Matt dives deep into the band’s writing process, balancing creativity with deadlines, and how he’s evolved as a drummer since the early days in the barn. He also discusses his collaboration with Joey Sturgis on his drum plugin, shares details about Christmas Burns Red in Lancaster, and teases a brand-new project coming in 2026.
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 2 (00:10):
Now let's go. What's going on?
Speaker 3 (00:12):
My name is Mack Rener. I played drums for the
band August Burns Red. And you are listening to the
Kevin Powell podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Okay, you guys, what's going on? It'skevin from the Kevin
fell Podcast. Here. I am here with Matt Griner from
the band August Burns Read. You've been there with August
Burns Red since what day one? Since day one? That's crazy, man?
How do you guys kind of crazy?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Like you had twenty twenty three was the latest, like
original album, and then twenty twenty five you did that
re release of the first one. How do you guys
continue to you know, get this material out album after
album is still stay like fresh and like good. I
don't know how to word it, but yeah, new ideas, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
New ideas.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
So I think so you're asking the question, I'm just thinking,
how do we keep albums coming out every that's say
two years or three years in that aspect.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
It's very much.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Like having a job, so you know you have deadlines
that you have to hit, and you say, okay, in
order to hit this deadline, what do we have to do?
But the creative parts a little more nuanced, where we
have to say, all right, is it better to force
creativity so that I know I have to get to
get a song done.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Every four days. That's the way I work.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
So I'll literally right down, all right, we're doing eleven songs. Yeah,
and okay.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I only have this much time. That's four days perst
song on drums. Get to work.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
You probably have like your own studios set up, and
you can like go in and you can do everything right.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I do now, Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
For years it was like go to the bar and
go up the stairs in the bar and sit there
and play. I am in a band with very talented musicians, yes,
and great hardworking people who drive this thing.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yes. And the five of us.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Together are motivated to continue doing this full time. And
in order to be in a band in twenty twenty
five or in any I'd say, in any era of
your band's existence, you have to be putting on new music.
You have to keep it exciting, and you have to
go on tour, you do, and those are two things
you just gotta do. So do I like touring not
(02:19):
as much as I used to. I have a family
at home. I really enjoy the fact that I get
to tour, but it's taxi, but you got to do it.
Do I like writing?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Love it.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
My favorite thing about being in a band is sitting
down writing drum parts, going through five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten parts sometimes and then getting to that fill or
that groove that just fits. It's so fulfilling, like nothing
in your day is as good as that.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Now, what does the writing process look like for you
guys nowadays?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Okay? So JB or Dustin are the primary songwriters. They
will write all the guitars, send them to me, and
I'll write drums, and then I will record my drum
parts and pro tools, bounce the mix, send it to everybody.
If someone's like, hey, I don't really like this drum part,
change it, I'll rerecord it, send it back out vocally.
(03:07):
We all help great lyrics typically, and then Jake will
go in and come up with patterns. Okay, and that's
just kind of like a layer cake. You start with
guitars and bass and then you work up from there.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Okay, I don't remember who told me why I've been
Matt Honey cut from Koobla Call and it said do
drums last time.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It's great. It's like so much easier to do it
that way.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
I've done drums last for years, but not because I
wanted to, but because I just wasn't ready. And it
is great because you know what everything sounds like, and
you're recording to like final.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Audio, right, Like you said the talented musicians part of things.
I mean, you're getting pretty good results while off the
gate to record too, right, That's true.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Makes it easy for you, that's true. Yeah, yep.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
With a little help from our friend beat Detective, the
drums sound awesome, too awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
So we had a re recording of Thrill Seeker. What
was the biggest difference from way back in the day.
It's a now for you to hit the studio and
you know, go into the mindset of I'm re recording
these drums.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
I'm the kind of musician that when I write drums, okay,
I can change it, change and change it as soon
as it's recorded. I'm not interested in changing my parts
oh okay, like that's the way it was done. Yeah,
keep it. So when I went in to do Thrill Seeker,
the only parts that I really changed for parts either
(04:27):
a we never really liked as a band, like why
do we do high hats there instead of a blast beat.
There's one part in Reflective Property where I changed from.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Just like this. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
I was kind of anti like an anticlimactic.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Part to like a full and blast.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yeah, that's cool, we should do that, but like fills
and grooves and stuff that I wouldn't right now, that's
all right. I wrote them then, and actually a lot
of them are more technical than what I write now.
So the second reason is, dude, if I didn't play
it the same way, its because I couldn't figure it out,
like I had to dumb it down or like figure
out a way to p play something that I just
don't even recognize myself playing. Yeah, some of that is
(05:04):
probably I wasn't good enough to play the parts back then.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I mean, in some ways i'm still not.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
But I we had to use beat Detective a lot
to get drums sounding tight on that recording, and so
I think there are some fills or grus or whatever
where like I didn't play that pill. It was just
like fixed up in a computer so that it sounds
nice sense. Yeah, it fits the grid, but it's not
exactly the sticking. It's kind of a combobulation of a
(05:32):
couple of different fills in the protection.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
That would be my guess. Okay, now you had.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
A collaboration with drum now right, Yes, yes, I did
Drum Forward.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
That's okay. I did plug him with him? Yes, tell
me about that.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah. So years ago Carson.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And Grant, who are the two studio producer engineers that
we work with, We're like, dude, we should do a
drum plug in and we were going to do it ourselves,
and then we got connected with Joey Sturgis, who's obviously
very good at what he does and it has a
huge catalog. Yeah, he's done a couple of things that'd
be awesome if we get to work with Joey. He
wants to work with us, Yeah, absolutely, So he put
(06:14):
together a list of what we need to do. We
had like four different iterations of this plug in. We
just kept getting better results because we kept getting better studios.
Oh and I kept getting better at like sampling drums.
Eventually we had to finished product set it in God.
I released and I'm happy with it, but I will
own the fact that I could have done more to
(06:38):
keep skinning the game once the drum plugin was recorded, okay,
And had I been given the chance to go back
and like continue the momentum after it was released or
leading up to it, I would have just done more
drumming and promotion and marketing and advertising and commercials.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
I just kind of took a back seat.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And I think some of that's just because that world
kind of scares me putting myself out there too much
in terms of like I'll do a playthrough, or I'll
play drums using my plug in you can record, like
I know it sounds funny because I do this for work.
I played drums literally lit but it's something that I've
had to get I've had to grow into, and now
(07:18):
that I have a studio, I'm getting more and more
comfortable playing drums and just letting it happen right, And
I'm grateful for that. So I liked I'd like another
shot at a drum plug in. And there's something that
I've been working on that I'm very excited.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
About in the short term for shaking twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Maybe I'm thinking twenty twenty six. Okay, cool, Yeah, we'll
leave it that. We'll leave it at that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Who are some of the inspirations for you for drums going?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I mean, growing up.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Growing up, I loved Mike Portnoy.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Oh yeah, dream theaters all lost my did? Yeah? Where
was that here? They played here? Who played dream Theater?
Dream Theater?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah right, Doumbia don't main stage, side stage.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
It's incredible. I don't feel like we I don't feel
like we intersect that much. That's really cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Wow, that's how many bands are on this. It's like
one hundred and seventy five plus bands all four days.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
It's crazy. Wow. Man, I'm honored to be here. It's awesome.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Mike port and I was a big one, Thomas Lang,
Aaron Spears, and then like some of the some of
the more and then into like actual thing. I know,
Port and I had Dream Theater, but like less clinician,
more just I'm a drummer in a band. Blake Richardson
from between the verd to me and Thomas from.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
A Shuka O. Yeah yeah, I was sick, guys. Yeah,
amazing talent, awesome as a drummer.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
What's some advice you would give somebody that you know
wants to step up their game for drums?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Level up? Basically, I mean practice.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
I'm telling myself that at home, like, if you want
to get better at drumming, you have to practice. And
we all hear that and we say, oh, okay, I
can do that, or you say yes, okay, that's it,
and then you get home and you're like, I have
a lot of stuff I need to do and drumming
is pretty low. It's got to get higher. You have
to prioritize drumming. What's the best way to practice? The
(09:16):
best way to practice is to say I'm going to
practice for fifteen minutes instead of three hours. If you
say you're going to practice for three hours, you won't practice.
If you say you're going to practice for fifteen minutes,
you start playing, you realize, oh my gosh, I forgot
I wanted to work on this and it's been an
hour and a half already. Another thing is put the
fun back in it, So smile, suck, shred, don't start
with the suck stuff like I'm not good at this,
(09:37):
I'm gonna start just playing hold your stick wrong, sit weird,
watch TV, close your eyes and play like it was
the first time.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Like just enjoy it like you used to. If you
feel burnout, what was that?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Smile, smile, yep, suck and then shred Wow, and shred
is where you pull your phone out and you just
like record an Instagram video post it. Get the dopamine dump.
This is the part I used to really suck at.
Now I'm pretty good at it.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Wow, smile, sucks, shred it's going on a shirt.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Yeah, I actually have to tame it down.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I shouldn't say tame it down.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
I was born and raised in a home where you
were not allowed to say suck, say it stinks. So
if I teach a really young kid, I go to that.
But it doesn't have the same a fact.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Right I feel.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Tell me about Christmas Burns Red. It's coming up right
around the corner. It's going to feel not.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
As hot, hopefully some snow. Yeah. So where's this that?
Where can people go?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
What can people expect if they've ever been to Christmas
Burns Red before?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, Christmas Burns Red is in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, our hometown.
So it's this really fun thing where it happens in
our nicest part of Lancaster City. In my opinion, the
Square a nice hotel, convention center. You can stay on
site and you you basically can get tickets for the weekend,
so people.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Fly in or drive in, they stay there. It's kind
of a destiny when you have some pretty heavy bands
on there too. There's some good stuff happening. Yeah, stuff nice.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Thank you Danny for having it at this amazing festival.
As I started my way through it, I'm nervous.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
It's all good. It's all good.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
So you can get tickets at Christmas read dot com.
Like I said, it's a couple. It's a two day event.
You can get ticket at your event. It is our event, Yeah,
it is our festival. That okay, So the inception of it.
So we used to play the Chameleon Club, which is
this really legendary hole in the wall venue in like
so that's no more.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
But we grew up cutting our teeth there. It was awesome.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
And we started playing this song Carol the Bells that
we covered right that was the only Christmas song we had.
And then we started wrapping presents and handing them out
and we started decorating the stage, and eventually we just
started making it just this Christmas show. Had it been
ever December? We started putting out more Christmas music.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
It was really cool. Now we just made it a brand.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
It has its own website and yeah, it's a destination festival.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Dead Lands played there last year.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Great guys, I've interviewed them before, and you know, you
get a great lineup this year. I feel I can
make my way out there. I hope to see you there. Yeah,
we had a lot of fun, Kevin, what else do
we got? We got twenty twenty six right around the corner.
What can fans expect from you guys in twenty twenty six?
Speaker 3 (12:14):
So we're we are going to have a pretty busy
twenty twenty six. I can't say much about the touring aspects, okay,
but the hope is to have some new music in
the works and to have us on tour playing a
lot of places.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Okay, far out.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Of that, and the next year we doing what we've
done for twenty five years, playing playing shows and releasing
me it doesn't time just fly, dude. Two thousand and
three we started this thing. I'll be forty next month.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, And I still feel like I'm twenty four. Yeah,
so I try to play double bass for like three
minutes and I'm like, oh, that's right.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Practice, wonderful. What advice I have to last questions for you?
What advice would you give to up and coming bands?
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And why?
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah, this is a really good question, so I will
admit I'm thirty nine. I'm not nineteen starting a band
at nineteen in two thousand and three seventeen. Different world
is a different world, but I think there are some
common threads connecting then to now, and one of which
is just hard work. We used to sell pizzas big
(13:23):
sale plasma donation to make money to record our first WHOA.
I think if you're willing to work hard, you can
get far, regardless of some what might be considered major factors,
like what does your music sound like or how popular
is your band or how good is you record? Like,
I think if you work hard, that is a large
(13:45):
piece of the puzzle pocket you actually have control of,
right area. I think that you need to expect more
of yourselves than you expect of other people. There's this
idea like other people need to do things for me,
or promote me or help me and it's like I
(14:06):
wouldn't I wouldn't consider others to be in your in
your court right. They might be, hopefully many will be,
but don't bank on it. Instead, look internally, what do
we have the five of us guys, four of us guys, like,
what can we do and not depending on anyone else
to get to where we want to be. And then
(14:27):
along the way you'll probably see people who are like, dude,
I believe in those guys because they believe in themselves.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Working these festivals and being around. I mean there's some
legendary bands that we've just been in the presence of.
I've learned more watching being around, looking at gear in
my lot, like last three years doing this stuff. Oh,
I've beeve just like grinding, I mean, no offense. Local
shows are great than grinding. Local shows. Yeah, I asked
(14:53):
all those I asked a lot of bands those questions,
So I appreciate you sharing has their own different answer.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah. Finally, what words would you say to fans?
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, thank you for supporting August Burn's read for twenty
two years. We do not take it for granted that
we have support from you to do this job that
we love so much. We consider ourselves really really lucky.
I say lucky, but blessed. I consider myself very blessed
to play drums professionally. I mean today at home in Pennsylvania,
(15:24):
my brothers and my dad are harvesting soybeans on our farm.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Oh nice, Yes, I'd love to be there.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
And man, it's hard to make money. So the fact
that we get to do this as a job, it's incredible,
and I know it's because of the support we have.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
So thank you very much, wonderful. Well, I appreciate a
little bit of your time.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Thank you very much. I'm wanna talk to you here
in a second off air.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
This is Matt from August Burns Red Real seekret re
Recorded is out right now, Christmas burn Tredd is right
around the corner. Get his drum, forced plug in. Get
ready for another plug in probably in the future, hopefully
some new music or some stuff that we can't really
talk about. In twenty twenty six and hey Town Electric
has a August Burnshred guitar pedal.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Go get it.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
It's awesome and we'll see you guys next time. This
has been the Kevin Powell Podcast. Make sure you're following
an iHeartRadio Spotify or wherever you listen, so you never
miss a new interview.
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