June 24, 2025 • 64 mins
Cullen and Mason chat with AJ and Jordan from Still Remains. They chat about the band's history, their upcoming music, and much more.
Check out Still Remains here: https://ffm.bio/stillremains
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Check out Still Remains here: https://ffm.bio/stillremains
Get tickets for Furnace Fest here: https://www.furnacefest.us
Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/theblacksheeppodcast
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/@theblacksheeppodcast
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-blacksheep-podcast-presented-by-hm-magazine--2258933/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Slap for God.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Why today we've got a j and Jordan from Still
(00:33):
Remains super excited to chat with you guys. You know
we're joking about this a little bit before we started recording.
But I gotta say, when I think of metalcore bands
from Grand Rapids, and knowing enough about Grand Rapids, like
Colin and I grew up in the evangelical world, I'm
pretty pretty aware of, you know, the the meccas of evangelicalism,
(00:54):
like Colorado Springs is another one.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I will say when I think of like bands from
Grand Rapids, and I just immediately assume like Christian bands,
and then I assume you're you hear like a metalcore band.
All of a sudden, I think of like, oh, it's
gotta be a Christian metalcore band, but somehow Still Remains
is not a Christian metalcore band. But somehow there's a
(01:17):
similar band that sounds very similar to your guys's name
that is called All That Remains. And so for years
I've just assumed you guys were the same band, and
then just now realized, probably like a few weeks ago,
I was like, wait, different, not the exact same band,
This is two different bands, Like I don't know. I know,
(01:40):
I know it's not a the Nelson Mandela effect, but
it's got to be something like that where I just
for all these years thought you guys were the same
band and then just realized, Nope, there's actually two different bands.
One that's called Still Remains and is called I believe they.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Call that not the Mandela effect but stupidity.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Well, as I like to say, I am from South Dakota,
so there is a very great likelihood that that's the case.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
I'll take living under a rock syndrome.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
There we go, right, that's right. Well, with all that said, though,
you know, I'm sure you guys have fun stories about
being misidentified as All That Remains. But before we dive
into some of those fun stories, how are you guys
doing today? Are doing and doing?
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Jordan good? I? Uh, sunburned? I'm just much color?
Speaker 4 (02:32):
What are you sunburned from? Oh?
Speaker 5 (02:33):
Dude, I spent on the four hours yesterday in a
pool and I'm usually the guy that always stays in
the shade. I hate going outside. But I was even
texting with mor Is.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
The is the Grand Rapids Pool Lake, Superior.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Lake, Michigan.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Almost a lot of right, you guys are closer to
Lake Michigan than you are of Lake Superior, aren't you.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
Oh yeah no? But I was even texting on the
side of the AJ like way to I spent. I
haven't done an interview in six months and did the
day before this one. I happened to give about two
hours set your sunlight.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Hey wow, I tell you what did that interview? Did
that interview misidentify you as all that remains?
Speaker 5 (03:14):
Actually? Yes, no, what's the best one? But once we
played a show in France and it's on the broad
Rage tour and our dressing room they thought our band
name was song ramanes So and g hell yeah raman So.
We shout up to our dressing room and were like
(03:35):
song Raman all right.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
That's a way better name. Oh yeah, yeah, let's You
should have rolled with that. You should have been like,
this is our name now. Sorry to shoot on your
name so much in this first little bit, dude, I
blame Mason entirely.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
No, It's funny because over the years people have always asked, like,
you know, what's what's your band name mean? The doesn't
mean anything. We were I think TJ and I were
seventeen six eighteen when we came up with it, and
it was literally just trying to find a name that
sounds cool and it doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Well, here's the question. Then, who was first? Still remains
or all that.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
Remains I think on paper, all that remains was but.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
You guys just you guys just looked at their paper
and yeah, exactly, we're going to follow.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
At that time, the only bands like I was listening
to was either Swedish metal or I don't know Zao
so hell. Yeah, as great of a band as they are,
we'd never we had never heard of them.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Never heard of them.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
We we make fun of our our friends at my
Epic for their song title or threat for their band
title as well, because at that time when my Epic
was kind of started, as when every one started calling
everything epic. I don't know if you guys remember that
timeframe is.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Like a very millennial kind of term.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Yeah, it was like two thousand and six through twenty twelve.
Everything was epic. Yeah, yeah, and so it sounded like
a trendy name.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
Same it brutal, that's like that's my word. Yeah, yeah,
if it's good, it's brutal. If it's bad, it's.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Brutal, or if it's or if it's really cool, it's
double brutal.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You know. I I I like I want to say,
like I have some empathy for you all, Like you
mentioned like you're like, what's seventeen eighteen years old when
you're coming up with a band name? Like imagine like
all the other decisions you made at seventeen eighteen years old,
and like all most of those decisions, right, like have
no consequence on your life at this point. Right, maybe
(05:46):
some of them do, but like maybe the one that
has the most consequence on your life right now is
the band name for the band that you're still in
and the band that you're still playing shows and making,
you know, music, and like like you don't, like, you know,
when you're seventeen eighteen years old, you don't realize like, oh,
this is gonna be a thing twenty years, twenty five
(06:08):
years down the road, and here you are, like you're
still having to pay the consequence of and again, like
that could be a good consequence or a bad consequence
or or nothing. You know, it's a neutral but like
it it's still like a thing where it's like I
made that decision at eighteen years old, and I still
have to like whether it's a good, bad, or neutral consequence.
You still have to like figure that out.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
The band before or TJ in my band before Still
Remains was called Shades of Amber. I'm just oh, yes,
I'm glad that was buried. Per said.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
I feel like every music scene in every like major
city or minor city had a band that was shades
of something, right, yes, like my home, are you guys
like that?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Were you guys like a butt rock band?
Speaker 5 (06:51):
No? No, we were kids trying to play metal cores.
We didn't even know metal corp.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Was it sounds like a butt rock it does sound
like Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
In our in Mason and I his hometown, it was
Shades of Air. The yeah, they're they're actually good. The
YouTube's oh I'm sure they are. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
That was back in the day when you could actually
name a band like they're every name possible is taken. No, yeah,
Like I couldn't imagine having to name a band today.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
It seems do you guys think about this though, Like
do you think about, like, all right, if you were
like do a solo project or whatever, Like, have you
thought about a band name again? Do you like, do
you have a list like just ready readily available to
just like have.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
A band, not whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I've never Colin Colin thinks about this at all. He's
got a whole list.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
The most useless thing in the world.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
Start the initial ideas to writing a song, if it's.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Or if it's a J and I or whoever, a list.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
My song titles are absolutely hainous.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
You guys going to get canceled for it.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
We can't.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
People would just really they're just like cringey or what just.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
They're usually just random yeah, random.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Yeah, random is good, though random.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Is slightly vulgar little mostly random.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Vulgar and random, those are those are two fun combos,
you know. I guess I always thought that that story
Remains was a connotation to no type of pilots because
they got a song called Still.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
Yeah it wasn't. I didn't even know of that song
title until late two thousands. My guy into TP. Sure
but sure enough when you google the band or if
you search, they're.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Just messing up our se Oh yeah, exactly, f.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Scott, you need more of those guys to die.
Speaker 5 (09:02):
If you can't laugh about you can't laugh about everything.
You can't laugh about anything.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Right, that's true. That is that is absolutely true. Yeah,
well good, Well let's let's kind of talk about how
about how you guys got started as a band in general,
maybe your personal journeys before the band, even where did
everything start for each of you?
Speaker 5 (09:24):
Oddly enough, there was this little festival. Since I think
you guys will know what it is is Cornerstone Festival.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
We actually it was funny. Colin and I actually never went,
but I bet I've watched more Cornerstone Festival footage than
most Cornerstone Festival goers.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Gotcha, we're even that even attended.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Yes, so TJ the vocalist of Still Remains, and Zach
the keyboard player. We all went with a bunch of
people from West Michigan and we started a band called
Shades of Amber while we were at Cornerstone. I remember
my mom drove me. I was fourteen or fifteen years old,
(10:06):
and I'll never forget when the car pool if I
rolled on my window and asked Sack, I'm like, hey, dude,
I heard you play drums. You want to start a band?
And from that we started again Shades of Amber.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Wait, were you guys next to each other in the.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
Hog in the festival drums No, yeah, wed No. So
from that, from that we started Shades of Amber. Shades
Amber fell apart for we were just kids, just we
wanted to do something different.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
The name had nothing to do with it, and what
the name had nothing to do with it?
Speaker 5 (10:44):
No, I did not. It should have though.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
It was creative differences. We get it.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Creative difference. So it's Jades of Amber breaks up and
out of birth still remains. Oh yeah, and Aj wasn't
quite in the band yet when we first started. He
was in a little band while dissonant.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Yeah, and so we we did you say the play
around do you say, oh, yeah, speaking of terrible old
band news that sounds super heavy, that sounds like a
band that's going to rip my fucking face off.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
That was the goal and we have we we pulled
it off in a you know, two thousand and one
kind of was new metal trying to be metal core
a way. Okay, yeah, but we we played a lot
of shows with Stormains just around town kind of in
the in the Michigan area.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Yeah, So it was it was kind of an awkward
thing because right right when we were offered our deal
from Roadrunner, we had a couple of members quick because
I think they realized how full time of a thing
it was going to become. And then we were kind
of parentoid about who to ask because we didn't want
to ask someone to join the band because we were
(11:56):
about at that at that time, I was nineteen years
old and to get signed to a major label. Oh,
I made it a millionaire. Right, Like, we were were
parento about asking people to join the band simply because
we got a record deal. So we called AJ. And
this is two thousand and four.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Right a, yeah, like early summer two thousand and four.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Yeah, So we called AJ and asked me if he
wanted to play with us, and we didn't tell him
anything about the record deal or that we were about
to chip off to Vancouver for three months.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
And except it was very obvious. Yes, we got to
go on a meeting for the weekend with our manager
and we can't tell you what we're doing, but that's
going to be gone for a couple of days.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
This sounds like one of those deals where like there's
like some guy who makes a ton of money who's
trying to hide it so he can start dating a
girl who will love him for him and not for
the money. That's what you guys are making it sound.
And it's yeah, like a.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
Movie were a kid. But I'll never forget when.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
We'll try to be responsible, bro, I'll.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
Never forget when he finally said, yeah, I'd love to
join the band. We're all right. We got a five
record deal with a Broadrunner five records. But yeah, no,
it was it was fake to be mister a J.
I call him funky in the band.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Fun Get why fun is it because he lays it
down well or what.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
It's not because of his guitar playing.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
No, there's a long evolution of my nicknames.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
It's multiple.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Well, it's because of the way he makes the bus spell.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
It started so a J to age to quage to
Q to q funk. Now it's funky. I think that's
how it went.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
That's how I rolled.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
There's like a whole evolution.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
It sounds like an etymology of like John from like
way way back in like Arabaic, it turns into John Samouth.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
That's how language has developed. Yeah, there's a lot. There's
a lot of things too.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
But yeah, there is something to be said about like
I mean, let's be honest, like if you have a
nickname that people consistently call you like that to me
feels like an honor. Like I've always wanted a nickname,
like Colin will sometimes call me Mace, but Mace has
like never developed into a whole other nickname onto itself.
(14:40):
So like if you have a nickname and then it
develops into a nickname onto itself, like that's a whole
other thing.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Sometimes I call you Masonic Temple like that.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Last time, but that's never caught on it by anything.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
So what was the Masonic Temple? We played at Agent's Portland.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I've played a few. They're always so creepy.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It was, yeah, and you can only go into certain spaces.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
I'm sure we were. I played in one in Toledo
before story means. I think it was with this on it.
And we went creeping around like in the places you're
not supposed to be. And we went down to the
basement and there was a bank vault door and we
opened the bank vault door and it was this massive.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Concrete How did you get into it?
Speaker 5 (15:23):
Like?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
It didn't have a lot, it was open.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
This is like a it was a defunct.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
They forgot the code fifty years ago.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
There was like George Washington's remains.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
There was no ship. There was a Dennis chair bolted
to the ground in the middle of.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
Oh oh my god, no way were there any robes?
Were there any robes?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
It was completely empty. I mean the thing had been
abandoned for you know, probably thirty years at that point.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Oh imagine if you would have heard of like a
voice that was like help.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
And was around wild What a cool deal though?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Yeah, they are all creepy though, even like the you
weer ones are even creepy, which is kind of strange. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
I live really close to one and I there's like
no windows even. I'm like, this is not the kind
of building I want to be in.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Yeah, so Agent, how did how did you end up
in the band?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Then?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
I think literally Jordan just called me one night. I
actually I had left this in it. I was getting
ready to move back to California. I lived in California
for a little bit with some family, and I was
about to move back there and kind of not sure
what I was about to do. And Jordan called me
one night. He was like, Hey, just quit the band.
Do you want to come jam? I was like, Wow,
(16:37):
that's really weird timing kind of in the middle of
things right now.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
But yeah, sure, So it was just it was just
boom boom, We're in and then you and then they
broke the news to you that you were going to
be in it for the long haul. Yeah, a five
record deal, but yet five records are not going to
come out spoiler alert everybody, No, no, no, so give us,
(17:01):
give us their journey here? What what? How did things
proceed from there?
Speaker 3 (17:05):
I say, we just started practicing every day. It was
I think the first song I Love let Me See
TI Live and Die by Fire was written before I
technically joined. It was like, hey, let's jam on something new,
and I think we wrote that. And it was shortly
after that that I got in the band. And we
practice at Jordan's parents house every day like a job.
(17:26):
I mean it was starting at ten and we go
to four or whatever, and we just write songs every
single when.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
They were away at work. Right.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
Yeah, we practiced there like till the end. Yeah, damn
adults and practicing parents house.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
If it's free, you know, it's.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
A good spot to jam.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
And for what we were making, we needed free.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah. I want to say we just most of the
summer of two thousand and four, it was usually music
and Jordan just every day in there, right, and we
write thirteen songs, well two are on No Piece, so eleven.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
So I love.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I love asking bands this, you know, but especially bands
that you know have like a legacy like still remains
to us. You mentioned like you know you're you're jamming
at you know, parents house. I would imagine at some
point parents are like, Okay, this is our Like, we
love our child, We're going to support our child in
(18:32):
all of our child's dreams, and we also recognize that
our child's dreams might not be the dreams that we have.
For our child to be able to make money and
have a life, that would mean that our child moves
out of the house. And so like there must have
been a point though, where it was like hey, mom
(18:53):
and dad, like this isn't just like a like this
is this isn't like a high school band where I'm
just like trying to make some music and you know,
just have some fun. Like this is actually like a
legitimate way that I'm going to pay some bills. Like
at what point, like was it in that first album
that it felt like that was it right before? Was
it right? After like at some point it must have
(19:13):
felt like, oh, this is like just how I'm gonna
make money at least for the time being. Yeah, that
had to have been.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
Honestly, probably when we flew out to New York and
toured the road in our office and it felt like,
I mean we were going to be set for life.
I mean, you guys talked to so many bands. The
music the music industry is rough man, there's there's it's
so hard to make money. We would do, we would do.
I feel like that. I mean, my parents were they
(19:40):
were so supportive. They would if I wanted to live
on sleep on their couch and play guitar down the road,
they'd still let me do it, you know. But I mean,
it's just it's so hard to make money in this industry.
I'll never forget we played Tokyo. We played in Tokyo
and I can't remember how much we got paid, but
(20:02):
you know it was it was a lot of money.
But I went home with five hundred bucks, you know
it was. It's just a it's a rough industry, that's
I mean, that's why Storremins is doing what we do now,
and we just are doing one for the fun of it,
like any money we make, any money, Like we did
(20:23):
a kickstarter back in the day for our last record,
we didn't take a single son of that home, even like, yeah,
we're coming straight back into the band. I haven't gotten
a paycheck from Stormmains and I don't know the actual
band fifteen years. But that's I'm saying that in a
positive way, like we do it one percent for the
fun of it, and there were privileged that people actually
(20:45):
still follow it and listen to our music. It kind
of blows my mind, even like I grew up buying
and reading HM magazine, and it's just it's just wild
to me that people are still interested in us tinkering
around in our basements and writing music.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
It's yeah, so much of that is surprising to me
because when you guys were coming up, it was kind
of a new frontier, new explosion of the scene, and
it was kind of like, Hey, this is kind of
something that could be popular or could be sustaining for
us if we hit hard enough, or if we if
(21:26):
we can tour with the right people, or if we
can get in with the right the right bands or
the right management. And that was kind of like the
conversation going on at the time, Did you guys feel
any of that?
Speaker 5 (21:39):
Always? Yeah, I mean did you.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Know did you know that you were in it? As
well as what I should ask? Oh?
Speaker 3 (21:46):
No, I don't think you recognized that the bands we
were touring with would end up so important. Sure, like Trivia,
Bullet from my Valentine. You know, these kind of bands
we were playing, you know, little mini club shows with
these guys. We played Bullet opened. Actually Bullet played before
us on their very first US tour. It was actually
in the dies to the headliner, and then we were
(22:07):
direct support. And then Bullet was before us. I think
there was even another band before us, and then Bullet
was before that.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Oh yeah, but it took.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah, I don't think those those tours never thought seemed
to us like they were going to be that consequential.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
No, it took me probably five to ten years after
we broke up to realize like the impact that our
music had on people. I don't say that in a
boastful way, because I hate coming across like that that
it lived and that oh, like, these songs actually mean
things to people, whether it's the lyrics of the music
or whatever they were going through. When they first bought
(22:43):
the record. During the process, it always felt like, oh, well,
the next tour, the next tour could be the one,
the next album is going to be the one, the
next tour is going to be the one. And I
think that's just being a child, and I think that's
I keep talking about money, and back then I was
so not money driven. I'm not now in my life.
(23:06):
It's but for some reason we just kept pushing. I
think I think what really killed Stillerman's ultimately the first
time around was how hard we toured. We just toured
non stopped, and then for some reason we always just
had this mindset like the next tour or whatever is
(23:26):
gonna make the bandon, I think ultimately burns out.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, it might not be like some sort of like
direct like all right, if we just like do this,
it will be this amount of money or this many
people in the crowd or whatever it is, Like it's
just like it, I'm sure, like when you're nineteen twenty
twenty one years old, it's just like, if we just
do this, it will just be bigger, like whatever bigger is,
(23:52):
like it's just generally bigger. But like, but you don't
have like a like a physical or you don't have
like an exact sense. I'm like, what that exact actly means.
It's just that could mean ticket sales, it could be
album sales, it could be whatever. But like it's just
something about like if we just work harder, it could
be bigger.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
Yeah, I think I think mainly on ticket sales. I
mean that's really the only thing that drove us.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
We just wanted to play good shows. Yeah, and playing
so many bad shows for so long. Where's you out
after a while?
Speaker 5 (24:22):
Yeah? What was rough on us was we did so
well in Australia, Japan, and Europe, the United Kingdom, but
then we come back to the States where you know,
we'd play a show. Oh, the day before we flew
to Tokyo or Japan, we played in Bakersfield, California, for
fifteen people, and then four days later we're in Tokyo
(24:45):
playing for twenty two thousand.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Jeez, what do you what do you think that is? Like?
What is it about internationally? Because I mean there's some
like metal bands that do obviously really well in the
States they're from the States or whatever. Then there's some
bands that just do really well in Europe. Like, so
what I feel like I bring them up a lot.
But one of Colin and I's favorite bands ever, it's
called The Chariot. I don't know if you guys ever
listened to the Chariot or not, but they like if
(25:09):
they ever went to Europe, especially Eastern Europe, they would
sell shows and those shows were unbelievable. And so what
is it about some of these bands that, like, I mean,
some of those shows in Eastern Europe probably would do
better than when whenever they played in America? So like
what is it about some bands? And it sounds like
(25:30):
for you guys this was the case, Like why is
it that, like even though you're from America, I mean,
like you're from the heart of America, like Michigan, But like,
what is it about like going to even Tokyo or
Europe or wherever like that? It's just like it brings
something out out of certain people, Like do you have
like a sense now, especially looking back, like what happened
with that? Like why is that the case?
Speaker 3 (25:53):
I think maybe it's kind of rooted in certain bands influences.
Maybe like we, you know, we drew very heavy influence
from a lot of like the euro bands like Inflames,
soil work, that kind of thing, and incorporated that into
metal cores, which apparently was a new thing. Like to us,
we were just playing, you know, trying to rip off
(26:13):
in flames and put some breakdowns on it because that's
what we what we knew we were borrowing.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
That's a good good band to borrow from, I would
I would.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Argue, yeah, yeah, but I think that that euro influences
kind of resonated over there earlier than it has resonated here.
So I like it was like day one, the first
day of our first UK tour, and you know, people
were following us to lunch, everybody in the crowds singing
(26:45):
our songs. Instantly, it was yeah, it was just instantly,
so different than the US.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Still, yeah, yeah, it was weird. It was weird because
suddenly we landed and people cared. And we love our
fans in the States, so I don't want to it's
just certain cities that there's this States. It's such a
huge market.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
It's a huge place.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
I mean, yeah, it would what there's an eight week
week run in the States and not hit every market. Yeah,
so have we'd have shows that would sell out in
La or on the East coast or in Texas, but
in between we'd be planned for thirty forty people. Yeah,
(27:29):
which is some reason why, like now fans even talk
to us, like why do you guys only tour in
the UK. It's like, well, we sell those shows out and.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
And you can cover the country in a week a
week and a half for sure. Eight Yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
And unfortunately, if we toured the States, we'd just we'd
be paying out a pocket for it all.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
Yeah. When I was in tenth grade, I had a
German for an exchange student, and he gave me every
single song that you guys had ever made up until
that point.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
It's awesome, and it was.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
It was great. I was. I was blown away because
he liked a lot of music that I didn't like
but still remains and in Flames was there were Those
were the two discographies that I got from him. So sorry.
I never have paid for any any bit of your music,
but I have. I have been a listener for a
(28:24):
long time. I'm sure most people didn't, but I have
been a listener for a long time. But I did
feel like your I did feel like you guys almost
weren't even an American band because you were always in
that same context of bands like Inflames and things like that,
or or even oh there's one other band I'm thinking
(28:44):
of that kind of falls in the same kind of category.
But I'm not It's not on my tip of my
tongue right now. I'll think about it later, I'm sure.
Do you feel like that has been a conversation that's
continued after not now that you guys are coming back
a little bit here.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
And we just had I just had someone I saw
somewhere on social someone commented saying they didn't even know
we were from Michigan. How Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, yeah,
I mean not really. I mean we're pretty much known
as you know, being banned from the States. But it's
(29:28):
more just the comments from fans and why don't you
ever tour? Why don't you come to Ohio? Why didn't
come to La Why didn't come to Florida?
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Well, we'd love to if we Yeah, if we had
unlimited time.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
Yeah, that's one of the resources all of us now
we have careers. Yeah, so getting away for six weeks
is literally impossible. It's ten days at a time. Even
that's rough.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Even that's hard to do.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Sure, I mean, I mean there's got to be a
benefit to the fact that they If you wanted to
travel around the United State dates, that costs money for
you guys. But if you want to go to Europe,
you got an all expense yeah, paid for That's nice.
That's kind of nice. Let's be honest. That's kind of nice.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
Yeah, our tour our tour coming up in November twentieth
or twenty second, twenty first time there. Wow, Yeah, I
love it more.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
I mean, if I got paid to go to Europe
and it you know it actually they you know, actually
makes a little bit money for me, that that'd be
awfully nice versus just going around the US just to
break even.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Yeah, so let's ask that, what is your favorite place
in Europe to play?
Speaker 5 (30:40):
That's rough and you can.
Speaker 4 (30:44):
You can be biased in Paris.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
In Paris, yeah, my favorite place to play. Oh gosh,
King Touched in Glasgow, Scotland.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
That we've heard about King Touch so many times. I
love that.
Speaker 5 (30:59):
Yeah, it's it's a really cool venue.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Magua got their start, sorry Magua the band. That's where
they got their start and they kind of are known.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
I believe believe the Oasis like got their start too.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
I wouldn't I wouldn't doubt it.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
Don't quote me on that. Well, I'm on video. Shoot now,
I'm gonna look at quote a cool venue and it's
like a two hundred and fifty cap room. But those
are the funnest to play. You know. We've played stadiums,
We've played five thousand capacity shows, and the best shows
are when there's one hundred and fifty people, two hundred
and fifty people stuffed into a small room, the terrible
(31:37):
PA system. The crowd is louder than the band.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Yeah, yep, but.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
Shout out to King Tut's are we playing there? The
front A.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
No, No, we're not playing cat House.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
So here's a question. Surprisingly, we've never actually asked any
band that I know of, Mason. Maybe we have, but
I don't think we have. How does the festival experience
and differ from the billing or or ven you experience.
Speaker 5 (32:07):
I get stressed out playing festivals really, Okay, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Generally the setup is just kind of so everything is
so unknown going into it. Everything feels kind of rushed
and unfamiliar.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yeah, because you almost have to do like soundcheck like
in the moment right like you're not doing that beforehand.
So that's gotta be a yeah factor. I'm sure there's
other factors, but that's got to be one of the
factors that I as a observer. Again, Colin and I
have never been in bands, but that's like the first
thing I think of.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it's just plugin and play. Hopefully
everything sounds okay, and you rely.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
On hopefully hopefully everything works.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
Yeah, roll the drum set in. Is my guitar working
if there's Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong, the
crowds at festivals are just ballistic. They're great. They're always
fun shows, especially back in the day playing Cornerstone in
the tents, but the setup is.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Stressful from a sound perspective. I've thought about this before.
From a sound perspective, do you enjoy that it is
going to the outside versus like it could reverb throughout.
Speaker 5 (33:11):
A from a terrible like on stage.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Yeah, oh interesting, there's something about playing outside that's fun.
But it generally doesn't sound great.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
No, but okay, it's usually bad for all parties. But yeah,
it's a very very fun experience.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Yeah, I mean, who doesn't like going to a festival.
It's nice out, got a bunch of killer bands playing
where everyone's covered in mud.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
You can pack it in tight and just really feel
intimate with some smelly strangers next to you. Yeah, it's
a great feel.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
The sound definitely goes out and doesn't come back like
you're used to.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you do you feel excited to
be playing Furnace Fest?
Speaker 5 (33:55):
Yeah? Absolutely, yeah, we were. Actually we were still Uh
was it Chad that asked us aj?
Speaker 3 (34:03):
No, I think it's Elena.
Speaker 5 (34:05):
We were excited to be involved. It's just that this
whole scene was like so much a part of our
lives for twenty plus years, and I bet we know
half the band's playing. I can't. Yeah, I wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
I would go that far.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
This year, that's good.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Last year it is a little bit more a newerd.
It's a lot of new blood this year compared to
years past. Yeah, about a lot of still remains. It
has easily been one of the most anticipated bands that
I have seen on the list. And and initially when
you're get when you guys were on there, I was like, Okay,
all right, I'm still definitely going this year.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
That's sweet. Yeah, we we We've been asking them for
a couple of years and they finally they finally came
through this year. We're excited as.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
We were saying, what did you, how did you?
Speaker 2 (34:52):
How did you this year?
Speaker 4 (34:53):
How did you sweeten the pot?
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I think we were just more more forceful to see
We're like, hey, by the way, is twentieth your twentieth
anniversary of bubblahla unacy, Like we really want to do this?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (35:05):
Yeah, I think the anniversary. I mean it's perfect timing, honestly.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
Yeah. So are there is there anything special planned for
for that set? In particular?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
I don't think we've long enough to do the full record,
but we'll do most of the record, and I think
we'll probably play a new song.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
Hell yeah, there we go, so new song as well.
Does that mean that that fans should be anticipating some
something extra down the line? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (35:34):
Yeah, absolutely, No, we've been in studio. Is that Have
we talked about this? Aja? We really? Yeah, we've been
in studio. We're writing an EP and it's almost done.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
Good okay, So we so we we had heard about
the EP, but we had not heard if there was
more beyond the EP, because we usually EP means there's
there's more coming as well, So we weren't sure if
there was.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Album as much music as we could write. I mean
it's taken us since time to write this.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
That's pretty impressive though.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, it's our whole goal on this podcast is the
kid on like Wikipedia, to be cited on Wikipedia. So this,
this is exactly what's trying to go on right now,
Like we're trying to like where can we get on Wikipedia?
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Excellent, right now? And so if it means new music,
this is the way.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
That this is the way you do it. Yeah, And honestly,
with all of our schedules, it's it's so hard to
get together. It's so hard to like get all six
of us in the same room like last So kind
of twenty twenty three was the start of us playing more.
We played some shows with Hayes Today and Silent Planet.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Great crew be great, great great friends of the podcast
by the way, good people.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
They're great. And then we did some hometown shows like
the following spring, and it was like okay, like we're
we're back into the vibe of this. Let's let's see
if we can make some music and opening for our
hometown shows. This a band called Hall of Front and
their guitar player Lee Producers Records writes for a lot
of bands, and it just so happened that he he
(37:06):
lives here. He lives about two minutes from TJ. So
that really opened the door for us to like have
a competent local producer here because anytime we'd think about, Okay,
maybe we should write some songs. We did a lot
of recordings with Josh Schroeder when we first got back
together in like twenty eleven to twenty thirteen era. He's
on the other side of the state, and it was like, well,
if we want to go to the studio, you know,
(37:28):
we're looking at a week two weeks off work for everybody,
like when are we going to have when are we
going to do that? And with Lee, he's just been
able to kind of chip away at it and we
get in the studio a weekend here and there, you know,
when it lines up for everybody, And that's even that's
been hard to do. So the EP is like as
(37:49):
much music as we could get together in like a
reasonable time frame and not everybody wait for another two years.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
Oh yeah, it sounds so cool.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
I can't even get a weekend with my wife. I
can't imagine trying to get a weekend with a week
or two weeks with you know that sounds so incredibly difficult, it.
Speaker 5 (38:08):
Sounds cliche, but I truly feel like to the stuff
that we're writing is the best sense of love and lunacy.
I think it the most with that record.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
What makes it, what makes you feel that way.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
I think, is how much fun we're having doing it.
It's not it's not very cool. There's zero labor. It's
all love I did. Yeah, I absolutely love the songs.
There's no the motivation. It's not to even gain fans.
It's not to appease fans. It's not to get a
bigger crowd or anything. It's simply for the love of
writing music, which is just what which is exactly why
(38:44):
I think of Love and Lunacy. Well, it's my favorite
record that we personally have done. Is it's just your
kids writing music having fun. And now I just turned
forty and I'm back to where I was when I
was nineteen.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
Love that. That's got to be a very cool feeling
to try to recapture in that moment.
Speaker 5 (39:04):
It is because I, honestly I had I went through
a couple of years where I didn't enjoy going to concerts.
I think it's tourings. I was burnout. I didn't enjoy
going to concerts, I didn't enjoy listening to full records.
But even within the past like three to four years,
like I feel that fire again. Maybe you know what
(39:26):
it is. It's midlife crisis.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
You forgot how the sausage is made, That's it.
Speaker 5 (39:31):
Yeah, but no, I'm so excited for people to hear
these songs. And you know what, if you guys just
hear them, If ten thousand, one hundred thousand people hear them, great,
But either way, it's just fun to be writ in
records with the guys.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
Hell yeah, yeah, I love that is there is there
anything special with this EP that you guys have planned
that you are like, oh my gosh, I can't wait
till everyone hears this. In particular, there's guess.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
The spot, but that hasn't been announced yet, so we're gonna, yeah,
that'll be cool. It hasn't happened, how it hasn't been required,
so we can't announce it yet just in case it
doesn't happen. It'll happen.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Yeah, But I think we just tried to write five
just cool songs. There's really not like a a theme
to them. Overall, I think lyrically they're kind of connected,
but musically we didn't try to be like this sound
or this sound. I think overall it's kind of just
it's like five bangers.
Speaker 5 (40:35):
Yeah, it kind.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Of sounds like still Remains, but a little bit updated. Yeah,
there's one there's one song that's kind of even hard
style influence that Zach wrote, so kind of showing off
a different side of the band. It's more keyboard, almost
techno driven, but that's only for part of it. Something
that's he's always kind of pushed. But it was cool
to kind of explore that. Very cool, and I think
(40:59):
that's that's everybody's favorite song, even though it's like the
most different song. I love that it's still very heavy.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
I know Mason and I in particular, we appreciate whatever
variety and spice can be brought to the table. Yeah,
And I think what's interesting about Story Remains is you
guys kind of got out right as things got pretty
meager and pretty disgusting in the scene in general, and
by discussing, I mean like everyone was just copying everyone
(41:28):
doing the exact same thing for about five to eight years,
and then things started picking up, people started coming together
and making new things that were actually interesting again. And
I know for Mason and I we had a reinvigoration
(41:49):
and a reintroduction to the scene.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
To a certain extent, it's like a whole renaissance for
it last for us. I mean, I don't know if
it's like generally that's.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
I kind of similar kind of lost interests in the
genre as a whole. And yeah, now you're starting to
get some new like newer and exciting bands or in
the past, you know, maybe five years.
Speaker 4 (42:07):
Ten Yeah, last five five to ten years. Yeah, you've
nailed it. And I think that I think what's interesting
is a lot of times it's the bands from that
two thousand and one to two thousand and ten to
twelve era that are actually coming back and making new
(42:29):
music that is the most exciting stuff because it has
that older kind of flavor that is reminiscent of a
time when it seemed like a scene that was a
little more serious, but also bringing in modern influences that
are not distasteful. They are intriguing, and they are with
(42:54):
greater musicianship because you guys have developed so much more, right,
I mean, you were you had back then you had youth,
you had the zest and zeal for life, and now
today you're technically more talented, you have life experience under
your belt. You're the things that you're discussing in the
music itself is maybe a little more nuance, a little
(43:15):
more introspective and less retrospective. So I'm very very excited
for it, and I'm I expect this is going to
be an extremely highly anticipated from you guys.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
So that's cool. Yeah, we hope. So, I mean, the
whole reason we do this, I think, is you know,
A for fun and b we hope, we hope other
people like it.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
Yeah, I doubt that's going to be an issue. Yea,
hopefully not just from your European friends.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
We want we want everybody. Yeah, so we want to
be able to play more shows here and you know
we want to have a reason to do that. Oh yeah,
so we need we need more people to pay attention.
Speaker 4 (43:54):
Do you feel like do you feel like some people
have like discovered you late, like well passed the time
frame that they should have.
Speaker 5 (44:05):
From socials and seeing comments yes, like okay, comments saying
like first time hearing you. Obviously we don't play shows
that often, so we don't have that many interactions in person,
but right, just weird.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
I think a lot of yeah, even just a lot
of finding our old fans. Like you know, technically we
broke up in two thousand and eight and we got
back together to twenty eleven. We've been back together ever since. Yeah,
but people still I didn't know you guys are.
Speaker 5 (44:35):
A band well back together but hardly active. Truth.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Yeah, we don't. We don't do much. No, I mean,
we're not like a broken up band more like our
group chat is back together.
Speaker 4 (44:45):
Yeah, it probably feels more together for you guys than
it does for the fans.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Yeah, quite possibly, And I think, yeah, the biggest challenge
has just been like finding finding those old fans again.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Yeah, yeah, it's huge saying yeah yeah, I mean, like honestly,
a lot of that is like, you know, just like
from a social media perspective, like that social media landscape
when you guys were for you know, MySpace, maybe even
before that. I mean, you guys were even pretty active
before my Space stuff. So it's like, how do you
how do you find those fans that were like literally
(45:19):
at this point, like two social media platforms of generations
that you know, have since passed. Like that's that's the
whole thing to navigate like that that I can't even
imagine what that would have been like like I'm trying
to think like like an influencer from two thousand and
one or to get.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
It, okay, Jesus, but.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Like think like literally think of like the social media
like like think of the people who are like social
media people, not like not people that were on TV,
but like social media people that people, Yeah, what whatever
that would have even been. Like I feel like that
the snail mail people. I don't even know what that.
Speaker 5 (46:01):
That one social media person I remember. I remember Jeffrey
Star was like in the scene Jeffree Star Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yeah, but that's like that's even like kind of yeah
right around. But like imagine like that and like having
to then like figure out what the next thing is
if you wanted to restart a thing like that's a
it's a real thing and I can't even imagine like
what that would have been like. But my goodness, that's
that's a lot of work. Like credit for you guys
for like trying to do that work, because that's like truly,
(46:28):
it's a real thing and I can't even imagine it.
Speaker 5 (46:32):
It works.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Yeah, we try and yeah it works not very well,
but you know we put our best foot forward and
you know that's that's all we can do. And that's fine.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
But the thing is is like that that's gonna be
the case, Like there's gonna be some band that like
does well twenty years from now that was like, well
we were doing the TikTok thing and it never really
happened or whatever, and like, I don't like that. That's
gonna be a thing like every generation is gonna have that.
But god, like that's like but again, like to your credit,
like you're working hard, like you're doing what you love,
(47:04):
and that's like that's what we have to respect everybody for,
Like you do what you love and you made some
music that really for a lot of people, like this
was really important, and like I mean that that's gonna
be count for something, right.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
Yeah, that's I mean, that's very cool. It's it's so
cool to see like we're just some random band and
people still care about it twenty years later, Like oh yeah,
some people very deeply, And that's that's very humbling.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yeah, that's I mean, I mean, that's.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
That's the coolest thing about being involved in this band.
Speaker 4 (47:34):
Really, I have one last thing to ask before we
move on to the top three most influential albums from
you two, and it is this, so roughly, how close
an age are you guys? I should ask that.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
First two years, two and a half years?
Speaker 5 (47:52):
Yeah, yeah, all.
Speaker 4 (47:57):
Right, I'm just curious because you got looks so completely
different in age. Jordan Fee, I feel like you might
be stealing blood from babies or something like that.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
AJ.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
I feel like you've spent like the last like twenty
years in like an indie rock band, and I'm like
really learning, like becoming like a like a Somalia or
something like that as well.
Speaker 5 (48:21):
Well, mister A just has that what do they call that?
What's that gray look? AJ?
Speaker 3 (48:26):
Silver fox fox Fuck.
Speaker 4 (48:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
I was about to say, like Colin, that's funny you
think that Jordan looks like the the indie rock band,
where I think AJ looks like he could be like
the the drum tech for Death Captin.
Speaker 5 (48:41):
No, It's it's so funny. It is like I always
I've always attributed like not getting gray to not having kids.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
That does since I got kid, you're like a nun
that's like, yes, exactly, non none say the same.
Speaker 5 (48:58):
From my wife and I we you know, watch our
YouTube videos and relax. And then it's eleven o'clock. It's like, which,
I guess we should go to bed and relax more tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
I'm crazy.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
Is this your way of saying that AJ has like
five kids? I got to but you look like you have.
Speaker 5 (49:17):
To, mister silver Fox. You started, uh, I was going
great pretty early, developing that look in what twenty twenty one,
that gorgeous look.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Oh no, wait before that raw?
Speaker 4 (49:32):
Do you mean the age age twenty one or the
year twenty twenty one age?
Speaker 3 (49:37):
Oh no, not that early. I was going great, probably
by the time I was thirty, like mid thirties, and
then it's kind of accelerated a bit, but it's a
I'll deal with it. People in the street most of
the time.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
It's sexy. Right now.
Speaker 4 (49:55):
I think you could. I think you could walk into
MPR studios and demand your OW radio show right now.
Speaker 5 (50:02):
The question I'm to know what you don't have to answer?
Is it gray everywhere? You don't know? Don't don't answer
that question that.
Speaker 3 (50:18):
You can see my beard.
Speaker 4 (50:20):
Yeah, that's not the he's talking about your toe hair.
Not this great.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
That's not great.
Speaker 4 (50:32):
Silver it is silver. That that is true. That is true.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
It's like when when you wipe what comes off.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
My god, you assume those are deep dark black.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Oh wow, all right, so I have hees. Differently, I
have such a.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
Terrible image in my head.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
I know.
Speaker 4 (50:53):
Oh, all right, top three most influential records from we're
not cutting that, by the way, We're definitely not.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
I mean at least two of mine. Huh, all right,
well should.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
I should mention a different record? Influential does not mean
your most favorite?
Speaker 5 (51:16):
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, So I would say my first favorite
and most influential record on new music is Ran said
I'll Come to the Wolves, the very first album that
like sparked something inside my body, Like I felt that record.
I grew up listening to music. But for some reason,
like every time I throw that record on, I get
(51:37):
chills on my spine. Still I can sing every single
lyric off of it. Obviously, way different than a lot
of Let's tell you, j.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Oh, I want to do my my first next. We'll
go take chronological order.
Speaker 5 (51:50):
Yeah, your next, yeah, all right?
Speaker 3 (51:54):
Mine is very similar. It's no effects. I heard they
suck live. It was like the first live record kind
of compilation of all of the early no effects stuff.
I guess we both kind of grew up as like
punk kids initially. Yeah still are still one of my
favorite bands of all time.
Speaker 5 (52:11):
I just I got into No Effects like late, like
the past five years. Yeah you did, but oh wow,
that's a great record. Second for me would be Zayo
where blood and Fire brings rest. Of course, it was
the first metal concert I had attended. Shoot. I think
it had to have been two thousand, two thousand or
(52:32):
two thousand and one, so I was fifteen or sixteen
years old, you know twenty, I was fifteen, and it
just changed me. I learned so many of those rifts.
I copied or I borrowed so many of those rifts,
and then it was so weird to later become on
become like well quote unquote friends, you know, all those guys.
It was a surreal experience, but great records.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
Are you Are you hanging around at Furnace Fest long
enough to watch their set?
Speaker 5 (52:57):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (52:57):
What day did they play? The play Saturday?
Speaker 2 (53:00):
To look again, I know that they are playing.
Speaker 5 (53:05):
Yeah, it'd be very cool to see them and and
Dan guests vocals on our self released album.
Speaker 4 (53:12):
Yeah Love Dan. Yeah, he's a good dude.
Speaker 5 (53:16):
I lost touch with him, But a number two for you.
Speaker 3 (53:19):
I got two records same time frame that accomplished the
same purpose, which kind of introduced me to moving from
punk to like metal Rage against the Machine, Evil Empire
and Death Tones around the Fur where it was like,
oh my god, what is this? What is this feeling?
(53:42):
This heaviness that it was like angry and you know,
it kind of had the same attitude as punk, but
it was like, oh my god, you can be like
really it sounds as angry as it is hissed.
Speaker 5 (53:55):
Yeah, number three, that was number three to toss up,
I'm interested, what is gonna say his thirdest Inflames Colony?
Speaker 4 (54:06):
Oh yeah, it was the first that is there? That
is the correct answer.
Speaker 3 (54:11):
Yeah, I would say, I would say Oracle or Claiman.
Speaker 5 (54:14):
It's got to be Claimant.
Speaker 3 (54:17):
Oracle Claiman was the first. It was like very accessible.
Speaker 5 (54:20):
Yeah, but both of that, it's I mean without Inflames
Colony and Clayman like, I don't think still remains. Would
they still would? Yeah, like we would not sound the
way we sound, and I don't think we would have
taken the path that we did to write those songs
that eventually got up to the world.
Speaker 4 (54:40):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
Mm hmm, Yeah, when I listened to a lot of
like Inflames or even like Shihulud, Like I know, you
guys didn't mention Shilahud, but like when I think of
like some of those bands and hear some of their
early stuff from like I mean, that's a lot of
that's like mid nineties, late nineties, Like it's hard to
believe any of that stuff, like later on in the
(55:03):
two thousands would have ever existed. Like in Flames in
Chai Halud were really truly next level of influencing a
whole generation in bands of like being able to converge
hardcore kind of drumming and percussion with these really cool
metal riffs and being able to merge them in a
way that was so unique. And you get bands like
(55:24):
you know Still Remains, and you know, all these other
bands that kind of come after that. But it's it's
pretty incredible, like in Flames and both. And let's give
Shai Halud its credit too, they were they were right
there with them.
Speaker 5 (55:35):
Yeah, absolutely, yes, there you haven't top three.
Speaker 4 (55:40):
It's good, that's good. Three. Yeah, did you did you
say Claiman would be your your third then, or did
you have a different one?
Speaker 3 (55:47):
Okay, all right, good call, good call. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:53):
Yeah, it was a great album.
Speaker 4 (55:54):
I definitely hear I definitely hear each of those in
Story Remains as well. It makes total sense next to
all sense.
Speaker 3 (56:02):
Yeah, we were never that covert about covering it up.
Speaker 5 (56:05):
No, listen to White Walls and then if you listen
to the song white Walls and then compare that with
Colinie and clay Man, it's like, oh.
Speaker 3 (56:15):
Oh, there's put breakdowns and some keyboards.
Speaker 5 (56:17):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (56:18):
Something interesting though, is that there's there's a group of
bands from from that mid two thousands, mid to late
two thousands time frame that definitely kind of fall into
that same same kind of sound. And I can't quite
I don't know if I have like a good way
to like categorize it, and I don't even know if
(56:39):
it deserves categorization or not, but almost like like I
would put like kill Switch Engage in that same kind
of category.
Speaker 5 (56:47):
Yeah, there there, I mean Killswitch's entire sound comes from.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
You know.
Speaker 4 (56:53):
That? And then yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So there's there
is a smaller scene or a smaller sub sect of
the scene that is like European influenced, and it's like
all the good stuff from Europe, like none of like
the slop from Europe, which is so cool. But I
(57:15):
feel like I feel like you guys are kind of
like in that you guys are one of the standard
bearers of that more subsect of Thank you.
Speaker 5 (57:23):
Yea cool yeah, yeah, oh yeah shout off the soil
Work also, yes, yeah, massive massive influence on us.
Speaker 3 (57:32):
Really, we were listening to well, the record came out
right into the end of two thousand and four figured
No One after that. I mean we listened to that
record very heavily, and that's probably my favorite soil Work
record figure figure five. We were listening to NonStop in
the studio because it had just come out, Gotcha, And
(57:53):
I think, yeah, there's a there's the intro first song,
and that's on their record. Sounds very similar to Flipping
out the Fire. Sure, I wonder where that came from.
Speaker 4 (58:03):
This might be going out on a limb. But was
there any extol influence at all as well.
Speaker 5 (58:08):
In the early days, Yeah, the early days, okay, all right?
Speaker 4 (58:12):
Yeah? Sometimes sometimes I catch a little X hole in
there too, and it's just like I like that, I
really really scratches that itch of mine. So all right, well,
what would you guys like to plug? So guys got
the new EP at some point, do you know when roughly.
Speaker 3 (58:27):
We would like to have a song out in the
next couple of months. It's I so you tracked drums
last now, which is a weird thing. So I just
tracked drums last weekend. We got a couple of vocal
things to finish up. But it's it's almost done and
we're gonna mix it and we'll have something out this fall,
ideally before these shows we play, but we're playing, so
we're doing some special Love of Noon to Sea shows.
(58:50):
We do do like a full album playthrough at our
ground rapid show. So we have a hometown show August
sixteenth at the scheme, and then we're playing Furnace Fast
on the Friday, so October third, and then our UK
tour starts in middle of November and we're doing ten
shows there.
Speaker 4 (59:09):
Hecky beautiful.
Speaker 3 (59:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (59:11):
Also, by the way, that that Friday slot for Furnace
Fest might be the best slot because especially if you
guys are staying around for the rest of the weekend,
like you just get that show done and then you
could just hang out the rest of it. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 4 (59:22):
Zayo plays Saturday by the way, Oh cool.
Speaker 5 (59:25):
Yeah yeah, I'm sticking out for that for sure.
Speaker 4 (59:29):
Hell yeah, hell yeah.
Speaker 3 (59:31):
So this is the most active we've been in a
long time, and it's a good year for it. We'll
see what we do after that. I would anticipate will
keep putting out a couple of songs, you know, a
couple songs a year away.
Speaker 4 (59:43):
At it beautiful? Well, we are waiting in dripping anticipation.
I tell you what I can't wait. Dripping? Does it
turn you on a little bit? Is how you're trying
to say?
Speaker 5 (59:59):
Turn all right?
Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Anything else you'd like to plug?
Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Oh yeah, So you know we're all getting older. Heavy
metal dads is a thing. So we're we're we've been
throwing this around. Everybody's been trying to get in shape.
We're doing like a heavy metal dad workout series.
Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
Oh yeah, like making music for like metal workouts kind
of thing or well that and.
Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
We're going to do We're going to be doing the
workout videos too.
Speaker 4 (01:00:31):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Oh yeah, so yeah, everybody's getting in shape for these shows.
You got to work off the beer gut?
Speaker 4 (01:00:36):
Does it come with your zeppatide.
Speaker 5 (01:00:40):
What it is?
Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
All right, I was getting ripped.
Speaker 4 (01:00:50):
I'm just hoping that it came with a dose of
ozembic for for myself.
Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
That's that's where we're building muscles.
Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
There we go, all right, we're not just losing weight.
Speaker 4 (01:00:59):
We're building not just losing weight.
Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
We're all going to come out of these shows looking
like the singer of is that Harm's way, the guy
who's just Jack.
Speaker 4 (01:01:07):
I would rather come out looking like like Tim on Bisis.
Speaker 5 (01:01:13):
Dude's ripped.
Speaker 4 (01:01:15):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
That's one way to.
Speaker 4 (01:01:21):
That is one way to describe it there.
Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
There might be other ways, but that is one way.
I love it. Well. As long as long as we
can avoid murdering or trying to murder somebody, you know that,
it sounds like a really great plan for you all.
Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
Yeah, yeah, well we'll steer clear that.
Speaker 4 (01:01:40):
Yeah, or abusing your wife in any kind of way verbally.
Speaker 3 (01:01:43):
Or or a dog or yeah, anybody in your band.
Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
So, so is this is the plan for for this
to become like the next like P ninety x kind
of situation ideally.
Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Kind of like a CrossFit.
Speaker 5 (01:01:57):
Vibe I'm sorry, or kids like army audience isn't like
you know it's.
Speaker 4 (01:02:05):
It's Yeah, I kind of like the I kind of
like the idea of like it being for normies too, though,
you know, like you're you're you're trying to grow the
scene by creating creating this in a way that that's
going to you know, get like the I like the
(01:02:26):
mom who wants to be rebellious but like can't, and
like this is like her time to like make her
feel like she's a part of a scene and and
gonna be rebellious in some sort of there.
Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
Yeah, I think that might require Turnstile to be involved,
but somebody much than us.
Speaker 4 (01:02:46):
Yeah, turns out might need to be involved in general,
just because those dudes are all ripped and and the
gallas ripped to I can't remember her name.
Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
Right now, but yeah, she's from Britain.
Speaker 4 (01:02:55):
Yeah she looks very nice.
Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Yeah, so up, all right, Well, I'm excited to work
out to a little still remains uh me too. You know,
you know I've been I've been doing a little bit
more working out myself, and I know Colin has been
for a little while, and god, I could use a
little still remains in my my rotation.
Speaker 4 (01:03:17):
It is in my rotation right now, So but I
do need I do need your face to help motivate
me as well.
Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
So I want to make sure all of my hairs
on my body look like.
Speaker 4 (01:03:29):
That would be like a Dragon ball Z commercial.
Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
All right, well a j Jordan, thank you so much
for chatting. We're super excited, uh to see you guys
at Furness Fast. Colin and I will be there. I
don't know, I don't know if that was not much clear,
but hell yeah, we will be there. We'll make sure
we give you guys a big hug and uh and
say hi and so we're just really excited and so yeah,
for those who are listening, if you have not yet,
please get some Furns Fest tickets so you can go
(01:04:04):
watch Still Remains and plenty of other incredible bands. So
thanks so much for chatting with us, guys, and we
look forward to the new music and look forward to
seeing you guys soon.
Speaker 5 (01:04:14):
Cheers, Thanks you guys.
Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Hell yeah,
Slap for God.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Why today we've got a j and Jordan from Still
(00:33):
Remains super excited to chat with you guys. You know
we're joking about this a little bit before we started recording.
But I gotta say, when I think of metalcore bands
from Grand Rapids, and knowing enough about Grand Rapids, like
Colin and I grew up in the evangelical world, I'm
pretty pretty aware of, you know, the the meccas of evangelicalism,
(00:54):
like Colorado Springs is another one.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I will say when I think of like bands from
Grand Rapids, and I just immediately assume like Christian bands,
and then I assume you're you hear like a metalcore band.
All of a sudden, I think of like, oh, it's
gotta be a Christian metalcore band, but somehow Still Remains
is not a Christian metalcore band. But somehow there's a
(01:17):
similar band that sounds very similar to your guys's name
that is called All That Remains. And so for years
I've just assumed you guys were the same band, and
then just now realized, probably like a few weeks ago,
I was like, wait, different, not the exact same band,
This is two different bands, Like I don't know. I know,
(01:40):
I know it's not a the Nelson Mandela effect, but
it's got to be something like that where I just
for all these years thought you guys were the same
band and then just realized, Nope, there's actually two different bands.
One that's called Still Remains and is called I believe they.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Call that not the Mandela effect but stupidity.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Well, as I like to say, I am from South Dakota,
so there is a very great likelihood that that's the case.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
I'll take living under a rock syndrome.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
There we go, right, that's right. Well, with all that said, though,
you know, I'm sure you guys have fun stories about
being misidentified as All That Remains. But before we dive
into some of those fun stories, how are you guys
doing today? Are doing and doing?
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Jordan good? I? Uh, sunburned? I'm just much color?
Speaker 4 (02:32):
What are you sunburned from? Oh?
Speaker 5 (02:33):
Dude, I spent on the four hours yesterday in a
pool and I'm usually the guy that always stays in
the shade. I hate going outside. But I was even
texting with mor Is.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
The is the Grand Rapids Pool Lake, Superior.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Lake, Michigan.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Almost a lot of right, you guys are closer to
Lake Michigan than you are of Lake Superior, aren't you.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
Oh yeah no? But I was even texting on the
side of the AJ like way to I spent. I
haven't done an interview in six months and did the
day before this one. I happened to give about two
hours set your sunlight.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Hey wow, I tell you what did that interview? Did
that interview misidentify you as all that remains?
Speaker 5 (03:14):
Actually? Yes, no, what's the best one? But once we
played a show in France and it's on the broad
Rage tour and our dressing room they thought our band
name was song ramanes So and g hell yeah raman So.
We shout up to our dressing room and were like
(03:35):
song Raman all right.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
That's a way better name. Oh yeah, yeah, let's You
should have rolled with that. You should have been like,
this is our name now. Sorry to shoot on your
name so much in this first little bit, dude, I
blame Mason entirely.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
No, It's funny because over the years people have always asked, like,
you know, what's what's your band name mean? The doesn't
mean anything. We were I think TJ and I were
seventeen six eighteen when we came up with it, and
it was literally just trying to find a name that
sounds cool and it doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Well, here's the question. Then, who was first? Still remains
or all that.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
Remains I think on paper, all that remains was but.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
You guys just you guys just looked at their paper
and yeah, exactly, we're going to follow.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
At that time, the only bands like I was listening
to was either Swedish metal or I don't know Zao
so hell. Yeah, as great of a band as they are,
we'd never we had never heard of them.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Never heard of them.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
We we make fun of our our friends at my
Epic for their song title or threat for their band
title as well, because at that time when my Epic
was kind of started, as when every one started calling
everything epic. I don't know if you guys remember that
timeframe is.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Like a very millennial kind of term.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Yeah, it was like two thousand and six through twenty twelve.
Everything was epic. Yeah, yeah, and so it sounded like
a trendy name.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
Same it brutal, that's like that's my word. Yeah, yeah,
if it's good, it's brutal. If it's bad, it's.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Brutal, or if it's or if it's really cool, it's
double brutal.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You know. I I I like I want to say,
like I have some empathy for you all, Like you
mentioned like you're like, what's seventeen eighteen years old when
you're coming up with a band name? Like imagine like
all the other decisions you made at seventeen eighteen years old,
and like all most of those decisions, right, like have
no consequence on your life at this point. Right, maybe
(05:46):
some of them do, but like maybe the one that
has the most consequence on your life right now is
the band name for the band that you're still in
and the band that you're still playing shows and making,
you know, music, and like like you don't, like, you know,
when you're seventeen eighteen years old, you don't realize like, oh,
this is gonna be a thing twenty years, twenty five
(06:08):
years down the road, and here you are, like you're
still having to pay the consequence of and again, like
that could be a good consequence or a bad consequence
or or nothing. You know, it's a neutral but like
it it's still like a thing where it's like I
made that decision at eighteen years old, and I still
have to like whether it's a good, bad, or neutral consequence.
You still have to like figure that out.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
The band before or TJ in my band before Still
Remains was called Shades of Amber. I'm just oh, yes,
I'm glad that was buried. Per said.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
I feel like every music scene in every like major
city or minor city had a band that was shades
of something, right, yes, like my home, are you guys
like that?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Were you guys like a butt rock band?
Speaker 5 (06:51):
No? No, we were kids trying to play metal cores.
We didn't even know metal corp.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Was it sounds like a butt rock it does sound
like Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
In our in Mason and I his hometown, it was
Shades of Air. The yeah, they're they're actually good. The
YouTube's oh I'm sure they are. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
That was back in the day when you could actually
name a band like they're every name possible is taken. No, yeah,
Like I couldn't imagine having to name a band today.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
It seems do you guys think about this though, Like
do you think about, like, all right, if you were
like do a solo project or whatever, Like, have you
thought about a band name again? Do you like, do
you have a list like just ready readily available to
just like have.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
A band, not whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I've never Colin Colin thinks about this at all. He's
got a whole list.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
The most useless thing in the world.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
Start the initial ideas to writing a song, if it's.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Or if it's a J and I or whoever, a list.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
My song titles are absolutely hainous.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
You guys going to get canceled for it.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
We can't.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
People would just really they're just like cringey or what just.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
They're usually just random yeah, random.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Yeah, random is good, though random.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Is slightly vulgar little mostly random.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Vulgar and random, those are those are two fun combos,
you know. I guess I always thought that that story
Remains was a connotation to no type of pilots because
they got a song called Still.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
Yeah it wasn't. I didn't even know of that song
title until late two thousands. My guy into TP. Sure
but sure enough when you google the band or if
you search, they're.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Just messing up our se Oh yeah, exactly, f.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Scott, you need more of those guys to die.
Speaker 5 (09:02):
If you can't laugh about you can't laugh about everything.
You can't laugh about anything.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Right, that's true. That is that is absolutely true. Yeah,
well good, Well let's let's kind of talk about how
about how you guys got started as a band in general,
maybe your personal journeys before the band, even where did
everything start for each of you?
Speaker 5 (09:24):
Oddly enough, there was this little festival. Since I think
you guys will know what it is is Cornerstone Festival.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
We actually it was funny. Colin and I actually never went,
but I bet I've watched more Cornerstone Festival footage than
most Cornerstone Festival goers.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Gotcha, we're even that even attended.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Yes, so TJ the vocalist of Still Remains, and Zach
the keyboard player. We all went with a bunch of
people from West Michigan and we started a band called
Shades of Amber while we were at Cornerstone. I remember
my mom drove me. I was fourteen or fifteen years old,
(10:06):
and I'll never forget when the car pool if I
rolled on my window and asked Sack, I'm like, hey, dude,
I heard you play drums. You want to start a band?
And from that we started again Shades of Amber.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Wait, were you guys next to each other in the.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
Hog in the festival drums No, yeah, wed No. So
from that, from that we started Shades of Amber. Shades
Amber fell apart for we were just kids, just we
wanted to do something different.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
The name had nothing to do with it, and what
the name had nothing to do with it?
Speaker 5 (10:44):
No, I did not. It should have though.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
It was creative differences. We get it.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Creative difference. So it's Jades of Amber breaks up and
out of birth still remains. Oh yeah, and Aj wasn't
quite in the band yet when we first started. He
was in a little band while dissonant.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Yeah, and so we we did you say the play
around do you say, oh, yeah, speaking of terrible old
band news that sounds super heavy, that sounds like a
band that's going to rip my fucking face off.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
That was the goal and we have we we pulled
it off in a you know, two thousand and one
kind of was new metal trying to be metal core
a way. Okay, yeah, but we we played a lot
of shows with Stormains just around town kind of in
the in the Michigan area.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Yeah, So it was it was kind of an awkward
thing because right right when we were offered our deal
from Roadrunner, we had a couple of members quick because
I think they realized how full time of a thing
it was going to become. And then we were kind
of parentoid about who to ask because we didn't want
to ask someone to join the band because we were
(11:56):
about at that at that time, I was nineteen years
old and to get signed to a major label. Oh,
I made it a millionaire. Right, Like, we were were
parento about asking people to join the band simply because
we got a record deal. So we called AJ. And
this is two thousand and four.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Right a, yeah, like early summer two thousand and four.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Yeah, So we called AJ and asked me if he
wanted to play with us, and we didn't tell him
anything about the record deal or that we were about
to chip off to Vancouver for three months.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
And except it was very obvious. Yes, we got to
go on a meeting for the weekend with our manager
and we can't tell you what we're doing, but that's
going to be gone for a couple of days.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
This sounds like one of those deals where like there's
like some guy who makes a ton of money who's
trying to hide it so he can start dating a
girl who will love him for him and not for
the money. That's what you guys are making it sound.
And it's yeah, like a.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
Movie were a kid. But I'll never forget when.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
We'll try to be responsible, bro, I'll.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
Never forget when he finally said, yeah, I'd love to
join the band. We're all right. We got a five
record deal with a Broadrunner five records. But yeah, no,
it was it was fake to be mister a J.
I call him funky in the band.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Fun Get why fun is it because he lays it
down well or what.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
It's not because of his guitar playing.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
No, there's a long evolution of my nicknames.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
It's multiple.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Well, it's because of the way he makes the bus spell.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
It started so a J to age to quage to
Q to q funk. Now it's funky. I think that's
how it went.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
That's how I rolled.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
There's like a whole evolution.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
It sounds like an etymology of like John from like
way way back in like Arabaic, it turns into John Samouth.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
That's how language has developed. Yeah, there's a lot. There's
a lot of things too.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
But yeah, there is something to be said about like
I mean, let's be honest, like if you have a
nickname that people consistently call you like that to me
feels like an honor. Like I've always wanted a nickname,
like Colin will sometimes call me Mace, but Mace has
like never developed into a whole other nickname onto itself.
(14:40):
So like if you have a nickname and then it
develops into a nickname onto itself, like that's a whole
other thing.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Sometimes I call you Masonic Temple like that.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Last time, but that's never caught on it by anything.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
So what was the Masonic Temple? We played at Agent's Portland.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I've played a few. They're always so creepy.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It was, yeah, and you can only go into certain spaces.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
I'm sure we were. I played in one in Toledo
before story means. I think it was with this on it.
And we went creeping around like in the places you're
not supposed to be. And we went down to the
basement and there was a bank vault door and we
opened the bank vault door and it was this massive.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Concrete How did you get into it?
Speaker 5 (15:23):
Like?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
It didn't have a lot, it was open.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
This is like a it was a defunct.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
They forgot the code fifty years ago.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
There was like George Washington's remains.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
There was no ship. There was a Dennis chair bolted
to the ground in the middle of.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
Oh oh my god, no way were there any robes?
Were there any robes?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
It was completely empty. I mean the thing had been
abandoned for you know, probably thirty years at that point.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Oh imagine if you would have heard of like a
voice that was like help.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
And was around wild What a cool deal though?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Yeah, they are all creepy though, even like the you
weer ones are even creepy, which is kind of strange. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
I live really close to one and I there's like
no windows even. I'm like, this is not the kind
of building I want to be in.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Yeah, so Agent, how did how did you end up
in the band?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Then?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
I think literally Jordan just called me one night. I
actually I had left this in it. I was getting
ready to move back to California. I lived in California
for a little bit with some family, and I was
about to move back there and kind of not sure
what I was about to do. And Jordan called me
one night. He was like, Hey, just quit the band.
Do you want to come jam? I was like, Wow,
(16:37):
that's really weird timing kind of in the middle of
things right now.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
But yeah, sure, So it was just it was just
boom boom, We're in and then you and then they
broke the news to you that you were going to
be in it for the long haul. Yeah, a five
record deal, but yet five records are not going to
come out spoiler alert everybody, No, no, no, so give us,
(17:01):
give us their journey here? What what? How did things
proceed from there?
Speaker 3 (17:05):
I say, we just started practicing every day. It was
I think the first song I Love let Me See
TI Live and Die by Fire was written before I
technically joined. It was like, hey, let's jam on something new,
and I think we wrote that. And it was shortly
after that that I got in the band. And we
practice at Jordan's parents house every day like a job.
(17:26):
I mean it was starting at ten and we go
to four or whatever, and we just write songs every
single when.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
They were away at work. Right.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
Yeah, we practiced there like till the end. Yeah, damn
adults and practicing parents house.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
If it's free, you know, it's.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
A good spot to jam.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
And for what we were making, we needed free.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah. I want to say we just most of the
summer of two thousand and four, it was usually music
and Jordan just every day in there, right, and we
write thirteen songs, well two are on No Piece, so eleven.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
So I love.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I love asking bands this, you know, but especially bands
that you know have like a legacy like still remains
to us. You mentioned like you know you're you're jamming
at you know, parents house. I would imagine at some
point parents are like, Okay, this is our Like, we
love our child, We're going to support our child in
(18:32):
all of our child's dreams, and we also recognize that
our child's dreams might not be the dreams that we have.
For our child to be able to make money and
have a life, that would mean that our child moves
out of the house. And so like there must have
been a point though, where it was like hey, mom
(18:53):
and dad, like this isn't just like a like this
is this isn't like a high school band where I'm
just like trying to make some music and you know,
just have some fun. Like this is actually like a
legitimate way that I'm going to pay some bills. Like
at what point, like was it in that first album
that it felt like that was it right before? Was
it right? After like at some point it must have
(19:13):
felt like, oh, this is like just how I'm gonna
make money at least for the time being. Yeah, that
had to have been.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
Honestly, probably when we flew out to New York and
toured the road in our office and it felt like,
I mean we were going to be set for life.
I mean, you guys talked to so many bands. The
music the music industry is rough man, there's there's it's
so hard to make money. We would do, we would do.
I feel like that. I mean, my parents were they
(19:40):
were so supportive. They would if I wanted to live
on sleep on their couch and play guitar down the road,
they'd still let me do it, you know. But I mean,
it's just it's so hard to make money in this industry.
I'll never forget we played Tokyo. We played in Tokyo
and I can't remember how much we got paid, but
(20:02):
you know it was it was a lot of money.
But I went home with five hundred bucks, you know
it was. It's just a it's a rough industry, that's
I mean, that's why Storremins is doing what we do now,
and we just are doing one for the fun of it,
like any money we make, any money, Like we did
(20:23):
a kickstarter back in the day for our last record,
we didn't take a single son of that home, even like, yeah,
we're coming straight back into the band. I haven't gotten
a paycheck from Stormmains and I don't know the actual
band fifteen years. But that's I'm saying that in a
positive way, like we do it one percent for the
fun of it, and there were privileged that people actually
(20:45):
still follow it and listen to our music. It kind
of blows my mind, even like I grew up buying
and reading HM magazine, and it's just it's just wild
to me that people are still interested in us tinkering
around in our basements and writing music.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
It's yeah, so much of that is surprising to me
because when you guys were coming up, it was kind
of a new frontier, new explosion of the scene, and
it was kind of like, Hey, this is kind of
something that could be popular or could be sustaining for
us if we hit hard enough, or if we if
(21:26):
we can tour with the right people, or if we
can get in with the right the right bands or
the right management. And that was kind of like the
conversation going on at the time, Did you guys feel
any of that?
Speaker 5 (21:39):
Always? Yeah, I mean did you.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Know did you know that you were in it? As
well as what I should ask? Oh?
Speaker 3 (21:46):
No, I don't think you recognized that the bands we
were touring with would end up so important. Sure, like Trivia,
Bullet from my Valentine. You know, these kind of bands
we were playing, you know, little mini club shows with
these guys. We played Bullet opened. Actually Bullet played before
us on their very first US tour. It was actually
in the dies to the headliner, and then we were
(22:07):
direct support. And then Bullet was before us. I think
there was even another band before us, and then Bullet
was before that.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Oh yeah, but it took.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah, I don't think those those tours never thought seemed
to us like they were going to be that consequential.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
No, it took me probably five to ten years after
we broke up to realize like the impact that our
music had on people. I don't say that in a
boastful way, because I hate coming across like that that
it lived and that oh, like, these songs actually mean
things to people, whether it's the lyrics of the music
or whatever they were going through. When they first bought
(22:43):
the record. During the process, it always felt like, oh, well,
the next tour, the next tour could be the one,
the next album is going to be the one, the
next tour is going to be the one. And I
think that's just being a child, and I think that's
I keep talking about money, and back then I was
so not money driven. I'm not now in my life.
(23:06):
It's but for some reason we just kept pushing. I
think I think what really killed Stillerman's ultimately the first
time around was how hard we toured. We just toured
non stopped, and then for some reason we always just
had this mindset like the next tour or whatever is
(23:26):
gonna make the bandon, I think ultimately burns out.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, it might not be like some sort of like
direct like all right, if we just like do this,
it will be this amount of money or this many
people in the crowd or whatever it is, Like it's
just like it, I'm sure, like when you're nineteen twenty
twenty one years old, it's just like, if we just
do this, it will just be bigger, like whatever bigger is,
(23:52):
like it's just generally bigger. But like, but you don't
have like a like a physical or you don't have
like an exact sense. I'm like, what that exact actly means.
It's just that could mean ticket sales, it could be
album sales, it could be whatever. But like it's just
something about like if we just work harder, it could
be bigger.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
Yeah, I think I think mainly on ticket sales. I
mean that's really the only thing that drove us.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
We just wanted to play good shows. Yeah, and playing
so many bad shows for so long. Where's you out
after a while?
Speaker 5 (24:22):
Yeah? What was rough on us was we did so
well in Australia, Japan, and Europe, the United Kingdom, but
then we come back to the States where you know,
we'd play a show. Oh, the day before we flew
to Tokyo or Japan, we played in Bakersfield, California, for
fifteen people, and then four days later we're in Tokyo
(24:45):
playing for twenty two thousand.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Jeez, what do you what do you think that is? Like?
What is it about internationally? Because I mean there's some
like metal bands that do obviously really well in the
States they're from the States or whatever. Then there's some
bands that just do really well in Europe. Like, so
what I feel like I bring them up a lot.
But one of Colin and I's favorite bands ever, it's
called The Chariot. I don't know if you guys ever
listened to the Chariot or not, but they like if
(25:09):
they ever went to Europe, especially Eastern Europe, they would
sell shows and those shows were unbelievable. And so what
is it about some of these bands that, like, I mean,
some of those shows in Eastern Europe probably would do
better than when whenever they played in America? So like
what is it about some bands? And it sounds like
(25:30):
for you guys this was the case, Like why is
it that, like even though you're from America, I mean,
like you're from the heart of America, like Michigan, But like,
what is it about like going to even Tokyo or
Europe or wherever like that? It's just like it brings
something out out of certain people, Like do you have
like a sense now, especially looking back, like what happened
with that? Like why is that the case?
Speaker 3 (25:53):
I think maybe it's kind of rooted in certain bands influences.
Maybe like we, you know, we drew very heavy influence
from a lot of like the euro bands like Inflames,
soil work, that kind of thing, and incorporated that into
metal cores, which apparently was a new thing. Like to us,
we were just playing, you know, trying to rip off
(26:13):
in flames and put some breakdowns on it because that's
what we what we knew we were borrowing.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
That's a good good band to borrow from, I would
I would.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Argue, yeah, yeah, but I think that that euro influences
kind of resonated over there earlier than it has resonated here.
So I like it was like day one, the first
day of our first UK tour, and you know, people
were following us to lunch, everybody in the crowds singing
(26:45):
our songs. Instantly, it was yeah, it was just instantly,
so different than the US.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Still, yeah, yeah, it was weird. It was weird because
suddenly we landed and people cared. And we love our
fans in the States, so I don't want to it's
just certain cities that there's this States. It's such a
huge market.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
It's a huge place.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
I mean, yeah, it would what there's an eight week
week run in the States and not hit every market. Yeah,
so have we'd have shows that would sell out in
La or on the East coast or in Texas, but
in between we'd be planned for thirty forty people. Yeah,
(27:29):
which is some reason why, like now fans even talk
to us, like why do you guys only tour in
the UK. It's like, well, we sell those shows out and.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
And you can cover the country in a week a
week and a half for sure. Eight Yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
And unfortunately, if we toured the States, we'd just we'd
be paying out a pocket for it all.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
Yeah. When I was in tenth grade, I had a
German for an exchange student, and he gave me every
single song that you guys had ever made up until
that point.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
It's awesome, and it was.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
It was great. I was. I was blown away because
he liked a lot of music that I didn't like
but still remains and in Flames was there were Those
were the two discographies that I got from him. So sorry.
I never have paid for any any bit of your music,
but I have. I have been a listener for a
(28:24):
long time. I'm sure most people didn't, but I have
been a listener for a long time. But I did
feel like your I did feel like you guys almost
weren't even an American band because you were always in
that same context of bands like Inflames and things like that,
or or even oh there's one other band I'm thinking
(28:44):
of that kind of falls in the same kind of category.
But I'm not It's not on my tip of my
tongue right now. I'll think about it later, I'm sure.
Do you feel like that has been a conversation that's
continued after not now that you guys are coming back
a little bit here.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
And we just had I just had someone I saw
somewhere on social someone commented saying they didn't even know
we were from Michigan. How Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, yeah,
I mean not really. I mean we're pretty much known
as you know, being banned from the States. But it's
(29:28):
more just the comments from fans and why don't you
ever tour? Why don't you come to Ohio? Why didn't
come to La Why didn't come to Florida?
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Well, we'd love to if we Yeah, if we had
unlimited time.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
Yeah, that's one of the resources all of us now
we have careers. Yeah, so getting away for six weeks
is literally impossible. It's ten days at a time. Even
that's rough.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Even that's hard to do.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Sure, I mean, I mean there's got to be a
benefit to the fact that they If you wanted to
travel around the United State dates, that costs money for
you guys. But if you want to go to Europe,
you got an all expense yeah, paid for That's nice.
That's kind of nice. Let's be honest. That's kind of nice.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
Yeah, our tour our tour coming up in November twentieth
or twenty second, twenty first time there. Wow, Yeah, I
love it more.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
I mean, if I got paid to go to Europe
and it you know it actually they you know, actually
makes a little bit money for me, that that'd be
awfully nice versus just going around the US just to
break even.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Yeah, so let's ask that, what is your favorite place
in Europe to play?
Speaker 5 (30:40):
That's rough and you can.
Speaker 4 (30:44):
You can be biased in Paris.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
In Paris, yeah, my favorite place to play. Oh gosh,
King Touched in Glasgow, Scotland.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
That we've heard about King Touch so many times. I
love that.
Speaker 5 (30:59):
Yeah, it's it's a really cool venue.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Magua got their start, sorry Magua the band. That's where
they got their start and they kind of are known.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
I believe believe the Oasis like got their start too.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
I wouldn't I wouldn't doubt it.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
Don't quote me on that. Well, I'm on video. Shoot now,
I'm gonna look at quote a cool venue and it's
like a two hundred and fifty cap room. But those
are the funnest to play. You know. We've played stadiums,
We've played five thousand capacity shows, and the best shows
are when there's one hundred and fifty people, two hundred
and fifty people stuffed into a small room, the terrible
(31:37):
PA system. The crowd is louder than the band.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Yeah, yep, but.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
Shout out to King Tut's are we playing there? The
front A.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
No, No, we're not playing cat House.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
So here's a question. Surprisingly, we've never actually asked any
band that I know of, Mason. Maybe we have, but
I don't think we have. How does the festival experience
and differ from the billing or or ven you experience.
Speaker 5 (32:07):
I get stressed out playing festivals really, Okay, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Generally the setup is just kind of so everything is
so unknown going into it. Everything feels kind of rushed
and unfamiliar.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yeah, because you almost have to do like soundcheck like
in the moment right like you're not doing that beforehand.
So that's gotta be a yeah factor. I'm sure there's
other factors, but that's got to be one of the
factors that I as a observer. Again, Colin and I
have never been in bands, but that's like the first
thing I think of.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it's just plugin and play. Hopefully
everything sounds okay, and you rely.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
On hopefully hopefully everything works.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
Yeah, roll the drum set in. Is my guitar working
if there's Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong, the
crowds at festivals are just ballistic. They're great. They're always
fun shows, especially back in the day playing Cornerstone in
the tents, but the setup is.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Stressful from a sound perspective. I've thought about this before.
From a sound perspective, do you enjoy that it is
going to the outside versus like it could reverb throughout.
Speaker 5 (33:11):
A from a terrible like on stage.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Yeah, oh interesting, there's something about playing outside that's fun.
But it generally doesn't sound great.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
No, but okay, it's usually bad for all parties. But yeah,
it's a very very fun experience.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Yeah, I mean, who doesn't like going to a festival.
It's nice out, got a bunch of killer bands playing
where everyone's covered in mud.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
You can pack it in tight and just really feel
intimate with some smelly strangers next to you. Yeah, it's
a great feel.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
The sound definitely goes out and doesn't come back like
you're used to.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you do you feel excited to
be playing Furnace Fest?
Speaker 5 (33:55):
Yeah? Absolutely, yeah, we were. Actually we were still Uh
was it Chad that asked us aj?
Speaker 3 (34:03):
No, I think it's Elena.
Speaker 5 (34:05):
We were excited to be involved. It's just that this
whole scene was like so much a part of our
lives for twenty plus years, and I bet we know
half the band's playing. I can't. Yeah, I wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
I would go that far.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
This year, that's good.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Last year it is a little bit more a newerd.
It's a lot of new blood this year compared to
years past. Yeah, about a lot of still remains. It
has easily been one of the most anticipated bands that
I have seen on the list. And and initially when
you're get when you guys were on there, I was like, Okay,
all right, I'm still definitely going this year.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
That's sweet. Yeah, we we We've been asking them for
a couple of years and they finally they finally came
through this year. We're excited as.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
We were saying, what did you, how did you?
Speaker 2 (34:52):
How did you this year?
Speaker 4 (34:53):
How did you sweeten the pot?
Speaker 3 (34:55):
I think we were just more more forceful to see
We're like, hey, by the way, is twentieth your twentieth
anniversary of bubblahla unacy, Like we really want to do this?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (35:05):
Yeah, I think the anniversary. I mean it's perfect timing, honestly.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
Yeah. So are there is there anything special planned for
for that set? In particular?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
I don't think we've long enough to do the full record,
but we'll do most of the record, and I think
we'll probably play a new song.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
Hell yeah, there we go, so new song as well.
Does that mean that that fans should be anticipating some
something extra down the line? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (35:34):
Yeah, absolutely, No, we've been in studio. Is that Have
we talked about this? Aja? We really? Yeah, we've been
in studio. We're writing an EP and it's almost done.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
Good okay, So we so we we had heard about
the EP, but we had not heard if there was
more beyond the EP, because we usually EP means there's
there's more coming as well, So we weren't sure if
there was.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Album as much music as we could write. I mean
it's taken us since time to write this.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
That's pretty impressive though.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, it's our whole goal on this podcast is the
kid on like Wikipedia, to be cited on Wikipedia. So this,
this is exactly what's trying to go on right now,
Like we're trying to like where can we get on Wikipedia?
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Excellent, right now? And so if it means new music,
this is the way.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
That this is the way you do it. Yeah, And honestly,
with all of our schedules, it's it's so hard to
get together. It's so hard to like get all six
of us in the same room like last So kind
of twenty twenty three was the start of us playing more.
We played some shows with Hayes Today and Silent Planet.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Great crew be great, great great friends of the podcast
by the way, good people.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
They're great. And then we did some hometown shows like
the following spring, and it was like okay, like we're
we're back into the vibe of this. Let's let's see
if we can make some music and opening for our
hometown shows. This a band called Hall of Front and
their guitar player Lee Producers Records writes for a lot
of bands, and it just so happened that he he
(37:06):
lives here. He lives about two minutes from TJ. So
that really opened the door for us to like have
a competent local producer here because anytime we'd think about, Okay,
maybe we should write some songs. We did a lot
of recordings with Josh Schroeder when we first got back
together in like twenty eleven to twenty thirteen era. He's
on the other side of the state, and it was like, well,
if we want to go to the studio, you know,
(37:28):
we're looking at a week two weeks off work for everybody,
like when are we going to have when are we
going to do that? And with Lee, he's just been
able to kind of chip away at it and we
get in the studio a weekend here and there, you know,
when it lines up for everybody, And that's even that's
been hard to do. So the EP is like as
(37:49):
much music as we could get together in like a
reasonable time frame and not everybody wait for another two years.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
Oh yeah, it sounds so cool.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
I can't even get a weekend with my wife. I
can't imagine trying to get a weekend with a week
or two weeks with you know that sounds so incredibly difficult, it.
Speaker 5 (38:08):
Sounds cliche, but I truly feel like to the stuff
that we're writing is the best sense of love and lunacy.
I think it the most with that record.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
What makes it, what makes you feel that way.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
I think, is how much fun we're having doing it.
It's not it's not very cool. There's zero labor. It's
all love I did. Yeah, I absolutely love the songs.
There's no the motivation. It's not to even gain fans.
It's not to appease fans. It's not to get a
bigger crowd or anything. It's simply for the love of
writing music, which is just what which is exactly why
(38:44):
I think of Love and Lunacy. Well, it's my favorite
record that we personally have done. Is it's just your
kids writing music having fun. And now I just turned
forty and I'm back to where I was when I
was nineteen.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
Love that. That's got to be a very cool feeling
to try to recapture in that moment.
Speaker 5 (39:04):
It is because I, honestly I had I went through
a couple of years where I didn't enjoy going to concerts.
I think it's tourings. I was burnout. I didn't enjoy
going to concerts, I didn't enjoy listening to full records.
But even within the past like three to four years,
like I feel that fire again. Maybe you know what
(39:26):
it is. It's midlife crisis.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
You forgot how the sausage is made, That's it.
Speaker 5 (39:31):
Yeah, but no, I'm so excited for people to hear
these songs. And you know what, if you guys just
hear them, If ten thousand, one hundred thousand people hear them, great,
But either way, it's just fun to be writ in
records with the guys.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
Hell yeah, yeah, I love that is there is there
anything special with this EP that you guys have planned
that you are like, oh my gosh, I can't wait
till everyone hears this. In particular, there's guess.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
The spot, but that hasn't been announced yet, so we're gonna, yeah,
that'll be cool. It hasn't happened, how it hasn't been required,
so we can't announce it yet just in case it
doesn't happen. It'll happen.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Yeah, But I think we just tried to write five
just cool songs. There's really not like a a theme
to them. Overall, I think lyrically they're kind of connected,
but musically we didn't try to be like this sound
or this sound. I think overall it's kind of just
it's like five bangers.
Speaker 5 (40:35):
Yeah, it kind.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Of sounds like still Remains, but a little bit updated. Yeah,
there's one there's one song that's kind of even hard
style influence that Zach wrote, so kind of showing off
a different side of the band. It's more keyboard, almost
techno driven, but that's only for part of it. Something
that's he's always kind of pushed. But it was cool
to kind of explore that. Very cool, and I think
(40:59):
that's that's everybody's favorite song, even though it's like the
most different song. I love that it's still very heavy.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
I know Mason and I in particular, we appreciate whatever
variety and spice can be brought to the table. Yeah,
And I think what's interesting about Story Remains is you
guys kind of got out right as things got pretty
meager and pretty disgusting in the scene in general, and
by discussing, I mean like everyone was just copying everyone
(41:28):
doing the exact same thing for about five to eight years,
and then things started picking up, people started coming together
and making new things that were actually interesting again. And
I know for Mason and I we had a reinvigoration
(41:49):
and a reintroduction to the scene.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
To a certain extent, it's like a whole renaissance for
it last for us. I mean, I don't know if
it's like generally that's.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
I kind of similar kind of lost interests in the
genre as a whole. And yeah, now you're starting to
get some new like newer and exciting bands or in
the past, you know, maybe five years.
Speaker 4 (42:07):
Ten Yeah, last five five to ten years. Yeah, you've
nailed it. And I think that I think what's interesting
is a lot of times it's the bands from that
two thousand and one to two thousand and ten to
twelve era that are actually coming back and making new
(42:29):
music that is the most exciting stuff because it has
that older kind of flavor that is reminiscent of a
time when it seemed like a scene that was a
little more serious, but also bringing in modern influences that
are not distasteful. They are intriguing, and they are with
(42:54):
greater musicianship because you guys have developed so much more, right,
I mean, you were you had back then you had youth,
you had the zest and zeal for life, and now
today you're technically more talented, you have life experience under
your belt. You're the things that you're discussing in the
music itself is maybe a little more nuance, a little
(43:15):
more introspective and less retrospective. So I'm very very excited
for it, and I'm I expect this is going to
be an extremely highly anticipated from you guys.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
So that's cool. Yeah, we hope. So, I mean, the
whole reason we do this, I think, is you know,
A for fun and b we hope, we hope other
people like it.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
Yeah, I doubt that's going to be an issue. Yea,
hopefully not just from your European friends.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
We want we want everybody. Yeah, so we want to
be able to play more shows here and you know
we want to have a reason to do that. Oh yeah,
so we need we need more people to pay attention.
Speaker 4 (43:54):
Do you feel like do you feel like some people
have like discovered you late, like well passed the time
frame that they should have.
Speaker 5 (44:05):
From socials and seeing comments yes, like okay, comments saying
like first time hearing you. Obviously we don't play shows
that often, so we don't have that many interactions in person,
but right, just weird.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
I think a lot of yeah, even just a lot
of finding our old fans. Like you know, technically we
broke up in two thousand and eight and we got
back together to twenty eleven. We've been back together ever since. Yeah,
but people still I didn't know you guys are.
Speaker 5 (44:35):
A band well back together but hardly active. Truth.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Yeah, we don't. We don't do much. No, I mean,
we're not like a broken up band more like our
group chat is back together.
Speaker 4 (44:45):
Yeah, it probably feels more together for you guys than
it does for the fans.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Yeah, quite possibly, And I think, yeah, the biggest challenge
has just been like finding finding those old fans again.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Yeah, yeah, it's huge saying yeah yeah, I mean, like honestly,
a lot of that is like, you know, just like
from a social media perspective, like that social media landscape
when you guys were for you know, MySpace, maybe even
before that. I mean, you guys were even pretty active
before my Space stuff. So it's like, how do you
how do you find those fans that were like literally
(45:19):
at this point, like two social media platforms of generations
that you know, have since passed. Like that's that's the
whole thing to navigate like that that I can't even
imagine what that would have been like like I'm trying
to think like like an influencer from two thousand and
one or to get.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
It, okay, Jesus, but.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Like think like literally think of like the social media
like like think of the people who are like social
media people, not like not people that were on TV,
but like social media people that people, Yeah, what whatever
that would have even been. Like I feel like that
the snail mail people. I don't even know what that.
Speaker 5 (46:01):
That one social media person I remember. I remember Jeffrey
Star was like in the scene Jeffree Star Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yeah, but that's like that's even like kind of yeah
right around. But like imagine like that and like having
to then like figure out what the next thing is
if you wanted to restart a thing like that's a
it's a real thing and I can't even imagine like
what that would have been like. But my goodness, that's
that's a lot of work. Like credit for you guys
for like trying to do that work, because that's like truly,
(46:28):
it's a real thing and I can't even imagine it.
Speaker 5 (46:32):
It works.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Yeah, we try and yeah it works not very well,
but you know we put our best foot forward and
you know that's that's all we can do. And that's fine.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
But the thing is is like that that's gonna be
the case, Like there's gonna be some band that like
does well twenty years from now that was like, well
we were doing the TikTok thing and it never really
happened or whatever, and like, I don't like that. That's
gonna be a thing like every generation is gonna have that.
But god, like that's like but again, like to your credit,
like you're working hard, like you're doing what you love,
(47:04):
and that's like that's what we have to respect everybody for,
Like you do what you love and you made some
music that really for a lot of people, like this
was really important, and like I mean that that's gonna
be count for something, right.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
Yeah, that's I mean, that's very cool. It's it's so
cool to see like we're just some random band and
people still care about it twenty years later, Like oh yeah,
some people very deeply, And that's that's very humbling.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yeah, that's I mean, I mean, that's.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
That's the coolest thing about being involved in this band.
Speaker 4 (47:34):
Really, I have one last thing to ask before we
move on to the top three most influential albums from
you two, and it is this, so roughly, how close
an age are you guys? I should ask that.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
First two years, two and a half years?
Speaker 5 (47:52):
Yeah, yeah, all.
Speaker 4 (47:57):
Right, I'm just curious because you got looks so completely
different in age. Jordan Fee, I feel like you might
be stealing blood from babies or something like that.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
AJ.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
I feel like you've spent like the last like twenty
years in like an indie rock band, and I'm like
really learning, like becoming like a like a Somalia or
something like that as well.
Speaker 5 (48:21):
Well, mister A just has that what do they call that?
What's that gray look? AJ?
Speaker 3 (48:26):
Silver fox fox Fuck.
Speaker 4 (48:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
I was about to say, like Colin, that's funny you
think that Jordan looks like the the indie rock band,
where I think AJ looks like he could be like
the the drum tech for Death Captin.
Speaker 5 (48:41):
No, It's it's so funny. It is like I always
I've always attributed like not getting gray to not having kids.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
That does since I got kid, you're like a nun
that's like, yes, exactly, non none say the same.
Speaker 5 (48:58):
From my wife and I we you know, watch our
YouTube videos and relax. And then it's eleven o'clock. It's like, which,
I guess we should go to bed and relax more tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
I'm crazy.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
Is this your way of saying that AJ has like
five kids? I got to but you look like you have.
Speaker 5 (49:17):
To, mister silver Fox. You started, uh, I was going
great pretty early, developing that look in what twenty twenty one,
that gorgeous look.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Oh no, wait before that raw?
Speaker 4 (49:32):
Do you mean the age age twenty one or the
year twenty twenty one age?
Speaker 3 (49:37):
Oh no, not that early. I was going great, probably
by the time I was thirty, like mid thirties, and
then it's kind of accelerated a bit, but it's a
I'll deal with it. People in the street most of
the time.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
It's sexy. Right now.
Speaker 4 (49:55):
I think you could. I think you could walk into
MPR studios and demand your OW radio show right now.
Speaker 5 (50:02):
The question I'm to know what you don't have to answer?
Is it gray everywhere? You don't know? Don't don't answer
that question that.
Speaker 3 (50:18):
You can see my beard.
Speaker 4 (50:20):
Yeah, that's not the he's talking about your toe hair.
Not this great.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
That's not great.
Speaker 4 (50:32):
Silver it is silver. That that is true. That is true.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
It's like when when you wipe what comes off.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
My god, you assume those are deep dark black.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Oh wow, all right, so I have hees. Differently, I
have such a.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
Terrible image in my head.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
I know.
Speaker 4 (50:53):
Oh, all right, top three most influential records from we're
not cutting that, by the way, We're definitely not.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
I mean at least two of mine. Huh, all right,
well should.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
I should mention a different record? Influential does not mean
your most favorite?
Speaker 5 (51:16):
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, So I would say my first favorite
and most influential record on new music is Ran said
I'll Come to the Wolves, the very first album that
like sparked something inside my body, Like I felt that record.
I grew up listening to music. But for some reason,
like every time I throw that record on, I get
(51:37):
chills on my spine. Still I can sing every single
lyric off of it. Obviously, way different than a lot
of Let's tell you, j.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Oh, I want to do my my first next. We'll
go take chronological order.
Speaker 5 (51:50):
Yeah, your next, yeah, all right?
Speaker 3 (51:54):
Mine is very similar. It's no effects. I heard they
suck live. It was like the first live record kind
of compilation of all of the early no effects stuff.
I guess we both kind of grew up as like
punk kids initially. Yeah still are still one of my
favorite bands of all time.
Speaker 5 (52:11):
I just I got into No Effects like late, like
the past five years. Yeah you did, but oh wow,
that's a great record. Second for me would be Zayo
where blood and Fire brings rest. Of course, it was
the first metal concert I had attended. Shoot. I think
it had to have been two thousand, two thousand or
(52:32):
two thousand and one, so I was fifteen or sixteen
years old, you know twenty, I was fifteen, and it
just changed me. I learned so many of those rifts.
I copied or I borrowed so many of those rifts,
and then it was so weird to later become on
become like well quote unquote friends, you know, all those guys.
It was a surreal experience, but great records.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
Are you Are you hanging around at Furnace Fest long
enough to watch their set?
Speaker 5 (52:57):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (52:57):
What day did they play? The play Saturday?
Speaker 2 (53:00):
To look again, I know that they are playing.
Speaker 5 (53:05):
Yeah, it'd be very cool to see them and and
Dan guests vocals on our self released album.
Speaker 4 (53:12):
Yeah Love Dan. Yeah, he's a good dude.
Speaker 5 (53:16):
I lost touch with him, But a number two for you.
Speaker 3 (53:19):
I got two records same time frame that accomplished the
same purpose, which kind of introduced me to moving from
punk to like metal Rage against the Machine, Evil Empire
and Death Tones around the Fur where it was like,
oh my god, what is this? What is this feeling?
(53:42):
This heaviness that it was like angry and you know,
it kind of had the same attitude as punk, but
it was like, oh my god, you can be like
really it sounds as angry as it is hissed.
Speaker 5 (53:55):
Yeah, number three, that was number three to toss up,
I'm interested, what is gonna say his thirdest Inflames Colony?
Speaker 4 (54:06):
Oh yeah, it was the first that is there? That
is the correct answer.
Speaker 3 (54:11):
Yeah, I would say, I would say Oracle or Claiman.
Speaker 5 (54:14):
It's got to be Claimant.
Speaker 3 (54:17):
Oracle Claiman was the first. It was like very accessible.
Speaker 5 (54:20):
Yeah, but both of that, it's I mean without Inflames
Colony and Clayman like, I don't think still remains. Would
they still would? Yeah, like we would not sound the
way we sound, and I don't think we would have
taken the path that we did to write those songs
that eventually got up to the world.
Speaker 4 (54:40):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
Mm hmm, Yeah, when I listened to a lot of
like Inflames or even like Shihulud, Like I know, you
guys didn't mention Shilahud, but like when I think of
like some of those bands and hear some of their
early stuff from like I mean, that's a lot of
that's like mid nineties, late nineties, Like it's hard to
believe any of that stuff, like later on in the
(55:03):
two thousands would have ever existed. Like in Flames in
Chai Halud were really truly next level of influencing a
whole generation in bands of like being able to converge
hardcore kind of drumming and percussion with these really cool
metal riffs and being able to merge them in a
way that was so unique. And you get bands like
(55:24):
you know Still Remains, and you know, all these other
bands that kind of come after that. But it's it's
pretty incredible, like in Flames and both. And let's give
Shai Halud its credit too, they were they were right
there with them.
Speaker 5 (55:35):
Yeah, absolutely, yes, there you haven't top three.
Speaker 4 (55:40):
It's good, that's good. Three. Yeah, did you did you
say Claiman would be your your third then, or did
you have a different one?
Speaker 3 (55:47):
Okay, all right, good call, good call. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:53):
Yeah, it was a great album.
Speaker 4 (55:54):
I definitely hear I definitely hear each of those in
Story Remains as well. It makes total sense next to
all sense.
Speaker 3 (56:02):
Yeah, we were never that covert about covering it up.
Speaker 5 (56:05):
No, listen to White Walls and then if you listen
to the song white Walls and then compare that with
Colinie and clay Man, it's like, oh.
Speaker 3 (56:15):
Oh, there's put breakdowns and some keyboards.
Speaker 5 (56:17):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (56:18):
Something interesting though, is that there's there's a group of
bands from from that mid two thousands, mid to late
two thousands time frame that definitely kind of fall into
that same same kind of sound. And I can't quite
I don't know if I have like a good way
to like categorize it, and I don't even know if
(56:39):
it deserves categorization or not, but almost like like I
would put like kill Switch Engage in that same kind
of category.
Speaker 5 (56:47):
Yeah, there there, I mean Killswitch's entire sound comes from.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
You know.
Speaker 4 (56:53):
That? And then yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So there's there
is a smaller scene or a smaller sub sect of
the scene that is like European influenced, and it's like
all the good stuff from Europe, like none of like
the slop from Europe, which is so cool. But I
(57:15):
feel like I feel like you guys are kind of
like in that you guys are one of the standard
bearers of that more subsect of Thank you.
Speaker 5 (57:23):
Yea cool yeah, yeah, oh yeah shout off the soil
Work also, yes, yeah, massive massive influence on us.
Speaker 3 (57:32):
Really, we were listening to well, the record came out
right into the end of two thousand and four figured
No One after that. I mean we listened to that
record very heavily, and that's probably my favorite soil Work
record figure figure five. We were listening to NonStop in
the studio because it had just come out, Gotcha, And
(57:53):
I think, yeah, there's a there's the intro first song,
and that's on their record. Sounds very similar to Flipping
out the Fire. Sure, I wonder where that came from.
Speaker 4 (58:03):
This might be going out on a limb. But was
there any extol influence at all as well.
Speaker 5 (58:08):
In the early days, Yeah, the early days, okay, all right?
Speaker 4 (58:12):
Yeah? Sometimes sometimes I catch a little X hole in
there too, and it's just like I like that, I
really really scratches that itch of mine. So all right, well,
what would you guys like to plug? So guys got
the new EP at some point, do you know when roughly.
Speaker 3 (58:27):
We would like to have a song out in the
next couple of months. It's I so you tracked drums
last now, which is a weird thing. So I just
tracked drums last weekend. We got a couple of vocal
things to finish up. But it's it's almost done and
we're gonna mix it and we'll have something out this fall,
ideally before these shows we play, but we're playing, so
we're doing some special Love of Noon to Sea shows.
(58:50):
We do do like a full album playthrough at our
ground rapid show. So we have a hometown show August
sixteenth at the scheme, and then we're playing Furnace Fast
on the Friday, so October third, and then our UK
tour starts in middle of November and we're doing ten
shows there.
Speaker 4 (59:09):
Hecky beautiful.
Speaker 3 (59:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (59:11):
Also, by the way, that that Friday slot for Furnace
Fest might be the best slot because especially if you
guys are staying around for the rest of the weekend,
like you just get that show done and then you
could just hang out the rest of it. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 4 (59:22):
Zayo plays Saturday by the way, Oh cool.
Speaker 5 (59:25):
Yeah yeah, I'm sticking out for that for sure.
Speaker 4 (59:29):
Hell yeah, hell yeah.
Speaker 3 (59:31):
So this is the most active we've been in a
long time, and it's a good year for it. We'll
see what we do after that. I would anticipate will
keep putting out a couple of songs, you know, a
couple songs a year away.
Speaker 4 (59:43):
At it beautiful? Well, we are waiting in dripping anticipation.
I tell you what I can't wait. Dripping? Does it
turn you on a little bit? Is how you're trying
to say?
Speaker 5 (59:59):
Turn all right?
Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Anything else you'd like to plug?
Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Oh yeah, So you know we're all getting older. Heavy
metal dads is a thing. So we're we're we've been
throwing this around. Everybody's been trying to get in shape.
We're doing like a heavy metal dad workout series.
Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
Oh yeah, like making music for like metal workouts kind
of thing or well that and.
Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
We're going to do We're going to be doing the
workout videos too.
Speaker 4 (01:00:31):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Oh yeah, so yeah, everybody's getting in shape for these shows.
You got to work off the beer gut?
Speaker 4 (01:00:36):
Does it come with your zeppatide.
Speaker 5 (01:00:40):
What it is?
Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
All right, I was getting ripped.
Speaker 4 (01:00:50):
I'm just hoping that it came with a dose of
ozembic for for myself.
Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
That's that's where we're building muscles.
Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
There we go, all right, we're not just losing weight.
Speaker 4 (01:00:59):
We're building not just losing weight.
Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
We're all going to come out of these shows looking
like the singer of is that Harm's way, the guy
who's just Jack.
Speaker 4 (01:01:07):
I would rather come out looking like like Tim on Bisis.
Speaker 5 (01:01:13):
Dude's ripped.
Speaker 4 (01:01:15):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
That's one way to.
Speaker 4 (01:01:21):
That is one way to describe it there.
Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
There might be other ways, but that is one way.
I love it. Well. As long as long as we
can avoid murdering or trying to murder somebody, you know that,
it sounds like a really great plan for you all.
Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
Yeah, yeah, well we'll steer clear that.
Speaker 4 (01:01:40):
Yeah, or abusing your wife in any kind of way verbally.
Speaker 3 (01:01:43):
Or or a dog or yeah, anybody in your band.
Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
So, so is this is the plan for for this
to become like the next like P ninety x kind
of situation ideally.
Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Kind of like a CrossFit.
Speaker 5 (01:01:57):
Vibe I'm sorry, or kids like army audience isn't like
you know it's.
Speaker 4 (01:02:05):
It's Yeah, I kind of like the I kind of
like the idea of like it being for normies too, though,
you know, like you're you're you're trying to grow the
scene by creating creating this in a way that that's
going to you know, get like the I like the
(01:02:26):
mom who wants to be rebellious but like can't, and
like this is like her time to like make her
feel like she's a part of a scene and and
gonna be rebellious in some sort of there.
Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
Yeah, I think that might require Turnstile to be involved,
but somebody much than us.
Speaker 4 (01:02:46):
Yeah, turns out might need to be involved in general,
just because those dudes are all ripped and and the
gallas ripped to I can't remember her name.
Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
Right now, but yeah, she's from Britain.
Speaker 4 (01:02:55):
Yeah she looks very nice.
Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Yeah, so up, all right, Well, I'm excited to work
out to a little still remains uh me too. You know,
you know I've been I've been doing a little bit
more working out myself, and I know Colin has been
for a little while, and god, I could use a
little still remains in my my rotation.
Speaker 4 (01:03:17):
It is in my rotation right now, So but I
do need I do need your face to help motivate
me as well.
Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
So I want to make sure all of my hairs
on my body look like.
Speaker 4 (01:03:29):
That would be like a Dragon ball Z commercial.
Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
All right, well a j Jordan, thank you so much
for chatting. We're super excited, uh to see you guys
at Furness Fast. Colin and I will be there. I
don't know, I don't know if that was not much clear,
but hell yeah, we will be there. We'll make sure
we give you guys a big hug and uh and
say hi and so we're just really excited and so yeah,
for those who are listening, if you have not yet,
please get some Furns Fest tickets so you can go
(01:04:04):
watch Still Remains and plenty of other incredible bands. So
thanks so much for chatting with us, guys, and we
look forward to the new music and look forward to
seeing you guys soon.
Speaker 5 (01:04:14):
Cheers, Thanks you guys.
Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Hell yeah,
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