Keith Buckley from Many Eyes

You know him, you love him...it's Keith Buckley time on the podcast this week. His new band, Many Eyes, is about to embark on their first US tour and when given the opportunity to catch up with an old friend...I jumped at the chance. Keith and I discuss his time in the Buffalo hardcore scene, the early days of ETID and his sober lifestyle. He's an incredibly thoughtful and introspective dude which shows in this conversation. Hope you enjoy! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:19):
You're listening to one hundred words or less with Ray Harkins.
What is happening my podcast? People? How are you doing today?
I'm doing good, just obviously a little raspy voice in
case you have missed it, got a little vocal nodules
on my chords, my vocal chords as it were. But
the doctor says it's something to be concerned about. My
voice is just changing a little bit and gives the

(00:41):
recommend surgery. But anyways, that's either here nor there. What
I am here to tell you about is this awesome
episode today with Keith Buckley from Many Eyes. If you
are a fan of Keith Buckley, you know his name,
you know what Bandy's been in he obviously played it
every Time I Die. And the new project he has
called Many Eyes, it's going on tour with Thursday Rival Schools.

(01:04):
They are hitting the road I think starting later this
month and then all through February. And I know that
all the songs that they've put out thus far are really,
really flipping good and I highly suggest that you check
them out if you have not. And Keith and they
get into it because we have a history. We tour
together back in the day and yeah, Keith is just

(01:25):
a very thoughtful and intelligent individual, and I loved being
able to pick his brain about you know, being raised
within the Buffalo hardcore scene and just kind of you know,
being able to understand all of the intricacies that his
life has thrown him. And it's a great, great chat.
So that's what we got. But I want to tell
you about the ways you can reach out to the

(01:46):
show one hundred words podcast at gmail dot com obviously
except any and all inquiries, pieces of information you want
to share, whatever it is, always down for that. And
if you would not mind leaving a rating and or
review on the Apple podcast page, that helps out tremendously.
Same thing can be said about Spotify, just leave a
rating on there. All of those things about tremendously. There's

(02:09):
a reason why all the podcasts in the world ask
you to do that. And I just want this show
to be discovered by people who should be listening to it,
because you know, if you care about a dependent music
like it's maybe not the easiest thing to find. So
you know, when you hear from friends or you hear
from algorithms, shoot your direction, you're going to check it
out and Continuing on in the weekly tradition of the

(02:31):
twenty twenty four recommendations, I'm going to leave a link
in the show notes to all of these collected musical
musings I am recommending on a week to week basis
because you know, we all like new stuff to check out.
And the thing that I'm recommending this week is the
new Fuming Mouth record called Last Day of Sun Fuming Mouth.

(02:53):
I mean, obviously for anybody paying attention to independent music,
know that Mark has had, you know, gone through a
battle of ca answer and he has emerged on the
other side, and you know, still some repercussions as far
as that's concerned. But the Fuming Mouth record is so
damn good. Came out a nuclear blast late last year,
I want to say, like October November, so it didn't

(03:14):
have enough time to like seep in and make my
year end of you know, all the lists that we
do put together. But that doesn't mean that the record
is not good. It is worth your time. I freaking
love it. If you like anything metal and or hardcore adjacent,
you will love this Fuming Mouth record. So again, I
put a link at the show notes. Every week you
can check out a compilation of all the things that

(03:35):
I'm recommending, So please do that. Now let's talk to
Keith and him talking about Many Eyes and just his
whole life in general. So here is Keith. My first

(04:13):
memory of the you and every time I died in
general was I remember Chris Logan from Confill Records sent
me the Burial plot Bidding War. But this was the
limited edition that you guys did with like the you
know photo on the cover. Like it was like, oh, dude,
for sure I still have it because I'm that much
of a nerd.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
But I just I.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Was really captured by not only what you guys were
putting out there, but just the fact that it was like,
for lack of a better term, like an intelligent version
of what Metal Cores was doing. Like you were just like, yeah,
you know, you're thinking, man, it's hardcore so to speak.
And you know, I know that you know obviously a
lot of the origin stories of you know, you guys
starting Buffalo and everything like that, but I never really

(05:00):
saw or heard articulated like who you guys were basically
trying to rip off the beginning who you were, Like,
here's our building blocks of what it is that we're
going to do a poor job, you know, ripping off,
but that it will sound like what we do. Yeah,
So where did that? You know? I guess that's a
hackey question as far as like we'reth the inspiration, but
like you know, every band starts there.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
I personally really wanted to sound like a band called
Dead Guy. Oh yeah, yes they were, as far as
I was concerned, Like Simon who sang for that band,
his lyrics were just so sarcastic and cynical and he
just had these you know, he was playing with words well,
and I was like, this guy is He's smart and

(05:40):
he's funny, and I feel like he has personality and
a lot of the vocalists back then, I think, you know,
had a lot of personality, but his really stuck out
to me. So I wanted the band to sound like that,
and I vaguely remember everyone else kind of agreeing and

(06:02):
also putting in converge and coalesce into the into the
melting pot there. But I was I remember not being
a fan of converge, Like I was just like, I
I'm sorry, I don't I don't I don't get converge.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
And then.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
Everyone's like it's an acquired taste, like you just got
to listen to it more. And I'm like, why did
I listen to something more if I don't like it?
It doesn't make sense to me. And they're like, no, no.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Just just trust it.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
Just just listen to it more. And I did, and
there's still now they're still one of my favorite bands.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
You know. They were spot on with that.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
So it was, uh yeah, it was a lot of
that kind of noisy, discordant stuff that we just wanted
to copy because it felt like it was a good
It was like a plausible deniability, like it was okay
to put riffs together that didn't naturally go together, and
it was okay to have one thing play four times
and another thing played three times because you forgot that

(06:56):
it played four times the first time, you know. And
it was like we met, we meant to do that.
This is noise core. We're trying to throw you off.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
And you know, it was.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
It was anti music and I got that. I mean,
I loved it. I loved the idea of it. It
was very counterculture to me, and but there was just
a part of me that was I was dying for
some like there has to be a personality to this.
You know, there has to be some sort of humor,
there has to be some intelligence because I want to
stick out, you.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Know, and that's that's it's kind of how it started.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, and not to be too pedantic about this, but
the you were you said dead guy, but I imagine
you were mentioning drowning man.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
I'm sorry, well yes, okay, so yeah sorry, drowning dead guy, yeah, Ronny,
but also dead guy yes, yes, sorry, so yeah, drowning
man was Simon.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yes. I think they were from Burlington, Vermont or something, very.

Speaker 4 (07:47):
Totally and I and I I I think that you
know that definitely, I could see the you know, not
the influence of like, yes, like there's the you know,
witty song titles or whatever.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
But like you point is completely lands on me. And
I know many people who gravitate towards your music because
it was this, you know, for lack of your term,
there was a lot of self seriousness about like, you know,
being dark and heavily aggressive and like it wasn't like
people leaned away from it, because I mean clearly your
band did that as well, But like you said, there

(08:20):
was more beyond just kind of this you know, artifice
that you were putting out.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
There, right, Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
It got to a point eventually where it was like, Okay,
I I feel like.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Maybe this is good.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
It's kind of become too funny, and people aren't taking
us seriously enough. You know, maybe, and maybe it was
too much thought and too little feeling. But I think
going back and forth with that was probably like the
through line of the entire career. It was just like,
are we being taken too seriously? Or we being not

(08:57):
taken seriously enough? And you know, oscillating back in for us,
it was kind of how how we just kept moving forward.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
For me as far as I was concerned of.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
Like, I have so much to say, but if I
say it, are people going to realize that I'm being
serious or gonna they think I'm being sarcastic.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
I kind of painted myself into a corner and it.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Was one of those things where it's like, no, I'm
really in pain here, and everyone's just like, ohh that's
really cool man, You're like cool lyrics. It's like, no,
I'm begging for help, please listen to me. Like it
was like, oh, it's really funny, Like no, seriously, I
have a problem, you know, and so it's like it became.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
The you know boy who cried Wolf for It's like, no,
I literally could not be more literal in what I
am asking.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Right here, right right. But yeah, I remember, like there's
a lyric where I said, this is all very literal like,
and I still couldn't get people to take me seriously.
And I was like, all right, I kind of fucked
myself here totally.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
The proverbial jumping the sharks, Yeah, exactly. I'll pull a
few of those threads a little bit later, but you know,
just kind of like laying the ground work of the
you know, biographical information. I know, like born and raised
in Buffalo obviously, you know your whole life of you know,
your brother and your sister in the house. Did you
have any other siblings? But was that it?

Speaker 4 (10:10):
No?

Speaker 2 (10:10):
That was it?

Speaker 4 (10:11):
That was it?

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Okay? And mom and dad in the house. I know
you're like a pretty sort of quote unquote standard suburban
suburban life. Yep, Yeah, was Buffalo because I mean that
is a weird ass town obviously.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
And did you feel it like being I guess, I
mean every kid feels their town being oppressive at some
point in their lives. But did you feel that I
guess weight of Buffalo on you or now.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
I mean I like to pretend that I did, because
it just made for a better storyline. But I mean
I was still so young that coming up I didn't.
I was you know, it was a fucking playground for us.
I mean, honestly, the city was so run down that
there wasn't anything we couldn't do. You know, there was
there was no bar we couldn't sneak into, there was

(10:54):
no building we couldn't break into. I mean, it wasn't
an awful place to be until I left. And then
I came back and I was like, oh, whoa, this
is not how like what normal cities are like, Like,
there's there's art out there, there's culture out there, there's
more than sports out there, you know, but you you
grew up here, and especially in my age. I was

(11:16):
born in nineteen seventy nine, so the most the most
influential years of my life, the most vulnerable as far
as like intellectually years of my life go. I just
remember everyone being depressed and drunk because the Bills had
lost four Super Bowls in a row. And you know
that was like when I'm supposed to be like blossoming

(11:36):
and finding out who I am, and the whole city
is just under.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
This dark cloud of loss.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
And you know, our psyche was broken as a whole city,
and I don't think that's something we ever recovered from.
But it was very, very I just remember just being
like just completely deflating for me, being like thirteen, fourteen,
fifteen and just seeing like, you know, men crying that
you looked up to, and You're like, what is going
on in this world? Like this doesn't matter outside of Buffalo,

(12:05):
but everyone here is. This is all everyone is doing.
And so it became a very strange dance to keep touring,
leaving and coming home. And you know, the comparing contrast
thing was the more I did that, the more I
felt the oppression of the city.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
For sure, Yeah no, and I like that, like, I mean,
your perspective gets whined, as you mentioned, and the more
you get out there and travel and even if it's
just you know, going to Syracuse and like the two
hour difference, so being like, why is this so different
than where I fro.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Right exactly exactly? There was just so much I couldn't
believe it. And another thing too, was that was really strange,
was you know, us just being right on the border
of Canada, we were influenced by a lot of Canadian
music and Canadian movies and things like that, and you
just assume everyone else sees and hears these things. But

(12:56):
then you go, you know, to Ohio and nobody's ever
heard of the try Hip and you're like, the Treasure
Hip is.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
You know, that's just an.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
Example, but you know that's that's that's the band that
you hear on the radio all the time, and they're
huge in Buffalo, and you know, they could sell out
the baseball stadium, but nobody. You go an hour south
and nobody's even heard of them, and you're like, how
does that work? I don't understand how that works. You
know what what stops the spread of music, of like
intellectual property is if there's like a fucking border wall there.

(13:25):
I just didn't understand it. But I still really don't.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
No, it's yeah, I don't think especially I mean now
in this digital day and age where it's like the
world is flattened and everybody doesn't matter where you live.
Like people can be creative and you know, pull stuff
from anywhere, but to your point of just that regional
nature that existed where it's like, you know, yeah, you
could be like, yo, have you heard Left for Dead?

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Or yeah, exactly but exactly, so I can't say that,
you know, And that's the thing. It just I had
to kind of just drop it from my vernacular. I
couldn't say, like, yeah, I really love Newday Rising growing up.
They were a huge influence on me. Nobody knows who
Newday Rising is, no grade is, but they were awesome,
you know, I mean, and they were hugely influential on me.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
But I have you know, so I'm like, well, everyone
knows Snapcase, so I say Snapcase, you know, because it's
just it's a common.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
Language, totally totally and it is I love, like I mean,
Buffalo was so interesting from that fact because it was
so easy for bands to you know, sneak across the
border to play show's Buffalo and vice versa. Where it's like,
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but like I
read something where your first show is.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
In Hamilton, Yes, which the very first show.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yep, that'sous I mean. And first of all, most people
obviously have no idea that Hamilton, but I presume did
you play the pine Room. Is that where you played?

Speaker 2 (14:44):
We did, We did play the Pineom. Eventually we actually
played it was called the Sonic Onion and it was
a CD played upstairs.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah yeah, yeah, dude, I love yeah pick shout out
to Chris Logan for such Chris Logan, Yes, but yeah,
I just I love that idea of what you're talking about,
where like just yeah, having all of these undiscovered gems
where you're just like, listen, I can't I can't drop
this because people are gonna have no clue what I'm
talking about. I just look like I'm, you know, like

(15:10):
I'm trying to purposefully bring these things up to stump people.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yes, yeah, exactly, And I yeah, I don't. I didn't
want to be that guy.

Speaker 3 (15:16):
It's like, well, you know, I was listening to New
Day Risings demo and they did the split with whatever.

Speaker 5 (15:21):
It's like yeah, yeah, yeah, oh wait, it's okay. Sour
Glass I lived. I lived with the singer of hour Glass,
like in Our Glass Prime. When New Day Rising like
kind of decided that they were going to try to
be Hourglass, so they put out this record like called
like Memoirs of Cynicism.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
I think was the record of course, and yeah, yeah, yeah,
I was. I was just watching this band that I
loved in Canada try to like mimic the stylings of
this guy that I was living with who hated his
own band and didn't care about hardcore. And if you
I don't know if you remember too much about hour Glass,
but they couldn't have been any more indifferent. They were

(15:59):
like the cool kids before there were cool kids, you know.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
So it was like it was just so fucking strange
to me to be in the middle of that and
know that it was like an American and Canadian thing
and they could do this back and forth because it
wouldn't affect each other, even though it was literally like
a twenty minute drive from one show at the Pine
Room to you know, the VFW haul downtown, right.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
No, that it's so funny you said that about hour
Glass because it definitely not only isn't a deep cut,
but like there were so many bands of that era
too that I just like incorrectly thought were from like
oh yeah, they're from like Santa Barbara, the Ebulition scene
and stuff like that, but like you know, Hourglass was
never a part of that. No, neither was Da Rising
on Elodie Records. But like I remember to your point

(16:42):
of just like they were one of the earlier bands
that I heard where it's like, oh you can sing
and scream and this is all coming from southern Ontario. Yeah,
like great, like this is so wild.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yes, yeah it was insane. I swear that. Like Chris Gray,
when I heard New Day Rising, that's exactly what I thought.
I was like, oh my god, this dude is screaming.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
And singing and totally it's almost like there's parts where
he's like almost rapping.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
It's like he's just talking so fuss he's almost rapping
on Like this dude can do it all.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
And then I mean, I just I love that band
so so much.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
But yeah, I love those Just who do you talk
to about that?

Speaker 3 (17:19):
I mean, I apparently I've been waiting to talk to
you about this for a long time.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Oh but hey, man, we get we could just do
our own separate podcasts.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
About Dave Buschmeyer shout out. I hope all those guys
are are well.

Speaker 3 (17:37):
I mean, I haven't seen any of them in a
very long time, but they were such an influential part
of my childhood.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, No, I love that In speaking of that, like
where I mean, I know that you had music in
your house as far as your self described parents were,
you know, hippies and obviously plague music.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah, you know, just.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
And I appreciate the James Taylor shout out that I
know you've given to a lot of previous interviews and stuff,
But when did you know, like more independent punk and
hardcore that sort of stuff, Like how did it get
introduced to you? Because you if I'm wrong, you're the
oldest of siblings, right.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Yeah, so the punk punk stuff kind of came in
through it through the back door. I was really into rap,
and I think that I really liked rap because it
was like when NWA was coming out and they were
just making MTV news all the time, and I knew
that parents were in an uproar, So I was like,
if parents hate it, then I'm gonna love it.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
You know. I don't know what it's about, but it's
from this magical place called Compton.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
I've never heard of it. It seems like it's just
the wild wild West out there. But everyone is cool,
they look cool, they sound cool. So I'm gonna go
buy the tape and then you know, and like NWA. Okay,
so now I like n w A and I start
getting into rap more and it's like EPMD. I remember,
like an EPMD rob bass like all these Rep Cypher's

(19:01):
still and so then I get Attack of the Killer
Bees and I was like, you know, I was like, okay,
this is it's Public Enemy. I loved Public Enemy as well,
and they were teaming up with this band called Anthrax
that I had never heard of, you know, but I
was familiar with like some you know, some hashions on
the bus had like an Anthrax patch on, so I

(19:24):
assume they must be a metal band. But I was like, well,
if they're if they're cool with Public Enemy and I
love Public Enemy, then I'm gonna love Anthrax, and I did.
So then it was like, okay, now I'm into like this.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Now I found thrash, you know.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
Now I'm now here's Anthrax, and okay, that's Metallica, but
I don't really love Metallica.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
What about something a little like more brutal. I was like, well,
there's Pantera. So I started getting into Pantera.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
And then I started like backing off of the metal
and getting more and more into like the punk and
the hardcore. So and that was like kind of finding
stuff that was a little outside of the time, like
I as I backed off with the of like Pantera,
it was kind of more of Gorilla biscuits, minor threat
things like that, which I know that the time for

(20:08):
that had passed, but that was my introduction to it.
I was like, if I'm gonna start, I'm just gonna
start the beginning, you know. So I did just ask
some kids, like, hey, what what do you recommend? Like
old like old hardcore, old punk and sex Pistols was
always recommended, but I didn't like that. It was just
a little too snotty for me. I was like, I
kind of wanted more fun, you know. So Gorilla Biscuits
was amazing Dead Kennedy's I loved. And then from there

(20:32):
just kind of spread out, you know, horizontally, and I
was finding just more more stuff that the major nodes
of it were raging against the machine for sure.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
You know. When I found out about raging and some
sheet I was like, this is this is just my shit.
It's like rap and the right kind of punk for me,
you know, because I knew I knew of inside out
and Zach was from inside out. I was like this
is like perfect, this is the punk vibe. Then I
need plus it's like wrap. I was like, I don't
need anything else, so I just I listened to the
radios Machine forever, you know, and just kind of you know,

(21:07):
I would find bands off of them, and then grunge.
I got into grunge when that era started.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
Up, so right that whole make sure, Yeah, I look
like I mean, Radekain's Machine was huge for me as well.
But like I remember when you like I got into
rage and then you know, found out about inside Out
later because obviously like that's you know, usually what happens
when you're twelve or whatever. But I remember my head
being cracked open where it's like, wait, there was a
band before Ragiae's Machine, Like it just didn't.

Speaker 5 (21:34):
You like, wait, what's it's especially because you like, I
remember when I found out that like a popular singer
had fronted another band.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
It was like finding out that like a brain surgeon
used to be a car mechanic. I'm like, wait a minute, totally,
this is two totally different things.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
You can't do this, but this guy did this, and
then it was just like right, admired him so much.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Oh I agree, and then you're just like, how is
this even possible? And you're you know, you make this
ep as a child. Yeah it still has residents, you know,
some years.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Later, it's still amazing. Yeah he's a hero. Yeah, yeah
for sure.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
And so what kind of kid did you find yourself
being as you were? You know, go to school and
like did you care about school? Yeah? Did you? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yep, very studious.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
Okay, I was just a people pleaser honestly, Like I
really just wanted to make my parents happy with my grades.
I wanted to make the you know, the the jocks
happy with my soccer playing, you know, because I was
a sport I played. I wanted to make you know,
the musicians happy by joining band and stuff. I mean

(22:42):
I really just like I liked all that stuff and
I could do it, and I really didn't. I don't know,
I just kind of floated around and just was friends
with everybody. Like I said, it was more people pleasing
than actually having an identity. But the music was what
made me feel like, Okay, I have an identity, I
have a personality. And underneath all the soccer playing and
underneath all the instrument playing, underneath all the reading, like

(23:06):
I'm like a hardcore punk kid. You know that that
was the base line of it all. But there was
only two or three people in my school that really
were into it. So you know, we would skateboard on
the weekends and stuff. But I was never like, I
don't know, I didn't drink or anything else straight up
through high school, so it was never like compromising my
grades for anything.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
That my grades always came first for sure, which right
doesn't sound too cool, but I don't know, no too well.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
I do think there's this really interesting, I guess through
line that I've seen for people's music, and I'm sure
that you can attest to this as well, where it's
like when there is this application of like okay, either
I'm like into English or I've read a lot and whatever. Like,
there's certain elements that come through almost through osmosis with

(23:54):
a person's lyric writing where you're just like, oh, like
they're thinking about something a little bit deeper, or they're articulate,
like you know, I one of my favs. And I'm
sure people have shared this with you many times where
it's like one of my favorite lyrics that you ever
wrote was like, you know, I have a very expensive
pen and like that just like it just cuts right
to it. It was like I feel like that. I

(24:14):
was like, that was probably only written by a person
who was like reading a lot of books in a
book nerd. You can you just see it?

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly that that.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
You know.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
It was always kind of these like winks to intelligentsia
of like, hey, if you get this reference or if
you if you understand this word without having to you know,
look it up, then this song is for you sort
of thing, you know. But it wasn't very rewarding because
like I said, it was just a lot of a
lot of head, not a lot of heart. But I
mean it was fun. It was really fun to put

(24:45):
these songs together like puzzles and try to, you know,
do something different than had ever.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Been done before. You know that in that small scene,
it just feels really child.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
It just it feels crazy to to because like, Okay,
I this might go off on a tangent, but my
daughter is she's twenty eight next week, and she's she
loves the emo aesthetic. And I don't know what the
exactly the emo aesthetic is, but I.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
Know that I was there when it started, you know what,
I like totally like, oh, oh, so you're gonna wear
what a Sonydy real estate t shirt?

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Or you know, right?

Speaker 3 (25:23):
But she she to her, it's something so different, and
it's crazy to think that all this stuff that's like
has just blown up in the mainstream fashion world and
is now like on Target. You know, ads just started
from a little scene of punks and you know, playing
music and basements that we were literally on the forefront of.
I mean, that's crazy to think that we were there

(25:44):
like when a lot of so much that stuff started.
And it's it's gonna be mind blowing to see what
happens in the next like five years alone, ten years
where this stuff goes, because it's only going to get bigger.
It's only gonna encompass a greater swath of the demographic
of kids.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
I mean, it's just going to be remarkable.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
So yeah, I just feel like to have been tuned
into that stuff so early, I'm just so thankful for
because it really really kind of just it absolutely shaped
my path like down to you know, a precise.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Razor thin line.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
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Uh.

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(27:23):
Rockabilia for your continued support and order from them made
you hit the nail on the head where it's like
it's so interesting to watch how these things have you know,
permeated through culture. But it's like I often reflect on
that too, where it's like, now this you know scene
broadly speaking, has had time to permeate, like you know
when we whatever, when we got into it, it was

(27:45):
you know, like twenty thirty years and now it's like,
you know, fifty years, and like that gives you time
to see different generations and how it affects them.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
Yeah, we're gonna you know, I my wife and I
saw an old lady I mean old like seventy or
eighty with neck tattoos the other day and we're like, whoa, we're.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
Gonna start seeing that a lot. Totally, it's gonna start happening.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
That's because that was that's that's us, that's you know, like,
that's those are our parents when we were getting into it,
and you know, I know, I know kids that got
their parents that do it, and their parents were getting
tattoos because they thought it was cool that their kids
were doing it, you know what I mean, And so
they kind of they kind of like bounced it back
a generation before moving it forward and it's like, Wow,

(28:26):
that's actually gonna happen. And I have a kid that
I a kid, a guy that I went to shows
with that it was my roommate, you know, when I
was seventeen years old and his son is twenty seven.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
I'm like, dude, what this is fucking crazy? This is crazy, But.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
I I.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
I don't know, man, I'm like I said, I'm just
thankful to have been on the ground floor looking at it.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, oh absolutely. And you know I know that as
you were, you know, going to all the hits and
dropping your fourteen bucks to buy your girl bit and
stuff like that. And I know that you play like
you know, you played a Terrible Grudge cover band or whatever.
My word's not yours. And it was like when you

(29:12):
started to like get up on stage and obviously be
in front of people, I know that you were not
shy from that perspective, like you felt comfortable enough to
do it. Was there any I guess learning curve in
that like once you started to play every time I
die shows and be like oh, yes, like you know
this is how you quote unquote command a room or whatever.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
Oh man, it was just this insanely baseless overconfidence because
I was so terrified. But it was just like there's
I can't go backwards. There's nothing to but to do it.
I just have to walk up on stage and do it,
you know, and try to project myself forward and imagine

(29:51):
what people would say looking back on it.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
And it doesn't. It didn't.

Speaker 3 (29:56):
It didn't keep me in the present as much as
I would have liked it to have to really feel
the experiences. But if I could, like psychically, like like
I said, like, imagine what people would say next week
about the every Time I Die show that they saw
right now? What would I want them to say? And
it was like, as long as they don't say that
I threw up and passed out, you.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
Know, anything other than that, right, I'm good.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
And then so all of a sudden, the pressure would
come off. I just I just have to finish the show,
you know. And then I realized that like if I
can make some you know, making people laugh was kind
of a good way to just kill time between tuning,
and that just kind of that really helped me out,
was realizing that like, oh, these people kind of want
to laugh sometimes they just want to be entertained, and
being entertained is a broad it's a broad stroke.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
You know, they if they're laughing or they're crying or
their masiaan or whatever, they just want to have a
memorable time.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
So telling us the jokes from being self deprecating definitely helped.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
Right, And I think that especially, I mean there were
like you guys definitely as a band, broadly speaking, you
inspired a reaction, like people either got you and they
embraced you, or they were just like, dude, just total
like you know, egotistical idiots or whatever like. And so
I think because of that, like that is able to

(31:15):
at least, you know, hit on the core why people
create art the first and I.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
Knew, you know, I I it really never struck me
that it would be seen as egotistical because I was.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
Not an egotistical person.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
And I think that maybe once the Internet came around
and I realized that that was an opinion that was
floating out there, I was like, Oh, it hurt because
I was like, well, they don't know me, and I
was like it's absurd because if they knew me, they
would just realize how wrong that is. But unfortunately they
don't know me, and they're not going to be able
to know me so the only way to kind of

(31:49):
convey that it's not that is by being self deprecating,
you know. So that became a huge, huge defense mechanism
to almost just annihilate the idea that anybody could call
me in a narcissist, egomaniac or anything that because it
was it was, it was. It was a play like
I wasn't actually I didn't actually feel that way I

(32:10):
was putting that on. I didn't, of course, I didn't
believe I was like Scott Wiland. I was in a
basement in front of ten people, like I don't. I'm
not so delusional that I can act like, you know,
a guy who plays arenas Like.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
The joke is that I'm just out of my mind
thinking that it's bigger than it actually obviously is so
overlooking the obvious was I thought obvious, but it wasn't.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
It's like, guys, you really aren't that you're playing you
know again.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
But I'll tell you what. Yeah, there's a there's a
funny story there. One time in two thousand and three,
we were playing. We went and we played in Virginia,
I think it was, and two people showed up to
the show. I'm not lying like two, okay, maybe three
people showed up to the show, and I was like,
well this is I'm like, this is a real lightly

(33:01):
pepper crowd. I'm like, it's gonna be embarrassing when you know,
you guys are the only ones that you could say
you saw. So we're on Ozfest next year.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
And that was a joke, and I got the three
people to laugh because obviously we weren't going.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
To get on oz Fest. But then we got on
oz Fest, you know, so it actually works out. You're like, yeah, sorry,
I didn't actually call that shot right exactly, because then
it made it look like I was being egotistical, but
I was trying. We weren't gonna ever do it, but

(33:31):
then we ended up doing it. I was like, fuck,
now they probably think I was serious, right.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
Right, I know, like as you were probably bringing this
stuff home, and you know, especially once you and your
brother obviously played in the same band, like, how are
your parents reacting to you being into this stuff? That
was sensibly you know, even though they were maybe you know,
progressive minded people as far as hippies were concerned, where

(33:56):
they like, oh my god, what is Keith getting into?
Like this is so weird?

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, a little bit of it.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
I just think because it was just so the antithesis
of what I was going to school for and I
had just finished up my teaching degree and I'd invested
all this work into I put on my eggs in
one basket where I was going to go be an
English teacher, and then I just like through.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
The fucking basket out the window. I was like, no,
I'm going to go on to her, you know. So
there was like a what what, Like you just did
all of this stuff.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
I was like, yeah, but it's not really what I
want to do, you know, so kind they understood that,
and then it was just I don't know, then it
was never really talked about that. It was just kind
of like, you know, I'd come home from tour like
like like I was just.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
Coming home from a work shift.

Speaker 6 (34:39):
You know.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
It was I think they liked it in the sense
that it got them, like some some to meet some
cool people, you know, during the journey. But yeah, it
never really was a point of contention between us at all.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
That's good.

Speaker 6 (34:53):
That's good.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Did you I was actually gonna ask about the teaching stuff.
Did you actually ever step inside a classroom like get
your credential that.

Speaker 4 (35:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
So when I was at the University of Buffalo, they
had this this program called the Teaching Education Institute, which
was a master's program, so you had to have your
bachelor's degree. Then you could apply to be in this
teaching program and they would it was like on site training,
like they put you in a class and you'd teach,
and then they'd get you your teaching certificate. So I

(35:25):
applied and like, you know, I think fifteen people get
picked and I was one of them.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
So it was cool. I got picked. I got to
teach at my old high school.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
So I did that for half a semester and then
for the other half I taught at a different school.
But then at the end of that, you know, I
had all the all the credentials, and they're like, okay,
here's this, here's the job.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
Do you want to go to Boston? And I was like, what, no, tour.
So that's that's where I left, right.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Would you ever entertain the idea of, you know, being
a teacher again, fu.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
No, no, no, no, no, you know what I've seen what
classrooms are now. No.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
Yeah, You're like, not, I'm not good enough. Right, It
is interesting and I'm sure you've encountered people, you know,
on your tours and travels where it's like there there
is that pipeline of you know, a hardcore punk kid
turning into a teacher or being a sub like in
between tours and stuff like that. I do find that

(36:23):
parallel interesting because it is an element of entertaining. Oh yeah,
you getting in front of a classroom.

Speaker 4 (36:29):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
I when I was doing it, that's kind of like,
you know what I was relying on. I mean it
was very similar in a lot of respects, as we
were playing shows at the same time, but we just
hadn't really gone on our first big tour yet. But yeah,
it was you know, like, Okay, I'm standing up in
front of a classroom.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Might have to get these kids to relate to me.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
It's the same thing and standing on a stage in
front of you know, except up here I don't have
a band behind me at least over there, I have
people making noise, you know, in the classroom. By myself,
it was a little more harrowing, but I loved it.
I just I can't do other times. Times have changed,
yeah for sure.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
So as you started, like you mentioned, you know, you
kind of hitting the ground running relatively quickly with every
time I die. As far as like, you know, going
on tour and everything like that, how did you I know,
this is probably like a loaded question in regards to
the idea of like how did you cope with the attention?
You know, like as you started to be like I mean,
I remember the first time you guys came out West

(37:27):
where it was like, oh, like people really care about
this band already, Like and was it you know, I
know it's an evil. It's an evolving process as you
start to like understand that, but you know, did you
was it exciting initially and then obviously morphed into something else?

Speaker 3 (37:44):
It sounds strange, but attention embarrasses me. You know, I
really don't like being looked at. You know, that's and
that's the band made sense because there's other people in
the band, there's other people to look at, there's other
distractions and things like that. But yeah, now when we
got off off stage, it was just like I just
kind of wanted to just drink and hang out with

(38:05):
like one or two dudes and you know, and go
to bed. I never really, it never really made sense
to me. I didn't because if It was always like,
if you like me for this, then you don't know me,
and then I can't trust you. So I don't want
to be around people I don't trust. So, I mean,
there's it's all there was to it. And when once
the Internet came around, it was even more of like
I can't even I can't subject myself to the opinions

(38:30):
of people that I don't know and trust.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
I mean, there's it's it's so easy just to just
get cut down. I get caught up in a lot
of internet drama, and I didn't want any of that
to happen us. I had seen it happen to other
bands and it wasn't good.

Speaker 4 (38:43):
You know.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
We'd seen bands just get like literally jumped after shows
for some things that happened online sas you know, we
heard about bands getting like there's stuff sent on fire
or stolen, and I was like, I just want to
survive this, and you know, if that means that I
just have to go sit in a band and drink
by myself.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
And so be it.

Speaker 6 (39:02):
You know.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
So that was always right. But I was just always
nice to people, you know. I was never never rude
or disrespectful or anything.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
I just I just really had to I really had
to tread cautiously because I just had trust issues with everything.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
Sure, sure, yeah, that idea especially too, Like most people
presume that if you were in a band, there is
an element of you know, ego and celebrating yourself. But
then there, like you said before, there is that connection
of like I'm kind of playing a version or a
character of myself, Like this isn't actually maze right, And

(39:39):
sometimes people can't separate these.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
Same Yeah, and I and you know, it was so
early on that I didn't even know what the real
version was. I just knew that whatever they had just
seen was not fully it, you know. So there were
pieces here and there, but I didn't feel comfortable enough, like,
you know, carrying out any sort of role.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
It was it was like LARPing after the show.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
I just yeah, I just wanted to kind of be
myself where I didn't really have to prove anything to anybody.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
Right, The idea of like you were mentioning, you know,
drinking a lover of the van, when did you when
did you give up the edge? So to speak?

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Uh, senior prom senior prom.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Oh, I was I was about to say, there was
probably a good story usually attached to, like if a
person actually claimed straight out, then there's usually a fun story.

Speaker 3 (40:28):
Yeah, I claimed straight edge. I took acid at my
senior prom.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
That's that's pretty ardly.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
For the first it was awesome.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Yeah, and then I went to college. I went to
Virginia Tech and you know, straightedgetill college.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
So I got there and I, I don't know, I
just fucked around with alcohol and really started. It wasn't
a problem yet though.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
Then I moved home and started the band, and uh,
that's when drinking became like, okay, I kind of I'm gonna.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
Need to do that's what it did. Do this all
the time.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yeah, right, I gotta use this thing called the coping.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
Yeah, this is if you guys ever heard of escapism,
It's really awesome. You don't have to accept anything, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Live in a constant state of you know, like that totally.
It just like that idea, like anybody that's ever toured,
it's like a suspended state of you're not actually living life.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
You're just like, you know, you're breathing through it.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
Yeah, you're just breathing through it and you're not really
you're not learning the lessons that life has aligned for you.
You're not gaining anything from your circumstances. You're not learning
anything about yourself because you're not changing because you're not
facing anything. You know, any flare up of anxiety and
you're running back to the bottle. But you know that

(41:48):
anxiety is there is like a warning sign to tell you, like, hey,
this is a part of you that you need to
work on, you know, and so you when you don't
know those things because the alcoholims that, then you just
are in a state of arrested.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
Development for your entire life.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
So right, luckily I got I've been sober, I'll be
It'll be three years this Christmas, which is cool.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
So oh hell yeah, yeah that's awesome. No, I knew
that you were on the sober keen journey as.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
They back, and since there's no senior problem left, I
have no chance of taking asset again.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
No man, yeah, yeah you could. You can even reclaim
the edge, which obviously some people would argue against it,
but it's.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Okay now I have too much respect for it to
ever do that too.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
Yeah. I appreciate that as a as a straight age
adult myself, like you know, I would obviously have to
beat you.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
Oh sorry, I get it, you'd have to set me
on fire. I understand.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
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(43:38):
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early two thousands to mid two thousands, where it was

(43:59):
like that idea of like you know, I mean, I know,
like it's probably embarrassing for you to talk about where
it's like, oh shitty dudes. Dot com was the website,
and like there was that element like you're talking about
of like you guys really leaning into this like character
and you know, how do you do? You just reflect
on it like with that kind of like oh man,

(44:20):
like we're obviously just children. We had no idea what
we're doing. Like how does that you know, kind of
sit with you, not asking you to like reckon.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
No, it's it's fine. It It made sense back then.
It absolutely made sense back then because we felt shitty,
you know, but we didn't we were we felt shitty
because we were making ourselves feel shitty.

Speaker 4 (44:39):
You know.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
It was just this loop where people were telling us
that we were shitty and you know, giving us a
wink in the nudge and showing us like these merch
designs with our faces as all like.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
You know, fucked up older people.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
And you know, it was all fun and it's all
fun games of and it was great. And we did
lean into it because and you know, personally I did
because I didn't know what I was other than a
guy who liked to do shitty things.

Speaker 4 (45:05):
You know.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
I was like, well, this is this is perfect.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
I'm an animal by nature, you know, so I'll lean
into this, of course. But you know, looking back at
it did make sense. That was our very first kind
of stage of evolution. We were these young little organisms
that had animal mindsets that you know, just wanted to
eat and kill and you know, do whatever, find whatever

(45:30):
pleasure we could. But you know, as we kind of
evolved and grew into you know, higher organisms, we changed
our likes and our dislikes, and you know, I got
into spirituality. And I can't imagine ever starting a shitty
dude dot com website again, totally. Yeah, I don't think

(45:52):
it would be as authentic as it used to be.
But I think it's appropriate, I definitely do. I had
earned that title.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
We had earned that title, and I'm just thankful that
I personally was able to get out of it, right.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
Yeah, yeah, that this is not the you know, the
mantle that you've own yourself.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
Oh not at all, not at all.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
No. The and on that similar notion, the idea of like,
you know, touring, like we were talking about, like, how
was your response to touring as you first started to
do it, and then you know how it obviously evolved
once it became like that, you know, it consumed you're
eight to ten months out of the year.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
You know, at first it was it was a honeymoon
phase for the first like five years.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
Everything was new.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
Everything was vivid and colorful and fun and kind, and
you know it was just this beautiful experience. Even the
bad parts I loved, you know, because I was like,
oh my god, these are like experiences, you know, And
I as a as a dude that had enjoyed certain writers,
you know, squalor and poverty and alcoholism, those were like

(47:05):
romanticized ideals for me.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
You know.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
So when we're like, you know, sleeping on people's floors
and you know, drinking all night with it, you know,
dude with I don't know one leg or whatever. I'm like,
these are these are the stories that I'm gonna love
to remember, you know, I'm collecting these as we go,
and this is great.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Then eventually that stuff kind of got old. You know,
that country is only so big and you can only
play you know, these cities so many times before you
start recognizing the same people and knowing what to expect.
And this is not to disparage anything, it's just okay.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
Well, now we know these venues, we've been here before,
we know the promoters, we know the people that we're
going to see. It's it's now. It's a different kind
of cool. Now, it's a more comfortable cool, you know.
Now not everything is fear based, not everything is so fast.
Now everything is kind of like good to see you,
you know, like old acquaintances, and that's nice.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
It's nice to feel like you have friends all over
the place. And so that was a whole different.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Sort of beauty. And then it got to the point
where it's like, Okay, now this is a fucking job
and I need to I need to take it seriously.
I need to protect my voice. I need to protect
my reputation, I need to protect my future, you know.
I mean it was all these things where it was
like I had too much to lose after a certain point,
and it stopped being as fun off stage. The shows

(48:23):
are still amazing and it was the only thing I
looked forward to. But as touring went on, you know,
the window of beauty shrunk. It got shorter and shorter
and shorter and shorter as the touring years went on.
And so it was only from when the show starts,
you know, from when we take the stage too when
we leave the stage, and I hate everything after and

(48:43):
before that, you know, And that was unfortunate that it
got to that point, but I don't know. I did
all I could to try to get out of it,
and you know, some days are.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Better than others. But yeah, it definitely sure, it definitely
went from, like I said, a honeymoon to a job.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
Right, So, like I mean, it just like it sounds
like a different type of survival. It's like instead of
the instinctual survival, it's like the now I have to
really craft my entire day around making sure that like
I literally get to next week without going crazy or and.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
I hate doing you know, real hard, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
And I hated the relationship that I had with time.
I everything to me is like doors, What time are doors?

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Doors are? Six? Okay, Well that's when my whole mentality
has to shift. I have to go from no matter
what I'm doing into entertaining performing mode, whether that means
I have to drink you know, half a bottle of whatever,
or it means I have to do this or that whatever.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
I knew that there was like a hard, hard stop
at six o'clock or whatever time doors were, and so
you know, I would kind of I started giving myself
too much time to get to doors, and then I
would cut into my day and then I would stop
doing things that I used to do, like taking walks,
because oh no, I can't because what if I get
lost and then I'm not going to make it back

(50:04):
for doors and then everyone's gonna get mad at me,
you know what I mean. So it was like I
just I developed this real awful relationship with time where
my schedule became so oppressive and it was a self
imposed sort of bondage to it that I hated it.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
And I was always like.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
What would it like? What would I who would I
be if I was just allowed to run in my
own speed? Like what is my speed? How fast do
I walk when I'm not in a rush, you know
those sort of things. You know, how what do I
like to do? And I don't have to fucking do anything?
And I just didn't know, And I asked myself those
questions for fucking ten years, you know, and I was

(50:39):
never able to find out, and it got really frustrating
a lot of the times.

Speaker 6 (50:43):
But you know, fun, yeah right, no, No, it's amazing
that I really do like the the concept of what
you're talking about, where every I mean, everybody's life is
structured around time, but just like this real demarcation of like, okay,
here's who I can be and like what.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
I would call a normal life, and then here's who
I am. Yeah, that I have to transform into this
other thing. So yeah, I totally.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
And then so you're like, okay, so what so before
six am I myself and then after six I'm somebody else?
Like so and that not fluctuate here and there, like
how do I know when to turn it on and
turn it off? Like when when should I start drinking?
When should I you know, how many energy drinks.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Should I have? Should I smoke? Weed? This?

Speaker 3 (51:22):
And it just became like this whole It was just
a really stressful way to be where it was almost
like this science experiment that I was running with my
chemistry and my biology versus the universe and it's time,
it's chronology.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Yeah, oh absolutely. And on that same topic, like pivoting
the idea over to you know, I know you've obviously
put out a couple of books, and like, clearly writing
has always been something that you know has lowed large
in your life, whether it's the lyrics or obviously putting
pen to paper. The when you actually put out a book, like,

(51:59):
did that feel drastically different than you know, putting out
a record or was it kind of just like a
similar ish it was feeling.

Speaker 3 (52:07):
It was like a similarish feeling because if anything was worse,
because I knew that when a record got put out
people would listen to it then you know, but I mean,
put a book out, people might buy it right now,
but they're not gonna fucking read it until like next
month when they have you know, time, so then you
never know, like, hey, where's the feedback coming from? Like

(52:29):
do I ask this person what they thought of the
book because if they haven't read it yet, then I'm
going to make them uncomfortable, you know, And I don't
want to do that.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
But they haven't mentioned it, so that must mean they
haven't gotten it. Well, why what's wrong with me?

Speaker 4 (52:40):
You know?

Speaker 3 (52:40):
And then it was just like a sort of thing
where it's like, you know, it just became it really
became insulting. I felt to to try to ask people
to buy a book when they had known me for
buying albums, and I didn't want to do that to them,

(53:03):
you know what I mean. And that's just such a
weird it's such a like a weird remainder from all
the people pleasing that I had done my whole life,
where it's like I'm going to not write a book
because I don't want to make you uncomfortable, you know.
And it's like I don't want you to think that
I'm like this guy like you know that I can.
I'm spinning all these plates and whatever I do. You

(53:24):
got to buy just because you like my band, Like
that's not true. If you don't like literature, then don't
buy the book. It's okay.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
And but yet people.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
Who only like literature and don't like the band probably
aren't going to hear about the book. So now I
have to just entirely depend on this very small demographic
of every Time I Die fans, and those are the
ones that might buy the book. But the ones that
actually read it, now that's even smaller. And then how
do I know what they think about it. I'm not
going online and googling myself.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
That's just that.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
I mean, I've never done that and I never will
do that. So I don't know. I don't know how
the response to the book was. I can tell you this.
I don't know how many copies it's sold. I have
no idea. It was just something I love to do.
And then when it was done, it just felt really
like that's.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
It, Like, yeah, that was that all right?

Speaker 2 (54:12):
Because you can't Yeah, there's no there's no tour to
go on. I mean, I spoke at a few bookshops
and that's great. I do love doing that.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
But you know, to compare it to the music, it's
just it's apples and oranges, and it was not. It
was not a delicious apple at all.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
Tell you that, sure, yeah, this is an apple that
you're gonna eat across.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
To yeah, exactly, like very tiny bites.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
Yeah, I want to hit on many eyes obviously, because that's,
you know, sensibly the reason why we're here. The you know,
it seems like everything that has kind of happened to
you post every time I die, like has just been
you know, kind of like stuff that happens to you.

(54:57):
Not saying that you're not manifesting these things or doing it,
but like because you're so concentrated on your fact that
you want to be present for your daughter sobriety, and
then like people have to pull you in these directions
where it's like, hey, Keith, you thought about this. You're like,
oh no, I have it. Yeah, And it sounds like
that's obviously when Jamie Jostick, I mean you always into
the phone with Jamie Josty. Yeah, right, no, no matter

(55:18):
no matter what it's like, oh one in the morning,
Like clearly it's a good idea that Jamie had. Yeah,
and so would you I guess characterize that like does
that sound accurate as far as like things you know
happening to you where it's like, oh wow, I didn't
think that I really wanted to like be in a
band until the idea presented itself.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
That's yes, that's absolutely true.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
But I will say this, And when everything went down
and I knew that it was the end, I was
very excited because for the first time in my life,
I was gonna I was gonna find out what came
to me as opposed to what I had to go
after because my entire life I chased everything. I was like,
you know, I'm gonna go after this guy, see if

(55:59):
he's got it an in at this.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
But you know, if I'm trying to put a book out,
I got to go after.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
I gotta go after. I gotta go after, you know, tours,
I got to go after. Let me talk to these people,
go after. And I was like, you know what, I'm
just gonna I'm not just not just sit back, but
I'm not gonna do that. I'm not going to put
my energy into these things that don't reciprocate the energy necessarily.
So I'm going to see what comes to me and
I want to see what sort of things, like you said,
happened to me. So in the meantime, the best thing

(56:26):
to do is just be a dad and a sober one,
you know, because it's not really doing anything but existing
in just a better state of being. But when he
called it very much felt like, oh this is happening
to It's just like you said.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
It felt like, oh, this is happening to me. This
is coming to me, so it must be something I
have to take. That is that can be wrong, but
I was. It was very early on, and I.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
Thought that whatever is coming to me, I have to
take because it's like a sign from the universe. But
some of those things you don't always need to take.
But to me was when he when he came to
me and when he approached me about a band, Yeah, exactly,
I was like, whoa I I offered, like you know
that I offered to to the universe that I was

(57:14):
going to sit back and not go after and wait
to see what got kind of brought and delivered. But
I didn't actually mean it would be like anything, like
I didn't want to be in a band just yet.
Like I was really hoping there was going to be
something else, something that I had never considered, you know,
because in my in my mind, I have all this
time now I have you know, uh, clarity I've never

(57:37):
had before I was in a new relationship, so I
had like a supportive wonderful, supportive relationship. I had a
daughter that knew me. I was like, this is gonna
be amazing. I'm going to manifest something that I couldn't
even dream of.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
And then you know it's w want want, wh.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
What.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
But I was like, okay, you know what, this, this
is it, this, this is I love Jamie.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
I've loved Jamie. It felt right.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
Because he was like the you know, Hate Breed was
one of the first hardcore bands I remember listening to,
and so for to come full circle like that, I
felt like it was a good place to start.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
And I've always trusted him. I just knew he was
on the strength as they say.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
Right well, and I I just like the idea that
it's like, you know, there always is that idea that
you know, your band breaks up or you had like
the death of one thing like okay, I gotta get
up on the horse and like do it again immediately.
And you know, while there is that notion of it's
just like, I mean, you know clearly like what is happening,

(58:43):
you know, your brother's band and then like your band,
Like people are ostensibly always going to compare the two,
but like you are, you are taking this in a
much like you're just like, oh, yeah, I'm just doing
this and like, yeah, I'll play some shows a tour,
but like this isn't the focal point of my life.
Like this is just kind of something that I'm trying
out and see where it out.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
Yeah, yeah, I do just end the The writing style
is totally different. The lyrics style is totally different. I
mean everything about this is different because I just I
know what everything else is like. And I really like
now that I have, like I said, the clarity and
a good support system. I really just wanted to try

(59:21):
to see if different approaches work better, because every other
approach I took I took while I was under, you know,
under the influence of something in one way or another.
Even if I wasn't directly drinking while writing or whatever,
I was still a dry drunk.

Speaker 4 (59:34):
You know.

Speaker 3 (59:34):
I was an alcoholic for a long time. But I'm
not anymore, so I can trust my instinct a little
better now. So yeah, the writing's different. Everything just feels different.
It feels better to me, and it's it's moving slower,
and that's just something I've never been used to. I've
always been like energy drink guy, you know, like I

(59:55):
gotta get up, I got to I gotta run errands,
I gotta fucking do this. I gotta go do this
to do this. And now it's like, you know, slowly
get up. And like I said, I found out my speed.
I found how slow.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
I walk naturally when I'm not in a rush to
get anywhere. And my whole life moves like that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
Now, So the band is moving like that, and it
just feels like it's letting it, letting it grow, letting
it unfold at its own pace. It feels like it's
actually coming into picture a lot more vividly, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Yeah, well, and I'm sure too, like this could hit
on the last question I was going to ask you
as far as like your relationship with the business of music.
I mean, clearly you've been able to, you know, make
a living off of, you know, playing in a hardcore band,
which is like such a funny thing to say, because
you know that at one point that was like never

(01:00:47):
even you know, thought of in regards to how bands
can operate. But like, how was your relationship with the
you know, the business that it thinks like obviously once
every time I die started to hit and you guys
obviously had to have, you know, a business manager, and like,
you know, did you always kind of keep that at
arm's length or did you enjoy aspects of it? What
was your relationship I had?

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
I just kind of claimed again plausible deniability of like, look,
I don't need to know how all this shit works.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
This is a punk rock, hardcore band. We've always been
that we didn't have a manager at the beginning. If
there is a manager now, that's fine. I don't need
to know what he does. I don't need to know
how much we pay him. I don't care, Like I'm
assuming we have a team so that I don't have
to think about how much we pay a team, you know,
Like I don't want to shit.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
I don't care about that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
I just want to try to be as present as
possible and put on a good show. But that was
really stupid, to be honest. I mean it was really
stupid to me. And I know that there's I made
a lot of mistakes and just letting things unfold and
putting trust in people that hadn't earned it. So now
I I'm really cautious about where my energy goes. And

(01:01:58):
you know, I definitely only surround myself with with very positive,
loving people, and you know, it's it's my relationship with
the industry as a whole has been marred. But I
do feel like this would be a nice way to
get back into the calmer waters of it and remind
myself that it's not all terrible.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Right. No, it's like you is always going to be terrible,
but you know you can avoid.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
I'm just not I'm just not business minded, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
And it's like I just cringe when I when I
have to have talks about money, I just I'm fucking
I get all tense, and I'm like, this is just
not for me, Like can anyone please speak the language
that I don't speak? But I had to really just
face it and learn to speak the language and like,
as much as I hate it, like I said, those
places where you think are the most anxious, that's where

(01:02:50):
you have to go because that's where the lesson is.
So I had to really adapt to a new band
and learn how to like, Okay, I'm gonna do this
right from the beginning this time, and not to wait
until I make a bunch of mistakes and then fix
them later on. Like no, I'm gonna I'm gonna do
this all right from the beginning.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
Right right, and you know that you're still like making
mistakes right.

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
Now, absolutely, like yeah, I mean I said, I said,
I said, you just make a less of it, I said,
dead guy, I meant to say, drowning man.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
I'm still making mistakes.

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
I'm And that's exactly. And that's that's why we have
friends that can, you know, tell us irrelevant facts about
bands and like you should bee like, oh yeah, it's fine, Yeah,
I know what you're talking about, but I just want
to I want to make sure that the audience does exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:03:32):
Yeah, And you know what, people are a lot more
forgiving than than you'd expect.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
I have discovered that people are a lot more forgiving.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
Yeah, and especially too, like would you have put yourself
out there and you have put your you know, your
art out there, whether it's you know, books, movies, any
piece of media as it were, It's like there are
people that will like, yes, of course, there's always you know,
drama that exists, like you mentioned on the internet, and
people are going to you know, cast dispersions one way
or another on whatever a person's putting out there. But

(01:04:02):
to your point, when you are kind of just like
I'm just doing the work here. Yeah, like I'm just
putting this out here. You don't have to follow it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
That's totally free, exactly exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
Yeah, Well, Keith, I really appreciate you hanging out on
this beautiful Friday. But yeah, thanks, So it's nice catching
up and thank you for doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
Thank you very much. Man, I really appreciate you taking
the time to talk to me, if.

Speaker 6 (01:04:26):
You have it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
That was Keith, and what a what a thoughtful dude, right.
I just really admire of his lyrics, admire of all
the stuff that he's put out there, including many eyes.
I think you uh yeah, if you haven't listened to it,
you let this conversation push you in that general direction.
There's a link in the show notes so you can
check it out and check them out on tour with

(01:04:47):
Thursday and Rival Schools. Thank you very much to Keith
for obviously doing this and his publicist Stephanie for hooking
this idea up. Let's talk abou what's happening next week?
I have Chris Norris from Combat Wounded Veteran. He's also
known as Sak Mountain in the art worlds, and he's
a very prolific designer and he's done a lot of

(01:05:08):
cool stuff. So him and I started corresponding on Instagram
and I was like, you know what, Keith, not Keith,
you know what, Chris, how about you come on the show.
So that's what we got next week. Until then, please
be save everybody.