The Art of Longevity Episode 87: Karnivool

Welcome to season 12 of The Art of Longevity. I'm your host, Keith Joplin. Each episode features an in-depth conversation with an accomplished, famous, or cult musician or band, and over the course of 11 seasons so far we've established many themes and secrets to a long, thriving career in music. Each and every guest has shared the most incredible, honest insights about their successes and failures. It's a really great way for fans and creators to discover more about these amazing artists. We make each episode a tribute to the artist and so you'll find on my website the full write-up and a unique artist portrait by the wonderful Mick Clarke. The art of Longevity is brought to you with Banganolipsum celebrating 100 years of crafting products with beautiful sound and stunning design. John is Stockman and Drew Goddard from Carnival. Welcome to The Art of Longevity. Yeah, thanks for having us. How are you both and how come you're in London Town, this fine city of ours? We're over here playing shows at the moment and yeah we just come from Prague, haven't we? Yes, we did a brutal assault and yeah we were just discussing that we were more diet brutal. Yeah, brutal light. You know, very heavy lineup but we'll receive that. That was great. In an amazing location and a fortress. There are some amazing festivals in Europe. Yeah, incredibly. As far as my festivals, I don't I don't spend too much time over here. You know, there's just the locations in Europe are just the best. Yeah, even here too. We've got arch-tangent festivals coming up. Not until we go to Dublin, our first Irish trip for a show at the Academy there. Yeah, the festivals here are great. We're slowly losing all of our festivals over in Australia. There's not many left now. A lot of smaller boutique ones coming through, which is great, you know, but a lot of the bigger ones have since stopped. Yeah, evaporated. What's happened just run out of money time? I don't know. Possibly money. See, probably the insurance costs sort of going up maybe is a part of it. I don't know to be honest. Yeah, I mean, festivals have been going down like nine pens here as well. But there were, I think, hundreds to begin with. I think we had over 300 in the UK at one point. By the way, while you're staying in London, I don't know how much time you have. But if you guys checked out this scale exhibition, we actually can't, because it's we got into late yesterday to be able to go to it before it closed. And I think it was only open Wednesday to Sunday. Okay. And we fly it tomorrow. Kane, the Kihibit who is, yeah, the photographer behind the exhibition is a dear friend of ours and his, his journey of that, getting that off the ground is almost mirrored out of journey of finishing our album. Yeah. Almost. Yeah. It's a, it was a 12 year project. Yeah. So, you know, we were both high-fiving, you know, each other to finishing and getting this seemingly never ending project finished. So. Okay. I think it's touring as well. Right. So it's going to go to Oz. He's going to do something in New York, I hope. But to open it, it was fantastic. Yeah, I went along. It's incredible. It really is incredible. I think there are only a hundred on display. It took me three hours to get round. Kane showed me round for half of it, but there are 300 in total that he's done over 12 years. So, yeah. So it's interesting parallel with your, with the making of your album in versus, which we are going to talk about. And I guess it's fantastic to hear that it is completed. This is ground that you would have gone over, I'm sure many times, you may be slightly bored of this conversation, but just on behalf of the longevity conversation, usually we sort of talk about what qualifies a band for a chat like this. And we've had this kind of vague definition of four albums in or 10 years. And you have just made your fourth album and you're celebrating your 20th anniversary. What's taken so long? Well, in a way, we've always kind of taken a bit longer than most other bands, I guess, to start with. We were running like an Olympic cycle there for a while, we went out every four years, up until asymmetry. And then, yeah, from after that it was, it's been 12. So, yeah, a lot has happened in that time. A lot of things have, you know, contributed to being that long. A lot of it is also just our understanding of what's going on around, you know, with the process as well. And in our own personal lives, you know, a lot of things have, we've had changes in responsibilities as well. Three of us have got, you know, kids, three of the members have kids, myself included recently. But I think it's, we can't really do much about it as a whole individually, we might think we might have be able to, but I think when you are in a group, you know, we all move at the same, you know, we all move forward at the same time. Or stay still. Or stay still. Or abandon, you know, the path. Yeah, I think we've definitely tried so much in the, in previous years to sort of enhance our productivity, you know, getting to results quicker. Don't really know. Look, it was just a big challenge. It's a big challenge in itself, writing a carnival album, completing it especially. And then, you know, a smattering of a lot of personal life challenges coming into the mix, you know, and maybe just a little bit of that, you know, we, I don't know, you know, after, I think it's a lot longer than 20 years I've been in this band now. But it's, um, it only got to that point, you know, after so many years, it was like, ah, I can sort of see why bands can sort of trip up and fail. And, you know, before that, I was sort of like, I can do this forever. I still, I'm still there now. But I only got to that point about 2016, where I was like, ah, okay, this is, yeah, this is hard now. This is really, this is really challenging. I thought it was challenging in previous albums, but yeah, it just, it took, yeah, if you've failed attempts and or just really just digging our heels in and trying everything and not giving up really was the, I mean, the main thing that got it finished in the end. I mean, the failed attempts, was it what weren't you happy with? It's not that we weren't happy with, with any, it was just the, the ability to be able to complete things. It felt like, there was too much noise in my life going on to be able to, and responsibilities, you know, in order of just making money or too many distractions and just the inability to really focus solely on, on, on completing the album. And I remembered that he can't be one foot in. You have to be really like, it's just, it, it, it takes up all my, my faculties to, yeah, all resources. Well, quality over quantities, a good mantra. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a different take on things, because we've had a bit of an ongoing theme for a couple of seasons of this podcast about the album. The album still as a body of work, as a, as an art form, as something that artists want to complete, because it's had, it's been assaulted in recent years from, you know, digital platform has been focused on the song and the playlist and all of that. But one of the things I've talked with artists a lot about is, you know, you spend two to four years making an album, then you put it out there and it seems to quickly evaporate. It's like a few months of promo and then it's gone, because there's just so much music out there now. So in a way, this is an antidote to doing that. It raises the stakes a little bit, but to make an album every decade or so, I mean, the fan base is to, to say, the least hungry for this. We were aware that you were raising the stakes with every kind of passing year. How did it, how did it feel in a way? Not so much. I don't think we were as conscious of that external perspective of what was going on, because we were so embroiled in the process itself, but what was going on, I think, for a lot of us was just trying to realize what was important in order to make a record in the first place, because when we talk about not being right, okay, with songs or certain parts or things like that, it was actually other things outside of that, like the headspace that some of us were in, in terms of being able to be present, I guess, for what was required, because it really does take all of us to be firing cylinders in the engine, I suppose. And yeah, that's just one of those aspects of the band that we hadn't really encountered before, you know, it had just been about decision-making and agreeing on what we were going to do from song to song or what we liked in a democratic way, but yeah, this was more about us being able to do it, I think. We didn't know it was going to be an album the whole time either. There was talk of it maybe being, maybe we just released an EP or two EP's or which we're kind of glad it didn't after this long, especially, we were very grateful. We sort of went through everything, you know, with all our ideas and things with Forester and we went, yes, and just, you know, the climate we're in have just, yeah, the singles and releasing single by single and just small content, the age of content, you know, I thought it was more important to release an album, you know, because I struggle with keeping the ADHD thing too and just, you know, I'm definitely on the spectrum there, so I think the whole process for me was important to keep me, you know, focused on a long-form challenge in itself that hopefully is, you know, instilled in the music somehow that it can hold some people, you know, captive, you know, and stop them in their tracks for a little bit and, you know, enjoy. It's just to stop for a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. And I think you're right. Part of that conversation about the album as body of work has been that it is in resurgence because of that. I mean, whether people are, you know, lying on the sofa or the floor for 45 minutes at a time and just listening is, is another thing, but I think there is through vinyl in particular and just the rising interest in music now is a cultural thing, though there seems to be sort of more interest in making a statement. So yeah, I'm glad you stuck to it. Yeah, yeah. To me, it's like a, it is just a collection of songs as well as being an album too, so I don't know if that makes any sense, but I think it's a, you know, there was less worry about how it all was going to flow, you know, we only just sort of got the track listing, you know, and certain time with the other records would be doing these sort of intricate little, you know, bridging pieces and all of that sort of stuff. And the whole streaming age has definitely changed that. We're looking at doing some of that, but now it's, you know, you can do that on vinyl. So we're looking at doing like this certain things that overlap and, and, you know, it's slightly different on the vinyl than it is streaming. That's sort of, it's completely changed, what you can do for an album and all those little funky little. Absolutely. I mean, vinyl has had a resurgence since, I mean, certainly since a cemetery 2013, it's really had a resurgence since then. Everything's changed, but vinyl's one of those things. Are you looking forward to seeing in verses in the vinyl format? I mean, if you got something special lined up for that. Like Drew said, yeah, that there is more going on between the songs itself. It's more how we intended it. Yeah, subtle, there's subtle differences. And I mean, Forresta mixed it differently for vinyl, you know, he, because you have to treat the songs and the sonic way anyway in a different way for vinyl. Yeah, but yeah, definitely looking forward to to holding something tangible and going, oh, this is the result of, you know, the last however many years, you know. The art of longevity is powered by Bang and Olifson. The luxury audio brand founded in 1925. For 100 years, Bang and Olifson has been pushing the boundaries of audio technology and acoustic innovation. Bang and Olifson's products combine beautiful sound, timeless design, and unrivaled craftsmanship. Let's stop off at a few songs if I could. I've had this record on heavy rotation for a couple of days now, and I love it. So congratulations. So it's a really great album. And a couple of songs just sort of leaps out at me. Conversations did because I just love the mood of it. It's one of those tracks that kind of gets under your skin a little bit and becomes a bit of a kind of, you carry it around. It's a, it's a bit of an earworm. So just tell me a little bit about how that song came about and how you got it down. In conversations, so originally called working title was suspended reanimation because it was a part of a little trio with animation and reanimation that they all stemmed off an initial sort of seed of an idea. And so when we're working through these songs, we didn't know if it was going to be part of that song or if it was its own thing. We quickly realized there's the start of conversations. It was made from a jam, just an improv jam from that. And there's three notes that sort of repeat as a loop. We ended up, that was a great jam that just sort of had this like sort of beginning it sort of sounded like the song was starting in the middle of the song or something. And that's like an interesting way to start a song. And so we just got into seeing the first thing that came into his head over that basically, which is really what came out on the record. The similar lyrics were obviously finessed and changed to make sense. But yeah, and then I think it went through quite a few different variations and structures. It's the arrangement that really takes a lot of the time with us finalising arrangements. And in the case of that, the conversations had so many different versions kicking around. Kind of like a light bulb before it's a light bulb, maybe, maybe not that many, but yeah. Yeah, that was one of those things that was one of those songs. It just felt so overwhelming to me when we stopped for a while. Just like, oh, that's got so much potential that song. But where do you start? Each one of these songs, you know, that has a different completely different structure, but they all had something about it that made sense. And you know, it was a bit of a puzzle with no edges. So yeah, that's puzzle with no edges is a good way to describe it, actually. And it sort of sits it sits between animation reanimation, didn't it? So it's great to hear you say it was sort of almost part of a trilogy. I hadn't heard it in that way yet, but next time I listen. Yeah, so yeah, they're kind of all related or coming from the same thing all those three, yeah. And yeah, that when you when you said it, yeah, sort of got under your skin, I think it did for me too, yeah, I remember reacting very in a negative way. So when the first mix came back that I was, maybe I had some expectations around it that I ended up, you know, it was probably just the head space I was in when I heard it or where I was, you know, through my, my JBL boom box in the back of the car, you know, with the car noise and everything. And my god, it's not right. And I'm texting the guys going, I don't know if it's going to, we can't put it on the record like this. And yeah, which I think gave you a bit of anxiety hearing that John. So I ended up going to the studio and sort of coming myself down a bit and listening to it and going like, okay, that's this, there's just going like logically, what, what isn't making sense? And I did sort of why not what got put all my notes down and set it to forest during the guys. And then listen to it again. I managed to put myself in an objective, um, listening scenario somehow, I think, and it sort of felt like I was a carnival fan suddenly. Um, and yeah, hearing it like for the seventh time and it just clicking finally and going, ah, okay, no, it's, it's actually really good. What's the relief for the rest of the band? Yeah, you're okay with it. Yeah, yeah. I had the similar thing with Salva, Salva. So, okay, which is the closing track, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's another good one. What was your issue with that one? I'll just, uh, initially, I think, because we had sort of frame that one out for a while since like 2016. And in that time, I had sort of fallen out with the ending a bit. And I just felt like there was some other thing that needed to happen. Um, you know, maybe a bit more like a November rain, sort of dark, darker ending type thing, because I felt like the front end was so happy, but I realized it was the other way. It was kind of like more full on and sad. I mean, there's still time if you want to get like a drone out in the desert with me flying, you know, playing the, the basketball line. Yeah, sure. Flying out of the top. That's what I'm just, I'm loving this conversation. This is like, you know, it's a perfectionist thread seems to be lingering in the room somewhere here. Um, so with animation and reanimation, you've been playing those tracks for quite a while live. When you put them down in the studio, was that a challenge to get them to, to sound the way you wanted them sound in the recording? I think it was probably it's more of a challenge with animation, animation, particularly when we play live to make it sound like the recording. Yeah. But, you know, to make it hit like we think it did on the recording, like it, the recording version, it didn't, it felt like it sort of fell into place very quickly, whereas live, it still feels like it, which I want to find the groove with it, you know. But there's some, some songs that I think maybe we just sort of need to treat it a little bit differently in live environment. I think that's going to be a bit of a challenge for, for, for a few of the songs. Like Opal. Yeah. And, you know, we can't really tour with bagpipes, you know, so there's going to be challenges happening for a few of the songs. But yeah, it was, it was a challenge. Reanimation was one that took a few goes, didn't it? No, I mean, it's having a song around for so long and playing it live, you know, and evolving over such a long period of time. And even the live performance is changing, you know, there's versions of early versions of playing some of these songs, which are very different to how they've ended up. Or, you know, at least they've got bits missing or extra bits that are no longer there of, of stayed in or moved on or whatever. So that's kind of like the, the kind of testing ground is almost like the simulation ground for us to see it here alive, sometimes to know if it's right. And some songs get a bit more beta testing, I guess. Because we've finished them before the album has to come out. So, yeah, I think Reanimation definitely has, like in its final version, I mean, we didn't do a live with that solo. This was the last minute edition. It was the first time we've loved the solo, worth the price of admission on its own, that solo. Yeah, which was, yeah, I don't know if you're aware, but that was Guthrie Goven. No, I'm not aware of that. Okay, tell me about it. Yeah, so, well, yeah, there was a couple of points where Guthrieks sort of came into the picture. One was actually speaking to the bagpipes at the end of Salva that I heard an interview with Rick Biotto talking to Hans Zimmer and Hans was talking about how someone complimented him on the bagpipes sound on a June soundtrack. And he said, "Oh, thank you, but that's not real bagpipes." That's Guthrie. It's an IR, you know, impulse response, they call it, on the acts effects, to mimic, you know, the bagpipes, which he does a similar thing with the violin. Yes, which we saw him do live. Yeah, so during the recording process, we actually went and we saw the aristocrats and they invited us down and as foresters worked with them too. Yeah, we got to hang out and talk and we've brought borders back and met Marcus and Guthrie, I'd met Guthrie once before, but he, you know, I asked him about that. The violin sound, and he mentioned that he captured an IR of the cavity of a violin body, much like he captured a cabsim, or probably actually more like he captured a reverse space because it's essentially what it is and had somehow converted that into making his guitar sound exactly like a violin, which is incredible. So, yeah, that was, that was part of it, and then I think because of foresters connection. Right. When, when we were looking at reanimation. Yeah, I tried a bunch of things in the middle, you know, it was like, we think we need some kind of lead part, and I don't, definitely don't consider myself a lead guitarist, you know, someone like Guthrie to me is like a true virtue I so, you know, I'm like, well, what, what if we actually, you know, did the old, like, I'm a bit of a Beatles nut, so my, my, you know, equivalent was like, you know, I remember George asked, you know, well, let's just get Eric to do it, you know, I can't do that. So, it's very cool. Comes out very well. I mean, I love a guitar solo without too many notes in it. And that was the, that was kind of the only brief wasn't it was something, you know, just something that with some held notes and, you know, that's so expressive. Yeah. And, you know, if we wanted more notes, you could do that. You could do that too. Yeah. The other song I wanted to talk about just for now, unless you want to talk about any of the songs from the album as well, is Ayazora. Is that how to pronounce it? I think so. But you better check with someone who's Japanese, I think. Okay. Okay. So, which has a, you know, a really anthemic chorus, which you've always had that in your arsenal, that melody, particularly with the chorus, but you, it feels like you've leaned into that even more on the inverses album. Is that, was that a discussion? Was that an accident? Was it by design? I would say if I was like my first thinking on that would just be after a symmetry where we were leaning kind of outside of that territory, in particular, trying to push it as a dissonant harmony. Yeah. That I feel like that's just a natural reflex to sort of, so I wasn't discussed, but it was probably a natural course. Yeah. That kind of reaction. Yeah. But it occurred to me early on. I was like, wow, we've got some really strong melody, you know, and more consonant sort of harmony going on and a more fertile ground for some just letting Ian do what he does very well and, you know, some challenging moments for him as well in some of the keys, you know, as he's the voice changes, you know, over 12 years. So, you know, so I know that the song drone and some moments that get quite high for, you know, and he was trying to go just to bring the key down and some, well, I can't really go any lower on the baritone. That's just, no, it's going to get a little bit too sloppy, mate, so you might have to just really, yeah, to his credit, you know, okay. Yeah, that's right. There was just some weird moments when they were where he's, he's voice had changed, but there's always like regions in your throat, I think, from talking to him. I mean, I'm not a vocalist, but where you're sort of shifting between these zones, we can't quite hit something with the right power. It's a little bit, it's not necessarily too high, it's just a weird spot, and it was a bit of that that it had sort of moved into territory in that sense, so he sort of figured it out, basically. Yeah, Azure is probably my, that's probably my favorite, as well as conversations, but yeah, I think that's the only one that gave me goose bumps continuously, which is a great gauge, you know, it's like, okay, at least we've got one goose bump in juicing one. I have to say, I mean, just going back and just getting familiar with your catalog as sort of preparation for this, and it's part of the genre as well, isn't it? To kind of get to that point where, you know, the hairs on the back of the neck kind of stand up for the listener. The point of the music that you make is to find those thrills, isn't it? Yeah, goose bump detector. Is that a competitive thing in your genre or within the band? I mean, how would you contextualize it? I'd say it's a, yeah, it's basically, yeah, kind of way of gauging when we're in the right, when we've come up with something that we feel good enough, that feel that is good enough for something we want to ride, it's always, it's kind of has that sort of capability to invoke that kind of reaction from us initially. I think that Azure sort of means from what we understand, blue sky, and you know, that sort of sound of the start or the comes in in the middle when you're saying, you know, waiting for the greatest skate and sort of, you know, there's some sort of being trapped in your thoughts or some feeling like there's no way out and you know, working towards that blue sky moment. So I think it was after we put that song away for a while and I came back to it after a long break and Kenny's little lyric, it's so profound, you find a way out and I was almost brought me to tears, you know, and I'm like, okay, we can do this, you know, because it gave me those goosebumps and the hairs on the back of the neck and was that that was a key moment for me hearing that after a long break and going, oh, we actually got that song a lot further than I had thought in my head, you know, and that was enough sort of a kick to go less, we got to, you know, along with going back on tour and realizing people are still interested and we still love it too, you know, around all around that same time was. Yeah, it does kind of sum up the experience of the last 12 years in a way, our own sort of difficulties of breaking through the barrier of like decision paralysis amongst other things, maybe a bit of pasta syndrome every now and again. Confidence and, you know, when you, when you, yeah, all that stuff that, you know, I think most artists probably struggle with, yeah, questioning yourself, even like I was reading Guthrie's emails that like, with the time difference, you know, I'd wake up to all these different versions and him just questioning it and going, I don't know, man, the first version sounded amazing. The art of longevity is brought to you with Bang and Olivesson. Since 1925, Bang and Olivesson has created iconic audio and home entertainment products to the highest standards of sound, craft and design. You can find more about the partnership on our web pages and by signing up to the mailing list where you can then get episodes first plus invitations to events and office. Finally, we want to get to 100 shows and beyond with the art of longevity and the only way we can do that is with your help and advocacy. So please rate, review and share the podcast wherever you can, back to the conversation to wrap up this episode. And we'll be back with another great guest very soon. When you put this record out there, what, what are you guys going to do? Are you going to lean into the promotion of it? You're obviously going to take it on tour and enjoy playing it live. But this, this record having taken so long to make has got to live and breathe for quite a while. What's your view on that? Do you just put it out and let the universe just take over? To a degree, I think you've, yeah, I mean, you definitely, it's out of our hands, you know. But we do everything we can to sort of walk with it. I've always seen it. It's like something that, yeah, you've released and it's, you know, it's like, it's like a, you know, in the same way as sort of giving birth to, I don't know, that analogy used all the time, but that's, it's own entity, you know, is that that's a, you know, a little human or an album. It feels like it's something that you, yeah, you've got to, it's a living breathing thing that, and people have their own relationship to it that you have no control over. So, but we can go out and, yeah, we'll promote it. I mean, it's going to be a challenge to learn how to play a lot of the songs live. So, I'm looking forward to that challenge and, and they're also just continuing to make music with, with these guys. I'm looking forward to the future for sure. It's, it's got me excited and, and, you know, confident again that we can, we can do this after, you know, a lot of questioning my insanity. Well, I mean, the timing feels pretty good to me, since I guess the, the hypergrowth of streaming, it was always going to be, I think, a challenging time for, for one to the better word, rock, and the various forms of rock, whether you want to map various forms of metal for sure, feel like they were ghettoized for quite a long time. And streaming was all about rap and pop and Latin. And then it was about country, but it sort of is having a bit of a moment. It feels like, you know, death tones are riding high, tool or, you know, really sort of back in the culture, and newer bands like Turnstile as well, are kind of bringing, you know, that kind of hardcore sound to, to a crossover audience. So, your timing is, is pretty good. Finally. Well, we totally meant that. It was all part of the plan. I mean, what's the route to getting a, a record like in Burses out there? Do you feel like, you know, you have channels that you can go to, gatekeepers that you can go to? Where is the, the media, if you like, for, for a rock album these days? It's always been the live environment for us in touring. And, you know, it's, I think it's where the penny drops for a lot of people. It's included. Yeah. Yeah. It's in the live environment. And that's how the only way we really know how to, you know, push and promote the music, and, and I love playing to new audiences and people that have never heard the band or, you know, I like that challenge as well, if I want to win over, like, think back to, you know, the early gigs of just playing the bar staff, you know, and, like, that's, even if it's just the bar staff, I want them to really dig it and tell their friends, you know. And it's so much a room to move. It's like, it feels like a lot of people don't know of the band. And, you know, and maybe the, the slightly silly band names to put them off, you know, from checking it out. There's a terrible band. I'm good band. But it is the live environment, I think. It's because the audience is subconsciously part of the performance. And it's that exchange, I think, that really is the, is the best version of the song to hear is to be part of it. So a world tour back in, so many, when are you going to, are you going to make it back to the U.S. this time around? What's in the schedule? We'd like to make it back to the U.S. if we, if we can, but there's another certain challenges involved in that, but we're going to try. The world has changed a lot since COVID as well. And political landscapes affect everything. You know, especially when you're a band coming from Australia, the costs that are involved to get anywhere is, they always kind of start at a pretty high benchmark. I can remember there's been times like where we've come over to, you know, to play something in, say like in 2023. And like just the exchange rates, because of the Ukraine Russia thing, just like made a lot harder. And touring was always the way, well, the common wisdom was that touring is the way that you make money, right? But now that is, feels like it's breaking as well. So yeah, we have to do smarter. It's just presented challenges that need different solutions as well. But you're right. Yeah, it definitely has impacted that. I mean, we've, we've had some really big changes in our, in the way that we do things live and what we're using live, you know. I mean, I'd love to be using the pedalboard that I used five years ago, but it's pretty big ways a lot. So it's now just my, it's just what I use in the studio. It's like my little sound lab. And I'm able to get the same sort of thing happening. There's a cortex, quad cortex, I'm using, you're using an axe effects. They're just like, you know, the digital sort of processing and algorithms, programming the design of sort of digital emulations. It's really come a long way. And ultimately, I'm pretty, I'm more than satisfied that I can go from something like one system to another and feel like I don't, I'm not compromising the most important things, which just kind of comes down to the way that they translate for mainly two songs, Simple Boy and Goliath. If I can maintain that, the integrity that I have with those songs, then it's, it gets a pass for me, but you know, it's also quite nice having a pedalboard that's, you know, like a little dole mat instead of a surfboard. It's just, it just requires adapting. You have to, you have to be able to adapt with things, because I mean, every time we've got even before, like when we release that symmetry, because we were like four years apart, the music industry was changing every time significantly, like, you know, things are always different for us when we come, come back out, you know, from hibernation, so to speak, you know, the world looks very different. So yeah, we've, but luckily we've got, you know, the means to sort of make it work. And, you know, we've got great crew. We've got great crew that really lean into like helping us to, you know, do that better at times as well. I know you really enjoyed going out to India and you talked about that a bit as being a bit of a surprise for you guys as well when you got out there. Is there any other place that you're going to go this time or that you want to go and play live? South America, hopefully we can get down there and I mean, we get enough messages from, from, from Chile, especially, Brazil and a lot of places in South America, so hopefully we can get down to play for the peeps down there. I mean, Japan's another one we've never been there. I mean, we've never, I've never been to Japan. I've always wanted to go. In Indonesia, you know, it's in the neighborhood for us and it's another place. Yeah. And Antarctica, then we've done all the continents, you know, those, those ones we just, you guys have got a streaming audience in those countries. I mean, Japan, you must have a pretty size. I'm not sure to be honest. I'm not really sure because like I, after going to India as well, I realized that not every country runs in the same fashion. Like when you talk about streaming and that kind of thing. And I might have changed since we first got to India. Exactly. Yeah, we would have, but when we did first get there was very different to the rest of the world. Like, you know, they're on ringtones. Like, that's how people saw music ringtones. When you're not picking up the phone, that's that was the music. When you call, you know, when you get a song instead of the dialing. Oh, yeah. That's what I remember ringtones. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this wasn't even ring, it was just the call waiting music. Okay. As it's going, Dean, Dean, this song would come on while you're waiting for the other person to answer. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Music got around of the people found out about music was through that in India at the time. Yeah. And that's how Ben sold their music. And also the number of bands like West, like outside of India. It was very small that were had had access to that market. Like, I think, I remember talking to someone. I think they were at the label in India the first time in Mumbai and asked them about how we were there. Basically, like I was curious. And he sort of mentioned that, you know, that there were only four types of music in India. There was traditional Indian, Bollywood and heavy metal and techno because heavy metal and techno didn't have a language barrier because techno often didn't have, you know, vocals and heavy metal. Well, I mean, if you can read some, sometimes you can't even read, you know, the name of the band, because it's the way it's written, but like hearing what the vocalists say, it's just like a lot of guttural, you know, things that sort of like didn't really matter so much. And that's not like me, that's not my assessment of it. That's just the logic that he gave me. But so yeah, you know, and since that time, you know, so I'm not sure what Japanese music industry or is even like. I mean, it used to be the you have to walk through like an extra two bonus songs, which was kind of hard for us because you know, yeah, that would have been a little tougher for you, I guess. Yeah, yeah. It's not like we had spare ones. Yeah, not a lot of versions. Sorry. Well, you could do some of those multiple versions of conversations or something and release. Yeah, definitely some alternate versions that we can. Well, we don't have too long left. I assume you guys are Black Sabbath fans. I just wanted to get your reflections on the death of Aussie Osborne recently and how that sort of thing affects you individually and as a as a band as well. I mean, yeah. Well, it's yeah, undeniable the influence that the band and Aussie have had. I'll just say the miss. Yeah, like the like our grandparents, you know, like of what we do and we we owe a lot to that band. And to Aussie, you know, um, rest in peace. Yeah, like there was such a form, like such a, I don't know, what do you how can you sum up or you? Oh, well, absolutely. He managed to get the gig done. Yeah, incredible. I guess the the tributes were just coming from so far and wide in society. It made you, I mean, a lot of it or part of it was to do with his celebrity beyond the music, but it did make you think of for a guy who kind of started out very much they kind of designed metal in a way, didn't they? It kind of invented exactly in a sense, particularly, you know, for that brand of metal was universally popular. I also wondered whether like I feel like a lot of it might have also owe to just who he was as a person the way he outside of the music. Like he's obviously a good dude. He was the second gig I ever saw was Aussie Osborne at the NEC in Birmingham, supported by Rat. I went to see Rat actually, but yeah, Aussie was pretty good. All right, so we got to finish up, guys, but I wanted to ask you, what are you most proud of with Carnival? For us a week, we just we got that album done really for me, and we're still going and we're friends. Yeah, we're enjoying it. I would second that. I think, like in terms of, I would be most proud of the fact that we got to this point with this record, just because it's undeniably the most challenging aspect that we've had in the career and we've survived all the difficulties associated with it, which are fast. I think between us, between the band members, we've all had different challenges, and we've all had to overcome certain things in that last 12 years or work on things, or get to the bottom of things, get through things. It still doesn't feel like we've finished it, I think, but like I'm looking forward to hearing it fresh for the first time because I haven't actually listened to it since we I sort of tapped out about a couple of months ago, because I just had to let go of, you know, it's the only way to sort of be able to step back because all these things that you never remember worrying about and like questioning and thinking of a priority that you just need to let go of until the noise is gone and so you can just listen without it. So I'm looking forward to that, but I think I'll feel the weight of that achievement then when I do that. Well, I would say congratulations, because I think when it comes out, you're going to be delighted with the response to it, and you'll enjoy playing it live. I hope you feel like it's been worth it. I'm sure you will find that and that means I want to thank you, John Owen Drew for coming on to the art of longevity and wish you well for enjoy Ireland and enjoy touring the album. Most of all, enjoy putting it out there and just just feeling the reaction to it. Thanks for having us. [Music]