DAVE OTERO: Pricing Creative Work, Modern Production Standards, Quad Cortex vs Kemper

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:00:08):

Welcome to the URM podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we are now on our seventh year. Don't ask me how that all just flew by, but it did. Man, time moves fast and it's only because of you, the listeners, if you'd like us to stick around another seven years and there's a few simple things you can do that would really, really help us out, I would endlessly appreciate if you would, number one, share our episodes with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me at al Levi URM audio and at URM Academy and of course our guest. And number three, leave us reviews and five star reviews wherever you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, thank you for all the years and years of loyalty. I just want you to know that we will never charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way.

(00:01:10):

All we ask in return is a share a post and tag us. Oh, and one last thing. Do you have a question you would like me to answer on an episode? I don't mean for a guest. I mean for me, it can be about anything. Email it to [email protected]. That's EYAL at m dot A-C-D-E-M-Y. There's no.com on that. It's exactly the way I spelled it. And use the subject line. Answer me Eyal. Alright, let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM podcast. Today I'm welcoming back two of my favorite people in music and metal. We have done a podcast like this before, I think it was in 2018, but I've got Dave Otero, the producer, mixer, mastering engineer, as well as Dean Lamb guitar player songwriter for the band Spire. I love them both. Let's do this. Dave Otero and Dean Lamb. Welcome back to the URM Podcast. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (00:02:10):

I mean, I got to say this is, and I've said this a lot and I keep saying this, this is the three most handsome men in podcasting.

Speaker 2 (00:02:17):

It's probably true.

Speaker 3 (00:02:18):

I know there's some similarities. The head shape, I really think it is, and I've heard that a lot from other people as well. I can't say who, but a lot.

Speaker 4 (00:02:26):

Are you and I, are we in podcasting? We're on a podcast. I don't know that I would go so far as to say we're in podcasting. I mean, you have a YouTube channel, which is like whatever a side thing.

Speaker 5 (00:02:38):

That's true.

Speaker 4 (00:02:39):

So yeah, I might have to push back

Speaker 2 (00:02:42):

Just a touch. The three most handsome men on the internet. That's fine,

Speaker 3 (00:02:47):

That's fine. I've also heard that

Speaker 2 (00:02:48):

Captures everything. Yeah, it's about right. Alright, cool. Episode Done.

Speaker 4 (00:02:52):

Title of the podcast in the bag.

Speaker 2 (00:02:55):

What is it like being in a successful death penalty band and also being that handsome? How do you reconcile the two?

Speaker 3 (00:03:02):

Oh my goodness. Reconciling the two. It is quite easy. And next question,

Speaker 4 (00:03:07):

How has your life changed since you grew the mustache?

Speaker 3 (00:03:11):

Okay. My band, arch Byer was down with Dave Otero at Flatline Audio in just outside of Denver in 2020, and I grew a mustache and I kept it and I loved it and I had it for about a year and a half and I was rocking a mustache and I was very proud of it and just for some reason, whatever, I just grew it a beard, whatever. And one day my wife, she comes up to me and she says, yeah, it looks better this way. I was never a fan of the mustache. I said, let me go for a year and a half. So I can't tell if that's her being kind and loving to me or I don't know. I don't know what that is or

Speaker 2 (00:03:50):

Disengaged

Speaker 3 (00:03:54):

From reality.

Speaker 2 (00:03:55):

Who are you? No, from you.

Speaker 3 (00:03:59):

Well, yeah, so it's weird. I loved the mustache and we are filming a new music video in a couple weeks time and I might bring the mustache back for that music video. I'm unsure.

Speaker 4 (00:04:10):

She may just have to deal with it. Yeah, you better start now or it won't be nice and full and bushy.

Speaker 2 (00:04:16):

That's

Speaker 3 (00:04:17):

True, that's true.

Speaker 2 (00:04:18):

I liked the mustache for the record.

Speaker 4 (00:04:19):

I thought it looked good. I thought you pulled it off. Well, I tried. I certainly tried. When you guys were down here, that was like a thing. It was like an album thing.

Speaker 3 (00:04:26):

Yes. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:04:27):

Chelsea threatened to leave immediately. I made it like four days and she was like, this cannot happen.

Speaker 3 (00:04:33):

Wow. Which would you rather have the upfront honesty or the delayed for the last year and a half you looked like shit. Which one would you rather really have?

Speaker 4 (00:04:43):

Either is fine. I can work with either truthfully.

Speaker 3 (00:04:45):

Yeah, it's pretty lucky than anybody wants to be with us anyway.

Speaker 2 (00:04:48):

I've had both. You can make both work as long as they think you're ugly, then you're good. I guess

Speaker 3 (00:04:55):

As long as they think that you're ugly.

Speaker 2 (00:04:56):

Yeah. Oh, it's always worked out for me better if they know they're better looking than me.

Speaker 3 (00:05:02):

Three most handsome men. So

Speaker 2 (00:05:04):

Yeah, think about that. Yeah. So what are you doing for this album or what album? What album am I even talking about?

Speaker 3 (00:05:11):

Oh my goodness, this album.

Speaker 2 (00:05:13):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:05:14):

I am happy to say at this point we have one song written. It's going pretty slow, but as Dave knows, and I'm sure a you both, you guys both know it's a long, long process, especially when you're writing Fast, extreme death Metal and it's just, it takes a while. So

Speaker 2 (00:05:30):

Dave, at what point do you get involved? I know it's going to be different with different projects, but Arc Spire or even this genre of music. At what point do you think that your job begins?

Speaker 4 (00:05:43):

It takes a while and it is a little different, like you said, project to project and it also changes the more I've worked with a band just because that communication is already there. But honestly, definitely not right now. I wouldn't mind if he sent me a demo and I give him some casual feedback. I wouldn't really start digging in until essentially all the songs are written on the band's front. I typically like to only hear songs once or twice until it's a few weeks before we're actually in the studio, and then at that point I'll start drilling in a little bit harder. But I try and keep a lot of that. You have those ideas, those initial reaction ideas, which I think are super important. And honestly, part of what a producer is supposed to do is provide that fresh perspective as opposed musicians who have sat with that music for years in some cases. So I like to retain as much of that as possible for the bands here. I only want to listen to the song enough times to understand the song structure and kind of where everything goes and how it feels. But before that then I try and keep it real short and sweet. So if Dean were to send me this one song now, I would listen to it once or maybe twice and then maybe offer him a one or two sentence feedback on just my Delete

Speaker 2 (00:07:03):

It,

Speaker 4 (00:07:04):

Delete it. This song is trash. I have Toby write all the riffs next time. Yeah, yeah. I purposefully keep things at arm's length until the point where I'm actually able to get my hands dirty and manipulate songs and riffs in real time with a band.

Speaker 3 (00:07:23):

The thing that's hard for us as musicians is when we write something and we get married to an idea, even if it's not a good idea, it just sounds like it should be there after listening to it 20, 34 a hundred times or whatever. And I guess what you're saying is you're trying to not get married to the ideas whether they be good or bad. You just want to get the first initial, holy shit, is this cool? And then okay, what can we change or what do we need to change or what could change to make the song better rather than, okay, I listened to it a hundred times, but when we change this one way, if it sounds kind of out of place, you don't want to be in that space.

Speaker 4 (00:07:59):

Not at all. And I've actually run into that situation where I'll get songs from a band and there'll may be sections or entire songs that honestly feel a little flat to me, and then we'll work on 'em and we'll work on 'em. And sometimes those parts just don't change. It depends on the band and the time we have. You can't make every single song a banger for every single project. It's just not feasible. And then by the time we're done in the studio, I'm like, no, that's cool. I'm into it. And then maybe we finish it and the album kind of goes on my phone and then I don't listen to it for a few months and then I listen to it back and I am more inclined to feel the way I did when I first heard it than after I was done with the project, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (00:08:43):

Well, you're not used to it

Speaker 4 (00:08:44):

Anymore. So I'll hear a finished product and be like, oh shit, it still is kind of flat. It still doesn't quite have the magic cherry on top that I wanted to try and get. But in the process of working on it as well as 11 other songs, it just never really happened. And I thought it was fine when I was used to it. So it's like I kind of think I trust that initial impression more. So that's why I try and retain that. I feel really strongly about music immediately when I hear a song one or two times. I pretty much know a performance, a riff, anything. I can tell right away what I feel about it. I'm very rarely indecisive.

Speaker 2 (00:09:27):

You should trust that. I really think you should. And if you don't trust that, you should find a way to develop your tastes to where you can trust it. I can tell you that with doth songs, there's stuff from 10 or more years ago that arguments about a part or a lyric or something that I like. I lost the battle. But there's two things that can happen when that happens is either the idea is better and you like it or you just let it go because the other person feels so strongly. There have been a couple where I just ended up letting it go to this day. When I hear those parts, I feel the way I did then they never grew on me. However, when those parts back then did make the song better and we did get rid of something, even something that I worked on for a long time that just got axed, which is a lot of stuff, I don't even remember those parts that got axed. I can listen to the original demos, hear them be like, oh yeah, I thought that was cool at the time, but now I see why we cut it. That was a good decision.

(00:10:37):

But man, the stuff that back then I didn't, I still don't like it doesn't change.

Speaker 4 (00:10:42):

I feel the same way. There's a few, A lot of things come down to a democratic process in the studio at times if people have disagreements, usually there are minor things where if it's anything that's super imperative then it can't win on a three to two vote. But if it's a small thing, then sometimes that shit just happens just slightly. The majority is in favor of it and the rest of it was like, okay, fine, I could still hear those and those, I'm like, yeah, I don't love that part. But I think another thing that's kind of like the next step, so once you develop that musical sense is learning to separate your personal tastes from your producer esque guidance, if that makes sense. Some parts it, I'm like, okay, I don't like this, but it's me. It's just me just personally that doesn't like this.

(00:11:41):

I think there are a lot of other people that would, and in that case it's a different conversation then you can't be charging into exit if you can identify it as just a personal taste of yours. There is a difference between your personal musical taste and then where your input should be as a producer. And that's another one that's kind of difficult to discern at times, but it's all part of me. It's a huge part of what our producer is supposed to do. It's just provide that guidance and sort of be the audience member in the room and speaking for the audience member essentially. By

Speaker 3 (00:12:19):

The way, how much are we getting paid for this podcast? I was just thinking about that.

Speaker 4 (00:12:21):

I'll invoice you guys later.

Speaker 2 (00:12:24):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (00:12:25):

I just wanted to clear that up. While we're on air, I just want to clear up how much we're getting paid just to make sure that that's all out there. But I think that there's a role for having the audience in the room during the writing as well. And what's great is that we have a vocalist who I'm still unsure if he graduated high school. I don't know. I can't tell. He may or may not have. I don't know. In a lot of ways, Ollie, our vocalists acts like the audience and in some ways also Spencer does our drummer, they don't think about chord progressions in the same way that Toby, Jared and I do. We'll come up with a riff and they'll say, wow, that sounds great. And in my head I'm like, we're not even finished. There's so many more things to it, but if that initial thing sounds great, then oh man, we can add details. It's going to be a bang of riff or whatever. Or sometimes we'll come up with something and they'll be like, no, no, I don't like the sound of that for whatever reason. But in my head I'm like, yeah, but it's something cadence, but it's a resolving to the whatever bullshit. That doesn't matter

(00:13:19):

Because music theory should not be prescriptive. It should be descriptive. So whatever sounds good is the thing that sounds good. It's not like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm going to use music theory to make a riff. You can do that. And of course it's been done many times, but I think that writing something that's idiomatic to the instrument, that feels good, that sounds good when you're playing it, and then you can use music theory to describe it and if it sounds good to someone who maybe doesn't have all of their chord sounds memorized in their ear as much as our bass player Jira does, who went to jazz school, that doesn't matter. The audience is the person who's going to benefit from that. And it's an interesting thing to have five people that are very different in the room together writing and you get all their perspectives and you just have to let go at some point and be like, you know what? You're coming at it from the audience perspective. You're probably right. This riff is probably too highfalutin, whatever. It doesn't matter that I'm doing hybrid picking into tap. Who cares?

Speaker 4 (00:14:15):

What

Speaker 3 (00:14:15):

Does the riff sound like?

Speaker 4 (00:14:16):

I've noticed most of the more successful bands I've worked with have a good balance of that in the band. And not to say that Ollie and Spencer don't have advanced musical stuff, but as far as their initial impression, it's like the feel of the music. It's like how a riff hits you

(00:14:33):

And not so much focus on the musical details like you were describing. And you need both. You definitely need both. If you just have a band full of technical assholes, then say it. The music can be really cool, but then there's nothing that affects you if you just come in and listen to it. It's just like, it's just a bunch of sick riffs. Cool, but if you can't put 'em together in a way that's impactful, then the song again, lands flat. So yeah, both those guys are good at that. And sometimes as a producer you get a new band in and you're kind learning everyone's role in the band and okay, what are you contribute? Obviously you play your instrument, but then what is your part in the songwriting? What type of ideas do you bring to the table? That type of stuff comes a little bit later.

(00:15:19):

The musical proficiency is right up front, so I can sit down and we can track some guitar with Dean and I can tell right away like, oh, shit, okay, you're talking about you have all the theory stuff down, but then it can be weeks later and then all of a sudden someone will just talk about, I just don't think this part of this riff has the magic factor. And a lot of times they're right and you're like, okay, you definitely do have your to the ground here. It's just in a different way, and both are super important. I mean, you can listen to popular music and I know that's not exactly the path that in extreme metal we're trying to hit, but it's popular for a reason. So you listen to that stuff and if you dissect it down to those individual musical elements, a lot of it's not that impressive. That's a crap riff. Lots of chord progression has been used 9,000 times in the past five years, but it's going to have something, it's going to have a unique something or a vibe or an identity that someone along the line made happen that had a vision or they forced it until it was like, okay, now this feels like it has a strong sense of identity and personality, and that's potentially even more important.

Speaker 2 (00:16:34):

This whole concept of something falling flat. It's really interesting to me. I was thinking about that the other day because there's a lot of parts that on paper, check all the boxes for what makes a cool riff or a cool part or the right contrast to the part that went before it should work. And for a crappy band, it would be fine, but for whatever reason, it is boring or it doesn't take the song anywhere. It just doesn't make you feel shit, and it's hard to quantify what it is that creates that or that creates the opposite of that, which is that magic thing. But it's really, really important to recognize it, I think. And when something is falling flat, just kill it. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:17:25):

The best almost always, at least in the pre-production phase, is almost always the best idea that if there's a rift that you're like, okay, what is it? Does it work? Either liker X, just get it out of there. You could keep it for later or whatever. Or just fucking delete it and the shackles are released and you're like, oh, there's this new open area. We can do whatever we want in now. And the thing that was bothering us was not how to get into this riff or how to get out of it. It was the fucking riff in the middle. It wasn't working, and it's so awesome to just release yourself from that sometimes,

Speaker 2 (00:17:59):

Especially when it's almost working. It's like almost cool. It's almost good. Everything within it is good, good playing, good harmonies, good rhythms, good everything, but it's just almost cool and it's like a thorn in your side. I feel like you're right. The best thing in my experience is just let it go. It's kind of like, I don't know if either of you guys are pack rats, you don't seem like it,

Speaker 3 (00:18:27):

Like people that keep a lot of shit.

Speaker 2 (00:18:29):

Yeah. Have you ever had a part of your house or whatever that just accumulated stuff and then one day you just threw that shit away, that feeling of Ah, that's what it feels like to me. When you delete one of those sections of a song that's almost cool, but not cool.

Speaker 3 (00:18:46):

I live in an apartment in Vancouver, one of the most expensive cities in North America to live in, so I don't have any extra rooms.

Speaker 2 (00:18:52):

I mean, it doesn't matter. Pack rats get into everything.

Speaker 3 (00:18:56):

I read a thing a few weeks ago that said, if you're struggling with having too much stuff, try this. Find an empty room in your house immediately. I was like, okay, who is this for? Well,

Speaker 2 (00:19:09):

I thought you were going to say try this, throw it away.

Speaker 3 (00:19:11):

Well, it was like, take all the stuff that you don't know if you're whatever, put all the stuff in the room and then over a month, if you don't go grab it, then it's trash or whatever. But sure, that works for some things. I mean, me being a Juno award winning musician, there's a Juno award and of course that's the Canadian Grammy equivalent for my band artist, the last album, believe the Future won Best Hard album of the year last year. But anyway, I would never use that other than the occasional photo shoot. No, I would never. But anyway, so there are things that are sentimental in some way. By the way, Dave, did you ever get your Juno?

Speaker 4 (00:19:47):

Yeah, yeah. It came a while ago and I took a bit to open it. It kind of came at a weird time, but I never sent you a video, but I actually wrapped it and I wrote from Arch Byre to Dave and put it under the tree, and I opened it on Christmas, so

Speaker 3 (00:20:01):

Thank you. You have to pay a considerable amount of money as well to get an extra one. I just want to let you know just how much we care. We ordered you one

Speaker 2 (00:20:08):

Extra $30.

Speaker 3 (00:20:11):

I don't remember how much it was, 10 US dollars or 500 Canadian or something, but they only give you enough for the band number. So yeah, we wanted to make sure that we were actually going to send you another award. Ollie had the idea, wow, this is going off the rails. We don't ever get any awards. We just, for whatever reason, got two in one year and it'll be the most we ever get ever. But we got a Canadian British Columbia Provincial music award and we were going to send it to you, but I was like, ah, let's just leave it here for us. I don't want him.

Speaker 4 (00:20:38):

My thought is that if they would've thought about me when they filled out the paperwork the first time and just put my name down initially, it probably would've been free. But then they were just like, Nope. Who else recorded? Who else worked on the top? Nope, just us. We're all right here, just us. We'll just put our names down on four. And then I was like, Hey, where's mine? And they were like, fuck. That's pretty much what I think happened, but I do appreciate it, especially, oh, whatever. You had to pay so much after you forgot to put my name down initially. That's really cool you guys.

Speaker 3 (00:21:12):

Yeah, Canadian dollar is really weak right now too, so it's really hard.

Speaker 4 (00:21:15):

Yeah, I also don't know what to do with it. It feels a little strange to just, part of me just wants to carry it everywhere with me, put it in the passenger seat of my car when I go to the grocery store, put the seatbelt in, just make a case that straps to my shoulder or something. So it's just there all the time.

Speaker 2 (00:21:34):

Yeah, it's not in this shot.

Speaker 4 (00:21:35):

Yeah. The part of me is winning just leaves it on a shelf at my house that no one ever sees because it feels sort of strange to be like, look at me.

Speaker 3 (00:21:44):

You're lucky to work with a band from a country where the standards are so low for winning awards that we won one.

Speaker 4 (00:21:51):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:21:52):

I'm

Speaker 3 (00:21:52):

So lucky to work with you guys. You're right. I'm so lucky.

Speaker 2 (00:21:56):

It is pretty wild though. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:21:58):

I mean, honestly, the Canadian government has been very good to us. Factor Canada is a government agency that also helps out musicians, bands that do grants federally as well as provincially. There's a few organizations that do provincial grants. I mean, dude mean the only reason why we could have really gone, I mean I think 2018 was the busiest year we ever had for touring, and we got to do Japan, Australia, New Zealand. The next year we did Tel Aviv, we did a bunch of two us, two European, a lot of touring, and I mean, that was at a time in the band where it was our income, our main income, which is amazing to be able to say because it's so rare that that actually happens and it's almost impossible when you go further into death metal that you can even ever achieve that. And a big reason why is because we've had assistance from the Canadian government to kind of help us float costs that we eventually then down the road recouped, but the initial costs are so high, and now talking about bands that are touring today. I mean, we just booked our flights for our upcoming European tour in March and I don't know, almost double the price of what we paid for flights the last time we went to Europe three years ago.

Speaker 4 (00:23:13):

And then, yeah, all of those other expenses when you get over there too, they're also going to be, from what I hear, they're going to be double tripled sometimes as far as gas and lodging and drivers and vans and buses.

Speaker 2 (00:23:23):

Yeah, I don't think people who don't do this understand the astronomical costs involved with going over an ocean to tour. It's obscene, actually.

Speaker 3 (00:23:35):

It is.

Speaker 2 (00:23:36):

I don't understand how bands early in their career do it if they don't have either government assistance or tour support or something.

Speaker 4 (00:23:45):

It's all at risk investment essentially too, so it's like seriously, you have to put so much money upfront and something like a weather system can come through and just like it's gone. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:23:54):

Obviously

Speaker 4 (00:23:55):

A huge thing, like a pandemic jacked, tons of bands put them potentially years behind because the money was spent. It's just like you can't get all of it back. It's a risky business and a lot of business is like that. You got to risk a lot to gain a little, but I wish there was a better way for bands because they're not like, I know they are businesses, but they're not always run like that, and I understand it, these, they're not business people. They're like, let's start a musical project. They're musicians who just want to rock out

Speaker 3 (00:24:25):

The early days of a new band, you're not thinking about money. You're thinking about how much can we, okay, so we should print t-shirts, who has enough on their credit card to put the T-shirt printing cost, and then in six months we'll be able to recoup it. Or I always say this, but I remember early on we had basically a rule that when we were on tour, we would take turns paying for gas at the gas station. So it's like, okay, so Toby, it's your turn to pay for gas. Like, oh my god. And that was at the time too, where we were all working regular jobs, so I'd work construction five days a week and then I would beg my boss to have time off so I could go on tour and then come back and go right back to work with a day in between if I was lucky, but I would still be broke.

Speaker 2 (00:25:08):

What you just said about how the early days of a band are not about thinking about money. I think that that's a good thing though, because I'm sure there's people listening to this who are business people or smart who are going to be like, well, if I started a band, we'd be thinking about money from the beginning. And it's like, well, that's stupid. Because when you start a band, you need to put a hundred percent of your energy into the thing itself, into the music and into creating something. If you're worrying about money at those early stages, it's like you don't know anything's going to happen. Why are you worrying about this? It's like that local band that I'm sure you've recorded, I've recorded them before that has three shitty songs, yet they're talking about what major label they're going to sign to and how they're going to split shit up when Sony signs them or whatever, some version of that.

(00:26:01):

We've all seen that. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to figure out how shit's going to get paid for. Obviously it's essential, but to approach it business first, music second, which I've seen people make this mistake, it's a terrible mistake. It has to be music first, and then as business starts to become a reality, then start to figure out how you're going to make it work. Try to be as organized as possible, of course, but don't really even worry about hardcore running it like a business until it's showing lots of signs that it's going to in fact become a business. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:26:43):

The only thing I would say about that is that when you start a band and you have X amount of costs, like you said, you obviously have to worry about those. You have to consider those and all that kind of stuff, but setting a precedent early for how things will get repaid is really important. It'll save you a lot of grief in the end.

Speaker 5 (00:27:00):

We

Speaker 3 (00:27:00):

Went through a big growing pain period where somebody, you had however many thousands of dollars on their credit card that was owed, and then years went by and we still weren't making money and we weren't able to pay that person back. And then the record keep weren't on top of that, and then it was confused and it's like, okay, wait, are you actually owed this? How much was it and what was it for?

Speaker 2 (00:27:20):

Oh, yeah, totally.

Speaker 3 (00:27:22):

So you're right. You shouldn't think about it. Let's game the music industry by thinking about a business first, music second.

Speaker 2 (00:27:28):

No, you need to have that stuff figured out. I can tell you for example, round one of doth back in the day was not very organized. I fronted a shit ton of money. It's gone. And there was, but people weren't clear. Didn't really know how much I fronted. I didn't even know how much I fronted dude is so much.

Speaker 4 (00:27:47):

Yeah, it's just coming out. You just can't keep track. At some point. It's just little expenses everywhere and you're like, fuck, I want to save receipts in a shoebox.

Speaker 2 (00:27:55):

Yeah, exactly. And it caused a lot of weird bad blood. And now round two with the band, I have it set up to where from the get go, any money that people put in from their own pockets is accounted for calculated, and it's calculated exactly how they'll get paid back. Everything. I'm doing that because of my bad experience with what you were just talking about. I've been through it and it fucking sucks, but it doesn't take much time to set that system up. So that's kind of like a set and forget. You agree on how it's going to go and you agree on how it's going to be tracked, and then you just do it when money gets spent.

Speaker 4 (00:28:37):

I think just having those conversations, it's kind of like with bands in particular, and honestly any relationship, it's just best to be upfront with that type of stuff. Like anything that's money related or business related or responsibility related, those are the things that can cause tension and are just too easily like, eh, we'll figure it out. Some of those can be uncomfortable conversations, so everyone's looking for excuses to avoid them, but man, it's just so much better to get that stuff done upfront. In my position too, coming from the producer angle, it's like if you're dealing directly with a band and not a label or not a management company, which in a lot of ways I prefer because I have relationships with those people, but those money and business things have to be upfront as far as what your fee structure is and what types of things may happen that would change that fee structure.

(00:29:28):

You need to let the artist know, or whoever you're dealing with know way upfront, because if that stuff pops up later, then it just complicates everything. Then you have this financial issue that's all of a sudden working its way into what's supposed to be a purely creative environment. So it's good to keep those things pretty separate. And the best way to do that is to be upfront about it. And I feel like it's similar within a band too. Just need to have those conversations. And Eyal, you kind of have a cheat code this time just because of your business experience, not only what you learned from doth round one, but just with URM and all the multiple entities that you essentially run and manage today, it's a little bit unfair for you to be like, oh, it's just super easy. You just set up, because

Speaker 2 (00:30:19):

I didn't say it was easy. Hey, Rick, pay us for the podcast. What are we getting paid?

Speaker 4 (00:30:25):

I didn't say it was easy. Just important. You're right. I'm sorry. Okay, I'm sorry. You're right.

Speaker 3 (00:30:30):

We had a fight. Okay,

Speaker 4 (00:30:32):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (00:30:33):

The first few years, I remember the first time I ever taught a guitar lesson for money. I mean, if you are a musician listening to this is, I think everybody probably has this experience at one point where you exchange musical content, whether it's lessons or an album or a t-shirt based on whatever. You exchange it for money, and there's a thing in your head where you go, you

Speaker 5 (00:30:55):

Dirty son. Bitch.

Speaker 3 (00:30:57):

Yeah. The thing I hate that did that, I studied for 10 at that point, years or whatever, when I taught my first lesson ever. That's worth something. Of course. And even then, it was the first lesson I ever taught and it was agreed upon with me and the student who he was 16 years old or whatever, and it was like, yeah, yeah, okay, so X and X dollars, whatever. I don't think it was charging 20 bucks an hour or something stupid like that. And I remember at the end of the lesson I was like, okay, cool. So yeah, 20 bucks, is that cool? And I was nervous and he's like, yeah, you got to talk to my mom. I don't have any money. So I was like, okay. So I go upstairs and I talk to his mom and she says, oh, my husband has all the money, so you'll have to wait. Maybe next week I can pay you. I dunno. And I remember being so I was shaking. This is the first time I ever got any money in exchange for music. And I remember being like, I need to leave here with money. You agreed to this and I need the money that I'm owed. And she's like, oh, okay. Let me, I think I have a 20 or something.

Speaker 2 (00:31:53):

You see this baseball bat?

Speaker 3 (00:31:55):

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:31:58):

Do you want your son to ever walk again?

Speaker 3 (00:32:00):

I

Speaker 4 (00:32:01):

Mean, shred again. Shred

Speaker 3 (00:32:01):

Again is what I mean. And that's the first time I went to jail and the second time I went to jail was, no, it's a scary thing. And I feel like that was a really a big stepping stone for me from being an amateur musician, whatever, to being like, this is what I can do for a living actually. And I'm sure with both of you guys, you both have your own unique experiences with that. I know with Dave, I'm sure the first time you recorded a band for money where they paid you, that must've been a crazy experience.

Speaker 4 (00:32:31):

It felt weird to me, and it's actually the response that you had right then for your first time and you were like, fuck no, bitch, you're paying right now. That's pretty cool actually. I don't think I would've had the same relationship. I had to learn those lessons because I always wanted to be like, oh, yeah, that's cool, and just keep everything nice and cool on the creative side. That's sort of my default personality at times and is to be a little bit, I've had to work on that, not to become an asshole, but just to assert myself and not be taken advantage of. And you've learned those lessons the hard way. So now it was different and I would probably come out the same way that you did, but the fact that you had that response off the bat is pretty cool. I

Speaker 3 (00:33:13):

Don't know where I got it. I pulled it out of somewhere. It's not something that my character is necessarily always just for whatever reason, I was like, I need to prove this to myself that I can do this. If I don't do it now, I'll never do it.

Speaker 4 (00:33:23):

It's probably served you well. That is maybe one small piece of the puzzle of why you and why far has been successful, because like you said, what you have holds value and you're determined to receive it in some fashion, which is good. Music should be like that, but too often I think musicians kind of lean the other direction where it's like it's just art man and then get taken advantage of.

Speaker 2 (00:33:48):

Yes. It's hard to set a price on yourself though.

Speaker 3 (00:33:53):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:33:54):

I find that that's a very difficult thing to do. At the end of the day, it's pretty arbitrary. I mean, there's ways to think about it. If you're totally booked and people are in line, then maybe you can raise your price, and if you're underbooked, then maybe you should lower your price. Little calculations like that you can make, but at the end of the day, it is pretty arbitrary. How do you know what you should charge? It's a tough one. I think for producers, it was very uncomfortable for me when I first started charging. I felt super uncomfortable asking for money, and then when they paid me, I felt ashamed or it was weird.

Speaker 4 (00:34:33):

I had a little bit of that too.

Speaker 2 (00:34:35):

I wanted to look away.

Speaker 4 (00:34:38):

I still try and keep it separate in the studio. I try to avoid when I'm dealing directly with bands or if I'm doing a band from town or something like that, I try and keep the stuff in the actual studio musical, and then maybe I'll be like, Hey, I'll mention I'm going to hit you up that invoice later. But then if you take it from another avenue, it does sort of help keep it separate because there's just still a little bit of discomfort on both sides at this point. It's not usually from my side. I'm used to it by now, but it still feels weird to mingle the two too much. They're just very different, man. Business and music are just so different, at least for me, because I have to have one foot in both sides. And with artists, I just prefer to keep it all creative. It just feels better that way. It feels like that's what more my role is supposed to be in that situation or in that relationship.

Speaker 3 (00:35:34):

It's worked well for us. I don't think we've ever paid you.

Speaker 4 (00:35:37):

No,

Speaker 3 (00:35:37):

I've never paid you.

Speaker 4 (00:35:38):

No.

Speaker 3 (00:35:39):

I don't know where maybe somebody else, but I really don't think so. I really don't think we paid you.

Speaker 4 (00:35:44):

Yeah. No one's ever paid me. Actually. I should look into that. It's always been taken care of. In fact, last time it got a little tricky. There were some communication

(00:35:55):

Slowdowns with the label, and then I think I mentioned it to you and I was like, Hey, this has taken a while. I'm like, I'm having trouble getting this taken care of, and then you gave me some backstory. You're like, oh, because of this. Hold on one moment, please. Then 20 minutes later, it was just cash starts falling from the sky. It's like, hell yeah, Dean called it in. So yeah, sometimes there can be other situations in play also, but I think that's the only time we've really had to deal with anything. And it was literally just like, Hey, Dean, can you just light a fire real fast? And then you did immediately and it was taken care of. So I prefer it that way.

Speaker 3 (00:36:33):

The funny situation that you just described basically is, alright, can we get that guitar take one more time? Oh, by the way, I haven't been paid anything for what I'm doing right now, but anyway. Anyway, so guitar. It's funny to combine them. It could end up being strange.

Speaker 2 (00:36:47):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you think is a good time to start charging for services, musical services? What's the right time?

Speaker 3 (00:36:57):

I think that the first time I taught guitar specifically, it was I wanted to move in that direction. I knew that it was worth something when I realized that if you go to a mechanic school and you are working on people's cars for, at that point, I had been playing guitar for 10 years and I had been studying music theory. I had been studying learning how to play songs. I was in a band that was now playing shows. I had been in multiple bands. I had recorded a few albums that are just home albums or whatever. I knew I was pretty good at guitar and the amount of time I put in, I thought about it. I'm like, if I was a carpenter and I'd spent that much time on this thing, I would be getting paid. Why don't I start pushing myself in that direction?

(00:37:37):

And I think that time is when you can make the switch mentally that your expertise is worth it. And it sucks that as musicians, as artists, and I'm sure as producers, we devalue ourselves. We don't think that we're worth it because society has kind of told us that art is kind of whatever. You know what I mean? At least in North American society, oh, you play in a band, people are kind of excited, but oh yeah, I, I'll buy you a beer for whatever. I mean, this is years after I started teaching, but during the pandemic, guess what kept everybody sane? Art, everybody was sane because of music, because of TV shows, because of artistic expression, because of books. This stuff is so valuable, and we just devalue ourselves because we see the behind the curtain and we go, all I did was sit there for two hours and play random notes until something kind of cool came out, I think. But it's derivative. It sounds like this band, blah, blah, blah. None of that stuff matters. It really is make the switch in your brain that the thing that I'm doing provides a service to someone, and that is as valuable as getting to work on time. That's as valuable as having something fixed in your house. It is a valuable service. And man, we just fuck ourselves honestly.

Speaker 2 (00:38:52):

Yeah, pretty much. That's actually why in lots of cases, it is good for a band or producer to get a manager. That's the number one reason, I think, is to collect on money and to set the price for things. It's not so much like with a producer manager, for instance. It's not about them getting gigs for the producer. It's about them negotiating things and getting payment. And I think it's precisely because so many producers are uncomfortable with that and will devalue themselves and just don't want to talk about money or don't think they care about it that much or whatever. A good producer manager takes care of that.

Speaker 5 (00:39:33):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:39:34):

I'm not saying that people who aren't ready for one should run out and get one, but I think that is the primary role. For one, it's a little different with bands because the band managers out there looking for opportunities, but still at the end of the day, they are negotiating prices and having those conversations that maybe the band doesn't feel like they want to get into an adversarial type relationship with the people that they work with. So a manager will be that person. When

Speaker 3 (00:40:03):

You say producer manager, what do you mean? There

Speaker 2 (00:40:06):

Are managers for producers. Not every producer has one, but they're like a manager,

Speaker 5 (00:40:12):

Just

Speaker 2 (00:40:12):

Like an artist manager, but they manage producers, and they'll be the ones who negotiate the contracts with the labels and the bands and who will send the invoices and make sure that the payments are happening and who will oftentimes control the schedule and the bookings and stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:40:31):

Wow. I guess I've never had that experience. I didn't know that was really a thing.

Speaker 2 (00:40:34):

So they'll handle the whole admin side of things that Logistics,

Speaker 3 (00:40:38):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:40:39):

Yeah. That a lot of producers aren't good at or don't want to deal with, and

Speaker 4 (00:40:43):

It can also at the same time, find you opportunities. It's just the exact same role. They would be in a band for a band as an artistic entity. Same thing. They would be for a producer as an art, say, I'm an artist dean, I'm an artist too. So it's be the same thing. Find you opportunities, negotiate your value, that sort of stuff. I've dipped my toe in that world a few times and nothing's really panned out. None of them have been unpleasant experiences by any means, but didn't really end up gelling at this point. It's like, well, it's working so far. I might as well keep N it on my own and not have to slice a piece of the pie out for anyone else.

Speaker 3 (00:41:24):

I think I could imagine a time in your career that let's say, and by the way, I knew you were an artist because you grew that soul patch, but I can imagine a time in your career where let's say you get a phone call tomorrow, and for example, Mastodon wants to come and record with you. So this is, I would say, a bigger band than you've tracked probably, right?

Speaker 5 (00:41:41):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:41:42):

Yeah. So let's say if you get that and start and your career starts going, it is working longer timescales and working with more people, I guess that would be okay. Now it is too much for me to handle on my own. There's too much scheduling. This guy's flying in for three weeks just to work on riffs and then they'll fly back. So I imagine that at that point then that would make more sense, I guess,

Speaker 4 (00:42:03):

Or what potentially. I mean, honestly, it just never gets quite as complicated as it would be for a band. As a producer, I feel like it can get busy, but I'm still just one person, maybe with an assistant. So I think it's always, it's pretty much manageable if you have the personality for it and the time for it and the will. That's

Speaker 2 (00:42:26):

More it. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:42:27):

It's definitely doable. It's just like some people don't want to, I mean, truthfully, I don't want to,

Speaker 2 (00:42:32):

But you're able to. You're fully capable of it.

Speaker 4 (00:42:34):

I'm able to. Yeah, I'm capable of it and it works fine now. And I'm also a little bit guarded as far as how I run my, I guess, business and how I want my role as a producer and future as a producer to go. So I just like to control that rather than let someone else in and may have a different vision. That could be a good or bad thing. I don't know, because I'm just sticking with this for now.

Speaker 2 (00:42:56):

Well, the thing is, lots of these producers who have managers, it's oftentimes not that they could do it on their own, though some can.

Speaker 5 (00:43:03):

Some

Speaker 2 (00:43:03):

Can for sure. A lot of 'em really suck at it, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a producer manager, but it's in their best interest to have a partner who handles that side of things because they themselves, they're definitely smart enough to do it, but maybe they're not organized enough. Maybe they're not, just don't think about that shit,

Speaker 4 (00:43:24):

Or they just really want, as we've been talking about for a while, they just really want to separate those two worlds completely. They want to never, ever have a discussion about finances with an artist or even a record label ever, because it's just easier for them, and they prefer to only be creative and then they can just defer everything to the other guy, and you can almost do a little good cop, bad cop in that sense, if you want. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:43:51):

Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast, then you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, URM Academy's mission is to create the next generation of audio professionals by giving them the inspiration and information to hone their craft and build a career doing what they love. You've probably heard me talk about Nail the Mix before, and if you're a member, you already know how amazing it is. The beginning of the month, nail the mix members, get the raw multi-tracks to a new song by artists like Lama, God Angels and Airwaves. Knock Loose OPEC shuga, bring me the Horizon. Gaira asking Alexandria Machine Head and Papa Roach among many, many others over 60 at this point. Then at the end of the month, the producer who mixed it comes on and does a live streaming walkthrough of exactly how they mix the song on the album and takes your questions live on air.

(00:44:42):

And these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jens Borin, Dan Lancaster, to a Madson, Andrew Wade, and many, many more. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, which is our collection of dozens of bite-sized mixing tutorials that cover all the basics as well as Portfolio Builder, which is a library of pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use in your portfolio. So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those of you who really want to step up their game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhance, which includes everything I already told you about, and access to our massive library of fast tracks, which are deep, super detailed courses on intermediate and advanced topics like gain, staging, mastering, low end and so forth. It's over 500 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed. Enhanced members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes and fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills in your audio career, head over to URM Academy to find out more.

Speaker 3 (00:45:59):

We just hired someone. We're a self-managed band, and we've been self-managed for almost the entirety of the band. Band's been going on 14 years now, and we just hired someone to be our assistant.

(00:46:13):

So we basically have, now he's not quite a manager, although if he needs to fill that role for certain circumstances, then he can be. He's also our front of house technician and he's our tour manager. So we have him now when he's at home, he's helping us work on projects. So we have a project that just came out where we're starting filming really soon, actually, a new music video that we think is going to be fucking bonkers. I think it's going to be crazy. And we wanted to crowdfunded because it's going to be unbelievably expensive, like embarrassingly expensive. And so we needed somebody to bounce ideas off of on how to do that. How does a band do a Kickstarter? How does a band crowdfund successfully and communicate properly with the supporters and how do we deliver those? And the logistics of it. And it's like if it was something that the band took on, it would take time out of our writing schedule, but as it is now, we have somebody to handle that and that among other things, and it's allowed me to free up time to focus more on writing at home and having a better social media presence.

(00:47:15):

And so as it is, it's working extremely well. I mean, another thing too, he introduced us, he called, and this is not going to work, I'm not going to say this, okay, I'm actually not even going to say the name of the brand, but he called a Brand's factory and said, I represent this band. We want to work with you guys. And they gave us an Artis endorsement. I would've never done that. And he found the factory, the hotline, got in touch with somebody and said, here's the details, the hotline or whatever. Yeah, 2299 a minute. The endorse story now factory hardline

Speaker 4 (00:47:54):

Story. Yeah, no, please tell us what the brand is.

Speaker 3 (00:47:58):

Actually, I went to this crazy club the other night called the factory hotline. I dunno if you guys have ever heard of it. Yeah, yeah. But having somebody like that is great, but they're not in the typical, because generally a manager takes 15%

Speaker 2 (00:48:12):

Of

Speaker 3 (00:48:13):

Gross

Speaker 2 (00:48:13):

And you guys just don't pay him.

Speaker 3 (00:48:16):

He

Speaker 2 (00:48:16):

Works for crumbs, minimum crumbs, yeah. Not a typical manager setup. Doesn't get paid.

Speaker 3 (00:48:24):

Yes, exactly. That's great. It's a little atypical in the way that he gets nothing and we get all of his work. So it is atypical in that way. But yeah, it is been going great for us. Now we do pay him, of course, he's going great, and he's doing great

Speaker 4 (00:48:36):

In that regard too, because it would've been a lot tougher for you guys, I guess, certain personalities to call that factory yourself and be like, I play in this band can possible. Can we get things? It's way easier for him being one step removed and having this position of authority, I guess it is. That's separate from, he can say that without thinking of 8-year-old dean, just learning how to play guitar and being terrible at it. So there are some benefits there

Speaker 3 (00:49:07):

For sure.

Speaker 4 (00:49:08):

I feel that sometimes too, when I'm in negotiations for fees for an album or something like that, I was like, man, it would be a little easier. Sometimes I just got to type it out and turn away and hit the button when I am sending quotes sometimes because I don't want to miss an opportunity, and it's tough to gauge that value on your own. Even for me doing this for a long time, someone else would be like, oh, hell yeah, this is what you're getting and just make it happen. How

Speaker 3 (00:49:35):

Do you break that down then? And I don't want to go into too many details for pricing or something, but do you break down your day rate? Do you come up with a gear rental rate? Do you have lodging? How do you do that?

Speaker 4 (00:49:46):

Yeah, I sort of price it out. That's kind of the only way I can make sense of it and feel like it's mostly fair for everyone. I kind of start with a day rate, and then if the band's going to utilize the guest house, I just kind of have a little fee structure that stays sort of behind the curtain and I put it together and then I offer it as one price with this is essentially what you get approximately this amount of days in the studio, this amount of days in town, this is what's included in that. And then it's all one price. And then with the caveat, if something major happens and we spend an extra two weeks, I may have to change this, but I really try to avoid that at all costs just because that's kind of like a predatory studio thing, more like local bands and stuff like that. You just find someone in the Yellow pages when those existed and call 'em up, they would just nickel and dime you to death. So I try and just give a fee and everything is based on that, but then at that point it becomes a negotiation. So

(00:50:48):

Sometimes I'll overshoot depending on where the band is in their career and what I think I can add to them, it gets tricky. It's like there's a lot of things that come into place, but I'll have a starting point just based on a free fee structure that I have. And then things move up and down from then because you throw a number out there and that's not always going to be the final number.

Speaker 2 (00:51:10):

Are you expecting the number to go down when you throw it out there? Is that a built-in assumption?

Speaker 4 (00:51:16):

I'm like, ready for it. It actually doesn't happen a lot. Usually it's like, okay, cool, that's fair. You're worth that. And then they just agree to it. But occasionally they'll be like, is there anything we can do to work on that? And then I'll look at it, and then maybe that means just shaving some off the top. Maybe that means actually spending a little bit less time. But then how much are you willing to sacrifice, essentially music or art that has your name on it too, so it's not like you can just cater to the budgetary demands of every project if it's going to hurt the final product, and I also just can't work for half price. This is how I pay bills too, so it's kind of just all a balance.

Speaker 3 (00:51:54):

Are you still bartending at the factory hotline on Saturday nights

Speaker 4 (00:51:57):

Only every other Saturday now. Yeah. And then, oh, that's great. Congrats.

Speaker 3 (00:52:01):

Congrats.

Speaker 4 (00:52:03):

I started serving breakfast at a place on Sunday morning, so it's kind of like playing both sides of the field there.

Speaker 3 (00:52:07):

Oh, okay. Sure. Right, right. Are you still wearing that cute little miniskirt?

Speaker 4 (00:52:11):

I am. Okay,

Speaker 3 (00:52:13):

Nice. Okay, great.

Speaker 4 (00:52:13):

Wonderful. I'm

Speaker 3 (00:52:14):

Just trying to imagine, I'm trying to remember what it looks like. I

Speaker 4 (00:52:16):

Sent you a picture this past weekend, Dean. Don't pretend.

Speaker 3 (00:52:18):

Oh shit. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I'll check out that picture. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:52:22):

I think that in some cases when you're negotiating a record deal, whatever number they throw out, they're expecting you to ask for more. So if you don't, you're stupid.

Speaker 5 (00:52:32):

Unless

Speaker 2 (00:52:32):

There's something stated upfront, this is the best offer we've ever made, we can absolutely not go higher. They're expecting you to ask for more

Speaker 4 (00:52:42):

And then have some negotiation. It just depends. There are no rules to this stuff that's part of this business emerging from music situation where the people you're dealing with usually aren't business first. Even the people who are in almost purely business roles at record labels and management companies, if you find yourself in that role for death metal, it's probably unlikely that that was your path from age 14. You know what I mean? You came into it from the creative side. So I feel like the standards that may exist in other areas of business don't quite exist in business for music because everyone's just found themselves in that position. Maybe I'm wrong there. I'm also that guy who I'm never meant to be a business first person. So you just figure it out on the way, and then every interaction you have, you learn from it.

(00:53:38):

And if just like I learned from the bands I work with on the production side of things, every time I have a business relationship with a new person or even the same people on a continual basis, I'm learning new things about how things are done in that world as far as, okay, this is how negotiations work. This is what my first offer should be, this is the caveat I should add with my first offer. In these certain situations. You don't want to, if you think you're going to price yourself out of a project because it's something you really want to do, then maybe be like, Hey, this is what would be my normal fee, but I really like the band. If we need to work with that a little bit to make it work for both parties, I'm willing to do that. So that can be a caveat for certain situations. Now everyone that's listening that I've done business with when I haven't said that, they're like, wait, what the fuck?

Speaker 3 (00:54:25):

I actually have a question very specifically about the quote that we just got for the last album, I believe it said

Speaker 4 (00:54:31):

Final offer Hard. Yeah, hard offer,

Speaker 3 (00:54:34):

A thousand dollars. Nice Canadian discount.

Speaker 4 (00:54:37):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:54:38):

And when I read that, I immediately thought you just added a thousand dollars and then took it off as a discount, which is what I immediately thought. I said, okay, well this means nothing. Maybe we're stupid. I've never even thought to change the price. I've never been like, eh, let's get that. I'm just like, oh, yeah, yeah, you're worth it. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:54:53):

It's

Speaker 3 (00:54:54):

Worth it. Oh fuck. The reason why we went to you is because,

Speaker 4 (00:54:56):

Because I'm handsome.

Speaker 3 (00:54:57):

Yeah, sure. But the Monolith in Humanity album, the CATA Cap, it was amazing. It sounded amazing. And that band went from being a smaller band that I saw in 2008 or something in Seattle Summer Slaughter, and they were almost opening, or maybe there were two of eight or whatever, and they went from that and they just shot up. And the quality of the album, the production, the Boost, and the songwriting and the Catchiness and the Hooks, I mean, that's the reason why we went and we saw the studio documentaries and we thought, oh my God, this is, we need to do this. And I don't even think we ended up going to you until another, I don't even four or five years after that, but we always thought, man, we got to go to this guy. So yeah, I mean for us, I think it was the first one was scary. It was more than what we were expecting to pay, but luckily, the season of missed our label, it's been our label for the last 10 something years. They said, it's a chance, it's a risk. If you guys want to take it we'll back you, we will make sure this happens. And then the next album they said, of course. Yeah. I mean, let's go back to Dave and do another album.

Speaker 1 (00:55:59):

That

Speaker 3 (00:55:59):

Being said, please don't rip us off for the next one, please.

Speaker 4 (00:56:04):

I dunno, I've been tracking that Kickstarter. The first one, I think honestly kind of goes back to me having that relationship with Gordon. I mean, he told me that specifically

Speaker 2 (00:56:12):

Gordon Conrad from Season Avis

Speaker 4 (00:56:15):

From Seasons, and me knowing him from relapse and him trusting my output, he told me he is like, when I threw that price out, he was like, this is definitely above what these guys are contracted for. He's like, but I'm going to push personally to make this happen. Maybe he was just telling me that, but

Speaker 3 (00:56:35):

No, that's true.

Speaker 4 (00:56:36):

But he did, and then, I mean, I think it has worked out for everyone involved. Like fruits fallen from the tree of our spire into my garden as well.

Speaker 3 (00:56:46):

Well, I noticed that you got a quad cortex there. What is that?

Speaker 4 (00:56:49):

It's a quad cortex. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:56:50):

All right. Okay. Anyway, so next question. No, are you using that instead of the Kemper or what?

Speaker 4 (00:56:54):

I definitely like it more than the Kemper. Wow. In general now I kind of just use a wider range of shit. I'm still usually using amps on final tones. Usually the call cortex is really sick though. And there's a few albums. I don't know if either of you guys have heard the Nuclear Power Trio stuff. We actually did a record last year that is not out yet. Little, I think it's a tricky time to release an album with a band that has Putin in it, so maybe that's part of why, boy, what did he

Speaker 2 (00:57:28):

Do? Whatcha talking about? Did he do something?

Speaker 4 (00:57:31):

Maybe that's why I don't, I think he is having an argument currently with a country

Speaker 2 (00:57:36):

Dude, that quad cortex is pretty fucking great. I've got one that I have not messed with it enough, but the little bit that I have, and also we used it for tracking tone on the three songs that we've done already. It's pretty fucking great.

Speaker 4 (00:57:54):

The cool thing about it, and one of the things that stands out, not only does it sound fantastic, and the captures are actually I think a little bit above what you get with a Kemper, really true to source and more flexible, but the malleability of it and the interface of it is amazing. The reason why I brought up the nuclear power thing is because that band requires tons of different tones. Every song needs kind of new tones. Some of the rhythm stuff goes from song to song throughout the album, but anytime there's a lead tone or we need a wa now or we need an effect now all of them, the band is so diverse, it just needs, you just need different tones.

(00:58:33):

So with the quad cortex, you start with your basic template that you make for the album, and then if you need another tone, you just pull a pedal down and bring it up and then all of the encoders of your knobs. It literally feels like very similar to having an amp and this huge pedal board right in front of you where it's very, it's just way easier to, I don't know exactly what I'm looking for, but I kind of have an idea. This pedal or this piece of gear might get me there, and you just snap it in and start tweaking knobs as if the pedals right in front of you, and it really makes the creative part of tone finding really cool. That's not really something that comes up too much in a band like our spa. You build your tones. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:59:20):

He just said You're not creative pretty

Speaker 4 (00:59:22):

Much.

Speaker 2 (00:59:22):

He's son of a bitch,

Speaker 4 (00:59:24):

But you build your tones and you have your vibes and you kind of have a list, and then it's not often you need something that's totally different, but for some projects you do in the rock realm, it's just more common. That's where the clock cortex really shines, and you can save 'em all as scenes, and it is really cool. This is a commercial now for the quad cortex, but it's so sick just how quickly you can make things happen. If you need an expression pedal, it takes two seconds to plug one in and map it to literally any control on any of the devices that you have in your patch, and all of a sudden now you're controlling that knob with a pedal. So yeah, it's wicked. I do it a lot. That's great. I also need to spend more time really fleshing it out and they're kind of constantly updating it, and I haven't quite caught up with all of that. Just like I, I'm not always tracking guitar or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):

It sounds great because, and if anybody's listening that works at Neural, and I've talked to many people. I mean, the product that Dave is talking about right now sounds really nice, and I would love to get my hands on one. Oh my goodness. It'd be so cool to try it out. Reached out many, many times replying to emails about working together my YouTube channel to absolute silence. So hey, if you want to send one my way, I promise you I'll do lots of videos about it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:40):

Maybe have your guy, your factory hotline, guy

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):

Factory, call him up.

Speaker 4 (01:00:45):

Maybe I'll see if I can find the neural factory hotline number for you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):

Yeah, yeah, please do. Yeah, please do. Yeah, it

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):

Is phenomenal. It really is, and the box is really cool. I will say the packaging is, I mean, who cares, right? But when you get that box, it's fucking cool. I don't think that you should overlook what the functionality and the sound of a piece of music here based on the packaging, however you're

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):

Saying the whole experience. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):

Yeah. It's so good. So much care went into it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):

I wish I knew.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):

I wish I knew.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):

You'll never see it. You'll never see it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):

I'm looking one,

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):

You just have to take our word for it. Yeah, fuck

Speaker 4 (01:01:27):

Yeah, I agree. I appreciate that. I'm not as mad when it's an expensive piece, and then they also put some time and money into the packaging, but sometimes when I get a $40 item and I was like, if you just put this in a poly bag, it would've been 22

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):

A thousand dollars packaging for a $40 item.

Speaker 4 (01:01:47):

I was like, okay, I like the packaging, but I didn't really want to pay for it. I would've rather just spent five fewer dollars. But for a relatively high dollar item like the quad cortex, it is appreciated. The packaging should match the experience. I'd sort of feel the same way about plugin gooeys. It's kind of hard, even if a particular processor, a plugin sounds really good, but the interface just looks like Windows 95 ish. It's probably not going to find a place in my workflow. It's just important. The aesthetics of any product need to match the quality you're looking to. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):

You're shallow. I get it. Yeah. You're all about looks. I got you. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (01:02:26):

Mostly. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):

Did you guys keep the boxes for the quad cortex? Maybe you guys can mail me one of the boxes.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):

I don't really keep boxes because I'm not a fucking pack rat, but that is one box I haven't been able to bring myself to throw away yet.

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):

I'll take it. Mail me the box.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):

You want the box?

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):

I'll send you the book that comes with it too.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):

Oh, the book.

Speaker 4 (01:02:45):

Mine was a demo unit, so it was a little beat up.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):

Did you get the book?

Speaker 4 (01:02:48):

I think I did get the book. When I got it, I pulled the package off. It was shipped to me directly from another artist. It was a demo unit, and I was like, I wonder who had this before? And it was, I don't think this should be proprietary knowledge. It was, what's the guy's name? Michael eo, the guitar player from Nitro.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):

Yeah, Michaelangelo Bacio or Beo or whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:03:12):

Yeah, that guy,

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):

I've never known how to pronounce his last name, but the eight headed guitar guy.

Speaker 4 (01:03:17):

Yeah, I think he is in Man of War now, and I was like, oh, hell yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):

Oh wow. I didn't know.

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):

Yeah, I should have paid attention.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):

That guy seems very, very sweet. I watch him sometimes on YouTube, his live streams, and he's like, your neighborhood guitar teacher, sweet man. And he's like, well, you know, just got to get, and then he just plays insane stuff. He's like, well, it's just like, ah, this guy deserves all the success. For sure.

Speaker 4 (01:03:39):

He is kind of like inve without the cocaine habit.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):

Well, inve says he doesn't do cocaine. Post it on Instagram. I don't do, which is an amazing post to have to make. I love anytime you have to deny a drug, it's like, whoa, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):

That's just what it said.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):

Well, I think it was him doing Mile High Kicks. I don't do cocaine like this skin kick off the stage. I don't do cocaine today. Yeah, it drives like 150 miles an hour on a sports car. I don't know. Yeah, he definitely has a big Coke energy, but all allegations,

Speaker 5 (01:04:16):

Big Coke.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):

He does. Yeah, for sure. Big Coke energy is definitely a thing. That's great.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):

I heard a story, and I don't think that's true, but I'm going to say this as an unsubstantiated story that yes, this is true. The following happened. A buddy of mine went to a festival, he's the Porta potty that was at the festival, maybe it was backstage or something like that in Europe, and somebody opens up the door and it's inve. He goes, oh, sorry. And he closes the door and the guy's sitting on the whatever, the porta potty thing, and he's like, oh my. Was it inve? And inve then opens the door back up. He says, here's a pick, and he gave him a pick. So I've heard this story. I don't remember who told me this, but I've held onto it like a gem in my brain. I hope that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):

That's so awesome. I am going to say that I think that might be true.

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):

Sounds true because I said it and as a podcast. That's

Speaker 4 (01:05:04):

Right. S is bear Leg is your, you're sitting in a porta-potty trying to poop.

Speaker 3 (01:05:08):

Yeah. Here's the Signature isn't maybe the most influential guitarist for me. I think Paul Gilbert probably is when it comes to Shr guitar, but Inve Stein, his live performance is the best out of anyone that I've ever seen in my opinion. He plays like he is

Speaker 4 (01:05:26):

On cocaine. Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:05:29):

Rips all the strings off of his guitar. At the end of the set, he's kicking picks, he's drop kicking picks into the audience and you can see them and he's got so much distance on it. He plays faster than the rest of the band. They just have to kind of keep up with them. The drummer is on the side of the state, not the middle, the side because the amps and the drummer and the drummers over there, it's unreal. If you guys haven't seen them, I dunno if you guys have seen them, but I

Speaker 4 (01:05:52):

Haven't. He is

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):

Got great

Speaker 4 (01:05:54):

Outfits.

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):

Unbelievably,

Speaker 4 (01:05:55):

I really want to, he's come through town and I have lots of firsthand accounts of how difficult he can be in multiple situations, but whatever

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):

My experience with him, even though it was my dad that worked with him, I didn't work with him. I was just there. Our experience, the Levies with Mr. Vey,

Speaker 3 (01:06:17):

I love that show. The Levies. I love that show.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):

The Levies. Yeah, the levies. Go to Prague with Vey. That was a good episode. He was totally fine with us, and our involvement with him was really great actually. And none of that stuff ever came in our direction. I was also 17 and he wanted my dad on his record, so I don't know if the context was just different, but I have seen what everyone's talking about directed towards other people. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:06:47):

I mean, the guy's been touring for a long time.

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):

Yeah. The person I saw it directed at had it coming too though.

Speaker 4 (01:06:54):

Yeah. He's maybe earned the right to be a little more demanding at a live show or something, so whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):

I saw him go after somebody for something, and honestly, the person really did have it coming, so

Speaker 3 (01:07:07):

It

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):

Had to be put in their place. They were doing some really dangerous shit, like dangerous shit with electricity during soundcheck, stuff that could literally electrocute and kill somebody.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):

I heard a story that he was auditioning or whatever, a new tech, maybe not a guitar tech, but a stage hand. He went into rehearsal and they play one song and this guy that he's auditioning or he's a potential hire, he's very young, and so he's standing side stage just waiting for whatever, and Inve doesn't look at him, and he throws his guitar up backwards into the air at this guy and the guy goes, oh my God. And he runs and he grabs the guitar out of the air. He throws it. I mean, if you've seen him live, he literally does that. He throws the guitar and Inve turns around and he goes, you are not fired. And then walks off the stage. So that's crazy. It's like he walked out of my imagination onto the stage. Here he is. And then he's like, oh, there. He's right there. So he's like a cartoon of a man.

Speaker 4 (01:08:10):

He's pretty sick. You fucking want rock stars.

Speaker 3 (01:08:12):

Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:08:12):

Here you go.

Speaker 3 (01:08:13):

Yeah. You know who I saw actually recently that crushed was Steel Panther. They crushed dude, the musicians in that band.

Speaker 4 (01:08:22):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:08:23):

Man, satchel is,

Speaker 4 (01:08:24):

Satchel is super sick.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):

Fuck. He's so good.

Speaker 4 (01:08:27):

Yeah, I almost saw them recently, but still never have.

Speaker 3 (01:08:30):

Whatever you think about the music, I personally think that there's a band. I kind of grew up on their old band. I think it was Metal Shopper Metal School or something, and I loved how Goofy and over the top that is, and they have funny songs. The lyrics are just outrageous and ridiculous. They haven't changed a single word since they recorded it. They don't care. And then they back it up with a crazy musicianship, and I was

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):

Like,

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):

Damn, that's sweet.

Speaker 2 (01:08:55):

Yeah, they're good.

Speaker 3 (01:08:56):

They're good.

Speaker 2 (01:08:57):

And they do super well, too. Holy shit.

Speaker 3 (01:09:00):

Self-managed band.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):

Yeah. I don't know if they still do the, what is it? The three shows a week thing, one in Hollywood, west Hollywood, Vegas, and then one other place.

Speaker 3 (01:09:12):

Oh,

Speaker 5 (01:09:12):

Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):

They did that for a while from what I understand. And the guarantees on each one of those is

Speaker 5 (01:09:18):

Fucking

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):

Obscene. Wow.

Speaker 5 (01:09:20):

And

Speaker 2 (01:09:20):

They just did that every week pretty much for the longest time. I don't know if they still are or not, but man, that band fucking crushes it.

Speaker 4 (01:09:30):

Yeah, I think that was in that metal school or Yeah, I know what you're talking about, Dean. I can't remember. It was from when they were transitioning in Steel Panther. They were huge already in that LA scene, and then I think they did that Hoffer teacher song and video right at the same time where they were changing their name just becoming Steel Panther, and then I believe I'm correct. Then that kind of launched them, and then they did that whole first album, which sounds great. And literally it's like the best cock rock ever.

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):

It's so good.

Speaker 4 (01:10:04):

It's like better than the original Cock Rock. They did the exact same style, super honest feeling, but better with better production, better songwriting, better performances. It's awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):

Yeah. Satchel was in Racer X with Paul Gilbert. He lived with Paul Gilbert.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):

Oh, I had no idea. Wow. That's legit. Those

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):

Guys are all in their mid fifties and I think Michael Star, the singer, I think he's 58. It's not really an act. It's like, oh, those guys were just around during the eighties. They were playing music.

Speaker 4 (01:10:31):

They made it. They're the ones that are still around.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):

I have had a couple buddies that go, I would way rather listen to Winger or listen to all these other bands that were actually there. It's like,

Speaker 5 (01:10:40):

Dude,

Speaker 3 (01:10:40):

These guys were there, man, they just aren't The old school band that you listened to. They were maybe 10 years younger than the guys that were really famous then, but they were there, man. They were in on it

Speaker 4 (01:10:51):

And they're better.

Speaker 3 (01:10:51):

Yeah. I mean, I went home with like, fuck, I got to play guitar. This guy's so inspiring, man. So good. Yeah. Sick, but I suck.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):

Do you get that feeling from a lot of guitar players or Dave, do you get that feeling from hearing other people's mixes like The fuck, I better go work?

Speaker 4 (01:11:09):

Yeah. Not as much as maybe I did in the past. It's now has to really stand out and then it has changed. That feeling has evolved the longer I've been doing this, but it definitely was a big part of what kept me going in the beginning is trying to hold yourself to those standards. It's like part of the mentality in any creative force where you're trying to do it be actually in the scene at a national, international level is you have to put yourself in there. You have to hear something that's amazing and be like, I have to get myself to this level. Rather than putting what you hear up here and yourself down here. You can imagine what I did with my hands here. If you're just listening, it was

Speaker 3 (01:11:49):

Really obscene. I don't think you should make that gesture idea. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):

That's going to be definitely blurred out. Oh my God.

Speaker 3 (01:11:56):

With both fingers, dude. Gross.

Speaker 2 (01:11:58):

A family show, dude.

Speaker 3 (01:12:00):

What was the first album you think you heard where you were like, I need to do this. It

Speaker 4 (01:12:04):

Would almost definitely be an Annie Sneak mix, and I think it may be some of the earlier Arch Enemy stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):

Oh yeah,

Speaker 4 (01:12:13):

There's a few in there. I think Wages of Sin, is that right? I think it was like the first one.

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):

God, it must have had a big impression on you.

Speaker 3 (01:12:23):

Oh my God, dude, stop making that hand gesture. Geez, it's actually making me sick.

Speaker 4 (01:12:29):

There were a few, that was one earlier in my career when I was listening to a lot of punk rock and grind court. It was assu because they were a death metal band that made their way into the grind world, and they were So

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):

That's how you pronounce it, I

Speaker 4 (01:12:42):

Think that's how I say it. Yeah. Okay. They recorded with Scott Burns. Yeah, pretty sure had more sound. And I was like, whoa, this sounds sick. Because everything else in that genre sounded terrible. There's that one. I remember some of the earlier old man's child stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:12:59):

Oh yeah, that

Speaker 4 (01:13:00):

Was the earlier they did a record at Sunlight with Gene Hooligan playing drums, which is The drum sounded incredible. And they had a little bit of that Swedish chainsaw sunlight tone, which wasn't really typical for essentially melodic black metal stuff they were doing. There were a couple, there's some crossover between just my personal favorite music. A lot of those albums were just influences on me just from the musical standpoint.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):

Was it one of those things, I have to do this. There's no alternative.

Speaker 4 (01:13:30):

And it pulled me in. I was analyzing like, okay, that scenario sounds crazy. It's like, how does it sound so cool? And now I know it was a sample mostly, but at the time I was like, how do I achieve this?

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):

You Dean was there, you had to.

Speaker 3 (01:13:43):

Yeah, Paul Gilbert and Steve Via was really big into, but Paul Gilbert was like, how does somebody pick this hard and this fast and this accurate edge? Just mind blowing still. Actually, I think I posted on this is maybe seven or eight years ago or something like that. I posted on Facebook. Oh, man. Or Instagram or something. I love this. Paul Gilbert Live or instructional DVD. I watched it a lot when I was a kid and I still love it. And I got one of my buddies who I used to watch it with who played guitar, and he said, you're still watching that? And I said, there's so much there. And the guitar is relatively new instrument. I mean, electric guitar is very new, but we've had some of the best players ever that now the instrument is going in an interesting kind of direction. Lots of different directions. You have guys like Aaron Marshall, you have the dudes from Animals as Leaders, you Havey, you have all these kind of newer, wow, they're playing something really different. They're not doing fast alternate picked runs. They're doing jazz inspired, two hand tapping, rhythmic slap stuff. And it is different, but there's something about a big pick hard and Oh, this is going in a gross direction. Don't look at me like that. I didn't mean it like that. Oh my God.

Speaker 4 (01:14:58):

Big pick energy.

Speaker 3 (01:14:59):

Sorry. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I got something in my brain. But there's just something about the eighties tone of guys like Paul Gilbert that it just does it for me, man. It's like that's what I want to do. But the problem I feel, and Dave, you said exactly this. You said, how do I get that snare tone? And then you're like, that was probably sampled. People don't know that. And that exact thing happens with guitar. I taught kids, I mean, I taught at a music school for four years or something, and I would teach a lot of kids. I think I started at 40 students a week. So I'd see a lot of people, and every once in a while you get a student who cared, who actually gave a shit, and I would be a little worried because they're entering into a world of lies. You listen to a recorded guitar track, it's lies.

(01:15:45):

I mean, it's almost always lies unless they're listening to, I mean even then back then splicing tapes together, take after take. It's the thousandth take of a six month recording session or whatever, and even then, it's a very hard standard to hold yourself up to. But now, I mean, it's so much harder. And when I was younger, I came up with listening to Tool then O Path, then Dream Theater. That was kind of like my path to more technical music. My way into Death. Metal was like O path into Necros and Dream Theater into Between the Bar to me, and I liked all those bands, but now you have bands like Rings of Saturn, a band like Lorna Shore, Jason Richardson. Now these are examples of incredible musicians, but they're also utilizing modern recording techniques. A band like Tion is a great example as well. This is the best you can get multiplied by modern recording techniques. And it sets a standard for people that are coming up in music that might be too high for them to go, oh yeah, I can attain that. And they shouldn't necessarily try to attain that because it is impossible. I mean, if you listen to the album, the albums that we've done with you, Dave, it's like, I didn't just walk in, go take one rip through, seal it. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):

We've recorded all these album live.

Speaker 3 (01:17:04):

Oh, right. Sorry, sorry. Yeah. Other bands do this. We don't do this.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):

So the generation of drummers, Alex Rutger's generation of drummers, I noticed this, and Dave, you probably noticed it too in the studio, the ones that grew up listening to sampled and edited drums, but when they were kids, they didn't know that they were edited or sampled. They just thought that that's how you play drums. So you end up with freaks like Alex Rudger and that whole school. So there is something to be said for that bar.

Speaker 3 (01:17:36):

I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):

And then kids not knowing that it's fake ish and then upping their level. It's like the whole thing with a running the four minute mile, people thought it was impossible until somebody did it. And then once somebody did it, then a bunch of other people did it shortly thereafter. And now, I mean, running a four minute mile is still impressive, but it's no longer this insane feat. It just means you're a good athletic person who can run kind of fast.

Speaker 4 (01:18:03):

Drummers are maybe the best example of that, and probably the one that I thought would be the most unlikely because of the physical demands, I felt like would've created a hard ceiling for some of these. But it's insane how good the cream of the crop drummers are live now.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):

And the thing is, even though we think or we, I'm just assuming maybe we as people always tend to think it can't go any further.

(01:18:33):

It's just a natural thing because we can't see how it can go further personally. But someone will take it further. Someone always takes it further. So I feel like anytime I feel like there's a ceiling on something, I need to just step back and realize that I only think that because not me, that's going to break the ceiling, but someone is going to step up. What always happens. So things like BPM, Dean, I know your band as fast as Fuck. Those are speeds that when doth was around round one, nobody even considered reaching those types of BPMs. We had a song on the Concealers album that hits two 70, and that was beyond Fast for that time. It's still pretty fast, but it's not rare anymore. It's not like some rare thing. In 2008, it was a rare thing to hit two 70. Now, I mean, it's fast, but it's not pushing the envelope at all.

Speaker 3 (01:19:30):

For sure. Some of the Best Death Memo is written in that Temple Range for sure. 2 22. I mean, Necker FA just is all 2 20, 2 40.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):

See, you're like, yeah, it's slow, but cool.

Speaker 3 (01:19:40):

Yeah. Well, the thing is, it's all relative to what you're playing, right? I mean, you adapt to the tempo. And for us, we think about the relationship between the kick and the snare, and we want to bump that up and we want a Gravity blasting is it's a staple to the genre. Spencer's been working on his doubles on his feet for a long time, and he's really pushing the speed there. But I think a big thing is the marketing of it. We market ourselves as, when we go on stage, we say we're the fastest band in the world. That just sounds cool as fuck. I don't care if it's true. I don't give a shit. It's so cool.

Speaker 4 (01:20:14):

Can we do a song on the next one? That's the slowest song in the world, but everything is just like 120 eighth notes.

Speaker 3 (01:20:22):

Is

Speaker 4 (01:20:23):

That a thing? But the BPM is like 14 or something, right? Let's do that, please. Let's do that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:29):

Okay. Yeah, it's like when Howard Stern called himself the king of all media back in the day.

Speaker 3 (01:20:34):

Oh, totally. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:20:36):

He said that before. He was the king of all media.

Speaker 3 (01:20:38):

I love it. I love it, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:20:40):

And then he did become the king of all media pretty much once the movie came out. And the books and

Speaker 3 (01:20:47):

Musicians and Extreme Metal or Metal in general can really benefit from looking at the marketing schemes that popular bands obtain. There's beefs between groups. My favorite lately, and I look back at this now, and I go, man, this is an amazing idea, is Fred Durst coming out and saying, people hate us. People give us shit. We don't give a fuck. It's like they were a huge band. They were huge. I mean,

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):

I

Speaker 3 (01:21:11):

Guess

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):

They're the biggest one.

Speaker 3 (01:21:12):

I guess people hated you, but I mean, you were at Woodstock 99 and you had the biggest crowd and you drove it to Riot. You are one of the biggest bands in the world right now. It's so cool to just be like, here's what we are. And rappers do that. It blows my mind when I listen to a rap track and the whole rap, all the flows are about how good they are making flows. It's amazing. They're not even talking about anything. All they're doing is here's how good I am, here's how good I am. But I mean, I love Tech Nine, and that's all he talks about, and it's incredible how many times he says his own artist name in the tracks. Tech Nine starts the song Tech Nine Ends the song Tech nine. He says his name many, many times. I mean, the marketing there is, it's just like, here's who I am.

(01:22:00):

One of my favorite shows I've been to lately was Tech Nine. We saw him here in Vancouver, and he went on stage. This is how I look at it from business side. His overhead is he had a backdrop, one guy on stage as a security guard, and that's it. He went on. He didn't have his own lighting guy. Maybe he had a sound guy, but it was probably the venue. Maybe he has a tour manager, and that's it. I was like, dude, you're making so much money and you're like, I am the fastest. I am the best. I am the best. And what I loved about it is I've been listening to Tech Nine for a long time. He's got lots of songs, plenty of them. I don't care about lots of them. I like the coolest thing he did. He played 50 songs in a space of an hour and a half by only doing a third of each one of the songs and then moving on.

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):

Whoa, that's smart.

Speaker 3 (01:22:46):

He'll be like, here's the verse, chorus, next song, verse chorus, next song. And then at the end he would be call out a song and I'll do it. And somebody would say, let's do Midwest Shoppers or whatever, and he'll do the chorus. I'm like, okay, who else? And so you got to hear every song that you like.

Speaker 4 (01:23:01):

That's crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:23:02):

I don't know how you can adapt that to other genres, but it's incredible. It's like an hour and a half long medley. And if you don't like a song, it's done in a minute. It's cool. It doesn't matter. You don't even have time to go anywhere. It's like, oh, it's done in a second.

Speaker 2 (01:23:14):

I've seen Korn do something kind of like that. They would do medleys and then also they would just play every single song back to back to back to back to back.

Speaker 3 (01:23:22):

I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):

No talking.

Speaker 3 (01:23:24):

I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):

Just hit after hit after hit after hit. Then a medley where they cover four different songs in three minutes and then more songs back. It's just wall to wall.

Speaker 3 (01:23:37):

Yeah, there's a Mega Death Live album on Spotify from the Rust in Peace era where it's song. Alright, thanks so much. This next one's this song. Okay, thanks. This next one's no breaks. It's like, man, it's relentless, dude. It's so awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:23:51):

I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:23:51):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (01:23:52):

I kind of feel like that's one of the, when I see a band I work with and they're finally putting some of those flourishes in their live show, I was like, okay, now you guys are finally hitting that final level. Now I feel like it's one of the last things to develop in a band is crafting the live experience where it's not just like, here's the set where there's a little more to it and they're adding small tweaks to the songs and building some crowd stuff in there. And when they finally reach that perfect equilibrium where it doesn't sound too forced and it's not too rehearsed, but it still feels like fresh compared to the record, that's like, yeah, I would get real stoked and I'd see my bands do, because it usually happens. I'll start working with a band, they're not quite there yet, and then they grow and they get better. And then when I see that final thing ticking over, I'm like, ah, cool. This band's got it going on.

Speaker 2 (01:24:49):

Yeah, takes a while. You have to play live a lot. I know when it started to happen for us, it was one year that we did almost 200 shows in that year, and it was during this 90 day span where we were on tour literally the entire time with maybe four days off, and it was somewhere in the middle. That shit just started to click. It just did it. And I feel like from that point forward, we were just better live forever. And I feel like same with songwriting. You just have to do it a lot. And then eventually, I mean obviously you have the talent for it, but it can only be developed through doing, I think is you can't simulate it. You can't really develop a live show in rehearsal. Not enough. No matter how much you rehearse, say that like you rehearsed for a year to do one show, you will not be as good as a band who toured only for two months straight that year.

Speaker 3 (01:25:51):

Yeah. You see that a lot in the standup comedians. You go up on stage or whatever. I talked a little bit about Kill Tony, that podcast, and they'll do an interview with somebody and they'll say, how long have you been doing standup? And they say, six years. I go, okay. And they're not great. How much do you do? It's like, I do one set a week, two sets a week, but then you see the guys that are crushing it and they're like, how many sets do you do a week? He's like, I do six or seven a night. That's where you get it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:15):

The Beatles, when they were in their cover band period, when they were in Germany, they did five hours a night every night of the week for I don't know how long. It was like five sets a night of covers, and that's how they kind of forged themselves. That's also how they developed that massive vocabulary to pull from when writing all those songs.

Speaker 3 (01:26:39):

Yeah, it's crazy that they turned out to suck so bad

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):

And now they say that I was waiting for it. I was waiting

Speaker 3 (01:26:46):

For it. It's crazy. They turned out to just turn just shit after shit song, shit. I that training, how could you suck so bad? Yeah, I'm just kidding. I love The Beatles. No, I dunno. They're fine. Whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:27:00):

But point being that you can't pick a band that's crushed it really crushed. I don't mean a band that's got in kind of lucky for a short period of time and a band that has really, really crushed it. The only way to get there is to play live a lot and write a lot of songs. Right. Often. Really no way around that.

Speaker 3 (01:27:24):

Yeah. We've hit a wall. Before when we were writing for our last album, we did five days a week for three months. It was not fun. We hated it. By the second month we're like, holy fuck, this is too much. And we would have days where nothing would get done. We'd have other days that a lot of stuff cut, done, whatever. So now we're doing three days a week and we're doing about two, maybe two and a half hours or whatever, and then I'll go home and work on stuff. Everybody work on stuff and it kind of feels like it's not enough. It's kind of like, man, I don't want to go back to five days a week. But there's some stuff that we dug out in those really dark times where we're like, I got to go back to the Jams spot again tomorrow. This is a full job. It's like, yeah, some good stuff came from that. As much as I hated it. I don't want to go back to doing that. Just

Speaker 4 (01:28:08):

Build in that suffering.

Speaker 3 (01:28:09):

Yeah. I don't want to do it.

Speaker 4 (01:28:10):

Sounds like you have to. Don't

Speaker 3 (01:28:12):

Make me do that.

Speaker 4 (01:28:13):

Make it really hot or really cold in there.

Speaker 3 (01:28:16):

Oh, Amy, you've been there before.

Speaker 4 (01:28:18):

Everyone has to wear uncomfortable socks. Just like now that you guys are so successful, you just got to find ways to build in that suffering to keep the music true. You've

Speaker 3 (01:28:28):

Been there.

Speaker 2 (01:28:28):

When I went to Berkeley, I got it in my head that when military people train or police train, they try to give them an environment that will spike their adrenaline in training because that's what they're going to experience out in the field. They're going to have to do these skills that require fine motor skills, basically perform these actions that require precision. All kinds of memorization, very similar to music. So I figured, why don't I try to make rehearsal terrible? So it got strobe lights and space heaters and I'm not sure that it helped. No. We broke up.

Speaker 3 (01:29:09):

The jam space that we were at is the same one we've been at for about 10 years and it is a disgusting hellhole. It

Speaker 4 (01:29:14):

Is.

Speaker 3 (01:29:15):

It smells like pretty

Speaker 4 (01:29:16):

Dingy.

Speaker 3 (01:29:16):

Oh my god. It's so dingy. But the state of jam spaces in Vancouver is just, there's nothing else. I'm glad we have that one place because I don't know where else we would jam. I have no other possibilities, and we have that place to ourselves. So we pay, I think we pay, I don't know, it's under a grand or something like that a month, but it is worth it to have 24 hour access to a room where we can go play music whenever we want. But I don't want to go there. I'm going to go there in just over an hour and I am not looking forward to being in the room.

Speaker 2 (01:29:49):

Condolences. I feel so bad.

Speaker 3 (01:29:51):

Yeah. With that being said, that being said, I've also, I've worked rebar construction before. I've worked commercial renovation. I've worked in a bunch of different kitchens. This is a million times better than any of that. It's just two hours a day, three days a week. You got to go to work at a gross place.

Speaker 2 (01:30:09):

I know. It's tough. It's tough. I'm sorry, Dean. Well, I think it's a good place to end the podcast. Dean's about to break down into tears.

Speaker 3 (01:30:19):

I look fucking like a total pussy.

Speaker 2 (01:30:23):

I mean, it's just like, I think you need to be alone for

Speaker 4 (01:30:26):

This moment. Has to mentally prepare himself for his two hour long practice, guys. That's true. Give him some space.

Speaker 2 (01:30:31):

Yeah, positive vibes. Whatever personal strength ritual you need to go through to be ready for the ordeal you're about to endure.

Speaker 3 (01:30:42):

Right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:30:43):

Just know that we're with you.

Speaker 3 (01:30:44):

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):

We're with you, man. Thinking of you

Speaker 3 (01:30:46):

Not actually, no,

Speaker 2 (01:30:47):

Not actually. No.

Speaker 3 (01:30:49):

Fuck,

Speaker 2 (01:30:50):

That's all you. All right. Well, whatever. Well, no, for real though. Thanks to both of you for coming on. It's been a pleasure as always.

Speaker 3 (01:30:58):

Yeah. We should do a live in-person one sometime. That'd be great.

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would be awesome. Yeah, that would be cool. Alright, then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends as well as post them to your Facebook and Instagram or any social media you use. Please tag me at al Levi URM audio at URM Academy and of course tag our guests as well. I mean, they really do appreciate it. In addition, do you have any questions for me about anything? Email them to [email protected]. That's EYAL at M dot aca DMY. And use the subject line Answer me Al. Alright then. Till next time, happy mixing.

Speaker 1 (01:31:43):

You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.