Tyler Short from Inclination and Life Death Brigade

"Its a decade of putting an X on my name"  

Tyler Short from Inclination is on the show this week and boy, what a fun discussion. I am obsessed with his band and love that I get to punish him to be on the podcast and then in turn, be my friend. He also runs a great record label based out of his home in Louisville, KY called Life Death Brigade as well as a NEW BAND called Walk Proud. We discuss being a luddite, being in the working class and his love for country music (that has manifested in a podcast he started with a friend all about it). Dig in and X up for those inclined. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:19):
If you're listening to one hundred words or less with
Ray Harkins.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Greetings, one, Greetings all, Welcome to the six hundred and
first episode of this podcast. I say six hundred first
because you know, six hundred was a big deal and
we had Jeff from Thursday. So thank you very much
for all of you either wishing well or sharing it
on social media or whatever. All those things I do see,

(00:44):
I pay attention to and I keep track of all that.
So you know, if you're in the red, then step
it up. You need to, you know, spread the word
of this podcast more. If you're in the black, I'm
giving you a digital pat in the back. All those
things were obviously sarcastic. I'm just joking, but thank you
very much for supporting the show for as long as
you have, or if you just joined, that is totally fine.

(01:06):
You got plenty of episodes to catch up on. But
I am thrilled today to bring Tyler Short, the vocalist
for Inclination, an amazing Louisville straight edge hardcore band, and
he also runs the record label Life Death Brigade or
otherwise known as LdB, which is also a festival based
in Louisville, Kentucky, and he also sings for a new

(01:29):
band called walk Alone. It's really really good. I will
toss a link in the show notes and you'll be
able to check that out. And then obviously Inclination as well,
I mean they are I became obsessed with that band
when they released their first EP, Slash Demo, and then
have subsequently loved all of their output, have seen them
a few times now and I am just like just

(01:51):
worshiping at the straight edge altar of metallic hardcore that
they encompassed. So I reached out to Tyler. And it's
funny we talk about this in the interview, but he's
often known as a a loutite because he has like
a flip phone and you know, people joke have made
Internet jokes about him in regards to that, but he's not.

(02:13):
I mean, he is deliberate about his usage and the
flip phone nature of his life, but he's not a lotite.
And because obviously we did a podcast, so it's like
you can't be that. And yeah, anyways, I just had
to dispel any rumors of you know, people saying that
Tyler just lives you know, by himself with no computer,
no television, Like no, that's not that's not the case

(02:34):
at all, not like anyone was really worried about that.
But anyways, you can get in touch with the show
one hundred words podcast at gmail dot com. I love
to hear feedback, guest ideas, just sharing music, whatever it is.
Love to see it come in. And also if you
want to support the show for zero dollars, for no
effort whatsoever. And when I say like no effort, we're

(02:55):
talking like the bare minimum that you could do. So like, honestly,
if like ten percent of you who are listening to
this right now do this, it makes a huge difference.
And honestly, probably like two percent of the people that
listen to the podcast on a weekly basis have done this.
But you can leave a rating and review on the
Apple podcast page, or you can leave a rating on
the Spotify page. All of those things help, and honestly,

(03:17):
just just do it. Take thirty seconds, boom done, and
then all of a sudden, you won't hear this ad
any ad. You want to hear this plea anymore? I
mean you will because I can't cut this out, but
you get it. So anyways, those are things that you
can do for the show and it helps out greatly.
I'm so thrilled too, because I've been able to go

(03:38):
to some cool shows. Recently saw Shelter over the weekend,
play it chain reaction. I get to see Painted Black
this upcoming weekend, and there's just a lot of cool
activity going on. Are my friends in a band called
This Day Forward. My old band Taken did a lot
of touring with them back in the day. They're playing
three East Coast Readion shows, two in Philly and one

(04:00):
in New York in late August, So get your tickets
for the shows that are still available. I think the
Philly show and the New York show is pretty close
to selling out regardless. It's just what it's out to
be live, you know, like all of these Renian tours
and anniversaries and just like you know, the world is
your oyster. You can go to like the biggest shows possible,

(04:21):
or you can go to the smallest things possible, and
it's just it's really exciting. So anyways, let's go on
with the weekly recommendations. If you have been paying attention
to the show, you know that I have been doing
these weekly just hits of music that I tripped across
things that you should know about, and I compile it
into a playlist that I update on a week to

(04:42):
week basis. I will include a link in the show
notes for you to find that playlist and you can
listen to all the stuff that I've recommended week over week.
And it's just really fun because you know bands I
know that like I put on there, like get excited.
I mean, I don't know on the flip side, if
I were included in you know, playlist from somebody that is,
you know, publicly doing something, it's exciting. So anyways, the

(05:06):
recommendation this week is a band called New Moon. They're
not new, but they just released a new record called
it Temporary Light. They came out on Quiet Panic Records
here in the States. I don't know where it came
out over in Europe, but they're an awesome Belgian shoegaze band.
And I know, like you hear shoegaze, especially here in

(05:27):
the Year of Our Lord twenty twenty four, and they're like,
oh my gosh, like you know, I throw a rock
and I hit fifteen different shoegaze bands, and that is true.
It is a very popular genre right now. But the
bands that do it well like you can hear it.
And New Moon has existed for quite some time. Like
shout out to good friend of the show Jeremy Bolm,
who released a seven inch on his label Secret Voice.

(05:49):
This was probably, gosh, I don't know, seven eight years
or so ago. That was the first time I came
across this band because I know Touche played some shows
with them over in Europe and whatever. Anyways, I always
thought the band was cool, but this record blew me away,
and I was like, oh my gosh, like they've just
dialed in all of what they have kind of learned
in the past as far as just you know, songwriting, sonics,

(06:12):
all that stuff, and I think this record is incredible.
So again, the band is New Moon and the record
is called it Temporary Light. You need to check it out.
Like I said, came out in Quiet Panic Records. I'm
pretty sure the vinyl was sold out. I actually had
to go to Amazon to find the vinyl. But because
all of the stores, like the online you know, portals

(06:33):
for the band and the label and stuff like that,
we're all sold out. So anyways, sometimes you gotta you know,
go to odd places to buy vinyl. Even though Amazon
sells a ton of vinyl. So anyways, let's talk to
mister Tyler Short. And like I said, he sings for Inclination.
He also sings for a new band called walk Alone.
He also has I will link this in the show
notes as well. He has a country music podcast that

(06:56):
he's been you know, diving into with a friend he's done. Maybe,
like I don't know a handful of episodes so far,
it's cool. Listen. I've listened to a few episodes and
I'm like, this is great because you know, it just
shows the depth of us as humans, and like when
you get obsessed with certain genres of music or you know,
rabbit holes that you go down, it's really really fun
and exciting. So anyways, but yeah, and his new band

(07:17):
is called walk Alone, which of course I don't link
in the show notes. So like, if there is a
prevailing theme that you see here, it's the fact that
you can find anything in the show notes of this
show and just like have links du jour. So anyways,
let's talk to Tyler Short from Inclination, Life, Death Brigade
and walk Alone. I told Isaac that when I had

(08:00):
them on the show, where I just became obsessed with inclination,
Like once you guys released your demo, it was one
of those things where I was just like, oh my gosh,
straight edge, metallic influenced hardcore, like you know, I'm already
pot committed, but then all of a sudden, it was
just like, oh my gosh, there's more layers to it,
Like I like lyrics, I like the approach, just everything.

(08:21):
And I'm sure you as a straightedge adult, there's something
like when you hear other bands like I'll just throw
another random band out, like you know, World of Pleasure.
Once I started to hear them, I was just like
Jesus Christ, like this is so at my alley. I
love this. And anytime you trip across a band like
that in certain respects, I'm sure it makes you feel
young because it's like, oh, the torch of straight edge

(08:42):
is carried on to you know, different generations or whatever.
Do you find yourself like getting you know, I guess
intrinsically attached to bands obviously based off of I mean
music first, but then just being like, oh they are
straight edge or they are like you get just these
little nuggets that you get obsessed with. Do you get
that way or am I just obviously you know weirdough.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Oh no, for sure. I mean from the first bands
that introduced me to straight edge to that Triple B
comp song that we have, that fruition song is about
me watching the younger generation take on the same the
same ideas and the same topics and ethics that I've

(09:27):
that got me engaged in hardcore and straight edge in particular,
and seeing them take that torch up in such a
way that is authentic and intentional and just falling in
love right like showing like the true care that like somebody.

(09:48):
Because because I also operate in the I operate in
very much a way of like I'm living for to
day right now, which leads me to I really care
too much about my own body, I guess in a
lot of ways sure, where like I kind of like
I guess I can I can like square that circle

(10:11):
with like I don't do drugs or drink or anything
like that that like harms myself. So I am free
to be a complete freak at shows. And I think
I'm gonna die that way at some point maybe, or
I'm at least gonna die in some careless fashion. It
seems so like it's somewhat comforting to me sometimes to

(10:31):
think like, at least there's the youngest kids who are
expressing themselves in a way similarly to the way that
I like to be expressed too, and then I like
to express myself that at least when I'm gone, that
spirit still around, right.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
I really I love that articulation of that because it
is not to start some morbid But no, dude, I
I mean I identify with that thought process like I
I mean, I'm on the opposite side of you in
regards to like I mean, I've just always been, you know,
a square at shows in regards like I can sing along,
but like you know, stage dives like ah, I can

(11:08):
kind of do them, but I, you know, like cut
my ankle pretty badly when I stage Show two eleven
thirty four at the Showcase Theater in Corona, California. And
then after that, I was like, I need to take
it a little bit easy. But regardless that the thread
that you're pulling on of just the idea that you
recognize some version of yourself in the music that is
output or you know, the band's message or whatever it is.

(11:31):
And I think that's what is interesting because as you
get older, and I'm sure you've experienced this, sometimes it
takes a little more effort to you know, find those
pockets or find those things you identify with. But once
you do, it's just like, oh, yeah, like this, I'm
glad this is still you know, existing and passing on
and not just you know, like you said, floating to
the ether.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
Oh no, absolutely, and like getting older thing like dude,
you just can't remember lyrics like you could when you
were younger. Like, right, I've got lyrics lodged in my
brain from eighteen to twenty four that are going to
be there till I die. Yet it's like it seems
like a labor to memorize new lyrics now that I'm like,

(12:14):
I'm doing all kinds of things to like trying to
like read more and just occupy my mind in a
way that seems more constructive, just to like out of
fear of atrophy. Right now that like god damn, Like
it takes me like way more passes to memorize Magnitude
lyrics than it did for me to memorize blacklisted lyrics

(12:36):
as a kid. But I'm trying to put in the work.
I'm really trying to put in the work because I
believe in it, man, And that's it's it's hardcore, is
just it's it's the it's the cool I I The
cliche thing I say all the time, which I've been
saying this on stage for years, is it's the coolest

(12:57):
thing going on in my life. And I'm never going
to pretend it's anything other than that. And I I
really appreciate when I see young kids who are acting
like this is forever and I believe them right totally.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
It's because that, I mean to your what you were
talking about, you truly just paying attention to what's in,
what's right in front of you right now. That is
the element of you know, youth like that clearly happens
up until whatever your mid twenties and you know, the
real life starts to penetrate, whether it's work and other opplications.
But yeah, you do feel it's just like this will

(13:35):
stretch on forever and there's no into it until there is.
And that's but you're not even thinking about that.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
No, I'm thinking about right now.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, totally totally. Were you actually born and raised in
Louisville or did you come up somewhere else?

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yes, always lived in Louisville.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Okay, yeah, sorry, Louisville. I'm not louis Lee. I don't
want to.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
I could put your the name I could switch. When
I talked to outsiders, I say Louisville sometimes too.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Okay, I mean I personally have a large reverence for
Louisville because I just became obsessed as I started to
get into punk and hardcore with everything that came out
of Louisville from you know, Endpoint Elliott, like all of
that stuff. I was just like, why is this so
much cool stuff coming out of Louisville. So, you know,
I always about out of the city as it were.
But we'll get there eventually. But your what was your

(14:24):
family structure? Like, you know, mom and dad in the house,
brothers and.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Sisters, only child, and parents divorced, but they they kind
of kept together for a while, I think to try
to not disrupt me. They made it through middle school
for me, but my mom also gotten Like I think

(14:49):
they might not have made it through or through middle
school with me or for me if my mom got
in like a pretty serious car accident when I was
in the seventh grade where she was like medically induced
coma for a few weeks, and I was in the
car when the accident happened, so I like kind of

(15:12):
had to live with like some survivor guilt for a
while because I was the only one in the car
who wasn't It was a very strange situation too. She
got t buoned by a guy going like sixty miles
an hour and I was on the far end of
the car. And when a traumatic accident like that happens,
the car doors are supposed to like lock up. Like

(15:37):
for some reason, all the doors locked up except for mine.
My aunt, who I think was my grandma, was in
the back seat with me, so she got hit a
little bit. My mom got the majority of it, but
my aunt, who was on the passenger's side, no damage
whatsoever to that door. She was stuck in the car,
but for some reason, the back passenger I got to

(16:00):
get out and look at my mom, who obviously looked
dead to me and uh sure, only to find out
like several hours later or no, she's still alive. Kinda
but because of that, my I think my parents like
delayed because my dad wasn't going to divorce a woman
who was like brain damaged.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Absolutely, Yeah, timing time is everything is everything.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, though the relationship was not working, and I can
still remember, like and I I'm careful sometimes still like
I can. I'll share more on podcasts than I will
on stage a lot of times because my dad comes
and sees my band sometimes, And there's certain things that

(16:46):
I don't necessarily want to like express in that public
refum to where like he might feel any type of
way about like things that I don't hold against him. Sure,
but I can very much remember being in on vacation
in Florida and seeing my mom drinking alcohol and smoking

(17:08):
a cigarette while it was just me and her, like
walking on the beach one night, and I knew for
a fact that the doctors told her to never do
those things again God because of her accidents. So like
I think there was like little things like that that
because one of the one of the reasons why like inclination,
like the band name comes about, is because I felt

(17:30):
like it was always sort of a natural thing for
me to be straight edge. It just felt like something
I was inclined. That was who you right, That was
that was who you were right and uh and and
I like think back on it, like a lot of things,
and like that is certainly one of the one part
of my life that pops out was me having that

(17:52):
understanding of like what substances, how substances can control you,
whether or not you're informed that you should not or
cannot partake in these things. Again, sometimes you just fall
back into it. And I think I just always had
like a fear of ever letting something dominate me in

(18:14):
that way that it just kind of always kept me
away from it. Even when I tried it when I
was younger, I was I was never comfortable with it.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Right, And I think too, I mean, I like you
as an only child, and so I think I that
idea of you not having that influence, whether it is
like literally in the house, you know, I mean, because
of course your parents can drink or smoke or do whatever,
but you know, it's usually the influence of your siblings

(18:45):
can really, really, really you know, lay into you. And
I mean I've seen it. I'm sure you've seen it
with friends, where it's like they start to sample around
with stuff because of their you know, elder siblings or
what have you. And I think that only wildness probably
helped you in many respects because it was just a
matter of like I'm just figuring this out on my own,

(19:07):
like devoid of context.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
Oh absolutely, And in my youth was kind of more
built up with with less peer pressure and more cautionary
tales because my dad worked at a grow at a
at a liquor store my entire childhood. He was a
teacher for a bit and then he kind of just

(19:31):
fell into working for a liquor store in the town
the I say suburb, but like it's like kind of
the like more like white white trash area of uh
of Louisville, but uh so not really like it's suburban certainly,

(19:51):
but it is like more like of the working class,
like not as affluent suburb in Louisville. But he kind
of just fell into working at the slicker store, which
is where he met my mom, and from there, like
I mean again, like my mom, I love her to death,
but like I i'd seen her like struggles with substance,

(20:15):
whether it's whether it's alcohol and her inability to stay
away from it when after she was told too or
you know, smoking cigarettes and then finding out as an
adult that she smoked while she was pregnant with me,
which was really fun to know when I was like
in my mid twenties, like I've now got to think

(20:36):
back on like is there anything wrong with me that
like that might have caused? But in laughing about it,
because what can I do. I can't do anything. I can't.
I'm not gonna mad at her. I'm not gonna I
have a really great relationship with her, like despite all
of these different things, where like I guess I could
have been unfair to her, which I think, or in

(20:58):
some people's opinions, very fair and upset. But I think
it goes to a lot of my feeling as an
adult and growing up, especially being drug free and straight
edge for as long as I have been, where I
have like a lot of empathy and understanding for people
who need things or feel they need things to get

(21:19):
through the day. Whereas like even though I, you know,
love Earth crisis, I don't necessarily exactly agree on some
of the stances.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
Of course, right, Like I mean, you agree with it
when you're sixteen years old, and you'll be like, oh
my gosh, like this, yeah, of course, like everybody, you know,
everybody should be cleaned out of the streets or whatever,
and there's like oh yeah, there's there's something that's called like,
you know, empathy and perspective as you calder where it's like, yeah,
there's a lot more going on there.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
Yeah, there's there's a certain economic thing that enters into
a lot of people's usage of these things. And it
certainly avoided me when I was sixteen and just was like, oh,
that's fucking hard, But now as an adult, I'm like, actually,
it's just really hard.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, there's there. Yeah, there's layers to it. Listener, you
know what I'm gonna talk about. I'm gonna talk about
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as you were going through school and everything like that,
you know, did you care about school? Was it one
of those things that you just you know did because
obviously you had to where did you land there?

Speaker 1 (23:51):
So I skipped my middle school graduation to go to
the skatepark, sure as one does, right, And I slept
through my sophomore year and got like a point six GPA.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
I think that takes real effort, Tyler, Like a point
six is that? I mean, that's like you're really trying.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
I passed one semester of one class, incredible with the
c but yeah, I really hated school. But then so
it kind of all came to a head with me
in school when I was well, I'm failing sophomore year.

(24:35):
I'm fifteen years old. I come home from a skateboard
trip that we used to take every year up to Chicago,
and I show up at my house with eleven staples
in my head. My parents find out I'm failing all
my classes. They take my skateboard away, which was my

(24:55):
only reason to live at the time. And that actually
led to the couple instances instances in my life where
I ever drank alcohol, and it was strictly because I
was mad at my parents. It was the most immature
reaction I could have possibly had. Sure, and both of those,

(25:17):
both of those instances where I drank alcohol, one didn't
do anything but taste bad and the other one just
gave me a headache. So when when I came to
terms that I don't think my rebellion was going to
come through that avenue. I ended up putting together a skateboard,

(25:41):
a secret skateboard out of all of my friends extra
paraphernalia they had, and keeping it at a friend's house
who I would go and stay with on the weekends
because I was I was just grounded from a skateboard.
I wasn't grounded from having friends. Uh sure, but they didn't.
My parents did enough. No, I'm a secret skateboard. So
I would go do that, and that got me through

(26:04):
to summer school, in which you know, I got all
my shit back. But I went into my junior year
with the thought that holy shit, I failed a grade.
I'm gonna have to be in high school an extra year.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Now They're like, whoops.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
So I did everything I could my junior and senior
year to graduate on time, and I did, but I
did it on my own terms by doing all of
my homework while I was at school, knowing I couldn't
be trusted to do it at home, and I had
to take full class loads, no free periods those two years,
and I was able to do that, but I also

(26:46):
was able to get to a point where I was
comfortable missing. So my junior and senior year, I was
a legal truant both years, but I had all A's
and B's.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
Talk about an absolute like line pusher, where you're just like,
what's I love it?

Speaker 1 (27:05):
I can't. I think I talked about this on on
Form of Passion with Ace, but I refer to it
as my coming out of the closet moment where I
came out to my parents that I had been faking
sick my entire life. And but but at this point
I could show them the receipts. I could say, Hey,
I'm a senior. I'm telling you right now that all

(27:25):
those times I was sick last year, I was faking,
and I still got all a's and b's last year.
So if I don't want to go to school, will
you guys call in for me? And both my parents
went along with it. They would call in school for
me if I felt like I didn't need to go,
which I typically didn't go to school if I had
to work that day. That was my rule was it

(27:48):
was one or the other. I'll go to school or
I'll go to work, one or the other. But but
I I gret what was your job?

Speaker 2 (27:53):
What was your job? What were you doing for work?

Speaker 1 (27:56):
So still a job I have now, different different position,
different department. But when I was when I was sixteen
in the summer, like beginning of summer after junior year,
I broke I think it was six or seven skateboards

(28:16):
in five days, okay, And I was on a team
at the time, So I skated for the skate the
skate shop within the skate park that ldbfest happened at
for a few years. Oh, okay, Riot Skate Park. I
skated for the skate shop in that skate park, and
I ran my tab up amazing because I could get

(28:41):
shipped on credit because I was on the team that
I knew I was good for it because I was
there fucking four or five days a week, so.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
They know where you live, you'll be around.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
They did because the owner had driven me to my
house many times. He drive me home from the park
before we would go out filming all the time, and
they would have to drive me sometimes way out to
to Fern Creek where I'm from. But so I ran
that tab up and my parents were like, well, you're
getting a fucking job now, But I'd already tried to
get a job. I tried to get a job right

(29:13):
when I turned sixteen. I almost worked for KFC. I
got denied because I was too young. I walked my
ass up and down like the main strip road where
like all the shops and stuff were. Nobody would hire
me because I was sixteen. But I got a job
at a grocery store when I was sixteen after breaking

(29:33):
all these skateboards because of a family connection. Because at
that time, so the grocery store I work for is unionized,
and because of that, it was actually kind of hard
to get on at that grocery store for a while,
because it was a good job. Was a good job.

(29:57):
Nineteen years later nineteen I can't remember, so I'm thirty
five now. I started there when I was sixteen, do
whatever that math is. That's all long i've been working there.
But I get that job, and that was my job
through high school, and I thought it was just going
to be my job through college, and then I dropped

(30:18):
out of college and started touring.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
And it's just consistent, right, is there?

Speaker 1 (30:24):
And yeah, and I do say it at this point
in time, I do make what I would consider a
living wage. I do not believe everybody else at my
store does, which is why I wanted to be a
union steward and try to push for things to be
better because now you have to choose to sign up
for the union because of our our ex governor passed

(30:48):
a right to work law in our incredibly red state,
which makes the union joining the union non compulsory anymore.
So I had to join the union when I got
the job. Now, right, I have to talk you into it.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
Right, you gonna be like, hey, right, got it, got it?
I know. Uh. As far as like the introduction to
you know, punk and hardcore and stuff in your life,
I mean, I know that you've articulated in a few
interviews before in regards to you know, Tony Hawk pro skater.
I mean that's such a foundational thing in the same
way that you know, comps were obviously like maybe a

(31:28):
few years prior to me, comps were still important today
as they were, you know, when you started to get
into it. And I also like the fact that you
called out and you're like, yo, I dug the SKA
stuff too, because like you know, when you're just drinking
from the fire os, you're like, I don't care. I
just like gold Thinkers sounds sick, like this is great.
Lesson Jake is good too.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
Was it?

Speaker 2 (31:51):
I'm guessing it was special for you to like get
exposed to this stuff because there, you know, you probably
weren't keyed into like record stores and places that had
sort of subculture, so you were just like being like, Oh,
I'm exposed to this stuff that I've never heard before.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
There actually was a cool record store in which I
would go to that record store and I would buy
like Incubus CDs from.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
Oh, sure we're talking to Your Ecstasy.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Your Ecstasy, Yes, I would. My parents would take me
to Your Ecstasy to buy the regular popular music CDs
that I was. I was into via MTV and whatnot
when I was in middle school. The funny thing, the
place I purchased my first punk CDs from was fucking
best Buy using a gift. Amazing, yep, and I got Fugazi.

(32:42):
I got Fugazi thirteen songs based off of just seeing
a Fugazi sticker on an ed Templeton like skate photo
on my wall when I was a kid, sure like
he was doing a nosegrind on a rail and prominently
on that on under side of a skateboard was a
giant Fugazi sticker and that hung in my head and

(33:02):
when I was going to I was going to best
Buy to buy a Minor Threat CD because it was
in it was in a skate video that I was in.
Filler was the opening song for a skate video that
I was in that the skate Park made in which
I skated to Dinosaur Junior in that in that video,

(33:25):
against my will, I didn't know what Dinosaur Junior was.
I liked it, but I didn't know what it was
until I bought the video and was like, Oh, what's
the song that my skateboarding has been put to. Oh,
it's Feel the Pain. Sure, but I I I heard
so I heard Filler in that video, and I had

(33:47):
also heard Bad Religion in a different skate video. So
I went to buy Minor Threat and Bad Religion at
best Buy and I saw a Fugazi sticker or a
Fugazi CD, and I bought it just based on that
sticker being on the Templeton skateboard. I had no idea
that Ian Mackay was at these fans for years.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Love it, love it, and that honestly that is so
It's so perfect because it's exactly what you need as
a kid, because you're just gravitating towards music that you like,
devoid of context, and.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
It's like it's all yeah, yeah, exactly, and it's all
ship that no one I know at school.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Knows, right, which is already cool. Yeah exactly, Yeah totally.
They're never gonna ask you, like, do you know Ian
Mackay plays in Minor Threat or Embrace and you're like,
what do you know? It's like you are sharing all
of this dumb information to them, and they're just like, dude,
I'm you know, I like Deftones or whatever, which I
mean I like Deftnes too, but still that's just you

(34:48):
know about something they don't.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Yeah. No, And that was that was definitely like a
big appeal for me getting into punk and hardcore was
the idea that like and being straight atged two was.
I was one of the I was one of like
five straight out kids in my high school. Given my
high school was like notorious for being the high school
everyone smoked weed, so I was even weirder even before
I was straight edge because I just didn't smoke weed, right, right,

(35:15):
That's incredible.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
And like when you started to you know, really unlock
obviously all of your you know, passion for you know, punk, hardcore,
subculture and everything like that, How does your how are
your parents reacting to you getting into this stuff? You
know me because obviously already like skateboarding, even though it
had reached you know, more mainstream levels of when you

(35:40):
were doing it than what it was like ten years prior.
You know, So you're adding a subculture of skateboarding and
then a subculture of you know, punk at hardcore where
they just like, all right, Tyler, just really just don't
hurt yourself too badly. I guess, like you know, were
they Obviously they're permissive not to let you go to
shows and stuff.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
It was the same attitude they had towards me ski
And that was something my dad. My dad has told
me before. Like he can remember one of the first
times he went to the skatepark and he saw me
like hitting like rails and like like kick flipping over
the pyramid and stuff and like all eyeing up a

(36:20):
euro gap and like doing like a like a bunch
of tricks in sequence. And he he told me he
was like, oh, this is what he's good at, Like
this is the first thing he's ever been good at.
And he could see that he could see that, like
I was better than a lot of the other kids
who were there and after watching my his incredibly tiny son.

(36:41):
Because I was very small for like most of my life,
I who was never going to be good at football.
I was never gonna be I was just I was
not I was not athletic enough for baseball. I didn't
have the stamina for track and field or soccer or
anything like that. He got to see me be good
at something for once, So I will say, like once,

(37:04):
they kind of just like let me go skate out
skateboarding all the time. They didn't really even know I
was getting that involved into punkin hardcore. They just thought
I was still out skating all the time. They had no.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Clue like where you were. They were just like, well
one or the other, I guess no.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
And I didn't have a cell phone until I didn't
have a cell phone until college. And even then, my
best friend at the time, her mom got me on
their cell phone plan because she was like there were
it was like my rich friend and her mom just
like realized like, wait, Tyler doesn't have a phone. Well, here,

(37:39):
he can pay me fifteen dollars a month and I will,
I will get him a phone. So I remember paying
my paying my friend's mom, Casey fifteen dollars for my
flip phone, in which I think I was a Verizon
so I could only I had to watch my text
to anybody who didn't have Verizon because it was only

(38:00):
free text people with Verizon at the time. Yep. So
like even then, like I had when I was navigating
all this stuff in junior year and senior year, going
to starting to go to shows and starting to be
involved in punk and skateboarding, really out on my own
a lot, where like I would disappear Friday morning for

(38:21):
school and my parents wouldn't see me again until Sunday night.
They would just assume I was going to come home,
and yeah, I did, but but because of that they
would let me go.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, and I think too, there's something that is interesting
like the only child experience too. Like I mean, I
that because I mean my parents were the same way,
Like I mean, they were very permissive, but you know,
had certain guardrails for obvious reasons. But it was one
of those things where it's like as long as I was,
you know, holding up my end of the bargain whatever

(38:53):
that may mean, then they were you know generally like yeah,
they would be like okay, that's totally fine. You can
you know, drive to Santa Barbara and then like come back,
I guess Monday morning and go to school or whatever,
like just to go to shows. It was like, you know,
there comes that time where it's just like wow, like
my parents, I mean, I guess we're like cool with it,
but then shouldn't they have asked maybe a few follow

(39:13):
up questions or whatever. But it's like, no, they didn't.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
That's fine, I and I totally get that. I think
also straight edge really helped that. When my parents understood
what straight edge was and that I was, that they
were like not gonna lie proud of.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
Me, right, They totally You're able to get away with.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
More not doing drugs, which, ye, dog, I've been arrested
several times. I've called my mom from jail every one
of those times. I've essentially prank called my mom from
jail every single one of those times because she wasn't
gonna be the one to get me out. But I
still would just call her and let her know where
I was, and then I was okay, but uh yeah,

(39:52):
I that's still though, that didn't even dissuade them from
thinking that I was still making the right decisions even
though I was getting arrested for trespassing or I guess
the only other time I got arrested was for a
bench warrant for a traffic shit. But uh, yeah, yeah,
I've got experiences. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, even without drugs, I've

(40:14):
got experiences.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Right as as as one does. And did you, uh
did you start going to I guess local shows or
were the first shows that you started to attend were
the ones that were like, you know, kind of coming
through with like touring bands and stuff like.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
That, strictly local shows When I started going amazing, there
was a there was a punk band aken to like
Green Day blinkin eighty two, Operation Ivy that a kid
who I went to high school with was in. They
would like they would cover all of those bands I

(40:54):
just mentioned. They were one of the bands that would
play a lot of local shows. And I also was
kind of best friends with a kid my junior and
senior year who was in a Against Me influenced band,
So I got into that ship too. Sure, I got

(41:16):
way into Against Me, way into a lot of that,
like Planet X Records and No Idea Records stuff via Yeah,
living in Louisville, like Louisville was very into like the
Jade Tree no idea stuff too, so like that was
all I The same week I was given Desperate Measures
and Count Me Out. I was also given Lifetime Jersey's

(41:39):
Best Dancers. So all these absolutely no. It's the reason
I am the way I am, and the reason why
I like all the things I do is because I
just was. I was very lucky to get introduced all
this stuff at the same time and be so hungry
for it that I was willing to dive right in.

(42:00):
I did talk about I talked about this a little
bit on whenever I third miked on Axtergrind. But there
was a comic book themed hardcore band that was the
first band that I would ever that I got really into.
That was a local band and they did all classic
hardcore covers. So they were covering Black Flag and Misfits

(42:21):
and Bad Brains and Minor Threat, which was all the
shit that I liked. So when I started getting dragged
to shows by my best friend and my best skateboarding friend,
Tyler's my first roommate, we were no longer really best
friends after we were first roommates, but that's just how

(42:42):
it goes when you move into a place with you
when you're eighteen and share a room with your best
friend at the time. Absolutely, but he would start dragging
me to shows and I the first few shows I
went to were a like cold world clone band called
brains Out was playing, and it was cool. It was

(43:04):
like actually good hardcore music in my opinion, So I
didn't see like a really bad band first either. I
got to see like mashing and singing along and stuff.
And then when I started seeing the comic book band
gant It, they they started playing songs already knew because
they were playing covers I knew, so I got to

(43:25):
experience singing along, and all of a sudden, that's the
only thing I cared about in the world was I
now need to know the lyrics to all the songs
that happened that I can't that are gonna be played
in front of me, because this is the best feeling
in the world is singing along to a band with
other people. Right. I got homework now, yeah, yeah, And

(43:46):
I did my homework. I read the lyrics, I listened
to it non fucking stop. I drilled this shit and that.
So those were like very very highly local things that
I was seeing, and then some of those bands started
bringing in some of the touring bands because that that
scene kind of happened outside of the maximum Louisville stuff

(44:08):
that was like Black Cross and Coliseum. I started going
to those shows too. I remember seeing Municipal Waste play.
They used to do these last Saturday shows. Ryan Patterson
would put them on, and one of the first ones
I think was Municipal Waste and uh unfortunately another one
they did was painted black and I missed that one

(44:30):
to go skating instead. I can remember what I was
doing that day. Wasn't wasn't better than.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
What was It wasn't that important, It wasn't that important.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
There's a picture of there was a picture of me
eating a Oreo ice cream on a curb, and I
knew every time I looked at that picture, I could
have seen painted black instead of being there.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Right. It haunted me for years, those those things, especially
when you're like I love when you have those like
really crystallized memories certain things, whether it was like you
know or on the flip side where you're like, oh, dude,
I remember, you know, completely bombing a science test because
I had to go see converge or whatever, Like those

(45:11):
are the things that really stick out in your mind,
or like you said, the shows that you missed because
it was like, oh, damn it, Like I just got
into that band and then you know, two weeks prior,
like they came through on tour and I just missed
them because you know, I just didn't know about them
at the time.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Yeah, I missed the last time A Veil played Louisville
by like two months. Mmm, shows two months later is awful.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Yeah, you're like, damn it. Hello listener, I'm here to
tell you about the awesome people at evilgreed dot net.
They are an amazing web store solution provider for record
labels and bands. But the cool thing about them is
they have a very specific point of view, Like you
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(45:55):
Like there's definitely you know, the commercial heavy stuff, and
then there's the stuff that's like, you know, a little
bit left center, still popular, but a little bit left
of center. That is where evil Greed serves their customer best.
Like they work with record labels like Sergeant House and
Triple B and Flat Spot Records, So anything heavy and artistic,
that is what they do. And they offer you know,

(46:15):
vinyl merch of all shapes and sizes, whether it's you know, shirts,
long sleeve sweaters. But it's all at one convenient location
and you can do your shopping all their at evilgreed
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based in Berlin, Germany. And I know you, you the listener,
are probably based in the United States. You're like, I
don't know, man like shipping something from over in Germany.

(46:38):
To me, it's gonna take forever. Fretnot, it will not.
It is gotten. I've ordered from them before and I've
gotten there my merch in like seven eight, nine days.
Like just a great, great experience, And like I said,
you'll be able to find so many cool band stores
and so many cool things. Like I'm just looking at
the website right now. They have this awesome, awesome brutish

(47:00):
shirt that has all their tour dates listed.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
On the back.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
And we're talking like, you know, six months is worth
of tour dates. It's just really really cool. But I
love popping onto their site like probably once every two
or three days and just like seeing the new stuff
and being like, oh, yeah, I think I'll order that,
and then I'll put this vinyl in here, and then
I will put this sweater in here, and they'll be like,
all right, I'll just let it cook for a minute,
think about it, and then pull the trigger and order.
So go to Evilgreed dot net, check out all of

(47:26):
their wares, and you will leave satisfied and order stuff
because you know, I mean, if you just leave the
website like it's you know, gonna do a pop up
and be like, hey, well we'll give you some percentage
off or whatever, but you get on marketing works. But anyways,
I love evilgreed dot Net and you should too, So
go to their website. So as you start to go
to shows and everything like that and have that feeling
of singing along and stuff, did you immediately want to

(47:49):
start a band and like participate in that way or
was that something you had to like work your way
up to.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
That never entered my mind. I got asked to sing
for the first band I was ever in by a
group of people who weren't really hardcore kids. They were
what I guess you'd call like PC punks, uh so,
who lived in the first punk house that existed in

(48:17):
my lifetime. So, when I was younger, there wasn't really
house shows happening for like a while. And then this
older guy named Preston, who this is a really nice dude,
but he he lived in a house and was gonna
basically had talked to the landlord into letting him like

(48:38):
take over like the rest of the house with five
to six other people, classic like sheet Wall coordinating different
corners of the house. And when that house got established

(48:59):
two months after they moved in, I moved into a
different part of it. And that's when I moved into
that house with my best friend of the time, Tyler,
who would no longer be that close after living on
top of each other for an entire year. Sure, but uh,
that house the week the week it started, Latterman played there,

(49:22):
and that that was like a really formidable band for
me being younger. But like most punk houses, when a
bunch of people who play music move into a house together,
they start bands. And even though none of them were
like traditional capital h hardcore kids, a couple of them

(49:42):
like youtha Today. A few of them liked Refused, and
some of them liked Earth Crisis and strife and things
like that. So those people with very different music tastes
started a band with very different sounding songs. Sure, and
they asked me to sing out for it, and I

(50:02):
got to play with Black Cross, like I think our
second show is with Black Cross.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
We did this.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
We did a seven seconds cover, but more or less
so I I mean, I was, I'm, I always have
been and am still to a degree. I'm aware of obnoxious.
That's just it is. I'm cool with I know I'm loud,

(50:29):
like I.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Was abouna say so like obnoxious, like how so obnoxious?
Where you're like you're sucking all the air out of
the room or is it.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
I'm trying to inter everybody, Okay, got it, I'm I'm joker,
I'm I'm I'm I'm trying to entertain everybody. I'm trying
to make sure everybody's having a good time. I'm trying
to have a good time and hoping that my good
time causes other people to have good times. So like
that was me skateboarding. I was the loudest person in

(50:56):
the skate park. When somebody landed something, I was the
guy who tackled you. I was like my my board
lived banging on, coping like I was. I beat the
drums for my friends to succeed. I all I wanted
was for everybody to do good, which still today. I

(51:18):
guess I just am who I am, and I always
have business.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
Literally, I was about to say, that's literally why you
run a record label.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Yeah, exactly, always looking for somebody I can bang my
bang my board on the coping for yep. So I uh,
the second somebody put a mic in my hand, it
almost made it that there's always going to be a
demand for me to be doing that. So from that band,

(51:47):
when it fizzled out, a few of the people still
wanted to do a band, so we kind of morphed
into a different band that legit never never recorded, but
I honestly wish it had because it would be my
most embarrassing band. But it had the funniest name. It
was going to be called Varsity Font.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
Oh it's great.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
I know, I'd still never heard a band called no.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
I mean, it seems so obvious. But also just like,
you know.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
There's birth city city is close.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
It's pretty close. Yeah, I mean it's like calling your band,
you know, Ariel or whatever. It's like, yeah, those for sure.
I mean, there is a band, an awesome shoecase band
named Ariel and they literally use aerial font. But that's
neither here or there. That's totally and it's like, I
honestly didn't even really put that together until you said that,
and all of a sudden, I'm like, oh my god,
like that that is what it is. Yeah, it's like

(52:40):
that's why they named their pet like that. Okay, that's funny,
but yeah, but but no, that's that's I love that,
especially to where it's like the the line that gets
towed with bands that are, you know, a joke or whatever.
I mean, it's like, you know, whatever, throw down and
like these bands that start as a joke, but they
you know, sometimes eventually end up being serious because like

(53:02):
people take them seriously or they're just obviously good. But
Varsity Font I'm sure it was in a Yeah. Was
at that like, yeah, no, this is clearly a joke.
So I calmed down.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
Yeah. No, first two bands were very much joke bands.
And then by the time I so in, like all
of the first few bands I was in had a
total had a through line of members, so it was
either the same guitar player was in the first three
bands I started, and everybody else kind of juggled around,
and I think the kid who played bass in my

(53:39):
first band he moved he wasn't in the second one,
and then he played guitar in the third one. And
the person who played bass in the third band I
was in now plays baits bass in Gates to Hell
and Constraint my other band, and he played guitar in
another mistake for the last few years of the band too.

(54:01):
So like me and Dustin have been if Constraints still
a band, which fingers crossed it still is because I
still like doing it right. I've been in bands with
Dustin since he was seventeen years old, which is pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
H Yeah, absolutelyps I love that. I love that. But
uh when yeah, no, I and I wanted to hit
on the fact, like mentioning a band like Latterman. That is,
especially when you start to get awakened in ways that

(54:36):
you start to view the world outside of yourself and
like the small bubble that you exist in, whether it's
a band like Rage against the Machine or it's a
band like Lattererman, like those are all incredibly like. I
I think that helps people, honestly, like, for lack of
a better term, stick around within the because you think
at that point, music means more to you than just

(54:57):
obviously like going to a show and you know, like
existing in the teenage experience or whatever young adult experience,
but like connecting it to the world at large. That's
where it probably just you know, there's no way that
you were able to think about things differently after getting
exposed to that band.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Oh yeah, broke my brain, completely broke my brain. I'm
very lucky. That's one of the reasons why I get
I get I stressed my band out so much because
I like talking during shows and I don't plan out
what I'm really gonna say when I open my mouth,
but I have thinks there's all these songs are about things.
They're about uh, they're about frustrations, They're about real life

(55:36):
and real world issues. And I get that from bands
like Latterman and Crime and Stereo and a punk band
from Chicago, the Broadways. Those were bands I got into
when I was younger that really made me look at
the world in a way in which I feel very lucky.
Because as a atomized white straight male who lives in

(56:03):
ostensibly the South, even though Louisville's very much a Midwest city,
there's plenty of Confederate flags around. I could have easily
been swayed, much like a lot of the kids I
grew up with, into seeing the world through a different lens.
And I know that punk and hardcore in those messages

(56:26):
because they just made sense to me, got me to
be a got me to be a smarter person than
I would have been otherwise I could have been. I
could have been easily tricked into a much simpler way
of looking at the world, which could have led me
to being a fucking racist or transphobe, yeah, or something

(56:50):
like that. Like I see the slippery slope of that
because it was the people I grew up with and
the people I work with, Like because I've also again
alongside me going through my punk journey, I've had the
same working class job my whole life, in which I've
worked with people who actively vote against their interests and
do not understand how manipulated they are into. Like I

(57:15):
had a coworker asking me about my New York trip
and be shocked that I rode the subway because she's
heard such scary stories about the subway in New York,
and I'm like, that's just the closed minded Kentucky Like
mindset in so many ways, it's not unique at all.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
Yeah, no, it's true. And I think what this was
actually going to dovetail into a question I was gonna
ask of, you know, the fact that when you become disconnected,
I know this sounds like some political stumb speech or whatever,
like when you become disconnected with the real world. So
it's like, you know, that person not having experience with
the subway, like probably ever in the same way that

(57:55):
you know, when bands get connected into you know, becoming
like that is their life, you know, and I know
many of your friends obviously exist in that now where
it's like, Okay, I'm touring, you know, seven eight months
out of the year, I'm being in a band full time,
and then that, you know, disconnects them from either a
lot of you know, their friends, like they're literally gone
for large stretches of time, and so like that that disconnect,

(58:19):
I know is difficult to balance and then also be
able to be creative because then I mean, it'said joke.
You know, your sophomore record, it's like you have your
your whole life to write the first record, and then
the second record you got to write in a year
and a half. Or whatever. You know, I'm sure you
are either watching people go through that or of obviously
like seeing people go through that. You know, how does that,

(58:40):
I guess, interact with your you know, your own personal
approach with the bands that you're doing and stuff like that.
I realized that's like a big question.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
But no, no, I mean you're you're right, and I
totally get that. I h a lot of like some
of some of what you just asked me is going
into my thoughts on what a next inclination reck or
might even be about period, and I think I feel
like so it's it's it's very complicated because I live

(59:12):
in I live in my life in a way thinking
that I work really, really hard. But I'm fully aware
that I don't think people should have to work as
hard as I do, nor do I think everybody should
even have to work just because of what all this
technology was supposed to do is give us more free time,

(59:34):
and it hasn't where I think it falls. With as
far as creating art, I think that I think you
just have to like reorient the way you're writing. And
that's if you're if you were able to vent all
of your frustrations or you know, disappointments or anger into

(01:00:02):
your music or your art, that is what your art's
going to produce. But now, if your art is going
to be produced while you're on the road and while
essentially your dreams are coming true, you could write it
about that. You could write it about whatever. You could
write about this, the fear of losing that, you could
write it about the appreciation for having it in the

(01:00:23):
first place. And I think that's where like it sucks.
It sucks because it because of what came out about
the singer and everything. But the Allegiance song that Allegiance
wrote about Champion is one of my favorite hardcore songs
because it's so unique. Yep, it's so it's so unique,

(01:00:48):
and I think it's for a band like Allegiance that
so many of their songs are anger and fury to
have a song that is so like loving and like
vulnerable in a way, which I think is like like
because so many I think so many bands like think

(01:01:09):
that vulnerability means like, oh, I'm going to show people
how sad I am, And I think that like vulnerability
can also be like I'm going to show people how
like appreciative and loving I am too. That being said,
I'm always going to be angry and that's part of
my life experience that I feel grateful that I'm going

(01:01:29):
to have a working class job my whole life. I'm
always going to find something to be angry about. I'm
never gonna want for material.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
Yeah, totally. And it's like I think that idea especially now.
I mean, I'm thankful and I know many other people
are thankful that bands like you know you guys and Cyndiary,
Mind First whatever. The list could go on and on
where it's like these hardcore bands don't need to grind
themselves to the absolute bone, but still will be relevant

(01:02:01):
to be able to play shows when they want to
when they can and like they but they still can
exist in their own lives and to your point, be
able to actually produce something that is worthwhile as opposed
to like, Okay, I got a tour, I gotta do this,
I gotta do that. It's just like no, we'll say
yes to the things we want to and then you know,
we'll still be able to like have hold some relevance

(01:02:22):
to where it's like, yeah, you know whatever, a hundred
kids are gonna show up and sing along and everybody
will have fun because that's kind of the whole point
of the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Right, It's absolutely the whole point of it. And like
I think, I think can very like honored to be
mentioned in a list of like Mind Force and Incendiary,
because I I think that they're their Their lack of
ability to play as much is much more intentional than

(01:02:50):
ours is because I I want to play all the time, right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
Yeah, because all the other losers in my band, I'm
just kidding, the.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Rest of my band have like real lives and responsibilities
or play guitar and knocked loose, which prevents us their
actual hindrances of us ever playing things where I think
everybody else, I think everybody in Incendiary and Mind Force
are like similarly unable to do things where they all feel.

(01:03:23):
Which is probably why I'm so insane when we play.
Is because it's way more pent up for me, because
I've been thinking about like how bad I want to
play since the last time we played. I haven't been
able to distract myself with deadlines or children or all
the other things that occupy the rest of my bandmate's

(01:03:43):
lives that keep them I feel like much more unaware
of that tension in their life, which I live in
the tension.

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
Right, Yeah, the dovetailing into your you know, the label
and obviously what you do in regards to that. I mean,
you can easily see why that it exists, not only
because of you know, you bashing your skateboard for your
friends and stuff like that, but the fact that you
want to not only celebrate bands that come from Louisville,

(01:04:16):
but you know, bands that are obviously in the orbit
as well. And the question I want to ask is, like,
you know, the business implications, like you obviously have to
make decisions in regards to like, Okay, I want to
put this record out, like regardless if I'm gonna lose
you know, a thousand dollars on it or whatever. But
there has to be you know, that mindfulness of the
fact that you know, you can't just continue to lose

(01:04:36):
money out of the thing or whatever, because otherwise the
thing won't exist. So how do you interact with you know,
the business on the label side of things, and then
obviously also the band just to be able to you know,
kind of make things move along.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
So the business of the band, which I can't speak
on as much because that most of those decisions, like
I honestly like and even though, like I said, you know,
god willing constraints still a band anymore. I am very
very lucky that I got to do not only Constraint

(01:05:12):
with someone like Ryan's story, but I get to do
Inclination with people like Caleb and Peter. They really facilitate
a lot of the stuff that happens with our bands
without me having to do much of anything except for
stay in shape. I I understand a lot of Like

(01:05:37):
Inclination is the first band that I've ever been in
that put money in my hand. Not very much, but yeah,
that's never been Nonetheless, that's never been expected for me,
and it's never been something that I count on for anything.
I have almost I would say, spent ninety percent of
the Inclination money I've ever gotten on LVB stuff. I

(01:06:01):
typically take whatever money I get from Inclination because it's
found money to me, and I'll start a project for
a record. My main thing with LdB is trying to
trying to be charitable and not dismissive of bands that
I do think are good that I just can't afford

(01:06:23):
to take the risk on, and knowing that that's because
I took a risk on a band and absolutely lost.
So like I can only really afford to do that,
like maybe twice three times a year. I can afford
to completely fund a project out of my pocket. The

(01:06:46):
rest of the projects have to be funded by the
label in general, just because I can't go I can't
go down six grand a year on the label. Yeah,
I have.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
Right, And that's I think it's I mean, the reason
I ask that is because like there is that implication,
I mean, especially within the context of punk and hardcore,
where you know, the moment anybody makes any sort of
money off of art, people are you know, I mean
to a lesser degree these days, but you know, there
becomes that element of you know, oh oh really, like

(01:07:22):
you know, you've turned to prokor or whatever. It's just like, okay,
calm down, Like people need to make money off the
thing in order to like still continue to do the
thing that you like or whatever. But the reason I
ask is because sometimes people are like excited to like
get into the nitty gritty with that, and others like
it just gets foisted upon them. So it sounds like you,

(01:07:43):
I mean, it's a necessary evil for you to interact with,
but you don't necessarily, I guess maybe like it, or
maybe I'm just putting words in your mouth.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
The necessary evil is just that I have to be.
I have to be what feels like an asshole sometimes,
but I don't mean it that way. It's just me
having to be really stick sometimes with bands who reach
out to me are like, oh, we would love to,
you know, to do this, And I have to, like
I have to actually take into account like what's the
market for this? Like what like how much do I

(01:08:12):
believe in this versus how much do I want people
to believe in this? And and then and then I
have to look at the how much money I have
at the moment, And I'm gonna go ahead and say,
like oftentimes I look at my bank account right.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
Totally, You're like, let's let's let's look at the LGB. Yeah,
let's look at the LdB account. Oh wow, okay, we
only got that. Looks like I'm gonna have to, you know,
put a little like my own cash in there.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
I have a bad habit of when we have money
in in the in the LdB PayPal, I find somewhere
to put it immediately and uh and yeah. So that's
why sometimes you'll see us have like four records come
out in like a few months, and then sometimes there's
not a record coming out for eight or nine.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Yeah, right, exactly, abs and flows. Yeah. The last two
things I wanted to hit on was the you and
I mean I jokingly made fun of you when I
emailed you this request, but just you know, the uh,
the idea of you being a ludite. I mean clearly
not a luttite because you know yeah, but I just like, like,

(01:09:20):
even before I knew kind of, you know, anything about you,
it had, like I just said, noticed where it was
just like, oh, yeah, like you know this this dude Tyler,
Not like people were actively talking about you being hey,
Tyler's a flip phone, like he hates technology and stuff
like that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
It's a thing.

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
Okay, what was is that the I guess the you know,
quote unquote hatred of technology is that, you know, coming
from a place of reality or has it just been like,
you know, the joke obviously perpetuates itself.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
All the above to a certain extent. I think. So
I always just like I didn't want like I like
texting to tweet honestly, even though it got me in trouble.
The most famous time where I sexted Twitter. I I
like texting to tweet. I thought it was fun to
be able to just text four O four O four,

(01:10:13):
and that be how I posted on social media. And
I did think it was funny when someone just made
an Instagram account for me and would post things without
my knowledge. I thought all that stuff was funny. And
then as time's gone on, I just I've I mean,

(01:10:35):
I've grown up. We've grown up in the in the
world where we've seen the real time effect that has
had on all of our brains and our younger generation's brains.
And I don't I don't spend the whole day glued
to my phone. I text people when they text me.

(01:10:59):
I text people when I have a thought or something.
I still like phone calls to a certain extent, and
I just never really saw the need to have all
of that information on me at all times. Given I
do have an iPod Touch that I used to listen
to Spotify and podcasts and whatnot, and I use it

(01:11:20):
for emails, but I mean, it doesn't even have Twitter
or Instagram on it, mostly because it's full of music
that I can't fit any of that shit on. So
like it it is a bit of self fulfilling. I mean,
I do have a flip phone tattoo now, so it's
like you're leaning into it. I've leaned in for sure.

(01:11:41):
But but again, like I just I think that everything
we we know now about what social media and how
it's affected affected people's interactions with each other, how how
little of it's even real, how many of it's just
like bots talking to each other. Now, it's just really

(01:12:03):
nice to like live in a world where like everybody
I'm encountering is a real person and isn't just like
you can't make a fake account to go, like talk
shit to somebody in real life.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
Either do it or you don't.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
Yeh, Either do it or you don't. You live with
the repercussion of whether or not that person tries to
fight you or not because of it, and or or
or talk such bad shit back to you that you
hate yourself and uh, and you have to own all
of that stuff. You have to own all of your
interactions like that. And I I guess that's really it

(01:12:39):
is just my my want to like not live in
an anonymous existence. And I don't know, just also does
not have to look at all the bullshit all the time. Dude,
it's not great.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
Yeah, No, I totally get that. Yeah, definitely don't want
to come across like you know, oh, explain your position, Tyler.
It's it's more so because there's like varying degrees of it,
like that the buy in that people have with you know,
certain platforms, whether it's you know, X, whether it's Instagram
or whatever, where it's like, you know, are you getting
more out of it than you're putting into it? And like,

(01:13:14):
you know, are you able to like disconnect from certain
aspects of it? And to your point, like you know,
I mean these these apps and everything else that exists,
it's obviously meant to do the exact opposite. It's meant
to you know, spend all of your time there like
that's all that everybody wants. And so you know, you
having the deliberate choice to be like yeah, I'll tap in,
but I'm not gonna let it consume me, is you know,

(01:13:34):
very reasonable.

Speaker 1 (01:13:35):
Yeah. And in my my my ultimate defense, like I
don't have anything on me when I'm at shows typically,
like I am notorious for walking up to a friend's
merch table and sliding my flip phone under a T
shirt on the table and walking away right and I
don't come back till the end of the show, totally
like keep.

Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
This safe for me. Your friends are ever like, You'll
be fine. No one's nothing to take your you know,
your your Motorola eraser. You're fine.

Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
The last thing I want to hit on was the
you know, the fact that you obviously do a podcast
as well, you know, a country music podcast. You go
down rabbit holes. The thing that I was curious about
where it's like, when you know, you start to like
you're a fan of music broadly speaking, like, of course
we're always going to self identify as hardcore kids, and
you know, like even when you're you know, sixty years old,

(01:14:26):
you're still going to call yourself a hardcore kid. But
you start to obviously peel away at layers of different
aspects of music. When you started to you know, really
engage with you know, country music and Steve Earle and
finding all that you can about that, does it you know,
does it scratch aniche that is similar to when you
started to peel back the layers of you know, punk

(01:14:47):
and hardcore and stuff like that, or is it kind
of scratching a different niche that you're like, oh, man,
like this is great music, but like there's not the
same you know, whatever trappings that sometimes these weirdo subcultures
that we participate in have.

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
It's honestly a bit of both, and I think so
like for me, I was raised on a lot of
like classic rock stuff. Like my my I bet my
dad incredibly musical person. He's played guitar my whole life.
He's not like an amazing guitarist. He's not like played
in bands. But I've like grown up with like music

(01:15:23):
in the house at all times. They had like the
CD catalogs, so like I was like my parents showed
me Nirvana, like given it was the MTV Unplugged, but
like they were. My dad was way into music in
the nineties and and even got like very after the divorce,

(01:15:44):
got very into like the local music scene too, not
punk in hardcore, even though he my dad likes Bitter End.
Oh yeah, he thinks they're very good, but uh, and
he's very impressive with he was very impressed with Judiciary
at our record release. But but my dad, like he

(01:16:07):
really showed me a lot of music and he got
me into things via Osmosis like I mean, of course,
my parents like the Beatles, and but my dad liked
John Priyan a lot when I was a kid and
Bob Dylan, so I got like exposed to that a lot.
So I always kind of had this affinity for folk music,
and I always really appreciated what the songs were about.

(01:16:31):
Bob Dylan in particular, like was my favorite songwriter for
years and years and years. I would come back to
him all the time for guidance. And even though so
many many of the songs are nonsense and made up,
there's like real truths worked in there. The cops don't

(01:16:51):
need you, and man, they expect the same. Is something
that that I that certainly heard as a child and
took in and then watched that shit play out real
time my entire life. I So yeah, I've always had
like an affinity for folk music and whatnot and also rock,
Like I have a I have a Creden's Clearwater Revival
back tattoo, So that stuff's like really important to me.

(01:17:17):
And I always wrote country music off because country music
to me, I didn't consider John Prime or even like
Johnny Cash country music when I was a kid. That
shit was different because country music was like Alan Jackson
who not gonna lie as tracks now, But all a
lot of that nineties pop country stuff was just like bullshit,

(01:17:39):
redneck like stuff that people I went to school with
who hated me liked, and I wrote it all off.
But I did have affinity for Waylon Jennings and things
like that, and I didn't understand the difference between like
that pop country stuff in the outlaw country stuff which
brings me to Bob Dylan was my favorite songwriter until

(01:18:01):
I heard Steve Earle, and I've never really identified with
a single, a single songwriter or a single artist the
way that identified with his music, and I just got
completely obsessed. And it was probably like twenty sixteen or
so that I really started diving into related artists to

(01:18:25):
things that like I did, like like Towns van Zant
and Waylon Jennings. I started digging deeper, and through listening
to Steve Earl, I got into like Guy Clark and
a lot of that other like folk singer stuff that
just I just never had a person who showed me
any of it before, and much like like hardcore and

(01:18:51):
you know, you find out like about Minor Threat and
Black Flag and Bad Brains and then you find out
you can go see like turn style play very similar
music to you know, to what the bad brains played.
You can be a part of something contemporary that connects
to something much deeper. I started finding out about like

(01:19:13):
drive by Truckers and Sturgil Simpson and other like contemporary
people doing like country music and folk music that is
very much still in that same ethic as Steve Garrel
and Guy Clark in townsvan zandt to understand, like damn
dog like music really is like just like always being

(01:19:34):
kept alive by people who are doing it for the
right reasons. I also had the realization in like the
twenty fifteen, twenty sixties that like the only people who
played like rock like seventies like six like late sixties,
early seventies rock further than that were these outlaw country guys.

(01:19:57):
They were the only ones playing in like barroom fight music.
And I like.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
Totally, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I love that because I
do think it's it is so fun and it really
just explores this part in human brains that have this
ability to be like, Okay, I'm gonna like this thing.
I'm gonna find out as much as I possibly can
about it, and you become obsessive, whether it's you know,
I mean I myself like got super into soundtracks for

(01:20:23):
like five to seven years where it was just like,
you know, I talk about classical composers and it's just
like why why do we do this? And then it's like,
I mean ultimately exactly what you're talking about, where you
just start to peel away layers and then you start
to see how one begat the other, and then you
put together this tapestry of music and you're just like, oh, yeah,
this is all weirdly connected.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
Yeah no, and it's and it's also like it's weirdly
connected and you realize like there's like there's always something
keeping something alive in some way, yeap it and it's
a living thing like art is to me like a
living thing. It breathes and it has to uh, it
has to be fed too. So like part of me

(01:21:03):
and Brian, who was the first person I ever met
who was obsessed with Steve Earl even remotely as much
as I was, Like I asked him, I was like, yo,
you want to just like do a podcast where we
go through all of Steve Earl's records and then it
kind of turned into like we're chronicling his whole life
and career in a way that we didn't intend to do,

(01:21:23):
but that's kind of how it is. But we're trying
to have more guests on and do more like fun
detour stuff, so that hopefully is going to keep coming.
So if you're a hardcore person who has an interest
in talking about country music, it is up.

Speaker 2 (01:21:38):
You're like, we're here for it. Well, Tyler, I appreciate
you hanging out with me. Thank you for yeah letting me,
you know, just dig into all the parts of your brain.

Speaker 1 (01:21:46):
Dude, Thank you anytime, anytime you want to talk talk bullshit.
I'm down.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
What a fun conversation I really enjoy when. I mean,
people are generally excited to come on the show and
kind of you know, have this sort of conversation and
be able to dig deep into their past and have
these questions thrown at them. They were like, wow, I've
thought about that in like ten fifteen years. But Tyler
was genuinely excited and was happy to share anything and

(01:22:15):
everything I asked him. So you know, you heard it,
and I appreciate that. So big shout out to Tyler
for coming on the pod next week, I have a
great guest, I mean, because that's all I do here.
You know, I'm not bringing you mediocre conversations. Or maybe
sometimes I am, but that's not my fault or the
guest fault. Like sometimes it just you know, happens. But
jokes aside. This is actually a stand up comedian. His

(01:22:37):
name is Neil Rubinstein. He is a hardcore kid, but
he's a stand up comedian and he's been doing that
for the better part of I would say ten years
or so. But most notably he is connected to the
punkin hardcore scene because he used to play in a
band called Sons of Abraham, which was, honestly and still
to this day, one of the only Jewish hardcore bands

(01:22:58):
as far as like their message was concerned and like
what they were singing about. But Sons of Abraham was
coming out probably like late nineties, I want to say,
and great metallit hardcore, and Neil Rubinstein is a lifer,
like he is still very very connected to the music scene.
You know, goes to shows all that sort of stuff.
And obviously the parallels between the stand up comedy world

(01:23:20):
and playing in bands are like pretty much exactly the
same thing, except you're just getting up there by yourself
when you're doing a stand up comedy, and then with
the band you maybe have at least one or two
other people with you. So anyways, that's what we got
next week. Until then, please be safe, everybody,