PipemanRadio Interviews As You Were at Welcome To Rockville 2023

Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Hey, you love them too,that's one why you wake up of America.
It's time for the Adventures of PipeMan on W fourcy dot com west

(00:25):
pom Beats, his number one internetradio station. Here's your host, the
White Man. I had sing mytime to get to my pime mountains.
How I tie I had you bymy way day because it's the pipe Man

(00:54):
here on the Adventures pipe Man Wfour c Y Radio. And I'm here
with as you were. Such abrilliant band name for what you guys are.
Thank you very much. I loveyour shirt. Actually, that's a
cool I gotta tell my son becausemy son's psyops. I'm like, you
need to get fatigues like that,right, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(01:17):
as you were. It's the bestuniform ever. Now do they let you
wear that as part of your uniform? Yes? Yes, So we we
represent the US Army while we're onstage, and we there's always something on
our outfits that you know, givescredit to the Army's pay him to,
you know, paying our bills andsending this out here engaging with the American

(01:38):
public. So yeah, we representin our own way. Nice. I
remember the first time I talked toyou guys, call my son afterwards.
I'm like, why didn't you signup for this job? Like, why
are you doing what you do?This is a much better job in the
army, definitely, probably because hedoesn't have talent. It really is the

(01:59):
best job in the army. We'revery lucky. There's over one hundred and
fifty different jobs and we found thebest one. Yeah, Instead he's jumping
out of planes into Somalia and likewe'll see in six months. We don't
know yet. I think me asthe parent, i'd rather see in that
Rockville. Yeah, definitely, Icould see that. I could see that.

(02:19):
So tell us what it's like tobe in the army and in the
band and playing freaking Welcome to Rockville. Well, the first time we came
here was in November twenty twenty one, and that was like an experiment for
us. I don't think this bandhas ever done that. In sept for
Warped Tour when it was like reallyin the early stages of this band,

(02:42):
so coming here we had like noexpectations of what it would be like.
We thought we were going to bein fatigues, you know, playing like
it was gonna be very army,But it was really cool seeing one the
treatment of Welcome to Rockville. Youget in the green room and it's like
this is for us. It's crazy, and then you get to see obviously
all the great music, but it'sreally cool to see how the crowd responds
to us, especially like when wedid our first show here. Tommy was

(03:06):
like, hey, you know,we serve in the United States Army,
were active duty, and the crowdjust went crazy and it was like a
super awesome experience to see because inthe Army band, normally you're playing for
community events and stuff like that,so you don't really get huge crowds like
over here. So playing Welcome toRockville and all the Danny Wimmer Presents stuff
is phenomenal. I mean, andespecially seeing all the people who come after

(03:29):
the booth and they're like, itis. I do a lot of festivals.
It is the most professional festivals,and they do take care of people
that are part of it, likeyou guys, and the fact just alone
taking care of our armed forces.That's good enough for me, you know,
because thank you for what you guysdo for us. Yeah, we

(03:51):
really appreciate it. And Danny Wimmerhimself came up to us and said,
you know, like you were great. We want you here all the time.
So that was really respectful for us, you know, seeing him actually
come up to us, say,we watched the show. We saw you
guys like huge talent. So seeingthat, I mean, that's like a
dream come true. And after that, all of the other ones I followed.
It's the same treatment and it justgets way better and better. So

(04:12):
I love it. Now. Adifferent version of this band used to play
at the Warp Tour, right thatwasn't any of us, but that we
thought would be the apex of thisgroup. But now that we get to
do this, I think we've metthe apex already. There it is.
You are at the apex, andyou know, I think you guys got
to tell the listeners, the youngones like all about this because I know

(04:35):
if I thought when I was akid that I could play music in the
army, I would have joined.Probably I didn't join because I was into
music. So I think it's importantto educate, you know, the young
people out there of like, there'sanother way, it's not you know,
this image of what it is togo into the army, Well, yeah,

(04:59):
that that's a little bit of mystory. I can say on my
unique story, I joined late fromwhat is usually I joined at twenty seven,
But I have that same say thatwhat you say, I wish I
knew about this earlier. But alsoyou know, I don't regret a joining

(05:20):
late at twenty seven because you know, I came with experience and a whole
life of being exposed to different things. And the cool thing about it is
that I can use all that thatI did before right now on this job.
And that's the cool thing about whatwe do. We go around,

(05:41):
we place high schools, not justfestivals like this one, which is great,
but also we led the joint generationthe high schoolers that the Army have
to offer, not just this job, but one hundred and fifty different careers.
Yeah, because a lot of that, you know, cultural and movies.

(06:02):
The perception is that the Army isall about combat, which is great,
but also you can do in thearmy, like like I said,
one hundred and fifty opportunities out therewhere you can serve and music is one
only one of them, and thatis that is great, you know,
to be part of serveys, doingwhat you went to college for and serving

(06:26):
people on that way. That isactually great. Yeah, that's very cool,
And you know you brought up agood point because you know, like
serving in the army isn't what peoplethink it is. And I know for
my son it changed his life andturned him into a man, which might
not have happened. And when Isay that, people could say, oh,

(06:48):
well, you're a man when you'rethis age. No, you're a
man when you're acting like a man. You know, it has nothing to
an age. And he would tellyou himself. You know, he's a
totally different person than he was backthen because direction, education, experience,
and you know purpose. That's agreat word to use because that's so true.

(07:12):
Purpose. That's usually why kids goastray because they don't feel in need
of purpose or any purpose, andthat I think is something you're absolutely spot
on the army Gibson. And Ithink that's the cool part and unique part
about this group specifically is yeah,we fall under recruiting, but like kids
will see us in high school onethey'll say you're the first band I've ever

(07:32):
seen, which you know that youalmost feel like kiss or guns n' roses
whenever you hear right. And thenthe second thing is like those outcasts the
people who might not know what theywant to do in life. I came
from that. I joined at nineteengot you know, it was like my
dad's I either go to college oryou join the military. And had at
one point seven GPA in high school, so I don't think I was going
to college. So I joined themilitary, not as a band person,

(07:53):
as signal and ended up reclassing.But point is, like we actually show
the kids there you can follow yourdreams. You can do exactly what we're
doing, play music, instruments,you can, you know, be a
scientist anything you want. The armyand it is it really is incredible psyops,
cybersecurity, you know, just crazythings that and you could go to

(08:15):
different things. Like my son startedas a mechanic, yeah, you know,
and now he's like he's pretty serious. There's a lot of shit I
don't know and I don't ask,you know. Yeah, and like he's
so proud of it too, andhe's he's definitely a military man all the
way, you know. And Idon't even know if he'll no way that's

(08:35):
after he retires, because this isall he's known and it's definitely even his
mentality. But it turned him toin my opinion as the dad, a
respectable man who provides for his family, is responsible and and you know basically
doesn't do stupid shit to be fun. Yeah, later beat him. Like

(09:00):
I said, you know, Ithought I was I knew almost everything you
know when I when I joined themilitary. But for me personally, it's
being an experience and uh and Iwill say, a humble experience of learning
like I was back in their gardenin leadership school for example. You know,

(09:20):
like my conception of what is leadershiptotally changed when I joined the army
um and not just being a leaderfor being a boss, but actually taking
care of people, taking care ofyourself, your family. And like Ryan,
our drummer says, you know,it gave me a purpose of I'm
here to learn as well, notjust to perform. So we all have,

(09:43):
you know, different areas so togrow and some of us are way
ahead in this track or and someof us like us. I'm the last
member that joined this version of asyou were, so I have a bunch
to still learning from this guys thathave been here longer than me. And
it's not just music on what wedo, but the military aspect of this

(10:07):
job it's it's really interesting too ifyou're in too, you know, change
your life acquiring other set of skillsthat other why will you will have to
either pay to learn them or havea degree on that or you know,
it's it exposed you to that kindof learning. Absolutely. And I want

(10:28):
to talk about the skateboard because youcame up with the board and like,
now you impressed me even more.Okay, their army and they're playing in
a band at Rockville and skateboarding.Yeah, so one thing I know that
so a lot of our bosses,you know, the Army in general is
pushing this work life balance Thingum.They they're really stressing you know, they

(10:50):
want you to find this this youknow, the right the right kind of
balance between being you know, beingyourself but also you know, being a
representative of the United States Army atthe same time being professional. You know,
there's something that we call the Armyvalues that we're supposed to live by
at all times. You know,whether or not you're wearing the uniform or

(11:11):
not, right, but you know, the Army does encourage you to you
know, be yourself and to youknow, if everything is going well,
you should be able to express yourselfin that way and have your hobbies and
stick to them. And me personally, the Army has been really good to
me. I mean they sent meto Germany as my first assignment. I'm
an Army brat. I grew upmostly overseas anyway, and that's exactly what

(11:33):
I wanted, you know. SoI got to travel, you know,
and I take I take leave allthe time to travel and as often as
I can, I'm on my longboard, you know. Yeah, you'll find
me around my neighborhood skating and fightingnew spots. And then of course there's
the musical aspect as well, sowe each one of us. Music is

(11:54):
a huge passion, probably the biggestpassion of ours, and we get to
do that on the outside as well. We are musicians on the outside.
We play gigs, and then wealso get to serve our country playing music
as well, coming out to youknow, Rockville and other Danny Wimber presents,
you know, festivals and stuff.So it's great. We're beyond thrill.
That is awesome, you know,because it's not the image everybody always

(12:18):
has of it, you know,And I didn't have that image of it
while I was a kid, likemy image was, Yeah, nobody's telling
me what to do, and nobody'stell me cut my hair. So I'm
not going in the army, youknow. And so I like that you're
educating people and showing them a differentway. And I'd love that whole work
life balancing because most of us inthe United States don't have that, you

(12:41):
know. And so if the Armyis starting to teach that, I think,
speaking of leadership, that's going totrickle down to the rest of us.
Yeah. Absolutely, yeah, it'sreally Yeah, that's a very important
thing, very important thing. Yeah. So is there any goals of as
you were, that have not beenreached yet that you're still looking at?

(13:05):
I know, I know our ourdrummer has mentioned that, you know,
hitting the Apex, you know,getting getting to the high point, and
we've been laughing, and you know, me and and Ryan the drummer here,
we've been here the longest and we'vebeen saying to each other for years
like, oh, it can't getbetter than this, and then it does,
and then oh we get to anotherfestival and it can't get better than

(13:26):
this, and then it does,and then enter in Ohio. That was
the Apex. I think he's joking, he's joking. Way still waiting to
go to the Caribbean and help somekids there, you know, and uh
living experience nice. Yeah, Ithink I think getting to Puerto Rico and

(13:48):
playing some shows there would be umthat that's a dream of ours for sure.
And there is there is an opportunitythat that that does exist out there.
You know, there are there areyeah there really honestly at this point,
nothing would really surprise us. Well, you know, it's funny,
okay, you talk about Germany andlike my son was Station Germany. My
son in law was Station Germany.And I'm thinking you guys need to play

(14:13):
like kin play where Waking which isthe a big metal music festival in Germany.
Yeah, and you could represent theUS in Germany. Yeah, music
that you know, Yeah, becauseI mean and and actually if as you
were, was, if we werebased out of Germany, we probably would

(14:33):
get an opportunity to the you know, the Army maybe would consider sending us
out there. You know, theyhave bands actually there there is an Army
band that is full time stationed inGermany. Wow. Yeah, And so
that's that's another thing. There's athere's an there are Army musicians that are
stationed full time in Belgium as wellas well as Japan and Hawaii. So
there are international Yeah, there areUS Army international musicians out there who are

(14:56):
stationed around the world, you know, serving their country. Like I would
never think of any of this stuffthat's going on, you know, And
that's the misconception that maybe most peoplehave of the armed forces. Like it's
not what you think. It's youknow, you're living life doing what you
want to do. Listen, you'rein the Army and you're playing music and

(15:20):
you're skateboarding and doing whatever else.Like I mean that to me, that's
the apex I would say that's true, is if you get ahead of it
and figure out what you want todo before you join the army, and
then use the army's career path toget it. Is what you want,
That's what I'm doing. Like,I just drumming. That's my purpose.

(15:41):
So I'm using the Army do that, and when they kick me out,
I'll do the same thing. AndI love that you're wearing your dog tag
and your drum key on the samenecklace. Yeah, you can even hear
it. I mean love it.So how do people reach out to you,
guys, connect with you. Isthere merch that they can get because

(16:03):
we know bands need merch to surviveand uh, you know everything else.
Well, the coolest part about ourmerches is free. So we just released
our fourth album. It's on Spotify. We have vinyls we hand out at
all the festivals, all the highschools. So whenever we come, that's
typically what we do is we'll playa show, meet us at the tent,
we'll sign it. How you canreach us as Instagram, AYW Music,

(16:26):
Facebook is Army Musical Outreach. Sowe have a Spotify of all of
our albums and we have a websiteaywmusic dot com as well. Nice.
Every time you say high school,I'm just thinking myself, what a brilliant
way to recruit, Like, whydidn't they do that when I live in
Nice and you know, I wasa recruiter prior to this thing, And
I'll tell you we used to dolike table setups and all that stuff.

(16:48):
And you know, you're not gettinga lot of interaction with the kids because
it's the uniform and they're like scared. When we go and play, they
rush the tables, stay rush in. They're like yeah, well, we'll
sign up next week. We'll go, we'll go. Most of my friends
have probably needed to go into theArmy would have reacted to a band being
there. They would have never reactedto the table. Actually, I have

(17:11):
a pretty cool story that recently happened. The other day. We had a
day of and well, I'm thebass player, but I went with Austin,
who's the lead guitar player, andTom, who's the singer and guitar
player. We went to a localstore here. I guess I'm not supposed
to mention names, but you can'tmention who every well, we went to

(17:33):
the addict the guitar attic um inday Tuna, and uh. It was
funny because we were talking to himand he asked us, like, who
are you guys? Of course itwas day off. We were not in
uniform, you know. But Austinmentioned to the owner of the store,
who's also of course a guitar player, that you know, we're an army

(17:53):
band what we do and apparently aversion of as you were before this name
was established, went to his highschool. What year he's saying, in
the eighties, because that's when Iwent to high school. Exactly. So
apparently this assisted, but it wasn'testablished like or being run like it is

(18:15):
right now, where it's structor eyed, you know, and we have a
whole support, a battalion and youknow, a whole structor behind us.
But back then, in the eighties, you can see the Army was trying
to do something like this, whichwhich is really cool. If they did
it more like today, maybe likeMetallica, we've been an army band.
Yeah right, Oh my god,that would be so funny. Yeah.

(18:37):
He was just saying. He wassaying the same thing you're saying. He's
like, you know, and Inever I we didn't even mention we were
in army. It's like a sawan army band. They were like,
great, they inspired me to pickup the guitar. And I was like,
oh, well, it's just aregular army band. He's like,
no, this was a rock band. Man. They were playing in UFO
like all kinds of stuff. AndI was like, that is crazy to
be here, Like what a simulation, right right? And I didn't even

(19:00):
know that existed way back then.Yeah, so the Armies do a better
job of putting you guys out there. It's very cool, is there anything
else you guys want to share thatwe haven't covered a rate that people need
to know. I would just say, you know, we we want you
all to be happy and successful.If you all have a plan for what

(19:21):
you want to do in life,we wish you the best of luck.
You know, we work under recruitingcommand, but we're not recruiters, you
know. All our job is tospread the message of the opportunities that are
out there. So we just wantto encourage people if they don't really have
a plan, you know, toconsider some of the options, some of
the career opportunities that exist. Andlike I said before, we want you
all to be successful and happy,and you know, find your passion and

(19:45):
follow it. And if that isthe Army route, if the Army route
helps you all get there, thenyou know good, especially nowadays where education
is so freaking expensive, and youcan go in the army and you can
get a GI bill and you canget in that vacation without having a few
hundred thousand of the rest of youI had. I had sixty five thousand

(20:06):
dollars of student debt paid, andthen I also got a master's degree that
was almost completely paid for by theArmy, and I still have education.
But I still have my post nineto eleven GI bill completely untouched. So
if I wanted to, I couldeven go back to school and get a
doctorate and have the Army pay forit. It's amazing because most people wouldn't

(20:26):
be able to get a doctorate withouta without the Army the right because I
can't afford you. Yeah exactly,and yeah I have no, I have
no I'm debt for you because ofthat. That's amazing. See there's more
stuff that's good about it, LikeI never even realized till my son got
into military, like the benefits ofit. Yeah. I was more on

(20:48):
the other side. I was like, you joining the Army for it?
Yeah, you know, and hBut now I see what it's done.
And listen, I look get himand his family, and it's the dream
because he created the stability that everyparent wants their kids to create. That
something I probably never had even andI credit the Army for that because he

(21:14):
was definitely on a bad path beforethat and he went the exact opposite of
the pendulum. That's good. Gladto hear that. So there it is.
And then we could just play music. Yeah, like yeah, and
then the only thing I guess Iwould say is just you know, follow
us on our page. We havea great year of festivals and other shows
coming up. So AYW Music,like Austin had mentioned, AYW Music is

(21:37):
where you'll find our page on Instagram, on Facebook, it's Army Musical Outreach.
And then also on YouTube. We'rejust type in as you were or
Army Band as you were, andyou'll find us. We've actually just dropped
a music video not too long ago, about a week ago, So yeah,
we have some music videos up there. Check it out. And yeah,

(21:59):
if you stream music, Apple Music, Spotify, wherever you stream it,
you'll find us. As well.Being in the Army too, you
probably have access to some of thebest technology for doing the videos and the
music and everything. Yeah, Ithink, and the Army has been really
good to us too. I meanthey've sent us out to some world class
studios to record our music as well. I mean we did our first EP,

(22:19):
we did it at a small placein Louisville called Downtown. Recording the
second album they sent us out toSonic Ranch outside of El Paso, and
then the third one we actually wentto Sweetwater Studios up in Indiana. So
I mean we've we've actually been givensome amazing opportunities to make use another thing
too, especially in this day andage. Like back in the day,

(22:41):
record labels would throw moneys at bands, so they don't do that anymore.
So now you know, this isan avenue where you know, it's like
you're getting the highest of production andget stuff that a band not in the
Army would not be able to doit. Right, we're actually building at
we're our own studio and everything's youknow, faith for m by the Army.

(23:07):
So wow, yeah, it isfree, cool experience. I love
it. Well you guys rock,uh, you definitely rock. Welcome the
Rockville and there it is. Yeah, thank thanks for being on the Adventures
of pipe Man. Thank you pickingus here at Welcome to Rockville, Rock
and most of all serving our countryand protecting all of us to be able

(23:32):
to have this interview. Well wejust have to thank you all. I
mean, without your love and support, you know, without the American public,
you know, giving giving us thisopportunity, we wouldn't be here.
So we really we come from aplace where we're very humbled and we're very
honored. You know, we feelvery honored, and um, I love
it. Thank you. And I'malso of an opinion that listened. You

(23:52):
can be against war but pro soldier. Yeah, and that's that's kind of
like who I am. I'm nota big war person, and but that
doesn't mean against a soldier because thesoldiers, the way I look at is
you're doing something I wasn't willing todo to protect my right to say whatever
I'm saying right now. And that'sthat's the way it is, that's what

(24:14):
it's all about. Absolutely, Yeah, and we thank you some badass rock
and roll. Yeah, absolutely,thank you for listening to the Adventures of
plate Man. I'm W four CUIRadio

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