March 4, 2024 • 58 mins
Thomas Crawford, the lead guitarist of Manhack, recounts the band's inception – from a virtual MySpace presence to the metal scene of Atlanta. This episode unwraps the story behind Manhack's name, drenched in video game lore, and the captivating transition from a one-man project to a tight-knit ensemble.
The creativity of Manhack's music-making overflows where lyrical alchemy meets the raw energy of metal. Learn how poetic verses transform into mighty anthems, and get a front-row seat to the intricacies between lyrics and guitar riffs. Thomas and I pull back the curtain on band dynamics, revealing the collaborative spirit that fuels their song crafting and the feeling of presenting fresh tracks to an ever-eager audience. Plus, discover the unexpected ties between gaming classics and their music as he shares how themes from Doom and other video games seep into Manhack's songs.
Finally, we dive into the digital realm where consistent engagement with fans is the lifeblood of music today. Thomas and I speak on the art of connecting beyond the music, discussing the strategic release of songs and how even a simple daily post can catapult a band into the spotlight. Balancing life's demands with the creative pulse of the band, Manhack is gearing up for new adventures, with teasers of upcoming projects that promise to blend iconic video game influences into their ever-evolving sound.
New Website and Merch:
https://www.wheyoflifepodcast.com
Social Channels:
Manhack's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/manhackofficial/
Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wheyoflifepodcast/
Gus' Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gussholland/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey man, how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
What's up.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Yeah, so we've been talking a little bit beforehand,
but if you don't mind, justgoing ahead and introducing
yourself to the audience.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Yeah, yeah, my name's Thomas.
I play guitar in a band calledManhack.
We're based out of Atlanta,georgia, playing a metal band
where I don't know see all kindof genres that were called
groove metal, deathcore metalwho knows who cares.
We play metal, we got riffs.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
So I was actually introduced to you by my tattoo
artist I hope he doesn't mind meplugging him, but Scott Dowdy.
So he's based in Bryan, texas.
They listen to all types ofmusic in the, you know, in the
tattoo studio, but I'd say mostof the time it leans toward
(00:57):
metal.
And yeah, and he was like man,you should check this band out.
Like it was kind of just random, but he was like this is this
band's the shit you know.
So that was probably I don'teven know probably two years ago
or so.
Oh, wow, yeah, maybe, maybe notthat far back, but over a year
(01:19):
for sure.
So how did y'all I know y'allare from Georgia did y'all?
Were y'all buddies beforehand?
Or how did did Manhack comeinto existence?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, well, it started in 2011.
Well, I mean, if you want toget really technical with it, it
actually started a lot soonerthan that.
So the official Manhack trackwas uploaded to SoundCloud in
2011, I think fall or winter of2011 called Intro, martyr and
(01:59):
the Prize, and that was kind ofthe first official Manhack song.
Funny enough, there's actuallyan acoustic song that we
uploaded, because originallyManhack was supposed to be this
didn't last long, but it wassupposed to be multiple
different genres or just kind ofwhatever was the vibe, and at
the time it was just me as anindividual.
(02:20):
I was also playing in a bandcalled Face All Fears.
Well, not at that time, Iwasn't.
I joined Face All Fears acouple years later anyway, but
yeah, that's when it officiallystarted, when the first Manhack
song ever came to fruition.
Pretty much Now we could getreally deep into the lore here.
(02:45):
Back on MySpace.
Did you ever have a MySpaceprofile?
Yes, yeah, okay, this wasn'tManhack, but two songs.
Actually, one of those songs isreleased right now.
Two songs Martyrdom and anothersong called Stopping Power were
actually released on a MySpacemusic page under I think it was
(03:07):
just my name or something likeT-bomb T-bomb's music page or
something it wasn't Manhack andthat was probably 2008.
I don't know, was MySpace stillrelevant then?
It might have been like oheight, oh nine or some shit yeah
.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
That was probably so.
I think that's kind of aroundthe time where they were
transitioning to like mainlyfocus on music and stuff like
that.
I know.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
So it was around that time there, but I was probably
making the switch to Facebook.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, anyway, I mean, yeah, werecorded Martyrdom, which is
actually up on our Spotify rightnow.
It's part of our full lengththat we're building, so you can
actually go listen to that track.
So if you want to hear a reallyearly Manhack song, it would
have sounded like it would havebeen that.
(03:53):
But technically, we formed in2011 when that first song got
uploaded, and then it was just aone man kind of thing for a
while.
But a couple of small releasesgot signed in 2014 to a now
expired, rest in Peace Bad AssAtlanta record label called
(04:13):
Autumn in Color.
That lasted for about two yearsand then it was around that
time that we started recruitingmembers and our drummer, pat at
the time, was also playing inFace All Fears.
So that's how me and himstarted working with each other
(04:34):
on this project and we had donean EP in 2014 called Domenicide
and we brought in a fewdifferent vocalists from the
area to have big sections onpretty much the.
It was our first EP without orwith instrument or with vocals,
and every song had a differentvocalist on it.
(04:56):
Pretty much Excuse me, we didn'treally have a set vocalist at
the time, or did we, do you?
I don't remember some of thisshit, man, I should have been so
long ago, actually.
No, our vocalist at the timewas Bobby Breneman, that's who
was doing vocals for us.
It was a long time ago.
Anyway, we did Domenicide, andMatt, our current vocalist, was
(05:18):
in a band called Synapse Defectand he had probably one of the
best vocal spots on the whole EP, so I just kind of started
working from him with him onManhack after that.
So me and Matt werecollaborating on Manhack around
that time and then our vocalist,or our bassist, aunt Belcher,
(05:41):
was started playing bass with us, and then we got pat around and
played our first show in 2018,november, and then, yeah, we
just played a few shows afterthat and then that's pretty much
(06:02):
what led to where we're at now.
I mean, there's a lot more inbetween that, but that's kind of
the long story, I guess, kindof condensed.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Okay, yeah.
So how did the name Manhacklike?
How did you come up with thator how was it that created?
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, actually, yeah.
So that was from the originalconcept of the band, and what
the concept still is really waswriting songs, implementing,
taking metal music, implementinga lot of sound design in with
(06:41):
the music, so a lot of justrandom shit that you might hear
in a Gordon song or somethingright For a video game
soundtrack.
Yeah, and so taking metal music, incorporating some type of
sound design in with it and thenincorporating themes and lyrics
, concepts etc.
Center around stuff from videogames and movies, primarily
(07:04):
video games, and that's wherethe name comes from, because
Manhack is actually comes fromHalf Life 2.
I'm not sure if you've everplayed that one or not.
Yes, yeah, yeah.
So the Manhacks are the someonethat enemies in the game that
are these, these really piercing, loud, spinning robot floating
(07:25):
things.
They just they have spinningsaws on them and they slam into
you.
Yeah, called Manhacks.
So that's that's where the namecame from.
And so, yeah, I mean, that'sreally what, where that name
came from.
And we still have thatconceptual approach to
everything, most things still tothis day.
(07:45):
We have a song called Hall ofValience, centered around Skyrim
.
We have a song called High andTight, which is also centered
around Half Life 2.
Our song Expedition 14A iscentered around Doom 3.
And one specific audio log thatyou find in hell when you're in
Doom 3.
And then you know, there's, Ithink, the song Constance is
(08:09):
centered around BioshockInfinite.
So there's, there's a lot ofthemes like that.
So that's, that's pretty muchwhere the name came from, and
that name represents the kind ofstuff that we write and the way
that we take, the approach thatwe take to creating a manhack
song.
Pretty much.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, no for sure, that's.
That's awesome.
I didn't.
So I played, I played Half Life2, but it was like only at a
friend's house and you know whatI mean it was.
It wasn't that that often.
I played a lot of Doom and soyeah, and a lot of Skyrim as
well.
(08:49):
So I've definitely I caughtthose references in a lot of
music.
Yeah, so I don't know.
So I listened.
No-transcript.
I almost every day I listen toat least one of your songs, but
(09:11):
the I'm horrible with it wasn'ttitle so King without a crown,
king without a country, kingwithout a country.
Ok, yeah, dude.
Well, I mean, I don't know, Idon't know why I'm like this.
I like I've listened to thissong probably like 10 times at
least, and I'm still like I yeah, that's just how.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Hey, that's just how you interpret it.
I mean, a king without a crownmakes the same sense as a king
without a country.
Yeah, it's I mean you couldcall that song, you could take
that out and change the name toa king without a crown, and it
would.
Everything would match up,exactly the same.
So hey, it works.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, and I love how y'all incorporate the Different
like animations, like the old,old style cartoons and stuff
like that into.
Well, you do it on on socialmedia like for your promos and
stuff, but also like if youactually click on a specific
song you can, you can see thatthat same imagery like repeating
(10:12):
.
So that's, that was real cool.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah those.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Those cartoons are just random old ass cartoons and
when our song Death and Factsis started doing pretty well,
that that video just had one ofthose simple cartoons was All
right.
Well, let's, let's try thisagain.
So a king without a countryactually has one of those, so
(10:37):
yeah, yeah, is that?
Is that your favorite manhacktrack?
Is that the one you play themost Right?
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Most, the most, I guess, like favorite right now
if that makes sense, becauseI'll go like it'll be like
cyclical, you know, like I'llget, yeah, I don't know why, but
Mainly like I just I love the.
I mean, if you just, if youjust read the lyrics, like
without actually visualizing ornot visualizing whatever the
(11:06):
music like, disregarding theactual music, it's like poetry,
you know.
So I, I appreciate the lyricismis.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
And that's all.
Yeah, and so that the specificsong that you're talking about,
that's actually exactly how itwas written.
You remember Live Journal, byany chance?
It sounds really familiar, kindof talking about my space era,
kind of stuff.
Anyway, I used to write a bunchof random.
(11:34):
They weren't even really lyrics, because I wasn't in a band at
the time, but just poems, epicpoems and just random thoughts
and shit.
Yeah, who would go on LiveJournal?
And a lot of those ended upbeing lyrics for manhack songs.
This Forsaken Land, for instance, was originally posted to Live
Journal.
Marjoritum the concealer, aking without a country, actually
(11:58):
, ok, who was also?
It's funny, that song wasoriginally called a queen
without a country, but we justdecided to change that a little
bit because it meant it.
What am I trying to say?
It was a little bit morerelevant to where the direction
of the song was going, yeah, butyeah, anyway, that came from
(12:19):
Live Journal and that waswritten In years before it was
ever intended to be in a songand yeah, that was written as
just kind of this.
I don't want to say it's anepic poem because it's not super
long, but just something whereit kind of has that certain
rhyming pattern, which isinteresting, because when you,
when you try to take somethinglike that that's written a
(12:41):
specific way to have this niceeloquent flow, while you're
reading it and all the, everyother line, the last word rhymes
and all that, it's prettyinteresting.
Trying to take that and cram itinto a metal song, yeah,
exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
That will just like this, because you're I mean,
you're screaming a lot of thetime, you know, and so that you
all did a good job is all I'msaying.
Thank you.
Like the, you kept the flow ofthe, the eloquence I guess,
while you know, including someferocity.
(13:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
And that's what could be tricky is is because some of
those lines and we actuallyhave a release that we're
working on right now.
It's probably aiming to have itcome out sometime it's kind of
the same thing.
It's based around the reallylong actually four chapter long
epic poem that has that where ithas this, every other line
(13:39):
rhymes and it has a structureand this and it flows a certain
way and and trying to cram someof that into a verse or chorus
is pretty tough because you wantto stick to the concept but you
also want it to make sense forthe vocalist and kind of Trying
(14:01):
to put it into the song to wherethe vocalist that makes sense
for him to do that, yeah, studioor live.
But that's just kind of part ofthe dynamic of being the guitar
player that writes most of thestuff but doesn't do vocals.
Yeah, just like being theguitar player the rice most of
the stuff and doesn't play drums.
Yet here I am programming drumsanyway, so sometimes the drums
get a little weird.
(14:21):
Yeah, that's funny and our olddrummer, pat, would always give
me shit because I'd ride a drumparty.
He's like yo.
What the hell is that?
Nobody would ever do that.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
All right let's fix it.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, no, that's, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I mean y'all, yeah, I don't know.
Y'all are consistently in themiddle of the song.
Y'all are consistently, in myopinion, coming out with like,
like, I'm not skipping anything,you know as far as that's good.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Well, I mean, I don't know, like some of my favorite
artists, like I even like saythey come out with like a crazy
long album, like 20 songs orsomething like that.
Like even some of them all,like I'll give the whole album
like a once through, you know,and then when I'm at work, like
listening to it, I'll be likenot that one, you know.
(15:11):
Like you know what I mean, likeI don't have to do that with
y'all.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So that was nice, that's a huge compliment, man,
because usually that's that's.
That's that's something that wetry to aim for when we come out
with releases.
Obviously, it's almostimpossible to tell how a song is
going to be going to bereceived until you actually put
it out there.
The whole everybody in the bandcould think it's the greatest
(15:37):
thing ever.
And then you put it out thereand nobody likes it.
Or the song that you thinknobody's going to like, you put
it out there and it's your topplayed one.
It's always something like that.
Yeah, so it's good to hear, man, I appreciate that.
It's a huge compliment.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, yeah, no problem.
But I mean that's it's the samewith podcasting.
Like I'll, I can put like a lotof work into some like really
intricate kind of likescientific podcast about
strength training or whatever.
I'm like man, this is like alot of good info.
It's going to really like besuccessful.
You know it's going to help alot of people.
It's going to probably bepopular and then it's like
(16:12):
compared to like another one,that's same situation.
You know, like it it's weirdhit, hit misses, I guess, and
different, different crowds Iguess like go toward different
things.
I don't know.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
And it's really tough to figure that out.
And that's when we take out ourads to.
I mean, that's, that's the sameapproach there.
It's all right.
Well, the verse is our favoritepart of the song, but we don't
know, right, that's why you putthe verse, course, bridge, and
all the other different parts ofthe song out there, and then
the one you think is not goingto do well is the one that gets
the best clicks on it.
The most clicks on it, right,yeah, hell.
(16:52):
Another example is our songDeath and Facts.
When we were writing that song,it first off, we put it first on
the album.
That's kind of a joke, becauseyou're all, an intro has to be a
minute long or some shit, right?
So I said you know what, screwit, let's take the longest song
(17:12):
we've ever written and put thatone first.
Right, that'll be the intro,right, five and a half minute
long track, which is by far thelongest song that we've ever
written.
And it's because of how longthat song was mainly that our
vocalist knew, so he called it.
So props to Matt.
Yeah, he knew that song fromday one.
He was like yo, this song isthat people are going to eat
(17:34):
this shit up.
I don't know, man.
I mean it's cool.
It's a cool song, it's got alot of nice production in it and
I definitely spent the mosttime writing that song than any
other track, not just because ofhow long it is, but just
because of the extra instrumentsand synth and all the different
guitar tones that are in it andall this stuff.
Yeah, but I was like I don'tknow, that might be a deep cut
(17:55):
for people.
That's like a hidden gem on thealbum.
That, yeah, it's cool, but Idon't know.
And in any way, now it stays atthe top of all of our streaming
platforms and we cannot getpeople to stop listening to that
song.
I mean it stays at the topevery time.
Every time we log in theSpotify for artists, you go past
(18:17):
seven days, past 24 hours, 28days, 12 months, whatever.
It is at the top every time.
And I never, ever would haveguessed that would have happened
.
Because the song is five and ahalf minutes long, right?
Yeah, people want these, these,these kind of these thrown kind
of tidbits, right?
They want these two two and ahalf minute long songs because
(18:38):
that's just kind of howeverybody's attention span is
nowadays with social media.
They want it quick, they wantit fast, they want it now, and
then they're gone, right, yeah?
So here you have this five anda half long minute track that
has a really short build up to along build up to a build up,
and then the riff comes in.
(18:58):
Yeah, I mean, the song doesn'tget to the point until a minute
and a half into it.
Yeah, so that combined with itwas a five and a half minutes
long.
I was like yo, there's no way,there's no way people are going
to listen to this shit.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
And then what do you know?
Yeah, now I feel I feel like,with that song in particular,
like the way you described it,how it's, it's like a small
build up and then you know likeit's, it's leveled like that I
feel like you hook the, you allhook the audience, kind of like
writing, like writing a book,how they're like, oh, you got to
(19:30):
hook them on the first likepage or whatever you know, or a
half page, I feel like that's,even though it's like not the
meat of the song, it's stilllike hook, hook the attention,
you know.
So then they're in for the ride, for lack of a better term.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, that's a good way to look at it, which is, but
see, which is interestingthough, because it's, it's one
of those things that, because itswells up like that and it
starts off quiet, that was thejustification behind, at least,
my rationale was people aren'tgoing to grab onto this because
(20:05):
it's like, oh, let me fastforward, let me get to the riff,
let me get to the breakdown.
Yeah, the breakdown.
Yeah, but apparently not, andonly that's what they.
They like that kind of stuff.
So, thanks, mick Gordon.
Yeah, the song structurereference.
Yeah, because that isabsolutely where that came from.
No shame.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, whatever it's, whatever you know like I mean
the some of the beauty of whaty'all you know the band is is
Not you know like is pullingaspects from different things
you know.
So, whatever, that's like partof what makes y'all great, Thank
(20:49):
you.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Thank you, yeah, it's , it's.
We're always trying to find newways to pull influence from
things, not, I mean, sometimes,things that, yeah, we like, but
Also things that are successful,which sometimes might not be
(21:10):
things that we like, right, yeah, for instance, knocked loose.
I don't listen to knock loose.
Their music is cool, but I justnot.
I just don't listen to them.
It's just not my thing.
Right, but I'm so curious aboutthem Because I mean, they're
(21:36):
just, they're a hardcore moshband that you would hear at this
is hardcore festival, but theyjust blew up.
I mean, what was the festivalthey had, like Bonnaroo or
something?
I just like crazy the shit thatthey're doing.
Bands like that are always sointeresting to me, so we so we
pull influences from differentplaces, even if we're not
(21:59):
necessarily listening to thatband on repeat, right, right.
Lama God is another one.
I mean Lama God is really anenigma, because when you go and
listen to their songs, it'sthere's not much difference
between track to track.
It's kind of like they said,all right, they found something
(22:19):
that worked years ago and theyjust kept writing that song.
Or you can tell you yeah, thegood to do got to do, to do, to
do, to do, to do, to do, to do,to do, to do, to do.
This is going to be about onetwenty one thirty beats per
minute, and then there's goingto be a verse that tightens up,
and then Randy comes in and thenthere's going to be some fast
part and then there's going tobe some catchy chorus line and
then there's going to be abreakdown.
I mean, but even consideringthat, that they write very
(22:45):
similar songs to each other andthe fact that he pretty much
does screaming only metal vocalsthey play in front of like
fifty thousand people, right, Imean, it's insane.
And what's even crazier aboutit is a lot of people in the
audience watching them areprobably saying, are probably
the people you see on socialmedia say, ah, I can't
(23:05):
understand what he's sayingthough, right, I like metal, but
growling metal isn't real metalor whatever the hell.
Yeah, but they listen to LamaGod.
So that's the thing that'sreally interesting in that we
pull inspiration from stuff likethat, right, because, yeah, I
mean, matt can do gutter rollsand shit all day, and he can do
(23:26):
the Tunnel Vox and sound like apterodactyl, and he can sound
like Phil Boseman or whoever youwant him to, but it and we do
some stuff like that.
We like to throw those littletidbits in there, but it's
really Taking influence frombands that are in kind of a
similar genre as us, that aremassive.
Right, what are they doing?
How are they doing it?
When are they doing it?
(23:49):
Right, what's in theirsongwriting that's causing
people to get hooked to thisshit?
Right, because I mean, if youdidn't know Lama God at all and
you only listened to, let's say,underground metalcore,
deathcore etc.
And you played a Lama God songfor somebody and they go, oh
yeah, this is bad ass.
And then you say, ok, yeah,they have what?
(24:10):
Two million monthly listenersor whatever it is, and they play
in front of 60,000 people, it'slike, wait, what?
So Lama God's interest?
Anyway, we would pull influencesfrom a lot of different things,
not just specifically riffsthat we like.
In fact, I don't really pull alot of influence from Riffs.
Really.
(24:30):
I think that there's alwaysgoing to be a lot of old school
Metallica, the black album andbefore and Fear Factory.
There's always going to be alot of that Influence in our
songwriting, because that justthat shit is just going to come
out of me no matter what.
But but yeah, anyway, I meanthat's kind of a little bit of
(24:54):
an insight onto influences thatwe pull for stuff Songwriting,
and then hey, the the MickGordon thing is a good one too,
because I mean that that's,that's also a good example of,
yeah, phenomenal tracks andgreat songwriting and great
production, but also Having thiskind of cinematic metal song.
(25:15):
Right where you have a metalsong that's only about 40 to 50
percent actual instruments andthe other 50 to 60 percent is
sound design.
Right, because the song wasoriginally written for a video
game, so it had a much differentpurpose and you can go on Mick
Gordon.
Spotify now and Rip and Tearhas over 100 million plays on it
(25:35):
.
Probably by this point.
Last time I checked it was like97 or 98 or something.
Yeah, I mean insane.
Right, I mean you got to thinkabout it.
I mean it's insane for Lama Godto have that, but you got to
think that that's what that is.
That's Lamb of God, that'sSlipknot numbers, right, but
this is a detuned eight stringgent song that was on a video
(25:57):
game.
Yeah, I mean like what?
Yeah, 100 million plays on that.
So that's curious also, right.
So it's kind of like OK, well,if people like that kind of
stuff, we like writing that kindof stuff, yeah, and that's kind
of where definite facts camefrom, and then that obviously
people like that song.
So people do want to listen tolong songs apparently.
(26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
It's hype music to kill things too.
Yeah, that's exactly what thatwas.
Yeah, virtually virtually, ofcourse.
So when did you all first start?
When did you all first starttouring?
I know, technically, you allhave been around for like 12, 13
years.
Did you all you know likeimmediately start doing shows
(26:47):
and stuff, or how did that workout?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
for you, not immediately.
Well, like we were talkingabout earlier, the band started
in 2011.
But again, that was just theone man guy kind of thing me
doing a solo project, whateverand then we didn't actually play
a song or song A show untilabout 2018, late 2018.
(27:15):
Ok, mostly played aroundGeorgia, played Tennessee,
florida, played in NorthCarolina, really only played the
Southeast Um, done a couple ofweekend runs here and there, but
, um, yeah, so that's kind ofwhen that started.
And our drummer now is one ofthe best drummers, if not the
(27:39):
best drum I've ever played with,but he just he's in school a
lot and it's kicking his ass.
So we're actually looking rightnow for a touring drummer.
We have a booking agent who iswanting to definitely put us on
the road and we want to get onthe road a lot more and really
tour, really get those numbersup, do week long, two week,
(27:59):
three, week long shit, right,yeah.
So that that's the next step asfar as touring and shows us.
Concern is to actually getreally good tours under our
belts and really take manhackout all over the US, eventually
all over the world.
To all the people that havebeen commenting saying, hey,
come to our city, come here andyeah we're working on it.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yeah, no, that's, that's awesome.
So, speaking of the touring andeverything, do you have like a
most memorable moment or acraziest experience or anything
like that that you could share?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Show related or playing shows and stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Either one or both would yeah, yeah Um.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I'm trying to think what happened.
We were playing Well, this,okay, this one's fun.
This technically happened infront of our driveway, but we
did a.
We were at what was it?
Myrtle Beach?
Was that Panama City?
Was Panama City Myrtle Beach?
(29:08):
And then we came I don'tremember anyway, no, no, no, I
think that was a solo PanamaCity show.
Anyway, we were coming backfrom that and pulling a trailer
and we got to my house, so inthe front of the house over here
on the street, and we werepulling up and we had to try to
back the van or back the trailerup the driveway and it shit the
(29:34):
bed right there in front of thehouse.
Come to find out, the rear mainseal was shot, transmission was
shot, so it was just pissingout oil and transmission just
and transmission fluid justeverywhere.
Yeah, just try to put it in gearand couldn't get it to go
anywhere, so we just had to pushit and park it on the side of
(29:55):
the street.
Neighbors call the cops on usfor a van being out there
because they're assholes, yeah.
So I mean it was a weird.
It was a weird ordeal.
But the strangest thing wasthat we went back and forth to
Panama City, which from here ina van pulling a trailer is about
(30:17):
a five and a half six hourdrive.
Well, between five to six,whatever.
It depends on how fast you go,how many piss breaks you take.
Yeah.
So all those miles, no problems.
Got there, okay, came back,okay.
It wasn't until we were about 30minutes out that our basis at
(30:38):
the time Aunt Belcher wasdriving and there was this weird
kind of sputtering thing happenand we both kind of looked at
each other, said what the hellwas that, because that wasn't
normal.
And then, sure enough, once wegot in front of the house, it
waited then and then it crappedout.
Weird as shit.
I mean, it didn't crap out whenwe got to the venue, it didn't
(30:59):
crap out halfway there, justlike the van said all right, I'm
done.
Yeah, y'all did cool, peace out, yeah.
So that was weird, just becauseof the timing of it.
I mean, it was obviously youdon't want something like that
to ever happen to your vehicle,and especially your tour vehicle
, but if it's going to happen,that's the time for it to happen
(31:20):
.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Yeah, when everything is done and you're back safe.
Yeah, it's better than,especially on the like driving
like if you're on a highway orsomething and your transmission
goes out, you know, oh, yeah,like yeah, no, and pulling a
trailer too.
Yeah, yeah, that's so as far asyour writing process goes.
(31:43):
So you're, are you the onlylyricist Like, do y'all kind of
contribute, or how does that?
Speaker 2 (31:51):
work out we.
It depends on what it is.
So for our song, Glorify God,whisper, that one was all me.
So instrumentals lyrics.
Because if I have a specificconcept in mind for a song, then
(32:11):
it's me and Matt have both kindof agreed that it's best that I
just put together the vocalsfor it and then send it to him
and then he just tracks it.
Because if me and him try to goback and forth on ideas for
something like that, if I have aspecific theme in mind, it
doesn't really work as well asif I just give him a track
completely blank and say dowhatever you want.
(32:32):
So it depends on what it is.
Death and Faxes was.
I wrote the instrumentals, Iwrote everything besides the
vocals, handing him theinstrumental song and said do
whatever you want.
And 14A had a specific theme inmind, which again was Doom 3.
(32:54):
So Matt doesn't know shit aboutDoom 3.
So that one, yeah, I obviouslyhad to write the lyrics and do
the rough vocal patterns for itand send that off to him.
So I mean, it really dependsfor sure on what it is, but
we're doing a lot.
(33:16):
Come to find out that Matt, justespecially after what he did on
Death and Faxes, all the weirdvocal shit that he did.
On that one, yeah, it's likeyeah, we need to get you doing
this more often, yeah, sothere's been a lot more of
handing him instrumental tracks,and sometimes they're, well,
(33:41):
the only thing that he mighthave in that situation as far as
specific notes to follow wouldbe hey, this is the verse, this
is the chorus, this is thebridge, right, and then I might
notate Maybe there's a specifictype of vocal in mind.
So, if it's the chorus, forinstance, with the chorus, we
(34:03):
always try to aim for catchy aspossible, right, right, yes,
it's screaming, yes, it's metalriffs, but what can we do to
make that chorus stick in yourhead, right, and so that's
always something that we discussand keep in mind and I always
make notes of when giving to himto do vocals for a song is, hey
(34:24):
, the chorus remember, this isthe return to home, right, this
is the thing, this is the anthem, this is the thing that needs
to get stuck in somebody's head,right?
So, also, make the vocals havea lot of enunciation, right?
Yeah, don't just do a guttural,the whole chorus.
Yeah, you're not going to beable to hear it.
(34:45):
The noise is cool, right, and alot of that shit that he does
takes a lot of skill for sure,but you can't hear the words,
right, so it might be.
Hey, this is the chorus maxenunciation, right, right, make
that line as much as you canbetween being able to hear what
you're saying and making thesound cool, yeah, and then for
(35:09):
the verse, it might be a littlemore free, free, free rain to do
whatever you want, right, ifyou want to throw gutturals in
there and whatnot.
Blah, blah, blah, but usuallythere's some notes like that hey
, here's the song structurelayout.
Here's the chorus maxenunciation.
We really try to go for maxenunciation here and moving
(35:30):
forward.
Best case scenario you listento a manhack song the first time
and you can understand most ofthe words.
So, because, again, that's kindof a reference from Lamb of God
They've managed to figure outhow to do that perfectly.
So, yeah, as far as our actualwriting process concerned, I
(35:52):
mean, that's really kind of howwe go about it.
Sometimes we write riffs firstand then put drums with them.
Sometimes songs start from arandom sample.
There's a track I'm working onright now.
For instance, there was onelike a three or four second clip
(36:14):
from Fallout, new Vegas DLC.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Oh, that was just that was my next question.
Actually, it was like are youall going to do any fallouts?
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, there was.
It was a really short three tofour second sample that's in the
game files and it just soundedcool.
So I pulled that sample up.
It had two notes and it had abeats per minute.
So I figured out what the beatsper minute was, I figured out
what the notes were and thenbuilt a song around that.
So sometimes it starts fromrandom shit like that Sometimes
(36:44):
you're driving and you get theidea in your head and then you
make a voice memo and then yougo get that, get that, get that,
get that, get that, and thenthat's how the song starts.
It's a lot of different stuff,for sure, but yeah, that's kind
of how we approach writing.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
I got you so.
So you just recently believeFebruary 2nd, right?
You dropped your newest albumand you're already working on
new stuff, which is always good,you know audience appreciates
that.
Do you have any idea, like isit in its infancy for the new
(37:27):
stuff, or are you planning onjust like one more song for now,
or like a whole album?
Or can you give any insightinto that?
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah, yeah, excuse me .
First off, the current album isnot done, so there's more
coming for that.
So, okay, the imminentascendancy is just a it's not
done.
There's more coming for that.
Okay, yes, we are working onnew songs always.
(38:00):
So ever since we I think Juneor July of 2022 is when we
started deciding that we weregoing to upload a new song once
every six to eight months, weeks, six to eight weeks, okay, we
pretty much haven't stoppedsince.
I think we might have missedthat gap once between Jonesy
(38:22):
Christ and Fur Elise.
But ever since that besidesthat one, ever since about
summer of 2022, you've gotten anew manhack song within two
months, repeatedly.
We're still going to keep thatgoing forward.
That has its own challenges,for sure, but we've got a few
(38:43):
songs that we're working onright now.
Like I said, there's there'stracks that still haven't come
out for the album because thiscurrent album arc isn't done yet
.
We're working on a few othersongs another EP that might turn
into another full length andthen maybe another EP.
So I mean, there's just allkinds of random shit.
(39:04):
I mean, maybe it, maybe it'llbe a single, maybe it'll be an
EP.
Whatever it, we don't know, butit'll be new stuff.
Yeah, so I think manhackmanhack previously this mix is
going to be even better and it'sjust hopefully going to be even
heavier.
So I'm not going to sayhopefully, because it is new.
Manhack is going to have abetter mix, it's going to sound
better and it's going to beheavier.
(39:26):
Yeah, so, yeah some goodpromises there.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Yeah, that's, that is how, how my tattoo artist
introduced it, you know, he'slike I was like oh, what do they
sound like?
He's like the lyric or he'slike the vocals are filthy.
And I was like OK, nice, mattwill appreciate that for sure.
Yeah, yeah.
So, man, that's cool.
(39:53):
I really appreciate the effortinto the all, into everything,
but also like a consistentschedule of new content.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
So yeah, you have to.
I mean, we live in a time wherepeople's attention spans are
the shortest that they've everbeen.
We can get into the wholesocial media is the downfall of
society conversation.
But yeah, that'd probably be awhole other three hour podcast
(40:28):
in and of itself, but it socialmedia is conditioning people to
want more content, quicker, moreentertaining, higher quality,
faster, right, right.
I mean you can sit there andzone out on your phone for 10
minutes and watch 60 videos.
Pass you by.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Tick, tock, you just flip it.
Yeah, yeah, you get this rightthumb exercise.
This right thumb gets reallyswole, right, you get this.
Yeah, get this workout on yourright thumb.
Just watching these cat videosand shit.
For, like I said, even 10minutes, you can go through
dozens of videos.
So one of the biggest thingsthat you can do nowadays as a
(41:08):
band to set yourself apart is tostay consistent with the work
ethic.
And look, yeah, it soundscliche, it sounds like
consistency at where I mean, butit's just like you know you
work out.
So it's like gym stuff, right,so I could go to the gym for a
week and get a little stronger,build a little muscle, burn a
(41:29):
little fat, but if you stopafter that, you're just going to
pretty much go back to whereyou were Now.
Imagine if you went to the gymfor a year straight.
Right, how much different wouldyou look on the on the other
side of that?
So one of the biggest thingsthat bands can do nowadays is to
stay consistent is to socialmedia and release schedule.
(41:52):
I mean the whole six to eightweeks thing sometimes four to
eight weeks, whatever.
That's not just so you canpitch sponks or pitch songs to a
Spotify editorial playlist,right, I mean that's cool, but
we've gotten on three editorialplaylists and they're only 3% of
(42:16):
our streams.
So yeah, wow, we never got onthem, it wouldn't have mattered.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it wouldn'thave mattered.
So playlist pitching is cool,but don't overthink that.
Anyway.
So it's not just releasingconsistently like that so you
can constantly have stuff topitch to Spotify.
It's you need to keep grabbingyour fans attention, right.
(42:43):
And if you're a band, your fansare your customers and your
product is your music mainly.
I mean, really your product asa band is entertainment, because
there's multiple ways toentertain people as a band, not
just through your music.
Obviously, music is the mainthing, but music still is number
one.
And focusing on doing thatevery six to eight weeks, I mean
(43:06):
it's tough, because once youstart doing that, you get the
ball rolling.
You kind of set that standard,right.
If you don't release a songevery six to eight weeks, people
are going to come out hey man,what are you doing?
We're getting really boredreally quick compared to a band
that might just release one fulllength every two years.
Right, but that that's the bestway to keep people's attention
(43:29):
nowadays is is the consistentuploading of music and also
social media and social socialmedia is a whole other debate
which we can definitely talkabout, because we love the whole
social media conversation andyeah, so that's that a rough.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I was going to ask you who who mainly does the
social media, because whoeverdoes it is on top of it and
doing really well.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Yeah, I appreciate that.
That's me also.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
So that's me 100%.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
I do all of that always happen Okay man?
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Yeah, no, y'all are, are you are very on top of that.
There's so much video content.
Oh, I mean, like like I wassaying, just the pulling from
different cartoons and differentstuff like that, like that in
itself, you know, creates thecontent.
Because, like it's, it's reallyweird, like I've just from
(44:23):
being a social media user andalso, you know, trying to put
out content and stuff like that,like I found like a lot of time
.
People just need something tobecause they're in that that
mode of like you know, the fastwatching and everything.
It's almost like they just need, even if it's repetitive
imagery, just something to kindof like occupy their eyes while
(44:44):
they're listening.
It's really weird, but yeah,yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Yeah, you're right, and that's what's great about
bands getting consistent aboutposting to their social media,
which which, yeah, there's theargument that that it's tough
because you're a musician andyou want to focus your time on
writing music and stuff likethat.
But I mean, you're really onlyafforded that luxury if you're
(45:11):
big enough to have someone elsedoing your social media for you.
Yeah, I mean, if you want morepeople to come to your show, you
want more people to subscribeto your YouTube channel, to go
to your website and buy merchand you want more people to
listen to you on Spotify, allthat comes from your social
media.
First off, I mean you can buildall of that with a zero dollar
(45:34):
ad budget because social mediais free.
So again, kind of going back towhat we're saying about the
consistency, if a band canfigure out how to post the
social media once a day andupload a new song every six to
eight weeks, you have gained asuperpower as a band, because
(45:56):
95% of other bands aren't doingthat.
But, yeah, great, post the flyerwhen you announce a show.
But just posting the same JPEGscreenshot seven times isn't
going to increase the amount oftimes that people come out of
your show, right, right, or theamount of people that come out
of your show.
You need to provide value first, and if people know that they
(46:17):
can expect a post from youespecially if it's around the
same time of day and they log inand they see it every day
something new then those peopleare going to keep coming back.
You're going to get even morebumps in the algorithm and
that's how you start to reelpeople in.
For sure is that consistentlyposting and posting every day is
(46:38):
tough, for sure.
Yeah, that was a goal that weset.
Actually, actually, the biggestturning point for us in a band
was March 2022.
Because I that's when wedecided that we were going to
start posting, uploading a newsong every six to eight weeks,
because by that time, the fulllength was pretty much done,
yeah, and we were going torelease the full length.
(47:01):
But we weren't just going to dothe typical band thing where
you have 12, 13 songs or howevermany it is, and here it is and
you just drop it.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
No, no, you can still do a full length, but you can
also release it, stagger it outand drag it out over a long
period of time.
Yeah, and then yeah, anyway.
So that was when we decided todo that was around March 2022.
And then we decided to make ita goal to post once a day on
social media in March 2022.
(47:32):
And that was the best thingthis band's ever done.
I mean, it's it's crazy thebenefit that that had.
And yeah, it took some work.
And yeah, you're going to haveto take away time from other
things.
You're going to have to moveyour schedule around and some
(47:53):
people listening to this orwatching this, kids and I got
four jobs and blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, well, did you have timeto take a shit today?
Yeah, you had time to post.
Yeah, food at some point Uploadwhile you're eating up.
I mean, come on, so it'spossible.
It's just again.
(48:14):
It's one of those things wheremaybe you say, hey, there's some
bad habits.
Maybe do less of those badhabits, right?
No, hey, and look, nobody'stelling you you can't spend less
time on social media.
Just, maybe not 30 minutes ofcat memes.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Yeah, maybe just bring that down to 10 minutes of
cat memes.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Okay, you just freed up 20 minutes, right?
Yeah, get a post up, upload itand then now, okay, now you can
go back to looking at cat memes.
So it is a daunting task and Ithink that's why some people are
kind of intimidated by that.
But I forgot what the originalquestion was.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
I did too.
It was about social media andwho was in charge of it, and I
was just saying that y'all aredoing well on that, obviously,
yeah, appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Yeah, yeah, no problem, but I don't.
I mean, that's pretty much mostof my questions.
Do you have any stories oranything you want to add?
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Not that I can think of really.
I mean, let me see, what elsewere we looking at here?
I can remember this tour, rightInstrumentals.
Yeah, I mean, now, that'sreally it, man.
It's like we nailed most of thequestions that we had.
Yeah, oh, I do, okay.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
So you mentioned one of the upcoming songs that has
like a clip from Fallout.
Is there any other video gamesor movies, cartoons, whatever,
that you'll be pulling out likethat?
You know for sure that you'repulling from in the future.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Oh, yeah, yeah, For sure, and we also pull from
video games, kind of in anindirect way.
Right, we have a song right nowthat we're working on.
It's unreleased.
The title of that song is fromokay, you've probably played
Grand Theft Auto of St Andresright, yeah.
(50:22):
Okay, you ever do the horsebetting in that game.
Yes, I did.
Yeah, okay, smart people thatplayed Grand Theft Auto of St
Andres, you probably did thisyourself.
The first chance you get right,you beat up a drug dealer on
the side of the street, stealhis $2,000.
You go to the horse betting andthen just bet and bet, and bet
and bet and you eventually justhave all the money you'll ever
(50:44):
need in the game without cheats,right?
Exactly, yeah, anyway, youprobably remember the horses in
that game.
The horse names in that game arejust like the craziest shit,
yeah, yeah.
So I have a list on our oh, Iactually have a really long list
of potential song name titlesit's probably 80 or 90 long that
(51:04):
we can potentially use.
And anyway, there's a songthat's going to be one of the
names of that horse, of one ofthe horses in the horse betting.
Oh, it doesn't really haveanything else to do with the
rest of the track, it's justkind of that random shit.
Yeah, so that's anotherinfluence, kind of in an
indirect way, that that'spulling from a video game.
(51:24):
But yeah, there's one song inparticular that's pulling from,
well, just kind of more in MickGordon influence, specifically
the genre Argent Metal.
Not sure if you've heard ofthat.
Oh no, honestly, argent Metal,argnt Metal.
(51:44):
Ok, that's a subgenre of metalthat got created after the first
Doom soundtrack dropped in 2016.
And it's kind of it's an entiresubgenre of metal.
It's pretty much trying torecreate what Mick Gordon did on
those soundtracks, but tryingtrying really just trying to
create their own version of whatthey think a song on the Doom
(52:08):
soundtrack would sound like.
Right, so you have a lot of thesame kind of sounding production
and synth interweaved with thesound design, et cetera.
There's a whole subgenre ofthat shit now.
Yeah, so, which kind of goes toshow the brilliance of Mick
Gordon he single-handedlycreated an entire new genre of
metal without even trying to doso.
Yeah.
But yeah, there's a song that'sinfluenced around that.
(52:33):
It's kind of our take ofworking on.
If manhack were to write anArgent Metal song, maybe what it
would sound like?
Ok, so, because Argent Metal isbased around Doom, obviously
there's some influences in that.
As of right this moment, though, it's really only two songs I
can think of that have specificvideo game references.
(52:54):
There's a couple of things thatwe're working on that I think
people are going to like too.
So one pretty fun one, but I'mnot going to let that one drop.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
We're not going to.
Yeah, I got you, I got you.
I'm not trying to ruin, youknow, spoil anything.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
Oh man.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
OK, dude.
Well, once again, thank you somuch for doing this.
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Oh, yeah, yeah, any time.
And yeah, I guess good luckwith I mean, y'all don't need it
, but good luck with your futureendeavors, we'll take it.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, no problem, man, allright, dude.
(53:33):
Well, thank you, and man hackeverybody.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
Yeah, Thanks for having us man.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
Yeah, no problem.
Oh, real quick before I let yougo.
Is there any?
Do you want to plug your socialmedias or anything like that?
Speaker 2 (53:48):
Yeah, yeah, we're on everything.
So, yeah, instagram at man hack.
Official Facebook YouTube.
Youtube is great, too, becauseall of our original content goes
on our YouTube.
We don't go through some othersite.
We all try to funnel as much aswe can through our own YouTube
(54:08):
channel that we upload to and weorganize and we run.
So definitely get subscribed tothat.
Follow us on Spotify so thatway you can keep up with all the
new songs that we're going todrop soon.
And follow us on Instagram.
You like it on Facebook.
Facebook is kind of dead, buthey, that's your thing, cool, go
for it.
Yeah, but yeah, we're on Amazon, itunes, spotify, deezer,
(54:31):
shazam, angami, pandora,bandcamp, soundcloud, whatever
you, whatever you like Title,even hey, if you want to listen
to it in Max Fidel, max Fidelity, yeah go for it as much as your
your phone can handle, I guess.
(54:51):
Yeah, there's yet to be astreaming service that plays
back the song with the qualitythat we upload the track at
Right, because I upload, becauseit gets mixed down directly
from the session, and then thatgets uploaded straight to the
distributor right here on thesame computer.
So it's, I mean they're get ahuge wave file.
(55:11):
Yeah, it's not 6400 kb persecond.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Right, yeah, it's like not even yeah, because it's
yeah small transition, it's notnot losing quality, really.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
So yeah, if you it does, though obviously, when you
you Spotify, she's like yeahone ninety two kb mp3 is fine
Cool.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Yeah, they're like, let's justcompress this real quick for our
servers.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
Yeah, which, in their defense, they kind of have to
for volume optimizations, sothat way tracks aren't super
loud in between, and they're thebiggest streaming platform, so
they kind of have to do that.
But right, if you want to hearit on the best quality,
definitely title.
But, yeah, any outlet of choice, any social media of choice,
we're on there.
So also our website, manhackorg, has our latest music videos
(55:58):
merch, poor dates.
You can contact us directly,ask us a question, whatever.
So, yeah, that's the best wayto get ahold of us Sweet.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
OK, well, thank you once again.
So much, and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
I'll thank you.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
Yeah, no problem, I'm going to this will come out Not
this Monday but next Monday, sothat March 4th, ok, yeah, yeah,
cool, but I'll.
I'll message you on Instagramand stuff.
We'll figure the rest out, butall right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
Do you usually post clips of social media stuff, or
I'll see?
That's why I was.
Speaker 1 (56:36):
Yeah, that's why I was that kind of asking you
about all that.
So just recently I made adedication to like get way more
into the social media for thepodcast and so the let's see.
I have a new episode coming outthis Monday and this you know
(56:59):
I'm doing.
I'm doing them every Monday andWednesday.
So the next episode, like in afew days.
That all that's when I'mstarting back strong with all of
the social media and everything.
So I'll be posting clips,Probably a thumbnail type of
post as well.
Yeah, so yeah, but I'll, I'll,I'll tag you on everything and
(57:20):
share with you through Messenger.
I mean through the DMs and stuff.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (57:25):
Well, whenever you're ready to get that stuff
uploaded.
Let me know, we're going to cutsome clips from this also and
then just make our own videosand then tag you in them and
stuff.
Obviously, so OK, but once,once you, once you actually get
this posted up, we'll, we'llpost those then.
Ok, if you're cool with that.
Oh yeah, for sure, any yeah,any promo helps, so OK.
Speaker 1 (57:48):
That, and that'll be video and audio.
So right.
Speaker 2 (57:51):
Is that cool?
Yes, sir, Got you All right.
Speaker 1 (57:54):
Dude, Well I'm going to let you go, but thank you and
I'll be talking to you later.
Man, appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
Be safe, all right, you too.
Bye.
Hey man, how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
What's up.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Yeah, so we've been talking a little bit beforehand,
but if you don't mind, justgoing ahead and introducing
yourself to the audience.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Yeah, yeah, my name's Thomas.
I play guitar in a band calledManhack.
We're based out of Atlanta,georgia, playing a metal band
where I don't know see all kindof genres that were called
groove metal, deathcore metalwho knows who cares.
We play metal, we got riffs.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
So I was actually introduced to you by my tattoo
artist I hope he doesn't mind meplugging him, but Scott Dowdy.
So he's based in Bryan, texas.
They listen to all types ofmusic in the, you know, in the
tattoo studio, but I'd say mostof the time it leans toward
(00:57):
metal.
And yeah, and he was like man,you should check this band out.
Like it was kind of just random, but he was like this is this
band's the shit you know.
So that was probably I don'teven know probably two years ago
or so.
Oh, wow, yeah, maybe, maybe notthat far back, but over a year
(01:19):
for sure.
So how did y'all I know y'allare from Georgia did y'all?
Were y'all buddies beforehand?
Or how did did Manhack comeinto existence?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, well, it started in 2011.
Well, I mean, if you want toget really technical with it, it
actually started a lot soonerthan that.
So the official Manhack trackwas uploaded to SoundCloud in
2011, I think fall or winter of2011 called Intro, martyr and
(01:59):
the Prize, and that was kind ofthe first official Manhack song.
Funny enough, there's actuallyan acoustic song that we
uploaded, because originallyManhack was supposed to be this
didn't last long, but it wassupposed to be multiple
different genres or just kind ofwhatever was the vibe, and at
the time it was just me as anindividual.
(02:20):
I was also playing in a bandcalled Face All Fears.
Well, not at that time, Iwasn't.
I joined Face All Fears acouple years later anyway, but
yeah, that's when it officiallystarted, when the first Manhack
song ever came to fruition.
Pretty much Now we could getreally deep into the lore here.
(02:45):
Back on MySpace.
Did you ever have a MySpaceprofile?
Yes, yeah, okay, this wasn'tManhack, but two songs.
Actually, one of those songs isreleased right now.
Two songs Martyrdom and anothersong called Stopping Power were
actually released on a MySpacemusic page under I think it was
(03:07):
just my name or something likeT-bomb T-bomb's music page or
something it wasn't Manhack andthat was probably 2008.
I don't know, was MySpace stillrelevant then?
It might have been like oheight, oh nine or some shit yeah
.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
That was probably so.
I think that's kind of aroundthe time where they were
transitioning to like mainlyfocus on music and stuff like
that.
I know.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
So it was around that time there, but I was probably
making the switch to Facebook.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, anyway, I mean, yeah, werecorded Martyrdom, which is
actually up on our Spotify rightnow.
It's part of our full lengththat we're building, so you can
actually go listen to that track.
So if you want to hear a reallyearly Manhack song, it would
have sounded like it would havebeen that.
(03:53):
But technically, we formed in2011 when that first song got
uploaded, and then it was just aone man kind of thing for a
while.
But a couple of small releasesgot signed in 2014 to a now
expired, rest in Peace Bad AssAtlanta record label called
(04:13):
Autumn in Color.
That lasted for about two yearsand then it was around that
time that we started recruitingmembers and our drummer, pat at
the time, was also playing inFace All Fears.
So that's how me and himstarted working with each other
(04:34):
on this project and we had donean EP in 2014 called Domenicide
and we brought in a fewdifferent vocalists from the
area to have big sections onpretty much the.
It was our first EP without orwith instrument or with vocals,
and every song had a differentvocalist on it.
(04:56):
Pretty much Excuse me, we didn'treally have a set vocalist at
the time, or did we, do you?
I don't remember some of thisshit, man, I should have been so
long ago, actually.
No, our vocalist at the timewas Bobby Breneman, that's who
was doing vocals for us.
It was a long time ago.
Anyway, we did Domenicide, andMatt, our current vocalist, was
(05:18):
in a band called Synapse Defectand he had probably one of the
best vocal spots on the whole EP, so I just kind of started
working from him with him onManhack after that.
So me and Matt werecollaborating on Manhack around
that time and then our vocalist,or our bassist, aunt Belcher,
(05:41):
was started playing bass with us, and then we got pat around and
played our first show in 2018,november, and then, yeah, we
just played a few shows afterthat and then that's pretty much
(06:02):
what led to where we're at now.
I mean, there's a lot more inbetween that, but that's kind of
the long story, I guess, kindof condensed.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Okay, yeah.
So how did the name Manhacklike?
How did you come up with thator how was it that created?
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, actually, yeah.
So that was from the originalconcept of the band, and what
the concept still is really waswriting songs, implementing,
taking metal music, implementinga lot of sound design in with
(06:41):
the music, so a lot of justrandom shit that you might hear
in a Gordon song or somethingright For a video game
soundtrack.
Yeah, and so taking metal music, incorporating some type of
sound design in with it and thenincorporating themes and lyrics
, concepts etc.
Center around stuff from videogames and movies, primarily
(07:04):
video games, and that's wherethe name comes from, because
Manhack is actually comes fromHalf Life 2.
I'm not sure if you've everplayed that one or not.
Yes, yeah, yeah.
So the Manhacks are the someonethat enemies in the game that
are these, these really piercing, loud, spinning robot floating
(07:25):
things.
They just they have spinningsaws on them and they slam into
you.
Yeah, called Manhacks.
So that's that's where the namecame from.
And so, yeah, I mean, that'sreally what, where that name
came from.
And we still have thatconceptual approach to
everything, most things still tothis day.
(07:45):
We have a song called Hall ofValience, centered around Skyrim
.
We have a song called High andTight, which is also centered
around Half Life 2.
Our song Expedition 14A iscentered around Doom 3.
And one specific audio log thatyou find in hell when you're in
Doom 3.
And then you know, there's, Ithink, the song Constance is
(08:09):
centered around BioshockInfinite.
So there's, there's a lot ofthemes like that.
So that's, that's pretty muchwhere the name came from, and
that name represents the kind ofstuff that we write and the way
that we take, the approach thatwe take to creating a manhack
song.
Pretty much.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, no for sure, that's.
That's awesome.
I didn't.
So I played, I played Half Life2, but it was like only at a
friend's house and you know whatI mean it was.
It wasn't that that often.
I played a lot of Doom and soyeah, and a lot of Skyrim as
well.
(08:49):
So I've definitely I caughtthose references in a lot of
music.
Yeah, so I don't know.
So I listened.
No-transcript.
I almost every day I listen toat least one of your songs, but
(09:11):
the I'm horrible with it wasn'ttitle so King without a crown,
king without a country, kingwithout a country.
Ok, yeah, dude.
Well, I mean, I don't know, Idon't know why I'm like this.
I like I've listened to thissong probably like 10 times at
least, and I'm still like I yeah, that's just how.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Hey, that's just how you interpret it.
I mean, a king without a crownmakes the same sense as a king
without a country.
Yeah, it's I mean you couldcall that song, you could take
that out and change the name toa king without a crown, and it
would.
Everything would match up,exactly the same.
So hey, it works.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, and I love how y'all incorporate the Different
like animations, like the old,old style cartoons and stuff
like that into.
Well, you do it on on socialmedia like for your promos and
stuff, but also like if youactually click on a specific
song you can, you can see thatthat same imagery like repeating
(10:12):
.
So that's, that was real cool.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah those.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Those cartoons are just random old ass cartoons and
when our song Death and Factsis started doing pretty well,
that that video just had one ofthose simple cartoons was All
right.
Well, let's, let's try thisagain.
So a king without a countryactually has one of those, so
(10:37):
yeah, yeah, is that?
Is that your favorite manhacktrack?
Is that the one you play themost Right?
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Most, the most, I guess, like favorite right now
if that makes sense, becauseI'll go like it'll be like
cyclical, you know, like I'llget, yeah, I don't know why, but
Mainly like I just I love the.
I mean, if you just, if youjust read the lyrics, like
without actually visualizing ornot visualizing whatever the
(11:06):
music like, disregarding theactual music, it's like poetry,
you know.
So I, I appreciate the lyricismis.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
And that's all.
Yeah, and so that the specificsong that you're talking about,
that's actually exactly how itwas written.
You remember Live Journal, byany chance?
It sounds really familiar, kindof talking about my space era,
kind of stuff.
Anyway, I used to write a bunchof random.
(11:34):
They weren't even really lyrics, because I wasn't in a band at
the time, but just poems, epicpoems and just random thoughts
and shit.
Yeah, who would go on LiveJournal?
And a lot of those ended upbeing lyrics for manhack songs.
This Forsaken Land, for instance, was originally posted to Live
Journal.
Marjoritum the concealer, aking without a country, actually
(11:58):
, ok, who was also?
It's funny, that song wasoriginally called a queen
without a country, but we justdecided to change that a little
bit because it meant it.
What am I trying to say?
It was a little bit morerelevant to where the direction
of the song was going, yeah, butyeah, anyway, that came from
(12:19):
Live Journal and that waswritten In years before it was
ever intended to be in a songand yeah, that was written as
just kind of this.
I don't want to say it's anepic poem because it's not super
long, but just something whereit kind of has that certain
rhyming pattern, which isinteresting, because when you,
when you try to take somethinglike that that's written a
(12:41):
specific way to have this niceeloquent flow, while you're
reading it and all the, everyother line, the last word rhymes
and all that, it's prettyinteresting.
Trying to take that and cram itinto a metal song, yeah,
exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
That will just like this, because you're I mean,
you're screaming a lot of thetime, you know, and so that you
all did a good job is all I'msaying.
Thank you.
Like the, you kept the flow ofthe, the eloquence I guess,
while you know, including someferocity.
(13:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
And that's what could be tricky is is because some of
those lines and we actuallyhave a release that we're
working on right now.
It's probably aiming to have itcome out sometime it's kind of
the same thing.
It's based around the reallylong actually four chapter long
epic poem that has that where ithas this, every other line
(13:39):
rhymes and it has a structureand this and it flows a certain
way and and trying to cram someof that into a verse or chorus
is pretty tough because you wantto stick to the concept but you
also want it to make sense forthe vocalist and kind of Trying
(14:01):
to put it into the song to wherethe vocalist that makes sense
for him to do that, yeah, studioor live.
But that's just kind of part ofthe dynamic of being the guitar
player that writes most of thestuff but doesn't do vocals.
Yeah, just like being theguitar player the rice most of
the stuff and doesn't play drums.
Yet here I am programming drumsanyway, so sometimes the drums
get a little weird.
(14:21):
Yeah, that's funny and our olddrummer, pat, would always give
me shit because I'd ride a drumparty.
He's like yo.
What the hell is that?
Nobody would ever do that.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
All right let's fix it.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, no, that's, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I mean y'all, yeah, I don't know.
Y'all are consistently in themiddle of the song.
Y'all are consistently, in myopinion, coming out with like,
like, I'm not skipping anything,you know as far as that's good.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Well, I mean, I don't know, like some of my favorite
artists, like I even like saythey come out with like a crazy
long album, like 20 songs orsomething like that.
Like even some of them all,like I'll give the whole album
like a once through, you know,and then when I'm at work, like
listening to it, I'll be likenot that one, you know.
(15:11):
Like you know what I mean, likeI don't have to do that with
y'all.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So that was nice, that's a huge compliment, man,
because usually that's that's.
That's that's something that wetry to aim for when we come out
with releases.
Obviously, it's almostimpossible to tell how a song is
going to be going to bereceived until you actually put
it out there.
The whole everybody in the bandcould think it's the greatest
(15:37):
thing ever.
And then you put it out thereand nobody likes it.
Or the song that you thinknobody's going to like, you put
it out there and it's your topplayed one.
It's always something like that.
Yeah, so it's good to hear, man, I appreciate that.
It's a huge compliment.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, yeah, no problem.
But I mean that's it's the samewith podcasting.
Like I'll, I can put like a lotof work into some like really
intricate kind of likescientific podcast about
strength training or whatever.
I'm like man, this is like alot of good info.
It's going to really like besuccessful.
You know it's going to help alot of people.
It's going to probably bepopular and then it's like
(16:12):
compared to like another one,that's same situation.
You know, like it it's weirdhit, hit misses, I guess, and
different, different crowds Iguess like go toward different
things.
I don't know.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
And it's really tough to figure that out.
And that's when we take out ourads to.
I mean, that's, that's the sameapproach there.
It's all right.
Well, the verse is our favoritepart of the song, but we don't
know, right, that's why you putthe verse, course, bridge, and
all the other different parts ofthe song out there, and then
the one you think is not goingto do well is the one that gets
the best clicks on it.
The most clicks on it, right,yeah, hell.
(16:52):
Another example is our songDeath and Facts.
When we were writing that song,it first off, we put it first on
the album.
That's kind of a joke, becauseyou're all, an intro has to be a
minute long or some shit, right?
So I said you know what, screwit, let's take the longest song
(17:12):
we've ever written and put thatone first.
Right, that'll be the intro,right, five and a half minute
long track, which is by far thelongest song that we've ever
written.
And it's because of how longthat song was mainly that our
vocalist knew, so he called it.
So props to Matt.
Yeah, he knew that song fromday one.
He was like yo, this song isthat people are going to eat
(17:34):
this shit up.
I don't know, man.
I mean it's cool.
It's a cool song, it's got alot of nice production in it and
I definitely spent the mosttime writing that song than any
other track, not just because ofhow long it is, but just
because of the extra instrumentsand synth and all the different
guitar tones that are in it andall this stuff.
Yeah, but I was like I don'tknow, that might be a deep cut
(17:55):
for people.
That's like a hidden gem on thealbum.
That, yeah, it's cool, but Idon't know.
And in any way, now it stays atthe top of all of our streaming
platforms and we cannot getpeople to stop listening to that
song.
I mean it stays at the topevery time.
Every time we log in theSpotify for artists, you go past
(18:17):
seven days, past 24 hours, 28days, 12 months, whatever.
It is at the top every time.
And I never, ever would haveguessed that would have happened
.
Because the song is five and ahalf minutes long, right?
Yeah, people want these, these,these kind of these thrown kind
of tidbits, right?
They want these two two and ahalf minute long songs because
(18:38):
that's just kind of howeverybody's attention span is
nowadays with social media.
They want it quick, they wantit fast, they want it now, and
then they're gone, right, yeah?
So here you have this five anda half long minute track that
has a really short build up to along build up to a build up,
and then the riff comes in.
(18:58):
Yeah, I mean, the song doesn'tget to the point until a minute
and a half into it.
Yeah, so that combined with itwas a five and a half minutes
long.
I was like yo, there's no way,there's no way people are going
to listen to this shit.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
And then what do you know?
Yeah, now I feel I feel like,with that song in particular,
like the way you described it,how it's, it's like a small
build up and then you know likeit's, it's leveled like that I
feel like you hook the, you allhook the audience, kind of like
writing, like writing a book,how they're like, oh, you got to
(19:30):
hook them on the first likepage or whatever you know, or a
half page, I feel like that's,even though it's like not the
meat of the song, it's stilllike hook, hook the attention,
you know.
So then they're in for the ride, for lack of a better term.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, that's a good way to look at it, which is, but
see, which is interestingthough, because it's, it's one
of those things that, because itswells up like that and it
starts off quiet, that was thejustification behind, at least,
my rationale was people aren'tgoing to grab onto this because
(20:05):
it's like, oh, let me fastforward, let me get to the riff,
let me get to the breakdown.
Yeah, the breakdown.
Yeah, but apparently not, andonly that's what they.
They like that kind of stuff.
So, thanks, mick Gordon.
Yeah, the song structurereference.
Yeah, because that isabsolutely where that came from.
No shame.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, whatever it's, whatever you know like I mean
the some of the beauty of whaty'all you know the band is is
Not you know like is pullingaspects from different things
you know.
So, whatever, that's like partof what makes y'all great, Thank
(20:49):
you.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Thank you, yeah, it's , it's.
We're always trying to find newways to pull influence from
things, not, I mean, sometimes,things that, yeah, we like, but
Also things that are successful,which sometimes might not be
(21:10):
things that we like, right, yeah, for instance, knocked loose.
I don't listen to knock loose.
Their music is cool, but I justnot.
I just don't listen to them.
It's just not my thing.
Right, but I'm so curious aboutthem Because I mean, they're
(21:36):
just, they're a hardcore moshband that you would hear at this
is hardcore festival, but theyjust blew up.
I mean, what was the festivalthey had, like Bonnaroo or
something?
I just like crazy the shit thatthey're doing.
Bands like that are always sointeresting to me, so we so we
pull influences from differentplaces, even if we're not
(21:59):
necessarily listening to thatband on repeat, right, right.
Lama God is another one.
I mean Lama God is really anenigma, because when you go and
listen to their songs, it'sthere's not much difference
between track to track.
It's kind of like they said,all right, they found something
(22:19):
that worked years ago and theyjust kept writing that song.
Or you can tell you yeah, thegood to do got to do, to do, to
do, to do, to do, to do, to do,to do, to do, to do.
This is going to be about onetwenty one thirty beats per
minute, and then there's goingto be a verse that tightens up,
and then Randy comes in and thenthere's going to be some fast
part and then there's going tobe some catchy chorus line and
then there's going to be abreakdown.
I mean, but even consideringthat, that they write very
(22:45):
similar songs to each other andthe fact that he pretty much
does screaming only metal vocalsthey play in front of like
fifty thousand people, right, Imean, it's insane.
And what's even crazier aboutit is a lot of people in the
audience watching them areprobably saying, are probably
the people you see on socialmedia say, ah, I can't
(23:05):
understand what he's sayingthough, right, I like metal, but
growling metal isn't real metalor whatever the hell.
Yeah, but they listen to LamaGod.
So that's the thing that'sreally interesting in that we
pull inspiration from stuff likethat, right, because, yeah, I
mean, matt can do gutter rollsand shit all day, and he can do
(23:26):
the Tunnel Vox and sound like apterodactyl, and he can sound
like Phil Boseman or whoever youwant him to, but it and we do
some stuff like that.
We like to throw those littletidbits in there, but it's
really Taking influence frombands that are in kind of a
similar genre as us, that aremassive.
Right, what are they doing?
How are they doing it?
When are they doing it?
(23:49):
Right, what's in theirsongwriting that's causing
people to get hooked to thisshit?
Right, because I mean, if youdidn't know Lama God at all and
you only listened to, let's say,underground metalcore,
deathcore etc.
And you played a Lama God songfor somebody and they go, oh
yeah, this is bad ass.
And then you say, ok, yeah,they have what?
(24:10):
Two million monthly listenersor whatever it is, and they play
in front of 60,000 people, it'slike, wait, what?
So Lama God's interest?
Anyway, we would pull influencesfrom a lot of different things,
not just specifically riffsthat we like.
In fact, I don't really pull alot of influence from Riffs.
Really.
(24:30):
I think that there's alwaysgoing to be a lot of old school
Metallica, the black album andbefore and Fear Factory.
There's always going to be alot of that Influence in our
songwriting, because that justthat shit is just going to come
out of me no matter what.
But but yeah, anyway, I meanthat's kind of a little bit of
(24:54):
an insight onto influences thatwe pull for stuff Songwriting,
and then hey, the the MickGordon thing is a good one too,
because I mean that that's,that's also a good example of,
yeah, phenomenal tracks andgreat songwriting and great
production, but also Having thiskind of cinematic metal song.
(25:15):
Right where you have a metalsong that's only about 40 to 50
percent actual instruments andthe other 50 to 60 percent is
sound design.
Right, because the song wasoriginally written for a video
game, so it had a much differentpurpose and you can go on Mick
Gordon.
Spotify now and Rip and Tearhas over 100 million plays on it
(25:35):
.
Probably by this point.
Last time I checked it was like97 or 98 or something.
Yeah, I mean insane.
Right, I mean you got to thinkabout it.
I mean it's insane for Lama Godto have that, but you got to
think that that's what that is.
That's Lamb of God, that'sSlipknot numbers, right, but
this is a detuned eight stringgent song that was on a video
(25:57):
game.
Yeah, I mean like what?
Yeah, 100 million plays on that.
So that's curious also, right.
So it's kind of like OK, well,if people like that kind of
stuff, we like writing that kindof stuff, yeah, and that's kind
of where definite facts camefrom, and then that obviously
people like that song.
So people do want to listen tolong songs apparently.
(26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
It's hype music to kill things too.
Yeah, that's exactly what thatwas.
Yeah, virtually virtually, ofcourse.
So when did you all first start?
When did you all first starttouring?
I know, technically, you allhave been around for like 12, 13
years.
Did you all you know likeimmediately start doing shows
(26:47):
and stuff, or how did that workout?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
for you, not immediately.
Well, like we were talkingabout earlier, the band started
in 2011.
But again, that was just theone man guy kind of thing me
doing a solo project, whateverand then we didn't actually play
a song or song A show untilabout 2018, late 2018.
(27:15):
Ok, mostly played aroundGeorgia, played Tennessee,
florida, played in NorthCarolina, really only played the
Southeast Um, done a couple ofweekend runs here and there, but
, um, yeah, so that's kind ofwhen that started.
And our drummer now is one ofthe best drummers, if not the
(27:39):
best drum I've ever played with,but he just he's in school a
lot and it's kicking his ass.
So we're actually looking rightnow for a touring drummer.
We have a booking agent who iswanting to definitely put us on
the road and we want to get onthe road a lot more and really
tour, really get those numbersup, do week long, two week,
(27:59):
three, week long shit, right,yeah.
So that that's the next step asfar as touring and shows us.
Concern is to actually getreally good tours under our
belts and really take manhackout all over the US, eventually
all over the world.
To all the people that havebeen commenting saying, hey,
come to our city, come here andyeah we're working on it.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yeah, no, that's, that's awesome.
So, speaking of the touring andeverything, do you have like a
most memorable moment or acraziest experience or anything
like that that you could share?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Show related or playing shows and stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Either one or both would yeah, yeah Um.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I'm trying to think what happened.
We were playing Well, this,okay, this one's fun.
This technically happened infront of our driveway, but we
did a.
We were at what was it?
Myrtle Beach?
Was that Panama City?
Was Panama City Myrtle Beach?
(29:08):
And then we came I don'tremember anyway, no, no, no, I
think that was a solo PanamaCity show.
Anyway, we were coming backfrom that and pulling a trailer
and we got to my house, so inthe front of the house over here
on the street, and we werepulling up and we had to try to
back the van or back the trailerup the driveway and it shit the
(29:34):
bed right there in front of thehouse.
Come to find out, the rear mainseal was shot, transmission was
shot, so it was just pissingout oil and transmission just
and transmission fluid justeverywhere.
Yeah, just try to put it in gearand couldn't get it to go
anywhere, so we just had to pushit and park it on the side of
(29:55):
the street.
Neighbors call the cops on usfor a van being out there
because they're assholes, yeah.
So I mean it was a weird.
It was a weird ordeal.
But the strangest thing wasthat we went back and forth to
Panama City, which from here ina van pulling a trailer is about
(30:17):
a five and a half six hourdrive.
Well, between five to six,whatever.
It depends on how fast you go,how many piss breaks you take.
Yeah.
So all those miles, no problems.
Got there, okay, came back,okay.
It wasn't until we were about 30minutes out that our basis at
(30:38):
the time Aunt Belcher wasdriving and there was this weird
kind of sputtering thing happenand we both kind of looked at
each other, said what the hellwas that, because that wasn't
normal.
And then, sure enough, once wegot in front of the house, it
waited then and then it crappedout.
Weird as shit.
I mean, it didn't crap out whenwe got to the venue, it didn't
(30:59):
crap out halfway there, justlike the van said all right, I'm
done.
Yeah, y'all did cool, peace out, yeah.
So that was weird, just becauseof the timing of it.
I mean, it was obviously youdon't want something like that
to ever happen to your vehicle,and especially your tour vehicle
, but if it's going to happen,that's the time for it to happen
(31:20):
.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Yeah, when everything is done and you're back safe.
Yeah, it's better than,especially on the like driving
like if you're on a highway orsomething and your transmission
goes out, you know, oh, yeah,like yeah, no, and pulling a
trailer too.
Yeah, yeah, that's so as far asyour writing process goes.
(31:43):
So you're, are you the onlylyricist Like, do y'all kind of
contribute, or how does that?
Speaker 2 (31:51):
work out we.
It depends on what it is.
So for our song, Glorify God,whisper, that one was all me.
So instrumentals lyrics.
Because if I have a specificconcept in mind for a song, then
(32:11):
it's me and Matt have both kindof agreed that it's best that I
just put together the vocalsfor it and then send it to him
and then he just tracks it.
Because if me and him try to goback and forth on ideas for
something like that, if I have aspecific theme in mind, it
doesn't really work as well asif I just give him a track
completely blank and say dowhatever you want.
(32:32):
So it depends on what it is.
Death and Faxes was.
I wrote the instrumentals, Iwrote everything besides the
vocals, handing him theinstrumental song and said do
whatever you want.
And 14A had a specific theme inmind, which again was Doom 3.
(32:54):
So Matt doesn't know shit aboutDoom 3.
So that one, yeah, I obviouslyhad to write the lyrics and do
the rough vocal patterns for itand send that off to him.
So I mean, it really dependsfor sure on what it is, but
we're doing a lot.
(33:16):
Come to find out that Matt, justespecially after what he did on
Death and Faxes, all the weirdvocal shit that he did.
On that one, yeah, it's likeyeah, we need to get you doing
this more often, yeah, sothere's been a lot more of
handing him instrumental tracks,and sometimes they're, well,
(33:41):
the only thing that he mighthave in that situation as far as
specific notes to follow wouldbe hey, this is the verse, this
is the chorus, this is thebridge, right, and then I might
notate Maybe there's a specifictype of vocal in mind.
So, if it's the chorus, forinstance, with the chorus, we
(34:03):
always try to aim for catchy aspossible, right, right, yes,
it's screaming, yes, it's metalriffs, but what can we do to
make that chorus stick in yourhead, right, and so that's
always something that we discussand keep in mind and I always
make notes of when giving to himto do vocals for a song is, hey
(34:24):
, the chorus remember, this isthe return to home, right, this
is the thing, this is the anthem, this is the thing that needs
to get stuck in somebody's head,right?
So, also, make the vocals havea lot of enunciation, right?
Yeah, don't just do a guttural,the whole chorus.
Yeah, you're not going to beable to hear it.
(34:45):
The noise is cool, right, and alot of that shit that he does
takes a lot of skill for sure,but you can't hear the words,
right, so it might be.
Hey, this is the chorus maxenunciation, right, right, make
that line as much as you canbetween being able to hear what
you're saying and making thesound cool, yeah, and then for
(35:09):
the verse, it might be a littlemore free, free, free rain to do
whatever you want, right, ifyou want to throw gutturals in
there and whatnot.
Blah, blah, blah, but usuallythere's some notes like that hey
, here's the song structurelayout.
Here's the chorus maxenunciation.
We really try to go for maxenunciation here and moving
(35:30):
forward.
Best case scenario you listento a manhack song the first time
and you can understand most ofthe words.
So, because, again, that's kindof a reference from Lamb of God
They've managed to figure outhow to do that perfectly.
So, yeah, as far as our actualwriting process concerned, I
(35:52):
mean, that's really kind of howwe go about it.
Sometimes we write riffs firstand then put drums with them.
Sometimes songs start from arandom sample.
There's a track I'm working onright now.
For instance, there was onelike a three or four second clip
(36:14):
from Fallout, new Vegas DLC.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Oh, that was just that was my next question.
Actually, it was like are youall going to do any fallouts?
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, there was.
It was a really short three tofour second sample that's in the
game files and it just soundedcool.
So I pulled that sample up.
It had two notes and it had abeats per minute.
So I figured out what the beatsper minute was, I figured out
what the notes were and thenbuilt a song around that.
So sometimes it starts fromrandom shit like that Sometimes
(36:44):
you're driving and you get theidea in your head and then you
make a voice memo and then yougo get that, get that, get that,
get that, get that, and thenthat's how the song starts.
It's a lot of different stuff,for sure, but yeah, that's kind
of how we approach writing.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
I got you so.
So you just recently believeFebruary 2nd, right?
You dropped your newest albumand you're already working on
new stuff, which is always good,you know audience appreciates
that.
Do you have any idea, like isit in its infancy for the new
(37:27):
stuff, or are you planning onjust like one more song for now,
or like a whole album?
Or can you give any insightinto that?
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah, yeah, excuse me .
First off, the current album isnot done, so there's more
coming for that.
So, okay, the imminentascendancy is just a it's not
done.
There's more coming for that.
Okay, yes, we are working onnew songs always.
(38:00):
So ever since we I think Juneor July of 2022 is when we
started deciding that we weregoing to upload a new song once
every six to eight months, weeks, six to eight weeks, okay, we
pretty much haven't stoppedsince.
I think we might have missedthat gap once between Jonesy
(38:22):
Christ and Fur Elise.
But ever since that besidesthat one, ever since about
summer of 2022, you've gotten anew manhack song within two
months, repeatedly.
We're still going to keep thatgoing forward.
That has its own challenges,for sure, but we've got a few
(38:43):
songs that we're working onright now.
Like I said, there's there'stracks that still haven't come
out for the album because thiscurrent album arc isn't done yet
.
We're working on a few othersongs another EP that might turn
into another full length andthen maybe another EP.
So I mean, there's just allkinds of random shit.
(39:04):
I mean, maybe it, maybe it'llbe a single, maybe it'll be an
EP.
Whatever it, we don't know, butit'll be new stuff.
Yeah, so I think manhackmanhack previously this mix is
going to be even better and it'sjust hopefully going to be even
heavier.
So I'm not going to sayhopefully, because it is new.
Manhack is going to have abetter mix, it's going to sound
better and it's going to beheavier.
(39:26):
Yeah, so, yeah some goodpromises there.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Yeah, that's, that is how, how my tattoo artist
introduced it, you know, he'slike I was like oh, what do they
sound like?
He's like the lyric or he'slike the vocals are filthy.
And I was like OK, nice, mattwill appreciate that for sure.
Yeah, yeah.
So, man, that's cool.
(39:53):
I really appreciate the effortinto the all, into everything,
but also like a consistentschedule of new content.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
So yeah, you have to.
I mean, we live in a time wherepeople's attention spans are
the shortest that they've everbeen.
We can get into the wholesocial media is the downfall of
society conversation.
But yeah, that'd probably be awhole other three hour podcast
(40:28):
in and of itself, but it socialmedia is conditioning people to
want more content, quicker, moreentertaining, higher quality,
faster, right, right.
I mean you can sit there andzone out on your phone for 10
minutes and watch 60 videos.
Pass you by.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Tick, tock, you just flip it.
Yeah, yeah, you get this rightthumb exercise.
This right thumb gets reallyswole, right, you get this.
Yeah, get this workout on yourright thumb.
Just watching these cat videosand shit.
For, like I said, even 10minutes, you can go through
dozens of videos.
So one of the biggest thingsthat you can do nowadays as a
(41:08):
band to set yourself apart is tostay consistent with the work
ethic.
And look, yeah, it soundscliche, it sounds like
consistency at where I mean, butit's just like you know you
work out.
So it's like gym stuff, right,so I could go to the gym for a
week and get a little stronger,build a little muscle, burn a
(41:29):
little fat, but if you stopafter that, you're just going to
pretty much go back to whereyou were Now.
Imagine if you went to the gymfor a year straight.
Right, how much different wouldyou look on the on the other
side of that?
So one of the biggest thingsthat bands can do nowadays is to
stay consistent is to socialmedia and release schedule.
(41:52):
I mean the whole six to eightweeks thing sometimes four to
eight weeks, whatever.
That's not just so you canpitch sponks or pitch songs to a
Spotify editorial playlist,right, I mean that's cool, but
we've gotten on three editorialplaylists and they're only 3% of
(42:16):
our streams.
So yeah, wow, we never got onthem, it wouldn't have mattered.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it wouldn'thave mattered.
So playlist pitching is cool,but don't overthink that.
Anyway.
So it's not just releasingconsistently like that so you
can constantly have stuff topitch to Spotify.
It's you need to keep grabbingyour fans attention, right.
(42:43):
And if you're a band, your fansare your customers and your
product is your music mainly.
I mean, really your product asa band is entertainment, because
there's multiple ways toentertain people as a band, not
just through your music.
Obviously, music is the mainthing, but music still is number
one.
And focusing on doing thatevery six to eight weeks, I mean
(43:06):
it's tough, because once youstart doing that, you get the
ball rolling.
You kind of set that standard,right.
If you don't release a songevery six to eight weeks, people
are going to come out hey man,what are you doing?
We're getting really boredreally quick compared to a band
that might just release one fulllength every two years.
Right, but that that's the bestway to keep people's attention
(43:29):
nowadays is is the consistentuploading of music and also
social media and social socialmedia is a whole other debate
which we can definitely talkabout, because we love the whole
social media conversation andyeah, so that's that a rough.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I was going to ask you who who mainly does the
social media, because whoeverdoes it is on top of it and
doing really well.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Yeah, I appreciate that.
That's me also.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
So that's me 100%.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
I do all of that always happen Okay man?
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Yeah, no, y'all are, are you are very on top of that.
There's so much video content.
Oh, I mean, like like I wassaying, just the pulling from
different cartoons and differentstuff like that, like that in
itself, you know, creates thecontent.
Because, like it's, it's reallyweird, like I've just from
(44:23):
being a social media user andalso, you know, trying to put
out content and stuff like that,like I found like a lot of time
.
People just need something tobecause they're in that that
mode of like you know, the fastwatching and everything.
It's almost like they just need, even if it's repetitive
imagery, just something to kindof like occupy their eyes while
(44:44):
they're listening.
It's really weird, but yeah,yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Yeah, you're right, and that's what's great about
bands getting consistent aboutposting to their social media,
which which, yeah, there's theargument that that it's tough
because you're a musician andyou want to focus your time on
writing music and stuff likethat.
But I mean, you're really onlyafforded that luxury if you're
(45:11):
big enough to have someone elsedoing your social media for you.
Yeah, I mean, if you want morepeople to come to your show, you
want more people to subscribeto your YouTube channel, to go
to your website and buy merchand you want more people to
listen to you on Spotify, allthat comes from your social
media.
First off, I mean you can buildall of that with a zero dollar
(45:34):
ad budget because social mediais free.
So again, kind of going back towhat we're saying about the
consistency, if a band canfigure out how to post the
social media once a day andupload a new song every six to
eight weeks, you have gained asuperpower as a band, because
(45:56):
95% of other bands aren't doingthat.
But, yeah, great, post the flyerwhen you announce a show.
But just posting the same JPEGscreenshot seven times isn't
going to increase the amount oftimes that people come out of
your show, right, right, or theamount of people that come out
of your show.
You need to provide value first, and if people know that they
(46:17):
can expect a post from youespecially if it's around the
same time of day and they log inand they see it every day
something new then those peopleare going to keep coming back.
You're going to get even morebumps in the algorithm and
that's how you start to reelpeople in.
For sure is that consistentlyposting and posting every day is
(46:38):
tough, for sure.
Yeah, that was a goal that weset.
Actually, actually, the biggestturning point for us in a band
was March 2022.
Because I that's when wedecided that we were going to
start posting, uploading a newsong every six to eight weeks,
because by that time, the fulllength was pretty much done,
yeah, and we were going torelease the full length.
(47:01):
But we weren't just going to dothe typical band thing where
you have 12, 13 songs or howevermany it is, and here it is and
you just drop it.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
No, no, you can still do a full length, but you can
also release it, stagger it outand drag it out over a long
period of time.
Yeah, and then yeah, anyway.
So that was when we decided todo that was around March 2022.
And then we decided to make ita goal to post once a day on
social media in March 2022.
(47:32):
And that was the best thingthis band's ever done.
I mean, it's it's crazy thebenefit that that had.
And yeah, it took some work.
And yeah, you're going to haveto take away time from other
things.
You're going to have to moveyour schedule around and some
(47:53):
people listening to this orwatching this, kids and I got
four jobs and blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, well, did you have timeto take a shit today?
Yeah, you had time to post.
Yeah, food at some point Uploadwhile you're eating up.
I mean, come on, so it'spossible.
It's just again.
(48:14):
It's one of those things wheremaybe you say, hey, there's some
bad habits.
Maybe do less of those badhabits, right?
No, hey, and look, nobody'stelling you you can't spend less
time on social media.
Just, maybe not 30 minutes ofcat memes.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Yeah, maybe just bring that down to 10 minutes of
cat memes.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Okay, you just freed up 20 minutes, right?
Yeah, get a post up, upload itand then now, okay, now you can
go back to looking at cat memes.
So it is a daunting task and Ithink that's why some people are
kind of intimidated by that.
But I forgot what the originalquestion was.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
I did too.
It was about social media andwho was in charge of it, and I
was just saying that y'all aredoing well on that, obviously,
yeah, appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Yeah, yeah, no problem, but I don't.
I mean, that's pretty much mostof my questions.
Do you have any stories oranything you want to add?
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Not that I can think of really.
I mean, let me see, what elsewere we looking at here?
I can remember this tour, rightInstrumentals.
Yeah, I mean, now, that'sreally it, man.
It's like we nailed most of thequestions that we had.
Yeah, oh, I do, okay.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
So you mentioned one of the upcoming songs that has
like a clip from Fallout.
Is there any other video gamesor movies, cartoons, whatever,
that you'll be pulling out likethat?
You know for sure that you'repulling from in the future.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Oh, yeah, yeah, For sure, and we also pull from
video games, kind of in anindirect way.
Right, we have a song right nowthat we're working on.
It's unreleased.
The title of that song is fromokay, you've probably played
Grand Theft Auto of St Andresright, yeah.
(50:22):
Okay, you ever do the horsebetting in that game.
Yes, I did.
Yeah, okay, smart people thatplayed Grand Theft Auto of St
Andres, you probably did thisyourself.
The first chance you get right,you beat up a drug dealer on
the side of the street, stealhis $2,000.
You go to the horse betting andthen just bet and bet, and bet
and bet and you eventually justhave all the money you'll ever
(50:44):
need in the game without cheats,right?
Exactly, yeah, anyway, youprobably remember the horses in
that game.
The horse names in that game arejust like the craziest shit,
yeah, yeah.
So I have a list on our oh, Iactually have a really long list
of potential song name titlesit's probably 80 or 90 long that
(51:04):
we can potentially use.
And anyway, there's a songthat's going to be one of the
names of that horse, of one ofthe horses in the horse betting.
Oh, it doesn't really haveanything else to do with the
rest of the track, it's justkind of that random shit.
Yeah, so that's anotherinfluence, kind of in an
indirect way, that that'spulling from a video game.
(51:24):
But yeah, there's one song inparticular that's pulling from,
well, just kind of more in MickGordon influence, specifically
the genre Argent Metal.
Not sure if you've heard ofthat.
Oh no, honestly, argent Metal,argnt Metal.
(51:44):
Ok, that's a subgenre of metalthat got created after the first
Doom soundtrack dropped in 2016.
And it's kind of it's an entiresubgenre of metal.
It's pretty much trying torecreate what Mick Gordon did on
those soundtracks, but tryingtrying really just trying to
create their own version of whatthey think a song on the Doom
(52:08):
soundtrack would sound like.
Right, so you have a lot of thesame kind of sounding production
and synth interweaved with thesound design, et cetera.
There's a whole subgenre ofthat shit now.
Yeah, so, which kind of goes toshow the brilliance of Mick
Gordon he single-handedlycreated an entire new genre of
metal without even trying to doso.
Yeah.
But yeah, there's a song that'sinfluenced around that.
(52:33):
It's kind of our take ofworking on.
If manhack were to write anArgent Metal song, maybe what it
would sound like?
Ok, so, because Argent Metal isbased around Doom, obviously
there's some influences in that.
As of right this moment, though, it's really only two songs I
can think of that have specificvideo game references.
(52:54):
There's a couple of things thatwe're working on that I think
people are going to like too.
So one pretty fun one, but I'mnot going to let that one drop.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
We're not going to.
Yeah, I got you, I got you.
I'm not trying to ruin, youknow, spoil anything.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
Oh man.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
OK, dude.
Well, once again, thank you somuch for doing this.
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Oh, yeah, yeah, any time.
And yeah, I guess good luckwith I mean, y'all don't need it
, but good luck with your futureendeavors, we'll take it.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, no problem, man, allright, dude.
(53:33):
Well, thank you, and man hackeverybody.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
Yeah, Thanks for having us man.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
Yeah, no problem.
Oh, real quick before I let yougo.
Is there any?
Do you want to plug your socialmedias or anything like that?
Speaker 2 (53:48):
Yeah, yeah, we're on everything.
So, yeah, instagram at man hack.
Official Facebook YouTube.
Youtube is great, too, becauseall of our original content goes
on our YouTube.
We don't go through some othersite.
We all try to funnel as much aswe can through our own YouTube
(54:08):
channel that we upload to and weorganize and we run.
So definitely get subscribed tothat.
Follow us on Spotify so thatway you can keep up with all the
new songs that we're going todrop soon.
And follow us on Instagram.
You like it on Facebook.
Facebook is kind of dead, buthey, that's your thing, cool, go
for it.
Yeah, but yeah, we're on Amazon, itunes, spotify, deezer,
(54:31):
shazam, angami, pandora,bandcamp, soundcloud, whatever
you, whatever you like Title,even hey, if you want to listen
to it in Max Fidel, max Fidelity, yeah go for it as much as your
your phone can handle, I guess.
(54:51):
Yeah, there's yet to be astreaming service that plays
back the song with the qualitythat we upload the track at
Right, because I upload, becauseit gets mixed down directly
from the session, and then thatgets uploaded straight to the
distributor right here on thesame computer.
So it's, I mean they're get ahuge wave file.
(55:11):
Yeah, it's not 6400 kb persecond.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Right, yeah, it's like not even yeah, because it's
yeah small transition, it's notnot losing quality, really.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
So yeah, if you it does, though obviously, when you
you Spotify, she's like yeahone ninety two kb mp3 is fine
Cool.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Yeah, they're like, let's justcompress this real quick for our
servers.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
Yeah, which, in their defense, they kind of have to
for volume optimizations, sothat way tracks aren't super
loud in between, and they're thebiggest streaming platform, so
they kind of have to do that.
But right, if you want to hearit on the best quality,
definitely title.
But, yeah, any outlet of choice, any social media of choice,
we're on there.
So also our website, manhackorg, has our latest music videos
(55:58):
merch, poor dates.
You can contact us directly,ask us a question, whatever.
So, yeah, that's the best wayto get ahold of us Sweet.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
OK, well, thank you once again.
So much, and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
I'll thank you.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
Yeah, no problem, I'm going to this will come out Not
this Monday but next Monday, sothat March 4th, ok, yeah, yeah,
cool, but I'll.
I'll message you on Instagramand stuff.
We'll figure the rest out, butall right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
Do you usually post clips of social media stuff, or
I'll see?
That's why I was.
Speaker 1 (56:36):
Yeah, that's why I was that kind of asking you
about all that.
So just recently I made adedication to like get way more
into the social media for thepodcast and so the let's see.
I have a new episode coming outthis Monday and this you know
(56:59):
I'm doing.
I'm doing them every Monday andWednesday.
So the next episode, like in afew days.
That all that's when I'mstarting back strong with all of
the social media and everything.
So I'll be posting clips,Probably a thumbnail type of
post as well.
Yeah, so yeah, but I'll, I'll,I'll tag you on everything and
(57:20):
share with you through Messenger.
I mean through the DMs and stuff.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (57:25):
Well, whenever you're ready to get that stuff
uploaded.
Let me know, we're going to cutsome clips from this also and
then just make our own videosand then tag you in them and
stuff.
Obviously, so OK, but once,once you, once you actually get
this posted up, we'll, we'llpost those then.
Ok, if you're cool with that.
Oh yeah, for sure, any yeah,any promo helps, so OK.
Speaker 1 (57:48):
That, and that'll be video and audio.
So right.
Speaker 2 (57:51):
Is that cool?
Yes, sir, Got you All right.
Speaker 1 (57:54):
Dude, Well I'm going to let you go, but thank you and
I'll be talking to you later.
Man, appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
Be safe, all right, you too.
Bye.
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.