A Visit to Saturnville: Fresh Finds Podcast Season 4 Episode 8 W/ Superdestroyer

fresh hello and welcome back to season four of the fresh finds podcast a show about discovering new music with good people i'm ryan and joining me this month is sega wave artist and co-owner of lonely ghost record super destroyer how are you doing dude uh not too bad how are you i am a little sick actually so maybe not too bad as bad but i'm glad you're doing better than me yeah i i apparently i am but uh i'm i'm glad to have you on the episode this has been something that we've kind of been going back and forth about trying to figure out for a little while so i'm uh glad to finally have you on yeah i was gonna say i you know i apologize i've actually like not totally known what my own year was gonna look like and so it's been a little bit shaky so you know i feel like it finally like settled in where i knew when things were coming out and you know songs were done and stuff yeah it just worked out do you want to take a second kind of introduce yourself uh what you've been doing for a long time and what you've been doing for a long time you do kind of just all that sort of stuff so that we can get to know you a little bit uh sure yeah so i record music as super destroyer um which is kind of in a very eclectic project i don't know that really you can assign a singular genre to it but i generally tell people that i kind of borrow from a lot of like post-hardcore and punk and more ambient electronic music those are the two genres that like i mostly pull from and try to bring together which is why by the way i love dutch master so much so shout out to kelly she makes great music um and she does that really well but like that's kind of where i pull from but then i bring a lot of other stuff in so you know it's like kind of hard to pin down sometimes it's a little bit more emo sometimes a little more punk but uh i don't know it's always weird it's fun it's lonely ghost records you know well and and that's kind of the thing like not not to get directly into lonely ghost stuff right away but i was thinking about this like preparing for the episode and one of the things that i love to talk about on the podcast is like the fact that the 2020s have very much been a decade so far of like a post-genre era especially for like uh you know like independent diy type of music and so i really feel like lonely ghost and all the artists that are on that label are like the like very representative of that which i think is super cool thank you um and that was kind of the point i mean honestly like when i got into diy it was really heavily like midwestern emo and i think that's kind of the point i mean i wasn't necessarily trying to make that i liked midwestern emo okay i was kind of at an age where that's not really what i was more interested in doing i just really like making music and stuff so it's just like yeah you know i was in my i was like 27 and i was just like well the diy scene's cool but there's no place for me and uh there was never really a place early on for people who wanted to like bring synths and stuff that felt like it was like had a home and so that's why i started kind of finding those people because we'd all see each other be like oh there's like beeps in your music and shit yeah that's pretty cool yeah i think that's kind of the point i was like oh you know and so like by doing that you know um i think we all kind of started to find each other and as we kind of continued to send music to each other i think it became weirder and weirder and more blended in together versus like having songs of different genres we started to have songs that were like multiple genres and stuff like that so i don't know it's like very much sounds exactly like what it is which is just like a bunch of people fucking around seeing what they can add into songs yeah based on what somebody else did you know like i mean well and i i think that that is interesting though especially with like um you know that this kind of diy scene that we're we're both in involved in is like and i kind of talked about this last episode as well is it feels like it was initially like diy emo was what people were were just calling the entire scene and there were kind of like acts that were adopted into that that were not emo nearly as much and we've gotten to the point where we've kind of dropped the dropped the emo part off of it and it's just diy which i think is really cool because like you've got so many things that you can do and you can do it in a way that you can do it in a way that you so many artists that are doing such interesting things that really don't have anything to do with emo and it's interesting too because like i didn't have a background in in emo and so like initially when i first got into the scene i felt like a little bit on the outside because i was always way more into like the metal and the punk and like that kind of stuff emo was never like a title that resonated with me and so i think that it's really cool that we've kind of like gotten past that a little bit you know well so like midwestern emo in particular to me was a tag that had escaped me growing up like what people call midwestern emo most of the people that i knew were more like calling it like math punk you know like mathy punk and stuff like that so it's like oh i guess we're all kind of dipshits in that way genre was a little different back then you didn't have like you know the internet you didn't think to care i guess was the point right like genre in a weird way like mattered a lot for like record stores but like in the early days of like finding shit on the internet it didn't matter at all yeah you just found shit that you thought was cool and you're like all right i'm gonna roll yeah yeah you found like a label like top shelf which was one of them you know and or run for cover fucking uh you know maybe a count your lucky stars stuff like that that were around back then and you know you'd like some of their bands you'd go to their shows you'd see bands that played with them you'd find shit that people like that band on the internet kind of like pre-reddit even you know your friends would go on the internet and get tell you to go and like basically what discord is now right like chats yeah chat rooms yeah private chat rooms about shit you know like that you care about like music and shit but like you know it was on yahoo or whatever yeah but like yeah like you know but yahoo radio you know like that's how you found stuff and so like it was kind of similar but it's also very different and i feel like actually like diy kind of did this full circle thing too because like jeff the split that we put out with the myspace cover yeah back when that was starting like that was very diy and there was already i mean people have always been diy like in my opinion hip-hop and rap is like the most diy genre that ever exists oh yeah like all of like the major influential stuff came out of it and it's like it's like it's like it's like diy labels in like the 80s and 90s and people just doing it totally on their own but like you know similarly like the myspace era kind of brought in this like wave of people who are meeting each other on the internet and making music on the internet you had a project like the postal service that's whole was their whole fucking gimmick you know that they were like mailing shit back and forth to each other and whatever and like you know this like idea of like across distances you could have this collaboration and you could have this new way of showing people music and meeting each other over music that wasn't like locally at a show or like through like major labels or like through like going to record stores and shit and so like diy was very diverse back then but there was like a lot of scene music that managed to like grab certainly like my attention back in the day and that did do well on like myspace yeah you know a lot of like the super screamos you know some people would call scrams but not quite scrams because it was like too poppy but you know all that shit yeah definitely like the like screamo kind of going into like the post-hardcore going into like the metalcore it was like that was like the pocket it really really did well on myspace yeah for sure like haste the day a skylit drive yeah fucking all those kind of bands you know and like don't get me wrong i like some of that stuff too i was way into like more like uh we used to call it like old school hardcore which is more like the tom heavy punky sounding shit yeah that you kind of hear uh but then you know i also got into shit like like terror and like cruel hand and shit but like that was more my jam probably as i got older you know the myspace type stuff wasn't quite there but there's a lot of diy on myspace and i actually used to make music and post it on myspace and so did my friends there you go and it was like just with like you know whatever we knew like you know i used to make like heavy hardcore music with like synthesizers like super like fuzzed out heavy as fuck music and uh i don't know they're gone now i think the project was called johnny got his gun after dalton trumbo book okay yeah that was like an anti-war book yeah yeah i was 18 or 17 or some shit you know but like i don't know it was like very diy and it got kind of diverse from there and a lot of the people i met in diy it definitely had more of like a lot of a punk leaning to it and emo for a while in there like i feel like what happened was like that top shelf run for cover era like popped off and then that really everybody kind of did that yeah yeah yeah yeah and and run for cover was pretty diy when they started and so you know a lot of those labels like even top shelf was pretty diy comparatively back then you know and like that also brought all those like bands into that i think and kind of like re-established that more as like the diy sound and that's like my impression of it as somebody who kind of experienced it in different ways as i like this version of diy until i was older but i've always participated in like diy scenes and shit so it's like you know interesting to see somebody else might come on here and be like that guy's a fucking idiot and that's fair but i'm just talking about my experiences like what i perceive it as yeah yeah that's what it feels like to me kind of and like i don't know i also think that like you can only hear the same song so many times you can only hear a band recreate a sound and so many different variations without it has to evolve yeah exactly and i think that a lot of i mean probably all of the lonely ghost artists are kind of symbolic of that in some way taking these different sounds and kind of like putting them together in new ways you know whether it's like exciting excellent doing like the the chip tune stuff that that uh you know or like uh sheem kind of doing like a new metal thing that they're doing you know all all this stuff is like it's really interesting and very unique which i think is super cool yeah i mean i love that you know i for me growing up like i always liked the bands that nobody could ever really replicate you know yeah as many people have tried to replicate motion city soundtrack nobody's ever done it because they just had a certain unique quality of like the just the right amount of like pavement and whatever the fuck else is going into that you know yeah nobody sounds like that you know and like i think that like those bands always stuck with me and i realized like 20 years later those are the bands i still care about those bands that nobody else ever really could quite scratch that itch even like a minus the bear like nobody sounds quite like that you know and i think that's kind of like, minus the bear, you know, like, it's kind of a unique sound in its own right, and, like, I don't know. That's kind of what I wanted to look for is like those, those projects that are so unique and so personal to the artists. And so like kind of their own thing confidently that like, they're kind of like have a gravitational pull to them, you know, that you're like, wow, there's something about that, that intrigues me. Or there's just something about this that like, it just, you can't stop thinking about it because it's just, even if you don't know if you like it, sometimes you're like, I kind of have to hear that again. That's one of the things that draws me to your music. And I think it's really interesting because to me, all of your projects have a very distinct identity to them. It feels like, it feels like they're all pretty like conceptual and like they have this, even if it's not necessarily lyrically, they all have like this thing where it feels like you try and take a style of music and then do your own thing within it. And I, yeah. So like for Soaked in Synth, which came out, almost, exactly a year ago, as of recording, that was like, I think that you had said that you were specifically just trying to like move away from guitar and like try and do just like synth music essentially. Yeah. But still doing your own type of thing with it. Yeah. So like when I started making music, I didn't know how to play guitar. I only had like a MIDI keyboard and I'd played piano growing up. So I was like synthesizer makes sense. I, you know, playing synth is very different even than playing like piano or something. Just like, it's a totally different concept, right? Like with synth, it's like textures and like more like noise that sounds cool. Well, and then there's also like the glide thing that a lot of people do too, where it's like, if you're playing the piano, then you've got both your hands on the keys, but like, you see like a really cool synth player. It's like their left hand is just on that pitch bend wheel the entire time. Just like, you know, or bouncing it and all the time, just like doing a little vibrato and like trying to make it sound like more human. So it's like, even just, that aspect of it is way different. Right. And you know, so like when I started, I used to make like electropunk shit and like hardcore shit with like synthesizers. And it was like cool, but like not quite like at the time, everybody was like, what the fuck is this? Yeah. Nobody, my friends told me I sucked and shit. Like it was fine. Like, you know, they were, they're right. It's fine. But like, I kind of like did this full circle thing. I dove into the synthesizers. I started learning guitar. I like learned and started diving into using all these different instruments. Cause I wanted to learn them. And like, there's no better way to learn an instrument than they're just fucking forced. To try to write some songs with it until eventually you don't hate yourself, you know? Okay. That's perfect. So, you know, every album you hope to get better. And that's kind of like the goal, at least for me, that's the fun of it. Like it's the journey. I really don't, I've realized like the longer I do this, the more I'm like really into like the journey of getting there. And then like, once it's out, I'm like, fuck, like, good thing I have another album. I'm done with that. Yeah. I'm going to move on to the next thing. Cool. Yeah. You know, but like, I mean, that, that, that kind of explains how you put out so many damn projects. Cause I mean, like, I, I think that I was, looking at your Spotify and it was like the first project was from 2018 or 2019, I think. And then you have an album every year since then. And then in the last year, you've really kicked it into overdrive. Cause you had Soaked in Synth that came out, like I said, almost exactly a year ago. Then at the beginning of this year, you had, uh, the, the mixtape. What was it? Yeah. Yeah. Fine. Okay. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Something like that. Yeah. Fine. Okay. Um, and yeah. And then, and then you've got the new project, uh, Nelson comes to visit as, as well as just doing like a ton of features on different people's stuff too. Cause you, you did a feature for the merrier. You did a feature for cacophony kid. You did probably way more the, the Jeff split, like the Jeff split. I did a feature on an old phone song that's coming out soon, uh, and probably September. So yeah, I've, I've, you know, I also Ivica glass remix Soaked in Synth and that's coming out on the nine. And she did a really cool job. And there's a single out of remix of cartoon demon that she put out. Uh, that's really sick. You can find it on my Spotify profile too. We kind of like split it as a co-release. I partially wanted to do that so that people would actually like find it. If they liked my music, they could check her out too. Cause her music's like crazy. It's so good. I can't believe she wanted to like remix my stuff and like, you know, that's really flattering in its own right. Yeah. But like, yeah, like with the last one, I kind of just was like, what if I went back and tried to make that album that I was trying to make when I was like 19 with synthesizers, you know, where it's like, what if I could do a little bit of like a heavier kind of like old school punky kind of drum thing with it sometimes and get to like my weird jazzy shit that I find fun, but not quite jazz. Cause I'm not good enough, you know, stuff like that. But like I had a good time with that. Yeah. And actually there's a, there's a whole other album that I actually wrote. That's not out yet. Um, that I actually did before Nelson comes to visit. Cause Nelson comes to visit is called that because Nelson came to visit February 19th and he got there at noon. We ripped 10 hours of music. So I was like, well, I'm going to go to bed. I'm going to go to bed. I went to bed, woke up the next morning and played until four when he left. And we recorded most of the album instrumentals during that time. And then I went back and like finished things, you know, you obviously you go back, you fix things, you rerecord some things you add, I had to add vocals and stuff, but like Nelson co-produced this album and it's like, you know, kind of like it was unexpected. I really liked it. It felt more done than the other one. And so like the other one, I have like nine songs already sitting for next year that I think Jake from the barrier is going to do guitar. On for all of it. If I can, for those who aren't aware, Nelson is leave Nelson. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My, uh, we've known each other forever. So we've been friends for like literally, I think 20 years this year. I've known him since we were in like high school. And, uh, so it's like weird that we've never like fully made music like this together. And you guys just announced that he's got a ton of projects coming out too, right? Yeah. So Nelson, uh, has his first actual, like his own LP. It's the first one in years. He's been working on this since literally, literally like 2021 probably, but he's gone through various iterations of the album and this one's really good. I mean, this is probably the best version of it, but he's putting that out and then he's doing a mixtape because he's been remixing a lot of, um, like popular songs. He's found stems for rap songs, stuff like that. And so it's really cool, but he can't like put it out on streaming because he doesn't technically, he can't charge for it or anything. It's a rights thing. Yeah. Right. So he's going to put it out on soundcloud because he can't, you can't clear it, those types of samples. But then, um, you know, he has the album that he co-produced with me coming out, which you'll definitely hear a lot of Nelson in there. Just, you know, some of the instrumental types of things that he does, you know, we had a really good time. Like we're going to definitely try to get together and do something else. I had bought the synthesizer, which is just like, uh, it's called, I was about to ask you about that. Yeah. So the first three channels here are FM synthesis, which is like the Sega chip. Basically these two channels are a chip tune for like, basically like actual chip sounds. And this one is a sample bank of Sega drums that they like replicated. So it's really bad. Oh, that's sick. And so like, so yeah, that's why, you know, the album has like the Sega aesthetic because of that, because it has like very Sega sounding kind of influence on it. And you know, yeah, no, I, I think that that's super cool. I really like it. Is it the, uh, the, the Genesis that the, um, the cover art is based off of and then, and then also like, like, very like, uh, um, what is it? Uh, mother, like earthbound. Yeah. Yeah. So like, basically I kind of wanted to combine them because it was more inspired by earthbound, like aesthetically. And like the idea was from kind of earthbound, like Saturnville is Saturn Valley who inspired it. Like it's the first break you get where everybody's not charging you a bunch of money and they help you out for free and stuff. And it's kind of like a nice break. And that's where Saturnville started. And that was like the, maybe the first song that I put some words on. And so that kind of inspired the idea. So I kind of wanted to do an homage to both. And like super story covers are always kind of like a alternative universe version of the world, kind of like an alternative perspective. There's always like subtle differences, like for soaked in synth, my synth has pink key book keys, not blue, but like in real life, it's blue. The shirt that my partner's wearing in the other cover, like that color of it doesn't exist. I did that just for the cover, just because I think it's fun to like do little weird things, you know, little like bizarro things that I, okay. That's interesting. Yeah. Like a dream state because in my mind, like my music is kind of like a little bit like a, like a surrealist dreamy sort of thing going on with it a lot of times. And like, I like the art to just be like a little bit off a little bit, like weird, a little bit like parallel universe kind of deal, which is, I'm assuming also like part of, uh, aside from just kind of wanting to, you know, remain anonymous online, but I assume that like that also kind of plays into the always like blurring your face or like covering it or doing something to like obscure it. Like, like whenever you post, stuff like that, I assume that that kind of like ties into that aesthetic as well as being like a, you know, personal choice as well. Right. Yeah. It's, it's pretty fun. Like honestly, the identity stuff, you know, I used to work in like a teaching position at a university and I didn't really want them to give me trouble over what I was doing or to be monitoring what I was doing because they had been very weird about their contracts. Um, so once I left there, I got a job working for like a guy who knew me before I ever started this label. Like I don't really care. It's just more of like easy to kind of keep it separated because I do work with kids who have like disabilities and stuff. And like, you know, their parents probably don't need to be able to like Google me and see what I think about anything on the internet. It's just better that we keep it, you know, I work with their kid and you know, I don't ask people, you know, that's not how it works. Right. But at the end of the day, I don't really give that much of a shit at this point. It's just more that it's really fun to kind of keep myself out of it. Well, it's, it's also kind of, kind of like a shtick you've committed to the bit at this point. Yeah. And so you, you just got to like keep it going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. It's fun. That's super cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like a little game. yeah yeah and also like you know it is kind of nice to just be able to like do stuff and not really have to worry about like the diy shit like i like being able to go to shows and i have to like always interact if like i'm really not there to do that yeah you know i only can then seek out the people i'm there to see that know i'm gonna be there yeah i can go up to somebody and be like hey this is me as opposed to somebody else coming up and be like yo what's yeah yeah right it's just like nice for like actually when i go to do things with people that i can actually like spend time with the people i intend to where like you know sometimes that doesn't happen when you know like 50 other people from the internet that you're like i didn't know you were gonna be here but also like you know i know you tangentially this person i talk to every day and i'm gonna see them this one time you know what i mean like yeah yeah yeah yeah so you know um that kind of thing but i don't know it's also just mostly fun like it's really fun to like come up with different ways to hide your face or to like recreate yourself and like to make it all kind of cohesive you know cohesive yeah i i thought that the the really funny one was the one that's currently your your twitter avatar where it's just got nelson's face or a hand in front of your face yeah that's fucking hilarious perfect you know yeah um exactly you know so it's like yeah i have fun with it and it's like kind of fun to get other people in on the ideas and it lets me do like more things with the art i think just because like i can kind of like do album out and like as i do more of my own artwork my album covers like i'm able to kind of bring everything together in a way that's kind of fun to do and i think that's kind of really fun yeah for sure for sure so you said that you started out on the piano right yeah was it after you started making music like like trying to do stuff yourself was that because you also play the drums and the guitar as well right like um were those things that you picked up kind of out of necessity or was it like just like always had like an interest in trying to like learn new stuff like oh both i would say kind of like you know it's hard to get a band together has like jobs and careers or we're just trying to like get by I mean like I don't know anybody who ever had yeah any money really back then especially like you know everybody was working all the time and a lot of my friends worked in restaurants and I worked in schools so my days started early and while I would be able to close down a bar with them I wasn't able to stay up all night to go jam at their house starting at four in the morning like they could you know because I had to be at work at like eight in the morning or whatever for my job so it was like the schedules didn't line up I moved to Columbus so I only knew so many people here and I don't know yeah I also just always wanted to learn guitar and drums and stuff like I started learning guitar in Michigan I just I like playing instruments like that's the fun of it for me like I bought this new synthesizer just to see what it'd do like what would it you know can I make it just kind of learn new things and play around with it yeah yeah for sure yeah so like that's kind of like that's really a lot of the label and the project and everything is just kind of like seeing what happens I guess like you try things out you try to navigate as you go and you just see what happens yeah I don't know it's fun to not know you know yeah no I I think I think that that's interesting I've started kind of like going in that way a little bit like I've got uh I I announced it on the last episode of the podcast but I still need to do like like a formal announcement and like actually release it but like uh this year was the first year that I uh like organized like a little compilation like EP album thing and it was exactly the same thing of just like I don't know how this is going to turn out but it's something that I've always thought would be interesting so it's like I just want to like you know put my all into it kind of figure it out so I think it's kind of like the exact same thing there yeah it's yeah I mean literally that's basically how we kind of started you know it's just like we found a few people that were like your music's cool I don't know it'd probably be better if we work together than by ourselves what if we tried to figure out how to like send emails to people about music and shit and then it just evolved from there like literally like we had no idea what we were doing so like with Lonely Ghost I assume that there were kind of like the people that were around you when you guys decided to like start the label who was the first like artist that was signed that was like not really like a part of it from the very beginning uh Alex from Arise Sir so basically the first five of us all kind of started at the same time a couple of the artists were younger a couple of them were like older our age so like you know we kind of span the spectrum of kind of like where people were from and then people were in life and things like that people are just like getting started out versus some of us that were like trying to like do more of like the management side of things with the business of like how do I release a song versus people who are trying to figure out like how do I like participate in a community and so like you know sure as a teacher I always like get something from trying to create environments that foster skills and talents and I felt like you know this label kind of started to turn into that pretty quickly whereas like no matter anybody's age or experience in music everybody got better you know yeah okay no matter where anybody was at when they started like everybody got better and everybody started figuring out like more of their own musical identities and just like it was cool it was cool to see people at different stages in life with different goals like you see somebody like Caleb or you know like Sophia from Funeral Homes that are younger that are probably going to go pursue things like maybe more seriously in music where they're like hey I want to go like try to be a band that can like self-sustain and maybe like eventually feed myself or like someone like me or Nelson we're really more into it just because it's cool to make music and like to meet good musicians and shit like we're here to kind of foster the community of it or to try to help those people like do better while we get to continue to like have fun with it you know and so it's like I guess in that way it kind of started with sort of like a very casual vibe it was more just like how can we help each other just kind of like have fun do this thing you know it's DIY like I didn't like there were bands coming out of DIY but like it was more of just a thing to just be like if you don't have people to help out like you're gonna quit you know what I mean like yeah yeah yeah you need people to just bounce stuff back around it was like what if we could help each other out and originally the idea was more of like everybody would do a different like goal like a different function in the label and each artist would kind of do a part of it but very quickly we realized like that's not gonna work out and so like it became more of like a label label and that sort of structure and then Shane and I just like learned how to fucking do like anything that we needed to do as we went and you know that like now I do like a lot of the graphic design shit like you know mock-ups like all that stuff like we had no fucking clue what we were doing when we started like I cannot stress that enough like I never used photoshop until I yeah until I started doing it and then I was like oh my god I'm gonna start doing this like I have no fucking clue you know so well I I think it's really funny too like like seeing people like you know the first project and you're like what do I do and so it's like you've got somebody who's like spent you know months and months and months making this project and then they're like all right so now in the next week I'm gonna teach myself how to use gimp so that I can make my my album art or something like that yeah I think it is really interesting like you get a very well-rounded like kind of weird artistic skill set trying to like release music yourself because like you have to just learn these different things that you never really thought would be part of the process well a hundred percent and that's like that's always a huge factor in it really like there's so many times where sorry my camera died I'm gonna have to plug it in for a minute um give me one second I can charge it while we I'll cut out a video for a minute but but yeah like you do get really well-rounded with the skills that you pick up and like everybody does like so many of the artists you know they mix and master their own music they like funeral homes they do like they do like they do like they do Sophia she does all has always done her own art for her albums and her graphic design is like so good you know um and so just like there's a lot of cool talents like that and like everybody's from all over the country you know we just kind of like talk about music on Twitter which is the funniest part about it you know what I mean like it's cool that eventually I've gotten to meet a lot of the the people on the label at like things like Focella mostly stuff like that you know festivals and stuff but like you know it's really just like people on Twitter who kind of like fuck with each other's music once in a while like help each other out with like how do you do this in a right like how do I yeah how do I like mix this how do I EQ this does the song sound cool just somebody has like a question and then all of a sudden you've been talking back and forth for like a week straight and you never even like realized it you're like oh shit we're kind of like actually friends now yeah but it's like you know it's more like really funny yeah it's not super personal a lot of times more just like you know yeah like our interest right like it's like literally like you get to like nerd out with people about like music and shit like sometimes people want to like talk about like real life shit but like mostly it's funny because like the label is just built on people being like yo is this song cool yeah this sounds good but like if you added like a riff over this that would sound better all right like that's literally like and then you know yeah knowing that if you don't put a song delay throw here yeah yeah you know and then the other part is like you're in a group chat with like all these talented people and they send you a new song and you're like well fuck my music has to sound at least as good as this now so I have to I'm gonna have to like figure out how to level it up myself up and I feel like that's the other thing about it is like you know that's kind of like the cool part about it's like an arms race of skill you're just like you you keep trying to like outdo each other I don't know it's quite like I'm gonna say truly competitive not a competitive way but in in like like a friendly competition in the DIY anxious way yeah right like the personal anxiety of every DIY artist that they don't want to be like the weakest link I think it's like that more it's like I can't be the fucking works artist on this label dude I can't know I'm the worst artist on this label you know it's like I think like some people probably have less of a fear of that than others I can say that I'm more on the tail end of that where I'm like don't let me be the worst slave artist on this label you know but like so I always have to try harder even though you know I don't know that I ever succeed but like it's fun and like it's really cool to see people help each other out and cheer each other on and like help each other learn how to do things and like book tours and you know it's like it's just DIY like online twitter basically but then you're like oh my god I'm gonna be the worst artist on this label you know but then as we've moved on you know there's obviously the same resources of just like swapping stuff back and forth but then also Shane and I actually do a lot of like real label shit and so like yeah you know Henderson Cole helped us start the label in the sense of he helped us like structure it after we filed the LLC we knew we had to file an LLC because we didn't want to be personally liable and Shane looked that up on the internet you know that's how we figured out how to start a label Shane googled it god bless the internet I know well at least before before now right like now with this AI shit it probably would be like you have to call some you know here's how so-and-so started a label and it's like you needed a million dollars you know like yeah yeah but um but yeah so like Henderson kind of taught us like how to structure things in a way that was like fair to artists and you know we gave them like really good splits and we did the copyright kind of we like learned about copyright and trademarking and like how to put out music and all this shit and so you know as we went we did more of that we learned merch deals vinyl physicals you know like we have a merch distributor now that does shit for us thanks to Jake from counterintuitive who helped took us up with a good a better merch provider after we got screwed by another one but like you know it's just like you grow as you need to and like as we take on a band like hey I love you that all of a sudden needed vinyl we learned how to make vinyl and you know it's just like that's I think the DIY spirit and that's always been kind of the way that I think everything is kind of unfolded with this label so I'm I'm a little bit curious and if it's it's too uh you know too like personal on that or like whatever but um like I know that a lot of the time like it's kind of like a labels thing that they help fund different things whether that's uh you know get get the physicals made for a record or like funding the actual production of it and like that sort of thing is that something that you guys do more or is it a lot more of like the the like technical support I guess kind of aspect of it we do a lot of front end on merch so most of our money that we're lending out tends to go towards vinyl tapes people making shirts for uh tours I mean a run of vinyls three about depending on which company we had to work with anywhere between four thousand dollars three to four thousand dollars and every single time so yeah if you don't break even that's just four thousand dollars somebody doesn't have right four thousand we take on that in the can that yeah yeah right so we used to we used to take on that liability when we used to have to put more up front like now we still do but a lot of the times we do is splits with bands and stuff by the time we get there if the pre-sales are done and stuff it's not as big of a deal depends on the band right it depends on how much they're going to sell um yeah we don't do as much on the production side but that's also because we're a DIY label I don't believe in spending ten thousand dollars to make a fucking album I mean I was I was gonna say everybody's gonna be producing it in their like like their bedroom or whatever but I don't judge people for doing that but I don't know why you would release with us like you would go to a label that like is releasing music that is gonna cost fifty thousand dollars to release you know like with us yeah I don't we do work with people who record in studios and spend more sometimes but not maybe not ten thousand you know but the thing is just like I think a lot of the times with the amount of talent that people have on this label like a lot of the times they're able to produce things and stuff it sounds good like Nelson mixes all of his like I work with an audio engineer but like I've kind of learned how to clean up my audio for all the newer stuff I'm recording and making it sound better and like learning how to audio engineer Shiloh who used to record as Hacker is an audio engineer Jake is basically an audio engineer he mixes him as he mixes all of his own music Gregory is an audio engineer mixes all of their own music ultimately it doesn't make sense to spend that money especially when even with me the person who works with me basically works for the label and gives us discounts and will help us out so it's like most people aren't paying for recording hey I love you does uh just because they're out in the middle of nowhere and they have like a lot bigger band than most of us do a lot of the Lonely Ghosts is really like one or two people in a project I was gonna say hey I love you is one of the only like more traditional like them and she banned setups really really on the label yeah that are like it's Chim hodera hey I love you knew you now knew you started as a solo project though but yeah like Chim records their own music and mixes it you know and they record all their own stuff and it sounds great you know it sounds amazing um hodera does use a studio and they spend a decent amount on their music but they're also like a different kind of band right like they're like a they were an established band when we took them on and um that's a little different but like it's different yeah but they were still like DIY what they wanted from us is what we do which is like help us with a merch connect help front us some money we basically want people to just like help hook us up with like a place to stay when we come through maybe help us find some people to tour with you know they're DIY as hell they just recorded yeah it's a mindset I I think more more than anything it's it's like a willingness to grind for this thing that you love it's even if you're yeah yeah it's also I think in a way like a an ideology or like a political sort of like statement of like and maybe just like or maybe not even a political statement but like a statement of like the rejection of like this consumerist capitalistic sort of way of like creating this thing that generates profit for somebody that isn't the person who's creating it the person who should own it right like why the would Sony own music I thought and recorded and made like that's up right and I think like DIY is kind of the rejection of that premise as well and so like to me like DIY artists are often just people who are willing to circumvent the music industry and like generating profit for that industry versus like kind of funneling it more directly into the people who are creating the things that they yeah help create the things that they make right like if you're paying directly into an independent studio if you're paying independent artists to make your covers if you're paying a you know a local engineer in your town to mix your music or whatever like that's still cool that's DIY you're circumventing these big Industries you're helping keep like small businesses afloat and you're kind of still finding another way participating that you know I think makes it more equitable and spreads kind of like the benefit that comes from releasing music even if that's not a lot of money you know it also spreads Community it spreads support it helps make things cost less money because you can circumvent expensive options for things you know there's a lot to it that I think expands beyond like do you mix your music for real is mastering DIY like yeah mixing mastering is DIY making good music is actually DIY it can sound cool it can sound good it's not really good yeah well there there was that whole discourse on Twitter I saw just the other day sounds too good yeah yeah it's like all right all right we're we're over that that's not what this is about this is yeah this is a different thing yeah it's like it's not about like sounding like like that's not yeah you know it's about trying to do the most with what you have at your disposal it's about making it democratized that you don't have to be rich to make good music that other people can hear and to build community around that you like and to prop people up that you think matter and to create platforms for people that you think should have a platform and you know like exactly it's like Sony's only going to do that for people that can generate ungodly amount of wealth and that they're gonna you know probably poured an ungodly amount of money into and then that person unless you're you know one of these kids who came from a wealthy family that I'm sure understands how to have a contractual lawyer look over those sorts of deals uh the rest of those people are going to be exploited and like ultimately they're going to generate millions of dollars over their careers for only other people and like I think people who are DIY try to circumvent that problem well and so many of them have seen those horror stories too and that's kind of like what has driven so many people into it is seeing like oh yeah this person got like absolutely fucked over by a label and it's like I I want to know that at the end of the day I own the thing that I made yeah like I mean you know that's like it's just so wild how many people can tell you they've been signed to a label that was bad like the reason why another reason why we started Lonely Ghost is because of Lonnie from Nightmare Beach back in the day signed to a label that them and made them buy their own masters back from from her and um what the yeah so basically you know that story back in the day Lonnie was on a label called I want to say third string records and they did have some bigger bands on there and Nightmare Beach was on there and she had a lot of issues with the owner of the label they treated her very poorly and they her over on merch and basically they made her buy her master's back took too much and so basically after that she never wanted to work with the label again but that experience along with a lot of other people I was meeting who were getting fucked over by all these labels that supposedly were like good quote unquote right they don't exist most of them anymore one of them just closed down they miss announced they're finally disappearing no sleep second time he'll be back in like five years gone forever no no he'll have that stock sitting in his garage he's gonna be in his garage in three years looking at all these vinyl engines sell be like what if I dust it off and start it up again baby I guarantee it give him five years Max five years he'll be back he just has to let the heat die down everybody knows he scammed him yeah that's the thing about music though right like if you're around for five years it's like a total turtle like almost nobody is around five years so it's like you're always gonna be able to find a new mark you just gotta wait till your reputation disappears so that you can come back and do it and that's what yeah he did before for sure but like that was like a big thing too so like that inspired us to be like what would a label look like that wouldn't steal like that wouldn't be more beneficial to like the label itself than the person making the music like how do we structure a label that could make people music so we started out with a 90 10 split 90 in favor of the artist okay but the 10 meant that Shane and I were spending so much money and we were not able to generate almost any of it back right because we're not selling at scale or anything it's like Spotify streams on 500 listens it costs us you know 500 put out the album and it makes us five dollars you know like yeah not a very good return on investment believe it or not yeah so we end up with like a 70 30 which is kind of like a little bit more still doesn't actually we've never actually I think broken even yet still or if we have maybe one year but like it makes it a little bit more likely that we can at least like get enough money back to fund the next thing because now we're working with bands that need thousands of dollars loan to them not hundreds you know like if somebody wants to make uh around a t-shirts and they want to make vinyl in the same year they're basically asking us for like five grand well that's one band if we put out eight albums a year and even two or three of them need that that's 15 10 to 15 000 like who the fuck has that i just am some guy who works at a job so it's shane we're not like you know what i mean so it's like that's where we have to where like you know we had to like try to adjust and figure it out and like now part of it is also we just try not to over invest like we try to invest in things that we think will break even it doesn't have to make money but like you know to loan out that money we need to have some most of it come back because there's just yeah only so much you could have right so it's like those are the kind of things that you know we've had to work around but by doing that every band on our label has made money every band on our label has been paid out and some of those bands have been paid out a lot so you know that's good and i'm happy about that and you know i think like that's hard also though for people to do because you almost like basically like shane and i try not to over invest with the idea that like someday if it breaks even it supports itself then you just let it do what it needs to do you know like who can do that indefinitely and so it's like i think that's why a lot of people end up fucking collapsing and fucking people over eventually i don't think it's always intentional i think they do shit like this and they don't realize you can't invest in six fucking vinyl in a year no i i think that it is definitely something where it's like you know you you try and do as much as you can and then maybe you overplay your hand and then now you've kind of backed yourself into a corner where you're like so i'm getting screwed over i can either screw over the next guy and save my own ass or you know and so it's it's kind of one of the those things where you have to be very careful with trying to walk that line yeah and a lot of people do they just fuck off like they'll just fuck it up and they'll just be like well gotta wipe my hands of this i can't get the fuck out of here and they do yeah and they do and like that's the thing right so it's like shane and i basically and for anybody who would want to start their own label or continue to invest in more other people's music or like help people with physicals or whatever if you're a band never invest money that you can't consider a loss you should never spend more money than you can afford to not be paid back at a time if you are you're making the wrong decision it's not going to help you like i don't give a fuck what they tell you on tv about like you take a big risk you get a big reward those are rich people telling you that they lost a million dollars of their dad's money but they can get a million more so eventually right the rest of us you have to be like you have to think about it right so like a lot of bands kill their bands by over investing you see you see all these people you know whether it's on different platforms with social media or on you know tv or whatever trying to trying to give you business advice and it's always like the people who had like the biggest like safety net in the world so it's like well is that's not advice that the regular person can use yeah yeah elon musk you know oh business genius elon musk well the motherfucker couldn't fail like there was no failure it was just a matter of like what was going to work how many times has he technically gone bankrupt but still yeah exactly like and and like so that's the thing with like a lot of bands it's like they it's like i tell people even with vinyl they're like well we want to make vinyl how many monthlies do you have well we had a really good month and we have like 2 000 which is great that's a lot that's a lot of people to listen don't get me wrong oh yeah but that's not going to sell fucking vinyl if you make 300 vinyl you need 20 000 a month please it's transient too because it's like when you release something those numbers are going to go up but it's whether the numbers stay up that's that's your your issue for longevity because like if you just base all of your business decisions based off of the numbers that you get right at release that that's not a number that's really necessarily sustainable exactly it and like you know that's the thing that a lot of people i think kind of i think they don't think about it enough right like everybody thinks like oh well if i play shows and stuff i'll sell these vinyl like that's not a guarantee even if you have a lot of monthlies who are excited people are excited about you in a lot of monthlies for a can you trickle these out over two years more so than it's going to be like whatever you don't sell anything you're not going to sell anything you're going to have it in the next three months you're going to have that again in the next three months and then it's who knows you know what i mean so it's like that first year there's like a diminishing return if it's doing well and there's like no return if it's not doing well it just immediately falls flat you get 30 sales and then fucking nothing right so it's like and then now you've got this giant crate in your garage that you just can't get rid of and three thousand dollars that you owe that you didn't make back you know vinyl can make you a lot of money if you can sell it all but you have to be able to sell it and like vinyl is a bad investment if you can't and a lot of times you can't sell it and you can't sell it people can't afford vinyl because it's a 22 25 purchase now and so that's the other part too where it's like a lot of people can't invest that kind of money in merch like t-shirts maybe because it has some utility to it like i buy a lot of band shirts because i'm allowed to wear those at work and so like basically me buying clothes for work you know like that's yeah yeah it's it's like most of my wardrobe is band t-shirts because that's just what i wear every day so it's like it's the same as going clothes shopping but you're exactly right here yeah right whereas like i actually have fun money that that i'm i'm investing in buying vinyl or whatever exactly that's the money that i that i would be spending on like a vacation or right it's putting away for retirement you know it's almost like the difference between buying art for your wall and buying clothes right like you're probably gonna buy clothes a lot more than you're gonna buy art and you are buying art if you're buying music but like it's kind of the same idea of like there's just no necessity to it it really is just about being like this is cool i have this maybe i like the way it sounds or whatever but like you could stream it for free you don't have to own a physical copy of music anymore so it's really is a collector's thing it's like something that's like very much more of like a privilege i guess you know so it's like a lot of that kind of merch isn't going to sell as well you get like maybe one percent to two percent of the people who are going to buy your merch like that shirts will do better at shows tapes are okay because they're lower investment for people but now you know i hear people saying they're out of vogue i don't know i mean like i think it just kind of always is the same thing of like bands that have fans that would buy their sets their fans are still going to buy their cassettes and i mean i don't know what i always thought too like to me the cassette thing doesn't quite make as much sense because like i think i think it made more sense like 10 years ago 10 years ago was kind of like every kid who's into diy is in college and drives a 90s shit box that still has a tape deck in it right now the now the 20 year old shit box has a cd player in it and so it's like if you're gonna come back if you're doing the same thing you may as well just yeah exactly but here's the thing like we we talked on we talked on the last episode too about like the the the sine wave of like nostalgia and like things coming back and you know it's really easy i can tell you what it is it's the first generation of people who are buying music that did not experience that audio medium in their own memory and so like cds are at that point where people who are 15 that shit is like super old like even if your parents were like kind of behind the wave on digital shit cds are probably not going to be it for you know that's going to be like some like vinyl was 20 years ago or whatever you know like 30 years ago yeah like and vinyl i think retains a little bit of a different value because it's always been more of a collector's item for a long time you know ever since basically like people have been able to buy anything else but like yeah you know it's just um yeah i just think that's like just the way it goes and you know i think it's gonna be funny when zooms start to be like super expensive because people can like get wired headphones into a fucking zoom that doesn't plug into a computer they're gonna have to create an adapter or some shit like that's gonna be amazing like that iphone cover i made for that fucking uh jeff tape like that's what kids are gonna want in five years they're those iphone threes they're gonna be trying to buy that shit you know that's what's gonna happen i don't know if those could be in vogue though because like it'd be too expensive because like a lot of them got trashed and stuff but like that's what's gonna be eventually a wave is like old peck i think it's gonna be something like that yeah old tech old cell phones all that shit i think that'll be interesting because i mean we're already seeing like the rise of like uh you know vhs camcorder technology as an aesthetic for things and so i think that so i i think that maybe like the next one would be like you know the shitty iphone 3 camera it's coming back because maybe maybe that's too shitty but the brat cover the brat cover is fucking 2004 internet aesthetic it's just that shitty ass digital camera aesthetic and i just watched youtuber who talks about like aesthetics and they were talking about trying to recreate a digicam from like 2004 and i'm like holy fuck okay holy fuck the shit that i used when i was in high school is like that's like the that's the shit that's like that nostalgia shit now oh my god and they're talking about like the way that it captures light and they're like oh it's so dreamy and beautiful i'm like no that looked like shit when i was a kid we all used to say this is shit it still looks like shit but you know it's funny that it's coming back and like all that stuff is coming back i mean the shit i wore in high school was that's what kids think is cool and i'm like oh my god no like obviously i'm not wearing that shit now i i'm good but like it's funny you know it is for sure all right so i think uh i think it's probably about time to transition to like the the second part of the podcast yeah uh do you have anything else that you specifically want to mention uh about like the new project or anything else uh before we move on uh real quick i will say like nelson comes to visit is out august 23rd it is what we're calling sega wave which is very poppy it's a mix of like 80s pop 90s r&b and alternative rock music uh it's got some fm synthesis which is the sega music chip tune just like it's a really fun kind of weird mix of things and uh i think it's a lot poppier and groovier than a lot of the other stuff i've made and i've you know we're checking out i think that there is a a part of it that's definitely like more accessible than like a lot of your your previous stuff for sure yeah i i think so yeah i was going for that a little bit but but yeah so you know it's coming out in like i don't know when this episode's coming out exactly but probably like a month from it'll be be near the end of the month yeah yeah okay so yeah about a month from this episode it'll be out and i should have a single coming out called green hill on july 30th so yeah yeah look out for that all right so moving on to the next part of the episode this is where we're going to go back and forth and share some tunes by some artists that we think uh deserve in a bit of an extra platform so uh i'm going to start out with my my song we'll go back and forth which is going to give you the uh the closer at the end of the episode so as we kind of as we kind of like talked about uh earlier being the summer it's very much like festival season yeah and in the last in the last month i've gone to two different festivals and this first song i found when i went down to nashville for jorts fest which was a really fun uh really fun festival that was organized by my buddies in the band ghost town remedy but one of the sponsors that they had was a vinyl store called dark roast vinyl and they have a thing that they do where it's a mystery vinyl it's i think i forget if it's 15 or 20 but they take like the regular jacket of the vinyl record and they wrap it in construction paper like a like a like a christmas present or something like that and then you know the like protective sleeve that goes over it they put that they put that over it and they put their own little label on the front you can kind of see it here this little label here yeah and so you just you just go through and all they give you is the genre the year it was released and for fans of so like artists that it's kind of similar to that's actually like yeah i really like this idea and i've just gotten into collecting vinyl so i was like all right i'm i'm all in so this is the record that i picked from that all i had to go off of was that it was garage slash psych rock released in 2022 for fans of mountain tamer spiritual cramp and military gun okay that's interesting all right yeah interesting very very very very eclectic type of type of type of thing i'm like yeah yeah definitely but but it's a it's a local nashville act they're called glamper and uh the album the album was called rat race and this song is called lose my cool it's like you can't hear them all these doubts inside my skull no matter what i try to do i only lose my cool around you i only lose my cool around i only lose my cool around you around you around you i never say the right thing and all my jokes come out me i never say the right thing and all my jokes come out me me i swear i'm dumb i'm not cruel i only lose my cool around you i only lose my cool around i only lose my cool around you around you around you i only lose my cool around you i only lose my cool around you i only lose my cool around you around you i lose my cool around i lose my cool around i lose my cool around that song rips that's that's fucking sick yeah so it's it's very much like like kind of that like throwback garagey punk hardcore i fucking love that sound type of sound yeah no i i think it's really cool and it's something that like as i've started buying more vinyl i've gotten into because it's like that's like stuff that i don't know i feel like maybe isn't quite as popular and so you can like kind of find it for cheap at like record shops and stuff like that and it's really cool cool aesthetics always on those kind of records like the covers are always pretty neat and like honestly i don't some of those albums end up being a big deal eventually because some of those bands end up doing really cool shit like you know a lot of really weird bands have come out of like hardcore punk you know it's always fun to collect those i think that this album is is super neat like i said i think that the like mystery vinyl aspect of it was also really cool because it was like i just i just bought this thing i had no idea what it was gonna be going into it i put it on i'm like this is this is fucking sick this is really cool is it all like that punky or does it have a lot of does it get more psychedelic there there are some uh like the the b side of the record because i i haven't actually listened to this on streaming so i do think of it as like the a side and the b side but um the the b side does get a little bit more psychedelic but it's still like more garagey type stuff i i personally wouldn't put the the psychedelic label on it if i were to do i just wondered yeah yeah well that that was one of the things that i was thinking when i was reading it i was like expecting a lot more like psychedelic stuff and i was like i don't know i don't know psychedelic reverbed out like kind of kind of something yeah yeah i get it with the vocals a little bit maybe i mean like that's kind of like a throwback punk sound really to me like it almost reminds me of like the misfits or something a little bit with all the delay and stuff like that like it's very dry with reverb but there's a lot of like delay to give it space yeah it's got that like deeper like that old 80s kind of punk singing that was sometimes a little bit more like melodic baritone shit versus like yeah yelling like the higher like minor threat yelling shit seemed to you know maybe like a little bit with henry rollins even but like you know a lot of those punk acts had those like singers i would be down here like it was like weird you know it almost came out like almost sounded southern iraqi yeah yeah yeah well and i i feel like that almost like became like the sort of like uh grunge post grunge like yarrow thing that the people were doing yeah the kind of like creed voice is is i feel like that's like the evolution of that is it's like it lost a bit of the grit and just kind of like became more melodic and it's the same sort of like idea but yeah that's funny yeah yeah yeah no they that's a cool band though they're awesome like i said they are uh they're a nashville based band glamper you said glamper yeah lately and what was the album called the the album the album was called rat race rat race that's right which was released uh february 25th of 2022 so it's been out for for a couple years at this point i haven't seen any follow-up stuff but i haven't seen any follow-up stuff but i haven't seen any follow-up stuff but i haven't i looked on their instagram and it looks like they're still playing shows and doing that whole thing so i don't know if they're working on a new record or not i hope so because this is fucking sick i definitely that was sweet i hope so too i would listen to that i'm gonna have to look them up when we're done i'm sure i'm gonna be showing more i'm sure that i'll yeah yeah yeah so so what do we have up next what's our our next tune gonna be um i believe is it this was one of my picks okay so to preface my picks i pick things from lonely ghost just because you know do run the label i felt like it was appropriate to kind of share some of our artists and one that's off the label but we did a tape with them uh recently but um so the first one i think should be windows 98 maze by analog heart all right do you want to give a little bit of background on on this before we go into it uh analog heart is a sentient computer uh they make kind of post hardcore mixed with electro disco and r&b they uh take some influence from the project zap and roger with that like kind of old school style music and they're like they're like they're like they're like they're very cool they basically show themselves as a computer in person so they kind of obscure their identity a very cool project this song in particular got them signed it reminds me of like some of like the swan core shit from back in the day but like way more interesting way more fun to listen to yeah not that you know all that i i liked swan core for a time you know but like it needed to change right like there was something that i needed and this kind of has a little bit of that sound to it and fuck dance gavin dance obviously obviously just saying but that's doesn't mean all that sound sucks but you know yeah uh so like this is an interesting blend of that stuff and i just think like it's it's heavy it's cool and i think it's a really cool song and i think it's a really cool song and i think it's a really I don't think I want to be let out of this He's a man for me to hide Let me stay In the cross, in the cross I created the void Get it together, you cannot forever There's nothing worse than putting up all your problems Why would you avoid them when they're easy to fix? Why would you avoid them and make yourself sick? There's no point in running, there's no point in hiding Take care of your problems, you've got to start fighting And call the election, or you'll gain no traction Get left in the dust, then his fault will it be Get rid of me, then his fault will it be Get rid of me, then his fault will it be ♪ The women I throw a love song ♪ Someone else But there's no Blame to place Anymore No This hole cannot go Deeper when I've already Struck its core The best of secret If someone could just show me how I know I wanna get better Now Now Way too comfortable Inside my own head thought I would sleep for a little bit But the door locked behind me Instead Stockholm syndrome Intermittent weather Effort changing Writing down my fears In case I need to face them The best of secret If someone could just show me Anymore No This hole cannot go Deeper when I've already Struck its core The best of secret If someone could just show me Anymore This hole cannot go Deeper when I've already Struck its core The best of secret If someone could just show me Anymore Anymore Anymore We'll be right back. If someone could just show me how If someone could just show me how I know I'm going to get better Now Now Yeah, that's pretty sick. What was that song called, Skin Deep, you said? Skin Deep is the name of the album. This song is called Best Kept Secret. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would make sense. That was what they were singing. Great vocalist. Definitely reminds me of, like, 2000s-ish kind of, like, punk. Like, a lot of the shows I went to back when I was, like, a teenager, you know? Like, mid-2000s, kind of, like, it was heavier. But they were still considered, like, punk bands, I guess. But, yeah, that was. I'm thinking of a band, but I can't come up with the name right now. I had the same thing. I kept trying to think of, like. I can't, like. There's a certain. It's that. It was, like, the way they were kind of oscillating between, like, a faster, punkier and kind of, like, the more grungy sort of, like, sound. There's a band that used to do that a lot. I've seen them several times, and for the life of me, I can't think of who it is. But either way, it's a sick band. Yeah. I keep wanting to say AFI, but I feel like that's wrong. No, and it's not quite Bayside. No. It's, like, not. Because they're, like, a little bit too, like, melodic or whatever. But, like, not quite. I don't know. I saw all those, like, old punk bands. Like, there would be, like, the bands that played with a band like NoFX, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? It was, like, the opener for that band kind of thing. And, like, I always. Those were usually the bands I was there for. So, like, to be fair. Yeah. But, you know, that one just feels like a million years ago now. I can't remember all those names. But, yeah, it's, like, one of the things that I really like about this one is, like, that bass tone is so fucking killer. And the way that they, like, break down to, like, just the bass during, like, the first part of the verse is it's, like, that groove. And then it's, like. One of the other things that I think is really interesting, too, that this got me thinking about is the fact that the first verse, a lot of it, like, there's kind of this background bend. of, like, guitar feedback. Yeah. And that's something that you don't get nearly as much in, like, a lot of modern music. And I wonder if part of that has to do with a lot of people using modelers and just, like, plugging straight into, like, an interface or plugging straight into, like, a Kemper or something like that. Because, like. You could. But you still get that, honestly. You can still get that feedback. You can. Like, I've done it on accident. Yeah, you can. I've done it on accident, too. But it's, like, it feels like it doesn't happen, like, as naturally as often. And so I'm, like, I'm wondering if, like, the switch to, like, digital processing has kind of, like, made that sort of thing go out of vogue a little bit with, like, like, newer generation stuff. I think it depends because I think that's kind of why Shoegaze is becoming, like, having a big moment kind of is because they're starting to bring some of that noise back into music a little bit. That is true as well. Like, rock music kind of. But, like, no, I know what you mean. And, like, yeah, I get what you're saying. Like, that would be interesting to hear because it's less likely to happen or it's less likely that, you know, somebody's, like, tuning up for a band and they hear that feedback and, you know, the drummer starts playing something and they hear something in it or, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, like, I mean, a lot of people still record in rooms and stuff, but there's probably, you know, a lot of people do reamping. So, like, you might record, you record clean and they run it through the amp after the fact. Yeah. And then, you know, so that they can mess with the tones and control it better and, like, stack it and stuff. And so, you know, like, that could be a part of it, yeah. It's a little bit more technical, I think, recording now to get that high-quality sound that people expect versus, like, like, room recording, bedroom recordings now. If you listen to, like, old, like, Senses Fail albums or something from back in the day, they sound like shit. Yeah. Bedroom recordings sound better than that. Yeah, yeah. You know, like, but. Another thing that I think about this is, like, listening to it, it does sound, and, I mean, they can, if they happen to see this episode, confirm or deny, but it does happen to sound to me like it maybe was recorded in a room all together because, like, there's just something about the performances that. And they sound almost exactly the same live, too. When I saw them, that was, like, a big thing that I was, like, I was, like, all right, these guys have, you know. Yeah. The drums sound live, like, you can hear, you can kind of hear that it's all happening together. Not that, you know, I don't necessarily do that, so I'm not saying that that's, like, better, but you can hear, in this case especially, it has that throat, that sound, too, of, like, 2000s band in a room kind of music, too, where I think you kind of almost have to have it if it's going to be good or work, you know? Or if they're in a room together, they figured the fuck out, so good for them. I'm wrong, and they figured out how to make it sound cool. You know? The grooves are dead-on tight, but it doesn't sound like metronome dead-on. It sounds like a band that's been playing together for a long time, type of. That played that song a hundred times before they recorded it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So, what's our next tune going to be? This is going to be your next one. Oh! Trash Talk Therapy by The Marrier, featuring Old Phone. Two. Yeah, it's a little bit of a twofer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you want to give a little bit of background on this one, too? Sure. Yeah, so, The Marrier is a single person, Jake Stevens. He basically records, like, a decent amount of the instrumentals, and then from there, he approaches other DIY artists, he asks them to contribute various aspects of the songs, guitar, vocals, always vocals, but sometimes guitars, drums, all kinds of things, and he makes, like, these really cool songs. So, this particular song, he teamed up with Gregory, known as Old Phone, and they make hyper-emo music, which is like a blending of emo and hyper-pop together, and they have a new music, or new music, a new album coming out in September. So, and it's really, like, hyper-emo. Like, I think people are really going to like it. But, basically, they teamed up together. You can kind of hear both their styles in the song, which I think is really cool, because the mirror has kind of, like, that surfy, beachy, fast, kind of gothy, but brighter guitar that you can tell Jake, you know, was influenced very heavily by The Cure, which he'll tell you. And then, you know, you can hear Old Phone's kind of, like, hyper-pop sound in there, which I think is really sick. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Don't think I'm gonna talk to you anymore ♪ ♪ I wanna shake your tits and be a Burmian, my core ♪ ♪ I don't think I know you anymore ♪ ♪ That's for sure ♪ ♪ I've been calling for years ♪ ♪ That's for sure ♪ ♪ I did it ♪ ♪ You told me I would care ♪ ♪ I'm not scared ♪ ♪ What the fuck are you thinking? ♪ ♪ What the fuck are you thinking? ♪ ♪ I'm not scared ♪ ♪ I'm not scared ♪ ♪ You wanna have this job ♪ ♪ You know what you're thinking ♪ ♪ You tell me that I would care ♪ ♪ You know what I'm talking about ♪ ♪ You tell me that I would care ♪ ♪ You tell me that I would care ♪ ♪ You should've kicked me ♪ I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming. I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming. I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming. I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming. I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming. have you on a song and then he'll send you like five songs and you'll be like oh i like these two okay you know what i mean and so it's like a certain level of like i think you kind of pick but he'll usually come to you and kind of say like these are the songs i think you'd sound good on and you sometimes it's just like he'll come to me like i'm about to throw this shit out like you know it depends on the day i guess depends on the song but you know like i think a lot of the time it's like a mix of like he knows kind of that also just who will fit into his style like i think he's good at recognizing like artists that do a lot of improvisation and kind of like they mix up their music and switch things up a lot he does the best with those kind of artists on those types of songs where like if you notice the more emo songs he kind of pulled from people that make more traditionally structured music or that aren't doing as many change-ups throughout but they work with caleb from hey i love you on five songs to do drums and shit or you know like he and i will work on something where it's like depending on what song you give me i love to bounce around so like that changes kind of like what the song you know what i mean like it kind of depends on where in the stages they are too because like some of the songs you hear like have full vocals on them and you're like oh that's cool and i hear what they're doing and then you're like oh that's cool and i hear what they're doing here and so you're kind of like it gives you a bit of an idea kind of a vibey song that have like some lyrics here and there yeah yeah yeah and then you know he has songs with rappers on them where it's like super destroyer i mean i've had rappers on my songs too so i guess it does kind of fit but like it wouldn't be the first thing you thought of you know what i mean but like it works because like he's kind of picking people that do somehow have an overlay yeah and he's really talented at that like jake is and he's really talented at getting people to give a fuck enough to turn features in because that's so hard to get people to turn shit assholes but just in the sense of like everybody's busy and usually they end up having to prioritize their own songs you know what i mean no that compilation that i was talking about putting together the the very first one that i've ever done that was something that i learned was i was like all right i've got like like 15 people who who have said yes to this and it's like by the end we had five total songs because it's like people either forgot and the deadline got too close or you know they're they're like oh well actually i uh started working on my first song full-length album so i i can't just dedicate the time to doing this other project or you know this that or the other thing you know things come up and eventually you know stuff gets dwindled down so yeah having to work with you know setting that framework of having a feature on every single song is kind of like a daunting task i would feel like that gets pulled off it's a it's a choice and he he is like one of the only people i think could pull that off like it's just his personality too he's such a go-with-the-flow guy you almost have to pull him off and he's like he's like he's like to get that many people to contribute to an album without losing your fucking mind just like in the sense of like the direction they decide to go like he hands me the song i'm doing all this fucking auto-tune bullshit on there to fuck you know like make it like this poppier thing and like i think it's fun and i'm doing my own little experiments and he just lets me yeah you know i like the song i made don't get me wrong but it's like i'm trying things out that are different because jake kind of handed me something i wouldn't usually make and a lot of people i think would freak out hearing like auto-tune on a song that doesn't necessarily you know or like all my added little like yeah yeah and those little pieces and stuff yeah yeah and all that kind of stuff you know and it's like a lot of people i think would be like i don't know if i like this but jake is like oh this is sick yeah you know like it's just like he can appreciate like he really is on board to like have that experience yeah and i think that that's like hard to do when you've put when you are as talented as he is and you're capable of making songs that you want to make you know for sure no i i think that i think that that's just like a very interesting aspect of that whole project that like not a lot of people can probably relate to yeah yeah 100 um but sorry i wish probably go to the next episode so fucking long i'm sorry it's all good it'll probably end up being like a regular episode length but it'll just take me way longer to like cut everything down even worse i'm so sorry so we can try to like if you want we can kind of get no no we're good we're good i i i like having long episodes and also it's before the first of the month so i'll have plenty of time um my my next song is one that got submitted directly to me through my email if you watching at home are uh if you make music and are interested in submitting it to the podcast fresh finds pod at gmail.com hit my line i might feature it on an episode this was actually one that got introduced or that got submitted like back in february and i just never i i felt like i didn't have the right guest to feature this song on and then i was like oh my god i'm gonna like i'm glad i'm the guest yeah like that i love when people say shit like that so this is a solo project called flower candy from saint louis missouri and it's like a hyper pop rock sort of thing this song leads leans more like rock but there's like a couple songs that like uh you know lean more like ska a little bit you know does like all all these different things and i think it's really neat so this song is called yes i adore you hide your smile you decide to go over you're trying to try you're trying to try god damn i fucking love that song um what was it something candy right flower candy flower candy yeah um okay so flower candy and that song was called yes i adore yeah yes i adore okay it does sound like outside your door when you've heard it also with the with the um the way that we're listening it that it washes out a little bit but like yeah i really like that make sure to send me a link to that that's for sure really awesome it has like this kind of like like i said it almost like has a little bit of an alt-cultury sound to it but it also has like that throwback like indie rock like pop indie that sound that was kind of what i was thinking is it's like the first name that i've heard of it's like it's like it's like it's like i think of is kind of like okay go kind of deal not yeah like a little bit more like juice to it you know what i mean yeah exactly it's got that like pop rock radio rock kind of like sound to it but it's like there's there's this extra little x factor with like the i mean that that guitar lick is just so much fun like yeah that's like that that was honestly like very very sick um are they on streaming or is that yeah yeah they're they're on all the streaming services i don't know if they're on um band camp i haven't looked but um i mean depending on how big they are if they're like a really independent like little band they're probably in camp usually i know some people skip that but but i don't know yeah that's a that was sick okay i also think it's really interesting like you know this song i feel like is probably the most accessible of theirs but like it's got the form it shifted vocals in the second verse which kind of you know gives you that like hyper pop feel a little bit and then like the drums are especially like where the groove gets really interesting especially near the end especially that second verse where it starts to get like really like dancey that was like really nice yeah it's like i'm trying to find uh this band actually i'm trying to find see if they have a band camp i found them on soundcloud i was gonna say i'm i'm not seeing anything on band camp i i can i can look and just try and send it to you later on soundcloud i found them on soundcloud at least i'm sure i could find them from here at least are they on twitter uh i They didn't give me a whole lot of background information. in their email they just kind of said like yeah it's a solo project from st louis they were they were talking about like trying to you know break into doing like more engineering and producing type of stuff so i would have to imagine that they're on social media somewhere um and i'm definitely gonna tag them in the post for this episode when it goes out i was gonna say tell them to reach out to me i'd love to hear more yeah always well always willing to hear more of oh boy just saying anyway uh all right so i'm assuming mine is next yeah let's see what is next oh yeah okay this one's a uh this one's a fast one it's a fun one so this is a little bit of a throwback hey i love you sound to the song uh hey i love you is uh a band out of montana they have been uh accused of being a fifth wave emo band i think that they are not quite that really i think that they're accidentally sometimes an emo band and they're much more like a j-rock band or something probably but like either way they do a lot of cool stuff their new album is fucking crazy and they borrow a lot from like a lot of different genres a lot of video game type aesthetics but they also have been diving deeper and deeper into like 2000s like screamo and emo and so like this song sunsets after the band i'm putting quotes here because by band it was just caleb for the first two eps after that caleb actually made hey i love you a band and brought in other members so like the new album and uh their first full-length uh psycho connect love songs those were full-length whole band but before that was just caleb and in this case on this song for our split that we put out um it was mostly just caleb on it and it kind of sounds like hey i love you a little bit which is why it sounds a little bit like more like digi screamo kind of thing going on and it's just like a really fun caleb-y song and i love hey i love you as a band i think they're all great when they play together but this is just like i don't know it's fun to to have like this fast little like 50 seconds this was from that jeff split right yeah the the split with mount oriander topiary creatures two other bands that you should absolutely check out topiary creatures put out an album called uh metaphysics some hotline uh metaphysical tech support hotline there we go tech support hotline yes and uh we just talked about it last episode yeah yeah it's it's so good it's so oh right yes with 95 corolla right yeah uh yeah yeah nice shirt by the way but yes that's right yeah um yeah very very cool band very nice people check them out you know check out my oriander that's key used to be empire empire yeah i was like oh my god i'm gonna go to the lonely estate owns county lucky states records all right yeah check them out Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so, like, when Caleb made it, they had. They had given us, like, Hey, I love you. Like, a full band song. But they were like, Yo, we kind of want to use this for our album. So Caleb was like, I'm just going to rip something by myself. I hope you guys are okay with the fact that, like, I kind of did this, like, really, like, moody sort of introspective, like, acoustic thing at the end I was going for. And I was like, Yeah, dude, like, Hey, I love you. Just do what the fuck you want. Like, you know? Like, yeah, that's what I would expect. Just something to throw me off, you know? But, yeah, I just love that song. It has great energy. It's pretty simple. I love Caleb when he's just fast as shit screaming. Yeah. Well, I mean, because he's also in Flyover States as well, correct? Yeah, as the bass player. He's the bass player of Flyover States. And that's more of, like, Gunner is the primary songwriter, more so of that. And Gunner was in Rookie Card. And Gunner, like, right now is playing in Hey, I love you to help out. So I knew that you were going to play this song. So I almost chose a Flyover States song. And then I was like, Let's not do two. Let's not do two. Two Caleb projects on one episode. We could spread it out a little bit. But one of the. Flyover States is great, though. They are. Absolutely. They're definitely going to get on a future episode. Hell yeah. One of the things that I was going to say, though, is it's interesting listening to this many different Lonely Ghost artists back to back because I'm noticing another through line that I didn't really notice before, which is that everybody fucking grooves. Like, everybody's got these different, like, they've all got their different, different ways of doing things. And some, some songs are like harder, some are softer, you know, whatever. But it's like everything kind of has like a weird dance ability to it, no matter like what style it is. And I think that that's really interesting. We've kind of been like I say it a lot and like I'm half serious, but like, I kind of think Lonely Ghost is really just like a pop label, like a really weird, like weird pop label. Like my next album, like the album I was going to put out this summer was called Weird Pop. It's coming out next summer now. Like it came because I kept talking about the label and trying to describe it. And it kept boiling down to like, we're kind of like a weird pop label. I don't know that we're really like even a rock label or really like an electronic label. And we're not like an emo label and we're not necessarily a punk label. Yeah. We're discussing the sun and fucking Nelson on our label, you know, and like Holy Kerouac is not punk. It's like maybe a little bit, you know, like borrows from the one years a little bit, but not really. Like, you know, Mars, he's not really like super punk per se. Like, I just I don't know, like it's kind of like all boils back down to like we all take influence from like pop music and then filter it through. Like these other avenues. So it's kind of feels like people do kind of recognize that, like they want people to move to their music a lot. Yeah, I think that that's really interesting. But it was just like a neat through line for me to notice kind of like in real time, you know, I'm also curious, like, how did this split come together? Whose idea was it? Like, what was what's kind of like the back story there? Um, so I'm a big fan of Topiary Creatures. And obviously, hey, I love you. But I talk to Caleb all the time. So it's not like it's necessarily like, you know, I got to, like, reach out to him. To do something for you. But like, you know, Caleb and I have like, like done some covers and stuff together in the past. Like Caleb and I both like to make weird music. We both move fast, kind of fun. So I thought, you know, Topiary Creatures had kind of wanted to do a split with maybe like, hey, I love you and I. And so I kind of started organizing that because I knew we all kind of were going to be releasing albums originally around the same time when we were going to put it out. So I guess I kind of was responsible. But like, we all kind of talked about it. Sure. And then Keith from Mount Oriander had mentioned to me around the same time, like, I would love to do a split with Hey, I love you. And I was like, well, if you're willing to do a split with me and Topiary Creatures also, we do have a split that we're trying to work on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So like, you know, it kind of worked out. But then Keith's like really close friend who he record recorded like almost all of his music with, I'm pretty sure he passed away. I don't really know, like the circumstances around it, but I know that was hard. So like that got kind of delayed in that regard. Hey, I love you ended up, you know, like kind of like going on tour, doing some other things. They started working on this new album, you know, that kind of got deferred. Topiary Creatures and I were the ones who probably had the song done the soonest, and then we were just kind of like figuring it out. But then the art never quite clicked. And we were talking about MySpace a little bit because our our word, our names almost spelled Tom and we were like, Tom, MySpace. And then like, oh, we're kind of like talking about MySpace a little bit. We realized like, oh, we all most of us fucked with MySpace except for Caleb because he's like, you know, baby comparatively. But like it kind of just grew from there. And then like I ended up doing all the art for that, too, because I had a hard time finding somebody who like not that I couldn't find an artist to do it at all, but not really like what I think we were thinking of. Got the vision on the timeline that we ended up being on with things keep getting moved around. So I was just like, I would like to give it a try and see what I could do. And then like I recreated those MySpace profiles literally from scratch. I did every single thing layer by layer, matching text and all of it. So we created that's insane. It's fun. I actually had a good time with it, you know, but like it was a lot of work. There's a few things where if you really were to compare, you'd notice that like, oh, the texture on the player is like slightly different. Yeah. You know, I couldn't perfectly match it without like you. Love a lot of different variants, too, right? For you. I made a profile for all of us for everybody. Yeah. I thought, well, I thought that was hilarious. So originally I thought we were all going to be post publishing our own singles and that it wasn't going to be able to be released on streaming as a split. Yeah. And so I was like, everybody would have a single cover that's cohesive. That kind of, you know, makes it clear what it is. And that's why I did that. And then I ended up needing to because County Lucky Stars had a way to do it with their distributor because they have like a better like a higher end distributor than we do, like a more professional. You know, we're a little bit more DIY. So on that part. But but yeah, so it worked out. But like, that's why I did that. I'm so glad I did it. I thought it was cool. I end up doing the tape layouts, too. And I went with like this iPhone layout with like the name etched into the back like people used to do when they first started getting iPhones and like I'd did all the tape layout stuff so I had a good time with it I mean whether it was necessary I don't know like probably not you know but I thought I like cool art yeah art grabs me art gets me to listen to music you know that's definitely like I feel like an underrated aspect of like putting out music is there's definitely music that I have discovered solely because I just went that looks cool I'll check it out that's so much music I've discovered in my life it's like that album number looks like something I'm willing to spend money on and I'm sure that there's great music that I've missed out on because the art was terrible and so it's one of the most disappointing things in the world when the art is either terrible and the album is good or the art is excellent and the album is bad which is the sadder tragedy because I can just ignore the album artwork most of the time but like if you have like banger album artwork and your music sucks like the album just sucks it's like the worst sucks isn't even the right word just not my taste doesn't feel like that matches the aesthetic because like sucks is usually not the case right like it's just not my taste but like that's such a bummer yeah that's such a bummer for sure all right so my next song is a new tune by a band called fox cult may have heard of them around yeah so um they are from Seattle Washington I would say that they're they're kind of like on the border between like hard rock and metalcore some of the stuff that they do is kind of like more metalcore some of the stuff that they do is like a little bit more radio rock this one I feel like is more on the radio rock side but this song is called the stuff I heard from them was a little bit more I would say like radio rock friendly yeah it's one of those things where it's like sometimes they tip over but I feel like most of the time they kind of like try to walk that line yeah so this song is called Gemini 4 one last horizon left to break before the end when everything you want it goes to die well I've seen things you never dreamed it's burning to my eyes I've built the path of most resistance and walked away with bleeding thoughts there was never any day to hold on to I don't know what brought me back to you let go it's just so alone ask me what it's worth when it all goes not back to what we knew cause I won't return oh courage till the end a hero's return falling back to words was it all for nothing is there anything to learn from the other side of creation I will sift through the dirt tell me it's not too late to survive tell us it's not too late to survive there was never any day to hold on to now I don't know what brought me back to you let go it's just so alone ask me what it's worth when it all goes not back to what we knew cause I won't return well I've seen things you never dreamed it's burning to my eyes I've seen ashes floating through the clouds the sun comes out there's something about the way it pulls me in I've seen things you never dreamed it's burning to my eyes but I won't forget what the whisper said I'll take it away when you're not looking there was never any day to hold on to now I don't know what brought me back to you let go it's just so alone ask me what it's worth when it all goes not back to what we knew cause I won't return there was never any day to hold on to let go it's just so alone let go it's just so alone ask me what it's worth when it all goes not back to what we knew cause I won't return no care is 'til the end of heroes we took falling back to earth was it all for nothing? is there anything to learn from the other side of creation? I will sift through the dust is there anything to learn from the other side of creation? falling back to earth was it all for nothing? man this is just reminding me that like my childhood is so cool Illuminate the room, a light bulb break through, I can't shake you I need a way to breach these walls, I need a couple more missed calls Fired in the lecture hall, but your ringer was off and the sound of the song said it all I gotta ask, what song is playing on your phone? I wanna take it, get used to that varying tone I never knew that me and you were so alike, I think it's love at second sight I gotta ask, if you're doing anything tonight I wanna take it, get used to what I thought before, but I never knew that me and you would change my life, just call it love at second sight Yeah, that song whips ass. Oh my god. Dude, they write the best hooks. Yeah, they're like one of the catchiest, like they're a pop band, they're not just a pop band, but like they're a pop band that like really is doing a lot of other stuff, but they make the catchiest fucking music. Yeah. Like, you can hear a team song once. And it'll be stuck in your head, and if you don't know who the band is, you'd be like, what the fuck is that? For like the rest of your life. It really is like, it's one of those things where like every, I swear, every single off of this, I was like, alright, and this is gonna be stuck in my head for a week. And it's like, this entire EP is so hooky. But to me, I feel like this project was where they really like nailed down their sound. Like, I've been listening to Guilty Pleasure. I bought the. The CD at Focella. And so I've been listening to that in my car recently, and it's like, it's really good. But it's like, I feel like all of this is just like next level. All five of these songs. I know what you mean. It's definitely. So, in a way, I think that Sheen reinvents themselves a lot more than people give them credit for. I think that they always have elements of these music, of this music in their albums. But like, I view their first like LP, maybe it wasn't the first one, like Downhill, right? Yeah. That was the name of the album, I'm pretty sure. Or maybe it was Sheen TV. Let me check. I can't remember. Oh, fuck. It's been a long time. Yeah. God damn it. So, Tidal does a really annoying thing that I'm just gonna bitch about for a second. Where like, some artists have multiple profiles, and it's like, all their like, newest stuff is on like, one profile. And like, all their older stuff is on another one. That's because, yeah. It's. It was called Downhill. And Sheen TV. Those are both albums. That's why. Yeah, okay. But I think Downhill was the LP it was. So like, Downhill is more of like, an emo album. Fucking Guilty Pleasure is more of a pop punk album. Yeah. And Fast Fashion is more of a new metal album. And like, I don't even know if they've ever really stated it that way, but like, that's kind of how I see it. Sure. I think it's interesting to me, because like, they've definitely always had the new metal aspects of it. At least to me. I mean, between, you know, rap verses and stuff like that. And I feel like there was even like, some scratching on like, a lot of their earlier stuff too. Well, so Sky does actually do like, the scratches. Yeah. And Sky does scratching. And so like, definitely. Definitely. Do they do that live? Or is that tracks live? So Sky plays guitar live most of the time. But I think once in a while, he might jump up there and do it. I'm not sure. That would be kind of sick. I'm trying to think. Like, when I've seen them live, I've seen them live a couple times. I want to say that, were you at Focello last year? No, I wasn't. Okay, so last year, Sheen played. I'm looking forward to seeing them at Excellency this year. That's going to be sick. I want to get Excellency also. Hell yeah. I'm pretty sure. Because we're sponsoring. Yeah, that's right. Which is cool. So that was excellent. We were stoked that they asked this. But yeah, so Sheen, when I've seen them both times before, Sky played guitar pretty much the whole time. But they did kind of like a live version of Smooth Brain that was really cool with the backing track. So like, I know they do a little bit of like, you know, they have the abilities. Yeah. You know, I just don't know whether Sky would, you know, jump off guitar for something like that. I think that it would be a really cool moment to like, just bring the decks out. But I don't know, especially like touring situations. Might not travel well, too. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I know like Sky, though, did do some scratching on one of Nelson's songs. Oh, all right. Cool. Like a remix he did or something. That's sick. Yeah. Also, my camera keeps dying and turning back on. I'm sorry. But it has audio, so it'll line up with the audio. I was going to say, as long as the audio stays solid, then everything else is just great. The audio is recording on my, yeah, that's been recording the whole time. So we're good there. But yeah. So you're the next choice, though. Oh, by the way, I guess we should wrap up with Cheem. I don't want to just like move on from that. I know that they're going to have, you know, I know that they're playing at Excellency. I know that they're a great show live. I know that they're always working on new music. Nobody sounds like Cheem. No. So I'll throw that out there. Like, everybody should listen to Cheem. It's like literally you're denying yourself fun if you don't listen to them. 100%. I think that they are one of my favorite new bands simply just because of how fun and unique and interesting all their stuff is. It's so fucking cool. Yeah. Cheem fucking rocks. And they're like another band. You want to talk about a groove? Yeah. That band has a fucking groove. Their rhythm section, that bass and drums. Oh, my God. They're so locked in so tight. And they are live, too. Like, they're just. Oh, I'm sure. They're like a next level band. They're next level band. I fucking can't wait. All right. So my final song of the evening. I got to give a little bit of a shout out to my homie on Twitter, Adrian, who goes by Biggie. Big Pikachu on Twitter. We were talking at Fochella and I asked him because he's from he's from Texas and said that there's not like really a huge scene down there and like that he's fairly far away from. Well, I was going to say it depends on where, you know, Texas. Yeah. And so he was saying that like probably like El Paso is like the closest place that like has like a little bit of a scene. But so I was just asking like, oh, do you have any like favorite local bands from from the scene that I should. Check out. And the one that he immediately said was this band called Mia Antifa. And they are this really sick punk band that I randomly also just saw a tour announcement for like the other day. But super cool, super cool punk album. This song leans a little bit more ska because it's got like some horns and stuff like that in it, too. But they are from El Paso, Texas band is called Mia Antifa. And this song is a cab. Mia Antifa. I don't care what you want to believe what you say. Restless condition, a badger and a gun. One-sided story of what we've become. An unarmed civilian left to die in the street. I don't care what you want to believe what I see. Don't you think we've had enough this time? What's it going to take for us to see the simple reality of protecting, serving property? Leading the way. What's it mean to be the victim? Now I see, I believe. There's a point of optimism. Hold on. The worst is yet to come. Restless condition, disease of the soul. A part of the system is going to evolve. You're sick with the power that led you astray. I don't care what you want to believe what I say. Leading the way. Hold on. which definitely makes a lot of sense because it's like it's got that faster faster heavier kind of like guitar with like the really cool unison horn lines that head where the horns almost sound heavy as fuck just because they're like they're going with the you know i mean like they have like those drops and stuff it sounds sick they also have you ever listened to this band called authority zero they're also old no i haven't okay they have the fastest singer of any like punk band i've ever heard uh let me see if i could find like uh so there's a song called like let's see taking on the world you could do like maybe like i mean you don't have to do it for the show but like yeah i'll send you some stuff if you want but like it kind of like reminds me of that a little bit too they were like a very scott like a ska band but they kind of took a more um like arizona sort of influence into it like mexico kind of region of like kind of like you know influence in their horns and the ska aspects like a southwestern influence which very much makes sense because because this is also like i said el paso texas so also kind of like you know southwestern similar yeah yeah that's that punkier sound to it and they kind of have that too and they rip that band rips i mean i don't know what they're what they sound like now this is from 2000 like this is when i was a kid but you know like but like it was sick i'll send it to you but yeah i like that band a lot so they were called will you say their name one more time sorry mia antifa terrible with that mia antifa that's right i tried to find them on but i didn't see them do you happen to know if they are on i do not recall i i know that i saw um you've probably seen the marijuana brass on twitter right yeah oh yeah i follow so um so one of their horn players is going on tour with this band soon okay so that makes sense yeah that it was really funny because it was like literally like a day or two after like i listened to this album that tour got announced and i was like wait a whole holy shit i you know it's one of those where it's like you don't notice something and then you like hear about it and you see it everywhere immediately yeah that's always like such a weird deal but yeah it's like you know you'll just find a new band and then suddenly you're like oh i've been blind to this band forever they've been running in all these circles and i've just been completely unaware yeah yeah well yeah i mean basically that's like everybody on our roster that's how i find them all of a sudden they like like hey didn't you do a song with uh this band or that one like analog heart was like i'm determined to have a feature on every single lonely ghost uh band's albums until you signed me basically like they wanted to do a feature on everybody's album that's like hilarious it's like but they like knew everybody on the label that's a thing but like eventually you kind of get to know people because they know people and you know it's like all of a sudden you're like oh wow i didn't realize that you were like this tapped into like all the same people i know yeah i've never heard your band you know yeah how have we never interacted before despite being in a lot of times it's that you probably heard their old band yeah that's the thing it's like a lot of times what it is is you listen to their old band you just didn't know that they were in a new band that's almost always what it is that that is very often what it is yeah yeah like especially in diy everybody has a new band like every year but you know but yeah highly recommend this whole this whole record it's so do they have music on like bandcamp or anything yeah this song is on bandcamp yeah this whole album is on bandcamp this one is definitely like their most ska leaning type of song they've got a like horns and stuff like that but i think that this one is the most like overtly ska based if that makes sense but it's like the rest of it is is like really really good punk stuff yeah it seems like they kind of frame themselves as more of a punk band yeah but they do they do have some horns on a couple other tracks too which i think is cool i'm just a sucker for a good horn section no matter what the genre is me too i mean i think like horns are i don't know it brings a totally different aspect into everything by the way ross ingram produced engineered and mixed this album oh shit his studio brainville which may or may not have closed down actually but uh ross ingram is a fucking talented musician owner when you said el paso i thought i saw hogarth mentioned which is another band that's like almost like a shoegazy kind of band out of there and it's raw i want to say it's ross and some other friends who own that studio down there who's making he's been involved in a lot of shit that i've i've found out over the years yeah professional engineer he's a really talented guy but um that was just cool i happened to see that sorry i had to shout it out but um yeah but yeah this album i'm gonna check it out the rest because i actually really love like i love punk music like that's really the scene i grew up in more than anything as a kid so like you know punk and hardcore it's just like anytime anybody can like really rip a good punk song i'm like fuck yeah like that's just like i like i've said for me i i find it really interesting when i first got into this scene because it was like everybody was like emo emo emo and i'm like that that was never the thing that i identified with i always identified more with like the punk and the metal stuff so i i think it's really interesting it's really cool like yeah i feel like kindred spirits like that kind of find each other because i i had the exact same thing with like when i talked to manor gates too was they were like they were like oh yeah we were doing this like emo band thing but like we're very much like you know influenced a lot more by like metal and hardcore and stuff like that and i i don't know even when you're not making that type of music i feel like we can find each other yeah well i think like there's always like a little bit of it in there you know what i mean like it's just like people who are attracted to that kind of thing like you can kind of hear like versions of it or like where they're borrowing from some of the same techniques or you know and i love that kind of shit like also though i don't know like band like manor gates kind of makes sense have you ever met you met them at yeah yeah yeah yeah i've met them a couple yeah i could see it you know yeah they kind of come up with like punks you know what i mean not like in a bad way but just like you know yeah they've got that attitude especially on stage for sure yeah they're cool they're yeah and they're they're pretty nice um and didn't they they played in will's band right i think they played in football yeah yeah they they which i mean uh two of them did very yeah they're very talented people in general sorry i was just pulling up my last song here so this was on bandcamp i sent you the link right um so it's called no items ever yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome. That is so fucking sick. That's so cool. I'm going through, I'm trying to, so we put out, they're not like, he's not technically signed to the label, but we put out his tape. He's a fan of the label. I've been a fan of his music a long time, but here's the thing. He has like 10 fucking projects, and they're all that quality. That's amazing. His metalcore project is fucking crazy. I just sent you a post of like a thread of just like all the different shit. Like, just real quick, if you just click on like the metalcore, hardcore, deathcore, heavy stuff. Okay. Just real quick on there. You must listen to it. Holy shit. Yeah. That sounds incredible. Holy fuck. Everything they do, everything he does is fucking, this is, he's like one of the most talented artists I've ever heard in my life. Everything he touches is fucking incredible. So like, and I'm pretty sure he also does his own visual art also. That's awesome. I follow him on Twitter at HyenaBlood. I believe that's. Like the main account, but I'm not sure. But I think that's kind of like considered the. for like all the various like visual art projects music art projects all of it very cool yeah um so this was something and he takes like years he showed me this album he was sketching it out like two years ago probably i heard some of this because he has like as you see like so many projects like a studio sounding album like every fucking few months like it's crazy i don't that is incredible i don't understand it very very talented um so definitely check him out uh we might have let me check real quick i think we might have sold out of his tapes uh there are three left in stock as of today on our store and then he has some copies as well i might have to pick one up because that was incredible rips right fucking rips yeah i really like the synth sound choices like it's it's all it's like chiptune yeah it's like that yeah it's like it's like the the modern chiptune thing though like this isn't like it's not strictly 8-bit it's like it's like the the sort of like modern like chiptune aesthetic sort of sort of deal uh i had a guy on the podcast forever ago before i was even doing video who uh went by heartpiece that this reminds me a lot of uh with like the synth sounds he called himself kawaii bass which was uh that's kind of an interesting yeah it was description it was like future bass but like the this like sort of like more 8-bit like cutesy style and the the synth sounds were very similar which i thought was really cool and as i like kind of mentioned earlier when we were just talking about like synthesizers i absolutely love cool synth bends and that that's like it's like there there's some sort of like soul to it that's really cool you you just like i mean it's the same as like like bending on a guitar it's like there's a way that you can kind of like lean into the bend and like there's yeah there's some soul to it that i really really think is just incredible and also i think it gives it a little bit more of that sort of like like live sort of real feel to it like you're really listening to somebody play something well it's like when you get things that are like too perfect you know what i mean it also like mimics the human voice because the human voice never realistically unless you're running it through like autotune or something like that is always wavering here and there and i think that that's another thing where like instruments that like you add a little bit of vibrato and you're like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like the the slides and bends and like that sort of thing i think that a lot of what that is is kind of like mimicking more aspects of the human voice which makes people more likely to connect with it on a deeper level which is really interesting i think that that's a good point because it does have like like that you know obviously most of the album well i don't know obviously to you but like obviously that song didn't have vocals on it yeah a lot of uh plasma cutter does not but it like instrument it's like instrumental music but it has a lot of energy in the vocals yes exactly it like it kind of still feels that same like wave where it carries a melody that feels separate from like the rest of the instrumental so it kind of gives you that that feeling so yeah but like yeah very cool project i mean like the thing about diy is like it really doesn't get enough credit for as much as people talk shit and say like this scene sucks and the band suck and all that like everything you just heard today that i showed you and i'm pretty sure everything you just showed me was fucking diy yeah right i mean like it's all just it's people doing cool shit that they think is really neat and i mean again it's it's really just like people uh in diy specifically are much more likely to think outside the box and like try new stuff because they don't have to market it exactly that's the point it's like like we're not trying to sell you anything or even if we are the marketing is the fact that you'll never hear another band like that more so than it's ever going to be the fact that like you will right like i think in diy it's more about like sometimes it's about the music but it's more about the personality sometimes it's about the sound sometimes it's about the aesthetic but like i think the bands that people tend to like gravitate towards they tend to like spark onto something right there's something that people see or hear there's that x they really identify with yeah and then that makes them yeah like want to know more and so like maybe not everything is going to be unfamiliar maybe not everything is like the most unique thing you've ever seen but there's going to be something that makes you remember it a lot of the times in diy because that's the bands that survive or the bands that do something to make you remember them everybody else is you know not not in an offensive way but it's like there's so many fucking bands that you encounter on any given day if you want to especially if like me where i'm like always looking at bands it's like you have to have something that like will make me remember you yeah because otherwise it's kind of you know eventually it's like blends into itself and like i think diy as a whole collective kind of like everybody seems to feel like different niches more than like traditional record labels where you're still trying to sell five of the same similar sounding artists in diy it's like a collection of people being like bet you'd ever heard shit like this before and they're playing like the craziest riff you ever heard with like vocals that don't sound like they should be with the song but it works or sometimes it doesn't but the idea is good and you know it will work someday and you're like that band's cool but like maybe they need to practice i think that's the other cool thing too is being able to watch the evolution in real time of artists figuring out their sound especially when that's me like for sure you know like but like especially like you know you start following somebody like people start sharing their music with you and you're like oh my god i'm going to start sharing around like oh this band just dropped their first single and you're like all right cool you listen to it you're like all right this is this is kind of neat but being able to watch in real time over the course of like a couple years like them kind of like find their sound and find their niche and figure out what that's gonna be is like there's a connection to that that i i think really helps that as well and i think like the difference between being like in this this scene is really just like what the punk scene felt like 20 years ago i mean like in my opinion diy is just the modern punk scene kind of is because punk is not like really punk anymore and diy is kind of like punk now and like you know it all just kind of like everything got shuffled a little bit yeah yeah yeah yeah like the ethos of punk 20 years ago kind of feels more in line with like what diy is now but like you know yeah it's just kind of like this thing where you know everybody's kind of finds out and like gets to be a part of something as it's being developed and so they get to feel like they're a part of it like people who are fans of a band from the time they're in the band are like like think about a band like red sun and how many people in the scene fucked with red sun when they had like 100 or 50 you know monthlies or 300 or whatever so to watch that band like go from like a couple singles to an ep to i'm sure their album and what that would look like in the fandom that they've kind of brought in and the sound that people have kind of gravitated towards and what that might make them want to write next like you know you kind of feel like i'm a part of this thing especially when you're i think like the kids who participate in the scene who are younger who are finding some people who maybe share some some aspects of like identity or shared experiences with them you know that's what like i think a lot get a lot of people into these alternative scenes when they're young is to find people who like maybe are willing to be a little bit more on the fringes of society who don't necessarily look at like the way things are and say like this is fucking cool i want to fit into this yeah you know and so like i think like diy is a place like that and i think you know with that you get to kind of be a part of something different right like everybody who's a who's at fochella like some of those bands are gonna be fucking huge some of these people who are at that show are gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be a part of that show their kids are gonna hear those bands and be like holy shit they're gonna be like fallout boy to them or something sometimes i can't believe you saw them play at a dive bar yeah exactly yeah exactly and like you get to like be like yeah i fucking talk to them i know them baby you know and like a lot of these people just be like that was a good fucking time and a band that i'll never be able to see again yeah and like that's a special moment that me and like 200 people got to share in a room you know think about like what people talk about like those old snowing shows where the floors were fucking collapsing or title fight shows which yeah you know i got to see title fight too luckily but like you know all those old like really iconic sort of pictures and moments and shit and like that's what diy is kind of producing right now it's like these moments that like will matter it's the thing that you don't realize when you're in it that you're like you're potentially watching history in the making every single day when you're watching all this stuff and you don't necessarily know who's gonna blow up and who isn't but it's like you know sometimes you you just see somebody start to take off and you're like that's that's incredible to watch and being able to see that and you're like oh my god i'm gonna be a part of that show and being able to like see it in real time is really neat and you know the other thing is just like you don't really know how people will influence each other and so like these projects that might be really obscure right now that never take off in fucking 10 years you hear that like these bands that matter a lot we're in this little diy scene over here and they listen to this one fucking band and all of them wanted to sound like that you know what i mean and like that's i've talked about that a lot too that often the most influential bands aren't the most popular often the most influential because they have to be doing something that is hard to sell exactly so so the most influential bands are the bands that flew under the radar were kind of like on the fringes of things and then people saw that and went that's some cool fucking shit and then started to do their own thing kind of taking what they learned from that and that that's that's truly influence i think and that's my dream for like the lonely ghost it's like a label for like the bands on it is that like maybe not that all of them will fly under the radar but like that people will be like here like you know people doing their own thing people making music that maybe they wouldn't have really put together or thought about and say like wow i have these two things that don't go together and maybe i should try to go make that music that nobody says should exist or sounds cool or that you know nobody's really made before and maybe there is no real audience for right now like i promise you there's barely an audience for super destroyer now there's not an audience and like you know whether i ever have a real one or not doesn't really fucking matter does it what matters is the fact that i got to do this cool thing i got to be involved with cool people i got to maybe help people like feel confident and exploring their own ability to like make something different or know that like hey i'm in your corner make your weird shit you send it to me when it's done i'll tell you it's rocks and then i'm gonna pay money to put it up yeah and like you know that's actually not a common deal for people to have and like that's not a common relationship for people to have with music that's being released in any commercial sense yeah outside of diy you know and so like but that matters because a band like hey i love you is much more of a like an established band now and they sound weird as shit and you know i think that is the future of things it's like you you help people kind of find their audiences and and you know some of those audiences will be very large some of those are not going to be as large but like i think that's kind of the dream right it's like maybe you can convince some other people to make some music that is fucking cool absolutely i think that that's a good note to end on uh is is there anything actually is there anything else that you want to hit on one last time before we sign off for the end of the episode just you know if if you're listening to this you're tapped into diy so thank you for supporting it but like you know check out remember you all these artists that are shouting on the internet that are like check out my song like for real somebody has to be the first person to listen to them somebody has to be their first fan somebody has to be the first person to try to convince other people like them and like the big thing about lonely ghost the only reason it exists is because i love being that guy i want to be one of the first people saying your music fucking rocks not the not the hundred thousands i don't want to be the person who put out your album you know after you put out five albums i want to be the person that's like finding that shit and like you can do that too it doesn't take a lot of money i made twenty thousand dollars a year when i started lonely ghost i lived in a bedroom in a house with four other people i was working on a degree i had a contract saying i could not work outside of the university and so like i started this label just more so on the philosophy of like let's support each other and like anybody can do it reply guy records they're doing it they're small yeah you know like i mean like ultimately like start a small label support some fucking local bands learn how to get a tape deck they cost like probably a little bit more than when i started because they're a little bit more popular than they used to be but like you can buy a used tape deck for a couple hundred bucks it's going to sound like shit and it's not going to last very long but you can rip a few albums out of that and you can probably help bands do some shit and you could you know more than anything most people just need help they need support they need people to help them do things to spread the word and like that's what it's all about so like that's why i do you know what i mean exactly just go fucking do it like and you know trust me if nothing else you're going to be able to meet like bands and talk to people who make cool music and understand it on a different level or you know it's just a different thing you get to have a good time this has been the fresh finds podcast the show about discovering new music with good people what you trying to do nothing's ever free what you want from me because it seems like you're trying to be someone special to me feeling in my knees feeling in my guts and it hurts when i see you leave i'm just a minute away i'm just a minute away i'm just a second away i'm just a second away i'm just a second away at work looking like a fool don't know what to do turning into goo every text i just melt away losing all my cool like an 80s tune like an 80s duo but without the animosity got you on the phone got you on the plane i'm telling you that i will be i'm just a minute away i'm just a minute away i'm just a minute away i'm just a second away i'm just a second away i'm just a second away i'm pulling in your driveway i'm pulling in your driveway I'm pulling in your driveway. I'm just a minute away. I'm just a second away. I'm pulling in your driveway.