Michael Ciravolo: The Man Behind Beauty and Chaos

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Attention all you fishes in the sea.
You know him as president ofSchecter Guitars.
You know him from Beauty andChaos.
You know him from a magnitudeof other awesome well-known
bands.
Welcome, michael Ceravello, toSwim in the Fishbowl.
It's raining here in Pittsburgh, pa, which is the perfect segue

(00:26):
for my catchphrase.
Thank you for taking the timeto swim in the bowl with me.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, ready to dive in.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Right, let's hope the temperature is just right.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
All good, I heard cold plunges are the thing
nowadays.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Joe Rogan and BertKreischericher, all those guys,
yeah, uh, yeah, they're alldoing the uh, the, the ice, the
ice bath plunges and all that.
I'll take a hot bath any day.
Yeah, same here, same here.
But hopefully, you know, uh,you know, uh, I'd be like a
poached fish, awesome, awesome,um.

(01:03):
Well, let's's get right downinto it.
My first question for you,first of all, I'm a huge fan,
love the band, love everythingabout Shredder Guitars.
I am a big.
I don't play myself, but I'm abig, you know, love guitar, love
shredding love.

(01:24):
Just, you know, from everythingI heard, from kind of like the
dawn of psychedelic rock withJimi Hendrix and on, and even
Chuck Berry and going down to,you know the guy who you know
was, I guess, criticallyacclaimed for being the founder
of blues, robert Johnson.
You know I'm a big, big guitarguy.

(01:46):
But before we kind of get intothat, my first two questions
that kind of coincide togetherare what got you interested in
music and who are some of yourmusical influences?

Speaker 2 (02:03):
You know, at 13 or 14 , I thought I wanted to be a
football player.
I'm a big New Orleans Saintsfan, as you're probably a
Steelers fan.
Just in those kind of mid-sizedtowns, you know, teams mean
more.
Right right.
I didn't kind of get you know6'2 or run a 4'3, 40.

(02:26):
So it was actually sitting inmy parents' little kitchen
growing up and seeing T-Rex andMark Bolan on I think it was in
concert, or maybe the MidnightSpecial, one of those late night
TV shows, and just seeing MarkBolan, the guitarist, thelon
Lowe and the girl screaming inthe front and the dolls, seeing

(02:51):
Johnny Thunders and Bowie withMick Ronson, and kind of worked
that summer and bought anelectric guitar, excuse me.
And then, you know, as juvenileas it sounds, realized that
girls kind of like guys in bandsmore than they like girls.
So I went with the adolescentlibido method and just went.

(03:14):
I think I want to do that and Idon't remember much since then
that music and guitar hasn'tbeen a big part of just what I
do.
I was never.
I know you mentioned a lot ofshredder stuff.
That was never my forte.
It was like, well, the friendsin school as I got into high

(03:35):
school there's a little group ofguys that had guitars and some
of them got into Jimmy Page andall this more technical stuff.
And I'm sitting there going,hey, did you listen to this new
york dolls record and and stufflike that and they're like you
know they're playing a millionmore notes than me, but uh, I
don't know something about thekind of sloppiness and just kind

(03:58):
of from the heart, as opposedto technique, just is something
I gravitated towards.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Awesome, definitely, definitely.
I mean I like all types ofguitar playing, everything from
acoustic to, you know, electricto you know you can throw a
really like the Sintar in there,you know, really, just, I guess
, what would it be like stringinstruments and guitar-esque

(04:25):
like instruments in general.
Um, I'm a big big fan of, youknow, if I can hear a good bass
riff, a good, you know, uh,guitar riff or not even a riff,
but it's like everythinginvolved with the rhythm.
Um, the rhythm is moreimportant to me than you know,
actually shredding and, you know, showing off essentially, um,

(04:47):
but in a good way, you know, uh,but I'm, I'm, I'm just a big
fan of rock music and I wasraced to, you know, on on
listening to tommy in the car.
Uh, who's next?

Speaker 2 (05:02):
uh, cooper, I mean the guitar is a very expressive
instrument and I think as I gotolder and kind of had a little
bit more grasp I started toappreciate.
Like I was saying, I didn'tappreciate Jimmy Page when I
first started playing guitar,partially because I couldn't

(05:22):
play it, you know, and the EricClapton's and all that stuff
never was really my wheelhouse.
But as I got older, you know, Ideveloped a late fondness for
what Page did, especially in thestudio and David Gilmour of
Pink Floyd.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Definitely.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
He can say more with a few notes than some of these
guitar gymnastic players can sayin a thousand, and I think I've
kind of grown into a later inlife appreciation of the subtle
stuff and sounds.
I think that's one thing that Ithink stands out on the Beauty

(06:01):
and Chaos records.
There's a lot of textures and alot of things that on the
surface are probably thought tobe synthesizer or something else
, is a way that we manipulatethe electric guitar and that's
sort of the foundation of whatwe do.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Absolutely.
And speaking of Beauty andChaos and you brought up Mark
Bolan and T-Rex just a momentago I love your cover of 20th
Century Boy and Children of theRevolution.
I am a big, big T-Rex fan.

(06:38):
I'm not sure if you're familiarwith this newer artist.
His name, he just goes.
The band is called Jossie andthe artist's name is Jossie
Hughes.
He is like a reincarnation of amixture of T-Rex, bowie and

(07:01):
probably Jet are the three bandsthat um, uh, I could probably
sum up kind of like the fusionof uh of of jossie's uh music.
But uh, he was playing withalice cooper on the new track
and, um, very like you know, uh,old school sound, I think.

(07:22):
Okay, kind of froze there.
There we go.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Sorry, I don't know if my weather or your weather
are a combination.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yeah, it has to be a combination.
It's not a pretty day here inPittsburgh, VA.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
I will definitely look into that artist.
Yeah, that's where I caught myteeth and doing those two.
Our versions of those two songswere a blast.
I thought Al Jorgensen did agreat job.
I definitely one of thosesurreal moments and I'm not sure
if you've heard the otherversion that we did.
We do a version of 20th CenturyBoy with Mark's son, roland,

(08:02):
and that was pretty surreal.
Wayne from the Mission and Iboth kind of have a similar
story when we talk about, youknow, being influenced by Mark
Bolan and it sort of being theimpetus for us picking up
guitars and when we both got toplay with him and then, after we
finished the video, to haveRoland just kind of stand there

(08:25):
and go.
Man, I think my dad would haveliked this that's awesome that's
a pretty, it's a good gut punch.
You know, it's like wow, uh,that, that's, that's a, that's a
great feeling absolutely.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Uh, I mean I can, I can only imagine something like
that happen.
I mean uh, uh, for me it has.
It would have to be theequivalent of uh, I guess arnold
schwarzenegger or sylvesterstallone telling me that uh, I'm
a good, I'm a good intervieweror a good, uh, script writer or
something you know.
Oh, you do that pretty good.

(08:59):
Exactly, you know.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Stop eating all the cookies yeah, two icons there,
for sure.
But uh, yeah, I think markboland stuff you know showed
that you can do it kind ofunfolded into punk, which is why
he had that sort of later inhis career comeback like touring
with the damned and all.
I think you can see what hecould say with three chords in a

(09:27):
good melody and doing it with,uh, gusto and a smile, you know,
right, right well, um, on thetopic of guitars and guitarists,
um, and being president ofshredderder Guitars, who would
you say are your top 10 bestguitarists of all time?

Speaker 1 (09:49):
You mean with Schecter?
That's Schecter.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, sorry, sorry, we do have some Shredders.
My top 10?
God, it's going to be prettydifferent than I think what
people would expect.
You know, if I go down the listof guitar players in schecter
that are, it's like sinistergates and zach wilde, and I mean
great guys and friends.
Uh, me personally, you know,I'd go down the list.

(10:14):
I would say mick ronson, uh,mark boland, not known as a
guitar player, but you know I Itend to put the songwriting
element in it.
I love what, what JohnnyThunders just does with his
guitar, with just pure emotion.
That's three.
We got seven more to go.
I'll throw David Gilmour inthere because that's something

(10:38):
that's as of late I've reallytried to listen to him and get.
I have nowhere near the vibratoor anything that guy has.
That's just pure and natural.
You know, as a kid I alwaysloved Ace Frehley of Kiss.
I thought the guy could bend anote much like Mick Ronson.

(10:59):
You know they could just hangon this note.
That just leads this emotion.
I always thought Joe Perry, youknow, again he has that sloppy
guitar swung low.
You know, thing going on.
I love Kevin Shields of myBloody Valentine just for the
sheer bizarreness of the tuningsand what he does like, the way

(11:21):
he affects his guitar, what hedoes like the way he affects his
guitar, I mean most of thoseguys, nobody would sit down and
go.
You know, hey, let's have acontest between those guys I
mentioned and Yngwie Malmsteen,you know, it's like I think they
really approach the instrumentdifferently.
I think the edge from U2, youknow, does again manipulates

(11:44):
theulates, the guitar andactually it's when you listen to
him play, it's a guitar and anecho, it's like one one thing.
It's not.
You know, probably if you tookhis all his pedals off, he would
be.
You know people would.
It wouldn't sound like the edge, so he would be another person.
I know, I know I I'm missingsome people, but those are

(12:05):
wonderful.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
You probably got to throw Hendrix in there.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
I mean the way that guy just, you know, attacks
Machine gun, he definitelychanged, especially when you
look at when that happened, theway people played guitar very
little distortion, the Kinks andthe Beatles, you know, if they
overdrove a guitar it was almostby mistake, like it hit the

(12:30):
preamp or the amp was screwingup.
But Hendrix, just the volumeand just attacking the guitar,
yeah, I mean that certainlychanged the course of rock and
roll guitar.
That was definitely not ChuckBerry or any of that stuff.

(12:51):
That was the beginnings of rockand roll.
That made the electric guitarkind of a weapon.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yes, yes, and his Band of Gypsies machine gun.
I was just starting to mentionHis Band of Gypsies machine gun.
I was just starting to mention,you know, talk about like
literally performing a battle onthe guitar and it also became a
performance.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
You know the guitar became a prop is the wrong word,
but it became this thing onstage.
You know it wasn't justsomebody with their guitar, you
know up high, you know, doingthe, the buddy holly thing it
was.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
you know it was a a form of uh, sonic aggression,
for sure absolutely um, what,what would be like your favorite
, um, I guess, decade iterationof, like of rock, um, you know,
there there's obviously beentalking a lot about classic rock
, but you know there's in the80s there was the hair metal,

(13:54):
the punk, uh, the beginnings of,um, you know, grunge and
alternative, uh, that reallycame out in the 90s and the 90s
you have like grunge andalternative and just a, a
plethora of music like in the.
You know the 60s and 70s, um,what, what would you say is the
most um, either your favorite ormost um, like, like most

(14:17):
favorite decade that you kind ofuh gravitate towards to um for
influences and stuff like that?

Speaker 2 (14:25):
certainly, for I was a child of the 80s, you know I,
and it wasn't the hair metalstuff, I mean when when the band
I was in Human Drama, we movedto Los Angeles from New Orleans
in in 80, late 85.
And hair metal was big.
You know, it's like I was druginto clubs and saw guns and

(14:45):
roses at the country club andmotley crew at the troubadour,
well before they were signed andit just I just well, it was
cool.
You know I saw elements of thenew york dolls and errol smith
and stuff in that.
That wasn't my.
I gravitated far more to thedark at at that point, the
darker gothic stuff.

(15:06):
The great thing about that timein music here is those scenes
coexisted at the same time.
But I still go back.
You know the Cure, probably one, if not my all-time favorite
band.
I always loved the MissionSisters of Mercy, you know,

(15:28):
later Depeche Mode and stuff.
But when you see that thosebands are still able to tour and
you know, especially looking atthe Cure and Depeche Mode and
still draw 30,000, 40,000 people, that certainly puts an
exclamation point on that decadeof music.
I mean, I started playing guitarin the late 70s so you know my

(15:50):
sister was into the Beatles.
She was older than me, god resther soul so I had a little bit
of that.
Listening to that.
I thought to Stones at thatpoint.
I just liked sort of the dirtyrock and roll element of it, you
know.
So to me the 80s was great.
The 90s I kind of got re, alsothe punk era.

(16:13):
I mean I had my.
I loved the Clash Still thinkJoe Strummer is just one of the
best.
Just put it all together andsaid something with his lyrics.
The 90s I did really love thekind of the minimalistic but
sonic stuff of like the 4ADcreation period with my Bloody

(16:35):
Valentine, slow Dive, lush.
Those kind of bands I thoughtgave music a bit of a kick in
the ass again.
The grunge stuff never appealedto me.
I think more from being outhere and seeing a guy in a club,
you know you nod hey, you're ina band, I'm in a band shit that

(16:56):
people in Los Angeles do andthe guy's got big blonde mane of
hair and in spandex.
And two weeks later Nirvanacomes out and uh, basically you
know it's like totally changesthe game extinction level event
for those hair bands either.
Got late and he's got a flannelshirt on and dreadlocks and it's

(17:19):
like fuck, how do you just Idon't know I that that's chasing
something.
Uh, so I think that's what madeyou know the grunge stuff never
kind of got it.
I mean, certainly it changedmusic and anything that kind of
shakes music up a bit and keepsguitar as the the main in the

(17:40):
forefront.
You know, uh, I think nirvanadid for music what the sex
pistols and clash did earlier itgave music a kick in the ass.
So, long story of your answer.
Uh, the 80s, you know, I mean,that's my record collection.
Uh, I'm blessed in beauty andchaos that, uh, a lot of the

(18:01):
people that have stepped intobeing being part of our family
are part of that recordcollection.
You know Simon Gallop from theCure, I think, one of the
underrated yet most iconic asfar as you hear it.
That's Simon Gallop and I think, as a musician, for somebody to
hear you play even simple andidentify that that's you, I

(18:26):
think that means you'vedeveloped a style, whether it's
technical, I think you knowtechnique sometimes is overrated
.
I think sometimes, if you knowtoo much, you don't have a style
.
You just kind of regurgitate.
And there's nothing wrong withyou know, knowing, theory and
stuff like that.
I think sometimes that's ahindrance definitely, definitely

(18:48):
.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
I mean, uh, you just mentioned, uh, and also prior to
, uh, my last question, we weretalking about some great um
artists and people you had achance to work with and friends
of yours, um, big, uh, big fanof the cure, uh, big fan of zach
wilde.
I am a huge, uh pink floyd fan.

(19:09):
Um, I I think, like my currentlike top two favorite genres of
music are, uh, like the, theshoegaze, like dream pub, neo
psychedelic, psychedelia, delia,however it's pronounced, um you
know if you want to pronounceit, you're sure right, uh, the

(19:31):
trippy stuff and ironically, incontrast, I'm really into like,
uh, the old school, like sabbathsounding metal, like doom metal
, stoner metal, stoner rock, um,stuff like that.
Uh, alice cooper is.
I've seen him, uh, eight, eight, nine times live.

(19:54):
Uh, big alice cooper fan.
Uh, I probably should have.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
I probably should have listed him in the beginning
because I did see that was abig moment seeing alice cooper
do uh they probably did 18 andstuff off.
I love it to death and uh, bigfan of special definitely the
original alice cooper group, andI'm kind of excited that they
are actually doing anotherrecord together.

(20:21):
It's like, I mean, all the guysare in their mid-70s but yeah,
that was that alice, that alicecooper band was dangerous and
without that you would have nothad kiss, you would not have
motley crew, you wouldn't havemarilyn manson.
You know, alice, definitelywhite zombie, yeah, I mean it
was.
But yeah, and I, glenn buxtonprobably should been.

(20:44):
I should have listed him as oneof my favorite guitar players.
I mean he just again, nottechnically crazy, but played
the right part for the song, butyeah, so I didn't mean to
interrupt you, I just went.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
No, no, no, you're fine.
Actually, it's funny you bringthat up because the artist I
mentioned to you before, JossieHughes, actually helped out, I
think on guitar or in some way,with Alice Cooper's most recent
track for his next upcomingalbum with the original lineup.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
What was that called Black Mamba?

Speaker 1 (21:21):
or something yeah.
Black Mamba, something likethat I Black Mamba, something
like that.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
yeah, yeah, um, I'm a , you know, oh, I'm not worthy,
I'm not worthy and I've nevermet Alice Cooper, but the great
thing is I've had friends thathave played with him and stuff
and they just said he's a greatguy and that that's really good
to hear.
You know somebody that's, Imean how what?
That first record was 73, so Imean to be doing it that long

(21:49):
and to still kind of get thatyou know you're just a guy and
you're you're getting to do whatyou love and to have like such
a good attitude I think isrefreshing I totally agree.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
I've actually had the pleasure of meeting once, um,
in Pittsburgh we have aComic-Con, like every other city
and country has a Comic-Con.
Now he was there.
I cannot tell you how much of anice guy he was, or is guy he

(22:29):
was, uh, or is um, uh, alicecooper is just a down-to-earth
um really just, I mean to thefans and everything, uh, you
know, I I like his music, I likehis, his cult status, uh, you
know movie actor stuff.
um, one of uh, my favorite, uhreally uh obscure horror films
that uh, he did the thesoundtrack for part of the

(22:49):
soundtrack was a movie called uhmonster dog, uh italian,
italian werewolf film.
Uh, he plays the star, uh,someone dubs his voice uh, and
um, he, he plays a rock starthat uh, his, uh, his father was
uh killed under mysteriouslycanthrope, uh circumstances

(23:13):
and he returns to his hometownto shoot a music video and uh,
ironically, the monster dog isis back.
Um, it's a, it's, it's really agood little you know, obscure,
yeah, that might have to be alittle late night Watch.
Yeah, yeah, I I highlyrecommend it.
I also have to say his, hisrole in Prince of Darkness.

(23:39):
You know John Carpenter, bigJohn Carpenter fan and you might
actually appreciate this storybecause you brought up Guns N'
Roses earlier, a good few yearsback.
Has to be going on 10 years.
John Carpenter came toPittsburgh to perform his scores

(23:59):
.
Ironically, I think his showwas on saturday or a sunday, and
then the following, I thinktuesday or wednesday, guns and
roses was playing uh at one ofthe the stadiums, uh stadium
shows here in pittsburgh.
Um, I'm a big horror nut.
Uh, I, my show focuses a lot onhorror movies and horror, you

(24:24):
know theme stuff.
And, uh, because I'm a localPittsburgh or Pittsburgh,
however you want to say it Um, Igot like uh, uh, you know a
special, you know, buy ticketsin advance before they go on
sale.
Uh, long story short, I get tothe show.
Um, I see slashes there with alike seven-foot-tall, you know

(24:51):
muscular Samoan bouncer who'snot letting anyone get close to
him.
But I have better seats thanSlash.
You're welcome.
Slash had to like look at theback of my head because I'm a
big guy.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Maybe the Samoan guy should have put him on his
shoulders.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Right, right, one of the few stories I have where I
actually have better seats, havebetter seats than you know.
A famous, you know guitaristmusician.
You know that that's I alwayslike telling that story.
It's a funny story.

(25:33):
But, and also, speaking of EricClapton and I mentioned the who
earlier my very first concertwas actually at a venue that
they tore down a good coupleyears ago here in pittsburgh.
It was called, uh, the civicarena.
Uh, if you're familiar with umold 90s van damme movie, uh,

(25:56):
sudden death, um, where it'slike with the penguins, um that.
That was the venue that theyshot it at and Eric Clapton and
Roger Daltrey opened for EricClapton, and that was my very
first concert.
I've also seen Roger Waters dothe Wall once.

(26:20):
As much as I like Waters, Iwould really prefer and still
want, and very much hope to seeGilmore perform.
Gilmore was always my go-to inthat band.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
I think most people other than Roger Waters would
agree with that.
I just hit the redoing of darkside, the moon.
Uh, I I mean that record'sclassic and I don't know what
later in your life that you'retrying to prove, like that
gilmore and the rest of the guyshad didn't have the imprint
that they had on that it's.
It's insane, I don't.
I don't know the band feuds andand shit like that is is which

(27:04):
is why we're so blessed at this.
I can't even say Beauty andChaos is a band in the typical
sense.
It's just kind of thisrevolving, evolving entity and I
don't have to deal with egos.
Everybody does it for the rightreason.
It's not about fame or who'sfeatured.

(27:26):
It's just a a collective ofpeople doing making songs for
the right reasons.
Uh, which I am so fortunatethat this and I think I've
counted we've had 25 or 26different singers now running
Beauty and Chaos and probably,with the remixes and people

(27:49):
playing bits here and there,over 60 people as part of this
thing.
So yeah, we won't be redoingany of the albums or I won't.
You know later, go, I wouldmake my stamp known.
I don't know, it's suchbullshit, I agree.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
I agree, you know, I mean I love known.
I don't know it's such bullshit.
I agree, I agree, you know, Imean I love music, I love movies
, but I hate when musicians andactors and people on both sides
of the industry and justentertainment and life in
general get egos in general.

(28:28):
Uh, get egos.
Um, you know, I always, Ialways find uh, the people who
stay humble, you know, are, uh,you know, are really true, you
know they, they don't, they'renot affected by whatever the
trend or industry standards areI mean, I've been in this I hate
to even use the word business,but I've been doing music for a
long time and then also theSchecter thing.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
You meet people and I think you learn that everybody
starts the same.
There is fame doesn't equaltalent, talent doesn't equal
fame.
And I've really seen behind thecurtain.
It's just, it's really a lot ofluck that someone becomes you
know, someone, right, you know,and I think if people remembered

(29:11):
that, you know, I think thingswould be much better.
It's, you know, we all start inthe band.
Somebody happened to seesomebody I'll pick Guns N' Roses
.
Somebody walked in, saw them,thought they could package,
market them and make money.
There was probably another 100LA bands that similar talent

(29:33):
level that they didn't have tosee.
Granted, you know, appetite, bigselling record.
But there isn't this magic.
Like people tend to put starson a pedestal.
It's just people and the, thestars that remember that they're
just people, I think are theones that have the longevity,

(29:54):
the ones that start believingtheir own press, right stuff.
For the one that are, you know,I, I could care less, you know,
uh, it's just like oz, thewizard of oz, behind the curtain
, everybody, you know it's mostof that stuff is just is just
put on and everything.
So I'm glad we do this, for fora different reason is which is

(30:18):
why I still do it because it isit.
It's creative.
I love the aspect of bringingin new singers and finding
talented people that aren'tfamous.
I mean, if you look at ourfirst record, which we did in
2018, it had some names on it.
You know Simon from the Cure ofWayne, michael from Jean West,

(30:43):
jezebel, johnny from Human Drama, robin Zander from Cheap Trick,
al from Ministry and I'm notspouting these to go oh, I'm
name dropping.
Ice Tea was on the record.
So it was this collective ofpeople that you would never
think would be sitting around atable having drinks together.
But somehow we made it kind ofwork and sound cohesive.

(31:06):
But I knew that if, if beautyand chaos was just built on
trying to one-up the names like,who are we going to get next
time?
How do we go bigger?
You know more who else you knowyou need a bigger name, it
would have died, you know, itjust would been.
So I think, starting on thesecond record, we started going

(31:26):
okay, we have to, kind ofthere's a lot of talented people
and you know one singer wouldsay, hey, I'd like to introduce
you to this person.
So it kind of just greworganically and I think which is
why we're four studio albums inand four remix records that
it's just grew that way and youknow we're not trying to be

(31:51):
something and we can combinethose elements that you know I
grew up with.
Like it's still the commonthread is me playing guitar and
what Michael Rose on and Icreate together.
So it's almost like whateversinger we put on top certainly
brings their lyrics and flavor,but it has this we can keep the
dark wave, gothic, shoegaze,dream pop, rock and roll and

(32:15):
kind of package.
It not pack.
Fuck, scratch that word.
Right, right Just it comes outas something honest.
I think at the end.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
I completely agree and I know you said, do you want
me to name drop?
But I actually am huge, hugefans of all the artists that you
mentioned and some don't lie.
Yeah, it's a beautiful thingabout doing it Exactly.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Wow, that's the beautiful thing about doing it.
Wow, I, if I, if I thumbthrough my record collection,
the mission, the awakening, youknow, uh, human drama, which I
was in, uh, but yeah, it's, it'skind of uh, you know there's a
lot it's, there's some surrealmoments in doing this for
something that was going to bemy solo record for about the

(33:03):
first five minutes.
I'm so blessed and fortunatethat it changed.
From that it became it's.
I'm a fan of each singer, uh,which I think is I.
I love that aspect because I'vementioned this before.
But, like I've done records withhuman drama and genie was
jezebel, uh, and I alwayslistened to that like too much

(33:26):
inside, like I would focus onwow, I wish the guitar was
louder.
I hate that snare, sit down orbob.
You know all this like shit,that you're not really listening
to it as a song like you wouldif something just came on the
radio with beauty and chaos.
I, I, I can some reason and Idon't know why, but I don't
question it.
I can just have this above viewof it and listen to it just

(33:50):
like a listener.
I step back, I forget thetechnical things.
Oh, we did that guitar.
That was with this.
Through this amp, all thisbullshit, I just hear it as a
song and I'm a true fan of thesinger and it is the singer that
we bring in that has made thispiece of music a song.
So I love the fact that I can.

(34:11):
I can put on a Beauty and Chaosrecord and listen to it just
like I would a Cure album orsomething, and sadly I don't.
The other stuff that I've beenon.
I don't listen to it the sameway and that that's kind of sad.
But I think maybe a lot ofpeople that are just in a strict
band format don't listen totheir music.
I listen to Beauty and Chaosbecause I don't look at it as

(34:34):
being my music.
I look at it as a band or asong that I just like.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Like a collective effort.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah.
You know I always ask people.
Like you know, every record hasa lot of singers, some people
you may not have heard of, butbelieve me, they're talented.
Just go down there theirdiscography.
It's a great way of reallybranching into some new artists

(35:03):
you may not have heard of I.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
I think that's great and that's actually one thing I
really try to do on my show ispromote um more like underground
artists as well.
As you know, if I people likeyou and um, you know if I can
get my hands on, like the youknow the the ace freely and gene
simmons and paul stanley, youlike the.
You know the the ace freely andGene Simmons and Paul Stanley,

(35:26):
you know.
You know people Alice Cooper,you know, rob zombie, you know,
and that that caliber, I wouldwelcome it with open arms.
But I really like and I alsokind of see that like the, the
future of also, I would say thepresent and future of rock and

(35:51):
roll isn't really with, at leastin my opinion, the mainstream,
the way the music industry haschanged from like the 2000s into
the 2010s, into the 20s, um,and because of the internet, uh,
I've seen on so many musicdocumentaries, especially

(36:14):
talking about punk and what ispunk.
You know stuff like that, henryrollins and all that.
Um, you know I, I kind of seethat like the there's in in my
opinion, and what I listen toand what I really like right now
there is so many different rockmovements going on, you know,

(36:46):
with the 90s it was like, youknow, like, like we were talking
about Kurt Cobain, you know waswas the, and Nirvana was the
band that you know redefinedmusic for the entire era, the
entire decade.
And then in the 2000s youbasically had post-scrunch,
which was Nickelback and Creedand you know all those bands,
and it was the music industrytrying to, you know, capitalize

(37:08):
and, you know, recapture.
You know what the prior decadehad just nowhere near.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Well, one thing about that is that not, certainly not
.
I don't have a Nickelback or aCreed record, but a band you
know.
Yes, now you, it's everything islike oh, I'm band, you know,
yes, now you, it's everything.
It's like oh, I'm going to gosee an artist.
You know, it's almostinterchangeable.
It's just, you know, you'lllook at somebody's.
You know, my wife and I havetwo daughters so they'll go to

(37:38):
festivals and stuff, and you'lllook and it's just like people's
names, there's not a.
It's like there's not bandsanymore, which is, I, I think,
really detrimental to you know,which is why people are so going
crazy that oasis is backtogether.
There was kind of a a dangerousrock and roll band that was
notorious and drinking anddidn't give a shit about

(38:01):
anything and kind of gave thefinger to whatever.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
Rage Against the Machine.
I saw them before Zach whateverhis last name is had his
accident.
They came to Pittsburgh andtalked about a band.
That really stirred things up,yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
I think nobody's giving music a kick in the ass
anymore and I don't know if itever will.
I think people's attention spanis such crap now that music
kind of to most listeners, isbackground.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
Yeah, I will agree with that 100%.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
No, one listens to something the way we probably
did know as a kid I would.
I would listen to a record topto bottom.
I would dig into the deep cuts.
Now people are just like theyhit 30 seconds of it.
You know you need to do aninstagram real or story.
It's like bullshit.
Uh, you know, we still continueto do our records on vinyl.

(39:05):
I mean the record.
This one, the Dancing withAngels, is 78 minutes, right.
Right, we have eight songs andI interjected Michael and I
interjected these musicalinterludes to make it this big
listen.
And in my head I got thisromantic notion oh, somebody's

(39:26):
gonna pop that in and sit there.
And then the other realism hitsand go, who the fuck's gonna
sit there?
And, and you know, very rarelywill someone dedicate five
minutes to listening tosomething uninterrupted, without
doing something or scrolling orwhatever the hell.
They do much less listen to 78minutes.

(39:54):
But I have to do it to pleasemyself and with Michael and I
and everybody else.
That's part of this.
It's just like it is a littlebit of rebellion.
Part of me wanted to go.
You know what?
Screw this.
Let's make all 78 minutes onetrack.
So when somebody if theyactually had a cd player put it
in.
It just said one song, so theycouldn't even skip.
Uh, but I, I guess I I wised upa little bit there.

(40:18):
That would have been shaunawould have loved that.
She would have thought I wasmore insane than I am.
But uh, yeah, it's like Ihaving someone listen.
You know, I sometimes I feellike we do it on vinyl.
Someone's gonna put that record.
If they go through the troubleand it is now for trouble for
someone because they'd ratherjust scroll or go, oh, I got,

(40:40):
you know, 30 000 songs at thetip of my finger.
I don't know which one tolisten to.
If they're going to take arecord out, select a side they
got to make a decision side oneor two, put that on.
They will hopefully at leastlisten to that 18 to 20 minutes
uninterrupted.
But I don't know.

(41:02):
I just wanted you to know thatI'm one of those people I wish
there was a lot more and I keephearing that there's resurgence,
like there's people that areinto music on cassettes and I
know there are some, and I thinkBeauty and Chaos and I hate
saying fans, because I look atanybody who's part of this as a
family.
I think we have a listenerlistener base or that will dive

(41:28):
down, we'll read the lyrics andthings like that things that I
used to do as a kid, like toil Imean, we spend time probably
more than most people I know.
No one even thinks about goingwhat song should go into the
next, and that used to be a verybig thing.
I'm sure Pink Floyd sat theregoing trying to make a dark side

(41:50):
of the moon.
And those records ZiggyStardust, disintegration those
records aren't.
They're meant to pace and tokind of do this thing.
You know, not meant to beskipped or necessarily to be
listened to one song, or out oforder, or certainly not while
you're doing something else.

(42:11):
They're meant to experiencethis record.
I don't know if peopleexperience music anymore.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
Well, Floyd especially, was you need to
listen to the whole thing in theorder that it's.
It's you know, um, put inespecially dark side, um, and
not to diss roger waters again,but uh uh is the only song on

(42:40):
dark side that has no businessbeing there and ironically, was
what the only song off thatalbum that was on what the top
100 for?

Speaker 2 (42:50):
like a decade.
The only radio song it doeshave a fantastic guitar solo.
Gilmore's solo on that is justincredible.
That's the only thing Iremember in that song.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
I completely agree.
But it's like to bring upanother Floyd album, a little
less less well-known and popularone, metal, one of my favorite
albums from them and to talkabout what you just were talking
about.
Like what if you did like a youknow whole, like one song?

(43:23):
That's like you know 78 minutesor 48 minutes or whatever you
know.
The last track of the album onMetal Echoes is almost 26
minutes long and it's like likeyou need to listen to the prior
songs on the album that are allshorter to kind of gear up to

(43:47):
get to that point and then youbasically go on like you know.
You know, whatever you do,smoke some weed, take some acid
shrooms, well, whatever yourfancy.
Uh, that is the song.
That is basically.
You know the, the journey thatyou go on to, which is like
either smoking or tripping.
You know part of the, the album, um, but, uh, you know they

(44:11):
they have uh tons of stuff, um,even the the sid barrett floyd,
uh, what is it?
Piper at the gates of dawn?
Um, uh, there's a lot of youknow nine minute stuff.
Well, you know uh stuff inthere.
And me personally, um, I lovejam bands and if I see when I'm

(44:32):
like researching a new band andI see that the album is because
for me personally it has to beat least 37 minutes or longer
for me to like be like, okay,this is a band worth checking
out.
Then, if I see they have longtracks and the album, you know,
in beauty and chaos in this case, exceeds, you know, uh, you

(44:56):
know, 40 minutes, 50 minutes anhour, um, I'm like this is a
band that I not only need tocheck out, invest time in
listening to the wholediscography, from album one to
the most present album, like.
I look at that as almost like aresearch project of joy because

(45:19):
it's listening to a new band,whether it's Beauty and Chaos or
you know whoever I'm listeningto at the moment and or
discovering, and I really,really enjoy the long stuff.
I mean, I was, you know, bornin 88, grew up in the 90s, grew

(45:48):
up in the 90s.
So you know, I was kind of likeat that point where, yes, I'm a
huge, huge, you know, grunge90s alternative fan.
That was like the era I grew upin.
But I also had have a dad, youknow, who grew up listening to,
you know, all the the classicrock stuff and also to talk
about.
Um, you know the obscure stuffand albums that, and artists

(46:09):
that really don't get radio play.
Uh, my dad had saw, is a hugefan of and got me into him as
well.
Uh, frank zappa, um, the who.
You know, the mozart of rockand roll.
I'm a huge Zappa head.

(46:32):
He's one of the artists that Ireally wish.
If I could get Doc Brown'sDeLorean and rev it up to 88
miles per hour and go back intime and you know, see some some
shows hendrix would be one, thedoors would be one.
Uh, you know, early floyd wouldbe one, um, and zappa, of

(46:54):
course, would.
Would be, like you know, in thetop of the list.
Um, especially 70s.
You know, 70s, 70s, 60s, zappa.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
Not, definitely not something I didn't.
That was kind of before andabove my head at that time.
But my quick Zappa story iswhen I moved to Los Angeles, the
whole band came out here.
We all had to get day jobs andI was, I worked for a carpet
cleaning company and we would goevery six months to the Zappa

(47:24):
house and I think Frank wasstill alive at that time a
carpet cleaning company and wewould go every six months to the
zapper house and uh, I I thinkfrank was still alive at that
time uh, and it used to go andthey were very nice people.
The house was kind of chaotic.
Uh, the the daughter moon, usedto always flirt with me, which
I thought was cute, but that,the, the guitar, the, uh, the
one that hendrix gave him, thatgot torched I think.

(47:46):
Yeah, yeah.
I think Dweezil has it.
I remember in the living roomand that guitar was just laying
on the couch and I'm sittingthere with the carpet cleaning
machine looking at that, going,wow, what a piece of history
that is.
I was a little afraid.
I wanted to ask him could Itouch it?
But I didn't.
I just kept working.

(48:06):
But yeah, that what you said isthat music then was a journey.
You know, I mean, you go to acure show now and they'll come
out and usually the intro songis like three or four minutes of
this building of tension beforeit's even Robert even sings.
You know, we on our secondstudio album, the storm before

(48:30):
the calm, we do I think we'vebeen top echoes.
As far as time, I think it's 27minutes and something we do,
this long thing.
I always liked the idea of atitle track, yeah, when we did
it, and I was thinking in thecontext of an album, so it had
to fit in that 44 minutes, 45minutes to fit on the side and

(48:53):
everything.
But when it came to us doingthe CD of it, I'm like, well,
hell, there's still 30 minutesof usable space on this.
We don't have a title track.
So Michael and I did this biglong piece that was broken into
three movements, the title track, the storm before the calm.
I think there was the gathering,the storm and the calm, but it

(49:17):
goes through this big longjourney, strange sounds.
That's meant to be heard inheadphones and I'm really proud
of that.
It's very, it's, you know,obscure and most people maybe
that haven't even heard that,but it was.
It was meant like in that thathead space of listen to it, turn
the lights down and hear itthat way.

(49:39):
And I mean I don't even know.
Now it's like I see people, youknow, listening to music on an
iPhone just sitting there.
It's like how does that?
Has no space, it has no back,it has no left and right, it's
just this mono sound.
That's just sad.

(50:00):
I'm sure everybody bitches aboutyou know that their generation
was better, but I truly know Igrew up in the best generation
or the time frame of music.
Like most people won'texperience going into a record
store.
Yeah.
Oh that, that whole thing ofgoing into the site to smell.

(50:23):
It smelled like patchouli.
The head shops right posters butyou know, for me, I used to
have to work, do it, you know,as a kid cutting, cutting grass
or cleaning cars, whatever thehell to make my six dollars, and
it was a big deal to to makethat purchase of music.
You know, if you bought it youyou kind of listened to it, you

(50:44):
really went down into it.
It's like I'm going to try tomake myself love this record.
I I worked all weekend and Imade this.
People don't have that anymore.
Music is is free and I thinkthey just listen to it.
It's it's background noise andthat that really that really
sucks.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
I agree and I'll go.
I'll go one step further.
Um, there is a movie and Italked about this uh earlier
podcast interview with anotheruh, uh lead singer, founder of a
band, a British band called, oractually a Scottish band called
uh, helicon.
Um, they're from uh Glasgow.

(51:27):
Um, great uh, shoegaze,psychedelic, neo psychedelic
rock band.
Um, uh, there was a movie thatcame out in uh the two thousands
when I was in high school.
Um, and it was a live actionadaptation of, I guess, the 70s
cartoon Josie and the Pussycats.

(51:48):
Okay, I'm not sure if you'veseen this movie.
Basically, the plot for the filmis the music.
Like producers or execs, theindustry industry, the head
execs of the industry, um, areuh, basically have these like

(52:10):
this, this boy band, essentiallylike a backstreet boys instinct
, you know, type type band, um,and basically what they're doing
is they're signing these bandsand actually putting like
subliminal messaging in themusic to get their listeners to

(52:31):
like buy.
You know, showing all thesekids like the music and they're
all, like you know, beingbrainwashed and everything.
And then there's like oneperson who would essentially be
like me and it's like I don'tunderstand why.
That's a thing, you know, whyis that popular?

(52:53):
I think the music sucks, youknow, and then the producer
basically is like, okay, youknow, nods to the person, like,
okay, you know, nods to theperson.
They basically put a bag of youknow the black sack over the
girl's head, throw her in a vanand, you know, ship her off to
Just pair her Right, right, youknow.
And then the boy band basicallylike gets killed and they need

(53:16):
a new pop band which becomesJosie and the P?
Um, and then, you know, themovie kind of goes on from there
.
But the point I was kind oftrying to make was that the plot
line, you know, for thesubliminal messaging and
brainwashing and everything, um,if you know, not to get like

(53:38):
all you know conspiracy theoryon you and everything, it's
definitely true.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
I mean that was right .
Right, that was the whole thingof packaging.
I think maybe that time wasprobably when it started.
Music started going downhillwhen a group of people you know
the cabal sits around a tableand go we can get these five
cute guys or these five you knowsexy looking girls and we can

(54:05):
make them stars.
Right, you know, no one had tomake Elvis a star.
Elvis was, but when and andgranted, you know, I'm sure,
justin Timberlake's talented,you know, he's an exception to
it.
But you just kind of grab thesekids and right, I witnessed it
later with our, our daughters,with, uh, one direction and the

(54:27):
wanted and yeah, yeah, kids, andyou know, they got this look,
they got the moves, but it's,it's no substance.
But I think that was thepackaging and, yeah, of course,
as subliminal, some, everybody,wants to make money off of it,
right, but even more so today.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
I mean it's like they've like mainstream music,
mainstream pop music, mainstreamrock, just the mainstream in
general.
Seems like they've most of thebig artists have almost taken
out like the actual instrumentsin general.
Seems like they've most of thebig artists have almost taken
out like the actual instrumentsin general and replaced it with,

(55:08):
like you know, some type ofcomputer generated, you know,
nonsense that isn't music.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
I think people want now to.
It's like when I used to go toa concert.
I loved the idea of a liveversion of the song.
I loved going like seeing anartist extend something or
recover from a mistake or miss alyric, kind of laugh it off,
Like, okay, we're human.
Now I think people want to hearit exactly like the record.

(55:40):
Human uh now.
I think people want to hear itexactly like the record.
I think you can go to a shownow and I'll pick a band because
I read something katie perry,who I think is just fucking
atrocious, just like same hair,same hair play the record and
have people dance, and I don'tthink people would notice or
care.
It's like, you know, I I thinkit's gotten where bands feel

(56:00):
like they go, so they play, andit has to be just like the
record.
That's where you're getting allit's.
Either a band sucks andshouldn't be playing anymore, or
they're so worried becauseeverything, the instant they're
doing it, is uploaded to youtube.
No one wants to look bad.
It's like of course we need tohave all these backing tracks

(56:21):
and you know things like that.
In case we have an off night,bands have an off night.
I've been in bands forever.
Some nights we just I play liketotal shit and it's like okay,
on to the next one.
I'm going to be better tomorrow, but it's called being human.
Yeah, but no one wants thatposted.
It's like I don't think peoplerealize how distracting and

(56:46):
disheartening it is as an artistto be on stage and see you know
a thousand or ten thousandiphones facing up.
It's like no one's enjoying theshow anymore.
I don't even get it.
Uh, like, what is that persondoing?
Are you wanting to be the firstto post it, or are you going to

(57:06):
go home and watch it then?
I mean, you were at the concert, you know.
Right, right, I don't get that.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
And going back to Hendrix, you know someone who,
because of him passing as earlyas he did, you know he only had
what like three actual studioalbums, four maybe something
like that.
Um, and the rest of his, hisactual music archive is all live

(57:35):
stuff.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
Uh, first of, all it was really bad, you know.
I mean, he played that way thatit was chance.
There are nights that jimmypage is horrible on stage with
zeppelin, uh, right, well, I wasactually going to say uh, on
hendrix.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Um, there's, there's an album, I think it's, uh, I
forget which live album.
It's a double, double livealbum.
Um, and you know, there's onepoint, uh, where he's, he's
doing a, a version of red house.
I think it's the longestversion, I think that I found
recorded live, uh, like close to14 minutes, um, and uh, at the

(58:17):
end, like he plays, you know,like, like, like great and
everything.
But after you know he's donewith the song, you can clearly
tell he's high off his assbecause he makes a comment that
you would only make if you'relike high on.
You know, like tri recorded andyou know, you know been gone

(58:42):
for you know 50, 50 plus years,but you know it's like, it's
there, you know, and who's tosay if he was alive and if he
was out today, if that wouldaffect him negatively or I have
a feeling that he would not wantthat to come out right.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
I think that's the part of the packaging that you
know, the they'll I I know theyprobably grabbed like studio
outtakes of him jamming andbuilt songs around it.
It's like when he passed andthis happens with a lot of
artists like the, the, therecord people and sometimes the
families just are going to pickon it like a, a carcass with

(59:29):
yeah yeah part of my thing withschecter.
I remember, like I don't know,maybe a decade ago, somebody
going, you know, I got thereceptionist buzz me.
Somebody from the hendrixfamily wants to talk to you and
it's like and this person was, Idon't know, a freaking second
cousin or something he's justgiving feel, and he said he had

(59:51):
these drawings that jimmy did,that he wanted us to put on a
guitar and we can make them.
We could both make a fortune inmy head.
I'm going.
One hendrix had nothing to dowith schecter, I would never do
that.
And two some sketches likeyou're going to try.
I mean it's pretty bad.
We've seen it a bit with theprince estate because we've

(01:00:12):
built guitars for prince beforeand you know they're trying to
package things, they're they'reputting records out that maybe
as an artist, that he didn'twant out.
So again, that's the ugly sideof business that everybody feels
they can make and once aperson's gone they have really
no say so in it.

(01:00:33):
Yeah, that's pretty awful.
So for us, we just put outeverything we do.
There's nothing left when I gothat anybody's going to put out
that I'm not proud of Right,right, awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
I did have a question .
I mean, obviously we've beentalking about a lot of people
who have been in Beauty andChaos, the various iterations,
but one of the people I'mcurious about is ice tea.
Um, I'm a, I'm a big like I.

(01:01:08):
As much as I love, uh, you know, psychedelic rock, classic rock
, grunge rock in general, um, Iam a huge uh rap fan, kind of up
until I guess it shifted withlike, I think the year was like
97 or 98.
It kind of shifted into more ofwhat like it is now, at least

(01:01:31):
in my opinion.
Um, but I I love early rap.
I love, you know, some of thegangster rap.
I love nineties rap, um, youknow, just, just the whole, uh,
just iteration of it.
And I'm also a huge um fan ofice.
I've seen every, every movie Isee has ever been, uh, you know,

(01:01:52):
new Jack city being my favorite, um, but uh, I I, you know I'm
also, like I said, a horror fan.
So of my favorite underratedhorror films is actually
Leprechaun and the Hood, whichIce-T is in, and, you know,

(01:02:13):
among other films.
And it was actually my birthdayon the 18th and my aunt uh got
me uh, I forget where it's from,but it's basically iced tea
doing the, uh, the birthday,like like you pay it.
You know he does like.
Yeah, so it was.
It was like iced tea wishing mea happy birthday, um, but uh, I

(01:02:39):
was wondering what, what is helike?
What is like his musicalprocess?
Um, what is he like as a person?
I?

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
I've honestly only met him one time.
Uh, we were.
We work with body count yes,yes we do.
I've known vince forever and, uh, ernie and juan, we do
signature guitars with them.
They're all absolutely greatpeople.
So we're doing that the song anatural disaster in the first

(01:03:10):
record.
And we we started doing thatbreakdown part and it was like I
went man, it would be greatjust to have somebody just do a
rap or some like spoken thingwith some venom over this
section.
And in my head the two people Ithought I had a conduit to
would have been Ice-T or Jacobyfrom Papa Roach.

(01:03:33):
I thought either of those twocould spit something out on that
.
So I reached out to Vince.
I went hey, can you, would youask ice if he would consider
this, because I figured heprobably knew Doug panic and we
had Zach while play a solo on it, who Zach came in and probably

(01:03:54):
played more notes in that solothan I had on the entire album,
but it was fantastic.
So he asked ice and I said,yeah, send me the track.
So it took like a month.
But later he uh, he just wentin the studio and he kind of
asked for the lyrics which doughad wrote the words.
But doug and I uh, both beingfrom the south, talked a bit

(01:04:16):
about, you know, I, my family inmy hometown of New Orleans,
went through Katrina and Doug'sfrom Texas, and they had Harvey,
hurricane Harvey, so that'swhere Doug took those lyrics.
So we sent Ice the lyrics andhe he spit out that that thing
sent it and the way we got himin the video.
Each year during that timeSchechter would do a do a

(01:04:39):
concert at the NAMM conventionand we had Body Count playing
and I reached out through Vince.
I said would you ask Ice if hewould do something for this
video?
And he said yeah.
So, ice Kid, we did it at theGrove in Anaheim and a little
backstage area there was a smallroom that had two washing

(01:05:00):
machines and I guess they woulddo linens for the venue.
We hung up a black curtain onthe wall.
Our video guy Vicente came.
Ice-t went in there and said letme see those words again.
And he had his two bigbodyguards there that you could
see their weapons were printing.
Let's just say that.

(01:05:21):
But he was sweet, his wife anddaughter were fantastic and he
sat there.
He spit out the part twice, hegoes, I think you got it and he
walked out.
So I mean the dude did not haveto do it.
He's always been very graciousthat we take care of his boys in
the band, so but yeah, thatadded.

(01:05:42):
I think that kind of surprisedit definitely helped that first
record get some you know peoplelike looked at it like wait hold
on Robin Zander and Ice-T onthe same album and it kind of
made people go what.
But yeah, he was fantastic, wasfantastic.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
Uh, could have, couldn't have been nicer awesome
and speaking of body count,I've been listening to, uh,
their their newest album, um,phenomenal, uh, you know, I like
, very like almost two of thesame, you know, but very unique

(01:06:26):
and different at the same time,with the sound and the lyrics
and overall performance andeverything.
But I'm a big, big body countfan.
Their version of ComfortablyNumb.
Oh, that was so good.
Some people got Gilmore to playthe solo in it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
Yes, so I went.
That's my.
I've talked to Vince a fewtimes.
It's like you know when, man, Iwould love at some point to
send something and have Davidsolo on it.
Not that that would ever happen, but at least I have a little
bit of a channel, whether itever got to him or not, right?

(01:07:09):
Right and I always say never,say never yeah, but yeah, to
have a song and have somebodylike I think they think that
Gilmore and I guess Roger Waterstoo, had to sign off on them
doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
I remember reading something about that recently.
They did have to sign off onthe rights to do that for Body
Count to cover that song.
Waters didn't kibosh it, I know.
Also, speaking of Hendrix againand Body Count, I love their

(01:07:44):
cover of hey Joe.
Hey Joe is my favorite studioHendrix song.
I also love it live and Ibelieve it might have been live
at Winterland.
I think Hendrix did a close toseven minute version of hey joe

(01:08:06):
and like the first, how we werejust talking about, like how
there'd be a few minutes of likeyou know build up and then like
you'd go into the song.
Um, on that album he likereally is doing more like improv
, improvisation of likeshredding on the guitar and it
sounds nothing like hey joe.

(01:08:26):
And then after like I want tosay two, two and a half minutes
of like doing the you knowshowing off skills on you know
doing all these like shreddingnotes, uh, it goes into hey joe
and you're like holy shit, shit.
I didn't think we were goingfrom being totally loud and

(01:08:48):
shredding and amped up to goinginto something more mellow and
laid back it reminded me of aguy I was in a band with when I
was a kid, when bootlegs used tobe bootleg yeah, yeah big and
he was always buying zeppelinand sabbath bootlegs and we
would be going to rehearsal andhe, uh, he, he'd buy the records

(01:09:12):
and put them on a cassette andwe'd have to.

Speaker 2 (01:09:15):
I think our rehearsal room was like 40 minutes away
and, uh, he always had a newzeppelin thing.
It's like, oh, this is fromthis and and we'd have to listen
to the drum solo of moby dick,which he knew was different from
the one that he got before.
But all those records that justhad the little, the white cover
with the, the flyer stuck inthere.

(01:09:36):
But, yeah, right, he was a bigcollector of all that and some
of them were god awful, likesomebody just with a cassette
player in the venue.
But sometimes people would getthem off the board.
Yeah, I'm sure there's amillion Hendrix ones floating
around.
But again, sometimes it's like Idon't always watch.
I've rarely watched backanything I've done live.

(01:10:00):
I usually don't even listen tothe interviews.
I just like to go Okay, it wasfun and leave it at that, not go
back and dwell, because a lotof times I'll look at something
live and go ah, I thought thatwas better, I thought I played
that better, I remember it being, and I just rather enjoy the
moment, which I don't know ifpeople Like when I was talking

(01:10:22):
about the cameras at which.
I don't know if people likewhen I was talking about the
cameras at shows.
I don't know how you go backand look at something on your
phone and realize that youmissed being in there.
And you're at this show.
There's stuff going on withfour or five people on stage.
Be in the moment and it doesn'thappen.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Right, right, you know, uh, be in the moment and
it doesn't happen, right, right,and uh, oh, I, I want to
comment on that and thenactually go back to comment you
made about uh, uh, bootlegs andstuff like that, because, uh,
and cassettes, because I have aa funny story about that, um, I,
I, I definitely agree with you.
It's like you know, um, for my28th birthday going on, uh, nine

(01:11:07):
years ago, um, I, the the dandyWarhols, came to Pittsburgh and
I got a VIP tickets.
I got to meet the band, um, anduh, have dinner with them and
see one of the really mostunforgettable shows of of my

(01:11:27):
entire life.
And because I had vip tickets,uh, we got to me and a few other
lucky sons of bees, uh, youknow who got the vip.
Um got to go to the sound checkfor the warhols and, uh,
because we were there, we got,they were asking taking requests
.
Um, I'm a huge dandy warholsfan, a huge brian jones sound

(01:11:51):
massacre fan and, um, my numberone favorite uh warhols song is
a song called.
And then I dreamt of, yes,basically part of the smoking
part of the album, um, but, uh,I asked if they could do that
song and uh, the drummer said,uh, if the courtney usually

(01:12:11):
doesn't do it, uh, because live,because it's hard on his lungs.
But let me see, um, they did it.
And not only did they do it,they did it as a closer and they
did all these more popularsongs that they do at most of
their shows and they got theaudience really enjoying it.

(01:12:36):
They were at a Warhol showexpecting what they'd expect.
They were at a Warhol showexpecting what they'd expect.
And then it transitions intoalso like we were talking about
a different version of the songwhen it's live versus when it's
studio.
And it was like one of thosemagical moments, like out of a

(01:12:57):
movie, where when they went intothe song, the audience went
from cheering and being loud andapplausing to dead silent.
I watched it and tookeverything in and then, after
they finished, like it was theloudest eruption of applause

(01:13:18):
that I have ever heard at anyconcert I've ever been to, and
I've been through a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
Hey, could I get 15 seconds?
It sounded like my cat just didnot.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
Oh, yeah, yeah sure.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
I will be right back.
I don't mean to.

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
No, no, no, you're fine, you're fine.

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
Sorry, that's all right.
It was a guitar that went overin there.
She's an old cat and I don'teven know how she did that.
But yeah, what you were saying,I think that's great.
Like that band is probably notplaying with backing tracks, it
does allow them and I think, asa musician, that keeps it
interesting.

(01:13:55):
I mean I can't imagine havingto play something so structured
every night and then having thisstuff behind you that if you
stop playing it's still OK.
Right, oh, that was again.
That that's real, that's likefrom the heart and you know if
you go see him the next, I meanwhy.

(01:14:16):
If you went two nights to seethem and they sounded exactly
the same, I mean why go?

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
Right, right, right, Exactly, and, um.
The other thing I wanted to sayuh, I I do collect bootlegs, um
, uh, and and, and and uh, Ihave a cassette collection, uh,
both, um, from my very first job, uh, which was working at a gas
station, I used to make mixedcds and album play albums and

(01:14:45):
stuff and it all started outbeing like all the the classic
rock stuff.
So all these old, like you know, heads that are like my, my
dad's age, you know, coming tothe gas station, they're like
holy shit.
How does a kid your age, likeyou know, listen to to the gas
station?
They're like holy shit.
How does a kid your age like youknow listen to all this stuff
and you know no and one customer.

(01:15:07):
It was a woman who was maybe 10years older than me.
She used to work at a recordstore and came across this
bootleg Hendrix album that was.
It had Jim Morrison, buddyMiles and Janis Joplin all guest

(01:15:31):
starring or featuring on thealbum and the album itself.
I mean he did Red House and afew other.
Well, actually Red House waslike the only known song that
was on that.
The rest were all like songs hehad never done before and in

(01:15:52):
terms of like his sound,compared to every other live
album and studio album, thisalbum was like more blues, like
actually blues oriented uh, notslight, like acid rock,
psychedelic rock, um and uh.
All every track was like 10minutes long or something and

(01:16:14):
there were maybe like four orfive, six tracks total.
Uh, morrison uh gets drunk anduh basically starts going on a
rant and saying, baby, I want tofuck you up the ass.
Classic morrison, um and uh.
And then also a separatecustomer from that same uh, that

(01:16:35):
same job, who would come in, uhold kind of stoner, hippie
painter guy and uh, he wouldactually recommend uh artists
for me to check out.
Really obscure people, uh,bands, uh, two of them being
atomic rooster and, uh, spookytooth.
Um, I made him, uh, a couplemixed cds, uh, you know.

(01:17:00):
Uh, he came back.
A couple weeks went by and hewas like he came back and he
said, man, I haven't heard thosesongs since I was, like you
know, younger than you at thetime.
And he said to me you know, youlook like to me you'd
appreciate this.
My son isn't going to do jackshit with this.

(01:17:23):
Basically, it's just going togo in the trash.
And you look like you'dappreciate that.
I have this like my oldcassette collection, if you want
that.
And I'm like what?
Like an old cassette collection.
You know, I'm like fuck, yeah,I want that.
You know, a couple of days wentby, he came by and dropped them

(01:17:44):
off and these things, to showyou how vintage these, these,
these are.
Uh, they're actual likesuitcases, okay.
Like I'm sure you know what I'mtalking about.
Like, oh, the ones with thelittle bit, yeah, yeah, but with
the slits, and you you knowthey actually weigh like you
know, like 20, 30 pounds orsomething you know the ones that

(01:18:05):
you would rotate like you putthe cassette.
Yeah yeah, good time.
I have two of those packed witheverything from like Skinner to
Zeppelin to Black Sabbath toHendrix, like Skinner to
Zeppelin to Black Sabbath toHendrix.
You know, like every major, youknow like classic rock band,

(01:18:27):
because this guy looked likehe's a good couple years older
than my dad.
But you know, it was like.
I just wanted to share thatwith you because, yes, I do
collect bootlegs and I docollect cassettes.

Speaker 2 (01:18:40):
I think I mean everything that you hear at
least the way I look at it is.
You absorb something from itand each generation takes it.
I really think some of thenewer artists should really dive
back and listen to wheresomething came from, you know,

(01:19:00):
and kind of go back some,because I think music is losing
some of the roots and wherethings happen Like, a lot of
people will think, wow, you know, a band from the 2000s, created
like Jet, didn't create thatsound, you know they picked it
up from you know they picked itup from you.
Know the faces.

(01:19:21):
They picked it up from thestones and, uh, I don't know
it's.
It's bizarre with the, thestate of stuff today.
I don't think you're going tofind bands now that have the
longevity of those bands fromthe 80s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
I think that's.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
That's kind of sad I, I agree with that.
I still, what I was trying tosay earlier actually is stuff
that I kind of notice right nowis that there's a few different
actual rock movements going on.
There's a revival of grunge, agenre called new wave grunge.

(01:19:58):
It's like all these guys thatare in their like, uh, you know,
mid late 20s and they basicallyfused all the the bands from
the 90s into like new bands.
With you can hear certainelements of, like, you know,
sound garden or or, uh, uh,weezer or something, or you know

(01:20:19):
the pixies or stuff like that,like, but it's all like kind of
fused together.
There's also, um, a hugemovement with the shoegaze and
dream pop and everything that,in my opinion, is only getting
better.
Um, and then you also have whatyou were talking about like just
now, about wishing that bandswould like go back and listen to

(01:20:43):
like you know what the what didlike, what the the first, like
major, you know, iteration ofrock and even, you know, a
couple decades after or prior,um, and everything I see in,
especially in europe, um, thereis a lot of bands that like I
don't even know how to describeit as like a, like a retro, uh,

(01:21:06):
60s, like psych, psych, uh,psychedelia, um sound it like.
It sounds like it's from the60s but it's new, um you know,
and there's there's a lot ofbands out there like that that
are big.
There's a band out of Berlin,germany, called Blues Pills and

(01:21:31):
they have like a very likeclassic rock sound, like they've
covered a couple of Bowie songsand stuff like that.
A female vocalist, awesome band.
And then there's another bandout of Sweden called Spiders and
they have a very like you canhear Kiss.

(01:21:53):
You can hear like all the likeyou know hard rock, metal-esque
bands that you know came out andyou know with with the whole
kiss era and uh, you know rockand roll and stuff back then.
Um, but I do agree with you that, even though there's all those
like rock movements out thereand it's still like surviving

(01:22:17):
and thriving in a way, umbecause of, in a lot of ways,
the internet and just how themainstream is right now, I I do
agree with you that it's it'seither not going to happen or be
very, very hard um to get thatsound and you know music in

(01:22:39):
general and those genres um tobe at be as recognized as bands
like everyone we were talkingabout before.
Um, it's just like the.
I feel like the music industryhas changed the.
Internet streaming has, youknow, changed that.
And, um, like you said, youknow the, the, the younger

(01:23:02):
generations audience attentionspan is getting, you know,
weaker and weaker by by theyears, and it's the tiktok world
of it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
it's everything in 30 second reels and I think I, I
think the cool thing, you seemto know a lot about those bands,
which is great.
I know there's that shoegazemovement which is great and they
certainly will take elements ofthose bands I mentioned earlier
my Bloody Valentine and Lushand Slow Dive and Jesus and Mary

(01:23:31):
Chain and kind of fuse theminto something new and utilize
technology and stuff like that.
It's just whether you know, Ithink, finding good music I
think you always have to workfor it.
You know like you'd have to dig, like the stuff that's put
right in front of your face,right, the shit is is shit, not

(01:23:53):
the shit.
You know, back when I was a kidI would count on magazines,
rock, rock, rock scene out ofNew York or circus andcus and
like that, and see the reviewsgoing.
You know, oh, you know, queen,this new band.
I remember going to buy thefirst Queen record and basing it
solely off of that.
The difference was there wasonly a couple of records out

(01:24:16):
that month.
Now there's thousands maybe notrecords, songs, songs.
Everything now is based on asingle song, which, to me, again
, it is sad we I, I never try tolook at what we do with beauty
and chaos in the thing of onesong.
I try to always look at itgoing.
We're coming in to make an album, so it's from the title, it's

(01:24:40):
from the cover.
Like you know, I love ourcovers.
I think they tie, especiallythe last two with the paintings
by my friend Marin.
It ties the record together, itmakes it a package, it makes it
something complete and not justone song.
Usually back in the 60s and 70sit was a 45, but that was

(01:25:04):
usually part of something.
Now people just put out stringsof singles.
It never feels like we'recompleting something.
To me, it's the title andwhat's encompassed in that 60,
70 minutes that makes somethingcomplete.
Then we go on to the next.
Now people just think in termsof this three or four minutes of

(01:25:27):
something and upload it, andthat's such a foreign step to me
.
I don't know, guess it's age,but to me I can only work in the
idea of creating what I knew ofas an album in that format Six,
seven, eight songs that havesome common thread, that have

(01:25:48):
something to do with the title,have something to do with the
cover and that are cohesively,have a beginning and an end.

Speaker 1 (01:25:58):
I completely agree with that and I actually want to
comment on that.
I have an equation for how tofind great music and great rock
music, and it's everything we'vekind of just been talking about
and even what you justmentioned, and the equation goes

(01:26:19):
awesome album cover plus longtracks equals a great uh and and
and someone, a band worthchecking out and listening to
and following.
Um, I, I think those, uh, youknow, one plus one equals
whatever you know.
I think if you thought, atleast in my experience Well,

(01:26:41):
you're in the minority and Iappreciate that.

Speaker 2 (01:26:45):
I think sometimes people equate longer stuff with
being self-indulgent and yeah,it's okay, I mean we're doing it
.
And I think some of those bandsthat do long stuff are doing it
to please themselves.
And I think after doing this,you either do this for two
reasons to please someone elseor to please yourself.

(01:27:05):
And I think pleasing yourselfalways wins, because if you're
trying to please someone else,you're trying to create
something that you're not, and Ithink you continue to chase and
I don't think that's real.
When you do it for yourself andyou walk out the studio and go,
I enjoy that.
That is the be all end all.

(01:27:27):
If other people come along, sobe it.
But yeah, I enjoy making thoselonger tracks and having things.
You know I don't ever look atgoing.
Wow, this song's six and a halfminutes Right right.
That's what the song needed tobe.
I don't even edit them.
When we do the videos, you knowI keep it.

(01:27:49):
It's meant to be that andthere's some self-indulgence in
it.
But when you're doing ityourself, you know it's your
thing.
Paint it the way you want, useall the colors and put on the
canvas that you want to put on,and I think you get a more
intelligent listener.

(01:28:09):
I like to think anybody that'sgoing to like what we do does
have a different taste than themodern.
Just hit me with the chorusreal quick and then, you know,
have it over so I can go on withmy life.

Speaker 1 (01:28:25):
the beauty and chaos isn't for them, and that's okay
right right I, I I mean likemusic, you know, it's like I
went to school for screenwritingand I ended up starting my
podcast my senior year of uh,college, uh, for screenwriting,
and had some awards and stuffand, uh, you know, luck, luck in

(01:28:46):
.
In that regard, nothing made oranything but music has always
been, uh, a big influence on mymood and actually, like in
sequences in my mind that Iwould, I would write in a script
and I actually put togetherthis short that I'm trying to

(01:29:07):
develop into a tv series, or itmight just be a short, but, um,
it's completely uh, inspired andis actually a rock opera, um,
and uh, the official title, uhis space rockers, uh, and it's
basically the.
The log line is um, anintergalactic, uh warry musician

(01:29:32):
crash lands on earth and turnsa wannabe death core metal band
into his minions so he canconquer the world with rock.
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:29:41):
If you like rock operas, have you seen Phantom of
the Paradise?

Speaker 1 (01:29:46):
Yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:29:47):
I loved that movie as a kid.
I think I remember going tothis theater and just staying in
it and watching it like fourtimes, waiting for the undead to
come on.
Right, right, I mean music, Ithink.
I like to try to look at it ina visual concept.
Like to me, a good recordshould give you a visual, should

(01:30:10):
give you a feeling oftemperature.
I always say this like I alwaysfelt putting disintegration on
changed the room to be a littledarker and a little colder and
right.
I think, as you know, can'tspeak for robert smith, but I
think that he would think that'ssuccess, that he created, that
the band created something thatthat that had a feeling to it,

(01:30:34):
that was beyond just the senseof sound, that it was visual and
touch and everything.
And, uh, you know, I I thinkthat's the earmark of something
that's going to stand the testof time.
You know that's what I strivefor every time, like for us to
to try to do that.
I don't know if we we alwayshit it, but I think you go into

(01:30:57):
it going.
Either I'm going to just writea song or go into it.
I'm going to try to createsomething that's a piece of art,
and I don't mean that in apompous way, it's just music is
art, it's sound, it's words.
That stuff kind of gets smashedtogether and come out to
something in the end and peopledifferent listeners hear

(01:31:20):
different things in it.
They hear words differently.
The song means something tosomebody, maybe different than
what the lyricist actually waswriting about.
But that's okay.
I love lyrics that are a littlemore vague and open-ended to
where the listener can put it onand go.
They're singing about me, or Ifelt that, or that's my life.

(01:31:44):
Uh, those are the songs that Ithink stand test of time.
Why some of those great songsfrom the 70s and 80s still are,
you know, still we listen to,you know because right, right
and even even in the 90s.

Speaker 1 (01:31:58):
You know, um, and and I was even going to comment on
that how you were saying musicis art and it's an art form.
Uh, same thing with film.
And I think that music and filmcoincide together because, um,
you know, you can just just likewith music how you just said,
it can trigger an emotion ofresponse.

(01:32:19):
You know, thought, um, when youhear a certain song in a
certain scene in a movie, it'slike, it's instantly like
branded in your head, um, like,you love that song and but you
specifically love that moviebecause you hear that song and
because of the, the certainsequence that it's, it's used in

(01:32:42):
, like you know, quinn tarantino, for instance.
Um, you know pulp fiction, um,you know the, the song, um, uh,
you know where you get tomarcellus wallace's offer.
You know, uh, al green, Ibelieve.
Um, uh, you know that that song, um, it's like anytime you hear

(01:33:03):
that on the radio.
You, you know, you joke withyour friends if they're movie
fans and you're like, so I guesswe're in Marcellus Wallace's
office now, huh, yeah when it'sdone right, that definitely
works.

Speaker 2 (01:33:16):
Like I thought, like I was a fan of the series Peaky
Blinders, I thought PJ Harvey'smusic and the Nick Cave stuff
was perfect in that.
Uh, I mean, I I always thoughtthat our stuff would be really
good in because I think it addsa visual, and which is why

(01:33:36):
videos are so important to mefor what we do.
One they're fun to do.
Uh, some of them, I think wethe one we just put out is
number 29, which is which is alittle crazy, uh, considering
that kind of the outlet nowadaysis just youtube for it right I
I long for the, the days of mtv.

(01:33:58):
I think a couple of our songs,like Diving for Pearls, could
have been in heavy rotation onthat.
They're, they're, they're funto do and, if you can, some of
them are just meant us, just,you know, goofing around and
being a band.
Some of them, I think we'vebeen able to intertwine some
little storyline or make it like, like I thought a version of

(01:34:21):
Bloodletting I'd actually hadlike a three-page mini script to
it.
I viewed that as like thislittle mini movie, but it's, but
it's, it's fun to do.
I think music and movies hasalways gone hand in hand and and
the, the really successfulpeople that pick the right song,
uh, certainly can enhance usabsolutely and even, uh, the

(01:34:46):
people who do the scores for um.

Speaker 1 (01:34:48):
Those people are like the modern day beethovens and
mozarts you know of, of our,essentially our generation.

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
Yeah, we have a I know you like horror stuff, so a
good friend of mine that'sactually done several remixes
Tyler Bates.

Speaker 1 (01:35:05):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:35:06):
Tyler's done, like I know he did the Rob Zombie, like
House of Thousand Corps orwhatever that one was.
He's done.
Yeah, he kind of got reallythat genre he did really well.
And another friend, paul W, did, yes, did the terrifier.

(01:35:27):
Yeah, yeah, those.
And he's actually doing a uh,it's coming out, I think later
this year, stiletto, which isgoing to be a uh kind of a a
horror murder thing.
I think that the loosestoryline is there's a serial
killer in los angeles that'skilling strippers and keeping

(01:35:47):
their stiletto.
I think that's the loosestoryline.
But I think we actually havethe opening sequence, uh, with a
song that we did stranger, uh,I think it's actually gonna
awesome.
But yeah, I I'd love to do more.
I'd love to score like the ideathat I mean, tyler and Paul are
really good at it.
I don't know if that's my forte, but I would also say Trent

(01:36:13):
Reznor, yeah he's done.
He's branched away from doingthe horror stuff, but his you
know some of his stuff is great.
I thought Pop Will Eat eatitself doing uh requiem for a
dream.
I mean what?

Speaker 1 (01:36:26):
yes good movie, but that, uh, just a little simple,
like haunting guitar stuff thatthey did just wonderful uh, one
of the movies that I actuallyinterviewed the director of the
original crow uh from the 90sand um uh he we talked about a
lot about uh, the musicselection process for the film

(01:36:51):
and how trent uh had a key.
Trent and the director, alexperez um had a key hand, working
together to handpick each songand from each band that got to
have a song played in the movie,as well as some of the bands
that did.
You know some of the liveperformances at um?

Speaker 2 (01:37:11):
you know the the bad guys club uh, rock club, hideout
, yeah um dead souls dead souls,yeah yeah, they wrote Burn for
that movie, right, that's a goodsoundtrack, oh yeah, oh yeah,
the visuals in the movie kind ofworking hand in hand.

Speaker 1 (01:37:32):
Absolutely.
And that movie, you know, Imean it's a nostalgia piece,
it's, it's a.
It's a nostalgia piece, um, andobviously they just tried, you
know, re rebooting it orremaking it or whatever, and it
it failed miserably.
Uh, and I'm proud of thatbecause, uh, you know the, the

(01:37:56):
first crow, and I I've seen allthe sequels up to the fourth one
.
I refuse to watch the Blasphemyremake iteration of it.
I can't even really get throughit the first five minutes.
I'm like this is stupid.
But the original Crow and it'snot just its mark on as a film

(01:38:20):
and as a movie, but for just the, the, like you said, the
soundtrack and all the bandsthat played on, it's like you
can never recapture the essenceand purity of of that film, as
well as just outright havingrespect for, uh, the Brandon Lee

(01:38:42):
and the Lee family forrespecting that as his final
film.
And what could have been if hehad lived in the accident and it
didn't happen.
It's such a 90s movie and amovie of the decade that you

(01:39:03):
can't remember.
Yeah, never.

Speaker 2 (01:39:05):
Yeah it makes me wonder, like, what's that say
about people's create?
Not that they're not creativepeople now, but I think
sometimes it's like let's go,let's just remake this, let's
just it one.
It says a lot about howimpactful something had in the
past and now someone's trying toinstead of creating something

(01:39:26):
new.
It's a little bit it's easierto go well, we'll just remake
this.
Of course it's going to besuccessful and it doesn't always
work.
Uh, I, I think there'ssomething about, uh, the
creativity of of those that timeframe 70s, 80s, 90s that's
missing now.
Uh, it might be that a lot ofthat stuff done was done without

(01:39:50):
the technology and help andease that it is now.
I mean, somebody can make afilm with an iphone 16.
You know, I guess for some, likesmall indie stuff, that's,
that's a great thing, but I Ithink people worked harder in
the past and it had to be fromhere and here as opposed to

(01:40:12):
technology.
Uh, oh, we can just do that.
You know, I think that's onlygoing to get worse.
Uh, as it, as things get easier, I think creativity gets less.
You become more dependent onthe tools as opposed to figuring
out a way of doing something.
That's why I always thinkthings on a budget.

(01:40:34):
You know, probably why you likesome of the cheesy horror stuff
is because they didn't have,you know, a million dollars to
shoot a single scene.
You know they had to figure outgetting their friends and this
and that.
So you kind of had to reallythink about it.
And I think that's certainlythe same in music.

(01:40:54):
I mean, we certainly usetechnology.
So, you know, most of thesepeople, the singers, are not in
our studio.
They're doing their parts intheir home studio.
Right right, you can usetechnology that way, but it's
not creating for you.
It's not easy.
There's a way of somethingmaking something easy or

(01:41:18):
something making somethingpossible.
But I think that idea of justgoing back and well, we'll just
remake this, I think some ofthat's done for the wrong reason
.

Speaker 1 (01:41:30):
I agree with that 100%, and I think what you just
said is half the problem withboth the music and the film
industry today.
The other half is, you know, Iknow, I think you know, for all
intents and purposes, thegatekeepers.
I, I think, uh, the people,especially with film, and you

(01:41:51):
can even say especially withmainstream music, because we
both agree, it's shit, um, it's,it's, the half of it is what
what you just said, and theother half at, at least to my
belief, is the gatekeepers.
It's the producers, it's thepeople that you have to get
through to say, yes, we'll makeyour movie, or, yes, we'll

(01:42:15):
produce your album and put thislabel, this label, um, I, I
think you know, because, likethe, the, the bands that I
started to talk about, that I'vereally listened to and that are
all more on the underground,like you can, you can hear the
hard work, you can hear thecreativity, you can hear the,

(01:42:38):
the artistic elements, you canhear the blood, sweat and tears
that went into making theiralbums, um, the.
The issue is, you know, I think, the, like I said, the, the
gatekeepers who are saying, um,you know, well, we'll take you,

(01:43:00):
but not you, you know, or I likewhat you have right, right and
elements of luck.

Speaker 2 (01:43:06):
There's elements of nepotism.
There's right I don't know whatstupidity like, yeah it's all
that stupidest deal just to befamous.
It's uh right and even withmusic.

Speaker 1 (01:43:20):
Now it's like what was it in the 90s, when you know
, we all know what's happeningwith P Diddy now, but when he
was still Puff Daddy back in the90s?
You know there's that famousstory where he did the song, you
know, in tribute to Biggie andTupac passing.

(01:43:42):
And you know he did, just tookthe sample without using Sting's
permission from the police andbasically Sting said in the
interview that the royaltiesthat he got off of Puff Daddy
paying him to, basically for notusing his permission to sample

(01:44:04):
the song, paid for his likechildren to go to college or
something.
And and now there's, and nowthere's there's some rapper or
some, some musician of some sortand it wasn't him, it was the

(01:44:26):
producer who sampled the musicfor the artist who sang the song
.
But because again, they didn'tuse Sting's permission to sample
the song and it's the same song, now Sting said, for the
royalties he'll be getting fromthat artist, he'll be able to

(01:44:49):
send his grandkids to college.

Speaker 2 (01:44:52):
I don't think Sting has any problem sending a
thousand kids Right, right.

Speaker 1 (01:44:58):
I totally agree with you there.

Speaker 2 (01:45:01):
I'm sure that's the producer doing it and the artist
, naive, just going.
Well, this guy produced it, soof course he's going to do it
the correct way.

Speaker 1 (01:45:12):
Exactly that's the point I was making.
In the 90s it was up that hedid it.
Now who knowingly did it?
And now so much time has gonepast.
Where it's like and it justgoes to show even more my point
where it's like the, the artistsdon't even have like the

(01:45:34):
mainstream artists don't evenhave control of their own music
and you know creativity and allthat.
Where if you have a producersaying, oh, let's use this, and
the artist is like, doesn't evenknow where the original song
came from.

Speaker 2 (01:45:52):
You know I think people use the term producer
pretty loose nowadays.
There's not a whole lot of BobBezrens or the latest Right
right.
Or those people George Martin,that actually you know, even to
an extent Rick Rubin, I thinkworks pretty, pretty good.

(01:46:15):
Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno, thosepeople I think pull out that I
think, when you those termproducer now is just somebody
with a fancy home studio thatknows how to make beats, and you
know, I know I'm generalizingit, but yeah, I don't know, I

(01:46:37):
don't see the talent, thecreativity like that.
I think part of the whole thing, some of it does fall back on
the listener.
Yeah, it does.
If there's this great shoegazeband that's like, wow, they
remind me of my bloody Valentine, this that buy their record, Go

(01:47:01):
to their show, Don't ask to beon the freaking guest list.
Go buy their T-shirt, Right,Don't go.
Oh yeah, I streamed them onSpotify.
That does absolutely jack shitfor that band.
You know, I always say if youwant, if you like an artist or a
band I hate the word artistbecause that seems like a solo

(01:47:21):
person If you like a band or agroup and you liked them to do
another record after this one,buy their stuff.
You know, absolutely, people gointo starbucks and have no
qualm spending ten dollars for a, a trente vente frappuccino
with whip, with blah, fuckingblah, you know and spending

(01:47:42):
right right after a tip for it.
Yet when, when a band goes, hey,our cd is six dollars, people
like, yeah, I'll just stream.
It makes absolutely fuckingzero sense.
You know, I think the value ofmusic has decreased.
I don't know if it's thatpeople there's so much much of
it or if people think becauseyou know, we have a computer

(01:48:06):
that we do it on instead of atape machine, that you press a
button and somehow this Maccomputer spits out a song
without input is ludicrous.
I think Michael and I I think Isketched, I used to keep like a
studio log diary thing and Ithink we spent, conservatively a

(01:48:28):
thousand hours just he and I inthe studio writing, recording
and mixing, and that's notincluding what each singer put
in themselves.
All right, so I mean.
So if anybody thinks thatbecause you make music on a
computer, that it's easy, thatit's cheap, that it shouldn't be

(01:48:49):
bought, is out of theirfreaking mind.

Speaker 1 (01:48:52):
I agree 100%.
Just like I have been sayingthroughout this interview, I'm a
huge aficionado of music andmovies.
I believe in for for bothcollecting physical copies
Because, where the world isheading, there might be a day
sometime in the very near futurewhere Internet won't be

(01:49:17):
available.
It'll be like Mad Max and allthose like post-apocalyptic
films where it's like you knowall, once the internet is gone,
you know, and you don't havephysical copies of.
You know this, this media, uh,or like that, that, as much as I
you know, this kind of justshows where I am.

(01:49:39):
Uh, I'm not the biggest WillSmith fan, especially after the
oscars incident, but, uh, tobring up a will smith movie, uh,
I am legend.
There was that scene where heused to go into the video store
and he could, you know, uh,rehearse line for line all the
movies from the video store,because that's how many times he

(01:50:01):
he rented them but why.
It was an end of the world typefilm.
But physical media, uh, youknow this, the there's, other
than other movies where, um, youknow, there's been music as
symbolizations of, you know the,the lost time before and all
that.
But guardian galaxy kind of?

(01:50:23):
did that exactly?

Speaker 2 (01:50:24):
exactly go back to the mtv thing.
I'd recently watched a tompetty documentary and they had a
nice section about the makingof that.
You got lucky video when theypull up in the kind of kind of
road mad max asks right, rightbikes, and they go in this thing
and and there's equipmentsitting there and there's TV

(01:50:45):
screens going and yeah, it isthat throwback.
I think if you don't hold ityou don't own it.
Yeah, exactly, I still find joyin again my age going.
It used to be.
That's where you would find thewords, that's what you would
see who who did what.
I used to look and see whoproduced a record.

(01:51:06):
I would see who who designedand shot the cover.
It's like these names used tomean something.
Now I I don't think that's sucha lost uh thing that's.

Speaker 1 (01:51:17):
That's so ironic.
You say that because those arelike all the questions I I ask
uh, you know musicians anddifferent bands I I interview,
like, who did the cover art?
Who you know who?
Who produced it?
Who you know?
Uh, in fact, um, one of thereasons I'm like really into as
as many of the shoegaze uh bandsas I am is because, you know, I

(01:51:44):
don't just listen to the bandand you know their individual
lyrics.
I'm like, well, if, if I likethis band and I like that band
and they're they're on thislabel.
Well, shit, let me see who ownsthe label.
You know, um, let me see whoowns the label.

Speaker 2 (01:52:01):
You know those.
That used to be a great periodof time with, like Creation and
4AD Right, beggar's Banquet.
As a kid, as 20s, like I usedto like the bands that were on
Beggar's Banquet, like theyseemed to have a type of bands
and I think there was some uh,common thread and, uh, you know,

(01:52:24):
commandership with those bandsthat it was like that that's.
I don't even know what labelsare in my head.
I can remember seeing aristathe label, seeing columbia,
seeing warner brothers it's likeI still billion dollar babies
on the green Warner Brothersrecord, right, right.

(01:52:45):
It's just like that's so so gone.
It seems that being a film buff, that the film industry got a
better hold on the bootleggingor the proliferation of films
being free that the recordindustry didn't get.
I think there started to bethis greed when music became

(01:53:08):
digital, when suddenly theyrealized, hey, we can make these
CDs, which kind of beat musicdown to zeros and ones, a
digital format.
Now, instead of thinking, well,this would make this makes it
really easy for people to justtake music and I'm not pulling a
Napster Lars shit, even thougha lot of what he said was right

(01:53:32):
that there was more greed, thatnow someone's going to have to
buy all the Led Zeppelin and thePink Floyd, all those records.
They're going to buy them inthis new format.
We're going to sell way more now, as opposed to thinking there's
always that thing just becauseyou can doesn't mean you should,
right right you have to haveless control of it and at the

(01:53:52):
end, it's just the artist thatsuffers because somebody's
making money with Spotify whenthey were doing it and you know,
yeah, there is that convenienceof being in your car, but I
think it goes back to when thereused to only be a couple of
channels on TV.
You would find something andyou would watch it.
Now you can have 500 channels.

(01:54:14):
And how many times have you satthere and went?
I don't know what the fuck I'mgoing to watch Sometimes voices,
or just watching something apart of the way and stopping it
and go.
I'll watch the rest tomorrow.
You never did that in thetheater.
You sat there and you gave itthat hour and a half or two
hours, like you were in it andthe same thing for TV before it

(01:54:37):
changed with streaming, like mydad, for instance, classic story
.

Speaker 1 (01:54:48):
With streaming.
Uh, like like my, my dad, forinstance, classic story.
Um, he uh was a a nurse, uh, inthe later half of the 90s into
the 2000s and uh, again, mebeing a film buff and horror
buff, uh, one of my, in hisfavorite shows of all time, the
x-f.
You know there was a period oftime that he was working nights
doing some job and he tells methis story because we used to,

(01:55:13):
when I live with him andeverything we used to watch, you
know reruns of the X-Files.
You know, on SyFy or TNT or youknow whatever, whatever channel
was on and um, there there wascertain episodes that came on
during like a marathon that hehad never seen before.

(01:55:34):
Uh, why?
Because the whole time he wasworking nights.
Um, you know, in the the mid tolater half of the 90s when the,
the height of the show was on,it was before on demand and
streaming and all that.

Speaker 2 (01:55:50):
It goes back to that.
It's more important when youhave to work for it, you know I
used to, as a kid, walking downtwo blocks to a walgreen and
look in, grabbing the tv guideand go thumb through it to see
when the midnight special was,if they would list the band that
was going to be on it orwatching Kiss on the Paul Lynn

(01:56:13):
show, or I forget Alice Cooper,I forget the show that he was on
, but going seeing that and itmade you be home at that time
and it made you sit there forthe 30 minutes or an hour and
again it to me, it made it moreimportant to me, it makes it
that I'm still recalling it.
So it was memorable.

(01:56:36):
You know, right as opposed tonow, like I could walk into my
living room and see whatevermovie.
Now I want to to go see thePhantom of the Paradise, I could
go see it.
You know it's there Good andbad, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:56:49):
Absolutely, Absolutely Well we are.
It has been a greatconversation.
I don't know if anybody's goingto dive into this two-hour you
know.
Plus.
I was going to ask yourpermission to insert a couple
songs off the new album into theinterview.

Speaker 2 (01:57:10):
Absolutely so.
The newest record, the one thatsigns into heaven, reality
upside down, is a remix record.
We've kind of developed thislittle thing that we do as a
studio album and then I give thetracks to various artists,
producers, djs, and go here,just like if you shot a film and

(01:57:33):
I went, here's my edit of ithere I'm gonna give you right,
you can turn the story around,you can make the hero the
villain, the villain the hero.
It.
To me that's a fun, it's a funprocess and just to see how
something that was our vision,how someone else heard it, and
some people take it from thevocal only and rewrite music

(01:57:55):
around it.
Sometimes they just they adddifferent beats to it.
So this, especially this lastone, which which went into two
CDs, there's a lot of diverseversions of the songs.
I mean there's a Julian did asort of a bossa nova version of
Kiss Me Goodbye, and thenthere's a really heavy dance

(01:58:16):
floor version by Andy from CombiChrist and it's.
I always, for these records,love the versatility or how
varied stylistically they are,and in this we decided at the
end to add the two cover songswhich I thought in today it was
probably about as political asBeauty and Chaos.

(01:58:37):
I will ever allow us to get youknow.
I don't think, just becausewe're making a song, that I
should tell you who you shouldvote for, who your favorite, who
your god should be, or anything.
I have my beliefs, you haveyour beliefs, exactly exactly
fine I just took.
I thought when I named therecord signs in the heavens

(01:58:59):
reality upside down.
I do think our world's upsidedown, which is why I took the
T-Rex song, which really wasn'tChildren of the Revolution,
isn't a revolution song, but Ilove the line you won't fool the
children of the revolution.
I think you got a little bit ofconspiracy theory in you, which
I respect, going.

(01:59:20):
I do think people get fooled.
I think media can twist.
People can take sound bites ofsomebody Like you can take an
interview and make me saywhatever the hell you want to
say, whether I said that or not.
I think that was an importantline because I do think people,
hopefully, are wising up andstarting to realize that don't

(01:59:44):
believe everything you see orhear anymore.
Question it.
It goes back to punk, questionauthority, exactly, and I just
think it's absolutely insanethat in 2025, we're still
talking about nuclear holocaust.
Which is why I thought the songOpen your Eyes if you read the

(02:00:08):
lyrics to that song, it couldhave been written yesterday.
Instead, it was written in the80s, probably during the Reagan
era stuff and it's kind ofinsane and I just kind of insane
and I just that was my littlepoint of that that uh think,
think and maybe let's not fallvictim from uh.

(02:00:29):
I think humanity has a habit ofuh repeating their past instead
of learning from it.
I think that's a dangerousthing and that triggers out into
ai and stuff like that.
Like, have you seen terminator?
exactly, maybe just because wecan doesn't mean we should.

(02:00:50):
I don't know if we should givecomputers or robots autonomy and
and stuff like that.
It it's just meant to makepeople think.
That's why I kind of mashedthose two songs in video
together.
Uh, not preaching, just going.
I have kids and sometimes I geta little fucking scared about
the world that they're they'regoing inherit.

(02:01:13):
Uh, that was my point on that.
But that the new record isremix, uh, you know which I love
doing.
We just capped it off with twocover songs to kind of tie into
the whole title of it.
And we're already working on, Ithink, with three songs, songs,
three pieces of music into thenext one.

(02:01:34):
To me it doesn't become a songuntil I give it to find the
right singer.
They put their words melody,they give it a title and then
it's a song awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:01:44):
Well, I for one cannot wait to get you on the
show again for, uh, the next, uhthe next upcoming album from
beauty and chaos yeah, we can godown that conspiracy rabbit
hole.

Speaker 2 (02:01:56):
Yeah, jump right into that.
It's the point is that some ofthem come true right, right,
right, um, definitely uh I.

Speaker 1 (02:02:06):
I have uh one uh closer question for you, um, and
that is uh any upcomingprojects.
Well, I guess you justannounced that uh slash tour
dates to announce we don't dothis live.

Speaker 2 (02:02:22):
At some point I will look at doing it.
I never jumped into thisthinking of it being a live
thing.
Okay.
I find myself thinking about itmore and more.
It's not that I'm afraid of theundertaking it would be an
undertaking because I always doit with each singer that I

(02:02:42):
wouldn't do a song and havesomeone else because I've had
people go.
Why don't you just do likeeight songs and get Ashton
Knight?
He can sing them all, or getyou know, and to me that would
be cheapening what we've done.
It would have to be the singerand I would love to do it in a
place that we can control thelook, the sound, the feel of the

(02:03:04):
whole place.
So it may happen.
I think about it and I think itwould be a shame for this,
whenever this ends, to not haveput it on stage as a production.
So I think about it more andmore each day.
What's coming next is that wehave, we're editing a video now.

(02:03:26):
That's one of the versions of asong and it's the almost
acoustic version of Made of Rain.
I love the idea when we,besides the remixes that are
heavy, dance floor or really,you know, industrialized, I love
when we take a song and kind ofstrip it back and make it a
little more organic, and we didthat with Made of Rain.

(02:03:49):
It was Ashton, and then webrought in another Beauty and
Chaos artist.
She's been involved in a bunch,whitney Tai and they kind of do
a beautiful duet on it.
There's Petal Steel, michaelRosan, my partner in Beauty and
Chaos, on it.
There's Pedal Steel.
Michael Rosan, my partner inBeauty and Chaos, is a great
Pedal Steel player, veryhaunting.
And we had a friend, heather,on viola and my wife Tish played

(02:04:10):
acoustic bass so we did a videoof that.
We've kind of created like alittle smoky lounge that we're
playing that.
So I love that the videosreally swing.
The pendulum goes like we wentfrom Children of Revolution and
Open your Eyes with thefull-blown fence, kind of like
on each nails.

(02:04:30):
What video was that?
I don't.
It may have been Wish orScorpions Rock you Like a
Hurricane.
Right right.
You know people shaking andclimbing it to the really 90s
shoegazy thing of Hollow whichjust came out a few weeks ago.
You know the cool pastelpsychedelic colors.

(02:04:53):
Now this is going to swing tothis kind of walking into some
like speakeasy and seeing us dothat song.
So I love that each one iscrazy different from its
predecessor and I think thatthat's going to come out June
18th, which is my late mom'sbirthday.

Speaker 1 (02:05:13):
Sorry.
Well, congrats and mycondolences at this time.

Speaker 2 (02:05:17):
My mom's been.
I came along late in myparents' life, but I feel them
every day and they're a big partof what we do here.

Speaker 1 (02:05:26):
Fantastic, fantastic, michael, it has been a pleasure
talking to you and having youcome take the time to swim in
the fishbowl.

Speaker 2 (02:05:40):
It was a nice Olympic-sized journey I'd love
to do it again when the nextthing happens.

Speaker 1 (02:05:48):
My friend, awesome, awesome.
And the only last thing I havea request for is, please, if you
could let Zach Wild and TylerBates at least know about me, or
the Fishbowl?
Oh, absolutely.
They're both really goodfriends.
I'm huge fans of both of theirsand a number of other people

(02:06:10):
you've worked with.
So many stories that we'll haveto save, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:06:16):
Tyler's out with Manson.
He did the new Manson.
Yeah, he's doing guitar on thattour Zach is doing.
Zach's probably the hardestworking guy I've ever met going
between pantera black labelsociety uh black label uh zach
sabbath he right right tribute.

(02:06:37):
Uh, he's messaged me like threetimes since we're sitting here.
He just sends the craziest shit.
But really genuine person, it'swhat you want your guitar hero
to be, that's right.

Speaker 1 (02:06:53):
I saw Zach a good few years back at a venue here in
Pittsburgh Actually my favoritevenue here in called Mr Smalls
Theater Phenomenal show, one ofthe best guitar players and
guitar shows that I've had achance to go to, and I would

(02:07:14):
love, love, love to have Zachand Tyler both you know come
take a dip in the bowl.

Speaker 2 (02:07:20):
I will certainly ask him.
If Zach comes through with anyof those projects, any of the
things he's in, please let meknow.
I'll be happy to makearrangements.
And he's, he's anybody, that'sa friend of mine, he's gracious
too.
So if that, if that comes topass, I'm sure one of those
projects will be showing up inin Pittsburgh soon.

(02:07:43):
Please, you got my contact,email me and Zach's a great
person.

Speaker 1 (02:07:51):
I appreciate that so much, michael.
God bless, it has been apleasure and I cannot wait to
have you on the show again andkeeping in touch and everything
from here on out.
A lot of stuff to talk about.

Speaker 2 (02:08:07):
Sounds good, my friend Awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:08:10):
You too, you too Take care.

Speaker 2 (02:08:12):
I hope the temperature was just right, it
was fantastic, not too cold.

Speaker 1 (02:08:18):
Excellent, awesome, take care, attention, all you
fishes in the sea.
Thank you for taking the timeto listen to the Fishbowl hosted
by me, sam Fish.
You can help the Fishbowl bysubscribing on all major
podcasting platforms and bydonating anything that you're
able to to help with purchasingmics, different podcasting

(02:08:41):
equipment and things to keep theshow running so I can keep
creating great content for allmy fishes in the bowl.
So thank you for taking thetime to swim in the bowl with me
.

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