Fresh Finds Goes Ska W/ Flying Raccoon Suit: Fresh Finds Podcast Season 4 Episode 2

Hello, and welcome back to season four of the Fresh Fines podcast, the show about discovering new music with good people. I'm Ryan, and joining me this episode is producer, multi-instrumentalist, and vocalist from the Mississippi Scott group, Flying Raccoonsuit, Curly. How you doing, man? Hello, dude, fantastic. Real quick correction. I'm not necessarily the vocalist for Flying Raccoonsuit. I do some vocals, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yes, yeah, I think that that's fair enough. I was going to put sometimes vocalists in that just didn't roll off as well. So, already going on a tangent, but yeah, so like we're one of the bands that you have like a dual vocalist situations, except it's a dual vocalist situation and sometimes a trifecta, but only sometimes. Nice. So, do you want to take a second to introduce yourself and talk about the band and the music that you've got coming out? You just released a few months ago the new Flying Raccoonsuit record Moonflower. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm Curly. I do drums primarily in the band as well as the production, so all the actual recording, the mixing, the engineering, everything's done kind of in between my bedroom that I'm in right now and are guitarist and other vocalists, Andy, basically at his house. Okay. I also do keys for the band, and yeah, we just released Moonflower, like you said, and it was released on bad time records this time around, which is kind of crazy because I guess, oh my gosh, my ears are mixed up before this album, we released Afterglow, and it was like, let me just start over. We've been a band for a long fucking time, like we're like high school friends, like we've been best friends. Okay. Right on. Like the core group of us have been friends forever, and like we were one of the high school bands that were pretty shitty. Like I didn't actually join the band until slightly after high school, like basically in our college years, but I've been buddies with them. Like I played in like a kind of crappy like grunge metal band that we would play shows together. And fly racoon suit was the first like scab in I had ever heard. So yeah, really? Yeah. That was crazy. So like basically what happened was for my bands and kind of what I just did on the side. Like I always had dreams of like producing and recording my own music, just out of necessity because we're from South Mississippi and just grew up dirt poor, like being in like a professional studio setting was just never fathomable. So I was like, you know what? It can't be that hard. I feel that for sure. It can't be that hard producing your own music and it turns out it's really fucking hard and you have to put a lot of work into it. But flying racoon suit was one of the first like big projects that I ever did record. And our first album was paper airplanes, but like we don't count it as our first album because we don't want to. It's not great. I was going to say, is that one even on band camp or streaming because I didn't even see that one? When it gets on band camp, I don't think it's on Spotify. It's possible that I moved everywhere. And you know what? Maybe it's, we're better off, you know, but I was going to say, I think on band camp, it was the same thing is on Spotify, which is a flying racoon suit makes a friend. So that's actually our second record. It's our secret record. Okay. Really? The secret first record. I like it. What's actually hilarious is because we have like a discord band chat and stuff. We actually were just talking about this because we see, we've seen like a lot of outlets like state moonflower. Oh, yeah. Fly racoon suit second album. It's like, yeah. Let's go with that. That sounds good. It's technically our fourth album, but it's like, we kind of, again, came out of high school. We're really shitty band. I was a really shitty producer, like recording and again, and bandy's, Andy spare bedroom. And I was doing my best. I was out there learning. I was still not even on a computer. I was just working out of like one of those like studio in a box type of deals. Oh, yeah. What a disaster. But, um, yeah, uh, produced their first record and they had a lineup change because Andy, the guitarist, actually was the drummer for the band at the time, but they were going through some lineup changes. And there was like a couple songs where he's like, hey, why don't you record drums for us while we're looking for a new drummer while we're looking for a new drummer. They fucking got me, dude. What a fr. Fooled you. Yeah. You're in the band now, motherfucker. Yeah. Yeah. They fucking got me. I fell in love with like the style of music and stuff because like, I'm traditionally just kind of like a metalhead and like a prog rock guy. And like, Scott, like, especially at the time, I didn't realize Scott was like just like an open book. Like, I didn't realize that. I just thought it was just like a punk genre with horns, basically. But, um, you're like, oh, that's that thing that was popular for a little while in the 90s. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's really funny because like, again, Flamerkunso was my introduction to Scott. So like, from that point, it's like, well, okay, what, what else is Scott? Is Chicago Scott? And they're like, no. And I'm like, I don't understand it. What the fuck is this? It's like, is it reggae? It's like, kind of, but not. And so this day, don't know what it is. I have no idea. I feel like it's one of those things where it's hard to define, but you know it when you hear it type of thing. 100%. But yeah, so produce their first record, join the band, fell in love with them. And then we decided to kind of, again, now Andy's long guitar, doing vocals. We're still kind of a shitty punk rock scob in. We decided to go ahead and make a second record years later. And we kind of started to become more serious about it and eventually hired Jessica, our singer. Like one of the greatest decisions we could have ever done is like, again, we were all friends, like Jessica was one of the first friends I had in middle school when I moved to Mississippi. So it's like, we all have like this lineage of friendship going way back. And she was awesome. Yeah, exactly. She was in some like, Indy kind of Scottish bands locally and it's like, why don't we just do the thing? We found, um, Nevin our auto sax player and made that record. And it, I actually think that record kind of slaps, um, song wise. I think the production's still pretty shitty, but I listened to a couple tunes off of it. That's the flying raccoon suit makes a friend get record, right? Exactly. Yeah. I listened to a couple of songs on that. Honestly, the skeleton of the sound that you guys have now is there from that record, for sure. It's definitely like a little bit more raw. But I mean, it's, it's all there. You can trace the lineage back. For sure. Yeah. And a little bit, you know, it's hilarious. It's like, we put out that record and we did one album release show and then disappeared. Like, the dumbest like band of all time, it's just like, all right. We did the album. Let's, uh, not promote that or go on tour or do anything. Um, and so for a while, we were just kind of on hiatus and eventually we got our trumpet player brand and he joined in. And we were doing like kind of money gigs, like we'd play like three hour sets locally and stuff. Okay. Did that kind of thing? Just like at bars and casinos and like that sort of thing? Yeah. Mostly just dive bars and whoever would just pay us a guarantee. Fair enough. We were still doing like the punk in Scotto, so it was very limited where, where we could play still. But we were kind of doing that whole thing and just really not being a great like DIY band. Like we just like weren't doing the thing until like we finally had like solidified our sound and our lineup and we're like, let's fucking do this thing for real this time. So we kind of hooked up with the Brent from a We Are the Union and, um, oh, right on. Yeah. He was kind of just our guide like for everything for a while. We kind of like took a lot of like mentorship from him on like how to release, how we should do things. We did a kickstarter for afterglow, which was like our first album, we're going to call it the first. Yeah. It was kind of modern era. Exactly. Yeah. It's crazy because at this point, we've been a band for a while and we owe a lot of success to like good social media like again, Brent's mentorship, we owe a lot to to Jair. They found us from our single static home and they shared it in and up on a lot of playlist and getting a lot of attention and stuff in like the Scott community. And yeah, we had afterglow, we did a kickstarter and I think we raised over like 10 grand or something crazy. Like it was insane. All of a sudden, like we're just kind of like quote, unquote on the map for like the scossing. And yeah, that album was a success. We went on a tour without me because I found a new job, but got to play around the country. Totally did. It was great. I loved it so much. I wasn't there. So having like a successful quote, unquote successful album, we were then just like, well, what do we do now? We obviously like can't stop. We had to keep the ball rolling. So we finished afterglow and never stopped like we recorded an EP, which was like remixed versions of the afterglow album, everything from like folk acoustic takes of the songs from afterglow. There was like a hyper pop, like Lord type song for the song afterglow. We did a bunch of covers. We did like a Operation Ivy cover. We did a Final Fantasy 7 cover. We did a Wario Stadium from Mario Kart 64. All kinds of just crazy stuff. Nice. Yeah. We did a we're on a rancid compilation. And then we buckle down and did Moonflare, which released in November. And it was terrifying because again, like we kind of had this wild success for an album that that actually resonated with people. How do you follow that up without being terrified of like, was it just lightning in a bottle can we recapture that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I totally get that for sure. And yet it came out. Everybody seems to like it and I think it's going pretty well. We'll see like I guess once we get like on the road with it, but right now I'm just so happy that so many people loved it. Have you guys played any promotional shows for it yet? Or has it largely just been online promotion and shows are going to come later this year? What was cool was we played Fest the past couple of years. It's like a festival that's engaged with the Florida. And it was literally like right on the cusp of release, but we had the record in hand. And like we actually got to play a bunch of new stuff from it there. And we had released I think three singles up to that point. And that festival is just insane for us in general. It's kind of crazy again like like this being like a pipe dream. A band from a South Mississippi, finding any success is just insane, especially for our genre of music. But like playing a cap-droom with like a line still out the door and people singing new songs that haven't released on a record yet is just insane. It's so fucking heartwarming, it's crazy. - I feel like for a lot of bands, especially like punk adjacent bands that have that very like, DIY kind of feel to them, that Fest is very much like a, I've made it once I've played Fest. - I mean, it feels like it, 'cause like again, like the, I made it, quote, is so funny, 'cause I use that all the time, but like, it's different for everybody. It's like, is that making a living doing it? Is that like, being a fucking rock star, playing stadiums and shit? Like for me, honestly, like making it is just like, I have an outlet in an audience, in a means to produce our music in a way that both the band and I are happy with, and people look forward to. And like, that's it for me. Like that's, if I could make it, it's crazy. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and that's the thing. Everybody defines kind of like, success and making it differently, but I definitely, definitely feel like that is like, a goal post for a lot of bands in this scene is to be able to play a show like Fest, for sure. - Oh yeah. - And so, I'm, - No, go ahead. - Go ahead. - No, I insist. - All right. What I was gonna say is I'm assuming, 'cause you had mentioned that you had a lot of mentorship and also just introduction to the community through, we are the Union and Jair. I'm assuming that that is also how you got involved with bad time records as well. - Yeah, and so, so following that mentorship and everything, we obviously knew that doing like a Kickstarter on Afterglow was an extreme risk like, because like, we wouldn't be able to afford vinyl and shit like that on our own, but like that's the big thing like for bands like, physical sales like don't exist outside of vinyl at this point in a way like, nobody's buying CDs, nobody's buying music, but they'll buy a vinyl 'cause it's got dope artwork and it's big and it's pretty. - Oh yeah, for sure. - So we knew that was a risk, so we did pitch around to basically anybody that we could and like, "Hey, we're releasing this album, "we really believe in it and think it's awesome." And understandably so people said no, because again, at this point like we do have a pretty good social media presence, but as far as like the work that we put in a band kind of doesn't show at that point. Like again, we released "Fly and Recruits Who Makes a Friend" and didn't do anything with it like. - Yeah. - It's like, so it really does feel like album one in that way and I think that's probably why people look at it that way or don't even know the other exists, which again, completely fine. Start with the afterglow and work your way up, I say. But like, we actually pitched it to Mike from "Bad Time Records" and he was the only one that responded. If I remember, Andy's mostly the guy who handles this stuff, but he was the one that responded like, "I really dig this, I believe in you guys," but like, it's not, I don't really have it in my window right now. So we did do it completely DIY with Kickstarter of course. And then of course when Moonflower rolled around, we kind of, again, riding the back of afterglow, we maybe had a couple more options and being that Mike was the one guy that did respond and was like encouraging. It's like, why don't we just pitch it to Mike again? - Oh, for sure. - Yeah, it ended up working out. And again, we are, that's the crazy thing about the Scott Punk community is it is so tight knit and it is such a bizarre thing because I've been in like indie bands, I've been in metal bands, rock bands, what have you. And it never feels like an actual community. At least like around here where I'm from and the bands that I've played with, it always feels so like competitive. Or like, yeah, it feels so segmented because it's like the metal band that I was playing with either was too heavy for some bands or not heavy enough and like, you got the metal guy standing in the corner with their arms crossed, like watching you playing. It's like, come on, y'all, it's like, you go to a Scott Punk show and everybody's, each other's hype man and that's so cool because it's legitimate. It's not like competitive or anything like that. Like we all legitimately love each other and want to see everybody succeed and that's how you build a scene. That's how the Scott Punk community is like growing and thriving right now because of that community. And being that we did join in that and I guess they're now a part of it. It still feels like it's a weird like imposter syndrome thing that I'm dealing with now to say like, yeah, we're a part of that scene. It's really cool to be a part of it and I understand we are but it still feels kind of odd. But I feel like a lot of that lint to us signing on with bad time for the most recent record but so far everything's been really positive. - Yeah, I actually only got into the modern Scott scene about a year ago through, I mean, I had been mutuals with Jair for a little while and stuff like that but we never really interacted and stuff like that but it was just seeing and being exposed to more through other people that I follow on social media I got to find some of the bands more and I even went to the bad time tour over the summer when it came through which was really cool. And it's really funny because I've never really thought of myself as like a Scott person but over the course of a month I was really hyped for Moonflower and then I think Joystick released an EP around that time too that I listened to the night of when it dropped at midnight and I think that I had featured, oh, who was it? I had featured somebody on the podcast to a simple-minded symphony, I think, - Yes. - Who are on "Scalfunk International Records" and so I think that it's been really cool kind of getting to see the scene being exposed to more of it and now kind of having you guys on being kind of newcomers to the scene yourself. I think that that's a really neat kind of full circle moment for my Scott experience over the last year which I think is really neat. - For sure. And I always say like I'm like the fakeest Scott fan 'cause like it's like, again, not my genre of choice. Like I don't listen to a lot of the classic stuff or like even the third wave stuff. It's all the newer shit that I'm into 'cause that's like, but I guess there's a couple exceptions but like the main reason why I love this scene and why I love this music is because of what the bands that are doing, I guess you would call new-tone bands and things like that. That's the shit that I'm like super-dighard into. And like-- - Yeah. - Yeah, it's so funny 'cause we've been a band and we've been doing like this genre for this long and I kind of just didn't like it. (laughing) It's something else that's like, yeah, I would be like, yeah, I'm in a Skull band. But it's like now that I like the, I know the newer bands and like I've actually like discovered where the actual heart is and it's like I fucking love it. And definitely become more open-minded as I got older into music as well. Like I was such like a little douchebag when I was a teenager I was like, yeah, thrash metal and that's it, man. It's like any kind of like the like the emo scene and things like that I would always just like roll my eyes at but now I'm like really hardcore into it now. - Well, and especially with a lot of the modern like new-tone stuff, there's so much crossover between genres too 'cause you've got you guys incorporating like elements of metal and stuff like that on the new record. You've got a lot of punk and hardcore with a lot of bands like Power Up and Joystick. And I think that it's really cool how, you know, all of these different bands are doing what is identifiably scawed but doing it their own way with their own influences. I mean, one of the craziest ones you look at, Eikler's doing the fucking like hyper pop scaw shit. Like it's insane and, you know, this is the first time in music history that I think anybody would be open to that as a thing. - Dude, I agree. Yeah, I think that's really wild of it because although you can jumble it into a genre or a scene. Like it's so diverse, it's insane that you can go from Eikler's to Power Up. And it's like you could put them on the same bill and everybody's gonna go fucking hard as hell. - People would be hype as hell for that. - Yeah, for sure. - Like 100%. It's so dope, it's so fucking awesome. And again, it feels so weird to be a part of that now. It's, it's incredible, it feels great. - I talk about this every single episode but we really are living in like a post genre world it feels like where you can just kind of take your favorite elements from everything, put them together and make a record and there's gonna be some sort of audience for it. - Yeah, and with us, fly in my coons today, I think that's like the secret sauce of our band and how we really kind of came into our sound is like, we kind of embraced our influences, like me coming from like a prog rock thrashy guy. Mixed that with Andy, who's like into punk and scaw, he was there for like the third wave movement and all that shit and really into Indy Rock and then find Jessica who's like straight up, Indy and she likes death metal and like kind of all around thing. Mixed in with our horn players who are like jazz players and really like complex music theory guys. We don't shy away from any of it. Like if somebody's got an idea, we're at least gonna give it a shot. Like perfect example is our newest record. There's a song called Long in the Tooth. - My favorite song on the record. Oh, thank you. - When I got to listen to it early, that was like the one that stood out to me. I was like, holy shit. This is something completely different. It's so cool. - Dude, thank you so much. Yeah, that song almost didn't make the album 'cause like I got it in my head about it. - That's crazy to me. - Yeah, I got in my head about it 'cause Andy had been asking me to write a song for us for years at this point and I was like, yeah, cool. That sounds great. I would always get like two like a 50 to 70% way of like composing and writing it. And I would just scrap it. I'd be like, this doesn't fit with Fly My Coonsuit until like I realized like that's stupid to say because we have all these songs that are genre blending. Like fuck that. Let's actually just commit and do it. And I was terrified to show the song to the guys. Like because again, this is like the, the first time I've from A to Z wrote a song like all the arrangements and everything. I got to that 90% here where it's like done. And I'm ready to show it to them. And something about it still didn't click where I was like, this still isn't flimer. So like I scrapped my horn arrangements in my vocals and sent it to Andy and Jessica and they didn't bat night They're just like sick. I'm gonna write some horns Jessica's like I'm gonna do some vocals. Yeah, it's happening All right cool, like everybody's so open minded in the band and like again like the horn players will come in and I Produced the band but like a lot of a lot of it is very collaborative where they'll come in They'll hear the parts they'll come up with stuff on the fly and then I kind of go behind them kind of with maybe some ideas Pieces bits and pieces, but like again Brandon and Evan in particular are just way way above my head on music theory So they're like over there speaking their jargon on whatever the fuck they're coming up with and they're like what do you think? And I'm like, I don't know what Charlie's talking about like Let me hear it like it's great But I think that's kind of where we found our sound is just like embracing the influences and the musical freedom that the genre Just allows for at this point where it's just like we're still again at the core of it We're still we've still got that scoff swing to it like it's got the the upbeat strokes and things like that But honestly like we could we could write any genre at this point and I don't think it might be surprised No, I definitely agree that that's kind of like the spice that makes this record so interesting to me is how all over the place It is because you guys have also mentioned on Twitter that this is also very heavily influenced by like New Orleans jazz and stuff like that Which I think is fucking sick, especially like the front half of the record I feel that influence a lot more with like Vidalia and long shot and stuff like that But I mean the horn arrangements all over the place are are so cool with that type of thing. Thank you Yeah, a lot of that is Andy. He's our core songwriter We wanted to do something different with the the beginning of the album because the last record had like a heavy opening The one before that had a heavy opening and we're like why don't we just actually do like a A derogy kind of like New Orleans-y like horns opening and I think it sets the tone for the record beautifully like Oh, I agree Yeah, and again like I love like progius shit like my favorite band is co-heating cambria So like any kind of like that trunks yeah any kind of like up your own ass kind of shit that we could pull off I'm totally up for it. So like there's like lyrical references to other songs and that song Long shots horn part is the same but like a lot faster and a little more like Balkan sounding and stuff like this So so any kind of shit like that I'm I'm so down for one other thing. I noticed I'm I'm really curious if I've If I've just made this up myself because it just makes so much sense or if it's actually there but on Vidalia you you guys are flying raccoon suit, which is a Mario reference correct. Yes Okay, so there's like the the sped up part at the very end of Vidalia Reminds me a lot of like Mario soundtrack music is that like a reference to that or am I just putting together strings that like almost exist? So it's definitely not that But um we were wanting it to reference long shots. So like if you listen to the main horn line of long shot the Yep, the ending of Vidalia is basically that so we wanted it to kind of do a swing version of that to kind of Meled the songs together and kind of flow that way. Uh, I will say the it probably was subconsciously somewhere in there Just for the simple fact like I was mentioning we we did um a Mario 64 I'm sorry Mario Kart 64 compilation where we did Mario Stadium uh for game groups They they do a lot of like scob video game soundtrack things. That's awesome We did that one and and the that was the exact idea is like we wanted to do the third lap But instead of going faster we did like a metal halftime breakdown and it was insane Okay, so it might have actually been like subconsciously still influenced by Mario and we just didn't know it I'm glad you caught it because we did What To me it's just so funny because I've been listening to this album I bought the CD and I've just had it in my car over the last month like to prepare for this So that I could get like really like get to know the album really well and uh that was something that I just kept coming back to him Like I feel like I've heard something almost exactly if not exactly like this before But I can't quite place it but it sounds very video gamey to me. Did it wouldn't surprise me. We're we're fucking nerds man Like a a lot of us are gamers like I mean I do like a youtube channel literally Well, I guess it's on twitch now, but a live streaming video games a lot of Mario maker a lot of like Mario 64 right last night I was speed running Mario 64 with friends and stuff and a lot of what I do to Music production wise is a just video game covers. I have like one video. That's like literally Donkey Kong country But it's like a 13 minute medley of like the original soundtrack. I've been working. Oh that's amazing I've been working on the sequel to this video for five years. It's not released yet But I swear it's happening this year. It's gonna happen Well now it now it's on record you have to do it. I know I'm gonna leave that in Literally it's gonna be insane because it's gonna be a time capsule because there are shots that I filmed when my wife was pregnant And like my son is gonna turn five this year So it's like crazy. It's crazy. It really is. I can't wait to like it release that it's gonna be insane But yeah, we're fucking dorks. I'm a huge gamer. I love video game soundtrack So a lot of like influence is from that like I'm really into Broadway musicals things like that I love things that tell a story and like a musical journey because like long in the tooth for example I think goes on like a kind of musical journey. It's like a five and a half minute song Which is like our longest song yet and I had to trim like three minutes off like Really? Yeah, I had so many ideas and so many things. I'm like fuck it raining in dude This is still like fly records. You got a chill out like when are we getting the extended The extended version? You know, it's funny. It's like this was a test bed for me to see like how far can I take this before someone's like Bro, y'all got a chill like Rain it in I want more so I I anticipate that that could probably be like an album special where maybe like every album There's a curly song on there. That's just like goes off the rails That's not confirmed or anything, but I have a feeling that might be like the secret sauce for the like the next upcoming albums and whatnot I think that would be rad. So while we're on the the topic of like video games and nerd shit and all that I was I was kind of thinking because I knew that that was Something about you that I wanted to ask a question about that. What do you think is like your favorite game that you've played over the last year? Last year I know that that's a long time. It's kind of a cheat answer because it didn't come out last year But um, I finally gave it its dues and um played Hollow Knight. Oh nice dude I played the game a long time ago somebody I was doing like a 24 hour livestream somebody bought it for me And was like you got to play this game and I played it for like five hours and I loved it And then I set it down and didn't play it again until like last year dude that game fucking rules You want to talk about soundtracks? Holy shit. It goes so hard for like a 2d animated like animated 2d Metroidvania style game. I love that. I love Delden Ring I fall in love with like the Souls games. Is that last year because I don't even know. I think Elden Ring was two years ago Okay, I'm still gonna count it. Yeah, cuz I was at my old job when that came out So yeah, that that would have had to have been like two years ago. I'm currently playing through Mario Wonder I think it's a fucking masterpiece. It's incredible. Nice. Uh, tears of the time. I'm actually currently playing Odyssey for the first time So yo, okay, I fucking yeah, I fuck with Mario so hard man. I love all the 3d games 2d games What do you think of Odyssey? I like it so far. I've I haven't played like a collectathon 3d platformer in a very long time because it feels like you know 20 years ago ish they were everywhere It was like every single game from you know that generation was like some sort of 3d collectathon platformer thing And you just don't really get them that much anymore and I thought it was really refreshing I think it's really cool. Hell yeah, I love it so much But like again, I was playing Mario 64 last night and like that that's just probably my favorite game of all time Between that and like Donkey Kong Country too. Like I love Odyssey though So getting into the the production a little bit since you're the drummer I would assume that you have some sort of Because you said that uh production was between you and another member of the band both like home studio type of situation, right? So I would assume that you record drums at your place since that's probably where the drums already exist You know, I wish the reason why we split the two places. Yeah, it's is that exact reason good call Um, I've got a you can't broken down somewhere over here because I have Neighbors that are just complete dick bags dude. They don't they don't do the the loud drums like I can't I can't play my drums at home I can't even practice outside of an e-kit so that sucks Honestly, the only reason why we record partly ad aandies is because uh his neighbors and whatnot are a lot more lenient So basically his living room is is the drum room, but okay So over the years, I've been basically collecting equipment. I think um it this might be again like the the imposter syndrome Like I don't I've only just started feeling like more comfortable as a producer and like feel comfortable with the the work that we Output and things like that but uh I'm a very minimalist like producer and I guess an engineer where like I'm not a big gear head I'm not like really in the duffy with the crazy plugins like I still use a lot of stock plugins and in just pro tools And I only use pro tools because it's what I learned in college uh fair enough that that's mostly why I use logic is Because I learned logic in college and I'm just like I'm too stubborn to move on same I tried Reaper out and I'm like I just don't know where anything is I'm getting more pissed off than like fixin things But like I tried Ableton and there's some cool ass shit that you can do but I just get so lost because it's so different than literally any other dogs up like maybe like FL, which I've never used at all. So. - Oh, okay. I'm just, the pro tools, they fucked me on some update things and I'm salty about it. So I'm not happy about it. But it's the platform I use and I don't see myself moving from it. (laughs) - It's fair enough. - It's baby's first like a doll. So I'm like, I'm stuck there. But I'm pretty minimalist on things. So like, over literally like, I guess the past 15 years or so, I've just been collecting gear and whatnot. And I've finally got a point to where my recordings studio is basically mobile. It's on like a rolling rack. It's pretty heavy on the back, but pretty much, I load the rolling rack in my car, go to Andy's house, put up the drums and everything's kind of just there. You just plug the computer in and mic it up and go for it. - That's actually pretty rad. - Yeah, no, it actually, it works. It's really efficient. It's crazy how efficient we've gotten since Afterglow, because like I said, we didn't really stop. We just kept like pumping things out and recording. And like, this is the longest break now that I've had from recording in years. It's kind of crazy. It feels weird that I'm not like hitting Andy up tomorrow. I've been like, "Hey, what's the next day we're recording?" Or rather, him hit me up because I'm garbage. He is the man that keeps everything straight, man. If I can give any shout out to anybody in this band as fucking Andy Heaton, that guy is insane. He's a genius and he keeps everything afloat. But I'm pretty minimal on everything. As far as the overall goal and everything for production and whatnot, I wanted to sound like us. I wanted to sound like a real band. So I'm not going too hard with like sample replacements. But I found a good balance where like I got really lazy and actually like started sampling my own kit. Like I took one like whole like couple days of just getting samples of my own kit, like with the nice tuning and whatnot. So like I always have that as like a failsafe. Like if I'm pressed for time and I'm going over to Andy's and I don't have time to tune up the kit because like he does live about an hour away. So it's already like pack everything up, drive an hour, send everything up. And it's like, I don't want to leave my shit set up and they're living room for a week. So it's like, if I got to pump out a song, like at least if I am sample replacing it's with my own kit. And that's like a stubborn thing for me. Like I wanted to sound like us. I wanted to sound like me and I wanted to sound like my drums. And the real goal is to make it sound as not home studio as possible. And I'm getting close. It's not there yet. Like it's very clear that it's a DIY production. But like I'm like finally on the precipice of like being happy with it. Like not to just gas you up or anything. But like I think that the production on this record sounds amazing. I would when I saw like curly studios on the thing, I was like, oh man, this guy's legit. He's got like a studio set up and the whole deal. I didn't realize that it was like a bedroom studio situation. So that's all the rooms. You got to fake it so you can make it, man. No, what 100% and that's the thing with the like you were talking about the imposter syndrome is like, I feel like there's this like legacy idea of like you work in the multi million dollar studio with like a huge neve console and like a bunch of live rooms and shit. And everybody's kind of like, that's what's. Again, going back to what success looks like. Everybody's like, that's what it means to really be, you know, a professional engineer, a professional producer. But in the modern age, so much of it is happening at home in smaller studios and stuff like that. And at certain points, it does take extra work because you aren't able to get like, you know, a beautiful sounding live room. Sounds amazing because it's designed to, whereas, you know, if you're in a spare bedroom or whatever, it's definitely not going to be the same thing. But I feel like that's being normalized a lot more, which I think is really cool. Yeah, and that's actually a great point because the end goal is to get it to sounding that it's bigger than like a spare bedroom. And I've learned a lot of tricks over the years of like, fake reverbs to emulate basically what a room mic would sound like in a nice studio. So like I do a lot of like, with my own drum samples, I've got a lot of like, fake room reverbs that I blend in with the tone of the drum. And like in the overall mix, everything sounds pretty, pretty big compared to what it sounds like just off the live mics. It's kind of crazy. I've learned a lot of tricks with that and just fucking around with it over the years. And going back to your point of like the big studio and the equipment, I've always been in the mindset just out of necessity where it's like, if I can get it sounding good on my gear, the next upgrade is just gonna make a sound that much better. So like, starting with just stock plugins with like five SM57s. If you can make a record that sounds great with that equipment, just imagine what you could do with state of the art. It's always that mindset for me where it's like every piece of gear that I obtained, it's a necessity to the goal. It's not like I need all this shit. I don't need a need board like for what? Like why would I need it? - Yeah. - But one day when I do, it's gonna fucking rule. Like you know what I mean? - Oh yeah, I feel like that's another thing that I've talked about a lot recently on the podcast and kind of on my production journey as well is kind of learning to use what you have before upgrading things. Just because new equipment isn't gonna do anything if you don't know how to use it. And so learning the skills and the tricks of the trade is really that first step. And a lot of people kind of try to spend money to get out of that stage and you just really can't do that. - What was your college experience like in audio? - So it was kind of interesting. We, I didn't go to an audio school. I went to Michigan Technological University in Upper Peninsula, middle of nowhere. Michigan on the Canadian border essentially. And so we didn't have a huge like high end studio. We had a vocal booth. We had a decent sounding like live room, but it was also the only room that like the jazz band and the pet band and all of the different like ensembles also always rehearsed in when they weren't playing shows. And so you really had to like work around all that schedule to use that room and things like that. We had, we didn't have any sort of like crazy big consoles or anything. We used a, was it a Midas Pro2C as like the console to like control pro tools and stuff. And then we had a few other small studios that were basically like the size of a bedroom studio essentially. But it was cool because it wasn't a recording centric program. It was very much learning about live sound and learning about recording and learning about acoustics. And sound design. And so I think that it's really cool that I feel like I got a much more well-rounded audio experience than a lot of other places. But also I didn't get to experience the like multi-billion dollar like state of the art recording facilities that you would get if you went to like Berkeley or anything crazy like that. So I like what I got out of it. But you know, just very different from a lot of other people's experience going to school for audio or music production. Yeah, I always bring that up to where it's like, I went to college for it. I think the major is called entertainment industry production. So it's not just audio engineering. It was a little more well-rounded. But honestly, a lot of what college taught me was just how to learn things efficiently. Yeah. And of course networking was literally everything. And so I commuted to college like an hour and a half there and an hour and a half back. So I didn't actually like dorm or live where it was. Like booking studio time and things like that. We're just out of the picture unfortunately. But like, I don't regret going because it did teach me a lot of well-rounded things and teach me how to learn. But like when people are like, oh shit, you went to school for it and it's like, yeah. But like, honestly, I learned everything by doing. Like if I didn't record my own bands or go out and record other bands, that's the real only way to learn. And I honestly think YouTube is more powerful than college could ever be. Yeah, I feel like the biggest thing that I have to show from my experience is definitely like the connections to people, or something else I was going to go for with that. But I don't remember what it was. Is there anything else that you specifically want to talk about this record before we move on to the next part of the episode? I don't really know. I feel like, again, I just feel so lucky that we're in a position now where we can release music to fans. It's awesome. It feels great to be part of the bad time family, but to still be running independently and be confident in that, I think it's awesome. And I hope we continue to get to do it for a long time. I do as well, because you guys are killing it right now. So I'm really looking forward to seeing what the future holds for flying record and suit. Thank you. So moving on to the next part of the episode here. This is where we're going to go back and forth, introducing some songs that we've been listening to, or just feel like need a larger audience than what they're currently getting. So I will have the first song of the evening. We'll go back and forth, which is going to give you the closer. Sound good? Sounds good. All right, awesome. So my first song is actually-- I can't remember if I had mentioned this or not, but I am currently in Detroit. And potentially, just saw the lions making to the Super Bowl. Oh, no, they lost that. Stop! I'm going to cut that out. So I'm currently in Detroit. And the first song that I want to feature is by a local Detroit artist that I found just playing a local gig a little less than a year ago, probably. I've seen them play around a couple times. The first show that I saw them play was with my buddies in the band Toad. It was this weird show that kind of like-- they had some other bands booked, and then they like dropped out last minute and so some other like a local accident. got added but this is an artist called premium rat and they do some like pop punky type of stuff although the couple of times that I've seen them live they just played acoustic so I'm really looking forward to seeing them with a full band at some point but this is their newest single which came out at the beginning of this year January 3rd 4th January 5th and this song is called Connecticut by premium rat. I used to run away all the time armed with three outfits and no food make it a few blocks or I realized I was screwed cause even if I ran away I couldn't outrun my brain I remember sitting on this stairs you've strapping on and mom and dad fighting over me they were scared cause a child shouldn't be this side every night at 3 a.m. like clockwork we're gratitude my god stress out the doctors turns out great friends and a broken home don't do a lot to make you feel less so on running on night new your dreams and Connecticut could only see suburban streets has left I'm six years old and can't do garlic making dyes to put me in the talent show and I think that this is when it started a little girl just wanted to know maybe if I can sing my life can really need something turns out white classmates and called it sucks don't do a lot to show you the things you like how they're caught in fucking Connecticut but I know that I'm so lucky because we've taken the right it's true the place I hate I know it gives me the chance to choose see the ladder for what it is or pretend But it isn't fair, but it's getting scared, the actors and told themselves it's fair. And I'd rather be, I'd rather be, I'd rather be, I'd rather be. I'd rather be anyway. God, I love that song. Yeah, man, that was great. Talk about good production, holy shit. Yeah, right. Well, that's one of the things is this is going to sound kind of backhanded and I don't mean it that way. But when you see a new artist with less than a couple hundred monthly listeners on Spotify and they release something, a lot of the time you're not expecting the best product. That's just kind of how it goes. There's probably going to be some bangers on here, but it might sound a little rough. And I listen to this the first time I was blown away, I'm like, how is this not on the radio right now? Like this is so killer. It sounds like multi-million dollar production. There's something really spicy about their vocal production. I don't know what it is, but I love it. I'm also a sucker for it. It sits right in the mix. Yeah, I'm also a sucker for like the pre-course with like a different drum sound entirely. Like cut to like the remix or whatever, well really no exactly what they're doing there, but they did that a couple times. And then the final pre-course was just the vocals, like the low five vocals with the low five acoustic. And the way they blend it into that final course, so that was fucking tasty. I like that. Yeah. Well, that was one of the things that I was going to mention too is that this song puts on a fucking clinic when it comes to arrangement and song structure. Because one of the other things that I really like is how you get the pre-course after the first verse. And then there's the delayed gratification because it goes back to the second verse. Then you get the pre-course again and then finally the chorus hits. And so it's like that delayed gratification just makes the chorus hit even harder when it comes up the first time, which I think is so cool. Yeah, no, I'm into it. I want to listen to more of them. That's great. Like you said, as well, I think that just the arrangement with the different vocals and cutting to the room mics and making things feel a bit more stripped back and then bringing in the fuller punchy production really just makes this thing a ride to listen to. Especially the first time you listen to it is just ear to ear smile at the end of the time. It caught me off guard. There was one point where they like she had like a harmony going on that was like panned out and it got like really wide and really angelic for a moment. I was like, damn, this fucking, it was angelic. It was beautiful. Oh, yeah. I don't know literally anything about the production of this, but it just sounds phenomenal. I'm so into it. This is my most listened to song of the year already. So what's the next tune going to be? This is going to be your first one. Yeah, so during our conversation, we brought up a few of the bands because I think there's a lot of people in the sky punk community that either a aren't getting like love they absolutely deserve or be just deserve a fucking shout out. The first song that I have queued up here is actually simple minded symphony. Nice. They they put out and it's hard because I put out a record last year, but I think they put out my favorite record last year with their self titled. I love this band. I love the people so much. Like we got we got to play with them. I'm at sky punk international fest in Texas and I think it was nice. Yeah, and Austin and seeing them live before I had really like really knew them. Oh my god. I never wanted to go home and like practice or throw away my drums and guitar in my base all of it in the fucking trash. So so quickly. Like these dudes are something else, man, just to see live and then yeah, they put they put out this record and again my album should be my favorite album that came out last year, but there's two of them that came out that I'm like, nope, this takes the cake. Sorry. Yeah, that that what it's such a good record. Yeah, I can't wait to see which one you picked. And I struggle because my favorite song on here is armistice, but I went. Okay. I went with one of their singles, which is feather. I think it's it's a really good showcase of their sound overall. It has really good catchy like horn lines, really beautiful vocals, a nice guitar line and things like that. But I highly recommend everyone to check out the full album. Again, armistice is probably my favorite one, but between that and just overcast the ending song. Cast is the one that I featured on a previous episode a few months ago. That one's personally my favorite, but the entire record is killer. It is. And you see, we'll picture this one day or stuff all over, become the virgin from the former. You know, I want to be one of them, one of them will get right out from under like what's that all about I wonder. Will I ever be one of them? (upbeat music) [Music] One of these days, maybe you'll catch me Releasing the things, the things that got me so low Singing aloud, maybe I got this right after But until then, say how you're feeling to feel it I mean it, I need to forget it I'll never be one, I'll never know Well, I'm no where you know me too So why don't we know what to do? I just wanna feel all right for the world today I don't know how to do that, I don't know [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] That horn arrangement at the end is so good [Music] It's kind of funny because I always think of simple-minded symphony as like a progressive scar band if that makes any sense No, totally The way that they structure their songs and stuff like that is so off the wall and unique And it's really interesting to listen to But the thing that I think is neat about this song is that it's not quite as progressive as a lot of their other stuff It feels like it takes a lot more from like almost a traditional jazz form basically Where you've got like establishing the chords with the intro and the beautiful, beautiful vocal harmonies And then you've just kind of got the thing where everybody just takes a turn, taking a solo over the changes And then you, you know, everybody comes back in for a turnaround and then you do it all over again So I think that that's kind of neat that they take very much that kind of like a jazz song structure for this one As opposed to being all over the place like they are in a lot of their other songs Absolutely, I think they're very comparable to us in that regard where they dabble in the genre bending a lot Personally, I think they're doing it a little bit better And I'm just saying like I think these guys, I think they're just like the future for the scene And bands like this, these guys in particular like I cannot wait what they're doing to see what they're doing in five to ten years It's going to be insane. It's incredible, like they're just so talented down earth people Another theme for the bands that I picked, at least most in some regard do their own production or engineering I believe the guitarist slash like Barry Sacks player is engineering for these guys And yeah, great fucking work, like I'm so proud of these dudes and legitimately and stoked to hear more And see them live again, hold shit, I just need to see them live I would love to see them live, I really hope that some more of these bands do tours and runs through the Midwest and come through Detroit Because that would be so cool to see Another thing that I really like about this song is because I talked about like kind of everybody takes a turn for a solo kind of that jazz structure This is one of the only songs that I've heard that has a bass solo that I'm not like you Yeah, no, Kevin's insane, the dude rips, in the end, it's so good. It has a, it's not just a solo for solo sake There's an actual like build up in like climax and like it weds. Oh yeah, man It's just a really well-made solo, but like yet there's a whole structure just to that bit What other bands are like pull-off bass solos like that? It's very few as far between like it's awesome For sure, as well as you know the guitar work that finger picking stuff sounded beautiful at the beginning And I know that at least for me finger picking is something that I'm not nearly as good at it takes a lot of a lot of skill to do So a major respect to that especially if the guitarist is one of the people singing when they're performing this live as well Major props. I know that's crazy. Kevin's their main vocalist who does bass Which again, there's some complex bass parts where he's singing at the same time just like what the fuck You know that actually brings up a question that I'm curious about I forgot to ask about when we were talking about your album When you guys play live now that you've got the couple of songs that you do the vocals on because you do the like harsh metal screaming vocals Right? Yeah, so I'm assuming that you're gonna have a mic with you at the drums when you're doing that because that's also something That you don't see nearly as much with with a lot of bands as drummers who do vocals for sure. Yeah I do vocals while playing drums Sometimes poorly sometimes it's sometimes that I noticed compared to playing guitar and singing because I did that for my metal band It's such a different beast because the the multi limb thing going on But also the hearing because like 100% I'll be honest. I didn't even think about that aspect down there I was thinking about like the different rhythms like you're already playing different rhythms different limbs and such But I didn't even think about the hearing aspect The hearing throws me off the worst and like what's funny is like I can do fry screams and like false chord screams and stuff like that Fairly easily in a studio setting in a live setting It's very important for me to hear where I am and like feel it correctly But when I'm playing drums it's hard to do that so like I'll strain too hard because I can't hear myself in my own head Because everything is so loud while you're playing live drums And it's something that I'm working on like with earplugs and things like that I'm definitely seeing improvements There's also a lot of parts where I'm taking harmonies like I'm not I'm not quite a singer But like I can like I can fake it for the most part So a lot of like the harmony in backups also take those Andy is the the secondary vocalist But he has a very specific style in tone that he goes for that really fits our sound well But like I try to take some of the like actual like more melodic harmonies as well as our trumpet player Brandon He is an incredible singer if you listen to our afterthought EP The toss and turn remix is him and Jessica basically do adding over it And he does like this really complex super sick finger style finger style guitar and they harmonize on that The dude's just so fucking talented like it's it's incredible So he does a lot of the harmonies when he's not playing the trumpet So if there's a. not like a horn part that there's a harmony behind I'll usually take and it's really not that hard to play drums and sing for me except for the hearing part because like again the the screaming stuff I have to feel right and I have to hear it in my head know where it is to filter like to have good technique because obviously you just shout yeah fine but like to get the right sound and everything it's a little difficult if you can't hear anything and then obviously singing have you tried using in ears no or or do you guys mostly just use wedges we're we're so traditional punk band in that aspect we're like we literally just kind of show up set up and go like we don't really have any like backing tracks or in ears or anything like that and a lot of the the stages we've been playing recently have been a little better than like your traditional like DIY punk venues so like my monitor situation is definitely improved and that's helped it's just it's something I I think personally need to work on I just gotta be able to hear better I gotta get used to playing drums and singing with earplugs because like it bothers me because I didn't use earplugs for so long and now that like I'm actually like taking the audio engineering seriously I really need to stop fucking around with that because like yeah dude there was a show on the last tour that we did I can't remember what the venue was or where where where we even where all the dates and things run together but um legitimately the the sound guy like clip like a blue out the monitor which was right by on the drum which and I legitimately could not hear out of my left ear for an hour and all I could think was like that's scary I'm fucked like it eventually stopped ringing and I could hear but like man that I I've gotta get better at that yeah well and I would imagine I mean just you know you put your fingers in your ears and try to sing it feels weird because you're only getting feedback from within your own head and so like having to do that for an entire gig seems like it would be really weird at least with the in ears you get like that feedback of like the outside world as well instead of just like the inside your head kind of sound but I would be a bad idea it wouldn't be a bad idea to go for the in ears yeah I mean I I feel like it would work out really well for you I also would imagine that there's kind of the physicality of when you're drumming and singing because drumming if you're a real drummer drumming is very much like a core workout because you're using both the you're using both of your feet you can't like stabilize yourself with one foot or anything so like you're really keeping yourself up by your core for the better for the entirety of the set and then also when people are like oh yeah to use good singing technique you need to sing from your core so it's like all of that together is like insane to me yeah and and that's that's the thing too with especially like the harsh vocals is it really does take a lot of compression and power and I'm not like a trained drummer like I literally like learn playing drums out of necessity because the band that I was playing for didn't have a drummer so it was like okay I guess that's what I'm doing and I don't have the best technique so like I I play really hard a lot harder than I probably should and I I waste a lot of energy but like that it's just I love that feeling I get so hyped up playing live and I'm just beating the shit out of them but I realized like now that we've actually started like doing longer stretches tours like by like night three I'm spent I'm like I got like I've actually gotten a lot better at that and I realized since I've like toned back on that and started thinking about a little bit lighter technique and things I've noticed the singing's a lot easier then because I'm not wasting so much energy just hitting the drums for no reason unnecessarily hard that makes a lot of sense yeah yeah that's really interesting I'm glad I glad I thought of that because yeah it didn't even occur to me earlier yeah and um going back to longing with the tooth we're we're we're thinking about it it's difficult because that song in particular I wrote and actually did like 90% of the the recording for it I did the guitar I did the drums I did the harsh vocals and um if we were to do it live I would probably take guitar and swap out with Andy because again he was the original drummer for the band he actually is a pretty sick drummer um he just doesn't necessarily play or practice that much so it's like we're we're thinking about it we're we're thinking about it so like that would be a cool moment though getting off the kit come into the front to to do the song that you wrote and and play guitar and kind of take center stage for that that would be sick yeah well and I mean you like multi instrumentalist like that's Andy he he does all our trombone for the band so lot in a live setting we barely ever have trombone unless we know like somebody in another scab band which surprise and you show that we play with there's a trombone player like so like yeah we try to like and invite like either people just like get up for a song or whatever um and they'll jump up on stage and do that and then um get he he plays uh trombone he does banjo on a lot of songs he and I both kind of trade a bunch of duties like I do the keys he does like the banjo he also does the trombone he also plays tuba really well so Vardalia um he finally got to play sussophone for a song for the first time that was great and that is that is definitely something I've noticed at uh scoshos too is that it feels like there's a lot of like member trading specifically with the horn section because it's it's like you've probably got the one person who plays like all the horns on the record and so then you need somebody else to help fill out the horn section because yeah that's definitely something I've noticed a lot of horn players playing multiple sets on a scab bill see that that's him all the time like he's I about to tour with mustard plug playing and trombone for them he plays and joys nice plays with us like another big shout out to Andy I'd give him a lot of shout outs because he deserves it the man worth a million shout outs for real so my next song is one that I actually found just like casually browsing band camp it's not something that I do a ton but but sometimes there's uh on just like the homepage of band camp you can go down and you can filter by like new releases and you can filter by like you can even go so far as like filtering by location you you can just be like I want to find new metal releases from Detroit for example and it lets you get that specific which is really cool I don't utilize this uh feature nearly as much as I feel like I should but I was just like looking for new like punk rock type of stuff and I stumbled on a band that I listened to literally just because of their name which I thought was funny which is pissed jeans pissed jeans I love it I tweeted about it the day that I found it I'm just like I just found a band called pissed jeans and that just it made my day they're based out of Alan talent Pennsylvania and they're kind of like a garage punk band there are a lot bigger than I thought actually when I found when I found them they're on a sub pop records and have actually been around for almost 20 years now I think that they released their first song in like 2006 that rolls and I was actually surprised when I put out that tweet how many people had heard of them before because I hadn't but this is actually their first single off of their upcoming record uh half divorced which comes out on March 1st which will be like a week or two after this comes out so I think that that's pretty perfect timing this song is called moving on by pissed jeans when I stopped the selling off my own world got out the pines worth it it's just that I don't know again and I'm not like this around anymore like the million dudes that came before it's not a talk of that I was too upset [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] ♪ I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man ♪ ♪ I'm a man ♪ ♪ Let's get it all ♪ ♪ Let's go to the stick of my hour ♪ ♪ I'm a man ♪ ♪ Oh yeah ♪ ♪ I'm leaving town ♪ ♪ And I'm shaking ♪ ♪ Peace ♪ ♪ Out ♪ ♪ Out ♪ ♪ But I guess ♪ ♪ I'll succeed if I can offer you ♪ ♪ I'll take fifty-four and one man ♪ ♪ I'll succeed if I can offer you ♪ ♪ I'll succeed if I can offer you ♪ I feel like these guys would be insane to see a lot. Yeah, that is a lot of energy there. Just like that driving beat is one of my favorite drum beats. Back, back, back, back, back, back, back. It's such a simple beat, but it's so energetic. I use that beat a few times on Moonflower. I love that. That and the traditional. Those two are the two default punk beats, and they just never fail to make something feel high energy. It's great. It's just a nice drive. It's not even the fast punk beat right there, but it's just like, you still just nod along, and you kind of just want to fucking punch something the entire time. It's really cool to hear the. It's not complex, but a little more complex, like guitar work and punk rock. They had that kind of rip-and-ass solo, which is super sick. Kind of like Sabbath vibes, too, and even the guitar tone and stuff. The funny thing is, I wasn't even thinking about that until this time listening to it, and I was literally about to make that same comparison. That's so funny. That's awesome. I really like how garaji and grimy it is, too, because this is something that I've been getting into recently, which is just those kind of more raw live-sounding recordings, because it's so easy to just keep layering stuff. I've talked about this a million times. I swear, I don't have a problem. But just how raw it really does feel like a live on the floor recording. It sounds like a real band. Yeah, it sounds like they set up a few mics in a garage and let her rip, and just, you know, that's what came out. I mean, you can even hear like the sound of the amp starting to feed back in a couple of parts, where there's like the guitar isn't playing for as long, and stuff like that. There's just like a palpable raw energy to this that I just can't get enough of. Yeah, that's like the key takeaway for me was the energy. Not only just that driving me, but exactly what you're saying, like the just rawness, the real live band sound to it. It's still sounding polished and everything, but there was like a grittiness, like garaji-ness to it. I love like that style of like almost like motorhead kind of vocals that are like really not like melodic in any way, but like really just get you like getting that stank face while you're not along and just like head banging like I love that. Well, and the chorus is only three words. So by the end of it, if you're-- Oh, I didn't hear any words at all. I'm moving on, I'm moving on, I'm moving on. That's all it's the entire time. And so it's one of those things that if you were to see it live by the end, you're going to be singing along. There's no way you're not, because it's only three words. Like you can remember that easy as fuck. Dude, yeah, that's like the beauty of like just punk in general was like, if you got the energy, you got a catchy hook, and you got like a crowd jumping along and singing and screaming that shit. That's why I love punk music right there. It's just the energy. Yeah, this would go off live. I would love to see them if they-- I'm assuming they'll probably tour on this record. So if they come through town, I would love to catch that. So what do we have up next? I actually, let's see. I'm going to pull this one next. I wasn't sure what ordered to do it in. So I just grabbed links. So this is a band that like huge into ska for a long time. This is one of the first bands that Andy again shout out showed me. Like this is right up your fucking alley as like a prog rock guy. These dudes are endlessly talented and impressive, particularly, particularly Mr. Eric Dana. This is the holophonics. I pulled a song from their most recent album, LaVos. These guys are very much in like the ska cover scene. Like they've done a ton. And I mean a ton of like just cover albums of video game soundtracks and shit like that. Like they did Donkey Kong Country, which is again the greatest always time. I have the vinyl for that. They've done Banjo Kazooie. And I don't actually know if LaVos is like a chrono trigger reference, but I imagine it probably is. But this whole album fucking rules. I picked Dream Devoured, which is like the closing track on there. I could have picked any track from here. And it's these guys are so talented. When any band that like jumps to like the weird time signatures or like just the complex like song structures things like that, I'm always like gonna dig and sink my teeth into it. And the fact that these guys ran like our scene pulling this shit off and just like these are the fucking goats. I've seen them live one time. And they're again fucking incredible live band. I have heard of them before because they came up. I can't even remember what band it was based off of. But they came up on like Spotify radio after listening to an album. They're not songs that I've like come back to. But when I was listening to radio, I must have liked them because they're like in my library marked. But I just haven't come back to them. So I'm looking forward to hearing this. Yeah, they're super diverse. And again, I could have I couldn't pick a song. So I was like, that's the one that stuck out to me. Because like I'm an album listener. I hate shuffling. 100%. Yeah, I hate shuffling. I hate hearing a song and then next band. Like I want to listen to an album front to back. And I'm always like hyper focused on the intro, the ending, the middle, like where it is. And I love the way that this album ends. Okay, let me just start playing. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Whoa, that's super cool. I like the way that that ends with just the horns there. That's really cool. I get chills every time I hear it. I love that, man. And I love the heaviness behind it all, like the intricate guitar work and stuff. Then the horns just go off like that, like, come on, man. It sounds like fucking iron maiden if they had a horn section. It rules. Yeah. For real. And that's the closing track on the record, too, right? Correct, yeah. Okay, yeah. I do like the, it's that horn part that that's how they end the record. Yeah. I think it feels so satisfying to do it that way. I like that a lot. It is cool how it's like got this sort of, like, proggy element to it, but it's kind of interesting how the horns during like while the, while the vocals are going on and stuff actually sounds a lot less progressive than a lot of other music and sounds a lot closer to like that kind of like 90s-scall horn section sound. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good call. And then they do the more like progressive stuff during like the instrumental breaks. I think that that's really like a neat way to kind of do both. Yeah. I agree. And that's another, like I said, Eric Dana, he's like an engineer extraordinary. He's super dope guy. He actually does an adventure time podcast, which I was really looking forward to going on. But I didn't get to go in that tour and go to Manhattan and do it. Ah, it's still. Ah. It's a lot. But yeah, I love him. I love all their cover albums, but like I think the biggest thing I would say is like check out their original music because like they're, they're pretty sizable as far as like numbers go and things like that. But like it's mostly people checking out their covers and things like that. But their original music is just fucking out of this world. And Eric actually. They've been doing this for a while, too. Oh, yeah. Dude, for a long time. And Eric actually released a solo album, I think last year it was like Book of Spells. I, my ears are all fucked, but it rules. Like dude, so talented. I love them. Kind of going back to the, the proggy elements. I think that it's also really neat on this song. The drums do some interesting things on that like galopy part. Yeah. There's just the guitar gallop and then the drums come in, but it feels like the drums are almost like dancing around the one or like dancing around the beat. And so it's like it creates this really weird like kind of off kilter groove because I kept expecting it to like hit the one really hard. It was like the one was the only thing that it didn't hit until the rest of the band with the bass came in and going back to kind of like what I was talking about with the delayed gratification just made that hit feel so good. It did because like the entire time like I feel myself like leaning forward like when's it going to hit? And it still has them. And then you're just like, Oh my God, when's it going to end like they're like it's so cool. Yeah. I love that shit. That's like a lot of like what my inspiration comes from with like the the weirdness and flying racoon suit. I like pulling like the the odd shit like that in from like the prog world and bringing it into pop music, which is basically like the foundation of what we do because we have a lot of just like straight up like punk or pop songs. But like if we have that like two bars of music, that's weird as fuck like every single one of our songs have that like even red herring, which is like our most like commercial song probably starts off and like there's like three three hits like stops and the horns are like discordant and it makes no sense. And then the outro's like this weird like drony kind of thing like but in but sandwich in there is like probably our poppy of song like I like that. That's so cool. So this next one that I'm going to play is the one that's not currently out yet as of recording. It comes out in like two days. So I'm not playing it for you too crazy early. It's by a an emo band called ice swallow ghosts and they're from Pittsburgh. Yeah. I had been hearing some buzz on Twitter for a little while and I finally got to got around to checking him out a few months ago. But this is going to be the first single off of their upcoming record, which comes out March 15th called Deluxe Kickbike and this song is called John Cena Later. But I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time. So I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time. So I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing it for a long time, so I'm not playing - Yeah, these guys actually reached out to us. to me directly on Discord and sent me this to listen to early and they weren't even expecting anything out of it. They weren't really, they didn't like specifically ask to be featured on the podcast or anything. But like, if somebody's going to send me early music, I'm going to try and make that happen. Yeah. That's awesome. It would be, it would be kind of a dick move if I didn't. But I actually asked them about, if there was anything specific that they wanted me to mention. And they were saying that this EP, it's five songs, it's going to be out in March. And they were saying that this is the first time that their music has taken on a bit of a, a more serious vibe. They've typically been a bit more of a lighthearted band. They released one song last year. They released one song last year in November called Friends Giving Edibles. And it's just about getting, getting high and hanging out with your friends. But they were telling me that this is kind of a departure for them lyrically because it's about a bit more serious topics like this is about, you know, like childhood abandonment issues and things like that. So I think that it'll be something once the EP comes out that people can really sink their teeth into lyrically, which is nice. I'm excited for it because yeah, I'm, again, didn't really dive into that genre very much. And I'm like experiencing that now. And it's, it'll be really cool seeing like a modern band taking that genre on still. Like, I don't know, it's cool. In the same way. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And like even like the intro has that like almost memeable like the Midwest emo thing where it's like now, yeah, now you have like the, the, the emo guitar riff and they put it like the TV shows dialogue or whatever and like, yeah, make that thing, but like TV show scene. It really does like, but it works really well. Yeah, it sets the scene for the song. And it's like, I started feeling it. I was like, Dan, I'm fucking tired too, man. I'm tired. It's one of those things that in particular, I kind of put the like sad TV show on over a guitar riff, kind of in like for emo as the same thing as like in metal core. You guys going, yeah, like, it's the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Cause like it hits so hard every time. But it also happens so often that it almost becomes comical. No, absolutely. And I find that really interesting. It is, it is like perfect for it. But there was like a small part of me that's like, oh man, I can see this being a meme. But at the same time, like, no, just fucking own it. Oh, that's awesome. And also to go back to the meme, like any time that like I see like the TV show over it, it hits every single time. Oh, yeah. This fucking rules like, it's funny. But at the same time, it's like, not gonna lie. This hits pretty hard. Like this goes off. It became a trope for a reason. Yeah. It works. It is good. It just kind of became overdone. But yeah, I agree with you there. I think I'm gonna throw out another ultimate shout out one. I'm doing a jazz song. Nice. They again, like shouted us out when we were like pretty much up and coming when we released static home, which is probably our most popular song in my favorite song to play live. I love that song. It's kind of jazzy. It's very indie. And I think they heard that sound. The indie vibe to static home. And I think that resonated with them. And I think that's why they shared it. I don't remember the exact like quotes and things. But when it was shared, we were all just like hype because obviously, Jair's our hero would like, especially like back then doing the scottoon stuff like, you know, holy shit. They now do like the solo stuff with Jair. And I saw Jair sometime last year. It's been a little bit sometime last year. I can't remember. It was in New Orleans, an amazing live set. But this one kind of gave me the same vibes. Like it's almost like a more like an indie kind of maybe emo indie song. And this one really resonated with me when the bother on bothered album came out. So I just wanted to share that one. Maybe, my view is easy. Everything isn't really how it is. Maybe, it's of a tree. All the chaos going by when we see. Maybe, I find it scary. Realizing that I have no control. Maybe, I avoid reality. There's nothing right that we can do. There's no right that we can do with this tree. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] To never give up on my conviction, I won't place my cards in superstitions. Cuz this soul has a profound power, changing the world with every passing hour. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] music, they got me. I don't know. Maybe it's because when they do the shows live, it's very prominent that they're writing important music politically, mental, health wise, and everything they're saying, like I resonate with in this song. I don't know what it is. Like it just, the first time I've heard it, it resonated with me. And up to this one, which is probably the hundredth time I've heard it, it resonated with me. I love it. 100%. I also really like, in the second verse, and again, when it comes back down, there's like some extra auxiliary percussion and stuff like that. It just like, it's got this kind of, you know, like you said, this like emo indie rock kind of feel to it. But it's got this little like underlying groove that makes it feel so different from all of that as well that I really, really like. It's really cool because they incorporate like the one drop like reggae style drumbeat with like that indie emo guitar part. Like it's, it's pretty cool. Yeah. And um, shout out to Woody, uh, their drummer. Oh my God. Talk about heroes. Oh, yeah. Insane. And then, uh, I believe, uh, and this could be incorrect. But I believe Reed, from where the unit, I think she produced, uh, this record, but I could be wrong there. Oh, really? I didn't know that. I know she does a lot of the, uh, sky community. And it won't just in general. She does a lot of production work. Really good shit. Nice. I really enjoyed this record when it came out. I saw Jair, uh, they headlined stoop fest, uh, last year, which is a really cool like DIY festival, uh, here in Michigan out in Lansing. And yeah, put on just an absolutely killer show. And then have, you know, been dropping singles and like the Skytune Network shit and like, they don't stop. Yeah. It's another one where it's similar to a holophonics word. I wish the, um, original music had as much light shown as the cover stuff because don't get me wrong. I love the covers, especially that, uh, Undertale whole album that. Oh, yeah. Jesus Christ, that's it. Slaps not that they're not doing well on the, um, solo stuff, but I do wish that a little more light and we're showing there too. I agree. You also see them popping up on a lot of, uh, features recently doing horns for other bands and stuff like that too, which is really cool. So my next song is another one that was submitted to me directly by an artist, uh, the day that it came out, which actually came out the same day as the premium rat song that I played at the beginning of this episode. Uh, so another 2024 song. I'm, I'm surprised how many, how many good tunes have come out in just the first month of the year. Uh, leads me, uh, feeling pretty hopeful for the rest of the year. But, um, it's kind of interesting because, uh, this is a band, they, they refer to themselves as hyper rock. Basically, it's like hyper pop mixed with rock music, which we've seen quite a bit recently. There's, uh, I mean, it feels like a lot of people are merging hyper pop with different things because you can just, like the, the glitchy edits and like all of that stuff is, is really in right now. But I'm, I'm still, I'm still really digging it. I don't feel like it's overdone quite yet. Uh, have you heard, uh, like, players take on swan song, by the way, from Moonflower? I did. Yeah. That was the, that was, uh, what, the, the second single, because swan song was the first single, right? And then the remix came out like a week or two after. Uh, we're super excited for that. We'd love likely so much. The hyper pop genre. I'm down for it. It's so crazy. They've been releasing a lot of really cool stuff recently. If you haven't checked them out before highly recommended, uh, but this is a band. This is their first single. And I was really surprised. They, they have quite a few connections through like previous bands and such. But I was really surprised, uh, that they took off as fast as they did with just the one single coming out. But this is, uh, losing my head by color me crazy. I'm hanging on to the past when we were still friends again. ♪ How can we fix this mess ♪ ♪ I swear I'm losing my head ♪ ♪ Try and find best to get over you ♪ ♪ We're real, we're real, we're real ♪ ♪ But it's never my turn to find the place in this world without you ♪ ♪ You're burning on the inside ♪ ♪ But we're real, you're never fun ♪ ♪ You're never wasting so much of it over ♪ ♪ I ain't open like a raging fire ♪ ♪ If I could just explain the pain of feeling everything ♪ ♪ Baby, baby, you've got this ♪ ♪ Look at me like I miss the fuck I knew ♪ ♪ Ways of emotions only lay my brain ♪ ♪ Deliverance and cycle of endless pain ♪ ♪ I love myself but still I can't be with you ♪ ♪ Still I can't be with you ♪ ♪ I'm hanging on till the time ♪ ♪ When we were still friends I gave ♪ ♪ Lord of those and put it on our head ♪ ♪ Chop, chop, chop, chop ♪ ♪ Let's dig it over here ♪ ♪ I'll never find a place in this world without you ♪ ♪ I'll find it on this side ♪ ♪ In front of a fire ♪ ♪ I'll cover my skin ♪ ♪ I'll put it open like a raging fire ♪ ♪ I'll cover my skin ♪ - That was so much fun. - Wow. - It kept getting heavier and heavier. Like the ending was just like the double kick kicks in. I'm like, oh shit. - Yeah. - If you hadn't prepped me for that, I would have had such whiplash when it went from the hyperbox and just straight up like metal song. That's so cool. - I feel like it works really well though because like the glitch edits in like this song, I feel like are very tastefully done. A lot of the time they, you know, you kind of lean into how glitchy things sound with like the hyperpop idea and it gets to be like its own kind of like weird heaviness. - Yeah. - But this is like the more like I think of like break-ins and other artists like that that kind of do like a cleaner hyperpop type of deal when it comes to like the verses and then it's like that aggression from the like metaly rock kind of stuff that really like brings up the energy and the choruses to me. - Yeah. - Man, I think I love music. - This is awesome. You got good taste, right? I appreciate this. This is awesome. - Thank you. The other thing that I really like is when the drums come in in the second verse and they're just like so like distorted and huge. - Huge. - That's so fun. - I love that effect. And I use that all the time in my mixes but it's one of those things where it's like an ultra compressed sound with saturation. - Yeah. - And like I use like this, it's like a stock proto thing called like BF76 or something where you just put all the buttons on. You turn the compression up to a disgusting level and I love that sound but it's almost unusable. But they found a way to use it and it's such a great way like it's so good. It actually gives me ideas for like future things like that same thing that we're talking about earlier. Like that pre-course kind of thing where it's a different drum production thing. Like that was a really cool take on it. And like I hear almost exactly what they did there and I'm just like man, that's smart. I love that. - Yeah, the production on this is so good. Like I don't know if it's weird to say but like this type of music a lot of the time, I find like a lot of the production to be like heavy handed. And like this is heavy handed in a way but it doesn't feel quite as like ham-thisted as like a lot of other stuff in the genre to me. - Yeah, it's not overproduced at all. - Yeah, exactly. I'm also really surprised 'cause like I said, this song has been out for almost a month and this is their only release. They're already up to over 2,000 month listeners on Spotify. - Oh, that's awesome. - They have been doing some crazy like advertising online. Like they've just been, I think that they've been reaching out to a bunch of people directly, which is how I found out about the release. And honestly, like a lot of people will post on social media and things like that, but I think reaching out directly, especially through email to different like publications and you know blogs and like whatever, really is like a good way to do it that a lot of people don't really bother with 'cause they've been burned on it so many times. - Yeah, I mean, whatever they're doing is working and they got you, you know what I mean? Like that's pretty. - Exactly, yeah. - For sure. - Dude, social media is so fucking crazy. Like it's the only reason why we have any success and yet it's the one thing that we hate the most. Like, oh my God. And love the most at the same time. - Yes. 100% love hate relationship because it feels like if you're gone for like any amount of time that people will forget about you and so you just like constantly have to be on that grind but at the same time you're like I feel like I am on social media way too much. There's nothing I made it like more than that feeling of like all right album promo I'm gonna post something today for like the 19th time 19th day in a row and like the people get it like the people that see that they're like oh yeah fucking grind away like absolutely but it's yeah you get in your head about it is like oh look at me look at me but it's like you have to be that way you straight up do no 100% I was I made a joke about it around the beginning of the year something to the effect of like most people's New Year's resolution I'm gonna be on social media less and then it's like in artists New Year's resolution I'm gonna be on social media more. We just have such a like backward-ass like relationship with it it's so funny to me. So what do we have coming up next? I got two more and again a band that you named called earlier and I'm just like this guy knows what he's doing this guy just knows what's up. I do my research. What may be either my favorite album from last year or my second favorite this is Power Up and I went nice. Another like one where I'm like I don't know what song to choose there's too many good ones. I think this one's the perfect one for anybody to jump into to kind of get a feel of what you're going going into because this band is fucking bizarre. This band is bananas. They're all over the place. They're all over the place in like I fucking love them and we got to play with them last year on our big tour and again wanted to go home and throw away my fucking guitars drums all of it. Get rid of it. I'm not fucking where they do these guys fucking kill they kill and I believe they also have a engineer in their band. I don't remember which member it is. Everybody's gotten an engineer in there. It's 20/20 man. Yeah, in the production on this is phenomenal. So like yeah, I love them. This one's King Kong. Well, I wasn't born to work. No shit jumped from nine to five. Just to be able to afford to stay alive. No, I feel like every day's the goddamn same way that I wake up and realize my life was a losing game. I do it in a field in the economy. I always caught up in fear and I was born to grow and I'm just showing up. Feel that it's a never ending story of dying I'm drowning in oil. They're drowning in cash. Well, I'm drowning in whiskey. Well, I'm drowning in blood. Well, I'm drowning myself so what? I told her it is a string, so I can be a hole in kitchen and the person I want to be asking if I die for the crowd. The hardest part of living up is giving up. Feel that it's a never ending story of dying from the inside out. I kept it down, I kept it all, I kept it down, I kept it all, I turned up a place, refill it all, I kept it all, I kept it all, I kept it all, I kept it all, I kept it all ♪ We'll be there ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ We'll be there ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm fucking a forget ♪ ♪ A forget a forget ♪ ♪ I lost another friend ♪ ♪ A forget another friend ♪ ♪ I need another chance ♪ ♪ I need another chance ♪ ♪ I need another forget ♪ ♪ I need another forget ♪ ♪ I need another forget ♪ Oh, dude. [laughs] Come on, dude. See, this is why I like modern Scott so much, is because I have such a diverse music taste. And, like, this is the only type of stuff that, like, checks every single box in the same song. Because it's like, it's got the, like, hardcore and the punk. It's got, like, funky type of stuff. It's got, like, more, like, traditional Scott. It goes all over the place, and it's so much fun. Yeah, no, I mean, it's, like, what else can you say? I can't help but I'll do it. This is, like, the bar keeps getting risen for, like, Scott core in general. Like, I think that's particular, like, Scott sub-genre, the Scott core sub-genre, I guess. Even within it, now, it's getting fancier. With, like, shit, like, this, which is, like, now we're kind of, like, doing a rush type riff, and then we're going back to hardcore to more of, like, a traditional Scott, like, two-tone, almost, like, groove. It's just, like, what the fuck in the same song so good? And there's hilarious, too, just, like, the lyrical content and, like, the sarcasm and the wittiness, like, oh. It's so relatable to anybody who just works some sort of, like, you know, blue collar job, where, you know, you're, at this point, barely, barely scraping by, and everybody's just had that feeling. Yeah. It really is just, like, lyrically, it is so, so relatable. Mm-hmm. I love this band so much. I love this album so much. And I'm still torn. I refuse to make a decision between this and SMS. Like, I don't know. Like, SBI last year just went the fucking hardest, man. It's insane. Oh, I'll tell you, both of those records, I have about half of the track list checkmarked on Spotify. You'll feel real. Like, I don't know. Yeah, it was a great year for music. And, um, this, this should just, I know it was gonna go hard. But, like, when, yeah, we, we got the list to it a little bit early. I was like, what the fuck? You know, do it, man. Holy shit. It's so good. I think that this is another one that I listened to the day it released at midnight, because I was so excited for it. One of the things that I'm noticing listening to a bunch of different, like, modern ska bands back to back tonight is one of the most interesting things to me is how each band utilizes their horn section slightly differently in the non-traditional ska part. Because I feel like a, like, a lot of the time they'll be like playing, like, a counter melody to the vocal, or, you know, what, like, a little runs in between vocal lines and stuff like that. I feel like power up, use their horn section almost the way that, like, a metal or rock band would use, like, a second guitar player. Yeah. Playing these, like, kind of simple, like, arpeggiated type of, type of licks just over top of the main riff. And I think that that's a really good way to do it. But, like I said, it's interesting to me how they, kind of, like, each band uses the horn section completely differently. Yeah, no, I 100% agree. And, um, this album also has a ton of features. And, like, one of my favorite ones is Joe from the best of the worst on there. Like, oh, dude, so beautiful. Oh, yeah. I also, uh, with the vocal delivery here too, especially in, in the first couple versus, like, he's, he's doing that super, like, screamy, kind of vocal delivery. But it's crazy to me how he's able to keep that sense of delivery while still having these beautifully on-page harmonies. It, it's crazy. And also, like, it's still, it's still got this attitude and grit to it, but also, like, beautiful harmony. It's crazy. Yeah, and all the members in the band sing. And, like, it kind of shows through because, like, You'll hear certain bands layer in the studio, you hear the same voice doing those harmonies and stuff, and it's a certain sound. But there's something else going on here where it's just like, these are some singers, it's crazy. And then the ridiculous range of the first, I can't even falsetto what he's doing in my head. It's wise. - Yeah, I feel like there's definitely the different flavor between having different people sing when you're doing harmonies or gain vocals or having the singers do it. Personally, I think there's like a weird uncanny valley thing that can happen when you have the same singer layering too many things because they pronounce everything the same. And so it almost starts to sound alien because every single person is pronouncing it the same way as opposed to like, even if we grew up in the same place and had like the same accent, everybody is gonna be pronouncing things slightly different as just to hit the notes and things like that. - And I feel like it makes it sound more live and real to me, which I really like. - No, totally, that's a good point. It's something I'm always conscious of when layering vocals 'cause like, I mean, we layer the vocals pretty heavy. Like almost everything is at least doubled. Jessica likes to do weird harmonies, but like, there's always a time and place like where I'm always like, hold off on that harmony. Let's get either myself, Andy, or Brandon to do it just to give this that particular vibe for specific harmony sound. But I'm, yeah, I think that's something to like really be conscious of in the studio 'cause you're absolutely right. I feel like there's more depth almost. - Yeah, and it's almost like a thing too that I'm conscious of when I'm producing, like I'm wearing the actual producer role, or producer hat rather, is like, if everything is always harmonized all the time, nothing sticks out, nothing is special about it. So it's like, you really want to like, almost reserve that shit for things that need to really pop and excel. And like, there's a lot of things that I do where I'll completely scrap the double track just so one single vocal is here, that way when the double kicks in, it's not something you hear actively, but it's something that just makes the sound more intense and stuff. - Yeah, it feels a little more. You just feel a little more emphasis to that line. - Yeah, for sure. - All right, so my final song of the evening is another one that I was introduced to on Twitter. I don't know if you're familiar with Western Jaguar. I have featured one of his songs on the podcast. He's a indie rock self-produced artist, and he, every like week or so, does like a shout out of like new artists and people who follow him and like makes a playlist and stuff like that. And this artist had just followed him and he tagged me on this song because he was like, I feel like this is something that Ryan would really like and he absolutely nailed it. I fucking love this song. It's by a band called Thursday Mark's Fall and this was released about a year ago. This song is called "Sign Co-Sign Intangent." Bring you back to high school math class. (laughing) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) I would have ever find this one beside him. He would be alright. I would have ever found this one beside him. The duel the duel vocalist and then Joe similar to me. He's like on some songs, singing on drums. - Okay. - One of the most talented drummers of all time. Like, he's so good. He's so much fun to watch live because I don't know how he musters the energy because like I said, I hit drums hard. I'm not even close to the level of velocity that's been put into every hit. And like, he's just incredible. He's like the primary songwriter as well. So I like really look up to him in that way. And get nice. Best of the worst. I chose Rotten dichotomy. I'm just 'cause it's a slapper. Let's see, get too weak. (rock music) ♪ We like that fucking computer ♪ ♪ Where bullets are as it was ♪ ♪ And the reds burn in the middle ♪ ♪ And that's what will become ♪ ♪ We can escape time and gonna be ♪ ♪ We like to escape the thinking ♪ ♪ We like out the superstition ♪ ♪ We love that being lost me ♪ ♪ What you think is wrong or right ♪ ♪ Can't see the way ♪ ♪ How about I make it safe ♪ ♪ Time to reclaim what's all wrong ♪ ♪ That we've ever known ♪ ♪ Coming in to get out ♪ ♪ We can be alive so we'll become ♪ ♪ Time to overcome ♪ ♪ Time to reclaim what's all wrong ♪ ♪ That we've ever known ♪ ♪ That we never fucking knew ♪ ♪ That's not our fault of the day ♪ ♪ I'm blind for the past ♪ ♪ I'm being fragmented as resilience ♪ ♪ Every day should be your last ♪ (rock music) ♪ Every day should be your last ♪ (rock music) ♪ So this is fucking bullshit ♪ ♪ You're the way the judges look at it ♪ ♪ And I told you can't you just quit ♪ ♪ At least you'll see what is there ♪ ♪ There's an offensive sign and stuff ♪ ♪ People are using it to blame ♪ ♪ If you can't let me think ♪ ♪ Stop the misdeeds ♪ ♪ Condition to believe that duality is real ♪ ♪ It's time to end the bigot ♪ ♪ Be taking it down by the misfits ♪ ♪ We will not agree to succeed ♪ ♪ This is our fucking time ♪ ♪ As your generation crumbles ♪ ♪ Our lives will be in two ♪ ♪ Our lives will be in two ♪ (rock music) - Fuck it. - Holy fuck yeah. (laughs) - Oh yeah, man. - I really like that last horn note there between the two. There's like a really gritty harmony between them. They're not like exactly in tune. There's like a roughness that just fucking so good. - Yeah, and like this whole album has moments like that, fucking everywhere. And it's a really heavy record, but there's like moments where it does lighten up and like like a lot of just really melodic parts and like beauty. There's like a song that lives things on, that's just so fucking good. It's so short and then they come back and kick your fucking dick in again. Oh my god. - It's so good. - I love this record so much. And again. - This is a band that I have heard of, but I've never actually checked out before. So that's also really exciting for me. And this being the first, my introduction to them was kind of insane. - Yeah, no, check out literally better medicine. Just play it tonight after this podcast. Just listen. - Oh yeah, that's kind of the plan right now actually. - No, they fucking rule. And again, one of the greatest bands to just watch live because the energy is in fucking sane. Also check out Thirsty Guys. It's like kind of the same band members, but like Joe's now singing. And oh my god, they're incredible too. It's completely different genre, but man, shit. Yeah, I love these guys so much. Nice as sweet as people to like on the planet. I sure to check in disc with Joe. What the fuck my light just like decided to turn to a thousand for no reason? Hold on, what's like? Oh god. - That was crazy. Is that you? Don't go towards the light. (laughing) - At fest, we typically get to hang out with them and it's always a great time. And again, the Thirsty Guys set and the best of the worst set, like on the same night, come on man. It's insane. - Yeah, the vocal performance on this one is something that I was really into. I do like the two different vocalists, the way that they like swap back and forth, but also just like the very like hardcore inspired delivery of a lot of his vocals are just killer. - Yeah, no, and it really does just, like that's like just icing on the cake right there. There's a whole meal for you in that album too. It's so good. - Yeah, I bet. Also going back to something that we mentioned before, when they hit the China symbol before the break, and you know you're about to die in the pit. (laughing) That just killed me, man. And the build up was kind of insane for that too, because I just like, I kept expecting the break down to start, and then like the build up just kept happening. I'm like, when's it gonna happen? When's it get, reminded me of the fucking, the lonely island bit where it's like the, when will the bass drop, when will the bass drop? When will the bass drop? I don't know if you remember that. - Yeah, that's a fucking thing with my little love as much. - It's like the exact same thing to me, where I'm just like, I'm ready for it. When's it gonna happen? I wanna go. - Yeah, in the way that he's going off to before, like, 'cause like it's typical like for the hardcore break down, like the singer's just like, I wanna see you fucking bite each other's tics off, and just like all this shit. But like he's going off on like just the coolest like lyrics, and it's so, it hits so hard. - Oh yeah. - Especially in this era because I believe this came out on like the hide like the Trump air and stuff, or maybe, maybe not maybe. - 2021 is when this came out. So it's probably when it was written. - So it hit so hard. And fuck, put out a new album, y'all, please, please die in here. - Oh man. Yeah, I cannot wait to check out more of that, 'cause that is absolutely killer. And again, just a testament to why I've grown to like this genre so much is because there's just so much diversity to it. I think it's such a cool scene, and I'm glad to have been exposed to it so much over the last year. Is there anything else that you wanna mention about the record or anything that we might have missed previously before we sign off for the end of the episode? - Honestly, I'm not sure. It's just been a great time to talk with you about it and get to experience new music, find new things, and share this story and what not for you for the band flying raccoon suit and the album "Moonflower". I appreciate you having me on. - Of course, I had a blast. I had a great time. - This has been the Fresh Fimes podcast, the show about discovering new music with good people. (upbeat rock music) - Fresh. (upbeat rock music) ♪ Don't forget to take this with you ♪ ♪ When you go ♪ (upbeat rock music) ♪ Cutting time before ♪ ♪ Time that find it our way ♪ ♪ Stretching didn't mean for ♪ ♪ And now there's nothing left to say ♪ ♪ Recredits been left all the way ♪ ♪ All that's left is leaving your own way ♪ ♪ You're hard to pay ♪ ♪ Your life can't relate ♪ ♪ Got light and pain ♪ ♪ Your life can't relate ♪ ♪ Your presence is too much too much to say ♪ ♪ And I can't relate ♪ ♪ I can't relate ♪ (upbeat rock music) ♪ Cutting time before ♪ ♪ Time that find it our way ♪ ♪ Stretching before ♪ ♪ Give us a boy with me ♪ ♪ Stretching didn't mean for ♪ ♪ And now there's nothing left to say ♪ (upbeat rock music) ♪ You never find your choice ♪ ♪ But I'm from London ♪ (upbeat rock music) ♪ And don't forget to take this with you ♪ ♪ When you go, don't forget to take this with you, I'll let you go ♪