in.

This sounds awesome, I actually watched it at will is the last time that we were there.

That's worth it.

Definitely check that out.

The fall is in my top five.

Fall 2006.

It's a Tarsen, the same guy that did the cell.

Feel like I've seen it.

He directed a lot of music videos like he did R.E.M.

Losing my Religion.

Basically, the story behind it is that he did commercials and stuff like that and wanted to make a film of all his favorite locations, so he wrote a whole story around like the most beautiful places in the world.

So on a visual level, that's like, hands down, I really like Interstellar.

Interstellar.

I know it's cliche, but.

It it it our back and forth, Interstellar and Inception in my top five because they're just fucking incredible.

Dude, it there's something about that movie that like I'm just in.

I remember I left the theatre and like, I was in whatever that world was for like 15 minutes after.

Like, I was just like, I don't know, I don't walk out of a lot of movies and like, just sit in the mood of it.

And the soundtrack's great and.

You know my, you know my interstellar story.

We talked about this.

I don't know.

I watched Interstellar at the Royal Albert Hall with Hans Zimmer and his orchestra doing the soundtrack live.

And before we got there it was a complete accident.

Like I'd seen the movie and I loved it and I've got like a like a live net.

And it wasn't even like a Ticketmaster e-mail.

That was like a pre sale access for Hans Zimmer presents into no, it's just called Interstellar live OK at Royal Albert Hall.

And I was like, oh, the e-mail came through and I was like, oh, I'll buy ticks for that of course.

And later tickets were going for like 3 grand.

And as it got closer, I was like, oh wait, Hans Zimmer and his orchestra and they're going to play the the whole score while the movie plays on a huge screen using the fucking organ from the Royal Albert Hall.

And I was like, Oh my God, this is obviously a big Hans Zimmer fan of whatever is awesome.

Get incredible seats.

It's playing.

And before they start, they were like, there's like a support act thing it just said plus special fucking guests or whatever.

And then we get there and the special guests.

It's a talk between Christopher Nolan, Hans Zimmer, Michael Caine, Kip Thorne, the physicist that all of the physics was based on.

Right, OK.

They fucking wheeled Stephen Hawking out.

I'm not even kidding you.

Stephen Hawking was there and this other professor, Brian Cox, right?

And it was just a 40 minute chat.

All those guys just talking about the movie and talking about, they end up talking about God and stuff like that.

There's a, there was a thing that was told during that, which I think applies really, you'll really like it applies to music, applies to magic, applies to, you know, manifesting and having a vision sticking to it, which I think you'll really appreciate.

Kip Thorne Obviously all the physics in Interstellar are accurate except there's one thing in Interstellar that is scientifically impossible, which is a bit when one of the ships is coming through and a cloud breaks like ice.

OK.

The only thing in the whole movie that is not physically possible from a physic physics point of view.

Oh, crazy.

Chris Nolan put it on purpose because he wanted to be able to say the whole movie could actually happen all the time, warps and all of that stuff except for this one that will cloud the breaks is the only thing that scientifically couldn't ever happen.

But he's talking to Kip Thorne about it and he was, he told Kip Thorne.

Here's the plot.

And the bit when they go to the planet where like where they're there and the ship, the the wave happens and every 7 minutes or whatever is a year on Earth or whatever it is, I can't remember what it is.

The one where they get stuck there and they come back and the guy's old on the ship, right?

Right, right.

He tells Kip Thorne, I need that to be in the story.

And Kip Thorne, who is like a leading physicist is like, that would never happen.

That cannot possibly happen.

And Chris Nolan was just like, just figure it out.

And, and Kip Thorne was like, I think maybe six months of like sleeping on it or whatever and just thinking whatever.

And then he thought about it and he did the calculations and ends up if a black, because it was like a black hole could never be that big without sucking everything into it in order to get the effect that you want.

Like it just couldn't happen in physics.

It cannot possibly ever happen in space.

And then Chris Nolan was, I just think on it.

And then one day Kipthorn has like a Eureka moment is like, if it's spinning backwards, technically it could happen.

And then he does the stuff, does the calculations or whatever, figures out that, yes, theoretically that is possible.

So Chris Nolan just being so stubborn about his arc literally changed science.

That's because he was just like, I'm not changing that, Just figure it out.

Yeah, damn, that's awesome.

There was loads of other stuff in that chat where Kip Thorne said, like in Interstellar, because all that stuff the, you know, the tesseract and everything with the timelines and stuff is technically possible.

In his own research doing that stuff, he went from being atheist to being agnostic because he realized in his findings that in a way that they can't really predict with quantum mechanics and stuff like that, everything does have a predetermined outcome in their calculations and they don't know why.

And he, like, as a scientist was just like, well, I have to believe something created this in order for it to have an end.

And it was just like, now he's agnostic.

Like it's created like the weirdest thing, like I'm butchering what he said.

No, but I I get it.

But like he was literally like in my own studies, aside from Interstellar in his in his studies of the thing that the movie is about, he realized like predetermined outcome is actually a thing where there is different timelines or wherever there is a predetermined outline to every timeline in their research.

And so I have no other choice than to say I'm agnostic.

Like I don't believe in God, but I know that something this was here, that this wasn't here and then it's here and it will end.

And I know that it's so crazy that.

Makes me like it that much more.

I think to that point, it's like that's the best part about all of this, about making art or whatever.

It's like, you can't you can't predict that when I'm going to make this movie, I'm going to change the way that people look at science.

But ultimately, if you care enough and you get the right people involved and you're just like, look, this is what I have in mind.

It doesn't make sense because that's such an artist perspective.

Like, I know this doesn't make sense, but just do your work as an expert to see it.

Like that's insane.

On that note, that'll go into my last two 2001 Space Odyssey because of how it influenced everything.

The fact that most of our technology has come from that is insane and it's still the most beautiful movie I've ever seen.

Really cool thing about that.

The ending sequence, the 15 minute whatever acid trip.

At the debut or the the premiere, everybody dressed in tuxedos, whatever.

Half the audience walked out because they couldn't handle it.

And it was the number one movie that year.

So if you think about making something, yeah, do you get like half the people?

Oh my God.

Like it really is, though.

So that and then.

I know this is an unpopular choice, but from Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has the ending that has made me most happy to watch of any movie ever.

Eric and Proger is about to ruin the movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

If you don't want that spoiler, don't watch this bit.

When he's on the acid like cigarette and then the Manson kids walk in and then the dog attacks them and then the flamethrower.

Like just that sequence of events I remember consciously being like, I don't know if I've smiled for like 15 minutes.

I thought it was like a sleeper Tarantino like banger.

Yeah, and it is.

It's not his best movie.

I didn't.

Really like The Hateful 8.

Like I didn't care for it really.

Yeah, it was like, whatever, but my.

Whatever, it was good, but.

Like it's last in my Tarantino.

Fair enough.

I would put inglorious as my #1.

It's a better movie.

I think that's actually that's to your point when we're talking about art.

The first time I saw someone change history in a way that was like the craziest turn that was, I'll never actually forget that seeing that happen and your your brain is just like, no way he actually did it.

Marvel, Captain America.

It's sick.

I'm telling you.

It's like I'm telling.

You but before this ends me your top five, you can go fast because.

I'm sure you talk about it but but it changes all the fucking time.

I think Inception is my favorite movie of all time.

OK, I got put an American Psycho in there because it was my favorite book and I feel like the movie did it justice and made it different in a different way.

And it's iconic in an inexplicable way, like.

Crazy soundtrack.

Crazy.

Like, I love the fact that you don't really understand the ending.

Like you're not supposed to.

It's supposed to be, you know, a critique on the 80s culture of greed, which I think is very apparent now and shined through.

Now what am I going to put in Amber but Dumb and Dumber in there?

If we're doing desert island movies and I've got to put a comedy in now, I'm putting Dumb and Dumber in there.

We're talking about a 24.

I feel like if not in the top five, Hereditary is pretty fucking hard for me.

I think Hereditary is my.

Top 3 horror films ever made, Maybe top 2.

I'm putting a number 2 after the thing.

The thing The thing is my #1.

I only, I'm saying this from like a not from my perspective.

I give The exorcist #1 because that just had to fuck with everybody the time it came out.

You like a fucking?

You like a St.

Angus?

But I mean.

Exorcist.

For what it was the time, it's like you could have literally just been never given another budget again.

And then it became the scariest, most famous.

War film.

It is legit fucking scary and horrible.

Yeah, but since then, Hereditary is probably the horror film I've seen where I'm like, there's no flaws here, this is just.

Definitely the best horror movie for a long, long time and I haven't watched one since that's really hit me like that.

Talk to Me was pretty good.

I haven't seen.

That a 24.

What's your last one?

Last film?

Oh.

Yeah.

What's my favorite?

What's my fifth favorite movie?

I shouldn't even comedy because desert island you want a comedy but keep.

Feel like.

There's jokes in one spot on.

Todd, you know what?

Vanilla Sky.

That's my bass players favorite movie.

That's so funny.

No, I never hear anybody mention that.

Love Vanilla Sky so much, it's my jet lag movie.

It's a good choice because it's like a weird and there was a point actually when I had two possibly you could.

If you catch me on the right day, I'll have 3 Tom cruises in my top Five.

Eyes Wide Shut open in the sky, The Last Samurai I.

Haven't seen last.

Anyway, I'll watch it.

It's a.

Little bit like white Nike, but it's based on a true story.

It's fucking awesome.

I'll watch it on the story.

Oh, you got to text me when you do, we're done.

I love you.

Thank you so much for doing this late at night fucking late night podcast.

It's one AMI love doing it this time.

Thank you.

Make sure you check out House of Protection on tour night versus on tour.

Both bands records.

Whatever you got going on, you got, drum solos you got.

Those are the main ones.

Check those out.

You already know.

Yes, it doesn't matter.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

Bye.

Bye.