The Last Drinks With Johnny Episode

You're now listening to sound talent media. Check out more shows at sound talent media.com. Happy holidays, everybody, and welcome to Drinks with Johnny. Coming to you with my two partners on the show here this week, Brandon Lombardo, Sam Hawkins. We haven't done a three amigos, the three of us, on a podcast in a very long time. I promised this last month when we dropped the episode with head P.E. singer Jared Gomez.

Just kind of talking about what we've been up to for the last year. And it's been really hard to get these two assholes to sit down. One of them had to lose his job to even get on here, Brandon. That's right, right? I got fired on my wedding, dude. What a dick move. Yeah, dude, what a dick move. And what an asshole would bring it up, like right off the top of the...

Not even a difference of opinions. It's you're fired. That's it. No, it was straight up. He got his ass canned. And that's, that's the only reason why we were able to do this episode. Everybody is because he finally got fired. It's true. Yeah. So, I mean, there's a silver lining to it.

And your wife let you do this now that we can say that because congratulations on getting married. Hey, thank you. Yes, yes. Now Sam gets to say my wife or your wife even more. He just likes to say wife. Just anytime he says wife. jesus christ well hey let's get let's let's get

Let's start with a little bit of the pleasantries real quick and then we'll get into it because we got a lot to cover. We've been, and I'm sure we won't get to it all, but there's been a lot going on in the three of our lives in the last three years. Last year, sorry. Last time before we were three.

together rather so you know i want to cover as much of that as i can as i as i mentioned before but uh let's just start with a quick check-in how you doing today guys sam let's start with you how are you feeling today Today I'm doing good. Lately it's been very chaotic and busy and...

Work and family and got sick last week. You know, the normal stuff everyone talks about. But I did do some good stuff. Went to Costa Mesa. I went to Costa Mesa. You made all the way to Costa Mesa. All the way to the next town over. From Huntington Beach, you crazy. Bastard. It was a trek, but I went to Costa Rica with the family over the holidays, and I saw some amazing stuff. Have you guys been there before? I've never been. No. Brando? No.

I mean, we were in the middle of the jungle. We did zip lining and all the fun stuff. White, white rafting. And we went with some neighbors of ours. And I got stung by a scorpion. Yes. And a big one too. So if you've gotten stuck by a story, what do you think happens? Well, I already know because I did see you. So I know this story. Oh, I don't. So I'll ask the questions. I have no idea. Death. But obviously not. Death.

Well, that's where your brain first is. No, he died. You know, he fucking died. He fucking died. I'm a ghost. It is Christmas. I'm the ghost of Christmas past. No, there was a towel on the ground and I was picking up and... They're attracted to it. Yeah. Well, I picked it up, and it felt like someone took a syringe and slammed it in the side of my ankle. And I was like, what the fuck is that?

and i look down and there is a not small but a giant scorpion in our house in costa rica and i just flip the out going what do we do who's gonna suck it what's gonna go on Wait, wait, wait. Who's going to suck it? Who's going to suck it is the best line that can be thrown out there. In any situation. Of course, my wife said, no, it's not going to be me.

And so, no. But I didn't know what it was. I'm like, do we mark it to see if it swells, whatever? And I felt like Ace Ventura, when he gets, like, in part two, when he gets the two spears and he just kind of goes like, ah, ah, and he looks at both.

And it turns out, just don't be a pussy. It's like a bee sting, and absolutely nothing happens. Really? It just hurts. I feel like there's a certain kind of scorpion, though. I feel like there's definitely ones that kill you. Well, if you get stung by Steve Bourdain. uh borden sorry steve borden you're definitely it's gonna hurt a little bit more than a bee sting you know what i mean yes no It was a fucking icon fucking joke. Come on, guys. Don't you know Steve Bourdain?

I mean, I do. Yes. Steve. Because remember, that's what I call him. That's what you call him now because he introduced himself as Steve to you one time. So now you disrespect him and only call him Steve. That's rude. I apologize, Steve. Sorry. Still send your Christmas card please.

No, I mean, so it is a little interesting that you, I mean, a little, that's not super interesting, but it's a little interesting that you got stung by a scorpion. I mean, that's one thing. Well, it's public service. If you get stung by a scorpion, don't freak out. You're probably fine. You're probably fine.

Are there other crazy like big bugs there? Yeah, dude, we went on a ziplining on it. There was one of those dart frogs. It was like glowing green dart frogs. They're only like this big, but I swear the guides are like... do not get away it's the one yeah you can't touch them because they have poison and it's what they used to take darts and they like take the poison on the back and then they spit it at people and stuff can you get high off that one you'll die no it kills you yeah oh okay

I don't know which... I mean, you might. Your tolerance was pretty high. I just want to know which ones I can get high off of and which ones I can't. You know what I mean? It's kind of like mushrooms, though. Some of them, you know, you don't know which ones are going to do what for you. That's true. Yep, it's a gamble. Yeah, I don't know. Well, I'm glad you're back and you survived the scorpion bite or sting, whatever it is. Brandon, what's up with you?

Life is good, man. I got married, lost my job, and now I just chill. It's honestly the best thing that's ever happened. No, dude, I was working way too hard, and like, that... job specifically added a layer of stress onto my life that I didn't realize was there. And then once it was gone, I was like, oh, oh, I was doing that for four years. What the fuck?

And, yeah, it's just easy to see how you can kind of slide down a slippery slope into something and get stuck there for a while. But, nah, dude, life is good. Yeah, your wedding was awesome, by the way. Thanks, man. I'm glad you guys came out. It was a fun time. It was a cool meshing of worlds from everyone here on the East Coast and all the West Coast people mixing and mingling.

Well, let's paint a picture. Brandon didn't just have a normal wedding. When you hear, oh, someone got married, you think cathedral and white dress and... And all the normal stuff. Yours was not normal. We were in Vegas. We got married in Vegas. Yeah, it's Vegas. We got married in Vegas. Who married you? Elvis, of course. The king. Of course.

Of course. Yeah. And oh my gosh, I got to say that was the best wedding I've ever been to in my life. It was fun, man. You were at my wedding too, asshole. He said it right though. The best. Hey, fuck you guys. Yours was good. and nice and fancy you know it's funny in john's when i was invited to his we weren't really that close at all then and we my wife and i kept being my wife and i were like my wife uh we're

We're very surprised that we were invited, to be honest, that we made the cut. And then this many years later, we're like, oh, of course. Obviously, it makes sense. We stuck it with it. But you got married, and it was quick. Yeah. And you danced and fog came in a Cadillac rolled into a cathedral. Anyone who wants to get married at what was the cathedral? I would recommend, um, the Viva Las Vegas chapel. Yeah. Great.

It was very Vegas, and it was like a full show. The fog machine, the music, everything. I got to say, for my knowledge of a Vegas wedding, you see the pictures and everything. Oh, it's Elvis fucking marries you. How fucking corny. and whatever that probably is. Although part of that is true. What you guys, it was really cool though. Cause I mean, it was like a full on show. It was like, yeah, this is a little hokey. We're leaning into it. And it was like, and, but.

But like with production and everything, the Elvis impersonator was good. You know, everything was cool, man. I had no idea. I loved that Jason and Joey from our warehouse, Avenged Sevenfold's warehouse. Got there early, thought they were late, ran in and saw two weddings for the price of one. And when I got there, I sat down and Jason's like, dude.

We already saw one. You're in for a treat. And I was like, no fucking way. And it did not disappoint. The wedding did not disappoint. The ceremony was awesome. I want to go. I kept telling everybody, and I told my wife, the next one I have, I'm absolutely going to go there.

yeah do something like that because it was so much fun it's so much fun and they have so many different characters too like elvis is just the one we chose they had we did it during halloween in october obviously so they had it teched out with spooky decorations and it was just When you walk in, it was definitely a sight to see. There's like fucking demons hanging and it was wild. By the way, why the fuck did you guys pick Halloween weekend in Vegas of all the weekends to go to Vegas?

Yeah. I don't know. That was kind of a... I don't know. Dude, fuck you. That makes it even worse that you didn't know because if you had thought about it, all of us guests had to go upon the second... Second busiest time in Las Vegas is October. For anyone who doesn't know already, Halloween and New Year's Eve are the two biggest times for Las Vegas, typically. I'm sure there's some other events like Formula One coming through and stuff. That would be crazy.

But for annual get-togethers, it's those two times. And Brandon here decides he's going to have his wedding on that weekend. For me, work-wise, it was a break between festivals. It was right after festival season ended. it was the week and you didn't know you were gonna get fired yet didn't know i was gonna get fired yet uh it was the week after when we were young so i'm like all right we're gonna miss that we won't have any of that traffic right it was before f1

because they were setting up while we were there so it was like a week or two before that so i'm like all right we slated it right there in the middle cool perfect weather will be nice because at that point we were still planning on having it outdoors at red rock and uh yeah yeah oh that's right you had like a whole everything changed you had to change everything like like that week dude it's because you picked the worst week go ahead yeah well no it's just because i don't plan well

The day after the bachelor party. He didn't know he was going to get fired, Sam. But no, the day after the bachelor party, I'm laying in the hotel room. in my bed like dying because my brain is just pounding and i still had to order chairs and get the like party bus and all that stuff like none of that was figured out because we had to change the reception venue the monday of the wedding And it was just like a shit show, bro. That happens. Every wedding has their like last week.

No matter how much planning you do, the last week always... Yeah. Yours was exceptional just not having a fucking venue to go to. That's wild, dude. But, you know, there's always some shit on there. And it was, like, perfect to the T. Like, as the party bus rolled up, we just put, like, the last chair in place and, like, had the place. No, no, no, no, no. Your mother was still putting chairs when I walked in. Oh, all right. Fair enough. Just so you know.

fair enough it was classy though i mean it was a nice they had a band that played that band was sick the band was phenomenal At first, I was like, this Sinatra dude was pretty good, but then the drummer started going off on some other stuff. Yeah. And I was like, oh.

Okay. I feel like Animal House. He did the whole, and like everyone in the whole place was dancing. He got up, he's playing drums on like the bar and on the barstools. It was awesome. It was classic Wedding Crashers band, but like in a house. It was pretty. cool man i i enjoyed it thoroughly it was fun man and sam actually put together a little video of the because we did the bachelor party then i drove back or i then we float uh i drove back to

Orange County to do the Death Bats Club show with the Bench Sevenfold, and then drove back to Vegas for the wedding. And Sam, this entire weekend, put together a little video. I don't know if he's ever going to show anyone. He showed me. I just got to finish up. No, we did a lot. So a lot of it's the bachelor party, which we shot machine guns. That was freaking awesome. That was my first time shooting guns. Ever? Ever. Ever? No.

Yeah. Well, you went all out, my friend. That's funny. That's hilarious that that was your first time because we shot like everything. I know. That's why I'm like, oh, wow. Paint a picture here. We're all in line. Everyone gets like these little packages where you can pick like five guns or whatever you want to do. And then. Johnny goes, I want the big one. What did you shoot? It was a .50 caliber. There was a bunch of different things that we shot. It was a minigun.

I just got like the big package, whatever the fucking package was that let you shoot like everything because it was like a rental place. I've never shot like that before. I've only gone out and shot like in the desert or camping or something like that. I've been to a few ranges actually, but not like that anyway. But yeah, that was super fun. The Tommy gun, I think, was still my favorite. Dude. 45 caliber automatic Tommy gun, just like letting it go. That was pretty fun. I need one.

Like, I really want one. I could see you. I could see you with the Tommy gun. I've been told you can't have a fully automatic one. Is that true? Ooh, filthy animal. Yeah. Really? I'm going to have to get one. Yeah. But yeah, it was a really good time. Maybe Sam will actually finish editing this video and we could show everybody.

And then, yeah, we had a break between. I went to the Punk Rock Museum, as I do, and got to see Johnny's... You guys, the Venge Sevenfold has a little thing there with Hopeless that we talked about on the... a previous episode, so I got to stop by and see that. Yeah. Even went to Pawn Stars. That was pretty cool. Nice. Oh, that was right down the street. Yeah, you said you were going there. Yeah. No, it was a great time. Vegas is always a great time.

I think we covered that. Congratulations to Brandon and Megan for tying the knot in Las Vegas. That was the deathbed club. You hit your elbow. What's up? How was the Death Bats Club show? That was great. No, no, we haven't covered that at all. That was amazing. It was just a lot of fun. Driving in from Vegas and then driving back by myself was actually kind of therapeutic and fun after everything I went through. We'll get to that in a second.

But yeah, the show was really fun. I mean, it was a little, that's the first time I ever played the observatory. I've been to the observatory before. Oh, really? That surprises me. Yeah. Yeah. We never, never played there before. So seeing a lot of great bands. There's a lag wagon, no effects there. Um, I actually saw Samoa Joe wrestle there years and years ago. Yeah. Yeah. When I was like in high school, um,

But yeah, I always loved that spot. I saw the offspring there. But yeah, anyways, it was really fun and got to see all the Death Bat Club, you know, NFT holders and fan club participants there. Some of the filthy animals, because obviously, as you guys know, there's some of the crossover from our Discord and the Avenged Sevenfold Discord over there. So it was really fun. Played some old songs I haven't played in...

forever which was a lot of fun to go back and revisit those and try and like remember what the fuck we were thinking when we were writing these songs to be honest how long did it take you to like go back into it and be like all right i got this were there anything that threw you off

You know, I'm trying to go through the set list in my head right now. Most of them, I will say, if not all of them, came back like 80% of it was like kind of muscle memory still, which I was really surprised by. I was like... oh, I do know where this is going, or once I found my footing, I kind of knew where it was going. But yeah, relearning it wasn't that much of a challenge, really, because again, I...

it was in there somewhere. It was just kind of unlocking it in a way. Yeah, definitely. And then, you know, just, just playing it though was, was a little weird and a little fun. Back then we, we did a lot of changes on waking specifically. that almost, when I look back at him now, seem unnecessary.

You know what I mean? We were like in our early 20s and stuff, and I'm not poo-pooing. I loved listening back to those songs. I'm still super proud of them. I can't even believe we were able to do that when we were in our early 20s. uh however i i gotta be honest and and critique it as a as a 40 year old now it's like there were some unnecessary changes and like parts that just weren't that

And they were just confusing. They were just there to confuse, it feels like, at some point. I'm like, it could have been the same chord progression. You could have sang that same thing over, but we started changing. Anyways, I could go off on a whole fucking thing about that. But anyways. uh so that was a little there was a little bit specifically that that that triggered that uh what's the one um uh

What's the one that we played that I hadn't played in a long time? I have to, I can't remember. I should be more prepared on that. This guy doesn't even know his own songs. Fuck. Nobody does, by the way. That's a hilarious thing. No one knows their own fucking songs. Titles. Come on. You know what's funny is I don't know that album at all. I know that. That's not funny. It doesn't surprise me at all. Look at you.

Sham. He's a straight sham, dude. Desecrate the reverence. Towards the end of Desecrate the Reverence, there's like a change. The way the outro comes and goes is just... It was a bit, it's just a bit odd to me. I don't know. But anyway, yeah, getting through those and just remembering them and kind of doing the whole scratch your head, rub your tummy kind of thing on some old songs.

It was a lot of fun. I'm not complaining at all. It was just very interesting to go back and listen to those songs and kind of open them up a little bit, which we haven't done in a long time. So it was a lot of fun, again. Some friends and family were there. My son was there. My wife was there. It was great. I think Michelle Hayner did a stage dive. I know River did a stage dive.

Oh, Brandon Chepetti from Bleeding Through was there. Some old friends ran into. I can't remember everybody now, but it was really cool. Brandon was on the show earlier this year. Was that last year? I don't even know. It was this year. It is. last year was it last year i don't remember i don't know man i think it was this year it was this year i think it was this year i think it was this year i think it was last year bro

All right, let's fact check him. Sam, fact check him when I finish this story. Let's make a bet. I'm pretty sure it was this year. Oh, okay, what's the bet? I'd say last year. Okay, if it was this year, then you have to, I don't know. Come up with the logo faster than you're going to.

Yeah, as Sam's going through that and we're talking about Drinks with Johnny here a little bit in some previous episodes, I do want to bring up the fact that we kind of had an abrupt stop this year earlier. We'll get to the reasons why in a second, but... When we had that abrupt stop back in October, or September rather, kind of figured it was a good time to revamp the show anyway. So when I mentioned the logo, we're going to be doing some revamps to the show.

um here very soon every day but we are going to continue and get back to a more regularly scheduled programming i say more because if you're a fan of the show you know how that goes but we try and keep it pretty regular yeah um but so yeah What do you got, Brando? New logo. Go buy that merch. It's 80% off. Oh, that's true. That's why we do that.

We do need a new logo because Brandon's wrong. So, Brandon, you lose. You need to make that logo. Really? What was this year? February. February of this year. Boom. Boom. You know what's throwing us off, though? This is the first year that we went through.

uh, December and went through the holidays and everything. That whole, that was the first time we've done that. And obviously we didn't do that this year. Um, so we didn't, we're next, the next goal is to get through two winters back to back. We'll see if we can ever do that. Why? Can I have a break? No, fuck no. That break we had was the best thing I did. No one ever gets a break. Now Brandon's...

You know, Brandon lost his job. I'm just waiting for you to lose your job, Sam, and then your guys are both online. Then this show's gonna be great. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be awesome again because you guys are gonna actually help me out again. It's gonna be amazing. Oh, it'll be like the good old days. You're fucking pieces of shit.

So I know where you're kind of going, but before you get in there, let's talk about what happened before that. You did Brazil. How was Brazil? First of all, what just happened to Brando? Did you just die, Brandon? No. Your lung fell on the floor. You know what fell? I'll show you. Something fell. His dildo fell. His dildo fell off the wall for sure. Oh, guess who? And he's holding it upside down. Yeah, it's upside down. We have a Christmas party every year.

uh all my friends and it's next monday so my gift for our weight elephant exchange is i'm replacing all the guess who characters with my friends and it's gonna be a custom game that's a great idea It's a great idea. Guess who's a great game. Play that. It's fun. Thanksgiving. It's a fantastic game. What were you going to say, though, Sam? You're saying before I get to somewhere that I wasn't even sure where I was going. So how do you know where I was going? Oh, I know you. I know you, Brian.

Brazil. That's a fucking massive thing. Congrats on that, man. Thank you. That looked like a lot of fun out there. So I was trying to think before we started this, did we talk about Jakarta? Did we talk about Europe? No. Have we not talked like even before Europe? I don't think we did. I don't even know you guys anymore. That's fucking weird.

It's fucking weird. I mean, we had a great year. So we'll get into Avenged Sevenfold stuff if we want to real quick. I was trying to talk about Drinks with Johnny, you know, while we're on the Drinks with Johnny podcast. But Sam wants to talk about Avenged Sevenfold. So I guess we'll start talking a little bit about that.

We're just trying to get ratings, man. Come on. Give the people what they want. I'm sitting here trying to have a good time. You guys over here chasing fucking views. I don't know what the fuck's going on. Chasing views. Cheap pops for 80% off merch. If you think this show is chasing views, we're... We're doing a real bad job. Well, you guys were because you had other jobs. That's why I'm waiting for you to fucking fail at your other jobs. That's right. Fuck, man. All right. Sorry.

No, don't be. Tell us a story, Johnny. What story? I don't even remember what I was talking about now. I know. Avenged Somefold. Yeah, we had a hell of a year, man. It was great. You guys went everywhere. We went a lot of places. A couple new ones that we haven't been to. A couple ones that we haven't been to in a long time. We did that whole European tour, which was a lot of fun.

Before that, we went back to Jakarta for the first time in, I think that was like 12 years, something like that. And sold out the stadium, the soccer stadium that we were in. It was amazing to see how much that fan base had grown still. I mean, it's always been one of our strongest fan bases, to be honest, since we've been there. I think our first time was 2007, maybe 2006.

It's always been one of those places that is kind of surreal for us where we go in and we're pop culture. We're like A-listers there. It's different. Like, you know, like hard rock acts here in the States. outside of metallica and a couple others you don't really consider them a-lister celebrities where you'd be walking around and people be like oh shit i gotta go say hi to that person well in jakarta that's like that's that's how it is for us like everywhere we're like what do i imagine

you know uh actors and stuff are like we walk around we get people following us and everything and um it's always been that way there for whatever reason we love it and it's pretty amazing but when you go away from somewhere for that long you don't know And we came back and it was even bigger than before. I mean, Zach went to Bali right after for a quick vacation since we were already over there.

And, yeah, he said even in Bali, everywhere that he went, our music videos were being played on every TV and everything. And it wasn't just set up for him, you know? That's wild. Yeah, it's just a different place for us. And I'm super appreciative and super grateful that we have one of those places in the world. Brazil is another one. You mentioned Brazil a minute ago that's kind of like that for us too.

We've been very fortunate in that, and it's been really cool to go back this year to some of those places after so long and kind of reconnect and see where... the fans have grown and where they you know gained some new ones just through the technology of streaming and everything like that it's really interesting and cool to see and yeah that

That show in Indonesia was great getting back there. I love that place. It looked like it's gotten since 12 years prior. It wasn't quite as third world-ish as I'd seen previous. I don't know if we were in a different area, but yeah, it was pretty nice. I heard that they had a government switch of some kind. I don't know much. I didn't.

Um, so it seems like their, their country in general is, uh, Indonesia in general is, is coming around into a different direction, which I was pleasantly, uh, surprised to see. Cause, uh, you know, like I said, the first few times we went around there. It kind of felt bad, man. Not even kind of. I felt bad. You're driving around, and it's amazing for me as a human being to be able to travel that far and do this thing that I love.

And then you look and you see the poverty on the streets. And it's not like the poverty in America. It's very, it's true poverty. Like it's, you know, families living in the mud, like literally, like I'm not. you know, and stuff like that. It's just, it's real bad. Um, but I didn't see much of that, uh, this last time I went there, um, at least where the areas that we were in. So that was great. I was, I'm so pumped for that country, uh, to.

you know start flourishing a little bit um and then yeah all over europe was great i mean man that was that was a really fun time because halfway through we had uh all of us had our families come out and we were just uh jetting around and having a good time all the kids were hanging out backstage chasing each other and having a great time we'd go to the Tivoli Circus in Denmark that was like my son's favorite spot

Is it a music park or an actual circus? No, it's an amusement park. Oh, you don't know Tabbily. It's actually the original. It's the oldest theme park in the world. And it's the original idea that Walt Disney stole. Uh, to bring Disneyland to America. And he says, they always say like he was inspired by, but when you're there, it's like, Oh no, he just straight ripped it off. Like it's like, Oh really? It's, it's. It's more European and old, but all he did was slap a little American.

modernization in the 1900s to it like you put the western part of it and that was it yeah yeah and that like and and remade the stories you know i mean these are old europe if you look at the stories that disney has though too a lot of them i'm not going to say all of them but most of them are uh old old stories that they just folklore folklore and stuff so i mean when you see it's kind of funny you're like oh no he just straight ripped it like it's not it's he didn't borrow he stole that

Is it busy like Disneyland? Well, I mean, it depends on the time and day and everything. And it's not as big. They don't have as many rides. It's not as extravagant. I'm just saying the idea is, yeah, if you have a chance to go, it's a lot of fun. I've pretty much been there almost every time I've been in Denmark, in Copenhagen specifically. Copenhagen was cool. We saw our boys in Steel Panther.

We're out there with that show with us. Oh, really? And Robert Trujillo came out because they had the next night or something like that. They were there. Metallica was there the night before. So Europe was really fun for that, too. It's just, again, coming...

It's funny to think of now that we were still coming back from a hiatus for so long, but going out and doing those European festivals was the first time we were seeing some of our old friends that we haven't seen in a long time. Not the ones that I talk to regularly.

uh or anything like that but just the ones that you just you haven't seen in a while but you still love to hang out and say hi to and stuff and there was there was a few of those moments in europe and uh doing download again was great um Sophie Lloyd came out. That was great. She was there. Came back where I was getting my hair cut before the show. Sullivan King was there. He was also on the show earlier this year.

So yeah, it was just really fun, really cool getting to go out there and do Europe. And then in September, I think the culmination of everything for this year, kind of for me, was Rockin' Rio. 40th anniversary in September, which was unbelievable. It was really cool to reconnect again with Brazilian fans and just to be a part of Rock and Real. I mean...

I grew up listening to live albums and live performances from Rockin' Rio, from some of my favorite bands. Iron Maiden, probably one of the most famous ones of it. And I'm trying to blank on some others right now, but... Even before you become a musician, that's something that you've heard of and you know about, right? And to first years ago, we did main support for Iron Maiden.

at rock and rio just to see what that was was like i was my mind was blown i think i must have been 23 24 years old at the time um and it felt massive and then to come back and do the 40th anniversary, headline it, and sell out our date. You know, there's a lot of times in my career where I've been asked, like,

when was the time that you felt like you made it, you know, over the years? And I've never had a good answer for it. Just never have. There's never been a moment that I can say, there's been several moments I could say, oh, that was a big jump, you know, backcountry. On TRL. I can even go back to Unholy Confessions. Getting played on Headbangers Ball was a huge thing. Metallica taking us out for the first time. You know, there's...

Again, there's just several things that I could point to as big steps in our career, but never at any of those points did I ever just kind of go like, oh, I've realized my dream. Until we did Rock in Rio. And I'm being 100% honest, everything just lined up really oddly for me on that. It's a 40-year anniversary. I was turning 40 that year. I got to meet the guy who created Rock in Rio back in 1984, right before I was born in September.

And I got to talk to him about all the different years that he'd been doing it and all the different acts and the different sizes. I mean, back in the 80s, they didn't have the regulations that they have now for throwing on concerts. So, you know, they'd have... nine million people for the week there, you know, like 300,000 people a day. And now with all the regulations and scales there, you know, it's, it's, uh, our, I think sellouts a hundred thousand.

With some extras. It was like 125,000 people there. That's fucking wild. Still huge. Don't get me wrong. But like when you think of that, like. And that chaos that must have been when they were first putting those on, they didn't have the infrastructure for that shit, but he just kind of went for it. And I love that, you know, and he's built up this huge thing that, you know, started in more rock. But I mean, the other nights was.

Travis Scott, Katy Perry. I mean, these are huge pop acts. Oh, Travis Scott, by the way, we got there early, so I ended up going that night. that we got in and watched Travis Scott. I wasn't super familiar with his music, heard the stories of, you know, his shows being a little rowdy and stuff for hip hop and stuff. I was like, oh, we'll go check this out.

Songs were awesome. The crowd was awesome though. It was like a rock and roll crowd for a hip hop show. They straight up had a mosh bit. They straight up had flares and stuff. Now I get why everyone gets upset or some people will get upset about that because of the people who have passed with the festival and stuff. I won't get into all that. That's old news. And I'm very sorry for those who pass away of that. That's not to take away from that, but certainly.

And that's something we need to get into right now. But yeah, it was an entertaining, great show that he put on. And then again, just to be among those names, knowing that it's on every music channel. on you know their basic cable and everything like that it's on all their mtv shit and playing all week and it's a it's a big footprint to have in in brazil um and to see that growth again is

It's just so humbling, truly. Getting to headline the 40th anniversary of such a coveted festival in the world, to sell it out, play in front of that many people. feel the joy and the love that was there everything about it was just so humbling and so amazing and even in the moment like I was so happy we celebrated afterward we had a great time

And it wasn't until I got home that I still can answer that question now and say that it was rockin' Rio. It was when I watched back our performance. Like, we all got set the stream. The stream went out to, you know, whatever, the world, mostly in Brazil or whatever. So after the fact, two days later, I was able to watch it myself. And I had tears of joy straight up while I was watching. Never had that before in my life. I've watched a lot of our performances before.

There was a lot of mixed emotions. I was up here in my room right here watching on my computer screen or my studio screen. I got the Rev. stuff here i think you can see the guitar here and i got my posters and i still keep all my rev stuff around in this room that i was watching it so it's a lot of mixed emotions too because it was you know uh

as much as I'm realizing this is like, I'm living my childhood dream and this is insane. I'm missing my best friend still and my older brother, my mentor, a lot of mixed emotions in that, but still overjoy is really what I felt. and humility at the same time of just being like, holy shit, this is, it was a weird, weird time when I watched that back. I was very emotional. And it was exactly what I needed at that time. And as I said, tears of joy, just knowing that...

Finally putting myself into that perspective and thinking about when I was a kid, what I imagined being a musician was going to be like. It's really what I was trying to do.

And that experience and so many others, when I'm being honest, have exceeded those expectations so many times over. I'm so grateful. And at the same time, I've never... allowed myself to say like wow i'm living out my childhood dream but i am like that's a weird thing to like as early as i can remember knowing what i wanted to do it's been an entertainer and music

And that's what I do for a living. And that's pretty insane. And not only that, I do it on a certain level that allows me to play Rock in Rio on its 40th anniversary. it also just seemed like the stars were just aligning and all the coins in my life were landing on heads in September. It was really wild guys. I mean, and to be able to, that was the other thing, you know, watching that show.

Missing Jimmy, feeling the joy of self-recognition and self-worth, and seeing my brothers up there with me realizing that aspect too. That's what I mean by... Having the dream to play in music and everything is more of a professional dream in a way. It's artistic too and creative, don't get me wrong, but it's more of a professional dream. I never imagined or never even thought.

differently I guess that it would be with my best friends in the world like literally the the dudes on the stage are the guys that I call that my son calls uncle you know like And we've been through so much together. We truly are a family. And to see all of us firing on all cylinders, we got a little taste of it.

download festival in london that was another great performance where i felt like we were just all firing on all cylinders um and to watch rock and rio back and see all of my brothers and myself Doing what we love to do together in front of so many of our fans and just that energy, that experience, everything, the culmination of it all. I was...

filled with emotions, man. And I have to admit, I had a big smile on my face with tears running down, just being like, and I was texting everybody just saying, wow, like, it felt good on stage, but until I watched it back, it just... You don't see everything when I only have this one perspective, right? So it was super cool. And shout out to Rockin' Rio, man. I mean, they always have an amazing festival every year.

And honored and humbled to be a part of that. Absolutely. That was really cool. That's awesome. Dude, 40 years is a long time. It's got to be one of the longest running festival brands, right? Yeah. That's a great question. I can't think of it. I don't know anything in the U.S. that has that longevity, right? No. Because Lollapalooza is probably the longest reigning I can think of in the U.S. And that was in the 80s?

I thought that was late 80s. I don't know. We should probably look it up since we're on a podcast and talking about it. We're probably going to take this for what we actually think.

yeah no it's it's it's one of the biggest yes it's a huge moment and not even just and like i said i i want to i don't want to beat the beat a dead horse here but i want to be thorough in this and pointing out and describing it correctly it's not necessarily just the show it's not that it's rock and rio that was just a part of it it was the experience it was the energy it was the realization that i never allowed myself to see before

Because you always have blinders. I've talked to other guys on this show, other artists, females as well. I don't mean to say guys like that. I just mean artists in general. About how we are. To get to a level of success, you have to keep going, right? Or it seems that way. At least in your 20s and 30s or whatever the case may be. It just seems like you have to put on the blinders and just keep going. But then you miss a lot of the shit along the way.

Not the memories, but the feelings. I don't think you miss the memories. Well, some of us do who drank a little too much through some of it. But in general, you don't lose those memories. You miss the feeling, though, and the recognition. of what you're doing along the way. If you always stop and smell the flowers, you can't get ahead. So I think this is one of those cases where it's OK to stop and smell those flowers.

Definitely. I felt like it was the year to do that or the timing. I don't know. What were you going to say? Sam, though, you had some facts for us. Yeah, so Pink Pop in the Netherlands is actually the longest running festival at 43 years. But it concluded in 2012. So it looks like Rock and Rio will probably be taking that Guinness Book of World Records in about four years. Pink pop isn't a thing anymore? It says it was from 1970 to 2012. Wow, we've done a pink pop before.

At least one. I did too. Wow, I didn't realize that. Wow. No, you didn't. There it is. That's definitely the line from the guy who didn't get laid in high school. but um yeah and then uh to tap out the that's interesting though honestly i pink pop i didn't realize it had been that long and i was one of the festivals he's done and maybe i grass pop is still running we just did that but maybe

I was getting them confused. I didn't realize the pink pop wasn't there anymore. Wow. And then to wrap up the shows real quick and then we'll get back to the drinks with Johnny and why we went on a hiatus here. Yeah, then we just went to India last month for the first time. That was really cool. Very curious about that. How was it?

it was cool now i know because of our text threads the kind of questions you want me to answer but i can't because i didn't get to do much unfortunately um so basically like Where we went is the first time ever there. And as Matt had said, we were looking at our set list in Jakarta months ago and saw, you know, let's see what.

Our fan bases are streaming the most, you know, kind of use that technology as a litmus test, if you will, and to put together a set list. And in that we, you know, we're doing research and we see, you know.

India is popping up. You know, there's a lot of people in India and there's a lot of streamers, you know, it's a lot of music being streamed. So we're like, Hey, the, should we ask, we ask promoters and see if there's any interest in us coming. They got a festival. They said, yeah, here you go.

We were like, yeah, this is great. So we were going to go do it and get there. And I kind of already knew this was going to be the case. I was told it was kind of financial district, kind of Silicon Valley of India in Bangalore. And it was that, you know, like it was like we were about a half an hour from like downtown where there was a couple of temples, but it's mostly like from everything that I was told.

We were at least an hour and a half away from any of the cultural cool stuff to see. And we just didn't have time for a round trip. We were in and out. I was literally, the whole trip was five days for me to go. you know two days uh you know probably three and a half four days of that was just travel jesus so um yeah so it was it was a quick turnaround now to say all that i didn't get

to see much aside from traffic and everything like that. You know, there was, you know, there's some people defecating out in the streets as they tend to do when they don't have, you know, proper plumbing in their houses. Downtown. Right? It's not that much different these days. But the crowd, that was the cool part, was going out and seeing the crowd in a festival setting in India.

You don't know. Everyone has their cultural differences. I remember the first time I went to Japan, it was a culture shock to have them go quiet after a song. I don't know how India fans are going to react. It was interesting to see that they were... very similar to all the other metal crowds or hard rock crowds that you see around the world. It was really cool. It was like, you're in a completely different place, you know, that you wouldn't even think of has a lot of much of a hard rock scene.

Bloody Wood, by the way, the guys in Bloody Wood that went on before us were fucking awesome. They're fucking rad, dude. Yeah, yeah. Check them out. You will. Everyone at home, go check out Bloody Wood. They're a great band.

They just dropped a new single with, I think, Baby Metal. Oh, did they? Yeah. They were really good. Oh, that's sick. Yeah, they're a great band. When I still had a job, I had the privy to listen to the... Well, I don't even know if I can say this. I'm not going to say stuff. Why? You already lost that job. I don't want to spoil things. You know what I mean? Oh, that's good of you. Good stuff coming from them. Anyways, so yeah, Bloody Wood, great band.

Went on before. They had a great fan base. Obviously, they put on a great show. I love their music. Before I got out there, then seeing them perform it was really cool. So shout out to those guys. Shout out to the crowds there. The festival that they put on, Bandland, was really good. Yeah, and the crowd was great. I mean, that's about as much as I saw in India, to be honest.

And I would love to go back and see more of the culture. Hopefully we could get to see some more cities out there and make it work. But who knows? That was our little dip in the... dipping our toe in the water over there and checking it out. And there was great crowds, great fan base out there. So hopefully there'll be an opportunity to get back there sometime soon.

To cap off the live performances on talking about the future, congrats on the System of Down Chicago shows. Thank you. I think I'm going to have to fly out for that one. Sorry, bud. Brandon, are you going? No. Nope. It's sold out. I can't get a ticket. You guys cannot get tickets. Did you think I was going to put you on the list or something? I was hoping. Are you going to hit up Shavo? You're going to hit up Shavo?

I'll hit John. You're going to hit John. There you go. It's only a six hour drive for me. So that's true. I'll see you outside the gates. What a dick. No, I'm looking forward to that. That's a really cool thing. Have you played there before? I played Soldier Field before, yeah. We played with Metallica when we did that tour with them.

But this is two nights now. I have friends in System too. Part of the Velvet Hammer family. Shout out to them. Putting it on and putting it together. System doesn't do a lot of shows. And for that reason, I think there was a big demand for it. And they felt like they wanted to get back out. I won't put words in their mouth of why they decided at this point to do the stadium tour.

Money. They need money. They're all broke. They have no money. I won't say it, but Sam... I'm just kidding. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. They're doing just fine. They're doing just fine. Yeah, but love those dudes. We've been friends with those guys since we did OzFest with them in 2006. Great dudes. And they asked if we'd be a part of it. We were honored. And yeah, it seemed like an awesome...

fun thing to do together and get them in the, in the stadium together with us and just make it a big, happy family kind of thing. Oh, Polyphia is going to be there with us too. That's going to be sick. Yeah. Who we did a Amsterdam show with earlier this year when we were out in Europe and had them on, uh, had Scott and, uh, why am I drawing a blank? I had the bliffy dudes on the fucking show. Um,

Tim Henson. That's right. Scott and Tim. Sorry. And that'll be the one clip that they actually will see too, by the way. And they're going to be very offended. Way to go. No, they won't. They won't. They'll be fine. Don't worry, Brandon. We'll get to clipping that out. No, you won't. Brandon doesn't clip anything out. That's why we get like, we do like two hour episodes and we get like three clips a week, you know? Dude, listen, once I lost my job. By the way, if anyone out there is.

wants to help us out with social media, send a resume over, uh, Sam. Are you really pimping that out on the show right now? Why not? You do. Yeah. The one thing I like about, um, Like obviously the system shows that's awesome. I love the artwork on the ad mats that they had for each show. I thought it was. Oh yeah. Yeah. That was a, that was, I'm glad you brought that up for two reasons. One. Yes. The artwork was awesome on that. I saw that for all of them.

i love the corn one uh yeah that one looked great yeah um that was another cool thing that you could tell the way the system wanted to do this do the stadiums uh just a few stadiums because they only do a few shows a year anyway But each one felt special. Bring out the friends. Yeah, they made it a special thing. We have ours in Chicago. You've got New York. It's just...

It's a really cool thing. Very happy to be a part of. And it's going to be fun, man. That's August. We're going back to Europe before that in June. We're going to a few places we haven't been before there. So looking forward to that. Some really cool venues, some really cool places there. I think it was Slovenia or Slovakia. Someone bring up the ad, Matt, that we sent out that has all the fucking places we're going. But yeah.

Man, we dropped that, though. We dropped our European thing. And everyone in, where was it? Hungary. Just started saying, we got to get to Hungary. And we're like, yeah, I think it was Hungary. And like, oh, you guys are so close. You got to come. Got an onslaught on social media on that. I did hear they were starving for attention over there. Oh, is that a hungry joke? Is that a hungry joke?

Is there any worry yet that you haven't played that you're like, dude, we need to play there? Just to say you've done it. I want to play somewhere in Africa because I want to go to Africa. I want to use it as a vacation. Of course. I'll already be there and then I'll just go do one of those safaris for a couple of weeks. Totally. That'd be rad. I'd love to go to Africa.

I mean, as I just said, that's probably a really ignorant thing to say. I'm just going to fly over there and then I'm going to do some... safaris like it's not a giant fucking continent that i would have to like go like right yeah uh you know it's funny though as we think about like we picture a globe and we're like oh yeah you just fly there and then you'll just hop around and it's like dude that's it's a whole other fucking place you're going to like that's not

yeah totally but yeah so i to answer that question that's one that i that i think of uh I don't want to say often, but when I think about places that I'd like to go, I'd like to go there. I think that'd be fun. Maybe the North Pole. North Pole. It's the holiday season. I'm not even lying, dude. I was just looking up.

like trips, like how do you get to the North pole? There's like a, I think 20 or $30,000. I think you have to pull a buddy, the elf and climb into Santa sack. No, it's like a legitimate, I think it's a Russian cruise ship. That'll take you there. And then like the pole itself is just sitting on a fucking, uh, like a glacier. It's so, it's cool. Like the literal pole, the literal, like top, like North pole. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. See, I would like to go there.

And I don't know how else I'm going to get there unless, I mean, well, I guess I could just do what Brandon just said, look up and fucking find a way to get there. It's really cold, though. Yeah, I don't like the cold. It's like negative 20. That's a lot of travel for not much. Negative 20 in the summer. Yeah.

Do you guys see Red One? You saw Red One, John. I saw Red One. I just watched it. Amazing. Blew my mind. I was very surprised. Have you seen it, Brando? What is it? It's The Rock and Captain America's holiday movie. No, I've not. It's on Amazon. Chris Evans, right? That's, that's Evans, right? That's Chris Evans. Yeah. Red one. Okay. I'll check it out. Kid friendly. Oh yeah. It's a kid's movie. It's a kid's holiday. Totally.

But it's done as an action movie, like a legit action movie. And they do a good job. Come on, it's The Rock. Come on. Fair, fair. I just found out today there's a prequel to The Grinch. Huh? Yeah. Like a real one? Yeah. It came out in the 70s. Like a horror movie one? No, it's Halloween is the Grinch's Night or something like that. Yeah, it was an ABC special. It's a literal prequel to How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Like, yeah.

Sounds like they were trying to do like a Halloween to Christmas thing. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Smart. And? Did you see it? Tim Burton did a good job of it. I didn't see it yet. I just found out like an hour before this. And then I found out there's another one. The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat. A crossover. These all came out in like the 70s and 80s.

The fuck were they thinking back then? Money. It's the same shit we're doing now. Obviously didn't do much if we haven't heard of it. Hey man, there's flops. Well, the good thing about kids is you're like, oh, here's a cartoon. I haven't seen this. I don't have much to watch. Let's see what this is. Yeah. It's hard. Kids don't like cartoons. They like the fucking 3D animation stuff. That's true. You know what I mean?

Well, that is cartoons to them. Yeah. It's not to me, though. I hate it. I know. I know. It's not an actual drawing. Drawing. Yeah. I got one over here. I love it. It's my favorite. I started collecting old animation cell art. Oh, did you really? What's that? Show me. What's that? I don't even know what old animation cell art is. You know how they used to make cartoons? They have a background that's all hand-drawn, and then they have transparent cells that go over top to make the image.

I got this one. It's an old Beavis and Butthead. Oh, Beavis. The Great Cornholia. I love it. It's like my favorite episode of Beavis and Butthead. Now I'm proud to have it. Fantastic. Your favorite episode is the Cornholio episode, the first one? The Cornholio Halloween episode. Ah, specific. I like it. It's weird that my son does it.

And he doesn't even really know Beavis in my head, but he'll just do that because the internet taught him it. Well, I think that was something we always did. We always pulled our shirts over our heads before. It was Mike Judge that turned it into the Cornholio thing. Yeah, and now it's autism. What? I was like, how did he make that leap? Kidding. No, you're not. That's the sad part. That's why you got fired.

Yeah, HR is like, we got to talk about the shit that you're bringing up in meetings, Brandon. Yeah, we're going to get to the bottom of why Brandon got fired by the end of this episode because I still don't know. I just... You just said that place was whack. You sound like someone else. I got a letter emailed. I got fired via email. At like midnight.

It's like Eric Bischoff sending a FedEx to Stone Cold to fire him in WCW. Dude, that, yeah, it's just, I don't know. It's just a shitty way. Not even a shitty way, just a pussy way. Tell us about your badass wife.

Oh, yeah. She's badass, dude. Wow. That's riveting. No, Sam's alluding to it for you. I'll go into it. Our company had a... We ran on a... messaging thing called slack i'm sure you guys probably use slack i'm sure people probably use slack for work they listen to this but uh my wife used to work for the company she got fired like three or four months before me but still had an account on slack

So the day I got fired, she went on there. I no longer had access, but she just wrote this big, long, scathing message to the CEO of the company and kind of just called him out and put everyone on blast. And it was a proud moment right there for my wife. It was really nice. She got your back, dude. She does. Nice. She does. She's got your back. It's a beautiful thing. Feels good. I mean, I still don't know. I mean, she probably should have found out why you got fired first because, you know.

It was probably your fault. There was no reason given to me. There was no cause. You guys are fucking weird in California where you have at-will employment and people can just be fired whenever. There were some political things. There were some political things it led to. See, now you just point fingers at everybody. This is why I'm starting to think that you're the problem here. Maybe.

Maybe I am. You're okay with it. You're okay with it. You don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck. It was a good... That's amazing. Yeah. Well, I mean, truth be, behind the scenes, we've been talking about you... Getting rid of that job off the plate for a long time. Yeah. Just to get you to hang out with us again. It was going to be the end of December. I was just going to quit. And then I ended up getting severance. So basically I got paid until the end of December. And I ain't mad about it.

You know what I mean? I still remember the day, Johnny. I remember. I don't know if you remember this. It was probably like one of the 2 or 3 a.m. calls once I... like moved back to the east coast and you were still you know having fun times up on the porch porch talks porch talks it was a porch talk phone balcony balcony talks balcony talk i have two stories at my house That's true. The balcony talk. Sorry. And I just remember you being so sad. You're like,

I just know there's going to be a day where they take you away from me and you can't do the podcast anymore. And you're just going to work there. And you were very, very sad. And I don't like sad Johnny. I'm happy again. Yeah, we got you back. You're fired. You fucking sucked at that job. Welcome back. That was really good. We can tell. It's really good.

No, we know you're working. We know the true backstory of what's going on. Yeah, of course. But it's fun to bust your balls. It is. It's very fun. My little cousins were actually busting my balls the week after we did the wedding in Vegas. We did one here in Newcastle. And my little cousins, they're probably like, I don't know, sixth grade, fifth grade. They're just like, I've never met a fire. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you just now telling me I had an option of going to either Vegas?

Or Newcastle for your wedding? I don't know. Maybe you didn't scan the QR code on the invitation to see that you were invited to vote. I was there dressed as John Cena. What the shit is a fucking QR code? Yeah, exactly. Anyways, go ahead. Tell your story about those Newcastle fucks. I don't know. It was my little cousins and they're just like, I never met a fired person before. I'm like...

My aunt was just like, stop, stop. I'm like, I don't care. That's actually hilarious. It's actually hilarious. yeah no that's fucking awesome and I was stoned out of my mind that day because there was a little like comic con in town and the godfather was there okay let's go stop by right and it turns into him going hey you smoke yeah

Want to go? That was the day of your thing? Yeah, that was the day of the wedding reception in town. I was fucking blasted. That's so good. I didn't realize that. That's so good. Yeah, because we were texting about that, and you're like, oh, yeah, I just went and saw. Said hi to our buddy, the Godfather, and he smoked me out. And I was like, oh, right on. What the fuck is going on? Why is he in Newcastle? Yeah, it was random as shit. It was really random, but worked out well.

Prophecy of the Godfather. Shout out to the Godfather. The last time when I had him on the podcast, I hadn't really started my relationship back up with marijuana as much as I have now. So I got to get him back on this. I'm going to go to Vegas. You should. I'm not going to dab though.

That fucking shit. I learned too much about what that is. And I even told Kenny, Sam, you were there when Kenny came on the show. We'll talk about it. I was like, I love weed, but dabs too much. And now that I know even more about it. Yeah. Have you ever done them?

You've never done? Dude, I've done it like twice in my life. And the first time I passed out for like two hours and just had to take a nap. It's just too much. Like, it's not. It is. If your tolerance is that high, like, what are you doing? No way. You know, well, I mean, if your tolerance is that high, whatever, I'm not going to come on here and tell people what to do with their lives. But I mean, it's just too much for me. It's too much for me.

It's a super concentrate. It's not even marijuana anymore. It's like a step away from heroin when you super concentrate it that much. You know what I mean? And that's why you just lay there and pass out or just lay there and trip. Which if that's what you're looking for, I'm not here to judge. But that's not the way I like to get high. I get high and I do stuff. I don't know. I enjoy it.

where i go enjoy a movie or something i'm still there like everybody that i've said talk to that's done dabs are like oh you just go you go away you're not there anymore it's like well that's I mean, sometimes there's a time and place for that. Like, I love fucking psychedelics. That takes you to a different place. Yeah. But like...

Weeds not that for me. I also burns right isn't like super hot. So just fucking hurts. It doesn't sound I think I know I think there's there's ways you do it like the way so you get it super hot But then you put it that's why they have those Those cylinders that look like bongs, the water cools it down in there and then you can hit that. But you're still getting that super concentrate in there. You're not supposed to go straight from there.

You still cough like a motherfucker. Every person I've seen fake dabs, they, like, die. Like, they hang out that lung. It is such a concentrated amount of THC in this little fucking ball of wax that they have to get it up so high. and heat that just cools it down but you're still getting a shit ton of smoke like i don't know it's a ton it's a ton i mean i'm not an expert

So people watching this at home will be fucking fire off on the comments. Let me know how little I know about this. But for me, it's too much. I'm good with fucking gummies and smoking and all that good stuff. Weed drinks, all that shit, but dabs and all the super concentrates. I can't hang. Maybe I'm just too old. I don't know. Have you done Delta 9, you guys? Mm-hmm.

No, I don't like that stuff either. Godfather was talking about that when it was new when he was on the show like three years ago. Well, I don't want to say what family... what family member but i we did a white elephant and there was a silly gift and then at the end the said family member came up to me and she goes i mean they go i don't want to out them too much

But they they basically said that they took what they thought was just they went to over counter thinking they were getting CBD like oil or something like that. But it was Delta nine. So they just thought it was something different of it. And they got. knocked on their ass and and they're like oh my god it was it was like regular weed yeah yeah but that's not because it's delta 9 though delta 9 just we is just because they didn't know that they were about to get high yeah

Well, I know, but I'm saying is Delta 9 like THC? Is it the same high? It's the same. It's the same. Those are just loopholes. Delta 9, Delta 8, THC A, THC, all these other things that they're coming out with. Legal ways that they're growing, that the farmers are growing and doing things, not dispensaries, but the companies, to stay ahead of the laws, pretty much, is my understanding of it.

you know there it's just it's when they take when they take it off the plant when they take the butt off the plant basically um so yes it's very much just thc and it's different concentrates um based on that and different dilutions. So the numbers are a little different, but you figure it out. If you have a can of Delta 9 or a can of this, you're going to get high the same way. Is that PBR?

Yeah, PBR makes one, dude. No shit. Yeah, I like it. I want to get back into the drinks on it because I've been smoking a lot and it's been affecting my cardio and I don't like that. Oh yeah, you're all buff now. I'm not. I know. I saw you for the wedding, man. This dude was about to fucking write a horse shirtless. I saw it. I just decided for the first time in four years to actually start eating healthy and exercising again.

It's good to see, because I will say, being a little sentimental and thinking back about the first times we were hanging out together. You were the trash can. You were the disposal, man. Anytime you were over at the house, I said, what do you want? And you're like, I'll eat anything. And you just ate what it like. When we first met, though, I was like in prime shape. And then I met Megan and went down.

you're sticking with it so you're doing something right yeah i have to i feel like i feel like i'll die if i don't like i've made so many poor choices in my life that if i don't just be healthy now i won't i won't live in the next like 20 years So I have to be good. That's my logic. So it makes it work. So don't go holes in it. I'm not going to. Whatever's working for you, brother. I love it. I love it. So yeah, guys, that was a fun fucking year.

We covered a lot of what's been going on. Sam, you don't have anything interesting to talk about, so we'll skip you. Sounds good. That's not very nice. Why am I such a dick to you? That's not very nice.

This is why we only play on camera. It's so funny, though, because it just comes naturally, but I never talk to him this way when we're not on the camera. It's a very interesting dynamic that we have just for the show. Yeah, it's funny because sometimes you've gotten afterwards like, you know I was just joking, right? yeah obviously it's yeah but it's the reason why i do this because i genuinely don't know why i like when i when i see you on on the on on the show when we're in this setting

I don't know why, but I feel the urge to just dig on you. And it's not like. It's your face. It's just something about it. You know, it's just, it just really fucks with me. And I'm just like, God. No, but that's why I always apologize afterwards. I'm like, oh, yeah. I don't really. It just kind of came. Just something about you. Well, thank you. I'm glad I got that face for you.

You know what's funny? You know what it really was? It was when we had Chris... Why am I drawing a blank? Chris... We've had a lot of Chrises. Daughtry? Daughtry. When Daughtry was on and you were just going so fucking hard and I was so pissed because the background screen. You really were. You're like, no, I'm not going to fucking let you blur it. And I'm like, God, so I'm like moving my shit and then.

Brandon ended up adding all these like, Sam doesn't play this guitar in the background and all this other bullshit. And I'm like... We had some fun this year. I'm glad he brought that up because that's sparking some other memories and that one specifically too. It's awesome. That's another thing I want to point out to people a little behind the scenes for the three of us.

When we're texting, we're all doing this for fun. We're making a joke about Brandon losing his job. Sam's got another job. I have another job as well. I was going to say obviously, but that sounds so dickish. we all have other jobs and stuff. We do this for fun with the three of us and we get to meet some really cool people or talk to some people that I, that we've already known from before and stuff. And it's really fun. So.

Sometimes, though, we do get in our own heads, I'll be honest, and we start texting each other about how we're going to change the show and make it better and do this and do that, and this is how we're going to make things better. It's usually coming from me or Sam. But, you know, at the end of the day, we come back to the fact that there's just the three of us fucking around, having a good time.

and in that i have to say this last year we've had more fun in that just making it feel lax again like when we first started and it's been a breath of fresh air for me moments like sam's talking about where i knew while i was recording that with chris And Sam, I knew exactly what the notes that I was going to send to Brandon to have that done.

And if you guys could go back and watch the episode, there's, and we've done it a few times. Like, uh, we started putting in those bubbles. I want to start doing more of the bubbles and stuff with the, when I say inevitably. things completely incorrectly, which I do all the time. I mean, that's like, if anyone's coming here for facts, I'm sorry. This ain't the place.

It's because I'll just misspeak. I misspeak all the time. I'm terrible with grammar. I couldn't even... Dude, going back to a sick brain episode, I'd never seen the word misogynist before written. Or masochistic. So I asked her what the name of the fucking album was. Like, that's amazing. That's awesome. And as soon as she said it, I was like, of course. You didn't even take the time to try to learn.

No, even better, I didn't edit. We all record this stuff. I knew I did that and just fucking let it go. Because it was honest, you know? I mean, I'm not a great reader, guys. Shocker. And I'm not grammatically correct most of the time. And I know the word, but I'd never seen it written down before, I guess. I don't know. I wish there was a montage right now we could just put in of every. Of all my bad. Dude. Dude, do it.

I know you won't though because you don't have the time. You'll never do anything. I have all the time. This is in theory, but you still won't do it. that's why i know you're a lot of footage you have empty threats though all of its empty threats though you'd never go through it you'd never go through all of it dude i have seven hard drives in front of me including the one that crashed

They had like all last season on it, which sucks. And you have all the disgusting things that I say that I cut out too. Oh, yeah. Dude, there's early seasons. Brandon's got receipts if anything happens. Again, though, but I'm not worried. I'm not worried because he won't actually pull those receipts out. I don't need to. I would never do that. I got him, but he won't do anything. I would never do that. I would never do that. He just doesn't have to embarrass.

Embarrassed. They will get handed down to Owen and Owen can do something with them one day. Oh, that's fucked up because he actually will. No. Oh, my God. I love spending time with him. Side note, at the wedding, by the way. Oh, you two wrestling? You wrestled throughout the entire house. That was unreal. That was a lot of fun. That was good. You loved it.

We have to come out soon. Yeah, you do. Get your ass out here. I know. It's warm. The weather outside is weather. Yeah, it's cold here. As Paul Rudd once said. But yeah. Great time with you guys this year. I want to keep the good times going next year with all of that mantra moving forward. We're just having fun here, guys. I hope you guys are having fun and enjoying the show as well.

You know, we'll get into some serious stuff here and there. We'll also joke around. We do everything. It's just conversations and whatever the fuck I feel like talking about or said guest is on, whatever the case may be. It's how it's always been. It's how it's always going to be. We're just having a good time with it. I hope you guys, as I said, are enjoying it too. Plenty of ways to show us, as they say on every other channel.

that you're enjoying it. 80% off at drinkswithjohnny.com. Yeah, you guys, now's the time to buy. We're doing a little clearing. Some new stuff's coming. It's a good time to get it while you can. This is the last chance to get all those classic logo shirts. Last time to get any of the drippy logo shirts. That shit's all going away. And there's some free stuff up there, too, guys. There's some free stuff. Is there? Well, the screen that you could put on in the back. Okay, yeah, Johnny's Bar.

Johnny's bar you can do. And there's other things just signing up for, um, for different things are, you know, subscribing, following all that stuff. It's subscribe, follow, follow us because next year we're going to be doing things a little differently and it's going to be fun. You're going to want to be in the loop on it because. outside of just doing the podcast, there may be some more interactive opportunities that pop up. There absolutely is going to be.

I'm so curious what these are. I don't know what you're talking about. Because you haven't been around, asshole. Someone's got a job. Get fired. Let's go. Get fired. Fucking figure it out. But in the interest of talking about next year changes and stuff and that, I guess we should go into why we had the hiatus and what some of those changes are going to be. Let's put a pin in it on this episode and we're going to have another one.

Why would we do that? No one's going to listen to it. Why would we do that? We could barely get together for this one. I'm not saying that we're going to stop. I'm saying we're stopping now for the audience. Tune in next week to hear what.

Why would we do that to them? It's Christmas, Sam. Fuck. Yeah, let's give them a fucking holiday gift. We've already had them on the edge of their seat this entire time not talking about it. And you want to make them wait another week at the end of it? You're a fucking cock tease, bro. Fucking false. He's not going to do it. I almost fell over. Yeah, it's a little difficult pulling that hog out. It's too big to get out of my pants. Yeah, right, right, right, right. That's the idea.

No, but in all seriousness, let's talk about a little bit of the hiatus that we just went on and how that might honestly affect the show moving forward. So, yeah. As we were talking about watching the Brazil show at Rock in Rio, I was very emotional. And, you know, a couple hours after that had gone by and I was up here in this very room in my studio. and I had a bit of an episode, for lack of a better idea. I can explain what it is, and then I'll get to what I found out it was.

But after that emotional thing, I was actually up here journaling audio. As I said before, I'm not very good with the writing and reading. So I just had this microphone and I was journaling my experiences and my emotions. I started thinking about doing that through the years of therapy. I never really got down to doing it. So up here by myself for about two hours, I was just journaling my life and talking about that stuff.

I was writing some music and this episode happened. The only way I know how to describe it was a panic attack, psychotic episode of some kind. And it really scared me, obviously. Nothing like that had ever happened to me. I didn't really know what it was. I was convulsing and dry heaving. I wasn't under the influence of alcohol. I'd given that up in March. I was using marijuana, but I found out it had nothing to do with this.

So yeah, I just went through this convulsing kind of heaving. I had had this problem in my leg for about six months leading up to this point too.

and I had just gotten work done on it, sports massage, where they really get in. You've seen the ones on YouTube, guys, where they're like, uh they're breaking someone's foot down who has really bad plantar fasciitis and they're screaming and well i went and did one of those things basically for my leg um and i'll you'll understand why that's pertinent to this story in a little bit here

Um, so all this stuff, like kind of came, my body was just going crazy. It was emotional. Uh, I thought I was losing my mind. I thought I was possessed actually at a, at a point, um, everything went blurry. I saw a lot of white. I was making guttural, animalistic noises that I had never made before. I can recreate them so I know that I wasn't completely psychotic. um but or having a psychotic episode rather um not to diminish that um and in this whole experience i

Freaked out, I ran down to my wife and I explained to her what I was experiencing. I eventually got to calm down, took a bath. The next morning, I talked to my therapist about the experience. And with his knowledge, with my wife's concerns, with everything and my own concerns, I checked into a facility immediately that day. It was really interesting. My therapist, I explained to him what was going on. Obviously, he's known all my deepest stuff. I mean, he's my therapist since 2013.

So almost as if he'd been waiting for me to ask him for something like this for years, he pulled out a place called Sierra Tucson out of his back pocket, which is a mental health facility. in Tucson, Arizona. They do trauma, all sorts of mental, I mean, really anything to do with mental health, including addiction, substance abuse as well.

and generally anything to do with mental health. So I didn't know much about this place. I didn't do any research on it. My wife didn't do any research on it other than when my... therapist said, Hey, look at this website, see if they have a spot for them. And it all happened so fast, right? Cause this was such a traumatic thing.

You know, my wife see me in that way. She never seen me in that way. And we have a son in the house. So we wanted to make sure like I didn't know what had happened or what was going on either. I thought I had a psychotic episode, literally. So I checked into this place. Man, it was more clinical than I expected it to be. I thought I was going to go to some kind of fun Malibu. One of those fun retreats you hear about the celebrities going to.

It was not that. It was nice in its own way. It was everything that I needed, but it was very clinical. It was definitely a little one flew over the cuckoo's nest in the first part that they pull you into called Copper Sky.

and they evaluate you before they put you into the residential area, just to make sure you're not going to, I don't know, cause, because like I said, they treat everything here so you got people from all different walks of life and all different levels and of their rock bottom or whatever it may be or some people are being forced

There's military veterans, other first responders there to deal with their trauma from being in battle or fighting fires or working at the hospitals, police, all of it, you name it. All those things that we know happen to other human beings, but how do they deal with it? I didn't even know a place like this existed, which is why I wanted to be able to come on here and talk about this. and really thought about it for the last few months. This place just takes care of everything. Like, it's...

It's something that while I was there, I really feel like anyone in any walk of life can benefit from time there. I'm not saying everyone needs to go there for the 24 days, 28 days, 30 days, whatever it is, 60 days. Put some time to understand where we are as human beings in understanding something as simple as our own emotions and where they come from.

how we process them, how the brain works, how the nervous system, how it's all tied in, how our bodies store emotions. Something as simple as that, something that we don't... Hear about a lot in Western culture. Apparently they hear about it their whole lives in the Eastern culture, but I... I can only talk about my experience here. This is my truth. This is what my knowledge is. So I don't want to put it out there that anybody else is.

Yeah, I just didn't know about all that stuff. You hear as you grow older and do your research about books such as The Body Keeps Score.

um talking about specifically trauma that if you know you may have gotten rid of in your mind but your body is still holding on to it and that could sound kind of spiritual or odd to some but When you go to a place like this and they explain the science behind it and why it's true that your body does store these things, that your mind and your body are two different brains.

really they call it the lizard brain and i should have opened up my trapper keeper and gone through some notes before this um I said Trapper Keeper in Notes because this place was like going to school. It was, it was, it was, it really was. That's why I think everyone should, everyone could benefit from it. It was literally, I affectionately called it Feelings University.

Uh, it was you going to different classes and different groups where you're talking and learning and feeling and doing all of it. It was like. 15 years of therapy rolled into a month with so much knowledge, so many brilliant doctors there too and psychiatrists and brilliant minds. And the reason why I loved it so much was that... None of what they were saying was super black and white, for lack of better terms. It wasn't just this way or that. This is what we know now.

And this is what we've learned. And we're continuing to learn more about the psyche, about the stuff. No one knows everything about anything, first of all, but we definitely are far from understanding our own emotions and stuff like that and where they come from and why. They broke everything down to the nervous system in these lectures and classes very brilliantly. Like I said, I have a Trapper Keeper right here with all my notes in it that I took while I was there.

I went to school, man. I never went to college. This was my college. Going from class to class and learning about trauma and why we use substances. You know, I learned there the like... The majority, I'll just say, if I put a number on it, it would be somewhere in the 90 percentile. But the majority of people with substance issues or problems have some form of trauma. And the substance is just a masking coping mechanism.

I think it sounds like a lot of people might say, well, duh, but no one's ever gone into finding what those things are, right? Not enough, anyway, in my opinion, or I hadn't. Again, I should only speak for myself here. So to reach out and find those exact trauma moments of your life that cause you pain, maladaptive behaviors. coping mechanisms, the way that you interact with another human being.

All of these things are stuff that you store in your memory, in your body, all this stuff. And it's the reason why if you're not aware, you feel a certain way when you're talking to a certain person or all these things. I could go off for, I mean, it's too much information. And I can't even do it justice because one, I haven't gone over my notes very recently. And two, I'm not an expert. I was a student.

At any rate, I went in there not knowing what I was getting into, what it was going to be. And what I learned, what had happened was a trauma response. as I was told. PTSD is usually the term for post-traumatic stress disorder. I learned that I don't have a PTSD, I have a PTSD response. to trauma that has been stored in my body. Something that I think I've talked to you two about in private, a traumatic event that happened to me when I was quite a bit younger.

I don't want to go into details on that, unfortunately. I want to be forthcoming with the reason why that I won't go into it, though. It's because this is a platform that I imagine eventually some people... I don't necessarily think need to hear the details of what happened to me or even what the event was in their lives. If they ever need to know that, then I would totally tell them, I would obviously tell them.

but I hope I never have to because it's just something that they wouldn't need to know. So in that, I just want to be very honest with that, that I won't tell, I won't say exactly what the trauma was. I never planned to. But I've told you guys in confidence. And I discovered it about two years ago. It had come up and something had triggered this memory or the vents around this memory.

In my mind, and I thought I was dealing with it for the last two years, taking time off of drinking as I've done here and everything. I learned so much about my alcohol and my struggle with it, my relationship with it, where it stemmed from. And I just learned so much about that and coming to grips with the more understanding of, like I said before, the body keeps score.

I haven't read that book yet, by the way, but it is out there for anyone that wants to read up on it. It's on my list. I have several books that I am reading and going through since I've been out of Sierra, Tucson. That one is on there. But right now I'm in... The Power of Now. That's another great book. Tell, what's his name? I'd have to look it up. Anyways, sorry, I'm going to get way off topic here. There's just so much information here.

Long story longer here. I had a traumatic event happen to me when I was about 18 years old. My brain... And ego. And psyche. Bottled it up so much. That I forgot it had ever happened. For 20 years. Until I sobered up for 6 months. From alcohol.

and something triggered it and i started remembering i tried to work through it basically for 20 years i've been abusing alcohol because it was keeping it down it was making sure that i didn't have the memory waited long enough everything the emotional thing of watching the 40th anniversary or the 40th uh rock and rio us performing all of these things just culminated this emotional breakthrough

Originally, I thought it was a breakdown, but I come to realize it was a breakthrough. In all this, I learned that it's a beautiful thing. I'm so fucking happy now that I dealt with this thing properly. Got the help. rather than I needed. I didn't do this on my own, of course. I had the support of my friends and family, everyone closest to me through it all. I'm grateful, humbled.

I've dealt with this thing to the best of my ability at this point. It's a constant practice. But I've learned so much, so many tools, and so many things that I want to... bring into my new life, for lack of a better term. It's the same life, and I'm happy that I have it. I'm more grateful than I ever was before. I was grateful before. But having this new lease on life based on emotional trauma and emotional damage and...

Never understanding why I felt a certain way for 20 years. All this life was happening around me. It was beautiful. I didn't know why there were certain feelings I was still having and why I couldn't get past them. It definitely... Put some challenges in there that I didn't necessarily need So moving forward, it's just I'm just so happy and so grateful to have gone through that experience

And I want to help others in any way that I can. So moving forward on the show, you may see some changes in me, I will say. More, I don't know, tender emotional side maybe. A little deeper into the conversations, I guess. But I wanted to let everybody know about what I went through recently.

In case that ever happens to anyone. Because like I said, I didn't know that that was a thing. I didn't know you have a trauma response. And then basically like an ayahuasca trip where you purge. You literally purge these emotions out of you. And I did it. several times while I was in Sierra Tucson without any drugs. I was completely sober in there, not even prescription drugs. And I had my first out-of-body experience. I've never had that with any hallucinogens.

I had it completely sober through a somatic exercise and massage and meditation. And I had a complete out-of-body experience. I thought that was bullshit. I thought out-of-body experiences were just trips. And I've had trips before, but it was like, no, this was completely different. And I became pretty spiritual, not religious. Those are two different things. I actually have an even stronger dislike for religion.

Than I did before. But I do love spirituality. And I understand that there is something greater. I don't know. Greater is a bad word for that. There's something bigger. There's something in control. I don't know what it is. But there's something in control of what's going on. There's too many rules, too many things. Also, one of the things I learned that I want to continue to always stay in... is the idea I painted this picture of being a pebble of sand on the beach

Not being able to change the tide. And I said that to my friends and whatever for a long time now. And I realized I didn't have it quite right. It was actually the pebble of sand in the ocean floating around. And without a chance of controlling the tide, the current, any of it. But you still fight it. You know what I mean? Like the universe and whatever is happening is so much bigger.

We're such small pieces of it that it's going to happen anyway, and you have a choice of either fighting it or just kind of surfing it, floating with it, whatever you want to do. We should probably try and surf with it. One of my buddies there coined this.

coined the phrase to surf with it and that sounds better than just floating with it but uh at any rate it was uh an amazing experience that i came away from i can honestly say today a more whole person with more tools and better practices moving forward to be a better husband, a better friend, a better father, just a better human being and hopefully a help.

In any way that I can be. I know you guys know this too. I've always been an advocate for mental health. Try to be any way as much as I can. Spoken about it openly here on the show. Oh, there is some more things coming up. My good friend Andy Oliphant, who was there at the Death Bats Club thing.

who was our A&R, the first guy that brought us to Warner Brothers all those years ago. Still a good friend of ours. Oh, he was there? That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. His brother's actually Timothy Oliphant, the actor. And they put together a... charity event. They're starting to put together charity events for mental health. So I'm going to try to get involved with that in any way that I can.

At any rate, I just want to say, I bring up that to, once again, say the name of this place, Sierra Tucson, or any place like it. I think there's some other places if you're really struggling with something. I mean, anything mental health. I highly recommend a place, Sierra Tucson or a place like it to help work through it. Just do some research on some of these places. I mean, even just to like...

While I was there, we were under strict regulations and stuff, which I wasn't expecting, but it's fine. Phone time is limited, screen times. I felt like my son. I was like, you can't have your screen time. Because for me, it was also weird because I was in there for this emotional thing. There was a lot of people that were in there for substance and addiction. And although alcohol is tied into my...

you know, 20 plus years of abuse and stuff. And what I went through, holding this, repressing this memory. Although that's true. it wasn't what I was going in for. I was going in for this, what the fuck just happened to me? You know, I wasn't there to get off weed. I wasn't there to get off alcohol. I'd already quit alcohol before that. And I, I'm good with my weed. Um, so.

Being around that was different because everybody had their rules because they're dealing without it. People were just coming off of something. They're there specifically to get off of it.

have strict rules for those, and obviously it happens to everybody. Anyways, I digress. Places like Sierra Tucson, other places where they're... in the forefront of just dealing with it and mental health because they attack it from every every angle guys it's not just your brain through therapy there's group therapy there's

Sorry, there's the lectures that you learn so much about, the readings, the teachings, the body. They treat the body a lot for this, a lot of the massage and activities and stuff.

That's how it was at Sierra Tucson now. I know I keep saying their name and it's not a cheap place There are others like it. I just want I want to point out what they had so that other people so if you're looking into another facility I would say like see what kind of checks what what boxes get checked there and make sure it's the right place there's a lot of places even there that i i mean i was running into i made lifelong friends in there

And some of them had been in and out of other places that are called rehabs, you know, like they would be there for rehab. This wasn't a rehab, but it's, you know, for some people it was rehab anyways.

uh and they they'd gone through places that were complete scams where horrible things happened to them they went in there looking for help and horrible things happened to them so i know that that exists but don't let those don't let those shitty people and those shitty things deter you from finding the real help that is out there is my general point there I'll continue to talk more about this for the rest of my life and on this show

and help out in any way that I can. So, and if, you know, I'll try my best. If you're struggling and need some help right here, just put it in the comments. Maybe somebody else will help you out if I can't get to it. Or, you know.

follow us, go to our discord, whatever. If you're looking for help, I'm sure there's, you know, I'll, I'll try and get in there. Um, if nothing else, but, um, there's, there's places that can help you sort through your, your thoughts and your emotions and stuff. Everyone's got shit.

Everyone sitting here on this show has got shit. I know your guys' shit for some of it. I don't know all of it. You know most of my shit, not all of it. But that's the way to look at life. You're going to walk around on the streets and... People say shit and get so mad at each other because everyone's been in that moment where they said something they didn't mean to. Right?

But they've also been in the moment where someone said one of those things to you and you feel like it's such an attack. It's like, but you got to see where that's coming from because you've been there before too. It's not about you.

You know what I mean? That's why I say everyone could benefit from a place like this. Once you learn so much about why we interact the way that we do and it's more about our personal emotions and how our... perspectives are built and who we are it's more about us than it is the other person I think it'll help everyone get along a lot better and again there's there's dorms in this place I mean one of the dorms is for those first

first responders another one is for females only been through a certain kind of trauma um so i was with a lot of the veterans in there too i was hanging i befriended one of them very closely he was awesome dude Out of Alaska, I can't say anybody's names, of course. It's all anonymous, but he knows who he is. I met some other amazing people in there. I was just on the phone with someone the other night who was having a rough time.

So it's a constant work for anyone who's looking at their mental health as a struggle. It is a struggle. It's a practice. It's a work. We're born into trauma. We're not born into sin, but we are born into trauma. Can I ask a couple questions about it? Yeah, absolutely. Let's go. That was pretty much my whole thing anyway, so let's open it up to questions. Well, I know it's past Brandon's bedtime here. He's got another hour.

I had a cup of coffee. I just have to go to the gym. Well, one thing that, just real quick, you did talk about how the massage... uh triggered it i don't know if you want to talk about that or if that's part of it or how that plays in i mean oh yeah yeah how that played into uh that i'm glad you brought that up thank you um Yeah, that was going back to more how the body keeps score, that ideology, which is a fact in my opinion now.

That pain that I was having, everything was a culmination of all my emotions. And it was this trauma had been stored in my hip area, which is apparently after I learned, according to the experts. That's where a lot of males will store their trauma, especially this specific kind that I had. So it was causing a lot of pain in my right leg through the hip. So I went there. I think it was muscular.

and uh ligament uh so i think when he he loosened up some stuff to be honest is basically why why i brought it up is because that physical act I believe, and I'm pretty validated in it, was actually something that helped push out and bring out this emotional response to the trauma that I had been repressing. All right.

You had called us, kind of said, hey, I want to let you know everything's all right. Don't worry. And Brandon and I were like, well, I didn't know there was anything to be worried about, but okay. And then you ended up calling and letting us know right before you went on the plane. And then we got a few contacts, but I'm just curious more about the facility itself and the program that you do.

So you show up, they do an assessment of you. Is it just more of an interview kind of thing? Or how does that start? And can you just take us through what classes you took and what that journey is? Or is that kind of... secret to whatever goes on in there no it that i don't i i think i could i can cover it pretty well without going into yeah i could do that so the first place you go into is called copper sky when i say your process that that's like

as i said everyone comes in from different walks some people are coming in and they're literally uh you know finishing a bottle of jack daniels as they're getting dropped off So before they put you into residential, they need you completely sobered up. So that's one reason why they would process you there. They do a drug test on everybody. They do a psych test.

It also helps them determine what dorm you're going to be in. As I said, there was three different dorms. I think there's actually more than that now that I think about it. There's three main ones anyway.

So they're assessing you. They're just assessing what state you're in that you're coming into. And they want you in a sober, aware... cognitive state before they send you over into residential with everybody else where you have um more freedoms when you get into there you're i mean it's it's the same asylum style sorry to use the term well how do you feel you just came off this big meltdown

You're going there. After playing in front of 125,000 people, I came in. Two days later, I had a meltdown and then went into this facility. So it was... I played Sunday night. I was in the facility Thursday evening. And that high and low ultimately wasn't a part of this? Or maybe it was? No, because that low came after. You know what I mean? Like that high.

you know like i guess maybe the trauma response if you consider that a low um but yeah i know that the coming into that was a i mean absolute shock to the system i didn't know i packed stuff that i you know like I didn't think it was going to be a problem. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to bring in marijuana, but you know.

Screens, technology, cords, everything. They took everything because they don't know. I understand why, of course. I wasn't mad about it, but I didn't think it through because everything happened so fast. I mean, it's a place where people... They're worried about you maybe wanting to commit suicide while you're in there. So all the sinks have, you know, everything's suicide proof, like a mental facility would be.

As you would imagine. Meals are figured out and everything. You have prescriptions if you need them given to you at certain times. The Copper Sky, you can't leave. That building, unless you're a smoker and you could go out and smoke during the, if the orderlies, not the orderlies. That's not what they call them. Nurse Ratchett. Nurse Ratchett. The people working there, sorry, what they're actually called will come to me later.

Well, they'll take you out. And I don't smoke anymore, but I still took the opportunity to go outside, obviously. I was only there for a night. Some people are there longer. Some people don't even go in there for an hour and they're like, okay, go. Do they just have rooms and you sleep or do whatever? Is it more just sitting in a waiting room? It's rooms. You have your rooms that you usually have two beds, bathroom in.

and then there's a common area and then yeah and that's just for the uh that first spot and then once you go over to residential it's like a campus you know Like I said, there's the dorms, and then there's activity rooms. There's a couple activity rooms. There's one activity room, one auditorium, and then classrooms, basically, essentially, for lack of a better term.

There's a pool, a grass field out there that I walked a lot, and there was a labyrinth. Oh, my God, the labyrinth was amazing, a rock labyrinth. I had a spiritual awakening there one of the days. That was amazing. Yeah, I mean it was like I said it was a campus so you're walking like and you get a schedule the night before

You wake up, you follow that schedule. So you're passing by with these other people you're getting to know. And it felt very much like high school, dude. You know, you're like, oh, what class do you have next? I had my own room. Most of the time you have a... You have a roommate, but I opted to spend the extra money to have my own room. But you usually have a roommate. I ended up being one of the lodge leaders for a few days before I left.

I was, I was kind of, I was, the large leader was just someone who like introduces themselves as the first piece, first people come in and everything like that to the dorm and stuff. So, but yeah, I mean, it was, uh, So you mentioned brain mapping. What does that mean? I didn't say that here, but I'm glad you brought it up because I've told you about the brain mapping in our other talks. So yeah, that was another thing. Like I said, they bring in the science of it too. They hook you all up.

Like you've seen on TV with all those little receptors and stuff. They did it on my body and my head a couple different times. And they run these stimulant tents. So they put like these goggles on, flashes lights, put these... your things on it's sensory stuff yeah and then it purposely does these things and shows um your gamma not your gamma Is it your gamma rays? It's basically all the chemicals in your brain and how they fire and how they connect and everything.

Again, terrible job. I apologize. I'm not an expert and I don't know all these words. Well, dumb it down for us. Yeah. So it's basically the receptors and how everything talks to each other. That's the brain mapping. They see how it works.

how a normal functioning brain is supposed to be, and where you have things that are higher, lower, everything like that. But are they showing you images, or how does it show? Is it like an EEG? Yes, it's like an EEG. While it's happy, it's like an EEG, but then afterward, I get a... A graph, basically, that shows me and then they go over it with me to explain where my brain's fucked up or where it's fine, basically.

And then they have treatments for that too. They have sensory treatments for that as part of the program or can be part of the program. I think it was an extra. But they use sensory to basically take those roadmaps. of all these connectors and the ones like for me specifically, uh, I had the hormones and chemicals of ruminating thoughts, which was.

right here in the brain apparently and it just ruminating thoughts things that once up so what they do is they use sensory stuff same thing goggles um and and and earpieces um and it basically is supposed to help for lack of a better term, sweep away the track that you've made for that. If you picture it this way, picture it this way, like you're walking in a dirt.

in a dirt path where you're leaving a path behind. So we're going to sweep that one away so that you don't keep ruminating back to the beginning of that. Um, so they kind of like try to sweep away some of those connections for you. which was really interesting. Didn't know that that was a thing. I mean, I heard about brain mapping maybe a little bit before, but not that there was a treatment involved in it afterwards or anything like that, if that makes sense. So there was that.

I'm glad you brought that up because that was a very interesting thing. There was some more extreme versions of that as well, using magnets and stuff for people with... Basically... I don't know how many people have like studied this or looked at some of the articles on it or whatever, but the way the brain works and all these things are so connected. There's so many different highways in your brain and they could get fucking all.

jumbled up with trauma and trying to figure these things out they could vision they could actually visually see it now and there's several different ways that they try to straighten out all these tanglements. I mean, psilocybin has been one that's used for trauma patients. There's some other cutting edge ones that they're using. I mean, some of the stuff I learned about, it's hard for me to talk about because I didn't actually do.

Because it was for more extreme cases, right? Again, I befriended someone who had been in over 265 combats. And, like, you don't compare... I forget the term. You don't compare traumas. That's not what you do. Trauma is trauma to anybody. It doesn't matter the event or anything like that. However, 265 times during my one event, you can understand why... there's more wires that need to be uncrossed. So there's some more other, there's other things that they do as well.

I'd never done something as simple as acupuncture. Have you guys done acupuncture before? It's so funny. I was just talking about this weekend with my family. They all do it. And I was like, I would love to do it. I've never done it before. You found it helpful? I found it very helpful. Especially if it's... See, again, there's different ways you can go about it. You go in for acupuncture, strictly muscular, sports acupuncture and stuff. Or you go in for somatic and therapeutic.

And they pinpoint different things to get your brain and body and organs to work properly with your brain and talk with it. And I don't know how it all works still.

I have a lot more research and a lot more studying to do with some of the books that I'm going to be reading, rather listening to, over the next years of my life. But I got plenty of time. I now know that I have plenty of time to learn all about this. I'm not supposed to know all of it. I didn't go to school for this. I'm not a fucking expert. But I do know how I feel and what I felt and why it all, it just makes sense when you really think about it. When they break it all down for you.

scientifically and you think about your lizard brain and why that's called a lizard brain from evolution and where you know our fight or flight is located directly here connecting to our vagus nervous system that controls our body so your fight or flight takes over you're not controlling your body properly there's so many of these things and that's all they're all connected

Everything is connected from your body to there, but they have their own entities. It's where the yin and yang comes from, guys. That whole theory, that whole thought is mind and body. I always thought it was... you know, good and bad or like too much and too little. It's no, it's the harmony of mind and body. Um, at least that's my understanding now. So, I mean, that that's.

I'm glad you brought up the brain mapping, though, because that's another great point of this kind of facility and the fact that they're on the forefront of working towards finding stuff. They're still exploring new patients all the time. I mean, new patients come with new... I'm sorry, not patients, new residents rather come with new traumas and new things all the time, I'm sure. I was in a group with someone with multiple personality.

It's called something else now. Syndrome. They don't call it that anymore. I apologize. But, yeah. Being around other people with different walks of life and being that vulnerable in that state is something that I'll always have with me for the rest of my life. And then the things I learned there.

And I'm super grateful for. I feel like, again, I just feel like I'm whole from it. And I understand things in such a better way. And I can just be that pebble surfing the fucking ebbs and flows of everything. You know, through stoicism and through everything, we all hear it and it's the way we're supposed to think about things is only control the things you can. You know, that's how to live a stress-free life. Well, I've learned that you really don't control much.

You just really don't control much in this universe if you think you do. More power to you, but I don't think any of us, any one person can honestly say that you changed it. It's too great when you really think about... the the speck of dust that we truly are on this on this speck of dust in the universe like it's there's too much else going on like you're not in control of any of it

And then you could go into like the whole other scientific thought process mathematically of if we actually have a free will or not. And that's a fun, that's a fun conversation to have at another night. Hmm. Well. I'm sure there will be some more questions I'll definitely have down the road about this as far as classes. Anytime. It's a lot to cover, guys. So, I mean, I hope I did an okay job for the listeners and the viewers. No, I was just, you know, you hit...

grazed over it it's nice to hear a little more detailed uh about your feelings about it all and i appreciate it man i'm just happy to happy you reached out and got the help that you needed and you have the support system you do man you know we care about you so

Very fortunate for the support system. Thank you so much. And thanks to everyone at home too. I don't get this fortunate life without you guys too. And that was something that I realized. It helped me realize everything. How grateful and how fortunate. I'm just super humble and, I'm sorry, humbled. Calling yourself humble is pretty funny. I'm super humbled by the fact that I have this life. I often don't know why.

But nevertheless, I'm here and I'm going to enjoy it and do the best I can with it. Which is why I wanted to bring this up and talk as openly as I can. As I said, it's a lot of information I know. And I probably didn't do... I probably gave more questions than answers for a lot of people there that might be looking for more answers. Well, you brought up magnets. So now you can talk about that when ICP comes on. You know what magnets are for. I'd love to. I know exactly how they work.

I'm glad you brought a funny thing to it but I would just want to before I bring it back to the funny and say goodbye to the people at home I just want to reiterate like If you are struggling or you've had some kind of response like this that you don't know, don't bottle it up. Don't fucking... Don't go to the usual coping mechanism. Go find some help. I'm so grateful. I know not everyone has a support team like I do. I have the best support team, and I don't think it's fucking debatable.

You know, my band, my brothers right here, my family, both chosen and given. Everyone was super supportive, and I know that's not the case for everyone, but there are people out there that will support you if you go and find them, I promise. I'll do the best I can as far away as I might be.

No, and to your point, more on a micro level, because we can't all go to a facility like that, and maybe we might not have an experience like that, but we all have stresses, we all have traumas, we all have our things that we're working through. and like i've said it before on here but i'll say it again given the situation uh i talked to you i've been i've been in a funk for a long time right and i told you i knew what was wrong and you said well what

But I don't need therapy because I know what's wrong. I talk to everybody. I know what I'm feeling. I just can't do it. And he said, well, why can't you do it? And I'm like, oh, fuck you, dude. You're right. So I did need to go to someone. Shout out to Jacqueline Lugo.

um and it's been very helpful so i want to thank you because um i don't know it's it's it's it's definitely a journey it's not an overnight thing at all and and so what i'm saying is for us other people who can't go to a facility like that just seek it out it's hard to ask for help but just ask for help and yeah i'm glad about that even when you think you know

I know what they're going to say. I know what it is. If that's the case, then why is it still a problem? It was another term that I love. I think I heard or whatever the case may be. I can't teach. I can't tell you something you already know. Once you know you've already, if you quote unquote know something, no one could tell you anything else. You're not learning anymore. Once you know you're done learning.

And I don't think that we ever stop learning in any asset of our lives or should. That's one thing about our existence I'm pretty sure is that we're pretty into exploration and keeping going. And you're never going to know anything. Not like that. You've got to be open-minded in life. And you can't learn anything new if you already know.

And I think that's something that everyone should really consider when they're having a bad day or an argument or something like that. Maybe it's not the case, but if you look at it, you might just see that you're not really being open-minded to the fact that maybe you don't know. what's best in that in that moment well said well put brandon are you perfect you don't need yeah no i am so don't don't worry

Yeah, no, Brandon's the only person that couldn't benefit from this place, actually. Or any help like that. He's got no issues whatsoever. Well, his job eliminated most of his stress by firing him. Yeah, I mean, it really did. That's true, that's true. The issue worked itself out. No, I mean, I've liked to...

I like to dabble in like the psychedelic worlds when I get a lot of the stress on my shoulders, right? And get very introspective and try to do like a reset, right? Because like definitely been through the stress of work, definitely been through the stresses of life. Trying to figure out how to navigate through them and I've always found that that for me has worked the best and that may not work for everyone right for myself to Introspectively try to figure out

what decisions in my path led me to be where I'm at and what opportunities may lie if I took other paths to get there. And I'm sure like... going to a facility like this and having a different perspective on it and learning the science behind it would probably be very beneficial. But yeah, up until now, that's just the way I've dealt with things.

That's great. I'm super glad that you brought that up because it brought up another point on that too because psychedelics is one way. Like I mentioned, I have several friends that have dealt with their trauma that way as well. I brought up ayahuasca. That's one you purge your traumas. That's what it's there for you to do in psychedelics like that. And I'm glad you brought up that that's not for everyone. Sam brought up this facility isn't going to be for everyone. It might not have the ability.

but seeking out options, seeking out things. Your therapy is, another thing about therapy is it's yours and yours alone. Therapy is, you have, they taught, they nailed that to the ground. I was in the facility and I like to take that out into life as well. I'm paying for it. I'm the one there doing it. This is my therapy. Whatever I'm finding works is the way it should be. Don't let anyone else.

influence because most of the time they don't know what they're if anyone's trying to influence you on how you need to help yourself with you know with a you know, emotional traumatic thing that that's yours and yours alone. And they're trying to give you advice on how to fix it. They don't know what the fuck they're talking about. So just like lovingly let them, let them know, like,

I'm doing it my way, you know, because therapy is as individual as your fingerprint, as your perspective, as everything that makes you an individual. The therapy is there. You have the tools. Go seek out the tools. I'm not telling you. what's going to work or none of us are. No one knows what's going to work, but neither do you. That's the one thing that you can be sure of is you don't know what's working either if you're struggling.

go seek out some of these tools some of these places i'd love to um in this next year find some more links and stuff that we could put out here too guys and and just keep it going you know I'm always open to talk about this. I want to do this in this episode with you guys. I'm sure it'll come up some other times throughout my tenure here with the show, with other guests and stuff.

I wanted to cover it here so that I don't bring it up all the time and berate it or anything. This show's still about the conversations, the guests, the having the fun, all the while knowing that there's a seriousness to life and we're all doing it. And this is just supposed to be entertainment taking you away from it most of the time. But know that we all care and we all love our fellow human beings out here in the world.

Just want everyone to be happy and have a good time So I don't want to beat the dead horse on this all the time and be bringing it up every episode or anything like that, but Sorry, I don't like saying but anymore and Because both things are true. And it's just... I don't even know where I was going with that. I'm sorry, guys. It's... The bottom line is...

I don't want to. Stone Cold said so. Yes. Bottom line is Stone Cold said so. Thank you. Thank you for saving me there, Sam. Ah, shit, dude. I'm happy to see you happy. Thank you. That's the top of the year from the top of the year to where you are now. Fucking different person. Very proud of you. Hey, we'll say from the start of the show to today, you want to go look at a system of a down circle.

Look at John Delmayan's first episode and look at him on stage with John Delmayan in Chicago next August 31st and September 1st. Yeah, excited for that. It's going to be fun. Got some other shit? More announcements will come from Avenged Sevenfold World and everyone knows where to find that. This is a little different. We're going to be talking Drinks With Johnny stuff. That's what we're here for. That's right. You go to drinkswithjohnny.com 80% off. You get that merch.

Yes. Or just sign up for the email. I'm going to start doing a newsletter, I think, next year. You should, man. You should put one out monthly, bro. You were doing it before. Why not? Then I could cover some of this stuff so people don't have to listen to it when they're coming here to listen to some other celebrity and it's really just me talking to you schlubs who lose your jobs every other day. Yeah, newsletter.

All right, we've dragged this shit off. Let's go. I'm going to go see my family. Oh, fuck your family. It's the holidays. That's true. Well, that's a good note to leave it on everybody. Thank you for tuning in. Have a wonderful holidays. Happy New Year. All those wonderful things. And we'll see you next year with some new branding, some new conversations, some new fun. I'm here with Drinks with Johnny, Brandon, and Sam. Thanks again, guys. And we'll see you all soon. Cheers.