PipemanRadio Interviews Canadian Instrumental Prog-Metal Band Phaeton

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, you have done to censure w C WOW for
you young. This is the pipe Man here on the

(00:32):
Adventures pipe Man W four C Y Radio. And I'm
very excited because we have, like I do, a lot
of bands from Canada because their music is so good.
I never really understand you have artists in Canada that
don't need nine members at a band, and we get
make a fuller sound than nine members would. So we're

(00:54):
going to talk about that with our guest here from
the band Theton How are you very good?

Speaker 2 (01:04):
I'm very good. Thank you very much Dean for hosting
me today.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Hey, my my pleasure. And yeah, it's so true. Like, okay,
so I tend to think that most prague or prog
metal comes from Canada anyway, because you guys are like
the greatest musicians. I don't know if it's because you know,
your weather's so cold for most of the year that
you're just stuck inside well learning music.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, well that's part of it. I mean, like you
have to realize that you know, like, well we're not
you know, an antarctic wasteland or anything like that, but
still with Canadian weather, Yeah, you've got five months of
winter and then you've got seven months of bad sledding,
so and so again. Yeah, I mean that's the faster
you can play, the warm your hands stay.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
So there you go.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
It's like, yes, there's very much, Yes, climactic inspiration. That's
a key part of it. But it's funny you should
say that though, because I mean, like we take a
lot of inspiration from I mean, I mean, yes, a
lot of prog metal getting made here in Canada, that's
for certain, but we take inspiration from American Prog Medal
and European Prog Medal.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
See. It's always like that, I find out because like
I go all over the world doing radio coverage at
music festivals, and it's so wild to hear other people's perspectives,
Like even at like I do a couple of festivals
in the UK, and I talk about how like when
I was a teenager in the eighties, all I wanted

(02:31):
to do was go to London because of the punk scene.
And then I talked to my friends there and they're like,
all we wanted to do is come to the States
for the punk scene, and I'm just like, it's just
so wild the perspective from every area. We always it's
just human nature. We want to be somebody else.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
The grass is always greener on the other side of
the Atlantic.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Right right. And you know you brought up a good
point before that I always think about too, is when
it is cold out, how the hell do people play
their instruments? Like, you know, if you were to play
a festival and it's freezing outside and you're in an
open air festival, there's got to be the hardest thing

(03:12):
in the world to play any guy of instrument.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Oh it is. But luckily my wife's a knitter and
so she knitted me a whole bunch of pairs of
special fingertipless gloves. Wow, actually do for that, because I
mean I live in the Canadian Rockies and so during
the winter time there's lots of gigs to be had at,
you know, the ski resorts, which ye have quite a
bit of on the British Columbia side of the Rockies
and the Alberta side of the Rockies. But of course,

(03:37):
I mean, it's not fun when it's below freezing and
you know, you're like three thousand feet above sea level.
But hey, you don't have gig will travel, But yeah,
you got to be able to have you know, nervous
sensation below your elbows. Right, so hey, it's the frontier
spirit man, improvise, adapt and overcome no doubt.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
And then you know, it's funny because they're going on
tour now. But I mean, to me, Rush is like
probably the original, even though they don't probably consider themselves
as way prog metal band to me, you know, because
to me, that first album was totally metal, oh for sure. Oh.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
I mean like it's like how whenever you interview the
surviving members of Black Sabbath, right, they never considered Black
Sabbath to be a heavy metal band, right? I mean
like that term was invented by journalists a couple of
years down the road when they noticed that certain elements
of post psychedelic you know, hard rock was moving into

(04:38):
darker and more you know, scarier territory. And the same
with Rush, right, I mean you got to I mean, Rush,
of course, are Canadian legends and icons, and I'm so
glad they've finally gotten their due after being crapped on
by most of the so called knowledgeable critics for so
many decades. Right, but no, like when they like when
they first evolved, especially when you heard their first album

(05:00):
and they were more of like a derivative led Zeppelin,
who sounding kind of band, right yeah, And then when
Neil Peart joined the band, that's when they became a
progressive rock band. And that's when they began combining elements
of seven what you know, what was nineteen seventies heavy
metal into seventies progressive rock. And no, they'd never really

(05:22):
considered themselves prog medal, but of course all of us,
who well I'll speak for most of the Canadian contingent
of the metal world, you couldn't avoid Rush and again,
like you were inspired by them right right, you know,
I mean you had a singer that sounded like a
cross between Robert Plant and Donald Duck, you know, and
again and the guy redefined what you could do on

(05:46):
the bass guitar, at least as far as I was concerned.
You know, you had Alex Lifson, who was born in
our neighboring town of Fernie, British Columbia. Have to nice
so you know, so the Coutineys you know, take Rush
to heart quite a bit. And you know Neil Pierre
right like tractor salesman by day, percussion god by night,

(06:08):
right and so yeah, I mean especially like some of
their albums, like you know, there there their late seventies
work like you know, like a farewell to Kings and Hemispheres,
those kind of albums were really there, their prog Pinnacle
moving pictures as well. But like, but it's great because

(06:29):
to talk about how fearless a band was. That was
a band that was flying the prog flag in the
late seventies when most of the classic prog artists were
getting their careers killed by the punk rockers. And you know,
and Prague became a dare I say four letter word, right?
But no, hey, like it's it's better now, right, I

(06:49):
mean with the twenty first century and the rise of
the Internet, and now there's no more monoculture, right, Like,
there's no more there's no more passing fads or phases
the way it was in the nineteen nineties when you
couldn't admit you were a heavy metal fan because all
the grungeers cut your throats, you know. And it's like
and now it's like anything goes and everything goes, and

(07:10):
there are huge worldwide audiences for any style of metal,
whether you're a prog artist or a metal artist or whatever.
And it's great. It's you know, musical democracy at work,
and we love it.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
I love it too, because I do come from the
gatekeeper shit.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
You know.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
The eighties was the pinnacle of gatekeeping, like, oh well
you can like one band and like another band. It
wasn't even just genre.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
It was like, oh yeah, yeah, well that kind of
tribalism doesn't even exist much anymore. I mean you do
come across a lot of you know, like upity and
annoying metal fans that you know, say that I like
metal and nothing else. And maybe to a certain point
you can say that because now there are so many
divisions and sub genres of heavy metal that a lot

(07:58):
of times it's hard to keep track. Yeah, but I
mean speak of the point of view of me and
the other guys who are in faton. It's like we
don't want to be one dimensional, right, I mean like
if the term progressive rock means anything goes and proge
is what you make of it, it's like you can
draw inspirations from anywhere you see fit as long as

(08:21):
you make it work. And uh, and yeah, I'm glad
those gatekeeping days are gone.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
To it's just oh it's stupid. I couldn't go to
punk shows because I had long hair, you know, and
vice versa, you know, and it was just like it's
just stupid, like whatever you want to like. And for
all those metal heads that say they only like metal,
I call bullshit because if you really like music, there's

(08:47):
all there may be music you don't like, but there's
playing different types of music you like, depending on what
you're doing, your vibe, you're feeling whatever.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Oh I agree. Like for example, Colin Wrighton who is
he's our drummer and he's super super good. I mean
we rely on him because you know, he's always glued
to you know, what's being released on band camp, you know,
every three days and he's like, hey, have you have
you heard Bludgeoned copra Phagist or something like that, And
I'm like, uh no, and he'll say check it out.

(09:18):
And but Colin's also a big Tom Petty fan and
he makes no bones about it. So I mean, like,
you know, and you've got you know, Kevin Teeson, who
is our one of our lead guitarists and he's also
our keyboardist. Like he's huge into like the seventies prog
bands and the eighties neo prog bands like me but
he also has a soft spart because he's a Genesis fan.

(09:41):
He has no bones being a Phil Collins fan, right,
or Huey Lewis in the news or whatever. And yeah,
you're right. When I was a junior high school kid,
you couldn't have Metallica albums or Huey Lewis albums on
the same shelf. Otherwise you just got torn apart. But again,
like and you don't even need to be a prog

(10:03):
musician or a metal musician. I mean, just be a
music lover. And yeah, you're gonna and it's all subjective
as far as your music tastes go. Right, You're gonna
have stuff you like and stuff you don't like. But ultimately,
whatever you consider to be good music or bad music,
it's entirely up to you.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
That's so true, because everybody has different tastes and it
should be okay, you should as well as you like music.
I don't care what kind of music you like. It's
the people that don't like music I worry about.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Well, no, like they're sociopaths. Right, You're going to stay
away with those people, otherwise your severed head is gonna
end up in the refrigerators.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
No doubt, no doubt. And it's funny because I have
a brother his ex wife she didn't like music at all, and.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
That's why she's an ex wife, right, And she was.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Definitely very emotionless, you know, And that's what sociopaths are.
I think that, and I think that's music is all
emotion and all passion, and like it's the best therapy
there is. And as far as Prague goes to me,
progue just means really good musicianship. That's really what it

(11:16):
means to me.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Well, and that's the thing too. And again, like and
here's how we get into the four of us get
into long conversations about this, right because a lot of
times when you talk about we talk about our identities
as a prog musician, it's almost like we spend too
much time defending ourselves. Right, It's all right, but again, like, yeah, okay,
you need like be good at your instrument, just like

(11:39):
be good at baking a cake, be good at be
good at hanging a door. Right, Like like nobody wants
to eat a badly cooked cake, Nobody wants to walk
in and out of a badly hung door, and like
nobody wants to hear awful music unless they're being polite
at an open mic and friends friends on stage and

(12:00):
you and then you carefully say, hey man, good set. Right,
But it's like but again, like you don't there comes
a time when the chops have to end and the
music needs to begin, right, I mean like it does.
Here's the deal. I went to music school. You know
whooped de do? Okay. I went to the same music
school that Kevin Teeson did, and you know, we were

(12:24):
like ten years apart attending it. But still it's like,
you know, jazz was the curriculum because it was complicated
and harmonically deep and all the rest of it. And
I'm not a jazz fan. Kevin isn't a jazz fan.
We appreciated the you know, the structure of it and
gave you know, respect to the people who were doing it.
And it's like anything else, right when you're going to
an art school, you take what you want and you

(12:45):
leave the rest. So it just made us better, well badest,
better metal players. It made us better you know, prog players,
because again, like I got into actually taking the step
from being just a music lover as a kid actually
being a musician because I was inspired by Metallica's and
Justice Farrall album. And I was inspired by you know,

(13:08):
the Pink Floyd albums of the nineteen seventies, and I
was inspired by you know a bunch of other things,
like a lot of like the rising thrash metal of
the nineteen eighties. Plus like that's my bands and bands
like Rush and all that kind of stuff. Like that's
what made me want to learn how to operate one
of these stupid bass guitars. Right, and you figure, ah,

(13:29):
four springs, no chords, how hard could it be? And
then you find out how deep of a well it
actually is. Right, But again, like and I mean, I'm
not the best bass player. I'm a good bass player,
and I do my best to play my best, but
I'm also you got to be musical. You got to
be melodic, and when you're writing stuff like this, you've

(13:50):
got to you have to have an idea for song structure,
and you have to have rise and fall. You have
to have dynamic pulse. You have to have you know,
the tide goes in, the tides go out. Sometimes, Yeah,
you got to pound people on the head for five
minutes straight, but sometimes you can do an atmospheric you know,
an atmospheric interlude or what have you. And with us

(14:13):
because we're an all instrumental band and you know, our
songs aren't written as vehicles for lyrical storytelling. It's just
like any other instrumental rock band you've ever heard in
your life. Like, the instruments have to do the singing. Yeah,
the instruments have to make memorable melodies which hopefully the

(14:35):
listener will remember and happily hum away under their breath,
you know, like when they least expect it. And just
I mean, yeah, there's a difference between masturbation and music, okay,
and you know, and it's just like and again like
and again like that not what we're doing isn't alien

(14:58):
or weird, right, I mean you take a look at
like modern modern artists like Animals as Leaders is a
good example, right, or scale the summit or intervals among
others who maybe be more maybe are more underground. But
again it's just like if you have I guess, yeah,
if you have an ear for all whatever styles of

(15:20):
instrumental music, but if you like hearing you know, rock
band format, a drum kit, a bass guitar, two lead
guitars and maybe an occasional keyboard. Then you've got a
good chance of understanding what we do, and hopefully you'll
go beyond just understanding what we do and you'll just
enjoy what with the music we write.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Well. To me, like music without lyrics a lot of
times takes you on journey and you're not really distracted
by the lyrics. You just lose yourself. Like you mentioned
Pink Floyd, you take a lot of Pink Floyd and
you'll forget there's lyrics because it'll go through this whole

(16:01):
instrumental phase, you know, and you're just like you're off
somewhere else and then all of a sudden the lyrics
to them in or like with Rush in twenty one twelve,
you know, it's like by time Temple of Searings comes
into play, you've already been on pretty long journey without
any lyrics, you know. Type of thing.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Well true and again like yeah, it's about creating soundscapes.
I mean, you take a look at a band like
Pink Floyd, who was you know, the first band I
fell in love with when I was fourteen, right, and
I was inspired to buy all their recorded output and
just you know, lived with those albums for like a
year or two before I discovered heavy metal for real.
It's like, as far as the prog, as far as

(16:43):
the classic British prog bands of the seventies go, the
guys in Pink Floyd weren't necessarily the most you know,
technically wizardish of the of their instruments David Gilmore notwithstanding.
But again, like they knew how to create somepes, and
they knew how to create you know, like a they

(17:04):
they knew how to make repetition not dull, and they
knew how to create again take you on an emotional journey. Yeah,
and you know, and some of their best work like
again like Animals, their nineteen seventy seven album that's probably
still my favorite of.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
The first one I got exposed to. But it was
because of a girl. All road to a female.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well there you go. And again like and especially because
you know, everyone like a lot of they're more you know,
a lot of the more snarky critics of Prague like
to write off Progue as being pretty much a sausage
fest and you know, and like a you know, no
girls allowed. Well, yeah, the girls are allowed, and the
girls do like Prague. You know, it's like you know,
it's got to open your eyes and realize, oh, there's

(17:48):
a female with a black T shirt at this concert,
which is wise of the black T shirt at this concert.
You know it's a but yeah, yeah, animals stupendous right,
Like they're their angriest album, their fieriest album, their most
politically charged album. As far as the storytelling, you know,
again like using Orwellian metaphor to describe the human condition.

(18:11):
And yeah, it's like again that we're not a burst
of singing. I mean, I mean I sing well, and
Daniel sings well, Daniel Earth, our other lead guitarist. But again,
at the moment, we're just happy to let our instruments
do the singing. And you know, and we've got lots
of good music on this third album that we've just released.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
And you know, I gotta say the first of all,
you mentioned jazz and you mentioned thrash, and it makes
me instantly think of that Megadeth could easily have no
words to their music because Mustain's jazzy metal guitar playing

(18:55):
says a whole story in and of itself.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
I agree with you completely. I mean again, rust in
Peace was a huge album for me in my formative
years and it's still my favorite Megadeth album like to
this day. And even when you just like take a
look at a song like Holy Wars the Punishment do
if that isn't a prog metal song, what is right?

(19:19):
And again, like you know, especially when you have when
you have a counterpart with Dave Mustaine, again a brilliant
guitarist unto himself, but when you're working with a god
like Marty Friedman as well. You know, again my favorite
lineup of Megadeath. And again like if you know, if
if that irascable Dave just you know, just was probably

(19:42):
a little easier to deal with, you know, I mean,
like you if he had kept that lineup alive for
you know, half a dozen more albums, who knows like
what those guys could have created. But again I'm happy
for rust in Peace. And yes, you're absolutely right. I
mean Dave Mustaine certainly didn't lack for imagination during you know,

(20:02):
when he wants to be imaginative, right, And you know,
and again like you know, there's when you hear his
guitar playing, you know it's him.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Oh yeah, no doubt and for sure, and yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
I wouldn't be doing this if it hadn't been for
Megadeth being one of my early influences, that's for certain.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
Well, yeah, I was at Mentauka's first show ever, and
actually my Stan came off the stage and started talking
to me and.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Well, are you talking like you're you're talking like.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
In La in La and like eighty one one me
to something like that in La. It's all it's all
like a swirl. So many years ago, five years old,
I was actually probably thirteen maybe, and no one checked you.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
No one I d do you, No one car died
you at the door. No.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
In fact, it's funny when I go in Rainbow nowadays
and I look at the guy card and everybody at
the door, I'm like, Hin the hell did I ever
get Because I was in the Rainbow like every night,
hanging out with Lemmy and Motley Crue and people like that.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
I'm like, oh, I know how I got in. I
just walked over there with Motley Crue and you just
walked in. It's a different time way back then, for sure.
Like I couldn't imagine some of the shenanigans of those
years that I lived being available to kids today.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
No, definitely, different times. Tell me a little more about
that show, though. Ron mcgoverny was on base with Yeah,
with that, how were they?

Speaker 1 (21:40):
I instantly became a thrash metal head and there was
no such thing as thrash medal yet. So you know,
I my dad moved me to LA in nineteen eighty,
perfect time. And you know, my first club show ever
was at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip. That was
Motley Crue before they ever had an album. They were

(22:01):
horror punk. They weren't glam yet.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
And then so the Misfits.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Pretty much, and they tried to light the Roxy on
fire to bring Satan in. And I remember going to
that show, I know, right, and I remember going to
that show. Coming at her. I'm like, oh my god,
I'm never going to a real concert again. Like that
was my first club show. I was like, I'm only
doing this. But then you know, LA got weird with

(22:29):
starting to go to the glam and all that, and
and so you had bands like Metallica up here, Slayer
up here, you know, and that's the bands that I
got into. But that first show of the Metallica is
it's it's funny shows. How stupid your as far as
value of things when you were a kid. Because Mustaine

(22:49):
comes up to me, starts talking to me, and he
hands me a business card and it said Metallica power
Metal because they were power metal for a minute, there
was no thrash word. Dave Mustain and like everybody always
asks me when I if I tell that story or
like do you have it today? I'm like, fuck no,
I could throw it away. I'm like, well I need

(23:11):
this shit for you know, because I was a stupid kid,
you know.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
But who knows. I mean, you didn't know that you
could sell that for five hundred bucks on eBay, you.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
Know, right, there were only like twenty five people at
that show or something like that.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
You know, it's probably opening up for London or a
band like that exactly.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
And that's what happened is these bands had to play
with the glam bands because there was nothing else in
LA and that's why they went to the Bay Area.
I mean I saw a striper open for Slayer.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
To give you any idea, well, there's a there's a dichotomy, right,
that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
So it's kind of how mixed up it was. But
you know, Slayer ship probably been playing with bands like
Dri and stuff. But you couldn't because they were punk
and Slayer was metal. It was just stupid that shit. Ever.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
But that's the thing though, the weird thing about how
the origins of thrash metal were because again, like they
took like the ferocity and a lot of like the
riffing like from hardcore punk influence. Yeah right, I mean,
like you take a look at like like when you
listen to kill Them All. Okay, Okay, there's a bunch
of zitty eighteen year old kids who, yeah, you could

(24:21):
tell they had Judas Priest albums, and you can tell
they had you know, Motorhead albums and all that, but
they also had you know, they also had Dead Kennedy's
forty five's right, also had black Flag stuff. Right, So they.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
Discharge all of.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
The hardcore stuff, all of the turn of the eighties
hardscore stuff, right. And I think about that too. And
as far as like you know, when people talk about
prog metal, and again, like a lot of people talk,
they talk about it as sort of like this adversarial
bastard child sort of situation where it's like, oh, prog
plus metal, Oh, east is east and west is west,

(24:58):
and narrow the rain shall meet, you know, and it's like,
actually metal, especially metal, how it evolved in the eighties.
It became progue's angrier cousin, Okay, because again, like I said,
like listen to Holy Wars the Punishment do That's that's
an intricate progressive rock song structure and arrangement that goes

(25:20):
through all sorts of rises and falls. I mean, the
next time you listen to the song Master of Puppets,
if you don't hear progressive rock in that, then your death.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
Well that's the point too.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
They would and again like they would do Metallica, they
laid a lot of that groundwork, right. You take a
look at like early instrumentals like the Call of Catulhu
co written by Dave Mustain, you know, you take a
look at again like just how they took the prog
metal thing to really angry angular efforts with and Justice

(25:53):
for All again one of like my top ten favorite albums.
And again that was the first time I ever saw
a rock band in an arena was when Metallica was
on tour for the Damaged Justice Tour with opening act
The Cult playing the Saddledom in Calgary, Alberta. You know,
June third, nineteen eighty nine. I remember it well. It

(26:15):
was the night of the Tieneman Square massacre. It was
the night that the Ayatola Coomani died, and it was
the night that I saw Metallica. And when I finally
got home it got back to the motel room, I
just thought, this is the most poignant date ever.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
And I was right, oh yeah again, like again, like.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
When you listen to like songs like the end Justice
for All song or the or listen to dire Z
Eve or listen to the to Lives to Die instrumental
suite they put together, I mean, yeah, it's like where
does Prague end and where does metal begin? Right, It's
a huge gray area and it's like looking at a spectrum.

(26:54):
The colors just shift and fade into each other. There's
no hard divisions, there's no separate camp. It's all about,
you know, in terms of thrash metal, it was all
about adventurousness, imagination, ferocity, and you know and technical blistering
right now, and so we have we bring those elements

(27:16):
and we bring like whatever softer melodic stuff as well.
But again, stuff like that provides about provides half the
backbone to what we do.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
In Faton and I and I agree with you because
you know, listening to your latest music, to me, it
brings me back to eighties with a little modern kick
to it, like to me, thank you. A lot of
metal has that prog influence. I think the difference between

(27:46):
metal and punk back then was a prog influence because
punk was just straightforward, you know, chord chord chord and
you know, no leads, you know, just pure like raw
and whereas metal did mix in that prog musicianship into it.
Like so you did have a mixture of punk, metal,

(28:09):
prague all in one. To me, that that describes Megaath
actually for sure.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
Or I mean even in Canada, like one of our
favorite bands is No Means No, and it's like you
take a look at them, like I had the privilege,
you know, like I know those guys personally, and I've
you know, I've shared stage at them in previous bands
and all of that. And again there's a band these
That's what happens when you're like with a band like

(28:37):
with No Means No, who combine punk rock energy and
ferocity with prog rock sensibilities to create their unique sound. Again,
like if I guess punk can be anything you want
and progue to be anything you want, but again it's like, uh,
just stunning, or to look at the Dead Kennedy's for example,

(28:59):
like the Dead Can all those guys were pop notch musicians.
East Bay Ray like again like a blistering like a
surf rock guy, like sort of like Dick Dale on
forty five rpm speed right, Klaus Fluoride one of my
bass heroes again like all the energy and dig dig
digg in the world, but also like melodically sensible, right right.

(29:23):
You hear when you hear that Night of the Living
Rednecks jem that's on them. That's that's on the Give
Me Convenience or Give Me Death compilation, the one like
where you know, Jello Biafra is just talking about, you know,
running away from Rednecks and hiding in a phone booth
while while while the East Bay Rays changing his string
and so d h Peligro on the drums and Klaus

(29:44):
Fluoride start doing this jazzy improv thing. It's really really good,
and it's like, uh, so, I mean, you can be
minimalist and be ferocious like the Ramones or what have you,
but you can also be ferocious and get your punchy
point cross and you can have chops too. It's like again,

(30:06):
it's good music versus bad music. What do you consider
good music? What do you consider bad music?

Speaker 1 (30:12):
And that's always subjective, and it's because it's a vibe.
It's what you feel. Like what I feel when I
listen in metal is not the same as what other
people that don't like metal feel. You know, it's an
energy along with the music. There's an energy there, and
I think that's what's beautiful about instrumental music is it's

(30:33):
all energy. That's what I'm That's why I think of
when I think of no distraction from lyrics, because it's
just it's just energy put into the musicianship, like you're
in a zone, you know, type of thing, and it's
and as a musician, you do get in the zone
when you're doing stuff like that. How could you not

(30:53):
tell me? You know? It's like sure, So I think
that's where that journey comes from. You're going on a
journey first, which makes us take the journey with you,
is the way I look at it.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
Well, it's true again, like we want to fascinate the listener.
We don't want to bore the listener or anything like that.
But it just says we want to fascinate ourselves and
we don't want to bore ourselves, right, I mean, and again,
like what we're doing, we don't consider it to be anything,
you know, explosively new again, Like one of my favorite

(31:27):
albums is The Inner Mounting Flame, which is the first
album from the Ma Vision Orchestra. You know that goes
all the way back to the year of my birth
nineteen seventy one. And you listen to a song like
Vital Transformation, they're blasting away in nine to eight time.
Billy Cobham is as attacking as drums and the riff

(31:47):
like killer like it's a you know that to me
sounds like a riff that again Daniel earth Hereon would
have written, you know, and what you say is completely
true the Dean I mean, like with all instrumental music,
whether you're going all the way back to the late
nineteen fifties and you're talking about people like say like

(32:07):
Link Ray or Dwayne Eddie, you know, or the Ventures
or Dick Dale and his Delltones, right and you know,
or you know Johnny and the Hurricanes, or you go
on through to the more the more familiar, I guess
guitar driven metals like yeah, Joe Satriani, Steve VII, all

(32:27):
those shred Eye Nights as I call them. You know
that Mike Varney signed to Shrapnel Records back in the
nineteen eighties, right. And again, like even even the punk
subculture though even in the nineteen nineties where you had
bands like Don Cavallero who were guitar driven and doing
like lots of like odd time signatures and creating lots
of really cool moods. There again, getting back to Canada,

(32:51):
you've got Godspeed You, Black Emperor, which is basically like
an underground punk squad guitar orchestra with nice christ knows
who many how many members. But again they've got you know,
ten albums and they're revered worldwide and all that good stuff.
And again even now, like if you want to look
into what prog metal has coalesced into in the twenty

(33:12):
first century, animals as leaders again like you know, Tosin
Obasi and the boys just brilliant, genius stuff, you know,
scale the Summit intervals, you know, and we just consider
ourselves part of that seventy year timeline.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
And you definitely are and like that Theaton should be
in that list that you're listening off, except I can
say it. You said it. It might be more egotistical,
but I'll say it, and I mean like it says
it all too like you have it. On the new album,
you have a guest appearance from Derek from Dream Theater,

(33:52):
Like you must be really really good if somebody like
Derek wants to play with you.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
Well, here's the story how that happened. And we're still
pinching ourselves to make sure that that was actually real
and that actually happened. Well, we had talked, we've talked
about it, like ever since we came up with the
second album Between Two Worlds, about how it would be
nice to collaborate with people and you know, not necessarily
trying to you know, automatically shoot for you know, like

(34:22):
brand name superstars, you know, as far as brand name
superstars gets in the worlds of progressive metal or what
have you, but still just trying to like just to
just to make friends with like minded musicians. And so
when we were when we were getting to the tail
end of the recording sessions for for the songs that
would end up on the Neurogenesis album. You know Colin

(34:45):
wrighten our boy Wonder, he decided to reach out to
Derek Sherinian and just said, hey, would you you know,
this is we're Phaeton. We you know, we come from
a small town in the Canadian Rockies, and you know
we're always been impressed with you and the work that
you've done over the years. Would you like to guest
on our songs? And to everyone's surprise, you know, Derek

(35:10):
came back. He's like, well, yeah, well thanks for sending us,
Thanks for sending me, you know, like your first two albums,
and yeah, you guys are really good. And it's like, yeah,
for sure. I mean Derek Sherinian does a lot of
session work, but again he doesn't just jump at any
Tom Dick and Harry that rings him up, right. I
mean like we would like to think that you know

(35:31):
that he's happy to be part of it. And again,
so we we figured that the song Isochron would be
the one of the one of the seven album seven
songs on the album Pardon Me that he would best
be featured on, and so we sent him the raw
tracks and like, honestly, like like the next day, the

(35:55):
following day, like we're talking like a nineteen hour turnaround
all of a sudden in our inbox. He came back
in with half a dozen different sculpted takes throughout the
entire song, and he was doing stuff like like he
had listened and just sonically analyzed and was able to
match like all of the riffs that all the guitar

(36:17):
riffs that Daniel had written, and all the guitar riffs
that Kevin had written, and matching Colin's drum patterns or
whatever bass figures, and so he had six. It was
dynamite like again, like like we could release half a
dozen different versions of Isochron just featuring the six different
takes that Derek did. And so Kevin, who is our

(36:40):
in house engineer producer, he's brilliant, like one of the
best you know, without without pumping smoke up him or
anything like that, Like like even if I wasn't his
friend and wasn't in a band with him, he is
like by he should be one of like the first
call engineer producers in Canada. Kevin just said, hey, I'm
just gonna I'm going to make a composite track and

(37:01):
take the best at what he did from these six
takes and just basically like spread it out like mayonnaise
on a chicken sandwich, you know, and like and just
and just bring this song more to Glittering Life.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
And he did.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
And it's I mean, all the songs we consider to
be standout songs because we love all the songs we've
put on a Neurogenesis, but to have Derek Shrinian on
there was a real treat for us. And I mean
we have no idea whether or not, you know, that's
going to give us any more clout or credibility in

(37:35):
the global prog metal eyes for what have you. But
still it it meant the world to us. It proved
to us. Yeah, it proved to us that, Yeah, where
as good as anything that Derek Sharinian has ever worked
with before. And Derek, if you're out there, thank you again,
and yeah, we'd love to work with you again.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, I mean listen, he probably could. You can perform
with anybody. So the fact that they chose you, guys,
says it all about your music and about how good
this new album is that drops on the twenty fourth
of October here in a couple of days, it does,
and uh man, that's pretty exciting. So how do people

(38:20):
get the album when it drops? Can they pre save it?

Speaker 2 (38:23):
Now?

Speaker 1 (38:24):
How do they connect to you guys? That yeah, they can,
they can.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
They can reach out to us either through well www
dot Fatonprague dot com, or they can reach us on
Facebook at you know, Facebook dot com, forward slash Faton band,
or they can go to our band camp and uh,
you know, Colin's the one that handles all of that,
you know, like like technical gobbledegook, I'm just a bass player.

(38:52):
But no, if people want the album, yeah, you can
get it for sure. You can if you want to.
If you want to pre order, I'm sure that can
be done at the very least. If you just want
to wait until Friday the twenty fourth, you can just
buy it for your own digital little grubby hands and
get it yourself. And again, like we're planning on releasing

(39:12):
that a hard copy as of vinyl pressing in early
twenty twenty six, and so when that comes around, we'll
be doing another round of hey look at us well
to help promote it and all of that. But yes,
we're very excited. It's like we had a bunch of delays.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
I mean, look our.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Second album for example between two worlds who we're very
proud of. And again it's probably our heaviest album of
the three that we've made so far. We had that
ready to go and we were and what do you know,
what was our release date, March sixteenth, twenty twenty, and
what happened on March sixteenth, twenty twenty. The world put

(39:52):
on the closed sign and so we had to wait
for the pandemic to run its grinding, grueling course before
we could do anything. And then Colin got sick, and
then Colin got well again, and then finally from twenty
twenty three onward, we've regained the stride that we've lost
and so it's very This has been very cool for

(40:14):
us in the post pandemic world that we live in
now to finally get new stuff written and new stuff recorded,
and new stuff released and really ramp up our live
performance game, and which we were trying to do before
the pandemic you know, erupted. But now we're just we're
regaining ahead of steam on that. We're touring quite a

(40:36):
bit all throughout the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia.
We're looking into what we can do, say in the
Pacific Northwest States and California, which are the closest American
audiences to us. And again looking into, you know, looking
into European opportunities as well, because playing in Scandinavia and

(40:57):
playing in Germany, we seem to be getting quite a
lot of critical acclaim already for for you know, advanced
listenings and advanced reviews of Neurogenesis. And so I mean,
if we're gonna, you know, if we're gonna think about
starving to death in a van trying to go to
some remote town and mosquito ridden northern Ontario, then we

(41:18):
should see about starving in a van going into the
mosquito ridden wilds of northern Sweden.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
There you go, or play in Vakan.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
Wouldn't that be nice? I mean, like we certainly, we
certainly want to throw our hats in the ring to
you know, to play the local Vodkan metal battles that
happened in in Edmonton and Calgary and Vancouver and all
of that. And yeah, I mean with the with the
stuff that we're gonna be recording and releasing after Neurogenesis,

(41:47):
which we're gonna get hot and heavy with in the
in the weeks and months to come. You know, this
is where we're probably gonna end up shopping around to
a label, because we're at the point now where we
need label support and order to do any grandiose stuff.
And it seems to me that the people who can
get picked for Vodkin, even if you are just playing
you know, a side stage at that massive, wonderful event,

(42:12):
the ones that are on a label are the ones
that get picked first for the team.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah, it's a true story. Well, you guys are good
enough to be on a label, and now we just
gotta get out there so that right label notices and
then who knows, we'll go from there.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Inside out is one of our you know, our prime
hopfuls we wish to you know, as far as knocking
on doors, you know, Season of Missed of course, you know,
like these are the labels that I think would understand
us the better. You know, We've always like talked about
wanting to keep you know, we're control freaks, so we
like to like, you know, try and keep it. We're
trying to keep it as much a a of an

(42:50):
in house cottage industry as we can, but there's only
so much you can do. In a day.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
That's what I love about Season of miss is that
they are really good to the artists and give the
creative control over there.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Well, and that's the thing, like, and they do really
good stuff for our friends in Ancients. The Canadian metal
Bound just won their second Juno Award for their latest album,
Beyond the Reach of the Sun, and they're currently undertaking
a very triumphant American tour. So anyone out there listening
to this who sees Ancients pop up on their feeds,
go check them out because you'll be suitably blown away.

(43:24):
And they've been with Season of missed for well over
ten years and you know, no complaints from them, So
good enough for Ancients, good enough for us.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
If they'll take us, well, let's put it out there.
I do a lot of them with them, so let's
put it out there, and uh, we'll put that out
in the universe. Then I could interview you at like
Hellfest or something.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Yay, wouldn't that be wonderful?

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Man?

Speaker 2 (43:49):
Right, have a memorable event, will travel there?

Speaker 1 (43:53):
It is, well, you guys, definitely rock amazing musicianship amazing music.
Everybody has to pick up Neurogenesis or else they can't
listen to my show anymore. That's right, And I have
one last have a trivia question for you to end
the interview, only because you're a basist. I asked the
same trivia question to every basis. Only one has ever

(44:19):
gotten it right, and that was literally a couple of
days ago, was Will from Collective Soul, and he got it,
like first guest, Okay, yes.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
I am collective, Yes I am gainfully employed. Is that
the question?

Speaker 1 (44:34):
No?

Speaker 2 (44:34):
Okay, okay, sorry, yes, okay, okay, I'm ready for the
actual basis question.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
Who is one of the most famous basis in history
that was not a basis and had to be a
basis because there were already two other guitarists, so he
drew the short straw and had to be the one
that became bass Paul McCartney. Nice, no hesitation there, And
speaking of.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Paul McCartney, I mean, like you want to talk about
the Beatles being you know, some of like the Big
Bang progenitors of what became progressive rock, when they started
getting out of their Beatlemania stuff and moving into their
more psychedelic experimental stuff during the second half of their career.
You take a look at Paul McCartney as a bass player.
And again, if that isn't prague, I don't know what is,

(45:20):
because I mean before Paul McCartney, Look, most rock and
roll bass players were just juggling away on blues patterns, right.
But Paul McCartney came from a he was a piano
player as well, right, And his dad was a well
known jazz band leader in Liverpool. And so when Paul
McCartney would play his bass, he played it with the

(45:42):
sensibility of a guy using the left hand of a piano.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
Nice. And I didn't know that, and it blew my
mind when I heard about you know, they wasn't originally
a bassist because I was a Beatles freak from a
young age. And you know what I tell us, Stute.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Stuart Sutcliffe was the original bass player for the Beatles.
There's a really good nineteen ninety three Have you ever
seen that nineteen ninety three movie Backbeat.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
I'm pretty sure I have, because I've seen I remember
seeing a Beatles movie all about Stu, you know, and
that's the.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
One like it takes place like in Liverpool. I'm not
in Liverpool. They're playing in Hamburg, right. It's during their
Hamburg days from like nineteen sixty to nineteen sixty one,
when they're you know, they're playing eight hours a day
every day and they're all jacked up on precedence and
beer in order to keep the energy going. And yes,
Stu Sutcliffe was the bassist, but he left because he

(46:35):
was an artist, a visual painter where he was a musician.
And so McCartney, you know, yeah, he drew the short straw.
But luckily for the popular music that happened from nineteen
sixty three onwards, we're all lucky. Yeah, Paul McCartney drew
that short straw.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
Yeah, because now that I know it, and I listen
to Beatles' songs now, like I listened to it, I'm like, oh,
I hear it, you know, Like I didn't really notice
till it was told to me and then I really
listened to Beatles music. I'm like, wow, Like I he
played the bass like a guitar basically.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Well, yeah, because he wasn't just he wasn't hovering on roots,
which is important when the song calls for it. Again,
he was spelling out you know, scales and melody and
like and spelling out the chords and doing going like
being fearless all across the neck, right, I mean like,
and yeah, that's the thing that once you actually realize
that about Paul McCartney, you go back and then you

(47:34):
listen to something new and the Beatles songs all over again.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Oh yeah, the shortest straw was drawn for him.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
There it is. There it is, and the longer straw
is drawn for Neurogenesis, because again, everybody's got to get
the album where they can't listen to my show and
they'll draw the shortest straw and be kicked off my show.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
So you see, people, if you want to keep listening
to Dean by our album.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
There it is. There it is. Guys. Support artists, man,
especially great musicians, because man, it's great when I hear
somebody like you as so much passion for being a musician.
Because the days of the rock star and then getting
thrown a bunch of money and everything are over.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
So hey, man, we're Canadian musicians. We're making tens and
tens of dollars.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
At a bad conversion, right yeah, I know, I mean, like.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
I know, it's almost like a getting paid in lira
or something like that, right, but hey, it's an onward
and upward and full on Fathon.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Well, full on love it and I thank you for
being on the Adventures of pipe Man and I hope
to see a lot more of faithOn. Thank you so much,
thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Man.
I'm w for CUI Radio.

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