M. Shadows (Avenged Sevenfold)

The following is a special conversation with the Venged Sevenfold Frontman, M. Shadows. Ahead of the release of their highly anticipated new album, Life Is But A Dream, releasing on June 2nd. So if you liked this video and you'd like to support, consider subscribing, dropping a thumbs up, and leaving a comment. Now, without further ado, this is a conversation with M. Shadows.

From Avenged Sevenfold, one of the biggest bands on the planet, their highly anticipated return with their first new album, and nearly seven years, Life Is But A Dream, will release on June 2nd. Thank you so much for being here, dude. I really appreciate you. Yes, you're awesome. I know everybody's gonna be so stoked about this, that watches the channel, it's so cool of you. So first of all, you got the mullet, dude. You came in here with the mullet just freshly cut, and I got a line for you.

It's going to be a little bit of a line right here. So what I decided was that, as the mullet lives for weeks at a time, we need to add new things to it to make it even more insane. Yeah. I don't know what it's gonna be like in a couple of months, but right now we added a couple of lines, we got some weirdness going on, but someone said it online, and I agreed.

Because he wanted all the haircuts at once. That's what I got, all the haircuts at once. Dude, it's great. I mean, it's gone. It's become an internet sensation of its own. I've only seen people talking about how sick it is. I think, you know, it's kind of undeniable. Yeah, I agree. I love you for having it. As soon as I saw that, I'm like, okay, this album cycle, they did not come to play. No, we didn't come to play.

Actually, we have, we actually have some press photos that are gonna come out soon that are so egregious. We're still, like we actually got an offer. It was today, and I don't know when this will air, but they wanted to use a picture in the middle of Times Square for like the record and stuff, and we sent them that they said absolutely not. So it's gonna be good. Yeah, we got some good stuff.

Dude, I can't wait. It's so much fun. The thing I like about you guys is that you've always just had so much fun with what you're doing, and it's always, you know, just nothing but good vibes. So I want to talk about the new album. Life is but a dream. So highly anticipated. It's great to have you guys back. You know, how would you describe this album to the event sevenfold fans? I think it's, it's got a lot of what we've done before, but it comes in spurts.

Everything from the way we arrange the record, to how we were thinking about time, and thinking about left terms and thinking about structure. We kind of just flipped everything on its head, and we took things that we would normally do longer in milk, and we cut those down, and we also took things that we would normally just kind of pass by, and we milked them.

So we kind of did a lot of different things with arranging. There's a lot of different genres in there. There's a blend of things, but it's not just to do them. There are things that we really feel passionate about, and there are areas that we really wanted to explore production wise. It's all organic. We pride ourselves on. There's a lot of things that are in there like where you can see what was a vocoder, well, to real vocoder. There's auto to what it's hard auto to on purpose.

There's no auto tune when you, when we're not trying to let you think there's auto to and there's organic drums. There's no drum samples, unless we want a specific sample. So there's all these really organic things done in a futuristic way, I guess. So it sounds different than what most people are doing these days. So there's a lot to get into there, but it's, I think it's interesting.

Yeah. And I've got a chance to listen to the album, and I can just tell that there's been so much thought and care that's put into it, and there's some very heavy songs on there, and it is, though. It is, though. It's very musically diverse, and the songwriting is top-not, so I think people, it's obviously a high quality album.

So, you know, it's very, very well done. So talking about the album cover here as well, and some of the artwork that's come out, you know, first I wanted to say kind of what was the art direction behind that. And I'll get to some of that in the broader sense, because the music video I thought had so much depth to it.

And it's kind of almost like it's a commentary on maybe the meaning of life. I don't know if I'm close on that, but, you know, what's sort of the idea behind the artwork? And what's your process for that, because I knew you're very creative. Yeah, so we used, we were lucky enough to have been friends with West Lang for the last six years, and he's one of those guys that doesn't do anything that he doesn't want to do.

And I think a few years ago I'd asked him if he would do the record. The answer was no. Love you, pal, but, you know, and the last thing he had done, he had done nothing for the grateful dead, which is his favorite band, and he had also done the Jesus record. So those are the only things in music that he had done. And then he had also done, and he was kind of done with music, didn't really like dealing with labels, et cetera.

So the last thing he did was he did the Amiri line, the last 2023 Amiri line, which was all West Lang produced stuff. And then he's just one of those guys that his art is killer. But what I love about him is his, his sort of introspection on death, death always looming. And this record was also about the human consciousness and the idea that the reason that we are different from everything else that lives on this planet is that we understand that we're going to die someday.

And knowing that you're going to die someday, sometimes you're left with this kind of crossroads of what is the purpose of life that all gets washed away anyways. And so there's a lot of themes in the record that go down that rabbit hole of mundane meaninglessness, purpose, existentialism. So all these different thoughts and the record explores that. So when I was sending West demos, one day hit me up and said, I did the art for the record.

And I'm like, what? So there's like one of those things where if you don't ask, he just did it because he was inspired. And I told him that a painting that he did called nobody inspired me and Brian to make this song called nobody. We sent him nobody in a demo form. And he's like, bro, this is blowing my mind. This is so cool. They didn't have the lyrics on it yet. We didn't have the nobody part. It was just the riff and like the groove.

And then, you know, a couple months later, I sent him some other stuff. I sent him cosmic. I sent him a couple of things, send him game over just demos. And one day it's me up and he sends me a picture. One of the pictures. And I'm like, this is incredible. And he sends me three more pictures. So then an hour later, he's got four more pictures. And he just was in a zone and he's just going with the demos going.

And I explained him what the concept was. And these are all things that he writes about all the time. This is these are things that you look at all the sangs that are on there. They're all like this. This sort of death around the corner, this sort of eerie, uncomfortable sense of life happening while you know that you're going to not exist at some point. It's true.

And so sending him that and then him working off the music and then us seeing the art that finishing our record. It was like art was influencing art back and forth. And then all of a sudden, he's like, I got 20 pieces for you. And we're like, whoa, okay. So then the hard thing was figure out which would be the album cover. And then we kind of just got really to be honest.

We got really loose with that too. We're like, who needs an album cover? Let it be a vibe, right. Multiple albums covers. Let it be just a vibe. And so that's where we're at now. This is, you know, this is a death bats club. I'm exclusive. So only death bats club can get that. And this is the standard.

And then yeah, there's a ton of art. It's great. Yeah, it's really cool. And I love the art direction behind it. And I wanted to talk about the music video as well because the music video is kind of talking about that as well. The death is looming around the corner.

But I wanted to see it kind of, you know, the person in the video that when you first start that video, it gets up and kind of goes out of his soul, walking away. And it's kind of like to me, this guy, maybe he was in a bit of a rhythm in his life. And he was kind of taking his life for granted. And it just not really, you know, I think a lot of people feel to certain point like, okay, I'm aging. I need to go for this. And is that kind of maybe in the same neighborhood of what you guys were going for with that person.

Just walking through and looking at all these experiences as the world kind of passed them by well, it's a it's has a few different meanings that people can take from it. My meaning from that music video, nobody came from a five me O DMT psychedelic experience. Wow. And so, and what happens with those experiences is you experience, I think, called ego death.

And so that was our visual visualization of ego death. Now when I did this, I remember being with the shaman, inhaling this thing and being put on my back as the whole world fractal down like the whole thing to start breaking apart reality started breaking apart and I left my body. And so I was able to look at my body and then I tried to get back in my body because I was scared. And then that's when you go further and further and you lose yourself and you forget you're even a human.

So that was our representation. We could have done it with a soul leaving, but we thought the the representation of skeletons was like a cooler aesthetic. Yeah. But what was happening was now you'll notice at the end of the video there is a suicide note. I do is yes, farewell.

So did he kill himself and he was leaving and that was his death or was it an ego death? Was he exploring the existence of man and the mundaneness of our lives. If you actually go and see the first scene, he walks outside and there's a family just watching TV watching their TV as their life goes away.

Yeah. And there's a guy staring in the mirror of skeleton the mirror that's stolen from the stranger, which is a book by Albert came who were this guy doesn't find meaning to life and he's looking in the mirror. They think he's smiling, but what's staring back at him as a frown. He's actually been sad the whole time. And so and then you'll notice outside there's a news. And that comes in play in the song game over. So there's all these like Easter eggs. So when you hear game over.

This guy realizes he never had free will anyways. Yes. And there's a mundane life and he kills himself. And but we don't blame him for killing himself because he didn't have free will and it was genetics and it was going to have it anyways. It's like this determinism. So the the music video has all these like things that you can take out of it, but it really was a very on the nose look at ego death and walking through this sort of right existential reckoning of our lives.

Right. Yeah. And I think that's just absolutely brilliant because when I watched that video, it came across to me. Also, there's a part where he goes into a very colorful landscape. Maybe that's a representation of heaven. Maybe that's something like that. But also everything has been commoditized there. Everything has a barcode on it. And it's kind of like maybe we have taken everything that we love and it's beautiful in the world and turned it into a commodity maybe.

Yeah. So there's a little bit of an Easter egg for the song Mattel in there because Mattel is very Truman show. It's all set up and fake. Oh, wow. Truman show. Yeah. And so what I take from that scene is that when you go to this place of ego death, you can call it whatever you want.

It can be heaven. It can be oneness. Right. It can be nothingness. It's all nothingness and everything at once. And that's where the song nobody, the man without a head. These are all meditative Buddhist sort of ideas practices.

But the idea with of no ego and the idea of being in a place that was promised, but it was never real to begin with. Yeah. Right. This sort of heaven that you're going to go to or the promise land or the golden gates or this and you go then go, oh, this was all kind of made up to give me a purpose. But the purpose was never real to begin with. It was because what I think is funny enough had this argument with people. They say morals have to be given to you and religion gives you morals.

And I say, well, if I have to give you your morals, then I'm an authority figure at that point. You don't have any freedom. And they go, no, no, well, everyone just be killing each other if they didn't have morals. And I go, I don't agree. I think through evolution, we have we have figured out that the people that get along with the tribe the most, the people that have their family, the people that can get along and build.

They're the ones that actually evolve and live on because if you're a murderer, you get murdered and now your lineage is done. And so I look at it as a different thing. I don't look at it as someone has to hand me morals. And they go, I know you want to kill that guy, but you shouldn't.

Because I don't want to kill that guy. I just don't feel that way. And so I don't need morals handed to me. And so I feel like that's like the golden promise of if you listen, you'll be rewarded. I never bought into that. And so that land to me is the fake promise of, you know, an afterlife. Yeah. So we represented with barcodes.

Right. Yeah, I think it's very, I think that whole video is just so brilliant. You know, and speaking on kind of the concept of the morals and religion and everything like that, I know the band name itself of in seven fold was kind of taken from the Bible.

And I think I read somewhere that you said you went to Catholic school and you walked around Catholic school with a slayer shirt on, which is so great. And hilarious. And I think we all knew kids like that we were growing up. We were just like their parents were kind of like, go here. And you're like, man, I would have fucking rock. And you know, with that was very much you growing up. Yeah. So I grew up going to a school called St. Bonneventure Catholic Rabbit School.

I feel like wasn't that religious. I think it was just like a lot of times that that and not era. A lot of the private schools with a little bit better education were religious schools.

And so that's changed a little bit now. But at the time I went there and it was like, you have you have Bible study or class. And I remember, you know, the Rev went there. And he was, this is before he was the Rev. And Jimmy Sullivan, one year older than me, just a total troublemaker. He got kicked out in second grade.

I was a year behind him, but his mom grade second grade. I kicked out, but his mom would keep bringing him back to we had church on Wednesdays. And his mom would bring him to church when we had church. So all the kids are in there and Jimmy being the back. And he'd have panteras, your cron and slayer shirts and long hair. And like it was like, dude, it's so cool.

And so then I ended up, you know, Jimmy was my neighbor. So I'd be hanging out with him. And by sixth grade, I got kicked out. And then I was moved over to Mace of you with Jimmy. And, but we were those kids that were wearing the, you know, the heavy metal stuff, getting in trouble, knocking over trash.

And then I got some ding dong ditching and ripping people's Christmas lights down just being trouble makers. Where are you kind of coming up in that like kind of CKY jackass, were you like influenced by that in any way where like a bunch of kids were like in the skate culture at that time. Yeah, so I think we were a little before that because this was like six, fifth, sixth seventh grade. And we were really into bands that were coming up. It was like, there was a big problem with punk rock.

And so in the media, it was like every weekend, there'd be a big like hour long thing. I would tape it because it would be like this band gutter mouth started a riot of Sam Burdett, you know, and then this band like. All these gutter mouth, rancid, no effects, bad religion like the punk scene was really big. And that's what we were really involved in. But we also love metal. So we were listening to Pantera Slayer, all of a sudden, but it seemed really unattainable to us.

That was very big. And then there was our scene, which was, you know, this new thing called warp tour was starting. And there was no effects. And there was I remember punk and drug lick and we stole that record from tower records. I remember we'd go in there with lighters and burn off the plastic edges.

And then we'd stick in our pockets. That was how it would, you know, when you went through the plastic thing is when it would go off. So we just burn them in the back and we'd stick them in our pants and go out. And we also did for the heavy metal. We do that BMG one set and get nine records. And we would there was no internet then. So we would just sign up all of our neighbors. And we would send the penny in. And then the CDs would come in a box and steal their mail when it came.

So we that's how we got our metal records and we'd steal our punk records. And we were just like these punk rock kids that were really into causing trouble. We really wanted to grow from Berkeley. We were obsessed with with pinnacle powder and operation IV and like Tim Armstrong and large. We love that scene. The Berkeley scene.

And so we were just these kids in Orange County that really wanted to be punk rockers. Yeah. And so we were causing lots of trouble. And we thought it was cool. The thing that's amazing to me is I think anyone you meet and I think maybe you would agree you get to this level maybe even now you're still like man I can't fucking believe. How big this thing is gone. So like when you first get on warp tour and you're these bad little metalheads growing up at school getting into trouble.

Stirring shit up and what's it like for you when you first get on to work tour. Well that was crazy. I mean there was a there's a little bit of a gap because I remember work tour started like 98 or 97 or something. And we were trying to get to work for they'd have it in Irvine. And it seemed attainable like I go to a Metallica concert. Seemed like you needed like the parents had to buy the tickets or something. But the thing about work tour was like for some reason kids via it can get there.

And it seemed like parking lot dirt they feel like wasn't so like scary parents didn't really know what was going on. And so it was something that felt like it was ours. And so years later a couple years later you know getting putting out a record but it was a hardcore record. And it was very different than what was on warp tour because warp tour was very punk rock. And they were also breaking artists at M&M one year. I've never seen that. Yeah.

And they like no doubt and they had I think Katie Perry played one year. Yes. There was a bunch of stuff right. But it didn't seem like hardcore but we were playing hardcore because we wanted to blend punk rock with metal. And then we found hardcore so we we found bands like VOD and sick of it all and grill biscuits and Earth crisis and all these things that had like up like a more militant message.

So when we made sound into seven trumpet work toward it seemed like something that was like an effect. But we ended up signing with a punk rock label which was I mean there's a label before that good life recordings where I said demos around the internet which was a new. We get like 2000 bucks and they they they recorded set up a trouble within on 2000 bucks but budget.

2000 500 bucks so dude that album still holds up I was I've listened to all the record in preparation for this I've heard them all anyways but going back through it I'm like man there are some heaters on that record. Yeah on a $2500 budget. Yeah we were like 18 or 17. Yeah. And like I remember the rev did all the drums in one take we only had like three days to record the whole thing we record the whole thing in three days.

Because Donald Cameron who's an awesome mixer and producer he had done all the penny wise he didn't do the ranch of blank he done a bad religion stuff like he's like Brett girl which is right and man. So he was doing all the bad religion records with them no effects records so we were like pumped to be there so now we're a hardcore band he never recorded anything like that. But we're with the punk rock producer because we're from Orange County where like punk kids right and then.

And so he puts out that record he goes hey I know Kevin Lyman you wanted you warp tour and I'm like there's nothing like us on warp tour right we're the first band that was screaming do you need us now bands existed like poison the well or kill switch or VOD and bands that we were influenced by but none of them were on warp tour right they were doing that so we go on warp tour on the Kevin says stage and it was it was a dream come true like because we're like you know setting up all our stuff and then Tim Armstrong walks by.

Or like there's brick or with so there's like you know Greg graph and we're like oh we get to sit on the side of the stage when no effects is playing and I remember their their their merch guy who's I think is Jay he come around in like basically was like in king mentality he's like everybody's paying foul records 10% if you want to cheer out he just pay it like it was like we didn't know like it was so crazy was like being in gym and now looking back and knowing all those people it's hilarious right like really go like punk the young.

But we're just happy to be there you know we would play we're on a thing called the Kevin says stage and the reason it was called Kevin says stages because Kevin couldn't say no and so he just set up a tent and said okay these are all the bands that I didn't say no to my room for you so you have to play on the dirt under a tent and just put your amps up and it is what it is so on good days we'd sell 18 CDs every 18 was like the highest we ever sold and on

days we'd sell one or two and you just start playing and hope that anyone walking by would stop right and that was it it was awesome so you're on Warped Tour and you're around these bands it's kind of blowing up but from there things really start to accelerate you know really start to

accelerate you're on hope is for a very very short period of time and I think you release waking the fallen with them which by the way 20 year anniversary this year you know before we even talk about that out because such a special record like how does that when do you start to figure

out like oh shit this man is starting to take off like well there was a bunch of like little things so we had originally wanted to do a record with Andy sneak and we and I'm friends with them now so I can tell the story but we sent him our demo we had no management we didn't want management because

Rancid didn't have management we thought that to go on so we had no one representing us and we sent Andy sneak an email Lewis sent him an email with our Sanis and trumpet and Andy sneak wrote back like the meanest email he's like I will never work with this band this is like dog shit it's a core of and and we were just like heartbroken so then we got news have been showing things around the people we met this manager named Larry Jacobson who

had never managed anyone but he'd run capital records and he heard turn the other way or no I'm sorry he heard to end the rapture which is the first song on sound and some trumpet and he loved it so he came to see us a chain reaction and then he asked us to go meet him at the rainbow room and

do this sort of I'm getting around the wake of the fall and get all kind of plays in so he basically takes out goes like listen guys you go to the manager like you guys can't be doing this stuff you're so you know you shouldn't have time to do all this stuff and we tell him the story

about Andy sneak and he goes that's not how you do it he goes you have a manager going there and you tell them the things that you're gonna do like the what's going behind the record go with a budget what you're gonna do why they should do the record and why they're

missing out there so why okay well let's see what happens so Andy sneak was off the table he'd already told us there's no way but we he wouldn't look at what was going on and he found this guy Andrew Murdock Mudrock and Mudrock was in between God's Mac records and he just had a huge hit with God's Max first record and he just moved out to LA and so we had recorded a song called second heartbeat for a hopeless sampler

and we sent it to to Mudrock and Larry to talk to him and he says he'll do a meeting with us so we go into this and eating and he won't even look at us he's like on the computer like doing pro tools and we're like hey like we're

avenged seven fall these it's like cool guys do you know what played a click and we're like we never tried he's like yo I can tell I listened to your last record he's like the only reason I'm willing to work with you guys is because I listened to this second heartbeat song and me and my engineer

Fred Archimbo he's like we just started laughing like you guys have crazy minds like why would you add those elements together like it sounds like penny wise and then it sounds like iron maiden and then it sounds like he's like he's like he's like he's like so we're willing to give you guys a

shot but you have to play to a click and we're like okay we can figure that out so then you go home and figure out when a click is you know like it's like okay you got to play it and tell me you didn't really mess with a click until after sounding the seven trumpet but the band was already at that point like very talented it was apparent for like we can play yeah how did you I mean how how did you get to that point like how how did

were you did this come naturally to all of you like to be able to be such a strong band and play such complex music well Jimmy was a virtue also he was a guy that was not only going to

the OCC college and he was like their head drumming kid at like six grade and using this thing called loony booms where he was just like with them and so we met so many people through him to like Tim Bender and all these people is his teacher Janet they were all in orchestra or they're they went on to play in like that by stereo or other bands because they were like these guys that were just use out bad asses and he was the little kid in that group that was just shredding with them but all he wanted to do was learn metallic

and that there so he'd sit at home me at his drum set and he learned all these crazy things but then he was learning metal and slayer he's learning like Paul Boastav in Lombardo stuff on the side because that's what he wanted to do but he was also this super talented like you know guy great singer too in in Sainson yeah and we didn't know about that till later but

and then Brian had his dad it was a studio musician he'd been playing jazz and all these learning led Zeppelin learning all these things and they were best friends Jimmy and Brian and so Brian was introduced to Mr. Bungle and Pantera so he started learning what he wanted to learn but he was also you know going to MIT and city with his dad James Bands and doing all these things to you two guys that were way above their age and pay grade

and then then there's me who's their friend and I had never picked I played piano growing up but I but I had an after songwriting and I started writing these songs and when can you guys play with me so we just started playing together Jimmy at first wouldn't play with us Brian neither there's me Zach and scanning Matt went and then Jimmy's like well I'll play but it's not serious I'm not you're not like I never work my right now

because he was also playing a bands up I was a feel when somebody tells you that like they kind of cool I didn't care do you guys I'm like we have Jimmy he's a beast yeah beast you do it every watch but I was also teaching him about hardcore because he was over playing things he was doing things he was I was writing hardcore songs and he was playing in the way that

Dave Lombardo my play which wasn't how I wanted it done so he actually learned a lot from like me giving him hardcore records because he was into punk and metal but not hardcore and so we just all of a sudden we were recording sound and something

trouble without Brian and then Brian would go to the studio with us every day and he's like oh this is actually pretty good so then he wouldn't when sounding was done we asked him to join the band and he did so now you had like the the OG true lineup right we got Johnny we had Brian we had Mead Zach and Jimmy and then we started writing well so Mudrock City at the replay to a collection said okay so we started writing a record and he

Mudrock did not at the time he didn't come into the you know the the demo see it as his engineer and doing I think it was just kind of like we're gonna give these kids a shot and I just yeah and so we worked a lot with Fred and so we did we went in there and did this record with him and he's like we'll see if you can even sing right and I just like my god he knocked it out like I never like one take like I was seeing that part one like

desk read the reverts just nailed it and he's like you don't need to tune this I'm like no like he's like oh shit like so then he saw Jimmy he simplified Jimmy a little bit which I think help Jimmy in a way because now you're playing to a click and you're simplifying because then city of evil he was able to go off for a guy now I'm comfortable I click I can do whatever I want but it was a learning process and Mudrock

don't know about record I could say is a little stiff right I think it was a huge learning process for us and we owe a lot to Mudrock for not only taking a chance and Fred for every day coming in and demoing with us but now we put that record out and we went it went on to sell 125,000 records without a major label yeah I mean and and so the first time I hear of N7 fold I'm you know I don't know how I was but I'm playing Matt in 2004 and you know you've got

down of N.W. N.A.B. Drell and very strong Eagles team I'm a huge Eagles and and I'm just throwing nukes down the field and I've got I want to say unholy confessions yeah those either the other chapter 4 is like 10 it was so sick you also had like pub sparks on that sound track and it was just

Blake 182 it was it was literally just an iconic soundtrack and then you're in guitar hero you've also done stuff with Call of Duty which is as big as it gets in gaming how much is gaming had an influence on the band's career like these being included in these massive games yeah so Steve Schner over at EA was doing this new thing that had been done in games before where he was bringing like contemporary artists

and putting them in these sort of sports games and that was a relationship that Larry had from capital records that he knew Steve moved over to the video gaming world and he had this idea we sent him waking the fallen and he loved it and so all the sun it was like avenge is going to be in all these games which was incredible which helped propel that record I think I think I just got noticed that the record went platinum wow so that was cool but at the time I remember it hit

a hundred thousand records and twenty thousand records and then the major labels came and then once you're on Warner I think the guitar hero thing happened because we were very much a guitar band after city view with that country being so bad in those things and then after that Call of Duty came from our A&R guy at Warner Craig

Erickson was good friends with Mark Lamia who was the president of triark who basically brought Call of Duty 2 Activision when he brought over Infinity Ward and they had this idea after watching save and private Ryan so he was like the Call of Duty guy and when they decided they need a game every year he went from the guy who brought the game and the developers to be in the president of the company that was it quite making the game as good as the other team

so he went in there to clean it up and he invented block ops so now you had infinity area of modern warfare and block ops going back and forth the early right and so but Mark wanted to have metal because he's a rock guy and I consider one of my best friends now we're very close now but at the time I get a call from Craig Erickson because when Jimmy passed away right I got really deep into call

and duty and first person should have had my whole life but Call of Duty really was one that that's what I was going to ask is be your gamer yourself huge gamer great love call of duty how yeah and Mark one end a band that actually love the game not nuts about not a yeah not a big he didn't want any big artists that didn't actually play the game so that's so so basically

Craig told Mark you got to be Matt we went in there we just like we was just wood shedding like to need to be more powerful this and I'm playing I'm playing like there's a thing here glitch here and he's like start going off like at x weights of yeah it was like he's like right me tell me what you think so I wrote him paragraphs and he extended to the team and I got involved with like David Vonderhart and like testing it and he's like come in and test it so then he's like do you guys want to do

something with the game I might do we've never done a track for a game because we always thought it was cheesy I'm like but this is this could be something that we actually get behind because we actually play it so we ended up doing not ready to die as an easter egg in the

zombie thing and then we end up doing carry on but it came out of a friendship and a love for what each other do you know and I think I think maybe years ago it would we would go like okay oh it might be cheesy to do a video game song but now video games are bigger than movies yeah well back that he had seen Dan is he yeah you guys are always out of the curve yeah so I mean tree on lucky on that though whatever I mean if it would have been

like someone else and I didn't know Mark and I didn't love call duty we would have said no but the reality is at the time it was we love call duty we could back this right is someone says you're a sell I go sell out looking by my stats bro selling out I mean you know that's it that's a whole nother conversation where there's like a million different

meanings to that which I think at this point is equated to like you know just commercial success let's even it's evolved because when we started we were so worried about not selling out like we love fans like Ranset who weren't going to sign to the major at first and they actually did but then not bex was so cool to us because they wouldn't sign to a

major and they had that gold record pumpkin drug like then they start their own labels and so we were so obsessed with that but we had a skewed vision of like I remember listening to green day before dokey and then dokey came out with you don't like that's that that's that you know is that kid right that's like so I get the mentality but it was a

different thing back then because you were seeing punk rock become mainstream and it was weird because like offspring like green day link like it was like here massive they were massive they were like your mom was listening to it's like this all cool anymore like American

Indian was such a huge record for them and the time it was like you know it was just gigantic and I mean like dokey went from nothing to technically records yeah that's crazy and the songs on there just so strong and it's just you know so I mean are you are you nice on

Call of Duty I mean you're good or well now I play a lot of PUBG really I play PUBG yeah which I mean do a lot of people even play PUBG now they do it yeah it's I enjoy the quick twitchness of Call of Duty but what I really started playing a lot of this is so funny because now a lot of our crew are like famous from doing that so we used to have a game battles crew game battles is no equipment it's you have a grenade and a gun and there's no dead silence or any of that stuff

right that radar anything it's like it's like guns like it's close to iron in real life yeah yeah and so we would play that every night and one of our guys it was me and our whole crew and then with doctor disrespect we would play over it before he was doctor disrespect like guy knows and he had this like YouTube channel and he was starting with love his videos were laughing about it but we would play game battles every night for years and then he

went on to this I know it's crazy and so it's a being guy is still really close because it's like awesome to watch the game plays awesome yeah and so but we would play game bells and then what I loved about PUBG was once you have back into the like the public matches and you just die by all these things that were not skill-based right I got over it and then PUBG to me was like none of that stuff existed it was gun skill there was no auto assist or aim assist

and I became obsessed with it and now I'm playing PUBG for six years and I still play it every night yeah I love I love all of those games and I spent many times on PUBG and I understand they've also like evolved the game a lot

now you Xbox PlayStation or PC game or so I'm an Xbox player I do have a piece I do have a PC and a PlayStation my son's a PC gamer and he makes fun of me now he's 10 years old he's like oh Xbox I'm see master race you know like so he's like your 10 year old son is he like like a reddit troll or say a little ugly guy like he's already on discord he's got his he's an arc and he's got war that's a lot of building and he's he's learning unreal five right now he's he's learning unreal yeah so that's

dope he just loves it he also creates like he takes Nike's and takes them apart and creates shoes for people that's a high value so creative kit but you know madden for me really exposed me to the band and the net full soundtrack was so big for rock so you know now beyond gaming there's a lot of

advancements in the music industry with technology and everybody's talking about artificial intelligence earlier this year whenever chat GBT came out I am not I'm very into technology but I'm you know I wasn't paying a lot of attention to that area but you look at like something like chat GBT and

you're like oh my gosh this is really much more advanced than I anticipated so now you're starting to see this fight this Napster style fight that's kind of starting to emerge in the music industry and I know you are in here kind of stirring the pot on it like you do so well

you know where you're kind of pushing things forward but you have some you know like I think it's the RIA that's coming out in warning people and I'm sure their intentions are well because I could see the possibility of this devaluing people's catalogs you know so I understand that but I

don't think they're trying to be dicks about it like I think it's a reasonable but I'm wondering like where do you think the balance is with this sort of AI generated music where I know you said like you might even split revenue with people on this so kind of what's your thought process because

I don't know enough about this to even have an opinion yeah so I think there's there's a mapper conversation about AI and I don't want to like come off flippant about this music portion because these portions are very small portions short right so like imagine that something that

I feel we will figure out sooner than later which is what is the what is the magic soup that creates consciousness and I think that even if we if we figure that out we'll figure it out at math and there's something that we figured out that that's how you create consciousness right and

even if we create a different version of them these are all nuanced things we will argue with it yeah but imagine we know the secret sauce right okay that's what it is that's how you put this together now we have AI which we can't really like I don't know that you're conscious right I just

taking it at value that I assume because you look like me and we talk together we have conversations that I'm assuming you're conscious and I'm the same way I am right but I I can't prove that you are I can't I'm no way of telling the same thing is probably going to happen at some point with

artificial intelligence where now we have bigger questions now is it is it not right to create things that can suffer is it is it right to create things that we make as our kind of pets that few that that advance human society these are all macro different questions now if you zoom in and

talk about music only we're talking about things like copy your voice or large bricks of data sets where we're pulling up things quicker than Google can do it or we can help you like your personal assistant but it's not sentient right it's not this conscious thing now if we're talking

about that we can talk in a little bit more opinionated flippant terms I think where it's not as offensive right because there are big differences there now do you you would say though just just in in this one little area you would say that AI do you think it overall could be dangerous if

it's totally unregulated I think when you're creating something there's nothing wrong with making it work for you and making it progress the human race in a way that is beneficial for everybody yeah that's what we should be stride before now and there may need to be guardrails on

that they'll absolutely need to be guardrails yes I agree because if you create consciousness now you have a big problem on your hand yes because if you if you do figure out what it is that this thing starts having feelings then you're kind of a fucking asshole if you just put this thing in a

box and you have it work for you yeah it's like um it's like a it's like a super futuristic dystopian slavery yes it's a weird thing right so it's taking you out of sea yeah we take it away that's not happening yet right what's happening now is you're getting massive amounts of data that this thing

is crunching quickly and it's knowing how to interact with us on a way because it's it's watched what we do and how we like to interact basically watching the internet and seeing how we talk to each other how we interact and so it's doing in a way that we could go well is this thing alive

but I don't think there's anything right now that makes us think it's really alive at this point it's just down right it's making the other news on the tech executive some of them that are resigning yeah I don't believe that's that I where they're like internally they're like it's

sent to you I just think that there's so many wild people I think it's like the UFO thing where it's like you're gonna get wild people that take things certain ways and they and everyone has a different emotions and until I see proof that sure thing you know like again you're never

real to prove it but there'd be at some point where you're talking to something and going like like where I'm talking to you if you told me your AI I'd be like yeah I feel something yeah like am I a jerk for turning you off at some point like if you hate your life and you want a

aboard mission am I an asshole for creating you these are bigger questions human questions right sure but if we get back to music and my totally like this guy doesn't care about anything I think there's a bunch of cool use cases if you're writing a story if you're writing lyrics if you're

writing a novel if you're writing a newspaper article and you prompt AI at this point in the right way you will find tidbits of how they wrote it you give give me 20 options here give me 20 of that picture and I go oh that's interesting well how do I take that and go somewhere else with it

yes that's using creativity 20x what you can do because what are we doing anyways I listen to Mozart I listen to guns and roses I listen to ping-pong for I know listen to die outward I listen to the tenacious deep I'm taking this database but I physically don't know how to bring these things

up quick enough to really see the full spectrum of what I've been inputted AI will help us right there show us the the greater you know collection of data in this world so I believe that there are a much of a little money use case as it can help artists be more creative and you kind of stand on the shoulders of this AI which is really standing on the shoulders of ourselves already but in a way that you wouldn't have thought of I could see it being I like this record impop this record and make

me 10 different verses of a song like that and now a fan has a version of the record of the you they really like not the new you do in the the wacky thing and they can have some enjoyability of that and I also think it'd be cooler if the artist was letting the voice be used and letting people

create songs that sound like you but splitting the world you did the work you've prompted this thing you found it give me 50% from my likeness right now it gets weird when you go like we'll mix it with Axel Rose's voice and M Shadow's voice and Lane Staley's voice and make it sound

Allison change we sound guard means those are weird things right and then one last thing the last thing I'll say is that we use the blockchain to verify what is the real artist and what is the last one I was going to get to and so all of a sudden if it's got the blue check mark and this

is like a sure it's got the blue check mark this is really event unfold right you got the green check mark this is the millions of things that have been made and these are the ones that are voted higher up because they kind of hit the nail in the head other the ones that make people feel

something right right and so now you've got this really cool use case for web 3 it's verification on the blockchain of what's real what's not and if you don't understand blockchain you would go well kid that'd be no it can't it's a digital notebook digital and then we'll be coming from us

sure right we would be the authenticator saying this is real this is not right now there's a lot of minutiae dust in the eyes mud in the water and different questions that get asked there and so these are things that want to figure out they just think how to be worked out that we

will yeah they were not there yet but so no I also want to say earlier on you mentioned the true min show and that's such a fascinating movie and did that movie have an impact on you it did it's and I mean I think everyone at some point looks around and goes goes and this is ego like is this

all for me like what's going on here I think when you you get to level the success that you've had but I think even you know people that are in all different sorts of lives but like for you I think in some ways you look around and you go like okay I'm on a stage and playing for a hundred thousand

people and you're like is a ship real yeah you could definitely look about land it's and then you'd be like you'd be so bombed if you found out everyone's like it's real yeah but yeah it's like come on but I also think like listen I have my ideas on I have my ideas on the big bang and I

build my basement world view on the cutting edge of science right now now in this argument the other day science is not science is wherever the truth is it can be tested over and over sure and if it changes that doesn't mean science was wrong it means that now that that's with additional

information additional information now I could also buy in that the big bang was created by a computer program and that we are in a simulation like you can have evolution and a computer program you can have matter and math and technology so I'm not like this like clothes minded like I

but I go okay well this is what we're doing kind of like simulation theory we're dealing with the laws of physics within the simulation if there is one yes true and show on the harder scale we're talking to hybrid that do I do I put my eggs in that basket no no but it wouldn't it wouldn't

like below my mind like neither I'm like huh okay yeah a lot of people I talk to pretty much everyone I talk to go yeah I mean yeah it could be possible because yeah none of this is settled I mean we don't know how the universe was created we don't we don't know how all the

outer spaces and even on the stage you have you know the statement from what's his face you'll do that yeah no gas is where he's talking about the vastness of outer space and you know he's like there's more planets than every sound ever echoed on this planet in its history and then you get

into some of the more interesting questions and I don't want to go too far down the loophole here and I've got to touch on all these other subjects I know I know you know you know but like you get into like ancient civilizations and what they're learning about that and some of the floods and stuff

like that it gets really interesting so I just thought that was cool that you kind of delve into that and you guys have it you know tackled some of these subjects through some of your music as well see what I try not to do is get into the theory of the god of the gaps and what that is is when you

can't answer something you just assign your own answer mm-hmm I'm okay with not knowing and waiting for more information to come out and when that more information comes out I go okay that makes sense I go there I'm not one of those people that goes like and what the reason they call it god of the

gaps is because at one point the sun was obviously a god and fire was a god and then when we found out what it really was we're like okay well it's not really god but god is now this right and then now whole things start changing like it's like it's definition right and like so it's like you

still want to have the same answer so you it's like the god of the gaps right and I don't fall into that I I've basically fallen to there's a lot of unanswered questions and they will be answered eventually but I believe that now we'll probably solve those things right not very romantic but that's

what I believe later this month it's a first show and I think over five years or about five years welcome to rockville Daytona International Speedway have you ever played there before I think so you played rockville and played rockville okay okay I think at one point earlier on it was

in a different location I mean the different location I don't know yeah I don't know but I know that it's so sick down there and I'm gonna be there and it's uh what what are you or what can you share about you know what fans I know people are coming from all over the world to see you guys

specifically coming back yeah for that show what can you share about kind of uh what fans can expect during the performance um we're gonna get our legs under us you know like we haven't played in a long time and we're gonna not really give up any of our we out of it's it's a weird

situation where we agreed to these shows and then we ended up pushing the record back a little bit and so all of a sudden because we love Danny Wimmer we respect him great guy yeah we we didn't want to cancel them again but ideally you come out with the album and then you'd have your full show

right so what we decided is like we're gonna use these shows as a way to get our legs under us we're not gonna bring out the new production yet because the songs won't be out and we're just gonna go feel it out hits like just that raw nature of being on stage with the with the with the

fans and like not go for the bells and whistles we're playing with a bunch of bands that will out bells and whistles like not that I'd be forward you know tool and all these bands do so but we're just gonna do the thing that we normally don't do which is like just the pure raw performance

on us and just get our feet under us feel the crowd out and get ourselves back in you know some sort of functioning order yeah and you know are you a type of person I know it varies while there you a type of person who gets nervous about like performing on stage I mean to me it would

be something that used to for these massive crowds are at least especially these Wimmer festivals where it's like a hundred thousand damn people out there yeah I mean when you're in when you are in a cycle or in rhythm there's no no nurse yeah but for something like this that is the first time

back in a long time it's um there's a lot of things that we're adding into the set in terms of like technology that I want to work there's also the first time I've been singing in rehearsal a lot and it sounds great but there's a big difference between walking out there and there's a hundred

thousand people screaming back at you and there's this tendency like in anything to go harder than you should right right off the back yeah yeah yeah and so it's like anything it's like um you don't go into the gym and throw in the biggest amount of weights if you do that you might get five up and

then like you're done right like here if you're blown out and you got it and so it's a it's a it's a matter of staying calm and then letting the show come to you so those are where my nerves really are I'm like not just going out there just going like oh and it's just because you're so

pumped yeah they're so pumped so it's like staying cool and collected you know you got Pantera with a Zach Wout and Charlie Benante I know how much you guys love Pantera's Ernie are you gonna see that show or you're gonna be there for that we're playing with them quite a few times um and there's

I think they're coming and we're gonna see them at Metallica so we're not gonna stay that night because we might um we might announce an event for that day that they're playing back in LA oh cool so we might have to jump on a plane and and do this and that right so uh you know the

when I am excited yeah yeah I mean you know I think they picked the best possible people for that John yeah and I mean you it will never be what the the Abbott brothers were but um have you gotten to see any like the videos are the performance well yeah I'll do they're killing it I mean

it feels awesome they're all awesome and you know when you got and it's sad to say but when the seer is the same it it it sounds like that right it sounds like you want Pantera to sound and um Zach's amazing and they're all amazing and and Phil's sounding good you know you never know with

them you know it's like it's a good shape yeah there's always these times where I've seen Phil throughout the years where it's bad and then I've seen times where it's amazing those of you little get about vocals like it's like if you you can go through years where it's not right but you can

always get it back yeah you can work your way into getting it back it's technique it's taking care of yourself and people on the internet are so like quick like you see we like Corey Taylor who were like on this record this was happening and this record this was having and now we can do

this again it's like he can always do that right you just don't like this is a muscle and sometimes a LeBron while of a year where his hamstrings bothering him and there's years where there's no problem right right and it's like that's the human body and you're dealing with the human element

but the thing about singing is you can sing in the very late late late years and there should be no degradation on it if you take care of it and Phil's a perfect example of that right now right he's come back it sounds freaking great and there was moments long time ago where it was at his best

yeah and now he's really you know and and they've been you haven't heard anyone that's seen those shows they go oh I went away disappointed they've had enough of them now and then I don't know if you've seen the video of Metallica's production on this tour date with and and I guess that's

what's going to come to the US and Pantera it's going to be playing on those production stages I've got tickets for the the New Jersey show and which is the kickoff and they've got so many great bands up there it's going to be nuts so also speaking of welcome to Rockville you have that you know that

festival cancellation that goes out and you know that whole thing which I thought was so brilliant and fun I wanted to ask you how many people were like we'll talk to Danny about that you accident you know that's so great oh that's so funny you'll you'll see him at Rockville I'm sure it's

going to be always a good show probably in a hug there you go Danny rules Danny rules so you know how many people are trying to call you like you know your shit got act yeah so we actually didn't tell so our management has two guys that run it there's Mark Wake Sheldon

Dino and we work really close we would this girl Samantha so Samantha wasn't even going to tell them because we knew that everyone was saying no and I said don't tell anyone she's like well we got it called Danny I said no we got to tell hard laggers are bookie agent I'm like no I was going

to say no so we kept it secret and we just did it and I said Samantha all you know is we got hacked and we are trying to fix it she's like are you serious and I'm like that's what we're doing and so the day that it went down I was in Mexico and I'm watching this thing go down and my phone

is glowing up haramacker we were bino more like oh shit and it's my voice and people are calling them going you guys are so lame for letting the band like they were like in and Mark said what are you talking about I saw 30 seconds after it went up and my immediate reaction was damn

they canceled with no reaction like they like it was just like we do it I don't know it was only five minutes it was like ten minutes yeah okay it was it was enough to have to make it really fun yeah and I was like so that with the whole plan all along was like I would go on Twitter that

would and then you'd get all the people from my Twitter that were the speoting it inside the Instagram pop right right and so that was the idea and it worked it worked it was it was everywhere yeah and then and then as people went back they're like oh it is a yeah because when once the

ninja reaction when we go back and listen you go oh that as soon as I heard the voice I was like oh something's up with it was where then I'm like oh they would be here until they brought up yeah yeah hello we are and so did you actually record that or that was through a trainer that you

like all AI that's really cool yeah no we didn't do any we want it to be as authentic as possible yeah it was it was brilliant and it was it was kind of a one of the things that that proved is that we're very close to the point where people aren't going to be able to tell what's real and

what's fake that was the point is all we said I was texting fan about that yeah I was like okay let's make a let's make a overarching comment on society and where it's going yes with the AI and then we'll do the web two stuff which is spot and then we'll bring him into web three and like show

people how did yes this thing and then have it like this whole and the thing about it that whole augmented reality thing we wrote with chat GPT right when to the code was written with chat GPT all the all the post by this guy the span that was hacking us it was all chat GPT all the our use was

dolly too it was open AI and the whole thing was like we don't need to be a real person right you will be fooled you will feel something and we can fool you just by some bad actor that's got just in the wrong hand yes and so that was the and I'm glad you you caught on to that because a lot

of people just always fun oh you got over the 10-0 but it was like no this is like this is going to happen in the future and what are people going to do I picked up on that and I said there you know this is multi-dimensional messaging yeah and that's the same in the videos and that's the

same you guys are very very sophisticated with like some of the Easter eggs you're dropping and that's really really really yeah I mean I I thought I saw that in first and I was like damn they really canceled and we're just like see you yeah I'm like man there's a

thing I'm on to the record piece and it just said canceled with no just fell brawn yeah what's up and then you had you had the site that was like a good old like early like 2003 like net scape naff again early well and it was just a bunch of like angry and

you had the fake ads and it was like it kind of gave me like grand theft auto vibe total and yet so everyone that was building that site they're like they're hackers and they're that era of the internet means a lot to them so they wanted to dive deep into this hacker kid yeah that's just

you know that that has a real problem with NFTs and events of so brilliant and I just think it's cool to see you know how much in in rock do you think we're kind of lacking you know it seems in some ways and there are bands out there that are great examples you know I think bring me the

horizon is just such a genius band in many ways like yours is but you know I think in some ways things get stagnant at times and I guess so the question I would want to ask is what do you think bands can do better to promote their albums when the new music is coming out and using the

full kind of tools available to do that like what is your ideal album campaign look like for a roll out well our ideal campaign right now is exactly what we're doing but we would love to have a little bit more wider eyes on us and I think the genres in a place right now where most people you talk to

unless it's the metal amres of the loud wires of the cranks they simply don't want anything to do with the genre they don't they don't think it yeah I don't it doesn't have the it doesn't have the action on it or the drama with it or the explosiveness the creativity all these things that these other

kind of genres bring to their publications when we call people it's usually like who why and then when you see bands putting out the same sort of thing and chasing the small wins within the genre it kind of gives them more ammo to go like why this you've got 21 number 20 number one songs but

knowing in our and our readership has ever heard of that band yeah right so why would we put a a spotlight on it right and so it's really tough because I think if we did the air I think of Drake did that airgy or if they were doing all the stuff we're doing with area 15 or if it was

anything that was outside of our genre I think people would be salivating over it they'd be like this is amazing it wasn't so cool you know Drake did do a really cool thing with 21 Savage with what they did was like making fun of the music industry was really creative and cool like what's

in my bag making fun of bow they did like fake SNL they did all these things that were awesome if we did that no one would even know about it Drake does it and he's a bigger artist I get it it's in the New York Times right when we call the New York Times and we're revolutionizing

web 3's for music we just are we're doing deals with ticket master they're like we'd rather complain about ticket master we don't want to know what you guys are doing and it's hard to get pressed because of the genre and I think there's artists that I think that is why do you think that

rock today when you know in the new metal era because you're right you're right about that what do you think that is why rock is like right now do you think it's just cyclical so I think um and I and I sound like because listen the people that are gonna watch this are big fans of the

genre right and when I say anything about the creativity of the genre or the taking chances of the genre all that comes back is a bunch of bands that they feel are super creative and pushing the boundaries but I listen I don't hear that and I tend to think I'm right because of culturally what is

happening most people that you show that to don't feel that either or they'd be listening to it we don't stream a lot rock that's true that's true streaming is the cultural zeitgeist on what is being listened to every genre stream is better than rock if Morgan Whalen

can get number one in this seventh week and we're our whole genre with the biggest band in the genre is selling vinyl and CDs and we're selling collectibles basically because music is free yes or very cheap subscription and there's artists out there that can and they're seventh week

90s I think now I think he's at 90 now Morgan go in nine weeks go on it is he it's to me that is a cultural shift and there's something happening there and what I zoom in on and this these are nuanced things sure creativity production how the genre is I don't think you

can take pop production and stick it on rock or metal sample drums auto tune but in a way that is we're trying to hide the auto tune making it perfect they use that tool as a cool thing that's cool and pushing limits to where people feel something different than what they felt on the other five

tracks that came before right now if you are down the rabbit hole of metal and you can know the difference between opeth and blind guardian and synon artica then yeah you're down the rabbit hole but you play those three bands for just a random person sure that is not going to have the effect

the huge like swing and emotion or dynamic that putting on you know little uzi vert to mnm to die outward to daft punk to Kanye it's like accessibility yeah there's like this there's something different about it and there's something that when you take that pop production you stick

the sample drums on everything and everything just sounds like synthetic and tinny it works on those other types of music but even those other types of music have really it producers that are doing it in a way that it still sounds organic and cool when you have a kick drum going and it's the

same kick drum there's no dynamic it's different than hearing up you could take those samples and stick them on there you can't stick them on this other thing and think that that's going to be okay and i understand that's a scary thing for rock artists because when you're sitting in a studio

and you go well it's going to be easier to mix if we use samples right and the drummer didn't hit everything consistent what if people say something about that and if you if you take that kick drum to this kick drum that one kind of sounds better but when you take it as a whole and you

replace everything now you've got a plastic stale product and i don't think rock thrives in that environment sure i think rock thrives when it's raw and it's in it and it reaches outside the box of dynamics and conventional song structure and i think hearing it like i just think that there's

ways to do it who do you see that's doing that right now and in a way do you see i mean who would you say is the closest example to who you think is ready carry rock forward right now so that's a hard question because i'll give you a story so i think our record it's pure organic so i know what

it is but i know what i know what the circuit i know what the criticisms are going to be they used to hearing this but they're going to get this to band right and i'm okay with those criticisms because i know they're raw but i would maybe question myself if the genre is just flourishing and everyone

in the world loved rock right but no one does you go around the world and you talk to people they're like yeah i like i listen to rock acdc or well those are organic records i was driving on the street the other day and i wanted to be raw and just earthy i found in my CD booklet because

i'm a CD player in my chavelle i found um uh diviner invention by slayer putting that record on no clip track the drums the paul bow staff just a hell yeah the solos that were just not even in the key of whatever their play does just henna man and you know carry king just doing what they

it was just so raw and like in primal and i was like this is rock this is where rock needs to be like this makes me feel something i can't get from the hip hop or the pop right and that's where i think it thrives and um and you can be you can make great courses you can have energy and have

soft things but it has to have a primal urge to it that rock you have to step fully into what you do well and rock does that hip hop steps into what it does well and it changes over time and you get the blended genre to get emo wrap you get whenever but the artists that step into what their

genre does well i think you're playing to your strengths and there will be people that go to the pop music go fuck that i want that yeah and that's when rock's cool again it ain't cool chasing the radio it ain't cool chasing the synthetic sound it ain't cool replacing all your drums

what's cool is one microphone hanging down and you you get the basses of it it's noisy and it's allowed and it feels like a primal in it imperfect yes yes i agree with that emphatically 100% and so you know one of the things that i wanted to ask is that city of evil i know i posted

about this the other day and you created absolute pandemonium online when you came in and i was very surprised by this it sounds like you have you guys and and i think maybe i'm not aware fully in the history of this because people are like what you didn't know because i'm like i didn't know

people hated on beasts in the harlot you got shit for that when it first came out so we first released beasts in the harlot and there were at the time there was um message boards were a new thing and so we had a message board that wasn't very busy and then thrice had a message board that was

very busy and everybody in thrice's message board was laughing at this song like this is gotta be a joke in thrice's manager at the time came in and basically wrote a post and i knew him about how goofy and how we had to be joking how would anyone let us release that and um

and so that's what the post came from because at first before backcountry and people don't remember this stuff city of evil came out it was supposed to still 60 000 records the first week after this huge record all this hype major label it did 30 000 records the first week

and then it slowly tapered off into oblivion and full benzene jule brontis on trl and the world heard about country wow and then it ramped up again and it became city of evil but if they didn't do that city of evil would have been one of those records that the band wrote sophomore slump or

whenever it is the madden brothers yeah they shouted you out on t-reo no they had they were on trl already and they t-reo did a week where every major artist could bring on an up-and-coming artist that they that they love wow and we knew them from work tour the madden's brought us on trl and we

put they viewed our video for backcountry on trl and it never left backcountry until it went number one wow that was because of that it would have never had a shop the record was down to doing 1800 records a week in a city selling era you know it was still you could still sell cities

and then it went 2000 a week 36 14 20 30 40 thousand a week that was awesome all good Charlotte so they had a huge role in the bands he good charlotte shout out to them I mean what a great band anyways they Britain some hits wow and and they're I've heard they're very smart

business man and and and very just savvy and in so many ways they're they're they're they are by far some of our favorite people that's awesome that's really cool I've heard nothing but very good things about them so after writing a record like city of evil and you hear it which I think is just

a just a timeless record it's one of my favorites ever um you know how do you listen to an album when it's done like do you do the car tests like what's your I mean I mean you've got like an old chival so like you've got it bust out it on you do you do it do a CD put it in uh when city

people is out everyone adds in oh yeah true that's yeah no no so city of evil listen I'm a fan of what we do especially when we come out of the studio and I play it over and over and over and over and it's just a testament to we don't put it down the record we don't love you know and that record

that record just sounded when you're writing it it didn't seem as crazy as it is now looking back on how it really is full throttle yeah go whole time yes everything was being like there was no one thing Mudrock told us maybe we can get Mudrock a little more credit here he he's like if something's

gonna happen more than once something new needs to be introduced or it's gonna bore me and so I remember during waking the fall we would add like bar corduade add things in because he'd go on board on board on board city vehicles like a response to that like there was never so you're like how

fucking extreme can we make this but it didn't even seem extreme to seem like okay well that's happening so now another guitar line will come in well now let's do all that and then like oh well it's let's make that happen and then and then Jimmy at the time was just going off the all time

because now he was comfortable to clip track he could he knew like how to weave in and out of it and just to be a one with it and he had played like how he wanted to play and so I think you had the this perfect storm of just us just full throttle the songwriting to everything it was just

everything happening all at once so it's like that movie right everything everywhere all at once and then so the album comes out and this is your first major label record and so you know I was unaware that it kind of tainted first my I guess my own revisionist history in my own mind

is like oh they just blew up yeah but it didn't so how did that affect you personally were you bummed um being on a major label and um it's just you played in a different volume I wouldn't say I was bummed at the time and maybe I have my own revisionist history I remember the six months

or the four months whenever it was that was it was kind of just trending downward before before we had the lifeline um I remember that we were on warp tour and things were happening so it wasn't the end of the world yeah it was just it's just not doing what you think it would do like because

I remember the use was blowing up with that first record at the time on one and I think rancid it just signed a deal with them they had a lot of things going on and I just think it was just a little extreme and but what it also taught me and Hill of the King taught me this too was that

people people will tell you you know like they're successful and then they're success on a higher level and what it taught me was that the average listener is open to this type of music if it's good and they're exposed to it yes because that record would have been dead in the water and none of

those people would have ever known except they were watching t.r.l. for Madonna uh Mariah Carey Rihanna and then something like I've been seven volt came along and just cracked them upside the head right and it became huge so it's not that the genre is you know always the problem a lot of

times it's that it's not exposed to the people that will love it now I do think our genre right now is a little stout but there are things like when ghost came out and that thing went viral and tick-tock right Marihanna Crawl yeah it was huge there's things that happen right but those are

it's very few and far between for our genre and and and almost like mean culture is turn things into a gimmick and you don't want things to mean to gimmick even with your band so it's really hard to judge what that's going to do moving forward um but what it does show me is that people will listen

to stuff if you if you get it in front of their faces and that's hard to stay in age right it absolutely is and so um one of the things I like to ask people particularly people have had like a lot of success you know once you start kind of like making crazy money as a musician and stuff

I assume um you know what's your big like rock star purchase that you make like what's the first like dope thing you bought that's like of let me get something kind of sick I mean I bought my chamele that was you're into like old school card bought an old school car really wanted that that's

awesome um I invested a lot of my money smart that's the down on a couple of houses you know like just I'm just not I dox see the the point in a lot of things but then again I'll go buy a bunch of crypto punks and I think that that that's a good investment again but I put I put in I spent a

lot of money on Westling are and I've um there's certain things that make me feel a certain way that I will spend on but it's usually not let me come if I go with gold teeth right now but hell yeah but I don't spend money on jewelry and things like that or watches and it's just

not things are not into cars but mostly I take most of my money and I invest but you know I think that makes sense because I think we're very similar in the way of you know you're into gaming and stuff like that and once you're kind of like existing in the the virtual world and stuff it's

like almost you're more like let me buy this new operator in fact it's like one and that's in which you say maybe like kind of a Call of Duty universe is like an early preview of like what web 3 might look like like it's this opening yeah yeah yeah that's that's kind of the most

simplified way I can understand it is just kind of looking at the store on Call of Duty and going like I actually own it yeah yeah that's owning it yeah pay for it yeah I mean you know and I'm actually surprised that you don't seem more like likenesses from bands in more things like like

I'm gonna fucking buy an M shadows Call of Duty guy yeah why not and I do it for tonight yeah I mean they I mean it's I got smart that's got to come to Call of Duty if anyone to call of these listening please give us a VN 7 fold and slipknot operators it no there you go yeah so

we do I have block pink or pink block yeah from Gene I have a little pink block or turn around like for vincar it's so sick amazing it's so sick I mean that's really your character I'm like yep for yes yeah this is one question I wanted to ask you as I know you guys grew up being

these huge metalheads and just really loving this music and loving these huge bands and now you have like a really good relationship with like Metallica and you've gotten to know those guys and played massive shows with them and everything and you know what that first time you meet Metallica

I'd love to know how you met them and kind of do you guys ever do you ever still like freak out about that like shit dude we know Metallica yeah I mean so the first time we met Metallica we were playing a show in San Francisco in Metallica or notorious for supporting upcoming bands yes and

and being very good for the scene they've got ice-nine kills out on this stadium tour with them now it's huge they brought architects out in Europe yeah it's amazing so we were playing this small venue in San Francisco and I got word that Lars and James wanted to come to the show so I'm I'm

literally on my bus warming up and James Hufffield walks on just him and he's standing there and like hey what's up and he's like hey are we just and and he has a way out of that's you know it's not the most like like what's up bro yeah it's not James right because kind of standing there

you got to he had a waking the fallen hoodie on and we just I'm talked for a minute he's having your work and then he's yeah yes some game of hoodie or whatever and so then and he's like yeah I mean Lars are here we're gonna watch the show while we play the show James have left at some point

and then Lars wanted to hang out so we get this back room and I remember Lars got like a I think I like a vodka drink and his toot pick in and it was actually the first time that we heard the Rolling Stone story that he just came out with I know and I saw that where he said don't look

at him and so he told us the whole story there that night this is years ago that's so what answer he's like yeah and like they put us in the spot and then like don't look at McTiagher or like we didn't even know if a picture happened and they's wind by they just kept walking he's

like I don't even think they stopped walking and it was like this create story that I've always wanted to tell but I never wanted to like step out of line I thought that was I might tell his story for him but then I I love that he just like now it's in the press but that was the first

story he ever told us and so we started the kind of relationship with them we obviously had enough of a relationship to where we did some stuff with them in Mexico remember we got we got bottled and rocks fronted us on our first show in Mexico Zach I hit the eye oh no busted open

in James and Lars came into our dressing room beforehand said listen that's that he's got a tough through it that's what happens yeah it was like you know just give us some words of encouragement and um we went out the next night and like we're flipping everyone off and they all turn their

back on us it's great I'm really not harsh and out of that um and so we did three nights at a stadium with them there and then we got on terms to where we had each other's phone numbers and and hung and like I know there's like that press they can recently where we turned them down

but that was a real story where like they they sent us an offer and we said no and that happens a lot so we got a call from law's personally it's like come on guys what are you doing so you know talk how do you deal with that how do you handle that I just told them our point of view

which was just listen like this is you know he knows who John Dittmar is he knows the people we came up with that kind of gave us our philosophy on headlining and he totally respected it uh then we we ended up working it out right and we came up thing where we couldn't not do it it

was like stupid not to we we're seeing both sides and and it was just an understanding of like we we'll make it work for you guys what do you guys need right so we made it work but it wasn't like you know the media likes to make it like right or disavowatallicant no no but now we're in a

situation where like I was just with him in big sky um we were just in big sky snowboarding and we were hanging out with the families and we have a really great relationship with that so sick it was like we just hang out we talked for out like one night we just sat up till two in the morning

just talking shop like this is before 70 seasons came out before I'd set him nobody like a few months ago and we have a great relationship with them they're just our friends now you know I text him all the time and he's interested in web 3 and he's interested in what we're doing and we

talk about the naps are stuff and how we're getting that same sort of backlash and he was right he was right about that after dude cool she was right about napsary people need to admit that even me my little troll self years ago I'm like man fucking the helps for man but like he was

actually right look at where we are now music has been significantly devalued he was never saying like oh I'm worried about my money he's like this is the next generation is gonna be fucked on that and then by the way the end of teething has become you're scamming us and all with threes

of scam and you're ripping us off and the napsure thing was you're rich you shouldn't care well you already have enough money yeah that's so they were both completely tribal driven terrible arguments that nothing to do with the underlying yeah facts they never address the actual like

yes well what's this gonna cause yes and and that's that's the that's the problem but you know so just kind of in closing um one of the things I wanted to ask you is you sort of came up in the new metal time uh new metal is experiencing in some ways of resurgence it'll never be I don't think is because it was in the past but I'm asking a lot of bands I want to make this into a compilation but I'm asking a lot of bands who would you say to the big four of new metal if you had to pick the

four maybe favorite bands and anybody listening this isn't scientific so serious I was never a big new valgate so but I loved and I don't and I and uh from where when I when I came up new metal was like a derogatory term it was I know and and now it's like so I don't want to call any of these

bands new metal but I'll tell you the bands from that era that may or may not be associated with that term because I believe some of them are better than that yeah perfect examples deftones god they're sick deftones to me is just a great band overall but they keep up with that time when

they could have had that argument yeah um the first core record believe my mind yes dude when I heard that on k n a c I had to go to biotic records the next day and get it in that record and blew my mind um so there's corn there's deftones and there were some local bands like I appreciate

it head p e at the time yeah they were shouting they're gonna love that you're saying that yeah so head p e at the time it really was into that that's cool man I even like some of their older stuff um and then but in terms of like there was like a band called humble gods that was a little more

punk and rapi but I mean was there any I like I mean was was sulfide considered new metal I certainly thinks it okay I like sulfide lovesiblter I like sulfide um but that was a genre that never unlikely to park yeah I think they're new metal I think that they I mean they were new metal at

a time and then they became many more thick so my my my my four is kind of a cop out I guess it's deftones lincoln park corn and um I mean we could throw a head p in there yeah but what else was there I mean can you can you give me some bands and I'll let you know system up it down

oh I love system I was gonna say system probably have maybe up there how it had new metal on or more I know I know I know I maybe I'm wrong about that y'all let's find out if you're right you're right it's like it's like it's I don't do it in any ways derogatory I love those

bands yeah I think I mean that in the best like fucking new metal rocks like because I grew up on that shit I'm like let me know I love let biscuit yes see let biscuit I like some of the rest I think it's like I remember my wife had um three dollar billiard that's sick record so that record was cool

I don't dislike libisca I just it was not not everyone style yeah sure it's totally I think Fred is awesome and and you know but dude I just want to thank you so much for doing this I think it's very cool that you made time for this I know the audience will as well and uh you know I

think it's cool you've done you know done fence channel and you're just out there and and really throwing the gauntlet out and talking about anything and everything with people so I think that's the new media girl real rock star dude uh thank you man it is it is the the dynamic and landscape is changing very much and you know I'm excited to be a part of it and um yeah so thank you man really a pretty sure you also doesn't yet a gathered up