TREVOR STRNAD: Career Longevity in Metal, The Death Metal Renaissance, Keeping Music Human

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we're now on our fifth year, but it's true, and it's only because of you, the listeners. And if you'd like to see us stick around for another five years, there are a few simple things that you can do that would really, really help us out and I would be endlessly appreciative. Number one, share our episodes with your friends. If you get something out of these episodes, I'm sure they will too. So please share us with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me and our guests too. My Instagram is at al Levi urm audio. And let me just let you know that we love seeing ourselves tagged in these posts.

(00:00:55):

Who knows, we might even respond. And number three, leave us reviews and five stars please anywhere you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, I want to thank you all for the years and years of loyalty. I just want you to know that we will never, ever charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way possible. All I ask in return is a share post and a tag. Now let's get on with it. Hello everybody. Welcome to the URM podcast. My guest today has been on before. I love him. It's Trevor from the Black Dahlia Murder. He's the vocalist. And I'd say that Black Dahlia murder is one of my favorite metal bands ever, and I just love talking to this guy. If you heard the last episode, it was just a great one. So I'm going to cut my intro. Let's just talk to Trevor. Here we go. Well, Trevor, welcome back to the URM podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:01:52):

Ah, thanks for having me, man. It was a great time. Last time

Speaker 1 (00:01:55):

It was. I think that's the last time we spoke too. It's been a minute.

Speaker 2 (00:01:59):

Yeah, it's been a minute. Yeah, that's back when I was still in Michigan. I'm out here in Brooklyn now.

Speaker 1 (00:02:04):

Really?

Speaker 2 (00:02:05):

Yep.

Speaker 1 (00:02:05):

Why? What happened?

Speaker 2 (00:02:06):

I just thought it would be exciting. It definitely has been. I've been out here for two years and change. I met a girl that lived out here. That was a pretty easy situation for me to move into, and I just wanted to be plugged into the scene where lots of death metal shows were happening, and this is definitely the spot for that man that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (00:02:28):

More active than Detroit.

Speaker 2 (00:02:30):

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Detroit's kind of fallen on hard times the last couple of years. I think that we've been bumped from a B market to a Z market now. Z market bands barely come in. You have to kind of go out the same way. You came in much Florida,

Speaker 1 (00:02:47):

Dude Florida,

Speaker 2 (00:02:49):

So that's like a pain in the ass for bands. Being on a peninsula sucks.

Speaker 1 (00:02:53):

Yeah, Florida is, I mean, I've always had a special bad place in my heart for it, but now I feel like all the shit that I talked about Florida is now I'm validated by everything that's going on with it now because I always talk shit about how dumb that place is. And

Speaker 2 (00:03:16):

Now we're seeing it there. The proof is on paper.

Speaker 1 (00:03:19):

Yep. It's more than just Florida, man. It's a widespread thing. Are you digging Brooklyn?

Speaker 2 (00:03:26):

Oh yeah, dude, I love it, man. It's a big shock to the system as a change from suburban Michigan, just tons of people, tons of subculture. You'll be walking down the street and you'll see like-minded individuals that you don't know, which is wild.

Speaker 1 (00:03:44):

That's something interesting. I used to notice this when I was a teenager going to metal shows, and I had noticed it as an adult too, but maybe you can relate when you'd be at a show and there'd just be like those people that you have no idea how they exist in the world. They're just like the only place you ever see them is at a show. You don't understand how they can possibly be real people in the real world with real lives. They're just unique to metal. The most extreme metalhead you could ever possibly imagine. Everything you could imagine about the stereotype of a metalhead, but just times 10,000. I always thought that was interesting.

Speaker 2 (00:04:27):

Oh, for sure. I still figured out how I exist outside of a metal show, to be honest.

Speaker 1 (00:04:33):

Speaking of, I think it's interesting that after all these years you still want to get even closer to it because a lot of people who've been around, the last thing they want to do is immerse themselves in the culture. I mean, they do it so much for work. I'm not surprised. I know that you're an encyclopedia of metal, so I'm not surprised, but I think it's rare. It's very rare.

Speaker 2 (00:05:05):

Yeah, for sure. I see a lot of guys that have been around as long as we have in BDM and some of them don't even listen to metal regularly. They just kind of feel overexposed to it in their lives. But for me, it's how I stay kind of grounded. I'm always checking out new bands, even at demo levels and watching Bandcamp and watching all the airwaves for new music coming down the pipes, and this is what I'd be doing if I wasn't in the band or not. Pretty much. It's just what I like to do and keeps me young, keeps me excited about metal, and I kind of bring that energy into Black Dahlia murder too. And I've been able to turn it into doing some columns where I shout out young bands and stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:05:51):

I've seen that, which is great. It's

Speaker 2 (00:05:53):

Been really fun and it's been a good look for the band to just be like, Hey, we're not like these selfish assholes. We care about the scene and that we're the underground that we're from. And so I think that that's been a good look. And yeah, man, it's just good for my soul, dude, stay plugged into things and just be a fan. I think that the Black Dahlia murder was built on a ban of fans, you know what I mean? Just kind of taking a little bit of everything we like and melding it into some kind of Frankenstein, but always been fans first in the band. Definitely seen it through that lens

Speaker 1 (00:06:32):

And it's really, really clear and I think it's cool on several levels that you're doing that for younger bands. I think that it's the responsibility of the established people in the scene to help the next generation come to light, or not even necessarily the next generation, just people who are still coming up and it doesn't even have to be in the underground. Slipknot used to do that or still do that for Slipknot, taking behemoth out for instance. Or I remember when Tool took Shuga out or Inflames. Those types of things have profound impacts on the scene surviving in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (00:07:16):

Oh, for sure. There's just so much trickle down. It's just like a makes a major wave, not just a ripple, but with the columns and stuff, they would say that they would get 10,000 hits. So you have this little brutal death metal band from Peru all of a sudden getting 10,000 eyes on it. That's great because of the column. I'm like, that's more than I could ask for. That's awesome. And that's very powerful. And in terms of numbers, when you're a really small underground band and you look at Brutal Death Metal as a scene, there's not. But that's a lot of people, dude. So it feels good. It's kind of just giving something back and like I said, I just have this tremendous excitement for new music that I've always had and I'm still kind of feeding it all the time and it's just fun for me. It's just what I do. And it's been cool that I can kind of apply my obsession to the Black Dahlia world and use our platform to help bands out. And a lot of it, I look at a lot of metal publications, especially the web driven ones, and I just saw Huge Hole for the bands that I like and I was like, am I in the same scene as these other people or what's going on here? So

Speaker 1 (00:08:29):

I know exactly what you're saying.

Speaker 2 (00:08:31):

I understand there's certain bands you got to push to make money and stuff like that as a metal site

Speaker 1 (00:08:37):

To keep the lights on,

Speaker 2 (00:08:38):

Right? But there's just this, I felt like a blind eye was kind of being cast towards a lot of stuff that I liked and I was like, well, this is my opportunity. Let's shine some light on some different corners of the underground that I usually see. And yeah, it's been fun. For a while I was taking on way too much work to do the column. I was doing 30 bands a month and writing three or four paragraphs on each one a month,

Speaker 1 (00:09:04):

30 bands in the column,

Speaker 2 (00:09:07):

30 bands a month I would showcase basically.

Speaker 1 (00:09:10):

Holy shit, dude.

Speaker 2 (00:09:12):

And after a while, that just became, I set the bar way too high for myself and I just got tired of writing. This is Skull Crushingly Brutal Face. I ran out of funny adjectives to, so it kind of morphed into a Spotify playlist that I do monthly now, which it kind of paid,

Speaker 1 (00:09:33):

What's it called?

Speaker 2 (00:09:34):

It's the obituary, the guy that writes the obituaries. Yeah, I do it through a metal injection and now I can do way more bands per month, but I'm not writing about them. So it's a little bit of a different beast. And also it feels kind of like, it's kind of shitty to ask people to buy these records while you're handing them a playlist on a streaming platform that they've paid for. You know what I mean? And they're more likely to be going down that route obviously. So it feels it's not as helpful, I don't think, as it once was doing the column. But like I said, dude, I just got tremendously burnt on

Speaker 1 (00:10:16):

Using

Speaker 2 (00:10:16):

Those relapse records descriptors.

Speaker 1 (00:10:19):

Dude, there's only so much you can do. And also with your day job is an intense day job. I think I got to say though that in some ways there's nothing better than actually just hearing a band. There's something that I guess a description could never do, and so I get what you're saying, but in some ways maybe if I was to read something versus just be able to play it, I would choose to play it.

Speaker 2 (00:10:49):

Right. Yeah. I'm hoping that people have the same enthusiasm for it and I hope it's been helping bands out. It's a little bit harder to measure how I get successful it is with it being on Spotify, but it, it's been fun. I've been doing my usual amount of music hunting during this pandemic that's kept me kind of happy. And also having an album drop during the beginning of it was something to keep me occupied and keep me in a positive mind state. And a lot of press came following that and which was good, kept me occupied.

Speaker 1 (00:11:29):

Dude, you've been going nonstop. Actually, speaking of your record, I had Brian Slagel on the podcast two weeks ago. We talked about your release and just the whole issue of releasing stuff right then and there. What he told me was that you guys were locked and loaded when shit went down. It was too late to pull back, but it actually worked to your advantage. And I'm not surprised. I feel like if any band would do alright, it would be you guys because of what kind of connection you've got with your audience. And last time you came on, you told me about that Facebook group and all that work you were doing to just keep connected with them. And so I'm not surprised that it worked out basically, is what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (00:12:26):

There were some moments where I was scared definitely going into it.

Speaker 1 (00:12:29):

Well, yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:12:30):

But I feel the same way. I feel like ultimately it played out to be very advantageous. There was very few albums coming down the pipeline at the time, and we could have been stuck at the end of an album cycle with literally no new content to offer the world.

Speaker 1 (00:12:44):

That would be really scary.

Speaker 2 (00:12:46):

That would be the worst position, honestly. So we took a hit on some sales the first week because we weren't out on tour with Testament. We should have been, we weren't making puppy dog eyes at people at the merch table to buy the new record. So we took a hit

Speaker 1 (00:13:02):

And the world was melting,

Speaker 2 (00:13:04):

Right? The world was melting too. Nobody could go to the store to pick it up. So that was kind of a drawback. But the fans definitely showed up really hard. As you mentioned, the Blaines group, they're all over it. They kind of street team for us and go to all these crazy lengths to kind of back us up. And they really showed up for the record of course, and did what they could to kind of amp it up from their angle. So I really appreciate the hell out of that. And it kind of leveled the playing field as far as the charts go, and we were still able to chart probably where we would have anyway.

Speaker 1 (00:13:40):

And

Speaker 2 (00:13:40):

Honestly, the whole shutdown, I think it invited more press for the band because people were stuck at home with nothing else to do. So you had all these Skype interviews coming out of the woodwork and it was kind of the perfect storm of press in that way. I was doing at a time, I was doing 10 interviews a day for a while, man, and my lips were smoking for

Speaker 1 (00:14:03):

To dude you were going nonstop. It's impressive. It's first of all about taking that hit. I don't think that I understand a lot of bands took a hit, but I don't think that it counts against you guys. I think everybody understands the situation for what it is.

Speaker 2 (00:14:23):

Oh yeah. I feel that too. When it comes back to those numbers being looked at in the future, there will be an asterisk next to it basically that said, oh yeah, it was during the Pandemic Man, and actually this is really good. So I'm cool with it, man. And honestly, it's been such a positive thing to give people a new record during this and when they need some distraction, they need something to be hyped about. And it helped me in that way too, man. I had so many positive things surrounding me because of the album and good feedback and just excitement and it just kept me kind of tunnel visioned on this thing and was good for my brain, man. It definitely was right on time to kind of distract me from the weight of this entire thing for a while and was very honestly, it played out as well as it could have.

(00:15:13):

I think we could be stuck with no content coming out. We were very lucky to have so much prerecorded stuff and like I said, the kind of perfect storm of people wanting interviews, the lane the way was clear. People were stuck at home glued to their phones even more so than they ever have been. So they were right on the receiving end of every bit of info we were putting forward. So honestly, it just worked out to be a really weird, really cool thing. And we as a band, I think have too much pride to ever relent and just stay home, you know what I mean? And take a break.

Speaker 1 (00:15:55):

What kind of pride do you mean?

Speaker 2 (00:15:57):

We've literally been touring every second. We've been able to since 2003.

Speaker 1 (00:16:03):

Yeah, so you guys are the hardest working band I've ever met.

Speaker 2 (00:16:07):

We've never said no, we weren't going to either. So it took something like this to make us stop and basically I'm relaxing now. I'm getting energized in a way that I didn't know that I needed. I am really feeling good and really just kind of like we never would've done this. We never would've taken this time off and it took something like a plague. It took basically every other band being cock block two. As long as everybody else can't be out there touring, then we're comfortable with it. You know what I mean? We'll finally stop for a second, but

Speaker 1 (00:16:46):

I totally relate because with Nail the mix, we've got to travel every single month for it, and it's been that way for years and so much travel, the amount of travel I've been doing is equivalent to full-time touring. For instance, the last quarter of last year, I was home four days and it was just like, wow, man, three days in Denmark, then four days in la, then two days in New York, just insane. And I was starting to feel myself burning out and wondering, how the hell am I going to be able to get some time to recharge? This is nuts. And I didn't see, because we can't stop. It's a monthly thing. There's no way to stop it. So I was just kind, I guess resigned to the fact that I was never ever going to get a break. And then this happened and it's been super positive for me on a personal level. So I completely understand and I think that what you said about having something positive to tunnel vision on is the key. I've noticed that people who are losing their minds right now, it's generally they don't have something to tunnel vision on. Everyone I know who's got some really specific focus are doing

Speaker 2 (00:18:07):

Great. That's what you need, man. You need a creative outlet. You need to make something right now, even if it's just for yourself, just make some music or do something. Man, being creative feels so good and it's so freeing and it's just so healthy for me. What I mean, and it's a different life being in this band now than it once was. We don't have practice regularly anymore. We've been spread out across the continent for a while now, and that's the kind of thing I could really use right now is a band practice where we can just get together and talk some shit like the old days. You know what I mean? But that's kind of gone from my life pretty much. We still get together before a tour for a couple of days, but I do miss the kind of catharsis of blowing off steam with the men every week.

(00:18:58):

So yeah, right now being in a band, it's just having a new record out that you can't play anything from and doing tons of interviews, but like I said, man, getting trapped with no content and just, we could have been right at the end of a record cycle with nothing to show for right now. So I think we got honestly very lucky. I'm happy with how it played out, and I'm just hoping that there's still momentum for this record when we roll into the tour. Finally when we're able to get out there, whenever that is,

Speaker 1 (00:19:33):

I'm sure there will be. You said something interesting to Ben when you did the pre-interview though. I wanted to ask you about, you said that moving to cameo felt strange, like prostitution almost. I wanted to talk about why.

Speaker 2 (00:19:49):

Sure. Honestly, I'm finding cameo to be a little easier in that regard than Twitch and Twitch. I feel the same kind of guilt. I don't know, it's weird. I am getting paid for a non-existent product. It kind of feels like, you know what I mean? Or it's, I don't know. I do so much shaking hands and kissing babies with the band that it kind of feels weird to monetize that suddenly. You know what I mean? I've always been really fan forward and kind of like that guy. I understand that this is how the things are changing and this is a very common transaction now, and there's tons of people utilizing this in the digital age, and it's not abnormal at all. It's just kind of something I needed to adjust to a little bit. But with Cameo, I feel a bit more, each message is personal and you're making somebody's day. Some of the people are sick, some of the people are just fucked by COVID right now. Sometimes I'm roasting people, which is fun.

Speaker 1 (00:20:58):

Roasting are they just roast me.

Speaker 2 (00:21:01):

Well, they usually send it to another friend. They're like, alright. One guy had me rip on his friend's keel guitar that didn't have a headstock and shit, and he told me to tell him, how are you going to fucking hang that on a wall dude? And all this other stuff. So it's been interesting. It's been a lot of different kind of things people want from it, but just that I know for sure that I'm making somebody happy and that there's a surprise element to it. It feels more like, I don't know, I made some sort of genuine product to give them, I don't know, Twitch can sometimes feel like only fans, but without your pants down, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (00:21:46):

Yeah, I understand exactly what you're saying, especially because you guys are the kind of band that has been in people's faces physically forever. Some bands take breaks from touring or whatever, or a lot of newer bands establish themselves online first, but you guys are road warriors, so I can see how that would feel weird. Yeah, like you said, you're not just road warriors, but I know that you hang out with fans a lot as it is in person, so I can see how it would feel weird at first, but I do agree with you, man. It's completely normal now. It's not a weird thing.

Speaker 2 (00:22:31):

It just took some adjustment too. Definitely. And I haven't been on Twitch in a couple of weeks. I kind of took some time off with the whole George Floyd thing, and when the world turned super duper ugly, I decided to step back and just give room for voices that needed to be heard and not kind of crowd the lane with my bullshit entertainment. You know what I mean? But I'm definitely plotting a comeback on that front. But I have been hitting cameo pretty hard in the last week, and it's been fun, man. It's definitely been fun. But yeah, there was a little bit of a growing pain there where I just felt like I was charging for something that I just do all the time normally. You know what I mean? So it was kind of like a weird beast to switch like

Speaker 1 (00:23:21):

That. I kind of felt that way when I started URM. I'm getting paid for talking. It's kind of weird, but it's the age we live in information and connection matters in a way that it's not that it didn't matter before, but this is how people connect to people and learn things. But it took me a little bit of adjustment at first to be comfortable with the idea of getting paid to just talk about things, not a physical product,

Speaker 2 (00:23:50):

Right? For sure. That's kind of the same thing I was feeling, but to be on Twitch during this time where a, there's more people on it than ever because of there's,

Speaker 1 (00:24:03):

They're

Speaker 2 (00:24:03):

Home. People are stuck at home with their phone in their hand. It feels good in a way that you're distracting people from all the negativity. You know what I mean? With I can go on and tell some jokes and answer some questions about the band, and it's no skin off my back. It feels good. It's a distraction for me too. It's good thing to reach out to some fans, make some people smile, make some people happy, make some people laugh. I love to do that. So it's definitely an opportunity to do that. And in a way it's been good for my spirit too, just to be like, all right, this thing still exists. The band still exists. People still like it. I'm talking to them right now.

Speaker 1 (00:24:42):

The floor hasn't completely fallen out.

Speaker 2 (00:24:44):

Right

Speaker 1 (00:24:45):

On the topic of new bands, I'm just wondering if you agree on this or if I just wasn't looking, but I feel like things got weird 10 years ago in the metal scene. There wasn't as much cool stuff going on, and I feel like right now is almost like a renaissance period. There's so much good shit happening, and there's so many talented bands coming up and so many great musicians. Have you noticed that too?

Speaker 2 (00:25:17):

Oh, for sure. For sure. You see different corners of heavy music kind of getting a second wind or third wind or 10th wind by now, old school death metal. But for example, you have all these 19-year-old kids popping up and making bands that worship like autopsy and the more textured and the more cinematic bands out of Death metal rather than just trying to be as Pro Tools perfect or 300 BPM fast, or you see people kind of getting into different, I don't know, just every corner of extreme music right now is popping off pretty much. You know what I mean? You still have those really slick tech death bands that are doing well. You have labels like Artisan Era that's run by Malcolm from Infer that's putting out a lot of those bands now, and that's doing really well. You have the old school death metal scene that I was touching on. Maggot Stomp is at the head of that 20 bucks spin. There's a lot of great labels to watch right now. But yeah, it definitely feels like there's been a huge resurgence in the last while. I feel like if I were to walk into high school right now, if they were open, that is. But

Speaker 1 (00:26:38):

Yeah, there would be nobody there. If you walked into a high school right now,

Speaker 2 (00:26:41):

I would see a lot more black clad t-shirt weirdos than I would have in my own high school where I felt like a really isolated kind of alien person. You know what I mean? I feel like it's a perfect storm of a lot of things. I think it's the way politics are going and the state of the world I think drives people to be more into extreme music. I think that they find a kind of cathartic release in that. I certainly do. I think that also horror as a genre has become way more normalized in the last 20 years,

Speaker 1 (00:27:15):

The movie genre.

Speaker 2 (00:27:16):

Yeah, for sure. You think about

(00:27:18):

Walking Dead is one of the biggest shows, and people are getting disemboweled every episode, and I was praying for something like that when I was 10, and I was so into the macabre and so into horror movies and shit. The world has definitely turned on that. I think the internet has also taken, in a way, it's worked against death metal, I think because taken the shock value out of a lot of it. Nowadays. By the time you're seven, you've seen shit porn on the internet. You probably said fuck as your first word because the world is a different place than it was 20 years ago.

Speaker 1 (00:27:56):

I was at least 14 before I saw shit

Speaker 2 (00:27:59):

Porn. Right? Right. Now that's par for the course. I think by the time you're seven, you've seen it all. You've been on the tour browser by the time you're seven. But I don't know, just people times are either more violent or were aware of more violence in the world because of the way that news travels now through the internet. It's definitely painted the world as a more darkened place, I think.

Speaker 1 (00:28:24):

Yeah, I agree with you. Whether it's actually a darker place or not doesn't even matter because if people think it is, then that's how they're going to react and that's how they're going to approach the world.

Speaker 2 (00:28:38):

For sure. For sure.

Speaker 1 (00:28:39):

Yeah. It almost doesn't matter if it is a darker place or not,

Speaker 2 (00:28:42):

As long as it's in the news than it is. You know what I mean? Then people get scared and people get fucking get their guard up. So

Speaker 1 (00:28:50):

I also think that it's a response to what was really huge in heavy music for a long time. Yes, there have been great bands obviously for the past 20 years, but there was also, I think a lot of the generation after the scene stuff, I feel like they're rebelling against that the way that generations often will. They'll take whatever came before them and try to one up it or completely destroy it the way that grunge destroyed hair metal. I feel like now you're seeing a generation that thinks that the scene stuff is a joke and are responding with super brutal music and not just super brutal music, but also even just the Prague bands or whatever are more insane than ever. Everything. The genre blending is more insane than ever. Everything is just more insane than ever, as opposed to very sterile. I think a very sterile kind of thing that was big,

Speaker 2 (00:29:53):

And what you're saying definitely reminds me of how fucking Huge Gen was for a while and how huge Gent influence Metal Core was for a while, and like you said, there was that whole super duper Seny time from the early two thousands. You know what I mean? That's kind of been put to bed now. Yeah, dude, times are changing. Times have changed for the better, from my opinion.

Speaker 1 (00:30:21):

I was about to say. Yeah, definitely For the better.

Speaker 2 (00:30:23):

Yeah, I'm definitely just really stoked about how many young people are into good music now, and it definitely felt like Pro Tools and the kind of home recording era, it really opened the floodgates of there was too many bands. There's still too many bands right now, but it just felt too many bands and too many producers really oversaturated down that metal core lane for a while. There was so much music coming down that pipe and just so little deviation it felt like, and man, I remember thinking this, when is this going to go away, dude? And then I kind of didn't notice what it did. It just kind of shrunk back slowly and new stuff kind of came in and took over.

Speaker 1 (00:31:08):

It wasn't as drastic as when grunge destroyed glam or whatever.

Speaker 2 (00:31:14):

I mean, you could pretty much mark that to the day that the single came out. I mean, pretty much. But it was definitely more gradual than that. Yeah. Now you have ICP calling out a guy from Blood on the dance floor or some kind of SNY band you see. Yeah, that's pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (00:31:34):

Is it interesting to you that the perception of your band has changed? Because I've been listening to you guys since the beginning and I've always thought that you were a melodic death metal band that was, I always thought that you guys, and I told you this last time, I thought you guys were the next step after Carcass and at the Gates. That to me, that's what you guys refined the shit out of that style.

Speaker 2 (00:31:57):

That's how I always saw it too. And those were the direct influences. It was like the Crown and Inflames and Darking, and a lot of the bands that we were worshiping at the time had just taken this left turn towards commerciality and new metal, like soil work and Inflames, and even Dark Tranquility at the time. Were inviting all these clean vocals into the mix, and we were pissed. We were like, I don't like where this is going.

Speaker 1 (00:32:24):

Yeah, you guys kept it true to the genre. So I thought it was weird that you guys originally were lumped in with the scene stuff. I would hear you guys and I'd be like, this band's legit. Can't people hear that?

Speaker 2 (00:32:36):

In a way, we got lucky with that because I think if we had just been seen as this very straight laced and traditional death metal band that maybe we wouldn't have gotten so many high profile kind of opportunities. I think that being called First Metal Core was the first tag that we got lumped into. And at the time you had Asle dying, becoming really big on Earth, becoming really big, and we are in the same release span as those albums. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (00:33:10):

You don't sound anything like them.

Speaker 2 (00:33:12):

And we were on tours with those bands at the time, and we were in, especially once the second record came out is when we started to get a lot of press and we were kind of mentioned in the same breath as that scene a lot. Then it kind of morphed into Death Corps. When Death Corps came to Rise, we had similarities in the vocals. I think that there was a certain amount of influence that people maybe took from our band of certain corners of Death Corps for sure, but then we were called Death Corps. But the moral of the story honestly, is that when I look in the crowd now, I see all walks of the underground. I see people that file us as all different things, and I had to learn to not care pretty early because

Speaker 1 (00:33:56):

Good.

Speaker 2 (00:33:57):

No matter how I stomped my feet or said what I said about it, people perceive you in different ways. You know what I mean? So even

Speaker 1 (00:34:05):

You can't control that,

Speaker 2 (00:34:07):

Right? And when it comes to assembling tours, we've adopted that mindset. If I was going to have my guard up so badly and only tour with bands that I really felt comfortable with and really liked, it would be a much more narrow spectrum than what we've been able to do. But it's realizing all the different categories that fans put us in and kind of trying to honor all of those and just trying to honor all our different kinds of fans and all the different walks. So you'll see us going from tours with Metal Corps bands to really extreme Death Corps bands and death metal bands and black metal and kind of anything in between, man, because we've been really able to just put our fingers in so many different avenues with Fest on the second record, that was a huge turning point for us. I never saw us going down an avenue so commercial.

(00:35:04):

I never thought we'd be invited to do something like that. I didn't know that in the next couple years that sounds of the underground was going to be a thing and Mayhem was going to be a thing, and that there would be a platform, a big platform for bands like ours in that sort of form format. I had no idea. I always thought we were just going to tour with death metal bands and kind of like I was going to be okay with that. But I see now that that might've marked an early, not an end for the band, maybe a sort of glass ceiling. We didn't know that the band was going to have so much crossover appeal and take on the life that it really has. And I think that those kind of categorizations are different perceptions are really directly responsible to us being here today. And still me sitting here and talking to you.

Speaker 1 (00:35:59):

I think you're right.

Speaker 2 (00:36:00):

So I'm thankful. I'm very thankful for how it's played out. I never saw us as a band that could be on Warp Tour, and we did get some flack from that for our fans, but from some of them. But there's been a lot of moves we made where we got some flack that were considered sellout moves. And I think that just happens when you're a band and it happens when you stay around for a long time and it kind of par for the course. But being on Warp Tour wasn't necessarily my most proud moment maybe, but I saw the merit and being in front of thousands of new people every day. And honestly, it's one of those tours where it's the first thing your parents will let you go to by yourself. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (00:36:43):

I don't know why you would turn it down. Exactly. I'm trying to put myself in your shoes like a band that's as established as you guys wanting to continue growing and keep the lights on and just keep being a band. Why would you turn that down? Unless you're direct support for Metallica or something, it seems like why not do

Speaker 2 (00:37:08):

It? Exactly. I figured we're coming as us. We didn't change anything we do to be there. We just come and play Black Dahlia murder songs swear at the crowd a lot. And honestly, it was a good opportunity to scare the shit out of some people that didn't know what they're getting into. You know what I mean? And on that particular year, there were no other bands of our ilk whatsoever. So we were literally this sore thumb band, and I think a lot of people were like, well, it's three o'clock, don't really know what to go see, but why don't we go see that weird death metal band? Let's check it out. Let's dip our finger in this other world. You know what I mean? So in a way, I think we were able to bring in lots of new fans and lots of people that would've never gotten in front of us. That's just one example of different avenues that we've been able to take with this band and that have worked. We toured with Unearth and Terror. That was cool. We toured with a good handful of hardcore bands over the years, and those have always been cool bills. And yeah, man, you just kind of got to put your pride aside and see your band, try to see your band, how other people see it.

Speaker 1 (00:38:22):

That's hard to do.

Speaker 2 (00:38:23):

It is hard to do, but you got to just, you know what I mean? You can't just force yourself to be seen how you want to be seen. It doesn't happen. It's not going to work. If anything, people are going to just be, alright, now this guy's having a fit about it. So you got to kind of roll with it.

Speaker 1 (00:38:42):

When you guys have made those decisions that you would call sellout ish, I don't think they're sellout moves, but I know what you're saying. Did you guys know in advance that it would be polarizing, but a good decision either way?

Speaker 2 (00:38:59):

Oh, for sure, for sure. And definitely Warp Tour was the biggest example of that. We met it with trepidation. We knew that there would be a little bit of backlash. We knew there'd be a lot of people sitting it out that were our fans, but that's okay. I don't expect them to ghost that far out of the comfort zone for us if they don't want to. But there were still a lot of people that showed up that we'd normally see at shows that braved the kind of storm there to be there with us, which was cool. That's

Speaker 1 (00:39:28):

Asking a lot.

Speaker 2 (00:39:31):

We realized that. So seeing some of the regulars, there was a huge, huge compliment and meant a lot. But for the most part it was just kind of stepping out into this new territory, and it was definitely weird. It was definitely a learning experience. A lot of the bands, I think only play on Warp Tour and don't tour regularly.

Speaker 1 (00:39:54):

I think you're right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:39:56):

They were ultra excited to be there. So you're standing in this line to go eat that's like two miles long, and all these guys in bands are turning around in the line. They're like, hi, I'm Joey, and want to make friends. And in a weird way, it's like Jesus camp, you know what I mean? You have all these bands there that they don't grind it out. They don't have go through these miserable tours and stuff, and this is some kind of summer camp to them. You know what I mean? But to me, it was like mayhem, but a way more annoying version of Mayhem. Mayhem was way cooler

Speaker 1 (00:40:32):

And just one more tour in a long ass line of tours,

Speaker 2 (00:40:36):

Right? Right. So I was just kind of like, God, shut up, man. Get away from me.

Speaker 1 (00:40:42):

I always found that interesting, that dynamic that you'd see on certain tours or festival shows the difference between the lifer bands and then yeah, the summer camp bands. It's a completely different vibe. It's a really stark difference, I think.

Speaker 2 (00:41:01):

And looking back, I remember being on the other side of it. I remember when we did Sounds of the Underground, for example,

Speaker 1 (00:41:08):

And you were the summer camp band.

Speaker 2 (00:41:10):

Yeah, we were literally in a van and we were camped out in our fucking lawn chairs all day, every day in a parking lot. And somehow I had the time of my life, if you tell me now to get in the van, and you know what I mean, that we'd be doing that same exact tour at this age, I'd be like, I don't think so, homie.

Speaker 1 (00:41:33):

I mean, fair enough.

Speaker 2 (00:41:35):

But you're more resilient when you're young. You're more down for the punishment. Your body can take more, your liver can take more,

Speaker 1 (00:41:47):

Man. I think that part of keeping a band going for the long-term has a big, big emphasis on knowing what your limits are physically and personally because it's such a taxing lifestyle. I think when you're 23, you can handle anything, but if you want to actually keep it going into middle age or something, you got to make decisions intelligently concerning what you can actually handle and what you're willing to handle.

Speaker 2 (00:42:18):

For sure, man. For sure. It's definitely come to touring a little bit less now.

Speaker 1 (00:42:24):

What does a little bit less mean for you?

Speaker 2 (00:42:26):

We used to tour, I want to say there was years where we did 10 months on, which is insane.

Speaker 1 (00:42:32):

Yeah, that's a lot.

Speaker 2 (00:42:33):

And now it's more like six months. And we're fortunate in that there is a demand for us now, so we can afford to sit back a little bit and create a little anticipation. Whereas before we would just do four US tours in a row and drive from one to the other. You know what I mean? Because there was no demand for the band. So we weren't overs saturating anything necessarily. We were just trying to get on the radar period. So now thankfully, we can step back a little bit in that regard and not tour as hard as we once had.

Speaker 1 (00:43:10):

Six months is still a decent clip.

Speaker 2 (00:43:12):

It's good. It's good. Yeah, it's enough. There's still those South American tours that are really hard. You can't really, there's no way to streamline that one. It's still like go to bed at 3:00 AM wake up at 5:00 AM and get on a plane. You know what I mean? And then spend an entire day before doors trying to get the drums to trigger, which are made out of four different no-name drum kits with no bottom heads,

Speaker 1 (00:43:43):

And hopefully there's power,

Speaker 2 (00:43:44):

Right? It's always mad stressful over there. We played shows where the stage wasn't grounded and we were getting electrocuted. I don't know how to streamline those tours. Those are really the hardest ones, the most grueling, where it feels like the promoters just squeeze. You come into the show, they have you there. They have you party and meet with people after the show, and they don't get you to bed until three, and they know you're going to be on the plane at five, man. It's like, God damn, I have a show tomorrow and the next day. And the next day, man, work with me a little bit.

Speaker 1 (00:44:21):

Also, man, with the South American tours, it blows my mind how many people show up. I remember doing one with Dark Funeral. So we did us with Dark Funeral, and it was like dark funeral sized crowds. It's what you would expect for dark funeral. It was fine, but black metal size crowds and then went south of the border and suddenly it's like 3000 people, 4,000 people. It's like, holy shit.

Speaker 2 (00:44:51):

Oh yeah, dude, they fucking love lac metal. And I bet they get treated like the Beatles man, where Oh

Speaker 1 (00:45:00):

Yes, they got treated like the Beatles

Speaker 2 (00:45:02):

For sure, people beating on the car and stuff. And we've had a few instances like that where it was kind of scary, but nothing to that level. But you look at Indonesia and they love brutal death metals so much that Disco Gorge, for example, from Cali, brutal death metal bands definitely have a hard time filling a room. It's a very small genre in the states and a very niche kind of thing. But they have to move hotels in Indonesia because people find out they're there and come beating the door down. It's insane. Really? It's insane. So yeah, that kind of mania is awesome, dude,

Speaker 1 (00:45:44):

I didn't realize that death metal was that big over there.

Speaker 2 (00:45:48):

Oh dude, it's crazy, man. You can find pictures of the scene over there where there's 10 little Indonesian kids on their bikes posing hard asses with these double XL Discord shirts on, and all these super colorful, brutal death metal shirts on, and they're posing like a gang, and they're fucking 10 years old. It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (00:46:10):

That is really cool. Do you guys get that kind of, is it that way for you guys too?

Speaker 2 (00:46:15):

It was the first show I think that there was so much anticipation built up, and we were at the top of the bill for a 10 band festival. There was 10,000 people there or something like that.

Speaker 1 (00:46:29):

I mean, that's a lot.

Speaker 2 (00:46:30):

It was, dude. It definitely was. And it was one of those situations that was kind of frustrating where the equipment was really shot, and it kind of hurts your pride a little bit, playing on all this fucked up equipment and not quite sounding as good as you should

Speaker 1 (00:46:46):

In front of 10,000 people.

Speaker 2 (00:46:47):

Right. Especially the first taste of the band too. You want it to be perfect, but you're working against these other odds that you're not working against in the states. And yeah, man, that kind of mania, dude. It's wild to see that. It's wild to, it's definitely cool. But I don't even know how we got here, man. We just started filibustering. I have a real knack for fili busting.

Speaker 1 (00:47:14):

I talk about anything on this. If I just stuck to standard topics, I'd get bored and quit basically. Is there anywhere else that you've seen that kind of enthusiasm? I always wonder about where are places that I wouldn't expect that, still think that extreme music is the biggest thing on earth.

Speaker 2 (00:47:39):

I mean, nothing that would surprise you. I feel like it, it's bigger in Europe, it's taken more seriously in Europe, obviously. There's a lot of festivals, extreme festivals and different festivals for all walks of metal and stuff like that. Yeah, really South America I think is where I see that most kind of that mania. And Indonesia too very wild.

Speaker 1 (00:48:03):

I think for a band like Discord is such a weird trade off. So you can play here in the US with your gear and sound awesome, but it's going to be not that many people. Or you can be a fucking rockstar on Crate Amps.

Speaker 2 (00:48:20):

Right, right.

Speaker 1 (00:48:21):

Yeah. Such a, it's a weird trade off,

Speaker 2 (00:48:23):

But you got to realize they're seen as used to broken symbols and used to fucked up equipment, and they don't have the same opportunities to get all this nice shit that we do. You know what I mean? They're lucky to get what they have, and it's just a different world. But they're so enthusiastic, they're so happy to see foreign bands come to those places. You know what I mean? It's special. It's definitely a kind of energy that's almost tangible there. It's very cool.

Speaker 1 (00:48:54):

Do you still get the jitters when you play shows?

Speaker 2 (00:48:58):

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. For sure. I'm a nervous person at heart anyway, and definitely get the jitters before going up on stage. I don't look at it as a bad thing necessarily. I think it's just natural. I think

Speaker 1 (00:49:12):

If you didn't, that would be kind of weird, I think.

Speaker 2 (00:49:15):

Yeah. Yeah. I think you might be some kind of a weird flatliner. I think it's completely natural. I think that you're putting yourself on the chopping block to be basically judged, you know what I mean? Every single person in the entire room is going to be forming an opinion about you and what you're doing. So there's two ways to look at that. You can get stressed out about it or you can be like, alright, man, these are my people, dude, that, or, Hey, we're doing support on this tour and we're trying to win people over, man, so we got to really give it to 'em. But yeah, dude, I get nervous. Definitely. It's natural. In the early days though, I used to get really nervous. I used to go out.

Speaker 1 (00:49:59):

So was that more stage fright in the early days?

Speaker 2 (00:50:02):

Yes. Yes. I'd go out on stage. I would scream my fucking head off. First of all, I had no technique whatsoever, and I had no idea that all my favorite vocalists were calm while they were on stage and calculated and breathing properly. And you couldn't have told me that. You know what I mean? I'm just going to go up there and go psycho, bro. So within the first 30 seconds, I would've already had a huge adrenaline rush. And then I'm just like with my energy and I can't catch my breath between songs

Speaker 1 (00:50:38):

By Psal three.

Speaker 2 (00:50:38):

It's just over at that point. It was over before it started. So it's definitely had to learn a lot about technique and how to relax up there. And really a lot of stress comes with being the mouthpiece of the band and having to be that guy that fills up the void when people are tuning. And it can feel a little bit like speech class sometimes if you let it get to you.

Speaker 1 (00:51:05):

I mean, people say that public speaking is one of the most, that's one people's biggest fears on Earth. Pretty much. It's up there.

Speaker 2 (00:51:14):

Oh yeah. It's not my favorite thing to do, man. Definitely not my favorite thing.

Speaker 1 (00:51:19):

You're good at it. How do you get comfortable with it?

Speaker 2 (00:51:21):

I don't know that. I don't know that I am entirely comfortable with it. I just kind of make myself do it. Alcohol is a good lubricant for that too. At least gets you into the Black Dahlia murder party mindset. But yeah, man. And a lot of it is just kind of like, alright, these are your people, man. They're here to see you. This is your crowd.

Speaker 1 (00:51:45):

But they weren't always your people.

Speaker 2 (00:51:47):

No, they weren't. They weren't. There's a lot of times where we were facing, I remember facing crowds that didn't want to see us at all. I remember when we were on tour with King Diamond and Nile and Behemoth, I think that was a tour where we were met with the most resistance by the crowd. People throwing stuff at us and booing us. And

Speaker 1 (00:52:06):

When was this?

Speaker 2 (00:52:07):

2004, late 2004.

Speaker 1 (00:52:11):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:52:11):

So this is before short hair metal bands were a common thing. And we were taking the brunt of a lot of leather clad, patched up kind of typical, more elitist scene guys just being like, we don't want these guys. Man, we don't want, you know what I mean? And I think we did win a lot of them over even on that tour. But yeah, we were met with resistance. There were some times where people were trying to, I remember having to almost get in a couple fights during some sets, and it definitely, it felt like a war. We're going on stage and we're going to be met with some resistance, but there's going to be some people that like what we're doing and let's just go out there and fucking give it to 'em, man, get in their face and see what happens. But we've been very fortunate.

(00:53:04):

We've had a really great ride and a really amazing trajectory. It's felt like a snowball that's just been growing since that first record, and we've just been really lucky to have made the right decisions, I think. And we're not the most original band in the world. We never claim to be claim to be anything else than a melting pot of sounds that we like. And I think a lot of the successes can be attributed to making the right decisions, making the right tours, kind of having the right blend of personality and approachability. I think kind of when we stepped out and people took one look at us and were like, these guys are fucking nerds, dude. I think that that worked both ways. I think it gave a lot of people that push, they needed to start a band. They're like, alright, if this guy with glasses can be the singer and this band and be on a metal blade, what the hell am I having trepidation about? Let me,

Speaker 1 (00:54:05):

Yeah, you guys are real people.

Speaker 2 (00:54:07):

Yeah, we were kind of just like the people's band and it's always kind of felt like that. So we've always wanted tried to be that band that broke down the fourth wall and kept a rapport going with the fans. And I've had people in other bands try to give me advice. You're talking to the fans too much and there's no mystery enshrouding your band at all. And I realize that, yeah, there's no mystery with us. You see what you get. But I also see how huge that's been for us, how much the fans appreciate that and how it's helped give this thing such a life.

Speaker 1 (00:54:47):

I think also, man, the fans the thing that people don't see. And so I guess if they don't know that they're not seeing it, then it's not a mystery. They don't know. But the thing they don't see, in my opinion, is how meticulous everything is when it comes to, for instance, putting the music together. You guys are one of the most meticulous bands I've ever experienced. And I think that it's on a level where you have to be in the room with it to understand just how intense it is. And I think that because you guys are friendly and funny and down to earth, I think that people don't realize how insane you guys are about the music and how much work goes into it. I don't think people know, basically, is what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (00:55:40):

I realize that too. There's a tremendous amount of upkeep that it takes to play extreme music at this level. Now that we're not practicing together regularly, there's a lot of homework to be done. We just count on our guys to be hammering it out at home and keep their chops up and

Speaker 1 (00:55:57):

They can't slack.

Speaker 2 (00:55:58):

No, you literally can't at all. And we're very fortunate to have the guys that we have. Everybody is on the same page and works very fucking hard at what they do. But the amount of work we've normalized making records at this insane speed that we do, and writing music at this alarming rate and everything we do in this band is just at a hundred miles per hour, and it always has been. We established a really rapid schedule for the first couple of records and have stuck with it. And I think that in a way, it's a sign of the times. I think we were responding to music becoming almost disposable to people in these modern times. There's so many avenues to get free music and so many avenues to get streaming music, and you can have too much of a good thing now. You know what I mean?

(00:56:59):

It's not like combing the thank yous in the death metal record and then trying to go to the record store to find it. It's a whole different world now. So pumping records out and keeping, for us, it feels like keeping things fresh. It's like with every album comes this new wave of excitement. There's new artwork for kids to be pumped on. There's new merch, there's new music, obviously, which is important. It's just like in terms of how rapid we move, it feels like the two year cycle has been good. And we kind of morphed it into three with this album. This album. It's the first time we took this long between records, but the last album just was so met with such a great response, and it felt like there was still demand for us at the end of the usual two years. It just felt like opportunities were still coming with Suga, came into the picture, wanted us to go out with them, black Label Society. There were still some more touring to be done. There was still more momentum. So that was cool. That was definitely cool. But we've been a prolific band because of just the way that information changes hands now and just, I think people just see music as a little bit more disposable than they used to 20 years ago.

Speaker 1 (00:58:19):

And so guys responded by making as much as possible.

Speaker 2 (00:58:23):

Well, it's not like we're trying to just shit out whatever, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (00:58:28):

No, no. I don't mean in a bad way. At the highest level of quality,

Speaker 2 (00:58:33):

But to be prolific was something that we saw the merit of kind of early on. And

Speaker 1 (00:58:40):

So was that a decision?

Speaker 2 (00:58:42):

It wasn't one that we really a conscious decision. I don't think we ever talked about it. It's just kind of like when we fell into that, what a schedule we established with the first couple of records, I think that we just kept rolling with it.

Speaker 1 (00:59:00):

I think also Brian's brain moves very fast.

Speaker 2 (00:59:05):

He's relentless and he's the guy I know will never say no and he's the last word I think that people might see me as kind of that figure in the band, but I'm not. Brian is the business guy in the band. He's the dad of the band. He's the guy. If we're in Russia and our equipment is stuck in an elevator and we turn and look at him, he's the last word guy. He's the idea man. He's the boss, dude. He's the boss. So it's been, our relationships are different. I'm the guy that's out here in front doing all the press. He hates press when he gets interviewed.

Speaker 1 (00:59:49):

It's like the Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 2 (00:59:50):

Exactly. His guard is so up when he's getting interviewed, he looks at interviews as he's talking to the star and they want to expose something about him and ruin his life to get a headline. You know what I mean? In reality, they're just going to print what you say, so use it as an opportunity to advertise what you're doing, and that's pretty much what an interview is. But for him, it's really invasive and he's really tightlipped and I don't know, he's just really guarded about that. So he's very comfortable with me being out front and being the face of the band while he's like the guy with a checkbook and crunching the numbers and making the hard calls and I don't want to do any of that shit, man. So I'm very happy with my role.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):

It's interesting, man. I think one thing that fucks bands up is not being comfortable with their roles. Bands that stick around, it's like they know what everyone's great at and what they're not, and they give each other room to work

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):

For sure. Bringing Max into the band Max Lavelle, he has a lot of experience in the field of signage, making signs and wrapping cars and doing shit like that. So we're like, you're the stage guy. You design the scrims,

(01:01:12):

You work out that hole, all that shit. He puts the shit up, he makes sure everything is good to go on that front. And that's his lane, man. It's awesome. And Brandon is the band's engineer now. He tracked the bulk of the last record, so we have the studio guy now, which is cool. We used to have Bart having Bart being the studio savvy guy before. So yeah, dude, people definitely have their roles. Alan is kind of spreading his wings a bit more in terms of doing press, and we're kind of putting him out in front a little bit too. He's a bit more willing to do it and he's a good order and has a good personality, so that's definitely working out. But yeah, definitely realize your role in the band and make sure everybody's in the right roles and really it's important, man.

(01:02:03):

It's so important to have friends in the band. There would be no Black Dahlia murder if we didn't keep it friends. I wouldn't want to be in this band. I wouldn't want to be stuck in a van with people that I didn't actually love and care about and I wouldn't celebrate the victories that we celebrate with just some hired guns or something. It's a definite brotherhood. It's a definite family aspect to the band, and I can't imagine it being any other way. There's so much hardship and so much moments, so many moments that aren't glamorous about the touring life. You need a sense of humor. You need positivity. You need your friends around you to lift you up and you need to, yeah, man, you got to just kind of tunnel vision on this thing. Black Dahlia murder has been my entire life for coming up on 20 years, and

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):

That's crazy if you think about it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):

Oh, it is insane that next year it'll be 20 years and yeah, dude, we try to bring people into the band that have that mind.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):

You guys have been really good about that by the way. It's kind of remarkable that through the lineup changes somehow you've managed to get people who were not just on the level musically, but because when bands, you know what it's like when bands have lineup changes sometimes it's like doesn't feel like the band anymore starts to feel like a cover band almost. And people identify with lineups, but I feel like with you guys, I don't know, you guys just find the right people for some reason. It's kind of uncanny.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):

Exactly. It's so much more than the ability to play the songs,

(01:03:54):

Their outlook on life. Are they positive people? Are they going to laugh it off when the shit hits the fan? We've had some negative people in the band and it makes it so much harder. Like say catering, somebody gives you some sandwiches and you have that one guy that's like, this would be better if it was hot. If you have that guy for every situation, every good thing that happens isn't good enough. It's like you start to hate that person. You start to hate his contribution to the whole and it becomes like this. That is so far from my life now because we've had this process of vetting people and

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):

Well, what is the process?

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):

I guess it's just trying to know them a bit first before really committing them and letting 'em in the band. We had Alan play on a record and he wasn't technically invited into the band yet at that point.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):

I remember

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):

Mean we knew it was going that way, but we didn't want to give it to him. So kind of frivolously, you know what I mean? So yeah, we had to kind of drag him across the Kohl's for a while. He's been such a huge asset to this band. He's such a great guy. I feel like there's a lot of drummers that are kind of a pain in the ass dude, like an extreme drumming. There's a lot of divas personalities, a lot of divas, a lot of personalities. We've had guys that they got too much praise and they kind of lost that cutting edge of wanting to stay on top of their chops as

Speaker 1 (01:05:30):

Much.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):

And Allen is just, he's so grounded. He's so dedicated. He plays drums every fucking day of his life and he's been the perfect drummer for us. He's really been the perfect guy to sit in that seat. So yeah, man, we just have this band of friends. They're my best friends. But it's important to get people that have the right personality that are going to extend their hands to the fans, that're going to have that joking personality that we kind of embody. I guess I want, like you said, I want the band to feel like our band to people. I want the band to have that same personality that it always has to be like, that's important. It's not just about getting somebody that can play the licks, man. If you just do that, who knows who you're going to invite into your band, man. You have to have high standards for the quality of the person.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):

It's just crazy that you've found people who embody the personality of the band and the playing multiple times over like Ryan Knight and now Brandon for instance. That's crazy to me.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):

Oh dude, for sure. And Ryan, when he was stepping down from the band, he did such a great service. He told us a year and a half before he would actually leave.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):

He's such a great dude.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):

And the first name on his breath was Brandon. It was the exact same day. He told us he was stepping down. He's like Brandon Ellis. We knew who he was beforehand, but he's like, he's the guy. I think he could do it. I think he'd be into it. And in a lot of ways he was cut from the same cloth of influence as Ryan. He's a fellow rocker. He loves the Shrapnel Records era of shredders and the Ozzy guitar players and that whole thing. And Ryan just being so selfless with it like that, he made that transition into the Brandon era. So painless and so seamless. Brandon had more than a year of knowing he's going to come play to us with us. So he walked into the first practice and just destroyed everything. He didn't need that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):

So you guys hired him that far in advance?

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):

Well, we talked to him and we knew he was going to come in

(01:07:56):

And it was established that when Ryan was finally going to get off a touring circuit that Brandon would be ready waiting and prepared. And we took Brandon on one of Ryan's last tours to be a guitar tech and just kind of feel him out the show from that him and see the show from that angle for a while too. And yeah, it was just so natural. The very first European tour that we did with Brandon that first day on stage was like, we never missed a beat. But dude, that dude has been such a fucking blessing to have in the band man. He's brought so much energy and so much creative juice and he's been a real gift to the band

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):

And he's an incredible guitar player.

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):

Oh, for sure. And just the level of musicianship this kid is working at is inspiring and he's taught us a lot. And we just are old. We've been doing this for a long time, but we've learned so fucking much from this kid and it was really natural to kind of step back and give him the reins when we were mixing Night bringers. He knows more about the studio and frequencies and way more about that angle than Brian or I. So we stepped back and trusted him with that, and I loved how it came out. And in this record, he wanted to track all of us and kind of take the reins and be that last word guy when we were handing it off to two Madson

(01:09:24):

And he was the guy that saw it through the whole session. And it's amazing to have a guy with that kind of drive and knowledge and shit come into this Salty Dog band where we've been around so long and done things our way for so long and trusting him and has been so natural and so awesome. And it feels like the beginning of something with him coming in the band. And I feel like we made a great record in Night Brainers and we turned a lot of heads and we excited our fans, but we also, it gave us freedom and to be more stylistic and to be just push ourselves into making more various music with this album.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):

Interestingly enough, I was at to Madison's place. We did nail the mix with him last year when he was mixing your thing. So I heard it there. He played me a song and I was like, wow, this is cool. This is good. I was stoked.

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):

It's different. I feel like it's a little bit different.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):

It's a little nastier.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):

I want to say overall it's even less extreme than some of the albums we've done. There's a little bit less blasting, there's a little bit more grooving out, which we never really played with before. There's a little bit more mid pace stuff. There's some songs where we close the high hat straight up, which is unheard of from us. You know what I mean? A bit more rock and roll in there, A bit more new wave of British heavy metal. I think that that's kind of the influence that Brandon is bringing into the fold. A bit more of a traditional metal injection into the band. I don't know, he just kind of unlocked this sense of freedom and creativity. Really the focus is now to make the most powerful songs we can make the most dynamic, the most gripping, the most emotive. And I think that's what the strong suit of this record is. I think it's the most emotive shit that we've ever put the tape.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):

So with the engineering, it makes sense to me that you guys would eventually become a self-produced band because everything about what you guys do seems like as in-house as possible, basically like you said with the scrims for instance. It just seems to me if you guys can do something, you're going to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):

Yeah, that's exactly us. And

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):

When

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):

We come into the studio, every lick is written, every song is demoed out to the titties and there's very little room for deviation. We've given people production credits, but I don't think we've ever been produced in the very traditional sense where,

Speaker 1 (01:12:14):

No, I don't think so, man. I remember all the records I was involved with. Like you said, they were completely written in advance. It was just a matter of rerecording them higher quality

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):

For sure. We've always been that controlling of it and that kind of anal retentive of our thing. And I wouldn't know what to do if we came into a studio without every song written. It would be a really would be a panic.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):

Some bands do that blows my mind.

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):

You look at Panera just coming in and making a record on the fly and how amazing it comes out, those records where Phil writing the lyrics in the studio and stuff, and I just can't imagine doing any of that. The writing process for me is so long and painstaking and frustrating that, but we're vastly different bands anyway. But yeah, man, it's just the way we've always done things. We're always very controlling. Very, yeah, everything is done so well. I said we have given people production credits, but we haven't really let them stick their finger in the pie. You know what I mean? It's not like we're setting them our demos and they're helping us rewrite melodies or telling us to do the bridge longer or you know what I mean? We haven't given anyone the inch really to do that kind of thing with our band. Everything,

Speaker 1 (01:13:44):

Basically just engineering it really well.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):

Right.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):

Yeah. So it makes sense to me that if you had someone in the band who could engineer really well, then what's the point of going elsewhere?

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):

And that was so nice. We just had to go to Brandon's house in Jersey for me. It's an hour away by train, but his house is super nice, a super relaxed environment, tracking with him, just really natural. There's always being the vocalist and having to scream in front of somebody new every time. There is that kind of moment of trepidation, you know what I mean? Where you feel a little bit shy. But Brandon is somebody that I've played a million shows with by now, and so was very, very natural to work with him. He's very creative. He has a lot of great ideas. We tracked with the guitars, for example. We didn't cut and paste anything. They tracked every part of the album so that it wouldn't make your ear tired listening to it. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):

Why am I not surprised?

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):

Just that was his suggestion. He's so smart. He has such a refreshing way of looking at things and he's just brought a lot of information to light for us and a lot of new ways of looking at things. And it's been a fucking blast, dude. Honestly, it's, it's been awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):

That's what I mean by the way about the meticulousness, just taking the time to actually play everything just because even if the riff is played the same, it'll be just different enough to not tire out the listener. A lot of bands don't do that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:24):

Oh, I know.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):

And I kind of see you guys taking those kinds of steps with every decision, doing everything possible or everything as right as possible.

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):

We don't quantize the drums anymore. Just after a while, we had a meeting sort of when we're like, what is the difference between all these pre two thousands or pre-year 2000 albums that we love that are considered classics and the stuff that we do? And we're like, well, it's all this quantizing and sucking the life out of everything. And it was a disservice to the drummers that we had that we quantized because we always had rip and ass drummers, man, why suck the personality out of all these takes and just make the album sound exactly like everybody else's album that comes out now I'm sick of that shit. I'm sick of, I'm sick of every snare sounding like a shotgun

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):

Or a sneeze

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):

Or, and the same exact guitar tones on everything. There was basically a time when we thought we got to go back to the old ways of recording. We have to, even though it's more painstaking to do it that way, the end product is more classic sounding. It's more timeless, it's more energetic, it's got more personality. And that was a big awakening for us was like, yeah, we got to keep it more lively and keep it more real. It's just not the direction that everyone's going. You see, especially Tech Death when it comes out now is so pro tools to the titties and you have certain records where you can't even hear a pick scrape, you know what I mean? It's just the notes being cut and paste some kind of guitar Pro thing.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):

Yeah, it's almost like electronic music.

Speaker 2 (01:17:21):

Right? And there's stuff, I like some of that stuff, and I know that we have our part in influencing some of that stuff too. It was definitely a good move to realize the power of keeping them banned human. You know what I mean? And keeping, I think that the albums resonate a lot harder when they have their own tones and their own personality.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):

I've always wondered what the point is of quantizing a drummer like Shannon or something, it never made sense to me, so on it already. It's not like they're playing fucked up, they're playing great, and they have such a great feel that all you're doing is taking a great performance and stripping the feel out nothing to fix. So I never understood why performances that didn't need fixing. Were getting fixed. I get it. If the drummer sucks and they're some drummers who can't play kicks or whatever, I get it. So you got to know how to edit that. It is what it is. You can't give them a bad record just because the drummer fucked around. But when you get a drummer like Shannon or something, or Alex Inger or any of these guys, what's the point of editing

Speaker 2 (01:18:37):

Them? Yeah. I don't know, dude. And when we were looking for Shannon, when we were looking for a drummer, it was really hard a really search to find him. But by the time that he was six years later, YouTube had popped off and there were drummers everywhere. And also I think that largely young drummers in extreme metal have been informed by the Pro Tools era. There's some really tight drummers that have been working towards that perfection. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):

Yeah. They think that that's how drummers play,

Speaker 2 (01:19:12):

Right? So there was a big, big pool of drummers to choose from. When we were looking for Allen, it was a whole different climate of talent out there. It changed a lot during that time.

Speaker 1 (01:19:28):

Yeah, I remember that back in the early two thousands, just finding a drummer who could play to a click was finding a diamond.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):

Oh, for sure. Dude, I remember we were on Derek Roddy's message board. We went to Nam trying to find a drummer because they had that bullshit fastest kick competition every year, which you go see it with your own eyes and it's basically just bullshit. But we thought, well, we'll find the speed demon we're looking for here. And you did well, of course not. It was just like all we did was get wasted and talk to people with zebra stripe, cowboy hats on

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):

My favorite kind of hats. I've got a couple questions here from listeners that I would like to ask you.

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):

Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:20:18):

So Steven Rowlands is wondering, what was the inspiration for the dramatic vocal style change from miasma to nocturnal?

Speaker 2 (01:20:27):

I feel like the biggest dramatic change was from the first record to Miasma. Miasma was the first application of any technique that I had picked up while touring and we cut on hollowed while we were just a local band. We had never left the state, we'd never toured. We were entirely green. But yeah, I'm to, I wanted it to be less screechy. I think it was less screechy on nocturnal than it was on miasma. Yeah, I really see the biggest change in my evolution was from the first to the second record. So I'm not entirely sure how to answer that one.

Speaker 1 (01:21:06):

I mean, when you're going from record to record, do you think about changing up your style or is it just your voice evolves naturally and you take on new influences, listening to new things and it's just a natural organic thing?

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):

It's been mostly organic throughout this entire ride, I did kind of make a conscious decision to slow my delivery down on the new album and write at a bit slower pace to have less syllables crammed in. I have a real tendency to overwrite,

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):

You've got a lot of words flying out.

Speaker 2 (01:21:41):

I'm a motor mouth dude, and I don't know when to shut up a lot of times. And just the feel of black Tyler's music is always driving and driving and driving. It never stops. There's never a backbeat. There's never like a break from that. So I always feel compelled kind of keep spitting my rhymes. But with this record, I tried to give some of the riffs a bit of a breathing room, and also by making my delivery more slow and clear, hopefully make the album more hooky you and more powerful in that way. But for the most part, I just do what I do, man. That's kind of how we are. We haven't really discussed anything during this entire time except for after Deflate. We were like, why didn't this album resonate quite as much as nocturnal with people? And we realized that we were maybe going a little bit too tech and kind of forsaking dynamics and buildups and the power of simplicity at times.

(01:22:52):

And so we did come into the ritual album with a plan to be way more dynamic, to have way more song feels, to have way more variance in the tempos. And that was the moment too, where we started to incorporate samples live. So we were able to put a string section in a song and be able to reproduce it live suddenly and put a piano note in there, or just all of a sudden we were able to make the songs go from 2D to 3D it felt like. So that was one of the moments where we actually did have a talk about what we would do, but for the most part, it's just each record is the next batch of songs that we crank out.

Speaker 1 (01:23:39):

It sounds like you had the talk because you felt like something wasn't quite right and you had to fix it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):

And it was just really realizing that I think we are cramming too much info into one song, and there was no relent. There was no moment of

Speaker 1 (01:23:56):

No moment to breathe.

Speaker 2 (01:23:58):

Right. And now it's like there's moments to breathe. There's moments where it's going to get dense, and that's going to be more powerful because there's moments when the song is open too. So it's really just learning what you can do with dynamics. And I felt like we've had the formula for a good Black Dahlia song for a long time, but it's in the minutiae that you can change that really ends with the different end results. It's really the small choices you can make in songwriting. And we're still taking notes from all different kinds of music. We're still learning from all different kinds of music that we observe together and apart. A while back, I remember we were listening to Eddie Money in the back of the van, and there was a part in the chorus where most of the instruments drop out, and it's just the vocal and the guitar and me and Brandon looked at each other and were like, yeah, we're going to do that in a song.

(01:24:57):

That's awesome. We're going to put that on the short list of things to do. So there's no shortage of inspiration from everywhere, and we all love music in the band. And so, I don't know, man, just, it never ends. It feels like, I feel like I still have so much enthusiasm for what we do. I feel like I see another 20 years doing this. I feel like we are just now really spreading our wings into this, I don't know, like a new creative era for the band. And I'm just excited to make more music and see where things go from here. Honestly, I feel really liberated as That's

Speaker 1 (01:25:41):

Awesome. A creative

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):

Force. I feel like the band is very young in terms of how we're still yet to grow as musicians, and I see so much life left for this thing that I have the same amount of enthusiasm to do it. My tunnel vision is still set on this thing. And yeah, man, I'm just thankful for the ride. It's been amazing, and I feel very fortunate to still be here. It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:26:11):

It sounds like everybody's tunnel vision is still an enthusiasm, is still what it should be. Which again, that's like we're saying earlier, one of the things that fucks bans up is that they don't respect each other's roles. I think another thing that fucks bans up is that some members start to lose enthusiasm and it affects the morale of everybody and they don't replace them. But it seems to me through your lineup changes, you guys have managed to keep the energy up through the whole time. When someone wants to leave, they leave and you replace them with someone who wants to be there.

Speaker 2 (01:26:54):

Right? At first, the first couple member changes we're really, really ugly. And we took it really personally that somebody's motivation could change, and they didn't have that same tunnel vision on the band that we once did.

Speaker 1 (01:27:11):

So not everyone can be that way. It took me a while to learn that, by the way.

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):

Oh, me too. Me too. And now I'm just thankful for everybody's contribution that's been here when Bart stepped down because he just couldn't take the touring grind anymore. I understood. Because holy shit, do we tour a lot and holy shit, it's not fun sometimes, and it's definitely a grind. And Shannon shortly thereafter, stepped down on the same tip. Those we're still friends, and it's definitely better to be that way. It's better to, it's better for the band as a whole. We've even made up with some people in the past that we beefed with from some of those ugly breakups and stuff, and it definitely feels better to reconcile. But now I know some days something will happen and somebody in the band is going to change again. You know what I mean? It's

Speaker 1 (01:28:12):

Just the nature of life.

Speaker 2 (01:28:13):

It is. And I know that if we play our cards the same way and keep the same standards and that we'll be able to bounce back from it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:28:23):

That's really, really smart and mature. I think it's just tough at first when you're super driven to understand, to accept that other people are not as driven or they have different motivations or whatever. It's tough to get that.

Speaker 2 (01:28:41):

Yeah, it was a heartbreaker. Honestly, I took it so personally and it was such a blow, but I just wasn't being mature about it. We just weren't. We were being very vengeful about it and very, we just didn't know how to handle it properly at the time

Speaker 1 (01:29:01):

You do now. And I think it's smart to think that it might happen again, and now you know how to deal with it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):

For sure. You just got to be ready for anything, honestly. Just got to be ready for anything doing this. And there's a comfort in knowing that Brian is never going to stop either. We made a pact when we started this band or when we got signed that we were going to put life on hold and take this to the fucking hilt, and we never stopped. And this is the first time that we've actually taken the knee. Fucking stopped for a while,

Speaker 1 (01:29:39):

But it's not like you stopped. You kept going.

Speaker 2 (01:29:41):

No, it had to be catastrophe. That stopped us. The only thing powerful enough to stop this train was a fucking plague. So like I said, I'm weirdly thankful for this time to kind of get my energy back, and I've definitely done that. I feel like I've recharged in a way that I didn't know I was lacking kind of. But I am ready to get back out there. I'm ready for life to go back to normal, but dude, who fucking knows man, it's going to be a minute I was talking to Exactly, dude. I was talking to my psychiatrist on a Skype call, and he's like, A year from now, and this is still going on. Hearing your doctor say that it hurts a little bit more than just hearing that from the internet or something. You know what I mean? So I was like, ah, really, man, A fucking year, at least from this damnit.

Speaker 1 (01:30:33):

Yeah, we're in for the long haul. So I think that's why I think I keep saying to people that they should make the most of it and ready their mind for it because stuck for a while. So it's kind of up to you how this time passes.

Speaker 2 (01:30:54):

Oh, for sure, man. For sure. It's been hard to be positive. There's definitely some times where it's getting to me, of course, just the constant flood of negative news. But yeah, creating and turning to music as I always do, it still has its power. It still works. It's still my favorite thing, and it gives me the boost that I need. And so I'm trying to be that for other people. I'm trying to, I'm glad we got to put the record out to get them something to be into right now, and I'm glad to have all this press coming that's distracting people, and I'm glad to meet people on Twitch and make them smile and make them laugh and still have some kind of connection with the fans and

Speaker 1 (01:31:45):

Yeah, keeping it going. I have a question here from Dennis Toy. He says, I'm a Michigan resident, and just wanted to share that the Majesty DVD documentary was constantly played at our house and really made touring look like a blast with your friends. What was it like to put those together and did you enjoy making them or was it annoying to have a camera there constantly? I bet Brian loved it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:12):

The second one was a bit harder to make, but the Majesty one was kind of the perfect storm. We met Robbie, who was the videographer on Sounds of the Underground. He was there kind of shooting for them, and we became good friends, and we had a really similar sense of humor, and I think that was the real key to making that video. So what it was, it showed us on Summer Slaughter 2008, which was the big nocturnal tour when Nocturnal was blowing up, and it saw us above Sarcoptic, cryp, topsy cataclysm, aborted, all these bands that I worship. You know what I mean? So that was a huge moment, and we were in a bus, which was rare for us at the time, and you can just see how excited we are to be there at that moment. It was infectious. We were celebrating every night. We were young. Our livers were resilient, and I understand that that DVD shows all the great that can happen on tour, and none of the bullshit really though, you know what I mean? It's kind of just funneled into the great times. So it is done a lot of things. It made people feel like they knew us, which was big, but then when you change a member, they want that member back because they were in the TV program.

Speaker 1 (01:33:53):

They feel like it's their friend.

Speaker 2 (01:33:54):

They made the funny jokes. They had the funny jokes. So yeah, it definitely came back to bite us in the ass a little bit with that. In that way. There's still people that I think hang on to that particular lineup because of they just felt like they knew 'em. They felt like they were so, it's a powerful thing what you can do with that kind of media, you know what I mean? You can definitely, I don't know. It came at the right time for us, the release of it, and it was kind of the perfect storm of it was cool, it was great.

Speaker 1 (01:34:28):

The right DVD released at the right time has been massive for bands. And yeah, I think people identify with the people in them. They do kind of feel like it's their friends or something.

Speaker 2 (01:34:42):

I feel like every metalhead is kind of my friend by default. So this is how I look at it, man. I look at me being so into my own world here is perfect for me because me in the normal world just does not compute man fair. I do not belong in the normal world whatsoever. I'm way happier talking to my other fellow nerds and kind of putting my blinders onto everything I hate about the world and just doing my own neurotic rain man kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:35:16):

Well, I'm glad you figured this out.

Speaker 2 (01:35:18):

I've definitely mastered painting myself into a happy corner.

Speaker 1 (01:35:23):

Yeah. Well, dude, it's been awesome talking to you again. I think this is a good place to stop it. I just want to thank you for coming on, and I'm glad we got to catch up.

Speaker 2 (01:35:33):

Ah, dude. Thanks for having me, man. I was looking forward to it massively. That last interview was something, man, I got a little teared up during that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:43):

I remember.

Speaker 2 (01:35:44):

It was an emotional journey. It was a very good, very good. So I was definitely looking forward to coming back today, and yeah, thanks for having me, dude. It was a blast, as usual.

Speaker 1 (01:35:53):

I appreciate it. Okay, 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, Instagram, or any social media you use. Please tag me at Eyal Levi URM audio, and of course, please tag my guests as well. Till next time, happy mixing. 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.