Mike Spreitzer (Verona on Venus, DevilDriver) | Exclusive Metal Guitarist Interview - Metalology

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What is up everybody? Today we have the front man
from Verona and Venus and former guitars from Devil Driver.
Mike Sprites are here on Metal all right, guys, So

(00:42):
today we are talking with Mike Sprites are one of
my personal favorite guitar players of all time for one
of my favorite bands of all time, Devil Driver. I
am so excited for this episode. We just got done
interviewing him. We just sat down with him for an
hour forty five minutes or so. Was too wonderful conversation
by quick. Huh yeah, man, God, dude, you know what's

(01:06):
really cool about this episode. This episode's following our episode
with Dane Hallett, who worked on Alon rodmul Lists and
Man Next to Your Road. And what was cool about
that episode is he had no clue that we were
interviewing Mike the following week, and he just started bringing
up Devil Driver shit, and I'm like, yeah, you know,
you guys, go check out that episode. Dane was awesome,
But today we're talking about Mike. I've been a fan

(01:28):
for a long time. I really tried hard not to famdboy.
I had this whole thing over up top. I wanted
to say like Devil Drivers met the world too. Man,
you guys have been like the soundtrack for like a
lot of hard times in my life. And I've worshiped
you guys because you know, I'm die hard.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
And I don't want to say too much, but I
definitely surprised you held back.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
I held back until until the end. Until the end.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
But don't worry, it's still He's still gushing though, Yeah,
like you still see it.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
I'm tripping at for like the first five minutes, I'm
kind of tripping a little bit. I'm like, fuck, Mike's
right there, dude. I had a moment where like, well,
when we had started out, I'm like, dude, fifteen year old,
he would be kicking my own ass right now. Like
fifteen year old. We would be like, you're doing what wait,
what's a podcast? And what are you doing?

Speaker 2 (02:12):
That's crazy?

Speaker 3 (02:13):
He'd be fucking stoked.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
So I'm just so happy, like I'm over the moon
happy that we were able to get Mike on the podcast.
A Gentleman shared a lot of stories about his time
in Devil Driver. Some of his proudest moments songs he
worked on, musical moments that he was the most proudest
of in that band. But we also talked for like
the first I want to say maybe more than half
of the first hour. We talked about veron on Venus,
his new band, how big of a departure it is

(02:35):
from Devil Driver sound, and his approach to writing you know,
everything from vocals, lyrics, music, even down to the visual
artistry that is involved with that band. Pretty pretty cool shit.
I don't want to give the episode away. You guys
are gonna have a lot of fun checking out this episode.
But before we get started, first we have to introduce everybody,
because I forgot to do that when we were talking
with Mike. Mike himself had to say, that's how nervous
I was.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Bro.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Mike himself had to say, who okay, So let me
get everybody's names. You guys, I'm your host, Anthony spots on.
To the right of me is my Peruvian petite co host.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
What's up?

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Guys, Metal Hondro and in front of me, you gotta
you gotta give him the long locks, Spanish and espanel Kustas, Yeah,
ghetto and through.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
This is ruly.

Speaker 5 (03:29):
The greatest man alive.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Your boy, why the funk are you wearing sunglasses.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Bro, it's too great.

Speaker 5 (03:37):
We're gon we're gonna talk about this.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Now, we're gonna talk about this because okay, so, so
what I get here to get to her?

Speaker 3 (03:44):
I get here an hour and half. You guys are
both on my ship list anyways, but you got your
way for you guys.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Got here like ten minutes before we started the interview.
I was like, dude, I'm gonna have a panic attack.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Were we ready? We're ready?

Speaker 1 (03:55):
You guys ready, just ready? I get here and Baji
is fucking I'm like, dude.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Now.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Baji is also a big Devil Driber fan like I am.
And a lot of my first moments with Devil Driver
going and see them live for the first time, listening
to their albums, this and that was with Baji, So
I assume Baji would be pretty stoked on this. I
get here and he's on the couch past the fuck
out that. Yeah, okay, you don't have to speak the
late later, I do the work. You guys can subscribe
to us on YouTube. I hit the notification bell. Don't

(04:23):
miss out on any upcoming episodes. Also, we post clips
on our shorts. Follow us on TikTok because that's where
it's kind of hitting off for us a little bit.
We post clips on there as well. You guys can
follow us on Instagram, uh to see some little fun
behind the scenes stuff and to get like tesus for
outcoming episodes. We're just gonna kind of jump into it
because this episode meant a lot to me. Yeah, and

(04:44):
I was so happy that Mike jumped on such a
class act. Had a great time talking with him, and
uh yeah, I really think you guys gonna enjoy this episode.
So you know, let's jump into it. What is up
guys today we're sitting down with the man Mike Sprites
or what is up?

Speaker 5 (04:59):
Mike?

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Thank you so much for coming on.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
Man, You're welcome. Thank you for having me awesome anysome.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Uh So, we we've had this podcast for a long
time now, and we've talked about Devil Driver multiple times.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
I've talked about Mike multiple times.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
You know, we shared a lot of stories about our
first myself in Alberto or Baji, our first your first
concert was a Devil Driver show like it was with
Guar back in House of Blues.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
Oh four five five five. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
I actually have a picture with you, Mike where I
literally ditched school to go to this twenty one in
the venue in San Diego and waited outside the bus
just to get pictures with everybody. And I got pictures
with everybody but John. John was the one dude I
didn't get a picture with.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
But I was.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
I was so stoked, and uh, yeah, this is it's
an hoder to have you on.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
Man.

Speaker 6 (05:42):
I'm pretty excited, thanks man, thank you for the sport
over the years.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
A long time.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's been a minute and I'm
super stoked about your new project. And uh, that's the
main reason I wanted to have you come on. I
wanted to talk about Rono and Venus and all that,
but just you know, just before we get started. Last week,
we interviewed concept designer Dane Hallett. I don't know if
you remember him, but he actually brought up Devil Driver
on the on the episode. He's worked on Alien Rod Milz,

(06:09):
he's worked on Matt Max Ferry Road stuff like that,
and sharing some stories about following you guys around in Australia.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
So big shout out to Dane.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
Devil Driver.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Tighter there, man, I fucking I love the Devil Driver.

Speaker 4 (06:19):
Devil Driver.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
We're playing at a festival in Australia. And so what
I did was, Man, I fucking tracked.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
All the possible flights that they'd be taking from festival
to festival.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
We're interviewing Mike Spritzer next Sunday. Oh yeah, what's he
doing now?

Speaker 1 (06:34):
He's doing a band called Verona on Venus. Yeah, he says, Hi, Hello,
all right, So just to get started, we want to
focus a lot more on Verona on Venus because I'm
pretty sure you've talked a lot about Devil Driver wats
and Devil Driver questions a little bit later, But first
I just want to start. What's the meaning behind the
name of Verona on Venus.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
Nothing terribly interesting, I was.

Speaker 6 (06:58):
It took me a long time to figure out what
I was going to call the band, and I wanted
something that I can make a symbol out of, for one,
and I know.

Speaker 4 (07:09):
I wanted it to be symmetrical.

Speaker 6 (07:11):
And I was just nerding out on YouTube watching videos
about space, which I have a tendency to do. And yeah,
and I was watching a bunch of videos about how
the Russians sent these probes to Venus in I think

(07:34):
the seventies, maybe the seventies and eighties maybe, and they
were called Vanera. So the first thoughts that came to
my mind was Vanera on Venus, but I believe Venera
just means Venus and Russian, and that didn't really make sense.
And somehow the word Verona came to me, and I

(07:58):
was like, Verona and Venus, you know, I get online
and google it and go to the trademark office and
do a search, and everything was available, you know, on Instagram, Facebook,
just across the board, and I just like the way
it sounded, you know, and if people wanted to abbreviate,
they could say vov and I just thought that was

(08:19):
a cool name. It was going to be really easy
for me to set everything up. And my fiance Priscilla
had a friend named Jason Wan that created the logo
and the symbol for me and also did the album
cover for the first record and just all kind of.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
Fell into place.

Speaker 6 (08:39):
Not the most interesting story in the world, but it's
very hard to come up with a band name these days.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah, yeah, I know, like every time we've talked to bands,
it's always we went through like a hundred different bands,
band names. We try to had multiple conversations, google everything,
try to make sure it's like unique and it's its own.
It's very common just to like kind of it's very
rare to have a band name, but you just kind
of stick with or just come up with right off
the bat. But either way, killer band name. When you

(09:07):
drop the band name, I was like, what does that mean?
It's like a mystery. It's cool, it's like a lore
in a way. It's like, what does that mean?

Speaker 5 (09:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (09:15):
Yeah, I need to come up with a cooler story
to start telling people because I need a good lie.
But unfortunately there's too much information out there already. I
get caught in my lie right away.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
So, as a guitarist stepping into the front end position,
I'm curious to know what that experience was like for you.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
Were you always planning on being the vocalist for Ronagnus.

Speaker 6 (09:42):
No, And I've spent many days leading up to the
first show going what the fuck was I thinking? Because
I had never done it before, and after twenty years,
I felt very comfortable hiding behind and a guitar.

Speaker 4 (10:01):
But I finally came.

Speaker 6 (10:03):
To the conclusion that if I wanted to do Verona
on Venus for the rest of my life, I didn't
want to have to rely on anybody else but myself.
And I did a little bit of singing in college,
you know, nothing like Verona.

Speaker 4 (10:20):
Obviously, it was like classical stuff.

Speaker 6 (10:23):
And I didn't want you know, you just hear all
these horror stories of you know, band's doing well, they
got to change the vocalist, and then it's just downhill. Yeah,
there are a few ac DC did it, Arch Enemy
has done it twice, and they keep on getting bigger.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
Yeah, it is a trip.

Speaker 6 (10:51):
I did have this long conversation with myself where it's like,
if I want to do this for the rest of
my life, no matter what, I'm gonna have to learn
how to sing. And I just dove in the Bones
of Baby Dolls was the first thing that I recorded.

(11:19):
And I did that because I felt like, you know,
I'm gonna go into this singing somebody else's song, Like
I don't even want to try to write lyrics yet.
So that was the stepping off point for me. I
didn't know what I was going to sound like. I

(11:39):
didn't even really know what kind of direction I was
going for when I was working on Popular Delusions, It's
that album was kind of an experiment for me and.

Speaker 4 (11:50):
After God.

Speaker 6 (11:51):
I mean, I started working on that record six years
ago that already seems very old to me.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
But I've I've gone to the.

Speaker 6 (12:00):
Point now where I feel like I know what direction
I want Veron On Venus to go in, and it's
much more along the lines of you know, the three
singles that I've released after the record being Pretty, war
Baby and No One Is, you know, as well as
songs like Monarch, Acid Tests.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
Things like that.

Speaker 6 (12:25):
By the way, you know, I've always had this love
for industrial music, and you know, I definitely put some
of that in Popular Delusions, but I wasn't I was
tinkering with other ideas throughout the record, and after a while,
I you know, I just knew that I wanted to

(12:46):
do something completely different than Devil Driver, and I want
it to sound like Devil Driver at all. And but
I don't know why I didn't do more stuff like
Monarch Acid Test and Pretty and war Baby was doing
what I was feeling like at the time. And but
now I got a better idea, at least for the

(13:08):
next record.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
I know, I have a better idea of where it's
going to go.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yeah, what's really cool about this project is I feel
there are some parallels between what you've been doing with
Verona and what Wes Bortland did with black Light black
Light Burns.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
I don't know if you've heard hit that project.

Speaker 4 (13:24):
That was a big fan of that first record that he.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
Got it the same thing. Me and Alberta are huge
fans of that record.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
And I remember, like leading up to that record when
they announced what was Sportland was going to be doing
the vocals, I was like, really, like Wes, I've seen
him do some back up here and there, but I
was so so caught off guarded surprise when I heard
that record, And I draw some parallels between that project
and this project a little bit.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Did you try out different singers or was it like
before you came to the conclusion like you know what,
I think I have something to say here, or like
a style like that I can bring into this project.

Speaker 6 (13:59):
I had one singer in mine, this guy named Matt
that sings in a band called Human and he was
He's a friend of my fiance Priscilla. She's worked with
him with She used to be on the board of
directors with Rock to Recovery, and she suggested Matt to
me at one point and I don't even think he

(14:21):
knows that I was going to ask him. But somewhere between,
you know, thinking about looking for a singer and even
trying someone out.

Speaker 4 (14:33):
I came to the conclusion that I just have to
do it myself.

Speaker 6 (14:37):
I'm not going to mention any names, but I do
have a close friend that went through absolutely hell with
his singer and it's I was like, I don't want
that to happen. You know, I've seen and it's not
just him, I've seen it a million times. We all

(14:58):
have sure singer leaves a band and you could, I
mean almost you could have. I mean, for God's sake,
fucking Pantera is doing just fine, you know, without Dime
and Vinnie, and but swapping out a singer is tough.
It really changes everything up. So I didn't want to

(15:21):
go through that. I've spent way too much time putting
this whole thing together and money and.

Speaker 4 (15:28):
This is going to be my baby until I die.

Speaker 6 (15:31):
And I don't you know, one way or another, I
will be releasing music through Verona on Venus until my
body just won't let me do it anymore.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
I mean, you're killing it.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
Like I was like when I heard the tracks, I
was so surprised that that was your voice, that was
you at first, I cause I think the first one
the video I saw was Rodent and it didn't look
like you at all.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
I'm like, Who's who's singing from Mike?

Speaker 4 (15:53):
Who's a lot of people didn't know that was me.
Even my family members were like, who who was that?
You know? With the with the nails in his head?
I'm like, uh me and uh.

Speaker 6 (16:09):
I wasn't trying to hide my face. One of the
reasons I actually ended up taking it out now. But
you know, I've had a I had a lip ring
for God over over twenty years, and I was like,
I'm gonna leave that in to kind of just you know,
if people want a little easter to know that it's
me or not. But a lot of people didn't pick
up that it was me right away.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah, it looked what would I tell you, It looked
like a like a panted up Devin Townsend. For a minute,
That's that's who you reminded me of in that video,
Like a panted ub Devin Townsend. Okay, okay, yeah, but
you sounded amazing. Who would you say some of the

(17:00):
biggest influences that you've pulled from vocally and lyrically, the
influence what you've done.

Speaker 4 (17:04):
In Verona Lyrically nobody.

Speaker 6 (17:08):
I've never been a person that really paid attention to lyrics,
and I've recently found out that that kind of not
paying attention to what songs are about is mostly in
the metal genre. I have started listening to a lot

(17:30):
of mainly like bluegrass. You know, the Dead South is
one of my favorite bands, and you know, des got
me into a lot of outlaw country back in the day,
and especially like Hank three and his album Straight to
Hell is probably was like the tipping point for getting
me into country music. And there's a lot of bad country.

(17:54):
I don't like poppy country, and it's got to be dark.
It's got to have a little bit like little undertone
of evil in it. And Pink Threes Straight to Hell
was a good starting point for me, and I started
noticing that I was really paying attention to the lyrics
when I was listening to that record, and all the

(18:16):
lyrics that from any outlaw country or bluegrass band that
I've been getting into lately. So there's something about metal
where I just don't care what the song is about.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
Now, I didn't want to.

Speaker 6 (18:28):
Go into writing popular delusions and just you know, write
songs that people weren't going to pay attention to the lyrics.
And I made a promise to myself that I'm never
going to tell anybody what my songs are about. They
are a little bit vague, but there is a meaning there.

(18:50):
But I want the listener to interpret what I'm saying themselves,
at least for now.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
Yeah, definitely, definitely.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
Was it a challenge to move away in the sound
you helped form a Double Driver when it came to
writing for Brono Binus. Were there any specific things from
Double Driver's sound that you wanted to steer away from
for this project.

Speaker 6 (19:10):
Well, when I first started writing for this project, I
even went as far as you know, when I'm at
this is my studio, this is where I write, and
you know I've got you know, I programmed drums to
my songs. You know, I write it, program drums to it,
mix it down and send it off to des and

(19:31):
you know you would critique it, give me some notes,
send it back. And the first thing I did was
build a drum kit in Superior Drummer that only had
one kick drum. Wow, though I would purposely not write
anything with double Kick to force myself to kind of
go in a different direction. That lasted for about a week.

(19:54):
It didn't work. But but you know, I haven't said
this out loud to anybody yet, but I tried to
write another Devil Driver record, and there was a moment
where me, John Berklin, and John Miller were all working
on a record together and.

Speaker 4 (20:19):
I just wasn't feeling it anymore.

Speaker 6 (20:22):
Yeah, I had just in my head. Looking back now,
even at that point, I had kind of moved on.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
I do.

Speaker 6 (20:31):
I did write a handful of songs, and I think
they're good songs, and I'm actually going to be releasing
them eventually. I've got there's a band named Tortured Saint
that I've mixed their records for a few years, and
I'm trying to get Jeremy the singer to sing on
these songs just so I could sell them to a

(20:53):
music library to get licensed out to movies and TV shows.
I gave them a record many many years ago with
some leftover Devil Driver stuff that never.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
Made it, and.

Speaker 6 (21:08):
So those songs that might actually see the light of
day eventually, but finding the time to get it done
has been pretty difficult. But you know, writing for Verona,
at least instrumentally, that was pretty easy for me. Writing
lyrics that since I had never done it before, and
doing the vocals that was a bit of a process.

(21:28):
But you know, a lot of these songs that are
on popular delusions, like, I've had them around for years, Yeah,
a long time. There's one song that I wrote like
twelve oh no, it was Red Dead Rose.

Speaker 4 (21:41):
Okay, I mean I wouldn't say the song was finished.

Speaker 6 (21:46):
I definitely when I revisited it, but that's the song
that I started writing I think thirteen years ago.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
Wow, dang, and sitting in the closet pretty much is
winning to come out.

Speaker 4 (21:56):
Yeah. So I just started going through a lot of
my old stuff that I was working on.

Speaker 6 (22:03):
Had no idea what I was going to do with it,
because you know, for so many years, it's just I
was too busy with Devil Driver.

Speaker 4 (22:11):
To do anything else.

Speaker 6 (22:14):
And so and then the pandemic came around and everything
just stopped for everybody. I was like, well, I guess
this is a good time for me to start working
on Verona.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
Wow, yeah, it's it's it's crazy. So that so that
Devil Driver album that you guys were working on. Was
that while Brooklyn was still in the band, or was that.

Speaker 4 (22:40):
He was?

Speaker 6 (22:41):
No, he was he wasn't going to rejoin the band,
but he was going to come back and write the
album with us, gotcha, you know me Brooklyn and Miller
were you know, and and Jeff were you know. Obviously
we all wrote and contributed to the record. And when

(23:02):
Miller rejoined the band, Miller and Berklin grew up together.
And you know, I've always kept in touch with all
the guys, and you know, Berklin hit me up one
day and I was like, I want you to think about,
you know, if I don't want to rejoin the band.
He's he was too busy. He always will be too
busy with bat Wolves. But he had some time off

(23:23):
and he was like, let's ride another Devil Driver record together.

Speaker 4 (23:27):
And I'm like, sure, yeah, you know, And.

Speaker 6 (23:33):
I won't get into the reasons why it didn't work out,
but unfortunately, it just it didn't work out.

Speaker 4 (23:41):
Berklin was the first one to throw in the.

Speaker 6 (23:43):
Towel, and then eventually I did, and it's just unfortunately
it was just time to move on.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (23:55):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Verona's music art. So I want to get to this
video because I had to. I watched it and I
was like, I gotta ask him. This Verona's music video
for your cover of Diane Woods No One was awesome.
The idea to do an all white music video was
executed in a very creepy but really cool way, and
I really wanted to know how that video came about.

Speaker 6 (24:29):
Okay, So I did the song for I did the
video for Pretty, and I, Uh, I didn't want to
have a big production on that video. I just wanted
to keep it simple, do it at home, do it myself,
and see how well I could maybe edit it on
my own without I earned someone else to do it.

(24:51):
And so I filmed that whole thing myself. I kind
of kept it low res, you know, with a very
VHS type of look to it.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
My fiance Priscilla does all my pr for me.

Speaker 6 (25:05):
You know, she's been a publisher for a long time,
and you know she's Zach Wilde's publicist right now, so
she's she knows what she's doing and I'm always asking
her her opinion on things. Maybe I could just do
this video myself, and she kind of looked at me
and she's like, if it sucks, I'm gonna tell you
it sucks.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, that's awesome, and I'm like all right.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
So I started filming it, started.

Speaker 6 (25:37):
Editing it, and I was like, all right, come in
and take a look. Let me know what you think.
And she was like that is so fucking cool. Like okay, good,
I got this. It wasn't done yet, but I got this.
So when it came around to doing the DANDVERT video,
I wanted to do the exact opposite. I was like,
I want it to be very high definition. I'm going

(26:00):
to hire my director Vicente again to help me do it,
and but I want to edit it myself. So I
just hired Vicente to film it with me and then
he gave me all the footage. Now where I got
the idea to do all white, honestly, I can't remember.

(26:20):
It probably came about with my idea of just making
it completely opposite a pretty end. Just doing it, you know,
with it being all white, was going to make it
look very high resolution. And it wasn't like I sat
down and I had the idea for the video. Everything
just kind of came along little by little. It's like, okay,

(26:41):
so we're gonna have a completely white room and.

Speaker 4 (26:47):
We're going to get a girl to do.

Speaker 6 (26:51):
Yolandi's parts, and I'll be dressed in all white.

Speaker 4 (26:56):
I'll paint my face white.

Speaker 6 (26:57):
And I was like, okay, well, why don't we put
white contact lenses in? And then I just got on
you know, offer up and Facebook marketplace and just started
looking for I mean, that's how I acquired everything in
that video for the most part, the table, the baseball bats,
the speaker, the the the white plants, the base Wow,

(27:24):
everything except for the drywall that we beat the ship
at the end.

Speaker 4 (27:28):
That was I got that at Low's.

Speaker 6 (27:31):
But yeah, it was just you know, just a little
by little piecing things together and.

Speaker 4 (27:41):
Luckily it came out well.

Speaker 6 (27:44):
We got it all done in one day, the shooting
aspect of it, and then I finished editing that video
one hour.

Speaker 4 (27:51):
Before I released it. Wow, it took me.

Speaker 6 (27:57):
I mean, I it's only the second video I've ever edited,
so it was kind of a slow process. But I
want to say I spent five editing that video.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (28:09):
And I had.

Speaker 6 (28:10):
Worked with Kaliko before when she did some stuff on
Wednesday thirteen's record necro Phase. I produced that record and
he brought her in and right off the bat. Kaliko
is just one of the coolest people you could ever meet.
She just lights up the room and she comes in.
She's got a great sense of humor. He's very easy

(28:33):
to work with. She's extremely talented, and she was my
first and only choice who do all the female vocals
on it, and she definitely had. She had the shittiest
job on that video, okay, but all the blood that

(28:54):
we had to do and everything I meant. She is
such a trooper. She she really came through for me
and I cannot thank her enough.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
I really want to get to this part because I
noticed that the songs It's It's Not the project isn't
a straight up metal project. I really enjoyed the balance
between metal and rock with songs like Roda and Monarch
Acid Test. When you began Verona, was it the intention
to develop a band that danced between the genres or
did it happen organically?

Speaker 3 (29:21):
As you continue to write.

Speaker 4 (29:23):
It was organic.

Speaker 6 (29:26):
I when I first started it, I don't think I
wanted it to sound like an industrial band, and Monarch
Acid Test was not. I even Austin when he did
drums on that record. We did that. That was like

(29:46):
a second separate session that we did because I wanted
another song on the record, and I was like, well,
I got this this cool song that I started writing
years and years ago, and so I got you.

Speaker 4 (29:59):
You know, we set up another session.

Speaker 6 (30:00):
I had Austin do drums on it, and when I
got to doing vocals on that song, I wrote the
wrote the lyrics and it just it went by like that,
like it took me just a few hours to record
that song, as opposed to like Rodent. Oh my god,
I must have rewrote that song one hundred times. And

(30:22):
no joke, there are lines on that record I wouldn't
want to say, like like floods of Burden, just getting
my feet wet with the whole singing thing. And luckily,
I don't think it'll ever take me this long again,
because I was literally teaching myself how to sing at
the same time that I think I probably did somewhere

(30:44):
between three and four hundred takes on some lines in
Floods of Burden until I got it right, and I
would spend all day working on it, wake up the
next day, listen to it, and throw it right in
the trash start all over again. Yeah, but Monarch Acid
Tests came real easy. And I'm at in the headspace

(31:17):
now where it's just like, Okay, these are my strengths,
these are my weaknesses.

Speaker 4 (31:24):
I might embrace the weakness a little.

Speaker 6 (31:26):
Bit just to keep myself busy and try to, you know,
just kind of push myself a little bit. But Pretty
came very easily, war Baby came very easily, And you know,
I didn't have to write the lyrics for no One,
but you know, I knew what kind of vibe I
was going to go for, and it's like, Okay, this

(31:46):
is what I want Verona to be like.

Speaker 4 (31:50):
And I know now that I'm in a better headspace,
I can do so much better.

Speaker 6 (31:55):
Like I'm so excited to get the next record out
and we've only written one song at this point. We
actually played it at the Whiskey, a song called Choke
the Ghost. But I'm really excited about album number two
and I haven't really had a whole lot of time
to really dig into it. But now that I got
the first show out of the way, and you know,

(32:19):
all the prep that went into the first show, a
lot of that preparation has already done. So the second
show is going to be a lot easier for me
and for my band, but well, you know, we're just
gonna have to see what happens.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
What I like about this project with you and just
talking with you is, you know, not having a ton
of experience with singing, and you're stepping into that front
map position.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
And then even editing No one too.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Is like you.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
That was the only the second video you've ever edited.
It seems like this project is challenging you in a
lot of ways. Do you feel like you're being challenged
more with this project than you were during your time
in Devil Driver?

Speaker 4 (32:57):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 6 (33:00):
In Devil Driver, I had to write some riffs, throw
some songs together, structure everything, program some drums.

Speaker 4 (33:08):
Play some bass on it, give it to.

Speaker 6 (33:11):
Dead, have him do vocals, and you know, I do
all the demo in and then it's just kind of
see what our producer thinks once we get into the
studio and re record everything and clean everything up, and yeah,
doing vocals for me, doing bass, all the electronics. Everything.

(33:37):
I did not mix and master my own records. I
did not want to do that. By the time I
got done writing it and it was done, I was like,
there is no fucking way on Earth. I am going
to mix this thing. So I had five people do
test mixes and loss of lammert from Who's a German

(33:58):
guy that I had met before, and.

Speaker 4 (34:02):
He was probably I think he was the last guy.

Speaker 6 (34:05):
I contacted because he mixed a song for a friend
of mine and when he they said it to me,
I was like, who the hell mixed it?

Speaker 4 (34:13):
And he was like Lasa and I'm like.

Speaker 6 (34:15):
Oh shit, I forgot about Lassa, so I hit him
up immediately and I was like, will you do a
test mix for me?

Speaker 4 (34:23):
I think I had him. I had everyone work on
Dead Heroes.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Hang.

Speaker 4 (34:41):
And a lot of the other guys. I mean, they
were all good, but there was something about Lassa.

Speaker 6 (34:48):
That when I got his mix, I was like, Yep,
this is my guy, and he's mixed pretty. He makes
war baby, he did no one and he's just I
think he's gonna be my mixing engineer for a very
long time.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
The visuals for Rona on Venus are unique and cinematic.
The video for Rodent reminds me a lot of Iko
Ishioka's art direction for The Cell In particular. Are there
any artists that are influencing what you are doing with
Rona on Venus visually musically or not musically, No.

Speaker 4 (35:22):
Not really. I just wanted it to be dark and sinister,
but I didn't want it to be gory. I'm not
a fan of Gore. I'm not even much of.

Speaker 6 (35:33):
A fan of horror movies in general, which is actually
kind of a funny story. When I was producing that
Wednesday thirteen record, I had I think Wednesday was.

Speaker 4 (35:44):
In here Jack and Raman.

Speaker 6 (35:49):
And they were started talking about all these different, you know,
classic horror movies like Rosemary's Baby, The Omen Exorcist, and
I'm just kind of sitting here, like, God, I hope
they don't ask me if I've seen these movies.

Speaker 4 (36:03):
Carrie was one of.

Speaker 6 (36:04):
Them, and like, you know, the scene, Mike like, shit,
here we go. I haven't seen any of those movies.
And I swear the look on their face was like,
should we fire this guy? I mean, Wednesday and a
lot of the other guys are so into that, you know,

(36:25):
a whole genre of of horror that once we finished
every every day after we were done recording, I spent
one night for probably two weeks watching a classic horror movie.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
Yeah, and oh my god, pretty.

Speaker 4 (36:42):
Much Yeah, I felt bad. Man.

Speaker 6 (36:44):
I was just like, Okay, I should have done this
before I started working with them, to kind of get
myself in the vibe.

Speaker 4 (36:50):
But and actually I think it kind of.

Speaker 6 (36:53):
Helped, you know, because it was very early in the
recording process that they heard that I hadn't seen any
of those movies, and I think it kind of helped
me get more into the headspace that I should have
been and when I was working on that record with them.
But you know, I see I make notes in my phone.
I'll be watching something and something will spark in my head,

(37:17):
and believe it or not, I did watch the Cell,
I will admit to try to get some inspiration.

Speaker 4 (37:25):
Yeah, but I had already seen it, but there wasn't.

Speaker 6 (37:31):
That might have let that might have been what led
me to want to do it out in the desert.
But honestly, I think we had that idea before I
saw the Cell, but I can't remember for sure. That
might be the reason why we chose to do it
out in the desert. But my ideas do come from someplace,

(37:52):
and sometimes I remember where they come from, and sometimes
I don't.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, it's just like subconscious, it's something I'll just sit
back there until it comes out.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
Rudy. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
So it's funny because you bring up the Wednesday thirteen.
You know, everybody was watching horror movies and you know
you're not. That's not really a thing. We kind of
have the same thing here where Rudy, Uh, he's all
screening right now. Rudy's probably the biggest horror fan and
I'm like the biggest sci fi fan. So anytime these
guys are all together, Oh, we saw Terrifier too, whatever,
I'm like, I don't fucking know what, but that shit
is you guys seen him doing yet?

Speaker 6 (38:23):
No?

Speaker 3 (38:24):
Fuck you guys. So I know it's like to be
the one.

Speaker 4 (38:29):
I love sci fi. That's yeah, that's that's my jam man.

Speaker 6 (38:33):
Sci Fi is kind of like industrial music, where there's
a lot of them out.

Speaker 4 (38:37):
There, but there's just not that many good, really good ones.

Speaker 6 (38:40):
So when you find a really good sci fi movie,
it really makes me happy. And I will watch a
good sci fi movie over and over and over again.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
Got it.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
What's uh, what's the sci fi movie you've seen recently
that really stuck out to you.

Speaker 6 (38:57):
I mean it's not recently, but I really was into
Interstellar because it took me so many. I was able
to watch that movie so many times until I finally
understood it completely.

Speaker 4 (39:10):
It takes a while.

Speaker 6 (39:11):
You don't really get it the first time first time around. God,
I don't know, refresh my memory. What's come out recently?

Speaker 3 (39:20):
I think, dude, Dune.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
I think Dune two was like the biggest, the biggest
one that's come out ill.

Speaker 4 (39:27):
The new Dune movies.

Speaker 6 (39:28):
I liked them, but I can't say I love them.
And I did watch the originals a.

Speaker 4 (39:35):
Long time ago.

Speaker 6 (39:37):
Mm hmm, like probably like when I was like seventeen
or eighteen years old. Star Wars has left the building
for me.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
The same same we're all doing Star Wars with Star Wars.

Speaker 6 (39:52):
Dude, I mean, they can't film a good lightsaber scene
to save their life, right, it looks like it looks
like a bunch of like four year olds that are
like playing with sticks. Yeah, and I was watching Okay,
I'm not even sure I'm pronouncing this right.

Speaker 4 (40:10):
A shaka?

Speaker 3 (40:12):
What was this? Soca ahsoka?

Speaker 4 (40:15):
Thank you?

Speaker 6 (40:17):
I started watching that and I got maybe four episodes in.
I was like, that's it. I'm not watching any more
Star Wars. I just thought it was absolutely god awful.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Yeah, yeah, I'm off the train with the Star Wars
Disney Plus shows. I think the only one I'll stick
with is and Or, but it feels like that's on
a different level. Everything else has been what's going on here?
And I love that you bring up the lightsaber fights too,
because that's been what's been lagging a lot since like
twenty fifteen The Force Awakens Hall. The fuck are you
going to film a scene with Darth Moule and nineteen
ninety nine Phantom Menace and even Revenge of the Sith

(40:49):
with Ela McGregor and Hayden Christians where those light suber
battles are amazing, and then fast forward what twenty plus
years later and we can't hire choreographers to make this,
We can't get directors to make this look cool.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
I don't know. Yah, I'm right there with you, man,
I get it.

Speaker 4 (41:05):
I don't know why they don't. All you gotta do
is bring back Ray Park.

Speaker 6 (41:09):
Yeah, exactly right, just bring them back, you know, give us,
you know. And then they teased us with Ray m
hm in that one little it was in the trailer
where she has a double bladed light or double sided lightsaber.

Speaker 4 (41:24):
Yeah, and it was like just a dream. There was
no fight.

Speaker 6 (41:29):
It's like, you know, I was really looking forward to that,
and you guys, you throw it out there, got us
all excited and let us down once again.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
Exactly.

Speaker 6 (41:40):
Yeah, I'm going down this sci fi rabbit hole.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
Now I got one more sci fi question for you
before we get back to Verona. Okay, this is the
debate I'm hapving with a buddy of mine. Would you
consider alien to be I know everybody differentiates the first
Alien the second Aliens, but just alien as a whole
horror or science fiction? I know there's a hybrid about,
but which one would you have it leaned more towards?

Speaker 4 (42:07):
Uh, science fiction? For sure.

Speaker 6 (42:09):
I would say it's like seventy percent science fiction. It's
kind of in the vein of an event Horizon. That's
one of those movies too, that kind of ventures into
the horror thing.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
A little bit.

Speaker 6 (42:22):
Yeah, yeah, I love that movie.

Speaker 4 (42:28):
And I do love the alien movies.

Speaker 6 (42:29):
I actually sat down and watched every single one of
them again, except for one.

Speaker 4 (42:38):
There's one that I do not like, and I actually
walked out of the movie theater. I thought it was
so bad, oh shit much. It was the what's what's
the guy's name from East Bound and Down, Oh.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
Dan Danny McBride, so your Alien bride.

Speaker 6 (42:57):
Yeah, did not like that one. Yeah, just did not
do it for me. Yeah, I didn't like that one.
And you know, he doesn't live with me anymore. But
for ten years I live with this guy named Patrick
who plays in lead of Ford's.

Speaker 4 (43:10):
Band, Oh, her.

Speaker 6 (43:12):
Guitar player, and he ended up getting married and I'm
engaged now, so we're like, well, I guess it's time
to grow up, so we need to find our own play.
But he is a massive Alien fan. And I remember
I came home from the theaters.

Speaker 4 (43:28):
What'd you think. I'm like, I didn't need to stay
for the whole thing. And it would get interesting.

Speaker 6 (43:36):
I'm like, okay, it's getting better, it's getting better, and
I'd be like, I think I'm gonna leave. Then it
would kind of get better again, and then it would leave.
And the scene where they're playing the flute, if I
remember correctly, and he hands it to him and he says, okay,
let me do the fingering now, I was like, that's it.

(43:58):
I'm out of here, Like, what is what.

Speaker 4 (44:02):
Is going on with this movie? So I was just
not into it.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
Yeah, But.

Speaker 4 (44:10):
And I did.

Speaker 6 (44:11):
I love Danny McBride. I was so happy that he
was in it.

Speaker 4 (44:15):
I love that dude.

Speaker 6 (44:18):
But yeah, I just that's the one alien movie that
just didn't do it for me.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Yeah, it's like just checked out, checked out. Give me
Back onto Barona, because I could talk all day about
saying FI movies have any non metal influences crept into
your songwriting now that you're steering the ship with Barona.

Speaker 4 (44:38):
You know there.

Speaker 6 (44:40):
I was really into Billy Howard ELL's newest.

Speaker 4 (44:44):
Record, The Moment.

Speaker 6 (44:53):
Pass, and anybody listening to this needs to go out
and listen to that record.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
To me, it's just as good as any Perfect Circle record.

Speaker 3 (45:14):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (45:16):
I don't know why he didn't go into the name
Ashes Divide for this one like he did before when
he was just you know, doing his own thing without Maynard.

Speaker 4 (45:25):
But yeah, I think his newest record is just phenomenal.

Speaker 6 (45:31):
It is so good, and you know, Danny Lohner from
who previously of Nine Nails produced it with him, and.

Speaker 4 (45:42):
It's just blown away by that.

Speaker 6 (45:44):
And I do think that had some influence on me,
you know, with songs like Rodent.

Speaker 4 (45:51):
Yeah, when when I was working on the record, I
can hear it, Yeah, not a whole lot. Man. You know,
it ended up sounding.

Speaker 6 (46:04):
Like one person reviewed the record, and I thought she
really nailed it was she said Popular Delusions was a
warm hug.

Speaker 4 (46:15):
From the nineties, and I was like, okay that.

Speaker 6 (46:20):
You know, I like that because to me, the nineties
were was the pinnacle of underground industrial music and goth
and I don't think we'll ever have released for me,
have bands come out like that again. I mean, there
was just so much good stuff came out of the nineties,
and that's all that stuff has influenced me. But it,

(46:44):
you know, there was no place for it in Double Driver.
And if you listen closely, there are there are little
tidbits like leads that you could listen to and go,
Mike got I could hear a little bit of Sisters
of Mercy in there, you know, but it was they
were undertones. They weren't at the forefront of the music.

(47:04):
It just Devil Drivers just didn't have any kind of
place for that in this kind of music. No. I
also have a great love for Scandinavian metal, you know,
in Flames Opeth at the Gates. Obviously they're not Scandinavian,
but Carcass's artwork is like my old time favorite death
metal record. So I used influence from genres like their

(47:30):
bands like that for Devil Driver, And when I bounced
over to Verona, it was kind of like, all right,
this is, you know, mostly what I listened to when
I was in high school and early college, and I'm
going to start drawing inspiration from what I've actually been
wanting to do my whole life. Because I kind of

(47:52):
fell ass backwards into Devil Driver, and I was just
I let, you know, Jeff and John Miller, they didn't
have any place to live in between tours, and we
were all friends from college and our older bands, you know,
would always play shows together, just at like the local bars,

(48:13):
and I let them stay. And I had an extra
room in this house that I was living in, and
I would let them stay there between tours. And that's
what led to me joining Devil Driver. You know, they're
just like, did we need a guitar player? Can you
go to Europe in two days? Sure, let's stay up
all night and drink a shit ton of red Bull
and learn all the songs. And I was only supposed

(48:33):
to be temporary for this one tour and I came
home and they hired me on permanently and it lasted
twenty years.

Speaker 4 (48:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (48:42):
Yeah, I ended up going more than Mellow Route rather
than what I'm doing now. But if I hadn't joined
Devil Driver, I probably would have been doing music more
like Verona right out the gate when I was in
my early twenties.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
Yeah, I love that nineties that reference because I could
see it now, because the nineties is also one of
my favorite musical time periods sprout of my favorite All
the artists just had they sounded completely different from each
other or different enough to where they had their own
unique identities, and I could definitely say that with Verona.
I'm gonna I want to talk about this right now

(49:14):
because a bunch of buddies of mine that had bugged
me to go to the debut show for Roonetta Whiskey,
and last minute I had to bail because my babysitter
got sick, and so I have a thirteen year old
at home. Well he's gonna be thirteen in a few weeks,
but babysitter right fell through. So I was stuck watching
the clips online and I saw you growing on stage,
and I was like, what the fuck is Mike doing?

Speaker 3 (49:37):
You know?

Speaker 1 (49:37):
So I just want to know, is that because the
clip that's online right now is for pretty, that's the
one that's on YouTube. Is that going to do you
plan on that being a permanent staple in the live
show or was that just kind of like a one
off just for the debut show.

Speaker 6 (49:51):
I'm gonna utilize that for a while when maybe when
I get to the end of the you know, I
don't want to.

Speaker 4 (50:01):
You do a bit and then you move on to
the next bit.

Speaker 6 (50:05):
So I'm always going to be trying to come up
with new ideas for the live show, and I'm just
getting my feet way with this whole thing.

Speaker 4 (50:11):
But I wanted to recreate myself.

Speaker 6 (50:17):
From the roadent video for the live show, and just
going back and forth, I was like, Okay, well I
need a scissor lift, and I man, I searched high
and low for something that, you know, googling things like
scissor lift or just lift or whatever, and I couldn't

(50:42):
find anything that was electrical that you know, was either
small and light enough that I could put on wheel
on stage and also under ten thousand dollars. And finally,
once again just through going through through offer up. I
came across these things called lift columns, and I was like, okay.

Speaker 4 (51:06):
I think this will work.

Speaker 6 (51:08):
And you know, I went I found a lighting road case,
gutted it, put these lifting columns inside of it, and
I was like, you know, I can't walk, you know,
in the road and video I'm standing on a ladder
and I'm like, that's this is not going to work.

(51:30):
It's not going to be cool enough. So I got
to figure out a way where I can, you know,
put that dress on me and then get lifted up
just during the last part of Pretty at the end,
at the finale of the show. And you know, once again,
I think I got that thing work in the night
before the show, and I mean to look at it,

(51:54):
it's nothing that you would think would be so complicated.
But I had problems with the lift columns, you know,
just automatically stopping on the way down.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
I didn't want to get stuck up there.

Speaker 6 (52:07):
The first two that I found used aren't made anymore,
and I needed four after I found out that two
was going to be too wobbly because I did not
want to have a spinal tap moment on.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
Stage exactly exactly, oh.

Speaker 6 (52:21):
Man and which I was kind of prepared for, but
I luckily it I can't.

Speaker 4 (52:31):
I mean.

Speaker 6 (52:31):
The funny thing is is like right before we went
on too, while we were line checking, something was going
wrong with it, and luckily I was able to fix
it within like thirty seconds, and I was like, Okay,
hopefully it will remain fixed for forty minutes until we
get to the last song, and it did.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
So everything with the first show went pretty damn well.

Speaker 6 (52:53):
You know, I didn't feel like burying my head into
sand after the first show, and I got some good
feedback and it was so much work that leading up
to it. And also the other thing too is I
went through four members in three months for my live band,
and it was all just due to scheduling conflicts. You know,
it's like we're not twenty years old anymore, and scheduling

(53:16):
rehearsals was a nightmare, you know, And you know, people
got jobs, people got other responsibilities, and you know, Neil
from Devil Driver was supposed to be my guitar player,
but he lives in Portland now and he has a
very busy schedule with Carniffects so and he was on
tour with Carni Effects during when the show was booked,

(53:43):
my guitar player Lucas, who was supposed to play the show,
you know, had scheduling conflicts and couldn't make rehearsals, so
I had to replace him, just temporarily. Luckily, I found
this guy named Jeremy Kahnman that the only reason I
him is because he plays in a band that I
used to listen to and actually still listen to a

(54:04):
lot called London after Midnight and I've been listening to
then since I was fifteen years old and we became
Instagram friends started, you know, I hit him up and
I was like, dude, like, I've seen.

Speaker 4 (54:18):
London after Midnight at festivals.

Speaker 6 (54:19):
When are you guys going to be playing a club
show in LA I want to see like a proper
London after Midnight headlining show.

Speaker 4 (54:26):
And we just started talking.

Speaker 6 (54:29):
So I brought him on and due to Neil being
in Portland and everything, I just and scheduling rehearsals being
such a nightmare. I was like, Jeremy, you're staying in
the band. You know, London after Midnight doesn't do that
many shows. And he also plays in another band called
The Awakening and they don't play a whole lot either,

(54:51):
So he has the time, and he loves all the
same stuff that I do. Like he's into sci fi,
he loves you know, we both have a love for
going to Disneyland for God's sakes, and all the nineties
music that most of my friends have never heard of,

(55:12):
all that industrial, goth, underground stuff. I mean, he knows
every single band. It's like, it's really cool to have.

Speaker 4 (55:19):
Someone like that.

Speaker 6 (55:21):
Luckily, my drummer, Austin is solid, like he wants to do.
He wants to get this project up and running just
as much as I do. Still looking for a permanent
bass player, but luckily Troy from Wednesday thirteen was kind
enough to learn everything and fly out for the show.
And then I borrowed a guy named Austin from a

(55:45):
bank call Thrown into Exile. Austin's also too busy to
you know, thrown into exile to be a permanent member,
so we had two temporary guys for the show. I mean,
it got to be such a problem that I almost
put the bass on tracks in the background, but I

(56:05):
really did not want to do that. You know, I
just have all the electron I don't want a keyboardists.

Speaker 4 (56:10):
In the band.

Speaker 6 (56:10):
So I just put all that stuff on the laptop
and we play to a click track. But maybe one
day I'll be able to afford a keyboardist who knows.

Speaker 4 (56:20):
Yeah, but yeah, it was a nightmare, man.

Speaker 6 (56:23):
And like I said, Lucas is still going to be
in the band, and Jeremy's permanent.

Speaker 4 (56:31):
Now Austin's permanent.

Speaker 6 (56:32):
I just need to find a bass player that does
not play in five bands already and is in the
Los Angeles area, that isn't, you know, preferably under the
age of forty, and doesn't have three kids at home
so he has time to rehearse and go on tour.

(56:54):
Because I really need to get back on on tour, man,
I miss it so much.

Speaker 3 (57:00):
Man.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Yeah, because Devil Driverer, you guys will When the Devil
Drubber was more active before Cold Chamber kind of came
back into the fold. Devil Driver was like a machine
like you guys were on tour, or it's at least
it seemed like you guys were on tour.

Speaker 6 (57:11):
All the time, six to nine months out of every year.
For I would say the first decade, jesuz, I mean
we did. There was one I think it was I
think it was an five on that After that Guar tour,
I mean, dude, when Guar goes out, they go out,
at least they did back then. I mean, I think

(57:31):
we had to play twenty three shows in a row.

Speaker 4 (57:33):
Without a day off on that shore.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Yeah, and.

Speaker 6 (57:38):
We I think we ducked out the last two shows.
We finished things up in New Jersey and then flew
directly to Europe to do a tour with Lamb of
God and I think we did seventy five shows around
that in three months.

Speaker 4 (57:57):
We toured and toured and.

Speaker 6 (57:58):
Toured and you know, the you know, I loved it,
we all did, and everyone in that band. We were
just so hungry for success. It's like, no, we're gonna
make this work. By the time we released The Fury,
you know, we started really seeing a light at the
end of the tunnel. And then we released Last Kind

(58:18):
Words and we're just like, Okay, this is working, and
we just tore it our asses off and.

Speaker 4 (58:24):
It was great.

Speaker 3 (58:26):
That's killer.

Speaker 4 (58:27):
I had a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
We actually what's cool about that the House of Blues
show with Gore. Yeah, five, So the three of us
actually went to that show, myself and Alberto specifically went
for Devil Drive in.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
What city, San Diego?

Speaker 4 (58:43):
Oh okay, got him.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
Uh so we specifically went to go see Devil Driver
and we were gonna dip right after right after Devil Driver,
not see Goar, but Rudy his favorite band. One of
his favorite bands is Gore. Oh yeah, so I remember
myself in Alberto. We left right after Devil Driver. We're
all sweaty, our throats are sore because we were seeing
every fucking song. We were right on the barricade too.
It was awesome.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
And uh, we get on the We.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
Get on the trolley, end up taking the wrong trolleys,
the wrong the wrong line or whatever, and then had
to go back to House of Blues. And right as
we get back to House the Blues, Gore had just
finished and Rudy just gets on the on the trolley
right in front of us, blood all over his face.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
It was fucking amazing. I'm like, who the fuck is Gore?
What happened? What happened to you?

Speaker 5 (59:22):
Met?

Speaker 3 (59:23):
That was? It was hilarious.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
Yeah to us, Like because Devil Driver was one of
the first bands, Like I got in a new New
medal first, and so all my favorite bands were Lincoln Parkland,
Biscuit popa roach Corn obviously, and then Devil Driver came
around and it was Devil Driving Love of God. They
kind of like started pushing me to the heavier side.
So I didn't know who Gore was. I didn't know
who any of those bands were. I'm still learning all

(59:47):
these bands. So it was it was just fucking hilarious. Okay,
I'm not missing Gore again. I gotta give blood Soak,
come on me.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
That was a great show.

Speaker 6 (59:55):
The first time I saw it was they opened up
for the Misfits Michael Graves era. It was Voodoo Glow
Skulls if you can believe that, you're more of like
a SKA band. Yeah, and Gwar and then the Misfits,
and I knew who Guar was.

Speaker 4 (01:00:14):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:00:14):
I had a friend named Josh in high school that
actually still don't keep in touch with, who.

Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
Sent me home with one.

Speaker 6 (01:00:23):
Of Gwar's VHS tapes from you know, probably early nineties.
And I can't say I'm a huge Goar fan of
the music, but you know, live there there's just nothing
like it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
No, right, Oh, yes, yeah, Rudy's ruddy. You're die hard,
You're diehard. Yeah, yeah, this one might be a little basic.
But what is your personal favorite vernon being a song
so far and what song would you recommend to a
new listener that best represents the band in your opinion?

Speaker 4 (01:00:54):
Pretty?

Speaker 6 (01:00:55):
There's just something about that song, and uh, it does
seem to be a fan favorite.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Yeah, I love it, Like I think right now, my
favorites would be Rodent and Pretty. Those two are like
my those got added right onto the Spotify playlist when
they dropped. I want to get a little bit into
Devil Driver because you know, big fan, you know, And
that's so. Last September it was revealed that you have
left Devil Driver after twenty years. What was your experience
following your immediate departure from Devil Driver and do you

(01:01:25):
still keep in contact with your former bandmates, including the
OG lineup.

Speaker 6 (01:01:30):
I keep in touch with all of them except for one.
But it was a very very hard decision for me.
I mean, honestly, I think it was the hardest decision
I've ever made.

Speaker 4 (01:01:46):
You know, It's it's no secret that.

Speaker 6 (01:01:53):
Certain people thought that Verona and Devil Driver couldn't coexist,
and I was really disappointed that Brooklin had thrown in
the towel with the new record. You know, after we
had been now I want to say that he came.

(01:02:18):
You know, he lives in Las Vegas now, and I
think he flew in twice and stayed with me for
a week and you know, worked on a bunch of
material together, and everything that me and John Miller had
had at that point.

Speaker 4 (01:02:37):
You know, he just made better.

Speaker 6 (01:02:39):
You know, that's Berklin is a phenomenal songwriter, and I
was like, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:02:49):
That was always really the core of what Devil Driver.

Speaker 6 (01:02:52):
Is and to me should be, was instrumentally me Miller
and Berklin writing together. Jeff always came up with some
really cool shit too, and deaz on vocals, And when
Berklan called me up and told me that he's just like,
I just can't do this, and I'm not going to

(01:03:12):
get into why, but I was just like, the fuck,
it did kind.

Speaker 4 (01:03:19):
Of make me not want to do it anymore.

Speaker 6 (01:03:21):
And I was already kind of feeling even before like
one of the reasons why I think I didn't leave
sooner is because you know, I wanted to rekindle that
writing relationship. I've always kept in touch with John, both
of the John's ever since they left the band, but

(01:03:42):
I wanted to For one, I wanted to see if.

Speaker 4 (01:03:45):
We could create that magic again. The three of us.

Speaker 6 (01:03:47):
Now that we're older, we're wiser, We're not going to
bicker over stupid shit like we did when we're in
our twenties. We all have more experience in the music
industry and just life in general.

Speaker 4 (01:04:01):
Like let's I like, I think.

Speaker 6 (01:04:03):
This could probably be the coolest Devil Driver written since
last kind words yeah and.

Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:04:13):
After he decided not to do it anymore, I.

Speaker 4 (01:04:18):
I got on a plane.

Speaker 6 (01:04:20):
I went to El Salvador for a week and just
went surfing with my friend Billy. And it was on
the way home where I was just something clicked in me,
you know, I just kind of went down there.

Speaker 4 (01:04:33):
You know. It was like going to L Salvador for
me is like a reset button.

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04:37):
And on the way home, I was like, yep, I was.

Speaker 6 (01:04:43):
Remember being on the plane just staring blankly at the seat.

Speaker 4 (01:04:47):
In front of me, you know, just deep in thought.
And I don't know how much time went by, but.

Speaker 6 (01:04:53):
I was like, I just can't do this anymore. I like,
my love for it has is just not where it
should be for me to continue like I think it
would have It probably would have been bad for everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Yeah, man, yeah, I mean you bring up, you know,
the core of the band being you know, Brooklyn and yourself.
It's that lineup that happened right after Evan left that
you know, for me as a fan, I got into
Devil Deriver on the first record, but it was just
something about the theory, like the band went from being
like this cool band that I just discovered to neck

(01:05:28):
and neck with Corn for me, like as my favorite band,
and that just kind of stayed that way from like
last kind of words, pay for Villain, which is my
favorite Devil Driver record of all time, and then Beasts.
But then it was like after the guys left there
there was you could hear it, you could hear the
loss of the that energy. Did you take on more
of a writing role after they left or how did

(01:05:50):
or did the other new members pick up more of
a writing role after After Brooklyn and Jeff left trust.

Speaker 4 (01:05:56):
No one was prominently written by me in dude. It
was weird. It felt lonely.

Speaker 6 (01:06:03):
Yeah, you know, when I was working on that record
and I was just getting to know Austin O'Neil, and
we clicked right away. I know there are two of
my most favorite people on Earth. And I do think
that we wrote some really good stuff for dealing with
Dealing with Demon's Volume one and two and trust no One.

Speaker 4 (01:06:26):
But you know, you replaced writers.

Speaker 6 (01:06:29):
It's you know, you're not going to capture the same
thing when you when you swap out writers. And you know,
I can't take credit for writing a whole lot of
stuff on The Fury.

Speaker 4 (01:06:43):
You know, I was the new guy.

Speaker 6 (01:06:45):
And you know a lot of people think that I
came in before the Fury and kind of like changed
everything with the writing style, but that's completely not true.
It was the fact that Evan wasn't in the band
anymore because he wrote a probably ninety percent end of
that first record. Yeah, and then they brought me in
and you know, I wrote like Pale Horse, Apocalypsese and

(01:07:08):
hold Back the Day and.

Speaker 4 (01:07:13):
You know, and but I was the new guy.

Speaker 6 (01:07:16):
You know, when you when you're the new guy in
the club, you don't act like you've been there for years.

Speaker 4 (01:07:24):
So I you know, I trended lightly.

Speaker 6 (01:07:26):
And luckily, Hole Back the Day became the first thing
that we released off The Fury. Monty Connor from road

(01:07:47):
Runner Records really liked that song, so he kind of
pushed or you know, politely asked Berklin and Miller like,
you know, I know he's new, but when she left
and write a little bit more on last kind words.
And Brooklyn and I didn't always see eye to eye,

(01:08:07):
and we have very different writing styles, but man, when
he and I, when I would write a song and
he would come in and add his two cents to it,
I mean, I think that's really where a lot of
our greatest material came out. And Miller was always the guy,
like I didn't always like what Brooklyn wrote, he didn't

(01:08:29):
really like always like what I wrote, but when we
found a common ground, it was really good. But for
the most part, like these riffs that Miller would bring
to the table, everybody liked.

Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:08:43):
So I mean, you know, he was a massive influence
on the style of the music as well. This is
why I was so excited, you know, to write with
them again. But you know, I'm getting off. I kind
of lost my train of thought.

Speaker 3 (01:09:03):
I'm just enjoying it. I'm just enjoying it. Actually.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
That kind of goes to my next question, which is
were there any specific songs or or guitar solos that
felt especially personal or meaningful to you.

Speaker 3 (01:09:14):
In Devil Driver, that you had a big hen in writing.

Speaker 6 (01:09:19):
Still to this day, I think the coolest sola I've
ever written is I've Been Sober.

Speaker 3 (01:09:55):
I could I could probably hum that, dude, I fucking
love that song.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
I was actually gonna say, because you brought up the
Scandinavian like Scannavi medal is a huge influence on you.
Were you a part I think the when I think
the Devil Reverend Scandinavia Medal, I think of waiting for November.

Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
Were you a part of writing that song?

Speaker 6 (01:10:12):
No, it's that That is one of my favorite songs,
and I actually did like a playthrough and posted it
to my Instagram shortly before I left the band. And
we always tried to get Dez to do that song,
but it was very personal to him because of what

(01:10:33):
it's about, and he never wanted to do it. But
it's always been one of my favorite songs. I think,
take it back. I think Miller mostly wrote that song,
but I if I remember correctly, I can't even remember
for sure. I think I wrote the solo actually, and
I know I know I did, so that was my

(01:10:54):
contribution to that song, but I don't think I wrote
any of the risks in that one.

Speaker 4 (01:10:58):
I think that was mostly Miller.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
Is there a specific moment or moments that you would
call your proudest during the twenty years that you were
in Devil Driver?

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (01:11:16):
Live or songwriting?

Speaker 3 (01:11:19):
Uh? Either or I would go with either. Well, we'll
go with live. We'll go with live.

Speaker 6 (01:11:23):
First, okay, Uh, okay, I'm gonna pick four that are
kind of ties.

Speaker 4 (01:11:31):
Let's do it, Okay, I try to do this in order.
Here too, that massive circle pit that we had to download.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
Yes, well, I've seen that video.

Speaker 6 (01:11:43):
So it is true that we tried to get Guinness
Book of World Records out there, and we even got
a reply from them, and they're kind of snotty about it.

Speaker 4 (01:11:53):
Like I remember Dez showing me the email and.

Speaker 6 (01:12:03):
It had this tone, at least I remember it having
this tone that was kind of like, how dare you
waste our.

Speaker 4 (01:12:09):
Time with this? Don't you know who we are?

Speaker 6 (01:12:14):
We're Dennis run Along silly MetalMan, but Jesus christ Man.
I remember Dez just getting people to go back and back,
and like phil On Samo is standing right behind me,
and I'm just like, dude, what the fuck.

Speaker 4 (01:12:34):
Is going on?

Speaker 6 (01:12:35):
And one of the main security guards down front, you know,
he has his head set on with his microphone and
he's looking at des going don't.

Speaker 4 (01:12:45):
Do this, and does this.

Speaker 6 (01:12:49):
I'm probably one of the only people that heard it,
because he moved the microphone away and looked at him
and go sorry, bro. They just screams out Meet the Wretched,
and we went into it, and I think for about
two seconds I stopped playing because I was like, someone's

(01:13:10):
gonna die, Like I've never seen that many people just
and it wasn't a wall of death. They just kind
of just started this circular motion right away, and I
was just like wow, like just absolutely mind blowing. I
mean I watched videos from that day and I still

(01:13:32):
get chills, just like I can't believe we did that.
Another one was when when we played mainstage. Fucking I mean,
I couldn't we played during the day. I could not
even see where the people ended. There were so many
damn people out there. And I remember walking out on

(01:13:57):
the side of the stage I don't remember what song
it was, and standing in front of the led screen
and then walking back to the stage and just putting
my hand up on the led screen and just feeling
the led screen. I don't know why that pops out
to me so much, but that was the one one
moment of the show after looking out at the crowd
and just like I need to touch something just to

(01:14:19):
kind of remember this moment. Yeah, and so that really
sticks out. And then going back in time a little bit.
The first time we played Moscow, m I was not
expecting that because we played Saint Petersburg first. So, I mean,

(01:14:41):
we could do a whole podcast on just our experience
going from Estonia to Saint Petersburg and then to Moscow.
It was hell, But that's the story for another time.
I could go on all day about that.

Speaker 4 (01:15:00):
We're all very tired.

Speaker 6 (01:15:02):
I don't remember it being a bad venue at all,
but I was like, I just can't wait to get
into the dressing room and take a nap. And I
get into the dressing room and it's just all tiled floors.
There's no there's chairs, nowhere to lay down. So I
tried to take a nap on the tiled floor. It

(01:15:24):
was unsuccessful, and but one of the craziest crowds I've
ever seen in my life. I mean, I think we
had every tech that we had with us, plus probably
three of the house security guards were just constantly throwing
people back into the crowd the whole time, and it

(01:15:45):
didn't matter that I hadn't.

Speaker 4 (01:15:46):
Slept in like thirty six hours, Like I was like, dude,
now wake Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:15:52):
And the fourth one that really stands out for me is.

Speaker 4 (01:15:59):
The second time we played Ukraine. Okay, they're just as
rowdy as the Russians. I mean, holy shit. There's a
Neil was in the band at the.

Speaker 6 (01:16:12):
Time and he went out on the rail to play
one of his solos and he starts soloing and someone
hands him a road flare. Oh shit, and he takes
the road flare and just Neil, just being the amazing
guitar player that he is, he just played the solo
on one hand and held up the road.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
Flare and there's pictures of it.

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:16:40):
I was just like, that's cool.

Speaker 6 (01:16:46):
And it was I think, you know, it was a
smaller festival, but there was still a good amount of
people there.

Speaker 4 (01:16:53):
I mean it was.

Speaker 6 (01:16:54):
It wasn't like Vakan or anything like that, but I
think we headlined it and uh, we had played Ukraine
one another time, and you know it was. I think
I remember it being okay, yeah, though I wasn't really
my my hopes for this festival weren't really high.

Speaker 4 (01:17:14):
And then it's just I was like, damn, they got
some table Driver fans out there. This is amazing.

Speaker 6 (01:17:25):
Yeah, but those are as far as live shows, those
are the ones that stick out of my head the
most awesome. Other than like the first couple of shows
that I played with the band opening up for in Flames.
Those are, obviously, you know, the first ones you always remember.

(01:17:46):
Everything in between starts to become a blur, especially with
the with the amount of alcohol that we were going
through back in the day.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
I might have watched that the DVD that came with
Prey for Villains while you guys were making the record.
I've probably we watched it so many fucking just like
the way it starts with Dez throwing that fucking it
was like a whiskey bottle at the wall and you're
right there and I'm like, what the fuck's going on.

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
Now?

Speaker 4 (01:18:13):
Dude?

Speaker 6 (01:18:14):
Death and I kissed and made up a couple of
years after that happened.

Speaker 4 (01:18:17):
You know, I was just like, I'm going to my
you know, definitely.

Speaker 6 (01:18:22):
Not's fault, all DES's fault. I definitely take half the
blame for that situation. And it's a long story, but
something something happened during the show, and we had a
rule not to talk about the show when we came
off stage about things.

Speaker 4 (01:18:39):
That went wrong. I broke that rule.

Speaker 6 (01:18:41):
And I was kind of heated and he had just
gotten off stage, and you know, it just escalated.

Speaker 4 (01:18:49):
Ye. Not one of our proudest moments, but shit happens. Yeah,
And I.

Speaker 6 (01:18:56):
Went to bed in my bunk on the bus and
you know, Does walked up and, you know, knocked on
my curtain, Hey, Mike, can we talk? And it was
just like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry too, I love you.
I love you too. Are we cool?

Speaker 4 (01:19:12):
Absolutely? And it was squashed. You know, It's that's just
what happens.

Speaker 6 (01:19:18):
And on top of it, we're all drinking a lot
back then, which doesn't help matters.

Speaker 4 (01:19:24):
I mean, Jesus Christ, we went through so much fucking alcohol.

Speaker 6 (01:19:28):
Fuck, not as much as some other bands out there,
Like there were definitely bands out there that had us beat,
but yeah, we uh, we like to drink back then,
and I luckily I cannot drink like that anymore, nor
do I want you.

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
What a way to open the DVDVO because that's just
the way it started. I was like, I'm glued, all right,
let's fucking go. I'm watching this. I think I showed
you guys a couple of times too, like back in
the day. You guys got to check this out, and
then you wait until, like I think, like halfway through
the film to get the kind of the resolution of
like you guys, I worked it out and everything, but
it's like the whole thing is leading up to that moment,
which was really shout out to the editors. But yeah,

(01:20:05):
one of my favorite band documentaries of all time is
that Paper Villains DVD.

Speaker 3 (01:20:10):
Oh.

Speaker 6 (01:20:10):
We had a few discussions about it, and it ultimately
came down to if Mark Morton and Randy Blithe can
put on their DVD of them kicking the ship out
of each other, we can post.

Speaker 4 (01:20:24):
An interesting you know it.

Speaker 6 (01:20:28):
Like we said, it's not a proudest moment, but it's like,
this is what it's like to be in a.

Speaker 4 (01:20:32):
Band like this shit happens. You were going to argue with.

Speaker 6 (01:20:36):
Over some of the dumbest ship with people that you
love to death, and you guys are going to kiss
and make up. I always, you know, and I always
tell my friends, like, especially with you know, with guys,
it's just like sometimes it's fun to watch your friends
get hurt and sometimes you just got to beat each

(01:20:57):
other up.

Speaker 3 (01:20:58):
Yeah, that is very true.

Speaker 1 (01:21:02):
I've been I've been in the band with these guys
almost ten years, and that could definitely.

Speaker 3 (01:21:06):
Relate to that. Yeah, that moment. Yeah, you're gonna we
argue fucking so much.

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
So so to kind of, uh, to kind of start
wrapping things up, I just, uh, I want you to
pick one Devil Driver track and one Verona on Beatus
track that best to find you as a guitarist musician.

Speaker 3 (01:21:24):
What would that be and why?

Speaker 6 (01:21:27):
Well, pretty as we discussed before, I do really like
what I did with No. One, But I can't really
pick that one because it's a cover. As far as
Devil Driver, you know, I'm gonna probably go back to
I've been sober. You know, I wouldn't say it's one

(01:21:48):
of my favorite Devil Driver songs from start to finish.

Speaker 4 (01:21:55):
It's one of my favorites.

Speaker 6 (01:21:57):
But you know, as far as that solo goes, I
don't think I was ever able to top that solo,
Brooklyn says, that his favorite solo that I ever wrote
is the one that I did for Hardened on Beast.

Speaker 3 (01:22:12):
Oh shit, okay, okay.

Speaker 6 (01:22:14):
For some reason, he he's like, dude, that is the
best solo you ever written, without a doubt, And he's like,
I got friends that back up my theory on that.

Speaker 4 (01:22:23):
I remember, I can't tell.

Speaker 3 (01:22:24):
Any that facial evidence.

Speaker 6 (01:23:01):
Yeah, but there's something about Ivan Sober and if you
get a chance, if you haven't seen it, go look
up on YouTube. There's a guy that did a classical
version of that solo. It's pretty it's pretty old. It's
been out for probably like ten or fifteen years, and
I mean it was so good I had to hit
the guy up. It's just through YouTube. It's just like, dude,
this is this is very cool. It's not the whole song.

Speaker 4 (01:23:26):
It's just like.

Speaker 6 (01:23:27):
The the ending, the you know, the big long minute
and a half outro or however long it is. But yeah,
I I really like how that how that song came out,
and especially that solo. I it's one of the few
solos that I still remember how to play, and I
don't think I'll ever forget.

Speaker 1 (01:23:47):
Yeah, that's that's definitely in my in my bulbhark of
like top five double river songs.

Speaker 3 (01:23:53):
That's got to be on the list for me. Yeah,
I love your work on that on that song, that's amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
Going back to earlier when you mentioned that you had
some songs already written like many years prior. For example,
you've mentioned Red Dead Rose and a couple other when
you when you did the vocals this time, did it
did you feel that you have to make any changes
or was it the roadmap already there and you just
like laid down vocals, like just wondering if anything changed,

(01:24:20):
like from the time.

Speaker 6 (01:24:21):
I never really had to, you know, at least on
the parts that where I'm singing and not screaming, I
would hear inflicting notes with what I was playing instrumentally
versus what I was singing, so I would have to
kind of go back and change things instrumentally. And I
probably there's a lot of overdubs in in all the

(01:24:46):
pretty much all the Varona songs. So the point where
when I gave all the tracks to Lasa, he was
just like, bro, are you kidding me?

Speaker 4 (01:24:56):
I'm like, don't worry, there's a room in there.

Speaker 6 (01:24:58):
Just you know, if you feel like you it shouldn't
be there, then just don't mix it in. But yeah,
it was kind of a new thing to me to
have to listen and go, wait a minute. You know,
there's one little part where my what I'm singing is
like a major a minor second interval in the music

(01:25:23):
compared to what I'm singing melodically on the track, and
I'd have to go in and you know, figure out
a way to.

Speaker 4 (01:25:32):
You know, to fix issues like that. Now, I am
a big fan of dissonance.

Speaker 6 (01:25:36):
Sometimes it doesn't bother me, but every now and then,
when i'd listen closely, I'd just be like, that doesn't work.

Speaker 4 (01:25:43):
Like I need to move that.

Speaker 6 (01:25:44):
I need to move that one note up or down
somewhere because it's just not working right there.

Speaker 4 (01:25:51):
I had to do that on the Hate Lay in
the chorus there was I just had it. I remember
having to change one chord.

Speaker 6 (01:26:00):
And when I was teaching that song to my guys,
who are kind of like, why did you just It's
just this one little part in the song where you
play that chord, I'm like, it doesn't work vocally unless
you play that note.

Speaker 7 (01:26:12):
Okay, Rudy, you had a question, Actually have to first question, Hey,
I know he mentioned that you worked with Wednesday thirteen.

Speaker 8 (01:26:23):
I want to know how that experience was. He's personally
one of my favorite bands out there, so I was
curious how that was.

Speaker 4 (01:26:30):
It was so awesome. It seems like, oh my god,
he's so fun. All the guys but liked.

Speaker 6 (01:26:43):
I love that record, and they wanted to go in
a heavier direction, and Des was managing them at the time,
and he suggested me to produce it and.

Speaker 4 (01:26:51):
Mix it, and hey, you know, Wednesday's a character in
the most awesome way.

Speaker 6 (01:27:05):
But I had so much fun working with him, Like
I you know, he was where he did all the
vocals was right here.

Speaker 3 (01:27:15):
What's that's awesome?

Speaker 4 (01:27:17):
And I set up this. I got some I wanted
to give him.

Speaker 6 (01:27:21):
I didn't want him to be looking at me while
he was recording because I don't have a vocal booth
in my studio and I kind of I don't like
recording vocalists at a vocal booth anyway, Like I want
them to be in the same room as me. Ye,
So I got some lighting trusses, you know, like big
stands with you know, shaped like a T, and some

(01:27:41):
U haul moving blankets, black ones. They had to be
black obviously, And I mean he would bring in like
some inspiration for himself every day, you know, like a
picture of Rambo or you know, something from a horror
movie or g I Joe and kind of like it's like,

(01:28:03):
this is what.

Speaker 4 (01:28:04):
I'm singing into today, And.

Speaker 6 (01:28:10):
You know, we'd do a line and then he'd tell
me a story, and then we'd he would do another line,
and we had you know, he had his.

Speaker 4 (01:28:20):
Uh, his Pewter Steele voice.

Speaker 6 (01:28:24):
And he had his Wednesday voice, and he had another
one was his.

Speaker 4 (01:28:30):
Ogre from Nerds, you know Nerds, which is actually.

Speaker 6 (01:28:37):
Quite a common thing. I remember Mark Lewis telling me
that he kind of went through the same process with
Glenn Benton when he was recording a DA side record
about Glenn's you know, different voices and you name them
so you could, you know, producer artists can get on
the same page. And you know, I I must have

(01:29:02):
spent fifty percent of the time laughing my ass off
with him. It was a lot of fun, you know,
and it was a fun record. I really liked the songs.

Speaker 3 (01:29:10):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:29:11):
That's when I first met Troy and he became one
of my best friends. And the funny thing is Troy
from Wednesday thirteen and my old roommate Patrick that I
mentioned earlier have known each other since elementary school.

Speaker 3 (01:29:26):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (01:29:26):
Ok, and I.

Speaker 6 (01:29:29):
Purposely did not tell Troy, and I decided to not
tell Patrick that he was coming here to record. So
Patrick just came home one day and here's his best
one of his best friends from grade school and Patrick.
Patrick was in a band called the Union Underground.

Speaker 3 (01:29:51):
Yeah I remember that. Yeah, they did that.

Speaker 1 (01:29:53):
So the theme song for raw for WW yes, yeah, yes,
across the yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:29:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:29:59):
So he and Troy was almost the bass player for
that band, but I think he was in he was
in another band at the time and he didn't want
to leave because I think they were doing pretty well
around the San Antonio area, and so he didn't become
the bass player from Union Underground. But yeah, they've known

(01:30:24):
each other.

Speaker 4 (01:30:25):
It's amazing. I'm sure you guys know this. How tiny
the whole mental community is.

Speaker 6 (01:30:30):
It's so much smaller than what I was expecting.

Speaker 4 (01:30:35):
So everyone kind of knows everybody.

Speaker 6 (01:30:37):
And Raman I probably spent the most time with him
because I always say that drummers and vocalists have it
the worst on tour. But then guitar players have it
the worst in the studio because I mean, you know,
vocalists do doubles, but you don't double bass, you don't

(01:31:00):
do bass overdubs, you don't double track drums. Like there's
just you got your drums, you got your bass. You know,
vocals are layered to an extent, but then you could
just have so many different layers of guitar in metal
that it just goes on forever and it's just okay.

(01:31:23):
We got especially in the days when we would do
four rhythm tracks because Fury, I think everything up until
Beast is four rhythms.

Speaker 3 (01:31:36):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (01:31:37):
And then we kind of went started doing just two
and maybe putting one down the middle in in some cases,
and I started to notice that, like, yeah, it's a
little maybe a little thinner of a guitar tone, but
you can hear the pick attack a little bit better
with just two. Though there's I could go both ways,
but yeah, guitarists definitely haven't the worst in the studio,

(01:32:02):
which is why Raman and I spent so much time
together on that record. And at the time they had
this guy named Kyle Kyle Costronovo, I'm pronouncing his name right,
who's actually the son of.

Speaker 4 (01:32:20):
The drummer of Journey.

Speaker 3 (01:32:22):
Oh Shure, Okay, damn.

Speaker 4 (01:32:25):
And phenomenal drummer. I mean.

Speaker 6 (01:32:29):
I hardly had to edit those drums at all. And
one of the weirdest things too. And I remember we
were we went and did the drums at Steve Evatt's
studio when he had a place down in Orange County.
And I'm in there trying to like min drum parts
to him, you know, to give him some ideas for

(01:32:49):
some songs.

Speaker 4 (01:32:50):
And I noticed he was He's.

Speaker 6 (01:32:52):
Right handed, but he would start playing songs with his
left foot, so the down beat was on his right hand,
but the downbeat was on his left foot. It's like,
and that's just how he plays. He just starts with
his left every time. That's like, yeah, I was like, dude,
that is so weird, but just really really phenomenal musician.

Speaker 4 (01:33:18):
He plays guitar, he sings, he does everything. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 6 (01:33:23):
It was a super cool record. There was some talk
Wednesday and I actually started working on a murdered dollars
record together.

Speaker 3 (01:33:32):
Oh what.

Speaker 6 (01:33:36):
Never went past a couple of demos. He came down
to my house and played some guitar and he had
some drum tracks that a drummer of, like, I don't
even know if I'm supposed to be talking.

Speaker 4 (01:33:49):
About this, but a very very well known drummer did
the demos. And but.

Speaker 6 (01:34:01):
You know, shortly after that, Joey passed away, and it's
just the whole thing just turned it fast. Yeah, And honestly,
I don't know if Joey was going to be a
part of it or not. I think maybe him and
Wednesday were talking about it. But I was really excited
to work with Wednesday again. So when that that whole
thing just kind of came to a screeching hold, I

(01:34:21):
was like, yeah, that would have been really cool.

Speaker 3 (01:34:26):
Yeah, it would have been awesome. Dahn, Did you have
another question? Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:34:30):
And my other question was, I know you've toured with
so many bands. What band party the hardest while you're
on tour?

Speaker 3 (01:34:37):
I don't know.

Speaker 8 (01:34:37):
I mean, I know you toured with Gwar. I feel
like Gar would be amazing fucking to party with. But
you know, from your experiences, which band was like one
that you just you know what.

Speaker 6 (01:34:47):
I mean, Guar wasn't even I wouldn't even put them
in the top ten. I mean, they had been around
for so long at that point, I think you have
a tendency to party more in the beginning. Yeah, and
then he either end up kind of teetering out or
going to rehab.

Speaker 3 (01:35:05):
That's fair.

Speaker 6 (01:35:09):
We god, Dimi Borgear was definitely one of the top
top party tours for sure. You know a band that
we really immediately gelled with just right off the bat
where and this happened in Germany, where you know, some

(01:35:33):
bands you meet and you know, you don't really hang out,
and then there's other bands where it's just like you
can't wait to see him and you totally bummed out
when the tour ends.

Speaker 4 (01:35:42):
And one of those bands was thirty six Crazy Fists.

Speaker 3 (01:35:45):
Oh nice.

Speaker 6 (01:35:48):
We played a show with them, and I think it
was in Shute Guart, Germany, and it was just like
an off date during festival season, and I remember just
going to a bar with the guys afterwards. And it
doesn't he usually didn't go with us. I think, you know,
with his time in Pole Chamber, I think he had
gotten a lot of that partying with other people out

(01:36:09):
of his system. But we are all in our twenty
still and we're like, dude, we're gonna go fucking drink.

Speaker 3 (01:36:16):
Fuck and.

Speaker 6 (01:36:21):
I remember hanging out with those guys and it just
felt like I knew them for twenty years already. They
were they were always some of my favorite people. I
never toured with him, but I heard Children of Bodham
was up there.

Speaker 3 (01:36:38):
Oh yeah, God, it.

Speaker 6 (01:36:44):
Spent a lot of time. Not all the guys on
Wednesday thirteen. Troy has since quit drinking, but he and I,
you know, it would be uh sometimes it wasn't a
whole band.

Speaker 4 (01:36:58):
Sometimes it was just like one member where it's like.

Speaker 6 (01:37:04):
God, it's been so long, and my memory is such ship.
But like uh, me and the bass player from Cancer Bats,
he was my drinking buddy. Marco from Lacuna Coil. He
was my drinking buddy on a couple of tours. Yeah,
it's like there are certain tours where I always seem

(01:37:27):
to find like my drinking buddy.

Speaker 4 (01:37:29):
And you know, Troy was definitely that guy.

Speaker 6 (01:37:34):
When we were out with Static X and uh, you know,
we were out with Cancer Bats.

Speaker 4 (01:37:41):
I just remember, well, he was well they were playing.

Speaker 6 (01:37:48):
I'd show up with like, you know, a shot of
whiskey for him, and then at some point during our
set he'd be standing back there like holding with.

Speaker 4 (01:37:57):
The whiskey for me. And but.

Speaker 6 (01:38:02):
Right around I mean, I've had my days, are you know,
drinking on tour, which you know I would definitely say
it was, you know heavy, But I was never one
to drink when I got home.

Speaker 4 (01:38:16):
When I came home, I.

Speaker 6 (01:38:17):
Just completely stopped. Yeah, when I was like, the party's over.
I need I want to get back in the water,
I want to surf, I want to get back in shape.

Speaker 4 (01:38:24):
So that was always I always had a balance.

Speaker 6 (01:38:27):
But right around when I was thirty years old, I
just started waking up and I was like, I am
absolutely sick and tired of being hungover all the time.

Speaker 4 (01:38:35):
I can't do this anymore.

Speaker 6 (01:38:37):
So even when I had my drinking buddies, you know,
when I was getting closer to forty, it was on
a much different level than when I was in my twenties.
He's just something happens to your body. You just can't
put it up anymore. Like I say, either slow down
and getting sick and tired of the hangovers or the

(01:38:59):
stupid stuff a pole on tour and you know, getting
into fights with your band members, or you end up
going to rehab at some point, or you know, you
end up killing yourself, so you just can't do it forever.

Speaker 3 (01:39:14):
Yeah, definitely. It's a it's a young man's game. I know.

Speaker 1 (01:39:18):
Yesterday we were just jemming with our new singer and
we got some grand mallow to like kind of hey welcome,
you know, and I felt my wife made me like
a big drink of grandmalo and squirt, and man, I
woke up this morning feeling like shit.

Speaker 3 (01:39:30):
I wasn't buzzed or anything. I wasn't drunk.

Speaker 1 (01:39:32):
It's just it was like four in the afternoon and
I got home, I fell asleep and then woke up
this morning.

Speaker 3 (01:39:37):
I was like, god, dude, feels like I'd been drinking
all night. So I feel that.

Speaker 4 (01:39:41):
I feel that for this morning.

Speaker 3 (01:39:42):
That was this morning. I woke up feeling like shit.

Speaker 1 (01:39:44):
Yeah yeah, yeah, So I spent the whole day just
chugging down water. I feel great now, like I feel fine.
But man, dude, I was like, yeah, the same way
I feel like. I it's right after my twenty first birthday.
I was like, dude, and it's just like one drink.
It's just the one drink. You had the same drink too,
I think, yeah, I can more than one. Mike, thank you,
so much for coming on. Man, this was so awesome.

(01:40:06):
I know we were mostly quiet, but just listening to
the stories.

Speaker 3 (01:40:08):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:40:10):
You know, Devil Drivers one of my favorite bands of
all time, and I always want to support the the
former members projects, you know, because Devil Drive to me, uh,
really helped me through high school, really helped me through
a lot of very bad times, and you know, just
going every time I went to Devil Driver concert, came
out of the show fairly recharged, you know, just kind
of ready to get back to it. Every time you

(01:40:32):
guys came to San Diego between like five to like
I don't like twenty ten, like, we went to like
every show, and the one time I didn't go, I
had to fucking I have no damage in my face.

Speaker 3 (01:40:43):
Oh that couldn't go.

Speaker 1 (01:40:44):
So I gave them a poster to get you guys
to sign, and he got it signed and didn't even
give it to me for himself.

Speaker 3 (01:40:51):
I was like, hey, man, I can't go, I can't go.

Speaker 4 (01:40:54):
I'm guessing you know where he lives though, right.

Speaker 6 (01:40:57):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, dude, a little bit in the
middle of the night.

Speaker 4 (01:41:01):
Never hurt nobody exactly. Go break into his house and
go steal that he's still that poster.

Speaker 1 (01:41:08):
He's still hiding the motherfucker. It's somewhere, somewhere here.

Speaker 6 (01:41:13):
But yeah, tell you what, I still do have a
bunch of memorabilia that may or may not be signed
by all of us. Oh shit, send me an email
and I will go. I've got a bunch of stuff
in my attic that I've hung on to for situations

(01:41:34):
like this, So if I have anything, I'll.

Speaker 4 (01:41:36):
Mail it to you.

Speaker 3 (01:41:37):
I appreciate them, man, I will definitely. Yeah, Yeah, that's awesome.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:41:41):
You're stolen.

Speaker 1 (01:41:42):
Yeah, motherfucker dude. But yeah, man, it was so awesome
to have, you know, I go back with Evil Drever.
I was even on the original the website for him.

Speaker 3 (01:41:53):
I was.

Speaker 1 (01:41:53):
I still remember my username it was Needles for some reason,
and I was on there like every day in the
school library, just like, oh shit, somebody from Devilin like
Das either posted or I think Brooklyn posted one time,
and I'm just like, oh, just interacting with all the
fans and everything and meeting people at the show and
it was like its own community. And I still talk
to some of those guys to this day, which is
really cool.

Speaker 3 (01:42:12):
But I try.

Speaker 1 (01:42:12):
I always want to support the members, Like I'm a
big fan of bad Role support at Brooklyn with that,
and I love what you're doing with Verona, and I
just really wanted to get you on to talk about that.
You know, my wife says high too. She's a big
Devil Driver fan. I got her and a double driver,
you know, after we got together. She still has the
original pendant that I got at five, and I gave
it to her in like twenty twelve and she still
wears it sometimes.

Speaker 3 (01:42:33):
She's pretty pretty cool. And my son loves it too.

Speaker 1 (01:42:37):
Yeah, man, I just I really appreciate this as a
as a huge fan and a longtime fan. I love
what you're doing with Verona, and I truly appreciate you
being on the show man.

Speaker 6 (01:42:45):
You're welcome, and to tell you the truth, I enjoy
these longer interviews than the short ones. You know, when
the interviews that I do sometimes that are just like
twenty minutes long, it's just kind of like that's it,
Like we're just getting started. So I really don't mind
doing sitting down. I mean, ship, we've been chatting for

(01:43:07):
an hour and forty five minutes now, so hell yeah,
just you know it takes me time to kind of
get things flowing a little bit and remembering all these stories.

Speaker 4 (01:43:18):
And you know, if you go on this long a
lot of ship.

Speaker 6 (01:43:23):
Half the stuff that I said I probably haven't even
thought about in ten years.

Speaker 3 (01:43:26):
Some of it.

Speaker 4 (01:43:29):
So thank you for bringing it out of me and
reminding me of all the good memories.

Speaker 3 (01:43:33):
Got you.

Speaker 1 (01:43:33):
I got more, there's a lot of them. Yeah, I
got I got just more stuff. But we got to
get you back on, man, we got to bring it
back on. When Rona drops the next album. We gotta
get you. We gotta get Yeah. I would love that
very much.

Speaker 3 (01:43:45):
Definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:43:45):
No, man, I just appreciated, you know, taking time because
uh yeah man, uh you know, I'm going a metal
band with this guy. So it's like just hearing all
these stories and like inspirational and you know, taking time
out of your day to like talk.

Speaker 4 (01:43:57):
To his what's the name of your band?

Speaker 3 (01:44:00):
Defy the tyrants?

Speaker 4 (01:44:02):
Tyrants?

Speaker 3 (01:44:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:44:03):
So we're down here in San Diego, and if Verona
ever wants to play down here, you know we can
love to open for you guys. If anything, Brick by
Brick is owned by well previously be as like dying guys,
But Jordan's.

Speaker 4 (01:44:15):
Still runs out.

Speaker 3 (01:44:17):
Yeah, and you're going to.

Speaker 6 (01:44:19):
Be I am going to be booking more shows soon.
And I do want to come down to San Diego.
I want to go up to Sacramento, and I really
want to get out to Arizona. That's kind of like
those are my main places I want to go next.
So got uh, yeah, we can talk about that.

Speaker 3 (01:44:35):
Yeah, Mike, thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:44:36):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:44:36):
And where can our listeners find you find Verona? What
are the best pages to follow for for new listeners?

Speaker 4 (01:44:45):
Everywhere?

Speaker 6 (01:44:47):
You know, there's I probably spend most of the time
posting to the Verona Venus Instagram and you know, I
finally caved in. I've had a TikTok account for on
us and I started the band, but I finally caved in.
I haven't posted anything on my personal TikTok yet, but
I was like, well, I guess I might as well

(01:45:08):
get on that. But you know, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon,
Deezer title, It's it's everywhere, so if you go look
for it, and I'll I'm slowly gonna be throwing out
some more videos on our YouTube channel. I've got, luckily,
a friend of my recorded pretty at the whiskey from

(01:45:31):
start to end, Like he got the whole song and
I haven't posted that yet, but I'm gonna be putting
that up soon.

Speaker 3 (01:45:37):
Sweet sweet, Yeah, looking forward to that. Man.

Speaker 1 (01:45:40):
All Right, Mike, we're gonna let you go. You have
a wonderful night, man, and I'll keep it to appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (01:45:44):
Thank you very much, Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:45:46):
I have a good night you guys.

Speaker 1 (01:45:47):
Thanks to all right, guys. So that is it for
this episode. What a conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:45:53):
I'm like went off forehead.

Speaker 8 (01:45:57):
How like you're reminded how small the metal community, like
the metal world really is, dude. Yeah, everybody kind of
knows somebody, and you know, it's like.

Speaker 1 (01:46:07):
Your six degrees from everybody, which is fucking hilarious. For example,
I was gonna kind of bring this up, and I'm
not gonna I'm not gonna say the name because I
Mike didn't say the name, so I'm not gonna say
the name. But I have a connection to the guys
in Devil Driver because one I'm good friends with a
guy named Travis Sneel, and Travis Sneiel has been subbing.

(01:46:28):
He's been our sub vocalist for some time now for
to far Abandify the Tyrants. Travis Sneil is known for
being in Divine Heresy with Dino Kazaris and you know
those guys, and uh so he took over for I'm
gonna just blank name. You can probably google this, and
that person was in a band and left a band

(01:46:50):
with John Berkland from Devil Driver called Bad Wolves, and
you know, so it's it's pretty cool to kind of
have these like little degrees of separation a little bit,
you know. And not only that, but I think I'm
very curious to talk to Austin soon. Austin, the drummer
for Grown On Being, is also the drummer for Devil Driver.
Our homie est is friends with him. And when I

(01:47:10):
told st I was gonna have Mike on, he was like, oh,
I thought you were gonna have Austin on. Oh well,
I'll hold keep with Austin. And I'm like, that'd be
fucking cool too, man, that'd be awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:47:18):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:47:18):
I love John Bergland is my all time favorite drummer,
but Austin came in and just slaid. So I'd be
real interested to talk with Austin and see how that goes.
So maybe at some point in the future. How did
you guys feel about this episode?

Speaker 5 (01:47:31):
And I was cool, Like he had so much to
say and like all the experiences he brought up, you know,
in dev Driver and then like his new experiences with
starting this new band. I'm like, god damn, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:47:43):
I just like about the new band and how he
had to you know, kind of adapt. You know, it's
like you're doing vocals now, you know, you're you're head
of the project. I definitely like related with that because
you know, I will, like frontman for a previous band,
you know, before the fire, the Tyrants and holy crap. Man,

(01:48:06):
Like when having not done it and just thinking about
if I had to do it again, It's like I
had to like activate these switches, you know that I
don't even know if you know what I mean. Like
it's kind of like riding a bike, right, you know,
you jump back in, but like nah, man, you have
to like really like syncopate yourself and like get things
down to motorskill to be able to like do both,

(01:48:30):
because it's a different mindset, like being a vocalist, Like
I definitely think I'm more of like a writer, you know,
even when I was doing vocals back then, I didn't
really think like a vocalist or right like one. I
I definitely put input what I wanted. I had things
to say, but Brandon would like help me, you know,
come up with deliveries and stuff like that. So just

(01:48:52):
hearing him, you know, Mike talk about you know, the
things he had to overcome and kind of like I
was like, damn, that's that's fucking sick. So yeah, super inspiring.

Speaker 3 (01:49:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:49:04):
No, honestly, is like how Rudy said, like small world
when he just started talking about Wednesday thirteen out of nowhere,
I was like, oh my god, damn it is a
small world.

Speaker 3 (01:49:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:49:14):
Either way, this was an awesome conversation and uh, so happy,
so happy you jumped on. I'm like, my adrenale. I
don't know if adrenaline is actual word, which just like
I'm I'm so drained right now, do ye? All right, guys,
So we will catch you guys on the next one.
I know I said up top, But you guys follow
us on YouTube or subscribe to us on YouTube to

(01:49:36):
watch all of our upcoming episodes. Uh, follow us on Instagram.
See some behind the scenes stuff at Metology Podcast. Follow
us on TikTok as well at Metology Podcasts with some
special little clips that we post. You guys can follow
me at Anthony Underscore Seven String, follow our band to
Fight the Terns, Edify the Turns ANDNDRO Take it Away.

Speaker 2 (01:49:53):
You can follow me at Metal Underscore Hondro on Instagram.

Speaker 8 (01:49:57):
You can follow me as the one who knocks on Instagram.
There zeros an Underscore after every word, and.

Speaker 5 (01:50:02):
You can follow your boy boy Yeah slapping the score.

Speaker 1 (01:50:06):
All right, guys, thank you so much Mike If for watching,
for coming on, and we look forward to having you
come up again sometime here on manog

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Mike Spreitzer (Verona on Venus, DevilDriver) | Exclusive Metal Guitarist Interview

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Mike Spreitzer (Verona on Venus, DevilDriver) | Exclusive Metal Guitarist Interview