Episode 174 with Ash Buchholz

This week's episode is going to go down as a favorite of Donnie and Tid's!  The guest is someone Donnie has a LOT of history with - going all the way back to high school!  His name is Ash Buchholz, and he's absolutely fascinating!

Ash found fame as the front man for the wildly popular alternative rock band USS - but his story is so much more robust than that.  In this exclusive interview (Ash has never been on a podcast before, and has never discussed most of these stories publicly) we discuss the disease that forced him to stop playing hockey as a kid, and prevented him from even entering puberty, the musical play he was in WITH Donnie, the incredible influences he's had in his life, how his parents divorce sparked a musical awakening, the number of bands he was in over the years, how he almost died and lost his hand last summer, and his brand new musical project - Fraxinus Prime.   On top of all that, Ash performs live!  He played a USS classic, his new Fraxinus Prime track for the first time, "Control Alt Delete", and the first song he EVER wrote that Donnie remembers fondly.  

Fraxinus Prime is performing at the iconic Redwood Theatre in Toronto on May 11th, and they're celebrating Ash's birthday!
Get tickets to Intimate and Electronic 2 

Enjoy this week's episode!  Send us your feedback by texting 437 375 2000.

Please check out our new sponsor Black Bork

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-godfathers-of-podcasting--4303576/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:16):
Welcome to the Godfathers and Podcasting Nowin case Sheldon. Now, they've been
podcasting since before podcasting was Leland Paul. Podcasting archives of this show are available
on every major podcast provider, andyou can find video archives, merch and
more on their website, Godfathers andPodcasting dot com. Now Here are your
hosts. Two guys who have beenbroadcasting online since nineteen ninety six, The

(00:40):
Godfathers are podcasting themselves, Donny DaSilva and Kristin Well. Tis time he
is, the Tears to my Fears, the petch up to my boys,
the white in my stripes. That'sNotorious Tide. Chris Tid Well, what

(01:03):
up? Tid? What is goingon? Donnie? How you doing this
week? Brother? I'm doing okay, man. I cannot complain. I
cannot complain. The green screen hasevolved into something new. I see.
It's it's ever changing. Now it'sa little bit more of a close up.
I gotta keep you on your toes. Brother. Wow. I was

(01:25):
going to tell you a story,but I think I'll save it for maybe
later on about a really bad,a really bad edible experience that I had
last week, because I know thatyou would get a kick out of it,
but maybe I'll save that for Nickfor the end of the show.
Wows you gotta gotta hook him in, right. I do want to quickly

(01:48):
mention if you're watching this on Godfather'sa podcasting dot com as opposed to listening
to us everywhere else, you cansee that I am wearing the product from
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(02:13):
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(02:38):
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(02:59):
and of course, do not forget. If you are like us of the
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(03:20):
need to make your beard look fulland thick and luscious. Let sco to
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too. You actually you're partial totheir soaps, right? Yeah? Absolutely,
It's all been fantastic everything that Itried. It works great on the
beard, works great on the skin, doesn't help the face one bit.

(03:42):
Still look exactly the same. Yeah. No, it's not going to make
you better looking. I mean,I'm sorry if you're looking for miracles,
it doesn't do that. But itdoes great job of doing what it says
that it's going to do. Ijust expect a little bit more. Yeah,
regarding the face, you should probablywear a blackboor cat and just pull
it down real life. You knowit will be really cool is when all
of the people start custom ordering theirGodfathers of podcasting patches to go on the

(04:05):
front of these hats, and youshould be able to just do that online
on their site soon enough. I'msure Donnie's working that out. It's in
the works, I know. Weare so excited, ladies and gentlemen,
for this week's featured guest, becausehe doesn't do this kind of stuff and

(04:26):
you know what tid without further ado, and we bring him in. Absolutely,
it's time right now, ladies andgentlemen, for the big hello.
And this week's guest is someone whoI met when he was just thirteen years
old as a grade ninth student atmy high school. At first, all
I thought was, well, he'sthe little kid with the floppy blonde hair

(04:46):
and he's Adam's little brother. Adamwas the drummer in my pal's band,
and I used to hit up alltheir gigs and this kid was there too.
But it didn't take long for himto flip the switch from Adam's little
brother to a unique, larger thanlife per andality. He joined the school's
drama company, which of course Iwas a part of, and we did
this huge musical together, and anywherei'd see him, I'd see our mutual

(05:09):
pal who has the best name everHilding nanoprogasm. He and Hilding would be
in lockstep all over the school atrehearsals or walking into rooms where some of
the seniors would just be hanging out, and then they would just randomly burst
out into song, and I waslike, WHOA, this kid has something
now. There were times I'd bewondering where the hell was he. I
was told he was sick. Ididn't realize he was dealing with Crohn's disease

(05:32):
and that forced him to miss aton of school. When he was around,
I'd constantly be listening to him andHilding going on and on about their
love for Nirvana, our Lady Piece, beck oases his head and others.
When his parents split up, hewould go visit his dad on the weekends
and realize Pops was throwing these hugeraves. He became ingrained in the underground

(05:53):
rave scene and found a deep lovefor drum and bass. He always had
a deep, burning love for music, but I think it was probably around
that time did he realize music wasa core piece of who he was.
He was part of so many bands, including Holy Grail, Evil Widow,
which, by the way, Ifilmed and directed their only music video,
The Old Boys Club, Funny Guy, Popcorn, Thread Ash, Happily,

(06:15):
Team of Captains, and as heknows, my personal favorite Quixonic. I
wore out my Quixonic CD to thepoint where it wasn't even usable anymore.
He was just twenty nine years oldwhen he felt a different calling and went
to join a monastery, going throughwhat he has called a miracle year.
Somewhere along the way he met HubanKebab and Chuck Topping, which led to

(06:38):
the formation of Canadian alternative rock supergroupUSS. Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker had an incredible
run of a decade and a half, topping alternative rock charts and allowing them
to tour all over, including stopsin Germany and the UK, where his
family is from. His old palHilding is now a big wig at Rogers'

(06:58):
Sportsnet and had a range to usea USS song never Stop as the theme
for the NHL, and it hasbeen for the last three seasons. For
a kid from small town Unionville,Ontario, who was on skates before he
could walk, this was a dreamcome true. USS made the decision to
go into hibernation and work on differentthings human kebab on a solo project and

(07:20):
our guest Well, he wanted towork on himself deal with some personal issues.
About a year ago, he foundhimself in a hospital with a life
threatening staff infection. Doctors worked onhim and shared the reality that he may
lose his left hand. So hedid what anyone would do in a life
or death situation. He started singinghis favorite alternative rock songs while DJing electronica

(07:42):
with his right hand. This iswhere he had an epiphany about his next
musical project, and that's where hisnewest creation, Frasinist Prime, came from.
Fracinists Prime will be playing at theRedwood Theater in Toronto on May eleventh,
Ladies and gentlemen, doing his firstever podcast. I broke it all
down to the nuts and bolts.Music hits harder than the indie colts.

(08:03):
Everyone loving it, kids and adults. His mind is shocking. I get
electric jolts. He's a man,a piece. No time for insults.
It's all about the journey, notthe results. Now give it up to
my man. This is Ashley Boushultz. Hello guys, Thank you Dom.
That was a wonderful introduction. Thankyou very much. Don you could say

(08:24):
it was the best you've ever had, but you don't do these, so
it's the first you've ever had,the best only and uh, let's uh
you set a high bard on.Thank you dude. Yeah, the next
next person is going to definitely haveto come up with something. It's going
to be mine. You should havea captivating story about your life, jeezus.

(08:45):
Yeah. Man, Hey, justbefore we start, something that I
kind of like to do is Ijust wanted to give a shout out to
uh uh, to the some ofthe people that are the reason why I'm
here, and that would be uh, Leonard Cohen. I want to shout
out Gord Downie. I want toshout out Chris Martin. I want to
shout out Noel Gallagher. I wantto shout out Kirk Coman. I want
to shout out Mark Lacas, Sparklehorse. I want to shout out Back.
I want to shout out Doug Flutie. I want to shout out Chris Hadfield.

(09:09):
I want to shout out York.I want to shout out Wesley Willis.
And I want to shout out DanielJohnston. Thank you guys. So
just major inspirations in your life,Yeah, yeah, those would be the
you know, the mount rushmore ofmy of my being. I love that
Wesley Willis made that list. Absolutely, thank you. Yeah. He not

(09:31):
a week goes by that I don'twatch my favorite Wesley Willis documentary. He's
dear to my heart. I thankyou m Kaba for introducing me to Wesley
Willis. What a spirit, whata soul. That's awesome. Ash,
thanks for taking the time to dothis. I know that we chatted about
this for a while about you know, the logistics of you coming out and

(09:54):
doing this, because this isn't somethingthat you're used to. I mean for
fifteen years, fourteen fifteen years whateverit was, Uss was as hot as
hot can be, and you alwaystook the approach of you know what,
I have people that can take careof this media stuff for me. I'll
be doing my own thing. Isthat pretty much? How when I think,

(10:18):
you know, when a soldier isin boot camp, he's in boot
camp. And my life up tothis point has been just oh there we
go, that's my dad calling.My life up to this point has been
has just required a lot of bootcamp just to keep my head in the
game. So, you know,as Uss was hot, I was in
hot yoga, just keeping it dialedin. Yeah, so but here we

(10:43):
are. It's a beautiful day.The only reason that I even found out
about fracs in his Prime and foundout afterwards that after all these years,
Ash is finally online. He's onthe Internet. He's got an Instagram account,
which was never your thing, right. I only found that out because
a few months ago I got invitedby friends of the show Altered by Mom

(11:05):
to go up to Stouville and attendWinter Song the Music Festival, and I
found out I had just missed thisperformance by Fraksinis Prime, and friends of
mine said, oh, you shouldhave seen Fracsin's Prime is so great,
and I was like, oh,who's that? And I look at the
event program and it says Ashley Bouscholtz, and I'm like what I had this

(11:30):
little like, oh my god,Ash has a whole new thing going.
Yeah. So, don you know, as you touched on when I was
when I was in high school,I was thirteen when Nevermind came out by
Nirvana. So the first chords thatI learned was an E en a G
chord. So when you spoke aboutHilding, the first thing that happened is
we wrote a song called I LikeDogs. I remember it well, so

(11:54):
it was played one single time whenyou said we'd pop into the we'd pop
into a room and we'd play it. So this was actually the world debut
of I Like Dogs. And hereit goes like this. It went,
I like dogs. I like dogs. I know this dog and he's big.

(12:15):
I know this dog and he's small. I know this cat that smells.
So I don't like cats at all. I like dogs. I like
dogs. And if you talk aboutremember that like it was yesterday. So
that was the That was the firstsong that I ever wrote with Hilding.

(12:37):
So what winds up happening is thatmy father when my parents split up,
you know, you go visit outon the weekend. My visit out on
the weekend. My dad bought anabandoned nineteen seventy ski lodge behind a landfill
in Maple outside of Toronto. Soit was in a valley, so unbeknounced
to me. I didn't know whatthe rave scene was in like ninety three,

(13:00):
ninety four, ninety five. Sowhen I'm like fourteen, fifteen years
old, I'm listening to Nirvana inmy bedroom, playing along on my brother's
drum set, listening to Head,listening to our Lady Piece Back, And
I go to visit my dad oneweekend and there's a fifteen thousand person rave,
like a Citrus proper enormous rave.I'm helping my dad unclogged toilets.

(13:22):
I'm going in the experimental room I'mseeing. I'm just it's drum and based,
progressive house, trance, experimental music. My head is blown. I'm
just a kid that's playing hockey andlistening to Nirvana, and nobody in the
mainstream knows about this underground scene.So pretty much what winds up happening When
you said you came to Winter SongDawn is one of my longtime collaborators,

(13:43):
Chuck Topping. When I met himin two thousand and four, I finally
met someone for the first time,guys who could make electronic music. Since
I was listening to Nirvana as ateenager and I was hearing this drum and
bassed music every time I visited mydad. My mom had no idea.
I was surrounded by people blasted onecstasy, and I'm like fifteen years old.

(14:05):
We're talking. I was at therave from the moment the first piece
of equipment was unloaded on the trucktill the last piece of garbage was picked
up. I saw the entire thing. And so anyhow, what winds up
happening is it incubates? And Isay, I want to hear Nirvana and
Oasis and Beck in all these differentrooms at the rave, and I wanted
to put it together. So whenI met Chuck, he was the first

(14:26):
person that I met that knew howto make electronic music. Because Chuck was
his background was in Iceberg Radio,in progressive house in downtown. But he
knew how to make the music.So when I got back from that monastery
that I was staying at when Iwas twenty nine, I sort of had
this calling to live a monastic life. So I lived with these monks and

(14:50):
just simplified my life. All Ihad was like a backpack of clothes and
a bed and a desk in myguitar, and that's it. I got
out of there. My friend daredme to record my best song. I
said, my best song is Iwrote called Hollow Points Sniper Hyeperble. I
went over to Chucks. We made, we made, we produced music for
it. My friend Brian said,I dare you to give that song to

(15:11):
everyone in music in Toronto and ifthat song doesn't blow up, you need
to go back to school. LashAnd that song went to the top of
the charts. It went Coldplay,Viva Levita, Uss, Solid Point,
Sniper, Hye Perble, and Weezer, Pork and Beans. We were on
the May stage at edge Fest.We were festivals everywhere and it just started

(15:31):
the ride. So I'm actually sittinghere now in uh In Vice Locker aka
Chuck Topping's podcast studios. He's allowedme to jump in to learn this technology.
Thank you guys for you for lettingme, you know, break my
cherry here. But so John justto pull it full circle, intimate and
electronic. The the show that wethrew in Lachram Hall and Stouville was the

(15:54):
full life manifestation of me going tothese raves as a teenager, going the
experimental room, seeing people girls withbutterfly wings, and seeing people like handing
out stickers and just like just lovingeach other. There's no barrier. It
wasn't about standing and looking at astage and there's some kind of idle worship

(16:15):
between we're the crowd and you're theperformer. So when when the thing happened
with my hands, so you cansee where we go. That's that's it's
pretty good. I can bend itthat far so I can play all the
chords, which is cool. Soyeah, just to just to to tie
that all together, that love ofNirvana and Oasis and Coldplay and those melodies

(16:38):
that just are are are are myuh, they're my rushmore as as the
movie line goes, uh, thatintimated and electronic experience is something I've always
dreamed of, is pulling those melodiestogether with that environment and throwing parties like
that where it's not about idle worship. And so here we are, guys,

(17:03):
you gave us so much to unpacktheir ash. And I know Tid
probably wants to jump on, butbefore he does, let me just say
I can think back to when Iwas about nineteen or twenty years old and
Tid and I were hanging out backthen, and I can't remember who it
was, Tid, but someone offeredyou and I an opportunity to go be
bouncers at a rave and I rememberthe look on your face and you were

(17:25):
like, that is a special kindof hell. It is it is.
I had enough. I had enoughof our crew that was working these when
we would go by there after hours. You know, places like was what
was the docks before it was thedocks, when it was still the warehouse
and they were running raves. Therebeen Liberty Village, there was just warehouses

(17:48):
and they would run you know whatI mean, run shows there overnight.
So we would get off work fromthe clubs and then go by there and
it was just like, this isthis is a different world. Man.
Hey, do you want to knowit's chrits. You want to know it's
hilarious. Is so something that thatVice Locker and I, me and Chuck

(18:10):
strategically have have implemented is that ourparty start at six pm and they end
at midnight. They don't start atmidnight and end at six And that's now
he is a raised for over forty. It's still a beautiful experience that people
want to have, oh for sure. But I just remember being nineteen years

(18:32):
old and going with Tid to oneof these events and thinking, I feel
like I'm sixty five, but I'mtoo old for this crowd. Well,
I mean, so this is thisis what we fundamentally designed, is that
there's a lot of people we don'thave to talk about all we're getting old
and blah blah blah blah blah.Yeah, no, no, no,
no, we just keep different hours. I wake up at three forty five
every day. Now, that's whattime I start my day. I love

(18:52):
Monk hours. And so this isjust in alignment with with how my life
and times work, and anyway,super cool. It also allows my parents
who are in their seventies, allmy mom's friends who held me as a
baby, they get to come tothe show and they get to experience this
wild, new, interesting thing andeveryone's not hammered and railed off on drugs
and stuff like that. So it'sit's it's really a cool experience. It's

(19:15):
very creative. And we have agraffiti wall, we have a hug station,
we have all of these, wehave all we we give out lollipops,
we give a blood of butterfly wings. We we build a community over
the course of an evening, andit's just it's so exciting not to have
that third wall on stage that Iam the star and you are the disciple.

(19:38):
I'm out there hanging out. Howare you hey? Have you met
this guy? This guy has afucking nineteen sixties boat that he refurbished.
No way I fish. Where doyou fish? Boom? Now they're hanging
out talking. I love. It'sthe community. You should you should work
the hug station, tid, Ido work the hug station, I'm saying,

(19:59):
Tim, Tim, Oh, yeah, Chris, I mean listen,
well for sure, the bear hugstation. Let's do this. Listen.
As you mentioned, you mentioned themonk lifestyle and the monastery. And I
gotta know, because you've said ita couple of times. Now, please
explain to me, first of all, what drove you to that, What

(20:21):
sent you on that path to joina monastery. It's not every day that
a you know, a white guyfrom Markham is joining a monastery. What's
up with that? Well, thanksfor asking, Chris. It's a part
of my life that I haven't uh, you know, shared a lot about.
And uh, you know, thefirst person that I shouted out was
Leonard Cohen. Leonard Cohen, whenhe was in his fifties, Uh moved

(20:45):
to uh a Zen Buddhist monastery inCalifornia on Mount Baldy and uh he he
just left at the peak of hisfame. He just he said, I
gotta I gotta change gears. Hejust needs to be there. And I
just felt I felt the same kindof pull, and there was this sort

(21:08):
of static like you know in theradios between stations. That was always kind
of just sitting here all the time. And I just would get myself to
the YMCA, I get myself tohockey practice. I would I would live
with that sensation in spite of it. But it always felt like there was
something that just it just wasn't quite. There's an Rladp song and Rain made

(21:32):
it says, I hope to GodI figure out what's wrong. And I
hope to God figure out what's wrong. And that sensation that wouldn't go away.
I tried everything to make it goaway, you know, on on
either side of the ledger, aswe do. And I think a lot
of people have that experience. Andwhen I saw Leonard Cohen, these interviews

(21:56):
with him after he left the monasteryafter five years, I was like,
there's a sparkle in his eye.There's a commonness to the man, there's
a peace to the man, andthere's a groundedness and a centeredness to the
man. And I just got rid. I got rid of all my stuff.
I didn't have anything, and Ijust went to this Vipassana silent meditation

(22:18):
center and I just lived there.And yeah, I came out with a
really clear vision again. And howmuch of your how much of your life
now? I know you mentioned wakingup at three something in the morning,
but ye, okay, three fortyfive, So how much of your life
now still echoes that lifestyle that youlearned when you were at the monastery.

(22:45):
It's the it's like the backbone andthe anchor of my life. Wow,
yeah, I remember, don Iwas. I almost became a monk,
like a theravada in tie monk.They're the most like extreme in terms of
you give up your name, yougive up, you shave your head,
you give up all your possessions thatyou Uh, you live in a little

(23:07):
hut in the woods, and it'sa it's a call like a renunciate,
you renounce everything. And uh.I remember I spoke to the abbot that's
the head monk at the monastery,and I said, I I'm in a
I'm in a bit of a pickleaon ajeon, you teacher in Pali ajon.

(23:30):
So I said, I'm in abit of a pickle, a my
calling is through music and song andsinging and my voice and words. And
I feel a pull to monastic lifewhere that you're in silence all the time,
you don't speak, and I don'tknow what to do. What should
I do? And he said,Ash, it's a little bit of a

(23:52):
tougher assignment, but I think yougot to be able to bring the monastery
wherever you go, and you justmake everywhere the monastery. And actually,
I'm getting goosebumps a bit right nowbecause it has been very challenging because this
is a you walk into a gasI walked into a gas station, guys,
after my first long meditation retreat.That place is a crack den for

(24:17):
trauma. It's fat, it's sugar, it's salt, it's caffeine. You
don't need anything except maybe the mixednuts in a gas station. Like it's
just preying on your like maybe thegas. Yeah, it's like that thing
that like trying to stop that thing. It's like, you don't need a
chocolate bar right now. You don'tneed a bag of chips. You don't
need a creamsicle, you don't needa Coca cola. Those are all wonderful

(24:41):
things in moderation. But it wasso much easier for me to be in
the monastic place and not have thatfeeling anymore. So you're literally Quie Chain
Cane of music. Then you're likekung Fu the legend can hines where you
ran off and like you you knowwhat I mean? And they were like

(25:03):
no, no, run free,grasshopper. You have to hear yeah,
and then now this is what you'redoing that is wild to me. Dude,
Yeah, well and so and soonce you start, yeah, I
try to wherever I go, guys. I you know, we recorded a
lot of music and Niagara Falls andthere's a Chinese ten thousand Buddhist monastery.

(25:25):
I volunteer there and weave the garden. I go out to Ottawa. There's
a there Adam Monastery. You gothere and you help friggin' chump woodh In
Markham, there's a Sri Lankan Buddhistmonastery. Actually, one of the monks,
his last name is Yannipergasm, whichis Hilding Jannipergasm is the guy that
that Don spoke about that uh uhhe was. He's been a really important

(25:48):
guy in my life. We wantedto have him on the podcast, Chris,
because Hilding was the guy that Iwrote I Like Dogs with When I
got super sick as a kid,I couldn't play hockey anymore, and I
we played road hockey and we toldjokes. Then when we were in the
play together, because I couldn't playhockey anymore, my mom said, hey,
Ash, I think you need tostill be involved with people. We

(26:11):
can't have you just sitting in yourrooms like by yourself sick. So I
joined the play. That's where Imet down. It was a musical,
Chris. So I started singing becauseI loved Nirvana. I picked up my
stepdad's guitar. I learned about agirl with the E cord and the G
chord roade, I Like Dogs andthe rest is here we are when we

(26:32):
fast forward a whole bunch of years. Hilding in a frigasa that awesome,
wonderful half Shrie Lank and half Norwegianguy. He calls me Chris and he
says, Ash Sportsnet needs a newtheme song for NHL Hockey, and I'm
like, wow, that'd be adream come true. All I ever wanted
to do as a kid was playingthe NHL. But I accidentally had this

(26:55):
music career. So I couldn't bea pro hockey player, but I got
to be a pro musician. Hesaid, we're about to send a blast
out to all the publishers and they'regonna submit all the hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of songs. He said,you happen to have a song. I
go, I think I have asong. We just had got back from
Nashville and we wrote the song callednever Stop. And I send it to
Hildag and he goes, this isthe song and we hit it like the

(27:18):
first song and now that and thenthat became the song for for for sports
Net for all of the NHL,and it was super uh, super weld
amazing. That's all fantastic. ButI got to rewind in just a second
here. Yeah yeah, yeah,because you said you were in a play.
Yeah, oh yeah, I knewyou wasn't gonna let that slide.

(27:40):
What was what was Donnie's role inthis play? Okay? You know what,
Chris. It was a book thatwas actually pretty heavy duty stuff for
high school. It's called Working byStuds. Turkle so Stutch Turkle traveled the
United States. He interviewed hundreds ofpeople that did every different kind of job
in like that you can work andso his the book was one page of

(28:03):
asking people what's the most important thingin your life? What gives your life
meaning, what gives your life purpose. It was a really cool book.
They turned it into a musical,so instead of there being like eight characters,
there's like fifty characters. Everyone's playingfive or six different like I was
like a newsboy. I was likea firefighter's son. I was like five
different things. And you would singand speak from the vantage point of what

(28:26):
gave your life meaning from that position? So what were you don I I
can't remember. I was Charlie Blossom, the hippie, and I sat cross
legged on top of a fifteen foothigh scaffold. Remember that there was ah,
yeah, a scaffolding. Yeah yeah, yeah, there was scaffolding on

(28:48):
the corner of the stage. Isat tid balanced on top of this thing.
Our drama teacher constantly having a panicattack because I wasn't harnessed. They
would never allow this today. Yeah, I wasn't harnessed or anything. I'm
just sitting crossleg and on top oftwo bars, like the l of the
two bars, and I'm just sittingthere balancing like in a meditative pose,

(29:08):
and I'm doing this stoned out hippiemonologue about a hippie that works in the
mail room of a big corporate building. Oh, that's a conflict, and
how one day he thinks he mightjust snap and kill everybody, you know,

(29:29):
and you know, it was sucha it was such a deep monologue
for a teenager deliver I Okay,okay, guys to this day. So
Chris, at the end of theplay, there's a chorus line of all
the characters come out and sing asong called see that Building. I still
know the song because as an adult. Now, okay, so this is
how the song went. See thatbuilding. I did the job. I

(29:52):
would know. See that building.Wait, see that building? You had
it right? Was it? Seethat building? I did the job.
I was the one. See thatbuilding. Come from the left, one,
two, three, stop. That'swhere I work. Everyone should have
something to point to, something tobe proud of. Look what I did.
See what I'd done. I didthe job. I was the one

(30:15):
see that building. I did thejob. And everyone should have something,
something to be proud of. Anyways, Yeah, so and remember we used
to sing in rehearsal, and itwould piss off the director. We used
to sing it as see that Hilding. Oh yeah, that's right, see
that Hilding. That was because Hildingwas in the play with us. She

(30:36):
got so hot. Not do thaton performance night, You better not do
that. She got so pissed.That was that. That was my one
and only play. Chris. That'sa that's a good like icebreaker question if
you ask someone have you ever beenin a play? Or you say have
you ever been in a parade?Have either of you been in a parade?

(30:56):
Yes, you've been in a parade? Chris, Yeah, do tell
so. In school, I wasn'ta drama kid, but I did play
music, and I played in thedrum line and our high school, our
drum line, we got picked.So I was before moving back to Las
Vegas, where I'm originally from.I best of time in Washington State when

(31:19):
I was living there. The highschool that I went to in grade nine.
The person who ran the music departmentthere also was the head of the
music department for the school district.So they were filming a movie in Spokane,
Washington back then, a movie calledVision Quest about high school wrestling and

(31:41):
he used his school band to bein the movie. We were the pet
band for the wrestling matches in themovie. So we got to hang out
and meet matthe Modine and it isgreat and we're high school kids and it's
fantastic. Well, they also hada parade later and we got asked to
play in the parade with our drumline and our marching band. Oh yeah,

(32:06):
and when's the last time you playedthe drum played the Probably, I
mean sat behind a kit maybe atleast twenty years so, uh, fun
fact, guys, is my partnerin uh in Sublime Crime Vice Locker aka
Chuck Topping just went to what usedto be called the Sound Academy and he

(32:29):
saw they were called there a technomarching band. So it's an eleven piece
marching band with no tracks, noDJ with a with a susophone, tuba
player and a bass saxophone. Andit was it's what's the band called,
Chuck, They're called mute. Ohmy goodness, they are doing something I've
never seen before. But yeah,you could jump in. Chris, you

(32:50):
got your those are your were yourit's a rave and it's a marching band.
That's your favorite roots. Just gethim next see and he's good.
Oh so don to answer your question, Yes, I have been in the
parade, and my parade story isone of one of the funniest moments of

(33:14):
my life. And so when Iwent don and I went to a school
called Brother Andre, a high schoolin Markham, and I played on the
hockey team. And so we playedin a tournament in finland Falls, which
is a beautiful town northeast of Torontoand quite northeast of Toronto. So there's
a river that goes through fenland Falls. There's only one bridge over the river.

(33:37):
So we're in the hockey tournament.We make it to the finals of
the hockey tournament. When we leaveour hotel, we need to cross that
bridge to get to the rink.Now, guess what day it is.
It's the day of the Santa ClausParade. So we either have to drive
forty five minutes south to the nextbridge back forty five and we're going to
miss the game. They make ajudgment call and they put our school bus,

(34:00):
all the hockey team, all ourguys in the parade. Nice,
so brilliant. We then so allof the people from fenland Falls were playing
felan Falls High School in the finals, and we hang our Brother Andre hockey
jerseys out the windows and go throughthe in the Santa Claus Parade as a
parade float, and then we beatFeenland Falls High School and win the hockey

(34:22):
tournament. That's the extreams eighties comedymovie like Bears or slap Shots something like
that. That's amazing. Now therewere no mooners because it was a Catholic
school. No, maybe that wouldmean there would be more moons I don't
know, And Dave Dave Turner wasn'thaving any of that. No, Hey,

(34:44):
listen, I know you didn't ask. You asked, Tid, but
I'll give you the answer too.I've been in many parades when I was
young. When I was young,I was part of a cadet program,
so marching in parades was kind ofthe deal. But the more interesting story,
ash is, around the same timethat we were in the in the
play, there was a girl atBrother Andre that I had a big crush

(35:07):
on, same grade as me.Here's the dirt, Here comes the dirt,
and she was part of she waspart of a Ukrainian youth group.
So I would like say to her, do you want to get together on
the weekend. Oh, I can't. I have to go to my Ukrainian
youth group. And I was likeoh, and she's like, yeah,
we have a parade on Sunday.I mean you could come if you want.

(35:28):
I'm like, yeah, I wantto come to Ukrainian Youth group parade
because I'm just thinking, we getto spend some time together, you know.
And I thought this was going tobe a real slick move on my
part. And I went and showedup at this Ukrainian church and they hand
me the biggest like flag that theyhave because I'm a big guy, and

(35:50):
they're like, you can handle this, and everyone else has got a flag
holder except me, because like,you're big, you can handle it.
So wow, here I am handlingthis giant, twenty pounds flag for this
massive walk And when the parade isover, her mom shows up and goes,
okay, come, we have togo. And then I'm like I
thought we were gonna have a dateor something and no, okay, bye,

(36:13):
and that was it. That wasthe end of that romance. Wow.
Don I commend you for that effort. Crush effort, crush. Yeah,
Like literally you walked into a completelyracist scenario where they only want They
were like, Nope, only Ukrainian, only youth, only this at this

(36:35):
parade, and Donnie's like, I'minfiltrating. I am going to cross the
line. Yeah, I'm gonna goin. Yeh. That was your jungle
fever. I was not letting anyboundaries stop me, and then all the
boundaries stopped me. Yeah, oneboundary. It was my one boundary.
Mom, it was the ultimate boundaryin grade twelve, Mom got in the
way. Ash. Let's talk justa little bit about you have this incredible

(37:01):
run with USS. Yeah, andit's impossible not to talk about it when
we talk about you, because evenwhen I was telling people that you were
going to be on this show,they're all like, oh my god,
I love Ash, I love us. And these are people that have never
met you. As far as Iknow, what was the moment I know
you talked about that first song thatjust blew up and because Harold Harol,

(37:28):
hold on, I'll give you.Let me just give you a quick taste.
Okay, go ahead, just whereit where it started, Where where
it started off. So I wasa dog sitting a border Collie and uh,
have you guys seen the movie RealGenius. It was you know,
the movie Real It was one ofAlkilmer's first movies. Uh so, I
had just watched the movie Real Genius. I had dated a girl from Newfoundland.

(37:53):
Uh so people often thought that Iwas from Newfoundland, but I actually
dated a girl from Newfoundland. Anduh so, yeah, the nomination of
watching the movie Real Genius, whichI highly recommend with it's like from like
nineteen eighty three, uh hilarious.So yeah, hollow Point. I went
to bed actually that night before Isaid I'm gonna write the best song I've
ever written as soon as I wakeup. And I wrote this song hollow

(38:14):
Point. And when it goes up, thoughts scene to stumble out of my
mouth, buck and see to stopand talk to him. F chicks to
pierce the army tune hollow Port,sniper Happerbly, I can't sing to follow

(38:42):
Pengel Man them must speak again.It cures for me. Report to bass
instrumental case, here's the man tomy ouh. I mean, come on,

(39:06):
that's just ridiculously so good. SoI was also reading like an abnormal
psychology textbook. So an ubilia isa hidden trap door that leads to a
secret dudgeon. Right, So whenI say here's the map to my ubilia,
that's me saying here's here's here's themap to my you know, to
my to my to what makes mereal? What you know, what connects

(39:27):
us at a point of realness?Did he gave me the map to his
secret trap door? But it wasa totally different It was a port on
the third day of a festival.Does your brain scare you? Sometimes?
I just you know what, Ihave to take a lot every morning.
I have. Part of waking upat three forty five is I take an

(39:49):
hour long EPSOM salt bath and Ijust uh, I just open up the
I just open up the the Ijust open it up, just let it
ride with I try not to judgeit. I learned. I've learned so
much from Leonard Cohen. Uh.He's he's he's more of a scientist than

(40:09):
people think. And so a scientisthas has the ability to think critically,
which means you can hold two oppositeideas without having any bias. And that's
what this world is we're kind oflacking right now. Is like that.
That's called being open minded. Soyou're able to hold both sides without having

(40:30):
a bias. As soon as youhave a bias, it's not science anymore.
It's just an opinion. And agreat point, really really intelligent point.
Ash, I wanted to ask you, aside from that song blowing up
Yeah yet on the radio having acareer that basically spun out of that song,

(40:57):
what was the moment whether it wasOh, I know, I know
the answer, I know the answerto this question already done, the moment
where you looked around and said,I can't fucking believe we're here. I
do you know what it is?Yeah? Tell me so there. So,
when Nirvana broke in nineteen ninety one, they were actually on tour in

(41:17):
Europe with Sonic Youth. This wasbefore the internet, so the Smells nineteen
Spirit video had gone out into rotationon MTV. In the fall of nineteen
ninety one, Nirvana was on tourwith Sonic Youth and they brought a film
a couple of guys to film thetour, and they wanted to make like
a VHS, like a little documentaryof the tour. So they were filming

(41:42):
Sonic Youth in Nirvana all over Europe. So they played in Nuremberg at this
festival gardens and this beautiful, reallyreally old I remember I. So what
winds up happening is is that uh, Nirvana blows up in the USA while
they're in Germany with Sonic Youth,but they don't know. So what winds

(42:08):
up happening is that they put outthis documentary called nineteen ninety one, The
Year Punk Broke. It's the documentaryof Sonic Youth and Nirvana on tour in
Europe in nineteen ninety one when Nirvanawas blowing up unbeknownst to them. There's
a scene in that documentary where they'replaying to about five hundred people in a
festival gardenamed Nuremberg, and it wasin front of the stage was just like

(42:31):
all frigging the most beautiful plants.There's vines growing all over the whole venue.
Anyways, fast forward to twenty twelve, our friends and the band Walk
off the Earth when we blew upas Uss. We had done shows with
them, and we got them like, we invited them into our shows.
When they blew up with that fivepeople playing one guitar, they instantly sold

(42:53):
out a European tour. They calledme and Jay, they said, we
want you guys to open this tourin twenty so we were playing sold out
shows all over Europe. I seeNurremberg is on the festival run, like
sorry, it's on the it's onthe tour run. We get to Nuremberg

(43:14):
and it was so hectic and thetime zones in the sleep I totally forgot
about the significance with Nirvana. Atthe end of the show, there's no
one in the venue. You dosomething what's called the dummy check guys,
So you get to the van,then you go back in one more time.
You just double check everything so youdon't make any reckless any forgetfulness.

(43:35):
I walk back out on to thestage and I'm standing exactly where Kirk Kobang
was standing in nineteen ninety one inthe Nurremberg Festival garden, and it like
full circle that moment of and Ijust like I just welled up and I
just started crying with just this.It was. It was a miraculous,

(43:57):
magical moment of a rival where II compared every single thing I've ever done
to Kurt Cobain songs that he wrote, and it was never good enough,
and nothing was ever, ever,ever, ever good enough, and and
in that, in that moment,I was able to let that go in

(44:22):
a really powerful way, just tosay that I'm okay with second place.
Sometimes sometimes you're playing for bronze,sometimes you're playing for silver, guys,
I remember, So that was Thatwas my moment, Don, That was

(44:43):
my moment. Yeah, And Ican understand why that would hit you so
hard. I remember, you knowagain the aforementioned play that we worked on.
We were going through rehearsals when KurtCobain died, and I remember,
like it was yesterday, you hildingour friend Yanna and another friend named Sean,

(45:05):
and the four of you just sittingon the stage crying like there was
gonna be no rehearsal that day.You guys were just beside yourselves. And
I remember the teacher, the directorsaid, what's what's going on? Did
someone dies? Yeah? Someone died? Is a family member? I said,
yeah, kind of. You knowwhat, Don, Like, as
I've reflected on, you know,the youth of today don't have the same

(45:30):
connection with music that we did.And not again, like a scientist,
it's not good or bad, it'snot right or wrong, just is what
it is. What I've come tounderstand about It wasn't idle worship with was
say with Kurk Cobaine. Specifically,when you get a sunburn, alo Vera
is the most soothing thing for asunburn. There was something about that man

(45:52):
and his words and the melodies anduh that were like that felt like alo
vera. They soothed something nobody know. We don't know. Our minds are
too small to understand why alovera soothesthe sunburn. I don't mean that our
minds are too small. I justmean that's a very specialized understanding. And

(46:15):
you come to tears at a momentlike that, when you lose something.
It's like somebody it's like moving toCosta Rica, somebody saying you need to
stand in the sun all summer longwith no clothes on, and we're taking
all the al overa and shooting itinto space. You will never have alovera
again. You will never have anythingto soothe that specific Yeah, that's specific

(46:39):
discomfort. And so yeah, that'sa very eloquent way of putting it.
Man, you're a poet. It'svery very well stated. And you know
what, my love for Nirvana hasalways been there. I'm so proud when
I think about the fact that myalmost twelve year old son says that Nirvana

(47:00):
is his favorite Nirvana and Ice Cubeare his favorite artists, and uh,
you know he loves Nirvana like there'sno tomorrow. And I mentioned to you
that he was the one that pointedout to me and preparing for today's interview,
that you guys have the same birthday, you and my son. You
know what, I highly recommend yourson does because I did this on my
birthday a couple of years ago forfun, because it dawned on me that

(47:24):
nobody ever asks your birthday candle whatthey wish for. So what I did
was I let the candle burn allthe way until it was it blew itself
out, and I let the candlehave a wish for the first time.
And I think I think you missedit, though I would think that the
candle's first wish is to not beon fire. I don't know. I'm

(47:46):
not speaking. I can't speak forthe candle. I don't speak I don't
speak that language. There are hundredsand hundreds of languages that I don't speak,
and I I I certainly enjoyed thecherry cheesecake that went on Like if
he wished for me to love thecherry cheesecake. My wish came true as
a result of his wish. Soyeah, when I when I posted on

(48:09):
Instagram that you were going to bejoining us today, I got a repeated
question from several USS fans that wantedto know this answer. And you don't
have to you don't have to divedeep into this, but people want to
know because USS ended in the eyesof the fans abruptly. You want to
know if there is tension or ifthere is animosity between you and human kebab,

(48:35):
or if it's all good in thehood and you guys just had to
go your separate ways and do yourown thing. Yeah, you know when
you go have you been to Korra'sthat breakfast place? Yeah, so when
you finish your breakfast, right,maybe you have some coffee left in your
cup, or you have some waterleft in your glass. So maybe you

(48:55):
finish your breakfast and they clear yourplates and then and you finish your water,
and then they come and say doyou need anything else? You say
no, do you want some morecoffee? No, thank you. So
the waitress leaves. You take yourlast few swigs of coffee. Thank you
very much. Waitress comes anything asI gat, not just the bill.

(49:15):
Thanks right on, brings the bill, You pay your bill. You don't
just sit at the table for anotherweek. That's the end of the meal.
And you know it's the end ofthe meal. You've ate your food,
you drank your water, you finishedyour coffee, you paid the bill,
you gave her a tip. Youmaybe even went on Google gave them
five stars because the waitress was verykind. She remembered that you said,

(49:37):
can you make my home fries crispyand well done? And she remembered it
amongst all her busyness. And there'sall these things going on. There's all
these other tables. There's all thisstuff happening, and maybe you farted in
the car on the way there,and you know, and I'm just kidding
anyhow, pulling it all together,you just know that the meal's finished,

(49:58):
and you don't just sit in therestaurant for another week. So, uh,
the meal was finished and we hada beautiful meal. There's an incredible
quote, guys that the guitar playerfrom the tragically Hip said when the tragically
Hip, when Gord Downey got sickand they did that one of my favorite
documentaries. That's why I thanked GordDowney because that man needs the world to

(50:20):
me. And uh he said that. The guitar player said, Uh,
a band is like a hot airballoon and it goes up. And uh,
it's not very often that the fansget to like be a part of
the descent, the safe descent whereyou where you just very calmly exit the
hot air balloon. It doesn't justexplode in a frigging ball of fire and

(50:45):
every and it's like it's the end. And in a lot of ways with
how we got to go out onour on on those terms. But when
the meal was finished, we gotto do two shows at History, one
of the most like phenomenal venues inToronto, with the most phenomenal lights,
with the most phenomenal sound. Uh, and it was it was pretty magic.

(51:07):
That's that's my answer to that question. Don, that's a great answer.
It's a great You have the soulof a poet. My friend Leonard
Cohen is smiling right now, Hey, Don, Yes, I really love
to you touched on it. Ireally appreciate this opportunity to connect meaningfully in

(51:28):
this way and put these pieces togetherto pull to pull this together. Now
where we've arrived at is this thisFracs and this Prime character. So what
happened is is that I I wasI had a wonderful girlfriend who was going
to Niagara College and she was takinghorticulture. So on the weekend we go

(51:52):
to the Tree Library, which isa park that has all the trees labeled
and all the Latin names, andso you can walk through a forest.
It's like a tree live and youcan know what all the different trees are.
So fraction this is actually the Latinword for ash. I was saying
that to Tid before we came onthe air. Yeah, So I was
like, I'm gonna be Phracs inthis. And then I was watching hockey

(52:12):
with my parents and a Transformers commercialcame on and I saw optimist Prime and
I go, you know what,I'm gonna be fractionist Prime because I can
just I just I'm like, Ijust I'm like the Breakfast the characters from
the Breakfast Club, and I gottabe okay with it. I just change
into different things and that's that's whoI am. So what's super exciting is

(52:37):
is that my first like post USSrelease is coming up next week. We're
putting out our first our new songscalled Control Out Delete, and uh,
we're gonna be playing it at intoWe're so we're throwing intimate and electronic two
guys our second adult rave, whichis at the Redwood Theater in Toronto.

(52:57):
This theater is about one hundred andtwenty years old. Who D performed there.
Charlie Chaplin performed there. Uh it'sjust a wild, blackie, weird
and wonderful place and we're starting itat six pm. We have an experimental
violin player, we have a reggaeDJ, we have me and Wece Locker

(53:19):
are doing a set. I'm doingan acoustic set, which I'm super stoked
on. I'm going to be playingsome USS classics and uh yeah, there's
gonna be butterfly wings and there's gonnabe lollipops, and there's gonna be a
hugstation and there's gonna be h It'sjust it's gonna be a we're gonna make
a community for a night and that'swhat's going on. I love that.

(53:42):
I want to ask you about andI mentioned it in the introduction. The
birth of fraks In is prime.That happened, Yeah, in that hospital
room, and I know that Tidcan relate to this on a level that
I cannot, because, like you, kid almost lost his life to a
severe staff infection. Wow, dude, yeah yeah, holy crow, Yeah

(54:07):
yeah, that was so Basically,I I kind of get day to day
life, and I love water,Okay. I take about three ice cold
showers every day. I have aneb some salt bath every morning. I've

(54:27):
been to most of the waterfalls inOntario. Everywhere we go, I bring
my bathing suit. I just jumpin. But so I was in the
shower drinking a mug of root beerand this was last spring, and the
mug slipped out of my hand.I broke the mug. I got a
little cut right here. And thenthe next day my hand was swollen up

(54:50):
like this big. I go intoemergency at Saint Joseph's Hospital and they looked
at my hand and they rushed meinto emergency surgery. And as I'm lying
on the table, they basically slicedopen my palm and were sucking the staff.
They were hammering antibiotics. They didn'ttell me at the time, but
they were like, yeah, youwere like a couple hours from that hand

(55:13):
being gone. If you had towait until tomorrow morning, you might like,
we're not going to say that youmight have died, but there's a
good chance that thing gets to yourheart, you're dead. So as I'm
lying on the table, I seea bluetooth speaker. All right, Chris,
So I said to the nurse,I go, hey, do you
mind I go? Do you mindif I dj She goes, yeah,

(55:34):
no, no, go ahead.So in this hand, I got my
iPhone and I blue. I geton the bluetooth and I start dejaying my
surgery. So they didn't have timeto intubate me. They didn't have time
to put me under, so theyjust froze my hand in the operating room.
And I'm djaying on this side,and I keep turning it up,

(55:54):
and the nurse keeps telling me toturn it down. Time I turn it
up a bit more. So I'mlike, I'm just pumping my favorite electronic
music as I'm doing it. Ijust I don't know, it just came
over me. I started singing myfavorite Nirvana songs, my favorite Oasis songs,

(56:15):
my favorite cold Play songs. Itwas like I was just trying to
diffuse the freakin' like Holy fuckness ofthe situation. It's time question surgery.
So basically what winds up happening Chrisis that they said you might never be
able to use your finger again.Like for three months, I couldn't bend

(56:35):
it, I couldn't play the guitar. So I just started doing what I
did in the operating room, andI started playing all my favorite drum and
bass music, all my favorite electronicmusic, and I just started singing for
the first time in my life withouta guitar, Like I was a rave
at a rave, at MC ata rave, but it was like Kurt
Cobain or Chris Martin or Noel Gallagherbeing the MC and actually singing an incredible

(57:00):
song over electronic music. So whatwinds up happening is Chuck Topping aka Wece
Locker and I wound up getting backtogether and he's like, what do you
want to do? And I'm like, well, when I was on the
operating room table and I thought Iwas gonna die, I was doing this.
It was pretty cool. He's like, well, let's let's do that.

(57:21):
So we wound up recording an albumfor the first time. I wasn't
playing the guitar. I've only everplayed the guitar. So this sort of
vulnerability there I use the word ofjust standing with a microphone and not having
this thing that I'm kind of likea shield in front of me has just
been like, so now when I'mreally channeling my like Leonard Cohen and Gord

(57:44):
Downie, who are just too likejust masters of just being there. They're
there and only there. They're notsomewhere else. They're not trying to impress
you, they're not trying to likenot that they're not anyhow, this is
what but this Fracs in his primegrow this evolution of who I am.

(58:05):
That's that's the origin of this.And it's just been I just I just
have put on my seat belt andI'm just going for the ride. It's
scaring the shit out of me.But I don't have a choice. Like
a beaver has to chew wood,they just have to do it. I
don't know what's at the top ofthe tree. The beaver doesn't know what's

(58:25):
at the top until the tree fallsdown. And so you know, I'm
just chewing the wood. And I'mchewing the wood with you guys here,
so you can chew our wood anytime. Ah, So what happened with you,
Chris? What was your staff?Staph infection? All of us?
So I had about six pounds ofsteel come off the side of a truck,

(58:49):
hit me in the chest, andthen came down on my leg.
It was still connected to the boomof the forklift that was taking it off
of the truck, stopped it fromnot cutting my leg completely. So when
it jump down, it came downmy double compound tibia amphibula on my left
leg out the front and my telltell them where your calf muscle was.

(59:14):
My knee was pointed. My kneewas pointed sideways my front, the front
muscle on your shin was hanging out, and I could see the bottoms of
my toes. Okay, So theytake me to the hospital, They do
the you know we're in there,right, They give me the minimal amount
of tore it all. On theyou know trip to the hospital, I'm

(59:37):
like, I'm digging my fingers upto my second knuckle into my eye sockets
to try to divert you know whatI mean, situation, Try to divert
the situation right a little bit,a little bit of a different technique than
I use. But that was astrategy. You went with it. We
get we get to the hospital,my wife shows up with her friend and

(01:00:00):
there she's freaking out. I'm like, I'm okay, everything's fine. Look
at I look at her friend Paulinethat drove her there or whatever. First
thing I say to her is tobring your camera. She goes, you
know I did. I said,actually, we're gonna have to get pictures
of all of this stuff. Sowe started documenting all this for the pictures.
I ended up having to go throughthree surgeries in seven days. They

(01:00:22):
couldn't get the front of the legclosed up again, you know what I
mean. After they just kind ofshoved the muscle back in there. About
a year later, because I hada rod in my leg, I was
like I was having issues with it, so rod's got to come out.
Do the surgery. It's supposed tobe a forty five minute surgery. It
takes four hours. They finally getthis rod out of my leg. I'm

(01:00:43):
healing up. It's about a monthafter on the healing or whatever, and
my knee, my knee is feelinglike on the incision part, feeling a
little warm, a little you know, to the touch, a little inflamed
or whatever, starts getting a littleswollen. And then I'm in the shower
one morning and I bend my legand my knee explodes, like literally just

(01:01:06):
exploded, and all of this,like toxic avenger stuff starts coming out the
front of my leg. I'm like, that's not good. Off we go.
They start sticking me on, youknow whatever, antibiotics to start find
out I'm allergic to all of them. That's a tough time for that kind
of death. So to the pointwhere I've got to I've got to wear

(01:01:29):
a hip sack at this point thathas an antibiotic bag that they're running ivy
into my arm twenty four hours aday for two weeks straight. The nurse
would come to either I was athome where I was supposed to be,
or I was at work where Iwas not supposed to be, and she
would change it up for me everysingle day for two weeks straight, almost
three weeks, to get this infectionto go away. And that's how the

(01:01:50):
Notorious Tid was the birth of theNotorious Tid. Oh that's hold on,
and then the sleeves of your shirtripped off to a permanent tag top and
just grew out and you're like,yeah, yeah, Well they say does
kill you? They say, whatdoesn't kill you? It only makes you
stronger. I guess what what I'mtrying to figure out is Ash gets a
staff infection, nearly dies, formsthis brilliant musical project. You got a

(01:02:15):
staph infection, nearly died. Allyou did was want peanut butter and pot.
I was gonna say, I wasgoing to say Arby's. Yeah,
can I tell you guys something hilarious? There was a so the only Arby's
in the whole GTA is an Oshawa, and there was a protest at that
Arby's. Guess what the protest wasfor? Wait for it, The protest
was for why there aren't more Arby's. Yeah. I know the guy who

(01:02:37):
ran that prote my guest on thisshow, Yeah, John Tart. John
Tart ran that protest, punk rocklegend, John Tart. That's the greatest
protest in the history of the GTA, as far as I'm damn like,
even if you're not, even ifyou're vegan, who else has got season
curly fries? You know, eventhough half of them are soggy and you

(01:03:00):
get to Chrispy Ones here and there. But hey, do you guys want
to hear Do you want to sneakpreview on our new track Control out the
League? I would love nothing more. Okay, so just bear with for
one moment. This is my firsttime playing it. I just have to
get my little reference here. Ohby the way, guys, this guitar
for all your parents out there whenI graduate. When I was graduating high

(01:03:23):
school, my parents saw how hardI worked at music, how dedicated I
was, how much I was committedto practicing, and how seriously I was
taking it. And my stepdad tookme down to Steve's the guitar shop,
and he just set ash play allthe guitars, and whichever one feels you
feel connected to, that's going tobe your instrument. And so I've had

(01:03:44):
this guitar since high school and it'sjust the most beautiful instrument. And actually
this is going to be Uh,I've never actually recorded with this guitar.
We're going to record Control out ofthe League with this guitar. I'm doing
like a spooky Lallaby version. Souh. One of the other kind of
areas of the way that I'm goingto be creating and moving forward is more

(01:04:11):
in alignment with this kind of abit of a calmer, more grounded kind
of version of who I am.And yeah, I'm playing a lot of
spooky lullabies, as I call them. So I'm gonna do the the spooky
lullaby version of control alt delete Ilove. Okay, so let me tell,
let me just get the reference fighthere Mary Leonard Cohen, he here

(01:04:32):
we go. Shadows on from themoon, Okay, shadows on loan from
the moon. The Waitlessness its moovehousemakes soon call green means goes. So
I went the rent is spent,get stake, get them stall can show

(01:05:01):
control n the andhing the end,It's gone. Shadows on alone from the

(01:05:34):
moon. The Witlessness smuffhouse makes zooma call three minutes ago. So I
went the reds man, get straightand get to them. It stalled.
Never mind the beaker's and tubes andhypothesize. We guess we assume control,
stepping up, steping in mind thespin, look yourself in the eye and

(01:05:56):
try tea s rom the then scycome on, this guy is a rock

(01:06:45):
star. Jesus dude, that isfantastic. Yeah. So yeah, that's
the acoustic version. So what whatwhat you'll be hearing is is what we
call jungle punk, which is likea jungle jungle Drummond bassed, very cool.

(01:07:17):
So bringing the punk rock to thekid. I know you're you're picky
with what you like, but whatdo you think? I was tapping along?
Yeah, I like a good acousticjam though too, you know what
I mean. There's just a lotmore for me anyways, there's a lot
more feeling when you mentioned like yourartists out off the gate, you know
who you at, your shout outsto everythingle one of those has a huge

(01:07:42):
acoustic uh side to everything that theydo. That's what That's what again is
another big full circle guys, isI started my life in music at campfires
at my cottage, playing our ladypiece, buying Trouble Charger, playing back,
playing radio Head, playing Nirvana,And that's my like, that's in

(01:08:05):
my DNA. That is like theabsolute, like the nucleus of who I
am. So what's super fun isthat simultaneous to Fraks in his prime and
the work I'm doing with Vice Locker, which I'm so super stoked about because
it's really the truest, the truest, the closest I've ever come to fulfilling

(01:08:28):
that the raves that I was exposedto as a kid and the grunge alternative
rock. But what I'm doing nowfor the first time, simultaneous to that,
guys is playing my acoustic guitar,just me playing my acoustic guitar,
and I've written an album of allnew songs. But you know there's some
USS songs. There's one called kitI do this spooky lella by version of

(01:08:49):
our song called work Shoes I'm doing. People don't really realize that, Like,
this is how work Shoes, theUSS song. This is how the
song went when I wrote it.So that song is just like a big
stomp clap awesome. Let's let's getpsyched about life, let's pull ourselves up.
But this is how that song waswritten. I'm about to rise,

(01:09:12):
I'm about to shine, I'm aboutto I'm about to leave this all behind.
I'm about to check, I'm aboutto change. I'm about to reign,
connect and rearrange. Hounding at theMoon, Krypton at the Sun.
Been living in a days for weeksand months and years. I'm done.
The aces in the base, thesound it says to stop. Well,
I'm about to, I'm about toI'm about to drop in my hot sings.

(01:09:38):
I just write lullabies. I don'tyell in my room and jump around.
I'm just I'm just soothing, youknow, I'm I'm soothing the whole
situation. So I'm so excited guystoo, to feel like I'm enough that
I can just sit with my guitarlike that. You know, when I

(01:10:00):
started making this kind of music,I was trying to get Okay, here's
in some more insider information. WhenI started playing music, guys, I
hadn't because of Crohn's disease. Ididn't start puberty until I was like seventeen.
I had my voice was so highpitched. I hated the sound of
my voice. Everyone you were smalltoo, I was tiny. Everyone made
fun of me. They made funof my voice. So I hated my

(01:10:23):
voice. So even as I startedsinging and writing songs and working on music,
which is just the same thing withgoing to the monastery, I just
saw a guitar and just had toplay it, and these songs started happening.
But I always hated my voice.So the uss thing really came out
of the fact that I was likeall of a sudden, I was like,
oh my god, now we canget all these synthesizers and drum machines

(01:10:44):
and a million instruments going, sono one will notice how awful my voice
is. So a lot of timesin life, like a lot of great
art comes from overcompensation. People areovercompensating for what they perceive as weakness,
but it winds up creating their strength. So in my case, I became
this hyper maximalist producer because I wastrying to distract people because no one knew

(01:11:08):
that I hated my voice. Soif you even listen to our song Hollow
Point, there's two hundred things goingon. There's also me singing right in
the middle of it somewhere. AndSo this journey that I've been on,
Chris, when you ask me anddon why I go to monasteries and sings
like that, is because I hadto weed out a monologue, an inner
monologue that was narrating the wrong movie. So basically, essentially, I couldn't

(01:11:34):
sit with my guitar and play foranybody because my voice is awful, and
it's this is disgusting. There's nothingto hide from that. It's right out
in the open. And so Ihave worked so diligently when you ask me
at the beginning dawn where like whyI haven't done podcasts is because what I've

(01:11:58):
had to do on a day today basis just to get my out the
door every day and at a baselineof just getting into life. And so
as a testament to the work I'vedone and the growth that I've accomplished and
all, and I'm so thankful forall of the people and my family and

(01:12:20):
friends that have just been so patientwith me that to arrive at this point
now where I can sing a lullabyand like and connect and not close my
eyes and like, so at theIntimate and Electronics show, it's my birthday

(01:12:40):
too, and it's like the bestbirthday ever. I'm playing a fucking fourteen
song acoustic set of lullabies and that'slike, I'm so excited to be You
know, it doesn't necessarily just applyto addiction, but they say addiction is
a disease of selfishness, and uh, and we're all addicted to lots of

(01:13:01):
things in our in our own ways, and in a way, like in
the ways that I've been addicted toselfishness, the greatest gift that I could
ever receive is actually not is forme to give this music to everybody.
So on my birthday, my presentis the ability to give this, these

(01:13:24):
these lullabies to to everybody. Gosh, this is incredible and honestly, first
of all, in case you haven'twrapped your head around this at this point,
your voice is phenomenal. I'm tryingto figure out what it's going to
cost to have you sit on astool next to my bed and play guitar
so that I can fall asleep onthose nights when I have insomnia. Hey,

(01:13:46):
I just, I just I justgot my first SoundCloud page today and
so all of this music will beavailable to ASMR you just sleep on.
I love that. You know what? Until I get up on SoundCloud,
guess what I found today? Ashes? Oh wow, nobody knows somebody has

(01:14:09):
one of those. Nobody has oneof these except very few people. And
I was talking to Ash about thisearlier today. This was one of Ash's
earlier bands, Quick Sonic. Yourbrother Adam was in this band too,
and I was such a fan ofthis music and tid when I tell you
that this sound what year would thishave been? Ash? When you put

(01:14:31):
two thousand and one. So whenI tell you at this time, Ted,
when this came out, I hadnever heard anything like it. This
sound was so different and so unique. I played this like the back is
destroyed. Oh I guess hey,Chuck, can you ask me the well?

(01:14:53):
I have a special surprise for DonChris. There are three known copies
of this album, and Don isabout to get this one. I love
it. I missed the artwork.That's the case anymore. Well, I
was such a stoner when we madethis that like four of the six songs

(01:15:15):
are but weed and what's really Donasked me when we were chatting, when
we were connecting, which was sowas It was just so nice to connect
with Don because I don't like thisseminal like absolute the incubator of my musical
life. I've just never talked aboutit with anybody, maybe Hilding the one

(01:15:38):
guy. And I'm you know,because I've been so solitary and so monastic.
Like on Instagram, I see allof these incredible guys I played hockey
with, I played sports with thatI played music with in high school,
and uh, I'm just so excitedto reconnect with that with these people and
so this album. Don bringing thisalbum up because no one ever talks about

(01:16:01):
it. We sold about ten ofthem and it was before the Internet,
so they just like didn't go anywhere. But on this album is the last
track here is called Heightened Perspective andthis was the first song that I ever
use a computer to make music inmy life, which was sort of like
the cornerstone of what would become theUSS music. My brother got into a

(01:16:28):
guy called you know your brother.If you guys had older brothers, and
people that have older brothers, theygo to university. This was before the
Internet, and then they'd come backwith all this new music from all the
people that they met. So mybrother came back with this guy called Desmond
Decker, who's the godfather of Scottbefore Bob Marley even, and he had
this style on the guitar where DesmondDecker would go like this, like the

(01:16:51):
guy would be like, so ifyou noticed with hollowpoint when I played it,
it goes the scene. So mybrother, that's what this Quick Sonic
CD was. All of a sudden, I was listening to all this reggae
and this ska music. My sisterhad gone and worked at a camp and

(01:17:11):
have you, guys ever heard ofa guy called G Love and special Sauce?
Ye? Here, So she lefta tape in our car by G
Love, and G Love was likelike a beck kind of really soulful speak
rapping melodics speak rap kind of dude, And between the Desmond Decker and uh,

(01:17:32):
the G Love, all of asudden, I'm like, this is
the first song. I'll play thisfor Dawn. The first song is called
Funk Flash. And so people don'tknow this, guys, but I was
a rapper first I know I was. I was in a band called Dousomnia
and we were a rapper. Andthis was one of the first raps I

(01:17:53):
ever wrote, which turned into FunkFlash that goes, how's it go?
I got magic in my finger tips, I'm profound. I got a sound
to get your mom doing backflips.I'll put the grooves in your dancing shoes.
So don't wait, don't hesitate tolet your hot dick take your faith.

(01:18:15):
A meta girl. Just the otherday, I said hey, she
said yo. I said hey,she said yo. I'm known who puts
the grooves in your dancing shoes.So if you got it, step up.
But if you don't get batter listenup see. If you don't got
the group, well, I suggestyou get a move on, son.
And if you can't feel that fuckflash, I suggest you take a lesson

(01:18:38):
from ash I fucking love that song, Ashley, I can't. My brother
was playing in a reggae band withall these old Jamaican guys and learning how
to play the Oh my god.So all of a sudden, my brother
comes back from university. He's areggae drummer. I've just been like inundated

(01:19:02):
with I loved back so much.My band Dousomnia. We covered Old Dirty
Bastard, We covered House of Paine, we covered Jurassic five, we covered
Wu Tang Clan. Uh. Welike y'all shoot me if you like when
you come to if you know peoplecome to the show. Uh, I've

(01:19:26):
I've reconnected with my uh with mylike when you Okay, Basically what I
fell in love with about hip hopwas you could use you could be so
playful with the words, Like wehad a song called three Purple Butterflies,
and I'm like, I'm like,I got to be so expressive with words

(01:19:49):
in a way that I couldn't withjust songs. Three Purple Butterfly smile and
at me with the alligator as justshooting the breeze. She said, button
lance to connect the dots, thehands and the potstone themselves into robots.
They had a lady bubb and soit was just like so exciting to listen
to rap music but then to addmelody to it. H and so it

(01:20:11):
that's like what I'm doing with thefrocks, and this prime stuff is like
is connecting with those roots too.I love it. I have to tell
you it hurts my soul a littlebit that I can't make it out to
the Redwood Theater on Male eleventh.They'll have my son with me, and
I'm sure it's not an all agesevent, so we'll get me on the

(01:20:32):
guest list for Intimate and Electronic three. Okay, I listen. There's nothing
I want more right now, Ashthan to come and see you do your
thing live. The first chance Iget where it fits the schedule, I
promise you I will be there.Oh that would be so you and Hilden,
You and hildon a lot of game. Yeah, we'll drag tit out
too, even though he doesn't liketo leave home. No, we'll live

(01:20:55):
stream it so so you can watchthe live stream. It's better happening to
me there anyway. Yeah, he'smiserable. Redwood Theater on Mail eleventh.
Please check them out. We'll putup more information on Godfathers of Podcasting dot
com. You can check out FraksinisPrime. It's gonna be a fantastic event.
Go check out the hug station andeverything else that they've got going on.

(01:21:17):
I am saying and control all deleteand checking out our jungle punk.
I Uh, I'm really super excitedto get people checking out Control All Delete.
I love it. Thank you somuch for joining us. Man.
Oh hey, can I just doa couple just some shout outs to finish
off here? Sure? Okay,just give me one seck here. I'd

(01:21:41):
like to shout out uh. I'dlike to shout out my man Ice Locker
aka Chuck Tobbin. I'd like toshout out Jeremy tim. I like to
shout out Justin McWilliams. I liketo shout out Josh Thomas, Todgshawn,
Eric, Dad Mom, Adam SandyMandy, Brian McKenzie, Jonathan Craig,
Jonathan sim O'Neil Hilding I'd also liketo shout out out Kenny. I like
to shout out Steph, and Ilike to shout out Brett, and I

(01:22:03):
like to shout out everybody who uhis uh is just putting in some fucking
effort. I just put in somefucking effort. Hold on, did you
just mention your whole family except yoursister? That goes with that saying I
talked to your family every single day. I just didn't want you to get

(01:22:23):
in trouble. That's all. No, all right, there he is everybody
Ashley Bouschoultz fraks In is prime.It has been our pleasure, my friend.
There he goes tid what a brainon that guy. Huh. Amazing
story, amazing journey. And itsounds like it's not even close to getting

(01:22:45):
to the middle part of the chapters. One of the people who I can
tell you I've come across in mytravels that I consider to be a true,
true musical genius. And after thisconversation tonight, I think people realize
that his level of enlightenment is levelsabove most of us plebeians, Like he

(01:23:08):
has a view on the world thatis just so inspiring and so refreshing,
and it's fascinating to listen to andI'm sure you took something away from it
too. He is he's definitely dealingwith an artistic brain that I can only
imagine because I don't have it,and you either have it or you don't.

(01:23:30):
And that's the thing. It's it'ssomething that I've come across a few
times and to try to understand itis not going to happen. All you
can do is just enjoy the timeand the space around people like that,
and you know, never ever takeit for granted, because their gift,
their gift that they that they're willingto give to everybody is greater than you

(01:23:53):
can even imagine. So if youlisten to this week's episode on any podcast
provider anywhere in the world, youmay want to go to Godfathers Apodcasting dot
com and watch the full video,because I promise you this is one that
you're going to want to have theopportunity to see and not just to hear.
Make sure you go to Barnealbeard dotcom for all your facial products and

(01:24:16):
beard needs. Go to Blackbork USA. Get a sweet little hat like this
one, many different colors, manydifferent styles. You can choose from hundreds
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(01:24:41):
and support The Godfather's a podcasting,you can contact us info at Godfathersopodcasting dot
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us to feature some of your reallycool products you think we would like them.
You can send us an email infoat Godfathersopodcasting dot com. If your
product interests us, we can worksomething out. That's ted. You know.

(01:25:01):
I'm Donnie. This is episode oneseventy four. I think okay,
and we are done this party.We'll see you next time. Fuck this
shit, I'm mount, but thisshit, I'm mount. No thanks,
don't mumy. I'm gonna just grabmyself and please excuse me. Please fuck

(01:25:24):
this shit. I'm mount. Helpfuck this shit. I'm mout all right
then, I don't know what thefuck just happened, but I don't really
care. I'm gonna get the fuckerpatty here. Shit